Ukraine Found Russia’s Weak Spot

- You're listening to American Power. I'm your host, Nat Towson, stand up comedian, speech writer, prose writer, comedy writer,

“and most likely to get me past St. Peter”

the pearly gates podcast host.

I'm joined as always by our panel of experts

up first hour expert on foreign policy and the military Chad Scott. Chad, where are you coming from? - I'm in the Portland. So I'm technically in Vancouver, Washington,

but it's in the Portland Metro. We're just across from the Columbia River from Portland. So basically I just say I'm in Portland. So visiting some in-laws having a good time, really love Portland's a great city.

And that's some beautiful hotel art you've got behind you. - I know. (laughs) - The standard generic hotel art. - They really exist for you. - See, they're a mountainer sailboat.

(laughs) - Yeah, you put a nice landscape there, I assume. And joining us as always, our expert on energy of all forms back from Washington into his home state, Mr. Global. Matt Randolph, how's it going, Matt?

- It's going good, I was just pondering 'cause I haven't thought of this before. Is two people a panel? - Okay, I feel like you're challenging me pretty early in the episode. (laughs)

- No, I never thought about it before.

I was like, is two people a panel? - Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. - Like, let's say you have a panel of three and one of them drops out. That's a panel.

“I think more than one person can be a panel.”

Otherwise it's a dire side channel. - Yeah. - Yeah, the dynamic duo. - I've worked some corporate events and if they're interviewing a bunch of people,

they say panel discussion. And if they're sitting down with one guy who's too important, they say coffee chat or fire side chat. - Yeah, the fire side chat. - So this is somewhere between a fire side chat

and a panel, I would say. I have a very cozy podcast one way or another. - Everyone's on you. - So they can nod it all, nasal voice, people love. Yes, we're a fire side chat from all across the country.

And it's been an interesting week in this country. A lot of ups, a lot of downs, some amazing news in a local level, some horrific news on a national level and inverted

in many cases. We wanna talk first about some international news though. I wanna focus on if we can just start the situation in Ukraine. And I was hoping Chad that you could give us

a little bit of an update on what's going on there. - Yeah, so really fascinating situation taking place as Ukraine has gained a lot more capability when we're watching, almost in real time. It's gonna be this real time study in,

once again, the collapse of a nation. And a lot of us were alive during the collapse of the Soviet Union. And we're watching this take place. And we're starting to see things that we wouldn't have seen just even six months ago.

Putin has admitted that, yes, there are now fuel lines in Russia because of these Ukrainian strikes. We're seeing them almost come to the forefront begging the US with this idea that we can go back to the anchorage summit.

“So if you remember back in August of last year,”

August 15th, 2025, they had that summit. Putin came to Alaska, met with Trump, and nothing was agreed upon. There was no ceasefire agreed upon, there was no written agreement whatsoever.

And now we're seeing that the Russians are saying, well, there was the spirit of anchorage. They're claiming that Washington and Trump had privately accepted Russian control of all of the Donbass and exchange for freezing

the rest of the front line. So really, Russia's just trying to grasp it straws. They're trying to get find something that they can count as a win. And they're not getting it,

'cause Secretary of State Marco Rubio came out on the 25th of June and said, there was no agreement. We would have, we would have ended the war if there was an agreement.

There was never an agreement.

There was not a deal, whatever they're saying is not the case. And fascinatingly, Trump is also, he's not as forceful as Rubio right now, but he is expressing his own frustration.

He went to the G7 summit and told officials, he's probably going to abandon all of the understandings that were made in Anchorage entirely. So he admitted that Ukraine is doing pretty well, said their drone campaign is doing well.

And so we're now seeing this compounding effect on the front lines where Russia is struggling. It's a stagnated war. They're not making any gains that are meaningful. They're losing thousands upon thousands.

I mean, in three months,

as we lost in the entirety of Vietnam. Every three months, it's a new Vietnam for Russia. That's a wild number.

That is an incredible number.

And we're seeing the Ukrainians embarrassed Putin on the international stage. And they're starting to become this concern that what happens if Putin is back into a corner.

“What happens if he's having to look at a losing war?”

This is going to be political suicide for him. For him, the people in Russia are now starting to stand up. They're furious because of the gas lines. Crimea, people are fleeing Crimea. It's a bad situation.

And will Putin react kind of as a cornered wild animal and lash out with tactical nuclear weapons. The broad spectrum understanding is that he probably won't because there's not just the U.S. is there to go down. But yeah, that's huge.

So, but I say that, I say that with the understanding that we don't necessarily know what's going on in the mind of Putin. This is an aging, despotic, authoritarianly or who may be on his last hurrah of what he can have as a legacy.

So he may make the decision no matter what. But what happens is we have China. That's who he's more concerned about. And Xi Jinping has flat out said multiple times. Russia will not engage in any kind of nuclear war.

That would be an immediate problem for Russia across the globe. They would immediately isolate from everyone. And that's coming on on the heels of already being isolated because Belarus, their staunches ally in this whole thing,

who has been helping them by allowing the Russians to launch drones and missiles from their territory, who has placed radars in their territory, who has allowed Russia to train their troops and Belarus so that they're safer from because Ukraine

won't attack Belarus is backing away. And Lukashenko, who is the president, or really just a dictator of Belarus, has come out and said, he basically said, we're not going to help Russia as much as we used to,

because Zelensky told him, you're going to keep helping them. We're going to strike you next. You're a part of this war now. You are going to become a cobaligerent. And when Zelensky came out and said that,

Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, apologized to Zelensky, which is unheard of in international fairs. Foreign leaders are leader, it doesn't matter. No one ever apologized for anything. It's just kind of just let it go.

He came out and said he was sorry. And he ended up shutting down Belarusian radars that were feeding information to Russia. So Russia is losing even their closest allies on the international stage.

And this gas problem, this fuel problem, is going to be, I think, what is that crack that's going to have the dam break? And I just don't know if it's going to happen in a way that devastates the global economy

because before they do that, they have to internalize the diesel and stuff and Matt can talk about this. But for all intents and purposes, this is we are looking at anywhere between a few months to some time by the end of 2027, I'm thinking,

we're going to see a major collapse in Russia. And it's going to be ugly. And I'll just say this final thing before I let Matt talk about the fuel stuff. When it comes to a dictatorship, when it comes to authoritarian regimes,

they always seem stable until they are immediately

catastrophicly not out of nowhere.

“That's how we saw the signs kind of building up”

with Afghanistan when the Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan in '89. And that started to become a catalyst of the roll down hill. But we're starting to see that very same history starting to repeat itself in Russia.

And so we're all kind of like, is this going to be one of those things where Putin's going to stand in front of a camera and say everything's fine, everything's cool. And then suddenly a day later swan likes playing

on their screens because some massive catastrophic collapse is taking place. I don't know, but that's likely what it's going to look like and they're running out of time. - Matt, you're not speculating.

What's the strategy behind admitting? Like, it doesn't seem like Putin to admit any kind of defeat or any kind of weakness. What's the strategy behind admitting-- - Well, his oil reserve, his Duma was turning on him.

The Duma, which is essentially the Congress of Russia, is turning on him. The people are starting to turn on him. And so him admitting it becomes a relief valve because at some point, no matter how

how powerful you are and strong you are,

“whether it's Russia, China, you have to show”

that you acknowledge the problems. I mean, it's kind of the relief valve we understand.

when he acknowledged that the Zero COVID policy was causing bank problems and also massive uprisings in his country. So he acknowledged that, OK, we're going to really-- we're going to reduce the Zero COVID policy.

And a lot of people are going to get COVID because they just were ill-equipped. And that's what actually did happen. But him acknowledging it immediately released the tension within China.

“And so I think Russia's trying to use the same playbook”

where if he can acknowledge the fuel problems or the fact that Moscow's getting struck consistently, he can say, hey, we are aware of it. We are going to try and do something about it. But he-- to be clear, he immediately pivoted and said,

it is the West trying to destabilize Russia. It is the West that's doing this. He didn't blame his own idiocy in attacking Ukraine. He didn't blame even Ukraine at that point. He's just saying NATO on the West.

So that's largely the reason why. With these authoritarianists, it's still a change in status quo when they acknowledge anything beyond the original propaganda line, right? Having to acknowledge these things internally

shows that to some degree, the culture nature of their governmental structure is functioning, right? I don't know about their response from the Russian people, but you're talking about response from within his administration. Absolutely.

“That's a-- what's interesting is this is a playbook”

that Putin has almost written because he and Xi Jinping under-operated under the understanding that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a model to never follow. And what happened in the collapse of the Soviet Union is they started to admit that their system was problematic.

They started to admit that we screwed up in Afghanistan. We screwed up with our closing off to the West. And that is what Putin and Xi Jinping originally saw as the start to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

And so they basically swore they would never do that again.

Xi Jinping is still in that territory in China. Vladimir Putin is not he abandoned that playbook and is now, once again, going down the same 1980, late 1980s, early 1990s playbook as a Soviet Union. And it's an eerily similar situation where history

is replaying itself where you have the yelts and things who he said was absolutely the reason the Soviet Union collapsed not because of their internal problems but because they started to westernize. And now that they're admitting that as of right now

that there's problems because of this war, it's interesting because Putin is now backing out of his own playbook that is captive in power

“and I think it's going to be a catastrophic problem”

for him in the future. Yeah, so that is a pretty severe departure. That's interesting, Matt, can you speak a little bit to the energy perspective on this? Sure, but before that, I read, I don't know how accurate it is.

But I read that the average lifespan of a new Russian recruit is 12 days. Did you read that, Chad? I've heard that. It's very between 10 and 20. But yeah, yeah.

That's the average lifespan of a new Russian soldier, or conscript or whatever they call them over there. The soldier is doing a lot of words there, too, yeah. That word, they get two weeks of training. They're basically civilians that get,

here's a rifle, there's 12 days later on average, they're dead. And then 12 days later, they're basically like, if I went over there. Yep, this one. I mean, Matt, Joe, Army of Mr. Globals, they'll send people

that are like, I don't know, I'm not saying you're 65, Matt. They'll send people that are like 65 years old. There's 15 year olds.

We've never sent his age on the air.

Yeah, no, he's like, Matt, Mr. Globale is 32. That's how old he is. But anyway, I want to send him the Globale core over to Russia. But that's wild because, yeah, they are. It's all just cannon fodder.

It's the same Russian playbook that we've seen in World War I, World War II, Afghanistan, yeah. So, yeah, you're thoughts on the energy, though, because the diesel situation's wild. So, it's, and look, this is my opinion,

people can agree with me, you're not agree with me. This is where politics has been removed. So, for the longest time, especially under the Biden administration, they did not want Ukraine hitting any of Russia's energy infrastructure.

And that is because we were already dealing with really high gas prices in the United States. And politics was playing a huge role. U.S. politics was playing a huge role in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

At the end of the Biden administration, when gas prices had fallen, enough, he basically said, okay, do what you want? Because we were given Ukraine a ton of weapons.

I don't remember, it's $200 billion.

That us helping them with all those weapons

gave us a bit of leverage over Ukraine where we could say, you know, under these conditions, we will help you. And so, they weren't hitting Russian energy infrastructure in the whole time I was screaming,

“that's the only way they can win this war.”

And so, at the end of the Biden administration, that started and it has been progressing all the way up to now and they are hammering Russia's energy infrastructure. 86 different regions in Russia right now have fuel shortages, the rationing fuel.

They've had to stop all gasoline exports out of the country. They've stopped all jet fuel exports out of the country. And there are signs that they may stop diesel exports, which would have a huge impact on the United States because Russia is basically tied with the US

as the number one diesel exporter in the world. So that would cause a global diesel shortage if that occurs and Ukraine is not gonna stop. And I'm actually enjoying watching this because I am seeing it unfold, Ukraine's gonna win.

Russia's gonna fall. The bully, the aggressor is getting their ass kicked by the little country, you know, geographically, Ukraine's not little, but they're viewed as a little country,

and they're not irritably they are.

- Yeah, they're not viewed as a powerful nation.

And they're kicking the shit out of Russia right now. And I think it's great, like, and plus, all of the pro-Russia propaganda and bullshit, we had to listen to since this war started right here in the United States, people supporting Russia

and people supporting Putin. I have a feeling we're not gonna hear from those people anymore. But as far as whether Russia completely falls, I kind of agree with Chad, it really looks like they will. But whether they do that or not,

they're gonna lose this war 'cause Russia's kicking the shit out of them. And yeah, I, I celebrate it. (laughing) - Yeah, for sure.

I give a lot of number of times on this podcast, I'm a war as an absolute last resort person. It's very hard to convince me that any war is justified.

However, an authoritarian imperialist nation

trying to take over a smaller country is one of those times. And it quite frankly has shocked me the degree to which I know this is what asymmetrical war, but the asymmetrical stakes of this seem remarkable.

Like I, going into it, I truly might take, and again, I'm a AP Times Reading American. I was reading the headlines as the articles was coming out, but I'm getting my information from mainstream news sources about that.

It felt bleak at first. It felt like, oh, this is a inevitable Russia can do this and Trump will let them because we are the, we set ourselves up as the world police and then handed the keys to the de police department

to a sociopath who loves power. So it's like, oh, he's gonna love this. And it's kind of fascinating to see, also fascinating to see Trump navigate this now where it's like, obviously we know personally,

he, I've said this in most episodes. You can think I love Zodokrat, it's like it's none. He's not even hiding it. I mean, I wouldn't, you know, if you're even if you're a Trump fan, you can go look up his true social posts where he says

he loves autocrats. Like, this isn't a controversial issue. - A big strung, yeah. - Oh, love strung man.

“Maybe he'll say, but like, I think he's come out and said,”

oh, yeah, I mean, he's even said, so I'm a fascist. Okay, so I'm a fascist. Like, yeah, at about his, at about his allies too. So it's fascinating to see in a world in which, you know, strong man fascists have taken up the two biggest nuclear

arsenals in the world. For example, have the control to those two, you know, nuclear footballs, or maybe soccer ball, or they call it in Russia, but it's fascinating to see that the underdog is really pulling through in the situation

and is sort of redefining that narrative. - Yeah, for sure. - I mean, it worked. - Not good. I was gonna say, like, we're in this time

where there's been a growing acceptance and sort of an affinity for strung man and authoritarian figures right here in the United States. This, this sort of love of these authoritarian leaders has been growing here in the United States

and right in the middle of all that, the entire world is about to watch the biggest one fall. - Yeah, that's all for mail, it's a huge deal. - Yeah, the alpha mail about to fall, which I think is gonna be globally,

is gonna have a lot of impact about how people really feel about, you know, this, just come out of nowhere, this love affair that people suddenly have these authoritarian leaders, it's gonna get crushed by Ukraine to feeding Russia.

That's why it's so excited about it.

“- And I think this is uncomfortable for a lot of men”

to admit, but part of how it came out of nowhere is like, these authoritarian leaders are just bullies, right? Like, these are the kind of guys a lot of men wanted to be all along and then Trump showed up and gave them permission, right?

They're belligerent, they're sexist, they hate women.

and who's the best Trump copycat? Brett Kavanaugh.

“He's the guy who got to work for him the most.”

He did the Trump playbook, he got on Supreme Court

and he is the second most famous rapist in the world

after Trump, right? These guys, I mean, I, you know, I have to say it, but like, the conmen don't target innocent people. They target people who are already compromised. And if you kind of liked this stuff

but didn't have permission, if you were a guy who was like, why can't I say the R word and hit women anymore? All of a sudden, you know, or like, why can't I be disrespectful to women because I'm still mad at my mom for the rest of my life?

Whatever your motivation is, all those guys, like, they thought they had permission and they did. They got permissive permission. And but it's fascinating to watch it in our politics 'cause, I mean, I was worried about, you know,

there was that we talked about before that brilliant article that was, you know, the next Trump will be more dangerous

and it was about what if a politically competent

Trump replacement came in? And I thought that was gonna happen for years, but quite frankly, no one has been able to copy the Trump playbook. Like, he is our ultimate belligerent sociopath. Kavanaugh, I think, is the most successful,

but you've seen a lot of politicians try to sound like him and like Matt Gates is gone. You know, like DeSantis proved himself a total fool. Like, these people who all wanted to be the next Trump,

“do you even remember who was running to a president?”

Who you all, you know, Veeveg? Like, I don't even remember these guys, half of them. And I don't think that that bomb ass that, and I can say it neutrally or negatively, but that that power that Trump has has really translated

into American politics, even if the American electorate has kind of gone mask off that about 70 million of them like it. So it's gonna be interesting to see the global ramifications of, I mean, these strong men are at their pretty,

like at their lowest approval ratings for both of them. So it's gonna be kind of fascinating to see what happens. - Yeah, the approval ratings for Russia's what's surprising for Putin is surprising because that's a manipulated poll, like,

but even then, even then, we're seeing his polling drop

below 60%, which has never happened.

Never. That usually, the lowest it was was like 62% was his lowest polling. And now we're seeing numbers come in again, funnily enough way higher than Trump's approval rating,

but I say that knowing that they do manipulate heavily in Russia, even so wondered-- - I know, I shouldn't cite that statistic in a closed state media response, but it is fascinating that they haven't even

letting that. So wow, Putin's polling below 100%. That's crazy, how that happened? - Yeah, I mean, it is, it is, it's pretty, the situation, it's just hard to ignore for the average Russian.

I mean, the Russian GDP was slashed to 0.5%. It was 4.9% in 2024. And when I say there's even GDP growth whatsoever in Russia, it's because of their wartime economy. Their building, bombs, and drones, and missiles,

and things like that, which fund into their economy, because it is people who have jobs are making money. So it's technically counted, but that doesn't drive an economy into the future. It's not like they're building the next level of tech,

the next level of computers are not building cars. And what's happening is they are their economies based on this wartime spending, and it's all falsely propped up. And so even when we say there's going to be 0.5% growth,

it's all because they're building things that aren't going to serve the Russian people in the future. It's all just so that they can attack the Ukrainians, and when this war hands ends, not if, when this war ends, that funding, those missiles stop being made,

and then you have a population of Russians losing their jobs, their GDP crashes and goes negative. They go into a recession. And at the same time, you have hundreds of thousands of angry veterans who are like, why did this happen?

Angry family members who they've lost millions of, or they've had millions of casualties, whether it's dead, wounded, deserted, captured, all of those people and their families, that's going to be a massive wave of anger.

That's going to turn on Russia. And we're going to see the Kremlin trying to manage, not only a negative economy, a war they lost, angry veterans, angry people, and all of those signs point to the last time that happened,

it wasn't the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was the Bolshevik Revolution, when leaders were killed in basements.

“And that's how direly serious I think we're starting to get”

into where Russia's problem is. And that brings up questions of what happens. They're nuclear weapons, because when the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States kind of stepped in as this kind of mediator, an arbiter of like, hey, we'll go ahead

and kind of provide some top cover to make sure

the chachins or whatever don't take over them, we don't have that this time. I don't think there's that in place. I don't think Trump and his administration have that in the foresight to worry about that.

And if we're dealing with a Trump administration that's still in power in 2008, and I'm saying that I could see this collapse in Russia happening before then, I have huge concerns about what exactly is going to take place

with some of the second and third order effects.

When a collapse takes place, do what happens to their nuclear codes?

“What happens to the weapons physically themselves in the tubes?”

And does do we see Ram's and Katarov, who is the chachin leader, who is an absolutely evil person decide, I'm going to take my chachin military, and I'm going to rise them up and take control of these nukes, which is extraordinarily dangerous, even for Russia.

So I just, it's a very interesting situation because we're starting to see the cracks, we're even seeing mill bloggers that were absolutely, and by mill bloggers, I mean, military bloggers who traditionally were the mouthpieces

of the Kremlin reporting on all the successes and they consistently lied, they're turning on the Kremlin themselves and saying,

this is not happening, the front lines are collapsing.

We are seeing, and I'm glad you pointed this out, Matt, because you talked about the bots and the Russian army of social media manipulators that come on and like to say, oh, we're winning no matter the fact that we can tell they're not,

understand that every little gain that is made, for instance, Casti Antonivka, the Russians still are moving incrementally, it's a few meters a day, but they're going to enhance that and say, we're winning because of this territory gained,

understand that that's Ukraine's tactic. Ukraine is a massive land mass country. So they're trading, it's a war of attrition, they're trading, Russian land for Russian lives. You can take a few meters,

but we're going to kill 10 Russians as you do it. You can take another, you can take a kilometer, thousand Russians are going to die. Over time, that's going to weigh on the Russians and that human wave tactic that Russia loves to use,

it's going to fail. And so I just, again, this is a bad bad situation. And I'm worried that we are looking at an administration in the United States that might not be prepared. I'm hoping that the very smart people in Europe

are though because they are equipped now to respond as France's nuclear power so as United Kingdom and such. So they can maybe step in and help whether United States either canter will be unwilling to

because it's Trump administration. And in addition to the nuclear concerns, which are massive and obviously extremely chilling. But also, I mean, what you're describing, and we've talked about this a bit before,

but this is a administration, not in the US, I mean, the Putin administration is really willing to inflict pain on its populace. I mean, as we're so willing to throw people as effectively a wave of bodies at Ukraine.

But as you're describing this public opinion shifting

“and Russia, I think what I'm afraid of is just”

like how much pain gets inflicted on working people before, like I hope there's an uprising. I hope that people within the administration turn on him and it doesn't take a full worker revolution before there's some kind of collapse there.

But Russia, as it is currently structured, is such that a collapse would inflict an enormous pain on their working class. And I think that's kind of what's scary about this is that I would love to see a restructuring

of that dictatorship. But the path there looks like a lot of death to me. - Well, it's not only in domestically, because that's a given, unfortunately, Russians will die. Either they'll die because we'll see a similar situation

in the post-World War I era where there was massive hunger and problems with that. I'm hopeful that the world will step up and realize that the Kremlin is turning over a Putin regime, but it just depends on who takes over after him.

I mean, if we get someone in Putin's inner circle and we just get kind of the status quo continuing, then people are going to suffer in Russia. But Matt can maybe speak to this. If Russia collapses, and that at least for a few months

takes their entire energy industry off the global stage

“as they restructure rebuild, what does that look like?”

What does that look like if we lose the first,

or second biggest diesel producer? What is the fourth largest oil country in the world? And they just, because already we have the Moscow for Finery, that's not coming back online for six months and that's gonna hurt everyone.

I can't imagine what happens if the whole country shuts down for a year as they deal with collapse. - Yeah, the inflationary effects,

When you take that,

you know, diesel's run economies, right?

They people say, "Oh, I don't buy diesel. What do I care about the price of diesel?" I'm like, "Yeah, everything you buy is transported with diesel." Like it has, when we have problems with diesel supply, it causes major economic problems.

- So, spell it out for the listeners. What is diesel used for domestically, or in terms of importing? What exactly do you mean? - Well, gasoline is for cars and diesel runs economies.

Every single thing that is shipped or bought cargo ships, crossing the oceans, it's either bunker fuel or diesel. Diesel transports everything. Diesel is used for power generation. Diesel is used at factories and manufacturing.

“Diesel is the single most important fuel in the world”

when it comes to keeping the economy running by far.

And shortages in diesel can cause manufacturing to shut down factories to shut down outrageous shipping costs, like it has massive inflationary impact globally. This isn't just in one country. This is a global economy.

So, and even just this diesel ban that may happen, you're looking at a 50-centred gallon jump in diesel prices, that trickles down to food costs. And just the everyday items you buy just to live, it impacts everything.

It is the one input that has the largest impact on inflation is not having diesel or diesel being really expensive. It's the worst thing that can happen. Other than losing all your fertilizer, which is, you know, also, Russia Middle East,

like a lot of the inputs for fertilizer come out of Russia, as well as out of the straight-of-war movement. So, we're kind of double whammy, then. Yeah, they produce a lot of natural gas. They produce a lot of urea, a lot of sulfur.

So, I hate to predict what that would look like because there's a fall of Russia mean all fossil fuel exports stop, like what exactly would happen there. You know, if they could keep some stuff going,

it would be huge. And I don't think everything would just stop, but it would be greatly reduced.

“And I think that would have a huge impact,”

mostly on the global economy. - What would it take for us to be less raw on diesel? Obviously, that's a massive global effort, but for the US to be in any way less affected by this in decades to come.

What would that look like? Is there any world in which we gradually decrease our dependency? Just curious out of the international impact or geopolitical impact of it?

- Yeah, I mean, from an industrial standpoint, renewable power is the greatest thing that can replace diesel. It's gonna be hard to replace diesel fires in my trucks any time, even begin to make it dent in that.

But renewable energy can absolutely replace a lot of the power generation that's required in an industrial setting and accessories. - Yes. - This is a place a lot of diesel, it's huge.

Even the data centers are putting massive diesel generators as backup power. Like, we're so reliant on diesel and it's so connected to oil, you know, even more than gasoline.

So renewable power is a huge counter to our reliability on diesel. - So I guess I have a question then that balls in line with that, I keep hearing this notion.

“And I think we briefly touched just slightly on this”

in one of our first episodes.

But if the United States is such a powerhouse in diesel, natural gas, oil, why is Russia coming off and I know the answer, I'm just setting you up so that you can explain to some of our listeners, why exactly is this a problem for us?

If we are so star-spangledossum and self-sufficient in building our own oil infrastructure and our own gas and diesel infrastructure, especially with potentially Canada, if we quit being assholes to them,

I mean, we have a great partnership with them, usually. Why is this such a problem for us at Russia comes up? Yeah, exactly, but yeah. And I'm hoping that it buffers us, but I don't think it will.

Russia coming off the market is going to hurt everyone. Even if it's like 25%, why is that a problem hurt? Why is it a problem it would hurt? No, yeah, but why can't, well, no, I'm saying, why is it a problem for us?

Why is Russia a problem for us when we're so energy independent is what I keep hearing from people all the time?

you have the right kind of energy. It just means your total energy portfolio is greater, or production portfolio is greater than your total energy consumption portfolio and it doesn't take into account

the different types of energy you produce. The reason we're energy independence 'cause we produce an enormous amount of natural gas, a lot of which we don't use. We just send out of the country.

We don't produce enough oil. We produce, or we don't conserve enough diesel. When I talk about diesel usage in the economies, how many homes, like especially in the Northeast

corridor of the United States, upper Midwest,

“how many of those homes are heated with heating oil and why?”

I mean, millions and millions, that's basically diesel.

A lot of people don't understand. Don't realize that heating oil is just diesel fuel. And imagine if we were a country that made it easier for people to acquire solar at home, a lot of things, networks on and talks about a lot.

Just imagine the amount of conservation and what we could save just in diesel fuel with just a little bit of solar, especially in the Northeast part of the country where everyone's relying on heating oil,

which is a very volatile fuel. People message me all the time. When do I buy my heating oil? I'm like shit, I don't know. That's totally a local supply and demand dynamic.

That's not something to speak about on a national state. There's an enormous gap there where we can take enormous strides towards reducing our diesel demand

and getting more people on solar energy just at home.

Even if you're not talking about big renewable projects that power cities just at home solar,

“especially in those areas or things like that batteries,”

would have an enormous debt in our diesel demand here in the United States. But we don't have a comprehensive energy policy here. We cater to whoever has the most money and is willing to give it to the politicians.

So we're destroying renewable energy. We're trying to lift up coal, the most dying source of energy. - I just heard-- - Trying to lift this oil in gas. - Yeah, that's giving another carve out

for fossil fuel companies. - Like today. We're recording this on Monday, June 29th, by the way. - Yeah, it makes no sense to me that you wouldn't use all the tools in your toolbox

when you're trying to fix something, right? So we have this toolbox and it's full of tools. Some of the tools are good, some of the tools are better than some of the other tools, but you need all of the tools to fix the thing that's broken properly

and we've thrown out half the tools in the toolbox. We've thrown out wind, we've thrown out solar,

“where our government is anti-renewable energy.”

They're trying to shut down existing projects and new projects and it just makes no sense to me, especially during a time that the heat dome passing over the upper Midwest and the Northeast corridor and the other called the Mid-Atlantic.

It's gonna hit the East Coast. People's electric bills and the upper Midwest and Mid-Atlantic and East Coast are about to go insane with this heat dome. I'm telling you, they're gonna be nuts

and I've made content today, warning people how to prepare for that. There's no reason for that. There's absolutely no reason for that to be occurring in the United States right now.

- Yeah, and I don't want it to be incumbent on every consumer, but even we talked about this in the utility episode with Patrick Robbins, but the utilities are even fighting us on battery storage. Now, I don't think a lot of people don't understand this,

but I mean, people still say, "Oh, what do you do with solar energy at night?" And it's like, buddy, that era of solar failure is having that weakness has gone, because battery storage has gotten so much denser

and more useful that we can charge these batteries during the day, and then use them at times when the grid has a lot of stress on it, or use them at night, or use them at night, or use them offset grid stress with batteries,

or power things at night with battery, and obviously solar isn't the only form of renewable, but it's becoming so much more feasible. And you made a great point in a previous episode that I keep thinking about, which is just,

we act like all these different sources, like let's say nuclear and solar are somehow, yes, use every tool in your toolkit, but not every tool has the same ticket price. Another tool is sitting on the shelf

at the store ready to roll out, and like we don't have new nuclear plants ready to roll out. We have solar panels that are built already. We have solar panels that other countries are building. The sources of these resources of energy

are not all equal, and that's it. But of course, we have an administration that is now literally just giving, you know, payouts to the fossil fuel industry in order to preserve it, because they're Trump's donors.

It's always been this way to some degree,

- Yeah, have you ever wondered why there's not,

so you know, there's a lot, you can go to Renaissance Center. Have you ever heard of Renaissance Center? - Yeah, we have, we have this here. - It's like where you go. - Yeah, I could drive about 30 minutes outside

of the city and see what if we're not. - I mean, you're like, you can literally go rent furniture, right? And we can build solar farms with millions of solar panels. There's an enormous amount of solar panels in this country. Why isn't there a country that just has a subscription model

for solar, or anyone can just say, hey, can you bring some solar panels over my house for like 50 bucks a month? And I'll just, you know, it's like a rental thing. Like, it should be that easy.

And that's not a thing that exists, you know? - Probably regulation.

“I bet you that's out-regulated, that's why we can.”

Like administration's like Trump's aint, don't you? - Yeah, all the other solar bills are kind of happening on a state level, because obviously the federal government's not gonna pass back any solar, but apparently, you know, a lot of the utilities are getting in the way,

the legality of letting people roll out felt, and again, I don't think it should come down to the individual consumer, but at this point, normalizing solar is more important to me, or having the, not just normalizing,

but having the effects and taking the pressure off the grid. And hopefully, we can, you know, invest in that more people see it works, but yeah, no, I mean, there is a talk about this as a program in New York

that basically lets you rent a battery for the summer.

Some people are combining that with solar, but that's literally just plug it into your wall. Chargers at night, runs your AC during the day, take pressure off the grid. But these are, that's like an individual work

that's doing that. These are not, - Exactly. - These aren't like, even that big of a business, this is like one small New York work doing it. And I should find their name.

But, that shouldn't be a service. - Yeah, I mean, yeah, what I'm saying is, the cost of solar is the lowest it's been in history.

“Yeah, if you want to install solar on your house,”

do you think that's the lowest it's been in history? - No, it pays off in like 10 years or something. - Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, how is it possible that this has gotten so cheap for utility companies?

- Yeah, at the retail level, I still got a, I still got a right of $40,000 checked, and a lot of people can't connect the dots, where, wait, I got a right of $40,000 checked to save money on my electric bill, which is,

and unless you're one of those forward-thinking people that looks ahead, and is like, hey, in five years, I'll start saving money. One, most people can't afford that. And two, the people that can don't care.

If they're, if they're electric bills, a thousand dollars a month, because they have all kinds of money, right? Like that, the big barrier is just a cost. When it's currently cheaper than it's ever been,

and I don't know how much cheaper it's gonna get, like it's really cheap right now. But to get it at home is still prohibitively expensive,

“and that's what doesn't make any sense to me.”

- It'd be an interesting place for some policy, like, where can I municipal or statewide government step into offset some of those costs even temporarily? Like, is it a loan that allows you to pay back in the amount that you save on your utility bill?

Is there a program where we can get these into the hands of people without that initial investment? Because, like you said, it is, it's expensive upfront. And I'll say, my father has spent the past few years greenifying his home, and has gotten rid of his oil heater,

I'd put in heat pumps, which are just electric AC, and people don't necessarily know that's just an electric heater. - Yeah.

- Basically a big space heater.

I don't know why we call heat pumps, it's electric heat, but they also cool, so they're cooling pumps too, but he's putting his pump out there. - Yeah, so does my body, I'm not a heat pump, but, but, you know, I also, I can't get cool.

But the point being, like, he's, it's all all this stuff. He put in solar panels, he got rid of his, his oil tank, and you know, his, his oil burning furnace, and he did that stuff because he wants to save money eventually, but he's well aware of the fact

that, like, the actual savings are a decade away, and he's doing it because it's the right thing to do. He doesn't want to burn oil to, you know, heat this whole house all the time, and I think that's great. That if you're listening, good job.

But, like, he is well aware of the fact that he's able to do that, and I've walked down his street, and his neighbors are not doing that. And, you know, maybe some of them have already, but I don't see any solar panels,

and these are not necessarily people who are against green energy, but I don't blame them because this is either there, it's either their own home, and they don't want to make a huge investment in it,

or they're older, and maybe they won't see a profit for a long time, or maybe they just don't want a huge homeowner project. You know, there's a lot of hurdles that are not philosophical, that are not a disbelief and renewable energy

that prevent people from doing this stuff. So, I mean, I agree, there has to be some, that has to be, but I think, a forward-thinking Democrat, perhaps could propose, like, a way to make this more feasible

alone, a stipend, something that makes it more possible

for people to do this in a residential area. I mean, I live in an apartment building, it had to be on a balcony or a porch, but in a lot of cases, people have rooftop. - Yeah, there's even little community solar projects

that cover a couple of blocks, right? Like, they had those little local gardens,

“like community gardens, communities solar, you know?”

There's thousand ways to do it, but the thing is, we don't talk about it, we don't think about it, we don't. It's not a priority for us to save, to either conserve energy or to help, and help make it cheaper for people to buy.

And it's literally one of the things that we need the most, energy and water, to just survive and keep breathing. And we have no discussion about it. It makes no sense to me.

- We're actually going backwards, too.

And I think what's interesting is, I think, the Trump administration is starting to see the writing on the wall of the danger of Russia coming off the global stage at least temporarily, when it comes to their energy inputs,

whether it's oil, natural gas, whatever they provide. And they're, we're seeing Trump talk again about coal, and that's so wild to me, because that should not be our default. coal should not be what we rely on when we have a major crisis.

And the thing is, is like, this is the only thing Russia can do. They produce nothing, the world wants, except for the crap they dig out of the ground. That's really all they have.

And so I just, I think that, instead of leaning on coal and saying, oh, we're gonna, we're gonna find an alternative to the potential Russia collapse.

“I think the Trump administration could lean forward”

and actually get some good will here by saying, we're going to help Ukraine and also help Russia manage a potential catastrophe. They don't have to do it upfront. They don't have to come out into the papers,

and I know that's gonna be real hard for Trump not to come out and say, he did something and get a headline. But that's kind of how diplomacy with Russia and to some respect, China works is you,

you go and we help Ukraine defeat Russia, but in the background, kind of like the Cold War, we say, hey, this is gonna be a problem for you. You got yourself into this mess, but we're gonna help you through it

so that the world economy doesn't have problems so that your nuclear weapons don't fall apart and end up in a wrong hands and things like that and we have disasters there. And I think that would be a,

at least the side where we're helping Ukraine would be a win to help people get over the debacle that is Iran. Because when you look at the polling on Iran, no one likes that.

Like the Republicans are the only ones that are over 50% it's like 50% 2% support Trump on Iran. His broad support is like 32% is so bad. Independence and Democrats just can't stand this war with Iran, whereas Ukraine support for Ukraine

is like 62% across the country. And I argue that it would be higher if Trump just said, I'm now going in all in for Ukraine because there's those that are in his camp and we see it over and over again.

That will just follow him. No matter it's like 15% of people, Trump could say that like I'm going to eliminate the entirety of the vaccine program in the United States. And all of them would be like, cool, we agree.

If he were to come out and say, Ukraine is now a priority for us to win. That 15% will flip that switch. And so he'll instantly have above 75% support for that.

“And what'll happen is I think if he can show”

that we're supporting Ukraine that we're, but in the background helping Russia that he can manage this and come out before the 2028 election is done enough time for the midterms, before the 2028 election and say,

and this is not me giving advice to Trump to get him elected. Let me just say that up front. This is just for the betterment. I mean, he listens. Yeah, he listens to this podcast.

I got a phone call from the other day. But he's, so yeah, so if we can do that, he will actually earn some true foreign policy goodwill with our European partners, with our Canadian partners, with everyone on the global stage.

And domestically, the support is there as well. I just don't think he can get over the fact that one, he has this love affair with Putin and two, whatever strange leverage Putin has over him, whether it was through his real estate deals

that the Russians did before he became president,

even as first term, or even if there's some kind of weird

thing going on, so I just feel like this is such a stupid, easy win for him, and I don't know why. I feel like Ruby is probably telling him this, but he's just not doing it for his own personal reasons.

to do to think he's never willing to do,

which isn't mid-being wrong, right?

“You have to navigate it in a way where he would say,”

as I've always been saying, we're backing Ukraine. There's something like, like, there's no framing in which he can go, even times have changed. I am not taking a different tax. That's not usually within his vocabulary either.

So he did it with a rite. I agree with you, but he went a 180 on a rite. He's true. He did at least a couple times. He's like, people take to the streets,

guess not, never mind. He's like, we're going to overthrow this government up, never mind. So I mean, he, I mean, you're right. I think that's true.

It just has to be that he continues to claim he's been right all along. He does constantly change messaging. If you know what he doesn't like, whip on that kind of thing.

If it means the U.S. helps Ukraine win,

I'll be like, good job Trump. Pat on the back. I'll give him that. Whatever. I mean, I guess I'm kind of bigger that way.

I, I, I. I'll press that out if he does that. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm just saying,

if it leads to Ukraine win, the world will be objectively safer. That's the case. And if it means Trump gets to do a small victory lap with a stupid Nobel Peace Prize,

because he actually truly, not just half-assed help, but actually truly helped Ukraine.

“I think that that makes a difference because he does.”

He has the support from his, his, his, the country and magma will do whatever he, his, his, his,

like, rabid magma following.

We'll just do whatever he says anyway. So you, it's going to be a win. He just doesn't do it. So. I make some percentage of that.

And also in addition to everything you're saying and how important that would be. The longer this lasts, those downstream, those second and third,

fourth order consequences of this conflict on Russia, on Russia losing their energy supply. On, you know, as I said, all these consequences that are going to be felt mostly

by the Russian people, those are multiply, right? Like the sooner this ends, that is a exponentially smaller effect on those people,

because the collapse is to some degree of eventually inevitable. Russia won't last forever, but prolonging the current situation. And exhausting their oil reserves and, you know,

further destabilizing. It's not, I don't think it's going to be proportioned. I think the longer that lasts, it's going to be an exponential pain on the Russian people

when that inevitable collapse does happen. Yeah. Russia have the same problem as many of these types of countries. They get such, the country becomes so terrible that people don't want to have kids.

So they were headed for a demographic collapse already. They have the, this is a country that had before this war. And then killing a bunch of young men, had the same population as they did 30 years ago.

Their population just simply has not grown. And that is unsustainable as those people age out. It was going, they were going to collapse eventually. It's just Putin is accelerating it.

And in the future, there could have been a managed collapse, because Japan had a similar situation where it was, they were aging out, but they had a transition with the support of many nations.

Because they went to have their problem in a diplomatic democratic way. Instead of just the only way we can solve this is, let's deal people from other countries. And so yeah, I think you're right.

It would have been a bigger problem. It would have been a problem down in the future. But it would have probably been more manageable than we're going to see. And unfortunately, you're right is going to cause way more suffering.

Potentially on the same levels we're seeing in Middle Eastern nations as well. So. Well, if you guys are all right, I'd love to move on to our final segment,

but does anyone have any closing thoughts on this before we move on? No, I just, I'll just say this. I think we are going to. We're going to see a lot more. Desperation out of the Kremlin.

And I, again, I don't think it means nuclear weapons, but I do think it means terror. And I don't necessarily mean terror in the, in the aspect of on the Ukrainian people.

“This, you have to remember that the Russians are a country”

that have conducted assassinations in other countries, in the United Kingdom in Germany. This is Russia. Try to fire bomb a weapons plant in Germany. Russia is a country that supports cyber attacks on the United States.

So as we. Get down this path of desperation. I think those are going to increase. And I truly, I truly hope that the United States manages it. And Europe manages it in a way that is not just.

Find a way to hit him back because that will excel. If, if the, if NATO, the West. It gives Putin justification. I think he will find a way to.

Just start biting everyone. And that'll be a trotters for the Russian people and the global economy.

“So yeah, that's how I just kind of close on that.”

Not great note, which I guess transitions into that least worse, which is. Yeah, so. A lot of things that our current climate ended are not great note, but that's why we're talking about them and leaving them open ended for whatever reason.

I'm not open ended for whatever reason. Open ended because whatever is yet to play out is all we can do is frame it right now. And I mean, I think you're right. I think that this is unlikely to be. Solved entirely through diplomatic solutions,

but I hope that we are able to. I hope that the US is able to be flexible in anyway about this. And minimize damage if we can. Because like I said, you know, the longer this conflict lasts, even with Ukraine winning, which I think we're all, you know,

we're all excited and rooting for. It's still a war and it's still going to have these massive consequences on the civilian populist, the longer it lasts.

And on that cheerful note, as I always say,

it's time to go to our final segment of the show where we highlight. I slightly less negative if not positive part of our week. And it's called the least worst part of my week. Well, it's been a big week in New York. It's hard to even focus on my favorite thing that happened.

We are recording this on Monday. So for me, technically the past week, we have both had our primary day here in New York City, New York State. And we also here in New York City had the rent guidelines board, pass of historic rent freeze.

Historic and that it is two years. It's for all rent controlled units here in New York.

“But I think, you know, it's it was great to have that momentum coming off the election.”

I want to focus a little more on the results of the election. I'm sure you're hearing because it's making national news. If not international news here. So our mom Donnie's three candidates of choice at the congressional level all seized congressional seats.

Also is his endorsements downvalent in smaller races one. And perhaps more importantly, I would say New York City, DSA one nine out of ten races and two more seats upstate,

which is pretty incredible for an organization that

has really only made national news in recent years. Obviously, you know, around Bernie Sanders. And there was a lot of, you know, and he was running for president. DSA would get brought up a lot. But DSA New York City, DSA specifically has grown to 15,000 members in the past week.

And I think what I want to say is not about the power of the organization.

“But I think my takeaway, the least worst part of my week,”

the thing that's giving me hope in all that, is that it's not only a rejection of ice and apac at the ballot, all these past, all these candidates who took apac money were defeated. Espaya who was both an apac candidate who voted to fund ice, while a member of the congressional Hispanic caucus were all defeated on the issues.

There were a lot of traditional establishment down identity politics arguments against there are a lot of bad faith attacks on them.

And ultimately, people came out on the issues.

They said, I don't want to send our money to Israel when we're starving at home. I don't want to fund cruel immigration laws and a lot of them ran on energy. Specifically, a lot of them ran on building renewables, public utilities. You know, we talked about the Valdez campaign. Claire Valdez defeated Antonio Renault.

So not a horrible guy, but Claire Valdez, as we talked about on the show, had a plan for a federal public power utility. He defeated him by double-digit margin, by over 20 points. And I think what we're seeing specifically is not just that you can run on these issues and that people actually care about them and that framing them via affordability is important.

But also that things like climate change and even socialism aren't a bad word. And I listen to our flagship podcast on the network, find out media ahead of episode. Just this week, where they talked about socialism and whether socialism is still a bad word. And I do have to respectfully disagree with their effort with their expert who they had on as a guest. David Fenton, because he was quoting, don't think of an elephant, which is a 22 year old book with a pretty sexist frame of work in my opinion.

But talks about, oh, well, when you say this thing, you know, people can't help but fixate on it. And I think we've learned that when you try to describe democratic socialism, when you try to describe a communityitarianism, collectivism as from first principles and you're afraid of saying the words, you end up explaining the whole thing anyway. And I think what a lot of these candidates have done really well is said, they don't deny being socialist. They don't deny being democratic socialist.

But they say, yes, and that is that means that I want everyone to have a dignified life. I want everyone to be able to afford energy, healthcare, clean air. And it's not one or the other. It's not saying Democrats, as I think Democrats at this point have been so scared to advocate not only for socialism or socialist policies,

They meet the, you know, they're so afraid they think they're electorate or babies, but you see these people running without backing down on the issues that people care about.

“And all of a sudden, voters are going, wait, we like this, and there's record voter turnout. So I think that for me, the least worst part of my week is not just that all these candidates won,”

but that they ran on renewable energy and, and by specifically not backing down on these issues that establishment Democrats are just afraid to talk about and have capitulated on again and again. And they just meet halfway, they meet halfway and the overturned window shifts so far to the right that we don't even recognize the party anymore. It's nice to see people running on effectively new deal policies for the modern era and winning, winning elections. And I'm exhausted.

And so that's the least work part of my week.

So I have a question, so do you think this is a New York specific, like this is an anomaly in New York, because let's be honest New York, I'm in Portland, Seattle. Those are extraordinarily progressive cities relative to let's say like a Dallas or even like a Denver or something like that. And do you think this is has staying power to go past New York, because you're talking about, yeah, like Democratic social, the, the DSA, these, these, the socialist policies and things like that. Do you think it can explode outside of New York and move more mainstream into like the heart of the country because largely because people just are like, what was happening just isn't working anymore obviously.

“I think we're at a moment where that is more feasible than ever. I'm not going to pretend every city's like New York. I'm not going to pretend. Oh, yeah, what works here works everywhere.”

I think what does work here that will work everywhere is a focus on pragmatism and the idea that pragmatism and ideals are not mutually exclusive a lot of the times Democrats will go, oh, those are great ideas, but they're just not pragmatic. And I think what for example, the mom Donnie administration has done well is said here are some pragmatic solutions to accomplishing our ideals, you know, some of them making child care affordable for people makes affordability creator overall because those people can suddenly afford to have a life and they have more free time and they, you know, they're, they're not draining their costs into these day to day, you know, just the cost of living and I think that we are at a rare point where Americans are go, you know, trump ran on affordability and everything's going up.

So Americans are becoming uniquely aware of the fact that they're being screwed left and right that corporatism is just not working for us that it's concentrated the wealth and an increasingly small number of people granted.

I don't think that you can be like, oh, I'll run a Muslim socialist in rural Oklahoma necessarily, but it has given me a lot of faith.

And I personally, you know, we have a podcast about global news, I pay attention to national and global news, but I personally as an activist trying to focus on his local level as possible. With the faith that creating a functioning model somewhere is something that will inspire people to copy it elsewhere and figure out their version of it. And then it feels like the presidential election has way more effect on the world than a state assembly member. I would say that the past two years of elections in New York or the past two elections, so basically a year have given me a lot more faith that that strategy works that we are building something here that people are gradually seeing.

“And people are going, I think, you know, one of the most common responses to Mombani is, wait, the mayor could have done this the whole time. People in other cities are going, wait, your mayor can provide these things.”

You can, you don't have to count out a real estate investors, you don't have to count out to the corporatists funding the party, and I think, and you can also openly reject a pack and still win as a Democrat, I think that is creating a blueprint that can work outside of New York. And can it work in red states, that's a different question. I will say that Mombani, one in districts that voted for Trump, and I think probably what spoke to those people is the practical affordability agenda. I think in a lot of cases, you know, we talked about this on the show, energy efficiency, conservation, these are not crazy left wing values.

The conservation used to be a conservative value, it's right there in the, in the name, you know, the idea of like corporations ruining the land that you're entitled to should offend conservatives as well, you know, like the idea that Tesla SpaceX rather has taken over a wild, it's trying to take over a wildlife preserve. That should anger you as a Republican who's tax dollars pay to preserve the wildlife in your country, America, you know, so I think yes, obviously there's going to be a huge amount of corporate and conservative as an establishment damn hand, ringing about, oh my god, these are communists taking over the party.

It's not true with Republican voters yet, but shining away from these terms and shining away from these policies hasn't worked, hasn't worked for 50 plus years, and so I do think it gives me hope that, no, this exact model can't work everywhere, but these issues matter everywhere.

“And I think people are learning that addressing the issues head on rather than telling voters as Democrats always do, you're being unrealistic.”

That actually saying no, we are going to fight for you, we're going to fight for your exact concerns and we hear them, that's the winning model, that's what actually works, so that's what gives me hope for other, you know, more conservative or non-New York areas because New York is unique.

But this model can work elsewhere.

Yeah, I just I only asked because I kind of got raked over the calls by some of the comments, yes, I do read the comments, I don't know if everyone else does, but actually try to respond to that. I know, but I try to respond to the comments. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

So someone on Spotify left a comment that I need to get off the fence on capitalism, like either I'm a capitalist or I'm not and I'm like, I don't think it's binary.

“I think if you look at Nordic models, they have social democracy with welfare capitalism, and I think if I'm saying that.”

If I'm looking at the mom-donnie model, it's not the bogey man socialism, what he's essentially describing is what we see in these Denmark Norway Sweden models where it is. You have the welfare support, but they have privately owned businesses, they have market economies, these are countries that are democratic, but it is a social democracy, so the people have more power.

There is a wealth, our capitalism, so that you don't have people lie in the streets and what ends up happening is you have some of the happiest people on the planet living those countries.

“Some of the most productive people on the planet living those countries, people that are secure in their lives, and so I just, I think a good way, and I try, I try to reframe it and I'm not an expert in this, I'm newly moderate to the left.”

Because I've seen the light, so to speak, of the last 10 years roughly, and I try to frame it to people as it's not socialism, it is a combination of social democracy with welfare capitalism and I know welfare can be a bogey man word as well. But I think that's more palatable, where it's like, yeah, we're all so capitalist, we're all still have our own businesses, my wife has her tea business, my, all of my friends have their businesses, but we make sure that people aren't lying in the street that veterans don't need snap benefits that, or that veterans are taking care of and are able to get snap benefits that they're trying to take away things like that.

I just, it was, it's just fascinating to see, I just, I just hope that it does expand like you're saying because I do think that this Nordic model, this, where they still have their businesses and they still have their millionaires, they don't have nearly the ability of billionaires probably for this probably good. Still, you can still get rich parody we have by no. Yeah, you can still get rich with famous people. Yeah, and you can, but you can, but the average person is happy and not scared of starving or losing their home essentially, so yeah, I think that's a good way to franchise.

I would prefer to go farther left than a basic social democracy, but this isn't some sort of like sleep or mentoring and candid effect that is to turn into communists all of a sudden, this is like, again, like bringing America back to the pre 1970s tax code, right, like we want, we want people to. Yeah, I mean, exactly, and you're talking about, like, you know, social welfare and all these things, we already have welfare, we just only have it for the upper tax bracket. If a corporation fails, we give them money, even if they don't fail, we corporate welfare is massive. I mean, I don't know, people realize this, but we give corporations money to do R&D for the idea that they'll develop, you know, products that will stimulate the economy.

We constantly bail out failing corporations, but we also give millions, if not billions in corporate welfare to companies, just to, you know, Reagan's style trickle down economics, even though we know that doesn't work. That's the chronicism in our, in our system. So we're not even talking about going to like a worker owned model of economics, we're talking about even things out so that people have a safety, have a social safety net, have the, you know, I, I wonder if people realize that they work week in France is 34 hours and that you get paid over time mandatory. Like we've all adopted in America, this like 40 to 80 hour work week, the idea that like benefits are, are a blessing if you get any benefits whatsoever, and like now your job shouldn't be tied to your health insurance, you should be able to afford health care no matter what, because you're a human being, not just because you live in the wealthiest nation in the history of nations, but or wealth.

But because you're a person and, and, you know, being at living a dignified life should be a right that we can provide to everyone. So I don't think like, I mean, you say the Nordic countries, most, most Western European countries have some form of social democracy and they're not all sitting on the oil and gold that the Nordic countries are sitting on, it does help them to have natural resources, but a lot of Western European countries have a functional model of this, they're not anti capitalist.

Yeah, and we, the idea that we need to just let things run wild, I think is proven, we've seen what the end result of that is and there's no, you know, not going any, any other direction all of a sudden if we take our hands off the wheel again.

Yeah, may I retort? Go ahead. Yeah. Are you sure your anti-capitalist? Yes. Okay, because here's my take on this. Okay.

“This is just my take. I think most people in this country believe that we live under this capitalist system and we don't.”

We are, I think we have a social assistant for the upper class and we are, we are looking, yeah, we are looking at a corporateocracy and we're calling it capitalism. Okay, that I will accept. Yes, I see you say. A corporateocracy can be borne from capitalism, but it is not capitalism. I would argue in the end of the household. Yeah, we are 1,000% a corporateocracy is what we are. That is where the corporations have enormous political influence over the government and that is exactly what we have. People get scared and they're like, what's the matter? You're not a capitalist anymore, and I'm like, no, I'm still a capitalist. I just don't believe in corporate democracies, where you give the corporate corporations so much power.

They literally wield that power over the government and oppress the people, and that is exactly what this country is right now. We can argue the details of that to the cows come home, but you cannot argue if you just look up.

Let me just read it for you real quick, because I wanted to get a good.

“I think the corporateocracy is a situation where large corporations have outsized influence over the government and public policy. Is that what we have?”

Yeah, I mean, it's where large corporations have political influence to reduce competition. Is that what we have? Where the government and major corporations often have a close mutually reinforcing relationship must enter also where a, yeah it's also a lot of raising the abolition of the audio listener. It's also where established corporations gain advantages through lobbying regulation subsidies and preferential treatment. I just named you the four pillars of a corporateocracy, and I described the United States economic system to a T. So, and I, you know, we've been taught our whole lives that socialism communism, all those things are horrible.

I'm a capitalist, but I'm not a corporatist, and that's what we have. Now, you know, people can't come to terms with that.

People don't want to admit that we've given the corporation so much power that this is literally like this bastardized version of capitalism we live in, but that's exactly what it is. We don't live in a capitalist system the way it was intended to be. This is something totally different than what we had in the 40s and 50s. Oh, absolutely. I would just argue that this is what capitalism eventually does like it's certainly made. Yeah, that invisible hand, that invisible hand theory of of everything equalizing.

The invisible hand is high five and all the rich guys right now like that's I totally agree with you. We live in a corporate system and it's what happens when you don't regulate capitalism and you can look to Western Europe.

“And like, you know, like Chad said, the Nordic state Scandinavia to go, oh, and that's what happens when you do regulate it. You can create. Yeah, yeah.”

Yeah, it all goes back to what I was going to go ahead. No, I was just going to finish with, I would tell people that are so afraid of socialism. If you don't want that and you're afraid of that, then don't create conditions that makes people want that and need that. And that's exactly what this corporateocracy is done. The corporateocracy has enabled the DSA, the democratic socialist of America. That is what has enabled them to have these victories in New York people are fed up with the system and they are confusing it with this sort of old capitalism, which is not what we are anymore.

I mean, the idea of like upward mobility doesn't really exist anymore unless you go viral on TikTok or something. And even then, that doesn't really work. They, they like the math performance. But it's, and they do a job of conflating what is the truly democratic socialism and the welfare capitalism with.

That was, but that, it's almost like what we have on the capital side with corporatism, where it's this, these corporations are dominant in our system. It's similar to how the Kremlin ran the communist system on the complete pendulum. When you talk about socialism in the modern era, it's actually more moderate. It's actually more in the middle than what we experienced here in the United States. First is what the experienced in communism, which is what the right will use as the boogie man, the Trojan horse to say, well, you can't, you don't want anything with the word socialist in it because you will eventually end up with the Berlin wall collapsing and, and Gulogs.

I mean, it's so extreme.

“And I think a lot of this stems back to, unfortunately, a singular point in our, in our government when the Supreme Court decided citizens united.”

And that citizens united where they allowed political speech. Now, to be clear, it does citizens united did not allow corporations to donate directly to candidates, but they're allowed to form these massive unions together where they just pile their money in. And it's probably does the same thing. Yeah, it's the same thing. Let's be honest.

This is the same thing. And it gives them their quote unquote air quotes on the video. First amendment protection to that's free speech for them to form these unions and dump money.

And this is why we're about to see Elon Musk dump five hundred billion dollars.

And excuse me, five hundred million dollars into pro-magic candidates for midterms. We're going to see him and it's a bargain for him. Of course, he's going to dump that much money because you know what happens. These candidates turn around and go, here you go. Here's your space x contract.

Here's your Tesla's are going to be all of our government vehicles. Here's your subsidies. Here's your, and that's what happens. And I think this singular point was citizens united has driven so much terribleness. And what Matt is describing this corporatist, this corporation driven system economic system we have.

Because corporations are going to have more money than the average citizen. That's just the way they're just filthy rich. But when they have that, unfortunately, it means that they can dump money into candidates. You can't promise them the contracts and the tax breaks and all this stuff.

“And unfortunately, the only way out of that is to find a way to, like do the mombani effect.”

Show the people with a good ground game that this, these models that are coming out of Western Europe or the Nordic models. They help the people, the corporations aren't. And I think you're right now, I think that it is going, we are getting to a point where the eyes are opening. And it's just simply because the pain is becoming too great on the average American. The middle class is being destroyed and not just can't happen forever.

So.

Yeah, I mean, it's the first downwardly mobile generation of middle-class Americans, right?

At my generation, our generation. And I think, yeah, what works in New York, works in New York, to a certain degree. You have to find a version of it that works elsewhere. But I think a lot of the hand, you know, when Mombani won the primary, it was like, oh, he's, you know, he's a communist, G hottest who's going to do 9/11 and also hates capitalism.

Okay, these are not, these are kind of conflicting ideologies. You're spitting out of you, but sure, sure, he's going to, he's got a tanker economy. He's going to do all these things.

“Well, you know, why do I think this can work elsewhere?”

Because six months in a lot of his haters have become defenders. Six months in, people are seeing the material results very quickly. I mean, those major, I've talked about the rent board guidelines. You know, the mate, the signature campaign promises, childcare and the rent freeze have been accomplished. They're opening, you know, they're working on the city of run grocery stores.

Obviously, the platform was much broader than all that stuff. But I think they were right to be like, hey, here's a few things we can accomplish for the people in the short term that are going to make a big difference. And there are, you know, the pot holes thing is so funny to me because it wasn't part of the campaign.

One of the first things they did was just a major quality of life improvement.

And they filled in about 30,000, 40,000 pot holes. And it made life in the city better. A lot of the people who are in driving parts of the city are not the most progressive left leaning parts of the city. Driving Brooklyn, Queen, Staten Island are generally more conservative voting places. And, you know, they did this thing that improved their lives to improve my life as well. But it all, you know, it's not just for leftists.

It's for everyone in the city. It's for everyone. You know, there's parts of New York City that you would look at and say our suburbs. They're not on the public transportation. You need a car to be there. They're still part of the city. But I think for the average person who doesn't live here, they wouldn't read that as what New York City looks like.

A lot of these people live in houses have car. And their lives are being improved. Their lives are not that different from your life in a car culture. I think looking at how do we materially improve circumstances versus how do we sell people on a term.

But I also think you can't just be like, well, we're Democrats. So we're right. We're socialists. So we're right. No, we're socialists. So we are doing these specific steps to make material change.

“And I think that's, you know, that's more of an effective strategy.”

And people are slowly waking up to this idea that, you know, any time you say socialism. People go, oh, it's communist Russia. Well, first of all, socialism and communism are two different things.

Yeah. But second of all, there's always that argument of like, oh, did it work in Venezuela? Did it work in Cuba?

And it's like, no, because the US imperialism directly manipulated and ruined communism in those countries. I'm not saying communism is the perfect system, but the examples are always places that the US has intervened in. And like, you want to be like Cuba? Like, do I want to have universal healthcare and high literacy rates? Kind of, you know. In spite of American intervention, do I, do I want to have good room, high literacy rates and universal healthcare? I mean, yeah, a little bit.

Can we have cigars and cigars, you know? I know. That's the thing is, it's like, you look at mom Donnie and you know how come it's so bad. How come it produces something like a baseball plan? I know exactly.

Sorry. Well, how are you talking about like mom Donnie? You know how I can tell mom Donnie is doing. Well, he's getting the Obama treatment. He's getting the brown suit selfie stick is what it is. Like instead of hitting him at policies, like they could never really hit Obama on policy. So they're like, he wore a brown suit, which undermines the president.

He's using a, he's using a selfie stick, which is embarrassing. And now the latest thing was mom Donnie's jumping into a pool. And I'm just like, just shut the fuck up like this, too. I know. And I'm like, and that's where they're at is like he's doing things. That and the only thing they can do is talk about how he weirdly jumps into a pool.

And one person even frozen was like, how who jumps into a pool like this? And I'm like, shut up like this is stupid. So yeah. Yeah, I try not to get too much attention to the detractors because there's, I mean, it's fun. They're spinning out.

But I think much like the administration, the strategy is to not get caught up in the dialogue or the terminology, don't, don't let your enemies set the terms. You know, he's not going, actually, here's why it's good that I wore that suit. He's going, well, I want New Yorkers to go to the pool. And I want to show them that the pools are open.

Yeah, you just stay on message.

“And I think that's, that's how you win back the terminology, too.”

You know, socialism became a bad word again, not anymore, not among Democrats. And it's trending that way with Republicans, even. So I think you just stay the course and you focus on meeting people's needs. It seems pretty obvious. What you got?

That's the least worst part of my week. Matt, what is the 25 minutes later? Yeah. Oh, Matt. Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel.

He's been so long. I forgot who it was. He's been standing his voice like an hour ago. Miranda. No, I'm just kidding.

Evan Spiegel and his wife, Miranda Kerr, who is apparently a supermodel.

I paid the medical debt for over a quarter million people in California to the tune of $550 million.

And so I wanted to say, that's pretty cool. And it's proof that not all billionaires are monsters.

“If that's what I think Matt probably still thinks he's a monster.”

But I certainly appreciate the fact that this man don't know his background. I don't know where he came from, but I know he's a billionaire now. The fact that he would pay off the medical debt, which is huge burden for Americans. Medical debt is massive for a quarter million people in California. I thought that was really cool.

And so kudos to that guy. I'm not going to be against him doing that. No, I don't think you're going to be doing that. No, no. I mean, I like what Bill Gates said.

And malaria, even if he turned out to be on the upstream files. But you know, it's great when billionaires do great things. No way that enormous amount of power means they do other evil things. I think that's, no, I think it's awesome. I think anyone who received that is going to be happy.

And yeah, I guess his wife is a super model. I'm also hearing about this for the first time. And if you just do the math on the number of people in the amount of money. This was an enormous amount of debt for these families. Oh, my God.

And enormous amount of debt. Like the average is thousands of dollars. You know, I think the average is what over $2,000 per person, but you know, a lot of those were like 20, 30,000 dollar bills. And a lot of people had smaller ones.

So I think that's not only that, but like for the debt forgiven,

that can be purchased for less than it can, and this isn't always true.

But medical debt, you know, the rolling debt Jubilee did this. It's a little misleading because they were buying expired debt. But a lot of people, it is possible to pay, you know, the way our broken system works if you understand. You can buy other people's medical debt as an investment.

But usually it doesn't, you don't actually get the full bill back.

It could go five to 10 times as much because you can actually buy debt for cheaper than the amount of the person those.

“So it probably actually had a multiplicative effect.”

Yeah. And what he did was he gave this money to a nonprofit called undo medical debt. And they distributed it out. So you're probably exactly right. It was probably debt that was purchased for pennies on the dollar.

And it was actually a much larger amount than what was originally owed.

So he likely wiped out billions of dollars worth of medical debt with that 550 million.

Like he pointed out. That's amazing. Yeah. I'm good for him. Chad.

Well, mine is pretty early. Mine is a personal item. Many people who follow me know that I have four kids. I'm a blended family.

“My wife brought her to kids to the relationship.”

And they've been my kids for they were one and two when I got I started. I met my wife and they've called me dad ever since the beginning. And we made it legally official in the courts on Thursday this past Thursday. I officially adopted my two step children. And they are now my absolute children through and through.

I actually made sure that on the in Idaho and I don't know if this is how it works everywhere. But on the form we're allowed to check a box that says I don't want it to show that they were adopted on the first certificate. So I made sure that I wanted them to be equal with my biological children because I have two biological children that are mine. Great. So we added two new little scots to the to the household and my broader family is over the moon about that.

My parents her parents were all very excited. So not a not a big world altering thing for everyone but it was a world altering thing for myself. Those two little kids my wife and my entire family. So I just super excited for that and that was not it wasn't even the least well that was the best part of my week. So.

Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, I know need for the caveat even to make it philosophical.

Making your partner of the world important is the most that you know better is the most important thing you can do.

For yourself for everyone around you and even to multiply outward but you know you know you know need to say this doesn't have an impact for it to be important child that's awesome. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you very much. We're excited. Adoption is the greatest gift and.

I didn't know that they were Scottish. So funny story we're not we are not so my father was adopted and we have no merit of Scottish but I didn't know. We have not a lick of Scottish in us whatsoever. It's we're last name of Scott. Yeah, one tea right.

Well, it's it's so funny because well, no, there's the Scott clan and we have the Scott crest but my father was adopted. So he was adopted into the Scott so it's the there's this irony of us being the Scots and not having any Scottish whatsoever. And as a heritage and pretty and like it is it's pretty like so even though we are the Scott family we are. Not Scottish whatsoever. Not even a little bit.

“So maybe you need to invent your own tart.”

No, I'm thinking. There you go. Yeah. Well, I mean yeah, we stay colors. There you go.

Yeah. We claim the Scott clan part of it because we were adopted into it through my father but. We'll figure something out. So yeah. Yeah.

Well, congratulations, Chad and a blank Scott and other blank Scott whose names I won't say on the year. Sounds good. So now because I don't know. Matt will be expecting a sort of similar announcement next week from you because my announcement less a while a week. Chad and I got to expand the family.

So you got to do something. You got to step up. All right. Well, I'm going to adopt two children by next week. I'm going to be here first on the podcast. But of course, that's Monday.

So it'll actually be done by the time you listen to the podcast. There'll be only five days from the phone of this recording. So if you're listening to this, I have five days to find two children. And if anyone has anything they don't want, you can leave a comment on our YouTube video. I won't read them.

But Chad will. And you have listened to the American Power podcast. I'm Nat Towson, you're a host for Chad Scott and Mr. Global. We'll see you all next week.

And always remember power corrupts.

But American power corrupts. American League.