Babies Glued to Screens, Trump’s Spirit Bailout & WH Dinner Manifesto Panic

Here we're going to dive right in. Ultimize. More than two-thirds of babies under the age of 2 are already using screens, some for hours a day, some for most of the day. Newborns, not teenagers, not middle school students, but newborns before they can walk, before they can talk, before they can focus their eyes properly. They're already being trained to stare at glowing rectangles. And the guidance from health experts has been crystal clear for years: under 2, basically no screen time. This is based on a New York Times story in today's Times. So this isn't confusion, this is complete collapse between what we know and what we do. And 20 years from now, I don't think this will be seen as a gray area. I think this will, this will look like one of those moments in history where people said, uh, wait, What were we doing to kids? Like when we used to put lead in paint, or when doctors were endorsing cigarettes. I think people will look back and say, you let babies sit for hours a day consuming digital content during the most critical stage of brain development? Because that's what this is. Early childhood is not just another phase. It's when the brain is wiring itself. Attention, language, sleep, emotional control, human connection. And we're replacing eye contact with autoplay. We're replacing conversation with algorithm. We're replacing boredom, which is essential, with constant stimulation. And then we wonder why kids can't sleep, can't focus, can't regulate emotions. Now let's talk about the companies, because this didn't happen by accident. Social media companies and content platforms have spent years perfecting one thing: addiction. Not engagement, not education, but addiction. They test thumbnails, sounds, pacing, colors, infinite scroll, autoplay, all designed to hold attention as long as possible. And when those systems end up in the hands of a toddler, They shrug and say, well, you know, I guess parents should use parental controls. Oh really? Let's talk about that fantasy because Apple, Google, and every phone manufacturer love to say, we give parents tools. No, you give parents a maze. I've spent hundreds of hours trying to lock down my own kids' phone. Not 5 minutes, not an afternoon, hundreds sitting buried inside settings. Restrictions that don't stick, workarounds kids discover in 10 seconds, apps that bypass the limits through other apps. You block YouTube, suddenly it's accessible through a browser. You limit screen time, the device just asks the kid if they want one more minute, like it's a bartender doing last call. This is not a serious system designed to protect children. If these companies wanted parental controls to work, they would. One screen, have 3 buttons, no social media, time limit, 1 hour, blocks at 8 PM. You'd be able to go boom, boom, boom, done. Instead, they give you something just functional enough to avoid blame, but not effective enough to reduce usage. Because let's not pretend, their business depends on screen time. Not your child's development. They don't really care about that, but screen time. And now we get to the part nobody wants to say out loud. Parents, look, parenting is hard. Get it, believe me, I get it. Everyone knows that. People are tired, people are working, people are overwhelmed, but difficulty does not change responsibility. If your 8-year-old demands a bottle of vodka and threatens to scream in public, you don't just hand over a bottle of vodka. If your 6-year-old demands cigarettes and says they'll throw a tantrum, you don't say, "Well, I just need a peaceful dinner. Here, take all the smokes." But when it comes to screens, a kid fusses for 10 seconds, boom, here's an iPad. Kid gets bored, boom, here's a phone. Kid doesn't want to sit still at a restaurant, full volume cartoons at the table. It's not a rare exception anymore. That's the default. And I can't remember the last time I was in a restaurant where at least half the kids weren't staring blankly into a screen, completely disconnected from their parents, from other kids, from the world. It's their families sitting together, not interacting, just coexisting with devices. That's not bonding. That's sedation. We somehow decided that kids should never be bored. Really? That boredom is this emergency condition that must be treated immediately with a screen. But boredom is where imagination starts. It's where kids learn to talk, to observe, to ask questions, to interact. If a child can't sit through a meal without a screen, the problem isn't the meal. The problem is we've trained them to need and crave constant stimulation, and then we act surprised when real life which is slower, feels unbearable to them. Here's the bigger issue: when screens become the default solution for meals, for tantrums, for downtime, for everything, kids never develop the basic human skills they actually need— patience, conversation, attention, emotional regulation. Because why would they? They've been trained that discomfort disappears the moment a screen appears. And real life just doesn't work that way. The biggest lie in all of this is that technology is helping parents. No, it's replacing them in key moments. Not completely, but enough to matter. The algorithm is not your co-parent. The iPad is not your babysitter, and YouTube is definitely not your child's developmental specialist. If these companies really cared about kids, parental controls would be simple and bulletproof, but they're not because your child's attention is the product. So yeah, these companies deserve blame. They built systems designed to capture attention at all costs. The phone manufacturers deserve blame. They pretend to empower parents while making meaningful control nearly impossible. But parents have to take responsibility too, because at the end of the day No algorithm walks into a restaurant and hands a toddler an iPad. A parent does. And if we don't get serious about this now, we're not going to have kids who— we're not just going to have kids who like screens. We're going to have a generation that can't function without them. Kids who scroll before they speak every time, who can't tolerate silence, who see the world not as something to engage with, but as something to escape from. And that's not just a tech problem, that's a parenting problem, and it's one we can still fix, but only if people stop pretending it's normal. I'm TJ Walker. This is— Quick thought before we move on. If you're like most people, you don't need another idea. You need something that actually sticks, because the real game isn't learning once, it's seeing the same useful message enough times that it finally becomes automatic. That's exactly why I created Ultimize. So if this show is giving you even a little value, go to ultimize.com and grab a free course. There's one on communication skills, one on building better habits. Just pick one and start. It takes about a minute to sign up. It's free, and it's actually designed to stay with you. ultimize.com. The US government is seriously considering spending $500 million to take up to a 90% ownership stake in Spirit Airlines. Yeah, the same airline where the seat cushion costs extra, the armrest is optional, and if you make eye contact with a flight attendant, they charge you a premium interaction fee. This idea is getting shredded in a New York Times column by Steve Ratner. And unlike most people yelling about bailouts, this guy actually ran one. He ran the car bailout. During the Obama administration. So when he says, let this airline die, it's not emotional, it's informed. Let's be honest about Spirit. This is not a great company having just a bad year. This is a bad airline having its most on-brand year ever. Their whole business model was, we're cheaper than everyone else. And then every other airline said, cool, we'll match your price, but also provide oxygen and dignity. Game over. Customers got tired of paying $19 for a ticket ticket and $400 for sitting indoors. Spirit tried to pivot, added perks, tried to act like a real airline. That's like a gas station sushi stand suddenly saying, "We're now fine dining." Well, no, you're not. And the result? Two bankruptcies in less than a year. That's not turbulence. That's the plane already in the ocean and someone suggesting we upgrade the Wi-Fi. Now, here's where people get intellectually lazy. They say, well, Obama did bailouts too. Yeah, and that's exactly why this argument falls apart, because those two things are not even in the same universe. During the financial crisis, the government stepped in to save the auto industry. Why? Why did they do that? Because if that collapsed, you weren't losing one company, you were losing millions and millions of jobs, entire regions, suppliers, factories, the economic equivalent of pulling the engine out of the plane mid-flight. So they did it carefully. Experts, analysis, conditions, restructuring. The companies had to fix themselves, and the government got out as quickly as possible. It was like emergency surgery, but This, with Spirit, this is cosmetic surgery on a corpse. Now let's look at what Donald Trump is proposing. There's really no plan, no conditions, no restructuring requirements, no timeline, just, eh, we'll buy it. That's not economic policy. That's a guy who bankrupted casinos looking at an airline saying, I got a good feeling about this one. And here's the fundamental issue. Capitalism requires failure. If every bad business gets rescued, you don't have capitalism, you have a daycare for CEOs. The airline industry is famous for destroying companies. Pan Am gone, TWA gone, Eastern gone. Even Warren Buffett basically said aviation is such a bad business that someone should have stopped it at the Wright brothers. And now we're pretending Spirit Airlines, the Greyhound bus of the sky, is too important to fail. Really? If Spirit disappears, planes don't vanish, routes don't disappear. Passengers just migrate to airlines where the tray table doesn't feel like a rental. People keep saying Obama did bailouts too. Yeah, and a fire extinguisher and a garden hose are both water. That doesn't make them the same thing. The auto bailout was about stopping an economic collapse, millions of jobs, entire industries, and it came with strict rules. Companies had to restructure, clean up, prove they could survive. The government got in and got out. This, this is rescuing one airline that already failed twice. No plans, no conditions, no exit. That's not saving the economy. That's Venmoing half a billion dollars to the worst airline in America and hoping it figures things out. And if that's your economic strategy, Spirit isn't the only thing that shouldn't be flying. And the hypocrisy here is incredible. For years, Trump and his allies preached free markets, let businesses fail, no government interference. Now we might buy an airline. That's not capitalism. That's QVC for bankrupt companies. Act now, we'll take 90% ownership and throw in a failing business model for free. Let's just call this what it is. Donald Trump sees a failing airline and thinks the solution is to own it. No turnaround plan, no restructuring, no explanation of how it ever becomes profitable. Just, we'll take control. It's like buying a restaurant because the food is terrible and saying, good news, now I own the bad food. And here's why this matters. The moment companies believe the government will bail them out after repeated failure, the whole system breaks. Why fix your business? Why cut cost? Why make better decisions? Just crash hard enough and maybe Washington buys you. That's not capitalism. That's a rewards program for incompetence. And in this case, we're not even talking about something essential. It's one airline. If it disappears, America will still have planes, airports, and unfortunately, people reclining their seats into your knees. We don't need to save this. We need to stop pretending every failure is a crisis. This is not a systemic emergency. This is not 2009. This is not millions of jobs hanging in the balance. This is one company that couldn't make its model work. And the smartest thing the government can do, the most disciplined pro-market decision, is exactly what Ratner argues. Let it fail. Because if you keep rescuing companies like this, you don't prevent disasters, you create more of them. And from now on, yes, assume that it's a bad thing to do. Okay, one other thing. I want to be fair. The Obama administration— and this is according to Ratner, and you can look it up— also made a blunder. Spirit tried to merge with another airline during the Obama administration, and the Obama administration said, no, we want more competition. So Hey, I'm fair here. I'm here as a sane, sensible centrist. I'm not carrying water for any one political party. So the Obama administration does deserve some blame for not letting Spirit be absorbed when it was obvious they couldn't really do things very well on their own. But that doesn't excuse this latest Trump boneheaded idea. More to come. Hey, I hope you're getting some value out of the program today. If you're interested in being more successful in your own life, then I urge you, it's time to improve your personal development habits, your good habits, and your communication skills. To do that, I have a free course ready for you. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's U-L-T-A-M-I-Z-E dot com. And you can start learning techniques that I've taught to presidents of countries, prime ministers, Nobel Peace Prize winners, and now you. No obligation, no charge. Go to ultimize.com. Cole Allen, 31 years old, accused in the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting attempt. Okay, we got to talk about this guy. Before we can even know all the facts, before investigators finish their work, before anyone takes a breath, Donald Trump and his allies jump in with the same script. This is the left talking about why Cole Allen did this. This is Democrats. This is progressive ideology and rhetoric. Yeah, of course it is, because in modern politics, a violent individual is never just a violent individual with guns. He's a branding opportunity. He's a chance to say, this proves everything I already believed about people I don't like. Now, here's what's interesting about this guy. His background is all over the map. Reportedly, he's a Caltech graduate. He's a mechanical engineer. He's a tutor. He's a video game developer. He's a Christian fellowship involvement guy. So if we're going to play this ridiculous guilt by association, and apparently we are, then at least let's do it honestly. Which part explains the violence? Is it Caltech? Should we start rounding up engineers? "Sir, we're going to need you to step away from that spreadsheet." Is it video games? "Put the controller down slowly. You're under arrest for potential future crimes." Is it tutoring? "Excuse me, are you helping children with math? That's suspicious. Come with us." Or is it Christianity? Because this guy referenced Christian ideas in his manifesto and was involved in Christian fellowship. So, I guess the logical conclusion is Christianity is the radical terrorist organization. We need surveillance in churches, metal detectors at Bible study, undercover agents at potluck dinners. Sir, what's in that casserole? Faith? Step aside. It sounds insane. It is insane, and yet it's exactly the same logic Trump uses every time a violent person can be loosely tied to a group he wants to attack. Let me show you how stupid this blame game is. This suspect reportedly had a Christian background, involvement in church, Christian fellowship, even religious justification in his manifesto. So using the same logic politicians use all the time, I guess the conclusion is obvious: Christianity is dangerous, shut it down, monitor churches, put the choir on a watch list. That's ridiculous, right? Of course it is. One disturbed individual does not represent millions of people who share a label. But that's exactly the argument we hear every time a shooter can be loosely connected to "the left" or immigrants or Muslims or Black Lives Matter or whatever the target is that week. It's not serious thinking. It's just turning tragedy into a political attack ad. By the way, we can play this game all day long. He's biracial, Black and white, so what's the argument? Mixed-race people are dangerous. He went to an elite science school, so we should say higher education creates violent extremists, right? Should we fingerprint every valedictorian? Congratulations on your GPA, please report to the police station. This is what happens when people start— or stop thinking and start tribalizing. Everything becomes evidence for whatever narrative you already wanted to push. But here's the part that actually matters. This guy allegedly traveled across the country with weapons— a shotgun, a handgun, multiple tools for violence, knives— and instead of focusing on how this happens, how someone unstable gets access, travels, and gets close to a high-profile event, we get this nonsense debate about which group can we blame? Because blaming a tribe is easy, fixing a system is hard. Here's the real question nobody in politics wants to answer: how does a guy like this get armed, travel across the country, and get anywhere near a major political event? Not what label can we slap on him, not which group can we demonize. Look at the background: engineer, tutor, Christian involvement, gamer. None of those really explain violence. But access to weapons, yeah, that's real. And every time something like this happens, politicians dodge the question because it's uncomfortable. It means confronting gun laws, the NRA, and decades of failure from both parties. Blaming the left is easy. Explaining why anyone can build a personal arsenal and walk into a situation like this, that takes actual leadership, and that's exactly what's missing. and this selective outrage is what makes it so dishonest. Donald Trump was found liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. We don't say, well, that proves all white men are predators. We don't say he owns suits, therefore menswear is a gateway crime, but we understand normally that individuals are responsible for their own actions until politics enters. Then Suddenly, every crime is a group project. This is the real danger, not just the violence itself, but the way it gets weaponized afterwards. Every tragedy becomes a chance to divide people, to inflame, to score points. Instead of asking, how did this happen? How do we prevent the next one? We ask, can we blame? That helps— can we blame something that helps our side? The answer shouldn't be complicated. Punish the individual, investigate real connections if they exist, fix security measures, and yes, address how easy it is for unstable people to get weapons. What we should not do is pretend one person's actions define millions of others, because that's not analysis, that's just prejudice with better lightning. That's today's Filtered. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm TJ Walker. If you're new to the show, I am a personal development and communication skills expert. I have 12 million students, all over, student enrollments all over the globe in my online personal development communication skills courses. So I analyze the day's news through the lens of personal development and communication. So that's why we're here. We are not sponsored by big gun manufacturers or by cell phone manufacturers that try to get kids addicted. We are sponsored by me and my company, specifically Ultimize. If you want a free online course on how to be a better communicator or how to have better daily habits in your life, all you have to do is go to ultimize.com. Special hello to my good friends on TikTok. We've just resumed our livestream on TikTok every day. For technical boring reasons, we're doing two separate streams here with different cameras at the same time. But hello to David, hello to DJ, and hello to Noel. Thanks for joining us. One topic I was tempted to do today, but I just came to the conclusion I don't have that much unique to say about it. Once again, the Trump administration is indicting Comey, the former FBI Director James Comey, for the alleged crime of trying to incite violence by arranging seashells in some secret pattern that allegedly would have, uh, presumably incited violence. It's an absurdity. This is one reason why I think Democrats are fooling themselves if they think the elections are going to be run fairly and honestly in 2026. And just because polls show the Democrats winning big time in House races and possibly even the Senate I think they're fooling themselves. They're deluded. Uh, Trump has learned one thing and one thing only in this administration. In the short term, he can get away with anything. Yeah, maybe 3 months later, courts shut him down or reverse something, but in the short run, he can do anything. And what he's doing with Comey is testing, is saying, I can indict anyone, essentially destroy their life, cost them so much money to defend themselves, disrupt their life, but they're basically taken out of play. So he's focus grouping this concept with not just some random Joe, some unimportant, powerless individual. He's going after an extraordinarily famous, rich, powerful person, the head of the FBI. And he's ensnaring him with fake phony indictments that his henchmen have cooked up. It will eventually be laughed out of some court, but it's enough to tie up Comey, disrupt his life. I think he's test marketing this. He's doing it because maybe about a month before the election— here's my prediction— Trump and one of his henchmen, perhaps Miller, will just start this idea that the Democratic Party in America is a terrorist organization and it is henceforth banned. And we're going to have elections, but nobody will be allowed to run as a Democratic candidate. Anybody henceforth willing to run as a Democratic candidate will be indicted as a terrorist. And he's going to tell whoever's the head of the FBI at that point to start rounding them up. That's my prediction. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But that's what this Comey thing is all about. Democrats who think we're just going to have a fair, honest election, I think, are deluding themselves. I'm