Billionaires, Bots and “Skinny Shots”: Who’s Really Running Things?

Foreign. Today on the show, we're looking at whether the entire media landscape is about to change for good. From billionaires vying to buy Warner Brothers discovery to MAGA podcast turning politics into a shopping channel, to AI generated pop stars suddenly landing seven figure records. We'll also dig into an economy that's being propped up almost entirely by artificial intelligence. What happens if that boom runs out of steam? Then Eli Lilly becomes the first health care company ever to hit a trillion dollar valuation driven by drugs for people who are overweight and diabetic. We'll break down what that really means for patients and for corporate profits. Then we'll turn to Marjorie Taylor Greene's announcement that she's resigning from Congress after Donald Trump branded her a traitor. And what that says about the internal collapse of MAGA loyalty. And finally, an unexpected Oval Office moment. Donald Trump and incoming New York City Mayor Zoran Mandani suddenly acting like old friends. What does this mean for the country's largest city? All that and more today. Welcome to filtered with TJ Walker. Hi, and welcome. It is Saturday morning, November 22nd, 2025. Beautiful day here in South Florida. Thanks so much for joining me. We'll check in on yesterday's market vitals as we always do. The S P 500 closed at 6602.99. That's up 0.98%. The NASDAQ Composite closed at 22273.08. That is up 0.88%. But always keep in mind the long term. Over the last 25 years, the S&P 500 has gone up on average 8.32% a year. The NASDAQ 100 has gone up on average 9.09% a year. Here at Filtered, we're all about helping you for the long term. So please, when you're making your investments, keep in mind the long term. Okay, let's dive right in with the top story of the day. Is our media landscape about to change permanently? The bidding war for Warner Brothers discovery. According to Reuters, Warner Brothers has received preliminary buyout bids from Paramount, Skydance, Comcast and Netflix. This isn't just another Hollywood transaction. This is hbo, Warner Brothers, DC Comics, and a century of American storytelling suddenly on the auction block. Paramount, backed by billionaire Larry Ellison, and his son, want to buy the whole company, including the fading cable networks. Comcast and Netflix are mainly eyeing the studio and streaming businesses. However this ends, it almost certainly means fewer companies controlling what Americans see, hear, and believe in entertainment and news. So what's the real message here. We're going to see more and more consolidation, seemingly bad, but every single day when new superstars get millions and millions and millions of followers and subscribers to their podcast, I'm not sure any of it really matters right now. We're going to turn to our favorite guest of the show who is a media expert and really knows his way around the legal world, political world and media worlds. We're joined by Adonis Hoffman. Adonis is a former senior legal counsel to the Federal Communications Commission and is an attorney expert consultant on all matters of consolidation and media. Adonis, thanks for joining us today.

Good morning, T.J. nice to be with you.

Thanks for joining us. Give us your assessment of the players involved. We've got the Ellisons and Paramount. There's Comcast, there's Netflix, all big three well known media companies, not all with as deeper pockets as perhaps Paramount gets. Give us your overall assessment of who's the leading candidate to win this bidding.

I would have to say, T.J. great introduction. I would have to say that the leading candidate at this point in time where we are today would be the Paramount Sky Corporation led by David Ellison. And I say that for a couple of reasons. One, they were first to throw their hat in the ring. Number two, they, they have the wherewithal, financial wherewithal to be a serious bidder for this property. And three, they've got the political capital, seemingly political capital with the good graces of the Trump administration.

That to me, let's break that down, let's break that part down a little more. Larry Ellison, longtime supporter of Trump and the administration. Brian Roberts, head of Comcast, is one of the big donors for the new whatever you want to call it on that east wing, the big ballroom, but supposedly is not liked by Trump. And then you have Netflix. Reed Hasting perceived as the worst of all things, a Democrat in the Trump circle. So that that arguably would be a rationale for Warner Brothers in the case of a tie, saying we want to go to Paramount, but do you think it's going to be a huge consideration?

The political aspect I think is a serious consideration for this administration which is imposing different conditions, different set of conditions. The rules are not necessarily changing, but the conditions for adopting deals and making them go through are very much in play. And I do think that let's assume all things are equal. Then you got to get the edge to Paramount. And but, but that my caveat is that I'm not sure all things are equal. So I, you know, having not having seen the bids, the bids are not public. But assuming that Paramount comes in with a strong bid to acquire the entire Warner Brothers discovery enterprise, the studio.

Now you've been involved, you've been involved with mergers and sales before. What is, how much of an incentive does Warner Brothers have to just one sale be done with it versus okay, they want this piece, they want this studio and this network would like CNN and this network would like another piece. What's the, I mean, ultimately they want the most money. Does it really matter to them if some one person buys everything?

That's a good question because it's a balancing test. So on the one hand, you're right. One sale gets rid of the regulatory burden. It gets rid of the administrative hass and very importantly, it signals to the capital markets, to Wall street, hey, look, this transaction was done. Our valuation, is it done and finished? A piecemeal transaction or doing it in parts would tend to draw out the process from a regulatory perspective. Number one, two, it raises the question marks to the capital markets, the investors. Well, you know, we know what the studios are worth, we know what the content is worth. But you know, if you strip them apart, it's like, you know, selling a car for parts. Well, you know, it may or may not be more than the sum, but it could, it could be. So I would say that the board of directors at Paramount is going to consider that. And keep in mind this has not been, it's not just a, you know, come lately processed. Paramount has been courting potential suitors for a little while now. And I've got to think that Mr. Zaslav would like to get a nice package and maybe stick around, but his board certainly would like to see their shareholders get, get compensated and, and rewarded for their patience.

And Paramount was the first one to sort of raise their hand and say, we want this. And for a while it looks like they might be the only ones. But Netflix, Comcast, they all have certain interest there. The, the attraction to Netflix is they could now do deals with Hollywood and say, hey, we're going to have your movie get in actual theaters, we're going to have your movie on TV networks, something they can't really do now. Comcast could really expand its footprint and have a lot more content. And Paramount just continues to gobble up everything and become arguably the largest player in all of Hollywood. So they all have certain strategic interests as to why this would really help them walk our viewers and listeners through the process. They were all asked to give a bid by this past Thursday. Is it strictly whatever the best bid is that's it. Or can. Can time. Can Warner Brothers say, hey, Paramount's given us $26 a share, and then go to Netflix and say, we'd really rather work with you. Can you just match it? Can they go back and forth? Is that how these sorts of deals are typically done?

Well, so I'll say a couple things. Number one, there are synergies for each one of these particular suitors. So for Paramount, there are synergies with the studio. For Netflix, there's a synergy for getting their content. Another very, very significant distribution channel. And for Comcast, Comcast has been in the business of media, so there's synergies there as well. That having been said, to borrow a phrase from my good friend and brother, Denzel Washington in his latest movie, not all money is good money. Right? So, you know, so you've got a situation where, yeah, a bid may come in at near close to $30 per share, but the underlying architecture of that bid may not be what the shareholders and the leaders at Warner Brothers really want to see. At the end of the day, they're keeping their cards very close to the chest, obviously for good reason, and that's a prudent move. But they have. They know what they want to get at the end of the day. And you may, you know, you may have a situation where, and I've seen this before, where a very strong financial bid comes in, but the conditions underlying that bid are not what the. What the shareholders and the leadership would want to see happen. So we could, you know, we just have to wait and see if I got to think again as we started. It sounds as if everything I read, and I have no inside information, just as a matter of disclosure, everything I read suggests that Paramount has a very strong bid and is in a. In this is in the pole position, if you will.

It's. It certainly seems like if they were told, okay, you're a little under what Netflix did, do you really want this? They could just say, the Ellison boy could go to dad and say, hey, dad, got a couple billion dollars more of change in the sofa. We could just put into this. We could get it. He could say, yes, because they've got so much more money than the other two players. So it will be interesting to see. Now, there's also been talk, I don't know how relevant it is. You put your political hat on. Senator Elizabeth Warren has said she's very concerned about a, more consolidation, more monopoly in content people see on their screens, B, the consolidation of news under essentially one person An Ellison where it wouldn't just be CBS News, what they've already gained control over, but this would be cnn. So those are two of the premier properties of what most people would consider serious traditional journalism in America, all being run by someone with close, close ties to the current administration. Now, you can make a case that Elizabeth Warren has no more influence than I do at this point as a Democratic member of the Senate. But do you think there will be any more vocal opposition from anyone in either party because of these issues?

Well, I have the utmost respect for Senator Warren. She is a bright mind, a thought leader, a true leader in the Senate and has been so for a while, particularly in terms of corporate responsibility, corporate governance and the like. She's a powerhouse there. But that having been said, she's never met a merger that she liked. So, you know, we can go back. I mean, I've been doing this for a while. Senator Warren has been on record opposing almost every possible merger, every merger going back over the last, let's say, 10, 15 years. So, you know, you have to take that with a grain of salt. Is she influential? Absolutely. Within the Senate caucus and Senate Commerce Committee and Judiciary Committee, she's very influential. And, and she tends to lean into all of these. She, Senator Markey and others tend to lean into these transactions in a way that many other senators don't. She gets involved in the details. She sends letters to the fcc. She's involved with oversight. So she's got a. Certainly has something to say about it. And I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought thinking about this.

That's okay. So we should, we should know by the end of the year who, who Warner Brothers Discovery decides to go with. So we'll update all of our viewers and listeners there. Moving on. MAGA podcast turned politics into a shopping cart. Bloomberg reports that YouTube's biggest conservative podcasters now run what amounts to a permanent ideological qvc. Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson's read ads selling gold doomsday food kits, anti woke apparel, Christian nationalist cell service and manliness razors. Advertisers now spend about $5 million a month on these host red ads. Everyday purchases are framed as political acts. Vote with your wallet. Defend freedom, support the cause. The right has quietly built a parallel media economy while mainstream outlets still underestimate how powerful this is. Adonis, you've been following the media for a long time. I mean, you and I certainly remember the rise of Rush Limbaugh because of deregulation and syndication allowing stations to carry content I mean, I believe his show started in 87. I was on one of his original stations hosting a show in Tallahassee, Florida of all places. So I was an early listener to him. But he, he essentially was a real trailblazer in something like this. This ideologically positioning of a lifestyle and brands. What do you make of these current iterations and are we going to get to the point where there's real backlash? I mean, Ben Shapiro, you could say has an intellectual approach to issues that fair minded people could say, well I don't mind being associated with that. But Candace Owens spews the most hatred, vile nonsense, talking about the, you know, the sexual body parts of the first lady of France, on and on and on. Just spewing nonsense about how the first lady is really a man. Where do you see this going as far as advertisers and the rise of the conservative media commentariat and the BRO podcasters.

So earlier this year I did a deep dive. Our firm did a deep dive research on the future of conservative media. And what we found was really interesting. That was published by the Media Institute if anyone wants to go there and find it. It's a fairly comprehensive look at that particular market. And what we found were a couple things. Number one, conservative media, as you put your finger on, has been evolving and growing. It is a distinct discrete media marketplace, number one. Number two, it is developing its own set of rules in the sense forget about the content just for a moment. Just looking at again the architecture of conservative media. A lot of podcasting, streaming outlets that are blooming and advertisers have taken note of that and they're getting advertisers go where the eyeballs are, plain and simple. Advertising advertisers for the most part, unless there are some other really, really sort of unique circumstances that surround a media or the content they don't want to get, they would where they would not want to get. Close to that for the most part, the more eyeballs there are, that's where you're going to find the advertising dollars that having said, think about the names you just mentioned, Joe, Rogan, Shapiro, these guys have even Candace O. They've got millions of eyeballs. And so advertisers want to be there. Now certain advertisers are drawn to certain content. So I'm not sure if Procter and Gamble and you know, Huggies is going to be there, but they're going to be other kinds of advertisers that certainly gravitate towards it. And the last thing I'll say about this is that we live in a market where there is complete financial liberalization with a small L, so where anyone can become a media company, in a sense, and where, as long as you.

Are, I'm proof of that, as long.

As you're producing what people want to see or hear, you have the opportunity to build a big audience and to monetize that in the marketplace. That's what's happening. And so we also see the proliferation of, you know, not, not quite a million voices, million flowers blowing up to draw an old cliche, but, you know, various content producers and providers that say we've got something to say about it. Now, again, I don't get, I won't get into the content wars. We all have First Amendment rights and, you know, freedom of expression. And I'm a big First Amendment proponent. I serve on the First Amendment Advisory Council at the Media Institute for many years. Strong, strong proponent. So as long as you're not harming anyone with your speech, and there are some Supreme Court decisions that talk about that, but have at it, go at it.

At what point, at what point is democracy itself harmed if most of the ideas circulating through the public is just absolute nonsense? It's just absolute bs. Part of a founding principle of a concept like democracy is that people can more or less get some sense of accurate information of what's going on in their society and hold elected officials accountable. If every single thing is, is fake or wrong, can a democracy really exist?

Well, one of the wonderful things about America, this country that we both live in and love so much, is that we have, you know, we have a Constitution, we have a First Amendment, and we have the legacy that says, you know, government should not be in the business of telling you and me and anybody else what we think. So I might disagree completely with what my neighbor has to say, but that my neighbor has the right to say, to say that within certain limitations and boundaries, do we want the government to be in the business of the content police? I mean, that's, you know, that's a current issue that's being discussed at all levels in law schools and, you know, within, within the legislatures, et cetera. Because we've seen now the development of situations that test that very theory. So, you know, let's, let's put that out there. And the last I'll say is that, you know, in terms of dangerous content, I'm reminded of many years ago thinking how we looked at certain political movements in other countries, and the phrase that comes back to me all the time is, you know, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Right? So, you know, obviously we can, we can say they're terrorists, and that's not to, that's not to endorse terrorism at all. But there's a perspective.

But that's fundamental to the very nature of anyone fighting a civil war. I mean, I don't think it's surprising that people have differing opinions on that. But I look now at polls as recently as a couple of years ago showing a majority, or certainly at least in excess of 43% of Republican voters didn't believe Barack Obama was born in the United States. Now, when he ran for office in 2008, the smartphone had just really come out. Social media had nowhere near the influence. And you certainly heard Birther rumors in 2008. But I think if he were running exact same ideological positions today or even in 2016, I think the misinformation campaign would have been so dominant that he wouldn't have stood a chance. And I do think there's simply because the misinformation about where he was born would have permeated the culture in a way it wasn't able to in 2008. We'll have to table this conversation for another time because there's lots more news to talk about and that was not going away.

Briefly, I'll put on my law, law professor hat just for one moment. You know, you got to take take a closer look at opinion. And so advertising is very much bound by facts, substantiation, truth, proof, proving you can't say something that's not true. As an advertiser, as an opinion producer, you can say whatever the heck you want and it could be true or could not be true at all. And that's, you know, it could be lying like a rug, as my kids would say. But, but, you know, you, you just, you have the right to do that.

Yeah. All right. Another big media issue this week. AI pop stars are signing seven figure deals. The Wall Street Journal reports that an AI avatar named Zanya Monet helped Mississippi poet Talisha Nikki Jones land a seven figure record deal. After an AI generated R B ballot, she created hit Billboard's hot R B songs chart. Jones admits the AI sings more powerfully than she can. At least. Here's the thing that really struck me and shocked me Frankly. At least 10 AI generated songs have hit the charts recently. Tools like Suno let anyone type a lyric prompt and receive a polished track ready for Spotify. Major labels are suing some platforms and artists like Collini And SZA say they despise the technology, but consumers seem to care more about the melody than the ethics. So what's really going to happen here? I remember just two weeks ago, one of my friends said I would never listen to AI music. That's fake, that's phony. And then she said that she had listened to the number one song on the country music charts last week and loved it, and it was great. And, oh, by the way, it was completely generated by AI where is this going? I'm sure you. You remember back in the days of the RIAA and all they did to fight the Napster in the world, but. But they ultimately lost that battle. Is this another battle where that the music industry is just going to fight, fight, fight, entrench until it's too late?

So I'll start at the end and then kind of work my way back. I think for. If I was advising an artist today, I would say embrace AI technology. Learn it. Get in front of it or get behind it or get your arms around it. Use it to your advantage. Do what? Keenan Allen. Yeah, Keenan, the kid. The young man on Saturday Night Live and Mark Wahlberg, they've said, look, we. We're going to lend our voices to AI we're going to license our voices, and we're going to get behind this thing. So I would say that now going back to AI as a technology utilizing AI, I would say, listen, it's here to stay. And if the industry is going to fight it on the margins, but for the most part, the technology is here. Engineers love it. By the way, you know, as an interesting story, I'm a Spotify, you know, user, and I have my playlist. One day recently, I was listening to one of my favorite songs and it just didn't sound quite right. It's an old song from the. From the 1970s and one of my favorites. But the rendition was a little bit off. The more I listened to it, it sounded as if it were synthetically produced. I mean, it could tell, you know, the strings weren't quite as vibr, et cetera. And I suspect. I don't know for a fact, I suspect it was AI reproduced or etc. And pushed out. I don't know what the economics of that would be for in the Spotify context, but I do know that that happened. And I listened to a couple of other songs and they were seemingly AI produced and they actually sound a little better than the original. So I'm not sure if that was good digital mastering or AI. But my point is that this is happening and we've got to understand it as a society. If consumers will embrace this technology, embrace the output that it produces, at the end of the day, then I think that the industry has no other recourse but to accept it and figure out a way. And it may be they're going to.

Have to adapt faster. They're going to have to adapt faster than they did to streaming music, because that was an unmitigated disaster. I mean, it was great for people like Drake and Taylor Swift, but for so many artists who made their money primarily through CD sales, album sales, it's destroyed their whole careers because they didn't adapt quickly enough. My. Go ahead.

I'm sorry to interrupt. Just on that point. So, but think about the. What it. What is done to the. To the market. It's, I think, allowed for a little guy, a small guy, a new artist to get into the game in a big way and produce content and get it out there in a way that perhaps never before. They've never been able to do it before or compete with the bigger incumbent artists in the market.

It's definitely changed. I mean, that's how Justin Bieber came about. He just started playing every day or releasing a new song on YouTube and got discovered. So it is good opportunity for some people, but when you look at the actual amount of money coming into record, you know, record companies and all the traditional sources, it was. It was destroyed. I mean, it was just cut in half. And I don't think that's coming back. If I were putting my hat on to advise a musician, I would say use the technology in a couple of ways to do more songs. Instead of an album a year, maybe you're putting out an album a week. Maybe you're creating your own AI singing voice. I mean, I have my own AI clone where people can have me coach them on their speech or presentation. They see what looks just like me, but it's my AI clone. Maybe the secret is going to be to develop a fan base and then they pay $4.95 a month and you can sing directly to them. Where you incorporate your customer's name in the song is one way. The other thing that I think we're still a long way off.

Great idea, by the way.

Thanks. The other area where I think we're not that far off is, is artists using the AI to generate more of a crowd for their live performances. Because AI can't yet fill a stadium. Maybe at some point people will pay to just see a hologram and they've done that with a few groups like abba, but people still want an excuse to occasionally get off the couch and get out of the house. And a lot of people like to go see live music. And you know, the biggest rock stars of the world, the Rolling Stones and the who, they learned a long time ago the real money is in the touring. And yeah, you like selling albums, that's great. You like radio play, you like streaming. But if you can create a brand for yourself enough to get people to come see you live, to me that's the real opportunity for musicians is they've got to use this AI to be anywhere and everywhere to build a following so that people want to come see them live. That's what I think. Adonis, let me give you the final word on this and any other media issue you want to talk about this week.

Oh, thanks. Great to be with you. I would just say on, on this I agree with you that the artists are going to have, the newer artists are going to have to find a way to really embrace this technology and make it and customize it for them. I can envision an artist who's built up an audience and then monetizing their, their, their audience by speaking, going to advertisers to say we've got a voice, here's my voice, it's unique and put it into your commercials, etc. That's one just in terms of generally speaking, interesting times with media consolidation as you know. So again the mergers are going to continue not to be so hyper focused on that, but these are big deals, nexstar, Tegna, Sinclair, Scripps perhaps are going to be we'll be watching those things very closely in the, in the coming days and we're coming up on the end of the year where interest, anything can happen and, and we're going to be entering into the what they call in Washington the silly season politics, electorate election time in 2026. So a lot to be watching out for TJ and hope you hope you will.

All right, Adonis Hoffman, thank you for being our guest today. For more information go to adonishoffman.com that's a D O N I S H O F f m a n.com for more information. Did I get that right? Adonis thank you T.J. you did great. And what is the latest on your media website as well?

Just no real developments. We're simply just watching the all the new activities in Congress and at the Justice Department of the FCC and the ftc.

So stay tuned for more updates for more Updates go to adonishoffman.com thanks so much. We'll be right back. Filtered is brought to you by the following you don't need a new degree. You don't need another expensive coach. You need the right communication habits and I'll teach them to you in just a few minutes a day. @mediatrainingworldwide.com I've created the most comprehensive library of online communication and personal development courses anywhere. You'll learn public speaking, media training, persuasion, executive presence, and more. These are the same methods I've taught to world leaders, but now they're affordable and accessible to everyone. You can start for free and upgrade anytime. Go now to mediatrainingworldwide.com confidence isn't a personality trait, it's a skill and it's trainable. Most people can't afford a full time coach and even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need them. That's why I created the TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. Rehearse your next big talk. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a course, and always ready. Start using it today at tjwalker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Welcome back to Filter. Thanks for joining me today. It is Saturday, November 22, heading into a holiday week here in the United States. Looking forward to that. Hoping you're having a great Saturday wherever you are. Issue 2 Can the AI boom save a Weak Economy? According to the times, the 2025 US economy is running on essentially two tracks. Everything tied to artificial intelligence is booming. Almost everything else is struggling in Nevada, North Dakota and Washington, D.C. region. Weak tourism, low oil prices and federal job cuts are being cushioned by a flood of AI data center construction. One economist calls it a two track economy where an AI gold rush papers over drift everywhere else. Huge spending on chips, software and data centers now account for more than 90% of recent GDP growth. Companies like Caterpillar, Johnson Controls and Eaton are cashing in on the infrastructure build out, but the party is heavily concentrated among tech giants and high income households whose stock portfolios are riding the AI wave. As one bank of America economist warns, if those AI stocks stumble, the hit to wealthy consumers could be really quite painful for the economy. Okay, so what's the real message here? Yeah, so far we're all Propped up by this AI economy. But if Nvidia has even a sneeze, it could be severe pneumonia for the rest of us. Our entire economy could crumble quickly. That's scary. We don't want to be in a position where we're all sitting on the edge of our seats waiting every quarter for the latest earnings report from Nvidia. Only one bad report and there has to be a bad report at some point. And things come tumbling down, the music stops. Let's go a little bit deeper here. Look, I'm a big fan of AI. I like AI. I invest in AI I per. And I'm not talking up my book and I'm giving you no financial investment advice on this show. But I invest mostly in mutual funds, low cost index funds, in information technology. So it's not because I'm brilliant or anything. I just happen to think, okay, that's where the growth is. That's what I'm excited about. And it's done really well, almost too well the last decade. It's a little bit scary. And I was one of those people earlier this week sitting on the edge of my seat. Is Nvidia going to disappoint people? Am I going to see the market go down 10%? Because we do live in a world now where the top 10 tech companies account for 40% of the entire S&P 500 market, cap some 20% of the entire worldwide economy. And it's getting a little scary. The concentration is so intense. If you look at just the top seven companies, they make up a third of the S&P 500. And sure, wealthy stockholders are doing well, but they're essentially driving the entire economy. If you look at the spending habits right now in the United States, people Forget the bottom 10% or 20%. They're just scraping by as they always do. But the bottom 90% now are really not spending much money. The spending is coming from people in the top 10%. But here's the problem. If there's even a slight turn down in the economy with any of these high tech stocks and the top 10% get a little nervous, it's very easy for them to just not spend any money this month. That's when things could cascade quickly out of control. And a bust in AI stocks could just quickly decimate restaurants and service workers very quickly in a hard way. And so it's something to be concerned about. A lot of rural areas are doing well with these build out of data centers. But the problem is once you've built these giant Centers that are larger than shopping malls. They don't need any workers. So it's bye bye jobs. It's nice for that eight, 16 months where there's construction going on and lots of activity. A lot of relatively high paid construction jobs, engineering jobs, technical trades get employed. But these data centers run on their own. They don't even need anyone to come in in the morning and flip the lights up. They're run by computer, by robots quite often that have sensors. They don't even need the lights on. They don't need Windows. So I'm not the only one. More and more analysts are concerned about this. I am not, to be clear, predicting we're going into a recession. The easiest way to get headlines is to say major recession coming, sell everything. And people who do that often get attention, but they're typically wrong. 19 out of 20 times, sure, 1 out of 20 times they're right. Because a broken clock and all of that. So I would be very skeptical of anyone telling you they know when the good times end. Because let me be clear, these are not good times for about 90% of Americans in terms of their own net worth growing, in terms of their wealth growing. It's very, very concentrated on those of us who have been fortunate, maybe had some lucky breaks come our way. A lot of my success is because of luck. I happened to get into online training really early and it took off. It wasn't because I was a genius, but it took off. And then I did invest in all of these tech companies. But not everyone is that lucky. So what is going to happen to our economy? Certainly the rash of tariff taxes does not seem to be helping the average person. It's just a tax increase. Because let's face it, there are very few things that are manufactured 100% in any country, much less the United States. You look at something like a so called American car company and you can trace pieces here and there and design and market finance to dozens and dozens and dozens of countries all over the world. We live in an interconnected world, like it or not. Yes, there's been a recent attempt to retrench and get away from that. It has not crashed the economy as many economists suggested. But is that because we've just gotten lucky with this AI spending and hype? And when I say hype, it's not because I don't think AI is real. I spend a tremendous amount of my time investing not only money, but time in trying to capture value from artificial intelligence. And excuse me for sounding self promotional too much in the show. I do have ads that promote it, but I do have my own AI clone, tjwalker AI where it can coach you on public speaking and media training and life coaching. And I invested a bunch of time and energy and money into it. Now going on almost two years, have I gotten any big payoff? No. Could I cut back? I don't spend a lot of money every month, but I do lose money on it every month. At some point can I cut back? Yeah, if it, if it continues to lose money. The big concern among many market analysts is that the procter and gambles of the world, the non tech companies that are spending so much of their budget buying chips from the nvidias of the world, buying AI services, say, you know what, long term this may be great, but doesn't seem like it's happening as quickly as we want it. Why don't we just put the brakes on things? That slowdown could really multiply throughout the economy, could drastically reduce earnings for companies like Nvidia and other high tech companies that could cause massive sell offs for the rest of the stock market. That could panic people and crimp spending and then we really could be in a recession. So again I'm just laying out to you the scenario. I'm not making a prediction that it's going to happen today, tomorrow or next week. And let's not forget a lot of people predicted the dot com sell off, the dot com bubble bursting. But let's not forget so many of them started predicting it in 1997. Didn't happen until 2000, 2001. So if you listen to all the naysayers too quickly, you lose a lot of upside and you remove yourself from what's really going on and you unnecessarily panic. So I not telling you, I know exactly when this bubble burst, if in fact it even is a bubble. I can pretty confidently predict that they're going to be a handful or fewer big winners in this AI technology space and that a lot of companies are not going to win and their investors are going to lose everything and that is going to cause some pain. In the same way not everyone was Amazon.com in the Internet bubble. Amazon did really well. Investors in Amazon did really well. But if you invested in pets.com or space.com or seemingly 10 trillion other.coms, you lost every single penny. I know I was on the losing side on a lot of those dot com bets. Okay, we'll continue to monitor it right here. Lots more to come. There is one bright spot when it comes to valuations in the stock market, which we will be talking about in just one moment. In this next story, 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 tjwalker 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 tjwalker hi and welcome back. Thanks so much for joining me. It is Saturday. It's a beautiful day. I hope you're doing what you're doing, perhaps listening to this or watching this while you're out for a walk, going for a bike ride. And I hope you spend some time doing exercise, having fun and learning. That's certainly my agenda for today. Before we go to the next issue, let's take some comments from you. Chase Ater says, I'm concerned about movie stars. One can make a more handsome or beautiful movie star. Talking about our earlier segment today on the role of artificial intelligence in media. Yeah, I would be very scared these days if I were an aspiring movie star because the old model of you've got to have a big distribution company and a big marketing company and a big director and $50 million budget. And then when all those pieces come together and you've got the closing credits of a thousand people every so often, it's a big hit and you become a star. I think those days are gone. As we've talked about earlier in the show, for the previous three months going up to the beginning of November, 25 major Hollywood movies were released and the comedy and drama niches, every one of them failed to become a hit. So I think the days of being just a movie star and acting are going to be over. Other than the incumbents already there, I'm sure Tom Cruise for the next 15 years, George Clooney will still be able to make some movies some level. But the next generation, they're going to have to be the star, be the director, be the AI coordinator. I think they're going to have to create everything and maybe just their face is a part of it or maybe an enhanced version of their face. So Chice, I think you're on to something there. Wayne writes, Lucifer, Tucker Hussein and Candace the Devil Bride is trying to weaken and cause confusion, talking about our our earlier segment on the rise of conservative podcasters and how they are just absolutely dominating the advertising world. I mean, they're making so much more money than their equivalent liberal political commentators. And to be clear, I'm here not as a political commentator. I'm here as a business news analyst where I analyze the top business news, technology and culture stories of the day, filtered through the lens of communication and personal development skills. Chase also writes, spreading wrong information is much like teaching kids the wrong stuff. People use this information to make decisions that affect national safety in the arts. I'm a bit concerned about it, so I too am very concerned about not disinformation. There's always been disinformation. There's always been stupid people saying stupid things and nonsense. The worrying thing is how our modern technology companies have superpowered disinformation. They made it easier to spread a lie than it is to spread truth. The old joke about a lie can go around the world twice before the truth puts its boots on or its running shoes on is truer today than ever before. Let's hop right into issue three the Trillion Dollar Skinny Shot Economy According to the Times, Eli Lilly just became the first health care company ever worth more than $1 trillion, almost entirely because of its GLP1 drugs for obesity and diabetes, Zeppbound and Mongero. The company's own filings and analyst estimates show these two medicines now bring more than half of Lilly's revenues in the latest quarter and more than a third of its total sales overall, while driving the vast majority of its recent revenue growth. Quarterly profits has nearly sextupled to about $5.6 billion, powered by demand from people trying not to die from diabetes or lose a limb because they can't control their weight. And in the Oval Office, Donald Trump called Lilly CEO Dave Ricks one of the hottest people in the business world while announcing a deal that still leaves many patients paying hundreds of dollars a month out of pocket for life or death drugs. Okay, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is finally we have a trillion dollar company that isn't 100% dependent on people buying into AI hype. That's the good news. The bad news is it's become a trillion dollar company because Most Americans are now overweight, obese, diabetic, near diabetic, and we're eating ourselves to death and need their drugs just to stay alive. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. This is, to me, truly a good news, bad news situation. I would love for the US economy and the worldwide economy to be more diversified the way it has been traditionally and not dependent on just one industry or just 10 companies. So it's good because there's some diversification. It's a little sad that it's because so many of us need drugs to stop stuffing our faces and eating ourselves to death. Now, I apologize that that offends anyone. I'm not trying to be offensive. I've been overweight at certain periods of my life. It's because I ate too much junk food, too much artificially processed food, too much sugar, too much artificial sugars, too many processed carbohydrates of low nutritional value, and because I didn't exercise enough. So it is a reality that all across the world, not just the United States, people are loving to eat processed food that isn't good for us, that left to our own devices, we will eat and eat and eat. You open a bag of Doritos and scientists, brilliant people with PhDs, spent their life devoted to figuring out how can we get the absolute perfect level of salt, of fat, of processed carbohydrates, so that it melts in your mouth and you just can't stop. And that's one of many reasons why we are now a majority. By some estimates, 70% of Americans are overweight. And according to a new definition of obesity based on waist circumference, according to some experts, a majority of Americans are now technically obese. And make no mistake about it, these drugs have saved lives. Because as many side effects as there are from these, these GLP1 drugs, there's no worse side effect in the world than being 100 pounds overweight. You're much more likely to have stroke, to have diabetes, to have hypertension, to have a heart attack and keel over dead. So pretty much anything that can take you from obese to non obese is going to be better for your health than the alternative. So congratulations to Eli Lilly and being the first pharmaceutical company, first drug company to reach that, that trillion dollar threshold, I really wish more of us could actually learn to eat healthy food in reasonable portions and to exercise more. And it would be good for America, it'd be good for our health, could be good for the world's health. But it would put these drug companies mostly out of business. Okay, let's take more of your comments. There will be KAA says there will be a popular independent movie and we'll all leave the movies. Okay. Maybe that's why no one watches mainstream news anymore. Monopoly. So people do still watch mainstream news. ABC News here in the United States, they're their evening news still gets several million views and viewers. It also depends on how you define mainstream news. The Fox News Channel is in every single home. It's been around 30 years and they have millions of viewers at any time of day or night or certainly in prime time. So that is mainstream today, whether you want to admit it or not or whether you like that fact. Fox News Channel is mainstream in the sense that it is everywhere. And it's not some new startup, it's not some obscure podcast. And they do get a lot of viewers. I don't think that's going away. Okay, we'll be keeping an eye on Eli Lilly. And if you have favorable results from going on one of these GLPs, and I certainly know people who do, feel free to share it. If you've had bad results, you can share that as well. I'd love to report that to our community right here on Filtered. Thanks so much. Back in just a moment. Some big political news out of Washington and a surprise announcement last night about someone resigning from Congress. Doesn't happen that often. We'll be right back after this break. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise Most people can't afford a full time coach and even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need them. That's why I created the TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. Rehearse your next big talk. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a course, and always ready. Start using it today at tjwalker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Want to advertise to ambitious, upscale professionals who actually care about communication, success and Results? Go to tjwalker.com advertise and no, we don't take ads for crypto, supplements or junk food. If you've ever struggled with nerves, unclear messaging, or just not being taken seriously, this is for you. I created the T.J. walker Success Library As a crash course in professional level communication, you get five downloadable books for just $9.95 that walk you through public speaking, media training, persuasive communication, confidence building, and daily practice routines. This is the same training I've delivered to presidents, CEOs, and leaders in 45 nations, boiled down and instantly accessible. Go to tjwalker.combooks and download them now. Welcome back to Filtered. Marjorie Taylor Greene Quits Congress Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says she'll resign from Congress on January 5th 5th. The woman who came to Washington as a QAnon fueled MAGA super fan is walking away after Donald Trump branded her a traitor and publicly unendorsed. Her Green says, quote, loyalty should be a two way street and she refuses to be a quote. These are her words. A battered wife in a primary against the man she helped turn into a political cult. Her final break came after she pushed to release the Jeffrey Epstein files and challenged Trump on Gaza, Iran, Ukraine, and even AI. Her exit shrinks an already razor thin Republican majority and exposes how fragile Trump's grip on his own movement really is. The Right built her as a star for trolling and outrage, then tried to erase her the moment she showed a conscience. Okay, so what's the real message here? Marjorie Taylor Greene says she's quitting Congress. Okay, but is she quitting public life? Quitting politics? I don't think so. She might run for senator, governor, or more likely President of the United States. So I don't think we've heard the last of her. Let's take a look at some more facts of the situation. So nobody was a stronger supporter of President Trump than Marjorie Taylor Greene for the last four years. It seems like she's been around forever, but she was just elected the first time in 2020. It seems like we've been living in a Marjorie Taylor Greene world for a long, long time, but it really hasn't been that long. But she occupies a lot of space in a political news commentary. She's always doing something. She has a knack for interjecting herself, whether it's yelling in the middle of the State of the Union when Joe Biden is there or endorsing QAnon conspiracy theories. She's always into something, but she's gained a lot of respect lately for sticking to her core principle. One of her core principles and something really important to her constituents in Northwest Georgia was that Epstein files are a big problem. They need to be released that in fact there is an international elite of wealthy men who abuse young girls and children and are pedophile. That's a central tenet of not just QAnon but a lot of people. And she ran on the platform of she would vote to release the Epstein files. And most Republicans did it. Trump did too. But then when he got in office, he's like, ixnay on the releasing of the Trump files, especially when it was revealed that his name is in at least 1700 documents in the Epstein files. Things that make him look really, really bad, even if nothing else comes out. So he essentially told Marjorie Taylor Greene, if you do not change your position voting for the release of this, you're out of my life. I'm excommunicating you. I'm going to get some other Republican to run against you and they'll have my full support, they'll have my money. And what she said, ever since that happened, she's been inundated with death threats. Now, I don't even like talking about that here on this program because it tends to set off triggers on various algorithms. I don't want to be banned. And in fact, just last week Instagram banned me. And it may have been just having a conversation about what newsmakers are saying here. So it's a tough, touchy issue. What's really going on with her? There's speculation. Steve Bannon, the well known Republican and former Trump strategist, says we've not heard the last of Marjorie Taylor Greene. There's speculation she may run for president. She certainly seems like she enjoys the limelight, but everyone has a different threshold for pain. And I don't want to speculate here, but sometimes people say, well, if people attack me, that's one thing, but if they're attacking my child, children, or maybe in her case, grandchildren, if they're coming to my grandchildren's school and saying they're going to do horrible things to them, I can't take it any longer. So she might legitimately just be so sick of the nastiness, the bile, the hatred that has been coming her way non stop for really just the last week. Because let's not forget the side she was on is generally the side that is pushing out all these threats to people who disagree. So she's kind of in a new position here. Yes, she has staked positions against Trump recently on things like the health insurance issue that caused the government shutdown, but that's not as controversial as this Epstein thing. So she is being pummeled, being pounded with by her own admission. And I can't for the life of me think that this would be something she's exaggerating. She's getting pummeled with extreme numbers of death threats and is now resigning from Congress. Now, of course, she could change her mind at the last minute. She could say, I'm listening to the people and I've had 10,000 calls, emails, I would say telegrams, but people don't send telegrams anymore from my own constituents. Every single one of them said, marjorie, you must stay. So I've listened to the people and I'm saying she could say that you're not gone until you've officially tendered that resignation. And so she's not necessarily gone yet. If she really wanted to quit, she could have quit yesterday, but she's given a date next year. Now, January 5th is not that far off, but she has given that date. What are we to think of her? Because there are a lot of centrists these days, Democrats, liberals, who have a newfound respect for her. They're like, wow, she's actually being honest about the impact of the big beautiful bill and what would happen if the government was funded at its current levels and that her own two adult children would see their health care costs double. And many said she is now the most outspoken and articulate spokesperson for the Democratic Party because of the way she has framed this health care issue. In personal terms, many see her as a profile in courage for saying, look, I love Trump, I supported him on everything. But when it comes to 14 year old children, young girls being passed around like party favors to these pedophiles, I draw the line and I'm going to vote to disclose that information. And if she had not done that, it only passed by a vote. Initially, when votes were being whipped up in the House, there would not have been enough votes without her one vote to release this initially. Now, eventually they all did it, but it was because she, along with Lauren Boebert and two other Republicans said, we are going to oppose Trump on this issue because we think the girls are more important. These children and their abuse and disclosing who did this is more important. Now what I'm a little bit surprised by is what's the rationale for all the Trump world hating her? When all of the Republicans voted to disclose Epstein, you would think that would have taken some of the wind out of their sails as far as attacking her because now everyone is supposedly guilty of it. Plus, Trump himself said he endorsed the release of the Epstein files. But something has happened here. I don't claim to know all of it. My prediction is we've not seen the last of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now, there's always the possibility she could say, hey, I just want to be really, really rich and I'm good at this media game and I'm going to start a podcast and a media company and I'm going to be like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly and Bill O'Reilly and these other conservative commentators and I'm going to make 10, 20, $30 million a year. You can't put that past her because as a member of Congress, yeah, there's sweetheart deals you can get, you can get tips on stock breaks, but you're not going to be making tens of millions of dollars, not in the White House. Another issue. But it may be she's just decided this is her peak moment of fame and if she plays her cards right, starts her own video podcast, audio podcast, website, book deals, she could create true generational wealth. I mean, she's still a relatively young woman. Some burnout like Sarah Palin, remember her? You know, she had the million dollar salary from FOX News. Now no one's ever heard from her. She had some reality shows, but she didn't have staying power. Marjorie Taylor Greene, she's only been on the national scene for four years, four and a half years, but she may have determined, hey, I've got staying power. I could create true generational. I could make $100 million in the next decade, the next two decades. I could bank that much and create real generational wealth for my children and grandchildren, especially the ones who have been on the receiving end of all these attacks lately. I don't know. I, I do not purport to be able to read Marjorie Taylor Greene's brain, her mind. We'll see. But I do predict we've not seen the last of her. More in just a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want more? Grab my Five Book Success Library for $9.95 at tjwalker.com books. It's the fastest way to level up your communication. Imagine being the most confident person in the room whether you're on Zoom or on stage. That's what thousands of professionals are learning to do right now. Through my online communication courses at Media Training Worldwide. You can access my complete training library on demand, affordable and actually effective. Whether you're preparing for media interviews, client presentations or TED style talks, I've got you covered. Check it out mediatrainingworldwide.com. you'll never wing it again. Welcome back to Filtered Trump and Mandani's strange new bromance. According to The Times. President Trump and New York City Mayor elect Zoran Mandani just staged what looked like a political buddy movie in the Oval Office. Weeks after calling each other a communist and a despot, they smiled, joked and praised one another in of front front of the cameras. Trump told reporters he expects to be a big help and called Mandani a very rational person who wants to see New York be great again. Mandani, a Democratic socialist who ran vowing to stand up to Trump, called the meeting productive and said they focused on shared purpose instead of disagreements. The stakes are huge. New Yorkers had feared federal crackdowns, troops or funding cuts. Once Mandani takes office, allies on the left feel cautious relief. Many on the right feel outright betrayed. And everyone is asking the same question. How long before Trump's mood flips? Okay, what's the real message here? Trump and Mandani met in the White House and it was a feel good bromance of the Times. But make no mistake about it, Trump flips and flops all over the place. The very same guy who practically gave a hug and a kiss to Mandani in the White House could be calling for his deportation or even execution in 24 hours. You just never know with this guy. Let's dig a little deeper here. This was surprising to a lot of people, and yet not really. I mean, the one thing we do know about Trump is he doesn't really have any core principles. This is a grown man who has changed political parties some five times in his adulthood. Now, a lot of people switch once they go from a Democrat to a Republican or a Republican to a Democrat, or they switch to independent. And maybe one, this is a guy who's flip flopped all over the place. And you know, let's not forget this was a guy who said how great the Clintons were, was a Democrat, gave money to all the Democrats, was always praising them, was pro choice his whole life. So the idea that he's going to somehow be ideologically opposed to Mandami presumes there is some ideology. So that part really isn't surprising. But the whole conservative media establishment, from Fox News to the New York Post to every podcaster in the world, has been screaming non stop about the world is essentially coming to an end with Mandani here in Florida. So many people I know talk about, well, this is the best thing ever. He's going to be named the Florida Real Estate Executive of the Year because he's sending so many people from New York to move to Florida. Hasn't happened yet. At all. So it would have been the more natural thing for Trump to do what he did to Zelensky, try to embarrass him, humiliate him, lecture him, put him in a chair that's 24 inches shorter than his own. That would have been kind of what you would have expected. It didn't happen. I take away a couple of things from this. There's been much discussion about how Mandani is a generational talent, and I won't even say for the Democratic, but he did get the Democratic nomination. But he aligns himself as a Democratic socialist. He is a generational talent. He's obviously a great communicator. And others have talked about how he's perfected the new medium of the three types of communication. There's the 30 second sound bites you got to be good at for your own social media, there's the three minute TV interviews, and then there's the three hour brocast podcast interviews where you got to be likable and fun and interesting. He clearly excelled at all of those throughout the campaign. Went from nowhere and no money to beating, you know, dozens of candidates and winning a majority of votes in a three way race, which is never easy. So he's clearly shown himself to be a master communicator. But let's face it, Donald Trump is a world class communicator. Whether you love him or hate him or like his policies or what he stands for, he is brilliant at communicating and getting people to focus on what he wants to talk about, getting attention to his issues. So it was a little surprising to see them joking. And especially for Trump, who's considered to be so thin skinned, he seemed to be helping. I mean, he really did treat Mandani as a friend. He's like, okay, you might as well call me a fascist, and that's okay. Laughing at it. He seemed like he was giving advice the way you would a trusted ally, One of the Fox hosts said. One of the morning show Fox and Friends host said JD Vance must be jealous because it really did seem the whole vibe was Trump acting almost like a father figure to this Democratic socialist, the new mayor of New York City. So I don't know what this guy had. I've never met Zoran Mandami up front, but apparently this guy oozes charm. I mean, he seems like he's someone who could just, you know, charm honey away from bees without getting stung. This is an amazing town. Again, Trump could be calling for him to be executed next week. Let's not get too excited. Trump changes all the time. He flips on people. He says nice things. One minute. Bill Maher, the liberal political comedian, said he had a great time with Trump, had dinner. Trump was nice, friendly, likable, really listened, seen totally with it. But before and after, Trump is saying that mars an idiot, a moron, a fool, should be fired, has filed lawsuits against him before. So, you know, Trump does whatever he wants. And when you try to position it in some sort of ideological consistency, you end up losing. I do think, at least short term, a lot of New Yorkers are breathing a sigh of relief because the fear was Trump would try to humiliate him and say, okay, I'm now taking away $10 billion or however many billions of dollars of federal funds Washington sends to New York, that he would just say he's taking it all the way. He hasn't done that. Now, Trump does have, have some vested interest in New York City still being a good place. He still owns at least part of Trump Tower. He still has a lot of other properties where even if he doesn't own them, he gets revenues from them because his name is on at least the ones that have not scraped his name off. So he has a vested interest in New York City not turning into the proverbial conservative, hellhole, dystopian future that we hear about all the time in the New York Post and the Fox News Channel. He has a vested interest in New York staying nice. So whether that's a part of it, I don't know. It also may just be a sense of professional courtesy. I think Trump rightfully sees himself as a world class communicator. And at some level, he has respect for Mandani as a communicator and as someone who's able to break political molds. Because let's face it, virtually nobody thought Trump would win the Republican nomination in 2016 or the general election because he was seen as the opposite of everything the Republican Party stands for. Now we have Mandani as a socialist, something the Democrats have said, no, no, no, no. No socialists to look at here. We don't like socialists. Not a part of our party. We're centrist. No socialists here and here. Mandani, he didn't hide the fact. He openly, proudly ran as a Democratic socialist and still won. He captured the media attention, he captured the zeitgeist. He became world class at capturing attention. And I have to think that at some level, Trump looks at him and says, yeah, that guy's got some mojo. That guy's got some of the stuff Same stuff I've got. I don't think it's any more than that. What are we to make of this long term? I don't know that it matters. Trump is someone, by all accounts, who can turn on the charm when he wants to. Could be his mood, could be what he had for lunch or breakfast that day. The one thing consistent about Trump is he's not consistent. So I will make a prediction that at some point they get into a bit of a spat and Trump sees it politically advantageous to attack him because Trump will do whatever he thinks is in his own benefit. On that, there really can be no debate. But for right now, this is yet another win for Mandani. Before he started the hard part of actually being the mayor. He's not been sworn in yet. He's in that graceful honeymoon period. And it seems like everybody, and I mean everybody who's face to face with this guy really likes him. Okay, let's take some comments from you before we go to our final segment of the day, which is taking your questions on items unrelated to the news. Okay. Suave says, just wanted to give you your flowers. Have a great day. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate flowers and appreciate you delivering them virtually right here. Thanks so much for watching. Little Bear says Trump has dementia. Now, I'm not making that allegation. I am not his doctor and I'm not anybody's doctor because I'm not a doctor. Certainly there are a lot of people who have commented on that from afar, but I can tell you there are countless people, Bill Maher being one of them, who are not his friends, they're not in his party, are not supporters that say when they talk to him, he seems totally with it. He seems on top of. Does he get tired occasionally? I get tired occasionally and I'm almost 20 years younger than he is. Has he ever fallen asleep and his eyes starting to shut in a meeting? Yeah, it's happened to me, too. I don't know that I buy the idea that he has dementia. When I see him speak to me, he doesn't really look or sound that different than he did 15 years ago. He does look very different from the Jeffrey Epstein days back when he had human colored skin and human colored hair. But other than that, to me he sounds the same. So I, I'm not going to buy into the theory again. It's just a theory that Trump has dementia. I'm going to wait for other, other signs or, or an actual medical evaluation. Schumer flips and flops. Well, we're not talking about Schumer. I'm not quite sure the relevance there. Danny says 38 trillion debt, no agenda, just tax freedom for multi billionaires with their scapegoat politicians. Certainly the big beautiful bill created more debt than this country has ever seen. And it is odd, some would say ironic, that people who say they're fiscal conservatives so freely vote for a budget with $2 trillion of debt. But it seems like debts only matter to some people if a Democrat is in the White House, not a Republican. Goldstone says he thinks it's all show. I guess you're talking about Trump. And yeah, there's a part of him that just likes to put on a good show. He likes to be interesting. So he may have just made the calculation of everyone's expecting me to be rude to this guy. You know what? Let me fool everybody, generate headlines about how nice I was. It could have been a show for that reason and that reason alone. There's no doubt about it. Prediction, Trump will attack Mandani in the future. Okay, that is my prediction. And I don't know if you're just quoting me or if that's your prediction as well. Woven says Bill Maher is a hack and is out of touch. Maybe. Certainly people feel that I disagree with him more frequently now than I used to. But by all accounts, he's never, ever, ever been a Trump supporter. He can't stand Trump. He vilifies him every single week. So he has no natural incentive to say Trump seemed totally lucid with it. Great conversationalist, great listener, fun to be around. He has no incentive to say that, even if you think he's a hack. So that's why I think it's meaningful that he did that. My wife calls me the big beautiful thrill. Okay, that's great. I heard they're going golfing now. That would surprise me if Mandani golfs at all and if he golfs with Trump, because golfing is just not one of those sports or images you associate with with socialists. I haven't heard any profiles mentioning Mandani's love of golf. So I'll, I'll let you know what I hear on that. We're going to switch gears now and close as we always do on every show, taking your questions, specifically questions that do not relate to things in the news. Let's go a little deeper here. Try to improve ourselves, because my not forget, my main promise to you on this show is spend some time with me. Each day you'll learn more about the news and what's going on. But you'll also learn more about yourself, how to be a better communicator, how to have stronger personal development skills so that you can be more successful in your personal life as well as your professional life. Whether you're running for Congress or running to be school board chairman or just hoping to be better at your own one person home based business. That's what we're all about right here. So let's take a question now. This one comes from Lucas. Lucas is in one of my classes. It's about Believe it or Not. So if you don't know, I do personal development courses on this subject, but the course is actually Dieting, Nutrition Weight Loss, Tips for Good Healthy Life. The question is, what is the most effective strategies to maintain a healthy diet without feeling deprived? Well, the number one thing to do is you have to feel full. So it can't simply be I'm only going to eat 10 potato chips and not the whole bag. Because if you eat 10 potato chips, you're going to be hungrier. Instead, your snack needs to be something like eat 10 carrots. When you eat carrots, there's not all the sugar or the processed sugar raising your blood level, making you're Hungrier. You eat 10 carrots, you're probably not going to be hungry right away. Eat an actual apple as opposed to a whole glass of apple juice. The apple juice is still it's a form of processed sugar. Because the apples have been processed into juice, you lose all the fiber. The apple juice is much more likely to have so much sugar in it, it's going to make you hungrier and you're going to crave more food whether it's a half an hour or an hour and a half later. It's also going to have more calories than just eating one apple because the juice might have three apples in it if it's a big glass of juice. The other thing I highly recommend. You may hear this recommendation from time to time, but you don't see ads constantly the way you see ads for Doritos and Big Macs and Mellow Yellow and Little Debbie snacks. And the recommendation is simply drink more water all day. I try to drink a couple of glasses of water before every meal. Not because it magically burns calories. No, it's because my stomach is fuller and it's easier to stop overeating or to not overeat in the first place if you're already starting out full. The other thing is by having a glass of water nearby me throughout the day. And those of you listening on the podcast, I'm holding a glass of water, and you're just sipping it. You don't become dehydrated so often your body is confused. You're dehydrated, and your body's telling you, hey, you're really hungry. Go eat a snack. Well, you don't need a snack. I'm sorry. This idea that many people have that you can't possibly go more than two hours throughout the day without snacking is nonsense. If you are an elite professional athlete and you are training 6, 8, 10 hours a day, fine, have your snacks. But for the most of us, for the rest of us, you don't need to snack. And guess what? There's nothing wrong with being hungry occasionally throughout the day, throughout the meals, water. If you're a little bit hungry, drink some water. There's a good chance the hunger will go away. I'm not a fan of those who say, well, take your weight and turn it into ounces, and you have to drink that many ounces or double that, ounces of water and turn into this big, complicated math problem. If you had that much discipline, you probably wouldn't be overweight in the first place or have any health issues. So I don't like to quantify it at that level. Instead, I simply like to make water my default beverage and to have water something near me at all times. I'm not trying to guzzle gallons and gallons and gallons. I'm just sipping on it throughout the day. And that is a great way of maintaining a healthy diet and not feeling deprived. I don't think you should feel deprived. And it's a myth out there that somehow you have to starve yourself to A, lose weight, B, be a healthy weight. No, that's just not the case. Human DNA has not really changed that much in the last couple hundred thousand years. And until the last 30, 40 years, it was extremely rare to see anybody obese in America. When I was a kid, there was, you know, one kid in the entire grade who was really overweight, and everyone else was what today would be called thin. No one really thought about it because we were eating, for the most part, real food. Now, did I drink Coke and eat cookies more than I should have? Yeah, but you could go to a gas station and buy gas and not be overwhelmed with 10,000 junky snack foods in your face begging you to purchase them and eat them. So that's really my biggest answer to you, Lucas, is you've got to figure out a way of keeping yourself full by eating real food. If you eat a real apple, if you eat a real avocado, if you eat a real salad that has oil and vinegar on it and not the kind of salad dressing you would get at a Wendy's or McDonald's where there's tons and tons of sugar and goop in it, if you eat real food that has fiber in it and roughage, you will feel. And if you simply avoid foods that have sugar, processed sugar, artificial sugars injected into it, you are not going to feel nearly as hungry and you'll be much healthier. So good luck. Lucas Maintaining not trying to be skinny or thin, but trying to have a healthy diet so you have good energy and a healthy body. That's really what the goal should be. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate you spending time and if you got any value out of this, please like the show, subscribe to it, follow it if you're listening on any sort of podcasting platform. We're new to the podcasting world, so it would be extremely helpful if you could make sure you're actually following and subscribing and if you could leave a review. Thanks so much. See you tomorrow.