0:10

Welcome to this episode of To

0:12

the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Six.

0:14

This is a normal Monday. President

0:16

of the United States is meeting

0:19

with the world's coolest dictator, whatever

0:21

that means. Apparently, Donald Trump has

0:23

also decided to tell the US

0:25

Supreme Court to fuck all the

0:27

way off on the issue of

0:29

dealing with the gentleman who was

0:31

a rendition to El Salvador. We'll

0:33

talk about that just a little

0:36

bit later. And joining me right

0:38

now, boy, talk about a timely

0:40

guest, Tim O'Brien, from Bloomberg

0:42

opinion. Tim, how are you? Oh

0:44

Charlie I'm Marvey you know all

0:47

is all is well with the

0:49

world there's nothing that's unpredictable there's

0:51

nothing that's disconcerting everything's lined up

0:54

and functioning it's like a well oil machine

0:56

nothing is gross I'm just looking at

0:58

a tweet here where trumps on Air

1:00

Force one basically saying you know that

1:02

the Russians didn't commit didn't I'm sorry,

1:04

Trump says the Russians didn't mean to

1:06

commit that Palm Sunday massacre. I'm told

1:08

they made a mistake, just parroting Putin's

1:10

line and then he puts out a

1:12

tweet this morning, I don't know whether

1:14

you've seen it or whatever it's called

1:16

now, that I had nothing to do

1:18

with this war all in caps, but I'm

1:20

working diligently to get the death and destruction

1:22

to stop. You know, it just does strike

1:24

me that one of the few people in

1:26

the world who really seems to get Donald

1:29

Trump is Vladimir Putin. unpopular opinion.

1:31

Everybody else is quailing and

1:33

quivering and lining up to

1:35

to bend the knee. And

1:38

Vladimir Putin knows, this guy's, he's

1:40

a scared little, you know, man child

1:42

who is easily flattered and influenced.

1:45

And so while the rest of

1:47

the world is kissing Trump's ass,

1:49

Vladimir Putin's humiliating

1:51

him. I mean, he's humiliating him.

1:53

Two days after his special envoy

1:56

meets with him and Trump bleats

1:58

out or whatever. is saying Russia's

2:00

got to get going on on

2:02

the peace deal. What does Vladimir

2:04

Putin do? He rains death on Ukraine

2:07

and Trump just has to say,

2:09

you know, thank you sir. May

2:11

I have another one? I mean,

2:13

what? Well, and he's sitting across

2:15

the table. I think this is

2:17

true in a different way of

2:19

his relationship with she in which

2:21

you know both of his opponents

2:23

are think long term they're methodical

2:25

they understand his weaknesses they understand

2:27

that he wants to move very

2:29

quickly so he can show that

2:31

in the first four months or

2:33

five months of his presidency

2:35

he was able to solve the

2:38

problems Joe Biden couldn't and that

2:40

you know he could he could

2:42

get China to fully back off

2:44

from trade abuses and that he

2:47

could get Putin to fully back

2:49

off from Ukraine and that all

2:51

of the tensions in the Middle

2:54

East would evaporate. And instead I

2:56

think you've seen an acceleration

2:58

of chaos and unpredictability and

3:01

national security issues. And in

3:03

the Putin example, Let's not

3:06

forget that moment when Zalenski

3:08

was in the Oval Office

3:11

and JD Vance and Trump

3:13

jointly bullied him in front

3:15

of an international audience, which

3:18

I'm sure wasn't lost on Putin.

3:20

And he now I think feels free

3:22

reign, you know, to rain bombs

3:24

down on two civilians in Ukraine.

3:26

And the U.S. should be deeply

3:29

embarrassed by this. It's a complete

3:31

forfeiture of our role as a

3:33

defender of democracy. You know, in

3:35

a world threatened by authoritarian

3:37

regimes, and it's so despondently

3:39

troubling. You know, Tim, a few weeks

3:41

ago, the last time we spoke, that was

3:43

at a time when all the smart people

3:46

were telling me, oh, no, Donald Trump is

3:48

just bluffing on the tariffs, he's not going

3:50

to go ahead with him. And you were

3:52

quite confident, I said, no, you think he

3:54

was going to go ahead with him, which

3:57

he did. So you were right. So let's

3:59

just talk about. this, the way that

4:01

he's handled all of this. I

4:03

mean, I'm struck by a couple

4:05

of things that I hope will

4:07

get to all of them. I

4:09

mean, the sort of unplanned unilateral

4:12

nature of these tariffs, the off

4:14

again, on again, I'm going to

4:16

impose them, I'm going to suspend

4:18

them, I'm going to provide exemptions

4:20

for my buddies. Just give me

4:22

your sense of where we're at as

4:24

we begin the week on this terror.

4:26

Well, you know, first and foremost.

4:29

No one would run a large

4:31

company or a large bureaucracy or

4:33

their own family affairs this way.

4:35

And again, that's not even a

4:37

partisan or ideological issue. It's just

4:40

about like, how do you manage

4:42

a process? Well, you don't manage

4:44

it this way. You don't manage

4:46

it by changing your position willy-nilly.

4:49

You don't manage it by surprising

4:51

your allies and essentially punishing

4:53

your friends. And you don't

4:55

back it up with... erratic, nonsensical

4:57

messaging in a trade formula

4:59

that was created out of

5:02

Holcloth and was bizarre and

5:04

really wasn't a formula. It

5:06

was just an excuse and

5:09

a veneer. I think one

5:11

of the things that's happening

5:13

right now, you know, Trump

5:16

1.0, there were different things

5:18

he did that troubled or

5:20

outraged different sectors of society.

5:23

Liberals were concerned by a

5:25

conservative I think people from both

5:27

camps were concerned about a

5:30

rollback in civil rights or

5:32

are posturing overseas with dictators.

5:34

But the Wall Street and

5:36

the business community largely escaped

5:39

Trump's predations in his first term.

5:41

In fact, they got a massive

5:43

tax cut. A lot of the

5:45

regulation stuff Wall Street and the

5:47

business communities always wanted

5:49

out of Washington administrations

5:52

and Trump campaign coming

5:54

into Trump 2.0. tax cut again,

5:56

more deregulation, a rebirth

5:58

of deal-laking, and terror. And I

6:00

think the business and the financial

6:02

community thought, okay, well, we'll get

6:05

those first three. But he really

6:07

won't do tariffs, because who would

6:09

do tariffs? It's self-destructive and damaging.

6:12

You'd have to really want to

6:14

just be somewhat fanatical if you're

6:16

going to pursue something like that, because

6:18

we have a trade regime that has

6:21

costs. It can hurt working Americans

6:23

and we have to account

6:25

for that and deal with

6:27

it. But by and large

6:29

history has progressed along trade

6:31

being something that binds

6:33

nations together and creates

6:35

economic growth. And Trump

6:38

just turned around and blew

6:40

that up. And Wall Street now

6:42

and I think the business meeting

6:44

a taste of how they can be

6:46

directly harmed by his... his ignorance

6:48

his unpredictability and his poor management skills

6:50

i think right now you know he's

6:52

now you know the bond market almost

6:55

cracked last week you know the bond

6:57

market was at and and got his

6:59

attention it got his attention because

7:01

the corporate corporations issue bonds raise

7:03

money the federal government issues bonds

7:05

to raise money and when that

7:07

market starts to go south you

7:09

have knock on effects across every

7:11

sector of the economy and society and

7:13

so finally people got in his ear

7:15

and you now have this 90 day kind

7:18

of a moratorium. He jacked

7:20

up rates, tariff rates on

7:22

China, he lessened the most

7:24

extreme rates on everyone else,

7:27

but it's still around 10%. And

7:29

I suspect over the next three

7:31

months there's going to be quite

7:33

a war going on to get

7:36

him to back off of these

7:38

entirely. And I think for him it will

7:40

never come down to the math, it won't

7:42

come down to the economy, it won't come

7:44

down what's good to other people. It'll come

7:46

down to his own sense of whether he'll

7:49

be seen as someone who backed down. And

7:51

someone who didn't keep his word. Well, he'll

7:53

declare victory no matter what happens, right?

7:55

I mean, he will. And they did that

7:57

last week, right? Yeah, right. While he was

7:59

blinking. he blinks and declares it,

8:01

you know, the art of the deal. Right,

8:04

we've talked about this before,

8:06

on his epitaph, on his

8:08

tombstone, we'll say, I won. You know,

8:10

we'll go to his grave with saying that,

8:12

I think. Okay, well, before we

8:14

get into some of this stuff,

8:17

I just, I am so like

8:19

the markets, completely confused about where

8:21

we're at right now. You know,

8:23

they're on again, they're off again,

8:26

there are exemptions over the exemptions

8:28

over the weekend. one of the

8:30

real men of genius of the

8:32

administration. Howard Lutnik goes on television

8:34

yesterday and says, yeah, but even

8:37

that's temporary. So I'm only confused

8:39

because it was like five minutes

8:41

ago that Howard Lutnik was telling

8:43

us that we're going to have

8:45

millions of American jobs screen these

8:47

iPhones and then like two days later, Trump

8:49

apparently says, no, no, no, we're not going

8:52

to apply it to iPhone. Where are we

8:54

at on? What's off? How can anyone in

8:56

business make any sort of a decision? given

8:59

the fact that right now the

9:01

state is Donald Trump's id.

9:03

So that's what you know

9:05

the state is his id.

9:08

Absolutely Charlie. You know he's

9:10

Mr. id and he's visiting

9:12

it on every sector of

9:14

society now. Howard Lutnik

9:17

is an interesting case

9:19

study. Donald Trump has

9:21

always had. People who

9:23

are not regarded as first-tier

9:25

financiers, you know, he's a

9:28

self-made man, Cantor played an

9:30

important role in brokering deals in

9:33

the bond market. It's what it

9:35

was built on. He is, you

9:37

know, he is not a Goldman

9:39

Sachs Investment Banker, and he's not

9:41

somebody who I think is a

9:44

policy thinker. He's a retail... broker

9:46

on Wall Street, which is a

9:48

very rough and tumble world. And

9:50

those are the people that have

9:53

historically been attracted to Trump and

9:55

who he's attracted to. People who

9:57

are unconventional and people who find...

10:00

different cracks in markets to inhabit

10:02

that other people may not want

10:04

to go into. And you know he's a

10:06

salesman, right? I mean he's basically

10:08

a salesman. Like Trump is a

10:10

policy maker. Yes, and it's why

10:12

neither one of them actually salesmaking

10:14

is a good is a good skill to

10:16

have on the campaign trail. It's not a

10:18

great skill to have when you have to

10:20

talk about why you're pursuing a policy. And

10:22

let Nick... two weeks ago I think or

10:25

less was on CNN and said mark my

10:27

word by the fourth quarter this year you

10:29

will have rapid expansion of you

10:31

know of the economy and a

10:33

booming GDP. So he's already planted

10:35

a flag for his own administration

10:37

be judged by later this year and I

10:39

have a hard time given the way believing

10:42

given the way the cards are on the

10:44

table right now that you're going to see

10:46

super strong economic growth in the US in

10:48

the fourth quarter. I hope we do. You

10:50

know, I'm an optimist, I think

10:53

a growing economy is good for

10:55

everybody, but I have a hard

10:57

time seeing how we get there.

10:59

And I have a hard time

11:01

understanding most of what Howard Luttnick

11:04

says when he goes on

11:06

television to explain the administration's policies,

11:08

because it is a mash of

11:10

promises and conjecture and conjecture. Yeah,

11:12

I mean they're completely and you'll

11:14

hear people make defenses that are,

11:16

you know, I'm sorry, you know,

11:19

A is not B, you can't

11:21

count on the revenue and then

11:23

also say that you're moving toward

11:25

a zero tariff, you can't say

11:27

it's non-negotiable, I mean, let's just

11:29

talk about these exemptions though, because

11:31

one of the things as a

11:34

free market classical liberal I've always

11:36

objected to about tariffs is, and

11:38

this this phrase by the way is Grover

11:40

Cleveland, who I think we got to

11:42

serve non consecutive non-consecutive terms. He

11:44

was very anti-tariff and he called

11:46

it the communism of Pelf, which

11:48

is basically called the communism of

11:50

Grief, the potential for corruption. And

11:52

you wrote about this last week,

11:54

where Donald Trump sits back. I

11:56

mean, as I wrote yesterday, I

11:58

said, you know, So let's just

12:00

talk about that a little bit,

12:02

but he's still sitting on the

12:04

throne, and he can dispense fear

12:07

and favor. He can say, I'm

12:09

going to exempt you, I'm not

12:11

going to do exempt you, if

12:13

I like you, I'm going to

12:15

cut you a break, if I

12:17

don't like you, I'm going to

12:19

hit you, I'm going to hit

12:21

you with his business ending attacks.

12:23

So let's just talk about that

12:25

a little bit, the way in

12:27

which Donald Trump right now. knows that

12:29

he's got the world economy, the

12:31

markets, and the future of a lot of

12:34

these businesses in his hands. And

12:36

it is unchecked power. Well, you

12:38

know, he's specifically been attracted

12:40

to the areas of the

12:42

presidency where the president can

12:44

exercise unilateral decision making and

12:46

control. He's doing it on

12:48

national security. He's doing it

12:50

on around different parts of

12:53

immigration. federal funding of

12:55

all sorts of institutions and

12:57

endeavors and of course on

12:59

tariffs and the economy. And

13:02

you know the classic argument

13:04

for a strong executive

13:06

in the United States

13:08

is that quick decision-making

13:11

gets bogged down by the

13:13

federal bureaucracy and it makes

13:15

us less competitive and strong.

13:18

If you're going to

13:20

believe in the efficacy

13:22

of independent executive decision-making,

13:25

the executive has to

13:27

be a sophisticated, generous, mature,

13:29

and rational actor, and those

13:31

aren't things you tick off

13:33

around with Donald Trump. And

13:35

if you give in the power

13:38

to basically do carve-outs on

13:40

tariffs, it opens the door,

13:42

not just to flattery, but

13:44

to bribery. And to a

13:46

real helter-skelter approach to... who gets

13:48

tariff and who gets tariffs and who

13:50

doesn't and and it does again not

13:53

a way to run an economy and

13:55

the reason the stock market has been

13:57

bouncing around like a yo-yo is you know

13:59

it In the long term, the stock

14:01

market's a measure of corporate profitability,

14:04

ultimately. In the short term, it's

14:06

a measure of emotion and competence.

14:08

And clearly what the markets have

14:11

been saying is that Trump's lost

14:13

the narrative. You know, he's opened

14:15

this Pandora's box. I don't think

14:18

he's administration thought that they'd see

14:20

a market meltdown that signified

14:22

like we might not only have a

14:24

recession, we might have a depression. And

14:26

we may not only have. prices on

14:28

goods escalating, it may be that you

14:30

can't even buy some of those goods

14:33

in the United States. Audi, it's

14:35

best-selling EV, it's not going to sell

14:37

it. It said it cannot sell it

14:39

in the US anymore because the tariffs

14:42

make it too expensive to sell. And

14:44

that's a high-end purchase. But basics like

14:46

food and clothing that people rely on,

14:49

they're going to see store shelves not

14:51

carrying some of the products, much less.

14:53

Making them more expensive. And I

14:55

don't think I don't think this

14:58

administration really braced for the kinds

15:00

of impact and criticism Well, this

15:02

is this is the question Maggie

15:04

Haberman last week said in a

15:06

different context that Donald Trump basically

15:08

doesn't care about the optics anymore

15:10

that he's all out of fucks

15:12

to give basically He's not running

15:14

for re-election I'm a little skeptical

15:16

about that because this is a

15:18

man who's built his entire life

15:20

and his entire career on optics,

15:22

right? On being a performer, I'm

15:24

putting on a show. So you

15:26

think he was taken by, is

15:28

he rattled by this? Is he, I

15:30

mean, how do you think he's processing this

15:32

right now? Other than that he wants to

15:35

be a winner rather than a loser.

15:37

Yeah, I mean, I do think the velocity

15:39

of the response took them off guard

15:41

because their own responses to that

15:44

were so... in coherent and un useful

15:46

and it just fed the flames. So

15:48

I do think they were caught up

15:50

balance. I do think that Donald Trump

15:52

in this term is a different president

15:54

than Donald Trump in the first term

15:56

in that I do think he doesn't

15:58

I think he authentically a very deep

16:00

level, doesn't care about the impact

16:03

of his actions. And I think that

16:05

Maggie is right in that regard. I

16:07

think you see him in these cabinet

16:09

meetings and in the Oval Office, he

16:12

looks world weary, he looks bored, as

16:14

long as the people around him are

16:16

bending the knee. Yeah, like, you know,

16:18

these just weird, embarrassing cabinet

16:20

meetings where they go around

16:22

the table and everyone says

16:24

you're the best president in

16:26

the history of America and the

16:29

best leader. since the dawn of

16:31

civilization. And he's like, well, of

16:33

course, yeah, yeah, but he's sort

16:35

of slumping over on his hand

16:37

and looking a little bit bored.

16:39

And I think that, you

16:41

know, we've talked about this

16:44

before, but he has always

16:46

been so insulated from the

16:48

consequences of his own actions,

16:50

from his childhood to adulthood,

16:52

businessman, the presidency, the consequences,

16:54

his own actions. And he

16:56

just doesn't care about what

16:59

happens. when you burn the house down. And

17:01

I do think that that's an added

17:03

danger here because I think in three

17:05

months from now, if Wall Street and

17:08

the business community haven't sort of

17:10

pulled him off the ledge on

17:12

where he was with tariffs, it

17:14

will be because solely because

17:16

he wants to prove that he doesn't

17:18

back down and that he was right

17:20

from the start, even when he

17:22

was wrong from the start and should

17:24

back down. And that's... You know, that's

17:27

going to come into play on national

17:29

security issues, by the way, and other arenas

17:31

in which we don't want a president

17:33

who's built that way. Well, I want to

17:36

get to China in just a moment,

17:38

but I want to go back to

17:40

a moment, and I know you commented

17:42

on this last week. It really, really,

17:44

really struck me, though. He had imposed

17:47

on Liberation Day, these massive, massive new

17:49

tariffs. Then you had the markets crash,

17:51

the markets crash. He blinks. officially before

17:53

he puts out on social media good

17:56

data by stocks and there was a

17:58

lot of speculation that

18:00

this was a, you know, you have

18:02

the President of the United States handing

18:04

out stock tips, that if there was

18:06

whispering out there that he was about

18:08

to make an announcement, people could make.

18:10

hundreds of millions of dollars, if

18:12

not billions of dollars. The fact that

18:15

he has the power to move the

18:17

markets with a single social media pose.

18:19

I mean, I think it was, you've

18:21

said something along the lines of, you

18:24

know, I mean, just a few years

18:26

ago, the notion of the president of

18:28

the United States, you know, handing out

18:31

stock tips from the Oval Office would

18:33

have been absolutely unthinkable, and

18:35

yet it's in broad daylight, the

18:37

kind of, just, you know, naked

18:39

grief and he makes these announcements

18:41

on truth social, not before the

18:44

White House announces it. I mean,

18:46

just the, talk to me about

18:48

the corruption and the potential for

18:50

corruption and the way the business

18:52

community is reacting to that. Well,

18:54

you know, it's not only about stock

18:56

tips, you know, he and his family

18:59

are invested in a crypto trading platform

19:01

and have, you know, and they buy

19:03

and sell crypto, you know, and, you

19:05

know, and, you know, Trump coins and

19:07

all this other stuff. And meanwhile,

19:10

he's pushing policies that will make

19:12

crypto an asset held by the

19:14

Treasury Department. And he's constantly feathering

19:17

his nest out in the open

19:19

now. And the problem that's presented

19:21

by all of this, whether it's

19:24

the president giving stock tips or

19:26

the president baldly investing in assets

19:28

that the federal government is putting

19:30

its good faith behind, is that

19:33

there's no one around to investigate

19:35

to investigate it. whatever we suspect

19:37

around what's on toward here, is

19:40

he also controls the

19:42

federal apparatus that investigates

19:44

financial malfeasance at the federal

19:47

level, the FBI, the SEC,

19:49

you know, and all of

19:52

the various financial regulatory agencies.

19:54

He controls them, they're populated

19:56

by people who are beholden

19:59

days. him. Right. And he

20:01

and Musk have been gutting many

20:03

of these agencies' abilities to do

20:05

their job. So this, this I

20:07

think was the key, yeah, this

20:09

is the key point here that

20:11

you're making is that he's engaging

20:14

in this corruption in broad daylight,

20:16

but you look around and go

20:18

and who's going to hold him

20:20

accountable for it? Who's going to

20:22

investigate it? And you realize that

20:24

right now, Donald Trump, we know

20:26

all this talk about rule of

20:28

law and being above the law,

20:30

Donald Trump knows that we have

20:33

spent decades building this massive infrastructure

20:35

of watching this kind of insider

20:37

trading and misconduct and self-dealing. And

20:39

he doesn't need to worry about

20:41

any of that anymore, does he?

20:43

No, not at all. And he's

20:45

also, he's also rewriting. some of

20:47

the legal architecture that governs the

20:49

definition of fraud and and whether

20:52

or not certain frauds can be

20:54

prosecuted. It is so it is

20:56

so detrimental to the rule of

20:58

law in a well-functioning financial ecosystem

21:00

to have this kind of thing

21:02

going on and and There are

21:04

a lot of times with the

21:06

federal bureaucracy overreaches. There are a

21:08

lot of times with the private

21:11

sector overreaches. The US has found

21:13

one of the reasons we get

21:15

more capital invested in this country

21:17

than any other country in the

21:19

world is that we've got an

21:21

awesome machinery for taking in investments,

21:23

finding profitable destinations for them, making

21:25

sure that people aren't getting cheated

21:27

by other people along the way,

21:30

and hopefully getting a good result

21:32

that creates a positive outcome for

21:34

everyone above. And he's... He's just

21:36

pulling the rug out from underneath

21:38

that to feather his own financial

21:40

nest. And his party is not

21:42

calling it into question. I'm sure

21:44

there aren't referrals in place of

21:47

the SEC about the nature of

21:49

some of his post to truth

21:51

social as there would normally be.

21:53

And so the American public's just

21:55

going to be left in the

21:57

dark. And I think that's only

21:59

going to encourage Trump and members

22:01

of this. to be more aggressive.

22:03

Okay, so the other tipping point

22:06

last week, it felt like, and

22:08

maybe we've already passed this tipping

22:10

point, whether you're talking about law

22:12

firms or businesses, that a lot

22:14

of them have made a... Obviously,

22:16

they've decided that it is a

22:18

rational business decision to bend the

22:20

need of Donald Trump to go

22:22

along with him because right now,

22:25

given his power, given how it

22:27

is unchecked, given how nobody's going

22:29

to protect them, that it's easier

22:31

to simply go along. I mean,

22:33

Bloomberg reported that the Retail Industry

22:35

Leaders Association, which hates the tariffs,

22:37

decided not to bring a lawsuit

22:39

over the tariffs, even though the

22:41

group's research indicated a legal case

22:44

at a good chance. of succeeding

22:46

on the merits, but they decided

22:48

not to bring it because of

22:50

the potential challenge of finding law

22:52

firms willing to bring suits over

22:54

tariffs in light of Trump's attacks.

22:56

I mean, so you have business

22:58

going, you know, why even object?

23:00

Talk to me a little bit,

23:03

you know I'm a little bit

23:05

obsessed about this, these gigantic law

23:07

firms, these billion dollar law firms,

23:09

have now created this massive 600

23:11

million dollar slush fund for pro

23:13

bono work. Now I think they're

23:15

probably telling themselves, we'll still be

23:17

able to do a lot of

23:20

good, we won't be representing the

23:22

proud boys or anything, but it's

23:24

like, have you met Donald Trump?

23:26

I mean, do you know how

23:28

this is going to play? So

23:30

talk to me about these gigantic

23:32

law firms that have made the

23:34

decision to cut these deals with

23:36

Donald Trump. I mean, speaking of

23:39

corruption, using the threat of the

23:41

cudgel of government to get yourself

23:43

a private political benefit, it's almost

23:45

the definition, but again, why are

23:47

they doing it? And the cudgel

23:49

you're using is I will gut

23:51

the finances of your law firm.

23:53

Yeah. I will, I will, I

23:55

will, I will intercede. and make

23:58

it impossible for you to do

24:00

business with your own profitable clients

24:02

in order to get you to

24:04

to kiss the ring and The

24:06

other thing we should look at

24:08

is how are they defining some

24:10

of the pro bono work that

24:12

they do for Trump? In the

24:14

case of at least one law

24:17

firm, they said that they're going

24:19

to help him figure out... how

24:21

to start a sovereign wealth fund

24:23

for the federal government, which is

24:25

another one of these proposals Trump

24:27

has put in place, that he

24:29

is likely to benefit from financially,

24:31

and again gives him financial leverage

24:33

over the investment community. So, you

24:36

know, pro bono work has never

24:38

been, I think, defined as doing

24:40

free work that helps someone further

24:42

further their financial nest after they've

24:44

threatened to cut off your own

24:46

finances. It is, it is, it

24:48

is. That is so troubling on

24:50

its own in terms of how

24:53

the kind of deal some of

24:55

them are making. But I think

24:57

the other thing you put your

24:59

finger on is who do people

25:01

go to for representation when the

25:03

people in the legal community who

25:05

are supposed to represent them won't

25:07

because they're intimidated by Washington, the

25:09

White House, and Donald Trump. And

25:12

we're in the early stages of

25:14

this now because he now knows

25:16

it works. And he knows he

25:18

can shake law firms down to

25:20

get them to basically do his

25:22

bidding. And the price is going

25:24

up, right? And the price is

25:26

going up. You know, the legal

25:28

community has had people move in

25:31

and out of public service and...

25:33

and law firms for a very

25:35

long time. Some people regard it

25:37

as a, you know, a revolving

25:39

door that's corrupt because it's both

25:41

sides stroking one another, but the

25:43

realities are also people who come

25:45

out of law firms and do

25:47

incredible public service for the country

25:50

and bring a level of sophistication

25:52

to legal advocacy that we wouldn't

25:54

have if they didn't do that

25:56

otherwise. You and I know some

25:58

of those folks and... And he's

26:00

put targets on the back of

26:02

those kinds of people's backs because

26:04

every lawyer now is going to

26:06

have to say, is this worth

26:09

it? if I'm going to be

26:11

seen as someone who's disloyal to

26:13

the federal government and therefore a

26:15

detriment to my firm's financial health.

26:17

And that's bad again for legal

26:19

advocacy and for just a healthy

26:21

legal ecosystem. Well, and the thing

26:23

that's most frustrating is that they

26:26

would have won these legal challenges.

26:28

I mean, the whole notion that

26:30

the government is going to threaten

26:32

retaliation if you sue the government

26:34

or if you... you know, represent

26:36

somebody who is a political critic

26:38

of the president. I mean, it

26:40

strikes me as ludicrous. I think

26:42

people in the legal profession, including

26:45

the judges, understand how fundamental this

26:47

is. So, and also that, you

26:49

know, the partners at Kirkland and

26:51

Alice were, by the way, how

26:53

much do partners are Kirkland dollars

26:55

make? Do they make $10 million

26:57

a year? Oh, I mean, I

26:59

think at the big firms you're

27:01

talking, you know, can, you know,

27:04

say $20 million dollars annually. And

27:06

in many cases larger, but I

27:08

think it's safe to say anywhere

27:10

from 10 to 30 million dollars

27:12

annually. So all of these, you

27:14

know, Kastrati barristers sitting around, you

27:16

know, in their in their offices,

27:18

looking at what Donald Trump is

27:20

doing to the rule of law,

27:23

looking what he is doing, you

27:25

know, his campaign of intimidation and

27:27

deciding that this is the moment

27:29

basically to get into bed with

27:31

him. I guess I'm... I'm slightly

27:33

surprised, although I think you've just

27:35

answered the question, why more lawyers

27:37

have not quit in protest, but

27:39

there's a lot of the line

27:42

for them, right? They have a

27:44

good deal. A lot of money.

27:46

And frankly, it comes down to

27:48

that. Okay, so let's just talk,

27:50

I want to stick on the

27:52

trade war. That's the soft point

27:54

he touches on so many institutions.

27:56

You know, he's going at the

27:59

universities, he gutting their funding. I

28:01

think I think there's Republicans on

28:03

the hill who look at the

28:05

amount of, you know, Trump's campaign.

28:07

but the pile of money he's

28:09

sitting on top of them, they

28:11

could get primary and get out

28:13

spent by him, that explains part

28:15

of their lack of courage in

28:18

opposing him. Like, you know, the

28:20

common threat in all of these

28:22

institutions is he's hitting people in

28:24

their wallets. And can do so

28:26

effectively. I mean, that's, it is

28:28

not, sometimes the bluff, it's not

28:30

always a bluff, and sometimes... I

28:32

think that you have both businesses

28:34

and law firms who say we

28:37

could probably win this but is

28:39

it worth the struggle? Are we

28:41

worth standing up for this particular

28:43

principle? And businesses earn the business

28:45

of business here. But let's go

28:47

back to the trade war. Clearly

28:49

you have this game of chicken

28:51

with China. And unlike other countries,

28:53

China at least right now. doesn't

28:56

look like it's going to blink.

28:58

A lot of interesting debate back

29:00

and forth saying that China has

29:02

the advantage or that there's no

29:04

way that China can win a

29:06

trade war. What do you think?

29:08

What is the peculiar specific dynamic

29:10

of a trade war with China

29:12

at this moment? This is such

29:15

a good segue from what we

29:17

just talked about because the only

29:19

way to deal with someone who's

29:21

bullying you financially or legally... is

29:23

to push back. Because ultimately they'll

29:25

keep bullying you otherwise. And we

29:27

haven't seen that in enough sectors

29:29

of U.S. society. Interestingly, this trade

29:32

war, the one country that is

29:34

built right now to be able

29:36

to push back against bullying trade

29:38

tactics is China. Really? Why? You

29:40

know... Why do you say that?

29:42

Because they export so much. They

29:44

depend on... They export so much,

29:46

but they you know, they they

29:48

brace themselves for catastrophe. I'm not

29:51

saying they won't get hurt but

29:53

They think in 1,000-year blocks. And

29:55

there was this great meme going

29:57

around on the web last week.

29:59

It was a bit of AI,

30:01

but it showed a Trump and

30:03

she's sitting next to each other.

30:05

And Trump is reading the art

30:07

of the deal, and she is

30:10

reading the art of war. And

30:12

she was literally, during the cultural

30:14

revolution, raised in the cave. And

30:16

he's taken, he has taken young

30:18

Chinese to task for being too

30:20

soft in this new era of

30:22

wealth in China. And that they

30:24

have to remember you have to

30:26

sacrifice and work hard to get

30:29

ahead, which are good American virtues.

30:31

By the way, there are so

30:33

many similarities actually between China and

30:35

the US in terms of just

30:37

the entrepreneurialism and the risk taking,

30:39

very different governments obviously, but there

30:41

are these very interesting cultural... Similarities.

30:43

And I think the Chinese, you

30:45

know, they basically dissed Trump at

30:48

the end of last week when

30:50

he jacked up, tear up Sun

30:52

China for the third time, they

30:54

said something like, this is just

30:56

silly. We are not even going

30:58

to respond to this. We're not

31:00

going to give you the dignity

31:02

of a response, because this means

31:05

nothing to us now. Yes, their

31:07

economy is going to get deeply

31:09

damaged because they rely on the

31:11

US export to China is going

31:13

to have an existential moment because

31:15

they've never built an authentic consumer

31:17

class in their own country. Because

31:19

once you create consumers, you lose

31:21

control of them. And free market

31:24

societies have people who are speaking

31:26

their own mind and exercising their

31:28

own financial preferences. And China, I

31:30

think, probably doesn't really want that

31:32

fully blown. But if they're going

31:34

to get past... this moment they're

31:36

going to have to be able

31:38

to replace export demand with domestic

31:40

consumer demand and I think you'll

31:43

see that happen. Let me interim

31:45

Trump is also scared the entire

31:47

region surrounding China, you know, Southeast

31:49

Asia as a whole, Asia as

31:51

a whole, and he's he's not

31:53

demonstrated the United States is willing

31:55

to be a friend to them.

31:57

At the top of his tariff

31:59

sit list were these tiny countries

32:02

like Cambodia and Thailand. So China

32:04

has an opening here actually to

32:06

be the global statesman. in a

32:08

time of unpredictability in the U.S.

32:10

and to say, we will do

32:12

the right thing financially, we will

32:14

forge new trading relations with you

32:16

that won't change willy-nilly, and we

32:18

will be your ally in this

32:21

time of uncertainty. So there's a

32:23

vacuum that he's treated as he

32:25

withdraws the soft power, maybe the

32:27

hard power, as he is no

32:29

longer a reliable economic partner. China

32:31

is going to step forward, can

32:33

step forward. Yeah, and the other

32:35

lesson, the Western European countries are

32:38

going to draw from this is

32:40

they now have a 30, a

32:42

90 day window to, they don't

32:44

really have to respond to Trump.

32:46

I mean, I think they'll make

32:48

gestures about liberating some of their

32:50

own terror regimes, so they are

32:52

less onerous United States. That is

32:54

not, that is a real issue.

32:57

You know, Trump is a finger

32:59

on something that. is a real

33:01

issue. He's just responding to it

33:03

in this hand-handed destructive way. And

33:05

he had a lot of momentum

33:07

on his side going into this

33:09

recent round when he backed down.

33:11

And that's what he did. Donald

33:13

Trump backed down. They saw that.

33:16

So they've now seen that when

33:18

push comes to shove, if the

33:20

financial markets are really Donald Trump

33:22

will back down. And I think

33:24

it's going to cause a lot

33:26

of them to push back countries

33:28

that may not have pushed back

33:30

in the past. And that's going

33:32

to be an interesting dynamic to

33:35

watch. Well, as a student of

33:37

history, one of the things that

33:39

scares me the most is... the

33:41

dangers of miscalculation the number of

33:43

wars that have been created because

33:45

people have miscalculated the risk the

33:47

willingness of others you think about

33:49

what the world was like in

33:52

in 1914 nobody in the world

33:54

thought that we were going to

33:56

go into a world war everybody

33:58

thought that that everybody was going

34:00

to be a rational actor and

34:02

especially with China miscalculations can be

34:04

can be economically damaging, but they

34:06

also can be deadly. Where does

34:08

Taiwan... The Cuban missile crisis? The

34:11

Cuban missile crisis. Talk about, you

34:13

know, right up until the wire,

34:15

you know, what could have happened,

34:17

what could have happened there. So,

34:19

how does Taiwan play in all

34:21

this? Because I think before this

34:23

began, it was increasingly obvious that

34:25

there was no way that Donald

34:27

Trump was going to come to

34:30

the defense of Taiwan. He was

34:32

going to let Taiwan go, but...

34:34

The dynamic seems to be changing

34:36

very rapidly. What do you think?

34:38

Do you have any thoughts on

34:40

that? Taiwan's defense minister, I was

34:42

in Asia about three weeks ago,

34:44

and one of the things that

34:46

drew a lot of attention to

34:49

the region was Taiwan's defense minister

34:51

saying on the record in an

34:53

interview that what we're learning now

34:55

is that we can't rely on

34:57

the United States to defend us

34:59

and we'll have to develop our

35:01

own defense systems. And I think

35:03

a lot of countries, including nuclear

35:05

weapons, he didn't specify nuclear weapons.

35:08

He just said, we'll have to

35:10

be responsible for our own defense.

35:12

But Poland has specifically said, yeah,

35:14

we're going to have to build

35:16

up our own nuclear stockpiles. So

35:18

the other thing that Donald Trump

35:20

has unleashed in this unspecified view

35:22

of the virtues of the US's

35:25

global security umbrella is he has

35:27

just seen it as us spending

35:29

money and not getting anything for

35:31

it and people free riding, when

35:33

in fact. It was an incredible

35:35

safety guarantee that allowed people to

35:37

form alliances with us, trade with

35:39

us, and there hasn't been a

35:41

major global war since World War

35:44

too. because of it. And he's

35:46

just, he's just defenestrating all of

35:48

that. And so I think for

35:50

countries that don't want to ally

35:52

with another major power, be it

35:54

China, there aren't many others when

35:56

you, when it's United States and

35:58

China right now for the most

36:00

part, are deciding you have to

36:03

go with, go with, go with

36:05

on their own. And that's what's

36:07

happening in Europe. The EU is

36:09

bulking up all of its defenses.

36:11

Who would have thought we'd be

36:13

in a world? in which people

36:15

were encouraging Japan and Germany to

36:17

rearm, aggressively rearm. But here we

36:19

are because of this misguided policy.

36:22

This is a global nightmare. Let's

36:24

switch subjects for a moment because,

36:26

but this all ties together. It

36:28

is the arrogance of this administration,

36:30

the respect for the rule of

36:32

law. Talk to me about what's

36:34

happening now with a case of

36:36

Kilmara Brayo Garcia. The Supreme Court

36:38

ruled nine to nothing, which is

36:41

not insignificant, that the Trump administration

36:43

had to facilitate, I'm making the

36:45

air quotes here, his return from

36:47

the El Salvador prison, the government

36:49

has admitted that he was snatched

36:51

and deported without due process, that

36:53

he wasn't the right guy. As

36:55

of Sunday night, it looks like

36:58

the Trump administration is telling the

37:00

federal courts to fuck off. That

37:02

they don't think that they have

37:04

any. And again, it's, you know,

37:06

this is a binary thing. We're

37:08

going to find out. Supreme Court

37:10

rules nine-nothing. You have to help

37:12

return the guy. We're going to

37:14

find out how far Trump is

37:17

going to go and define them.

37:19

Either Mr. Garcia is returned or

37:21

he's not returned. And right now,

37:23

it looks like they're dragging their

37:25

feet. This seems as close to

37:27

a constitutional crisis as you can

37:29

get. And meanwhile, the president of

37:31

El Salvador, I think, is visiting

37:33

today in Washington. Yes, he's in

37:36

the Oval Office. So if Trump

37:38

was serious about getting this unlawfully

37:40

detained... individual back to the United

37:42

States, he simply could tell the

37:44

president that he thinks it's the

37:46

best thing to do. Just like

37:48

that. But he, by all appearances,

37:50

he hasn't done that. And his

37:52

own lawyers will gain the definition

37:55

of what is facilitating his return.

37:57

Does that mean he just gets

37:59

left, you know, out on the

38:01

streets of San Salvador? To his

38:03

own devices with no one to

38:05

look after him. And they've been

38:07

around all of the deportations that

38:09

they've done without due process, including

38:11

the alleged members of the Venezuelan

38:14

crime gang. They have found these

38:16

ways to basically buck the rule

38:18

of law and still do what

38:20

they want to do. In that

38:22

case, they said, well, by the

38:24

time we heard from the judge

38:26

that we had to turn around,

38:28

we were already gone from US

38:31

airspace. Therefore, we no longer were

38:33

bound by US laws. uh... in

38:35

you know in this case they

38:37

they are they are giving every

38:39

appearance of ignoring a supreme court

38:41

ruling and this is where we

38:43

really this is where the nine

38:45

nothing supreme court ruling right populated

38:47

by people he pushed hard to

38:50

have appointed their very rock-ribbed conservatives

38:52

and when you have a president

38:54

ignoring judges either at the local

38:56

level, the state level, or the

38:58

federal level, we are in a

39:00

place that is no longer the

39:02

United States. It's no longer governed

39:04

by law. It is an imperial

39:06

presidency that is so authoritarian that

39:09

it believes it has the power

39:11

and the mandate to ignore the

39:13

law. And that's the constitutional crisis.

39:15

Now, and by the way, for

39:17

listeners, very close listeners to this

39:19

podcast or viewers on YouTube. That

39:21

is not me snoring while you're

39:23

talking, Tim. It's my 140 pound

39:25

dog underneath the desk. Eli has

39:28

decided this is a good moment

39:30

to take a nap and he's

39:32

enjoying himself. So if you're hearing

39:34

noises, please do not think that

39:36

it's me. Okay, so Charlie, Charlie,

39:38

Charlie, Eli is all of us

39:40

because what other escape is there

39:42

right now from the chaos in

39:44

the world than to do what

39:47

our great friends the dogos do,

39:49

which is, you know what, I'm

39:51

just going to take a nap?

39:53

I am envious of him. Okay,

39:55

one last question. With Elon Musk,

39:57

we've gone this entire podcast without

39:59

talking about the world's richest man,

40:01

it sounds like he's moving out

40:04

and more and more openly criticizing

40:06

and breaking with the administration. I

40:08

mean, he's part of the administration,

40:10

but... he feels no constraint not

40:12

to criticize the terrorist not to

40:14

go after Peter Navarro and by

40:16

the way he was right about

40:18

Peter Navarro but what do you

40:20

think the the the Trump Musk

40:23

romance is going now? Well I

40:25

always thought it was a marriage

40:27

of convenience not a marriage of

40:29

true loyalty and devotion to one

40:31

another. I didn't think he'd last

40:33

very long in the Trump administration

40:35

so I was wrong about that.

40:37

I really thought the second that

40:39

he started getting you know a

40:42

time magazine cover featuring him sitting

40:44

at the resolutions at the Oval

40:46

Office. All is Steve Bannon on

40:48

the cover of time in Trump

40:50

1.0, that when that kind of

40:52

happens and other people are getting

40:54

the spotlight, they have a short

40:56

half-life in Trump world. But he

40:58

stayed on, and I think the

41:01

reason he stayed on is Trump

41:03

wanted someone to dig into the

41:05

federal bureaucracy and turn it upside

41:07

down on a daily basis, and

41:09

that he didn't have... Trump never

41:11

likes details. He never likes doing

41:13

the hard work of carrying plans

41:15

on. He likes making grand statements

41:17

and then going and having it,

41:20

you know. So he could be

41:22

kind of a heat shield. He

41:24

could be a huge shield who

41:26

was disposable if it became too

41:28

nasty. Yeah, and now they've discovered

41:30

that actually you don't you don't

41:32

affect federal spending by by canning

41:34

a huge portion of the workforce

41:37

that only accounts for about 6%

41:39

of federal spending annually that if

41:41

you're really going to take it

41:43

on you have to look at

41:45

entitlement programs Medicare Medicaid Social Security

41:47

defense spending the payment on the

41:49

debt health care for veterans those

41:51

sorts of things And Musk wasn't

41:53

taking on any of that. And

41:56

meanwhile generating bad headlines about people

41:58

not getting the services they needed.

42:00

And so I think Trump's season

42:02

is a liability. The last cabinet

42:04

meeting was very different from the

42:06

prior cabinet meeting when it was

42:08

publicized. You know, where Musk essentially

42:10

led that prior cabinet meeting, this

42:12

meeting, he was just one of

42:15

the many who said yes. Yes,

42:17

dear sir, you're an amazing president

42:19

and I love you. So I

42:21

think the clock is ticking. I

42:23

don't know when it will be.

42:25

You know, he's got a, as

42:27

a, you got a contract with

42:29

the federal government, he's not a

42:31

government employee. Those are, I think,

42:34

those tend to be four month

42:36

contracts or such. I forget the

42:38

exact timing of them, but I

42:40

think his contract runs out at

42:42

the end of next month, I

42:44

believe. So we'll have to see

42:46

that it doesn't seem like you

42:48

long for Trump World World. Well,

42:50

you know, there's so much else

42:53

going on, but I mean, it's

42:55

kind of an extraordinary story. There's

42:57

this spending story with all of

42:59

the headlines and all the slashing

43:01

and the burning, all the chainsawing,

43:03

that in fact, you know, federal

43:05

government spending keeps going up. And

43:07

it's also rather extraordinary that the

43:10

Republicans in the United States Senator

43:12

passing a budget, and it looks

43:14

like, I mean, they're going to

43:16

pass a budget at some point,

43:18

which will explode the deficit. and

43:20

the national debt beyond the dreams

43:22

of, I mean, just on the

43:24

wildest dreams. And that while we're

43:26

cutting all of these programs that

43:29

Donald Trump is planning to spend,

43:31

what, $92 million on a military

43:33

parade on his birthday, but again,

43:35

the spending numbers just don't add

43:37

up in any. rational universe and

43:39

nobody seems to care. I mean

43:41

all these Republicans... When you break

43:43

them down, when you break them

43:45

down, when you break them down,

43:48

you know, the tax cut that

43:50

they're envisioning is going to add

43:52

another $5 trillion to $36 trillion

43:54

in the federal debt, they're talking

43:56

about gutting Medicaid to address some

43:58

of this, but even if they

44:00

just took Medicaid out of the

44:02

equation, I think that's around $900

44:04

billion. It still wouldn't come close

44:07

to addressing the... just the... you

44:09

know, the accounting for all of

44:11

this and it's irresponsible and they're

44:13

not being honest with the American

44:15

public about what the numbers actually

44:17

look like. Yeah, I mean, you

44:19

know, I have friends who say,

44:21

well, you know, the federal government

44:23

is bloated. I mean, it's, you

44:26

know, why not downsize the federal

44:28

government? I'm saying, fine, you know,

44:30

you know, first of all, you

44:32

would do it with a scalpel

44:34

rather than a chainsaw, And at

44:36

the end of this process, we're

44:38

going to end up deeper in

44:40

debt with bigger deficits than we

44:43

came in and, you know, try

44:45

to square that circle, but maybe

44:47

we're in this. And then some

44:49

of the things that are labeling

44:51

as bloat, you know, some of

44:53

the things that are labeling as

44:55

bloat, are our services, no one

44:57

would want to give up. No,

44:59

Americans going on to say, no,

45:02

I don't want my social security,

45:04

social security payments. No, I don't

45:06

want a strong defense. I don't

45:08

need some help with my health

45:10

care payments. Again, I agree with

45:12

you, like there are surgical ways

45:14

to make it more efficient and

45:16

less wasteful, but we haven't had

45:18

the existential conversation about what is

45:21

the real rights size of government

45:23

and what do you want to

45:25

give up to get there. And

45:27

that's not a conversation that are

45:29

having with the American public. They're

45:31

just musk and trump our performance

45:33

artists. You know, and that image

45:35

of him running around the chains

45:37

will be an image for the

45:40

ages because of that I think.

45:42

I think so. Tim O'Brien, thank

45:44

you so much. You can read

45:46

Tim's Word. Thank you, Charlie. The

45:48

Bloomberg opinion. Tim, it

45:50

is always great

45:52

to talk with

45:54

you. One of

45:56

my favorite of my

45:59

favorite back please come back.

46:01

Thank you for having. you

46:03

thank to this

46:05

episode of To

46:07

The to this podcast. of

46:09

To We do

46:11

this We now because now, than

46:13

ever, and by the way, when

46:16

I the I mean I week I mean,

46:18

this week, than ever, it's important to

46:20

remind ourselves. to remind ourselves. We are not crazy ones.