Trump and Hegseth Spout Lies and Contradictions on Iran

love don't cost a thing but weddings sure do i would say every single person i go to and i'm like so how much over budget are you right now and i've never heard someone say they were under budget matrimony's rising price tag that's this week on explain it to me find new episodes sundays wherever you get your podcasts Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarla. The easiest way to support us, or the most kind of frictionless way to support us, is to subscribe to our YouTube page. So please, if you think about it right now, please hit that subscribe button. All right, let's get into it. With mixed messages coming out of Washington and Tehran, it's still unclear whether the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is actually holding or just simply unraveling. The Trump administration privately warned Iran ahead of the new operation to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, urging them not to interfere. But despite that warning, Iran launched attacks on U.S. Navy ships, commercial vessels, and even targets in the UAE. U.S. officials are now downplaying those strikes as below the threshold of restarting the war, with Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth insisting the ceasefire is still intact for now. Let's listen to Pete Hexeth's press conference this morning. On the first day of this conflict, President Trump addressed the Iranian people directly and said, when we're finished, take over your government. It'll be yours to take. And then on the seventh day of the conflict, in a Truth Social post, the president said, quote, there will be no deal with Iran except, all caps, exclamation mark, unconditional surrender. What happens to that pledge to the Iranians? And when did the president decide to capitulate on his demand for unconditional surrender? James, I wouldn't. You started out nicely, but you ended exactly where we knew you would end. The president hasn't capitulated on anything. He holds the cards. We maintain the upper hand, and Project Freedom only strengthens that hand. And so he will ensure that whatever deal is made or whatever end state is reached creates ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon, which is a number one. And he's been focused on that. And the deal and discussions are centered on that. And what the Iranian people take advantage of after the fact is up to them. All the cards. I mean, I'm late to this because everyone's been making fun of the Uno post for a couple of days now. But I'll throw my hat in the ring and say, you don't want all the cards when you're playing Uno. And the White House shouldn't have posted that meme. I'd laugh if it wasn't so serious. And it feels like this is happening in suspended reality. Right. And like we're just all going about our lives here and dealing with the day to day, what the guys, what the gas prices are, what's going on with our families, et cetera. But there's still a war going on no matter what they say. I don't know the rules as well as other people, I'm sure. But I don't think that the ceasefire time out situation is working insofar as what even Republican representatives think about the conflict. They still think we're on the clock and that maybe they should get asked if we are to continue. And I understand that ceasefires are messy things. And also, you know, you can have rogue actors who are continuing, let's say, when even the folks at the top are saying a pause. But this isn't one or two missiles that have been fired. What's happening to the UAE is really serious. Modi has said something, a prime minister of India. Israel has said something. And Israel would be thrilled, right, if we could get back into this at the same level that we were before the ceasefire went into place. Give press conferences, I guess, more transparency in quotes is better than not. But you're not getting any good information out of any of this. And I know it is an impossible ask, but I feel like reporters should stop calling Trump. And I get it. It feels like this incredible access. And it is amazing that he actually just picks up the phone no matter the hour and will kind of shoot the breeze with you. But he's just feeding propaganda to these reporters. And then they're reporting it as news, which affects markets, certainly affects all of our algorithms. You know, they're getting a huge amount of hits off of it, which is what they want and how they stay employed, etc. but he's just lying to everybody about the ceasefire about how many cards we have who's in control what's going on with negotiations um so probably falling on deaf ears but every time that i see a report or another tweet like i just got off the phone with president trump and he told me a big bunch of bullshit yeah that's all he's got right now is a big bunch of bullshit and you have to use some degree of judgment about it, right? You report the news, but then also say the facts on the ground indicate that this is not the case. In my high school, because of the timing, they thought it would be really interesting. Everyone was reading the book 1984 because it was almost 1984. And you read it, and I wasn't exactly a mindful, thoughtful person back then, But I do remember reading 1984 and thinking, just the way the teachers were so serious about it, that there's something here, there's something meaningful here that we need to be mindful of. And there's a couple passages in there that I think are relevant to today's situation, specifically the Republican Party. And there's a quote in there, The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. And another related passage, if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed, if all records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth. and there is some you know a lot of people say the the victors get to write history right uh actually what's interesting i actually think that americans dislike themselves so much that we actually err on the side sometimes of of the enemy you know 70 million people died in world war ii 40 million were killed by germans and japanese but we focus on the atomic bomb or anyways but it's as if we have decided that the truth or the republican party has decided these people are such acolytes, we have such cultists, that if we adopt this Roy Cohn Trump of just repeating a lie over and over, never backing down, never acknowledging a problem, that eventually, if you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes less of a lie. And I saw that again with Tucker Carlson when he's interviewed by the New York Times and says, those words never came out of my mouth, and she plays it. And rather than saying getting angry or embarrassed, she just pretends it didn't happen. Like, like, as if we have absolutely we are, we have decided to reject the evidence of our eyes and ears. And, you know, for this individual to say, okay, he demanded, he demanded unconditional surrender. First of all, that, that just shows how stupid these people are. There hasn't been unconditional surrender since they were on that aircraft carrier in 1945. That's not how war is engaged now. No one ever actually declares unconditional surrender. I am more empathetic to the notion that, all right, what is a truce, what isn't? Unfortunately, we have a situation now where it looks as if even if there is, quote unquote, the definition of war is in fact met or the standards of the semantic division or definition, actual definition of war is met, that they're going to say it doesn't because they don't want to trigger the War Powers Act, that after 60 days they're supposed to go to Congress. And the notion that they hold all the cards, I mean, I don't, I understand the president trying to be responsive to his party and say, we need to get out of there. But quite frankly, right now, he should be saying in a very resolute way, I'm going to do whatever the fuck it takes to open the Strait of Hormuz. And by him saying, we hold all the cards, but we're going to get out soon. what are the IRGC's incentives to do anything, to open the strait when it's clear that he just wants the hell out. I want out of Dodge, but you better do what I'm telling you to do, because maybe I'll leave 48 hours later than I'm planning. But I want to leave, but we're winning. We have all the leverage, but we're out of here. It's as if none of these folks understand basic strategy, basic negotiation, basic human behavior. And at some point, I don't know, these things, these press conferences have become so comical. I think he's become farcical. It's just never acknowledge a problem. And our military leaders are usually very good at giving a sober analysis of what's happened. And I think one of the core principles of evaluating a situation from the military that I've tried to adopt in business is it's very easy to talk about the outcome and this is what happened and it dictates the decisions. The military says, when we reevaluate an operation, we're in a reevaluate officer's decisions. Was it the right decision at the time, given the information. I think it would be entirely reasonable for the administration to say, at the time when we started this military operation, there was a real decent probability that we were going to provide cloud cover and encourage the Iranian people to rise up and potentially topple this government. That did not happen, whether you want to call that a mistake or an intelligence failure or bad luck. But the atmospherics supported military action here. I think they could say that and also acknowledge that it hasn't turned out the way they'd hoped and they would have a lot more credibility. We have found additional our intelligence group found additional nuclear material after we thought we'd eradicated it. So we felt like we needed to go in. Instead, it's just like, ignore your powers of observation, and we're just going to change the script based on what we feel would be the right reality to justify the current situation we're in, to justify our actions, and not in any way acknowledge what's actually happening here. It is as if we are literally living, it's not even Orwellian, it's basically, and Tucker Carlson is doing that now in that Times interview, that the leaders of the Republican Party are basically saying to Republicans and the cultists, we think you are such fucking idiots and such cultists that anything we say goes. As long as we repeat it and we say it with conviction and look you in the eye, it means it's true. You can trust dear leader. And again, I don't know, how does the press, I'm curious what your thoughts are, do you have any ideas for how the press should handle Secretary Hegseth? I think that you just have to keep getting on the record and asking your questions. I mean, Hexeth comes off, like you said, it's so comical and like such a caricature where you really can't tell if it's him or Colin Jost responding to these questions that you're doing your part, essentially. And, you know, you have to continue showing up to the briefings. I do think, like I just mentioned, that you don't need that 3 a.m. phone call to him unless you know that something is actually happening, you know, not just to shoot the proverbial breeze. But I think that you need to continue to conduct yourself professionally to ask the questions that matter. And then other reporters have to support one another, especially the women, because he picks on the women more. So if he's going after Caitlin Collins, you have to defend her, right? And you have to knock the question back to her to make sure that she can continue, etc. But, you know, you do your part and you do it professionally. That's what I always say if I'm having a conversation that's turning into a fight or someone else is acting how I view it unprofessionally. Keep your side of the street as clean as possible and continue to hew to the truth because the truth is out there And sometimes the truth also involves saying that you don know at that moment but these are what we can verify for you And that's also the difference between, you know, opinion folks and reporters and those lines have gotten massively blurred. But I want to pick up on what you were saying about, you know, if they came to us and said, you know, we went in because we thought that this was a moment where, you know, it was feasible that the Iranian people would be able to rise up and, you know, take over the government. That time was back in January. Yeah. Right. That before they went and killed another 30,000 people, arguably when we did go in and I understand that the intelligence was very good on the Israeli side, they were able to take out essentially, you know, the entire top rung of the IRGC because they all went for brunch together or whatever was going on. But that wasn't the moment for the Iranian people. That was months prior. And we missed that boat. And it leads to this larger question about how we could have misread so many levels of Iran and the Iranian regime. Like, where are the Iran experts in any of this? How did no one think that they would have gotten more dug in right as a result of this? How come it was not on the front page of every major paper or in all of the articles about this, that it was going to be obvious that the Strait of Hormuz was going to be the critical choke point in this and that Iran would look at the cards that they were left with and say, you know what we've got? We've got a really important waterway and we're going to close it and we're going to charge people for it or just not let anyone get through. How was that not a discussion that was happening? Because as you see this unfold, you see that that's more and more the case, that it's quite obvious that they were not discussing it as a contingency. And certainly, you know, maybe it was the best kept secret in the world, but it was a huge mistake to make. And then a Middle Eastern official, very senior one, comes out yesterday and says that Iran can economically survive another eight to nine weeks. That's before total economic collapse. So, you know, total economic collapse, that's obviously, you know, way down on the scale there. But like another eight to nine weeks, this was supposed to be everything from two days to two weeks to four to six weeks. The initial projection from the Trump administration was that they would break after 13 days. And I think also it's just completely misguided that all of our focus is on, OK, what happens to Iran in terms of their economics? Our economics are in complete disaster mode. So certainly if you're in Europe, but GasBuddy is now saying that we're missing 18 million barrels of oil on a daily basis. It'll take 65 weeks to get back to gas under $3 a gallon. The Chevron CEO comes out and says that physical shortages in oil supply are beginning to appear. Worldwide energy crisis will go into 2027. S&P Global Energy said that. And the administration is still getting up there and acting like it's like, you know, flipping a switch, right? Oh, are the lights on or the lights off? Are we in a war with on or are we not? And it just feels like no one has any actual understanding of the mechanics of this war on any level, from the theology of it down to the brass tacks of how oil flows. And it feels like no one is thinking about the obvious stuff. And I get that I'm, you know, collecting this from various primary sources and people who know more than me, but that's what you're supposed to do when you don't know you're supposed to go to the people who have more information than you. And it feels like no one did that. No one asked an Iran expert about any of these things because they're all you know, they're online now tweeting away saying, like, I could have told you that. Obviously, they were going to do that. What you're saying is a manifestation. I really do think the American public has taken so much for granted that it's now coming to fruition, whether it's freedom of navigation or TSA or air traffic control, what have you. There's been so many components of the government that we take for granted. And one of the things we've taken for granted is our intelligence service and our diplomatic corps. There are no more diplomats or the only litmus test for whether or not you're in this government or survive in this government is loyalty, not expertise. So that's doubly dangerous because not only do you lose the expertise of people who actually understand the situation, but you just have a bunch of yes men telling you what you want to hear. And that is effectively kind of the strategy or the playbook for always the downfall of these autocrats is they end up surrounding themselves with yes men and they never get good information. And the most recent example of that is, yeah, we'll be in Kiev in three to five days. Right. And Trump believed that. I'm sorry. And Putin believed that. Forty and slip there. So we're seeing all this incompetence bubble up. To your point, I had Admiral Stavridis on the Prof. G pod, and he said that the shock troops, the 30,000 younger people who are willing to risk their lives and gave their lives to try and overthrow the government, those people are dead. And there wasn't a reserve of additional shock troops once we went in and started started bombing. But this is just a total lack, a total lack of confidence, a sense that we don't know what is going on. And the only thing I would add to this is that Americans, in addition, I think there needs to be a reckoning here. And all of it can't be just blaming one party or the other or an individual. Americans want to spend, want to outsource war. When George Bush went into Iraq, he told the American public, oh, we can go to war and cut taxes. You don't have to eat dinner and you can eat candy and not go to school tomorrow. And the American public believed him. And as a result, we now have George Washington, George Bush, $7 trillion in deficits, George Bush to currently another $33 trillion in deficits. And quite frankly, we're very soft. I mean, economic collapse in Iran is food shortages and potentially riots in the street. We're nowhere near economic collapse. I understand that it's tough on Americans. I don't mean to sound like a lack of empathy. But the reality is, if people's internet goes down for an hour or AWS goes down, the whole nation freaks out. We believe that if we just go from $1 trillion to $1.4 trillion, that that will give us limitless ability to throw our weight around. No, we need to have the operating system and control and cooperation of two thirds of the world economy, not one third by treating the other third, our Western allies, like shit. Two, we need to understand asymmetric warfare. The battlefield has changed dramatically. And three, and this is the hard part, we kind of have to show when we take these military actions that we're in it to win it. Because it doesn't matter if you're a superior army. If you have what I've referred to before as a glass jaw, it's kind of just hold them out. I don't see any incentives at this point unless they can ensure that no oil is flowing out or being transported out of Iran. And even if it is, do you think the IRGC is really worried if their general populace goes hungry for a few weeks? They're claiming eight or nine weeks. I don't think there's any fucking way these people give in in eight or nine weeks. But again, I'm not an expert and it's hard to find an expert because they were fired because they weren't all sycophants to Trump. What do you think about the the Iranian foreign minister going to China tomorrow? Because that seems like a big deal. Like we're going next week. Right. Trump goes the 15th or the 16th. So that feels like in the midst of war or ceasefire or whatever, we're in like a pretty big deal that they're having, you know, a high end public meeting. It's a giant fuck you to the U.S. because those two easily could have got on a secure phone line and not let it out. But him publicly going over there is China basically saying that we are empathetic, want to have relationships with the IRGC in the midst of a war with who used to be a strong trading partner, the United States. It's absolutely a it's it's China cozying up or at least distancing itself or, quite frankly, waving the middle finger at Trump. That's how I see it. How do you see it? I do as well. And just also, you know, if this is the same person who's supposed to be helping with nuclear negotiations, it feels like I would feel a lot better, you know, if you were in Islamabad having conversations with our top real estate developer team than going and, you know, sharing a podium with the Chinese and talking about all the various ways in which they cooperate, because that's the IRGC. if they have eight to nine weeks left, maybe that's the case, maybe it isn't. But if you have China behind you, and they can find a way over the course of the next couple of months to be able to get that oil out and get more capital in, which I imagine the Chinese aren't inviting them over there to say, hey, we actually don't want to be friends with you anymore. And we're not going to help you out here. Like, seems like a pretty big deal. And will lead to them being further dug in, frankly. Maybe China has some message of we want this to end and find a route out, but I imagine that they'll be further emboldened as a result of having public Chinese backing like that. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. Support for the show comes from ZBiotics. ZBiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration. 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Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash moderates and use the code moderate to check out for 15% off. I'm Maria Sharapova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Follow Pretty Tough wherever you get your podcasts. Elon Musk spent most of this week sitting in a courtroom litigating some of the most important moments in the early history of the AI revolution. He didn't do a great job, and the ways in which he didn't do a great job may come back to haunt Elon Musk in a pretty big way. This week on The Vergecast, we're talking about what's going on in Musk versus OpenAI and how it might affect the rest of the tech industry. Plus, the most exciting laptop we've seen in a while and maybe the most exciting game controller we've seen in a while. All that on The Vergecast, where we get podcast. Welcome back. Meanwhile, back at home, there's a different kind of political tug of war. This time inside the Senate, a handful of Republican senators are reportedly trying to persuade Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman to switch parties or become an independent caucusing with Republicans. Wow. I mean, I guess I should have seen this coming. I didn't. What do you make of this, Jess? Well, I don't think it's going to happen. I think it's a bit of a pipe dream. You know if Joe Manchin didn become a Republican I don think John Fetterman is going to John Fetterman is way to the left of even where Manchin was He still votes with the party 91 to 93 percent of the time The big areas of policy disagreement with the party are definitely on Israel. It's the only thing that he puts a suit on for is when Netanyahu came and spoke to a joint session of Congress. And he doesn't really have patience for what he sees are kind of partisan, silly fights. He thinks, Keep the government open. You should be able to do your job without shutting down the government, et cetera. But there's a real fissure there. He doesn't have friends on the Democratic side. His closest friends are Dave McCormick, who's the moderate Republican senator, other senator from Pennsylvania, and Katie Britt. He hangs out with them and their spouses all the time. And Donald Trump has apparently offered him a financial incentive to switch parties because, of course, you know, money is all that matters. Yeah. Well, it's so funny. I'm like the guy's wearing, you know, an outfit fully from Models or something like that. And you think that he's going to be swayed because you gave him a lot of money. I also think like John Fetterman could not go home and face his wife if he did something like this. You know, she was an undocumented immigrant, super progressive. That was always his brand in the primary for him to become the nominee for that seat. He was up against Conor Lamb, who was a congressman and was the more conservative one in the primary. You know, John Fetterman was to the left of everything. So I don't see it really happening, but it makes for some good cloakroom drama, I guess. And it would have, if it did, something like that did happen, it would have an enormous impact. I mean, the numbers are so thin and Democrats are hopeful to pick up a few seats in the Senate, even in the midterm. So it would be a huge shock. And speaking of fractures inside political coalitions, things keep getting a little uncomfortable inside of MAGA. Marjorie Taylor Greene now says Donald Trump privately warned her that releasing the Epstein files could hurt people in his own orbit, specifically at Mar-a-Lago. She says she pushed back, arguing the focus should be on the victims. Let's take a listen. I was in my office in the Rayburn building, and I got a phone call from the president. And he was at the White House, and he wanted to talk to me about the discharge petition that I'd signed my name on. And he said, Marjorie, you're going to have to take your name off that discharge petition. We can't let this is a hoax. We can't carry this. This is a hoax. It's a Democrat hoax. and we've got to just put this away and stop doing this. And he said, my friends are going to get hurt. He said his friends would get hurt if we released the Epstein files. I'm still just not there on her. I get it that she's saying all the right stuff, not the crazy alien stuff that she says, but like, you know, this, and she had a good line about how her TDS is in Trump derangement syndrome. It's Trump disillusionment syndrome, I think. Disappointment. Disappointment. But I don't know. I'm all for a big tent. My tent feels a little smaller than Marjorie Taylor Greene. How are you? What do you think she's after? Big tent. I hope she's mauled and eaten by a lion. Oh, there we go. Kidding. No calls for violence. My response is the same response I have whenever I get a call from a Democratic senator. or a billionaire business person who says they want to talk to me about my ideas about young men. I say the same thing, and then there's an awkward silence, and then we laugh. And I say the following, oh, you're running for president. I'm like, I'm an interesting guy. I've got some interesting ideas, but the reason you're on the phone with me right now is you're running for president. You want to come on the pod. She's running for president. And she's not, her and Tucker Carlson have identified the mother of all. If the Strait of Hormuz is as wide as the Pacific Ocean, this is the lane that these people see, and they're smart politically. Supposedly, the odds-on favorites are Trump and Vance, except here's the problem. Trump is fucking Chernobyl right after the reactor exploded, and anyone around that reactor for any extended period of time is going to die a death of political leukemia. Nobody gets out of his orbit alive. He doesn't give a shit about the party. He doesn't give a shit about Vance or Rubio. He's such a narcissist. I'm fairly certain that he probably doesn't want a Republican to win so he can blame it on, he can say, I'm the only guy that could win for the Republicans. Who coming out of the previous administration has done really well politically? Like, who's I got? It was great to be near the president. He is radioactive. Vance and Rubio do not get out of this alive. They die a painful death. What the blame is, is someone who has conservative values, supported Trump, disillusioned, anti-war, anti-Israel. That is a huge lane. And I think she and Tucker Carlson both see that lane, all of a sudden she's found conservative values and she wants to be, she's trying to stay on the stage. And I believe she's planning a run for president, as is Tucker Carlson, who all of a sudden is embracing and defending Nick Fuentes because he realizes that the manosphere is really important to whoever eventually is going to be the Republican nomination. But they have all identified this lane of, I am for the values that Trump initially adhered to in his first term. I am against these forever wars. I am in favor of releasing the full Epstein files. I am anti-Israel, anti-Netanyahu. But you can trust me, I'm a hardcore conservative family values Republican. And Donald Trump has strayed. There is an enormous lane for that right now. And the majority of people in elected office that he has not already alienated or pissed off are afraid that he will go after them and contaminate them or just shut them down or what have you. So, yeah, she's thirsty. She wants to stay in the news. She wants to stay present. But my sense is someone has talked her into believing that she is a viable candidate for the Republican nomination. Your thoughts? I wouldn't doubt that, that, you know, she's thinking about it or at least having, you know, some sort of life after Congress. But I do think that Trump will still wield more power in the 2028 landscape than somebody who's coming out and saying things like, if I revealed my text messages with Donald Trump, I'd probably be in jail or this guy totally sold us all out. It's one thing to have a couple of gripes with him, but to generally still be in the tent. I don't know about someone who's in like a complete warfare mode because he will still, even if the base gets a bit smaller, it's usually what, 25 to 30 percent. Let's say it's down to even 18 to 25 percent or something like that. There's still a lot of people that he'd be able to command, essentially, to say like, you know, I understand you want change. Maybe you don't want my number, too, because, you know, he's not as good as me. And I think that's a very valid argument to make. Trump is the genuine article and J.D. Vance is a shapeshifter who's done everything from call him Hitler to say he's the greatest thing in the entire world. But I feel like he's going to stop at nothing to destroy people who are going so hard against him. I think it's a decent bet. It's very hard for people to imagine themselves because of survival instinct that they'll ever actually die. There's a couple of things I just never thought would happen. My dog, Zoe, I could never imagine her dying for some reason. I couldn't even envision it. Even when she got sick, I just couldn't actually wrap my head around the notion that the dog might actually die at some point. When we had our first child, I could never actually imagine my partner's water breaking. I just thought her stomach was going to continue to grow and we were never actually going to have a baby. I couldn't even, I couldn't envision it. I think the American public- I can guarantee you that all she thought about was not being pregnant though. Was it getting that thing out of me? Actually, I'm not exaggerating. She was the most beautiful pregnant woman in the world. She loved being pregnant. She would walk into a restaurant. I'm not exaggerating. People would stop eating dinner and come over to her and tell her how beautiful she was. And she loved the attention. Anyways, I think the American public doesn't recognize the actuarial chance that Donald Trump doesn't make it through office. He is an obese 79-year-old man, which according to actuarial tables means there's about a 12% annual mortality rate. So in the next two and a half years, there's about a one in three chance he dies. So the over under on carving out that lane and the fact that he gets even more and more unpopular, I don't know. I think I let me put it this way. There's much there's much bigger long shots. It's absolutely clear to me. Tucker Carlson is running for president. And I think that Marjorie Taylor Greene is lining up and thinking, well, I'll I'll stay visible. Maybe I'll be someone's VP pick. But she's she is. Oh, my gosh. Are these people Are these people thirsty? It's just so clear they're lining up for something. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. Welcome back. Let's zoom out from political drama to policy. There's a pretty notable shift happening on AI. After years of pushing against regulation of artificial intelligence, the White House is now considering introducing a government oversight process around new AI models. Jess, the administration has long held the stance that AI shouldn't be regulated, that it would just hold progress back. What do you think has changed? Nothing. I think they just know that they're supposed to say that, and then they're not going to do anything. I mean, if you look at any White House event, it's all tech titans who all have a vested interest in not ever being regulated. I do think it is the most amazing opportunity for Democrats, especially because they're not in power right now, but even sensible Republicans, because if you look at people's level of concern with AI, massive. I mean, these town halls about data centers are, I mean, you would think that people were saying, I'm going to come, I'm going to burn down your house. Like that's how extreme the reaction to what's coming, whatever the future looks like, is for these folks. And I saw a poll. It was about 50 percent of people didn't know who they thought was better to regulate AI or to deal with whatever AI is going to bring from working class people up to white collar folks, where it seems like some of the effects could actually felt the strongest. But I want you to talk about this because you're way better on AI than I am. No, I think you're exactly right. I think that delay and obfuscation is kind of the go-to strategy. It's an enormous opportunity for Democrats to outline fairly basic regulation, right? Age-gating on character AI, 60-day hold period for testing amongst a group of AI academics, economists, technologists to beta test the shit out of something, as opposed to Dario Almadé saying, I'm only going out to 40 customers because I'm worried about it. Any new product release, any new LLM has to be, I mean, if it takes the FDA 10 years, If the FDA can delay a drug's introduction to the market by a decade to make sure that it's safe, there's no reason why the government can't ask every technology company in AI to let them play with the model and test the shit out of it and bang it every which way but loose for 60 to 90 days and then have regulations around weapons, self-healing weapons, invasion of privacy, having it being used for surveillance. There's a really interesting argument that someone made that kind of struck me as being very salient, and that is, according to these guys, AI is more powerful and a greater existential threat than any technology including nuclear weapons And so the question is all right well we don let private venture companies build nuclear weapons Why at all are we letting private companies build AI? Now, I don't believe we should make all of these things government companies because I do think there's a lot of economic value here. We want to stay competitive. The private sector is more innovative than the public sector. But there is, in my view, there is a dramatic need and a sensible need for pretty serious formation of an agency of very intelligent people, somewhat reminiscent of the EPA or the FDA. And everybody doesn't like regulation until they realize we have no fucking experts to tell us what to do and planes start getting backed up and our food supply goes bad or no one can tell us what the fuck is going on in Iran. Folks, Our government operates on the whole really well. There needs to be an agency that regulates these things and some common sense laws around how AI is used and how we can how we can kind of, quite frankly, just beta test the shit out of it and make sure that it doesn't get turned against us. and just politically, a Democrat who was interested in me, Gavin Newsom should be all over this. And they have proposed some legislation, but he should be, he's gone from the all caps, great social media guy. He should pivot to becoming, and there's an opportunity here for Bashir Shapiro to say, you know what, I actually understand this technology, or at least my staff does. And I've come out with a 20 or 30 page, you know, AI regulation manifesto that's summarized in one page such that I can go on CNN and say, you know, Jake, these are the three top points. You know, Brett Baer, these are the basic three points around some sort of regulation. Because the first person that demonstrates that they sort of understand AI gets the attribute that never goes out of style, youth. They will look young. They will look like, oh, that person understands these scary technologies that I don't understand, but I believe somebody needs to understand because clearly in Washington, they've got a reputation for like, okay, you know, I understand fax machines. I have my assistant print out my emails, right? I don't know how to clean my CPAP. I know technology for me is the wheels my oxygen tank rolls on. That's probably a little much. Anyways, I like rhetorical flourish like that. I think it really hit home. This is a lane for a Democrat to come out and say, I really, I understand AI. I don't understand. This is, for example, this would be a great lane and a great talk track for Mayor Pete. He's young. He's smart. He has incredible ability to distill very complicated issues down to a series of very digestible talking points. He should he should absolutely. What the fuck is Mayor Pete doing right now? What does he do? Well, he's like the number one requested surrogate for all of these Democrats. He's all over the country holding these amazing events in town halls. I mean, I mean. Okay, but does he have an actual job? What's his title? How does he make money? What's he doing right now? Do you have any idea? Substack, maybe? No, I mean, he is on Substack. He's between options. I got it. He should be the head of a think tank or a political center somewhere. Anyway, my point is. He probably has a job. I don't know about it. My point is a really big opportunity for him would be to be the politician who really understands technology and specifically AI who could say, all right, this is a tension around data centers. And this kind of leads into our next story around income inequality and the met ball. But data centers have become the flashpoint for AI because people are saying, OK, they're building this building over there. I know it's going to make someone rich who I don't know. I don't even get to participate if I had the money because these stocks aren't public. All I've heard is my electricity prices are going to go up 12 percent. And supposedly this shit is really bad for the environment. And it's not even that that has them angry. It's it's a symbol. It's it's something they can throw a tomato around around income inequality. And speaking of income inequality, this is going to be our segue to ending on something a little lighter, but it's still political in its own way. This year's Met Gala didn't just belong to fashion in Hollywood. It belonged to Silicon Valley. The event raised a record $42 million, powered in large part by tech money, with Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos leading the charge as top sponsors. What did you make of the Met Ball? I have to say I'm not like a total diehard that, you know, is waiting for the red carpet. I do. I peruse through. I liked a lot of the outfits. It was interesting to see Blake Lively out there because of the Justin Baldoni lawsuit. It got settled yesterday. I don't know who was not there because of the Amazon influence, their swirl that that's why Zendaya didn't go this year, you know, as a kind of pushback, especially because of ICE detention centers and things like that vis-a-vis Amazon. But it feels like a metaphor for what's going on in every part of our society that the tech overlords are now controlling everything. And I have nothing against Lauren Sanchez Bezos. It seems like she's a pretty nice person. Nice woman. Yeah. And, you know, she looked beautiful. Also ridiculously fucking tone deaf. Writing an article in New York Times talking about how amazing her life is. I would not have done that personally. But Albert Brooks said, keep it. Remember that great line with William Hurt where he says, what happens when your reality exceeds your wildest dreams? and albert brooks responds keep it to yourself yeah some quiet she seems like i met her she seems very nice all of her friends everyone that knows her says she's lovely just have a fucking amazing life kind of you know a little bit below the radar people need to don't need to understand how you've married anyways uh i interrupted you i'm not no no it's a conversation we're not interrupting. But I don't have that gene in me where I crave being around celebrities like that. Like, I just I don't get it. I mean, I haven't been invited to the Met Gala, so maybe it would change if I were. But I thought Mom Donnie had the perfect response where he was like, I'm good. I'm going to focus on working class people. And I love the Met. I'm glad that they're going to raise a lot of money. It's important, etc. But like, that's not where the working class mayor is needed. That seems like a good response to it. And obviously, you know, setting a difference with Mayor Adams. But I would feel like such a loser, right? If I was just the person that was footing the bill for the thing and just staring at Beyonce and trying to figure out what her outfit signifies about her next album that's to come and, you know, trying to, you know, pick the meaning out of Lady Gaga's outfit, et cetera. Like you should, when you have that much money, should have a little bit more self-awareness for who you are in all of this. And standing next to Nicole Kidman on the red carpet is just not, it's not the best look to me personally. Yeah. It feels like when you're by votes to be homecoming queen or king. Yeah. I said on Pivot, I thought it was the perfect marriage because Vogue and, you know, these magazines have just too much riz and not enough money. And Bezos has too much money and not enough riz. But it was really interesting. It became a politicized event. I don't know how to say this without sounding like a douchebag. So I'm just going to say it. I got invited and it fell on the same. I wasn't by the way, I don't know if you know this. I was in Germany today, in Hamburg, Germany. And I thought, OK, I can go to Germany, eat sausage drink fucking amazing beer and hang out i i spoke at online marketing rock stars and i love the event it was this was such an easy call i mean it doesn't seem like that much fun to me it seems like instagram but even more self-absorbed and also i do think and it comes fact to data centers, I do think these folks don't realize that kind of a let them eat cake party, it's just sort of in bad taste right now. You know, it's one thing to celebrate fashion and young designers. I get it. But to have it sponsored by Bezos at this moment is just not a good idea. I think Anna Wintour, quite frankly, I think she fucked up here. I think they should have figured out a way to keep it more authentic as opposed to having whatever the fourth richest man, in the world basically sponsor it. The other thing I don't like just to piss off progressives. I'm seeing all these TikToks and Instagrams of how genius it was to have all these Amazon workers beaming things saying, I'm a worker, you should be throwing this party for me. I don't like that either. I think fine, don't go, write an op-ed, but don't try and fuck up their event. Let them have their party. The whole thing, if there's a year where this thing jumped the shark, it was this year. It wasn't about the fashion. It wasn't about people. It wasn't about looking fabulous. It wasn't about New York. In New York, this is a great event for New York. It's a great event for the fashion industry. And quite frankly, it just came across as tone deaf. and the Bezos family, you know, Jeff and Lauren's involvement in it, just quite frankly, that was a whiff. It's one thing for him to be invited. He's a successful guy. She's a beautiful woman. They're in the midst of the midlife crisis that they'll grow out of in about 40 or 50 years. I say they lean into it. I'm kind of here for it. But to have them sponsoring this thing, it felt like a miss. It felt like someone close to the Bezos would need to say, you know, it's like when my father said to me something, a couple of things stuck with me. He said, the key to happiness in America is to be rich, but anonymous. They need to be a little bit more anonymous. They need to fly under the radar. And there is opportunity for you to give to things without your name and certainly your physical presence plastered all over everything. It happens all the time. They could have just given the money. They could have just said, how much money do we need to give to make sure we get invited? I mean, you know, I wouldn't be above that. It's like, OK, you want to get invited to something cool. You got to give money. That's no different than buying tickets to World Cup, which, by the way, are ridiculously fucking expensive. Yeah, can't even like, you know, Fox has it. And it is. Everyone wants to go. It is like the most requested set of tickets that we've ever had. I want to go to a Mexico City game. Oh, that would be amazing. Right. That would absolutely be amazing. But it's not in the cards for me. On the cards or in the cards? I never know. Not in the cards. Yeah. In the cards. Yeah. All right. Well, let's leave it there, Jess. If anybody wants to take us, we don't want to go to the Met Ball, but we will absolutely do whatever you want. And we're both fun. We both like to drink. Actually, I don't know if you like to drink. One of us likes to drink. I can have one drink. That's all I can handle. but I'm a great time after that one drink for like an hour. You'll look much better on someone's arm than me. But let's any anyone wants to take us to World Cup. We're in. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. We're absolutely in. Before we go, a reminder, the Raging Moderates is on Substack as part of Prof G+. If you sign up for Prof G+, not only will you get access to ad-free episodes and exclusive live streams, you'll also get a way to connect with me, Jess, and the community. Plus, you can get the Raging Moderates newsletter, the Monday Rage, in your inbox every week. So come join us. Sign up at ragingmoderates.propgmedia.com. Also, we're making a few changes to the show. You'll be getting more of the two of us with longer episodes dropping Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons, in addition to all the fun and rage that's happening on Substack. That's all for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us today. Jess, I will see you on Thursday. On Thursday. Bye.