AI Job Interview Crackdown, Netflix Shake-Up, and Police Power Grab

AI job cheats push companies back to face to face interviews. Millions skip student loans, choosing rent and food instead. Netflix trims its deal with Harry and Meghan. Trump calls for Intel CEO resignation and rare presidential move. And Trump also seizes control of the D.C. police despite lower crime than many GOP cities. Welcome to Filtered. I'm T.J. walker. Okay, we have a lot of fun for you in store today. Thank you so much for joining me. This is Filtered. This is your daily dose, looking at the top business news, technology news stories and culture news stories, all filtered through through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills with a goal of improving your life and improving your own success. Let's dive right in. AI job cheats push companies back to face to Face Interviews Job interviews. The rapid rise of AI and hiring has led many companies to bring back an old staple of recruiting, the in person job interview. Remote interviews became standard during the pandemic, but some candidates are now using AI tools to cheat, feeding answers off screen or even using AI enabled deep fakes to impersonate job seekers. Google, Cisco and McKinsey are among those reinstating at least one face to face meeting in their hiring process. Google CEO Sundar Pichai says they want to make sure the fundamentals are there. Recruiters say it's becoming easier for applicants, especially in coding interviews, to rely on AI behind the scenes. So this is, this is a bizarre story to me. The FBI warns about scams involving North Koreans posing as Americans for remote tech jobs. Believe it or not, some scammers vanish when told to appear in person. Okay, so what's the real message here? If you want a job, especially in technology, you've got to learn how to talk to human beings. Simply staring at a screen on your phone, staring at keyboards is not enough. Big companies have wised up. They know you can be asked a question in an online interview and quickly type up something, look for the answer and fake it. If it's face to face and you're in the same room, you can't fake it. So the more high tech success you want, the more high touch you've got to get with building your communication skills for job interviews. Okay, let's dig a little deeper and really figure out what's going on here. Now, the Wall Street Journal did a major story on that this week. It's been circulating other places, as I mentioned, major companies, Cisco, McKinsey, Google. At some level, it only makes sense if you hire someone, especially for a six figure job. It's a huge, huge commitment. If it doesn't work out. Typically you don't know the first day, the first week, the first month, it's six months in the then you look down and realize they haven't done anything we've asked them to do. We gotta fire them, maybe pay them off. We still paid the recruiter, perhaps the whole year's fee. We gotta hire someone else. We gotta spend all the hr time looking to hire someone again, another fee to a headhunter, potentially we're talking about six figures in expense if you hire someone and it doesn't work out in many cases. So yeah, it's a little more money up front to fly someone in for a face to face interview, but what's a couple thousand dollars for an air flight fee, a hotel, a little food for a day or two versus a lost year of productivity potentially and $100,000 or more of expenses. So I think this is a good idea for big companies. I also think it's a great idea for you. If you're watching this show, I know you already have an interest in building your communication skills, in improving your life, not just in how you code and how you move your mouse, but in every aspect of who you are as a person. So I implore you to really take this seriously. You don't say, oh, I have to have a face to face interview, say, this is fantastic. I get to tell people how great I am and I get to learn more about this company to see if I want to work there. So please, I beg of you, look at this as a great opportunity for you to shine. Because there are some people who are just good public speakers and good communicators. There are also people who are really good at technology skills, but they're not that many people. Don't get high and mighty about, oh, I don't do small talk. Well, if you don't, you need to learn how to do it. It's called being a human being. And last time I checked, corporations are still paying salaries to actual human beings. Yes, they give fees to services and AI services and chips and all of that, but they pay salaries to human beings. And if you want a salary, especially a good salary, then you need to figure out exactly how to come across as a human being. Okay, we're going to go right into issue. 2 million skip student loan payments after a five year pandemic pause. Only about one third third of Americans Only one third of Americans. Best are either unable or unwilling to comply. For many, it's about survival. Housing, food and transportation come before student debt. Others are refusing to pay as a protest after President Biden's loan forgiveness plan was struck down. Consequences like credit score drops, tax refund seizures or wage garnishment can take months or even years to hit. For some gig workers, they may never come at all. Some borrowers say the debt feels too distant to worry about. Others simply can't afford hundreds in monthly payments while supporting a family for millions. Students A live job interviewer. You want to practice when the stakes are low? Join one of my courses and join my free Facebook group. If you want to practice, you can practice with a friend, a family member. But do not go into a job interview cold. You already know in any job interview they're probably going to ask you so what can you tell us about yourself? Why do you want to work here? What's unique about you? Tell us about an accomplishment you know these questions are coming. Go ahead and practice them out loud speaking recorded on video and watch it the Gartner group predicts that one in four candidate profiles could be fake by the year 2028. And I'm not sure what they mean on LinkedIn or elsewhere, but that's a huge, huge problem and companies have to take it seriously. But again, I'm on your side. If you're an individual looking for a job, realize this is a great advantage for you. You're a real person. You don't have to hide behind an AI or a fake or some North Korean bot. You can actually present yourself in a positive way to the world. I've said this before, I will say it again, that the more high tech the world becomes, the more high touch it becomes. That's a saying from John Nesbitt, the author of Megatrends, which he wrote about 45 years ago. It was true when he said it in 1980. It is true today as well. The more we get immersed in technologies and phones and AI and ChatGPT and Internet, the more humans need to look each other in the eye, speak, size them up. Because if someone's considering hiring you, yes, you might be working remotely and it might go well. But there may be times when you have to travel together to give a sales presentation on the other side of the world. They need to know that you're someone who can carry on a conversation because nothing is more awkward than getting on a plane and having a 12 hour flight to another continent. And the only person you know is your colleague, your work colleague, and they can't carry on a conversation. It's awkward, it's rude. People don't want that. Now you can say that. Well, you should only be hired based on your qualifications. Well, one of your qualifications is, do you make the other person miserable for 12 hours? And the answer is yes, you're disqualified. So I urge you, take your ability to communicate effectively with people, whether it's a job interview, whether it's a business networking event, whether it is something that appears to be entirely social. You've got to learn how to communicate with people. Oh, Gigi, I'm not good at small talk. Guess what? There's no such thing as small talk. There's either communication or there's isolation. And it's extraordinarily hard to advance your career if you are isolated. Human beings connect through small talk. If you want to call it small talk and step back for a minute. Are you really so sophisticated that you're only talking about great literature at all times and the finest works of philosophy, philosophical insights over the years, over the millennia? Chances are no. So you engage in small talk as well. You talk about weather, sports, what you didn't like for breakfast. So don't get high and mighty about, oh, I don't do small talk. Well, if you don't, you need to learn how to do it. It's called being a human being. And last time I checked, corporations are still paying salaries to actual human beings. Yes, they give fees to services and AI services and chips and all of that, but they pay salaries to human beings. And if you want a salary, especially a good salary, then you need to figure out protest. After President Biden's loan forgiveness plan was struck down, consequences like credit score drops, tax refund seizures, or wage garnishment can take months or even years to hit. For some gig workers, they may never come at all. Some borrowers say the debt feels too distant to worry about. Others simply can't afford hundreds in monthly payments while supporting a family for millions. Student loans are at the bottom of the list. Okay, so what's the real message here? If you have student loan, you got to pay it back. I'm sorry. It's one of the few things that you can't easily get rid of with bankruptcy. It's unfair, I know, but that is the way it works. If you don't have student debt, be very careful. People sell the idea of higher education as, oh, you're investing in yourself. It always pays off. No, it doesn't. Let's dig a little deeper here. We live in a world where people are always trying to sell you something. There's always a lot of hype, and for many decades In America, it actually was true. What you invested in education did pay back, in part because it was rare for people to have education, deep education. And a long time ago, when my grandmother went to college, it was 1% of people had college degrees. Today, a lot more people do. And there's frankly a flood in the marketplace of really, really sorry to say this, crappy colleges for profit schools, but also nonprofit traditional schools that just aren't very good, that have ratcheted up their in their tuition much higher than inflation over the last 40 years. Why do they do it? Because they could. Because for so long, so many players in our culture have not questioned it. Parents said, well, I'm investing a little junior's future career. I'll pay whatever it takes because I love my child so much. I get it. I love my daughter, too. But you're not helping your child, saddling them with massive debt. If you're a parent and you want to pay the full tuition, room and board for your kid, wonderful. Good for you. I plan on doing that for my child. But let's face it, most people in America can't do that. Especially when you're looking at sometimes 2, $300,000 for a college degree. And if someone's going to professional schooling, it could be even more. So what's the real message here? There's several messages I want to tease out. Traditionally, the message was, don't even worry about college debt. You're going to make so much more in the future. It's going to be insignificant. Well, that was true for a lot of people throughout most of the 20th century and even early in the beginning parts of this century. But the tuitions have just skyrocketed. And why is that? I can tell you. I remember back when I was in college, the business school dean was interviewed by the local newspaper. This was at Duke University. The business school had just doubled their tuition rate. And the reporter for the Chronicle says, why did you double your tuition in one year? Did cost go up that much? And I'll never forget the dean said, oh, no, the cost didn't go up. We just wanted to be as expensive as the more prestigious schools we like to compare ourselves to. Now, Scott Galloway has eloquently spoken about this, that big universities have become luxury brands. I do agree with that. Everyone wants to be the Gucci version, the Rolls Royce version, the Ferrari version of education. And one signaling mechanism is high price. We want to be higher price than everyone else. You know, if you ask most people, do you want a $90 Timex digital watch that sells perfect time or a 10,000 or $20,000 Rolex. People, oh, I want the Rolex that doesn't tell very good time. Why? Because it cost more. At some level, as human beings, we are biologically programmed to value things that cost more, even though it doesn't create more value for us. And people who work for major educational establishments realize that, and they've exploited this against us. And the problem is this massive, massive debt. It's $1.6 trillion of student debt. And the problem so many Americans face is they get sucked into some expensive school, especially if it's a proprietary school. They get massive loans because the government's encouraging us. Everyone's inconsistency players in our culture have not questioned it. Parents said, well, I'm investing a little junior's future career. I'll pay whatever it takes because I love my child so much. I get it. I love my daughter, too. But you're not helping your child saddling them with massive debt. If you're a parent and you want to pay the full tuition, room and board for your kid. Schools, everyone is encouraging individual students to go into debt because everyone's benefiting and everyone's getting a piece of that. The problem. $6 trillion of student debt. And the problem so many Americans face is they get sucked into some expensive school, especially if it's a proprietary school. They get massive loans because the government's encouraging us. Everyone's inconsistent is for the worst of all situations. Someone goes to say, three years of school, racks up six figures of debt, quits school, the program isn't working. They hate school. They don't like the subject. They quit the school. They don't have a college degree. They're not positioned in the marketplace to get a job that pays any more than what a Starbucks barista gets. And that's if they're lucky. And yet now they've got this debt hanging over them. And you've got people saying, hey, pay up. Where's your monthly payment? They can't pay it. In some cases, even if they gave 100% of their income working from a gig job or a Chipotle job, they can't pay it. So they're saddled with this massive debt. That. That's. That's wonderful. Good for you. I plan on doing that for my child. But let's face it, most people in America can't do that. Especially when you're looking at sometimes 2, $300,000 for a college degree. And if someone's going to professional schooling it could be even. It's a horror show. And here's what needs to happen. Parents and students more. So what's the real message here? There's several messages I have got to put their thinking caps on. They've got to open their eyes and realize that education is like any other business. It's like the entertainment business. It's like someone trying to sell you, redoing your driveway. It's like someone selling you magazine subscriptions. It's full of charlatans. Am I saying all education is bad? No. Am I telling you never go to college? No, I'm not telling you that. You've got to be skeptical. It's one thing, and I apologize if this in any way sounds elitist. I don't mean it to be, but it's one thing. If you go into debt because you got into a top 10 business school or a top 10 medical school, it's virtually impossible not to have that debt pay for itself and to get a massive return on investment. But if you're going into $400,000 of debt to go to veterinary school and your starting salary as a vet, I want to tease out, traditionally the message was don't, don't even worry about college debt. You're going to make so much more in the future, it's going to be insignificant. Well, that was true for a lot. It's $50,000. There's a good chance you never claw your way out of debt by people throughout most of the 20th century and even early in the beginning parts of this century, but the tuitions have just skyrocketed in that particular situation. Even worst case scenario, because people do pay for their animals. They love their animals. But if you're going to some of these proprietary art schools with the idea that, oh, Disney's going to hire me, Pixar is going to hire me, who cares if it's $300,000 in debt? Be careful because those big movie studios are now using AI to generate images. They're firing people, not hiring them. Here's what I would urge any young person to do. First of all, without impoverishing your parents, are your parents going to pay for it? Do you have relatives who love you to the point where they would actually pay for a lot of your college education? And even then, ask yourself, am I asking them to pay for something that I'd be willing to pay for out of my own money if I have it? And if it's just to go to major in business at a private school that is completely unselective but is also. And why is that? I can tell you I remember back when I was in college, the business school dean was interviewed by the local newspaper. This was at Duke University that this wildly expensive. If it's a chance to party for four years and major in business and spend $150,000, I'd much rather you ask your family, relatives to just bankroll you in your first one or two or three startups. You could fail at a handful of startups over the next three years. Learn more about business than majoring in business at a third tier, fourth tier private school. That's really expensive. So it's really gotten out of hand how you trace back the last 40 years. The percentages of increase of tuition living expenses for college students has often been double inflation. Now, let me not sound like a complete hypocrite here. I had student debt. I went to Duke University and enrolled in 1981 when the total tuition, I think room and board, was just under $10,000 a year. I got a partial scholarship, merit scholarship, a little bit of a scholarship for being a North Carolina resident. My parents paid most of it, which, thank you very much, I do appreciate that. But still, at the end of my college career, after I graduated four years later, I had $10,000 in debt, which was manageable. So for about 10 years I paid, I think it was like 280 bucks a month. And even though I had some tough years with the financing and my income was up and down, it was still small enough, manageable enough, and it's worked out for me and I've gotten a good return on my investment there. I'd like to think my parents felt like they got a good return as well. But that's very different than getting 90,000 or $120,000 of debt from a university that frankly doesn't have that much pull in the marketplace, doesn't have a lot of respect in the marketplace. And again, it's hard to talk about some of these things without sounding snobbish. I don't mean to sound like, well, you should only pay for a college if it's really prestigious. That's not my message at all. But you do need to look at your return on your investment. We do live in different times. When I went to school, frankly, never occurred to me that I wouldn't be really successful and well off and wealthy. Maybe that was delusional of me, but it was different times. You know, if you're born a white male in America in the early 60s, it just looked like everything was possible. And in fact it was maybe not for everyone, but it certainly was for me. I had the luxury of majoring in philosophy, not because I expected to get a high paying job out of that. I was planning on going to law school. Turned out not doing that. Things still worked out for me and I say that not, not, I hope to sound smug or holier than thou, but times are different now. And if you're going into debt for your education and you're planning on majoring in philosophy or art, some form of art, and you don't have a really strategic plan of how you're going to leverage that, I think you need to ask yourself, is the debt worth it? Are there other ways of doing it? We live in a world now where if you simply want to learn, there's infinite amounts of learning every day for free on places like YouTube and yes, even TikTok, you can get a million books online for free. So maybe if you have a passion for art, but you don't really plan on making a living on it, maybe that's not your major. Maybe you do major in something that's going to get a return on your investment or you know, you're going to get a job that will at least service your debt. That's the big thing I think more and more students and parents need to think of is are we biting off more than we can chew? Because the debt does have to be repaid or it is going to chase you around forever. We're seeing gig workers getting seizures of their wages. Imagine spending 80 hours a week driving around in Uber. Then you're ready to get paid so you could eat so you can buy food. And all of your wages have been seized by the federal government or by some entity to pay back a college loan from 12 years ago. That has to be one of the worst feelings in the world. And it's happening to people all the time. I don't want it to happen to you. So please scrutinize every single thing you hear from any college, university, trade school on how much they cost. What's the best deal? Shop around and don't buy into the hype that education always pays for itself. No, it sometimes pays for itself. It often can result in lifelong debt.

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Netflix Scales Back Deal with Harry and Meghan Netflix has renewed its partnership with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Archewell Productions, but on a smaller scale than their 2020 multimillion dollar exclusive deal. Much, much smaller. The new agreement is a first look arrangement giving Netflix the option to greenlight projects before others see them, but without the same sweeping financial commitment. The couple's earlier slate promised children's programming, scripted shows and films, but only documentaries and docu series have materialized, most notably Harry and Meghan, which did draw record breaking viewership in 2020 or, excuse me, 2022. More recent releases like Meghan's lifestyle series with Love, Meghan have pulled in smaller but still notable audiences while also promoting her consumer brand. As ever, with Netflix sharing product revenue, Season two of With Love, Meghan and a new Ugandan dance documentary are up next. Okay, so what's the real message here? I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone in the entire world would have the slightest interest in Harry and Meghan. Okay, I'm not saying they're bad people. I'm sure they'd be fine next door neighbors, but I've never once heard either one of them say or do anything remotely interesting. And if you're an American, let me remind you the whole premise of being an American Is that the whole concept of being a king, a queen, a princess, a prince, is complete bs. So let's go a little deeper here. This isn't the worst atrocity in the world to happen. I don't want to seem like I'm all worked up over this as some scandal. It's not a scandal. And I guess Netflix does have some numbers to show for one of their earlier shows. But why anyone thought Harry would be this great TV character, Netflix character, it's just beyond me. There is this weird thing in the United States where Americans go gaga over European royalty. I mean, I certainly remember in my younger days, oh, Princess Diana is coming to America. Oh, John Travolta got to dance with her. It must be the most exciting thing in the world. Okay, but again, I have to remind my fellow Americans, and I do appreciate so many of you joining us today from India, from the Asian continent, African continent, continent, and Europe. But a message to my American, grow up. We are Americans because we believe the whole concept of a God, a deity, picking this one person to lord over everyone else and be a king, queen, prince, princess, is complete nonsense. In fact, we actually had a revolution over it. So why we should give them more respect. Again, I don't mean to disrespect them, but the idea that because someone is called king or queen or convinces people to call them prince or princess and the rest of us need to respect that or give that attention, I just find that unfathomable. If I told you, from now on, all of you must call me or refer to me as Lord tj. Call me Lord tj. Call me Lord. Are you going to start calling me Lord tj? I hope not. That would be preposterous. Be silly. So that's my sense here. Here's the other thing that's going on with Netflix is they're finding out that some of these big deals they gave superstars really paid off. You give Adam Sandler a big pile of money. He's gonna make Adam Sandler style movies and millions of people are gonna click and watch them on Netflix. Is he the greatest director of all time? Is he an autier up there with, with John Frankenheimer, Steven Spielberg? No, he's not. But he gets people to watch. And transparency. I watched the latest Adam Sandler movie with my family and friends just last week, and it was good for some laughs. Great serious cinema. No, but good for some family. And so that's paid off for Netflix. Shonda Rhimes is another Hollywood superstar producer who got a big sweetheart deal, but some of these other contracts that they've been giving out $100 million deals with. Netflix is realizing, okay, we're a big successful company, we make billions in revenue, but maybe we need to tighten the purse strings a little. And as much as I happen to like the Obamas, maybe the sweetheart deal they got was not the best deal for Netflix. And I've watched some of the documentaries and shows involving Barack Obama, and there's some good stuff there. But is it really something Netflix needs to spend $100 million on? I don't know. So Netflix is scaling back, and this is part of a broader trend of these streaming networks all got so excited. You know, for a long time, Netflix had a monopoly, essentially. And then everyone, every major media company, every TV network, every media conglomerate said, hey, Netflix can do it. So can we. So you had Paramount and Apple plus and, you know, CNN plus for about five seconds. And everyone wants to get into this streaming media world where people pay up front, got to get that money. And so they spent billions advertising it, thinking, okay, we can lose money today. We'll make it up in the long run. And then it was, okay, we can lose money this month, we'll make it up in the long run. And it was this quarter. We'll make up in the long run. And then it's this year, we'll make up in the long run. And before you know it, the long run is here. And so many of these streaming companies are losing money, and that's just not cutting it any longer. So there's cutbacks. One of the biggest challenges Netflix is facing and Apple plus and CNN plus is with YouTube. That's right. Maybe I'm not the biggest threat to Shonda Rhimes or Harry and Megan, but there are people like me right here on YouTube and Facebook and TikTok who are producing content, and there is zero risk to YouTube. I could put tens of millions of dollars into this show if it doesn't work out. YouTube still makes money because they're not paying for production. And so that's one of the big problems facing Netflix and all of these streamers is their business model is really quite flawed compared to the social media platforms, where they can have zero risk unlimited programming. And yes, a huge amount of programming on YouTube is awful. It's garbage. It's people staring at their navels in a poorly lit room, but nobody has to watch it. If you're only doing three shows a day or three shows at any one time, and one of them is somebody staring at their navel in a dimly lit room. Okay, you're gonna lose a fortune. But if you have billions of videos going up every day, and that's only a slight exaggeration, then it doesn't matter. You get 1/10 of 1% of 1 penny per video, you're still making a fortune. And that's why I and many others believe that YouTube is one of the most undervalued media properties in the world. I mean, it's, it's just, that's the real opposition for Netflix. It's not necessarily Amazon Prime. Amazon prime is another one that has spent a ton of money on content and realized, hey, this is harder than we thought. We can hire a bunch of big name stars, we can hire Steve Carell, we can hire Reese Witherspoon, we can hire former friends stars, and maybe not many folks still want to watch our content. So it's a very difficult thing creating content, attracting enough eyeballs whereby either people pay directly for the content or you have such a huge audience you can make money from advertising. Somehow Harry and Meghan have talked their way into more deals. I don't get it. You know what, it's a big world. You don't have to like everything I like to watch or read. I don't have to like everything you like to watch or read. But this Harry Megan thing I do find a bit perplexing because I'm just not seeing it. To me, there's no this there, there. And at some point I think it's going to implore. At some point I think they're going to put some show or some podcast out and it's not going to have low viewership. They're going to find it's like going to have negative viewership. They're going to find, even putting it up there are going to find, they're going to find a lack of, or they're losing subscribers to that point because it really just does seem to be a bizarre, bizarre situation. Let's go on to our next fun story. And this is, this is truly bizarre in another way. Trump's unprecedented attack targets Intel. President Trump has done something virtually unheard of in a free market democracy. Publicly calling for the resignation of a major public company's CEO. Trump's urged Intel's lippbutant to step down, claiming he was highly conflicted over past investments in Chinese firms. Tan is an American citizen, born in Malaysia. Took over intel in March to leave a high stakes turnaround. In just months, he's announced a 15% workforce cut refocused on AI chips and scaled back costly factory plans. While it's not illegal for Americans to invest in Chinese companies, the attacks mark an extraordinary presidential intrusion into corporate leadership. Ten has defended his record, stressing his 40 years in the US and loyalty to the country, while Intel's board continues to back him. Okay, what's really going on here? This is an example of the US Media sane washing what a president. This is absolutely insane to see the President of the United States trying to tell the private sector who can be the CEO and who has to leave. This is something you see in fascist totalitarian regimes. This is something that happens in modern day Russia. And the fact that every single CEO in America isn't standing up screaming about this shows they're cowards and no one should feel sympathy for them when they are next. Okay, let's go deeper here. It's all well and good for anyone for me, you to have an opinion about if someone is a good leader of a company. There's nothing wrong with that. But when the President of the United States uses his bully pulpit to finger out a particular company. Now, this is not a strange thing for Trump to be attacking companies, but to be calling for a CEO to really step down is a bit something. I have no idea if this CEO is a good CEO or if he should stay. I'm 100% certain I don't have the knowledge to judge. Intel certainly had a rough patch for a number of years, and in the processor space, a lot of other companies are doing much, much better and delivering better value for their investors. But I'm not here as your investment advisor or as an analyst in that particular industry. So I'm 100% certain I'm not qualified to tell you who should be the CEO of Intel. But I'm also 100% certain that Donald Trump, the President of the United States or any President of the United States should not be dictating to private sector companies who their CEO should and shouldn't be. I'm 100% certain of that. Now, intel has had layoffs, they have scaled back factory plans. But right now the board and a lot of figures in Silicon Valley support tan. And you know, if you're going to believe in capitalism as all the MAGA people claim to and as the Republican Party traditionally has said they believe in, you have to give the power and the voice to the board of directors, the shareholders, not to a government official, a bureaucrat essentially in Washington D.C. now, the other bizarre thing about this is, frankly, everyone seems to forget this when it comes to business, there are few people in the entire world less qualified to give someone instructions on how to run a big publicly traded company than Donald Trump. The only experience he had was with his publicly traded company for casinos, and he drove it into the ground while enriching himself. He's bankrupted for companies, and I realize among a lot of people in the world, they think of, oh, Donald Trump's a businessman. He's not a politician. No, he's not. The only business Donald Trump has ever really done well in is the television business, where he portrays the character of a successful business leader. Don't take my word for it. Look at major media outlets, business outlets like Bloomberg News, and the New York Times business section that did extensive profiles of all of Donald Trump's business dealings before he entered politics in 2016. And what they discovered was he made no net money. When you factor in all the money his rich daddy gave him, he would have been richer if he had been a public school teacher or for that matter, had just stayed home and played video games for 40 years and put his daddy's money into an S&P 500 index fund. He would have more money if he had done that than through his Trump airlines that went bust and his football professional football league that went bust, and his steak company that went bust and his casino company that went bust and numerous real estate deals that went bust. Pretty much the only thing that's really worked well for him is selling his name because he's a TV celebrity and he wasn't able to sell off the properties his daddy gave him because it was structured in the will where some of the monies went to other family members and he couldn't sell them off. So it's one thing to take business advice from outside sources. It's another to take business advice from someone in a position of governmental authority, like a president. But it's another to take advice from someone where every single thing he's touched in the business world has been a massive failure. Now, the only thing Trump has done well before he started politics was being a TV personality. And since entering politics, well, he's great at graft. He's great at corruption. He's great at lining his pocket. He's great at commingling the power of the federal government to put a spotlight on his golf courses and in other countries like Scotland, to create meme coins and other BS cryptocurrencies. He's great at graft. So you got to give them credit for that. If you're looking for a con man to figure out how to corruptly commit graft. Trump's good at that. But last I checked, Intel's not in the graft business. They actually make real things. They make real semiconductors used in computers and electronic devices all over the world. So they're not in the graft business. If they want to change their business model and say we want to become con men, by all means they should listen to President Trump. But if that's not their goal, they need to completely ignore him. Which thankfully, so far at this point, they have. More in a moment after these commercial words.

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Trump seizes DC police despite lower crime than many GOP cities President has put Washington DC's police department under federal control even though the city's violent crime is at a 30 year low. Let me restate that. Even though the city's violent crime rate is at a 30 year low, last year Washington recorded about 1,005 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. That's far below Republican led Memphis, Tennessee with more than 2400 violent crimes per 100,000. Little Rock, Arkansas with over 1900 and Tulsa, Oklahoma with more than 1300. Trump calls the Capitol unsafe and dirty, framing the move as a real estate fixer upper project. His plan is to clear graffiti, trash and homeless encampments. Critics say the move ignores the data and sets a dangerous precedent. They warn it could pave the way for the federal government to take over local police anywhere in the country. Some see it as the first step toward nationwide martial law. Okay, what's the real message here when President Trump takes over Washington D.C. he's saying, okay, folks, I told you I was going to be dictator day one. Here I am. It is for real. This is what dictators do. They take over one city at a time and before you know it, democracy is melted away. This is the beginning of martial law and the end of the American Democratic experience. Let's dig a little deeper. This is getting attention as it deserves, but it's not getting the condemnation. It's one thing for centrists like me to criticize this and liberals and progressives, but there's so many conservatives out there who think of themselves as believers in rule of law, of limiting government power, of having checks and balances, who are just silent on this. And their thought seems, well, you know, Washington D.C. that is some hellhole. It's like New York City. A hellhole. Wrong. What Trump does. You know, if, by the way, if New York is so bad, why did he live there his entire life till he moved to Washington? New York City has one of the lowest crime rates in the country and is much lower than rural Republican areas in terms of violent crimes per thousand people. You hear about it more because Rupert Murdoch and conservative media have a vested interest in making rural areas MAGA states fear these urban centers because it's a way to get people angry and a way to get them to vote against Democrats. That's the message. So it serves political needs, even though it's based on complete BS and complete demagoguery. Now, as I mentioned to you, I'm going to say it for the third time. Crime is lower than Washington D.C. than it has been in 30 years. I well remembered what Washington, D.C. was like in the early 1990s. I lived there. I had things stolen in my car. I remember my first day walking home from the Capitol, where I was working for a member of the House, seeing somebody held up at knife point right across the street from me at that point. It really was a dystopian place. I had to step over all the homeless people just to get out of my apartment to walk to the Capitol in the Capitol Hill area. It's not like that anymore. You go now, I mean, it doesn't look that much different than, frankly, Palm beach, where President Trump resides, officially parts of Beverly Hills. It looks like it. Is it perfect? No. Do they have garbage? Yes. So does every other city. And for people just to sit back and say, okay, this is Trump and he does things a little differently, that can't cut it. Every, we can't keep saying we're going to change the law for this guy because pretty much there is going to be no such thing as law in America. There is simply going to be dictatorial decree. And we're not that far away from a decree coming out that could be as ridiculous as, okay, every, every person in the world is going to have to shave the entire top, their head and let one side of their head grow out three feet long, tease it, hairspray it, dye it orange and paint their face orange every day or you're going to seek, or you're going to get imprisoned. I don't think we're that far away from something like that happening. Maybe not that exact example, but something like that could happen. I don't think we're that far away from Trump, for example, saying, okay, I'm now going to have, I'm going to take control again of the Miss Teen Universe contest, which he did in fact own at one point, and say, every, every city and town in America has to run this competition. And the winners of every state will come to Washington D.C. for one year, live in the White House for one year, and be a part of the presidential concubine. Sounds ridiculous. Sounds crazy, right? Well, so does almost everything we've seen in the news for the last six months coming out of Washington D.C. it's not half as crazy as the federal government taking over Washington D.C. at a time when crime is at a near all time low because it's out of control and there's too much crime. If facts no longer matter for this decision, this decision, this decision and this decision, then when it comes to a decision that affects you and your own family, you can't just say, oh, wait a minute, those facts don't warrant the situation. It's going to be too late. So that's really the message, as I see it coming out of Washington, D.C. which is, folks, I was serious about wanting to be a dictator. I was serious about saying, anyone who's in a different political party, they're not real Americans. They don't deserve the right to hold power or to vote or to serve in legislative bodies. I don't think we're that far away from Trump calling up his henchmen at the FBI and, and getting Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and that entire branch of government to simply start arresting prominent Democrats. Okay, you are a minority leader, Jeffries. You're the head of the Democratic Party in the House. You could be the next speaker. Let's just put you in prison. I don't think we're that far away from that, because the pattern is, is very simple. Trump says, what can I do to put either more money in my pocket or give me more power or punish and torture an opponent? And every single prominent Republican either bites their lips, says nothing. They don't stand up to him. The courts don't stand up to him. The Supreme Court is like, hey, whatever you want to do, boss, is the attitude. And when you've got the House, the Senate, and the administrative state and you've got the Supreme Court letting you do whatever you want, there's literally nothing stopping him from taking everything away from you and me. That's the message as I see it. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me today. Every single day, what I try to do here is look at the top stories of the day. Business news, technology news, culture news. And yes, a part of culture is politics. This is not trying to be Fox News or msnbc. I am a centrist, and I give it to you straight and objectively based on what I see as it relates to facts and as that relates through the filter of communication skills and personal development. So that's what I'm trying to do here. You may know, I hope you notice if you watch this show throughout, I leave the political stuff at the end. I'm much more interested in the latest story in technology and business and what's going on to create more wealth for the whole world. But when you have an authoritarian sticking his finger in every aspect of culture in the economy, it's hard to ignore it. Thanks so much for joining me. This has been filtered with TJ Walker. See you tomorrow.