Was 2024 the Last Free Election?

NBC slashes roughly 7% of its newsroom and shutters its DEI teams. What that retreat really says about the legacy media Paws Comitatus P A W s In El Paso, a local Fox station reports a family says Border Patrol entered their home and shot their dog. Trump's refugee overhaul plan favors white Europeans transforming who America welcomes A swastika flag found Inside A Republican congressman's office as vice president JD Vance defends racism as pearl clutching and was 2024 the last year for free elections in America. We'll map out exactly how democracy could die legally. All that and more today unfiltered. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Hi and welcome. Thanks for joining me on the show today. This is Filtered, where we look at the top news stories of the day, top business, economic, artificial intelligence and culture stories of the day, and then filter it through the lens of communication and personal development skills. But first, let's check in on the markets because we do care about your your Financial well being. S&P 500 closed yesterday at 6671.06. That's up 0.4%. The NASDAQ Composite closed 22670.08. That's up 0.65%. Important to remember long term. Always think long term. S&P 500 has gone up on average for the last 25 years, 7.47% per year. The Nasdaq 100 has gone up 9.73% per year on average for the last quarter of a century. So please, please think long term. Okay, let's dive right in to issue one. And I do again want to thank you for joining me today here on Filtered. Old media retreat platforms Advanced NBC is shrinking, YouTube is surging, and Netflix is muscling its way into podcast. According to the wrap, NBC News cut about 150 jobs and disbanded its specialized teams behind NBC, BLK, Asian America, Latino and out. The verticals will stay, but the journalists won't. Executives call it a difficult day, but it mirrors a larger retreat from DEI commitments across traditional media. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter says YouTube has overtaken every other platform for TV screen viewership and is doubling down on live sports and creator payments. That's good. And the New York Times reports Netflix will now stream 16 Spotify video podcasts, including the Bill Simmons podcast and Rewatchables, shifting podcast power away from YouTube. The trend is unmistakable. Legacy news cuts back, tech platforms consolidate control and creators professionalize the space. The attention economy is migrating, not dying, and the audience will follow whoever Tells the most engaging stories. Okay, so what's the real message here, NBC News? Legacy media maybe not dying, but getting smaller, smaller, smaller every day. YouTube is getting bigger. And the Netflix of the world, the so called premium channels, now realize that there's a lot of premium content right here on YouTube and they want to dive right in and take a piece of that for themselves. Let's go a little bit deeper now. No big news flash that legacy media is dying primarily because audiences now have a gazillion choices. So it is inevitable that the audiences for traditional broadcast media will get smaller. Therefore the revenue pies get smaller, therefore the headcount has to get smaller. I mean, that's just simple math and capitalism combined. No change there. It's interesting. NBC so pointedly is getting rid of any kind of news that has even the slightest whiff, the slightest aroma of being associated with DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion. Again, no huge news about YouTube being dominant. It has been number one as far as all streaming media and all audiences for a while now, but it's continuing to get stronger. It's move into live sports is kind of a big deal since live sports is, is the one thing traditional broadcast media still holds on to. And that's the one area where they, they still do well in the ratings. And YouTube says, well, we want a piece of that too. I was intrigued by reports that Netflix is now doing deals with Spotify to take their most popular video podcast. It does bring up the question of like, what is a podcast? What is a TV show? What is a movie? At some point all these terms become utterly meaningless and it's simply, are you telling a story that is just text, meaning a book? Are you telling a story that's just audio, meaning an audiobook or a radio show? Or are you using video to tell your story? If so, the one thing we're seeing consumers say loud and clear around the world, we don't care whether it has the stamp of approval of a big network executive from a TV broadcast network or a cable network, or some honcho at Netflix or even Jeff Bezos himself for Amazon prime audience are saying, we don't care. We want to watch what we want to watch. And Netflix to its credit, is realizing, hey, maybe we don't have a monopoly of good ideas. Maybe the old TV networks, the old production facilities, don't have a monopoly. Let's get that Bill Simmons podcast. That's what they're doing. And he is extraordinarily popular podcaster and influential in the whole podcast space. Now you're going to be able to see his show on Netflix. If I were Netflix, well, if I were an NBC news executive, I would be polishing my resume every day, or a reporter in any legacy media. I would be spending about 8 hours a day on LinkedIn looking for new jobs or starting my own media company. But even Netflix, I mean, Netflix has been an extraordinary success story. They are, you know, they are worth just a tremendous amount of money barreling on towards a trillion dollars, and their audiences are big. Subscriber growth is great. It's always nice to have people value your content to the point where people are paying monthly fees. Now, YouTube has some of that, but nothing like Netflix. But I'd still be very nervous about YouTube if I were Netflix and podcast in general, because at some point Netflix is a middleman. And there was certainly a lot of talk over the last 25 years about how the Internet will cause all this disintermediation and allow creators to deal directly with their. Their viewers, their consumers, their customers. Yeah, it's happened in a lot of ways. Certainly local, local stationery stores have gone out of business and local bookstores have gone out of business. But there become new intermediaries, which is what Amazon is and it's what Netflix is. But at some point, if these creators, and some of them are quite savvy business people like Mr. Beast, if they create their own apps, their own ecosystem, their own connection with viewers through email or anything else through push notification, not only are they not going to need NBC, not only are they not going to need Netflix, but they might not even need YouTube. So none of these big media companies can really afford the luxury of being complacent because change is happening faster and faster across the media landscape. And the only thing that seems to be consistent is if you are a creator and you're so good that people want to watch you, listen to you consume your content, especially if you have millions of people who want that. You got the power and money will flow to you. That's the only thing I see that is remarkably consistent. Everything else is kind of in a state of flux. More in a moment. Next story. A big, big story. You're not going to want to miss this. 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, any, anywhere with the TJ Walker AI clone. It's like having me in your pocket ready to help you prep for a speech, polish a pitch or calm your nerves before a big meeting. You talk to it. It responds like I would based on my real world coaching of thousands of leaders and communicators. Check it out at tjwalker AI it's not just smart, it's personal. Want to support the show? Skip the ads and buy me a coffee. That's buymeacoffee.com TJ Walker. And we are back. Thanks so much for joining me today on Filtered Issue two, and this is a big one. Pause Comitatus that's P A W s Border Patrol Shoots family dog A local Fox affiliate, KFOX14 in El Paso, reports that a family says Border Patrol agents entered their home during a smuggling search and shot their Rottweiler shop. Customs and Border Protection confirmed a use of force incident involving a canine and says it's under review by its Office of Professional Responsibility. The family says they warned agents that the dog was secured in a bathroom, but one agent allegedly opened the door and fired. No migrants were found and no family plan. And the family plan's legal action, the case has inspired me, at least with a new phrase, pause comitatus. Now, it's a play on posse comitatis. That's the law that limits military involvement in domestic policing. The question now whether there's a line between border security and armed intrusion into American dogs or American homes and killing our dogs. Okay, what's the real message here? Not only does this administration not respect posse comitatus, the idea that the military shouldn't be used to attack American citizens, but now we have a situation of pause comitatus not being respected. There was a default assumption in Americans that the American military would not come and shoot your dog. Well, that assumption is no longer valid because this dog has been alleged to have been shot and killed by the Trump administration. And that is too far. Let's dig a little bit deeper here now. Yeah. Am I trying to be a little cute on a sad situation? Pause commentatis. Or play on the spin. Spin on the phrase posse comitatus, which, if you follow recent news reports, neither Trump nor Kristi Noem actually know what it means. They think it's a person or they think it's the opposite of what it means. But it is a bedrock principle in America that you're not going to have the American military coming after you and attacking you if you're an American citizen on American soil. And now it's attacking dogs. Now say what you will about Americans, they might not care about foreigners, immigrants, people who practice different languages, eat different foods, worship different ways. But wow, do we care about dogs? I think this is a scandal. That may be something that starts to get some traction in the way that Jimmy Kimmel really got traction. A lot of people are like, okay, you can take away our rights, you can take away our health care. You can ignore all sorts of superior court decisions and judicial decisions, you can ignore Congress, you can destroy the separation of church and state and separation of power. We don't really care about all that. But telling us we can't watch our favorite comedian or a comedian we like, that was a bridge too far for many people. I am predicting and hoping that killing this dog here, whose name I believe is Chop, is that bridge too far and that we do in fact need a new constitutional concept, guiding principle of our country of pause comitatus. Yes, the federal government cannot come to your home, knock down doors and shoot and kill your dog. I'd like to see someone really rebut that, but we'll see. SS writes in and says, ugly scene. Do you think the officer will be punished? No, I do not think the officer will be punished. If it's one thing we've seen from this administration is any act of brutality, of ugliness, of viciousness is never punished. It is rewarded. I would predict the officer who did this is going to get some sort of promotion, some sort of pay raise, but I'll let you know when I find out. SS also writes in, there was a situation where one of the ICE officers pushed the wife of someone who had been caught by ice and the officer only received little punishment. Just two days of not working and back the third day again, that was probably a paid vacation is how they spun that. So, folks, this is a big, big deal. And when Trump is busy saying, I want to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal and create a luxury resort in Gaza, real issues like this, real trampling of rights, it just gets lost. There's so much going on, there's so much nonsense, there's so much sort of BS thrown against the wall to see what sticks, to distract anything. To distract from the Epstein files, I think is seen as a good day by the White House. Who knows, they may say, hey, people are talking about Epstein again. Why don't we round up a bunch of dogs and do new. You know what? It would not surprise me in any way if that is where we are headed. But try this phrase on now. I hate to sound like the girl on that old high school movie trying to make fetch a thing. But I do think pause commentatis could become a thing. SS says it feels they want to forcefully change the culture. Well, there's no doubt this administration is trying to change the culture. You could argue every administration wants to change the culture at some level to fulfill some vision of what they think would make the world better. But I don't think most Americans think the world is better if, to use a phrase that conservatives loved 30 years ago, jackbooted thugs can march into your house and shoot and kill your dog. I don't think that is the vision that you're going to be able to sell very easily to Americans. I do want to remind people the facts of this case are still being sifted through that was originally reported by a Fox TV station in El Paso, Texas. The federal government is confirming that there was a use of force that may be a euphemism for yeah, we shot the dog and killed it because we could. And no migrants were found, no illegal aliens were found, no drugs were found inside the house. It was just Americans in their own home. Or I guess most of them were out of a home. Government officials walked in, shot and killed the dog. That's all that has been reported so far. As more comes out on this case, I will be happy to bring that to your attention right away. But keep in mind, folks, you might not care if somebody who has a religion different from yours is punished. You might not care if somebody who has skin color different from yours gets fired because they don't have nice Pete hagsep glowy dewy white skin and hair. You might not care about that. But when they come for your own dog, I think you're going to care. And rightfully so. Hey, if you're enjoying this kind of take and want to hear more stories filtered through the lens of communication, make sure you're following the show whether you're watching or listening. New episodes drop every single day in it. There's a little notification option where you are now. Go ahead and turn it on. It helps you stay in the loop. Issue 3 White refugee preference Plan Sparks Outrage According to the New York Times, the Trump administration is weighing a sweeping overhaul of the US Refugee system that would favor white Europeans and English speakers, particularly white South Africans, while slashing the total number of refugees to just 7,500 next year. Documents show the proposals would prioritize applicants who can assimilate and those opposed to mass migration, including far right European groups. Critics call it racial engineering disguised as as Immigration policy. Barbara Strack, former chief of refugee affairs, says it exposes, quote, a belief that true Americans are white and Christian, end quote. Officials defending the proposal say they align with the president's objectives. Well, that seems pretty clear. It's a policy that rewrites who counts as deserving and who gets left behind. Okay, what's the real message here by the president's policy of saying we want to give priority to white English speaking people, especially if they don't like immigrants? Here's the message. Hey, black people, go away. Hey, Asian people, you're awful. Hey, Hispanic people, stay out of our country. We don't like you. That is the real message this is sending. Let's go a little deeper here. So look, I'll be the first one to admit that the term racism has been thrown around promiscuously the last 10 or 20 years in America by people in the center, the liberal, the left, the progressive wing of things. And it got to the point where many Americans were walking around on eggshells. And if Republican wanted to propose something about a tax policy that affects a particular soybean, sometimes people, that's a racist policy. And it just got to the point where it didn't mean much. People like, oh yeah, you're just crying racism all the time. And if everything is racism, well, then nothing is racism. Well, let me tell you, this is racism. When you say of all the people who are oppressed in the world, refugees fleeing dictatorships and atrocities in places like Syria, and you're saying a relatively rich white South African who has a life cushier than 90% of people in the world is somehow more deserving to get to come to the United States than anyplace else, that's insanity. The idea that someone in Germany who espouses racist policies and says we don't want any non white people coming into our country and then gets some criticism on Facebook, now goes to the front of the line trying to move to the United States because they're an oppressed minority for their views. That's absolutely insanity. And this is what we're seeing here. Again, not everything in the world is racism. Point one, Point two. Republicans, I believe, have been unfairly attacked on a whole variety of issues over the last 10, 20 years as being racist, when in fact it wasn't really racist. It was just a different point of view. Point three, this proposed policy from the Trump administration to completely alter the criteria of who gets to come into this country or not is racist because it's putting such a priority on White, English speaking people, let's not forget what has made America wealthy, what's made it great, what's interesting, what gives us the best restaurants in the world and the best technology in the world, is that we let people from all over the world come here. And quite often the first generation doesn't speak English. Certainly the day they arrive on our shores, they didn't speak English. But the second generation is sometimes Steve Jobs. Do you really wish that Apple had been founded in Canada or China? Because that's the implication. Because Syria is not on the list of places where Trump wants more people. And that is where Steve Jobs birth father was from. So let's be very clear about what this is. This is an attack on American culture. This is an attack on what made us great. This is an attack on, on the intellectual and social and cultural capital that has made America great. And yeah, it's an attack on black people, brown people, and people of any color other than white. And it actually is racism. I don't toss that word around promiscuously, but just because it is used too promiscuously from time to time doesn't mean it actually exists. You know, someone who says there's a hurricane coming every week and is wrong 51 weeks a year doesn't make them wrong. That 52nd week of the year when they say there's a hurricane coming and an actual hurricane comes. Now SS Writes, is this against the Constitution, this program? Well, that's a funny area, SS because we now live in a bizarre, twisted world where the Supreme Court is essentially acting like henchmen and henchwomen to Donald Trump. It's like, whatever you want, boss. They are acting increasingly like they are his personal defense attorneys. And they did in fact essentially say he can do no wrong as president. You know, you can't be held guilty of anything. And in decision after decision, they say, hey, whatever you want, boss. Whatever you want, boss. Certainly you can make a case that in normal times where people have any respect for the traditions and the laws and the Constitution of this country, this would not be permissible. But again, in normal times, you don't indict the former FBI director for doing his job. So we don't actually live in normal times, unfortunately. More about that in our final segment today. SS says, I read somewhere that within a couple of generations, the minority person ends up assimilating into American culture and eventually they share the same values and oftentimes marry white people. Well, that is true. It's certainly true in general. And it ends up being true for me in particular. So SS does write one thing and then the child ends up being white. Well, that's not quite as clear cut. You know, the whole concept of color and race is fraught with controversy. And you don't become white if you have a white person having a child with someone else. You have someone of mixed race if you even believe in the concept of race. We'll be talking about this more in the future, but right now we're gonna have to go on to the next issue. Back in a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want more? Grab my Five Book Success Library for $9.95 at tjwalker.com books. It's the fastest, 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. Swastika scandal and the moral rot of the maga, right? A growing crisis of decency is hitting Republican politics. Politico reports that Capitol police were called after a swastika flag was discovered on the wall of Ohio Congressman Dave Taylor's office. A Republican. If I had to even tell you that Taylor condemned the, quote, vile and inappropriate symbol. So good for Dave Taylor actually condemning a swastika flying in his own office and said he ordered an immediate investigation. Those staffers claimed vandalism. Okay, if you buy that, I have a bridge to sell you. The discovery came one day after Politico also exposed a leaked telegram chat among young Republican leaders filled with racial slurs, Holocaust jokes and praise for Hitler. Vice President J.D. vance dismissed the outrageous pearl clutching, calling it a college group chat. Yeah, everyone in college sits around talking about how great Hitler was and how it'd be fun to gas people to death and how much they love Hitler. Yeah, that happens in all colleges, right, JD As Mediate columnist Colby hall wrote, decency is weakness and principle is a con. That seems to be the attitude there. When shame becomes partisanship, moral collapse becomes policy. Okay, what's the real message here? The message is the Republicans have a big, big problem and their young people especially are openly embracing their love of Hitler, their love of gassing people. And now swastikas. Imagine if a Democratic Congressional office had a picture of the Charlie Kirk with a bullet going into his neck saying like, great day. That per there would be such an outrage, that person would be fired, they would be doxxed, they would be prosecuted. And yet here we have a Republican with a swastika built into a flag and it's like, oh, you know, must have been vandalism. Right. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. Okay, this ties into the previous story we just talked about on the show, which is Trump openly embracing a new refugee plan for America that specifically favors white English speaking people. Again, I don't know how you can label that anything other than racist. If you're saying we want white people, we don't want black, we don't want people from Africa, we don't want people from Asia. Unless you're really rich and can spend $5 million for a golden passport. But white people, oh, if you're a white person, especially if you're a conservative white person who is trashed letting immigrants into your own country, well then by all means, come on in. That's the message. And here we are talking about the fact that a swastika is in a Republican office. Republican telegram messaging platforms are talking about their love of Hitler. And where are they saying people deserve priority, get on the priority list that they want to declare refugee status and move to America from the eastern parts of Europe, excuse me, of Germany. Specifically people who have spoken out forcefully against letting immigrants into their country. You know what else those people often spoke out against? Well, look back at the swastika and maybe you can connect two and two together. It's J.D. vance is basically saying he's following the Trump playbook. He's saying, hey, you're talking about a scandal that makes the Republicans look bad. And that is a violation of our communications playbook. We only talk about something that makes Democrats, liberals, centrist, progressives look bad. We only talk about things that make Rhino Republicans look bad. But if you dare mention a fact based story about how young Republicans are talking about their love of Hitler, the fact that you're doing that means you're a bad person in J.D. vance's eyes. Not the embrace of Hitler, that's okay. But the fact that you're talking about in a fact based story that Republicans are on record of saying they love Hitler. That's the bad. That's the pearl cloth. Oh, why are you worried about these, you know, playful little jokes our team did? You should be far more worried that some obscured associate professor at a small liberal arts school in Iowa 14 years ago advocated the use of the word Latinx. That's the real scandal, according to J.D. vance. It's all about loyalty. You're disloyal if you ever criticize any fellow Republican. And folks, this is what closed societies do. This is what tyrannical regimes do. They don't want to control just your speech, although they do want to control your speech. They want to control your thought. And what J.D. vance is doing, he's following Dear Leader, his great orange patron, in saying the whole world has to be divided into good and bad. And you only talk about bad when it comes to someone who opposes us. Hey, these young Republicans, they're on our team. They get a pass. Which leads me to our final issue of the day, and this is a biggie. You're going to want to stay tuned for this. Filtered is brought to you by the following you don't need a new degree. You don't need another expensive coach. You need the right communication habits. And I'll teach them to you in just a few minutes a day. @mediatrainingworldwide.com I've created the most comprehensive library of online communication and personal development courses anywhere. You'll learn public school speaking, media training, persuasion, executive presence, and more. These are the same methods I've taught to world leaders, but now they're affordable and accessible to everyone. You can start for free and upgrade anytime. Go now to mediatrainingworldwide.com confidence isn't a personality trait, it's a skill. And it's trainable. Issue 5 When the edges decide was 2024 the last free election America will ever see? Was 2024 the last year Americans will be able to vote freely in the past 10 months? If the past 10 months are the roadmap, democracy may not survive the next two elections. A Supreme Court ruling has essentially declared the president immune from prosecution for official acts, opening the door to unchecked political targeting. If former FBI Director James Comey can be indicted for disloyalty, what stops federal prosecutors from indicting or arresting every leading Democrat polling ahead in September 2026? Oh, TJ that couldn't possibly happen. Oh, couldn't it? If federal agents can shoot a Chicago minister in the head with a pepper bowl for praying during a protest, why couldn't get out the vote? Volunteers in swing precincts face the same law and order tactics on Election Day. If the Supreme Court refuses to limit presidential power, why couldn't a president ignore term limits or reject unfavorable vote counts, claiming divine or constitutional Authority. Because America is evenly divided, mass fraud isn't required. You just have to adjust a few things. Few precincts, a few states, a few little areas, just a few arrests, a few ballots thrown out here, a few intimidated officials there, and the outcome can tilt permanently. Democracy doesn't end with a coup necessarily. It ends by paperwork, precedent, and fear. Okay, what's the bottom line here? What's the real message? Democrats and most people in the media are deluding themselves saying, well, it's all going to be okay after 2026 when the Democrats retake the House. Wake up, people. This administration is going to use brute power, brute force to tilt the election. We'll still have elections, but if you simply use the power of the Justice Department to indict, arrest or attack any close running Democrat in the polls, guess who's going to win? If you send goons to swing precincts and Democratic precincts to intimidate or perhaps shoot bullets, rubber bullets, and smoke bullets into people's heads, that's going to scare people away. They're not going to risk their lives necessarily to cast a vote that could easily be enough to give MAGA all the votes it needs for 2026, 2028 and beyond. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. This is one area where I guess I'm out of the mainstream when it comes to what a lot of people in the media are saying, centrist political observers, and certainly I'm out of the mainstream with what Democrats are saying these days. They continue to delude themselves into thinking, well, this is the natural ebb and flow of politics. And okay, Reagan followed Carter and Clinton followed Bush, and then you have Obama. It's just natural. No, we are in extreme times. We are much more like a situation where Ferdinand Marcos took over and imposed a dictatorship in Philippines. We are much more like what happened in Hungary when Viktor Orban came to power through an election and then systematically shut down the media shut down, opposition harassed and attacked. Oh, they still have elections. Wink, wink, nut judge. Very similar to what happened to Russia. It's easy to forget now, but when the Soviet Union fell, it seemed like this was going to be some kind of a democracy and Putin shut it down. It happened in Italy in the last century, it happened in Germany, and it can't happen here. We have seismic changes to our political landscape and people are deluding themselves thinking it's just the same old, same old and it's going to be ebb and flow and, you know, our vote will count next. Why do you think your vote's going to count next time. What we know for certain is if it comes down to, let's say, the presidential election, if it comes down to anything close to what happened in 2020, we know if there's a tie vote somewhere, the vice president is going to do 100% the bidding of the president. There's not going to be any. There are no Mike Pences in this administration. So we have a situation where the tie is always going to go to the MAGA crowd. But that's not the problem. The issue is more like, what if elections are close and things really come down to, let's say, three states in 2028? There's nothing you can do to convince me that this government isn't going to use its thumb to tilt the scales through direct intimidation for no other reason, just sicking the irs. If you say every single person associated with this political campaign that appears to be winning in a swing district is going to be audited and they have to show up with all their taxes three weeks before the election day, that alone could be enough to distract people, to SAP their resources, their energy. And that's a minor thing. We're not even talking about other extreme things like these gas bullets being shot in the heads of protesters. And let's define protest here. We're seeing every single day. Mike Johnson just did it yesterday, essentially saying anyone who shows up for no King's Day, anyone who is critical of the administration is essentially a part of a terrorist organization. I've said this before. I'll say it again. I don't think we're that far away from the Democratic Party itself being officially branded a terrorist organization. Now, if that happens, obviously it's going to be extremely easy for the Republicans to win every race. If you have to outlaw the Democratic Party, I don't see the Green Party or the Libertarian Party really swooping in and taking over. But let's be clear, it doesn't take anything that extreme. It just takes fiddling with the margins. In 2020, Trump famously demanded that the secretary of State in Georgia find him another 11,000 votes. Well, what if he just needs to have 50 or 60 local officials counting the votes in key cities in key swing states in 2026, finding votes for him, because we now have a mentality that says anyone who supports someone who's not Trump must be an illegal alien, must be a foreigner, must be a migrant, must be a terrorist. Therefore, if they did take the time to vote, just throw it away. That mentality is infecting election offices around this country and they're going to take orders from above. And I know I do not mean some heavenly figure, I mean their dear leader, the great orange one. So that's why I think it's even more important to show up at mass protests, these no king days protests, other protests, because history shows when a right wing authoritarian dictator takes over, they can control the judiciary, they can control the media, they can take over major corporations, they can control. The one thing they can't control is if there is mass, mass, mass protest in the streets. That's eventually what toppled Marcos and it's toppled a lot of other dictators. So, folks, get ready, get your gas mask ready. I'm not advocating anyone who is opposed to this administration use force. What I'm saying is, get ready. Force is going to be used against you. And if you want your country back to anything close to what it looked like even a year ago, or under the Reagan administration, the Bush administration, you're going to have to fight for it. This idea of sitting back and saying, oh, well, can you see what he did today? It's not going to cut it, folks. He's counting on you doing that. He's saying, I'm going to do 20 or 30 crazy bat excrement crazy things every day. 15 of them. I'm just doing it to own the libs and, and get them angry. Another five, maybe I'll try, but another 10 of those, yeah, I'll do them and I'll chip away and chip away at constitutional guard rules, guardrails until I run everything and then it's going to be too late. MSNBC will be given orders to read press releases from the White House and make Stephen Miller their head of news. We're headed to a situation where something like that is not going to be some dystopian nightmare cooked up by a Hollywood writer. It's going to be our own reality. SS says, could this be a bit fear mongering? Yeah, I'm actually fearful. I'm fearful for our country, fearful for the world. And sometimes you can fear monger and it's not based on reality. You're just trying to get attention and it's hyperbole. I don't think anyone can actually even use hyperbole anymore to describe what this administration is doing. Solomon says, paperwork, tyranny. That's how democracy it could be. Because you do have to give credit to Trump for one thing. His first term, when he came in, basically he was shocked and surprised. He basically told me, I had no idea I was gonna win. I thought I could say, hey, I ran well against Hillary, I'd be more famous than ever and I get more endorsement deals than ever. He basically had no clue that he was gonna win and so he just hired traditional Republicans to work for him who believed in cute little things called the Constitution. Well, he was ready this time. I mean, that four years off really gave him time to assemble a team and figure out how can we systematically dismantle democracy and impose a hegemonic, tyrannical dictatorship where we can rule forever. And they've been implementing it with extraordinary efficiency. Have to give him credit for that if nothing else. I'm TJ Walker. We will be back in a moment with some grab bag issues. We'll be right back after this break. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com Advertisement Most people can't afford a full time coach, and even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need them. That's why I created the TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. Rehearse your your next big talk. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a course, and always ready. Start using it today at tjwalker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Welcome back to Filtered. I'm your host, TJ Walker. If this is your first time here, thank you for joining us. For 40 years I have worked closely with billionaire fund managers, leaders, CEOs of every major industry, politicians, presidents of countries, prime ministers, Nobel Peace Prize winners on how to communicate effectively and on their personal development skills. So what this show is about is analyzing the news through that lens of communication and personal development skills. Here's my pledge to you. If you spend some time with me each day, you'll learn a little more about some of the most important news of the day and you'll learn how to be better, more successful yourself. You'll have more communication skills, personal development skills to help you. So that's my pledge to you. It's a new show. We're only about seven weeks old, new in this game and I want to thank you for spending time with me. If you're listening on a podcast, thank you. We are new on so many podcast platforms. Please take a moment to follow us to subscribe to Leave a review on any podcast platform if you're watching on YouTube or our friends on TikTok or Twitch or X or LinkedIn or Facebook or half a dozen others. Thank you for watching on that platform. Leave a note Let me know where you're watching this and what you like, what you don't like from the show. I do read all comments, questions and criticism, so thanks so much. Also, if you're new to this show, keep in mind this is not some political punditry show. I started this show to talk about top business news, economic news, technology news, and culture news of the day. If I had my preference, I would never have to even mention the name of the President of the United States. Unfortunately, we live in a time where the Great Orange One is trying to control every aspect of business and every big technology company and every aspect of our culture, including what comedians we can watch. So there's really no way of doing a show where you talk about top business stories, technology stories, and culture stories without touching on politics these days. Which is, by the way, one of the reasons why most people in advanced democracies hate tyrannical dictatorships. They want there to be a separation between what the government meddles in and puts their nose in and what the private sector can focus on without restraint. So there you have it. That's what the show is all about. Now let me cleanse my palate a moment. Let's talk about something completely apolitical. New Study comes Out People hit their functional peak around the age of 60. New research shows humans may not reach their overall functional peak until around age 60, not in their 20s, as a lot of people think. Yes, speed declines, but wisdom, balance, and judgment do in fact rise. This was a new study by a major academic institution. I found it on a website called Study Finds, which really vets serious intellectual research from major academic institutions. So not everything is about how quickly you run, how much you bench press. I have to tell you that yes, certain fields are different. In the field of physics, for example, whether it's Einstein or others, there does seem to be something about early to mid-20s, when the world's most brilliant physicists come up with their greatest ideas. And certainly in the world of most professional sports, people tend to peak in their early 20s. Although gymnastics, you could say as a teenager. But when it comes to your ability to function, to think, executive function skills, this new research says the peak is 60. Now that obviously makes me feel good, since I'm only a couple years away from 60 in the wrong direction. But I can tell you, in my own career, when it came to the number of people, I could have an impact on my status in my profession as a communications coach and expert and trainer and speaker. In terms of my own income, I was higher at 60 than I was at any other age up until that point. So it doesn't mean it's true for everyone. Anecdote is always still anecdote. But I do think that this is important to realize. It's too easy to say, gosh, I'm 41 and all these kids are talking about AI this, AI that. I'm lost at the office. No, you don't get an out. You don't get to say you're too old. If your brain still works and your body works, maybe not at the same athletic level because you're able to walk, think, chew, take care of yourself, your best years could be ahead. So I wanted to spotlight this issue for a couple of reasons. Because if you are 60 or above, realize these could be your best years ever. If you're 20 and you're 25, 30, think you're a hotshot. Realize you need to prepare for the day of 60. You need to continue getting better and better and better because your best days are ahead. If you are middle age and I'll say, you know, 45, because not that many people live beyond 90, and that's the middle. If you're 45 and feeling like you're already old, you're a little behind, your best days are behind you, stop it. And realize that's just you telling yourself that. It may be that the advertisers on Instagram, and we're happy to have our Instagram viewers today. Or the advertising on certain sports shows you like show young, beautiful people where everyone's 25 and ripped. It may make you feel like you're old because you don't look as good as you did when you're 20, realize that's not Unless you're a full time fashion model, nobody cares what you look like. You still have a lot to offer. If you do several things. If you try to learn new hard skills every day and you experiment every day, and sometimes you fail, sometimes you win and you reach out to share your experiments with people. If you continue doing that, you're going to continue to grow, you're going to continue to function at a high level. You'll be valued in the marketplace. Yeah, are there some companies that's where the founder's 35 and basically says, I don't want any old Folks around here to remind me of my mom and dad. Yeah. I remember once I went to a job interview for a company. It was called the Globe. This was before YouTube, before Facebook, but it was before MySpace. We're talking about like 1998. It was the hot new thing. A couple of 23 year olds started it. It was a kind of a social media network. They went public and they were all, you know, they were worth tens of millions of dollars. I went for a job interview and I was, I think, like 28 at the time. And the person interviewing me, I think was 23. I was like, how would you feel about working for someone a lot younger than you? Because all the managers were like 24. So I could have gotten really discouraged. So, gosh, I'm 28. I'm already too old. Because the clear implication was, hey, tj, we don't want an old timer like you at age 28. I could have used that to psych myself out. And instead I said, okay, I'm not for them. They're not for me. And I moved on. Not everyone is going to love you at any age, but realize you need to embrace the learning and wisdom that comes from every age. And this, this study reaffirms that for many of us, we don't really peak until age 60. Next grab bag issue. Pentagon press walk out. Dozens of reporters walked out of the Pentagon rather than accept new restrictions that require pre approval of all reporting. They called it a death knell for independent journalism. Now, we've talked about this several times in the last few weeks. This Pete Hegseth thing, this guy is absolutely crazy. Although he does have good hair. You have to give him that. But he really does think he's living in Putin's Russia. He really does think that he is living under Fidel Marcos's regime in the Philippines or Peron's regime last century, where the government gets to tell reporters what they can write and don't write. So I was very happy to see that even the Wall Street Journal said no to Pete Hegseth. Even his old bosses at Fox News Channel said no, we're not going to sign this if that's the price of admission. To get into the Pentagon, we'll just have to use the telephone and email and use our own sources. So I think fortunately this could cause a real backlash and if anything, media criticism, immediate coverage, Pete Higsett and the Defense Department. And yes, it's still legally called the Defense Department. So that's how I will refer to it. I think they're going to get harsher criticism and he's going to get the exact opposite of what he was hoping for. So I am very happy to see that not every media organization is willing to bend its knee every time this administration says, throw your integrity out the window and now do what I say. CBS did it by bringing back or ABC did it by bringing back Jimmy Kimmel, not cbs. And others are occasionally doing it. I'm happy to see them do this as well. Okay, next issue. CIA covert powers in Venezuela. The president reportedly authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations, even lethal ones, inside Venezuela. Critics warned the move could ignite regional conflict. Folks, this is really playing with fire. Let's give Trump credit where credit is due. When he ran for president the first time in 2016. Well, the first time most people remember, everyone forgets. He actually ran for president in 2000 and talked about running for president every year all the way back to 1988. Do your research, you'll find it. But the first time he really ran seriously for President in 2016, he said basically that he wanted to be an isolationist. He didn't use that word. But he's like, I don't want to fight other people's wars. I don't want America to be the police of the world. I want us to take care of ourselves. That was his message. And for the most part, he stuck with that in his first term. Did not get us involved in World War Three. Many feared that he would, but he didn't. But now here we are only 10 months in, 11 months into his second term, and we see things like this. We're just bombing other countries, bombing their boats, killing their citizens, not declaring war, not doing anything with approval of the United nations or the U.S. senate, just going off and doing whatever he wants and now implying he wouldn't mind if we just assassinated Moderno, the leader of Venezuela. Now, I'm no fan of Nicolas Madero, but the idea that the United States is just going to pick what leaders we like and they get to stay and we support them and give them money as we are doing in Argentina, and then saying, well, we don't like this leader, so I'm not comfortable with that. And if you are right of center of the libertarian bent, I don't think you should feel comfortable with that. If you feel America gets embroiled in too many conflicts all the time, all over the world and it costs a lot of money and lives, I don't know why you'd be comfortable with that as well. So this bears attention and Watching our final grab bag issue of the day. China. China's rare earth retaliation. China has announced sweeping restrictions on rare earth mineral exports, threatening American technology and auto industries. The US is threatening 100% tariffs in response. And China is saying, you know what, this idea that you're going to just bash us constantly put big universal or unilateral tariffs against us, and you think we're just going to sit back and take it. Wrong, Donald, wrong. Great orange one. You're not great to us. We've got a few trump cards ourself, and one of them is they're rare earth minerals. Now, I'm not an expert on rare earth minerals. Supposedly they're not really that rare, but they are extraordinarily important. Important in numerous industries. Car batteries, for example. And China is just really good at excavating these, processing them and selling them. And we need them. And if all of a sudden we can't buy Chinese rare earth minerals, and if we can't buy them from any other company in the world, in other countries, because China puts a restriction on them, it's going to cause a whole heap of trouble for the United States economy and specific industries. So I can't tell you I'm celebrating this. I'm not rooting for China against the United States. But at some point, you know, if you find out your own child is bullying the other kids on the playground, and finally one of the other kids punches and I'm not advocating violence, folks, I'm speaking metaphorically. One of the other kids after your own kid has extorted the other kid's lunch money every day for a month. All the kids on the playground, finally, if some kid stands up and punches your kid in the stomach, doesn't cause any real damage, but is humiliating and painful, and that's what stops your son from becoming a bully the rest of his life, maybe that punch wasn't a bad thing. Again, I'm not advocating violence. I'm speaking metaphorically. I'm TJ Walker. This is filtered. I want to thank you for spending time with me today. I'm here with you every single day. If you missed any part of this show, it's all available on demand, too, on basically every social media platform, every podcast. See you tomorrow. Thanks for watching.