Trump Loses the Iran War, Weakens America — as Newsom and Vance Make 2028 Moves

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Iran says the war and military operations will end immediately and permanently on all fronts, and that includes Lebanon. The naval blockade against Iran will also be lifted immediately and completely. And this is all unfolding as world leaders gather in France for the G7 summit. Here's Trump speaking at the summit this morning about Iran's enriched material. So the atomic energy just reported that it was one of the most devastating bombings that they've ever seen. The whole mountain collapsed on top of it. And frankly, to go get it, we're going to go get it. But to go get it is a big deal because they say only China and other parts of the equipment where you can even get the whole mountain is collapsed on top. We have cameras on it. You could make the case why even bothering because it's not really valuable. It's probably half a million It's not very valuable stuff, but I think psychologically we're one together. No big deal, eh? Yeah. Thoughts? Thoughts and prayers for all of us. I get asked a lot by my colleagues on the five. Why do you trust the Iranians more than you trust our president? Jesse called me Tehran Tarlav last week. For just reporting what was coming out of negotiations, what had happened to American munitions, the rebuilding and the re-arming of the Iranian forces, how many missiles were coming down the fact that the ceasefire had been violated every which way from Sunday. But we were still claiming that it was intact because he was so desperate to get a deal, which it sounds like because he was put on a timeline essentially by the Gulf partners that he had to. The FT has it that the Qataris warned that if a deal wasn't agreed before the UFC event. I love that that's a conversation point, right? That going on in world negotiations to make sure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. They're like, we know you have a big birthday party and you've got to be with Dana White and Joe Rogan. We need a deal before you go out there and the flyover happens. Anyway, I get asked this, right? Why are you siding with them? If you look at the last 18 hours of coverage and the way that people who support Operation Midnight Hammer when it happened and Operation Freedom, so this war are freaking out. You know that the Iranians are the ones that are hewing closer to the truth of what's actually in this MOU and what's to come than what our own administration is telling us. I mean, I have been, it's like an embarrassment of riches, the number of Trump supporters that are saying, is this a joke? This is a complete disaster. That's what Mark Teeson is saying. Mark Levin, huge supporter of the president, huge supporter of Israel, absolutely livid. Jack Keane, general Jack Keane, who's responsible for the surge, he was going on about the $300 billion investment fund, which Vance tried to make it out. He said, oh, well, it's not any American dollars. It won't be taxpayer money. It's still money that they're getting from the Gulf states. They don't care if it's our money versus it's the Qatari's, the Emirati's, or whoever else is paying into it. I love that Jack Keane was like, the killers and the thugs are still in charge. And I think that that's the mood right now, that the killers and the thugs are still in charge. And President Trump is at the G7 saying things like the enriched material is not that valuable. It's been great working with these guys. And from Vance, he said that the RGC officials say, you know what? We recognize the way that we've done business for the U.S. for 47 years is a mistake. Let's try something else. They'd call us traitors. Can you imagine if Obama or Joe Biden, I guess, as a VP comp said something like that? Yeah, from the get-go. So first off, Iran, the RGC recognizes that every day that goes on, Trump's hand weakens. Support for the war gets more and more fatigued because he started from a bad place and it's gone from bad to worse in terms of public support. And if you even look at the terminology around this quote-unquote agreement, memo of understanding is a business term. And that is, and I've written and received a bunch of these. And that is, if you're buying a company, if one of my companies gets approached by a potential acquirer and you let them into the data room or you give them some preliminary information, they will present you a memo of understanding that says, okay, this is our understanding of your company, your growth rates, the business you're in. We are interested in signing NDAs or maybe we've already signed an NDA and this is kind of the range of valuations subject to the following things. And we're going into, say, a unilateral discussion where you won't be talking to other parties for, say, 30 to 60 days. It's a memo of understanding. A lot of times, that does not end up in a deal. The deal falls apart. I would say that somewhere between a third and maybe two-thirds generously of memo of understandings result in an actual deal that closes. So the fact that they're calling this an agreement, it's not an agreement. It's a, and now I have to say, it's almost like an M&A lawyer saying, okay, it even has an expiration. It's saying 60 days. So what they are doing is playing a terrible business person saying, okay, let's delay you bombing us. That's bad for us. Let's get sanctions relief. Let's get that money. We'll delay all of this for 60 days. And then there's no way you're going to reengage in a war against Iran. And we come out of this saying, you know, we never signed up for that. There was a memo of understanding, but you violated it. We violated it. We couldn't come to an agreement. And if you look at the JCPOA, essentially at the end of the day, it traded sanctions relief for nuclear constraints. This deal, assuming it closes, and there's an actual agreement that the memo of understanding actually matures to an actual agreement, the deal, wait for it, appears to trade sanctions relief for nuclear constraints. There may be a difference in branding or words or timing and enforcement, but the basic architecture is exactly the same thing. Trump spent a decade trying to claim that the JCPOA was the worst deal in history. And at the same time, he's essentially bought the same goddamn house and tried to paint it a different color and say that it's an entirely different house. The irony is rich. Obama was called weak for pursuing diplomacy, and Trump gets called or wants to be called strong for pursuing diplomacy after a war. The exact same finishing place, we hope, that's the best we can hope for, is we end up back at the same place we were at with much different rooting. The JCPOA was meant to be, was really, I think the difference here, the JCPOA is what I would call preventive medicine. And this looks more like an emergency room. Like triage. Yeah. Medicine. And both may stabilize the patient, but one comes after you've set billions of dollars on fire and killed a bunch of Iranian civilians and had a lot of death and destruction and spent a ton of U.S. money, strained relationships with allies, diminished our credibility all over the world, strained our relationships with Gulf nations, had Gulf nations. I can't even imagine the economic hit that the Gulf nations have incurred right now. This is, Trump may have spent years demolishing a house, then he fought a costly war in the empty lot, and now he's paying a contractor to build a remarkably similar house on the same foundation. And then the uncomfortable truth that no one wants to own up to is that Iran has way more leverage after the escalation than before it. We come out of this weaker, they come out of it stronger. Let me just repeat that. Any honest analysis of this, Iran comes out of this stronger, we come out of it weaker. Your thoughts. I wholeheartedly agree with you and would just add that even if they got exactly the same deal, the fact that they know that they can shut down the street of Hormuz whenever they want and hold the world hostage is an enormous bargaining chip. And we're quibbling over the Iranians basically saying, no, we're not, it's not going to be toll free. We can work towards that perhaps, but it's not going to go from 60 to zero when this reopens tomorrow or when the blockade gets lifted. And you're so right to point that out about the JCPOA and Ben Rhodes from the Obama administration put on social media, he said, the preamble to the 2015 JCPOA that Trump tore up, Iran reaffirms that under those circumstances will Iran ever seek to develop or acquire any nuclear weapons. It's the same game. You just basically gave them the gift of eight years to get ahead, because they had only had the capacity to enrich your radium to 3.7%. That was the bar from the JCPOA. And then we unfroze the 1.7 billion in their money. This framework has given them the eight years to enrich further, getting up to 60% enrichment in some cases. We're giving them extra money from the Gulf allies, right, for this so-called investment fund. And we're also talking about 24 billion in unfrozen assets. So that comparison, I know we've had a lot of inflation, but you're talking about 1.7 versus 24 billion. And I can't even imagine how tense it really is between the Trump administration and the Israelis at this point, because I'm sure we've gotten the readout that there's been profanity laced and Trump is like, what the fuck are you doing to Bibi nonstop? And I mean, Bibi really has a tremendous amount of power here, because Iran and Hezbollah are on the same side, right? So Iran backs Hezbollah. And they're basically saying, if the war in Lebanon doesn't stop, then there is no deal. So Bibi could scuttle the whole thing himself if he wants to. So I'm sure Trump is saying, like, how did I let this guy come in in February, right? Go into the situation room, brief us on this thing, and take us down a crazy rabbit hole that has resulted in global catastrophe, essentially. And I might not even get as good of a deal as the guy who I said was a traitor to the country for making that deal in the first place. I don't know who the leakers are to Axios. There are obviously a bunch of them in the administration, but they had a big piece yesterday about the fact that CIA director John Ratcliffe, Rubio and Hexeth all thought that this deal was a dud. They said that they were skeptical of it, that the intelligence gathered by the US intelligence agencies raised serious doubts about Iran's willingness to make the nuclear concessions that the US is seeking in any final deal. Well, yeah, no shit, Sherlock. The Iranians are not on board for unconditional surrender and turning over every aspect of their nuclear program and getting rid of their ambitions, which I don't even know how you could regulate something like that, right? Like they're going to aspire to what they want. But now you have these divisions within the administration. So you have Trump and Vance and Jerry Kushner and Steve Whitcoff who need a deal because they need to keep making luxury resorts versus Ratcliffe, Rubio and Hexeth. And I think that also explains a lot of why you haven't been hearing that much from Rubio on a comparative basis. Hexeth was on Sunday shows this weekend, basically lying to like March Bender's face about what was actually in the text of the JCPOA, etc. But I did not expect those divisions to exist within the administration on this. I thought for sure that Hexeth at the very least would be like Gung Ho for anything that Trump said was the right decision. So. Yeah, I think that, I mean, this deal is just going to be an anchor around the neck of anyone running for president. I think they're both going to try and distance themselves as much as possible. It's no accident. Like the Secretary of State should be front and center all over these programs representing our actions over there. And he's not. I haven't seen Rubio anywhere for a week. He's definitely decided, okay, this is an enormous political liability and it's going to become a bigger liability when in 30, 60, 90 days it's clear the memo of understanding was nothing but a head fake to delay an obfuscate until they could go back into my view, probably exert control over the straight of Hormuz and continue enriching the, I mean, the JCPOA had unannounced inspections. My understanding is the International Atomic Authority or whatever it is could basically unannounce show up to any facility at any time. Anywhere, any time. And I'm not even sure that's part of this agreement. So it's, he acts as if he's both the buyer in this seller. And that is, he thinks he can negotiate for them and say, oh, this is what they want. And they don't have any leverage and they want this. And I mean, he's just comes across as somewhat delusional that, oh, if I will them to want to do this deal, it seems fairly obvious to me, they've said, okay, every day that goes on, advantage and leverage leaks to us, give them a memo of understanding extended 60 days, we've found this something better and more powerful and devastating than a nuclear bomb. We've can put our boot on the carotid artery of the global economy. 20% of the world's energy flows through this. Now the Gulf States are making attempts to go around it. They're investing massively in pipelines and transportation on rail. There's a silver lining in anything. And the silver lining here might be this kind of re-inspires investment in renewables, mostly led by China, who said, we don't want to be subject to America or Iran's whims. I do think you're going to see, and for the first time in the U.S., the amount of energy that comes from solar has surpassed coal. So that's, you know, this is, there's sort of some unintended consequences here. And that is the world's major energy consumers don't want to be subject to the IRGC or President Trump's whims. So there is, you know, long term, this may inspire, this may inspire some good things. Support for the show comes from Prolon. You need a plan for your summer glow-up. And instead of just thinking skin deep, it might be smart to start from within. Prolon's five-day fasting mimicking diet is proven to deliver real results through deep cellular rejuvenation. Fat loss, a metabolic reset, and radiant skin that will have you looking your best and feeling confident all summer long. 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Vanta gives you continuous coverage across every vendor, automatically, so you actually know what's in your stack and what to do about it. AI on, risk off. Vanta dot com slash TPRM. Support for this show comes from Deal. Let's be honest, most HR platforms are stitched together. That's why AI barely helps. Deal's different. It's a single AI-native system for HR, IT, and payroll built from the ground up. That's why AI and SideDeal can actually run real work, onboarding, compliance, payroll, approvals, all under your rules, whether you're five people or 50,000. Deal scales with you. See it in action at deal dot com slash audio. That's D-E-E-L dot com slash audio. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is turning its attention toward yet another political rival. Trump and his DOJ have found time to invest in California Governor Gavin Newsom. Cal-Shi currently has Newsom as the frontrunner to become the 2028 Democratic nominee at 24%. Newsom has accused the president of sending the DOJ after him and his wife, searching for a crime by knocking on the doors of family, friends, and former employees. Let's listen to what Governor Newsom had to say. After calling for my arrest last year, Donald Trump directed his Department of Justice to investigate me. And just in the last week, I've learned that his campaign has reached my own home. To get me, he's coming after my wife, Jen, someone who has done nothing wrong, other than having the temerity to advocate for what she believes in. If they can't intimidate me, they'll go after the mother of our children. Donald Trump picked the wrong target. We have nothing to hide. His political operatives can take every record and read every page, but they'll be looking in the wrong place because if they really want to find corruption, look no further than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Jess, do you think how credible is the accusation? And do you think it does, does this help them? Well, we don't actually have the accusation yet. I mean, Newsom got in front of this, which I think is smart from a PR perspective, right? Like to try to own it when you know that something is coming down the pike. And I think that he wants to allow what happened with Prop 50, say, like, you're messing with the wrong guy, right? I'm going to go nuclear on you if you try to fuck with me. And he obviously takes it incredibly personally that Trump and the DOJ may be going after his wife, right? Like that's, you know, that line in the sand, you know, you fight me, but to pick on my wife, to pick on a woman in this, you know, is a bridge too far. We'll see what they actually come up with when they do the DOJ puts it out there, what they're investigating him for, you know, they've been looking for stuff relating to finances. Newsom, all of his financial records are public. I have, you know, the link right here that I could go and click on and take a look at it. But we obviously know that this is a pattern. This is how Trump and the Republicans like to play ball. They've been largely unsuccessful. I mean, I say largely because John Bolton did take a deal for one of the charges against him, but everything else has exploded in their faces. And, you know, whether it's using, oh, she like a real estate attorney from Florida to be going after Jim Comey to the Alina Habas of the world, you know, just case after case after case is completely crashing before them and causing enormous damage, right? Like he would be done with Jerome Powell if Bill Polti, you know, hadn't said we could go on this revenge tour. So I don't think it's going to be a thing. I definitely think it's about 2028. And Trump did say in 2025 that he wants to arrest Newsom. And there's a lot of talk about this. I mean, Spencer Pratt was out there when he was still campaigning saying he was going to get arrest Bass and Newsom. And now Pratt is teaming up with Karen Bass's brother to go after her. Like these are petty, litigious dum-dums as far as I'm concerned. Her brother? Yeah, I don't know what the backstory is there. I mean, it's about, you know, her negligence vis-a-vis the Palisades fires. But yeah, her brother. So obviously there's a longer story there that would be better for like Maury Povich, but that's going to be an interesting Thanksgiving. So do you have any of you on the Newsom thing? Oh, I don't. You know, the honest answer is I don't feel like there's been enough reporting to know if this is Governor Newsom making more political theater of something. I don't know if there's a there there. I wouldn't put a past Trump. He's shown a willingness to try and attack and weaponize agencies to attack his political enemies. So I find it believable, but I haven't seen the hard evidence that they're trying to intimidate members of his family that have you seen that evidence? No, I mean, the only reporting on it, I guess, is that this door-to-door stuff is happening, right, that they're going around in search of a crime, which does feel totally believable to me. But no, it's premature, but I think notable that Newsom, who's very PR savvy, wants to be the lead voice on this versus waiting for a Todd Blanche press conference, right, where then he has to be on the back foot and responding to whatever it is that they put out there in the ether. Yeah, I think I agree with you. I think that's smart to come across as someone who won't back down, who's being, who's on the wrong end of politically motivated attacks. So speaking of 2028 politics, J.D. Vance is also starting to find his own identity with his new book Communion about his conversion to Catholicism, a faith journey he says reshaped his worldview and politics. Here's him talking on his book tour about how Trump won over Christian voters. I think the president, he recognizes that some of the people who have been best to him, who have been critical parts of him getting to the presidency now two times, arguably three times, they were Christians. And it's funny because if you go back to 2016, when you're right, I was criticizing him. One of the things that was very profound was this connection between religious conservatives and Donald J. Trump. And everybody said, well, they didn't get it. They didn't understand how this, you know, brash New York billionaire could have such a connection to Christian conservatives in the heartland. And I actually think if you know the Christian conservatives and you know the president, it's not all that bizarre at all. Because the thing I've always found about Christians in the heartland, whether you agree with their, their politics, and there's a whole diversity of opinions on a whole host of issues, they're the most welcoming people in the world. He's fucking prostitutes. He's fucking prostitutes while his wife is nursing. Yeah, I think, I think he's definitely down with conservative Christians. He's definitely a role model. I can absolutely see why I want him over. Yeah. The, the leader for our time, Donald Trump. There you go. Yeah, the arguably three times on the election kind of killed me. The, I don't know if that was just like, they're so programmed that they have to say it every time or if JD Vance actually thinks this, because he obviously has gone through some sort of metamorphosis, right, from Hillbilly, Elegy, and the guy talking about whether is Trump America's Hitler. And now he's like, no, no, no, this is the guy that Jesus wanted us to have. I do, I haven't read the book yet, which I guess is kind of bad since he's on the five today. So I will figure out what question to ask him about it. But it is interesting that he notes in the book, and there's been a lot of coverage of this aspect that his comment about how the Democrat Party was run by childless cat ladies was a mistake. JD Vance's childless cat lady comments were actually from like three years prior to him running as vice president and were recycled obviously through the campaign, but he didn't do anything to decry them. He's just like went with it and doubled down and now says that he regrets it. So I don't know if that was just like the throwaway that you have to give, you know, some red meat to the other side and show that you can, I mean, it's a very Christian thing, right, to be admitting your mistakes and reevaluating and constantly growing and evolving, etc. So Yeah, the thing I found most disturbing about this is that he says it's a faith journey that reshaped his worldview and politics. And one of the defining features of America is that we separate church and state. I thought one of the most disturbing things in Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing was that at the end of the day, she serves in the kingdom of God. And I thought, okay, which God is that? We keep referring to Iran as a theocracy and my belief is slowly but surely over the last decade under Trump's faux Christianity and the blurring of the lines between what is white Christian nationalism, you should just really get rid of the word Christian. It's just white nationalism because I don't think it represents the Christian faith at all. But the notion that someone who's running for president, I mean, they all put out a book before they run for president and say, I don't care if you're Michael Bennett or everybody has their books before they announced their run. Fine. That's part of it. But the thing that I find disturbing about it and something we need to pull back from the edge here is that you can have, faith is wonderful. My dad was married and divorced four times. I've been to every religious institution under the sun and I generally found good people wanting to help the community. I think religion gets a bad name. I think the Democratic Party has done itself no favors by disparaging or mocking religion. But at the same time, as it relates to governance, you're supposed to keep your God out of it and refer to the constitution as kind of the holy scripture, if you will. And so the fact that someone who's clearly interested in being a president starts talking about how his Catholicism has reshaped his worldview and politics, I find that scary. It's not supposed to shape your politics. I mean, I get it, your faith is everything, but it is difficult to have what I'd call a modern democracy and allies unless you acknowledge that we need to start talking about and negotiating around constructs and ideologies rooted in the world as we know it. Not your belief that your way of living is superior because your invisible friend has ordained it so. When someone says these people are the chosen people and that's why we get to behave this way, there's no debating. There's no middle ground for diplomacy. There's no way to come together and that's the danger of a theocracy. And I say this as a rabid atheist. I have a lot of appreciation for religion, but I find the slow burn melding of religion and politics as identifying and shaping your political views the exact opposite of what the founding fathers wanted. Any thoughts? Yeah, no, it's absolutely correct. And those scenes, which we've covered a lot on Raging Moderates of, you know, Hegzeth invoking God in his speeches or when he's out there, you know, rallying the troops, we've seen the social media accounts operated by government bureaucracies like the Department of Labor using theocratic language. And there's a lot of evidence of this being a really big problem. And then just, I mean, the whole idea that they pray around Trump all the time, these like absolute whack job pastors, right, who really believe that Trump was sent to them or was sent to us, I guess, to save all of us from whatever it is that's coming. It's all really disturbing and not what the founding fathers wanted. I just think that there's another element of this and that like, maybe it's actually not that deep with JD Vance. I mean, he has an authenticity problem, right, people, they don't know him that well, they don't like him that much. He's only 41 years old, right. So his time in public life, he's been all over the map, right, everything from I really hate Donald Trump too, like this is the greatest man in the world. And that's why he really connects with Heartland conservatives. And he will in 2028 be going up against like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, people who are very devout, right. And I think that JD Vance is also looking around saying like, what constituencies do I need to shore up? And I mean, Trump has seen a bit of softness with his evangelical support from like 2024 levels. But it's still pretty strong. And I think that he needs to make the case that he's worthy of being the heir apparent, essentially, in all of this. And I'm sure that he did go on a faith journey. I mean, people who are converts tend to care more than people who are just born into it. Like I know this, you know, from one of my best friends is a convert to Judaism. And she knows a hell of a lot more about it than I do. My aunt is a convert to Judaism from Catholicism in order to marry my uncle. Same thing. But I see this as a little bit more of a power play than an actual faith journey that JD Vance is going on. Yeah, it's sad. So how do you know if someone is converted, does CrossFit or is sober? They tell you. It's like, good for you. I totally respect your faith as it relates to political figures. Some of the sages advice ever given was in the movie broadcast news from Albert Brooks to William Hurt, when William Hurt said what happens or asked or queered what happens when your real life exceeds your wildest dreams. And Albert Brooks responds, keep it to yourself. Your faith journey, you know, quite frankly, in public office, I think you keep it to yourself. If people want to hear about it, fine. But I find it scary that people are now believing this is something to run on. I just don't, the whole thing, I think we've got to make intelligence, decency, and separation between church and state cool again. I'd like to see politics removed from the dinner table and from corporations and have at it on your own personal time. But as it relates to showing up to DC, it really bothers me that we have the gall to describe hostile governments or our enemies as, you know, a theocracy when we are increasingly becoming more and more theocratic. Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. But when it comes to home projects, it's different. If you don't like a show, you might lose a few minutes. If you hire a friend, of a friend, of a friend to fix a leaky ceiling, you could end up with a flooded kitchen. Maybe I know a guy just isn't enough for your home. That's why Thumbtack works so well. They'll match you with a top rated local pro and you can see photos of past work, credentials and reviews all right in the app. For your next home project, try Thumbtack. Hire the right pro today. AI is moving fast across the enterprise. But without visibility, it's just chaos. Different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. ServiceNow turns that chaos into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place. What it's doing, what it's done and what it's about to do. So you stay in control. To put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. Let's talk about this is something I think we're both interested in, although we're on different ends of the spectrum. Let's talk about kids and social media. The UK has announced it will ban social media for kids under 16, including Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. Do you see this as a good sign? The government is realizing the harm these apps can do to minors. And what do you think is the chances this will start a broader trend, Jess? Well, I think it already is a trend. And we're seeing it. Schools are taking action. Private schools, obviously, it's easy for them to do it. But seeing full districts banning them. We've had that here in New York, and then you have countries like in Australia, now the UK is doing this. I think net net can't be anything, but a good thing for us to have our kids touching more grass and being less on their phones. What I was curious about, and I know you've spent a lot of time, obviously, looking into this, the research and with Jonathan Haidt, who is the top of the pyramid when it comes to talking about these issues. What happens when the kids are off their phones? Or at least a demonstrable amount. And they're still anxious and depressed, antisocial. And their trajectories haven't been changed that much. Because that's my worry about it, that this might be, it's a good thing to do. Like you obviously always want to help if you can, right, or work towards a better outcome. But I feel like it's bigger than the algorithms, right? Like that there's a huge culture. And also it's us on our phones. And we talk about doing detoxes and stuff like that. But I even noticed that with my girls, they're only two and four years old. And they see us on our phones all the time. They think that my phone is the most important thing to me. Like if I leave a room and I leave my phone there, one of them will bring it over to me and be like, mama, here's your phone. And so, I mean, this is a culture wide problem. It's not just taking the phones away from the kids. Yeah. So, I mean, to be clear, you're right. It's a multi-dimensional issue that has led to an increase in childhood or young adult depression and anxiety. But the two biggest drivers, according to the research, Gene Twainga, I think at San Diego State and Jonathan Haig did, pretty thorough research on this. And they found the top two drivers of an increase in childhood anxiety were about the time social went on mobile. So, it does look like social media has really attacked the self-esteem of young girls and kind of sequestered young men from their other relationships. The second thing is something we're probably both guilty. And that is concierge or bulldozer parenting, where we clear out every obstacle for our kids. And that is, we don't let them fail. We don't let them get their heart broken. We don't let them get a B. We solve all the problems. We get them Ubers. I used to leave my mom's house at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning armed with nothing but a Schwinnbike and Abba's Abba Bar and 35 cents. And then we'd go breaking into friends' houses and getting in fights with other kids. And we'd find trouble. And maybe at 10 p.m., my mom would start calling around to see where I was. But she had no idea what was going on with me. And I actually think some of that was a good thing. If my kid is 15 minutes late home from school, we call MI6. And we have trackers on their phones. And I had an argument with their mother about we installed this device called Custodio, such that we can turn off his phone. Because that is literally the only leverage we have with our kids right now, as we threaten to turn off their phones. And I was joked that he's going to come back to me with a memo of understanding because I never follow through. But this app also alerts us to when he's browsing objectionable content, objectionable content, even if it's a website that just has, I don't know, violent images or something. And I said, turn that off. We don't want to be the stasi. We don't want to be all over our kids. We want to let them get in a little bit of trouble. Like at some point, if there's a problem, I'll weigh in. But I think a little bit of trouble, a little bit of, you know, let them fail, let them don't clear out all the obstacles. If we use so many sanitary wipes on our kids lives, they don't develop their own immunities. And what we've seen in the increase in self-harm and freshman classes at universities is because a kid gets there and they get their heart broken for the first time or they get their first C and they literally freak out. So those are the two biggest reasons. Having said that, when there's been a collective ban on phones in schools, what we've seen a year into this, where there's actually a large enough sample set to look at these things from a statistically significant vantage point, we've seen some of the largest increases in test scores that we've seen in the last decade. And also, if it's not a collective ban, it doesn't work because a lot of people who say, well, that's about bad parenting, having your kid on screen is too much, which is a tell that means they don't have children. If you don't collectively ban social media, the kids who it's banned for because of their parenting are more depressed because they're isolated, they're ostracized from the rest of the community. So it has to be a collective ban. The thing about the UK social media ban, and I've been looking at this a lot, it's not the policy itself, it's the signal. And that is for the last century, we've always assumed technology was going to make us all better off, including our children. And this is the first major technology where millions of parents have looked at the evidence and concluded the opposite. And the challenge arguably is that it's kind of like potentially banning alcohol at a fraternity. Okay, we'll see how effective that is, but it does send the right signal, even if kids find a workaround. And the broader message is really important that we finally stop pretending that products engineered to addict young people and maximize attention are automatically good for people. They're not. And I would have a difficult time and I would challenge anybody to identify anybody, two people other than Mark Zuckerberg and Shel Samburg who have made more money at the expense of more children globally. This isn't about social media, it's about society admitting that the most successful consumer product of the last 30 years has imposed an enormous cost on kids and on their parents. This is, hands down, has been the biggest source of anxiety in my world. And even if it doesn't, even if the ban doesn't work, which I think it will, the diagnosis is correct and it's a step in the right direction. I agree. I agree. Obviously, like I think that this is a good thing and we didn't end up that badly, right? And didn't have access to this kind of technology. I understand there are new things that kids need to understand and it's a joke for millennials, you know, learn to code. It is a must for Gen Alpha and Gen Z. But I'm just curious to see how it plays out and when this really turns into a full blown class warfare issue because we've talked about hand writing before and that it's going to be a sign of whether you were in the middle, upper middle, or upper classes, right, that you actually know how to write. And it used to be the race, like a school would advertise if everything was digital, right? Like this is going to be amazing if your kid comes here, public or private. They get an iPad. They get a tablet, right? And every tour that I went on, all the parents cared about is that their kids would have no access to tech. And like at the school that my daughter is going to go to, which is a great, very well funded public school in a nice neighborhood in New York City, they each have a government provided iPad that they can't access, I think until fourth grade. So they essentially just have a technology closet and it's locked up and the kids can get it once they feel that it's age appropriate. So eight, nine years old, they'll start to use it. And their attitude is the best thing that we can give these kids are the hard skills that are actually going to carry them through life. And you're going to see this big disparity where kids who go to schools in worse neighborhoods who have parents that are less on top of things because they have to be out working and they can't be there for homework help every night are the ones that are going to be on their tech a lot more than like my kids or your kids. The right analogy here is in fact cigarettes, wildly popular, enormously profitable and harmful long before adults or our elected officials were willing to admit it. And this is yet another example of how Citizens United has really damaged our society. And in this instance, our kids because you know, Charles Schumer's daughter, I think worked at Metta. No one wants to give up that sweet, sweet money from all these different packs funded by these technology companies. And Republicans will make a free market agreement and Democrats will look thoughtfully into the camera and say, I have concerns about this, meaning I just took money from a pack masquerading around as something that is not a tech pack, which is exactly what it is. I don't think people realize just how much attaching a profit motive to engagement and attention has torn at the fabric of society. I think that historians will look back on this age and they'll say, all right, the polarization, the elevation of incendiary content, the poorest nature and economically driven business construct that led foreign governments and bad actors weaponize these platforms during our elections, that was all awful. But the thing that people won't believe, we'll look back on this era and think, how the fuck did we let this happen to our children? We are, we are expectorating and vomiting into society a generation of kids who are wired for constant, constant gratification and who essentially have been watching a stream of content that has convinced them to hate America, not trust their neighbors in demand, a bag of dopa they can squeeze at any moment. And to your point, it is entirely inversely correlated to wealth. People, dual parent, wealthy, successful educated home such as yours has the ability to be thoughtful, spend time, monitor the kid, find other activities. If I'd had Netflix and arcade, porn, the high school cafeteria in my pocket at home where my mom was leaving to go to work at 7.30 and sometimes not home till eight or nine at night, I would have been on that thing all goddamn day. And the people talking about this are the wealthy ones who see it as not that big a threat because they have the resources to at least somewhat address it as I do. I can't imagine the zombies that are being produced in low income homes known as young adults. I just think it's, I think we have an entire generation of mentally and emotionally disabled young adults coming into the pipeline. That was cheery. Should we end there? Yeah. Well, can I just say one thing quickly? Well, two things. Bring back being bored. 100% contemplate, yeah, ruminate. And this is a huge issue in the New York 12 congressional Democratic primary, which is going on right now. Early voting is open. This is the seat that Jack Schlossberg is running in in George Conway and the true front writers, this guy, Alex Boraz and Michael Lashor. And Alex Boraz is the candidate that AI companies are, they've spent like $10 million against him because he has the most extensive regulation plan for AI and tech. And they don't like it to your point about Citizens United and all of these tech packs. And for my friends who are in the district who are all in a similar age group, right, with young kids, they love him because he's having the conversations that we're having around the dinner table about how important it is to stand up for our kids and for society and frankly, for just your mental health in regulating AI better because our leaders in Washington right now sure aren't interested in it no matter how they vote. Yeah, I think we have to end on a lighter note. So Jess, you know what's more disturbing than finding a stack of your dad's playboys in the basement? No, I don't know what's more disturbing than that. Noticing that one of them is still breathing. Oh my God. Where'd you get that one? Is that off the cuff? That's from the great Jimmy Carr. Should we leave it there, Jess? Should we leave it there? I would actually really love to leave it there. All right, Jess. I'll see you tomorrow, Thursday. Thursday. Where are we? I'll see you Thursday. Where are we? We're just Thursday. See you Thursday. Yeah. So why not you? Try Odu for free at odu.com. That's odo.com. your thing. Love your thing. The next thing you know, it's a thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing.