10/13/26: MBS Cowers Amid Houthi Attacks, Paxton Caught Partying w/Fugitives, Truth About Chinese AI

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie To Me. I'm Lexi Juanio, we're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa de Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my food days, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The True Crime Comedy Podcast, all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest. Ooh, I scammed them. What? I could talk to you for an hour. You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Scam Goddess! There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get worse with Kyle Pru is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptide, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your better getting closer, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. If you're interested in Blackmail, love, bomb, and cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something-something for a dastardly individual like you. Listen to get worse with Kyle Pru on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. So Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, continue, and Israel is actually itching to join the fight, but Saudi is like, yeah, no, thanks. We're good. Lots of updates there of things that are going on. We've also got Elon all in for Republicans, largest political donation in history. Also, with regard to the midterms, we're going to break down this whole James Talleriko alleged mental hospital thing that completely blew up. And we now have new revelations about Ken Paxton, who was caught in a video, partying with fugitives from justice alongside his girlfriend at the time he was still married a lot to say about who this guy is and the way that he operates. We're going to have a guest on an expert to do a deep dive into how China is viewing the AI race, something we've paid a lot of attention to. We're going to be looking at Hegsess plan to live stream and execution by firing squad, apparently Trump has not so hot on that idea. A federal raid yesterday targeted Ilhan Omar and what appears to be a politically motivated attack. And we have an author and historian on to talk about his new book. It's a history of Eugene Deb singing exit to the modern day social movement. A lot to learn from Deb's time and the way that he operated and interesting to see some of the parallels today. I agree. We're loving this new breaking points thing where we just have a historian on at the end of every show. I feel like that's how it should be we missed you in our victor Sebastian interview yesterday. So thank you to everybody who has been subscribing to the show breaking points dot com. We did have about a hundred and so people sign up yesterday. So we are roughly 10% of the way there to reiterate for everybody who is out there. If a thousand people sign up by election day, Ryan Grimm gets to go to the Madison Square Garden show and then one person who would have signed up will be offered the opportunity to go. He did get an email from some long time subscribers who were upset that they could not also be included because they've been around for so long. So we're going to go ahead. 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This is by far, I mean, a portrait of how bad things are in Saudi Arabia, honestly shocking. I mean, here are the Wall Street Journal details. How Iran backed militants are now tightening the screws on Saudi Arabia's crown prince and it is difficult actually to describe how much the entire Houthi campaign from 2015 onward was the brainchild of MBS. The way that he was able to consolidate power, find himself as the crown prince inside of the system and really be, you know, the chief architect of all of their foreign policy. It was meant to be a military campaign to showcase the strength of the Saudi military and to check Iran. As turned out to be is just like many US boondoggles to be genuinely a quagmire where they have caused genuine humanitarian disaster in Yemen. They eventually are forced to a ceasefire. They violate the ceasefire in the course of the US and Iran war. You also had MBS himself actually encouraged Trump to try and decapitate the Iranian regime. What they see now is behind the scenes in Riyadh, MBS is now basically being shuttled between heavily guarded palaces which include doomsday bunkers where he's spending some of his time and a hand-picked group of guards who are loyal to him only. I mean, he's basically got a Middle Eastern leader with his own like hand-picked Janissaries and Praetorian Guard which are shuttling him between palaces and bunkers while his city remains under attack and its own population is being bombarded with notifications day and night about incoming ballistic ballistic missile attacks or drone attacks. All while they are rationing their remaining intercept interceptors now some 14 people are dead at the Riyadh airport. You have hundreds of people who have been killed airport itself crystal is now shut down at a minimum until October 17th. The more that we learn about the devastating attacks in Saudi Arabia we are also learning about the devastating shutdown of information out of this country which basically is turning itself into some sort of a garrison state while Israel remains on the sidelines and wants to come in. And that report from the Wall Street Journal also details all of the business impact that this is already having on Saudi Arabia. I mean if we back up for a bit and in keeping in mind that the conflict with the Houthis and the conflict with Iran are nonally separate although they're increasingly tied together and I think this wouldn't all be happening if we didn't get back into this Iran war. Saudi Arabia reportedly was enthusiastic about the idea of the US and Israel attacking Iran. It's not entirely clear whether that reporting is correct but there are some indications and treat to party for example take seriously the notion that the Saudis were enthusiastic about the Iran war because they're thinking oh these are regional you know this is our regional adversary. If they're weakened and surely the US and Israel with their combined fire power can do the job we're going to be strengthened as a regional hegemon obviously that is turned into a complete and total disaster for them you know initially even with the straight form moves more or less close down. They were able through the East West pipeline and through the Red Sea and Bob El-Mandab straight to more or less continue business as usual with regard to that their oil production now that is all complete mess and disasters lost all kinds of revenue there they've already had to pull back and they talk about this in this Wall Street Journal piece they had planned this futuristic city of me on they planned an enormous cube shaped building in Riyadh and a desert ski resort. The total cost was going to run to the trillions of dollars aggressive they say for a government with an annual budget of around 350 billion obviously now that is all dead and gone and off the table we talked yesterday about this major oil conference that was supposed to happen now the CEOs are like I don't think I'm going to be flying into Riyadh anytime soon by the way the airport is shut down so they couldn't really get there even if they wanted to. And there's a major investment conference at the end of this month that increasingly looks unlikely to happen we think this is all going to be wrapped up in safe in two weeks time I certainly don't think so so this is turned into a complete disaster for the entire country for their financial situation for their prestige for their sense of stability and for the brand of the country as this sort of oasis for foreign investment that they've really been building up we've talked here about the live golf ventures and all the sports washing in the comedy festival. They've really been spending a lot of money to make this push to change their global image and make themselves this sort of destination for capital and events that is all dead and gone at this point I mean live golf itself has completely collapsed with their lack of investment. Exactly I mean don't forget this also included you know exp expo 2030 FIFA World Cup 2034 the Riyadh air I mean they had multi billions hundreds of billions that have now been erased probably in just a two week time periods really shattered the image of the country which wanted to turn itself into the new headquarters of Davos I mean they have their own world economic forum that they've been doing over there on top of that you really also see the changing geopods. The changing geopolitics of everything let's put a two up here on the screen Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. So always looking to bomb something ahead of an election, saw an opportunity here. He apparently from Harats has, there's just Israeli media reporting, Prime Minister Netanyahu is seeking Saudi approval through U.S. mediation for Israel to join the campaign against Yemen's Houthis, adding that the Saudi crown prince currently opposes Israeli to military involvement because of the likely backlash among the Kingdom's public. And you know, one of the ways that BB is apparently selling this behind the scenes is like, okay, well, because the United States can't come into the war, then the great is merely military can come in and can bomb Yemen on your behalf. But I mean, it does show how much of a bind's MBS is in. He cannot do this himself. He needs the United States military, the United States military can't come to his aid because they can't help him. They're completely, you know, strong up in the strait of Hormuz and they've got three carriers and tens of thousands of troops all just operating there. They don't want anything to do with another war in Yemen. At the same time, while MBS cannot do any of this via firepower alone, he was looking to, you know, his erstwhile allies, I was just looking this morning, remember, we had covered the Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, so-called defense pact, it's like, well, where have they been? You know, Pakistan, I'm reading this morning, they're internally deliberating. They're like, well, you know, technically we are on their side. Should we go all in? But that would invite problems of its own because of our own, you know, LNG and other things that we get out of the region and the Turks obviously are in the same position. So it just shows how weak Saudi Arabia has actually become. They've lost, you know, their so-called new alliance has not come in just yet as of least. They also had the traditional ally of the United States, which really is unable to do, you know, much of anything for them. And they're taking real hits, you know, one of the things that's come out this morning is there's a lot of questions fury in Saudi Arabia. How did nobody stop this attack on the airport? It turns out that so many incoming drone alert and missile attacks were coming on people's phones that they turned off the alert system ahead of that attack on the airport. People were complaining that the alerts were waking them up in the middle of the night. And so it was a reminder also for the people in Saudi Arabia of just how much this is disrupting your overall daily life. So they turned the emergency alert system off. Now 14 people in that airport are killed. I mean, you, you and I played the video here yesterday. You saw everybody on their phones. It's very obvious. Nobody who was there on their phone got an alert like, hey, seek shelter. You've got a missile coming your way. And that's if they were even able to track it. So that shows you, you know, how devastating things are at the same time. We're lucky to get that video out of the airport. Let's put a three up here on the screen, buried in a warning from the United States Embassy in Riyadh was this very interesting line security alert from the US mission in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Interior continues to warn filming, publishing or sharing information related to counter missiles and drones and their impacts sites exposes you to legal liability. American citizens have been detained for taking photos of recent events, visitors and residents are subject to local laws in Saudi Arabia. So I mean, you have our own embassy now, which is basically telling Americans of which I'm assuming there's probably what hundreds of thousands, probably working or living in Saudi Arabia. They're like, Hey, just so you know, like we can't save you. If you're out there taking pictures and to prop more, more likely, maybe not even posing as social media, sending them to your family just being like, Oh my God, look at this missile attack. You know, I'm living, you know, a couple of blocks away. Do you have any idea how many American oil executives, workers and others? I mean, these people have been present in Saudi Arabia since the 1960s. I went to school with many of these people. It really is crazy and you know, all of us, it's not just, it's not just we can't save you. It's they also are interested in not having these sorts of videos come out because they certainly could save you if they wanted to. They absolutely good, but they're not going to they want you to avoid these images as well because look at how the US has responded to attacks on our bases and our assets. We've hit all the damages, as long as we possibly good. So, you know, we're very much this is a, Oh, well, you know, this is local law. You've got to abide by local law, but the truth of matter is they also do not want these sorts of videos and images coming out because it's, you know, this is a top ally of the US. It's humiliating for us in a way that they're able to be attacked like this. And we're not doing anything and we're not likely to do anything. Yesterday, we covered him saying, yeah, maybe I'll get involved after he had flat out rejected MBS's previous requests for help. Now the Houthis are putting on a warning saying that any US involvement will result in swift and painful response from on Sarah Law. So and obviously they have a lot of credibility. So I don't think the US is too excited about getting entangled in any of this. And Saudi Arabia appears to be sitting duck. They talked about soccer, how they may have used like a drone swarm also to throw off any sort of missile defense system, but you know, it's horrible. Like you read about the people who were killed in this attack. It's absolutely horrifying. 28 year old Egyptian flight attendant like these are civilians who were who were killed here. And it's a terrible situation. Yeah. These are just normal people. You're trying to go about their everyday lives and they're literally being killed. What we see in the Houthi, you know, attack interestingly enough is there's a decent amount of speculation. Crystal, you'll remember that clawed report about how they basically caught Houthis and others uploading their targeting data to clawed and being like, hey, help me refine this. It's like, well, do you and I both see some pretty refined strikes that are currently happening? I'm not going to say it's all just AI. I'm sure Iran is helping them out as well. They love seeing all of this Lisa. We should tell them about our new show. Oh my God. I'm Lexi Iwanyu, where two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. I'm not going to get any worse than fighting. That is wild. I learned that about you today. And I've always got something to say. If man were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world. We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are. Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Lie. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, I don't really care. Each week I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Debris, Lamorne Morris and Nicole Buyer. Ooh, I scammed them. What? You're a generational yapper. Like me. You have to make yapping a job. And the Scams run the gamut. I'm talking about scams from the 1800s, all the way up to today. I also warn you and keep you safe against scammers, call your grandparents, tell your parents to stop clicking on links, please. If there's a scam, I'm here to protect you. And I'm also here to laugh with you. So if you like fun, if you like comedy and you like learning and protecting yourself from criminals, start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Get worse with Kyle Proo is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptide, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your better, getting closer, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. If you're interested in blackmail, love, bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something, something for a dastardly individual like you. Take a listen to some of the incredible advice we've given so far. Fake a back injury. Get the spray tan, up your alcohol consumption. Only women should be allowed to have guns. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them with a gun. Listen, it's already over. I'm all about lying if it's something that really happened. The next time a bear is running at you, you just calmly stop what you're doing. You look the bear in the eye, and you say this isn't you. Do not preserve relationships. You don't need them. You only need one thing, and that's the Get Worse podcast. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Proo on the I-Harm Radio App Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's put A6 up on the screen just to show you, because there are big questions inside Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Defense right now. How the hell did this happen? And they're looking at this investigation of the barrage and the missiles. I mean, basically, it is the same story that we've seen now over the last six months or so is that what the Iranians and the Houthis had done is they would do these probing attacks. So they'll send one, they'll send two, they'll send a mix, and then they're slowly testing the defenses. And as they start to figure out the response time where these things come from, they adjust, they obviously have a cost on their side because these are dramatically cheaper than what the Saudis are firing at them. and then that's how you are able to pull off a seemingly spectacular attack. I would also know, you know, just last night, three separate explosions were heard in the capital city of Riyadh, no explanation currently as to what was hit or where some indications of the airport was even hit again because of who these want to completely shut that down. They have told all international airlines to go ahead and cancel on that, cancel flights and that airspace over Saudi Arabia is closed. Currently, all of the international airlines are showing similar cancellations basically saying we're not flying to this country till the airport is open and in and then we'll be monitoring the situation. So I do think that that is similarly really important because you are watching now, you know, the breath of the empire from the United States was not just our own ability to shoot things down, which obviously has failed dramatically in this war, but it was also selling all of this technology to the allies from Saudi Arabia to the UAE, you know, to Bahrain to South Korea to Taiwan any of these countries. I mean, how can any of them have any real faith after watching what's happened here, especially including our own troops who have been killed in the war and now watching how, you know, when these countries are in the lurch and they have their handout and they even have money, right? They have cold hard caching. Please sell me more. We're like, oh, sorry, we can't, you know, delivery timeline is 2029. If you're lucky to be able to get any of these. And not only that, but I mean, the whole concept was that our security umbrella would extend to Saudi Arabia and they be our great ally in the region and now we're like, oh, sorry, good luck. And I, you know, we really haven't grappled yet with what it means that we're in this totally new era of warfare, where, you know, the, the Hussies couldn't like invade and take over Saudi Arabia, but can they cause a tremendous amount of pain? Absolutely. And that's crazy. Yemen is one of the poorest countries on the planet. And they are able to bring this very, very wealthy nation to its knees. That's the new world that we're living in here. It's not that, you know, with Iran, it's not that Iran could win directly, uh, head to head war against this and invade this, the not going to take it over. No, but that can they cause incredible pain to us? Can they destroy the facade of our empire? Yes, they've done it. And so right now the U.S. mainland is protected by geography. Um, you have to ask how long that is the case because the, the asymmetric nature of this warfare is such that if you are a wealthier country, that means you have more to lose. You know, what is, uh, what does Yemen have to lose at this point? I mean, Saudi in the, you know, the, um, previous government and, and we have been bombing them relentless the amount of civilians we've killed, the infrastructure that we've attacked, but they just have a lot fewer things. They have a lot less to lose than Saudi Arabia does. So that's the, you know, the extraordinarily asymmetric nature of this warfare, not to mention, you know, for the, the, the Houthis for the Yemenis. This is existential for Saudi Arabia. They're like, oh my god, our investment, our investment conference. They're used to a very, very, very cushy plus life. They are not used to bomb alerts on their phones, which is why they're just like, you know what, we're just going to turn these off. These are disturbing people's sleep. So we're just going to turn them off. That is such an incredible statement on the differing states of mind between these two populations. It's very, it's such an important point because for many people, they're just waking up. I mean, they may not even know the term Houthi. I mean, these are people who have been bombed in the desert for over a decade. Eleven years were almost what? A million people were starved to death in a famine or subject to cholera and diphtheria outbreaks. I mean, they're living in literal caves and the launching missiles and drones. I mean, these are some of the most hardened battle-tested people on the planet right now. You know, you were talking about asymmetry. And I think your point is very important. I remember reading a lot of this in 2017 and I just looked up to confirm the cost. You know, you were talking there. Let's take the most extreme example on North Korean ICBM, which is capable of hitting the United States homeland. North Korea's cost basis for one of those missiles is 20 to 30 million. The United States Sentinel missiles is 200 million, right? So literally 10 times the cost of what the what the North Koreans are able to spend just to threaten existentially our homeland. Well, the same math, you know, happens to happen in whenever it comes to the drones, the missile attacks. And in some cases, the math differential is 20, 30, 40, 50 times of what it is to shoot down some of these things. So I just think that people, like you said, have not grappled with this. And also, you know, we're seeing this projection across the globe. Let's return now to this UK attack where we've been keeping our eye on. We will always know, you know, I remain very skeptical of the story. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense that five guys who are in a Iranian alleged terror plot on the UK soil to try and bomb US bombers are released on bail after the woman catches them in the middle of the night and they're wearing mass. And one of them calls 999, the equivalent of their 911 to basically report that they're doing something sketchy. So lots of questions remain. But nonetheless, the UK is treating it effectively as a state sponsored act of terror. Here is the Prime Minister Andy Burnham yesterday in the House of Commons detailing it. Let's take a listen. But I can confirm our assessment that it is highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran, almost certainly directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard. We will not tolerate these threats on our soil. We will crack down on Iran's use of criminal networks using our full range of powers to target them and their funding streams. And we will bring further sanctions to restrict the capacity of Iran and the IRGC to do us harm. Since Ungham, Mr Speaker, we have been in close contact with the US about protective security at our shared bases. I want to thank our police and military personnel for their swift response to the incidents that are a fair food and are a moles worth. So obviously, the big headline knows is that it's almost certainly, you know, some Iranian-backed attack. And I will say, you know, you and I said from the beginning, treat to party. He immediately kind of took it seriously. He's like, look, the IRGC did say that you are, you are basically liable to be bombed or attacked wherever you are. And the reaction of the United States, pretty humiliating, regardless of what it was, where the B1 bombers were removed from the UK under the cover of darkness and were even launched while their aerial refueling tankers were not even in the air. That was the level of panic that happened at the Pentagon. So nonetheless, that's how they were treating it. And it shows a similar style of retreat where you're not even able to keep planes in the UK at very least with total safety and not even thinking about it, which you and I know before the war. On February 27th, nobody in the United States or the Pentagon is thinking, our bases are going to be blown up and we're going to have to withdraw from the region in the Middle East. And especially even if they thought that perhaps that some attack might happen on the bases, there was no universe where they said, oh, something might happen at our base in the UK. It was not even, you know, in the realm of thought that something like that was going to happen. Absolutely not. I mean, at the very beginning when Iran was blustering, oh, we're going to push the US out of the region. I mean, I was like, okay, yeah, sure. Good luck with that. All of our bases there. They've been there forever and we're totally dug in and committed to not happening. Oh, well, guess what? It did happen. It actually did. And so, look, I still don't know what to make of this fucking thing. It's weird to me that they're still holding on to the story, you know, after because the guys remember they had like fuel siphoning and they were in these like fuel trucks, the explanation that they were just trying to like steal petrol from his farm kind of made some sense to me, especially when they're released on bail. That would be consistent with a lower level more petty crime like that. If there's even a suspicion of attempted terrorism, then you would be able to hold them. So I remain skeptical, but who the hell knows what's going on with this one? None of it really adds up or makes any sense, no matter which story you which direction you go in here. Totally agree. Last thing in the straight of our moves, just want to give people an update. Let's put the video. I think we have a four up here. Brett Erickson highly recommend people follow him. If you were on Twitter, he does a very good job of kind of aggregating all of the different attacks. This came out yesterday where he numbered the where he showed the number of vessels that were struck in the straight of our moves. This actually came a little bit early because it appears that the total number was four at the end of the day. So what we have now is six vessels were struck in the straight of our moves. That is the highest number of the entire war that is literally the highest number for the entire war in the straight of our moves. And not a single response from sent com. I mean, this again shows the problems with Trumpian bluster and how the Iranians are able to push without any real reaction because for months, they had a tanker for tanker policy. This was announced with great fanfare. Remember, economic D day crystal that was going to happen. Yeah, forgot about that from Scott. I mean, they, they really did it up, right, in terms of what we're going to do and the bluster and the chest thumping and the Iranians are like, yeah, that's cute. I'm, we're just gonna keep bombing this because that's what we're doing. We don't really care whether you bomb us or not. And so you have got now tanker traffic plummeting in the straight of war moves after what had previously been reported. It just seems like the Iranians were holding back, not just in terms of the strikes, but the specific type of strike as we have showed everyone in a lot of the video that we've been able to see out of the straight of our moves. They're striking directly at the engine room. In some cases, sinking, damaging, and I mean, it's causing genuine chaos and panic in the region. And it looks like the number of barrels per day has approximately half just in the last week. Remember, it's all going by a dark transit. It's very difficult to say the con boy system and all of that remains intact. But this is according to some of the same independent analysts who previously had been touting some of the success of running the blockade by these systems. And so all of that's currently reflecting, I'm looking right now, the price of oil remains roughly where it was yesterday. But the whole point is it's not coming down meaningfully in any way. And if anything, the crunch will continue to go up as we get closer and closer to election. Yeah, so according to HFI research, oil flows through the straight of our moves. I'm reading through from a drop site, we right now have fallen to roughly eight to nine million barrels per day down from 13 to 14 million. They further expect flows to drop to six to seven million barrels per day over the next 10 days. So, you know, the Iranians may have been since they were going to be in town for the UN General Assembly. They may have been held and holding back. There may have been actually some hope that, okay, maybe Trump will actually want to capitulate in the advance of the mid-term, so we can clear some sort of mission accomplished moment. Now that that hasn't happened, it seems like they are willing to escalate and, you know, in ratchet up the economic pain, seems to be the plan here. So, that's the direction we're adding in as best we can tell. That's right. All right. Let's get to midterms in the Tallariko saga. Lisa, we should tell them about our new show. Oh my god, Lexi, we have a new podcast. I'm Lexi, you want to? We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa de Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. I'm not gonna get any words I'm fighting. That is wild. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business, and I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world. We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and the little wiser. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Liar. Then on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, I don't really care. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of SCAM Goddess Podcasts. The True Crime Comedy Podcasts all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Deppery, Lamor and Morris, and Nicole Buyer. Ooh, I scammed them. What? Like me. I'm talking about scams from the 1800s all the way up to today. But if you're interested in blackmail, love, bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something, something for a dastardly individual like you. Fake a back injury, get the spray tan, up your alcohol consumption. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. The gun. You look the bear in the eye and you say, "This isn't you." Do not preserve relationships. You don't need them. You only need one thing and that's the Get Worse podcast. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pru on the iHarm Radio App Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's turn to Texas where all manner of things are going down. We've got Elon Musk dumping millions on the side of Republicans. We've got a fake hoax about Tallariko and a mental health hospital, but let's start with the very latest with regard to Ken Paxden, who's the current attorney general of Texas, which will become relevant. Let's put this video up on the screen. This is him in Dubai on January 1st, 2025. You can see him there. This is his girlfriend, keep in mind, I believe he was still married at the time. This is a wanted criminal fugitive from U.S. justice, one of two who he was apparently partying with in Dubai. Again, remember, attorney general, top law enforcement official in the state of Texas, caught on video, partying with not one but two separate wanted fugitives from justice who were accused of multi millions of dollars in healthcare fraud. Let's go and put the Wall Street Journal report here, up on the screen, you can see some of the details because it gets even worse. Ken Paxden partied in Dubai with fugitives, a head of high stakes Texas race, low and behold, not only was he hanging out with them, they had both donated lots of money to him. One of them, Ahmed, a healthcare executive donated $190,000 to Paxden, according to campaign finance records, including $25,000 days after he was indicted. And what exactly are they accused of? Are these low level petty crimes? Maybe it's all a misunderstanding, of course, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. However, this is what they have been indicted for. It says the two fugitives at the Dubai event had been both indicted in federal court in Illinois in 2024 on charges they embezzled $15 million from a Chicago hospital where Ahmed was chief financial officer. A businessman with interest in Texas, Ahmed was later charged in a much larger scheme involving at least $195 million in alleged payments from the government for fraudulent COVID-19 test to which he has pleaded, not guilty, both men are now back in the US to face the charges. Ahmed is in custody. His attorneys have said in court filings he was abroad at the time of the first indictment as a return to the US was delayed by family health issues. So Hale's attorney Adam Shepard said civil matters in Dubai affected his ability to travel after the indictment and he returned voluntarily when they were resolved. Sover, it would be hard to find a video that more precisely and perfectly encapsulated all of the disgusting issues with Ken Paxton. You've got, he's the top law enforcer. You've got the hypocrisy, top law enforcement official running on, lock him up, and also as this Christian man and here he is with these wanted criminals and his girlfriend, by the way, and you have the obvious corruption angle. He had been turned in by his own aides for corruption allegations that he was using his office to give them political favors was impeached by Republicans in the Texas House was not convicted however in the Senate was under federal criminal investigation for similar allegations. And so, you know, this pretty much sums up this man that Trump, by the way, endorsed and made sure to push over the finish line in the Republican primary. Also just addicted to fireworks whenever he's out of the country because remember, fourth of July, he was in the UK. So America 250, he's in the UK here, he's in Dubai, I mean, that basically tells me anything I need to know about someone if they unironically visit Dubai for fun. I'm like, okay, I got you, got you clocked all the way, I don't really need to know anything else. If you're partying in Dubai on the Bush Khalifa, I literally know everything I need to know about you. As you said, it does encapsulate the biggest problems here because the thing is what people need to understand is if you watch these ads against Taloriko in Texas, these are not positive ads for Paxton. The Paxton campaign, they know is a problem. In fact, I mean, I try to spend as much time as I can gathering info from some of the GOP operatives in Texas, everybody acknowledges he doesn't work hard, he's always part, you know, he's always out of the country, he's hanging out with his girlfriend, he's got his own personal problems, obviously he's got his checkered past with all these crazy financial transactions like, you know, getting a bright, alleged bribe, by the way, Mr. Paxton, you know, to hire his girlfriend at the time of his is mayor. I mean, the whole thing is just so preposterous. And so a story and a video like this is exactly the type of thing to go viral. And it's going to go viral in Texas at a moment of, look, this is a level of seriousness and of problems that we have in our country. Like, can you really trust this guy beyond, you know, even policy? And I think that's what it gets to. They're going all in on negative attack ads on caloreco. They're real strategy as I understand it at this point. They just need the Republicans to come out and vote. They have given up on the independence. They've given up on, you know, trying to switch any Democrats. The number one priority of the Texas GOP is get everybody urban and rural to come out and vote in normal ish numbers. They believe that they can win. But this is exactly the problem that is going to hurt them actually with that traditional John Corning type demographic, the Texas oil men, the country club Republicans, the Bush era type people who have been around for decades. They vote straight ticket GOP. They hang out at the governor's mansion with Greg Abbott. Some of them will hold their nose and they will vote for Abbott. A lot of them will not be able to do so for Paxton. And it's specifically because of stuff like this, even though yes, there's a lot of money on the line. They find him so distasteful. They hate that type of Republican. And traditionally, they would just come along and vote no matter what. But Paxton is like tailor made in a factory, you know, to create the exact type problems for the GOP that exists. And Taloriko obviously, I mean, has had some success to be able to bring people over. As I understand it, he's actually tremendously successful with white women in the state of Texas. And then if you've got people mad enough also about the, or about the Republican party, you just get those people to come out and vote negatively polarized against Paxton. This is all in the factory that we see right now. White women and Latino women is what I've been saying. And he had a strength with Latinos overall in his primary run. The polls seem to continue to bear that out. Although it is a very difficult demographic to pull. I just saw another poll this morning of, you know, it was one of these words pulling a particular congressional district, but they also pull the Senate race had him well ahead of where Beto was. And remember, Beto came within a couple of points. So even though Ted Cruz is like really odious in his own ways, Ken Paxton is worse as a candidate. So when you have Tolerigo, you know, with an appeal, I don't think there's any doubt about it at this point. He's run a strong campaign. He's been an appealing candidate to a lot of people. And then you couple that with a disastrous political environment. And then you triple that with a disastrous candidate selection from the Republicans. You can see how this thing is in play. Let's put B1 up on the screen. Elon is going all in for Republicans in general. He's actually given more money than he gave to Trump and famously gave, you know, quarter of a billion dollars to Trump. Now we, this is just what we know of. Remember, it's there's all sorts of ways to funnel money in under the radar where it doesn't have to be disclosed. But in terms of publicly disclosed money, Elon is now in for $275 million. The place where he's spending the most is Texas. He lives there. He has a lot of business interests there. That's where SpaceX is. He has restarted his canvassing and door knocking program that had some success in places like Pennsylvania last time around. And to your point, that's really what they're trying to do. They're trying to drag out every last Republican that they possibly can. Apparently, he's a lot less hands-on this time. Maybe you'll remember, he really made himself the center of attention. He's doing these rallies, giving away a million dollars, probably illegally, jumping around on the stage. All this sort of antics, he's a little more hands-off this time and letting, I guess, the consultants just kind of do their thing. But tons of money flowing into this. And while the polls do not look good for Republicans, what they're saying is between Elon and Republicans have a massive fundraising advantage across the board over Democrats that this is maybe helped to staunch the bleeding and keep the bottom from falling out even further. You can also tell those soccer that they're getting a little desperate in Texas by the antics of some of the right-wing influencers that we have seen in recent days. So let me break down this story for you. Talleriko was apparently sick, had the flu, did a fundraiser like in New York, appeared on some Zoom call where he told people he had the flu, was looking unwell, and then he was off the campaign trail for, I think, the number of days was nine days, long time to be sick. And so the Republicans started to seize on this, like, oh my god, where is James Talleriko? What's going on with James Talleriko? Then, and I'm not even really sure what the genesis of this is. They got it in their mind somehow that he had secretly flown out of Texas to a mental health facility, a particular mental health facility in Ohio. Again, I don't know where the origin of this is, where this original idea came from, but you had a right-wing influencer who called up this mental hospital in Ohio, and is pretending to be a relative of James Talleriko, by the way, illegal, and pushing to get information about whether or not James Talleriko was at this facility. So we now have access to the entire call where the lady on the phone continues to be like, I have nothing in my system. No, he's not here. He hasn't been here. But at the very end, she says effectively, well, I think maybe he checked out today, and that's why I'm not seeing him here. They pulled just that part, and they put it out on Twitter, pushed out by Nick Sortor. Let's go ahead and take a listen to the audio that they had here that they used to present that James Talleriko was at this mental health facility. Okay, so then they were James Talleriko? This looks, well, this is what it's today. It looks like just this jar is this evening. That's why I don't have it. Oh, he was discharged then? Mm-hmm. Okay, this is the hope. They should be. Okay, I'm sorry. Let me make sure I have the right. This is the hope, Linda. Yes. Okay, you're in Hamilton in Ohio? No, we're not in Hamilton. No, we're in Mason. Okay, so that's why he's going to say to me, he's a recent. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye. So, Sager, to begin with, I mean, very sketchy and the timeline of this never made sense because she says, oh, well, he was just discharged this evening. That evening, he was already back in Texas at an event with some like, pop singer. So already the timeline didn't make sense. But that did not stop from any number of conservative, conservative influencers jumping in on this story, put B3 up on the screen. You've got all kinds of, you know, the usual suspects. I'm sure who are all on some signal thread together, putting out very similar messaging. Shame on the media covering this race. Shame on the calorie co-staffers who covered up this lie. Laura Lumer jumping in DC Dreno, Eric Dirty. I mean, the list went on and on of they all were, you know, buying this hookline and sinker completely taking it at face value. Meanwhile, like I said, the timeline never really made any sense. And it's an audio like very easy to manipulate. We don't know if it's on a context. You've got Benny Johnson, Megan Kelly, Andrew, what's his name, Colveh, who's with the turning points USA, all of them, you know, buying this hookline and sinker, even though the thing didn't really make sense from the beginning. Then we have the original guy, what's his name, Ryan, and something like that. Any Ryan, that's okay. Yeah. Okay. Ryan, who was doing a Twitter, what do they call their thing now, spaces, whatever. He's doing like one of these Twitter audio gatherings where they're talking about these explosive revelations. And while this is happening, by the way, while this Twitter space is unfolding, the mental hospital itself comes out and says, guys, James Salarygo has never been a patient here. But he also revealed during this Twitter spaces that he had shopped this story to a number of right wing outlets who were like, we have to take a pass because this doesn't come close to meeting our scrutiny, which is why he passed it to a right wing influencer who had far lower standards. Let's go ahead and take a listen to him talking about that. But even like Sarah Gonzalez, like she really wanted a poster, but her legal team just said, hey, hold on. Did that not give you pause, you know, or any cause for concern when all these outlets are telling you that we have to go around this through our legal. But the influencers are not kind of telling you that. I mean, to me, that would, if I'm hearing that from from everybody, I would probably take a step back and, you know, see what the, the lay of the land looks like. Well, I mean, that's normal. Their influencers are not held to the same journalistic standards as people like yourself in the, in the news industry. We're not held to that same standard. Yes, Sagar influencers are not held to that same standard. Have to agree with him on that particular point. Yeah, literally admits it, you know, out, out in the open. I mean, you know, this is one of those where I often wish that these people would suffer the same consequences that you or I, whenever we do editorial review, should be subject to as well. If you post false information, you do no due diligence. You don't contact the Tallariko campaign. You are opening yourself up to serious consequences in the legal system. For some reason, a lot of these people just end up getting a pass, but that's exactly why. I mean, how many times do people send you something? This happens to me every day. Hey, you should post this. I go, okay. What is it? And they go, it says this. And I'm like, all right, well, I need to reach out to, you know, it says that why saying this? All right, I need to go and reach out to why and see what they have to say. Oh, well, they'll probably deny it. And I go, okay, well, then maybe it's not a story. Like maybe you're just not as trustworthy and then they go dark, right? I mean, that is basic, journalistic standard of which you have to do, especially if you want to just beyond ethics, morals. You should be able to cover your ass legally. You know, it's like, the United States, the system is incredibly permissive. As long as you're just doing the absolute basics of being like, here's their side of the story and here's the other side of the story. I mean, that's it. That's all you have to do. And the guy's out here being like, yeah, influencers will just post anything. And look, I mean, I will say it is a problem. I mean, it is a genuine problem because not enough people distinguish between the two. And people know, I'm not for censorship. You know, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be allowed to post or any of this. But I am for people abiding by the United States legal system. The US legal system is quite clear. Like if you just take information that's being fed directly to you, I mean, who even knows if money or any of that is being exchanged? If you're coordinating a campaign, it turns out to be outright false and you don't post a correction, you have a real legal problem on your hand. If the Tallariko, if James Tallariko wants to, wants to make problems for you, he probably won't. Or this mental hospital too, by the way. I mean, and very possible that this was a hit of violation, you can't pretend to be someone's relative to try to get confidential medical information. And the fact that Tallariko was never there is not a defense. That is a legal, that is a violation of law. And then the other thing soccer is like, putting the legal piece aside, where are people shame? Like where is the shame? When I say something that's even slightly off in the show, I agonize over it. Like if I misstate something that even just sounds like it's maybe not that, you know, exactly the way I want to portray it, like that really bothers me. We make corrections all the time to make sure that we're being as accurate as we possibly can. I can't imagine just putting out some totally fake invented bullshit and doubling down. By the way, Nick Sortar, who, you know, is the one who posted this audio that the Rhine dude had obtained. He had posted this thing, oh, don't worry. Tomorrow morning, they're going to post more videos. So just wait for this to drop. Of course, the whole day passed and nothing ever. Also, he never posted anything whatsoever. And like I said before, a couple of outlets, including the bulwark, got their hands on the entire audio, 'cause we only hear this ending snippet. It was six minutes of the woman being like, there's no Tallariko here. Let me search this other system. Nope, not here. Nope hasn't been here. Nope has never been here. But he like pushes the issue enough. So at the end, I think she's persuaded like, oh, well, he must know that the guy was here. So I'm trying to figure out why I'm not seeing him in this system, but this guy is so convinced that he was here. That's when she says this thing about, oh, well, he must have checked out today. Only after six minutes of her being like, he's not here. He's never been here. I don't have him anywhere in my system. And that's what they post and what they run with. As I mentioned before, I put B6 up on the screen. The hospital came out and said, he's never been here. This happened while they were on that Twitter spaces hilarious. And Jesse Signal, who was on that call as well, said that there were a number of people on there who continue to try to invent reasons why it may still be true. They said very simply, he has never been a patient for treatment here. Tallariko B7 says, not only have I never been a patient there, I've literally never even been to Ohio, which if you had any inkling that someone might have some proof that you'd ever been there. Like you wouldn't post something so definitive. Because then all you need is for one person to have one security camera footage of you walking on the street in Ohio and he's lying. He's like, I've literally never been there. Then you have the New York Times B9 who were given security camera footage from Tallariko's own home that shows him at home because he had the flu, they confirmed that there is, you know, door or nest or whatever footage of Tallariko at his home during those dates. It was all a big hoax and a lie. And so there's a lot to say here about the media about, but I also think it's just like the desperation of Republicans seeing the polls and realizing that this race may be slipping away from them. And their last hope is that something crazy might happen in the last two weeks that would totally change everything and they were hoping this would be that thing. - You know, the thing is, as you were talking about Elon, Elon was one of the people who was really boosting this and you could say, oh, it's just because he cares about the Republicans, I don't think it's true. Don't forget, Elon has got Giga, Texas, Giga Austin, I mean, one of the largest manufacturing facility, SpaceX headquarters down there as well. I mean, this is where I was talking about earlier. People do not appreciate what the Republican machine means to the multi-billion dollar, you know, oil, gas and all of these other business executives. They rely on these offices to get them tax breaks, to work on their behalf, to lobby the federal government. I mean, there is maybe even trillions. Texas GDP is $3.5 trillion. I mean, it alone would be one of the largest economies on Earth. So just consider, you know, what that means because those people are tied up deeply in the Republican machine, whether Ken Paxes and Idiot or not, they don't care. They need him to win. And that's part of the reason why a lot of this is happening. Yeah, I'm really glad you mentioned Elon 'cause it's such an important point because not only, obviously, is he very self-interested and business-interested in the Texas race, but in addition, obviously, he runs Twitter. And so he's able to amplify whatever he wants to. I mean, he himself, we know from the backstories that his own account is juiced to get in front of many more people than it organically would if you had a neutral algorithm. But then he, there was an account that said, didn't analysis and said, hey, this audio is AI-generated. Now, I don't actually think that it was. That account was immediately suspended. Meanwhile, the community note on like the actual audio took forever to come up. So there's just, there's all kinds of game playing that he can do with Twitter. So you have this just really poisoned media ecosystem and then to Ryan's point, influencers who are willing to basically just post whatever, whenever, if it serves them either financially or politically. Right. And, you know, it's fine. All right, you want to post? Well, are you going to post about this Pakistan, you know, video? Because the video's real. It actually looks pretty bad. You know, what do you think about that? You know, all of these, I just think it comes down to desperation. It also, you know, just, yeah, we have a second or two. I've been wanting to talk about this. The Twitter problem on the right is now, I would say, worse than it was even for the left whenever it came to the, you know, woke one era where people mistook Twitter for reality. I think they are now fallen and are susceptible to the same thing. And it's because of the sheer amount of literal bullshit, you know, that circulates. Not only do they amplify, agree, but it becomes the same literal ecosystem where they're completely out of touch with the reality of polls and the other signifiers from the activists or from the operatives who are on the ground. If you look on Twitter today about Talleriko, they're like, oh, Paxton's wiping the floor with him. Nobody actually believes that in Texas. I know people who worked out, I mean, this is their job literally to try and get Ken Paxton elected. They're despondent. And because they have access to the real data, they have to go to the events and they actually see the stuff that's happening down there. I just think, you know, all of this, it will really, really come back to bite them. And I think the midterms, a lot of the reason the whole Trump presidency is gone the way it has, I think is actually downstream of a lot of what's happened on Twitter. And I think that they will see similar electoral consequences for believing the bubble, you know, that they live in. - Well, and it's administration full of posters who are themselves influencers. Like the, you know, secretary of war is media figure and a poster or JD Vance deeply into all of these online worlds, you know, he appears to have pulled himself back. But remember the beginning of administration, he was in like fighting with Zed Jalani during the campaign, fighting with me on Twitter. Like what are you doing? That is the DNA of this administration. So it's not surprising that especially with so much right wing control now, not only of Twitter, also of TikTok, that they really have sort of drank their own cool aid about what is actually going on and what the actual sentiment in the country is. - Yeah, last thing, it's funny here, because you know, you're right. And you could see, though why it happened, is they rode the online vibes to literal victory, right? And so, but the thing is, and this is what I try to emphasize to them behind the scenes is I'm like, you guys still mistake Twitter for the YouTube and the podcast ecosystem. Why don't you go and take a look at how you're doing on TikTok and YouTube or Instagram and actually see what the vibes are like outside of the platform that your friend controls. Because at that time, you and I remember 2024, I mean, it was everywhere. Trump was, you know, riding high, not just the podcasters, a lot of other different platforms. It was undeniable. And obviously it showed up in the votes. That's not how it looks like today. And, you know, but they, they want to decide to believe the one platform left where things are actually still doing well for them. And they don't pay attention to the rest. 'Cause if they did, they would have woken up a long time ago. But that's fine. - So maybe Twitter isn't real life, but maybe you see this. (laughs) - I mean, look, look at the statistics. In terms of literal screen time, of which, you know, I'm a critic, but I guess I'm a beneficiary as well. You have, I mean, at any one time, probably like one out of every two Americans who is watching YouTube or Instagram Real or TikTok, every single day of every single hour, depending, I guess maybe at 3 a.m. Eastern time, they're not. That's about it. It turns out how much they're engaged. Not the case whenever it comes to Twitter, never has been the case. It's four leads, always has been. And so that shift is something they just refuse to recognize. Okay, we've got Christie standing by. Let's get to it. I'm Lexi Iwanyu, we're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa de Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. I'm not gonna get any work I'm fighting. That is wild. We're gonna talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser. Obviously I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Liar. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't really care. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, standup, comedian, creator, and host of SCAM Goddess Podcasts. Each week I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Debris, Lamonde Morris, and Nicole Buyer. Ooh, I scammed 'em. What? I also warn you and keep you safe against scammers. Call your grandparents. Tell your parents to stop clicking on links, please. So if you like fun, if you like comedy, and you like learning and protecting yourself from criminals, start listening to SCAM Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. SCAM Goddess. But if you're interested in blackmail, love, bomb, and cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something, something for a dastardly individual like you. Fake a back injury. Kill 'em. Kill 'em with a gun. The next time a bear is running at you, you just calmly stop what you're doing, you look the bear in the eye, and you say, "This isn't you." Do not preserve relationships. You don't need them. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pru on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - I'm very excited now to be joined by Christy Locke. She is a research fellow at the MATS program and expert on Chinese AI. Christy, you and I originally connected, 'cause I decided to explore this question. People keep saying, "We need to beat China." And I was like, "Okay, at what?" And what do they actually think? Very few people actually read their documents. You're one of the few people who do, this is literally your area of expertise. Let's actually start with C1. This was your original response to Dario Amade in his essay last month about pacing the frontier. You say, "I've been researching China's AI strategy and pathways for the better part of the last five years." Dario Amade's recent advocacy is going to fail because it is disingenuous. Sam Altman's call for international cooperation is similarly unconvincing. If they want to coordinate China, they have to grasp the actual strength of the Chinese AI ecosystem, admit to themselves and others, instead of deliberately misleading the public and resist the temptation to use AI safety to justify commercial competitive decisions. So I know it's quite a bit to throw at you for our first question here. But how do the Chinese perceive the American AI industry and how do they think about AI itself as a technology? - Yeah, I think the Chinese government has been thinking about AI for actually a very long time. So if we trace back to 2017, Settingham himself gave rise to this concept of unseen changes of a century, where he talks about emerging technologies, and this is post-alpha government, in the context of something of geopolitics significance, but also it comes with great opportunities and risks when it comes to approaching these technologies. And so there's always been thinking about AI in terms of a great opportunity, but also potentially a great risk and peril. And I think this is actually very helpful for them when it comes to the age of generator AI and post mythos and hugging phase open AI incidents. Yeah, and I think in terms of Dariel's positioning of himself, it's always coming across a little bit disingenuous, he has written many assay about the need to coordinate, the need to do AI safely, but also the need to beat China. And I think at some point as Chinese companies become so capable and so close to the global frontier, it gets a little bit dicey for the American top AI CEO to say, you know what, we're gonna try to develop AI safely, but we don't really wanna work with China. And in terms of working with China, maybe we can just work on export controls and take that as the main route to success. It hasn't worked before and it's basically creating this environment that makes it really hard to negotiate in good faith with China. Yeah, and Dariel has been very hawkish with regard to China for a long time. It's very core to his ideology in particular. Christy, there's any number of things one could be concerned about with regard to AI, there's the sort of like social cultural concerns, there's misinformation concerns, you know, what is this gonna do to people's psychology if they increasingly are like friends with an AI chatbot instead of real world people. There's the job displacement concerns and there's the existential risk or loss of control scenarios ending in some sort of disaster even potential extinction of the human race or all of creation. How would you rank those various concerns and others that, you know, in terms of the viewpoint of the Chinese government? Yeah, I think they actually care a lot about immediate societal risk, you know, in terms of human disappointment. That's true, but they also care a lot about risks that are threat to internal social stability but also critical infrastructure security. And so on that front, they're absolutely concerned about post-methose security implications. So yeah, depending on the way that AI risks are emerging, the Chinese government is actually very responsive and very on top of understanding where the risks are heading. Also very curious in general about what the rest of the world is saying and doing and thinking on that front. Yeah, let's put C4 up here on the screen. You had an interesting story here that which you sent our way. China isn't racing to artificial general intelligence but US companies are. China's AI strategy prioritizes long-term developmental goals in contrast to Silicon Valley super intelligence pursuit. Something that we hear from Trump, from Sam Altman, from Dario is we have to build it because the AI are because the Chinese are going to build it first. You're basically saying that's not really true. What do you mean by that? Like what do the Chinese actually want to use AI for? What does long-term development mean? Yeah, there's actually a bit of a distinction here, right? Between the Chinese state and Chinese front AI companies, if you ask Len Wenfeng from DeepSeek, he kind of has to but also think it perhaps is something he believes in. He actually wants to build AGI but also defuse it globally so that everyone can access it, right? So some AI CEOs in China indeed vary AGI-pilled and I would say maybe one or two of them are and that's it. And then in terms of what I was writing there in 2025 about the Chinese state versus the vision that is often painted in the US and also executed on in the US. I think the Chinese state doesn't really think that AGI is necessary, that desirable and advancing AI capability is of course important for economic reasons, for security reasons, for maybe even geopolitical strategic reasons. But what is really important? And they actually have a turn of phrase for this. They call it for orientations to help them figure out which science and technology actually stuff needs to be prioritized versus others. They think about AI very comprehensively. And the reason why they do that is because they think AI is primarily an economic growth engine that by trying to get better at technologies that are emerging, that are core, that are like AI, they can get the innovation system to move forward. a little bit faster to move a little bit more efficiently. And so trying to get to become a more mature economy. And so that is primarily what they're focusing on. And so one of the prong of the four orientations is getting close to the global frontier. The other prong is actually the one that they really, really care about in writing and doing, which is to make sure that productivity gains emerge from these near frontier capabilities, otherwise what's the point of technology, as they would write. And then the third prong is about technological sovereignty because if you can't control the supply chain, then that can become a problem in the long run. And the fourth prong is something that they consistently do, even though a lot of naysayers thought they wouldn't once tragedy be to happen, which is to figure out whether the red lines for human well being when technology keeps increasing and growing and advancing. And also, how do you distribute some of those technological gains in society? So people don't feel this empowered. Most people also feel like their lives are getting better, but also safely as the tech emerges and grows. And what is your sense of how close to the frontier, the best Chinese models are? And also, is there a possibility of those models surpassing and taking over the lead, or is what they're doing primarily what you call fast following? Yeah, I think probably a good sign of how good Chinese models are beyond the benchmarks is the responses coming out of the top AI labs from OpenAI and Anthropic. And also, people who look at the frontier very closely. So in July with GLM 5.3, we're starting to see a lot of many panicking around some in the US. And I think it's because for the first time, trying to build a cyber capable model that is very, very close to mythos in terms of capability. And it seems like the writing is on the wall that China's just basically the divide between the US when it comes to frontier capability is almost negligible. I think Stanford's AI index also wrote something similar. So the Chinese catch-up is happening. It's very real. At the same time, I think the Chinese state is starting to become very concerned about how the AI risker emerging, where they are emerging. And also around questions that we've been talking about a little while here, which is controllability of AI and alignability of AI. And without securing those, I think the state can ultimately act quite drastically to either stop the technology from moving as fast or to maintain more oversight or just really going into meaningful agreement with the US on the AI front. Because at the end of the day of what you're after is sustainable economic growth and getting out of the middle-income trap for your mastery of certain technologies, you don't need AI to be a cyber weapon, right? You don't need AI to become an AI or an ASI for you to love it and to benefit from it. Chris, can you talk to us about why open source? They seem ideologically committed to it from a business and a state level. Why would they want open source models? Is it about efficiency like you've laid out competition because they believe that that's their comparative advantage? And how do they square that with their genuine need for state control over everything? Yeah, I think there's a lot of serendipity with open models because it came from a place of adaptation and also a place of weakness. So in, well, originally, right? So in 2023 and 2024, a lot of Chinese companies, like AI companies, saw a chat to be doing very successful and said, we also want to build these seemingly powerful AI models. And as they went into it, because of these chip shortages and chip supply issues in China, especially on the frontier in advance, bleeding edge side, they really struggled to do this. And so what happened is that it took them a while. Initially, it was like two to three years away from the US frontier, right? And so in order to differentiate themselves, they need to offer the best price. And ultimately, as the AI industry evolves, they realize that being more open in terms in making their model accessible, but also manipulable and customizable and also being able to be downloaded and also fine-tuned on private company data really sells, right? Really is popular. And so that resulted in the emerging open model ecosystem where more and more companies went in. But what really changed the open model space and the AI kind of industry in China was the deep-seek moment. When I spoke to some of the Chinese researchers when I went there earlier this year, they also told me that it was very surprising for them that the Chinese models got so good. And so what that led to was just like capital interest, but also a lot of sudden search of self-confidence. And so you get more and more companies entering the space, importantly, because it's open, these model companies are able to build on the new secret sources from other companies and make their models keep getting better. It's almost like a collective project in some sense. And so it just caught up very quickly because of this. And the state has always been interested in getting better at open innovation with China having models and not models, but like having technology that can go abroad and learn from abroad and bring businesses home. Like they're always interested in that. And because open models are downloadable, it kind of overcomes some of the China trust issue that a lot of people in the West might have, right? And so it happened very successfully. The Chinese state was like, okay, this is great. We're going to continue with this. And so Xi Jinping speech in July this year at the World of AI conference very much is basically a staff approval and also saying the risks are getting really wonky. So maybe we should work together with the rest of the world. - Christy, that's actually a great point because what you hear from a lot of folks here in the US who don't want any regulation on AI is basically like, well, even if we did, well, there's China. And so we have to be China. We're locked in this death match, you know, if they get it first, then it's all over for us. Trump says whoever wins the race, the AI race wins. And meanwhile, what you're indicating is that there is every possibility of working out some sort of an agreement with China, something that those types of people would say it was an impossibility and you could never trust them, et cetera, et cetera. So what gives you that hope and also what did you make of the meeting that Trump and Xi just had and some of the deliverables from that? - Yeah, I thought it was actually very promising because I've been in the field for so long. So the fact that for so long, even under Biden, when a lot of people thought he would be softer in China, he wasn't, a lot of people thought that, you know, maybe something would happen from the US trying to dialogue there and nothing really happened. And I think there were two main reasons, right? So the US Chinese AI disparity was much larger and so China felt like, you know, it should be catching up. It shouldn't be talking to AI. Safety per se, it hasn't seen any of the safety risk yet. And so the climate for talking really didn't exist for real talk didn't exist. And because the Busan summit of last year hasn't happened then and so Chip was still very much a point of contention between the two countries, lots of contention there. Whereas after the Busan summit, basically, Xi Jinping said, you know, we got sorbines and we got where we're earth, right? And then the US and China start to have to stop weaponizing these dependencies as much or they do, but at least, you know, there is a tenuous ceiling in terms of their tension over chips in AI. And so because of the pace of AI development at risk and because of these tenuous ceiling, they're able to then proceed. And so what happened is that they agreed to continuing AI dialogues, like AI safety dialogues and also an incident hotline or reporting mechanism where if something horrible like mythos but like gone bad or hugging phase AI incident but like on mass and against critical infrastructure, they can talk to each other and let each other know, hey, I didn't mean it, that wasn't me. And so that is going to be increasingly important and going forward. The fact that they got those two done, I'm proud of them and I think those are very, very good starting points. I also tend to think about US-China air coordination as a ladder, right? If you jump from now to straight up pacing, if you jump from now to just a ban on AI, then both sides have costs that they are perhaps not willing to take on and the cost can be asymmetric if you ask for common standards around open models when the US doesn't have the front to open models right now. Whereas the things that they've agreed on, I think make sense and can help them climb up that ladder of trust and coordination. - Christy, my last question for you was kind of on the social impact of AI within China. And that was a big question. It's a huge country with literally over a billion people. But let's put C7 up here on the screen. I'm sure you've watched the data center backlash in the West and in the United States specifically. Was reading this recently, China is racing to build data centers in a bid for AI supremacy from the financial times. They have 10 national data center clusters based on demand and energy resources, significant portion being built in inner Mongolia and in some of the other more remote areas of the country. Obviously public opinion is very hard to gauge inside of China. But how do the Chinese people feel about the AI infrastructure? sure build out? How do they feel about AI more generally? Because it's very negative here in the United States. What do they think? Yeah, so China has a long standing strategy I think since 2022 around compute build out and it primarily has to do with, okay, so the eastern coastal side are the very wealthy cities like provinces like Shanghai and all that. And so how do they make sure that these places are able to access energy and compute from other parts of China that are, you know, very vast in their geography but less densely populated and it's perhaps colder and so can do, you know, like AI training with less of an environmental damage but also less environmental impact on the residents as well. And so they've thought this through pretty well. And I think the challenge here is about making sure that they can, you know, help companies or have companies coordinate computer or like energy access a little bit better as they have already build out a lot of these facilities. So that's almost a good problem to have. And partially because they've thought this through and partially because I think state market trust in the Chinese context is oddly still very much there. So people trust that the government is able to manage security risk, right? Nobody is really asking the government if they can deal with X-risk because that they know that that's in the purview of the government and the government's like taken to their kind of duty to tackle things like that. And there's also this different relationship between the state and market in China. So if you're a bank tech platform and you run a ride sharing app and your algorithms are very risky that it starts hurting drivers. Well, there will be public backlash. And in the case of 2018 to 2020, that's exactly what happened. And the government, I think, just started passing some loss to protect this. But, you know, in terms of like holding these companies accountable, China's done the big platform crack down a while back, right? So the state has shown time and time again that it's willing to rain in some of these private sector incentives in a way that I think the US government might struggle to at this moment in time. Good point. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your time, Kirstie. We really appreciate it. We learned a lot and I hope to see you again. Thanks for joining us. And I'm Lucy Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up, comedian, creator, and host of scam goddess podcast. Ooh, I scam them. What? Start listening to scam goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're interested in black male, love, bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something-something for a dastardly individual like you. Losing to get worse with Kyle Pru on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Guaranteed Human.