Anderson Cooper, Kids’ Brains, AI TV, and a Fragile Peace

Foreign. Welcome to Filtered. I'm your host, C.J. walker. Today on the show, we'll take a closer look at Anderson Cooper who just signed a new deal announced. A versatile and durable storytelling force spanning nightly news, long form reporting, population, podcasting, books, you name it. New scientific research that draws a sharp distinction between ordinary screen time and social media. And warns that platforms like TikTok and Snapchat may be rewiring children's ability to concentrate. An AI generated reality show so glitch filled, derivative and lifeless that it serves as a warning about what happens when technology replaces creativity instead of empowering it. And rising tensions over US Drafted Ukraine peace plan with pressure mounting on Kyiv to accept terms that could lock in Russian territorial gains and reshape Europe's security landscape. And a surprising political victory in Miami, Florida. All that and more today right here on Florida Filtered. Thanks so much for joining me today. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Hi and welcome. I'm here on assignment here in Saigon, so not in my normal studio in Florida, but in Saigon, Vietnam. I'll be giving you a special report on some of the political economic developments going on here tomorrow. But for right now, let's dive in to our top stories right here today. Anderson Cooper may no longer have CNN's biggest nightly audience, but Variety reports he just signed a new deal to stay even as the network pivots heavily towards digital. CNN SIL sees him as indispensable. Over the past decade, Cooper has quietly become a one man media ecosystem. He anchors AC360CO, leads a CNN election night and co hosts the network's biggest annual event, the New Year's Eve broadcast with Andy Cohen. He fronts the weekend documentary series the Whole story, contributes to 60 Minutes and hosts the award grief podcast all there is. He's also a best selling author demonstrating rare range from live broadcasting news to deeply researched historical storytelling. Plus he used to do a daytime talk show syndicated across TV networks, TV stations across the country. Okay, so what's the real message here with Anderson Cooper? In the modern media world, versatility is what gets you the contract. Anderson Cooper has a work ethic second to none. He does podcast, he does live election night, he does pop culture New Year's Eve. He really does it all. That's why when other people get fired, canceled, he keeps getting more contracts after more contracts. For here now confession here. I'm not a huge Anderson Cooper fan in the sense that if I see him I think, oh wow, I got to stop what I'm doing and watch him. I don't dislike him at all. I don't really associate him with unique insights that I particularly value or find unique. But that's not really his role as a news anchor and as a reporter. He's shown longevity. He's shown a versatility. I mean, a lot of anchors come and go, especially on cnn. I think of all the hosts I've seen and anchors going way back to 1980, they really come and go. He's had a remarkably long track record and I definitely think back to the times when he was doing nightly show on CNN and had a daytime show, kind of like Oprah, where he was in front of a big audience. That show was cancelled, but he never gets completely canceled. He's doing put, he writes newsletters, it's books. He's seemingly everywhere all the time. He's the key voice on election night. It's very difficult to have that sort of Persona where you can go easily from hard news election night coverage to the pop culture of the ball dropping and bantering back and forth with Kathy Griffin, although she's not on anymore on New Year's Eve. I give him a lot of credit for his versatility. He host of the weekend show the Whole Story. Very serious work on 60 Minutes. Now. There was a time when if you were a 60 Minutes correspondent, I mean, that was it, that was your entire life. Now I don't know how he schedules all of this. Maybe he's doing fewer stories a year than Mike Wallace used to do. Maybe he relies on producers more. But there certainly was a time when if you could get a show on or a story on 60 Minutes once a month, that was a complete full time job. He's on podcasts, he's on the weekends, he's doing book, he's doing everything. It seems like he's the co author, author of a bestseller. Vanderbilt. He is a Vanderbilt. His mom was Gloria Vanderbilt. He's guest hosted Jeopardy. He was considered being a co host with Live with Kelly. So he really goes easily from hard news to soft news to pop culture. And I think that's one reason why cnn, regardless of what happens to cnn, and as you may know as we talk about here frequently, the proposed purchase. Netflix says they have purchased Warner Brothers, which is the owner of cnn. Now Netflix doesn't want cnn. Paramount also is trying to go after Warner Brothers. They say they might actually want CNN and might do some firings there to appease some of their political patrons. But for right now, Anderson Cooper seems to be firmly at cnn. He's seen as their go to Guy, you have to think he is someone who, if the boss says, hey, we need you to be in South Africa in 12 hours, he, he doesn't say, well, you know, let me check my social. He's just, he's on the plane. He's already there. So what's the real lesson for you and for me? I think it's don't pigeonhole yourself. Don't tell yourself I'm only that or I'm only a lawyer or I'm only a surgeon. You know, he doesn't tell himself I, I'm only a serious news person. He doesn't mind guest hosting Jeopardy. He doesn't say, well, if I'm doing election night, I can't possibly do New Year's Eve. No, he does it all. And what I think he finds and a lot of other successful social media figures like Gary Vaynerchuk point this out, is you bring in the more different things you do, the more people see you in different light. It adds, it has a cumulative positive effect on, on your brand. It doesn't hurt, it doesn't detract, it doesn't make you seem less serious. So that's, that's why I wanted to put a spotlight on him today. Because increasingly more of us are worried about our careers, worried about longevity, worried about AI putting us out of business. I don't think CNN is thinking about using an AI clone or AI to replace Anderson Cooper. He's simply too valuable in too many different places. He fills too many different holes, whether it's New Year's Eve, whether it's prime time and the typical week, whether it's the weekend, whether it's filling out their agenda. I mean, they may, they may get to a point where they don't even have a cable linear live show anymore or network anymore, but they're just dispersing everything through podcast. Anderson Cooper's right there. One of the things I have noted when I look at CNN through my Samsung tv, I'm not looking at it through regular cable tv, so I'm seeing it as an app. And what I notice is that instead of regular commercials, they're doing non stop promotion of podcasts from Dr. Sanjay, all their other stars, including Anderson Cooper. So they're, they're seeing the future of tv. This podcast, there's an expression. Scott Galloway says he's another well known business podcaster. I recommend, he says, we live in a world where every TV show has been trying to become a podcast, every podcast is trying to become a TV show. And if you're someone like Anderson Cooper, you're already going back and forth every single day in every direction. So hats off to Anderson. Congratulations for getting another, another lengthy contract. Interesting to me the way his grabbed a camera and started going around the world. Now, he was from a famous and wealthy family, although by the time he was graduating from college, I think most of the family wealth was gone. And then he started off with one of these, these very new networks just for, for high schools and secondary schools in America. He started off that way. He didn't start off working at CBS Day 1. He worked his way up. And through sheer work ethic, through his versatility, he's made himself very indispensable, an indispensable part of the media firmament in not only the United States, North America, but around the world with people who see him on cnn. So think about that with your own career. How can you add to rather than taking things off the plate of what you do, rather than narrowing, how can you give people a sense of who you are, your personality? He's not afraid to do hard news one minute and talk about the grief, the loss of his own mother, own loved ones another minute. It doesn't detract, it adds. So I do find him an inspirational role model. I hope you do as well. I'm T.J. walker. This is Filtered back after these commercial words. Filtered is brought to you by the following Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise want to become a better speaker, leader or communicator? Start with the TJ Walker Success Library. It's five of my most practical books covering everything from public speaking to media interviews and persuasive messaging, all for only $9.95. I've trained presidents and Fortune 5 EOs, and now you can get the same wisdom in a fast, affordable format. Go to tjwalker.com books and download your copies instantly. Thanks for listening. If you like today's episode, you'll love my online courses@mediatrainingworldwide.com. check them out now and level up your skills. Welcome back to Filtered. I'm your host, TJ Walker. Futurism, the online publication, reports on a new pediatrics tracking more than 8,000American children for four years beginning at age 9 and 10. The striking result, social media use. Not general screen time, but social media use predicted growing inattention. Kids went from about 30 minutes of social media a day to 2.5 hours a day as usage rose so did symptoms of inattention. TV and video games showed no meaningful link. A little bit surprising there. Co author Torkel Klingberg says our studies suggest that it is specifically social media that affects children's ability to concentrate. Crucially, kids who already struggled with attention did not start using more social media, suggesting the causal direction runs from fear leads to focus and not the other way around. Okay, what's the real message here? More and more research is showing that kids consuming social media is frying their brain. It's destroying their ability to have focused attention. If you can't focus your attention, you cannot be successful in the modern world. Let's do. Interestingly, a number of countries around the world, Australia most notably, is banning social media for anyone under the age of 16. Fantastic. I congratulate them and I applaud them. I think more, more places should do that. I wish the United States would do that. It's a battle in my own family. I've got to tell you, and I don't know about you, but I find it's even harder for me and I don't spend a lot of time on social media other than responding to you when you leave comments for me or ask questions for me on social media. But I find even the act of going through and reading all the comments and then responding to the comments, which I try to do every few days, kind of fries my brain. The solution is turning off all the screens and reading a good old fashioned paper book. Right now I'm in a book called capitalism, about 900 pages long, very thick, very dense. And the beauty of having a paper book is there are no hyperlinks. I can't go down a rabbit hole. If there's a word I don't know, there's not an easy way of clicking it to look up the definition. Now maybe that's bad, but if I'm reading a paper book, I can't instantly see a text come up. I can't quickly check email because it's a paper book. So my recommendation to you is if you are a parent, try to do what I do in my own household is have a time of the night where everybody in the house reads a paper book. Now I'm not opposed digital reading. I love my Amazon Kindle. I typically do read that for the last hour of the night on a lighting, a light setting that is very, very low, extremely low, a 5 setting on a 0 to 24 setting. But still, there's nothing that beats good old fashioned paper book to bring back attention because you're completely in charge of it. When it's social media, it's boom, boom, boom, zoom, zam. It's just too lightning scroll, next, next, next. And the research is coming in. It's really frying children's brains. As I mentioned, the study tracked more than 8,000. It tracked 8,324 children for four years. The kids were 9 to 10 in enrollment. The social media usage rose from 30 minutes a day to 2.5 hours a day. And TV and video games didn't show this lack of attention. But it's really, it's like adhd. Now, I'm not a clinician, I'm not a medical, a medically trained md so I'm not telling you if your kids watch or absorb any part of social media for a half an hour a day, the ehg. I'm not telling you that. But the research is coming through and it's creating something. It's certainly creating a pattern where kids aren't that different from those who have ADHD as far as their inability to have sustained concentration. And you know, I've noticed this even with friends of mine who have advanced degrees from Ivy League schools. They say teach. I don't even read books anymore. If I can get through a magazine article, that's about as good as I can do. This is a big problem. Now, ADHD is a great. Nine American children are diagnosed that way. Over 7 million U.S. students diagnosed in 2022. That's up from 6 million back in 2016. What is the solution? Well, some countries like Australia and the Danes are simply saying it's illegal. If you can't prove you're over the age of 16, then social media companies are not allowed to give you access. There are some in America say, well, that's, that's ridiculous. That's a violation of your freedom of speech. Okay, but we already age gate selling alcohol. We age gate cigarettes. We, we typically age gate things that are harmful. And there's just more and more research that giving kids unbridled access to social media is harmful. We're running massive, massive experiments on our kids. Now, there wasn't initially strong evidence that heroin or cocaine would damage people. Would you want to give your kids heroin and cocaine until the, you know, the 10th or 20th study came out that says it's harmful? I don't think so. So can we. AI is so good at so many things and it's replacing low. Forgive me if this sounds condescending, but it's replacing relatively low skill jobs like driving. And I understand driving. Can be difficult. I don't like driving. I'm not particularly good at it. But we are already seeing vehicles, whether it's Google or whether it's Tesla Waymo, putting some drivers out of business. It's certainly predicted that we're going to see millions of drivers put out of business and become unemployable. It just here in the United States in the next, well, let's say five years. But it's going to do it to a whole lot of other professions as well. Professionals, but attorneys, radiologists and others. What's the solution? If you want a career or if you want your kids to have a career, it's going to be that you have to do something that's too hard for AI to do. Ultimately, perhaps AI can do everything. But in the short to medium term, I think the only solution is you and I have got to figure out how to do things that are hard to do and valuable. I don't know how you do that without sustained concentration. Your brain is fried. Because every two seconds you're looking at another image or another crypto bro in front of his airplane with a, you know, some sexy, scantily clad person next to him, it will fry your brain. I don't know how you're going to create something of value, anything really valuable to do in our society where you are paid for it typically means you're doing something that other people either aren't willing to do or can't do. Now, I don't want to do things that people aren't willing to do because they're horrible or nasty or painful or unethical. But I do want to do things that are hard to do, which is one reason why I'm doing a podcast every single day. Because most people can't do that or they don't want to do it. It seems too hard. Now, you might have no interest at all in doing a podcast. That's okay. But what is it you want to do? Most people have no interest, really, being a heart surgeon or a brain surgeon. They don't want to go to school, invest a lot of money, go into a massive debt, work 82 hours a week until they're 35, and then work even more. So I do think for the near future, brain surgeons, heart surgeons are going to continue to be extraordinarily well paid because people value having their life saved, because people value having their brain working or having cancer removed. That's just one example. There are plenty of things in every industry that are perceived as valuable to the public. To some sort of customer and are hard to do. This can't be done without having to be focused. Now some things are harder than others. Passing organic chemistry when you're a freshman or sophomore in college is often but it's also a way of keeping you out. I well remember and I was never pre med, but I well remember in college many people just were absolutely certain they wanted to be a doctor, couldn't cut it through the organic chemistry and that sent them into another career path. Now I'm not saying you're a dummy if you can't get an A in organic chemistry, not saying that at all. But I do know you need the ability to have sustained concentration if you're going to get an A or a B in organic chemistry, which is often essential to becoming a doctor. I don't care what profession you're in, you got to be able to focus. You may be someone like a Gary Vaynerchuk, who hated school, got Cs and Ds in high school and college, barely graduated, but believe you me, he's got the ability to concentrate on social media. Creating it, not just watching it and consuming it, but creating it and working with clients and taking meetings from 6am till midnight seven days a week. That takes tremendous, tremendous focus. When he is consuming social media, he's thinking about how do I do this for a client, how do I do this for myself? He's constantly thinking about creating value, not simply other people's value. So that's my real message for you, is we've got to figure out a how do we somehow limit this social media consumption but B how do we limit it for ourselves or use it in a more constructive way? Again, I'm not anti social media. That would be hypocritical of me. Right Now I'm on TikTok live as we speak. Typically I'm live every day on YouTube, on X, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram, on all of them by spend more time creating than just consuming. The other thing is, even though some of you are watching this in the form of a short form 20 second, 30 second video clip, when I'm creating social media, I'm doing it in a long form, substantive way. I'm typically speaking to you in a sustained way for 60 to 90 minutes. I'm trying to have a sustained argument, sustained focus. Typically it's in five topics of the day, but each one it's a deep dive for 10 or even 15 minutes. I'm a big believer that you get value by diving deep by creating sustained focus. So yeah, let's pay attention to these studies. I'm not saying ban it, not saying you can't be on it, but let's try to be restrained. I mean, in some ways it's like alcohol. Occasional glass of wine is probably not going to do a lot of damage to you, may result in a richer but you know, drinking two bottles of wine a day. Very, very destructive for your health. More in a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the following get the deeper takes. I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now@substack.com jwalkersuccess 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 leaders and communicators. Check it out at AI it's not just smart, it's personal. Want to support the show? Skip the ads and buy me a coffee. That's buymeacoffee.com TJ Walker welcome back to Filtered When AI reality TV becomes a warning, not Entertainment Metro critic Tom Percival reviewed a new show called Non Player Combat, the first fully AI generated reality show, and he calls it a disaster. The series features six AI contestants on a deadly island, but instead of an imaginative spectacle, Percival finds incoherence, ponytails changing between shots, teeth fuse into a mega tooth, backgrounds warp and dialogue sounds like off brand reality show cliches. Percival argues that AI should expand creativity, not flatten it. Instead, the show looks cheap, generic and shockingly dull. It demonstrates not the potential of AI but the creative emptiness of using it as a shortcut. Okay, so what's the real message here? Non Player Combat is an AI reality show and it apparently is awful. Guess what? It's the wave of the future. Because a lot of people thought Survivor was awful and a lot of other reality TV shows are awful. But people like it. It's only a matter of time till these AI reality shows are tweaked and it gets people hooked. And at that point you can forget regulator reality stars. They won't be needed. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. Now, I gotta confess, I apologize if I sound like a snobby. I've never really been a reality TV fan, have I caught five minutes here or there a big brother or the original MTV house show. Yeah, but I mean really like five minutes. So I don't really get it, but people love it, whether it's the Bachelor, any of these shows. People love reality shows, but they're not really reality. They are highly fabricated, highly edited, synthesized things. And I do think that AI will be able to do something that captivates people. And a lot of TV critics like the one I mentioned are going to say, this is awful, it's trash, it's garbage. And then you're going to see, oh, that show was number one in the ratings last week. I've been predicting for a while now that we're not that far away from the number one movie in the entire world. Being something a 17 year old creates entirely on a laptop in their bedroom using AI AI characters, AI script, AI music, the whole thing. And it's not going to have great reviews from critics, but somehow it is going to captivate audiences worldwide and it's going to make some 17 year old tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. And at that point, every Hollywood producer in LA is going to go, my goose is cooked. Now it's one thing to say there's always going to be a demand for Meryl Streep, Martin Scorsese and fabulous actors, screenwriters, directors and producers. But let's not kid ourselves. Most reality TV on network tv, cable TV is schlock. It's just stuff put out there to generate some attention from the masses. And if the, the people who are reality stars never get to be reality stars because they're replaced by AI, is that really going to upset anyone? Would the world be so much worse off if Amorosa never became famous? I don't think so. For that matter, the Apprentice itself was a reality TV show. Could a case be made that the world would be much better off if the host of the Apprentice had just stayed with his day job of being a real estate, a semi successful, often bankrupt real estate developer in New York City without getting his own show. Maybe we would have all been a lot better off if that had been an AI driven show or created show and no actual real people ever got on it. So again, this, this is a new show that got out. It got really bad reviews, not creative. Teeth looked funny, ponytails flopping in and out. But be careful if you want to say, well, this AI stuff is just garbage. It gets better every day. The typical movie director, the typical screenwriter, the typical editor does not get better every day. AI is getting better every single day. There's an old expression it's trite. You don't need me to say it, but it's true. The AI you're using today is the worst you'll ever use in your life. It gets better. Sometimes astronomically better, exponentially better. In any, if not any given day, any given week or month, it's just getting better and better and better. So we're not that far away from, you know, an interesting 17 year old coming up with a concept and having the whole thing written and produced by artificial intelligence. Do not judge the first effort of AI by this first show. Now Mozart allegedly or in Beethoven wrote, wrote symphonies when they were five years old. They weren't very good, but ultimately they became quite good. You can't judge any creation by the first few iterations, but unlike actual humans, the AI is getting better all the time. Now Will ub does raise the question, you know, every, every critic likes to think they're above it. I'm not saying I'm above it. Do we get to the point where you can get analysis of the news from an AI comparable to what I do? Perhaps. I'm trying to prepare for that day. Though. I have my own interactive AI video clone, it already can do public speaking training and media training and coach and critique your speeches, your interviews. Could it do the same thing with news? I haven't figured out how to get it to do that quite yet the way I would, but who knows? I'm going to keep an open mind for that. We will see. I'm T.J. walker. You are watching Filter. This is the show where every day I look at the top five stories of the day and then filter it through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills. All with the goal of helping you not only learn more about some important stories going on in the news, but but how to learn more about yourself, how to be more successful in your personal life as well as your professional life. So that's we're about right here. It's a little bit different than most news shows. I hope you like it and if you do, I hope you subscribe. We'll be back in just a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the following. Get the deeper takes. I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now@substack.com jwalkersuccess 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 leaders and communicators. Check it out at TJ Walker AI it's not just smart, it's personal. Want to support the show? Skip the ads and buy me a coffee. That's buymeacoffee.com TJ Walker back, thanks so much for joining me today. We've got more fun to come right here. Let's dive right in to our next issue. Very, very big issue in the news and it has been for, unfortunately, a long, long time. Peace plan pressure on Ukraine puts war gains at risk. The Wall Street Journal reports the US Is pressing Ukraine to accept a peace plan that could force Kyiv to surrender key defensive territory to Russia. President Trump told Politico that Zelensky, quote, is going to have to get on the ball and insisted Ukraine is losing while dismissing European leaders as weak. The proposal's most controversial element is a demand that Ukraine give up a fortified fortress belt zone, a move Zelensky says he cannot accept. He is, however, open to holding delayed elections if allies help voters under attack participate safely. Negotiations now hinge on territorial concessions, NATO's future role, the fate of frozen Russian assets, and whether security guarantees could actually deter Russia from resuming the war. Okay, what's the real message here? History will absolutely conduct demn what this Trump administration is doing siding with Russia. Ukraine is a part of the West. They are a part of our allies. They are a democracy of sorts. And to see thugs, to see a dictator attacking a sovereign state and the United States siding not with our Western allies, not with Europe, but with the dictator, you know, going to go down as an ignominious, shameful moment for America. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. You know, Ukraine is being urged to surrender land to achieve peace. Now, this is exactly what Neville Chamberlain suggested others do to for Hitler. That didn't turn out too well. And Trump is again and again and again siding with Putin. He spends all of his time attacking Europe as weak, old, out of it, bad people essentially. And he never seems to say anything but praise for Putin. Now, I realize it's an article of faith among those on the right who think anytime someone mentions Trump and Russia, it's instantly suspicious. It's instantly something you can write off as a scam, a fraud because there was never conclusive evidence of a meeting where Trump was paid off or where there was some sort of pee tape. And Putin said, I've got this to extort you. You have to do whatever I say because there's not that smoking gun. Somehow it's seen as suspicious to ever talk about the fact that Trump is the first president in the history of the United States to consistently side with a communist authoritarian dictator, essentially and against democratic allies. This has never happened before. There's simply no ideological rationale. Whether you consider yourself a centrist, far right, far left, there's really no ideological rationale for doing this. And it's a huge, huge problem for the entire world. The irony, of course, is Trump fashions himself as some sort of realist, some great dude dealmaker, someone is good at business. This is horrible for business. When you look at the last 70 years around the world, it is the most prosperous 70 year period in the last 200,000 years. When you look at human beings, certainly for the last couple of 200,000 years, but certainly the last 2,000 years, the average amount of growth in any year or decade was minimal. I mean, certainly until the Industrial Revolution a couple of hundred years ago, things were flat. People were basically subsistence farmers, couldn't send things around the world. There was very little trade. And at any given point, starvation was a possibility. 70% of humanity experienced starvation at some point in their life. It was, life was grim, basically. And then things really, I mean, things got a lot better when the Industrial Revolution hit, but things got dramatically better about 70 years ago. World War II ended and the United States said, okay, we're going to write new rules for the world. And the rules are one country can't just gobble up another one because if you do, you're messing with us. And that applies to you attacking ships going from one place to another. That applies to you attacking another country and trying to. Was it perfect? No. Was the United States sometimes hypocritical? Yes. But by and large, there was a framework for the world that created the most dramatic productivity increases in the history of the world. We went from a world where about 70% were living under the poverty line to now we're less than 10% of the world is living below official poverty lines. We've seen massive, massive increases of wealth, of prosperity around the world, in part because the United States role of saying there's going to be order in the world. You can't just take over another country because you want to. And now Trump is sending a very clear cut message, hey, take over another country if you want to. And not only will we not condemn you, we'll say, oh, you're cool and tough. And you other countries, you're kind of weak over here. You're pathetic. You're losers, because you let in immigrants, you know, let in migrants. That's essentially what he's been saying to Europe. And the real problem is this could destroy the golden goose for everyone. It really could. Our entire worldwide economy is so intertwined, and it's so dependent on people from every country being able to ship and sell their products, their services all over the world, knowing if something gets on a boat, it's going to get to where it is. I'm going to start a business today in this building, in this land that I own. It's not going to be taken over by someone else tomorrow. And the Trump administration is saying, no, doesn't matter. We're going to support thugs because if there's some thug who says, I'm a great guy, he's my guy. And if you believe in democracy, if you believe in pluralism, if you believe in an open society, well, you're a bunch of losers, and we're not going to support you any longer. So this is. This is truly bizarre. Now, it's interesting to me that there are so many conservatives out there. I've been listening to Ben Shapiro, who, according to many rating services, as the number one podcast in the world now or in the US for news, he is someone seen as a devout conservative, by no means a Democrat or a supporter of Democratic candidates. But I've listened to his show the last couple of days, and it's fascinating. He does nothing but attack Trump administration policies, but he never mentions Trump by name. It's, on the one hand, incredibly clear analysis of what's going on, destroying the worldwide system of capitalism, the worldwide system of globalization that has made me and so many others rich. And he understands this, and yet he's not willing to call out Trump by name. He acts like there's just some force controlling the administration. Donald Trump is an unwitting victim of it somehow. And I guess he feels like he has to do that, because if he criticizes Trump, Trump will criticize him. He'll lose all of his support. But it is amazing to me to see these. These conservative commentators twisting themselves in knots because, A, they hate these tariffs, B, they're no fans of Russia. They might not love every aspect of. Of Europe and some of its more liberal democracies, but they certainly do not favor Russia just taking over Ukraine because they want it, and yet they're afraid to call out Trump. So I'm here today for you as a sane, sensible, centrist capitalist. I believe in capital. You might not want to believe that. That's okay with you. But I see it as a huge, huge attack on capitalism. For one dictator, for Putin to just say, oh, I want to take over large piece, a large hunk of another country, it kind of destroys the whole notion of capitalism. So you don't have to be a part of the left to say there's a problem with that. And I do think there's a problem with that. So I'll call it like I see it. If I have to attack by name the former vice president, Kamala Harris, I'll do so. Although why anyone would care about her anymore, I don't really know. But if I have to criticize by name the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, and his policies, I'll do that, too. I'm not going to try to play cutesy little games with you where no one on my side can ever be attacked. But I can rip apart anyone on the other side because that is what's happening among the conservative commentariat and the conservative broadcasters. They somehow think that all this bad stuff, these tariffs, like, who's doing this? Where'd this idea come from? It came from Trump. Where did this idea come from that we're going to side with Russia and be against a democratic ally, a European ally like Ukraine? Who's pushing this from outer space? Well, it's coming from Trump. Let's call a spade a spade. Folks, I'm willing to do it here without playing favorites, without trying to give you partisan spin. That's what I'm about. If you like it, maybe this show's for you. If you don't like it, that's okay. You can go watch Sean Hannity or go watch another's. Plenty of shows who are willing to give you confirmation bias every they're willing to tell you whatever suspicion use, right? Anybody you didn't like is horrible beyond belief. Anybody you already decided you like is perfect and without blame. There's plenty of shows like that for you. This isn't one of them. I'm TJ Walker. Back in a moment. Like what you heard. Don't let the algorithm bury us. Subscribe now@substack.com jwalkersuccess 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 ensure. 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. Before we dive in, quick question. Are your communication skills helping or hurting your career? Fix that in 20 minutes a day. Visit mediatrainingworldwide.com Real skills, real results. Welcome back to Filtered some political news. Miami's big Blue breakthrough. Democrat Eileen Higgins has won the Miami mayoral race, the first Democrat in nearly 30 years and the city's first woman mayor, beating Trump backed Republican Emilio Gonzalez by roughly 19 points. She campaigned aggressively against harsh immigration crackdowns and leaned into her identity in a Hispanic majority city. So what's the real message here? The days of Trump endorsing someone and them winning big time. Big.