Making Sense - Sam Harris - #390 — Final Thoughts on the 2024 Presidential Election

00:00:00.000 welcome to the making sense podcast this is sam harris okay what was the final stretch

00:00:30.000 before the 2024 presidential election i might have a few more thoughts to express on this topic

00:00:36.300 over on substack in the coming days but this will be the last podcast i drop before the vote on

00:00:43.120 tuesday earlier this week i did a debate with ben shapiro for barry weiss's honestly podcast

00:00:51.660 you can find that on youtube and over at honestly and today i'm speaking with mark cuban

00:00:59.180 mark is a very well-known entrepreneur and investor he's also known for his role on the television

00:01:05.000 series shark tank and his ownership of the dallas mavericks and as you'll hear he's been an outspoken

00:01:11.820 supporter of the harris campaign and today we give something like a closing argument in favor of

00:01:18.680 harris of course much of this amounts to expressing our concerns about trump and a second trump term

00:01:26.340 we talk about trump's ethics his bewildering indestructibility as a candidate election

00:01:34.280 denialism the influence of elon musk the strengths and weaknesses of the harris campaign the mystery

00:01:41.580 of the southern border trump's immigration and deportation policy elon's delusional endorsement

00:01:48.760 of the great replacement theory trump's economic policy harris's tax and health care proposals

00:01:55.220 the effect of tariffs the u.s supply chain the problem of wealth inequality the notion of taxing

00:02:02.880 unrealized capital gains support for israel a much-needed return to normal politics

00:02:09.940 and other topics no paywall for this one and now i bring you mark cuban

00:02:17.060 i am here with mark cuban mark thanks for joining me thanks for having me on sam so um i think this

00:02:29.720 could be a short conversation we're now speaking six days before the election and i know you have

00:02:35.260 been making the rounds on various channels in support of the harris campaign are you a formal

00:02:39.840 surrogate of the campaign at this point i mean i i don't have any formal relationship with them but

00:02:45.220 you know where they ask me to show up if it's convenient for me and i think it's valuable then

00:02:50.600 i do it yeah yeah well i feel you've been very effective in that role and i'd like to press you

00:02:56.640 into service for another um hour here because um i mean i think there's something to say if there's

00:03:02.720 anything left to say that could be useful uh i think we should try to say it here and sure i think

00:03:08.660 you have a capacity to reach people in your cohort i mean there's not that many people perhaps in your

00:03:14.640 exact cohort but i'm just thinking of your standing in the business community and you know that you

00:03:19.820 are surrounded by people it appears in silicon valley and and elsewhere where who if they have

00:03:27.100 some misgivings about trump they have nonetheless rationalized their support for him for a few reasons

00:03:34.900 and i think the reasons are generally misinterpreted on the democratic side i mean there are many people

00:03:40.720 i would think the standard answer in democratic circles to the question of why people like elon musk

00:03:47.220 and david sacks and other billionaires and quasi billionaires are voting for trump the answer is well

00:03:53.920 they want lower taxes they want less regulation these are entirely self-serving avaricious decisions

00:04:01.880 on the part of extraordinarily wealthy people who have no moral scruples and i just i happen to know

00:04:10.180 that's not true i mean i know i mean yeah i agree with you it's not even close to true yeah so i

00:04:14.640 mean you know the marginal value of any delta in taxes is not going to change their lives right and

00:04:20.220 they're not so um vapid that they think that you know that's their focus it's just not the case

00:04:26.000 yeah i mean the one footnote i would add to that is i think people like you i mean elon

00:04:30.880 specifically and and other people like him do worry about regulation and i know elon wants to

00:04:37.440 get to mars and he's worried that all things considered the left might regulate that project

00:04:41.940 more than the right and i think the people are some people are worried about ai regulation although

00:04:46.260 elon is on the side of the regulators there so the real reason and i i noticed i know this to be true

00:04:52.540 for both these guys because they've they've said a lot on this topic is that there are a few specific

00:05:00.180 social issues that have radicalized them specifically immigration and what elon often refers to as the

00:05:08.020 woke mind virus right i mean this is really what has exercised them and they've exercised many of us as

00:05:14.880 well who are supporting harris so i want to keep those semi uh grotesque objects in view as we track

00:05:23.820 through this but to start how how would you describe your politics independent i look at each

00:05:31.520 issue individually i haven't given to a candidate or pack or anything else for that matter since 2002

00:05:38.700 so i i just look at each issue and i said okay what do i think is best for the country what you do i

00:05:44.340 think will best reflect that and if i don't think there's a clear-cut choice i'll vote for the candidate

00:05:49.500 who does the least and so you're you're actually a registered independent no i'm not i mean in texas

00:05:54.860 you don't have to register as an independent so i'm just not a democrat or republican right right

00:06:00.180 and in your view what is the shortest way of making the case against trump he's unethical he's not bright

00:06:09.520 um he can be easily bought he's very transactional he doesn't understand his own policies and he makes

00:06:15.900 no effort to learn that's in a nutshell and how you know him to some degree how well do you know him

00:06:21.720 i mean we're not best friends but over 25 years you know we've talked a couple dozen times

00:06:26.840 you know i've been around him a couple times you know we've sparred a lot on twitter at various times

00:06:32.920 so i mean i wouldn't say we're acquaintances we're not going to say hey what are you doing today

00:06:37.160 but we have enough of a relationship where it didn't surprise me when he got elected that he

00:06:42.640 called me and you know and asked for help and then did you give him help at that course yeah

00:06:47.800 yeah for sure i mean i'm an american first and you know it pertained to health care some questions

00:06:53.760 there that never really went anywhere and then when the pandemic hit i helped him and peter navarro

00:07:00.420 source ppe equipment there there's um a mass manufacturer the only domestic mass manufacturer just

00:07:06.280 outside of fort worth and so i worked with them and helped them grow and help get them prepared

00:07:10.520 to be able to amp up their manufacturing capabilities and when you say he's unethical and

00:07:17.720 unintelligent how are you getting that impression of him i'm gonna ask this well just just go through

00:07:22.800 the list i mean trump university trump soho trump foundation you know michael cohen when he testified

00:07:29.840 in the stormy daniels hearings in new york he came out and said you know what mr trump told me to

00:07:36.920 short pay vendors and every other business person on the planet when he had his little impromptu press

00:07:42.780 conference at the end of the day would say no i would never do that he didn't it didn't even cross

00:07:47.540 his mind to deny it you know and then you know here we just had a little audio problem coming into

00:07:53.100 this you know a couple weeks ago in michigan the audio cut out for 17 minutes and the minute was

00:07:58.620 turned back on it wasn't you know hey let's hear for the audio guy let's you know give him a hand

00:08:03.300 i'm glad we could turn it around it was you know i wouldn't pay him and then it was like i would sue

00:08:08.040 him he has no concern for hard-working americans at all the list of companies that he's ripped off the

00:08:17.020 list of people he's ripped off is long and to me that's the definition of unethical i mean if somebody

00:08:23.540 short paid me as a business i wouldn't ever do business with that person again and if anybody

00:08:29.380 ever accused me of short paying another business i would be so vocal in denying it because it's not

00:08:35.720 something i would ever do to him that's just another day at the office and to me that's as unethical as

00:08:41.520 you can get then how do you explain the fact that so many people are disposed to grade him on a curve

00:08:48.400 right i mean the people like the people we've named like elon and david sacks but really this is

00:08:54.120 just a widespread cultural phenomenon that trump seems to function by different reputational physics

00:09:02.020 and this is something that he actually remarked on himself and i think it was in 2016 it was two weeks

00:09:07.480 before the iowa caucuses where he said you know i could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot

00:09:11.880 someone and not lose a single voter that was him marveling at the fact that he he at the time was

00:09:19.100 perceived and this is fairly early in his career as a politician he he perceived that he was politically

00:09:25.140 indestructible and i mean this is so we've lived with this this phenomenon now for nearly a decade where

00:09:32.680 we see trump commit indiscretion after indiscretion of you know every conceivable size and some you know

00:09:40.920 many of which are completely pointless many some of which serve his political ends and any one of

00:09:47.020 which at a glance you can see would have ended the career of a normal politician what why is it that

00:09:54.640 nothing sticks to him i saw a video from chris cuamo and i think he nailed it he said that there's you

00:10:01.140 know almost half the country that feels like they've been wronged in some manner by the country whether

00:10:07.920 it's the elites whether it's dei like we alluded to whatever it may be and the only counter to

00:10:15.120 that issue is a virus and he is the virus and that's a positive all these indiscretions all these

00:10:23.260 negatives all these personal failings of his that just you know makes him somebody wants to i did a

00:10:29.420 podcast and the guy was like he's a gangster that's why we love him he's the guy that's going to take on

00:10:35.120 the incumbents and just turn it upside down and i remember um back when he first ran i was like i

00:10:41.260 know this guy how can you support him and my friend dan said look mark i've been voting for politicians

00:10:46.320 my entire life you know what they got me nothing you know where they got me nowhere that's why i'm

00:10:53.340 voting for trump and if you think of him as a virus that just you know infiltrates you know or

00:10:58.960 or suggest he's going to infiltrate all the things that are causing particularly young men to not get

00:11:04.880 jobs to not be where they are to not have the vision or be able to achieve what they want to

00:11:09.600 achieve it makes perfect sense but how does that account for someone like and i mean i watched you

00:11:15.480 on the all in podcast and i know i'm you know jason is a friend i don't know the other guys but you

00:11:20.040 know i've met david and i'm just trying to understand i mean do you have a theory of mind about

00:11:25.040 someone like david where obviously he's a lawyer right i mean he's he's a bright guy yeah how is it

00:11:31.400 that the spectacle of a sitting president not committing to a peaceful transfer of power i mean

00:11:37.020 really at multiple opportunities he refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and then i

00:11:42.380 remember we didn't have a peaceful transfer of power i mean so i'm still not conceded yeah yeah and

00:11:47.420 he still has not conceded that he lost that election and his denial of that his endorsement of this

00:11:52.780 big lie stands as a continuous provocation to violence and division in our country i mean it's

00:11:59.620 he's telling half the country he's been telling them this now for years that their democracy has

00:12:05.340 been stolen from them by an illegitimate president and in his communication with his base this is not

00:12:11.760 received as mere hyperbole this is a statement of fact he won the election and it was stolen from him

00:12:18.980 and you don't have a democracy anymore i really have no theory of mind around how someone like david

00:12:27.480 and there obviously there are many many people like david justifies that or averts their eyes from it so

00:12:33.140 as to still endorse this man i mean my only theory is when it was trump versus biden you can make the

00:12:40.040 argument about you know biden's cognitive abilities etc and they went all in on trump hey my guy can think

00:12:47.560 my guy can do this you know true or not they they justified it to themselves and then when kamala

00:12:53.660 came along they were already all in so that that's part one i think you know i they're not going to just

00:12:59.340 change their minds and and look bad and i think that has a lot to do with it but i think the greater

00:13:04.380 silicon valley ethos now you mentioned dei you mentioned immigration but i also think that there's a

00:13:11.700 feeling that truly among among the musts and the teals that they can manipulate trump he's a

00:13:17.340 technical ignorant ignoramus i mean he doesn't he's never sent an email and he does obviously he does

00:13:23.040 that to protect himself legally but you know if you have no technical ability whatsoever i mean he calls

00:13:30.460 ai the ai and when he talks about it he only references the fact that it consumes more electricity

00:13:36.420 more power he has no inkling what it is at all you know if you listened at all to the the donald trump

00:13:42.480 elon musk spaces that they did on x there was nothing of substance from donald trump and you

00:13:47.480 could see elon trying to drag him to at least come to some positive conclusions that made sense

00:13:52.820 and he couldn't do it and so the only conclusion i can make is that he is so incapable of understanding

00:13:59.480 those things if they're able to develop the trust or buy his trust in a transactional manner

00:14:04.660 like elon has he'll do what they say and if elon wants to take over nasa here you are elon here are

00:14:11.680 the keys to nasa along with the budget that's that's enticing to silicon valley and if they want to

00:14:18.480 change the immigration laws okay you do what you need to do elon you you know how i feel about

00:14:23.940 immigration and mass deportations go for it you want to change you know what happens in schools and

00:14:30.180 you know you have you know you feel a certain way about dei go for it i mean that is seductive

00:14:36.740 for those people who can gain you know gain control of what trump is going to do even if that accounts

00:14:43.860 for you know the elons and peter teals of the world obviously there are many many millions of people

00:14:48.880 but there's also the call to personality behind them you know whatever they do you're going to get

00:14:54.120 david sachs and others to follow right behind because they want to be part of it they might not know

00:14:58.340 exactly what they're going to be part of but their rationale is hey i'm an i'm an elon acolyte i

00:15:04.020 you know i believe in him he's the world's greatest entrepreneur ever you know ignore the fact that he's

00:15:08.600 also the world's biggest troll on the you know on a platform designed for trolls but you know i'm team

00:15:14.820 elon and once you're you know it's like him going around campaigning in pennsylvania he's not saying

00:15:21.000 anything of substance he's just throwing out nonsense but people scream and yell because you know

00:15:26.400 they're team elon well he is saying stuff of substance it just happens to be filled with lies

00:15:31.860 i mean he's now denying the election himself and right yeah yeah exactly the point and so you know

00:15:37.580 when you look at that you you realize that you know that combined with social media so let's just take

00:15:43.160 whatever he says not only on twitter but on every social media platform the algorithms are going to

00:15:50.040 reinforce the things that you've already searched out or the things that you've watched and liked

00:15:54.580 already and so if you liked a trump video if you liked an elon video you're going to get much much

00:16:00.200 much much more more of that and there's going to i mean as much as you know all of us spend online

00:16:05.700 scrolling that algorithm customizes that feed for us individually and if you have any allegiance to

00:16:13.660 elon if you've shown an interest in trump if you have interest in things that tree out meaning

00:16:20.160 you know wow you're interested in you know andrew tate you're interested in football and their

00:16:26.180 algorithms think if you're interested in either one of those you're probably going to be a young man

00:16:30.240 and you probably are going to be interested in donald trump and that just can i mean that's eight

00:16:36.780 hours a day of continuous reinforcement so it's not surprising to me we see these things because

00:16:42.120 if you're fed a commercial you know a hundred times 200 times in a day it's going to sink in at some

00:16:49.380 point but what do you make of elon's increasingly trump-like behavior and which is to say increasingly

00:16:56.720 dysregulated and unethical and unprincipled behavior yeah you mean lying his ass off on twitter

00:17:02.360 yeah i mean lying yes but also it runs to everything like you know singling out individual citizens i put

00:17:11.000 you know putting them on blast knowing that the consequences are going to be awful in their lives

00:17:15.080 because i mean yeah he's called me a racist multiple times called me a turd all this stuff

00:17:19.380 yeah i mean he's become the world's biggest troll and he bought a platform to allow himself to do

00:17:25.940 that and that's his right but i think the bigger picture and maybe i should have mentioned this

00:17:31.220 earlier you know the question is why did elon buy twitter i think initially he saw it as a business

00:17:37.960 he was interested in free speech but you know it was it was a true financial interest was in there

00:17:44.880 someone i think he figured out very quickly that because twitter is in so many different countries

00:17:50.880 and every prime minister or head of state has an interest in what's said on twitter now all of a

00:17:57.220 sudden he's one of the most influential if not the most influential non-politicians in the world

00:18:02.740 and from that perspective you know i think he's trying to just send the message globally not just here

00:18:10.120 in the united states that you know he's in charge this is his world and he's going to say and do

00:18:16.280 whatever it takes to increase his status and power yeah i mean there was also just the fact that he

00:18:22.280 personally was and is obviously totally addicted to the platform i mean whatever dopamine he's for sure

00:18:30.500 getting from it is it's central to his sense of what it is to be alive at this point it appears to

00:18:37.080 have deranged him and and uh turned many of his priorities upside down it's hurt his businesses too

00:18:42.880 yeah i mean it's just it's been productive in in some way i mean you know he obviously he's the

00:18:47.400 richest man on earth or yep or on any given day he is so it's you can't really say it's harmed him

00:18:52.840 financially but yeah i mean in terms of what is done to his reputation in half the world it's um

00:18:59.820 pretty grim and not to say uh yeah i can speak personally that he's lost some relationships over it

00:19:05.420 so you know we i think in the ears of many listeners you and i will have already started

00:19:11.920 on the wrong foot here by simply running down trump and not making a positive case for harris

00:19:18.940 and as though that were sure necessary right like and i which i'm happy to do yeah i mean i think we

00:19:24.060 should do that but i would point out that it actually isn't necessary if you think trump is so bad

00:19:29.720 that you would vote for virtually any other human being over him which is really the position i'm in i just

00:19:34.880 think he's such an abnormal person psychologically and ethically i mean in terms of the degree to

00:19:42.200 which he is interested only in himself and his fame and and wealth that he is he's uniquely

00:19:49.660 vulnerable to manipulation by flattery he's just uniquely myopic with respect to his his ethical

00:19:57.180 priorities and his you know any priority that can be mapped on to the geopolitical interests of our

00:20:03.120 country right i mean so this is something that you know like it may seem like he is a good ally for

00:20:09.360 israel say at the moment but you know i think if any enemy of israel would offer him a you know a golf

00:20:15.780 course deal somewhere that could bend american policy under his without question he's transactional

00:20:21.440 yeah it's just a question of how much yeah so let's talk a bit about harris's campaign and harris as a

00:20:29.700 a candidate and as a potential future president i mean i think i mean i'm not at all sheepish about

00:20:35.640 talking about the weaknesses as i perceive them in her campaign because they're they're there and

00:20:40.860 they're and some of them are glaring i mean the biggest one for me has been that she has not been

00:20:46.460 able to speak candidly about her changes of position right on immigration and dei policy and

00:20:54.480 anything else that that is driving people right of center berserk she should have been able to

00:21:01.220 explain her pivot from 2019 and i think she can do that without saying anything that's politically

00:21:08.360 damaging to her campaign but for some reason i mean there's somebody on her team has has drummed it

00:21:14.680 into her that under no circumstances can you admit that you've changed your mind about anything when

00:21:19.800 you're when you're asked point blank questions of you know on on this date here you said you were

00:21:25.220 right in favor of decriminalizing people coming across the border or you were in favor of taxpayer

00:21:31.180 funded gender reassignment surgery don't want to get down the list though right there's just that's you

00:21:35.360 know it's not to say that she's flip-flopped on everything but i think i think she's dealt with

00:21:39.560 it conceptually by saying she's open-minded she's not an ideologue she's not dogmatic but just to put

00:21:45.600 it in context i look at it a lot of these things in business terms if i take over a company and i

00:21:52.120 effectively have 14 weeks to turn the company around or i lose my job then i've got to go out

00:22:00.060 there and find as many customers as i can and that's effectively what happened with kamala harris

00:22:05.380 she took over 13 14 weeks ago and the mission wasn't to you know there's not a checklist after you

00:22:11.140 lose an election that says but she answered these questions well there is the only you know scoreboard

00:22:16.380 is who got more votes or got more electoral college votes and in 14 weeks you've got to have the mission

00:22:23.220 to go out there and communicate with as many people as you can that you think you can get to vote for

00:22:29.320 you particularly when you're starting from a favorability deficit and an awareness deficit even

00:22:34.500 trump said early on nobody knows who she is and so she had to counter that by going on as many

00:22:41.420 in a tour and doing as many rallies as she possibly could because speaking in front of crowds at a

00:22:48.140 rally really is one of her strengths if you've had the chance to go to one that the energy is great

00:22:53.500 she you know she hits topics that people there care about they're screaming they're yelling you know

00:22:59.140 it's it's obama ish both obama ish in terms of the response she gets and i think the campaign was

00:23:06.920 right to play to her strengths and so you saw her do you know rallies around the country and you saw

00:23:12.620 the results you know she got to a favor a positive favorability rating the awareness went through the

00:23:18.780 roof and she caught up she went from being where joe was when she took over to it being at worst a dead

00:23:24.880 heat so you know from my perspective you can't really argue with the strategy it's worked now

00:23:30.300 you know would it been nice for high information voters to get specific feedback on the things that

00:23:35.880 are important to us sure of course but i also think that you know it you don't necessarily get

00:23:43.120 specific get to specific voters when you do a lot of the general interviews i think i think she felt the

00:23:50.460 pressure to need to do those things and she did them we can argue whether she was good or

00:23:54.800 bad but the reality is when they put together a rally they're putting together not only the

00:24:00.460 faithful but also people who are undecided or potential voters in order to get them to feel

00:24:07.560 you know to drink the kool-aid kool-aid with those around them and so i think it's a more target rich

00:24:12.060 environment if you will from a conversion for a voter conversion or getting someone to vote for kamala

00:24:18.080 harris so i didn't necessarily have the problem even though i would have liked to like a lot of people

00:24:23.180 to geek out on details and not only why she's changed but where she is yeah well it wasn't just

00:24:29.160 the absence of detail it was the the optics of her looking evasive when the question was inevitable

00:24:34.460 the question was asked no no sir no no question about it i agree with that it's just you know you

00:24:39.140 can't win every battle and you're not going to be great at everything and you know you've done

00:24:44.240 enough interviews where you've been the interviewee and as if i where you go through a learning

00:24:49.680 process of you know how do you interact with interviewers who may not who may be hostile

00:24:55.920 you know and i don't think even as a senator she had to go through all that many certainly not

00:25:00.520 as an ag and i think she tries to talk to interviewers more like she's in front of a

00:25:06.380 crowd where she feeds off the energy and tries to gain you know some emotional connection and that

00:25:12.140 you got to learn that just doesn't work and you know i think over the last couple weeks she's gotten

00:25:17.140 far far better and she's done a much better job and you can tell when it you know she knows it's

00:25:22.080 not going to be hostile even if the questions are the same she's more comfortable answering

00:25:26.300 do you think she should go on rogan's podcast no i think that's a waste of time it's a waste of time

00:25:31.960 or it's just too dangerous to do no it's not the danger of it at all because joe rogan's a good

00:25:35.460 interview i don't think it's it's it's a danger and i i think when he says he just wants to get to

00:25:39.720 know her he's honest about that i just think you have you know x number of days left and just going

00:25:45.000 out there and doing an interview where where you know the trump faithful are going to slice and

00:25:49.760 dice the interview any way they choose and that's going to position itself on social media i don't

00:25:54.720 think there's any upside i mean how many people minds are you really going to change by doing the

00:25:59.460 interview versus taking that same time and saying okay i need to make sure i i reach as many people

00:26:05.640 in pennsylvania wisconsin michigan etc georgia north carolina that's time far better spent

00:26:12.960 so perhaps we can fill in some of the the blanks here on a few of these topics how do you view

00:26:21.280 well it really is the the kind of the bewildering fact of the openness of the southern border and

00:26:27.580 the fact that the democrats took so long to recognize i mean forget about the the social problem it

00:26:35.220 may or may not represent and the the ethical issues and and every other thing that people

00:26:40.020 that just causes people to worry about it but just think from a pure the pure position of political

00:26:45.660 pragmatism it is just a gaping political wound i mean for any day during the biden presidency

00:26:53.040 someone could and many did just hold it held up a cell phone and caught you know the the video of

00:27:00.000 thousands of people streaming you said the key words you said the key words the biden presidency

00:27:04.340 yeah which i think is far far far left of kamala harris but how do you explain the fact that this

00:27:10.860 is because it was it was the case i mean this is this is why and i he i think he said as much in in

00:27:16.180 his interview with you someone like david sachs thinks that the democrats getting religion now about

00:27:22.560 the border is not persuasive because for the longest time and certainly during trump's presidency

00:27:28.480 and his campaign he democrats greeted his promise to build the wall as just a sign of racism it was

00:27:38.980 just a pure indiscretion and forsaking of american values as though american values rest on having a

00:27:46.380 completely unpoliced border where you have no idea who's coming into the country yeah look i think that

00:27:52.500 was a mistake of theirs to wait and i think that's a biden mistake but you know if you look at what's

00:27:58.000 happened he signed the executive order which limited the border crossings which has now pushed them down

00:28:03.360 to where they were under trump pre-pandemic and so they've kind of dealt with that and she has said

00:28:09.000 that anybody who crosses since the executive order was signed she will send back and you can't come back

00:28:14.300 for five years and she's also said if you're here in the country illegally and you break the law you know

00:28:20.120 steal something whatever you are being deported and won't ever come back which gets us to dead even

00:28:26.020 except for the question of deportation and i think that is where i've been focused in talking to people

00:28:31.780 and i think she's starting to talk more about it on one hand you have donald trump mass deportation no

00:28:37.660 qualifiers on the other hand you have kamala harris that says okay i've told you you know the people i'm

00:28:43.880 definitely deporting now but there are going to be circumstances where i'm open to a path to

00:28:48.660 residency or citizenship and the foundation for the delta is you know imagine a grandmother who has

00:28:56.400 four american children a grandmother who's here and is undocumented and she's been here 20 years

00:29:03.760 four american children 10 american grandchildren do you knock on her door pull her out of the house and

00:29:10.240 deport her yeah yeah donald trump says yes and if you take that one step further where do you stop

00:29:16.800 and so when i go out and talk to small businesses they're terrified right and it's not so much about

00:29:21.840 their own workers because you have to file this thing called an i-9 which defines the residency status

00:29:27.480 of your employee and you know you get in trouble if you do it and aren't accurate but what we're

00:29:33.480 terrified about is you know someone from steven miller's little group comes and knocks on the door of your

00:29:39.380 warehouse your factory your restaurant and says i want a list of all your i-9 employees with their

00:29:44.140 addresses and phone numbers and then they go start knocking on doors and pulling people out and

00:29:48.280 deporting them and it may sound far-fetched and to some trump supporters when i talk about us they're

00:29:53.680 like oh he'll never do that i'm like you have to believe what he says and then even more what's

00:29:58.920 happening more and more as i've gotten closer to the the border in arizona i'm hearing examples you

00:30:04.540 know one person said that their mother went to the embassy during the trump administration

00:30:09.460 had been here 20 years wanted to get all her papers aligned and they just immediately deported

00:30:13.920 her another gave an example of a 20 year old woman with a who came here to the country when she was

00:30:20.120 six months old with her parents and has an american daughter deported is that who we want to be do we

00:30:26.380 want checkpoints on roads asking for papers do we want you know another elian gonzalez looking set of

00:30:34.080 events where someone's just banging on the door and someone in the police and military equipment are

00:30:39.500 dragging people out of their homes so while you know we can argue about what they did wrong on

00:30:44.900 immigration we are where we are now they've changed those immigration policies and now the big question

00:30:50.900 is deportation what kind of country are you are we and you know i did a little twitter poll and

00:30:58.320 you know 60 of people said okay that we shouldn't deport you know grandma 40 of the people said yes

00:31:05.720 and when you look at donald trump his um madison square garden speech you know day one we're

00:31:11.820 deporting everybody yeah i mean one hopes that the people and i think the the an official poll had that

00:31:18.280 those percentages flipped around or it was something like 60 of americans were in favor of deportation but

00:31:24.020 one hopes that they're not actually doing the moral math and they don't even know what they're

00:31:29.460 supporting and when you actually think about the details that you just described where you have

00:31:34.760 if you can make the case for younger kids i mean there are kids in very likely your kid's school if you're

00:31:43.340 if you have kids in elementary school whose parents who have one or one or both parents are

00:31:49.500 undocumented i mean but the kid is an american citizen right i mean this is just but why are

00:31:55.320 we giving him the benefit of the doubt that's the question because on a probabilistic basis

00:31:59.840 it's definitely greater than zero and i would argue it's greater than 50 and it's not like

00:32:05.340 he's saying stephen miller is not going to be part of his advisory group or cabinet or whatever it may

00:32:10.520 be you know he's his deportations are and stephen miller certainly isn't pulling any punches well

00:32:16.180 this also just speaks to the larger completely corrosive issue of not taking him seriously or

00:32:23.220 taking him seriously but not literally i mean this this idea that you systematically discount every

00:32:28.720 crazy thing he says even while we know because we have the continuous testimony of the people who

00:32:34.240 worked under him you know the 40 of his 44 senior most appointees we know that they had the experience

00:32:41.280 behind closed doors of being asked to do idiotic and immoral and illegal things and the only reason

00:32:46.340 why they that he didn't accomplish those things is because they refused yeah the crazy dichotomy to

00:32:51.220 to me and all this is people who support trump like david sacks are always explaining in a way what he did

00:32:57.800 like january 6th and what he said people who are opposed to kamala harris are always talking about

00:33:05.660 what she did say you know as if she like i think bakari sellers or van jones said she has to be flawless

00:33:11.880 and it's you know it's insane though the way they are treated so differently but we have to take him

00:33:20.640 seriously in what he says he's had nine years to formulate these things you know he's talking about

00:33:26.460 the american enemies act of 1798 this is a man who probably hasn't read a book since see dick run

00:33:33.680 it's not like he was reading and all of a sudden he stumbled across the american enemies act of 1798

00:33:40.060 that had to be presented to him specifically right and for those who aren't aware it says that if

00:33:47.400 there is a country that is defined as an enemy of the usa not only can he deport those who are

00:33:55.100 undocumented and here illegally but he can also deport or intern as we saw with japan and the jap with the

00:34:03.000 japanese people who are here legally well did you see his um i forgot the man's name but the the

00:34:09.220 person who ran ice under trump interviewed on 60 minutes i did not there's a clip of him he's so

00:34:15.320 back to the details we just discussed about you know deporting the the undocumented parents or

00:34:20.860 grandparents of of citizens he was asked well isn't there a way to keep families together i mean

00:34:26.640 this just seems an atrocious thing to do and he said yeah you can keep families together we can just

00:34:31.260 deport all of them yeah yeah i mean is that the country we want to be is it truly i mean you know

00:34:38.480 when you talk about fascism the the analogies are easy at that point yeah i just don't think it is and

00:34:45.100 i don't i think we as a country most americans have a good heart and that's not you know when i talk to

00:34:50.620 people that bring that up to me and i said and i give them the example we just spoke of they're like

00:34:55.320 no he would never do that yeah i mean to a person they say that and it's just it's insane that we

00:35:01.520 are giving him always giving him the benefit of the doubt always explaining away all these things

00:35:06.700 well and just wanting to do that is already disqualifying i mean even if you had a story

00:35:11.820 about why he wouldn't be able to do that the fact that he claims to want to do that it should be enough

00:35:17.880 right yeah he's not writing his own speeches you know somebody is putting this on a teleprompter for

00:35:23.880 him to read he hasn't read the american enemies act of 1798 i'd bet any amount of money and so there

00:35:31.820 is somebody feeding him this and he's taking it and running with it that is not an accident on his

00:35:37.600 part it's not you know like joe biden blurting something out you know yesterday it's him you know

00:35:44.460 specifically and intentionally saying these things and trying to convey it in a manner that

00:35:49.360 all his supporters believe it and take it to heart we need to respond to that and so when we talk about

00:35:55.300 the positives of kamala harris you may not agree what she decide with what she decides to do with

00:36:00.280 deportations but what she's been clear about is that she is going to be transparent and there will

00:36:05.560 be a process and you know there will be a path to residency and or citizenship and if it doesn't

00:36:11.540 include you you may have to leave but at least everybody's going to know what the process is and

00:36:16.040 it'll be transparent and that's all you can ask for so what do you think about this conspiracy theory

00:36:22.340 that elon is trafficking and it's seemingly at every opportunity that the democrats want an open

00:36:28.720 border because they want to get voters yeah they want to fill the swing states with millions of

00:36:34.280 voters who are for some magical reason guaranteed to vote for them even though we see abundant evidence

00:36:40.320 that there's there's a trend toward trump among hispanics and other immigrants but leaving that

00:36:47.300 aside he's talking about millions of people being flown i'm trying to picture them being flown on

00:36:53.120 airplanes millions of them to the swing states and we will never have a fair election again it'll be a

00:36:59.480 single party state until the end of time that's elon's yeah it's obviously ridiculous and you know when

00:37:05.460 you have cult-like followers and you have a platform where you're allowed to say whatever you

00:37:11.640 want and the algorithm you designed amplifies it to as many people as it possibly can i mean it's

00:37:18.620 strategic in some respects it doesn't it's obviously a lie it's obviously not true you know just if i was

00:37:24.720 reading the other day on what are the paths to citizenship because i was curious the fastest path

00:37:28.820 is to serve in the military you can be a resident non-citizen and serve in the military and that'll

00:37:34.580 accelerate your ability to become a citizen in three years beyond that it's going to take you

00:37:39.580 four or five years or more and you still have to apply for it you still have to get approved

00:37:44.440 it's still not easy and so it's obviously a lie and then the other thing that's always interesting to

00:37:49.700 me is the whole springfield ohio thing with the tps program i don't think anybody's ever stated it

00:37:56.280 publicly but again i like to geek out on these details you literally have to pay 572 dollars to apply

00:38:03.460 so if you wanted to go to springfield ohio from haiti it's not like hey here's the plane get on

00:38:09.100 like we're leaving hanoi you know you have to pay 572 dollars and your application has to be approved

00:38:15.320 and then because you're being flown in you also have to pay for the flight so this is not you know

00:38:21.180 people just waiting at the airport waiting for the plane to land and jumping on this is intentional

00:38:26.020 and it costs money and it really is not what elon and others are painting it to be now i've spoken to

00:38:34.780 many trump supporters who have chief among their reasons the expectation that he's going to be much

00:38:42.440 better for the economy i mean leaving questions of taxation aside for the richest people who can

00:38:49.280 point to their the reason why they expect to pay less in taxes there's a general sense that he's going

00:38:55.120 to be better for the middle class he's just going to be better for growth he's going to be better for

00:38:58.360 inflation etc and yet two weeks ago the wall street journal surveyed i think was 50 economists and

00:39:06.220 the results were 68 percent of them thought his policies would be worse for deficits for inflation

00:39:14.300 for interest rates and only 12 percent thought hers would be worse and slightly different percentages

00:39:21.500 favored hers for economic growth for you know growth in gdp sure and yet you point that out and these

00:39:29.040 people who ostensibly care about economics and the middle class so magically i don't even talk you know

00:39:35.100 studies are studies economists are economists i don't think anybody really trusts them or most people

00:39:38.820 don't trust them or understand them and so did you see the post that elon must agreed with i think it

00:39:44.080 was yesterday or the day before where somebody said that the first couple years of trump will

00:39:48.740 probably crash the economy and it's a chance to rebuild the whole economy yeah i did i did i saw

00:39:54.200 rumors of it i didn't see it yeah and then elon agree with it you know that's probably right so

00:39:58.380 here's elon saying that you know trump's policies are going to crash the economy i mean it's again but

00:40:05.860 here's here's what i say so i'm you know when i am out there as a surrogate i'm typically going out

00:40:10.620 there and visiting with small visit business people in swing states and the request i have for the people

00:40:16.360 who put that organized the whole thing is i don't want a room full of democrats that does us no good

00:40:21.360 i want independents republicans and undecideds so i want this to be you know i want him them to challenge

00:40:27.920 me on everything because i want the details to be able to get out and apply it to their own personal

00:40:34.120 corporate interest or personal interest and so the first thing i always do when i'm in that group is

00:40:39.000 i tell them there are 33 million companies in this country of those 99 of them are small so you know

00:40:46.680 round numbers let's just say there's about 31 point something million companies that are small

00:40:52.240 businesses in this country of those the vast majority more than 98 are pass-through companies

00:40:59.120 subchapter s llc sole proprietorships and of those 98 make four hundred thousand dollars or less so for

00:41:09.000 almost every single business in this country your taxes are going to be the same or go down and that

00:41:15.760 always raises eyebrows and then i say look you know from a personal tax perspective there are only four

00:41:21.360 million people in this country that make four hundred thousand dollars or more so you just do the math

00:41:26.540 that means there's 330 million people out of 334 give or take whose taxes are going to stay the same

00:41:33.040 or go down as she said that a hundred the taxes for a hundred million people will go down so for the

00:41:39.560 vast majority and when i say vast i mean literally 29.7 million give or take entrepreneurs and ceos

00:41:47.020 and solo solo entrepreneurs their taxes are staying the same or going down so donald trump is doing

00:41:53.740 nothing nothing for small business or the entrepreneurs that run them does the cutoff fall in the same

00:42:02.520 place if you're just talking about individuals for the country as a whole so if you like the the cut

00:42:08.600 between the one percent and the 99 is that drawn at an income of four hundred thousand a year so i just

00:42:15.320 looked it up and i said okay you know chat gpt and in grok even i said how many people make four hundred

00:42:21.960 thousand dollars or more and i asked them both and the answer was about four million right so all these tax

00:42:28.900 changes that donald trump is hasn't even really suggested yet he just says your taxes are going

00:42:33.500 down he hasn't said what he's going to do um or you know given any details whatsoever but it applies

00:42:39.960 to four million people out of 330 plus million in this country and so he's doing nothing nothing at all for

00:42:47.960 330 million people he he's in fact if he imposes the tariffs that he wants to impose we'll get to those

00:42:54.100 we haven't got to those yet yeah we'll get to those yeah right so the second element when it comes

00:42:59.320 to people's personal household costs and net worth if you will and expenditures is health care

00:43:06.020 donald trump says he has a concept of a plan well the reality is the largest single expense for most

00:43:14.720 households when things go wrong is health care and the second largest expense for businesses whether

00:43:20.020 they're small medium or large is benefits slash health care kamala harris has been very very very

00:43:26.740 specific that she is going to take on the pharmacy middleman also known as pharmacy benefit managers

00:43:33.500 who artificially inflate the price of medications and i know this because i'm in this business and

00:43:39.400 she's also saying that she's introducing transparency from my experiences with costplusdrugs.com i can tell

00:43:46.000 you that the cost of medications the minute this is implemented will drop by 20 percent 30 percent or more

00:43:53.180 and when you talk about inflation health care has been inflating for years and is a big component of that

00:44:00.420 20 plus percent people talk about over the last four years and if you have the opportunity to cut

00:44:06.360 medication costs for households and if she gets any help from congress at all apply the same principles to the

00:44:12.140 rest of health care you're more than going to offset any increased costs in gatorade toilet paper and

00:44:19.000 bacon because you know we've all been in that situation where you know you go to the doctor and

00:44:26.000 you don't know what the outcome is going to be that's scary enough and not knowing if you're going to be able

00:44:31.820 to pay for it because you have a high deductible plan where you have no insurance that's terrifying

00:44:37.940 kamala harris is dealing with that directly i mean think about what happens when you get a

00:44:43.100 prescription sam they say okay you're going to have to take this medications and the second question

00:44:47.380 is not can you afford it or how will you pay for it it's what's your pharmacy and then you've seen

00:44:52.760 or heard all the stories about somebody standing in line and finding out that they can't afford the

00:44:57.260 medication because there is no transparency and that's what it's allowed these pharmacy benefit

00:45:01.760 managers to jack up the price of medications and their affiliated companies to do the same in health

00:45:06.900 care and so when kamala harris says we are going to take on the middleman the pharmacy middleman middleman

00:45:13.560 and introduce transparency that the direct result of that is that your cost for medications will go

00:45:20.140 down quickly and again if you can extend that to health care the fear and the out-of-pocket costs

00:45:27.600 of you know when you get sick will go down dramatically that will more than offset any increase in

00:45:35.520 inflation that we've seen to date during the biden administration and then we can go to tariffs and

00:45:42.560 also inflation has been brought under control right it's not right but not for health care right you

00:45:48.500 know the cost of gatorade won't may only go up 2.5 percent going forward but the cost of health care

00:45:54.680 because it's so opaque as an industry the regulators are slim you know there's been some transparency on the

00:46:01.980 the hospital provider side but not enough to really change behaviors or reduce the overall costs and so she's

00:46:08.880 focused on that donald trump has a concept of a plan now if you want we can get to tariffs yeah i mean as far as i can

00:46:16.300 tell the jury is not out on on the effect of tariffs on an economy generally and all you got to do is look at his first

00:46:23.020 four years they didn't work you know name the one example of where tariffs had a positive impact either on the economy or

00:46:30.140 bringing back manufacturing then what accounts for the fact that

00:46:33.380 sophisticated wait i'm not done ripping them on me yeah hold on there's more there's more so let's look at it from a personal

00:46:39.480 perspective let's say that donald trump god help us wins and this time next year we're looking to make decisions on the

00:46:46.560 christmas presents we're going to buy well people may or may not realize but the sporting goods equipment

00:46:52.260 you buy for presents the knickknacks you buy from the the knickknack shop the dresses the backpacks you

00:46:59.840 name it almost all of them are made in china and when you input when you impose a 60 tariff on all goods

00:47:07.200 imported from china now all of a sudden if you're looking to buy your kid a basketball that price is going up

00:47:13.340 60 percent at least and if it goes up 60 percent at least along with all the other chinese imports

00:47:18.960 then you're going to have to make some hard decisions at christmas because with those increases

00:47:24.820 because of donald trump's tariffs i call them the the grinch that's stealing our christmas you're going

00:47:30.540 to make a lot of hard decisions and you're not going to be able to buy as much and it's not only awful

00:47:35.380 for you and your family and you're disappointing your kids but look at the retailers that you would be

00:47:42.000 buying from that sporting goods store where you've bought mitts and bats and balls for your kids since

00:47:48.240 they were three years old the knickknack store where you buy all your favorite candles the little dress

00:47:53.480 shop owned by the lady that you see at church that's been there for 20 years those are the people who are

00:47:59.380 going to suffer as well and not only that the crazy part is the steps that businesses take when there's

00:48:07.420 even a discussion of tariffs so let's just say across with these across the board tariffs and look

00:48:13.780 there are strategic tariffs that make sense but we're talking about the negatives of across the

00:48:18.540 board tariffs and those across the board tariffs we'll use the basketball example you're a sporting

00:48:24.040 goods retailer and you sell a lot of basketballs and you import them from china now because you know

00:48:29.720 the price is going up 60 percent what are you going to do you're going to either borrow money or you're

00:48:35.120 going to you're going to take money that was designed to use for expansion to hire more and more people

00:48:41.080 to grow the business in one way or the other now you're going to take that and use it to pre-buy

00:48:46.140 inventory from your chinese importer so that you beat the price rush the downstream impact of tariffs is far

00:48:54.920 more than you know just a taxation it is personal it hurts businesses it hurts families and donald trump

00:49:03.420 says well it's a negotiating tactic it gets them you know it brings manufacturers back remember the 33

00:49:10.460 million companies i told you about the number of people who own foreign factories that you know would

00:49:16.380 come back maybe you know five of them are small businesses you know and then there's others like john

00:49:23.620 dear who even don't even have factories overseas but get threatened if they move any if they move jobs or

00:49:29.700 anything to mexico the tariffs are going to go up to 200 and when donald trump tariffs john deere

00:49:35.580 equipment 200 that literally makes the chinese companies that import chinese products cheaper

00:49:43.100 than john deere giving them an advantage and i can just go on with example after example after example

00:49:49.320 and then you know how people always say well kamala had three and a half years why didn't they do it

00:49:54.340 then donald trump had four years to implement tariffs it didn't work during you know he started

00:49:59.660 his tariff um negotiating quote unquote in january of 2018 and they started to implement the tariffs not

00:50:06.740 long after i think june or july of 2018 and then of course there were retaliatory tariffs that came in

00:50:12.480 front from china and back and forth it went and there was no upside whatsoever there was no positive

00:50:20.960 gain in fact during that period of trade wars the economy took a turn for the worst and the federal

00:50:28.280 reserve had to implement interest rate cuts to try to spruce back up the economy mostly as a result of

00:50:36.060 donald trump's implementation of tariffs and causing this tariff war but he has fallen so in love it's also

00:50:42.040 going to impact our foreign policy and our defense strategies for our allies and probably the most

00:50:49.480 insane outcome or discussion of his tariffs that i've heard is as it applies to taiwan there is a

00:50:58.340 company in taiwan called taiwan semiconductor are you familiar with it at all yeah but explain it to

00:51:03.500 the audience here it is literally the most important company in the world they make the most advanced

00:51:10.080 semiconductor chips and their customers for those chips are nvidia the highest market cap company in the

00:51:18.740 country who makes all the most advanced ai chips which allow us as a country including our military

00:51:26.020 to be the most technologically advanced in artificial intelligence in the world one of their other

00:51:32.180 customers is apple and then the list goes on donald trump when asked if he would defend taiwan if it

00:51:39.220 looked like china was going to invade them said no what i'll do is i'll just put 200 percent tariffs

00:51:47.560 on china if they invade taiwan so effectively rather than making a decision that becomes life or death

00:51:56.360 you know you know a literal war for china as it applies to taiwan he's making it about the prices

00:52:03.260 of dresses so president xi can say she can say well if i attack if i go into taiwan and take over taiwan

00:52:11.720 semiconductor yeah our imports will go down some but i'll just put more retaliatory tariffs on on united

00:52:19.300 states of america but i'll get to keep tsmc i mean it makes no sense whatsoever he is so in love with

00:52:23.880 tariffs he doesn't understand them but the idea that not protecting taiwan an ally at all when for you know put

00:52:31.840 aside all the other reasons but it has the most valuable company that effectively controls the future of

00:52:39.260 artificial intelligence is insane and to biden's credit that's where the chips act came in because

00:52:44.980 biden recognized that and his administration did the chips act and now tsmc has broken ground in

00:52:51.100 arizona and is starting to get better yield with some of the the more normal chips and hope to have

00:52:58.240 the most advanced chips available in 2028 yeah i was going to say it doesn't wouldn't make sense to

00:53:04.340 onshore some of the critical supply chain if we learned anything from covid it was that our supply

00:53:10.680 chain was not quite what we thought it was and the question is how do you get companies to do it

00:53:15.160 and the underlying question is why haven't they done it already because there are mission critical

00:53:20.880 products that we really need here and there's you know obviously non-mission critical like

00:53:26.580 basketballs and you know toilet paper and paper plates why don't we already have manufacturing here

00:53:33.320 because americans will not pay a premium for american-made if americans paid a premium for

00:53:38.580 american-made as an entrepreneur i'd be starting factories left and right i mean we built a factory

00:53:43.320 for costplusdrugs.com we did it for one of my bike companies and it's all robotics driven and you know

00:53:48.660 if i could just amortize the cost over a shorter period of time because people would pay a little bit

00:53:53.300 more for american-made products you would see that happen but that's not who we are we want the least

00:53:59.260 expensive so you know we outsource a lot of this manufacturing but again to continue the tariffs

00:54:05.820 conversation china has learned a lot more from their experience when trump was president than trump

00:54:11.100 has china has started has built or bought manufacturing plants factories around the world

00:54:18.420 and china also has done the same thing in mexico so that they can manufacture in mexico and under the

00:54:24.420 usmca that trump's designed and signed it reduces the cost to i don't know if it's zero tariffs or

00:54:31.380 close for anything that's made with their components in mexico and shipped to the united states and if

00:54:37.340 trump jacks up the tariffs they're just going to tell their importers here in the united states why don't

00:54:43.700 you buy from our factory in indonesia or buy from our factory in vietnam and the tariffs meaning the

00:54:50.180 tariffs accomplish nothing except inflating the cost of goods for all of us and he just doesn't

00:54:55.980 understand that and that's where i spend a lot of my time going out there and explaining those things

00:55:00.460 and the last thing you know i'll go back to deportation the impact on businesses is significant

00:55:05.840 you know when you run a small business it's almost like family it's like your podcast and your business

00:55:10.480 the same you know everybody you know when their kids are sick and you know when you have a restaurant

00:55:15.300 you have a warehouse whatever it may be if someone's knocking on your door asking to see

00:55:21.180 paperwork and checking and going to the homes of your employees to check to see if grandma is documented

00:55:27.980 or not that impacts everything that happens in that business that makes it near impossible to run that

00:55:34.880 business and then of course if there's mass deportations for hard-working people what happens to the economy

00:55:40.860 could be far far worse so when they talk about when the economists have talked about the impact of

00:55:46.240 tariffs they haven't talked about the impact of deportations nor have they included the economic

00:55:51.560 impact not just on on businesses but of the physical the actual cost of deporting somebody

00:55:57.880 what i read is that it's fifteen thousand dollars per person now to give you a frame of reference

00:56:03.880 on the numbers he's looking at there are 1.9 million incarcerated people in this country

00:56:10.020 from federal down to local prisons and jails he wants to deport millions millions yeah so like 12

00:56:19.500 million 20 million i have whatever he decides yeah if he just starts to deport a million people

00:56:25.060 times fifteen thousand dollars per person that's fifteen billion dollars plus the time and costs for all

00:56:32.040 the local to police police police departments or whoever he militarizes to go and pull them out of

00:56:37.300 their homes to do the checkpoints whatever it may be that's incremental cost above and beyond the fifteen

00:56:43.940 thousand dollars per person so you want to talk about a budget breaker and a deficit grower if he actually

00:56:50.700 does 10 million that's 150 billion dollars if it's 20 million people like he says and he's going to deport

00:56:59.680 him you could do the math that's 300 billion dollars to say nothing of the knock-on effects

00:57:06.000 economically but you know ethically i mean just when you think about the details they're so horrific

00:57:11.860 ethically i i just get the sense that again this comes back to the fact that nothing sticks to him and

00:57:18.520 and everything is is hyperbolically discounted so as to his words mean nothing i literally think he could

00:57:24.640 say we're just going to round them up and kill them and turn them into dog food and and his his fans would

00:57:30.920 still say oh he's not going to make sense yeah so he's not going to do that it's funny so he came out

00:57:36.640 at one point and i don't know if he's mentioned it since where he's going to put caps on credit card

00:57:41.880 interest rates and i went on twitter i was like oh so he's a socialist now maybe he's even communist

00:57:47.060 you know because kamala harris doesn't have any price caps anywhere and then the response was no but it

00:57:52.800 makes perfect sense nobody likes those interest rates i thought and i was like i thought you were

00:57:57.160 against marxism and price caps and price limits and oh no you know donald trump is looking out for us

00:58:03.400 well how concerned are you about wealth inequality and and what what would you propose as a sane

00:58:11.660 approach to taxation brought that up so when i've sold my companies each and every time i've given a

00:58:17.780 big chunk to the employees my first business when i was in my 20s you know we sold for six million a

00:58:23.020 million went to employees my second business we sold to um yahoo for 5.7 billion in stock taught

00:58:29.920 people how to hedge and 300 out of 330 employees became millionaires when i sold a chunk in the

00:58:35.280 mavs we handed out 50 million dollars in bonuses so i'm a big believer that you know this is a group

00:58:40.600 effort and everybody deserves to be rewarded and i you know the only way to minimize or reduce not say

00:58:46.220 minimize but reduce income inequality is for people to have appreciable assets there's no you know when

00:58:53.700 you're living paycheck to paycheck there's just no amount of payment that you're going to get where

00:58:59.740 you can save enough to truly make a difference and so i'm a big believer in employee stock ownership

00:59:04.280 plans and as it turns out so is kamala harris and she's come out and said specifically that she is

00:59:11.060 going to endorse and support and increase and enhance the employee stock ownership programs and

00:59:17.040 similar programs that will allow that will make it easier for employers to give equity to everybody

00:59:23.400 so if you work for a startup and it sells you get paid if you work for a big company she'll give them

00:59:30.340 incentives to give stock to everybody so if there's a liquidity event you'll get paid if there's dividends

00:59:37.700 you'll get paid and so taking on businesses and incenting them to offer stock to everybody in my mind

00:59:45.920 is one of the best ways to do it the second best ways to do it is her down payment assistance plan

00:59:51.480 now a lot of people have made it sound like oh my god this is so inflationary but what they don't realize

00:59:57.320 is that it's not new like in the city of houston they have down payment assistance programs that will

01:00:03.800 support that will offer you up to fifty thousand dollars in down payment assistance i mean if you

01:00:08.940 just you know google down payment assistance programs they're all over the country there's

01:00:12.980 hundreds of them so this is nothing new this just codifies it on a national level and helping people

01:00:18.460 who are first-time homebuyers who have great credit because you don't want you know mortgage lenders

01:00:23.060 being stuck with the bag and people having not being able to pay and so having that available is a

01:00:30.040 great way to help people get an asset that appreciates i mean it's very very straightforward

01:00:35.240 and you know to me those are the two best ways to start to address income inequality now what what

01:00:41.220 is your reaction to the proposed i think i think this proposal has since been withdrawn or otherwise

01:00:47.360 deprecated but the proposed tax on unrealized capital gains it's not going to happen yeah it would

01:00:54.820 have been horrific and so that's did that come directly from the harris campaign or was that a

01:01:00.420 biden campaign so both both so what happened was when the proposal the initial presentation of it if

01:01:07.880 you will it was never truly proposed so when biden came out with this 2024 budget they had to find a

01:01:12.640 way to balance it that's how it was explained to me and so they incorporated this tax on unrealized

01:01:18.340 capital gains and when i saw that while biden was still the candidate i called one of the people i

01:01:24.600 know there and i was like what the hell is this this is an economy crusher and they go yeah we understand

01:01:29.700 it's never going to happen we just needed it in there for budgetary reasons and then someone when

01:01:35.880 kamala became the candidate someone went on cnbc and said yeah she supports it well we haven't heard

01:01:43.140 from that person since so i i called up the harris folks and i'm like tell me this is not true because

01:01:49.540 this is the worst thing for the economy and they're like no it's not true it's not going to happen and

01:01:55.760 the proof is obviously every harris sponsored campaign event that i do i bring this up and say

01:02:02.360 it's not going to happen and you know they're still sending me out there and you know so they've

01:02:07.900 told me from the paint i haven't heard it from her mouth but i haven't asked her but i've heard it

01:02:11.480 from the mouths of multiple people in the campaign that it's not going to happen it would be helpful

01:02:15.800 if she said it's not going to happen yeah you know and i said the same thing you know but the response

01:02:20.980 was people don't care about the people that impacts you know you got to have a hundred million dollars

01:02:25.460 or more in assets and there's not a whole lot of sympathy for folks in my position yeah i mean it's

01:02:31.340 just when you think about the details of trying to impose that tax though it can't it imposes such

01:02:35.960 crazy cognitive overhead on the government it's just bizarre to think yeah it's ups and downs

01:02:41.180 it's ridiculous and plus the people that'll get whipsawed i mean you take your company public and

01:02:45.300 your equity rich and cash poor you know you might have to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to

01:02:51.680 pay your tax bill yeah and have fifty dollars in the bank yeah yeah well i guess finally mark let's

01:02:59.360 just touch on your expectations around america's place in the world in you know backstopping the rules

01:03:08.780 based international order and i think specifically supporting allies like israel what what is your

01:03:14.480 expectation of a harris administration because i take that final point first i think there are many

01:03:20.760 jews who imagine that there's there's some lesson to be drawn from trump's first term that he is a

01:03:27.800 totally reliable ally for the state of israel and above all will defend it and um there's nothing to

01:03:35.660 worry about on that front and conversely you have in the example of the you know the biden and harris

01:03:41.260 administration some obvious support i mean we've given them a lot of military aid and although we've

01:03:46.880 had moments where we seem to be withholding that aid or delaying it but we've given apart from the

01:03:52.160 those first weeks after october 7th there has been a kind of talking out of both sides of of their

01:03:57.940 mouths phenomenon coming from the administration and and obviously there there's pressure from the

01:04:04.420 the activist class within within the democratic party to be far more concerned about what's

01:04:10.300 happening to the palestinians than than really any other people on earth how do you do the do the math

01:04:16.060 on on this issue i mean i can't speak from a lot of detailed discussions with them other than to say

01:04:23.180 you know my brief conversations with doug emoth who is jewish that you know he's hardcore and he's fully

01:04:30.300 supportive of israel and she takes a lot of counsel from him and i think you know they've had to walk

01:04:38.800 a fine line and find an equilibrium and i think that's been smart because i think the more if if

01:04:44.780 they're if they don't pay any attention to gaza then the protests on college campuses get worse

01:04:50.740 and i think that is why they've walked the fine line but that's just me supposing but i don't think

01:04:56.660 there's any doubt and there's no doubt in my mind that they'll be fully supportive that you know

01:05:01.940 they're all in on israel without any hesitation whatsoever but that's just my opinion and in in

01:05:08.120 terms of the rest of the world i think they'll back all of our allies i know when um we talked

01:05:14.200 and i literally talked to the campaign when i was in pennsylvania about polish americans and the issue

01:05:19.580 of ukraine you know i think it's a given that if ukraine has given up to putin poland is next

01:05:25.640 and to the 770 000 polish americans in the state of pennsylvania that's a big deal and she's made that

01:05:34.040 commitment that she will be there for our allies as of has all of nato so you know i mentioned taiwan

01:05:41.420 she says she will you know that they will support and protect taiwan they're not going to get into the

01:05:47.080 politics between the two countries but if there's any type of military action we will be there and i

01:05:54.000 think that's smart and so i mean i think you know with the exception of the four years under trump i

01:05:58.920 think you'll see a lot more or a lot of what's already happened historically from united states

01:06:04.660 military and from a diplomacy perspective and i'll also add kamala harris understands diplomacy

01:06:10.040 she knows what the word diplomacy means and she understands the process required and the quality

01:06:18.360 of people in a cabinet and in ambassadorships required in order to make diplomacy work you don't

01:06:25.120 have any sense of that from donald trump you know the thing about donald trump you can't point to one

01:06:31.420 situation or example where he has given a detailed explanation of policy you can't point to one

01:06:39.200 example where you think to yourself wow that was really a nuanced response from donald trump

01:06:43.980 about a policy issue never yeah ever the exact opposite with kamala harris you know she she's a

01:06:52.020 policy geek she likes to dig into policy she likes to read it she likes to understand it she wants to

01:06:58.160 know what's happening in the world and how we can have an impact and to me that's critically important

01:07:02.140 because you know we've talked about donald trump being transactional we don't want him selling our

01:07:07.620 relationships to the highest bidder you know in some respects and i'm not an expert on this he did it

01:07:12.040 with yeaman in 2018 was it when there were people you know 100 000 plus people died in yeaman and we

01:07:21.140 kept on selling weapons to saudi arabia you know and there's just that's who he is strangely there's not

01:07:28.120 a lot of protests on college campuses around that i wonder why no it's shockingly enough and you know

01:07:32.800 the never wars donald trump did nothing to stop this war yeah yeah well mark is there anything

01:07:39.980 left to say but either against donald trump or in favor of harris to before we close out here

01:07:46.080 yeah i mean in favor of kamala harris what's critical to me what she said yesterday at in dc when she

01:07:55.220 talked about i'm not trying to get people who disagree with me i'm trying to put them at the table with

01:08:00.400 me i want to hear from them and learn from them that's leadership that is the definition of

01:08:06.880 leadership she's not out to get people she's out to learn from people and when people question you

01:08:12.840 know is she too far left or you know is she still progressive and she that is your answer right there

01:08:18.280 she's open-minded she's not an ideologue how often does that happen in politics and just this is my

01:08:23.720 personal opinion across the board i think she's learned a lot from donald trump over the past nine years

01:08:29.700 that party politics takes second to directly communicating with the people and being in a

01:08:37.040 position to understand their needs and it doesn't matter what the democrats think we learned it doesn't

01:08:42.400 matter what the republican party thinks anymore he's taking it over it's now the family business

01:08:47.120 and for kamala i think similarly she realizes she's got to communicate with americans that in order for

01:08:54.680 this country to be successful going forward she's got to represent everybody and if you disagree with

01:09:00.440 her that's okay she wants to hear from you she says she's going to put independents and or republicans

01:09:05.780 in her cabinet that's leadership that's talking to people the best leaders are people who communicate

01:09:11.560 with everybody you don't have to agree with them you don't have to give them what they want but you

01:09:16.140 have to be able to communicate listen and understand i don't think donald trump is capable of any of

01:09:21.740 those things i know kamala harris is yeah she had a nice line along along those lines um in one of

01:09:28.340 her speeches where she says you know i have a to-do list he has an enemies list which really does

01:09:33.460 sharpen up the distinction i mean what she has most in her favor and i really i don't mean to discount

01:09:40.160 her competence as a leader as a politician as a possible president i think she'll be fine and perhaps

01:09:47.040 even quite good but above all she'll be normal i mean i just i've just yearned for this return to

01:09:53.480 normal politics yeah amen it just just the agita that happens between families i know it's in my

01:10:01.920 family you know who you voting for you know my brother-in-law you know started talking crap about

01:10:07.740 me online and i had to block him i mean it's just crazy well that's a point i think that there's really

01:10:13.900 no denying whatever you're even if someone does not agree with anything we've said so far about

01:10:19.520 trump or about harris what is undeniable is that trump drives half the country crazy right and if

01:10:26.600 you even so if you just think half the country has tds okay fine but you have to admit that's not a good

01:10:33.440 thing even if that's your view you should want to live in a country where politics is not taking up

01:10:41.640 this much bandwidth i agree and we're not at one country at one half the country isn't despising the

01:10:47.980 decisions of the other half of the country and the reason why we haven't returned to normal under

01:10:52.880 biden is trump hasn't gone away yes we're still in this mode where trump has the you know we don't we

01:11:00.060 no longer have a normal republican party there's not a normal conservative the republican party does

01:11:05.880 not exist here it's just it's just a personality cult exactly right how sad is it that rather than

01:11:12.680 being looking at the election and election day as a crowning achievement for our democracy our

01:11:19.920 republic it's like okay i'm so glad it's over yeah and i hope half the country accepts the results

01:11:26.540 finally the other point here is that even if you are a single issue voter and the far left

01:11:34.680 has just driven you crazy this last decade whether it's the the trans issue or immigration or defund the

01:11:43.020 police or whatever the tipping point was articulated by the far left if that's your issue my argument is

01:11:50.440 that the pendulum is in the process of swinging back in the democratic party and if we elect trump again

01:11:56.520 for four years it will swing out again into crazy town yep even if you just want to normalize

01:12:03.400 the left side of our politics and have sane institutions if you want harvard and the new york times to be

01:12:09.720 sane again and reliable well then if you had to place a bet it gets more normalized and more reliable

01:12:18.320 under harris than under trump because trump is a continuous provocation to the left

01:12:23.000 and you can't there's no path to get him to understand something with a kamala harris presidency

01:12:29.740 you can lobby against the things you don't like you can protest against the things you don't like

01:12:34.940 and you will be heard and there'll be at least some normalcy in congress that hopefully you'll be heard

01:12:41.300 with trump he doesn't listen you know he listens to i was talking to somebody who knew who knows him

01:12:47.580 well who actually served in the trump administration and he was saying that trump would call him and

01:12:53.160 others 24 7 right he just spent all his time on the phone into the wee hours of the morning getting

01:12:59.800 perspective from only the people he knows he got perspective from watching television twitter slash

01:13:06.360 true social now and his friends on the phone that's no way to run a government yeah well it is if you

01:13:12.940 want uh my pillow guy and mike flynn and yeah the other freaks and grifters in uh in power and i even

01:13:20.380 knew some of those freaks and grifters before they went for trump and they were freaks and grifters

01:13:24.140 before and he just ignored the fact that they were freaks and grifters yeah yeah well mark it's great to

01:13:30.220 have you on the podcast thank you for everything you're doing and um i will be thinking about you

01:13:34.400 next week whatever happens yeah thank you sam thanks for having me on i'm a big fan and i really

01:13:38.960 appreciate it it was a lot of fun

Making Sense - Sam Harris - November 01, 2024

#390 — Final Thoughts on the 2024 Presidential Election

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