Dark Brandon: Can Leaning Into Corruption Be a Winning Move?

Simone and Malcolm have a fascinating discussion about the power of "vices" in political campaigns and messaging. They analyze how Trump leveraged his flaws into strengths, and how Biden supporters are now embracing "Dark Brandon." Other topics include DeSantis' campaign struggles, Trump's unpredictable economic policies, and more election analysis.

Simone: [00:00:00] how the investigations into corruption via Hunter Biden, whereby the Biden family, brought in more than 20 million for God knows what I mean, basically purchased influence.

Simone: That's really interesting. Is that. People are leaning into it that are, that are supporters of Biden. And it's, it's showing up as the dark Brandon meme.

Simone: So

Malcolm: Biden's supporters are the ones spreading this dark Brandon meme.

Simone: Mm hmm. Well, what I've noticed about irony today, which I think is really interesting is that irony is both 100% ironic and 100% earnest. This is, this is actually a much more powerful thing.

Malcolm: We talk about a lot with presidential campaigns. Is one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to try to run without obvious flaws, because then people will make up flaws for you. And that was one of Trump's biggest strengths is people knew what his flaws were.

Malcolm: And I think moments like that when he's first getting on the wealthiest person's list that he can't even afford his own PR [00:01:00] agent and he is pretending to be his own PR agent to talk himself up, I think shows the reality of the situation and talk about his finances at the time, you know, the left will take this this is a damning thing.

Simone: But when we, we're like, dude, this guy has hustle. This guy makes things happen

Malcolm: So the way Trump actually got rich, cause I think a lot of people don't really understand what he did.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm: hello, Simone. It is wonderful to be chatting today. I am really excited for this one.

Simone: Well, as you know, because we're huge fans of Susie Weiss who writes for the Free Press, I try to follow as many of their publications as I can.

Simone: And one of my favorites that's not by her, because I really just go there for her, is called TGIF, where they do a news roundup. And I was reading in today's TGIF about. Dark Brandon, this really interesting thing that's trending. So let me, let me kick this off by describing what's going on here.

Simone: Cause I feel like this is just so intriguing. I can't, I [00:02:00] can't not dive into it. Brandon. Yeah. So let's, let's start with some. Background, right? At one point there was a baseball game where someone was being interviewed and the audience were chanting in the background while someone was being interviewed, you Biden again and again, so you Biden.

Simone: And then the. The interviewer, a woman, very charitably thought that the person that she was interviewing was being cheered on. She says, Oh, they're all saying, let's go, Brandon which is really sweet. And so moving forward virally the phrase, let's go. Brandon became basically shorthand for you, Biden which.

Simone: You know, has, has been very fun. So obviously this is the

Malcolm: reason why is it was seen as the way that the press just distorted anything they saw about the world or anything they heard into a positive message for progressives.

Simone: Exactly. Yeah. And what's interesting [00:03:00] now is it appears to be that. Brandon as a meme is now being appropriated by Biden supporters.

Simone: So, basically what, what was covered in TGIF by the free press this week was how the investigations into corruption via Hunter Biden, whereby the Biden family, well. President Biden was vice president brought in more than 20 million for God knows what I mean, basically purchased influence.

Simone: And you know, to your point about the, the mainstream media, there's very little coverage of, of this, this investigation, but what's going on. That's really interesting. Is that. People are leaning into it that are, that are supporters of Biden. And it's, it's showing up as the like dark Brandon meme.

Simone: So

Malcolm: Biden's supporters are the ones spreading this dark Brandon meme.

Simone: Mm hmm.

Simone: . So what the Free Press basically said was Biden's campaign has embraced the new YOLO middle finger vibe.

Simone: The top selling products on his campaign website for this week are dark [00:04:00] Brandon items, the old saying goes, never explain it, never apologize. And these are literally like, so the, the dark Brandon mean is, is sort of like, it's, it's, it's images of Biden, but with like evil shining eyes and literally you can click over to the Biden campaign website and see.

Simone: Like a mugs and t shirts. Like I'm on shop. joebiden. com slash dark dash t shirt. So I can

Malcolm: imagine two reasons for this happening. Okay. And they're both really interesting. One could be that what they actually see as, as one of Biden's biggest weaknesses going into this next campaign cycle is that he's just a pussy.

Malcolm: And it's not terribly interesting. And this is a way to imbue him with agency, with power, mystery and danger in the same way that I think drove many people to Trump and that he actually embodies those things for a lot of people. But [00:05:00] then the other way to look at it is it's just a middle finger to, you know, within their cultural group, things like let's go, Brandon have become such a.

Malcolm: Sign of people who aren't in their cultural group and people who they detest that they are embracing this completely ironically, which of those do you think is, is more what's happening?

Simone: Well, what I've noticed about irony today, which I think is really interesting is that irony is both 100% ironic and 100% earnest.

Simone: So I think people who are buying dark Brandon merchandise 100% are like, oh, yeah snub it to the people, you know, I'm appropriating your appropriation, I'm gonna take your meme you, but at the same time they're kind of like, yeah, I have a badass, dark leader, he's playing 4D chess, he'll take, you know, you know, payments under the table, it doesn't matter that's how badass he is, and I think part of us Maybe we want a strong man kind [00:06:00] of leader.

Simone: I mean, there's that old research that found that people who look presidential get elected for president. Maybe this is people wanting their president to be a strong man. And frankly, because right now people are concerned about president Biden being senile, being out of it, not actually being in control.

Simone: This is, this is actually a much more powerful thing.

Malcolm: We talk about a lot with presidential campaigns. Is one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to try to run without obvious flaws, because then people will make up flaws for you. And that was one of Trump's biggest strengths is people knew what his flaws were.

Malcolm: Meanwhile,

Simone: one of Hillary's weaknesses, she was trying to be Little Miss Perfect. Yeah. She

Malcolm: was trying to be everything to everyone in a big way. And what that meant is, is everybody who didn't like her. One, it makes you suspicious of someone when they don't show obvious character flaws. Totally. And then, but then two, it allows you to impose character flaws.

Malcolm: Oh, they're out there murdering people or something like that, right? Yeah,

Simone: well, as we would put it, if you asked, you [00:07:00] know, a hundred people, what's wrong with Trump, you're going to get ten answers. If you ask a hundred people, what's wrong with Hillary Clinton, you're going to get 50 to 75 answers. And that's a

Malcolm: problem.

Malcolm: You ask a hundred people what's wrong with Trump, you'll get two or three answers.

Simone: And that's the great thing is, is when you choose your vices and you have them so public and consistent, you can make sure that your public vices are not deal breakers for your position. And none of, you know, like misogyny.

Simone: Or like huge ego, like all the Trump problems do not make him incapable of being president where, you know, if you have a vice like senility that could actually, you know, be a tailbreaker for presidency. So is this actually a super fricking brilliant move where they're like, we're going to take a vice.

Simone: We're going to own it. We are corrupt. We have a corrupt family, but we are dark Brandon. Like we, we are, we are embracing it. And is that really appealing to you? These, these are, this isn't just like a thing that, that like literal White House operatives are starting to adopt, which we

Malcolm: can share [00:08:00] some sources on this.

Malcolm: Well, I think if you look historically and you You know, his advice was, and when he did that, his poll numbers went up, meaning that he had cheated on his wife and lied about it and stuff like that. People were like, Oh, now I know what's wrong with you and I can mentally contain it. Now keep in mind, all we're talking about here with all this stuff is perception.

Malcolm: Yeah. Right? We are not saying that this is actually what's wrong with these political candidates or actually what's not wrong. Most of these political candidates have many bigger things that are wrong with them than these public perceptions. What we're talking here is this game of public perception.

Malcolm: But

Simone: public perception is what gets you elected or not elected. So in the end, that's what matters, right? Well, and

Malcolm: they may be leaning into it because they feel that they can't avoid it anymore. They can't avoid the public perception of corruption. So you might as well just completely roll in it so that that is.

Malcolm: The negative that everyone assumes to the extent of, [00:09:00] you know, Biden's, you know, in his speech, and he does like a Trumpism, he's well, I got away with it, didn't I? You know,

Simone: Yeah, well, at one point he even put on sunglasses and kind of like a hat tip to the Doug Biden campaign. Like the crowd cheered.

Simone: I really think like this could be the thing that makes his reelection possible because I do, I do feel like going into things before even though it, it was, you know, he's coming in from an incumbent position. He's coming in strong. This re election

Malcolm: is completely dependent on whether the Republican party fractures between two candidates or stays united.

Malcolm: I

Simone: don't think it will cause DeSantis is currently performing pretty poorly. Although he did hire a new campaign manager recently, but I think what, I think DeSantis is the one who's really like messing up right here. So Trump is I'm just one more indictment away from presidency. Right? Trump is leaning in.

Simone: He's like his great old self. Biden is now going dark Biden. Like we've got two very good. caricatures going, and I think caricatures are golden in elections.

Malcolm: No, but the point I'm making is this election actually isn't decided by the strengths of the candidates. It's decided by internal Republican Party

Simone: politics.

Simone: [00:10:00] Yeah, I just, I think the Republican Party is pragmatic enough to not try to push DeSantis if DeSantis isn't. You know, isn't kind of like,

Malcolm: really, I'm not saying that it will be DeSantis. You don't know who else is going to come up. Yeah.

Simone: Yeah. Anything can happen at this point.

Malcolm: It's not well, I mean, yeah, we'll see, but I think to a large extent, the strength of the Republican position in this next election is actually Biden's messaging and everything like that is largely going to be irrelevant.

Malcolm: I think it would be pretty hard for him to beat a United Trump front or a United somebody else front. But I think it'd be fairly trivial for him to be any sort of

Simone: divided front. I do think, though I actually, I personally find the concept of dark Brandon much more appealing. I feel better about having a dark Brandon president than I did about Sleepy Joe, if you know what I mean.

Simone: It's just more fun. Well, and I think

Malcolm: that shows the strengths of Trump's branding. In terms of the way he paints negatives for people is he [00:11:00] created simple, easy to understand negatives, which could be paired with video and stuff like that and build this into your brain. And so the question is, why is Sleepy Joe such an effective attack?

Malcolm: Because it's not a particularly damning attack. Oh, it, it, it implies low energy and it implies. More than I think senility. It implies personal weakness of

Simone: character. Well, actually, you know, it's really funny, the Sleepy Joe moniker. There's this one episode of Doctor Who where Doctor Who decides he's going to destroy the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Simone: And he says something like, I will destroy you with three little words. And he turns to a press agent and he says, she looks tired. And supposedly this just like completely destroys her, I think. But you know, like they really present it with a lot of gravitas

Malcolm: in that moment. We're going to [00:12:00] be great presidential candidates, all energy, all the time.

Malcolm: People will be like, yeah, yeah, I'm actually surprised we don't get more, you look like you're on drugs. We're not on drugs, by

Simone: the way. You got that a lot with the, with the Chris Williamson appearance. A lot of people are like, you're definitely on amphetamines. I, everyone was sure you were on amphetamines.

Simone: No guys, this is like literally him at five in the morning. I'm not kidding you. Like I have to, I have to tell him to not get

Malcolm: really quick with that interview because I didn't know how long it was going to last. I thought it was going to be 30 minutes and I was trying to get everything in as quickly as possible.

Malcolm: Whereas in our own podcast, I could afford to be much, much, more relaxed in my

Simone: timing. I actually I wonder though if, if in the future when we have a greater understanding of the way that our genetics function and we have a greater understanding of the way Like of the various chemicals in your body.

Simone: If like literally you are experiencing, like your default state is what many people experience when they're on amphetamines. I really wonder that because like you are high

Malcolm: energy. I suspect it might be why I drink so much is to get myself into a normal.

Simone: Yeah. Just to bring, [00:13:00] yeah. Just to bring yourself back down to to slow your mind down.

Simone: I really, I genuinely believe that. So one thing I'm curious about is okay, so we're seeing like with dark Brandon, I think really strong campaign action. I deeply admire it. I find it compelling. I'm glad they're leaning into it. I want to see where it goes with the selection. When you run for office, what are your clear vices going to be?

Malcolm: I am arrogant as hell. I want it to be arrogant and elitist. Arrogant and elitist. Yeah, I want, I want people to know that I think I'm better than them. Not

Simone: that you think that you're better than them, Malcolm. That you know that you're better than them.

Simone: I

Malcolm: know that I'm better than them. Yeah. No, I mean, I think that it's natural to who I am. I am. It's something that I have trouble suppressing is, is arrogance. Because

Simone: I think a good vice and I think why dark Brandon works is that it's true. Is it like, it is incontrovertible. Like when, when you look at the reports, the investigation into what's going on with Hunter Biden, like it's bad.

Simone: And there's very little that they can do

Malcolm: to everything is. Is nerdy weirdness is the other thing I'm

Simone: going to really No. [00:14:00] Sorry. That's a, my, my weakness is an employee candidate and I just work too hard. That is not, that is a humble brag. And that is I do not

Malcolm: think so. So I think that you see it that way.

Malcolm: The real key to a vice, okay, in, in the political sphere is can you get your opponent's press to bite

Simone: it? Oh, to make fun of you. Well, and Ben Shapiro did call you like a big fat nerd, didn't

Malcolm: he? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is on our own side, right? But no, there was this Yahoo News piece about us that just basically...

Malcolm: Went through our Reddit history. Oh, yeah. Did you know they follow like Tumblr in action and, and FatLogic and all of these mean ish right leaning stuff. So when I say nerdy weirdness, I don't mean like general nerdy weirdness. I mean like I mean like he's a internet freak. Weirdness. Yeah. And, and also keep in mind, you know, I have looked at the way people attack us on the Reddit threads that have done really well.

Malcolm: You know, we, we typically, we have a few Reddit threads that are ever like 50, 000 upvotes on us.

Simone: And well, I upvotes on [00:15:00] hate about us. Let's

Malcolm: be clear about us. Yeah. Nobody likes us. Hate about us and you know, very common stuff is, do you know, he had a body pillow made of an anime version of his wife and then clearly I did this for fun, but like they really wanted to lean into how disgusting and terrible this was that I had done this.

Malcolm: I, I think that, or that when I proposed to you, one of the images we used was like an MLP fandom, My Little Pony fandom image. I, I think that you may underestimate how much, and this is one thing that Trump did that was really, really smart. Yeah. He would beat reporters with lines that given their ideological perspective. They thought were things that they could use against him, but the majority of the population actually agreed with a great example here is , when he's like, Oh, we don't want to be like one of those, you know, I think it was like shitty countries in Africa or something like

Simone: that.

Simone: He said, no, I think it was something about accepting immigrants from shitty countries in Africa or something, but it's very offensive to people. [00:16:00]

Malcolm: How dare he call countries in Africa shitty. And they just went off on this word. The majority of America was like, Oh, that's pretty base. Even Dems were like, Yeah, they're pretty shitty.

Simone: We don't want to You're actually reminding me though, of a really An amazing, I would say vice leveraging tactic or vice Aikido tactic that Trump uses that has been underutilized in the world of the political sphere. So right now, what most politicians do when they're presented with a question that they don't want to answer or an accusation that they don't want to address, they immediately change the subject.

Simone: Like they asked as though they were asked an entirely different question. Trump. does not. If, if someone's oh, you know, what about this woman who accused you of sexual assault? And he'll be like, well, first, she's not my type. I have no idea. But like the fact that he says stuff like that, and one it shows he's, he's taking one accused vice oh, you sexually assaulted a woman.

Simone: And then he like, switches it to another vice of oh yes, I am misogynistic. And oh yes, I am very like, self [00:17:00] important. Yeah. This other thing isn't true.

Malcolm: That's actually really powerful. Yeah. If somebody accuses you of a vice you don't want to have publicly, transform it into another vice

Simone: through the way you answer.

Simone: But meet vice accusations that are not on brand for you with your own vice. I think that's like the trick and I don't know how Trump does it so naturally, but he does.

Simone: He's so good at it. Okay, so you're going to be a nerd and you are going to be What about you? I don't know. Oh, do you not have any vices? No, I think that's the problem is my vice is I am oppressively boring. So, I don't think our

Malcolm: audience would think that. I, I, I think, okay, so within conservative spheres, your big vice, and people say this, is that you look like a progressive.

Simone: Yeah, but we, we might be growing out our hair because Brian Kaplan thought it would be a good

Malcolm: idea. Yeah, so we'll say, yeah, we were told that she should grow out her hair and we're like. No, he said

Simone: just per the audience we're going and I'm like, yeah, [00:18:00] you're, you're right. I can't pull it off as well, but he's, he's right.

Simone: So maybe, maybe I won't look like a, so what, but that's not a vice. That's not a good vice that she looks like a progressive. I don't know. What

Malcolm: should be your advice? I mean, it's your choice. There's lots of things wrong with

Simone: you. Yeah, but it has to be like, and there's tons of things wrong. I think you could

Malcolm: lean into the whole

Simone: autistic thing.

Simone: Yeah. Oh, just, yeah. Just okay to be like, too autistic. Not

Malcolm: liking to talk to people, like turning away from people trying to give you their baby. You know,

Simone: maybe that's. Your mom before she passed away was convinced that DeSantis was autistic. Yeah. She's I can tell and she, I mean, she called our son well before he was diagnosed.

Simone: So she's, you know, she, she knows what she's doing. God rest her soul, of course. We miss her a lot. She will never be forgotten. But yeah maybe what he should be doing in terms of pivoting in this campaign, and one reason why he's failing, is one, he doesn't have any clear vices. He's trying to be like Mr.

Simone: Perfect with his wife, being all beautiful and nonsense, and like going on a campaign for him. But he, I think he's missing that strong [00:19:00] character with the dark side and the light side. And I don't really what's wrong with him? What do you think is wrong with him? I don't know. I, I couldn't stay and that's the problem, you know, that's why he's not doing so well.

Simone: That's why he, I think he fired his campaign manager because he's not, he's not getting traction. But I think the bigger problem is he doesn't have my read

Malcolm: and I'm not really following this too much. So, so if this video does well, if people want like campaign talk, I'll start following campaign politics again and do more on it because I.

Malcolm: It's something that I can get addicted to I've gotten really addicted to political news in previous cycles, just like a constant fire hose when I get into it. So I'm happy if this does well, I'm happy to do more on this, but my read is somebody who's not really following it. If he just, he comes across.

Malcolm: As trying really hard to make this work and it's just

Simone: Yeah, well, I think the bigger problem is that his original campaign strategy was, I'm going to, I'm going to be the culture wars president. Everything's culture wars. He kept pivoting answers back to oh, and I'm going to make this about, you know, gender and all this other stuff when that's.

Simone: I think surprisingly, [00:20:00] not really what people care about that much. No,

Malcolm: people care about their kids being like brainwashed and stuff like, and this is, I think, a mistake that the Republican upper breath is just really slow on right now. Republicans do not hate gay people. Okay. They don't even dislike the gay people.

Malcolm: They, they dislike the way that, that trans people are getting special privileges within some circumstances. They dislike the way that this stuff is taking over our school system but they have no actual animosity to the gay community other than where they vote different from them. I mean, Milo Yiannopoulos, you know, back when he was gay, I don't know what's going on with him now, he was the gayest motherfucker I've ever seen.

Malcolm: He presented with, with all of the stereotypes and stuff like that, and he was generally really well liked in the conservative sphere. And, and, and this comes to something that we might do a full video on later is progressives have created a narrative, and [00:21:00] unfortunately, I think the upper brass of the Republican Party, and this has been one of the mistakes that DeSantis has fallen into, who created a narrative where conservatives are, like, actually racist or actually homophobic.

Malcolm: They're like, no, like being, having a lot of gay friends, that doesn't make you not homophobic or, you know, and it's no, it, it actually does. What you mean when you say that is the only way to not be homophobic is to agree with you. That is not, you know, as, as I said in a tweet, I wrote recently.

Malcolm: I signed up to be an ally, not a minion. Okay. And you don't get to call me homophobic when I'm not a minion. I don't, I don't have any animosity towards gay people. I don't want them to, to suffer but I also don't think that they, you know, get the right to culturally impose this on other groups or other groups kids.

Malcolm: And that's how I understand the Republicans anger there.

Simone: Well, any more than like anti gay groups can impose. Yeah, he's specifically

Malcolm: like actually seems to be targeting gay people. Like he's like actually like [00:22:00] f**k gay people. Like what? Like, I don't know. That's been my read of his campaigns.

Simone: Yeah. Yeah.

Simone: I just think it's, it's, it's insufficiently culturally compelling. Whereas like really weird, dumb stuff like dark Brandon. It's you know, and I think people are really discounting that, you know, Trump won because people wanted someone to break the system. It was that simple. Like we are not, people, you know, get a lot into policy and, you know, all these debates.

Simone: The debates are just to see how

Malcolm: good he is as president. We should do another video on just Trump someday. Because I have a lot of problems with his personal character. But he I think objectively, if you just go through it, it was genuinely really

Simone: good. Oh yeah, he hashtag nailed it. It's very

Malcolm: foreign policy wise, which is my core area of focus.

Malcolm: He was just phenomenal foreign policy president. Really, really

Simone: good. Yeah. Yeah.

Simone: Whereas right now the Biden administration is apparently releasing about [00:23:00] 3 billion in frozen assets in North Korea to Iran in exchange for some prisoners telling Iran that they get about 1. 5 billion per prisoner.

Simone: So now they're like really incentivized to kidnap. people. So friends don't go to Iran right now. It's just not a good idea, especially if you matter to the United States government. So anyway yeah, I feel like the Biden foreign policy team, which is really interesting because I think a lot of people originally voted for, for Hillary Clinton, for example, and then next for Biden, because they were like, well, This is the responsible choice.

Simone: We're not voting for a person. We're voting for a larger network of advisors. And because yes, it's, it's actually pretty clear. Trump's Trump's cabinet and team was pretty chaotic. There was really high turnover. There was a concern that you wouldn't really get the policy support, , the foreign, network that you would need to succeed in the executive office.

Simone: And yet. You know, with, with Biden in office, we're really not seeing policies that give me a lot of comfort which is interesting. And I think

Malcolm: that a lot of Trump's advice has played really well into [00:24:00] his ability to be a president. So one of the things that I think a lot of people slept on is, is, is why the economy did so well when Trump was president you know, until COVID, but not much you can do about that.

Malcolm: It was that. He was so economically unpredictable. And what people don't realize, I think often about the markets, is that they are hopelessly optimistic. They're always looking for some upside they haven't expected yet. So when you look at things like his restrictions on China What that meant is there was always the potential in the future for some big economic uplift.

Malcolm: And as long as the investor class believes there is a near future potential that they can't predict of economic uplift, they are going to continue to invest in the market.

Simone: So it's Trump's very unpredictability that both from an economic and a foreign policy perspective made people behave well.

Malcolm: No, it was that he was doing things that artificially held down the market that he could easily turn [00:25:00] off that led to the market almost always rising.

Malcolm: . When I'm putting money on the market, what I'm doing is I'm saying, how much higher could the market go from where it is now? Perfect political environment for the market means you have reached the market peak and it's time to start selling.

Malcolm: As long as you create the assumption that the market environment is suboptimal, which Trump was constantly doing through. Often pretty dumb economic policy. You, well, it wasn't dumb in its result, right? Because

Simone: it created, we'll say chaotic, chaotic economic policy,

Malcolm: foreign policy where he was punishing foreign actors that he should have been punishing and that we now know he should have been publishing because Biden carried on all these policies and no one talks about it.

Malcolm: It's the, the, the public perception of what's going on in politics, I think is so different than what's actually going on. Hmm.

Simone: Yeah, well, I think there's also the question of what does the executive office really do? And, and [00:26:00] You know, I think the, the character of a president is underrated in, in influencing a nation's position on the world stage, like just narratively, what people think of the president and how they model the president may make just, maybe not just as much, maybe just as much of an impact as all of their different policy choices

throughout

Malcolm: there.

Malcolm: I think, I think it makes a bigger impact. I mean, I think that the reason you need to talk from a policy, I think the reason Putin did not invade Ukraine while Trump was president, despite him being. You know, inclined towards Russia is, I think Putin genuinely believed that Trump might decide to do something like nuke Moscow.

Malcolm: He genuinely portrayed this air of mental instability and aggressiveness and not understanding the outcomes of his actions. And I think that a lot of dumb people in the public, like just absolutely believe like that he actually was that way. And I don't think he was that way at all. I don't think he was 4G chess either.

Malcolm: I think he was like a dad who knew [00:27:00] what was going on. And sometimes he he, he fell into the right circumstances, but he wasn't an absolute genius.

Simone: But here's, here's, I think Trump is a genius at some things. Yeah, he's an absolute genius at hype, at PR, you know, like him being his own press agent when he couldn't even afford to have his own.

Simone: That made me respect him so much. Yeah,

Malcolm: for color, for background. Yeah, when I really start to respect somebody and press I believe is press that would make somebody look bad. And there was that case where people released these recordings. You want to talk about it?

Simone: Basically, I think when Trump was originally running, someone released a recording of him pretending to be his own press agent, trying to promote Trump, I think for you know, Forbes top wealthy people list.

Simone: Yeah, top 10 wealthiest people. And at the time, of course, he was so obscure that people didn't know his voice or his mannerisms. So when he called this person on the phone talking about Trump pretending to be his agent, He's totally sounded like himself. And you're like, Trump, he's such a great guy. He's just the best.

Simone: And every, you know, [00:28:00] I can't do Trump, but like he did Trump as Trump's agent. So it's very obvious it was him. But when we, we're like, dude, this guy has hustle. This guy makes things happen. And he is a hype machine. He knows what to do. He knows where to apply pressure and he's not above. Doing things like this, whereas most people would never deign to, first off, even self promote, like many people can't deign to hire a press agent.

Simone: Not only could he deign to do that, he could deign to do it himself. Well, yeah, the

Malcolm: sad thing is, is Trump has this personal self image that, that is, he is a wealthy person from a wealthy family and he is high class. And he has this so much that he, he doesn't portray just how self made he actually is. And I think moments like that when he's first getting on the wealthiest person's list that he can't even afford his own PR agent and he is pretending to be his own PR agent to talk himself up, I think shows the reality of the situation and talk about [00:29:00] his finances at the time, you know, the left will take this this is a damning thing.

Malcolm: So the way Trump actually got rich, cause I think a lot of people don't really understand what he did. ? .

Malcolm: So if you're born to a pretty wealthy family, the. Sane, unambitious thing to do is to take that money, to invest it, and to live a life where you never have to really worry about medical expenses or running out of money or anything like that.

Malcolm: That could have been Trump's life. He was born to a wealthy enough family that realistically he never had to worry about money. You could also do something stupid take that money and throw it on drugs, right? That's what many people do as vices in wealthy families. Trump did something actually insane that, that actually makes me respect him a little less because it was just such an insane move.

Malcolm: He went around and convinced people who would give [00:30:00] him debt that he had more assets than he had. So he didn't just take debt out against the assets that he owned so that he would be broke given his own assets. He pretended that he owned things his dad owned? And took out debt against that. Then he took all of this debt he accumulated and bet it on New York real estate in a way where if the real estate market had gone down, somebody who literally could have lived their entire life without worrying about money would end up.

Malcolm: Well, he would have gone bankrupt and would have had to give up his assets and stuff like that. And he, he might have been okay. Like his dad could have said these aren't his assets, but then could the bank have put something on him so they could have taken the assets later. But basically live life with nothing for the rest of your life.

Malcolm: So he took a gamble there and it worked now. Now that I'm thinking through, this is actually a [00:31:00] pretty smart gamble. So I'll explain why it was a smart gamble. Okay. So what's the worst case scenario? The worst case scenario is the New York real estate market goes down as it did when he did the, I think the Atlanta deal, because he did this a few times.

Malcolm: And one of the times that actually did go bust on him, just not the first time, which provided him with enough money that he didn't have to worry about it. But He borrowed money that he didn't have, like against money he didn't have, and made these big sort of economic gambles on real estate. If it had gone tits up, yes, he would have gone broke, but because he hadn't gotten the money from his dad yet he would have just gone bankrupt.

Malcolm: And then later when his dad died, he would have gotten a big inheritance and not a house. Okay. I take it back. Actually a pretty brilliant plan with a moderate cost to him, but actually not a very big cost,

The biggest cost associated with this gambit would actually have been the wire fraud charges, which Simona and I had a long discussion offline about how big a cost that [00:32:00] actually would be given that it might not have been in the banks, financial interest to pursue those charges. We've actually had this as a problem with our businesses where like we're mad at somebody and we totally want to Sue them, but there's just literally no economic upside to suing them as a business that we just decided not to because the lawsuits are expensive. Expensive. and, , she was pointing out that even if the charges did go through, , people with that in their background, you know, even some people we know, still find ways to do business. That's specifically where the wire for our charges would hurt you so much. They would make you very, very difficult to take out loans and stuff in the future.

Malcolm: But I think

Simone: that this is, this is like a microcosm for one of the things that made Trump a really good foreign policy figure for the particular time in which he was in office.

Simone: He, he's super based macho man. Just balls out, what you gonna do? I'm gonna bomb you. What do you think? And people are like, legit I think he's gonna bomb you. You probably

Malcolm: should. But no, it wasn't that they thought he was gonna bomb them. It was that they thought there was a non [00:33:00] zero chance he would

Simone: bomb them.

Simone: Yeah, well, he was, he was enough of an agent of chaos, and he was enough of an ego driven man, man, we're like,

Malcolm: Where he just like randomly, they, they crossed a line for him. And so he was like, okay, well then I'll cross a line. I'll nuke one of your diplomats and not nuke. What was it?

Malcolm: He said like a guided missile, the guy's car, yeah. I can't remember exactly what happened, but what was really interesting about it. And it was such a diplomatic. Like overreach, it showed such diplomatic overreach that no one would normally do, but it was also so incredibly targeted.

Malcolm: It was, I say you don't do something, I'm going to do something that is an equal offense to what you just did. But the targets, top people within your military community. This is Iran, I think, actually. What's this, Iran? Anyway I've been forgetting, but yeah so that you personally and your families personally feel there may be some price to pay that is equivalent to the, to you, to [00:34:00] your top brass, but feel like random people you're killing.

Malcolm: A lot of people could say that can spiral out of control. I think what we've seen with what's going on with the Ukraine war and Russia, it's actually a lot harder for things to spiral out of control than the public thinks. In fact, it's never really happened except for the Cuban Missile Crisis, which, okay, there it almost did

Simone: actually spiral out of control.

Simone: But I also think that there's a lot of value to like boiling complex issues down to really simplistic. Actions and, and narratives and Trump was very capable of doing that. And I think he also drew other figures into simplistic. Detente, essentially, that like really worked well in foreign policy. Well,

Malcolm: we need to do a whole video just on Trump's Middle Eastern policy, which was really

Simone: good.

Simone: Yeah. Well, I mean, we'll see how this video does. This is, this is doing something a little bit, you know, And I

Malcolm: didn't prep beforehand. So obviously I'm mentioning a bunch of stuff where I don't, I don't remember all the specifics. So I probably got some stuff wrong.

Simone: But there, there is something pretty universal and clever here, which is like the, the power of vices.[00:35:00]

Simone: And the power of simple characters. And I think it's so, so, so underrated. You know, everyone wants to be perfect. We've even had people who've read our books where we talk about this. We're like, you have to have super simple vices and super simple virtues. And people have been like, okay, well here are the virtues that I, that I've chosen for myself and here are the vices and all the vices are just.

Simone: Virtues like they're just humble brags and all of the same

Malcolm: thing. Simone. I asked you what your vices are and you wouldn't get my

Simone: vices are that I'm bored. Okay, dear YouTube, please select my vices for me because I just can't figure it. Maybe it's that I hate people. And then I'm secretly really evil on the inside because that's probably true.

Simone: You know, maybe it's that I I don't know. It's bad. Malcolm, you're good. This is why you're gonna run. I'm not, I'm not a good person to run. You're running in the first

Malcolm: election. The people who want to fund us, they want a woman.

Simone: Okay, YouTube, please figure out my vices fast because apparently I need them.

Simone: But Malcolm, I love you and I especially love your vices. What is it that Churchill said? He said something [00:36:00] like, he has... None of the vices I love and all the virtues I hate. Something like that. The man, that man understood vices. This is, it's a universal thing that has withstood the test of time.

Simone: So, well, I love this conversation. I think maybe we might have some more of these. But yeah, we'll

Malcolm: see. I'm very excited for the next, next election cycle. I'm sure we'll be doing more politics, even if it doesn't

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