May 19th, 2019 • 2h 24m
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[Music]
is no agenda Madame Curie right
now
Norma no I'm on the move I'm
John C de
bourree everybody yes yes
welcome to
episode number 1139 of the best
podcast
in the universe a special day
actually
you know I've seen a lot of
shows that
are starting to do new numbering
differently talking about
destroy you
talk about C seasons and series
and no
no you know it's like I know
what I know
what you're thinking I'm
thinking season
I'm thinking season 11 ladies
and
gentlemen wow these guys are
great I
need to do it I need to binge
listen to
season 11 show number 39 or
whatever it
is we'll think about it yeah
yeah kind
of it makes it sound more
broadcast
e-even maybe that's exactly the
problem
with it we shouldn't try to
sound more
broadcasting or podcast these
yeah this
is true so well today is a big
day
yeah you're getting married yes
and so
we this is actually I had to I
know it's
gonna be tough for anyone to
imagine how
we can do this but we're doing
a show
just before the wedding yes so
like a
few minutes before the wedding
we're
doing this and then you're
gonna run
right to the wedding right
after you we
close this and ship it yeah
right and
once I say I do then I go back
to upload
and do the RSS feed yeah like
exactly so
what we have today for the
dedicated
listeners is a couple of
interviews that
I did
right one with Anthony
scaramouche II
now wait hold on a second this
is months
ago you did this isn't it yeah
but it
was I knew wasn't gonna be used
to the
wedding so I may get very
evergreen II
so okay well evergreen e as in
ho-hum or
just Gaetano it's very
interesting stuff
a lot of personal stuff we go
into an
actual discussion and for
example of
Donald Trump's weight now but
do you
talk about that scar mood does
he have a
hot wife yeah he's got a hot
wife in New
York we also talked about his
restaurant
he has a restaurant did you
know that no
but somehow it does not
surprise me and
even better I'd like to know if
I can go
there when visiting Manhattan
and say
tell mooch it's a curry from No
Agenda
[Music]
right so the interview I
couldn't get
that leeway no we're gonna have
a look
just over an hour discussion
with the
Chris stole cliff I said Chris
yes
astronomer you can go look at
his TED
Talks if you want to see what
he's like
he's very excitable and he's
got a lot
of thoughts and I worked with
him for
years back in the days of tech
TV before
actually MSNBC I believe he was
on that
he was on that operation for a
while hmm
like anyway I've known if he
lives
nearby and so I figured and I
have
nobody's heard from him for a
while so I
thought an interview with him
because he
has a lot of interesting
thoughts so
what did you talk about with
him a
little more techie than then
scaramouche
yeah about the play we talked
about what
your pal professor Ted talks
about
usually the plague of the
Internet the
nice of social media the
negative
aspects of computers in schools
the
negative distance
the unintended consequences of
technology yes and so that's a
fascinating interview I think
people
will enjoy it might as well get
started
let's just go right to Anthony
scaramouche II we have here
Anthony
scaramouche II who just
finished a book
called Trump to blue collar
president
and I will say at the beginning
I've
read this book and I think it's
I can
highly recommend it it is very
entertaining it's kind of a
interesting
romp between Anthony's
background and
Donald Trump's background and
it was
very very well structured I
liked it so
what drove you to anyway
welcome to the
No Agenda show well John thanks
for
inviting me on and I mean you
joined my
mother as the only two people I
know
that have read the book so I'm
very
delighted to have met you over
this
pockets but in all seriousness
thank you
for the comments because I
really tried
to structure it in a way where
I thought
it would provide some
entertainment but
also some sociological
background of why
the president was able to
gravitate so
many blue-collar people to his
base and
to his agenda a couple of
things about
the book I want to ask right
away which
is I've read a lot of these
types of
books written by Italians and
yours is
probably the only one that
doesn't have
a more of an emphasis on the
cooking of
the grandma now you didn't read
my first
book okay I mean I got all I
got it all
I got it all out of my system
and
goodbye Gordon Gekko talked
about my my
Nana and their how she used to
hit us
with the wooden spoon if we
weren't
paying attention and if you if
you if
you read a lot of books about
Italians
that are my age they are all
reminiscent
of the plastic covering on the
furniture
in those people's homes okay my
my
grandmother and grandfather had
rugs
that were at plastic runners
over them
and they I think my grandmother
waited
until she was about 65 to take
the
plastic off the couch I was an
uncomfortable 40 years of that
couch man
yes in fact I recall that era
personally
I remember seeing people that
had
everything covered with plastic
I said
what are you saving it for
somebody else
right
you sound like me as I said in
my Nana
what is it what it's all well I
mean
it's gonna be in the next
generation or
what so so are you the cook uh
no I'm
actually an Italian mama's boy
which
makes me the eater or not the
cook you
know I'm the guy that dropped
his
underwear right where I took it
off and
my mother swooped him behind me
and next
thing you know it was ironed
and pressed
okay and so unfortunately that
ended for
me in 1982 when I went to
college and so
no I'm basically I'm very clean
I
probably shower twice a day but
I'm the
most disorganized train wreck
because I
had an Italian mom and I'm an
Italian
mama's boy you are a hedge-fund
guy
correct and I want to just asks
for just
the general listener can you
describe
what that means what is what is
running
a hedge fund entail now what we
what I
think the public generally
thinks is
just you just you just rake in
lots of
money doing pretty much nothing
yeah I
mean obviously that's you know
there's a
lot of jealousy in the media so
the
media wants to characterize it
that way
but there's three trillion
dollars in
our industry in terms of assets
under
management for a reason we
actually do a
pretty good job for people so
you would
come to a hedge fund manager if
you were
looking for like a high single
digit
rate of return a seven eight
nine
percent return with very low
volatility
and relative consistency and so
a lot of
people have money in the stock
market
but there's a lot of volatility
there
which saw ten percent
correction in the
month of October 2018 as an
example but
what a hedge fund manager if
they're
doing their jobs right they
generate a
high absolute return with low
volatility
and so it takes a lot of work
there's 60
people in my organization I
started this
company with three people in
2005 we're
about to celebrate our
fourteenth year
in business this coming March
and we've
got about 10 billion dollars
under
management and one of the
things that we
tried to do is we tried to
democratize
the industry and so I set up a
structure
having gone to Harvard Law
School and
understand
the security regs I set up a new
structure which has been
replicated now
where we're able to have
investors with
minimums of about $25,000 so I
I've sort
of opened up the hedge fund
investing to
the mass affluent I wrote a
book about
this in 2012 called the little
book of
hedge funds which was basically
a primer
or an explanatory book on what
people
should know about hedge funds
the pastas
and the minuses for that matter
so and
that was well received and we
have about
41,000 clients over ten billion
dollars
under management and you know
one thing
about the president he made me
as famous
as Melania and Ivanka I didn't
have to I
didn't have to sleep with him
or be his
daughter but he made me pretty
famous
and so it's raised the profile
of my
business which has been helpful
publicity is good yeah yeah I
know
question and in my business
certainly
because we've got good
performance that
back up the publicity well
you've been
on a lot of shows I mean you've
been on
dr. Phil yep you did a thing for
Facebook yeah you went on
Stephen
Colbert right after you were
released
from the White House yep
what did you think of that
experience
cuz I watched that episode and
I thought
it was I thought they were rude
to be
honest about it well I mean
look they're
angry about the president they
don't
like the president of their
there
they're building a fanbase of
anti-trump
stores so when I expressed the
willingness to go on the show
after
Stephen was excoriating me
during my
time inside the White House I
think they
were all taken aback but I know
how to
take incoming I was happy to go
on and
give my point of view I was on
Bill
Maher show this past weekend
I've done
his show a few times again it's
like
being a Yankee in Fenway Park
or a
Dodger in Fenway Park you know
it's a
rough place but I feel that
we've got to
get back to talking to each
other you
know we may not agree
ideologically we
may see the country going in
different
directions for different
reasons but if
we don't talk to each other I
think it's
a very big mistake I like to
tell people
I'm a patriot first and I'm
partisan
last I have a certain
philosophical view
based on my years of explain
in business and my observation
about
what works from a point of view
of
policy about what I don't want
to do is
ever close myself off to the
other
person's point of view John
John Kennedy
had a great line which I share
with
everybody he said I spent a lot
of time
understanding the other side
because
there's obviously very smart
people on
the other side and I may learn
something
from them or conversely they
may sharpen
and provide me with more
ammunition for
my own argument and so we have
to do
that in our society you get a
perverse
thrill when you try to describe
a
situation and Bill Maher and
part of
that description entails
somebody
getting all worked up and Bill
Maher
actually goes kind of ballistic
right in
front of you well I mean I
can't tell
you I'm getting a throw because
I'm
trying to explain something and
you know
but they sometimes they have a
hard time
they you know it's very
emotionally
charged you know so but I think
what I'm
able to do though is I'm able
to detach
myself a little bit from the
heat of the
argument and try to relate to
people
where I think they really live
is when
all the emotions die down where
they
really live is in that common
sense
altimeter where they can sense
when
someone's speaking common sense
as
opposed to spin or ideological
pablum
and I like going on these shows
because
you know I I experienced
Washington I
felt everybody in Washington
was on spin
cycle but most New Yorkers are
on a
rinse cycle and so for me I can
sit
there and you know I don't have
any
prepared notes I don't have any
sound
bites that I'm ready to spill
out of my
mouth at a moment's notice and
I'm just
trying to respond and interact
with
somebody on an intellectual
basis and
and hopefully you know if I'm
not
winning them over at least I
can explain
directionally why half the
country feels
the way I do what do you think
Trump's
top skills are he's got an
unnatural
unnatural level of charisma
unnatural it
has to do with the fact that
he has decided that he is going
to be
completely uninhibited in a
media
environment that's 45 years of
doing
radio television public
speaking signing
books writing books promoting
his brands
he has a completely uninhibited
approach
and again I'm not picking on
these
people but let's go over the 17
other
candidates that were in that
race that
we're running against them for
the
Republican nomination you know
they are
you know they've got the
Millstone on
their necks of consultants
speak the
Millstone on their necks of
practiced
can't say certain things that
could be
offensive and so he has that
capability
he's got unbelievable political
instincts unbelievable and I
write about
that in my book at the end of
the day he
could have had ten political
consultants
telling him to pick choice a
but he felt
Joyce B was the right choice he
would go
a choice B he had people
telling him
listen you're not gonna win in
Wisconsin
or uh or Michigan don't spend
any time
there and don't spending time in
Pennsylvania that that states
really not
purple it's been blue for 32
years don't
spend any time there and he
looked at
that and said no there's an
opportunity
there there's a vacuum of
advocacy for
these blue-collar people you
know the
the left spent their time
focused on
listen a couple of dolphins got
killed
from eating plastic straws
absolute
tragedy I'm not trying to make
light of
it but they spent their time
focused on
that or the polar ice caps
melting again
a disturbing fact and not
trying to make
light of it but they left out
of the
equation for at least a
generation what
was going on in the middle
class and the
lower middle class and whether
you like
the president or not he saw
that opening
and he did something that has
to be
marveled at if you're a
political
scientist he he hijacked the
Republican
Party from the establishment
Republicans
who hate his guts and then he
reached
into the Democratic Party and
he stole
their base and moved it over to
the
Republicans so again you can
hate him
but this guy's got incredible
political
instincts and he's a showman
and by the way he's an
entertainer don't
lose sight of that he's the
entertainer
in chief he knows how to get a
crowd
riled up he once said or
somebody wrote
about him that he's the only
guy that
can fill an arena without a
musical
instrument right he just shows
up he's
gonna say some crazy stuff that
you you
at any moment it looks like
there's
gonna be a car crash and he's
out there
malla propagande talking and as
usual is
a ninis and there's eight ten
thousand
people waiting on line to get
into the
overfilled capacity of that
arena those
those are skills he's also a
gregarious
guy you know the media will
paint him
that's not being the case but
when
you're in his presence he's a
lot of fun
to be with
does he get a lot of sleep I
actually
cannot figure that out I mean
somebody
should examine this guy because
he has a
supernatural capacity to not
get sleep
and I'll just quote one of his
doctors
he's the only human being that
we've met
where his eating habits are not
affecting his health so I can't
figure
that out either okay I I've had
more
than one meal with him one
interesting
one in the White House where he
was
pounding down the beef
wellington which
is like a filet mignon wrapped
in this
bakery crust and he was again
passed the
sauce over here passed more of
that
gravy I like him in this grave
he's
probably like five million
calories you
know I mean but he pounds it
down no
problem has unlimited amounts
of energy
this is a guy that can do 11
campaign
stops in four days prior to an
election
this is a guy that was speaking
in
Altoona PA at 10:30 at night we
were all
exhausted he gets back on the
plane
wants to fly to Michigan do one
more
campaign stop at 12:30 in the
morning
that's him I don't know how he
does it
but that's him and he's 72
buddy but
here's a lesson for your
listeners this
podcast don't smoke and don't
drink
which neither thing the
president does
and you too can fly around on
Air Force
One like a maniac what do you
think he
weighs oh why you need me in
trouble
this is like breaking news well
how
about this had it not 239 as
that
I mean I think his published
weight is
239 I would take the over on
that he'd
be mad at me for saying that I
don't
know what he weighs but it's
not 239 one
thing you would in so far his
as his
skills are concerned something
that you
kind of pointed out in the book
which is
the skill of timing and this is
related
to his doing the New York
skating rink
yeah and it seems as though he
was in
the right place at the right
time or if
he was premature and trying to
do
something he would come back at
exactly
the right moment and kind of
swoop in
and which is the way kind of
felt he ran
for president no question it
was a
timing night no question
because he
looked at running for president
in 88
pause I'd stopped he looked
again for
running at president in 1993
and stopped
and then he took a very serious
for Ray
in 2000 to potentially grab the
nomination of the Reform Party
flew out
to LA he was practicing his
negatives on
John McCain who we thought was
going to
be the Republican nominee the
first time
I heard the words I like my
heroes
uncaptured were in an interview
can go
back and google this he was
being
interviewed in 2000 by Dan
Rather for 60
minutes and he was testing that
out
because he thought John McCain
was going
to be the Republican nominee in
2000 he
abandoned that because his
political
instincts correctly dictated
that you're
not going to win the presidency
in this
country from a third party and
so he
stayed out of the fray really
contemplated a 2012 race did
not want to
run against than a presidential
incumbent good instincts there
because
very hard to defeat an
incumbent unless
you have a disaster going on in
the
economy and so we didn't have a
if
anything we had a stable
economy in 12
improving an economy very hard
to beat a
sitting president so he waited
it out
and then he struck the nerve of
the
anxiety that's taking place in
our
system related to the
blue-collar
experience and the decline in
living
standards and he went out there
and
preached that mantra and that
mantra by
the way is tied to immigration
because
at
the illegal immigration has
certainly
affected wage growth in our
society and
he went out there and he made
that case
and he made the case in a way
that was
unbelievably unorthodox and
even though
we were outspent almost two to
one by
secretary Clinton's campaign
and we were
out manned I would say almost
three-to-one by her he was able
to
capture the presidency because
he was
able to get his message out in
the
American media in a way that
was nothing
short of staggering it was
billions and
billions of dollars of free
media
whether they were televising a
rally or
they were interviewing him or
he was
calling into their shows he
literally
was able to use the media as
almost a
third arm of his campaign
strategy do
you surf I don't but did you
did you
catch that analogy about
surfing in
there yeah I mean read this is
what is
this doing in here he doesn't
seem like
a surfer on I'm not a I'm not a
surfer
but I can discern waves because
you know
there's a contradict anomic
system and
there are other waves Elliot
wave theory
for investing and my point the
metaphor
of the surfing for your
listeners was I
really feel that these
politicians are
surfers and they have to get on
that
surfboard and ride a wave into
Shore
that fits their personality as
an
example Jeb Bush would have
been a
phenomenal presidential
candidate in the
early 90s to mid 90s wrong
candidate for
2016 but a phenomenal guy
Governor
Romney same sort of thing date
their
personnel just too bland you
were a
supporter of Romney and then
you kind of
switched over to Jeb Bush
before you
finally latched on to the Trump
bandwagon yes how did that
happen well
because I didn't believe him
you know I
write in the book that I'm
sitting with
him the day after the
apprentice ends
we're having breakfast in the
Trump
Tower and he's telling me he's
running
for president I'm laughing I'm
like yeah
we weren't the only one doing
that of
course and he said yeah every
I said to him he said you
weren't
watching The Apprentice last
night I
said no of course not he goes
while you
were the only one that wasn't
watching
it I was fantastic I'm sure you
were but
he said well it's over now I'm
running
I'm running for president I
said no
you're not
he said no no I totally am I
said let me
tell you some I said you're at
2 percent
in the polls you're not gonna
run for
president because I'm at 2
percent in
the polls because people are
like you ok
they think I'm not running but
the
minute I start running I'm
gonna shoot
to the top of the polls and I'm
gonna
stay there until I win the
presidency
and I gotta tell you you know
at least
on the Republican side that's
what he
did go take a look at those
polling
numbers you know there was
nobody in
shooting range yeah a couple of
guys won
because of the party system and
the
establishment they won a few
primaries
against somebody very few and
you know
he was right right at the top
as it
related to the popular vote
among
registered Republicans so I
didn't see
it I admit that in the book I
also
didn't see the level of economic
desperation despite the fact
that grew
up in a blue-collar family I
have spent
too much time with wealthy
people and
and I have to confirm biases of
running
my hedge fund and interacting
with
wealthy people and so when I
descended
into these towns with
then-candidate
Trump I write in my book that
it was
quite eye-opening what I saw in
those
towns and the composite of what
I saw is
that we went from a generation
of
aspirational working-class
families to
desperation 'el ones in about
35 years
and the public servants of the
established class didn't really
see it
and if they saw it they were
indifferent
to it and so he was able to
capitalize
on that in a way that I think
will be
viewed as historic well talking
about
hanging out with the rich can
you
explain to me and I'm from this
area how
the richest guys in Silicon
Valley many
billionaires has quite a few of
them are
all Democrats
well I can't but I mean what I
softened
think about there's a level of
guilt and
there's a level of
self-preservation
that's more important to some
of these
people than actual public
policy and so
ends up happening is they are
sitting
there or a boatload of money
they feel
very guilty about it and they
feel that
they can be progressive or
ultra liberal
and that'll give them a pass
and that's
by and large been true from the
American
media so if you're super rich
but you're
liberal American media leaves
you alone
if you're super rich but
conservative
they burn you in effigy and
they try to
demonize you and so you know to
me I
think it's more of a
self-preservation
thing than it is a principle
base thing
because how'd you get the money
you got
the money because we've set up a
market-based system in our
society which
has led to incredible growth and
innovation and job creation and
unbelievable success for people
and and
you know we we have a society
that will
reward people for their
ingenuity and
risk-taking you know you cannot
systematize despite what the
left says
you're never gonna be able to
systematize an equal outcome we
should
be way more focused from a
policy
perspective on figuring out
ways to
create more equal opportunity
where our
educational system K through 12
the
public system is a failure it's
broken
it's very uneven we should be
spending
more time figuring out a way to
get a
kid who's living in a less than
affluent
neighborhood at give public
school
education as opposed to trying
to figure
out how to overtax people and
and and
wealth redistribute it doesn't
work it
slows down growth it slows down
opportunity and and it stunts
the system
and if you don't believe me we
have 150
years of document to history on
this
throughout the world where
people have
tried it when you first showed
up at the
White House and then left 11
days later
my take on it was that well
here they
brought this guy in as a
hatchet man to
get rid of Rance Priebus and
banna but
as I read the book it obviously
was a
more convoluted road it wasn't
as though
they just brought in you as a
hatchet
man to get rid of Reince
Priebus yeah
but death that's kind of what
looks like
in hindsight I mean III
definitely serve
that purpose there's no
question about
that but
you know if you remember in the
book I
was offered the OPL position
yeah I
accepted that job pretty Basim
Bannon
tried to block me from that job
and then
I did something really really
stupid I
mean it did many things stupid
but the
biggest stupid thing I did was
I put my
pride and my ego into trying to
secure
that job
you see that's what I what let
lets back
to the you mentioned a Bannon
and
Priebus forming a coalition of
bad guys
what you thought was peculiar
because
they weren't similar characters
by any
means and they wanted to block
you from
that particular job why do you
think
that was I mean did you have
some sort
of a better in with Trump did
you
because you knew a more person
you know
knew him personally I or what
was the
purpose of their trying to
block you I
didn't they just let you go
there and
then just you know leave her
there yeah
I mean that would have been a
better
strategy I think for all of us
what if
they just left me alone I
wasn't I I
think pre was probably figured
I was
tight with the president and
who knows
you know him and me together
you know
remember previous was an
establishment
guy he was flooding the zone
inside the
White House with orange see
people that
were not necessarily loyal to
the
president but were you know
more loyal
of Priebus and so I think he
looked at
me and and for that matter not
to take
it so personally to me he
looked at guys
like Giuliani Chris Christie
John
LaValle was a Suffolk County
Chairman
out here on Long Island he
looked at all
those people and said okay
these are New
Yorkers I'm gonna do everything
I can to
block these New Yorkers from
coming down
here to Washington and so and
he was
successful at doing that so he
slow
rolled me and he slow rolled
those guys
I was probably the only guy due
to the
determination of my personality
and the
persistence where I II was like
a dog on
a bone I wouldn't let up until
I found
my way through the door at the
White
House and so you know and then
once I
got the job
I probably mishandled it in a
number of
different ways you probably
shouldn't
start your first day at the
White House
where the chainsaw and a hockey
mask
from Jason's Friday the 13th
movie you
know and once I started the
chainsaw I
went
after those two guys with a
vengeance
and I should have been more
careful
about that
you go after Bannon in the book
a little
bit not as much as you could
it's a lot
of it's subtle and which brings
me to
the question well that brings
me to the
question if you claimed claim I
don't
want to use that word claim
because I
don't like it but you say
you're you
were a class clown I'm a class
clown or
he was a class guy
no you were a class clown yeah
I was a
prankster in school no question
about
that I had well I don't know I
look I
had I had a reasonable hike IQ
and I had
an okay work ethic I got
serious once I
got to college which helped me
get in a
Harvard Law School but you know
I don't
know I I play for laughs
there's no
question about that I have
there's an
entertainment streak in my
personality
you can see that there's some
irreverence in the book in
terms of the
way I describe certain
situations myself
included but I would say that
bad and
you know that he was he was a
guy when
he thought he needed you he was
very
polite very seductive but he
was a guy
when he didn't need you you
were a
disposable piece of tissue and
so all of
that stuff is coming back to
roost on
Bannen now you know he's he's
spits
arised okay and what do I mean
by that
when Eliot Spitzer went down
ten years
ago because he was so mean and
nasty to
so many people there was nobody
there to
save them and so he spits
arised and now
he's going to rallies where
five or ten
people are around them and you
know he's
he's lost an element of his
self-proclaimed guru nature and
and and
so look I me but for me I
thought he's
just very dishonest he's an
unbelievable
leaker if you look at what the
president
said about him in the press
release in
January of 2018 it was virtually
identical to what I was saying
about him
unfortunately I got caught on a
hot mic
which is fine but uh you know
that the
journalists took it totally out
of
context I he was trying to get
me to do
a profile with him in his
magazine and
I'm like not self-promotional
like that
like Steve is and then I used an
inappropriate word and he said
okay I've
hit the jackpot here let me run
this
over to CNN and
exaggerate what happened so
that's fine
I'm a big boy I paid the price
with my
job I write about it honestly
in the
book I'm very accountable for
the
mistake folks see you don't
write about
it I don't think you're
necessarily as
firm as you could have been I
mean that
was a chickenshit thing that
happened
from a journalist perspective
why
Howie Kurtz said in 40 years in
Washington he's never seen a
journalist
do that to a governmental
official so
but you know that's okay
there's a first
time for everything
I made the mistake by talking
to the guy
right so I mean I have to own
that
shouldn't have talked to him
back back
to Bannon yeah early in the
book you say
that Steve ban and you compare
him to a
blood sucking vampire bat yeah
yeah and
when later in the book you have
this
sense which is the only thing
I've
actually excerpted for this
interview
because I thought it was it was
pretty
funny because it was subtle it
was like
it was it was kind of literate
but at
the same time rude active
leaking
addiction never ends well
bannon's sure
didn't remember how he looked
leaving
the White House a
harvard-educated cuck
draped in contemporary hobo
yeah that's
pretty good though right
I thought it was quite good I
think it
was you you actually put some
thought
into it yeah he wrote the book
around
that yeah couple of sentences
yeah he's
a cook he's ultimately a cook
at the end
of the day went to Harvard
Business
School he worked at Goldman
Sachs he was
in Hollywood
I mean he's hit the
triangulation of
every one of those nexuses and
then he
tries to pretend that he's some
outsider
that's focused on ethnocentrism
and
white nationalism I mean III
think the
guys are an incredibly flawed
guy but
wickedly smart and very
well-read III
I made a joke at one of the
college
campuses that you know if you
ever are
doubting God or if you falling
into the
trap of atheism just remember
this as
seductive and as smart as Steve
Bannon
is God made him so ugly and
made him
dress so in a
propria that his ideas will
never be
taken seriously thankfully by
the
civilization so so to me he's
not my cup
of tea I've offered to debate
Steve
Bannon I've offered to debate
Reince Priebus any place
anywhere and
I'll continue to wait on that
you you
you it I think you know who he
is I was
on his radio show he said that
he's in
love with Reince Priebus is one
of his
best friends it's no great
invite
Wright's previous on your radio
show
with me let's have an honest
and candid
conversation about what he's
really like
with the people that he work
with inside
the White House
you think that'll happen my
brother okay
uh hell hell will freeze over
before
that happens well I there's no
reason
for him to want to do that
where is
Rance Priebus now I don't even
know I
apparently I think he went back
to his
Wisconsin law firm and I think
he's
keeping a low profile because
you know I
mean he perked up a lot of
people I mean
it's not forget about just me
he just
burned up a lot of people and
so he
exposed his full-blown
insecurity in
that job and he explodes what
exposed
his levels of low self esteem
and low
self confidence
hey players go out and try to
hire eight
plus people see players like a
guy like
him they'll hire D's and F's
why did
Trump hire him well I think
Trump felt
that he had yet helped him with
the
apparatus and technology around
the RNC
and I think Trump felt a level
of
loyalty and Trump also felt
that if he
had him in the White House he
was tight
with Paul Ryan and he was a
member of
that Washington sediment that
he could
help him drain the swamp but
what the
mistake that the president made
is that
he put a cesspool operator in
the most
important job in the system and
so all
that guy was doing was pouring
more
sewage into the system you're
not you're
not gonna drain the swamp by
bringing a
cesspool operator that's lived
in the
swamp for 15 years in to drain
the swamp
they're not going to do it they
their
goal is to outlast you and to
continue
to work the lobbying and
currying of
favor business inside of
Washington to
line their own pockets they're
not
they're not there to serve the
American
people
American people are onto that
thing the
American people know that one
of the
biggest reasons they had to get
me out
of there I don't know if you
saw my
first press conference but the
my the
critics of my first press
convert honest
can't you can't talk the truth
like that
from the White House Pro podium
what are
you nuts
and and that's an America the
American
people know it that you know
one thing
that the president has done for
the
society is he's fully exposed
the
cockroaches that live in the
kitchen
known as Washington okay the
lights are
on now they're crawling around
stunned
that they're being caught with
all their
nonsense we'll talk it well in
the
subject of cockroaches do you
think the
White House was bugged I don't
know I
would I gotta believe no but I
will say
this they dismantled the Oval
Office in
August of 2017 and rebuilt it
and so I'm
hoping that the answer is no I
don't
know the answer it just seems
like a lot
of the stories that the media
was
picking up on always predate
the moment
that the Oval Office was
reconstructed
just coincidence maybe not sure
coincidence but it's also
previous in
Bannen there were 60 to 70% of
the leaks
once they were removed the
leaks really
did go down dramatically still
leaking
every White House is gonna leak
but it's
not not leaking with that level
of
animosity and that level of
venom
towards each other you know
that that's
gone down a lot you what do you
think of
the New York Times hit piece on
Trump
which if you read in great
detail does
the recent one work Trump
apparently
never had any money to begin
with and it
was pretty much financed by his
father
Fred and if you read between
the lines
it kind of implies against all
logic
that Fred Trump was a multi
billionaire
that could just throw tons of
money at
his son yeah I mean listen I've
seen the
documentary active measures
apparently
he's a puppet of Vladimir Putin
and now he made you know he just
siphoned all the money off from
his dad
illegally and you know I've
heard all of
these different things but if
you really
look closely at the article
whatever
happened there between him and
his dad
it was clearly inside of the
seam of the
tax code and I took taxation in
law
school there's a very famous
decision
that the name of the justice is
justice
Lerner hand you could Google the
decision it's about what you're
allowed
to do and not allowed to do as
a relates
to the tax code and and and
justice Han
basically says you can be
aggressive as
long as you're inside the seam
of the
code and so I think that they're
stretching things a little bit
in that
story I don't know if the
president got
a million dollars from his
father to
start his business or 413
million
dollars to start his business
but I it
doesn't really matter to the
average
American I think that's the
point the
average American views him as a
very
successful guy he was
successful in real
estate he had a rise and fall
which I
described in the book and then
he rose
again so there's a level of
force and
determination in his
personality he went
on to become a television star
I don't
think anybody can take that
away from
him and then from the process
of being a
television star he switched
over to
American politics and in 17
short months
became the American president
so you
know I'd like to think that
given the
high-profile nature of the
president's
life over the last 40 years if
he was
really doing something
aggressively
nefarious as what is being
described
he's such a high profile target
for a DA
that wants to be the mayor or
the
governor they they would have
gone at
after him with a vengeance so I
put
about the same level of weight
on that
story as most Americans do
which is you
know moving on I I think that's
probably
what the reaction was but it was
followed up then by an
anonymous op-ed
which was rare written by some
supposed
insider in the White House do
you think
that was an insider in the
White House
you think yeah what do you
what's your
take on that and who you think
it might
be so you know
I got an 11-day PhD in
Washington
scumbag er II okay so I can
tell you
that there's no way a senior
guy would
have written that and so what
they would
have used it they cut out they
would
have gotten one of the junior
guys to
write that and put it in there
and so
what that is is that's a that's
a
cockroach survival note and so
the the
chef is in the kitchen he's
gonna be
here for four to eight years
but my
fellow cockroaches I'm gonna
survive him
and so will you and when I
return back
the cockroach land after
serving this
guy I want you not to treat me
poorly
and that and that's basically
what that
was that was a to me it was the
most
dishonest and most disloyal
thing you're
serving the elected president
of the
United States the leader of the
free
world you may not like him but
if you
don't like him and you don't
like his
policies then leave I just
think that
that was the most dishonest most
disingenuous thing and again
another
example of why the American
people
actually hate the swamp and
they hate
every aspect of the swamp
what's the New
York Times grudge against Trump
he has
been right and they have been
wrong
that's the that's the grudge
they they
had a circular two years ago
they had a
seven or eight page circular on
the case
against Donald Trump and it
wasn't just
an editorial it was like an
eight page
circular that they inserted
into the
newspaper and and then they had
to
apologize to him after the
election they
had to apologize to him do you
follow
you follow what I'm saying
so yeah I mean this was the
form of the
apology well the apology was we
were too
bellicose with our rhetoric we
were too
negative I mean they've ramped
it up
subsequent to that but I'm just
saying
that that the New York Times is
they
don't like the president's
policies they
don't like the president's
personality
and they don't like the fact
that
presidents winning and they've
been on
the losing side of the argument
for the
last 36 months so so they're
gonna
continue to be in that camp and
he's
done a masterful job
of getting these left-leaning
media
establishments to hate his guts
he has
figured out by throwing Molotov
cocktails or puffery or
exaggerating
statements they're gonna act
like Hall
monitors fact-checking him and
the whole
you know Charlie Brown teacher
wah-wah you know that's what
they're
doing on their television shows
and he's
laughing he's laughing he knows
that
he's got them totally
distracted and as
John Stewart said the other day
that he
has figured out that he may be a
narcissist but they're as
narcissistic
as him and and he's made it
about them
and they love talking about
them on
their shows and so that was a
masterful
thing that he's done so far
master well
you liked stones movie Wall
Street I did
mention this in the book I did
but you
didn't mention the wolf of Wall
Street I
would like to know I mean Wall
Street is
the Gordon Gecko movie for
anyone
doesn't remember it but your
greed is
good and all those sorts of
cliches and
the wolf of Wall Street of
course was
more about the excesses what do
you what
and you're in the business so
how do you
think about comparing those two
movies
what do you think of the wolf
of Wall
Street well you know the reason
I like
the Wall Street movie is that I
was a
young man I was in my mid-20s
when that
movie came out it was 23 or 24
and I was
aspiring to go to Wall Street
and so
even though it was a cautionary
tale
about greed and excess I
thought it was
well presented and Michael
Douglas won
the Academy Award for it and in
the
second movie Oliver Stone came
to me and
gave me the opportunity to play
myself
in the movie and so there's
pictures of
me in my office here with Josh
Brolin
and and Michael Douglas with my
kids and
so I learned a lot about the
artistic
interpretation of Wall Street
and I my
first book was called goodbye
Gordon
Gekko how to find your fortune
without
losing your soul and basically
it was a
it was titled that way to talk
about the
fact that greed actually isn't
good and
you have to take a long term
approach the things in the
world of
financial services and so I I'm
fond of
that movie for those
sentimental reasons
um I was asked to be in the
wolf of Wall
Street I have a good
relationship with
Leo DiCaprio and Bo Dietl who
played one
of the roles in the movie and I
elected
not to be in that movie because
that
movie was not about an
interpretation
there was a FactSet related to
this guy
Jordan Belfort where he
literally did
everything that you're not
supposed to
do as a money manager he
fleeced the
people he sold them things that
were
literally dreams pipe dreams
and he did
many many illegal things and so
for me
I'm not saying there isn't a
darker side
to Wall Street there clearly is
I
believe there's a darker side to
journalism there's a darker
side to
medicine unfortunately we're
human
beings and and darkness lives
in a lot
of different sectors of the
economy but
I was not a supporter of that
movie
because one of the problems
with a movie
like that because it is factual
it's it's back to that cliche
that one
bad apple could spoil the whole
basket
of apples and so to me you know
I've had
my 30th year on Wall Street but
for my
brief interregnum at the White
House and
by and large we've tried to do
a good
job the reason why we're
running ten
billion dollars is we have a
good track
record and we're honest people
so that's
the reason why I compare and
contrast
the two things
in the early days you were
supporter of
Obama in some way cuz you
raised money
for him after you met him at the
University Club yep why I had
gone to
school with him I can't
honestly say we
were close friends in school or
anything
like that but I had a lot of
friends of
mine at Harvard Law School that
were
friends with him I was less
involved
with politics at that time I
was a
right-of-center person and I'm
recently
far-left on social issues I
believe
people should be able to
express I don't
think life liberty and the
pursuit of
happiness is only for straight
people I
think that everyone should have
that
opportunity and so when he
presented
himself I said okay that seems
like you
know you guys like them you know
personally and I said to myself
rhetorically how many times in
my life
am I gonna know somebody that's
actually
running for president and could
possibly
be the president little did I
know that
that would that wouldn't be the
first
time you know and ended up
working in
the White House for a short
period but
but you know when he started
becoming
more progressively left to
riven on the
economy and more progressively
left
driven on business I sort of
returned to
my Republican roots but I do
like the
president I like President
Obama had a
lot of respect for him in his
life he's
the Jackie Robinson of American
politics
and we may not agree on
everything
related to the the business
side of
things or the economy but I am
happy
with the social progress that
was
created during his
administration you
used the phrase he slam-dunked
you in
the book maybe twice yeah
and it's it was even in context
I can't
figure out what you're talking
about
well I was on a I was on a
television
show with him in 2010 it was at
the CNBC
townhall public life at the
Newseum down
the block on Pennsylvania
Avenue and he
came in there and they were
interviewing
him and I was audience
participant I
asked him a question I said mr.
president nice to see again we
reacquainted ourselves and then
I said
when are you gonna stop
whacking Wall
Street with a pinata stick so
the first
thing is if you're an
italian-american
don't use the word whack on
live TV in
front of the president I think
that was
mistake number one and the
mistake
number two is you know he was
adamant
that Walsh it was a big cause
of the
financial crisis and so he came
back at
me very hard and of course he's
the
president I'm not I didn't get
a chance
to rebut him and so he
metaphorically
slam-dunked me on that live
television
show so much so that Jon
Stewart that
night on Comedy Central Lampoon
me to
the great delight of my teenage
children
at that time what do you say
Jon Stewart
basically I know what it did
bama's Oh
what did Obama say Obama said
that I was
wrong about him hitting wall
street with
a pinata stick and that wall
she was the
real
cause of the problem of the
crisis and
that the greed on Wall Street
had
overcome wisdom and it was a
pretty
heavy healthy invective at our
industry
not necessarily me personally
but he
came back very hard at that at
that
question and and in hindsight I
was
trying to lobby in a softball I
thought
he was gonna say well there's
definitely
a nexus between Wall Street and
in Main
Street and we have to keep that
harmony
but he was not hearing it you
know that
was playing on you exactly
right and by
the way that was a month or so
before
the 2010 midterms and so being a
politician he was like a dog
with a bone
and he was he was going at that
thing
very hard you can do this thing
called a
salt salt conference which is a
gathering of I think had fun
hedge fund
folk yeah you book Bill Clinton
once I
did I booked President Clinton
I've had
John Brennan I've had Joe Vice
President
Joe Biden I've had James
Carville I've
had Donna Brazile III but of
course I've
had Governor Romney George
Walker Bush
Tony Blair I really tried to
make the
salt conference and all party
all
ideological experience I'm not
looking
to make it a conservative
conference
event or anything like that I
may have
certain conservative ideas but
I also
brought the human rights
campaign guys
who were working on the
legalization of
gay marriage in the US and you
know I'm
a believer in that so you know
I I'm I I
mean I guess the one of the
main reasons
I could never run for office
the fact
that No thank God it would like
to keep
my family together and stay
married but
another reason is I don't fit
ideologically in either one of
these
parties you know I'm asked
about the
Clinton thing cuz I was
wondering if you
recall what his speaking fee
was at that
time it was a lot less that it
is now I
think he's two and a quarter
now he was
probably one and a quarter 150
back then
remember that's almost 10 years
ago
though that's a million five
hundred
thousand no I'm sorry
50 US thousand oh honey I know
he's
probably 225 thousand today
those are
probably that's not up that's
not me
breaking any rules of
confidentiality
those were public well you
don't I know
this I then I've been
represented by a
number of speakers girls and I
know what
the what the rules are and if
you want a
book bill if you want to find
out Bill
Clinton speaking fee creates
some sort
of a function and then call one
of them
asking what it cost to get him
and
you'll get that number I think
that says
I think that's his going rate
right
around now I'd bother he did a
very good
job he was articulate and
thoughtful and
he answered questions and again
you know
you may not agree with
everything that
he has to say and there may be
elements
of what he had to say related
to the
economic stewardship of the
1990s under
his watch but you know at the
end of the
day um I think it's a valuable
voice you
know I would I would as an
example I
don't know if he would ever be
available
for this but I would be
interested in
booking President Obama no
problem and
of course at some point
President Trump
I'm I am thinking he's gonna be
available okay well have to see
sure I'm
sure to be a lot of dough
though that'll
be another consideration for me
can you
explain the Trump Cruz
relationship um
no I actually can't I mean I
don't think
anybody can but I can I can
offer up
some some things about life and
the
political expediency I think
that the
the scarring and the battering
in terms
of the way these guys went at
each other
in 2016 has been subordinated to
political survivorship and the
presidents need to have
somebody that's
right leaning in a red state
and keep
the red state red and so they've
subordinated some of their
personal
invective towards each other
and it goes
back to that age-old adage that
politics
makes strange bedfellows so you
could
read what they've said about
each other
and you would say okay those
guys
probably not gonna be talking
to each
other anytime soon but yet they
had a
rally where there were tens of
thousands
of people at the rally in
Houston so
it's gonna be close but I do
think Ted
senator Cruz wins in Texas if
you look
at the latest polling you have a
publicist I have a PR person for
skybridge I had a publicist
coming out
of the White House because I
thought I
needed somebody to bounce some
ideas off
of in terms of how I was gonna
recover
from that media excoriation but
that was
more of like a crisis
management person
than anything else you
mentioned you
have a restaurant yeah what is
it what's
it called yeah so I have a
restaurant on
44th Street called the hunt and
fish
club if you know anything about
the
Mafia I named it after John
Gotti social
club he used to call it the
Bergen
County hunt and fish club so I
figured
if they're gonna stereotype me
in our
civilization why not why not
put it want
to put that on my restaurant so
it's a
great steeped steak and seafood
place
it's located in the theater
district on
up West 44th Street 125 West
44th
Street's got great ratings very
strong
clientele it's a beautiful
setting and
pursuant to the free market a
market
based economics I made the chef
an owner
of the place because he's that
good
always a good idea amen right
can I gain
a bunch of people and if you
just give
me a quick response because
we're
getting near the end here yeah
sure
I just tell me what you think
of um kind
of I think we already know what
you
think of Priebus and Bannen
yeah Kelly
and Conway nice person very
loyal to the
president
great messenger I think she
clearly
helped him win the presidency
52% of the
white women voters voted for
President
Trump and I think you could
really point
to her as being one of the
reasons why I
used to follow Kelly and Conway
before
she was Kelly and Conway in the
90s
mm-hmm and she was one of the
sharpest
twits on on talk talk shows no
no
question very impressive very
impressive
person Jared Kushner
super-smart he's shifted into a
down
gear to be a little bit less
high-profile because of the
flack that
he was taking from John Kelly
but I
think he was very instrumental
in the
the renegotiation of NAFTA and
I think
he's helping the President on
the China
trade issue as well and I mean
he's
obviously very loyal very smart
guy John
Kelly
you know I applaud his service
the
United States 40 years in the
Marine
Corps he also lost his child
who's a
gold star family member and so
I applaud
him for his record in the
military but
he's just in my opinion as I
expressed
in my book he's just not well
suited his
management style and the
militancy of
his management style is not
well suited
for a civilian organization and
I think
he's hurt the morale inside the
White
House in the book you say he
hates Trump
oh there's no question about
that I mean
I don't I don't think anybody
believes
that he likes him he's made it
clearer
to people outside the doors of
the West
Wing know so it's not like I'm
saying
something that isn't true
Ivanka a
ridiculously smart gifted
person great
public speaker obviously she's
got some
elegance and class to her style
and
personality and I think she's
invaluable
to the president that she's
helped him
in so many different ways
minuchin
extremely competent a very
cautious guy
has done a good job of pushing
through
the tax reform and other
regulatory
reform and extraordinarily
bright and
again he's an unsung hero of
the Trump
campaign because he was the
fundraising
chair and he did a great job on
the
fundraising side general Flynn
American
Hero I think he got treated
badly I'll
just echo what President Trump
said I
don't know all of the facts of
the case
but I think he's he's a guy
like a great
deal I hold him a very high
personal
regard and I hope him and his
family
okay the writer Michael Wolfe
is total
liar and fabricator and just
this honest
representation so he would be
like the
Jordan Belfort of journalism
you know he
would be like the guy if you're
an
honest journalist you'd look at
your
look at a guy like him and
shake your
head very dishonest guy Sean
Hannity
he's one of my best friends you
know we
grew up very similarly on Long
Island
obviously he endorsed the front
cover of
my book and the back cover for
that
matter and he's a fighter Sean
Hannity's
a street fighter and so when I
wake up
in the morning I say man I got
to get to
work because I know Sean's
working three
times harder than me Mueller
don't know
him he's got an impeccable
reputation
and I do believe that whatever
process
is going on there I think he
will treat
people fairly that's just based
on
reputation don't know him
personally
call me just you know again
don't know
him personally but seems very
sanctimonious he's another guy
would
love to debate because I read
through
his book I can't tell you
honestly read
the entire thing but there's a
lot of
sanctimony there and there's a
lot of
righteousness and no one is that
infallible so you know when you
look
through my book you'll see that
I'm
citing a lot of my mistakes and
missteps
in life and things I wish I
could have
done better and so I just think
there's
a lot of sanctimony and in
commis book
and and you know it's that it's
just too
in disingenuous for me George
papadopolis don't know him he
probably
got set up that's what it feels
like and
I think the court system knew
that which
is why they gave him such a
lenient
sentence Don junior very good
guy super
loyal to his dad down-to-earth
it's
great campaigner I've got a
great
message out there I campaigned
with Don
in the month of September
throughout
Pennsylvania and Don is a very
high
quality guy Eric I don't know
Eric as
well
we've generally interacted
briefly some
times on the campaign and
sometimes I
enjoin television appearances
but it comes like he comes
across
incredibly articulate and hope
Hicks
well hope and I were very close
on the
campaign work super hard on the
campaign
and she's incredibly loyal to
the family
and to the president she's got
a great
new job now and I don't think
anyone's
ever saying bad about hope
Hicks super
super person Omarosa you know
Amoroso
bizarrely even though she said
I cried
like a little girl when I got
fired
which I'll let your listeners
determine
whether or not I actually cried
like a
little girl and I got fired I
like her
you know so I mean my attitude
is
Amoroso came from nowhere and I
don't
think you should be firing a
person like
Amoroso after she worked for the
president from for 14 years on
and off
by sticking her in the
Situation Room
and leaving her there for two
hours I
don't think that's the right
way to fire
somebody like her so so I'm not
surprised at the current
vitriol that's
going on in the Trump Moroso
relationship I predict a I come
back I
do I do I particularly figure
that horse
Scott Walker a very solid guy
he's got a
tough race in Wisconsin did a
good job
for the state always found
Scott to be
one of the more honest
politicians you
know he was often he was
friends with
previs and when I called Scott
explained
to him what previous was doing
at me he
was scratching his head he said
this is
just nonsense it wasn't good
long term
strategy on previous bar dr.
Phil a
great guy I went on there with
my wife
my wife and I were on the verge
of
divorce some of it was personal
wasn't
just political as it's been
reported but
we love each other trying to
patch it up
and dr. Phil and Tony Robbins
are
friends of mine and I have to
tell you
they were instrumental and help
me keep
my family together so I love
those two
guys Schumer I've always had a
good
relationship with Senator
Schumer and
and fully disclose to you that
I have
been one of his donors he's
always been
good to me and he had a funny
line he
may not even remember this but
he said
we thought you were so good at
your
press conference we were
looking for
ways to kill you he said but the
Republicans killed you before
we could
get
you I thought that was very
funny very
oh yes it's cute yeah
Pelosi so believe it or not I've
actually interacted with her
her her
daughter is an award-winning
documentarian and so I don't
believe in
her political views but I do
have a
respect for her belief in her
political
views and she's always been
gracious to
me
how about Duncan Hunter do you
run into
him ever I haven't so I don't
really
can't really comment on him I'm
a knight
from the paper but I really
know in your
book you do mention some people
I've
never heard of yeah got and I
think I
didn't hear of Hope Hicks right
away
either because the nobody's
ever done a
a good flow chart of White
House right
it would be nice if someone did
just a
hint it for anyone mmm-hmm Rona
Graff
and Johnny McEntee who are
these people
so Rona Graff has been the
president's
assistant she stayed at Trump
Tower and
the Trump Organization but for
probably
25 30 years she's been his
personal
secretary enormous ly talented
person
and a great person and Johnny
McEntee
was the president's body guy
throughout
the campaign and he's now
working on the
reelection but he's a terrific
guy young
kid very very smart and was
there from
the inception what about John
Brennan so
John I know he's spoken at our
salt
conference you know I have a
lot of
respect for John I know the
president's
sword him and John sword the
president
but I'll remind your listeners
that he's
been at a pivot point in all of
the
security related to anti
terrorism since
9/11 and he's made a great
contribution
to our society and kept
countless
innocent American citizens safe
and I
wish that him and the president
would
dial back the rhetoric towards
each
other what do you think is CNN
you know
they were rough on me I write
about it
in the book where they were
they're
still rough they made up a
story we're
still rough on me but you know
they have
a right to do that I believe in
the
First Amendment I have no
problem going
over there it's like being a
Yankee in
Fenway Park
but I have no problem going
over there
and articulating my view or my
opinion
but yeah I mean they're there
they're
not the president's favorite
news
organization that's for sure
MSNBC probably a little fairer
than CNBC
CNN believe it or not I think
that their
coverage from like say nine
o'clock to
7:00 is probably more fair more
straight-up news less editorial
ization
even though it is slanted to
the left
obviously the evening stuff is
very
left-leaning but uh listen I
mean that's
the business model now there's
left-leaning and right leaning
outlets
what did you think of the MIT
Romney
moment when he comes out and
trashes
Trump with one of their really
just
excoriating commentaries
calling him a
criminal yeah more or less I
thought
that was a mistake I suggested
two mitts
body guy and chief of staff
Spencer
Swick the day that he was
making that
speech to please not make that
speech
but I think that was a mistake
and I
think that that's a you know
MIT will go
on to win the Senate race in
Utah and
hopefully he'll find a way to
bridge
that gap and work closely with
the
president there are two great
guys but
man they've got very different
personalities I think that's me
overstating the obvious what do
you
think you said that you follow
a couple
of these economic cycles do you
think
them right now the way the
markets
acting also do a stock market
thing I
used to write for the for
Forbes and
Barron's and a number of other
published
publications I'm I'm a into
cycles yeah
do you think that the market
right now
is at a top and it's kind of
splashing
around up there or it's
creating a kind
of a high bottom I think III
think it's
more of a high bottom just
because of
what I know of the economic
stimulus and
the furthering of that and how
that's
going to affect earnings I do
think the
Fed will be forced to slow down
their
rate rises as these interest
sensitive
areas of the economy start to
slow down
the Fed you'll start hearing
from the
Fed that they're moving back to
date
dependency as opposed to just
quarterly
or monthly rate rises and so I
meant to
say month quarterly rate rises
and so so
to me I think we're at an
interregnum in
a bull market I think the bull
thesis is
still intact after all these
years yeah
exactly it's eleven eleven it
you know
remember these things don't die
of old
age they die of deteriorating
fundamentals and so we are
cheating
history your listeners probably
know
this but it's worth repeating
the
American economy goes through a
recession once every eight or
so years
and so we're cheating history
right now
we're in the eleven and a half
year of
an expansion but I still think
we have
some room to go because of the
way the
tax stimulus is affecting our
GDP it's
been a real pleasure to be on
with you
though thank you you good
questioner
well I want to thank you for
being on
this interview we do this every
so often
we put them together and as
part of the
our show process we take a day
off and
we put these interviews on and
that's I
I read your book I thought was
a book I
could easily recommend I think
people
especially travelers you could
read
probably read the book on a
round-trip
flight that's what I was hoping
for
exactly what I tried to create
I tried
to create a Airport book where
you're
going to your destination and
returning
home you'll finish it and
hopefully I've
left you with some honest
insight into
what I saw at the White House
but also
during the campaign yeah it was
very
very entertaining and had a lot
of good
chunks of irony and other
screwy things
in there that the gossips out
there
would love this book I think
you're
gonna have a good time reading
it I want
to thank you for being on and
we'll talk
again maybe some time in New
York you
can buy a cup of coffee after
it exactly
come in and we'll well a little
lament
the market together
god bless okay I've to see you
soon
thanks
[Music]
- no agenda imagine all the
people who
could do is I just want to say
nice
David that was different I
haven't heard
the mooch that way I like that
a lot
that was good Tom Starkweather
I was
just gonna ask you who set up
the who
set it up for you because I was
gonna
produce the show out good and
this is
when I had on my screen my my
skype
screen I had the picture of of
Al Gore
with blood all over his face
holding
like the Friday the 13th or did
ya
interview and I start were
there Tom I
think he had to he he tried to
go a day
beforehand and they were giving
him a
hassle like security clearances
and all
kinds of weird stuff it wasn't
easy
yeah well thanks to Tom for
that and
thanks to Anthony that was good
I like
that that was interesting so we
don't
have any people to thank
because on one
of these interview shows we
don't we
can't we're carrying over all
the
donations to the next Thursday
show
right which of course we'll
also have a
wrap-up of the festivities
which are
taking place as we speak a
wedding and
maybe some interviews at the
wedding
you're bringing your zoom
recorder bring
the zoom material oh god well
make sure
you talk to Tiffany and Willow
then yes
I will definitely yes Wow Zuma
zuma so
not as soon now it's a zoom
zoom want to
remind people that this show is
also
requires support so if you can
help us
to go to know it you will get a
newsletter but some people
don't get
that
and Dvorak dot org slash na and
you have
all the links there for
donating yeah
and you know you can see how
the value
network works we had Tom
Starkweather
who we only knew from end of
show makes
us all a sudden Tom
like available and producing
producing
the tired interview segment
with us in
in New York and I think he gets
a kick
out of it as well and he has an
actual
executive producer credit or
like a big
one in fact as the executive
producer
because you know we have
nothing nothing
has a producer yes and the
producer
exactly you're right exec and
producer
he's the showrunner showrunner
oh yeah
we should add that to his to his
presence showrunner Jonah yes
move on to
cliff Stoll who I interviewed
in person
at in at his house very an
interesting
place in Oakland and here we go
I don't
cliff on and off for a long
time and he
used to do a weird pose I used
to know
you for a long time still do
know yeah I
think so yeah usually if one
person he
knows another one for a long
time the
other one it's transit a
similar cliff
used to do these editorial put
spots
where he would more or less
just say get
off the computer and go outside
and get
some fresh air and that was his
message
and it went to his message
every time he
gave an editorial and I think
it's still
your message my I don't have any
messages any more than this is
the
medium the message no I'm
my feeling is enjoyment of life
having
something to do having something
worthwhile in your mind and
worthwhile
around you you can get it in a
lot of
places unfortunately there's a
lot of
places that you can spin your
wheels and
and avoid doing cool things or
do what
feels really cool and neat but
ends up
at the end of it all feeling
well I'm
not sure I did anything that's
my day
yeah yeah it's everybody's day
now you
had you still give speeches
occasionally
I saw I saw an old TED talk of
yours
once I did it that talk yeah
that's
silly
well you're jumping around on
the stage
and your ideas don't give them a
standing target yeah well this
is a good
comedians do this they walk
back and
forth on the stage for
the reason that it keeps the
keeps field
from falling asleep sure but
but to me
it's also uh what did my father
say if
they're going to throw tomatoes
at you
make sure that usually you miss
but but
when I went to the this TED
talk I
thought oh I'll have an hour to
talk so
that there's only 18 minutes
that's
right I get there and the guy
says oh
you've got 18 minutes I say yep
but I've
outlined in hours fuck you says
well
compress it down so that's just
that
easy
oh yeah so I just said oh I'll
keep the
same things I'll just talk
really fast
which is pretty easy because
one of the
very few things I learned in
grad school
was talk fast and get out of
there
before they can understand what
you're
not saying that's a good
experience it's
I never learned that but I can
understand it now let's go over
some of
the things that you some of
your ideals
one that I wanted to talk about
and the
one or at the top of the list is
something we always talked
about a
little while ago which is
computers in
schools throw them out well I'm
not sure
whether you should throw the
school's
out or the computers out but
throw one
of them out
explain yourself because people
said
well you know the computers are
what the
kids are gonna have to work
with when
they get into business and they
get in
the real life they're gonna
have to
learn how to use these computer
horse
and of course they're all I all
I seem
using him for us to play games
and
message but I would assume that
he had a
good course and in how to do
Google
search might not be a business
or a
computer or is it that the
nature of
computing especially
commercialized
computing is that it becomes
easier and
easier to get things done 15
years ago
oh we have to teach computing
in school
so that kids won't let be left
behind
no kids learn computing real
easy the
hard stuff to learn how do you
put
together a legible and
understandable
sentence how do you write a how
do you
write a page of prose that is
reasonable
to get you say to put on your
resume or
to get you into college or
or to get to get through your
classes
next week my concern is not can
kids use
computers my concern is can
kids use
their minds it's we all know
computer
skills go out of date real fast
oh yeah
they'll try to go back and use
a Windows
3.1 system and see how far you
get the
language that you learned today
Python Haskell Oh in ten years
it'll be
obsolete there'll be something
new for
you to learn and the the same
is true of
various applications every
application
is evolving a few of them are
static no
I there are some things that
it's really
useful to know and I think
these can and
should be taught in school for
example
how to read for meaning how to
write a
concise expository statement
how to
write prose how to write how to
put
together a mathematical
argument how do
how logic works that that
students very
few students graduate from
college today
having read Shakespeare well
which is
more important to figure out how
Microsoft formats words or her
Shakespeare should formats
words I don't
know which is more important
but I'm
astonished that the question
isn't even
brought up and well lots of
people spend
lots of times lots of time
playing games
nope nothing wrong with it but
we have
so much time in our life that
can be
distributed in lots of
different ways
and some of the cool ways that
you can
spend your time is oh I got it
God we'll
watch a movie tonight I got a
visit sewn
so I've got to talk to somebody
I've got to play a game I've
got a cook
I forget we have a finite
amount of time
every day and of course in our
life and
in the time that we spend
spinning around in an
artificial world
is time that were not learning
challenging life skills and
practicing
them
well obvious example for the
past 2025
years there have been surveys
on campus
of shyness psychologist at
Stanford does
an annual survey asking people
how shy
are you and they read it and
normalize
it turns out that there's a
great deal
of shyness and it's increasing
you year
after year
well nothing implicitly wrong
with this
but why are people more shy why
are
people spending less time
talking to one
another they're more afraid of
talking
to one another
well it's because through their
life
it's easier and far more
welcoming to
interact with a silicon screen
than it
is to interact with a real
human being
it's hard to say oh yeah I'll
just come
over here and say hi and hack
around at
the end full around it's much
easier to
say yo I'll go tight behind
this tap
away on this tablet there's less
investment in local community
today
where fifty a hundred years ago
was
commonplace that people would
volunteer
free time at churches red cross
elk Elks
clubs things like this just
volunteering
time at the hospital yeah today
they do
not there's much you know
there's a
several books one of which is
called
Bowling Alone that points out
that
bowling alleys are finding lots
more
people bowling but fewer people
joining
leagues it seems that people
don't have
time to coordinate with others
to see
them face to face but they
still want to
sharpen their their bowling
skills our
larger community
loses out when we when high
when you
don't volunteer and put hours
in meeting
people hacking around after
shul after
church after fooling around
after school
there's a sense of hey I'm
really busy I
don't have time for that
well I'm really busy but still
like how
busy our people be if you go
outside and
I've made a collection of
photos of
people who are just like this
all the
time looking at their screen
wherever
they go on this they go to a
platform at
a rail station they're all
there like
this and it's actually very
picturesque
pictures because of that the
comedic
nature of it to see a whole
bunch of
people lined up not I mean the
train
could come through with the big
you know
big
buzzsaw and kill them all and
no one
would notice it or they could
put a
chain son just chopped off
their hands
holding their cell phones it's a
fascinating problem in time
my thoughts are I'd rather be
talking to
somebody than collecting
messages and
reading email you believe
there's an
addictive nature to this
position piece
to this thing I mean and what
Mars is
what's the model of the diction
essentially everyone it's hyper
social I
mean you just went on about this
antisocial behavior but at the
same time
it don't you think it's kind of
hyper
social it be all plugged into
35 we
don't really know okay when
somebody
friends me on Facebook are they
my
friend you have a Facebook
account no I
don't know I totally would
somebody
friends you know yes I bla bla'
friend
blah blah blah are they my
friend is the
definition is my definition of
friend
someone who's connected to me
by way of
a social medium uh-huh my idea
of a
friend is hey I've got an inner
circle
of a half dozen people that if
I'm
feeling down I can call him and
talk
well if I'm hungry I can say
hey let's
go for coffee and lunch
people that I can wander over
to their
house with little or no warning
and just
talk and then cut catch up on
things
my definition of friend isn't
to someone
who sends messages to me by way
of a of
a widespread application there
are many
many people who have thousands
of
friends on Facebook probably
many people
of tens of thousands of friends
but if
one of these people stops them
on the
street do they say oh how's your
daughter you know what you know
is your
dad still sick are you you know
can they
converse and have a
heart-to-heart
conversation well that you
putting it
another way go wow we won't we
back off
from that concept and say to
ourselves
we've redefined friendship and
so for
friend is that defined as
theirs so
there may be two two categories
you have
the Facebook friend and you
have a real
friend and do people realize
that the
Facebook friends not is a foe
friend or
do they do are they seriously
thinking
these are real friends I know I
I don't
know I have no experience in
social
media I'm the wrong person to
speak of
it I wish that there were more
analysis
of it by those who are
professionals
sociology just and I have been
about
this forever I think that
sociologists
are very happy to work
academically and
they adheres them here's
something that
screaming out calling analyze
me why is
it that people say oh I've got
2,000
friends on Facebook I got and
yet
they're going around sort of
unhappy I
don't know I I'm a physicist
I'm a
computer jock I'm a
mathematician I'm
sure but it's earned you don't
find any
any attraction of social media
you're
not attracted to any aspect of
it it's
like a Twitter account where
you can
make snide comments to the
public at
large to wish to make snide
comments no
Snider's yeah
that's the only valuable thing
you can
do on these what is it it's
crackers to
slip the rahzar the drops key
in snide
hi damn I remembered that right
is that
an e coming yeah notes from Mad
Magazine
of the 1959 Mary its crackers
to slip or
rahzar the drop skin snide
means I'm
it's foolish to bribe a
policeman with
counterfeit money snide net
counterfeit
money so what I'm getting is
more what
email Twitter online
communications is
fantastic for staying on top of
things
but I want to get to the bottom
of
things what I want to do is
understand
things more deeply and that
means not
being interrupt driven not
being pushed
around but every notice that
comes to me
but rather researching and
learning and
working in a few small areas and
becoming as as direct as
possible in a
small area and not try to keep
up with a
thousand online friends more
I'm and
this is not a critique of
people who
spend a huge amount of time
online or on
Facebook it's more what I find
works for
me in my heart I want to be
closer to my
wife I want to be closer to my
kids I
want to be closer to my
community my
neighborhood we're gonna be
making plum
jam sharing it with the people
next door
well I can't share my plum jam
with
people who are on social media
sorry
there's only about three dozen
jars of
it and the first caller people
live next
door helped me pick the plums
[Music]
Vivi's it's not like I'm saying
this is
a a wrong thing to point your
life at
it's more I'm saying for me and
I
suspect for many though not all
others
there's something lost if I
spend a lot
of time poking around at a
computer
poking around at a screen
rather than
screwing around with friends
with
relatives and and having depth
with a
few people rather than
shallowness with
a large number of people
Who am I to say well let's
laugh at me
and say I'm all wrong it's all
right
nobody says that because nobody
knows
what's right eh
and I've never heard anybody
defend
social media they just they
just did
find it as a fun thing to do it
for as a
sigh I don't know I here to be
honest if
I don't have a Facebook account
either
and so I've always baffled by
the some
of the Facebook because it just
kind of
stirs you up and it doesn't
really
accomplish anything ten years
ten years
ago I ended up on something
called
LinkedIn what day doesn't go by
that I
don't get notices saying XYZ
wants to
connect to a LinkedIn oh yeah
LinkedIn
and I'm I just have no idea
what to do
with these things people from
across the
globe want to connect with me
as if I
have something to say or
something
useful to help them with and I
don't I
think you may be exaggerating
what
LinkedIn is really did its
purposes it's
to create kind of phone
networks of
people who maybe could offer
you work oh
I can offer nobody any work so
you don't
need to be on LinkedIn yeah
it's a I
just have concerns that well
popping the
stack you're asking about
schools my
feeling is the things that we
should get
out of education are not how to
use
computer
that's pretty easy in fact it's
hard to
find a teenager who doesn't
know how to
use Facebook who doesn't know
how to
efficiently search on Google
it's hard
to find a teenager who's bad at
texting
they exist I'm sure but they're
probably
pretty rare but find a teenager
who can
stand up in front of 30
students and
recite a poem play the clarinet
explain how explain the
importance of
Pericles in the Peloponnesian
War how
his speech laid the groundwork
for
Lincoln's Galesburg address you
know
that's something that I'd hope
at least
some of the better to better
kids in
high school would be able to do
and
would be a little bit nervous
about it
but would be capable of doing
yet if we
consider that the point of of
schooling
is to teach you a trade well
okay learn
C++ here here's how you use
pointers and
here's how yeah they don't do
that by
the way they don't teach kids
how to you
know how to code and C++ they
know to be
out well you know I don't know
as much
as I should about but from what
I can
tell this the computers are
considered
ancillary to like a history
course so
you can teach a little bit have
you read
a book and then do a lot of
research
online
suppose for a minute suppose
suppose for
a minute I was an evil horrible
terrible
human being it might be true um
and my
idea was I want to wipe out
curiosity I
want to get rid of curiosity
well one
way to do that would be to say
I'm gonna
lock people up and not let them
near any
information I'm gonna keep the
books
away from them keep theater net
away
from them
make sure that they don't have
access to
information well let get let
get rid of
their curiosity hello
they'll be more curious than
ever what's
out there
wait turn it around though if I
want to
get rid of a kid's curiosity
what if I
gave this kid a machine that
answered
every question the kid came up
with
correctly with you know in in a
nice a
nice high res screen right
doable doable
and it even has movies and
videos to
shelter kid kid says you know
how do
flowers grow or what why is the
sky blue
and it comes up with a perfect
answer
that would be a wonderful way to
eliminate curiosity because you
never
experience the joy of doing an
experiment and figuring it out
for
yourself all you have to do is
ask that
question online and get a
wonderful easy
answer right back to you if you
want to
eliminate curiosity provide
people with
facile immediate answers well
what does
any of the search engines take
your pick
what do they do they provide us
with
facile easy quick answers to
essentially
any question we ask what
effective does
this have on students well
seems to me
that it's a wonderful way to to
throw a
wet blanket on our indigenous
curiosity
that each of us is born with
why should
i why should i explore the
world and ask
questions if i want to know
what what
life is like in Songhai china
but just
to ask this computer you can be
on a
train anywhere in the world and
you see
the same kids that you're
talking about
instead of looking out the
window at the
crazy sights yes
you've seen this yeah it's
instead of
instead of looking around
saying wow I'm
looking at some nasturtium
flowers Oh
what do they do at night do
they close
up or stay open oh no I'm gonna
look at
a screen and stay up on social
media or
I'll be asking questions are
trying to
copy and paste together some
some report
my point is not that Oh
computers are harmful rather my
point is
that we should be asking
ourselves what
is it about an interconnected
world that
gives us the heebie-jeebies and
one of
my points has when I taught so
I taught
eighth grade about nine ten
years ago in
teaching eighth graders there
were lots
of kids who were fantastic
online in
texting it was surprisingly
difficult to
get them to just do ordinary
curious
stuff stuff that do he's great
they were
perfectly happy not to be doing
athletics but sitting on the
side
texting they were it was sad to
be it's
right it's always been pathetic
to me
but sad is a good way of
putting it
I'm not what I'm not saying is
these
kids are turning out all wrong
rather
I'm asking could it be that our
love
affair with a high tech
information
system may be leading our kids
and
adults into rather dreary
unhappy lives
don't know I hope not but might
be
that's not you asked I think
the I don't
know what I asked I think they
are I
think the unhappy life is ahead
so you
see too much evidence of your
kids being
suicidal for you know why is a
17 year
olds no good but of course it
but we're
also drugging these kids
seriously great
deal okay
nobody
has it easy between age three
at age 31
I say nobody has it easy at any
age it's
real tough to be a teenager I
don't know
whether teenage suicides are
remaining
the same going up or going down
it
saddens me deeply to hear of
any suicide
at any age because people have
so much
to contribute to this very
mundane
dreary world and the only way
the world
becomes more interesting and a
lively or
more wonderful place is by
people doing
things and making it a better
place and
to the person who say uh what
if I have
to live for I've screwed up or
there's
things are boring I can look
around say
there's so much to learn
there's so many
cool things going on here
there's so
much to do with your hands with
your
heart with your head and yet
some people
let go again
I find it very sad and I mean
my concern
is goes to something you said
before a
few minutes ago about the word
snide
it's easy to be snide it's easy
to be
sarcastic but that is something
to do
oh of course it's something to
do be
critical be mean yeah it's easy
to say
mean hurtful things to a
classmate just
to it's even easier to say a
mean
hurtful thing out of posting on
some yes
some bored and of course and
people I
specialize in it oh yeah people
work
hard to troll around and you
know
they're the whole institutions
in st.
Petersburg where they train
people to do
this and at the same time I
feel you
know the community I want to be
a part
of yeah it has some sarcasm in
it yeah
there's there's people who
scoff but on
the whole it's largely self
supportive
and
friendship is oftentimes built
upon
mutual interests and mutual
support
rather than oh I'm more snide
than you
are I can make a a flashier
piece of of
sarcasm than you can not I
don't know
where I'm talking myself into
this Oh
Porter I'm sure that people of
another
corner oh yeah but I'm I'm
still but I
think you're right generally
speaking
it's everything you say is
accurate it's
like there is the situation as
it now
exists is terrible and then
they want to
move on to things and then when
the
other issues crop up based on
technology
you end up with people
advocating for
example voting over the
internet which
seems to me to be just fraud
with
insanity yeah yeah I mean
there's
there's lots of problems with
online
voting not least of which is
identity
but also is the implicit lack of
temporal thought oh I'm going to
actually think about this for a
long
time rather than I'm going to
click on a
checkbox how do you feel about
this
check here click here oops
Oh ten minutes later maybe not
there's a
certain seriousness that
happens when
you actually vote walk to a
voting booth
and that you don't that I don't
get at
least whoa hey well I get to a
website
says what's your opinion I
cakes y'see
Oh
Survey Monkey wants to know
feel how
long do you cut your shoelaces
how often are you online I'm a
daily
basis do you have a computer in
the
house yeah I have one
downstairs there's
one downstairs
ie do you get on it do you get
stuck on
it like most people you get the
Lord's
call heavily under alcohol I
have a
little business making and
selling glass
work
yes Klein pumps and I'm in
communications with
mathematicians who
like to send and receive email
I answer
a bunch of email several
probably a
couple hours a day
outside of that well what did I
do this
morning I unpacked a bunch of
glassware
I cut some tiles with a diamond
saw I
putting together a kitchen
counter youth
using using some kind of
Penrose tiles
at so I'm and last night I was
up till
10 o'clock with my wife or both
reading
books from 7:00 till 10:00 so I
try to
keep my computing in my screen
time is
11:00 in the morning till over
lunch
till 2:00 in the afternoon 2 3
and let's
really try to minimize it a day
to me a
successful day is a day that I
don't get
in a car and I don't see a
screen that
to me is a completely
successful date
now if you have you ever been
says you
do a goat you you're not
computer
illiterate by enemies do you is
there
anything online everything's
online now
or no no no no no no no no no
no I
planted some tomato plants two
weeks ago
300 line no okay well you got a
kink
some plum juice I'm just saying
not
online right look this is this
is class
yeah and it's done it's not for
sale
online it's what I meant what I
meant by
that on the computer
specifically not in
the world in general most
things are
online and have you ever been
surprised
by anything you've seen in the
last few
years where you go oh my god
this is
really great I didn't think I'd
ever see
anything like this before and
here it is
I've seen an enormous number of
things
online that I open my eyes say
wow this
is impressive
that this is available to me
online is
it's close to magic at the same
time for
all the flash for all the html5
for all
the glitz and astonishing
websites I don't think I've
ever seen a
website or really anything
online that
I'd call caring kind supportive
deeply
touching maybe it's not
possible oh the
things that move me most deeply
for like
the difference between seeing a
child
grow up in your home and become
an adult
well there are billions of
photos of
people growing up and becoming
an adult
online there's nothing like the
experience of DISA's yes Herot
of course
and there's millions of
websites that
tell you how to be a parent too
but but
inevitably you'll learn
yourself and the
advice that you get online is
worth
every penny that you pay for it
it's a
yeah I've seen plenty online
that have
that's opened my eyes and what
I don't
go around saying is wow if only
science
people or math people had this
available
to them 200 years ago think of
what they
could have done nah when I see
what
people like Gauss what Einstein
looked
Maxwell what Newton did they
were
phenomenally constrained with
us with an
incredibly primitive tools yet
with
those primitive tools they were
forced
to be creative today we have
extremely
high quality digital tools and
as a
result we needn't be creative
what do I
mean by that it could be a
minute to
think this one out when I was a
kid in
art class class was sort of
divided into
two those people who could draw
a tree
that looked right and those who
like me
couldn't draw tree I couldn't
draw a
tree to look at it stared and
didn't
look like a tree and the art
teacher
said oh you know
way of discarding us we were the
creative ones and took a while
for me to
realize that creativity is the
inability
to copy those who were able to
look at a
picture and make a copy of that
they got
along well in this art class
those of us
who just couldn't copy no
matter how we
tried we couldn't copy we're at
the
severe disadvantage we were the
ones who
are called creative you don't
think that
was just a disparaging of
course it was
disparage ugh oh well certainly
you
should have been there through
my life
I've realized that creativity
that
institutions whether they're
schools
businesses institutions don't
value
creativity they value the
ability to get
along and fit in properly you
know the
square peg in a square hole
creativity
is rarely valued I want some
moving drop
drop the way it looks over
there just
copy that well the one thing
that you
find across the board in
computing is
copy and paste it's on it's
built into
every operating system it's the
most
fundamental levels copy and
paste well
to me that says it's the nature
of deep
down computing that it
encourages
working within a system that's
built by
you know that fits into OS X or
Linux or
UNIX or Core or Microsoft
operating
system yet making photocopies or
duplicating words or
duplicating images
sort of tells me this isn't a
very
creative process if it's
creativity that
I want I think I'd rather see
somebody
use their hands or get away
from the
screen maybe I'm all wrong
about this
well there's lots of creative
people who
are online no doubt there's
lots of
creative efforts but often times
it's the tools push us towards
oh I'll
just copy it out if you're
slightly
rewrite it and paste it over
there well
looks like my work yeah good
enough I
wish someone smarter than me
would
explore what do we mean by
creativity in
a digital domain hmm not just
oh that's
a really creative things that I
see
online but rather what I mean
like you I've sat through so
many
horrible PowerPoint talks I've
given
them yeah I mean that's just
what a
fantastic way to poison a talk
use
PowerPoint so refreshing so
wonderful to
hear somebody do a talk
entirely improv
you know without you know
without using
a projector without using a
computer
without being organized in
advance just
saying hey I'm gonna talk about
pursuit
and which you've done no of
course we
all have well that's a that's
the nature
of doing public speech to come
up with
something on the fly I don't
want to be
pre-programmed that's what I
didn't
bring a bunch of questions for
you if
you haven't noticed well that's
that's
the nature of you I like you
don't
pretty come on I do know I do
yes I can
do it I could actually have
questions
down I go through them put it
let me
throw a wet blanket on you hold
on if
you're gonna throw what blank I
get get
some more Tucker yeah so I I
know for me
doing a talk its improvisational
performance
I like well actually where we
do our
podcast is all its improv is
yes yeah
yeah yeah but let's talk about
everything betroth a wet
blanket because
I want to hear the reason I'm
gonna do
the wet blanket is because I
want to
hear your analysis of it sure
early on in the days when you
were more
of a prognosticator pundit you
made the
prediction that ecommerce is
never gonna
go anywhere and it's just a big
joke
meteorolo course so it's wrong
you were
wrong but can you analyze why
you were
wrong I was invited to
a talk on ecommerce actually
friends by
now sitting around talking at
the time
what you could get online or
essentially
magazine subscriptions I
thought shit no
way and my investors ironic oh
yeah of
course um
today of course magazine
subscriptions
what's a magazine um what's a
rather
what I felt at the time was the
richness
of going to a store retail shop
couldn't
be matched by things online
still get uh
uh I felt that that was far more
important than it actually
turned out to
be people are perfectly happy
saying
I'll order this I'll click on
this and
it'll be delivered to me and
I'll have
the thing without the
experience of
going to the start for me
personally I
felt then and unfortunately I
still do
feel now that purchasing and
shopping
should be a an extension of
one's
persona and shouldn't simply be
picking
things from a menu in the sense
that my
feeling is if shopping means
acquisition
and acquiring stuff buying
something
just by simply clicking on I
want that I
want this I want this other
thing click
on it pay for and to get the
stuff to me
that's uh it feels shallow
compared to
Oh getting something in
supporting the
small business or the bookstore
that
provides it yeah and I realized
now that
this mental image that I had
then may
very well have applied to me
but it sure
didn't apply to very many other
people
there are lots of people for
whom oh I
don't want to go to a grocery
store II
the rather have it delivered I
don't
want to meet the person
well this raised you back to
your
earlier discussion about the
antisocial
behavior people are on Leno
yeah no I see I have gosh I have
discussed with people the fact
that they
don't like to go to the store
the
grocery store to buy stuff
they'd rather
haven't delivered I don't
understand the
mechanism stop online I use
Amazon
extensively but I love going to
the
grocery store to see what's
fresh to see
what I'm gonna cook based on
what's
available as opposed to just
randomly
picking something out of a
recipe book
and then having it delivered to
me so I
don't I don't know why both
can't exist
in the same thank you me too
but they
died okay okay way off
off topic I live right next to
Berkeley
as you know I'm in Oakland
about 10
blocks from here
five blocks from here yeah ten
blocks
from here is a little tiny
grocery store
truly a ma in pod grocery store
called
star market it's been there
since the
1920s during the Depression the
owner of
the store gave out credit to
local
neighbors so they could get
through the
Depression both fashioned the
very
old-fashioned that man's grand
son still
runs the same grocery store and
the
prices are probably 20% higher
than the
nearby Safeway that's two
blocks away
and Safeway sells the same
stuff cheaper
well my wife can I go to the
star
grocery store
we have for 30 years we'll
always and we
know the owner
we know the checkout clerks we
know
who's who we get together
there's
friends of ours that we talk
with there
we can it's a meeting hall in
the way
that the Safeway isn't in a
Safeway is
that a meeting hall having goods
delivered to my doorstep
certainly it's
not you don't even see the
person who
drops the stuff off if I want a
rich
community or I know the people
around me
and I'm invested in them and
they're
invested in me necessarily I'm
going to
have to go out and meet them
someplace
at times I did not understand
that 20-30 years ago that this
really
was a rather rather silly rare
thing to
ask of people people can you
okay I'd
rather save save money and
especially
I'd rather have it delivered to
my door
rather than go out and walk
along an
island yeah pick things off a
grocery
start off grocery shop yeah I
was wrong
well point was that wrong and
well they
earlier you can it's I was away
neither
the brauneis of it is always a
is always
a variable and what I mean by
that is
that if if it wasn't for Amazon
and the
genius of Jeff Bezos of insane
genius
you don't know that it wouldn't
have
caught on I mean the differences
structures were there for it to
go
either with sure just some I've
noticed
cuz I've been writing about
technology's
efficiency economic efficiency
is a
powerful powerful engine and
online
online ordering and personal
delivery is
damned efficient and more power
to it
turned good no at the same time
I'm
rather I guess I live in a
quaint world
and I'm never is Luna from
looking
around look at so what are you
looking
across well what I see often
well also
some old wallpaper that seems
to have
been from the nineteen twelve
Cyril
wallpaper - yes yeah
and it's it's yellowed but it's
quite
attractive yeah I kind of like
wallpaper
in general people yeah it's a
good oh
that's the house when it was
yeah what
was built in this guy right
there
oh he's a member of the
Wobblies the
International Workers of the
world oh
yeah remember that group yeah
yeah and
about oh okay okay no this
probably
don't broadcast shop though
there's a
big dollar you sure yeah seems
silly
well let's see story to tell
you so
about 3035 years
1984 so I mean Berkeley and I'm
working
up at Cal at the loop hood the
physics
department and I'm bicycle by
this house
and house sign of the house
says this is
for sale this house now right
here house
for sale by owner so I walk in
there's a
hundred people crowded in house
cloth
costs a fortune
I walk out and say no way I'm
not gonna
buy a house like this so don't
think
anything of it next day I
bicycle by
there's a guy sitting on his
porch
looking over papers and I yell
up to the
guy hey mister did you sell
your house
guy yo spec yeah I sold so I
get off my
bike walk up to start talking
he says
yeah I sold a yeah III often
isn't
what are you doing so I'm a
labor lawyer
you say you're a labor lord do
you know
about the IWW the International
Workers
world he says boy do i I'm
writing a
book about it really I say tell
him you
must know songs of mr. block
and he says
I sure do and he starts going
oh mr.
block you were born by mistake
you take
the cake you make me eggs so I
join and
I take the next verse he takes
this
verse we're seeing all these
old labor
organizing songs from the 1910s
to each
other yeah and it's going back
and forth
paddling and we're talking
about the
International Workers the world
there
keep them moving in them and
half an
hour an hour goes by said Jesus
I gotta
get to kallen post doctor I
gotta get
then the guy says to me oh you
can't go
yet you got it by my house I
said come
on no seriously he says no I
want you to
buy this house I say first you
got three
offers second I can't afford it
I'm just
a post doc they don't pay me
nothing
third I got an apartment
downtown
Oakland it's cheap he says the
house
likes you everybody else who
wants to
buy it as an investor I say
okay I'll
buy it no pay you whatever
anybody
else's he says shakes my hand
said sold
$160,000
I say yeah but
look I ain't got that kind of
bread he
says I don't care I like you
true story so what was the year
that
this 1983-84 mm and that guy
says so he
gonna this guy's mortgage
broking he
laughs at me see you're both
Lords
Berkeley labs they say yeah
they pay me
twenty thousand twenty two
thousand a
year he says you're gonna have
to make
35 36 thousand to afford that
kind of
mortgage please no that's my
boss my
boss guy named Lou yell for us
he's a
noble eyes very famous yes so
you know
Louie yeah I went to Cal but
yes I
talked to Louie and say hey you
know
what about Houston gotta make
35,000 big
ruffle you you're never okay
for the
next six months here get this
paper
signed so it gave me a raise as
a
research associate for 35 grand
I get
this thing sign show it to the
mortgage
broker the mortgage broker said
sister
you work for Louie Louie
Alvarez Wow he
snaps things we die bicycle
over to a
bank three months later I own
this house
I've never had it inspected I
don't even
know how many bedrooms there
are in it I
don't know either and being
ripped off
all I know is the guy who's
selling it
and his wife our labor lawyers
and
they're really friendly and
that and so
I move in and the guy was right
the
house liked me yeah and I like
the house
and so that's what you see here
that's
the original of the house very
little
embroidery in that story well
these
things happen yeah that is
actually
pretty funny story and it's
it's sort of
if I had done it the right way
talking
to real estate yeah you wanna
get in the
house that link you yeah yeah
you know
saying this is the way to do
things it
but it works it sometimes works
since
you were up with that it did do
one of
the guys up there one of the
this is as an aside one of the
researchers physicists up at
the bet at
the lab and I don't can't
remember which
one it is but he's got this
theory that
he brings out once in a while
that the
earth is on a collision course
every
something like 70 million
baller is it
Muller yeah rich motors go
through the
asteroids gonna get kills off
every
nemesis yeah rich mother he's
he's sharp
he in fact you with lovely
students yeah
rich is easy still up there I'm
sure I
haven't seen him in three or
four years
please oh you what I'd love to
see if
that was just general just
about that he
the theory it makes nothing but
sense
and it seems to be you can't
it's almost
it's unprovable but but the
wipeouts
though yeah yeah they looted
historic
record going back millions of
years same
day indicated rich molar of
nemesis in
fact rich was one of the guys
who
figured out after Louis and
Walter
Alvarez figured that it was a
giant
meteor that hit the earth that
wiped out
the dinosaurs rich was one of
the people
figured out what happened oh
enough crud
was put in the air right that
we had a
climate change for a few
hundred years
that's what killed the
dinosaurs yeah
like you're the vegetation yep
good
these guys needed big plants
yeah yeah
yep ended up and suddenly
things turned
cold because sudden light
wasn't getting
down so it was a working with
people
like that was such a joy it was
oh I'm
sorry
don't get me started but yeah
that's how
I oh yeah we yeah well that
group is no
more around you yeah I was as a
matter
of what were you doing a kill
do I was a
history student with whom well
Kenneth
stampp was kept I just read a
book at
the Civil War not which one
right over
there the one the causes of the
Civil
always got that seven there are
10
essays the different yes very
very good
book mmm-hmm just reread two
nights ago
yeah oh there read this book
and the guy's smart just
collecting you
know he has a Marxist
revisionist view
of why was there a civil war he
has a
little bit oh I think the whole
department somewhat like that
but really
yeah he was my counselor hi hey
every
time I tell people that they go
what ooh
and the thing was he was a very
funny
guy because he is a rubber stamp
counselor from one thing oh
honey look
are what you're doing and he's
very
casual but he's very funny
I never took I don't believe I
took a
course from him I took a course
from a
and Winthrop Jordan and some of
the
other hotshots
but it was always funny to have
him as a
as the guy it was this is very
impressive this reflects back
to what I
was trying to say earlier I'm
no good at
saying it I'm I believe that
the ability
to read in a and review history
is
damned important and allows us
maybe not
to learn from mistakes but at
least to
better interpret what's going
on in
current events and one of the
things
that I'm saddened about in
schools today
is that they don't know
anything well
they're not history is
considered Oh
we'll teach you the following
facts
rather than yeah rather than oh
there's
five ways to interpret what
happened
here or this book is this is
the best
you have 50 ways to interpret
the Civil
War yeah it's a superb example
of why
why saying oh the Civil War was
caused
by slavery Oh a lot of people
say that a
lot of people say no it was
caused by
economic forces others oh no it
was
caused by movement it was
inevitable
given the Marxist Blum I'm
again I love
computing I love programming I
love
technology
but I also like appreciate an
admirer
critical thought
and I don't see enough of that
beam
it's a reason why I think
history
especially needs not just to be
taught
but needs to be appreciated
that's the
hard part saying you have to
find
enthusiastic teachers that can
teach it
to people who see no no no that
they
will like it
you have to people don't know
you know
it's like the good marketing
this was
they always said about Steve
Jobs he
says he doesn't study the
market he
tries to guess what people
don't know
they're going to like because
if you ask
somebody would you you what
would you
buy this is brand new and you
say I
don't know I don't think so it
uses
weird yeah yeah but if you
could show
someone you know you get them
as well
try it and you get them to
start using
things and get them to go on
and start
thinking differently then all
of a
sudden it becomes a huge thing
that
would have never been predicted
do you
remember the Xerox machine
where the
first copying machines they
studied it
they said nobody wants these
machines
because nobody wants to make
copies
they've said the same thing
with with
database management nobody
wants these
things can react in the digital
image I
mean or hey Rochester they are
invented
it yeah yeah more than invented
it they
promoted it within a very small
community thinking oh we keep
the secret
over here we'll be able to keep
this
cash cow running host yeah yeah
but it's
a but people don't appreciate
it history
because they're not kind of
convinced or
they're not there's the
enthusiam it's
different this time it'll be
different
we you know we're not gonna
make the
same mistake
you know Cassandra keeps
walking out
saying oh no no no bad things
are gonna
happen and go away Cassandra
you bother
me we'll do it the right way
this time
well it's never done the right
way
that's the problem ever of
course he was
the Bri what he is the most
brilliant of
the analysts of the Civil War
when it
comes to causation everybody
else
discusses various aspects but
causation
is still up in the air and
there's been
like shit I think you're right
they are
now just slavery
none of these then there's some
wacky
things in this particular book
just one
or two of these things they're
just like
what I can't remember them off
have I do
remember Norma's and this is 40
years
old yeah this book and a book
we're
talking about is the causes of
the Civil
War
edited by Kenneth stampp it's a
bunch of
essays including Lincoln's and
Jefferson
Davis Frederick Douglass and a
whole
bunch of crazy off-the-wall
stuff and
and there and the interviewer
studied
under this guy can stamp that's
berkeley
for you similar similar
feelings of yeah
while you're working with Louis
Alvarez
for guy I mean there's other
guys
there's a lot of famous people
like this
good Morgan Peter Seaborg but
it was all
you work with these people and
it was
like midday as rating code
Louie walks in the door and
says why are
you working on kid I'm saying
well I'm
work great in computer code
what's it
for it's 11:30 midnight or so
on I'm you
know was he that Gruffalo whose
cross
craft to those who he felt
needed
gruffness and if he didn't know
you well
you got gruffness from him you
tried to
be a son of a bitch but he
wasn't very
good son of bitches turned out
to be not
a nice guy but I said well I'm
working
reading code what's that code
what's
that line therefore I said well
I mean
working on a fax he's
hyperbolic mirrors
for the Keck telescope yeah but
what's
that line for well I'm trying
to figure
out what the Fourier transform
is of of
an off-axis hyperbola that's a
hexagon
he says well what's that line
for I say
well that particular line you're
pointing to figures out you
know what's
the sine side of the angle of
incidence
coming out to the mirror
blablabla
explain it half an hour later
Beezus
okay keep going okay Sima knew
it was
like it was like I had to
explain half
town he needed to understand
down at the
grain of sand level yeah
and if I could do that if I
could
actually explain at that level
he was he
felt I was okay and I was able
to so I
was okay in his mind uh and he
so he
didn't put up with bullshitters
oh no no
no no no you got nowhere a few
ah every
Friday at his house there was a
Friday
meeting at his house of physics
jocks
and it was scary stuff you were
you got
in front of two dozen
physicists all of
whom were out for blood you
better be
able to defend yourself and I
just
caught a computer hacker who was
breaking Tory UNIX boxes right
this was
your this is your cuckoo's yeah
yeah the
book was a tech full title yeah
Cuckoo's
egg stalking the wily hackers
had you
would have ended forensic
computing yeah
yeah yeah so pretty so I go to
Louie's
house to do a talk and I start
talking
about this and it was the first
time
that I ever had to explain what
it means
to break into a computer I had
to
explain what is the ARPANET
what is the
Internet Protocol what's TCP
and I had
to explain it from the register
stack
all the way up to the highest
level
what's you know how does the
email work
and how do you uh what year was
this
this was 1986 haha okay and
doing this
in front of Louis I mean and
the rest of
the gang you know it was scary
stuff
because not because you don't
know it
it's because you're in front of
you're
in front of the real
examination group
and I passed young people said
ah flying
colors no problem at all you
showed the
old man you stuff you did okay
and that
was enough for me
yeah that's yeah that I became a
best-selling book it was it
became
best-selling book it gave me
the license
to do stupid things and I've
done plenty
of stupid things with that
licensing
mathematical modeling but the
the
I'm it's time for other people
to be
doing cool things you know I'm
sort of
busy seeing anybody out there
doing cool
things oh yeah met some people
doing 3d
printing of of completely
bizarre
mathematical shapes and I'm
saying Wow
real neat to see people taking
weird
fractal images poking them into
into
plastic I'm seeing people do
there are
some cool things that I've
bumped into
there's a guy that I know who's
working
on the collision frequency in
planetary
rings and modeling it in the
computer in
a most creative way using
Markov chain
stuff like this stuff that I
know that
oh I see somebody doing it so
much
better than the way I would do
it and
everything Wow very pleasant
very dicey
and then there's lots and lots
of
pedestrian stuff just like when
we were
in Berkeley there's people who
waste
their time to saying oh I got a
level up
to level 17 and listen and big
deal so
which is where we started
talking to
begin with it's well I guess
I'm not
cynical saying Oh get off my
grass I did
all this great stuff nobody'll
ever know
people I'm thoroughly impressed
with
some of the stuff that I see
happening
in computer security I
regularly follow
doe you get up I've kept up and
I'm I'm
really impressed with how
forensics
people you know people unwind
digital
attacks and can find signatures
of just
what group was it that did this
yeah how
are they hiding how are they
pushing
things around and it impresses
the hell
out of me I'm impressed with
companies
that
are organized to let let their
computer
jocks just watch to see what
the traffic
is and see what's weird and
unwind it
really impressed
I'm impressed with frankly I'm
impressed
with the security systems that
are
growing up in places in our
modern
operating systems security
itself is
being pushed sort of further
and further
to the left in the development
charts it
used to be Oh tell me a problem
and
we'll patch it but build in
security
bacon into an operating system
not now
that's not for us but we got it
we got
to meet this deadline guess I'm
never
important yeah
security will become important
sooner
you tell us you got problem
tell we'll
fix it increasingly it's Oh
security is a spec at the
beginning and
and uh you don't start writing
code
without having first baked it
in at the
start very impressed um I do
anything as
specific a specific that you
did that
catches your eye I'm seeing my
kid I'm
seeing a major company in
Silicon Valley
essentially freeze releases
that freeze
releases but make semi major
releases
that do nothing but more deeply
address
security problems which to me is
astonishing in other words a
major
release coming out that does
looked adds
almost no features but just
makes the
whole thing more solid
I'm delighted I'm impressed I'm
see the
I'm seeing less and less
reliance on
passwords more
you know double factor
authentication
I'm seeing good things in that
direction
the enormous popularity of
capture the
flag and even lock-picking yet
amongst
computer security people just
tickles me
and I just just him big smiles
when I
see what's happening here
there's a we
have a number of listeners our
podcasts
who are technical to say the
least but
did a lot of penetration
testers pen
testing and I hear the stories
from
there's fascinating to the
point where
some of them actually have to
break into
the facility yeah oh yeah get
doing gee
pewter and put something man
and see
what happens it's a smile to me
that
once upon a time there what
spot tiny
stuff didn't exist and now it's
it's in
one sense a game to uh to
people to
others it's oh I'm actually
going to
break in and and leave leave a
little
poop for somebody and see if
they
stumble across it still others
I know a
friend of mine computer-security
get-together showed me how to
repin all
the locks in my house and not
know known
how to do it before vase oh no
you show
me I do master in sub master
insurance
look now you have master in sub
mastering on my I usually lock
on my
front door big deal you know
some people
from your podcast will probably
come by
and pick it now it's I'm
tickled to see
this happening it's like yeah
do you do
any work in the field anymore
no I speak occasionally in a
most
embarrassing way for me to talk
about
computer security it's like
inviting
it's like inviting Dwight
Eisenhower to
talk about politics a no I'm
I'm old hat
old-school I felt long ago that
the
network the ARPANET which
evolved into
the internet really was an
academic
playground for fooling around
and having
a sending email you didn't have
to put a
stamp
would get across the country in
the same
day sometimes in the next few
minutes
right now um the academic
playground
soon became commercialized
became a
playground for people to
develop cool
things and for a few people to
make bad
things happen the development
of malware
leaves me not very happy the
use of
computer computing as
intermediary
between peace and war leaves me
very
cold
I'm very sad at what I see
happening
using going back to the spot
Stuxnet
days where the computers were
weaponized
as a to promote political
points of view
and now that what happened in
the 2016
elections leaves me really cold
that
theft of information online is
used to
cause to bend elections it's I
find it
very upsetting but then hey I'm
it's not
this ain't my world anymore
well that's not gonna end yeah
it's
going to get worse yeah it's
gonna get
worse with the one minor thing
that I'm
observing and I hope that the
people who
are listening to your podcast
who are
really tuned into computer
security I
hope they'll say yeah you know
you have
a good point there maybe I have
a bad
point here I think that os's
and widely
deployed applications are
becoming more
secure there are more people
working to
detect problems and fix them
than there
ever has been before that gives
me hope
it means that it's I hope in
the long
run going to be more difficult
to
steal credentials - composes
somebody
else the spread of false
information I
think will always be a
challenge but the
theft and manipulation of
information I
hope will become increasingly
difficult
maybe I'm all wrong
well how about this you know
you do have
an issue with the people who
are the
computer users that are
ignorant and for
example you talked about the
stolen
David Podesta data was stolen
on a
phishing attack you you know
some click
on this boom this whole thing's
done is
that that that seems to be to
be the the
bottleneck here the Oh
ignorance Oh surely yet at the
same time
two-factor authentication
quality crypto
being used that requires oh oh
I have to
use facial recognition and a
fingerprint
to to only get into one email I
hope
that with time fishing will
become less
and less effective just as
people as
people become better at
something I was
going to mention that um I've
been
thinking about and you probably
can say
this better than I can
I've been thinking that what
happened to
the fax machine
remember the fax machine on
earth
doctors still using sort of
pharmacies
yeah what killed the facts well
my
theory is we don't have any
faxes not
because they didn't work well
they were
great not because they were
expensive
they were cheap what killed the
fax was
the exploitation of the fax
machine by
fraudsters and places like fax
calm that
just bombarded people's fax
machines it
frame the paper yep yep drains
of paper
and used until finally people
said I
don't need this stupid fax and
people
stopped using it just because
it was
such an annoyance my claim is
that's what's going to happen
to voice
telephony that people are slowly
refusing to answer their
telephones
because hey there's so much
scam there's
so much just robocalling
thoughts I believe and I think
what
we're going to see happen in
the long
run is people will simply say
I'm not
going to use the phone
if if I don't recognize the
person
calling me I'm not going to
answer it
and what will happen will be the
telephone the telephony system
that has
taken you know what hundred
fifty years
130 years to develop
I think it'll slowly wither and
and the
entire reason being that it's
so cheap
and easy to scam to scam people
yeah and
it's true I I don't know if I
hope I'm
wrong or I hope I'm right but I
think
that with time people become
immunized
to it and say hey I answered
the phone
and as things get exploited
people
develop immunological responses
yeah
stop using right a lot of the
Millennials to this day don't
use the
phone hardly ever yeah they
just text
every text it sure and the the
people
who are most exploited are old
people
because they're accustomed to
trusting
oh well they're also more
susceptible to
getting scammed yeah yeah often
sure
well on that note I think we've
got
enough material here I think
thank you
first thing yeah yeah don't
show you
something cool down sir okay
here and
that was cliff Stoll in Oakland
I got a
lot out of that interview I
haven't seen
except for a while I thought it
was
fascinating to chat with him
like that
and with the cool thing about
him is
he's one of those guys who can
just talk
yeah so you're like the
interview people
you don't want to get yourself
too
involved all the time that's
true that's
true
so why do they want to hear
more of me
so a cliff loves to talk so as
you could
tell it was quite entertaining
is every
which way I loved it and thank
you for
doing that John it was extra
extra
curricular activity for the
wedding for
the show for Humanity think
it's me out
of that house it's true
alright everybody we'll be back
next
Thursday with a regular episode
and
deconstruction of the best
podcast in
the universe remember us at
Dvorak org
slash na will have a double
donations
people to thank on the next
show coming
to you from Austin Texas in the
morning
everybody I'm Madame Curie and
from on
the road I'm John see you
tomorrow we
return on Thursday right here I
know
agenda until then as always
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