Justin Wolfers & Shaughnessy Naughton

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I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex Egrish. Each episode, we pick you here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite artists. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. And if it was a while, it was a while. A while, yeah. If I don't think there's a more important year for Black people. Listen to Look Back added on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it was good, y'all. You're listening and learning the hard way with your favorite therapists and host-care games. This space is about Black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit of armor? It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to. Listen to Learn the Hard Way on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Molly John Fasd, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Republicans claim, "Marco Mentum" is sweeping the internet for 2028. I don't think it is. We have such a great show for you today. Platypus, economics, Justin Wolfer, stop spying to talk about Donald Trump's continued demolition of the American economy. Then we'll talk to 314 action, Seanicie Norton on their work on recruiting, training, and electing Democrats from scientific backgrounds. But first the news. Somali, the Virginia State Supreme Court has struck down Virginia's redistricting map. Where do we go from here? Oh, great. I know where we go from here. David. Back to the Supreme Court. Well, we go up. So I think that this was the Virginia Court. It is a partisan court. Unlike our Supreme Court, which is a hyperpartisan court, this partisan court does not like Democrats getting any seats. So they have thrown out the maps, but do not fear. This fight will go up now. It will go to another court, and another court will roll on it, and then another court, and then another court, and then it will go to the partisan hacks on the Supreme Court, and they will, and their infinite partisan hackery, do something completely insane. You have not seen the last of this completely insane bit of drama. This is what happens when you do partisan redistricting in the middle of an election. Remember this all started when Donald Trump asked Texas for five seats, and why did he ask Texas for five seats, Jesse? Because it's agenda is the most unpopular agenda we've ever seen in this country's history. And because he doesn't want to get impeached again for the third time. Third time, yes, yes. But there is another story that goes hand in hand with this, which is that the Tennessee state house has passed. Redistricting map that really, really divvies the state up in ridiculous ways, Ed gets through their low and black majority district. Listen to me. So last week the Supreme Court just killed the voting right act. They went in and they just were like, you know, multi-racial democracy, no thank you. They went in and they just completely undid all of the work that people have died to move along the needle during the '60s. And now we are in this world where they, and by the way, the reason they said that we didn't need this anymore, that we didn't need majority minority seats was because racism was over. Just like John Lennon said, racism was over if you want it. Right. They don't want it, by the way. That's a solid point. Yeah. This is true. They really, this Supreme Court just so sucks. I can't even tell you how much is Supreme Court sucks. And what they did was the reason they put out this decision because they hoped that it would give these red states enough time to redistrict. I'm going to say one thing, which I feel like we don't talk about because it undermines some of this. And I just want to say it here because I think the people who listen to this podcast are smart enough to understand that it might happen even despite all of this, which is basically, there is still a world where, you know, just because there's a partisan, Jerry Mander, it doesn't mean that ultimately, you know, you're cutting up these seats. So if you're going from an R plus 20 to an R plus 10, that means that you have less of a chance. So say you're in a place where the Democratic advantage is, that say the generic is a plus 10, a Democrat plus 10, and say you make a seat, you move an R plus 20 to an R plus 6. There's a world where you lose that seat. And look, it's nothing to bank on. But, you know, just because you're spreading out your Jerry Mandering to make it better for you, doesn't mean you ultimately get more votes. So as much as like this is cheating, it could also. And again, it may not, I don't know, you know, we don't know what kind of Democratic overperformance will have, but it could ultimately, some of this could backfire. >> Yeah, and we're seeing things like this, Tennessee thing that you can move the district's polling places around on the day of if you want and things like that. That they're going to try to do total dirty tricks to make this stuff happen. They're going to make a wee at water, look like he was doing child games at this point. But at the same time, they're really underestimating how unpopular and what this environment is going to look like. And how people will jump through groups to stop these assholes from what they're doing. >> And it's like, I think about like early on in this administration where if you went against Trump, like scary people would come to your house. Like, it's not quite the same. Like you had these senators who were like living in mortal fear of going against Trump because it's not the same anymore. Like he does not have the same kind of excitement that he did. Even from the very scary people, even they are less into it. >> Yeah, listen, they're having a lot of trouble finding their own willing executioners. That's what I keep saying. >> Yeah, because gas is expensive. >> Well, it's not even just that, like, you know, like I walk into the supermarket and the owner of my supermarket is a very hands-on person. He's apologizing to people on their way in for the prices, trying to make them understand why they're going up. >> Mm-hm. >> He's not doing out of partisan hackery. He's doing it because he wants people to understand that it's not him doing this, that it's a very stupid war we decided to go into by choice from, well, we'll discuss that a little later in the show. >> Anyway, so Trump is planning to fire the Maha friendly FDA commissioner, Marty McClaury. >> Yeah, again, clearly there are a couple things happening here. And I don't want to say anything nice about anything, because this is not necessarily good or whatever. But basically, some of the Maha crew has turned out to just be more trouble than they're worth, I think, is what it is. You've got, like, babies bleeding to death, because the parents won't do- >> Vitamin cave injections, yeah. >> Right. They won't do the vitamin injections. I think we're in a lot of trouble here. So, just a little too fruity even for this crew of fruit loops. Trump plans to fire FDA commissioner. So, this guy, he's a former Johns Hopkins surgeon who became a frequent make-America healthy again surrogate. >> A guy the Rogan's fear likes to quote, like he is a really respected person. >> Yeah, so my man must be a fucking moron. His tenure has been dodged by after effects of doge-led layoffs. You may remember doge as being the brainchild of the richest man in the world, Elon Musk. And he sucks. Trump hasn't necessarily made the plan finalized, so anything could change. He's assembled. I like the quote here from the spokesman, Kush Desai. President Trump has assembled the most experienced and talented administration in history, except for all the people who were just capable news hosts. And they focus on delivering historic victories from the American people, if those American people are the Trump family. >> Yeah, so speaking of the talented people he's gotten, there is this podcaster with a clothing line of wretched ugly clothing named Kash Patel, who spy reports is apparently very fond of the bottle and hanging out at the layman's club in Holv Las Vegas. He's now hauling people in for polygraph tests to see if they ratted him out to the Atlantic. >> So this is such an insane story. And here it is. Kash Patel, head of the FBI, was the subject of a piece of the -- in the Atlantic about his drinking. - Okay. - Fine. He both denied it and launched like huge leak investigations into it. - All right. Okay. So then they target the author of the piece. And they go after her. That becomes even more drama. Now Cash is just like fucking, this, remember, in this piece, it talks about how Cash gets locked out of his email and thinks he was fired. Well, he all, so clearly this is a guy who is not dealing with life in a sane way. So now he is furious and he's putting people on polygraphs to figure out where the leaking is coming from. Meanwhile, the next day, the Atlantic has another story about how he has these bottles of some kind of alcohol that are like cash but help branded. And he gives them to people. He's also suing the Atlantic for the reporting about his behavior and his bad job. I mean, this is the thing about Cash Patel. Like if there ever were a person who behaves like they are super guilty, it is he. - Yeah, I, I, I, I, I, I, I will say, this is a little preview of a early birthday present I'm sending you at Andy Levy soon. So the listeners of Fast Politics can look forward to a future episode where I present this to you both. - Oh, what is it? - I'm not telling you, it's a surprise. - Is it a cash Patel? - It's, it's not a bottle of liquor, since I obviously know you're sober, but it's, it's, you, you will see soon enough. - Oh, I'm excited. - There's basically a reoccurring thing on this podcast of bag of men doing the unspeakable to their wives, their staffers or other people they're having sex with. And here we have what I think may be the craziest one of the ball. So this is Max Miller, he is a member of Congress. He sucks and he has sucked for a long time. He worked in the Trump administration. I think of him as like kind of a mini version of Cori Liby-Dowski. He's like a mini version of Cori. He has constantly, clearly is doing bad stuff to women here. And he has been accused of that from also his ex girlfriend, Stephanie Grisham, Stephanie Grisham, your remember was the secretary for Melania, that brilliant think tank leader Melania. So Stephanie Grisham alleged that Max Miller pushed her against a wall and slapped her after she accused him of cheating. Miller blames congressional colleagues and former father and law for his current legal issues, because that makes the most sense. And is framing his ex-wife as malicious, due to her alleged bipolar diagnosis. And this morning, Max Miller, who's a Republican Ohio Congressman, took to Twitter to complain about Emily Moreno, that is the daughter of GOP Senator Bernie Moreno. How long have these people even been married? Because wasn't Miller with Stephanie Grisham in 2020? Yeah, you know that MAGA goes through marriages at Bringsland Speed Records. And let me just say two things here. Do we think that he beat his wife again? It's certainly he has been accused of it before. And also Bernie Moreno absolute scumbag, like beyond. So I want to say domestic violence bad, people who do it bad, father of victim, shitty Senator from Ohio, also bad. Many things can be bad at once. Yes. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than add supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart, streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartAdvertising.com. That's iHeartAdvertising.com. Do you remember when Diana Ross double tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people? I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do a little count? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at the Podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode we pick you here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talking about crack on day. But yeah, yeah, literally. Literally, just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have A.C. on the table right now. So. Are you finishing that sentence? Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah, for me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Welcome to my new podcast, learning the hard way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kiergames. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field. And conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking trip fontain, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it and we don't know when we done enough. Because people scoreboard wise. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, 'cause you find it important to be a good person while you're here on Earth, are you a good person because you're afraid? 'Cause that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kiergames, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learning the hard way. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search, learn the hard way, and listen now. The story I've told myself about love or relationships can then shape my behavior. And that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This mental health awareness month, tune into the podcast, deeply well with Debbie Brown, and explore the journey of healing, self-discovery, and returning to yourself. We explore higher consciousness, emotional wellbeing, and the practices that help you find clarity, peace, and self-mastery, in a world that can feel overwhelming. The world is becoming alone, Lear. We're not becoming more social and connected. We're becoming more individualized. But we actually need people in connection. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become home, this podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Molly Junkfast here. My memoir, "How to Lose Your Mother" is out now on paperback, arriving just ahead of Mother's Day. "How to Lose Your Mother" has garnered a lot of praise. From Good Morning America, the New York Times Book Review, "Go, Go Vanity Fair," and a lot of other outlets, "Gwashing Post." The book is about what it's like to be part of the sandwich generation, to take care of your mother and your children. And I talk about being a mother and a daughter, and the relationship I have with my mother and all of its complexities. It's funny and it's fraught and it's sad and it's about life. My story, this story, the story of "How to Lose Your Mother" or follows a year in which my mother, Erica Jong, is diagnosed with dementia. My husband faces a life-sreatening illness, and what unfolds is a really honest story about what happens when the shit hits the fan and everything goes wrong. As the Washington Post said, "The book is filled with lines so good, you won't just want to underline them." It's a memoir that continues to resonate, so please pick it up. Justin Wolfer is the founder of Platypus Economics. Welcome, welcome Justin. "Molly!" So it is the first Monday in May. No, I'm just kidding. That's the mechala. I'm glad you thought I would understand to meet Gala reference. I feel profoundly flattered. Yeah, known. It's a crossover event. I actually turned up. I don't know if you saw me in my lamb chop, Tuxedo. Just sold a lot of lamb chops together. That's right. All right, so talk to me about what this is. We got some jobs reports coming in. We got the jobs report. Those numbers were not bad numbers. Yeah, it's pretty good, isn't it? So the jobs report came in with 115,000 jobs created this month. You should never look at one number. What I like to do is take an average over the past few months. If you look over the past few months, we're creating about 50,000 jobs a month. That's not as many as your listeners are used to hearing, but here's the encouraging thing. The unemployment rate has gone from slowly drifting up to maybe flat. And so the thing to understand here is the decrease in immigration has led to virtually no population growth in the United States. And previously. That sounds bad. That's a really good question that I'm going to take as a separate question, because it's so deep. But that part. population growth, what it means is employers are not, you know, if you open a new store, one of the sources of new customers was new human beings. We don't have as many new human beings. But it also then means we don't need to create as many jobs. And so while the job's number looks bad, the thing keep your own as the unemployment rate, it's roughly flat. So things are not amazing, things are not terrible, and I am still holding my breath. Why are you still holding your breath? Because I worry about people. I want people to have rich, full successful lives, full of dignity, and getting to do things they love and provide for those they love. I want them to find people and things and passions they love. Okay, that's the macro, but why are you still holding your breath on the micro? Oh, in the economy? Yes. On everything. We're in the middle of a war. There's not a long history of wars being good for humanity. Right. We're in the middle of a trade war. It's not a long history of those being good for economies. And without wanting to be partisan, I have a sense that you might be a little partisan. No, no, no. I don't have great faith in the administration. And so we're bumped from crisis to crisis, which means when the data says, hey, things may not be so bad. I remember that data are noisy. And sometimes you feel reassured today. And then the floor falls out underneath you again tomorrow. And it will world in which we've seen the president start a trade war, try to fire the Fed chief, an undermine central bank independence, which was seen a movement try to undermine an election in which we've started a war without congressional approval. I just don't know what comes next. And so yeah, I'm holding my breath. Talk about unemployment because it seems like unemployment, those numbers, they can go down. They can also be people not looking for job, right? Yeah. Yeah. Let me actually start with the most important thing. I was very surprised this morning, but it's the state of the world. I saw many, many liberals on social media saying, well, this happened in the numbers. Do you believe the numbers? And I know you and I've talked about this before, but I want to remind people that the unemployment numbers are still utterly plausible, right? Which I mean, I know a lot of people on the inside who are collecting these numbers. And they're using serious scientific, honest approaches to measurement. And there is no direct White House intervention. Right. I know this is this is something we've talked about before, but you could understand why people would feel that way because Donald Trump did fire the head of the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. And also not just that, which is demand as a firehose of lies, which, you know, which once upon a time that would have been thought to be a partisan thing to say, and now it's literally a fact. No, it is. And actually there's a profound tearing of our fabric as a result because it is, I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist and say it's a they meant this all along. I can tell the difference, but I spend my whole day looking at numbers. But regular folks, I've told them you can believe what comes out of the BLS. And then this afternoon, the Treasury Secretary would just say a bunch of bullshit. Or literally over the past couple of days, we've had the energy secretary and the transportation secretary say no one has done more to get energy prices down than Donald Trump. While standing next to gas pump charging 450 a gallon due to a war that the president started in the Middle East. And so historically those folks were bound by truth. And so when serious people wearing serious suits said things, they deserve to be taken seriously. So when I say, so that information environment is just fractured, the idea that people are attached to truth is gone, which then makes the job of regular folks so much harder, which is that person can be trusted, that person can't, that person can, that person can't. And so what I'm telling you is an insider, someone who sort of studies this a lot, is the official economic statistics can be trusted, but I'm not telling you to believe a word that any cabinet member member says anytime ever. Right. So the official numbers are still good, but the cabinet is just bonkers as usual. Right? Fair. I'm an economist. I do not evaluate other people's mental health. Right. But they're not, you can't necessarily take those numbers to bank. Talk to us about you wrote a piece for the times that I wrote this morning that was how exciting was that did you just wake up and you read any of the times and we were like, oh no, that blight. No, you sent it to me, but also I read the opinions. Did I do that? I too write for the opinions action. Not you get paid for. And you were paid for it too, do you? Oh, yeah, a little bit. But you're, aren't you a culture editor? No, I'm not in anything, anything. I'm a right, I just right there. But why? So I want to talk about your bait because yours, that sounds wakal in mine. So you did this piece. I'm just going to ignore you now. This is what happens when you're very, when you get in trouble in this podcast, they just ignore you. So you wrote this piece about the cost of the war and Pete had said that this may not be, this may have like sort of fallen through the couch cushions this week, but Pete had said a video about the cost of the war that had a really high number of about $15 billion, which seems like something you wouldn't want to advertise. And in fact, it's actually probably a lot more. Right. Actually, so his number was 25 billion. Oh, 25 billion. Sorry. 10 billion too little. I mean, I advertise it. It seems like a lot of money. That's 25. I am going to. Wow. We could have a ballroom in every pot. That's right. That's right. No, and I, but doesn't have enough good ballrooms. I was thinking of going to a ball last night. I wasn't. Um, 25 packs taxpayer funded ballrooms. That's right. But that's a good number of ballrooms. What would you prefer, though? Molly, one just really good war or 25 ballrooms. That's right. So go on. I would rather have the ballrooms and I think they'd be better. I think you'd make more money on the volume. Yeah. Yeah. He was first. Molly, John, fast, pro ballroom. Yes. Continue. Okay. So actually, I want to pause because I think this is actually really, really important piece of economics in Mully. I'm going to be rude and say you got it wrong. Flies. The most went. Okay. So here's the backdrop. Almost any. The human mind is almost incapable of understanding the difference between millions, billions and trillions. We don't encounter these numbers. They're unimaginably large. Anytime, therefore, a politician uses one of those numbers, it's because they intend to walk the skate. So what an economist does, anytime we get one of those numbers, we realize it's uninterpretable. Let's make it human. Here's a way of making it human. There are 330 million Americans, which is really good because if every American pays $3 that adds up to a billion dollars, if the war cost 25 billion, that means it's a cost of $75 per American. Right. So 25 billion, I've watched my liberal friends go, that's how 25 billion, this is outrageous. We could have bought 25 ballrooms. Actually, your point that it's 25 ballrooms is the point. It's not that much. Right. So and the point I want to impress upon the audience and here I apologize on my college professor. I'm going to do the teaching because that's what I do. Every time you hear one of these numbers, you have to scale it in a way that you can make sense of it. So it turns out the 25 billion is not that much. It's also bullshit. Technical term. The point of the op-ed is actually to say what question is 25 billion dollars the answer to and what question do you care about? And it turns out they're completely different. 25 billion dollars is how much we've more or less spent on bombs and moving a few troops around and stuff like that and depreciation on aircraft and a few aircraft have gone down. By the way, you might be thinking how can we spend that much on bombs? Some of our bombs are 2 million bucks a pop. Right. So you throw a few of them out there and all of a sudden you talk in real money. That's the sole cost of it. That's all it's including. So that's a little bit like saying, what is the cost of a family dog? Well, I went to the pound and he cost $200. But the thing about a dog is he transforms your life in all sorts of other ways, many of which are expensive and I'm dealing with expensive vet bills right now. And actually the same thing is true of war. So the 25 billion is the answer to a question no one ever asked, which is how much do we spend on bombs? The answer that the question I think most people care about is how much is this damn war costing us? How much worse off am I and my fellow countryman and people around the world as a result? And that's when you have to realize this war didn't just cost us in bombs. It has transformed the global economy. It's transformed the American economy. For instance, the Fed was going to cut rates before now. It's not because the inflation coming out of the war. That right there, by the way, I ran it through a little macro. We cannot, the Fed's macro economic model. It's sort of the idea for fun. That right there is worth $200 billion. Just that effect. Right. We have good estimates of the effect of geopolitical risk on the economy. It's likely that this rise in geopolitical risk will lead to $200 billion less output in hundreds of thousands of fewer jobs. We can look at what has happened to the stock market. And the reasonable estimate is that stocks are about 5% lower as a result of this war. You see that? Because every time the president's aggressive, stocks fall. Every time he backs off, stocks rise. And if you took that seriously, that would suggest overall stocks are about 5% lower than they would otherwise be. That's $3 trillion right there. If the world has become a more dangerous place because of our geopolitical strategies, and the president believes that it has, then we have to spend more on defense than the president believes we do, because he just put forward a defense budget the next year, in which he wants to raise spending on defense from 900 billion to 1,500 billion. So now he wants to spend 600 billion more on defense just next year. Right. All of these numbers are boring, but the most important thing I want you to notice is there are all many times larger than 25 billion. The point, this is the way real world economics works, messy economics, messy economic times, is any way you try to pencil out the costs of this war. You realize that the cost is hundreds of billions and possibly trillions. Right. So Molly, you were talking about a nice collection of ballrooms. Now I'm talking about a shit ton of ballrooms. Yeah. And then if we want to turn into what does this mean for the American people, for the typical household, it means the cost of this war is to be measuring thousands of dollars and maybe tens of thousands of dollars. And that hopefully gets people's attention. It also, what you talk about in this piece is that it also is measured in all sorts of other metrics, like it's financial insecurity, which financial instability, which means less investment. Like there are metrics that you can even really measure. Right. So I'm not going to pretend that I've found a way of counting every cost. What I can tell you is every time I start looking at them, they turn out to be hundreds of billions and the idea that Higgs set is right at $25 billion is absurd on its face, the whole things misdirection, bullshit, and nonsense. Right. And then I want to take off my economist hat. Can I put on my dad hat? Sure. I remember the day the president tweeted that he was going to wipe another country off the face of the earth. And I sat down with my 13 year old son. And he was distressed. I was distressed. It's terrifying the idea that someone would, in our name, threaten to wipe a civilization off the face of the earth. Yeah. It's inhumane. It's not the qualities I've ever taught my son. Mm-hmm. I don't ever want to have to defend it. I never will. And my son is at a profound level forever changed. You can't take back the idea that humans would say that's why the humans. And there's a beauty about childhood and children that was destroyed. And I'm not talking really about my son. I am. But I know that there's millions of other dads out there. And so that scene got played out in family, after family all around the country. And a sense of coarseness and comfort with the unimaginable. I can't pencil out a number for you on that, Molly, but I don't want to lose sight of how important that is. Right now, we are sort of in this crazy moment where we have the fad is, you know, we got-- I mean, there's a lot going on right now. But-- This is a proper roof the year. I don't even watch till you're there anymore. I just watch the fed. It's terrific. Right. And they're not going to lower rates, probably. Trump is not going to get what he wants. I think it's the net of it. I think that remains unclear to be-- Well, he's not going to get them to lower rates, which is what he wanted. He is going to get handsome Kevin in. Yes, he's getting handsome Kevin in. And-- But Trump-- I think it's-- A bit-- Jerome Powell used to be handsome. Really? When he announced Powell, he said that Powell was handsome, more handsome than Janet Yellen. So now we got two handsome blacks. What are you watching? Like, it still seems like the stock market is exuberant, the bond market is anxious. And the gas prices are still high. So for now, the S&P is delighted with anything. But can that just keep going? Like that. Just trying to imagine what life is like living in New York. Do people in New York just walk around talking about the stock market all the time? Because most people think I'm intensely boring. And-- I mean, I read the Wall Street Journal. So I-- Despite being in New York Times, op-ed contributor. I read the Journal of the FT, the economist. So I know what's happening. Markably well read. Well, that's my kind of my job. So-- You're going to tell us about your undergraduate transcript, too? I didn't go to college. No, I didn't go to college. I have nothing. Did not go to college. Is that true? Yeah. I have a master's. I have an MFA from Bennington. But I have a point-- Oh, I didn't go to college, but I have a master's degree. All right. Yeah, but it's a master's of fine arts. I've never done like a math class. I wouldn't even know how to do it. So anyway, what do you-- Jesse is getting really irritated by our banter. So it just feels like we're in a very precarious moment. And you said this earlier, I was in this interview. I'm holding my breath. Yeah. I am holding my breath. What are the sort of indicators that you're looking at? Like Trump is clearly trying to get gas prices lower. Yeah, he's not going. That is not going to happen. Yeah. Right. OK. So I am holding my breath every day I do. And the weird thing, by the way, is I remember all of three years ago, I would do an interviewer or a podcast. And I could just walk in and know it cold. And today, I have to check what's going on in the last 15 seconds because we might have accidentally bombed another country. That's a Trump thing, yeah. So I think the overwhelmingly most important economic issue right now is the war in Iran. It's also incredibly difficult to track in any standard sense. The president announced us something. The Iranian leadership announced us something else. And there was a time I knew which one of those two was the truth teller. And that is no longer true. So the president has announced success seven times. And the Iranians keep saying you never called. And they kind of believe them. Like he doesn't seem like a guy who calls you back. And there's reporting-- I mean, the reporting-- I was on Morning Cow with David Rhodes. And David Rhodes was talking about how the Saudis didn't know that he was trying to reopen the straits because nobody told them and that they closed the airspace because they were like, what the fuck is this? It's amazing. Some people don't spend their days on truth social. If MBS were just watching Fox News-- Yeah. --they wouldn't know. So but I think that that information environment means it's very hard to track. But if you care about the economy, it's the most important thing to track. And so then that means this actually means I'm going to be a lot more like in New Yorker right now, which is I do follow financial markets closely. And it's not because I'm cheering for the stock market. It's not even that I care about the stock market. It's that I know-- You don't even know any stocks, right? I have a mutual fund. I have a retirement fund. I think I have a retirement account. You talk-- because remember you told me you guys never owned stocks. Anyway, go on. Not individual stocks. But I have a retirement account. Yeah. You're trying to get me so much trouble. Well, you're just sad you're not in the-- I'm a job creator. Yeah, yeah. I go on. Why don't I get any respect? No. I'm tracking financial markets because you've got sophisticated people betting on the future of the economy through financial markets. I'm tracking them at the same time as I'm tracking the oil market. Next, if you want to track the oil market, you don't track the spot price. That's oil being bought and sold today, because that's affected by a lot of stuff like shipping and so on. It's a really good idea to track something like the futures price, which, by the way, is actually remarkably easy to find online. And think about that as an index of are we getting good news out of Iran or bad news? You could interpret it in more complicated ways. But if you wake up and you say, you know, you reach out like the president just announced, there was some operation over the last couple of days where apparently-- Operation enduring freedom. Yeah, which-- like it didn't endure, and it wasn't freedom. It's really-- In the oil and oil. Ignore the ceasefire. Yeah, it was Operation Press release. Right, he said, I've got an operation. And here's the deal. Everyone can go through the straight up if I'm honest. Yeah. When I haven't told the Iranians, and we're not going to escort you, but you can go through it because of eye-tulger. Yeah. And this will surprise you. Everyone said in return, no. Yeah. So Operation enduring freedom literally achieved nothing. But for the audience, the important point here is if you wanted to assess that for yourself, the way to have done that was to look at oil price features. Right. Because when they didn't improve, that's when you can tell people betting on the outcome of this war, think the president's just saying nonsense rather than doing something. Now, there may be some moment where it's Operation really enduring freedom where he does something. And the easiest way to tell is going to be by tracking what happens to financial markets. They're not going to get a perfect, but it's less bad than the alternative of listening to the administration. Justin Wolffers, will you come back? Always. Can't wait. Sean O'See, Norton, is the president of 314 Action. Welcome, Sean O'See. Hi, Molly. Thanks for having us on. First of all, I want you to tell me what your group does. And then I want you to tell me how you got involved tonight. Well, my group is 314 Action. I'm the president of the. founder. We work to elect scientists to all levels of government from city council up through the state legislature and the federal level with the thinking that we really benefit by having those data-driven fact-based policy makers in office and not just as polite advisors that can be ignored. And this grew out of my own experience. I was a chemist by training. I worked in breast cancer research and infectious disease. And in 2014 rather naively decided to run for Congress not really knowing what was involved. But I got a lot of support from the scientific community and came up a little short but learned a lot in the process. And part of what I learned was that at the time there were more talk radio show hosts in Congress than scientists and engineers. And so we were coming up on our 10th anniversary of 314 action and I've done a lot of work in bringing more scientists and doctors into Congress and all levels of government. So let's talk about what that looks like. Talk to me about some of your candidates. Sure. Well 2018 was our first full cycle and we had a great year. We elected a number of scientists to both the Senate and House. And I think it really tells a good synopsis of what we do is that we worked with Kim Shryer in both her primary and her general election to help bring a woman pediatrician, the first pediatrician to Congress, you know, and really had to fight back some of the thinking in DC of the very limited profile of what could make for a good member of Congress and candidate. And so ultimately we were successful this year. We have close to 50 federal campaigns that we're working with. We recently endorsed Dr. Jasmine Clark. She is a microbiologist and a state legislator running for Congress in Georgia. We helped elect her to the state house a number of years ago and continue to work with her through the years and are really excited about her candidacy. You know, we also are really excited about Annie Andrews. Dr. Annie Andrews running for Senate against Lindsey Graham. He has at an all-time low approval rating. That's right. That's right. Specifically. You know, she is putting together strong fundraising numbers and, you know, you might remember that the measles outbreak ground zero was South Carolina earlier this year and she really had to field a lot of questions and concerns from citizens, you know, whereas the senator was just completely missing. How do you help people like that run? Like, what do they need from you and how is that different than normal candidates? Well, you know, I mean, 50% of Congress is made up of lawyers and that kind of makes sense that lawyers want to make laws and that doesn't necessarily translate to scientists and doctors. You know, they went to school to do something completely different, but a lot of them are feeling compelled to take this step into public office because of the onslaught of the tax, especially from this administration on public health, on science, you know, our future ability to be, you know, a world leader in science and innovation. And so we work to identify the districts that we think are most competitive, recruit strong candidates to run in them, help them put together their campaign's team and campaign plan, and then continue to work with them along the way, providing strategic advice, helping to fundraise, helping with media prep and debate prep, really kind of acting as similar to a startup incubator, a campaign incubator for what are often these first time candidates. I'd love you to explain to us sort of what it means. So say you put a doctor in as a converse person or in the senate, hopefully it would be amazing. How does it like we understand how lawyers help with being a legislator, but why would being a doctor be good to have an office? Yeah. One is that people trust doctors and nurses. There's an innate trust in people that go into that profession that go to help to spend their lives making people healthier and safer. And you know, we've seen that play out in the values and experience they bring to public office. So more and underwood is somebody we helped support in 2018. She became the youngest African American woman elected to Congress. She had worked in public health and it was a nurse. And when she got to Congress, she co-founded the Black Maternal Health Caucus. And she thought it would just be her and the one other member working on this issue that has plagued America since before we were even a country. And you know, I would argue no one had made that a priority before because no one had brought her experience as a public health official, as a nurse, as an African American woman. And instead, it grew into a bipartisan by-camera caucus that has been moving the mom, me, bus, crew and had portions of it signed into into law. And that really is, you know, what the folks that we elect do is they focus on issues that might be overlooked by the traditional members of Congress. Yeah, I really like Lauren Underwood and and thinks she's great. And she worked on Obamacare to, right? Yeah, that's what motivated her to run was when her congressman voted after promising not to voted to reveal the Affordable Care Act. And she knew as an individual who relied on it for her health insurance, but also as a public health official, how important that is for keeping children and really everyone healthier. Clearly, like there are a lot of problems, for example, like with the NIH grants, like, doge has come in and done a lot of fucked up stuff. And we've certainly lost a step maybe more to China. If you were at this moment to start legislating, what would be the thing you would be both focus on at this moment if Democrats win that power? I think what we have to do is put a system in place that can't be completely dismantled by a whack crack pot as health and human services secretary. Because that is what has happened. It's doge, but it's also Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has really led the charge with dismantling, you know, our research institutions are ability to innovate. The reason that the biotech revolution came from the United States is because of our our commitment to science and education to an immigration system that promoted people coming here and investing in companies and starting companies. And that has been greatly dismantled by this administration. So it's not just about the research that's happening today. It's about what is going to happen 10, 15, 50 years from now when we haven't made those concerted investments. And China has, China has made it easier to develop drugs. China is investing billions and billions of dollars in research. And they are going to take the lead in the next century if we don't reestablish our institutions of research and our pathways of bringing that to market. Yeah, I mean China is a big worry for me because of what's happening with the mRNA vaccines. And it strikes me that the RFK junior stuff like this week we saw him try to make it easier for miners to do tanning. And also he's at war with anti-depressants. And has approved flavored vaping products which are marketed to children. Oh, I didn't see the flavored vaping stuff, Jesus. Really, this is where it's so important that we actually pay attention to what he does and not what he says. No one doesn't want to make America healthier, but we know we don't do that by cutting off food stamps, by cutting off people's access to health insurance and by approving products that are known to be harmful to human health. You know, even the glycophate executive order that came out earlier this year. I mean, if there was one thing that I thought RFK junior was committed to, it was his campaign against Roundup. And instead with the executive order, he just threw that right out the window to go along with Trump's policy of putting something that is pretty clearly harmful to human health more into our food production. Yeah, it's just mind blowing what's happening with RFK. But it's clear that the Senate as bought in as they were when they when they signed off on him for his confirmation seems like now they can't get they couldn't get Casey Meens in there. They're having some trouble. Maybe Trump, I mean, who knows because it's always hard to know what Trump is ultimately going to do because who knows it does not behave in normal ways, but he may fire the head of the FDA. So I'd love you to sort of like it does feel like the will members of Congress and Republican Party starting to maybe push back a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think this was the problem with the thesis of the Trump campaign is they promised everything to everyone. We're going to make America healthier again and we're going to make products cheaper. We're going to cater to the oil lobby while making America healthier. Like, there were so many conflicting interests that just did not line up and you are seeing that play out with the turmoil, let's say, within HHS that they are looking to fire the FDA's secret or head that they can't get the surge in general appointment approved. And now the latest nomination is definitely not from the Maah movement. And Republican members of Congress are not, you know, they may be anti-science, but they can read a poll. And they know how dramatically unpopular the, uh, dissembling of the childhood vaccine schedule is. - Yeah, and I mean, it's also just really unpopular, and it's also really destructive, right? So you were talking about the South Carolina measles outbreak, but we have other outbreaks too. - Yeah, and a lot of the research that I mean, right now there's the outbreak on the cruise ship in South America, and people are dying, and people are scared, and people are being, you know, we are having the contact trace once again, but you know, let's just look back in the last year, and what research was unfunded by the Trump administration, the research into this virus. You know, I mean, there are consequences to taking a chainsaw to our research institutions and our ability to produce quality research, and we are seeing it play out right now. It didn't even take five years. It is just, you know, RFK juniors crusade against RNA vaccines, you know, when they are showing that they are basically cancer vaccines. I mean, if you knew that you could take a vaccine that was gonna prevent you from getting pancreatic cancer, you know, most people would say, "I would take that." - Yeah, I mean, I would take it. - I would take it before a peptide that hasn't even been FDA approved. I mean, yes, but RFK loves a peptide, and he also loves two 10. - Yeah. Do you have any sort of positive thing to tell us? - That there still is good research being funded. - Really? - You know, even with some of the RFK cut funding to mRNA vaccines, and the military basically said, the Pentagon said, "We'll be taking over that because it is a national security issue." And so there are some guardrails in place or some alternative institutions that are picking it up, but we can't sustain this for the long run. We need to have an administration and certainly a health secretary that is committed to actual gold standard science that is committed to our culture of innovation and research and education that produces these wonderful treatments and advancements that we wouldn't get otherwise. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so scary. And just so dark. - Tell us if we want to support you, how do we do it? If we want to support your organization. - Our website is 314action.org. And again, we work to elect scientists and doctors all across the country. We have endorsed over 250 scientists running this year and are committed to getting them elected and winning back the US House. - Thank you. Thanks for joining us. - Well, thank you. I appreciate it. - And now the more we post this. - Jesse Cannon. - Somali, I know you're gonna be disappointed at the moment of fuckery right now is not that there's a potential shortage of aluminum for Diet Coke cans. You're a great addiction. But the moment of fuckery, the moment of fuckery is actually, then we have a leaked CIA analysis that shows Trump and Hegs at the light through their teeth about the Iran war and that, one of my favorite things is that the CIA has decided that Tarrad can hold out for months from this blockade and they lied about that. - Of course. Of course, I'm really, they lied. Next you're gonna say they're stupid. No, Jesse, it cannot be that these people, White House officials just straight up fabricated shit says a Democratic Senator from Connecticut, I bet I know which one. - Yeah, I think we know which one. - Yeah, no, they're fucking liars. This crew, this is what they do. - It's just lying, so by the way, I still think that the reason they got into this law is 'cause they got trapped by Netanyahu. - Yeah, of course, these guys are liars. This is what they do. They lie, they confiscate, and also they're not very smart. - That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. 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