Subway Scents, Brain Gains, and Murdoch’s California Gamble

Americans may feel politically at war, but a massive new democracy poll shows we actually share a broad core of agreement on political violence, free speech, compromise and even multiculturalism. Then we'll dig into a new Fox News poll that finds voters blaming Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, for a still ugly economy, from grocery bills to overall economic confidence. From there, Trump cranks up the rhetoric, accusing Democratic lawmakers of sedition punishable by death. And we'll examine the rare moment when leading Republicans publicly distance themselves from him. We'll switch gears to New York's Grand Central Station, where the first ever aroma ad replaces the usual subway stench with vanilla pine holiday fragrance. And finally, Rupert Murdoch's California Post. Is there a bold new tabloid for Hollywood and Silicon Valley or just another Murdoch attempt to muscle into a market already dominated by the New York Times? All that and more today on Filtered. Welcome to FILTERED with TJ Walker. Hi, and welcome to the program. We are live. It is Friday, November 21, 2025. Thanks so much for joining me. Let's check in on the market vitals from yesterday as we do every day. The S P 500 closed at 6,538.76. That's down 1.56%. And this was after initially soaring early in the day after excitement over Nvidia, but that's kind of dissipated very quickly. The NASDAQ composite closed at 22,078.05, down a whopping 2.15%. Always keep in mind the long term. Over the last 25 years, the S&P 500 has gone up on average 8.32% per year. The NASDAQ 100 has gone up on average 9.09% per year. So please, please keep in mind the long term, long term thinking is what we're about right here on Filtered. Let's dive into the top story of the day, the hidden consensus most Americans actually share. According to new findings from Gallup, Americans agree on far more than our politics are often admit. In a massive national survey of more than 20,000 adults, Gallup reports overwhelming unity on core democratic values. Eight in 10Americans say political violence is never acceptable. Similar numbers say elected leaders should compromise to solve problems. And 84% believe the United States is stronger with a mix of races, religions and cultures. Gallup adds that nearly 80% of Americans agree that everyone has the right to free nonviolent expression, a level of agreement rarely seen in modern polling. Yes, we disagree on the pace of cultural change and on who should ensure people's basic needs are met. But the broader picture is unmistakable. Americans share a strong foundation of common democratic principles. Gallup says these results reveal a country that, beneath the noise, is far more unified in its values than the headlines suggest. Okay, so what's the real message here? We constantly hear in the media that there's this massive culture war. Everyone hates each other. Well, according to Gallup, a new poll shows that the vast, vast majority of Americans are in agreement on things like whether it's appropriate to use violence, whether multiculturalism is good. You rarely hear it in the headlines because it's not spewing hatred. It doesn't generate clicks, but it is reality. Let's dig a little deeper here. I thought it was important for me in this show to not only spotlight this new poll, but to make it the lead story of the day, because you're not going to see this in most other news outlets because it doesn't sow dissension. This is not the sort of thing that generates lots of clicks. This is not the sort of thing where people see it on Facebook. They see the headline and think, oh, good, this makes me look good. And people I don't like look bad. Therefore, let me hit like and share without ever having read it. It's not that kind of a story. And that's part of the problem with our modern media landscape, the social media world. Things that stress consensus, things that show unity, get buried by the algorithm. That's a huge, huge problem. Let me look in more detail at some of the facts from this story. 84% of Americans say multiculturalism strengthens America. Only 5% oppose free expression rights. So the consensus spans age, it spans party lines. Senior citizens were most opposed to violence. Young adults mostly reject violence. And it's not just Democrats who say multiculturalism is good. That's a little bit of a surprise. Independents are supportive. Republicans show. A majority of. A majority of Republicans, according to this recent Gallup poll, show they support a multicultural society here in the United States. So when it comes to the change of pace, there is some disagreement. Half say it's changing too quickly. Half say it's changing at a reasonable pace. Immigrants, believe it or not, are evenly divided on this issue. 45% of people are comfortable with change in diversity. 39% like diversity but prefer slower change. Most oppose banning candidates just because of their political beliefs. They're deemed radical. So there's actually a lot of unity in the United States. And I suppose I'm as guilty as the next person or the next commentator for fixating on controversy, because that's more Interesting to talk about. It's not particularly interesting. This video right now isn't going to go viral. Oh, my gosh. Did you see TJ talk about how unified the country is? No, this video is not going to go viral, but I don't care. The whole point of this show is to try to explain what's really going on in the world and analyze it from the perspective of a sane, sensible centrist. Now, it's okay if you don't consider yourself a centrist. You can be a centrist and be a member of any party, and you could be at different places across the spectrum. As long as you're avoiding the extremes. You know, the center, there can be a wide center. But this is not a show where you're just going to be told day after day after day, I'm the good guy, they're the bad guys. Wouldn't you know it? The people you already don't like are bad. Again, it's not that type of a show. So if you're looking for that, you may want to try elsewhere. But I do see it as my goal to put a spotlight not necessarily on good news, although this is pretty good news, but putting a spotlight on reality to give you a better sense of what's really going on and then to filter the news through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills. The real lesson here is be careful that you don't get a distorted view of the world because of the algorithms that our big tech companies have found their most profitable. It's more profitable to sow dissension, to sow hatred, to do things that unfortunately can foment violence. Showing a poll that the vast majority of Americans are in agreement on some of the biggest issues facing our nation. It doesn't generate clicks, it doesn't generate money, but doesn't mean it's not true. I want to thank you for joining me today. If you're new to the show, my name is TJ Walker. I'm the host. Every day, we typically look at the top five news stories or five top news stories of the day that relate to business, technology, media and culture. And then we filter it, analyze it through the lens of communication skills, personal development skills, all with the goal of making you more successful. My pledge to you, if you spend some time with me each day, is, is you'll learn a little more about the world, important stories facing us, and this is important, you'll learn more about yourself. You'll learn more about how you can have effective communication skills, personal development skills. So you can be more successful in your personal life as well as your professional life. So we are a news show, a news analysis show, a business news analysis show, and a personal development show all wrapped in into one. It's the leading show in the world with this format. I say that because I'm not aware of anyone else trying to position it exactly like this. If you get any value out of this show, please please do me a favor. Subscribe to whatever channel, whatever platform you're on now. It's YouTube, if it's TikTok, if it's LinkedIn, whatever it is, make sure to follow the show. Follow me if you're listening on one of the podcasting platforms which we've only recently started broadcasting on or distributing on, please make sure you follow or subscribe us whether to us whether you're listening on Spotify, itunes, Apple Music, Amazon Music, wherever it is, thank you for listening today. But also make sure you follow, subscribe and please please. As we're in these early stages of launching this show, please leave a review. We'll be back 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 TJ Walker 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 TJ Walker your 395 makes a real difference. Want live coaching from me? Bonus episodes Full course access it's all waiting@tjwalker.com members join now. And we're back. More Polling News Fox News Poll Shows Americans Blame Trump for the Economy According to new reporting from the Daily Beast, Fox News own polling delivered a brutal reality check for President Trump, and the message came from one of his social companions. Bret Baier, a visibly stiff bear reported that 76% of Americans now view the economy negatively, even worse than the final months of Joe Biden's presidency. Fox's numbers show deep frustration over rising costs. 60% of Americans say their grocery bills have gone up a lot, and another quarter say they've risen a little. Yet Trump recently insisted groceries are down except for the beef, a claim contradicted by independent fact checks showing prices have climbed since he returned to office. Most striking is who voters blame. Fox found 62% of Americans, including 42% of Republicans, say Trump is responsible for today's economic pain. Only 32% blame the former president, Biden. The White House dismissed the poll, saying Trump is cleaning up Joe Biden's economic disaster. Okay, what's the real message here? You can get away with blaming the other guy when you take office, and even for the first month or two, or even three, but when you're this close to going into your second year of running everything, you can't blame the other guy. Americans realize the tariff isn't a tariff. The tariff is a tax. They see inflation up, they see the cost of living going up, they see the price of groceries going up. And now they're directing their blame at Trump. Let's dig a little deeper here. Again, I'm not here as some partisan for you. I'm going to be honest and accurate. Called it like I see it. So I'm going to say something to defend Trump. The reality is the economy is not that bad. When you look at history, historical rates of unemployment and inflation, we're pretty good. I mean, unemployment is less. How? No matter how you slice it, it's less than 5%, a little over 4%. That's considered what a lot of economists consider to be like structural unemployment. Hard to do better than that. Now, are some people underemployed? Sure. Are some people with college degrees hoping for a great job, working at Starbucks and driving Uber? Yeah, but that's a separate issue. There's always some inflation. The target rate by the fed is about 2%. And yeah, we are higher than that. But the idea that the economy is awful isn't really true. Now, many predicted that with all the Trump tariff taxes that by this time the economy would be in massive recession. That hasn't happened. Now, lest you think I become a complete Trump spokesperson, I want to give you the perspective a little bit broader. Let's go back a year ago. The economy was actually in very good shape in Biden's last term. But it didn't feel like it to people because, yes, there was still inflation. Now, what everyone always forgets is even the countries in Europe, other well known democracies, free capitalistic systems, free market systems had massive inflation after Covid. It's all fine to say stimulus bills and spending cause massive, massive inflation, but the reality is every major economy in the world suffered inflation because of COVID People stopped spending on a lot of things like going to restaurants and a lot of services. And started spending on having griddles sent to their house and more backyard furniture. So there was massive, massive demand for products to be shipped all over the world. And it's impossible to not have inflation when all of a sudden you see surging, surging demand for products when it's even harder to get it to people and shipped out. So that was the fundamental dynamic. Am I saying Biden did everything perfectly? No. But I will tell you, any honest economic accounting of 2021-2025 would say the United States had lower inflation than almost any other major economy in the world. And yet, certainly anytime Biden tried to point that out, he was shouted down, ridiculed and mocked. And ultimately, he and his successor were punished in the polls. Polls showed Americans voted overwhelmingly for the current administration as a way of repudiating the economic policies of the past administration. And you know what? That's politics. If you could go back in time and you can't, you could make the case that arguably Biden could have said, let me throw 10 or 20 million Americans out of work, let me get unemployment at 10% and focus exclusively on keeping inflation low and therefore being more appealing to 90% of voters, maybe that would have. Again, it's hard to really tell because inflationary situations were happening in every major economy in the world. So even that might not have worked. But in more typical times, quite often, any policy official, any government official has to decide, do I care almost exclusively about inflation? Do I care exclusively about unemployment? Or do I try to mix? Do I try to help in both situations? Because to simply say inflation is the only thing that matters, if your unemployment goes up to 10%, you got a lot of hungry, hungry, starving people, and you have a massive hole in the economy that can take sometimes 10 years to get out. Arguably, the 2008 Great Recession was a situation where we should have had more government spending to help with all the unemployment then, but we can't go back then. Let's look more at the details of this most recent poll. Again, 76% say the economy is negative. Let's not forget the number one thing that Donald Trump always had is to his favor among voters was the sense of, he's a businessman, he'll bring inflation down, he'll control costs. That was his number one thing. No one was voting for him because they idolized his orange pancake makeup or his bleach blonde hairdo. That's not why people voted for him. They voted for him because they thought, he's not a politician, he's a businessman. And he'll bring costs down. So when inflation goes up and people no longer have faith in the economy, that's a huge, huge hit to his popularity, which is one reason why we're seeing his favorability ratings go down so low. 60% of Americans say that grocery prices are up a lot. That's not why they voted for Trump. And they are starting to sour on it. This is one contributing factor as to why Republicans ran so poorly in the 2025 elections is there's now a drag. People no longer assume this is the party that's going to be great for inflation because they're looking at their own wallets, they're looking at their bank accounts. As a politician, you can lie about a lot of things and get away with it. You can spin a lot of things and get away with it. You can create false narratives, telling stories. But it's very hard to convince someone who's looking at their bank account and it says there's a $10 overdraft and you got nothing in there, that they're wrong. It's very hard to convince them their eyes are wrong when they go to pay a bill with a credit card and the waiter or the person says, I'm sorry the card was declined. Very hard to convince somebody, you're a politician that they're wrong when they feel that pain. Interestingly, 42% of Republicans are now blaming Trump. All well and good to say. Democrats blame Trump or Independents blame Trump. You would expect that. But now we're cutting in on Trump's base. 42% of Republicans in America are currently blaming Trump for high prices. That has got hurt. Independents are overwhelmingly blaming Trump. They're not blaming Biden now. Biden has pretty much retreated from the national scene. You rarely hear of him. I wouldn't be surprised if his name IDs shrunk below 90% at this point. The shutdown worsened the public frustration because like it or not, presidents are sort of held accountable for keeping the government running. And it wasn't just the fact that the government was closed. Arguably, you could say the Democrats had an equal role in that, but it was the perception that Trump had absolute zero interest in talking, negotiating and getting it open again has taken a hit in his polling. The White House insists that inflation is cooled. Not really. I will point out in Trump's favor, all of the liberal economists who predicted early in the spring that these tariffs were going to cause massive inflation, and some of them predicted, you know, double digit inflation now have, have been wrong so far. Now they might ultimately be right in first quarter, 2026 or second quarter. But as of right now, we're not seeing, we're certainly not seeing double digit inflation now. Harder to tell what the actual stats are statistics given what Trump has done to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But even independent sources from Goldman Sachs, other major banks, nobody's showing that inflation is anything close to double digits yet. But people were expecting inflation to go from 4 or 5% to 2%. And especially when Trump says, oh, I'm going to solve the problem day one. Well, we're not day one. This is not January 20th anymore. Anymore. It's not January 21st, February 21st or March. We're heading into the holidays. When you really look at the clock and how people work, we're heading really into the last five, six weeks of the year with holidays. You're really going to get maybe a couple of weeks left of really high level productivity out of Washington or anyplace else and then boom, it's 2026 and Biden lost the White House in 2024. It's simply not going to work for the current president or any president to be talking about. It's the other guy's fault. When you're now into two calendar years difference More in a moment, Steve. Want a shortcut to powerful communication skills? Download the TJ Walker Success Lib 5 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 J. WalkerSuccess 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. WalkerSuccess your direct line to everything I do. Okay, I didn't want to talk about this. I didn't make this the lead story. This is primarily a show about business, news, technology and top cultural issues in the news. But I can't really avoid it. It's the number one headline in most major news stories. Trump talks death. That's right, death for Republicans or for Democrats and Republicans push back. According to the Times, President Trump exploded on social media over a video from six Democratic veterans reminding troops they must refuse illegal orders. We talked about that yesterday right here on the show. I showed you some of that video clip. Trump wrote, quote, seditious Behavior punishable by death. Death in all caps. And shared a post saying, hang them, George Washington Wood. In another message, he warned, this is really bad and dangerous to our country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. Seditious behavior from traitors. Lock them up. But this time, Republicans didn't all echo him. Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune, when asked about Trump calling it a crime punishable by death, replied, I don't agree with that. He still called the Democrats video ill advised, unnecessary and provocative. But he clearly rejected Trump's escalation. At the White House podium, Press Secretary Caroline Levitt answered no when asked if the president wants to execute members of Congress. Now, Senator Chuck Schumer said Trump is calling for the execution of elected officials and makes public political violence more likely. So what's the real message here? Trump has seemed to a lot of people, especially centrist and Democrats, as unhinged for years. Now he's coming across as unhinged even to Republicans calling for the execution of Democrats for simply stating what every single member of our military is taught day one when they show up for basic training. That's absurd. They are told in basic training you have the right to ignore illegal orders. That's all they said. Let's go a little deeper here. You know, it's a little odd at many level, not it's extremely odd for a president to be saying, kill members of the Congress, the Senate and the House for simply stating something that's 100% factually correct, which is soldiers in America have the right, indeed the duty to ignore illegal orders. If a general says, I don't like this person because the person's skin color is green, this citizen walking across the street, please shoot him. As a soldier, you have the right to say, no, I'm not going to follow that order. You even have the obligation to do that. Now, what's the real, what's really going on here? There are many, many military activists, legal scholars and other experts who contend Trump's orders to the military to just bomb and kill boats in the Caribbean because we, we kind of think, oh, maybe they're a drug dealer, who knows? But let's just err on the side of getting rid of stuff and killing people, it's illegal. Now, the Democratic legislator, by the way, all of whom served in the military, unlike President Bone spurs, who never served a day in the military. So these are all people who have dedicated their lives, risked their lives for military service. These are not draft dodgers the way Trump or George W. Bush or others have been. These are patriotic Americans who serve their country, either in the intelligence capacity or or in actual wars, in the military, reminding Americans you have the right and the obligation to not follow orders when you are asked to do something illegal. They did not say, I should point out, they did not say ignore generals, ignore your sergeants, ignore your commander in chief simply because you don't like them politically. That's not what they said. That would have been wrong, but that's not what they're saying. So here's the other thing I'm finding fascinating about this, because as we've talked about on this show in the last week, the ground seems to be shifting in Washington, D.C. and America. It's not a done deal yet. But you feel power slipping away from Trump. You feel his iron grip over the neck of every Republican political figure in America loosening. You see more and more of them thinking, do we really want to just blindly follow this guy, given how low he is in the polls, how people who ran and connected with him in 2025 lost in a landslide in many cases? Do we really want to just be seen as marching in lockstep with this guy any longer? And many of them, they're not saying it publicly, but they're hinting at it in their comments. Because it wasn't that long ago when someone asked Republican leader in the Senate John Boone, do you agree with Trump on X? Whatever it is, the only thing you would have heard out of it of him is X. Yes, yes, I agree. He might have done it with a stony face, he might have done it with tight lips, he might have done it with a stern, uncomfortable tone of voice, but he would have said, yes, I agree. He didn't do that. Yesterday, he said no, he does not agree with Trump that members of the House and Senate should be executed for simply stating a fact that every member of our military is told at some point in their basic training. Even more interesting to me is this White House press secretary who typically is happy to spin anything. If Trump says a rainy day is the sunniest day ever, she's going to put with a smile on her face the happiest expression of yes, it's a beautiful sunny day. She could be soaking wet, drenched in the rain. Normally, she's happy to spin anything he says. Even she didn't say, yes, he's correct. She said, no, we should not be executing members of our legislative body because they stated facts. A couple more facts on this. Governor Shapiro points out that this is deepening divide in our country. Now, he's someone who's been a victim of hate crime. They burned down his house. So he justifiably is saying the last thing we need is more talks of executions. And he says specifically that Trump is actively encouraging political violence once again. And of course, the irony is that, you know, Trump talking about sedition and being a traitor after January 6, of all people, the absurdity of someone himself who committed traitorous acts, who fomented these seditious activities that, may I remind you, resulted in the death of a human being on January 6 and the death the very next day of a police officer. The blood is on the hands of certain traitors. And it's not from these Democrats making a public service announcement reminding military officials that indeed they have the right and the obligation to not follow orders to commit illegal acts. Let's take some comments from you, and I want to thank you. If you're watching us live today on TikTok, YouTube, any other platform, or listening to us live on the PodBean podcasting platform, I want to thank you for reaching out and spending time Marcus writes, you are out of touch with reality. Okay, Marcus, perhaps you're right. But can you elaborate? You're not making a case. All you're doing is name calling. So if you want to make the case, please do so. Maybe I am. But you haven't convinced anyone with simple Name calling at JDub says now talk about the trend, trends and rate of trends. I'm not sure. Perhaps you're talking about our previous story about inflation. So depending on it's harder to find out what the accurate information is on the trends of labor and inflation given with the government shutdown and the fact that independent experts gathering statistics on these have been fired. So it's hard to really know what's going on. And J Dab also says, tell us how we are not in a recession. Band Yield Inversion okay, so there's a lot of different definitions of a recession. The most standard definition is the gross domestic product shrinks for two quarters for six months. By that metric, every single piece of economic data I've seen says we are not technically in a recession. Now, I've seen others recently saying if you just cut out the top 10% of income earners or if you just sort of X'd out spending on artificial intelligence, we are in a recession. You could say it's a recession. For people in the bottom 90%. Recession is one of these things where, you know, there's the old joke a recession is when your neighbor's out of a job. Depression is when you're out of a job. Part of this is personal and there is a case to be made, and I do believe this quite sincerely, that the we would be in a recession if it weren't for the massive, massive euphoria and spending spree on artificial intelligence and how that has propped up the entire economy. If you looked at the top 10 tech companies and what they are spending on artificial intelligence and the bump they are getting in their market cap this year, if you just took that out, the stock market would be flat and then we really would be in a recession or are completely stagnant at that point. I think you would see this president's approval rating down to about 30% and you would see Republicans in office freely standing up to him saying we got to get away from this guy, we're not following his policies. And you would see the tariffs extraordinarily, extraordinarily unpopular. And you would not see this president attempt things like sending US Military to United States city. You wouldn't see that he would not have the political cover for that. So no, we're not technically in a recession. But if your point is a lot of people are hurting, you're absolutely right. If your point is our middle class is continuing to be hollowed out, you're absolutely right. If your point is sort of the bottom 20, 30, 40 million Americans, many of whom really just barely get by with snap benefits, so called food stamps are worse than ever. Well, you're absolutely correct on that. Calvin writes in Adventures, the liberal economists never talk in account interest rates, which adds to the cost of all goods. So that's not really true. There's liberal economists in the world. There are conservative economists in the world. I don't know of any prominent liberal or conservative economist who actually endorses tariffs, certainly not 100% tariffs. In the things we've seen, we now have tariffs higher than we've had in 100 years. So if you want to talk about actual economists, unless they're on the Trump payroll, they do not favor the current policies of this administration. And you try to make it sound like it's a liberal conservative thing or a Democrat Republican thing. Your point is if liberals undercount some aspect of inflation, well, that would be helping Trump right now. Why would liberal economists want to be helping Trump if their goal is to get rid of him? They have an incentive to look at the data and stir the data and slice it and dice it in ways to make it seem like inflation is higher than ever to give people a reason to dislike him. I have not seen that happening yet, yahya says. How are you making these ideas? Which idea you'll need to specify the context for the show each day is I survey lots of major media and select, you could say some of it's arbitrary. What I consider to be the most important stories of the day that an intelligent person needs to understand the world. So I typically look at the Wall Street Journal, I look at the New York Times, the Associated Press, and I look at also sites like the Dredge Report that aggregate from a gazillion major media outlets around the world. Do any one of these outlets have bias? Sure. But I'm getting my news sources from a lot of places all across the political spectrum. If you have news stories you want to share with me, feel free to post links to them or go to my YouTube channel and go to the Community tab, the Post section and post news sources. I'm always happy to learn more. Ill says how do we get out of this? I thought there were checks and balances to prevent Donald J. Trump's actions. Well, traditionally there is. Traditionally, members of the House and Senate were very jealous of their powers. They were jealous of the power to tax. The Constitution says that's their right. They were jealous of their power to decide appropriations. And this particular Congress has just said, trump, do whatever you want. We're giving you all of our power. That's unprecedented. So the only real check now is you, Bill. If you want a change, you're going to have to vote out members of Congress who are doing that, and you're going to have to vote in new members of Congress who will stand up for the traditional constitutional rights of members of the House and Senate. Things like declaring war, things like establishing appropriations, things like deciding what to tax, not just ceding that to the White House. That's really the only option right now. Yes, you can sue. Occasionally lawsuits have an impact. But when the White House gets to appoint judge after judge after judge, they can often simply get henchmen to do whatever they want. Sue says. I blame the Supreme Court. They gave the presidency too much power. We could spend all day long talking about that. Sue, I do think you're on the right track. Icon 007 says the CIA has to remove. Now, we're not going to go there, okay? I abhor violence and I'm not in favor of anyone removing anyone else other than through votes. But icon, thanks for stopping by, but we're not going to go there on this show. We have a lot more to come. And this next story, it's not going to have quite the odiousness of this past story. This is interesting. Completely new form of communication. You're not going to want to miss hearing about what's happening in the subways of New York City. And no, it's not another crime 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 New York subway Debuts Its First Ever Aroma Ad According to the Independent, New York commuters are getting an unexpected holiday surprise a subway platform that actually smells good. At Grand Central's 42nd street shuttle, Bath and Body Works has installed the MTA's first ever aroma advertisement, filling the air with a blend of vanilla and fresh pine instead of the usual chemical and body odor cocktail. Diffusers mounted above the platform release visible bursts of fresh balsam, one of the company's signature holiday scents. Bath and Body Works expects to disperse between 20 and 30 pounds of fragrance by month's end. Commuters seem pleasantly shocked. One writer told the Independent, it smells better than the normal New York City tunnels. I appreciate it. Another described it as very Christmassy, while others said it reminded them of fabric softener. The MTA says this is the first campaign of its kind and that a pilot program in Queens and Brooklyn last year produced no complaints. For now, at least, New York's most pungent transit hub smells like the holidays. Okay, so what's the real message here? This is good news. New York City subways actually smell so that you don't have to do this, hold your nose when you walk downstairs into the subway. That's good news. It's also good news for marketers and advertisers. We live in this world where everyone says, oh, it's the same old, same old. How do you do something new and different? Well, this, this is different. You don't have to rely just on the sense of the eyeball for reading or seeing, or the ear for hearing. You could use the nos hats off to the marketers who came up with this campaign. Let's dig a little deeper here. There's one of the reasons I was fascinated by this is it just. It does show. There's always a new way of doing things. You know, famously, more than 100 years ago, the head of the Patent office predicted that everything had been. Everything had already been made. The head of IBM once said, I can't imagine there ever being a market for more than five computers in the world. Who else would want them? The world is a big place. There are an infinite number of ways of being creative. And putting something that smells good in a place like the New York City subways is brilliant. Now, I spent a lot of time in the subways there, having lived in the city, in and around and about it for about a quarter of a century. I will be. I've been to this very spot in Times Square that they're talking about, and I will be there again next month. My family and I are spending a week vacation between Christmas and New Year's. We'll be up in New York City, and I will be down there and seeing if I can smell this too. It sounds like a great idea. Because as much as I love New York City, and I do, and as much as I love the subway system because it's frankly so much faster than a taxi or an Uber or a limo in most cases, let's not kid ourselves, it usually smells bad. Like most New Yorkers, I developed a habit of as I'm walking down the steps to the subway, not even realizing anyone, just shutting down my nose, okay, say I'm not going to smell anymore because usually it was quite pungent and now their advertisers are actually using it, so it's clever. Bath and Body Works is a store that's a favorite of my daughters. And when we go to the mall, I have to go into it. It does often smell nice, but why not put it in a place like the subway? Now, interestingly, the transit authority says they've done a test for this before and no complaints. That surprises me because New York City is home to a lot of complainers. There's probably more neurosis and picky icky people per square inch in New York than any place in the world, certainly than the country. So whatever they did, I congratulate them on somehow coming up with just the right mix, just the right intensity of a scent that didn't cause people to complain. Because in fairness, some people are just allergic to fragrances. Nothing they can do. They're not Picky, they're not neurotic. They just are allergic. Can make their eyes water. So when I first heard this, I thought, wow, this may be really putting people in legal jeopardy. But it's been tested before and there were no complaints. That's great. Scent is a. It's a harder medium to communicate with, because if you're an advertiser or a marketer or any kind of a content creator, the easiest thing is to type text. Text can be on a screen. You can print it out. You can make it a billboard. You can do so many things with text. It's so versatile. You can put a piece of paper right in front of someone, but you can also create it 12,000 miles away on your computer screen. And that person can see it in text on their computer screen. Obviously, video is like that. It's not quite as easy for text, although it's getting easier every day. Audio is like that, although someone has to have. There has to be a speaker. They have to have ears that are working and not have their ears covered. But using a way of communicating that involves sight or audio, those are the two most traditional ways of advertising. Well, smell is one of the five senses, and it's underused by marketers in part because it's more difficult. If you create a smell in Bangkok, you can't easily have that smell delivered to a prospective customer in New York City, Although if you send them a durian on an airplane, okay, that smell will translate, but that's not easy. And that will get you kicked off airlines as well. I'm referring to the stinky fruit, which I love to eat, but most many people don't like that smell. So just because something is harder doesn't mean you shouldn't try it as a marketer, because think of all the publicity that Bed, Bath and Beyond, or excuse me, Bath and Body Works is getting by doing that. I'm talking about it. It's been picked up by major news outlets, and it's getting more foot traffic. They're reporting posters are asking, notice a new scent. So they're combining an old medium of text and a billboard with this new medium of scent. In a creative way, it's getting buzz, it's getting attention. So I mentioned it was tested first in Queens and Brooklyn. Those of you not familiar with New York City, those are a part of New York City, but they're not Manhattan. But they are all connected by underground trains, and a lot of people like it. Now, I have done work in the fragrance industry before, and I've also Worked with companies like the candle making companies I've worked with where they've got hundreds and hundreds of scents. So it's a fascinating industry. Everyone likes scent for the most part. Again, some people allergic, certainly some people overdo the cologne and perfume and it can be overwhelming and intoxicating. So the candle company I was talking about, Yankee Candle Company, I've had the privilege of working with them many times. Great company and great scents. People like them. But not every scent is for everyone. Once they gave me an experimental scent that, that smelled like fresh cut grass. I loved it. I don't know if that became one of their most popular ones, but it really did smell like fresh cut grass. I don't know what the ideal smell is for a New York City subway, but anything that's a little different from its normal smell is probably a good idea. Let's go to your comments. Some more have come in and I see that Ill says, I'm sorry, we can't spend our time inventing stuff. We need more. Marketing is not the way. Okay, Bill, it's certainly a fair point that the world doesn't really need more high priced, expensive soaps or body scrubs or bubble bath. It's not the number one need when we have so many people who lack clean water, lack protection from mosquitoes. You're absolutely right. But if we're going to have a free market system and have some kind of a capitalistic system, we have to give people the right to create whatever they want and to market whatever they want, as long as it's legal and not typically really damaging to someone. Because in general that creates a system and enough wealth to invest in things like new pharmaceutical drugs, like new ways of growing agriculture more efficiently. Because when you look at the history of humanity, certainly the last 2,000 years, until about 200 years ago, until the Industrial Revolution, what you saw was a complete flat line as far as the average per capita income. It was just flat, flat, flat, flat, flat for about 1800 years. You could go back even further than 2000 years ago and most people were subsistence farmers and some 90% of the world lived in abject poverty for huge swaths of their life. I don't want to go back to that. Call me crazy. What we have now is better. Not to mention the fact that most people lived on average about 33 years. I don't want to go back to a life expectancy of 33 years. I'm not saying specifically that a scent that makes my bubble bath smell like grapefruit gummies is the sole reason we're able to live so much longer. But an economy that is organized using the latest technologies, using markets where most things are not controlled by a king or a government, is, I believe, what created an environment for you and me to live longer. So I don't think it's incompatible. No matter how good of an invention you have that genuinely helps people, you've got to figure out a way of marketing it or nobody will know about it. So I don't think marketing is evil. Are there a lot of bad marketers out there? Yes. Are there people who devoted their lives to making it cool to smoke cigarettes? Yeah. Not good. But marketing, remember, is just communicating, just sharing ideas with people about why they might want to try a particular product or service that I believe is neutral. And it's absolutely essential for products that can in fact help you. Tifo says the analysis is clear and cool. I love how you filter information through the communications lens. Well, thank you so much. I do appreciate your comments. That's what we're all about here. It's not everyone's cup of tea. This is not a show that is going to beat Howard Stern in the ratings anytime soon or, you know, who's your daddy? It's not going to beat that. I'm doing this show because this is the show I would want to listen to if I weren't doing this show. And I'm hoping it appeals to you as well. My real target is for people who are aspirational want to do better. Now you might already be a CEO and want to be a much better CEO. You might be 19 years old and in school trying to figure out how can you be more successful faster in your career. You may be someone who is out of the job market right now, but you want to be more successful in your own personal life. Have better, stronger habits to position you for success in whatever you want to do, whether it's take a leadership position in civic organizations in your community. That's who I'm trying to appeal to. But tfpe, thanks so much for your kind comments. We'll be back in a moment with more media news, this time from California, but from a very, very long time media big shot. More in a moment. Imagine having a communication coach who never sleeps. Meet your new secret weapon, the TJ Walker AI clone. Go to TJWalker AI and start getting custom coaching 24 7. No scheduling, no hourly fees. I train presidents, prime ministers and Fortune 500 CEOs, but the same exact communication I've delivered to world leaders is now available to you online anytime@mediatrainingworldwide.com whether you're speaking on camera, pitching a client or handling a crisis, you need these tools. These aren't fluffy motivational videos. They're practical, battle tested techniques to help you speak clearly, confidently and persuasively. Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and take your communication to the next level. Welcome back to Filtered. I appreciate you spending time with me here today and more comments continue to come in. I do appreciate people, sue says. My first time coming across your page. I enjoyed your content and I will follow you. Thank you so much for the kind words. We're always happy to have first timers and if you are new to this show, it is a little bit different. We are a news show. We also analyze news, analyze it through the lens of communication and personal development skills. So the idea is you're not just doom scrolling and hearing more bad news to bum you out, but you're learning from the news to actually make you more successful in your personal life as well as your professional life. So that's what we're about right here. Okay, let's switch over to our final story of the day. Murdoch's California Post Last Swing from a Fading Kingmaker According to Vanity Fair, Rupert Murdoch's latest passion project is the California Post, a West coast spinoff of the New York Post, aimed at Hollywood tech and California politics. It's being sold as bold innovation. But look at Murdoch's actual startup record. One of his big things was the Daily I remember that Gary Vaynerchuk was a part of it. The iPad only newspaper he once hyped as the future of news, spent tens and tens of millions of dollars on it, shut it down after one year in 2012, after losing about $30 million a year and attracting only 100,000 paying subscribers. Then there was MySpace. Now he didn't create MySpace, but he did buy it.