A.I., Epstein Files & Gen Z Uprising: What the Headlines Miss

International student enrollment in the US Drops sharply, raising alarms about America's future pipeline of talent, innovation and jobs. A new wave of Gen Z unrest explodes in Mexico City, part of a global pattern of young people rebelling against corruption, crime and democratic decay. Jeff Bezos Re enters the spotlight with a $6.2 billion AI startup aimed at moving artificial intelligence off our screens and into factories, cars and spacecraft. The President suddenly backs a bill to release all Epstein files, even though his own Justice Department could already move to make these documents public. And the administration defends Tucker Carlson's friendly interview with a Holocaust denying white supremacists he once hosted for dinner, while critics of Israel's right wing government are smeared as anti Semitic, turning a real extremism problem on the right into a fake both sides story. All that and more today. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Hi and welcome. Thanks for joining me today. It is a Monday morning. Markets closed yesterday, so no update. There it is November 17, 2025. So good to be with you. If you can be one of the lucky ones to join us live, we're going to dive right in to the first issue about international students. They Aren't wanted much more in America Why America's Drop in international students matters for for its future. According to new data highlighted by the New York Times and other outlets, new International student enrollment in the United States fell by about 17% this fall. The overall number of foreign students dropped only about 1%. But the sharp decline in first time enrollees signals deeper trouble ahead. College officials say the combination of visa delays, tougher screening, talk of caps on foreign students, and wider attacks on higher education has made many of the world's best students think twice about coming here. Universities worry because international students are essential to their budgets and to their labs, especially at the graduate level. Historically, the United States has outperformed almost every other country at attracting talented outsiders. That's what made us rich. For more than a century, foreign students have fueled American innovation, turning universities into engines of economic growth, scientific breakthroughs, entrepreneurship and job creation. Other countries educate talent. America's advantage has been that it's actually kept the talent and turned it into companies, research labs and jobs here. If that pipeline narrows down, the damage compounds for decades. Okay, what's the real message here? America is saying to the best and brightest of the entire world, don't come here anymore. And that is going to result in a lower bottom line for America. Maybe not tomorrow or the next day, but 10, 20, 30 years from now. It's going to really hurt. After all, it was students who came here from other countries, who started Google, who started Tesla, and who started a lot of other countries that could all go now to Canada or Mexico or other countries. That's a problem for us. Let's dig a little deeper here. So every country has some relative strengths and weaknesses. The United States has a lot of strengths. We've got this big geography. We have no enemies to our east or our west. West, because it's an ocean. We really have, until recently, had no enemies to the north because Canada was a great ally. Mexico, yeah, we were in skirmishes a long time ago, but they've been a great ally. So we've got that peace, that safety that the average country in Europe really doesn't have. We have that asset. We have the strength of the US Dollar, which is the world's currency. That's a great asset. But we also have this intellectual capital. The best new ideas are constantly streaming into the US and that's under assault, that's under a threat right now because of current administration policies. Now, India and China have been the biggest sources of foreign students, but they've come from all over, as in the case of Elon Musk coming from South Africa and Canada before coming to the United States. Let's look at some of the specific countries involved, because the laundry list of students who came here, studied at our schools, but then went on to prominence is just absolutely amazing. I want to share with you some of the people, and you're familiar with a lot of these names, obviously, but sometimes we Forget. Jensen Wang, 29,000 employees from Nvidia. And chances are, if you have any kind of stock portfolio, certainly if you have S&P 500, you know about Nvidia, and you're thinking, thank goodness he came to this country and started a company. Sergey Brin started Google, came from the former Soviet Union. That's 180,000 employees. Do you really wish. Do you really think we'd be better off? Sergei Brann had created Google in Russia. I don't think so. Now, it's not always people who were the founders of a company. It could be people who went on to become the CEO, like Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. He didn't create it, obviously, Bill Gates did. Vinod kasla, Sun Microsystems, 38,000 employees at its peak. Patrick Collison, Stripe. He started off at MIT at first. Anil Bushri, founder of Workday, 17,500 employees. He started at Brown University. So these universities are tremendous gateways to the best and the brightest. Of the entire world. Folks, there is a reason why the United States economy has grown so dramatically since The Great Recession 2008, compared to Europe and compared to every other place in the world. It's partially because of our great tech companies have taken over the world, for better or worse. But you have to dig a little deeper and figure out who started a lot of these tech companies, who's running them, who's doing the hard work, who's programming. It is foreigners who first entered the United States as students, came here, liked our lifestyle, liked our relative wealth, in many cases, fell in love, decided to get married here, start a family here, start a business here, and they never left. You and I are all richer because of it. The the founders of the online. I didn't include this in the list, but the founders of the online company Udemy, originally from Turkey, I, I have my house today. I have so many material possessions because a couple of founders decided to leave Turkey and come to the United States. Now, they weren't students at the time, but this academic world, this higher education, is a fantastic pipeline and it benefits America. It also benefits students in schools, for starters. Most of the time when students come from foreign countries, they're paying full freight. They are not always. But by and large, they are the lucky offspring of wealthy parents. And the wealthy parents say, hey, I want my kid to have unlimited potential for their career. So I'm willing to pay top dollar to send them to the Stanfords of the world, the Harvards of the world, and all sorts of schools that maybe are not necessarily as hard to get into. They're bringing in tremendous money. And every student who comes, there's all these spinoff effects of money coming in. First of all, their parents come. There's a lot of travel, there's a lot of tourism, there's all the money they spend on food and boarding, typically for four years or more. It's a massive infusion of outsider cash from other countries into the United States. And we're telling people, no, we don't want your money, we don't want your brains, we don't want your hard work. It's absolutely insanity. Now, it's not going to show up in the bottom line in the next week or month or quarter. It's long term in the same way that we didn't instantly get richer just when Sergey Brin went to Stanford and came to the United States. But it did happen a decade or so later when Google really took off. So I want you to be concerned about this in my. It's very easy to be jingoistic and say, yes, it's a we're America, Americans first and America students and let's kick out these foreigners. Careful what you ask for. Part of what makes America great is we're not like a company like France, which are a country like France. I like France, I like visiting there. I've lived there for a month at a time. I love it. But you don't see the most brilliant young scientific minds from India, from China and other places saying, wow, my dream is to move to Paris and start the next Google and to start the next Tesla and to go to university there because it seems like such a great hotbed of technology, innovation, venture capital and a way of capturing top talent to start my start. You don't see that because it is not as open to letting people and staying now it's true. There are other countries that say to students, come on in soon as your education is over, bye bye. We've made it in the past anyway easier for students who come develop a life, perhaps find a spouse, start a business, to legally stay here and hire people and make money for themselves and for us. But you don't know that when someone is 17 or 18 years old and they're kind of a blank slate and they're simply applying for a slot at a university, you don't know that you have to take a risk. But from America's standpoint, it's a risk that has paid off again and again and again. And the downsides have been extraordinarily low. Unless you consider some of the things Elon Musk has been up to lately. But we we won't get into a big fight over him. So I'll be monitoring this situation carefully. I'd love to hear from you today. We are live today again. It is Monday, November 17, 2025. We stream every day live on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Rumble, Twitch and a handful of other places as well as Podbean podcast. We stream live. So if you're watching this live and you want to weigh in with comments, questions, agreements, disagreements, you can do so right now. I typically am able to see comments in real time if you're watch this on demand on any social media platform or if you are listening on any podcast platform. First of all, thanks for watching and listening. You can always post comments by going to my YouTube post page. Just go to YouTube, type in TJ Walker Success or filtered with TJ Walker the name of the show and you will be able to post your comments right there. We got a big show in store for you. Lots more topics to come. Don't go away like what you heard. Don't let the algorithm bury us. Subscribe now@substack.com J WalkerSuccess want direct access to me live? Want to unlock bonus episodes, behind the scenes takes and full access to my premium courses? Then become a member today. Just go to tjwalker.com members and choose your preferred platform, YouTube, Patreon. Whatever works for you. This isn't just another subscription. It's a full access pass to the tools, coaching and content that can transform your communication and career. Tjwalker.com members, I'll see you inside. Welcome back to Filtered Gen Z's global rebellion reaches Mexico City According to the Associated Press and Reuters, thousands of mostly young protesters filled Mexico City's historic center to denounce crime, corruption and impunity. The march began peacefully but ended in violent clashes with more than 100 people injured and about 20 arrested. Mexico's President claims the Gen Z branded movement is being amplified by right wing groups and social media bots trying to steer youthful anger toward partisan goals. But on the streets, the issues run deeper. Rampant violence murdered local officials, an underfunded health care system, and a widespread belief that powerful people rarely face consequences. And Mexico is not alone. In Nepal, youth led protests against a social media ban helped push out a prime minister. In Bangladesh, students have rallied against unemploy and corruption. Young people have driven pension protests in France, democracy marches in Thailand, and anti police abuse movements in Nigeria. Rising inequality, climate anxiety, bleak job markets and the constant visibility of global injustice online have combined to spark a worldwide wave of youthful rebellion. Okay, so what's the real message here? It does seem to be there are a lot of angry young people, not just in the United States, not just in Mexico, not just in Thailand, but everywhere. What's driving this? I think it's partly because of social media and more transparency and more governments. They realize they're getting screwed over by people like me. Older, gray haired people. Sad to say, but it's true. Okay, let's dig a little bit deeper here. Everyone these days, unless you are among perhaps the 800 poorest, 800 million poorest people living on the world has access to the whole world because everyone has a cell phone. And with a cell phone you have access to Instagram and Facebook and telegram. And regardless of what your country does to ban certain platforms, there's others you are going to have access to. And it's a constant reminder that everybody has more than you, if you're a young person, whether you're a teenager, in your 20s or even 30s, everyone seems to be having more fun in life than you. Everybody has more stuff. Everyone has a bigger house or apartment, everyone has a nicer car, everyone's traveling nicer. This resentment feeds on itself and it foments real discontent. We are seeing it in real time now in Mexico. The President is saying that this is being fueled by right wing agitators and it's made to look like sort of a left wing protest. Here's the thing. For someone who is young, early 20s perhaps, they don't even necessarily look at the world through an ideological prism. They're just angry and they feel like something's corrupt, something's gotta change. I don't know what it is. I just want change. And that in a sense transcends any one ideology. So how is that going to change? One solution, and I'm saying this specific to the United States context. I cannot speak for everything that's going on in Bangladesh or even Mexico, but in the United States, young people have to learn how to vote. It's so much more enjoyable to go to a big protest. It's glamorous. It seems exciting to go to a protest. But voting on election day for a choice between some extreme right wing person that you don't like at all and someone who seems like a mushy, moderate, milquetoast person, that's not exciting. Unfortunately, that's how you create change even more. So run for office yourself. If you are 18 years old, you can run for a lot of positions of authority, at least in the United States. You can run for mayor in some places and city council, commissioners of counties, you can run for age 25, you can start running for Congress. So young people are going to have to start running for office because it's all well and good to say we don't like 80 year old plus Joe Biden and soon to be 80 year old Trump. Run for office yourself. You've got to change things because you got to realize all people have figured out the game. People like me have figured out the game. Now, this isn't necessarily how I vote, but people who look like me vote this way. They continually vote for politicians who give them more stuff. Now they don't like to call it welfare, but when you get subsidies through lower taxes for buying a house rather than renting an apartment, that's free stuff. That's money in your pocket. And a lot of baby boomers and people my age or older got Houses for dirt cheap compared to today, and they were subsidized by the government for doing so. You young people, nah, you're not getting it. The other reason you're not is people like me, once they buy a house, start appearing at city commission zoning meetings, and we're all of a sudden very concerned about traffic. Oh, isn't this traffic awful? We better pass a law saying nobody can build new houses. And what do you know, the price of my. The value of my house goes way up. Nobody can build new houses. And you as young people are totally screwed over because you can't buy a house because there aren't any. And the few that are there, the prices have gone up 2, 3, 4, 5 times relative to inflation in the last generation, pricing you out unless you got a big rich daddy or sugar daddy or sugar mama. So if you're resentful, if you feel like the deck has been stacked against you, you are 100% correct. Now, I can't speak for what's going on in every single country, but it is obvious now to more and more young people who love their phones and hey, I love my phone, and spend time, it's never, ever been easier than today to compare up. Now, in pre digital times, pre television time, you compared yourself to the person in your village who had, you know, five sheep and you only had three. And you could be jealous about, oh, that person's got two more sheep than I do. That was the standard of comparison for most of human history. That person has, you know, a cave that's got two holes and I only have one hole. I mean, that's how people compared themselves. But today, thanks to social media, you know, everyone can feel sorry for themselves. I've never yet met someone who didn't feel like deep down, somehow they're getting the role. I won't say never, but it's very rare for me to meet someone who doesn't feel like they're kind of getting the raw end of the deal compared to someone else they know who's just like them, but got some sweetheart deal or got some handout or won some lottery unfairly. It's because it's never been easier to compare upwards. Yeah, someone could say I make $10 million a year, but it's not fair. This guy went to business school, is making $100 million a year, and I had to teach him statistics our second semester. It's not fair. And the person's making $10 million a year feeling sorry for themselves. So there is resentment. It is simmering it occasionally boils over and sometimes there's violence. Let me give you a few more facts. What happened in Mexico City? The protest began peacefully, but there were clashes. More than 100 people were injured over the weekend, 20 were arrested. The organizers framed it as a Gen Z moment, but there were older opposition supporters. Sometimes right wing factions, in the case of Mexico, want to weaken. The incumbent president of Mexico, we don't like her, and this is a way to attack. So I mentioned we've seen similar eruptions in Nepal, Bangladesh, France, Thailand and Nigeria in just the last few months. The core drivers seem to be similar. Inequality, corruption, weak rule of law, and a bleak job outlook. And that describes the United States. Frankly, we've never been more unequal. Maybe if you go back to the Gilded Age in the late 1890s, corruption, arguably, the United States government has never been more corrupt. Today, rule of law, that's now considered essentially a. A gag line, a joke line when the rest of the world looks at how United States is governed, and a bleak job outlook. It is true unemployment in relative terms is still very low in the United States. But that is in part because if someone is doing a couple shifts on Uber, another shift on Uber, eats, doing something else on thumbtack where they've got to go fix someone's toilet and they're cobbling together just enough money for rent, they're not technically considered unemployed. But if you ask that person, how do you feel about your job prospects? They would say blink. And yet it's not showing up in the unemployment data. And it's especially a problem for young people. Young people with college degrees are finding, in relative terms, unemployment higher than it's been a long time. And young people without college degrees, frankly, a lot of them have given up, especially young men. We're seeing millions of Americans in that category just give up their home in their parents basement, their childhood bedrooms. They're not working, they're not in education, and they're not doing. They're not in relationships. They're not doing much of anything other than playing video games. Now, maybe it's harder to get those people to show up for protests because they want to leave their room, but they are part of this mix of simmering discontent. My only message to you is, if you are a young person, you want to change things, you do need to complain. That's a part of it. But in societies where there is still some elements of democracy, where a vote could still count, and I would say United States is still in that category, or at least for a little while you got to get off your duck and do the hard work of organizing, running candidates, supporting candidates who believe in your values, knocking on door after door and fighting for the people you want. Because the old timers who are happy with the status quo, who really like inequality because it's in their favor, they're spending the big bucks on candidates. They're recruiting the candidates they want. They're voting for the candidates they want. They are well organized and you're going to have to beat them at that game. And since you don't have more money than they do, you're going to have to out organize. We'll be right back after this break. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise Most people can afford a full time coach and even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need a TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a course, and always ready. Start using it today at tjwalker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Bezos and Project Prometheus Jeff Bezos bets big on AI that touches the real world world. According to the Times, Jeff Bezos is stepping back into an operational role for the first time since leaving Amazon, becoming co chief executive of a new artificial intelligence company called Project Prometheus. The startup launches with more than $6.2 billion in funding, which is a nice way to start a company and about 100 employees, many recruited from the top AI labs in the world. This isn't a chatbot venture. Project Prometheus aims to use artificial intelligence to design and manufacture physical things, computers, cars and even spacecraft. Bezos co Chief executive Vic Bajaj comes from Google's X Moonshot division and other science heavy projects, signaling a major long term bet. It fits a broader shift in technology. AI is moving off of our screens and into the physical world, supervising warehouse robots, coordinating factories, assisting surgeons and helping scientists discover new drugs and materials. Asus has already backed robotics firms focused on physical intelligence. Project Prometheus is his bid to own a major piece of the new wave AI that doesn't just answer questions, but builds okay, so what does this really mean? Jeff Bezos. You can love him or hate him and I get why people do both. Is now going really deep into AI. Not just for fun chatbots or sexy AI girlfriends, but AI that is going to build real products in the real world. Factories, aircraft, you name it. This could be so significant it makes ChatGPT and Little ChatBots seem like mere trifles in comparison. Let's dig a little deeper here. Jeff Bezos is an extraordinarily competent person. Again, if you are one of the hundreds of thousands or perhaps more than a million people in America who've lost your jobs because you were running a retail store or a mom and pop operation, you're probably not a big fan of his. Because he can be ruthless. He competes in a way using every fair advantage and every unfair advantage. And let's not forget, he didn't have to pay taxes for a long, long time. And you did. Having said all that, I think you have to take seriously anytime Jeff Bezos becomes CEO of a company. Now he's a co CEO here. So how significant? Sometimes people do things just for names and it's the other co CEO running things. Time will tell. But his co CEO was one of the big shots at the moonshot operation at Google where they got to work on all sorts of things. And he also co founded Verily. So he's bringing in some heavy hitters. To repeat, they're investing in technology that will allow them to have a physical task. Robots, drug discovery, scientific research. Now Amazon has been involved with robots for a long time. That's not a new interest in Jeff Bezos, but this is a whole new company. He's really putting his money where his mouth is. Others have invested too. But $6.2 billion to start a company is extraordinarily significant. I mean, let's not kid ourselves. Most companies that have been around for 40 years never get to a $6 billion valuation. That's how much they've raised so far. So I do think we are just as we've seen in the last decade or so. So many mom and pop businesses just two blocks from where I used to live in downtown Delray Beach. I moved there 20, 21. Lots of big, big stores. One of them was a store that sold stationary and office supplies. A number of other retail stores, all gone. And you know what they put as the sign on their door? Thanks, Jeff Bezos. Thanks Amazon. You put us out of business. Now you can argue they should have done other things. They should have differentiated themselves more. They should have given more value to customers. You can make that claim, but there's no doubt When Jeff Bezos puts his mind to something, can be ruthlessly efficient, capture market share, and put hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people out of business. This could do to drivers and people who work in warehouses and people who get spacecraft ready. What Amazon did to bookstores. Yeah, I almost forgot about bookstores. If you're under the age of 30 where people would walk into a door, pick up a book and decide, oh, I'll buy this. All gone, essentially, other than a few remaining Barnes and Noble bookstores because of Amazon, hey, I'm a part of the problem too. I found it so much easier to push that button and have that book magically appear in a day or two the old way and now within two seconds because it's right on my Kindle reader, which, yeah, that's an Amazon product too. Another example of technology fusing old a book with new a screen that Jeff Bezos is responsible for. So whether he creates a talk show host who can do what I'm doing here right now, I don't think that's high up on his priority list. But we may all be getting closer and closer to the time when AI does, in fact make human work irrelevant. Is this one company going to do it? I'm not going to go that far, but it certainly looks like it could be a piece of the puzzle. Let's take your comments. This one coming in from TI says, are these Gen Z uprisings in Mexico part of a global youth awakening, or are they driven by each country's unique political failures? I think it's got to be both. Again, I'm not an expert on Bangladesh or what happened recently in Nepal. There do seem to be similarities, and a lot of it is tied together with social media. In some cases where countries have tried to cut off access to social media, I could tell you my own household that doesn't go down well when I want to remove social media access to certain members of the family. Other times it's people are understanding what's really happening in their country because of social media. Even when it's banned in certain countries, people can get virtual private networks and access almost anything they want if they learn a little bit of technology. So I think it's a combination of certain worldwide trends combined with the unique situation in each country where people feel particularly resentful or there have been particular abuses or particular examples of corruption, where the average person, especially average young person, feels completely screwed over. And I think we're going to see more of that. We've got lots more to come today. And I got to go back to this issue. I wish I didn't have to. I'm tired of talking about it. This is a business show, by the way. I'm here to look at the top business stories of the day, technology stories and culture stories. And then I filter them through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills. But unfortunately, we got to talk about Epstein again. Because of major new developments in the last 24 hours, filtered is brought to you by the following get the deeper takes. I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now@substack.com J WalkerSuccess and stay in the loop. For years people have asked how they could get one on one coaching from me inexpensively. Well, now you can, anytime, anywhere with the TJ Walker AI clone. It's like having me in your pocket ready to help you prep for a speech, polish a pitch, or calm your nerves before a big meeting. You talk to it. It responds like I would based on my real world coaching of thousands of readers and communicators. Check it out at tjwalker AI. It's not just smart, it's personal. Welcome back to Filtered. I'm your host, TJ Walker. Coming on the last issue we just discussed. Before we dive into this Epstein mess again, TI says, is Bezos betting on the next big technology leap, or is physical intelligence still more hype than reality? Well, some of you who watched the show last week saw the the Russian robot get up on stage, do a product demonstration and just do a face plant and everyone laughed at it and say, look at these silly robots. I don't think it's hype. It's not perfect yet. We haven't gone from low level artificial intelligence to general intelligence or super intelligence. But I can tell you it's getting better every day. Chat GPT sure seems to be improving a lot faster and better than my own brain. So I don't think it's hype. Yes, there's a lot of hype in the AI space. There's no doubt about it. There are entrepreneurs who had an idea for a business 10 years ago, couldn't raise money. Now they're doing exactly the same thing and they put a AI on it and people are giving them millions, sometimes billions of dollars. So there's certainly a lot of hype in the AI space. And Jeff Bezos is a good storyteller, but he has delivered and that's why I think we have to take this very seriously. But thanks for your comments and thanks for your notes. I do appreciate it. Let's Dive into the next issue regarding Epstein. According to new reporting, the President is urging House Republicans to vote for a bill that would direct the Justice Department to release all remaining Epstein related files within 30 days. On social media, he says, quote, we have nothing to hide, and calls on Republicans to back the measure. Now, here's the irony. His own Justice Department works for him. If he truly wanted maximal transparency, he could just instruct his attorney General today to release as much as the law allows and to ask a court to unseal everything else. Or he could do what he does, which is just release it all and not worry about the legality. He's acting as if Congress must force his administration to act, even though he already holds the authority. Now the timing is hard to ignore. The shift comes after old emails resurface, tying him more closely to Epstein than ever before, and after months of anger coming from parts of his own base accusing him of helping to cover things up. So this isn't some brave stand for Sunlight. It's political theater designed to appear bold while keeping firm control over what actually becomes public. Okay, what's going on here? Trump saying, I now endorse the idea of releasing the Epstein files and I call on all members of Congress to vote for this is about as credible as his claim 10 years ago of I've got a great alternative to Obamacare and I'm going to let you know in about two weeks. Nonsense. Let's dig a little deeper here. Trump is clearly feeling the heat about Epstein because the pressure is mounting this week, perhaps even before you see this show. There's going to be a vote in the United States House of Representatives, and there appear to be enough votes, including from Republicans, to force the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files. This appears to be Trump essentially trying to get change the story, change the narrative, change his positioning and get ahead of this story. Since he knows he's already going to lose. He took Representative Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene reports. They brought some of them to the Situation Room, twisted arms and basically said, I'm going to destroy you and your career if you don't cut out this nonsense about asking for the Epstein files. And they're like, no, sorry, we'll do anything else for you. And I mean anything else for you, but we won't do that. And now he realizes he's going to look really guilty if members of his own party provide the winning votes demanding the Department of Justice and release the Epstein files. And that's just not a good look. Okay, let's let's stand back a minute and be honest with each other. Okay. I'm going to just say out loud the loud part that most people think that I come across but are afraid to say if they're on NBC News or CNN or even Fox News or msnp. I'm going to say the loud power part or the silent part out loud. Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorist in general. I don't believe in most conspiracies, but certainly there are people who get together to do bad things and then don't want anyone else to know about it. So I am not making allegations here and I have zero proof for what I'm about to say. What I'm saying now is an answer to the question of TJ what do you really think is going on here with Trump? Why does he act so incredibly guilty about this Epstein file thing when in other situations, Stormy Daniels grabbing women by the, you know what allegations that he sexually abused Eugene Carroll, he always seemed to act like, I don't care. That's okay, that's just me. Nothing to say here. But hey, I relish it. Let's talk about it. Even he always seemed to be absolutely, utterly shameless about a gazillion other scandals that for normal politicians would have destroyed their careers, destroyed their lives, destroyed their reputation. Why is it so different this time? Why does he genuinely seem almost like a normal politician caught in a huge scandal that he knows is going to ruin his career? Why is he suddenly acting like, you know, John Edwards when confronted with evidence that, hey, you have a love child and you never told us about it? Why is that? I'm simply going to use what I believe to be reason that is nonpartisan, that is non ideological. I consider myself as a sane, sensible centrist. I'm not here as some political commentator for you. I'm here as a communications expert, personal development expert. So to me, when I see Trump continuing to deny this and as he did last week, say, oh, Epstein was a Democrat, so this is only a Democrat problem. I mean, that's just the lamest form of spin I've ever heard in my entire life. And let's be candid. Donald Trump is usually really good at spinning things. He's good at changing the topic in a way that everyone says, oh, yeah, this is more interesting. And he's doing this in a way that people are like, no, that's complete B.S. and why are you trying to change the subject of this with something so obviously illogical? So I'm just going to say the quiet Part out loud of what I think happened. Again, I'm not alleging this. So if you are an attorney working for the administration, don't think about defamation suits. This is an opinion news analysis program. This is not a news program. Here's what I think happened. I think clearly, as Jeffrey Epstein said in one of his emails that was released last week, Trump knew about the girls. I think it's a lot worse than that. I think Trump did spend some time alone, maybe not with Virginia Chu Free, because she says she never saw Trump do anything inappropriate. My guess is that Trump knew what Jeffrey Epstein is about. And so when he said you and I both in his birthday letter, which he signed his name on a naked woman in the pubic area when he said, yeah, you and I both have a special secret that keeps us young. I'll just say what I think everyone actually thinks his secret is if you have sex with really, really, really attractive young girls. Not children, but those under the age of 18, it keeps you young. I think that was the secret that Trump was alluding to in the birthday note. I do not think that Trump was having sex with 10 year old girls. I don't, nor does it appear that that was what Epstein was doing. And I'm not going to go down the Megyn Kelly route and say he's technically not a pedophile. I'm not going down that discussion rabbit hole. Here's what I think happened. I think that Trump was not that, you know, he was not the big party guy. He doesn't drink at all. He wasn't one of the more rambunctious guys, partying, drinking, going crazy at epstein parties at 4 in the morning. I do think from time to time the two of them got together, as has been documented, the two of them, just the two of them had a party at Mar a Lago and a dozen or so models. Now, they may have all been above age. Here's my guess as to what Donald Trump is so embarrassed about. I think at one point he went to either Epstein's house or Epstein island and it was the two of them. And Epstein said, hey, let's have a party. And he brought over a whole bunch of attractive young women, girls, a bit nebulous. Trump liked one of them and she was probably six feet tall, an absolute bombshell, a knockout. And he had sex with her. I think that's what happened. And he thought, oh well, she's really mature, she must be at least 25. I'm guessing he probably thought that. And the next morning when they're both leaving. He notices that's kind of odd. There's a video camera there, probably just for security. And he said, by the way, so when did you graduate from college? He said that to the person he spent the night with. And she said, oh, I'll start college in a couple of years. I'm currently 16. And maybe after that he never went back and maybe that's what. But I have to think something like that happened, that Trump is so worried that he would meet the legal definition of a sexual abuser of a child molester. 16 is not considered above the age of consent in Florida or the Virgin Islands where Epstein island was. And he might not know if the footage is anywhere. He might be thinking it's somewhere buried of me naked with a 16 year old child. Again, I'm not alleging this. I have zero factual information. I'm just telling you the way I've seen the world work and the way people deny things and hide things and talk about issues. That is the most plausible rationale for why Donald Trump is so intent on burying this story and so much acting like he's really guilty and claiming just preposterous things like oh, Epstein was a Democrat, so it's only a Democrat problem. And I'm ordering my department of justice to only investigate Epstein with Democrat. I mean there's just no other rational reason I can think of him for him to act like this. I mean, why would he care if other peoples have their careers ruined? If all of a sudden it's implausible to me to think that there's some video of a young girl and the former president of Harvard who's been implicated in this cavorting around and clear sexual abuse taking place. And for Trump to care about, well, I really care about Larry Summers reputation. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to him. So let me take the political hit to protect someone. I've had a friendly conversation. That's implausible. Nobody believes that Trump is trying to help any other political actor famous, forget that anyone well known as a Democrat like a Bill Clinton. But the idea that he would try to help any other Republican to save their skin by causing damage to him, that's implausible. That just goes against everything we've ever learned about him throughout his entire career. So that's just not plausible. And that's why this issue is fascinating to a lot of people. Because there are many, many MAGA supporters, Trump supporters, who sincerely believe that the entire world is run by an elitist cabal of genuinely evil People, primarily men who, when they're pulling all the strings, controlling the world to make things awful for the little guy and give themselves more wealth, that's what they do by day, by nighttime, they are molesting children. They are a pedophile. This is a core part of the QAnon mindset. So when more and more and more evidence points to the fact that their guy Trump was best friends with Jeffrey Epstein, that he knew about it, that he may have been part of it, like, that's one area we're not going to give him a pass on. So this is my theory. What do you think? I've yet to hear what I feel is an intellectually honest person give a theory that answers these fundamental questions in a way that, that's coherent because certainly saying, as Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, does, of, oh, this is just all a partisan witch hunt and this is just the, or as Trump says, radical lunatic left, worrying about this. Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman, you can call her a lunatic and you wouldn't get a big disagreement from me. But nobody, and I mean nobody, considers her to be a part of the lunatic left. Lunatic right, maybe, but not the lunatic left. Just nobody believes that. And if you're going to try to deflect criticism, if you're going to try to create a narrative that's plausible, you can't say things that are palpably implausible, because that's what's coming out of Speaker Johnson's mouth. That's what's coming out of the White House's mouth. So I put forth a theory here again, full disclaimer. I have no evidence that Trump had sex or sexually abused would be the more correct term. A 16 year old, a 15 year old or a 17 year old. But as I rack my brain trying to figure out what could possibly be driving him to take all these actions, I can't come up with any other plausible theory. If you have one, I would love to hear it. Please let me know. Now, the other thing just so insipid about this, him, him generating headlines. And shame on the New York Times and other media outlets for letting Trump grab the headlines by saying he's calling on all Republicans to vote for this initiative is if he wanted to release the documents, they would be released in five minutes. He could just say five minutes, five seconds. All he has to do is post something on Truth Social that says, hey, Bondi, release the files. And if not, you know you're going to be escorted out of the office in Five minutes, she'd do it. My theory again, it's just a theory. It's not a conspiracy theory. My theory is he's going to tell her, release all the documents. Just don't release anything with my name in it. Or release a couple where it says, okay, we were at the same public gathering, a charity event, in front of 10,000 other people. So release a few documents where my name is in with his. And no possible person could say it makes me look bad. And then everything that makes me look bad, just burn it, delete it, put it on a drive somewhere and take it out to a dumpster or blow it up or put it in one of those car compacting machines and smash it up. That's the only thing I can see that's plausible. What do you think? I would love to hear from you. And the fascinating thing is this is an issue that really cuts across ideology, across party because there are many, many people, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, who think, you know, something's really rotten here and it is time for the government to fess up and let us know. Let's take your comments. Okay, Helmet writes, trump is in the files. Not anywhere near the worst perpetrator, but he's in it. Would have been found out. I don't, I mean, clearly he's in it. We've already seen numerous cases, he's already named many, many times. It's a question between being in the files and being guilty of having committed sex crimes. There's a huge difference. I don't know that for a fact now, but it sure does look that way. Blood Moon says, have you ever studied group hunter and gatherer psychology or psych? Sociology. I have studied psychology and sociology. I don't remember offhand about something with that specific label, but I would love to hear any insights you have that you think might be applicable. TI writes, should any president be able to shield documents involving themselves under claims of ongoing investigations? In normal times, no. In normal times, the Department of Justice is, yes, the head. The Attorney General is appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate. And then what they've done is do things independently. They don't cozy up. If the President could just, if it had been this obvious all the time, believe me, Bill Clinton could have just said, hey, drop all this nonsense about, you know, Paula Jones and Monica Linsky, just delete it all and instead attack Republican. He didn't do that. Maybe he should have, but he didn't. So, no, they're not supposed to be able to hold things back. The Department of Justice is supposed to be run like an independent investigative policing unit for the entire country and unfortunately it has been corrupted. Okay, we've got to move on to other even less, believe it or not, less tasteful issues than this. Back in just a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want more? Grab my 5 book success library for $9.95 at TJWalk. It's the fastest way to level up your communication. Imagine being the most confident person in the room, whether you're on zoom or on stage. That's what thousands of professionals are learning to do right now through my online communication courses at Media Training Worldwide. You can access my complete training library on demand, of course, affordable and actually effective. Whether you're preparing for media interviews, client presentations or TED style talks. I got you covered. Check it out mediatrainingworldwide.com you'll never wing it again. Holocaust Deniers are not Both Sides According to the Times, the President is now defending Tucker Carlson's friendly interview with Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who has identified or has denied the Holocaust and openly praised Hitler. Carlson gave a soft focus platform and the president's message is essentially that Carlson can talk to whomever he wants. Fair enough. This comes on top of a now infamous 2022 dinner at Mar a Lago where Trump hosted Fuentes along with another Holocaust denier, or at least Hitler lover, Kanye West. That is one party's actual antisemitic behavior. Now compare that with the way critics of Israel's right wing government are being described as anti Semitic. Multiple polls in early and late 2025 show that large majorities of Israelis themselves believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should take responsibility for the failures around October 7th and that he should resign. Again, this isn't the radical left of America. This is a majority of Israelis. Other polls from the same period show majorities of Israelis supporting some form of negotiated end to the Gaza war. So when American critics question Netanyahu's leadership or his handling of Gaza, they are echoing views held by a broad share of Israelis not expressing anti Semitism. Equating legitimate criticism of government policy with Holocaust denial is not balance. It's a rhetorical smokescreen for genuine extremism on the right. Okay, so what's the real message here? We're told again and again that there's rising anti Semitism in America, which there is, and it's unfortunately affecting both parties, some would say equally well, this is an absurdity. You have Tucker Carlson giving the soft, loving treatment to Nick Fuentes, who loves Hitler, says the Holocaust didn't deny and is the poster boy for an anti Semite. You have President Trump who gave a nice private dinner to Nick Fuentes platforming anti Semites. And the Democrats are supposedly equally as anti Semitic because they agree, or many of them agree with the majority of Israelis who criticize Benjamin Netanyahu's tenure and what he's done to that whole region of the world. The two are not the same. Sorry, let's go a little bit deeper here. So again, anti Semitism is real. Have there ever been anti Semites in both parties or all? Sure. But I find it distressing that someone who openly cohorts with a well known anti Semite like Nick Fuentes, which is what President Trump did by hosting with, I don't know about you, Trump didn't invite me to dinner. Probably didn't invite you to dinner, but somehow because of his circles, felt it appropriate to have dinner with a well known Holocaust denier. Tucker Carlson has gotten a lot of criticism, some from the right and among some Republicans, for platforming Nick Fuentes. And I think fair minded people could say, yes, this is an atrocity. You don't need to give added visibility, attention, views, feed the beast of anti Semites by giving them more attention and giving them status, which is what you get when you're interviewed on one of the top five most popular podcasts in the world. It's what you get when you have dinner with someone like President Trump. That's very different than simply criticizing a particular government policy at a particular time. Yes, there were many Democrats who felt that Benjamin Netanyahu did a lot of things to aggravate tensions in the Middle east, to do things in Gaza that were not to use a favorite word over there, kosher. And guess what? Polls showed a majority of Israelis felt the same way. So you simply cannot say that there's this huge, far left, radical, anti Semitic wing of the Democratic Party simply for endorsing the same political views as a majority of Israelis. Unless you honestly believe that a majority of Israeli citizens are anti Semites, it's just not credible. It's like saying, okay, President Obama wanted to raise taxes on the top 2% of Americans and you opposed that bill. If you were Republican, which you did. I don't recall anyone saying, oh, you now hate America, you're a communist or a fascist, you're no longer an American. You should leave America because you disagreed with a policy. The president. No, nobody said that. They might have said, you're wrong or your priorities are more skewed towards the wealthy. But no one said just because you opposed a particular policy of a President of the United States, you hate all America. That is essentially the rhetorical game that was rigged across our political landscape in the last year or two where any criticism at all of Netanyahu, even if you agreed with the majority of Israelis, somehow made you an anti Semite. And I think that that argument is increasingly less persuasive to a lot of people and ideally to a majority of people. Okay, that concludes our main focus of today's show. Our topic stories. We typically look at the top five stories of the day, do it a deep in depth dive. But we also have what we call a grab bag section of the show where we look at other issues. First one up Scott Bessant's Diseased Migrant Cattle Claim Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant went on Fox News to explain why Americans may soon face $10 a pound ground beef. After describing beef as a long cycle market, he pivoted to get this blaming immigrants. He claimed without evidence, without evidence that migrants were bringing diseased cattle across the border and reintroducing livestock illnesses that had been eradicated in North America. Okay, a real screwworm outbreak did hit parts of Mexico earlier this year, leading the U.S. department of Agriculture to temporarily restrict certain livestock imports. That has nothing to do with migrants on foot swimming across the Rio Grande. I don't know about you, I haven't even seen AI generated videos of migrants swimming on the backs of diseased cattle to get into America. Meanwhile, economists point to the President's tariff regime, a historically small cattle herd, high feed cost and persistent drought as the real drivers of soaring beef prices, blaming migrants for walking cattle across the border. It isn't economics, it's scapegoat goading designed to distract from policy decisions that actually raise prices. That just strikes me as just one of the most absurd attempts at spin I've ever seen. You political spin gets a bad rap and disclosure to you. I've worked over the years with hundreds of politicians and CEOs, either in campaigns or scandal crisis communication. So yes, I have tried to help them come up with messages to spin the conversation in a way that is more flattering to them, that puts them in a better light. There is art to that. One of the things is when people hear you give your spin, they shouldn't be doing a face plant like I can't believe how stupid that is and how stupid someone must think I am to buy that. It has to have some shred of credibility and the Secretary of the treasury failed that Massively. Okay, in a moment, I'm going to do something a little different in the show. Typically we end the show with questions from you. This is a little different. I'm taking questions from a journalist in Bangladesh who is doing a profile on me. He emailed me the questions and I'm just going to do the interview in real time with you right here so you can see. Sometimes you're interviewed and it's face to face. Sometimes it's over the phone, sometimes it's Skype. But there's nothing preventing you from taking questions and then doing it yourself to share with other people. So that is what I'm going to do in just one moment. So stay tuned. Imagine having a communication coach who never sleeps. Meet your new secret weapon, the TJ Walker AI clone. Go to TJWalker AI and start getting custom coaching 24 7. No scheduling, no hourly fees. I train presidents, prime ministers and Fortune 500 CEOs. But the same exact communication I've delivered to world leaders is now available to you online anytime@mediatrainingworldwide.com. whether you're speaking on camera, pitching a client or handling a crisis, you need these tools. These aren't fluffy motivational videos. They're practical, battle tested techniques to help you speak clearly, competently and persuasively. Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and take your communication to the next level. Welcome back to Filtered. I'm your host, TJ Walker. So this will be a little bit different. I typically take a question from you at the end of each show about something unrelated to the news, but really gets to the core of what we're all about. Your success, personal development questions and communication skills questions. Typically it comes from my students. Today it comes from Shafi Bin Mostafa, a journalist in Bangladesh who's doing a profile on me. So I'm just going to share the questions, answer them, and then he'll be able to put that into his story or use any way he wants. But I thought some of you might find this interesting or useful as well. First question, you started your career in 1984. What was the biggest challenge you faced at the time and how did you manage to overcome it? So when I started my career as a media trainer, I was working for free. I was in college. I was an intern for a congressional campaign and I worked with other volunteers. We found a local TV camera operator to come and donate his time and bring in a big heavy camera where we would do a practice for the political debates. So that was kind of my first training, my first real dipping my toe into that arena. And so part of it was just hard even getting an opportunity to do anything like that. Most of my early career was all spent fighting gatekeepers. I had to beg, beg, beg my student newspaper, the Duke Chronicle, to run a column of mine. Occasionally they finally did. I had to beg the powers that be at the student TV station and radio station to start letting me do commentary, kind of like I'm doing now, only way back in the early 1980s. So it was always about the gatekeepers. When I was 23 and working as a press spokesperson for a political official, I spent all my free time trying to figure out how can I become a TV commentator, a talk show host, a radio talk show host, columnist, and all of the time was spent fighting gatekeepers. I would have to. I remember once begging the editor of the Florida Flambeau, which was a student newspaper in Tallahassee, Florida, begging them to run a column. I was told yes, it didn't appear, called three days later, didn't appear called a week later, didn't. I mean, this went on for months. Finally had to give up at age 25. I started my own media company where I was doing political commentary at the time, not the business commentary you see here. And I had to beg someone to give me $5,000 to shoot a pilot. And then I had to physically drive around to every TV station in the state of Florida, knock on doors, begged the station manager, the program director, to air my show. And I did get it on a TV station in every market. But it failed miserably because I couldn't get through the gatekeepers to get advertising so much more complex. There was no such thing as YouTube in 1989. There was no such thing as podcasting, where automatic programming ads could be inserted into your show and you can make some money. So that was the biggest trouble. Even trying to get my columns into free local newspapers was about mailing and calling and bitching and trying to get meetings. So it was a constant game of fighting with gatekeepers. That's one reason why, while I'm happy with my life and, like, where I am now in life, there's a part of me that would love to be, like, 19 years old right now and just create, create, create, and not even ever have to think about gatekeepers, which is the world you live in today, but also the world I live in. Next question. Approximately how many students do you have across the world? And who is your favorite teacher? The one whose lessons you still carry with you? Okay, it's hard to actually count how many online students. I've had tens of thousands of in person students and clients where I do public speaking training, media training, personal development training with them. Typically in a one day workshop, could be one on one, could be 10 or 15 people, could be a two day workshop. That's the standard way I've worked with tens of thousands of people across the globe, but I also have at Last count, about 12 million online student enrollments just from the UDEMY platform. And if you factor in all the other platforms, I'm guessing it's about a million. So my best guess, and this hasn't been audited by an independent auditor, is 12, 13 million people. My favorite teacher. That is a tough one, and it is one that I don't often reflect on because I'm so often about who's the latest person I'm really learning from. The latest person I'm learning from is the talk show host, author, podcaster and tech entrepreneur Scott Galloway. And I'm just about to finish his latest book, Notes on Being a Man, which I do recommend to you, and I'll give you a full report once I finish it, probably in the next 24 hours. I do remember my junior high school advisor named Mr. Montgomery. He was my English teacher in ninth grade, but he was also my student government representative teacher advisor. It was an important year to me in ninth grade because I had been elected to president of the student council of my junior high school, Quail Hollow Junior High School in Charlotte, North Carolina. And he was always there as an advisor, always there, giving good advice, cared passionately about English and learning, but also about kids learning about student government. And it was a year where I got over my own shyness because I routinely had to speak at student rallies in the gymnasium in front of 12,000 excuse me, not 12,000, 1200 students. And I routinely had to get in front of a microphone for the morning student news to talk about upcoming student dance and things like that. So he was very helpful. Also, I did learn from him just how resourceful people could be. He was in a wheelchair. I believe he'd had polio. He's no longer with us. He did pass away a number of years ago, but at one point he was describing how he could drive just by pulling levers. I'd never seen anything like that before. And you never heard him complain. You never heard him ask for special favors. You never heard him say, can you get that door for me? He was very, very independent, lived a full, productive life and was loved by students so that's one teacher that really does stand out. Next question. You're the founder of Media Training Worldwide. You've trained presidents, prime ministers, CEOs, and members of Parliament from across countries. What has been the most unusual or unforgettable experience you've had while working with such high profile clients? Well, I was in one country in Asia with someone who was extremely famous, and his family was very famous in that country. And he said, come on with me. We're just going to go. I got to go. A little speech. We get in a private jet land, and all of a sudden there's 10,000 people yelling and screaming his name. It felt like the Beatles landing at Shea Stadium in 1964. So I never heard such a noise. He said, we don't want you to stand out. So he gave me his clothes to blend in as more of a local. And I wrote, in the car behind him, there was a procession. And every single five feet, there was a giant billboard welcoming this man, a member of Parliament, to that city. I just never seen anything. I've never seen anything like that in America. I've seen parades before, but this was a parade. The streets were aligned. People were holding up their babies, asking this politician, I just spent two days training, you know, one on one with. On public speaking. And they were so excited to see him. At one point, his car stopped. It was surrounded by people. I was in the car behind his. People were throwing rose petals at him, at me, and they're looking, who is this guy? Why are we throwing rose petals at him? It was kind of funny. But then the car stopped. The agents, the protective agents who were in my car, hopped out, went to his for fear something had happened because members of several generations of his family had in fact, been assassinated. So security was always a concern. But it turned out there were no security issues. It was just people. So many of them wanted to meet him, talk to him, have him kiss their baby. Then it stopped traffic. We continued to proceed and just. It was like something from a movie. It was. The sound was deafening of people cheering. And I'll never forget one thing he said to me. I asked him, you know, where are you most comfortable speaking? Where are you least comfortable? He said, well, T.J. i'm really least comfortable speaking to large crowds. I said, guess what? Everyone says that it's completely normal. And then he said, yeah, T.J. i'm very comfortable speaking to small crowds of 5,000 people, but I get nervous speaking to large crowds of 100,000 people. I said, well, that part isn't quite as normal, but the principles apply. Anything you do that you say to 5,000 people or one person, just do exactly the same thing in front of a large audience. As long as you have a microphone, you'll be in good shape. So that was certainly one of the most interesting experiences for me. Okay. And who would you consider the most powerful individual you've ever trained? Could you share a particularly memorable moment you experienced with them? Well, I think I did a little bit in that last one. I have had the pleasure of working with presidents of countries. Not the United States, certainly not the current President of the United States. But I've worked with presidents of countries. I've worked with prime ministers, I've worked with Nobel Peace Prize winners. All of them have power in their own right. I remember I worked with one young woman, an attorney, interested in a political career. She went on to become a United States Senator and has run for president. Didn't become president, but. So I've had the. The privilege of working with a lot of people who did rise to very senior levels of power in their countries, in their governments, and in their private sector. Some of them I'm not allowed to talk about because of confidentiality agreements. But I could tell you everyone's the same in the sense that everyone's a little bit insecure about how they come across, thinking they're boring or they're not a great speaker. Nobody thinks they are innately a great speaker. Everybody thinks they have unique weaknesses, but they're willing to work on it. And that's quite often why they do rise, to high levels of influence. Next question. Over your long career as a media trainer, what do you think has been the most significant change in journalism and the media landscape that you have witnessed firsthand? Well, that's pretty obvious to anyone. We've gone from a system where you had monopolies, you had a local newspaper in most markets in America and a lot around the world. And typically, at least in the US you had three TV stations giving news. They were licensed by the government, and they really, really wanted to be perceived as fair. And they were also worried about losing their license and losing advertisers. So they really kind of stuck down the middle and they called politicians out for lies. You couldn't just lie to them and get away with it. And was it more elitist? Yes. Was it typically more accurate than today? Yes, it was. Now we live in a free for all world where anybody can call themselves a journalist, anybody can make up anything. And the biggest problem is anyone can make up any lie they want. And if they say it with enough conviction and enough authority, and they do that regularly, they will find a tribe of people who want to be lied to. Because confirmation bias, we're all guilty of it occasionally. Confirmation bias is one of the most profound biases. That's part of the programming of human beings. And if you deliver a certain story with confirmation bias that people already want to hear, you can spread that lie. And there's the old saying, a life spreads around the earth faster than a truth can put its shoes on. And that is true. So that's been the biggest change is social media and how someone like a Joe Rogan, no journalistic experience, is considered by some to be the most powerful journalist in America today. With his platform of his talk show podcast, where he reaches tens of millions of people in the world on a regular basis. And outside the news, part of the business, but just the media business. Someone like a Mr. Beast to do what he's done, where he's become essentially the most viewed person in the world, some ways the most famous person in the world, and he still lives in the same small town in North Carolina. That was not possible when I grew up. Question Are you working on any new courses? If so, what specific themes or issues will they focus on? At the moment, I'm 100% focused on this podcast, this show, and this YouTube channel, this TikTok channel, this LinkedIn channel, this X channel, this Rumble and Twitch channel, and my podcasting show that's on Apple and Spotify and all the Amazon music, all of those platforms. So right now I'm 100% focused on one thing, building this show to make it the number one show in the world for people who want to know about the news and also learn some things to improve themselves. So it's not going to be the number one news show ever. But I positioned myself a little differently. This is a hybrid show where I'm blending news, news analysis along with tips, tricks and tools on how you can improve your own communication skills, personal development skills to be more successful. That's what I'm focusing on right now. You've authored many books, such as Secret to Foolproof Presentation, which you see back there right there. Media training A to Z, which is right there. What was your primary goal behind each book and which one holds the greatest personal significance for you? The goal is to really help more people, share more people, brand myself, get more clients, help my existing clients more. Because I'd say, please read the book before we get together for training so that's been the typical goal and using it as a positioning tool for my business. That's what I've done with that. I also did write I don't even talk about it more, but I read a political track 30 years ago which I enjoyed the most. It's not available for sale. I'm not going to mention it because I don't want to send you on a a wild goose chase. But I do plan on writing more books in the future about major cultural issues affecting political life, business life, technology life. The most recent book I did is on how you can make your own interactive AI clone, which I found in a fascinating experience and I'm involved with every single day with and you see the ads right here for tjwalker AI, which is a completely interactive video, audio and text clone of me. So that's sort of the most exciting book that came out just a year or so ago. Next question. As a teacher and experienced journalist, by the way, I don't really call myself a journalist, but I am part of the opinion journalism world, you could say, since I do news analysis. In recent times we've seen governments collapse in several Asian countries and according to international media, extremism is reportedly increasing in Bangladesh. Yes, it is. In such a situation, what role do you believe the media can play in helping to contain extremism in the country? I hate to be a pessimist, but I think the media is playing the role of exacerbating extremism, exacerbating, making tensions worse, getting people angrier and angrier. Which is why sometimes you see governments try to clamp down and just ban TikTok or YouTube from a country. Unfortunately, it's very hard to put the genie back in the bottle. I do think if government ever wants to get serious about this, they could do certain they could put certain safeguards in and say things like, okay, you can't like and share an article on Facebook if you haven't spent at least 20 seconds reading it. Because one of the things Francis Hagen, the well known Facebook whistleblower, has pointed out is you don't have to stifle anyone's ability to post their comments or their thoughts on Facebook if you simply put some brakes on. Because what happens right now is if I were to say, let's say there's a. Let's say I'm the leading Democratic nominee for president, which believe me, I'm not going to run under any political label. Let's just say that I am leading the polls right now for 2028 as the leading Democratic nominee for president. If you are of another party and you do a post, and the title of the post is 100% evidence that TJ Walker is a space alien who was sent here to eat all of our babies. And that's your post. And then you just get on and do a video rant spewing nonsense for the next five hours. That video would go viral on Facebook and tens of millions of people would see it, some would watch it, and it would all be complete nonsense. Because even though I'm not running for president, I can assure you I'm not an alien from outer space sent to eat your babies. But that's a perfect example. People would see the headline and think, oh, it makes somebody on the other team look bad. Let's like share. Like share, like share. And it's jet fuel to nonsense that spews hatred that foments hatred. So I think that the governments are going to have to have some regulation of social media. Not in favor of banning it, but I do think there needs to be some regulation and at some point getting rid of section 230, which basically gives them all these tech companies free ride to any kind of nonsense. And they need to bring back fact checkers. They really do. You may. Okay, I believe that's the last question, so I hope that's helpful. So quick note to you of you watching this. Realize that you don't have to wait for the New York Times or the BBC to call and interview you if you make yourself available. All sorts of people might interview. I have no idea how big or small the audience is of this interview, but I figured it might be interesting or helpful to some of you who want to know a little more about the person you spend time with each day in this show. So thanks so much for joining me. I'm TJ Walker. We'll be back with a regular show tomorrow as we do every single day. See you tomorrow. It.