Al Gore: Trump Has Made a Historic Mistake

Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller,

could not be more excited about today's guest. He is marking the 20th anniversary of his Oscar-winning documentary in Inconvenient Truth, which raised awareness about climate change, led to the founding of the Climate Reality Project, which will be holding leadership trainings to mark the anniversary coming up soon, including in Nashville, where he will be, it's of course the former Vice President of the United States Al Gore. A strange world that

“led us to your surre, but I really appreciate it. Can I call you Al? What are you going with?”

Yeah, yeah, that works. Yeah, and Tim, thank you for having me on with you. I've followed your work with great interest in growing enthusiasm. Thank you for what you're doing and I'm it's an honor for me to be with you today. I appreciate that. I don't know, my former boss, Jeb, just got to be looking at this going. I don't know what happened. I don't know, I don't know who it is, but I love that we come to this place and I appreciate the

amount of time to work. I want to start with get to climate, then we're obviously going to the news. Before we do that, like just in case I lost you, I feel absolutely compelled though to start with one personal item of personal privilege. There's some rumors that you are the heroic tank man recently when Howard not like was speaking at a recent conference and you were you were booing him, you're a solo brewer and I want to play for you his rendition of what

happened on Fox News. Basically a very left set of talks where someone said we need a new form of

“capitalism which I think is another way to say communism and then they let me speak at the end.”

Then I gave a three minute talk and I just talked about my outfit and the end of my talk. One person out of the 200 yelled out booed. So I went over and I'm like who booed and it's Al Gore and I go to I look at my go really and he goes boo. And I'm like, boo. Is that true? Well, part of it. No, it's not true, but it was an interesting experience to him. You know, President Trump brought the Ludnick and several others with him to the Davos meeting at a time

when the U.S. is Trump is trying to split the U.S. off from our historic partners in Western Europe and elsewhere. And anyway, Ludnick was surprisingly outright insulting to our hosts there in the dinner. That's really kind of what offended me. I didn't interrupt his speech in any way, but you know, I looked around in this respectful boo at the end. No, I just felt like, you know,

“I had made no secret of fact that I think that Trump groups whole approach to climate is just”

utterly insane and for him to stand and repeat those falsehoods anyway. I just expressed what I felt and it was interesting after that because I got up and left and essentially everybody did. Even though the dessert course remained and there was another speaker, but everybody, everybody left. And anyway, a small thing, but I kind of think boo is a nice thing. One of my close friends, one of my close friends, or wrote me and said, it was not elegant, but it was eloquent.

Yeah, there you go. I, okay, so I think it's about the nicest thing you could do for our button. I can tell you could have held up a sign, what happened on Epstein Island. A lot of potential protests for our commerce secretary, but we'll move on to the climate stuff. As I mentioned, so it's a 20-year anniversary, we're just kind of crazy time flies. And you know, there's so much going on the news with Trump from time to time and I feel sometimes bad that on the show like we

don't check in enough about like what is happening on the climate issue. And I guess those couple of months ago now David Wallace Wells on and was just, you know, who'd written a great book on climate. I just said, for those of us who aren't, you know, following the science journals, like, get us up to speed. And so I guess I would kind of want to start there with you. Like thinking back to 20 years ago, when the inconvenient truth came out, like where are we now as

compared to what your worries were, what the possibilities were, you know, what's the, what's the

status of the climate? Yeah. Well, first of all, Tim, thank you very much for mentioning this

training in Nashville, May 1st and May 2nd, the climate reality project dot org is where you can sign up. No charge, totally free. You'll learn the latest and best facts. All the latest evidence on what's causing the climate crisis, what the solutions are and they're increasingly available and affordable and superior. And you'll be able to network with people who agree with you and and find

this coming Saturday, just a few days, days from now. Are you going to go to one of the no kings

“really? I'm hoping to, I'm going to see how it works out, but I just think it's really important”

for people to come out. I talked about 11 people can go check that out on our YouTube feed about what's coming. Yeah, he's been his wife, both brilliant and joy-working with him. But anyway, back to your important question, and the last 20 years, we've seen increased global warming pollution emitted into the sky and the heat trapped by the accumulated amount, you know, it goes up there and stays there for quite a long time, unfortunately. And the accumulated

amount now traps as much extra heat each day as would be released by 750,000 Hiroshima class atomic bombs exploding every day on the earth. It's hard to express this and numbers that

“are accessible and comprehensible, but the amount of harm being done is amazing. By the way,”

behind me what you see there is the thin blue line, that's a picture taken from the space station. And that thin blue line is where all the oxygen is, and that's where all of the global warming pollution hangs out. It just is stuffed into that thin blue line. And here's the thing. That line is so thin that if you could drive a car straight up in the air at interstate highway speeds, you'd get to the top of that blue line in about five minutes. It's really

shockingly thin, you could walk it in an hour. And that's where we're putting another 175

million tons there every single day, and it keeps adding up, and the harms are

“have been adding up as well. And you know, at the same time during these last 20 years,”

we have seen a truly dramatic, nearly miraculous change in patterns of the global economy, whereby now every year we're investing twice as much in renewable energy sources that don't create pollution. As we are continuing to invest in fossil fuels, then now the bad news is that we're still seeing all this investment in fossil fuels. But the good news is that we're seeing the dramatic change unfold in the real world. The climate policy discussion and those proposals

that we're in a climate policy recession now led by Trump. But in the real world, these changes are moving very quickly. I'll give you one quick example. If you look at all of the new electricity generation installed worldwide last year, we have all these discussions about nuclear and gas and coal still going and so forth, how what percentage of all the new electricity was renewable

last year? The answer is 92.5%. I mean, it's just, you know, where the future is concerned,

it's game over. We're going to win this. But in the U.S., it was 90% and if you include rooftop solar, it was 92% in the U.S. last year. That's me. I chimed in. I did a rooftop last year. It was part of the 92. Good for you. Part of the two, I guess. Good for you. As the Australia say, good on you. In the state of Texas, the home of the oil and gas industry in the United States, 80% of all the new electricity capacity was solar and win and the majority of that solar.

So, you know, on the next biggest source of the emissions is transportation cars, trucks, planes, etc. And yet, from a standing start up until December of this past year, in that

month, 29% of all new vehicles so worldwide are now EVs. In China, 60%. The tram line is amazing.

And in countries, you might not expect like Ethiopia and Nepal. They're going to 100% EVs. It just makes sense. And so this sustainability revolution is still gaining momentum. But put these two halves together. More pollution, unfortunately, a failure on policy, but the solutions are growing rapidly. When you put them together, the crisis is still getting worse quicker than we are assembling the solutions and implementing the solutions. But we're gaining. And as I said before, we're going

to win this. The only question is whether we will win it in time to avoid going over some

fiction movies like the Gulf Stream shutting down for God's sake. But it's real because the

“scale of this is just so unprecedented. And I could go through the rest of it, but we want not going to”

know. Let's do it. Let's go to the rest of it through the context of this. One thing that I worry, obviously I worry about the substance of the policy itself. But you see a lot, particularly in the younger generations, what they call "dumerism" about climate, like the sense that it's already lost. These tripwires are going to be hit. So I shouldn't have kids, I shouldn't worry. It brings a very negative kind of worldview. And obviously there's a lot to be negative about. But I'm kind of wondering,

you know, it seems like you have a more sort of balanced view on that. Like how far are we away from the more "dumer" vantage point on this? And is it avoidable? Yeah, thank you so much. So such a well-framed question. You know, back in my first movie, 20 years ago, I noted that there were some people who went from denial to despair without pausing on the intermediary step of actually doing something about the rises that we're facing. And that tendency is still around.

I wouldn't say that most people are doing that at all because people are a participant. You just

got your solar. I mean, they're millions, and 18 years later. Finally, I never. Well, we've all

got a long way to go still. But I do think that the element of despair is a real challenge for sure. And you know, the first person back in the 1960s have this saying that I'm about to share with you, you've heard it before, it was Joan by S. The antidote to despair is action. And we've heard that in the permutation, the antidote to climate despair is climate action. And it really is true. And enough people are acting that we are beginning to see a turnaround. And if I could kind

of frame it in the scale of the question you asked at him, just imagine for a moment what it could be like for this young generation, these young generations to come to believe in the importance of a shared mission to save humanity's future. It sounds like such a vast challenge that that in itself triggers some people to despair. And it also makes some people disbelieve that it's possible. But you know, I had an experience. I'm much older than you, of course. And back

when I was quite young, I was thrilled when President John F. Kennedy announced the challenge of putting a person on the moon in 10 years and bringing them back safely. My whole generation was

“the whole country was not everybody agreed with it, even back then. But I do, in fact, I remember”

hearing people say, there's a lot of money we shouldn't do that, what's the point, all of that. And it's probably not going to work anyway. But eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong said foot on the moon. And in the moment when he did so in Houston, in mission control, there was a great cheer that went up. And the average age of the systems engineers in that room,

who cheered was 26 years old. Which means that when they first heard that challenge,

they were 18 years old. They changed their careers, many of them. They changed the plot of their life. I hear that now among so many young people who are trying to gear up to help solve this big challenge. And I think that, you know, the interference in clear and honest communication about this on the part of the fossil fuel companies has really been an obstacle to get around. But we are managing to do it. And this training may first in May 2nd in Nashville, free of charge,

the climate reality project.org. I'm sorry to repeat myself. No, I've been told to work. Is designed to get around all of the obfuscation and the phony messaging from the fossil fuel polluters and give people the tools they need and the networks they can use to really bring about to this change in a faster, healthier way. All right, guys, our newest sponsor is kind of like when you get your AARP card in the mail.

“You know, it's like, it's time. You know, you're not ready for it, but you know, you have to be.”

And you just have to embrace the linear nature of time and start to prepare yourself

hard to do that when it comes to the concept of the grays in my hair. You don't see as many right here

on the on the front facing video of YouTube. You can't see that many of my grays, but I have what my husband called this weekend lovingly, Ayamica of grays that are appearing back here in this area.

“And, you know, you start to reflect on that a little bit and go, what do you do?”

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please support our show. And, Tom, we sent you. Okay, so the dooma questions from my friends are what climate changes are probably irreversible. Like if we want to see the coral reefs, do we've got to get scuba certified immediately at New Orleans? Are we going to be able to save New Orleans? Yeah, the world's shallow coral reef systems are very much in danger. And, you know, the honest answer to your question is that there has been some damage, and tragically,

regrettably, some of the damage that's been done is not reversible. But the most dangerous impacts are still avoidable and preventable. In the view of the vast majority of the climate scientists who I trust and whose judgment has been correct, by the way, you go back 20 years and listen to what they were warning us about then. The fact that they were proven dead right, should cause us to pay more attention to what these same scientists are saying now, which is

good Lord Almighty, stop using the sky as an open sewer for this civilization, destroying pollution. But back to your point, these scientists believe that most of the, most of not all of the really catastrophic changes still can be avoided. But we're seeing the ice melt and it's probably inevitable that we're going to see Greenland go and the West Antarctic ice sheet go. Now, the pace with which that happens is still partly under our control. How long will it take to

have an orderly retreat from coastal areas that are going to be at very high risk of being flooded, it's already begun, of course. But we still can control the pace. Now, could the coral reefs almost disappear and then recover? I would hope so. But it's in the area where the information does not really support a definitive timeline for what's going to happen. We just have to do our best.

“So is that the case for invading Greenland then, you know, the concern about Greenland going?”

Are you intrigued at all by that idea? Honestly, just as past week, the news that the Danish government had put in place plans to militarily defend the runways there, it's just hard breaking them. I mean, as you know, when NATO's self-defense obligations were triggered and troops were sent by allies to Afghanistan and Iraq, Denmark on a per capita basis, laws more lives defending the United States when we were attacked than any other nation in the world. And we put them in a position

where they have to militarily defend the airport in Greenland. It's just, you know, there's, there's outrage exhaustion and that in itself is obstacle. But, you know, we'll get through this. I'm convinced that we will and I'm hopeful that in the process we'll see the emergence of a stronger,

a critical part to transcend this bitter part as a ship and start solving the day I'm problems.

I hope so as well. Unfortunately, we, where we are, we still have two and three years left of this, the little under that, and so I'm going to talk a little bit about two years and 300 in some days. So, just days. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And seven months until

“the midterm elections and you know, the term "bow wave," I think there's already a bow wave”

from, from the, the elections coming in seven months. And we've seen all these special elections and they've really affirmed the growing consensus in both parties that, if some dramatic

doesn't change, we're going to see a dramatic change in November. Yeah. I think in part,

because of choices he's made and we mentioned almost entirely because choices he's made and we mentioned Greenland and, and the tariffs. So, I think the most recent move in Iran has just been an unbelievable cell phone. I mean, I look at it and I think that it's a disaster across every possible metric. I mean, I guess the micrometric of like, you know, most military material bombed. Like, we're doing well at that. If it's like a video game, but from a strategic standpoint, it seems like

“a disaster to me. What, what's your vantage point about what this administration is doing in Iran?”

I'm too old to remember Laurel and Hardy and, and you surely are, but there was a famous sequence where one of them would say to the other, "Well, this is a fine pickle you've got us in." And, and I think that the country is saying to Donald Trump, "Well, this is a mellow of a house you got us in." I mean, we've got to find a way out of this as a country, and I don't want to see it, just as an opportunity to point out to the devastating mistakes that Trump is making in

he is. It's, it's really tragic. We've got to find a way out, but, you know, with him as president is, it is very difficult. You're lawyer in the Bush Gore Supreme Court case, David Boye's wrote this in the Wall Street Journal couple weeks ago. Trump's doing the right thing for the U.S. and we Democrats should judge the war on its merits, talking about Democrats should work with Trump to get an exit on this. That did make any sense to me. I mean, I hear your point from earlier

about how, you know, we want to get rid of partisanship. I think there are moments to supersede

“partisanship. To me, this seems like a moment for hyper partisanship. I think the only way out of”

this is him turned it around. Well, that's an interesting view. First of all, on David's piece,

I really like David a lot in them. I guess I'm glad I didn't read that particular article if it says you summarize. You know, we all have some news. We all have some news. Well, anyway, I like him very much, but for 47 years, including the years when I was on the National Security Council, as Vice President in the West Wing, including the years that I served on the intelligence committee when I was in the Congress. I became familiar as everyone who deals with the

geopolitical strategy for the U.S. does with the problem of the straight-of-horror moves. Since the I told him many took over Iran and took hostages from the American embassy. We've had all kind of war games and strategy plans. And they all come down to one salient fact, but cause the straight-of-horror moves has 300 miles of coastline along rugged territory owned by Iran. They can shut down the straight-of-horror moves by themselves. They can hit ships with missiles launched from

the backup pick-up trucks, and they can hide those pick-up trucks, and they can launch mines from dals, and they can do other things. So it's a prominent reality that should dominate, or at least be highly prioritized in any discussion of whether or not the U.S. ought to launch an attack on Iran. And according to the news reports, it was presented as you could expect. It would be including by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Kane, who seems to be a very capable

competent military officer. And according to the news reports, the President said no, it's not a problem because they'll surrender before they use that option. And I mean, I think the level of fear among his advisors may be such that they don't want to disagree with him. I'm just speculating here on that now. I don't know. But for whatever reason, that key exchange between the commander and

Democratic administrations have understood for almost a half century went wrong. And that translated

“into an astonishingly harmful mistake that is going to create a very difficult, already has created”

a very difficult situation. And he's faced with the option of snatching defeat from the jaws of Armageddon. And what I mean by that is letting go of the conflict and declaring victory and trying to make it into something other than a defeat. If he chooses that option, I hope he gets away with it in a sense that I hope he finds a pathway that's kind of an exit ramp, but he won't get away

with it and he knows that. So he's stuck. And unfortunately, the country is stuck. Now, things happen

in war. Once they're launched, it's difficult. But the Iranians appear to have established as a reality the continuing control of the theocracy with succession plans that have

“been uninterrupted by all these assassinations and attacks. They've proven that they're still in”

control of the streets. And in control of the country, they've proven a level of competence in their military planning that strikes fear in the hearts of the surrounding Gulf nations. And they've established that they can indeed exercise unilateral control over 20% of the fossil fuels apply the entire world and an even higher percent of the fertilizer supply of the world. And they've established that they can launch devastate. It's a very serious and damaging attacks on their neighbors.

So now Trump is responding by escalating his threats and having one ultimate him after another. And you know, it's not it's not working. Again, I hope he finds an exit ramp for God's sake. But you know, launching attacks on their on their civilian power plants is a war crime, according to most international lawyers. But would also trigger the response to against Israel against the Gulf nations, etc. And that could really spiral this thing out of control. So we're in an

exceptionally dangerous situation. But one thing I want people to focus on is this mistake he's made it is historic. And I want to focus on how bad the judgment was in launching this attack in spite of clear warnings that it was a mistake. And I want you to take that event and apply it to the climate crisis. It's everything else. But sure, climate is even it's an even worse mistake at a time when we're nearing truly catastrophic environmental damage on a planetary scale

to launch and pursue this fiction that the climate crisis is a hoax for God's sake. Last year 61% of the landmass of the earth had at least one month of extreme drought. We saw the downport just this week and Hawaii, which was far beyond what had ever been predicted

it was possible in the past. We're seeing 30 million tons of ice melt each hour in greenland,

every hour right now. And the list goes on. The idea that that's a hoax is an even worse mistake in judgment than the mistake. Now, Trump has made in in Cavalierly ignoring the military advice of the last 50 years to keep our country safe. Okay, great. I'm marking you down as a nail in Iran. So here we go. It's you and me on the no-side on the Iran War. Your former lawyer and my former

“boss, Jav and David were on the yes side. So we'll see how it turns out. I think that me and you are on”

the right side. Let's explore this. Let's explore this just a bit more, Tim. I mean, I just think it's an utter catastrophe. Everything that you laid out, I told you agree with, and it's possibly worse than you laid out because I think the unintended consequences of the spiraling not a control are hard to even follow them right now. And we're in a three-legged race with BB Netanyahu. So this is what I was going to go next.

I'm curious what you thought to that. You're debating the coordinating the the off ramp is also

crucial for Israel. The fact that they were developing the capacity to have nuclear weapons

“is a serious challenge. It's one that we dealt with in the Clinton Gore years. And you know,”

they say that toughest problem in American politics are the ones that reach the Oval Office cause nobody else has been able to solve them lower down. I found the category of problems that are tougher than that. They're the ones that reach the Oval Office and are left on the resolute desk for the next president. Yeah, right. Take on. And the slow moving acquisition of both nuclear weapons and ICBMs by Iran cannot be ignored. So there is at the bottom of this

a legitimate threat. But you know, the manner of dealing with it negotiations were tried into

previous administrations. And there's there are different opinions of course, but it seems like a more realistic pathway to resolving this. But in any case, let's move on from Iran.

“We agree with that. I said one thing on the Israel because I think there's a big question in”

Democratic politics in particular right now. And you are a strong supporter of the US Israel relationship in your career. Like obviously a lot of things have evolved in the last 26 years on that front, in addition to on the climate front. And I'm just wondering how you think Democratic leader is right now. It should be thinking about our relationship with Israel. That should be changing at all. There should be limits put on our aid to them.

Just kind of open question on your thoughts on that. Well, we've had a longstanding commitment to the survival and thriving of Israel. And after the tragedies of the Holocaust and not only that, that was the culmination of 3,000 years of persecutions and programs in various parts of the world. So the overriding value of supporting the survival and thriving of Israel. I think it is really

“important. I think that the question you asked is important, but another question is too. What is”

President Netanyahu going to do about American public opinion where that relationship is concerned? Because throughout the time I was in the Congress, there was a very solid bipartisan support not only among the elected officials, but among everybody's constituents. And I think that that needs to be taken into it. That change needs to be taken into account by baby. And so if you're a Democrat right now, you're kind of thinking about this.

You know, like, A-PAC has become a flash point in a lot of these races. I mean, do you think that Democrats should be wary of the relationship with A-PAC, given what B-B's been doing? Well, I think it's going to be different in each district. And I get the point behind all your questions. These are turbulent times and Vladimir Lenin, who I do not prefer to quote ever. Famously said decades go by when nothing

happens and then weeks go by when decades happen. And you could even say that on rare occasions, a year goes by when a century happens. And what I mean by that oblique reference is 81 years ago, the Pax Americana was established. NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank, the WTO, all of the global institutions and arrangements that make up the rules-based order and led to the huge economic boom of the post-war years and beyond. All of that has been put at risk by Donald Trump.

Again, his mistake on the climate crisis is even more serious still. But putting the rules based order at risk, you know, Winston Churchill had a famous clip. I've quoted a number of times you probably have, too, where he said the American people will generally do the right thing after

first exhausting ever available alternative. Everybody focuses on the laugh line that he put at the end

of that expression. But the, but the predicate, the first part of it, Americans will, America will generally do the right thing. That is precisely what Donald Trump has put under question. And all of the post-war arrangements ultimately rely on the conviction of all our allies and friends on our enemies as well that America is going to do the right thing at the end of the day. And Trump has put that in question. He has, you wrote this, I put this out in the assault of

part to you from that. It was about the, you were talking about the Bush term in this context.

“But I think it's even more acute now when you think about what Donald Trump is doing.”

I'm convinced that our founders would counsel us today that one of the greatest challenges facing our public is how we react to terrorism and how we manage our fears and achieve security without losing our freedom. I'm also convinced that they would warn us that democracy itself is in great danger if we allow any president to use his role as commander-in-chief to rupture the careful balance between the executive legislation and judicial branches of our government. I mean, that was a

prescient worry in 2007, but like the scale of that rifts, it's almost a measurable now compared to when you wrote it. Yeah. Yeah, it's really something, isn't it? And you know, last week, one of the greatest philosophers of the post-war era, Jurgen Habermas died in Germany, part of the famous Frankfurt School. And I'm bringing this up because I want to share with you a thought from Habermas's mentor, an older philosopher, who was the founder of the Frankfurt

School. They went through, you know, the Hitler years in exile and then came back and

or Dorno conducted a moral autopsy of the third right. And he identified what he said was the first

step on the descent into hell by Germany. And he said it was this, they converted and I quote all questions of truth into questions of power. And he went on to say they attacked the very distinction between what is true and what is false. It's ethically wrong, you know, every way to compare anyone else to Hitler and I certainly don't want to compare Trump to Hitler. But it's important to learn the lessons of previous periods of time when nations have become entranced by a

demagogic leader promoting autocracy because it's not just Germany in the 30s. It's happened repeatedly and again, nothing compares to the Nazis. But all of them have tried to control the way their people think and limit the distribution of ideas that they felt were harmful to their triumph of the will to their design to accomplish what they really wanted to do. And our founders understood that the lust for power is in its own orbit. And as one of our founders wrote

to the appetite increases with the eating. And what they had seen in their study of Rome and Greece and all of the monarchies that they were so angry at because of their experience with King George, they distill that into a unique fear of power being sought for its own sake. And when that's connected to a desire to convert questions of truth and to questions of power, that's really the

“foundation of self-government and representative democracy. And that's what's being attacked”

right now in a comprehensive way, Project 2025 and all of those who use that and other ideas associated with it as a kind of a blueprint for what they're trying to get done in a hurry. It really should inspire all of us to stand up and use our voices as Americans to save the spirit of America to save the essence of our American experiment. I think we will, by the way, I do too. I'm not a doom run this either. Truth finds a way. Like the reality finds a way and I think

Trump's experiencing that right now. And fortunately I wish you would have experienced it earlier

and we wouldn't have to suffer through a second term of him. But I think that the reality

of his mismanagement is starting to affect people's lives in a way that it's hard for him to

“use those tools to undermine truth. When we're traveling to Texas, I think for the live shows,”

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Ridge is having their once-in-a-year anniversary sale. It's happening right now. Head to Ridge.com to get up to 40% off. It's up to 40% off at ridge.com. ridge.com. ridge.e.com. After you check out the ask you where you heard about them, so make sure you tell them our show sent you. I want to tell you a little bit about tech stuff, because it ties into the climate and it ties into the democracy issue. One worry I have on that question about truth finding the way is AI.

And I think that when I look at AI, there are all these potential opportunities, discoveries and

ways that it can make life better and solve problems. The two worries that are most acute that

you hear. One I hear publicly is the climate worries. I'm interested in your take on that in the amount of energy it's using, particularly the data centers. The other one I have is just that it will obliterate truth, that people will struggle to understand the difference between what is real and what is fake. And I'm just wondering how you think about the AI revolution as it relates to the issues you

“care about climate and democracy? First of all, I think it's important to note the relationship”

between collective reasoning, which our founders assume that we would be able to use as our principal tool for self-confidence. The relationship between our capacity for self-reasoning and fear is the enemy of a reason. And during the time of our founding, Thomas Payne communicated that very clearly. And at one point said, we got to get this conventional conventional going because there's an absence of a general public fear. And once one arises, we may lose this opportunity,

a window of opportunity to have the constitutional convention. I think that Donald Trump is constantly elevating public fear in part because he instinctively knows that it interrupts the the operations of collective reasoning, which really is his principal. And he says the news media is that they're the enemies of the people. What he really means is independent sources of knowledge that use the power of truth to help shine the light on a pathway forward. That he doesn't, all of that's an

enemy to him because he has his own design for the future. He doesn't want any interference from

“that. And I think that AI could be Arnie is a tool that he uses quite significantly. I don't really”

note him whether or not our human resistance to being fooled is going to be triggered. I see some signs that it already is. I see movies and music performances and cultural events where keen eye observers in the audience is a way to make that say. And the producers are confronted with a, you know, a stampede away from the box office. And they say, okay, we'll take it out. Now, as it continues to improve, of course, that will once again change the, relocate the goal post

I fear. But I do think that there is quite a lot of resistance to this new technology and approaching on the essence of what it is to be human. Now, you asked about the climate impacts of the data centers. They're very, very harmful. It shouldn't be an occasion for doomerism, but it's a serious problem. It's a serious addition to emissions that have already been increasing. Now, there are those to give the technology of advanced AI at Stu who say that we are going to

likely find with AI's help ways to significantly reduce emissions in lots of use cases. I've already seen that beginning to happen. Now, whether that happens on a scale that cancels out all the extra emissions from the data centers, I don't know. But they have a political problem in locating these data centers. And of course, we have just had in the last few days really historic judgments in

of Facebook and others in what the court found, what the jury's found was intentional efforts to addict young pre-teams and teams with content they knew would cause them harm. Now, I bring that

up in the context of AI Tim because that's the first generation of AI, these algorithms that

control the attention flows on the internet and the consequent distribution of content. That's the first generation of AI and it has been devastating to so many people, particularly young people,

“but I think a lot of other people as well. I mean, you know, we have in-cells now, if you're heard”

of in-cells in the past, this body image is not, you're against in-cells. Well, I'm sorry, people should not be so of that unless, you know, I'm not interested. I'm sorry that the circumstances that have been created in part by these algorithms where some of these young guys have, I'm told, have to swipe left a thousand times to get one coffee with a girl that they want to meet. I mean, you know, this has all been analyzed in some depth, but the point I'm making is

is a bigger one. The first generation of AI has created new problems that are really quite

serious, and we're trying to work through them now. A lot of countries are banning social media for young people. I support that, abandoning the use of the personal devices under a certain age.

“I support that. If we can't find any other solutions, then those need to be implemented.”

But my point is, if in the first generation created problems of that magnitude, shouldn't we pause and take a breath and look at the challenges associated with this new generation of smart agents and models that are getting very close to human level intelligence, we'll almost certainly reach that level fairly soon in the next few years. And we're already seeing some layoffs of knowledge workers as the phrase is now being used. And so, yeah, it's a real challenge.

We're going to have to work it through. You knew some of these guys, the tech oligarchs, and you worked with Elon on climate stuff on Appleboard, Elon had a mental break. But like, what is Tim Cook doing? Like, why are they sideling up to this administration, given all the

“threats we've laid out on the show? Well, Tim is my friend, and I'm going to defend him,”

because he is a sensitive. So, do you go to monetary stock inventory? If you got invited to Malania's documentary at the White House, would you have gone? You know, I don't think he knew when he haven't talked to him about it, but I don't think he knew what happened. That's the same night. But I will tell you this, it's an uncomfortable subject just because he's such a close friend, and I should, I feel badly formed, because the rock in a hard place that he's in between

is really difficult for all of them, and so, yeah, I get the criticism very, very kindly. It's been disappointing. The cat is back. The cat food is back. The cat food add is back. Our friends at smalls are back. It's it's the sponsor here. The most about out the streets, because people are so excited that I've been bullied into having a cat. The cat is slinky. He's an indoor cat, a wreath is still around. Wreath is outdoor cat hanging out. It's a wreath

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plus free shipping. When you head to Smalls.com/thebolwork, when last time that 60 percent off your first order plus free shipping, when you head to Smalls.com/thebolwork, go make your cat as happy as mine. Can I ask you about another rock and a hard place when I was telling folks you're going to come on. I was very excited. I've been telling people all week, so I'm glad you showed up. If you hadn't showed up, it would have been egg on my face. But the thing that people

kept wanting me to ask you about was just the challenge of being vice president and being in that, being caught between your own political interests and your bosses. And I think we just saw this with Vice President Kamal Harris having to deal with how to distance herself from President Biden and struggling with that on the campaign. And we can get a little more joy out of this one. J.D. Vance is struggling with this right now. I think trying to figure out how to navigate

his own boss, his disastrous decision in Iran. What do you think about those situations and in the context of how you had to deal with that? What you've asked the right person to know, I'm a little scholar of the history of the Vice President. You know, you had a couple, you're boss out of few Pekodillos that you had to try to navigate. I barely remember them.

“Well, I'll tell you one thing, the key to making a worthy contribution as Vice President”

always depends entirely on the quality of the relationship between the President and Vice

President. And for most of those eight years, Bill Clinton and I were damn near like brothers, I assured him at the very beginning that I would be completely loyal and that he would never have to worry about me, you know, leaking information that would be damaging to him or whatever, you know, people accuse each other. And I kept my word. You knew I did. He kept his. And now I was quite moved recently when Mike Pence saw me out. It was at one of the two memorial services for Joe

Leaverman. And then this has been a little bit ago. But he asked if he could speak with me afterwards. And I said, well, of course. And when we talked, tears came to his eyes as he was speaking, he was so emotional. But in a way that really caused me to bond with him, he told me how when he was elected as a freshman member of the House of Representatives in the 2000 election. Three days later, he went to the joint session at which I had the duty of counting the votes to make George W. Bush

the next president. You know, it's one of the occasions where I use that quote I refer to earlier. I generally do the right thing. I exhausting every alternative. But in his experience, he said that that that had a very profound impact on him. And I had actually earlier received an email from a freshman Democrat who had been sitting next to him at the time. And he told me that it was very heavy on his mind when he was faced with the decision of what to do in counting the electoral

college votes when they were chanting Hang Mike Pence. And he wrote it in his new book. Anyway,

“that I think is one of the most dramatic examples of what a breach. But in the relationship between”

president and vice president can lead to and I felt very badly for Mike, but I'm a big fan of

his moral courage during the right thing. I love that story. Can we though be bad for a second?

Do you get at least a little joy out of having to watch J.D. Vance squirm and navigating that question right now in this moment? Sean Roy does link just below the seven deadly ones, right? Oh, okay. Yeah. It's it's V Neal, I think. It's been a while since I've been in Sunday School, but I think it's a V Neal. Well, you're a scholarship given being able to recall the category V Neal is superior to mine. Well, I try not to feel things like that. I, you know,

I think that both Trump and Vance and their entire administration are leading the United States a stray in a major way. And let me add one other major example of how much harm they're doing at the time when the entire world is shifting quickly to solar and wind and batteries

except of faster and broader. China is now dominating the most important business categories of

“the future now unfolding in all of those categories and under the leadership of Trump and his”

administration. We're forcing taxpayers to subsidize a doubling down on the dirty obsolete, losing energy economy of the past. Crazy. It's worse than that. We're paying a billion dollars to somebody to stop building wind to stop a windmill because Trump has some fantasy of unknown origin that it hurts whales or whatever. I don't know. You know, maybe it's related to his resort in Scotland having to look at windmills. I don't know. And, you know, why should we have to

care about all that stuff? But anyway, they are really seriously harming our economic future. By the way, we're still investing domestically in the private sector. The number one and number two jobs in the United States, according to the last Bureau of Labor Statistics, the two fastest growing jobs are solar panel and solar and wind turbine technician. And if we want to participate in a larger way in profiting from constructing a clean and profitable future for humanity,

where the U.S. continues to play a leadership role in pointing out the values that that most

“all human beings, especially Americans, feel are important to preserve. We need to get busy and change”

our direction and stop taking instructions from the fossil fuel polluters. Hello, you know, this reminds me of your ability to pivot back to climate. The important issue of yours, Zoran is doing this very well right now. You know, people are heckling him on the street, and he's just like, I'm just going to talk about affordability. I'm going to go back to affordability, no matter what, and you're doing that on climate and I'm charged by that. Did I mention the

training is my first and my stuck and then mash it. You'll mention it. Climate reality,

project. Or have one more training mentioned at the end. Okay, I have two more burning questions for you. Then we'll do the training again. Then we'll let you get out of the process. Do you look at the Zoran, kind of populist, you know, solution, DSA, you know, Bernie solution for the Democrats problems or on the other side, there's like the abundance solution has been put forward. I don't know if you're familiar with the abundance bug that's there's maybe some references

“back to your reinventing government efforts in that. Or could those two things work together?”

And how do you kind of look at the future of where your party's going? You know, I have a slogan that I want to promote as the slogan for the future and democratic party as an expression of what we need to do in this historic shift away from fossil fuels, affordable abundance, affordable abundance. Because solar electricity is the cheapest electricity in the history of the world. It's unbelievable. And it continues

to come down in cost. But why is it, Tim, that a lot of the abundance folks will maybe they have focused on this? Well, let me just put it in the context of the abundance dialogue, which I think makes a lot of sense. So many ways. If you have a solar panel in California on your rooftop and you're paying for the electricity, compare that to a citizen of Australia who has the exact same solar panel, same technology, same brand, same inverter, same software.

Why is the homeowner in California paying five times as much for the electricity as the homeowner in Australia? I don't know. Well, the answer to that is also the answer to a lot of similar questions. Why are people in the United States paying five times as much for medicine as people in other

countries? Why are taxpayers paying that billion dollars to one of the giant loan gas companies to

shut down a windmill that would provide cheaper electricity? Why are electricity rates still going up in the US when in Australia? Everybody in Australia gets three hours of free energy per day now. And the percentage is growing. Electricity rates are going down quickly in those areas that have made a commitment. They have affordable abundance. We get as much energy from the sun in one hour as the entire global economy uses for an entire year. That's abundance.

And the fact that it's the cheapest in history makes it affordable abundance. But we are so hogtied by the fossil fuel industry and their allies. They're way better at

And they've achieved a hegemony in all policy areas affecting the attenuation of their obsolete

business plan. And so you know, we need to take the value of both affordability and abundance. And back to your original question, I have been so impressed with how effective the new mayor is in communicating. And I read a column. I forget who wrote it. I wish I could give the person credit about the so-called sewer socialist in the middle of the 20th century who were mayors in a lot of a big American cities, especially in the Midwest, who call themselves socialist,

but became enormously popular because they plug the bottles and made the sewer function and

“the water works and the roads and everything. And I think that, you know, there's something so”

healthy about anybody who's going to take over his mayor and really grapple with the problems

that people care about the most. I think it was each idea. We can shout them out. That was a good idea. I'm happy. I wrote that. I have to ask that question because I was a great answer. Okay. Yeah. You worked this over. We're over that. I'm sorry. This is my last chance. You're stuck. You can just sign off if you want. But I have to do it. I would say probably like twice a year, you know, when I'm in the shower or watching the news and horrify it,

I just contemplate. I'm like, I wonder what what Earth II is like, where Florida hadn't done

a stupid butterfly balance on there. It's just been 700 more votes just for Al Gore and then maybe

he wins and then, and then, you know, he gets reelected and we probably don't go into Iraq and then financial crisis hits the Democratic Party and so maybe John McCain wins it to those anyway. I start to go down this imaginary path and I'm just wondering, does that ever happen to you? Do you ever just sit alone at night and kind of think about Earth II where the butterfly balance had to do with it? No, you're a very empathetic person, Tim. I pick that up from all of your work.

Can you imagine how much fun that is not for me? I can't. I can't imagine it's not fun and that's

“the question. That's why I'm so curious. That's why I'm dying to know like, I'm, but it's not”

fun, but maybe you can't help yourself. I don't know. I mean, the serious answer is also kind of a political answer. In this case, it's actually true that I'd focus on the future, absolutely. And speaking of the future on May 1st and May 2nd, in Nashville, Tennessee, there is an epic free climate reality training, climaterealityproject.org. Former Senator Bill Ferris, a personal friend of mine, former Republican leader of the Center is also going to join me in this training. We have the

greatest scientists and technologists and networking specialists anyway. Ask it, but ask Bill who you voted for in 2024 for me. I'm curious who you voted for. I don't know if you told us. The our friends at the Tennessee Hall are my buddy, Jessica, and I'm going to tell them to promote your thing as well to make sure friends are going in Nashville May 1st and 2nd. Tennessee Hall are hot. Oh, do you, I do too. Mine's downstairs. Those are great dudes are doing great work.

My final, it's a, more of a comment than a question. I just, I'm sure you know this. You're 77 years old. Spring chicken, two years younger than Trump, younger than Biden, maybe one more walk around the block. Well, you're Hampshire's nice this time here. I don't know. South Carolina Charleston. I do sense a kind of a groundswell of a real desire for another septagenerian. People are saying, go. And to hear it in a cornfield's vial. I, you know, it's work.

“We've had these septagenerians for long enough. We're kind of used to it. I think there's a”

lane there. I did too. And I appreciate you suggesting it. I'll give serious reflective thought to what you've said, you think about that. Everybody, the trainings are in Nashville. May 1st in 2nd. It's a kind of reality project. I'm so grateful for all the time for one of my friends in El Gore. Let it treat. Thank you so much. Keep up what you're doing. It really and seriously is extremely important. I'm a big fan of what you're doing. Keep it up. Thank you.

Thank you. So everybody else, we're back tomorrow. Let's see y'all then. Right down the street from me. Oh, well, God lives on my street right down the street from me.

producer Ansley Skipper and with video editing by Katie Loots and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.