Original subtitles

Thank you very much.

Thank you for coming.

How you doing?

Good.

All right. Well, I can see you're... Thank

you. I can see you're very happy today.

Yes, I agree. Great news. Trump is back on TV.

Did you see what happened this week? First, he got very mad at the president.

He threw CNN, MSNOW, and Politico out of the White House.

And then all the other networks in solidarity, including Fox News.

This is pretty interesting.

In solidarity, he said, well, we're not going to cover him at all either.

So no one was covering him. And then a judge saved Trump's ass from the worst

fate he could have, which is not being covered.

And made them go back.

And now the press is back at the White House, and Trump is like, fine, First

Amendment, whatever, you got me.

Now get back in there and report on me so I can sue you.

But they didn't really take this lying down at the White House. The White House

has introduced a new app called Trump TV, which...

which countries that are, shall we say, not democracies would call state TV.

Really. So we have that now. State TV, our top stories tonight. Gas prices are

down, and Iran is begging for a deal.

Speaking of state TV, a guy who does it really well, President Xi of China, he

was here all week. Have you seen that? Oh, yes, he came in, landed on a big,

beautiful new plane.

Trump went out and gritted... Is this for me?

Uh... Oh, uh, they had, uh... They, of

course, had a big banquet.

Uh, Xi didn't eat much. He was very full from eating our lunch.

I don't know.

This should have been the AI summit.

Because here, finally, we had all in one room, the two most powerful leaders in

the world with AI, Xi and Trump. Plus, at the dinner, Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos,

Elon Musk, Hung from NVIDIA, all these people. Tim Cook, head of Apple, sat

next to China's first lady.

She said to him, how's the iPhone business?

He said, yeah, it's good. It'd be better if you could make the kids work faster.

Oh, I could, I could.

But, uh, you know, the problem with these summits with Trump

and Xi, is it me or do they have them, like, every two weeks? I feel like

they're always with each other, and Trump thinks that Xi could give a fuck

about being his friend.

So it's all personal. Trump did everything he could to show him around.

He showed him the new spot where the limo drops people off. That's been

improved.

Really, I'm not making this up. Showed him the new helipad, the ballroom.

Does he know that China builds, like, entire cities in a week?

And... And he's showing him the new

driveway?

This is like showing Gordon Ramsay how to reheat pizza, you know?

Oh.

So, you know, it just seems like this administration is very into

redecorating. Redecorating or annihilating.

I've said it before, it's the most macho and the gayest administration ever.

And the latest is... The latest...

redecoration obsession is Trump is like, we need an arch.

Yesterday.

Fuck, all the cities in the world have an arch. I didn't know that. Okay,

yeah, great.

I mean, you know, I could, Paris, yes. Berlin, St. Louis, okay, good.

We're looking bad over here without an arch. Fucking Biden let us go archless

for years.

Luckily, my good friend President Xi is an understanding man.

He accepts that we don't have an arch, because to not have one is criminal.

And if anybody knows about an arch criminal, it's Donald Trump.

I said, it's always with love that we did.

So that is our agenda here in America. Arch annihilate.

He was at the U.N. Trump, the U.N. met this week, and he was there before the

Xi thing, and he talked about annihilating Iran again, and then he

met. with mandami this is the third time he's met mandami wow went over to gracie

mansion so that was his week g mandami for a guy who hates communists he likes

hanging out with them i'll tell you that but

the war in iran is really dragging down his approval rating i mean he's even

losing the people who used to be his the bros you know the latinos who voted for

him in bigger numbers last time it's a There's only one demographic now that

thinks the war is going well.

Pedestrians. They love it.

Because... Gas,

I've got to tell you, is pretty expensive, gas. Here in L.A., they gave

up on putting the numbers on the sign. It just says market price.

I was at the gas station the other day. I saw a guy put the thing in the tank.

There was just a little drop at the end. And he took it and he rubbed it on his

gun.

All right, we've got a great show. We have Jonathan Swan and James Kerchick.

But first off, he is the host of the Huberman Lab podcast and author of the

new number one bestselling book, Protocols, an operating manual for the

human body. Andrew Huberman. Andrew.

Good to see you.

Okay.

So, you have a new book out.

What's that like? It's number one?

It is. It was number one New York Times bestseller. Oh, fantastic. Thank you.

We call it a manual.

Yes. And you speak out, I love this part, you speak out against biohacking,

because I see that always when you're scrolling through stuff. Everything is a

hack. Right. And you talk about how hacks...

are really, well, they come from hacks, don't they?

And they're really kind of bullshit.

Yeah, it's like taking a paperclip to fix a pair of glasses. It's a temporary

solution. What's in the book are tools that are based on scientific mechanisms

that exist in all of us from birth until we die that you can tap into.

Specific ways of breathing, using access to sunlight at specific times, learning

to get better at learning, learning how to increase focus.

and on and on, mitigate stress, and all of those are anchored in real, known

physiological mechanisms, so there's no mystery to them, and I don't claim

ownership of any of them, but I share them with the readers, and then they can

use them if they like. How many of them may have to do to be really healthy? I

mean, I feel like, I don't want to make this all about me, but... You seem like

you're doing really well. Yeah, well...

I mean, like the sun one. Like, I've been doing a lot of this stuff before it

was cool. You know, I've been talking about all this alternative stuff for

years. People thought I was crazy. Now it seems a lot more mainstream. But, I

mean, like the sun one.

Like, I get up at the crack of noon.

That's, you know, doesn't mean I'm less productive.

I'm just productive at different times of the day.

But that's not good, right?

Well... Regardless of when somebody wakes up, could be 5 a.m., could be 10,

could be noon, getting some sunlight in your eyes in the first 30 to 60 minutes

after you wake up is a great idea because it just sets in motion this huge

wave front of molecules in the brain and body that make you more alert, more

alert and calm, better able to focus.

It's best for your immune system throughout the day. And most

importantly, it sets you up so that 14 to 16 hours later, you get tired.

and you can go to sleep more easily. So it sets a timer. So if you start that

timer at noon, what time do you go to sleep, Bill?

Well, let's... I mean, I believe in getting the right amount of sleep. I

mean, sometimes you have to be... I sometimes have to be in bed ten hours to

get eight hours of sleep, and I don't even get eight. But, you know, seven and

a half or something like that, that's a good night. Yeah.

But, again, I'm just asking, does it matter? Because the hippies have always

told me that it matters when you sleep.

that, like, the healing takes place between 10 and 2 a.m. or something like

that. You know, I'm not even asleep at 2 a.m. Yeah, that's nonsense.

Oh, good.

Fantastic. The truth is there are these so-called chronotypes. I talk about this

in the book and how people can figure out theirs. Some people feel best going

to sleep late.

waking up later some people waking up early going to bed earlier and you can

shift it does change across the lifespan but the truth is most people find that

and if they can manage it with their work and other responsibilities if you

can adhere to your chronotype as we say that is going to be best for your health

so early to bed early to rise is great for for early risers who want to be

early risers otherwise

change it up, but that light in the first hour is ideally from sunlight.

That's a real thing, regardless of when you wake up. I can do that. I remember

when COVID hit, right before they took us off the air, because, oh, you know,

it was so dangerous.

But I said, you know, the S's. Just take care of your S's.

Sugar, cut down on sugar.

Sun, get sun.

Stress, sleep.

Of course, we did the opposite on all of them.

Everything we did, the opposite. People did... I mean, Gavin Newsom said last

week, you know, it was insane to close the beaches out here.

And in hindsight. Well, some of the people were saying, in present-day time,

go to the beach.

that it was the B, sunshine, fresh air.

I feel like COVID and how we treated it may have turned people more to like our

alternative way of thinking about things. You think that's true? Yeah, I

think it's true. And I think it made what used to be called alternative or

just Eastern or niche mainstream.

I mean, the reason I started the podcast, which of course I did before

the book, was because during the pandemic, there was a lot of discussion

about vaccines and that was the business of...

other people to handle. I decide to focus on the problems that I did not see

the NIMH or anyone else doing good messaging about, and that's how to

manage your stress, how to keep your rhythms, your biological rhythms intact

so that you could be at your best mood, have your immune system functioning at

its best, and social connection, nutrition, exercise, how to do that

under the conditions of the lockdowns, et cetera.

That was the mission of the podcast when I launched it, and eventually it became

a bunch of other things in this book.

And indeed, all the things you describe are crucial for the immune system and

for just general well-being. Most of the things that you would do for a dog or a

cat or even for a fish tank, like turn the lights on in the morning, turn them

off at night, make sure it's a good ecosystem, most people don't think about

doing that for themselves.

But we need to control our own ecosystem as much as we can to be at our best

health. And that's not hippie biology, right?

Oh, no, you are not a hippie biologist. No, I'm definitely not. You're a real

one. Right. I mean, that's just how our brain and body work. these rhythms of

day and night and the Sun of course is what anchors us to that is vital if

anything you know one message that people could really take from this

conversation is you want the brightest possible days don't get sunburned but

have the brightest possible days whenever they may start for you and you

want the darkest possible nights that you can manage with your job and

schedule those two things alone have been shown in studies with huge numbers

of subjects to greatly benefit mental and physical health of all kinds Okay,

so can we play a little lightning around here since we don't have all that much

time? And I know it's hard for you because you have great things to say.

And I'm not known for being succinct. No, I know.

But just give me the skinny on a few things that I want to know because you

go into a lot in this book.

What's a real thing and what's sort of a trend?

Okay. Intermittent fasting.

Real thing, but...

Just lowering calories will do it too, but it really helps certain people

control their caloric intake, meaning some people, it's just easier to not eat

the croissant at all than to try and eat half.

Right, so that intermittent fasting meaning like you eat within an eight

-hour window of the day. Yeah, like 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The problem is most

people don't stick to it, or they find that they stack everything towards a

late meal, and then it can disrupt their sleep. But it can work as a tool for

caloric restriction, but there are other tools like...

smaller meals throughout the day, or, you know, just a standard three-meal-a

-day thing. Peptides. Yeah, I hear a lot about peptides.

My question is, what is a fucking peptide?

Because I hear it, and I...

Well, there is a category specifically of fucking peptides.

Really? There is, actually. There are some that are FDA-approved for treating

hyposexuality. Hypo?

Yes.

Why would you want to treat it?

But let's talk about the most common peptides. So the ones that most people

are familiar with are the GLPs, right, that are for weight loss. Oh, those are

peptides. Those are peptides. A peptide is a string of amino acids that makes

up... basically proteins in our body. Why is it controversial?

What is the downside?

I've heard that it can do good things, but it also could trigger bad things in

your body. The GLPs. That's true. In rapid-fire format. So the GLPs have been

shown to be very successful for inducing weight loss.

They do have side effects at the recommended dosages. Many people are

starting to microdose them on their own accord, a term borrowed from the

psychedelic community.

So taking much smaller dosages, same effects, lesser side effects and costing

less.

There are people who are reporting apathy as a result of taking the GLPs at

the recommended dosages, but not everyone.

And some people have reduced alcohol craving when they take them, so that

could be good for most people, perhaps.

The other issue with the GLPs is that unless people are doing resistance

training to keep muscle, there can be robust muscle loss, which will then

lower metabolism. If they come off the GOPs, then they have to go back on.

Now they have a smaller but fatter body with a lower metabolism, and the cycle

can continue. But peptides themselves, all of them. I mean, there's other ones.

There was one called MK-377. Then there's a huge category. What is that?

So MK, so the one you're referring to and a bunch of similar ones are what are

called growth hormone secundagogues. They stimulate the release of growth

hormone in sleep, which can lend itself to bodily repair, fat loss, and

maintaining or building muscle.

perhaps some other benefits, but increasing growth hormone can be

problematic over time. It can lead to some problems with blood sugar

regulation, if these things are used too much and in the wrong instance.

And there are a bunch of other... Can they give you cancer?

If you have cancer in your body, can they make that grow too?

In theory, they could accelerate the growth of cancers that already exist.

That's all I need to know. Don't do that.

Some of those are FDA approved, but then there's another category. That means

nothing. Yeah, so that's interesting too, right? As a consequence of the

pandemic, now FDA approved and the CDC says, exactly. I always felt that way.

Yeah, so a lot of people feel that way.

Okay. And then there's a final category, which are the peptides for which you

hear a lot, like BPC-157, for which there's a lot of data in animals showing

that it can accelerate wound healing, reduce inflammation, but for which

there's essentially zero formal data in humans, but you now have millions of

people saying that it helped them get over their shoulder or their knee injury

more quickly.

People are taking these things like crazy because it's kind of the Wild West

right now.

Yes, most of these come from China.

It will be a great thing when these are manufactured in the United States under

practices where we know that they are sterile, that what's labeled as being in

the bottle is actually what's in the bottle. I think we're going to get there

soon. Meanwhile, the GLPs are coming off patent.

So the new one coming out from Eli Lilly, I have no relationship to Eli

Lilly, is this Retatrutide, which is a GLP plus some other things that led to

30% reduction in weight in the trials.

This is going to be a trillion dollar drug, and there's a lot going on

politically to try and make sure that that patent is protected. Trillion

dollar drug. And as a consequence, the compounding pharmacies that allow for

the distribution of peptides at lesser cost, those are getting...

they're under some pressure legally.

So this is a big deal, right? It's all about medical freedom. Should you be

allowed to take peptides if you want, even if there are no human data?

I have my thoughts, but some people say no, some people say yes. I say yes, but

only if people are aware of the risks.

So knowing the risks is really important.

You've got to answer this one quickly.

We want to talk about this bar this week on the panel. You don't have to get on

that, where the people were all wearing masks.

What bar is this?

Watch the show and you'll see.

It's a big controversy this week. But it's not the only place we've seen

people wearing bars. All these DSA meetings, I see pictures of people on

the street. What is your take on why people, five years after a pandemic...

You know, you studied the human brain.

What is going on with people who, like, want to wear the mask and think they

need to? This level of paranoia at a place where it's so inappropriate.

I mean, if they're wearing it for reasons related to fear of infection?

They're not.

Okay. Some of them are, but most of them are not. It's a political statement.

Yeah. I mean, I was thinking a lot about this recently.

I think it relates to that Banksy painting.

you know the mask with the you know the protester i mean i think it's a

political statement right it's and i think there's also when people wear

masks i often think you know they have this i don't want to call it an

advantage but they have a vantage point where they can see you but you can't

really see them so it's also a way of of you know remaining anonymous it's kind

of like being online you see a lot of people saying a lot of things from

behind the mask and now we should ask ourselves though why do they feel they

need to do this and i don't know um i would I know you encourage open

dialogue. Yeah, I'm going to get to the bottom of it. All right. Great. Always

great to see you. Great to see you.

All right. I'll see you soon, Andrew. Thank you. All right. Let's meet our

panel.

Hey.

Gentlemen, how you doing?

Okay. Here's a White House correspondent for The New York Times. I guess you're

back on the job now, this week, and co-author of the number one best

-selling, Regime Change, Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,

Jonathan Swan.

is a contributing writer for The Atlantic and author of Secret City, The

Hidden History of Gay Washington, James Kirchick. Jamie, good to see you back

here.

Can I start with the U.N.? Because this is the U.N. week. I look forward to it

every year. It's always this time of year in September.

The weather's nice, you know, and New Yorkers love it with the parking

situation, I'm sure, with all the diplomats in town. But I just, I find it

weird. And I'm glad there is a U.N.

But, my gosh, like, we bombed Iran's entire leadership, and then their

president is in the same room with Trump.

It's just weird. Like, Hitler and FDR never, like, also were in the same room

during World War II. I mean, that's when Hitler was bad, but... And also, Xi

comes here, and he's Iran's ally, which have contributed to killing American

troops, and yet he gets paraded around like they're the best friends, and...

It's just weird that we have the two things going on at once. I don't know if

this is... This is an unusual president who seems to base our foreign policy

mostly on his own personal relationships.

And that's why he behaves like old buddies when he's meeting with the

dictator of North Korea, okay, or Xi.

And he treats the Danes, by the way, who were, like, the only country in Europe

to save their Jews, had the most...

casualties per capita in Afghanistan, are amazing allies of the United States

and have been for a very long time, he treats them like they're the enemy by

talking about taking Greenland.

So it's just, it's insane.

I mean, I don't know how to describe it. It's been like this for the past 10

years.

Yeah, I mean, John, you wrote the book on him. I don't know, you seem quiet.

No one has played Trump better than Xi Jinping.

I've had innumerable conversations with European diplomats, and they're always

talking about, how do you play Trump? How do you work Trump? And it's the most

preposterous conversation.

Do you suck up to him? Do you do this? Do you give him... And the answer is,

none of that stuff actually works.

The only thing that works is raw power.

And what Xi Jinping did last year, he didn't suck up to Trump. You never even

see him smile.

What he did was Trump declared a trade war with the whole world. A whole bunch

of countries start trying to negotiate with him, pretty please, pretty please.

Xi Jinping was prepared.

He had the rare earths, he had the magnets, and he essentially flipped him

the bird.

Trump got very worried about it, and then he sent Scott Besson, the Treasury

Secretary, to Geneva to organize a detente. Ever since then, he's been in

very dovish mode with China, doesn't want to upset anything.

The problem for small and middle powers like Jamie's talking about if you're

Denmark, whatever you don't have the leverage

to do any of that. So the only... It's a collective action problem.

The only way to deal with Trump is working together as a bloc. Yeah, I

don't think Xi wants to make this trip or go walk around and look at the

Declaration of Independence with his... In the auto pen, Biden's auto pen. He

was very proud to show him that. But he does it because he understands it's

great for him. Because Trump really thinks that a personal relationship with

Xi matters.

There was this scene in Euphoria.

Did you watch Euphoria? Where the stripper has a snake, a big snake. snake

that she sleeps with, and she's like, oh, it's so great because, you know, it

cuddles around me at night. And the guy says, it's not cuddling, it's sizing up

for when it eats you.

Can you guess who the snake is?

Who the stripper is in this analogy? Okay.

The other one is Netanyahu was at the UN yesterday. He said Israeli genocide in

Gaza is the biggest lie of the century. This is the exact point I was trying to

make a couple of weeks ago on this show. I feel like it is the central point.

Obviously, then Mandami said the speech was baseless lies meant to sanitize his

genocide against Palestinians.

Either it is a genocide or it's not.

It is a word in the English language.

We can define it. We have had seen genocides before.

To me, it is plainly not a genocide.

It is a counterattack against an attack in a war that's been going on since 1948

in different forms.

And the way... The fact that they insist on using this word, to

me, that's what I was trying to say a couple weeks ago, is the essential part

of it. Because when you... If you get people...

saying that a certain group of people have committed genocide, then all gloves

are off about how much you are allowed to hate them. And I think this is behind

all the anti-Semitism going on in the world. So let's just get it on the table

here. Genocide or not? Absolutely not.

Look, if it's a genocide, it would have been the first genocide where Israel

vaccinated, where the country committing the genocide vaccinated the population,

where they sent them two million tons of food.

Israel could commit a genocide of Palestinians in a week, probably.

They haven't done that because they have no intent to do it. And the intent is

what matters when it comes to genocide.

So I agree with Netanyahu and you. It really is the biggest lie of the 21st

century. And I'm telling you, I'm predicting right now, it will be a

question on the 2028 Democratic debate stage.

Raise your hands. Raise your hands if you think Israel committed a genocide.

Well, it's not just a question on the debate stage.

There was Representative Haley Stevens. She's from Michigan.

This week was followed to her car. This goes on all the time. I showed a tape of

it. Some other guy, Brad Weiner, who's... Scott. Scott Weiner is running

for Nancy Pelosi's seat. And a crowd gets around him. Say it! Say it! You

have to say the word.

This woman surrounded her. Just say it. And she said, see you at the gallows.

Jesus. Is what... Yeah?

I was just going to say, the interesting thing is that there were all these other

litmus tests that existed in 2020. And you see politicians like Pete Buttigieg

took out. He had his pronouns on his social media account. He got rid of

them. Right. So there's actually an effort to get away from what AOC has

called Woke One. But the new litmus test is Gaza and genocide. That's replaced a

lot of these old litmus tests.

But this...

hate. And this brings me to this bar that, if you're wondering, we're going

to do the bar now.

It's called the Last Ditch Bar.

And this kind of thing will see you at the gallows, these kind of talk that

whenever somebody isn't exactly on your page, that comes out of the mouths of

these people. And it does on the right, too.

But it never used to be this way on the left, not to my memory.

So, okay, here's what's going on at the Last Ditch Bar.

It's in Massachusetts.

It's a very woke bar, which is fine.

Their mission statement, for dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers,

and friends.

I love the way workers and friends are fourth and fifth on the list, which is

fine. I've been called a freak myself, all right? I'm all for freaks.

But economically, it wasn't working.

because even though there was a cover charge, if you couldn't pay, they

wouldn't make you pay.

Homeless, they were welcome in there. Not the cops, but the homeless.

But also, it was masked. This is why I was asking the doc about this.

You had to have a mask.

So, because they're losing money, one of the owners was living in her truck.

They said, okay, one night a week, let's make it Saturday night. Maybe we can...

pay the bills and keep the staff paid if we just have one night a week where it's

mask optional and of course the tolerant left did what they always do became very

intolerant and left and statements like uh people like you kill disabled people

in the name of your own leisure and convenience and i hope your venue gets

fire bomb this this is what i'm talking about this level of hatred that is out

there. What is your take?

This is one of the reasons I don't frequent lesbian bars.

But, um... But, um... You're not a lesbian.

It's not justice.

Um...

More importantly, I think the mask has become, for a certain segment of the

left, their version of the MAGA hat. It really is exactly that. But this story,

as much as we want to make fun of it, and there's plenty to make fun of, it

actually speaks to a growing divide between gay and lesbian people and queer

people, okay? To be gay or lesbian is a sexual orientation.

That's it.

To be queer is to embrace a whole political orientation.

There are straight people who identify...

as queer.

Um, it's about deconstructing gender, which is how you get, in that story, a

lesbian who uses he, him pronouns.

Explain that to me. How does that work? How does a lesbian use he, him pronouns?

And, um... Yeah. How does?

And it's... So, the example of this, you mentioned Scott Weiner.

What was also said to Scott Weiner... Who's gay.

Who's gay and very left-wing.

Even after he started using the word genocide, it wasn't enough. And what did

they scream at him in the park in that video?

Since you supported Israel, you're no longer queer.

Right. I remember that. You know what? I appreciate the honesty of that sentence.

Because that's what it means to be a queer. To be a queer is to support the

Palestinians.

over Israel, which, as a gay person, makes, of course, no sense, right?

And there was a poll done two years ago, and it was a poll of the LGBT

community. Who identifies as what within the LGBT community?

About 15% identify as lesbians. About 21% identify as gay.

56% identify as bisexual.

That's a subject for another show.

Um... Or after the show. Or after the show.

Um... But... But... 0.5%,

0.5% of LGBT people identify as queer. So why are we allowing this 0.5

% of the community to speak for all of us and use this word, which, by the way,

older gay men that I know, you know, over the age of 50, this was the last

word that they heard.

before getting their head bashed in. Okay, so it's actually very traumatizing

for gay men of a certain generation.

To hear queer.

To hear the word queer, absolutely. It's what they were called.

And it's actually having... All this queer trans extremism is having a real

impact. I mean, support for gay marriage has started going down. It started going

down in 2002.

Now, I don't think that's because millions of Americans just woke up one

morning and said, oh, we're homophobic now. We supported gay marriage, but now

we're homophobic. I think it's a backlash.

to this queer extremism.

And it's, you know, as a gay man, it's something I really worry about, frankly.

The interesting thing that's happening is you see something like this, and then

there's this other element of the Democratic politics, which is, I don't

know if you saw the story this week, there's the Democratic Senate candidate

in Alaska, Mary Peltola.

So some of my colleagues reported she was using homophobic slurs, you know,

calling people retards, using the word retarded. That would have got her

canceled in 2020, 2019.

The parties rallied around her. So I can't really make sense of where the

line is anymore or what gets you, you know, canceled.

You know, you have these cross currents.

But the one issue, as you said before, seems to be Gaza.

That seems to be the one thing where they've oriented themselves around a

litmus test. Gaza is woke 2.0.

It's Gaza.

Because no one's... They're all... It's very interesting. It's not right to say

that they're talking about mask mandates. Like, you don't hear

candidates say, you know, mask mandates and defund the police. They're actually

running away from all that stuff. It's completely oriented itself around

Israel. Oh, I don't think they're running away.

Oh, I do. You think they're running... 100%. Like, look at El-Sayed, Mamdani.

They're distancing themselves from defund the police, from the stuff they

said previously.

Yeah. It's the Israel issue. Right, you're right. It's the new litmus test.

All right. Well, that's not even the biggest story of the week. The biggest

story of the week is that we know now that there is time travel.

I don't know if you... What?

There is an old painting called Mr.

Pynchon and the Settling of Springfield, if you would want to show it now,

please. Yes, this is a venerable old painting. Springfield, Massachusetts,

one of the first colonies in the New World, Massachusetts Bay Colony, very,

very esteemed. And if you look closely, the Indian, one of the Indians there is

holding what looks to be a cell phone.

You see that?

And so a lot of the Internet thinks this is proof that there is time travel.

It does look like a cell phone. I'm not gonna lie. But, uh, anyway, whether you

believe that or not, we got some of the things that are on that cell phone.

Would you like to see?

All right.

Uh, for example, uh, seven signs he's just not that into me.

This pilgrim ate nothing but corn for 30 days. Then this happened.

Ten things that were totally normal in the 1620s that would get you canceled

today.

Smithohonta's update.

John Smith and Pocahontas seen arguing in canoe.

And we have the first sketches.

Massachusetts mother who killed children to be temporarily bewitched.

The surefire smallpox cure your medicine man won't tell you about.

Why many couples are waiting till 15 to get married?

And it will kill us all in four years. Is the fear over the abacus overblown?

Okay, so... All right, let's talk about

Trump, because that's your book. It reads like a novel, by the way. Thank

you. Really great read.

And, you know, I've said this before on this show many times. I think this is

the end. It's really coming.

I think it's really coming. I do. I mean, I feel like the president has

finally given the ick to people.

Like, in a way, how he escaped it for as long as he did is amazing. When you

think about the things that a guy could never do if they weren't him that would

give people the ick. McCain is not a war hero.

Grabbing pussies. You know, I mean, just pretty bad.

Clapping for that?

Grabbing pussies.

But if you've missed some of this stuff, I just tell you,

zombie lies. I hate zombie lies. The zombie lie is Trump is indomitable. No,

keep up, people. Keep up.

It's really going in the other direction.

I mean, the Supreme Court, he talked about them last week.

These are not the people I interviewed. By the way, you're not supposed to

interview them when they're the president. I don't think.

But because they voted against him with his mail-in balloting. Here's just some

other stuff, quick stuff.

Byron Donalds, good friend of our show, real big Trumper, took Trump-endorsed

off his website.

Maria Elvira Salazar in Florida.

These are all Republicans.

These are all things coming from Republicans.

She says we feel betrayed. He's running ads against him on the immigration

issue. There's a Republican who wants to impeach Pete Hegseth.

There are four Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa Republicans coming out

to end the war and have Congress demand that he end the war.

There are Republicans now wanting to investigate Don Jr.'s wedding, merely

because it was financed by Putin's good friend.

Tucker Carlson.

He's asking for the 25th Amendment.

Remember that one? The one that says you can remove a president if he's not so?

That, you know, Mike Pence must be like, oh, we're doing this now, huh?

And, you know, the bros, his biggest fans, they feel betrayed.

They don't like the war. They don't like the Epstein thing. We didn't get the

full story on that. The tariffs.

Even the Maha people, the Make America Healthy Again people feel they didn't

get what they asked for.

You know, and the corruption.

You know, everybody hates the boss's son.

So that thing with the wedding financed by the Russians and you get your own

island for three days, this kind of shit is just not flying.

So, John, what is your take here now that you... I mean, how long has your

book been out and how much has changed since it came out? It's changed

profoundly. I mean, we make the case, and I think it's indisputable, that last

year, 2025,

Trump controlled his own party in Congress like no president in American

history. Right. He got senators... There were senators who thought that Pete

Hegseth was grossly unfit.

Grossly. And they still voted for him because they were scared of Trump.

And now you have all the things you just read out.

What's really interesting to me is whatever you think about Donald Trump,

historically, he's always had a pretty good radar for staying on the right side

of populist issues.

He's always, he really knows, he's got a fingertip feel for it. And you're seeing

him now on the wrong side of some really big populist issues, like, you know,

data centers.

The public hates data centers. They hate them. It's visceral. We talked to

Republican strategists. The polling is so upside down on that issue.

It's becoming a major, major source of anxiety, just AI in general.

And when you listen to Trump, he sounds like Jensen Huang. He sounds like Mark

Zuckerberg, full speed ahead.

You know, the Iran war, again, whatever you think about the politics and the

policy... He is on the wrong side of that now. The public is against that

war.

The issues that he ran on, gas prices, cost of living, he's on the wrong side

of that.

And a lot of Republicans I talk to don't know how he gets out of this.

You know, I understand why people think he's super, super human, because he's

shown us so many times before that the political physics don't apply to him,

but boy, it's hard to see now.

Money. When things are going good, I mean, we see this in other countries. We

see this in communist China.

It was communist, but, like, as long as you're giving the people a good economy,

you can get away with a lot. I mean, it's not like Trump fans didn't know he

was crazy.

It was like, okay, he's crazy, but he's our crazy,

my stock market numbers are up. That kind of stuff. When the money goes, the

one thing you can't lie to people about is money.

They know how much money is in their wallet. And you cannot bob that, Baghdad

bob your way through that one. And I feel like that's where he is now. The

credibility is just shot.

27% approval he has on the economy.

That was always his best issue.

Always, always his best issue.

27%. It means a lot of Republicans have decided that he's bad for the economy.

Are you surprised that Fox News joined the boycott earlier this week when he

threw those three... And he threw... Politico was one of them. Is Politico

even left-wing?

No. I mean, it's very odd. I don't know why he... It's odd that he threw them

out. It was...

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't surprised in general. I know CNN, MSNBC, he's always

barking at them, but okay. So you threw them out. Then NBC,

ABC, CBS, and Fox, Fox News joined in and said, you know what, we're part of

this gang, not part of his gang.

And then we're all in solidarity. That's not unusual. I mean, during the Obama

administration, I remember there was some situation where they were, they

didn't kick them out, but they excluded them from some sort of precedent. Oh,

they did. And all the other networks stood in solidarity.

With Fox.

And so I think on these basic sort of press freedom issues, you will see the

networks and the media outlets, the major ones, right of center, left of

center, they will stick together.

And what about Trump TV?

Is that legal? I mean, can we... I mean, I was saying it's state TV. Yeah, I

think you kind of summed it up pretty well, actually, in your monologue. Yeah.

And what goes on after, you know... Is it, like, infomercials? I don't know.

Probably. I don't know.

Yeah, it's, uh...

It's a bit of a mystery to me as well. I don't know how that works. But you have

said before that he answers more questions than Biden did. There's no

question. Obviously.

I mean, the paradox with Trump is it's... Two things are true.

He... Every reporter in Washington has his cell phone.

I have his cell phone. I'm sure Jamie does. I don't, actually. Can you give it

to me? Sure.

If we called him now, he would probably pick up. Okay?

It's also true that two months ago, my colleagues reported a story about Air

Force One and the Qatari jet and security concerns.

And 48 hours later, FBI agents showed up on their front doorsteps and served them

subpoenas. And a colleague at The Washington Post, the FBI went through

her home, seized her electronic devices.

This stuff's not normal. Well, I don't want to be both sides in it, but during

the Obama administration, they tapped the AP Bureau's phones. That's true. And

the phones of AP reporters. They tapped their phones.

And they named James Rosen, a Fox News journalist, as an unindicted co

-conspirator in a leak case.

You'll never get me to defend Obama.

And they subpoenaed James Risen, your colleague.

Obama was horrendous on this stuff. You'll never get me to defend him.

Horrendous, really?

Yeah, he was bad. You screened him on the leak stuff? Oh, yeah. I looked this

up about... Terrible.

freezing out one... They did it with Fox News. Josh Earnest, he was in the Obama

administration. He admitted it. He said, the White House has demonstrated our

willingness to exclude Fox News from news-making interviews.

And he did done. She was also in the Obama administration. She said, we're

going to treat them the way we treat an opponent.

This is exactly what... You know, this is what I always say about this country.

Everybody's like, you know, this is the worst thing in the world, except when we

do it, and then it's always perfectly okay. But it's not actually the same.

No, it's not the same. Because he's not letting them in the door. But I'm

actually more concerned... Like, the way a leak investigation is supposed to work

is going to the journalists for the subpoenas is the last resort.

This was the first resort.

You send the FBI to the doorstep after 48 hours, that's just intimidation. It's

different. It is different. I feel like the pattern is that Democrats do

something, and then Republicans use it as an excuse to do it triply bad. Yeah.

And say, well, come on, your guy did it. I mean, was Biden a little corrupt? A

little. Not like Trump.

But not like Trump. But not like selling meme coins and that kind of shit. Okay,

my last issue. Have you seen the Klan shoes?

Yes, I have. Okay, this is an ad.

Show the ad, please. I mean, this is... I don't know what the fuck this is. This

is a Nike ad.

And I would normally... And, of course, people immediately said, this looks like

a Klansman and somebody who was lynched.

And I said, well, this is, you know, a Nike ad. Why would they do that?

And show it again.

Yeah, it looks like a Klansman and somebody... Like, I don't think they did

it on purpose.

And normally I would say, oh, wow, the woke, they're always just barking at

anything they can.

But, like, My take on this is not that Nike would try to do this. No. What

could they possibly have? Even if they were racist and they're not, they're a

bunch of people in Seattle in 2026, okay?

Stupid. People are just fucking stupid. Well, it puts me in mind of whoever the

executive was at Red Lobster who came up with the idea of endless shrimp.

And then bankrupting the company? Like, did you not think endless shrimp might

be a problem? Oh, wait, it's Converse, not Nike. Oh, okay, sorry. Sorry, I

don't want to get Nike in trouble. Yes, very important, very important.

Converse. But whatever it is, they're a shoe company. They sell a lot of shoes

to a lot of people, including a lot of black people.

What is... Who has this meeting of 20 people and not one of them...

No, it's crazy. I don't... He goes, you know, I suspect... I don't know. I think

there might be something... No, nobody went around the room. What is that? Is

that just, you know, intimidation? Like, I don't want to be the one to speak up?

Maybe the boss's son designed that ad, right? And no one wants to tell the boss

that his son is a fucking idiot, right?

So you end up with something like that.

Oh, it's a theory.

So I saw on the news today that El Sayed in Michigan says he would do my show,

even though he doesn't like the way I talk about people like him. It's not

people like you. I would love to have you on, sir, by the way, and I hope we

can make that happen. I talk about Islam.

It's never personal, and it's never about race. It's about ideas.

Religion is an opinion.

That's all religion is, a group of thoughts that form an opinion of

something.

I have different views on what, you know, how women should be treated and

things like that that we will discuss.

I hope you will accept our invitation.

All right, time for New Rule.

Okay.

New Rule.

Clickbait headline writers really must try and find the tiniest shred of

dignity. This month, one wrote about Taylor Swift's surprising family

nickname. which turned out to be that her nieces call her Aunt Taylor.

You see the problem here? To be surprising, something unexpected has to

happen. It's like a story, the shocking thing Taylor and Travis did on their

wedding night.

And you click and find out they fucked and fell asleep.

New World, the competitors at the World Gurning Championships.

where you're judged on your ability to contort your face into something

grotesque. Must be congratulated, you gave it your all, but this year's winner

is, once again, Madonna.

No, no, don't ask me to read your book.

I have to read books for work. The last thing I want to do when I get home is

sit down and dive into your 388 pages of self-published bullshit.

So when you ask, did you read my book yet? The answer is always going to be

the same. No, I haven't had time, but my dog devoured it.

Uh, neural laughing cow cheese has to explain why the cow doesn't look happy

anymore.

And what's with the message, we need to talk?

We need to talk.

Oh, no, Mommy, are you and Daddy fighting?

Has he found someone else?

It's that Land O'Lakes whore, isn't it?

I knew it. She's always on her knees.

Uh, New Rule, we have to do something about sinkholes.

Every week, there's a story about a sinkhole somewhere.

Like this week's report of a 47-year-old Long Island woman who had to be rescued

after disappearing into a massive one in her backyard.

Luckily, she'll be fine. As for her husband, back to the drawing board.

And finally, new rule. It's not a crime when people from opposing parties work

together for the good of the American people. And it shouldn't be a scandal.

if they talk to each other.

Democratic House Leader Akeem Jeffries recently met with Jared Kushner, and as

often happens, he was treated as a collaborator.

Yeah, that's what democratic government is, collaboration.

But bipartisanship is such a dirty concept now that we can only practice it

in secret, like how Republicans do with homosexuality.

I know it's hard to believe, but we used to actually celebrate it.

Democrats and Republicans would sign bills together, all smiles, and then

crow about the victory and how working together made it happen.

They'd use dozens of pens to sign the bill so they could hand them to each

other, and then they'd say, we disagreed on plenty, but today America won.

Now if you handed a pen to someone from the other party, they'd take it and stab

you in the neck like Joe Pesci in Casino.

This is what government used to look like. Here's what it looks like now.

Meeting with the other side, but having to hide your face behind office

supplies. Can anyone really imagine Mike Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries clasping

hands today?

Boo! Get a room, pussies. How dare you come together in a place called

Congress?

Cong...

Congress has a 16% favorability ranking.

And one reason is, even when they do something good, no one's bragging about

it on the campaign trail.

Because working with the other side is sus.

Compromise? That's for assholes.

Real leaders, real leaders fight.

That's how we're gonna fight. I will fight for you. You don't get what you

don't fight for.

We'll always fight. Fight like hell. Fight, fight, fight.

Are you ready to come out?

Good... Good news stories get buried because they're tainted by cooperation.

Every issue is like that. Take drugs.

I know I do.

Well, I've never hidden the fact that I like drugs and I've smoked my share of

weed. And your share.

And yours.

And I will admit, the weed is stronger these days. I just found out the new TV

show I've been enjoying lately is actually Roku City.

But here's what's crazy.

The progress...

we've made in the last few years in both street drugs and prescription drugs is

truly phenomenal, and no one's talking about it.

Deaths involving fentanyl are down 55% from their peak. Cocaine, down 37%.

Heroin, 89%. There's been a 34% decrease in meth-related deaths, which has led

to a 64% increase in teeth.

What happened? It's not like Americans suddenly became a people who make good

decisions.

Well, part of it is reasons beyond politics. That's true. Heroin, for

example, lost a lot of its appeal now that people can shoot Ozempic to get

skinny.

But mostly it's because Democrats did some things and Republicans did other

things. And by not actually ever working together, they stumbled upon positive

change.

Or as Trump put it, it was all me.

That's what he said.

He said Biden did absolutely nothing.

Well, actually, Biden did do something. He had great success with this issue

because he made Narcan more easily obtainable.

What is Narcan?

I don't know.

What I do know is when a person used to be overdosing and about to croak and had

like a minute to live before they died, The way we used to handle it was, John

Travolta would stick a needle in your tip.

But we found something better, Narcan, and Democrats fast-tracked it. That

contributed a lot to the huge decrease in drug deaths.

But so did closing the border and deporting gangbangers and disrupting

supply. Narcan worked, and law enforcement worked. You see?

Mommy and Daddy, for the sake of the kids, work together even though they

hate each other.

Just like in a real family.

Welcome to the era of accidental bipartisanship.

And it's not just drug crime that's way down. It's all crime. And again...

Probably much of it is not political. It's because you can't move two inches

in America without being tracked, photographed, and followed by a flock

camera. But it's also because when Democrats expand the safety net, there

are less desperate people.

And because Trump is a badass.

No, I don't agree with many of his methods, like how they sometimes just

deport people to countries where they have absolutely no connection, like

Meghan and Harry.

Is doing it this way the right thing? No.

But it's just childish to pretend that when you elect a fuck-around-and-find

-out president, a no-more-Mr-nice-guy, boot-in-your-ass, V for Vendetta, kick

-ass-and-take-names, say-hello-to-my-little-friend president,

that's not gonna have some effect on crime.

He has UFC fights on the lawn. I think the bad guy's got the message.

But maybe the place...

where accidental bipartisanship has worked best is with prescription drugs,

where we have seen the steepest annual decline in prices since 1963.

1963!

That's when the most prescribed drug in America was the speed they gave to

housewives so they could clean the oven faster.

How did that happen?

Well... Well, of course, if you listen to the Trump people, it's totally all

them. And, yes, the Trump Rx discount site did work.

Democrats say, no, it was actually all Biden's Inflation Reduction Act that did

the trick.

It's both, because they both independently and totally not working

with each other...

figured out that when it comes to drugs, you can really save a lot of money by

buying in bulk, something I figured out when I was a pot dealer in college.

All right, thank you very much. That's our show. I want to thank Jonathan Swan,

James Kirchick, and Andrew Huberman. Club Random is every Monday on YouTube,

or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Now go watch Overtime on YouTube.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Thanks, guys.