Interview Only w/ Bruce Mehlman - Debt, AI, & An Economy That Isn't Working for Everyone

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. This is Matt Rogers from Los Cultures. This is Matt Rogers in Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Cultures. This is Matt Rogers in Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, okay, hold on. I got a new favorite food. That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Cupid Mayon. Yeah, it's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it at the grocery store. And this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Cupid only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Eggs sandwiches, fries, burgers, chefs use it, restaurants use it, people who really care about flavor use it, put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. What it sounds like when you roadtrip to the I Heart Radio music festival in the all new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid. Wow, this is really nice inside. The Palisade Hybrid has more luxury than ever. Wow, this sound system is awesome.

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3:06They're just trying to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it, but it's across the board is what they're trying to do. At the end of the day, they're advocating for you. They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs, and then compares them to every single plan available to find the best one that will work for you and hopefully send a save you a couple dollars too. And here's the part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've been enrolled. They will keep advocating for you. They're kind of like almost like a concierge service. Just there, I need to help. You're like customer service, you know, the plan, you know, help me navigate this again. So you ever get hit with a wrongful medical bill? They'll help you fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you even after you've done this. So look, I get it. I think there's all sorts of space. You see a lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space. What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time with them.

4:07This is a very transparent organization. It is Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing. The whole point of this is to make this easier and less confusing. So look, take the skepticism you already have in all of this. Point it at your own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure and then call chapter today at 980-734-3985. Well, joining me now for one of my, I guess we're doing this about quarterly. It's my long time, how Bruce Melman. Hopefully you know him from what is always a terrific Sunday morning read, the six church Sundays that he puts out. It's a free sub stack, age of disruption is what it's called. He's got a day job. He works on the part of politics that I think every American would claim they hate government relations.

5:07But it's actually one of the things that frankly our founders knew would exist and should exist. It's a government relations firm and we all need to relate with the government every now and then. So we will talk a little bit about that. But mostly what Bruce and I usually like to talk about is trying to help explain. I think what we, and Bruce, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like this is ultimately your mode of two, which is just simply trying to explain Washington to America. And sometimes as I like to, I used to say in my other job, explain America to Washington. Yeah, that's pretty much what I do for a living. I've been mostly in the technology space. So I always say it is explain Silicon Valley to Washington and Washington to Silicon Valley. But it's, we speak different languages, but we need each other. And so you need the translators, the middleware, whether they're in journalism or government relations. Look, obviously we're going to talk about all things data centers, big tech here. You've done a lot of charts on it.

6:07I've written a lot about it. But I actually want to kick things off on a topic that I dealt with on my last podcast. And you dealt with in your last six shirts Sunday, which is this. This sort of, you know, this, this sort of bifurcation of this economy, right? It's, it is literally a tale of two cities, right? You can use that metaphor. You can grind it into the grants at best of times. It's the worst of times. If you are in a certain sector, if you're a certain level of investor, things are going great. You do see these investments kicking in. But what's not happening is it's not getting to the masses, right? And we see things are flat. If not falling behind, if you look at what inflation has done. So what is your assessment of this economy? Is this a good economy? Is this a bad economy? Or does it really depend on where you set? Well, everything depends on where you sit. Or the, or the I start, I don't say it's the best of times, worst of times.

7:07It's the best of times and most stressed of times. And there is the biggest dichotomy between lots of hopeful, the economic indicators and the vibe and how people feel. And the fact that, you know, even if you're 401K's at record levels, millennials at this point at this age on average are wealthier adjusted for inflation than my Gen X or than the boomers were. But they feel so much more stressed, so much more worried about the future, so much less confident about economic opportunity. I tend to think, you know, many Americans own 401K's. It's true. There's a much greater wealth concentration at the top. But the extraordinary AI driven tailwind is benefiting anybody who has S&P 500, who's in the 401K. House prices are record highs. Now that's bad news if you're trying to buy your first home for sure. But for so many Americans, so much of their familial wealth is tied up in their homes.

8:08I wish we built enough so that some of the price here wasn't inflated by the lack of supply to meet the need and meet the demand. I tend to think there are a whole lot of positive opportunities. What I worry about, what I know we're going to talk about is, and what I did my last sub-stack, it was called tailwinds, tailwinds are real, will they continue? And I had a picture of Wiley Coyote, because to me, it's Wiley would put the rocket, you know, he would usually have like a rocket strapped to his back and he would go tearing off, and then it would often explode. And I don't know, and what I think the race is, is will we see the AI investments pay off through economy-wide productivity? Pay off in job enablement, pay off in entrepreneurship opportunities before the music stops, and the debt obligations and the off balance sheet obligations exceed their ability, their cash flow to pay it back, and we have to kind of go through the sort of bust we saw with the railroads.

9:10Well, and that's the question I have, right? You know, so we have sort of a couple of different examples during technological transformations, where we've seen the investments paid off and there was a bust. You just brought up one of them, the railroads. You could argue that, you know, the great pets.com recession, right? I don't know how else to call it, but that's not come. It's a ways, right? When you just say the pets.com bubble, right? Everybody knows what you're referring to in a certain age. You know, that was one of those moments where it almost was simultaneous. We saw the productivity gains and the bubble burst at the same time, which is why it had minimal impact. It had impact, but it was not, you know, that also happened literally within months of 9-11, and there was just, there was a lot of stuff in the air that sort of, I don't want to say it mitigated the bubble burst, and so maybe our pain thresholds, we forget, but it's certainly, I think it is, we don't remember how potentially fearful people were about the, about the.com bubble in that moment.

10:11The railroads is a bigger one, right? Because the bust happened before any of the upside was experienced. And in fact, a whole bunch of people lost their shirts. But then we got it back about 15 years later. So where are we in a, in a, in a, right now, is this the railroads or is this.com? Well, it's not just the railroads, which were boom and bust, but that was true of electricity and electrification. And the utilities back in the day, you know, pets.com, another way to say it would be the fiber build out and global crossing. And, and, and if anything, I think the lack of a bust might be the exception. The rule seems to be, you know, a rational exuberance, a ton of investment, things that get built and deployed, ultimately getting a little over their skis in ahead of their ability to get paid out, but it's always been in the interest of the United States. The phrase you use, Chuck, that I love the most, and I know you, you write about this a ton. This more than any other theme, animates what I write is,

11:13the recency bias and the need to read history because it doesn't feel like the.com bubble was such a big deal now to you and to me. I worked at Cisco Systems when the.com bubble happened. It felt like a really big deal. And for a lot of folks who had ridden the, you know, the NASDAQ up, it took like 15 years for the NASDAQ to reach its top again. The reason it doesn't feel nobody on this call remembers the railroads. So it feels like, ah, you know, boom and bust. These things feel real and really stressful when you're living through them. And one of the great lessons of life and of history is we make it through and we get on with our business and all of their lives. And the future, at least always has been meaningfully better than the past. It is true. Now, look, the, I think the added concern is, is this debt situation that we have. And it's not just our debt, right? This is, and the question is, if the timing of the AI bust happens at the wrong time and we just don't have the levers, I mean,

12:18you look at interest rates right now. He's got to raise, he's likely to raise them. And we'll be fascinating to see when I refer to Kevin Worsh, how Trump's going to handle that. But he has to raise them. And yet, my God, we're going to increase the cost of our net, right? Like it's a, it's not good for the fiscal bottom line of the country. But if we don't do it, we're never going to tame inflation. And yet at the same time, I had somebody make an argument to me that says, well, actually, if this is the situation we're in, then we should be dropping interest rates. We need to get back near to zero. And I'm like, we're going to be paying $30 for hamburgers if we do that. So I do feel like, well, I'm with you. I think we're, you know, I'm, I, I used to say I quote Churchill when Churchill says, you know, Americans always do the right thing after they've exhausted every other path. Turns out he never said that. But it was somebody that none of us have ever heard of that said it, but it sounds better if we could claim Churchill said it right.

13:21And I do feel this way, but I worry here that we don't have, we don't have a lot of room here. We don't have a lot of room to maneuver. And the bus could come at a time where the government really doesn't have the capacity to bail some people out that are probably just think they're going to get bailed out. So while I both feel the way you do, I also take some comfort chuck in the fact that people felt like America's debt was raising to historically high levels. We were running large annual deficits and then the GFC happened. And prior to the GFC people said, we don't have any room. They went bonkers with the debt, of course. And there was also QE and, you know, expansion of the money supply. And you know, the GFC you're referring to the financial crisis. Correct. You know, in 2007, 2008, 2009, well, that binge of debt followed by a Zerp zero interest rate policy. As it turned out, didn't create inflation. So people didn't realize the the effect of globalization, especially China. And it was disinflationary.

14:28So while debt kept going up, we didn't have the inflation that everybody knew was it happened if we tried to do things like we did then, then what happens and you have COVID. And COVID, they go completely insane in dropping interest rates to zero and in ladling on debt. We've been 10 years. We've more than doubled from 20 to 40 trillion dollars, which is not for me to suggest debt or even deficits don't matter. They do. It's only that people like you and I who say we can no longer handle it. The next one's going to break us have been consistently wrong for years. Right. But we now have a treasury secretary manipulating the bond market. And well, because he has to, I'm not going to sit here. I'm, I, you know, I, I wish. So this time, Iuring the Keynesian Bill I don't thinkiat, you know, right, and if trading starts at, you know, somewhere around entonces, I will just say. Yeah, what kind of equity investment has that grocery sixty percent?

15:34I don't think it's going to be fair. So I think that we're about kosher opportunities way. about this, no? I think there are a lot of reasons to be concerned, although you could look back and you could say bonds have been suffering since at least 2022, which was a worse year for long bonds than it than this year has been. I still don't quite understand the best and maneuver because he didn't manipulate the markets. He briefly attempted to try to and the markets, but it's not like it was even secret and the market just said, yeah, we're going to let market forces drive these things. I have been and remain really concerned. As you know, politicians know that if they raise taxes or cut spending, they'll get fired. And if they cut taxes or raise spending, they'll keep getting hired. But leadership is sometimes doing the hard and the difficult thing before the crisis comes. There is seemingly no political willingness or courage to put their necks out and on either party.

16:39And to say we need to take the punch bowl away. We need to solve these things. I do note, and one of my sub stacks coming up, Chuck's going to be called the next president. And hopefully you'll have me on next quarter to talk about it. But the next president's going to find the Social Security Trust Fund runs out in 2032. The Medicare Trust Fund runs out roughly about the same time. What we may, you know, Reagan found a way to extend the life of Social Security. But the politics in the next administration is going to require a grand bipartisan bargain. And the current environment is nothing grand and no bargains. That has me more concerned in that medium term. I don't believe we have the politics to handle this moment. And the two parties, this is, look, I'm not going to go off on my tangent about four parties. But this is the problem. We've so nationalized our politics that there is, I mean, just look at what happened at Jared Golden and Marie Glucin Camp Perez. They just simply wanted to

17:42put a bill on the floor, but it happened to help out putting some other bill that the Republicans wanted and the Democrats lost their, lost their, you know what? And you're like, you know, the House isn't supposed to be a competition to who can screw the other side the most. At some point, it is about who's passing legislation or who's trying to do it. And if you don't allow your Jared Golden's or your Don Bacon's to cross, cross the aisle every once in a while, but you want to punish them if they do it, we're never going to get anything done. No, you're right. We've seen that for a while now with the Freedom Caucus and on the Republican side. It's, you and I get a Freedom Caucus on the left. I think the herbal tea parties already. Yes. Yeah. I think Jeffries is good. Suddenly feel for Kevin McCarthy in like calling him up for therapy sessions. The first couple of months that he speaker maybe although the challenge for the Republican Freedom Caucus is they want nothing. So blocking is a winning strategy for them. At least historically,

18:45the left wing of the left wing was unhappy because you only would spend a billion and not seven billion. They want something. Yeah. They still want a billion more than zero, even if they don't get everything that they want. That's fair. That's fair. But let's go back to this. You know, it's funny. You say this about the debt. There's no secret plan that nobody's come up with to how to do this. I look at it's like our immigration issue. We've got like 16 different solutions on a shelf. Just pick one. The simplest one is sort of the 3% 3% 3% tax hike, 3% spending cut. There are some very sort of rational ways to do this. By the way, the public will support it because if you tell them, well, if they don't do this, then we're going to cut because you and I are going to be the first social security recipients. That's likely to get the first mandatory haircut where we're going to get 80% of what we're doing. I'm going to guess a lot of voters aren't

19:48going to like that. Well, you're right. Although the idea that the either easier rational thing is just 3% tax cut, 3% tax hike, 3% spending cut. Nobody would run their business saying all spending is the same and all, you know, all prices are the same. So it's a little bit like what we saw with the with the sequestration across the board, you know, dieting by amputation loses the weight, but it's not the way you want to get these things done. There are a lot of solutions. People like this committee for a responsible budget spend their lives. My amoginis, you know, it just goes from dinner to dinner saying the debt, the debt, the debt. She's going to be right at some point. Maybe she's right already. And you're right. We kind of lack the political courage. The AI angle, what Besson said today, the hope. And this is hope. We're talking on September 2nd here. Anyway, you did it today. I just always want to say. So good point is that there's a non-zero chance that AI could increase in a structural way, the productivity, the productive capability of our economy.

20:52And were that to happen? That might allow growth to grow faster than debt. If your growth is growing faster than your debt, you are in fact growing your way out of it, even with annual deficits. The problem we've got right now is that the deficit, the debt is growing faster than the economy. And that interest payments are now more the biggest spend larger in fact than the national defense. That is not a formula for a competitive nation and a secure nation. Hey, this episode of the Chuck Todd Cast is brought to you by Ethos. Look, let me tell you about life insurance. As you know, ethos is an incredible portal for helping you find the right life insurance policy. I'm a huge believer in life insurance. I wouldn't have gotten to college in Washington, DC without life insurance. My father had a policy buried somewhere that we discovered and it wasn't a lot of money, but it was an important bucket of money at a time that

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26:07Let's give it a little bit to a little bit on your day job. And which is how's the business community preparing for a democratic congress, particularly a house that'll have subpoena power? Well, the state business community is probably over broad, but overwhelmingly the presumption is that the house flips. I know that your prediction predicted and the call she markets the predictive markets are at 85% history suggests that would be likely. And they don't need I mean, what we know what we don't know is the size, you know, but it's like they only need what for technically or something like that. I mean, you know, it's hard to imagine they're not going to pick up four or five. The question is can they get a governing majority? That's a whole different story. But I think that's what we're trying to figure out. Look, I built a bipartisan firm starting 24 years ago and part of the recognition is the pendulum always swings back. So when I launched my firm, George W. Bush gets reelected, the

27:08Republicans have 55 senators. Karl Rove calls it a durable, not permanent, durable majority. He he'll correct you if you say the otherwise. And they had a big margin in the house two years later, the Senate and the House flip two years after that Obama's there and he's got 60 senators. Two years after that, the House flips back to the Republicans four years after that, the Senate flips into 2016, you get Trump with a full red board. The business community understands the pendulum always swings back. So number one, they're bipartisan. Number two, business community recognizes that the 120th Congress coming up just like every Congress preceding it, they need to go tell their story. We're in a trust recession. Nobody is trusted unless and until they show up in real life in person and explain why what they're doing is good for the state is good for the district is good for the communities and the stakeholders that the member of Congress ran saying they would help. And all trust is local. So if you can't explain why helping you helps the stakeholders

28:09and that you are a stakeholder of the elected officials, you're screwed. Number three, there is a recognition that there's going to be an epic amount of oversight. And then unlike in 2019, when the oversight tried to get documents and tried to get information through the executive branch and generally got blocked, this time they're going to follow the money from the outside end. And they're going to subpoena business that you make donations to the ballroom. Great. Let's find let's look at the documents. Did you hire people who call themselves top fixers in the Wall Street journal and then get a merger through that experts think was difficult. Great. Let's see if we can find as much information in the background through subpoenas through oversight, through document requests in the private sector, you can't claim executive privilege. And no business. Did you read this crazy OLC memo? Are you aware of this? That the White House thinks they can claim executive privilege on things they don't possess. So the OLC has put out a memo. So it was clearly one that

29:12the White House Council's office urged them to write an examin that claims that executive privilege extends to people who speak to the president privately in the Oval Office or we have any interact any of their communications with the president, even as private citizens are somehow covered by executive privilege. Now, I think I know what the White House is up to here, which is look one, maybe they'll actually get a court to agree. I don't think the courts will agree to that. I'm going to be very careful to try to predict anymore. This judiciary is what it is. But at a minimum, it will delay the subpoenas, right? It'll delay the appearances before Congress. Subpoena comes. First thing they'll do is test out this OLC memo, see if their communications qualify for executive privilege. That will take, you know, work it so you through the court. So I think at a minimum what the administration has done is gum up the potential subpoenas here for a while.

30:14Now, you know, we'll see. I think Jamie Raskin's a pretty smart dude. So he'll be pretty tenacious on this. But I, you know, I didn't know how I mean, that's one of those stories, you know, how the way our ether works, right? It sort of it got a little bit of attention for about three hours and then of course something else happened. I don't know Trump renamed a lake or something. I don't quite know what it was, but that could slow things down. I'll be curious to see how many companies try to take advantage of it because it's a bad, I would argue it might be a bad look to take advantage of it. Well, look, there's a company taking advantage of it seemingly opportunistically. And then what we don't yet know is what will the Department of Justice or the FBI say to companies about potential risk they face if they don't honor an assertive executive privilege. As we're in the environment, we've been in the environment. It was certainly true in the Biden administration with things like student debt relief where everything now gets litigated

31:15and it goes up in Supreme Court. I still don't believe companies will be willing to be held in contempt of Congress. And so that could become a very interesting if the House can hold ranks and to say, you know, if you don't turn over these documents to us, we're going to hold you in contempt fill in the blank company. I don't know any general counsel that is willing or wants to be held in contempt. The question is whether they get threatened from both directions legally, but you ask what businesses are doing to prepare. And my comment is they've tried to have friends on both sides. They are continuing to try to make sure that they are seen and heard and understood and aligned with both the administration's priorities, the Republicans' priorities and Democrats' priorities. And at this point now, a lot of they've already gotten pretty careful about what are we putting writing? What do we decide to fund or not fund? How do we want to phrase it? The Democrats, my firm, half Democrats, half Republicans, the 2025, our damn colleagues were kind of the

32:16Maytag Repairman. They just not have their phones ringing so much. So everybody was calling, right? Everybody is calling them. They are unbelievably busy being asked for advice. How do you think we present to these folks? How can we tell our story? How can we make sure we're cooperative and understood without being right there under the clean lights in the middle of a, of a, you know, melachi crunch between two sides coming at us with lawyers? Do you, um, what? It seems as if Trump put the business community in a weird spot. And I say this and, and you know, it's easy to bash these guys for writing these checks. But at the same time, they've got a few to share. Some of them have a few to share responsibility shareholders. And if you have an opportunity, you know, it's sort of like, look, plenty of people may say, well, they should have the moral, you know, check, check, and they're on themselves an ethics check and all this stuff. I'm going to sit, you know, welcome to the world of

33:19business. I'm just going to set that aside. Had they not, you know, played the, by the Trump rules? Could they have been punished? So was this a feeling that if you don't donate to the ballroom, if you don't donate to the asks that are made, and we all read that story that amazing Wall Street journal story about how the chief fundraiser sort of hangs, you know, is in the room when these meetings happen and then literally follows up with, so how much do you think it, you know, maybe a million, maybe five million, it was just sort of what was amazing is how out in the open it was, and then I realized, oh, that was a feature. Trump wants it out in the open. He wants people to know this is how it works. How did you advise clients on this? Yeah, look, so happily I've not been in the room when, when a direct ask has been made. I've generally suggested the clients the safest thing to do is if you gave money to the Obama or to the Biden inauguration, giving money to the Trump inauguration is consistent with past practices. I really say easy call. Yeah, right.

34:23Um, other things say a ballroom, then, you know, well, I wouldn't, number one rule, number one, is don't do anything that is illegal and don't do anything that if disclosed and they'll cover the in the front page of the Washington Post, we would be ashamed of embarrassed by or would hurt our business. That's our fiduciary obligation. Then trying to find what can we support, what can we align with? You know, each administration has the things that they care about. Businesses across all have consistently tried to how do we support maybe its things, maybe it's a climate initiative or maybe it's a DEI initiative or maybe, you know, in the case of George W. Bush the administration, I worked for it's rebuilding Iraq. Certainly this administration seems to have more opportunities, more asks, more projects that are, that are more often either personal or less traditional than prior administrations, but as a rule, don't do anything that you wouldn't

35:23want the whole world to know about. And if, you know, if you're, if thinking about it, boy, the whole world's going to find out about this, don't do it. There are also other things you can do. So if they ask you to do acts, you might say, you know what, there's something, let's do why. Let's you know, things like those, the, the, the new Trump accounts, they call them, but the accounts for children to help them save for the future. It, yeah, it's named after Trump's that creates some fight, but that's a pretty positive all Americans ought to be able to rally behind. It doesn't only go to children in red states, it doesn't only go to Republican children. It's to American kids. If you're being asked about doing something you don't want to do, there may be something that you can do that you are proud of that you'll stand behind. Maybe it's supporting veterans. There's usually been under all presidents, Democrat and Republican paths to demonstrate an alignment with the priorities of the administration without selling your soul or without breaking the law. Have you picked up on something that I've had in sort of my community of sort of bipartisan

36:28sounding board folks, which is I've detected quite a few Republican elected officials and former elected officials who think, you know, maybe we do need some campaign finance reform that, you know, it's become what used to be sort of more on the left than it was on the right. I'm starting me here, you know, especially from those that that worry about being primaries, right, from their, from their right. That's where I hear it the most of, you know, you know, when I hear somebody like, this clump of growth, I mean, I, you know, why can't I do something? I sort of smirk about it because I'm like, you know, a lot of your friends on the Democratic side have been complaining about this for some time. Maybe you guys ought to team up, but I've always wondered, why isn't the business community in favor of campaign finance reform? Because I say this because it would save them money. I think they would, would they love to not feel like they had to give? Well, in part, the way that political, the way that the campaign finance system works right now,

37:30you might argue for many in the business community, especially not the treasury of a fortune 500 company, but a very wealthy individual, they can punch with greater punching power. You know, if anything, you know, the post citizens united, it benefits those who have a whole lot of money that they are willing and able to spend. I don't know that I would say that's the business community writ large, but it certainly are, there are numbers of people with enough money who want to make a big investment. But Chuck, you know, I've written about for now a decade. I think we're in a new gilded age. And as with the last gilded age, we're going to need a series of reforms, economic reforms, political reforms, social reforms to get through where we are. We have a political system that was designed and operates for a world before the internet existed. We're going to need to change how we draw districts, how we run primaries. And I think how campaigns are financed, how spending happens. If it's an eerie parallel to what you were seeing at the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s, that led to a lot of, you know, corporate contributions were

38:35banned, union contributions were banned. A lot of reforms happen. Then I think it's not a question of if it's a question of when we're going to start seeing a recognition that the system we've got is not the does not empower the small D democracy to solve problems like we were talking about like the debt. This is how I leave people with optimism. It's like, look, I, and I don't think the two parties are going to do this voluntarily. I think it's going to have to come, which by the way, when you actually look at the history of whether it's direct election of senators, women to write the vote, the tax, the income tax, which were all part of those, those, the constitutional amendments that we were responsive of to that era, all of those constitutional amendments emanated from outside the two parties, outside the system sort of thrusted upon the system a little bit. And I think that's the, that's where I've always thinking, yeah, I think we're a cycle or two away from this. Like we're getting closer, you know, but I think it's 1896, you know. Yeah, I think you're right. And the history lesson is that these things sometimes take decades.

39:38So it's, it feels like they were easy reforms, but they were actually very complicated. The story of the 19th amendment, right? 72 years from Seneca Falls and one woman who was at the first meeting made it to 1920 and the right to vote. All right, let's talk about there's what, there's a bunch of companies that have all the money in the world, Bruce, and I have a feeling if they spend all the money in the world trying to convince people that data centers are a good thing, it would be money. They might as well just light it on fire at this point. I'm not sure the public's ready to hear anything from tech on this data center issue. And yet we're going to need these data centers. So what should big tech be doing right now? Yeah, you know, it's, you're right. I think this was somewhat avoidable and somewhat unavoidable, but tech is behind the eight bomb. I mean, first, obviously we're talking about this because the scale of investment is larger

40:41than the Manhattan project larger than highways. It's an epic scale of investment. And you know, and I know, look at the history of investments, look at the railroads, look at highways, look at electrification. There are always been opposition, including local opposition. We're actually not nearly seeing nearly the kind of backlash yet that the highways saw given how much land they gobbled up. So so first, it's already we love the interstates now. Well, most of the interstates, we don't love what they did to some cities, but that's what they're glad they're there now. We're glad, you know, we wish we had cheaper electricity, but we don't want to have any wires in our backyard. So first, all of us need to take the deep breath of perspective of, of course, there is a backlash. This isn't because big tech's bad. It's because it's an epic scale of investment. Number one, number two, the costs are typically concentrated locally and the benefits feel kind of diffuse. So golf courses will use seven to ten times more land than the projected massive number of data centers and 20 times more water than the projected data centers. Local community

41:47take golf courses, but anyway, I think that I think that I mean, maybe I'm a, I'm a, maybe I speak for the minority, but plenty of people like having golf courses in the community. No, that right, but they, they do, there's always people fighting them for that very reason. I don't want to use the word, but, but, you know, so when the benefits are more visible, great, when I'm worried about it, that's not great. But most, to me, the political interesting lesson here is nobody really made the case. A lot of the data centers are companies that I bet you 400 to 435 members of the house can't name companies that build and operate data centers. Nobody's ever heard of them. They lease to a lot of the tech companies. So that's one. Number two, they're being, they're being used for AI. And what do we hear from the LLM lords? We hear that AI is too dangerous for them to release. We hear that we might all lose our job. So hard to believe they don't have a social license to put something in your backyard. Yeah. So you're saying the public doesn't,

42:48it doesn't like AI. Yeah, because the AI, the AI adventures are the ones saying, oh my god, it's a terrible idea. What's interesting to me, the echelon insight guys have done some wonderful polling. And what they find is the average person asked about a data center anywhere near them says, I don't like it. And then if you say, how about if they agree that they're that basically they won't screw with the water table that will be self contained or otherwise, it'll, it'll, it'll not have an impact local water support opposition to the Minishes. Then how about if they're going to make sure that your electricity bills don't go up as a result of their activity. For many of the voters, it moves to modestly positive. If you asked about a data center for streaming, people are generally okay. So to me, nobody has made the case locally, but locally is where the action happens. And you see some areas like like Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Amish country. And in Amish country, there was what's called a CBA, a community benefit agreement where the data center

43:51developers sat down with local community and they agreed on a bunch of thou shalt nots and thou shals. I think you're going to see in the future fewer of these operators, nobody's ever heard of just buying a bunch of land and boom, there's a data center and, you know, suck it neighbors. And we're going to see procedural hurdles put in place that makes local people feel like they have a voice, but we're going to continue to build them. This gets it to a larger issue than I think the tech companies have and the industry has, which is, you know, I think in this case, they thought capturing, frankly capturing the politicians was enough. And, you know, I think I, right before we started recording, I caught another headline of somebody that got recalled the twight, beat back a recall and got recalled again over voting for a data center. Like the voters were just decided to punish some county commissioner, whatever it was, I can't even remember the area of the country. But frankly, it doesn't matter if I'm talking about, I've seen this opposition in Petzicole of

44:53Beach during blues weekend, where sometimes they're flying airplane banners that say we've got sex on the beach drinks for five dollars. And then the next airplane is telling you about the danger of data centers and the horrible noise. You think the, the blue angels make noise? You don't know anything yet. You know, and it is shocking how local and fired up the opposition is. And it just, this is not about data centers to me. And this is not about AI. This is a, this is a generation, I think. And this is where I think the tech industry just, frankly, doesn't get it. Although I'll give some credit to Mark Zuckerberg, who I think it started in that manifesto he wrote, at least was using the correct words, I think. And that is, I think the public doesn't think tech has been great for society. Maybe they like what they like about tech, right? I like my phone or I like this or I like that. But they look at the overall picture and think, oh, social media, good thing or bad thing. And we're jumping into this AI business and we're not

45:56quite sure what it is. And then it's this like, I think the tech industry needs a whole come to, you know what here and needs to figure out how to become Americans again. They really have come across like they're these bond villains. And some of them actually have, look like bond villains. And and even have names that would, you'd be like, you wouldn't even bother changing the name to make a good bond villain. They don't feel like they're part of our society. And I wonder how much that is playing a role here. Yeah. So I wrote a piece in July called Bonfire of the data centers. And I tried to go deep into a lot of these issues. You know, for example, by the way, for those of a certain age, they're not going to know the bonfire reference. This is you channeling old Tom Wolf. And to anybody under the age of 40, if you've never gotten into a Tom Wolf phase, please do. It you'll be glad you did. Bonfire of the Vanities being arguing, you know, Tom Wolf people will say it's not his best, but it is certainly his most famous. Yeah,

46:57and don't watch the movie as much as I like Tom. The book was his way better. You're right. Yeah. Bonfire of the data centers is a rip off of Tom Wolf's bonfire of the Vanities. Two thoughts about that. First, one day to point, one day one chart I included in that was a favorable unfavorable poll. And social media, big time underwater, AI, big time underwater, data centers, big time underwater, the most favorable net favorable sector technology. So what's interesting to me is that people have a huge, when they hear tech, we love American tech, we love the tech sector. We don't love, as it turns out, they're kind of marquee products and the things that they're doing. That's interesting to me. It means I think Tim Cook remains one of the most admired people in the country. Michael Dell is a national hero in treasuries, extraordinarily admired. So thought number one is there is this interesting I work with the tech industry, even though a lot of their products say social media don't have a lot of social approval.

48:03It hasn't dented 20 years of social media, making people more worried about things, hasn't dented the overall favorability of the tech industry. Broadly is number one, but number two, I included one of my charts, which I used chat GPT to help me draw. The anti-datacenter backlash is where ban and meets Bernie. It's a populist thing. And I think this is what you were getting at. It the broad dynamic driving people to keep voting for change and to throw in the bombs out, whether it's voting Mamdani in a New York City or voting Donald Trump in in Washington, is the idea that the establishment, the institution, the system is rigged against people like me. And I need somebody to stand up against the big global elite. Tech has always been at high risk, because they are big, they are global, they are elite. Today, people have generally felt like tech broadly brings more benefit, even if some of the products narrowly are products that people

49:06get worried about. Even data centers, Apple is not a data center company per se, but if you don't have data centers, good luck getting what you want to get on your iPhone. And so one of the things best, just this week took a lot of the tech sector to task for is you guys need to be much more vocal and defending these things and in owning these things and in helping people understand the benefits of these things. Because right now people are worried about the water bill, people are worried about the electric bill and AI generally just seems to benefit billionaires for people who hold a couple of chip stocks. This episode of the checktod casting is brought to you by Fandall baseball fans. Think you know who's hitting a home run today? Well, Fandall is giving you a free chance to call your shot with daily dares. Joining the action is easy, you just make your free pick on who's hitting a home run and their get. And if you're right, you'll get a profit boost to use on your next bet. For a chance at extra winnings. You've got nothing to lose and you get a lot to gain and don't forget

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54:31world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes start at just $1,500. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous. You know what they really need? They need a liiah cocoa. And this gets this segways into the last topic I wanted to talk with you about. We sort of previewed it. Theiah cocoa was an credible communicator for an auto executive. And for those that don't know, he's basically the guy that invented the Mustang. That was his claim to fame at Ford. And then he's eventually hired over at Chrysler. And he's the man that Chrysler said to be saved a few times. The first time they were saved. They were saved by Iacocca go into Ronald Reagan. But they obviously had to be saved a

55:32second time some 30 years later. But liiah cocoa was a terrific spokesperson for the industry as a whole. Right. He was he it was and it was at a moment that the auto industry needed somebody to you know, buck it up a little bit. They were under siege by foreign competitors. The Germans and the Japanese were just you know, running laps around that. And I look at the tech industry. It's interesting. The names you brought up and the names you didn't bring up. I agree with you about Tim Cook. Tim Cooks and now former CEO of Apple. I agree with you about Michael Dell. And Michael Dell is not necessarily a forefront. But when you look at the current crop, right? Whether it's the CEO of Google, the CEO of Metta with Mr. Zuckerberg, you know, you put him on a fave unfave and you're going to be underwater Elon Musk. You're probably going to see him underwater. They could use a better communicator. And you know, this is the this is sort of I think it's now

56:36the most important thing a CEO most important skill is CEO has to have these days. When back in the day, it didn't matter if you were a good communicator, you could find one. But who am I missing? Something who is there somebody out there? I don't know that could be the this generations liiah cocoa for Silicon Valley that could sort of put this stuff in English and essentially make the case. Yeah. So so first, uh, when I a cocoa was the spokesperson, we had members the big three. Yep. Tech is not a monolith. Tech is an unbelievably broad and diverse set. We have the magnificent seven. Hey, I mean, you know, you do have six or seven companies that are that are sort of the the tip of the spear. Yeah. And you know, the Google CEO is actually a terrific communicator, albeit not in every day regular guy. The way you know, you make you invent the Mustang. You're speaking to every American. You know, you see you of Google. He's brilliant. He's thoughtful, same with Microsoft.

57:38But there it has less of a feel of, you know, Musk may have been there. You know, it'll come across to me as technocrats, which of course I love and so do you. I mean, I think the country would be better off if we had four to 35 technocrats, but it would be boring. Yeah. The other thing that's interesting about Ia coca is, you know, he wasn't the richest guy in the world. In fact, part of his visibility in Washington, he came hat and hand. He needed a bailout. Yeah. Um, obviously tech is not there right now. I'm not, I don't disagree with the fundamental premise of given the internet. Communication and communication skills have never been more critical. The ability to have a narrative that people can embrace and understand has never been more critical as a, as maybe the number one prerequisite for an effective leader. But I don't know that I would say to be an effective, you know, Jensen Wong to be the effective leader of NVIDIA. You've got to be so smooth on national

58:39television that everybody embraces you. That's, I don't know. No, I'm not saying that, but I don't think Alex Carp's a very good spokesperson. I'm not going to fight you on car piece. He's, he's awkward, but you know, AMD CEO, Lisa Sue is brilliant. She's been incredibly effective. She communicates like a brilliant engineer. She's not running for anything. She's running a great company competing against NVIDIA and a bunch of other folks. She's doing exactly what she's supposed to be doing. You know, you were the interesting question to me, Chuck is maybe it's they need a Jack Valenti. Maybe they need a spokesperson who represents the industry, but who is a millennium for giving a person I are going old guy here. Jack Valenti was the, he was an old, it was actually an old LBJ staffer if I'm not mistaken. Yep. I became the head of the motion, you know, basically the people that rate movies for you, the motion picture association of American MPAA. I think that they technically changed what those initials mean these days. I'm not going to get into it, but there was a time where where he was probably the most famous

59:43lobbyist in Washington, right? He was and he was broader than lobbyist, but at the time, the the Hollywood moguls were under attack. You know, the lot of folks in Washington were shocked, shocked to find what they would think of as smut or violence. Right. And so Washington was going to need to step in and going to need to regulate and Valenti, who was a charismatic, unbelievably effective communicator, got the proxy from all the Hollywood moguls and negotiated very much in public. The self regulatory, you know, RX PG 13 rating system and got the major players to agree that they would adhere to it and they would follow it. It feels to me in the same way your average Hollywood mogul who you know, they're brilliant in Hollywood, but they may not be the face in the voice in Washington, but they found somebody who knew how to be effective in this environment. My instincts are that tech would benefit more from that than from having one CEO who would attempt to speak for all of the tech sector, which just never going to happen, not least because

1:00:46a software sector guy has a whole bunch of different equities than a hardware sector guy and hardware can be, you know, business to business, a chip that goes into a system and it can be what you and I have on our desktop. So I just don't see a single voice as the voice of tech. I hear you on that. It is interesting to me and I'm curious how much you've tracked this. You know, the fastest growing C suite, the addition to the C suite over the last 15 years has been a chief comms officer. You know, in 2005, no Fortune 500 company had a somebody with a communications title in the C suite, right? It usually was under a lot of places. It would be under the general counsel. You know, they would they were they were the supervisor of the communications shop. And now it's become such a bigger every company has decided I can't even trust a trade press anymore. We've got to tell our own story. Have you seen this phenomenon sort of bleed into speaking to

1:01:51Washington? Are we in one of those moments? Are associations in or out? Right? Do more of these companies want to take control of their storytelling and narratives in Washington now? In the same way they appear to be when it comes to the C suites. Yeah, I certainly run into a lot more CMOs. I've spoken to groups of CMOs and conferences. To me, first and foremost, the recognition is what you say to Wall Street, what you say to stakeholders, what you say to customers into the market is what you're saying to Washington. There are no divisions that there are no separations anymore. So if you get your messaging outside of Washington wrong, you have a Washington problem. In the same way that if you get your messaging to Washington in a way that you think kisses the butt of the people you're talking to, you may have a consumer problem or a market problem. And the narrative, the message is so critical for your ability to attract and retain employees

1:02:52for your ability to have customers embrace you and not boycott you or not protest you. For your ability to be heard by stakeholders and government and beyond, you need to have somebody who is really good at it and who thinks about it all the time. The best companies, the Wal-Mart's of the world, the chief marketing officer is working with the chief legal officer who's working with him and they've got Dan Bartlett who kind of is the one ring to win the award. I was just going to say Dan Bartlett, and you're so right about Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart, there's a handful of companies that are just better at this than most. Wal-Mart's one, Marriott's another. And a lot of times you find out, oh yeah, they hired a bunch of people who used to work on the, used to work on the politics side of thing. It's a Dan Bartlett being a perfect one being. And Wal-Mart didn't used to be better at this Chakama. No, they were terrible at it, right? Right. They were in a client, they were in meta. Yeah, they were in meta. Yeah, getting kicked around all the time. They were going to climb for 20 years and there's almost no engagement I'm proud of both because we've lasted as long as we have, but I feel like working with them, we've helped them

1:03:56do a far better job of telling their story. They weren't just saying, hey, we're not regulated, we're retail, leave us alone. They leaned into, we want friends on both sides, we need to tell our own story, we need to emphasize all the great things we're doing for local communities and they benefited not least from the rise of Amazon. We're all of a sudden, you know, there was a new, new Darth Vader out there. Right. Look, I just, I'm such a fan of what's happened in Northwest Arkansas, and that's due to Walmart and Tyson's. It is unbelievable. Let me get you out of here on this. You gave us a little bit of a tease here when you said your your democratic partners are suddenly getting their phones are ringing off the hook, which tells you where corporate America thinks things are moving. You probably more than anybody else made the phrase, always been unchanged at this point, sort of the mantra of politics in the Trump era. So look, we know, as I say, we know Democrats

1:04:56are going to gain seats. You think we're underestimating our overestimating. We're thinking, stand right now. Well, I tend to think the House will flip and I think the Dems will have a high single low double digit margin, although the Republicans have been doing everything that one can do in terms of raising as much money as they can in the mid decade redistricting wars. But the president's approval rating is the best single predictive factor. And so that suggests to me the House flips. I think the Senate ends 50, 50. It's a whole, but you have to have me back. You and I can go. I love the piece you wrote, but I don't necessarily agree. I think, I think Alaska is going to hold. And I don't think you can beat Susan Collins. Even though I know all the numbers and you explained eloquently, I hear you. I mean, I went out there a little bit on a limb with Collins. I, you know, a friend of mine put together a fun little chart about, you know, this was the conversation many people were having at this time in no six. Democrats are going to win the House. Boy, the Senate,

1:05:57I don't know, right? And then, oh, a Chafee actually lost, you know, it was sort of because there were things we had never seen before, hadn't seen Democrats win a Senate seat in Virginia in a long time, hadn't seen the Democrats be able to defeat the Chafee seat. The Chafee seat, right? It was father and son that kept holding that seat. And he noted, Susan Collins, though, are we seeing this? But I take your point there. Alaska, I tell you what sold me why I'm bullish on Peltola and down on Dan Sullivan, although I just think he's a good senator. I feel like it, you know, I'm sorry. This is all happening the way it is as far as Dan Sullivan's concerned. But boy, when you look at that primary number, I mean, boy, the Democratic enthusiasm is way up. She did really well in that first round of voting better than expected. She did, although at some point with rank choice, the imposter Dan Sullivan goes away and maybe people voting will make their second

1:06:59choice. The other Dan Sullivan, just not sure which is which, but look, that's, it's a toss up, but to your point, Sullivan is a good senator. He's made no mistakes. He's been effective for the state. It's a Trump double digit margin state. So I tend to think house flips, Senate holds at 50, 50, you're right. It could be a blue tsunami, but things have gotten a lot more sorted and a lot more sorted, maybe sorted also and a lot more partisan since 06. The 50, 50 result is fascinating to me, and I think Alaska's everything. And here's why. Let me throw a scenario at you. It's 50, 50 and Alaska is one of the flips. What do you think Lisa Mrakowski does? If her state decided to elect Peltola, what do you think she does? Nothing different. I think Lisa Mrakowski is far greater chance of a Federman flip in Pennsylvania

1:08:04than a Mrakowski flip. Mrakowski's dad was the governor and the congressman. I know. I know. He's been through it. She was here before the president. She's going to be here after the president. I don't see any change in Lisa Mrakowski would be my best guess. She'll continue to represent the kind of the more moderate old school George H. W. Bush, Aero Wing of the Republican party that I also tend to come from, but I don't I don't see her deciding that she's going to go free agent and put things in play. Not least Chuck, because so say she did. Okay, what's that really change? It's not like if she were a deciding vote for a conviction, she gets the energy. She might want the energy committee. Yeah, I don't I just it feels off brand for her. You follow everyone super close. I don't know. I she's oh look, she's I think she's the hardest person to read sometimes. So you know, she does keep some of these things. I look, I think let me get your take, though, Chuck,

1:09:05because I think the most critical race, the most interesting race is Michigan. And I think Michigan and Texas are the Senate. I think they decide the Senate. Texas has its own issue going on. For me, though, Michigan has two factors that make it super interesting. One, if the Dems can't hold Michigan, they don't hold they can't win the Senate no matter what, but two, if they lose Michigan with L. Syed, that means the 28 nominee is far more likely to be the Bill Clinton, Andy Bichirowing, and less likely to come from the left. But if they hold Michigan and the DSA energy doesn't seem to hurt them anywhere, DSA is going to be saying we should choose the nominee and AOC goes frontrunner. You're you're you're stealing analysis that I'll be doing in about two months. I completely agree with that. I think that Michigan is such a weird trap for the Dem establishment. I was joking with somebody recently. I said, I wonder if Schumer and Thune would come to an agreement and Thune would say, we'll walk from Paxton. If you walk from

1:10:06Abdul L. Syed, it will just trade. You know, you don't want him to win. We don't want Paxton in this caucus. You know, we'll do the one for one there and get out of it. If that was a deal that could be had, why do I think both Thune and Schumer would take it? Well, I can't speak for them. I don't think Schumer would take the deal though, but it's it's L. Syed is left of center and it'll be a bit of a pain in their ass, but the Texas is a whole different kettle of fish. I have to say I'm I am and it's my I I was a skeptic at Alarica being able to win that thing. Um, I think the the uh, when I didn't I hadn't properly dove into watching the Texas erosion over. If Abbott can't get over 52, I don't know how Paxton wins. And I was not there and and Abbott's in trouble. Abbott's going to win reelection, but Abbott's going to have to spend a lot

1:11:07of money to help Abbott. And there was a time six months ago. I thought, oh, Abbott is going to be that get out of jail free card for Paxton. And I don't believe that anymore. I think the bull case for Talarico is really more. Yeah, no, and Paxton's been turned and it looks look Thune wants out. Now I think he's having a staring contest with Trump. And we'll see if if the mega money comes in, but um, you know, Thune made it clear. And by the way, I I think Thunes making the right strategic choice. If you try to save Texas, you don't have the money for Michigan, Ohio, um, you know, at least those two to me, those are the most expensive left on the board that are winnable that you would be taking that Texas would be taking money from. And the president's got $400 million. He can bring he can do this. If spending can save Paxton, the president can afford it. That's true. You're right. It's interesting way you just put it. If spending can save Paxton. I'm not sure. Paxton doesn't seem to want this what to win.

1:12:10I know he's he's doesn't seem like a candidate that's working as hard as he should, but that's a whole other story. Um, what's coming next? You know, uh, it's going to be a real busy fall, uh, like you, I go around doing a whole lot of speaking. In fact, I think this October, I now have 30 on the books. It's going to be, um, a whirlwind, uh, but it's interesting. It's fascinating. I love getting out on the hustings. I learn a lot from people who aren't inside the beltway. I hear real normal perspectives. What's in 2016 when I first started realizing that the president Trump could win. Because none of us in the beltway, we all knew there was no chance this guy was going to win. I kept talking to normal people and business leaders and others. I'm like, wow, that's, you know, I am snarkly making assumptions. And I can learn a lot when I talk to people who are outside the beltway. So I actually looked forward to doing a lot of that, even though the travel is a bit of a grind. And the other thing that's fun about all the speaking is, you know, I've got my free sub stack. I love putting it out. Um, but I now include the QR code for every audience. Now again,

1:13:15it's free. So it's worth every penny, but getting in front of several thousand people will hopefully gain a couple more readers who, uh, who will find it. It's, it's funny. Uh, we made our own, I made a QR code. My team made me want to do that to try to do the same thing. That's it. This is the world. We live in Bruce. We're all going to follow that's kind of low tech at this point. But yes, you would I, you would hire impressed. Well, you know, this is, you know, middle, for a couple of, uh, uh, middle-aged guys, at least we can press ourselves. Bruce, I always learned something from you, man. It's great to see you and check. Please, uh, my guess is a lot of my folks do subscribe to you already. Six charts on day always something smart always makes you think, which is terrific. Thanks for having me on, Chuck. This is Tony A.O. from the real report with Tony A.O. and Uncle murder. You haven't noticed how everything keeps going up, rent streaming, even extra social, such a favorite burrito spot. But with boost mobile, you don't have to play the Willis go up zoom game. Boost mobile offers an unlimited

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