Hello, listeners, and welcome to another episode of the Jacob Shapiro Podcast.

I am your editor, Jacob Smolian.

Jacob and Marco had planned to record a podcast today anyways, but then Luca got traded, Trump threatened tariffs, and the whole world generally went mad.

So you guys get an evening hour and a half special.

Honestly, you can expect these more often as the Trump administration continues to throw at the wall to see what sticks.

Rest of us try to figure out.

What the hell is actually going to.

Happen, and we try to keep you updated and informed.

There's a special announcement at the end for those who make it, and that's all you're getting from me.

Hug the people that you love.

Cheers, and we'll see you out there.

All right, listeners, I.

I wish that I could ask Marco again how he was, because this is the first time I've talked to him since the fires.

And I asked him how he was, and he literally just, like.

I don't even know what that was.

With your exclaim of joy about Luca and your life and everything else.

Okay, let's do it again.

Let's do it again.

Ask me in a somber and empathetic tone.

Do it.

Marco, I know that you and your family were recently affected by the wildfires in Los Angeles.

You even had to evacuate your home.

I actually watched you in a hoodie give an interview to some strange Indian news station where you were just dropping knowledge while you're fleeing from your home.

Are you okay?

Are your children okay?

Is your home okay?

Who cares, baby?

We got Luca.

It's not fair, by the way, that you got Luke.

Are you gonna.

You guys should really trade for Trey Young at this point.

Just put together the two.

Two stars from the draft class, don't you think?

Look, man, all I'm gonna say is that Canada should just hold, like, stop the election and higher Rob Polinka.

You know what I mean?

Just get him.

Get him in there, because, you know, whatever magic he uses to negotiate is incredible.

This is one of the.

I mean, it is the most lopsided train.

I don't know how everyone, like, feels.

You know, like, growing up as.

As a Serbian, you're always, like, the underdog.

So it.

It's fun to be a Laker fan because you're never the underdog.

It's on the life is unfair.

We have a saying in Serbian.

Your spoon fell into honey.

Right?

That's what it is like to be a Laker fan.

You know, it's like, oh, it's all sticky.

It's.

Shut up.

It's covered in honey.

Just.

I mean, it's just unfair.

Will Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Right?

Shaq, Kobe, LeBron, and then Luka Doncic.

Wow.

Is the United States, the Lakers in this, in this metaphor and.

I think so.

I think so.

Okay.

And so like New York, New York is, is Magic and California is Luca.

And what exactly is North Dakota where I'm coming to you from the clubhouse suites?

Is that, Is it, Is it James Worthy?

No, probably not.

I don't know.

I don't know what it is, but I think it's just, it's unfair, you know, like this is a 25 year old top three player in the NBA who's got like conditioning problem.

Like, you'll be fine.

Like any.

Everyone who moves to south.

I lost 40 pounds moving to southern California.

I think Luca can lose some weight to.

Actually, no, we don't want him to lose weight.

To be.

To be clear, so very important that he remains girthy.

You.

You want him to.

He.

They said he clocked in at 270.

That's like we're getting the Zion levels right now.

Okay, yes, fine, fine.

Lose like £20.

But the thing with him is just be more conditioned.

You know, don't look like a middle aged woman on a treadmill like in the fourth quarter with like flush, you know, red face, like just be a little, little more conditioned anyways.

Yeah.

But it's very hard for me to contain because today, Jacob, today was a crazy day.

It was today.

It's a very crazy day.

There was a lot of things in the tariffs, and yet all I wanted to do was read tweets making fun of the GM of the Mavericks, Nico Harris.

That's all I wanted to do.

I just wanted to.

I know.

Watch him.

I know.

Slowly die on social media.

Well, and I promise you I will platform you for the last 20, 30 minutes and we can talk about nothing.

But it's.

And I guess, I guess Nico Harrison is Justin Trudeau in this really extended, painful metaphor.

But we, we will get there.

But it was, it was a fortuitous day because we had the Luca stuff happen.

We had all the tariff madness today.

We scheduled this, what, a week and a half ago.

We had no clue that today was going to be the day that things were crazy.

We.

Even when we, when we talked about scheduling this podcast, we said like, we should probably not talk about Trump.

Maybe we'll talk about what's going on in the rest of the world, like Germany and like all these other places.

Like we're Going to have to talk about Trump.

Like, I'm not going to avoid Trump right now.

Maybe we can back some of the other things.

In general, I'll start with just a little anecdote.

And I don't know if you have your own version of this.

I was on a stage last week talking to a group of farmers where I was like, in the middle of my presentation.

My whole presentation was, I think Trump is bluffing.

And so I had this whole beautiful, elegant presentation about why I thought Trump was bluffing, what the constraints were, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And literally, like an hour after I gave this very wonderful presentation, the next guy is up and somebody raises their hand in the audience and says, oh, Trump just announced the 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada.

And I'm like shrinking in my chair, like, oh, wow, that was a.

That's a new record for my calls not being correct.

And then I.

I'm here in Fargo.

Cause I'm giving a speech early tomorrow morning.

So I had to hand over my slides midday today.

I couldn't wait till the end of the day.

So I had this like, devil's choice, do I stick with the bluffing thing?

Do I not?

You'll be happy to know that I stuck with the constraints.

Because usually I'm the one who's gonna go away from the constraints.

And I was like, you know what?

He's bluffing.

And now I feel pretty good.

Take that wherever you want.

Well, we had a call today at my firm, BCA Research, where we actually invited all of our clients on an internal call.

So it's usually.

It's actually a specific product.

You have to kind of pay to have the ability to listen to this every morning.

And this was open for everyone because we were like, wow, this is a big deal.

And midway through, so we were having a debate.

You know, there's a camp at the firm that believes that he really is the tariff man and loves the tariffs.

And this is not a negotiating ploy.

There's the camp that believes it's a negotiating ploy to extract concessions.

And then like literally midway through this meeting, which was scheduled for 10:00am Eastern Time, we find out that apparently 10,000 members of the Mexican military.

By the way, the.

The phrase Mexican military is an oxymoron in of itself.

So apparently 10,000 of Mexico's finest is enough to satiate President Trump.

And then later in the day, of course, we find out that Canada is going to find out, you know, 10,000 people itself.

This is like, this is the magic Number you got to hit.

And you know, on one hand, because I'm in a similar camp as you, it was really nice to see this happen in real time, like literally.

You know, on the other hand, I do think that both camps can kind of be right in that sometimes tariffs are going to be a negotiation tool where the negotiations themselves are the end goal.

And then sometimes I think that he's going to need a little bit more convincing of kind of where to settle in terms of the tariffs.

So, you know, I, I really, really hate when people use short term news items to declare victory.

And what I mean by that is there's a lot of people in our camp, Jacob, who are now declaring victory.

Right.

Well, there you go.

On the other hand, I also feel that a lot of people in the other camp are now dismissing this 24 hours.

They were like, you see, he is serious.

He imposed 25% tariff on his neighbors and allies.

But then now they're dismissing it by saying, well, it was neighbors and allies.

Well, no, no, no, no.

Let's be empirical.

Let's take this in.

Let's add it to the four years worth of empirical data from the last four years of his presidency where he constantly negotiated in a really tough manner and produced marginally positive deals and called him huge victories.

And I think that what you get is a person who has a very clear approach to negotiations where sometimes just negotiating is an end in of itself.

And I think that was the case here.

Yeah, it's gonna be, it's, it's, it's gonna become difficult for him if people come to expect this.

But I want to shout out a couple different people that I thought put out some good things.

Matt Pines put out that maybe he was just testing to see how much he could really move the market, that he picked something and he wanted to know just how much his influence would affect market decisions and how much statements would influence market decisions.

And there's something to that.

It was almost like a carefully constructed experiment where he could see ex, like how things were going to move.

And Chase Taylor, who's been on this podcast a couple times before, he was the first one I saw that when the, when the executive order came out, he said, this technically doesn't go into Place until February 4th.

The announcement came up around February 1st.

So he, like, he pushed it back a couple of days and left open this daylight for pushing things back.

The, the other funniest part I thought was something that you tweeted or xed or whatever we're supposed to call it.

About how like in the middle of the day there was something about like the Trump administration was leaking.

Oh, the, the Canadians seem to have misread the executive order.

They thought it was a trade war.

It was really something else.

And I wanted to be like, that's not a misreading, it was a trade.

A misreading would be if the Chinese said they're going to deploy 10,000 people to the U.S.

canada border and say, please take off the terrorists because we've deployed the People's Liberation army on your border.

But I mean, it was a trade war in the executive border.

It's just like insanity all the way.

I think again, like, we can all like reinterpret this different ways.

I will say one thing, I think a lot of people are saying like, well, he didn't get anything in return.

And I think this is where, or you know, your point is it will be much diff.

More difficult.

So let's unpack that because that's important.

Obviously Mexico and Canada are just like kind of preview for what's coming in April across the board tariffs potentially again specific towards EU and China and so on.

What I would say is that a lot of my colleagues do, a lot of strategists, very smart people say, well listen, if he gives into Canada and Mexico on this kind of nonsense, it's going to be more difficult later on.

Why I disagree with that.

And here's why the other countries are realizing, wait a minute.

He really places a great emphasis on political theater and domestic politics.

And in, in some ways I want to defend that.

You know, you've got like, in this particular case, you get this fentanyl, you know, so if you're in the Midwest and you've had someone in your family like affected by opioid crisis of fentanyl, you just, you just spent the last four years watching the United States of America spend $5 trillion trying to cure the common coal buyers so the 89 year old great, great great grandmother doesn't die.

No one has really done much to affect fentanyl crisis.

So Trump is just rattling the cage.

He's getting foreign governments to scramble over this issue.

He has brought it up to a huge level where it's an international crisis.

And so yeah, he didn't get much out of it, but that theater itself is valuable to him.

And to be fair, again, I understand why.

And so if you're Europe and China, I don't think you're looking at this and being like, man, we're going to be so tough on Trump.

No, you're saying, like, wait, hold on a second.

Let's figure out a way to let him win.

Look, let's give him.

Let's kowtow to him.

Let's tuck our tail between our legs and say, yes, President Trump, we understand that this is a big issue, and then give him the political victory that he does want domestically.

Because I don't think it's just.

It's easy for all of us nerds to get together on X or Twitter and make fun of the concessions that he wins and say, well, that's nonsense.

That's marginally beneficial to America.

But I think that we're not seeing it through the perspective of his voters who are like, yeah, finally, somebody made a big deal about this and got two G20 economies to scramble to deal with American fentanyl crisis.

I support that.

And so that's what I would say.

I don't think that's a preview for a much, much more difficult negotiation down the line.

Yeah, I misspoke.

Or I was using too much shorthand when I say it'll be more difficult for him.

It will be more difficult.

Sort of for the reason that you alluded to, which is if, if he becomes predictable, he can't use the same playbook for every single negotiation and expect to get results out of the thing.

So he did the tariffs this time, then he came down like, it was.

It seemed predictable to you and me.

But, like, if he continues doing the exact same thing to Europe or the exact same thing to China, like, he's going to have to shift up his.

Repertoire, you know, but let me push that.

Right, okay, so, like, but why, like, Europe and China are sitting there and saying, like, okay, but, like, he's going to be really mean to us and we just need to play it cool.

We shouldn't overreact.

And by the way, the Chinese figured this out last time around.

They didn't really retaliate.

They let the currency depreciate.

So let's just be cool, let's just be respectful, somber, and then let it play out.

Why would it be more difficult?

Because, again, if what he wants from other countries is relatively easy to get, but the theater of the negotiations is a political win for him, then you should, as an adversary, as a rival, or as an ally trying to figure this out, you should simply let that process go through.

Yeah.

Which means it's going to be difficult for Trump to achieve his aims because people are going to know his playbook sort of top to bottom.

I think what Claudia Schoenbaum did.

I mean, Mexico played him in a little bit of a sense, because I don't know if you saw this.

Did you see the chart of Mexican fentanyl Seiz of 2023?

And then, like the December Trump is elected, he gives the first threat over tariffs, and suddenly Mexico seizes a record amount of fentanyl on the border.

And unlike Trudeau and the Canadian government, which was very fierce, like dollar for dollar retaliation, we're going to do it.

We don't want to be here.

Blah.

Claudia, the whole time was like, you know, we just, we just want to crack down on fentanyl and on these counterfeit goods, and we really just want to try to make things good and we'll retaliate if we have to, but we're not even going to go into our retaliation because I think that we're going to make things okay and then, like, things progress forward.

When you say play him, I would say, like, accommodate him in a way.

Like, that's like you're saying it's going to be more difficult for President Trump to get what he wants.

But if all he wants is the theater and the accommodation and the process of the rest of the world kind of kowtowing to American demands in some respectful way that makes him look like he's in charge and also produces a marginally positive outcome for America.

I don't think it's a bad thing that Canada is going to monitor its border more securely or change the export of inputs into fentanyl manufacturing to the U.S.

you know, whatever the case is, in a way, then just let that happen.

That's kind of what I'm getting now.

Obviously, we do need to discuss the other side of this, which is that I don't think with across the board tariffs, it will be about specific, discrete policy issues.

I'm just saying if you are assaulted by the United States of America, by the White House administration on a discrete policy issue, it does seem to be that there's a relatively easy way out.

The question is on the cross, the port tariffs, which supposedly will be a big thing after April.

That's what we're going to talk about.

What does that look like?

How do you accommodate President Trump on that?

Well, and it also gets to what does he really want?

Because I can't think that he wants to do the kabuki theater just for the sake of doing the kabuki theater.

I think he was very successful in that.

Psychologically.

He freaked the shit out of Canada and he probably freaked the shit out of Mexico as well.

Think what he wants is he wants to renegotiate the U.S.

mexico, Canada, free Trade Agreement.

Because the first time around, that agreement didn't lend itself well to his particular talents, because it wasn't about him in the room reading the negotiation and doing all these things.

It was about appointing people and putting negotiators in all the different rooms on all the different issues, and then everybody being aligned and walking away.

And if you look at agriculture or other trade, the U.S.

mexico, Canada, free trade renegotiation was not good for the United States.

It was good for Canada, and it was good for Mexico.

And I think he clearly wants some kind of renegotiation there.

So if it's part of a psychological ploy to sort of put Canada and Mexico on notice and say, okay, like, I'm willing to take out the hammer.

I'm willing to take this to the very brink as part of that larger negotiation, like, I do think that that makes some degree of sense.

Like, maybe that's where he's going.

But there's also part of me that thinks maybe he does just want the Kabuki theater.

Like, maybe he does just want the feedback mechanism and now we're doing psychoanalysis of somebody that's impossible to psychoanaly.

No, I think he does.

And again, it's not us psychoanalyzing.

I think if you look through the four years that he was in power, which I've done in great detail in various reports, what I've extracted from those negotiations between 2017 and 2020 is just a pattern, which is that he asks for the moon, and then what he ends up getting, he.

He refers to as the greatest deal ever.

And there's a whole process to get there, but it's only marginally positive.

Your point about, you know, USMCA not being positive for America, I mean, I think what you meant to say is that, like, Canada and Mexico extracted more from it than US did.

But it's not like the deal was bad for the U.S.

i think it was marginally positive for the U.S.

and the irony of it is that he just spent six months going around America talking to union unions, declaring that he got all these union protections in usmca, which was very clearly a Canadian negotiated issue.

So he's claiming that as his own, which is fine.

Politicians do that all the time.

I do think there is the theater that's important, and I think that many of our risks are overstated.

But I do want to talk about tariffs as a tool of revenue.

So here, here I do think that so, so there's way two ways to look at this.

One is that I am in the negotiations camp.

I think tariffs are a tool of negotiation and we just proved it.

End of story.

The end.

That's a fact.

Like we, I hopefully maybe Colombia could be dismissed as a five hour tiff, but this Canada, Mexico thing proves clearly that he does use them for negotiations.

Okay, fine.

But there is the more bearish and skeptical pessimistic view.

Is that, okay, fine, fine, we'll give you that.

But he will also try to raise revenue through tariffs.

And here I would say it's not about his preferences or his behavior in the past.

We do have to talk about the real world.

And I think that it's going to be very difficult for the United States of America to collect on a permanent basis revenues.

And I have to take issue with the God of tech investing, Marc Andreessen obviously bowed out to him in every way, but he is a neophyte when it comes to macro and doesn't know what he's talking about.

So he tweeted and Trump retweeted that in the 19th century, American industrialization was financed through tariffs.

In the 19th century, the United States government was also 2% of GDP, the entire spend.

You could have organized a bake sale to finance the US government.

So that's number one.

Number two, in the 19th century it was impossible to like.

Supply chains were not malleable.

So if you impose tariffs on France, France wasn't going to like move their factories in the 19th century to the Congo or West Africa or either China.

They weren't going to do that.

They didn't have the capability.

In the 21st century you can do that.

And also in the 21st century there will be a pretty dramatic move away from the goods that you're tariffing.

So the revenue that you collect from tariffs will be far insignificant relative to the cost of running the federal government relative to the 19th century, the revenue you get from tariffs will be dynamic and will go down as consumers move away from those goods.

And finally, you may not even be able to target the countries in question because they will move.

And that's what China's been doing.

And you and I have been talking about that on that pod.

China's enemy shoring, it's moved to Vietnam, Mexico.

I mean, you've talked about to your clients, this is a very big thesis for both of us.

So then the answer to that is like, well fine, we'll just put tariffs across the board and punish everyone.

No More enemy shoring.

Well, okay, fine.

The problem with that is that then you have a geopolitical cost.

And here, you know, Stephen Miron is someone I respect a lot.

I read his piece, you know, restructuring of global trade.

One of the things that a lot of Trump economists just take as an assumption, they take it as a truth.

A lot of countries in the world owe us for their defense.

You hear this a lot, Jacob.

Like they, you know, and therefore when we put across the board tariff, they're just going to be like, oh, okay, gee, you know, like Uncle Sam's asking for its money back.

You know, let me say this, and I'm trying not to swear.

Why?

Why?

Nobody gives a damn about American security guarantees other than a collection of countries that you put in one hand.

You think Indonesia cares?

Who's threatening Indonesia?

China.

What are you talking about?

Pirates are threatening Indonesia, for God's sake.

Literally pirates.

You know, you think that Thailand is out there afraid of Chinese invasion?

For what purpose?

When, when has this cropped up?

Vietnam.

Vietnam has a history of kicking China's butt.

Malaysia, Turkey.

What country requires American security guarantees?

And this is really important because it underpins this across the board tariff, the ability of America to impose across the border tariff, to show up in Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta or Bangkok and tell these countries, hey, the BYD factory has to leave.

These countries are going to be like, we're not hiding them.

It's right there.

It's the giant manufacturing plant with BYD on the side.

That's where the Chinese are.

They're employing our people.

You're welcome to tell GM or anybody else to come in and build factories here.

Oh, that's right.

You're not going to do that.

I'm sorry, but then we don't need your F16s.

We'll buy some rong.

The reason for this is that the vast majority of countries that matter don't have the kind of security threats where America can dangle a sword of Damocles across their head.

And maybe the advisors of President Trump, whether it's Andreessen, who's basically spent the last 20 years giving money to 20 year olds, hitting the bong so they can code and make apps.

God bless him, he's really good at that.

But maybe he needs to go travel to these countries and talk to people and ask them, are you afraid of China?

They're going to be like, no, we're afraid of pirates.

We don't need your F35s.

We can replace them with Rafales.

Same with the economists that are Helping him with this stuff.

They need to travel, they need to talk to people in the global south, whatever you want to call it, and see what level of tariffs are these countries going to be comfortable with before they start abandoning the US From a sort of a geopolitical alliance perspective anyways.

Rant over.

No, and it's a good rant.

And it's because I think Mexico actually suddenly, subtly was doing something like this.

Because if you look at Claudia Schaimaum's plan Mexico, which she's unveiling in chapters, like she's going to unveil the electricity chapter, then the oil chapter.

She already did the nearshoring chapter last week.

And the nearshoring chapter was really interesting because she took AMLO's version, which was basically unlimited subsidies for primarily American companies to come and make things in Mexico and said, okay, now there's a limited amount of money, like money incentives for any country to come in and do fixed asset investment in Mexico to build supply chains here.

Sort of like opening the door that you don't have to be the United States to come and invest here and sort of incentivizing from that point of view.

So if even Mexico on the one hand is yes, cow toeing and here's the 10,000 soldiers and I agree with you, what does that look like?

Is that, is that the military?

Is that the National Guard, Is that the police?

Like, I don't know who that is.

It's probably not great.

But like even they're sort of opening the door there.

And to your point about tariffs, I mean the other thing that like I don't think of tariffs as producing as primarily producing revenue in the 19th century.

The issue in the 19th century was the United States was industrializing and it had to protect its nascent industrial industries from the British and the French and these other countries.

This is why the south was not so happy with like the south and the north.

Like yes, the Civil War was about slavery, but it was also about this thing because the north wanted to protect the industries.

And you can make a really, really good case that the United States should be using subsidies to protect industry in the United States because all that industry has flocked to other places and it has hurt the United States geopolitically and it's hurt it economically.

But what I hear and what you're saying is that the like, like the Trump advisors are just throwing a bunch of different things at the wall because you need some coherence here.

Like you can't just have tariffs, but then not of support for the industries that you are trying to build within the United States.

So where, what are the industries that you're supporting?

What are the policies that you, that you're using to give money to those industries in general?

Well, they're not there because now you're freaking out that the CHIPS act was bad and you're going to go after Taiwan too.

And you're freaking out that, oh, we're not building ships here, so maybe we'll put in something called the Ships act that allows Japanese and South Korean components and it doesn't come in either.

And then like this was lost in all the day's tariffs.

Did you see that Trump was talking about a sovereign wealth fund today?

Yeah.

He wants to create a sovereign at all.

Like, let's go.

This is, this is my client base.

I'm like, one more client.

Let's go.

Well, but this is great.

But sovereign wealth funds are created from a budget surplus.

Yes.

Where's the budget surplus?

The last time we had a budget surplus was Clinton second term.

Like, and like, are you, what are you going to confiscate a bunch of bitcoin from the cartel guys that are trying to sell the fentanyl into the thing and put that in the cyber wealth?

But like it's just throwing amounts of at the wall.

That's where the 50% of our, 50% of our TikTok ownership.

Right.

Our TikTok ownership is going to go in there too.

So the way it's going to be is like 50 is going to go to a private buyer who's going to get 50% of that to the US government for the benevolence.

So that's, listen, so what I would say to you is like, I think, you know, there is a path here where even the across the board tariffs are basically tempered significantly.

I think there's so many things that go against this.

The fiscal conservatives in the House of Representatives are also not exactly enamored with the idea of cutting taxes and then replacing that with revenue.

Why not with cuts?

So you've already had a revolt over the last several weeks, which is lost in the AI Bubble story, the tariff story.

But we're losing sight, is I think, of the most important macro issue, which is US Fiscal policy.

And there's a revolt going on in front of our eyes that we're not even covering.

None of us like in the media and the strategy, like, they're just not going to expand the fiscal, the deficit as much as before.

There are, as you know, because you go, you're in North Dakota right now.

You speak to a lot of agricultural producers across the United States of America.

So you meet a lot of people in the farm districts where people are conservative.

You know, they support President Trump on all issues, but when it comes to free trade, they're more Davos than the Davos, man.

Are they not?

Because most of their products go to places like China.

And so if you're a member of Congress from, like, eastern Washington, you know, you're going to be like, whoa, whoa, timeout.

And they don't have the seats to basically pass a reconciliation bill with tariffs in it.

So that's one.

And the second issue is this point.

Like, it will lead to geopolitical blowback, that eventually, eventually the math doesn't matter anymore.

The Excel spreadsheets don't matter.

What matters is, can you force Indonesia to have a 10% tariff?

And Indonesia is going to say, like, I'm sorry, no, we're just like, like, are you kidding me?

We just got Beijing to invest $20 billion in our nickel processing.

You guys, we're.

We're a rising power.

We've got massive amount of people.

We don't need your market, quite frankly.

Like, so, no, no, no.

The, the power imbalance is different.

And then some egghead economist who's never traveled in his life is going to show up in Jakarta and be like, but what about your security?

And Indonesia is going to be like, what are you talking about, man?

Like, it's 2025.

And that's where I think the disconnect is, Jacob.

Actually, I think the disconnect is not realizing that in a multipolar world, it's very, very difficult to impose across the board tariffs.

Countries have other options.

They just do, for security, for trade, for investments.

And.

Yeah, so that's, that's where I think this.

The rubber will hit the road, you know, like, they're going to end up probably raising across the board tariffs, but instead of 10 to 20%, I would expect two and a half to like, 5, 6% at most.

Yeah.

All right, well, but before we jump on to the next thing there, I do want to ask you what percentage of you today thought that maybe he was really serious and that he was going to end the day with both.

With tariffs on both Mexico and Canada?

Like, how, how much doubt creeped into your mind?

None.

None.

I mean, just to be clear, I think I didn't expect it to last 24 hours.

I did not expect it to last 24 hours.

I mean, this is so comical.

I was laughing.

You Know, like I was like falling even, you know, but no, none.

Absolutely not.

25% in Canada.

Canada's like destroyed.

And by the way, it leads not to the 51st state because if you're a member of the MAGA camp, you definitely don't want that to happen.

It leads to Canada doing what it should have done, which is build energy infrastructure away from the U.S.

so America has a sweet deal here.

Canada has no pipeline infrastructure to the rest of the world.

And so why would you rattle that cage?

Why would you get the Canadians to build the Energy east corridor to Europe or to build the pipelines in the LNG infrastructure in British Columbia?

And so, yeah, I mean, I thought eventually this would be resolved, but that doesn't mean I have the same sanguine view again on across the board.

I do think that there is enough momentum in the, in the White House and the Trump camp that they do think that, hey, maybe we can get some money out of these tariffs, you know, so I think that's going to be a little bit more scarier.

But I also think we are going to see the constraints on that and those across the board tariffs are going to be much lower than people think.

By the way, I respect obviously Scott Besson, but his tiered view of like, you know, you're going to have the platinum, gold and silver membership.

No, you know, if you're platinum, 0% tariffs, gold, hey, listen, 5% silver.

Hey, man, you've been naughty.

You're a rogue state.

50.

The problem with that is again, enemy short.

America just doesn't have the ability to enforce behavior.

Right?

So China's going to go to Hungary and be like, can we build a BYD factory here?

What are you going to do with Hungary?

Like, like you're going to tell them no.

You know, you're going to run out of countries to say no to.

Brazil is a good example.

By the way, Brazil has got manufacturing capacity.

There's a BYD factory going on.

You know more about Brazil than I do.

By the way, Brazil is going to be an incredible, incredible opportunity for manufacturing because the Republicans in Congress and I love the hypocrisy of this.

I just love it.

Bathe in it.

Are talking about the green tax at the border, right?

If you produce your industrial goods, too much carbon, well, guess what?

Everyone's going to move their manufacturing to Brazil because Brazil actually is a country other than Norway that produces most of its energy through renewables.

And then what are you going to do?

You can't go to Brazil and be like, yo, 20% tariff.

They're going to be like, I'm sorry, I'm Brazil.

You know, we have a huge market.

We have a huge market.

We definitely don't need your security guarantees.

We're freaking Brazil, who's going to evade us?

Like, you know, that's like, what?

No, we're not going to stand for this.

And eventually, I think the White House is going to realize after they get enough nos from Global south countries, like, we just don't care about your security guarantees.

We'll buy the French Rafales, the Swedish Gripens, the freaking Russian Sukhois are on a discount.

I heard, like, eventually America is going to be like, all right, fine.

Well, can we raise terrorists two and a half percent on everyone?

And everyone's going to be like, yeah, that's cool, man.

Yeah.

There's a couple different things in there, the first of which, and this is one of the lessons, you alluded to it with Canada in the pipelines, but the lessons from the first Trump administration, and not just the first Trump administration, Biden doubled down on this.

The way that the United States treated Huawei and then went after the Chinese AI companies led directly to Huawei getting its own ships and China, like, taking the lead on some of the these AI things.

So when you actually deploy the tariffs, like, you're actually creating the impetus for both friends and enemies to go and create the technologies that they're currently dependent on you for.

So that's one problem with the Brazil thing.

I think you're right on.

Although Brazil reminds me more of the United States than almost any country in the world.

Like, you can almost hear Bolsonaro waiting in the wings.

Like, I know the polls say that Lula is going to come back, but, like, Congress is still center, right?

Like, Brazil is still angry.

Like, probably Bolsonaro is going to try to repeat it and come back in with Trump.

And there is some ideological affinity there.

Whereas with, if it's Lula, then it's like, you know.

But then, Jacob, you're right.

But then all the more reason why Brasilia will be like, yo, whoa, whoa, whoa.

What Tariffs?

No, no, no.

Right.

I mean, like, that actually goes to.

The question about, do you really think it's going to be across the board tariffs?

Because I was listening to this Cornell professor give a talk at the conference I went to last week, and he did these great models of, you know, who gets affected.

If it's us, Mexico, Canada, tariffs, and if it's China, and if it's one out of the three blah, blah, Blah.

And his conclusion was the United States is going to win in the sense that it's going to be on a relative basis.

The United States is not going to suffer as much as these others, but the United States is still going to suffer.

And in his modeling, the countries that did the best were the countries that were not in the trade war or the countries that can somehow avoid the tariff.

So if you can, like, do everything you possibly can to just say, okay, we don't want any of this, like, we're just going to sit here on the sidelines, like, we're not going to, please don't tariff us.

We're not going to tariff you.

Like, let's just continue with things.

Those are the countries that will do the best.

Jacob.

Okay, okay, so I hear you on that.

And yeah, that's a simple way to say it.

I mean, I don't know if you need a PhD or to be a cornel professor to say that in a trade war, if you avoid the trade war, you know.

Spoken like a true recovery.

Just throwing shade at this guy.

You don't even know this guy.

I love him.

I love him.

She's spent a lot of time, you know, stating the obvious.

Really complicated math.

I don't understand.

Listen, Jacob, but listen, you already said it.

That's what happened last time.

And China never panicked.

This is why China's amazing.

China was like, oh, you're going to impose tariffs on us?

Hold my beer.

And then they went to Mexico, to Vietnam, to Malaysia.

So what's happened?

And you can look at this on the chart, beautiful chart.

President Trump comes in, he imposes a trade war on China.

American trade balance with China has narrowed.

Well done, America.

But American trade deficit has never been larger.

So what's happened here?

What's happened is enemy shoring.

You know, so, like, this is where the across the board tariffs are kind of necessary if America is serious about, like, like, you know, never importing stuff from China, because China will simply find the countries that, you know, as you say, were neutral or, like, didn't want to get involved, like Brazil.

And then China's going to be like, hey, do you want us to employ a hundred thousand of your workers with really good wages building BYD cars so we can ship them to America.

Like, even Bolsonaro is going to be like, yeah, let's go.

And so this is where.

That's why this is very difficult.

And this is why the multipolar distribution of power on the planet is so, so important.

It's so important.

You know, again, I respect Stephen Miran, I expect.

I respect a lot of these people who say, like, hey, we need to do something.

I get it.

But you're not in a bipolar world.

The vast majority of people on the planet don't think China's evil.

They don't think China's a threat.

They think China's a rival or a nuisance or they'll steal our ip, but whatever.

And similarly, it's not a unipolar world, so we're not in the 90s where you just show up.

By the way, if we were in the 90s and unipolar world, we wouldn't be trying to reverse globalization.

Correct.

Because America would be running it, and.

The Lakers would be fielding a team with Luka Doncic and Vladi Divak at the same time.

It would just be like.

Which would blow my mind.

Yes.

So that's where I think that this multipolar structure will come back.

And I don't think that these neutral countries you're.

You're talking about, you know, like, then there's no point in tariffs.

Like, so what I would say.

I would say if I was an advisor to President Trump, I would say, like this.

Look, look, look, look.

I don't think it's crazy that we raise our tariffs a little bit because they've been so low, but let's raise them to the maximum level acceptable to the median country on the planet, given their relationship with us, you know, like, because if we start getting Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Brasilia, Buenos Aires, you know, Lima, Santiago, like, Pretoria telling us, like, all right, guys, buy.

Then we have increased our tariffs too much, I think 2 1/2% across the board, 3% across the board.

No one's going to panic.

America will raise some extra money.

All will be good, and no one will, like, you know, countries will be like, okay, you know what?

They deserve that little extra juice.

Fine.

But anything more than that significantly will bring into question the alliance structures that are much softer than many Americans believe.

Yeah.

Did you see Rubio's interview with Megyn Kelly?

I did not.

Please tell me he invoked.

He invoked the multipolar world.

He said the world is multipolar and that one of the reasons the United States has to do these things now is because in five or 10 years, it won't have the same level of impact.

So there's at least one person on the inside who has drank our Kool Aid finally, and is pushing things that way.

And in some ways, the biggest success of the last week, what Rubio was able to extract from Panama was far more consequential.

So go ahead and do your thing, because I don't follow this as much as you do, and you know this much better than me, so tell us.

I don't know about that.

But, but, you know, like Trump threatened to, to take back the Panama Canal, which is not an idle threat.

The United States military was around in Panama at 7980.

We owned the canal at one point, all these other things.

So Rubio's first visit as Secretary of State was to Panama and then to tour some other Central American states, which I think is also really important.

He's coming from a Latin American background, his own sort of ethnicity, all these other sorts of things.

He's prioritizing that he's putting his money where his mouth is.

And upon leaving Panama, he got the Panamanians to commit to withdrawing from the Belt and Road initiative.

And to, and to say that we're not going to.

Basically, we're going to.

They didn't give the specifics, but it was like we, they were charging US Naval ships to go through the canal.

We're not going to charge US Military anymore to go through the canal.

And I think also left unseen said there.

And this goes back to what is the United States going to do if, say, a China or somebody else doesn't listen to them?

Is it that much of a stretch to imagine the United States as, oh, China is running afoul of global trade norms, impose a 25% toll fee for them to cross the canal or close the canal to all ships carrying Hungarian imports, in your metaphor?

Because, I mean, Hungary probably doesn't care because Panama Canal.

But you know what I mean, like using that as a little bit of a letter.

That's a much more consequential concession than 10,000 Canadians patrolling the border or 10,000 Mexicans, like, controlling the border.

And there it was.

That wasn't, that wasn't a threat of tariff.

That was a threat of.

No, no, no, no.

We will take this back.

With the US Military like that, that.

I, I sat up in my chair for that one.

You know, I think several members of the administration have become, like, aware of multipolarity.

And I think one of the problems with the Joe Biden administration is that they were not willing to accept it.

They were kind of like, what is it like?

You're, you're swinging at the windmills.

Is that the same tilting at windmills?

But I, I think you're being too diplomatic that the Biden administration was the last sordid Gasp of neoconservatism.

We thought we had buried it and then it was back for four years and it was terrible.

Like Harris openly like campaign with Cheney, which was like thing in the world.

Like, what are you doing?

Like, oh, ok, but listen, but here's, here's what I would say.

I think that there is another reason that America has this moment to lock in better relations.

Now, multipolarity also means being aware that countries do have options.

You cannot treat them the way you did in either a bipolar world where they depended on you.

If you pulled your support, boom, Communists showed up and killed everyone right in the courtyard of the barracks.

Or and even if you didn't, and even if you didn't pull your support, communists would show up and you'd lose anyway.

Exactly.

That's a cold war.

Everybody was like, okay, cool, Like America, what do you want?

You want me to say no to Soviet goods?

Done.

Okay.

Other than, you know, the biggest country in the world, India.

But other than India, most countries had to play by the rules.

Unipolar world was very simple.

If you don't do what America says, you're on a CNN from a camera on the tip of a tomahawk.

Boom.

Now, I think hopefully what Marco Rubio also understands and I think they do is like, okay.

And that's why I don't think we're going to get 10 or 20% across the board tariffs is countries do have other options and not every country is, you know, begging for that American security umbrella.

South Korea is.

Poland, Baltic States, Finland.

I'm running out of countries, Jacob.

Okay, Taiwan, right?

Well said.

The biggest one.

Not.

Not the biggest one, but you know.

What I mean, the most, the most like, obvious.

Yeah.

What I would say is though, there is another reason that America needs to strike now.

And I don't know if this is as coherent to President Trump or his administration, but we're living through a geo macro moment where the American consumer is the only game in town.

This is where the iron is hot.

The United States of America has a huge advantage right now because growth in the US is just crushing everyone else.

My view is that this is a house of cards sitting on top of a fiscal gravy train that's ending actually all these expectations of American R star that have been bid up, like all productivity gains, it's all based on fiscal spending.

We actually don't have much productivity growth in the US relative to the rest of the world, even though the charts show that we do.

I think it's all just bullshit.

It's just output per hour's work.

You cannot convince me Americans are more productive.

Why?

AI, does your chat GPT app stop working when you've crossed the border?

What are you talking about?

So this is where I'm getting at.

I have a relatively negative view of American dominance over the next five years.

I think that I'm not negative on the US But I think American assets are expensive as they have ever been.

And I think US growth can come down a little bit.

The rest of the world can show a pulse.

A pulse.

And so the time to kind of use the US advantage is right now.

Like, hey, do you want access to our market?

Because emerging markets, China, they don't have any market.

You know, you need to pay certain things.

Canada, you need to clean up your border, you know, like Mexico, you need to deal with fentanyl.

Like, I know Panama, you need to give us better terms.

This is the moment to renegotiate all these relationships.

Not because Trump is mean, but because this current moment may not last forever.

And eventually, in 2000-40s, it might be the year of the Latin American countries.

In 2050s, China might be back after they finally deleveraged, who knows?

But anyone who comes to you and says, America's got two oceans and the best demographics and we're the smartest and we're the best, forgets that American assets underperform in many decades, like US does not always outperform.

And so I actually think in that way, what Trump is doing is smart.

He's like, you got an advantage.

You might last two years, five years, six months, whatever it is, strike while the iron is hot.

And while the American consumer is the only game in town, by the way, just last decade, just last decade, the only game in town was the Chinese credit growth.

We were all watching the total social finance numbers coming out every month to know whether to buy Swedish equities or copper or Vancouver real estate or US Bonds.

Everything was leveraged to just Chinese credit growth.

That was because why American consumer was deleveraging.

There was secular stagnation, low growth, jobless recovery, blah, blah, blah.

And it looked like RR Star was plumbing lows.

There was no inflation.

We're in disinflationary world.

Woe is me, right?

Who needs access to the American market.

Americans are not buying anything.

They're dealing with all this debt.

How quickly the world has changed and it can change again.

And so from that perspective, yeah, I think it is, this is the time to renegotiate things while America still has this advantage.

Yeah, it took 45 minutes for me to get to where I disagree with you on something.

And I'm not even sure I disagree.

I'm not sure I believe the fiscal gravy train has stopped.

Part of me thinks the fiscal gravy train is just getting started.

But before we leave the Global south and I, and I ask the next question that I really want to lead into.

I do want to ask you for just two minutes what your take was on the USAID stuff, because you can make the argument very cogently based on what you just said.

That's the product of a bipolar world.

It's a byproduct of the Cold War and developing these relationships and with literally the third world, which it was back then, is that really the thing that we need to be spending money right now on, Blah, blah, blah.

And then there's also the way that it's happening with Musk and this non appointed, non elected person going in and seizing, you know, whatever he was seizing the treasury.

And now there's, you know, the congressmen or the senators are outside banging on the doors of USA like a whole host of wow, is there something wrong with the, with the institutions or with the health of the democracy, blah, blah, blah.

Do you have a take on either one of those?

Hmm, Well, I feel like you have a more coherent one, but I mean.

I would just say I don't.

I do think that like USAID I think was a powerful instrument of US Soft power.

It was also an instrument for U.

S interest.

So there are lots of countries that didn't like what US Aid was doing for them because it was the United States interfering.

But it was also a way for the US to do things without strings attached.

It was to provide food for people or to build projects in villages or things like that.

And if you just gut it, if you just say no more, like you are like undercutting one of the things that made the United States different than China or some of these other things.

And I have this.

As for the Treasury, I haven't spent that much time looking at it, but I was hoping you would bathe me in indifference and say that's not that big of a deal.

Because it does seem to me that there is something about the strength of the institutions in the United States weakening in the face of this Musk led assault against usaid.

Like if it was Trump or Ruby or it was like, I would have no problem with it whatsoever.

But the way that it's going down tells me that something inside the US Is not Quite kosher.

Yeah, I think that, well, look, I have, I mean, look, usaid, yes.

Like supporting food programs or village education, you know, somewhere in the Third world makes a lot of sense.

But there was also an ideological component to some of the programs.

Like you needed to abide by a certain set of, like, principles and progressive liberal views.

And I think that that's where it did run.

A fall of reality.

And so there was that.

Great.

I forgot who initially, Larry Summers or Druckenmiller, somebody said, somebody said, I think he was a Wall street legend who said, when, you know, when America goes abroad, we give lessons.

When China goes abroad, they build, like, railroads.

You know, there's obviously a lot of.

Lot problematic with that statement too.

But, but I think that that's where something like USAID could have been criticized.

That it is a vestige of a bipolar world or a unipolar world, and that actually the US should engage and compete with China in terms of FDI outflows.

But, yeah, I mean, the treasury thing is, is, is bizarre.

I'm not sure what that was about.

We'll see to what extent that's going to be a problem.

I don't really, I don't really know how to answer that question.

I'm just going to be like, yeah, you're right.

We should probably pin it and see, like, where it goes, you know, because.

It'S like you gave me your answer by not having the smooth bath of indifference for me on it.

Okay.

We've been talking about the global south, and in some ways I think we've been skirting around the biggest country in the room that is going to say no.

And I think this should be our last big topic before we talk Luca and basketball.

And, you know, we've talked about some of the things I know better about.

I've gotten a lot of flack today for talking up Germany as, as the front line here.

So talk to me about Europe and Germany because it feels to me like elections are coming in Germany and it's not going to be Merkel and it's not going to be Scholes and it's going to be a German leader who's actually going to have a mandate, who's going to have a reason to start thinking about German, like self reliance.

It's all these other things.

Like, it seems to me that, like, the, the big clash, this was all just the, the preamble.

Like, the real clash is going to be when Trump says, okay, 25% tariffs on the European Union and there's a new German chancellor who says, okay, what are they going to do?

They're going to call Beijing.

We had a guest on earlier this week, Yatsik, who was like, yeah, we're just going to make a grand deal with China and the United States is going to be screwed.

Are they going to call India and try and make a deal?

Are they going to kowtow?

Like, tell me what you're thinking about Europe and specifically Germany.

So I think there's an ideological issue.

I do think ideology does matter.

It can smooth or it can cause sand in the gears of a relationship.

And I think with Justin Trudeau, clearly there's been sand in the gears with President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau with Europe in 2017.

You remember that famous photo with Earl where he's sitting back at the G7 in Sicily and they're all kind of leaning forward.

There were no friends in 2017.

There today you got Macron, who's kind of like a progressive liberal populist.

It's very smooth, very smooth, very charming.

Invited Trump to Notre Dame.

What a, what a coup.

Then you've got Giorgio Maloney, who's like a Madonna of the Maga movement, you know, who was sent, she was sent on a mission by her Europeans.

They were like, georgia, can you go talk to your boy, man, Come on, go to Florida, see what she can do for us.

You've got a different Europe and Friedrich Mertz is going to be a different chancellor.

He wrote a book on capitalism, that's the name of it.

He is basically the equivalent of a Wall street guy.

He has experience in the private sector in investment banking.

He's going to show up and I think that he's going to be able to talk to President Trump and so will Meloni and so will many other people in Europe.

The MAGA movement and the Trump server ideology is no longer as hostile in Europe as it was.

And in fact, I would argue that President Trump has learned many tricks from many populists.

Giorgio Maloney, for example, is a good example.

But also in the Netherlands, in Denmark, many anti establishment populists on the right wing side have basically wrapped themselves in a very aggressive and vociferous anti immigrant actions and rhetoric to hide away just how orthodox they are and everything else or how like, kind of centrist they are.

Like George Maloney, if OECD gave the award for the best, like, leader queuing closely to the Washington consensus, she would have won.

You know, she's like me, you know, like whatever.

Like, she's not that populist.

It's just the immigration issue.

And this is actually something that I think is the Trump administration is also doing.

I mean, they're very, very focused on immigration, but it allows them then to not necessarily deliver as anti establishment of outcomes on other things.

It'd be quite establishment.

So that's, that's, that's, I think where the relationship between Europe and the US Is not going to be that fraught with problems.

The other issue is Ukraine.

Someone's going to pay for this and it's going to clearly be 9010 Europe and that's it.

Friedrich Merck has already said effectively that they're going to take defense spending out of the debt break, which by the way is about 2% of GDP of Germany.

So they're going to have fiscal room to increase fiscal spending by 2% of GDP.

That's massive for German standards.

He's going to basically create this.

And by the way, this is one of those.

Only Nixon can go to China.

Right.

Only a fiscal conservative who looks like Gargamel from the Smurfs.

He moved Germany towards fiscal spending.

Right.

And so that's where I think that's going to be.

That's where we're headed.

Jacob, you know how you're seeing Marco Rubio acknowledged multipolarity.

Trump administration is aware.

This is the moment to iron is hot.

Let's use the advantage what we have.

So what did you get from Europe?

Pay for everything.

You know, everything, Everything.

War in Ukraine pay for the whole thing.

And Europeans, I think it's unfair, the American criticism.

They haven't done anything.

Whoa, they've paid for a lot.

Yes, America has sent most of the military technology, but Europe is paying for this conflict as much as America.

But it's going to now go from like 50, 50 to 9010.

I think that's where we're headed.

And I think Europeans are going to be like, okay, that's a sweet deal.

Like, yeah, okay, cool.

So you don't think there's going to be a broader trade war conflict though between the United States and Europe?

Because it sure felt like that was the direction it was going in today.

Well, it's, it's like, okay, so if Mexico and Canada resolved everything in 24 hours, which, no, I did not expect, you know, I think that this, this is the conclusion.

What I'm telling you is the conclusion of Europe will be like, we got it.

We'll.

You know what?

You know what, Donald?

We got the check, man.

Don't worry about it.

We'll pick it up.

You Know, it's our restaurant.

You know, it's in Europe.

When the war is in Canada, you can pick up the check.

So that's where.

That's where I think, yes, you will have a trade conflict.

He will impose tariffs like you just did in Canada, Mexico or threatened or whatever.

And then there's going to be a big brouhaha about what is it about?

Is it about the trade imbalance?

Is it about financing tax cuts?

And eventually it's going to be like, no, guys, you got to pay for your own defense.

And Europeans are going to be like, okay, you know what?

Chapeau, that's fair.

And you think that's all that he's going to ask for?

Because, like, I think they're ready to pay for their own defense now.

And I think that there are Polish and German and Czech companies lining up to go rebuild Ukraine and to get those sweet, sweet Euros to do it.

Like, that's good for them.

No problem with that.

Well, it is.

It is.

That's why everybody's kind of like, everyone's, I think, relieved in Europe that Trump is going to get the ceasefire.

That's politically incorrect for them to negotiate, by the way.

Like, he's going to fall on the sword of being the mean American who, like, pushes Ukraine to acknowledge that it's lost some territories.

Come on, man.

Like, they've lost it for three years.

Everybody's known this, like, there's no way they can reconquer anything.

So, to your point, is that going to be enough?

Look, maybe tariffs on European cars are going to go up.

You know, like, maybe there'll be some other things that have to happen with Europe to help rebalance the trade.

But I think.

I do think the danger in a multipolar world of pushing Europe further off into their own sphere will check Americans as well.

And that goes back to my point about Kuala Lumpur, about Jakarta, about Bangkok.

The same with Berlin and Paris and Rome and other countries.

We're like, look, okay, you need to adjust the trade a little bit.

We'll adjust the trade here, increase prices on European cars, perhaps, you know, stop going after digital companies with, like, regulatory oversight, whatever, and then finally pick up the tab for Ukraine from now until forever.

Like, that's.

Those are, I think, going to be conditions.

And I think Europe will.

Will accept those conditions.

Yeah.

In some ways, I was less believing.

And technically, the Mexico, Canada tariffs never happened because they never actually came into effect because he got to delay them.

And I didn't think they were going to happen.

And I didn't think they were going to happen because, like, what would that do to inflation, not just for Mexico and Canada, but for the United States?

Like, those supply chains are so interconnected.

The United States and Mexico and Canada are so interdependent on one another.

The level of US Interdependence on Europe is not the same.

Like, the United States can push things around a little bit and get a little bit more serious with Europe than it could meaningfully with a Mexico and Canada.

That's where it's sort of like the allies and friend things is a little bit different.

But maybe I'm, maybe I'm overhyping it.

I also.

You think that he's going to force them into a ceasefire with Russia and Ukraine?

You think he's got the, the, the power to do that?

I, I absolutely believe he can like bully Zelensky into that.

But you think Putin's going to come around to that?

I mean.

Okay, so let's handle the first point, just to be clear again.

Mexico, Canada, resolution in 24 hours is even for me, who's on a pretty extreme spectrum of being sanguine about their.

Like, that was unexpected.

Like, no, I did not expect it to end today, but with Europe, like, yeah, you can have a three to six month trade war for sure.

Like, I mean, I.

Absolutely.

And then we will settle summer whether it's slightly higher tariffs on European goods so that, you know, he can satisfy some level of revenue.

Not, but not in a way that it's like the end of humanity.

And then Europe will have to make some concessions on some policy issues where like, yes, they pick up the tab for, you know, conflict in Ukraine, but also their defense, increase their defense spending.

The truth is that President Trump, ironically, in a way, and this is, I don't know if this is some sort of a coincidence or there's something happening in the world.

He's like a personification, an embodiment of what many countries already agree with.

So, like, Canadians have soured on immigration.

They do care about border security.

They do.

They've seen asylum seekers across the border from US into Canada as an example.

It's a huge problem.

People are dying, freezing to death in Quebec.

So, like, Canadians are ready to change their orientation towards immigration, border security.

So when President Trump shows up and says, like, you're not defending the border, Canadians are like, okay, cool.

Yeah, like, we don't disagree.

Let's fix this.

Europeans are ready to spend more on defense.

You know, so he's banging the table.

Like, spend more money.

They're like, okay, cool.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not bad for industry, actually.

We'll just buy some of this stuff.

Like, not a bad idea.

Cool.

So I don't think that there's that much.

Again, it's not like 2016 or 17 in politics.

Europe has moved to the right, like, socially, culturally.

On immigration policy, you know, it's.

And it's not about who's in charge, left or right, with governments.

I just mean on many of these issues, Europeans have come to kind of be like, okay, yeah, we're not that far apart.

So I'm not saying it's going to be resolved in 24 hours.

No way.

But I do think that there is a pathway to a resolution.

Solution.

Okay.

Yeah.

And your boy Putin, who's still in office.

Yeah.

So, like, I don't know.

I mean, what do you think?

What does he want?

More?

Like, what is Putin at this point, after not having mobilized since September 2022.

Let me say that again.

Clearly there is some unobserved variable that is making it difficult for President Putin to mobilize and throw in the full weight of Russian demographic advantage into this conflict.

Conflict.

So what does he want?

Like, what is his ultimate.

Like, where does he.

Where did his preferences and constraints settle?

What.

What's left for him out of Ukraine?

I don't feel high confidence in this take, but here's the best take that I have.

I think that Putin thinks he's winning, and I think he knows that a deal is there whenever he wants it.

Like, Zelensky is desperate, Ukraine is desperate, Europe is desperate.

Like, they.

The United States wants a deal.

Everybody wants a deal.

And so what is the harm if you're Putin for just grinding it out and, you know, sending the North Koreans to the front lines and sending the trash of your society to the front lines and just seeing if you can break through the Ukrainian lines or defenses, or just seeing if you can wait until Zelensky finally collapses in on the weight of his sort of political history and his lack of, like, his increasing lack of support.

And then, like, if things get really bad, like, you know, like, just make the deal.

And the deal is really just a frozen conflict so you can rearm and then try at it again.

But that's going to be a loss for him, because I think Europe is then going to militarize Western Ukraine, like Israel, and then it's going to be like, you completely failed in everything.

So there's also, if I accept any kind of deal, like, okay, I get what you have described as the West Virginia of Europe and the Donbas.

But I'm basically, See, I'm basically turning Western Ukraine into a fortress.

It doesn't matter if they're in NATO or not.

I'm never going to be able to, like, go after them again because Europe and the United States will arm them to the teeth.

So why not just push like this, this type of grinding conflict where my numbers are over time going to, like, assert themselves.

Like, that's the best that I can do.

That's my best guess.

But like I said, not a high confidence interval.

Look, I think, I think we're sometimes overly binary in trying to gauge the preferences of policymakers.

I think that very few politicians or policymakers or historical figures go into anything with a very clear set of, like, goals.

You know, like, I mean, maybe some did.

Like, for example, Adolf Hitler clearly had a set of goals, you know, and he stuck with them.

And then when he didn't accomplish them, he.

He was very harsh on himself.

But, but, you know, I think, I.

Mean, is that what your graduate degree at Utachio?

Yeah, that's what that was.

My dissertation.

Suicide as the ultimate arbiter of self reflection.

Marco's careful reading of Mein Kampf produce this steaming hot take.

But look, I think, I think when I see, you know, a lot of people who don't like both Putin and Trump just assume that when they say, like, I don't believe Ukraine is a country or like, I want to raise revenues through tariffs, it's like, that must happen.

No, Every politician, just because you don't like them and you think they're crazy, fine.

But like, every politician goes through iteration of their goals.

And there is clearly evidence in the case of President Putin that when faced with material constraints, he goes the other way.

You know, he, he didn't, like, he withdrew from Chernihiv and Sumy and Kyiv.

He has focused his attacks on specific areas.

I can explain why he has let Ukrainians go into Kursk because he really wants the remaining half of Donetsk, which will complete the conquest of Donbass, which is why he sold this conflict to his people in the first place.

And I do think he's very cognizant and reticent to throw the full weight of Russia behind the conflict, because clearly the public doesn't support that.

The public supports the conflict.

They believe that they're winning.

But if you actually look at pro Kremlin polling, pro Kremlin polling, pro Kremlin polling in Russia, and you see, like, they ask people, would you support the war if there was More mobilization.

They consistently say no.

You know, so there's limits to it.

And so what I think is going to happen is I think he's hoping he gets another couple of months, maybe six, because he does look like he's going to grind out that remaining Donetsk area, and then he's accomplished in controlling the territory of all the places he has officially annexed, and then he will, like you, you and I have been talking about this for a while.

I think he eventually calls up his buddy George W.

Bush, gets the banner, mission accomplished, flies down and that.

Like, you know, and that's like.

So I.

I now the big question.

And so the hawks in the west are like, yeah, but he'll rearm and come back.

It's like, yeah, cool.

Like, I mean, God bless him.

That's his prerogative.

Why are you freaking out about that?

You rearmed, too.

Then what.

What is this?

Like, you want the teacher to come and tell him not to rearm?

Sorry, doesn't work like that.

You know, that's the first issue.

The second issue that I think is kind of hilarious is when I go to Washington, D.C.

and I talked, you know, especially to the people in the Biden administration.

So on the liberal side, there was this view.

There's this very callous.

You can take what I'm saying and be like, wow, that guy's kind of pro Russia.

He's way too balanced.

You're not supposed to be balanced.

Ukraine is the good guys.

But then you go to Washington, D.C.

and you talk to people who have crafted American policy towards Ukraine over the past three years, and they see extremely callous things.

Things like, this is the best thing that's ever happened to the west in America.

We're bleeding Russia.

And you're like, whoa, time out.

You do realize you're also bleeding Ukraine.

And guess who has literally less blood.

It's Ukraine.

Obviously, we can quantify it.

And it's an extremely myopic, callous, like, oh, let's just let Putin, like, crash on the rock of Ukraine.

And it's like, I mean, that's going to destroy the country.

I mean, this.

This conflict has already killed so many people.

Ukraine's not a viable country with a war going on, you know, in.

In a third of it.

And you can clearly see in 2024 the struggles that Zelensky has had to pass the mobilization bill.

I keep referring to this.

In February of 2022, my neighbors in Santa Monica were ready to go.

Bo Volunteer.

Yeah.

You know, because in February of 2022, this was an Existential war for the future of a sovereign country of Ukraine.

In February of 2025, Ukraine kind of did win.

They are independent, they're sovereign.

And so people in Ukraine themselves don't want to be mobilized anymore.

And that's a very dangerous sign.

That means this conflict has to end, it has to be frozen and then your outcome is correct.

Now, does Putin take that as a loss because Western Ukraine is a armed camp?

It depends what the situation with NATO membership is.

And I think that if he can sell to his population that he got the territories he's basically annexed, which obviously no one will agree.

Well, everyone will agree to disagree on that.

That will be the basis for the ceasefire.

But I do think he will want some sort of a NATO or a security arrangement.

Like, I think that one of the biggest mistakes that Joe Biden and his administration made is that they treated Russians as sort of like, you know, like basically, you know, completely incoherent fools banging on about a new security arrangement in Europe.

And obviously like Russia's did not negotiate from a place of goodwill.

I mean, understood, obviously, like, I respect that.

But you know, the Putin has been talking about this since 2004 and at some point someone's got to take him seriously and be like, you know, like my favorite statement was like, when Phil Gordon or Hillary Clinton, one of them was like, America doesn't recognize spheres of influence, you know, like, okay, cool.

What?

You know, like, I don't recognize that my 50 year old daughter wants to date boys.

I have just proclaimed it, you know, like, sorry, sorry honey, but you're hormones.

S'more modes, you know, like, no.

So like that kind of an attitude towards Russia is just gonna have to fly out the window.

It's gotta be set down and no matter how much people dislike it or don't like it, or it's like a rogue nation, blah, blah, blah, it's got thousands of nukes, sorry, you gotta sit down, negotiate and find some sort of a security arrangement.

And that probably doesn't mean that Ukraine will not be allowed to be in NATO, which is fine, whatever, Israel's not in NATO, Taiwan's not in NATO, you know, but also I think Russia's are going to have to be given a part of the risk board and be told like, look man, like what happens in Belarus stays in Belarus, you know, knock yourself out.

We're not going to send USA aid to Minsk anymore.

Like, you guys, you got that?

You're like, fine, you want it?

Go ahead.

Yeah, so yeah, definitely no more USAID to Minsk.

Anymore.

We can pour one out for the USAID to Minsk.

Marco, you've been very patient.

Talk to me about leukodontics.

This is all this whole day has been about.

My patience.

My.

My ability as a man to control my.

My emotions, you know, to grow.

You don't.

You don't have to control anymore.

Just.

Just let loose.

I'm going to get spiritual, Jacob.

Can't wait.

I knew this was going to happen.

Did I know that Mexico and Canada terrace would be 24 hours long?

No.

But my constraint framework did tell me eventually it was going to happen, but there was no framework.

I just knew it in my heart that Luka Doncic would wear purple and yellow.

You know, that's.

And there's two reasons for this.

Every time he played in the Staples center, and I was very fortunate to watch him in one of those double overtime games where he just went nuts.

He loved it.

He loved the energy.

He loved the banter.

He loved all of it.

I could tell he loved it.

And also, he really hates the Clippers.

He really does.

I mean, he hates them.

He hates them as a crew, as an organization, and as a basketball team.

Do you think LeBron knew?

No, I don't.

I don't think.

Well, Luca didn't know.

There was this.

You know, I was listening to somebody say that he bought a house, like, a week ago, $15 million home in Dallas.

So I don't think anybody knew.

I think Rob Pelinka, like, all the Laker baggage and all the criticism of Rob Polinka is out the window.

He took Nico.

I mean, like, this is.

This is just.

I.

I just.

I think Nico Harrison almost, like, did this so we would forget that he traded Brunson or that he let Brunson basically walk.

Sorry.

He let him walk.

You know, I mean, he took a chance on Kyrie and he ended up deliberate, you know, so God bless him on that.

But, like, he is literally one anti Semitic comment away from being over three.

You know what I mean?

Like, this is.

This is the worst GM job ever in history of the NBA.

Like, there's no.

No question about that.

And the Lakers, I mean, it's.

It's incredible.

And it's not just because I'm a Laker fan.

I.

I truly think that Luka Donches is incredible player, and he gives anyone with a little bit of a doughy bodybuild an incredible amount of positive body confidence.

As you know, in the past.

I know.

I.

I have.

I will say, I.

I think that the whole thing about the 270 and the conditioning.

I think that's probably just sour grapes by the Mavs on the way out.

Although I also the.

One of the other things I don't understand about.

I mean there's a lot of things that I don't understand about the Luca trade.

Like it doesn't make sense on the face of it at all.

And that that's all they got.

But the thing that, that makes the least amount of sense to me in some ways is they really him over like they him out of the supermax.

So he lost like 75 or $100 million on this.

They didn' they probably could have set up some kind of sign and trade.

Like I'm sure there was some way to massage this.

And they were like, nah, like you don't have the right culture, bro.

Like, we want the Anthony Davis culture.

That's the real culture that we want.

So we're going to ship you out, but we're not going to name names.

We just don't like the culture.

So we're going to see you later.

Like, not only then did you just say goodbye to Luca.

Like say goodbye.

Like, is anybody going to want to go there again?

Like one of the things the Lakers are really good at is they take care of their stars.

We.

You watched Kobe hobble around for two years so that he could have his dignity and his pride and they couldn't like figure out some way to be nice to Luca.

Like I.

It's like, it's just like self destruction to such a radical degree.

I always, you know, I always hated the Bill Simmons take.

Always hated the take that they, the Lakers overpaid Kobe.

Lakers overpaid Kobe as a signal in a superstar league that they're going to take care of their star.

Like 40 million buck bucks for two years.

The man didn't have an Achilles, you know, like it was idiotic.

But it was a signal that got the Lakers LeBron, you know, like, because once you hit 34, 35, you're going to start thinking about that.

Now that I'm not sure that that got them donage.

Clearly it didn't.

But the Mavs did the opposite.

Like the opposite.

We don't, we just don't care.

Like we're not going to, oh, you've got a weight problem, you got a conditioning problem.

Maybe you like a beer after a game or a nasty, you know, like all this stuff going on around look like, yeah, so fix it.

Like invest some time.

He did.

Like and this comparisons with Zion or don't fix It.

You know who like loved a beer after a game?

Larry Bird.

He was Larry Bird, like beer at halftime.

No, but like, there's another issue here.

People are comparing Luca to Zion.

Excuse me, Zion has three quarters of wiping the floor with LeBron to his name.

That is it.

That was the playing game last, last year.

Right?

I know.

I remember I was in a.

I was in a hotel room in Canada watching it, and all my dreams were coming true.

And I was texting my season ticket guy at the Pelicans, get me in for next year.

I'm ready.

And then boom.

And that was one game he.

That's all he's done in his whole career.

Lucas taking the team to Wallace through conference finals as like a teenager, like, so the comparisons are ridiculous.

But I think what's, what's the play here?

And I think there's this like kind of Internet conspiracy, which I, I immediately thought of the same thing.

Like, you know, the Mavs are controlled by the Andelson family that, you know, is basically in gambling and casinos.

Luca was effectively a problem in that the success of the basketball team made it difficult to potentially move the team too big or rebuild another empire, like around.

Like, I don't think that they care.

You know, I, I do think that dollars and cents matter more.

This is about Excel spreadsheets and, and the fact that there was a really successful basketball team that got went to the finals is like just annoying.

And I think that that definitely played into this.

Obviously.

I mean like, it's.

It's a, it's completely idiotic move.

You're moving a 25 year old asset for a 32 year old asset.

And I mean, I've watched AD play like a long time, you know, here in LA.

And yeah, I mean it's.

He had everything on a silver platter.

Like he could have been an MVP candidate.

Like LeBron is ready, he's tired, he's like, can I please not have to try on defense?

Can I please take every other day, like mentally off, like still show up and be like, I never take games off, but really I'm somewhere else humming a tune well, while playing defense.

Because I'm not like, I, I watch this.

I would rather take.

I would rather have LeBron take rest and play because his defense is like, what was it?

He.

He reminds me of me when I play pickup, just pushing my 20 year old teammates, like, go get it.

But you're like, thanks, dad, you know, thanks for the push.

So, so my point about this is I think that AD like was Just didn't want to be an Alpha and didn't want to be the MVP and didn't want to like he had everything at his disposal for the Maps to trade for him.

It's, it's clearly something else.

It's a non basketball, I think decision and it's a really insidious one.

Like if I'm a Maps fan, like, oh my God, this is like Colts.

Well, you know, moving it to your point.

If, if they're talking about moving to Vegas or something like that, like poisoning your fan base that way.

That's a real good way to do it.

I mean it's like, come on, Jacob, let' you and I sit here.

We're huge, huge sports fans across different sports, I believe.

Can we.

Other than the Colts packing up, right?

Moving like the famous moment when the Baltimore Colts packed up and moved like in the middle of the night.

The famous example.

Like I can't think.

I've got goosebumps just thinking about this.

Like when has something like this happened?

25 year old in his prime, one of the greatest basketball players in early, like this many years in the career.

Like, you know, this is, this is up there.

This is top five in history of, of, of the game.

And you're just like, eh, you know, he's bmi.

Speaking of somebody who broke up with his childhood team, the Atlanta Hawks, for trading Luka Doncic, I can tell you that if I was a Mavs fan, I would no longer be a Mavs fan.

Like I literally embraced the Pelicans on the day that the Hawks traded Luka Doncic before he had done anything in the league because I was that sure that he was going to be great.

Who do you think is going to be better for the rest of the year?

Do you think the Lakers have a chance to make some noise in the playoffs?

Or do you think the Mavs are going to have one good year and then it's all going to blow up?

You know, like full strength, Luca, full strength.

LeBron, full strength, everyone.

I, I, I just think it doesn't matter.

Lucas, Lucas, like the doughy demigod man.

Like, it's just he, they would obviously be better.

Like I just like, but all right, but given the injuries and everything, yes, obviously I can see, you know, the Dallas Mavericks maybe being better.

The other thing is like I was talking to someone today and they were like, well, Luca and LeBron can't be playing together, right?

Like, I mean they're like the same, the same person, you know, like same position, same ball Dominance.

And I said, like, you know what?

I don't really care, and here's why.

I will have LeBron James make 150 million bucks next.

Next year and a half.

Just, can you please teach Luca how to eat, workout, be a pro?

Because clearly, you know, Luca's been a pro since he was 14 years old.

I watched Luca at 17 beat a team.

Take a team full of, like, plumbers, you know, and, like, and carpenters, and beat Serbia in a Euro basket.

Like, a serious stacked Serbia.

And he was unstoppable at 17.

Like, Gorandra, with his, like, you know, sandy hair, was like, his best other player.

This guy has been a superstar all his life.

And I think one of the problems that was emerging and was, like, was trickling up through the grapevine is that it was very difficult to convince him, you know, to do anything.

So, like, I like to hydrate with Neski, you know, like, okay, well, you're not 14 if more anymore.

I want to be heliocentric.

Although he did accommodate Kyrie Irving really well.

I didn't think that was going to work.

So I do think that what he needs is someone he looks up to, which is very hard.

Think about it.

If you've been a child actor since 14, if you've been, like, a music star since you were 14, these people are on different level.

How does anybody get through to them?

Yeah, it's Mozart syndrome to a certain extent, but the problem with what you're talking about is that it doesn't usually take, like, Macaulay Culkin never got right.

Like, Mozart was dead at 35.

Isn't one of the Culkin brothers now, like, up for an Oscar?

But look.

Yeah, the brother.

Not the one.

This would be.

Luke had a brother that entered stage left.

Okay, look, so I hear you.

That's 100% the risk.

100%.

Again, accommodating.

Kyrie Irving was.

Was assigned to me.

He can't change.

But I was at the Dallas Mavericks game in the finals where he lost in school.

I was at that game.

I was at that game with really good seats.

I'm just going to, like, you know, hashtag nice.

Just drop that in.

Yeah, yeah, drop that in there.

And I saw it happening.

I was with probably the greatest Luka Doncic fan in the.

In the world.

I can't.

I can't name names.

He's a Wall street legend, God bless him.

He paid for the tickets.

Hashtag even nicer.

So me and this guy are sitting watching the game, and Luka Donage starts losing his mind, I mean, losing his mind.

And when that charge happened and they called it 99 out of 100 times, they re like, they keep him in the game.

It's like, what is it, Game three, game four?

Like you're keeping the greatest young player in the game.

And I could see the reps just go like, you know, man, you and every Dallas Mavericks fan, including the greatest Luka Donchi fans standing next to me was like, yeah, I mean, honestly, he kind of deserved it.

So the loss of cool in that game was next level.

Like mental health issue.

Like you cannot do that.

But then again, Kobe Bryant pounded for three for three quarters, may take a shot.

LeBron James disappeared.

You and I were there.

We were there together, working in 2000, what was it, 11, where the Dallas Maverick beat him like a drum and he just dis he choked.

J.J.

berea.

The curse of J.J.

barea, right?

So like to, to say, like, hey, Luka Doncic had a mental health moment at 24 years old on the greatest stage, most pressure, you know, of course he did.

Like, and so that's why I say, like, I hear all, like I see all this.

But it's, I mean, he's still, I just, I just hope that playing with LeBron and with the Lakers, it move him off the ball.

Like, Larry Bird was great because he was often on the block.

You can't guard Luke on the block.

You can't guard him anywhere around that.

Like, I just wish.

Same with Wembayama.

Same with a lot of like I see with LeBron, quite frankly, I was hoping he would eventually just kind of like stop trying to break people off the dribble.

Like, I'm 43 for sakes, you know, like, I play for two hours and I gotta be an ice bat.

Obviously I'm not LeBron, but my point is, you 41, man, what are you doing trying to break a 23 year old on the three point line and go all the way down?

Like, it makes no sense.

All these guys should be moved to the block and if they convince Luca to do that, he'll be on guardo.

I, I, I think LeBron by himself would not be enough.

But I think ironically the, the trauma of getting cut from Dallas the way that he did, like getting forced out, like, I think that will create the trauma that he needs to like actually look himself in the mirror and do these things.

But my last question to you is, how does it feel to know that you're getting Luca after his windows already closed?

Because Victor is here and he's got deer and Fox, and there's no way you're getting through the San Antonio spurs, man.

It's going to be their west for the rest of history.

Well, I don't know about the rest of history.

Next 10 years, who's beating them?

I mean, Fox, you know, like, I mean, yeah, he's good.

Wembunyan is going to swat all those little Luca things away.

He's going to be like, grind and pound your way down to the lane and then I'll just take it off the top and I'll take it down the rest of the floor.

Like, he's like, how's he going to compete with that?

Did you see the way he, like, he just like, blocks LeBron shots when he's at the, he's at the rim.

He's an alien.

Listen, I think this is one of the things, like, yeah, that's, that's Spurs, Lakers man again, you know who, like, spurs have a big man, Lakers have a wing.

It's just like God intended it to be like this.

And, and so, yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be back and forth.

Once Luka gets his own team, once LeBron retires, once all those free agent dollars free up in Los Angeles, Southern California and not the Clippers, because.

But actual la, you know, like, who knows who's gonna come and join Luca?

I mean, we don't know.

Maybe we'll create a Balkan powerhouse right here and then, you know.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Leave Jokic out of this joker.

Just staying.

I want to see Jokic and Victor go, go head to head in the playoffs.

You're not getting Jokic.

I.

I will light myself on fire.

It's not fair.

I mean, it's.

I don't know, like, look right now.

Yeah, you're right.

I mean, I think the spurs are great.

I think I'm really excited about the team.

That's cool.

And you know, I really, I like the team.

I like everyone on it.

I think they're cool.

And same thing though, when Bayama needs to be moved down low.

But I don't know, I.

We can't forecast what happens.

And in the next six years, I mean, the way Lucas played the last four, I mean, five, this guy is like, you know, it will be the biggest shocking collapse of almost any athlete who's re.

Like, reached such heights at 24.

And then just to kind of like, I mean, unless there's an injury, right?

Then, okay, fine, like, but to just kind of dissipate into irrelevance.

I think that's.

That's tough to see, you know.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for not bringing up the Pelicans.

I think we can leave it.

There, man.

You're not that bad.

We're the worst.

We're the worst team in the league.

We're terrible.

Why?

Like, you know, like, I mean, I guess injuries.

I think it is injuries.

That's.

That's just the biggest.

Herb Jones is good and, you know, he's not there.

It's injuries.

But the team was built around Zion, and when Zion fell like the rest.

And then we got.

Herb was hurt, and then they were all hurt.

And Ingram, like, talk about not an alpha.

Like, Ingram has is.

He's just not supposed to be there.

Like, it's just.

It's just like.

Are you.

Is that the double entendre here?

Are we.

We talk.

You, like.

Help.

He's.

Help.

He's fallen.

He can't get up.

He needs a little life alert because he keeps on popping the hamster.

Those three quarter.

Those three quarters against the Lakers were.

That was one of the first times in my life where I was like, am I really going to get a transcendent superstar in my life?

Am I about to get.

And I.

Guy.

Yeah, Listen, Jacob.

Jacob.

I was watching this and, you know, there's just moments in life where you, like, bow your head down and you're like, I'm getting old.

You know, this is it.

Like.

And LeBron just looked a little bolder.

His muscles didn't glisten as much, and it was just like, you know, and as a Laker fan, I watched this and I was like, man, Jacob's watching this somewhere, and he's like, let's go.

And then, you know, I was watching.

At a hotel in Canada that smelled like an Indian restaurant, and I haven't been able to eat curry since.

It's like you associated with.

When, by the way, we're an hour and a half into this, and I.

I think that we should have a.

A, A rule of thumb that we reward anyone who's still with us.

And it, like, at this egregious level.

Great.

What.

What should they get?

I think they should get an announcement.

Okay, let's make an announcement.

You want to make the announcement?

No, you.

You should.

You.

You're.

You're the.

The smooth voice of reason.

I'm the sm.

Yeah.

The.

The face for radio.

We've been teasing for a while, but Marco and I are finally going to put our money where our mouths Czar and Put together, we.

I don't even know if we have the name yet.

Is it Geopolitical Cousins?

Maybe we should source the name here.

There.

There will be a podcast that is hosted by Jacob and Marco Cousins.

The cousins that they chose for each other.

Not the cousins that life chose, but the cousins who chose each other.

We have no idea what the name is, when the cadence will be, what the artwork will look like.

But we've decided as a result of all the insanity in the world, that it needs to start as soon as possible.

So you'll come on maybe one or two more times on this podcast and then look for the announcement about the separate look.

You still have your platform and I can come on whenever.

Although you'll be kind of superfluous.

I think, you know, the listeners of the Jacob Shapiro podcast might just be like, okay, that's enough of Casa Marco.

But yeah, so, like, I think Geopolitical Cousins is just so cool and it's such a great name.

So I'm going to just say yes, but let's, let's source it.

Let's.

Let's use our social media, see if anybody wants to tease some, A better idea.

The other thing that I was going to say is, yeah, like, there does seem to be like a space for this, because right now, right now, and this is just me, there's like three camps if you want to get a long form, podcasts on current events and geopolitics.

There's like three ways you can accomplish this.

You can go and listen to a, a YouTube of a rando who's going to tell you all sorts of random stuff.

Sometimes I feel like the administration might be getting their thoughts on geopolitics from those.

Just gonna leave it there, let it hang.

Then there's a really, really complicated professor who you might get a lecture of.

I actually do that all the time when I work out.

Like, those are not bad, but it's kind of like a single survey, you know, like a guy who spent 50 years of his life learning about the Wehrmacht is not.

They're gonna talk to you about the pan of a canal.

Like, it's just not gonna happen.

And then the final option is Ian Bremmer.

That's it.

That's.

That's the three options you have.

Those are the three buckets.

I love Ian.

He's obviously given all of us a whole industry to live in, so God bless him.

But that's, he's, he's, he's reached the Muppet stage of his career.

Like, I hope I'M not.

You know what?

Offensive.

One day.

Jacob, Jacob, Jacob.

May God bestow us with the same fate, and may we one day be Muppets on.

Marco, I cannot wait to replace you on the podcast with Burton Ernie.

That sounds great.

Yes, I know.

I want to be the two old guys.

The two old guys, they're just like.

Yeah, Actually, so that's.

That should be the podcast artwork.

That should be the two of us and the rafters looking down at the stitch.

Okay, so that is the artwork.

Let's get AI on it.

Yeah.

So, like, I just think.

I think you're totally right.

I think there's a space for this kind of a banter, and so we've got some principles and precepts that we may or may not share.

Maybe people should just, like, back them out of our conversations.

But I think one of them is going to be like, look, the world is serious enough.

You don't need us to tell you that we are going to continue with our, I think, approach of levity and looking at everything from as much of a, you know, as much as we can.

Because once you start laughing, Stop laughing.

Once you stop laughing and.

And, and being funny, I think you're lost.

No, you, you, you have to.

I mean, first of all, a sense of humor is a surefire sign of intelligence.

And second of all, to your point, to stay.

One of the ways to stay objective is to make it humorous.

Like, the hardest part about our job, or maybe I'll just speak for myself, is that, like, you have to say rigidly objective about all of these different things.

You are not allowed the luxury of personal opinions.

And one of the defense mechanisms to doing that is making things a joke.

Like, it is just a show.

It's just a thing that is happening, and you have to analyze it the way that it is, because if you get too involved and you could feel me tiptoeing on it with the USAID and the guys running around the treasury like you, you could feel the door open, you know, I was like, nah, let's.

Let's shut the door.

Let's.

Let's go do something else.

So, no, that's, like, absolutely critical.

I don't trust people who don't make jokes about these things.

Yeah, I agree 100%.

Yes, agreed.

All right, man.

Well, that's it.

It is so announced.

We'll see how many people stuck around and blow us up on social media after this.

Rejoicing, rejoicing in future, you know, hour and a half long episodes are their bounty.

So all right man.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to the Jacob Shapiro Podcast.

The show is produced and edited by Jacob Smulian, and it's in in many ways, the Jacob Show.

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That's Jacobshap.

No Dats, Dashas, or anything else, but I'm not hard to find.

See you out there.

Sat.