The Auron MacIntyre Show - Can Trump Ban Usury？｜ Guest： Matthew Williams ｜ 1⧸14⧸26

00:00:00.240 Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.

00:00:07.380 Donald Trump has pivoted to the domestic after a big blow up over the Venezuela strike.

00:00:14.360 Trump seems to have returned his focus to the United States, recognizing that domestic policy is king,

00:00:21.000 something that his constituents are absolutely looking for as gains, especially in the area of standard of living and affordability.

00:00:27.780 So Trump has made two big announcements recently. One is his intention to restrict the purchase of residential property by finance,

00:00:37.900 large conglomerates, corporations to ensure that single families, the average person, have more affordable housing,

00:00:46.020 that it's not all being gobbled up and they're being pushed into the rental economy the way that it seems like many large corporations have been trying to move our real estate market.

00:00:55.280 The other big announcement he made is that he intends to cap credit card interest at 10%, effectively eliminating usury.

00:01:04.880 A huge change, I think, and ultimately one that he can't unilaterally make.

00:01:10.260 So we're going to be discussing why he's announced these changes, what it would take to actually get this stuff done,

00:01:15.800 and what the underlying principles are for the American people.

00:01:19.400 Joining me today to discuss that is, of course, one of our favorite co-hosts, the Prudentialist.

00:01:24.400 Thanks, Matthew. Thank you so much for coming on, man.

00:01:26.240 Yeah, thank you, Oren, for having me on again. It's always a pleasure.

00:01:29.560 Of course. So, like I said, there's been these two announcements, and we can't really look at them without separating,

00:01:36.400 obviously, the current events that are going on.

00:01:38.520 Now, in one way, the Trump administration got a rude awakening.

00:01:41.760 It got snapped back to domestic policy by the events going on in Minnesota.

00:01:46.400 Everything that's happening with ICE and the pushback against agents after we had, I think,

00:01:52.740 what is an entirely justified shooting of a terrorist who attempted to kill an ICE agent,

00:01:57.140 but has continued to return focus away from the foreign policy sector and back to what's happening domestically here in the United States.

00:02:06.560 Also, guys, I should say, we are pre-taping this, so if we're talking about this like we don't know what's already happened,

00:02:13.960 if some major event has happened, this is going to come out on Wednesday, and that's why.

00:02:18.100 We don't know. Also, obviously, we can't take any questions due to that.

00:02:22.100 But, Matt, looking at both of these actions, these are things that you and I have ultimately said would be great ideas.

00:02:29.620 Many people, I think, in the new right have asked that we see a return to focusing on building that ability for families to form,

00:02:37.880 to own houses, young people to acquire houses.

00:02:41.060 They're more likely to have children, more likely to have larger families.

00:02:43.840 When they do that, obviously, we both know that debt is a massive problem with everyone,

00:02:48.400 but especially young people in the United States.

00:02:51.200 So I see both of these proposals as rather positive suggestions.

00:02:55.480 However, these are obviously things that the president can't just do on his own,

00:02:58.960 even with executive orders.

00:03:00.300 It seems like there's very little latitude for him to make significant policy changes.

00:03:06.440 So what do you think is ultimately going on with a presentation of both of these concerns back to back?

00:03:12.260 For me, it seems like he's setting the agenda in order to make the case for why he and the Republican Party

00:03:18.480 should stay in power, at least in Congress, throughout the midterm election.

00:03:22.380 I think that this pivot has coincided on top of numerous elections

00:03:27.660 in which Democrats have done very well in.

00:03:29.860 We saw numerous gubernatorial sweeps from Democrats across the country,

00:03:34.280 as well as mayoral elections, not just in New York, but also in the Miami-Dade area as well,

00:03:40.180 where I think it's the first time in like 30-something years a Democrat's taken office.

00:03:43.880 And a lot of these campaigns that Democrats have been focusing on has been primarily on the issues of

00:03:48.660 affordability and the ability to have their quality of life see an overall improvement,

00:03:55.140 whether it's due to claims of inflation or the amount of economic opportunities that are available.

00:04:01.080 Democrats everywhere from Zora Mandani to Amy Acton in Ohio,

00:04:05.280 who was running against Vivek Ramaswamy,

00:04:07.280 has been championing on the issues that people who work hard should be rewarded for the labor

00:04:11.940 that they've put forward into the economy and into the system,

00:04:14.620 that that system should work for them.

00:04:17.000 And to me, it echoes a conversation I had not too long ago with some friends I have

00:04:22.000 in my historical society here where I live.

00:04:25.200 And the topic of Charlie Kirk had come up.

00:04:28.420 And the last appearance he had on Tucker Carlson, I thought, was very eerily prophetic

00:04:32.560 because it's the affordability issues.

00:04:35.260 It's the questions of, does the system ever really serve me at all?

00:04:38.900 And if it doesn't, then I'm going to go vote for people that I would never vote for before,

00:04:42.700 or I would support those that have no real, you know, support for my interests or my identity

00:04:47.900 at heart, but say that they're actually going to do something about it.

00:04:51.660 And people who say that they're going to do things are going to be much better than those

00:04:55.060 that are talking about it or tweeting about it from the purchase of power.

00:04:57.940 So I think it's very positive to see Trump return to domestic issues.

00:05:02.080 Obviously, that is where all things really do matter for the American voter,

00:05:06.600 especially as we come up on the 26 midterms and the primaries.

00:05:09.100 And so I think that we're going to see a State of the Union address probably in the next couple

00:05:13.580 of months, and that these actions are going to be his charge to press on Congress to do so.

00:05:19.400 I know that he announced that he's going to do the credit card interest rate cap at 10%.

00:05:24.720 He wants to announce that on January 20th, on the anniversary of him being sworn in.

00:05:29.660 And I don't know if he's planning to go further with that with the State of the Union.

00:05:32.200 I don't know yet.

00:05:32.860 But I think it just comes to show that some of the issues that he's been promising on during

00:05:38.060 the campaign, I think he's trying to come up with a legislative agenda to secure the victory

00:05:42.780 for him and his party come the election.

00:05:45.280 Yeah, these are largely conversation starters.

00:05:47.700 I agree with you.

00:05:48.500 And that's wise because, one, it sets the stage, lets Congress know where they should expect things

00:05:54.640 to be directed.

00:05:56.060 It builds the expectations of the average person.

00:05:59.020 It changes the discussion inside the news media.

00:06:03.460 And even if you're not going to immediately be able to achieve these things, your constituents

00:06:06.560 are going to feel better knowing that you're talking about them, working towards them.

00:06:10.600 But of course, these are all going to be large mountains to climb.

00:06:12.900 Now, a lot of people have started to ask me for predictions.

00:06:15.580 Hey, it's the new year.

00:06:16.940 What do you think is going to happen here?

00:06:18.360 What do you think is going to be the big deal coming up?

00:06:20.480 And I've given the same answer every time I'm asked.

00:06:22.700 Look, the thing that's going to be every president's problem, left, right, Republican, Democrat,

00:06:27.620 is going to be affordability.

00:06:29.760 I mean, I don't have to tell you this.

00:06:31.200 I probably don't have to tell our audience this.

00:06:33.080 But our economy is a runaway train, right?

00:06:35.060 Like, there's simply, there is no escape from kind of the democratic problem.

00:06:39.760 You and I, I think, have even read Nick Land's zombie, you know, democracy, you know, the

00:06:45.540 zombie apocalypse, you know, essay where he just talks about, you know, democracy as this

00:06:51.100 like ravenous horde looking to consume everything.

00:06:53.580 And you have a serious problem where in any kind of vote-based political order, the ability

00:07:00.520 to promise people stuff is really the key thing.

00:07:03.460 I know Republicans hate to hear that, but it is true.

00:07:06.000 Patronage is what makes politics work. 0.80

00:07:08.200 And so in a democratic process, whoever offers more stuff is usually going to win in the long

00:07:13.360 term.

00:07:14.340 And of course, that works, but it also creates long-term problems because you're printing

00:07:19.780 and spending to try to get at all of this and there's all the advantages built in for

00:07:24.400 who gets to move first on the money and manipulate the interest rates.

00:07:28.460 And so you're just going to constantly have the scenario where, you know, the boomers want 0.90

00:07:31.720 their house values to go up and corporations continue wanting to be able to use the advantages

00:07:36.080 of leverage and all these things.

00:07:37.840 And so inflation is just going to keep happening.

00:07:40.660 We can blame Republicans.

00:07:41.880 We can blame Democrats.

00:07:42.820 We can blame abstract principles and social policies and monetary theory.

00:07:48.600 But at the end of the day, this is just responding to the political marketplace, right?

00:07:52.620 Like this is what the people think they want, and this is how politicians deliver it to them.

00:07:58.140 And there's just no way to escape from that cycle.

00:08:00.520 And so the trick is really to kind of blame your opponent for why the affordability crisis

00:08:05.720 continues to happen, even though it's going to happen, whether it's under Republicans

00:08:09.580 again or Democrats.

00:08:11.060 However, if you can make these minor policy changes, then you can at least better the lives

00:08:17.040 of some people.

00:08:18.000 You can adjust and address some level of the problem.

00:08:21.380 And that's worth doing just because the ship is sinking slowly doesn't mean you don't plug

00:08:25.720 as many holes as you can, bail out as much water as you possibly can.

00:08:30.080 And so let's look at these two policies.

00:08:32.960 The easy one first, I think this is the easier one to sell, the easier one to try to get through

00:08:38.160 Congress.

00:08:38.520 It's the harder one for the Democrats to fight back against.

00:08:41.400 And that is the housing affordability issue, right?

00:08:43.740 Like nobody except corporations wants corporations to own homes.

00:08:48.820 Like it just doesn't make sense unless you're one of these diehard libertarians or conservative

00:08:53.300 that just vomits out whatever free market rhetoric you got fed back into you at one point.

00:08:57.460 Everyone can think about why having BlackRock or whatever, these large investment firms holding

00:09:06.340 large amounts of real estate and forcing people in the rental market, everyone understands why

00:09:10.680 that's bad.

00:09:11.860 And so even the Republicans, I think, can be pushed on board, can be guilted into it.

00:09:16.880 And the Democrats reflexively want to fight back against everything Trump does.

00:09:20.880 But what possible argument can they have against this, right?

00:09:23.540 Like this is just exactly their kind of complaint.

00:09:26.400 Like maybe they want to abolish private property altogether.

00:09:29.100 But other than that, how do they even argue against the idea that corporations shouldn't

00:09:33.980 be able to own residential real estate?

00:09:36.480 I mean, that's going to be the really good question is, is how do you steel man, you know,

00:09:42.280 the ongoing purchasing of homes or vast swaths of real estate or even where I live?

00:09:49.300 I know that the neighboring counties around me have a lot of farmland that has been bought

00:09:52.740 up because of the outpouring of both like the various suburbs and cities that are now being

00:09:58.880 eaten alive by either the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex or if you're even further south, like

00:10:04.280 the greater Austin area, like there's no left, you know, no area left for a lot of suburban

00:10:09.700 sprawl.

00:10:10.280 And instead, a lot of it has been turned into apartments and a lot of it has been an avenue

00:10:14.560 for real estate.

00:10:15.880 Or I know it's been sort of a boogeyman to discuss the question of like private equity

00:10:19.460 or anything like that.

00:10:20.500 But I mean, it is a very easy sell rhetorically that we are going to ban the usual boogeyman

00:10:27.060 left, right and center that kind of would all agree that like, yeah, actually, I don't

00:10:30.580 think that these guys have the average American's interest at heart, which is things like Black

00:10:35.040 Rock or the rest, despite the fact that, you know, in the previous administration, they

00:10:38.980 were quite all over the place in terms of policy.

00:10:41.560 So I think this move is going to be an interesting one.

00:10:44.760 And I know that he's not really going to be able to do it without, you know, Trump, as

00:10:49.040 he had said in his Truth Social post, he says he'll be calling on Congress to codify

00:10:53.740 it.

00:10:53.980 He says he's going to be immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from

00:10:58.320 buying more single family homes.

00:11:00.380 I think that it in much I think this is a much better direction rhetorically and politically

00:11:04.600 than the question over 50 year mortgages that was proposed just a few months ago.

00:11:09.660 But of course, you know, the ongoing question is going to be how many of these homes are going

00:11:14.080 to be available?

00:11:15.060 What are we actually doing?

00:11:16.640 There's so many questions that remain to be seen.

00:11:18.520 But in terms of, you know, legislative support, a lot of Trump allies have already moved forward

00:11:22.800 on this.

00:11:23.300 He says, I think it was Senator Bernie Moreno from Ohio.

00:11:26.740 He had said that he wants to introduce legislation in the Senate to do so.

00:11:30.700 So I think that already you're going to be to be moving forward on that.

00:11:33.800 And also, I think it's sort of a bipartisan win if he wants to go that route.

00:11:37.080 I know the Democrats tried to do something similar in 2023.

00:11:41.880 However, you know, it was narrow votes.

00:11:43.720 And of course, the question of special interests always arise.

00:11:46.220 So I think that it's just going to be what major shifts or turbulence is the housing market

00:11:52.280 going to see by doing this?

00:11:53.540 And if so, is this going to open up, quote unquote, Main Street again?

00:11:57.460 Are we going to see more local realtors do this rather than large corporate ones?

00:12:01.160 And will we see that move in other sectors of the economy?

00:12:04.200 I don't know.

00:12:04.980 But I think that saying that, hey, this is no longer going to be a rental property and

00:12:09.300 this is going to be something where, you know, there are home loans and other predatory

00:12:14.020 systems in place that prevent, you know, Americans from actually getting homes.

00:12:17.620 Then, yeah, I mean, let's go for it.

00:12:19.340 Let's see what this does for the average homeowner.

00:12:21.200 Yeah, I really think this is a winning issue just across the board and not just because

00:12:25.380 it's been a hobby horse of mine for a while.

00:12:27.700 But like I said, I just can't imagine a coherent argument from the left other than Orange Man

00:12:33.860 Bad about how you can really oppose this, which means your real enemies, funny enough, on

00:12:39.360 this will be from the right.

00:12:41.040 I'm sure that you'll have some chamber of communist Republicans or, you know, wildly ideological

00:12:46.500 free trade guys who will try to push back against this.

00:12:49.220 But I don't think their arguments will be strong.

00:12:51.380 I think the biggest block for this, sadly, will be, as you point out, how closely this

00:12:56.980 administration has worked with many of those financial institutions, BlackRock, Blackstone.

00:13:02.560 I mean, BlackRock, Larry Fink's having to like, what, buy Ukraine at this point, right?

00:13:06.680 Like we're literally working out a deal with him right now to see how much of Ukraine can 0.91

00:13:10.920 be sold to BlackRock.

00:13:11.840 So is an administration and probably a Congress that is largely, you know, in bed with these

00:13:20.420 organizations going to tell these organizations, no, you can't buy, you know, this stuff?

00:13:25.000 Are they going to have to offer these people some kind of carrot to go along with the stick?

00:13:30.680 You know, these are all questions that I think are what would really impact the ability to

00:13:35.240 move this forward.

00:13:36.180 However, I will say watching every congressman like squirm as they're forced to attack their

00:13:42.300 big donors or or openly choose their donors over the basic sanity of allowing families

00:13:47.860 to own homes.

00:13:48.700 No, that's an exercise worth going through, even if I guess you can't ultimately secure

00:13:52.880 that.

00:13:53.300 So like I said, I think that's the easier one.

00:13:55.380 I think that's the one that's easy to justify.

00:13:57.140 Hard to argue against.

00:13:58.860 Would have the most support.

00:14:00.600 Would be the most difficult for even the average Republican to fight back against.

00:14:04.240 It would really just come down to whether politicians would defy their donors, which is actually

00:14:10.020 the largest of all rules, I understand.

00:14:12.140 But but but at least it's just the one instead of, you know, a multiplicity of issues.

00:14:17.100 Now, the other suggestion is the credit card one.

00:14:20.880 And I think this one's interesting for a few reasons.

00:14:23.180 One, Joe Biden was famous for being like a huge fan of the credit cards and fighting

00:14:28.020 fighting for credit card companies.

00:14:29.760 So it's good rhetorically for Trump.

00:14:31.400 He gets to he gets to rail against that.

00:14:34.240 Two, I have suggested that there is a serious problem with usury several times.

00:14:40.560 Now, that's not because I'm a great moral philosopher or rocket scientist.

00:14:44.620 It's because I can read the Bible and also other other sources of moral wisdom.

00:14:49.960 And they uniformly say that usury is a problem.

00:14:53.760 They all note that this is a dangerous thing to consistently engage in.

00:14:59.640 But every time I suggest that perhaps usury is not the best, like I even cited Aristotle

00:15:05.280 at some point pointing out that the problems of usury, I get just absolutely attacked on

00:15:11.700 all sides.

00:15:12.520 I get attacked by people who say, oh, well, you're just wanting to go back to the Stone

00:15:17.380 Ages or the Middle Ages.

00:15:19.140 Maybe the Middle Ages, but you're you know, you're you're out there trying to destroy all 1.00

00:15:24.080 of human progress as if compound interest interest is the key to human progress.

00:15:28.340 I get, you know, people who are economic libertarians.

00:15:32.080 I get free traders.

00:15:33.360 I also weirdly get people who say any pointing and I promise I'm not making this up.

00:15:38.720 I was accused of it several times.

00:15:41.100 Any anyone suggesting the restriction of usury is somehow anti-Semitic, like somehow that's

00:15:45.840 like an anti-Semitic trope.

00:15:47.960 I don't know why the Bible says don't do it.

00:15:50.920 So there's that.

00:15:52.360 So so it's in the Old Testament, by the way, that's where that where it's where that dictate

00:15:57.420 comes from.

00:15:58.140 It's not like it's just a New Testament thing.

00:16:00.200 So I think it should be clear to like lots of Christians that usury is bad. 1.00

00:16:04.800 But the minute I bring it up and this is always the funniest thing I always get.

00:16:07.940 Well, how do you know what usury is?

00:16:09.980 Like, how do we know how much is usury?

00:16:12.720 Which is so weird.

00:16:13.760 It's like all of a sudden Christians become these like moral relativists whenever you talk 1.00

00:16:17.460 about financial instruments.

00:16:18.740 Like they're just like, how could you know?

00:16:20.580 Who are you to say?

00:16:21.480 Like.

00:16:22.720 I think we can use common sense like usury is the over offering of interest, right?

00:16:28.020 Like if I'm paying more, if there's more in interest than I could possibly ever pay off,

00:16:33.080 if we're putting so much compound interest on something that it's going to

00:16:37.740 put people into long-term debt slavery, that's usury.

00:16:41.980 But maybe that's 20%.

00:16:43.840 Maybe that's 15%.

00:16:44.800 I think 10% is actually a pretty good number, actually. 0.55

00:16:47.300 I think that's a reasonable number.

00:16:49.660 It gives institutions enough to get a return on their investment for lending to people.

00:16:55.520 But it's not so much that it would make it impossible for the average person to catch

00:16:59.720 up with that debt at some point.

00:17:01.240 I think actually 10% is quite a good middle road number.

00:17:04.960 I would have gone a little lower.

00:17:06.300 Others would have gone a little higher.

00:17:07.300 But I think that's a reasonable one.

00:17:09.000 So what do you think about, I guess, the larger discussion on usury?

00:17:13.020 And then we'll get to like the practical application of if they could ever actually get this done.

00:17:17.840 Yeah.

00:17:18.060 I mean, it's a pretty, it's one of those third rail topics, or at least it's a word that

00:17:24.380 becomes a third rail topic in American politics.

00:17:27.820 And I think a lot of it has to do with the American political scene being very much charged

00:17:31.780 with any form of accusations of bigotry, or more recently, anti-Semitism when it comes

00:17:37.660 to the right.

00:17:38.720 We've already witnessed that on the left a lot since October 7th.

00:17:41.800 It played a large part, I think, in the 2024 election, at least in places like Michigan.

00:17:46.080 We saw how that went for Kamala Harris in various parts in that state, especially due to various 1.00

00:17:51.500 immigrant populations.

00:17:52.540 The same thing also, too, when it comes to like the broader scope of these, both these

00:17:57.000 questions, both the interest cap, but also the question of like housing, is that the nitty-gritty

00:18:02.960 remains to be the ultimate question on these issues.

00:18:06.060 I mean, firms that own 100 or more single-family homes, according to an article I was reading

00:18:11.580 on CNBC in preparation for this discussion, says that, you know, that's about 2% of the

00:18:16.240 nation's single-family housing stock.

00:18:18.580 It also raises some interesting questions of like, well, if we're banning them, what else

00:18:22.520 are we going to do to alleviate home prices?

00:18:24.440 How much is available?

00:18:25.500 And this is going to, of course, imagine, like you had said, be conversation starters.

00:18:28.880 And the same thing when it comes to the credit card question, or at least for capping interest

00:18:33.500 rates on credit cards at 10%.

00:18:35.260 I know that the Federal Reserve plays a small role for what the rates are for them, which

00:18:40.240 is then calculated alongside the borrowing rate based on a user's credit history, and are

00:18:45.520 they considered a risky person to borrow or lend money to?

00:18:49.000 And there's a lot that goes into it.

00:18:50.540 So, I mean, it's going to be a question of like, well, what does that really mean?

00:18:54.200 I think that when we also look at our financial system today, everything has been incredibly

00:18:58.900 financialized.

00:18:59.980 I mean, we have witnessed that things have gone from tangibility to the question of

00:19:04.840 like owning.

00:19:05.500 And it was funny.

00:19:06.340 I was talking with Benjamin Boyce not too long ago, and he said, I became a homeowner.

00:19:09.820 And then he had to put homeowner in, you know, scare quotes, so to speak, because-

00:19:14.020 I sent a piece of paper that says the bank owns a home.

00:19:15.780 Yeah, the bank owns a home.

00:19:17.160 Exactly, right?

00:19:17.920 Like, you don't really own that home.

00:19:19.300 And even then, it's going to be set for years and years and years until you pay that off.

00:19:22.840 But I mean, on the question of credit cards too, I mean, the question of enforcement becomes

00:19:26.120 really interesting because there are so many not bank accounts, but are acting like bank

00:19:32.780 accounts nowadays.

00:19:33.480 Things are not so tied to usual brick and mortar financial institutions or even large corporate

00:19:40.480 ones like Wells Fargo and the rest, because everything nowadays has a way for you to get

00:19:44.680 a card.

00:19:45.180 I can get a card through PayPal.

00:19:47.040 I can get a card through other sort of payment apps and Venmo and all the rest.

00:19:51.020 And while those operate, of course, the various similar, you know, payment processors, you

00:19:54.640 know, you can technically treat that as a bank account without actually having a formal

00:19:57.640 bank account at your, you know, local credit union or at a large banking institution.

00:20:02.860 So, I mean, the question of enforcement becomes an interesting one, but also at the same time

00:20:06.980 that it opens up so many other third rail discussions about credit and about who gets

00:20:13.340 lended to and who is lending.

00:20:16.020 Because when we look at, say, there's a lot of videos out there on social media that show

00:20:20.380 how individuals will buy a used car and get an auto loan and the financial paperwork

00:20:27.620 that they all fill out.

00:20:28.680 One, most people are not financially literate.

00:20:30.900 That is a huge problem in this country is that we have a substantial lack of financial

00:20:34.340 literacy.

00:20:35.400 I'm sure that that is going to be an interesting thing to break down if you're to break that

00:20:38.660 upon American demographics.

00:20:40.300 But nevertheless, on top of that, you also have the issue of that you do have risky, you

00:20:46.060 know, people who want to, you know, get access to credit.

00:20:48.960 And what do you do with that?

00:20:50.400 Are you going to ban them from that?

00:20:52.220 That's already a question that's being raised.

00:20:53.580 I imagine that someone could easily raise a 14th Amendment kind of lawsuit about, you

00:20:58.840 know, the Equal Protection Clause and their access to things or even along civil rights

00:21:03.040 lines.

00:21:03.640 So you're touching the third rail, of course, about, you know, touching our financial institutions,

00:21:08.180 which everything has become over financialized.

00:21:10.180 We don't regulate things like Clarina. 0.95

00:21:12.140 We don't regulate things that can be at ridiculous rates.

00:21:15.340 We don't look at, you know, the consequences that they have.

00:21:18.520 And of course, now this wanton amount of online gambling, it's a whole other discussion for

00:21:21.900 another time.

00:21:22.960 But I think that, you know, trying to put some kind of regulatory pressure on the very

00:21:28.880 question of whether you want to call it usury or if you want to call it the over financialization

00:21:33.360 of everything, it really does show that the Trump administration is looking at something

00:21:38.280 that is quite serious, which is that, you know, even Black Friday, you know, details from

00:21:43.740 this last holiday season really does come to show how bad everyone was using buy now, pay

00:21:51.340 later kind of things for their equipment.

00:21:53.160 This isn't like layaway, you know, back when you and I were younger or our parents wanted

00:21:57.000 to save up and pay for something like a ring or whatnot.

00:21:59.640 Now it's just anything and it's instantly in your hands and that's how it's going to

00:22:03.760 be.

00:22:04.100 And then the consequences of whether or not you pay becomes a whole other discussion.

00:22:07.780 Then who's left holding the bag?

00:22:09.760 So, I mean, these are good things to have conversations on and I hope to see more policy

00:22:14.500 focus on this question later.

00:22:16.180 But it is, it's good to be discussed.

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00:22:43.140 Yeah, you Zoomer kids don't remember the people showing up to JCPenney's to put down 0.96

00:22:51.600 50 bucks on, you know, something for six months before they finally owned it in the layaway

00:22:57.340 program.

00:22:58.020 Yeah.

00:22:58.380 No, there's a lot of really interesting, I think, and deep problems wrapped up in this.

00:23:03.600 It seems like a very small issue.

00:23:05.320 It seems like a, you know, okay, you know, 10%, you know, whatever.

00:23:08.780 Like, actually, there's so many things wrapped up in this, and you kind of highlighted a few

00:23:13.640 of them there.

00:23:14.120 So I want to pull that apart a little bit, because I do think there's some fascinating

00:23:18.400 issues to think about.

00:23:19.700 The first one is the way in which, as you say, over-financialization creates this really

00:23:26.980 interesting dynamic that puts a way more emphasis on financial literacy.

00:23:32.260 Because when we say financial literacy, there's a certain amount of, like, okay, how to write

00:23:36.800 a check and how to, you know, keep a bank account and apply for a loan and get insurance

00:23:42.600 and these kind of things.

00:23:43.500 Things that they used to kind of teach you in school to some degree, but less and less

00:23:47.600 that happens.

00:23:49.200 But one of the things is that one of the reasons you need more financial literacy is you've

00:23:53.780 increased financial complexity, right?

00:23:55.800 So if the average person just needs to, like, save money in a bank and work, those are pretty

00:24:03.680 basic things, right?

00:24:04.980 Like, maybe you have to learn how to get a bank account and write a check, but relatively,

00:24:09.260 you can figure that out.

00:24:10.540 That's not super complicated.

00:24:12.620 But the more you financialize, the more you move things into this realm where you need to

00:24:18.200 be making these investments and hedging things and figuring out the tax shelters and, you know,

00:24:24.360 the IRAs and do you want a Roth or do you want a traditional?

00:24:28.420 Should you be moving into gold?

00:24:30.100 What about Bitcoin?

00:24:31.160 What are the restrictions?

00:24:32.080 The more you are forced to interact with these things because of the complexity of the financial

00:24:37.080 market, the more financial literacy becomes critical, right?

00:24:41.340 And the higher level of financial literacy you have to achieve just to keep the basics up.

00:24:46.800 And this becomes a class issue because the rich are going to be the ones who are more familiar

00:24:51.760 with these complex financial instruments and those who are not in those, you know, in those

00:24:58.020 classes are much less likely to have the ability to understand that.

00:25:03.340 And that can be a huge hindrance for the average American.

00:25:06.860 Most people can't spend a large amount of their time learning everything about financial markets

00:25:12.600 and the way they should be manipulating their money to stay ahead of the game.

00:25:16.320 So if you're one of these people who is on top of all of that, or you can pay someone

00:25:20.880 enough to be on top of that for you, then you gain a first mover advantage and a advantage

00:25:26.200 of complexity on the rest of the economy.

00:25:28.800 You have a built in, baked in advantage over everyone else you're competing with.

00:25:33.580 There's also the issue of, you know, race when it comes to credit.

00:25:38.060 Um, you know, famously, uh, there are different classes.

00:25:41.780 There are different, uh, groups who are less likely to have good credit.

00:25:46.320 And when you shrink that credit cap, you're also shrinking the number of people banks will

00:25:51.740 into, right?

00:25:52.420 Because, okay, I'm probably not going to lend to you if you're high risk at 10%, because

00:25:58.080 it's just not enough return for me to take that risk at 30%.

00:26:02.200 Well, maybe I will, because even if you don't pay off the whole thing, I'm still going to

00:26:05.520 make a decent amount of money off of you over time.

00:26:08.460 Maybe it's worth taking that risk.

00:26:10.420 And so, you know, a lot of minorities and others who might have bad credit will be stuck

00:26:14.820 at the margins.

00:26:15.620 Now, all of a sudden they won't get those loans.

00:26:17.940 Now, in my mind, you shouldn't have gotten those loans at all.

00:26:20.500 The interest rate was so high that it was always a bad move for you to take that loan.

00:26:25.120 And so the fact that you get access to that loan at 25% instead of 10%, that's not actually

00:26:30.300 an advantage for you.

00:26:31.540 But in the mind of many, just not having access to credit is the problem.

00:26:35.520 And this ties us back to the last thing I want to say, which is that when you have really

00:26:40.300 a decent amount of interest rates on loans in general, when you have a high degree of

00:26:47.820 leverage because of the percentages and the availability of credit, that drives up the

00:26:52.260 price of everything, that it creates inflation.

00:26:54.700 Why are homes more expensive?

00:26:56.020 Well, there's a lot of reasons, but one of them is that more people can get mortgages and

00:27:00.620 they can get mortgages for longer, which means they can pay more for houses.

00:27:03.520 So you have to compete with more people over the price of the house and they can offer

00:27:07.560 more money on the house.

00:27:09.180 And this is true of cars and this is true of everything because the more people can get

00:27:14.120 leverage, the higher prices they can pay for basic goods, the more the price you're going

00:27:19.480 to have to pay as well.

00:27:20.860 And there's so there's this like credit spiral that happens and you can see this in the housing

00:27:25.320 market.

00:27:25.700 And to a large degree, the booms and busts of the housing market are also booms and busts

00:27:30.500 and credit of availability.

00:27:32.500 And so when you have a lot of money chasing houses out there, the prices shoot through

00:27:36.380 the roof.

00:27:37.200 And that's what creates a large amount of your housing inflation.

00:27:40.360 You see, again, same thing with colleges.

00:27:42.300 The fact that kids can take out $200,000 loans for a school is why those schools can charge

00:27:48.980 that much money.

00:27:49.480 If they couldn't get access, if people with no job history and nothing, no, no, no actual

00:27:56.180 property couldn't get $200,000 loans, we wouldn't be seeing the ridiculous tuitions that we're

00:28:02.720 seeing.

00:28:03.120 So just across the board, the availability of credit creates in many ways, the affordability

00:28:08.300 problems it's meant to solve.

00:28:10.320 So I know it's through like a lot of stuff out there, but just wherever you want to tackle

00:28:14.120 it, what about these many different issues that the high interest rates or availability

00:28:18.720 of credit create?

00:28:20.680 Yeah.

00:28:20.860 And I mean, this is the thing that most people aren't going to be aware of.

00:28:24.660 And it's something that has been often talked about since I was young.

00:28:27.600 And I'm sure the same thing for you, that we ask ourselves questions like, well, when

00:28:31.340 are the things that we learn in school are going to be applicable?

00:28:33.100 Or I wish that my regular W-2 tax form for the average wage earner was something that

00:28:39.580 was taught in school as well.

00:28:41.060 And I mean, those are obviously an education question, but also a parental one as well.

00:28:45.400 We have a lot of things in our culture, at least, has abdicated parental responsibility.

00:28:51.320 And a lot of that, of course, has a lot to do with the dual income trap that has often

00:28:56.340 been discussed, but it's also now a necessity in order to be able to afford your family or

00:29:01.760 your home and your lifestyle.

00:29:04.060 There's a question of decadence in there, but I'm not someone who promotes the idea of

00:29:07.620 downward mobility as being honorable.

00:29:09.260 And at the same time, you also have the issue and the question of just like, America is

00:29:14.000 not a place where we could rely on swift problems to financial issues.

00:29:20.500 I mean, this isn't like the savings and loan crisis of George H.W. Bush's time either.

00:29:24.880 It's much more massive.

00:29:26.080 It's much more complex.

00:29:27.240 And a lot of it is predicated on perception and belief more than anything that might be

00:29:32.140 written on paper.

00:29:33.380 This is why we put so much stock, at least for when it comes to policymakers and economic

00:29:38.340 writers, we put so much emphasis on consumer confidence than anything else.

00:29:42.740 And access to credit or a credit history becomes vitally important for every person who is trying

00:29:49.460 to apply for an auto loan or a home loan or even just applying to live in an apartment while

00:29:55.620 they go to school or live closer to their job so they're not commuting so far.

00:29:59.800 I mean, it's something that affects every slice of life.

00:30:02.460 And access to it becomes a question of necessity and not so much like, well, I don't really

00:30:07.100 need it right now.

00:30:08.160 I can afford and live within my own means.

00:30:11.060 And it becomes quite a debilitating situation to be in, especially for younger people.

00:30:16.360 And of course, America is in a weird place because the younger and younger generations, 1.00

00:30:21.160 under the consequences of both immigration and our policies of preferring diversity when it

00:30:28.060 comes to, say, small business loans or home loans and things from the Clinton administration to

00:30:32.780 things that have been brought on by Biden.

00:30:34.340 I don't know what Trump has touched on these issues either.

00:30:36.640 But it's like you're again, like I mentioned earlier, there's so many third rails that this

00:30:40.360 like just intersects and cross cuts into that it becomes this Gordian knot.

00:30:44.840 And I think that you have to start somewhere, which I think is what the Trump administration

00:30:48.520 has announced on doing is that they're going to start laying the blade on one part of the

00:30:52.980 knot and seeing what else comes frayed or comes open.

00:30:55.860 And then we can address and talk to those issues.

00:30:57.860 And I'm all for that because it needs to be done.

00:31:01.080 Yes, there should be more financial education.

00:31:03.240 But also at the same time, we have a culture where we have instant gratification.

00:31:07.160 We have the issue that no one reads the end user like license agreement when it comes to

00:31:12.860 installing a new operating system or a new program or anything on their phone or applying

00:31:18.060 for things.

00:31:18.900 But also, it doesn't matter if you have good credit or bad credit.

00:31:21.800 I mean, I check my mail every couple of days and all the time you see littered advertisements

00:31:28.080 in my apartment by in the trash where it's just like all these like credit card or loan

00:31:34.320 applications and checks that are, you know, you're magically pre approved for that no one

00:31:38.900 is really going to read all the fine print or what the interest rate is on there.

00:31:42.940 And again, it's the same thing with like, well, America is the only country in the world

00:31:45.940 where we allow pharmaceutical industries to like openly market their drugs on the TV airwaves

00:31:50.300 where other countries don't do that.

00:31:52.040 And so a lot of this does boil down to what we had mentioned earlier.

00:31:54.800 There's going to be a lot of special interests in mind that comes forward into this.

00:31:58.280 There's going to be a lot of questions as to how do you even start to address the over

00:32:03.020 financialization of everything.

00:32:04.860 There was a great take where it says, you know, most of the economy is entirely vibes

00:32:08.600 based.

00:32:09.120 It's not really what's on paper, what your output is.

00:32:11.760 It's what you can convince investors and consumers that the product is actually good for you or good

00:32:15.840 for your portfolio.

00:32:16.620 So it has to come down to the fact that there needs to be, I think, in the same way, a Gerald

00:32:21.660 Ford moment where the state of the union financially is not good, whether it's the American government's

00:32:27.380 like our sovereign debt problem and our debt to GDP ratio, but also just that the average

00:32:32.120 American is both those who are considered middle class and otherwise that have voted for

00:32:37.800 Trump in the past on economic issues, whether it's the issue of trade or re-industrializing

00:32:42.820 America, it's like, okay, these are good things.

00:32:45.080 And of course, once we deport more people and the issues that we're talking about here,

00:32:49.200 whether it's the credit issue or the housing issue alleviates, you still have the longstanding

00:32:54.320 problems that institutionally there is so much rot that we have accepted as a feature that

00:33:00.280 you have to start somewhere.

00:33:01.640 And I think that this kind of conversation is very good because it's the kind of economic

00:33:05.820 populism that Trump has championed on in the past.

00:33:08.900 But it's the exact same kind of economic populism that his political rivals have been outflanking

00:33:14.340 Republicans on for years that so many lock, stock and barrel, traditional National Review

00:33:20.100 style Republicans don't want to play because that's against their economic orthodoxies or

00:33:25.720 their own first principles.

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00:33:58.020 Well, and that's the real issue, right?

00:33:59.620 Because I think you're right exactly that both these issues are home runs because the way,

00:34:04.740 not only because they're good for people, which should be the first concern, but also politically

00:34:09.900 they're winners because the narrative is just right there for you, right?

00:34:14.180 Like, this is economic populism.

00:34:16.200 We're going to undercut the Bernie Sanders, the AOC messages.

00:34:19.900 You know, we're going to come in.

00:34:20.860 They can't, they might say these are insufficient or something, but they can't argue about, you

00:34:25.080 know, the quality of either of these.

00:34:27.440 They can't say, oh, well, you know, this is, this is hurting the little guy, that kind of

00:34:31.740 thing, right?

00:34:32.140 So I think that they are both, you know, optically good, they are strategically good and have

00:34:38.320 the virtue of also being good for the people.

00:34:40.860 The largest problem, I think with the second one, with the credit card company will be

00:34:44.800 conservatives.

00:34:45.560 I think that's going to be the hardest thing, not just because I'm sure the credit card

00:34:49.200 companies own large amounts of politicians, but just generally, genuinely, there seems to

00:34:53.940 be among many, you know, national review, free trade, even, you know, mainstream Christian

00:35:00.980 conservatives seem to think that like, just open-ended interest rates are just, that's

00:35:06.120 what freedom is.

00:35:07.180 That's what liberty means is allowing a company to charge 40% on a credit card, you know, to

00:35:11.980 charge 2000% on a payday loan.

00:35:14.080 Like that, that's what economic liberty was talking about.

00:35:16.120 That's Adam Smith right there.

00:35:17.880 And so, you know, I think the largest pushback he's going to get are from people inside his

00:35:22.960 own constituency or not his own constituency, but inside his own party.

00:35:26.820 And that creates an interesting dynamic because we have watched this conservative civil war

00:35:33.420 unfold and it's largely been over Israel.

00:35:37.960 Like, we'll just be honest.

00:35:38.940 It's very clear that there's a neocon wing and they expect large amounts of loyalty to

00:35:44.600 Israel and they perceive the new right as personified with like JD Vance as the successor

00:35:53.080 of Trump to be in somehow in opposition to this, despite, you know, the very angry protestations

00:36:00.880 of many America firsts that that's not the case.

00:36:03.840 And so you have the scenario where they have already been trying to push back against, they've

00:36:09.640 been trying to play this game where they're like, well, we're on Trump's side, but we don't

00:36:13.560 like Vance or we don't like the new right.

00:36:15.260 We don't like the people around him.

00:36:16.520 So they're trying to like control MAGA, rebrand it, you know, gain, gain control of it.

00:36:22.700 No, MAGA is actually about foreign adventurism and, you know, infinite war and support for

00:36:27.660 Israel.

00:36:28.200 That's, that's what MAGA was always out about, you know, at the, at the, uh, outset.

00:36:33.040 But the problem is like, if Trump comes in with something like this, they're going to

00:36:37.580 have to go hard in the paint against it, right?

00:36:39.560 Like, I don't see a lot of the neocons, I don't, I don't see a Ben Shapiro celebrating

00:36:45.000 the capping of, uh, of credit cards at 10%.

00:36:48.200 Uh, I don't think Max Abrams is going to be running around celebrating this as a pro

00:36:52.360 Trump guy.

00:36:53.200 And so this is going to, I think in a way, this is kind of an interesting way to smoke

00:36:57.500 out some of those guys because they're going to have to go directly at Trump to counter

00:37:01.540 this, right?

00:37:02.160 Like, and that's going to, you know, they've been trying to play this no man's land game

00:37:05.620 where they're like, no, we're the real never Trump or we're the real Trumpers, even though

00:37:08.880 we were all never Trumpers before.

00:37:10.360 And like, you know, you guys are the ones betraying Trump, but if they're going to be

00:37:14.120 arguing and attacking Trump's principles, when it comes to credit card companies, I

00:37:19.580 think they're going to have a harder time holding themselves up as like the paragon of,

00:37:23.280 you know, economic populism or something.

00:37:26.760 Yeah.

00:37:26.920 And I mean, we've saw this as well during the COVID era.

00:37:30.140 I mean, there is the question of spending and like I had mentioned earlier, there's just

00:37:34.200 so many issues about these proposals that are going to once again, reiterate the same

00:37:40.240 debates that we've had previously.

00:37:41.940 And I mean, again, they're not bad debates to have.

00:37:44.520 I mean, obviously the health of the American economy is like a very important one to like

00:37:49.140 look into.

00:37:50.220 And we shouldn't be taking that so lightly.

00:37:52.180 We obviously really need to be heavily looking into and considering where are we going from

00:37:56.840 here when it comes to the state of the United States economy, but also the average person's

00:38:01.980 ability to afford a home and everything in those debates, I think are going to be had

00:38:05.080 more on the right than they are on the left.

00:38:07.980 The left is very straightforward about what they want to do, which is either to overregulate

00:38:11.900 anything.

00:38:12.200 So their own special interests have regulatory capture or to engage in economic redistribution

00:38:17.260 policies.

00:38:17.820 And as we've seen with, you know, the people ones or in Mom Donnie's team that primarily

00:38:21.620 affect white people.

00:38:23.060 And of course, with the new being New York, that's probably also going to affect a large portion

00:38:26.980 of American Jews that live in the New York City area.

00:38:30.780 I mean, like, that's just a very blunt thing that they're probably going to be doing about

00:38:34.220 that when it comes to who is footing the bill for these things.

00:38:37.640 And so I think that when you're looking at the debate or even the, you know, claims of

00:38:41.320 this being a canard about, you know, bigotry or racism or whatever, the question is going

00:38:46.000 to be like, you know, where the focus needs to be primarily above all things, the health

00:38:50.600 of the American worker and the health of the American citizen.

00:38:53.580 And that's really where our priority should be.

00:38:55.640 The government's duty is to take care of and to be sovereign over its citizens and provide

00:39:00.140 for its commonwealth.

00:39:01.540 And if we're not doing that, then the question of legitimacy and sovereignty remains to be

00:39:05.380 held.

00:39:06.160 And we have to really remind the audience and remind the listener here that, and you

00:39:10.780 and I have said this in other places, but again, like this is the first relatively competent

00:39:15.000 right-wing administration of our lifetimes.

00:39:17.500 And it feels like a drop in the bucket about how bad things are.

00:39:21.120 And addressing all issues at the same time is going to take years.

00:39:23.940 It can't be done in one single presidential term.

00:39:25.940 That's why there's been so much attention about the quote-unquote new right, J.D. Vance,

00:39:30.000 and all these accusations about who he associates with or who he follows on Twitter and what

00:39:34.400 he says, either to defend the administration and its actions or the rest.

00:39:38.020 But when we look at the health of the country overall, there is so much work that needs to

00:39:42.080 be done.

00:39:43.020 And Trump is offering, I think, at least an economic platform for good or for bad.

00:39:48.060 It is going to be offering the Republicans, I think, a much-needed CYA because they haven't

00:39:52.680 done anything in the two years that they've been in office.

00:39:55.220 You've signed a few pieces of legislation, including the one big, beautiful bill, which

00:39:58.960 is good for the Trump administration and especially good for the Department of Homeland Security.

00:40:03.080 But overall, I mean, Congress has done very little.

00:40:06.140 And it's pretty bad when former congressmen and former speakers of the House have said,

00:40:11.660 you know, Congress has really been riding on the president's coattails and hasn't really

00:40:15.580 been doing much about their own agenda and putting forward a reason why they should be reelected.

00:40:20.940 And so Congress has largely abdicated its responsibility.

00:40:25.380 More things get done that are to the antithesis of the American interest and the American people

00:40:29.720 than anything else.

00:40:31.300 And while, you know, God bless him in his final days, former Senator Ben Sasse had said

00:40:35.500 it best during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings in 2017.

00:40:38.980 Congress has effectively abdicated its responsibility.

00:40:42.340 It writes shell pieces of legislation, which directs the executive branch to do things.

00:40:46.880 And when the executive branch does something that the American people don't like, the Supreme

00:40:50.740 Court becomes the politics of last resort in the United States.

00:40:54.140 And this is why we've seen SCOTUS be more active than ever, because it really does seem

00:40:57.940 that the only way that the Trump administration can legally enshrine any of its actions or its

00:41:02.920 interests is through the Supreme Court, because Congress doesn't want to do its job.

00:41:07.740 And so if the president wants to establish an economic plan and focus on the domestic issues,

00:41:12.320 especially on two big hot button ones like interest rates and affordability of a home,

00:41:18.000 especially when he has been considered to be the affordability president and to be the

00:41:22.740 guy that wants to make the economy work again, then he needs to do this.

00:41:26.460 But he's also going to need a party that isn't going to try to impeach his secretaries and

00:41:31.340 his cabinet positions every other day for the rest of his two years in office after the midterms.

00:41:37.300 Yeah, it's just obvious that Congress is over, right?

00:41:43.220 Like technically, it'll still be there and have power and vote thing on things and obstruct

00:41:50.360 the president or not at moments.

00:41:52.540 But in general, the idea that we're like going to deliberate on stuff and work it out and

00:41:58.820 then pass meaningful legislation, I think that's just kind of done, right?

00:42:02.560 Like we can't even pass budgets anymore.

00:42:04.060 We're lucky if we can get continuing resolutions through Congress at this point.

00:42:08.960 So, I mean, we're talking about the community relations services yesterday and it just got

00:42:16.100 photocopied into a new budget, it looks like.

00:42:18.460 Like that's kind of the level of bureaucracy we're at is it's so impossible to get anything

00:42:22.780 done in Congress that you can't even just get like language in a budget or appropriations

00:42:28.740 continuing resolution solved.

00:42:30.720 You know, like that's how impotent Congress has become.

00:42:33.840 And of course, you know, we've talked, you know, quite a bit about the amount of authority

00:42:37.680 that's been transferred into the bureaucracy because Congress can't make decisions when

00:42:41.540 it comes to things that are supposed to be expert, that kind of stuff.

00:42:44.820 And I talk about that a good bit in the total state if people want to read my book.

00:42:48.300 So these are all issues that have faced Congress for years.

00:42:51.340 And I think these are just what happens as you move towards an empire, you know, as you

00:42:56.420 move away, like the Republic's done.

00:42:58.880 Democracy is kind of just a shibboleth at this point.

00:43:01.780 It's really just the only thing that can really be done is, you know, the momentum of the

00:43:07.060 bureaucracy, the authority of the executive, and then the decisions of nine people on the

00:43:12.560 court.

00:43:12.780 When it comes to actually having some large scale deliberative body trying to move legislation,

00:43:19.460 draft it, I think that's more or less done.

00:43:22.440 And so that creates this dynamic where, you know, Trump is just trying to find avenues

00:43:28.540 that he can, you know, use his power to move anything and hope that the courts just kind

00:43:35.500 of agree with them or don't block them.

00:43:37.180 That is kind of just the game that is now being played.

00:43:39.460 Congress is largely irrelevant, and I think that's going to be the case going forward.

00:43:44.220 And I don't think Congress is going to be held accountable for this.

00:43:46.600 I think people are just going to call for the president to do more.

00:43:49.440 People are going to want to see the president take more authority, take more action, possibly

00:43:54.400 defy courts, you know, to get things done.

00:43:57.160 I think you're going to see more and more call for that kind of stuff.

00:44:00.000 And so the interesting dynamic is going to be, you know, what happens there.

00:44:04.140 But, you know, before we go, Matt, I'm going to I'm going to do something that I should

00:44:08.740 never do, and I'm going to do it twice.

00:44:10.200 So sorry.

00:44:11.100 First, I'm going to ask you to make a prediction, and I'm going to ask you to make a prediction

00:44:13.800 about the future in the past, because we're doing this.

00:44:17.680 You know, we're pre-recording this, so we won't have all the information.

00:44:20.620 So not only are you having to make a prediction, you're having to make it in the fog of war.

00:44:24.820 However, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you this.

00:44:28.640 With everything going on in Minnesota, obviously, we don't want to need to rehash everything

00:44:33.160 we've talked about on the show, the shooting and whatnot.

00:44:35.900 But there are continued protests happening.

00:44:39.100 There are people being arrested.

00:44:40.920 There is violence still going on, not as severe.

00:44:43.960 Obviously, no one is dead yet in Minnesota, again, from conflicts with ICE.

00:44:49.480 But it's very clear the left is continuing to try to build this George Floyd situation

00:44:54.500 into a new, like, winter of love, I guess, is what we're looking for here.

00:44:59.420 We're going into, you know, different elections and whatnot.

00:45:03.400 Do you think that that's going to continue to escalate?

00:45:05.840 Do you think that there just isn't the passion?

00:45:08.600 It's too cold.

00:45:09.900 We don't have the NGO mobilization.

00:45:12.040 Or do you think they will get this off the ground and we will see continued violence in Minnesota?

00:45:17.880 On Minnesota, I think that there will be, not just in the state of Minnesota, but in other

00:45:22.080 places in which ICE is operating, the revolutionary mindset of a lot of protesters and paid activists

00:45:28.760 or those that have gone to be, quote, unquote, legal observers, which has been with the National

00:45:32.960 Lawyers Guild.

00:45:33.800 And if you want to read Burroughs' book, Days of Rage, you'll understand that that has basically

00:45:37.140 been a legal arm to be eyewitnesses on the ground for various left-wing terror and actions

00:45:42.780 in the past.

00:45:44.140 So I'm not really surprised to see that this has taken place.

00:45:47.500 Furthermore, you know, I know that we're talking about this in the past, but I think that it

00:45:51.500 has been safe to say that a lot of revolutionary groups and a lot of people who want to put

00:45:55.440 the law enforcement officials in the immigration and customs enforcement people up on the line,

00:46:00.540 they want questionable optics and use of force because that mobilizes them, that galvanizes

00:46:07.540 them, and that does it.

00:46:08.980 But we also have-

00:46:09.620 They train to actually produce it.

00:46:11.020 Like, it's not just that they want, like, they specifically have manuals and guidelines

00:46:15.440 and training classes.

00:46:16.940 Yeah, this is not a layman's organization.

00:46:20.520 This is very much direct and in-your-face about this is planned, there's a lot of money

00:46:25.920 involved, and that's something that the DOJ really does need to go after. 0.99

00:46:29.240 I do foresee that there will be probably more violence in the future on these questions,

00:46:34.400 and that there's also going to be the very ugly question in place about where the responses

00:46:42.880 are going to be.

00:46:43.680 Will there be more violence?

00:46:44.820 I am afraid to make this prediction because obviously no one wants to be wrong.

00:46:49.000 But I'm cynical because I think that they want it to escalate.

00:46:53.100 They want it to escalate that way when things warm up after this winter passes.

00:46:57.080 They have all these litanies of names that they can go off of and do it.

00:47:02.780 However, you know, the woman who had been shot by the ICE officer, you know, it's not going

00:47:08.940 to- no one's going to really riot in Minneapolis in the middle of January.

00:47:12.160 It's too cold. 0.97

00:47:13.360 And also, it is a white lesbian, which, again, if you're a white lesbian and you're on the 1.00

00:47:17.960 left, you probably know somewhere in the back of your head that you are not valued because 0.95

00:47:22.840 of your race and because of your identity than, say, a black person is. 0.54

00:47:27.760 And so it's going to be like an Aaron Bushnell situation where you will be forgotten or you

00:47:32.000 will be a person who they will argue that you shouldn't say rest in power over despite

00:47:36.900 you dying for a supposed left-wing cause.

00:47:39.980 You're not Captain Marvel.

00:47:40.880 You know, like this isn't a superhero movie where the 90-pound woman can somehow take 1.00

00:47:45.580 on a bunch of, you know, trained, armored law enforcement agents and win.

00:47:48.960 As we saw what happens, you know, if you try to pull those things, there will be lethal

00:47:52.860 consequences to them.

00:47:54.300 And I think that the administration, above all things, in the wake of this violence and

00:47:57.460 any more that follows, it really needs to tell its agents that we're on your side.

00:48:03.720 You know, Andy Ngo, who has almost been killed for his reporting on Antifa over the years,

00:48:07.640 had done some research and someone is threatening to hack or has a list of all those that have

00:48:12.640 applied to be in ICE and with DHS since the Trump administration started.

00:48:16.380 There is nothing stopping that list from coming out and there's nothing stopping a new

00:48:20.020 Democratic administration from leaking that list to friendly and Antifa-adjacent organizations

00:48:25.380 to go after you and your families.

00:48:27.620 So the administration needs to send a message right now.

00:48:30.160 Not only are we supporting the officer who took these actions, but we will be supporting

00:48:34.180 all of our agents against any threats to their home or their family or their person.

00:48:39.240 Because if not, once they're out of office, the sword of Damocles is well over them and

00:48:43.100 it's probably going to fall on their necks.

00:48:44.840 So my prediction is, yes, there will probably be more violence.

00:48:47.380 There will be more rioting potentially if it does escalate in the spring as things warm

00:48:50.640 up.

00:48:51.080 But I think that there should be body cameras on every DHS and every ICE agent in the country

00:48:56.680 who goes out on these raids.

00:48:57.640 Because we saw that with police body cameras.

00:49:00.040 This was a champion thing on the left and it has more or less validated every single

00:49:04.040 use of force by police officers almost every single time.

00:49:07.180 So I think that the same should be done for those trying to kick out the people who should

00:49:11.500 not be in this country to begin with.

00:49:12.680 And if you want to die for the people who shouldn't be here, then I don't have a country

00:49:17.660 to share with you.

00:49:18.400 I'm sorry.

00:49:18.900 You have chosen the side of the invader and I don't have as much sympathy as I probably

00:49:22.560 should for you.

00:49:24.120 Yeah, it's really important.

00:49:25.720 And if they hadn't had that cell phone camera footage from the officer who was struck in

00:49:31.140 that attack, we might be facing a very different situation.

00:49:34.640 So yeah, absolutely something that needs to be available should be made public immediately

00:49:40.840 so people can know what's going on and the deceptive practices that many of these people

00:49:46.000 are engaging in to generate exactly the type of situation you're talking about.

00:49:49.760 All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and wrap this up.

00:49:51.540 Once again, this is pre-recorded, so sorry, but we cannot take your questions today.

00:49:57.180 If it's your first time on this channel, please make sure you subscribe on YouTube.

00:50:01.500 Make sure that you click the bell, notifications, all that stuff.

00:50:04.160 If you want to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you need to subscribe to The Oren McIntyre Show

00:50:07.820 on your favorite podcast platform.

00:50:10.640 Matthew, if people want to follow your work, where should they be going?

00:50:13.780 Sure, you can find me on Twitter at Mr. Prudentialist.

00:50:16.480 You can usually find the amphibious profile picture that I have on there.

00:50:19.340 I'm also on Substack, theprudentialist.substack.com.

00:50:22.560 There'll be a lot more essays in the works coming in for this year.

00:50:25.620 I want to be really focusing on writing more.

00:50:27.800 I want to keep that muscle as strengthened and as trained as possible.

00:50:31.020 It says I'm on the air so often with people like you and your gracious invitation.

00:50:35.180 Alongside that, I have a YouTube channel by the same name.

00:50:37.500 I am often covering a variety of literature that is important to our political thought and today.

00:50:42.640 So a week from now when this comes out, I will have covered Georgia Sorrell's

00:50:46.480 Reflections on Violence with my friend Dime, as we have to show, do you even read?

00:50:50.920 And from there, there will just be more essays and things like that coming out both for the

00:50:55.660 channel, but as well as on Substack.

00:50:57.340 So as always, I'm grateful to have you on.

00:50:59.520 And oh yeah, last but not least, I'll be on the upcoming issue of Frontier Magazine with

00:51:03.620 Blaze Media.

00:51:04.280 So I'm looking forward to that being published.

00:51:06.340 Excellent.

00:51:06.760 Excellent.

00:51:07.000 Of course, guys, if you want to read Matthew's articles along with all the other great Blaze content,

00:51:11.880 of course, you need to not only be a Blaze subscriber, but you need to have access to that Blaze

00:51:16.700 Unlimited.

00:51:17.320 You need to have that VIP upgrade so you can get that nice, beautiful, luxurious magazine

00:51:22.720 in your hand every quarter.

00:51:24.360 So make sure that you check that out.

00:51:25.760 Thank you once again, everybody, for watching.

00:51:27.380 And as always, I will talk to you next time.

00:51:29.680 Bye.

00:51:32.040 Bye.

00:51:33.260 Bye.

00:51:33.680 Bye.

00:51:34.420 Bye.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - January 16, 2026

Can Trump Ban Usury？｜ Guest： Matthew Williams ｜ 1⧸14⧸26

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

The Auron MacIntyre Show - January 16, 2026

Can Trump Ban Usury？ ｜ Guest： Matthew Williams ｜ 1⧸14⧸26

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Can Trump Ban Usury？｜ Guest： Matthew Williams ｜ 1⧸14⧸26