the one after trumpty dumpty's economy had a great fall (ep. 13)

Transcript

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Hello and welcome to O Brother News. I'm your host, Gabe.

James: And I am his brother James, which is going to defeat Gabe saying, and we're brothers.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Well, now I can't say it. Now we're brother. Well, okay, I'm still saying it.

James: yeah Hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Whatever. You shanghaied me real good there. Very, very brotherly.

James: Hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay.

James: Hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: This week, we got stuff to talk about. um On the good side of things, there's a report that Elon was asked to step down as the Tesla CEO.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: ah Related news, there's a huge Tesla sales slump and their stock prices are jumping off of a cliff. um Big news as of yesterday is the tariff details are out and surprise, surprise, the stock market is down.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: heard that CNBC did a live feed they showed trump announcing the tariffs like screen but with like him on the left and then the stock market on the right just watching it plummet ah amazing um yeah so i have some stuff i'm gonna i don't there's there's so much to cover with that i'm gonna bring up a few things um uh including the tariffs on sweden that seem to not make any sense

James: Yeah, Trump on one side.

James: Liberation Day. i like

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: um

James: But they all...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: work

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: the US auto workers getting laid off, some Republican senators doing a ah we care a kind of like ah ah um

James: hu

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: a nonsense vote you know on on a bill that vote that goes against the Canada tariffs.

James: We're not going to remove yet. So

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: um Things we might get into deportation chaos, especially, um gods, I should know, I should have known his name, but the, the, the one guy who's like, you know, totally shouldn't have been deported.

James: it's transmitting.

James: We admitted.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: um Trump announcing officially that he wants to have a third term and he's not joking about it. Uh, the potential of a civil war, the end of federal elections.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Uh, I don't know. The honeybee crisis. The there's too many things. The food banks, the meals on wheels getting no funding.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: ah Yeah, there's a lot to get into.

James: By the way, if the economy keeps going the way it's going under Trump, everybody's going to need a food bank.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: yeah

James: So.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Not everybody.

James: of

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean, the one percent will still be, you know, eaten from their Gucci spoons.

James: Yep.

James: Now,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Well, so you want to start with tariffs then?

James: you can do the thing with Elon because, I mean, i saw that the the report you're talking about.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Uh-huh.

James: but it looked like only a couple of real fringe websites talking about it. What I saw much more widely reported was that he's probably going to be asked to step away from Doge.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Oh, no, I heard that. I heard that Trump was saying he's ah he's going to be out soon.

James: Yeah. You know, at some future point, sometime soon, you know, like, like the end of the COVID crisis one day, like magic, it'll just happen.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: exactly yeah so it was like a thing that i saw was from uh excuse me was from uh clean technica.com that will have the link in the show notes and it was just it was like an anonymous report that the board had asked him to step down so there's not like a ton of uh

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: coverage for this. I guess it's more of a rumor.

James: Yeah, I thought bunch of white covers that a big Tesla investor said he should step down, but I didn't.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But I mean, it makes a lot of sense because, you know, they've missed the the projected self-driving launch for the past every year for the past 10 years.

James: He's toxic.

James: Every year. Every year.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You know, their stock price is based on the idea that they um that they're going to increase the number of sales year over year by 50% or like maybe not every year but like it'll average out to 50% yeah

James: Yeah. And they were the only and they're the only EV company to have the sales go down last year or this year.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean we can get into why there's a whole bunch of reasons for why and then you know like Elon has has declared war on his customers and the world seemingly for i don't know like revenge for not being invited to the you know to the

James: The only one. That's it.

James: People who'd want to buy a market.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: EV summit by Biden, like, it's just like,

James: I you...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: just a, just a child, I guess.

James: Well...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But like the, yeah. So for a while, Tesla sales were going, they were increasing by 50% ish every year. And then in 2020, they took a little bit of a slowdown because, you know, some of the plants were closed.

James: Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Um, You know, Elon was all, the fate of the world hinges on me making my workers work in the middle of the COVIDs. How dare you not let me kill people for cars, damn it. The fate of the world.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: ah You know, he threw that whole fit.

James: Remember, his he thinks the whole world should just ah procreate their way out of problems.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: think that's...

James: Like him. Just have kids with everybody you see. Just have many, many kids.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But... But only pay, you know, but only like only pay.

James: Hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Even if you're the world's richest man. Okay. You can only pay for the first 11 of your children. Like the 12th one, like you're on your own, bro. Like I gave you the seed, get out there and be somebody.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Cause I guess he's having some drama with whether or not he's going to, i haven't actually looked at that. Sorry. Just all the headlines, but he's got some drama with his 12th baby mama or his baby mama of his 12th child. don't know if he has 12 baby mamas. I think it's like eight baby mamas or something. It's ridiculous.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: um

James: and remember you're a horrible person if you protest tesla he says that who would cheer at their price their stock going down that's evil people who did this to kyle yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: and this is this from the guy who who slash not even that like you know i don't even care about that like that's performative dumb nonsense but like the things that the the reason that's going down the reason people are so mad is because of the way he's treating the world like and the people like In America, okay, like in addition to slashing all the federal jobs, ah you know, he's he's also trying to buy the Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, and he failed, like we won that one.

James: And laughing about it.

James: Yep.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: um You know, like literally giving out million dollar checks to people saying it's like ah a randomized drawing and surprise, surprise, it wasn't a randomized drawing. um

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: what else is he What else is he doing?

James: Oh, he's really mad at South Africa, man.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: They just they did meals on wheels.

James: He's really pissed South Africa because, I mean, his ah you know he's an apartheid baby, you know.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: oh yeah, he's...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah. Yeah.

James: And if he would have had he wouldn't have been where he is without that wonderful system you know that he enjoyed as a kid, apartheid, where white people were the only ones allowed to own everything. you know um And now, and you know down the road, government's like, hey, you know um for a long time, 1% of the population owned 100% of everything.

James: And it's time that we you know start making sure that yeah a handful of white people don't own everything. We need to make sure that we can have a little bit of equity here and Let other people own stuff and they're, you know, and kind of taking stuff back a little bit from people who really horribly benefited from that system.

James: And he's really mad about that. So him and Donald Trump are really pissed about that. That's why they were railing against South Africa so much.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean, maybe it's like a radical idea, but like, I feel like it's worth exploring. Like, why should you own something forever? You know, like, especially when it's something like a public resource, like an emerald mine or some other form of mine or like the water, you know, like.

James: person.

James: Well, it's easy. it's because It's because they were white.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, but like the only people who really should own that is like the public, even like in America where we're like giving up, like, you know, we're letting people

James: Yeah.

James: Yeah. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: can't remember which company it is that takes the water out of Lake Michigan and bottles it up and ships it off all over the place. Or like the, you know, the company um Fiji water that like tapped us, they bought a spring in Fiji and they tapped it and they're just like shipping it all. I put a bottling plant and start they're shipping it out. Like that is the product of the people of Fiji. And like anytime when the same thing with like oil or anything else, like anytime like a private company is benefiting from a public resource,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like they should be compensating the public, not just as like in the form of taxes, but like directly as like a majority shareholder. Because it's ours.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You know, like if you're going to drill baby drill in America, which is mine, you know, you should be paying me because it's mine.

James: It is one of the things they did in Alaska. One of the reasons people in Alaska actually liked Sarah Palin when she was governor.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, they like made him pay the state.

James: The people got checks. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: i that's like That's absolutely how it should be. like America should be should be getting checks from all of the oil that we're letting people get. Not all of it.

James: oh

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: you know i don't know. like Half?

James: It's like a it's like a dividend.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: you can give You can give the CEOs you know tens of millions.

James: It's like a dividend on a stock.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Exactly. like It's our oil, bro. like Yes, you got it up out of the ground and you sold it and you held it in barrels to manipulate the price, but like It is still ours.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You got to pay us.

James: And if you're Ukraine, you also have to pay us with all your oil and all your you yeah um minerals and resources.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Oh my God. So this, that deal is just, so we, have we've, we've avoided talking about this.

James: oh I know.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: It wasn't even on the agenda, but like that deal is, is, is really shitty.

James: It's gotten worse.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So like,

James: well It's gotten so much worse because here's the thing. he's Trump has changed the deal now to make it such that it is impossible for Zelensky to accept it. It is illegal for him to accept it.

James: He can't.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So.

James: um It's gotten so much worse than it originally was. Yeah, i mean, now it's, you know, U.S. gets the first, um you know, any U.S. company gets first like bidding rights on everything.

James: um We get like the point of, you know, we get to decide everything. There'll be a board that gets to decide what happens with things, but there'd be three appointees of Trump and two appointees of Zelensky.

James: And that board would get to decide everything. And um with all the different rights, you know, where it'd have to, everything i was coming to the United States first. had the first opportunity for a thing that would be a violation of EU stuff, you know.

James: um So he'd never be able to be a part of the, you know, EU. um it's It's just, it's so bad.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, it's nonsense.

James: and now And now it includes gas, and oil and gas on top of just the $500 billion dollars of, you know, rare earths, all the minerals resources. Now he wants our their oil and gas too.

James: Remember, yeah, it's it's it's outrageous. is There's no way he can't sign it. He cannot sign it, you know, and he wouldn't sign it, you know. So it's a pretense.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But just just to dig into some of the numbers of the...

James: it a pretext It's just a pretext just so Trump can cut off Zelensky in Ukraine. That's what it is.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I see.

James: Poison pill. That's why they call poison pill.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, that's a point. that's ah that that That makes sense. See, like, that's what I thought that it it was all along.

James: actually you like

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Because i I was like, that's why I was so surprised when Zelensky came and was like, I'm ready to sign.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: was like, what do you mean you're ready to sign? You're ready to, like, sign the

James: He's ready to give up $500 billion dollars for the almost $100 billion dollars in military stuff he got as a gift As well, paying back, okay, fine, fine, $500 billion.

James: That's the price to pay, I guess, for, you know, continued stuff in sport and getting aid. And then now just like, yeah, now the deals change.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: maybe Maybe somebody told Zelensky like, you know, like, well, maybe someone told Zelensky like, look, I know Trump is saying that the deal is just going to be like, you're going to give us everything and you're going to get nothing.

James: We need to make it so bad that he was it. Europe did.

James: But in the four years, are we gone?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But like, don't worry.

James: Whatever, yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: No, but like, no, but like, don't worry. Like when you get here, like he's going to say that he's going to sell it as that, but behind closed doors, you're going to get the things that you need. and

James: maybe, but it doesn't them off.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I just can't, i can't imagine any such, cause like when he was here, he was like very clear. He was like, yeah, well we have to get security guarantees and blah, blah, blah. And he was like, you know, we have to have a common sense deal or like, obviously I'm not going to sign it. I'm not going to just like give away the country for nothing. and Like we didn't just go to war for three years. So we could just like, uh, say, ah, yeah, nevermind here. Just, and take all our resources to like, fuck it

James: or We'll rather be your colony than theirs.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like, like Greenland, uh, everything.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: but We'll just talk about everything that I didn't put on the list. Like,

James: All right. Well, we go to the next thing. We go to the, well, to, already talked about Tesla. We just got it with sales flipping.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I do want to talk.

James: i think we should go into the, well, Greenland goes along with the tariffs and we can to the tariffs first if you want.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: ah shit Hold on. Before we leave the Ukraine deal, I want to talk about some of the details. Just like call out how nonsense they are. so First of all, it's like saying that they're going to get America is going to get 500 billion back.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: OK, 500 billion is more than the total amount of aid given to them, not only by the United States, which is 175 billion, but by all like the United States and the rest of the world combined is not even 500 billion.

James: Well, we didn't give them $125 billion. and We promised them.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: OK, well, wait, um um I'm getting to it. So the on paper amount of aid that we gave them was 175 billion.

James: Okay. this We promised.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: that money, like I can't remember if it's 60 or 66, 60 ish, let's say.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: sixtyishsh let's say of those billions 60. So one third of the 175 is for America to strengthen its position in Europe and to strengthen NATO allies. Okay. That's 66 billion. So one third is just like America having their bases be better. They just put it in the same bill, like 11 billion.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So less than 10%, 11 billion is like direct cash to Ukraine. Um, as a loan that could be repaid and Joe Biden forgave, or no, i think it's I think it was, think it's 9 million.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Joe Biden forgave 4.7 million, which was half of it, okay, of the loan amount. And the other 4.7 billion is for like Trump to decide whether not America is gonna forgive that or like want Ukraine to pay it back. 4.7 billion, not 500, 4.7 was loan, okay, because 9 billion was a loan, 4.7 already forgiven.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: four point seven already forgiven Then you take like the rest of the of the money, right? There's like $11 billion they like went to them as as actual cash. That's like for them to run their government and like pay people for working in the country.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And then i can't remember how much it is, but it's like $50 to billion is is us ah buying new weapons, new artillery and munition and artillery systems and...

James: MRs and taglines, yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: um And missiles and, you know, attack them systems and the air defense systems and ammunition. So stuff for all of those, probably like bullets also.

James: For us to buy new ones, that's, and remember, that's because.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, we're buying new ones and we're giving them our old ones. So all of that money goes directly back into America.

James: By the way,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like we like we just literally went down to like, ah you know, American guns dot com and we just like wrote them a check for 70 billion. And then we just gave away our old shit over to there.

James: by the way, by the way it would cost more for us not to give it to them because it would cost more just to, you know, pay for the replenishment of everything and then have to decommission everything and get rid of the old weapons and everything else.

James: It's actually cheaper just to give it away. So again, we saved money. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah. So like, so this idea that like, we're going to get 500 billion steer point, totally a poison pill, but it's just, it's like, it's patently absurd.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: It's like, it's like vindictively vilely absurd.

James: Yeah, well, you know.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay. Well, we've been like, I've been not getting to say those things about this bullshit for weeks now, but okay.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I had to, had to dig in. Okay. So let's talk about terrorists. So

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Let me just check real quick how much the stock market how the stock market's doing. Just like I'm just going to do like 28 stock market loses 3.1 trillion in value. If you just Google stock market, that's the the first thing from Wall Street Journal.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Let me just to let me talk Dow. Dow Jones.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay, down... 4% today. we're down to 40,545, which is a drop of 1,679 or 3.98%. that's, that's today. so 1679 is the drop today. the past five 1699 down.

James: Damn.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: It's almost all today. Right. you look the past,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: three point nine eight percent

James: Man.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: and so like that's that's today so so sixteen seventy nine is the drop today in the past five days it's sixteen ninety nine down so's almost all today right but if you look at the past

James: and come Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Six months, we're down $14.65. You look at the past one month, we're down $26.45.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah. So it's real <unk> ugly. It's trillions of dollars just evaporating.

James: And I can, well, and you actually hear the thing I was listening, was listening little bit earlier and, um, Oh God, I can't remember who it was. I think it was, uh, Michael Steele actually. Right.

James: Uh, Mike Steele talking with, um, One of the guys in the bulwark. And it actually made perfect sense. Now, first of all, two things. Because when you had that article about the 32% for Sweden, you know, and that's why i saw, you know, you were talking top about that article, but Axios already broke the the math on it, and it is the simplest, simplest formula ever. They were laughing, saying, man, it's like a 10-year-old did this, you know?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Oh yeah, it was like, it was like, it was like in exports minus imports divided by total imports or something like, yeah.

James: There isn't.

James: You take the... Yeah, you look at the You just look at the U.S. trade deficit with each country, right? And then you just divide that. You divide that number by two or whatever like that.

James: like The formula is divide the U.S. trade deficit with each country by that country's exports to the U.S., right? And then you just divide that number by two, and there's your tariff.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah.

James: And literally, that's all it is, right? It's like, all right, we sell, you know, it's like, hey, the people of

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: yeah

James: fucking, don't know, let's just say Nicaragua. I don't know. Nicaragua. Okay. They don't buy a whole lot of American shit, but we buy, buy fucking $500 billion dollars worth of bananas.

James: mean, it's something, right?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah.

James: Okay. Well, let's take what they're giving to us, divide that by two. Okay. They are getting the shit tariffed out of them, which really, so in other words, in essence, what you're doing is you are punishing Americans Harder and harder for the shit that we buy the most.

James: 10 years ago, Republicans...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah. So like, so for the, for the umpteenth time, okay, the tariffs are a tax.

James: ah

James: no

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay. They're a tax hike.

James: a

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Tariffs are a tax increase.

James: ten years ago republican

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And And unlike unlike every other large tax increase that we've ever done, it's not progressive. okay it is it is it's the opposite of progressive. it's It affects the poorest people the most because most of the people are poor and everyone eats.

James: yeah

James: Yeah. And what this also does is a lot of these countries, it makes it's going really kill a lot of these countries with these sticking. Like that Vietnam, Vietnam, right?

James: We've been actually getting pretty close to Vietnam in recent years and they really don't like China, you know? And so us and Vietnam, they were like really looking forward to having like a little good partnership with them, right?

James: Keep China in check a little bit more, right? they now have a 46% tariff because we buy a lot of cheap clothes from them. And, and, and the poor people of Vietnam, you know, I mean, there's not a whole lot of stuff that we export to Vietnam.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: get ready to start paying $6 for a t-shirt from Timu instead of three.

James: So, you know,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: That's right.

James: But it's, so it's really, really dumb. So really what it's going to do is it's going to really hurt these developing small countries, right? That send a lot of stuff over to us that makes their economy grow, even though it's peanuts.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: sir Yeah.

James: i mean, they're not paying people a lot of money, you know, to make soccer balls and fucking shirts, you know? um But it's booming their economy. You know mean? Because they have, hey, Americans are buying all the stuff. Oh my God. And and it makes them like us.

James: Because look, we all have jobs now. And those Americans are buying all of our stuff. We're sipping all of our stuff to America. So when America says, hey, guys, let's all get along a little better. You know, Hey, that war was a long time ago. We're friends now. Right. And they're fuck yeah, we're friends.

James: Shit. You know, if it wasn't for trade to the United States, half our people would be poor, you know, or but they're still poor, but you know, they have no jobs.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: between that and USAID where we're like, oh, we're going to...

James: Yeah. That USAID. Exactly, man. We were making friends, you know, the developing parts of the world, put a 46% tariff on these textiles that come from Vietnam. And why are people going to buy it? They're not,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You know, so like...

James: They're still not going to buy a whole lot of stuff from here because, I mean, you know, we don't want to pay people a living wage to fucking sit there and run a sewing machine all day. You know, we don't.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Well, even... even beyond that, even beyond like if we were going to, like if we were going to, it would be robots. First of all, it wouldn't be people.

James: yeah exactly. It wouldn't people.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But, but even if we were going to, it takes three to five years to, to put together, to develop an industry, to like put together the factories.

James: Years to build up an industry. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So no one is going to make a five year bet on this nonsense chaos continuing.

James: Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Instead, everyone's going to make no bet. Everyone's going to stop. There's going to hold, they're going to, Hoddle. They're going hold on for dear life. They're batten down the hotches. They're going to lay people off, which is what's happening to American auto workers.

James: but but here's

James: But here's what it also does with these tariffs. Because here's the real reason behind the tariffs. Because he can always do an exemption, right? He's done this the time. Okay, I'll give another month. I'll do this. I'll lower it on steel. I'll do this. on the audit He always is gets to pick and choose, right? Because...

James: So long as the Republicans are not, you know, asserting their authority under the law and just ceding it to Trump to let him do whatever he wants with tariffs, that puts take Trump in total control.

James: So what is he going to do? Okay, you have a big, big tariffs on steel and auto things in between Mexico and United States. Well, maybe he gets all those auto manufacturers to come plead their case and kiss the ring and offer him things, offer him gratuities, we'll say.

James: you know, and maybe if they give him enough gratuities, then maybe he'll just rave the exemptions, you know, and know what? That's an official act, you know, doing tariffs is an official act.

James: So it's not like he could get prosecuted for using this position to be the mob boss and get a cut of everybody's business.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Well, you remember also, like, so long as they give him the money after that, you know, like.

James: Well, it wouldn't even matter. doesn't even matter. He's, he's got immunity now.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But even like he's got double immunity, because so long as you give them the bribe after it's not it doesn't matter.

James: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They already said that's okay. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, like bribes after as long as I like I give you the money and then you do the thing.

James: I know.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So I like you do the thing and then I give you the money.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: That's totally fine.

James: Yeah. So I imagine what we're going to see is with these tariffs, he doesn't give a shit about the country. and We've always said that. We said that last week. He cares about him. Doesn't care what the stock market's doing. Why would he care if the stock market is tanking when A, he's about to dump $2 billion worth Truth Social and B, he can just use his power of the tariff to have all these business leaders and all these other countries buy Trump coins or, you know, do whatever. Give him a golf course. Give him a hotel. Give him do whatever. You know what I mean? And then, okay, I'll let the tariff go.

James: Okay, here you are Robbery. That's what it is. That's what I think it is. i think that's the real reason why everybody, every nation, even the ones we have a surplus with, has a 10% minimum tariff.

James: So that's why he gets to try to just dictate and bribe his way through everything.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, but I mean, he had like, I don't know, two to five billion dollars before, you know, he got elected the second time and he had like 50 billion dollars of like Trump coin after the first like three days.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You know, I'm sure like, I'm

James: Well, the value has been... He didn't have that much. But, I mean, yeah, either way, the value has been going down. But, no, he owns 2 point something billion and the whole the whole thing's worth 5. five The whole thing is worth 5.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, but like...

James: And he he's right he about to dump 2. They just filed a thing there yesterday. They filed a petition thing to the SEC or whatever so that he can unload his Trump coins.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, but the next...

James: He's denying that he's going to sell. It's just saying that he would have the ability to sell, people. Get it right. Fake news. to make him look bad. He's not trying to do that. He just wants to have the option.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: i I mean, i suppose that like, you know, he's going to get his he he's definitely a grifter, so he's going to get his grift on wherever he can.

James: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But I think the the purpose of the tariffs is to tank the West.

James: Oh, there's that, too. I'm sure that put a split. I mean, yeah, there's that.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You know, it's like it's like when Putin goes to Putin, goes to everyone's like Putin only went to like North Korea and was like, hey, you want to help me fight the Ukrainians?

James: Vladimir Putin's put

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: He went to everybody, of course.

James: well

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: you know like The reason Nicaragua is not sending troops to to help you know to have Putin throw at bullets is because they like America.

James: They don't have a lot to it.

James: um Cuba was. Nepal was.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: they're They're selling us bananas. Or it's probably coffee, but you know you get the point.

James: They were taking Cubans. They taking Nepalese. They were taking Africans. Chinese. North Koreans. but But yeah, I mean, Russia doesn't have a whole lot of real good alliances.

James: They don't have a lot of good friends. They have a handful. they got Okay, you got the Iranians, you got the pariahs of the world, and you have China, because they're China. They're communist China, they're you know right there.

James: And China's like, alright, cool, we're about to have a vassal state in Russia. you know

James: but

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: at a Vassal gas station.

James: Yeah. yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So like, so it's continuing on the tariffs. So like the, the real effects of the tariffs are already coming home, right? Because Stellantis, which makes, I forget which cars, but they're American made cars.

James: Thank

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: um They have a couple of factories that make drive trains and they ship those parts, some of them to Canada and some to Mexico where they're, they get put into the car.

James: you.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And they have, i think it's like 4,800 people at one plant and 2,700 people at another plant. I can't remember if there were, if it was just two plants or if there was like three or four plants, but it was, you know, however many people they have. Right.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But they're laying off 900 union auto workers because they're like, yeah, well it's 25% tariff on cars.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So we make car parts. So we're laying people off. And so like, You know, these are good union jobs. You know, people who work for car manufacturers, blue collar, probably Trump voters. A lot of them are in like um like Michigan, ah Wisconsin, Pennsylvania kind of area.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: He's he's literally like getting his base laid off.

James: Yeah, but he's never cared about them.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, but you would think that, like, you know, they would care about them.

James: I don't think so. They won't care about him until it really, really, really, really affects them. That's what we've seen with these voters i'm in time and time again.

James: You know? As long as you can hate somebody else and blame somebody else for all your woes, you know, cool. As long as you can feel superior to somebody else, cool. I'll let you do a lot. They have to really, really feel the pain.

James: And even if they do, doesn't mean they're going to blame Trump. If there's always some other scapegoat, you know, there's always those Jews and George Soros types or something that they'll, you know, I mean, yeah, exactly.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: With the space lasers affecting the weather.

James: You know, i mean, think here, think about this. The way I think of a lot of these voters who are getting, going to get hammered the worst. It's like the people from Warren Jeffs, you know, that, ah you know, that, what do you call it?

James: FLDS sect. Remember down in Texas and Utah, you know, the guy who was Warren Jeffs, he was, you know, offshoot of the Mormons.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: no I don't and know what this is at all you have from the beginning.

James: You know, they were marrying the little underage girls off and basically selling them off to other, you know, rich dudes. You know, the older guys would get all the little young girls. had the book. you know, that would do all stuff, and you know, and and they ran this cult for a long time. And, you know, he's in jail now, right?

James: He's been out for his life in jail, but he's still the prophet and he still controls the church and they still go whatever, you know, and a lot of these kids and stuff like that, they got away, right? They they were able to, you get taken out of there, but you know what?

James: They little bit older and they went back. And he's still the prophet. A lot of them. He's still the prophet. They still do this. They still don't talk their other family members. And they can't talk to the outside world because he is still their prophet.

James: You know? And the the Trump thing is a cult, man. It is really hard to get people out of a cult.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Well, because you've got to believe that you have to, in order to leave the cult, right, you have to, you have to, to like, but you have to realize, yeah, you have to have like the reason to leave.

James: Recognize it. That's such a...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So you have to believe that it is a cult. Okay.

James: Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And if you're going to take on the belief that it is a cult, then you're goingnna have to also take on the belief that like, you were, ah you were a part of this thing that caused all of this harm that you denied

James: You were wrong. You were part of the... Yeah. Mm-hmm.

James: And...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Right? So, like, now all the, like, all people who are hungry, all the people who are sick, all the, everyone who is hurting in them, all of the many, many ways that they are hurting, you know?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You have to, like, own your part of it. And you were wrong. You know?

James: um And a lot

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And you're, for each one of them, right, it's not just, like, one person. It's, like, it's a huge area. It's everyone in your family and your friend group. So, like, Even like you have to all believe at the same time decide to to swap, you know, and they're just not gonna.

James: yeah and mean And that doesn't...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Mm

James: No, exactly. and Like like that those cults, right? The people never, almost never, I don't think they ever did, really get out on their own. Maybe here and there. A little, small, tiny person. One kid might run away or something and make it and be like, holy shit, that was fucking... I can't believe that was how crazy that shit was, right?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: hmm.

James: But the masses stay in there because they don't know any better. And the people who are all watching Newsmax and stuff like that, they're not going to know any better.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: They're very Stockholm. And that's that's why, you know, they're getting rid of the Department of Education and they're defunding the part of the government that funds public libraries.

James: Yeah.

James: Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And they're trying to, you know, change the way elections work so that the federal government can.

James: Yeah, the federal government. Yeah, so he can ah say who can and can't vote. So his officials, his appointees will be able to make the determination of people if people are eligible voters or not.

James: Mm hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I'm still waiting for like this series of like escalations that they're going to use to justify taking the power away from the states so they can have a constitutional convention.

James: Oh, no, that that actually is the. Well, you don't have it on the board here, but I mean, honestly, I think that goes right into the whole deportation chaos because they're already been escalating that. The government's already. i think that's the next part because it talk about escalation.

James: how How much more of an escalation can you get than the government going to court and saying, hey, we know there was an administrative error and we absolutely should not have deported this guy and probably 150 people.

James: But the right of the president to deport anybody he wants outweighs the need of an individual person to not be sent to a fucking horrible a hellscape detention center where, you know, he loses his entire life.

James: they actually They actually are saying that. They're like, yeah, they admit, yep, mistake shouldn't have happened. But A, it's more important that the president has this authority than his rights. And B, eh, you know what?

James: He's already gone, so we can't do shit about it.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So this goes all the way back to the Constitution due process. In the Fifth Amendment, this amendment states that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

James: and

James: But they argue that that only applies to citizens.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: No one. It doesn't even say citizens.

James: I know.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: It says no one.

James: The 14th

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: not not no citizen. No one. And there's the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868.

James: yeah the fourteenth Amendment...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: The Fourteenth Amendment uses the same language to describe a legal obligation of all states, ensuring that no state can deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So you have due process at the state level and you have due process at the federal level if you are a person in America. If you are a one.

James: Well, 14. Hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Per the Constitution.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: you know, but then they're going after the judges, too.

James: yeah Well, they're already he's already, by executive order, said that the 14th Amendment doesn't even matter anymore.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: That doesn't it doesn't work that way.

James: He's overruled the 14th Amendment. He's overruled it. It doesn't matter anymore. It's gone. Executive order. Escalation.

James: Let's see what this Supreme Court does. And if they listen if you listen to them.

James: Yeah, escalation is going fast.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean, what do you think is going happen if like the Supreme Court says, okay, like you know put pump the brakes, bro.

James: Escalation

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: like No, you can't executive order your way around the Constitution. The fuck are you talking about? you know like That's what the k Supreme Court says. And Trump goes, cool story, bro. You and what army are going to enforce going to do whatever I feel like, though.

James: Yeah, i mean, they've already said that about the other judges.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Grab him by the pussy. if you're If you're the president, you can do whatever you want. Grab him by the pussy. So that's what going to do and

James: They've already said that. They've already been saying

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And then he's... And then he's it's going to come down to like, you know, the the National Guard, ah which is always deployed by the state. It's always the state National Guard. So the governor of a state deploys National Guard.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So like the National Guard of like Chicago or New York, or I'm sorry, not Chicago, but Illinois or New York or California is going to go out there and oppose, you know,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: is going to stand with the Supreme court against Donald Trump and whatever he's trying to do. Then the federal government is going to send down some kind of order. It's like, no national guard, like you're going to be with us now, or he's going to take the military and deploy them domestically against the national guard, which answers to the governor of, of a state, you know, like, and then we're in like a civil war situation because some of them are going to be like, yeehaw cowboy, I'm still drinking the Kool-Aid.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And the rest them are going to be like,

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Nah fam, like I swore to defend and protect the constitution of the United States. You know? so like

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: the danger is real, you know?

James: yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And like, there's all these, you heard about the three professors who are like professors of like fascism, historians. Like there's like Timothy Snyder and then two other people.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Timothy Snyder was the only one that i knew of before hearing about this, but they all said like they're leaving the country. Like, yeah, yeah, it's like fascism is getting real fascist.

James: Yeah. It's already.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I'm out.

James: Exactly. It's. Yeah, people always think, like like we said, I think last week, i know like you said, frog in the pot a pot of water. We are there. People like Chuck Schumer any of the other talking head people, you know, they're like, like I don't think we're there yet.

James: I don't think we're there yet. If he did this, then we would be in a real crisis. We're in a crisis. I don't think we're in a constitutional crisis right now. If he defies the Supreme Court, then we would be in a constitutional crisis. That would be a red line.

James: so That would be too far. You know, they've already been just defying judges. The whole deportation thing, Tom Homan, like he said, you know, he said, I'm proud to be a part of this administration. We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like, is there a single i'm i'm I'm almost positive that there is not a single example of Trump being wrong about something and then saying, you know what? I was wrong about that one.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And ah I've I understand that. And i'm going to be different. You know, like Trump picks a thing and then he just says he just dies on that hill.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like, no matter what, he doesn't change. Trump's our take in Greenland. You know, like Denmark's like, yeah, but that's our NATO ally. So like what you're gonna go to war with NATO, like all of Europe is going to go to war with the United States over Greenland.

James: um Well, they NATO countries think so. They're preparing for it. that's why That's why the Denmark, that's why the you know Prime Minister of Denmark went to Germany and France and UK and everybody else and had everybody else reaffirm their stance that they are committed to make sure they defend everybody's sovereignty.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But at the same

James: They weren't talking about Russia.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah. Yeah.

James: So...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: At the same time, hilariously, ah Europe is talking about, you know, well, we're going to stop buying our bombs and bullets and stuff from the United States because seems like we're going to have to fight you or like at least point our guns at you soon.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And U.S. s officials are like, no, no, definitely keep buying our guns. We'll keep selling them. Which is going to be more jobs that are going to be gone. Because, you know, when we don't sell $220 billion worth arms Europe next year, they should. Hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: arms to europe next year

James: Oh, yeah, they our our government is really pissed about that, man, because Europe is starting to turn out that spigot since Donald Trump.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: they should

James: would be so They are. And even, what is it? Is it Colombia? I think it's Colombia, right? They were going to buy a bunch of F-16s, and Colombia said, you know what?

James: No. They bought the sweden the Swedish Gripen, which is fucking badass plane. But, yeah, they're not going to buy the F-16s. They're going to get the better, faster, cheaper ah Swedish ones.

James: And United States is pissed about that.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Good. Yeah.

James: and And talk about this ramping up and rearming. Rearm Europe. that That whole program they're starting up now. Rearm Europe. And they Donald Trump, their administration is seething right now.

James: Because the United States wasn't invited that. They're like, no, we're we're going to do this without you. And he's like, wait, hey, hey, you ah you guys need to buy our weapons. they're like, yeah, no, we need to ah we need to become independent.

James: We don't need to not be relying on you guys for weapons. You are not reliable. And they are so pissed.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: yeah

James: So, yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I love it.

James: Yeah. And I was, by the way, I was Googling if he ever admitted a mistake. i The closest it was is that he, the closest it was is when he was talking to Lex Friedman, Friedman, whatever, that Russian, you know, podcaster guy.

James: very Anyway, yeah, he he said he lost by a whisker in 2020.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Mm-hmm.

James: But then he backtracked. Everybody was like, oh my God, he admitted he lost. And he's like, no, I didn't. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. is It was stolen. It was just by Whittaker.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: No loser, no loser, you're a loser.

James: um Yeah. So, yeah, he never... In fact, he says he's right about everything. He's said that a million times. But, yeah, I mean, shit. I don't think it's hyperbole to think very close to a civil war, although, shit, man, the way this country is, the way the the way that people are going along, you get along, Republicans are just like...

James: whatever he wants, man. The rest of the session is one year or that one day, you know, so that way we don't have to over do this.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay.

James: And I mean, they just won't do anything the way, you know, the like like like law firms are just like, Oh, Trump is threatening to sue just random law firms.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Thank you.

James: Anybody who has somebody who works for them, you know, that he doesn't like, He's like, I'm going to sue your law firm. And then he's like, okay, all right, you give me $50 million. dollars Okay, I'll drop my lawsuit.

James: And then like the same thing with mergers. Hey, I don't like you. I don't like you. MSNBC, I don't like you. like Hey, if you're going to do a merger, if you want to sell this part of company off, you better make a deal. You better make a deal. Give me money.

James: You know, left and right. He's just doing corrupt things like that. And everybody just keeps backing down and doing stuff. I don't think there would be a big, huge civil war, you know? I think it'd be a whole bunch of people thinking, oh, well, you know, hey, we'll just let him run for a third term because, mean, shit, now he's like 80, 46 years old. I mean, how much worse? and He's going to die here soon. Just let him have a third term.

James: Now, and actually, had ah we had a fun theory about that. if If he somehow, if the Supreme Court somehow ruled that he can have a third term, he could run for a third term, or and or the, you know, Republicans,

James: pass something. I don't see how it's possible, but let's just say somehow it's ruled that the president can serve three terms as long as it's not yeah consecutive, right?

James: I already know, we already know who is going to be the absolute perfect candidate who will save the Democrats if there can be fair and free elections.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I don't think so.

James: You don't think Barack Obama would come out of retirement for a third term?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I wouldn't want Barack Obama.

James: You wouldn't want Barack Obama to run against him?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: No.

James: Barack Obama. Man, shit.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: No.

James: Wow.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: i don't I don't want... ah Dude, I don't want... and this is the the same This is the same position.

James: I would want who can win. That's what I would want.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: like I don't want who can win. but what i don't i don't want some like ah corporatist sellout candidate who's going to pitch...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: who's going to pitch hope and change and deliver business as usual. I don't want it. I want the Democrats to learn that that doesn't sell. And I want people to stop buying their shit until they stop offering it.

James: oh

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I would rather have fascism.

James: and Oh God.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: If you would like, if you would like to defend freedom, ah you're invited to do it. If you would like to pretend to, to fight fascism while actually rolling over, go fuck yourself. Let's die together.

James: oh

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Fuck it. Burn it burn it down.

James: and

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Burn it down. There's other countries.

James: This is where they call it the horseshoe theory.

James: The Horseshoe Ferry, where the far left and the far right are really close.

James: Oh, man. Yeah. Oof. I don't like that idea.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I'll leave. I'll just umll go to some other country.

James: Hmm.

James: Well, I don't want to have to.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like

James: i mean, you know, Mauritius is great every time of year, but, you know.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Greece, Costa Rica, Uruguay.

James: but Okay. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Lots of good options.

James: but But yeah, it's good. it's it's We're going to see. you know But the other thing is, you know what? Here. These tariffs, they start shitting all over the economy.

James: Everybody starts getting pissed off. Shit goes bad. Maybe another health pandemic comes along because we're just getting rid of everything. you know All public workers, FDA people.

James: mean, shit. Foodborne illnesses. We can't inspect food anymore. They're getting rid of everybody. It's not like inspecting

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Oh, they fired the the heads of departments at the National Institute of Health.

James: Oh, I was thinking more about all of the FDA inspectors getting fired, you know? So thinking about them, you know? Cause like, even though before it was like, we tested like not even 1% is like half a percent something like that.

James: But I'll test like little samples here.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah.

James: but Either way, now we're getting rid of all of them. So now there's nobody to test for shit. So.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, it's like 40,000 or 50,000 meat

James: Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: it's like forty or fifty thousand meat processing facilities in the United States.

James: Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: They're supposed to have an inspection like every 60 days or something.

James: Okay.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And there's like 1500. ah Well, this is like old data too. This is like from when I was in high school. So it's 20 years ago. There were, there were like 1500 when the book was written before this 25 years ago, at least um from a fast food nation by Eric Nyland.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: That's probably the wrong author, Eric, something somebody, something fast food nation is the book though. Pretty sure. ah but it's the the amount of people who are like inspectors for meat processing plants versus the number of people, the the number plants that there are means that like, there's no way for them to see each of them more often than once every 15 years.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: It's supposed to be once every like 60 days or 90 days or 30 days or something like that.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So like, there's no, there's no way to do the oversight properly, which is why you have like,

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: you know outbreaks of ah you know

James: So why, yeah so then like the Trump administration says, hey, so why bother even doing anything? Let's just not do anything.

James: uh great yeah ivermectin man grab your ivermectin

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: yeah I mean children will die middle age people will die young people will die old people will die grab grab some bleach inject that

James: yeah uh so we'll see what happens though man but it wasn't what the point was saying is if everything starts going to shit like that right some health pain everything gets bad Usually when somebody is really unpopular, when your leader is that unpopular because everything has gone to shit, and then the courts have to decide if they want to, let's just kind of let you do everything.

James: they can drag it out, decide on that third term when he's down in like, you know, the 30% polling range and, you know, economies and the shitter and everything else. Maybe maybe that's when they would rule. Yeah, no, sorry.

James: text is pretty clear and maybe that's when people would grow a spine because they want to look out for their own political future you know

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean, do you think if we if we had elections that were not compromised, right? We'd have fair and free elections.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Do you think that in the midterms, the Republicans will retain a majority in the house in, in, in the house or the Senate.

James: in either country no neither neither

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: No. So do you think in four years that America would choose to have another Republican president after, you know, the rest of the rest of the remaining three years and eight months of Trump?

James: That depends. That depends on a lot. I can't speak to that. I can speak to the next election. Because right now, I mean, it's all one party rule, basically. One party rules at all.

James: and And in the first midterm, but every every president every president from one party in the first midterm always loses seats. Every single time.

James: Except for the one time with Bush, you know, with 9-11.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah.

James: It wasn't even his first term. I believe that was his first term. Yeah, it was 9-11. 9-11 is the exception to the rule. right Other than that, though, party in power loses seats in the midterms.

James: I mean, and right there, the margins are already so close. Yeah, no, I don't think they're going to on to it. Maybe the Senate, maybe they hold on to the Senate. We only have one Democrat who has to run for re-election, who will probably lose.

James: And but a whole bunch of Republicans that have to defend, you know? So it's a lot easier for the Democrats.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: The Democrats, you think the Democrat will lose?

James: Yes, I do.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Where is that? Which seat? Who's that?

James: and

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You think John Ossoff is going to lose?

James: John Ossoff in Georgia.

James: In Georgia, yes.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: John Ossoff is great. Who's he running against?

James: It doesn't matter, but it's probably not going to be a pedophile.

James: Or Kelly Leffler.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: What?

James: I mean, here.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Wait, are you saying John Ossoff is a pedophile?

James: for

James: No, I'm talking about like here. When you had like here, Roy Moore in Alabama, right? and And Doug Jones, right?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Oh, like Roy Moore, not a pedophile.

James: Yes. Yeah. Like Roy Moore, the pedophile. That's how Doug Jones got in there, right? When you had, mean, Kelly Loeffler was the one running against ah John Ossoff, you know, as right on the back of all the insider trading and all the other stuff that she did criminally. you mean, and right on the back of that, and she got appointed. She didn't even win her primary. She was appointed by the corrupt governor. And and who was the ah the senator who had to resign oh to get that spot?

James: but i mean, it somebody else who was... in some trouble with it. Who was it in Georgia? The Republican senator who got in trouble, which is the whole reason why Kelly Loeffler was appointed. And then John also had to run against her in the special election.

James: Oh God.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I don't remember.

James: Who was that? george It was Georgia's senator. Resign. Kelly Loeffler. Let's see.

James: Yeah. to tooo

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: you're looking that up on the topic of predictions, you know, remember when we said that that there would be the tariffs and the deportations of the good people and, and the the stock market would crash and the,

James: yeah Yeah,

James: it's happening.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: All of our predictions were we're batting 100 so far.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Just wanted to pat my myself on the back there for being able to understand the obvious.

James: Hmm. Hmm.

James: Oh, data center he resigned for, quote, health reasons. Was that really health reasons or was it a scandal that was claimed to be health reasons?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean, having sex with too many minors is is a health is a health reason.

James: No, this guy. and No, it looks like this guy really was just health reasons. Whatever. He looked like he was a normal dude.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I see.

James: come Anyway, yeah, but Kelly Lefler was appointed after like losing a primary. She got appointed anyway. And then she was already unpopular and whatever.

James: That's how John Ossoff got in there. right um he's super weak opponent and is riding a wave of just you know yeah anyway yeah it was it only went to trump by like five or six points

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: He had a weak opponent.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean, georgia's Georgia was really close though, wasn't it?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean, that's pretty close.

James: not really it's not that close Not in a state that Biden won four years earlier. That's not close. oh But yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I don't know. I want to believe in John Ossoff. Maybe he'll... ah You know, maybe if he loses, he'll run for president.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I don't even know if he's old enough to run for president. Is he old enough?

James: I'm sure he is. Yeah. but Either way.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: He's got that baby face.

James: Either way. and It doesn't really matter. i mean, either way, like said, it's Georgia, though, still. It's Georgia. I mean, shit. I mean, I cannot believe they got two Democratic senators in Georgia right now. That's still baffling the mind. You know what mean?

James: And I don't expect it to last.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I can.

James: You know?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I feel like we flipped Georgia.

James: We didn't. They got Brian Kemp in there. they i mean, Jesus. Just because Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger didn't ah just find the votes for Trump Nobody should be fooled that they are... They're the ones who made it illegal to give water to people in line in the polls.

James: Let's remember this stuff here. You know what I mean?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like it influenced their vote.

James: Exactly. I mean, million-dollar checks, okay. Water, not okay. Just remember that. right.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: They made it so much worse. They made it' like you can't sit. You can't give someone a chair.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You can't hold their space in line.

James: Yeah, and they closed out all... Yeah, it's a close...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And they close all the polls at polling centers.

James: room calling places make you stand in line for 20 hours yeah exactly yeah so that's who's running Georgia so let's not kid ourselves about it's just hey it's a blue state now it's not

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah. Yeah.

James: ah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay, but you know at the same time that that happens, you can vote early.

James: maybe yeah yeah I mean it's it's different everywhere who knows I mean if Trump gets his way you know

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Still an option.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I guess I don't know about Georgia. I only know here. I know in Illinois, but I don't know Georgia.

James: Who knows what the federal government will say.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like, in my opinion, okay, in my opinion, I think that there is no reason in a modern setting to have ah poll place where you go and wait in line and do something with paper.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And I think that there's no reason to have, if you're going to have a poll place where you go and do stuff with a number to have it just be like 24 hours only, you know, like how about a month of voting?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, we're going to start counting the votes i think votes as they come in all month long. Vote a palooza. You know?

James: yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And then you're going to have, you can have be like, oh shit, like Trump's way up. Now I got to go vote. Or the other person's way up. I got to go vote. Or like, wait, what? Oh, a tariff means what? He said, Obamacare the same thing as the ACA. Oh shit. I got to go change my vote and then go change your vote.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like it should just be an app. You should just, you should just like, you know, flip it one way or the other. And you know, when time's up, like, like musical chairs, like wherever you're sitting, that's where you're sitting when time's up.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But until then you can just like flop it back and forth and everyone can see live the count.

James: Honestly, i don't know I'm little different. I mean like this.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You think it should be like a one day only and a pole place and lines and all this bullshit.

James: I'm all for it. No. who No. But I don't think it should be like an app on your phone. I don't think it should be something like that. I think you should be a allowed to change it. If you decide to change your vote, I think you should be able to go places. I think like every public i place, like post office, every post office, every school, every public building, right?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Uh-huh.

James: Everything. They should all be polling places. They should have ah little, you know, fucking iPad or something in there, right, for people to just tap, tap, tap, do their votes, right?

James: And, yeah, I think it should be like a month or two, and if you already did it, you can change your vote and things like that. I don't like to be a taking it mobile, you know, letting people just walk around on their cell phones. I mean, shit. maybe their husbands beat up their wife. They look at their phone and they go and they change their other person's phone. And, you what mean? I, I'd like the idea of having a secure place, you know what I mean? Maybe you have like a public building there and maybe have like a, you know, cop or something there just to make sure that, you know, no one's changing somebody else's votes, things like that, whatever, you know, and just let people, you know,

James: doing it for like a month or two you know i i think that's fine you know and and honestly like the mail stuff is um i'm okay with that too you know i mean somebody gets a little thing of mail they get it okay they write it they slip it out into a mailbox but you know i mean

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I'm not okay with the mail thing because they're coming so hard after the mailman.

James: well there's that and with the whole thing it's one of the things that trump was trying to do with this whole federal election thing he's trying to go after the states that says hey You voted in time. We can see it because it was postmarked at the post office on time before voting stopped.

James: But we didn't get a count it until afterwards, right? And then and they count it because you can clearly see that person voted in time.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: okay

James: Trump does not like that. No, no, sirree, Bob. Too late. You can't count that after the election day. But they voted before election day. Doesn't matter. All right.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, I think that the upside of like vote on your phone from your couch gets so many more people who wouldn't vote to vote that the votes we lose from like the woman with the abusive partner takes her phone and switches her vote and she doesn't check it again.

James: um

James: Whatever.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like here's how, no, but here's how, here's exactly how this is.

James: can even enforce that, man? I mean, Jesus, haven't you ever played a mobile game?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: This is the part that kills me because I feel like this is incredibly simple. Okay. You number the votes. one to three hundred and forty million.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: OK, everybody gets a number and the the the the role is public and we all see which like which vote goes to which county.

James: OK.

James: No.

James: OK, that's the which person?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Not to which person, but you get a number. So you're going to get like number, say you're number one. You would see number one. Number one would be to the county where you live. And you would go online and say, where's vote number one? Is it is it the way that I voted?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And everyone would be able to go to the Internet, look at their number, check, compare the receipt to the online. Every single person would be able to do it.

James: no man ah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And you'd know exactly how many counties.

James: I don't know, I don't like that idea either, though, man, because here, people talk, man. Oh, hey, what's number? Oh, my number's this. what's your number? Oh, hey, James' number's 48,000. forty eight thousand Oh, really? Oh, here.

James: Oh, ja here he told me. His number's 48,000. You I mean?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, but you'd make the number and you'd make the number a 19-digit alphanumeric thing that no one's going to remember.

James: Oh, great. Yeah, that's great, because that won't make you problems for anybody. Shit.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: why there would

James: I hate passwords.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Why would it make a problem?

James: I hate passwords. Because even passwords right now are fucking stupid, man. have to have like a fucking 12 or 16 digit password. Oh, God. Help me, man. No.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: No, dude, you don't have to you don't have a password.

James: so

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You're just going to load the app.

James: It's the same thing. It's a voting number. It's a number that you have to have.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You're going to... You're gonna load the app.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You're gonna do your vote. You're gonna take a screenshot of it.

James: u miss Yes, because the 90 year olds are great with taking screens. Or they can still go and vote in person anyway.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Who cares?

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, or you could go vote in person, but you don't have to.

James: Yeah. I don't know.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: like

James: It should be a lot easier. i mean, yeah, it should be a lot easier.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: like Everything that makes it harder is just a reason to not give it. like we bank We bank on our phones, bro. like We handle the money on our phones. If we can handle the money on our phones, we can handle the voting on our phones.

James: I agree that. I just, you know, don't know.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like this is not the science of the rocket.

James: Phones are easily hackable though.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: This is.

James: Phones are easily hackable. You can put a little Bluetooth shit on there. Then you can like sit there and look at somebody's screen. I mean, I don't know. I don't, I think it'd be, I would worry about people doing something on their cell phones because people already don't even realize how insecure their phones are and how their phones can be like, you know, so easily spied on.

James: And the whole thing about having a private but ballot, I don't like the idea of having on cell phones. You know what mean? But you know, In principle, I'm with you on that one. I mean, obviously, I think everybody should be able to I think it's stupid that you even have to register to vote.

James: Why do you have to go out of the way to register?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, you shouldn't have to register. Yeah, you shouldn't have to register.

James: It's stupid. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You should just be, oh, you're in America.

James: Oh, you're an American.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Go vote.

James: Oh, you're an American. Yes. so We have your name. we We know you live. You live here? Okay, cool. That's it. Yeah, you're voting. Why do have to register? yeah we the The state already knows who we are.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yep.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yep.

James: so

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: The same thing is like, why do we got to why do we got to go do our taxes? Why do we got to why do we got to pay TurboTax to do our taxes? Why isn't it just being done? you know, why why you send me a bill?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like, why why am I sending you? Why are you having me do all this to pay someone $100 to tell you how much you owe me? Like, you know, you got all the numbers.

James: Well, they don't have all the numbers. They don't know how they know what you should pay. Here's the reason why. Because they know what you should pay based on your income. Right. Right.

James: They don't know about all of the loopholes that have been written to benefit the rich could be used in your benefit.

James: That's why they don't do it.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like the tax code is is like this absurd thing.

James: That's why.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like it's gone from like 5,000 pages to like 5 million pages or something. It's like it's something some ridiculous number of like, why would it even be that long? And the only reason is because it's like long, complicated exceptions so that people can get away with some shit.

James: Well, yeah. I mean, mostly, a lot of it is yes, but there is, at least, there always had, there used to be, i mean, there's there still is. There's still plenty of exceptions on the books now.

James: for, you know, you can qualify for this if this, you can qualify for this if this. the You know, they want people having kids. They want people owning houses. You know what mean? They give you exemptions for these things, you know, but they um only for one house. They don't want to give it away too much. You can only get the, you know, mortgage deduction thing, blah, blah, blah. There's so many things that you only get for your first house, not for every house, not for a rental.

James: um You do have to expand on things if you're going to go put in exemptions to make it a little bit more fair, give people a break when you want to encourage certain behaviors. Right. You want people buying houses. You want people having kids. You want people getting married, you know, and they do.

James: They want people doing those things because that usually makes for a more stable society, you know, but whatever. So that is why.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Traditionally.

James: Huh?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Traditionally, but you know, kids today aren't getting married like Stats on.

James: I know. That's why they got to stop. a but that's our They start paying their student loans at, you know, 300%. three hundred percent And, and we you know, fuck these kids, man. They don't want to get married. They don't want to have kids. Well, tough.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Tax them.

James: Tax them, motherfuckers.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah.

James: Papa needs and another rental income. Their property. I need to buy another golf course. Make that kid pay. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Oh, my God.

James: Oh, yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, it's so brutal.

James: oh yeah So you have Republican senators kind of developing in slightly a little bit of a spine.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: All right.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: no not at all.

James: Hope.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So let me pull let me pull it up so I can tell you who it is.

James: Hope. A little bit of hope. I don't know who it was was four It was Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and ah Rand Paul.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: ye

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Rand Paul.

James: That's right. Because the tariff is a tax, people. Tariff is tax. But the funny thing is, Jesus Christ, I can't believe all of these Republicans who are like, yeah, tariff, yeah. They all forgot that half of them, because they were still in office and all took that pledge. do Remember the Grover Norquist pledge?

James: Every Republican had to be shamed by this guy, this ugly dude named go Grover Norquist to pledge that he will, they will never raise taxes ever.

James: It was like the litmus test if you want to run as a Republican. You had to sign this pledge because the Republican Party is against taxes and tariffs are tax.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Why?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean...

James: Yeah. Because they used to know I mean, they to know it. Tariff is a tax. I mean, you know. But at same time, i mean, there there is targeted tariffs. There is a reason why Democrats used to love it for specific things. And people always have agreed for specific behaviors, specific actions, tariffs can be fine.

James: Taxing, going to a trade war with 188 countries simultaneously is pretty stupid. We did. That's what we did.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Oh.

James: We just started a trade war with every country in the world. Except for Russia. I think we didn't. What's Russia? Do they even have?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: There's still... No, we're still sanctioned. They're still sanctioned, so everyone but Russia.

James: Yeah. but Everyone but Russia. Exactly. There you go.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Everyone but Russia.

James: Everybody but Russia. But and and we're thinking about lowering these sanctions because, I mean, let's get real now. I mean, Ukraine shouldn't even exist. So, you know. Yeah. Why should we make Russia pay?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay, let me let me change let me switch the topic and switch the tone a little bit.

James: Yeah.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So I know trying to like be done soon. So it's called the clock. But um like my it's like my wife asked me, like, she's like, dude, you know, you always say that like everything the Republicans have done has been bad.

James: Oh yeah. Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: They're just like, they're awful. Like they're all there. They're only awful. Okay. And, you know, the Democrats are only good. And I'll push back and say, no, here's stuff that I disagree with about the Democrats.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But what I can't do is say, here is a single thing that the Republicans did that, like, I think was good for America. Not like, not like, you know, like this thing where it's like a throwaway vote. We're like, these four senators are going to vote for a thing that has a super limited scope. like It's just going to.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: it's just going to not tariff Canada on the pretext of it being about stopping fentanyl because fentanyl doesn't actually come from Canada and any meaningful quantity. So like, that's not why it's like, that's like, that's all this does. This is, Hey, it's not about that.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So you can't tariff them, but that, but they vote for this, you know, getting a 51 to 50 squeaker, knowing that it's not going to pass in the house.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So it doesn't matter. Like, They're not voting on it and like it mattered. like oh it could really happen. They're voting on it and they know it's DOA. So it's like this it's this token thing to be like, see, some of the Republicans care and have sense. and like McConnell's retiring.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: It just doesn't matter at all. It's a giant nothing burger.

James: True. It was the house.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: It's PR stunt.

James: yeah The house was the ones who said for the remainder of the calendar a year, it's one day, right? So they don't have to vote on this.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: yeah

James: So yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So so like so what I want what I want to know from you, OK, is like answer to this question, if you can answer it. OK, what is something that the Republicans have have accomplished that they have passed legislation that like made it into the real world?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: OK, that I would say, well, that's a net positive. That's a good thing for America. That's a good thing for me personally. Even that's a good thing for white men even. OK, like the bar is in hell.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: what What is a single thing in my lifetime that Republicans have done that I would agree with and be like, yeah, I'm glad that happened?

James: Hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Is there anything? Do you got anything?

James: I got one. I got one.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: ah

James: Now, it only worked because Bill Clinton was president, though.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay, what do you got

James: Right. Which was that they didn't get all the way because they wanted to have a balanced budget amendment like to the Constitution. Right. And you know they were dead set about having a, quote, balanced budget, right?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay. Okay.

James: To make sure that we did not spend more than we made. Right?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: hu

James: and then And I actually, well, that's not the current Republican Party, but it's and's a precursor to it. It's when Newt Gingrich was in there and Newt Gingrich turned the Republican Party is very, it turned them into the balanced budget.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: OK, hold on. Hold on. So we we don't have a constitutional amendment that makes it so we have to have a balanced budget.

James: Correct.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And I specified it has to be a thing that actually made it into law.

James: correct, but it did make it into law. That is a, not as a constitutional amendment, but when they were in the, when the Clinton was in office, remember they were doing budget shutdowns and they were doing the government shutdowns and they were holding the government to a shutdown and everything else because they were going to make sure they got a balanced budget.

James: Right. And they had big fights, you know, that's when they started doing the whole shutdowns with, with, with Clinton, you know, um,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: so they So the Republicans balanced the budget under Clinton?

James: playing came out

James: They were the ones in the house. Yeah. And Senate. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay, well, I agree.

James: But did they did a deal with them. I mean, there negotiations and everything else. They didn't get everything they wanted. They didn't get to just, you know, rob everything from social security and didn't get to do all these other things. And they had, you know, there was super, super, you know, ah contentious, you know,

James: you know deal-making fights you know back and forth about to how to do it and what to cut and everything else. And they cut a little bit from the military. you know They gave up some other stuff.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: so so to engage So to engage with this ah just in the terms of what I know, which but my assumption would be this.

James: And we had a belt hook.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: My assumption would be that if I fully investigated this, I would find parts of this decision or effects from the you know the totality of this decision that I would say, actually, i don't like how this went.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But in theory, And without any of the details, the ba balancing the budget seems like a good thing to me.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So, sure. Okay.

James: yeah I mean, that's about that. And they used to be, Republicans used to be considered, oh but usb always hear people like, I'm socially liberal and I'm fiscally conservative.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: but i would But I would still say, like, i don't...

James: Right?

James: He has a ballot budget act of 1997. It was not, it was not yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, but like, so, you know, I don't think that that the credit for that goes to the Republicans. I feel like the credit for that goes to Bill Clinton. Like, it's it's like, um, it's like a you know, like the, the best, like, I'm like, what is it? Republicans done. That was great.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Or like, let's just say it's like a, like a guy named Jeff. Okay. What, what did it, we don't actually have a friend named Jeff just for the record, but like our friend, Jeff. Okay. What if our friend Jeff, like, what's the one thing that Jeff did that everyone would say, that's a good thing.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And your answer is, well, Jeff didn't kill a hobo on Tuesday.

James: you

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So that was, you agree with that, right? It's like, well, yeah, like, I'm glad that Jeff didn't kill a hobo. Like, cause definitely Jeff killing the hobo would have been worse than Jeff not killing the hobo objectively.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But I don't know if you get points for not killing a hobo. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Like you, you let Clinton pass a balanced budget.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You, you let Clinton pass a balanced, even you helped Clinton and pass a balanced budget.

James: Well,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like, Like it was only balanced because of them. Like Clinton was like, no, I want to spend because it doesn't sound like Democrats.

James: no, I mean, here is, it was introduced by John Kasich, Republican, you know, is sponsored by them. It was, it was a Republican bill. know what mean? ah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: hmm.

James: And in the house, Republicans had the house then, you know i mean I think they had the house and Senate actually they did. It was a reconciliation bill that they ran through, you know, and, uh, they it it wasn't exactly bipartisan, but they had some Democrats on board, you know what I mean?

James: And so, I mean, me yeah, they had both chambers and he wasn't going to over, he wasn't going to do a veto.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay, so they had both chambers and they put a thing.

James: You know, he probably would have, I don't know if he would have lost a veto. If he would have, I don't know why he would have vetoed it, you know, was a pretty popular thing, you know? But I mean, it was republican It was a Republican bill. you know There were some negotiations on, like I said, though. they didn't get everything they wanted.

James: I mean, shit. you know They were a different party then, though. you know

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: well, I'll give it to you

James: I mean,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: that That counts. So there's one thing from the the balance.

James: and is not there's not a whole lot, man.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: they've they

James: I mean, there's not really a whole lot. um There have been times when I so i read i've read some things, I'm like, okay, I'm actually okay with that. I'm actually okay with that i That's not horrible. You know what but they're not big they're not big enough or memorable enough. There's not that much. i mean, the balanced budget, the only thing I can remember, because, I mean, shit, 90s pretty awesome on the economy, you know?

James: And our economy debt at the time was so bad. was like, oh, my God, man, this country's to be a banana Republican one of these days, you know what mean? And they're like, oh, they actually got it under control. Good for them. Jesus Christ, they can do it, you know?

James: Ooh. You know, then, you know, four years later, nine eleven and Everybody forgot about that. They forgot all about that, man. That just started soaring more and more and more every year. And now just like, Jesus, how in the world are we not going to become a Banana Republic?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like, ah you know, what we did learn in in Vietnam and like

James: yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: because because you can see that we didn't learn it because we did Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 fucking years. Like, like the I feel like the real lesson there is not like, it's not like, you know, it's probably not going to go well to try to, like, put your boot on the neck of a people who will live in caves and then strap bombs to themselves and, like,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: blow them like unalive themselves to unalive you like boot on the neck of those people like not a good plan that's not even the lesson okay

James: which by the way Which, by the way, another good example of a good thing that Republicans did, George H.W. Bush, Bush Sr., coordinated that whole coalition to keep Iraq doing what the United States wants to do to Greenland.

James: you know They wanted to go occupy Kuwait and take their resources, and he got the whole you know free world together, kick them out, beat the shit out of them. But we had no interest in occupying Iraq. you know That was a good thing.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: George Bush Sr.

James: Senior. Yeah. Quickest war, man. That was a fucking one-sided, just ass-whooping.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Sure, I'll give you that one.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay, so with the lesson here, okay, so the lesson here, ah like

James: but yeah We did right, and we didn't fuck up and stay there and create quagmire and fuck everybody.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: like the lesson isn't even like, don't like, you know, i wish I could remember the quote from,

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: princess bride that's like a silly thing it's like don't fight a sicilian in the rain on sundays or whatever it is but it's you know don't don't have an iraq war that's not even the lesson the lesson is if you spend ah billion dollars a day you know on the american people it will go so much better than if you spend a billion dollars a day on anywhere else you know

James: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like, could you imagine like the, the, how educated we could be, how, how, how much high speed rail, how the brand new apartment buildings that could be everywhere, the homes that could be everywhere, the integrations with, with nature, the advancements in vertical farming and like,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: pollution control like all the things that we could have done with 20 years of a billion dollars a day you know like can you imagine how much good shit we could have like we could have everybody fully educated nobody in poverty like no no one hungry you know what i mean like yeah like america could be like dubai you know like everyone just wants to go there because everything's just fucking awesome you know like

James: me

James: ah dar Yeah. Oh, yeah.

James: um Yeah.

James: yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Oh.

James: Yeah, I mean, honestly, here's the thing, though. We talk about Republicans, have they done good? have they done bad? You know, right?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: hmm.

James: Up until, up until the 2000s, the late 90s, it started, right? But up until then, right? Republicans, sure, they were for the business. They were for the rich.

James: You know what mean? But they weren't. I mean, they they were usually pro-life, but not all of them, you know. ah they were big business, right?

James: And there's nothing wrong with supporting that. You need big businesses. You know, you need to make sure our, I'm just saying, you need to have economies that grow. You need to have good companies that can hire a lot of people. you want your economy to well. You want to grow. You'll be export stuff around the world, blah, blah, blah. It's all good for our economy.

James: Right.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I think you need medium sized businesses, but go on.

James: But either way, well, medium, small, medium-sized businesses generally can't export large scale around the world and everything else, right? so anyway, big business is good, but here's the point is this.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Nope. Okay, I'll let you have

James: The point is, you know, that's fine, you know? And the other party, it's for the little guy, the working guy, whatever, right? the The thing is, and what they used to be, the parties used to do is they used to compromise and talk and actually hammer out things.

James: You didn't have, because of here, if you have a one-party system, You get Nazi Germany, or you get Soviet Russia, or you get, you get you know, oh something horrible.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Or, or, or you get China.

James: but You always get something horrible, right? Yeah, exactly. Not a good thing, you know.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I don't know. I feel like China's doing pretty good.

James: or Okay, whatever, man. all right. I don't want to get run over by the tanks of the government because, you know, I said something bad or I don't want to get disappeared for anything, you know, because they can just do whatever the fuck they want to do.

James: There's a reason they track everybody's purchases now. That's why all their purchases i have to be on digital. That way the government knows everything you spend your money on. They know every website you go to. They know every internet site you go to. They monitor it down. They lock it down. So you only hear what they want you to hear. i mean, yeah, I don't want to live in China.

James: One party rule, not a good thing anywhere. It never has been, you know, you need a balance. You need a balance. If you had a group of really poor people and a group of really rich people,

James: But they would actually talk. You actually come together and make something that's actually that, you know, that's decent. You know, problem is the parties don't do that anymore.

James: They don't do that. And we're talk about that Overton window, like we said last week, you know, we talk about the Republican Party just gone further off the rails, man, just farther and farther and farther. And, you know, and there's only one other party, you know.

James: and Over 10 window shifts. Now you're like, hey, Democrats aren't even really a Democratic Party. They're more conservative party. It never used to be that way. I mean, Democrats were always like, hey, let's shake things up. Let's change things. Hey, civil rights, women's rights. Let's do this. Gay rights.

James: You know, they they wanted more things. they went You what I mean? Right now, they're just trying to hang on, man. You know, they're trying to keep the country together. And right now, that is, I mean, it's the most important thing, I think. trying to Hey, let's not let this fucking whole democracy thing go away, people.

James: You know?

James: If it was a balance, it'd be fine. It's just not a balance when you have one party just going nuts and just doing whatever the fuck they want. you have a And you have an entire branch of government acquiescing to another one.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Well, so I know you know this, but I'm just going to give a brief history of why it is that way for fan. um So this thing with Clinton, where they balance the budget, turns out that was wildly popular.

James: It was.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And the Republicans realized that if they were going to beat Clinton and the Democrats, they couldn't allow them to get wins while they were in office. Even if the the the quote unquote wins.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: were really for the American people. And they were things that they had negotiated because they were unwilling to follow the masses in in terms of policy with where they wanted to go.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So in response to that, okay, they became an obstructionist party. Instead of someone who would negotiate, they became obstructionist. And then they started with Fox News. And then what happened is over 40 years, they eroded state governments.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: They eroded... the idea of the news, right? They eroded this, like the the idea that there is a single truth and that facts are a single thing that we can agree on.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: They eroded the idea that like America is one, is one collective endeavor. And that when America, when any part of America does good, America is doing good.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And when any part of America suffers, all of America suffers.

James: Yeah. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So, We have to create the most good and avoid the most suffering in order to be on the right track. We used to all agree on that. And they would say, oh, well, we got to do a little more to business. And then they would say oh, well, we got to do a little more to unions.

James: yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And they would push and pull, you know, and they would and they would end up somewhere in the middle. Nobody was truly happy as it should be in an in any negotiation. Right. OK, but like but they decided like that doesn't work for us because we have to change with the times and we don't want to.

James: ye

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: so they ah So instead, they eroded all of the systems that caused that to happen. Like, that's Mitch McConnell's legacy. That's Rupert Murdoch's legacy, is that, like, they eroded the system.

James: Newt Ingrish, yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: so the Yeah, to the point that we're in the in the place now where, like, you can't even, like, you can't even go to people and be like,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: how much did you spend on groceries this week? Versus how much you spent for the same groceries a year ago. You know, you can't even go to people and be like, this is the way a tariff works.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Behold the stock market. Like, you know, believing the truth. Like, oh, climate change is real.

James: yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You know how we know? Because insurance companies won't insure you if you have, if you're in the fire zone of of California or you're in the hurricane zone of Florida. Because climate change is real.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like the insurance companies are pricing it in. Like, you know what i mean? Like we can't even just agree on like the basic facts of reality anymore. Trump didn't win the election.

James: Hey, CO2 makes the, you know, it traps heat.

James: Which, by the way, you can prove to anybody by simply putting a cover over your head when you wake up in the morning.

James: You'll notice how hot it gets.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Sure.

James: Or putting a bag, you know, the CO2, you know i mean? It does, it warms everything, you know?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: yeah Okay. So yeah, it warms everything. And then the polar ice caps melt and the water comes up and then, and then the, the, the acidity levels erodes the plant life and then the plants and then the water stops moving the same way.

James: But, what I'm saying?

James: But people don't even believe that much.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And then the, the warmth and the cold where it moves because of the weather, the weather changes and the fish all die.

James: I'm just saying though, you're losing the, you're going too far now. You're going too far though. I'm saying it's this, in a small little one-on-one thing, hey, you can do this, that it ah right?

James: You say that, you say the same thing is to your point. You know what mean? People agree. There's a lot of people who, that's bullshit, man. CO2, whatever, man. CO2, CO2 is running forever. It's just carbon dioxide. It's just another element, man.

James: and People don't cause that. People don't make that worse.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: okay dude who got a c in you know chemistry in high school you know

James: You what mean? Yeah. I'm saying people, but yeah, but I mean, people can't agree on anything. ah It baffles my mind how in the, here's, you want to see where politics is and what you talk about where people can't agree on anything anymore?

James: In the 80s, CFCs, I can't believe more people. i was talking to somebody at work about this and he didn't even know about this. He's a ah Anyway, one of one of our coworkers, he was blown away at this, right?

James: His family is very conservative, right?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Mhm.

James: Now let's talk about how in the 80s, CFCs, right? They realized, hey, the The chemicals in these CFCs are eating away at the ozone. Our scientists have been able to discover that this is the thing that's causing this the ozone layer to create basically a massive hole where a bunch of radiation and extra heat can come in and out. and And hey, our planet's going to die if we keep using hairspray and shit,

James: Right.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Mhm.

James: literally fucking hairspray. sure You what I mean? And this is during the hair bands, man. eighty s

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah.

James: big hair, and the entire fucking planet got together very rapidly, right? And every single place in the earth...

James: banned it. All banned CFCs. For a couple years, hairsprays sucked. It was all this pump liquid shit that you couldn't even spray, and it's like, pfft, pfft, pfft, squirts, and it came out.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah.

James: It was horrible, right? But the entire planet did it and suffered together because everybody saw all the science and said, oh, shit, we're going to kill our planet.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: oh

James: it Let's fix this shit. And poof, we healed it. They stopped it. it's They started seeing it. Hey, look, it's starting to heal itself. It's actually doing this. And the whole world rejoiced, right?

James: Yay, we saved our planet very quickly.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: that The whole world, I mean, the hairspray the hairspray people were like, yay, this is, you don't like this.

James: Oh, no, no.

James: They didn't like it at first, but then now they make hairspray that sprays like a real aerosol can, but it doesn't have the CFCs, the chlorofluorocarbons, right? That's what it

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Hmm.

James: It was, now they have aerosolized cans that have good hairspray again, but without those CFCs. You know what

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Hmm. Hmm.

James: And it was in a whole bunch of shit. And they got rid of it everywhere. Saved the planet. That could not happen now. It could be the easiest decision. If we said, hey, everybody. Hey, it's this... It's whatever, man. It's this... This fucking an additive in the like something that's actually causing global warming.

James: We just have to stop using this. Right? It'd be something easy. It's not going to happen. It would not happen now. I mean...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: It wouldn't happen.

James: it would not happen.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: No, it's way too half people wouldn't even agree.

James: Half people would never agree that it's even real. And then the other half people would go, oh or then 25% of people are like, that's really hard. Jesus, maybe we'll find another solution, you know? And then 25% of people will be freaking out we're going to kill the planet over this, you know? And that's what's happening.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah.

James: But it wasn't that long ago, man, you know, 35 years ago, whatever it was, you know, 25, 35 years ago, years ago, The whole planet just saw the science, got together, snapped their fingers, man, everybody.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean, i think that it's because ah big hairspray was never that big. That's my that's my guess.

James: it wasn't just It wasn't just that. It wasn't just that. That was the biggest thing. It oh

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I'm saying like, I don't think there was a massive financial interest in keeping CFCs in hairspray is my point.

James: it was in everything, though. and It was in everything I mean, it's, yeah, they were phased out during the Montreal protocols, to the ozone depletion here, but i mean, it was in everything. um Refrigerants, ammonia.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean, we all we all we we all came together 25 years ago for Y2K, you know, to fix all the internet and the computer.

James: But I mean, here, it was in everything. Every refrigerant used it. every refrigerator, air conditionings and cars everywhere. It was everything. It ammonia. was in everything. Also in hairspray. I mean, it was everywhere.

James: It was everywhere. They were making back in, uh, where was it?

James: In 1970. Anyway, sorry.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay, your kill your' ki I understand.

James: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: i understand

James: anyway sorry got yeah yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: we we we you're You're way down this rabbit hole.

James: and seven point

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: it's ah Yes, we we did it. that was That was nice.

James: yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: It would not happen today. That is less nice.

James: Yeah. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: i agree. Yes, if only big oil were as easy to defeat as big hairspray. We would would all be so much better off. Okay, let's do... ah Before you're begging me to end this...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: ah via chat, let's do what could go right. And I have my what could go right. It's a thing we didn't really talk about. So this is my in for this thing. So ah honeybees. Okay.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: The bees. Bees are really crucial to like crops.

James: life

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah. Like if you just like, like the ecosystem, like the whole deal sort of like relies on bees because Bees do this cool thing where they sense the electrical charge of a flower.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And then when they come by one that has a certain charge, the charge flips and the pollen leaps off of them and goes to the bee as the electrical charge changes. The bees can sense the electrical charge.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And as they go and they get the pollen, then they take it to another tree or another plant that needs the pollen. And that that one has the opposite electrical charge to to get the bees. hey come over here to me.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And they go over there. And it flips again and the the other plant gets the pollen. And this is how the plants become food. And then the animals eat the food and then the animals live and so on and so on and so on.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: okay

James: Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Bees are really important.

James: Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Well, the last year, 90% of the United States bees have died. 90%, which is going to make it much harder for us to do our crops.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: 90% of our bees are gone. 90%, nine, 0%, an extremely alarming percentage of the bees have died in the past year.

James: ah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And I think that it's like, it's maybe due to, to something that they're using in like a certain kind of like, um, like mite repellent. So like if they try to make it so the bees don't get mites or like the plants don't get mites. So they use a certain mite repellent that has like a chemical that like kills the bees.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: don't know. They haven't figured it out yet, obviously. Uh, But yeah, 90% of them died. So my what could go right is that we could survive having lost 90% of our bees and big beeswax or whoever could find a solution to like save the bees and the bee population could bounce back. you know Maybe it may have been aided by the slowdown in like big ag from all of the deportations.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And then... you know, we'll still be able to grow plants. That's my what could go right. We could we could not, you know, cripple the ecosystem by killing all the bees.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I think that, um i think, unlike my, like, happy predictions about, like, Ukraine beating Russia or, like, Trump deciding to not be a horrible person, like, you know, I think the bees one really could happen. Like, I think, I think, I think we're pretty likely to solve, you I mean? Like, bees The anti-bee lobby doesn't have a big, like they don't have a fox anchor.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You know what I mean? Like they're, they're not a big presence.

James: oh

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So

James: Oh, they got a lot of money, though. but no Okay. Well,

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I think, I think the bees could make it, make a comeback.

James: that'd be... Yay for the planet.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah. I would love the ecosystem to continue existing so I could eat.

James: Oof. Wow.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah, what do you think could go right?

James: What?

James: Oh, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Why don't you, I'm gonna give you an idea, you do what you want, but my idea for you, okay, is to pick pick something with the courts, because you were like, ah, you know, Chuck decided to not do the government shutdown so we could keep beating them in the courts. So what could go right?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Something, something with the courts.

James: Oh, I mean, honestly, I don't think he has many wins in the legal future, right? I actually do think the courts are going to stop a lot of what he's doing, right?

James: Whether it's too little too late, you know, I mean... mean

James: I don't think the courts are going to rule that he can just start, you know, extrajudicously shipping people to El Salvador. You know, even the Supreme Court. I don't think they're going to rule that way.

James: I don't think they're going to say, yeah, the Constitution didn't say the word consecutive. So, yeah, you can go again, Trump. I don't think they're going either. And I know for a fact they're not going to say, yeah.

James: yeah, sure, you can go ahead and overrule the birthright citizenship. They're not going to say that either. Right? So the courts are going to rein in the worst things that he keeps doing.

James: That's not a reason to be hopeful, though, because I don't believe that he will, this administration will abide by the law. You know? um I mean, what are they going to do? Start an insurrection to keep him in there again? i mean, come on.

James: That's not going to happen. That wouldn't happen. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I mean, dude, they said that he they said that he literally could murder people as an official act. So he could literally he could very literally like I'm like I'm Trump trying to like pull off the Trump coup.

James: Yeah. Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like I just kill all of the Democratic state leadership.

James: yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I just start like, ah yeah, like they're just getting executed by the military officially.

James: yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Like I'm going to go on Fox News and be like, look, they're in the way of like this constitutional convention. It's only way we can save the country. These Democratic. ah governors and you know legislators in these places, like we got to we got to kill them. That's the only way.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: They can vote for us or we can kill them, but we're doing a constitutional convention either way. So you know figure it out, put on your big boy pants or lay down and die. It's up to you, but I got immunity to kill you if I do it officially, so I'm gonna, and then I'm rewriting the constitution and and all bets are off.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: He could just do that.

James: Yeah, we could. That's, uh,

James: Oh, there's an article here that maybe I'm, it's the Atlanta journal constitution. It's an opinion column, but, uh, just, you know, trying to think of anything that will, that's a paywall.

James: Fuck it. Of course. You know, ah the the article is called opinion. America will survive Trump. And so will American democracy. i was like, really? Let me read this article.

James: I want to see how, because I need to sign a hope for it, because I'm not convinced.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: They're selling optimism.

James: I'm not convinced.

James: ah there' That's what could go right. ah What could go right is here.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: they could They could fumble their their whole bullshit.

James: the worth The worst about it here. yeah The economy is about to go to shit here in the first Trump term. Right. They had a women's march. Right. But the real major protest started when they started doing kids in cages, right?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yep.

James: I'm thinking here, and there there's plenty of protests here now, but they're not exactly big, large-scale, sustained things.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Oh.

James: Kids in cages, Black Lives Matter, those are big, sustained things.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay, wait. but

James: But the thing is, yet...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: There have been huge protests, though. they're It's just not being covered, but picked up by mainstream media. That's a whole other thing. But there have been a lot of protests.

James: There's been a lot of protests.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: big A lot of big protests.

James: There's always a lot of protests. How big?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Tens of thousands of people.

James: Where? When? Doing what?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Tens of thousands people on the same day in multiple states. multiple weekends.

James: Hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You got to go look into it. google Google it. You'll find, you'll find the stuff.

James: I know there's been a lot protests.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: I'll find, I'll find you an article later, but go look into it.

James: There's always lot protests. but Either and so? Tens of thousands? That sounds pretty big, but I mean, we need... days long million people things you know mean and and the thing is when everybody loses their jobs because of the tariffs everybody's getting laid off you know what they have they have time on their hands when people have time on their hands and the economy is going to shit and things aren't looking good that makes people angry and when people are angry and the economy's going to shit and you have a lot of time on your hands

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: 11 million. Mm-hmm.

James: hey, that sounds like a pretty good recipe for a lot of big protests, a lot of big organizations and demonstrations. you know So maybe people will wake up and really start protesting hard, hard enough that people can't ignore it, you know or that the media can't not cover it.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Mm-hmm.

James: I mean, shit, there's a fucking million people that's Times Square shut down. you know that Nobody can get around anywhere in New York.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Thank

James: If you get some big things like that, Washington, D.C. is surrounded by a million and a half people. You know, president has to be flown out on a helicopter just because they can't go anywhere. There's too many people everywhere who's pissed at them. there They go and you would make some news.

James: You know what I mean? need big, massive protests and maybe people will start doing that. And when his numbers start tanking, then that's when you get the Republicans who are kind of like, they already hate Trump privately.

James: Maybe that's when he's like, okay, dude ain't gonna, he ain't gonna third term shit. All right. I can pretend to have a spine for a little bit because it's my self-interest to not be with Trump now.

James: And then maybe, you know, we get through it. Protest. Action.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay. People will protest. I like it. i could I could believe it. That could go right.

James: go right. Better hope it does.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay. Well, closing thoughts. Everyone, figure out for yourself what your red line is. what's your If this happens, it's really time to leave the country despite all of the hardship, pain, discomfort, etc. that that's going to cause you.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: um Figure out where your line is and then Figure out where you're going to go and everything you need to know. Like get your ducks lined up, you know, figure it out.

James: even if and Even if you haven't

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: What are you doing with the car? What are you doing with the house? You know, where are you going? When are you going? What's your bet? What's goes in the bag? You know, really have really have a real plan.

James: And even if even if you don't have a plan yet, even if you don't think you need to, even if you can't envision something like that happening, get your fucking passport, people.

James: It's not that much money. I mean, yes, it's a little bit, but get a passport. Doesn't hurt to have one. Ten years, you can go anywhere. Worst comes the worst.

James: it's you know It's kind of like the whole God scenario. People like you know people who are religious say, hey, If I'm right, and there's a God and you're wrong. You'll burn in hell. But if I'm wrong, I just still just died. No problem.

James: Think of it that way. Okay. Get your passport. Doesn't hurt to have one. Worst comes to worst. You can hop on a plane and go anywhere. And then you can worry about it after you're out the country if you need to.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yes, i agree. Do that.

James: Yeah.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: But also on the topic of religion as insurance, dude, there's hundreds of religions.

James: so

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So like at best you're getting like a one in like a hundred and something chance that you didn't like piss off God by like eating the wrong fucking bread on Wednesdays.

James: but

James: and

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: And you're still fucked even though like, oh yeah.

James: That

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: It's like, that's what's going to happen is like,

James: wasn't the point. but yeah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: there's There's one religion. okay One of them is is going to be right. And like his set of rules are going to be like the only way. And everybody who didn't follow that shit to the T is fucked. And so you have a one in 175, however many thousands of religions there are. It's probably the Flying Spaghetti Monster people because ha ha, LOL, fuck everyone.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: like If you weren't Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Forks Down, like you're just fucked. Even though you even though you like you know felt really bad about like having sex before marriage or like whatever other bullshit. like you know You didn't eat pork for three months or you drew black dots on your face or whatever dumb shit you did. you know You're still fucked.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: So no. religious as Religion as insurance is ah is ah is a shitty play. It's bad argument.

James: I know. i I'm just saying that's what people would say when they're religious you to go to church or they're trying to get you to convert or something. they'll say, hey, what if you're wrong? I'm like, if you're wrong, you'll burn it out.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Can I...

James: i I was just saying the same thing. It's like this.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Can I?

James: If you have a passport and you don't need it, what's the worst thing that happens? You have a passport. Cool. if you If you don't get a passport and you do need it, what's the worst thing that happens?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah. Yeah.

James: Oh, shit. You might end up in Exactly.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah. You're like, you're a hundred bucks port. You got a passport. You got it for 10 years. Absolutely. Get your passport.

James: Exactly.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: A hundred percent. And as you say that, like I realized I need to get my son's passport.

James: but and that's also That is also in Ontario. That's one of the things. so Get a passport.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Okay. I got to do that. I got to, I got to work it out for, for my son.

James: Yep.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Cause he does not have a passport and that's a very good point.

James: Yep. Yeah. All right.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Yeah.

James: All right. So...

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: All right. Get your passport. Get your protest boots on. Get your signs ready. And for the love of God, come up with a protest chant that doesn't involve ho-ho, hey-hey, or some other sing-song bullshit. Okay? Just stay on point.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You know, no songs. No tambourines. For the love of God. It's not... Nope.

James: Bagpipes? Bagpipes okay? Bagpipes are quite badass.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: nope

James: What?

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Nope. Nope.

James: Oh, man.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: Nope. It's not a music festival. It's a protest. that You should be yelling the message that is the single thing that you are unified in your anger about that you're there to protest.

James: ah

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: You know.

James: All right.

James: Well, there we have it.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: All right. Good night and good luck just to steal your line because you stole mine at the beginning.

James: There we go. Mm-hmm.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: All right. right. Like, comment, subscribe, tell... three friends about so the pod and have a great week.

GABRIEL ZIEGLER: We'll see you guys next week.

James: Yep.