Justin Wolfers & Alex Gibney

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the range beat. It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there.

1:00NBC News reporting for America. Hello, it's your partner, big boy. Big boys neighborhood. 30 years ago, Jay-Z gave us reasonable doubt. Now, think about that. 30 years. And look at everything that came after. We're talking about the music. The influence. The way he helped shift the culture. 25 Grammys, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And records we still live with today. And when it comes to Jay-Z, I'm a fan first. So to see Jay-Z celebrate 30 years like this. Oh, yeah, that's special. I flew to New York to see Jay-Z 30 in New York. Now, Los Angeles, we get a chance to see it right here. Jay-Z 30 is going down in Los Angeles. We're talking tonight at SoFi Stadium. October 23rd and 24th. Get your tickets right now to experience it. That's right. Jay-Z 30 Live Nation dot com. Grab your tickets. Ready to feel energized and in control again. At orderly meds, we have helped thousands just like you. Take charge of their health with a GLP1. If you've tried dieting, exercising, and relying on willpower, and nothing seems to stick, then it might be time to talk to a license provider about your options.

2:03That's what orderly meds is for. This fall, choose healthier habits for yourself with a visit to orderlymeds.com. You don't need to visit with a physician and person to become eligible. Orderly meds has a simple virtual process. Connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether a GLP1 treatment may be appropriate for your family. Maybe appropriate for you wherever you are. Getting started from the comfort of home online. Change your habits and consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit orderlymeds.com to learn more. That's orderlymeds.com. Orderlymeds.com. Game confidence and choose better habits this fall. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. Hello and welcome to Fast Politics. I'm Molly Jongfast. We have a great show for you today. Later in the show, I'll talk to Alex Gibney about his new documentary, Mosque, and why Big Tech doesn't want you to see it.

3:04But first, we have Platypus economics, Justin Wolffers, to talk about why Trump is overstepping in elections and why that may ruin the economy. Welcome, welcome, Justin Wolffers. Hey, Molly! Good day. Economy is both good and bad. Working and not working. Explain to us the state of our economy is precarious. It's such a hard conversation, Molly. Normally, when journalists ask me about the state of the economy, they're saying, you know, GDP's up, unemployment's flat, inflation's a bit high, and they're talking about the today. I think that's the wrong way to think about the Trump economy. Most, the things that worry me most, they keep me up at night. Things that are going to grow like a slow-burning cancer, destroying a beautiful living organism.

4:06What is America's position in the world? Are we a trusted partner? Do we believe in the rule of law anymore? Are contracts enforced and enforceable? Do we want businesses competing in markets, each trying to produce a better product at a lower price, or are we moving towards businesses competing at Mara Largo, each competing for favors from the White House? What is our fiscal position and what are the longer run implications of that? I even have moments and I don't want to be melodramatic, but, you know, I've heard lots of friends of mine, serious friends say they're deeply worried about potential interference with the next election. The day we become not a democracy is the day we lose the power to kick out bad politicians. Yeah. And the day that bad politicians can cement their power, that's an enormously important economic question.

5:08I worry about the competence of the folks running our institutions. I see signs of things frame. I don't know how quickly, how dramatically, and I can't quite figure out the scale. Am I a bed-wedding liberal who screams about everything? Or is this a once in a lifetime attack? I'm increasingly thinking the latter, but I always want to be checking myself and making sure I'm thinking about it right. So, one of the things that in that answer that I see as something to sort of pull out is the dollar, the value of the dollar, when it comes to debt, when it comes to being the reserve currency. And the Fed unanimously decided to raise rates, including Trump's guy, handsome Kevin, Kevin Warsh, put in there to lower rates by 10%. So, lower rates by Donald Trump. Right? Donald Trump thought this is our guy, he's going to lower rates, lowering rates again to drive up the stock market, which is in Donald Trump's plan really.

6:16Donald Trump's mind, the stock market, is the economy. So, that was what he wanted. Instead, Kevin Warsh voted, and they all unanimously voted to raise rates. So, clearly, they saw something that is important here, that maybe we don't, so explain to us what they saw. Right. So, after a normal Fed decision, what would happen is nerds like me would meet over coffee or beer, and we'd be like, I think it should be a quarter point higher. I think it should be a quarter point lower, and we can obsess about fractions of a percentage point of an interest rate. We should, by the way, because it affects hundreds of millions of people. But that's not the right conversation to be having right now, and that's the point I think you were just somewhat implicitly making, which is there's a deeper question, which is, is the institution holding? Is it serving the American people's interest, or is it serving the president's narrow political interest, and, and healing to his idiosyncrasies? And what we saw, you know, so I could debate whether rates go up a quarter point or not, but what's probably more important is we saw unanimity, which includes federal reserve,

7:23governors and presidents appointed by Obama, Biden, and Trump, and actually several appointed by Trump. And they all uniformly said, our view is if you look at the data, it suggests that we should be raising rates. The most important part of that sentence is we looked at the data. Matt. So that's the institution holding. That's why I breathe a little easier last week. We're not all the way there yet. Remember, there's another Fed decision and it's coming October 28th, just a few days before the midterm elections. By one view, the case for raising rates remains fairly strong. Inflations too high, unemployment is relatively low and stable. They've just taken the first step on this path that's handsome, Kevin, in fact, has said, I haven't put my foot on the break yet. I'm just taking my foot off the accelerator and it's certainly a good time to take your foot off the accelerator. So by one view, we really should be looking at a second rate hike in October.

8:28By another view, the last few data reports of suggested inflation is not quite as bad as we feared. Unemployment is looking pretty good and wouldn't it be good to just escape the president's eye until just after the election, let's put back the interest rate hike from October to December. And the economic data, in fact, have cooperated with the view we shouldn't raise rates anytime soon. Very, very cooperative. One worries though, the best way to be a political is to be a political, which is different than I don't want to upset the guy in the White House. That's not being a political, that's serving the White House's goals. So there's, I think we already know what's going to happen. Nick Timorayus at the Wall Street Journal is sort of famously remarkably well sourced. Basically, when the Fed doesn't want to upset markets, historically what they do is they'd called Nick and they'd say, could you write the following articles so that no one is surprised.

9:31He wrote an article last week that said, the Fed is not going to tell you what it's going to do next, but I do know what the two vice chairs think have been saying. I want you to pay attention. They're probably going to wait till after the election. So one of three things has happened. Either the Fed is called Nick and said basically get everyone in line so they understand we're not going to do anything before the election. I don't want this to feel like a big surprise. Or second, we're in a new regime and handsome Kevin doesn't talk to Nick. In which case there's no signal and Nick writing a story. We should all ignore it. Or third, maybe he's just doing independent journalism, but it's written in such a way that one certainly thinks reads at a sending a message to markets. So you did not see that meeting as a sign that the economy was in more trouble that like the fact that they all voted to raise the rates. You did not see that. You saw that as confidence in the institution and not as some sort of problem coming down the pike.

10:34Well, so here's the problem. Handsome Kevin actually has two nicknames. Handsome Kevin, who is handsome? This is Kevin Warship course has also said that he doesn't like forward guidance, which is to say he doesn't like to tell you what he's thinking or what he's doing. So he's also silent Kevin. And so the problem is you and I are trying to guess what's the Fed trying to do when they just appointed a bloke who then took a monastic vow of silence. Old silent Kevin's over there and you and I guessing. Okay. There's two ways of thinking about it. One, the data was just unusually clear. We've got inflation problem and not unemployment problem. Interest rates will probably at the point that there was a foot on the accelerator. The moment didn't call for a foot on the accelerator to take a foot off the accelerator. And the case was incredibly strong. So 12 petriple all just happened to think the same thing. And that frequently happens. There's a different and in which case last month was boring. The different answer is the Fed was under a lot of pressure from the White House.

11:34And they decided that it was useful to be seen as all 12 marching and step. This probably wouldn't have been an explicit conversation. It may have been sort of an implicit sense in the room that were one to dissent and undermines the credibility of the institution. It makes it look like the White House is in the room. Blah blah blah. So this is sort of like we're not doing what you want. The interpretation is we're not doing what you want and it's unanimous. Do you see how that sort of feels powerful? So that could have been what they were saying. And the problem of course is that if Kevin hadn't taken that vow of silence, you could actually tell us. Right. They got a good point. So what I'm hearing from you is in your mind, the fundamental, the largest problem facing our economy at this moment is the possibility that it will lose faith in the executive because the executive will try to mess with our elections.

12:38I think arguably has lost faith in the state. Right. I think mums and dads around the dinner table right now are looking ahead to their economic future and they understand that the three biggest economic threats the United States faces right now are tariffs and trade wars, which continue to go on and continue to be a some of the things that continue to be weir and continue to give everyone else a reason to look elsewhere. The second big threat is is the war in Iran, the four to six week war that just celebrated that seven month birthday. And looks, I mean, I know that we're all against open ended wars in the Middle East. I'm certain the president is but he appears to be in one. At the moment, his solution appears to be to lie about it rather than either a graceful exit or some other solution. And so the immense problems that's causing in global energy markets and it gets worse. It's not just the straight up. If we're more as close than there's, you know, other pipelines that are getting closed.

13:41There's also the fact that when oil and diesel are scarce, all of a sudden it makes being friends with Russia that has a lot of that stuff look a whole lot more attractive. So there's geopolitical risk and a general sense of a scrambling of either where things are at or if you want it to be more dramatic, the post-war world order. And then we've got a budget deficit that is the largest outside of a recession or a war in American history. And no sense that anyone in Washington is remotely interested in talking about it. In fact, the president promising that each of us gets $5,000 and a puppy if Republicans win the next election, which would be, I think the largest fiscal stimulus we've ever seen. But of course it's a fiscal stimulus we only need if Republicans win, which I assume is because the president believes that if Republicans win, the economy would be so bad we would need an extraordinary fiscal stimulus, which is a striking thing for him to say. Yeah.

14:41But that fiscal situation, folks are feeling it right now. Whenever you hear someone say bond yields, they're basically saying there's too much borrowing going on and not enough lending, not enough lending. And so interest rates are high, which makes it hard to afford student debt and cars and mortgages and is going to keep housing construction. So the thing all of those three threats have in common is unlike any other moment in my life, all of the threats are coming from inside the house. Molly, you and I sort of came of economic age during the global financial crisis. The global financial crisis was a once in a century implosion of financial markets. It was not a policy directive from the White House. Prior to that, we had the 2001 recession. We had the popping of the Nasdaq bubble again, not caused by the White House. We had the COVID recession again. The White House is relevant, but it wasn't someone at the White House said why don't we go and attack the US economy right now.

15:42Right. We got three very serious threats. They were all coming from inside the house. And more than that, the team whose job it is to look after us. And I am still enough of a big government liberal where I think the government's job is to make our lives better and easy to tame the business cycle and make sure we don't lose our jobs. At the moment, you have, I don't know what, you know, the president has moved from idiosyncratic to highly idiosyncratic. And I don't really know what's happened to Scott Bessens. It sort of sometimes looks like maybe Pete Higgs set said why don't we take a lot of testosterone together because he bellows and beats his chest. He's also really into punchy punchy. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like it looks like it looks like testosterone poisoning. And it doesn't look like economic policy. So there's one view which is, oh, let him be, you know, blokes or blokes.

16:45He wants to go on beat his chest and pretend he's punching everyone. You know, who cares? Another view is my view. And the views, I'd several friends who are former Treasury circuitrys. That's, you know, you want to maintain your credibility so that when you speak, people listen. In some sense, speaks softly and carry a big stick. And when times are bad, having a senior government leader say we will do whatever it takes, but things to be okay can be enough to turn things around. But if you've lied 400 times in a row or bellowed and not followed through or had economic D day and then forgotten about it a day and a half later, then you no longer command the respect to the room. And so if we need that moment of leadership and maybe we haven't needed it yet, but if we need it, bests and is increasingly unlikely to be able to deliver it. Right. Latinac can't and chocolate.

17:45Yeah. And so what that means is we don't arguably the most important economic policy tool we have is speech. And it's the speech of trusted sales who can threaten or promise to use American might in important ways. And what he's done is he's threatened and not followed through enough that that speech is gone and therefore it's like we've lost one of our economic policy tools. And it also does strike me that Besson seems really focused on bond markets in a very, I mean obviously the bond market bond markets show that a decreased confidence in the United States. Right. That's why the rates are so high. And so the users are so high right explain a little bit and and and Besson has approached it like a bond trader and not like the Treasury Secretary. Is that right. He's also approached it like a very bad bond trader. So the first thing for people to understand is, OK, so what is the bond market?

18:47It's basically a bank where the federal government goes to borrow money and also big corporations go to borrow money. And there's a corporate bonds rather than government bonds. The thing is the price of admission is trillions of dollars. It's a huge, huge, huge market. Unlike others, just so big, so much money slushing around. It's the market for loans. So several weeks ago, Besson started trying to push down long term interest rates and he did that by using an obscure Treasury facility. He brought first four billion and then six billion dollars to market and said he was going to move interest rates. The thing that folks at home might struggle with is four to six billion feels like a lot of money. But actually in the bond market, it's sort of like he walked into the bond market and started throwing quarters at people. Right. And the only way you hurt them is if you hit them in the eye and you make them go blind. But they're not impressed by the quarter. In fact, the quarter rolls off them and they don't even bother picking it up.

19:48So he just, he turned up with a water pistol to a gun fight. Then confronted with that. So the analytic thing that you and I would do, Molly, is we'd say, well, we messed up. That's the wrong way to try to move bond yields. If we were to, we'd need a huge amount of cash. We'd need a huge amount of credibility. Otherwise the markets can call out bluff. But if you've had sufficient testosterone poisoning, instead you lean in, you beat your chest even harder and say, no, they're wrong. They need to understand, I am the market. The thing is Scotty, you're not the market. You're the borrower. You're the bloke who owes money who's turning up with his company's hand in saying, could you lend it to me rather than someone else? And that's a sense in which I think he's deeply misunderstood the bond market. You know, Kevin Warsh gets to shape the overnight market for loans between banks. That's called the Federal Funds Rate. But the 10, 20 or 30 year bond yield, the rate at which we lend people money for long periods of time is overwhelmingly larger than the bond yield.

20:50The best he could do is screw the bond market by creating enormous inflation and effectively inflating away our debts. Hopefully he's not going to do that any time soon. So I think he's misread the space he's misread the moment and he's lost a lot of credibility. Justin Wulfers! Mate! You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again. The sweater that somehow works with everything. The jeans you know will always fit just right or bad. You carry everywhere. Those are the pieces that earn a prominent place in your wardrobe. And that's exactly what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted and made to be worn again and again.

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22:56They make well-designed pieces for everyday living and many of those pieces you can find in my hat. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you've heard about them, let them know it was fast politics. It's the best way to support the show. Go to quince.com. Hello, it's your part of the Big Boy. Big Boy's neighborhood. 30 years ago, Jay-Z gave us reasonable doubt. Now think about that. 30 years. And look at everything that came after. We're talking about the music. The influence. The way he helped shift the culture. 25 Grammys, the rock and roll hall of fame and records we still live with today. And when it comes to Jay-Z, I'm a fan first. So to see Jay-Z celebrate 30 years like this. Oh yeah. That's special.

23:56I flew to New York to see Jay-Z 30 in New York. Now Los Angeles, we get a chance to see it right here. Jay-Z 30 is going down in Los Angeles. We're talking tonight's at SoFi Stadium. October 23rd and 24th. Get your tickets right now to experience it. That's right. Jay-Z 30 Live Nation.com. Grab your tickets. If you're ready to feel confident again, visit orderlymeds.com to learn about which GLP1 you may be eligible for. Getting started as fast, easy, and happens virtually through telemedicine from licensed professionals. Game confidence, choose healthy habits this fall. Check it out for yourself. Go to orderlymeds.com. That's orderlymeds.com. Taking care of yourself feels great. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required an interim biolicence provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the range beat.

24:56It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America. I had time to go over the headlines of the day. This is an interesting move from Jamie Rask. He's seeking to preserve Trump's DC propaganda and put it in the Smithsonian Institute. Trump wants monuments to himself. You should like this, right? This is like a messaging bill, which is actually not a bad messaging bill, right? Because the idea here is to draw attention to Trump's use of taxpayer dollars. Can I propose an alternative? Yeah. This is one of our first rage baiting bills. This is a lot like what I'm dual did to microtters of saying Trump should come to Michigan.

26:00This is a rage baiting bill by a picture. I would also add that part of the situation with this bill is that what it does is it narrows, it focuses on preserving signage or artifacts related to Trump's plan, a planned warning signs. I think it's to highlight two things, right? It's to highlight the ways in which he's using your tax dollars to destroy Washington DC. But it's also a way of highlighting the ways in which he's using his your tax dollars to advertise himself, which these two things are related to each other. The bill directs the secretary of the Smithsonian to collect and display Trump's sprawling portraits hung outside of federal agencies at the Museum of Natural History. It's just a very interesting way to get attention for something.

27:01And remember, so much of this is about like capturing voters attention, captioning their, capturing their imagination, connecting with constituents. So this is, it's interesting. I mean, it won't pass, but it's certainly something to do well. Congress is out. Yeah. So we have some interesting polling from Reuters. They pulled weather Americans like the idea of paying for Trump to make ads about what a great president is. And I'm going to shock you. This is more unpopular than any poll I can remember. Yeah, 90%. It's rare that all Americans agree on something like this is, it's like data centers, but it's home. It's more unpopular than data centers is Donald Trump using your taxpayer dollars to advertise himself. And again, like remember, the admin has insisted that the ads were actually PSAs.

28:06No one buys that because they have a lot of the same footage of Trump's commercials. But the other point here is that as soon as it was pushed back Trump announced that his super back was going to pay for it. But now he's saying that may, you know, now we see there are more ads that may not be paid for by his super back. So again, the old ones are still running on that time. Right. So I mean, this is one of these things. It's just, you know, it's wild to watch him just do unpopular stuff. And you know, he's definitely trying to send people money and we saw there's more, you know, people are getting 90 dollar checks. Some people and then there are these Trump accounts for babies courtesy of Trump donor Michael Dow. But ultimately, he just keeps doing really unpopular stuff right before a midterm election, which I think is really something.

29:07Especially when he has so much, but I mean, the other thing I don't understand is like America pack has basically the Elon Musk pack has seemingly endless money. Trump has at least, you know, somewhere in half a billion dollars worth of campaign money. And he has to like take money from the taxpayers got on the lips. And that money should be going to businesses that do business with his son's companies. So Molly, do you remember that ad campaign the most interesting man in the world? No. Really? No. There's this ad campaign where it described the most interesting bad that world and it described what he does. So I, I can't remember what shows it wasn't the best ad anyway. I'm going to nominate this guy for most interesting bad in the world and the way that it's interesting and the what the fuck this is terrible way. So this guy name is Victor marks. He's a, he's the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Colorado.

30:07He is a minister and exorcist. He's killed and estimated 72 people during the war with ISIS. And now he basically admitted that he's a domestic abuser and he said his wife was fake crying afterwards. So Victor marks is running for governor in Colorado. Remember right now, governor, Paulus is the governor. The sick he ended it. I just did not know anything about and he sounds like just not to not a good Victor marks. And again, he has declared that he shoved his wife in the past and would do it again. So I just want to say Trump is underwater by about 29 points in Colorado. So I think that Victor marks is not going to be governor of Colorado.

31:09And so my guess is that this is probably okay. He's pretty rough. And again, Colorado has birthed a lot of really weird candidates from you'll remember like Lauren Boepert is from Colorado. I think that I would call Jared Polis very weird. Jared Polis is pretty weird. I think, but it looks like Phil Weiser who is the who is the attorney general seems like a lot less weird, but Colorado. It's a very strange time in in Colorado. And I think and I think the fact that you have like a governor's race in a pretty in a somewhat in a state that can go either way is a bullshed purple state is the way I heard it called. Yeah, who's so scary is really shows just how Republicans are really in a strange and probably very destructive place.

32:17I would be remiss if I didn't read one quote from this though that Marxist story. It's like you're so happy with this. Yes, go sorry. It's captured your imagination. Go. Yes. People have called us the real mister and Mrs Smith. How many wives actually grab a backpack and put a Tomahawk night vision and put a grenade in their co pocket. We're not normal. I'll say so. I mean, I don't know when you're that person why you decide that you're you need to be the governor of your state. It's just odd stuff. Maybe one of the ghosts who he was exercising total to yes. So, Molly, you know, I love watching a debate and I couldn't even get through this one last night because it was pretty weird and pitiful. Troy Jackson handed Susan Collins is asked to her unlike what I've seen in previous debates with her where I actually usually think as somebody who judges this a lot. She's usually a formidable opponent in those debates. I don't think she always gets the best opponent, but Troy Jackson really knew what he was doing last night. What did you see?

33:21Yeah, I thought he did really well. And again, one of the things about Troy Jackson that even his staunchest defenders will say is that he's not that well spoken. And actually, it's funny. I was talking to a friend from Maine who was saying, is it that he's not that well spoken or is it that he really speaks like a manor like someone from real world man. I had his friend say similar that like the same way that Bernie's a little grouchy to a lot of people that he has a similar affectation. And so he's and and I think what the moment that I'm the most there were two moments that really stuck out to me, but the one that really stuck out to me was when she when Jackson said she's always had health care. That's not the way it is for most of us. And then Collins just walked right into it. She said, first of all, I've not been insured my whole life. I spent a year running for governor in 1994. Which is right 1994 that's 32 years ago.

34:26So she's on the code. Biden was alive then. Right. And Susan Collins is saying that 32 years ago she didn't have health insurance for a year. And that that was and I think that's like just such an indictment. I was really that I thought was a pretty impressive moment because you have to be a pretty impressive candidate to walk your opponent into that. And then the other one that I thought was pretty good or just I think spoke to it was so they were talking about how she had gotten salt off the right. So she said I was successful getting road salt removed from the tariff list, which you do need road salt to man and Jackson said what about everything else we can't eat road salt. And I thought that was a pretty good. That's a pretty good line. The point he put on it was really good, which he says that she's an arsonist who brings a cup of water to put out a fire.

35:28And that line was right in line with that indictment, which I thought was really good. And that was the theme of the few minutes I could bear to watch this thing. Yeah, and I think it's a good. I mean, I just think you don't get you know, this a guy where everyone has talked about how he's not he doesn't speak well. And like obviously if we're quoting lines from his debate, he speaks as well as anyone. Yeah, I think it's like really that he's just not that politician that's like saying they're loving every moment of engaging with the human, but he was pretty good at putting a point on things I will say. Alex Gibney is a legendary documentary director of movies like taxi to the dark side zero days and his latest mask. Welcome, welcome Alex Gibney. Hey there, Molly. Good to see you. Good to see you. So I saw the movie in two parts and it's very fulsome. And in there's an intermission.

36:30I would love you to talk about how you feel sort of what you feel about both parts of the movie and sort of how you did it. Well, you know, in the spring of 2024 remember I started this late fall or no late in the year. Yeah, late fall 2022. So I've been on this beat for a long time. And the spring of 2024 we were coming to the end and thinking that we'd release a two hour film in theaters in the fall festivals. And then Trump was nearly assassinated. Elon hitched his wagon to Trump and my pals at HBO said you're not done. Keep following the story. But we had a film right. And so roughly speaking, I would say that's that ends up being the point of the intermission and then the point after though I would say that we did move. You know, pieces around because it's a film that's in chapters, but it was the first film was it was after you taking care of Twitter. He was going starting to go crazy, but he hadn't yet begun his massive.

37:41Well, he had begun his political project, which I didn't realize at the time, but he didn't achieve the kind of power that he achieved by linking arms of Trump. And one of the things that I was struck by in the movie is how similar his takeover of Twitter and his takeover of the federal government is and that is something I think I hadn't maybe at the time notice, but the way you lay it out. It's part it's both part of his origin story and part of and it just seems like he has one playbook. Did you see that in other parts of his life, like repetitive ways to deal with problems like just talk to me about sort of the patterns you saw in the movie working on it. I mean, I think in a way it ends up being one of the reasons that the film is at its epic length is because you see something that seated early and I would argue that there's a number of cons that he plays, you know, often related to driving up the stock price.

38:48And and then later those cons get bigger and bigger and bigger. So some of the cons he pulls over on stock price at Tesla, then get repeated for the SpaceX IPO. But on a much larger scale. So yeah, he has, he's like the Vince Lombardi of tech. He had three or four plays and they keep and he keeps running them over and over and over again. And in the case of Twitter and Doge, he literally used the same language in that letter that goes out. Yeah, same email, right. What is the original sin of Elon? I have a theory, but I want you to tell me what you think this sort of original sin there is. So it works in the film. It's, it's the battery swap. You could also say it's the moment when he engage or he won't settle a lawsuit until Martin Everhard agrees to say that Elon Musk was the founder.

39:50That's because that's a moment that's not just like credit grabbing. That's like literally rewriting history. To be able to make people believe that you were something that you were not. Yeah, that's what I thought. I thought the moment where you get that Martin Everhard to that interview with him. And I had sort of known that story, but hearing him articulated in is sort of stunning. And it sets the stage for everything that happens next. Yeah, because he doesn't just say, you know, I guess Martin was there, but really I was the founder. It's not like that. It's like written down so that there is a documented record and he wouldn't settle the lawsuit until this was settled. Because that ends up being not only a marker or the start of his kind of meme personality that he is this kind of Ironman-like figure, but also, you know, in Silicon Valley to the founder go the spoils.

40:52Not in terms of the stock you get, but the stock price that you're able to shoot for by saying, I'm this genius tech overlord. And even though the economic fundamentals of the company don't justify it, you know, bit up the stock because the future is glorious and I will take us to planet Mars and beyond. Tech oligarchs, the tech monopoly, do not want people to see this movie. Do you know this was coming and how are these people trying to silence you? You know, first there was a kind of mysterious silence at universal and they control the inner or most of the international rights. That since been sorted out. Then we were surprised when, you know, we dropped the trailer and bleaker street, who's the theatrical distributor started running ads for the trailer and they were all turned down by meta, by YouTube, by TikTok and of course by ex.

41:54But uniformly and we we appealed and then appealed denied appealed again, peel denied because they said these are political advertisements and weren't political advertisements their advertisements for a movie. Only when an article was published chronicling what was happening did meta and YouTube suddenly say, oh, whoops, it was a mistake, but it gives you a sense, you know, and this was all happening just as, you know, Zuckerberg and Musk. And all the other and Bayesos and all the tech, other tech Titans are having dinner with Xi Jinping at the White House. So you kind of get this sense of manufacturing consent, you know, up at the top is a limited set of things that you can talk about. And if you can talk about them, you have to talk about them in a certain way or else you will be silent. So I got a glimpse of what the future might look like if we don't fight back. I was surprised there wasn't more about his drug use because of the Wall Street Journal reporting. We saw about his drug use and also Ashley St. Claire is pointed in ability to answer that question.

43:08I mean, I felt in a way I went as far as I needed to go the Wall Street Journal article, which documented use of LSD cocaine, ketamine. I think there were some other drugs in the mix. You know, I think in a way that's all you need to know that's a pretty toxic mix of different kinds of drugs, particularly for somebody who's becoming, you know, who has his own demons in the past, who's becoming unhinged because of the power he's accruing and also the kind of rage addiction that he seems to be subject to because of his, you know, insane tweeting, you know, sometimes up to 150 times a day, many of those replies. So I just felt like within that context, that was enough. It was showing that this guy is self-medicating in a way that's not healthy. I thought the interview with his father, Errol, was pretty spectacular and done in a very spare and brilliant way. Did you have trouble getting that?

44:16Were you surprised at how much he revealed himself despite not revealing himself? It's an interesting question. Here's how the Errol interview came down. Somebody gave me his number. We called it, asked for the interview and he said, yes, it was that simple. And I don't think he asked Elon's permission and I think their relationship is both is strained. And yet at the same time, he's obviously intensely proud. Elon also claims that, you know, he was psychologically abusive to him, so forth and so on. But I think in the interview, you get a glimpse both of what Elon's childhood must have been like. But also you get a glimpse into Elon because of who Errol is in terms of his sort of, his willing to exaggerate or make up the facts. But also a kind of penchant and reveling in violence, which was one of the things that I found extraordinary.

45:19Because I asked him, there was a famous incident in which he killed two or three intruders into his house, killed them with his 357 magnum. And I just asked them the question, but the degree to which he went on and on about it and then in the described the different colors of blood in the floor. You know, he could tell that he was reveling in it in a way that was, I must say, uncomfortable. Yeah. And then you used a really interesting bit of May mosque. Explain how you found that and what I assume she was not interested in speaking you. Correct. But she had been, that was an archival clip where she talked about how she was physically abused by Errol. And that was also pointed to me or where his kind of misogynistic manner was pointed out to me by Justin, you know, who, Justin Musk being Elon Musk's first wife.

46:21Yeah. Who said that at the heart of a kind of toxic misogyny was Errol. And so that, I felt that was something that needed to be pointed out because he lives very much in a man's world. While he has these very interesting lovers and wives, ultimately the relationship always seems to turn sour in a way that's almost stereotypically toxic male. It was, it's so interesting to me that justine and Ashley are both really smart. Yes. And really sharp and I actually really like justine and I really like Ashley and they're both really smart and really sharp. And it's unusual in my mind to have someone like that, like who has a sort of Trump-like relationship to women, be so interested in smart women. What do you think that is?

47:22Like, I mean, it just doesn't jive with the rest of the project. I totally agree with you and there's one of the things that fascinated me because and I would add, you know, I don't know anything, I mean, anything more than I put in the film about Shavan who just recently broke up in Zillow, who just recently broke up with Musk. But by all accounts, he's really smart. And Claire Boucher is also very smart. And so he's attracted to these very accomplished, interesting, really sophisticated women. And they are attracted to him. And they feel, you know, but there's a real divide between either pre-marriage and post-marriage or particularly pre-children and post-children. It's also sort of stereotypical. You know, it's like it's almost as if a switch is flipped.

48:23Yeah. The Shavan Zillow's breakup, which we saw was basically from what, at least on the outside, it looked like to the observer and who even really knows what happened really happened. But like the Shavan Zillow's breakup was basically he unfollowed her on acts. And then she tweeted out a text message exchange that they had. Again, there's probably more behind the scenes, but were you slightly shocked by that? I was shocked by both the public nature of it, though I've seen other public exchanges between, say, him and Grimes. You know, famously, she was desperately posting on X asking Elon to bring their child back, you know, in desperation.

49:23So it's peculiar. Yeah. Definitely peculiar, but it's not the first time it happened. And so, you know, it's as though Elon both lives a private life, but also lives his private life on X, as there's some of the women he's been involved with. It's a peculiar, it's a really kind of peculiar cyber meme-like existence. How influenced, and again, this is just a guess, but how much do you think his behavior has changed over the trajectory? I mean, the film covers, you know, sort of from early, you know, it covers from his childhood to now basically, but how much do you think his behavior has changed? Like, he was secretly giving money to Republicans really since the beginnings, who, or not from the beginning, but he had been giving...

50:23Really, it started big time around 2022. Right. It's been, you know, something broken his brain during COVID. I think that's true. But I also think that, in part because California tried to put constraints on it, relating to protecting his workers at the factory, and he wanted them to go full speed ahead. But I also think it's a case of certain elements of his character becoming more and more exaggerated, the more power he obtained, and the fewer constraints he was willing to countenance. You know, because Justine does talk about, you know, she talks very movingly about how they would sit alone, they would sit together in a coffee house, and they would read silently, and just... Yeah. ...just to each other's company, and how much she treasured that, and also talk about how much fun they used to have at the same time. She also talked about how he would, you know, go into these rants and rages, and diminish her in ways that she found very unpleasant, and also gas litter.

51:30Yeah. In a way that she didn't really even know about gaslighting until coming in contact with Elon, where you're trying to take a fictional world and impose that on somebody else, which is a, you know, is a very narcissistic trait. I think some of the worst traits of Elon became, were exploded, both by his power, his fame, and I think his, possibly his drug use, but also his engagement on Twitter, which became a commercial mechanism for him at first, and a very effective one, but over time became a kind of place of rage addiction, which is, of course, how he then designs the platform once he buys it. Do you think... I thought the stuff about his daughter was very moving, that Justin was able to advocate for her, but she couldn't really explain how, or, and I don't want to know anything that gets anyone in any trouble.

52:31I wondered if you could talk about what his relationship is with daughters, and what, and like, part of it is this, he has this... You know, this... I mean, he says his son Xavier died, that, you know, he plays off of dead naming, and then said, and then says my son Xavier is dead. Well, Vivian Jenna Wilson is not dead. She's very... She's charming full of beans, you know, with the intelligence, and always determined to go her own way, right? So very much alive, and she has a great relationship with her mom, but somehow because she did something that Elon didn't like, he saw that as dying as opposed to, as Justin movingly describes in the film, you know, an adolescent growing up and deciding who she's going to be as an adult.

53:32And that, or he seemed incapable of handling, like, she disobeyed him, fundamental way, rather than engaging in who his child is, and trying to come to some reckoning and understanding, and also some appreciation that inevitably all children go away from their parents to some extent. And I hope because you love them, that you'll have a new kind of relationship, but, you know, he was never able to forgive that, and there's something that Justin says in the film, which, you know, he sends a message to Jenna via Justin, saying, you know, tell her I'll always love her. Yeah. And the next day he cancels her health insurance. I mean, that's hard to really even, you know, the parent, yeah, it's really hard to grok to use that for his very hard to grok. What do you think, how many children do you think?

54:35Like, one of the parts of the movie that I think is really important and explained in a really smart way is that at every point, there is a, there seems to be an NDA and a check. And that seems to be like pretty much how he handles things. Yeah. And, and what we don't know, I mean, the, we know of 14 children, we know that he calls his many children, his legion. And that some of those children are not children, you know, out of any sexual relationship. You send sperm and NDA and a financial contra. Sometimes the people who reach out to him on, on X or people, he reaches out to the thinking is and other people have said that there are many more than 14. So we should do, you know, I don't know for sure, but I would guess that it's in the 20s, maybe or 30, I don't know.

55:35But, but given the pattern, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's imaginable, easily imaginable. This idea that along with it is, it's, it's almost like a, what was it? Ashley St. Clair says she calls it a gatling gun of sperm. Something almost like prosecuting a war even, and he uses it to turn legion. It's like he is, he's like Saruman producing the Urukai, you know, it's weird. And, and, and, and part of the NDA with Ashley St. Clair was that neither she, if she had signed the financial contract and the NDA, neither she nor their son could ever say that Elon Musk was the father. But it was important to Elon to know that it was out there. So what kind of parent is that? I mean, it's a, it's a whole different way of thinking. It's just like, I need to spread my seed because I am so rich and powerful that more of me needs to be in the universe.

56:40Was there anyone who's really critical in Elon world who you thought you were going to be able to gat who you couldn't? I mean, there were a lot of people I wanted to talk to, and there were a number of people I did talk to on background or... Right. So, but a lot of people very close to Elon were not given permission by Elon to talk. It was also interesting to me. I did, I can't say who it was, but it was a very powerful VC investor who I talked to on background. And, and I said, okay, let's boil it down. I mean, if you had to, to make one particular comment about Elon Musk, what would it be? And he said, he was one of the most miserable men I've ever met. In other words, he lives his life in misery. He's not a happy man. And of course, his mother, you know, I said that in some interview or something, and his mother came right out and said, I've always found Elon to be extremely happy, you know, but I think that it comes across like there's this pain and agony that he wears, you know, not unlike Trump, you know, some disability childhood.

57:48He's now inflicting on the rest of us. Alex Gibney, thank you. Molly, always great to talk to you. And now no more people talk to me. Jesse Cannon. So, Molly, you know what the people long for, more level calls. And that's why Brendan Carr of the FCC is thinking about allowing more of them to happen before the midterms, including those created with AI. Yeah, because the only thing I like better than phone calls is phone calls from non-existent people. Brendan Carr, you'll remember Brendan Carr is basically being just another Trump lackey. Fine. He's sent, you know, have AI call me. I won't pick that up either. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos.

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