Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #167

The following is a conversation with Sagar Njeti. He is a D.C. based political correspondent, host of the Rising with Crystal Ball, and host of the Realignment Podcast with Marshall Kozlov. He has interviewed Donald Trump four times and has interviewed a lot of major political figures and human beings who wield power. He loves policy and loves history, which makes him a great person to sail through the sometimes stormy waters of political discourse. He showed up to this conversation with a gift of the second volume of Ian Kershaw's biography on Hitler, a two volume set that is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, most definitive studies of Hitler. Nothing wins my heart faster on a first meeting or a first date than a great book about the darkest aspects of human nature and human history. I think I started saying that as a joke, but actually there's probably a lot of truth to it. I love it when we skip the small talk and go straight to the in depth conversation about the best and worst of human nature. Quick mention of our sponsors Jordan Harbinger Show Grammarly Grammar Assistant 8 Sleep Self Cooling Bed and Magic Spoon Low Carb Cereal. Click the sponsor links to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that for better or for worse, I would like to avoid the trap of surface political bickering of the day. I do find politics fascinating, but not the talking points produced by the industrial engagement complex of Red versus Blue Division. Instead, I'm fascinated by human beings who seek power and how power changes them. I don't have a political affiliation and my ideas, at least I hope so, are defined more by curiosity and learning in the face of uncertainty and less by the echo chambers who tell me what I'm supposed to think. I'm constantly evolving, learning and doing my best to do so without ego and with empathy. Please be patient with me. As far as I'm aware, I do not have any derangement syndromes, nor do I get a medical prescription of blue, red, white or black pills. If I say something, I say it because I'm genuinely thinking and struggling with the ideas. I have no agenda. Just a bit of a hope to add more love to the world. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter lexfriedman. And now here's my conversation with with Sagar and Jedi. There's no better gifts in this world than a book about Hitler. So thank you so much. I I've gotten a Gift when I was. We were just talking flying the watch from Joe Rogan and this almost beats it. So, so tell me what this particular book on Hitler is. So this is volume two.

Yes. So this is Ian Kershaw. He wrote the famous two volume on Hitler. I'm a big book nerd and I spend a lot of time reading biographies in particular. So if you need a one volume Rise and Fall, the Third Reich, right. I think you talked about that William Shire, because that's like Hitler's rise, Nazi Germany, the war, etc. But I like bios because it's the good biography is story of the times, right. And so this one, the first volume, it does exactly that, which is that it doesn't just tell the story of Hitler, it's the context of poor, you know, this kid in Austria and he's got all these dreams, but then actually pretty courageous in terms of World War I, right? Gets pinned a metal on by the Kaiser and then what it's like to have to lose World War I and actually like lose this. The stain and then the rise within. Everybody knows that story, the beer hall putsch and all of that. This one I like and the reason I like Kershaw is obviously number one, it's English, which is actually hard, right? Like in order to write that story, who can do both the primary source material and then translate it for people like us. But he tells the dynamic story of Hitler so well in the second volume, just like the level of detail. And you've talked about this, Lex, like, what was it like inside that room, inside with Chamberlain? Like, what was it like in terms of who was this like magnetic madman who did convince the smartest people in the world at the time. And you know, up until like 1940, the Soviet gamble like was a. It took tremendous risks, but like highly calculated thinking. No, no, no, I'm not going to pay for this one. I'm not going to pay for this one. And it put himself, he had a remarkable ability not just to put himself in the minds of the German people, but in terms of his adversaries. Like with when he was across from Mussolini, calculate he's like, how exactly did Mussolini, the guy who created fascism, becomes like second fiddle to Hitler. Think it's an amazing bio. And yeah, like Ian Kershaw along with Richard Evans, two of my favorite authors on the Third Reich. No question.

You think he was born this way, that charisma, whatever that is. Or was it something he developed strategically? That's like the question you apply to some of the Great leaders. Was he just a madman who had the instinct to be able to control people when in the room together with them? Or is this like he worked at it?

I think he worked at it. And, but, but also there is an innate quality. I'm forgetting his name, his lifelong Rudolph, the one who flew to Berlin in like 1940. I forget. Anyway, so he, he helped Hitler write Mein Kampf and he was like slavishly devoted to him in prison. This is 1925 or something like that. And so you read that and you're like, well, how does he get this like crank wacko to basically believe he's like the second Coming? Help him write this book. I mean literally they lived together in the prison cell and they would wake up every day and as he was composing Mein Kampf and because of the beer hall putsch and all that, had this like absolute ability to gather people around him. I think his greatest skill was, is he was just a very good politician, truly. I mean, if you look at his ability in order to read coalitional politics and then convince exactly the right people in order to follow him. I think I heard you ask this once and I've thought about it a lot, which is like, who could have stopped Hitler in Germany? Right? It's always like the ever present question, of course, like the whole baby Hitler thing, really the answer is Hindenburg. Like Hindenburg was the person who could have stopped and had the immense standing within the German public. The only, you know, real like war hero. Definitely was personally skeptical of fascism and Nazism and didn't like him. But he was and didn't like him. And he knew he was full of shit. He was like, yeah, I think this guy is dangerous. I think this guy could do a lot of damage to the republic. But he acceded basically to Hitler at the time. And I think that he was one of the main people who could have done something about it.

And also he was able to convince the generals and military. I mean that was, that was very interesting. And to convince Chamberlain and the other political leaders. That's something I often think about because we're just reading books about these people. I think about with like Jeffrey Epstein, for example. Oh yeah, like evil people. Not evil, but people have done evil things. Let's not go to the Dan Carlin thing.

What is evil?

People that do evil things. I wonder what they are like in a room because I know quite a lot of intelligent people that were, Did not see the evil in Jeffrey Epstein and spend time with him and were not bothered by it. In the same sense, Hitler, it seems like he was able to get just, even on a. Before he had power, because people get intoxicated by power and so on, they want to be close to power. But even before he had power, he was able to convince people. And it's unclear, like, is there something that's more than words? It's like the way you. I mean, that people talk, tell stories about, like this piercing look and whatever, all that kind of stuff. I. I wonder if that, if that's somehow a part of it. Like that has to be the base floor of any of these charismatic leaders. You have to be able to, in a room alone, be able to convince anybody of anything.

So I can tell you from my personal experience, one of the best educated lessons I got was when I got to meet Trump. So I interviewed Trump four different times as a journalist, spent like two and a half hours with him in the Oval Office, not alone, but like me and one person and like the press secretary, and that was it. So I actually got to observe him. And as a guy who reads these types of books, right, and you know, you think of Trump, obviously most people, what they see on television, you know, in articles and more, but being able to observe it, like one on one, I was closer to him than, you know, than I am right now. From you. That was one of the most educational experiences I got. Because it's like you just said, the look, the leaning forward, the way he talks, the way he is a master at taking the question and answering exactly which part he wants. And then if you try and follow up, he's like, excuse me, you know, like he knows. And then when, whenever you're talk, it's not that he's annoyed about getting interrupted. If he realizes he's been mirandering and then you interrupt him, all good. But if he's driving home a point which he has to make sure appears in your transcript or whatever, it's like, it really was fascinating for me to look at. And what was also crazy with Trump is I realized how much he was living in the moment. So, like, when I went to the Oval, you know, I've read all these biographies and like, I walk in and I'm like, holy shit. You're like, I'm in the Oval Office.

Well, you interview him in the Oval Office.

In the Oval. Every time was in the Oval Office, you scared shitless.

Sorry.

Well, I wasn't scared. I was just, look, it's the Oval Office, right? I mean, I'm this nerd who's like, this Kid, I'm so, I will admit this here. Like I printed out on my dad's label maker when I was like seven and I wrote like the Oval Office on my bedroom. So I was like, you know, a huge nerd, like obviously egomaniacal, even from seven. But so like, for this, I mean it was huge, right? I'm like this 25 year old kid. And like I walk in there and like I see the couch, right? And I'm like, oh man, like that's Kissinger. Like, you know, I'm like, that's where like Kissinger and Nixon got on their knees. And you see over by the door and you're like, are the scuff marks still there from when Eisenhower used to play? You know, this is all running through my mind. Yeah. With Trump, none of it was there. None of it. Right. So like even the desk, I put my phone on the desk to record and I'm like, this is the Resolute esque. Like I shouldn't put my phone on this thing. Right?

Yeah.

And, and I'm like HMS Resolute, you know, all the international. And even for him, he doesn't think about any of it. It was like amazing to me. Like he had this portrait of Andrew Jackson right next to his, to the, I think from on the fireplace, like right here on the right. And the most revealing question was when I was like, Mr. President, what are people going to remember you for in a hundred years? And he was like, he had, he was like, I don't know, like veterans choice. He like has a list in front of him of like his accomplishments.

Which is a question, by the way.

Yeah, well, I, I mean that's what I wanted to know. And he's like, veterans choice. And I remember looking at him being like, it's not going to be veteran, you know, like, I feel like I'm like, I'm looking at you. Donald Trump, the harbinger of something new. Yeah. We still don't know what the hell it is. And so I realized with these guys and their charisma and more is that they don't think about themselves the way that we think about them. Them. And that was actually important to understand because a lot of people like Trump is playing all this chess. I'm like, I assure you he's not like, he's truly. One time I was interviewing him and he had like a certificate that he had to sign or something on his desk. He's like, it was like child almost like he got distracted by. He's like, oh, what's this, you know, he's just, like, picking up. And I was like, wow. Like, this. This is the guy. Like, this is what he is.

Well, I wonder if there was a different person, because you were recording then offline at a point.

I can tell you, well, here's the thing, though, because that's another part of it, because that two hours, I would say, like, half that was not on the record. So, like, whenever he's off the record, he changes completely. Right. I don't want to, like, go into too much of it or whatever, but, like, he. I mean, he is so mindful of when that camera is on and when the mic is hot in terms of the language that he uses, what he's willing to admit, what he's willing to talk about, how he's willing to even appear in front of his staff. I think the most revealing thing Trump ever did was there was this press conference, like, right after he lost, right after the midterm elections in 2018. And one of the journalists was like, Mr. President, thank you for doing this press conference. And he looks at him and he goes, it's called earned media. It's worth billions. He just, like, had so much disdain for him because he's like, I'm not doing this for you. You. He's like, I'm doing this for me.

So he's really aware of the narrative story, I mean, that the people have talked about that all comes from the tabloid media of the. From New York and so on. He's a master of that. But I've also heard stories of just in private, he's a really. I don't want to overuse the word charismatic, but just like, he is a really interesting. Almost like, friendly, like a good person. Like. Like, that's what I heard. I've heard, actually surprising. The same thing about Hillary Clinton and.

Like, that I can't tell you anything about.

But, like, the. The way they present themselves is perhaps very different than they are as human beings. One on one. That. That's something. Maybe that's just like a skill thing. Maybe. Maybe the way they present themselves in public is actually the.

Their.

I mean, almost their real self. And they're just really good in private, one on one, to go into this mode of just being really intimate in some kind of human way.

I think that's part of it, because I. I would notice that with Trump, you know, he's like. It's almost like a tour guide. He'd be. It was very, like. It's. It was. It's very crazy. Right. Because you're like. You're in the Oval. I mean, it's his office. And he's like. He's like, do you guys want anything? He's like, you want a Diet Coke? Because he drinks, like, all this stuff.

Diet Coke, you know, and apologetic.

Yeah, he's just like. He's like, you guys want to die?

Coke.

Right. And you're sitting there and you're like. The way he. He's able to, like. Like the last time we interviewed him, he. He wanted to do it outside because he, like, he studied himself from all angles, and he knows exactly how he looks on a camera and with the. Which lighting. And so we were supposed to interview him on camera in the Oval Office, which is actually rare. Like, you don't usually get that. And they ended up moving it outside at the last minute, and he came out and he's like, I picked a spot for you. He's like, great lighting. Yeah. You are your own, like, lighting director. The President.

This is great.

It's so funny, but it's like you said, he's very charismatic and friendly. I mean, you wouldn't know. I mean, look, this is what I mean in terms of the dynamism of these people, that gets lost. And I think even he knows that. Like, I don't think he would want that side of him that I see that you see in those off the record moments and more in order to come out, because he's very keen about how exactly he presents to the public. It's like, you know, even his presidential portrait, everybody usually smiles, and he refused to smile. He was like, I want to look like Winston Churchill. You know, like, even he knew that.

Do you think he believes that? He. What. What he kind of implies that he is one of, if not the greatest presidents in American history. Like, people kind of laugh at this, but there's quite. I mean, there's quite a lot of people, first of all, that make the argument that he's the greatest president in history. Like, I've heard this argument being made. And I mean, I don't know what the. First of all, I don't care. Like, you can't make an argument that anyone is the greatest. That's just that. Just I. I come from a school of, like, being humble and modest and so on. It's like, even Michael, you can't have that conversation. Okay, So I like that he's humble enough to say, like, Abraham Lincoln and whatever.

Like, he says, maybe, Link.

Maybe.

Remember that.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Do you think he actually believes that or is that something he understands will create news and also perhaps more importantly, piss off a large number of people. Is he almost like a musician masterfully playing the emotions of the public? Or does he or and does he believe when he looks in the mirror I'm one of the greatest men in.

History combination of all three. I do think he believes it and for the reason why is I don't think he knows that much about US history. I really mean that and that's what I meant whenever I was in there and I realized he was just living in the moment. I don't think he knew all that much about why. I mean this is why he was elected in many ways, right? So I'm not saying saying this is a normal like I'm not making a judgment on this. I'm just saying I do think in his mind he does think he was one of the best presidents in American history largely because and I encountered this with a lot of people work for him which is that they didn't really know all that much kind of about what came before and all that. And it's not necessarily to hold it against them because for in many ways that's what they were elected to do or elected to be in many ways.

It's an interesting question whether knowing history, being a student history is productive or counterproductive. I tend to assume I really respect people who are deeply like well read in history like presidents that are almost like nerd history nerds. I admire that. But maybe that gets in the way. Well, it's well of governance. I don't know. It's not, it's not, you know, I'm just sort of playing devil's advocate to my own beliefs. But it's possible that focusing on the moment and the issues and letting history, it's like first principles thinking forget the lessons of the past and just focus on common sense reasoning through the problems of today.

Yeah, it's really hard question in terms of the modern era. I mean Obama was a student of history like he used to have presidential biographers and people over and I mean famously like Robert A. Caro, one of my favorite presidential biographers. He was invited to have dinner with Obama and Obama would pepper some of his every. It was interesting because he'd try and justify some of the things he didn't do by being like, well if you look at what they had to do and what I have to deal with, mine's much harder. So in that way I was a little pissed off because I'd be like no, that actually like you're comparing apples to oranges and all that. But if you look at Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt in particular, this was, I mean, a voracious reader. Not of just American history, all history.

He wrote just such a badass.

Incredible. The only, the only president who willed himself to greatness. That's like the amazing thing about him. He wasn't tested by a crisis, right? Like, he wasn't not. He didn't have a civil war. He didn't have World War II. He didn't have to found the country literally, or like, you know, didn't have to stave off that, or he didn't buy, you know, Louisiana Purchase, like, all. He literally came into a pretty, you know, static country. And he could have just governed, you know, with. I mean, he was. The person who came before him was assassinated. Like, he easily could have coasted, but he literally willed the country into something more. And that is, that's always why I focus a lot on him, too, because I'm like that in many ways. I wouldn't say it's easy to be great during crisis. I mean, like, look at Trump, right? But there it can bring out the best within you, but it's. It's a whole other level to bring out the best within yourself just for the sake of doing it. That's, I think, is really interesting.

Speeches were amazing. I'm also a sucker for great speeches because I tend to see the role of the president as, in part, like, inspire in chief, sort of to be able to me, that's what great leaders do, like CEOs of companies and so on, establish a vision, a clear vision. And like, like hit that hard. But the way you establish a vision isn't just like, not to dig at Joe Biden, but like, sleepy, boring statements. You have to sell those statements and you have to do it in a way where everybody's paying attention, everybody's excited, and that Teddy Roosevelt is definitely one of them. Obama was, I think, at least early on, I don't know, was incredible at that. It does feel that the modern political landscape makes it more difficult to be inspirational in the sense because everything becomes bickering and division. I do want to ask you, please, about Trump. So you're now a successful podcaster. I've talked to Joe about Trump, Joe Rogan, and Joe's not interested in talking to Trump. Just fascinating. I try to dig into, like, why.

Yeah.

What would you interview Trump on? Like, realignment, for example. And do you think it's possible to do a two, three hour conversation with him where you will get at something like human or you get something like. We were talking about the facade he puts forward. Do you think you could get past that?

No, I don't. I. Look, I was a White House correspondent. I observed this man very closely. I interviewed him. I think if that mic is hot, he knows what he's doing. He just, he's done this too long, Lexus. He just knows.

But do you think he's a different human now after the election? Do you think that?

Not at all. I don't. I think he's been the same person since 1976. I really do. Like, basically 1976. I studied Trump a lot and I think he's basically been the core of who he is and elements of that ever since he built that, you know, the ice rink in Central park and got that media attention. That was it.

Yeah, He's a fascinating study. I still, I feel there's a hope in me that there would be a podcast, like, like a Joe Rogan, like a long form podcast, where it's something could be, you know, and you're actually a really good person to do that, where you can have a real conversation that looks back at the election and reveals something on us. But perhaps he's thinking about running again and, and so maybe he'll never let down that guard. Yes. But, like, you know, I just love it when there's this switch in people where you start start looking back at your life and wanting to tell stories, like, you know, trying to extract wisdom and like realizing you're in this new phase of life where, like, the battles have all been fought. Now you're this old, like, former warrior and now you can tell the stories of that time. And it seems like Trump is still at it. Like the young warrior he is. He's not in the mode of telling stories.

You know what I got from Rogan? He's the only president who didn't age while in office. It's true.

Right?

Like, because, and this is what I mean, because he lives in the moment. Like, the job actually aged. Obama, I mean, I mean, Bush, same thing. Even Clinton. Clinton was like fat. He looked miserable by like 2000hw. Like, I mean, Reagan famous, actually. Yeah. Pretty much everybody I think about. Yeah. Including John F. Kennedy, who got much sicker while in office. The job, like, weighs on you and makes you physically ill. Trump was, he's the only person who just didn't happen to.

He almost gotten stronger and he was one of the most divis. Like the climate. There's so many people attacking him. So Much hatred, so much love and hatred. And it was just. He. It was. I mean, it was. Whatever it was, it was quite masterful and a fascinating study. I. If we. If we stick on Hitler for just a minute, what lessons do you take from that time? Do you think it's a unique moment in human history, that World War II? I mean, both Stalin and Hitler, you know, is it something that's just an outlier in all of human history in terms of the atrocities, or is there the lessons to be learned? You mentioned offline that you're not just a student of the entirety of the history, but you also are fascinated by just different policies and stuff. What's the immigration policy? What's the policy on science, Third Reich.

In Power, Let Me Plug it by Richard Evans, I think is what it was. Because that actually will tell you what was it like to live under the Nazi regime without the war. Yeah, it's a hard question in terms of the lessons that we can learn, because there's a lot. And it's actually been over. It's been over indexed. Almost everything comes back to Hitler in a conversation. So I kind of think of it within Mao, Stalin and Hitler as. I don't want to say payments for, but like the end point, payment for the sins and the problems of the monarchical system that evolve within Europe. Basically like 1400 and more. I basically think that 1400, the wars between the state, you know, wars between France, England, the balance of power, eventually World War I and then serfdom within Russia, the Russian revolution that birthed Stalin, same thing, the Kaiser and Imperial Germany and this like incredibly crazy system of balance of power in World War I and then same thing within China in terms of the warring states and then the disintegration, the European. You know, how this is how they think of it, you know, which is like the century of humiliation and they had to have something like this. I think of it. I try to think of it within the context of that. I don't want to think of. I don't want to sound like an inevitable list, but I think of it as. I like to think about systems, especially in here in D.C. that's why I got into politics, which is that you have to understand systems of power and the incentives within systems and the disincentives and the downside risk of what you're creating, because that is what leads and creates the behavior within that system. I was just talking to my girlfriend about this yesterday. It's kind of funny. Like, I read these. I'm obsessed with these Books by Robert Caro, the biographies of Lyndon Johnson. He's written like 5,000 pages so far, and it's still not done. Okay. So, like, these are. These are like books I base my life on. And look, these are Washington and the story of the post New Deal era and forward. Not much has changed. Like, the Senate is still the Senate. So many of the same problems with the Senate are still there in some cases. No, not anymore. But for a while, some of the people who were there with Johnson are actually still. One of them is the President of the United States. Just a joke. And you think about also, same with the media relationship. Right. Like, there's this media relationship. They may have come and gone. Like, the people who were in the media and who were cozy with the administration officials, I mean, they just recreated themselves. It's like this. It's like an ecosystem which doesn't change. And that's why I'm like, oh, it's not. That was a specific time. That's just D.C. like, that is D.C. because of the way the system is architected. It's pretty much been that way since, like 1908. Whenever, like, you know, Teddy Roosevelt was dining with these journalists and he would yell at them and then he would go over to the society House. And like, in many ways, that's. Now, instead of going to Henry Adams's house, like, the people are congregating in Kalorama, which is the richest neighborhood, here at somebody else's house. Like, it's the same thing. So you have to think about the system and then the incentives within that system about what the outcomes that they're producing. If you actually want to think about how can I change this from the outside. That's also why it's very difficult to change, because the system is designed in order to produce actually pretty specific outcomes that can only be changed in extraordinary times.

Yeah. Sometimes hard to. To predict what kind of outcomes will result from the incentive, the system that you create. Right, right. In the case. Because especially when it's novel kind of situations. What Trump actually created a pretty novel situation. And a lot of the things that we've seen in the 20th century were very novel systems where people were very optimistic about the outcomes. Right. And then it turned out to not have the results that they predicted in terms of, like, things being unchanged for the past 100 years and so on. Can you, like, Wikipedia style or maybe like, in musical form? Like, I'm only a bill. Describe to me.

I still sing that to my head. So I'm just a bill.

I Don't know what the rest of the song is, but let's leave that to people's imagination. How does this whole thing work? How does the US political system work? The three branches? How do you think about the system we have now? If you were to try to describe if aliens showed up and asked you like they didn't have time, so this is an elevator thing. Should we destroy you as you plead to avoid destruction? Well, how, how would you describe how this thing works?

I would say we come together and we pick the people who make our laws, then we pick the guy who executes those laws and they together pick the people who determine whether they or the President is breaking the law. At the most basic level, that's how I would describe it.

So the, so that's.

The people who make the laws are Congress. The executive is, is charged with executing the laws as passed by Congress. The system, the branches of government. And the Supreme Court is picked by the President, confirmed by the Senate, which then decides whether you or other people are breaking the law in terms of interpretation of that law. That's basically it. Oh, and they, they decide whether those laws are in. They fall within the, they fall within the restrictions and the want of the founders as expressed by the Constitution of the United States, which is a set of principles that we came together in 1787. I want to make sure I get this right, 1787 and decided that we were going to live the rest of our lives barring a revolution and more. And we've made it 200 and something years in order under that system.

So there's a balance of power. There's. Because you have multiple branches, there's a tension and a balance to it as designed by those original documents. Which is the most dysfunctional the branches which is your favorite, like in terms of talking about systems and like what's the greatest of concern and what is the greatest source of benefit in your view?

The presidency, obviously. Well, the presidency is my favorite to study obviously because it is the one where there's the most subject to variable change in terms of the personality involved because of so much power imbued within the executive. The Senate is actually pretty much the same. One of the things I love about reading about the Senate and histories of the Senate is you're like, oh yeah, there were always like assholes in the Senate who were doing their thing and, and you know, filibustering constantly based upon this or that. And then the person, the personalities involved with the Senate haven't mattered as much since like pre Civil War Right. Like pre Civil War, you had like Henry Clay and then Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, who even in their own way, they represented like larger constituencies and they crafted these like, compromises up until the outbreak of the Civil War, etc. But like post since then, you don't think about like the titans within the Senate. Most of that is because a lot of the stuff that they had power over has transferred over to the executive. So I'm most interested in really in like power, like where it lies. It's actually pretty, you know, throughout American history, much more used to lie with Congress now. It's obviously just so imbued within the executive that understanding executive power is, I think, the thing I'm probably most interested in here.

Do you think at this point the amount of power that the President has is corrupting to the, to their ability to lead? Well, is this, you know, power corrupts? Absolute power corrupts? Absolutely. Are we, is there too much power in the, in the presidency?

There definitely is. And part of the problem, and I, one of the things I try to make come across to people is if you're the president, unless you have a hyper intentional view of how something must be different in government, your view doesn't matter. So, for example, like, if you were Trump, let's take Trump even and even in with a pretty intentional view. He was like, I'm going to end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, right? And he came in and he gets these generals in. He's like, I want to end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oh, and I want to withdraw these troops from Syria. And they're like, okay, well give us like six months. He's like, okay. And this is the thing about Trump, he doesn't realize that it's bullshit. So they're like, he's like, six months seems right. So then six months comes and he's like, he's like, so. And then he'll announce it. He'll be like, and we're getting out of Syria. It's great. And then the generals freak out. They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't have a plan for that. He's like, but you guys told me six months. He's like, I don't know. Now we need another six months in order to figure this thing out. That's. And by that time, now you're midterms. So now what? Now you got to run for reelection. So more what I mean by that is if you don't have a hyper intentional view about how to change foreign policy, if you don't have a hyper intentional view about how the Department of Commerce should do its job. They are just going to go on autopilot. So there's. This is part of the problem. When you ask me about the presidency. It's not the presidency itself, like the president himself, which has become too powerful. It's that we have less democratic checks on the people and the systems that are on autopilot. And I would say that basically since 2008, we have voted every single time to disrupt that system, except in the case of 2020 with Joe Biden. And there are a lot of different reasons around why that happened. And in every single one of those cases, Obama and Trump, they all failed in order to, in order to radically disrupt that. And that just shows you how titanic the task is. And I'm using my language precisely because I don't want to be like deep state, but like, obviously there's a deep state.

Deep state, I guess has conspiratorial tensions to it. But so you're, what you're saying is the true power currently lies with the autopilot.

Deep state. Well, but see, it's not. This is the thing too, I want to make clear, because I think people think conspiratorially that they're all coming together to intentionally do something. No, no, no, no. They are doing what they know, believe they are right and don't have real democratic checks within that. And so now they have entire generations of cultures within each of these bureaucracies where they say, this is the way that we do things around here.

Yeah.

And that's the problem, which is that we have a culture of, within many of these agencies and more. I think the best example for this would be during the Ukraine, you know, gate with Trump and all that with the impeachment. I don't want to, I'm not talking about the politics here, but the most revealing thing that happened was when the whistleblower guy, Alexander Vindman was like, here you have the president departing from the policy of the United States. And I was like, well, let me educate you, Lieutenant Colonel. The President of the United States makes American foreign policy. But it was a very revealing comment because he and all the people within national security bureaucracy do think that they're like, this is the policy of the United States. It's we, we have to do this. That's where things get screwy.

Well, listen, for me personally, but also from an engineering perspective, I just talked to Jim Keller is just, this is the kind of bullshit that we all hate in. When you're Trying to innovate and design new, like, products, right? So, like, that's the. That's what first principles thinking requires is like, we don't give a shit what was done before. The point is what is the best way to do it? And it seems like the current government, government in general, probably bureaucracies in general, are just really good at being lazy about never having those conversations. And just. It becomes this momentum thing that nobody has the difficult conversations. It's become a game within a certain set of constraints. And they never kind of do revolutionary tasks. But you did say that the presidency is power, but you're saying that more power than the others. And. But that power has to be coupled with, like, focused intentionality. Like, you have to keep hammering the thing.

If you want it done, it has to be done. I mean, and you gotta. You gotta. This is the other part too, which is that it's not just that you have to get it done. You have to pick the hundred people who you can Trust to pick 10 people each to actually do what you want. One of the most revealing quotes is from a guy named Tommy Corcoran. He was the top aide to fdr. This I'm getting from the Kara books too. And he said, what is a government? It's not just one guy or even ten guys. Hell, it's a thousand guys. And what FDR did is he masterfully picked the right people to execute his will through the federal agencies. Johnson, it was the same way. He played these people like a fiddle. He knew exactly who to pick. He knew the system and more. Part of the reason that outsiders who don't have a lot of experience in Washington almost always fail is they don't know who to pick. Or they pick people who say one thing to their face, and then when it comes time to carry out the president's policy in terms of the government, they just don't do it. And the president's to think about this. I think some Rahm Emanuel said this. He was like, by the time it gets to the president's desk, nobody else can solve it. It's not easy. It's not like a yes or a no question. It's. Every single thing that hits the president's desk is incredibly hard to do. And Obama actually even said, and this was a very revealing quote about how he thinks about the presidency, which is he's like, look, the presidency is like one of those super tankers. You know, he's like, I can come in and I can make it 2 degrees left and 2 degrees right in 100 years, 2 degrees left. That's a whole different trajectory. Yeah, same thing on the right. And he's like, that ultimately is really all you can do. I quibble and disagree with that in terms of how he could have changed things in 2008, but there's a lot of truth to that statement.

Okay, that's really fascinating. You make me realize that actually both Obama and Trump are probably playing victim here to the system. You're making me think that maybe you can correct me that because I'm thinking of, like, Elon Musk, whose major success despite everything is. Is hiring the right people.

Exactly.

And like, creating those thousands. That structure of a thousand people. So maybe a president has power in that if they were exceptionally good at hiring the right people.

Personnel is policy, man. That's. That's what it comes down to.

But wouldn't you be able to steer the ship way more than 2 degrees if you hire the right people? So, like, it's almost like Obama was not good at hiring the right people.

He hired all the Clinton people. That's what happened. What happened with Trump. He hired all the Bush people.

And then you sit back and say, oh, president can't. But that means you're just suck at hiring.

Correct? Yeah, I mean, look, I know it's funny. I'm giving you simultaneously the nationalist case against Trump and the progressive case against Obama. Yes, the progressive people are like, why the fuck are you hiring all these Clinton people in order to run the government and just recreate, like, why are you hiring Larry Summers, who. Who was one of the people who worked at all these banks and didn't believe the bailouts were gonna be big enough? And then to come in, in the worst economic crisis in modern American history, that was 2008. And Summers actively lobbied against larger bailouts, which had huge implications for working class people and pretty much hollowed out America since. Okay, from Trump. Same thing. You're like, I'm gonna drain the swamp. And by doing that, I'm gonna hire Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin and all these other absolute Bush clowns in order to run my White House. Well, yeah, no shit. The only thing that you accomplished in your four years in office is passing a massive tax cut for the rich and for corporations. I wonder how that happened.

What role does money play in all of this? Is money huge influence in politics, super PACs, all that kind of stuff? Or is this. Is this more just kind of a narrative that we play with? Because from the outsider's perspective, it seems to have that seems to be one of the fundamental problems with modern politics.

So I was just having this conversation, Marshall and I. Marshall Kosslov, my co host on the realignment. And it's funny because if you do enough research, we actually live in the least corrupt age in American campaign finance. As in, it's never been more transparent. It's never been more up to the fec. Yeah. And all of that. If you go back and read not even 50 years ago, we're talking about Lyndon B. Johnson handing people like literally as a. He came up in his youth paying people for votes. Like the boss of the. You know, the person who, like, had all the Mexican votes, like the person who had. And he was like giving out briefcases. This is like within people's lifetimes who are alive in America. So that doesn't happen anymore. But I don't like to blame everything on money, although I do think money is obviously a huge part of the problem. I actually look at it in terms of distribution, which is that how is money distributed within our society? Because I firmly believe that politics. This is going to get complicated. But I think politics is mostly downstream from culture and culture, obviously I'm using economics because there's obviously a huge interplay there. But like, in terms of the equitable or lack of equitable distribution of money within our politics, what we're really pissed off about is we're like, our politics only seems to work for the people who have money. I think that's largely true. I think that the reason why things worked differently in the past is because our economy was structured in different ways. And there's a reason that our politics today are very analogous to the last Gilded Age, because we had very similar levels, levels of economic distribution and cultural problems too. At the same time, I don't want to erase that because I actually think that's what's driving all of our politics right now.

So that's interesting. So that's one. So in that sense, representative government is doing a pretty good job of representing it is the state of culture and the people and so on. Yeah. Can I ask you in terms of, you know, the deep state and conspiracy theories there's a lot of talk about. So again, from an outsider's perspective, if I were just looking at Twitter, it seems that at least 90% of people in government are pedophiles. 90, 90, 95%. I'm not sure what that number is. If I were to just look at Twitter, honestly, or YouTube, I would think most of the world is a pedophile. I would almost feel like.

Right. And if you don't fully believe that you're a pedophile.

Yeah. I would start to wonder, like, wait, am I. Like, what, Am I a pedophile, too? Like, I'm either a communist or a pedophile or both, I guess. Yeah. That's going to be clipped out. Thank you, Internet. I look forward to your emails. But is there any kind of shadow conspiracy theories that give you pause or. So the flip side, the response to a lot of conspiracy theories, it's like, no, the reason this happened is because it's a combination of just incompetence. So where do you land on some of these conspiracy theories?

I think most conspiracy theories are wrong. Some are true, and those are spectacularly true. And if that makes sense. Yeah.

And we don't know which ones.

I don't know which one.

That's the problem, I think.

Oh, well, I mean, look, man, I listen to your podcast. I think I was a huge nonbeliever in UFOs, and now I've probably never believed more in you. Like, I. I believe in UFOs. Like, I'm very comfortable being like, not only do I believe in UFOs, like, I think we're probably being visited by an alien civilization. Like, and if you asked me that three years ago, I would be like, you're out of your fucking mind. Like, what are you talking about? Well, listen to David Fravor. That's all I have to say. That's it.

Well, I have the sense that the government has information that hasn't revealed, but it's not like they're. I don't think they're holding. There's like a green guy sitting there.

Exactly.

They just. They have seen things they don't know what to do with. So it's like they're confused.

Like, they're afraid.

Yeah.

Of revealing that they don't know. That's what I think.

Right. It's revealing the. Exactly. That you don't know. And then they're in the process. There's a lot of fears tied up in that. First, looking incompetent in the public eye. Nobody wants to be looked that way. And the other is like, in revealing it, even though they don't know, maybe China will figure it out.

Exactly.

So, like, we don't want China to figure it out first. And so that all those kinds of things result in basically secrecy, then that damages the trust in institutions on one of the most fascinating aspects, like one of the most fascinating mysteries of humankind, of, is there life, intelligent life? Out there in the universe. So that's one of them. But there, there's other ones. Like, for me, when I first came across, actually, Alex Jones was 9 11.

Yeah.

I remember, like, because I was. I was in Chicago. I was thinking, like, oh, are they going to hit Chicago, too?

That's what everybody was thinking.

Yeah, everybody. Everybody was thinking, like, what does this mean? Let's get what scale what I mean, trying to interpret it. And I remember, like, looking for information desperately, like, what? What happened? What? And I remember not being satisfied with the quality of reporting and figuring out, like, rigorous. Like, here's exactly what happened. And so people like Alex Jones stepped up and others that said, like, there's some shady shit going on. And it sure as hell looked like there's shady shit going on.

Yes.

So, like, and I still stand behind the fact that it seems like there's not. There's not enough. Like, it wasn't a good job of being honest and transparent, all those kinds.

Of things, because it would implicate the Saudis, let's be honest. Right? That's. That's my conspiracy theory is I'm like, yeah, I think they covered up a lot of stuff because they wanted to cover up for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Like, And I mean, that is. That was a conspiracy theory not that long ago. I think it's true. I mean, I think it's 100% true.

Yeah. So those kinds of conspiracy theories are interesting. I mean, there's other ones for me personally that touched sort of the institution that means a lot to me is the mit and, you know, Jeffrey Epstein.

I want to hear a lot more. I want to hear about that. I talk about Epstein a lot, so.

I'm like, oh, you do?

Yeah. And. And he. I was going to say, in terms of conspiracy theory, that one changed my outlook because I was like. I was like, whoa. Like, you have this dude who convinced some of the most successful people on earth that he was like, some money manager. And it looks like it was totally fake. Like Leon Black. I mean, this is one of the richest men on Wall Street. $9 billion net worth. Why is he giving him over $100 million between 2015 and 2019?

Yeah.

What's going on here? Lex Wexner, Same thing. So, yeah, I want to hear. Because, you know, people who met him, and the only person I know who met him was Eric Weinstein. I've heard his right.

Oh, boy. So I listen, I'm still in. And Eric is fascinating. And, like, Eric is full on saying.

That he was a Mossad or whatever.

Yeah. There's a front for something, something much, much bigger. And there's whatever his name, Robert Maxwell. All the. All those stories, like, you could dig deeper and deeper that Jeffrey's just, like, the tip of the iceberg. I just think he's an exceptionally charismatic. Listen, this isn't speaking from confidence or, like, deep understanding of the situation, but from my speaking with people, he just seems like. At least from the side of his influence and interaction with researchers, he just seems like somebody that was exceptionally charismatic and actually took interest. He was unable to speak about interesting scientific things, but he took interest in them. So he knew how to stroke the egos of a lot of powerful people.

Like.

Well, like, in. In different kinds of ways, I suppose. I don't know about this because I don't have, like, If a really. Okay, this is. This is weird to say, but I have an ability. Okay. I think women are beautiful. I like women. But, like, if. If, like a supermodel came to me or something, like, like, I'm able to reason. It seems like some people.

Yes.

Are not able to think clearly when there's, like, an attractive woman in the room. And I think that was one of the tools he used to manipulate people.

Interesting.

I don't know. Listen, it's like the pedophile thing, right? I. I don't know how many people are complete sex addicts, but, like, it seems like, like looking out into the world, the MeToo movement have revealed that there's a lot of weird, creepy people out there. I don't know, but I think it was just one of the many tools that he used to convince people and manipulate people, but not in some evil way, but more just really good at the art of conversation and just winning people over on the side. And then by building through that process, building a network of other really powerful people. And not explicitly, but implicitly having done shady shit with powerful people.

Yeah.

Like, building up a kind of implied power of like. Like, we did some shady shit together. So we're not, like, you're going to help me out on this extra thing. I need to know. And that builds and builds and builds to where you're able to actually control, like, have quite a lot of power without explicitly having, like, a strategy meeting. And I think a single person, or. Yeah, I think a single person can do that, can start that ball rolling. And over time, it becomes a group thing. Like, I don't know if Julian Maxwell was involved or others. And, yeah, over time, that becomes almost like a really powerful organization that wasn't that's not a front for something much deeper and bigger, but it's almost like maybe it's because I love cellular automata, man. A system that starts out as a simple thing with simple rules can create incredible complexity.

Yes.

And so I just think that we're now looking, in retrospect, it looks like an incredibly complex system that's operating, but that's just because there could have been a lot of other Jeffrey Epstein's in my perspective, that this simple thing just was successful early on. It builds and builds and builds and builds. And then there's creepy shit that a lot of aspects of the system helped it get bigger and bigger and more powerful and so on. So the final result is. I mean, listen, I have a pretty optimistic. I have a. I tend to see the good in people. And so it's been heartbreaking to me in general just to see, you know, people I look up to not have the level of integrity I thought they would or like the strength of character, all those kinds of things. And it seems like you should be able to, to see the. That is Jeffrey Epstein, like when you meet him. Right. We're not talking about like Eric Weinstein, like one or two or three or five interactions, but like there's people that had like, like years of relationship with him. Yeah. And I don't know, I. I'm not.

Sure even after he was convicted, after he was convicted, that guy always gets.

Yeah, there's, there's stories. I mean, I don't need to sort of. I honestly believe. Okay, here's the open question I have. I don't know how many creepy sexual people are out there. Like, I don't know if there's like the people I know, the faculty and so on. I don't know if they have like a kink that I'm just not aware of that was being leveraged because to me it seems like if people aren't, if not everybody's a pedophile, then it's just the art of conversation that is just like the art of just like manipulating people by making them feel good about the exciting stuff they're doing. Listen, man, academics are. People talk about money. I don't think academics care about money as much as people think. What they care about is like somebody, they want to be. It's the same thing that Instagram models post in their butt pictures is they want to be loved. They want attention.

My parents are professors.

Yeah, they, they and Jeffrey Epstein, like, the money is another way to show attention.

Right.

It's, it My work matters. And, and, and he, for some of. He did that for some of the weirdest, most brilliant people. I don't want to sort of drop names, but everybody knows them. It's like people that are the most interesting academics is the one he cared about.

Yeah.

Like, people are thinking about the most difficult questions of. In all of science and all of engineering. So those people are. Were kind of outcasts in academia a little bit because they're doing the weird. They're the weirdos. And he cared about the weirdos and he gave them money and that, you know, that's. I don't know if there's something more nefarious than that. I, I hope not, but maybe I'm surprised. And in fact, the half the population of the world is pedophiles.

No, I think it's what you were talking about, which is that it's the, it's the implication after the initial. Right. Like you do some shady things together or you do something that you want out of the public eye and you're a public person. And look, we probably even experience this to a limited extent. Extent. Right. You're like, ah, you know, like, I don't want to.

I don't know.

I almost lost my temper, you know, one time whenever a car hit me and I'm like, I can't freak out in public anymore. Like that. You know, like, what if somebody takes a photo or something?

Yeah.

And so I think that there's an extent to that times a billion, literally, when you have a billion dollars or more and you take that all together and you stack it up on itself. I saw a story about, like, Bill Clinton. Like, Bill Clinton was with Epstein or with Ghislaine Maxwell in a private air terminal or something, and she had one of their, like, sex, you know, one of those girls who was underage had her dressed up in a literal, like, pilot uniform and she was underage in order to, you know, and she was just being disguised for being older. And she was a masseuse. Right. Because that was one of the guises which they got in order to sexually traffic these women. And she was like, Bill was like, complaining about his neck. And she's like, give Bill Clinton a massage. Right. So now there's a photo of an underage girl giving a massage to the former President of the United States. I don't think he knew. Right. But, like, that looks bad. And so this is kind of what we're getting at, which is that you're setting it all up and creating those preconditions or like Prince Andrew. Do I think Prince Andrew knew that Virginia Giuffre was underage? I don't know. Probably knew she was pretty young, which I think is, you know, skeevy enough where you're a fucking prince. You probably know better. Yeah, but I don't think he knew she was underage. Or maybe he did, and if he did, and he's even more of a piece of shit than I thought. But when we look at these things, the stuff I'm more interested in is like, what you were talking about. I'm like, bill Gates, how do you get the richest man in the world in your house?

Yeah.

Like, under what? And Gates is like. He was talking about financing and all this. I'm like, you don't have access to money or bankers. Like, you're the richest man in the world. You can call Goldman Sachs anytime you want on a hotline. Like, why do you need. That's where. That's where I start again. To get more conspiratorial. Because I'm like, Bill, dude, you can. You have the gold credit, right? Like, you don't need Epstein to create some complicated financing structure. Or Leon Black, like, what is 2015, 2009? I mean, this is very recent stuff. Or. And this is the part that really got me as I read the depart, I think it's called the Department of Financial Services report around Deutsche bank with Epstein. They knew he was a criminal. They solicited his business explicitly knew that his business meant access to other high net worth individuals, consistently doled money out from his account for hush payments to women in Europe and prostitution rings. They knew all of this within the bank. It was elevated multiple times. Here was the other one, one of Epstein's associates was like, hey, how much money can we take out before we hit the, you know, automatic sensor, before you have to tell the irs? And that question, by. By their own standards, is supposed to result in a notification to the Feds. And they never did it. And he was withdrawing like $2 million of cash in five years for tips. Yeah. I'm like, okay, like something's going on here. Yeah. You see what I'm saying?

There's a lot of signs that make you think that there's a bigger thing at play than just the man. That there is some. It does look like a larger organization is using this front, right?

It's. Again, I don't know. I. I truly don't know. And I'm not willing to use the certainty, which I think a lot of people online are to say like it wants 100.

The certainty is always the problem. Because that, that's probably why I hesitate to touch conspiracy theories is because I'm allergic to certainty in all forms in politics, any kind of discourse. And people are so sure in both directions. Actually it's kind of hilarious. Either they're sure that the conspiracy theory particular, whatever the conspiracy theories is false. Like they almost dismiss it. Like, like they don't even want to talk about. It's like the people, like the way they dismiss that the earth is flat.

Yes.

Most scientists are like, they don't even want to like hear what the, what the flat earthers are saying. They don't have a like zero patience for it. Which is like, maybe in that case is deserved. But everything else you really like have empathy. Like consider the. You have. Okay, this is weird to say, but I feel like you have to consider that the earth might be flat for like one minute. Like you have to be empathetic, you have to be open minded.

I don't see a lot of that through our cultural tastemakers and more. And that's, that really is what concerns me the most because it's just another manifestation of all of our problems is that we have this completely bifurcating economy, bifurcating culture, literally in terms of we have the middle of the country and then we have the coasts. And in terms of the population, it's almost 50, 50. And with, you know, increasing mega cities and urban culture, like urban monoculture of LA, NY and Chicago, Chicago and DC and Boston and Austin, relative to how an entire other group of Americans live their lives or even the people within them who aren't rich and upwardly mobile, how they live their lives is just completely separating. And all of our language and communication in mass media and more is to the top and then everybody else is forgotten.

Do you think when you go, when you dig to the core, there is a big, there's a big gap between left and right? Is there, is that division that, that's perceived currently real? Or are most people like center left and center right?

It's so interesting because that's such a loaded term, center left. What does that mean, like to you? I think the way you're thinking of it is I'm not like a, well even this, like I'm not a radical socialist, but I'm. I marginally left on cultural issues and economic issues. This is how we've traditionally understood things. And then when, when in popular discourse, like center right, like, what does it mean to be center right? Like, I Am marginally right on socially on conserve, on social issues and marginally right on economic issues. Yeah, but that's just not politics. Like if you look at survey data, for example, like stimulus checks, people who are against stimulus checks are conservative, right? Well, 80% of the population is for a stimulus check. So that means a sizable number of Republicans are for stimulus checks. Same thing happens on like a wealth tax. The same thing happens on. Okay, Florida voted for Trump 3.1% more than Barack Obama. 2008, the same day passes a $15 minimum wage at 67%. Yeah. So what's going on? So that's why.

What is going on?

Well, that's my career.

But, but it seems like. So that's fascinating. The conversation is different than the policies.

Well, it's different than reality. That's what I would say. Which is that the way we have to understand American politics today, it didn't always used to be this way is it's almost entirely long basic. I would say the main divider is because even when you talk about class dismisses it in terms of socioeconomics, it's around culture, which is that it's basically if you went to a four year degree granting institution, you are part of one culture, if you didn't, you're part of another. I don't want to erase the 20% or whatever of people who did go to a college degree who are Republicans or vice versa, etc. But I'm saying on average in terms of the median way that you feel, we're basically bifurcating along those lines. And because people get upset, be like, oh well, you know, there are rich people who voted for Trump. And I'm like, yeah, but you know, you know who they are, they're like plumbers or something. Like they're people who make $100,000 a year, but they didn't go to a four year college degree and they might live who are in a place which is not an urban metro area. And then at the same time you have like a Vox writer who makes like 30 grand. But they have a lot more cultural power than like the plumber. So you have to think about where exactly that line is. And I think in general that's the way that we're trending. So that's why when I say like what's going on? Are we divided? Yeah, like, but it's not left and right. I mean like, and that's why I hate these labels.

So it's more, it's more just red and blue. Like teams there are betrayed Teams.

Yeah.

So how arbitrary are these teams, I.

Guess is another completely arbitrary. So.

Well, you kind of imply that there's. I don't know if you're sort of in post analyzing the patterns because it seems like there's a network effects of like you just pick the team red or blue, and it might have to do with college, it might have to do all those things, but, like, it. It seems like it's more about just the people around you.

Correct.

So less than whether you went to college or not. I mean, it's almost like, seems like, it's almost like weird, like network effects that are hard. There's certain strong patterns you're identifying, but I don't know, it's sad to think that it might be just teams that have nothing to do with what you actually believe.

Well, it is, Lex. I. Look, I mean, I don't want to believe that, but the data points me to this, which, especially 2020. I'm one of the people chief among them. I will own up to it here. I was totally wrong about why Trump was elected in 2016. I believed and based a lot of my public commentary beliefs on this. Trump was elected because of a rejection of Hillary Clinton neoliberalism on the back of a pro worker message, which was anti immigration. It was its pillar. But alongside of it was a rejection of free trade with China and generally of the political correctness and globalism which has been come in through the UNIT party. And same thing here with the military industrial complex and endless war. He rejected all of that.

Wait, what's wrong with that prediction?

It's wrong, man. And the reason I know this is that it sounds right. I wish it, I wish, honestly wish it was true. But here's the truth. Trump actually governed largely as a neoliberal Republican who was meaner online and who departed from orthodoxy in some very important ways. Don't get me wrong, I will always support the trade war with China. I will always support not expanding the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I will support him moving the Overton window on a million different things and revealing once and for all that GOP voters don't care about economic orthodoxy necessarily. But here's what they do care about. Trump got more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016, despite not delivering largely, largely for all the Trump people out there on that agenda. He wasn't more pro union, but he won more union votes. He wasn't necessarily more pro worker, but he actually won more votes in Ohio than he did in 2016, and he won more Hispanic votes than despite being, you know, all the immigration agenda rhetoric, etc. Here's why. It's about the culture, which is that the culture war is so hot that negative partisanship is at such high levels. All of the vote is geared upon what the other guy might do in office. And there's a poll actually just came out by Echelon Insights. Crystal and I were talking about it on Rising. The number one concern amongst Democratic voters is Trump voters. Number one concern, not issues like Trump voters. And number two is white supremacy. And so, like, which is basically code for Trump voters.

And is the same true for the other side?

Well, so on the right, number one concern is illegal immigration. And number, I think three or four, whatever is antifa, which is code for the right.

It's a policy.

Well, well, yeah, it's funny, Ben, I saw Ben Shapiro is talking about this. But the reason why I would functionally say it's the same is because the. I mean, you can believe whether this is true or not. I think it actually largely is true. But, like, the. A lot of GOP voters feel like a lot of illegal immigration is code for, like, people who are coming in who are going to be legalized and are going to go vote Democrat. Like, I can. I can just explain it from their point of view. So, like, what does that actually mean? Each other? Like each other, which is that the number one concern is the other person. So negative partisanship has never been higher. And I think people who had my thesis in terms of why Trump was elected in 2016, you have to grapple with this, like, how did he win 10 million more votes? He came 44,000 votes away from winning the presidency across three states. Like, I don't. None of our popular discourse reflects that very stark reality. And I think so much of it is people really hate liberals. Like, they just really hate them. And I was driving through rural Nevada before the election, and I was like, literally in the middle of nowhere, and there was this massive sign this guy had out in front of his house, and it just said, trump, colon, fuck your feelings. And I was like, that's it. That is why people voted for Trump. And I don't want to denigrate it, because they truly feel they have no cultural power in America except to raise the middle finger to the elite class by pressing the button for Trump. I get that that's actually a totally rational way to vote. It's not the way I wish you did vote. But, like, you know, that's not my place to say.

So this is interesting. If you could just psychoanalyze. I'm, again, probably naive about this, but I'm really bothered by the hatred of liberals. It's. It's a. This amorphous monster that's mocked. It's like the Shapiro liberal tears. And I'm also really bothered by probably more of my colleagues and friends. The hatred of Trump. Yeah, the. The Trump and. And white supremacists. So apparently 70. There's 70 million white supremacists. 75 million. Sorry, there's millions of white supremacists. And apparently whatever liberal is. I mean, Lib. You know, literally liberal has become equivalent to white supremacist in the power of negativity it arouses. I don't even know what those. I mean, honestly, I just don't. They've become swears, essentially, is that. I mean, how do we get out of this? Because that. That's why I just don't even say anything about politics online, because it's like, really, like, you can't. You.

If.

Here's what happens. Anything you say that's, like, thoughtful, like, I wonder, immigration something. I wonder, like, why, you know, we have these many. We allow these many immigrants in or some version of that, like, thinking through these difficult policies and so on. They immediately tried to find, like, a single word in something you say that can put you in a bin of liberal or white supremacists and hammer you to death by saying you're one of the two. And then everybody just piles on happily that we finally nailed this white supremacist or liberal, and that. Is this some kind of weird, like, feature of online communication that we've just stumbled upon? Is there a way or is it possible to argue that this is like, a feature, not a bug? Like, this is a good thing.

Yeah, well, look, I just think it's a reflection of who we are. People like to blame social media. I think we're just incredibly divided right now. I think we've been divided like this for the last 20 years. And I think that the reason I focus almost 99% of my public commentary on economics is because you asked an important question at the top. How do we fix this? What did I say about the stimulus checks? Stimulus checks have 80% approval rating. So that's the type of thing. If I was Joe Biden and I wanted to actually heal this country, that's the very first thing I would have done when I came into office. Same thing on. When you look at anything that's gonna increase wages, I said on the show, I was like, look, I think Joe Biden will have an 80% approval rating if he does two things. If he gives every American a $2,000 stimulus check and gives everybody who wants a vaccine a vaccine. That's it. It's pretty simple. Because here's the thing. I don't really like Greg Abbott that much. We have like, very different politics. I'm from Texas, but my parents got vaccinated really quickly. That means something to me. I'm like, listen, I don't really care about a lot of the other stuff. He got my family vaccinated like that. Well, I will forever remember that. And that's how we will remember the checks. This is a part of the reason why Trump almost won the election and why if the Republicans had been smart enough to give him a 2000, another round of checks, 100% would have won. Which is that people were like, look, I, I don't really like Trump, but I got a check with his name on it. And that meant something to me and my family. I'm not saying for all the libertarians out there that you should go and like, endlessly spend money and buy votes. What I am saying is lean into the majoritarian positions without adding your culture war bullshit on top of it.

Yeah.

So for example, what's the number one concern that AOC says after the first round of checks got out, oh, the checks didn't go to illegal immigrants. I'm like, are you out of your fucking mind? Like, this is the most popular policy America has probably done in 50 years, you know, since like Medicare. And you're inserting it, you're ruining it.

Yeah.

And then on the right is the same thing, which is that they'll be like, these checks are going to like, you know, low level, blah, blah, you know, people who are lazy and don't work. I'm like, oh, there you go. You know, like you're just playing a caricature of what you are. Like if you lean into those issues and you got to do it clean, this is what Everybody hates about D.C. which is that Biden right now is doing the fourteen hundred dollar checks, but he's looping it in with his Covid relief bill and all that. That's his prerogative. That's a Democrats prerogative. They won the election, that's fine. But I'll tell you what I would have done if I was him. I would have come in and I would have said, there's five United States senators who are on the record Republicans who say they'll vote for a $2,000 check. And I would put that on the floor of the United States Senate on my, you know, first or so the first day possible. And I would have passed it, and I would have forced those Republican senators to live up to that. Vote for this bill, come to the Oval Office for a signing, so that the very first thing of my presidency was to say, I'm giving you all this relief check. This night long national nightmare is over. Take this money, do with it what you need. We've all suffered together. The thing about Biden is he has a portrait of FDR and is in the Oval, which kind of bothers me because he thinks of himself as an FDR like figure. But this is, you have to understand the majesty of fdr. We're talking about a person who passed a piece of legislation five days after he became president, and he passed 15 transformative pieces of legislation in the first hundred days. We're on day like 34, 35, and nothing has passed. The reconciliation bill will eventually become law, but it'll become law with no Republican votes. And again, that's fine if. But it's not fulfilling that legacy and the urgency of the action and the mandate which I believe that history has handed it, handed it to Trump. And he fucked it up, right? He totally screwed it up. He could have remade America and made us into the greatest country ever. Coming out on the other side of this, he decided not to do that. I think Biden was again handed that. Like a scepter almost. It's like all you have to do, all America wants, is for you to raise it up high. But he's keeping it within the realm of traditional politics. I think it's a huge mistake.

Why? So this is everything you're saying is perfect sense, like, take. Yeah, it's like, it's like again, if the aliens showed up, it's like the obvious thing to do is like, what's the popular thing? Like 80 of Americans support this. Like, do that clean. Also do it, like, with like, grace, where you're able to bring people together. Not like in a political way, but like obvious. Like obvious common sense way. Like just people, the Republicans, the Democrats, just bring them together on a policy and like bold, just hammer it without the dirt, without the mess. Whatever tried to compromise, just the yellow would have a good Twitter account. Like, loud, very clear. We're going to give a $2,000 stimulus check. Anyone who wants a vaccine gets a vaccine at scale. What make America. Let's make America great again. By manufacturing like we are manufacturing Most of the world's vaccine. Because we're bad motherfuckers.

Yeah.

And without. Maybe with. With more eloquence than that. And. And just do that. Why haven't we seen that for many. For several presidencies?

Because of coalitional politics. And they owe something to somebody else. For example, Biden has got a lot of. The Democratic constituency has to satisfy within this bill. So there's gonna be a lot of shit that goes in there. State and local aid, all this stuff. Again, I'm not even saying this is bad, but he's like, his theory is. And this isn't wrong, is like, we're gonna take the really popular stuff and use it as cover for the more downwardly less popular. And so the Dems could face the accusation, the people who are on this side, this is their pushback. To me, they're like, why would we give away the most popular thing in the bill? And then we would never be able to pass state and local aid. Right. Why would we do that? And then the Republicans do the same thing, right? Like Mitch McConnell, because he's a fucking idiot, decided to say, we're going to pair these $2,000 stimulus checks with like Section 230 repeal. It was like, it's obviously dead, right? Like it's not going to happen together. That's largely why I believe Trump lost the election and why those races down in Georgia went the way that they did. Obviously, Trump had something to do with it, but the reason why is they have longstanding things that they've wanted to get done. And in the words of Rahm Emanuel, never let a good crisis go to waste and try and get as much as you possibly can done within a single bill. My counter would be this, things have worked this way for too long, which is that the reconciliation bill is almost certainly going to be the only large signature legislative accomplishment of the Biden presidency. That's just how American politics works. Maybe he gets one more, maybe one. He gets a second reconciliation bill, then you're running for the midterms, it's over. I believe that by trying to change the paradigm of our politics, leaning into exactly what I'm talking here, you could possibly transcend that to a new one. And I'm not naive. I think people respond to political pressures. And the way that we found this out was David Perdue, who is just a total Corporate, you know, $Jordan, $general CEO guy. He was against the original $1200 stimulus checks. But then Trump came out, who's the single most popular figure in the Republican Party. He's like, I want $2,000 stimulus checks. And all of a sudden, Purdue, running in Georgia is like, yeah, I'm with President Trump. I want a $2,000 stimulus check. That was, if you're an astute observer of politics, to say, you can see there that you can force people to do the right thing because it's the popular thing, and that if it's clean, if you don't give them any other excuse, they have to do it. So this is what we've been gaslit into, our culture war framework of politics. And the reason it feels so broken and awful is because it is. But there is a way out. It's just that nobody wants to be. It's a game of chicken. Right? Because maybe it is true. Maybe we would never be able to get your other Democratic priorities or your Republican priorities, but I think that the country understands that this is fucking terrible and would be willing to support somebody who does it differently. There's just a lot of disincentives to not stay without. It's just a lot of incentives to not stray from the traditional path.

Yeah. Is it also possible that the A students are not participating? Like, we drove all of the. The superstars away from politics. So, like, you just have this argument before. I mean, everything you're saying sort of rings true. Like, this is the obvious thing to do. As a student of history, you can almost, like, tell, like, if you look at great people in history, this is what great leaders in history, this is what they did. It's like clean, bold action sometimes facing crisis. But we're facing a crisis.

No, we're in a crisis.

We've been. So why don't we. Why don't we see those leaders step up? That's. I mean, you say that's kind of like, it makes sense. There's a lot of different interests to play. You don't want to risk too many things, so on and so forth. But that's what, like, that sounds like the C students.

I don't think it's that. I think it's that the pipeline of politician creation is just totally broken from beginning to end. So it's not that A students don't want to be politicians. It's basically the way that our current primary system is constructed is what is the greatest threat to you as a member of Congress. It's not losing your reelection, it's losing your primary. Right. So that means, especially in a safe district, you're most concerned about being hit. If you're a Republican from the right and if you're a Democrat from the left for not being a good enough one, that's actually what stops people, more heterodox people in particular, from winning primaries, because the people who vote in our primaries are the party faithful. That's how you get the production. The production. It's important to understand the production pipeline, which is that, all right, I'm from Texas, so that's what I know best. So it's like, if you think in Texas, if you're a more heterodox, like, state legislature or something, who's real, works with the left on this and does that, you're going to get your ass beat in a Republican primary, because they're going to be like, he worked with the left to do this, blah, blah, take it out of context and you're screwed. And then that means you never ascend up the next level of the ladder. And then so on and so forth all the way. But I do think Trump changed everything. This is why I have some hope, which is that he showed me that all the people I listened to were totally wrong about politics. And that's the most valuable lesson you could ever teach me, which was I was like, wait, I don't have to listen to these people. They don't know anything. Actually, you know.

Yeah, that's.

That's powerful, man. I'm like, he did it.

That's exceptionally powerful, this guy. Even if he didn't do anything with.

It, it doesn't matter.

Right. He showed that it's possible.

Exactly.

And that. That means. That means a lot. That mean you're absolutely right. There's young people right now that kind of look, turn around and like, huh?

You're like, wait, I don't have to comb my hair a certain way.

Yeah.

And go to law school and be an asshole who everybody knows is an asshole.

Yeah.

And then get elected to state legislature. I mean, look, who's the number one person in the New York prime or New York City primary right now? Andrew Yang. He's polling higher than everybody else in the race. I. Look, maybe the polls are totally fucked and maybe he'll lose because of ranked choice voting and all that. But I consider Andrew. I mean, I know him a little bit, and I've, you know, followed his candidacy from the very beginning. I consider him an inspiration. He's the new generation of politics. Like, if I see who's going to be president 20 years from now, it's going to be. I'm not saying it's going to be Andrew Yang. I think it's me. Somebody like Andrew Yang outside the political system who talks in a totally different way. Right. Just a completely. One of my favorite things that he said on the debate stage, he's like, look at us. We're all wearing makeup. It's crazy. You know, he, like, he, like, brought that. That. He brought that. And he's writing like, yeah, why are. They're all wearing makeup?

He probably, arguably hasn't gone far enough. Almost.

Yes.

But he showed that it's possible. And then you. You see other, like, AOCs. A good example of somebody, at least in my opinion, is doing the same kind of thing, but going too far in, like. Well, I don't know. She's doing the Trump thing, but on the other side. So I don't know what's too far.

Don't take a normative judgment of it.

Yeah.

I will tell you the future of politics. Appreciate the art of it, right? No, I do. Look, I don't. I'm not a big AOC fan, but she's a genius. Media genius. Once in a generation talent. The way that she uses social media, Instagram, and everybody on the right is like, trying to copy her. Like, Matt Gaetz, like, I want to be the conservative aoc. I'm like, it's just not going to happen, dude. Like, it. You just don't have it. Like, what she has, it's like, it's electric. And Trump had that. Like, I've been to a Trump rally, like, to cover as a journalist. There's nothing like it. And Yang. Yang is similar. It's the same way where you're like, there is something going on here, which is just like, I've been to an Obama rally. I've been to a Clinton rally. I've been to several. Normal. Yeah, it's fine. You know, with Trump and with Yang, it was. It's another world. Yeah, it's another world.

Yang.

Yang.

There's a. There's probably thousands of people listening right now. We're just like, doing a.

Yes.

Slow clap. Yes, I know, I know. Yang gang forever. Okay. But yeah, I mean, my worst fear. I prefer Yang, Andrew Yang, kind of free, improvisational idea exchange, all that, versus aoc, who I think no matter what she stands for, is a drama machine, creates dramas just like Trump does. I would say my worst fear would be in 2024. Is AOC old enough? It'd be AOC versus Trump.

I don't think she's old enough. I think you'd have to be. I think she's 30, so she needs five more years, so probably not. Yeah.

Okay. But that kind of. That, that's.

Or Trump Jr. Well, AOC probably wouldn't win a Democratic primary, so, I mean, look, Joe Biden is. You know, they pretty much showed that.

That's exactly what you're saying. Yeah. This process grooms you over time. It's. You see the same thing in academia, actually, which is very interesting, is the. The process of getting tenure. There's this. It's like you're being taught without explicitly being taught.

Yes.

To behave in the way that everybody's behaved before. I've heard this. It was funny. I've had a few conversations that were deeply disappointing. Which, which are. Which involved statements like, this is what's good for your career.

Yes.

This kind of conversation, almost like mentor to mentee conversation, where it's, you know, it's like there's a grooming process in the same way, I guess you're saying the primary process does the same kind of thing. So, I mean, that's what people have talked about with Andrew Yang. It was. It was. He was being suppressed by a bunch of different forces. The mainstream media and all, just the Democratic. Just that whole process didn't. Didn't like the. The honesty that he was showing. Right.

For now. But here's my question to you. People gotta see, look, Jordan Peterson is one of the most famous people in America. Right? Like, you have a massive podcast. You're more famous than half the 99% of the people at MIT. So, like, from that perspective, everything has changed. And somewhere out there, there is a student who's taking notice. And I've noticed with my own career, everybody thought I was crazy for doing the show with Crystal, the Hill. They thought it was nuts. They're like, what are you doing? You're a White House correspondent. You've got a job forever. The other job offer I had was being a White House correspondent. And people thought I was nuts for not just sticking there and, you know, aging out within Washington, pining for appearances on Fox News and CNN and msnbc. But I hated it. I just hated doing it. And I did not want to be a company man, like a Washington man who's one of those guys who, like, brags to his friends about how many times he's been on Fox or whatever. Mostly because I just have a rebellious streak and I hate being at the subject of other people. I created something new, which a lot of people watch to get their news. And I notice that younger people, who are almost all my audience, they don't really look up to Any of the people in traditional. Right. They don't, they don't go in our. They're not coming up and being like, how do I be like Jim Acosta? You know, they're like, they're like, hey, how did you do what you do? And the way you did it is by bucking the system. So I think that we are at a total split point. And look, there will always be a path for people because like I don't want people to over learn this lesson. I have people who are like, I'm not going to go to college. And I'm like, well just wait. Yeah, like I'm like, just.

I was starting a podcast.

Yeah, like stuff just like, just hold on a second. But there will always be a path for the institutional. There will, that will always be there for you. But now there's something else. Now there's another game in town and that's more appealing to millions and millions and millions and millions of people who feel unserved by the corporate media, CNN and these people possibly who feel unserved in the, you know, the faculty. Like if you are an up and comer who wants to teach as many young people as possible, I think you should be on YouTube. Right. Like look at the Khan Academy guy. That guy created a huge business. So I just think we can be cynical and like upset about what that system is, but we should also have hope. Like I have a lot of hope for what can be in the future.

Yeah, there's a, there's a guy people should check out. So my story is a little bit different because I basically stepped aside with the dream of being an entrepreneur earlier in the pipeline than like a, like a legitimate like senior faculty would. There's an example somebody people should check out Andrew Huberman from Stanford, who's a neuroscientist who's as world class as it gets in terms of like 10 year faculty. Just a really world class researcher. And now he's doing YouTube.

Yeah, I see him on Instagram. Yeah.

And he's great. So he switched. So he not just does Instagram, he now has a podcast and he's doing, he's changing the nature of like I believe that Andrew might be the future of Stanford and for a lot it's funny like he's basically Joe Rogan is an inspiration to Andrew and to me as well. And those ripple effects. And Andrew is an inspiration probably just like you're saying to these young like 25 year olds who are soon to become faculty. If we're just talking about Academia. And the same is probably happening with. With government is funny enough, Trump probably is inspiring a huge number of people who are saying, wait a minute, I don't have to play by the rules.

Exactly.

And I have to. I can think outside the box here. And you're right. And the institutions we're seeing are just probably lagging behind. So the optimistic view is the future is going to be full of exciting new ideas. So Andrew Young is just kind of the beginning of this.

He's tip of the iceberg, and I.

Hope that iceberg doesn't. It's not this influencer. One of the things that really bothers me. Yeah, I've gotten a chance. I should be careful here. I don't want to. I love everybody. But, you know, these people who talk about, like, you know, how to make your first million or how to succeed. And. And they're so. I mean. Yeah, that. That makes me a little bit cynical about. I'm worried that the people that win the game of politics will be ones that want to win the game of politics.

They already are, man.

And. And like we mentioned AOC, it's. I hope they optimize for the 80% populist thing. Right. Like they optimize for that badass thing that history will remember you as the great man or woman that did this thing versus how do I maximize engagement today and keep growing those numbers? The influencers are so. I'm so allergic to this man. They keep saying how many followers they have on the different accounts, and it's like, I don't think they understand. Maybe I don't understand. I don't really care. I think it has destructive psychological effects. 1. Like thinking about the number, like getting excited. Your number went from 100 to 101 and being like. And today went out to 105. Whoa, that's a big jump. That may be like, thinking this way. Like, I wonder what I did. I'll do that again in this way. 1. It's. It creates anxiety, almost psychological effects. Whatever. The. The more important thing is it prevents you from truly thinking boldly in the long arc of history and in creatively thinking outside the box, doing huge actions. And I actually, my optimism is in the sense that that kind of action will beat out all the influencers.

Well, I don't know, Lex. My cynicism comes in. So there's a guy, Madison Cawthorn, the youngest member of Congress, and he. I don't want to say got caught, but there was like an email where he was like, my staff is Only oriented around comms, like he was basically saying. He got basically caught saying like my staff is only centered on communications. And that's the right play. If you do want to get the benefits of our current electoral, political and engagement system, which is that, what's the best way to be known within the right as a, as a right wing politician? It's to be a culture warrior. Go on Ben Shapiro's podcast, be one of the people on Fox News, go on Sean Hannity show, go on Tucker show. And all of that, because you become a mini celebrity within that world. Left unsaid is that that world is increasingly shrinking portion of the American population and they barely, they can't even win a popular vote election, let alone barely win eke out an electoral College victory in 2016. Well, but the incentives are all aligned within that and it's the same thing really on the left. But you're right, which is that. And look, this is, this is why geniuses are geniuses because they buck the short term incentives, they focus on the long term. They bet big and they usually fail. But then when they get big, they, they succeed spectacularly. The people I know who have done this the best are like a lot of the crypto folks that I've spoken to. Like some of the stuff they say, I'm like, I don't know if that's gonna happen. But look, they're like billionaires, right? And you're like, so they were right. So it's the way I've heard it expressed is you can be wrong a lot, but when you're right, you get right big. And I mean I've seen this in Elon Musk career. I mean he took spectacular risk, like spectacular risk and just doubled down, doubled down, doubled down, doubled down, double down. And you can kind of tell to him, I mean, you know him better than I do. But like from my observation, I don't think the money matters as right. I just like, when I see him, I'm like, I don't. It's. Nobody works as hard as you do and builds the way that you build. If it's just about the money, it's just, it just doesn't happen. Like nobody wills SpaceX into existence just for the money. Like it's not worth it, frankly. Right. Like he probably destroyed years of his life and like mental sanity, money or.

Attention or fame, none of that. Yeah, that's not the primary priority.

Well, that's what's so appealing to me, to me in particular about him. Just like, and how he built Like, I read a biography of him and just like the way that he constructed his life and like is able to hyper focus in meeting after meeting and drill down and also hire all the right people who execute each one of his tasks discreetly to his perfection is amazing. Like, that's actually the mark of a good leader. But I mean, if you think about his career, the reason he's a renegade is because probably he was told to like, put it in an index fund or whatever. Like, whenever he made his like 29 million. And from PayPal, I don't know how much he made. And then just go along that road, he's like, no. So he succeeds spectacularly. So you have to have somebody who's willing to come in and buck that system. So for, for, for now, I think our politics are generally frozen. I think that that model is going to be most generally appealing to the mean person. But somebody will come along and we'll change everything.

Yeah. I'm just surprised there's not more of them.

Yeah.

On that topic, it's now 20. What is it? 21.

Yes.

Let's make some predictions you can be wrong about.

Good.

What major political people are you thinking will run in 2024, including Trump Jr, senior or Ivanka? I don't know any Trump. Trump. And who do you think wins?

I think Joe Biden will run again in 2024, and I think he will run against someone with the last name Trump.