Overtime – Episode #738: Ryan Holiday, Andrew Cuomo, Kristen Soltis Anderson

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series Real Time with Bill Maugh. All right, our panel, the host of the Daily Scower Podcast, investing off of Wisdom Take's work, Ryan. How are they? The former Democratic governor of New York, Andrew Cloma, when she's a seed and contributor in social, that's a lot of insights. Christen's ultrasandas and, okay, first one is from the people for you, Ryan. Which book do you think should every American read? Good question. I heard Obama is going to have a podcast just about books. He's, you know, upper thing, book, book, book, cloud. I mean, I mean, it gets people reading books. The books are like a dinosaurs now. What is that? What book do you think every-- I mean, I is an obvious pick, but I think Gatsby is the greatest American novel. Maybe the greatest one in English? I should not disagree more. What? You know, it's, it's, it's, it's a, okay, it's a pretty good book. They've made it into a movie so many times and it always sucks. And the last time, and the last time I watched it and it sucked, I went, maybe it's the book. Thank you. Well, why do you think it's so great? To me, Gatsby is the American dream, and it's also, you know, the careless people smashing things up. The, the, the green light is the, is the aspiration. I like that trying to get back to a simpler time. And at the same time, we also have the carelessness of the rich, the indifference of the rich, the ridiculousness of the rich. And then, you know, speaking of books, you know, my favorite scene is they walk into the library. And if you have this enormous display of books, and then Caraway finds out, none of them have ever actually been open. The pages haven't been cut, which is how books were. You know, we talk a lot about books, people have opinions about books, people have opinions about the Odyssey, but if people actually read them, they actually read them more than once. You know, I, I think there's something there too. I have a lot of books in my house, I've been read. I guess, I just, I just love the way books look. I have a whole, I, I do, I do, I do. I've read books, I've read 20 books, like a lot of books that have been read. You were going to come by color? How do you organize them? I organize them by color. Wow, I'm anal, I'm not that bad. No, I like it the fact that there's all different colors. It makes for a wall that says, nothing else makes a wall, I think. It's a great look, but that's me. Book, what, what book would you recommend? I would recommend CS Lewis, The Screw Tape Letters. And while it is a Christian book, it's not a like, prostalitizing book. It's a book about what goes on in the mind when you are being tempted away from your values. And how we think somebody's temptation to do something bad is like it's obvious. And instead, it's about how like the little voice inside your head just tiny little things, little annoyances, like, like, can lead you down a path away from what you truly believe is important. I always thought CS Lewis was Christian prostalitizing. Well, it's of, it is a Christian book. And I don't think it's, it's not, it's not hiding it whatsoever. But it's not a book that is intended to be about, here's why Christianity is great. It's a book that's like, here's why the devil is speaking. So if I read it on which page would I throw it against the wall? I don't think you would, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Andrew, what's your favorite book? I'd have a book just for Democrats. Well, you are true blue. Reason, even bluer. Reason to believe by Mario Cuomo. God rest his soul. Oh, James. And I think it was, it is a very succinct read of what the Democratic Party is supposed to be about with the heart and soul and a mission of the Democratic Party was supposed to be about. And we've lost that reason to believe Mario Cuomo. He was a great voice for it, but he was a better writer about it. Okay. That's your dad. Yep. Hannah, what are your thoughts on Trump saying he will declare the straighter of her moves a territory of the United States? I cannot keep up with this guy. I mean, this, every day there's a new version of the straighter of her moves. It's like Mary Hartman. I just, I, now it's going to be a territory of the United States. Wow. Okay. But it looks like we don't even control it. It means nothing. It means nothing. Like every, like every other statement. It means nothing. We have peace. We have war. I'm going to bomb. I'm not going to bomb. We have a deal. We don't have a deal. What does the panel think of reports that sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have tried to jump overboard amid terrible conditions and a record 250 consecutive days? That makes my blood boil. Didn't Trump say today that it hasn't been out long enough? That's what he said. The response was it hasn't been out at sea long enough. So this is a guy that supposedly supports the troops. It's like, this is to be away from your family that long for a war we shouldn't be in at all. By the way, we're losing. It's insane. [APPLAUSE] This thing is 250 days. They haven't gotten used to it yet. That's what he's thinking. I mean, it's bizarre. I've used this phrase before, but Republicans, they have this patriotic immunity, like they can do things that are so unpatriotic, and they don't seem to pay a price for it the way a Democrat would. When I hear about troops being on a ship where the toilets aren't working, and there's not enough food, and there's so morose about this that at least one of them jumped off the ship, it just makes my blood boil. This is also why it's so important that if you are going to do something like commit American troops to a war, where war is hell, it has to be for a reason. That's a very good reason that you've communicated very well to everybody who's involved, and for these soldiers to feel on the ship not only are they being let down by the actual conditions that they are in, but to also not feel like they're there for any kind of mission that is worth fighting. I disagree with that. There was a mission worth fighting. We fucked it up, how we did it, Iran having a nuclear weapon, Iran being the actor in the Middle East that has fucked everything up in that region for the last 50 years. Changing that dynamic was not an unreasonable thing to try. They did it at the wrong time, they fucked it up. They should have done it when the people were in the streets, they didn't, and now we're here with you. I want to agree with you that the world is better off with Iran not having a nuclear program, that we are better off that we have gotten rid of an enormous amount of their capability. But we've gotten ourselves into a situation now where folks are deployed in the Middle East, who, you know, there are, it's thankfully not nearly as many as used to be coming home on a regular basis during Iran. We're still losing American lives. I know, we're drifting away from the point, which is that we, a trillion dollars, a trillion dollar defense budget, and you can't put food on a aircraft carrier. I mean, it's just, some of it speaks to just competence, and that should go down the chain as they say in the military. Well, that's unbelievable. You know, the first that he didn't lay out the case to the American people before he started, I think it was a big mistake. Because you're right, there was a case to lay out, he just didn't do it. It was just Venezuela yesterday, and now we're going to do this. No, he did. Yeah, once he, once he started, and then we weren't prepared. No, we just, the greatest military on the globe, how are we running out of weapons? I mean, it's incredible. Andrew, is there a legitimate, I know why this is for you, is there a, because you're in this business now, you're in the crypto business. There are legitimate real-world use for cryptocurrency, or is it just an avenue for criminals and corrupt politicians? I don't think they mean you by that, but, but, I mean, but you are in, you, you, this, it's so interesting to me what politicians do. Like John Boehner, left politics, and he went into the pot business. He and I are in the same business now. Yeah. I have them. The, the woods, the best pot store, it's on Santa Monica, Boulevard. It is John Boehner. John Boehner went into psychedelic. I mean, no, Rick Perry went into psychedelics. That's his business now. Rick Perry, former governor of Texas, you went to crypto. Why would you want to get into such a dirty business? Yeah, well, dirty business, it brought seven. 2014, I became interested in the industry. I was governor of New York. We were the first to regulate it. Because the technology, the financial technology is revolutionary and can do great, great things if properly used. This blockchain technology and these smart contracts, it can make transactions faster, cheaper, more accessible for people. I worked with a company called OKX. We just did a partnership with ICE, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, which I believe is the most, the best exchange on the globe. He says it is an arrogant New Yorker. But you will be able to buy tokenized stock 24/7 globally with tokenized securitization. I mean, it's going to change the whole industry, but it has to be done right. And it has to be regulated. The whole point of this one is that it's not regulated. That's the whole reason they started it because they don't want regulation. Only in this country, only in this country, Europe 30 countries agreed on a common regulatory scheme have a common regulation. We can't get the Senate and the House to agree for our own regulations in this country. That's what happened here. We still don't have regulations in place. That's the controversy about the Clarity Act that was supposed to pass and finally put in regulations. Well, whatever it is here, I know it's used by hackers and sex traffickers and kidnapper, what? Am I wrong? Cool. Well, it's also used to be a lot of-- What is the stoic view on Fritz? Well, really, where do the stoics come from? [APPLAUSE] The Senate has line, was it's OK to be rich as long as your money's not stained in blood. So it matters what industry you're in. It matters how you make your money. It matters who you're in business with. So I do think there's some sketchy things about the industry. And there's probably a reason that our president likes it so much. Well, I mean, that's-- [APPLAUSE] That's the thing, everyone. That's why it has to be done right. That's why it has to be regulated. That's why it has to be clean. That's why it has to be compliant. Look, before I was a governor, we have that. Like, money itself-- it doesn't exist either. It's all about we just believe it. We just believe the bank has the money. They don't really have the money, right? So what's the point of just having this new thing that's just in the air and in our minds? Yeah, you're focusing on the coins. I'm focusing on the technology. The technology is different. It's what-- it's digital ledger technology. It is instantaneous. It is faster. It is cheaper. And it will allow financial transactions disruptive, because it's going to reduce the cost by reducing the intermediaries. But literally, 24/7 stock market trading, bringing trillions of dollars in this country. But moving quickly couldn't also be a bad thing, because I seem to remember when there's sort of a run on the market, what they have to do is freeze it, because otherwise we'll go-- The exchange will still have checks. They'll still have checks on it. So we can do that. We can stop the trading. It will go through ICE, which is the largest exchange globally. The intercontinental exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange. All right. We'll wind up with this one. Are there any modern leaders who you think are doing a good job modeling Stoic Virtues? Good question. Well, I think these days we obviously see more people modeling the opposite of Stoicism. You have Elon Musk's of the world waking up every day, freaking out about things that are not in his control. One of my Stoic here is modern Stoic. Here's most of the people I write about are dead. But I think General Mattis is not just a embodiment of the idea, but he famously carries the Stoics with him on his deployments. And certainly, watching this situation unfold now, we miss that kind of adult supervision and the Pentagon these days. Yeah. I mean, Elon, a lot of people say, well, it's the kind of mean talk, and when he does crazy stuff. It's also the social media. It's bad, right? He's been-- he's not out of school. He's talked about his drug use. Is there a place within Stoicism for doing drugs? Well-- I'm asking for a friend. Yes. [LAUGHTER] I might point you to a philosophy called Epicurianism. That's more in your style. But they have more in common than they do differences. All right, well, thank you very much. You're all very entertaining. Thank you. You're a fantastic man. And see you next week. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. 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