0:22

Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This

0:24

is Sam Harris. Okay,

0:27

well, it was the final stretch

0:30

before the 2024 presidential election. I

0:33

might have a few more thoughts to express on

0:35

this topic over on Substack in

0:38

the coming days, but this will be

0:40

the last podcast I drop before the

0:42

vote on Tuesday. Earlier

0:45

this week, I did a debate with Ben

0:47

Shapiro for Barry

0:50

Weiss's Honestly podcast. You

0:53

can find that on YouTube and

0:55

Over It Honestly. And

0:57

today I'm speaking with Mark Cuban. Mark

1:00

is a very well-known entrepreneur and investor.

1:03

He's also known for his role on the

1:05

television series Shark Tank and

1:07

his ownership of the Dallas Mavericks. And

1:10

as you'll hear, he's been an outspoken supporter of

1:12

the Harris campaign. And

1:15

today we give something like a closing argument in

1:18

favor of Harris. Of course, much

1:20

of this amounts to expressing

1:22

our concerns about Trump

1:25

and a second Trump term. We

1:27

talk about Trump's ethics, his

1:30

bewildering indestructibility as

1:32

a candidate, election

1:34

denialism, the influence of

1:36

Elon Musk, the strengths and

1:38

weaknesses of the Harris campaign, the

1:41

mystery of the southern border, Trump's

1:43

immigration and deportation policy, Elon's

1:47

delusional endorsement of the Great

1:49

Replacement Theory, Trump's

1:51

economic policy, Harris's tax

1:54

and healthcare proposals, the effect

1:56

of tariffs, the US supply

1:58

chain, the problem of of

2:00

wealth inequality, the notion

2:02

of taxing unrealized capital gains,

2:05

support for Israel, a

2:07

much needed return to normal politics,

2:10

and other topics. No

2:13

paywall for this one. And now

2:15

I bring you Mark Cuban. I

2:23

am here with Mark Cuban. Mark, thanks for joining me.

2:26

Thanks for having me on, Sam. So

2:29

I think this could be a short conversation. We're

2:31

now speaking six days before the

2:33

election, and I know you have been making

2:35

the rounds on various channels in support of

2:38

the Harris campaign. Are you a formal surrogate

2:40

of the campaign at this point? I mean, I

2:42

don't have any formal relationship with them, but

2:46

where they ask me to show up, if it's

2:48

convenient for me, and I think it's valuable, then

2:50

I do it. Yeah, yeah,

2:52

well, I feel you've been very

2:54

effective in that role, and I'd like to press

2:56

you into service for another

2:59

hour here, because I think there's something

3:01

to say, if there's anything left

3:04

to say that could be useful, I think

3:06

we should try to say it here. And I think

3:08

you have a capacity to reach people

3:10

in your cohort, I mean, there's not

3:13

that many people, perhaps, in your exact cohort,

3:15

but I'm just thinking of your standing in

3:17

the business community, and that you

3:20

are surrounded by people, it appears, in

3:23

Silicon Valley and elsewhere, who,

3:26

if they have some misgivings about Trump,

3:28

they have nonetheless

3:30

rationalized their support for

3:33

him for a few reasons, and I

3:35

think the reasons are generally

3:37

misinterpreted on the Democratic

3:39

side. I mean, there are many

3:41

people, I would think, the standard

3:43

answer in Democratic circles to the

3:45

question of why people like Elon

3:47

Musk and David Sacks and other

3:49

billionaires and quasi-billionaires are voting for

3:51

Trump, the answer

3:53

is, well, they want lower taxes, they

3:55

want less regulation, these are

3:58

entirely self-serving. avaricious

4:01

decisions on the

4:03

part of extraordinarily wealthy people who have

4:06

no moral scruples. And

4:09

I just, I happen to know that's not true.

4:11

I mean, I know- Yeah, I agree with you.

4:13

It's not even close to true. Yeah. So, I

4:15

mean- The marginal value of any delta in taxes

4:17

is not going to change their lives. Right. And

4:20

they're not so vapid that they

4:23

think that, you know, that's their focus. It's

4:25

just not the case. Yeah. I mean,

4:27

the one footnote I would add to that is I

4:29

think people like Elon specifically

4:32

and other people like him do

4:35

worry about regulation. I know Elon wants to get

4:37

to Mars and he's worried that all

4:39

things considered, the left might regulate that project more

4:41

than the right. And I think that people

4:44

are, some people are worried about AI regulation, although

4:46

Elon is on the side of the regulators there.

4:48

So, the real reason, and I

4:51

notice, I know this to be true for

4:53

both these guys because they've said

4:55

a lot on this topic, is that

4:58

there are a few specific

5:00

social issues that

5:02

have radicalized them, specifically immigration

5:04

and what Elon often refers

5:06

to as the woke mind

5:08

virus. Right. I mean, this

5:11

is really what has exercised them. And they've

5:13

exercised, many of us as well who

5:16

are supporting Harris. So,

5:18

I want to keep those semi-grotesque

5:21

objects in view as we track

5:23

through this. But to start, how

5:26

would you describe your

5:28

politics? Independent. I

5:30

look at each issue individually.

5:33

I haven't given to a candidate or

5:35

PAC or anything else for that matter

5:38

since 2002. So, I just

5:40

look at each issue and I said, okay, what do

5:42

I think is best for the country? What do I think

5:45

will best reflect that? And if

5:47

I don't think there's a clear cut choice, I'll

5:49

vote for the candidate who does the least. And

5:51

so, you're actually a registered independent? No,

5:53

I'm not. I mean, in Texas, you don't have

5:55

to register as an independent. So, I'm just not

5:58

a Democrat or a Republican. Right. Right.

6:01

And in your view, what is

6:03

the shortest way of making the

6:05

case against Trump? He's

6:07

unethical. He's not bright. He

6:10

can be easily bought. He's very transactional.

6:13

He doesn't understand his own policies and

6:15

he makes no effort to learn. That's

6:17

it in a nutshell. And how you know him to

6:19

some degree, how well do you know him? I

6:22

mean, we're not best friends, but over 25 years,

6:24

you know, we've talked a couple dozen times. You

6:27

know, I've been around him a couple of

6:29

times. You know, we've sparred a lot on Twitter

6:32

at various times. So, I mean, I wouldn't say

6:34

we're acquaintances. We're not going to say, hey, what

6:36

are you doing today? But we

6:38

have enough of a relationship where it

6:40

didn't surprise me when he got elected that he called

6:42

me and, you know, and asked for help. And

6:45

then did you give him help at that

6:47

point? Of course, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm

6:49

an American first. And, you know,

6:51

it pertained to healthcare, some

6:53

questions there that never really went anywhere. And

6:56

then when the pandemic hit,

6:58

I helped him and Peter Navarro

7:00

source PPE equipment. There's

7:03

a mass manufacturer, the only domestic mass manufacturer

7:05

just outside of Fort Worth. And

7:07

so I worked with them and helped them grow and

7:09

helped get them prepared to be able to amp up

7:12

their manufacturing capabilities.

7:14

And when you say he's unethical

7:17

and unintelligent, how are

7:19

you getting that impression of

7:21

him? I'm going to ask this. Well,

7:23

just go through the list. I mean,

7:25

Trump University, Trump Soho, Trump Foundation, you

7:27

know, Michael Cohen, when he testified

7:30

in the Stormy Daniels hearings in

7:33

New York, he came out and said,

7:35

you know what? Mr. Trump told me to short

7:37

pay vendors. And every other business

7:39

person on the planet, when he had his little

7:41

impromptu press conference at the end of the day

7:43

would say, no, I would never do that. It

7:46

didn't even cross his mind to deny it,

7:48

you know? And then, you know, here, we

7:50

just had a little audio problem coming

7:52

into this, you know, a couple of weeks

7:54

ago in Michigan, the audio cut out for 17 minutes,

7:57

and the minute was turned back on, it wasn't, you know, it

7:59

wasn't. hey, let's hear it for the audio

8:01

guy, let's give him a hand, I'm glad we could

8:03

turn it around. It was, I

8:05

wouldn't pay him and then it was like, I would sue

8:07

him. He has no

8:10

concern for hardworking Americans at all.

8:12

The list of companies that he's

8:15

ripped off, the list of people

8:17

he's ripped off is long. And

8:19

to me, that's the definition of

8:21

unethical. I mean, if somebody short

8:24

paid me as a business, I wouldn't

8:26

ever do business with that person again. And

8:29

if anybody ever accused me of short paying another

8:31

business, I would be so vocal in

8:34

denying it because it's not something I would

8:36

ever do. To him, that's just

8:38

another day at the office. And to me, that's

8:40

as unethical as you can get. Then

8:42

how do you explain the fact that so

8:45

many people are disposed to grade him

8:47

on a curve? I mean, people

8:49

like the people we've named, like

8:51

Elon and David Sachs, but really,

8:54

this is just a widespread cultural

8:56

phenomenon that Trump seems

8:59

to function by different reputational

9:01

physics. And this is something that he actually remarked on himself

9:03

in, I think it was in 2016, it was

9:07

two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, where

9:09

he said, I could stand in the middle of Fifth

9:11

Avenue and shoot someone and not lose a single voter.

9:14

That was him marveling at

9:16

the fact that he at

9:18

the time was perceived, and this

9:20

is fairly early in his career

9:22

as a politician, he perceived that

9:24

he was politically indestructible. And so

9:28

we've lived with this phenomenon

9:30

now for nearly a decade where

9:32

we see Trump commit indiscretion

9:35

after indiscretion of every

9:38

conceivable size, many of which are

9:41

completely pointless, some of which serve

9:43

his political ends, and

9:46

any one of which, at a

9:48

glance, you can see would have

9:50

ended the career of a normal politician.

9:53

Why is it that nothing sticks to him? I

9:56

saw a video from Chris Cuomo, and I think he nailed

9:58

it. that there's almost

10:01

half the country that feels

10:04

like they've been wronged in some manner

10:06

by the country, whether it's

10:08

the elites, whether it's DEI, like

10:10

we alluded to, whatever it may

10:12

be. And the only counter to

10:14

that issue is a virus, and

10:17

he is the virus. And

10:20

that's a positive. All these indiscretions,

10:22

all these negatives, all these

10:24

personal failings of his, that

10:27

just makes him, somebody once told, I did

10:29

a podcast and the guy was like, he's a gangster.

10:31

That's why we love him. He's the guy

10:34

that's going to take on the incumbents and

10:36

just turn it upside down. And

10:38

I remember back when he first ran, I was

10:40

like, I know this guy, how can you support

10:43

him? And my friend Dan said, look, Mark,

10:45

I've been voting for politicians my entire life.

10:47

You know what they got me? Nothing.

10:50

You know where they got me? Nowhere.

10:52

That's why I'm voting for Trump.

10:54

And if you think of him as

10:56

a virus that just infiltrates or

10:59

suggests he's going to infiltrate all

11:01

the things that are causing particularly young

11:03

men to not get jobs, to not be

11:05

where they are, to not have the vision or

11:07

be able to achieve what they want to achieve,

11:10

it makes perfect sense. But how does

11:12

that account for someone like, again, I watched

11:14

you on the All In podcast and I

11:17

know Jason is a friend. I don't know

11:19

the other guys, but I've met David and I'm

11:21

just trying to understand, do you

11:23

have a theory of mind about someone

11:25

like David where obviously he's a

11:27

lawyer, right? I mean, he's a bright guy.

11:30

How is it that the spectacle of

11:33

a sitting president not committing to a

11:35

peaceful transfer of power? I mean, really

11:37

at multiple opportunities, he refused to commit to

11:39

a peaceful transfer of power. And then... I

11:42

remember. ... we didn't have a peaceful transfer

11:44

of power. I mean, so... He still has not

11:46

conceded. Yeah. And he still has not conceded

11:48

that he lost that election. And his denial

11:50

of that, his endorsement of this

11:53

big lie stands as

11:55

a continuous provocation to violence

11:57

and division in our country. I mean, it's really...

12:00

He's telling half the country, he's been telling

12:02

them this now for years, that

12:04

their democracy has been stolen from them

12:06

by an illegitimate president. And

12:09

in his communication with his base, this is not

12:12

received as mere hyperbole. This is a

12:14

statement of fact. He won the election

12:16

and it was stolen from him. And

12:20

you don't have a democracy anymore. I

12:23

really have no theory of mind around

12:26

how someone like David, and obviously there are

12:28

many, many people like David, justifies

12:30

that or averts their eyes from it

12:32

so as to still endorse this man.

12:35

I mean, my only theory is when it was

12:38

Trump versus Biden, you can make

12:40

the argument about Biden's cognitive

12:42

abilities, etc. And

12:44

they went all in on Trump. Hey, my

12:46

guy can think, my guy can do this, true

12:49

or not, they justified it to

12:51

themselves. And then when Kamala came

12:54

along, they were already all in. So

12:56

that's part one. They're

12:58

not gonna just change their minds and look bad.

13:01

And I think that has a lot to do

13:03

with it. But I think the greater Silicon Valley

13:06

ethos now, you mentioned DEI, you

13:08

mentioned immigration. But I also

13:11

think that there's a feeling that truly

13:13

among the musts and the teals that

13:15

they can manipulate Trump. He's

13:17

a technical ignoramus. I

13:19

mean, he's never sent an email. And

13:21

obviously he does that to protect

13:24

himself legally. But

13:26

if you have no technical ability whatsoever,

13:28

I mean, he calls AI the AI.

13:32

And when he talks about it, he only references the fact

13:34

that it consumes more electricity, more

13:36

power. He has no inkling what

13:38

it is at all. If you listened

13:41

at all to the Donald Trump, Elon Musk spaces

13:43

that they did on X, there was

13:45

nothing of substance from Donald Trump. And you

13:47

could see Elon trying to drag him to

13:50

at least come to some positive conclusions that

13:52

made sense, and he couldn't do it. And

13:54

so the only conclusion I can make is that

13:57

he is so incapable of understanding those

13:59

things. if they're able to develop

14:01

the trust or buy his trust in a

14:03

transactional manner like Elon has, he'll do what

14:06

they say. And if Elon

14:08

wants to take over NASA, here

14:10

you are, and Elon, here are the keys to

14:12

NASA along with the budget. That's

14:15

enticing to Silicon Valley. And

14:17

if they want to change the immigration laws,

14:20

okay, you do what you need to do, Elon. You

14:23

know how I feel about immigration and

14:25

mass deportations. Go for it. If

14:28

you want to change what happens in schools and

14:30

you feel a certain way about

14:32

DEI, go for it. I

14:35

mean, that is seductive for

14:37

those people who can gain control

14:40

of what Trump is going to do. Even

14:43

if that accounts for the

14:45

Elons and Peter Thiel's of the world, obviously there

14:47

are many, many millions of people who are- Yeah, but there's

14:49

also the call to personality behind them. Whatever

14:52

they do, you're going to get David Sachs and

14:54

others to follow right behind because they want to

14:56

be part of it. They may not know exactly

14:58

what they're going to be part of, but their

15:00

rationale is, hey, I'm

15:03

an Elon Acolyte. I believe in

15:05

him. He's the world's greatest entrepreneur ever. Ignore

15:08

the fact that he's also the world's

15:10

biggest troll on a platform designed for

15:12

trolls, but I'm

15:14

team Elon. And once you're, it's

15:16

like him going around campaigning in

15:19

Pennsylvania. He's not saying anything

15:21

of substance. He's just throwing out nonsense,

15:24

but people scream and yell because they're

15:26

team Elon. Well, he is

15:28

saying stuff of substance that just happens to

15:31

be filled with lies. I mean, he's now

15:33

denying the election himself. Right. Yeah,

15:35

exactly the point. And so when you

15:38

look at that, you realize that that

15:40

combined with social media. So let's just

15:42

take whatever he says, not

15:45

only on Twitter, but on every

15:47

social media platform, the algorithms are

15:49

going to reinforce the things

15:51

that you've already searched out or the things that

15:53

you've watched and liked already. And

15:55

so if you liked a Trump video, if you liked

15:57

an Elon video, you're going to get much

16:00

much, much, much more of that. And there's going

16:02

to, I mean, as much as all

16:04

of us spend online scrolling,

16:07

that algorithm customizes that feed

16:09

for us individually. And

16:11

if you have any allegiance to

16:13

Elon, if you've shown an interest

16:16

in Trump, if you have

16:18

interest in things that tree out,

16:20

meaning, wow, you're interested in Andrew

16:22

Tate, you're interested in

16:24

football, and their algorithms think if you're interested

16:26

in either one of those, you're probably going

16:28

to be a young man, and you

16:31

probably are going to be interested in Donald

16:33

Trump. And that just, I

16:36

mean, that's eight hours a day of continuous

16:38

reinforcement. So it's not surprising to me we

16:41

see these things, because if

16:43

you're fed a commercial, you

16:45

know, 100 times, 200 times in

16:47

a day, it's going to sink in at some

16:49

point. But what do you make

16:51

of Elon's increasingly Trump-like behavior,

16:53

and which is to say, it's

16:56

insanely dysregulated and unethical and unprincipled

16:58

behavior? Yeah, you mean lying his ass

17:01

off on Twitter? I

17:03

mean, lying, yes, but also

17:05

it runs to everything, like,

17:07

you know, singling out individual

17:09

citizens, putting them on blast, knowing that the

17:12

consequences are going to be awful in their

17:14

lives because these guys- Yeah, he's called me

17:16

a racist multiple times, called me a turd,

17:18

all this stuff. Yeah, I mean, he's

17:20

become the world's biggest troll,

17:23

and he bought a platform to allow himself to do

17:25

that, and that's his right. But I think

17:28

the bigger picture, and maybe I should have

17:30

mentioned this earlier, you know, the question

17:33

is, why did Elon buy Twitter? I

17:35

think initially he saw it as

17:37

a business, he was interested in free speech,

17:40

but, you know, it was a

17:42

true financial interest, was in there

17:44

somewhere. And I think he figured out very quickly

17:46

that because Twitter is in

17:48

so many different countries,

17:51

and every prime minister or head of

17:53

state has an interest in what's said on

17:55

Twitter, now all of a sudden he's one

17:57

of the most influential, if not the most-

18:00

influential non-politicians in the

18:02

world. And from

18:04

that perspective, I think

18:06

he's trying to just send

18:08

the message globally, not just here in

18:10

the United States, that he's in

18:12

charge. This is his world, and he's

18:15

going to say and do whatever it takes

18:17

to increase his status and power. AC Yeah.

18:20

I mean, there was also just

18:22

the fact that he personally was

18:25

and is obviously totally addicted to

18:27

the platform. I mean, whatever dopamine

18:29

he's getting from it, it's

18:32

central to his sense of what

18:35

it is to be alive at this point. It

18:37

appears to have deranged him and turned many of

18:40

his priorities upside down. AC It's

18:42

hurt his businesses too. AC Yeah. I mean,

18:44

it's been productive in some way. I mean,

18:46

obviously, he's the richest man on

18:48

Earth or on any given day

18:50

he is. So you can't really say it's

18:52

harmed him financially. But, yeah, I

18:54

mean, in terms of what has done to

18:56

his reputation in half the

18:59

world, it's pretty grim. And

19:01

not to say, I can

19:03

speak personally that he's lost some relationships over it. So

19:06

I think in the

19:09

ears of many listeners, you and I will have

19:11

already started on the wrong foot

19:13

here by simply running

19:15

down Trump and not making a positive

19:18

case for Harris as though that were

19:20

necessary. AC Which I'm happy to do.

19:22

AC Yeah. I mean, I think we should do that. But

19:24

I would point out that it actually

19:26

isn't necessary if you think

19:28

Trump is so bad that you would vote

19:31

for virtually any other human being over him,

19:33

which is really the position I'm in. I

19:35

just think he's such an abnormal person

19:38

psychologically and ethically. I mean, in

19:40

terms of the degree to which

19:42

he is interested only in

19:44

himself and his fame and wealth,

19:47

that he is uniquely

19:50

vulnerable to manipulation by flattery.

19:52

He's just uniquely myopic

19:54

with respect to his ethical

19:57

priorities and any priority that can be achieved. can

20:00

be mapped onto the geopolitical interests of

20:02

our country. I mean, so this is

20:04

something that it

20:06

may seem like he is a good

20:08

ally for Israel, say, at the moment.

20:10

But I think if any

20:13

enemy of Israel would offer him

20:15

a golf course deal somewhere, that

20:17

could bend American policy under

20:19

his standard. Without question, he's transactional. Yeah. It's

20:22

just a question of how much. So

20:26

let's talk a bit about Harris's campaign

20:28

and Harris as a candidate

20:30

and as a potential future president. I

20:32

mean, I think, I mean,

20:34

I'm not at all sheepish about talking about

20:37

the weaknesses as I perceive them in her

20:39

campaign because they're there and some of them

20:41

are glaring. I mean, the biggest one for

20:43

me has been that

20:45

she has not been able

20:48

to speak candidly about her

20:50

changes of position, right? On

20:52

immigration and DEI policy and

20:55

anything else that is driving people

20:57

right of center berserk. She

20:59

should have been able to explain

21:02

her pivot from 2019. And

21:05

I think she can do that without

21:07

saying anything that's politically damaging to her

21:09

campaign. But for some reason, I

21:11

mean, somebody on her team has

21:13

drummed it into her that under

21:15

no circumstances can you admit that

21:17

you've changed your mind about anything

21:20

when you're asked point blank questions

21:22

of, on this date here, you

21:24

said you were in favor of

21:26

decriminalizing people coming across the border or you

21:28

were in favor of taxpayer funded gender reassignment

21:31

surgery. I think they just don't want to

21:33

get down to list though, right? It's not

21:35

to say that she's flip-flopped on everything, but

21:37

I think she's dealt

21:39

with it conceptually by saying she's open-minded,

21:41

she's not an ideologue, she's not dogmatic.

21:44

But just to put it in context,

21:46

I look at it a lot of these things in business terms. If

21:49

I take over a company

21:52

and I effectively have 14

21:54

weeks to turn the company

21:56

around or I lose my job, then

21:59

I've got to go out there and find

22:01

as many customers as I can. And

22:03

that's effectively what happened with Kamala Harris. She

22:05

took over 13, 14 weeks ago. And

22:08

the mission wasn't to... There's not a checklist

22:10

after you lose an election that says, but

22:12

she answered these questions well. The

22:14

only scoreboard is who got

22:17

more votes or who got more electoral

22:19

college votes. And in

22:21

14 weeks, you've got to have the mission to

22:24

go out there and communicate with as

22:26

many people as you can that you

22:28

think you can get to vote for

22:30

you. Particularly when you're starting from a

22:32

favorability deficit and an awareness deficit. Even

22:34

Trump said early on, nobody knows who

22:36

she is. And so she

22:38

had to counter that by going on

22:40

as many in a tour

22:42

and doing as many rallies as she

22:44

possibly could. Because speaking in front of

22:46

crowds at a rally really is one

22:48

of her strengths. If you've had

22:51

the chance to go to one, the energy is

22:53

great. She hits topics

22:55

that people there care about, they're screaming,

22:57

they're yelling. It's

23:00

Obama-ish, both Obama-ish in terms

23:02

of the response she gets.

23:05

And I think the campaign was right to

23:07

play to her strengths. And so you saw

23:09

her do rallies around the

23:11

country and you saw the results. She

23:14

got to a positive favorability

23:16

rating, the awareness went through the roof

23:18

and she caught up. She went from

23:20

being where Joe was when she took

23:22

over to it being at worst a

23:24

dead heat. So from my

23:26

perspective, you can't really argue with the

23:28

strategy it's worked. Now, would it have

23:31

been nice for high information voters to

23:33

get specific feedback on the things that

23:35

are important to us? Sure, of course.

23:38

But I also think that you

23:41

don't necessarily get specific,

23:44

get to specific voters when you do

23:47

a lot of the general interviews. I

23:49

think she felt the pressure to need

23:51

to do those things and she did

23:53

them. We can argue whether she was

23:55

good or bad, but the reality is

23:58

when they put together a rally, they're

24:00

putting together not only the faithful, but

24:02

also people who are undecided or

24:04

potential voters in order to get

24:06

them to drink the Kool-Aid

24:08

with those around them. So I

24:11

think it's a more target rich environment, if

24:13

you will, from a voter conversion or getting

24:16

someone to vote for Kamala Harris. So I

24:18

didn't necessarily have the problem, even

24:20

though I would have liked to like a lot

24:23

of people to geek out on details and not

24:25

only why she's changed, but where she is. Yeah,

24:28

well, it wasn't just the absence of detail, it

24:30

was the optics of her looking

24:32

evasive when the question was inevitable. When the

24:34

question was asked. No, no, sir. No question

24:36

about it. I agree with that. It's

24:38

just, you can't win every battle and

24:41

you're not going to be great at

24:43

everything. And you've done enough interviews where

24:45

you've been the interviewee and as a

24:48

Vi, where you go through a learning

24:50

process of how

24:52

do you interact with interviewers who may be hostile?

24:56

And I don't think even as a Senator, she had

24:59

to go through all that many, certainly not as an

25:01

AG. And I think she

25:03

tries to talk to interviewers more like

25:05

she's in front of a crowd where

25:07

she feeds off the energy and tries

25:09

to gain some emotional connection. And

25:12

you've got to learn that just doesn't work. And

25:15

I think over the last couple of weeks, she's

25:17

gotten far, far better and she's done a much

25:19

better job. And you can tell when she

25:21

knows it's not going to be hostile, even if

25:24

the questions are the same, she's more comfortable answering.

25:27

Do you think she should go on Rogan's podcast? No,

25:29

I think that's a waste of time. Is it a

25:31

waste of time or it's just too dangerous to do? No, it's not

25:33

the danger of it at all because Joe Rogan is a good interview.

25:35

I don't think it's a danger. And I

25:37

think when he says he just wants to get to

25:39

know where he's honest about that. I just think you

25:41

have X number of days

25:43

left and just going out there and

25:46

doing an interview where you know the

25:48

Trump faith, we're going to slice and dice the

25:50

interview any way they choose and that's going to

25:52

position itself on social media. I don't

25:54

think there's any upside. I mean, how many people minds

25:57

are you really going to change by doing the

25:59

interview? versus taking that same time

26:01

and saying, okay, I need to make sure

26:04

I reach as many

26:06

people in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan,

26:08

etc., Georgia, North Carolina. That's

26:10

time far better spent. So

26:15

perhaps we can fill in some of

26:17

the blanks here on a few of

26:19

these topics. How do you view, well,

26:21

it really is the bewildering fact

26:24

of the openness of the

26:26

southern border and the fact

26:28

that the Democrats took so

26:30

long to recognize. Forget about

26:33

the social problem it may

26:35

or may not represent and the ethical

26:37

issues and every other thing that

26:39

people... Just the plug and sign. ... that people don't worry about

26:41

it. Just think from the pure position

26:44

of political pragmatism, it is

26:46

just a gaping political wound.

26:48

For any day during the

26:50

Biden presidency, someone could and

26:53

many did just hold up

26:55

a cell phone and

26:57

caught the video

26:59

of thousands of people streaming across the

27:01

border. You said the key words, the

27:03

Biden presidency, which I think is

27:06

far, far, far left of Kamala Harris. But

27:08

how do you explain the fact that this

27:10

is... Because it was the case. I mean,

27:12

this is why, and I think

27:14

he said as much in his interview with

27:16

you, someone like David Sacks thinks

27:19

that the Democrats getting religion

27:21

now about the border is not

27:24

persuasive because for the longest time,

27:26

and certainly during Trump's presidency and

27:29

his campaign, Democrats greeted

27:32

his promise to build the

27:34

wall as just a sign

27:37

of racism. It was just a

27:40

pure indiscretion and forsaking of American

27:42

values, as though American values rest

27:44

on having a completely unpoliced border

27:46

where you have no idea who's

27:49

coming into the country. Yeah,

27:51

look, I think that was a mistake of theirs

27:53

to wait, and I think that's a Biden mistake.

27:56

But if you look at what's

27:58

happened, he signed the executive order. which

28:00

limited the border crossings, which has now

28:02

pushed them down to where they were

28:05

under Trump pre-pandemic. And so they've kind

28:07

of dealt with that. And she has

28:09

said that anybody who crosses since the executive

28:11

order was signed, she will send back and

28:13

you can't come back for five years. And

28:15

she's also said, if you're here in the

28:17

country illegally and you break the law, steal

28:20

something, whatever, you are being deported and

28:22

won't ever come back, which gets us

28:25

to dead even except for the question

28:27

of deportation. And I think that

28:29

is where I've been focused in talking to people.

28:31

And I think she's starting to talk more about

28:33

it. On one hand, you have Donald Trump,

28:36

mass deportation, no qualifiers. On

28:39

the other hand, you have Kamala Harris that says,

28:41

okay, I've told you, the

28:43

people I'm definitely deporting now, but there

28:45

are going to be circumstances where I'm

28:47

open to a path to residency or

28:50

citizenship. And the foundation

28:52

for the Delta is, imagine

28:54

a grandmother who has four

28:57

American children, a grandmother who's

28:59

here in his undocumented,

29:02

and she's been here 20 years, four

29:04

American children, 10 American

29:07

grandchildren. Do you knock on her door,

29:09

pull her out of the house and deport her? Yeah. Donald

29:12

Trump says yes. And if

29:14

you take that one step further, where do you stop?

29:16

And so when I go out and talk to small

29:18

businesses, they're terrified. And

29:21

it's not so much about their own workers

29:23

because you have to file this thing called

29:25

an I-9, which defines the residency status of

29:27

your employee and get in

29:29

trouble if you do it and aren't

29:32

accurate. But what we're terrified about

29:34

is someone from Stephen Miller's little group

29:36

comes and knocks on the door of

29:38

your warehouse, your factory, your restaurant, and

29:40

says, I want a list of all

29:42

your I-9 employees with their addresses

29:44

and phone numbers. And then they go start knocking

29:46

on doors and pulling people out and deporting them.

29:49

And it may sound far fetched. And to some

29:51

Trump supporters, when I talk about this, they're like,

29:53

oh, he'll never do that. I'm like, you have

29:55

to believe what he says. And then even

29:58

more, what's happening more and more is I've. I've

30:00

gotten closer to the border in Arizona.

30:03

I'm hearing examples, one person

30:05

said that their mother went to the embassy

30:07

during the Trump administration, had been here 20

30:10

years, wanted to get all her papers aligned,

30:12

and they just immediately deported her. Another

30:15

gave an example of a

30:17

20-year-old woman who came here to

30:19

the country when she was six months old with

30:21

her parents and has an American daughter deported.

30:24

Is that who we want to be? Do we want

30:27

checkpoints on roads asking

30:29

for papers? Do we want

30:31

another Elian Gonzalez looking

30:33

set of events where someone's just banging on

30:36

the door and someone in the

30:38

police and military equipment are dragging people out

30:40

of their homes? So while we

30:43

can argue about what they did wrong

30:45

on immigration, we are where we are

30:47

now. They've changed those immigration policies, and

30:50

now the big question is deportation. What

30:52

kind of country are you? Are we? And

30:56

I did a little Twitter poll, and 60%

30:59

of people said, okay,

31:02

we shouldn't deport grandma. 40%

31:04

of the people said yes. And

31:06

when you look at Donald Trump and his Madison

31:08

Square Garden speech, day

31:11

one, we're deporting everybody. Yeah,

31:13

I mean, one hopes that the

31:15

people, and I think an official poll had

31:17

that those percentages flipped around, or it was

31:19

something like 60% of Americans were

31:22

in favor of deportation. But one

31:25

hopes that they're not actually doing the moral

31:27

math and they don't even know what they're

31:29

supporting. I mean, when you actually think about

31:31

the details that you just described, where

31:34

you have, you can

31:36

make the case for younger kids. I

31:38

mean, there are kids in very

31:40

likely your kids' school, if

31:43

you have kids in elementary school,

31:45

whose parents, one

31:48

or both parents are undocumented. I

31:50

mean, but the kid is an

31:52

American citizen, right? This is just

31:54

the- But why are we giving him the benefit of

31:56

the doubt? That's the question, because

31:58

on a probabilistic basis. It's

32:00

definitely greater than zero. And

32:02

I would argue it's greater than 50%. And

32:04

it's not like he's saying Stephen Miller is

32:06

not gonna be part of his advisory group

32:08

or cabinet or whatever it may be. You

32:11

know, he's his deportations are. And

32:14

Stephen Miller certainly isn't pulling any punches. Well, this

32:16

also just speaks to the larger, completely

32:18

corrosive issue of not

32:21

taking him seriously or taking

32:23

him seriously, but not literally. I

32:25

mean, this idea that you systematically

32:27

discount every crazy thing he says,

32:30

even while we know, because we

32:32

have the continuous testimony of the people who worked under

32:34

him, you know, the 40 of his 44 senior

32:37

most appointees, we know

32:39

that they had the experience behind closed

32:41

doors of being asked to do idiotic and

32:43

immoral and illegal things. And the only reason

32:46

why they, he didn't accomplish

32:48

those things is because they refused. Yeah, the

32:50

crazy dichotomy to me and all this is

32:53

people who support Trump like David

32:55

Sachs are always explaining away what he did.

32:58

Like January 6th and what he said. People

33:01

who are opposed to Kamala Harris

33:04

are always talking about what she did say.

33:06

You know, as if she, like, I think

33:08

Bakari Sellers or Van Jones said, she has

33:11

to be flawless. And it's,

33:13

you know, it's insane

33:15

the way they are

33:17

treated so differently. But

33:19

we have to take him seriously in

33:21

what he says. He's had nine years

33:24

to formulate these things. You know, he's

33:26

talking about the American Enemies Act of

33:28

1798. This

33:31

is a man who probably hasn't read a book since C.

33:33

Dick Run. It's not like he was

33:35

reading and all of a sudden he stumbled

33:37

across the American Enemies Act of 1798. That

33:41

had to be presented to him

33:43

specifically. And for those who aren't

33:45

aware, it says that if

33:47

there is a country that is

33:49

defined as an enemy of the

33:51

USA, not only can

33:54

he deport those who are undocumented

33:56

and here illegally, but he

33:58

can also deport or. intern,

34:00

as we saw with Japan, with the

34:03

Japanese, people who are here legally. Well,

34:06

did you see his, I forgot the man's name,

34:08

but the person who ran ICE

34:10

under Trump interviewed on 60 Minutes? I did

34:13

not. There's a clip of him.

34:15

He's so back to the details

34:17

we just discussed about deporting the

34:20

undocumented parents or grandparents of citizens.

34:22

He was asked, well, isn't there a

34:25

way to keep families together? I mean, this just

34:27

seems an atrocious thing to do. And he

34:29

said, yeah, you can keep families together. We can just deport

34:31

all of them. Yeah.

34:33

I mean, is that the country we want to be? Is

34:37

it truly? I mean, when you

34:39

talk about fascism, analogies

34:42

are easy at that point. I

34:44

just don't think it is. And I think we

34:46

as a country, most Americans have a good heart.

34:49

And that's not, when I talk to people that

34:51

bring that up to me, and I give them the

34:53

example we just spoke of, they're like, no, he would never

34:55

do that. I mean, to a

34:58

person, they say that. And it's just, it's

35:00

insane that we are giving him, always giving

35:03

him the benefit of the doubt, always explaining

35:05

away all these things. Well, and just

35:07

wanting to do that is already disqualifying. I

35:10

mean, even if you had a story about why

35:12

he wouldn't be able to do that, the fact

35:14

that he claims to want to do that, it

35:17

should be enough. Right? Yeah. He's not

35:19

writing his own speeches. Somebody is putting

35:22

this on a teleprompter for him to

35:24

read. He hasn't read the American Enemies

35:26

Act of 1798. I'd bet any amount of money. And

35:28

so there is somebody

35:32

feeding him this, and he's taking it

35:34

and running with it. That is not

35:36

an accident on his part. It's

35:38

not like Joe

35:40

Biden blurting something out yesterday.

35:42

It's him specifically

35:44

and intentionally saying these things and trying

35:46

to convey it in a manner that

35:49

all his supporters believe it and take

35:51

it to heart. We

35:53

need to respond to that. And so when we

35:55

talk about the positives of Kamala Harris, you

35:57

may not agree with what she decides to do. do

36:00

with deportations. But what she's been clear about

36:02

is that she is going to be transparent

36:04

and there will be a process and

36:07

there will be a path to residency

36:09

and or citizenship. And if it

36:11

doesn't include you, you may have to leave, but at

36:13

least everybody's going to know what the process is

36:15

and it'll be transparent. And that's all you can ask

36:18

for. So

36:20

what do you think about this conspiracy theory

36:22

that Elon is trafficking

36:24

in and it's seemingly at every opportunity

36:26

that the Democrats want an open border

36:29

because they want to get voters. They want

36:32

to fill the swing states with millions of

36:34

voters who are for some magical reason

36:36

guaranteed to vote for them, even though

36:39

we see abundant evidence that there's

36:41

a trend toward Trump among Hispanics

36:44

and other immigrants. But

36:46

leaving that aside, he's talking about

36:48

millions of people being flown, I'm

36:50

trying to picture them being flown

36:52

on airplanes, of them to

36:55

the swing states and we will never have

36:57

a fair election again. It'll

36:59

be a single party state until the

37:01

end of time. That's Elon's thesis. It's

37:04

obviously ridiculous. And when you have cult-like

37:07

followers and you have

37:09

a platform where you're allowed to say

37:11

whatever you want and the algorithm you

37:13

designed amplifies it to as many

37:15

people as it possibly can, I mean,

37:18

it's strategic in some respects. It's obviously

37:20

a lie. It's obviously not true. I

37:23

was reading the other day

37:25

on what are the paths to citizenship because I

37:27

was curious. The fastest path is to serve in

37:29

the military. You can be

37:31

a resident non-citizen and serve in

37:34

the military and that'll accelerate your ability to

37:36

become a citizen in three years. Beyond that,

37:38

it's going to take you four or five

37:40

years or more and you still have

37:42

to apply for it. You still have to get

37:44

approved. It's still not easy. And so it's obviously

37:46

a lie. And then the other thing that's always

37:49

interesting to me is the whole

37:51

Springfield, Ohio thing with the TPS program.

37:54

I don't think anybody's ever stated it

37:56

publicly, but again, I like to

37:58

geek out on these details. you literally have

38:00

to pay $572 to

38:02

apply. So if you wanted

38:05

to go to Springfield, Ohio from Haiti, it's

38:07

not like, hey, here's the plane, get on like

38:09

we're leaving Hanoi. You have to

38:11

pay $572 and

38:13

your application has to be approved. And

38:16

then because you're being flown in, you also

38:18

have to pay for the flight. So

38:20

this is not people just waiting at the airport

38:22

waiting for the plane to land and jumping on.

38:25

This is intentional and it costs

38:27

money. And it really is not

38:30

what Elon and others are painting

38:32

it to be. Now, I've spoken

38:34

to many Trump supporters

38:36

who have chief

38:38

among their reasons the expectation

38:40

that he's going to be much better

38:43

for the economy. I'm leaving questions

38:45

of taxation aside for the richest

38:47

people who can point to the

38:50

reason why they expect to pay

38:52

less in taxes. There's a general sense that he's going

38:54

to be better for the middle class. He's just going

38:56

to be better for growth. He's going to be better

38:58

for inflation, et cetera. And

39:00

yet two weeks ago, the Wall Street

39:02

Journal surveyed, I think it was 50

39:05

economists and the results were 68% of

39:07

them thought his policies

39:11

would be worse for deficits,

39:13

for inflation, for interest rates.

39:16

And only 12% thought hers would

39:18

be worse and slightly

39:21

different percentages favored hers for

39:24

economic growth, for growth in GDP.

39:27

And yet you point that out and these people

39:29

who ostensibly care about economics and the middle class,

39:31

magically now don't seem to care. I don't even

39:33

talk... Studies are studies, economists are economists. I don't

39:36

think anybody really trusts them or most people don't

39:38

trust them or understand them. And so, did you

39:40

see the post that Elon Musk agreed with,

39:42

I think it was yesterday or the day before,

39:44

where somebody said that the first couple of years

39:47

of Trump will probably crash the economy and it's

39:49

a chance to rebuild the whole economy? Yeah,

39:51

I did. I saw rumors of it. I didn't

39:53

see it as a policy.

39:55

Yeah, and then Elon agree with it. That's probably right.

39:58

So here's Elon saying... that

40:00

Trump's policies are going to crash the

40:02

economy. I mean, again,

40:05

but here's what I say. So when

40:07

I am out there as a surrogate,

40:09

I'm typically going out there and visiting

40:11

with small business people in swing states.

40:14

And the request I have for the people

40:16

that organized the whole thing is,

40:18

I don't want a room full

40:20

of Democrats that does us no

40:23

good. I want independents, Republicans, and

40:25

undecideds. So I want them

40:27

to challenge me on everything because I want

40:29

the details to be able to get out

40:31

and apply it to their own personal corporate

40:33

interest or personal interests. And so the first

40:36

thing I always do when I'm in that

40:38

group is I tell them, there are 33

40:40

million companies in this country. Of

40:43

those, 99% of them are small. So round numbers, let's

40:47

just say there's about 31

40:49

point something million companies that are small

40:52

businesses in this country. Of those, the

40:54

vast majority, more than 98% are pass-through

40:56

companies, sub-chapter

40:59

S, LLCs, sole

41:01

proprietorships. And of those, 98% make $400,000 or

41:03

less. So

41:08

for almost every single business in

41:10

this country, your taxes are going to

41:12

be the same or go down.

41:15

And that always raises eyebrows. And then I say,

41:17

look, from a personal tax perspective, there are

41:19

only 4 million people in this country that

41:21

make $400,000 or more. So you just do

41:24

the math.

41:26

That means there's 330 million people out of 334, give or

41:28

take, whose taxes are going to stay

41:32

the same or go down as she

41:34

said that the taxes for 100 million

41:36

people will go down. So

41:39

for the vast majority, when I say vast,

41:41

I mean literally 29.7 million, give or take

41:45

entrepreneurs and CEOs and solo

41:47

entrepreneurs, their taxes are staying

41:49

the same or going down.

41:52

So Donald Trump is doing nothing, nothing

41:55

for small business or

41:58

the entrepreneurs that run them. Does

42:00

the cutoff fall in the

42:02

same place if you're just talking about individuals for

42:04

the country as a whole? So

42:07

if like the cut between the

42:09

one percent and the 99 percent, is that

42:12

drawn at an income of 400,000 a year?

42:14

Yeah, so I just looked it up and I said, okay,

42:16

you know, Chattoprithy and Grok

42:19

even, I said, how many people make $400,000 or more?

42:21

And I asked them both.

42:24

And the answer was about 4 million.

42:27

So all these tax changes that Donald

42:29

Trump hasn't even really suggested

42:31

yet. He just says your taxes are going down.

42:33

He hasn't said what he's going to do or,

42:36

you know, given any details whatsoever, but

42:39

it applies to 4 million people out

42:41

of 330 plus

42:43

million in this country. And so

42:45

he's doing nothing, nothing at all

42:47

for 330 million people. Well,

42:49

he's in fact, if he imposes the tariffs that he

42:51

wants to impose. Well, we'll get to those. We haven't

42:54

got to those yet. We'll get

42:56

to those, right? So the second

42:58

element when it comes to people's

43:00

personal household costs and net worth,

43:03

if you will, and expenditures

43:05

is healthcare. Donald Trump says

43:07

he has a concept of a plan. Well,

43:09

the reality is the largest

43:12

single expense for most households

43:14

when things go wrong is

43:16

healthcare. And the second

43:18

largest expense for businesses, whether they're small,

43:20

medium, or large is benefits

43:22

slash healthcare. Kamala

43:24

Harris has been very, very,

43:26

very specific that she

43:28

is going to take on the

43:30

pharmacy middleman, also known as pharmacy

43:32

benefit managers, who artificially inflate the

43:35

price of medications. And I know

43:37

this because I'm in this business.

43:39

And she's also saying that she's

43:41

introducing transparency. From my experiences

43:43

with costplusdrugs.com, I can tell you that

43:45

the cost of medications, the minute this

43:47

is implemented, will drop by 20%, 30%,

43:50

or more. And

43:53

when you talk about inflation, healthcare

43:56

has been inflating for years and is

43:58

a big component. of that

44:00

20 plus percent people talk about over the last

44:02

four years. And if you

44:05

have the opportunity to cut medication costs

44:07

for households, and if she gets any

44:09

help from Congress at all, apply the

44:11

same principles to the rest of healthcare,

44:14

you're more than going to offset any

44:16

increased costs in Gatorade, toilet paper, and

44:18

bacon. Because

44:21

we've all been in that situation where

44:23

you go to the doctor and

44:26

you don't know what the outcome is going to

44:28

be, that's scary enough. And not knowing if you're

44:30

going to be able to pay for it because

44:33

you have a high deductible plan where you

44:35

have no insurance, that's terrifying.

44:38

Kamala Harris is dealing with that directly. I

44:40

mean, think about what happens when you get

44:43

a prescription, Sam. They say, okay,

44:45

you're going to have to take this medication. And the

44:47

second question is not, can you afford it or how

44:49

will you pay for it? It's, what's your pharmacy? And

44:52

then you've seen or heard all the stories about

44:54

somebody standing in line and finding out

44:56

that they can't afford the medication because there is

44:58

no transparency. And that's what's

45:00

allowed these pharmacy benefit managers to jack

45:02

up the price of medications and their

45:04

affiliated companies to do the same in

45:06

healthcare. And so when Kamala Harris

45:09

says, we are going to take on

45:11

the middleman, the pharmacy middleman, and

45:14

introduce transparency, the direct

45:16

result of that is that your costs for

45:19

medications will go down quickly.

45:21

And again, if you can

45:23

extend that to healthcare, the

45:25

fear and the out-of-pocket costs of

45:28

when you get sick will

45:30

go down dramatically. That

45:32

will more than offset any

45:35

increase in inflation that we've seen

45:37

to date during the Biden administration.

45:41

And then we can go to tariffs. And also inflation has

45:44

been brought out of control, right? It's not- Right,

45:46

right. But not for healthcare. Right. The

45:48

cost of Gatorade may only go

45:51

up 2.5% going forward, but

45:53

the cost of healthcare, because it's

45:55

so opaque as an industry, the

45:58

regulators are slim. There's

46:00

been some transparency on the hospital

46:02

provider side, but not enough to

46:04

really change behaviors or reduce the overall

46:07

cost. And so she's focused on

46:09

that. Donald Trump has a concept of a

46:11

plan. Now if you want, we can

46:13

get to tariffs. Yeah, I mean, as far

46:15

as I can tell, the jury is not

46:18

out on the effect of tariffs on

46:20

an economy generally. No. And all you

46:22

got to do is look at his first four years. They

46:24

didn't work. And we named the one

46:26

example of where tariffs had a positive

46:28

impact either on the economy or bringing

46:30

back manufacturing. Then what accounts for

46:32

the fact that sophisticated people- Wait,

46:34

I'm not done ripping them on me. Yeah, okay. Hold on,

46:36

there's more. There's more. So let's look

46:38

at it from a personal perspective. Let's

46:41

say that Donald Trump, God help us wins. And

46:43

this time next year, we're looking to make

46:45

decisions on the Christmas presents we're going to

46:47

buy. Well, people may or may not realize,

46:50

but the sporting goods, equipment

46:52

you buy for presents, the

46:54

knickknacks you buy from the knickknack

46:57

shop, the dresses, the backpacks, you

46:59

name it, almost all of

47:01

them are made in China. And

47:03

when you impose a 60% tariff

47:06

on all goods imported from China,

47:09

now all of a sudden, if you're looking to buy

47:11

your kid a basketball, that price is going up

47:13

60% at least. And

47:15

if it goes up 60% at least along with

47:17

all the other Chinese imports, then you're

47:19

going to have to make some hard decisions

47:22

at Christmas. Because with

47:24

those increases, because of Donald Trump's tariffs,

47:26

I call them the grinch

47:28

that's stealing our Christmas, you're going to

47:30

make a lot of hard decisions and you're not going to

47:32

be able to buy as much. And it's

47:35

not only awful for you and your family

47:37

and disappointing your kids, but look

47:39

at the retailers that you would be

47:41

buying from. That sporting goods

47:44

store where you've bought mitts and bats and

47:46

balls for your kids since they were 3

47:48

years old, the knickknack store where

47:50

you buy all your favorite candles, the little

47:52

dress shop owned by the lady that you

47:54

see at church that's been there for 20

47:56

years. Those are the

47:59

people who are going to suffer. as well. And

48:01

not only that, the crazy part is

48:04

the steps that businesses take

48:06

when there's even a discussion

48:09

of tariffs. So let's just say

48:11

across the board tariffs, and look, there are

48:14

strategic tariffs that make sense, but we're

48:16

talking about the negatives of across the

48:18

board tariffs. And those across the board

48:20

tariffs, we'll use the basketball example. You're

48:23

a sporting goods retailer and you sell a

48:25

lot of basketballs and you import them from

48:27

China. Now, because you know the price

48:29

is going up 60%, what

48:32

are you going to do? You're going to either borrow money

48:34

or you're going to take money that

48:36

was designed to use for expansion

48:39

to hire more and more people,

48:41

to grow the business in one way

48:43

or the other. Now you're going to take

48:45

that and use it to pre-buy inventory from

48:47

your Chinese importer so that you beat the

48:50

price rush. The downstream

48:52

impact of tariffs is far more

48:54

than just a taxation.

48:57

It is personal, it

48:59

hurts businesses, it hurts

49:01

families. And Donald Trump says,

49:04

well, it's a negotiating tactic.

49:06

It gets them, it brings

49:08

manufacturers back. Remember the 33 million

49:10

companies I told you about? The

49:13

number of people who own foreign factories

49:15

that would come back, maybe

49:18

five of them are small

49:20

businesses. And then there's

49:23

others like John Deere who don't even

49:25

have factories overseas, but get threatened if

49:27

they move jobs

49:29

or anything to Mexico, the tariffs are

49:31

going to go up to 200%. And

49:33

when Donald Trump tariffs John Deere equipment

49:36

200%, that literally

49:38

makes the Chinese

49:40

companies that import Chinese products cheaper

49:42

than John Deere, giving them

49:44

an advantage. And I can just

49:47

go on with example after example after example.

49:50

And then you know how people always say, well,

49:52

Kamala had three and a half years, why didn't they do it

49:54

then? Donald Trump had four years

49:56

to implement tariffs. It didn't work. tariff

50:00

negotiating, quote unquote, in January of

50:02

2018. And

50:05

they started to implement the tariffs not long after, I

50:07

think June or July of 2018. And

50:09

then, of course, there were retaliatory tariffs that came

50:12

in from China. And

50:14

back and forth it went. And

50:16

there was no upside whatsoever.

50:19

There was no positive gain. In fact,

50:22

during that period of trade wars,

50:24

the economy took a turn for

50:26

the worst and the Federal Reserve

50:29

had to implement interest rate cuts

50:32

to try to spruce back up the economy.

50:35

Mostly as a result of Donald Trump's implementation

50:37

of tariffs and causing this tariff war. But

50:40

he has fallen so in love, it's

50:42

also going to impact our foreign policy

50:45

and our defense strategies for

50:47

our allies. And probably the

50:49

most insane outcome or

50:52

discussion of his tariffs that

50:54

I've heard is as it applies

50:56

to Taiwan. There is a company

50:59

in Taiwan called Taiwan Semiconductor. Are you familiar with

51:01

it at all? Yeah, but explain it

51:03

to the audience here. It is literally the

51:05

most important company in the world. They

51:08

make the most advanced semiconductor

51:10

chips. And their

51:13

customers for those chips are

51:15

Nvidia, the highest market cap

51:17

company in the country who makes

51:20

all the most advanced AI chips,

51:22

which allow us as a country,

51:25

including our military to be

51:27

the most technologically advanced in artificial

51:29

intelligence in the world. One

51:32

of their other customers is Apple and then the

51:34

list goes on. Donald Trump,

51:36

when asked if he would defend

51:38

Taiwan if it looked like China was going

51:40

to invade them, said, no. What

51:44

I'll do is I'll just put

51:46

200% tariffs on China if

51:49

they invade Taiwan. So

51:51

effectively, rather than making a decision

51:54

that becomes life or death,

51:56

a literal war for

51:59

China. as it applies to Taiwan, he's

52:02

making it about the prices of dresses. So

52:04

President Xi can say, well,

52:07

if I attack, if

52:09

I go into Taiwan and take over

52:11

Taiwan's semiconductor, yeah, our imports

52:14

will go down some, but I'll just

52:16

put more retaliatory tariffs on

52:19

United States of America, but I'll get to

52:21

keep TSMC. I mean, it makes no sense whatsoever.

52:23

He is so in love with tariffs, he doesn't

52:25

understand them. But the idea that not

52:27

protecting Taiwan, an ally at

52:29

all, when, you know, put aside

52:32

all the other reasons, but

52:34

it has the most valuable

52:36

company that effectively controls the

52:38

future of artificial intelligence is

52:41

insane. And to Biden's credit, that's where

52:43

the CHIPS Act came in because Biden

52:45

recognized that and his administration did the

52:48

CHIPS Act. And now TSMC has broken

52:50

ground in Arizona and

52:52

is starting to get better yield with

52:55

some of the more normal chips and

52:57

hope to have the most advanced chips

52:59

available in 2028. Yeah,

53:01

I was going to say, it doesn't, wouldn't

53:03

make sense to onshore some of the critical

53:06

supply chain. If we

53:08

learned anything from COVID, it was that our supply

53:10

chain was not quite what we thought it was.

53:13

The question is how do you get companies to

53:15

do it? And the underlying question is why haven't

53:17

they done it already? Because there

53:19

are mission critical products that we

53:22

really need here. And

53:24

there's, you know, obviously non-mission critical

53:26

like basketballs and, you know,

53:28

toilet paper and paper plates.

53:31

Why don't we already have manufacturing here?

53:33

Because Americans will not pay a premium for

53:36

American made. If Americans paid a premium for

53:38

American made, as an entrepreneur, I'd be starting

53:40

factories left and right. I mean, we build

53:42

a factory for costplusdrugs.com. We did it for

53:44

one of my bike companies and it's all

53:46

robotics driven. And, you know, if

53:48

I could just amortize the cost over a shorter

53:51

period of time, because people would pay a little

53:53

bit more for American made products,

53:55

you would see that happen. But that's not

53:57

who we are. We want the least expensive.

54:00

we outsourced a lot of this

54:03

manufacturing. But again, to

54:05

continue the tariffs conversation, China

54:07

has learned a lot more from their experience

54:09

when Trump was president than Trump has. China

54:12

has started, has built or

54:14

bought manufacturing plants,

54:16

factories around the world. And

54:19

China also has done the same thing

54:21

in Mexico, so that they can manufacture

54:23

in Mexico and under the USMCA that

54:25

Trump's designed and signed, it

54:28

reduces the cost to, I don't know

54:30

if it's zero tariffs or close for

54:32

anything that's made with their components in

54:34

Mexico and shipped to the United States.

54:36

And if Trump jacks up the tariffs,

54:39

they're just going to tell their importers here

54:41

in the United States, why

54:43

don't you buy from our factory in

54:46

Indonesia or buy from our factory in

54:48

Vietnam. And the tariffs, meaning the

54:50

tariffs accomplished nothing except inflating the cost of

54:52

goods for all of us. And he just

54:54

doesn't understand that. And that's where I spend

54:57

a lot of my time going out there

54:59

and explaining those things. And the last thing,

55:01

I'll go back to deportation, the

55:03

impact on businesses is significant.

55:06

When you run a small business, it's almost like family.

55:08

It's like you're podcasting your business the same. You know

55:11

everybody, you know when their kids are sick and

55:13

when you have a restaurant, when you have a

55:16

warehouse, whatever it may be, if

55:18

someone's knocking on your door, asking

55:20

to see paperwork and

55:22

checking and going to the homes of

55:24

your employees to check to see if

55:27

grandma is documented or not, that

55:29

impacts everything that happens in that

55:31

business. That makes it near

55:33

impossible to run that business. And then

55:36

of course, if there's mass deportations for

55:38

hardworking people, what happens to the

55:40

economy could be far, far

55:42

worse. So when they talk about when the

55:44

economists have talked about the impact of tariffs,

55:47

they haven't talked about the impact of

55:49

deportations, nor have they included the economic

55:52

impact, not just on

55:54

businesses, but of the actual

55:56

cost of deporting somebody. What

55:58

I read is that it's 15. $15,000

56:01

per person. Now to give you a

56:03

frame of reference on the numbers he's

56:05

looking at, there are

56:07

1.9 million incarcerated people in this

56:09

country, from federal down to local

56:12

prisons and jails. He

56:14

wants to deport millions,

56:17

millions. Yeah, so like 12 million,

56:19

20 million, I have a number of kids. Whatever

56:21

he decides, yeah. If he

56:23

just starts to deport a million

56:25

people times $15,000 per person, that's

56:28

$15 billion. Plus the

56:30

time and cost for all the local

56:32

police departments or whoever he militarizes to

56:34

go and pull them out of their

56:37

homes to do the checkpoints, whatever it

56:39

may be. That's incremental cost

56:41

above and beyond the $15,000 per person.

56:45

So you want to talk about a

56:47

budget breaker and a deficit grower. If

56:49

he actually does 10 million,

56:52

that's $150 billion.

56:56

If it's 20 million people like he says and

56:58

he's going to deport him, you

57:01

can do the math. That's $300 billion. To

57:04

say nothing of the knock-on effects economically,

57:07

but ethically. When you think

57:10

about the details, they're so horrific ethically.

57:12

I just get

57:14

the sense that, again, this comes back

57:16

to the fact that nothing sticks to

57:19

him and everything is hyperbolically discounted. So

57:21

his words mean nothing. I literally

57:24

think he could say, we're just going

57:26

to round them up and kill them and turn them into dog

57:28

food. And his fans would still

57:30

say, oh, he's not going to do that. That makes sense.

57:32

Yeah. He's not going to do that. It's

57:34

funny. So he came out at

57:37

one point and I don't know if he's mentioned

57:39

it since, where he's going to put caps on

57:41

credit card interest rates. And

57:43

I went on Twitter and was like, oh,

57:45

so he's a socialist now. Maybe he's even

57:48

communist. Because Kamala Harris doesn't have any price

57:50

caps anywhere. And then the response

57:52

was no, but it makes perfect sense. Nobody likes

57:54

those interest rates. And I was like, I thought

57:56

you were against Marxism and price caps and limits.

58:00

Oh no, Donald Trump is looking out for

58:02

us. How concerned are

58:05

you about wealth inequality

58:07

and what would

58:10

you propose as a sane approach to taxation?

58:12

I'm glad you brought that up. So when

58:14

I've sold my companies, each and every time I've

58:17

given a big chunk to the employees. My first

58:19

business when I was in my 20s, we sold

58:21

for $6 million, a million went

58:23

to employees. My second business, we sold

58:25

to Yahoo for $5.7 million

58:28

in stock, taught people how to hedge and 300 out of

58:31

330 employees became millionaires. When

58:34

I sold a chunk in the Mavs, we

58:36

handed out $50 million in bonuses. So I'm

58:38

a big believer that this is a group

58:40

effort and everybody deserves to be rewarded. The

58:44

only way to minimize or

58:46

reduce, not say minimize, but

58:48

reduce income inequality is for

58:50

people to have appreciable assets.

58:53

When you're living paycheck to paycheck,

58:55

there's just no amount

58:57

of payment that you're going to

58:59

get where you can save enough to truly make

59:01

a difference. And so I'm a big believer in

59:03

employee stock ownership plans. And as it

59:05

turns out, so is Kamala Harris. And

59:08

she's come out and said specifically

59:10

that she is going to endorse

59:12

and support and increase and enhance

59:14

the employee stock ownership programs and

59:17

similar programs that will allow, that

59:19

will make it easier for employers

59:21

to give equity to everybody. So

59:24

if you work for a startup

59:26

and it sells, you get paid.

59:28

If you work for a big

59:30

company, she'll give them incentives to

59:32

give stock to everybody. So if

59:34

there's a liquidity event, you'll get

59:36

paid. If there's dividends, you'll get

59:38

paid. And so taking on

59:41

businesses and incenting them to offer stock

59:43

to everybody in my mind is one

59:45

of the best ways to do it. The

59:48

second best way to do it is

59:50

her down payment assistance plan. Now, a

59:52

lot of people have made it sound like, oh

59:54

my God, this is so inflationary. But what they

59:56

don't realize is that it's not new. Like

59:59

in the city of Houston, it's not new. in, they have down

1:00:01

payment assistance programs that will support,

1:00:03

that will offer you up to

1:00:06

$50,000 in down payment assistance. I

1:00:08

mean, if you just Google down payment assistance

1:00:11

programs, they're all over the country. There's

1:00:13

hundreds of them. So this is nothing new.

1:00:15

This just codifies it on a national level and

1:00:17

helping people who are first time home buyers

1:00:19

who have great credit because you don't want

1:00:22

mortgage lenders being stuck with a bag and

1:00:24

people not being able to pay. And

1:00:27

so having that available is

1:00:30

a great way to help people get an

1:00:32

asset that appreciates. I mean, it's

1:00:34

very, very straightforward. And to

1:00:36

me, those are the two best ways to

1:00:38

start to address income inequality. Now, what

1:00:41

is your reaction to the proposed,

1:00:43

I think this proposal has since been

1:00:45

withdrawn or otherwise

1:00:48

deprecated, but the proposed

1:00:50

tax on unrealized capital

1:00:52

gains? That's not going to happen. Yeah, it

1:00:54

would have been horrific. And

1:00:57

so did that come directly from the Harris

1:00:59

campaign or was that a Biden campaign? Both,

1:01:02

both. So what happened was

1:01:04

when the initial presentation

1:01:06

of it, if you will, was never truly

1:01:08

proposed. So when Biden came out with this

1:01:11

2024 budget, they had to find a way

1:01:13

to balance it. That's how it was explained

1:01:15

to me. And so they incorporated this tax

1:01:17

on unrealized capital gains. And

1:01:20

when I saw that while Biden was still the candidate,

1:01:22

I come and called one of the people I know

1:01:24

there and I was like, what the hell is this?

1:01:26

This is an economy crusher. And they go, yeah, we

1:01:29

understand it's never going to happen.

1:01:31

We just needed it in there

1:01:33

for budgetary reasons. And then someone,

1:01:35

when Kamala became the candidate,

1:01:38

someone went on CNBC and said, yeah,

1:01:40

she supports it. Well, we haven't

1:01:42

heard from that person since. So I

1:01:45

called up the Harris folks and I'm

1:01:47

like, tell me this is not true

1:01:49

because this is the worst thing for

1:01:51

the economy. And they're like, no, it's not true.

1:01:53

It's not going to happen. And

1:01:56

the proof is obviously every

1:01:58

Harris sponsored campaign. event

1:02:00

that I do, I bring this up and say

1:02:02

it's not going to happen. And they're

1:02:05

still sending me out there. And

1:02:07

so they've told me from the paint, I haven't heard

1:02:09

it from her mouth, but I haven't asked her, but

1:02:11

I've heard it from the mouths of multiple people in

1:02:13

the campaign that it's not going to happen. It would

1:02:15

be helpful if she said it's not going to happen.

1:02:18

Yeah, and I said the same thing,

1:02:20

but the response was, people don't

1:02:22

care about the people that impacts. You got

1:02:24

to have $100 million or more in assets,

1:02:26

and there's not a whole lot of sympathy for

1:02:29

folks in my position. Yeah, I mean, when you

1:02:31

think about the details of trying to impose that

1:02:33

tax though, it imposes such

1:02:35

a crazy cognitive overhead on the government.

1:02:37

It's just bizarre to think of tracking

1:02:39

ups and downs. It's ridiculous. And plus

1:02:41

the people that'll get whipsawed. I mean,

1:02:43

you take your company public and your

1:02:45

equity, rich and cash poor, you

1:02:48

might have to borrow hundreds of millions of

1:02:50

dollars to pay your tax bill and

1:02:53

have $50 in the bank. Yeah.

1:02:56

Well, I guess finally, Mark,

1:02:58

let's just touch on

1:03:00

your expectations around America's

1:03:03

place in the world in

1:03:06

backstopping the rules-based international order,

1:03:09

and I think specifically supporting

1:03:11

allies like Israel. What is

1:03:13

your expectation of a Harris

1:03:16

administration? Because to take

1:03:18

that final point first, I think

1:03:20

there are many Jews who imagine

1:03:22

that there's some lesson to be

1:03:24

drawn from Trump's first term that

1:03:27

he is a totally reliable ally

1:03:29

for the state of Israel and

1:03:32

above all will defend it.

1:03:34

And there's nothing to worry about

1:03:36

on that front. And conversely, you

1:03:38

have in the example of the

1:03:41

Biden and Harris administration, some

1:03:43

obvious support. I mean, we've given them a

1:03:45

lot of military aid and although we've had

1:03:47

moments where we seem to be withholding that

1:03:49

aid or delaying it, but we've given

1:03:51

apart from those first weeks after October

1:03:53

7th, there has been a kind of

1:03:56

talking out of both sides of their

1:03:58

mouths phenomenon coming. from

1:04:00

the administration and obviously there's

1:04:03

pressure from the activist

1:04:05

class within the Democratic Party to

1:04:07

be far more concerned about

1:04:09

what's happening to the Palestinians than really

1:04:12

any other people on Earth. How

1:04:14

do you do the math on

1:04:16

this issue? I mean, I can't speak

1:04:19

from a lot of detailed discussions with

1:04:21

them other than to say, my

1:04:23

brief conversations with Doug Emmuth, who is Jewish,

1:04:26

that he's hardcore

1:04:29

and he's fully supportive of Israel

1:04:32

and she takes a lot

1:04:34

of counsel from him. And

1:04:36

I think they've had to walk

1:04:38

a fine line and find an equilibrium and I

1:04:40

think that's been smart because I

1:04:43

think the more...if they

1:04:45

don't pay any attention to Gaza, then

1:04:48

the protests on college campuses get worse.

1:04:51

And I think that is why they've walked a

1:04:53

fine line, but that's just me supposing.

1:04:56

But I don't think there's any doubt and

1:04:58

there's no doubt in my mind that

1:05:00

they'll be fully supportive that they're all

1:05:02

in on Israel without any

1:05:04

hesitation whatsoever, but that's just my

1:05:06

opinion. And in terms of

1:05:08

the rest of the world, I think they'll back

1:05:10

all of our allies. I know when we

1:05:13

talked and I literally talked to the

1:05:16

campaign when I was in Pennsylvania about

1:05:18

Polish Americans and the issue of Ukraine.

1:05:21

I think it's a given that if Ukraine

1:05:23

is given up to Putin, Poland is next.

1:05:26

And to the 770,000 Polish Americans in the state of Pennsylvania, that's

1:05:31

a big deal. And she's made

1:05:33

that commitment that she will

1:05:35

be there for our allies as all of

1:05:39

NATO. So I mentioned Taiwan,

1:05:41

she said that they will support

1:05:43

and protect Taiwan. They're not going

1:05:45

to get into the politics between

1:05:47

the two countries, but if there's

1:05:49

any type of military

1:05:51

action, we will be there.

1:05:54

And I think that's smart. And so

1:05:56

I think with the exception of the four years

1:05:58

under Trump, I think you'll see a lot. more

1:06:00

or a lot of what's already

1:06:02

happened historically from United States military

1:06:04

and from a diplomacy perspective. And

1:06:06

I'll also add Kamala Harris

1:06:09

understands diplomacy. She knows

1:06:11

what the word diplomacy means and

1:06:13

she understands the process required

1:06:16

and the quality of people

1:06:18

in a cabinet and in

1:06:21

ambassadorships required in order to make

1:06:23

diplomacy work. You don't

1:06:25

have any sense of

1:06:27

that from Donald Trump. The thing

1:06:30

about Donald Trump, you can't point

1:06:32

to one situation or example where

1:06:34

he has given a detailed explanation

1:06:36

of policy. You can't

1:06:38

point to one example where you think

1:06:40

to yourself, wow, that was really a

1:06:42

nuanced response from Donald Trump about a

1:06:44

policy issue. Never, ever,

1:06:47

the exact opposite with

1:06:49

Kamala Harris. She's

1:06:52

a policy geek. She likes to

1:06:54

dig into policy. She likes to read it. She

1:06:56

likes to understand it. She wants to know what's

1:06:58

happening in the world and how we can have

1:07:00

an impact. And to me, that's critically important because

1:07:03

we've talked about Donald Trump being transactional.

1:07:05

We don't want him selling our relationships

1:07:07

to the highest bidder. In

1:07:10

some respects, and I'm not an expert on

1:07:12

this, he did it with Yemen in

1:07:14

2018, was it? When there were people,

1:07:16

100,000 plus people died in Yemen and we kept

1:07:21

on selling weapons to Saudi Arabia. And

1:07:24

that's who he is. Strangely,

1:07:27

there's not a lot of protests on

1:07:29

college campuses around that. I wonder why.

1:07:31

No, shockingly enough. And the never wars,

1:07:34

Donald Trump did nothing

1:07:36

to stop this war. Yeah.

1:07:38

Well, Mark, is there anything left

1:07:41

to say but either against Donald Trump

1:07:43

or in favor of Harris before we

1:07:45

close out here? Yeah, I mean,

1:07:47

in favor of Kamala Harris, what's critical to

1:07:49

me, what she said yesterday

1:07:52

in DC, when

1:07:55

she talked about, I'm not trying to get people

1:07:57

who disagree with me, I'm trying to put them

1:07:59

at the table. with me. I want to

1:08:01

hear from them and learn from them. That's

1:08:03

leadership. That is

1:08:05

the definition of leadership. She's

1:08:08

not out to get people, she's out

1:08:10

to learn from people. And when people

1:08:12

question, she's too far left, or

1:08:15

is she still progressive, that

1:08:17

is your answer right there. She's open-minded,

1:08:19

she's not an ideologue. How often does

1:08:21

that happen in politics? And this is

1:08:23

my personal opinion across the board. I

1:08:26

think she's learned a lot from Donald Trump

1:08:28

over the past nine years. That

1:08:30

party politics takes second

1:08:33

to directly communicating with the

1:08:35

people and being in a position

1:08:37

to understand their needs. And

1:08:40

it doesn't matter what the Democrats think. We learned

1:08:42

it doesn't matter what the Republican Party thinks anymore.

1:08:44

He's taking it over. It's now the

1:08:46

family business. And for Kamala, I think

1:08:49

similarly, she realizes she's

1:08:51

got to communicate with Americans that in

1:08:53

order for this country to be successful

1:08:56

going forward, she's got to represent everybody.

1:08:58

And if you disagree with her,

1:09:00

that's okay. She wants to hear from

1:09:02

you. She says she's going to put

1:09:04

independents and or Republicans in her cabinet.

1:09:07

That's leadership. That's talking

1:09:09

to people. The best leaders are people who

1:09:11

communicate with everybody. You

1:09:13

don't have to agree with them. You don't have to

1:09:15

give them what they want, but you have to be

1:09:17

able to communicate, listen, and understand. I don't

1:09:20

think Donald Trump is capable of any of those

1:09:22

things. I know Kamala Harris is. Yeah,

1:09:24

she had a nice line along

1:09:26

those lines in one of

1:09:28

her speeches where she says, I have a to-do list.

1:09:30

He has an enemies list, which

1:09:32

really does sharpen up the distinction. She

1:09:36

has most in her favor. And I

1:09:38

really, I don't mean to discount her competence

1:09:41

as a leader, as a

1:09:43

politician, as a possible president. I think she'll

1:09:45

be fine and perhaps even quite

1:09:47

good, but above all, she'll

1:09:50

be normal. I mean, I'm just yearning

1:09:52

for this return to normal politics. Amen.

1:09:55

Amen. It's just

1:09:57

the Ajita that. happens

1:10:00

between families. I know it's in my family. You

1:10:03

know, who you voting for, you know,

1:10:05

my brother-in-law, you know, started talking crap

1:10:07

about me online and I had to block him.

1:10:10

I mean, it's just crazy. Well,

1:10:12

that's the point I think that there's really no

1:10:14

denying whatever your, even if someone

1:10:16

does not agree with anything we've said

1:10:18

so far about Trump or about Harris,

1:10:21

what is undeniable is that

1:10:23

Trump drives half the country crazy.

1:10:26

Right. And if you, so if you just

1:10:28

think half the country has TDS, okay, fine,

1:10:30

but you have to admit that's

1:10:33

not a good thing. Even if

1:10:35

that's your view, you should

1:10:37

want to live in a country where politics

1:10:40

is not taking up this much

1:10:42

bandwidth. I agree. And

1:10:44

we're not, one country, one half the country

1:10:47

isn't despising the decisions of the other half

1:10:49

of the country. And the reason why we

1:10:51

haven't returned to normal under Biden is Trump

1:10:55

hasn't gone away. Yes. But we're still

1:10:57

in this mode where Trump has the, you

1:10:59

know, we don't, we no longer have a

1:11:01

normal Republican party. There's not a normal

1:11:03

conservative side of the balance here. The Republican party does not

1:11:05

exist anymore. It's

1:11:08

just a personality cult. Exactly right.

1:11:10

How sad is it that rather than

1:11:12

being looking at the election and

1:11:14

election day as a crowning

1:11:17

achievement for our democracy,

1:11:19

our republic, it's like,

1:11:22

okay, I'm so glad it's over. And

1:11:24

I hope half the country accepts the results. Finally,

1:11:28

the other point here is that even if

1:11:30

you are a single issue

1:11:32

voter and the far

1:11:34

left has just driven you

1:11:36

crazy this last decade, whether

1:11:38

it's the trans issue or

1:11:40

immigration or defund the police

1:11:43

or whatever the tipping point

1:11:45

was articulated by the far

1:11:47

left, if that's your issue, my

1:11:49

argument is that the pendulum is

1:11:52

in the process of swinging back in the

1:11:54

democratic party. And if we elect Trump again

1:11:56

for four years, it will swing

1:11:58

out again into crazy town.

1:12:00

Even if you just want to

1:12:03

normalize the left side of our politics

1:12:05

and have sane institutions, if you want Harvard

1:12:08

and the New York Times to be sane

1:12:10

again and reliable, well,

1:12:13

then if you had to place a bet,

1:12:16

it gets more normalized and more reliable

1:12:18

under Harris than under Trump because Trump

1:12:20

is a continuous provocation to the left.

1:12:24

And there's no path to get him

1:12:26

to understand something. With a Kamala

1:12:28

Harris presidency, you can lobby against the things

1:12:30

you don't like. You can

1:12:32

protest against the things you don't like, and

1:12:35

you will be heard. And

1:12:37

there'll be at least some normalcy in

1:12:39

Congress that hopefully you'll be heard. With

1:12:42

Trump, he doesn't listen. I

1:12:45

was talking to somebody who knows him well, who

1:12:48

actually served in the Trump administration.

1:12:50

And he was saying that Trump would call him

1:12:52

and others 24-7, right? He just

1:12:55

spent all his time on the phone

1:12:57

into the wee hours in the morning,

1:12:59

getting perspective from only the

1:13:01

people he knows. He got perspective

1:13:03

from watching television, Twitter

1:13:05

slash true social now, and

1:13:08

his friends on the phone. That's no way to run

1:13:10

a government. Yeah. Well, it

1:13:12

is if you want my pillow

1:13:14

guy and Mike Flynn and the

1:13:16

other... Freaks and grifters

1:13:18

in power. And I even knew

1:13:20

some of those freaks and grifters before they went for

1:13:23

Trump, and they were freaks and grifters before, and he

1:13:25

just ignored the fact that they were freaks and grifters.

1:13:27

Yeah. Well, Mark, it's great to

1:13:30

have you on the podcast. Thank you for everything you're

1:13:32

doing, and I will be thinking about you next week,

1:13:34

whatever happens. Yeah. Thank you, Sam. Thanks for having me

1:13:36

on. I'm a big fan, and I really appreciate it.

1:13:39

It was a lot of fun.