[3:39]Hey everybody, welcome back to It's Happening with Velshi and Ruhl and like every week we
[3:44]have new information for you including an email address where you can send your questions
[3:49]to us.
[3:50]It's changed because we have a new network and in a moment Stephanie and I are going
[3:52]to tell you about the transition from 30 Rock and we were together for the last
[3:57]show out of the old place and our new transition to MS Now.
[4:02]But the email address is VelshiRuhl at MS.now, VelshiRuhl at MS.now.
[4:13]There is no question too basic or too simple, A we want to answer your question and B really
[4:19]helps us to know what folks are thinking Steph.
[4:21]There's definitely questions that are too hard and when they are too hard we're going
[4:24]to tell you and we may have to get back to you next week or we're going to bring
[4:27]in experts that are outside of you and me but I can say this has been a great start
[4:35]to doing this program with you.
[4:37]I do want to tell you a story though.
[4:39]I was in my kitchen about an hour ago and there is somebody here painting in my
[4:43]house and the person's been here for about a week and it is true like in my personal
[4:49]life you know Ruhl is my maiden name, it's not my married name and so the painter
[4:55]doesn't know the difference between my names I guess but I would like to think that I've been
[5:00]looking at him for a week.
[5:01]He maybe would recognize me if he was somebody who watches MS or MS Now.
[5:05]So I'm sitting in my kitchen and I said I got to leave I have me and Ali's YouTube
[5:10]show and he went you know Ali, Ali Velshi and I said yeah yeah and he missed our
[5:18]show and he goes I watch that guy all the time like what's he like blah blah blah blah
[5:23]and then he's like how do you know him and we work together and he said what do you
[5:29]do there and I'm like wow like I really need to consider bringing some of that TV
[5:35]makeup home with me or I got to get more people watching TV at 11 o'clock but the
[5:40]guy has been in my house for a week and when he just heard me say I have to do
[5:45]a show with Ali he all of a sudden his head spinning he runs into the kitchen
[5:49]tell me what he's like how do you know the guy and it was my husband was laughing his
[5:53]focus off and I'm trying to explain that I'm hosting a show with you it was
[5:57]like right we mean you're hosting a show I'm like yeah I actually do five
[6:01]nights a week and I sometimes I'm on with Ali it was that's why ringy for
[6:06]me but man you have a super fan in my house right now I love it I love
[6:09]it well we got a lot of stuff today you know we like to talk about the
[6:12]stuff that's the at the intersection of economics and politics but it all
[6:15]kind of is including the Jeffrey Epstein story in fact it's starting to
[6:20]look like that's got a lot to do with money and not having money and who's
[6:23]got money and what you can get if you have a lot of money but there have
[6:26]been a million developments on that there have been a million developments
[6:30]in the effort to distract from from the Epstein the so-called Epstein files
[6:34]which we'll talk to you about we'll talk about where that is and there
[6:37]have been a lot of activity at the White House with a lot of people with
[6:41]a lot of money and we want to sort of talk about the fact what influence
[6:45]that has on the world on your investments on your stocks and on
[6:49]regulation even if you're not invested in anything correct how it impacts your
[6:54]life in our economy Ali I would say you've mentioned all these different
[6:58]things that are in the news the thing that sticks out to me this week
[7:01]and I think people don't think of this story as one that relates to
[7:06]business but to me that it does it was the meeting that the president had
[7:10]yesterday with Saudi's crown prince MBS and when an ABC reporter Mary Bruce
[7:17]effectively and accurately did her job and asked the president about his
[7:23]family's business ties in Saudi Arabia and asked MBS about the killing of
[7:29]Jamal Khashoggi the president more than chastised her he went after her
[7:33]he called her insubordinate and first let's start when the president is
[7:37]calling a reporter insubordinate does he either have no regard for or not
[7:40]understand how the first amendment works and we I think we have the sound
[7:44]let's play now let's listen to it
[7:50]it's not the question that I mind it's your attitude I think you are a
[7:55]terrible reporter as far as the Epstein files is I have nothing to
[8:00]do with Jeffrey Epstein I threw him out of my club many years ago
[8:03]wild it's it's it's wild that that kind of thing good on Mary Bruce by the way
[8:10]who's a great reporter and it's it's not your job to like we're not
[8:14]subordinate or insubordinate like that's not that's not our job she
[8:17]doesn't work for the president the United States but that's the the thing
[8:20]he's trying to convey right here by the way he called another reporter
[8:23]piggy on on on Air Force One like it's quiet quiet you know what it's
[8:31]so unbelievable you know and I say this you may or may not know this alley but
[8:36]Miss Piggy is has been my number one female icon since I was a child so you
[8:41]rarely even hear the word but let's play the president saying it I don't
[8:52]hear him do you hear me here because he pointing his finger and thank you
[8:57]you can almost read his lips but let's do it one more time let's try it one
[8:59]more wow quiet I mean look at what point do you write the stuff off or say hey
[9:16]this is actually kind of dangerous to a free press right we don't want to
[9:19]take advantage of the fact that we actually have a First Amendment that
[9:21]guarantees the freedom of the press and that that press does not work for the
[9:24]government you can have whatever views you want in in the press but you
[9:28]don't work for the government through the history of newspapers in this
[9:30]country people have had views in favor of Republicans or Democrats or
[9:33]conservatives or liberals that's very different from this concept of you
[9:37]being accountable or the president doesn't like your question or the
[9:40]president doesn't like your attitude it's it's why the president for
[9:44]example likes MBS so much because in places like Saudi Arabia the press
[9:50]can't ask questions like that but but to me this is the part besides it
[9:54]being you know beneath the the beneath the the the presidency to speak to
[10:00]someone like that beside that it's indecent the thing for me with Mary
[10:05]Bruce yesterday not just him saying you're a terrible reporter I don't like
[10:08]your attitude he immediately went to you know who Brendan Carr is the
[10:13]chairman of the FCC you work for ABC maybe we should pull your license
[10:18]yeah okay and here's why this matters we've been talking about this for
[10:22]months all sorts of businesses and institutions bending the knee to Trump
[10:27]because they think it buys them safety because they think if I pay this money
[10:32]if I do this thing he wants he's a transactional guy it'll keep my
[10:36]company out of harm's way because it's not my job to stand up for
[10:40]America or democracy this is their thought process it's my job to
[10:44]satisfy my shareholders my employees and my customers well yesterday's the
[10:49]example of Mary Bruce doing her job doing her job and the president says we
[10:56]should maybe pull your license that should put every business out there on
[11:00]notice you cannot buy your company's safety with this president what the
[11:06]only thing that makes you safe is indefinite obedience okay if you are
[11:11]indefinitely obedient to him then you will not be in harm's way and I'm
[11:16]pretty sure that's not how a democracy works yeah the question of what money
[11:21]can buy you or not buy you becomes prevalent as part of this the Epstein
[11:26]files right there's some people who are intrigued by the details of the
[11:30]case and there's some people who wonder whether this is just what a lot of
[11:34]MAGA supporters said it was a long time ago when when the Epstein files
[11:37]became a thing in the MAGA verse and that was do some people get
[11:40]different treatment because they're they're wealthy so the Epstein files
[11:43]weirdly Adelita Grajava from Arizona when she got sworn in as a newly elected
[11:50]representative in Congress she became the 218 signature we talked about this
[11:54]last week that forced a vote in the house strangely after going against it
[12:00]the whole time Donald Trump decided that he wanted Congress to vote in
[12:04]favor of it Congress voted in favor of it is it strangely Ali or are
[12:09]there two possible outcomes is he was saving face the fact that the vote
[12:14]went so quickly from the House to the Senate and the Senate unanimous we
[12:18]don't even need to vote if he hadn't have changed his tune it would have
[12:23]been absolute they had Lauren Boebert right not a not a senior
[12:31]lawmaker Lauren Boebert cornered in the situation room trying to make her
[12:37]sweat it out and and go against Nancy Mase and Marjorie Taylor Greene and
[12:42]Ro Khanna they went from doing that one week ago to a near unanimous vote
[12:46]that's making its way to the president's desk or and I want to bring
[12:50]in and I know we're gonna get to our viewer questions this is my big
[12:52]question and Lisa Rubin is standing by the president doing an about face
[12:57]saying release the files when first of all he could have released them
[13:01]all along the fact that he's willing to say that now and make such a turn my
[13:08]my concern my fear my reservation is that we're never gonna see these files
[13:12]Pam Bondi when she was just asked about it she said we're going to
[13:16]follow the law I'm worried that when we get these files is it just gonna
[13:20]be a thousand lines of Sharpie scratched out everything on it you know
[13:26]that has anything to do with the president Lisa Rubin law of Ruby you
[13:29]might know her as online standing by let's bring her in Lisa stuff I share
[13:34]that concern wholeheartedly and and the reason I share that I know and I
[13:39]know the reason I share that concern has to do with two things it has to do
[13:44]with the text of the bill and it has to do with the timeline so you'll
[13:48]remember that last week the president sent out this X post suggesting that
[13:54]a number of people needed to be prosecuted or needed at least to be
[13:58]investigated including Bill Clinton and Larry Summers and JP Morgan Chase and
[14:03]like he has done in the past what looked like a private message to Pam
[14:07]Bondi is splashed across X for all of the world to see and by Sunday night
[14:12]he drops his opposition to the Epstein files Transparency Act and I want to
[14:16]suggest to you and your viewers that those two things are intimately
[14:18]connected and the reason why is the bill has three sections the first
[14:22]section goes through all the different categories of Epstein documents that
[14:25]have to be released within 30 days in the bills enactment that's the good
[14:28]news then it goes to a section two that talks about all of the things that
[14:34]the Attorney General and her sole discretion can either withhold entirely
[14:38]or redact and redact is just a legally fancy word for saying you
[14:43]know taking the black sharpie whether electronically or manually and Xing
[14:47]out things that you don't want people to see now the bill says that
[14:51]embarrassment reputational harm political sensitivity none of those are
[14:56]reasons for withholding a redaction but among the reasons that Pam Bondi can
[15:00]withhold things or can substantially redact them is to the extent that it
[15:06]would compromise an ongoing active law enforcement investigation or an
[15:11]ongoing case and it's not this is important you you you first asked you
[15:16]mentioned this to me when you and I talked on Friday evening yeah and it
[15:20]all the pennies dropped at the same time when you said that yeah and I think that
[15:25]you know the people in the White House as much as we think that there are a
[15:28]number of people there who are ill-prepared for their jobs they can
[15:31]read statutory text no differently than we can right they saw that that
[15:35]existed in the bill and they sort of reverse engineered from that their
[15:39]willingness to do the about face recognizing that that carve out is
[15:43]there then he called for this active investigation to be opened and indeed
[15:50]217 minutes by our friend Glenn thrushes count 217 minutes elapsed
[15:55]between when Trump sends out that X post and when Pam Bondi says sir
[16:00]essentially I'm on it I've already dispatched Jay Clayton who's the
[16:03]interim US attorney for the Southern District of me same place that you
[16:07]know authorized and handled the Epstein and Maxwell prosecutions in
[16:13]2019 2020 21 I'm gonna have him do this new investigation and so I would submit
[16:20]to you yes the Attorney General has 30 days to return these materials I'm not
[16:25]concerned about the slow walk I'm concerned that the production is not
[16:29]gonna exist at all and to the extent that it does it's gonna be like
[16:32]reading a mash note because everything that stuff just said is gonna come to
[16:35]pass the big mass like oh like you know when you take letters from
[16:41]magazines and you paste them together like a like a like when a serial like
[16:46]when I'm watching with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston the bodyguard bodyguard
[16:53]has like I love you yes like a murder like you know this is my bad lawyer
[17:00]humor or my gallows lawyer humor sometimes lawyers say that when
[17:03]something is too heavily redacted and all you see is a random word here and
[17:07]there it almost appears like a mash note because there's no whole
[17:11]sentences to string together and I'm going to tell you that my biggest fear
[17:15]about this production isn't that it won't exist it's that by the time we
[17:19]get it first of all we don't know what we're not gonna know so if Pam
[17:22]Bondi withholds big swaths of material we're not gonna know what
[17:26]she withheld at least until a later point in time and I can get to
[17:29]that but then with respect to the redacted stuff it may be really
[17:33]difficult to read what is produced and make any rhyme or reason out of it
[17:37]but Lisa there was I remember reporting that the FBI a while ago had
[17:43]us had put together a spreadsheet yep and then on it it was every it had the
[17:48]number it had every time Trump's name was mentioned in the Epstein files so
[17:52]if you're the Oversight Committee or if you're a house Democrat or if
[17:56]you're not a house Democrat if you're one of the hundreds of
[17:59]lawmakers that voted to release the files can't you say I'd like that I'd
[18:04]FBI spreadsheet you can and in fact you're sort of entitled to a version of
[18:10]it under the third part of the bill so you know the the third part of the
[18:17]bill says after she finishes her production or her rollout of what
[18:20]she's gonna give to Congress she then owes them a report and one of the
[18:24]things that has to be included in that report is a list of all the
[18:28]government officials public figures who appear in the files that doesn't
[18:33]mean that they have to tell Congress exactly where they appear in the files
[18:38]but they have to compile a list even if those people's names are redacted for
[18:43]other reasons they have to show the House and Senate Judiciary Committees
[18:47]whose names were listed and there's no obligation on behalf of those
[18:51]people to keep that a secret okay 16 minutes deep Ali and you and I are
[18:56]not adhering to the purpose of this show which is to answer people people
[19:06]behind the curtain a little bit we have a new system which I think it looks
[19:09]fantastic and until like two minutes ago I thought it was the best thing
[19:12]in the entire world and I'm looking at a screen that has 13 windows on it
[19:14]and I got Brad telling me ask the question I can't see any questions yeah
[19:20]I can't I can see that they're in a screen but it's one of ten screens
[19:26]and there's there's no possibility in this life or the next with even thicker
[19:30]glasses than this that I would ever be able to make them out so I you can read
[19:37]you can tell Ali and I and we can we can ask Lisa let's let's okay that's
[19:41]gonna give us a question Chris on YouTube I saw him yeah okay so if
[19:52]you're scrubbing this these these documents we've seen this with the
[19:56]tariffs in the interest of national security Trump has sort of demonstrated
[20:00]that that sort of involves everything right like an ad aired by the premier
[20:05]of Ontario can't be say every time we see Donald Trump's name it's a
[20:14]national security issue he's a president United States we can't show
[20:17]anyone that can't she make that argument I mean one of the things
[20:21]that's really challenging here is if she makes that argument nobody's going
[20:26]to know she makes that argument because she doesn't have to justify it to anyone
[20:30]but herself and definitely national security is one of the exceptions here
[20:35]so to the extent that she withholds something in the interest of national
[20:40]defense or foreign policy or national security all she has to do is release
[20:47]an unclassified summary of anything that she determines is in the
[20:52]interest of protecting the national security but I mean you guys know that
[20:56]that unclassified summary could be vaguer than the day is long and so yeah
[21:03]she could in her own discretion make those determinations and the same thing
[21:08]is true with respect to you know the carve-out that says that she can
[21:11]hold back anything that would jeopardize a federal investigation or
[21:15]ongoing prosecution the bill says that she can only withhold things to
[21:21]the extent that it's quote narrowly tailored and temporary but who gets to
[21:24]make that determination the same person who told all of us in July in an
[21:28]unsigned memo that no warrant no further disclosure was even warranted
[21:32]in the first place so it places the discretion to make these decisions with
[21:37]the same group of folks who were like nothing to see here and and for that
[21:41]reason I'm dubious that we're gonna get the kind of disclosure that we
[21:45]all want and the survivors deserve and I figured out how to see the
[21:48]questions so I so I've so I've got them somebody says if someone implicated in
[21:57]the Epstein files decides to turn States F as evidence how can Bondi
[22:00]Patel interfere with that process now that's a lot of assumptions and
[22:04]jumps because because I mean just want to be clear the Epstein files is sort
[22:09]of a colloquial term right yes it's a lot of things it's everything the
[22:13]Justice Department has connected to Jeffrey Epstein so there's a lot of
[22:17]jumps here but if there's somebody who is the word that the person who sent the
[22:23]question in on YouTube said is asking is using is implicated I mean there's a
[22:29]part of the question that's also sort of hard to square with reality like
[22:33]what does it mean to turn states evidence here where the person you
[22:36]would turn to is the very Department of Justice right and so if to the
[22:42]extent that the person is going to turn state evidence and implicate
[22:44]people that are allies of the administration how meaningful of a turn
[22:48]is that to begin with I think that person is probably better off being a
[22:52]whistleblower or coming forward in the media to the extent that they want
[22:56]to turn states evidence because the way in which we used to see these
[22:59]things unfold is not the way this is unfolding at all Stephanie it's wild
[23:04]by the way once you get the full screen thing to work how easy to read
[23:07]the question so please keep your question well I keep texting our
[23:11]producer rad I not only don't have the screen but he doesn't text me back so
[23:15]I'm struggling here but that's fine he's saying he's saying he's texting
[23:19]um Lisa I want to ask you another question on an unrelated case this
[23:24]has to do with James Comey you know how disorderly the filing of this
[23:30]indictment was seems like it got more complicated in a way that is
[23:35]being described as a humiliation for the Department of Justice what's
[23:39]happened here oh gosh Ali this is bonkers and so I'm gonna do my best to
[23:43]simplify this but generally speaking when you go to seek an indictment not
[23:47]only is it highly irregular that the actual US Attorney themselves is the
[23:51]sole person presenting to a grand jury but there are certain rules you have
[23:54]to follow and one of those rules is that you have to have the
[24:00]indictment that becomes the charging document against a defendant voted on
[24:05]by the full grand jury and approved by a quorum of them what appears to have
[24:11]happened here is that Lindsay Halligan walked in and she had a three count
[24:15]indictment and she left the room and the grand jurors deliberated and
[24:18]they decided one of those counts they didn't think should be charged against
[24:22]Jim Comey the other two they were okay with what's supposed to happen
[24:25]in that instance is that you go back in and you start from scratch and
[24:29]you present again to the grand jurors the two counts that they seem
[24:33]to have been okay with and you ask them to approve a redrafted indictment
[24:37]and then they all sign off on it or they take a vote and then the four
[24:41]persons signs it but that's not what happened here and in court today on a
[24:45]motions hearing on an unrelated motion where Jim Comey's lawyers were
[24:49]arguing that he's been selectively and vindictively prosecuted the judge
[24:53]got an admission from one of the Department of Justice lawyers that
[24:57]what Lindsay Halligan did was when she received the what we call a no
[25:01]true bill on the three count indictment with a grand jury coordinator for the
[25:05]Eastern District of Virginia it basically created a new document they
[25:09]edited it they didn't give it back to the full grand jury they walked into
[25:14]a courtroom instead with both of the documents and the four they had the
[25:18]four-person tell the the judge there well we didn't approve one of the
[25:23]counts we approved two of the others and here's the two count instrument
[25:26]that we're gonna use to charge Jim Comey and the judge was definitely
[25:30]confused because among other things they handed her both indictments at once both
[25:34]of them had Lindsay Halligan's signature on it and she said miss
[25:37]Halligan like I have two indictments in front of me one has three counts one
[25:40]has two counts which is the actual document that the grand jurors approved
[25:44]and not only did she not explain it well she denied that her signature was
[25:50]even on both of them but if you look back at the transcript of what happened
[25:56]wait wait wait wait so hold on Lindsay Halligan then said that's not my
[26:02]signature she said I didn't sign both of them and in fact stuff I have that
[26:07]transcript still she was hers she was herself as confused as the judge was
[26:12]but had she signed both she indeed had signed both it's crazy to prepare
[26:19]prepare us for the for the political spin I can't even believe I'm going
[26:23]down this path but but but I'm thinking back to just a week ago when a judge
[26:28]two weeks ago when a judge told the Trump administration yes in fact you do
[26:32]have the power and the ability to pay SNAP benefits do it and just this
[26:36]week I watched the cabinet secretary when they were asked about it
[26:40]immediately turn and blame the judge and say it was a liberal Democrat
[26:44]judge blah blah blah blah blah tell us what the spin is because I want
[26:52]well based on the Department of Justice's representations in court today
[26:56]and again we don't have a transcript but I'm relying on the reporting of our
[26:59]very excellent colleague Fallon Gallagher basically Department of
[27:02]Justice tried to blame the grand jurors and say that the grand jurors
[27:06]were responsible for the confusion that is you know poppycock is my
[27:11]grandma would say because you can't expect grand jurors to be expert in
[27:16]the law relying on the grand jurors it's like the blind leading the
[27:19]blind right Lindsay Halligan is supposed to be the person blaming the grand jurors
[27:22]that's like Louise rule on jury duty like she's got her word search in
[27:27]Sudoku and you're gonna blame her right right the whole point of a grand
[27:31]jury is that these are this is these are your peers these are people out
[27:34]there they're not meant to come with any specialized instructions as to how
[27:38]to be a member of a grand jury so that's how somebody's asked a
[27:43]question here can Pam Bondi get disbarred for the Comey indictment
[27:48]there's a question in the question here that I want to ask you about this bar
[27:51]her who's the boss well the boss is actually the state bar to which she's
[27:56]a member it's the Florida State Bar so will she be disciplined by the
[28:00]Department of Justice absolutely not she is the Department of Justice and
[28:04]the same thing goes for Lindsay Halligan in a normal Department of
[28:07]Justice and they can't even believe I'm saying this because in the normal
[28:10]Department of Justice Lindsay Halligan would never be in a position to be a
[28:13]US Attorney B before a grand jury but in a normal Department of Justice
[28:17]you'd refer people like this to the Office of Professional Responsibility to
[28:20]determine if anything awry has gone on and whether they should be sanctioned
[28:25]for their misconduct but they are also members of state bars so Lindsay
[28:29]Halligan's case she's a member of the Colorado State Bar Pam Bondi is a
[28:32]member of the Florida State Bar I don't think that Pam Bondi has done
[28:36]anything yet based on what we know that could result in her being
[28:40]sanctioned or disciplined Lindsay Halligan is a different story though
[28:43]entirely because one of the obligations that all lawyers have is not to make
[28:48]misrepresentations or defraud people or be dishonest in the conduct of their
[28:54]responsibilities and that applies both in court and out of court you'll
[28:56]remember when Rudy Giuliani was referred to the bar of New York one
[29:01]of the bases for his losing his license in New York was that when he
[29:06]went on various cable programs and talked about the 2020 election that
[29:10]according to the New York authorities he was dishonest he was fraudulent in
[29:15]his representations and that in and of itself even though he wasn't even in a
[29:19]court was a violation of his ethical responsibilities as a lawyer.
[29:23]Was Rudy Giuliani one of the people that Trump pardoned or pre-pardoned or whatever he
[29:27]did two weeks ago? He was. So what does that mean for Rudy
[29:32]Giuliani being disbarred in New York A and B the whatever it is
[29:36]hundred and forty four million dollars that he's supposed to pay for Ruby
[29:40]Freeman and Shea Moss. I'm going to take a guess at this because from what you just
[29:45]explained to me Lisa being disbarred is not necessarily related to a
[29:50]criminal conviction. That's totally right although if you are
[29:54]criminally convicted you are automatically disbarred okay so in
[29:58]Rudy's case the basis for his losing his license was not attributable to
[30:03]his having had a criminal conviction and he still doesn't have a
[30:06]criminal conviction. To Steph's question though about Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss
[30:09]he actually reached a settlement with them last year after they had proceeded
[30:13]to chase him through the bankruptcy courts of New York and back through
[30:16]the Southern District in an effort to collect. You guys might remember that
[30:20]one of the things that the estate had to seize was his framed Joe DiMaggio
[30:24]jersey or and like various watches that belonged to his grandfather and
[30:28]his New York City apartment right? Correct and amidst all of that
[30:33]craziness Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss reached an undisclosed settlement with
[30:37]Rudy Giuliani so that civil litigation is over to the extent that the pardon
[30:42]is effective anywhere it would be with respect to any crime that Rudy could be
[30:46]charged with and we know that he was an uncharged co-conspirator and the
[30:50]federal election interference case that was before Judge Chetkin and
[30:53]then dismissed but also the argument that folks like Ed Martin who is now
[30:58]at the Department of Justice are making is that state authorities
[31:01]including those in Georgia had no right to charge Rudy Giuliani with any crime
[31:05]because to the extent that he committed a crime with respect to January 6th and
[31:12]the big lie it implicated federal proceedings and therefore the
[31:15]Supremacy Clause should you know prevent the state of Georgia and its
[31:20]various law enforcement officials from charging people like him. Here's my
[31:25]non-legal question Stephanie in that the way you asked the
[31:29]question about Rudy Giuliani was Rudy Giuliani one of those people who was
[31:32]this is the normalization of using pardon power right that that we're not
[31:37]even a hundred percent sure we kind of think somewhere in this this blizzard
[31:40]of news somebody brought up Rudy Giuliani and a pardon and it's gone
[31:44]from the news cycle already and when that becomes normal that that that
[31:49]can happen one of these days is gonna happen with with with what's
[31:53]her name with with Ghislaine Maxwell right there'd be some kind of
[31:55]commutation and and it's just gonna be buried under 16 other things that
[31:59]Donald Trump has done in the last 48 hours and and people are gonna wonder
[32:02]should I concentrate on that or not it's not so much a legal issue it's
[32:07]a we can't even process all this okay but this is what I think and and
[32:12]Lisa my question to you we I'm sure we have more questions but again I
[32:15]can't see them let's say let's go I want to go back to Ghislaine
[32:18]excuse me the Epstein files yeah let's say what we get in 30 days is
[32:24]is a bunch of scribble what if what if there's nothing in it and what if you
[32:29]keep the they keep having to fight and push
[32:31]for more and more information on one hand
[32:35]maybe this is a political question for you Ali on one hand
[32:38]will the American people be so fatigued
[32:42]right and I take you back to I don't know the Mueller investigation
[32:45]when if you actually read all 200 plus pages of the
[32:50]it was damning but most people didn't and Bill Barr reframed it in two pages
[32:56]and said nothing to see here and people moved on
[32:59]or in this case are the American people
[33:02]because this is about the victims it's not about Democrats or Republicans it's
[33:06]about the victims are the American people demanding
[33:09]this so much are they so interested that they're not going to stand for
[33:13]Pam Bondi saying nothing to see here and the thing being heavily
[33:16]redacted because in this case you've got
[33:20]Republicans and Democrats who want to get to the bottom of it
[33:24]which is different from the Mueller report but you're really
[33:26]right your your point about the the Mueller report same thing most people
[33:30]don't read these things right I I I podcasted all the Trump
[33:33]indictments um because it's it's legal stuff
[33:37]right some are some indictments are easier to read than others but some
[33:39]are just legal they're they're they're legal things and and that's
[33:42]right once you've taken the the the you know taken the burner away
[33:47]from the why didn't release the files why didn't release the files
[33:49]it then becomes a process conversation Lisa and people don't get as passionate
[33:52]about process conversations but well the files are sort of dripping out
[33:55]it's going to take 12 years to get them all
[33:57]all the details released it it has the effect of
[34:00]of dulling the edge but hold on at least I want but but maybe
[34:04]Ali in this case the Mueller investigation
[34:08]was hugely important but it didn't necessarily connect
[34:11]with the American people the way this stuff right right remember
[34:16]there are hundreds and hundreds of victims the PSA that came out just this week okay those
[34:22]women who who who did that PSA and they
[34:24]stood up and they held pictures of themselves
[34:28]when they were 13 and 14 and 16 years old when they were abused
[34:32]that has an impact yeah that's right that's why Nancy
[34:35]Mays and Marjorie Taylor Greene got on board
[34:38]not because Hakeem Jeffries told them to yeah
[34:41]Lisa what do you think I I think there are reasons to believe this
[34:46]might go down differently than the release of the Mueller report
[34:50]including because in the bill itself there is this report required by the
[34:55]Attorney General to go straight to these congressional committees
[34:58]and you've got to and you've got to believe that the Democrats on the
[35:00]committee are going to release that but one of the things she has to say
[35:04]she has to give them all the categories of the records that she has
[35:07]released and all the categories of the
[35:09]records she's withheld she has to summarize all the black
[35:13]sharpie redactions that she made including what's the legal basis for her
[35:17]doing so she has to justify that and then of course
[35:19]she's got to give them and then I referred to this earlier the list of
[35:22]all the government officials and politically exposed persons that's the
[35:26]phrase that it used named or referenced in the release
[35:29]materials with no redactions permitted um with respect to those folks
[35:36]right like she can't just say oh I'm going to tell you who all the
[35:39]people are but I'm going to redact their names
[35:43]because again the bill says you can't withhold that
[35:47]information on the basis of embarrassment reputational harm or
[35:50]political sensitivity and I don't care whether it's a
[35:52]government official a public figure or a foreign dignitary
[35:55]those names are going to be in that report and theoretically
[35:58]House and Senate Democrats are going to want that to see the light of day
[36:02]now could Pam Bondi get ahead of it the way that Bill Barr did by
[36:05]releasing that letter and really mischaracterizing
[36:09]and sort of transfiguring the conclusions of the report
[36:13]maybe but I have um I hope at least that the way that this
[36:19]is drafted reflects some thinking about how that
[36:23]information is going to come in and how at the very least the
[36:27]department is going to be on the defense to justify
[36:30]what they don't give us so much as they justify what they do
[36:34]and then there's the other question of like I mean Lisa I do not think
[36:37]Thomas Massey and a near unanimous vote is going to stand for this
[36:43]no I agree with you the question is what he can do about it right
[36:47]and so you know when we think about you were saying
[36:51]the sort of back and forth and the pressure on the Department of Justice to
[36:54]release more is it going to be more than just a
[36:57]back and forth he said she said or will Congress as a body
[37:01]actually go to court to enforce this law
[37:05]and say no no no we commanded you we passed a bill that was signed by the
[37:10]president that orders you to share this with us
[37:12]and you've improperly withheld scores of material from us and I don't know
[37:16]the answer to that question there are a bunch of legally thorny
[37:19]and technical questions embedded in that
[37:23]but to your point Steph after going through all this effort do I think
[37:27]that Thomas Massey is going to stand down I don't
[37:29]and if I think that he thinks he could be the plaintiff in a lawsuit
[37:32]to enforce the rights of Congress under this bill
[37:35]I think he will Stephanie remember when you and I were going to handle the
[37:39]these legal questions without Lisa I believe I told you straight out of
[37:44]the gate I was not going to do that Lisa you are amazing you are so good
[37:49]and you you make things so clear and you that one answer reason I'm not
[37:52]sure this is going to be I'm trying to make the simple as possible trust
[37:55]me if we had attempted that we'd still be explaining it so when
[37:58]our producer Brad said do you guys want to do this
[38:00]I had a flashback of Ali and I having an interview last week with Forbes
[38:05]talking about MSNOW and talking about the show and I said
[38:08]you know what we are most known for is smart content
[38:12]and so when we when they said to us you think you guys can handle this
[38:16]immediately we're pulling the Lisa Rubin ripcord
[38:20]that's how we give the audience smart content we find where Lisa
[38:24]is in the building meanwhile I'm sweating the entire time being like oh god
[38:28]do I have answers for this pop quiz yes yes you absolutely did you brought it
[38:33]thank you my friend great to see you as always
[38:35]bye thanks for having me love leaning into Lisa's expertise she's always got
[38:39]the answers um the king of Saudi Arabia Stephanie
[38:42]no the crown prince I know I'm saying everybody knows the
[38:46]crown prince I don't know if anybody does anybody know who the king is
[38:49]he's the Mohammed bin Salman is Mohammed the son of Salman
[38:52]which would make Salman the king he's still there nobody's sort of had much
[38:56]to do with King Salman for a very long time Mohammed bin Salman
[38:59]runs the place um and he's very chummy with uh with the trumps and with Jared
[39:04]Kushner and he was asked about that alley
[39:07]he has been chummy with all sorts of American businesses
[39:11]yes and American uh investors and hedge fund managers because
[39:15]some speculation that he might be joining with Paramount in the
[39:18]bidding for CNN or something because through the he has control
[39:22]of the sovereign wealth fund and makes massive investments in all sorts of
[39:27]American businesses so there's lots of movers and shakers
[39:30]in the U.S. who would consider MBS their boy but he hasn't been
[39:34]welcomed to the White House since uh we learned about the the the killing
[39:38]of Jamal Khashoggi and was determined that it was the Saudis
[39:41]who were in charge of that so he shows up apparently the stain has been
[39:44]washed away he's sitting there someone asked a
[39:47]tough question and in amongst the super convoluted uh responses that
[39:50]Donald Trump gave they were so offended that they would
[39:53]ask about this they said you don't offend this man
[39:56]but Donald Trump in reference to Jamal Khashoggi said
[39:59]things happen do we have that sound happen
[40:03]uh I don't know if we've got it let's let's play it because I think you
[40:07]have to hear this tube to really get the feeling of it
[40:09]the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a
[40:13]journalist 9 11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office
[40:17]why should americans trust you and the same to you mr president
[40:20]now who are you with i'm with abc news sir you're with who abc news
[40:23]fake news abc fake news one of the worst one of the worst in the business
[40:27]as far as this gentleman is concerned he's done a phenomenal job you're
[40:31]mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial a lot of
[40:35]people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about
[40:37]whether you like him or didn't like him things happen
[40:40]but he knew nothing about it and we can leave
[40:45]wild even just looking at mbs's hands i mean he didn't even know what to do
[40:48]uh things happen can we just things happen
[40:52]things happen you don't walk into a bone saw that's not actually something
[40:55]that happens happen is what my kitchen looks like
[40:59]after my daughter says can i make pancakes for everybody
[41:03]and while the pancakes are tasty my kitchen looks like a bomb went off
[41:07]that's things happen yes i really want to bring in david
[41:10]rhod to respond to what the president said
[41:13]is he there david are you there david as a reporter as a journalist who you
[41:19]yourself years ago were kidnapped by the taliban
[41:24]what did you think how did you feel when you heard the president say
[41:28]things happen i just speaking personally uh and as a
[41:33]journalist you know i was i was outraged i just
[41:37]um jamal kashoggi you know was a columnist for the washington post he
[41:41]was a dissident um and to have him as ali talked about
[41:47]um lured to the uh the saudi consulate in istanbul
[41:52]where they had dispatched i think a dozen saudi agents were there
[41:56]they tricked him into coming inside you know they killed him
[42:00]and then dismembered him with a bone saw and to have the president united
[42:04]states say well things happen journalists gets just
[42:07]journalists get dismembered with bone saws and to also suggest he
[42:10]somehow had it coming a lot of people didn't like that guy
[42:14]this is i mean we even describe him as a dissident but he was actually
[42:19]if he's a dissident we're all dissidents right we are critical of our
[42:22]our own governments as journalists should be donald trump said to mary
[42:25]bruce you're you're you're in support we're not in
[42:28]subordinate we we are critical that's what we do that doesn't
[42:31]necessarily make us dissidents it makes or you can call us critics
[42:36]but that's what we do and that's just it's just back to
[42:39]the first amendment and like that's people should have the right to
[42:43]cover their government people should have the right to you know say what
[42:46]they want when it helps him he defends the first
[42:49]amendment and so mary bruce is you know
[42:52]chastised and lectured in front of the entire family
[42:55]um you know kashoggi is killed and they're just simply exercising
[43:00]their first amendment rights and so it's just extraordinary to have an
[43:02]american president in the oval office just normalizing this kind of
[43:07]attitude except stephanie there's an obvious reason why it's being
[43:10]normalized right there's this is the intersection as
[43:12]we say of money in politics it always has been
[43:15]with with with mbs and we have views on things around the world and how
[43:19]they should go but when there's money attached to
[43:21]to something we we worry less well the president david i want you
[43:26]to comment on this was offended when he was asked about
[43:31]his family doing business with the saudis
[43:35]when the president went to saudi arabia months ago he toured
[43:38]this massive real estate development property
[43:41]that now might have trump branded properties there
[43:46]right he was there on state's business right representing the
[43:50]american people but now it sure looks like he was
[43:53]scoping out this real estate project for the trump organization how is that
[43:57]okay well yeah the latest reports are
[44:00]that they might be let's say 63 i'm just
[44:03]checking my notes 63 billion dollar saudi government real estate project
[44:07]and so the sons and the trump organizations might be
[44:10]allowed to be part of that separately you had a few weeks ago
[44:15]it was in september jared kushner the son-in-law
[44:19]joined with the saudi sovereign wealth fund for the 55 billion dollar
[44:22]acquisition of electronic arts the video game maker
[44:26]and then a couple years before that the saudi sovereign wealth fund
[44:29]invested two billion dollars in jared's company his family does massive amounts
[44:35]of business billions of dollars of business and
[44:38]you know that's my view too that this is fine because
[44:41]they're rich you know business partners of his so he's going to
[44:44]defend them defend the prince in the oval
[44:47]office and it's just part of this dangerous pattern of access
[44:52]uh we got a question from youtube why was nbs even there like what's
[44:59]what's the genesis for why nbs needed to be at the white house i get it
[45:02]they're making a lot of money off of him they're they're they're selling f-35
[45:05]they've announced they're going to sell f-35s to
[45:08]saudi arabia which israel's not happy about but again goes to show
[45:11]where there's money um it the old rules don't matter but
[45:15]what what what does success look like for nbs being in the white house
[45:19]it's a whitewash for him it's a whitewash for him but i
[45:22]want to say and i want to take a minute here
[45:24]to the real the most important thing that they should have been talking
[45:27]about was the gaza ceasefire okay which is on the verge of
[45:34]unraveling because there is no stabilization
[45:37]force there there need to be troops on the ground that are going to disarm
[45:40]hamas and secure gaza so it's not israeli
[45:44]soldiers and so the saudis are they maybe they have a right to do this
[45:48]but bin saman is not sending saudi
[45:51]troops to do that maybe you know but so they would be egyptian troops
[45:55]maybe some from the u.a.e maybe some from turkey
[45:58]but saudi should be funding that they should be pressuring and helping egypt
[46:02]do that and that barely came up in the meeting
[46:05]yesterday it was simply this talk of this
[46:08]false claim of 21 trillion stef we talked about that
[46:12]last night of investment in the u.s so
[46:15]okay aren't we reaching just nonsense i mean back in 2007 let's
[46:20]like i know things get confused with
[46:23]like how much the sovereign wealth fund has and how much they invest but
[46:26]in 2017 the first time donald trump was in office
[46:30]after his saudi visit he said saudis are going to make a 110
[46:35]billion dollar uh defense investment right that that that's what we're
[46:39]going to see spent fast forward when our government
[46:43]went back and looked between 2017 and 2019
[46:47]the saudis spent just over 20 billion
[46:50]so the president in my opinion has no credibility when he talks about these
[46:56]billions now trillions and how it's going to impact the u.s economy in the
[47:00]american people the only that's just one example and
[47:04]the numbers he's throwing around are so far out of whack with reality
[47:10]you had said right you said total foreign investment in the united
[47:14]states is 500 billion from every country in the world and
[47:18]he's sitting there in the oval office saying it was 21 trillion alone
[47:22]from saudi arabia but i'll just go back to gaza and the tragedy and obviously
[47:25]it's a deeply polarizing issue you know the 60 000 palestinian dead
[47:30]the israelis who died on october 7th this
[47:32]to end at trump's credit he put intense pressure on netanyahu and had
[47:36]this diplomatic breakthrough and the question was will he follow
[47:39]through and you know this is just a golden
[47:42]opportunity with mbs in washington right to deliver
[47:46]on gaza and it's so far it didn't happen
[47:50]and only five and everybody who looked at the deal when it first started said
[47:53]we're going to get probably through the first five if things go well
[47:55]and 0.6 through 20 are super complicated
[47:59]uh some say possibly unattainable but absolutely unattainable without
[48:03]without the support of saudi or and the influential countries
[48:06]around uh the region look i think it's fair
[48:10]we're going to say donald trump did get something done
[48:14]that presidents have of the united states have not been able to do
[48:18]for a long time and and alley he deserves you know when critics say to
[48:22]us joe biden offered the same deal it
[48:24]doesn't matter that joe biden offered the same deal if he did
[48:27]what matters totally totally get it and i i almost want to say
[48:30]if you if you stop the killing and try to bring down the animus
[48:34]uh it's even if you're taking even if you're getting some personal
[48:37]benefit out of it fine you know what people don't need to kill people
[48:39]that civilians don't need to be killed i will say
[48:42]the complicated part of this deal david it shouldn't have been
[48:46]but it's going to be getting past what we've already seen the exchange of
[48:50]prisoners and and hostages this next part you can't do anything
[48:55]without the stabilization force there's all sorts of things about
[48:57]development and policy but you can't get there without
[49:00]can we stabilize the situation in the region and even if everybody does it
[49:03]right it's still going to be wildly
[49:06]controversial to the people in the region who don't necessarily want
[49:09]Saudis or Egyptians or Emiratis or Turks
[49:13]as their police force or their security force this is fraught with problems that
[49:16]do need to be worked out it yes and then again that's what's so
[49:21]frustrating with this opportunity to to get the Saudis to help and to get
[49:25]that force together because every day that passes there's more incidents
[49:30]happening there's there's pressure from the Israeli right that wants this
[49:33]whole thing to be derailed and again Trump to his
[49:36]credit put enormous pressure he must have
[49:38]on Netanyahu to get him to even agree to this ceasefire but now that the
[49:42]hostages have been released and I know there's still some
[49:44]bodies that are on both sides that are trying to be recovered that
[49:47]political pressure is easing so every day is pressure
[49:51]and this whole visit as far as so far again
[49:55]seems like it didn't address Gaza at all thank you
[49:58]um David great to see you as always thank you my friend we always
[50:01]appreciate you uh and your your unique insights
[50:04]into the situation David wrote uh thank you Stephanie to to
[50:08]David's point the main thing may not have been achieved the
[50:12]discussions about Gaza but there was a lot of business that
[50:15]seemed to have been done at least the the feeling of vibes of a lot of
[50:18]people getting together spending time at the
[50:20]White House chumming it up with MBS and Trump including
[50:23]Elon Musk who hasn't been seen around those parts for a while
[50:27]no Elon Musk who if you're you know the thing that's been on my mind
[50:30]over the last few weeks is that letter that over a hundred public
[50:34]figures signed warning about AI super intelligence
[50:39]the desperate need for regulation two years ago when a letter like
[50:43]that was written Elon Musk signed it fast forward two
[50:46]years he didn't sign it and Donald Trump is surrounded by
[50:50]these AI giants who have scored the biggest
[50:53]win with him in that they are when people look at the
[50:57]stock market right until five days ago and they're
[51:00]saying the stock market's soaring soaring soaring soaring the entire
[51:03]stock market isn't soaring it's wildly overweighted these seven
[51:07]companies that are largely focused on AI
[51:11]and now suddenly the magnificent seven correct
[51:14]and now suddenly Wall Street I don't want to say is panicking
[51:18]but is getting worried that this AI bubble could burst
[51:22]and if it bursts given how outsized they are in the market
[51:26]given how all in this administration is could they be too big to fail in
[51:31]getting a bailout and I can't remember if we talked about this last week but
[51:34]Sam Altman from OpenAI had publicly floated the idea
[51:40]of well maybe the government would backstop them
[51:43]OpenAI then walked back this this claim
[51:47]but there's this idea from the AI from this AI set that you know what
[51:51]the government should back not just one company but this universe
[51:54]of companies because they're like the new Manhattan project
[51:57]they are this massive investment that is going to
[52:00]to make sure that we are competitive and that we win
[52:04]this global AI race but the problem I see with that Ali is
[52:08]it's only going to incentivize Elon Musk and the rest of these guys
[52:12]to take more and more risks knowing that the government is going to
[52:16]backstop them and when and if they fail it's going
[52:19]to make everything here cost more for everyday
[52:22]Americans so I think there's three takeaways here one is
[52:25]if you're watching this whether you have an AI app on your phone
[52:29]or not you interact with AI all your life in anything you do
[52:33]number two in theory when you have these new transformative technologies
[52:37]which AI will be and some of it may be for good
[52:41]the government should have learned from all of our transformative
[52:44]technologies to get on the front end of what
[52:46]properly and fairly regulating that looks like this administration has
[52:49]appointed an AI czar but it seems to be about the
[52:53]absence of regulation it seems to be about if you show up
[52:55]and you get involved in business ventures with the government you're just
[52:58]we're going to take a very very light touch
[53:00]and the third point which we have not addressed before Stephanie
[53:04]it is going to be like a utility AI will be as central to our lives as
[53:08]all of the internet is wouldn't it have been better had we
[53:11]thought about this from the beginning I'm not sure I disagree
[53:13]that government should be involved but I definitely
[53:17]like it might be a utility it might be as important to us as electricity
[53:20]I think AI is misinterpreted because people aren't sure how to use chat GPT
[53:24]or Gemini or whatever that's not the best use case for AI
[53:27]trying to figure out the best directions to get to your even
[53:31]if it is the future and it is the fact that it is now
[53:35]getting almost no regulation and it's going to have that much of an
[53:39]impact on our lives and what about this when the president
[53:42]early in the administration was surrounded by these guys
[53:45]he not any of them he kept saying and these companies are going to create
[53:50]thousands tens of thousands of jobs I haven't heard from any of them
[53:56]saying that what jobs correct and in fact not even just those companies
[54:00]I'm talking about when we hear from other big CEOs auto manufacturers
[54:04]retailers uh uh bank CEOs I don't hear them mentioning the jobs
[54:11]that are getting created what they have been saying over the
[54:14]last few months is all the jobs that they're going to be getting rid of
[54:17]yes the president I think in a precarious political position
[54:24]let's go to a question I can't see them so all right molly 119 on youtube
[54:28]says what's going to happen with the mag seven the magnificent seven
[54:31]stocks how much will that affect other stocks in the market and the
[54:34]market in general this is the perfect question molly thank you for asking
[54:37]this molly t1 19 because that's we're telling you that
[54:41]they're sort of separate that the magnificent seven
[54:43]is different from the other 493 stocks in the in the s&p 500
[54:48]but what does that mean well are all stocks going up because
[54:51]of the magnificent seven are stocks going up in large part because people
[54:55]are telling you that they're involved with ai lots of companies say oh
[54:58]we're really leaning into ai but i don't really understand what it is
[55:00]they're doing with ai but this is a good question what what
[55:03]happens the mag seven and what happens the rest of the stock market
[55:07]listen the mag seven have been holding
[55:11]first of all the rest of the stock market has not been actually doing that
[55:15]well people just think it because the mag seven take up
[55:19]occupies so much space it makes it look like the whole market is doing
[55:22]well like especially you know if you're invested in an index
[55:25]but if you look at individual companies outside of those
[55:29]they've many of them have struggled this year and if we see the mag seven
[55:33]uh stumble trip or there is a bubble burst
[55:37]it's going to have a huge negative effects on the overall market
[55:41]um i'm i'm worried about it there's more and more beliefs though
[55:45]that this administration could come in and give them some sort of bailout
[55:50]which would cause unrest here because it's almost 20 years ago what is it
[55:54]17 18 years ago that we bailed out banks saying they
[55:58]were too big to fail but remember but just let me remember that let
[56:01]remind you of this when when when it happened with
[56:04]banks even that was about subprime mortgages
[56:08]okay and a lot of people were mad about it even if it was necessary
[56:11]furious but beneath these failed mortgages
[56:14]there were hard assets they were there were homes
[56:17]and two of those homes came back if this ai bubble bursts
[56:22]if they calculated these chips that over time aren't worth anything or
[56:26]now there's the next derivative of chips
[56:28]or these data centers maybe we built them and they're not functioning or
[56:30]they're using energy and doing nothing
[56:32]you're getting nothing for it right it's more
[56:36]so that's a it's unclear what the underlying value is
[56:39]if we do see these companies trip interesting you mentioned
[56:42]energy usage which was which came up in the elections a couple weeks ago
[56:46]uh you see they're they're talking about doing stuff at three mile
[56:49]island i didn't i didn't finish the rest of
[56:51]that sentence until later i saw the headline and i said oh
[56:54]because microsoft is going to have a data center there or something
[56:57]and it's it's like now we're talking about and i look i'm a i think we
[57:00]should have much more nuclear energy than we do in america
[57:02]but i didn't think that ai was going to be the reason or ai data centers were
[57:06]going to be the reason we were going to rethink our energy policy
[57:08]but you know what it might be because ai is such
[57:11]a big energy suck maybe really useful and when it
[57:14]finds cures to diseases that you and i don't even know that we've got in
[57:18]20 years i think it's going to be great
[57:19]but yes no one has explained to me how it's going to create new jobs jd
[57:23]vance tried to spin it the other day about how
[57:26]uh the the builders are going to be like they're going to have robots
[57:31]they're going to be supervising robots and all that
[57:32]that was just ill-thought out and and sort of ridiculous
[57:35]but somebody needs to tell me justin wolfers the economist from the
[57:39]university of michigan makes the point that
[57:42]we've done okay with other transitions the transition is the hard part
[57:46]right we get out to the other side okay you know i was telling you i
[57:49]talked to the head of the teamsters union the other day he
[57:50]pointed out their logo is a cart and horses right they
[57:55]thought the invention of the combustion engine was going to
[57:58]wreck their jobs and now they are the largest union in the country
[58:01]it's how we're going to get there this administration has not articulated
[58:04]what the government thinks of how we're going to get to the other side
[58:07]of the ai revolution yes let's go to next question
[58:12]all right i don't have one but i have okay ready i do i do
[58:18]ready wait yeah i'm gonna if brad wants to give us one great if not i
[58:22]have one all right brad says there's okay while
[58:26]we wait i'm gonna i want to talk about something
[58:30]so we heard about it a week ago and i thought it was so preposterous it was
[58:35]out of focus but then we heard about it again last
[58:39]night from treasury secretary scott best and talking to brett baer from
[58:42]fox again this idea of two thousand dollar
[58:46]checks to the american people so first the white house that continues to say
[58:51]this is the go the the economy is in the golden age everything is
[58:54]fantastic prices are down why do i need two thousand bucks from the
[58:57]report came out today u.s grocery prices have hit a record high
[59:01]okay scott best sent was what then brought up last night this idea
[59:07]that we would use some of the tariff money actually
[59:10]more of the tariff money because it would cost 600 billion dollars to send
[59:14]everybody a two thousand dollar check we're only bringing less than half of
[59:17]that in from tariffs and i'd like to say that it's
[59:20]trillions but it's yes but bear said to him if we send
[59:24]everybody those checks isn't that going to be inflationary
[59:28]because the stimulus checks while people may need have needed them during
[59:32]covid were absolutely inflationary okay and scott best's answer was
[59:38]we're really going to hope and we're going to talk to the american people
[59:42]and we're going to tell them to save those checks
[59:46]don't spend them now i thought it was so bonkers
[59:50]that he said that especially because he said it right outside the white
[59:53]house and you know who is inside the white house
[59:55]the ceo of the robin hood trading app vlad tenet one of the reasons vlad
[1:00:02]is as successful as he is and why he's at dinner with the crown prince of
[1:00:06]saudi arabia and president trump is because robin hood has been such a
[1:00:10]phenomenal success one of its big wins was during covid
[1:00:14]when everybody got the stimulus checks they had a huge surge
[1:00:18]in new people opening up robin hood accounts to
[1:00:21]trade mean stocks and day trade so this idea that the treasury
[1:00:25]secretary could say yep we like this idea of sending these two thousand
[1:00:28]dollar checks again without getting congressional approval i
[1:00:31]don't know how you're going to get that done but they remember
[1:00:34]people were hurting congress approved the stimulus checks trump put his name
[1:00:38]on it and it was a huge political win for them
[1:00:40]they're saying maybe let's do that political thing again
[1:00:43]it could have huge negative repercussions when it comes to
[1:00:47]inflation and we've learned in the last 10
[1:00:49]years inflation's sticky once prices go up they may stabilize
[1:00:53]what you hope they don't go down no they don't that's a
[1:00:56]good point we got a question here which is a really good one
[1:00:59]is there a chance that ai ends up being more of a behind the scenes tool
[1:01:03]instead of the big consumer revolution everyone expects
[1:01:07]look additional technologies of the last hundred years right
[1:01:12]they're all there's some consumer facing application to it
[1:01:16]i i think in this moment that we exist ai is more of a
[1:01:19]behind the scenes tool than it is an app that you use and i think that'll
[1:01:22]continue to be the case the pose things is neat
[1:01:31]or or make fake videos or whatever it is you want or compose
[1:01:37]america right now is a country music song that is
[1:01:41]completed by ai former but yes i think i think when you look at the
[1:01:48]stock market's increases on ai it's the idea that they're going to
[1:01:51]be behind the scenes tools and and whether it's behind the scenes
[1:01:54]or front uh forward front facing it's the technology right you still have
[1:01:58]to make the chips and that's where the money is making
[1:02:00]the chips distributing the chips figuring out ways where you can make
[1:02:04]more money by using ai as opposed to real people all of which is really
[1:02:07]interesting but doesn't typically result in
[1:02:08]hiring more people ali i was with a major music executive the other night
[1:02:12]right after you and i did this segment about the number one downloaded
[1:02:16]song is this country song fully ai and i said is this a
[1:02:20]future and i thought he had a really interesting answer
[1:02:22]he said ai won't be the future when it comes to
[1:02:27]music and musical artists it's going to be a tool
[1:02:30]that we see artists use but look what people are
[1:02:39]whether it's music or sports so in it says and it's gimmicky like look
[1:02:47]this song that you like it's a hundred percent ai
[1:02:50]and he said in the same way that years and years of
[1:02:54]or electronic you know like like he said
[1:02:57]that changed music but it didn't is going to be
[1:03:02]a new technology and tool that's used uh that's going to exist and i thought
[1:03:11]that was really interesting yeah i think we're gonna i mean we're
[1:03:13]great stephanie if we would if we were just talking about ai and how
[1:03:18]it applies to people's lives not in the way that you you think it
[1:03:24]thing well ali and i were both recently
[1:03:27]where i had to reach out to a small business and ali and i just couldn't
[1:03:34]get over how detailed their answers were and how
[1:03:36]fantastic and i said ali i'm just amazed by by the
[1:03:43]customer service i mean that would be ai yeah look there are
[1:03:49]places that can help and i i don't think we should be luddites about
[1:03:52]this will be lost that's where government
[1:03:57]and society comes in to say in this transition to whatever the future is
[1:04:00]which might be very bright as it relates to ai people will lose
[1:04:04]their jobs how are we going to treat but that
[1:04:08]missed and productive about it not ai is the enemy
[1:04:12]or ai is the best right i think there are people who
[1:04:17]hate it and who think it's the best thing in the world that are getting
[1:04:20]rich off of it in the middle right okay but here's
[1:04:24]why every day they don't talk about it
[1:04:26]okay progressing we're moving forward we're working
[1:04:32]with technology right well the people who absolutely love
[1:04:38]something or the people who absolutely hate
[1:04:41]yes that's the same these are excellent questions by the way thank you for
[1:04:47]for continuing to send them in i want to know why what happens to the
[1:04:52]economy if scotus rules that the tariffs are off
[1:04:55]it feels like we might be that way very good questions donald trump has
[1:05:00]already said if they rule against him
[1:05:02]we don't even have the money and it's trillions of dollars which
[1:05:06]again you have stipulated it's not trillions of dollars
[1:05:09]b that's not 120 and 140 billion dollars
[1:05:14]but for for the u.s consumer here's the he doesn't go to the u.s consumer
[1:05:20]it goes to u.s businesses and up for months isn't going to get it
[1:05:28]and right is the car dealer going to give you a
[1:05:34]build up in litigation because how do they who are they
[1:05:41]that going to work we don't know i have sources close the administration
[1:05:47]overrules them that get ready this administration
[1:05:51]or you're going to be hard pressed to get the money out of them
[1:05:54]they will try to find ways to redeploy it elsewhere
[1:05:57]who knows maybe in the real world put the two thousand dollar checks from
[1:06:04]which is not an idea that's rooted in the
[1:06:09]or connected to the law correct the course report
[1:06:16]you know in a in a real world that money would go into escrow right it
[1:06:19]would you got to pay the money back but now
[1:06:23]we're already jumping the gun on that by saying
[1:06:29]and you're right who gets the money because some companies decided to eat
[1:06:32]the tariffs and and not through the millions of
[1:06:38]products that have been bought since tariffs have been imposed your cup of
[1:06:41]coffee that became more expensive like every get
[1:06:43]64 cents back on their coffee so this is a this is
[1:06:47]like the epstein files this is going to be one of those things where the
[1:06:50]answer may not be as obvious as as what i would say like the epstein
[1:06:53]files and every other thing lawyers win yes yeah that's
[1:06:58]going to be complicated um this has been fun i'm i'm loving
[1:07:01]this uh and thank you for your amazing
[1:07:03]questions that you're sending in it does really kind of help us
[1:07:06]stephanie because i think this feeds into our other work
[1:07:09]where we say what are people wanting to know what are the questions we're
[1:07:12]asking somebody asked a question we didn't get to
[1:07:14]what's the uh s&p 500 doing without magnificent seven i actually had a
[1:07:18]chart so i'm going to ask brad to remember
[1:07:20]for next week we're going to put that chart up to say this is the s&p 500
[1:07:24]this is magnificent seven and this is the rest of your stocks without
[1:07:26]magnificent seven so these are great questions when you ask us
[1:07:30]it makes us think about ways to answer and it makes us think about what
[1:07:33]really matters to our viewers and what to cover
[1:07:36]yeah amazing all right my brother and we are by the way we're taking
[1:07:41]next week off for thanksgiving uh and then but
[1:07:44]we'll be back the following week uh and hence we'll have a backload of
[1:07:48]questions you can send them to velshi rule
[1:07:50]at ms dot now i know honestly send us your questions as they come
[1:07:56]um we may be in obviously we're not we're not going to be with you
[1:08:00]next week but we may be in a position where we can pop online or pop on
[1:08:04]instagram and even answer them one off we want this to be a regular dialogue
[1:08:10]and right now there is so much in the news there is so much
[1:08:13]impacting the american people consider us your partners and your
[1:08:16]resource we want these answers just as much as you do
[1:08:19]so send us your questions uh especially listen
[1:08:23]you may you may have some questions you need answered
[1:08:27]before you head into thanksgiving dinner with some
[1:08:31]prickly relatives and coming off of thanksgiving
[1:08:34]you may sit you may have some questions send them our way
[1:08:39]uh amazing everybody have a fantastic thanksgiving
[1:08:42]now she will oh wait wait wait wait wait wait
[1:08:47]christy says i would like to know where ali velshi got his puffer vest
[1:08:50]that he wore on election night ali it was a gift the answer is it was a
[1:08:54]gift it was a gift uh it was it was uh uh but let me
[1:08:59]tell you thank you for asking about it i i'm trying to figure it out because
[1:09:02]some people really liked it and other people wondered
[1:09:05]as you did stephanie whether i was on my way i loved it barbecue in darien
[1:09:08]connecticut some people wondered if i was going fishing
[1:09:11]uh after the election results came in but it was it was it was fun
[1:09:15]velshi rule at ms.now for questions have yourselves an amazing week we'll
[1:09:21]see in two weeks but we'll see you on our show stephanie we'll see you
[1:09:23]tonight at 11 p.m eastern i'll see you this
[1:09:25]weekend happy thanksgiving