Remembering "Dilbert" Creator Scott Adams

0:00My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam everybody. You've got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a turning point USA college chapter. Go start a turning point USA high school chapter. Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life. And I encourage you to do the same. Here I am. Lord, use me. Buckle up everybody. Here we go. The Charlie Kirk show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts,

1:02and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers. All right. Welcome to the Charlie Kirk show. It is January 13th, 2026. We are here in studio. I'm Andrew Colvid executive producer of this show joined by Blake Neff. The one and only Blake Neff and today we mourn the loss of another great American and that is Scott Adams. I just saw that JD Vance actually just tweeted something moments before we came on the air. Scott Adams was a true American original and a great ally to the president of the United States and the entire administration. My prayers go to Scott and all of you who loved him. We lost one of the good ones, but we'll never forget him. And yeah, it's a lot of a lot of newspaper comic artists are not going to get a tribute like that. I don't think do you remember when Charles Schultz died? I do, but just vaguely. Yeah, that was the peanut sky. Of course, he was a great American icon, but that's the only one I can really think of.

2:02Yeah, I mean, so he Scott Adams, of course, created Dilbert in 1989. And he it was incredible because you know, obviously we were too young to kind of understand. You know, I was too young. Blake wasn't even born yet. You know, it was too young to understand this rise of corporate culture and workplace cubicle culture. And he gave voice through this comic to the quiet frustrations of working men and women that were working their way up. Strations, but also it was it was deeply funny. It was deeply funny. It was the hapless engineer protagonist is described in a bunch of dysfunctional colleagues. And you know, it was a cultural phenomenon. It became a cultural phenomenon that people would talk about at the workplace or at the water cooler or when they're getting coffee at work. And that's why he ultimately created coffee with Scott Adams. It was originally called real coffee with Scott Adams. And it became a phenomenon that many people tuned into daily.

3:02And to just get a dose of his, you know, his contrarian thinking, he had a unique blend of insight, humor, wit. And an optimism. He was an optimist. He genuinely was. And he was one of the first people to sort of take President Trump seriously. And one of the first mainstream people to take President Trump seriously. And he paid politically for that. And he paid in his career for that as well. A lot of papers around the country ended up removing Scott Adams, the silver cartoon from their papers. Yeah. And you know, and here's what they'll do. And by the way, this is what they're going to do is the same thing that they do with Charlie is they're going to cherry pick a few things that Scott maybe said or take it out of context. They're going to like remove all the other context and say that Scott Adams was this bad person or whatever. Scott Adams was a great. What he was, he was a man in the arena, just like Charlie, where, oh, if you go out there and say things, oh, there's a risk. Someone might not like what you say. You might be in articulate at some point. It's just disgusting. I want us to throw out. This is one of my favorites. Let's put up a 249. This is just you didn't have comics like this before they're not coming to read it for us.

4:11So it's the point you heard boss talking to Gilbert. My boss says we need some unique programmers. I think he means Unix, not Unix. I already, and I already know Unix. If the company has dropped by tell her I said never mind the company nurse. I don't think I don't think you would see you would not have seen a comic strip like I keep saying yeah a comic strip like that in. It was it was cathartic. It was it was syndicated worldwide by the way. That's what's amazing about syndicated worldwide. So it was a phenomenon of the workplace that emerged in the 80s and 90s, probably in the 70s. And what people also probably don't know about Scott is he authored a bunch of bestselling books on persuasion, persuasion systems thinking personal success. It's just really great. I actually talked to Scott on the phone. I never met him in person. I talked to him on the phone a couple times. I was on the phone with Scott and Charlie believe it or not. We were talking about maybe getting him on the show how we could work together. Nothing ended up coming of those conversations.

5:12But you know, Scott did honor Charlie when Charlie was killed. We have that clip. Let's make sure we have the right one here because there were a few. Yeah. So this was he was on Tucker's program shortly after and he was commenting on it. So this is I can't imagine Adams ever thought he would outlive Charlie, but this is what he had to say clip 239. When Charlie Kirk died, you could almost feel this massive energy being released. You know, he he sort of controlled it. But when it was released, you know, his his mortal coil was no more. I feel like that energy just went into people. And suddenly tens of millions of people simultaneously said, what can I do? What can I do right now? Yeah, that's different. People don't say, I'm going to stop everything. Tell me what to do. I'm going to go to church. A lot of people did.

6:16I'm going to say stuff on social media. I'm going to hunt down the people who said bad things and cancel them. But I'm going to do something. We're we're going to figure out how to start another chapter of, you know, TP USA. And all of that's happening. And it doesn't seem to be slowing down, you know, the visuals, et cetera. If anything, the energy, it might be growing. And I've never seen anything like it in my life. I've never seen the Republicans turn into their own machine. And now it is. And what's most important, I think, as well, is that Scott was wrestling with his own mortality towards the end. You know, CS Lewis would talk about how a soldier in a foxhole, actually, the you know, because he was reflecting on World War One. He was a veteran of World War One. And he was he was doing a lot of his writings and his thinking in World War Two. And he said that it can be a blessing to be faced with your own mortality and to understand that you as a soldier, you might die and to confront the Almighty

7:17and to make peace. And Scott was sort of that soldier on a field in a cultural sense, in a media sense. And he was staring down the sickness. He had a metastatic process. It was prostate cancer that spread to his bones. Yeah. And so he was dealing with the fact that he knew he was probably going to die. He said it. I'm going to die. We're all going to die. Yes, but imminently, right? And so that could be a real blessing. And so Scott was wrestling with his own mortality. And was never a believer was never a Christian. He had great respect for Christians, but he was not himself. And so we have two clips where he himself was describing this 237. Many of my Christian friends and Christian followers saved me. Scott, you still have time. You should convert to Christianity. And I usually just let that sit because that's not an argument I want to have. I've not been a believer. And, but I also have respect for any Christian who goes out of their way to try to convert me.

8:20Because how would I believe you believe your own religion if you're not trying to convert me. So I have great respect for people who care enough that they want me to convert and then go out of their way to try to convince me. So you're going to hear for the first time today that it is my plan to convert. That's a very Scott Adams way to do it. It's such an eye. I'm a tech artist kind of exactly. It's like an engineer doing it in only the way he can. And my word to everybody that's like, you know, that might think that, you know, this isn't that's not an authentic way to convert. I would just say everybody's different. God makes us in mysterious ways. I actually the last DM I sent to Scott was the parable of the workers in the vineyard. And we wanted to read this really quick for the kingdom of heaven is like the land owner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard about nine in the morning.

9:23He went out and saw other standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them you also go and work in my vineyard. And I will pay you whatever is right. So they went. He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing about five in the afternoon. He went out and found still other standing around. He asked them, why have you been standing here all day doing nothing because no one has hired us. They answered. He said to them, you also go and work in my vineyard. When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the workers and pay them their wages beginning with the last ones hired and going to the first. The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the land owner. These who were hired last worked only one hour. They said and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of work for the heat of the day. But he answered to them, I am not being unfair to you friend. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who has hired last the same as I gave you.

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11:29Again, that's allfamilyfarmacy.com slash Kirk and use the code Kirk10. I want to finish reading that scripture, but I have to share this. This is really upsetting me. I just was sent this and this is how people magazine is choosing to remember Scott Adams. Scott Adams disgraced Dilbert creator dies at 68. That's disgusting. There it is. Disgrace, but I'm telling you, this is the exact same playbook paracetics. Can you take the enemies of the people? The banner off the bottom there for a second so people can see it. Yeah. So Scott, yeah, Scott Adams disgraced Dilbert creator dies at 68. Dilbert was pulled from wide circulation after Adams racist rant in 2023. It's such a garbage thing to do to somebody. And you know, this is what they did with Charlie. It's the same exact playbook where, you know, they take something to Charlie said out of context about black pilots or Martin Luther King.

12:33And they strip it of all of the buildup, all of the context. It's just hateful garbage. And then they use it to smear somebody even in death. You know, somebody, somebody retweeted my tweet on it on X and basically are quote tweeted it and said, you know, you can tell a lot about the way somebody, you know, a group of people by who they lie in eyes and who their heroes are. And I'm like, you can tell a lot about somebody that even in death, they refuse to be gracious and kind or at least neutral or just keep your mouth shut. So people magazine shame on you absolute disgrace. We got someone who sent in their favorite Dilbert. They had a Dilbert strip hanging in their cubicle. Yeah. And Dilbert talking to the point to hear boss. May I talk to you after the mandatory meeting? Whoa, whoa, I didn't give you approval to attend that meeting. The meeting is mandatory. Approval is mandatory too. Okay, whatever. May I go to the mandatory meeting? All requests must be in writing. It's mandatory. It's mandatory.

13:35If people start bending the rules before long murder will be legal. And then it shows them talking to his co-worker afterwards. That was the best mandatory meeting I've ever been to. They handed out free cash. Shut up. It's funny. It's good. I was never like really that into cartoons, but I was really into like, you know, it was one of it was three of them. And that was one of them. Yeah. Well, there's not a lot. A lot of them are really bad. Do they still exist? I guess do newspapers still exist? They do. They do exist. Blake. It's. Yeah. There are newspapers. Listen, I want to. I just want to remember that that Scott took a great personal toll for this. And and you know, I the way the verse ends with the parable of the workers in the vineyard is that. You know, the first will be last in the last will be first. And so Scott, Scott came to his face faith almost at the end almost as like Pascal's wager. And maybe Blake, if you want to describe that for the audience.

14:39Oh, yeah. So he does. There's another clip where he's more forthright about it, even that. So blaze Pascal was a French mathematician who laid out an argument that basically you should embrace theism. You should embrace Christianity because the rewards of eternal life are great. And the if you're wrong. You're just you're just warmed so you lose nothing. Now the funny thing is is Pascal, a very logical man himself did not convert for that reason. He had a religious experience one night, like just how to divide vision. And he was a super Christian after that. But it's an argument that has a lot of it's debated a lot, certainly among, you know, computer programmer types who are exactly what Scott Adams is. He's sort of a engineering brain, a contrarian thinker. And so he did sort of wrestle with the risk reward analysis. And some people might say that's not authentic. I think it was the most authentic way Scott could approach faith that he struggled to embrace his whole life. And so I would just say welcome, welcome to the fold. You know, we're honored to have you Scott and you know, may you rest in peace. And we expect to see you someday. And I hope you say hi to Charlie for us up there.

15:43He was he was the man in the arena. That's all those attacks on him. You think of that theater rose of all quote. I know Charlie was a fan of it. It's not the critic who counts. It's the man who's in the arena. The man who is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly. That's the man who matters. And that's what he was doing. No, he could be attacked by people because he bothered to say something that was relevant and controversial period. Yep, exactly. And you know, I think it was Matt Walsh who said, you know, especially in the aftermath of Charlie's death and he was reflecting on all the attacks against Charlie from the left or whatever. And he basically was just like, maybe all experience may our enemies rejoice when we die because that means we were truly effective. And the fact that they just like the pettiness of it, I think just makes them grace to deal with the creator. I think it makes them look disgraceful. The only party disgraced in this instance is people. All right, that is it. The fact that you could just say Dilbert creator Scott Adams dies at 68. Why couldn't you just go with that?

16:44Guess not in famous cartoonist famous cultural commentator. Well, yeah, I mean, like for real, he and obviously he means a lot to a lot of people. We're mourning him. The whole, you know, of acts is mourning him. The vice president is sending out tweets. I feel we're actually under selling this just because it's been a long time. And what really made him super notable with our faction is in 2015, 2016, he was one of the first guys to really take Trump seriously as a political candidate who would lay out an argument. Okay, what Trump is doing when he's on stage where it's unpredictable and silly and he's saying stuff that seems outlandish. He's actually doing something powerfully persuasive to people and he could win the election doing this. And he was just saying this back when everyone else on television was saying, he's just a dumb clone. It's never going to go anywhere. He was saying, no, you guys are wrong about this. And he put his, well, he put his reputation where his mouth was and he was proved right. Trump actually did win that election.

17:44Yeah, well said. I think you're right. And there is kind of this cast of like OG MAGA originals, like the, you know, Mike Cernovich is the Jack Pasovix, the Charlie Kirk, the Scott Adams, the people that saw early on. I don't even know that he was a Trump supporter. He was just actually willing to say this guy is effective at what he does. And it's going to be persuasive to people. He was that master persuader line he used. I remember that one. Yeah, well, no, absolutely. And, you know, his wife read a statement this morning and they did a coffee with Scott Adams, you know, after his passing, we had heard that he went to hospice, but his wife confirmed that, you know, he was of sound mind and that, you know, that he did accept Jesus Christ. So, you know, God bless Scott. And thank you for your contribution. We honor you on this show because we honor brave men and women that stand up for what's right that are the men in the arena that do take the slings and arrows for the rest of us. Charlie was one of these men. Scott was one of these men. And, you know, it, it's really, it's really sad to lose two great Americans in such quick order. It really is. And that was the first thought I had when I saw the news this morning that

18:58it breaks my heart that we've lost another one. It really does because listen, people are going to come and they're going to fill fill the ranks, you know, I'm loving the, you know, some of these people like Nick Shirley that are coming and doing great things. And we want more. We need more in this space. We need more sane actors, more rational actors, more persuasive actors and good faith actors and Scott was one of those people that. And talented ones too, because he wasn't just a political guy. He was a huge lead. He was a, he had something funny and interesting to say and millions of people are going to remember him for that. And that's a good thing to aspire to as well. Yeah, absolutely. This is Lane Schumberger, chief investment officer and founding partner of YRIFI. It has been an honor and a privilege to partner with turning point and for Charlie to endorse us. His endorsement means the world to us and we look forward to continuing our partnership with turning point for years to come. Now here, Charlie and his own words tell you about YRIFI.

19:59I want to tell you guys about YRIFI.com. That is Y-R-E-F-Y.com. YRIFI is incredible. Private student loan debt in America told us about $300 billion. YRIFI is refinancing distress or defaulted private student loans. You can finally take control of your student loan situation with a plan that works for your monthly budget. Go to YRIFI.com. That is YRIFI.com. Do you have a co-barrower? YRIFI can get them released from the loan. You can skip a payment up to 12 times without penalty. It may not be available in all 50 states. Go to YRIFI.com. That is Y-R-E-F-Y.com. Let's face it. You have distress or defaulted student loans. It can be overwhelming. Because a private student loan debt, so many people feel stuck. Go to YRIFI.com. That is Y-R-E-F-Y.com. Private student loan debt relief YRIFI.com. Our team that runs our merch has been begging me to do this. So I'm going to do this. The Charlie Kirk show store.com. You can also just go to Charlie Kirk.com and link to it. But the Charlie Kirk show store.com. We have a new vintage collection of some of Charlie's original t-shirts that he had made when we started the show.

21:09And there's been a lot of people that email us and ask for all of this stuff. So I wanted to make sure I did that because they've been asking me for like three or four days and I keep forgetting. So Charlie Kirk show store. The Charlie Kirk show store or just go to Charlie Kirk.com and we have it on the main page. You can link over to it. But we have the vintage collection. God is real. Be better work harder. Patriot. We have the bracelets that Charlie would wear. The, you know, be better work harder there. And it's all the original stuff. So please check it out and support the team here. Would love for you to do that. And another thing I wanted to address. We Blake and I were talking about in the break. A lot of you have emailed us at freedom at Charlie Kirk.com wanting the entire catalog of past Charlie Kirk shows. We are working on that. We're going to get it up. And I don't have a timeline yet or when we can get that done. But we are working on it. Please rest assured. We want to make it really easy for you all to just access all the old episodes of Charlie directly. And so we are working on that. Please rest. Be rest assured. And we've got there's there's projects at the turning point side to get a bunch of Charlie's content also like AI searchable.

22:17And until then I just know if you want to find something now all of our old live streams are on rumble. It can be annoying to scroll through them. But you can find them. And you can see our episodes have a pretty formulaic date listing. So if you go to if you search Charlie Kirk show on rumble with that date format. You can probably find that all the episode very easily. Yeah. So again, the Charlie Kirk show store.com. Check it out there. Great work from the team. By the way, getting all those up. And it's a lot of work that the merch team does. And I'm really proud of it. Okay. Without further ado, we have John Carney. He's the economist editor. I believe I got that right. I was I was doing a bright bar economics editor. There you go. From from Bipart News, our bright bar news. He has been fantastic on specifically tariffs. But there's other economic news want to get to but we'll start there. So John, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk show. It's great to have you. Yeah, thanks for having me back. Yeah, absolutely. So you know, Trump has this 25% tariff announcement for anybody doing business with Iran.

23:19So John, simultaneously, there is a scotus ruling that we're eagerly awaiting probably tomorrow or whether or not he's even lawfully legally able to do this. Give us the update. Please. Yeah, we're waiting and it could come tomorrow. The Supreme Court never tells us what in advance what decisions are going to announce. We think they want to get to this one pretty quickly. People thought it was going to be the end of last week or this could be on Wednesday or Thursday or it could be any time in the next couple of weeks. One of the things that Trump's recent tariff announcement does though is shows how important tariffs can be to foreign policy. This is one of the arguments for why the president should be able to impose tariffs on countries because it is really important to our attempt to try to contain Iran and to use the US's consumer market, which everybody in the world wants access to to discipline the rest of the world.

24:26If you do business with Iran, you're going to have to pay a lot higher tariff to sell your stuff into the US. I think that's actually really does strengthen his position that this is a core part of a president's ability to deal with the rest of the world, a core foreign policy power. It strikes me, John, is this kind of like Trump's this this maverick he's creative with the way he approaches foreign policy and he implements these new techniques, they're not new, but certainly in modern American, especially presidential history, he's using them in ways others haven't really done before and he's being more public about it, he's being more brash about it. And because he's he's been creative with how he's wielded tariffs, he's now getting pumped public punished for it. They're coming after him saying, well, now we want to take that away from you because you're doing it in a way that we hadn't thought about before, and so we just want to punish Trump. But to your point, what happens if the Supreme Court rules against the Trump administration in this particular case, I've seen some reports that we have to pay back upwards of $300 billion in tariff revenue. Is this even feasible? Is this going to happen?

25:34I don't think the Supreme Court is likely to order the US government to pay back hundreds of billions in tariffs, which is one of the reason, look, I listened to the oral arguments, they were soup, the justices were super skeptical about whether or not Trump really does have the statutory authority, because as you point out, there's not a lot of precedent for this. The law that they're using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act is people call it IEPA, has never been used to impose tariffs. Ironically, everybody agrees that the president could sanction a country, you can even embargo countries. You can say you can't sell anything, but apparently their theory is that you can completely shut off a country from access to the US market, but you can't charge a 10% tariff for them to be able to sell it. That seems wrong to me, but the Supreme Court was skeptical that Trump has this much authority. I don't think they rule that it all has to be paid back from the US Treasury.

26:38I think what they're most likely to do is come to some sort of compromise where they say, yes, the president can impose some tariffs, but they might make up a time limit. It's called the Emergency Powers Act, so maybe they say an emergency camp lasts forever. So you have a year. So that would mean we keep all the tariffs we have, and it gives the Trump administration some time to, there's a lot of other statutes that allow the president to impose tariffs. So if these ones get struck down or get time limited, I think President Trump can come back with other ways of going of erecting tariffs. And frankly, I think the US Senate and the House should, if the Supreme Court decides this, should actually just completely reverse it and say, no, we think the president does need this power. Yeah, but wasn't there, I mean, pushback, even from the Republican side of the aisle, there was Rand Paul, I believe Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, the question then becomes, you know, you've kind of got these these tricky

27:39Republicans in the Senate that we're not, so we talk about this when we're, you know, discussing Nuke the filibuster, for example, you've still got Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell. That puts you at 49. You're not even at that 5050 mark. So JD Vance can cast a tie. Breaking vote. You got to get one of those those tricky senators on board. And then you got to tell us who knows what's happening with him right now. He's he's causing a stink with the Fed. So traditionally, you had a lot of Democrats who would vote in favor of tariffs and supported tariffs. There may still be some hiding out there. The question is whether or not like their Trump deranged with syndrome has overtaken what used to be their loyalty to the, you know, to American labor and to the working class. Maybe it has and maybe they cannot as a Democrat, bring themselves to vote for a, you know, and a Territory for Trump, but they should. It's good for working Americans and Democrats constantly claim that's who they're protecting. And so, you know, the fact that they won't, that would be a revealing moment, frankly.

28:44Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree, John. And you've got core consumer prices rise less than expected. So of course, CPI is less than expected. You've got a, what was it? A four point, I forget now. 4.9 number that we got the revision for Q3 and now, you know, you even even got the Atlanta Fed saying that we're expecting 5.3% GDP growth in Q4 potentially. That's their estimate might be high. Whatever. But like the point is, it seems like the economic indicators are all going in the right direction right now. Part of the reason that is is because the doomsday is about terrorists have been proven wrong again and again and again. Yeah, absolutely been proven wrong. Look, unemployment fell inflation is much lower than anybody expected. The economy is growing at rates much faster than any study expected. I think that everybody's got this wrong when they said that the terrorists were going to somehow derail the economy or put some prices. The opposite has happened. We're having an investment boom in America. The news is good. The Trump administration needs to get that news out there.

29:48But frankly, I think it's going to get out to the American people because you just need to drive by a gas station and see that the Biden inflation crisis is in our rearview mirror. And what's ahead? What's in our front? What's in front of us is very good. Think about it. Every single dollar you spend is either supporting your values or working against them in today's economy where you spend your money. It really matters. And that's how we take back our country. Patriot mobile is leading the way as America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. And you can switch today without sacrificing quality or service. You'll get exceptional nationwide coverage because unlike most budget wireless providers, Patriot mobile has access to all three major networks or you can do what I do and you can add two numbers on two different networks on one phone, something the big guys can't even do. So stay connected with flexible unlimited data plans to fit your lifestyle and get high speed data, mobile hotspots, international roaming, device production, and even internet backup. Here's the best part.

30:53When you switch to Patriot mobile, you're supporting faith, family, and freedom. You're supporting a company that supports you and supports this show supports turning point USA. If you believe in our first and second amendment rights, the sanctity of life and supporting our veterans, this is where you belong. Switching is simple. Keep your number, keep your phone or upgrade. Patriot mobile is 100% US based team. We'll get you activated in minutes. Call 972 Patriot today or go to Patriot mobile.com slash Charlie use promo code Charlie for a free month of service that's Patriot mobile.com slash Charlie or call 972 Patriot and make the switch today. I'm just taking out by the way Charlie Kirk store.com will also get you there and I love this one. We have this. I'm just humbled by God's grace picture. I didn't even know we had that and it's Charlie after we won in November. And kind of holding his hands to his face. It's beautiful. Anyways, so also other Charlie stuff. One of our team members, Danny sent us the speaking of tariffs. Charlie being really irate about Chinese made baseballs.

31:56That's right. There's nothing more American than baseball. Baseball should not be made in China period. Tariff imported baseballs and make them all in America. Made in China on a baseball is a disgrace facts facts. One of his best takes John Carney. You're with us here. We're reacting to all the news here. There's a lot of economic news. It is bright bar economics editor. John, so this, this, you know, the chicken littles, the sky is falling economists. They have been proven wrong, but they're still going after it. They're keep saying there was reports this morning saying that, you know, his, his fed approach has already been proven wrong. You describe this story. You know, so judge, Janine, I call our judge in the instill. So she's got charges or she's indicted Jerome Powell, some of these corruption allegations about the federal building that he's been constructing for years. They call him too late, pal, just give us the low down here with Jerome.

32:58What happened is Jerome Powell did something unprecedented on Sunday night. He posted a video in which he said that he has received subpoenas from the Justice Department, and he went far beyond denying having done it, you know, done anything wrong with the conservation of what people are calling the Fed Mahal. This $2.5 billion renovation to their headquarters. He, and he, he denied, and he went beyond denying misleading a Senate panel when he testified about it. He actually accused the Trump administration of using this inquiry into these matters into to trying to subvert the independence of the Federal Reserve. He has no evidence of that at all. And in fact, the president immediately said, no, that we're not doing that judge Janine, Janine Piro, who is the US attorney for the District of Columbia said, that's not what's happening. What happened was we had a bunch of questions about the renovation. We tried to get the Fed to answer them. They wouldn't answer the questions, which is outrageous for any part of the government to not answer inquiries from the Department of Justice.

34:06And so we had to issue subpoenas. She pointed out that he haven't indicted anyone. What they are doing is just seeking answers to questions. Powell escalated this into a crisis. And then you had a, you know, the legacy media freak out act like, you know, Donald, you know, again, sort of Trump derangement syndrome, assuming the worst possible interpretation of this. The Donald Trump was using the Justice Department to go after Powell to try to seize control of the Fed. None of that is happening. And in fact, that's one of the reasons the markets have reacted to this so calmly, because people aren't seeing this as a power grab by Trump. They're seeing it as actually a very aggressive move by Powell. Look, Powell is out of office as chairman in May. He doesn't need to go after anybody. He gets to point the next guy. So the idea that like Trump would use the Justice Department to pursue Powell now doesn't really make any sense. And that doesn't appear to be what happened.

35:09Yeah. So Trump, thank you for that explanation. That's actually really clarifying. Trump is touring a Ford factory right now. He's kind of touting domestic manufacturing. So we hear this number a lot, John, about how many trillions of dollars of investment, foreign direct investment, businesses investing in the United States again. Scott Besson has said that we 2025 was setting the table 2026 is the the banquet and the feast. How true is that going to be? What can we expect? What are you looking at as far as growth rates in 2026? Because I'm thinking about midterms. So I want to, I want to know, are we going to make the deadline or people going to feel it financially before the midterms? I do think they will. In fact, if you, if you look at the growth rate, we had 3.8 and 4.1 is 3.8 in the second turn in the second quarter, 3.4 point on in the, the second or the third now, and now it looks like we may be growing. Again, the benefit, as you mentioned, says above 5%. That seems probably a overestimation to me, but we're certainly growing at a very rapid rate.

36:16The American people will feel this. One of the probably the biggest way they'll feel this is in their wages going up much faster than inflation. That's great because it means people have more purchasing power. It means that things that they need to buy become more affordable. We're also seeing the price of energy, particularly gasoline come down dramatically. That will also help a lot going into the midterms. It is one of gasoline is one of those things that people really get upset about. I think the relief on the energy side will actually, and then that filters into all sorts of products you buy. So I think that will indeed actually help us grow really rapidly going into this new year. We sort of have this momentum built up from 2025, 2026 looks like it's going to be even stronger. John Carney, great work as always. We'll see what happens with SCOTUS on the tariff rulings, but it's good to hear that President Trump and the Trump administration have other outs, other levers they can pull to kind of exert their tariff agenda, because I think it's actually really important from a foreign policy, also a domestic policy standpoint.

37:24Thank you for adding a lot of light, a lot of clarity. Thank you, John Carney. Thanks for having me, guys. Absolutely. We'll have you back on again soon, because I think this issue is not going away any any time soon. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieCurk.com.