Is Political Polarization Tearing America Apart?

Okay, does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy QPC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of your Sprite because you can still hear your mama saying, don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now, so you do what you want.

Share and share alike with the 20 piece McNuggets from McDonald's for just $6. Limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer.

Ba da ba ba ba. Dear McDonald's, your breakfast menu fire tens across the board. I could be happy with anything even though I order the same thing every time. Thanks for not judging me. I'll try something new next time.

Maybe score a two for five dollar deal on a sausage McMuffin with egg and more. Limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Single item at regular price.

Thank you, listeners. If you have any questions, send them to mailbagandrewyang.com you can even send them as a voicemail. We're listening.

It's my Frasier invitation.

This week on the Andrew Yang podcast.

Everybody's angry at the system being broken in some capacity and almost everybody is poor. And like, is a lot of where this, like the root of this is coming from? Like, we're just pissed off.

Yeah. So a study came out recently that said 60% of Americans have trouble affording a decent standard of living. Almost half are stressed out about housing costs. Almost half are stressed out about groceries. And so if you're like living under this constant cloud of stress, then it's very easy to be ticked off and want someone to blame. Hey everyone, hope you're enjoying your Labor Day weekend.

We are going to be answering listener.

Questions this time, brought to you by our very handsome co host, Zach Grauman. You know him, you love him.

I'm back. Feeling good?

Yes.

It's good to be back.

Yes.

So first, what?

Well, I mean, let's just jump into the questions because people ask them and answers are here. Have I reviewed these questions? Maybe, maybe not.

I don't know if you've seen those.

I might not.

I will say this for those of you who send them. We get a healthy amount but we almost do all of them at some point. So flagging. We do read them. As long as they're not trolling us. We do usually use them. Okay, let's dive in, Andrew, and we'll probably catch up along the way. First question is from Benjamin. This is a pretty good one. There's a lot of harmful rhetoric being spouted by the right, such as stereotyping immigrants and vilifying the left. However, I've also seen a lot of similar rhetoric coming from the left. How everyone who voted for Trump is a Nazi, how the Republican Party and its supporters are fascists, et cetera, et cetera. As someone and who is friends with people on both sides of the aisle, thanks for noticing.

Thanks for noticing.

I like to think myself to try to be. Do you think I'm friends with you? I don't know what you are. Do you think this rhetoric is harmful? And if so, how would you suggest combating both right wing and left wing rhetoric in an effective manner? If speaking out against both becomes isolating, how would you suggest dealing with that? Thank you, Benjamin. Good question.

Yeah, thank you, Benjamin. I do think it's harmful. Whenever you describe a large group of people in a particular way.

Yeah.

So if you say something like Republicans are fascists, you're like, wait a minute, you just described, you know, let's call it like 80 million Americans in a particular way. And it's, it's handy in the sense is like, it seems really certain. But I find that stuff noxious and tribalist and corrosive. And so I don't do it.

Yeah.

And that's true on both sides. I mean, clearly the right and the left are going a little hog wild. And hopefully if you keep up with me, you see, like, I don't parrot that stuff, I don't amplify it. And so the counter to this, my opinion is that I don't think it's useful to be negative. And I don't even think it's useful to be negative about a negative. So in other words, if someone says, hey, like all Republicans are fascists, and then you go to them and say all Republicans are not fascists, like there.

Are a lot of people who says that is an asshole.

Yeah. No, it's just not very useful or productive. So what you do or what I do is just try and call attention to various things that most people can agree on in terms of, in my opinion. The majority of both Democrats and Republicans are upset about income inequality or wealth inequality. Yes. The majority of both Democrats and Republicans are upset about AI and automation. The majority of both Democrats and Republicans are upset about the expensiveness of healthcare. And so you can just go down the line and be like, hey. And by drawing attention to these things, hopefully you put pressure on both people to be like, my name calling might Feel good, might get me a few extra likes. And by the way, that's like 90% of this problem.

Is that, like, it's a social thing. Yeah, yeah.

Anger tainment.

Yeah. What I say. Hatertainment.

Yeah.

It's close to fine.

I mean, it's pretty close.

Anger tame. It's right.

So. So if you just try and spotlight an actual issue or problem that most people like. Oh, yeah, that is a problem. I mean, one of the things I've been going on about lately is, like, Americans don't socialize or party.

Yeah.

Enough Americans are on their phones too much. And as a parent, I'm as guilty of it as anyone. Where you look up and you see your kids on screens and you're like, oh, no, get off your screen. And then they're looking at you, like, squinting because you have your smartphone out all the time. Like, you know, and I'm saying, oh. And then, of course, I could give some BS Thing being like, oh, my dad does it. It's important. And when dad does it, it's work. But it's kind of nonsense. And by the way, you know, that's a very unifying message. If you say, maybe we should put down our phones. Maybe we should look at each other's eyes more and stuff like that. I mean, that's not a partisan thing. I mean, the problem is that the parties now rejoice and revel in this tribalism, and they score the most points that way.

Yeah.

It's one of the dangers now is that the Democrats. And I'm going to flag Gavin Newsom just because, you know, it comes to mind, or even this gerrymandering fight that people are having is that if I say, hey, I'm fighting the other side, then my team gets really excited.

Yes.

If I say, hey, there are excesses on both sides, sides, and my team looks at me and is like, you're.

Not the fighter, not on our team.

Or you're not as strident.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not a warrior.

And interestingly, you see different approaches based upon just where they are and their district and their community and the incentive structure. Like, you know, our friend Jermaine Johnson, for example, he's a Democrat in South Carolina, but he's very positive and unifying.

He works the Republicans all the time.

And I think that his incentives are in that direction because it's like, hey, I'm in a red state. So if I was just like, Demi, Demi, Demi, then people like, oh, congratulations, you have 39.

Congrats.

So you see different people adopting different things based upon the. The structures around them. So, Benjamin, I think that it's not leading us in a good direction. And if you can just try and lead by example around your favorite issues, I mean, one of them could be democracy, you know, or primaries, then people will look at that and like, nine times out of 10, like, neither party is really doing a great job of whatever the heck you're making a case for.

I have two thoughts and a question for you here. One is, one of my takeaways when we ran for president was everybody's angry at the system being broken in some capacity, and almost everybody is poor. And, like, is a lot of where this, like, the root of this is coming from? Like, we're just pissed off.

Yeah. So a study came out recently that said 60% of Americans have trouble affording a decent standard of living. There are other standard. There are other studies that say almost half are stressed out about housing costs, almost half are stressed out about groceries. And so if you're, like, living under this constant cloud of stress, then it's very easy to be ticked off and want someone to blame. The.

My other comment was very rarely. I was in the vast, vast, vast majority of people are not Democrat or Republican on 100% of issues. And it's important to have friends that are on that are. It's even important to have friends that are super demi or super far right, because you'll find that. And even yourself, you're like, I consider myself a hardcore Dem, a hardcore Republican. You probably got a couple, a little bit of Democrat in you. You know, like, a lot of Republicans really would love good public schools. They'd want to send their kids a good public school.

A lot of Democrats would love for streets to be clean. Right.

So there's like. And so it is very gray, even though the. The social media world is black and white. So I think I've learned a lot by hanging out with people who are not just both sides of the aisle, but people that are far on one end or the other. My question for you, when you were running, when you talked about Trump, you talked about him as a symptom of a bigger problem. And you were very proactive in not vilifying Trump supporters or even Trump the man at times, but really the underlying problems that got him elected in the first place. Was that intentional for you or just kind of naturally how you talk? I'm very curious on how you landed there, because it's not something. It's something you and I leaned into when we were writing speeches and things like that. But it's not something you and I sat down and like proactively discussed. I think it came natural for both of us, but very natural for you. Yeah.

I have family members who voted for Trump, I think twice. So, you know, trying to vilify folks who voted out of frustration a lot of the time.

People you loved.

Yeah. Like never, never struck me as sensible.

Yeah.

And in our case, I think it was just expressing what one naturally felt. I think it was Bill Maher who said, you know, like number of months ago he said, look, you can't just like give up on half the country.

Yeah.

And I think just about anyone who's a comedian or travels senses that because if you perform at a club, you know, there are people of all sorts.

Of Ohio, there's still some liberals in the audience, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, and obviously vice versa.

Yeah, for sure. Okay, Benjamin, thank you for that question. It's a good one and timely. All right, this next question is from Jay. Thank you, Jay. Question is. That's a good one. NBC News reported in June that the number of independents and third party voters are growing. Can we conclude anything from this reporting and how do you think our current systems will respond to these changing demographics? And basically the graph and studies showed was basically in 2000, 44% of Americans were Democrat and now that's down to 37% and Republicans somewhat stayed flat, 33 to 31. And then independents were at 23% in 2000, are now at 32% and climbing.

Yeah, I've seen even higher numbers for independents. I've seen 49%. I've seen 50%.

Yeah, I've seen two.

And I've also seen, and everyone agrees on the trend and everyone also can agree on the downward trend for the major parties. Last I checked, the Democratic approval rating might be 29% and Republicans are right there at 33%. So, so you have, you have more and more Americans being like, yo, neither of these parties is doing a great job and neither of them really represents me or speaks for me.

Right.

And I think you're going to see more and more candidates that reflect that with Mike Duggan in Michigan is one of my favorite examples who just had 200 electeds and former electeds of both parties come out and endorse him. And he has the potential to short circuit the two party system in Michigan as the three term mayor of Detroit, which is the most populous city. And he's objectively turned that city around where they went from shrinking to growing. They went from businesses disinvesting to expanding. And so you're going to see more and more people like Mike Duggan, like Dan Osborne, who's running for Senate as an independent in Nebraska, because that's where a lot of the voters are. I, I feel like those two candidates are just like the tip of the spear and that they're going to be a lot more like them. You also have various, various figures, like Congressman Don Davis in North Carolina, who's a Democrat, saying, like, I'm happy to align with the Ford party and be a forward Democrat because they sense that. And in his case, he's in a swing district in North Carolina, so he's like, yeah, I have a feeling that, that this is going to help me, not hurt me.

So what, what a lot of political.

Figures are going to sense is that expressing some degree of independence from their party is going to help them in their district, because more and more the people they talk to are like, yo, I'm not actually keen on the party that you're a part of. And they're like, no, no, no, don't worry. I mean, I've got that next to my name, but, like, I'm all about the people and the policies and I'm very, Very foreign.

This podcast is sponsored by Helix Sleep. Now that it's cold outside, are you spending a little bit more time indoors, maybe on a mattress? Maybe you wish that that mattress was super comfortable and made just for you. With a personalized sleep quiz that you can take@helixsleep.com Like I did, where I got an Ultra Dawn Firm mattress that is now the hit in my house.

That can be you.

I've always felt that investing in a mattress is one of the best investments you can make because you might spend eight, nine, even ten hours a day. You probably shouldn't sleep that much. But if you're going to be on a mattress, shouldn't you make it one that you love, that has Money Back Return 120 Night Sleep Trial Limited Lifetime Warranty. If you want to have a mattress that you're actually excited about, go to helix sleep.com yang for 27% off site wide. That's helix sleep.com yang For 27% off site wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you helix sleep.com Yang.

Do you think this gets harder because nuance is tougher to sell? You know what I mean? Like, like to me, when I hear you talk about this, it's like Every candidate, case by case basis. Some like, they got a strong Dem base, a little more right leaning state, they got to blend. Others are the other way around. Some are like their Dem credentials suck, but they can get all the independents and not piss off the Dem. Is it?

Well, some of the most reasonable sounding people you can find are either red state Democrats or blue state Republicans.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's like, hey, I'm a Republican in Massachusetts like Mitt Romney was.

You have to be a good operator.

Yeah. Then they're just like, look guys like, you know, yeah, I've got this, this party next to my name, but like that's not really my jam.

Right.

And because if you're like a red state Democrat, then you're encountering Republicans and conservatives like everywhere you go. And so people have to be cool with you. And Andy Beshear is a fine example. Who's the governor of Kentucky.

Yeah.

You know, it's like those folks tend to be very, very pragmatic and like results.

I was wondering, these sort of single party states, purple states. Ish. Or it's red versus blue. Right. That. That nuance gets a little easier as opposed to in some of these primaries like you've been branded in the media as and literally in the same publications as too far left, like crazy progressive, out of the box, give everybody money to not Democrat, not lefty enough, where you're too conservative or bro culture or recruiting far right nationalists to support your campaign, whatever the hell they put you. Like I've seen literally both on you and what has been crazy to me is every time anyone listens to you talk, you're like, I actually just think it's a rational human being. Generally speaking, do you think your answer changes depending on a primary versus a general? When it's RVD versus like Dems or Republicans?

I mean, we're gonna find out because they're gonna be, let's call it 28 Democratic primary candidates for president. And a lot of them are naturally very up the middle. But then they're going to be communicating with Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, Michigan are going to be the early states for that crew. And so they're, you know. Well, you're, I mean, you already have folks seeing which terrain that they're going to stake out in like the stealth primary or the primary.

I love it. Okay, this is my question, but it's a good one. Speaking of stealth primary, Gavin Newsom has been, I'm going to say, tweeting up a storm and I think he's one of the first Dems who really at least demonstrated to understand the attention economy. Bernie. Somewhat. But he's basically just trolling online.

He's adopted the Trumpian.

Yes. And he's been. I mean, he started by tweeting in all caps and blah, blah, blah. And thank you for your attention to this matter. Yeah, yeah. And honestly, it's relatively funny.

It's relatively funny.

And it's a brilliant move, I think, because no Dem has dared touch this. And if anything, I mean, Amy Klobuchar had an AI video come out of her, like, saying something ridiculous about Sydney Sweeney. And you can look it up if you want a good laugh. And she went as far to apologize for that. Like, on the record being like, no, it wasn't me. I would never say something like that. As opposed to leaning in, which is what Gavin's doing. Curious your thoughts on Gavin in the upcoming races, but also like the role or the need for Dems to start getting a little more. Taking a few more plays out of the Republican playbook when it comes to campaigning.

Yeah. So I've got a very big thesis in this direction, and I've written something to this effect that will probably come out early next year at the latest. But check it out. There are three modes of communication. There's political communication, which we're all used to. There's comedy.

Okay.

Insult comedy in particular, which you can sense both. Both parties are trying out in various ways. And Trump is actually a high level insult comic.

Trump is funny. Yeah. He was a funny reality.

Hillary, Sleepy Joe, Little Marco, Meatball Ron.

And he's like, naturally, his comedic timing is good.

Yeah. I mean, he tried them out on crowds and he's like, ooh, that clicks. And then he just remember. People remember each of these insults when.

He'S like, yeah, because you would be in jail. Like, if you remember that clip, which is famous during a debate, funny. You may hate him. That's fine. But still funny.

And then the third mode of communication is pro wrestling, which is.

That's a third. That's your third lane.

That's the third lane.

So number one is political speak. Yeah. Number two is insult comedy. And number three is pro wrestling.

And this is like the entertainment, like, is only pro wrestling or is apply to other things. Oh, no.

I mean, so Trump, by the way, is a WWE hall of Famer. Yeah, he was. He. I mean, he was a WrestleMania villain in the whole thing. And so if you look at the rhetoric from Trump and from various pro wrestlers, it's Very similar. You know, just like I alone can fix it. You know, if you don't vote for me, you won't have a country anymore. I mean, like, these are the kinds of things that pro wrestlers would say. Like they, you know, pro wrestler is constantly hyping themselves up. Trump is like a self hype machine and Democrats are really bad at the self hype thing.

2 and 3.

Because there's a post. Yeah, yeah.

Because they're all supposed to be like.

No, no, I'm humble. I'm humble. Which is the opposite of the pro wrestling Persona. And they're generally not funny at all.

Yeah.

And so the fact that Gavin Newsom is adopting this, it is pretty funny, it's pretty amusing. And it also kind of has this braggadocio, self confidence element. And Gavin, I've spent time with, you know, Gavin and a lot of the other Democratic contenders and Gavin, like, Gavin could talk sports with a straight white man and it would not seem excruciating.

Let's call it alpha energy.

Like he might actually be a fan, you know, like, like.

He'S like, he's.

Yeah, he's, he's, he's win. He's like a, like tall, handsome dude, very good guy that, that has genuine political talent.

Yes. His debate with Desantis, like they both got good like jabs in like they, he. But they were toe to toe, generally speaking.

Yes. So the fact that Gavin is now able to access to some measure communication modes 2 and 3 is highly unusual for a Democrat and opens up a whole different universe for him in a way that, you know, someone like 90% of the other Democrats couldn't pull it off. And if they did try and pull it off, it would be a dud.

To your point from before, if the parties have equal ish approval ratings or declining approval ratings and neither of them can really govern, then communication, essentially all that matters. And then I was thinking about this. I think about Obama. He was one of the best in the world at one and not bad at number two.

Yeah. Obama is pretty funny. Like if you look at some of the white horse correspondent stuff.

Yeah.

And his more recent talks, he has tried to be jabby, jabby, humorous, humorous.

He's not, not funny. But W was probably one of the funniest.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think Gavin's got like a lane for himself and then some. And he's got genuine talent. I mean, when you're some of these Dems and there's something the press when you like, like, oh, this person, that person be like, have you actually met that person or seen that person. Like, some of these people are really not very good.

No. Yeah, I agree. When they talk about it and.

And then. But yeah. So Gavin will be there the whole time.

Yeah. I think if I was his, like, comms rector with him, I would. I would be telling him the only way he wins is he becomes, like, the bad boy of the Democratic Party. And he could probably do it. He definitely just becomes a troll online. He's got a bunch of cheating scandals, his wife, et cetera. Like, he just leans in like, I'm an asshole. I don't give a shit. Like, that could probably work because people don't really care. They want their bills cheaper.

Well, he sat with a lot of very conservative voices and podcasters and whatnot. So he's definitely going right up to the line.

Yeah.

And he, like, he understands it. He kind of. He's also trying to distance himself from the entire California jam.

Yeah, that's. Well, that's the other way. Like, if he just leans in, like, I don't give a shit, and trolls anyone that makes fun of him, like, that's. It'll be better than having to run on as a straight record because Californians, It's a very liberal state, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. He's going to seem very pugnacious, and that. That's going to work for him. A lot of them.

I don't know if it'll work, but it's good for him.

It's good for him. By the way, the. The Dems of South Carolina seem to respond very positively to him, and I think that they. They're gonna. That's gonna be true everywhere he goes. Like, Calvin's an impressive human. I mean.

I mean, he looks like. He looks like president.

He looks like president.

He'd be happy, you know. Thank you for that question. We got sidetracked. That's on. This next one's from Colin. Oh, this is fun. I'd love to get your. Andrew, I'd love to get your take on Mandani's win over Cuomo in New York City. Do you believe that this is a turning point for the direction of the Democratic Party moving forward, or do you think this is just an isolated event because of New York City's already progressive lean combined with the ranked choice voting in the primary? Thank you, Colin. Great question.

I love to talk about this. Thanks, Colin. So first ranked choice voting did not make a difference in this primary because Zoran just got more votes in the first round. So no matter what system you would have used. Zoran was going to win that thing. Now, what lessons can you take from it? These are broad numbers, but Zoran, let's say he got 550,000 votes to Cuomo's 450,000. This is a city of 8.3 million or so. So 550,000 might be 6.8% of the vote. And so you had a Democratic primary that is highly unrepresentative of the average New York City voter. It's an off year. It's a summer primary. Now, Zoran won, and he won by getting an extra, let's call it broadly speaking, 100,000 new voters to the polls that were generally on the younger side and generally on, like, the, you know, obviously further left side. And if consultants drew this up, by the way, this is a joke. I told what's true. It's like anytime you're losing, what you say is, we're going to grow the electorate.

Yeah. As you do. And voters that normally vote, we're going to have more than them. They're going to come from elsewhere.

And then most of the consultants are like, that's total bullshit. Like, you're not. You're not going to expand.

The press might write that for you. Yeah.

And then. And then Zo Run actually managed to do it, like, yeah, he got more young people in real life, got an extra 100,000 people to the polls.

Yeah.

So what that's going to do is a lot of people from that wing of the party going to be like, oh, my gosh, like, I can pull the same thing. And so you're going to have a lot of folks challenge incumbents from the left of the Democratic Party. There's going to be some more energy and resources for them, objectively. And so you're going to have feistier races on that side. Now, imagining that this is somehow, you know, a sea change for the party, you're looking at a very specific environment in New York City. And again, like, you know, like, 100,000 extra voters is a lot in the context of this primary. But, you know, like, 100,000 voters might be an extra, like, 1.2% of, like, new York of New Yorkers showing up. And Zoran would not so, like a Zoran type figure, you know, wouldn't win in a lot of other environments. Even in New York City's general election, if it was just Zoran versus, let's call it Andrew Cuomo one on one in November, he might not win. That the issue. So I do expect Zoran to win because he's running against Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams, Curtis Lewa, who's going to get 15 to 20% of the vote as the Republican, and Jim Walden. So if you have a four way race and they fragment the non Zoran vote, then Zoran probably wins by double digits. So you need a lot of things to break right for a Zoran figure to win one of these races. People are going to make too much of it, but it's going to end up fueling a lot of folks who want to try and follow the same playbook. By the way, I also want to say Zoron is very, very talented and it's going to be hard for a person in a random congressional district to light a fire, correct in the same way it'd be tough in the average congressional race.

One of the mistakes the Democrats make a lot of is when we see let's call it an outsized success. I don't even mean victory. So let's call it Obama is a victory, AOC was a victory, Zoran's victory. But even others, you or Pete or I mean say Bernie, right? And we say, oh, you know, we got to do, just need more people to follow the AOC playbook. We need more people. Zoro on Obama playbook. Some things can be pulled from it, sure, but the vast majority of time it just stems from both having a good candidate. Like all the people I just mentioned, aoc, Obama, you, Pete, Zoron, they're all really talented candidates. They have political talent. You watch Zoron speak, he's articulate, he's smart, he has a message, he has a why and why he's running. He's got a great brand and he doesn't fuck up. He says the like he gets put in the, you get put in all these twisted situations with the press, with the crowds and they handle it well. These guys are good candidates. So that's generally why you perform well. And I think the mistake is to say, oh, we just need to repeat what AOC did, what worked for AOC work. She was a talented candidate.

Well, a lot of the candidates you're talking about too ran into like a high oxygen environment, you know, and the average congressional race is not necessarily going to be a high oxygen environment because there's not going to be a ton of local press covering it.

No one talked about AOC until she won. So that's just one example. But I guess the rest of them.

Were all like, yeah, no, I mean, and you could see there were like, even in that cycle there might have been.

There's a little more hype for her though, down there. The stretch. Certainly. Sorry.

And. But she's very talented. But there were, there were, let's call it, you know, half a dozen to a dozen candidates trying to do the same thing in that cycle and the next cycle and couldn't do it.

So I think.

But you're going to have more people attempting.

For sure.

For sure.

And I also think like the Zoron thing to me is like, he's obviously smart, he's talented. I think ignore the, some of the left policies that folks can disagree with. To me, my, my head, like, I think he'll be fine. Maybe above average. The bar is pretty low. He got to run against two objectively bad candidates right now. Eric was a good candidate till all the baggage. So therefore maybe bad man.

Well, he wasn't even in the Democratic primary.

Yeah, that's fair. Cuomo is a bad camp. Cuomo is massive baggage. You end up, you know, you're running one of the biggest operations on the planet objectively. And so, you know, young person, never done this for going to make mistakes and like, and it's New York City. I just saw this Instagram reel on the number of times New York City got raked over the coals by real estate developers and that like, that's the thing. If you're the city, you're negotiating, you want to build affordable housing in New York City, who are you negotiating with? And for. And around the area you're trying to build it, the smartest wealthiest people on the planet, the real estate sharks in Manhattan, like, you're going to get. If you don't know what you're doing, you're going to get screwed. And who pays the bill? Like you. And I like New York City taxpayers. So I think that's probably the biggest, like, hesitation you have. But I live here. I'm a root farm, frankly.

Yeah. I did a write up after. So if anyone wants to look it up, if you just Google Andrew, Yang, Zhar and Mamdani, I think you'll probably find it.

I am good at some things. You know, I'm not very good at cooking healthy food for myself. I'm really not good at all. It's one reason why I'm so excited.

To share with you.

Factor meals Factor is ready made food for you. Two minutes, real food. It's made by chefs, designed by dietitians, delivered to your door. You heat it for two minutes and eat. I love the cheesy chicken and peppers. I love the roasted veggie and Pesto tortellini. If that sounds delicious to you, it truly is delicious. So you know you should check it out and enjoy food that someone else better than you at cooking has prepared like I do. Head to factor meals.com yang50off and use code yang50off to get 50% off your first factor box plus free breakfast for one year offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with Factor.

Here we go. This next question is from Kristen. She says, according to a recently released report from MIT about AI, 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing. So pilots of companies are failing and the technology is too inflexible for large companies or workflows. In addition, energy prices are increasing around the country due to poorly regulated data centers being built in communities already struggling to meet their needs. Do you believe, as I do, we are seeing the beginning of an AI bubble ready to pop? Or do you think that tech and AI companies will continue to grow unchecked, hoarding and pilfering our precious energy and water resources? Thank you Kristen.

You know what's funny is so this is a question from Kristen, but I think that our producer Daniel might agree.

With a lot of it. He might hand pick that bad boy. Thanks Daniel. We love you.

No, it's fine. And Daniel's a creative and a lot of creatives are, let's call it, AI dubious for sure. Yeah. I mean, so I think two things can be true at once and it reminds me of just about every other major investment hype cycle. So if you remember, and I'm old enough to remember the dot com boom. So then there was a period when anything with dot com in its name, pets.com, whatever the heck, podcast dot com. Yeah, I just went to the moon and then hype bubble burst and it turns out that like there were excesses. But then did the Internet end up changing businesses like it did now? Like you ended up with like a correction and then like the new reality maybe took a little bit longer. So the last figure I saw in terms of the investment in Data centers and AI among the big tech companies in the US plus some public expenditures was something like $500 billion and count and it's going to go to a trillion probably because the more these companies are investing, the more their stock goes up. Truly, if there is a major company that decided to sit it out, they're probably getting pummeled now. I think there are going to be a lot of companies trying to Figure out things with AI and let's say the first pilot doesn't work, second pilot doesn't work. The issue is that eventually the pilots will work because both the models get stronger and your ability to make use of it gets better. And I talked to CEOs and one of the things I posted on X went viral, which kind of surprised me. It's pretty funny what goes viral on X Random man where like a partner at a law firm told me that AI models now can perform better than third year associate in preparing a brief for him and that it used to take that third year associate a week to do this brief. And then when he looked at the brief it's like maybe it's useful, maybe it's not. Not now what he does is he puts it through two or three different AI models and then conforms and has sample brief in an hour and then he has to check it and conform it. But then that might take him an afternoon.

He was already checking though.

Yeah, he was already checking when like and by the way, and as someone who was a corporate attorney in a past life, so when you're a first year associate you don't know much of anything and you're essentially learning on the client's dime. And that's true for the second year associates too. And then by the time you're a third year associate you're sort of break even or positive. But now there's going to be very little incentive for them to be like.

Why do I have a first and.

Second year coming along like that I'm billing out at. And so that they can just look up to their clients and say hey, guess what? Like we're not doing that anymore. And you know, it's going to be left out in the cold. Are the new law school grads being like, hey, aren't you going to hire hire 50 of us this year?

Entry level jobs are, are getting hurt pretty bad. Yes.

So I don't doubt that there is a lot of learning associated. By the way, this partner of the law firm said that this wasn't true last year, that the models got better in the last year. So you spend $500 billion on these models and associated speed and data processing and then companies will have to do some trial and error to figure out how it's going to facilitate their processes. But they will figure it out just like my friend at this law firm has figured it out. And so you know, I think that the corporate efficiencies are going to get realized and there's just like A lot of nonsense going on in these companies that you can automate. I had a friend who runs a major consumer brand saying that he's going to replace a thousand consumer support reps with 50 plus AI. And when I heard that, I was like, oh my God. Because this is like in my opinion he's like a fairly moral, above average corporate leader. But he looked at it and said, I don't have a choice but to do this. And so you look, do I think there could be a pullback in stock market valuations? Certainly we get like the hype cycle, like totally. Like it would not surprise me in the least. But just like dot com, if you close your eyes and then open them 10 years from now, are things fundamentally different as a result of the technological advance? Yes. And AI models are doubling in speed and power every seven months. So you can look at it and say, oh, it didn't work this year, but then it works next year. And then, you know, and then you replace a thousand workers. I mean like I talked to the CEO of a publicly traded tech company who said he cut 20% of workers this year and then he's like, honestly like we're probably going to cut another 50%. I talked to someone else who was like a VP at a major bank and said that they think internally they can't talk about this publicly. 60% of workers gone within three years. So like, you know that this stuff is, they're going to get it.

You know, it's like UBI argument for sure.

I mean you look at like I'm someone who is a believer in part because I think that a lot of these companies have a lot of extraneous people doing things that are totally automatable.

Yeah, well that's, that whole thing is terrifying, dude.

I even, I'm stunned at how, how quickly it's coming. So I, you know, I, I feel bad. Kristen's obviously posing a question, being like, hey, is this all?

And then probably not.

And then people are like, oh no, no, it's real. I mean, you know, I, I have enough friends who are running these corporates to know. I mean like one person, random business was like, look, we used to have six people who were just there to suggest designs and then just got rid of them. And no, like there's one person just be like having AI and it like spits out 20 times as many designs.

I think we'll have our first like multibillion to trillion dollar publicly traded company run by one person.

Fascinating.

Probably crazy.

Maybe not one. I'm Thinking you might be able to pull it off.

One or two good AI prompters. And I don't know, man, this is where we're going.

I mean, I think five years now, maybe I would believe 20. Okay, one or two strikes me as extreme, but maybe.

I mean, some of these crypto companies, I guess, would already check that box in some sense.

But yeah, there's another thing, too. It's like, do we get our first trillionaire? And the answer to that is probably yes.

Yeah, that's nuts.

Why have I asked my h vac guy I found on Angie.com to change my grandpa's trachea tube? I was so amazed at how we replaced our air duct, I knew I could trust him to change Pop Pop's tube.

I think we should call a Dr. Angie. The one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com.

Toyota builds vehicles that don't just keep up. They lead the pack on the road in your routine and most of all, within your budget. Take the Camry and Corolla, two stylish and dependable cars, both with the latest tech and driver friendly features and the performance to make every commute feel effortless. Or if you're chasing space, adventure and versatility, check out Toyota's RAV4 and Grand Highlander. Delivering the capability, comfort, and confidence to take you everywhere you need to go. Plus, with hybrid options designed for efficiency and four wheel and all wheel drive models ready for any terrain, your Toyota is more than just a reliable way to get around. It's built for your way of life. And right now, your local Toyota dealer has great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Meaning there's no better time to step into a new Toyota. Start your search for great deals today@buyatoyota.com Toyota let's go places.

All right, we're gonna talk about something fun. Two fun questions. This might actually be from our producer, from Daniel.

All these people are fake.

There's just Daniel made them all up. Favorite movies of this summer so far and why? I got a couple takes.

Yeah. No. And so Zach and I actually tell each other, like various movies.

We saw Sinners, which was Sinners was all, well, I had some takes on, but I thought it was pretty good.

Oh, yeah, it was excellent. Sinners. I mean, geez, what a ride. It was a genuine work of art in a major feature film. You're like, holy crap, I haven't seen that in a while. I enjoyed Superman a great deal. So first, let me preface this by saying if I'm borderline on seeing a movie at this point, I probably see it if it's appropriate for my kids who are 12 and 10 now.

So Superman was an easy one.

So. Yeah, exactly. So here's my reasoning. I'm trying to have my kids grow up to be awesome humans. And at this point, even them sitting for a 90 minute to two hour film is something of a victory in terms of like them paying attention and maybe getting some messages and whatnot. So if it's borderline and I can take the kids, I'm like, all right, am I gonna take them to see Superman? Yes, I'm gonna take them to see Fantastic Four. Yeah. I randomly took them to see Naked Gun, which is, which is PG 13.

Yeah.

And it was, you know, they both liked it one more than the other. So of the summer movies, I actually thought this was a good summer for movies with. And Sinners was a little bit before the summer, but I really enjoyed Superman. I liked Fantastic Four. I would recommend Naked Gun and I'd also heartily recommend F1. Did you see F1?

I haven't seen F1 yet.

If you like Top Gun Maverick, I bet it. Yeah, it's like, it's like Top Gun Maverick in race cars.

Race cars. It may be a win.

It made me think they could just.

Keep on making these just like intense action movie. It's not just cameras in the car.

But it's also this kind of middle aged masculinity exploration.

How old can you still be an active action star?

Oh, but, but like, but it's done in like, in like a mature, productive way. Because one of the things that, that, you know, people complained about like Star wars is that you bring back our heroes just to shit on them. Yeah. And then, and then Top Gun Maverick was the opposite.

Where it's like even cooler.

No, where he's like, look, I actually show the young bucks that like, I still got it. And F1 had a similar dynamic.

Got it.

And so, you know, like, I was just thinking to myself, like, can you do it with boats? Can you do it with like, whatever? Like we just bring back kind of the grizzled veteran.

Got it.

And the grizzled veteran then actually has a, you know, like a lot to share and demonstrate and can still, can still do it, obviously for, you know, I think someone might call them dad movies or whatnot. Yeah, clearly, as a dad.

Yeah.

Like, by the way, F1, did I take my kids? No, because like, it was probably, you know, it might have been PG13, but it was a little long and I wasn't sure that they would dig it. But I enjoyed the heck out of it and would recommend it. I, you know, I didn't see was Mission Impossible, which I'm gonna see on. On Demand when.

So I would, I would recommend Mission Impossible. It's not the best Mission Impossible, but those movies are awesome. It's just generally like what cool action stunt can Tom Cruise do? And they've got him underwater in a submarine under, you know, with like torpedoes bouncing around and his. He's swimming around. It's pretty cool. I would say I like Sinners in terms of like I'm gonna go to the movie theater or spend the money on it. Like Sinners is worth the money. I had some issues with it, but I didn't. I thought it was pretty awesome. I just saw Weapons, which was mind blowing. Like mind blowing movie. There was a plot hole. I won't spoil it here that I disliked but worth every penny. Like just so cool.

So because Weapons isn't kid friendly, I.

Was like, yeah, don't take kids see Weapons. I mean it's scary for adults. It's like I was with my sister and she's like grabbed my arm. It was terrifying. So like jump scare. So, you know.

So for those of you who follow me and whatnot. I'm not really a horror fan. Is part of it.

Yeah, yeah, it's clever. I mean it's a little more horror than Sinners, but it's clever. You know, I suppose it like gore and.

Yeah, cleverness generally. What's like a. What's an example of a horror movie that I was totally cool with and enjoyed Get Out.

That's kind of. I don't know, it's horror but like it's closer.

I enjoyed Get Out.

Yeah, it's good. It's really good. I mean it's not really horror, but it's sort of.

I enjoyed. I'm thinking of like the lines like I enjoyed Sinners.

Yeah. And I saw Barbarian was the same director as Weapons, which is a little horror too, but very good.

I generally am pro vampire, werewolf monster type stuff.

Okay.

Yeah. So like my, you know, my anti horrorness. I mean like I'm. I'm into fantasy and sci fi, so like that stuff I'm. I'm into. But then like out and out horror generally. No.

Yeah.

You know, I used to like back in the day though no one would think of this horror now. And it's like M. Night Shyamalan movies like that stuff.

Good summer for movies. I agree. Movies are almost back. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if Marvel's back, but movies are back.

I hope they're back. And I love movies.

Yeah. I want Hollywood to keep going. I mean Hollywood to keep going. You know, I don't want to be streaming all the time, you know. Oh, you know, I recommend K Pop Demon Hunters. I can't believe you don't watch this. You watch the kids?

Well, no, I saw. I want. I'm saving it so that we can watch it as a family. I mean I'm actually friends with movie fine soundtrack.

I mean it's number first female pop group to have number one Billboard since Destiny's Child.

I'm actually friends are friendly with some of the voice cast so we definitely hit them up.

They're fantastic.

But I've been waiting to get golden all of them, the family together.

Oh my gosh. So good. I vibe.

I'm embarrassed.

I'm embarrassed by my love for it too.

I know. I'm embarrassed.

I haven't got your kids like it.

But part of it too is like Evelyn too where Evelyn wants to watch and.

But time it up, it's good. I mean it's the number two movie in Netflix history. They just approved a second and a third and a live action sequel and it's in movie theaters right now for a sing along which that sounds miserable but I'm sure if you have kids and they like it, it's probably fun.

I'd probably bring them to that.

Yeah, they might if they like to sing along. Looks like a bop, dude. Last question. This is from Molly. Thank you, Molly, we love you. Are you and Zach watching Hard Knocks featuring the Buffalo Bills Going into the start of the new NFL season, who are your favorite teams and what is a sleeper team? You are going to keep your eyes on NFL predictions so this could be fun for everyone.

I have watched Hard Knocks, Buffalo Bills in part because we're going to a Bills game.

Oh yeah.

We're going on September 28th. So if you're in Buffalo, we will see you there.

By the way, one of the best sports weekends coming up. It's like really good college football Saturday and it's the Ryder cup weekend. It's going to be good sports weekend plus the Bills obviously.

So I'm a Giants fan. I actually think the Giants are going to be surprisingly competent this this year. You know, I mean playoffs, tough schedule, like, you know. But I think there'll be some solid improvement. You know, Bills be one of the favorites Sleeper team. Geez. I don't think it's the Steelers. I'm not an Aaron Rodgers, but believer after seeing what happened over there, like across the way for the last couple.

Years, geez, Giants to overperform is not a bad sleeper. Maybe they sneak into the wild card. Tough schedule, though. I got really tough schedule.

Yeah, I mean, that may make them playoffs would be a mild shocker, but I think they're gonna. They have some good young talent. I'm excited to see the Bills in action. So again, if you're up there, you'll probably see me and Zach walking around for sure. End of September.

Well, come find us. Maybe we'll do an event.

Yeah, I might do an event.

Might do a tail is my happy place. I'm going the opener and we're going again on the 28th. As we say in Buffalo, this is our year. It's always our year. And then we lose a heartbreaker in the playoffs. But we'll be good this year.

I think that was something heartwarming about Hard Knocks, where you can really see the connection between the team and the community.

Yeah, the team and the city. I mean, how do you not love Josh Allen? I just freaking love that guy.

That's true. I hadn't seen as many interviews with him until Hard Knox, I think, like, he seems like a really.

Teammates love him. Like, he. Like, there's a clip in Hard Knocks where they spend camp for like two and a half weeks, three weeks, where this is like all you're doing is seeing people for three weeks and then I guess not even 48 hours later, pass. He texts the team and he's like, I miss you guys. You guys want to come over for like a barbecue or something? He's like that. He's like the teammate and he's fun to watch. So I love Josh Allen. I think my sleeper picks, probably the Denver Broncos, I think they're going to be really good this year. And honestly, I'm optimistic because someone needs to beat the Chiefs up in their own division. But we'll see. The Patriots will probably compete for the wild card this year. Sadly, who knows?

I'm enjoying this Patriots down era. It's fun.

Yeah, it's been wonderful.

I mean, it could be over already. I mean. Yeah, yeah, we're down there.

Mike Frable's a good coach. We're find out. But anyway, that's our NFL recap with hello. Go Bills.

Keep the questions coming and we'll. We'll keep answering them.

Yes, sir.

Rince knows that greatness takes time, but so does laundry. So Rince will take your laundry and hand deliver it to your door, expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up the Irish flute, or those calligraphy pens or that daunting beef Wellington recipe card, and leave the laundry to us. Rinse. It's time to be great.