Transcript

Chinese Billionaire Birth Tourism Surges As U.S. Faces Security Threats | PBD #732

From PBD Podcast · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 2 h 12 min · 25,334 words · 166 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Chinese Billionaire Birth Tourism Surges As U.S. Faces Security Threats | PBD #732", an episode of PBD Podcast published February 4, 2026 (2 h 12 min, about 25,334 words). It mentions 31 people, works and ideas, including Florida, Netflix, Inc., birth tourism, South Florida, US.

What this episode is about

The discussion centers on the rising trend of birth tourism among Chinese billionaires, who seek to secure U.S. citizenship for their children amid increasing security concerns in the country. The conversation also touches on broader economic issues, including housing prices, and hints at the implications of these trends for future generations and national policy.

Key takeaways

  • In a world of shaky real estate, Trump's drive for high prices leaves aspiring homeowners feeling left out.
  • Birth tourism isn't just a trend; it’s an emerging industry that could reshape global demographics and economies.
  • With volatile gold prices swinging like a pendulum, the market's heartbeat is enough to give any investor palpitations.
  • In the race for new leadership, Disney's 'risk-taker' could either herald innovation or send the company spiraling.
  • As foreign tourist numbers dip, Disney's parks face an existential crisis — Americans might not just be missing Mickey.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 15:00: Netflix, Inc., Wall Street Journal, Florida, birth tourism
  2. – 30:00: Netflix, Inc., Federal Trade Commission, Bob Iger, Josh DiAmaro
  3. – 45:00: Netflix, Inc., birth tourism, Bob Iger, California
  4. – 1:00:00: birth tourism, California, Florida
  5. – 1:15:00: Wall Street Journal, US, California, U.S. manufacturing
  6. – 1:30:00: COVID-19 pandemic, World Trade Organization (WTO), Amazon
  7. – 1:45:00: Florida, South Florida, Ken Griffin, California
  8. – 2:00:00: Florida, Ken Griffin, South Florida, California
  9. – 2:12:00: California

Notable quotes from "Chinese Billionaire Birth Tourism Surges As U.S. Faces Security Threats | PBD #732"

  • Asking you about. I'm sure, Jeff, you probably know about birth tourism. You've heard about it before. It's a story that's coming out a lot recently. Peter Schweitzer, I've had…
    about Peter Schweitzer · at
  • We'll probably talk about, Tom, it's none of our stories, but I want you to cover that when you were talking about it in the back when we get to it. U.S. manufacturing is in…
    about US · at
  • Reading the stories, more stuff is coming out on Epstein. Ken Griffin, Stephen Ross bankrolled $10 million campaign to attract other CEOs to South Florida. Only place a founder…
    about Ken Griffin · at
  • Disney names the new CEO, theme park boss, Josh DiAmaro as its new CEO. And Josh comes out and says, I'm a risk taker. I like to take risks. Who knows what the hell that means…
    about Josh DiAmaro · at
  • So Netflix Warner defend proposed deal in Senate hearing. This is a Wall Street Journal story. It got nasty very quick. Rob, if you want to go to the Josh Hawley clip before we…
    about Netflix, Inc. · at
  • Have him negotiate better with a half a trillion dollar company than the numbers he negotiated with. Anyways, next story I want to get into. Birth tourism. Have you heard about…
    about Wall Street Journal · at
  • Take the baby after they get the paperwork to be a U.S. citizen back to China to raise him in China with the systems that they have with long-term desires of possibly bringing…
    about birth tourism · at
  • Florida has so many resources to deliver that talent. This really will become the next Silicon Valley of this country. The regulatory environment is great for businesses.…
    about Florida · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Ken Griffin — Person · Referenced business leader / Florida relocation advocate · 8 mentions · first at
    Used as a high-profile example of capital and executive migration to South Florida; cited promoting Florida as the best place to scale companies.
  • Bob Iger — Person · Referenced executive / leadership transition subject · 6 mentions · first at
    Discussed as Disney CEO stepping aside; contrasted with board dynamics and the appointment of Josh D’Amaro.
    Reading the stories, more stuff is coming out on Epstein. Ken Griffin, Stephen Ross bankrolled $10 million campaign to attract other CEOs to South Florida. Only place a founder…
  • Josh DiAmaro — Person · Referenced incoming CEO (Disney) / subject of critique · 3 mentions · first at
    Discussed as Disney’s named new CEO (per transcript) and evaluated as a theme-parks executive amid streaming/content disruption.
  • Peter Schweitzer — Person · Referenced author / expert source · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as prior podcast guest and as the author providing claims/statistics about Chinese birth tourism and long-term geopolitical risk.
  • Elon Musk — Person · Referenced billionaire / tech-industrial figure · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in connection with a major corporate deal (SpaceX buying xAI) and as an example of extreme wealth concentration and influence.
    Worth over $800 billion. You know what I found out yesterday? You know the total net worth of Sudan is $200 billion. The total net worth of Sudan is $600 billion. And the total…

Companies & orgs

  • Netflix, Inc. — Company · Business focus · 20 mentions · first at
    Discussed in the context of its content strategy and proposed merger.
  • Wall Street Journal — Company · Referenced work · 8 mentions · first at
    Cited as a source for several stories discussed in the podcast.
  • D-Wave — Company · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at
    Discussed as a tech company moving its headquarters to Florida.
    And by the way, the latest thing is California tech company moving headquarters to Florida and another devastating blow. They're talking about wealth confiscation, which is…
  • MicroStrategy — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in the context of its crypto hoarding strategy.
    Is unraveling. What is crypto hoarding? I'm buying and I'm not selling, right? The strategy rewarded companies. hoarding cryptocurrencies, not punishing them. Bitcoin, Ether…
  • Federal Trade Commission — Company · Referenced institution · 4 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of its role in stopping the Netflix-Warner deal.
    It'll create a streaming giant with over 30% market share of total streaming, number one. Number two, You have now price power over the consumers and Netflix has been…
  • Citadel Fund — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as Ken Griffin's company in the context of attracting CEOs to Florida.
    Business will come from South Florida. Griffin, who founded Citadel Fund, is worth approximately $51 billion, according to Forbes. Ross, the founder of real estate…
  • Florida Council of 100 — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as backing the Ambition Accelerated initiative to attract CEOs to Florida.
    Business will come from South Florida. Griffin, who founded Citadel Fund, is worth approximately $51 billion, according to Forbes. Ross, the founder of real estate…
  • New York Post — Company · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as a source for a story about birth tourism.
    Him on the podcast before, He wrote a book that he talks about what Chinese billionaires are doing to leverage having future leaders that, anyways, we'll get into it. It's a…
  • Harvard — Company · Referenced institution · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in the context of Trump's comments about anti-Semitism.
    Cover that when you were talking about it in the back when we get to it. U.S. manufacturing is in retreat and Trump's tariffs aren't helping. This is a Wall Street Journal…
  • Bloomberg — Company · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as a source for a story about Venezuelan oil.
    Leaked tax returns. He refuses to be outdone by Europe, signing his own U.S.-India trade deal and then the administration to create $12 billion rare earth stockpile to counter…
  • National Health Service — Company · Referenced institution · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in the context of transgender surgeries for minors.
    I'm sure you know that in the UK, the National Health Service in the UK has said that they're not gonna perform transgender surgeries or any longer so-called gender affirming…
  • World Trade Organization (WTO) — Company · Referenced institution · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in the context of trade policies and tariffs.
    America that are critical to national defense, like steel manufacturers, concrete, pharmaceuticals, defense. And if other countries can jump in and undersell us, undersell…
  • Amazon — Company · Referenced company · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in passing in the context of online shopping.
    Is 42, then the movie studio, streaming is 42, and then movie studio content is 11. Used to be a very different thing 30 years ago, 40 years ago. But that's like Amazon giving…
  • Goldman Sachs — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in passing in the context of financial institutions.
    Extremely volatile right now. we'll talk about why some of the opinions are why that's taking place. Even though JPMorgan Chase forecasts that gold could hit 6,300 in 2026…

Products & tech

  • Venezuelan oil — Product · Referenced product · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in the context of U.S. plans to issue licenses for pumping.
    Leaked tax returns. He refuses to be outdone by Europe, signing his own U.S.-India trade deal and then the administration to create $12 billion rare earth stockpile to counter…

Concepts & topics

  • birth tourism — Concept · Core topic · 10 mentions · first at
    Discussed as a practice by Chinese billionaires to secure U.S. citizenship for their children.
  • U.S. manufacturing — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at
    Discussed in the context of economic trends and the impact of tariffs.
    The manufacturing boom President Trump promised would usher in a Golden age for America is going to in reverse. After years of economic intervention by the Trump and Biden…
  • quantum innovation — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in the context of D-Wave's relocation to Florida.
    For what? For quantum innovation. They're moving from Palo Alto to Boca Raton, Florida. In January, Boca Raton official approved a resolution where D-Wave would get up to a…

Places & events

  • Florida — Place · Setting · 21 mentions · first at
    Discussed as a prime location for business growth and CEO relocation.
  • South Florida — Place · Setting · 8 mentions · first at
    Highlighted as a growing hub for businesses and CEOs.
    By the way, I've never seen this ad. Me neither. What a great ad after me saying we're hiring in Florida. FYI, let me read this to you. So he says, the only place a CEO founder…
  • US — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of national policies and economic discussions.
  • California — Place · Setting · 12 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of tech companies relocating and birth tourism.
    Of possibly bringing him back here. Some of the numbers are saying... between 750,000 to 1.5 million of kids that this has happened to, according to Peter Schweitzer's latest…
  • Sudan — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in a comparison of Elon Musk's net worth to the country's net worth.
    Worth over $800 billion. You know what I found out yesterday? You know the total net worth of Sudan is $200 billion. The total net worth of Sudan is $600 billion. And the total…
  • COVID-19 pandemic — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in the context of economic shifts post-pandemic.
    Tom, you're right. This is not a story about tariffs or administration. This is an economic trend that began, like you said, 2023. which we had an economic shift across the…

Sponsors

  • Sales Leadership Summit — Event · Promoted event · 2 mentions · first at
    Promoted as an event for sales leaders to learn effective revenue-moving strategies.
    You're developing people. Once a year, I host a conference called the Sales Leadership Summit, which is purely about developing salespeople. And we go through this 200-page…
  • Ambition Accelerated — Event · Promoted initiative · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as an initiative backed by Ken Griffin and Stephen Ross to attract CEOs to Florida.
    Business will come from South Florida. Griffin, who founded Citadel Fund, is worth approximately $51 billion, according to Forbes. Ross, the founder of real estate…

Full transcript with timestamps

Did you ever think you would make it? I feel I'm supposed to take sweet victory. I know this life meant for me. Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright. My handshake is better than anything I ever signed, right here. You are a one-on-one? My son's right there. I don't think I've ever said this before.

Gang, we got business Wednesday today. Back with the same three brilliant minds that we have with us. Snyder, Aseto, and Ellsworth here with us. But in the interim, this set here is getting a little bit warmer. It was freezing on Monday. I still need the scarf. Don't have the gloves with me. This is a temporary podcast set we're using. Our other set that we're building, the new one, is coming along good. We're about to finalize it. I think we'll be ready within two to four weeks. To get it going in that new set, we can't wait to go back to the new set. Because the old one we used for five years, it was great, four years. Well, we're excited about this new set. Anyways, lots of stories to get into. One of the things I do want to get into, which is kind of interesting, is this concept of birth tourism, which I was asking you about. I'm sure, Jeff, you probably know about birth tourism. You've heard about

it before. It's a story that's coming out a lot recently. Peter Schweitzer, I've had him on the podcast before, He wrote a book that he talks about what Chinese billionaires are doing to leverage having future leaders that, anyways, we'll get into it. It's a massive, massive thing that both New York Post and Wall Street Journal wrote about. I want to talk about it today. It is interesting, something we should be paying attention to on how to protect it long term. A couple other things as we're going through this. Trump said something that really upset Brandon. Brandon is not happy with this answer. Trump gets out there and says his goal is to drive housing prices up, not down. Brandon said, no, bring it down so I can afford to buy a house. That's what Brandon is saying. He's not happy about it. He's not happy about it. But some homeowners are like, look, I kind of don't mind it. If you want to take the

prices of my house, then I got more equity. Tom is saying there are people right now that are refinancing and letting go of their 3.5% rate. that they had and picking up a 6.5% for a reason that is scary. And we'll probably talk about, Tom, it's none of our stories, but I want you to cover that when you were talking about it in the back when we get to it. U.S. manufacturing is in retreat and Trump's tariffs aren't helping. This is a Wall Street Journal story. Trump says he wants Harvard to pay a billion dollars for being strongly anti-Semitic. That's what he wants. He sues the IRS for $10 billion over leaked tax returns. He refuses to be outdone by Europe, signing his own U.S.-India trade deal and then the administration to create $12 billion rare earth stockpile to counter China. U.S. plans to issue a license for firms to pump Venezuelan oil.

Let me read that to you one more time. U.S. plans to issue a license for firms to pump Venezuelan oil. It's happening. It's a Bloomberg story. Clintons finally agree to testify that In House Epstein investigation, head of contempt vote, and this Epstein stuff, a lot of new stuff came out. Every time you think you're done reading the stories, more stuff is coming out on Epstein. Ken Griffin, Stephen Ross bankrolled $10 million campaign to attract other CEOs to South Florida. Only place a founder can scale. That's what Ken Griffin said. Only place a founder can scale. Bob Iger, finally, stepping aside, the question is, is it the board's decision or his? Some are saying the board decided to push him aside to bring a new CEO. But Bob is saying, no, it's me. It's time for me to move on and have somebody else take over my job. Tom was giving me this assessment when we were talking about it. And for whatever reason, when we're together, the four of us, we

talk about Disney. I don't know why this happens. Every single time, maybe Jeff is a diehard Disney guy that brings the Disney energy in here, but we'll talk about it. And then yesterday, there was a couple clips that where the CEO of Netflix and Time Warner are being grilled by Hawley and Ted Cruz on this transaction that could possibly take in place. Hawley asked a question from the Time Warner guy on, you know, hey, we know you're leaning left and transgender content, all this stuff. No, that's not how we choose our content. It's actually, we should play one of those two clips, Rob. I'm probably gonna play the Hawley clip, not the Ted Cruz, even though it's three or four minutes. I think it's good for the audience to see.

Disney names the new CEO, theme park boss, Josh DiAmaro as its new CEO. And Josh comes out and says, I'm a risk taker. I like to take risks. Who knows what the hell that means when you say I'm a risk taker. Does that mean he's going to go even further than it was? Nobody knows. But we'll see. Loosen the bolts on Space Mountain. Yeah, yeah. Disney warns of hit to U.S. theme parks as foreign tourist numbers fall. This is the number one thing Americans worry about, being able to afford in retirement. And it's not food or housing. It's important. If you've got aging parents, they're thinking about this, and we'll talk about that as well.

Gold and silver, one minute, boom, skyrocketing up. Next minute, boom, gold drops to, I think, 4,500. Next minute, boom, back up to 4,900. It is extremely volatile right now. You know, we'll talk about why some of the opinions are why that's taking place. Even though JPMorgan Chase forecasts that gold could hit 6,300 in 2026, Despite the sharp fall since the 80s, the crypto holding strategy is unraveling. SpaceX buys XAI in a $1.25 trillion deal to unite crucial parts of Elon Musk empire, causing Elon Musk's net worth to go above $800 billion. First guy ever to be worth over $800 billion. You know what I found out yesterday? You know the total net worth of Sudan is $200 billion. The total net worth of Sudan is $600 billion. And the total net worth of Afghanistan is $200 billion. Elon Musk could literally buy Sudan and Afghanistan if he wanted to. He makes an offer. I'm officially buying Sudan and Afghanistan. He can name it to whatever you want. Elonville. He can

call it whatever you want to call it. But he's got that kind of money right now. Anti-ice protests should want more Palantir in their government. CO. Karp says, I don't know if the panel agrees, California tech company moving headquarters to Florida in another devastating blow to this guy that really wants to be a president. You guys may know his name. His name is Gavin Newsom. And then we got a couple other stories here. Why PayPal stock crashed. And I want to get into the Netflix stuff. Having said that, before we get into it, gang, once a year we host an event called the Sales Leadership Summit. If you're a sales leader running a business and you want to find out how is the most effective way to move your revenue, watch this clip about the event that's coming up with Sales Leadership Summit. Go ahead, Rob. Say you're a CEO, you're a boss, you're an executive, you're a leader.

Which of these four feelings do you want your employees or your sales team to feel the most? Do you want them to like you? Do you want them to trust you? Do you want them to respect you? Or do you want them to fear you? And if I was to ask you to order them and say, ah, I think I want them to like me first, then I want them to trust me, then I want them to respect me, I don't want them to fear me, right? This whole thing that we're talking about. Developing salespeople in a big sales team, which can exponentially, Increase the valuation of your company, your income, your lifestyle. This is a big problem to solve. You have to get these four things in order while you're developing people. Once a year, I host a conference called the Sales Leadership Summit, which is purely about developing salespeople. And we go through this 200-page manual together. This year, we're doing it at the Trump Doral from March 25th to

the 27th. And that dynamic of like, trust, respect, and fear is one of the ones that creates a lot of debate. If you want to find out how you can attend this event, click on a link below, get registered. One of our consultants will get a hold of you. All right. Having said that, click on a link below. You have to qualify to attend. You need to do a minimum of a million dollars and have five people on your sales team to attend this conference. But the link is below. Click on it. Talk to our consultants. They will tell you all about it. Cannot wait to see many of you there. this year at Trump Doral. Having said that, let's get right into the story. Rob, the first story I want to get into, we have so many of them. The first story I want to get into, let's get into this Netflix story, okay? Netflix Warner story.

So Netflix Warner defend proposed deal in Senate hearing. This is a Wall Street Journal story. It got nasty very quick. Rob, if you want to go to the Josh Hawley clip before we go to the Ted Cruz one, Kosi Otesarandas defended the streaming company's planned $72 billion acquisition of Warner Brothers and HBO Max at a Senate hearing Tuesday that occasionally grew contentious. The best part of this that I want you to watch is here with Josh Hawley. Josh Hawley pushes both of these guys, and they couldn't answer a couple of the questions he asked.

Go ahead, Rob. It's so much of Netflix content for children promotes a transgender ideology. Almost half of your content for child, talk about minor children. Now I'm not talking about teenagers, minor children promotes a transgender ideology agenda. I was just looking at the data here from your various series. And what concerns me is just two days ago, a jury in New York awarded a former transition or $2 million. Because she said that her psychologists and others pressured her into, they pushed on her an ideology that proved to be extremely detrimental.

I'm sure you know that in the UK, the National Health Service in the UK has said that they're not gonna perform transgender surgeries or any longer so-called gender affirming care for minors, including in counseling because it is so incredibly detrimental. Our own HHS has come forward with similar findings this past year, yet if you turn on Netflix, you'll find that an enormous amount and I say this as a parent with three young children, an enormous amount of your children's programming has this ideology and agenda in it. Is this an advocacy position for Netflix?

Is this an ideological commitment you have? Why is this? Senator Ali, Netflix has no political agenda of any kind. I would tell you that- Well, then why is your children's program so full of this highly sexualized, highly controversial, highly controversial- Agenda I don't I don't I don't understand it. It seems strange to me. I'm respectfully asserts because it's inaccurate. We have millions of hours of children's programming. I get you're saying it's not that you don't you don't have trends you don't feature trans characters trans storylines trans themes at the same way. It's not in your programming. I'm saying we feature a wide variety of stories and programs to meet a wide variety of people's tastes. Why does almost half of it, why does almost half of your children's program feature this highly controversial, highly sexualized material? That just seems strange to me. It can't possibly be a reflection of the population. Senator

Hall, I don't have any idea where that number would come from or what that would be. I don't believe that's been... your personal experience, but I can't speak to that. Well, what do you mean you don't think it's been my personal experience? You don't think that I monitor what my children watch? Here's what I tell you what my personal experience is since you bring it up. Rob, can you pause it real quick? Pause it right there. Can you go a little bit to the end where the HBO Max guy responds? Look at his blink rate. Keep going, keep going, keep going. Yeah, he does not look comfortable. No, he doesn't look comfortable. Do me a favor. Go back to the Ted Cruz one if you could because what Josh Hawley continues to say is we're watching movies, we're watching all this stuff. Our... We don't let our kids watch movies before we watch them ourselves. This part he talks about what Billy Eilish said, we live on stolen land. I want you to go on

the second half of this interview. If you go right around there, go back a little bit, like 30 seconds before he starts talking. Go right there. That's good. From right there. How should they feel even remotely confident that if this merger happens, the combined entity would not simply be a propaganda outlet pushing one particular political view with much greater market power than you have now? Well, sir, we would fail. We would fail pushing a political view or propaganda. We deliver entertainment to consumers. Our consumers see our business pretty much the way they see America.

about 40% conservative, about 40% liberal, about 20% don't know. But when they turn on TV, they're tuned in to be entertained. And if we fail to entertain them by trying to promote propaganda or anything other than entertainment, we fail. Mr. Campbell, same question to you. We see the world very similar. Did we lose it or did he lose it? We have a very... broad range of content across not only HBO Max but all of our platforms that we need to appeal to all audiences. Our content ranges from Hard Knocks from the NFL to shows like Deadliest Catch and Gold Rush. It's a very broad collection of programming that represents broad interests across America. You have a wide range of programming on HBO. Name one program that is designed to appeal to conservatives. We don't design our programming to appeal to any... I can think of a lot that are designed to go to liberals. Name one. None of our shows are

designed to go to any political group. They're designed to appeal to... Really? John Oliver's not designed to appeal to a certain group? It's a program that... You just said none of your program is. Let me ask you, do you think CNN is fair and balanced? I do believe CNN is a fair... So when CNN showed riots and fires behind them and you put a chyron, mostly peaceful but fiery protests, was that journalism? Sir, I'm not involved with CNN, and in fact they're not part of this transaction, but they have an independent editorial board, they have independent news gathering, we don't direct... They have no independence other than hating Donald Trump, which is why their viewership numbers have plummeted, because they don't actually report news. They instead engage in very biased propaganda, and I will say the truest words you said a minute ago... is when you said with respect to mr sarandos well he and i see the world in very much the same way that is

exactly the problem in the world of journalism it should not be propaganda in the world of entertainment there is a reason why entertainers who are even slightly right of center get blackballed in hollywood writers get blackballed in hollywood actors get blackballed in hollywood okay so tom Concern with this, because it's getting to the point where, you know, the deal is about to get wrapped up. They're going to get destroyed the next couple weeks with a bunch of these hearings. And then eventually, is anything going to be able to stop this deal from happening? Well, the Federal Trade Commission can stop the deal. What they are going to do is they're going to spin out all the cable nets into an independent company. That's CNN and all those things. They're going to throw that on the stock market. Then they're going to to merge the two libraries. That is the plan here. Now, 60% chance of being

successful is what people see here, but these numbers can jump around. This is Kalshi, and I don't think the Federal Trade Commission has spoken. These are congressional hearings that are bringing things forward, and the Federal Trade Commission is going to be the one that has the final say. And we saw how the movement was so radical when Warsh was dropping and then suddenly one comment from the White House, boom, Warsh was the guy. And so right here, what you see, they are trying to convince Congress that number one, this will not create too much market power when in fact it'll create a streaming giant with over 30% market share of total streaming, number one. Number two, You have now price power over the consumers and Netflix has been incrementally raising price and the Federal Trade Commission's job is to ensure that there's competition in market so prices can be moderated through competitive offers. So these

guys are here to say we're not a monopoly, it's not going to be there. And they just got pulled into the vortex of reality by saying, hey, we don't have advocacy. That's a clever word that they're using. We don't have advocacy. It means we don't have an advocate group that specifically says this. But they have advocacy by default because they know the opinions of the showrunners and the producers that they're funding. And they're simply not funding showrunners and producers that run with core conservative or core family programs. And by the way, while you're talking here, Rob, can you pull up the stats when he was saying half of it is LGBTQ? Is this the article? Is this from Washington Times? Yes, sir. Okay, perfect. If you go a little bit lower to the stats, right there. The organization's report LGBTQ messaging pervasive in Netflix children programming showed that both 41% of G-rated programs and

41% of TV Y7 shows include LGBTQ elements, a result that CWA President and CEO Penny Nance called shocking. 41%. That's absolutely insane to be thinking about that, especially following a $2 million lawsuit that just came out with a young girl who transitioned, and now she got $1.6 million, I think, and another $400,000 for a total of $2 million. The one plane would fire. Two, parents are not supporting. Ted Sarandas did say, look, Josh, you have the ability to control what your kids get to watch. You get to say you don't get to watch this. It doesn't show up in the search. And then Josh is like, I don't even want to do that. Right?

I don't even want to go through it. Jeff, what do you stand with this? Well, I think one of the things that he said was that if we do this, we fail. In many ways, this merger is a failure because if they were succeeding, they would stand alone. They wouldn't need to do the merger. The reason why they're merging in the first place is because they need to create a larger content library that appeals to more people because their individual content library, let's face it, is just garbage. Netflix should be dominating completely. The fact that they're not and they're actually trying to buy Warner's library, it is an acknowledgment that they have failed, that their agenda has failed, and they're trying to keep it going for as long as they possibly can. I think this is one of those situations where they've created a monster they can no longer control. When everybody started to shift to streaming, companies just

threw money at Hollywood. Said, just give me content. I don't care what it is. I need content. I need content, content, content to get subscribers. And Hollywood is notoriously left-leaning. Let's be honest here. It's incredibly left-leaning. So they enabled all of these left-leaning producers, like you said, showrunners, talent, and everybody, and just gave them gobs of money, created tons of content, and now they're stuck because these are their one source of content creation. And they can't really do much about it. They can't go back in the other direction because the people that they've enabled would absolutely revolt if they even thought about doing something differently. So... To me, in many ways, this merger is an acknowledgment that we failed in that model. We have been doing advocacy. Do you think they'll succeed? Do you think it'll get done? I think the merger's going to happen.

Do you think the merger's going to happen? I think it will happen. Okay. Even if the involvement of—whose approval do they need? Federal Trade Commission. Yeah, FTC. Federal Trade Commission. The guy that runs it, what do we know about— No, it's not CAR. That's FCC. FCC is Brandon Carvin. FCC is CAR. But FTC is Andrew N. Ferguson— What do we know about him? He got appointed in January of last year, I believe. Zoom in a little bit. And look at who he replaced. Remember who he replaced was the anti-business woman? Solicitor of Virginia. Ferguson was born.

Background is graduating from Eastern Minnesota. Go a little bit lower, legal career. What did he do? The law school. Lena Kahn. Remember her? I do remember Lena Kahn. Communist. She was there, a freaking communist. From 2016, 2017, he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. Okay, so go to Lena Thomas, Lena Khan. Go to Lena Khan to the right preceded by Lena Khan. I call her a communist in my own opinion, obviously. We definitely remember her. She was all over the place, and we were talking about her as well on the podcast. So how much authority does he have to prevent this from happening? Can he prevent this deal from happening? I think what they really have – sorry, Tom. Don't they have a border five? They have to find some kind of legal basis. They can't just willy-nilly say we're going to be. And there's not a monopoly law that doesn't exist to you because it's not

like it's about 50%. Yeah, so I think unless they have some kind of legal basis that's already been spun up that we haven't heard about, which is possible, I just don't think it's likely. Brandon, where are you at with this? Yeah, I don't think that it's as certain that Netflix goes ahead with this because it doesn't feel like Trump wants that to be the case. It doesn't feel like the conservatives want that to be the case. I think they'd rather have Paramount slash Oracle, like in my view. But I think both scenarios are bad for different reasons. I think Netflix, you know, because of the propaganda side, Paramount because of the control side, because of some of the things that they're aligned with. But what Holly said there's totally true or what Serrano said to Holly is true as far as how are you controlling what your kids watch? You know, maybe he's able to, but a lot of parents aren't able to control what their kids watch. And Netflix got to that position where

since they were first, I think they were able to be comfortable in, you know, putting out propaganda, putting out their messaging they're aligned with because they were comfortable in that number one position. Because, I mean, their stock's still doing really well. They're still, you know, have a ton of market share for kind of abusing their product for a long time. So, yeah, I think that Netflix You know, it's unfortunate that a lot of parents probably don't even have the ability to make sure their kids aren't watching that stuff. And it does a lot of damage to society. Like, we've seen those charts that show, like, was it 20% of Gen Z identifies as part of LGBT? You know, like, where's that coming from? It's coming from entertainment and education. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's a threat to society to let them just get away. I thought, yeah, Rob's got it right there. So, you know, I think this

is a direct result of stuff like this that we're talking about. Like, that doesn't just come out of nowhere. It's from school and from entertainment. Yeah, it's true. And Rob, can you do me a favor? Pull up Netflix's market cap. If you can type in Netflix market cap, last 12 months. I'm curious to know how the go-to year, if you could. Yeah, and then zoom in a little bit so we can see it closer, Rob. So what was it in six months ago? What number was it? 120, 130? 133.91. It's 79. Can you go based on the market cap instead of what the stock price is? So it's down. If we look at market cap. You see what the market thinks? The market thinks you're going to get less valuable by doing this. Yes. So market cap 337. Or do they think it's not going to happen? Is there a market cap high? Because I think they hit a half a trillion, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. They were close to a half a trillion at one point. So they've lost 150. Okay. Yeah. So 407.

No, that's just the market cap. It's not the peak. I think they hit a half a trillion or if not 470, 480 in market cap. What's the price right now? 79, 130. So 79, 130, 50 up. So 50 up on 70. It's 80%. There you go. 80% higher. Yeah, they hit a half a trillion market cap. So, Tom, did you have any final thoughts on this before we go to the next one? I have a dark thought. Ellison's want to buy the whole thing and they want the cable nets, Pat. They want CNN and the cable channels. So the Ellison's paramount want to buy the whole thing. If they do, you saw what they did to CBS, right? What do you think they're going to do to CNN?

They're going to neutralize it, bring it back to the center. This is what the rest of the industry doesn't want. They don't want another news channel to come back to neutral or Lord God, one click conservative. By the way, so Brandon, why do you say neither is a case you want? Neither Paramount and neither this. So you would rather have Netflix control. You have to choose between the two. Yeah. I mean, for the immediate future, Probably Paramount's better, but long-term, I don't like some of the things that Ellison's stand for, based on what they say in the past. We've seen the videos of Larry Ellison saying how he monitors his people at work. You get a little break from the body camera when you go to the bathroom or when you go hang out with your friends, but it's still recording and it could be retrieved to the corridor. So some of those sensibilities make me a little bit uncomfortable,

but I get what you're saying, that short-term, yes, they're conservative, they're more reasonable, so it's better than Netflix and their propaganda. Oh, no, I think long-term, Netflix is going to be worse. Oh, yeah, for sure. That's what I'm saying. I think short-term, mid-term, long-term, Netflix is worse than Paramount. Where are you at with this? Oh, I mean, look at what do people watch on Netflix? They watch old reruns of The Office and Friends, right? They don't watch the new content. Again, I go back to this.

This is the industry kind of trying to stay in the same mode realizing they're failing. What would really work is somebody coming along and saying, look, we need to actually do what the guy said. We need to make content that appeals to actually the entire country and the entire audience instead of a narrow focus. And so in many ways, the merger is the industry trying to resist that. So I think it's positive in the respect that it's being forced to do something. And eventually that might actually correct with market forces, but it's going to take a while to get there.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, when you look at that, you've got the two behemoths, right? You've got Netflix is dealing with a problem trying to buy Time Warner and Paramount. You know, the Ellison's are trying to pick up. Time Warner will see what happens. By the way, if this, there's a strange turn of events and all of a sudden, boom, they're out. FTC's not allowing this to happen and then they're looking at Paramount as a possible buyer. What a curveball. Imagine you're looking at this in six months and David Ellison is sitting next to the CEO of Time Warner and they're having this type of conversation. Simultaneously, here's what Disney is going through.

Here's what Disney's going through. Both behemoths Different challenges. Disney, Bob Iger, plans to step down before contract expires at the end of the year. Now, this is what the story is being told from Bob Iger's angle. Bob Iger has reportedly told allies that he plans to step down before his contract ends. The Mouse heads, board of directors, chaired by ex-Morgan Stanley's Jamie Cousins, Gorman is planning to meet next week and vote on who will replace Iger. Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar to the matter, Iger74 has told close associates in recent months that his decision was motivated and part of frustration about feuds that arose at Disney-owned ABC over his decision to suspend late-night Jimmy Kimmel last year, according to the outlets. Disney boss also reportedly has said he wanted to move on from the grind of being a CEO and focus on things, including spending more time with wife and managing his women's pro soccer team, et cetera, et

cetera. Now, while this story's being told, story comes out three days later. Disney names theme park's boss, Josh DiAmaro, as its new CEO. Rob, is this the clip from it? This is actually the new CEO with Bob Iger sitting down with ABC News. Go for it. Play the clip. Go for it. Bob's a big risk taker. I'm a big risk taker and that's been true my whole life with how I've approached growing as an individual to how I've approached the business world. And I think you see that on full display today. I mean, just several months ago, we announced a massive expansion in a new part of the world in Abu Dhabi.

We did that quickly. We did it ambitiously and we knew there was a new part of the world to serve. Tom, your thoughts with this new assignment, new appointment. Okay, here they go again. So when Iger retired the first time, after he wrote the book Send Me a Lifeline, I mean, The Right of a Lifetime, The Right of a Lifetime, that was the book. I got him out of order. The sequel will be Send Me a Lifeline. Iger, remember, steps down, and who did they put in there, Pat? Chapek. And where did Chapek come from? Theme parks.

and they said that he messed things up on the content side. He ended up in some sort of a dispute with Kathleen Kennedy on the content. And then Chapek, they're like, okay, okay, okay, this theme park guy has been unable to bring things together in terms of streaming and all the stuff we put together. So Chapek out, Iger comes back. Now Iger's leaving and we're gonna go get a content guide. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry. Josh DiAmaro is from theme parks. So here we go again. At a time when streaming is up there and we've got the merger of Netflix or Paramount or Warner and we have the wars going on and we have Hulu and Netflix raising prices and trying to find the equilibrium and we've got people competing with the news division like your podcast here, sir.

All of that going on. Don't you think you would want a forward strategist in the content area to be there? Instead, you go back to the theme park guy that had recent successes like building the theme park in Abu Dhabi. By the way, it's a unanimous pick by the board. It's not like they had a second pick. I mean, everything I'm looking at is unanimous tomorrow. And it's March 18th, which means Bob Iger, after apparently the January board meeting, and by the way, He didn't make announcement. He leaked it through friends. You notice that? Friends of Iger leaked it to someone at the post. This is called getting ahead of the narrative and protecting your own reputation. It appears that Iger leaked it after January. They said, Bob, you know, we've unanimously decided Amaro needs to take over. He's had a bunch of success this year with the theme parks. He's going to be our guy. And by the way, no, you're not serving out the end of the year. You're not even

serving out first quarter. March 18th, Amaro's getting in the chair. I've been at the company now for 27 years, D. Amaro says. I've had the great benefit of a great honor of working with Bob all of those years. So for 27 years, he's worked with Iger. First from a distance and now much more up close and personal. And I've watched probably the best of the best balance between these two things. As Bob talks about being close to the fans and guests, this is something that's important. I spent a lot of time in our beloved parks. that hundreds of millions of people enjoy every year. And I see firsthand the importance of the brand, what Disney meant to them, et cetera, et cetera. By the way, his pay package is $38 million, $28 million, $2.5 million salary with a one-time bonus of $9.75 million with $26.2 million of stock incentives. And his bonus on his $2.5 million is 250%. Quite honestly, this is a

cheap contract for Disney. Like what a cheap company to pay so little for a guy that they – want to turn things around, you're going to give them this much? This is a half of it. By the way, it was $4.66. The company was worth $4.66 at its peak in 2025. It is now whatever, $3.50, $3.60. I think this is a trillion-dollar company, but bringing a guy like this, I don't know what's going to end up happening. Well, he lives in California. Starbucks, a much smaller company. You know what the contract was for Brian Nickel? You know what Starbucks gave Brian Nickel? What was the contract? contract Starbucks gave to Brian Nichol, by the way. It's a $40 million, I think. I thought it was a $199 million contract. That could be off. But I thought it was a $100 million plus.

What was it? Pay deals? $113 million for a company that was worth, you know, I don't know what it was worth at the time. Definitely wasn't the size of Disney, but they paid him $113 million. Guess what he's done? He's done a pretty good job. So we're going to see what's going to happen with this guy. Jeff, why are you at with this? Well, I think they got the guy in the cheap because they're looking to do, you know, can you damage control? Yeah, sort of. But these are the moves of an industry that's in the death throes.

The entertainment industry as we knew it is dead. And some people realize that some people don't. And the reason the entertainment industry is going through radical transformation is because of you, people like you. Social media, the ability to create content freed from all of those, you know, legacy baggage and everything else has led to a brave new world where people The old way of doing things no longer fits. And so trying to push everybody into appointment television, which, I mean, does anybody actually watch appointment television anymore? I mean, I suppose boomers actually do. But most young people have never even turned on a cable box or even know what it actually is.

Most people have never, they don't even know who, you know, nightly news reports, what are those? So the media, the entire industry is going through some massive changes and not everybody realizes that they're not going to win this. I think Disney is trying to resist in the same way that Netflix and Warner are trying to resist the radical transformation that's undergoing on the industry. Why give the job to a theme park? Rob, can you pull up? It's the safe bet. You think that's what they're doing? It's continuity. Okay, so Rob, I think we've looked at this before. Can you pull up the percentage of revenue Disney brings in from movies, from theme parks? I do think theme parks is a big part of it. I'd say 30%. Say that again?

I think theme parks is like 30%. 30%. What's next? I want to know what's next. Do you know the numbers or no? I don't know the numbers offhand. May I ask you a question? Please. So how many big companies have you consulted with where they talk about a gap and you say, well, who's the number two in that division? And they're like, we don't really have one. You have it all the time. And you say, well, then you need to do the following five moves to get your company ready. You have these things all the time. What if they didn't have anybody on the content and streaming and they had just posted got Kathleen Kennedy to leave. Yeah, so if you look at this, Tom, theme parks is 46, movies is 42, then the movie studio, streaming is 42, and then movie studio content is 11. Used to be a very different thing 30 years ago, 40 years ago. But that's like Amazon giving the CEO job to Andy Jazzy because Andy

was the one that was running Amazon Web Services, AWS. But what did AWS happen? Yeah, no, you're right. And it's got massive profit margins that they put it there. But... We'll see. Look, respectfully— The fact that Di Amaro said nothing. I mean, he didn't come out and say, I'm going to do things very differently. He said, I'm a risk taker like Bob Iger. Yeah, buzzwords. I mean, he said nothing. There's nothing of substance in any of his comments. What did you want to hear from him, though? I wanted him to say— What did you want to hear? I wanted him to say that, look, we've done things wrong here at Disney. We screwed up Marvel big time. He can't say that next to Bob, though. I— What about an innovative campaign moment? If he was a risk taker, he would have said it right there and said, look, you're wrong, Bob. Everything you did was wrong. We need to change course. Brandon, where are you at? Yeah, no, I mean, when was the last time

Disney did something exciting? They have all the resources and history in the world to reinvent themselves, but they haven't reinvented themselves. This is like an NFL team firing a coach in the middle of the season and playing their offensive coordinator as the new guy when everybody, like he has no track record or nothing exciting about him. So I think they could radically reinvent themselves. They could launch an innovative campaign. And like you said, they could be a trillion-dollar company with the resources they have. People want to love Disney. It's fun and exciting to love Disney, but it's like California where they've literally done everything possible to make people hate them and make themselves a bad brand over the last five or ten years so i mean i think it's like super doable if they brought somebody like uh with good ideas in there but they shouldn't bring a guy who's been there for 27 years absorbing the bad habits of

the prior ceos so so remember remember when disney and specifically with bob eiger when he was celebrating i won the board sided with me to not allow nelson peltz remember that guy that you know nelson peltz was the billionaire that wanted to be on the board and they rejected him, right? And Bob Iger successfully defended its slate and the two billionaire-backed nominees were not seated despite several months of campaigning. It was Nelson Peltz and this other guy named Jay Rasulo. Although not a billionaire, he was the allied board nominee backed by Peltz's campaign. The fact that the entire board agreed on this hire is part of the problem. That's part of the problem. I would have liked to have heard 60-40. I want to hear a board member disagree with the stuff that they're doing. And at the end of the day, you got a brand. How many brands are as well-known as Disney? Worldwide. How many? Honestly,

like Coca-Cola's one. And the brands agree? McDonald's is one. What else would you say is a big? Rob, can you type in... most recognizable brands around the world. I thought Coca-Cola was number one, that every 300 feet was a Coca-Cola logo in populated areas. I think that's the stat. In populated areas, there's- Apple is one, Nike, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Google. So it's going by industries. Okay, Gucci, Chanel, Louis go a little bit lower. Let's see what media says. Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung, Meta doesn't even have Disney there anymore. That is pretty wild.

Starbucks, Pepsi, KFC. But is there a ranking ranking? Because when you think about Disney, to me, ran by the right person. If your board had a few conservatives or even pro-family type of guys that there is the proper debate. There is such a massive opportunity. If I'm running Disney right now, I'm looking at Netflix getting destroyed on TV. I'm like, dude, guys. We have a massive opportunity right now. Vice versa. Each of them. We have a massive opportunity right now to win people over. What would that be? Well, that was what Paramount did with CBS, right? It was the market opportunity to bring a news organization back to the middle. And look what they did. Look what they did. I mean, they did have a little bit of a hiccup with that one guy they had to distance themselves from who was tied to the Epstein campaign. Faust, who was that guy, Rob, that was on the island that was part of CBS? The health guy. The doctor, Peter Atiyah. I don't know if

he was on the island, but he was in the emails with Jeffrey. He was not on the island. You're right. There's an exchange, a lot of friendly exchange. He talked about what a low-carb diet is. Embarrassingly included in the Epstein. Wasn't it something like 1,700 times he was in the Epstein emails, which is, you know, not casual? No, it's not casual. And... He was, yeah. You think the large shareholders could do anything about this? Because I know really past the board, it's just the shareholders that have the most influence. Take a look at the board. Disney's board has long been known as- Well, look at who their largest shareholders are. Say that again? BlackRock. Go look at the Disney board. Rob, can you put up the list of Disney board members? That's part of the problem. And tell me who you think on there is a forward-thinking- And then ISS and Glass-Lewis. Exactly. Maybe rebel. You have institutional shareholder

ownership, which means companies like BlackRock are effectively controlling these businesses. And BlackRock is, I mean, we all know what BlackRock is. So that's one reason why some of these businesses are so heavily resistant to change is because it's not really owned by shareholders. The shareholders own the stock, but the proxies are voted by BlackRock, and BlackRock doesn't care. Right, exactly. ISS tells BlackRock how to vote. Yep. Yeah, I'm on here trying to find out. I don't know what it was. I'd love to know how they donate their money. So one of them is James Gorman, Chairman of the Board, former Morgan Stanley Executive. Then it's Mark Mary Barra, CEO of GM. Amy Chang, Technology Executive with Leadership Experience AI. Jeremy Darick is Experience Global Media and Communications Executive. Caroline Everson, Senior Executive with Experience and Digital Global Marketing. Michael Froman, strategic

growth and international trade expert. Robert Iger, Maria Elena Logomasino, investment executive. Calvin McDonald, CEO of Lululemon. Derica Rice, senior leader with experience in finance. And then you got Safra Katz, CEO of Oracle and longtime Disney director. And then you have Mark Parker, director nominated, elected as part of 2026 slate. And by the way, if I'm not mistaken... If you look at Netflix's board, you know who's on Netflix's board? If you look at Netflix's board, I think Ted Cruz or Holly mentioned one of the names that works closely with them. Netflix's board is similar situation.

Which board? Yeah, Mary Barra. Who's that? She runs General Motors. Yeah, but look at the name right there, board of directors, Susan Rice. Who's Susan Rice? Former U.S. National Security Advisor sitting on the board of Netflix. See, this is the whole point that I was about to make. These boards all recommend each other to boards. And you don't have people on there that are going to challenge the CEO. The CEO... does it by design to not be challenged. Do you think any tech, what technology company in the right, let me ask you this way. Microsoft does not have a social media platform per se. Would Microsoft put Elon Musk on the board? No way. They would not put somebody on there that would challenge their thinking. That's not the way these boards work. Yeah, I mean, look, again, both have a big same problem. They can really capitalize. There is tens of millions of people that want to support Disney or Netflix if you get your act right. If

you get your act right. So we'll see what this new CEO is going to be doing. They got him at a discount. I don't know how good he is, but apparently he doesn't have good negotiation skills because I want to be able to have him negotiate better with a half a trillion dollar company than the numbers he negotiated with. Anyways, next story I want to get into. Birth tourism. Have you heard about this concept? Birth tourism. So Wall Street Journal comes out with a story talking about the Chinese billionaires having dozens of U.S.-born babies via surrogate. Video game executive Zhu Bo said to have more than 100 children and other elites build mega families testing citizenship laws and drawing on nannies, IVF, and legal firms set up to help them. So the concept of birth tourism is not a new thing, but... It's being done a ton by the wealthy in China. So they'll get a woman pregnant, $60,000. They'll send her to the States. The baby's born here. The

baby becomes a U.S. nationalized. They get their American citizenship. Then they take the baby after they get the paperwork to be a U.S. citizen back to China to raise him in China with the systems that they have with long-term desires of possibly bringing him back here. Some of the numbers are saying... between 750,000 to 1.5 million of kids that this has happened to, according to Peter Schweitzer's latest book that just came out. And as you look into this, there's a lady in California that was just sentenced for three years for helping with birth tourism. We have right there, 750,000 to 1.5 million in the last 15 years or so. Chinese elites have weaponized the practice, say author Peter Schweitzer, raising a generation of legal citizens who have no loyalty to the U.S., In this excerpt from the book, The Invisible Coup, How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, and it goes

down to talk about different stories. In 2012, one nonprofit calculated that about 36,000 foreign-born women gave births in the U.S. and then left the country. Chinese officials said the numbers are 50,000. And another person here, Salvador Babonas, put the figure even higher, saying with 100,000 Chinese babies being born in U.S., Every year, birth tourism may result in millions of new elite Chinese Americans. So this is what they're describing as a potential Manchurian candidate long-term. What an interesting way of doing this and the fact that this is legal to do. What do you think about when you think about this birth tourism, Tom? It's another example of the Chinese think long. They think long game. So let's translate this for you. They see the opportunity... to put senators, congressmen, and maybe even a president someday in the United States that does not have natural allegiances to the United

States and has radical other views. Oh, that would never happen, you say. The people in Minnesota have put Ilhan Omar in place. And let's name the rest of the members of the squad. So if you don't think that could happen, now go take a look at China saying, no, wait a minute. We're going to do this more sophisticated, and we're going to take the long view of it. I think it's that simple. Global dominance is what they want, and this is a way to create a conveyor system to put their people in power because they've seen what Ilhan Omar has been able to do, just one person in one generation creating madness and havoc in the Minnesota House and in the U.S. Congress. Jeff.

Yeah, I think it's the same thing that we've seen in a lot of different places too. The Chinese are using a multi-layered, multi-faceted strategy. And again, I think this is why, I think we talked about this last time I was here, the U.S. under the Trump administration has shifted to a Cold War posture because they have finally woken up to all of these various schemes that have been, I mean, what's the latest thing that came out of the guy with the bio lab in Las Vegas that was running the same thing? I mean, there's some scary stuff here. And when you put all these things together and see the whole big picture, The Chinese have, you know, they bought up farmland near U.S. basis. They've got bio labs in the U.S. Now they've got Manchurian candidates lined up. It's a huge, enormous threat. How do you prevent this, Jeff? How do you stop this? First of all, you've got to have some kind of intelligence. I mean, we would hope that, you know, our

intelligence services have been actually aware of this kind of behavior. And we're just hearing about it now because it's leaking out into the press. And hopefully they've been on it. But I don't think any of us have a whole lot of confidence that's the case because the U.S. intelligence apparatus has been... distracted by other political things. Specifically, how do you fight against the birth tourism from China? You have to at least look at changing laws so that you don't have birthright citizenship. How do you change that? It's going to be an uphill battle, but you've got to get Congress on board. You've got to essentially change everybody's minds about what citizenship actually means in a situation like this because the long-term threat is These people, along with all the other stuff that's going on, but these people specifically are going to have, who is going to be backing them? It's not

just, you know, China is some kind of vague thing. It's the Chinese government. You've got billionaires. You've got tons of assets that are backing these people. They're going to have all the right education. They're going to have all the right background. They're going to have pedigree. Let's face it, in our society, pedigree is a form of currency, and it's a huge form of currency. So they have an upper hand on everything that would allow them to infiltrate all these different layers. And they have already done so, and it's not just one thing or another. There's so many different angles that the Chinese have been doing, and I fear that the U.S. has been asleep for so long that just catching up to all of this stuff will take an enormous effort to begin with. Legally, but legally, if you want to spitball and talk about it, legally, how do you change that? What are they doing that's illegal? I came,

according to your laws, I came. On vacation. It's the same thing with all that stuff. The farmland. They did that legally. They bought farmland on their U.S. basis. And they can say, well, it's just commerce. How do you change the law to prevent this from happening versus the players that are ethical players? You have various states who have said, like, I think it was North Dakota. North Dakota said, if you're a Chinese company, we find some kind of, you know, some arrangement with a Chinese firm, we're not going to allow you to buy farmland. You know, local laws that were changed in order to deal with the specific threat that was taking place. That's not going to work in this case, but it needs to be a top-to-bottom comprehensive strategy led by the Trump administration because nobody else seems to want to do it that says this is the threat. This is another threat. This is another threat. We need

to have a comprehensive strategy that deals with all these various facets and has some way to deal with these individual threats in ways that actually take account of the fact that it's legal to do this. It may be legal, but that's not something that we really want to encourage. Yeah, so what can the U.S. do about it? What does it say? Explicitly deny visas of primary purposes, given birth to U.S., require visa applicants to prove medical insurance, ability to pay hospital costs, that childbirth is not the purpose of travel, permanently bar visa applicants caught lying about pregnancy or intent. There has to be some kind of consequences, though. You can't just say we're going to deny people entry and then they kind of... I know, that's what I'm saying. So the State Department updated rules allowing consular... officers to deny tourist visas specifically for birth tourism. This approach avoids constitutional issues and is the fastest

lever. Stronger border and border of entry. Ask about pregnancy stage, hospital arrangements, length of stay, financial ability. And then this already happens, but inconsistently target birth tourism agencies. Many birth tourism cases are organized, especially in California, Florida, and New York. Prosecute agencies for visa fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, conspiracy. Shut down maternity hotels. Seize asses tight. Okay, good. What's the next one? End automatic citizenship by statute. That's going to be the hard one. Some lawmakers argue Congress could interpret the 14th Amendment through legislation saying subject to the jurisdiction thereof, including children. Reality check. Almost all constitutional scholars say this would fail in court. Supreme President. Okay, so skip to the next one.

Constitutional amendment. Only true ban. Also the hardest. Truly outlawed birth tourism. requirement to a case that's going to be complicated as well go back to the go back to the farmland that you had with China and the fact that they're all close to military bases look at the way they're doing it Fort Leonard Wood Missouri okay you got a Fort Moore Fort Cavazos you know MacDill Air Force Base look at the way Fort Liberty you know it was also the bio the thing about the bio lab it was found in California then apparently they moved to Las Vegas And it's within a couple miles of a U.S. military facility in Las Vegas. I think it was Nellis Air Force Base or something like that. I mean, this is not a random coincidence. Yeah, Fort Irvin, the one Fort Irvin right there, they do a training there called NTC.

NTC is where they would send a lot of the U.S. Army folks to be ready for a desert storm on how to go war in the Middle East. So it's interesting they have it in Fort Irvin. And then Louis. Brandon, where are you at with this? I mean, I think it's pretty straightforward. It's kind of like what we were talking about with Fishback the other day, where we don't want to go to a place where people who immigrate here and have kids, where those kids aren't citizens, obviously. But why not make something where if you're here for a certain amount of years, if you have employment for a certain amount of years, if you own property, then it's automatic citizenship for kids who are born here. But the fact that we have a situation where you could just be visiting on vacation for a weekend, if the kid happens to be born here, it's a citizen, where the hell else is that the case? than the rest of the world. That's just a logical, plain

and simple law that could be changed. But I mean, the problem is that half of our government and intelligence agencies seem to act like they want the downfall of our society. So that's the tough part is getting over that hurdle because half of Congress wants things that are bad and destructive for the country. So it's a pretty straightforward law that has to be changed and pretty straightforward parameters for when to and when not to allow people who are born here to be citizens. But yeah, the will is the thing that's lacking. And yeah, I mean, for the intelligence agencies, it's like it better not be the first time they're hearing about this for all the resources that get thrown into that. And would we be surprised if it was so?

Yeah, I mean, my God, you know, we got Palantir. We have the ability to use satellites to spy at anybody in the world anytime. We have them listening to all of our devices with Google and you're telling me that they don't know that these things are happening. Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. So Palantir CEO Alex Karp says anti-ice protesters should want more Palantir in the government. Let me read this to you and this kind of goes to what we're talking about here with the bird tourism. So if we go to Palantir CEO Alex Karp said protesters demonstrating against the U.S. Immigration Customs enforcement should support the use of his company's tools in the government. If you are critical of ICE, you should be out there protesting for more Palantir. He told CNBC, our product actually in its core requires people to confirm with Fourth Amendment data protections.

CARP comments come as an anti-protest continue in Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of two demonstrators. Documents released by the Department of Homeland Security last week also showed that the Palantir The company is providing AI tools to the agency to help it sift through tips. Palantir previously criticized for its work with ICE and role in President Trump's trackdown on immigration federal documents from April revealed that the company had a $30 million contract with the agency to provide real-time visibility on people self-deporting. So what do you think about the idea of Palantir being used for immigration as well as using a company like Palantir against China when they're trying to take advantage of bird tourism. I don't think it's going to be used for those things explicitly at all because I think we have the means to track a lot of these things right now with the things that are

tracked. We found out the other day that Google just listens to everything that we say at any moment. $60 million lawsuit. So you're telling me you can't filter that in a way where it's tracking these type of things? No. I think that's a great marketing pitch and something that Alex Karp would say, of course. You could make anything about Palantir sound good. If there's a problem, yeah, Palantir could fix it because it could do anything. It could track any data that you have and it could be used to alleviate this. But no, it's... Would there be a day where you would say, you know what, if I have to choose between Palantir, you know, getting deeper or preventing what China's doing long term with this million and a half, you know, bird tourists that they come here, they take them out to China, indoctrinate them, and then later on send them over here to go to school with the idea one day becoming a U.S. president 40, 50, 60 years from now. And now we

have somebody that likes what China does, but they're now the president of U.S., Would that be worth the risk for you to use Palantir to filter some of these people out? No, because I think we have the means to filter a lot of these people out right now. I think the struggle is that half the government doesn't want to, half the government does. So I completely reject the notion that we don't have the technology to get rid of these people right now. I think this is just a Trojan horror saying like, oh, now we finally have this technology where we could use it to get them out. You're saying you don't trust Alex Karp. I don't trust Alex Karp. I don't trust half the CIA. I don't trust half of Congress. And I think that half of the government and half of the Congress is the problem, not the the technology that we have. I think we have more than enough technology and we've given up more than enough rights and freedom with the NSA

for them to track all of this stuff. So no, I don't think the balance is- Congratulations. You're about to get audited by IRS. I know. I was going to say, it's the same argument with the border, right? For the four years of the Biden administration, it said, we can't close the border. We can't do that. And then Trump comes in and- Boom, overnight. It's not, as you're saying, they're not lacking the way. They have the ways to do things. They're lacking the will. So you think Trump's administration is okay with that one and a half million coming through? No, I don't. What I said was I hope, I hope, I don't have a whole lot of faith, I hope the intelligence community have already, not only figures it out, that they figured this out before they even arrived in early last year. I hope that they had been aware of this over the long term and had been doing something about it. And we're just hearing about it now. You remember the debate with Hillary

Clinton and President Trump? We're debating, and he says, yeah, you know, here's a man who does everything he can to pay no taxes, and he only paid this much in taxes. And then the guy asked him, the moderator asked him, yeah, I do my best to pay as little taxes as possible. I use the same code that she wrote the last 30-something, and he said, you've got the chance to change it. This is where I'm going with it. If a good accountant can help a billionaire like that you know, minimize the amount of tax exposure that the person has.

These Chinese billionaires are like, we're not doing anything illegal. I'm having 100 kids and they're doing it in the US and by your law, I'm legally here. You know what I'm saying, Tom? So for me, I don't know how you prevent that. But Tom, go for it. Your thoughts on this. So there's two things going on here. Number one, Alex Karp is being a defense contractor. And he's telling people, oh my goodness. This issue, this thing over here, this is just like Boeing and General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman saying, have you seen the new planes that the Chinese are flying in maneuvers over Taiwan? We need the F-88. It'll only be a billion dollars per airplane, but that's what we need if you want to compete with the Chinese. Pat, defense contractors do that every day. It's called defense contractor marketing, and they market based on application, fear, response, buy my product to do it.

The second part that makes me very nervous is Alex Karp is playing the familiar card that got played on Americans for the Patriot Act. Throw enough fear on the table to get people to give up privacy in the name of safety. It is a playbook that the government's been running for a long time. You know, long ago, I worked for a telecommunications company, a big one. And we kind of changed the world with some stuff, right? Remember? Of course. There was a room there that they would bring subpoenas so that they could go in and look at phone records. And while they were in there, sometimes they were unattended. And I remember I asked, I said, can I ask a question? You just said sometimes you're in there unattended. How do you know they're only looking at stuff that they have the subpoena for? And they're like, well, we don't really. Yeah. And this was long before, this is when they would actually go and check records, actually go in. Now they don't have to

do that. It's all in the cloud and they can do it with backdoor access from Langley. So this is classic also, Alex saying, well, the Fourth Amendment says that, you know, data use and privacy right there, Fourth Amendment. Our government and our CIA break the Fourth Amendment before lunch every day, right? Right? Then they track us and the things they've got. So this is Alex Karp on both sides of it. One, he sounds just like the Patriot Act. But on the other hand, he's a defense contractor telling you he's invented the magic thing that's going to solve this. Are you glad he's on your side? I'm glad he's on our side. But the longer term ramifications, it makes me kind of squirrely. Do you think he's on your side? I think he's on Alex. He's on the side of Palantir's profitability. But I do think that he and Peter Thiel are on the side of the U.S. However, there are dark forces in government that want to do things that

even they don't want. But once they sell their toy to the government, the government's going to do it anyway. Rob, can you pull up how many contracts does Palantir have with foreign governments? How many contracts does it have with other countries? With foreign governments? It's not a lot. But listen, one to me is one too many. There's one big round one in the East. It doesn't publish an itemized number of contracts. Many contracts are classified or confidential, especially military intelligence work. Some foreign deals are announced at high level. So known foreign government clients, UK is one. Palantir has multiple contracts with UK government, including a large ongoing defense analytics contract with the Ministry of Defense, and work with public services. France, they have a contract of renewal for France's Domestic Intelligence Service, DGSI, extending a multi-year partnership. Then it's Netherlands,

Police Department, and several Dutch states have reportedly used Palantir Software. Canada, Palantir has at least one historic government contract through its subsidiary. Then it's Israel, they deal with the IDF, provided tools and support for the IDF. Ukraine, NATO allied programs. Yeah. Look at France. Domestic intelligence. I know. I know. So that's the citizens of France. That's right. If you were a French citizen, would you want your country to have a relationship? Because do you think deep down inside, Alex is still going to be a little bit pro-US or he's going to be pro-profit? What do you put it? Profit. He lives here. You think he would still be pro-profit over pro-country and where he lives? Yeah. I think maybe power number one over profit and country. Power number one over profit and country. Yeah. You can also justify it either way, though. I mean, you could say I'm pro-US, but I'm doing all these other things that are kind of shady because

I'm pro-US and I can control it. Well, it sounds good to say, pro-US. Yeah. What does pro-US actually mean? You could be pro-US. I agree with you 100%. You could be pro-US, but... but also be in favor of centralized databases that keep us safe. When in reality, as soon as you set that up, you've got three letter agencies that are out there that want to use it in the back door for other things. You hit the nail on the head with the Patriot Act. It was supposed to be a tool to help the Bush administration with the war on terror. And in many ways, this may have started out that way.

Sold with fear in the name of safety. Exactly. You've got to do this or they're going to blow up airplanes and buildings all over the country, right? We have to know. We have to do it. But what happened to it? It became bastardized by subsequent administrations. The bureaucracies get bigger. Their mission always creeps forward. It starts out pro-US, and next thing you know, it's being used against U.S. citizens. It was three times as many pages. By the way, this was created by the Patriot Act because they tried to do the Total Information Awareness Act, and then Congress said, no, we're not doing that. So the CIA, or In-Q-Tel, started Palantir and funded that. So Palantir is a direct result. That's a true story, by the way. That makes it even worse. I wish I didn't know that. Direct result. For what it's worth, to me, a part of this... how this transitions into the next story. Did you guys see the poll yesterday of what percentage of Americans are okay with people

having IDs, valid IDs? Did you see this from CNN? I'm so glad you guys haven't seen it because I want to see a raw reaction from you. Can you please play this clip right there? Watch this, folks. Go ahead. Favorite photo ID to vote. 85% of white people favorite. 82% of Latino. 76% of black Americans favorite. So the bottom line is this. Voter ID is not controversial in this country. Bingo. A photo ID to vote is not controversial in this country. It is not controversial by party, and it is not controversial by race. The vast majority of Americans agree with Nicki Minaj that, in fact, you should have a photo ID to be able to vote. So something of a not- I love Harry Hintz. So are you surprised that majority of Americans are okay with you having a photo ID? Actually, no, because, I mean, it's such a reasonable position. You know, like, what's the argument against having it? Are you kidding me? You don't remember the debates we've had on

photo ID over the last few years? I know, but those are like public people, like people on TV and people in Congress who have a vested interest in illegal immigrants. But I think if you talk to somebody in the street, whether they're black, white, Hispanic, I don't think any reasonable average person would make a strong argument saying that you shouldn't have a photo ID. By the way, you know who is not happy about this poll being ran by CNN? So many people in the DNC. Are you kidding me? Are you crazy? We're about to lose seven elections. If we pass this law, do you realize how many states don't have IDs and we keep winning those states? You guys are dumb for even showing something like this. Why would you ever do something like this? I can only imagine what the newsroom, the types of calls the CEO and the people are getting right now saying, what the hell are you guys doing over there? What happens if Ellison owns CNN because he wins?

Say that again. What happens if Ellison owns CNN because he wins? Mm-hmm. What happens if Larry Ellison owns CNN because he wins? Harry Enten, it would just be the beginning. You'll have more stories and more neutrality. So what you're saying is Harry Enten is applying for a new job in a race. He's saying, look, Mr. Ellison, I'm a logical player. Just look at me. I'm a reasonable player. Jeff, where are you at with this? Are you surprised by these numbers? Not by the numbers, but I'm surprised that it came out of CNN. I mean, let's face it. They've been on the other side of that for years. As long as we've been talking about it.

You guys are, I mean, nobody would actually object to voter ID. We all have IDs. It's not really hard to get. And it's really obvious why anybody would be against the idea of voter ID. So this is not really, this is one of those 80-20 issues. It's probably closer to 90-10, if not 95-5. What happens if it passes? What happens if it passes? That's the interesting question. Does it actually make a difference? And will we see the differences in the areas that we think that there'll be a difference? What do you think? What we think is because the Democratic Party in particular has been against this, and the only reason they have to be against it is because it must affect voting counts at the margins. We're not talking about millions of fraudulent votes, but in these races that end up being within what they call the margin of lawyer, maybe it makes a difference in some of those. And it flips some districts and it flips some races and... If you impose a national

voter ID or just any kind of voter ID requirement, does it take away those marginal votes and those marginal seats? That would be the interesting question. Does it really make a difference or is this kind of just being overblown? Have you seen these clips of people saying voter ID is racist? Have you not seen all of these voter ideas, racist, voter ideas, racist? That's what makes people think there's something there. There has to be something there. If we take it away, will we see results? What is this, Rob? Definitely. This is Chuck Schumer saying that passing the SAVE Act is basically Jim Crow 2.0. Go for it. Go ahead. Jim Crow 2.0. What is the argument that the Senate rules... the majority to require the minority to stage a talking filibuster to stop the SAVE Act. We've got to get this done and we've got to get it done very quickly. The SAVE Act is an abomination. It's Jim Crow 2.0 across the country. We are going to do everything we can to stop it.

So that's what can you play the other clip I just sent you Rob? Because this is the language when you hear Just because it's so funny. Do you think voter ID laws are racist? I think so. Republicans are just trying to make it really fucking hard for minorities to vote. Why do they do that? Because they hate black people. Do you have an ID? Absolutely. What do you have to say to all the people that say that black Americans can't get voted on ID? That's a really ignorant and stupid thing to say. You're disproportionately making people who don't have IDs, which are usually people of color, have to go out and pay to vote, which is going to disencourage a lot of those people. In America, the legacy of white supremacy is perpetuating negative stereotypes for black and brown bodies. When you make people pay money to get IDs, a lot of times people won't vote. They won't think it's worth it. They don't have the extra money to spend. I think anybody saying that

is just dumb. We're in a country where all of us are majority educated and we have the resources at our hands and at our disposal to easily find these things. Can you imagine they convinced that kid, they convinced that kid that voter ID is racist. Well, let's be honest, it didn't take much to convince that kid. You're right. Yeah, they're just regurgitating stuff that they do. They just clip a dog leash under that nose and just drag him around. How many states don't require ID to vote? You know the number? We've done this before. Of course we have.

The blue ones. It's more than half that either don't require it at all or don't require a photo. Oh, the numbers are staggering. We talk about this every few months. We talk about this on the podcast. That one. The average person. The average person, if they knew how scary this was. Zoom in a little bit, Rob. Okay. Photo ID required is the blue states. Okay? Okay. Non-photo ID required. Non-photo ID. Like I'm showing a Ballytotal fitness ID without my picture on it. Non-photo ID required are the orange ones. But look at gray. No ID required. And what do you notice there? New York, California, Nevada. I think that's Illinois. You got a bunch of these states that know. Can you go to the bottom to see what the exact numbers are? You can overlay the presidential election except Pennsylvania. 15 states allow some or all voters to sign an affidavit attesting to their identity at the polls instead of presenting identification. When you break

down the numbers, I think this is massive. I think it's massive if they go out there and say you need a photo ID to vote. Imagine how much fraud could be eliminated. There is no way in the world the left is going to let something like this pass. By the way, If this does pass, this could be one of the worst things for the left and one of the best things for logical players that are saying, yes, people should have an ID to vote. If I'm going through the airport, what do they ask for? ID. So I can't afford to show an ID at the airport but not to vote. Not just any ID. You have to have the up-to-date real ID from your state with the little thing in the corner of your driver's license. Pat, what's interesting about this, voters are reasonable. This is the DNC doing it. Voters are reasonable. We saw during the election that in Arizona, Republicans and Democrats IMPORTANT.

IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT 21 points apart. You want to know why? Because it was a political party ideological difference and the people in Missouri weren't going out to the end of their driveway and feeling personal safety concerns about the presence of all these people and homeless people that were illegal immigrants, illegal aliens. But you go to Arizona and guess what? Suddenly it doesn't matter what political party, nobody wanted illegal aliens at Walmart or panhandling

at ATMs or at the gas station. The voters are reasonable. This is a DNC. I think this is. I think this is. But Jeff asked the right question. Will it be a massive impact? You know when you know it will be a massive impact? You know when you know it could be a massive impact? When the opposing side fears it. Let me tell you, our visit to D.C. this last Friday or whatever day we were in D.C., we went there and we were at the Pentagon Department of War and we're talking to all these other people. One of the conversations I had with Rand Paul, about the next story I'm gonna get into. I asked Rand Paul, Rand, what are the chances Supreme Court will rule against Trump's tariffs? Because Trump keeps talking about Supreme Court and tariffs. Trump won't talk about Supreme Court and tariffs if he wasn't worried about it. You know what Rand Paul said? The reason why he's talking about it is because if Supreme Court

does the right thing, tariffs do need to go through Congress, they may say It's not constitutional for you to do it yourself. Can you imagine if that were to happen? So watch this story that we're getting into next. So which one is it, Rob, with tariffs? Can you tell me what page that's on? There it is. U.S. manufacturing is in retreat, and Trump's tariffs aren't helping. Wall Street Journal story, okay? The manufacturing boom President Trump promised would usher in a Golden age for America is going to in reverse. After years of economic intervention by the Trump and Biden administration, fewer Americans are working in manufacturing than any point since the pandemic ended. Manufacturers shed workers in each of their eight months after Trump unveiled Liberation Day tariffs. According to federal figures extending a contraction that has seen more than 200,000 rolls disappear and index factory activity, tracked by the Institute for Supply Management, shrunk in 26 straight months

through December, but showed a January uptick in newer and production that surprised analysts. The Census Bureau estimates that manufacturing construction spending, which surged with Biden-era funding for chips and renewable energy, fell in each of Trump's First nine months in office. By the way, this is a Wall Street Journal story. Tom, your thoughts. So, first of all, I think what we need to do, whenever you get a story like this, I like to look at the dates and the numbers and to really look carefully. So they have pointed out, the Wall Street Journal, has said 200,000 rolls disappeared since January 1st, 2023. Can you go a little bit lower, please? There you go.

Go for it, Tom. So these rolls disappeared. 200,000 manufacturing jobs disappeared since January of 23. Wait a minute. 23 and 24 belong to Biden. The election was in November of 24, but they've continued to slide during the first eight months of Trump. So the point is the 200,000 rolls did not disappear under Trump. 160,000 of them disappeared under Biden. And they say the job pullback is actually gradual. This is a headline pushing up here. Now, what's the truth? The truth is we need manufacturing jobs that trump wanted to stimulate to get factories built and things done so that we could have that construction is moving building data centers if i'm a concrete guy or i'm a metal worker there are all kinds of data center projects path that i can go to a lot of places and get a job the other part of manufacturing needs to catch up and the president is trying but he hasn't got there yet but For the journal to put the whole 200,000

on him is really disingenuous because 23 and 24 do belong to Biden. But the president needs to work, I think, harder and get his advisers to push and his cabinet to push faster to get these manufacturing jobs to start in America because it does need to turn back. Jeff. I think there's a couple of things here. And, Tom, you're right. This is not a story about tariffs or administration. This is an economic trend that began, like you said, 2023. which we had an economic shift across the world. We came out of the pandemic. A lot of people were home. They bought a lot of stuff on Amazon. There was a, I wouldn't call it a boom, maybe a boomlet in manufacturing. And that quickly faded in 2023, heading into 2024.

And so the manufacturing industry, really the whole entire production and goods economy has been retreating slowly. Like you said, it's not a crash. It's been more of a disequilibrium moving toward a lower equilibrium. So if you want to, I mean, I think the thrust of this article is to say that the Trump administration's tariffs haven't been able to arrest that slide at the very least and create a recovery. But I think that's an unrealistic expectation. This has nothing to do with tariffs. This has everything to do with the macroeconomic climate, which tariffs aren't really meant to deal with. So this is more about manufacturing than it is about tariffs. Brandon. Yeah, I mean, first of all, with the Rand Paul thing where he said that if it was to go the right way, it should go through Congress. No, not necessarily. So the rule is that if it has to do with national security, the president can do it. But

if it has to do strictly with economics, then it has to go through Congress. But he can make any situation be both national security and economics. And I mean, the real goal of terrorism. But that argument needs to be accepted by the Supreme Court. You can make that case. Supreme Court has to buy into that argument. They could say, no, we don't side with you, and it's 5-9, and he loses it. Right. I'm just saying that Rand Paul's wrong if he believes that it should go through Congress because of it being the economic argument rather than national security, in my opinion. What's crazy is you know where I land with tariffs, that the president needs to have that in his arsenal to use but negotiate on behalf of the American people. But it's irrelevant what you and I think. Yeah. If Supreme Court comes out and says, no, go through Congress, do you know what happens? Right. Obamacare. The Supreme

Court said Obamacare was a tax. Remember that? And then what happened? That was, I mean, the argument was that Obamacare was illegal forcing people to buy health insurance for all those various reasons. And the Roberts court came out, and remember, Roberts was the deciding opinion on that, and said, no, we're going to call Obamacare a tax, therefore it's legal. They jumped through a bunch of legal hoops to make sure that Obamacare stayed in place. I'm not sure. You're saying Trump's team. I think there's a bunch of. No, I think the Supreme Court might do the same thing here with tariffs and say, look, we did it with Obamacare. Why don't we do it here? The public policy is, as it's expressed by the Trump administration, makes a good enough argument.

There are there is a legal basis for it. So who are we to to inter inter inter intercede in what should be Congress's job? And then that, I mean, that's national security to the highest extent. I mean, so the circle is misleading because it's missing the point of tariffs. The point of tariffs is to protect industries in America that are critical to national defense, like steel manufacturers, concrete, pharmaceuticals, defense. And if other countries can jump in and undersell us, undersell those industries, that's why steel companies and manufacturers have evaporated since we let China into the World Trade Organization, since we started doing business with them in the 70s. So, you know, the point of tariffs isn't to rapidly expand the amount of manufacturer workers we have. It's to protect the companies that are building the things that are critical to national defense and that are critical to when we're in times of war. So, yeah, it's misleading

and missing the point with that. And I think it's naturally there's going to be some growing pains with it. We haven't even fully gotten into a tariff situation yet, but there's going to be some growing pains with it. It's been like a year and a half. And other countries wouldn't use tariffs if there wasn't something to it. That's another thing. I mean, the rest of the world is starting to do the same thing. I mean, Mexico is imposing tariffs on mainly Chinese goods and things like the Europeans are talking about doing the same thing. So I think that's more national security issue. I mean, look at what everybody else is doing. You know what concerns me with this? Let me tell you what concerns me with this. Okay, so which sports can you guys openly talk about with penalties or fouls? NFL. Let's go NFL.

So if I'm a cornerback, you're a wide receiver, I'm running – How many yards can I touch you and push you? Five. First five yards. Okay, great. After that, if I do, what do they call it? Incidental contact or PI. It's subjective. If you're running and it's a Hail Mary, you're running, you're throwing with two seconds left, you throw it up, and you're going up, I pull your jersey down from the back, what's going to be called? Passing interference. PI. Now imagine the following. Imagine if NFL – opens up and goes to Europe, and they open up a team out of Nuremberg, Germany, whatever you want to call it, right? And Nuremberg, Germany comes and plays the Chiefs. And in Nuremberg, Germany, their PI laws are different than ours, okay? So they come in, and then KC plays them, and the guy pulls his jersey down, and U.S. ref throws a yellow flag, that's a penalty.

He's like, no, no, no, timeout. In Nuremberg, Germany, this is not a PI. It's legal. Well, wait a minute. So... You can do PI to me, but I can't do PI to you. Yes, that's the laws. Yeah. Do you understand what I'm saying? Other countries can easily put tariffs on us, but we have to go through this whole system. They're following two different rules, so it's easier for us to get penalties than other countries to get penalties. That's the part I have a hard time with. There are certain things that if you're going to have a president to negotiate on our behalf, the laws and the rules have to be on the same side on the other side. If the other guy can do it like this and we have to eat it, but if on this side I have to wait two years and if Congress, majority, minority, you're sitting there saying I lose my leverage as a president.

So to me, I hope this doesn't happen. I do think they keep bringing it up because I think the Supreme Court could go against Trump. And if it does, it's another card he loses. Doesn't make me comfortable. This is not about tariffs. This is about executive power and about the president's pen. And the president's pen has to have power. And it doesn't matter that Scott Bessent says that there's three or four other economic things that we could use at our disposal. That doesn't matter. This is about the power of the executive pen and the president's ability to lead. Because the trade deals that he got done, Pat, those don't go away. He has new trade deals with a lot of countries. But then the next morning, he then gets castrated in his ability to use tariffs and have the power of the executive pen simply because they don't like Trump. Why did those trade deals get done? Because he threatened

him with tariffs. Because he threatened him. Exactly. Because he used the tool at his disposal under the tip of his pen to say, I'm $31 trillion. You're $2.1 trillion, Canada. Let's look at who really benefits here. Let me tell you. You know how you see how they look at him when he comes into the room and everybody's getting in line and listening and everything? They take that away. You know how they look at him? Here he comes. They laugh at his face. You can't do anything to us. They're not going to let you. Your Supreme Court's your boss. Supreme Court's your boss. Like, you remember when Mayweather would fight with other guys and he would say, go talk to your agent. I'm my own guy. You go talk to your agent. Go call Bob Arum. Go call all these guys. I'm not dealing with Don. I'm dealing with myself. That whole thing. Countries are going to look down at us if we don't have the tariffs. Versus the fear of saying we better be

in line with America or else we're not going to get this. You're seeing what was happening with NATO with a part of the funding where he pulled down. Maybe we'll get to, I don't know if it's one of the stories here that we have. I'll try to find it to get to, but I'll get to a different story right now. I think it's necessary for him to have this power. Oh, there it is. Yeah. The UN faces severe cash crisis as Trump admin, admin ramps up pressure on world body. Why is he able to do that? Why is he able to do that? What happens if you take this authority away from him? Rob, is this the clip for that conversation? Okay, go for it. Go for it. The Secretary General has, as you know, repeatedly made clear the problem both of nonpayment of Jews by member states and the related problem of the UN being forced to repay member states for dues budget expenses that it does not, budget money that it does not spend. And so those two

factors have put us on an unsustainable trajectory. Although more than 150 member states paid their dues last year, we ended 2025 with a record $1.56 billion in outstanding dues, which is more than double that of the previous year. So unless either the payments come in or we're not compelled to spend – to return the monies that we are not able to spend because we didn't receive – Who the hell says 1.56? It's 1.568 billion. That's a $500 billion difference. Who is he? Is he – He is the Deputy UN spokesperson and his name is... That's a terrible, you know... Farhan Haq. Farhan Haq is his name? Yes, sir. I'm sure he's a nice guy. I don't know who he is, but I don't know who says $1.56 billion. It's $1.568 billion at the end of 2025 and that collection covered only 76.7% of the assessed contributions living in the organization dangerously exposed.

So... Tom, why is this happening? Why is this important? Okay, watch this. This is a rule. So the world has been using, and I'm going to curse here, the world has been using the United States as its budget bitch for the UN. Let me share with you a rule that they have. Okay, let's say that you are the prime minister of Durkha Durkastan. And over in Dirkadurkistan, you're supposed to pay $500 million a year to the UN for your general dues. And so here you are at Dirkadurkistan, and you don't pay that. But did you know that the rules work like this? Let's say the UN looks at it and said, we were supposed to get $500 from Dirkadurkistan. Hey, but this year we only spent $300 on behalf of Dirkadurkistan. We owe them $200. They are sending the 200 back to you even though you never paid the 500. There are two rules at the UN that do that. You see that? They return unspent funds even though countries, in my

fictitious example here, had never paid them. And guess who foots the bill? The West, primarily the US. So Trump has been going around to all these international clubs and associations we're part of and saying, that one's canceled. That one's canceled. Don't need that one. Because we've been putting money in a hole, and we have been used as the U.N.'s budget bitch for a long time. But watch this here. What if they come back and the Supreme Court says, you can't do that. You have to be a member of that place. Well, then Dirkistan isn't going to pay its bill. It's the point of being a president if you can't make the decisions yourself.

No, I don't want to pay it. You're going to come to us. There's a reason why you're short. Because of the role we're playing. Jeff, your thoughts on this? The UN has become a money laundering agency for a lot. Like Tom said, it's an accounting shell game. It's basically a money laundering operation in many ways. And I think the Trump administration, before getting to your point, Trump administration has said, we're tired of it. We're done. We're not going to play these games anymore. And by the way, most of the UN exists to advocate for policies that are harmful to the United States to begin with. So why are we sending money to you people to do all these nefarious things? But to your point, the Trump administration can't do that, look at what they're saying here. The UN is saying we're going to go bankrupt if we don't have the U.S. money, which is what the Trump administration is saying.

That's the pressure they're putting on the UN. What he's saying is, look, we'll pay you, but you've got to reform. You've got to start doing stuff differently. He's using leverage. So your point is, if he can't use the leverage, we're not going to get anywhere. What the hell is the point of me being a president if I can't make decisions? By the way, this goes back to this, what happened, Rob? I'm glad you found this clip. If you want to play this clip, reminder of how quickly they change their position when they think they can defend themselves without America's help.

Go ahead, Rob. The direct answer to the question of this panel, can Europe defend itself? My answer is unequivocally yes. Without the Americans. Without the Americans. I mean... How? Yeah, how? But you're relying on them for these key elements. You've said earlier that Europe can defend itself.

without the Americans. If it comes down... More or less. This is permanent. Yeah. So, Brandon, your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I have no love for the UN. My favorite thing ever was when Trump in 2017 went to the UN and said the future does not belong to globalists, it belongs to patriots. And, you know, stuff like this shows just how much these international bodies are actually the U.S. with a different name on it rather than this international body that's working against the U.S. Like when the WHO, the same thing, Trump pulled funding from them and they fell apart and the guy Tedros was freaking out about that. It was like the U.S. I think it was like 70 percent of the money going to the WHO and then a little bit from Bill Gates Foundation. So all these international bodies miraculously that are working against us are getting the majority of their money from us, which is Amazing.

But I'm glad that Trump is exposing that and I'm taking the money away from them. I don't think the UN does anything that's good for America. I don't think it does too much that's good for the world. It's mostly just for show and same thing with a lot of these international bodies. And yeah, I'm happy about it. And I agree with you. It's like if the board was able to undermine everything that a CEO does, you know, like what's the point of negotiating anything? I fully agree. I think there needs to be the opportunity for him to impose himself. to walk into a room and command respect. And where does that respect come from? Is it because he's Khabib and he knows how to fight? Is it because he's Mike Tyson? He's got a great uppercut? No, Trump said on Logan Paul, I've never been in a fight in my life. Or is it because when he walks in, because of the access to decisions that he can make, others have to respect respect. what

power we have and he's representing us in these big rooms and we support it. So to me it's very important what's going on. By the way, next story I want to go to on Ken Griffin before I go this and they're talking about a massive campaign to attract other CEOs to South Florida. Before I do so, for those of you guys that are extremely talented, capable, we have 28 job openings right now at Valuetainment. 10 of them are tech roles, software engineers, data engineers, mobile app developers, HubSpot experts. We're also looking for some director roles, director of sponsorship. We're also looking for director of podcast researcher, talent booker, and 12 roles at our Bed David Consulting Company. The link will be below. If you or somebody you know fully qualified, standards are high here. This is not a nine-to-five type of an environment. If you want to learn more, about the job openings that we have, 28 of them, right now at Valuetainment, the line holding. Link below. Share

this link with others. We are aggressively hiring right now here in South Florida. I would say more than 50% of people that work at Valuetainment are not from Fort Lauderdale. They moved here from another state or another part of the state that moved here to be with us at Valuetainment. So go to vt.com forward slash careers and apply now or share it with somebody qualified that you know. All right, Ken Griffin, Stephen Ross, bankroll $10 million campaign to attract other CEOs to South Florida and they said it's the only place a Founder can scale now Ken Griffin is a heavyweight to make a comment like that Rob is this the clip go for drop Laura is the future Is unequivocally the next jumping-off place for American business and we're seeing that already taking shape and right here on the Florida Gold Coast. I've lived in a failed city-state, so I'm grateful for the leadership in the state of Florida. This is

a great place to call home. This is a place that welcomes entrepreneurs and innovators. Florida has so many resources to deliver that talent. This really will become the next Silicon Valley of this country. The regulatory environment is great for businesses. Florida is probably the best business state in this country. This is the ideal place for growth. By the way, I've never seen this ad. Me neither. What a great ad after me saying we're hiring in Florida. FYI, let me read this to you. So he says, the only place a CEO founder can scale from 10 employees to 10,000 employees will be South Florida. By the way, we literally moved down here with eight full-time employees. And we now have 164 full-time employees. We're about to get the plans for the three buildings we're building on our property to be able to house an additional 1,500 employees. The market here lifestyle is incredible. Well, let me continue reading this. Ross

told me, while other cities are still special, they no longer support building business and supporting ambition like you find here in Florida. The next generation of transformational leaders of business will come from South Florida. Griffin, who founded Citadel Fund, is worth approximately $51 billion, according to Forbes. Ross, the founder of real estate juggernaut-related companies, now leads its companies worth $17 billion. The two are backing Ambition Accelerated and Initiative through the Florida Council of 100, targeting CEOs and investors with national ads and direct outreach, pitching Florida's Gold Coast as the premier place to scale a company.

Tom, your thoughts on this? I think this is fantastic. And this kind of reminds me a certain governor of Texas was running ads in California in 2015 saying, come on to Texas, it's good. And we saw U-Haul, this is a true story, Pat and I saw this story, we researched it in Texas. During spring break, U-Haul would pay college students, two or three, to drive a truck from Texas back to California, because they were coming from California to Texas and then the trucks were standing They had too many trucks. Can you imagine that? That's crazy. U-Haul was paying college students over spring break. Hey, you want to go to California? Want to go to Palm Springs for spring break? It's not glamorous, but we'll pay you to drive the truck. So it just shows you what has been happening. I think this is tremendous. Both of these men are building businesses here. If you know anything about Stephen Ross, he is hiring.

If you're a quarterback, there's an opening in Miami. There's a lot of things that are going on. I'm not picking on you, Mr. Ross. We want to go. We want you to have a winning team and we look forward to finding that guy. There are a lot of things and this is what leadership is. When two men are willing to stand up, they have to go to Congress and they have to talk about their industry. And do you think they get a good reception on both sides of the aisle when they run an ad like this? No. Do you think that Ken Griffin got a good reception when he left Illinois and came down here and moved not just himself to telecommute, he moved his company and he's building a large tower in Miami that will house not only his business, but others as well.

I think this is tremendous. And South Florida is growing. I love it. There is a huge stark divide. Sorry to get revved up. We should be. When I was younger, which was a long time ago, but when I was younger, there was always a divide. There's always a left-right divide. And it was usually about tax policy, right? Democrats tended to tax more, a little bit more regulation, but there wasn't much of a divide there. These days... The left-right divide is absolutely massive to the point that I think we talked about this before last time I was here or one of the other times I was here, that they now demonize success. They demonize billionaires. You know, billionaire is a bad word. Success is a bad word. It's gotten to the point where – and all of these divisions really became very visible and stark after the pandemic or during the pandemic and afterward where it has gotten to the point where it's not just an annoyance. to be in some of these blue areas. And

again, I come from upstate New York. I've seen the downside to all of this. And the reason I'm in Florida is for this reason, the same exact reason. It is a business friendly environment. And that's just where it starts. But what I'm saying is I think that a lot of the business community and people like Griffin and Ross and others have finally realized that this is no longer just some minor issue about tax policy. There is a fundamental difference at play here. And it's the downstream consequences, what Tom talked about with people moving. Why are people moving to red states like Florida, Texas, the Carolinas to an extent, Carolina is still pretty hot.

People are moving because people like Ken Griffin are moving jobs into these areas. It's a complete top to bottom type of situation because, like I said, the Divide is no longer just a small thing. It's a huge thing. It makes it impossible. And by the way, the latest thing is California tech company moving headquarters to Florida and another devastating blow. They're talking about wealth confiscation, which is, I mean, we're going down just income taxes or tax rates. Yeah, I mean, D-Wave CEO, Dr. Alan Barats, claimed Florida's rapidly grown tech ecosystem, expanding talent pool, and supportive research is, environment makes the state ideal for quantum innovation.

For what? For quantum innovation. They're moving from Palo Alto to Boca Raton, Florida. In January, Boca Raton official approved a resolution where D-Wave would get up to a half a million dollars to relocate there and create 100 new jobs with an average annual salary of at least $125,000. Of what? Of $125,000. So these are high-paying jobs? Of course they are. By the way, if this was going to New York, AOC wouldn't have approved this. She would have said no. Go to a different place. We don't want you to pay our people too much money. Why don't you go to a different place? Brandon, where you at with this? I mean, you could feel it and see it everywhere. So, I mean, I've been to a lot of different states in the last couple of years, and you could feel the energy of a state, whether its best days were behind it or ahead of it. And I'm from Connecticut. I go there a couple times a year, and you could feel it's like

night and day. You could see things falling apart there. You could see it kind of decrepit, a lack of energy in the environment. But here, you see buildings popping up everywhere. You see a pep in people's step. You see that its best days are ahead of it. So it's infectious. could really feel and see it like like from that Miami section up to West Palm that's probably gonna be like the financial center and like the like the real engine of the country for the let me ask a question that this story here you may you may take a different position with this Trump says he wants to drive housing prices yeah not down Rob if you got the clip on this President Trump suggests during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday that he wants to do this go ahead Rob one of the things God said though is again existing housing, people that own their homes, we're going to keep them wealthy. We're going to keep those prices up. We're not

going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody that didn't work very hard can buy a home. We're going to get, we're going to make it easier to buy. We're going to get interest rates down. But I want to protect the people that for the first time in their lives feel good about themselves. They feel like they've, you know, that they're wealthy people. And I want them to understand that, you know, there's so much talk about, oh, we're going to drive housing prices down. I don't want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes and they can be assured that's what's going to happen. Brandon, thoughts? Yeah, I mean, that definitely sounds like something that a real estate developer would say. You know, I have a lot of love and respect for the president, but of course he doesn't want property prices to go down because that's like the majority of where his wealth is held. And I respect that. You know, that's

understandable. And I understand that boomers, the vast majority of their wealth is held in real estate. But that shouldn't be the case. That's a fundamental flaw with society because of artificially low interest rates. That's why people treat their house like their pride and joy, their biggest asset. But that shouldn't be the case. If we had a free market that allowed interest rates to be where they should be, people would be able to save money in a bank account that compounds over time and that would be their biggest source of an asset or savings. It wouldn't have to be their house.

You know, the reason that people have such a low savings account or, you know, rely on their house to be their biggest assets because of these artificially low interest rates that we've had. So I don't think the problem is the low interest rates or excuse me, the high interest rates like he keeps saying. I think interest rates should be up more so that prices can be down more because rates were like 10, 20 percent in the 80s and 90s and it still took less of an average salary to buy an average priced house than it does today. So Jeff, I have a different position here, but I want to hear your thoughts. Well, that's the issue right there. The problem is incomes, not interest rates. First of all, his response was about this idea that he's going to ban Wall Street from buying single family homes. Which should happen. Yeah, but the reason why it happened is what nobody wants to talk about. The reason why Wall Street and BlackRock and all these funds

came to buy so many single family homes, especially in 2021 and 2022, was because BlackRock and Wall Street can get any type of loans and funding that they want. Regular Americans can't. They're being shut out of the mortgage market because they don't have the jobs, they don't have the income, they don't qualify FICO scores. This is the legacy of the 2008 crisis. And the Trump administration is at least listening to people and saying, how do we make housing more affordable? So the natural response to that from Wall Street was, yeah, if you ban BlackRock from the housing market, housing prices are going to crash. So Trump was just saying, look, we're not trying to crash housing prices. We're just trying to solve a problem that was existing, and this is the way we think we can do it. I don't think it can, but that's at least what he was saying. Housing prices were driven artificially high because of all

the pandemic excesses and imbalances to begin with. I mean – They're driven higher in the 2010s, but the 2020s really pushed prices way up and out of the reach of everyday Americans who don't have the jobs and incomes to be able to pay for these higher prices. So I'm kind of with Brandon here that I think prices would need to come down to be more affordable, or the better option would be to have a better jobs market where people can get paid more and therefore can be able to pay for higher prices. But the issue here is there's no easy answer. I'd push prices up too, though, if people had more money. Eventually, though. But I will tell you, for people who can afford, and you can afford to buy, okay? You're not somebody that can't afford to buy. For people that can't afford to buy, these are two separate problems. For the people that can't afford to buy that are waiting for a massive fall to get a deal, I think that's also a

mistake. Right, yeah. For the people that can afford to buy, like, I remember, like, you know what? I... For example, the property we bought, right? We're in the auction and I'm in the final round of the auction with these other people who are all running multi-billion dollar companies. They're not running 100 million dollar companies. They're running multi-billion dollar companies. They can afford to buy the property that they bought, that we bought. That's not a challenge like for them to buy. The moment we bought it, That property we bought cash for 25.2. Every one of those guys could have bought it except for maybe one or two of them. They didn't. What was the opportunity? Probably lost 15 to 25 million bucks, depending on a location like that. You're not going to find a location like that. Two hangers on the airport, all this stuff. In many cases, I've been on the other side where I say,

like, yeah, I don't know about this. I don't know about this. I don't know about this. I missed out, and I lost millions of dollars if I would have bought it. So to me, the idea of you can afford money And you want to live in a place long term. Minimum for me is five years. If you're buying something right now for 18 months to 36 months, I'm probably not buying in Florida 18 months to 36 months. But if I'm going to be living there for five to 10 years, let's just say I buy something and in three years and four years, I'm going to buy something else, but I'll rent that out. So I'm going to keep it for myself for 10 plus years. I would buy. Yeah, that's the challenge. Because even though you may be right to say they are overpriced, you don't dictate it. market does if them and you are the market but you're one individual if the market sits there and says look people are coming to florida from

a bunch of places that they're making money i remember the first time when we moved to texas and everybody was like tom's like we're moving to plano we're moving to plano i'm like tom what is plano this is no this is 12 years ago we're talking i said what's plano oh you have to look at what plane ho is plane ho is this plane ho is that plane ho is this never in a million years would i move to plano and i'm like hey i think we're gonna move to texas started talking about moving to Texas 15 years ago but not Plano I was just saying Texas could be Houston could be Austin and then he sold me on Plano and then we went and met with Governor Perry then we moved there automatically people like wait a minute I got a bump in my salary but I got a decrease in my expenses but to the people who live in Texas and Plano guess what they said dude cost of living in Plano is increased not to us yeah we move from California. So the people that are moving

here from D.C., from Chicago, from New York, you know what they're saying? Oh, my God, this place is so cheap. Oh, my God, this is so great. That's what they're feeling. So you have a choice. You either have to sit there and say, are people going to stop coming to Florida? I think the answer is no. Did you see what happened to the house that Ken Griffin bought? Rob, can you go back to what happened to Ken Griffin's house in Palm Beach? You just had the story up a minute ago. You know what Ken Griffin's house in Palm Beach is worth now? Look at this. Click on that. Click on that. Ken Griffin plans to build the most expensive home on earth, a billion-dollar mega estate. He's building a billion-dollar estate in Palm Beach. A billion-dollar home. Did you ever think this quickly there's going to be a billion-dollar home in Palm Beach? Yep. That's what Ken Griffin is building.

So what do you think that's going to do to his neighbors? You think his neighbors are sitting there saying, oh, Ken, don't say a billion dollars. Say $38 million, right? Because I don't want the tax. Or are they sitting there saying, babe, you realize this crazy guy is going to build a billion-dollar home? Our $60 million home is about to be $140 million. Go, Ken. Go, Ken. Go build this home. We love you. Tom, your thoughts on this? They're going to be inviting him for dinner while his house is being built. Your kitchen's not built yet. Drop by. It's so great to see you. Irving, come on down to the kitchen. Ken's here. I think this is great. I think what's... the discussion is great. Now, the outcome in getting there is difficult. Brandon, I love you. And I wish I had a DeLorean with a flux capacitor that I can take you back a few years so you can buy the house. But what is going on here? We need three

things. Why do these things always come in three? Number one, we need more supply of affordable housing, A. B., We need a more relaxed permitting process so that safe, compliant homes can be made. Two things. So we need people to invest in buying homes, but we also need an easier permitting process. And then the third thing, Jeff's right. We need more companies like D-Wave bringing $125,000 a year jobs down to Florida So that the Brandons and other people who are capable and educated and ready for those jobs can go, hey, I got this great job at D-Wave. And look what I found out in West Deerfield. Great school out there. Newer schools are out there. And I found a home track where some things were built. We need all three things together. So when Jeff says it's not an easy answer, it's a complicated execution to get there. It's like the doctor saying you need chemotherapy. we're going to do a

surgery to remove your prostate, unfortunately, and then you need a complete change in diet. That's an easy explanation. The chemotherapy is going to suck. That's like the building of the new houses. The surgery is quick. That's like changing the permit laws. If you could get somebody to just change it and now we pass new permitting. And then the recovery phase is like building high income. It's difficult, but it's not insurmountable. And it's got to start today. And the permitting process is number one. And when you've got Ken Griffin and other people down here, all we need is civic leadership. All we need is better civic leadership. And I'll tell you, we've joked about this for a while. I would love to be mayor of Fort Lauderdale because you have a vision. I would love to just hitch my wagon to that vision. And I have a vision. I went to high school down here in South Florida, as you know, Pat. And we would love to be part of the solution. So we're

not just howling at the moon. Are you really announcing it now, Tom? No, I'm saying. We've been talking about this for five years. No. But the announcement would have been the right. And by the way, we're actually not joking. I'm not announcing. I'm saying I'd love to do it. No, no. We're not joking. We would eventually. Not right now, but in a minute. You know, we may be getting behind Tom to possibly, you know, and by the way, if we get into the race, it's not even a question of what's going to happen. You know, we would have a lot of fun with it. My point is, we want to be part of the solution.

If you do support and you want to see maybe Tom and you have some thoughts on him running for mayor in Fort Lauderdale, maybe menek him, Rob. Can you pull up his menek QR code and maybe send some things down here in Fort Lauderdale, which you're not happy about. Send him a menek right there. And tell them what you're thinking about. Anyways, I'm not even saying send it as a help to run or anything. Just if you want to communicate with them and encourage them to do it or not do it. All right. So next story I want to get to, and then we'll wrap up here with a couple stories left. Crypto hoarding strategy is unraveling, according to Wall Street Journal. So here's a story. Crypto hoarding is unraveling. What is crypto hoarding? I'm buying and I'm not selling, right? The strategy rewarded companies. hoarding cryptocurrencies, not punishing them. Bitcoin, Ether, and other digital tokens are in a slump and the shares of companies followed. Michael Saylor's

company, not now known as strategy, is stockpiling crypto are sliding too. The sell-offs have investors on the edge and on the lookout for signs it will force big firms to unload holdings, triggering further declines in digital coin prices. This past weekend, Bitcoin fell below $76,000. the average price microstrategy paid for its tokens meaning the company formerly known as microstrategy was sitting on some paper losses shares of strategy which owns more than ready for this 700 000 bitcoins fell seven percent on monday and are down 61 since bitcoin touched its record high on october 6. brandon your thoughts on the story Yeah, I mean, anytime that Michael Saylor is, or excuse me, anytime Bitcoin's doing well, Michael Saylor looks like a genius. Anytime that it's down, everybody thinks he's crazy. I think it's excessive what he's doing. Like his answer to anything is buy more. So it's interesting

that, Right now, gold is going crazy and crypto is going down because, you know, it was kind of the opposite in 2021 after like everything really got crazy when the Georgia runoff happened, when it was confirmed that Congress was going to be a majority Democrat, which meant more money printing. So crypto took off at that point and the metals kind of stayed the same. Right now, the opposite is happening. So it's interesting whether or not this is a sign of inflation not being the case, because there's There's the dollar weakening from a financial standpoint and from a monetary standpoint. So I think the metals right now, they're moving because of the intentional weakening of the dollar by Trump because he wants rates to go down. We kind of want some currency devaluation so that exports are more attractive. This is kind of showing and exposing the cryptos as not a hedge against inflation because that's how people really packaged it

and sold it the last couple of years. It's like, oh, owning crypto is the best hedge against inflation. No, it's still gold. It's still probably silver. It's not crypto. Crypto is as volatile as the NASDAQ. So, yeah, I think this exposes the narrative as crypto being the best inflation hedge. Still think it's got some good upside, but not directly as a hedge against inflation or any type of stability. Jeff. Yeah, crypto is not a hedge against anything, really. It's a risk asset. Let's be honest about it. And what happened was the price soared ahead because it was an asset that was owned by very few people. And then as soon as it got to be more interested in owning an asset, more people poured money into it and the price went up. And everybody searched for a narrative to explain why the price went up.

And since crypto people continue to talk about Bitcoin as a replacement for the dollar, that became the dominant narrative. But that was just a narrative of the story. And it was really nothing more than people wanting to own an asset that was going to appreciate in value alongside some of the other tech stocks like that. Over the last several months, Bitcoin hit its high. Really, going back to July, things started to shift in the marketplace where risk taking has shifted more toward risk aversion. And when risk aversion over AI, over economic concerns, a whole bunch of stuff that's going on, it hit Bitcoin too. So now you're having a market that doesn't want to take marginal risk, which has led to some selling because now Bitcoin has become more institutionalized, which means that Wall Street portfolio managers are more susceptible toward short-run fluctuations. Therefore, they want to own winners. They don't want to own losers. And it

leads to a situation where when the price changes and reverses, Wall Street as an institution will pile into – some people start selling, then it just becomes more and more selling. And everybody kind of looks for a narrative for why Bitcoin is down, the same way they're looking for a narrative when Bitcoin was up. But there is a real danger here with some of these treasury companies like strategy, not necessarily strategy itself, but some of the other copycats that have come along the way. They own Bitcoin as their main treasury asset. But with it depreciating in price, they no longer have the ability to, first of all, stock price used to be a leveraged bet on the cryptocurrency. So now their stock price is going the other way. Now that's why would you own a more expensive vehicle to get into Bitcoin when you can just own Bitcoin cheaper. But the problem is these companies have cash flow needs and which means that eventually they're going to have to sell their cryptocurrency,

their treasury assets in a market that is right now not really all that, not a whole lot of buyers in the marketplace because there's a lot of risk aversion that goes along with it. If some of these treasury companies are forced to liquidate, that's the fear here, that it could lead to a tidal wave of selling, which we've seen on specific days. And there might be a point where the cryptocurrency can break and there might be a real gap down in price. So a lot of people are selling in anticipation of that problem coming up, which leads to basically a toxic mix. But this is – it's not really about the dollar. It's not really anything more than the overall financial investment climate, which has shifted in the other direction.

Tom? I THINK IT'S A LOT OF PEOPLE. YOU KNOW, IT'S, JEFF'S RIGHT. I'LL ADD SOMETHING TO THIS TO GIVE PEOPLE PERSPECTIVE. WHAT WAS THE BIG PROBLEM OF THE HOUSING CRASH IN 2008? IT'S ONE WORD. THE DEBT THAT HAD BOUGHT THE ASSET IN THE FIRST PLACE. AND SOME OF THESE TREASURY COMPANIES HAVE LEVERAGE OF UP TO 50%, MEANING THAT THEY HAVE 50% DEBT WAS USED TO BUY THE BITCOINS. SO WHEN THINGS SHIFT, AS JEFF WAS JUST And if they fall, they have the same problem they had in 2008, that the underlying asset that you had all this debt against goes whack. And if that goes down by 50%, you use 50% to buy it in debt, you're effectively worth zero because you own the debt and the asset's only worth half of what it was some time ago. And so, you know, I'm not a big fan. I like Michael Saylor. I like Michael Saylor. know his optimism and you know he's a genius but the Treasury companies that were started in his

image many and we know some of them that were started with 750 million yep yep they were just started with money off to the side and stuff like that and we respect these people but they were trying to create a Treasury company like that it puts him at risk so there's three things Treasury companies I like Michael and strategy. I don't like copycat strategy companies, especially leverage one. I think it's a highly risky investment as you're seeing here. But you're saying leverage ones, right? So here's my question for you. Because we got approached with this and saying, why don't you create a fund like this and just match it? And long term, we'll be able to get you half a billion, three quarters of a billion dollars. You remember this conversation? Yep. So I don't like the leverage copycats. The question I got is, Why are people who are putting the money at risk willing to give billions of dollars to the leveraged copycats? Because when the enthusiasm of Bitcoin goes

past 100,000, it is a very fast gain. So if the momentum stays, an economic uncertainty and a hedge against inflation, some people disagree, but if those things come true or are true, then the momentum goes fast. And it's like when Bitcoin went from 16,000 all the way up to 60,000, everybody's like, oh, my goodness, that was 3x because 3x would have been 48. When those momentums happen, like, can you look at max, Rob? Just click on max of the graph you got there. And you can see, do you see the momentums? There's one at the bottom, whoosh, at the very bottom right after 2018. Then it goes down.

Then it goes up and it kind of plateaus like right there. Then it goes up again. So those momentum plays, when you have put into it, Pat, you make a lot of money during those momentum plays. But you got to hang on when the dips happen. Well, it's any type of bubble. Hang on for dear life? Bubble behavior. You're right. It's all about momentum. when the stock price or the crypto price or any financial asset price is going up sharply, it makes every crazy thing that everybody says, it makes it seem like it's real and attainable. So that's why you have all sorts of copycats that come in because they think, look, Michael Saylor is doing something that I can do. All I need is a little bit of financing from a bank, and I can convince a bank because look at Bitcoin's prices soaring ahead. Everybody says Bitcoin is going to go to a million. Why would we buy now? Why would we leverage up right at this point if it looks like it's

going to go to a million? Do you think it is? Eventually. What's eventually? No, long run. 20 years? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. But it's not going to be straight up. It's going to be like this. Sure. It's going to be all over the place. Yeah, but I mean, listen, to me, you know, if you're a long-term thinker with certain assets, like, I love it when my broker calls me when it's a bad day and the conversation is, well, listen, you know, we just got to write it out and all. I said, I'm in the business. I didn't buy this because I'm hoping for a 30-day return. I'm in this long term. I get it.

Listen, the shares we bought the other day of Disney, I'm totally with it. Hey, Anthropic did this. That's great. Do we want more Anthropic? Yeah. So these are types of conversations. But if you're a long-term player, I learned something a long time ago. in business. I watched a lot of my peers and competitors when I was coming up. Even when I was making my first year, you know how much money I made my first year selling life insurance? What do you think my first year selling life insurance full-time, how much money do you think I made my first year? I think I heard it before. $7,000, $5,000, okay? My second year full-time is somewhere between $13,000 to $20,000 is what I made, okay? And then I just knew long-term I'm not getting, because I believed in the business.

Then it went six figures and I never looked back, right? But I'll never forget a scene. If they ever do a movie on me, this scene has to be in there. I'm at Bank of America. And to my left, two tellers down, is a guy that used to be another weekend manager at Bally's. And both of us would always be pinned against each other because they wanted to know, Which weekend assistant, we were both just weekend, we're not even weekend managers, weekend assistants. Which weekend assistant manager is going to do well? They knew we were both chippy, one of us was going to go. Well, I'm at the bank, Bank of America, and I'm arguing why I have three over limit fees of $29.99 because I want to get that $29.99 back. And it's a scene. Ladies are like, sir, this is too many of them. You know, you got to do this. You got to listen. That's not fair.

You got to do one. Why would you do three? Yeah. I see him going, hey, Pat, how are you? Good. How are you doing? Good. I'd like to make a half a million auto deposit. And he just looks at me. He left to get into the mortgage business. I left to get into the insurance business. Something about the mortgage business to me was too cyclical. And I knew this was not going to last all day because they were doing a pickup payment, negam, Nina, no income, no asset. It didn't make sense. My friends would come to me and says, get into the mortgage business. We're just putting income and they don't care about it. Banks are accepting these loans and they're telling us no income, no assets. I got school teachers that I'm putting on their 1003 that he makes 180 a year, even though he's only making 50. I said, dude, that's not sustainable. You don't need to be an economist right there to have a degree from Stanford to say this is not

sustainable. Well, fast forward, that half a million dollar income that he deposited, he was making six million a year, four to six million a year with three to four Rolls Royces parked outside their house. disappeared and a long-term insurance renewal stable business block a business someone's gonna pay a quarter of a billion dollars for it they did if you're a long-term thinker and all this stuff is happening and you fully believe in this product long-term lock it up if you're a day trader trying to day trade Bitcoin and crypto and that's not your specialty do not play with fire it's not gonna work in your favor to me I think long-term thinking is the solution to anything if you're willing to buy and hold something long-term. I bought gold, a bunch of it, a few years ago. And I said, listen, I'm not going to just buy an ounce or two. I'm going to buy a kilo.

So we bought gold, $48,000 to $52,000. You remember this. What is the number right now for gold prices for a kilo? I think you hit a high of a 174 right now. It's probably around 150, okay, 163. You don't even think about this. Mm-hmm. When I bought it, everybody said, you shouldn't buy gold. This is not going to be this. This is not going to be that. Long-term thinking is an edge that you have. So let's talk about- Can I add something? Yeah, please. Okay. For those of you listening, he bought that gold and gave it to a top salesperson- Multiple. Multiple in a sales contest. It was an ingot, and he gave the same advice. it in a safe deposit box put it in a gold storage where you can trust who sold it one kept it and that's right but the point was your insurance company had grown to the point that you were able to give ingots of gold as trophy prizes for winners when the other guy with his rolls

royces and the mortgage business had cratered but but you've been the fundamental long-term business yeah and and look i appreciate that tom and by the way one of the guys that kept it He sent me a picture saying I kept it. He made sure. He says, I kept mine. The other guys didn't keep it. They got rid of it and took that $50,000 that it gives it to you. But let's go. Do we want to do an Epstein story or do we want to stick to business? What do you guys want to do? You tell me your appetite. Do you have any thoughts on Epstein Snyder? Do you have any opinions on that? I have the same thoughts with Epstein as I have. So nothing's changed with you there? There's stuff there. Do you want me to go through it? Do you have any opinion for you to touch it or do you want me to move on that? I think most people, we've done it together. Okay, so we'll do this on Friday, guys, because there's a guy that's an extremely angry patriot who has faith over fear who

may have some thoughts on it. And the other guy who his birthday is today, this guy named Adam Sostink that you guys love. If you love him, it's his birthday today. I think today is exactly his birthday, the 4th. Sent him a manect right there. Surprise him with a happy birthday. Today, he allegedly today turns 46. Something like that. I keep going higher. He keeps going lower. He's in his 30s. I think he's 46. So happy birthday sauce. All right. So then let's go to this story and we'll wrap it up. U.S. plans to issue a license for firms pumping Venezuela oil. I want to spend five minutes into this story and we'll move on.

Tom, I'll come to you. U.S. government is preparing to issue a general license allowing companies to pump oil in Venezuela, part of the Trump administration plan to ease sanctions and rebuild the nation's morbid energy industry. The new license could be issued by the Treasury Department as soon as this week. President Thiem is working around the clock to insure oil companies. able to make investments in Venezuela oil infrastructure. Stay tuned. Taylor Rogers said from the White House, the move is a key step to attract companies with U.S. ties to step in and revitalize output in Venezuela, which holds amongst the world's largest reserves following a U.S. military operation in Caracas that took place. Tom, your thoughts. Just like there's all different kinds of eggs, you go to the store and there's eggs. There's brown eggs, small eggs, big eggs, duck eggs.

You go to the back of Whole Foods or a grocery store, you can get all different eggs. Why am I saying that? It's to kind of, for people who don't know, there are all different kinds of crude oil that comes out of the ground. It's all not the same. Venezuela, a thing called heavy crude comes out of the ground. It's one type of crude. And guess what? In Houston, Texas, there are tremendous number and great facilities and capabilities to refine heavy crude into all the things that comes out of oil. You know, certain plastic products, aviation fuel, diesel fuel, heating fuel, all those things that come out. And what the president has done is following the extraction of Nicolas Maduro, where he's sitting in New York waiting trial, We are now licensing companies to pull the oil out of Venezuela.

So there are oil workers in Venezuela with jobs. Venezuela is now exporting oil. Now there's part of it that you heard him say there's a certain 50 million barrels or whatever the number was that's going to come back to the U.S. because we feel we're owed that. But now he's literally this is doing two things, repaying a debt, restarting an economy in Venezuela, because Chavez destroyed it and bringing more oil to the U.S. to be used so that the companies that have the license to extract it now can turn it to other products. And by the way, this is why, this is one of the many reasons why that all fall under the president's energy policy, including drill baby drill and, you know, shut up those windmills. They're a waste of money. They don't pay off all of that, Pat, is why... Gas is so cheap right now in America, and we hope that that trickles down to the price of heating oil in the Northeast. States

like California, you got almost $2 a tax from Sacramento on your gas, so can't help that, and you can't blame the president for that. But this is restarting Venezuela, and the trickle-down effects that are happening are good. Snyder. Yeah, I think there's a couple things here. One, maybe – The most important thing is this expresses confidence that the, as you called it, the extraction of Maduro was actually successful and that the new regime in Venezuela is playing ball, which means that through a very small action, relatively speaking, they were able to create massive amount of change, which is not just an example for Venezuela. It's an example for a whole bunch of places else around the world. This has always been the thing here. This is a chess board. This is one chess piece. What they're showing is that they can execute at a high level and do so successfully to the point that there is a win-win created. As

you're saying, Tom, maybe it's a win-win-win-win. It's a win for U.S. consumers. It's a win for American consumers. It's obviously a win for Venezuela because Venezuela has been turned into a crap hole over many years. It's a win for U.S. foreign policy because, again, it shows an example of what's – If you play ball with the US, if you don't play, it's the carrot and the stick, and we've demonstrated both. And then the fourth thing is that it moves on to other places like Cuba. Cuba is now suddenly the next target, and I don't think that's an accident. I think this is, again, there's a strategy that's at work there that the Trump administration is carrying out, and they said, look, Panama Canal, Venezuela, we knock those two out, then we get to Cuba. Next thing you know, these dominoes, it's almost like the reverse domino theory from the 1950s and 60s with communism. keep knocking over

these dominoes and showing that not only can we do it, we're not like the Bush administration. We're going to get involved in Iraq for 20 years and go nowhere. We're going to take a very light touch. We're going to do as best as we can. And by the way, along the way, everybody's going to win for all the process. So this is enormous. And the fact that they're giving out licenses to oil companies to execute that they're very confident that they've achieved some of their short-run goals that allow them to do this. You know what I wonder? I wonder if Chevron is going to want to participate in this. Because remember when they said, we don't see... avenue of profitability right now, whatever the line that he used. Three times we've suffered because the government kind of tricked us and seized us. You know, I don't think this is a good idea. And he's like, why are you interrupting my press conference? I think they messed up with Trump, and Trump is going to say,

no, you said the bad things. You're out of this. Can you imagine if he does that? But I wonder if with that comment, you're still going to come out. So if we far up, take a look if Chevron does participate to come back and play that clip. And the fact that Chevron said they're not going to do anything. Anyways, to wrap up the podcast, guys, I do want to give a shout-out to the man that held the gold coin. That is a kilo right there. Look at the smile. Yeah, look at the smile on his face. Shout-out to Rodolfo and Ceci Vargas for not selling the kilo of gold. Smart man, smart man. Rodolfo is a very smart man, very successful. They make a couple million a year based out of Houston, Texas. If you're somebody in the insurance space or a business person, you want to network with them, you can connect them – Rob, if you can go to the Manect handle so they see who it is, go to Rodolfo Vargas. We'll

put the link below as well. That's Rodolfo Vargas. Manect with him if you're based out of Houston, Texas. Anyways, this was great. Another great podcast. Getting smarter. Finding out what's going to happen. And who knows? Between now and next Wednesday, maybe Brandon buys a house. We don't know. It's possible. Maybe he's going to wait until he's 60 years old, 70 years old to do it. We don't know, but maybe he will. And if you want to learn more with this podcast, This man, Jeff Snyder, brilliant, Eurodollar University. We're going to put the link below as well. Look, this is the best I've seen him today, dressed with a suit and a tie. We complimented him before we got started. But go visit his information as well. We'll put the link below as well. Having said that, God bless everybody. We'll do it again on Friday.

Take care. Bye-bye, bye-bye.

Questions about this episode

What is "Chinese Billionaire Birth Tourism Surges As U.S. Faces Security Threats | PBD #732" about?

The discussion centers on the rising trend of birth tourism among Chinese billionaires, who seek to secure U.S. citizenship for their children amid increasing security concerns in the country. The conversation also touches on broader economic issues, including housing prices, and hints at the implications of these trends for future generations and national policy.

What is mentioned in this PBD Podcast episode?

31 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Florida, Netflix, Inc., birth tourism, South Florida, US, California. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Chinese Billionaire Birth Tourism Surges As U.S. Faces Security Threats | PBD #732"?

The episode runs 2 h 12 min; the transcript is about 25,334 words in 166 timestamped sections.

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About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 5, 2026.