Original subtitles

Start the clock.

Hi. Thank you, people. How you doing?

Welcome to rainy Los Angeles.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'm always very

grateful when anybody comes out in the rain in this town.

It's so funny. I love rain in L .A. The same people who never stop telling you

to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, freak out when water falls from the sky.

But the good news, the shutdown of the government is over.

And all that really happened was they canceled some flights and some poor

went hungry, although not hungry enough to eat the leftover airline food.

But now, it's not so, but we can get back to the important business of

government reading a dead pervert's emails.

Oh, we're doing this again?

Again, Epstein? Have you been following the Epstein story? I feel like I've seen

this movie four times.

Right, where they released it, and there's always more.

So this week, Democrats released some, of course, each party's going to try to

get the other one to say Trump is guilty or not.

Democrats released some stuff damaging to Trump. Then Republicans released

own stack of emails. Does everyone have emails?

When you get elected, they give you your security badge, the key to your office,

and here's your box of Epstein files. They just release them endlessly.

I mean, they're like beetle tracks from the vaults. They just keep coming out,

and out it never ends.

Apparently...

They said, according to an AI study of this, I don't know why they had to use

for this. I can use Find on my computer and find somebody's name.

But apparently, according to AI, Trump in Epstein's emails has mentioned 1 ,500

times.

Trump doesn't talk about Trump that much.

Wow.

And one of them says, now the president denies this, let's be very clear about

that, litigation -wise, the president denies this, but one of the emails

apparently says that Trump, quote, knew about the girls.

See, this is why Hillary destroyed her server with the hammer. Okay, sometimes

you've just got to go to the hammer, people.

The hammer.

Okay, so now we have this ridiculous back and forth. This is what we're going

spend our time at. Between the parties to say that Trump is either guilty of

this or not guilty of this. Another one of the emails, Trump denies.

Says that Trump spent hours with one of the girls.

Simple explanation.

It took her that long to explain to him that it's the consumers who pay the

price for the tax.

But, of course... Then Republicans point out, and this is true, that that girl

that they're talking about, she herself said she was with Trump for a long time,

and he didn't do anything. Nothing bad.

So the Democrats said, well, okay. Well, then why is Trump so hard, working so

hard to try to get these things from not coming out?

And he is working very hard to do that, including, you know, they met with just

Jelaine... Ghislaine, whatever her fucking name is.

Ghislaine Maxwell, who's in prison, you know, she's an enabler to this, and

put her into a cushier prison, where she's apparently getting unlimited

paper. This is what I'm reading about.

She's getting unlimited toilet paper. Yeah, why help her? She was part of a

pedophile ring. I mean, Obama was president for eight years. I don't

him ever saying, hey, how's Jared from Subway doing? Is he getting enough

paper?

But then the Republicans say, this is also valid,

if Epstein was really running this international sex trafficking ring,

How come in 20 ,000 pages of documents, there's not one email about running a

sex trafficking ring?

I mean, can you really keep all this in your head?

Is today Christy with the Prince and Candy with the Duke, or Candy with the

Prince and Christy with the Duke?

Somebody's got to write this shit down.

But I love this. This is so Trump. Now, what he did today was that Trump is

instructing the Justice Department to look into Clinton, Bill Clinton's

involvement with Epstein. I love this. Using the Epstein files to distract from

the Epstein files.

Trump said, I will not rest until I get to the middle of this.

This comes at a terrible time for the president because he's got a lot of big

issues, you know, some of the blame for the shutdown, and also, you know,

prices. He keeps saying prices have never been lower. Well, he can lie to

about a lot of things, but they know how much money they have, okay? They know

what the prices are in the stories. Everything is up.

He's lowering taxes now on coffee because that was out of control, but

bananas, cucumbers are so high now that women are having sex with their

husbands.

So his approval rating has now dropped into the 30s. You know, if it gets any

lower, I don't know what's going to happen, but I wouldn't want to be

You know, we've now killed 80 people in small boats

for what the military says. They're not sure what those people were doing, and

we just murdered them.

There must be easier ways to get a Nobel Peace Prize. That's all I have to say.

All right, we've got a great show.

Fareed Zakaria and Josh Barrow are here. But first up, here's a professor at NYU

Stern School of Business and author of the number one best -selling book, Notes

on Being a Man, Scott Galloway.

Scott.

Well, look at you all dressed up for me. All right.

Scott. All right.

I noticed you didn't wear a tie when you were on the panel.

Everything else is dirty, Bill.

But listen, I read your book, very interesting stuff.

You've been on this case for a long time, ahead of a lot of people. It's

a cottage industry now, talking about men in crisis. Just tell me briefly why,

not that it's a competition, but give me the statistics on why you think men are

more in crisis than women.

If you walk into a morgue and there's five people who've died by suicide, four

are men.

We have an opiate and a homeless crisis, but to be more accurate, we have a male

opiate and a male homeless crisis. Three times as likely to be homeless or

addicted, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated.

But I want to be clear, it's not a competition because we can still

the immense challenges women still face. They go to 77 cents on the dollar when

they have kids.

Non -white, black and Latino family wealth is about $20 ,000 versus $160

for... For white families, so, you know, empathy is not a zero -sum game. We can

recognize the immense challenges non -whites and women still face while

recognizing that no group has fallen further faster than young men, and the

country and women aren't going to continue to flourish as long as young

flailing. Yeah, I think that's one of your big points is that we are kind of,

it's true, everybody is suffering, but we're kind of stuck in a past paradigm

where we don't say it about the men as much. And you're kind of shining a light

on that and talking about,

I mean, just for example, the number of men, I didn't realize this until I read

the book, the percentage who live at home still, live with their parents.

are those numbers?

It's about 30 % of men under the age of 25, one in three are still at home.

One in five are still at home by the age of 30.

Is that economic or emotional or both?

Yes.

I mean, effectively what you have is they're up against this indomitable

and that is 20 % or 40 % of the S &P is now 10 companies whose primary mission

is to get you as glued to a screen for as long as possible. Any minute they can

keep you on a screen longer is billions of dollars.

And a young man's brain, which prefrontal cortex is less mature, is

susceptible to that need for DOPA.

So what we've literally done, Bill, is unwittingly built an economy which is

dependent upon our ability to evolve a new...

species of asocial, asexual males.

And what you have is Big Peck, who is not our friend, is trying to sequester

people, especially young people, especially young men, from the most

thing in their life, and that is relationships.

Doesn't the phone make you hornier?

I mean, if I had a phone, I mean, you know, I had Playboys that we buried in

woods.

Like, really, it showed nothing.

I mean, and we were very excited about that.

Doesn't it soup them up even more to see this? No?

No, it reduces their mojo. I think that everybody needs a code, and I think

young men would really benefit from a code that they used to get from the

military or church or school.

or their family, but I think, loosely speaking, a code of being a provider.

In a capitalist society, you need to have people who are economically viable.

Men are disproportionately evaluated based on their economic viability.

They have been for a long time. They will be for a long time, too.

The whole point of being prosperous is such that you can move to protection.

The most masculine jobs, firemen, cop, military, they're in the job of

protection. And then the one that gets the most pushback is procreation.

and that is I think we have demonized and pathologized a young man's desire to

have a relationship and sex.

And the bottom line is we need to embrace that it's a wonderful thing.

When men are willing to take risks, develop a

kindness practice, show resilience, dress better for God's sake, shower,

out, these things are really important, and they teach people, young men, the

most important thing in life, and that's the following.

Your ability to endure rejection. If you want to score above your weight class

economically or romantically, then get ready to get out a big spoon and eat

shit. Your ability to endure no. The only way you ever get to amazing yeses

with... A lot of no's. And my biggest fear about porn, which is increasingly

becoming synthetic and more lifelike, is it reduces men's mojo to get out of the

house. Or put another way, the less time you spend watching porn, the more

likely you are to be the star of your own porn.

That's true.

I'm very glad I grew up in the era I did. Yeah, very much so.

And, you know, I was very shy.

Yeah. As a kid. I mean, I could have had such a better adolescence if I could

have talked to a girl.

And, you know, I read books about people who overcame their fears. You know, he

was afraid of lightning, so he tied himself to a tree during a storm. You

stuff like that.

Really, all these things that people do to snakes, spiders, whatever you're

afraid of, the number one thing men are afraid of is girls.

It's not fucking lightning. It's girls.

It's just there's something about that rejection of going up to somebody, like

you say, cold, and you just have to get through that. And I feel like we are

further from that than ever. I mean, kids don't even want to answer the

They find that a little too alarming, unless you text first.

Really?

Because that's passive. Because you answer, then nobody sees you. They don't

your reaction. They don't have to come up with a conversation.

100%. 45 % of men, 18 to 24, have never asked a woman out in person.

63 % of men under the age of 30 are not even pursuing a relationship.

And if you think about the most rewarding things in your life, I mean,

things that really matter, they are essentially relationships.

What do they all have in common?

They're really damn hard.

And unfortunately, big tech, the most deep -pocketed godlike technology in the

world, is trying to convince young men that they can have a reasonable

of life online.

Why go through the pecking order of trying to establish friendships when

got Reddit and Discord?

Why put on a tie and navigate the corporate world when you can trade

stocks on Robinhood or Coinbase? And why would you go through the effort, the

expense, and the potential rejection and humiliation of establishing a romantic

relationship when you have porn?

I believe, slowly but surely, we're going to start to see fewer and fewer

men out in the wild because they're going to decide to sequester. And if I

say anything to young men, it's that the anxiety and depression you will

eventually feel in your basement, sequestered from other mammals, is far

than the fear of anything that lays outside of that room for you. Get out of

fucking basement. Get off your phone.

I read in the paper today that 40 % of younger women want to leave America

permanently. I thought it was because of Trump, but apparently it's this.

I guess it's somewhat of both.

But, I mean, that's an amazing statistic.

So if you go, I don't have data on this. This is just anecdotal, but it is true.

When I'm out and I meet women at a drinking or a social setting,

narrative is something like this.

I'm here. I'm single. I'm ready to mingle.

And I look amazing.

They're saying that to you?

No,

I'm just asking.

I asked him. I'm just asking.

I asked him. Oh, I see. You want to roll later? Oh, it's a survey. I get it.

I'm doing a survey.

But men aren't approaching them. And so you basically have this lack of mating.

What you have is essentially...

I mean, to think about the Atlantic, the New York Times will tell you 80 % of

women still expect the man to initiate romantic contact. Yes, they do.

As they should.

One of the things we as men really have to train our boys or give them the skill

around is one, to endure rejection, but also to figure out a way to express

romantic interest while making that person feel safe. And guess what?

If I say to someone, hey, I'd like to be your friend, I'd like to roll, or I'd

like to grab a football game, and they say no, or if you approach someone and

say, you know what, let's grab coffee, and they say no, guess what? You're both

going to be fine. Take those shots.

But don't say grab a football game.

You don't want to grab a football game. No, I meant for guys.

Establishing one out of four men can't name a best friend. One out of seven men

doesn't have a single friend. And a gateway to better relationships, quite

frankly, is oftentimes friendships.

And without a romantic relationship in the garden, there's this cartoon of a

woman in her 30s who didn't find romantic love. What a tragedy. Guess

She's just fine, Bill.

Men need relationships more than women. Widows are happier after their husband

dies. Widowers.

Widowers are less happy after their husband dies. If a man hasn't

married a woman by the time he's 30, there's a one in three chance he's going

be a substance abuser. The reality is... I

am not a... I

am not a substance abuser, okay?

Men, this is the reality.

Men need relationships more than women. Well, okay, right, but not everyone has

to be that kind of relationship. I mean, I know you say provide, protect, and

procreate. There's a lot of people who don't procreate anymore, and we're not

second -class citizens.

I mean, can I not be a man because I didn't, like, make a baby with a lady?

look, kids aren't for everybody. I lived in New York through the majority of my

30s single.

I found it at the end to be what I call an empty experience, but as far as empty

experiences go, it was pretty good.

But I have found purpose in having kids. Not everyone has to have kids.

There is paternal and paternal love you can give to all sorts of people. And

quite frankly, I've been on this show six times.

I don't know you well, but I know you. I think you're a little full of shit

because you talk about not having kids.

Paternal and fraternal love from a man is one of the most rewarding things you

can do.

I don't care if it's the makeup artist or your producers.

These people have been with you 25 or 30 years. You have kids. They're just

wearing Time Warner badges.

I agree.

No.

I've never had kids, but I'd love to raise a girlfriend.

Anyway, the final thing I love that

you said in the book to men, drink more.

Because safetyism.

This is one of the problems I have with certain people who make everything about

safety. Safety is important. You can't overdo drinking. It is also, as you

out, a lubricant to get to that place where you are talking to other people

socializing. It's not to excess, but yes, drinking a little bit, maybe

a little too much when you're adolescent, is probably better than

that basement.

The second worst thing to happen to young people is remote work.

One in three relationships begin at work. This is where you find friends,

mentors, and mates, and especially young men need the guardrails of a workplace.

But in my view, the worst thing that's happened to young people is the anti

-alcohol movement. I've had Huberman on, who I'm a big fan of, and Antje on, and

my point is that the risks to your 25 -year -old liver are dwarfed by the risk

of social isolation.

In sum, think of all the amazing relationships you've had in your life

honest. Did alcohol play a role? In some, get out, drink more, and make a

of bad decisions that might pay off. Yes!

Great. Great book. Great to see you, John, as always.

John Galloway, let's meet our panel.

Hey.

That's funny.

Hey, guys. Okay, here's a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times

host of the Central Air podcast.

Josh Barrow is with us.

Hello. How are you? Good.

And he's the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria's GPS and the New York Times

bestselling author of Age of Revolutions, now out in paperback and

afterword. Fareed Zakaria.

Can I ask you a question, guys?

Do we have some wine that we can put in this?

I mean...

I really think it would help the conversation. I've always been on that

and yes, you can.

It was one night when Seth MacFarlane didn't have it, and we had to go apeshit

and get it for him.

They put it in the congressman. They mixed up the glasses, and the

wound up with the Jack Daniels.

And, of course, Seth had the water, and we had to fix that.

Wow. All right. So I want to get to your article that you put out today. I

thought it was great, called Why Democrats Keep Flailing. I really can't

with the premise. But also I have to point out, on the other side, I think

was the single worst week.

for the president and his administration.

I mean, not only is he going to get part of the blame, and we can discuss this

in a bit, for the shutdown, he looked like he didn't care to a lot of people,

whether they ate or not, or whether their insurance premiums go up.

Prices, as I said in the monologue, are higher. You can Baghdad Bob your way out

of that just so long.

People know how much money they have and how much they're spending. It's the one

thing you really can't lie about.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, you know, pretty big Trump fan. She was here a couple of

weeks ago. But she used the term gaslight.

You can't gaslight people.

I've heard the term Trump fatigue this week. And then on top of this, the

Epstein thing, which was always...

You know, these people got it in their heads a long time ago that there's a

pedophile ring that runs the world and you can't get it out of their conspiracy

-minded brains.

Is it possible Trump is a lame duck at this moment?

Well, I think it is really interesting what's happening because for so long it

seemed as though there was nothing Trump could do that would affect his base,

right? He famously said, I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and I wouldn't

lose a vote. And it looked like that was the case.

It seems that there's at least not cracks, maybe the beginnings of some

And I wonder why. I've wondered whether, because I'd add to what you said,

immigration, right? He went on Fox and said, you know, legal immigration is

and that caused a huge problem. So it makes me wonder, you know, some parts of

the two pillars of the MAGA base are basically conspiracy theories are good

foreigners are bad.

And what Trump did is he basically has found himself caught in the middle of

this conspiracy theory thing. He had promoted it. I mean, it promoted the

that there was a conspiracy theory about Kennedy's assassination,

Robert Kennedy's assassination, Martin Luther King's assassination. He

I'm going to release all the files. Well, he did. There wasn't anything.

And this. And this one now is the right. I mean, this was one of his big

promises. I mean, one of the big pillars of the MAGA movement was QAnon.

They're still around, right, QAnon?

Okay.

That's the thing, that pedophiles are running the world.

And the Epstein thing, there's enough smoke there to think this is the fire.

But it was Trump himself who said, I'm going to let you see all this.

They feel betrayed, even the true believers.

I'm not a conspiracy theory guy. I still think Epstein killed himself.

And I think, you know, the official story actually makes a lot of sense.

the Bureau of Prisons was incompetent and didn't care sufficiently about the

well -being of people in its custody, and Epstein's life had been destroyed.

Why wouldn't he have killed himself?

But I have been fascinated by...

Trump's desperation to keep at least some of this material out. Obviously,

seeing some of it.

Because we know so much derogatory information about Donald Trump's

already, like including even the press coverage of his dealings with Epstein in

the 90s. and the womanizing that they were clearly doing together in Palm

and that letter that the Wall Street Journal found with his signature as the

pubic hair on the woman for Epstein. It's sort of like, are we going to learn

that Trump treats women terribly, that Trump sexually assaults women? I mean,

he's on tape, on the Access Hollywood tape, saying that he grabs them by the

pussy. I mean, I guess the one thing could be if there was something with a

minor, but then one of the things that's in one of these Epstein emails this

week is Trump never got a massage.

And so, you know, I don't think that's in there. And so if it's just more like,

you know, Trump's parable with women stuff, I mean, the electorate already

elected him twice in full knowledge of that.

But the problem is you're exactly right. You know, it's probably all

embarrassing stuff, but there isn't this grand conspiracy.

But this movement has been told there's grand conspiracy about everything,

right? So I agree with you. In general, I think my view on conspiracy theories

is... But mostly incompetence is a better explanation of most of this weird

stuff than conspiracy theories. People just are stupid and they make mistakes,

and particularly in government.

And people tend to want to believe that there's some evil machinations by the

elites, but it probably is just incompetence.

Yes.

But people haven't followed this very closely this week. These emails that

out now were all post their breakup.

They had a breakup.

This is kind of important to the story, I think, because Jeffrey Epstein was

convicted. Now, the Democratic prosecutor, he was a Democratic donor,

people say that matters, was very easy on him. He probably should have got a

more, but this is around 2008, 2009.

He was arrested.

He got, like, probation, home confinement.

They just charged him with prostitution. I mean, these are underage girls.

Somebody else could have had a way worse time of it.

Okay, nobody dropped him.

All those people, the Bill Gateses of the world, they kept being friends with

him, except for Trump.

Now, maybe that's because he was stealing the masseuses from the Mar -a

Trump said that himself.

Okay,

but here are some of the lines we heard from this week. These are from Epstein.

And again, this is post -breakup, and I don't think Epstein liked it that Trump

wasn't talking to him anymore. I'm the one able to take him down.

The dog that hasn't barked is Trump.

I know how dirty Donald is.

I mean, it's like from a Sherlock Holmes book, you know.

I know. The dog that has him darkened.

And when Megyn Kelly said this week, well, Epstein wasn't technically

a pedophile. Yeah.

Because, you know, they were like 15 instead of 5.

When that's where your defenders are going, let's be easy on the pedophiles

not to cast dispersions on people who go out with 15 -year -olds. That's not

a... I mean, I don't know, but I feel like this... And the people who he had

in... He brought in Lauren Boebert to the situation room because they got a

situation.

To try to strike... Because it's her, Nancy Mace, who's been here, and Nancy

Mace is a victim of sexual abuse, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, three of his

biggest fans politically.

But women, they understand about this stuff like we can never.

And they do not want to give it up. Well, what you notice is, you know, to

conform what you're suggesting, this is something that...

clearly Trump is nervous about. You know, with all the other stuff, I think

thinks he has his base. He has this extraordinary ability. He can campaign

the idea that China is the evil empire about to take over the world, and he

comes into office and says, Xi Jinping is my greatest friend. We're going to

on great with China.

And his base is like, yeah, whatever, right? But on this issue, he seems very

nervous, right? He's trying to deal with it. I really don't think it's his big

problem this week, though.

I mean, because, you know, like, I know how dirty Donald is. We all know how

dirty Donald is. And, like, you know, we've learned so many terrible things

about him over the years that just keep getting forgiven. I think what's

different... Why try to squash it so much, then? Why he gave Ghislaine...

Ghislaine. Ghislaine.

We gave her a courtier prison.

They took two months to not seat this woman who won, this Democrat in Arizona,

because she was going to be the 218th vote to make Mike Johnson make the

Department release.

And by the way, after all these times, there's still more?

What the fuck is left? I don't get it.

I'm sure there's something he really doesn't want out. What I'm skeptical

is whether it would fundamentally change his political position, because I'm

sure he really didn't want the Access Hollywood tape out, and everyone thought

that was going to destroy him, and it didn't. I think what's changed in the

month, because his poll numbers really started deteriorating about two weeks

into the shutdown.

And I think the subtext to this is the deteriorating economy and the fact that

people are dissatisfied about prices and they were dissatisfied about the food

stamps interruption.

And I think, you know, Donald Trump did a full four -year term with three years

of a really good economy and then the fourth year where the economy got turned

upside down for reasons that were outside of his control.

We've never really seen what politics looked like for Donald Trump at a time

where people really feel that the economy is underperforming and he's

manage it correctly.

And I think what's going to happen, what's starting to happen, is that all

stuff people would cut him slack for when they were like, we elected this

business guy to be the business president, and he's doing a good job of

it looks like he's failing to take care of that, that's when people start to

care if he tears down the East Wing of the White House or any of these other

scandals. I think that's his fundamental problem, which is why he does seem to

be panicking this week about the price stuff, finding any way that he can to

address that.

The funny thing about that is he's saying, okay, prices are rising, so

cutting tariffs.

Because tariffs, cutting the tariffs will lower the prices. But when he put

tariffs on, he vociferously argued it was not going to raise prices.

So wait, if it didn't raise prices, why are you cutting them to lower prices?

You know, it's like sometimes the math doesn't work.

Yeah. All right. So one of the big stories they covered last week is...

Kudos to Nancy Pelosi for stepping down. Stepping down is one of the great

traditions in American history.

George Washington.

I see Ken Burns' big documentary on the Revolutionary War starting Sunday. I

can't wait to watch it. I'm sure it's going to be awesome.

George Washington.

Could have been the king.

And he, no, I'm stepping down. You got to step down. Well, this memo has not

reached everybody in Congress. If Joe Biden had done that, he would be

remembered as a hero.

He's number one on my list there. But also among Democrats who, you know, the

Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is 88.

Clear signs of cognitive decline, they say. She was recently scammed out of $4

,000.

Steny Hoyer, 86.

These are people all who are not going to go away.

Maxine Waters, 87.

And I've always said, you know, it's a taste by case. I hate ageism. But, you

know, this is the case.

James Clyburn, 85. Chuck Grassley.

We don't count that high. I don't know how old I am.

It's not just Democrats, but mostly them. So we put out

this pamphlet called Knowing When It's Time. This is for politicians.

Knowing when it's time to get out of the way. Would you like to hear some of the

ones? Okay, well, for example, there's... When you were first elected,

state still a territory?

This is a way to know it's really your time.

It's your biggest donation from the pudding industry.

Does all this talk about woke make you sleepy?

Do you remember where you were when Garfield got caught?

Have you ever given a speech from the back of a train?

Have you ever been accused of having sex with slaves?

Going into applause.

Very rare.

When the speaker bangs the gavel, do you yell, come in?

And do you refer to Metamucil as the nuclear option?

All right.

So, let's get into your answers.

Because at the top of your article today, you say that the shutdown, you

a defeat for Democrats.

I'm going to push back on that. But before we get into that exactly, let me

quote more from your article. You talk about the Democrats.

And again, I can't argue with any of this. You said the fact that they didn't

get what they wanted, and they did not, specifically.

Again, I think there's another argument to be made. But they did not get what

they wanted. They said they wanted to force him with the shutdown to go back

the COVID -era prices for Obamacare. They're going to go up.

Didn't get it. They just got promised a vote, which is meaningless.

You say the Democrats promise a lot, but all you get is bloated bureaucracy.

I agree with that. And inept execution.

I agree with that.

Affordability.

is really worth in government.

If that's your issue, affordability, it's worth here and in New York and in

places that are Democratic -run. These are all true things.

They didn't solve... We spent $24 billion, you point out, here in

the homeless issue, and it didn't get any better. I love the point you raised.

I had never even thought about this, but I see it every time I'm in New York.

You walk down the sidewalk, it's all this scaffolding.

And I didn't realize you said... No other city in the world. You walk

London, you never see that, right? And they have buildings from the 14th

century.

Somehow, somehow, I'm always walking through this scary, this scary fucking

tunnel in New York. Always this, like, you're in this thing.

It's like a haunted house, you know?

And I'll tell you what happened, because it's a wonderful example of how liberal

governance works.

I think in 1980, a cornice fell on a Columbia student, very sad situation.

She died.

So they decide, okay, we're going to put these elaborate safety rules in. And

now, of course, there's a whole industry of contractors, consultants, builders.

And guess what?

Everything takes five times as long as that because it is legally required.

That's safetyism.

Exactly. So you've created a safety industrial complex in New York.

But here's the alternative on the idea that Trump is

not the winner here on the shutdown.

I think what the Democrats were trying to do was make health care an issue.

which it kind of, for some reason, has never really been. It's the one issue

where the public gives the Democrats higher marks. And they had to get people

notice. This is who's doing this to you. This is who is going to make your

premiums go up.

So it may not look good for the Democrats now. I think in the future it

No, I think the Democrats won the shutdown. I think that you can see it in

president's poll numbers, which are much worse than they were at the start of

the shutdown. I think it was partly the health care issue that he raised. And

it's also food stamps, which I think Democrats didn't quite realize they were

going to make an issue through this. But because the president made this choice

to try not to pay out food stamps.

Because, you know, if the president wants to do things, he does them. He

down the East Wing.

He's done all of these things to move money around within the federal budget

try to pay for programs that weren't authorized. But on food stamps, his view

was, no, we're going to make this painful for Democrats. We're going to

we're not sending food stamps.

They even told states that they weren't allowed to make the food stamp payments

with their own money.

They sent memos to them and said, if you started doing this, you have to go claw

the money back from those people.

And so people saw that, and that's been very unpopular.

And so I think that they – to the extent that you can win a shutdown – and what

we've seen historically – we only had government shutdowns since the Carter

administration because Carter had this persnickety memo saying if the

appropriations run out, you have to close the government. They used to just

running before that.

There's been eight of them. They have never produced a major policy concession

for the party that was demanding something.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats have ever made this tactic work. Then why do

they do it?

Because people are mad, and because Democratic voters are mad, they're like,

know, well, why don't you stop him?

And the thing is, like, that's why you have to win elections, so that you can

make public policy.

And I think that, you know, they weren't...

There was so much demand for a shutdown, not just from, like, the quote -unquote

base, but even from Democratic elected officials who have been driven insane by

the way that Trump has behaved even differently from his first term,

in ways that are mostly of importance to people within Washington. He's done

things to do with the appropriations process that are...

outrage Democratic senators and members of Congress that haven't really

connected with voters.

But that's why they have no patience whatsoever.

And so I think they needed to show, like, this tool is available. We have to

check and see if it works. But look, I hope you're right. And I think the point

you made is really important, which is getting health care on the agenda would

be important because I think, you know, behind all the tactical stuff is here's

the reality.

what the Trump budget, what this big beautiful bill budget will do. The

Congressional Budget Office says it will throw 11 million people off healthcare.

It is going to take people off Medicaid.

You have an extraordinary health crisis that is coming because these people are

being pulled off. They put all kinds of work requirements, which is all

bullshit, because only about 8 % of people who get Medicaid actually are not

working. 92 % of the people are working. And it is going to exacerbate a problem

that Obamacare had actually begun to stop, which was the wide gap in America.

between health outcomes, depending on whether you're rich or poor. So in the

United States, you're talking about men with Scott.

Men in the top 1 % of the income distribution have 15 years extra life

expectancy than men in the bottom 1%. There is no other civilized country in

world where you have this kind of gap.

Obamacare had begun to close that gap very substantially.

It's going to start widening again.

Obamacare might actually unravel because what's going to happen is, you know,

the young and healthy people won't buy insurance.

Well, now we're going to have Trumpcare.

He says, you know, I can't believe this. He said, and basically, I'll just go to

the bottom line, we're going to go around the insurance companies. We

years for this.

This is a big idea.

He's just going to give people $2 ,000 to everybody.

It sounds like it's not just... the people who need it. Just like

going to get two grand, and then you get to buy the health care you want.

This can't work, right?

Not if you get cancer.

What will happen is you basically will have young healthy people will buy very

cheap health care. The things like Obamacare and Medicaid will be stuck

the... Do the young have to in this plan? You can get very cheap... No, but

he making the young... I mean, there is no plan. No plan works in health care

unless you make the young buy it when they don't need it so that later on in

life, looking ahead, kids...

then it will be there for you.

This is how a society works.

The thing, though, I'm a little bit skeptical about the strength of this

specific issue for Democrats in this election, is that, you know, the

are going to go up, and people are going to get letters in the mail that'll say,

like, your UnitedHealthcare premium is going up.

And so for them to draw the connection that actually that was Trump who caused

this private company to charge you more for this thing, I think that message is

hard to get through. And then also the subsidy levels that we're going back to

that Democrats are decrying Republicans over, these are the original levels that

were written into the law under Obama that were supposed to be sufficient to

people to go out and buy health insurance. And what we found was that

were actually not as interested in buying health insurance at this price as

thought they were going to be.

People find it to be a bad value, in significant part because we have the

highest prices in the world. like a sixth of our economy is health care now.

And so when you show people, yeah, you pay, you know, whatever it is, $24 ,000

year for dual coverage for a couple, which is what you're looking at in New

for a mid -level plan, and then you have a deductible of several thousand

dollars on top of that. I mean, of course people think that's a terrible

And even when it's subsidized and they're paying a fraction of that,

still find it shockingly expensive.

And so I think, you know, I think this issue is partly less...

powerful for Democrats as they expect because the offering they've spent so

time putting together, just even at the subsidized price, is not that

attractive. Look, the American health care system is crazy, and not to get too

wonky about it, but your basic point is the right one, which is no insurance

system can work.

if the people who don't really need the insurance opt out. Like if you say in a

car insurance, all the older middle -aged drivers don't have to pay, only

young men have to pay. You can't have an insurance system like that. It has to

be pooled risk.

And if you give people the money, they'll opt out.

Yeah. And also, on the health care front, we're all going to get, not free,

greatly reduced Ozempic. That was...

And that, it's popular.

Americans have been waiting forever for the magic pill that let them escape the

rigors of eating right and exercising, and they finally have it now. I wouldn't

take it. I mean, what the effects are. Well, you don't need it.

You are quite thin.

You look quite thin.

Yes, I've been on Wagobe for two years, and I've lost almost 40 pounds. Well,

there.

And, okay.

Should we clap?

No.

No,

no, no. It is indeed.

No, no. You clap for achievement. You clap when people say, that's not an

achievement. I'm married 40 years. That's an achievement. Oh, yes.

That's amazing.

But, okay, but here's the deal. Trump, I've said this many times, he is the

master at picking out these little issues, like tips for waitresses, you

pick out 1%, 2 % of the population that's going to go nuts about this, and

is a great issue for that, if that's your method of winning votes, because

people do like this stuff. It is kind of the magic bullet. Now, maybe it'll be a

magic bullet with no side effects. I've never seen a drug like that. There are

people like Jillian Michaels who say, all you have to do is read the...

Side effects, thyroid tumors, gallbladder problems, pancreatitis,

vision loss, stomach problems. It's a class action lawsuit about stomach

paralysis. I assume you've had none of these problems and most people probably

have not. Yeah. But it is a bit of...

I mean, you have to weigh that against the huge health benefits that come from

not being overweight or obese. Sure, exactly. And then they also keep finding

new additional benefits, you know, that people are less likely to have kidney

disease and various other things. It really seems to produce tremendously

improved outcomes for a lot of people.

Drug addiction, right? Yes, it helps with drug addiction for some people. And

I don't think this is a small issue for one or two percent of people.

probably more than half the country is a good candidate for these drugs.

And they've already been coming down a lot in price. When I went on it a little

more than two years ago, the price, the effective cash price was about $1 ,100 a

month. It's come down already to $500. It's supposed to go down to $350 under

this plan that Trump has announced.

And you have two drug companies that make the drugs. They have to compete

each other on price.

And as that comes down, it's going to come into the reach of more and more

people, and it's also going to be more reasonable for the health insurance

companies to cover it because one of the things they've been worrying about is

it's going to cost a fortune if we have to put a lot of people on this drug

that's $6 ,000 or $7 ,000 a year. But when it comes down to $2 ,000 a year or

something like that, it starts to look a lot more cost -effective. Look, of

course you want to make sure that the side effects are not too onerous.

As you say, the initial results are really quite extraordinary. I mean, you

attest to that better than anyone. But so much of America's health problem is

obesity, that if you actually, if you have this drug that brings down obesity,

it actually could be a magic drug for health care costs as well. Yes. Because

much of the cost is dealing with the consequences of obesity. Oh, I made that

point and paid the price.

All right. Time for a new rule.

Okay. Now that Berkeley police have arrested a man who hid in a sorority

watched the women in their communal shower, and stole their underwear, they

to tell us how handsome he was.

That way, when we make the movie about this, we'll know if it was funny or

scary.

Okay, scary it is.

No, people who say I'm listening to what the universe is trying to tell me have

to understand something. That's called thinking.

The far end of our observable universe is 93 billion light years away, so it's

probably indifferent to whether you quit your job at the coffee bean.

You know how I know this? Because I'm standing right next to you and I don't

give a shit.

No condolences to the family of the man who died falling into the Grand Canyon

last week, but you have to admit, it is kind of a big hole to miss.

I mean...

I can see twisting your ankle in rough terrain on a hike, but who goes to the

Grand Canyon and says, I didn't see it there?

It's a Grand Canyon.

Why do you think they say the views are breathtaking?

New rule, Taylor Swift must not wear her highest hooker shoes when going out

with her shortest friend.

This doesn't look like two friends going out to dinner. It looks like Animal

Planet video of Predator and Prey.

Well,

now that the Labor Department has put out all these inspirational poster

who rouse and pep up the American worker with taglines like Build America's

Future and Your Nation Needs You and Blue Collar Boom, they must tell us...

which dating site for gay white men did they steal them from?

And also, this is purely out of curiosity, but how much is

it for the blue -collar boom?

And finally, New Rule Democrats must recognize that Zoran Mamdani is the

of the party.

Unfortunately, it's the Republican Party.

Get it?

And if you missed his victory speech in last week's mayoral election in New

York, don't worry. You'll see it in every attack ad for the next two years.

Now, Mendami seems like a nice guy, and I congratulate him on an extraordinary

political achievement. But before the whole left side of the country catches

socialism fever, let's listen to the other big winner.

In last Tuesday's election, Virginia Governor -elect Abigail Spanberger, who,

before the 24 election, said things like, if the party didn't shift to the

center, we will get fucking corn apart.

And we need to never use the word socialist or socialism ever again.

Well, she was right, but they didn't listen.

Typical, am I right, ladies?

Well...

At least the party has a clear choice here, very clear.

One wing is saying don't ever use the word socialist again, and one is

I am a democratic socialist!

Clear, huh?

So how do we decide who's right?

Well, it turns out we don't really have to flip a coin. We have the evidence.

In 2024, 13 Democrats won. In districts, Trump also won.

All moderates.

This isn't rocket science.

All the left -leaning think tanks have done autopsies on 2024, and they all

up with the same message.

Move to the center.

Even the New York Times, which did so much to promote woke politics, now says

the partisans are wrong. Moving to the center is the way to win.

Democrats should recognize the party moved too far left on social issues

Obama left office.

Gosh, if only someone had been saying that all along.

But, you

know, welcome home.

Problem is, Gen Z think socialism's wired and capitalism's tired and

billionaires are what's for dinner.

And who can blame them?

If you're 30 and still sharing a bathroom with roommates, capitalism

working for you.

People will reject any economic system where there's a strange hair on the

No one wants to be approaching middle age and still writing their name on food

before they put it in the fridge.

So they're quitting, quiet quitting capitalism and texting socialism that

they're down to fuck.

Thing is, socialism will fuck you. Because socialism, to put it simply,

doesn't work and has never worked. Like Kevin Federline.

I know the kids think that stuff that happened before their appearance on the

planet didn't really happen, but it did.

We've run this experiment many times, and the results are always obvious.

Here's capitalist South Korea at night from space.

Here's socialist North Korea.

Yeah. In 1990, Venezuela was wealthier than Poland. But then Poland, finally

free of Soviet -style economics, went all in on capitalism.

And now their economy is as big as Japan. And people there have high wages,

inflation, cars, vacations, homes.

Meanwhile, Venezuela traded capitalism for Hugo Chavez's...

socialism for the 21st century, which turned out to be like socialism in the

last century, or any century, a fucking mess.

It turned one of Latin America's richest countries into one of its poorest.

Low wages, high inflation, shortages, outages, 8 million people fleeing. If

think New York can somehow reinvent this wheel, you're in for a rude awokening.

Zoran can't make your wishes come true. You're thinking of Zoltar.

Democratic socialism is like a dating profile.

Things look great until you meet up in the real world.

For example, Bernie Sanders, his big thing was always bringing single -payer

health care to our country of 340 million.

But when liberal tie -dyed Vermont tried to do it for a population of 626 ,000.

It collapsed like that poor fuck in the Oval Office last week.

Bernie, AOC, Mandani are not Democrats.

They'll be the first to tell you that. They're democratic socialists, and

a very different thing, and I don't think people know that yet. I don't

people realize.

We already have a lot of socialism.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps,

veterans benefits, Pell Grants, COVID -era payments, farm subsidies,

payments, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, corporate bailouts, and the jobs program

is building weapons the Pentagon doesn't even want.

All that is socialism.

Much of it appropriate to soften the edges of capitalism, but...

The DSA are radical about this concept, and radical economic policy is always

ineluctably married to radical social policy.

Their platform, for example, calls for completely open borders.

They're for what Biden was doing, but more.

You think you're going to win an election on that?

It just seems like more extremism at a time when Americans are begging both

parties. Please, could just one of you act normal?

It's either defund the police or military in the streets.

Either MAGA's crypto -crony capitalism or city -run grocery stores.

No, I don't want that. I want a Democrat who reassures me, if you like your

whole foods, you can keep your whole food.

Governor -elect Spanberger once said about Biden's presidency that, quote,

nobody elected him to be FDR.

They elected him to be normal.

Normal!

You know, at this year's DSA convention, or if it's commonly known, Comic -Con,

get this, you had to submit a photo of a negative COVID test to

get in.

In 2025.

Yeah, no one wants to do that shit again.

We've had enough of Trump's macho bullshit and also enough of pussy

These, yeah.

I couldn't help himself here.

These democratic socialists at another of their conventions, they were told to

make jazz hands instead of clapping, lest some delegates suffer sensory

overload.

And also, And I'm not joking. They were told not to be wearing, you know, any

aggressive scent.

Please don't go into that space with anything that's like an aggressive

for instance, right?

Because that's going to be difficult for people.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Really?

This is who the Democrats are thinking of following. You know, Chuck Schumer

ain't perfect, but at least he doesn't crumple into a heap when confronted with

Chanel No. 5.

You may now clap in the traditional way.

Thank you very much. All right, that's our show. I want to thank Josh Farrow,

Fareed Zakaria, and Scott Galloway. Club Random drops every Monday on YouTube.

Or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Now go watch Overtime on YouTube.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.