TRIGGERnometry - October 23, 2024


33 Reasons to Vote for Trump - Bill Ackman


Episode Stats

Length

53 minutes

Words per Minute

193.18358

Word Count

10,369

Sentence Count

26

Misogynist Sentences

8

Hate Speech Sentences

16


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Bill Ackman is one of the most successful investors in the history of capitalism. He s a partner at Pershing Square and has invested in some of the biggest companies in the world, including Uber and Chipotle. But over the course of the last year, he s become increasingly involved in American politics and cultural debates, which has drawn him a lot of flack.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I truly believed that Trump had said that the neo-Nazis and the white
00:00:05.120 nationalists were among the very fine people who were protesting and it takes
00:00:09.420 about two minutes to actually watch what he said to realize that he said
00:00:14.340 precisely the opposite. That's the moment when you realize oh my god I really have
00:00:17.580 been misled by the media. We have two candidates it's Trump or Kamala. I think
00:00:22.680 it's a very different world if it's Trump versus Kamala and I prefer the world
00:00:26.100 under Trump. I saw a tweet from our friend and a former guest on the show
00:00:30.660 called Bridget Phetasy. We fear deep down he's not going to let go of the reins
00:00:34.920 four years from now and after January the 6th whatever you think happened on that
00:00:38.640 day sure that is a doubt in people's minds how can you assuage people who are
00:00:42.480 concerned? Bill you're one of the most successful investors in the history of
00:00:48.300 capitalism you've got a beautiful family have everything a man could want and
00:00:51.600 over the course of last year for some reason you've decided to get heavily
00:00:55.140 involved in American politics cultural debates which has drawn you quite a lot
00:01:00.660 of flack. What is the thinking behind that?
00:01:03.960 Thinking behind it is really beginning with the first part I feel like I'm one
00:01:06.960 of the most fortunate people in the world and with good fortune comes
00:01:10.440 responsibility and I care about the country care about society care about
00:01:14.880 the world and to the extent you know I have I've also always been a very big
00:01:20.520 believer in speaking freely about things that are important and this Twitter
00:01:24.360 post you know X thing platform kind of grew and enables me to reach a large
00:01:29.820 number of people and I actually started to realize I can influence to some extent
00:01:36.000 the discussion and ultimately perhaps policy and outcome actually had some
00:01:41.200 experience with that before October 7th and it just sort of got got me more
00:01:47.160 motivated after. But was it October 7th that made you go okay I need to get
00:01:51.600 really heavily involved here? It wasn't like a conscious thing it was a natural
00:01:55.680 thing actually I was pretty active posting about the Ukraine war and about
00:01:59.520 child sex trafficking and you porn and if you go back in time there have been a
00:02:02.920 series of issues that I felt passionate about so this was obviously
00:02:07.560 something I felt passionately about. And Bill if you looked at America as a
00:02:13.080 company do you think it's actually in a healthy state is it something that you
00:02:17.220 would want to invest in? Yeah so we invest in great businesses at a time when
00:02:22.760 they've lost their way so they're cheap we're getting it at an attractive
00:02:26.460 valuation and we think we can play a role in helping fix it. I think the United
00:02:30.600 States is it you can think of it as a big business in some sense of course it's a
00:02:35.080 big economy it's a big country but it's at a vulnerable place and if the extent you
00:02:41.940 know what we try to do is bring in the right leader to turn around a
00:02:45.840 challenging situation you know Chipotle series of food safety issues we took a
00:02:51.000 stake in the company we joined the board we helped recruit a new CEO we did a
00:02:54.600 fabulous job so yes it kind of fits the Pershing Square active activist
00:02:59.940 playbook yes. Well so using that metaphor why has it lost its way what what is it
00:03:05.880 what is this country not doing correctly? Sure it's it's not dissimilar to
00:03:10.700 enormously profitable businesses and you think back in time of these sort of
00:03:14.240 iconic companies like Kodak or IBM which were so dominant but when
00:03:20.180 businesses get so dominant and profitable they also can get lazy they can get
00:03:23.780 inefficient bureaucracy can grow people as you know the board gets complacent the
00:03:29.600 shareholders aren't paying attention the CEO spends too much time on the golf
00:03:32.720 course they end up you know not hiring the right people and they and they lose
00:03:38.000 their way and the same thing of course can happen to a country and I think we
00:03:41.360 suffer from our success to some extent. Since you've got involved over the last
00:03:45.140 year what has been your diagnosis when you drill down into the things that are
00:03:48.620 going wrong because look objectively October 7th or something happened in
00:03:51.860 another country sure so why that would spring you into action is perhaps not
00:03:55.540 clear for for everyone to see. Yeah so the October 7th obviously it was not a
00:04:01.000 terrorist attack in Israel that got me interested in being involved in the
00:04:05.760 discussion here it was the response the terrorist attack in Israel that began on
00:04:10.080 really in a very apparent way on the campus of a university I used to attend
00:04:15.660 right it was the morning of October 8th when 34 Harvard student organizations
00:04:19.800 wrote a letter saying Israel was solely responsible for Hamas's barbaric acts and
00:04:24.780 that was while the terrorist activities were underway it's sort of like while the
00:04:28.600 buildings were collapsing they're out you know supporting Osama bin Laden and that
00:04:33.700 to me was a massive wake-up call. I remember the same thing happening with me as a
00:04:38.680 not an American being actually abroad seeing people celebrating as the towers
00:04:43.960 were coming down there is a lot of hatred in the world how do you think that has
00:04:49.780 come to America though because that is quite unusual. What I came to learn is it
00:04:55.600 really came through whether it was the importation of an ideology or the
00:05:01.060 expression of an ideology that began perhaps in university classrooms you know
00:05:07.660 sort of a modern-day version of Marxist ideology you know this oppressor
00:05:12.580 oppressed narrative and you know wasn't it well it was to some extent the
00:05:19.620 capitalist versus the proletariat but really was about successful people
00:05:24.280 successful countries against people who were deemed to be oppressed and that
00:05:28.360 narrative you know Israel became kind of center stage in that sort of narrative or
00:05:34.960 ideology. And Bill if we use it sort of the company metaphor America really
00:05:40.240 reminds me of Disney which is embraced all this DEI stuff and is rapidly driving
00:05:45.880 its company into the ground I mean that's basically what seems to be
00:05:48.460 happening here isn't it? I think that's one of the proximate causes you know
00:05:53.360 America has always been about excellence and competition and land of
00:05:58.940 opportunity and if you work hard and you can succeed and once it becomes about
00:06:04.460 allocating resources based on what's deemed to be equity as determined by some you
00:06:12.080 know subset of people it loses a lot of the American spirit and entrepreneurship you
00:06:18.860 know this is supposed to be I'm huge believer in equality of opportunity spent a
00:06:22.160 lot of time resources etc trying to improve quality of opportunity is not
00:06:25.760 perfect in the United States by any means but this was a movement toward a
00:06:30.200 quality of outcome where the conclusion was if you know a business or or a
00:06:37.700 university or some kind of outcome of a test or mathematics generally led to an
00:06:44.060 outcome that was not representative of society at large from racial gender
00:06:49.760 sexual identity perspective and it was deemed to be structurally racist in some
00:06:53.660 form and that kind of ideology I think is dangerous and I really knew nothing
00:06:57.980 about it to be honest before October 7th it wasn't until I started you know
00:07:02.840 learning yeah. And Bill what do you think will happen if this ideology remains
00:07:07.940 unchecked? What do you think is the end goal? Well you know one of the points I've made is if you want to
00:07:13.220 undermine another country you know convince people that the country's evil convince
00:07:19.580 them that there's structural racism that the majority class has if you will taken
00:07:26.540 advantage of and hurt the sort of minority class and that leads to infighting and you
00:07:37.740 know deterioration of progress you know civil war perhaps you know so it you know the
00:07:44.040 end point is grim I mean it's a bit like the end point of Marxism socialism is not you know
00:07:49.600 people die millions and millions of people die societies are destroyed you know so
00:07:53.980 that's the the grim sort of outcome I do think we've rebounded from the bottom but
00:07:58.060 we were heading in that direction and it's still unresolved I think the election of
00:08:01.720 course plays an important role on this issue. What are your data points for saying
00:08:04.800 we've rebounded because I actually do agree with you but I'm curious to see what
00:08:08.120 you think is the evidence for that? I would say in my world this was something
00:08:14.740 that was not I would say center stage and it was not something that people felt
00:08:20.080 comfortable talking openly about I think one of the things I did is I wrote this
00:08:23.960 5600 word piece on DEI that was spread around 40 million views or so and I think it
00:08:31.300 you know my my followership if you will includes a lot of CEOs of companies and
00:08:36.460 media organizations and I think I elevated I made a conversation that needed to
00:08:40.540 happen that started to happen in a much more open format and people started
00:08:44.740 examining some of these principles and then you've seen of course reversals of a
00:08:48.460 number of these policies in the business community and various universities the New
00:08:54.340 York Times wrote a piece in the last week about DEI you know the failure of DEI at
00:08:58.880 University of Michigan which has invested 250 million dollars in a program that's led
00:09:02.760 to actually it sounds like more racism more uncomfortable feelings on campus and a decline
00:09:08.320 in free speech you know so if the New York Times is writing that story I would say that's
00:09:12.580 a moment for sure. Do you feel that corporate America is sort of on your side of the argument
00:09:18.160 like most people were kind of in the position where you were you it's not something you were
00:09:22.240 aware of necessarily and then things started happening that made people notice and now
00:09:26.700 they've kind of gone well there's two positions here one is sanity the other isn't I'm going
00:09:30.640 to go with science do you feel that's what's happening? Well I would say I thought DEI was
00:09:35.480 you know kind of pro-diversity pro-equity fairness pro-inclusion which uh which all sounded like
00:09:45.720 pretty good stuff to me and uh you know building a diverse organization uh you know big believer in
00:09:51.180 that uh I certainly want to be fair in the way uh we treat people and then obviously who can argue
00:09:56.960 with inclusion you know creating an organization and by the way this is you know I'm talking from
00:10:01.020 the business community's uh perspective um but what you know those words were uh kind of the Trojan
00:10:09.600 Trojan these are Trojan horse words as I would describe them I think that's much more well understood
00:10:15.180 today there's still some debate of people who think that you know there's some people who think
00:10:19.000 I'm opposed to diversity and I'm opposed to equity and I'm opposed to inclusion no I mean
00:10:23.920 what is inclusion it's you know a business that has a culture where people feel comfortable being
00:10:28.500 who they are and where they can succeed equity in my view is about quality of opportunity hugely in
00:10:34.520 favor of it but not in favor of a quality of outcome not in favor of allocating resources uh based on
00:10:40.660 on race or gender whatever I think yes if one were to find uh you know equally talented
00:10:48.940 successful people of one race versus another getting very very disparate outcomes that you
00:10:53.740 have to figure out why that's happening um but I do think that there's a lot more understanding of
00:10:59.420 what the problems are of what I call the cap you know the the capital letter dei ideology and I think
00:11:05.060 that that is what's getting uh revisited and adjusted Bill do you think it's fair to say that in
00:11:10.260 the corporate world particularly around these types of conversations there's been a culture of fear
00:11:14.180 for sure for sure if you even questioned the dei orthodoxy uh you were deemed to be racist I mean
00:11:20.660 it reminds me of the kind of you know the McCarthy era which my parents told me about and you can see
00:11:25.960 some clips on on YouTube but where you were basically accused of being a communist um if you
00:11:31.680 you know questioned uh Mr. McCarthy's uh accusations uh and there was sort of a moment at which uh people
00:11:38.840 sort of woke up from that I think that moment has kind of happened uh with dei people still you know I
00:11:43.980 I have been accused of being racist um and uh I do think there are people who you know challenge
00:11:50.420 the orth you know when challenge the orthodoxy one of the powerful ways to shut people down is by
00:11:53.820 shutting down speech one way to do that is by canceling people or or making the out you know
00:11:59.220 making it very expensive for them to challenge the orthodoxy i.e you lose your job uh so I think
00:12:03.940 people have been uh and I do think Elon's takeover of Twitter provides a platform uh for kind of
00:12:10.600 anonymous speech and also you know a public forum where people can uh you know talk are now talking
00:12:17.700 about these issues in a very open way so Bill this is a bit of a provocative question but
00:12:22.600 I look at not yourself but some of your colleagues shall we say and we talk about this culture of fear
00:12:29.060 but isn't that just a polite way of saying a culture of cowardice there needs to be more people
00:12:34.000 to stand up and go no particularly people in positions of power particularly people who've got
00:12:38.320 the authority to be able to challenge this and too many people have just capitulated for want of
00:12:44.600 a better word or is that an unfair framing I don't think it's unfair and I don't think it's
00:12:49.320 really a provocative question either you know look I think the the you know it's a bit like running
00:12:54.820 for office right you know the the problem we have in our country is some of the most talented
00:12:59.300 people won't run for office because they're in a place where life is good uh you know I can I live
00:13:05.140 in a nice home I've got a beautiful family life is good why threaten any of that beauty with the
00:13:11.660 headache of being accused of being a racist or saying something that could cause some people to
00:13:17.120 uh hate you not like you or worse and I I think that uh discourages people from running for office and
00:13:24.320 it discourages people from from seeking out but I think it's really important and in fact the number
00:13:28.220 of people that come up to me every day you know walking down the street in a restaurant or whatever
00:13:31.980 come up to you look bill thank you so much for saying what I've wanted to say but have not been
00:13:36.540 able to say uh you know you're speaking on behalf of all of us now I do think it's important to have
00:13:41.260 that group be a larger group but I do feel like I'm speaking on behalf of a very large number of people
00:13:45.700 because I hear it literally every day as long as I'm in a public place uh and 99.8 percent of that
00:13:51.920 feedback has been positive 99.8 yeah well uh the question I wanted to ask you is you mentioned that the
00:13:59.720 most talented people the highest integrity people perhaps the the best people that this country
00:14:04.580 produce do not run for office um and very understand I would say in general right you know
00:14:12.820 like I was I was a big advocate for Jamie Dimon running for president and I think he would be an
00:14:17.340 outstanding president for a whole bunch of reasons yeah um but he's you know he's at the top of his game
00:14:21.600 he's you know the best bank ceo ever basically uh and to go into the into the mud of politics to have
00:14:29.880 to kind of make your way through the primaries you know get to a place uh where you could be president
00:14:34.680 you know they'll it's very challenging on someone's family and uh and if you're used to being something
00:14:40.520 pretty close to god it's it's a very ungodly uh practice to get there for sure so it's actually quite
00:14:48.180 a selfless act I think to to run for office uh or a very narcissistic one those are the two options
00:14:54.000 it seems yes I think the the narcissism overcomes the selflessness that's how it works yeah so that
00:15:01.760 being the case I'll take it either way you know I don't care what someone's motives are as long as
00:15:05.120 they're the right person yes um I I see what you're saying I guess my question is you thought very
00:15:11.420 carefully I think about who to support in this election and you yourself have spoken a number of
00:15:16.600 times about some of the things that you believed about Donald Trump for example that you were
00:15:22.460 misled about by the mainstream media sure so that's the kind of environment you're really talking about
00:15:27.300 right where somebody runs and they immediately become the sort of demon monkey and they're
00:15:32.340 completely misrepresented it doesn't mean they don't have flaws but they're misrepresented about
00:15:36.600 the things that they say is there a way to change that first and foremost well you need uh
00:15:42.800 neutral spaces uh in media uh there was an optimist by the way neutral spaces in media where where those
00:15:50.620 uh where you can counteract uh the the I hate I don't want to use the word misinformation because
00:15:56.320 that itself has has problems look I don't want to sit here and just be an advertisement uh for x um but
00:16:02.660 what's interesting you know someone writes a profile of me on what in some media form I can you know
00:16:08.040 within an hour of that article coming out I can you know very specifically fact check rebut address
00:16:14.120 uh the issue as could obviously any candidate for office um you know prior to x being sort of this
00:16:21.040 neutral platform um you know you you know you send the times a beg them for a correction right in a few
00:16:27.300 weeks on quote unquote page 43 in a place no one would read their correction would appear and I think
00:16:33.000 the uh the more the public has lost confidence in kind of conventional media the more they're going
00:16:37.580 to look to uh empirical voices in podcasting and kind of citizen journalism on x and I do think that's
00:16:44.900 a powerful counterpoint um you know the the most powerful moment for many people actually one of them
00:16:49.720 for me is I truly believed that Trump had said that the neo-nazis and the white nationalists
00:16:56.000 were very fine people were among the very fine people who were protesting and it takes
00:17:01.360 about two minutes to actually watch what he said to realize that he said precisely the opposite that
00:17:07.220 he condemned he said I'm not talking about the neo-nazis and the white nationalists when he's
00:17:11.900 talking about very fine people um and that's the moment when you realize oh my god I really have been
00:17:17.460 misled by the media um you look at the 60 minutes uh excerpting that was done of uh you know
00:17:24.140 Kamala um and you realize how much you can be manipulated particularly by taped
00:17:29.800 and uh excerpted uh media so I really if I'm trying to get to the truth I want to hear the
00:17:35.920 voice of the candidate uh untaped unscripted uh without the uh teleprompter because we've got to
00:17:44.360 a point now where and I still can't believe this is true where everybody in the democrat party was
00:17:49.580 going there's no problem with Joe Biden there's no problem there is no problem with Joe Biden and
00:17:54.380 then he brings Vladimir Zelensky to the stage as Vladimir Putin and you go how can how can this
00:18:01.160 happen how how has this been allowed to happen and then you clearly look at him and you go that looks
00:18:07.140 like someone's granddad who isn't doing particularly well sure you know that that is perhaps the
00:18:11.820 greatest scandal in the the history of I would say uh at an administration and the media uh you know
00:18:18.500 trying to fool the public um and uh I was very loud on this issue pretty early calling uh for his uh you
00:18:26.180 know to step aside because he I did not believe he had the cognitive wherewithal potentially to make
00:18:31.540 it through this term let alone be a president for the next four years and I was scolded uh pretty
00:18:36.940 aggressively by close friends and family plus people online billiards you know when I would send
00:18:41.640 out actual videos you know bill these are corrupted right-wing propaganda sort of videos but I think
00:18:47.800 people are believing their own eyes more now in in the AI era you have to be careful when you say
00:18:53.140 that of course because it's become even easier to manipulate uh uh content um but I do think people
00:18:59.200 are going to go increasingly rely on uh you know this kind of format to get a better understanding of a
00:19:05.000 person uh than you know what what gets played on uh MSNBC or CNN or otherwise because by the way that's
00:19:13.260 going to force mainstream media you would think to improve I actually think CNN since uh Biden stepped
00:19:19.580 down has been one of the better uh kind of you know cable news uh networks you know they have a
00:19:26.320 they have a Scott Jennings you know they've got a Republican uh uh protagonist you know debating with
00:19:33.080 a you know a Democratic uh influencer you know when they're discussing issues and I think it's much
00:19:39.900 more powerful I think it's what the public wants I think the public wants the truth and they understand
00:19:43.660 the truth is not only served by uh you know a media organization that has one political posture
00:19:50.060 but let's be fair it's a pretty low bar I think it was on the Stephen Colbert show where he was
00:19:55.800 talking to one of their journalists or he was I can't remember who he was talking to and he was
00:19:59.520 saying oh you know they're a fact-based organization or something along those lines and he got a huge
00:20:04.220 laugh from his audience from his audience yeah no I saw that I know you guys are objective over there
00:20:09.280 that you just report the news as it is oh I know a CNN makes it I know that's supposed to be a laugh
00:20:14.900 line it wasn't supposed to be but uh I guess it is um yeah and you go that's surely the end
00:20:22.460 look at the unfortunate thing is that when people buy a media property they think that you know the idea
00:20:28.060 is okay now I can control the conversation on an issue I feel strongly about and you know you I'm
00:20:34.120 you know I have sort of this naive kind of view that the media should be about getting to the
00:20:38.540 truth and that people who go into journalism should not just be political advocates they
00:20:43.700 should be people interested in investigative journalism let's get to the truth and the
00:20:47.140 media has an incredibly important role to play and uh you know serving the people the truth I
00:20:51.600 mean you think about uh going back to the Marxism socialism discussion right how did the Soviet Union
00:20:56.360 keep control over its people one they shut down free speech and two they control the media
00:21:00.840 uh they control the propaganda organization yeah so one of the questions that we wanted to ask you
00:21:06.980 bill is that all being the case you've come out as a supporter of Donald Trump or at least you support
00:21:14.160 him in this election let's say is that because of all the things that have been debunked and the
00:21:19.740 disappointment or is it because you actually think he's a good candidate for this country because
00:21:23.560 those are two very different things and I think so many Americans that we speak to are very much stuck
00:21:28.660 in between those two positions on the one hand they're really unhappy with many of the things
00:21:33.540 they've seen from the Democrats and the media on the other hand not all of them are convinced that
00:21:38.100 Donald Trump is you know the perfect president to put it mildly yeah I don't know we've had a perfect
00:21:42.480 president uh when I think back to when Reagan uh was running for office and he was widely derided as
00:21:47.800 being a stupid actor right uh Clinton had his uh women issues when he was running for office
00:21:54.000 you know you know a lot of people uh you know George Bush George W was not viewed as the sharpest
00:22:03.660 tool in the you know whatever sure um and uh yeah I I other than JFK who didn't make it through
00:22:10.680 because he was assassinated and I'm sure perhaps if he made it through you know he survived he would
00:22:15.040 have been he would have done something that people uh he's idealized I think because he was a good
00:22:19.960 president but also yeah uh unfortunately because he was assassinated um so you know we're my first
00:22:27.200 approach to this election was trying to create alternative choices right so I actually supported
00:22:32.280 Nikki Haley uh uh Chris Christie uh spent some time with RFK um actually you know financially supported
00:22:39.500 him uh Dean Phillips I got to meet thought he was an interesting guy uh I'm a big believer in
00:22:44.160 competition and hoped that that whole system would lead to the I hadn't picked I didn't have my horse
00:22:49.480 so I was I was betting on a lot of different horses and and uh I thought for the benefit of the
00:22:53.980 American people at large to the extent that we had better competition um you know so my issues are
00:22:59.280 are multi-faceted you know among them I think the Democratic Party has massively massively lost its
00:23:05.520 way in a very profound way uh you know you could start with misleading the American people about the
00:23:10.400 cognitive health of the president but you could also go to the their practices and how they got rid
00:23:15.100 of uh alternatives you know RFK you know some combination of litigation not paying for his uh
00:23:22.520 not providing him with security um you know the various efforts to keep him off the ballot uh off the
00:23:29.180 debate stage you know the used to be that the you know there was seriousness with how the presidential
00:23:34.260 debate you know there's certain criteria by which you could become a candidate and uh you could get on
00:23:39.320 the debate stage they kept him off the debate stage disrupting really the primary process in a way
00:23:43.880 that the scales were tipped and then last minute effectively withdrawing Biden and then there was
00:23:49.980 really no process to select the next candidate uh that was an opportunity I you know went on x and said
00:23:55.340 look great opportunity for an open primary uh I actually thought what a great opportunity for Jamie
00:24:00.320 Diamond to run he doesn't have to go through the you know two years of running for office
00:24:03.560 um and let's have a series of debates of of relevant people that didn't happen and then we
00:24:10.180 had a candidate selected in some kind of backroom process by the Democratic Party elites um you know
00:24:16.260 someone who uh was not ranked particularly highly as uh or actually uh maybe the lowest ranked vice
00:24:21.780 president in many many years uh someone who didn't make it through you know kind of dropped out very
00:24:25.160 early when she ran uh you know earlier uh for the presidential office so I that I found disturbing
00:24:31.880 um and then you know if you look at uh the you know one of the best uh you look at the empirical data
00:24:39.140 you look at uh at a state level look at where the crime is look at the mismanaged cities and
00:24:45.140 unfortunately there are basically blue cities you know it's San Francisco it's LA it's Chicago
00:24:48.980 uh to maybe a lesser extent New York um but you know these are where the problems are
00:24:53.440 and you have the whole country moving to Texas and Las Vegas and you know uh uh that's not uh
00:25:00.380 so I I think the the country uh is realizing that the Democratic Party has kind of lost its way
00:25:06.040 so that makes me less excited about supporting a Democratic candidate kind of generally but what
00:25:10.640 we have here is we have an election we have two candidates it's Trump or Kamala I think it's a
00:25:15.540 very different world if it's Trump versus Kamala and I prefer the world under Trump than I do to Kamala
00:25:20.960 and I can walk you through the issues yeah well let's talk about geopolitics because it's something
00:25:24.400 you've talked about yeah that's where it starts for me I think the single biggest threat to the
00:25:28.340 United States uh today is you know some combination of World War III uh and uh you know we're uh we had
00:25:35.980 a relatively we had a very peaceful uh period you know the I think um was it Jake Sullivan who said
00:25:41.140 several days before October 7th that we're in the quietest period in history in the Middle East but um
00:25:46.860 we've had the perception and reality of weakness in the White House and the the all you know the
00:25:54.240 autocrats and the dictators um you know the Putins of the world and the Kim Jong-uns uh and the Iranians
00:26:01.540 or the IRGC uh you know they step into that kind of a breach and I think uh we've had a bad series of
00:26:09.600 foreign policy decisions uh uh beginning with the you know awful withdrawal from Afghanistan basically the
00:26:15.520 abandonment of our partners in Afghanistan and the and by the way if you the Democratic Party presents
00:26:20.500 as the party you know supporting women and Trump's attacked often women issues probably the most
00:26:25.260 damaging uh event for women around the world in the last uh many many years is the way we withdrew from
00:26:32.700 Afghanistan and what the implications were uh for Afghani girls uh and Afghani women uh actually
00:26:38.920 we philanthropically we supported you know airlifting out uh robotics teams and other uh you know young
00:26:46.240 uh women young girls from Afghanistan but you know we took very few and the ones that are left their lives
00:26:52.420 have been horribly harmed and I think that's an incredible stain on the reputation of the United
00:26:56.140 States it sort of begins there maybe even begins even before then when uh Obama allowed Putin to take
00:27:02.420 Crimea with really no um no implications uh so we've kind of had a a weak history until Trump and then
00:27:10.680 we had a period of peace and then we have uh you know the lifting of sanctions on the Iranians you know
00:27:15.940 they have 200 billion dollars now which they've been using to fund their terrorist proxies and I think
00:27:21.920 all this has led to a world on fire and um I think I don't see how that changes uh with Kamala as our
00:27:29.620 president yeah that's that's hard to see exactly so I don't think she's going to be perceived as a
00:27:33.800 strong president and uh I think I think Putin would actually like to end the war I think Trump will give
00:27:38.620 him the opportunity or and or excuse to do so and I think he'll you know he there's some great examples
00:27:44.020 of how Putin managed um you know everything from the Taliban to otherwise and when people take threats
00:27:50.000 from him pretty seriously he's kind of unpredictable and that seems to work uh for foreign policy
00:27:55.020 Bill I think you meant uh Trump not Putin I think you misspoke oh what did they say you did a Biden
00:28:01.580 there so switch out Trump there yeah okay so that's the one issue that's interesting to me you
00:28:09.480 and I've discussed this privately as well I also feel as someone who's like you a big supporter of
00:28:15.500 Ukraine's stand for its independence that Donald Trump is more likely to bring the war to a close
00:28:20.360 do you think it's likely though that he will do so without making Ukraine pay too heavy a price for
00:28:26.680 peace he's I think publicly said his strategy uh is to go to Putin and say look a war needs to end
00:28:33.360 uh and if you don't end the war I'm going to give you know a trillion dollars of weaponry I'm going to
00:28:38.500 you know give Zelensky everything he needs to win uh and that's how he's going to get Putin to
00:28:43.800 move and then he's going to go to Zelensky and say look if you're unreasonable in what your
00:28:47.920 demands are I'm going to withdraw support and so he's in a very you know powerful position to
00:28:52.940 negotiate that kind of deal look Trump looks at the world as a series of negotiations everything's
00:28:58.080 a deal and I think that's kind of why he likes among other reasons why he likes being president
00:29:02.060 and his whole life was about making deals I think he's pretty good at making deals and I think that's
00:29:06.780 how this gets resolved and it will get resolved in a place where you know I think Zelensky and Ukraine
00:29:12.340 won't be you know obviously entirely happy with every element of the outcome uh nor will Putin
00:29:17.740 uh Ukraine needs real security guarantees as opposed to what they've been given in the past
00:29:23.520 um you know maybe there's some kind of uh demilitarized zone um a la you know uh Korea um
00:29:32.760 and but it it's not helpful this war is not helping Putin and I think he'd like to be able to end it
00:29:39.600 in a way that's not damaging to him politically and in Russia and on a global stage and are you
00:29:46.160 concerned if we're looking at geopolitics are you you concerned about China and Taiwan yes I mean
00:29:52.380 you know just in the last 24 hours you know China's uh taking more and more steps kind of showing they
00:29:58.520 can very easily blockade Taiwan so my point is it's a very dangerous world I think this is the single
00:30:04.480 biggest issue uh threatening the United States and the country uh and and really the the globe and
00:30:11.060 that's uh I just think Trump's going to do a better job he's going to be perceived as a much
00:30:14.600 stronger leader he's got a degree of uh unpredictableness which I think is unsettling
00:30:19.780 uh to the Chinese I think it's unsettling to uh to Russia uh I think our uh Trump's uh Middle Eastern
00:30:26.260 policy was vastly superior uh we you know he basically shut uh the you know shut down uh around
00:30:32.800 funding by virtue of you know the uh the sanctions uh Abraham Accords were the most significant progress
00:30:39.460 we've had in the Middle East in in many many decades and there are meaningfully more steps to take and
00:30:44.840 those steps basically were stopped uh so I start on foreign policy I think it's going to be uh I think
00:30:50.280 we'll have peace in the Middle East I think the war in Ukraine will get resolved and uh I think that's
00:30:55.540 the most important thing for the world right now. You think we'll have peace in the Middle East the
00:30:59.020 reason I'm somewhat skeptical Bill is it feels to me and it's interesting because the the weakness that
00:31:05.880 you talk about actually works in both directions I'm pretty confident that for example Benjamin
00:31:11.040 Netanyahu is acting with such panache in this moment let's say precisely because he knows that
00:31:17.560 President Biden isn't going to do anything to restrain him so it almost feels like the conflict has
00:31:22.740 been inflated by that weakness on both sides the Iranians attacked yeah I don't agree I don't agree
00:31:27.520 I think Netanyahu is doing what he needs to to protect his country I think he's made enormous
00:31:31.540 progress in debilitating Hamas and Hezbollah we're going to see what happens to Iran maybe in the next
00:31:37.960 24 48 hours but I think in a matter of days uh and then I think uh I think that has sent a pretty
00:31:45.080 strong message to terrorists uh and I think that's a predicate for peace in the Middle East yeah I don't
00:31:50.420 think we actually disagree I'm not saying that Benjamin Netanyahu shouldn't be protecting his country or
00:31:55.020 eliminating terrorists I just think he wouldn't have if there was a strong democratic president
00:31:59.800 who has every political incentive not to allow him to go to the lengths that he's going yeah I well
00:32:05.960 let's put it I I again I feel a lot better Trump was a much better president for Israel uh than Biden's
00:32:12.060 been I mean they're just again in the last 24 hours there's a story uh that uh Sinwar basically uh told
00:32:18.680 his negotiators uh to hold back on a deal because of his perception that the Israel was losing the
00:32:25.660 support of the United States and that came from uh basically you know Biden withholding weapons and
00:32:30.980 that becoming a public fact and I think Trump will be a much more decisive stronger supporter of our
00:32:36.680 ally uh and that will be peace comes from deterrence and when you show weakness um that's when you have
00:32:43.980 there's a lot of people who are listening to this who are American they go great points Bill but I'll
00:32:50.560 be honest with you I don't really care about geopolitics I'm not saying I advocate for it I'm
00:32:54.340 just saying that we've got serious problems in the U.S. Sure by the way I I said this is a really
00:33:00.580 important issue and I think again if the world blows up in a nuclear holocaust and the domestic
00:33:06.720 problems are relevant right um that's one of my issues yeah right you know number two is probably
00:33:12.600 the way the border has been managed right the reversal of 94 executive orders within days of
00:33:17.820 Biden becoming president uh and the very porous border of unvetted people coming into the country
00:33:23.960 a couple hundred thousand migrants coming to New York you know 20,000 to a city of 40,000 you know in
00:33:29.740 Springfield um and uh you know growing crime in cities uh and I think that's uh very unsettling and
00:33:38.220 damaging to the country and it sets up for you know how many terrorists came into the country how
00:33:43.320 many murders how many uh criminals from Venezuela we don't know uh who they are and what the numbers
00:33:48.640 are and so I'm I'm again I think you know I'm my family came here as immigrants in the 1890s um big
00:33:55.260 believer that immigration is part of the strength of the United States right we get the the most motivated
00:34:00.300 best and brightest entrepreneurs and and people aspiring families from all over the world who come here
00:34:05.920 and want to take their family want to come to a place where there's free speech supposedly and where
00:34:11.100 they can live their lives and the land of opportunity but that I'm a big believer in legal immigration
00:34:16.460 and I think we've allowed illegal immigration to uh get completely out of control and I think that gets
00:34:22.160 resolved on day one of a Trump administration there's all these conspiracy theories about illegal
00:34:28.680 immigration and I understand why we have illegal immigration in the UK it's a legal issue and it's to do
00:34:35.760 with the uh European Court of Human Rights blah blah blah but why is it in America because I I don't
00:34:41.940 understand why there is effectively an open border you even got guns bill yeah yeah look I think uh it's
00:34:48.580 you know the the argument which is you know I would say becomes to sound compelling is that you have one
00:34:54.720 political party who views you know uh these immigrants as potential supporters of a party you know
00:35:01.260 Elon Musk makes the point that you know California was not a definitively democratic uh voting uh state
00:35:08.060 until the uh you know a lot of immigrants came into California and the politics of the state changed
00:35:14.220 you can envision you know Elon Musk makes the argument this is the last election because of the number of
00:35:20.940 migrants that have come in that that if legalized and become voting members of of society if they vote
00:35:27.420 left uh then then we become the United States becomes California politically so I don't I don't have a
00:35:33.740 better argument than that um you know it uh you can be very supportive of immigration and change
00:35:42.220 immigration policies in such a way to allow more people into the country but to do it on an unvetted
00:35:47.580 basis where you're where Texas is putting in barbed wire and the federal government is removing it with
00:35:53.260 uh backhoes it's a very very strange thing to me it's absolutely bizarre because everyone who watches
00:35:59.340 this podcast will now drink my mother's Venezuelan so the Tren de Aragua which is the name of the of
00:36:04.700 the gang they're notorious in Venezuela that people are terrified of them for good reason sure and all
00:36:09.820 of a sudden you see them popping up here and you're going what's going on it's crazy and this I add
00:36:15.340 this to my list of uh grievances against the democratic establishment and I I it to me it's
00:36:23.180 I don't know how viable a democratic party is because when you look at the way they've handled
00:36:31.180 the immigration if a country doesn't have borders if it can't police its borders then it's not a country
00:36:37.180 sure I agree with that so you you think how can they possibly attract voters
00:36:45.500 and the only reason I think they've got a chance is through abortion
00:36:49.820 yes I I do think the border will be one of it's going to be in the top one or two issues
00:36:54.780 for people because it's being felt around the country it's being felt in cities uh and by the way
00:36:59.020 in New York which is a obviously a democratic party stronghold uh I I know many many people that
00:37:05.020 are voting Trump on just this issue alone um because you had a taste of it yeah yeah and by the way it's
00:37:12.060 you know we've taking in 200 000 migrants in a city of 11 million you know that's a two percent
00:37:18.460 move in the population well think about the small towns around the country small cities where now a
00:37:23.900 third of the population are uh you know immigrants that maybe don't have the economic wherewithal to
00:37:29.980 take care of themselves or uh using up uh you know available local resources I think it it's it
00:37:36.620 creates resentment you know it's not good for the country and to be clear that you're not making
00:37:41.340 this up I mean when I was in LA I have a Russian name and all the Uber drivers and the Lyft drivers
00:37:46.300 in LA are Armenian so they speak Russian they don't know who I am they start talking to me the ones that
00:37:50.860 came in the 80s and 90s they all came legally the ones that have come more recently I mean one of the
00:37:55.500 guy was telling me how he smuggled his 83 year old father in a wheelchair through the southern border
00:38:00.700 and you're going that doesn't seem to me like a secure border you know what I mean uh but moving
00:38:06.140 on a bit Bill I think one of the interesting things to discuss um given your financial expertise and
00:38:12.140 background is the economic situation one of the things that I don't think people are either they're
00:38:18.700 not concerned or they don't understand or for some reason maybe I'm the idiot and I don't understand why
00:38:23.740 it's not important but the fact that almost every western country is is at a hundred percent debt to GDP or
00:38:30.060 more that seems to me like kind of a problem am I wrong about this so it's less of a problem for
00:38:36.780 United States and other countries because we pay our debts on our own we can print money to pay our
00:38:41.020 obligations um but it's part of the mismanagement you know one of going back to your early question
00:38:45.660 what do you look for you know great businesses can access the bond market uh on very attractive
00:38:51.580 terms and the bond market's usually a uh when you lose the confidence of the bond market that's when
00:38:56.940 you know companies are ultimately threatened the United States has this sort of privilege
00:39:01.580 of being able to issue unlimited amounts of debt uh is that true Bill can you print money forever with
00:39:06.700 no repercussions no and that's what I'm getting at we're not approaching that point where it's like
00:39:11.260 the scary part is we don't know what that threshold is right before the globe decides to not trust the
00:39:16.540 United States now uh the Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates um and they can control you know
00:39:22.700 uh the kind of short end of the curve if you will with uh monetary policy but longer term bond interest
00:39:28.700 rates are creeping up which is kind of an interesting uh sort of phenomenon um but you know typically when
00:39:35.180 there's you know enormous amounts of securities being issued uh you know the the the uh the yield on
00:39:42.860 those securities has to go up in order to accommodate uh you know to meet the demand from the from the
00:39:48.380 parties and it's a threat to the country look it's a threat already because we're spending on interest
00:39:53.420 expense what it costs to defend the country and the kind of long-term history of companies our country
00:39:58.140 spending more on interest expense than on defense it has not ended well how would you fix this problem
00:40:03.900 if you are concerned about the direction of travel it seems to me that politically it's almost
00:40:09.260 unfixable because the public will not tolerate significant cuts on expenditure because it will make
00:40:15.260 their lives worse and that doesn't seem to be the sense of like we're all one people we need to come
00:40:20.220 together and deal with this issue because it's really pressing sure so how do you solve this sure
00:40:24.540 so the um what you think about with uh there are two ways to resolve debt one way is to cut expenses yeah
00:40:33.500 uh another way is to grow revenues but ultimately you need to grow the value of the asset that the debt
00:40:39.580 secured by to make the leverage comfortable that's one way to think about it and so the trump approach is
00:40:45.340 i'm going to i'm going to accelerate the growth of the country and uh the way i'm going to do that
00:40:49.500 is one i'm going to eliminate a lot of regulations that are holding back uh that make make no sense and
00:40:56.220 are actually holding back economic progress and if you think about how long it takes to build a bridge
00:41:00.380 in the united states or build a building or even build a home and the nature of the approvals you have
00:41:04.300 to get and the number of government agencies uh you know they're you look at the uh the biden
00:41:09.740 administration right the uh 42 billion dollars for rural uh internet access and no one's been
00:41:16.780 connected and it's been years right seven or eight billion dollars for a dozen charging stations
00:41:23.340 uh so the government is you know touristy inefficient and then you have all of the
00:41:27.900 again all the regulatory so i think one uh a master review of all the regulatory
00:41:32.460 kind of quagmire uh and you know set up the country efficiently um two i think bring you know
00:41:38.620 having elon musk as your partner in this enterprise i think is a huge humrun right so when was the last
00:41:44.140 time we heard about a presidential candidate talking about cutting waste in government
00:41:47.660 so having a department of government uh efficiency i think makes tremendous sense so eliminate waste no
00:41:53.660 one likes waste uh accelerate growth um uh and among that reduce the cost of energy which is embedded in
00:42:01.980 the cost of everything and we grow our way we grow our way and we improve our efficiency uh way out of the
00:42:09.420 problem and that's and that's how we do it and the united states kind of unleashed right this is still
00:42:13.900 the most entrepreneurial nation in the world yes uh ai is this incredibly powerful technology that uh is
00:42:19.820 going to be transformative and i think that's how we're going to solve the problem we solve it with
00:42:24.060 growth and efficiency and imagine how much more gets done how many more people get employed how much
00:42:29.180 wages ultimately go up in a world in which uh it's easier to get things done because there are a lot of
00:42:35.740 people who want to build things want to build houses want to start companies uh want to grow their
00:42:41.420 businesses that are being held back by the way that our very inefficient government oversees the country
00:42:47.420 you say no one likes waste and i think i know what you mean i would argue that the people who
00:42:52.140 benefit from all of this bureaucracy and corruption and uh you know we talked we started talking about
00:42:58.620 dei i mean di in government is a huge industry and none of those people want to cut waste because that's
00:43:04.700 that's their salary i i hear you uh but uh i don't think there's a lot of sympathy for people who are
00:43:10.300 benefiting by waste yeah and uh you know the the result will be a much more efficient effective
00:43:16.220 uh economy you know there's a book i think it's called bullshit jobs i think we have a lot of
00:43:21.020 bullshit jobs unfortunately in government and i think we need to eliminate them you know it you
00:43:26.860 look at the education system it hasn't changed in you know 100 years the typical schoolhouse one
00:43:33.660 teacher gets up in front of a group of students it's you know we're spending uh you know enormous
00:43:39.100 amounts of money particularly in you know our cities i heard a number today we spent a hundred you know
00:43:42.940 a third of was two-thirds of the budget uh for the for for uh new york state on education some some
00:43:49.740 number like this some crazy number you must be getting great educational results bill of course
00:43:53.820 the results uh uh aren't working so that by the way ai is going to be a very powerful technology and
00:43:58.620 custom tailoring education for each kid each kid's progress um so i just think we have to we're
00:44:05.420 introducing technology into the corporate landscape in a way that's making businesses more efficient
00:44:09.820 we haven't looked at introducing technology in government to make government more efficient
00:44:14.140 i couldn't imagine a better person than elon musk uh to help uh with that but isn't that going to be
00:44:19.900 an almighty battle because you're not just dealing which is the constantine's question alluded to
00:44:25.900 let's be fair it's not just the people who benefit from it you're fighting against an ideology
00:44:31.100 which is why you need a trump type president to do it uh one he's not he can't get re-elected this is
00:44:36.620 his second term uh he's got four years to make it happen and he doesn't care um and i think you
00:44:42.300 need someone who's independent enough to be able to execute on this you know if you compare to
00:44:47.420 vice president harris well this is her first term she's going to want to get re-elected she's going
00:44:51.420 to be beholden to the to the system that's another reason to support trump let's talk about trump's
00:44:57.500 divisiveness because i don't think you know when people talk about his divisiveness it is a fair
00:45:02.380 point especially when you look at his behavior towards the end of his term people will go this
00:45:08.060 is not what a presidential candidate should be he's inflammatory he's divisive his language is
00:45:15.100 it's unpleasant let's be honest about it and he and he inflames situations where
00:45:20.220 it doesn't that doesn't need to happen you know trump walked into a stadium
00:45:24.700 uh over the weekend and the entire stadium was chanting usa usa usa um i haven't seen that happen
00:45:33.340 for uh president presidential you know presidents normally or politicians normally get booed in
00:45:38.860 stadiums or they get ignored uh so i think i do think there is uh you know i think he has enormous
00:45:45.180 support um i and i think it's become it's even more challenging today to say publicly that you support
00:45:53.020 trump which means that the polls i think really understate uh his his performance and i think
00:45:58.380 the best thing for the country is a landslide of victory uh where he takes uh you know the vast
00:46:03.740 majority of electoral you know reagan style electoral college victory who knows i know who knows whether
00:46:08.460 that can happen or not and that will uh empower him you know if you think about the first time he was
00:46:13.180 under siege from the day he walked into the oval office uh by the media by uh you know the russian uh collusion
00:46:22.700 allegation um and he also didn't expect to be president you know the poll said 92 percent uh
00:46:29.740 you know clinton was going to win um and he was unprepared he didn't know who he could trust and
00:46:35.980 now he's had four years of experience uh i also think he's a try i think you look at the who is the
00:46:42.780 uh vice president harris team right on trump's side we have trump we have musk we have rfk we have
00:46:50.140 tulsa gabbard we have vivek ramaswani these are actually very very capable people that have kind
00:46:55.260 of joined the team and once he actually wins i think a lot more very capable people are going to
00:47:00.620 sign up and i think if you look at the issues that they're focused on musk is focused on everything
00:47:05.740 from regulation to government efficiency to waste and cutting costs and he's obviously pretty good
00:47:10.220 at that he let go 80 percent of x and it's a much more highly functioning better product today
00:47:16.220 um you know kennedy's going to focus on uh you know corruption pharma uh you know making america's
00:47:23.580 healthy these are i think critical issues for the country by the way part of the reason why uh our
00:47:27.980 budget's out of balance is we have such an unhealthy populace we spend an absolute fortune as you know on
00:47:33.820 health care and we have the worst health outcomes of any you know major country in the world uh if we
00:47:38.860 can change that uh that alone um you know we're gonna save an enormous amounts of money francis may i jump
00:47:44.860 in very briefly just to press this point with you i saw a tweet from our friend and a former guest on
00:47:51.260 the show called bridget fetus she's a comedian and commentator and she wrote a piece about how she's
00:47:57.020 hesitant to vote for either presidential candidate and took a lot of flag for it and she said let me say
00:48:02.460 it in terms the reason suburban moms like me are concerned about voting for trump is we fear deep down
00:48:10.220 he's not going to let go of the reins four years from now and after january the 6th whatever you
00:48:16.060 think happened on that day sure that is a doubt in people's minds how can you assuage people who are
00:48:20.700 concerned uh so one he's gonna be 82 years old uh two i actually think he's not a bad guy okay i've
00:48:26.700 actually spent some time with trump uh he doesn't want to i i don't think he wants to be it first of
00:48:33.100 all the system is stronger than any one president right they're not going to allow someone all of a
00:48:37.100 sudden to take over america we're going to give up our 250 year history and we're going to go to
00:48:41.020 a dictatorship it's just not going to happen um and uh look he's got a very capable vice president
00:48:47.100 that i'm sure has aspirations ultimately to be president or i think the next generation of
00:48:51.500 leadership uh is going to be very strong one uh and he can go off into the sunset still be relevant
00:48:58.060 i think an 82 year old who was uh formerly president is going to want to be relevant he'll be
00:49:02.620 relevant as long as he's healthy uh at that point in time but that's not i don't think that's a real
00:49:06.700 risk you know the um the system if he wanted to be a dictator um he would have had a second term
00:49:15.260 but he did you know there was a peaceful transfer of power on january 20th and i'm glad actually
00:49:20.860 constantin brought up the the kind of the point of view from a woman because how big an issue is
00:49:28.620 abortion going to be when it comes for particularly female voters voting republican sure so look the
00:49:34.780 supreme court has decided you know on the uh on the issue uh it's a state level issue uh technology i
00:49:42.220 think is helpful and that we now have an abortion pill that's legal everywhere um you know yes i guess
00:49:47.660 in a harris administration you'll have the opportunity for later term abortions in the seventh eighth or
00:49:52.540 ninth month uh i i don't know that that's uh an issue that you know there's some people that this is their
00:49:59.260 entire issue and that um but i don't think that's the bulk of the country i think the bulk of the
00:50:03.820 country actually believes that a woman should have the right to have an abortion earlier in her term
00:50:09.820 and that is you know certainly possible uh going forward and uh a new president is going to have a
00:50:16.060 hard time reversing uh the supreme court's decision in any case so by the way trump is actually uh on this
00:50:23.580 point made very clear that one he's in favor of abortion event of incest health of the mother uh
00:50:29.980 you know for example rape um and that he said he you know uh said and posted that he would not sign a
00:50:36.380 federal abortion bill before we ask you our final question and move over to substack where our fans
00:50:41.740 get to ask you their questions sure you talked about jamie dynamo what about bill ackman is blackman
00:50:46.540 ever going to run for president not for now oh that is a scoop right there look i think the good news
00:50:54.220 is like i'm excited about the next uh kind of generational leadership that's showing up i think
00:50:58.860 for example glenn youngkin uh has done i think an excellent job as governor virginia obviously has
00:51:03.660 aspirations to be president uh i've gotten to know him briefly i think he'd be outstanding uh i'd only do
00:51:08.620 it if there was no one better um and i'm very confident it's gonna be someone better that's a
00:51:13.580 politician's answer so you know he's ready all right bill the question we always end our interviews
00:51:17.980 with the main section before we go over to substack is what's the one thing we're not talking about as
00:51:22.220 a society that you think we should be um
00:51:29.740 i like what's interesting that we're not talking about is that um progress compounding is one of the
00:51:38.300 most powerful forces in the world and that if we can actually change the growth trajectory of the
00:51:43.900 united states instead of growing at you know these very low single-digit growth you know two percent
00:51:50.220 or two and a half percent which is you know kind of what we've achieved in the last you know number
00:51:54.460 of decades and we can take that to three and a half four percent the implications for the poor for meeting our
00:52:02.300 obligations for scientific advancement uh for uh national defense for a safer world uh are very very
00:52:11.660 powerful and uh it sounds like such a small difference um but you know with the passage of time
00:52:19.340 you know uh you know one that's one of the powerful forces that you learn about when you're in my
00:52:23.100 industry i'd love to see it apply uh in the government so i'm excited about a trump musk uh uh administration
00:52:31.660 and by the i i credit to trump you know i think the other point i would make here uh and i do think
00:52:37.180 this is a really important election um is that you know strong leaders are not afraid to bring on
00:52:44.620 talented people uh and work alongside them you know jd vance is an extremely intelligent articulate
00:52:52.140 debater you know compare tim waltz uh in terms of i would say mental acuity talent
00:53:02.060 life achievement uh versus jd vance so i think that speaks to what the leadership team will look
00:53:07.820 like in a trump administration and i'm excited about it bill akman thanks for coming on trigonometry
00:53:12.780 head on over to our substack now to hear bill answer your questions does he think we're watching the
00:53:19.340 two parties switch roles as democrats increasingly represent niche cultural elites while republicans at
00:53:26.060 least prepare pretend to care about blue-collar workers who've been left behind