The REAL Reason Behind The Government Shutdown w/ Congressman Ro Khanna

Right now we're in the middle of a government shutdown and to me this is a budget question. So the government has shown over and over and over for whatever the last 30 years that we can't pass a budget on time. I think the big beautiful bill was reckless beyond all measure and now I see we're in a shutdown. The Democrats want to add things that will make it more reckless. And I want to get your take on whether you think the shutdown is actually about the budget? Is it about something else? Give me your take on how we have ended up here. Well, first of all, I think your comment about the American dream is true and it's sad. I mean 70% of Americans themselves have given up on the American dream. And people say, well, we've got better life expectancy, better medicine, we have consumer gadgets, but the reality is the American dream is about your kids doing better than you. And when you have Maxwell House coffee naming itself Maxwell apartments, that's sort of the commentary on the American dream. And most people believe their kids aren't going to buy a house, they're not going to be able to have a better job. And it's very sad to me as a son of immigrants. My parents came here when John F. Kennedy had called for us to go to the moon and we were the nation to be and we were humming and I was born in Philadelphia, grew up with that vision. So to me that's the central issue of our nation in our time. Look, I agree with you also on the big ugly bill. Putting aside politics, it takes the it takes the it takes our debt debt deficit to 8% of GDP. In peacetime we should have a debt deficit of under 4% of GDP. And I think there was way too much tax breaks in there for people who don't need them. That's that's my own view. In the OC OECD, which is all of the European Western democracies, we are the second lowest tax nation in terms of how much we tax wealth. And so to me, we can talk about where we need to cut spending, but that is the principal reason we've got these deficits that are at unsustainable levels. Now, there's two things in the shutdown. One is why we're shut down in terms of not paying, and the other is why Congress is shut down. Uh and then Congress is shut down because of the Epstein files. I mean, they don't want to have a vote on the release of the Epstein files. They don't want to swear in uh at Elita Grava, so they've literally said for Congress not not to vote. That's not why the government is shut down. The government is shut down uh because uh the Democrats want to get uh extended premiums for the healthcare uh Affordable Care Act uh the tax credits. Uh and that would uh if we don't do that, premiums would double for 24 million Americans, and the Republicans are opposed to that, and that's the central debate in in the shutdown. Okay, so uh without getting lost in the uh what would they presented a clean resolution, and why don't we just sign that as has been done a million times? I think that debate's been had. I don't expect us to get anywhere with that, but what I do want to talk about is for me the core issue is if you already have a bill that we can agree is ugly, precisely because it increases the deficit, how can you back something that increases it even more? Well, because I would say that I I have a plan to reduce the deficit by debt the debt by $12 trillion over 10 years. How would I do it? Now, you may disagree with some of these things, but I would have a wealth tax on over $100 million. I would have a small financial transaction tax. I would take the corporate tax rate up to 28%. I would not let people pass on money uh to their estate and then uh let Facebook stock about $1,000 that becomes $100,000 and then have their kids not pay capital gains uh tax on that. Uh I would really restrict these grantor trusts where you have billionaires basically passing on wealth uh to their heirs without uh paying an estate tax. Uh, I would have a tax on stock buybacks. That would raise a lot of revenue. And then I would cut the Pentagon budget, which is uh over a trillion dollars, 56% of defense. I would cut Medicare Advantage, which is ripping off the American people by saying we're sicker than we actually are. I would cut fossil fuel subsidies. I would cut duplicative programs. When you do all of that math, you can save uh up to 12 trillion dollars over 10 10 years on on the debt. Uh, you can bring our deficits under 4% and you can still pay for things like uh universal child care and expanding the Affordable Care Act. And so that's that's my view of how you get the math to work. So there's two things there. One, it'll be good for us to in a second talk values in terms of what's the value system and the beliefs, quite frankly, that drive your, I think uh even if you just the way you listed it, you're a um tax first, reduce spending second. We'll get to that in a minute, but that's that'll I think be very helpful. The other is though, when I look at this, I see anything that adds to the deficit is just a non-starter. So um from that perspective, are you not worried about adding costs back into the big beautiful ugly uh bill that that's going to make that even worse? What what is driving the thinking of just get this stuff back in and we'll deal with everything else later? Well, first there's the immediate, right? I mean, people's insurance, health care insurance would go up double uh if we don't if we don't do that. And that is going to mean for people who are already struggling economically, enormous hardship. Could increase medical bankruptcies, could mean people skipping treatment. But then there's the uh the the the broader uh view, which is that we can reverse the the the the tax breaks to a my view very wealthy people that we shouldn't have in this country. We can cut spending from other areas to be able to fund health care. And I think there two types of spending that are deficit spending. One is deficit spending that is productive and one is deficit spending that is non-productive. If you have an investment that has a rate of return that is higher than the the the amount spent, then that's productive investment and that's that's appropriate. I mean, Paul Krugman and others have written about sort of productive investment. If you just have money though that's not leading to productive investment, then then that is that's a cause for concern. My view is that investment in people's health and education is productive. I will agree certainly that an investment that actually yields improved health and actually yields improved education results would be wonderful investments to make. Our our government has not shown in my estimation any ability to yield those results. You you don't have to look very far to find the stats on us spending more per person on health care to get some of the worst outcomes in the world. It's developed world. It's absolutely wild. Uh so and then education, same idea. So from that perspective where I start to say, "Okay, the conversation we have to have I think is around values so that we can establish Okay, what is it that's driving us in this lane?" I don't think you and I are going to disagree on the fact that we're not getting the outcomes that we want now. And yet you look at that problem and say, "But still, it's better to spend more money even though we're not getting the outcomes that we want." And I'm going to say, "No, no, no. You have to balance the budget first. And given that we have not shown an ability to generate those results, We and I teach entrepreneurs all the time and one of the things I'm always telling them is you cannot assume exponential growth if all you've ever shown is linear growth. And that's what this feels like to me. It's like, well, we've never shown that we've been able to get these results, but keep throwing money at the problem and somehow it's just going to resolve itself. And so then it comes down to, okay, well, we each have a belief system, a value system that's driving why we want to act the way that we want to act. Um so I'd be very curious to hear what is like if you had to break it down into some really simple ideas that you filter every bill that you pass or reject, uh everything you're trying to accomplish with your time in Congress. Like what is that small handful of values that are your North Star that lead you to vote the way you vote or endorse the people that you endorse. Every person in this country should have the chances I did to be able to live out their dreams, their potential. That means they should have health care, they should have good public education. Maybe they shouldn't have to take out as many loans as I did, but live in a a safe community, have people who support them and believe in them. So that's the first principle. The second principle is I I represent a district of 14 trillion dollars, five companies within 50 miles of over a trillion dollars, Apple, Google, Nvidia, Tesla, and Broadcom. We are producing enormous wealth in America. We can afford to make sure that everyone has health care, child care, housing, education, the basics. That that that's That's not an unachievable dream for the wealthiest country in the world that's going to be producing more wealth than ever before. Uh and I want a nation where everyone has a chance uh to have the basics, to have the capability to be uh who they can be, and also uh to be productive, to contribute, to be able to start a small business, to have a job, or uh to have a career, to to to do something that brings them a pride and satisfaction. Those are sort of the broad principles. We'll get back to the show in just a second, but first, let me tell you about my non-negotiables. I do not compromise on my standards, not in business, not in my relationships, and definitely not with what I eat. With Paleo Valley Beef Sticks, my nutrition standards stay high, no matter how busy life gets, or even if I'm traveling. They are 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef, 6 g of protein, zero sugar, no artificial preservatives, and they're naturally fermented with organic spices. There's no gluten, no soy or corn, and they're paleo and keto-friendly. Your body does not care if you're busy. The difference between successful people and everyone else often comes down to the standards they refuse to negotiate on. Make your nutrition one of those. Right now, you can get 30 beef sticks for just $36. That's maintaining your standards for barely over a dollar per stick. Click the link below to get your 30 beef sticks for just $36. All right, now let's get back to the show. Uh a lot of that makes sense to me, but there's some devil hiding in the details. One of the things you mentioned a couple times is wealth, and so I think it's really important for us to define terms to see if we're saying the same thing. So, I think a wealth tax is literal financial suicide for a country. Anybody that proposes that, I'm going to go uh campaign against that as hard as I can, uh but I think most people confuse income with wealth. And so, I'm just not sure I doubt that's you. I think you know exactly what wealth is, but I want to make sure that we define it. So, I'll define wealth as potential income. Maybe one day it will happen, but it has not been realized. And to realize that the actual income on that wealth, you have to destroy the asset, your possession of it. So, you take a share and you have to sell that. You take a house, you have to sell that or you'd have to take a loan against it. And so, those are the only ways to liberate the potential from that thing to be able to tax it. So, if you take wood, wood has heat energy trapped inside of it. But to get it out, you have to light it on fire. So, to me, it's like saying, "Hey, you have a whole lot of wood and so, I want to tax you on that heat energy by burning it." And that's where you begin to um you actually break down the engine of wealth by forcing people to essentially light that asset on fire. And so, I'd love to get your take on why tax wealth if you understand the mechanism that I just described. Well, I view wealth as a person's total net net worth. Now, I'm not for taxing unrealized capital gains. So, I'm not for okay, you get a stock option, that option appreciated uh that we tax that uh as a realization of it. But if someone is worth over a hundred million dollars, let's say someone is worth a billion dollars, uh Elon Musk may be worth a trillion dollars. So, I say let's have a 5% tax on uh on on on his trillion dollars. That would be 50 >> worth, he's only worth that because the potential revenue that he could generate by selling his shares. He doesn't actually have that money. Sure, he may have some Well, some people borrow against it and so, they're uh borrowing from the bank and uh then financing their lifestyle and not and avoiding tax. But let's just say he has a billion dollars and let's just stipulate it's all in stock or for the vast majority is. I don't think paying a 2% tax on that forcing a sale of 2% is going to disincentivize uh people from uh building more wealth. Nor do I think it will lead to capital flight because uh 93% of American wealth is invested in America. It could lead to flight from let's say California to New York, but people aren't going to put their money in China. It's 20% unemployment. It's got huge uh debt uh of uh cities. They're not going to put their money in India. And then what are they going to go to Europe? Do you think Europe has a lot of successful tech companies other than SAP for or or ASML for for decades? So, I think that America is unique. We're not France. There's extraordinary wealth generation and having a tax of a few percent on them to be able to finance uh the uh the the the the health care and the uh and and child care that we need is is is worth it. I mean, that's that's my view. There are other taxes we can look at as well, but but you're right. I certainly understand the the distinction between wealth and income and a lot of people aren't paying the income tax at that level because they don't they don't have a W-2. Now, help me understand. You said I'm not for taxing unrealized gains, but then you said I'm going to tax 2% of their unrealized gains. How do I reconcile those two statements? >> Well, I'm I'm I'm for taxing their total net worth uh but not uh taxing. Some people say let's just tax unrealized capital gains of everyone, right? Of of someone over 100,000. We're talking about people over 100 million and we're not talking about their total unrealized capital gains. We're talking about uh their total net worth at a given uh at a given moment and just 2% of that. So, if if they're >> just uh this will be the last time I say it and then I'll I'll let it go, but I want to be very clear for anybody listening. That is taxing unrealized gains. You may only be taxing a percentage of their unrealized gains, but net worth is not income. It's not money in the bank. It'll be partly that, but the that like someone like Elon Musk, what do they have? Half of a percent of their net worth at most in a form that would be um liquid, and it would have already been taxed unless they did it through a loan, but it would have already been taxed when they took it out, which is why in the year that Elon liquidated a bunch of his shares, he paid more tax than any human has ever paid ever in all of human history. So, here's what I'm mapping. Ro Khanna believes that, "Hey, we've got Americans that have healthcare needs. We've got Americans that aren't getting the shot that you got largely from an education standpoint, and the way that we're going to get there is the wealthiest individuals over a certain amount, we're going to force them to liquidate assets in order to pay roughly 2% against their net worth." Is that a fair assessment? Cool. The only thing I I don't think that'll be enough. I think we need other taxes too to get the the the math to work just in fairness, but Well, you're losing me here. All right, we'll get to that in a second. So, the only flag One One thing I think is important is for politicians to be honest about their math. You have all these people come in, they they say, "I want healthcare. I want childcare." Then how are you going to pay for it, and they don't have any answers. My In my case, people may disagree with where I stand, but the math actually works, and I'm honest about where I want to increase taxes on the wealthy, and what I want to spend it on, and how to get there. Yeah, I mean, this is why you have the reputation that you have, and why I have a feeling it's going to get better by the day. Uh so, yeah, I mean, full acknowledgement of um you got on my radar for being the guy that you could actually have a real conversation with, somebody who has, I think, sincere aims and is really trying to get there. Uh so, full respect. Um very grateful to have people like you doing this. What I want to get to is just mapping the cause and effect of, okay, when we do this, what does history tell us is going to happen? Right. >> Um So, where I come down, just uh so, I'll plant my the final flag then we'll move on just to my side of the values equation. So, last thing is um you very clear on what you want to do. We're even going to need more, but that is a tax that will require people to sell things. Getting into the value perspective, so for me, I'm looking at everything from a cause and effect perspective. And I'm trying to figure out if we do one thing, what is the thing that this is going to yield? So, if we take health care and education as examples, I look at that and go, oh, we've run the experiment of does throwing money at those two things does it solve the problem? And the answer is unequivocally no. I agree with that. We Yeah, so we know that just throwing more money at this isn't going to do anything. So, then the question becomes, what is? So, my guiding value is one, freedom. I really believe that freedom is the backbone of prosperity. And so, for America, which is declining in prosperity literally by the minute, I can't remember which one, you'll probably know, but there's a uh somebody either in Congress or Senate that wears like a button that shows the deficit growing. Yeah, that's that's my friend, Thomas Massie. He's an MIT >> Okay, that was my guess. And we did the Epstein file release together, and I uh we were both actually on Twitter saying that they that they shouldn't interfere with MIT, uh the administration, that let MIT figure out how to select their own students and faculty. And one of the points I said is that yeah, the guy uh Thomas Massie went to MIT happens to have programmed his own gadget of the deficit. He's a brilliant guy, and you should have him on, actually. He's he is a a thinker. We come from He comes from the the right, I come from the left, but we're actually interested in ideas. Yeah, I I am not at all surprised to see you guys link up. This is what I hope is the future of America. I have no indications that it is, but uh getting people to really map out uh again, I'll just say cause and effect, cause and effect, cause and effect. So, Thomas Massie wears the button. Uh at least my interpretation of why he does that is to make it clear to people that literally America's growing less prosperous by the minute. Uh because as we accumulate debt, and so this is part of my belief. Um debt is the problem. Why is the American dream gone? It's very simple, debt. Debt forces you to print money. Printing money forces you to own assets. The only assets people understand are a house, and we've made houses completely unaffordable. That That is the crisis. If you want to know why the middle class is evaporating, it is precisely inflation caused by debt forcing you to own assets. And right now, 10% of Americans own 93% of the assets. So, it's like you you literally need know nothing else. That's your problem. And so, now for me, it's like, okay, what are if I believe that freedom is the backbone of the prosperity that will reverse that, so that America is getting more prosperous by the minute, then it becomes a question of, okay, what are the things that we need to do to actually increase freedom? Now, I actually don't consider myself a libertarian, but I am admittedly very interested in seeing government be smaller. I am very interested in seeing us spend less money and be way more disciplined. Uh enforcing every one of us to accept Thomas Sowell's brilliant insight that there are no solutions, only trade-offs. And so, it becomes a question of, what are the trade-offs that we are going to make? And I think, going back to my values, those trade-offs should be driven based on the cause and effect of what will actually generate more freedom and thusly more prosperity. So for me, balancing the budget by reducing the cost of the government is a must. And the reason I think that's a must is any gains, so like Trump has a don't worry, we'll grow our way out of this strategy. Uh but that's all hypothetical. And the same is true for anybody that wants to increase the budget because the only thing we know is the budget's definitely going to go up. The deficits are definitely going to go up. Everything else is a maybe. I'm trying to get people to be honest about what they're prepared to cut in order to balance the budget based on where we are today, which is already ridiculously up from where we were in just 2017. What are the things that you think government should get out of so that we can start reducing that deficit? Well, first I agree with you that uh inflation has led to the uh devaluation of assets uh It made assets go up. But devaluation the devaluation of money and making life more more expensive and then people are then taking it because they're afraid of inflation that the they're putting Well, when you are printing more money, that money is going in the hands of people who already have capital like capital and so they're they're benefiting from more money in the system and it's contributed to income inequality. But I don't think it's the only thing that has. I think it is also the deindustrialization that led to people not having jobs. It's also people not having health care and education. It's also the concentration of industry. So I think that the the the the fact that 10% own 93% of the assets, the story of printing more money is in my view one factor, but there are a whole other set of factors that have led to that income inequality that that have to be addressed. And I don't think just just the deficit reduction will will do that, though important to do. I mean that's >> can I tease those out because I think you're correct on everything that you said. I'm going to give you a speed run of all the beats, literally that I think are all of the beats. And if you think that I've missed one, let me know and we can go into it. So, debts force the government to print money. Printing money is inflation. It's it's not a proxy for inflation, it is inflation. Inflation causes prices to go up, but they are two separate phenomenon. So, debts cause inflation, inflation causes prices to go up. You've pointed out very smartly that offshoring everything, globalization, letting China into the WTO, NAFTA, all that stuff, hollowed out a lot of our manufacturing base. We lost roughly 3 million jobs. That was one of the biggest, actually far bigger than what happened to the unions. That made it impossible for Americans American workers to negotiate their wages. It even in white collar jobs, you just go, "I'll just outsource it somewhere else or I'll import somebody that will do it cheaper." Uh and so that robbed the average American of being able to negotiate higher prices or higher wages, and therefore the real wages have not gone up. So, you've got inflation causing asset prices to go up because that's what happens. Every The people that understand get out of cash, they get into assets, and then the only asset that anybody understands intuitively is a house. So, the average person could get into the stock market, asset ownership, but they won't because it's confusing and risky, and those two things together, the confused mind says no, and so they're not going to go after it. When you couple that with their unable to get their wages to go up for the reasons that we just covered, you're now in a position where every time somebody says add another thing to the budget without removing something of equal or greater value, you're pushing that person's head farther underwater because you've already made it impossible for them to negotiate their wages in any meaningful way. But, inflation, as Thomas Massie's pin shows us, is growing by a trillion dollars every 100 days. It is wild. So, A couple of points to that. I agree with 90% of that. What I would say is that if inflation was matched by wage growth, then of course you wouldn't have the issue, right? It's that the increasing over wages. And so, one of the things that I believe is we've got to figure out how do we get wages up. How do we get people into good paying jobs, productive jobs to match the the cost of living. The second thing is I think that there is technology has had some deflationary effect, not on not on everything. And the United States being the reserve currency has had a deflationary effect. But so, what we see is that consumer goods have gone down, products have gone down, but the cost of health care, of housing, of child care are up. And so, I think this is one of the reasons we've not really had to confront inflation because the we've been buffeted being the the reserve currency that's allowed us to keep interest rates relatively low, and we've had technological progress that hasn't shown up in ordinary consumer goods. Though the story of of the price inflation of health care, child care, education combined with people not making it as much as is really the the crux of why the American dream is is harder. We'll get back to the show in just a second, but first, let's talk about one of the hidden distractions that is killing your focus. Most people do not realize how much mental bandwidth gets stolen by small frustrations. That shirt that rides up, the fabric that bunches, the constant need to adjust. Every time you're thinking about your clothing, you're not thinking about your work, your goals, or what actually matters. That's why right now I am wearing a True Classic Tee. True Classic fits right where it should. Tailored through the chest and shoulders, relaxed where you need it. You put it on right in the morning and then you just forget about it. That's the point. Zero mental bandwidth wasted. The fabric feels premium, the fit is tailored without being restrictive, and it holds up. Stop letting bad clothing steal your focus. Upgrade your wardrobe at trueclassic.com/impact. Again, that's trueclassic.com/impact. And now, let's get back to the show. I love that. And so, another thing to look at there is um when you start thinking about, okay, technology is actually making things cheaper every year, but the average American doesn't feel that. The question becomes, why doesn't it? Now, I already think we've said so many things that the average person is like, I already can't follow you. But, for completeness, let's put this final piece uh on the table. When the Fed says that we want to maintain inflation at 2%, what they really mean is, we are going to print so much money that we gobble through all of that technological innovation, cuz your prices should be going down, down, down, down every year. And people will lie to you, and they will tell you that deflation is bad. It is absolutely not bad. You want prices to go down. We've eaten through all of that by printing money plus 2%. And so, people are already, rightfully, up in arms when they hear in the last 5 years alone inflation has been 25%. Uh but if they only understood that it's dramatically more than that because first, we printed our way through all of that uh innovation that you were talking about plus 25% on top of it. But don't you think that there's that it's the the price uh hikes and and declines have been dependent on on on what we're talking about. So, you know, the price of TVs have come down, the price of computers have come down, the price of an iPhone uh or an Android have come down. Uh the price of knowledge has come down. Today, every person has on their fingertips uh the amount of knowledge probably President Reagan had in the 1980s with all his staff. And so, certain things, the price of communication has come down. But, the price of health care, the price of child care, the price of education, those have skyrocketed. And that uh that I think is the the biggest challenge. And on health care, I agree with you. We haven't achieved the right option. I I would be curious what you would think of having a single payer health health system because I think it would uh make it much easier for businesses who don't have to deal with it. You'd eliminate a lot of the dead weight costs with middleman insurance. And you could still have have doctors and nurses. But, I I think the problem is these these sectors where the costs have sky rocket skyrocketed. There's no doubt that there are some things where the cost is easier to get down at a more rapid rate that people do feel it. Uh my favorite quote though is you can't eat a flat screen. So, uh yes, there there have been things that have come down and those are wonderful and we've gotten to take advantage of some of them, but it creates this weird sort of dystopian thing where it's like I can get this the most advanced TV of all time. Uh however, my groceries have doubled in cost, right? So, um or even looking at healthcare. So, my take on that is the areas where we just cannot get the price down are the areas where the government is most involved, not where the government is least involved. And so, this is why I'm careful to plant the seed for the very thing that I think is the engine of prosperity is freedom. The very thing the government takes away is freedom. Now, I think we actually want some rails. I think that humans have a tendency towards tyranny at the individual and at the collective level. I think if companies don't have any checks and balances, we've already seen what they do. They've got like 9-year-olds cleaning chimneys. So, uh let us not pretend that humans will not do dastardly things if they're not given boundaries. I think boundaries are a good thing. I think we want them. I just think that it's one of these dances where as you start putting more and more it's like, "Hey, this is a good thing, right? We're trying to protect people, right?" And then you start getting into the nanny state, which ends up breaking the mechanism that gives you the freedom to actually get the innovation. But this is Oh, go ahead. I don't want to interrupt. Please, no, you. But But I just wanted to push on this idea of freedom because uh this is where we get back to sort of basic political philosophy, right? There's negative freedom and positive freedom. And I'd be curious how you think about that. Negative freedom, uh which we can all agree on, is you don't want the state to say, "Hey, you know, you said the wrong thing on this podcast or bro, you I said the wrong thing. Uh we're going to put you in jail or uh we're going to come and just confiscate all your assets without due process." That is the freedom to be protected against the arbitrary use of violence by the state. But that's not sufficient, right? But to be truly free, and this gets to the work of someone like Amartya Sen who wrote capabilities theory or FDR on the economic bill of rights, they say like that that a human being to be free and achieve your potential, you needed an education, you needed health, you needed the basics to to to be who you are, and that the that a society has an obligation to help people achieve their potential, and that that is the positive achievement of freedom. So it's not just a state that is is is is allowing you not to to face violence, it's a state that's helping you flourish, and then in a modern complex society, family and civic society isn't enough, the state has to play some role. So what I would say to that is all of that stuff is wonderful, but there has to be a point at which you say I'm trying to do the minimal amount of this. So Jordan Peterson has a really interesting take on parenting, and he said you should use the minimal force required to get your child to act in a manner that is appropriate. Now of course, we could all debate appropriate, and of course we could all debate what is the minimal force required, but that feels like pretty good guidance. You cannot, and from where I'm sitting, kids will not develop in a manner that will make them productive adults unless they have some boundaries. So hey, government needs to come in. The government is the parent in this situation. The government needs to make sure that we become productive society. I love that. However, if a parent is slapping their child around and beating them, I think we all know that there's going to be real damage that's done. Even if it's not physical damage, there's the potential for massive psychological damage. And I think the same is true, to extend the metaphor about as far as it will carry that if the government is coming in and it's doing too much that now you're going to run into problems. So I I think I mean I'll not have a hard time getting you to agree with yes, there's such a thing as the government does too little and yes, there's such a thing as the government does too much. So then the question becomes okay, what are we going to use as the barometer to say the government is now doing too little or the government is doing too much. And I would say the answer is results. Nice and easy. Just like in a business. Am I doing the right things in my business? I don't know. Are you profitable? Yes, I'm profitable. Then you're doing the right things. Now, there's an element of could you be even more profitable? And then we can start to optimize for that. But if your company isn't profitable, you're going to go out of business. So I know you're not doing the right things by its very nature. You can get into the like nitty-gritty of well, maybe if I'm not profitable for two or three years, like I'm going to find the path. Let let's not get lost in the complexities. If your business is losing money, that is a bad sign. All of your energy and effort should be put to get out of that situation as fast as you can. And so I'm saying >> based on your metric, I'd be curious, genuinely curious. So let's look at Obama's Affordable Care Act, right? So we know when he passes it in 2009 or 2010 that millions of Americans, 30 20 30 million Americans who did not have health insurance now have health insurance. We know that people who had pre-existing conditions, uh or heart disease, now they're covered. We know that young kids up to 26 uh who didn't have health insurance, now they can get on their parents' health insurance. Now, we also know that premiums have skyrocketed since then uh and that that's a a structural issue. And that's is why I believe we need, you know, Medicare for all. But would you acknowledge though that yes, on a results metric uh Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act ended up improving health uh for many Americans giving them the the health care that they they they needed, but it came at a steep cost and this is a values question then of whether we think the cost is worth the improvement of of health that happened for particularly lower wage Americans. What I think the Obamacare Act did was give a ton of peace of mind to people that were going to reduce the number of people that are dying of something acute. We're going to reduce the number of people that are going to go bankrupt due to medical costs. I think those are huge wins. And the other problem is because we have and probably just for the scope of this conversation will leave vague, but because we have structural problems as you said with the way that that is set up we're pouring money into a system that actually isn't delivering the result of making Americans healthier. So I I will just say right now I am happy to take a debate with anybody on this one. Your health barring of course there going to be people that tragically end up getting cancer either because of genetics or they live near a pollutant or they were you know just something in their environment caused it. I I I just I can't stress enough the tragedy of cancer as somebody I had skin cancer and I was aghast because I've been so careful my entire life. But I'm married to a Greek girl and so I'm always in the shade in a very sunny space. So anyway it played out the way that it played out, right? And so I will grant that same grace to anybody struggling. I get it. Anybody can end up there. But if you want good health it comes down to what what you eat. And so if you eat poorly Yeah. By by a factor of 10. So if if you only let me control one variable, I will just control what the person puts in their mouth. And the the number of elements that I will be able to reduce just by controlling what they eat, it will be far greater than what I can control by getting them to work out. Now, if I can get them to work out like an Olympic athlete, okay, maybe then it's so hardcore that you can sort of start to get where food matters a lot less. Uh but ooh, buddy, that that is a lot of work. >> three things? I mean, we discussed ideas before we were online. You said no carb or low carbs. If you were to to be talking, I mean, we had this complex economic discussion, but you said, "Here are your three laws uh someone changing their lifestyle tomorrow, uh what would be the top three things?" Don't eat sugar. Like it's it's And the problem is most people don't understand Well, carb uh I I don't advise it, but it's not nearly as problematic as sugar. It just depends on how much they have. My I don't have the studies to back this up, but my instinct is if you overeat artificial sweeteners, you're going to have microbiome problems that will be severe. Uh probably not as detrimental to your health, but you're going to get things like itchy skin, irritable bowel. So, look, they have their own problems. So, I would advise people to eat whole food whenever humanly possible. But going back to the sugar thing, most people just don't understand how many things have sugar. So, carbohydrates will turn to sugar in your bloodstream unless it's fiber. So, >> um yeah, just that that's the number one variable. People intake so much glucose. It's wild. Yeah. Well, and you have an expertise. I mean, that was your whole your whole company. And uh and I I agree with with you on this point that that that there has not been enough focus in our society on on health, on wellness. You know, I I I had one of the best educations uh you could have in this country. And I was very studious. And what amazed me is even though I went to a great public school, even though I got fancy degrees from the best private university, Chicago, Yale, I did not really know these simple things about sugar and carbohydrates and diet until I was in my 30s and read about this. So, the amount of one lack of health wellness education that we have, at least in my generation, I don't know if I don't think it's become much better now, in our society is a huge problem. And then the amount of access that people have just to regular health and wellness in their communities is a huge problem. It's interesting. So, this is where we get into like the the how do you actually solve these problems? I don't think that health is confusing anymore. I think everybody knows exactly what to do, and it's just hard. So, there are some things in life >> I don't know your age, but I'm 49. You agree in the 1980s it it was not obvious. Like we would have you know, orange juice and Rice Krispies and cereals and sodas. I I don't think at least where I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, it was not as obvious about the health knowledge we have now. In the 1980s, the US government was actively trying to kill its citizens. My producer just laid his head on the floor. He's not happy with that statement. But that really is either out of ignorance or malice. The food pyramid is unforgivable, and every time that the government wants to put a regulation in place, I want to scream because they're convinced they know best, and they do not. And so, this is why I'm a huge proponent of pointing out that freedom is what leads to prosperity because freedom is a bunch of really selfish people competing to win the game of capitalism by making something that's better for you. But what do you make of the moment of the moment of the the mama movement and put aside where I disagree with Robert Kennedy on the vaccines, but this idea that, you know, Europe has regulations on food and that we shouldn't be having antibiotics in in the the food we have, we shouldn't be having food dyes, we shouldn't be having as many preservatives, that we that we can do a lot to clean up our our our food system. When you don't know the truth of nutrition, the sort of first put no weird thing in your food is a really good strategy. So, from that perspective, while I have no idea if he's going to be right about all the specifics, what I hear him saying is my belief system, my values, however you want to look at it, tells me that putting exogenous weird things in our food is unwise. And when I just look around and I see how much faster America got fat compared to Europe, and then I look at Europe and the more they adopt American style food, the more of a problem they have, we should probably reduce the number of things that we allow to be put in our food. Yeah, as a knee-jerk reaction, that seems very reasonable. Um you can probably simplify it even farther and just go you really want to be eating things that look like it looked when it was growing or roaming. And the farther away from that it gets, the more likely it should only be a snack, something you eat on rare occasions. It should not be like the core of your diet. This is why like this goes back to my cause and effect thing. Um I can't explain human biology to you, but I have I've lost 60 lb like 15 years ago and have kept it off. It is the easiest thing in the universe because I simply know what to eat and what not to eat based on what it does to my own body. So, I'm like, oh, if I eat that, I overeat it, I overconsume calories, I put on fat very easily. Cool, this thing makes my joints hurt. Cool, I'm not going to eat it. Right? So, it's like, you don't have to be a genius, you just have to pay attention to, am I in shape? Uh, if your body fat percentage is way out of whack, your your diet is not the way that you want it to be. So, but this all started, you were talking about education, I actually want to get back to that. So, same idea. Uh, the way that you're educating the kids, what what result is it yielding? I would say, it's yielding a terrible result. I say that compared to international results on standardized tests. I say that what we spend per person versus the >> And then our reading and test scores, just they just came out. They've stalled, they haven't done well, and there's just a national study on reading scores, math scores. I mean, what you're saying is factually accurate that we have not done enough well enough for for education. And we've failed a lot of people who don't get a four-year college degree. I'm very eager to see people not accumulate debt. So, the four-year college degree thing to me is just a question of, well, can you do it without accumulating debt? If you can, great. If you can't, probably a terrible idea. Uh, but let me put forward a radical idea that I've never said out loud. I want to see what you think about this. Uh, if you want to fix education, acknowledge that you live in the age of AI, and hire basically hall monitors, effectively babysitters, to sit at the front of the class, a very limited number of them, but let's say one for every 10-ish students. Uh, and then they just interface with AI all day, and you you give each school a budget to buy their AI system, and then you just let the AI systems compete for who outputs the best students. Uh, and that alone would be so much cheaper and so much better than what we do now that we should do it would it is immoral to not do that. I'll go that far. >> Here's Here's why I disagree with that. Now Now Now Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't use AI as tools to supplement teaching, but when I think of the teachers and I'm curious when you think of your teachers who had the biggest impact on you, uh, I don't remember the details of what, uh, books I read in uh, ninth grade English and I probably don't remember the details of the history I learned in 10th grade social studies, but I remember Mrs. Robb, uh, believing in me, encouraging me to write, challenging me to write. I remember Mr. Longo pushing me uh, to care about public service, to love public service, uh, to develop my ideas. And I think that so much Yes, there are the hard skills. I'm not going to uh, to to to to to say that they don't matter, but to get someone to be good at those hard skills, you've got to give them purpose, you've got to give them a sense of why it matters, you've got to get them to love things. And I think that is not AI, that's emotional. It's I had this conversation with Jensen Huang at Nvidia and I said, "Do you think AI is going to uh, really displace jobs?" And he said, "Yes, it's going to displace jobs, but you know why I spend most of my time as CEO of Nvidia setting goals and uh, talking about resilience and uh, inspiring people. Uh, and I I just think that that human quality uh, is ultimately the most important in success. I imagine it was the most important for you." So, I love that and that's why I'm saying you want more people in the classroom, not less. Um, but you just want to make sure that we accept that the question has been asked and answered. Is it a good system to expect each individual, each new generation to go and train themselves to death and then go in and teach, or are we better off with AI, which has been trained on the entire corpus of human knowledge and gets better every day, and will most likely on acute tasks like history or whatever, always outperform an individual human? You put them in place to give the instruction, right? This experiment's being run right now in schools in Texas, where they're having the kids spend two hours a day with tailored, because that's the thing, that even if it's one AI, it can still tailor its rate of progress to that exact student, and it with two hours of AI instruction, those kids are like outpacing their classmates that aren't using AI by like tremendous degree. It's It's really incredible, and this is going to be the birth of something beautiful. >> you know, cuz I I certainly am always a data person and want to look at what we can do, and my my I'm I'm not a I represent Silicon Valley, I'm not a Luddite or someone who says that let's not use AI. Certainly it's powerful tools, and I think the question is how do we how do we blend the the uniqueness of teachers going all the way back from Socrates on to the teachers you and I had with the tools of technology. Yeah, I I agree. So, I want to see humans in the class, and I want to see them be people that can inspire a child to dream bigger, to want more, to not be an indoctrination engine, or if we're going to indoctrinate kids, which we are inevitably, that we have a nation-wide curriculum from an indoctrination perspective that everybody agrees on, and it's just real basic. For me, it's a growth mindset. Just take everything Carol Dweck has ever taught, and just be like, here it is. This is the uh Yeah, yeah, you know, you know, one of the things I was just in China that I thought that we do so well in America, to your freedom point, is we love to challenge, right? Even you know, you you could be an administrative assistant or a CEO in this country, and you perfectly can say that the president is someone you think is utterly wrong and believe that your opinion matters just as much with fervor and certainty. And it it's not just that you have the freedom of speech to do that, you have the self-confidence to it. One of the things I used to do as a student is I used to love arguing that my teacher was wrong about something and that now I argue that people may be wrong and it it's given me the ability to challenge the system. And so I I feel like that you don't want to sanitize, right? Like are you going to say the AI is wrong or you want to make sure people are developing a spirit of challenging the system, questioning authority, taking risk. And I I think I know these things seem soft and I we definitely need to get our math, reading, and technology skills up, but I think it's actually what makes America exceptional. I think it's why we I am very bullish on the American experiment long-term. Yeah, I could not agree more. It's one of the things that makes me very nervous about what I see happening in America culturally, which is a move to a very socialist stance of like we want to make sure that everybody's outcomes are the same. You said what you believe, which is you want to make sure that people have the same opportunity that you had and I think that is absolutely critical. I think it's immoral to do anything other than that. But from the perspective of God, the universe, whatever it is that you believe in, has seen fit to give us different talent, intelligence, and so there's always going to be different outcomes. So having the ability to take a swing, to think that you're right, only works if we're going to allow the marketplace to slap you around and say, "Nope, you're wrong." And right now I believe that America has lost the stomach for letting people fail. And to make sure that we catch everybody, we are robbing us of what you're talking about, which is, all right guys, we're going to make sure that you all get educated. All right guys, we're going to make sure that you don't have to worry about your health care. However, after that, this is going to be a question of your talent, your intelligence, your discipline, your hard work. You've all got access to the AI, you've all got access to the health care, let's go. But, some of you are going to get rich, and some of you guys are going to crash and burn. And by the way, some of you are going to be lazy as hell, and you're not going to do anything. You're not going to develop yourself. No beef. But, then we're going to get a very uneven distribution of outcomes. And I really think we have lost the will for that. And there is And I think it comes from things have gone so well for so long that people think that amazing outcomes and growth are a law of nature, not realizing it is tied to exactly one thing, and that exactly one thing is entrepreneurship. There is nothing else. Uh it's the only thing that generates jobs, it's the only thing that generates taxable revenue. Like, it is the whole game. It's the thing that is innovation itself. Like, it just that is the thing. Uh and we're losing sight of that to our detriment. Uh and I see I'll let's call it the AOC Mondani wing as representing that, and that one really scares me. Like, I look at that and I go, ooh, this doesn't work. Let me ask you this, though. You know, what they're speaking to is the 70% of Americans who have lost the the American dream, and they're saying, look, we can't afford our housing, we can't afford rent, we we can't we can't afford health care. And I agree with you on the entrepreneurship and and the the innovation. But, don't you think some of the issue was people being subject to forces well beyond their control. That the the shop owner in rural America who couldn't compete with Amazon didn't know that wasn't that he he or she didn't work hard. The factory worker that couldn't compete with China or Mexico, it wasn't that he or she couldn't work hard. The you know, small town that couldn't compete because all their kids were leaving for Silicon Valley or Seattle. It's not that they couldn't work hard. And so there've been so many forces globalization, automation that have hit the economy that a lot of people are saying we did everything right. You know, we worked hard. Yeah, we're not entrepreneurial. I mean not not everyone can start a business. That's why only one or two percent of people in this country do that. I don't know, maybe it's a little bit more. You would know the statistics. We didn't put everything in our job. We had pride in our job and then we wanted to support our family. We wanted to go to church. We wanted to coach Little League. And every our grandparents did that, our parents did that. And we couldn't do it and now we see no possibility for our kids doing it. And it's not cuz we're not working hard. It's cuz the system screwed us. And I I really think that's a large part of what explains, whether it's Trump, whether it's Bernie, whether it's AOC, it's this righteous anger at a system that people feel has failed them even if they're willing to work hard. You and I are in violent agreement about that. So that's why we started the interview where we started it. I want people to understand it is not unknown forces. It is it is a force. I can walk you through it over and over and over. It is I'll over simplify again, but it's debt and inflation. That that is what's robbed you of this. If you make homes unaffordable and then put people in a position where you are creating inflation and the only way to hide from inflation is to own assets and the only asset you understand is a home, and that's unaffordable, you are saying, I I the government am going to put a boot on your face, and I'm going to stamp on it forever. And that's it. Like it I I really want people to understand that is what has happened. And so now the question becomes, how do we undo that? Now, you're one of the few people that I really hear banging the drum eloquently, and so I want to just amplify this as much as possible. You've You have talked about this as economic patriotism. We need to get people to understand you've got to bring some very meaningful percentage of manufacturing back to the United States. An absolute must for a whole host of reasons, by the way. National security being one of them. Thucydides trap, if people don't know it, look it up. That's very real thing. China's going to be a real China is a real thing. So, you're preaching to the choir. Amen, brother. Like keep going with that. But getting people to understand nothing nothing comes even close to matching as long as the government is deficit spending, your neck is being stepped on. And if we don't stop deficit spending because of the the physics of the economy, you're in a just a horrible position. Now, there are things I think thing number one, stop deficit spending. Thing number two, there it's so simple to make houses more affordable. Which is >> is free market, baby. Let builders take a risk to go build a whole bunch of apartment complexes in that neighborhood that you really don't want apartment complexes, and they will find that balance. Like if you look at there are several places >> I agree with this in terms of we got to double our construction of housing in in this country. I mean that that that to me and I I I think there is more and more recognition in California we messed that up. I mean, for until now. I mean, now finally Scott Wiener and had a bill to say, "Okay, let's have more more housing." But, look at my district in Silicon Valley. Prime example, you have five trillion dollar companies in the in the place that have arisen in the last 20 years, 25 years. And yet, the place from a housing perspective still looks like the Valley of the Hearts Delight with orchards. Like, how you can't have that. You can't have the most economic activity in the world and the housing growth be be restricted. And so, it's not a surprise that you have all these multi-millionaires now bidding up the housing prices so that a working class can barely can't live there. And I do think that the debt and inflation is one of those causes, but restrictive zoning has been another reason. And the fundamental income inequality, I think, is also a reason. If you're if you're living as a plumber or as a teacher and everyone around you is working at Google as and had stock and it just so happened we had this tech boom. Well, you know, that that makes it hard to have housing be affordable. I totally agree. And so, the good news is you're being very specific and once something is specific, then we can look at the cause and effect and we can say, "What exactly do we need to do for people that that don't know YIMBY?" It would be yes in my backyard. So, NIMBYism, which is the thing that you'll hear most commonly is not in my backyard. Meaning, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can go do it somewhere else, but don't build those apartments in my neighborhood." So, I think that there's a lot of things that we could do with that to make sure that we're getting more housing. Houston is a great example. Houston just says, "Yeah, it's easy to get a building permit. No problem. Go do your thing." And because of that, housing prices in uh, Houston have been ridiculously stable. And so, people that want that number to go up, yeah, they're bumming because it's just sort of a steady across line. Um, but it does mean that people can actually get onto the property ladder. And again, given the need to get on the property ladder or to have an asset that you understand, uh, you got to do it. It's one of those like I keep coming back to you. The government has certain moral obligations. One moral obligation would be to give people access to uh, a home that is affordable for call it the median income in the country. So, it's like, bro, you can't put people in a position where they cannot get into assets unless you're prepared to not inflate the currency. So, you can't both inflate the currency and make it impossible to get into an asset. So, pick your poison. If you want to re-harden the currency I I agree with you on the Houston uh, permitting and building. And I from the things I've read that Houston has been better than some of the places in in in California on that. Would you do anything more to that? Would you, you know, some people for example say for first-time home buyers uh, at a certain income level help them with their down payment, lower their interest rates at 2 to 3%. Uh, other people say, "No, you know, if you do this too much you're going to create a bubble and that that that at its extreme is what led to the 2008 crash." I mean, where are you on how much do you help beyond building people get into home owner ownership? I I'll come down to cause and effect on it. So, if somebody can show me that, hey, um, the government getting involved uh, can really do something if the program fits these metrics, I'd be all for it. My gut instinct is it won't work. When the government gets involved, they do create bubbles, they create distortions, they give rents to the wrong people. Uh, housing developers know, oh, I know you're going to be able to get a loan for this amount. They'll know that loans get handed out in certain bands, so they're only going to build houses that match those bands, or they're only going to price houses in those bands. Like, it creates distortions in the market. It is probably much better to make sure that everybody's getting their education, that we're not inflating the purchasing power of their dollar away, that we're not sending all of their jobs overseas, that we're not importing cheap labor, and then we say, "Okay, and now we're relaxing some of these restrictions so that the people in the local market who are capitalists, who are just trying to They're going to take a risk, and they're going to say, "I can build a better house than the next person. Uh I can get better loans than the next person, and so I'm going to win in this housing market." And you let all those guys compete with each other. Some of them are going to go out of business, or going to go bankrupt, and the the buyers will get to take advantage of that jockeying and that competition. Um so, that when you're uncertain about something, letting the free market do its thing is almost always the right answer. Where Where in the I mean, I would on housing I agree on the doubling the housing construction. I agree on expediting permitting for building, but I do think we need to stop sort of private equity subsidizing private equity to be buying single-family homes. >> Yeah, stop stop ridiculous competition where you're letting people just gobble that stuff up, or have some sort of progressive system where it's like, "All right, if you want to buy that third house, like go for it, but damn, like you're paying some crazy like tax or whatever." Facts. Like a consumption tax where it's like, "Oh, if you want to get into that thing, like we We are trying to save, let's make no bones about it. We are trying to save these houses for first-time home buyers." And so, if you're a third-time home buyer, they're going to be like just You can do it because, fine, having 50% tax or whatever uh great. We can do amazing things with that. So, that kind of thing I have no problem. Well, and and that's an interesting idea. I didn't even thought of it. Maybe I'll I'll have my team look at that. But, I consumption tax, whether it's for private equity or second or third third home. Uh and then some some sense of a in my view of well-crafted a program for first-time home buyers. But, let me ask you this on a broader philosophical level. Most people think sort of the New Deal, the GI Bill when when we came back to the United States. Well, let's start before that. Europe didn't allow uh everyone to go to high school. High school was an elite thing in Europe. 20, 30, 40% of people went to high school between 1910 to 1940 in Germany and France uh in in England. The United States had no high school for everyone, public high school for everyone. It It helps us uh become the dominant post-World War economy. We make that bet. And then we have the GI Bill. And we say, you know, we're going to help with people who served in the war uh get housing, get education. Uh and that's credited for our our economic development. Are there fundamental things that you would say in the last 100 years or last 50 years that the federal government has done really well uh or where you say, "Yeah, that is something that is foundational to the American dream." Or are you are you just deeply suspicious of the the federal government? And uh and if so, how far back? I mean, where where do you think uh where where What are the programs that you think the federal government should have and and is doing well? Well, so again, if I go back and look at the results, uh then it it is undeniable that the setup post-World War was amazing. So, we had the incredible baby boom that we had. Baby boomers really came into like some good stuff for a reason. Uh thanking our troops, honoring their service, you're always going to get big applause from me. So, doing a GI Bill and saying, "Hey, thanks for risking your life to protect our freedoms. Yes, we're going to make sure that you get educated and all the other benefits." Love that. Totally here for that. Um so, when you look at that boom period, some of it is demographics and that becomes very becomes impossible to replicate, but nonetheless they made some really good moves there. I'm also very impressed with what the US did to establish itself as a reserve currency. The even though I absolutely despise and think that it evil is probably the right word. Though everything's a trade-off, so there are certainly upsides, but in 1913 when we passed uh the Federal Reserve Act, we did people all the dirt of inflation. So, uh I don't love that one, but we we made America. America is amazing. So, my thing is you and I are exactly the same age. We were both born in '76 and I'm like, "Yo, growing up in the '80s was dope. Being 12 in 1988 was dope. I believed I could become anything I wanted to." I have so many memories of like cuz the easiest way to explain how I grew up, I didn't have cows, but my neighbors did. Where did you grow up? Tacoma, Washington. Okay. So, I was almost rural and even being that kid, I was like, "I can be anything I want. This is amazing." >> did pretty well. You did pretty well. >> well. And so, I want everyone to have that same feeling. I don't expect everyone to actually win. To your point, not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. It's very stressful. I don't recommend it for everybody, but I want people to believe, "Okay, the game is not rigged against me." It did not feel rigged against me when I was a kid. And right now, it is provably rigged against people. So, I feel like we had a great run there for a minute. The debt accumulation caught up to us. We made some very troubling uh decisions with letting the government uh basically back a lot of loans in housing, back a lot of loans to students to get educated, and that came home to roost. And so, there are obviously other issues, but like you start stacking those things up and it it starts getting bad. But I Dude, I'm the most patriotic guy you're ever going to meet. Like my mission is literally to get people to feel the way I felt when I was 12 in 1988. Like I want people to >> you're not We have shared the same aspiration. We share share the same kind of hope about America, right? Even though we have such different backgrounds. My grandfather spent 4 years in jail alongside Gandhi fighting for India's independence. My parents are immigrants, but I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 99% white, Indian-American, Hindu faith, going to Philly's games in the 700 level at the Vet, watching Rocky movies, believing you could do anything in America. And then this country elects me to represent arguably the most innovative place in the world at the age of 40. Obviously, you can't have a story of like mine and or like yours and not believe in the American experiment. Uh and it it it pains me that the country my parents came to, the country I grew up in, that there's not that same confidence. There's not that same hope. There's not that same spirit. That's what I want uh to invoke and and to build in the in this country. We're both doing similar work from different angles and perhaps different ideologies. Who do you think it putting You're not political, but it Is there a president in your lifetime who spoke to that, who you said, "You know what? That's the That's the direction I want America to go." or have you just been think that we made mistakes over the last 50 years? 90s Clinton minus the Like that you you had me at hello. That felt dope. Like when it was happening, it felt awesome. Uh now, behind the scenes I'm sure in terms of presiding over what was going on with China and all of that, that there are mistakes obviously that we would look back on, but being fiscally conservative ironically as a Democrat, dope. Building the I mean, they were basically saying dodgy things back in the '90s. So >> reinvented government. 300,000 federal workers were uh you know, reassigned or or or or or let go in terms of but it was done with Congress. It was Al Gore's reinventing government. And the challenge with this dodgy thing is that we're like, "Oh, we don't have to work with Congress. We can just do whatever." And uh and and they didn't really do much. I mean, in terms of the actual we >> Yeah, here's here's my whole beef. This is a populist moment. Yeah. >> And in a populist moment, there are very predictable psychological things that are happening. And those psychological things are um there was a cross-cultural study done that showed if people in times of wealth inequality, if people can vote for something that will help the poor, um they won't do it as readily as they will vote for something that punishes the rich. So, if they have two if they have two and this is cross-culture. You know, I got to say I got to interrupt you because you're so spot on. There was a study about when Elizabeth Warren would talk about we can have child care at $10 a day or whatever. I mean, I'm for that. And then she'd say, "And we will tax the wealthy to do it." That the collapse would be more for taxing the wealthy than for the the program. So, it's it's interesting that study. It's fascinating. Yes, it is heartbreaking because this is the thing that's driving us apart. So, my whole my whole mission is to pull people back to the middle. It you you have to be in the middle. No matter what, these are our countrymen, these are fellow human beings, we share a uh you know, geography. Uh we've got to understand you're going to compromise. I don't care what side you're on. Uh just like I compromise with my wife even when I think that she is just not looking at the world the right way and she compromises with me when she thinks I'm not looking at the world the right way because we're married. And so, it's like we don't want to self-destruct. So, anyway, I'm trying to get people back to the middle. But, um the way that we're going to get there has to be grounded in what is real and in a populist moment we have to recognize what is real is that people want to punish the wealthy more than they want to help the poor. And when you understand that, all of a sudden the voting and the cheering and all of that, it all starts to make sense. But, do they want to punish the wealthy more or do they want to punish society's enemies? So, you know, Trump comes in and says it's not just the wealthy. He blames China, he blames Mexico, he blames immigrants, he blames trans kids, he blames it that that they want a villain of of some kind. And and you could say my party has says that the wealthy should pay more and maybe maybe it's punitive, but there's a populist right that is also uh looking for for things to blame. 100%. So, uh who's the villain? This is why people always talk about um you know, if only we could have an alien invasion and then we could all be united uh being against the alien. I don't know if you've ever read it, but there's a comic book called The Watchmen and spoiler alert, though it is like 40 years old, so Are you a big fan of Save the World and all that stuff behind Bro, I I am a big believer in the power of myth. And so, what you see behind me are some of my favorite myths. Someone once told me asked me to to young guy to like extract to explain the difference between the the League and Avengers. And I started going down the rabbit hole on chat GPT, and I can tell you I can talk for 2 hours on economics, but I was just I was confused. I left I left not being able to piece that that that together. And And And so I given up on that on that goal. That's hilarious. Yeah, I think it it speaks to a certain personality type. It's definitely not something I expect everybody to get into. Uh but it's Humans are meaning-making machines. And we tell ourselves stories as ways of transmitting a whole lot of very important information in an emotional fashion that's easy to remember. That's why religion works. That's why Star Wars works. Um that's why the story I was talking about with um the Watchmen works. And in that story, basically a guy fabricates an alien invasion to try to bring people back together. And it's it's a very fascinating story, and it's a very big question as to whether he was a villain uh or whether he was um somebody actually saving America. It's It's uh or the world. It's very very fascinating. So yeah, we we have to be very careful. Right now, people want a villain. They'll get a villain, no matter what. And so how do we talk people down? Now, for me, Mom Danni is a villain. Really? >> And I'll try to talk to you. Have you met him? Yeah, yeah. That's This is the part uh where I wanted to talk to you the most. >> Yeah, cuz I want to a very sensible, very smart man. You know, I've endorsed him. I'm I've gone to campaign for Abigail Spanberger who's running for governor of Virginia. I've gone to campaign for Mikey Sherrill. And I'm going for Mom Danni in November November 1st. So I uh you know, all cards on the table. I I I'm supporting him. So let's let let me ask you why you uh why you feel that way. Because his policies Good. I I I Would you be open to having a conversation with him or it's not Yeah. Yeah. But probably let's have a conversation let let me let tell me why Let me tell you let me make the case for Mondani's rise and you tell me where where you have the strongest objections. Mondani says, "Look, in New York we think of it as as as as as Goldman Sachs and Broadway and finance, but you know, the real people building New York City are they are are are also also the construction workers and the cab drivers and the bodega owners. And costs have gone skyrocketed for them and they aren't being appreciated. And I I want a New York City that's for young people and working people and that celebrates it as much as for the billionaires who are making the financial engine of the United States and country work. And I really think he galvanizes folks on that. And then he galvanizes folks on on of course the Israel-Palestine issue which which we can get into if you have an opinion on, but those are the two things I think animating his campaign. Yeah, so the part that you just represented, I've been like, "Yo, this he's my guy. Who's this guy? I got to meet him. Like this is what I'm about." I love that. I love that he's honoring hard-working people that really are helping build the city and there's no doubt about that. Uh but once if you try to map what he's actually talking about from a policy perspective with the words you just said, you're going to be very confused. Cuz it's like, "Wait, but the things that you're going to do are going to hurt all of those people." Uh and once you map him from oh, you're tapped into the resentment of all of those people and you're the populist leader who's going to promise the socialist things that lead to first just the destruction of the economy, but after the destruction of the economy, it leads to death. And um I am I'm not a scholar, but oh am I getting close every day uh to being a scholar of the atrocities of the 20th century led by Marxist thinkers. Uh and he embraces a very distressing number of their ideas. Uh and so I'm just like he's going to hurt the very people he purports to want to help. And so he only makes sense when you think of him as somebody who resents the wealthy far more than he wants to help the poor. But what about if we're in a uh FDR-like moment in this country? You know, we've gone in income inequality from 53rd in the world to 128th. We've got extraordinary wealth generation. You're a example of it through hard work, through entrepreneurship. Uh and we've got a lot of people for uh struggling and for reasons, you know, that you've discussed in terms of uh debt and inflation and what that we've discussed in terms of globalization and uh in automation and the decline of unions uh and the neglect of of of uh rural and factory towns and the working class. And what if Mamdani is saying we need a correction to to this capitalism? And you know, FDR and his coalition and socialists and FDR had saved basically capitalism from itself. And if if what we need is uh to take seriously the critiques of of capitalism of unfettered capitalism to have our own vision of uh of a free enterprise system that that is going to work and reduce some of these inequalities. I call it progressive capitalism, moral capitalism. I imagine you would have at the central president premise of that reducing debt. Uh but but even if if that's not my central premise, what do you just think about uh the goal of capitalism correcting itself and Mamdani pointing out that it must correct itself uh or or we're going to have massive resentment. So, the way that I approach all of this is from cause and effect. So, economies have physics. And when I hear somebody go, "Okay, we want to we want to get to Mars. Uh and we have tried everything and nothing has worked. And so guys, I'm telling you we got to point the rocket down." I'm going to be like, "Hey, I understand you want change. Hey, I get it. Things aren't working. Heard. We're totally on the same page, but pointing the rocket down is the only thing guaranteed not to work. And so, this is where I always ask people to read a series of books which will make clear exactly what happens when you try these policies. Oh, and by the way, so I'll list the books in a second. Uh you don't have to go any farther than the '70s and '80s in the Bronx. His very policies, the very things that he's saying that he wants to do now, have already been tried. So, my number one lesson to entrepreneurs is, "Oh, cool. You're about to do a thing." The number one question to ask is has anybody tried this before? And if the answer is yes, go find out what happened. Because if it works >> this idea though he has on free buses, right? His point on that is a lot of the people on these buses aren't paying their bus fare anyway, and it's kind of a a deterrent to to some. And so, if you made it free, it's something that the city can afford and it makes public transportation easier. It's not a huge revenue loss. I mean, I is are you are you opposed to all his ideas or are there specific ones? And I don't, you know, I mean, I obviously have my own platform and and want to be accountable for my my ideas and I work with Mondani, I work with Massey. I sort of I'm trying to build a a unique coalition of what what the time requires. But I I'm curious obviously his he he Uh, does his platform concern you more than Donald Trump's platform? His platform does concern me more than Donald Trump's platform, but Donald Trump is doing his best to make me more concerned with every passing day. So, uh, If it's Mumdani versus Trump, who do you vote for? Uh, Trump for sure. When when uh, Trump did the big beautiful bill, he lost me. Um, so yeah, any anybody that's trying to map me is like, "Oh my god, I love Trump so much." They're always going to be confused. >> I mean I'm you're an independent thinker and you're not political. I'm just I'm I'm asking you more One of the things I've loved about this conversation is it's sort of intellectually open and curious, which I think we don't have in our politics. I'm asking you more as, you know, you would as a friend over dinner not not and try to oh, you're a Trump supporter. Yeah, so uh, the talking about Mumdani specifically, the even if I map him as like, "No, he's really well-meaning." If he's well-meaning, he does not have any historical context. So, to the bus thing, one thing you learn as an entrepreneur very fast is every division needs to be a self-sustaining economic engine of its own. Why? Because anything that can't output something that is more valuable than its inputs, so the labor costs, the parts, the whatever, it tells you the world does not want that thing. And so, when you use other things to cover the losses from that area, you're really just doing an an emotional thing. There's no logic to that. The world has been asked and has given you an answer as to whether it wants that thing at that price. And the answer is, "No, I do not." But there are public goods, right? I mean, we have public schools, we have public health. I mean, there are public goods where we don't take that that view. Public right, but our Sure. So, when you're talking about something like the roads, you're saying, "Okay, everybody, we've got all this infrastructure. We are going to be taxing people, and then we're going to efficiently deploy that to build the things that we think are going to give the maximal output." And what you're running into is, "Okay, we have an unbalanced budget." Cuz if you have a balanced budget, and you just want to say, pick anything, we want to make buses free, we want to make ice cream free, whatever, then it doesn't matter. Cuz you've got a balanced budget, and that's the thing you've decided that you want to allocate funds to, and people can argue, "No, no, no, I don't want buses for free, I want taxes for free." Or, "I don't want ice cream for free, I want the subway for free, whatever." And then I think most people go, "Well, the subway, the buses, those are better cuz more people can move around from, it'll open up job opportunities and things like that." And you'd hear me be like, "Yeah, that's way better than ice cream." Uh when you have an unbalanced budget, then I'm like, "Hold on, you have to figure out why this thing is not able to make money in and of itself." And so, I have a feeling you're going to come down to your housing is the problem, and you need to address housing, you need to make housing affordable. So, I think a big problem that I'm going to have with Mondani is that he is speaking to people's emotions, and I, unfortunately, I only care about emotions in as much as to get people to do the right thing, you have to meet them where they are. So, they have to understand that you get how bad things have gotten for them. But then you've got to walk them through what's actually going to solve the problem. Mondani, in my opinion, is on the uh Civil War Revolution path. So, if we follow his policies, well-intentioned or not, they end with more deficit, they end with violence breaking out. Keep in mind, every country except Japan that has ever been over 130% debt to GDP for more than it's like 18 months has ended up in open conflict. So, I think given we're already seeing political assassinations, we're already seeing riots, we're we're not going to be Japan. We're not going to be the next country that can stay over 130%. We're at 122%. So, I think he's got the most energy in the Democratic Party so I don't look at this and go oh but it's isolated to New York I go no no no this is where the country is moving this certainly is where the Democratic Party is moving and through the physics of the economy this becomes a problem. So what would you do in so let's say Mondaire Jones now wins he's a reasonable guy he says okay what should I do to bring down housing costs grocery costs busing costs you know he can't deal with the federal debt that's out of his hand he's mayor of New York what would you tell him to do? Okay so one I want to make clear if he becomes the elected mayor of New York I want him to do well I want him to succeed I want him to make life no no no this this is like the most atypical thing for somebody to want most people I just said he's a villain so if the villain gets elected I still want him to win for New Yorkers so let's start there so I would come with sincerity and say all right listen man this is all about cosmic fact this is all about physics so if you're deficit spending you're going to have a problem. Please look at the Laffer curve there's only so much that you can tax people before they leave and you actually end up taking in less tax the US post World War II had a 90% protect progressive tax rate we collected less tax per taxpayer than we do now per taxpayer so it it isn't a winning solution so let's be very careful but hey if you've got ideas you want to tax people a little bit more cuz he's saying look it's only 2% Okay right so 2% I think it's livable I don't think you're going to see a ton of flight but if they're seeing things play out poorly elsewhere they're seeing they're not getting return on their investment or they see that you're that's really just a Trojan horse you want to do more you've got to be very careful so number one hey I'm sitting in the lobby of your office just to get one thing across make housing affordable make it affordable don't do rent control it will make it worse you need only look at the Bronx. Literally, '70s and '80s Bronx, baby. We tried exactly this. It doesn't work. So, we both agree we want to make it cheaper, don't do it through rent controls. That would be like if I was going to give them one thing across the board, it would be that. But it My understanding is New York, like half the apartments already are rent rent controlled or like Blazio. >> the problem. That's why it's too expensive. But I'm saying so >> The very thing he's railing against, he's right to rail against it. His solution is the only thing that's going to make it worse. I I I I think if the point is that we need to build more housing in in New York, I think he could be open to it. I My sense is he that you know, he's been open to the abundance agenda. I don't know if you read sort of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's book, but they've been talking about we got to build more, we got to have expedited permitting. So, I I don't think he's he'd be it'd be out of the question for him to to to support that. As he talks about the rent controlled apartments that already exist, he doesn't want that their rent to go up. And that that I think is uh you know, Blazio I think did it 3 years or something. I mean, it's it's it's already in place in New York. But I I hear you that, you know, his challenge I I think he's going to win the election. I think his challenge will be, okay, now how do we in the next year really show in New York City that costs are going down because it's it's governing is very different than campaigning. Uh as you well know, yes, that that is a very big thing. And so, that brings us to the other part is the DSA is hypertoxic, in my opinion. And part of the reason it's hypertoxic is they reject ideas that I think are evolutionarily placed in us. And the easy one to round two is the family. And they held an event where they were talking about abolishing the family. And this is in the last like 6 months. Um, so >> that? I didn't I didn't see that. Oh god. It It might have even been the name Yeah, yeah, yeah. It might have even been the name of their uh meeting. So, it won't be hard to find. But, um So, I don't know how much he goes in on that kind of thing. I would have to see that play out over time. But, I would want to see him bring people together in the middle. Uh I I want that of every politician. This is my huge complaint with Trump is he's constitutionally incapable of um bringing people back together in the middle, which is wild because he's uh He's bringing people together in the middle. Yeah, internationally he's But, I think there it works because um it's just carrot and a whole lot of stick. Right. And that's not going to work with your own populace. Or maybe it will and I just am blind, I don't know. He strikes me as the wrong person to help us find the middle in America. So, what is your advice to someone like me who works with Massie? Who was kind kind of obviously I've got a progressive capitalist view. There are places where you disagree with me on wealth tax or maybe Medicare for all. Uh there places you may agree with me, which is that that we need to support entrepreneurship innovation. We need to create economic opportunity in places and for people who haven't had them. And I'm building this coalition where I'm supporting Mondaire. I'm supporting uh moderates like Mikie Sherrill, Abigail working across the aisle with people like Massie. What as a citizen uh would say, you know, I don't agree with Ro 100% but I I can see being supportive of his efforts. Uh where my real goal is to try to figure out how do we bring this country together? And Mondaire speaks for 30% at least in the Democratic Party. And uh and and you know, Massie speaks for a percent. And Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks for a percent. I mean, what would you want to see from someone like me uh even where we have ideological disagreements. Lead them to the physics. So, follow the money. How does this actually work? It really is the economy. Everything is the economy. So, what people are actually lamenting is the economy. I can't afford the things that I want. I don't think my life tomorrow will be better than it is today and I don't think my kids' lives will be better. Oh, and by the way, I don't even feel like I can afford kids. Um so, yeah. I mean >> same exact diagnosis of the problem. We have a very similar read on the cultural challenge of America. We have a very similar read on the aspiration of American. We have very similar life experiences being the same age and, you know, I think you would embrace economic patriotism and making America dynamic and humming again. And I think it's the mechanisms, your cause and effect. It's the specifics that where where where we may have certain disagreements and and need to figure out. And but but it it's specifics of of how do you build that kind of coalition with where where you can get the broad 50 plus percent of Americans on board cuz otherwise you can't get things through a Congress and a and and a Senate. And I I think that uh the physics matter of the economics, but my sense is in this country right now the temperament may matter the most and that this country is exhausted. We're tired. We're looking for inspiration. We're looking for a common purpose. We We want to believe in the American dream again. Uh and we're desperate for people in the House and the Senate, leaders who are who are going to take that as opposed to just uh villainizing things and and pretending that that's going to bring back the American dream. Yeah, I mean, honestly, getting more people like you is probably the only answer. Uh and when I say like you, I mean very specifically you I think will respond to results. And as long as people are responding to results, nobody's going to get it right out of the gate. Um but I love that you have a Trump you took Trump's words, I believe from the executive order and we're like, cool, I'm going to turn this into a bill and let's see what happens. The bad news is I don't think you're going to get Republicans and Democrats on board with it because the political moment we're in is so dumb. So, that's where I >> for yesterday I I did a I had reached out to to Benny Johnson who was friends with Charlie Kirk and I'd reached out to him just saying, you know, I know this is a terrible time in your life and I'm sorry for your loss and a horrific what happened to Charlie and he said, well, come on my podcast, let's talk about it and it was very fair, was a half hour conversation about condemning violence, figuring out how we lower the temperature. And, you know, if you look at my ex feed, it's sort of Ro Khanna, you're going and talking to a Russia paid agent and why are you going over to the other side? And I we just live in this in this moment where if I say anything that positive about Trump, like I give him credit for the hostage deal, you get attacked. And I I think what people want is just balls and strikes and you know, and and and being honest, right? It's like if I came here and I didn't talk about the support of a wealth tax, that'd be a pandering. It'd be like I I know you your politics and but they want someone who's going to say what they believe, be consistent about it, let their cards out there and call balls and strikes and I think we've just so caught up in uh the gamesmanship of politics. Ro, I think you're wrong. So, I think there is a certain type of person, I'll definitely include myself, I want balls and strikes. I don't trust myself to be right, so I'm glad that when you think differently, you're going to tell me you think differently and you're going to make me think about that and if I can follow your logic, then at least I'm just dealing in cause and effect. But, what makes populist moments rhyme all throughout history is human psychology doesn't change. So, the times, the circumstances, they change, but the way that people respond to wealth inequality for instance, you can see it in monkeys. Monkeys respond to unequal pay. So, if you give a monkey a cucumber, they're both happy to do the task for a cucumber, but you start giving one of them a grape, which they prefer over cucumbers for the same task, and the cucumber monkey goes ballistic. So, this kind of thing is just baked into our DNA, and what I think happens in populist moments is economic insecurity makes people afraid. Being afraid sucks, and so we transmute the emotion of fear into anger, and we seek a populist leader who points it at somebody, like you were saying, they give us an enemy, and now I can focus on that enemy, and I at least feel good. Now, this study, I hope distresses you as much as it distresses me, but neuroscientists took people who had their skulls opened, and so they were putting electrodes in their brain while they were having surgery, and they stimulated all the different emotions. And then they asked them, "Love, happiness, uh fear, anger, all that. Which one do you want me to stimulate again?" The answer was universally anger. Anger is the emotion. When we're given the option to hit it, we will. And the reason I think is anger is devoid of anxiety and uncertainty. And the thing that people hate is being anxious and uncertain. But when you're mad, you have clarity. You know exactly what to do. You feel right. You feel righteous. You are ready to move. And so, when you get in a populist moment, what those leaders ride on is they're able to capture all of that anger that feels so good and they stoke it and you feel even better and they tell you, "Ooh, I'm going to go slap that other side around. I'm going to get you what you want. I'm going to get it to you for free." And people just go gaga for it. And in these moments, the person that sounds like you is like, "Well, you're not making me feel angry. I want to feel angry, bro. What the hell?" But you you would you could rise in a populist moment with anger at the debt, right? I mean, that's your villain, the debt. And I have to be careful of that. That's why I have a um an internal mandate that if I want to respect myself, I have to be pulling people back to the middle. If I whip them into a frenzy in any direction, debt or otherwise, I don't get to respect myself because I will just be making it worse. What do you think breaks the populist moment from your reading of history? What and how do you think we break that moment in this country other than solving the fundamental issue of >> Do you want to know what history tells me or do you want to know what the sort of fantasy land of unwinding it would look like? Uh what do you think is a practical way forward to to to heal kind of the extremism, the division in the country? There's only one. It's called a beautiful deleveraging. It's Ray Dalio's um So, Ray Dalio, if people don't know him, he is the most successful hedge fund manager of all time. He built the largest hedge fund in the world and he built it by understanding this big debt cycle that I'm talking about. And he said, "Every empire has gone through it. It's all very predictable." And so, he mapped out every empire over the last 500 years that's gone through this. And he said there's six phases and they go through it. And he said there's only one way to back out of it. And it's what he calls a beautiful deleveraging and it's basically economic pain in four flavors done in just the right way that people don't riot in the streets uh not all of the capital flees and you restructure the debt to keep going. And so you tax the wealthy more you um forgive a bunch of debt you restructure the debt uh you print money and you do austerity and you you have to do them in like oh god like these micro little adjustments to watch to see how it happens um because when you forgive a debt for instance that's somebody else's money and so you're just saying sorry you don't get any of your money back you just got wiped out. Obviously that person's going to freak out so you can only do that so much. >> debt? You're saying forgive parts of the federal debt or Yeah but I think people forget the federal debt is owned by individual citizens. >> Yeah. I mean like the world over but meant like I own a ton of federal debt. Like treasury bonds. Yeah. Yeah exactly. So this is there's not some amorphous thing out there um it's real people ultimately. It could be the people of China but they they are divesting about as fast as they can uh for reasons that I explained in this interview. >> owns more of our debt at this point. >> And they are divesting as fast as they can. So it is uh if you look at the price of gold in the last year it's hilarious. It's gone from like 2500 to 4200. That's insane. The last time gold moved like that was the 1970s. Guess what was happening in the 1970s? Inflation. So this stuff just rhymes man. It rhymes and makes me very sad. Makes me very sad bro. Bro how do we solve it all? What's what's your answer? If you were going to nutshell it for us you're in the mix. I'm out here I'm just a pundit. I I don't have to actually get votes. So in the thick of it what what's the answer? Well, I believe the answer is economic patriotism. I think it is figuring out how do we get people to have productive jobs that can support a family. How do we make sure that they basic health care and education that that allows them to be able to produce wealth, to be able to build wealth, to be able to feel like they're participating in a modern economy and not that while you got a bunch of people in Rose District they're getting obscenely wealthy while my life is getting getting worse. So to me that is the the key. And while we do that, we've got to have a plan, a path to lower the lower the debt. And that plan is going to be taxing the wealthy more but also looking at the biggest ticket items like Pentagon budget. You can't lower the debt without 50 when 56% of the discretionary spending is on on the military without touching that and figuring out a path that we slowly lower the debt. But that the lowering the debt is something that's abstract. I think in the immediate we've got to give up people a sense that they can build wealth, build jobs, build entrepreneurship and and participate in in the modern economy. And and that to me should be our highest mission, the economic success of every family and community in the 21st century. Love it, Ro. This conversation has been extremely enjoyable. I thank you for taking the time and I certainly thank you for your service. >> I learned a lot and I appreciate cause and effect is and results I think is a under appreciated value in our government. I mean we'd be all better off if there was a results focus regardless of the ideological lens you start with. Man, I agree. Where can people follow along with you or engage with what you do in politically? >> @RoKhanna is great on on on almost all the social media platforms and on X I often reply to folks and so or they can email me at rowatrowkhanna.com. Awesome. Ro, thank you for your service, man. I mean that sincerely. I really appreciate you taking the time. And yeah, I wish you the best in making America a better place. Well, I appreciate it, Tom. I appreciate what you're doing for so many folks. I'm It's It's really interesting talking to someone who shares a similar view, but of course you went out and did a lot made a lot more money than I ever did and you're you're doing great things in in terms of inspiring others, but maybe we'll get a meal if you're ever in Silicon Valley or DC. Dude, I would do that in a heartbeat, for sure. Thanks for having me. All right, Ro. Thank you. Take care. Take care. All right, everybody. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. If you like this conversation, check out this episode to learn more. I'm looking at America and I'm saying that we're really going through something. We are in decline. I would use even more dramatic words than that, but I don't want to get trapped in a linguistic game. Okay. So, I'll just ask, do you think America is declining on any measure any meaningful measurements? I would push