Jane Goodall’s Legacy, Facebook Scams, and Trump’s AI Mockery

Foreign. Goodall's death at 91 and the discoveries that changed how we understand ourselves. A major new sleep study shows poor sleep can make your brain a year older, or at least look or feel a year older. Why Facebook is profiting from political scam. Ads filled with deep fakes. Trump posts mocking AI videos again of Schumer and Jeffries. Vance calls them funny. And finally, the real reason Democrats forced a government showdown. All that and more today. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Hi and welcome to the program today. I'm TJ Walker. Let's check in on market updates. The S&P 500 closed at 6,711, up 0.33%. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 22,007, 55.16, up 0.41%. Always look at the long term. Long term. S&P 500, up 7.47% per year over the last 25 years. Nasdaq 100, up 9.73% on average per year. Okay, let's dive into issue one today and thank you so much for joining me today. This is Filtered with TJ Walker. This is where we look at the top business, technology, economic and culture stories of the day and filter it through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills, all with the goal of making you more successful in your professional life as well as your personal life. Let's dive right in. Jane Goodall's enduring voice on Chimps and Humanity Jane Goodall, the primatologist who changed how the world understands both chimpanzees and ourselves, has died at age 91, according to the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. Goodall's death decades at Gombe Stream revealed that chimpanzees use tools, hunt, grieve and wage war, behaviors once thought uniquely human. She also documented a sophisticated communication system of calls and gestures, showing that language's building blocks may stretch back to our shared ancestors. Goodall was not only a scientist but also a master communicator. She gave chimps names instead of numbers, told their life stories, and helped human audiences see them as individuals. Her books, documentaries and speeches brought science out of the ivory tower and into the living rooms around the world. As a public intellectual, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, created roots and shoots to mobilize young people globally, and became a tireless advocate for conservation, traveling the world even into her 80s. Goodall once said, I don't give them personalities, I merely translate them for people. So Jane Goodall has died. What is her legacy? Someone who has shown Humanity, how primates communicate and communicate at the deepest level. Our ancestors were communicators too and she devoted her life to, to being a great communicator. Television, radio, speeches, books. She was there speaking till the end. Let's dig a little deeper. For those of us of a certain age, it feels like I grew up with her, seeing her on pbs, other places. She was not just a scientist but an outstanding public communicator of science. Those two are different. You can be a fantastic scientists, do excellent research and simply not want to communicate what you're doing with the rest of the world or to the public or not be good at it. She wanted to do it and she was good at it. Some interesting facts about her. She was known Even in her 80s of traveling up to 300 days a year, giving speeches, giving, going on talk shows, appearing at symposia and continuing to make videos, documentaries, shows. I mean she really was extraordinarily prolific in her activities, in her actions and really demonstrating her expertise to the world and putting a spotlight on animals that most of us thought okay, that's just something that runs around, eats a banana. Most people didn't know anything about it. So important things to realize that she gets credit for. She really proved how primates, how chimps use complex coals and gestures. This, this did something to human beings understanding of who they were in the world order. Because until Jane Goodall it was accepted among a lot of humanity that humans were unique. Only humans had complex communication, only humans had gestures for really working things out. She showed no, that really wasn't the term. She reframed science by translating primate behavior into human terms that audiences could connect with. She gave the chimps names. She understood that we as human beings don't just refer to number one, number three, number seven. That's how primatologists had previously done it. She gave them names. David Gray, Beer Flow, Gilka. So she really made science relatable to the masses and inspired countless young women and men to devote their lives to science. She appeared numerous times in National Geographic films, best selling books, landmark papers, started institutes. She was really a force and she had many, many strengths going for her. I'm going to say something that has been occasionally commented but not much because it's not considered polite, but I am going to lay it out for you. Part of the premise of this show is I'm going to just lay it out straight for you. Let the chips fall where they may. If I occasionally offend someone, I will, but I'm looking at things through the lens of communication and personal development. She was in a field at the time. Most people in her field, if you thought of them or you saw them, they look more like me. Kind of old white men with a lot of gray hair. Not that interesting for television, for documentaries. When she started, she was young, blonde and good looking. And it just attracted a lot of attention. Now, if that's all she had going for her, we wouldn't be talking about her today. She kept at. She used that as a hook initially, but then she went deep. She continued doing research, she continued doing the work in the field, whether it's literally in the field or traveling around the globe, speaking out, giving presentations, talks, being interviewed. So it was only initial hook. I mean, at age 91, no one was saying, you know, come on TV because you are a pretty young thing. That doesn't happen to anyone at age 91. But when she was 23, yes, she was strikingly good looking. I mean that in no way to disrespect her scientific accomplishments and her role as a public intellectual. But initially bringing people in, attracting that camera lens, that being a factor in National Geographic wanting to put a spotlight on her, was a big impact. Now, for those of you below the age of 40, you've probably heard of National Geographic, but for those of you, let's say, over the age of 50, if you grew up in the United States, that was a really big deal because National Geographic would put on these specials on PBS. Remember, this is before the Internet. This is before TikTok. This is before YouTube. This is before cable, where you had 500 channels. This was back in the day when you had three broadcast channels in most cities and a fourth TV station, the public TV station. And they would often cover national. They would often carry National Geographic specials featuring Jane Goodall. So this was back in the day when if you were on pbs, boom, you were instantly famous. Because if you were on any TV network, any local broadcast station, you had about a fourth of the community, a fourth of the population seeing you and watching you. It was incredibly powerful. There's really nothing like it anymore. And she was a part of that. And to her credit, she leveraged that visibility, that fame to put more and more ideas about science to the world and to motivate young people to get excited about science. And. And for that, I think we should all be permanently, eternally grateful. Jane Goodall Rest in peace. Filtered is brought to you by the Want to advertise here. You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise want to become a better speaker, leader or communicator? Start with the TJ Walker Success Library. It's five of my most practical books, covering everything from public speaking to media interviews and procedures, persuasive messaging, all for only $9.95. I've trained presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs, and now you can get the same wisdom in a fast, affordable format. Go to tjwalker.com books and download your copies instantly. Poor sleep can age your brain by a year, a new study suggests. Your sleep habits may be aging your brain faster than the calendar. According to research led by Abigail Dove at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, adults with poor sleep patterns had brains that looked up to a year older than their actual age. Using scans from more than 27,000 people, scientists found that poor sleepers showed older brain age, a warning sign for future cognitive decline. The study, published in Ebiomedicine, looked at five being an early riser, getting seven to eight hours of sleep, avoiding insomnia, not snoring and staying alert during the day. Every drop in this score added about a half a year to brain age. Men showed stronger effects than women, and inflammation appeared to explain part of the connection. Researchers say the results suggest poor sleep could contribute to brain aging long before diseases like Alzheimer's appear. Nearly 60% of participants fell short of health sleep standards, meaning better rest may be simple, a relatively simple modification, and can be modified in ways to protect brain health. So what's the real message here? Once again, we learned that the secret to living longer, healthier not getting Alzheimer's isn't necessarily injecting 147 vitamins and pills and potions a day. It's Getting actual sleep, 7 to 8, preferably at least 8 hours of sleep a night. It's not sexy, doesn't look like a good post on social media, but it preserves your brain and will help you live longer. Let's dig a little deeper here. Why do I want to put a spotlight on this? You've certainly heard that more sleep can in fact help you. But you maybe see an article about that once a month or yeah, yeah, I know that. But every single day, you and I are being bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands, of messages, all designed to get us to sleep less. When Netflix comes on and says, hey, you want to watch the next episode? Or it automatically puts it out. Oh, why not? Before you know it, it's midnight. TikTok. My friends on TikTok, they're with us today, it can be so addictive. It's 8 o', clock, 9 o', clock, 10 o'. Clock, keep going. Ah, sleep can be later. We live in a culture where people brag, especially young men, especially in the Wall street world, about how tough they are. Yeah, I pulled another all nighter. Yeah, I partied till 5am and I was at the office by 6:30. There's this macho element to getting by on sleep. We don't say to anyone, no one says, oh, my car drives really well, in fact, fast. Even though I put, you know, only a gallon of gas in the rest of water. No one brags about getting at their, their prize race car. Poor quality fuel. And yet that's essentially what we do when we don't fuel our brain with rest. So it bears repeating. Again, this study, let's look at the facts. They looked at 27,000 people and poor sleepers. Brains looked a year older. And this is widely seen as a contributor to dementia. Alzheimer's. Other problem. I'm not guaranteeing that if you get an eight night good night's sleep, eight hours of sleep tonight, you're never going to have Alzheimer's. I'm not guaranteeing that. But when you look at the correlations between people who are poor sleepers, who do get Alzheimer's, it is pretty scary. And this is something we can do something about. But it takes a lot of work, especially as you get older. Now for me and probably you and most people, when you're young, it's easy to fall asleep. You stay up late till 2am Friday night, just sleep till noon the next day. It's easy once you get over a certain age. For you it could be 40, 50, 60. You're not sleeping in anymore, it's just lost sleep forever. It's grogginess for the next day or two. It means you're not exercising that day because you're too tired. There's a snowball impact in a negative way of even one bad night sleep. And this is why I think it is essential that we all give sleep more importance. There's a famous skit by the comedian Amy Schumer who says, yeah, I'll do anything for a good night's sleep, anything. Doctor, give me a pill, give me a pill, do surgery, anything, do anything to help me get a good night's sleep. I'll do anything. And the doctor turns and says, amy, turn your cell phone off an hour before you want to fall asleep early in the evening. Oh no, I won't do that. Give me a pill surgery. I'm not turning my cell phone off. That's crazy talk. Now, she was doing this for comedic effect. Fact. But isn't that really how most of us act? One of the best things I've done in my life is start a practice about five years ago where I simply turn my phone off at about 8pm sometimes earlier. Do I occasionally meet. Miss a text about what someone wants to do the next afternoon and I'll get back to them the next day? Yeah. Has that ever hurt me? No, it has not. So you hear me talk about cell phones a lot. I have a cell phone. It's on right now because we're broadcasting live on TikTok as well as YouTube and Facebook and a gazillion other social media platforms. So it's not that I want you to get rid of it. I do want you to do every possible thing you can to increase the odds of getting a good night's sleep. Because it reduces your. Doesn't eliminate. It reduces your chances of Alzheimer's, dementia and other problems. And it decreases the chances of your. Your brain aging prematurely again. This is a new study from a major institute published in Ebiomedicine, showing that your brain is literally a year older than it appears to be chronologically by lack of sleep. So we're not going to do a whole sleep tutorial. I'll just tell you briefly things I do every single day. I try to have a consistent bedtime. Now, you'll laugh if I tell you how old or how early I go to sleep at night. So I probably won't even do that. You need to find a time right for you that allows you to get up without using an alarm clock. Some of you right now are putting your finger in your ear going, why is TJ insane? I couldn't have heard him say, don't use an alarm clock. I've used an alarm clock my whole life. I'm here to tell you if you are using an alarm clock, you're not getting enough sleep. You are potentially shortening your life. You are potentially aging your brain. If you use an alarm clock, you're forcing your body to wake up when it still wants to sleep. So, T.J. how can I possibly not use an alarm clock? You got to go to bed earlier. I won't fall asleep. Then turn off all the TVs and cell phones and everything else at least an hour, maybe two hours before you need to fall asleep. Let me walk you through the math. If you have to be somewhere at 7:30 in the morning and you have to get up at least by seven or you have to leave the house by seven. And let's say you want an hour to get ready, have breakfast, brush your teeth, relax means you have to get up at 6am if you actually want to have a good chance of eight hours of sleep, it means you need to be asleep by 10pm if you want to be asleep by 10pm, it means you need to have everything done. Be in a relaxed state, ideally in bed or reading by 9:30 because it takes a little while to fall asleep sometimes. If you're going to be in bed and ready by 9:30, it means you need to start getting ready, ending activities, not doing other things around nine. And if you really want to increase your odds of not having your brain all jumbled and agitated, it means turning off your cell phone by 8. And I realize that may sound bizarre to some of you, TJ's lost his mind. How can I possibly turn off my phone at 8pm? You can. Nothing bad will happen to you unless you are the only surgeon on call for the emergency room in your small town. If that's you, by all means keep your cell phone on or have a pager on, turn your cell phone off. But for everyone else, it's just a distraction and it benefits a handful of people. It benefits Mark Zuckerberg, it benefits Elon Musk. It benefits the owners of these distraction machines that get us all riled up and upset. And yeah, I'm a part of this culture because right now I'm on every social media platform. And yes, I do want you to watch it, but I hope you can watch it or listen to it in the podcast format in a way that doesn't disrupt your sleep. Other practices that I do, I'll just share them with you. I sleep with a white noise machine on. If there's a loud car honking outside doesn't wake me up, someone else in the family is up later or turning on a tv. I can't control everyone. I don't hear it because I have a noise machine on. I put earplugs in if someone walks into the room because my wife goes to bed later than I do typically and she has to turn on the light on, it doesn't wake me up. Why? I put an eye mask on. Does it look really macho and beautiful and stunning like in a rom com movie? No. But does it help me get a better night's sleep? Yes it does. So you got to figure out what works for you. But if you Tell yourself, oh, I only need five hours, I only need six hours, I only need seven hours. You don't know that just because you're not getting it doesn't mean your brain doesn't need it for optimum performance. If you have an old house with an old leaky roof, maybe the whole house doesn't fall down. But if after every rain there's 2 inches of water on the floor, you wouldn't just say, well, I don't really need to block out more than 2 inches of rain. I mean, the house is still standing. I don't need to fix the roof. You wouldn't say that. That's essentially what you are saying. If you are getting less than really eight hours for most people, is there an extreme 1 or 2, 3% of people who really do function at 100% capacity with less than eight hours sleep? Yeah, there are. It's an extremely small percentage. Chances are you aren't one of them. If you need an alarm clock to get up, guess what? You're not one of them. The way you can tell if you genuinely need less sleep is to at least go a week. Turn off all electronics after 6pm do not use an alarm clock. Don't watch TV. Read a paper book in the evening until you fall asleep. Wake up whenever you wake up and write down how many hours and minutes that will do that for a week. Average it out. That's probably what you actually need. And I think you'd be shocked. So many people I meet tell me, well, tj, I can't fall asleep until midnight. Okay? When you're in College, when you're 18 year olds, I get it, that's how young people are wired. But I always ask, what are you actually doing in the evening? And it's, well, you know, I watch the local news, I do last few minutes of email from clients and colleagues. I do quick check on social media, I check the weather for tomorrow. I'm writing out my schedule. Well, that's watching the Tonight Show. That's why you're not falling asleep till midnight. You're exposing your eyes to so much light, so much stimulation. And if you're on social media or regular media, you're exposing yourself to lots and lots of anger, getting you agitated. Why not read a nice work of fiction, a mystery starting at 8pm Then tell me how long it takes you to fall asleep. I'm constantly amazed by people who tell me they can't fall asleep before midnight. And I get them to try this experiment, which is, okay, let's Turn off your phone at 8 o', clock, just start reading a book in dim light, as dim lighting as you can take, or on something like a Kindle, paper, white, and no other lights in the room. And tell me, does it take three hours to fall asleep and typically say, you know, I fell asleep in 15 minutes. That's because your body is deprived of sleep inflammation. Also, there's a 10% link between poor sleep and older brain. So inflammation is a problem that affects virtually every human being and you dramatically increase the chances of inflammation by getting less sleep. There's so many benefits to good sleep. Now. I did just invest in something. I'm not endorsing them yet. I haven't tried it yet, but I did just purchase the eight sleep, something you put on your mattress to adjust the temperature. I'll report to you in a month or so how that goes. I'm expecting to get it. I've been using the Oura ring. Again, I'm not an affiliate. I'm not making any money. But you may have seen this on my hand before. This tracks my sleep and tells me exactly what kind of sleep I'm getting, the quality of sleep. So it does. For example, tell me if I exercise after about 8pm and play pickleball. Well, that's good for my body in some ways, but typically I get much poorer sleep quality. I wouldn't know that if I didn't track it through this kind of a sleep tracker. So. So again, I'm not endorsing this one. You may want to look at other sleep trackers, but I do think it's good for you to know exactly, not just how long you're sleeping, but the quality of your sleep as well. We have lots more to come today on the program. I appreciate you spending time with me. We'll be back after this commercial message. 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. Spam and scams Flood Facebook's Political ads. Facebook is again under scrutiny for profiting. For profiting from running junk ads that are fueled by AI and fraudulent practices. According to a new analysis by the Tech Transparency Project, roughly one in five of the platform's top political advertisers engage in deceptive or fraudulent practices. Some of these ads featured deepfake videos of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders promising government rebates that exist. Another altered clip showed White House Press Secretary Karen Levitt announcing a $5,000 relief check. All were scams. Collectively, 63 advertisers bought nearly 150,000 political or social ads over seven years, spending $49 million. Many of these ads were removed for breaking Meta's own rules. You yet more than half. More than half of the advertisers were allowed to keep posting. Senator Warren said the only thing worse than the scams was that Meta made tens of millions of dollars from the. Meta insists it's building new defenses, but critics say the company prioritizes ad revenue over consumer protection. Well, there's no doubt about that. As Senator Sanders warned, AI Is advancing rapidly, but our protections are dangerously outdated. So what's the real message here? If you see an ad on Facebook and there's some politician space on it promising you something or looking ridiculous, chances are it's a fake AI It's a deep fake meant to fool you, trick you out of your money so that Facebook can make more money. It's an outrage. Let's dig a little deeper here. Look, no one begrudges Facebook making money. They are a media company. They make their money by selling ads the same way your favorite broadcast TV station did 10, 20, 30, 50 years ago. So, yeah, they've got to sell ads. But this idea that they can't ever devote some cash, some manpower, some woman power into scrutinizing that these ads, especially when it comes to politics, is indeed an outrage. Now, I gave you examples from Senator Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and it's tempting to say, well, you know, tj, those are far left. Of course, if they don't like it, it must be good. Well, guess what? It happens all across the spectrum. There are people putting fake words into Donald Trump's mouth and Ted Cruz's mouth. It's happening all over the place. Artificial intelligence you can use to make deep fakes to make anybody say anything. And unfortunately, democracy is based on the idea of an informed citizenry making decisions, making judgments, casting votes. That in some way relates to reality. That can't happen if reality is fundamentally distorted at every single level. And our main communication sources are polluted. So, yeah, I'm in favor of freedom of speech. Everybody says they're in favor of freedom of speech, but this is mixing of speech with commerce, and it's, it's giving rocket fuel to lies that fundamentally pervert our democracy and people's understandings of how the world works. So it's a huge, huge problem. I'll leave it for another day to figure out what the right regulatory fix is. From an individual standpoint, you've got to be suspicious with any ad you see. With any story you see, with me, you need to be suspicious of me. Fact check things. The biggest problem we face right now is more and more people around the world. Americans, but it's happening in other democracies, are so committed to confirmation bias. Here's something I already believe. Here's somebody telling me something I already believe. And yet, an inch or two deeper, I already thought this person was bad. And now here's an ad. There's a social media guru influencer telling me, hey, this person you thought is bad. Oh, wait till I tell you. Now they're 10 times worse than you thought. Because it turns out they're. They're cannibals. And all the nonsense, you've heard it before, and you're like, yeah, I knew I was right. Anytime you hear someone telling you in an ad or in a social media post, or for that matter, a mainstream media outlet, if you find yourself shaking your head saying, wow, I knew I was right, and this proves it, we have a problem. It's not that you're always wrong, and I like to think I'm not always wrong. But if you spend all of your time consuming information, whether it's ads or anything else, and your constant reaction is, I knew it. This shows I'm right, it means you're not really learning anything. You are not an intelligent. I'll say this and I'll say it clearly. You're not an intelligent person. You're not a thoughtful person. You're not a reflective person. You're not an educated person. And lastly, at least ideally, at least once a day, you're reading something, hearing something, and you're thinking, wow, that never occurred to me. I never thought of that. That's making me look at this whole issue from an entirely different perspective. And the best thing of all, if you really have an open mind and you really are an intelligent person, you're going to read things, watch things, listen to podcasts, other things, and come to the conclusion, wow, maybe I was wrong. Maybe that shows actual thinking is going on. That shows you're actually exposing yourself to a range of ideas. And unfortunately, Meta, Google, they're all doing that. The algorithms are designed to give you more of what you already like and already believe because they know that's what will make you click, that's what will make you watch, that's what will allow them to sell more ads. Some of those ads are fraudulently created with deep fake AIs. And the problem gets worse and worse and worse. I mentioned it's a bipartisan problem. They're doing that to the White House press secretary, these deep fakes, having her say things that she doesn't say. The ads, according to this study, are often aimed at older conservative users. Some require hidden subscription signups. Singapore has threatened Meta with fines over scam ads. US courts are now allowing lawsuits. According to the FTC, online impersonation scams against older Americans have quadrupled since 2020. Meta says scammers are relentless. I don't doubt that. But you know what, Meta? You make so much money, when Mark Zuckerberg can afford to buy half of Hawaii, I think we can agree Meta could devote more money to fact checking ads. I know they're not the New York Times. They're not a traditional journalistic media company. They're a platform. But it's not like a platform of a phone company where you can. If I call one person and spew a bunch of nonsense, hey, Billy. The moon is made to bring cheese. And Billy hears that I'm not polluting the minds of millions of kids around the world who've just started taking a science class for the first time. And now I've convinced them the moon is made of green cheese. It's not like that. Facebook is different because Facebook has the power to reach millions of people like that. Especially if it's a lie. Especially if it's a bit of demagoguery. And that is the real problem. There are more problems with deep fakes, which we're going to talk about in just a moment. Want to communicate like a Pro? Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com Millions have already transformed their speaking skills. Why not you? This show doesn't run on a lot of corporate sponsorships or big media backing. It runs on caffeine and your support. If you like what you're hearing and want to say thanks, you can buy me a coffee. Really? Just go to buymeacoffee.com tjwalker it's quick, it's easy, and yes, it helps cover editing hosting and staying relatively ad free for as long as possible. Buymeacoffee.com tjwalker your 3.95 makes a real difference. Want live coaching from me? Bonus episodes, full course access. It's all waiting@tjwalker.com members join now. Okay, we are back. I'm TJ Walker, this is Filter. Thanks so much for joining me. Today we're going to dive right in a related story about these deep fakes and it involves Trump's mocking deep fake videos. It's sparking some outrage. Donald Trump is facing criticism for posting AI altered videos, not one, but two now targeting Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. According to Politico and the Washington Post, one video showed Jeffries in a and I'm going to show it to you in just a minute. Jeffries in a sombrero with mariachi music, while another manipulated Schumer's words into profanity laced attacks. Jeffries blasted the material as racist and fake, while Schumer denounced it as unserious during tense budget negotiations. You could debate the first part about racist, but can anyone really deny Schumer's take on this, that it's very unserious during tense budget negotiations? Vice President J.D. vance disagrees. However, he defended the clips. I think it's funny, he told reporters, calling them a way to poke a little bit of fun. Yeah, it's really fun. Seeing millions of people lose health care and lose food benefits and not have the planes regulated flying in. It's always fun. I get it. JD he even joked that if Democrats helped reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop. The controversy highlights both the risk of AI generated misinformation and the willingness of top officials to embrace mockery as part of political messaging, even in the middle of a government showdown. So what's the real message here of President Trump using AI generated fake videos showing Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero and a fake mustache? The message to the world from Trump is hey everybody, I'm a baby and I'm a drooling, blithering idiot. You thought Biden's brain was scrambled? Guess where mine is. It's scrambled eggs ready for breakfast. Let's dig a little bit deeper. I'm going to show you a video right now. This is the second one. This is the not the first one, but it's the second one. I want to show it to you and it truly is juvenile. And let me say I'm all in favor of having fun in Life. I try to have fun on this show. I'm all in favor of light heartedness, but with Trump, there's always the viciousness to it. There's always the coded sort of wink, wink, nudge, nudge, I'm not racist, but really I might be. There's always that part. There's always the sense that any criticism of him is invalid because it's by brown people or Mexicans or people from another culture or they're crazy. It can't ever be an honest, legitimate debate about something. So let's look at the, the latest one where it was, and admittedly it is funny, but is that really what we want in a president? Are we really electing the jokester in chief? If that's the case, there are better comedians in the world than Donald Trump. If we want to have a comedian. Okay, how about Chris Rock for president? But Chris Rock isn't trying to be president. Let's take a look at this latest from Trump posted on Truth Social Media. It's a disgusting video and we're going to continue to make clear bigger. Okay, so this is, this is getting really met here. This is real. This is real footage of the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, talking about the first video that Donald Trump did that he thought was so cute, making fun of him. So it's Hakeem Jeffries on msnbc. So this part is real. Tree will get you nowhere. We are fighting to protect the health care of the American people in the face of an unprecedented Republican assault. So the point there, if I'm getting it right, is that he's trying to. Trump is trying to amplify a Republican talking point, which unsurprisingly has no basis in fact. The Republican talking point is the Democrats are shutting down the government because they're so outraged that we're not spending billions of dollars giving health care to illegal immigrants. Well, that sounds outrageous. Why? Those Democrats sure are extreme. They must be awful people. Except it's not true. And by putting this little image up, in some ways it's clever. If you were, you know, a candidate running for office and you had no power and you're trying to get attention, but when you're the President of the United States, you already have the bully pulpit, you're in charge of negotiations that affect millions, arguably billions of human lives, and to descend into this childish name calling, taunting just, I'm going to lie about them because it's better than the truth attitude is truly, utterly despicable. Am I saying it's, you know, drawing A mustache on someone is racist category? No, I'm not saying that. But again, if you squint the right way, what it's really saying is Democrats are not real Americans. They don't actually care about real Americans. All they care about are illegal immigrants. That is the message here. And it is complete and utter demagoguery. And it's also just childish at a level that is just epic. This is the sort of thing where in the past, if a 21 year old city councilor had done it, they would be censured by the city council and probably lose the next election. And here we have the President of the United States. I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways. You can't say, well, you know, discourse in America is so vile, it's so coarse. And it's, it's across the spectrum. It's everybody, everybody's not doing it. Hakeem Jeffries is not putting out an AI generated video of Trump with his face, but as a 400 pound man saying things like, I love the government clothes because now I can eat dead babies all day long because that's what I like to do. Hakeem Jeffries is not putting out an AI generated deep fake video to make Trump look like that, to make him look that silly. That's stupid. Because he's a serious person. Is Hakeem Jeffries perfect? No. Is Chuck Schumer perfect? No. But they're at least trying to have serious conversations with the American people and this administration about how policies can be enacted to benefit Americans and to be treated with just this silliness, this nastiness, these tropes dripping with racism. And yeah, there's some humor in it. I get it. I'm not humorless. But to see J.D. vance just sycophantically. Oh, it's funny. Yes. Yes, boss. Everything you do is great. Nothing you do is ever worth criticism. Is, is utterly. It's in tune with his character, but it is nonetheless a bit revolting. Okay, those of you watching perhaps for the first time, might be confused here. I want to stress this is not another political punditry show. This is not Fox News or msnbc, light on the Internet. This is a show where I bring my own experience as a communications expert. For 40 years, I have been a communications and media trainer, consultant to presidents of countries, prime ministers, Nobel Peace Prize winners, business leaders, Wall street mavens, executives in finance and insurance, energy, you name it. And what I do now in this show is I look at the top stories in business, technology and culture and analyze it through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills, all with the goal of you learning more so that you can be more successful in your own career and your own personal life. So, for example, yesterday I analyzed for the most part just the technical skills of War Secretary Pete Hegseth in his address at Quantico to military leaders earlier this week. And any fair minded person would say I probably gave him 95% praise because he legitimately is a good public speaker and I wanted to bring to you lessons from across the spectrum so that you can improve. So the first three stories in our podcast today, if you're listening or watching, don't even mention politics. But unfortunately, when you live in a time when authoritarianism is on the rise, the thing about authoritarians and dictators is they want to put their thumb on everything. Every business, they want to pick winners and losers. Every comedian, they want to pick winners and losers. Every tech company, they want to pick winners and losers. So it's virtually impossible to have a business show talking about business issues from a communication standpoint and not spend time talking about the rise of authoritarianism. Now later in the grab bag section of the show today, we'll talk about how other countries have successfully toppled authoritarian regimes. But first up, in just a moment, we are going to talk about the actual reason the Democrats at the moment are preventing the Senate from having enough votes to open the government back up. I'll be going into that in great detail in just a moment. Want a shortcut to powerful communication skills? Download the TJ Walker Success Library, five of my best selling books for only 9.95. Go to tjwalker.com books instant access. Big impact. I've had entire YouTube channels wiped out overnight. So if you enjoy this show, don't lose track of me. The safest way is my newsletter. Substack.com success Sign up for free and you'll get exclusive commentary, live session alerts and first access to new tools. Again, that's substack.com just search for TJ Walker or go to substack.com J Walkers success, your direct line to everything I do. Welcome back. Why Democrats say the Shutdown Was Inevitable the federal government has shut down, disrupting services and paychecks for millions. But Democrats argue the fight is not really about budget line items. It's about stopping what they see as authoritarian overreach by Donald Trump. Now the official message is it's about health care spending because the other stuff is too complex. But according to Vox, which is a website I try to frequent daily. Democrats could have accepted a short term funding deal and kept negotiating over health care. Instead, they forced a shutdown because of three larger forces. First, Trump has claimed powers that go beyond normal politics. He has ordered investigations of opponents. Never been done before, at least not since Nixon. He's rewarded allies from January 6, pressured networks to silence criticism, deported longtime residents without due process, and most crucially, asserted the power to ignore Congress's spending decisions. Just last week, the Supreme Court's conservative majority gave him cover to withhold billions in dollars in foreign aid that Congress had already approved. Second, Democratic donors, activists and voters believe the country is sliding toward autocracy. And I should point out there's a lot of centrist and Republicans and libertarians who believe that as well. Many already saw their leaders as too passive, even weak. A short term deal without checks on Trump's spending power would have looked like surrender. Third, Senate rules put Democrats in a corner with 47 votes. They can block bills but not pass their own. That left only one lever forcing a shutdown until Republicans agree to limit to real limits on Trump's authority. For Democrats, this is not just another budget fight. It's a stand against what they see as creeping authoritarianism. Okay, what's the real bottom line here? What's the message of the Democrats shutting down the government? It's not just we want more health care. That's a part of it. It's really about saying this, no more authoritarianism. You cannot be a president who thinks he's a king any longer. We're not going to stand for it. If we have to throw a wrench in the works to stop it, that's what we'll do. That is the real message. Let's go a little bit deeper here. I am not one who typically likes the tactics of failing to extend the debt as a way of negotiating over certain policies. But we don't have a policy problem in America right now. We really don't. We have a complete shredding of the U.S. constitution problem. We have a complete ending of democracy problem. We have, in fact, a rise of authoritarianism problem. Those are different problems than this healthcare bill deserves 14 billion. This one deserves 16. It's a different problem than top marginal tax rate should be 39% versus 32%. Those are different issues. Reasonable people across the political spectrum can have different opinions about that, make their case, votes take place and majority should rule. But that's not what's happening here. What this president has done, which is unprecedented, is Congress passes a law Saying spend money on X, and I don't mean the Twitter platform. And the president says, you know, I'll do whatever I want. I don't like that. I'm not going to spend it. That's not how it's supposed to work. Our Constitution was designed to give Congress the power of the purse, how to spend it, not just to give blank checks to presidents to fill out any way they want. Our founding fathers did not want another king. That's why we broke away from England. We don't want kings. And this president doesn't seem to understand that. So is this a messy way of sending the message? Yes. You know what else is messy? Authoritarianism. You know what else is messy? Having the United States military practice on actual American citizens cracking skulls in Chicago, Louisiana, Washington, D.C. portland, and soon coming to your town. That's also messy. You know what else is messy? Being deported because your skin is a little darker than the average person in America. Maybe your last name is Hernandez. That's messy. And it's happening every single day and virtually every day. We are seeing more and more assaults on democracy. Now, is there a chance that Trump can destroy our society even faster with a government shutdown? It's absolutely possible. Is there a chance that this is going to backfire for the Democrat? Yes. Is there a chance that politically the Republican message dominates and somehow, because it's not there now, right now, about 13% more people blame the Republicans than the Democrats on the shutdown. But could that shift? It absolutely could. Because between Steve Bannon's war room and Sean Hannity on Fox and Tucker Carlson online and all of the allies in the media, Wall Street Journal on down, the Republicans and the Trump aligned media folks are simply better at communicating messages. They're better at spin, and they're more shameless at just creating stuff. I'm going to be polite here. Creating stuff out of thin air that doesn't have a factual basis to make the other side look bad. So I do not in any way think this is some sort of slam dunk politically for Democrats. But I also think they just, they have no choice. There were so many Democrats and frankly, centrist and even Republicans who were upset with Senator Chuck Schumer, the, the Democratic leader in the Senate, for giving Trump what he wanted the last time this issue came up earlier in the year. And at some point, enough people are saying, especially those who follow politics closely, Democratic donors, Democratic activists are saying, look, we cannot continue writing blank checks to someone using the money to destroy democracy. Now, the whole point of negotiation Typically is you get people to agree to stuff. I will do this for you if you agree to do this for me. Implicit to that is that both parties are capable and willing to keep a promise. Well, the one thing everyone knows about Donald Trump, and they've known it for decade after decade after decade, he never keeps his promises. He shreds them up, instantly forgets about. He's doing whatever in the moment, whatever the last person in the room told him is good for him. He'll do that. So in a sense, it's extraordinarily irrational for a Democrat, a senator, to negotiate with the White House about, okay, I will extend this debt ceiling for you if you give X amount here. Because Trump has already shown, I'm not going to spend money on things I don't like. I don't care that every other president in the history of our country has spent the money in the way the Congress said it had to be spent. I'm going to do what I want because everything in the world is about me, me, me. If I want something and I like something, I deserve to grab it. Whether it's shutting this agency down or grabbing a woman's. You know what, that. That's who he is. He's been amazingly consistent. The rules don't apply to me. That has been Trump's modus operandi his entire life. Dig deeply enough. It's probably why he was kicked out of military school. It's probably why he was sent to military school as a teenage boy. It's why there are countless small business operators, carpenters, Masons, electricians, who've been stiffed by this guy because he just didn't want to pay them. I don't have to pay them. Yes, they work. They helped me build my building. The rules don't apply to me. I don't want other people to use immigrants from other countries. But, hey, you want to come and build Trump Tower, fine. You want to come work at Mar a Lago and I can save a few shekels, fine. The rules don't apply to him. And that's why it's extraordinarily difficult for not just a Democrat, but any sentient human being to make a deal with this person at some point. It's like dealing with a child, an adult child who has a severe drug addiction problem. You know, they're 25 years old. They're coming up, mom, you know, I'm going to straighten out my life. Please just give me a thousand dollars and, and I'm going to go to school and Learn a new skill and I'll be out of the house. And maybe you do that once, maybe you do that twice, maybe you do that three times. But after a while you're like, no, if I give little Billy $1,000, he's going to do what he did last time, he's going to do what feels good. He's going to go out and spend it on crack cocaine, not get any closer to having a job, and he's going to be living under my roof, taking advantage of me. And that's kind of how Democrats feel right now about this president, which is why you are not seeing them saying, okay, let's do whatever we can to open this government back up. Because make no mistake about it, the government shutdown is bad for many, many reasons, for many, many people all across the spectrum, there's going to be real pain that has to be offset. That's one bad thing. You have to compare that to what is happening. If every single day a piece of our democracy is being chipped away, a sentence or two of our Constitution is being scratched out. If every single day there's a further decline in our basic democracy, that's a bad thing, too. So I am of the opinion where you have to pick between the lesser of the bad options. And I have to conclude, as currently the Democrats do, and I call it straight, regardless of partisanship, I happen to concur that the least bad thing right now is shutting down the government. As harmful and painful as it is, that's much less of a negative long term force than allowing this person in the White House to have full access to funds to spend any way he wants, destroying democracy, continuing to target anyone who criticizes him. Let's not forget it was only a little less than a week and a half ago, or a little more than a week and a half ago, when the most important, powerful person in the administration not named Trump, Stephen Miller, said that the Democratic Party is a domestic extremist organization. That's not that far away from saying it's an official terrorist organization and should be banned and investigated and anyone who's a member should be put in prison, it's not that far. They are laying the groundwork. And when you go after someone like Comey, the former FBI director, for the crime of looking at evidence, and there was a lot of evidence for following up leads on all the collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, when someone like that can have their life turned upside down, indicted, possibly convicted, possibly put in jail, possibly having their entire finances destroyed, their life Destroyed when it can happen to him. Guess what? You could be next. I'm T.J. walker. I want to thank you for spending time with me today. We typically look at top five issues of the day. Typically, most of them have nothing to do with politics. And if you're counting three of our five, that they had nothing to do with politics. But as I mentioned to you, it's very difficult in this current era of rising autocracy to not talk about politics. Which does lead me to a fascinating column in today's New York Times about how autocracy can be defeated because it's. It's too easy to just get in this depression spiral of, oh, my God, this is just like Germany in the 19 late 30s, and it's headed to where it went to the 40s. This is like Italy. It's tempting to look at certain periods of history and say, we're doomed. And I'm an optimist. I gotta say I'm an optimist. I believe in looking for positive changes to make things better and to look at history for doing that. So, for example, Poland in 2023, they had an authoritarian leader there. The opposition unified 74% turnout in the elections, and they ousted the Law and Justice Party. Despite a very tilted system, it's important to look at that. Chile in 1988. Joyous coming campaign. They toppled Pinochet's dictatorship. The best way to beat authoritarians is at the ballot box. And it's extremely hard to do because they cheat, they steal, they stifle dissent. So you don't need 51% of the vote quite often you need 80, 85% of the vote. It's got to be so big that the authoritarian just can't hang on any longer. Serbia in the year 2000, the youth movement mobilized voters and Milosevic fell. He was kicked out. And this is a little more questionable example, but some make the case that India in 1977 had reached a state of autocracy, with Gandhi's emergency rule essentially stifling all opposition. But the voters gave her Indira Gandhi. An overwhelming landslide defeat brought in a new party, the Ukraine, in 2004. Many people forget that, but they had a strong authoritarian. Peaceful protest and courts overruled. A rigged election. Brazil, that is in the news. 2022. Courts and civil society upheld Lulu's win. Now Trump is doing his best to try to change that and force his perverted vision of dictators are great on the rest of the world, but the people and civil society and the laws upheld held Lulu's win. And Bolsonaro, you know, was, was run out of town. He tried to steal an election and it was convicted for doing that. And of course, the best example of this really from my lifetime, I remember it distinctly because I had just switched jobs. I was basically unemployed for a month, and I had nothing to do but watch TV. This was in early 1986, and the people power forced Marcos out of power. He had he was a strong authoritarian, essentially a dictator of the Philippines for decades. But at some point you anger enough people and the people take to the streets. The opposition is so overwhelming and he was forced out. So take note those of you who are upset with our current state of affairs. And it doesn't have to be this way forever. What happened in 1930s, 1940s in Germany doesn't have to be the only way. I'm TJ Walker. I want to thank you for watching today. Thank you so much for spending some time with me. My commitment to you, as always, is if you spend some time with me, you'll learn a little more about important stories in the news that affect society and your own life. And you will learn skills, how to be a better communicator, how to have better personal development habits to make you more successful in your professional life as well as your personal life. If you heard anything you like today and you're listening on a podcast, please leave a review. Follow subscribe to the show if you're watching on any social media platform, please leave a comment like Sign up for notifications and subscribe. Thanks. See you tomorrow.