Jon Cohen: Election Night Special featuring Phil Hellmuth, Bill Gurley, Brad Gerstner & more!
Guests: Jon Cohen, Brad Gerstner, Bill Gurley, Phil Hellmuth
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Segment 1
Hello, everybody. Welcome. We are live at the All In Headquarters and the All In Pie cast is now live. We have 63 people watching already, and bear with us while we get the besties on the line. I'll be doing my introduction in just a moment after I tweet this.
But it is an eventful night, and we had to start early because it's looking like this could be another shocker. And I am not being facetious here. I am not happy about this, obviously. But Trump looks like he's been underestimated again. This is not a blowout.
We are going live early. This could be a shocker, folks. Okay. So with me early on the pod is regular David Friedberg. David, you're watching this early action, and what's your early reaction to what we're seeing?
You
know, Trump's moved. There's nothing definitive yet, but he's moved in the result and he's moving markets, we're seeing 4 x markets show a sharp indication that Trump has a real shot at winning here, treasury markets, and as Phil
Helmut will share with us betting
market as well.
So it is more it is more of a nail biter than game 7 of the warriors' Cavs.
So here we go. --
hell of a nail. There's a hell of a nail biter, guys, and I'm just gonna say this. The UK markets had it first. They he was 5 to 2. You could you could get Trump 5 to
2, 2
and after 1, then it hit 5 to
4,
and I thought that was quite crazy. You're watching CNN. You're watching these networks, and they're saying, oh my god. Biden's winning this. No.
They're not even in the right neighborhood. I'll never watch a network again on election night. And now the market from 5 minutes ago,
£368,000,000
wager,
£368,000,000.
Trump is now a 3 to 10 favorite Okay.
So for people, Phil, who are not gamblers --
If you bet
$3 -- -- dollars, you bet $3
No. No. Jason, you have to understand. If you bet $13 okay, you don't get 13 back. You only get 10 back.
Okay? Now if you wanna bet Biden, it's 7 to 4. So if I bet
$70
if I bet $40, I can get
$70
back on Biden. Now the shocker is right around 6:28 PM, the betting odds, would have been in Biden's favor for 3 straight months. I've been live posting them on my Twitter all day. The worst I saw was was Trump was was Biden was minus a dollar 25. Still a big favor to win.
And then boom. And, you know, there are people in my house that are actually crying. You know, I'm very more much more in the middle of this thing, but all of a sudden, Trump, it it all of a sudden, it was 5 to 4, then it was even and then all of a sudden Trump was nearly a a 2 to one favorite. I'm getting live information from my friends right now. I'm seeing that that it's a it's a little bit lower on some of these sites.
I saw 267. That's for a $200 bet, so he's a pretty big favorite I saw the lowest I've seen is 217. But, Jason, if you're watching the odd odds and I put some stuff on my Twitter, it's amazing how it went from you know, minus a dollar 70, you know, all the way down minus a 30, then it came all the way up to minus a dollar 70. This is crazy, and and I've seen this movie before in 2016, actually.
Okay. So we all know that you need 270 electoral votes to win and that there were a couple of states that were critical for Trump to win. And it seems like those states that Trump was critical to win, he has now won. So let's bring in David Sack, David, we just turned on the livestream. And, boy, is this a turn of events that I don't think any of us except for maybe you, but you were very pessimistic on the last maybe 3 or 4 all in podcasts.
You're watching these results come in the betting markets have totally flipped to Trump. What are you seeing? And what can we expect tonight? What are you looking for?
Yeah. I mean, it's looking just like
2016.
I mean, you're right that I was looking at the polls in the last few pods that we've done, and there was no way to say anything other than know, Trump was the was the underdog. But at the same time, I I still thought that Trump had a really good shot because I was watching both candidates on YouTube all the time. They both were doing live events. So I wasn't watching it the commentary. I wasn't watching the clips.
I was watching Trump do these rallies. I was watching Biden do these parking lot events. And I would see Trump do 4, 5 events a day flying from tarmac to tarmac on Air Force 1 having these huge crowds. I saw him do this event in Butler, Pennsylvania over the weekend. It looked to me like there was tens of thousands of people there.
And I remember Trump saying a line like, you know, this doesn't seem like a second place crowd. And, you know, it's one of those Trump lines, but, you know, it did put in my mind, this idea, you know, he's got a point. Whatever the polls say, we're seeing tens of thousands of people show up at these events who are fanatical mean, just fanatical for Trump. And so you always had to think that he had a chance of pulling it off an upset just like
2016.
I will say what I said on our text earlier, Donald Trump ate the COVID virus and killed it with his body. And then he stood in front of the White House and ripped his shirt off and let us all know that he is our leader He did not get elected. He claimed victory beginning in 2016, and he has not and will not let go since then. And I think it is that cult of personality that
--
Cult of personality.
--
draws so many people in that are just, you know, feeling like they need change and they need leadership, and they don't need something from the old school and He he stood up, and he showed us that this whole thing is a is a fake. COVID is a fake. Government is fake. Good people are fake. The media is fake.
I'm getting some late numbers. I'm getting some late numbers here, guys. He's now a minus a dollar 59 to win Pennsylvania, and they took every other number off the board. However, if you're a Biden person, Jason -- Yes. -- the number is only
2.17
right now. So Oh, wow. The polls are the pollsters were miles off on this, and this is just amazing.
And it seems like from what we're hearing from the reporting is that the pollsters did not understand the Latin or, I guess, Latin x is a way to describe a group of people who actually don't think exactly the same. I've always had a a weird understanding of terminal at next, which seems to come from the woke left. The Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, These are different countries. They're not all the
same. Venezuelans.
Venezuelan. The this is not a monoculture just because they all speak the same language, and we're seeing something very different happen in Florida right now where mail, Cubans, maybe, are voting very differently than what pollsters expected. Besty Chamath is now fresh off a tight haircut, and he's here on the pod.
Can
you hear me? We've got bestie Phil as our first bestie guestie of the night.
Bestie P. How are you, bestie P?
Chamath, you and I we
we shouldn't talk about this. This is about politics. but you and I were just filming high stakes poker in Las Vegas. On Friday night, it was great to see you. Besting.
Is there any indication you can give us besides I mean, of course, there's a presidential election that is gonna determine the future of humanity. But more importantly, how did you each do in the high stakes poker game?
The biggest the biggest the biggest pot of the night was around
4
100k, maybe 500k, played between me and Dur.
Did did did Dur?
Yeah. Any one?
He did not win that.
Oh my lord.
Shamaz, won that one. Go, Shamaz, go.
And it was I think it was beautifully beautifully played. I think Doug Polk will definitely do a short video clip on it. I did a I did a very, very sneaky, three bet preflop turn check, river over bluff, and got him to call.
Oh my lord. A a little set bomb, I'm guessing. But here we go.
Jason, I can't wait. Since I'm here to promote, promote, promote everything, I promote, you can only watch these episodes of high stakes poker. A lot of players favorite show You can only watch them on the Poker Go app. They're coming out December 16th, Mitchamath, Phil Ivy, Tom Dwan, Ben Lam, a lot of your a lot of your heroes. Take it
over.
Wow. can't wait can't wait to and I have a subscription to that all in I'm sorry. The Poker Go app, it's it's well worth it. David Sacks, you have one of your --
I'm recording.
-- friends on the pod. Why don't you introduce one of your consulting friends and and we'll have him tee up what we think the possible scenarios are and where we're at right now at this very moment.
It is
657 in California.
Yeah. So Michael Newman works for me as a researcher, and he's a he's a political scientist. Like, he you could say. And I've known him since college, and he's very steeped in these a lot of these races. I don't know if he's Yeah.
I have been obsessively following politics since the Reagan election of 1980. So I I I -- I
I wasn't alive then. So I
Yeah. No. I'm afraid I'm I I was only 10, but I was already a political obsessive. And as you can imagine, a real hit with the ladies as
So, tell us what are the key states we need to focus in on here and which one of them have enough reporting for us to sort of put them in a column and then move on and understand the path to victory for Trump or Biden.
Yes. Well, I mean, depending upon which network or news organization you're following, they're either following calling a lot of states or they're being very conservative about their calls. I mean, NBC has still not called Florida for Trump. but there's really no path for Biden to win that state. So you can put that safely in the Trump column.
He has just taken the lead in North Carolina after trailing all night. We got about 88% of the vote in now. And I suspect he's home free as is the Republican incumbent senator there.
Well, can I can I can I just I just ask a question? I mean, isn't it typically the case that the counts from the most populous urban areas come last, and those tend to skew more democrat than Republican.
That sometimes happens. It depends on the state. Some states have their rural areas come in last. One of the things that has changed the vote in North Carolina is as the early vote came in, as the in person early vote and mail in ballots came in, the last counties that reported that early vote were the rural counties. That's why early on, it looked very good for Biden, and now it looks like it's trending away from him.
Wait a second. Yeah. North Carolina according to the New York Times end according to CNN right now, is favoring slightly Biden, 49.7 percent to 49.1 percent for Trump with 84%
I don't think that's I don't think that's quite current. I think they're up to about 88%. But, again, yeah, it's it's very close. What's interesting is Biden had 5 potential states where he could have knocked Trump out. Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas
We are no off the table.
We don't yeah. Florida's off the table. The others are still on the table, but none of them are trending Biden's direction. at the present time. So he yeah.
So far, Trump is is staying in the hand as as you poker players would would say. He's he's he's getting the cars he needs to stay in the to stay in the game. But we still have the river to play, and the river would be, in this case, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania.
Texas had an early lead for Biden, which was crazy to see. Right now, it's got Donald Trump at 50 point 3%, Biden at 48.3%.
Guys, again
So that's starting to normalize.
I I I go back to this one very critical thing. The reason why Michigan was Wisconsin and Pennsylvania right now, our Trump is because you count the the when the county is counted, you can pass the votes and you can report. And if you have 25,000 people in a county versus Allegheny County, which has, like, I don't know, 100 of 1000 or a million plus people, it just takes longer.
Yes. No. I listen. I don't characterize Michigan Wisconsin, Pennsylvania at all. I think one of the reasons why Michigan right now looks so red is because they're counting today's vote first.
A lot of these other states that, like Florida, that had the option because their legislature allows them to do this, They counted all that early vote in advance, and they dumped it in one big pile as soon as the polls closed in the in the various counties. So that's why you saw early on a blue mirage there. What you're seeing in a place like Michigan right now is probably a red mirage because it's It's today's vote, which was going to skew Trump because of the because of the way he presented it to his people. He Florida was the 1 state, thank goodness, for his sake, that he encouraged people to vote early and by mail. And the other states he encourages people to vote today.
So here's a here's a stat in Pennsylvania. I'm on the Secretary of States reporting dashboard, they've counted only 12% of the mailing ballots. which is and the total mail in ballots is
2,500,000 --
Yeah. -- which is huge. Right? And they've only It
should be a majority of the vote, I would imagine. You know?
Yeah. And they've and they've only counted 24%. Actually sorry. They've only Yeah. They've only counted a a handful of precincts at this point.
If you don't, like, a quarter of the
a quarter of the precincts. stuff. Right?
So Here's something I don't understand. So Nick Carlson from was it, like, Business Insider. He just tweeted minutes ago that North Carolina Biden is ahead with 99% of the vote counted, and Biden has a less than point 2% lead, but it's 9000 votes.
Well, that I mean, that's
That would be a huge problem for Trump.
No. We're sorry. North Carolina. I listen. I think a loss in any of those 5 states, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, or Texas.
is probably great.
By the way, guys, I just wanna give a shout out to Nothan who's listening here all the way from Sri Lanka. He's listening. He just texted me. Okay. As much.
By the way, guys, Right now, the odds are 3 to 1 in the betting market. So, I mean, obviously, the networks I realized are completely useless. I stop watching him a long time ago when they had Biden way ahead in Florida, and the odds were ten to one against. Right now, if you wanted that Trump is a 3 to one favorite, and there's been
1,000,000,000
of dollars spent in England, Australia all over the world. He's a 3 to 1 favorite. It looks like it's real to me.
And just to and just to just to build your side of the case, Nasdaq Futures Ripping S And P Future falling and the 10 30 you're falling, renminbi ripping, these are all pro Trump trades.
And and the euro the euro collab the euro dollar falling falling sharply once the markets turn towards Trump.
Well, here's what they're reacting to is Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump is all up big time.
Now -- But again, this this that lacks a very basic understanding of how county reporting is happening in these highly populous, you know or these sorta sorry, these these bimodally distributed states where they have a bunch of suburban and rural vote that's fast account, and the big places. For example, like, you know, you're not gonna see Milwaukee and Green Bay report until probably close to midnight.
So you get another 2 hours.
So the question is why why are the betting market so pro Trump then. What do they know that we don't know?
I will say this. Let me say this, Jason. I mean, if you're like, there you're talking about 1,000,000,000 of dollars. Right? And so all you had to do was design a system to figure out how to calculate votes earlier and make a couple $100,000,000.
Okay? These are the smartest people in the world. There's 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars, 1,000,000,000 of dollars at stake. They obviously do it ten times better than any other site than any other network. So this information I mean, I give a a friend of mine posted, hey.
I'm laying 2 to 1. on on Twitter -- Guys.
--
on Biden. My other friend bet $400,000 to
$800,000.
Trump.
And
now he looks like a genius. Somebody knows something that we don't know.
Well, Trump just on Bovada, Trump just moved to minus
600.
Yeah. Just to Michigan.
Unbelievable. Minus 6 100. It looks like he's it
looks like he's ahead in Michigan.
But, again, we have to see Detroit, and there's there's a bunch of places in Michigan. Let's let's let's pay
the north here's the North Carolina Secretary of State dashboard, and they're showing 2 thirds of the county, then you can actually see by county when you go onto their their dashboard. the, you know, the larger counties are partially reported. Most of the smaller counties are fully reported.
63%
total with, you know, Biden ahead by literally a 1000 votes right now. across 2.522000000to2.521000000.
Wow.
But what percent reported is I mean
--
It's 63% of the counties have completely reported. And so the remaining counties, if you look at the reporting status, the remaining counties that partially reported, there's a mix of rural and some of the urban counties, you know, Durham's in there, partially reported, So there is a mix. It's not only
Durham should be a Biden County. The research triangle is upscale well educated professionals that I think are the the backbone of the Democrats coalition in a state like North Carolina.
Now they have absentee votes that are counted, and they have so far counted
3,300,000
absentee one stop votes and a 1,000,000 votes by mail. But that's how many came in. It actually shows that only 5 oh, I see. Yeah. Okay.
That makes sense.
Trump Trump is now ahead in Ohio by -- Two
thirds two thirds of the votes were absolutely
-- Post the link into the Zoom chat Nick can pull it up on the screen, please. Yeah. I need to get an understanding of something very basic here for the audience who's not to generate gamblers. Art, is there a chance here, Phil and Chamath gambling experts both, that people had put early money on Biden and are now covering or hedging some of those bets. Is that a possibility here?
Yes. Okay.
Jason, Jason, the minus
410
on Pinnacle right now. Let me just double check that source.
So what what Phil is saying, Jason, is like, yes. There's going to be a bunch of essentially covering. Now that covering will swing the line. But I think what Phil is also saying is when a line moves this violently, literally what we've seen in the last 35 minutes is both the equity markets, the currency markets, and
the betting
markets flip 180 degrees from where they have been, not just all day, but, frankly, where they have been probably for the last few months. That's what
I was saying, Shamal. for 3 months straight
--
Yeah. -- right now, Biden has been a favorite anywhere between
3
to one favorite at one point, all the way to maybe, you know,
50%
favorite And all of a sudden today, the lowest I saw was a dollar 35, and I was kind of shocked. And the next thing, you know, boom. Trump's a 3 to 4 to one favorite. So and and I'm looking at CNN, and I'm looking at these networks, and they're still they still have Biden ahead. And I'm like, wow.
What is going on?
They're way behind.
That's that's the next thing we need to to take care of Chamath. There's a business for you is somehow we can deliver the right data on elections quickly. There you go, Saxon.
Yeah. Well, I think the betting markets know something we don't know because Trump is just you know, if you look at, like, the livestream on Twitter or the New York Times or something, Trump just slightly took the lead in Ohio, but that's the state he's supposed to win in North Carolina. It looks like with over 99% reporting, it looks like he lost my 9000 votes.
By the way, a 9000 vote margin would probably trigger an automatic recount of North Carolina. Yeah.
And there's, like, a 100,000 absentee ballots there. I don't know if those have been been counted yet.
Okay. So we're gonna put let's let's pause for one second on this, everybody. North Carolina is one of the 4 or 5 states Trump has to win in order to have a victory. Right, Michael?
I I absolutely agree with that. He he had to have those 5. Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, and Texas.
§02Segment 2
Okay. So we have Florida. He's got Now there's 4 left.
There's 4 left. George George is a very slow counting state. We really don't know. All of Atlanta could be out for all we know.
So we leave Georgia on the side. So now we got 4 states we can work with. North Carolina is in Biden's pocket by just a hair Yeah. That could change, and it would trigger a recount, which would take days to weeks. Yes.
Another 3 states, let's go through them systematically 1 by 1, Michael.
Okay. Ohio was the biggest surprise of the night when Biden built an early lead there. Although, again, a bit of a blue mirage based upon the fact that the male in vote and the early vote came in so strong for the Democrats this year. because they emphasized it, and the Republicans kind of fought against it.
Yeah. But Michael Michael with 49% of the vote in Ohio, okay, he had a right now Biden had a massive lead and
He had about a 400,000 vote lead would have to direct. Correct.
And when you looked at the betting odds, he was
5
to one underdog to win the state. So
--
Yes.
Something doesn't add up
there.
And you can you can say, alright. Some of that is all the early voting went for Biden. We know that to be a fact. Yeah. But there's something else there.
Okay. I'm just looking at the results for Ohio. We'll stay on Ohio for one more moment. and then we have another guest who just jumped on. Ohio is currently showing Donald Trump with 2 point rounding it up 2,400,000 votes.
to 2,200,000, slightly rounding up for Joe Biden, 52% to 47% with 78% reporting Does that mean we feel comfortable with Trump winning Ohio? Unless all of Cleveland is outstanding, I would say that's
a Trump state. You know?
Okay. We now have John Cohen on the line. Yeah. John is a member of the SurveyMonkey team, John, welcome to the all in pod. Can you hear us?
Thank you so much. I'm sorry I didn't hear what was going on. I don't know how much you've been disparaging pollsters so far. So let me know what's coming in.
We were waiting for you.
We're waiting for you to get here. Tell us as we start what your prediction was earlier today.
Well, we're very clear to say that we're doing measurements, not predictions.
Okay.
That said, the measurements that we are doing clearly pointed to Biden advantages across the board But we didn't have we so far, we have no surprises. You know, we had Florida had been Trump plus 2 basically all week going to dead even you know, coming into the election day itself. We don't know where the final votes will be. Most analysts think that it's in Trump's camp. It may end up there, but it's super close.
We had Georgia close. We had North Carolina close. Although and North Carolina had been closing. It had been a big Biden lead. It was down to under two points.
with the senate, you know, kind of even closer than that in some of our data. So, you know, kind of so far, there's no obvious surprise here. Like, damn. The polls were really wrong. Certainly ours.
you know, it's our it's early though. We're not declaring victory on those. Obviously, there's a lot to watch, but nothing really to surprise, you know, us giving the numbers so far.
What about Ohio and Georgia?
So we had Ohio pretty consistently in Trump's camp. We had him up 4, so it's trending that way now. We had it as close two points for Trump. I mean, again, I haven't mentioned the word margin of error. That's in my professional obligation and duty to mention around three points, I believe, two and a half in Ohio.
So close, but we always had it in Trump's camp. Again, Biden, that wasn't part times, you know, any of the past a victory that they the campaign was counting on. So, you know, no big deal, but we went from having a early night to now we're we're sure for sure in for a really late night here.
John, let me ask you the one of the most basic questions that I've had, which is What did we learn from 2016? And tell me what exactly did people try to fix? Like, what was the thing that everybody got wrong? And what changed?
Well, the biggest thing that pulls fixed was how they adjust their pulls by education. What we see in polling no matter how they're conducted, whether online as we do a SurveyMonkey or still on the telephone, which most media pollsters do, is you get people who with more formal education to answer those surveys in far greater proportions than you do people with lower education. So the biggest thing you gotta do and look, we always did it, so we weren't in the among the state pollsters who kind of failed, I think, you know, kind of negligently to well, they're gonna adjust by education at all. We always had to register for education, but we've what we failed to notice in 2016 was there was an increasing gap between those with postgraduate degrees and those of BAs. They've always been both pro Democratic group, but the gap in 2016 was abnormally large.
a fix to our polls, which I just point out weren't, you know, kind of were actually standouts in the in the upper Midwest in terms of showing it as a close race, not clear of Clint victories. We broke apart post grads and grads into 2 distinct categories, and that released kind of about a point and a half of unforced air in our polling for 2016. So that's fixed. We've used it to a good effect. Again, this time around, we weren't showing what all the other national polls we're showing.
We've had this between a 4 and 6 point national league. Again, we'll get quickly into why national results don't matter, but you all know that all too well. Everyone knows that all too well. But we've had it kind of more narrow, and that plays out in the states that I mentioned. We had Florida tied, not a 4.
Biden, 5. Biden, advantage elsewhere. You know? But we'll see how it plays out in the Midwest. We also had Wisconsin.
What was our final margin there? I think it was, you know, kind of 9 and 9a half points. not the 17 points that you saw from my former colleagues at the Washington Post and ABC News. So we've always had it a little bit tighter, but, again, it plays gonna play out in these states. And so far, no surprises, but the night is early, and I'm I have a healthy dose of ulcers paranoia.
Jamaf, I don't know if that answers your question well enough. But that was the main thing people did.
It's really helpful. But now take off your Polster, measurer, you know, chief research officer hat for a second and put on just the American hat What does it mean when, you know, we had effectively a repudiation of the establishment in 2016 And despite everything that's happened over the last 4 years, we may be on the brink of another repudiation again. If you you know, where you're there to measure the pulse of what going on. But less in sort of measurement speak and just more in just plain American English speak, John, what like, what's going on? If this happens again
See, you're you're absolutely right. There's something major. I would also like to caveat it. We are looking once again at if Trump wins, it's because of the electoral college. Like, he is going to lose the popular vote.
There's still far more Americans and American voters who voted today and, you know, kind of over the past several weeks, who would prefer Joe Biden to be president. So, again, we can't characterize with a broad brush the American voting population. When this is about effectively, I hate to call it a quirk, but this is about our system of of vote tallying. And the president, you know, to pull back your point about kind of there is something major here. The fact that many people, you know, some of us might be friends with can't understand why this isn't a 100 to 0 race failed to understand that, you know, the president's base isn't small.
It is you know, we've had it 44 to 46% approving of his job performance for many years now. Like, he has a completely durable solid floor. He also has a high ceiling. Right? So he was never gonna win the popular time around, but he had a chance at that electoral, you know, squeaking out another electoral college win because he's been so stable.
You know, this is a president who you know, kind of up. Trump now head in NC. Thank you for the chat window. So I I think you're right that we need to understand more about what is the componentry of that 45% that they would support Trump when the other 55% are so dead set against him and see it as something really wrong with the country. So we still have
200
I mean,
actually go ahead.
No. What have you guys done to, though, understand the people that are voting for Trump better because I think that they are protesting, and they're protesting a lot And I think that, you know, if we didn't listen to them in
16,
I think it's almost criminal to not listen to them in 2020. So What are they what are they saying? What are they rejecting? Or what is it that they want? Because at the end of the day, you know, I think his incompetence can't really be debated.
competence versus incompetence. I think what we can debate is he's a vessel. And in that, I think that it's incredibly important what's happening, irrespective of what happens today because we were supposed to walk into a landslide. We're not as you said, we're gonna be in a nail biter. What it what are what are they using him as a vessel communicate to everybody else?
That's a really good question. I mean, some of that will depend on, you know, a closer analysis of the surveys ours where we talk to more than a 1,000,000 voters. and the exit polls that are being conducted by 2 separate organizations today. But what's the what are the storylines that come out of the election? You know, one of the things that's being reported early is there's a much tighter Hispanic vote in Florida than many early polls, you know, predicted.
How will that play out as we start to get votes, you know, coming out in Texas? How was it being in Arizona? So Arizona looking positively for Biden and Markelley and the Senate, you know, in Arizona, you know, kind of is it is it really Hispanic votes that are driving some Trump's strength in these states? or you kind of visit the obsession that the news media has had for the past 4 years around the kind of Trump, middle aged white male voter with less than college education who has been displaced by, you know, technological and industrial trends over the past 20 years. think it's gonna depend on what that voting coalition looks like for Trump, and it's more diverse than I think we've been focusing on for 4 years.
I think you're saying an incredibly important thing. I think that that was a ruse, and I've I've always thought that that was bullshit. It's not some under educated rube that's running around voting for this guy. I think that there are there are people up and down the the age spectrum, the socioeconomic spectrum, and this is what I mean by he has become a vessel for so many different messages. And I think we really have to start figuring out what the hell these messages actually mean because if Biden loses, to your point, maybe in Florida, it's a repudiation of socialism.
Okay. But in Pennsylvania, it's gonna be something else. In Michigan, it's gonna be something else. In Ohio, it's going to be something else for him to keep winning. Right?
And and I just don't think that there's a consistent idea, and it's very dismissive to say that I'm not saying you are, but I'm saying, you know, that idea that it was an out of work x factory worker, you know, in rural Ohio that was protesting, this is going to be much bigger than that because even if Biden wins the popular vote until we figure out how to rebalance the electoral college in a completely, you know, new way or just get rid of it altogether, we're gonna have to live with understanding how some folks in these extremely pivotal states are pushing back? Are they pushing back on political correctness? You know, that's one thing that I've always thought. I think that there's a huge vote here against
Yeah. So cancel
cancel culture -- Absolutely.
--
all of that stuff.
Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. The
ones I
mean culture and and lockdowns. I think those are the underreported
lockdowns are the I think the biggest one of the biggest drivers for No.
Go ahead, John. Go ahead, John. No.
I was
gonna say one of the components here that we have to pay a lot of attention is gender. Right? Kind of, you know, the storyline for a long time I mean, you think about, you know, kind of Republican never had politics is that, you know, when you talk about black voters and Hispanic voters, Talking about them as if they're monoliths. What we have seen consistently over the course of the year is that Trump does much better among black men and Hispanic men than he does among black women and latinas. And that is just kind of like, you know, whereas black women are 95.5, he nears 20% among black men.
It blends into the what was the 90 10th year we've seen.
Look. But I but I look. These are measurements. These are measurements. I don't think they're telling you the whys of anything.
And I think for the whys, you have to go a lot deeper. I mean, first of all, let's let's talk about the lockdown issue. Can we just pull up that tweet, Nick. I mean so this is what I said back in May. This was, like, months ago before the election even hit you know, which is if the woke left insists on permanent lockdowns, Trump will have an issue that supersedes the incompetence of COVID response.
because I think, you know, we all we all agree on that. which is whether our lives and livelihoods belong to politicians to meet her out in dribs and drabs as they see fit. And this was back when Elon was being shut out of his factory in Fremont. And then there was this hairdresser named Shelley Luther in Texas who was basically put on trial for opening up her hair salon, and the the judge wanted her to to to grovel and beg for forgiveness And this was the beginning of the rebellion over lockdowns. And it was so obvious back then that lockdowns weren't gonna fly.
They weren't sustainable. They were too politically unpopular. They weren't gonna work. And and and by the way, if it was something a cause that the left agreed with, like, you know, a BLM rally or something like that, then you are allowed to do it. You know?
It was that whole standard around you know, doing things that were essential. And so, you know, the this insistence on lockdowns even after the public had really repudiated them, I think, was a major issue for for Trump. And it was crazy to me that Biden was still insisting on lockdowns. You know, Still, I mean, that is his official position. I I don't think it's the only reason why he's in trouble right now, but I think it's a big one.
I think if he if Trump reaches the blue wall again of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, lockdowns is the biggest reason why because those are three states Yeah.
--
that had extensive and still have extensive lockdowns.
It hurts it hurts people. I'll here, I'll read you a tweet And I won't name who it's from. It's from a farmer in in the Corn Belt who's well followed on Twitter. Believe it or not, there's a whole ag Twitter community, and he says, well, it's the day. Does this country turn down the road to be like Venezuela, or do we continue on
the road of
capital And he's had this acute feeling that he's kind of vocalized on Twitter for for months now on how painful the lock lockdowns have been on him and his family and his business and on the community, and it just feels like overreach to a lot of people that the recognition that, you know, the left might be using to justify the decision is just not there, that the the impact, the near term impact that folks are feeling is what's there. and that's driving a lot of behavior right now.
Boys, all markets are now up. Everything is green. Dow Futures, S and P 500 Futures. That's teachers. Oil is up, gold is down.
And -- Come on.
There were some guys that made some heavy bets against the dollar going into this, thinking we were gonna have massive inflow with Biden policy coming up and some big fund managers that went really big on on shorting the dollar this last week and the dollars up right now.
Yeah. The dollar by By the way,
we should we should make sure at some point tonight to talk about these very important senate races because it's not just Trump versus Biden, that there's also a bunch of
senate races. -- Lumber Hicken Lumber 1 in Colorado?
Hicken Lumber 1 in Colorado. But there have been some you know, some of the Republicans who look to be in big trouble like Lindsay Graham have have pulled it out and have won. And So it's looking like the senate is still very much in play. I I would say as big a favorite as Biden was, the senate shifting from Republican to Democrat, well, I'd say that was considered as equally big a favorite, and that that may not happen now. So we should make sure to talk about that at some point.
North Carolina right now is 49.8% to 49% for Biden. 2,600,000 versus 2.58. Ohio is at 2.4to2.251 52% to 47% Trump is beating Biden.
I I have a question for John Cohen. John, Let's go back to sort of your understanding as you've been measuring different trends. Have you measured people's sympathy towards lockdowns on a state by state level? And then second question is, have you measured people's sympathy to cancel culture at a state by state level. And by the way, you're on mute, so if you wanna just take yourself off of it.
Yeah. Thank you. We have we have not done anything on canceled culture. We've done a lot on the coronavirus. We've been tracking that actually in three countries since mid February, and we have a state by state look.
what's interesting is we ask the question, like, is this primarily an economic issue or a primary health issue? And those 2 have been running neck and neck. But health you kind of have more people on average say it's a health issue than an economic one. Trump with Trump supporters overwhelmingly, say, the crisis is one that's financial. not health related.
So there's always been that, but it's been like a 45, 55 gap there. So we've been measuring it state by state, but there's a solid core of people it gets to Dave's point about why. What are they focused on? What is the what is affecting them in their, you know, pocketbooks? It is the, you know, lockdowns and the kind of clamping down and what is this economic crisis, not a health care one even though that's what we all say that they should follow.
Meaning.
There was a there was a there was a fantastic line that the Democrats coined, which essentially said something to the tune Saksipu. You'll tell me if I get this wrong, but it was socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the for the rest of us is essentially sort of their grab bag phrase for for this election cycle and sort of to frame a lot of policies. But when you have in these states again, if we say this cuts along socioeconomic lines, but then maybe bleeds into college and even, you know, graduate level educated folks. is there a vote here for rugged individualism and just leave me the fuck alone?
There certainly could be. I wanna go back to what David said about measuring versus the why. because I mentioned gender to point out a big difference that we're seeing across racial groups. across the levels of education. But I'm you know, we're we're polling every day.
So you guys have the right why question. You know, send it to me. You know? sent to Zander, we'll ask it. You know, we pulled 9000 people today on, you know, kind of their willingness to accept the results.
And so we'll be putting that out. You know, tomorrow, we have a we'll have an exit poll running every day from here on to certainly till we get a result. So if you have the question you wanna ask, send along. We'll we'll get you the data at the state level.
Alright, John. We very much appreciate you coming on the pod, and we will be checking SurveyMonkey's amazing data as we go. I'm gonna switch now and
just John, John. John, thank you, and Xander. Thanks for do for hooking that up. Thanks, John.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
And we'll have some more bestie guesties coming up, some fan favorites from the Twitter and the poker group. I just wanna point out right now that it's very interesting to see that Fox has Biden at 129 electoral votes and Trump at 109. And Some of the other networks have it much lower. How do the networks make these decisions of when to call a state because it's too early according to many to call Florida, but we're sitting here with a pretty clear understanding of where Florida is at. Does anybody have any thoughts on that of
Well, I think they're airing on the side of extreme caution because of the strange year that it is and the fact that there is all this we had a 100 over a 100,000,000 votes banked early through the mail or through early per in person voting. and nobody sure how many more mail ballots there according to one side I looked at, there were still 27,000,000 ballots outstanding. Now some of those are redundant ballots like David's father-in-law who got 3 ballots in the mail in Pennsylvania, and a lot of those are probably going in the but there could be another 5 to 10,000,000 of those to come in that are postmarked by today. Many states will accept them after the election as long as they're postmarked by election day. So they're probably being very, very careful that they don't make a premature call.
Of course, they all have PTSD about what happened in 2000. when they first prematurely called Florida for Al Gore, then prematurely called it for George W Bush, and we spent the next 37 days trying to figure out what the hell happened in Florida. So I think they're gonna air on the side of extreme caution across the board. Although, I feel like the margin in Florida at this point is instrumentable. It
feels insurmountable now. Right?
That Florida is over. Florida's over. It's about now it's about -- Yeah.
--
it's about Ohio. By the way, the betting markets have just moved again big time. So Donald Trump was at minus 600. Now he's minus 250 on bravado. Phil, what do you think about that?
Yeah. It's snapping back. I will say, let me let me address what Jake Jason was talking about a few seconds ago, and that's it. you know, basically, Florida, even the New York Times had them at at 6 PM at
95%.
to go to Trump at 95%. That was a New York Times site. My wife and I looked it up. And the betting odds had them at at over 10 to 1. This was at 5:30.
This was 2 hours ago. So, I mean, I just think there's a huge inefficiency with with the way the
I think it was over as soon as the Miami Dade dump showed that Biden only won the early vote by 9 points. I mean, the Hillary won it by 29 in 2016, and she lost the state. So
How much of this do we think has to do with tax policy? People in Florida are retiring. We have the AOC gang. We have --
Come on, Jason. -- Florida. It's his beloved state. He has a a place
that So hometown favorite Mora Lago, I get that. But you have so many retirees, and we we have this bifurcation of how taxes should work in the United States. So wanna open that up for the entire group to discuss. Of art, are we seeing old people? Are we seeing people who are concerned about taxes because we have had a flight in the last couple of years of people from high tax states to low tax states.
§03Segment 3
Is this about taxes? Do you think let's start with you, Friedberg.
No one wants to pay taxes. The fuck kind of I'm being like, one's gonna raise their hand and say,
I won't be taxed if it's so funny.
But, I mean, there there's a moment where taxes don't matter.
If Well, but Romney Romney Romney was in favor of taxes, and he, you know, he he didn't win any any of these elections like the way that that Trump looks like he's going to. I think that the the traditional Republican messages message a taxes is sort of necessary but not sufficient. Trump obviously brought a whole set of issues that previous Republicans hadn't had in broad. And I think that you I think you have to look at 2016 separately from 2020. And so starting with
2016,
I think the big issue that Trump that no Republican really had ever figured out, except maybe happy you can in 20 years ago was the trade issue with China. You know, we forget that in the 19 When the great Chinese economic performer, Deng Xiaoping, decided to open up the Chinese economy. The average Chinese was making $2 a day And today, their economy is is roughly the size of the US. Now, you know, what what was the reason for that? Well, we had a bipartisan consensus in this country.
for 30 or 40 years on the part of both Clinton's and both bushes that we should, you know, open them we should welcome them with open arms that we opened up our market to Chinese products. We brought them
into the world trade organization.
I never said. But but but that was the start that was the start of that was the the killer app or the killer issue that Trump figured out, and that's what shattered the blue firewall in those rust belt states. I mean, if you're gonna try and figure out going back 2000 team, why Trump won. You have to explain why he won Michigan with
-- So you're saying our jobs. They took our jobs. But what
I'm saying is The manufacturing jobs went out and the fentanyl came in. I mean, that's his argument. And that was a killer argument. I mean and the proof is in the pudding. It's the proof is that he won these states that Hillary thought were so in the bag that she didn't even bother to campaign there.
So now it's a big surprise.
at 2020 and the issue of taxes
because -- Well, no. No. No. No. No.
Let me let me explain what's going on in
2020,
in my opinion. Okay? This is not a partisan explanation. But I think that after the loss in 2016 look. In business, we know that when you lose when you make a mistake, you make a bad investment or the company does something wrong, you analyze what you did wrong.
Right? And then you figure out what changes to make. The Democrat Party did not do that. What do they do? They blamed Facebook.
They blamed it on Russian interference. They never really analyzed why they lost these rust belt states and made changes. Instead, what they began was this hysterical denunciation of Trump. You had this sort of you know, you sort of had this this sort of, you know, media, culture, tech, industrial complex who decided that Trump was a an illegitimate president. And, you know, and so what they did is they went all in on impeachment.
They went all in on this Russia stuff. And in the process, they created this enormous backlash. And I think that 2020, if
2016
was an economic repudiation of the elites,
2020
is a cultural repudiation of the elites. That is the big issue in
2020.
Yeah. I I tend to I tend to I'm sympathetic to David's view. I don't completely agree with all of it. But just to build on something you said, I don't think, Jason, this has anything to do with taxes. I think that in Florida, the if we if we end up really getting to the bottom of what happened, I think there's a lot of people older people that probably lived through some version of mccarthyism and immigrants who've actually fled really shitty totalitarian countries who were like, you wanna do what?
here, and I think that there was a lot of people that basically are giving a very clear signal, which is I am a Democrat, but if you push me to the brink and talk about a socialized nanny state, I'm gonna vote Republican. So to David's point
--
Totally agree.
To to to David's point, if there was an economic repudiation of sort of traditional globalism in 2016, and Donald Trump ends up carrying the day in today, then it's a repudiation of sort of these cultural manifestos and norms that we're swinging to. Now the the answer to that maybe to say change the electoral college because it doesn't represent the majority or plurality of Americans. I hear that. But in the same way that, you know, we've said for years now that the Republicans will have to change to win the electoral college or to change to win what's evolving in terms of people's perceptions on social policy, it may actually be the Democrats that also have to change if this doesn't swing hard back in Biden's favor.
So and Chamath, when you when you make that statement, I think what's particularly prescient is the Democrats believed that because of the demographic shift from white Americans to people of color, Latinos, black Americans that they were just going to win all
of them. Well, this is this is the problem with the stipulation. Yeah. This is the problem with the stupidity of the establishment. Like, if you take a 1000 brown people and put us in a room, what I will tell you is just in case here's a fucking memo for all you white people out We're not all the goddamn same.
Okay? And if you put a 1000 black people, here's the memo now for the Democrats and the Republicans. They're not all the same. You could take a 1000 Hispanics, and it turns out they're not all the same. So maybe, you know, you can take a 1000 straight people, a 1000 gay people.
They're we're not all the fucking same. So maybe what this means is that we've moved past color. And now ideology and social policy and economic and monetary and fiscal, all of these things that the totality maybe that's at hand. And before, if we historically only thought, you know, older white men and white women could do it, maybe now it actually applies independent of color and gender.
Yeah. I absolutely agree with that, and I would add to that that if if Trump's victory in 2016 laid way to the Republican establishment. If he wins again tonight, it will lay waste to the democratic establishment. And the theory of the case that they've had for 20 years, the sort of share a emerging Democratic majority case that they just had to sit back and let demography become destiny, and they could just Graft and identity politics onto the same neoliberal economic agenda they've been pushing since the late 19 eighties, and it would all just somehow magically produce majority results in the country. They are gonna have to go back to the drawing board, and and I think get more populist themselves.
and come up with some kind of version of politics that is -- Isn't it isn't
it -- more
in the burning mold. It's it needs to be left but not woke
it gonna be socialism?
It's it probably is gonna be socialism, but it but it needs to not
be -- If you if you lay waste to the center, you know, you're left. Like, I mean, that's basically what happened in
26 --
I I
mean -- -- the Republicans. And now if you're saying the same is gonna happen with the Democrats, this time around, you're gonna have AOC running for president in 4 years.
And -- I mean, I know
-- --
won't be the right brand, though, because she's woke. You you need to share it brown. You don't need AOC.
We need a
charismatic, democratic candidate. Somehow Sharon Brown keeps getting elected in in increasingly read Ohio as a old school
--
Yeah. -- gravely voiced Irish labor Democrat. And somehow Bernie ignited a movement as a very old school gravely voiced Jewish Democrat. Neither of whom gave a damn about identity politics, really. They were principally concerned with inequality and income redistribution.
I I wanna I
wanna Don't wanna see that
happen, but I think that's the only path
forward. the demo.
Hold on. Let's let me go
to Phil because Phil had somebody who wants to add there, and then we'll go to YouTube up.
Yeah. I wanna say that we needed for the Democrats, and they just needed to I think they needed a very then into charismatic, powerful leader with a lot of charisma. I mean, I know that, you know, the I was hanging out with one of the Trump guys that was with him on the plane in the 2000 16 election. He said that, you know, he outworked Hillary. There's no doubt that he outworked Biden.
I mean, this guy's going to 7 rallies a day. showing up with a ton of energy, and he has you know, like a Renati has a lot of charisma. Also, I can't help but think that You're talking about rap repudiate repudiating. Sorry. I'm getting that word wrong.
To me, this is all about I think a lot of people are really scared of socialism. Okay? And I think it's just like even the young people that, you know, even the young people you know, who say that they love it, they're looking at their path to the future. And and with and, you know, they can they can still do great things. There's no doubt you can still be a twenty year old and and make a $1,000,000,000 by the time you're thirty or forty.
And I think with socialism, that goes away.
I think that look. I I I think if Trump does win, I don't think what it means is that you need a a a person that's
at
the extreme left to win. I actually counterintuitively would say the the opposite, which is that you need just a more credible centered person. Now that may only be possible if Democratic Party, cleaves in 2. And the reality is the Republicans may actually quasi Cleveland too independent of whether Trump wins or not anyways. And we'll see, as David said, how some of these senate seats break because if that goes in a different direction, you know, for example, if Trump wins, but we have you know, a democratic tie in the senate.
Maybe that's not possible. But I think that would say a lot around the need for pragmatic, but more youthful leadership.
Okay.
I wanna go around the horn right now. What is your gut telling me Who is going to win given what we know right now? Everybody give it a thought when you're ready look into the camera, and I will call on you. Michael, you're looking into the camera. Who's gonna win?
If you had to pick 1 right now, Michael, give us your best guess. but this is all in podcast.
And you spot me the winner of the ring down in North Carolina because that would tell me a lot. But I have increasingly think Trump is going to win.
Okay. Phil, you're looking in the camera. Who do you think is gonna win?
We've seen this movie before except that Hillary was actually 5 to one favorite time. And I watched these numbers go straight up, and now I'm watching the same thing. It seems like although I will say this, you know, Sax been posting some stuff within our channel about the numbers popping up and down. I'm getting texts, and they are popping up and down, but still the lowest I've seen is 2.5 to 1, I think, Trump wins.
Trump wins. Who do you got, Zach?
Well, I'm gonna assume the betting markets know something. I'm still a little bit unclear on on North Carolina because I saw some tweets that Biden had wanted by a few thousand votes, but The the the North Carolina website is showing that actually trumps ahead about, like, 70,000 votes. So not sure who to believe. And -- Gotta pick 1. Well, yeah.
Hey. Look. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna go I'm gonna I'm gonna go with what the bad market are saying, which is Trump. And, you know, I thought that he I thought he had a much better shot than the polls were reflecting, and then that's what it was looking like.
What do you got, Friedberg?
Donald Trump took on coronavirus for us, he killed it, He is our true leader, and he will prevail here in the United States of America tonight. At least the betting markets are telling me and the treasury markets and the S and P future, they're telling me that Donald Trump's going. But I do think that the fact that this guy has never conceded defeat to anything in his life gives him a huge leg up, and he war you know, he's he is like Steve Jobs. He warps reality, and he tells everyone I am going to win. I have killed coronavirus, and it happens.
Wait. Like a Jedi night? It's a
-- Like a Jedi. Yeah. Alright, Chiaff. For a 4 so far, picking truck at exactly 7:45 PM, California time. Chiaff, who do you have?
at this point, if you had to shove your chips all in?
I still think the path is I think it's Biden, and I have the advantage of some information, which is that they just announced breaking news. They aren't counting mail in votes in Philadelphia tonight. And I am going with -- So so we don't know Pennsylvania tonight. So if it's down to a few thousand votes, Philly I think is gonna break I think you can count that as 3 or
400,000
votes. Yeah. And if Oh,
it should be it should be 500,000. It should be
500,000.
Well, then 500,000 would carry the state for Joe Biden. Yeah. They've they've they've discounted
a a 100,000. So they've got
--
So I'm
gonna I'm gonna stick with Biden here because I think that that Philadelphia vote count is crucial. It turns out that it may cut it may come down to Philly,
which by
the way -- Okay.
--
what an incredibly poignant place for the election to be won and lost.
And I The city of underdogs, the city of Rocky. I I we can safely say that Biden is gonna win the popular vote, and it might be by 4 points, 5 points, which means that there is a discrepancy. between the popular vote in the electoral college, we're gonna hear a lot about that because
I I am gonna go with Biden because My heart is gonna be so broken. This country picks this sociopath to run it for another 4 years. after his absolute failure to do even the most modest things to battle coronavirus, and the strife he has caused between Americans and his personal style is so heartbreaking to me that I don't know that I can believe in America if they put this absolutely sociopathic person who has the least amount of character of any other human being, anybody on this call has ever met in their lives. It would be a complete absolute utter disgrace if he makes it into office for a second term. And what he really Sex.
Are you gonna respond to that, Zach?
Well, look. I mean, the
American people -- Hold on. It's an existential threat
to
the entire planet and humanity and democracy across the world. if this country puts that maniac into office again for 4 goddamn fucking more years -- I'll make a prediction. -- my personal feeling. I can't I don't care what the statistics stay right now. In my heart, I cannot give that man even a benefit of the doubt.
If he wins -- Garbage.
--
if he wins is Fauci the first guy fired. Oh, I
think he didn't count on it.
And it's
It's Angie and Christopher Ray, the FBI director. And -- Go
on. Right?
--
and, increasingly, maybe Bill Barr too. Somehow Bill Barr is not enough for the sync of him.
shred of credibility or honor is gone.
I wanna I wanna just say to to Jay Cal, I I really emphasize with how you're feeling because I have never as a person that has been a citizen of 3 countries, When I moved to America in
2000,
I have never really I mean, you know, edge cases, yeah, I felt some racism here, obviously. You know, I've but I've never felt so unwanted. And I remember
2016
for the first time in my life feeling a level of insecurity I had never felt before because I was so afraid I didn't know what it meant for Donald Trump to be elected. 4 years later, you know, in in in so many ways, it's like two realms of a coin. You know? I leave my house, and you can just see that there's just so much pain and divisiveness. I come back into my little world, and things seem to be really great.
And that's a a really, really terrible feeling to have, Jason. So I I know exactly what you're talking about. I wanted to tell you guys, you know, I there was like a I I've always been sort of like, okay. Biden's gonna win. Biden's gonna win.
Biden's gonna win. And then there's a weird thing that I did, and you guys can see it in the SEC filings, but I gave a million bucks this year in the elections. But I gave 750 to the senate, and I gave 250 to Biden. And I didn't understand why I did it. And I and I and I explained it to Matt as She's like, why did you do it that way?
And the best way that I could explain it is I I think that there are so much I don't know about what is driving. the vote for president that I wanted to make sure that, you know, there are checks and balances, and the best check and balance was to you know, make sure that there was actually some senate check and balance on Biden I mean, on on Trump. So, you know, I'm I'm gonna, Jason, I'm gonna accept the result. I'm gonna try to figure out what the fuck I don't know because this is yet another layer of I clearly don't know what the hell is going on. But I I can tell you pretty assuredly, guys, any result that call tonight, I think, is going to be incomplete because they're not gonna call Pennsylvania because they're not gonna call Philly.
And so if there are, in fact, 3 no. I think that the exact math is about 350,000 votes. that show up in Philadelphia, a gap of 350,000 votes that show up in Philly. Biden will do what he needs to do. the way, how many people live in Philly?
Does anybody know? How many registered voters? Friedberg, is that is it? Is that on the
Billy, there's supposed to be there's supposed
to be, like, half a million votes coming in there, and I think they've counted a
100,000.
And so it'd be more than half a 1,000,000. Usually, the DIMS margin is about half a
1,000,000.
The margin.
Yeah. Well, Philly is I wanna say our 5th or 6th largest market.
They've actually got it listed on
the -- It's a pretty significant population.
--
on that that link I sent you there, Nick. And then if you click on click to view precincts reporting, You can see the data read. Sorry. It's it's tough to read.
Yeah. I mean, we care about Allegheny, and then what else do we care about?
You care about Philly, and you care about those immediate suburbs outside of Philly, like Bucks County and Chester County and There's there's 4 or 5 ringed suburbs of Philly that used to be the centerpiece of country club Republicanism. They're the the counties that elected Arlen Spector to the Senate. But over time, as the Republicans moved right, they moved more to work toward the Democrats.
Michael, do you know why they're gonna stop reporting mail in ballots tonight? Why would they do that? They just
probably just to to go home and sleep for a while before they pick it up tomorrow. Pennsylvania, unfortunately, and Michigan as well are states that aren't allowed to start tabulating until all poles are closed. That's why those states and the sun belt, we were all looking for to be a early bellwether Look at
that, guys.
They can count.
Yeah. 4.81 per this is unbelievable.
Unbelievable. What what are we seeing here? What's unbelievable, traumatic?
So what that means, Jason, is that in Philadelphia, there are
1706
precincts. Okay? Of those, only 82 have reported the their ballot tallies. So you have 95% of the precincts in Philly not reporting. If you take Michael's framework and say there's a swing of 500,000 votes if it goes Historically democrat as it has in the past, you attack on 500,000 net new votes to to buy them and, you know, and he he eeks out a win.
Yeah. It it goes blue probably in that scenario. Yeah. So then it it becomes about but remember, though, if Trump is holding if he if he manages to hold Michigan, He could lose Pennsylvania. It wouldn't matter.
He had a little bit of a margin. He had what he had. 306 electoral votes last time. if he holds everything he had, minus Pennsylvania actually, he could lose Michigan too as long as he carried Wisconsin. He has he has to have one of those 2.
And I think Wisconsin's difficult. So By the way, for all
of our listeners and watch in New Jersey, they legalize recreational pots. So go out and get yourself some.
Yeah. I'm gonna I'm I I just took 4 gummies after my little
tirade there because
the kuzanex weren't working. So that's gonna get really strange for me in about an hour.
So just to go back, the reason
I mean, are we gonna crack a bottle of wine or what? somebody Oh, I
already got I already got 1. Yeah.
I'm gonna go this this is mostly coffee, but trust me, there's some Irish whiskey in
§04Segment 4
here too. I guess I'm speaking to you, but like I'm seeing reports of the sound of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Unfortunately, all four of those states are gonna probably take at least a day, Arizona 3 days, I think, to count. Maybe not this year because so much of the vote was early. Maybe it'll move faster, but they are notoriously slow counters. So settle in, it could be the weekend before we have a result. Wow.
Okay. So let let me just drop this. If we don't know tonight, what is going to
happen over the next week?
And we're gonna
be gonna be -- We're gonna need
a lot of gummies, Jason.
No. I mean, joking aside, there are
no -- -- gonna be tense, I think I don't I don't think you're gonna see a lot of action one way or the other. I think that people I think people in America are incredibly good people. I think that folks are just gonna sit tight and hope that the folks whose job it is to do their job, do their job. I I but
I hope you're right, Shamalff. But when I see a group of trucks surrounding people's cars, when I see people bringing guns on both sides, horrible people on both sides, bringing guns, malicious style to specifically taunt each other. When you see people getting shot in the Street chasing each other down over politics. This is something that has not happened in our lifetime. I mean, Phil's very old, so he kinda remembers the sixties.
But for the rest of us under 68. We have not witnessed Americans shooting each other in the street over politics. We have not witnessed people taking people out of their lives because of politics. And this is got Trump's fingerprints on it from top to bottom.
You you
mean since the summer? I mean, what about all the looting and rioting and protests?
My point is, when Trump got an office, his character and his ability to trigger people, his ability to abuse people his rhetoric put everybody on tilt. I'm not saying people looting stores are correct. But what I'm saying is George Bush and Ronald Reagan, your heroes, Bill Clinton, Obama, other people's heroes on this call, There was a there was a a kindness in our differences. And when people conceded, they conceded with grace. And this individual, this horrible human being
Bush wasn't a hero of mine, but But
putting aside -- Yeah.
think Ray
was -- Maybe Bush senior was.
Yeah. Look. I respect
that based on -- -- classiness, and we had a mutual respect for each other. that this deranged individual has removed from America.
And I see here
the one's gonna happen in the next week. because you people wanna see each other leading up to this. I think the next week -- You are fake news. -- incredibly violent.
You are fake duce.
Thank you for that, man.
You are fake deuce.
Now look, Jason, I'm not gonna, like, disagree with you about any of that. I the the the only thing I would add though is I do think that the media has been a co equal partner in sowing this chaos and divisiveness because, you know, we used to have a media that thought its job was objectivity and neutrality. Yes. And they ripped the Empire jersey off their back to go after this guy Trump. And and and -- Why
do you think they did?
Money -- Well -- is very profitable. Trump Trump has made big money for
the email. Picking aside is is definitely more profitable to get more subscribers. It might also be that they were absolutely suffering from Trump arrangement syndrome from the fact that the person lies and that he wants to separate children from their parents at the border.
Listen. Yes. But they're supposed to they have a job to do. They're supposed to be neutral. There was supposed to be a rational
-- 100%. --
to Trump. Uh-huh. Yeah. But exactly. But the but the reason why Trump is doing well or better is because the opposition to him is increasingly irrational.
And and people have voted for Trump to to to basically give the middle finger to, you know, to the to the media who, you know, again, who are taking sides to these big tech censors. you know, who don't want us to read things that are critical of Trump, you know, and so on down the line. I mean, I I I tweeted earlier. I mean, Rich Lowry had a great post explaining why if Trump was gonna win, why, you know, why why that would happen. And it's because he's the only middle finger available to these people.
And, yeah, I don't disagree with you. He's not being no one's voting for Trump because of his integ perceived integrity.
Oh, no.
Or -- Integrity. It's the first time I've heard integrity in the same sentence as Trump.
I I you're I'm agreeing with that point. I'm saying they're not voting for him because of that. They're not voting for him because of even a second term agenda. They're voting for him in order to to stop cultural forces they don't like.
It's a gram. It's one decidedly, by the way.
Two things to say. According to the national political writer for the Philly Enquire, Jonathan Tamari, his tweet of 7:35 PM said, actually, it was even greater than we thought. There are still 2,200,000 mail and ballots to be counted in PA, about 87% of the total. So if that's true, then we have that and filling, number 1, The second thing I wanted to say is that if you actually look at the sum counts right now in Pennsylvania, it's
371,591
votes. that separate Trump and Biden. Wow. So it's, you know, not that much, guys. If 2,200,000 vote votes are outstanding.
Yeah. But if it's if it's
2
if it's, let's see, 60% or it's 2 third kind of to 1 third slash
40%,
and it's not, let's say, comes in under that. Right? They probably counted a couple 100,000 already. I mean, it is still pretty close. Yeah.
Really close. Let me let me ask, Chamath, do you think that part of the reason we're seeing futures markets jump and the dollar jump and and all the kind of, obviously, correlated assets moving the way they are is not necessarily because of a Trump win, but because the risk of a hung election seems to be coming out of the system right now. that it seems like we're gonna have a much more clear outcome here than we thought we would. Florida is gonna be much more clear. That's always a a worry state.
Georgia is gonna be clear. Obviously, we've still got Pennsylvania to kind of figure out here, but it seems like this is gonna break one way or another, whereas a lot of folks were concern, we'd end up in the court fighting over hanging Chads for months, and there was concern in the markets for months about that. Mhmm. Do we think that's -- I hear you.
No. I think that people were basically look. There's a reason to be long Biden in the markets which is essentially that there are certain sectors of the economy that would have done very well. Those sectors of the economy were probably slightly different than Trump's. Under a Trump regime, the reality is that corporate tax broadly speaking are not gonna go up.
And so, you know, you can forecast higher earnings power for every stock. And so everything goes up. I think what's happening right now is more of that relief trade of maybe Trump was winning, so you could be kind of long everything blindly. But, you know, the the real canary in the coal mine was like, if you looked at tech Futures, tech Futures was just going bonkers when they thought he was gonna because they will probably disproportionately benefit of just having to pay no taxes because they pay no taxes today. I so So that's, like, kind of, like, what I what I think is happening on on that side.
I mean, Trump is very pro business. That's why the markets are ripping. Right?
think I don't know. I mean, I feel like there was a real concern. Like, there was a a non zero case here, call it a 30% case that we were gonna get stuck for a few months with uncertainty and litigation about where this election was gonna go. I think
I think it's fair to say that we we still we we could still have that, David, because we don't if if this goes to tomorrow, I think it's fair to say that that the game theory would tell you that tomorrow whoever loses Pennsylvania should ask for an immediate recount. Right. Right? And I don't know what the they have to. I don't know what the process for that is.
If whoever loses Arizona should ask for an immediate recount. You know, whatever is possible under the law, I think both Biden and Trump will exercise because let's face it. This is the highest stakes possible. And so you would hate to not if it's a margin of a few 1000 of votes or tens of 1000 of votes or even a 100,000 votes and you're allowed to do a recount. So if that's the case tomorrow morning, if we go to bed in another hour a half or if you finish this thing in another hour and there is no winner, clear winner, I think markets will be back to sort of modestly risk off tomorrow.
So, David, your thesis is that your thesis is the clear winner, the markets rip either way.
I do yeah. Clear winner. It's just like there was a lot of grinding expected here that was gonna cause a lot of you know, trepidation and bouncing for a while that folks were concerned about. And if you feel like you're gonna have a clear election outcome or whether or not it gets litigated, if you feel clear about where it's gonna go because it's 5545, you know, like, sure, they're gonna ask for a recount.
Good news for everybody. It makes sense.
Look. I I I think the the market does not want those Trump tax cuts repealed. Stocks just ripped after -- Yeah.
--
Trump passed those corporate tax cuts. So if either Trump wins or the Republicans hold on to the senate, then that would be a reason for the market to rip. Doesn't mean
--
So what's
-- --
doesn't mean Trump has to win, but it but but if we have divide a government gridlock.
So between the two of you, the best best possible scenario for the market is if Trump clearly wins.
Okay. I think I think we have another nasty on the line. it the case? If we look at the senate races, I don't know if anyone I don't know if there's an easy way for us to pull this up. But -- Go have
a -- Go pull that up, David, and and I just wanna introduce our next bestie guestie. Brad Gersner is here. He --
Oh. Yeah.
Brad
runs a multi $1,000,000,000. I believe you would call it a hedge fund or a fund. Yeah. and he invests large swathes of money in the American economy has a very You
see the best travel investor of all time, Jason Kellganis?
he's up there, but he certainly, I would I would guess, Brad, with COVID and airlines being grounded, this has not been the easiest year for you. So apologies.
No. Brad Brad just made $10,000,000,000 on Snowflake. He's fine. But -- The Snowflake mark. Not really.
Brad, what's going on? Tell us what's going on. What do you know?
Well, Kyle, You're okay? It's a it's a fascinating night. I mean, all markets are ripping. We've had a massive reversal in the Nasdaq, a massive reversal in the bond market. And it it it appears that, you know, Everybody is now who is worried about a Trump victory is now celebrating the Trump victory.
You know, one of the things people didn't understand about a clear Biden victory is the underlying concern in the bond market. Right? If there's one thing to explained the expansion in multiples in the market this year is the fact that rates have collapsed. Right? So the 30 and 10 year went from, you know, a couple of 100 basis points 20 months ago to basically 50 basis points in August of this year.
We've seen them back up about 40% over the course of the last couple months. We see them backing up again tonight. The fact is the the market is seriously concerned about higher rates, which are the result of both a turbocharged economy, too much stimulus on top of, you know, vaccines and prophylactics for COVID. And so You know, if you ask me, you know, we get all excited about the election. We get all excited about stimulus and tax policy.
But the biggest elephant in the room is the fed and rates. That's the 80 to 90% factor in the market this year in q 4 of 18. And so what I'm what we're looking at, you know, we see the the Nasdaq now up 350 bps. The future's up 350 bps. So that says Trump winning, we're not gonna break up the tech companies.
We see the S and P starting to rise again, and we see the bond market falling saying that we're gonna have lower stimulus, right, in the market. So you know, I I I've heard I've heard y'all talk about, you know, a clear victory certainly is better than not a clear victory, but, you know, notwithstanding our own fucking anxiety that we have to live with for the next 4 years in the short run the market is clearly voting on you know, is is is voting that Trump is a palatable alternative. And I would tell you to keep your eyes on rates
--
Brad, what's that?
--
as you
are in the market.
Brad, more more than a great manager of money. You're actually a great human being, but you're also very wired into the Dems. What are the Dems getting wrong if they lose today?
Well, you know, first, this is an upset already tonight. Let's call it this is a massive upset. relative to expectations. When or lose? The reversal in in the betting markets, the reversal in the stock market, you know, is just earlier tonight at, you know, a well known organizer's house on the Democratic side.
I mean, there there is despondency. This is a massive up set by Trump. And once again, a massive misread by the progressives and organized in the Democratic Party. You know, I had my eighty four year old mother out here from Michigan over the weekend. And I'll tell you that ordinary people are made to be to feel bad about themselves by people living in these parts.
the sanctimony that exists in urban areas, you know, and coastal elites is just it's you know, this is what we're seeing people vote against. Right? The idea that you're gonna close down the state of Michigan not allow people to take their vote out on lakes. This is just, you know, not something that people are willing to tolerate. And I think more than anything else tonight, you see a protest vote against sanctimony.
And this is just ordinary people saying that, you know, let us live our lives don't act so much smarter than us. You know? And, you know, I asked my eighty four year old mother you know, who she voted for. She goes, don't ask me who I voted for. That's none of your business.
Right? Like, that's her way of telling me. Right? That, you know, that she's frustrated by how people in San Francisco make her feel. living in Michigan.
I I think that's I think that's -- Right.
That's so smart. But David Sachs, before you talk, he's talking about you.
Well, no. Look. I mean, I'm on Twitter, and I echo chain technology. I mean, it's it's usually VCs. Basically, they can't comprehend how somebody could have a political opinion that's different than them without that person literally being evil.
I mean, I see this on Twitter over and over and over again. I'm like, really? Yeah. But but but but but this is, like, most of Silicon Valley, and I'm just like, Look. I mean, political opinions are like assholes.
I mean, everyone's got 1. And to think that yours is a lot prettier than everybody else is, and it's a bit ridiculous.
Welcome everybody to the all the podcast if you're just tuning in.
Well, the family hour just ended. There we go.
Brad Brad, can I ask a question? Sure. At what like, what what do we do?
Yeah. You know, for me, listen. A Trump victory, the reality is we've learned to tolerate the anxiety over the last 4 years, and I think the market fully prepared to to manage its way through another 4 years of Trump. So I think that's, you know, the reason we're seeing the the futures react the way they are is it's a whole lot of nothing. I mean, the fact of the matter is
--
You're not asking how do we get off of our horses if we're on horses, the social elites.
Well, I mean, this is gonna take a complete rewiring, right, like, in an abandonment of you know, the I mean, listen. You you and I all know the exodus of people out of the Bay Area right now. Right? The fact of the matter is, like, pragmatic politics in the Democratic Party in the state of California vacated long ago. Mhmm.
And you know, that is not a recipe for victory. It's not a recipe for victory at a national level. It's not a recipe for victory or tolerable victory at a state level. I think we're gonna have the single largest migration of economic the single largest economic migration in the history of this country. the convergence of COVID, which allows people to work from anywhere, and the risk of changing tax policies in states like California is going to cause mass economic migration, and I think that people are voting with their feet and they're voting with their wallets and they're voting, you know, tonight in in loud numbers, No matter where this where this comes down, this is an upset and a defeat for what Democrats expected to occur tonight.
Do you do you buy the framing, Brad, that this is about political correctness versus cancel culture?
Yeah. I think that's a I think that's a big part of it. I mean, like, you know, I think it comes at it's it it it's amplified this year because of COVID, but it comes down to something very simple, which I talked about. You know, sometimes my sister likes to call me fancy pants. Right?
She's like, oh, you fancy people who live in San Francisco. You have all the answers. Right? This is just the way that people in Indiana and Michigan and Ohio, they're made to feel every day. Yeah.
They will sit around watching Fox News. These are not people who are racist. Right? Chamath, I heard you say earlier tonight. The idea that Trump could pull what he's pulling and yet if you talk to all of our friends they would have you believe that it was just a small band of, you know, racist pickup drivers carrying trunk flags.
I mean, they are their head is in the sand. Yeah. This is this is CEOs. Yep. You know, these are business owners.
These are small business owners. These are farmers. These are old people. These are young people. I mean, the the millennials, you can't find a millennial in the state of Indiana or Michigan.
who supports Biden.
Right. And and -- -- find them. And, I mean, just to add to that point about what they think about people in San Francisco, why shouldn't they think that when Tech Giants and the people who work at these big tech companies like Twitter and Facebook are asserting a right to censor articles that they don't like and trying to assert a power over what the American people get to see and read. I mean, what a campaign issue that was for Trump in the last 2 weeks. I mean, whatever Twitter and Facebook thought they were doing to protect or help the Biden campaign.
I mean, what a blunder. I mean, to give Trump the issue of censorship in the last 2 weeks, And then the extraordinary thing, you know, we had that that congressional hearing in the senate commerce committee that I wrote a blog about. And the amazing thing is right on the heels of that, after that hearing, when we heard Jack Dorsey get that you know, he just got grilled. He got ripped apart by the senators. Twitter doubled down on censorship after that.
There was an article by Jonathan Turley talking about sensor to hold new batch of accounts. And so if anything, you know, it it'll be really interesting to see. I think You know, if you think back 4 years ago, Facebook was really for whatever reason became the scapegoat for the election. I think this time around, it's gonna be Twitter because they have been so arrogant in their assertion of their right to censor viewpoints there to lock. And if the Republicans hold on to the senate, and or the presidency, I think you're gonna see Jack Dorsey become the poster child for this new -- Yeah.
--
censorship that they're gonna target.
And the the paradox, Friedberg, is that had they just let that New York Post story be Tweeted? because it's the New York Post. This is I mean, you may not like the New York Post. It may have a sordid past or reputation, but If that had been a New York Times story, Washington Post story or an MSNBC story or a CNN story, it would not have been banned. because it's a Rupert Murdoch, New York Post Story, and because it was salacious, somebody mid level inside of Twitter decided to ban it How much you of that, do you think, plays into what we're seeing here tonight, Friedberg, which is This is not a small event.
This is a large group of people saying, I don't want anything to do with the Democratic Party anymore.
I just think back to 2016 and You know, everyone has their own priorities, their own individual things that matter to them. And I remember in 20 16 or leading up to it, I spent a lot of time in what we call kind of the rust belt and the farm belt. And If you'll remember, this was around the time of kind of the transgender bathroom, you know, movement -- Elena.
§05Segment 5
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And this was felt very much like a coastal elite topic of interest. If you're in the rust belt and the farm belt, you're like, what the fuck? How is this possibly something people are spending time on and arguing about and thinking about? And the disconnect between the priorities of the individuals that live in the vast part of the United States versus what they read about and hear about others treat as their priority, I think is what partially helped support Trump getting elected in the first place because the things that matter to them that they felt were highly consequential We're completely unrelated and not being paid attention to while other folks, you know, that have the money and the power in the big cities, were focused on social matters and social issues and liberal decisions that they thought were inconsequential or shouldn't be a priority. And I think that fast forward to 2020, and it hasn't moved in the right direction.
It's moved in the wrong direction where the the the disconnect is no longer a passive difference of priority, it's actually become an active interest moving against you. And so if you live in Corn Belt or the rust belt or vast parts of rural America, you you to your point, you're now not only feeling that there's this disconnect, but you're also feeling like this point of view is becoming overwhelming and stopping you from having a point of view. And I think whether your point of view is rooted in fact or not, you can base that however you want, it just feels like it's becoming a silencing effect and not just kind of a an, you know, ignoring the effect. And I think
Let me Let me just jump in here. I I wanted to come back to this, but I wanted to just jump to something that Boga just tweeted. Andrew Boga, thank you for this. Detroit Philadelphia and Milwaukee are all planning to post vote counts tomorrow as they work through absentee backlog. So if we look at the counts, that really could mean that Philip you know, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are either too close to call or not even yet ready to be called until tomorrow morning.
Yeah. I think let's take a pause here, and let's go through what the swing states are and where they stand at this very moment. Arizona is an important toss-up state. Correct? Let's pull up Arizona next.
Let's all just take a moment to look at Arizona. We're gonna go through about 6 or 70 states and just get our bearing right now because When we did the quick survey about 45 minutes ago, 4 of us believed Trump was going to win 2 of us believe, one of us emotionally, one of us, somewhat emotionally believed that's where we were at.
Guys -- -- once you get my diary. Guys, before you start this hold on. Before you start this, I just wanna read a tweet.
22
tweets. Number 1 from Nick Dilton. When do we get to vote on when we fire Nate Silver? And the second one, Wait. Wait.
The site wait. The second one, which is even funnier, he's named Nate Silver because all his picks come in second place.
Oh, Ouch. Wow.
That that's what I -- I I was tweeting you guys for the election. I mean, the Nate Silver thing was a joke. You first of all, he was saying, that Biden was 90% favorite. And at the same time, he said that if Trump won Pennsylvania, then he would become the favorite. But you knew that Trump was a few points of the barge of air in Pennsylvania.
So how can you be a 90% favorite but some but but but Pennsylvania is sort of neck and neck. I mean, even his own internal projections weren't consistent with each other.
I mean, here's Nate Silver, one of the best sports predictors in history. He's been an absolute genius. He stepped into politics, and now you guys are
Yeah. But this this is the worst case of analytics since Tampa Bay pulled their pitcher in the 6th inning of the world series.
I I mean, I if we look at what's happening, it's very clear that there are people who are either lying to the pollsters because they're embarrassed about their choice or they may actively be trolling the pollsters. So when a pollster calls them, They lie to them to have this exact moment happen. Just like the TikTokers all registered for a Trump event, So now we have a level of trolling going on at a national level.
Hashtag, poll. I I think there's
a simpler explanation, and that's the
-- --
we're not all troll.
I think the simpler explanation is that pollsters are empiricists, and they're experts. And like a lot of experts, You you can kind of you can kind of interpret the Trump phenomenon of of over performing now 2 elections in a row is a kind of revolt against the experts, and they don't see their biases.
That's the
way the way they should. They're they're blind to certain things. There's really no excuse for how bad they missed this one because -- Michael,
they may have been experts yesterday, but they're not experts
today. I mean, this is what Trump does. This is why people support him in spite of the fact that I don't think anyone disagrees with Jason's opinion of his of his character is that they love sticking it to the to the egg heads. You know?
Brad Brad -- Yeah.
--
Brad Brad, what happens to media? Like, what happens to how we conduct ourselves? Like, do you do you read the New York Times tomorrow and think, wow. I'm gonna the times. I'm not saying you did before, but I'm just using it as a generality to sort of ask the question.
Like, what happens to media?
No. I think I I I think I believe in you know, all of these polls and all of these mainstream press. I mean, this validates the arguments effectively that Trump has been making. right, that you've been told lies, that these polls were lies, that everybody was trying to manipulate you. I mean, it's this is a validation of those who are flipping the middle finger at Washington and at the coast, and they're saying we're not going to be told how to believe how think, how to vote.
How to wear masks?
How to wear masks. And, you know, it's
really -- -- a
dangerous to this --
A 100%. It's
the end of expertise. I mean, who who who can we ever trust? I mean and this is Putin --
Ironically, it's the experts who got mass wrong. remember that at the time that I was saying that we should wear masks, the WHO was saying we shouldn't. So -- And they and they were lying.
They were deliberately lying to keep PPE from being overrun by Yeah.
So the experts have done a horrible job on COVID too, Jason. I mean, look. I think that's part of the reason.
But now, the cynicism of Trump and his approach to absolutely undermine Fauci and say, to and admonish people wearing masks while on stage is a level of danger and and is and is a -- What
what what what
what -- That's insane.
So so
-- We know that mass work. You actually were a proponent of it.
Yeah. Of course. Mass mass should never become a political issue.
-- Trump last week said don't wear a mask.
No. He never saw that.
He literally made fun of a purse wearing a mask. Let's just run through each of the states right now. Actually, so you're thinking --
Can I wait. Can I kinda respond to that, Jason, real quick? Yes. You may. Of course.
Look. Look. I you know, I wrote a blog post, but going back to April 1st saying that we should that mass should be the policy, and it should never have become a political issue. Okay?
Right.
should have been a bipartisan response, and it's unfortunate it became a political issue. But and I'm and I'm not not forgiving that. And it took Trump way too long to get on board with Mass. I think right around the time my blog was published a few days afterwards, first, he said it was optional. You could do it if you want.
It took him about another 3 months to actually say that master a good idea. I agree that had he just gone all in on a mass policy? I think this would not even be a close election. I mean, that was probably the single biggest blunder that he made politically this year.
100%
Okay. So we agree on that. But but but look. But you're you're missing the other half of it, which is what is our COVID policy gonna be today? And the reality is that Joe Biden all these blue state governors are still on the record as being in favor of lockdowns.
And in fact, they are doing lockdowns. The only reason why Michigan and Wisconsin But I say, especially Michigan would ever be in play tonight was because of lockdowns.
Absolutely. Agree.
Yeah. So so the resounding rebuke of lockdowns
Let let's just zip through these real quick. Arizona. Pull it up Nick. Arizona. Here we are.
Biden 54% if we round up 45 for Donald Trump 75%. Looks like Arizona is going to Biden. Next up, let's take a quick look at Iowa. Iowa 64% in, and we're in essentially a dead heat with Yeah.
I was I was going to Trump, Jason.
There's I
was going to Trump. You can see how that numbers come down. Yeah. As as the election day votes starts to trickle in, that's going tried it. So they
were one of the states that did the drop off ballots now and ballots first?
Yes. I think I think that's fair to say. Yeah.
okay, Ohio, critically important. Let's take a look at Ohio while we're here. Ohio
Wow. That's really flipped hard.
with a commanding lead --
Yeah. You can you can get that one. Goodbye.
Yeah. Ohio.
Why else the miles done?
Just to be clear. North Carolina we are now within 1 --
Can we just all agree if we were I mean right. If we're Momentum Investors I mean, this thing is this is a disaster for Biden right now.
--
a disaster.
This is a disaster for Biden. And on top of this, all our talk is about the presidency. they're not gonna get the senate either.
No. North North TELUS is running ahead of Trump in North Carolina, so I think he's home free. And while the vote in Maine is not fully in yet, there's only about 41%. Collins has a 40,000 vote lead, which I'm
telling you -- -- Collins keeps her seat. That is the biggest. That that is, like, the mega upset. The Democrats were were already
count They
were targeting her 2 years ago after she voted for Kavanaugh.
Yeah. Okay.
But it
was the best that that As we
as we go through this, by the way, just keep this in mind. CNN right now shows I mean, I don't CNN said must be up their ass or we don't know what we're doing, but they show 192 to 114 Biden.
Well, yeah, because they call
they call California. sounds right.
They call California when the polls close. So that's
55.
It went yeah. That's
Okay. North Carolina. Here we go. Mhmm. We we or we did North Carolina, I believe.
Yeah.
We're at 95% reporting, and Trump has a a a lead that looks like he's gonna Yeah.
Unless there's a lot of Charlotte out, I think that North Carolina is over. And that by the way, that percentage is outside the recount window. I think you have to be within
1%. Okay. Let's take a look at Georgia for a quick second. We said that was
Do we Michael, you know if we've counted North Carolina's Maryland?
I think that I think they were all dumped at the outset. Right. The North Carolina, one of the reasons why we were watching them tonight is that, like Florida, they can count in advance. And so they dumped
-- --
done. They dumped a bunch right at the outset here. By the way, I just gotta by the way, I just checked
the betting lines. Trump is a over a 3 to one favorite to win the election right
now. Wow.
The later it the later it goes, the more significant that is.
Wait. Why did it come down to 200 on bravado? That's the lowest it's been.
Well, that's interesting. I just got 3 to 1 on one of the sites. This is 2 to 1. Yeah.
That's the lowest Right.
You better start arming these sites.
If you assume that Biden takes Arizona, Trump takes North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Let's go to you give a let's give him pencil.
If Biden wins Arizona, if Biden wins Arizona, he could lose Michigan
So
Georgia is currently
54%.
Just declared that Biden won Arizona.
Oh, well, okay. That's a quick call.
Biden has to take Pennsylvania, though.
Okay. So now this is what I'm saying. This is why this is in place. So if you assume Biden takes Arizona, so that's now on the table. Now if you say that Trump takes North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, Ohio, etcetera, he still needs To pull out a victory in Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota.
Otherwise, get this
Or Nevada. actually, Nevada wouldn't be enough. Nevada wouldn't be enough. Yeah.
Yeah. Otherwise, let's go to Minnesota.
Yeah. Guys, hold on. Just let me finish, please. Yeah. It's going to be if Trump So if that happens, Trump needs to win 1 of Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota.
Otherwise, it's 270, 268 Biden.
Wow. Okay. So here's Minnesota. Let's just pause for a second. Biden with a Biden's got a 56% to 42 with 54% in.
So there's a lot more to come in, but I think, Michael, you would agree that's a bridge too far.
I I never thought Minnesota was in play. The Republicans the Republicans put a brave face on there, and they are making some gains in the rural areas, but men Minnesota was never in play. That's going
--
Time to
go to Wisconsin. Time to go to Wisconsin. Let's take a let's pause here. We gotta do this step by step, everybody. Wisconsin 51 to 47%, Donald Trump with 54%.
That too, I think, feels like a bridge too far, or do we not know if they did really -- Oh,
you know, I think Wisconsin is another one who's probably counted their election day vote first. So
--
No. -- so
Biden is still very much alive in Wisconsin.
Yeah. Exactly. Milwaukee. doesn't come in until tomorrow morning.
Yeah. Michigan. We need to take a quick look at Michigan, and then we're almost done. Mhmm. Okay.
Here's Michigan, Donald Trump at trending to 55% to 44% for Biden. Only 44% are in. And let's be clear, is this
Detroit doesn't come in until tomorrow.
Okay. Is that Michigan Detroit doesn't Yeah.
That that Wayne county vote is very low. Yeah. look at that 28%. Lot of more lot more votes there.
Okay. So we don't know about Michigan.
Michigan is up in the air. Oh, that's a that's a pretty good margin for Trump there, but I would say it's very much up in the air. But by the way -- I
-- --
if you put Arizona in Biden's column, he can lose Michigan.
Let's take a look at Pennsylvania one more time.
Actually, and Tremata's right. He could lose he could lose either Michigan or Pennsylvania and still He get out.
Trump needs to win Michigan Wisconsin 1 of Michigan Wisconsin or Minnesota. So, basically
Forget Minnesota.
If Detroit so get so then if Detroit doesn't show up and Milwaukee and Green Bay don't show up Trump wins.
Pennsylvania. But, Shamat, does that assume that he wins Pennsylvania?
Yes. If I give you if we give him Pennsylvania. So, again, this is why I think, guys, it feels like Biden. As I said earlier
I'm a little shaky on my prediction right now, actually.
Yeah. I think the the the betting markets are showing it's tightened almost to even. And let me ask Brad a question. Brad, if the betting markets are saying it's almost even in the analysis we just did isn't missing any information, Yeah. Why are the futures markets still trading up 1 and a half points?
And and why are things
still running?
You know, I I think that listen. the the the stock markets rip the last 2 days assuming that Biden's gonna win. And I think what the markets are starting to price in is that this is not gonna be a blue wave. There's no mandate here for massive tax reform. There's gonna be a divided senate.
It's gonna be hard to pass legislation that's gonna be overly onerous. that the stimulus package is gonna be smaller, not larger, which is why the the rates are backing up. So I think from a I think from a public market, perspective, the idea that we're going to have some checks and balances in place, it can live with either the the devil we know or it can live with Biden, but it doesn't wipe want Biden with Elizabeth Warren as treasury secretary.
And so democracy survives.
I I think scenario 3 is starting to look very possible, Biden and a Republican senate, and I can sleep soundly with that. Okay. So we're
gonna have to -- I
mean, you guys, I don't know what
odds you're looking at, but but, I mean, 1.9 is I mean, that's, like, That's a huge significant right there.
It it it it's still good. I give you that, but I don't know those those numbers.
I -- -- Phil. It's moving fast.
Yeah. I I wanna I wanna take -- It's
down to 180. Yeah. Yeah.
I wanna go back to this topic that that we were brought up. Okay, guys. Look. We'll have a winner, and it's going to be closest. But think of how many people like, isn't there any empathy for all these people that are that just feel so completely shut out of the system like, what do we do tomorrow?
like, irrespective actually of whether Trump wins or Biden wins, I think Brad's right, but we're gonna basically get, you know, nothing much is gonna happen at that level. But what do we do at the like, on Main Street? Like, what are we doing to close the gap between folks so that, you know, this entire cohort, like, literally, I I don't care whether Biden wins by the popular vote by 5,000,000 or 7,000,000. You're talking about tens of millions of people.
Bill Gurley is now on the line. Another one of our bestie guesties, Bill. Thanks for joining us. You heard the question being teed up here. This is neck and neck.
This is not something anybody at least pollsters came anywhere close to predicting. And Chamath question, I think, is a really valid one. Who has got a greater chance of bringing the country back together and maybe leading from the middle and maybe healing this wound because this has been the worst 4 years I believe in any of our lifetimes in terms of the anxiety and the anger between people who used to be able to -- What
a loaded question?
Only kidding.
Well, I well, I wanna know Bill's opinion because
by the way, Bill Gurnley is the best coach. Jason. Jason, Bill Gurnley will the best venture capitalist in the world. Phil.
Give him a proper introduction.
Phil, stop hijacking our fucking broadcast. Go ahead, Gerlyn.
So so thanks for having me on. I, you know, I think you guys have done a really good job of breaking down why people have misestimated this thing. There was a you know, there's such a rural urban split. There was a there was a really good New York Times daily podcast about 2 weeks ago where they interviewed rural Democrats in in Pennsylvania that had switched to Trump. And and all the voices they echoed were very similar to what Brad walk through with his mother.
And so I do think there's a a true lack of empathy for the the center states and the rural areas from the coast to elites. And I'd say part of breaking any of it down would be somehow trying to separate that. I think a bigger issue that has really been on my mind lately is just how tribal everyone's gotten. And I I've I've come to believe that the the the way you can probably just ruin your mind the most is to just join a tribe and quit thinking about things. And the number of people I know on both sides that have run off to their tribe is shocking to me.
And and it's just not a way to go about being smart because you know and and if you anyone that makes fun of a, you know, a religion that's extreme or something, it's all the same shit. Like, you're just believing dog for the sake of it. So I one of the things that I worry about about a Trump victory is is just very tactically in my life, and maybe it's part of living in California. But a whole bunch of people and things that I want to get solved become more manic if he wins. Like, my kid's school.
and the companies that I work with. And and COVID, quite frankly, I I think that we can't get past COVID with Trump because the TDS are are so convinced that it has to be problematic. And it's just you know? So I don't I actually I don't know the exact path to solve it. But I I do worry about just being in a world where everyone hates each other, and it just doesn't seem solvable that way.
Well, this is why I think, you know, this this scenario which I've I've we've called the soft landing where let's say you had a Biden victory by 2 electoral votes. The Republicans hold on to the senate. I think the radical left gets a big I'd say rebuke or a shock. And we have basically divided government in Washington, but it takes the whole temperature down because you know, trying to get us replaced by Biden, but you've kinda got, you know, basically, Joe and his old pal Mitch are in a power sharing arrangement in Washington. it could be a really good situation for the country for the next 4 years.
You know, temperature would go down. It'd be kind of this, you know, healing processes, if you will. But, you know, there wouldn't be a whole lot of new sort of legislation that we have to worry about. I think we would get what we want, which is the ability to ignore Washington for 4 years.
Yeah. But we wouldn't get a solution to really what ails us, which is the fact that there's all these people that just feel completely shut out. And I I that really bothers me at some very basic level, which is like, I just think, like, you know, I I fought my family, my parents, just escape some third world fucking shit hole to go to Canada. And, you know, Canada gave us a lot, but it still wasn't enough for me. I crawled and scratched to get into the United States.
Things work out, but I don't feel like I have a right to all of a sudden I don't know. Just, like, look down on other people or make people feel like shit or not allow people
to -- -- actually think Shamoff that Biden is gonna do Or do you think Biden's gonna be -- No.
But Jason, I think -- Middle ground -- No.
--
who who -- No.
-- who who separates with the Republicans in the senate and the -- No.
No. And what I'm saying is independent of what happens, we're gonna have basically we're gonna have a photo finish. And what I think what Brad said is right, the the fact that we are in a photo finish means that there are a lot of people in pain. And I think we have a responsibility to get our heads out of our asses and stop this sanctimonious holier than thou bullshit. I agree with Brad.
§06Segment 6
When he says that, it really hits the nerve with me because I feel like there are a lot of people. We work with them all. It's rife within the tech culture, and all these fuck bags think they know what they're talking about all time, and we're doing a disservice to so many Americans. And we need to wake up, and that's what bothers me. The idea that there are so many people who feel like they're just getting so fucked really bothers me.
That bothers me. So I I I can ignore Trump. I'll ignore his bullshit because, honestly, he's done nothing. He will do nothing. He is a complete fucking void.
But whether it's Trump or Biden in a 270, 268 election, the fact that so many people still use this guy as a vessel I don't know. That makes that makes me more upset.
I think some people I think a lot everyone thinks has some degree of empathy to the problem I think there are different points of view on the solution, which is where this stuff gets realized. The the one point of view is we should have less government involved in our lives and our businesses, and the other point of view is we should have more support and help from the government, and that's where things diverge very quickly. It doesn't feel to me like anyone in politics, it's necessarily ignoring what what you're highlighting. And I I don't think anyone in America does from the rich to the poor to the left to the right. Yeah.
I think the solutions are miscast because, for example, like, what are we supposed to do, like, with our higher educational institutions? The people that are churning out, all these folks that are meant to go collaborate and find middle ground. I mean, I clearly like all of this says, our educational facilities are completely failing. From grade school, all the way through to high school, community college, college, grad school. It's all just a contrived piece of shit.
Right? We are completely putting out 1 in 2 people for failure. Okay? So that much is clear. So I don't see politicians fixing that.
on either side of the aisle. What I mean, honestly, what are we supposed to do?
Well, I mean, might I might
I just might I just suggest that two things Number 1, I think in these results that you see, there's a you know, there there is extraordinary frustration. right, with this with the state of affairs. The fact that Trump in the middle of COVID after 4 years of torturous anxiety inducing tweets could even be in a neck to neck race to win this election tells you, right, how devastatingly bad people feel about how they're how they're being treated. I think that you know, I said recently I mean, we have to redraft the social contract. This idea we've been living under a social contract drafted post World War Two.
that, you know, it's pretechnology revolution. We have a concentration of wealth today in in the world and in this country like we've never seen. And we have Republicans that are set in their ways who say, you know, no no universal health care you know, no reform of the education system. You have Democrats who are demanding that you have universal basic income. I think you have to have pragmatic, smart, younger, public savvy, the fact that we have 2 old white men I mean, neither of these folks is on top of their game.
I mean, neither of these like like this I mean, you you compare Biden to Pete Buttigieg. I mean, Buttigieg is Buttigieg walks into the Lion's den of Fox TV and tames the lion every night. Every night. Right? Let let let's get Pete Buttigieg solving some of these problems.
Let's get some younger ideas on the Republican side solving these problems. But we're going to have to re architect architect that social contract. No doubt about it. You know, and I I think the second thing is that, you know, to me this is going to be a wake up call to the nominating processes in both parties. But but let's be clear.
Mike Pence, right, has his road map. you know, for, you know, how to win the election. Indiana governor, right, who's gonna tap into the same fears that Trump tapped into. I mean, these fears aren't going away. Right?
The exact the exacerbation of the wealth disparity is going to increase, not decrease. We see it every day out here. And so I think you're going to have to have, you know, the Democratic party who nominates people and puts people you know, forward, who can, you know, who can tap into this?
Brad, who do you like? If it wasn't Biden, who would you like?
Buttigieg. Buttigieg. He's a south this was the, you know, an openly gay
mayor
of my hometown in Indiana.
You think he can sell?
Right. Who fought who fought in Afghanistan and who goes on Fox News every damn night Right? And has a conversation that leaves Republicans saying, oh, that guy's pretty smart. Right?
Yeah. I I I agree that he's a tremendous political talent.
Do you think that he's pragmatic enough, Brad, or he's he would he would end up veering more towards, you know, sort of, like, politically correct leftist socialist agenda and then have the same result?
I think that there is a There's been a doctrine in the in the Democratic party that to win the primary. You got a veer to the left. Right? You gotta contend. with Bernie.
You gotta contend with Elizabeth Warren. But, ultimately, that's a losing strategy in in the election. And so I think you're going to have the emergence of a middle of the country governor, middle of the country mayor, somebody like Pete, who's gonna run, you know, on a smart, younger, pragmatic democratic ticket. I think that's a winning formula. I mean, I think that's the Clinton formula.
You know, Obama was a bit of an anomaly, but the Clinton formula was a conservative pragmatic form of of democratic party leadership.
I mean, I suspect that in the next 3 or 4 days, I'm gonna get a call from the Democratic leadership figuring out how much they can count on me. And my message to them is you guys can go fuck yourselves until you figure this out because to your point, Brad, it is absolutely shameful that we're in no. No. I'm serious. That we are in
I know you are. That's what I love.
Well, but but, Chamauth, I mean, what you should tell them to do is go form a DLC. Remember that democrat leadership committee that Bill Clinton Forms? So remember what what Bill Clinton did, you know, when he won in 92, we had 3 straight Republican presidential terms, Ron Reagan, incredibly successful president, then his successor. Basically, Reagan won a Bush won a third term for Reagan, but he was a weak candidate. And Clinton came in there.
What did he do? He triangulate He tacked toward the center. And, you know, he he actually passed a lot of bipartisan legislation.
David David David David, let me make this even more blunt. Okay? My million bucks will grow to $10,000,000 of per election, took $50,000,000 per election as I get older. Okay? So these motherfuckers want a single goddamn dollar for me.
What I want first is a root cause analysis to understand what is actually going on. So to your point, before you fix it, you need to be honest and identify the problem.
Well, I mean, I I think that I think it's it's because the the the issue that Trump ran against was that Joe Biden was a Trojan horse for radical for a radical left that really owns the Democratic Party right now. That's what he ran against.
Bill Gurley, what do you think the issues are that if we were gonna try to have a great reconciliation between these two parties between Middle America and the coastal elites where you have spent you know, large swathes of your life. I think perhaps you're the only person here who has lived in both places, middle of America. --
you say it's from Indiana.
Okay. But -- You don't count? I trust your judgment on these issues. What what does the what does the what do the coast need to understand about the people who believe who win who live between the coasts and what they're trying to express to us? And how can we as coastal occupants and citizens do to kinda bridge this gap other than just moving to Austin and getting the hell out of California, which is devolving.
which is what I feel like doing at this point.
Well, 2 I'd I have 2 comments on this.
1,
you know, having having listened to, you know, as much as I can on on all the of the the voter conversations including this call. I'm not a 100% sure that that these people feel unrepresented I think a lot of them wanna be left alone. And so part part of what's being engineered or what they fear is being engineered is someone sitting in a city with views that are very different than them telling them that this is the world they have to live by. And I think the lockdown fit in with that, but a lot of other things too that put the the daily podcast I mentioned, you know, there was this guy just saying, what does what does Nancy Pelosi know about what I want in my day to day life? You know?
And so there there is a notion of being left alone. Brad's story about his mom was like, hey. We're fine here. Like, don't don't bother me. And so there's a there's a difference between trying to solve a problem for them and being empathetic to their point of view.
And and I would say, having spent a lot of time in these areas and being a slow talker and sometimes made fun of for that There's a there's unquestionably a a a type of social bias against rural Americans in in urban cities. There's just no doubt. It's it's the only joke you're allowed to tell without getting rebuked.
In other words, we can make fun of the red snacks, and we can --
Oh, absolutely. All day long.
All day long, we get we can do a bill girly impersonation or -- No.
They're either they're either they're either ideas for their oral.
Well, I mean, if we and this is the thing that I don't understand when I grew up, and I'm curious other people's opinion, and I'll let I'll let anybody who wants to jump in on this. It feels like the lessons I was taught in the seventies eighties which were America is strong because we're a melting pot. We take the best of all the cultures and we try to make our own out of it. And that you get to make choices for your life and in your city town and state that don't have to be the same as the ones we make in New York. So if you wanna have a handgun and you wanna put it on your waistband, in Texas or wherever.
And in New York City, we don't wanna have handguns in the city because it's a little bit more crowded. We can we can have that difference and we can coexist. And I don't know when we lost this script that what makes America great is the differences and that people living in different parts of a very large, diverse country can have different opinions about, you know, abortion and and what month abortion is allowed to occur at or the owning of a gun or, you know, how tall a building can be built. When did that get taken off the table? And who took her off the table?
You know who took table was these hysterical libs. And I think the hysterical as much as this far right Trump you know you know flags on pickup trucks surrounding other cars is absolutely horrible to watch. I I have equal disdain for hysterical libs trying to tell somebody who lives on a ranch that they can't have a gun when they've never even been to a goddamn ranch. and they've never had to use a gun to protect their family because the a comp coming to your ranch is gonna take 45 minutes. And that's what America needs to get back to is respecting each other's different lifestyles, whether you're an atheist or you're devoutly Taphne, Vivo de France, let people live their goddamn lives.
I think it's an astute point, Bill.
And, Jake, how can we run down California next?
Yeah. I'm very curious how prop 22 is doing. And -- Prop
22
is ahead. Bill Gully.
Oh, praise
Jesus, the god damn. People are a lot --
Bill, can you tell everyone what prop 22 is and why
-- Yeah, please. --
why why it got better.
Yeah. But and and and and it and it would train into a whole bunch of conversations about politics that I I feel more passionate about than who gets elected, which is if you know, in order to solve the problems that everyone's upset about within inequality and whatnot, I think you have to have massive innovation and you have to have job growth. And I don't know of any waves in Street where you get a whole bunch of improvement in in standard living for a broad swath of a population. without being positively aligned with job growth. And what the the way I'm going with this is my my biggest concern about Washington, I used to say, The main reasons Silicon Valley works is because it's so fucking far away from DC.
And it's because regulation is the friend of the incumbent, and it's the it's the opposite of innovation that locks in things, and it's very resistant to change. And Matt Ridley's new book how innovation works goes through this over a very, very long period of time. It's it's fantastic. And he talks about why Europe's gotten stuck. And, like, the top 50 market cap companies in Europe, there's no new entrant in 30 years or something like that.
because of this. Anyway, prop 22 is a California proposition reaction to a law that was put on the California called
85.
To the best of my knowledge, and this is consistent with the editorial groups at the early times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Diego Tribune, is that it was written entirely by a union, the SEIU, who has no representation over over drivers or gig workers whatsoever. They represent service industry workers. And they would like to represent Uber drivers, but they don't today. And I I think I think about this like a a bunch of people living in Nevada trying to pass a law for the citizens of California. Unfortunately, because the regulatory capture, which which I think is unfortunate on both sides of the aisle.
The union's able through a woman named Lorraine Gonzalez is able to get the state capacity law that that basically targeted gig workers, which was this new job type that has all these fantastic benefits Anyway, immediately thereafter, there were several industries who are like, oh, we don't want this for us. So them and their unions and constituents started calling on Sacramento with Lorena Gazales and and and carving them out 1 by 1. So by the by the time 85 was set to be put in action, there are over a 100 industries that have been carved out. because it was a stupid law written just to target in a single industry, and it was written with political donor dollars. Now in a moment that I would say is completely outside of my realm of what I expected.
All of the newspaper all the editorial board for all of the major newspapers in California came to the conclusion that this was a bad law, that this was crony capitalism. written with donor dollars, and they all got behind prop 22, which is because we have this ballot initiative in California as a way for the voters tell Sacramento that they're full of shit, and that looks like what's happening right now. Sorry for the long answer.
No. No. It's it's a it's a great answer. And what I what's particularly infuriating about this listen. You and I are both you know, investors in companies impacted by this, is that it's there's a group of people who've been exempted from this.
and the list of people exempted all seem to be just slightly more powerful and slightly better paid. salespeople, fishermen, psychologists, surgeons, dentists, engineers, architects, lawyers, etcetera. And if this had passed or if it still does pass because we're only at 15% or 20% of people have been counted so far, but it's looking like prop 22 will pass. Well, in one of the businesses I run inside .com, we had to tell all of the freelancers we were hiring who are writers that they would lose their gig work with us because they could only write 5 stories a year or 10 stories a year. And Vox, one of the big publishing companies, which is incredibly left leaning as left as it gets.
They stopped hiring people in California, and they fired and laid off all their California Freelanders.
Nick.
And what this does to people who are doing gig economy, 70% of them are working part time.
Nick, can you go back to can you I I need to switch topics, Nick. Can you go to Georgia, please, for a second? Little little late breaking data over 400,000 votes outstanding in Atlanta and the suburbs. How close is Georgia?
Let's see. How how
Oh my god. It's a statistical dead heat if you add back in 400,000 for all by now I'm just saying that's not where it's gonna be, but
They won't all be provided. Yeah.
I mean, Atlanta Atlanta should go 70% by
--
Oh, sure. It will. Yeah. May maybe 75.80, but that I guess you'd have to be a 100 to 0 to catch up if I'm reading that right.
Anyone here cynical enough to think that there's some operative in these states holding these on purpose so that they can be the center of importance tomorrow.
No. I just think it's it's almost midnight on the East Coast, and people are tired, and they're gonna go home and have a shit shower and a shave and start again tomorrow. That's right.
The reason Gurley is so successful. Always early always knows how to diagnose the individual motivation in life. on a macro level. And he can diagnose the shit out of it by just thinking about what one guy's motive is, and then he's figured the whole thing out. He makes a $1,000,000,000 over now.
Man, sort of self interest Bill Gurley.
Fuck through.
Here's what I here's what it comes down to. So Trump needs to win 2 out of 4 of these states. Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Michigan. And he's gotta win 2 of those
4.
So it's gotta be probably Pennsylvania in Michigan or Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But he's gotta win if he loses Nevada, he needs to win 2 out of those 3 rust belt states. or he wins Nevada plus like a Pennsylvania. Yeah. This is gonna be this is gonna be really
--
Michigan's gonna go to Trump. It's gonna come down to Pennsylvania. and really to the to to the Philly suburbs.
I was reading on Twitter. election official in Michigan says, don't expect results before Friday.
God. That's crazy. Well, and by the way, I mean so so so But let's just think for a second how extraordinary it is that Trump looks like he might win Michigan. I mean, just to go back to the, you know, the the theory of the of the case that we were laying out earlier about how China about how Trump picked up this this China trade issue 4 years ago, and And and this this time, he combined it with the lockdown issue. I mean, it's really amazing that that state is leaning Trump right now.
Michigan Michigan was 2 issues. It was, you know, working class Democrats feeling like Trump standing up for them with respect to China, and it was lockdown. And lockdown was an was an overwhelming issue. you know, for my for my friends and my folks in Michigan for sure. Can we go back to prop 22 for a second, Jason?
Because I think that this is You know, this is a an issue of extreme importance you know, one of the things that Bill didn't say is, you know, we're talking earlier. Shamoff brought up, you know, what's the 3rd way? You know, we we we've we've built a social contract on the back of kind of w 2 tight employment for the better part of the last 70 years. We now have a massive part of the economy that's gig, and it's not just yeah. This is all freelancers.
This is all part time workers. And post COVID, This is just a massive portion of the economy. And the idea that we're gonna tie all benefits to w two is just totally asinine. It's gotta be re architected. And what prop 22 does is, say, it'sicplus It's independent contractor plus benefits.
Right? It's this idea that we don't have to tie benefits to w 2 employment. Right? So the nonsensical no argument against prop 22, this was an abandonment of the employee. It's just that.
it combines flexibility with benefits. And, you know, from my perspective, you're gonna see if prop 22 passes, which I think it will tonight. It's gonna be the architecture that New York and many other states follow. They're certainly not going to follow the disastrous AB Five example. But we also know that it's not sufficient just to have a bunch of workers with with with 0 health care and, you you know, and so I think that this is a, you know, hats off to DoorDash Instacart you know, Uber And Lyft trying to trying to design something that is a middle way.
§07Segment 7
And, you know, Chamath, if we don't have politicians designing a middle way, Right? Then we need leadership out of the business community designed in a middle way.
Well, that so you just said something so, so profound, and I was gonna I would like to build on that. I think what California shows is that if you have a completely democratic up and down ticket and it veers too far to this coastal naval gazing socialist nanny state, then it requires money and companies to basically level the playing field because the Republicans can't do it, and it's possible to fight back And what's interesting to me is nobody ever talks about or or maybe they do and I don't just don't hear it about how the equivalent happens on the right. It'd be interesting to know if you guys know of any states where there's just Republican up and down the ticket, and they just veer into such a detached Laisseire where the whole state needs to get corrected by for profit organizations. But it it seems like we're setting up for Democrats versus companies and people moving to Republican states to have low taxes and to be left alone.
Well, you know,
it's a sensible set of outcomes in California. Right? I mean, do you guys not agree that the the the yes on prop 22 And, Saks, it looks like your commercial property tax proposition that Zuck helped fund may not pass. It's a -- Oh,
thank god.
--
it's a pulse. We don't know. It's a point 1% differential, like, which I would
--
I agree. It's look. The California about initiatives are looking really good right now.
It gives me a lot
of hope it gives me a lot of hope about the state because the most anti economic the most let's put a business unfriendly Ball initiatives looks like they're going down starting, you know, with the win on prop 22, that's huge, but then on prop 15, you know, we talked about that on a former episode of the all in pod. This was chipping away at prop 13, which is the great shield of the middle class in terms of property taxes. I'm not saying you couldn't get a better tax regime that would tax commercial property at fair market value, but you sure wouldn't wanna give that card away without demanding some structural reform in exchange for it, which is why I thought it was just so stupid for you know, tech billionaires be funding, you know, these these ballot initiatives for higher taxes. You know?
But this is definitely looking like a like a sensible kind of middle ground outcome where a lot of folks who were concerned about California swinging all the way left and chasing business and enterprise out of the state, you know, maybe kind of getting reeled in, and I think it gives some hope and gives some pause to a lot of folks who are trying to build businesses in California to recognize that, you know, hey. There there there is a thoughtful populace here.
Totally agree.
And this is this is a great outcome tonight. I feel I I personally feel really good about I
I I I agree. If this sticks, it it's It it is because the the big the big issue with California right now is that we've got, you know, people we've got net migration out of the state because it's just so hard for for the middle class to live here and to build businesses here.
I hope what we hear, you know, if if we're fortunate enough for prop 22 to pass, I hear we I hope we see a coalition among these companies come together and really promote this as a national architecture for a third way for independent contractors free agents across the country to have a living wage and benefits. It's totally detached from w 2 employment. I really do believe Bunch of people on this call will were helpful to an an effort I launched around the board challenge you know, it's high time for the social consciousness of corporate America to take the leadership position. And because it's not coming out of Washington, And there's so many issues that the solution lies among us, and we gotta stop spending our election nights wondering when somebody's gonna deliver us from ourselves. we gotta start delivering ourselves.
I think it's a very how do you think you resolve that unions? I mean, like, you know, Gurley's Gurly, are you still with us?
Yes.
How do you resolve things with the unions after this? I mean, if prop 22 passes, Is there
a a a coming to
the middle ground with unions? And are unions always just a kind of directional vector You know? They they're they're always like a force on the system. They're not an absolute or objective. Right?
They're they're just always pushing in one direction. I mean, what ends up happening the resolution with unions, or is it just a constant back and forth to try and manage the impact they'll have on policy, politics, tax, free market, etcetera?
So from from from my point of view, the if you if you think about Citizens United, which a lot of people were upset about, I think rightfully. So because DC is so money oriented. Like, it's coin operated. And a lot of people have vivid awareness of it being corp coin operated on the right through corporations. This is why the most heavily regulated industries are the hardest to break into, hardest to innovate against.
What what I think they miss is how much of its reg is is is regulatory capture on the left. And the difference that a union has versus a company is it's a natural monopoly. And so it actually has more power to write regulation than a company does, but and it's gonna be around every single election cycle. So if you listen to them, you know, you you get what you want. And the, you know, people have pointed out that the the gentleman or he's not a gentleman.
The the individual that that it killed George Floyd probably wouldn't have been on the force if it weren't for the union protecting him. because of the stuff you had done before. But and this goes back to the red and blue and blindness of just being dogmatic to your party. Most of the people I know that are heavily prescribed to the to the democratic tribe refused to acknowledge that one of the big problems in police reform comes from the unions. And and you can't see those things unless you take yourself out of that single place.
I would tell you that California situation, I think, is deeper than than maybe what Brad talked about. The the rule the law that's causing more companies to leave from my perspective in a b 5 is something called Pega, which was passed about 25 years ago, but has finally reached momentum. where it's causing problems for companies. And this was a law passed by litigators with donor dollars in Sacramento that lets any lawyer bring a case on behalf of the state against the company. And so they they're basically, like, local sheriffs.
just running around, bringing claims. And, of course, they'll settle every time. The the the supposed victims are getting about 10 percent on average on packet claims. And then once your company's been shook down on 3 or 4 packet claims by a lawyer who's only gonna give with 10¢ on the dollar to these people that used to work for you. You finally just grow up your hands and say, hey, you know, I don't need to hire someone here.
I'll hire someone somewhere else. cost twice as much to hire someone here. And so I I do worry that if any state or country wants to move forward in in our new economy, they can't just be completely anti business, anti tech. I have a strong point of view on that, but, like, it it it won't work. You're gonna grind to a halt.
Hey, Jay. Jason, can we go back to the senate? Zaybe prepared to I I I'm getting a read from my analysts who are live blogging to me that the senate is almost certain to go looking at this point with Iowa Main in North Carolina going to Republican.
That would do it.
And Michigan and Montana both in real danger for Democrats But even if they lost both of those, you're gonna have 5149 to Republicans in the senate.
Hey, Brad. Why are markets trading down a bit right now from where they were?
I still have it at you know, Nasdaq
280.
So I'm not I'm not prepared to call that down. I just think that's within -- Yeah. bounce
And and Bovada, I guess, which is the the the -- Bovada. Yeah. -- just came back up. They stopped taking action. Now they've got Trump minus 150.
Is that how you say it? And Joe Biden Plus 115. So to if you put a $100 on Joe Biden, you win 15. Is that right? And if you -- Wait.
105. -- 115. You win 115. 115. Like, that's close.
-- $15. 115
is very close. Jason.
And Donald Trump, if you were to put a $100 in, you make a 150. Is that right, Phil Helmyuth?
You definitely No. You You
a 150 to 100.
Exactly.
Got it. Okay. I think
the more surprising thing at this point is it's almost you know, and I I'm certainly going to live to write this, but it appears at this point that the market's gonna be up tomorrow almost either way. And if you look at what the market was saying last week, you know, just yet another surprise. The market is celebrating the fact that this is a close election But, you know, if it's a if it's a contested transfer of power and we have a you know, there's there's certainly a lot of room for uncertainties uncertainty to still be injected into this. But it likes the fact that we whether it's Biden or Trump, who pulls out the presidency is certainly liking the fact that it's gonna be a close election.
Right now just to give people an indication, Fox News has Joe Biden at 227 electoral votes and Trump at 204. The New York Times is at 213130 6 for Trump. The Senate on the New York Times is 44 dems, 45 Republicans. And I don't know how we're supposed to who we're supposed to trust here?
There's a
-- The senate the senate on Fox News is 45 Democrat. 44 Republican. So this is a dead heat, which, I think, could lean us towards the great reconciliation, which is if Trump comes out of office, Biden becomes the elder statesman, Biden reaches across the aisle. We have a massive balance of power in the senate everybody's forced to work together in order to get anything done. Am I correct in my reading of this as a non political expert?
Well, what you're describing is the great gerontocracy. We'll have seventy eight year old Biden negotiating seventy nine year old McConnell, and I and a Schumer is what?
74, 75.
Pelosi is over 80. Cindy Hoyer, her deputy is over
80. So who do we have in the death pool? because or 3 of those are dying in the
next 4 years. Oh. Since so,
I don't mean to make it dark, but -- Well, the other thing
is -- -- just looking at McConnell and his bruised hands and lip and everything. Something's eating him alive. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but -- Wow.
--
that's a bad bad scene. Yep.
Is that on the betting markets, Phil?
That's not on the betting markets. And by the way, the other direction you're talking about Trump who's 74 negotiating. I mean, you know, it's it's
Now we've we've we've gotta get younger in our political leadership across the board. It's -- Is there
-- --
it's ridiculous.
Who who had a better chance of beating Trump? Would Bernie Elizabeth Warren or Buttigieg, would one of those 3 if you had to pick 1 of those 3 and they think it's one of those rates or you could pick your other. Which one would have performed better? Brad, you
should -- I'm with Brad. I'm with Matt, for sure. I'm with Brad on that one here.
Okay. So, Bill, you believe mayor, Pete, would have had a better performance. He would have been more inspiring. He would have been more energy.
I I think that there is a lot of people that that want what Brad talked about, which is someone who's who's rational and calm and and centered. And I also think that if you look at the history of of presidential campaigns, most Americans favor an outsider. And I I attribute that to personally to them. feeling like Washington's on the hook and been bought. And, you know, Biden would be an outlier for a lifetime Senator -- I
mean, there was a
lot there
was a lot
of excitement around Obama. There was a lot of excitement about Reagan who came, you know, from Hollywood. There was a lot of excitement about Clinton. So, you know A
lot of governors, a lot of a lot of first time senators is what you tend to see, and so Pete fit that mold.
Why Some
youth and some charisma would be nice.
And and David the 2 David's and Michael who do you think would have put up the best fight? because tonight, if Biden does win and it's feeling maybe like that gonna happen. So it's a it's clearly a jump ball here. It's any it's coming down to the last 30 sec last minute of the game. If Biden does lose who would have been the candidate that would have beaten Trump if there was another one?
Who would have had the next chance, David?
Well, well, Biden's still looking pretty good right now. So I don't know that there I don't know that there was somebody better, but I do agree that I always was most impressed with Buttigieg out of the candidates in the sense that I thought he was the most articulate. I thought he was best debater. I thought he was the best on TV, and he knew how to reach for the center. And he had the kind of Obama thing of having identity politics politics working for him, but without making a big deal out of it.
And and so yeah. I mean, he
was -- -- what you mean by that. Mister Sachs.
Well, he's he's gay. He'd be the 1st gay president, but he's not making that an explicit part of the reason to vote for him. And but it would have been a first. And his voters would know that, but he doesn't wanna, you know, he doesn't wanna run on the idea of identity politics. And so
-- So he's not leading with that.
he's not leading with it. I think that's a smart way to play it. It's, you know, Obama was obviously speaking an incredibly important first. but he didn't lead with that as the reason why you should vote for him.
So I
-- And to a certain extent Hillary did lead with that.
Hillary was gonna be the first -- I'm
with her. You know?
And -- With her was the slogan.
Yeah. And I think a lot of people did wanna make that first, but I think you have those votes. You need to make the case to everybody else. So, yeah, I think he he's a great political athlete. And, you know, someone's got probably a bright future in the Democrat Party.
I'm seeing some people on Twitter say that Biden's now become the favorite, but I just checked Betfair it's basically
1.1.
It's very close now. Kinda crazy
about this one. This
is gonna come down to this is gonna come down to Pennsylvania and Michigan. And it's gonna take days to do those counts, and we're probably gonna end up in the courts.
We're not gonna -- That's fair.
Friedberg, who who would have done a better job here? Look. I mean, the the market already voted.
Right? It voted for for Biden. He is the the leading candidate. I don't know if anyone else would have outperformed Biden at this point. I think the next in line was a very different ideology, and that's Bernie.
And, you know, Bernie really is the contrast to, you know, the the points that we were making earlier, you either think that the way forward is to have the government leave me alone or to wrap me up in a blanket and give me a hot cocoa and rub my feet. And Bernie Sanders is the, you know, the guy in middle school who runs for class president often tells you the vending machines are all gonna be free if you elect me. And that's a broadly know, like, everyone votes for that guy.
And -- Let me let me ask you a question, Brad, that I build off of David's -- I just I
just seen the mayor Keith thing, by the way. Let me just say it. I think mayor Pete is a gray articulate thoughtful guy, and he's certainly appealing to those of us who wanna have a thoughtful, well articulated response to the problems we're facing. But I think that there is a guttural kind of, you know, innate drive that folks want. They either want free shit or they wanna be left alone.
And, you know, you're gonna need to appeal to one of those 2 motives.
Brad, how would you have voted had your choice bin, and I'm gonna go around the horn on this so everybody gets a chance to think about it except really, Brad. Brad, if you had the choice, Yep. Elizabeth Warren slash Bernie, hardcore socialist. Let's go with Bernie since I think he's even more on the socialist side. or Trump, could you have conceived of voting for Trump over Bernie, or would you have voted actually voted for Bernie soon?
take your time, and you can think out loud when you answer
that question. I mean, I I I have to say that You know, I have a nine and twelve year old boy boys. And the conversation we had is it's not just about what you stand for. It's about how you stand for
it. Character.
It's character. And I just couldn't tolerate Trump's character, either in my own life, my own level of anxiety, or or standing for that, you know, and and telling my boys that that's a okay way to lead. And so for me, I was willing to vote against my own interests. and taking comfort in the fact that 4 years under any president is not enough to really change the arc of of of the country. But to send a signal that, you know, how you lead matters in this country.
and a rejection of this form of leadership.
Yeah. But, Brad, if you didn't think that Bernie Sanders policies would actually I mean, if you thought they would actually pass everything you wanted to do, you couldn't conceive them of voting for Trump.
Yeah. I mean, you know, again, like, I would say that I would have bet that the system that we have would have been slow enough in moving. that that Bernie would not have been you you know, that when weighing those 2 evils, right, that, you know, again, for me,
socialism versus Trump are your toys?
I can I can tolerate the mean spiritedness perhaps myself. But, you know, like trying to you know, I think it is important that we we say that, like, this is not what we stand for. This is not an honorable way to lead. And and certainly when it comes to sitting around the dinner table every night and talking to them about the way I expect them to behave in their form of leadership. you know, that that mean spiritedness just didn't work for me.
Would anybody else like to answer that question, or is it just Well, I'm
not I'm not gonna disagree with any of that, but I would just like to point out I'd like to ask the question actually, which is if if this president was so bad that he had to be impeached, why wasn't that a campaign issue? I don't remember it being mentioned once by Biden that Trump was impeached. You would think that impeaching the president would be something you'd wanna make a major campaign issue.
I'll be just
So I just think this idea that Trump is the only one who's dishonest and unethical you know, that whole Russian insane hoax that they put us through for years. They put this whole country through. Before the guy even took office, they were trying to delegitimize his election. I mean, come on. You can't just look at Trump's behavior, which I agree is outrageous.
and not look at the other side and say they're doing the same thing. And this is like a they're they're they're sort of, like, co equal partners in this chaos that's been created. David, let's They're they're cofounders in chaos.
Let's be candid. All these politicians that we've had to live within our lifetime are grifters. We know that, and their kids are grifters. Putting that aside, do you think there is any chance that the Russians have not bought an inordinate amount of apartments from Donald Trump at extraordinary prices.
Are you just making that up? Or
I mean
--
I'm just going with my gut. Right. Exactly. -- my gut here. Yeah.
QED. case in point, because you feel it, you can now make an accusation that the president has received bribes from the Russians. I mean, come on.
Well, we know -- And, actually, I I wanna I wanna bring up something. -- election. We all know Putin interfered with the election, and we all know we interfered on behalf of one candidate. Okay.
I I I honestly like
-- Unless you don't trust the CIA, unless you don't trust the FBI. If you unless
you don't trust our agents -- Really?
I mean
-- And you believe in You're still holding on.
Well, the Russian is every election we've ever had, Jason.
Jason. The story is more than the newest than the New York Post.
We had we had Bob we had Bob Mueller with a team of, like, 18, like, pitbull Democratic prosecutors and 50 specialists. -- to MAPFI agents. Let me finish.
What happened to for --
Who investigated for 2 years, and they couldn't find any collusion. I mean,
come on. And
you're still hanging on to this this insane fallacy. And you're wondering why the American people are turning against why they're willing to vote for Trump again. Come on. Can't you see the insanity of the other side?
But, I mean, I did see Manafort go to jail and pay a 25, $30,000,000 fine. And I did see that Trump's kids took the meeting with the Russians to try to set up a secret back channel. So while they might not
have
been smart enough or effective enough, to actually collude, there certainly was a lot of graph going on.
This is this is this is on the level. If not worse, then the whole Hunter Biden hard drive story, which I thought was
a ridiculous story,
which I thought was a ridiculous story and attempt to smear up Biden. Come on.
§08Segment 8
But I -- It's not you
--
for you to lay this integrity issue on Trump alone, which I agree,
there's some truth there
and not lay it on to Democratic inquisitors in the senate who put in the house who put us through this impeachment hoax for 2 years come on.
We're starting to sound a little like AM radio. Let's get it.
We did go there.
No. Zach is a free thinker. I like this. He's a free thinker for
Over you got but but we're but this word impeachment, this entire campaign.
All Saks is saying is own both sides of this.
I think that -- Exactly. initially say, well, everybody's director.
Jason, can you say the word
impeachment? -- Biden.
--
Biden. Can
you say
it? Biden.
Can you say the word impeachment?
Impeachment? I
just said that. Okay. There we go. I was wondering what happened to that word. You know?
Normally -- No.
I normally would be a winning strategy if normally
when you impeach a president, it becomes a really big campaign issue. It becomes a really big campaign issue.
Nick, can you please throw Georgia back on the map, please? Are you guys seeing this that that now they're tipping Georgia back to Biden?
Who who is?
This is insane. Where?
Well, they're also saying that Arizona may have been prematurely called for Biden. Arizona may be back in play for Trump.
That was really weird that they called Arizona, so early, wasn't
Nick. And only Fox only Fox has done it, I think.
Yeah. Nick, where do you have how do you have Georgia reporting right now? How much is in right now? Yeah. Click on Georgia just for a second.
We have
81%.
Yeah. The times had it flip on at 9:13 PM. I have a screen. shot, which shows Biden Plus
4.
And then North Carolina is now just Trump plus
1.1.
Michael isn't it? Arizona. they show that it's reporting, it's precincts reporting. Right? It doesn't show mail ends or by precinct or mail ends are at the state law
Well, pre a precinct will have both mail ins and election day votes. And when they and when they say 81 percent of precincts reporting, that doesn't mean that 81 percent of precincts are finished reporting. It's a very misleading number because what it it means that 81% of precincts have reported what they have, but it doesn't mean they're finished counting necessarily.
Right.
So, you know, Atlanta is probably the precincts in Atlanta had probably reported some vote. In fact, we we see that when we click on it. But there's obviously a lot of outstanding vote in Georgia. There could be outstanding vote in some precincts in North Carolina as well. And they at this point, once you get into the 95% and above range, they do tend to be urban centers that are that obviously have a lot more boat to count.
It gets late at night. They go home. They finish in the morning. or 3 days later.
If you go zoom in on Arizona, please. 76% of voting reporting.
I mean, how is this possible?
54%, basically. I
don't know. But in in all those states, you're gonna have the intensity you had around hanging chats and Dade County, you're just gonna have, like, massive tension and drama around counting each to these last boats.
Yeah. We're gonna have
5
Florida's. Yeah. You knew 2020 would do this on the way out the door.
So so Arizona, they counted all the absentee ballots for the mail in ballots first, but the in person voting hasn't been counted yet. So you can't call that state if they haven't counted all the in person because Trump's gonna do better with, you know, election day ballots.
I agree. It's premature.
Well, it depends on whether they're considering Phoenix is part of that. Right?
Okay. Why is Nevada only reporting 1%
In local news, there are now groups of people gathering at Oakland City Hall.
So -- And that that
they they go there when, like, who what night aren't they riding in Oakland? I mean, come on. In Berkeley, they smashed a pizzeria window. They do it every other week.
Hey hey, guys. I wanna I wanna just discuss an idea I have that might be a little bit cheeky. But since Jay Hall and I were getting into it before. I kinda wanna I I wanna talk about it a little bit. Okay.
Let's do it.
Which is I I've I've called the Trump derangement score, which is if you go to Twitter that yeah. Trump derangement score. which is if you go to Twitter and search Trump from your username, it'll show you how many tweets you've you've published that you've posted that mentioned the word Trump. And so I did this before the show to see which bestie had tweeted the most. and see what the score was.
And my sense is, like, if your your score is, like, 0 to 10, you haven't really paid a lot of attention to Trump. It's probably, like, very healthy And then if you're in, like, the 10 to 30 range, you're paying a little bit more attention, but this could be a normal interest Here
it comes. here. I get a
--
I get a -- -- for myself. -- like, say hold on. If you're in, like, the 30 to 50 range, I think you pretty much are infected. there's 2 strains. There's kind of the MAGA strain, and then there's the resistance strain.
But, clearly, you've tested positive for Trump derangements syndrome. And then I would say there's kind of like an advanced level where you can't even count how many tweets there are. You've gotta, like, scroll and, like, you keep scrolling, and you can't even get to the bottom. And that's that's like a level of infection where you need to immediately quarantine yourself. And So, anyway, I I I I did this.
And and, anyway, the winner actually was Freeberg. Freeberg only had he had a score of 1. He literally only had one wheat mentioning Trump in the last 4 years. I only had 8, but in fairness, 5 of them were posted yesterday to advertise this this pod. So I
--
My one was during
my one was during this podcast, by the way.
Yeah. Shamal at 20 I had
20.
You had about 20. About 20. Yeah. And then, Jake, you you were in scrolling territory. I couldn't even I couldn't even count.
I gave up on them.
They'll play. They'll play.
I I
I feel for you. I really feel for you that you're hurting over this election. I, you know, I don't like I'm not trying to make fun of you or or or see you
--
Hey, guys. Guys, another just another quick update here that The Cobb County, Fulton County, and Cobb County in Georgia are pro Democrat. They're huge and they're at
31%, 58%,
and 70%. And if you play these out, there's somewhere between 405100,000 potential incremental votes for Biden. which would eke out Georgia for Biden potentially according to just this last
-- Wow. just looking at Fox News, I think that they're trolling the libs because they have Trump at 210. and they have Joe Biden at 237. The New York Times has, let me just make sure I'm refreshing here and have the latest data, George at 13 to 145. So Fox is aggressively calling electoral votes at a level that the New York Times is is far behind?
Like, behind by 50 at least a100. What what is the explanation of this? Wow.
I this is I mean, this is nuts.
MSNBC205 electoral votes for Joe Biden. which
is -- NBC has been the most conservative overall.
And does he still have?
What happens if it's tied? It can tie. Right? We we still have that scenario on the table.
269, 269.
Yeah. There's probably a way to to get there. Let's see. Well, interestingly, Biden did not get that one district in Omaha, Nebraska that he had targeted that Obama won his first time. It would give you 1 electoral vote in in Nebraska.
Nebraska and Maine both You get you get 2 for winning the state, and you get 1 for each of the congressional districts. So while while was not gonna play an overall in Nebraska. He had a shot at Omaha. And that 27268 scenario we talked about earlier could have potentially been 269, 269 if that Omaha district was in play. But the polling really missed
Michael, just to jump in. BG Gerlet, Gerlet's gotta hop off, boys. Say bye, Gerlet.
I appreciate it.
I feel girly. Bishop has to be g.
Speaking of Bill Girly, how about Texas? I mean, I think I think Texas is definitely gonna be republican. Right? Michael?
Yeah. That that one's trending far away from Biden. He looks like he's down about 500,000. How
many points is that? No one's called that yet. Right?
It's bizarre that Florida and Texas are still listed as HIPAA.
So that could explain what Jake was looking at between the disparity and
--
Yeah. -- what I don't blame Fox. If if Fox call Texas, I don't blame them. But I think Arizona, yeah, that might that might be
That would explain your difference, Jacob, Texas, and Florida.
yeah, Fox -- Yeah.
That's 6067 boats right there.
Yeah. That explains it.
Yeah. So the New York Times has not called Florida or Texas.
The New York Times at Florida 98%. I'm getting it to, like, 99.9 or something right now.
If you add a 38 for taxes, 29 for Florida. You're 67. 67 onto the 145, puts you at 212 -- Wow. -- and Joe Biden at 213. which
would be
a one point difference.
Ralph Fornacht and Kelly Loeffler in a runoff for the Senate seat in Georgia. That's just incredible. I mean,
Hey, guys. A comment and then a question. Looks like the Washington Post is projecting that California approved Prop 22. Yeah. Right.
So there is a that's the first one.
that due to Uber?
Biden speaking right now, I think. Right? Do we have
Biden's not speaking yet, but he he's getting ready.
--
not to speak.
The implied volatility on Uber's stock at the at the close today was
14%.
By by the way, every ballot initiative in San Francisco, the city level ballot initiative is passed. One of them, the prop h was good. All the rest were a disaster. So San so The the state level ballot initiatives were pretty good news for California, but San Francisco Walk shop.
Okay. Not much of that.
So, you know, in in in terms of what we were talking about earlier about creating a more business friendly environment, unfortunately, what happened in San Francisco I think California as a whole is positive with prop 22, prop 15 failing. But every single crazy ballot initiative in in San Francisco Pass, so it's just getting crazier in San Francisco.
-- know if you did this in your household, but with my ten year old, Brad. I went through my wife and I, Jade, we we went through each of the ballot initiatives as many as we could. We listened to little encapsulations of what they were. And we talked about the stem cell 1. And I just thought, why is California which is losing all of these businesses adding to the tax burden stem cell research And why isn't that being done by the private sector?
If there is a huge price to be had with stem cell, why would We have California send 1,000,000,000 of dollars on this when we're losing all the this government. I'm wondering, you know, how people thought about something like that? Like, the stem cell. Did you vote for that, David, to continue to have California flipped the bill for stocks.
I by the way, just before you answer David, I took the pages of the ballot initiative, and I used them to keep my white truffles from developing humidity.
I mean, basically, there are -- The truth
of the matter, Jason, is that when when I don't understand a ballot initiative, I just vote against it. And I didn't really understand the the stump the stump's about initiative or why the even why the if if that was a spending priority, why it couldn't just be handled by state, you know, legislature. I didn't understand why that needed to be a ballot initiative. So, you know, I feel like ballot initiative, like, I'll support them when the then the state legislature does something wrong. Like, it was a perfect example where, you know, Lorraine or whatever the had this tremendous amount of power past this crazy a b 5 and the people had to overrule that.
So I feel like that's where, like, the Balnishes make sense is when you wanna overrule the legislature. But, you know, it's kinda crazy for to be passing these laws directly when, you know, we don't know that much about them.
Concur.
I mean, the founders had this vision of representative democracy, not direct democracy, and That's generally a good idea.
So, Jason
--
I don't know. You have to kinda like what director the results that direct democracy has produced tonight. The initiatives may be saving us from ourselves. Since we don't have, in this state, unfortunately, a viable Republican party to represent us, this the initiatives may be our last line of defense.
Well, I think I think you're right in terms of overruling things, but, like, in in San Francisco, you know, every single ballot initiative path, and I think most of them Or just
--
Well, there's no saving San Francisco. We all knew that.
Well, I don't like hearing that.
Oh, come to LA, baby. We're We we got a few more years at least.
What is the consensus view seems to be the markets are still up. NASDAQ futures up
2:80
still. What what causes us to wake up tomorrow or the next day and have the futures down 3, 4, 500 bps.
There's there's one thing. And so far, it hasn't happened. And if we avoid it, we're gonna fade a really big out here, which is Trump declares victory right now. I think that is the disaster scenario because I think Biden's gonna get up there. He's not gonna say much of anything.
He'll be very kinda down the middle you know, kind of let's take a wait and see approach. We're waiting until tomorrow. There's a lot to go. Grind it out. Blah blah blah.
But if Trump comes out and says, we won We're done. Let's move on. It's gonna be panicked because look. I mean, he's you can't certify Georgia apparently.
Right.
So, you know, there there's a there's a path where there's 7 or 8 states that have to go through and want a meticulous recount.
I think this thing is back to a coin flip. I mean, Trump now has to win Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. in order to win the presidency. If Biden wins any one of those 3 states, he wins. He has to be a 3 for 3 in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan 3 to
3
in this. Well, but we're saying that may that may become ungod. So if if he loses Georgia, he loses. If he lose the Pennsylvania, he loses. If he loses Michigan, he loses.
Assuming he's already Los Wisconsin and and Arizona.
So -- Hey, guys. Biden's coming out, but My analysts just run this analysis. If Biden wins Ann Arbor in Detroit by the same percentage as 2016, That's 420,000 Biden incremental votes versus the 300,000 current Trump lead.
Alright.
Let's just remind him that we're gonna go back and he wins Michigan.
We feel good about where we are. We really do. I'm here to tell you tonight, we believe we're on track to win this election. We knew because of the unprecedented early vote in the mail in vote, it's gonna take a while. We're gonna have to be patient until we the hard work of tallying the votes is finished.
And the day and over till every vote is counted. Every baller is counted. But we're feeling good. We're feeling good about where we are. We believe one of the nets has suggested we've already won Arizona, but we're talking about Arizona.
That's a turnaround. We also just called it for Minnesota, and we're still in the game in Georgia. although that's not one we expected. We're feeling real good about Wisconsin and Michigan. And by the way, it's gonna take time to count the votes.
We're gonna win Pennsylvania. Yes.
Come on. There it is.
We're talking to folks in Philly, Allegheny County, Scranton, and they're really encouraged by the turnout on what they see. Look, you know, we could know the results as early as tomorrow morning, but it may take a little longer as I've said all along. It's not my place or Donald Trump's place to declare who's won this election. That's the decision of the American people. but I'm optimistic about this outcome.
I wanna thank every one of you who came out and voted this election and by the way Chris Coons and the Democrats Congratulations here in Delaware.
Pardon me? I got it, sir.
Hey, John. Get the gov. Yeah. the whole team, man, you've done a great job. I'm grateful to the poll workers, to our volunteers, our campuses, Everyone who participate in this democratic process, and I'm grateful to all my supporters here in Delaware and all across the nation.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And folks, you heard me say it before. Every time I walk out of my grandpa's house up in Scranton, he yelled Joey, keep the faith.
And my grandmom, when she was laughing, I'll know Joey spread it. Keep the faith, guys. We're gonna win this. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Oh my
god. Well, there you
are.
Guys, before before before we just I just wanna give a big shout out and thank you to Brad Gersner.
Thanks, Brian.
Incredible investor and person and thinker. Thank you, BG, for being on the call.
Thanks for having me, guys.
Really appreciate it. Incredible.
Thanks to Bill Gurley who stepped in and Phil Helmut's. This has been a great first time effort. we we we had, I think, about 4000 of you at the peak here and and and certainly 5 or 6000 over the night. This was an experiment. I think a successful one.
And, of course, I'm speaking about this country, America. What a successful experiment it has been.
Jason Jason, you can unclench your your nether regions because I think we're gonna be okay.
think we're gonna be okay. Yeah.
It's very tight. Anyways, you guys good night. Thank you.
Alright. Thank you for your time.
I'm changing my prediction to scenario 3. Biden president
-- Oh, yeah. Let's do that as we wrap. Vesty's bestie's best guesties. I'm still sticking with Biden.
I'm still sticking with Biden. Okay.
Trump Trump just tweeted that I will be making a statement tonight a big win. So we we're either in scenarios well, I mean, 2, 3, and 2, 3, and 4 are all still missing. Just for I don't know if the viewers remember. Generic 1 was a buying land side. That's clearly not happening.
Often table. 2. was was basically was was Trump pulling a big upset that's still on the table. I'd say probably
49%
chance for right now, 40 45% chance. Then you've kinda got the scenario 3 was the soft landing where buy to wins the presidency, but the Republicans take the the senate. And I think it's probably, like, the 51%. And then scenario 4 was the shit show. That was a totally inconclusive outcome.
And here we are.
Here we are. So, I mean, the reality is I think this thing I mean, I think it's probably at the end of the day 5149 in favor of Biden right now, but we probably have at least 3 more days and maybe a bunch of court cases. This could this could be really bad. I mean, we may not know who the winner is till December, and this may require another supreme court case.
I think we'll know within a week who won. Buddy, it's gonna be a it's gonna be a a white knuckle kinda week.
The The did you We'll know I think we're gonna know tomorrow.
Yeah. Saks wants -- I don't
think we're in out tomorrow.
I'm with John. I I I guess, you know, I guess, based on the electoral map, I'd say, it's 5149 in favor of Biden at this moment.
So Saks wants Biden Twin. Friedberg, where are you at the
end of this shit show? I was
doing this
2020.
I was looking at which island in Hawaii I wanna go to.
I'm I'm looking at Austin, and then just to look at our final
The dogs are getting a little better for Trump. I wonder if you know. Well,
the hell knows. this has been an incredible evening. I just
feel better about the market reaction. I feel like, you know, those of us who operate businesses and try and build businesses and know, have employees and all this stuff. I mean, I'm disappointed in San Francisco. It's a fucking shit show of the city, but I feel good about the fact that markets taking this well, and it it, you know, means businesses will continue to operate and find funding and
-- Shout out, Billy, in Hawaii. New feet.
as well. What's your pick? And then Jay Kalen, then we're we're gonna bounce. Yeah.
After you
look at the math, I think Trump dollar 60 is pretty significant. So I have to pick that direction.
And I'm going by. Alright, everybody. This has been a special edition of the podcast.
I thank
you. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it. Thank you. Later, guys.
§09Segment 9
Bye bye.
I got
the poker table soon. Yep.
Yum! -- soon. Yes. Bye bye.