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According to consumeradvocate.org, you get paid back up to 90% of vet bills at any vet in the US and Canada with claims paid back in as little as two days. Go to fetchpet.com/save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet.com/save. Welcome to Raging Modern. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlov. Before we get started, we're just 35 days out until the midterms. Make sure to hit subscribe to support our show and help us reach new audiences. All right, let's bust into it. Trump is once again claiming the US will win in the war against Iran despite publicly rejecting Iran's recent offer to reopen the state of her moves. Iran's foreign minister says Iran still hasn't received a formal answer for the proposal, but expects one to die. Meanwhile, Brent crude has reached over $100 a barrel again of from $72 in February before the war began. The tenure treasurer yield is at its highest level in two decades. And with Trump now planning to spend the next 30 days campaigning for Republicans and traditionally red states, he'll have to balance his political priorities at home with a war that's increasingly hitting Americans in the wallet. Let's listen to Mike Johnson talk about the situation this morning. The big question is, should Iran have nuclear weapon? I think every American says they should not. There would be a danger to us and everybody around the world. Every administration for almost 50 years had the same objective to ensure that didn't happen. They got this close. I'm on the gang of eight. I got the inside highest level classified briefing. It was a very, very dangerous and imminent situation and we had to take care of it. Operation epic fury was an epic success. Now we got to resolve that. The president's laser focused on it. You've heard developments over the last 24 or 36 hours. I think we're getting very close to that. I think Iran is running out of resources to sell. They're led onto 15 million barrels of oil to sell to China, we think. And so we're entering a new phase of this. He's like half right in the past 24 to 36 hours have actually looked like some of what we were doing in the street has paid off. So reports now and they couldn't actually physically see the tankers that were going through because they were doing it completely, you know, in the pitch dark without lights on. But it looks like, and the Wall Street Journal's reporting this as well, that 80% of the pre-war levels of regional flow are now out into the system. And so Iran's control over the straight-of-war moves is significantly weakened. You would not at all say at this moment that they were choking it off. That could have crazy implications in that these are a bunch of lunatics. And so maybe they lash out militarily as a response to this. But Iran's currency is enormously weakened. It's just had an all-time low. Two million five hundred thousand to one US dollar for the real. And gas prices have ticked down a little bit, you know, a few cents here and there, biggest drops were in the Midwest somewhere that Republicans needs to do better. And in the Gulf Coast for diesel. So I think we got to say it's a good thing that this oil is getting out of there and that a run is in a weakened position. But there is also no evidence that the ultimate goal here and where Mike Johnson led from, which is I think we would all agree that we don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. You don't have a bunch of sane people that are coming to the table. And I'm not sure that you would even be able to get back to the JCPOA level deal that we had from the Obama administration. So weakened in a worse position than they were a couple weeks ago, a hundred percent there. But his glasses are a little too rose colored. I would say, especially since this guy's also out there saying that the Republicans are going to expand their majority in the House. Like there is no one that deluded who's saying that. I mean, even the most, you know, pro Trump or conservative Republicans who think that they've been delivering left, right, and center understand that they're going to lose the House. The question is, what's the margin going to be? Yeah, it does feel like a lot of happy talk and all this nonsense around, you know, I think Americans are willing to pay a little bit more for, you know, for Iran not getting a nuclear weapon. They didn't have a nuclear weapon. I mean, it's just so this is an arsonist showing up to the site where the home is burned down the next day and grabbing a hose and wanting credit for it. It's literally like, okay, we broke it and we want credit for, you know, kind of sort of trying to fix it. In terms of the oil math, Brent went from $72 over $100 of 40% since the war started. Rule of thumb. It's about two and a half cents a gallon for every dollar. So gas is up sort of call it 60 cents to a buck depending on where you are. And that's kind of the Iran war tax that every American pays every week and they get reminded of it. Oil shocks preceded the recessions of $7379.90 in 2008. So oil spikes aren't a leading indicator of a recession. They're a leading cause of it. The tenure of being at a two-decade high is a pretty big deal. It's a market saying it doesn't trust the plan. Higher yields mean 7% mortgages, priceier car loans, more interest on the dead. At the end of the day, the bond market is the adult in the room that just isn't impressed with Trump. And it's kind of, it's kind of the only voter that Trump can't primary, if you will, with respect to rejecting Iran's offer from the Iranians around the state of poor moves. When the irony to see it offers to reopen the world's most important oil choke point and you say no, you need to have a better idea having said that and there is no evidence there is one. I don't think they're offer sincere. I think they just want to keep poking them enough such that it doesn't do a contingent military strikes, but it's clear that they won. The tell here, and I'm curious to get your thoughts, it's campaigning in red states. You don't spend the last 30 days defending Texas and Florida if you think you're winning. Or Oklahoma and Kansas. It's not a victory. It's a fire drill. They've decided to break the last. The war, wars that don't end, become taxes that don't end. And it's clear they are playing defense right now. Thoughts? 100% agree with that. And Axios was also reporting on the war front that apparently Trump is willing to give Iran sanctions relief and release of frozen funds for concrete progress on nuclear. I can't wait to rehash, quote unquote, pallets of cash with some of my colleagues who have been distorting the truth about what happened during the Obama administration. But it is a complete fire drill. I mean, that it's diametrically opposed to what happened in 2024 when I, and I had egg on my face about this, was sitting around saying like, we know, what are you doing doing a big rally at Madison Square Garden? Why are you campaigning all over California or other blue states, right? And then I found out why because every arrow on that New York Times graphic headed in the red direction, except for I think one suburb outside of Atlanta that was still heading blue. And they expanded the map enormously, right? For people who weren't traditional Republican voters, getting young voters, Latino voters, Black voters, it is the opposite what's going on now. They're having to go to like the Rotary Club and beg 70-year-old white people to stick with the Republican Party. And that's a very bad place to be and 35 days out. I want to obviously talk more about the electoral stuff and what's going on in specific races. But I am curious what you think about the fact that 80s
percent of the flows that used to come out of the straight-of-form moves are apparently making it out of there. What do you think that does to the negotiating table? And what Iran may do vis-a-vis a deal, do you think now some sort of military activation is more likely that they're going to lash out? And that's the way that they can lash out and hurt us. They know about our munitions stockpile being severely depleted. They also know that the region has no appetite for any kind of war at this point, and that our Gulf allies wish they could just close their eyes and go back in time and that this didn't happen. I think that they've effectively gained control of the straight-of-form moves, even if the flow of oil goes through there, I think they've established the ability to close it by just threatening. There's been very few actual collateral damage, but it's not that the ships won't go through. It's that insurance companies won't ensure the ships going through. And so long as the region is hostile, I believe that they're effectively set up a toll similar to what the Panama canal does and that Iran controls it right now, and that they are now in a position that once America sufficiently withdrawn its military capability from the region, they'll reassert that strength and be able to charge tolls. And they know that the American public has no appetite for continued military involvement. So they're just not getting around it. I think we lost to a middle power here, and they're trying to portray it as some sort of victory in the American public isn't buying it. I just think this is, I think we've lost. I don't think the American Trump does not have to support for further military action. They know that we're leaving. It's like, what was it? Ho Chi Minh said, we will kill some of theirs. They will kill many of ours. They will tire. They will go home. I mean, that's what he said. He was right. And that's what's happened here. Now, having said that about the time you think you understand something, there's so many, you know, known unknowns are unknown unknowns. The Iranian economy is in shambles right now. You know, it's hard to understand the atmospheric that led to so many protests back, you know, January. Yeah, they could potentially happen again. So I was asked myself, what could go right? You could see, I mean, Assad looked impenetrable until he wasn't, right? So, you know, we could, it feels as if we're in for or do for what I'd call a good surprise, but the fact pattern here is the following are the line, the date on the line, is it a middle power has stuck up the middle finger and endured tremendous collateral damage, but is essentially repelled, you know, in their eyes and to their people, they've kind of evil empire that is America and Israel, and is established itself as, I don't call it the superpower in the region, but is, but has repelled the United States. This is a loss. This is an L for America. Would you argue it's a win for the IRGC? Probably, although I got to think their relationships with their neighbors are hugely strained. And it's an enormous loss, I think, over the medium term for America and its Gulf allies, the bottom line is the Gulf allies just no longer trust the US. And the US had a very strong relationship with many of the Gulf powers. And I think that's going to take a long time to repair. But I don't see any reason. I think the sweet spot for Iranian IRGC's approach to this is to poke the bear enough to make it clear that they have not agreed to anything, that they are not by any means feel pressure to comply with American demands, but at the same time, not enough such that they would warrant a support for or legitimacy for more military strikes, which in that bar keeps getting higher and higher because America just really does like the idea. When you have Mike Rogers, saying we need to get out of Iran in the migration, never met a war he didn't like. Yeah, saying we need to get out. We need to leave now. It means there's really a total lack of support and he thoughts. Yeah, well, they also know the Iranians that we're only going to go up to a certain point. And that will then probably say, to the brave Iranian people, you know, make your voices heard again, take to the streets. But the Iranians are wise enough to remember what happened last time when they did take to the streets, 50,000 of them were murdered. And President Trump said, don't worry, help is on the way. And lo and behold, not a came. So I imagine that we are not going to see a redux of that, even as the economy continues to tumble like this. And people are living in abject poverty. But there's no reason for them to think that they're going to be getting any US support. And they see the writing on the wall. The fact that, you know, there is a big election coming up that is pivotal for them. And Trump has been teasing, you know, a deal is coming after the election. It's like the $5,000 rate. Like if you stick with me, like, things are going to get good. I'm going to put money in your pocket. And I'm going to have the most beautiful deal with Iran. And, you know, no one is buying any of this. So in general, I agree with you, I was just really curious about your your take on all of that oil getting out because I was surprised to see that. And I think a lot of analysts were not expecting that that much was getting through under the cover of darkness. Yeah, I listened to the Secretary of Energy recently. And it's not back to where it was, but it's oil is blowing. The silver lining and all of this is I got to think that every government around the world that isn't a net oil exporter really feels a strategic imperative to invest in renewables. It's just because not only is there economic incentive, but defense incentive. I mean South Korea's economy and Taiwan's economy, it gets shut down if for whatever reason, they can't produce enough of their own energy. Now, the gray and the silver of the silver lining is the big winner is China, who manufactures the vast majority of renewables solar panels, batteries, EVs. So this is a huge in my opinion, transition and power from from the west to China. But also, I believe in potentially five years, you're going to see sub 40 or $30 oil. I just got to think so much money has new found capital is going to go into renewables that the the pressure on fossil fuels will continue to go down. I mean, I had Timothy Snyder on yesterday and he said something really interesting. He said if we had taken a fraction of the money we'd spent on these wars in the Gulf the last 30 years, to expedite the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, we wouldn't have needed to be in any of these wars. And many of the nation states or rogue nations would not have the funding to wreak the havoc they wreak that we could have inspired this upward spiral of prosperity in a lack of war. If we had taken the money we spent on war and spent it on again escalating or speeding up to transition to renewables, I thought that was a very interesting take, but China comes out of this big winner. Also, again, I got to think that renewables are going to are going to boom here. Well, that would be nice. support for the sure comes from broons, hold them flu season is approaching, which means it's more important than ever to make sure your body has all the nutritional ammunition it can get. Grins are a convenient comprehensive formula and one delicious daily pack of gummy bears. This isn't a multi vitamin, a greens gummy or prebiotic. It's all of those things and then some out of fraction of the price. And bonus, it tastes great. generic multivitamins only contain around seven to nine vitamins. 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[email protected] that spelled GRUNS.co. Hi, I'm Neil. I betel editor and chief of the verge and Dakota is my show about big ideas and other problems. This week is part of our special series on the future of business. I talked with Matthew Prince, co founder and CEO of Cloud Flair about how AI bots and agents are remaking the business model of the web and how Cloud Flair is trying to build a new economy around websites getting paid every time an AI crawler shows up. We pulled all that data and looked at it and said that, you know, it'd be the second half of 2027 automated traffic will become larger than human traffic. I was stunned when just a few months later in May, team came to me and said, you won't believe it, but automated traffic has now passed human traffic online. And that's just expanding like crazy. And if you extrapolate that out five years from now, we think that automated traffic will be a thousand times human traffic online. This was a fascinating conversation, not just about the future of the web, but also about how one of the world's most important software companies is deciding which of its employees it can replace with AI. Listen to Dakota, wherever you get your podcast. This series is presented by EY.
Luckily, there's Sonos. Sonos Ace Ultra Headphones connect to your system, so you can listen when and how you want. These Sonos product sinks and can be controlled from your phone, so whatever you're listening to can follow you room to room, moment to moment. Visit sonos.com and build your system, Sonos. Love the sound, feel the system. Meanwhile at home, Trump's Education Department has officially rescinded the Biden-era interpretation of Title IX that included protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. Education Secretary Linda McMahon says the move will reduce confusion for parents, students and educational institutions. Just, is this actually change much or is it just about optics knowing gender is such a hot button issue for Republicans in particular? Both. It does change much and it is a hot button issue and they can't run on the economy, so they're going to run on cruelty. The cruelty is the point. It has always been the point here. This statement from Linda McMahon, I just want an incredible load of crap. We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy or athletic opportunities for our women and girls. Equal opportunity for all Americans. When have you heard that used to describe what's going on in the Trump administration? Or when have they been decent or respected? The First Amendment vis-a-vis what goes on on our universities. They've had to be slapped back by court after court after court, but this is their vendetta against higher education and wokeism and liberalism. Whatever you want to call it, these are people who, when they see equal opportunity for all, I just completely glaze over here. I do think it's interesting. Linda McMahon is one of those cabinet secretaries we rarely hear from. She sits in those meetings but she doesn't even do the dear leader stuff really. She's kind of like in the corner waiting, I guess, for her big moment where she can come out with something that is so rooted in hurting people. And this is coming from someone we've talked about, the trans women and biological women sports issue many, many times. It is an 80/20 issue. I am on the 80 percent side of it. There is a biological advantage, obviously. But this is so much broader than that. And it was interesting that this comes out right around the same time that there are reports that the Trump administration is going to cut down on loan grants for people pursuing majors that are not going to earn them enough money. So that they get to decide what you're majoring in. Now, if my daughters come to me and they say, I want to go spend $300,000 on a gender studies degree, I might say, okay, let's talk about where you're going with that, what the prospects are. But the federal government doesn't get to decide those things, especially if they're not even helping people with loan repayments anyway. That would be one thing. If you said, okay, well, there's $50,000 or $100,000 on the other side of this, let's talk about the decisions that you're making and what majors are leading to high paying jobs or at least jobs where you be able to pay back your loans. But that's not this either. It's just always a crusade against what they perceive to be the left or the things that the left are interested in. And I'm really sick of it. Yeah, this is mostly, my sense is this is mostly optics. And that is, federal courts have already vacated, whether you agree with their decision or not, federal courts have already vacated the Biden rule in January 2025. So this really just largely formalizes what was already dead. It's sort of like announcing the demolition of a building that's already been torn down for a photo op. So again, this is an attempt to inflame the base and talk about third bathrooms and, you know, transgender women breaking the nose of a 14-year-old girl in a high school volleyball game. And they're doing it now because it seems to be an issue that turns out the base. And 35 days out is when you pull the lever, even if the lever is sort of like, totally non-consequential. I mean, where I go to is the following. The education issue, no one campaigns on, is that men are about 40% of college students, 40 to 60. So 50% more women are in college than men, which has I think a lot of knock on effects. And meanwhile, both parties are fighting about locker rooms, which basically impacts almost nobody, while boys quietly disappear from classrooms. In my view, that's kind of the title line crisis that no one is talking about or feeling. So there's just so few issues that are so incendiary that affect so few people. It should be, you know, I go so Republican on this and that is let the school and the parents decide. I can't imagine being on a school board. I was in a, I was on the board of my kid's school, in a fairly purple/red district. If there was a 14 year old trans girl who wanted to play volleyball, I can't imagine anyone, unless they're really awful, would not think that was a good idea or have a problem with it. At the same time, we can have some nuance here. And the International Olympic Committee can put out a statement saying, no, you can't compete in women's sports if you were born a female. I just think there's some logical solutions here to be, quote unquote, left up to the states and local schools. And then there's the argument, well, what about people who went through transition before testosterone had an impact on them? I mean, we're literally getting down to dozens of people here. And where I think the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot, is there so, I don't know, quite frankly, self-righteous about this topic and go to an area that seems just a little bit crazy, that they end up creating an opening for people to get elected, who then turn around and demonize this community and kick them out of the military and scrub their names from ships. I don't think we've been very smart on this issue. Cosine Democrats haven't been very smart, then insert whatever topic. But I just wanted to add that this is about more than trans kids. This reaches sexual orientation, which is everything else in the acronym. So I think that we shouldn't lose sight of this being an expansion of the fight that they were having about trans kids. And yes, they already rescinded the Biden era rule. But as layers get built on top of layers, they become harder to unwind. That's what stuck out to me about it. It did seem like this is more expansive than the conversations that we've been having about, you know, Leah Thomas and Riley Gaines, for instance, but in agreement with you. That makes sense. So staying in the education realm, a new lawsuit has put the Cornell 7 back in the spotlight, a former Cornell student, a legislature who was drug and sexually assaulted by seven fraternity members in 2024. Prosecutors initially declined to file charges, but have now reopened the investigation and are seeking a grand jury review. Let's listen to AOC talking about it. Their fraternity knew this was reported to Cornell University. And after looking into this matter, they expelled two of them and made the rest right essays. The culture of rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions across the United States and including Cornell University in this instance. This entire country is sick and tired of not just financially corrupt but morally corrupt leadership in every institution. This is a really rough one. I mean, I, it almost feels like we shouldn't be talking about it this way. I mean, we have to talk about it, but, you know, getting in the weeds of, you know, what the DA says Jane Doe's statement was from 2024 and is only released a summary of it, you know, and saying that she didn't allege she was drug without her knowledge or she didn't consent to engage in sexual activities in the 2024 version. That is different than what's going on now. But the play by play of the interaction that evening between her and getting up to seven men. It's just the stuff of nightmares, right? You know, even if there was an agreement around having the three some, then another man, man entering and joining in, other men coming in and out doing drugs off of her body. And I guess my big question is if the district attorney is accepting that that was what happened, right? That was the 2024 story that he got. Why wouldn't he have done his own investigation on top of it? Like, wouldn't you think that any normal human being let alone someone with a job this important would say, um, I actually maybe we should look under the hood a little bit of what's going on when there's one girl and at peak seven guys involved in this. And I'm not saying that, you know,
people can't consent to a threesome or want to do these things, especially when they're on drugs and inebriated, but I cannot imagine taking her 2024 statement and just thinking, you know, this is the end of it. Let alone then when you see what the university does in response to it, you know, barring the fraternity from campus and to getting thrown out and then the rest having to write essays. And this stuck out to me. There's a 2025 survey conducted by Cornell that found that 35% of undergraduate women reported experiencing quote, non-consensual sexual contact during their time at Cornell. 35%. Yeah. This is, I mean, it's just not getting around it. This is awful. Yeah. So these are allegations and a grand jury as the right venue. It should have been reopened. They should do a good job. They should bring in the right people with domain expertise to handle this case. And the data I saw was from the AAU that roughly one in four undergraduate women report non-consensual sexual contact during college. And I mean, essentially universities are running a risk no firm would sign off on if you described it in plain English. And one of the things we always talk about is parents that we like about college is we think of it as a safe place. And the reality is this data shows that it is not a safe place for women. The reality is young men and alcohol and groups and no adult supervision are just an incredibly dangerous combination on any campus not only to other people but to themselves. You know, I think the university took this seriously, but they obviously don't want it to be massively in the public eye as this is going on. And I know that what happened at Duke with the lacrosse players, you know, sits with universities and they, you know, think about the terrible implications for those three players who were eventually cleared of all charges and the reputational damage for the kids and for the university. But I think that it is incumbent upon the universities if they are in fact taking it seriously to make noise about that because it is sending a signal that they understand how important this is and the implications for everybody involved, right? For Jane Doe and for the seven, you know, frat guys that were a party to this. And I know that you don't want to have a redox of what happened at Duke necessarily. And there are kids that make very poor, consensual decisions, right? Where there should be no criminal charges filed. But I think the fact that it was so quiet what was going on and that the DA did not do his own personal investigation using the strength of his office to talk to more people to do more investigating has created an even bigger problem for them. And they're probably looking back at 2024 full of regret that they hadn't approached it differently. But if you're seeing stats also from 25 to 35% of women that are saying that they are confronted with unwanted, you know, sexual advances during their time in college. That's that's way too much, right? Like even if you're controlling for people that might misread a situation or might regret something, you know, I'm not trying to be the your skirt was too short person at all. I'm just saying there, you know, there are times where you have a reaction to something. And then in hindsight, you're like, it wasn't what I thought that it was. But 25 to 35% is far too much. Yeah. Campus needs to be a safe place. Yeah. And it's just look at the stats. It's not campus crime. It makes it the threatens the safety. It's not even I would say fraternity hazing, it's one, it's deaths of despair, deaths because of too much alcohol drunk driving, young people taking their own lives. But the data just reflects the biggest issue keeping us from what is this aspirational safe place for our kids to mature and find mentors, friends and mates and learn how to be productive members of society. Is this just unacceptable fact that somewhere between one and four and one and three women undergraduate women report non-consensual sexual contact or in college? That's just not I'm not I don't think it's ever going to be zero and I'm not saying those people shouldn't be punished. But whether it's 25 or 33%. That's like we're accepting this culture. Like those numbers are that high. Yeah. That's almost saying it's been a little bit normalized. Yeah. So this is, the problem is this is shits now much there's no way to talk about it without just it's just so it's just so ugly. Yeah. To some degree I don't care how good the education is I don't want to send my kids out into this. And I will because they need to get educated but it makes you it makes you think twice about the culture on college campuses right now. There are sales teams out there who never seem to stop moving always a step ahead always working with a level of precision that doesn't seem normal. It's no secret they're on at you the agentic CRM. At your runs the work behind every when it's real for humans and agents with the guardrails of human software and the scale of agentic infrastructure. This is the frontier of go-to-market teams like parallel turbo puffer and wordsmith are already using ATO to set the pace. Now it's your turn. Try ATO for free by going to atio.com/vox. That's ATTIO.com/vox. Support for this show comes from Wix. 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No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at odu.com/vox. That's odl.com/vox. Let's talk about the LA mayor race. Roman versus Bass. New polling shows. It sounds like city council member and DSA member Nitya Rahman far out ahead of income and care in bass currently leading by 11 points. It's a major flip since bass. Finish five points ahead of Rahman in the June primary. 63% of likely voters in LA have you bass unfavorably. And majorities are panning her palisades fire response. Rahman is dominating among younger voters. Cal, she currently has Rahman's chance of winning at 57%. I think there's a big deal. I mean, the shift is 16 points in three months. You've been following this race closer than me. I'm in LA. And last night, someone said, did you hear Rahman is actually pulling ahead of bass. Any thoughts? Unpopular incumbent. Go figure. I mean, this is why care in bass wanted to run against Spencer Pratt because if you set up a D versus our situation, then people are going to go to their corners. If you have denominations of D, then people might look somewhere else. My understanding is not necessarily that people are so taken with Nitya Rahman and that there are lots of complaints or concerns vis-a-vis her record, DSA affiliation, etc. But that care in bass is not running a campaign that is acknowledging some of the bad results on the ground. That she's boasting about 17% reductions and has no good explanations for hundreds of millions of dollars of money that was supposed to go into solving this homelessness problem and has barely scratched the surface. And there are examples of blue city mayors that have tackled this problem. Matt Mayhan, you did your little Dan Lary, Mayacolpa last week. So there is a mold for it. And I thought it was really interesting that Arnold Schwarzenegger reached out to Nitya. I don't think Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing that just because he likes her style. He obviously thinks that there is a real chance that she's going to win this race. And he wants to talk to her about governance in California, which he certainly knows something about. But this will be real earthquake territory for the establishment.
it doesn't feel like ramen's winning. It feels like, it feels like bass is losing. This feels as like a referendum on the incumbent. The reasons are the drivers of affordability, the fire. You need about $110,000 a year to average to, average to bedroom, which is well above what the median LA household income is. And when young people kind of forward the city, they vote to change the people running at. And the palisades about 6,000 structures destroyed and 35 primary residents completed. So roughly half of 1% so far have been our back online. Permitting is fast by historical standards, but no one lives in a historical standard. They live in a trailer, right? So the bass is best card to play here is crime. 230 homicides, the fewest since 1966. And any other year that'd be the whole campaign, but voters don't feel crime stats, they feel rent. And also crime, it's just amazing. I'll talk about this enough, crime is dramatically down in almost every major city and crime in the country. I think is it near all time lows? Mom Donnie is kind of the person in the room here, I think. In that it's democratic voters and big cities are punishing establishment of comments on cost of living. And the DSA isn't really, isn't winning, I think because people read marks. It's winning because they read their lease. They're just like, okay, I can't afford anything. So whatever this capitalism thing, you boomer soon to be holding on to and preaching about, it just isn't working. So is socialism controlling the means of production or is a progressive tax trade? Is it, I don't give a shit, I just know I want change because I can't afford my fucking apartment. The question is will it tighten? An 11 point poll lead, but only 50% on calcium, means the money is skeptical that this race is already over. Traders are betting older, higher turnout voters will close the gap, polls sort of measure sentiment or feelings, but money kind of predicts turnout. The prediction markets, I think actually do a better job of measuring turnout. Yeah, I would just add that, you know, I think the prediction markets obviously serve an important purpose, but they were super wrong in Wisconsin with the DSA candidate for governor versus the more establishment candidate, David Crowley. I say establishment, I understand why he pushes back against that, and I agree with him. His story is not establishment at all. I just mean the more centrist candidate. So, you know, I think that you could be surprised by this. And you know, I was in LA just a couple of weeks ago, people are not happy with the quality of how the city is being run. And it's particularly depressing when you live in one of these crown jewel cities, you know, as I do in New York, you do in London and New York, spending a lot of time in LA. And it feels like so much as being squandered. And you see the discrepancy between someone like Karen Bass talks, and like a mom Donnie. He was on with Kimmel, and Kimmel said, you know, could you snap a selfie of us and send it to the president? And mom Donnie's response was, I love you, but I love housing more. And that's the whole game, right? That people want to know that you care about them more than being a celebrity or being fancy or whatever it is that your salary is or the trip that you're going to go on, that your laser focused on the things that actually are going to make their lives better. And I don't think that people have the impression that Karen Bass cares that much about making their lives better or can deliver on it. Yeah, I sit here staring out of the Hollywood Hills at 74 degrees, dry heat, light breeze. I'll get great Mexican food later this afternoon. It's just so disappointing to think that they can't find what I would call more competent leadership with then Mara Bass. I just don't think she's a terrible politician. And she might be a good person. She might even, but in the fact that I think Rick Caruso is really regretting not running. But I think a democratic socialist and she's pretty hardcore being effectively running our two most important cities I would argue is a really big deal. All right, Jess, let's leave it there. Have a good rest of the day. Yeah, you too. I'll see you soon. Hi, I'm Neil Abitel, Editor and Chief of the Verge. And Dakota is my show about big ideas and other problems. I talked with Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of CloudFlare about how AI bots and agents are remaking the business model of the web. And how CloudFlare is trying to build a new economy around websites getting paid every time an AI crawler shows up. We pulled all that data and looked at it and said that, you know, it'd be the second half of 2027, automated traffic will become larger than human traffic. 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