E154: Presidential Candidate Dean Phillips in conversation with the Besties + Xi's SF visit & more

00:00:00.000 | Congressman, how should we refer to you today?

00:00:03.120 | Well, I prefer Dean but you know,

00:00:06.040 | let's go with Dean. Let's go with that Mr. Phillips.

00:00:09.000 | And just I'm asking people to be keen on Dean so I might as well

00:00:11.720 | run with it. Oh, there you go. Well, you know, I'm a big

00:00:14.360 | supporter of the Dean machine already. Oh, you know about the

00:00:17.080 | Dean machine with this gelato? I'm all up on the Dean machine.

00:00:20.440 | By the way, I bought an old International Harvester Metro

00:00:23.320 | van for 20s when we did activations like South by

00:00:25.880 | Southwest. And I used to own one of those by the way. No, you did

00:00:29.000 | I yeah, I bought it for my ranch. Come on. I love that

00:00:32.320 | baby. So I bought one for 20. And I saw how people just

00:00:35.600 | immediately were attracted to it and fell in love with it. And I

00:00:38.600 | thought, hey, when I ran for Congress, I'm gonna do the same

00:00:40.680 | thing. So I created the government repair truck.

00:00:42.760 | Are you driving around in this international harvester? Of

00:00:45.640 | course. You're kidding. Yeah. I'll show you. I'll send you a

00:00:48.560 | picture of it. It's cool. It's awesome. It's got a 1980 Chevy

00:00:51.440 | chassis under it, but it's still the still the basic nuts and

00:00:55.000 | bolts. We're referring to a type of automobile. You can ask one

00:00:58.280 | of your three drivers about it. David. Don't worry, David, your

00:01:00.600 | driver can take you in it. Ask your Miami driver. He probably

00:01:03.480 | owns some muscle cars. I don't think your LA driver owns muscle

00:01:05.960 | cars. Here we go. Let's start. Three, two

00:01:24.960 | Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the all in podcast

00:01:28.920 | with us again today. The dictator himself to mouth

00:01:31.440 | polyhepate. The rain man David Sachs, and the Sultan of Science

00:01:36.520 | David Friedberg. We are going to continue our conversation series

00:01:42.320 | with presidential candidates today. Our fourth presidential

00:01:45.480 | candidate is on the program Dean Phillips represents Minnesota's

00:01:49.320 | third district. And he's about 25 years younger than Trump and

00:01:54.200 | Biden at 54 years old. Dean, before getting into politics, I

00:01:59.400 | understand you were the CEO of your family's spirits business

00:02:02.640 | and you ran to lenti gelato. Oh, pistachio flavor. Amazing. So

00:02:07.720 | welcome to the all in podcast meet the other besties. And

00:02:11.480 | maybe you could just start out by telling us why you are

00:02:14.520 | running for president.

00:02:15.720 | Yeah, well, I'll tell you after being in the vodka business and

00:02:19.160 | the ice cream business and actually the coffee business, I

00:02:21.360 | think I understand at least what Americans want. So that's a good

00:02:24.400 | start. Well, I'll tell you a little about my background and

00:02:26.720 | why I'm here. I lost my dad in the Vietnam War, when I was just

00:02:30.040 | six months old. I had grew up with no money in St. Paul,

00:02:33.320 | Minnesota, I earned an ROTC scholarship on behalf of the

00:02:36.640 | federal government, of course, to pursue his education, went to

00:02:40.480 | Vietnam in 1968, just before I was born, I got to see the US

00:02:44.680 | land on the moon. And I think regularly about how he looked up

00:02:48.160 | two days before his helicopter crashed and he died, looked up

00:02:51.880 | and saw Americans on the moon, and look down and saw America at

00:02:55.520 | its worst. And literally that experience, in no small way is

00:02:59.360 | what brings me to this day. And I was six months old, my mom was

00:03:04.480 | 24 and widowed and we moved in with my great grandparents for

00:03:07.000 | the first three years of my life. And I got lucky when I was

00:03:10.120 | three, my mom married a wonderful, extraordinary man who

00:03:13.120 | adopted me, Eddie Phillips brought me into a family of

00:03:15.640 | great blessings. My grandmother became Dear Abby, and my aunt

00:03:19.040 | Ann Landers, so I grew up in a family of a lot of advice. And

00:03:23.080 | I've lived on both sides of advantage, and I recognize it. I

00:03:26.400 | remember the day I turned 26. And I counted the days that my

00:03:31.520 | father had lived my birth father. And I remember the day

00:03:34.280 | after I had lived as many days as him, my life changed forever.

00:03:38.840 | And I, I became inspired, joined our family business after

00:03:42.800 | college, ended up running our beverage business, we created

00:03:46.520 | Belvedere vodka, which we sold LVMH, and then got into the ice

00:03:50.480 | cream business and did the same thing.

00:03:51.800 | You guys created Belvedere?

00:03:52.840 | Yeah, we my father and I and our partner, Steve Gill, went on a

00:03:57.200 | trip to Poland in 1993, hoping to sell them Phillips schnapps,

00:04:01.520 | which we made in Minnesota, we thought Eastern Europe was ready

00:04:04.240 | for peppermint and peach schnapps. And we were touring

00:04:08.120 | distilleries, and we see both in duty free in the airport and in

00:04:12.120 | the distilleries, the most beautiful packaging we'd ever

00:04:15.800 | seen in the spirits business. Now mind you, this is when

00:04:17.840 | Absolute and Stoli were like the pinnacle of luxury, $15, you

00:04:22.200 | know, average now. And my father immediately sat at a restaurant

00:04:26.080 | that night, literally, this is a literal napkin story, he on a

00:04:29.600 | napkin, created a little matrix and said, if Stoli and Absolute

00:04:33.920 | are $15, and they're the most premium in a fast growing

00:04:37.280 | category, why shouldn't there be a $25 vodka? And why should this

00:04:41.000 | not be it? So we negotiated with the Polish government, our

00:04:44.280 | partner, Ted Dorda from Poland helped us. And we first obtained

00:04:47.880 | the distribution rights. And then when Poland privatized

00:04:50.600 | their spirits industry, we acquired the distillery and the

00:04:54.360 | IP. And the rest was history. And you know, cork finish,

00:04:57.720 | beautiful bottle, we sold it. We talked about the lowest common

00:05:01.400 | denominator, the pens we use to write the orders, the way we

00:05:04.040 | carried it made all the difference in the world. And

00:05:06.400 | then we use that same template in ice cream, because what we

00:05:09.000 | found is, in every category of every consumer product category

00:05:13.480 | in which there are two main competitors, Coke and Pepsi,

00:05:16.200 | Stoli, Absolute, Ben and Jerry's and Haagen Dazs, they tend to

00:05:20.280 | fight to the bottom, lower pricing, you know, frankly,

00:05:24.280 | demeaning consumers. And there's always an opportunity to

00:05:27.400 | introduce something a little bit more premium, a little bit more

00:05:30.640 | special, that's still an affordable luxury. And Belvedere,

00:05:34.120 | by the way, was built by Jay Z. I can tell you that story, if

00:05:36.840 | you want to hear it, it's an extraordinary one.

00:05:38.400 | Yeah, tell that story. Yeah.

00:05:39.640 | Yeah. So, so far, you're like, you're our kind of candidate.

00:05:42.760 | We're like, exactly. Yeah, you just got

00:05:44.360 | we're all looking at you like, who is this guy?

00:05:47.640 | So when people ask me about my platform, I'll say I'll be a

00:05:51.080 | storyteller about vodka.

00:05:52.080 | I'm ready to start popping bottles over here.

00:05:53.640 | By the way, that's exactly what Jay Z did.

00:05:56.440 | Sax and I popped many a Belvedere bottle in when we had

00:05:59.520 | our run in LA. True or not true, Sax?

00:06:01.440 | It was a tough choice between Belvedere and Grey Goose.

00:06:04.720 | Oh, I'll tell you that story too, by the way. Anyway, so

00:06:08.360 | we introduced Belvedere and it and.

00:06:10.360 | By the way, what we learned in hindsight is that our aperture

00:06:14.120 | was way too small.

00:06:15.200 | You know, we were way too we sold it by the bottle, not by

00:06:18.040 | the case. We only went to restaurants and bars at first,

00:06:20.360 | not to the big stores.

00:06:21.360 | We wanted to be special and we completely underestimated the

00:06:24.600 | size of what this category could be.

00:06:26.280 | Sidney Frank, who introduced Grey Goose, took a much bigger

00:06:29.240 | approach. Anyway, so I'm sitting at home getting ready for work

00:06:32.240 | one day. I have MTV on and it's probably a year after we

00:06:35.800 | introduced Belvedere. It's doing well, but not not big.

00:06:38.320 | So sorry, this is mid 90s.

00:06:40.080 | Yeah, I can't remember the year, Chamath.

00:06:42.560 | It's probably, you know, 95.

00:06:44.400 | Yeah, 90s thereabouts.

00:06:46.160 | I'm watching MTV. I see a Jay-Z video and it is all Belvedere.

00:06:51.120 | It's in the fridge. He's holding it.

00:06:52.840 | There are people dancing.

00:06:53.960 | He's pouring it on him.

00:06:54.960 | And I froze, called my dad immediately, who, of course,

00:06:59.200 | didn't have MTV on.

00:07:00.720 | And and I said, you got to turn it on.

00:07:03.320 | He couldn't find the channel.

00:07:04.160 | I'm like, hey, dad, you know, MTV repeats the same videos, you

00:07:06.560 | know, five, ten times a day.

00:07:07.920 | So we got to the office and sure enough, we had the TV on.

00:07:11.160 | It came back on.

00:07:12.040 | The whole company gathered at that time.

00:07:13.600 | We were probably 10 people and we gathered around the TV and

00:07:16.800 | watched this video.

00:07:17.720 | And I'm telling you guys, within two weeks, the brand completely

00:07:21.280 | popped. And my dad, Jay-Z, ended up calling my father.

00:07:25.000 | They had a dinner in New York City, a memorable one for both.

00:07:30.520 | Actually, he ended up introducing a vodka some years later called

00:07:33.480 | Armadale. And it failed miserably.

00:07:36.520 | But it was one of the first times that I think in this new

00:07:39.480 | culture of influencers and celebrity endorsers that that magic

00:07:43.320 | happened. He almost literally made Belvedere.

00:07:45.760 | So that's the story.

00:07:47.120 | Did you guys sign into a deal and pay him money or?

00:07:49.640 | No, no.

00:07:50.160 | In fact, we talked about that.

00:07:51.680 | And the so this is the brand foundation of the brand house was

00:07:55.800 | authenticity. We didn't do a damn thing that had anything to do

00:07:59.640 | with anything that wasn't true.

00:08:01.000 | The makers of it, the product itself.

00:08:03.840 | We didn't we didn't pay people to talk about it, unlike Sidney

00:08:06.880 | Frank with Grey Goose.

00:08:08.200 | So we chose not to.

00:08:09.640 | It was all natural.

00:08:10.720 | And then here's the other cool thing.

00:08:12.280 | And this is how my campaign is going to work.

00:08:14.120 | We sent 200 bottles in very special, beautiful boxes to 200

00:08:19.840 | influencers. We believe that if we could simply seed the brand

00:08:23.160 | with 200 people all around the U.S., that they could be the

00:08:26.320 | content makers and the advocates, the ambassadors.

00:08:28.960 | In fact, one of them went to this guy right behind me, Bill

00:08:31.560 | Oakland and Robert De Niro.

00:08:33.960 | Another example, Robert Redford, leaders of industry and actors

00:08:37.960 | and and and the like.

00:08:39.720 | Robert De Niro gets one of these things and there is a note

00:08:42.680 | inside with a picture of the distiller Bogdan Zalensky.

00:08:45.600 | It said, Watch page three, the Tiffany section.

00:08:48.760 | I'm sorry, the Tiffany location of The Wall Street Journal on

00:08:51.840 | call. It was like Monday, February 6th to only 200 people

00:08:55.640 | knew what was coming.

00:08:57.400 | The ad in the paper didn't show a bottle of anything.

00:09:00.160 | It just said Belvedere.

00:09:01.560 | Bogdan wants to know how you like it.

00:09:03.680 | So we literally did an ad that cost gosh knows back then

00:09:06.480 | probably one hundred thousand dollars, tiny little top corner

00:09:09.240 | ad that spoke to 200 people in the United States of America

00:09:12.480 | that had no idea. Nobody else knew what it was.

00:09:14.760 | Robert De Niro goes to the Beverly Hills Hotel or the

00:09:17.720 | Peninsula. I can't remember.

00:09:19.120 | Orders a Belvedere martini soon thereafter.

00:09:21.320 | The barman says, Mr. De Niro, we have Absolute, we have Stoli.

00:09:24.440 | I don't have that brand.

00:09:25.560 | And he says, I don't think you heard me.

00:09:26.880 | I want a Belvedere martini.

00:09:28.440 | So the barman sends like the bar back to whatever the wine

00:09:32.040 | and spirit shop is on Rodeo Driver in Beverly Hills.

00:09:35.440 | And the guy, he comes back with a bottle.

00:09:37.320 | And the entire bar watched this little episode.

00:09:41.160 | And I'm telling you once again, within a week, that store was

00:09:44.360 | selling through Belvedere like it was water.

00:09:46.160 | So these little moments where you identify the right people.

00:09:49.400 | And now mind you, this is in the analog era.

00:09:51.200 | There was no Internet. There was no social media.

00:09:53.080 | This was people simply talking to people.

00:09:55.840 | So we sold Belvedere to LVMH and then we looked at the ice

00:09:59.160 | cream category.

00:10:00.080 | Saab Benajiri is doing the same thing.

00:10:01.400 | If you can tell us about that, what is it like to negotiate

00:10:04.320 | against LVMH and Bernard Arnault?

00:10:06.600 | And why do you sell it when it's working?

00:10:08.960 | I guess maybe it's a question.

00:10:10.080 | You know, I'll tell you, well, this is not a story I've shared

00:10:13.440 | with many.

00:10:14.440 | They were very disingenuous.

00:10:17.640 | And it deeply troubles me to this day.

00:10:22.400 | The way that my father was treated, the promises that were

00:10:25.600 | made simply to get a deal done and then not kept, I think is a

00:10:29.240 | reflection on principle.

00:10:30.400 | And I'll leave it at that.

00:10:31.400 | A lesson learned.

00:10:33.720 | In fact, rather than going through a competitive process,

00:10:37.080 | which I think any enterprise would do to maximize value of a

00:10:40.560 | brand, our family ethos was a little different.

00:10:43.320 | And I think we bit.

00:10:46.800 | And in hindsight, it was a mistake.

00:10:49.280 | But I'll leave it at that.

00:10:50.240 | You learn less.

00:10:51.080 | You know what?

00:10:51.920 | You learn lessons every experience to this very day.

00:10:53.920 | I'm learning them every day on the campaign trail to that was

00:10:56.640 | one I would never make again.

00:10:58.040 | All right, well, you got the two David's votes with the vodka.

00:11:02.120 | You got mine with the gelato.

00:11:03.280 | And if you launch a luxury fabric brand or sweaters, I think

00:11:06.360 | you're going to get your first.

00:11:07.320 | I got some other work to do for eight years.

00:11:08.720 | So we'll do that afterwards.

00:11:10.160 | I'll just wrap this long story up.

00:11:11.800 | So we introduced, you know, plenty obviously does well.

00:11:14.760 | We sold it to Unilever.

00:11:16.440 | Then I opened a couple of coffee shops with my family in

00:11:18.840 | Minneapolis thinking this would be kind of a fun folly.

00:11:21.360 | And then we're watching the 2016 election at home.

00:11:24.880 | I thought I would wake up the next morning.

00:11:26.480 | We'd have Hillary Clinton as president.

00:11:28.360 | Not that that was thrilling to the world, but it would have

00:11:30.200 | been safe and lo and behold, you know what happened.

00:11:33.160 | And I remember telling my family that night, like, look,

00:11:35.440 | give the guy a chance.

00:11:36.400 | He's not going to act like that in the White House.

00:11:38.280 | The presidency changes you.

00:11:39.720 | It humbles you.

00:11:40.800 | It moderates you.

00:11:42.400 | And my family thought I was a, you know, I was a joke.

00:11:45.560 | And I woke up the next morning.

00:11:46.680 | My 16 year old was in her room crying.

00:11:49.480 | My 18 year old was a freshman at college.

00:11:51.680 | We FaceTimed her and she's crying.

00:11:54.160 | And I sat at the breakfast table, guys, and I promised my

00:11:56.320 | daughters I would do something.

00:11:57.720 | I raised them to be participants, not observers.

00:12:01.440 | And I looked around at my district.

00:12:03.760 | I thought maybe I'll run for Congress.

00:12:06.080 | I looked around and I had, the district had not been won by a

00:12:09.880 | Democrat since the 1958 election.

00:12:12.440 | This is the, now we're looking at the 2018 election, 60 years.

00:12:15.840 | And the man who had won, won his fourth term by 14 points.

00:12:20.120 | And people told me I was crazy.

00:12:21.800 | You know, you're out of your mind.

00:12:22.680 | You're giving up a good life to run for misery and you'll never

00:12:26.000 | make it and you'll embarrass yourself,

00:12:27.960 | which is why I did it.

00:12:29.080 | And not only did we win, we won by 12 points.

00:12:31.280 | We had fun.

00:12:32.120 | We used invitation, not confrontation.

00:12:34.440 | And I drove that little van all around the district to the most

00:12:37.280 | unhospitable parts.

00:12:38.480 | I opened the service window.

00:12:39.720 | I served coffee and I sat, I put two chairs out and people

00:12:43.520 | would just come up and talk.

00:12:45.160 | And I found magic in just letting people share what's on

00:12:49.560 | their mind.

00:12:50.400 | They're so unheard.

00:12:51.240 | Anyhow, I get to, well, I can tell you now,

00:12:52.960 | I want to tell you why I'm doing it,

00:12:54.000 | but that's the story of where I came from and why I'm doing

00:12:56.640 | this and look at the end of the day,

00:12:58.160 | I'm the one of those that got lucky.

00:12:59.520 | You know, there's a lot of kids who lost their dads in

00:13:01.560 | Vietnam, who did not have the magical moment that I had to be

00:13:04.880 | adopted by an amazing father.

00:13:06.760 | And that was the difference for me.

00:13:07.760 | It's my job to make sure others get that same chance.

00:13:09.880 | Simple as that.

00:13:11.040 | - Before we jump into the future,

00:13:13.880 | but why you're running and what you,

00:13:15.880 | what you see for the country,

00:13:18.040 | talk about the years that you spent in Congress.

00:13:20.720 | What did you observe there?

00:13:22.320 | What, what is it like day to day?

00:13:24.200 | And what do you think is working and what isn't working?

00:13:27.000 | - I wish we had three hours.

00:13:29.640 | I get there, Chamath, I get there the first week of 2019.

00:13:33.920 | And like all of you that come from organizational enterprise

00:13:36.760 | experience, I assume that Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy

00:13:40.800 | would have a, have a strategy to introduce the new members

00:13:43.760 | of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans,

00:13:45.960 | you know, get to know each other, do a ropes course,

00:13:47.880 | you know, and build some trust or something.

00:13:50.120 | And my goodness, it was just the opposite guys.

00:13:52.320 | We were put on separate buses, going to different events.

00:13:55.840 | And I realized right away that they had a systemic

00:13:58.480 | segregation strategy on day one.

00:14:01.560 | And I mean, sincerely, the two parties, this is,

00:14:04.480 | I'll tell you what I've learned.

00:14:05.600 | We can talk more about this.

00:14:07.200 | The only people that want to protect the status quo of the

00:14:09.720 | duopoly and the political industrial complex that just

00:14:12.360 | surrounds it all are the two parties.

00:14:14.600 | And it is destructive and I will get into that.

00:14:17.040 | But I recognize right away, all of my colleagues,

00:14:19.000 | that the leadership in both Democratic and Republican side,

00:14:23.520 | they wanted to keep us separate.

00:14:25.120 | They did not want to give us education and information.

00:14:28.680 | And they wanted to keep us so busy that we could not become

00:14:32.040 | threats to their power structure.

00:14:33.800 | You can imagine, members of Congress tend to be pretty

00:14:36.840 | ambitious people.

00:14:38.000 | And ultimately they were smart to do that because

00:14:42.520 | they made members of Congress, they do this day,

00:14:44.560 | raise money all week long.

00:14:46.240 | 10,000 hours per week is what senators and house members

00:14:50.160 | spend raising money.

00:14:51.880 | I've got a bill actually that would preclude it from 8 a.m.

00:14:54.640 | to 5 p.m.

00:14:55.840 | 'cause it's such an unmitigated joke and disaster.

00:14:58.240 | The fact that in the United States,

00:15:00.400 | that a PAC representing a special interest or corporation

00:15:04.600 | can hand a $5,000 check to a member of Congress at a

00:15:08.800 | steakhouse on Wednesday evening,

00:15:11.360 | and then that member serves on a committee in which that

00:15:14.400 | business or special interest has business in front of the

00:15:16.960 | next day, is the most unbelievable form of legal corruption

00:15:21.240 | you could possibly imagine.

00:15:23.240 | So that's one.

00:15:24.400 | Needless to say, I resolved right after that first week of

00:15:26.640 | orientation that I would do it differently.

00:15:28.480 | I befriended my Republican colleagues.

00:15:30.840 | My wife Annalise and I started having bipartisan dinners

00:15:33.440 | at our house.

00:15:34.560 | I joined the Problem Solvers Caucus.

00:15:36.040 | I hope you guys know about it.

00:15:37.080 | It's the most important small caucus in Congress.

00:15:39.560 | We're now 32 Democrats and 32 Republicans committed to doing

00:15:43.920 | what we're supposed to do.

00:15:45.240 | Get to know each other, talk policy,

00:15:47.640 | and try to make a difference.

00:15:48.680 | Now we're the workhorses, not the show horses,

00:15:51.200 | so you don't know most of our names, including me.

00:15:53.600 | But we were the ones invited to the White House

00:15:55.880 | in like week three of our service.

00:15:58.880 | I was one of four Democrats.

00:16:00.120 | There were four Republicans that President Trump invited to

00:16:03.080 | the Situation Room to make a proposition to get us through

00:16:06.520 | the shutdown, which I can talk about that bizarre hour

00:16:09.640 | of my life as well.

00:16:10.920 | And that's how I resolved to do it.

00:16:12.800 | Now I'm ranked, depending on the survey,

00:16:15.600 | number one, number two, number 10,

00:16:17.880 | most bipartisan members of the entire U.S. Congress

00:16:20.960 | and including governors.

00:16:22.960 | And I vote relatively progressive.

00:16:24.880 | It's not about just the votes, it's about the ethos.

00:16:27.320 | It's about Republican sponsored bills that come from me.

00:16:30.800 | It's about me sponsoring Republican led bills.

00:16:33.520 | And that's what makes me a little bit different than I think

00:16:35.800 | just about every member of Congress, not to mention,

00:16:38.240 | I think I'm the only one that's willing to torpedo a career

00:16:41.920 | so that the country isn't torpedoed by this nonsense

00:16:45.160 | and dysfunction.

00:16:46.080 | There's a lot more to talk about, but it all starts

00:16:49.880 | with a systematic segregation and a focus on fighting

00:16:53.160 | each other instead of fighting for each other.

00:16:54.880 | I can talk about it all day long.

00:16:56.600 | - Let's start there, Dean.

00:16:58.240 | Give us the assessment of what's happening

00:16:59.840 | in the White House right now.

00:17:01.080 | Before we talk about your candidacy,

00:17:02.440 | just like what's going on?

00:17:05.360 | - Well, let me just say, I respect President Biden.

00:17:08.120 | He's a man I've had in my house for an event.

00:17:11.520 | He's a man with whom I've flown on Air Force One twice.

00:17:14.800 | He did a beautiful video for my daughter.

00:17:16.760 | He called my mother.

00:17:18.080 | I think he did a fine job.

00:17:20.360 | I think he was the only man that could have defeated

00:17:22.520 | Donald Trump in 2020.

00:17:24.200 | And I have to say, I think it's fair to say too,

00:17:27.960 | he's probably the only Democrat who could and will lose

00:17:30.480 | to Donald Trump in 2024.

00:17:32.920 | He's a human being.

00:17:34.560 | He's now in his 80s.

00:17:36.480 | He is clearly on the decline.

00:17:39.520 | He's not incompetent.

00:17:41.000 | I believe he's surrounded himself by competent,

00:17:43.120 | able, principled people.

00:17:44.800 | And I believe the White House is running as a team,

00:17:47.560 | as most do.

00:17:49.080 | But do I think that he will be in a position

00:17:51.120 | to continue leading this country in the future?

00:17:53.280 | I do not.

00:17:54.360 | I think I'm joined by about 75% of the country

00:17:57.400 | in saying that.

00:17:58.240 | I also believe the policies that we pass,

00:17:59.960 | for the most part, are investments for the future.

00:18:02.560 | In infrastructure, the CHIPS Act,

00:18:04.200 | I think is a very important bill,

00:18:06.080 | which by the way, has national security implications,

00:18:08.000 | as you guys know.

00:18:09.240 | The Inflation Reduction Act, a bizarre name for a bill

00:18:11.800 | that's really an energy and climate bill,

00:18:13.880 | I think is pretty good legislation.

00:18:16.480 | And I think he reconstituted our allies around the world

00:18:19.640 | that had been frayed to a point of great danger

00:18:22.160 | during the Trump administration.

00:18:23.680 | So I salute the past,

00:18:25.360 | but this is really an election about the future.

00:18:27.760 | It's about a generational change.

00:18:29.040 | It's about creating, you know,

00:18:30.600 | really a new American century

00:18:32.240 | that will be powered by systems, structures,

00:18:35.160 | people, technologies,

00:18:37.200 | that I'm just afraid that President Biden

00:18:39.120 | and former President Trump can't even comprehend,

00:18:42.200 | let alone create thoughtful policy

00:18:44.040 | to both nurture and also manage.

00:18:46.320 | And I think that's where we're at.

00:18:47.560 | And I think we have wars overseas

00:18:51.160 | that I think in no small part are caused by a generation

00:18:54.800 | that is so focused on techniques and tools of the past

00:18:58.320 | that they can't even dare look

00:19:00.640 | to building peace for the future.

00:19:02.480 | That's I think why we have the Middle East still going.

00:19:04.160 | That's why Ukraine, you know,

00:19:05.960 | the Vice President has some ownership

00:19:08.080 | in some of these issues that I'm afraid have to be exposed

00:19:11.320 | and they're the truth.

00:19:12.160 | And I'm happy to talk about them.

00:19:13.240 | But most of all, I'll wrap it with this.

00:19:15.400 | Affordability in the United States of America

00:19:18.040 | is absolutely the most challenging issue facing Americans.

00:19:22.280 | They don't believe that their government is listening.

00:19:24.400 | They don't believe the President understands.

00:19:26.680 | They don't believe Congress is able to do anything about it

00:19:29.320 | 'cause we're so dysfunctional.

00:19:31.200 | And that's another mission that I'm on right now.

00:19:33.280 | To end this nonsense, I am gonna build a team of rivals.

00:19:36.200 | I will have a White House and a cabinet comprised

00:19:38.920 | of both Democrats and Republicans,

00:19:40.920 | the most able leaders imaginable

00:19:43.360 | who have run multi-billion dollar organizations

00:19:45.480 | in some cases, understand customer service.

00:19:47.920 | We'll employ zero-based budgeting to the extent we can.

00:19:50.440 | We will employ a world-class consulting firm

00:19:53.100 | to look at every single government program,

00:19:55.520 | system, structure, and personnel

00:20:00.320 | to identify ways to save money.

00:20:01.640 | These are things that this President,

00:20:03.320 | and frankly, no President,

00:20:05.040 | who doesn't have business experience,

00:20:07.040 | nonprofit leadership experience,

00:20:08.760 | and government experience could possibly imagine

00:20:11.160 | 'cause they're so stuck in their siloed ways of thinking.

00:20:14.680 | He's been there for 50 years and it's time for change.

00:20:17.680 | I was three years old when he became a Senator.

00:20:20.520 | - So let's get specific on the issues

00:20:23.120 | and go into foreign policy, which is David Sachs's,

00:20:25.880 | I think, number one issue of this election.

00:20:27.640 | - Of course. - But first,

00:20:28.480 | just to be clear on Biden,

00:20:30.720 | do you believe he's in cognitive decline?

00:20:33.120 | Do the Democrats privately believe he's in cognitive decline?

00:20:36.160 | And to what extent?

00:20:37.400 | Do you think he'd make it through the next presidency?

00:20:40.160 | Or do you think this is sort of a Ronald Reagan situation

00:20:42.120 | where he might look back on it

00:20:43.040 | and he's got some early onset of some cognitive decline?

00:20:45.600 | What do you personally think and what do Democrats think?

00:20:48.280 | - I don't want to impress upon anybody

00:20:51.920 | or give you the sense that I think he has a form of dementia

00:20:55.360 | or Alzheimer's or significant cognitive decline.

00:20:58.500 | But anybody who pays attention can see the change.

00:21:02.920 | And I'm not, you know, people are saying

00:21:04.760 | that I'm causing his problems,

00:21:06.700 | I could risk his re-election.

00:21:09.360 | I'm not the guy that has him losing to Trump nationally

00:21:12.160 | down in five of six battleground states,

00:21:14.120 | the lowest approval ratings in presidential history almost.

00:21:18.280 | And I'm certainly not the guy that has shown his,

00:21:22.400 | you know, his decline.

00:21:23.460 | That's on video, that's on audio, you see it, it's natural.

00:21:26.480 | He's a human being for goodness sakes.

00:21:28.320 | All I'm doing you guys is saying the quiet part out loud.

00:21:31.960 | The only one.

00:21:33.280 | You asked the question, do others talk about this?

00:21:36.420 | The question is, is anybody not talking about this?

00:21:39.760 | Of course they are, you guys.

00:21:41.120 | - They've really created an opportunity for you

00:21:42.720 | because like you said, everyone's talking about this,

00:21:46.080 | but no one's willing to say it.

00:21:47.440 | - Of course.

00:21:48.280 | - What has been the blowback in the Democratic Party

00:21:50.200 | from your declaring?

00:21:52.440 | - What do you think?

00:21:54.080 | I'm not being thrown flowers and parties,

00:21:55.800 | let me tell you that.

00:21:56.640 | Guys, I'll tell you,

00:21:57.460 | I think most would consider me an affable, friendly,

00:22:02.000 | well-liked member of Congress, I know that.

00:22:04.160 | That's my ethos.

00:22:06.340 | My friends are still my friends.

00:22:08.400 | I think they're disappointed because this is not

00:22:10.320 | what you do when you're a member of a party.

00:22:12.120 | You fall in line, you shush up, you sit down,

00:22:14.520 | you get in line, and you do nothing to upset the apple cart

00:22:18.800 | of others who've been waiting in line,

00:22:20.500 | perhaps a little longer than you.

00:22:22.120 | So you can imagine the pushback has been strong,

00:22:25.200 | the arrow's sharp, and the pain quite significant,

00:22:28.560 | but nothing compared to the pain that Americans

00:22:31.120 | are feeling right now, and that's why I'm doing this.

00:22:32.800 | And I should also let you know,

00:22:34.280 | I had no intention of doing this.

00:22:36.200 | A year ago, I was on a radio show and a host asked me

00:22:38.860 | if I thought the president should run again.

00:22:40.840 | And I said, of course not.

00:22:42.200 | He implicitly, if not explicitly, said he would be

00:22:44.800 | a transitional president, kind of the bridge.

00:22:47.380 | Most members of Congress thought he was going to stand down.

00:22:49.800 | That's why Newsom and Pritzker and Whitmer

00:22:54.800 | and so many others were kind of making their plans.

00:22:57.440 | And I said, and if he doesn't pass the torch,

00:23:00.260 | then we should ensure that at least that the stage

00:23:02.620 | has newer generation candidates to give voters a choice.

00:23:07.480 | Anyway, months went by, I started seeing the polls

00:23:09.840 | change dramatically, the tenor and tone

00:23:12.120 | of constituent discussions with me and every single one

00:23:14.680 | of my colleagues was changing graphically.

00:23:16.480 | All the independents, moderate Republicans

00:23:19.280 | that voted for the president, I think for the right reasons,

00:23:21.840 | were increasingly telling us that they're not

00:23:23.640 | gonna do it again.

00:23:24.480 | They may not vote for Trump, but they're not gonna vote

00:23:26.560 | rather than vote for Biden.

00:23:28.200 | And over time, it got to a point actually, guys,

00:23:31.720 | where I resigned from the House leadership table

00:23:35.080 | because my position was so incongruent

00:23:38.040 | with those who were in positions to do something about it

00:23:41.720 | that I didn't feel it was appropriate for me

00:23:43.840 | to sit with them anymore.

00:23:44.900 | And I was really frustrated.

00:23:46.480 | I called Gretchen Whitmer, I called J.B. Pritzker,

00:23:49.320 | I made public calls to the candidates

00:23:51.200 | whose names are better known than me to jump in.

00:23:53.840 | You know, the water's warm, you guys,

00:23:55.080 | it's a democratic primary, that's what we do.

00:23:57.320 | Not only did those two not take my calls,

00:23:59.840 | which they would have any other day,

00:24:01.520 | they had their political operatives take those calls

00:24:04.300 | and they told me, "Please don't use their names."

00:24:08.220 | That's the culture, that's the culture, you guys,

00:24:10.380 | that we're dealing with.

00:24:11.340 | You will be blackballed, you will be disenfranchised,

00:24:14.220 | you will be let out the door if you so much

00:24:17.140 | as even issue a word that you might challenge

00:24:21.020 | a sitting president of the United States.

00:24:22.580 | This is the United States of America, it's appalling.

00:24:24.620 | Anyhow, I'm frustrated.

00:24:26.460 | - We saw that happen with R.K. Jr.

00:24:29.340 | - Sure, sure. - Because he declared,

00:24:30.580 | initially as a Democrat, and Biden wouldn't give him

00:24:34.060 | secret service protection despite the enormous

00:24:37.300 | personal safety risks and threats.

00:24:39.820 | He's actually had threats. - Which is the same thing

00:24:40.660 | for me, by the way, guys, you can imagine.

00:24:43.020 | - Yeah, and-- - Biggest line item

00:24:45.700 | in my budget right now, by the way, is security.

00:24:47.660 | The biggest line item, the second biggest line item

00:24:50.620 | that's gonna surpass that is getting onto the ballot.

00:24:53.500 | - Right, well, that was the thing,

00:24:55.380 | is they wouldn't let R.K. on the ballot,

00:24:57.700 | they wouldn't debate him, they just wanted to pretend

00:24:59.100 | like he didn't exist and they basically drove him

00:25:00.660 | out of the party, so now he's running as an independent.

00:25:03.340 | Do you think you're gonna be able to get on the ballot

00:25:05.060 | as a Democrat in these primaries?

00:25:07.380 | - Absolutely, and we're making those choices right now,

00:25:09.540 | David, because first of all, it's obscene.

00:25:11.820 | I wanna let you all know that in a country

00:25:14.020 | that prides itself on being a democracy,

00:25:16.900 | a democratic republic, I can't even tell you

00:25:19.780 | how many states literally create high barriers to entry

00:25:23.880 | to satisfy the two parties to ensure

00:25:27.140 | that their coronated candidate has an advantage

00:25:30.020 | over anybody else.

00:25:31.540 | I'm talking about-- - They're the most

00:25:32.580 | egregious ones, give us an example of what you have to do.

00:25:34.900 | - Oh, the most egregious are oftentimes the deepest blue.

00:25:38.500 | New York is close to impossible.

00:25:41.300 | When I say impossible-- - How so?

00:25:42.340 | Explain it to us, like what you have to do.

00:25:44.460 | - So the reason I started in New Hampshire

00:25:47.500 | is it has a 103-year-old tradition

00:25:49.420 | of being the first in the nation primary.

00:25:50.980 | They take this really seriously.

00:25:52.500 | They're the most engaged Americans in the country.

00:25:54.820 | They have a process, we walk through the snow,

00:25:57.620 | we answer their questions, and you also,

00:26:00.100 | all you need is a $1,000 check,

00:26:02.580 | you gotta be 35 years old,

00:26:04.220 | you gotta be born in the United States of America,

00:26:06.620 | and you too can become a candidate

00:26:08.940 | for president of the United States.

00:26:10.320 | That's what I did.

00:26:11.160 | They have the most beautiful ritual

00:26:13.000 | in the Statehouse in Concord, New Hampshire

00:26:14.700 | that is worth going to one time just to see the majesty

00:26:18.140 | of filing for president of the United States.

00:26:20.140 | So there are 21 of us on the democratic side of the ballot

00:26:23.500 | because that's how it should be.

00:26:25.460 | Take a state like Virginia-- - Wait, wait, hold on.

00:26:27.460 | There's 21 people running for the democratic,

00:26:30.460 | but that's incredible, I had no idea.

00:26:32.060 | - Yeah, Chamath, 21, Marion, Williamson, and I

00:26:36.460 | are the best known of those 21

00:26:38.520 | because the president of the United States chose not to.

00:26:43.520 | So that's how you have it.

00:26:44.460 | You ask about other states though.

00:26:46.440 | New York, Virginia, $450,000 to $500,000

00:26:51.440 | to pay consulting firms, to pay people $25, $26 per signature

00:26:57.540 | to just sit outside and just say,

00:26:59.420 | "Hey, can we get your signature to get this guy on a ballot?"

00:27:02.500 | It's not grassroots,

00:27:03.820 | it's not old school caucusing democracy.

00:27:06.620 | It is pay to play.

00:27:08.260 | And we would need it, we would need,

00:27:10.140 | well, we're going to have to raise probably six,

00:27:13.340 | yeah, maybe, I'm sorry, maybe less than that,

00:27:15.460 | maybe $5 million.

00:27:17.140 | We have a staff of three people right now

00:27:19.020 | and legal counsel just to get my name on a primary ballot.

00:27:24.700 | It's absurd.

00:27:25.540 | Marion Williamson, she's not going to be able to.

00:27:28.900 | RFK as an independent, by the way, I think he should be.

00:27:32.220 | I'm not someone who I'm concerned about

00:27:34.500 | some of his positions,

00:27:35.380 | but I think he should be able to get on the ballot.

00:27:38.380 | You guys, it's absurd, it's obnoxious.

00:27:40.140 | And what I've discovered in the last three weeks

00:27:42.180 | is going to be my mission after being president to fix

00:27:45.340 | because it is going to destroy the country from the inside.

00:27:48.400 | And that is why we have the kind of candidates

00:27:51.060 | we have year after year after year and Americans say they're,

00:27:53.780 | and that's why we have Trumpism.

00:27:55.100 | - I like the fact that, - Of course.

00:27:56.660 | - You know, most people become politicians as a career.

00:28:00.820 | I've harped against this for a while.

00:28:03.300 | And so they have everything to lose

00:28:05.780 | if they stand up against the party

00:28:07.600 | and they stand up against the political establishment

00:28:10.260 | within which they're meant to operate.

00:28:11.740 | And therefore just a few people get to make all the decisions

00:28:14.060 | and control all the levers

00:28:16.060 | and everyone else is just a marionette.

00:28:18.100 | But you have- - And they stay there forever,

00:28:19.340 | Dave, they stay there forever.

00:28:20.900 | And there's no term limits, which is what we need.

00:28:22.740 | That's why we need them.

00:28:23.780 | - The fact that you're self-made

00:28:25.600 | and you don't have anything to lose.

00:28:27.700 | You can leave Congress and you'll be fine.

00:28:30.500 | You're a citizen that can go back to work

00:28:32.140 | and do what you do.

00:28:33.780 | And you're doing this as a service,

00:28:35.100 | you're doing this because of your interest in the country,

00:28:36.980 | it sounds like, not to say that other folks don't,

00:28:40.140 | but they're largely gonna be driven

00:28:41.820 | and unfortunately adversely affected by the fact

00:28:44.340 | that they have to fall within the way

00:28:46.500 | that the game is played in order to operate

00:28:48.540 | and will not stand up and say the things

00:28:50.580 | that need to be said in order for us to make progress

00:28:53.260 | and get out of these situations.

00:28:54.500 | But- - Those are the perverse

00:28:55.940 | incentives, exactly. - I commend you for doing it.

00:28:57.780 | I'm glad it's possible.

00:28:58.940 | I think, Jason, we should probably talk about the topic.

00:29:01.220 | - We have two topics that I think

00:29:02.900 | we're all passionate here.

00:29:04.740 | The first is foreign policy,

00:29:05.820 | the second is the budget and our out of control spending.

00:29:09.540 | Let's start with Sachs.

00:29:10.820 | You said you wanted hard questions.

00:29:12.100 | Welcome to the pod, Sachs, foreign policy.

00:29:13.980 | Let's go. - I'd love nothing more.

00:29:14.820 | Let's bring it. - Before we get on,

00:29:15.660 | you've said hard questions, let's go.

00:29:17.860 | - Please. - Meet David Sachs.

00:29:19.180 | - Hey, David.

00:29:20.020 | - Dean, you said a minute ago that

00:29:23.980 | one of the reasons why the world's on fire

00:29:26.100 | is because of the Biden administration's handling

00:29:28.500 | of foreign policy has kind of led us to this point.

00:29:30.420 | I think there was a really good example of this.

00:29:32.500 | A week ago, there was a new report out

00:29:34.940 | by a former UN assistant secretary general

00:29:37.740 | named Michael von der Schulenburg

00:29:39.860 | who worked at the UN for 34 years.

00:29:42.100 | He did a detailed study and reconstruction

00:29:44.740 | of what happened in March of 2022.

00:29:48.260 | So the month after the war.

00:29:50.140 | And what he concluded is there was a bona fide deal

00:29:53.980 | on the table between Russia and Ukraine

00:29:56.660 | where Putin was willing to pull back and leave

00:30:00.180 | and leave the territorial integrity of Ukraine intact

00:30:05.180 | if Ukraine would agree not to become part of NATO.

00:30:07.580 | And this is something that's been discussed.

00:30:09.900 | There've been many reports of this

00:30:11.580 | over the last several months.

00:30:12.660 | Ukrainian Pravda had a story about that.

00:30:14.460 | But now there's yet another confirmation

00:30:17.060 | that such a deal was available.

00:30:19.180 | And yet Boris Johnson and Joe Biden said,

00:30:21.780 | "No, we wanna pressure Putin

00:30:23.780 | "not work out a peace deal with him."

00:30:26.700 | And so thanks to Western intervention,

00:30:29.820 | that deal never happened.

00:30:31.180 | Now we're 20 months later

00:30:33.760 | and the Ukrainian counter offensive has failed.

00:30:35.780 | It's been a fiasco.

00:30:36.740 | The casualties have been absolutely massive.

00:30:40.380 | Horrifying.

00:30:41.220 | You saw there was this article on Time Magazine,

00:30:42.900 | this new profile of Zelensky

00:30:45.060 | where his own aides and advisors say

00:30:46.860 | that he's delusional.

00:30:47.940 | He can't accept that they're losing the war.

00:30:50.700 | They furthermore say that even if the US

00:30:52.460 | provides more weapons, more aid,

00:30:54.380 | they don't have enough men,

00:30:55.780 | they don't have enough soldiers to use them.

00:30:57.340 | Things are going that badly.

00:30:58.340 | I think there's now a fear

00:30:59.840 | that Ukraine could collapse in the next year

00:31:01.580 | even if we provide more aid.

00:31:04.140 | So I guess, I know that early on in the war

00:31:06.620 | you supported Biden's policy.

00:31:07.960 | I'm wondering, have events on the ground now

00:31:10.940 | changed your view at all?

00:31:12.300 | How do you feel about it today?

00:31:13.460 | Do you think it was a mistake not to try

00:31:15.780 | and work out a peace deal

00:31:17.260 | in those early months of the war?

00:31:19.220 | And if you were president,

00:31:20.540 | what would you try and do differently now

00:31:23.260 | to try and end this thing?

00:31:24.900 | - Well, first of all, I think we have to back up to 2014

00:31:27.480 | to talk about this, David.

00:31:28.780 | First of all, I've seen that reporting.

00:31:32.540 | I do not have confirmation of the validity of that.

00:31:36.200 | And if I did, I could talk about it more directly.

00:31:38.840 | But if that's the truth,

00:31:40.700 | I would first ask, did that include Crimea?

00:31:43.540 | And secondly, it's not a United States decision

00:31:47.260 | about whether or not Ukraine should agree to a peace deal.

00:31:49.780 | It is Ukraine's decision, plain and simple.

00:31:52.780 | But I do wanna turn back the clock a little bit

00:31:54.700 | 'cause I think this all kind of plays together.

00:31:56.660 | - But by the way, it didn't include Crimea.

00:31:58.580 | But Zelensky was willing to go for that deal.

00:32:01.500 | And it was the West who intervened and said,

00:32:03.460 | "No, we want you to pressure Putin and fight."

00:32:04.940 | - David, like I said, I never speak to,

00:32:06.980 | unless I can verify that myself.

00:32:09.260 | And I've not seen that intelligence in the SCIF.

00:32:11.580 | I've not seen that presented to me.

00:32:14.300 | If, and by the way, there are some times

00:32:15.740 | where I don't know, most times,

00:32:17.500 | none of us know everything.

00:32:19.500 | If that is the case,

00:32:20.660 | I would absolutely answer this question differently.

00:32:22.700 | But based on what I do know,

00:32:24.700 | I wanna turn back the clock to 2014.

00:32:27.980 | This is where foreign policy matters.

00:32:30.260 | President Obama was a great orator,

00:32:32.300 | I think an inspirational leader.

00:32:34.700 | He came to the US presidency

00:32:36.340 | with only organizing state legislative

00:32:39.020 | and a couple or few years of Senate experience

00:32:42.100 | as a very young man.

00:32:43.500 | And Joe Biden was his vice president.

00:32:45.740 | And when Vladimir Putin took Crimea easily,

00:32:50.740 | you know, that set the tone for what's going on right now.

00:32:53.460 | And we have not done a very good job of prevention.

00:32:58.300 | That's true in healthcare.

00:32:59.900 | That is true in poverty.

00:33:01.340 | That is true in our foreign policy,

00:33:03.420 | which is, by the way, maybe what happens

00:33:04.980 | when you spend 83 billion a year on diplomacy

00:33:08.700 | and 850 billion a year on bombs and missiles.

00:33:12.140 | Not to mention, go back to Eisenhower

00:33:14.220 | and the military industrial complex, David,

00:33:16.140 | now you well know this.

00:33:17.340 | It does, it controls a lot of our policy

00:33:20.780 | because those who are making great profit

00:33:23.060 | find ways to influence those who open the piggy banks.

00:33:26.940 | I think the Crimea moment in 2014,

00:33:29.500 | the writing was on the wall,

00:33:30.820 | that was Putin's test.

00:33:32.140 | If I take an inch, maybe they'll give me a mile.

00:33:34.860 | And what happened during the Biden presidency,

00:33:36.940 | of course, he took the mile.

00:33:38.660 | I think it has implications now, though, David,

00:33:40.660 | and all of you.

00:33:41.620 | You know, if we do not do our best

00:33:43.940 | to support Ukraine in defending,

00:33:45.980 | I think it doesn't just send a message to Putin,

00:33:48.980 | a post-Putin Russia, which is gonna be a failed nation

00:33:51.500 | with a brain drain and something we should talk about,

00:33:53.900 | but it also sends a message to Iran, North Korea,

00:33:56.980 | and even China.

00:33:57.860 | And I wanna talk about that too,

00:33:59.060 | because I think we have a much brighter future with them

00:34:01.500 | than most people portray, as it relates to Taiwan.

00:34:04.620 | And that's the sad truth,

00:34:05.620 | is we get ourselves into these situations

00:34:08.180 | that then layer up the consequences by withdrawing.

00:34:12.100 | And Afghanistan was another example of that.

00:34:13.900 | So to answer your question,

00:34:15.180 | had there been a peace deal at that point,

00:34:17.660 | that simply would have, and the deal would have been,

00:34:19.620 | we'll give you your territory back

00:34:21.420 | in return for not entering NATO,

00:34:24.580 | who in their right mind would say that was a bad deal?

00:34:27.740 | Who in their right mind?

00:34:28.780 | Especially-

00:34:29.620 | - Boris Johnson.

00:34:30.780 | - Well, by the way, that's what you get

00:34:33.180 | when you get people like,

00:34:34.140 | well, I'm gonna make this case, as you guys know,

00:34:35.980 | for comprehensive new generation of leaders

00:34:38.660 | all around the world in our country

00:34:40.460 | and in others that are sick of this nonsense,

00:34:42.540 | sick of the bloodshed, sick of enriching enterprise

00:34:45.260 | at the expense of human beings.

00:34:46.740 | It happens here, it happens in Ukraine and Russia,

00:34:49.380 | and it's happening in the Middle East, plain and simple.

00:34:52.180 | - Sax, anything else on foreign policy you wanna go to?

00:34:57.020 | - Packing off now would be, I think,

00:34:58.460 | a shameful, horrible mistake.

00:35:00.820 | The one thing I would argue right now, David,

00:35:03.060 | is those who are most likely going to be subject

00:35:05.620 | to Putin's terror, the countries in Europe,

00:35:09.020 | should be carrying a much bigger part of this load.

00:35:12.540 | We have 750 bases and installations

00:35:16.500 | around the world in 80 countries.

00:35:18.300 | We are the most dominant presence

00:35:19.900 | in world history of any government,

00:35:22.300 | and we spend more on our military than the next,

00:35:24.420 | I think, 11 nations combined, for gosh sakes.

00:35:27.340 | And if anyone thinks that a kinetic risk

00:35:30.860 | to the United States is the most likely harm

00:35:33.260 | that will be done us, not cyber or not social

00:35:36.740 | or not biological, I think you're out of your mind.

00:35:39.940 | Those are the risks that I think are most threatening

00:35:42.700 | that I think this president does not quite understand,

00:35:45.340 | and we have to recomprise and recommit to diplomacy

00:35:48.380 | and defending ourselves against the most important

00:35:51.620 | literal risks, including nuclear weapons

00:35:54.660 | that can be carried in a backpack

00:35:56.460 | and detonated in New York or Tel Aviv

00:35:58.980 | or anywhere in the world.

00:36:00.140 | And if we don't start changing how we do things,

00:36:03.060 | we're not going to be ready,

00:36:04.340 | and we are just sitting still in dysfunction.

00:36:08.980 | I'm gonna change it.

00:36:10.060 | - Let's talk about China for one second,

00:36:11.540 | and I'll give it to you in two arcs.

00:36:13.460 | Arc number one, the comments that President Xi

00:36:17.020 | made yesterday, which were very,

00:36:20.100 | if you just heard them or read them, were very specific.

00:36:23.740 | We have zero desire to seek Chinese hegemony.

00:36:28.180 | We have zero desire to find a cold or hot war,

00:36:32.180 | but then there was what wasn't said,

00:36:36.460 | which is part of what you said, which is, well,

00:36:38.860 | okay, maybe there's no kinetic war,

00:36:40.420 | but the cyber risk is still there,

00:36:42.620 | and actually the psychological war risk is there.

00:36:47.460 | So two questions.

00:36:48.740 | One is how do you react to what President Xi said last night?

00:36:53.540 | And then the second is how do you react to what's happening

00:36:56.380 | with this TikTok Osama Bin Laden psyop thing

00:36:59.660 | that just seems to be, frankly,

00:37:01.980 | just getting out of control here?

00:37:04.300 | - I agree.

00:37:05.180 | Well, let me say I was so pleased

00:37:07.220 | to see President Xi's remarks.

00:37:09.940 | I think President Biden responded by saying

00:37:11.820 | we should trust but verify.

00:37:13.060 | I think that's appropriate.

00:37:14.500 | I was troubled, though, when a question was shouted out

00:37:17.140 | to President Biden on his way out

00:37:18.500 | about whether he considered President Xi a dictator,

00:37:21.860 | and he said, yes, he's a dictator,

00:37:23.540 | and I think that may have undermined this entire rapprochement,

00:37:27.540 | which I think is terribly important.

00:37:29.620 | Words matter, the playbook matters,

00:37:34.220 | and the negligence or ignorance of another culture

00:37:38.300 | as it digests our words, our actions,

00:37:41.300 | our intentions is very consequential,

00:37:44.620 | and unfortunately, we see this pattern with the president

00:37:47.380 | of doing what he did today in using that term.

00:37:50.780 | Whether or not it's really true or not,

00:37:53.400 | there are ways, as we all know, to simply not comment

00:37:56.620 | because that is going to undermine, I think,

00:37:58.580 | a very important, otherwise very promising outcome.

00:38:01.860 | And to your question, I'm concerned

00:38:06.860 | that we have made China perhaps into the very enemy

00:38:10.700 | that ostensibly now our military-industrial complex

00:38:13.540 | wants to defend us from, which happens time and time

00:38:17.740 | and time again through our history,

00:38:20.100 | and it concerns me deeply.

00:38:21.340 | We should be partnering with China.

00:38:23.720 | Our disagreements are real.

00:38:25.520 | I think they should be litigated

00:38:27.880 | and bridged with diplomacy, not destruction.

00:38:31.520 | And imagine what can be accomplished

00:38:33.200 | in this 21st century world if two nations like ours

00:38:37.180 | recognize the potential of spending less on destruction

00:38:41.360 | and more on human beings.

00:38:44.560 | It astounds me.

00:38:46.280 | - Do you think TikTok itself is a threat

00:38:49.040 | to the United States? - TikTok.

00:38:49.880 | - And would you, if you were president, ban it

00:38:51.840 | or force them to divest and remove the servers in China

00:38:54.840 | and the algorithm from China, et cetera?

00:38:56.560 | - I'll make this really simple.

00:38:57.400 | - Do you think it's actually being used for PSYOPs?

00:38:59.280 | - I'll make this really simple.

00:39:01.160 | If we want to change our constitution

00:39:03.040 | and change what we consider speech,

00:39:05.840 | change how the federal government

00:39:07.800 | or any domestic government affects people's rights

00:39:11.620 | to what they watch, what they read, what they eat,

00:39:13.660 | how they pray, how they think, where they go,

00:39:16.120 | with whom they congregate, you know what?

00:39:17.960 | That's up to Americans.

00:39:19.440 | But I think to target one app is a huge mistake.

00:39:23.280 | And I have a very simple solution.

00:39:25.720 | Hold every single platform to the same standard,

00:39:29.880 | transparency via their algorithm,

00:39:32.960 | have an independent commission perhaps

00:39:34.620 | that is charged and responsible with assessing

00:39:37.400 | and holding those platforms to account.

00:39:41.080 | And if any of them violate the terms

00:39:43.600 | that we pass into law, then they should be banned.

00:39:46.400 | But to target one, I think it's not sensible.

00:39:48.440 | - You have foreign ownership rules for media outlets, yeah?

00:39:51.800 | So this has many more users

00:39:53.720 | and is much more powerful with the algorithm.

00:39:55.880 | So then how would you respond to that sort of counterargument?

00:39:59.760 | - I'm just gonna say this.

00:40:01.240 | If we want to change our constitution,

00:40:03.640 | this is what the Supreme Court, I'm afraid,

00:40:05.080 | is gonna say if we start doing this,

00:40:07.100 | then change the constitution.

00:40:08.080 | That's what they said, by the way,

00:40:09.040 | about women's reproductive rights.

00:40:11.760 | In the absence of Congress doing anything,

00:40:14.200 | in the absence of that,

00:40:15.400 | we're gonna assess it the way it reads.

00:40:17.560 | Right now, I don't think that's necessarily really possible

00:40:20.040 | without a significant Supreme Court challenge.

00:40:22.320 | My belief is yes.

00:40:23.200 | Is it a threat?

00:40:24.040 | Yes, it's a threat.

00:40:24.880 | By the way, every social media platform is a threat

00:40:28.380 | when used by malign actors.

00:40:30.260 | You know, Nikki Haley--

00:40:31.100 | - Do you think we should force reciprocity?

00:40:32.800 | If we allow TikTok, they allow Twitter,

00:40:35.560 | Facebook, Instagram, and China, or--

00:40:36.400 | - I think that's the kind of thinking, Jason, I like.

00:40:38.920 | In fact, reciprocity as it relates to IP,

00:40:41.520 | enforcement of IP, of theft, of trade,

00:40:46.400 | you just hit the nail on the head, reciprocity.

00:40:48.800 | You know, let's be reciprocal

00:40:51.240 | in the nature of a relationship.

00:40:52.760 | If you're gonna ban our apps and our platforms,

00:40:55.520 | our products, or our brands,

00:40:57.500 | well, why, this is to me an opportunity

00:41:00.360 | for the next generation to say this is nonsensical.

00:41:03.240 | You know, if you're gonna, by the way,

00:41:04.760 | China, you all know, has,

00:41:07.000 | they have a bubble they're facing

00:41:08.680 | that will make ours in 2008

00:41:11.000 | look like a gumball by comparison.

00:41:14.640 | And that is coming down the pipe.

00:41:15.760 | I think that has a lot to do with this

00:41:17.680 | kind of step towards rapprochement.

00:41:20.080 | But yes, reciprocity,

00:41:21.320 | and to know that Facebook is not allowed.

00:41:24.040 | Yeah, perfect example.

00:41:25.000 | But in the United States,

00:41:26.280 | that doesn't change my contention

00:41:28.560 | that we should set the same standard

00:41:30.520 | for every platform, every media entity,

00:41:33.320 | whatever it might be, hold them accountable,

00:41:35.800 | and if they don't qualify or perform, then they're banned.

00:41:38.360 | - Give us your just maybe societal then commentary

00:41:42.120 | on the number of people on TikTok right now.

00:41:45.800 | - Oh, it's sickening.

00:41:46.640 | - Advocating for,

00:41:48.160 | I don't even know what you wanna call it.

00:41:51.480 | I guess reading and sympathizing

00:41:53.040 | with Osama bin Laden's justification.

00:41:54.400 | - Yeah, with Osama bin Laden's.

00:41:55.240 | Well, first of all, I'm sure you guys do too.

00:41:56.720 | I look at TikTok.

00:41:58.560 | I consume as much media, as many platforms as possible,

00:42:01.200 | so I understand why some of the nonsensical perspectives

00:42:05.960 | are being shared with me by so many people right now.

00:42:08.400 | So I get it.

00:42:09.240 | But back to the fundamental question,

00:42:11.520 | what do we do?

00:42:12.600 | This has been, by the way, an age-old issue

00:42:14.200 | since our very founding.

00:42:15.240 | It used to be anonymous pamphlets

00:42:16.960 | that would spread misinformation or condemnation

00:42:19.200 | and fire people up.

00:42:21.240 | Now it's just instantly available.

00:42:22.800 | It doesn't matter if you have a printer,

00:42:24.600 | you can push a button.

00:42:25.640 | And yes, am I concerned?

00:42:27.080 | Of course I am.

00:42:28.280 | The fact that when I'm spending time

00:42:29.600 | on college campuses right now

00:42:31.600 | and listening to otherwise really well-educated,

00:42:35.360 | privileged kids saying things that are so nonsensical,

00:42:39.560 | so ignorant, and so shocking,

00:42:41.480 | I know where it's coming from.

00:42:43.120 | So I understand the problem just like all of you.

00:42:44.960 | I think this question is, what do you do about it?

00:42:47.240 | And all I'm saying is we should have the same standard

00:42:49.240 | for every platform because the same issue

00:42:51.480 | is on every platform.

00:42:52.640 | That is my only contention.

00:42:54.800 | - You're about to say this,

00:42:56.000 | but what do you think about what Nikki Haley suggested?

00:42:59.280 | - I was shocked that people-

00:43:01.160 | - Maybe just frame for the listeners

00:43:03.720 | who don't know what she said.

00:43:04.720 | - So Nikki Haley, and I asked Mark Zuckerberg this one,

00:43:07.200 | so too I'll tell you.

00:43:08.040 | Nikki Haley proposed that every platform,

00:43:11.480 | every social media platform, have verified accounts,

00:43:14.200 | no more anonymous accounts.

00:43:16.160 | And she got ripped, got ripped.

00:43:19.360 | You know, I understand.

00:43:20.680 | This is, it's a reasonable argument to have,

00:43:23.320 | but I gotta tell you, I'm surprised that that's something

00:43:25.600 | that seems somewhat reasonable to people

00:43:27.440 | who are paying attention would have such a response

00:43:31.320 | that she actually retracted it.

00:43:32.840 | I'm not proposing it.

00:43:34.120 | I'm just saying that I think we should be throwing ideas

00:43:36.080 | on the table, and I know from experience,

00:43:37.640 | just like you guys, when you hide behind a fake name,

00:43:40.960 | you can be not just a jerk to someone,

00:43:43.040 | you can be downright dangerous.

00:43:44.720 | When your name's attached to it,

00:43:45.800 | you behave in a very different manner,

00:43:47.440 | not to mention when you're face to face.

00:43:49.520 | So I don't think that was as absurd

00:43:51.640 | as people considered it.

00:43:53.480 | I asked Mark Zuckerberg after a financial services hearing

00:43:55.880 | a couple of years ago, you know,

00:43:57.280 | why doesn't Facebook just verify accounts,

00:43:59.720 | make this so much easier to hold people accountable

00:44:01.840 | and have higher standards of accountability?

00:44:05.560 | And he said it would be a competitive disadvantage.

00:44:08.920 | And of course it is, if he only had to do it.

00:44:11.280 | - Yeah, and this has been tested.

00:44:12.520 | Korea had their version of this.

00:44:15.200 | In order to sign up in Korea for their social networks

00:44:17.960 | or ISPs, you had to use your social security number.

00:44:20.680 | - Sure, and that makes sense.

00:44:21.520 | And the other thing, guys, is you know that, you know,

00:44:22.840 | if you write a letter to the editor

00:44:24.600 | of most major newspapers,

00:44:26.120 | you have to attach your name to it.

00:44:28.480 | It has to be verified.

00:44:29.600 | I just think it's a conversation that we should be having.

00:44:34.040 | And by the way, you know, it might be time

00:44:35.720 | to read "Future Shock" again by Alvin Toffler,

00:44:37.680 | who predicted so much of this mess

00:44:40.080 | in which we find ourselves,

00:44:41.200 | the incapacity of human beings to adapt

00:44:44.520 | to such rapid technological change,

00:44:46.880 | which by the way, you know, you on this,

00:44:49.920 | you, just the handful of you on this podcast

00:44:54.480 | have more expertise than the entire United States Senate

00:44:58.200 | and Congress combined as it relates

00:45:00.320 | to the issues we're talking about.

00:45:02.160 | On tech, there is no capacity, no competency.

00:45:05.000 | So on whom do we rely?

00:45:07.080 | The very lobbyists being paid by the very enterprises

00:45:10.400 | that so easily can set the standards.

00:45:13.280 | - Right.

00:45:14.120 | - But there aren't people of better capacity.

00:45:15.400 | - And only 11 members of Congress

00:45:16.920 | have an engineering degree.

00:45:18.640 | - Only 11.

00:45:19.480 | And by the way, I was on,

00:45:21.160 | Kevin McCarthy invited me to join his AI cabinet,

00:45:24.880 | which just, it was a few, four Democrats,

00:45:27.040 | about four Republicans.

00:45:28.100 | We had our first meeting and started making plans

00:45:30.280 | right before he was deposed.

00:45:32.200 | And now I don't know anything,

00:45:34.480 | if anything's going on in that respect.

00:45:36.280 | - Where do you stand on the spectrum of decorum online

00:45:40.320 | on one end and free speech on the other?

00:45:42.720 | Where the absolutists would say,

00:45:44.880 | absolutely not verified accounts as a non-starter

00:45:47.240 | because it just fundamentally undermines

00:45:49.520 | the first amendment and this other thing,

00:45:51.860 | which is more organized decorum.

00:45:54.480 | - Chamath, I think that's the issue of our day.

00:45:57.040 | Maybe the most important when it's true, both online,

00:45:59.120 | it's also true in our Congress right now.

00:46:00.640 | Where's that intersection between debate,

00:46:02.640 | discord and comprehensive division.

00:46:07.060 | I don't have the good answer for it right now,

00:46:10.360 | is the truth.

00:46:11.200 | And I'm afraid that if you interpret our constitution,

00:46:13.840 | free speech has to be met with more free speech.

00:46:17.720 | But I'll tell you,

00:46:18.840 | but that also will conflict and increasingly is

00:46:21.480 | with the right to pursue happiness.

00:46:24.300 | I mean, that's just true.

00:46:25.320 | I mean, it's the most complicated issue in our era.

00:46:30.320 | Would I like to see our kids safer,

00:46:32.240 | our mental health and emotional health improve

00:46:34.280 | and the division reduced

00:46:36.800 | and misinformation and disinformation rectified?

00:46:39.680 | Of course, because I do think--

00:46:41.120 | - Would you put a minimum age on use of social networks

00:46:43.680 | when you have kids?

00:46:44.520 | Would you make it 15, 16 years old?

00:46:46.200 | - I think it would be healthier.

00:46:47.200 | Look, we have minimum age for alcohol.

00:46:49.640 | That's older than you have to be to fight in a war

00:46:53.600 | for God's sakes.

00:46:54.440 | That's ridiculous.

00:46:55.840 | You know, we have cannabis is still banned at the federal,

00:46:58.720 | the hypocrisy of the federal government

00:47:01.080 | is also what I'm running against right now.

00:47:02.600 | So Jason, I think that is a good idea.

00:47:04.580 | You know this, and I've had daughters

00:47:06.760 | that grew up in the social media era.

00:47:08.880 | It is one of the most destructive,

00:47:10.360 | it is as destructive as I think drug consumption

00:47:13.580 | to adolescent health as anything else.

00:47:16.120 | So to answer your question,

00:47:17.060 | I think that's A, perfectly legal,

00:47:18.940 | B, perfectly reasonable.

00:47:20.440 | And you can't just entrust parents to do it

00:47:22.240 | because Johnny's parents will allow them

00:47:24.400 | to have the phone and the apps, you know,

00:47:26.400 | and Jill's won't.

00:47:27.880 | And they can't, there has to be,

00:47:29.800 | I think there has to be,

00:47:30.640 | we do that for a lot of other things.

00:47:31.880 | And I think we should talk about at what age

00:47:33.640 | any of this is reasonable,

00:47:35.100 | but absolutely I think that's not unreasonable.

00:47:36.880 | I want kids to be safe just like you guys.

00:47:38.800 | And so does everybody.

00:47:39.640 | - That sounds like driving a car is a good bet

00:47:41.040 | for 15, 16, 17 years old.

00:47:42.680 | - We should also allow kids to learn how to drink

00:47:44.280 | before they learn how to drive.

00:47:45.520 | We're the only country that does it like this.

00:47:47.300 | You know, drive for five years

00:47:49.160 | until you legally can drink.

00:47:50.360 | So when you have your first drink,

00:47:51.280 | you don't even know what it's going to do to you.

00:47:52.760 | You know, it's absurd.

00:47:54.200 | - Freeberg.

00:47:55.040 | - I know we're going to talk about spending in a second,

00:47:57.280 | but just before we get away from foreign policy,

00:47:59.800 | I think it's important that we ask

00:48:02.440 | what would be your goals

00:48:04.040 | with respect to conflict in the Middle East?

00:48:06.840 | What's the strategy you'd enjoy to achieve those goals

00:48:09.120 | and who are the people that you'd surround yourself with?

00:48:11.400 | - Well, I'll tell you,

00:48:12.240 | my strategy is quite simple.

00:48:13.880 | It's peace around the world and it's prosperity at home,

00:48:16.900 | plain and simple.

00:48:17.740 | And I can build,

00:48:18.720 | I can put the legs of that stool together for you

00:48:21.000 | as quickly as I possibly can,

00:48:22.840 | but let's talk about the Middle East.

00:48:24.640 | You know, I'm 54 years old.

00:48:27.440 | President Biden has been in the US Senate

00:48:29.280 | or in the White House for 50 years.

00:48:31.640 | None of us on this podcast have lived through anything

00:48:34.680 | but bloodshed, reciprocal misery

00:48:37.920 | between Palestinians and Israelis.

00:48:39.680 | This cycle has continued for decades.

00:48:42.520 | I've had enough.

00:48:43.360 | I cannot stand the sight of babies being pulled

00:48:47.320 | from the wombs of mothers by Hamas in Israel

00:48:50.520 | any more than I can watch babies being destroyed

00:48:53.400 | by bombs and missiles in Gaza.

00:48:55.440 | And it's gotta stop.

00:48:56.540 | I am about to issue a statement to that end

00:49:00.000 | that says essentially,

00:49:01.880 | Hamas must release all of its hostages, period,

00:49:04.800 | of which there are nine Americans, guys.

00:49:07.560 | Nine Americans are being held in Gaza

00:49:10.480 | by a terrorist organization.

00:49:12.400 | And as president, I would be making that my,

00:49:14.080 | not my daily desire or request,

00:49:17.320 | my daily demand, all hands on deck,

00:49:19.560 | these hostages must be released immediately.

00:49:21.840 | - Would you send in special forces to collect them?

00:49:23.760 | - I would, absolutely.

00:49:24.920 | It is incumbent on the president of the United States

00:49:27.480 | to extract Americans being held against their will

00:49:29.680 | by any foreign entity. - Why isn't Biden doing that?

00:49:31.640 | - I don't know, gotta ask him.

00:49:33.780 | But good luck asking him

00:49:34.840 | 'cause he doesn't do any press conferences.

00:49:36.400 | - The goal for peace is reasonable,

00:49:38.200 | but these, like maybe some specifics around your strategy.

00:49:41.520 | - So let me, yeah, let me, so, okay, so first,

00:49:43.760 | at the moment the hostages are safely released,

00:49:46.680 | there should be a ceasefire, period.

00:49:49.520 | And at that very moment,

00:49:50.480 | there should be a multinational peacekeeping force

00:49:52.840 | sent into Gaza to maintain security immediately.

00:49:55.520 | When I say multinational,

00:49:57.000 | the very nations that are connected to Gaza,

00:49:59.400 | Arab nations have to be part of it,

00:50:00.840 | not the United States, not Israel, of course,

00:50:03.000 | but a significant force there to keep the peace immediately.

00:50:06.400 | Concurrently, a multinational coalition

00:50:09.080 | designed to eliminate Hamas by every nation in the world

00:50:12.280 | that wants them eliminated, which frankly is most.

00:50:15.340 | And then we have got to invest, again,

00:50:18.320 | nations of the world investing

00:50:20.280 | in a democratic civil society, infrastructure,

00:50:23.760 | education, facilities, and security

00:50:26.880 | so that a new generation of Palestinian leaders

00:50:30.040 | can create a circumstance

00:50:31.600 | whereby another nation can be created, period.

00:50:34.700 | And it's not gonna happen with Israel

00:50:36.200 | and Palestinians trying to do this.

00:50:38.280 | It has got to be imposed.

00:50:40.060 | It has gotta be a coalition of the willing.

00:50:42.560 | And then only, then and only then

00:50:44.460 | will we see the conditions for, hopefully,

00:50:47.400 | elections for Palestinians for the first time

00:50:49.480 | since 2006, 17 years.

00:50:51.960 | And concurrently, it is time for Israelis

00:50:54.960 | to call an election to replace Benjamin Netanyahu

00:50:57.760 | because he is absolutely part of Israel's security problem.

00:51:02.020 | I've looked him in the eye.

00:51:03.360 | I told him before this happened earlier this year,

00:51:05.440 | I've been with him twice, looked him in the eye.

00:51:07.720 | I said, "What you are doing is affecting the relationship

00:51:11.440 | "with the United States and Israel

00:51:13.020 | "and will absolutely affect security moving forward."

00:51:15.880 | I had no idea what would be coming on October 7th.

00:51:18.520 | But the settlement policy, the right-wing government,

00:51:21.400 | the distraction that the judicial reform initiative

00:51:24.840 | has created in that country made the conditions ripe.

00:51:28.200 | And by the way, having been in Riyadh recently, too,

00:51:31.720 | it was really getting close,

00:51:33.240 | the Saudis and Israelis normalizing.

00:51:35.000 | And that was exactly why I believe,

00:51:37.600 | whether it's implicit or explicit,

00:51:39.840 | Iran inspired Hamas to do this then.

00:51:41.720 | And by the way, in the United States, mark my words,

00:51:45.640 | there are, our adversaries are watching the dysfunction

00:51:48.680 | and distraction right now with the same open eyes.

00:51:52.840 | And we have borders that are awfully easily to get in.

00:51:56.160 | And that's the truth.

00:51:57.180 | And I'm a Democrat saying that.

00:51:58.680 | I would do this entirely differently.

00:52:00.320 | - Can you actually talk about the border?

00:52:02.000 | Tell us what would you do there?

00:52:04.160 | - Once again, I've got a lot of colleagues

00:52:05.520 | who make their decisions by reading an article,

00:52:08.760 | seeing a tweet or seeing a TikTok.

00:52:11.400 | I go, I've been to Israel and the Middle East twice

00:52:15.120 | just in the last number of months.

00:52:16.120 | I've been to the Southern border twice.

00:52:17.360 | I've seen with my own eyes.

00:52:19.280 | It is the most despicable, embarrassing failure

00:52:22.840 | of American policy I have ever seen.

00:52:25.000 | I have seen women walking across the Rio Grande

00:52:28.400 | with babies in their arms who have spent six or $7,000,

00:52:32.220 | their whole life savings, paid to gangs and coyotes

00:52:36.560 | to bring them across the border.

00:52:38.340 | I've seen the extraordinary beauty and grace

00:52:41.120 | with which border patrol agents

00:52:42.560 | have looked after these people.

00:52:43.780 | I've seen babies who were abandoned

00:52:46.040 | that were on 24-hour care of border patrol agents

00:52:48.520 | who took as good a care of these little kids

00:52:51.080 | as they would their own.

00:52:52.700 | I saw people in cages.

00:52:54.080 | I saw the most archaic, out-of-date, inefficient,

00:52:57.140 | ineffective ports of entry.

00:52:59.380 | I saw lines of trailer trucks,

00:53:03.760 | probably two, three miles long,

00:53:05.360 | idling in the hot, hot weather, waiting to get across.

00:53:08.920 | I saw a mile long of human beings

00:53:11.760 | waiting to come into the country to do their shopping

00:53:13.860 | or their job or their education.

00:53:16.220 | And it was horrifying.

00:53:17.520 | And if we think, by the way,

00:53:19.180 | we need much better border security,

00:53:21.140 | barriers, technologies, and facilities.

00:53:24.460 | And by the way, we also need it at the northern border.

00:53:26.400 | I'm a border state in Minnesota.

00:53:27.920 | People walk across farm fields in Manitoba into Minnesota.

00:53:30.640 | We don't know who they are.

00:53:31.780 | Some of them get caught.

00:53:33.620 | That's true.

00:53:34.460 | But I'll tell you guys, if we think

00:53:35.900 | that we can solve the problem at the border,

00:53:38.260 | that's the issue right there.

00:53:39.500 | This administration and past ones just don't get it.

00:53:43.200 | We should be adjudicating asylum cases

00:53:45.160 | in countries of origin.

00:53:46.600 | Why make these poor people take their life savings

00:53:49.240 | that they have no, then they have no money.

00:53:50.740 | They're set off in the streets here.

00:53:52.680 | They're supposed to come back to a court two years from now.

00:53:55.520 | Let them keep their money.

00:53:56.960 | Let's build dormitories next to our consulates

00:53:59.200 | or our embassies in the Northern Triangle countries,

00:54:01.220 | wherever migrants are coming.

00:54:02.720 | Create some safety security there.

00:54:05.120 | Invest in local economies

00:54:06.420 | so that there can be some opportunity.

00:54:08.280 | And adjudicate their cases there.

00:54:10.020 | If they qualify, let's bring them to America

00:54:13.060 | with six or $7,000 in their pocket

00:54:16.280 | so they can start a nice new life

00:54:17.780 | and pursue the American dream.

00:54:18.960 | And if they don't,

00:54:20.300 | they will be kept in their countries of origin.

00:54:22.000 | And of course, we have to work with Mexico as well.

00:54:23.780 | But this is not rocket science.

00:54:25.420 | It's simple problem solving.

00:54:26.880 | And the fact that we continue to do this stupid policy

00:54:29.940 | to this day, you guys, is embarrassing.

00:54:31.420 | - On the other side of this,

00:54:32.780 | talk about recruiting.

00:54:34.060 | Many countries, Canada, New Zealand,

00:54:36.220 | a lot of the Nordics have a point-based system

00:54:37.980 | and they actively recruit talent.

00:54:40.360 | You're an entrepreneur.

00:54:41.460 | You've been CEO of multiple companies.

00:54:43.260 | It is an absolute arduous pain

00:54:45.740 | to get talented people here right now.

00:54:47.780 | Recruitment of talent in the United States

00:54:49.980 | is bundled with the Southern border.

00:54:51.700 | How would you decouple that?

00:54:52.740 | Would you be in favor of a point-based system

00:54:54.380 | and recruitment of talent

00:54:55.400 | to get more talented immigrants in our country?

00:54:58.800 | Which by the way, three of the four besties here

00:55:01.180 | were not born in the United States.

00:55:03.180 | - And by the way, my foremothers and forefathers

00:55:05.280 | came here for the same reasons.

00:55:06.780 | Same reasons that every one of those moms and dads

00:55:08.780 | is coming across the Rio Grande.

00:55:10.100 | So to answer your question directly, Jason,

00:55:11.940 | I think we can do both.

00:55:13.700 | I think we should have a merit-based system

00:55:15.220 | to attract the best and brightest and most talented.

00:55:17.600 | I'm sure all of you came from enterprises

00:55:19.620 | that would afford benefits, perhaps education to people.

00:55:23.220 | You would expect them to actually stay at your enterprise

00:55:25.260 | for a number of years as a payback.

00:55:27.460 | We are right now, the United States is training

00:55:29.840 | some of the best and brightest in the world,

00:55:31.800 | not creating opportunities to stay.

00:55:33.380 | And of course, Canada is the beneficiary,

00:55:35.100 | the Nordic countries, European countries.

00:55:36.620 | You guys know this.

00:55:38.020 | This notion that we can't do two things at once,

00:55:40.660 | that we can't welcome the most disadvantaged

00:55:43.460 | who simply want to pursue an American dream

00:55:46.380 | and start at the very bottom

00:55:47.940 | and match that with some of the best and brightest

00:55:49.660 | who can actually start at the very top.

00:55:51.380 | My goodness, why does everything have to be binary,

00:55:54.180 | you guys, black and white, good or bad, yes or no?

00:55:57.420 | It's nonsense.

00:55:58.260 | - Before we run out of time.

00:55:59.260 | - Oh darn, that's way too short.

00:56:01.020 | - No, no, no, for you.

00:56:02.180 | I think we got a little over time.

00:56:03.020 | - I got more, hey, I got time, guys.

00:56:04.900 | - Oh, okay, great.

00:56:05.940 | We really want to talk. - I got time, yeah.

00:56:08.100 | - Freeberg and I are, I think Freeberg,

00:56:12.460 | you know, moved me to his position on this.

00:56:14.540 | Number one issue for this election, Freeberg,

00:56:16.100 | correct me if I'm wrong for you,

00:56:17.460 | is still our out of control spending.

00:56:19.740 | Maybe you could tee this up.

00:56:21.700 | - Yeah, I mean, I've said this in the past.

00:56:23.460 | I think the US is facing a fiscal emergency

00:56:26.620 | in the sense that arithmetic starts to play out,

00:56:29.020 | that the cost of debt spirals.

00:56:31.140 | We can't accomplish any of the other stuff

00:56:32.540 | we're talking about unless we can figure this out.

00:56:34.180 | We have $33 trillion of debt today.

00:56:37.260 | The treasury estimates it's going to grow

00:56:38.580 | to 47 trillion by 2033, just 10 years away.

00:56:41.980 | One and a half trillion in deficit this year,

00:56:44.820 | trillion in debt interest expense alone this year,

00:56:47.380 | and a third of our debt is coming up to be refinanced soon.

00:56:50.740 | It's going to get refinanced at 4.5% interest rate

00:56:52.940 | instead of the 2, 2.5% it's sitting at today.

00:56:55.220 | So the interest will swell, the deficit will swell,

00:56:58.940 | the debt will swell, and we're already taxing 18% of GDP

00:57:03.060 | as federal revenue, which a lot of economists have shown

00:57:05.860 | you can only get to 20%, at which point,

00:57:08.020 | economy starts to shrink.

00:57:09.340 | I think pretty good research on this.

00:57:11.900 | Some would argue differently,

00:57:12.780 | but I think that's kind of a natural limit.

00:57:14.580 | So the only kind of response is what's wrong with spending?

00:57:19.580 | Like, why do we have the spending problem?

00:57:22.740 | I guess the question for you is what is causing,

00:57:26.260 | structurally, the spending problem?

00:57:27.900 | A lot of people have said that this is late stage empire,

00:57:31.460 | the failure of democracy, 'cause everyone votes themselves

00:57:33.940 | all the money eventually,

00:57:35.500 | or is it a politically oriented problem

00:57:38.580 | where folks don't want to address the biggest line items?

00:57:41.220 | They don't want to hold programs to account?

00:57:43.980 | And what is the answer here?

00:57:45.940 | - So to answer your question directly,

00:57:47.580 | you asked what the cause is,

00:57:48.660 | it's incompetency and perverse incentives, period.

00:57:52.860 | There is no political,

00:57:54.140 | there used to be a political reward for conservatives

00:57:57.460 | who were focused on fiscal responsibility,

00:57:59.540 | 'cause they would win elections over tax and spenders.

00:58:03.180 | But that party is long gone, long gone.

00:58:06.140 | There's no reward,

00:58:06.980 | that's why Trump added $7 trillion to the deficit,

00:58:09.540 | and that's why Biden will probably add

00:58:11.460 | about that much as well.

00:58:13.060 | So, by the way, I think I'm one of the only Democrats

00:58:16.040 | who has been named by the Committee

00:58:18.220 | for a Responsible Federal Budget

00:58:19.980 | one of their fiscal heroes as a Democrat.

00:58:22.700 | And also, I'm a Hamilton Jefferson Award winner

00:58:27.080 | by the US Chamber of Commerce.

00:58:28.900 | And I'm also pro-worker.

00:58:30.220 | This notion that you can't be, by the way,

00:58:32.140 | pro-business and pro-worker,

00:58:33.780 | that they're somehow mutually exclusive, that's BS.

00:58:36.780 | They're mutually mandatory.

00:58:37.900 | But back to your question,

00:58:39.420 | 33 trillion in debt, by the way,

00:58:40.960 | our economy can accommodate more, that's the sad truth.

00:58:43.700 | The issue is our debt service,

00:58:45.260 | and nobody's talking about the fact

00:58:46.780 | that it is going to go from the mid 400 billion a year

00:58:49.900 | to your point, Dave, with the higher interest rates,

00:58:52.160 | probably approaching a trillion, maybe 840.

00:58:54.540 | - No, it's already over a trillion,

00:58:55.380 | it's a trillion one today,

00:58:56.340 | it's gonna be a trillion five.

00:58:57.180 | - Well, let's see, I don't, I would argue that maybe,

00:59:01.580 | we could have a little argument about

00:59:02.700 | if it's there quite yet, but either way,

00:59:04.780 | let's call it a trillion.

00:59:06.580 | That means literally, that means literally

00:59:09.700 | we are spending way more for the past

00:59:12.420 | than we are investing in the future.

00:59:14.400 | That means we have literally no dollars left

00:59:16.740 | for any discretionary spending.

00:59:18.060 | Every bit of it is now consumed by Social Security,

00:59:20.580 | Medicare, and our military.

00:59:24.220 | And on top of that, we've got people sleeping

00:59:28.340 | on the streets in every single town and city in America,

00:59:31.420 | we have kids going to school hungry,

00:59:33.460 | we have one of the most, to me,

00:59:35.380 | failing public school systems in the entire developed world,

00:59:38.980 | we have a healthcare system that is not healthcare,

00:59:40.900 | it's sick care, a fee for service model

00:59:43.300 | that should be capitated, and our outcomes are mid-pack,

00:59:47.460 | and we have a $2 trillion deficit,

00:59:49.820 | and by the way, no childcare, no pre-K education,

00:59:52.700 | I can go on down the list, it's nonsensical,

00:59:54.980 | and we're spending $2 trillion more.

00:59:57.340 | So to answer your question,

00:59:58.860 | you guys know the answer here,

01:00:00.980 | we're a country with, I think, $150-some-trillion,

01:00:04.100 | $150-some-trillion in total United States household wealth.

01:00:09.100 | - Where do you cut?

01:00:10.860 | Let's start by getting into those specifics.

01:00:12.980 | Do you cut entitlements?

01:00:15.420 | Do you cut military?

01:00:17.600 | Where do you cut, and how do you cut?

01:00:19.460 | - So here's what I would do.

01:00:20.780 | Starting with Social Security.

01:00:22.300 | Social Security, you guys, is the most successful

01:00:24.980 | anti-poverty program in world history,

01:00:28.200 | and I believe it would be not just a dereliction of duty,

01:00:32.020 | it would be counter to every American principle

01:00:35.020 | if senior citizens struggled.

01:00:38.220 | By the way, we don't have a culture in America

01:00:39.840 | that takes care of the elders, like in most Asian cultures

01:00:42.700 | and other wonderful cultures in the world.

01:00:44.940 | So absent that, we have to afford resources.

01:00:48.100 | So two things, as you all know, Social Security,

01:00:50.480 | the trust fund, will face probably reductions

01:00:53.540 | at about 25% cut levels by 2033,

01:00:57.100 | based on the current path.

01:00:59.140 | Two easy things we can do.

01:01:01.180 | $160,000 a year is the cap right now, I think, roughly.

01:01:04.380 | We should make that 250.

01:01:05.780 | That means it's a very regressive tax.

01:01:08.600 | If you're making 160, you're paying a whole lot more

01:01:11.220 | of your income than someone making 250, $300,000 a year,

01:01:14.580 | not to mention 3 million or 30 million.

01:01:17.500 | So we should raise the cap to 250,

01:01:19.100 | make sure that fund at least is solvent

01:01:21.700 | through probably 2046, 2047.

01:01:24.700 | And then I would do something different

01:01:25.860 | for the first time in American history.

01:01:28.120 | For all the millions of Americans who've done well,

01:01:31.060 | don't need their Social Security,

01:01:32.940 | that wish to become philanthropists,

01:01:34.980 | I would create a pool, not that goes back to the Treasury,

01:01:38.820 | a pool that would be automatically redistributed

01:01:41.980 | to the lowest five or 10% of all Social Security recipients

01:01:45.260 | in the entire country.

01:01:46.740 | And let's say it might be a $500 boost,

01:01:48.740 | it might be a $1,000 boost a year

01:01:50.660 | for the most challenged elderly Americans.

01:01:54.480 | But when 40% of Americans can't afford

01:01:56.700 | a $400 car repair or emergency expense,

01:02:00.460 | not for this group, but--

01:02:03.500 | - No, to your point, I think it was the Fed

01:02:06.060 | or it was Treasury that published a study.

01:02:07.660 | I was shocked by the actual number

01:02:09.620 | of American millionaires that exist.

01:02:12.580 | And it's counter to the narrative,

01:02:14.900 | 'cause if you just read the headlines,

01:02:17.380 | you think America's an economic despair, and it's not true.

01:02:20.860 | And the wealth creation is actually quite pervasive,

01:02:24.420 | which is a great feature of American capitalism.

01:02:26.780 | So to your point, there probably are a lot of people

01:02:30.260 | who would be willing to pay it forward

01:02:31.780 | to folks that didn't have it if you gave them the choice.

01:02:33.940 | It's just not possible today.

01:02:35.220 | - So why shouldn't we be a government that creates,

01:02:36.680 | so just, Sharmath, if I could just say,

01:02:38.620 | one of my perspectives and intentions is to not,

01:02:43.620 | by the way, we don't have to spend money

01:02:45.940 | to expose young people who never get out

01:02:48.300 | of their neighborhoods in many cities in this country,

01:02:50.580 | expose them to possibility, get them into factories,

01:02:53.940 | into ad agencies, into high-tech centers,

01:02:56.780 | show them rockets and music makers and artists.

01:03:01.460 | We don't need to spend a whole lot more money

01:03:04.700 | to simply completely change the path

01:03:07.420 | of young Americans' lives,

01:03:08.660 | not to mention old Americans' lives.

01:03:10.780 | And that's just a perfect example of a simple solution

01:03:13.700 | that costs zero and lets Americans actually be Americans.

01:03:18.300 | - Okay, so now go to Medicare,

01:03:20.740 | but I think I know what you're gonna say

01:03:22.020 | 'cause you mentioned it, capitation,

01:03:23.380 | but maybe talk very quickly on that,

01:03:25.340 | and then military, what do you cut there?

01:03:27.260 | - So quickly on healthcare, look, guys,

01:03:29.300 | I represent United Health Group in my district.

01:03:33.140 | Tens of thousands of Minnesotans,

01:03:34.820 | many of them who live in my district,

01:03:36.820 | earn very handsome salaries from United.

01:03:38.820 | They've done some great work in many ways,

01:03:41.820 | but I have to tell you, since I've joined Congress

01:03:44.140 | in my third term now, you would be in tears

01:03:48.380 | if you had to sit with the people that I've sat with

01:03:50.660 | over so many occasions who thought they had coverage,

01:03:54.540 | whose son got sick or whose mother broke a leg or something,

01:03:59.540 | and they literally have gone bankrupt

01:04:01.860 | or take on tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt

01:04:04.620 | and they get surprise bills,

01:04:06.540 | and then they read in the paper

01:04:07.820 | that their health insurer reported annual net income

01:04:11.380 | of over $20 billion.

01:04:12.780 | And I don't know how you guys feel,

01:04:15.220 | but I gotta tell you, I'm a capitalist.

01:04:17.820 | I'm also compassionate,

01:04:19.620 | and I can no longer reconcile that.

01:04:21.260 | I really can't.

01:04:22.340 | There's a reason we're the only nation in the world

01:04:24.340 | that does it this way.

01:04:25.820 | I think it's time, by the way,

01:04:27.260 | from Roosevelt to Truman to Richard Nixon,

01:04:30.620 | Richard Nixon proposed universal health coverage,

01:04:32.660 | and it was Ted Kennedy that undermined it,

01:04:34.260 | if you can imagine that.

01:04:35.460 | If we don't, if conservatives and progressives

01:04:38.340 | don't come to the table and talk about

01:04:40.420 | how we can deliver a national health insurance program

01:04:43.340 | that is portable,

01:04:44.820 | lets gig economy participants do their thing,

01:04:47.580 | that people don't have to make choices

01:04:48.860 | about where to work just because of the healthcare,

01:04:51.380 | I don't know why we wouldn't talk about that.

01:04:53.060 | And by the way,

01:04:53.900 | I'm not talking about the provision of care.

01:04:55.180 | It's really important 'cause Fox News

01:04:56.820 | and some Republicans have tried to say

01:04:58.460 | this is a socialized solution.

01:04:59.860 | Uh-uh, just the coverage,

01:05:01.860 | because the money is in the system already

01:05:03.420 | between three, four, five, six X pharma costs,

01:05:07.820 | between two X health per capita health costs,

01:05:11.020 | 10,000 per person compared to any country in the world

01:05:13.260 | at five.

01:05:14.140 | The answer is, I think, right there in front of us.

01:05:16.420 | The money's in the system,

01:05:17.700 | would not require a tax increase.

01:05:19.160 | I think we could actually save substantial money.

01:05:21.220 | I'm working on a proposition right now.

01:05:23.380 | I would argue that the model is part of the problem.

01:05:26.100 | Fee for service is antithetical to what we need.

01:05:28.980 | We need a capitated model that gives an incentive

01:05:31.380 | to the providers to keep people out of the hospital.

01:05:36.380 | - Totally agree. - At least try.

01:05:37.380 | So that's the answer on that.

01:05:38.820 | And by the way, right now, Medicare, as you probably know,

01:05:42.660 | I think 23% of the country,

01:05:44.660 | or no, between Medicare and the VA,

01:05:47.140 | which are single-payer systems,

01:05:49.300 | 25% of Americans right now

01:05:51.220 | are covered by a single-payer system.

01:05:52.900 | And by the way, it works better than the other system.

01:05:56.540 | Medicare recipients are pretty pleased.

01:05:58.820 | - This would also be a huge benefit

01:06:00.340 | as a capitalist running companies.

01:06:02.220 | I mean, how much of your time

01:06:03.620 | was spent running your companies

01:06:05.300 | dealing with healthcare and the dysfunction

01:06:07.020 | of employees staying at companies

01:06:09.060 | because they couldn't get healthcare in another company?

01:06:12.460 | - What about military, Dean?

01:06:13.620 | What would you do there?

01:06:14.460 | - Okay, now military, and this is where,

01:06:16.860 | to answer your question very directly once again,

01:06:19.420 | nobody can tell you that they can even begin

01:06:21.580 | to address our fiscal challenges

01:06:23.900 | without looking at that ridiculous number,

01:06:27.380 | approaching a trillion dollars a year.

01:06:30.540 | And by the way, the Pentagon has not passed an audit.

01:06:33.820 | They would, in my administration,

01:06:36.900 | there would be a top-down assessment

01:06:38.500 | of every single program, every single base and facility,

01:06:42.100 | every explanation of why we are in those 80 nations

01:06:45.180 | and whether or not we should be employing

01:06:47.260 | 21st century strategies to keep our country safe.

01:06:51.380 | And I think one of the simplest solutions, you guys,

01:06:53.460 | is we should be entrusting countries

01:06:56.700 | more proximate to the problems to manage them.

01:06:59.980 | It doesn't mean we're not a good ally anymore.

01:07:02.260 | It just doesn't mean that we are in a position any longer

01:07:04.860 | to be the policemen for the entire world

01:07:07.780 | when we can barely take damn care of our country itself.

01:07:11.620 | It's just so damn simple, and I'm frustrated by it

01:07:13.820 | because as someone who lost his father

01:07:16.140 | in a completely obnoxious and unnecessary war,

01:07:19.300 | a guy that I have on my phone right now,

01:07:21.620 | digital audio tapes that he used to send back tapes

01:07:24.300 | to my mom, where he says, "I've come to the conclusion,"

01:07:27.660 | and he loved America.

01:07:29.220 | He did not like that war, but he loved America.

01:07:31.500 | He said, "I believe the only reason we're still here

01:07:35.060 | "is because so many people are making so much money."

01:07:38.380 | He saw it, and the same thing is happening to this day.

01:07:41.060 | You guys, that trillion dollars, that's going somewhere.

01:07:44.140 | It's going in people's pockets,

01:07:45.420 | and I believe we can cut that,

01:07:46.780 | and I'm not gonna make a proposition,

01:07:48.420 | but I believe after a comprehensive assessment

01:07:51.580 | that we can save hundreds of billions of dollars

01:07:54.380 | that can either be saved on the bottom line or better yet,

01:07:56.940 | actually invested in human beings

01:07:59.380 | instead of the destruction of them, period.

01:08:01.700 | - Would you zero-base budget the military?

01:08:03.020 | - Absolutely.

01:08:03.860 | Chamath, I've had to go back to Washington twice

01:08:08.500 | to vote on CRs, continuing resolutions.

01:08:10.940 | The dysfunction is absurd.

01:08:14.900 | There are maybe five people that can read a P&L

01:08:17.260 | or a balance sheet in the whole damn Congress.

01:08:20.100 | Our budgeting system is completely broken,

01:08:22.060 | and yes, as president, I would demand

01:08:24.260 | a zero-base budgeting procedure,

01:08:28.820 | and like I said, a comprehensive,

01:08:31.300 | independent assessment of every program,

01:08:34.780 | and if it is not generating a return,

01:08:37.060 | or if it could be outsourced to the private sector

01:08:39.180 | that can deliver it for a better value,

01:08:41.860 | that's how we should proceed, and by the way,

01:08:44.100 | it may not be easy, it may take time to get done,

01:08:46.420 | but why we don't try is absurd,

01:08:48.260 | and to answer your final question, if we don't,

01:08:51.340 | and once foreign investors no longer consider

01:08:53.500 | the United States of America

01:08:54.940 | the safest place to deploy capital, it's too late,

01:08:58.380 | and I will not, certainly under my watch,

01:09:00.300 | will not let us get there, but we've gotta recraft,

01:09:03.660 | and lastly, can I say one more thing quick on that, Chamath?

01:09:06.420 | - Please.

01:09:07.260 | - If the only way that I think we can address

01:09:10.180 | the biggest issue in the country,

01:09:11.840 | which is the growing disparity between those who have wealth

01:09:16.660 | and income and those that do not,

01:09:18.580 | we're not a nation that will redistribute.

01:09:21.220 | I think we've been not just unsuccessful,

01:09:23.100 | we've actually created some of the problems

01:09:24.540 | we now find ourselves in.

01:09:26.260 | The way to do it is to raise the foundation,

01:09:28.700 | the same way it was raised for me,

01:09:29.940 | by a stroke of good luck.

01:09:32.740 | I was adopted by a dad who gave me everything,

01:09:35.720 | and who knows where I would've been if that didn't happen.

01:09:38.660 | I wanna do the same thing for everybody.

01:09:41.100 | Have healthcare, have great education, have childcare,

01:09:44.020 | make sure you have a house, a place to live.

01:09:46.500 | If we give everybody the same thing,

01:09:48.700 | then we can be a country that believes in self-determination

01:09:52.380 | and-- - So let's talk about

01:09:53.620 | education then briefly.

01:09:54.820 | So if the spectrum is the teachers union

01:09:57.140 | on one end of the spectrum,

01:09:59.060 | and Vivek Ramaswamy, who would dismantle

01:10:02.300 | the Department of Education at the federal level

01:10:04.380 | and just push all the responsibility to the states

01:10:06.700 | with the voucher program, he talked about it here once,

01:10:09.580 | where are you and what's your philosophy

01:10:12.060 | on the state of education?

01:10:14.060 | - I would say I'm in the middle,

01:10:15.780 | because I think there's some worthiness

01:10:18.980 | to both of those perspectives.

01:10:20.300 | What would I do?

01:10:21.660 | I would fundamentally reinvent American public education

01:10:24.820 | with the best and the brightest,

01:10:26.140 | with students, with teachers, with families,

01:10:29.060 | with the nonprofit sector and the business sector,

01:10:31.140 | because right now business needs to participate

01:10:33.420 | in 21st century education to advise the teachers

01:10:36.680 | and the administrators and the curricula designers

01:10:40.660 | what skills they need.

01:10:42.480 | They're not even part of the conversation, you guys.

01:10:44.820 | I don't know about you all.

01:10:45.940 | - Well, why do you think that there are certain places,

01:10:48.340 | progressive, liberal bastions, if you will,

01:10:51.460 | that have been the first to dismantle things

01:10:54.320 | like STEM and AP classes?

01:10:56.220 | Why is that happening?

01:10:57.460 | - I wish I had a good answer for that.

01:10:59.580 | It's appalling, but I do have a good solution.

01:11:03.260 | I'm sure like you guys, you all know this,

01:11:05.500 | the single most important determinant

01:11:07.700 | of a child's success educationally

01:11:09.540 | is the quality of their educator.

01:11:11.380 | Every single study says the same thing.

01:11:13.820 | The United States of America right now,

01:11:15.420 | we pay about 81% of the per capita GDP

01:11:20.060 | to teachers for compensation.

01:11:22.340 | The best performing systems in the world,

01:11:24.060 | and there is a correlation, pay 120, 130,

01:11:26.780 | sometimes 140, 140% of their per capita GDP.

01:11:30.380 | They make teaching one of the most admired,

01:11:33.140 | elevated professions in their nation.

01:11:35.680 | They identify great teachers when they're still young.

01:11:38.620 | And I think we should be a nation that does the same thing.

01:11:40.780 | We're not attracting the best and brightest any longer.

01:11:43.060 | When Teach for America teachers

01:11:45.300 | outperform teachers who have tenure

01:11:47.220 | or been at it for 10, 20, 30 years,

01:11:49.220 | does that not say the quality matters?

01:11:51.380 | It's not the school, how it looks.

01:11:53.100 | But anyway, I would reinvent.

01:11:55.180 | And the other thing is this,

01:11:56.340 | I'm sure like you guys,

01:11:57.180 | I remember a couple of teachers

01:11:58.740 | that made a huge difference in my life,

01:12:00.340 | and there are about 50, I could barely remember it all.

01:12:03.000 | They should all be those two.

01:12:04.620 | And then furthermore,

01:12:05.880 | if you think sitting in front of a blackboard

01:12:08.660 | is the way to teach kids in this day and age,

01:12:10.420 | no, you gotta get out of the school.

01:12:11.940 | You gotta look at Scandinavian countries

01:12:13.540 | and Asian countries and how experiential learning,

01:12:16.780 | learning from the best,

01:12:18.620 | most extraordinary educators in the world

01:12:20.500 | through screens on occasion, but to experience.

01:12:23.220 | AI is gonna fundamentally change employment as we know it.

01:12:27.620 | We have nobody in Washington that gets it.

01:12:29.820 | We need an administration in 2024 that does

01:12:33.740 | and begins to simply rectify all of these problems

01:12:37.380 | anticipating the change that's coming.

01:12:38.980 | This administration is not gonna do it.

01:12:40.820 | And education should be redesigned,

01:12:43.180 | based on the change we know is coming.

01:12:46.460 | And I don't have all the answers,

01:12:47.980 | but I know a lot of people out in California

01:12:49.780 | and around the country and around the world

01:12:51.420 | who could help us-

01:12:52.260 | - Is it too early to regulate AI?

01:12:54.460 | Or is it- - No.

01:12:55.700 | - No, you think we should regulate AI?

01:12:57.220 | - I think it should be very,

01:12:58.420 | Jason, I would say right now it should be very limited.

01:13:01.340 | And this is where back to the conversation

01:13:03.420 | about anonymous accounts.

01:13:06.400 | We do have to set, I think, some standards

01:13:08.720 | and penalties for nefarious use of AI.

01:13:11.100 | If we don't do that early and set the tone,

01:13:13.020 | I think it will get out of control.

01:13:14.820 | So to me, that's all we should do right now.

01:13:17.820 | And let it grow, let it expand,

01:13:19.940 | let large enterprises and small come up

01:13:22.460 | with extraordinary ways to save money, by the way.

01:13:24.860 | AI is gonna save extraordinary sums of money

01:13:27.920 | for the federal government and healthcare, for businesses.

01:13:31.500 | We can anticipate how employment will change

01:13:33.980 | and what jobs will be jobs of the future.

01:13:36.660 | But if we don't think about that now,

01:13:38.260 | we're gonna do what Congress always does,

01:13:40.160 | get caught off guard, have to come in on a midnight,

01:13:43.480 | ill-prepared with a thousand page bill

01:13:45.360 | that nobody understands because it was written by a lobbyist

01:13:48.020 | that had skin in the game and does not serve America.

01:13:50.680 | And that maybe wraps up this whole conversation.

01:13:53.360 | - Yeah, I'm just not sure folks really understand

01:13:56.320 | in Congress what they're doing.

01:13:58.560 | - No. - It's front.

01:13:59.960 | Like the difference between foundational models

01:14:04.080 | and the utilization of those models in an endpoint

01:14:08.640 | are very different regimes to think about regulation.

01:14:13.000 | And they're not even,

01:14:14.560 | that framework isn't even understood.

01:14:16.200 | - Not at all.

01:14:17.480 | - We're not even talking about regulating outcomes.

01:14:20.200 | - No.

01:14:21.040 | - Or actions, we're talking about regulating

01:14:22.760 | the infrastructure that could cause various outcomes.

01:14:26.960 | - Regulate, regulate.

01:14:28.800 | - I'm very much against where this is all evolved to.

01:14:31.160 | - I agree. - And I think like some folks

01:14:32.400 | kind of wanna say, hey, this is a regulatory capture moment.

01:14:35.360 | But I wanna see someone in Congress stand up

01:14:37.720 | and demonstrate an understanding first

01:14:40.640 | before they can even have the right to articulate

01:14:43.520 | a framework for regulation.

01:14:46.160 | - Well, Dave, I can tell you, there's one man,

01:14:48.400 | I wanna shout out this guy,

01:14:49.560 | Don Beyer is a former US ambassador, Democrat from Virginia.

01:14:53.640 | He must be 70.

01:14:55.000 | He went back to college, I think Johns Hopkins,

01:14:57.520 | and just received or is pursuing his degree

01:14:59.840 | in artificial intelligence.

01:15:01.040 | That's the kind of representative.

01:15:03.480 | Isn't that cool?

01:15:04.320 | You would never know his name

01:15:05.140 | if he's not on Fox or MSNBC screaming at night.

01:15:08.420 | But those are the kinds of people that should be celebrated.

01:15:11.540 | A lot of my Republican colleagues

01:15:12.740 | that got thrown out of Congress

01:15:14.060 | because they had the audacity to support the Constitution

01:15:17.380 | when Trump was impeached the second time.

01:15:21.260 | Those people I celebrate.

01:15:22.620 | I gotta run, but can I tell one quick story

01:15:24.180 | to wrap my whole story up

01:15:25.620 | and about what I wanna try to do?

01:15:27.460 | At the end of the day, none of this occurs,

01:15:31.180 | none of the successes, none of the policy ideas,

01:15:34.180 | none of the ideation occurs if we don't repair.

01:15:36.660 | And that means restoring friendships,

01:15:39.620 | our families, our communities, and our country.

01:15:42.960 | So I do a series back home in Minnesota

01:15:44.540 | called Common Ground.

01:15:45.540 | I get six Democrats and six Republicans invited to a table.

01:15:49.160 | We break bread, we introduce ourselves,

01:15:51.160 | tell a little bit of our life stories.

01:15:53.020 | We talk about healthcare policy,

01:15:54.620 | and we talk about immigration policy,

01:15:56.340 | which is where everything I shared tonight

01:15:57.900 | comes from both Democrats and Republicans.

01:16:00.300 | And it's a two hour session

01:16:01.420 | facilitated by an extraordinary group called Braver Angels.

01:16:05.220 | I encourage you to look them up.

01:16:06.740 | They are remarkable doing this work all around the country.

01:16:10.240 | And at the end of these sessions,

01:16:11.580 | we go around the table and each person at the table

01:16:14.260 | shares a little bit about

01:16:15.380 | what they got out of this experience.

01:16:17.980 | And I had an episode not long ago

01:16:19.420 | that sums up my whole mission.

01:16:21.660 | A young woman, Emily, looks across the table at Dave

01:16:24.380 | and says, "Dave, when you drove up in your F-150

01:16:27.180 | with the Trump sticker on it,

01:16:28.860 | I almost got back in my car,

01:16:30.300 | left the parking lot and drove away.

01:16:32.060 | I could not bear to go in the building,

01:16:33.720 | let alone sit at a table with you."

01:16:36.520 | And she said, "But I gotta say, I so loved sitting here.

01:16:40.540 | And you're a good guy and I learned something."

01:16:43.940 | Goes around the table, comes to Dave,

01:16:45.340 | and he looks at Emily and says,

01:16:46.560 | "Emily, when you drove up in your Prius,

01:16:49.220 | I wanted to run it over."

01:16:50.460 | And he says, "But hey, I gotta tell you, Emily,

01:16:55.180 | I've never met a progressive as cool as you

01:16:57.500 | and I really am glad I came to this today."

01:16:59.780 | And at that moment, Emily and Dave

01:17:02.460 | stood up in front of our table and they embraced.

01:17:05.420 | And to see a bleeding heart liberal

01:17:07.380 | and a dyed in the wool Trumper do that

01:17:10.340 | probably was the most important moment

01:17:14.660 | in my entire career in service.

01:17:17.140 | If that is the only moment of its kind

01:17:19.500 | in my career in service, it would have made it worthwhile.

01:17:22.060 | And that is exactly what I'm going to inspire

01:17:25.020 | as President of the United States.

01:17:26.780 | Get Emily and Dave to hug it out.

01:17:29.940 | All they have to do is be invited for a little dinner,

01:17:32.900 | given some space and place to recognize their common cause

01:17:35.540 | and their common ground.

01:17:36.940 | And that's how we're gonna do this.

01:17:38.460 | I don't see a candidate right now in the ballot

01:17:40.620 | that has that intention, has that capacity,

01:17:43.620 | or has that capability.

01:17:45.300 | So I just wanna thank you guys and yeah.

01:17:47.180 | - Last thing and just yes or no.

01:17:48.940 | Can everybody expect that you will be on the ballot

01:17:51.580 | in every state?

01:17:52.420 | - I can't say I'm gonna be in the ballot

01:17:54.580 | in every state, Shamaf,

01:17:55.400 | because I don't think it's possible.

01:17:56.940 | Between time and money,

01:17:58.740 | I'm gonna have to make some choices.

01:18:00.240 | And that's just the sickening truth.

01:18:02.220 | I wanna salute Bernie Sanders.

01:18:04.120 | He actually made it possible for a candidate like me

01:18:07.020 | and probably future candidates

01:18:08.860 | who are subject to this nauseating system

01:18:11.420 | to actually still compete and get to the convention

01:18:14.620 | and maybe win because he depowered people like me,

01:18:18.760 | members of Congress that used to have outsized votes,

01:18:22.740 | disproportionately so, versus voters.

01:18:25.680 | And I celebrate him because he was right.

01:18:28.160 | I used to think he was a sore loser.

01:18:29.440 | Bernie Sanders was absolutely right about a rigged system

01:18:33.440 | that is keeping people out of the process,

01:18:35.480 | keeping candidates out of the process,

01:18:37.140 | and keeping debate out of the process.

01:18:39.140 | So I'm gonna be on most ballots.

01:18:41.940 | I've gotta raise money and frankly,

01:18:43.400 | I hate to be shameless, but the truth is,

01:18:45.440 | if we want to get on ballots, I need support.

01:18:47.960 | And it's easy, Dean24.com.

01:18:52.240 | By the way, I'm at 15% in New Hampshire

01:18:54.460 | after just two weeks.

01:18:55.380 | We thought it would take six if we were lucky.

01:18:57.340 | - Wow.

01:18:58.180 | - So people can throw 15 bucks our way

01:19:00.060 | to get on ballots at dean24.com.

01:19:02.100 | And by the way, Joe Biden, 27%.

01:19:05.740 | 73% of New Hampshire Democratic voters

01:19:09.140 | do not want the sitting president of the United States

01:19:13.300 | as their nominee.

01:19:14.780 | And mark my words, we're gonna bring change.

01:19:17.440 | Thank you guys.

01:19:18.280 | - All right.

01:19:19.100 | - Thank you so much, Dean.

01:19:19.940 | - Thanks for your time.

01:19:21.100 | - Peace. - Thank you very much.

01:19:21.940 | - It's the faith, guys.

01:19:22.760 | I mean it. - Thank you.

01:19:23.600 | - Love to see you again. - See you later.

01:19:24.440 | - Yeah, great. - Thank you.

01:19:25.260 | - A Great 90 Minutes with Dean Phillips.

01:19:26.540 | Everybody go to dean24.com if you wanna learn more.

01:19:30.700 | All right, besties.

01:19:31.640 | I think that was another epic discussion

01:19:34.460 | with the presidential candidate.

01:19:36.580 | What's your thoughts?

01:19:37.620 | Chamath, you set up this interview.

01:19:40.060 | Where does he stand in your likely votes

01:19:44.100 | for president in 2024?

01:19:47.460 | Where would you rank him now?

01:19:48.940 | - Andrew Yang texted me like last week

01:19:51.460 | and said, "Would you guys do this?"

01:19:52.900 | And I was really interested because mostly

01:19:55.980 | I didn't know where he was coming from,

01:19:57.980 | to be totally honest.

01:19:59.120 | But I think his national visibility

01:20:02.140 | is probably gonna increase a lot.

01:20:03.500 | My reaction is that he is who he says he is,

01:20:07.820 | which is like kind of down the middle.

01:20:10.140 | He doesn't take either extreme

01:20:12.580 | and he kind of takes a moderate point of view

01:20:14.580 | and says there's a balance of this and that that can work.

01:20:18.120 | And that's actually good that he owns that

01:20:19.860 | as opposed to it being sort of a consequence

01:20:22.260 | or a byproduct of not getting what he wants.

01:20:24.020 | He kind of like that is where he starts.

01:20:25.980 | So I like that about him a lot.

01:20:28.300 | I thought he was really candid about what doesn't work.

01:20:30.840 | I really appreciate that honesty.

01:20:32.720 | He's saying some of the right things

01:20:36.580 | around capping Medicare, zero-based budgeting, the military.

01:20:41.580 | I think all of those things are right.

01:20:45.340 | I didn't like, to be honest, the free speech part.

01:20:48.940 | I thought that that was,

01:20:50.260 | I don't think you can have some kind of registry

01:20:52.260 | of verified accounts or something.

01:20:53.980 | I just think that's a non-starter for America.

01:20:55.740 | It's a super slippery slope.

01:20:57.100 | But in general, I was really impressed.

01:21:02.340 | And his war stories as a businessman were pretty cool.

01:21:07.260 | - Pretty awesome.

01:21:08.100 | Sax, what's your candid thoughts?

01:21:10.500 | I mean, obviously he's not part of your political party,

01:21:12.180 | but where do you think his chances are versus Biden?

01:21:15.420 | And how would you assess his performance here today?

01:21:18.900 | - I was pleasantly surprised that he made the case

01:21:22.940 | for himself, not just based on Biden's age

01:21:25.700 | and the fact that he's 54,

01:21:28.140 | but he also, I think, took a number

01:21:30.220 | of interesting policy stances

01:21:31.860 | that were a little different than where Biden is.

01:21:34.340 | He did it on foreign policy, he did it on domestic policy.

01:21:36.460 | So I think he took a number of positions

01:21:39.300 | that were refreshing.

01:21:42.020 | And a big one, I think, relates to his personal story,

01:21:45.780 | where he talks about how he lost his father in Vietnam

01:21:48.500 | and that that war was kept going much longer

01:21:51.180 | than it should have been because basically the greed

01:21:53.540 | of the military industrial complex.

01:21:55.580 | And he didn't fully connect the dots all the way

01:21:58.060 | to our present situation in Ukraine,

01:22:00.500 | but at least I think he would be skeptical

01:22:03.620 | of the influence of the MIC in our politics.

01:22:06.700 | What he said with respect to Ukraine is,

01:22:08.860 | well, he said that it would be shameful to abandon them now,

01:22:11.180 | but he also said that if it's true,

01:22:12.900 | he wasn't willing to concede it

01:22:14.180 | 'cause he just didn't know factually,

01:22:16.500 | but if it's true that we could have avoided the war

01:22:19.460 | by taking NATO expansion off the table,

01:22:21.340 | then it would only be common sense to do that.

01:22:24.060 | I think that when the histories of this are written,

01:22:26.140 | it's gonna be abundantly clear

01:22:27.300 | that we could have done precisely that.

01:22:29.500 | So his difference of opinion with me isn't in the logic,

01:22:34.460 | it's just in what facts he knows to be true.

01:22:38.380 | So I actually thought that his position there was reasonable.

01:22:43.900 | - You know, if it came down to a choice

01:22:47.540 | between Dean Phillips as the Democratic nominee

01:22:50.700 | and someone like Nikki Haley as a Republican nominee,

01:22:53.220 | I'd vote for Dean Phillips all day long.

01:22:55.220 | You know, one other thing I like about him

01:22:57.620 | is he is a business owner

01:23:00.180 | and he presents as a Bill Clinton Democrat.

01:23:03.260 | I mean, I think that it's not an accident

01:23:04.500 | he's got a picture of Bill Clinton on the wall behind him.

01:23:07.500 | You know, he presents as a-

01:23:08.940 | - That was exactly my takeaway too.

01:23:10.380 | I thought, wow, this is-

01:23:11.220 | - He presents as a moderate Democrat

01:23:12.740 | who's a little bit of a throwback

01:23:14.060 | to the Democratic Party of the 1990s.

01:23:16.580 | If RFK Jr. is trying to bring back the Democratic Party

01:23:20.180 | of say the 1960s, the party of John F. Kennedy

01:23:23.500 | and Bobby Kennedy, his father,

01:23:25.580 | I think that Dean Phillips is more trying

01:23:27.500 | to bring back the Democratic Party of the 1990s.

01:23:30.060 | Both of them, I think, are ultimately very out of step

01:23:32.460 | with where the Democratic Party is today,

01:23:34.140 | but they're out of step with it in ways that I like.

01:23:37.260 | So he is a candidate who I could support

01:23:40.560 | against a Republican who,

01:23:42.260 | if we ended up getting a sort of stale

01:23:44.020 | neocon type Republican candidate,

01:23:45.780 | I would take a Dean Phillips all day long.

01:23:47.740 | - Really? Wow, great.

01:23:49.220 | Freeberg, your thoughts.

01:23:50.420 | - I mean, I think if Joe Biden runs,

01:23:55.980 | he obviously doesn't stand a chance

01:23:57.740 | just based on the structural issues that he described.

01:24:01.020 | If Joe Biden doesn't run and drops out,

01:24:03.940 | I think there are probably a lot of other

01:24:05.340 | Democratic candidates who are gonna have deeper pockets

01:24:08.420 | and more support from the party and more,

01:24:12.440 | celebrity or what have you to get themselves elected.

01:24:16.120 | With respect to his candidacy

01:24:17.520 | and whether it's a realistic kind of campaign,

01:24:19.880 | I would probably argue no.

01:24:22.360 | But what I really like is the fact that he is

01:24:24.800 | making the case, I think in a stronger way

01:24:27.560 | than even RFK Jr. was on how these incumbents

01:24:32.200 | and how the incumbency in the party system

01:24:34.960 | prevents new candidates from actually participating

01:24:37.920 | in a true democratic process.

01:24:39.960 | And it feels to me a lot like what goes on in that sense

01:24:43.000 | is the equivalent of like regulatory capture,

01:24:45.240 | but in politics.

01:24:46.960 | It allows these party leaders and influencers,

01:24:51.560 | which is a very small group of people

01:24:53.340 | to decide who gets to go on a ballot in the state,

01:24:56.460 | to decide who gets to be the nominee,

01:24:58.000 | who decides who gets to run for president.

01:24:59.840 | The best thing that he's doing is exposing a system

01:25:02.440 | that Bernie Sanders calls rigged.

01:25:04.440 | And that clearly I think is very inequitable

01:25:07.760 | and doesn't create a true kind of democratic process.

01:25:10.320 | So it's really great to see him doing this work

01:25:13.080 | and telling the story.

01:25:13.960 | And I'm glad we gave him the forum to do that

01:25:15.880 | for just that reason.

01:25:16.960 | - And if you were to have a choice of him or Biden,

01:25:21.120 | you'd pick him?

01:25:22.080 | - Yeah.

01:25:23.040 | - If you had a choice of him or Vivek on the other side,

01:25:26.040 | who would you pick?

01:25:26.960 | - No comment.

01:25:27.800 | - No comment, okay.

01:25:29.040 | Taking off my moderator hat for a minute.

01:25:30.800 | Loved his business story, so I agree with you, Chamath.

01:25:32.800 | Really excited to see somebody under the age of 80

01:25:36.000 | run for president.

01:25:37.160 | And I thought there were really two powerful moments there

01:25:39.840 | when he said he would send special forces in

01:25:41.840 | and then he was pretty aggressive

01:25:43.760 | in his assessment of Netanyahu's leadership.

01:25:47.200 | And overall, he did engage with every single issue

01:25:50.160 | and had interesting policy issues, no, Chamath?

01:25:52.400 | It seemed pretty engaging there.

01:25:55.160 | So overall, great job, everybody.

01:25:57.000 | I think four for four on the presidential candidates.

01:25:59.400 | And just as a programming note,

01:26:00.880 | we have sent the first podcasting kits,

01:26:03.560 | first microphones to four presidential candidates,

01:26:06.160 | for those of you counting at home.

01:26:08.120 | What do you think will happen post this, Chamath?

01:26:11.000 | Vivek got a big bump, RFK got a big bump.

01:26:13.400 | What do you think is gonna happen post this?

01:26:15.040 | - I think that Dean Phillips is gonna pull really well.

01:26:17.440 | The more that people get to see him,

01:26:19.360 | and I think New Hampshire is set up well

01:26:21.280 | for grassroots politics like this,

01:26:22.960 | it will go over very well.

01:26:26.200 | The question I think Freeberg points is the key one,

01:26:30.400 | which is the party infrastructure has tremendous antibodies.

01:26:35.400 | And if they decide to shut you out,

01:26:38.920 | which they did very strongly and vocally for RFK,

01:26:43.920 | you don't have much of a choice

01:26:46.320 | except to run as an independent.

01:26:47.520 | So his candidacy is precarious,

01:26:51.000 | not because of the viability of him as a candidate, actually,

01:26:54.240 | 'cause I think it's quite high,

01:26:55.320 | or his likability, which is quite high,

01:26:57.000 | or his electability, as Zach said,

01:26:59.360 | which against the right person is very high.

01:27:02.160 | This has all to do with the antibodies

01:27:03.880 | of the infrastructure.

01:27:05.480 | - And just a quick programming note,

01:27:07.760 | J. Cal, are you drinking a chocolate milk?

01:27:10.480 | - I am drinking a CorePower 26.

01:27:12.560 | It's 26 grams of protein, I'm still on my,

01:27:16.040 | trying to eat more protein.

01:27:17.080 | But I did have a Super Gut Bar earlier today for breakfast,

01:27:20.680 | which was quite nice.

01:27:21.520 | - I thought that was a chocolate milk.

01:27:23.080 | - This one's got 26 grams, it's a 42 gram protein.

01:27:25.440 | Yeah, I don't wanna give a free ad to CorePower,

01:27:26.920 | but Sax, in addition to the antibodies

01:27:29.480 | that kicked RFK out of the Democratic Party,

01:27:32.640 | the press also blocked him.

01:27:33.880 | CNN, et cetera, wouldn't let him on.

01:27:35.720 | The right would let him on all day long.

01:27:38.480 | Does this same antibody kind of system

01:27:41.720 | exist on the right at all,

01:27:43.040 | or is the right more open to multiple candidates,

01:27:45.000 | just generally speaking?

01:27:46.520 | - No, I mean, you look at Republican debates,

01:27:48.800 | and they are vigorous debates.

01:27:50.640 | There is real disagreement on the right.

01:27:52.080 | There are real debates on the right,

01:27:53.480 | and there is a real working out of contested issues.

01:27:58.480 | The Democratic Party, by and large, is a machine.

01:28:01.080 | It works in lockstep.

01:28:02.520 | That's why what Dean Phillips is doing is so sacrilegious.

01:28:06.480 | I mean, he is pretty much ending his career

01:28:10.480 | as someone who can just move up through the ranks

01:28:12.640 | that are the Democratic Party.

01:28:14.120 | Maybe this will turn out in a way

01:28:17.320 | where it gives him like a leapfrog, but I don't think so.

01:28:19.600 | I mean, I think he's basically signaling

01:28:21.880 | to the higher-ups in the Democratic Party

01:28:24.080 | that he's no longer a candidate

01:28:26.680 | for advancement through the regular course.

01:28:29.840 | - Got it.

01:28:30.680 | - And one analogy is that the Democratic Party

01:28:33.200 | is like the empire,

01:28:35.000 | and the Republicans are like the rebel alliance.

01:28:37.720 | The Republican Party is a bunch of misfits.

01:28:41.200 | It's a bunch of discontents.

01:28:43.520 | - Ewoks.

01:28:44.360 | - Ewoks.

01:28:45.200 | (both laughing)

01:28:46.040 | - Pan solos.

01:28:46.880 | - Pan solos, whatever,

01:28:48.240 | but the Democratic Party marches in lockstep.

01:28:50.760 | - Is that why the Democratic Party wins more,

01:28:52.560 | is because they're in lockstep?

01:28:53.920 | - Yeah.

01:28:54.760 | They're much better fundraisers.

01:28:56.080 | They're more disciplined.

01:28:58.240 | They have their act together right now.

01:29:00.120 | I don't think this was always the case,

01:29:01.440 | but I think it's true right now.

01:29:02.960 | - Yeah, okay.

01:29:04.520 | Well, we had a couple of other issues we wanted to get to,

01:29:06.800 | so I think we can wrap there.

01:29:08.640 | Great job, everybody.

01:29:09.520 | That was spectacular.

01:29:10.480 | Great job getting the candidate, Chamath.

01:29:12.280 | Thank you for that.

01:29:13.120 | All right, we have to touch on what happened this week

01:29:15.400 | with the US and China relations.

01:29:17.240 | Everybody knows Xi Jinping was here in the Bay Area

01:29:19.600 | to meet with Biden.

01:29:21.320 | Yellen welcomed Xi at the plane.

01:29:24.320 | Maybe she's selling some treasuries, I don't know.

01:29:26.080 | - That's what the press said.

01:29:27.720 | - Yeah.

01:29:28.800 | - I mean, we're like some sort of piss-poor company

01:29:32.560 | that's selling us junk bonds.

01:29:33.800 | I mean, the second that Xi gets off the plane,

01:29:36.000 | she's hawking our shitty bonds.

01:29:38.760 | - Wow, listen, everybody's raising a fund right now.

01:29:40.680 | You know, fundraising's hard.

01:29:42.040 | - Did you guys hear the commentary

01:29:43.240 | that the Treasury auction had a really tough,

01:29:46.320 | tough moment last week?

01:29:47.320 | They had a big auction on, what was it,

01:29:49.120 | 10 and 30-year bonds.

01:29:50.160 | The 30-year bond bid was not really there.

01:29:52.680 | And so they gotta get buyers in the market.

01:29:54.920 | They gotta go get the China.

01:29:55.760 | - And she's coming to raise money apparently too.

01:29:57.680 | She's here.

01:29:58.560 | Everybody's having a hard time raising right now.

01:30:01.240 | Pretty crazy.

01:30:02.640 | But Chamath, you and I tweeted about this clip

01:30:05.240 | where Xi Jinping said that, you know,

01:30:07.360 | he's basically for peace and that we have to work together.

01:30:10.160 | Let me just start there with you, Chamath,

01:30:12.400 | so we can get through this quickly.

01:30:14.480 | Do you take him at his word?

01:30:15.760 | There were cynical people saying like,

01:30:17.240 | "Hey, you know, he's just desperate,

01:30:18.880 | needs more trade, needs more business."

01:30:20.640 | How do you interpret Xi's peace pipe here, you know,

01:30:24.560 | and his dinner with a bunch of executives last night?

01:30:28.520 | - I think he's pragmatic.

01:30:30.760 | He's somebody that wants to not just rule over China,

01:30:34.800 | but he wants to do it for the rest of his life

01:30:36.760 | and he wants to do a good job.

01:30:38.160 | And I've said this many times,

01:30:41.320 | China's issues are endemic and pervasive

01:30:44.440 | and they're demographic.

01:30:45.680 | And so he has huge structural issues

01:30:49.560 | that he has to fix in the Chinese economy.

01:30:51.960 | And so I think all of this is just about him focusing

01:30:54.840 | on his priorities, which makes sense,

01:30:56.600 | which is really about domestic policy.

01:30:58.920 | There's an enormous real estate issue

01:31:00.880 | that has to get sorted out.

01:31:02.160 | There is a GDP issue that has to get sorted out.

01:31:04.720 | There's a youth unemployment issue

01:31:06.800 | that has to get sorted out.

01:31:08.160 | And then there's an aging and a birth rate

01:31:11.400 | and a replacement issue that has to get sorted out.

01:31:14.040 | All of these things are enormous efforts.

01:31:16.960 | And so I think he's pragmatic enough

01:31:20.320 | to not also then add foreign misadventures to that plate.

01:31:25.320 | And I think what you heard was him being very clear

01:31:28.080 | about just exactly that.

01:31:31.720 | - Sax, what was your interpretation?

01:31:33.040 | There's so many jumping off points here.

01:31:34.480 | You got foreign policy, you got TikTok, fentanyl.

01:31:37.880 | I mean, there's a long list of issues,

01:31:39.600 | but does it feel like we're turning the corner on relations?

01:31:42.680 | Hey, they need us, we need them.

01:31:44.400 | But what was your interpretation on all this?

01:31:46.440 | - Well, I think what's going on here

01:31:48.080 | is that the administration has its hands full with two wars.

01:31:51.120 | They've still got this war in Europe over Ukraine,

01:31:54.200 | which is going very badly.

01:31:55.280 | And now we have a new war in the Middle East

01:31:57.080 | that caught them completely by surprise.

01:31:59.040 | Recall that literally a week or two before October 7th,

01:32:03.160 | you had Jake Sullivan saying

01:32:04.200 | that the Middle East has never been more peaceful.

01:32:06.320 | So they absolutely did not anticipate what was coming.

01:32:09.240 | And now we have half of our carrier groups

01:32:11.160 | in the Middle East positioned there

01:32:12.880 | in case this blows up into a wider regional war.

01:32:16.320 | So I think the simple fact of the matter

01:32:18.320 | is that the Biden administration,

01:32:20.560 | this is more than they can handle.

01:32:22.320 | Or let's put it this way.

01:32:23.360 | They're trying to put the China compete on hold.

01:32:26.400 | They're trying to put it on ice

01:32:27.840 | while they figure out a way

01:32:30.120 | to rescue this losing effort in Ukraine

01:32:32.640 | and to prevent the situation in the Middle East

01:32:34.640 | from spiraling out of control.

01:32:36.120 | It's just too much for them.

01:32:38.480 | They don't have the bandwidth to deal with a war

01:32:40.840 | or conflict breaking out in the Asia Pacific.

01:32:43.600 | So I think that's the Biden administration's motivation here

01:32:47.840 | is they're seeking to ease tensions

01:32:50.520 | because they're just too bandwidth constrained

01:32:52.320 | to deal with it.

01:32:53.160 | By the same token, I think Chamath is right

01:32:55.280 | that she realizes that he's got his hands full

01:32:59.400 | with domestic economic problems.

01:33:01.440 | He doesn't need a ratcheting up of tensions

01:33:04.400 | with the United States right now.

01:33:06.040 | And I would also add that on foreign policy,

01:33:10.040 | I think what you're seeing in his remarks

01:33:12.120 | is a return away from this kind of wolf warrior diplomacy

01:33:17.120 | that they had going on a few years ago

01:33:19.720 | where they were kind of saying these very bellicose things

01:33:22.480 | and they were kind of flexing their muscles

01:33:24.400 | in the Asia Pacific region.

01:33:26.120 | That really backfired on them

01:33:27.960 | because it raised the hackles

01:33:29.160 | of all those other Asian countries

01:33:30.840 | and it was making it too easy for the United States

01:33:33.560 | to form a containment alliance against China.

01:33:35.680 | So he's moving away from that type of wolf warrior rhetoric

01:33:39.320 | that got them nowhere.

01:33:40.200 | And he's moved back to the rhetoric of a Deng Xiaoping

01:33:43.320 | who said that China's policy should be to bide its time

01:33:47.920 | and hide its light under a bushel.

01:33:50.600 | In other words, just get stronger and stronger.

01:33:53.080 | Don't let people get wise to how strong you are.

01:33:56.720 | And then when the time is right, you will flex your muscles

01:33:59.760 | but just keep getting stronger.

01:34:02.520 | And I think he's returned to that policy.

01:34:05.680 | And you saw this with the Belt and Road Conference

01:34:08.200 | that in Beijing just a few weeks ago

01:34:10.440 | where you saw countries like Vietnam participating.

01:34:13.280 | And I think that China, their strategy is now

01:34:17.200 | to try to use some honey to catch some flies

01:34:20.640 | as opposed to using this kind of bellicose rhetoric.

01:34:23.720 | - And saber rattling.

01:34:24.640 | And if we look at this chart,

01:34:25.880 | I think this chart speaks volumes, Friedberg.

01:34:28.240 | Foreign investment into China

01:34:31.360 | has absolutely fallen off a cliff.

01:34:33.800 | Indeed, the decoupling, the saber rattling,

01:34:36.440 | and other countries looking to have resiliency

01:34:41.040 | and not be dependent on China

01:34:42.760 | has obviously blown up in his lap.

01:34:44.360 | What are your thoughts on foreign trade

01:34:46.320 | and our business relationship with China

01:34:49.640 | and their relationship with the West

01:34:51.280 | and the rest of the world?

01:34:52.280 | - This used to be a thing to do to make money.

01:34:55.080 | And then it became a question mark

01:34:57.720 | of whether you can make money a couple of years ago.

01:35:02.000 | And now as of this year, I would argue you are a pariah

01:35:07.000 | if you are trying to invest in China

01:35:09.520 | or do any business in China.

01:35:10.800 | It's almost like you can't do business with the enemy.

01:35:13.640 | That's the tone shift that I think accelerated

01:35:16.800 | in the last 24 months.

01:35:18.720 | And as that tone shift happened in the business community

01:35:21.440 | and the investment community,

01:35:22.880 | it obviously escalated the tenor

01:35:27.600 | of what is the broader relationship look like

01:35:32.560 | that I think catalyzed,

01:35:33.960 | hey, we got to simmer things down

01:35:35.320 | because we can't really afford or deal

01:35:37.080 | with that escalation right now.

01:35:40.080 | But I don't know, I mentioned this to you guys.

01:35:41.760 | I was at a conference this past summer,

01:35:43.600 | the summer of 22, it was like,

01:35:45.160 | hey, maybe, when are things gonna get bad with China?

01:35:48.840 | To this summer, it's like,

01:35:50.440 | if you were doing business in China,

01:35:52.800 | you're trying to pick up pennies in front of a freight train.

01:35:56.080 | Like you're gonna get run over.

01:35:58.000 | And it happened in one year.

01:35:59.400 | That was my observation.

01:36:00.440 | It was like this crazy shift.

01:36:01.280 | - The chart shows that, right?

01:36:02.800 | - Yeah, and I could tell from the tone

01:36:04.360 | of what everyone was saying on stage,

01:36:06.000 | it was like universal.

01:36:07.800 | There wasn't anyone that disagreed.

01:36:09.800 | And similarly, as you guys know,

01:36:11.200 | we've heard this from both political parties in the US,

01:36:13.360 | it suddenly became the new new thing

01:36:15.520 | for Democrats and Republicans to denounce China,

01:36:18.520 | denounce investing in China,

01:36:19.720 | denounce doing business with China.

01:36:21.680 | But too much too fast, I would argue,

01:36:24.920 | has led to an observation of the consequences.

01:36:28.480 | It's a deeply coupled economic partner to the United States.

01:36:32.480 | China is the largest buyer of US agricultural exports,

01:36:36.640 | $200 billion a year of farm products

01:36:39.240 | that we make get shipped out to China.

01:36:41.840 | China is a major supplier to our electronics industry.

01:36:44.200 | We don't need to recount all the relationships,

01:36:46.120 | but trying to decouple too quickly,

01:36:48.280 | trying to call China the enemy too fast,

01:36:51.160 | I think has led to a realization

01:36:53.480 | that that's not really attenable.

01:36:54.840 | So I would argue that maybe this week has been a moment.

01:36:57.520 | I don't know if it really changes the long-term trajectory,

01:36:59.920 | but it seems like it's certainly a very important

01:37:02.480 | and critical pause in the escalation.

01:37:06.640 | One thing I wanted to comment,

01:37:07.920 | I think one of the biggest winners this week,

01:37:09.240 | I'd love your point of view on this guys,

01:37:10.560 | is like Gavin Newsom.

01:37:11.880 | I mean, he was all over this week.

01:37:13.640 | Like he was at the plane greeting Xi,

01:37:16.280 | he cleaned up San Francisco.

01:37:18.400 | I mean, he was-

01:37:19.240 | - He got a shout out from the president.

01:37:20.840 | - He was at the dinner.

01:37:22.600 | I mean, do you guys think like Gavin is, you know,

01:37:25.600 | gonna be there when Joe says, "I'll see you later.

01:37:28.360 | I'm not gonna run again."

01:37:29.440 | And the New Year when I spoke.

01:37:31.760 | Yeah, what's happening here?

01:37:32.880 | - It's all just a big coincidence.

01:37:35.360 | (laughing)

01:37:36.800 | - He actually went on stage in San Francisco,

01:37:38.720 | made all those comments about the city should be cleaned up

01:37:40.920 | and we haven't been doing it.

01:37:41.760 | We could have the whole time.

01:37:43.080 | He's very honest about it.

01:37:43.920 | - Well, it's not quite what he said.

01:37:45.200 | - Yeah, but I look, I mean, I don't know.

01:37:46.640 | What do you guys think?

01:37:47.480 | - He's quasi owning it, right, Sax?

01:37:48.520 | Quasi owning it?

01:37:49.360 | - No, I don't think he did own it.

01:37:50.320 | He gave these really weird remarks about how,

01:37:53.640 | there were some people that were saying

01:37:54.760 | that we're only cleaning up San Francisco

01:37:56.720 | because there's these fancy people here.

01:37:59.080 | That was such a weird term as well.

01:38:00.760 | - And it's true because it's true.

01:38:02.360 | - And it's true, but yeah,

01:38:03.600 | it was like he was headed in one direction

01:38:05.200 | and then realized he was making a mistake,

01:38:06.580 | but couldn't quite figure out what to do about it.

01:38:08.840 | - Let's pull it up, let's pull it up.

01:38:10.000 | It's good.

01:38:10.840 | - Yeah, here, play it.

01:38:11.680 | - Folks say, "Oh, they're just cleaning up this place

01:38:12.960 | 'cause all those fancy leaders are coming into town."

01:38:16.240 | That's true because it's true.

01:38:19.800 | (laughing)

01:38:21.560 | - What he's basically doing there is admitting

01:38:24.080 | that he as the governor has the power to snap his fingers

01:38:27.680 | and wave his magic wand

01:38:29.080 | and clean up the streets of San Francisco.

01:38:31.140 | And that is completely different

01:38:32.640 | than what he's been telling us for years.

01:38:33.900 | For years, he's been maintaining

01:38:35.800 | that the problem of homelessness in California

01:38:38.120 | is owned by local officials or by judges

01:38:40.840 | or somehow by the system itself

01:38:42.920 | and is too complex and is beyond his power

01:38:45.220 | to simply do something about it.

01:38:46.840 | But he just admitted that in fact,

01:38:48.840 | he does have the power to do something about it.

01:38:51.520 | In fact, he is the boss of a one-party state

01:38:55.400 | and all he had to do was snap his fingers

01:38:57.480 | and make this homeless problem go away.

01:38:59.720 | And he's willing to do that for Xi Jinping.

01:39:02.440 | He's willing to do that for Dreamforce.

01:39:05.140 | He's willing to do that for the Super Bowl,

01:39:06.540 | but he is not willing to do that

01:39:08.200 | for the ordinary citizens of San Francisco.

01:39:11.120 | And I think that ultimately

01:39:12.320 | is gonna be a huge vulnerability.

01:39:13.600 | What he should have said here is,

01:39:16.160 | it's true that we cleaned up the city

01:39:19.800 | to represent ourselves well

01:39:22.360 | for these foreign leaders who are coming in.

01:39:24.160 | But the truth of it is

01:39:25.560 | that we should be doing this every day.

01:39:27.560 | And here's my agenda for fixing it, point one, two, three.

01:39:31.000 | And if we could get everyone on board with this agenda,

01:39:33.040 | we could fix this problem.

01:39:34.520 | But that's not what he said.

01:39:35.680 | What he basically communicated was

01:39:38.200 | that I can solve this problem anytime,

01:39:40.040 | but I don't give a shit about you ordinary citizens.

01:39:43.120 | We only do this for the fancy people.

01:39:45.640 | - Chamath, any reaction to that?

01:39:48.280 | - He's auditioning.

01:39:49.360 | I mean, I think that much is clear.

01:39:51.120 | Again, I would just say,

01:39:53.240 | you can't just go to China and meet with Xi Jinping.

01:39:56.760 | So that has to be endorsed, it's negotiated, it's enabled.

01:40:00.600 | You go there with talking points,

01:40:03.520 | you go there in discussion with state and treasury

01:40:06.160 | and the rest of the federal bureaucracy behind you.

01:40:08.760 | So that was a clear audition of some kind.

01:40:13.440 | And I think it was obvious that they wanted the APEC summit

01:40:18.440 | to be the backdrop of a Biden-Xi meeting.

01:40:24.240 | And so you're doubling down on California.

01:40:27.120 | So I think it's kind of like a dry run here,

01:40:32.120 | is what I would say.

01:40:33.080 | I mean, I'm not sure that it's, I don't know what for.

01:40:35.360 | - It definitely made him look presidential.

01:40:36.600 | And I think you're right that when he went to China

01:40:38.600 | a few weeks ago to invite Xi to the summit,

01:40:40.960 | that was clearly sanctioned by, it gotta be,

01:40:44.080 | by Blinken, by Sullivan, by the-

01:40:45.720 | - Of course, you can't do that on your own.

01:40:47.840 | - Of course, of course.

01:40:48.800 | But again, the reason why they sanctioned that

01:40:51.000 | is because they really want to ease tensions

01:40:53.800 | with China right now,

01:40:54.640 | given how full their hands are

01:40:57.240 | with the Middle East right now and with Ukraine.

01:40:58.840 | - No, no, no, I'm not debating that.

01:41:00.640 | I think that that makes all the sense in the world.

01:41:02.720 | I think that you could have sent any number of,

01:41:05.120 | well, not any number,

01:41:06.000 | but one of three cabinet secretaries,

01:41:07.720 | and it would have been just as appropriate.

01:41:09.680 | And I think sending the governor,

01:41:12.000 | I think was a little bit of a, it was a test.

01:41:14.040 | Can he perform?

01:41:15.680 | And I think he did a good job there.

01:41:17.040 | - He helped himself.

01:41:17.960 | I mean, he hurt himself with,

01:41:19.800 | it's true because it's true,

01:41:20.800 | but he helped himself in terms of the optics

01:41:23.680 | of a daring presidential-

01:41:24.520 | - Can I say it though?

01:41:25.360 | I think he did look presidential in China.

01:41:27.960 | And I actually, that was the first time

01:41:30.120 | where I thought Gavin was really being a normal person

01:41:32.600 | 'cause he actually told the truth.

01:41:34.240 | He's like, yeah, this state is a,

01:41:36.780 | at its best. - A mess.

01:41:39.000 | - No, but this state at its best

01:41:40.400 | is a center of innovation in the future.

01:41:42.720 | And at its worst,

01:41:43.760 | it's where every bad progressive idea goes to die.

01:41:47.800 | - But wait, he said that?

01:41:49.120 | - No, no, no, I'm saying that.

01:41:50.080 | I'm saying San Francisco embodies both of those two things.

01:41:53.040 | On one day, it's full of people on crystal meth and fentanyl.

01:41:56.960 | On the second day, it's the open AI dev day.

01:41:59.400 | - Yeah, we'll take the president-

01:42:02.120 | - Within a block of each other.

01:42:03.320 | So I think, and I think he just admitted-

01:42:06.000 | - But imagine if he said something like that,

01:42:08.160 | that would make him so much more real.

01:42:10.060 | - Well, maybe he's trying to find his voice.

01:42:12.960 | - I think his tone has shifted a bit.

01:42:14.240 | I don't know.

01:42:15.080 | That's what I'm saying.

01:42:15.920 | It felt like in seeing some of the talks he gave this week

01:42:17.480 | and his positioning and where he was sitting,

01:42:19.520 | it was, he looks like very legit.

01:42:22.400 | - I definitely will say that the Gavin Newsom

01:42:25.720 | of three years ago was a little bit smarmy

01:42:29.680 | and more of like a political insider.

01:42:34.200 | The Gavin Newsom of like the last week

01:42:36.640 | and particularly even just that comment to me, David,

01:42:38.800 | was actually being honest.

01:42:41.080 | And I think that that's a more viable path

01:42:44.280 | if they decide to give him the candidacy,

01:42:48.640 | which I think-

01:42:49.480 | - I think that's a really good observation

01:42:50.480 | because he could just come out and say,

01:42:52.320 | "Listen, we tried a bunch of things.

01:42:53.880 | We had good intent.

01:42:54.800 | It didn't work.

01:42:55.860 | And now we're reversing them."

01:42:57.320 | But Biden did say that he would possibly be running

01:43:02.320 | for his job.

01:43:03.760 | I want to thank Governor Newsom, want to thank him.

01:43:06.400 | He's been one hell of a governor, man.

01:43:08.280 | Matter of fact, he could be anything he wants.

01:43:11.040 | He could have the job I'm looking for.

01:43:13.160 | I don't know if you guys heard that quote from Biden.

01:43:16.160 | Biden said that last night.

01:43:18.280 | So I guess conspiracy,

01:43:20.040 | let's put our tinfoil hat corner time.

01:43:22.280 | This actually your favorite.

01:43:24.640 | Percentage chance Biden runs or drops out,

01:43:28.200 | whichever way you want to do it.

01:43:29.320 | Anybody have some teeling to this?

01:43:31.880 | - I still think there's about a 70% chance that Biden runs.

01:43:36.040 | - Okay, so 30% chance he doesn't.

01:43:37.880 | - He's not gonna voluntarily retire.

01:43:41.960 | The party apparatus, whoever's behind the scenes

01:43:45.280 | pulling the strings, the Wizard of Oz is gonna have to go,

01:43:48.000 | the party elders have to go to him at a certain point

01:43:50.960 | and say, "Sorry, this is just not gonna work."

01:43:52.600 | And we're not there yet.

01:43:54.360 | - Okay, Chamath, what do you think?

01:43:56.040 | I'm curious.

01:43:56.880 | - I think David's right.

01:43:57.720 | The leaders and the powers that be

01:43:58.540 | will not make that call right now.

01:44:00.280 | I don't think it's time yet.

01:44:01.880 | - Freeberg, you got a take?

01:44:03.240 | - I don't know.

01:44:05.400 | I think it's speculation.

01:44:06.400 | I really don't know.

01:44:07.560 | - Okay.

01:44:08.400 | Hey, Chamath, one question here just on markets.

01:44:11.440 | Hundreds of billions of dollars not being invested in China

01:44:13.760 | on that chart for investments.

01:44:15.920 | Where does that money go?

01:44:17.520 | Any thoughts on where that's going?

01:44:18.680 | Is it sitting in accounts?

01:44:19.600 | You think it's being invested in other geographies?

01:44:22.320 | - We talked about it last week with Jared Kushner,

01:44:26.000 | but if you look at just the ton of cash and cash equivalents,

01:44:30.160 | I think it just speaks to how everybody's

01:44:32.080 | just a little bit on the sidelines waiting to go,

01:44:34.720 | waiting for the green light,

01:44:36.000 | which you saw CPI this week, by the way.

01:44:38.680 | I mean, we talked about it last week,

01:44:40.240 | which is that it looked like CPI is turning over.

01:44:42.800 | And now the consensus forecast is you're gonna see CPI

01:44:45.320 | with a low 2% handle by February or March of this year.

01:44:49.440 | So you're gonna see 2.2% CPI or something.

01:44:52.360 | Watch out.

01:44:53.880 | - Watch out as in, hey, markets could come roaring back.

01:44:57.140 | Maybe not Zerp environment, but could get interesting.

01:45:00.080 | All right, listen, we don't wanna leave

01:45:01.760 | without doing a science corner.

01:45:03.640 | Everybody loves science corner.

01:45:06.160 | I know DeepMind has been working on many projects,

01:45:09.160 | Freeburg, and DeepMind, of course, is Google's AI arm.

01:45:13.180 | They did Go, they did protein folding,

01:45:16.580 | and of course they're doing BARD,

01:45:18.600 | but they announced something this week

01:45:20.120 | about predicting weather.

01:45:21.840 | Tell us about this paper that was released, Freeburg.

01:45:25.240 | - Yeah, so I think this was pretty exciting.

01:45:26.760 | You guys know I used to work in weather.

01:45:28.920 | When I ran Climate Corp, we did a lot of work

01:45:31.520 | with weather forecasting and weather modeling.

01:45:34.300 | So DeepMind published a paper in the journal Science

01:45:37.840 | this week, introducing GraphCast,

01:45:40.300 | which is actually a publicly available model

01:45:43.880 | that does weather forecasting using machine learned models.

01:45:46.880 | It's a 37 million parameter model,

01:45:48.760 | just to give you a sense how small that is.

01:45:51.080 | That model compared to a chat GPT,

01:45:54.640 | which is like 1.5 trillion parameters in the chat GPT model.

01:45:59.320 | This is only 37 million parameters in this model.

01:46:02.160 | And the performance that they got out of GraphCast,

01:46:05.080 | which they published in the journal,

01:46:06.360 | so they've made the model available, you can check it out.

01:46:09.080 | You can read the paper on how they built the model.

01:46:11.000 | They're very open about that.

01:46:12.920 | And the model actually forecasts weather

01:46:15.200 | over a 10 day period,

01:46:16.760 | better than traditional weather forecasting.

01:46:19.200 | So let me just talk about how weather forecasting

01:46:20.840 | is normally done, and what they did differently,

01:46:23.080 | and why this is such a big breakthrough.

01:46:25.180 | So weather forecasting is usually done

01:46:27.320 | by kind of chopping up the atmosphere

01:46:29.000 | into little cubes, little blocks.

01:46:31.160 | And the weather is a fluid, it's like a liquid.

01:46:34.840 | It's air and moisture being moved around with energy.

01:46:38.600 | And so normal weather forecasting systems

01:46:40.640 | are what are called numerical models.

01:46:43.520 | You run physics, you run the formulas for physics

01:46:46.660 | on each of those little cells of the atmosphere

01:46:48.680 | and figure out how they affect the cell next to them

01:46:50.560 | and the cell next to them.

01:46:51.860 | And you run that cycle forward,

01:46:53.800 | and you run all these calculations,

01:46:55.340 | and then you figure out how those cells

01:46:56.840 | are gonna be different in hours,

01:46:58.920 | and then in days going forward.

01:47:01.560 | And these numerical models,

01:47:03.080 | basically because they're compute intensive,

01:47:05.520 | they're running actual calculations from physics

01:47:08.960 | to model all this stuff,

01:47:10.440 | they require a lot of compute power.

01:47:12.860 | There are hundreds of variables that are measured

01:47:15.500 | and that are output from forecasting models.

01:47:18.400 | And they're generally run

01:47:19.320 | on these very expensive compute clusters.

01:47:22.300 | There are two major weather forecasting systems.

01:47:27.200 | One is run by ECMWF, which is the European Weather Center,

01:47:30.120 | and the other one is run by NOAA called GFS here in the US.

01:47:33.520 | And ECMWF runs on a million cores

01:47:36.400 | across 7,700 compute cluster nodes.

01:47:40.160 | They spent about $200 million on this compute cluster.

01:47:43.960 | And the GFS model runs on a 29 petaflop system.

01:47:47.800 | So 29 quadrillion floating operations per second,

01:47:51.240 | it costs $270 million.

01:47:53.680 | And when they run the forecast model

01:47:55.620 | using this traditional way of doing things,

01:47:57.560 | they're running all these physics calculations

01:47:59.200 | on these little small blocks of the atmosphere

01:48:01.600 | and perturbing it.

01:48:03.120 | Fast forward, try and capture as much data

01:48:05.600 | out of the model runs as they can.

01:48:07.500 | And every six hours, they run the model,

01:48:09.760 | and there's a new output every six hours.

01:48:12.280 | And it costs a billion dollars

01:48:13.880 | for NOAA to run forecasts every year

01:48:15.680 | and disseminate that information.

01:48:17.200 | And then all the weather companies,

01:48:18.320 | you know, from Weather Channel and AccuWeather,

01:48:20.120 | they're all buying or getting free access to these forecasts

01:48:23.340 | that come from these big compute clusters.

01:48:25.560 | And that's how all weather forecasting is done.

01:48:27.280 | They're actually done primarily

01:48:28.920 | by these big centralized government super compute clusters.

01:48:32.400 | And then they're made available for everyone to consume.

01:48:34.840 | And the more data and the more compute you get,

01:48:39.500 | the better the forecasts, the higher the resolution,

01:48:42.160 | meaning the more local space you can forecast on,

01:48:44.720 | the smaller the timescales,

01:48:45.880 | meaning you can go from one day forecast

01:48:47.680 | to one hour forecast, break it down.

01:48:49.620 | And the further out you can be accurate,

01:48:51.080 | whether it's five days and then 10 days and so on.

01:48:53.280 | So more compute has been the name of the game

01:48:55.160 | for many, many years in weather forecasting.

01:48:57.480 | The more compute you get, the better the forecasts.

01:49:00.280 | So this breakthrough that DeepMind has had

01:49:03.080 | is they basically took all the past weather forecasts

01:49:05.360 | and they built a model that figured out

01:49:07.720 | how to take the current weather

01:49:09.720 | and the weather from six hours ago, just the data.

01:49:12.920 | So the data feeds from today's current weather,

01:49:15.240 | weather six hours ago,

01:49:16.780 | and trained a model that predicted weather

01:49:18.640 | for the next 10 days.

01:49:20.160 | The same output as you would get

01:49:21.320 | from these big expensive numerical models.

01:49:24.280 | And they did this using what's called

01:49:25.440 | a graph neural network.

01:49:27.120 | That's the architecture for the model.

01:49:29.020 | A graph neural network is far more complicated

01:49:32.280 | than say, predicting an image, which is two dimensional,

01:49:35.200 | it's pixels next to each other,

01:49:36.820 | or predicting a text stream, which is one dimensional,

01:49:40.360 | it's what's the next word in a sentence.

01:49:42.200 | So these are, a graph neural network

01:49:44.340 | is a fairly complicated model.

01:49:46.360 | And so they describe all the techniques they use

01:49:48.880 | and everything they built in the paper,

01:49:50.520 | they were really open about it all.

01:49:51.720 | And then they were able to train this model

01:49:53.200 | using past, you know, forecasting data

01:49:55.480 | going back to the 70s.

01:49:57.360 | And then they ran the model.

01:49:58.480 | If you pull up these charts,

01:50:00.240 | so the first chart that we're going to pull up here,

01:50:03.360 | basically shows the models performance graph cast

01:50:06.280 | against the big ECMWF model.

01:50:09.000 | And what you'll see is that the model

01:50:10.720 | across all timescales going out to 10 days is better.

01:50:14.240 | And there's a bunch of ways to measure this,

01:50:15.840 | primarily what's called root mean square error,

01:50:18.140 | which measures the skill of the forecast.

01:50:21.280 | So here you can see the black line

01:50:24.440 | is the numerical model run by ECMWF,

01:50:27.240 | which is the big weather forecast model

01:50:28.800 | that most people in the world rely on every day.

01:50:31.400 | And the bottom is the machine learn model.

01:50:34.640 | And by the way, the entire graph cast model

01:50:38.200 | runs in one minute.

01:50:39.360 | So you basically input current weather data

01:50:42.400 | and you input weather data from six hours ago

01:50:44.360 | and in a minute, you get all the forecasts.

01:50:47.440 | Whereas currently-

01:50:48.280 | - And it could run on what?

01:50:49.840 | Like a smartphone or a laptop?

01:50:51.600 | It's such a small-

01:50:53.080 | - Not that small, but yeah,

01:50:54.200 | I mean, you could run it on a small compute

01:50:55.920 | and you could get the results in a minute.

01:50:58.680 | And so basically everyone can now be a weather forecaster.

01:51:01.680 | What used to be-

01:51:02.520 | - Is the gap between the black and the blue line significant?

01:51:05.880 | Is that an important-

01:51:07.280 | - It is significant in two ways.

01:51:09.000 | One is, first of all, it's better, which is amazing,

01:51:11.200 | because researchers have spent billions of dollars

01:51:13.880 | and decades trying to make their numerical models better.

01:51:16.600 | So the fact that a machine learn model

01:51:18.440 | is just simply better is really profound.

01:51:20.920 | And the second point is that this machine learn model

01:51:24.120 | is only 37 million parameters and can be output in a minute.

01:51:27.600 | So you could be running this thing continuously.

01:51:29.920 | And you can be-

01:51:30.880 | - Does this work for weather all around the world

01:51:32.960 | or just in a specific-

01:51:34.480 | - Exactly, all around the world.

01:51:35.720 | And the second thing that they measured,

01:51:36.960 | if you pull up the second graph, was, well, okay, great,

01:51:39.760 | you can measure, you can do basic weather forecasting,

01:51:42.520 | but are you good at picking up extreme events?

01:51:45.560 | The things that are really outside

01:51:47.360 | of the normal distribution curve,

01:51:48.760 | the things that we should worry about,

01:51:50.080 | like cyclones or extreme heat or atmospheric rivers.

01:51:53.680 | And the answer, again, is absolutely yes,

01:51:56.360 | that this model trained on this data

01:51:59.280 | is better at forecasting extreme weather events.

01:52:02.640 | - On that bottom left one, is it saying that HRS

01:52:05.160 | doesn't actually predict cyclone tracking

01:52:08.480 | and that GraphCast gives you like two, three,

01:52:10.760 | four days lead time?

01:52:11.960 | - That's just an error difference.

01:52:13.400 | Yeah, it's just a measure.

01:52:14.240 | It's a measure of delta.

01:52:15.920 | - So what's the downstream effect of this?

01:52:17.400 | People will be able to get out of an area

01:52:19.040 | that could have extreme weather or insurance.

01:52:21.680 | You did climate.com, right?

01:52:23.040 | So you've been in this business for a long time.

01:52:25.960 | - Yeah, so I think one of the most interesting things

01:52:28.320 | is how this is gonna change

01:52:29.440 | how weather forecasting is done.

01:52:30.720 | Again, billions of dollars.

01:52:31.840 | There's a big system in Japan, a big system in Europe,

01:52:34.520 | and a big system in the US that forecasts the weather.

01:52:36.960 | There's some of the biggest compute clusters in the world.

01:52:39.720 | And now you can run it in your home.

01:52:42.600 | You can run this model in your home

01:52:44.200 | 'cause all the weather data that is the input to the model

01:52:47.080 | is available all the time on the internet for free.

01:52:49.560 | So we could just take that data and anyone could run it.

01:52:51.480 | You could get faster results, more frequent updates,

01:52:53.920 | certainly a much lower cost.

01:52:55.720 | And I think this is just the beginning

01:52:57.560 | of obviously a long road of optimization and iteration

01:53:01.400 | that will go from here,

01:53:02.480 | where it'll be really amazing to see what else can be done

01:53:05.040 | with this model.

01:53:05.880 | It totally upends a lot of different business models

01:53:07.920 | as well.

01:53:09.200 | What's really important also to note,

01:53:10.880 | this is an incredible proof point

01:53:12.520 | of these graph neural nets.

01:53:14.360 | Graph neural nets can be applied in other areas

01:53:17.000 | like chemistry, biology, material science,

01:53:19.760 | anywhere where you're simulating physics

01:53:22.120 | or physical properties or three-dimensional space over time,

01:53:25.160 | showing that you can train off data

01:53:27.000 | and be better than physical models

01:53:29.680 | that just use physics to make a prediction.

01:53:32.640 | And you can just have the machine figure out

01:53:34.240 | how to do it on its own,

01:53:35.080 | and it comes up with this prediction

01:53:36.400 | that's better than running physics in a compute cluster.

01:53:39.480 | It's really incredible.

01:53:40.320 | And I think it'll also,

01:53:41.600 | it's a great way to highlight the opportunity

01:53:43.280 | for machine learning models being applied to things

01:53:45.160 | like chemistry and biology for discovery purposes

01:53:48.400 | and other areas over time.

01:53:49.640 | I thought it was a great paper,

01:53:51.560 | another really incredible proof point by DeepMind.

01:53:56.160 | - I mean, are they going to just throw away those clusters

01:53:58.320 | running those other weather models now?

01:54:00.400 | - Dude, I'm telling you, like that's-

01:54:01.800 | - Redundant.

01:54:02.640 | - And by the way, talk about accountability.

01:54:03.920 | So if I'm running the Department of Commerce,

01:54:06.920 | which oversees NOAA in the US,

01:54:08.320 | I'm like, what are we doing?

01:54:09.160 | We're making a billion dollars a year on this now.

01:54:10.760 | We can just run this thing on a MacBook.

01:54:12.120 | - So a perfect example of how AI

01:54:13.640 | is going to save billions of dollars.

01:54:15.200 | This is like an incredible proof point

01:54:16.760 | for the government getting more efficient

01:54:18.240 | to circle back around to Dean's point earlier in the episode.

01:54:21.160 | Okay, this has been an amazing episode.

01:54:23.200 | For the dictator himself, Jamal Palihapitiya.

01:54:26.400 | - I want a more accurate forecast

01:54:28.400 | of the temperature on Uranus.

01:54:30.080 | - Oh, it was coming in at any moment.

01:54:32.680 | Oh man.

01:54:33.880 | - It depends.

01:54:34.720 | Did you have-

01:54:35.560 | - It's cold and dark.

01:54:36.400 | - Cold and dark.

01:54:37.240 | - It's cold and dark.

01:54:38.080 | Or maybe you had the hot sauce.

01:54:38.920 | Anybody knows.

01:54:39.760 | All right, listen.

01:54:40.600 | And for the sultan of science,

01:54:41.640 | the day after tomorrow, beautiful,

01:54:43.320 | it was a great fun movie, David Friedberg.

01:54:46.120 | And the rain man, David Sachs.

01:54:49.440 | I'm amongst the world's greatest moderators.

01:54:52.520 | Great job the last two weeks, Friedberg.

01:54:54.440 | And this is your favorite podcast,

01:54:57.160 | the All In Podcast.

01:54:58.120 | We'll see you all next time.

01:54:59.480 | Bye-bye.

01:55:00.320 | - Bye-bye.

01:55:01.160 | Oh, also, also, also happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

01:55:04.720 | - Happy Thanksgiving.

01:55:06.040 | - Happy Thanksgiving.

01:55:07.440 | - No episode next week.

01:55:08.840 | - No episode next week.

01:55:09.680 | - You never know, somebody goes rogue.

01:55:11.320 | You know what I mean?

01:55:12.160 | - Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.

01:55:14.280 | - Gobble, gobble.

01:55:15.920 | - Lots of you said gobble.

01:55:17.400 | Make me thankful for your blessings.

01:55:18.640 | Gobble.

01:55:19.480 | (upbeat music)

01:55:20.960 | ♪ We'll let your winners ride ♪

01:55:23.600 | ♪ Rain man David Sachs ♪

01:55:25.240 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

01:55:28.000 | ♪ And instead we open source it to the fans ♪

01:55:30.160 | ♪ And they've just gone crazy with it ♪

01:55:32.080 | ♪ Love you Wesley ♪

01:55:32.920 | ♪ Ice queen of quinoa ♪

01:55:34.120 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

01:55:35.440 | ♪ Let your winners ride ♪

01:55:37.000 | ♪ Let your winners ride ♪

01:55:39.280 | ♪ Let your winners ride ♪

01:55:40.920 | ♪ Besties are gone ♪

01:55:43.640 | - That's my dog taking a notice in your driveway.

01:55:45.680 | - Sachs.

01:55:46.520 | - Win it all, man.

01:55:48.560 | - Oh, man.

01:55:49.400 | - My husband, Dasher, will meet me at Blitz.

01:55:51.320 | - We should all just get a room

01:55:52.400 | and just have one big huge orgy

01:55:54.000 | 'cause they're all just useless.

01:55:55.200 | It's like this sexual tension

01:55:56.720 | that they just need to release somehow.

01:55:59.320 | ♪ What you're about to be ♪

01:56:01.120 | ♪ What you're about to be ♪

01:56:01.960 | ♪ What you're about to be ♪

01:56:03.080 | ♪ Be ♪

01:56:03.920 | ♪ What you're about to be ♪

01:56:04.760 | ♪ We need to get merch ♪

01:56:05.600 | ♪ Besties are gone ♪

01:56:06.440 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

01:56:11.440 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

01:56:16.960 | you

01:56:17.460 | (No audio)

E154: Presidential Candidate Dean Phillips in conversation with the Besties + Xi's SF visit & more

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