E11: Election Night Special featuring Phil Hellmuth, Bill Gurley, Brad Gerstner & more!

Jason Calacanis 0:00 Hello, everybody. Welcome. Uh, we are live at the All In headquarters, and the All In podcast is now live. We have 63 people watching already, and bear with us while we get the besties on the line. I'll be doing my introductions in just a moment after I tweet this. Um, but it is an eventful night, and we had to start early because, uh, it's looking like this could be another shocker. And I am not, uh, being facetious here, I am not, uh, happy about this, obviously, but, uh, Trump looks like he's been underestimated again. This is not a blowout. Um, we are going live early. Um, this could be a shocker, folks. Okay, so, uh, with me early on the pod is regular David Friedberg. Uh, David, you're watching this early action, and what's your early, uh, reaction to what we're seeing?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:13 Um, you know, Trump's moved. We- there's no- nothing definitive yet, but, uh, he's moved, uh, in the results and he's moving markets. We're seeing forex markets show a sharp indication, um, that, uh, Trump has a real shot at winning here, treasury markets, and as Phil Hellmuth will share with us, betting markets as well. So-

Jason Calacanis 1:41 All right, well-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:41 ... it is more, it is more of a nail-biter, um, than a game seven of the Warriors, Cavs. So here we go.

Jason Calacanis 1:48 This is a hell of a nail-

Phil Hellmuth 1:49 Thi- this is a hell of a nail-biter, guys, and I'm just gonna say this. Uh, the UK markets had it first. They sw- he was five to two, uh, you could, you could get Trump at five to two, two and a half to one. Then it hit five to four, and I thought that was quite crazy. You're watching CNN, you're watching these networks and they're saying, "Oh my God, Biden's winning this." No, they're not even in the right neighborhood. I'll never watch a network again on election night. And now, the market from five minutes ago, 368 million pounds wagered, 368 million pounds. Trump is now a three to ten favorite. Uh, which means-

Jason Calacanis 2:25 Okay, so for people, uh, Phil, who are not gamblers...

Phil Hellmuth 2:28 If you bet three dollars-

Jason Calacanis 2:29 Let's put this in dollars. You bet $3...

Phil Hellmuth 2:33 No, no. J- Jason, you have to understand. If you bet $13, okay? You don't-

Jason Calacanis 2:37 Yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 2:37 ... get 13 back. You only get, uh, 10 back, okay? Now, if you wanna bet Biden, it's seven to four. So if I bet $70, uh, if I bet $40, I can get $70 back on Biden. Now, the shocker is, right around 6:28 PM, uh, the betting odds, the markets were, have been in Biden's favor for three straight months. I've been live posting them on my Twitter all day. The worst I saw was, uh, was Trump was, uh, was, Biden was -$1.25, still a big favorite to win, and then boom. And, uh, you know, there are people in my house that are actually crying. Uh, you know, I'm very more, much more in the middle of this thing, but all of a sudden, uh, Trump, uh, uh, all of a sudden it was five to four, then it was even, and then all of a sudden Trump was nearly a, a two to one favorite. I'm getting live information from my friends right now, um, I'm seeing that, uh, that it's, uh, it's a little bit lower on some of these sites. Um, I saw 267, that's for a $200 bet, so he's a pretty big favorite. Um, I saw the lowest I've seen is 217. But Jason, if you're watching the a- odds, and I put some stuff on my Twitter, it's amazing how it went from, you know, -$1.70, you know, all the way down, -30, then it came all the way up to -$1.70. This is crazy. And, and I've seen this movie before, in 2016, actually.

Jason Calacanis 4:03 Okay. So we all know that you need 270 electoral votes to win, and that there were a couple of states that were critical, uh, for Trump to win, uh, and it seems like those states that Trump was critical to win, um, he has now won. So let's bring in David Sacks. Uh, David, we just turned on the livestream, and boy, is this a turn of events that I don't think any of us, except for maybe you, but you were very pessimistic, uh, on the last maybe three or four All In podcasts. You're watching these results come in. The betting markets have totally flipped to Trump. What are you seeing and what can we expect tonight? What are you looking for?

David Sacks 4:48 Yeah, I mean, it's looking just like, uh, 2016. Um, I mean, you're right that, um, I was looking at the polls in the last few pods that we've done, and there was no way to say anything other than, you know, Trump was the, uh, was the underdog. Or, um... But at the same time, I, I still thought that, um, Trump had a really good shot, because I was watching both candidates o- on YouTube all the time. They both were doing live events. I wasn't w-watching it with the commentary, I wasn't watching the clips. I was watching Trump do these rallies, I was watching Biden do these parking lot events. And I would see Trump do four or five events a day, flying from, um, tarmac to tarmac on Air Force One, having these huge crowds. I saw him do this event in Butler, Pennsylvania over the weekend. It looked to me like there was tens of thousands of people there. Um, and I remember Trump saying a line like, you know, "This doesn't seem like a second place crowd." And, you know, it's one of those Trump lines, but, you know, it did put in my mind this idea, you know, he's got a point. Um, whatever the polls say, we're seeing tens of thousands of people show up at these events who are fanatical. I mean, just fanatical.... for Trump. And so, you always had to think that he had a chance of pulling o- off an upset, just like 2016.

Jason Calacanis 6:07 Um-

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:07 I will say what I said on our text earlier. Donald Trump ate the COVID virus and killed it with his body.

Jason Calacanis 6:14 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:16 And then he stood in front of the White House and ripped his shirt off, and let us all know that he is our leader. He did not get elected. He claimed victory beginning in 2016. And he has not, and will not, let go since then. And I think it is that, um, cult of personality that, um, draws-

Jason Calacanis 6:35 << Cult of personality >>

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:37 ... draws so many people in that are just, um, you know, feeling like they need change and they need leadership and they don't need something from the old school. And he, uh, he stood up and he showed us that this whole thing is a, is a fake. COVID is a fake, government is fake, the people are fake, the media is fake. He's the only guy that can bring truth.

Jason Calacanis 6:56 I'm getting some late numbers. I'm getting some late numbers here, you guys. Um, he's now a do- minus $1.59 to win Pennsylvania, and they took every other number off the board. However, if you're a Biden person, Jason- ... uh, the number is only 2.17 right now. Um, so, uh, but wow. The polls are m- The pollsters were miles off on this, and this is just amazing. And it seems like, from what we're hearing from the reporting, is that the pollsters did not understand, uh, the Latin, or I guess Latinx is a way to describe, um, a group of people who actually don't think exactly the same. I've always had a, a weird, um, understanding of this term Latinx, which seems to come from the woke left.

David Sacks 7:43 Right.

Jason Calacanis 7:43 But Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, these are different countries. They're not all the same.

David Sacks 7:50 Venezuelans. Yeah, Venezuelans.

Jason Calacanis 7:51 Venezuelans. The- this is not a monoculture, uh, just because they all speak the same language. And we're seeing something very different happen in Florida right now, where male, uh, Cubans maybe are voting very differently than what pollsters expected. Uh, Bestie Chamath is now fresh off a tight haircut, and he's here on the pod.

Phil Hellmuth 8:10 (laughs) Can you hear me?

Jason Calacanis 8:11 Uh, we've got Bestie Phil as our first bestie guestie of the night, and-

Phil Hellmuth 8:15 Bestie P., how are you, Bestie P?

Jason Calacanis 8:18 Chamath, you and I, we, we shouldn't talk about this. This is about politics. But you and I were just filming High Stakes Poker in Las Vegas on Friday night. It was great to see you, Bestie. Is there any indication you can give us, besides... I mean, of course there's a presidential election on that is gonna determine the future of humanity, but more importantly, how did you each do in the High Stakes Poker game?

Phil Hellmuth 8:39 The biggest, the biggest, the biggest pot of the night was around $400K, maybe $500K, played between me and Durrr.

Jason Calacanis 8:49 D- D- D- Durrr?

Phil Hellmuth 8:51 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 8:52 And he won?

Phil Hellmuth 8:54 He did not win the hand.

Jason Calacanis 8:55 Oh my Lord. Try to make- Chamath won that one. Go, Chamath, go. Oh my Lord.

Phil Hellmuth 9:00 And, uh, it was, I think it was beautifully, beautifully played. I think Doug Polk will definitely do a short video clip on it. Uh, I did a, I did a very, uh, very sneaky three-bet pre-flop turn check, um, river over-bluff and got him to call.

Jason Calacanis 9:18 Oh my Lord. A, a little set bomb, I'm guessing, but here we go. Uh- Jason, I can't wait, uh, since I'm here to promote, promote, promote everything I promote, uh, you can only watch these episodes of High Stakes Poker, a lot of players' favorite show, you can only watch them on the PokerGO app. They're coming out December 16th. Me, Chamath, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Ben Lamb, a lot of your, a lot of your heroes. Take it away, Jason. Oh, wow. Can't wait. Can't wait to, uh... And I have a subscription to that all in, um, I'm sorry, the PokerGO app. It's, it's well worth it. Uh, David Sacks, you have one of your, um-

David Sacks 9:53 I'm recording.

Jason Calacanis 9:54 ... friends on the pod. Why don't you introduce one of your consulting friends and, and, uh, we'll have him tee up what we think the possible scenarios are, and where we're at right now at this very moment. It-

David Sacks 10:07 Yeah, so, so-

Jason Calacanis 10:08 ... uh, 6:57 in California.

David Sacks 10:09 Yeah, so Michael Newman works for me as a researcher, and, um, he's a, uh, is a political scientist, I guess you could say, and I've known him since college, and he's very, uh, steeped in these, uh, a lot of these races. I don't know if he's... Yeah, okay, here we go.

John Couvillon 10:25 I have been obsessively following politics since, uh, the Reagan election of 1980, so... (laughs)

David Sacks 10:31 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 10:31 I, I, I, I-

Phil Hellmuth 10:32 I, I wasn't alive then, so I don't know.

Jason Calacanis 10:34 (laughs)

John Couvillon 10:34 Uh, no, I'm afraid I'm, uh... I, I was only 10, but I was already, uh, a political obsessive and, as you can imagine, a real hit with the ladies as well.

Jason Calacanis 10:44 So tell us, what w- what are the key states we need to focus in on here? And which one of them, uh, have enough reporting for us to sort of put them in a column, and then move on and understand the path to victory for Trump or Biden?

John Couvillon 11:01 Yes, well, I mean, um, depending upon which, uh, network or news organization you're following, they are either colloing- calling a lot of states, or they're being very conservative about their calls. I mean, NBC has still not called Florida for Trump, but there's really no path for Biden to win that state. Uh, so you can put that safely in the Trump column. He has just taken the lead in North Carolina after trailing all night. We got about 88% of the vote in now, and I suspect he's home free, as is the Republican incumbent senator there, Tom Tillis.

Phil Hellmuth 11:33 Well, can I-

David Sacks 11:33 Yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 11:33 Can I, can I just, can I just ask a question? I mean-

Jason Calacanis 11:35 No.

Phil Hellmuth 11:35 ... isn't it typically the case that the counts from the most populous urban areas come last, and those tend to skew more Democrat than Republican?

John Couvillon 11:48 That sometimes happens. Uh, it depends on the state. Um, uh, some states have their rural areas come in last. Uh, one of the things that has changed the vote in North Carolina is, as the early vote came in, as the, uh, uh-... uh, in-person early vote and mail-in ballots came in. The last counties that reported that early vote were the rural counties. That's why early on it looked very good for Biden, and now it looks like, uh, it's trending away from him.

Jason Calacanis 12:16 (clears throat) Wait a second.

John Couvillon 12:17 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 12:18 North Carolina, according to the New York Times, and according to, um, CNN right now is favoring slightly Biden, 49.7% to 49.1% for Trump, with 84%, um-

John Couvillon 12:32 Hmm, I don't think that's, I don't think that's quite current. I think they're up to about 88%, but again-

Jason Calacanis 12:38 Okay.

John Couvillon 12:38 Yeah, it's, it's very close. What's interesting is, uh, Biden had five potential states where he could have knocked Trump out: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas. We don't know that we've-

Jason Calacanis 12:52 Florida is off the table.

John Couvillon 12:53 We don't... Yeah, Florida's off the table. The others are still on the table, but none of them are trending Biden's direction at the present time. So he, uh, so far Trump is, uh, (laughs) is staying in the hand, as, uh, as you poker players would s- would say. He's, uh, he's, uh, he's getting the cards he needs to stay in the, to stay in the game. Uh, but we still have the river to play. And the river would be, in this case, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Uh-

Jason Calacanis 13:20 Texas had an early lead for Biden, which was crazy to see.

John Couvillon 13:25 Mm-hmm.

Jason Calacanis 13:26 Right now, it's got Donald Trump at 50.3%, Biden at 48.3%.

Phil Hellmuth 13:30 Guys, again, again-

Jason Calacanis 13:31 So that's starting to normalize.

Phil Hellmuth 13:33 I, I, I go back to this one very critical thing. The reason why Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania right now are Trump is because you count the, the... When the county is counted, you can pass the votes and you can report. And if you have 25,000 people in a county versus Allegheny County, which has like, I don't know, 100s of 1000s or a million plus people, it just takes longer.

John Couvillon 13:55 Yes. No, I... Listen, I don't characterize Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania at all. I think one of the reasons why Michigan right now looks so red is because they're counting today's vote first. A lot of these other states that, like Florida, that had the option, because their legislature allows them to do this, they counted all that early vote in advance, and they dumped it in one big pile, uh, a- as soon as the polls closed in the, in the various counties. So that's why you saw early on a blue mirage there. What you're seeing in a place like Michigan right now is probably a red mirage, because it's, it's today's vote which was going to skew Trump, uh, because of the, because of the way he presented it to his people. He, uh... Florida was the one state, uh, thank goodness for his, uh, sake, that he encouraged people to vote early and by mail. Uh, in the other states, he encourages people to vote today. So here's a-

Phil Hellmuth 14:53 Here's a stat in Pennsylvania. I'm on the, um, Secretary of State's reporting dashboard. They've counted, uh, only 12% of the, uh, mail-in ballots, um, which is... And the total mail-in ballots is 2.5 million.

John Couvillon 15:08 Yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 15:09 Um, which is huge, right? And they've only counted 12% of the-

John Couvillon 15:11 It should be a majority of the vote, I would imagine. Yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 15:14 Yeah. And they've on- and they've only counted 24%... Actually, sorry, they've only (laughs) , yeah, they've only counted, uh, a handful of precincts at this point.

John Couvillon 15:25 Mm-hmm.

Jason Calacanis 15:26 Um, here's the thing-

John Couvillon 15:27 It only counts 24% of the-

Phil Hellmuth 15:28 A quarter, a quarter of the, a quarter of the precincts.

John Couvillon 15:29 Yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 15:30 Right? So-

David Sacks 15:30 Here, here is something I don't understand. So, uh, Nick, uh, Carlson from, uh... Was it, like, Business Insider? He just tweeted, um, a few minutes ago that North Carolina, Biden is ahead with 99% of the vote counted, and Biden has a less than .2% lead, but it's 9,000 votes.

John Couvillon 15:52 Well, that... I mean, that's-

David Sacks 15:54 That would be a huge problem for Trump.

Jason Calacanis 15:56 Networks are really-

John Couvillon 15:56 If he lost North Carolina, I th- Listen, I think a loss in any of those five states, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, or Texas, is probably fatal.

Phil Hellmuth 16:04 Shout out... By the way, guys, I just want to give a shout-out to Nathan, who's listening here all the way from Sri Lanka. He's listening. He just texted me.

Jason Calacanis 16:11 (laughs) Okay.

Phil Hellmuth 16:11 He just went-

16:12 By the way, guys, right now, the odds are 3:1 in the betting market. So I mean, obviously, the networks, I realize, are completely useless. I stopped watching them a long time ago-

David Sacks 16:21 (laughs)

Phil Hellmuth 16:21 ... when they had Biden way ahead in Florida and the odds were 10:1 against. Right now, if you want to bet, Trump is a 3:1 favorite. Um, and there's been billions of dollars bet in England, Australia, all over the world. He's a 3:1 favorite.

Jason Calacanis 16:35 Well, and, and-

Phil Hellmuth 16:35 It looks like it's real to me.

16:37 And just to, and just to, just to build your side of the case, uh, NASDAQ futures ripping, S&P futures falling, and the 10 and 30-year falling, renminbi ripping. These are all pro-Trump trades. Uh- And, and the euro, the euro collaps- the euro/dollar falling, uh, falling sharply once the market's turned towards Trump, the euro-

David Sacks 16:55 Well, here's what they're reacting to, is Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Trump is all up big time. Now, I mean, it's only-

Phil Hellmuth 17:01 But again, this, this... That lacks a very basic understanding of how county reporting is happening in these highly populous, you know... Or these sort e- sort of these, these, uh, bimodally distributed states where they have a bunch of suburban and rural vote that's fast to count. And the big places, for example, like, you know, you're not going to see Milwaukee and Green Bay report until probably close to midnight.

David Sacks 17:23 Right.

Phil Hellmuth 17:23 So you're getting another two hours.

David Sacks 17:24 So, so, so the question is why, why are the betting markets so pro-Trump then?

Phil Hellmuth 17:27 Yeah.

David Sacks 17:27 What do they know that we don't know?

Phil Hellmuth 17:29 I will say this. Let me say this, Jason. Uh, I mean, if you're... Like, they're... You're talking about billions of dollars, right? And so all you had to do is design a system to figure out how to calculate votes earlier and make a couple 100 million dollars, okay? These are the smartest people in the world. There's 100s of millions of dollars, billions of dollars at stake. They obviously do it 10 times better than any other site, than any other network. So this information... I mean, I give... A, a friend of mine posted, "Hey, I'm laying 2:1."

David Sacks 18:00 Wow.

Phil Hellmuth 18:00 on, uh, on Twitter-

David Sacks 18:01 Guys-

Phil Hellmuth 18:01 ... on Biden.

David Sacks 18:01 Guys-

Phil Hellmuth 18:02 My other friend bet $400,000 to $800,000.

David Sacks 18:05 Trump-

Phil Hellmuth 18:05 And now he looks-

David Sacks 18:06 Trump-

Phil Hellmuth 18:06 ... like a genius. Somebody knows-

David Sacks 18:08 Somebody just moved.

Phil Hellmuth 18:08 ... something that we don't know.

18:10 Well, Trump just, on Bovada, Trump just moved to minus 600.

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:14 Yeah, he just took Michigan.

David Sacks 18:15 Yeah, I just saw that.

Phil Hellmuth 18:15 Un- unbelievable. Minus six hundred-

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:17 It looks like he's, uh, it looks like he's ahead in Michigan.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 18:19 Huh.

Phil Hellmuth 18:20 But again-

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 18:21 Oh, wow.

Phil Hellmuth 18:21 ... we have to see Detroit. And there's, there's a bunch of places in Michigan. Let's, let's, let's-

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:26 I'm looking at the-

Phil Hellmuth 18:27 ... bathe-

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:27 I'm looking at the North... So here's the North Carolina Secretary of State dashboard and they're showing, uh, two thirds of the counties, and you can actually see by county when you go onto their, their dashboard, the, um, you know, Chamath, the larger counties are partially reported, most of the smaller counties are fully reported. Um, 63% total with, um, you know, Biden ahead by literally a thousand votes right now. A cro- 2.522 million to 2.521 million.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 18:58 Wow.

David Sacks 19:00 What percent re- reported is that? I mean-

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:03 Uh, it's 63% of the counties have completely reported, and so the remaining counties, if you look at the reporting status, the remaining counties that are partially reported, there's a mix of rural and some of the urban counties, you know, Durham's in there, partially reported. Uh, so there is a mix. It's not only-

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 19:23 D-Durham should be a Biden county. The Research Triangle is a-

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:27 Yep.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 19:27 ... upscale, well-educated professionals that I think are the, the backbone of the Democrats, uh, coalition in a state like North Carolina.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:37 Now, they have, um, absentee votes that are counted and they have so far counted 3.3 million absentee one-stop votes and a million votes by mail. But that's how many came in. It actually shows that only five mi-... Oh, I see. Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

David Sacks 19:57 Trump, Trump is now-

Jason Calacanis 19:58 Freebird-

David Sacks 19:58 ... ahead in Ohio by-

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:59 Two-thirds, two-thirds of the votes were absentee mail.

Jason Calacanis 20:01 Post the link into the Zoom chat so Nick can pull it up on the screen, please.

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:06 Yep.

Jason Calacanis 20:06 Um, I, I need to get an understanding of something very basic here for the audience who's not degenerate gamblers. Are... Is there a chance here, Phil and Chamath, gambling experts both, that people had put early money on Biden and are now covering or hedging some of those bets? Is that a possibility here?

Phil Hellmuth 20:27 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 20:28 Okay.

David Sacks 20:29 Yes.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 20:29 Jason, Jason, the line is minus a dollar, minus 410 on Pinnacle

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 20:33 right now. Let me just double-check that source.

Phil Hellmuth 20:35 So what, what Phil is saying, Jason, is like, yes, there's going to be a bunch of essentially covering. Now, that covering will swing the line. But I think what Phil is also saying is when a line moves this violently, literally what we've seen in the last 35 minutes, is both the equity markets, the currency markets, and the betting markets flip 180 degrees from where-

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 21:00 Correct.

Phil Hellmuth 21:00 ... they have been, not just all day, but frankly where they have been probably for the last few months. And-

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 21:06 That's what I was saying, Chamath, for three months straight, uh, right now, Biden has been a favorite anywhere between three to one favorite at one point all the way to maybe, you know, 50% favorite. And then all of a sudden today, the lowest I tho- saw was a $1.35, and I was kind of shocked. And the next thing you know, boom, Trump's a three to four to one favorite. So, a- a- and I'm looking at CNN and I'm looking at these networks and they're still, they still have Biden ahead and I'm like, "Wo- what is going on?"

Jason Calacanis 21:34 They're way behind.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 21:35 Tha- tha- that's, that's the next thing we need to, to take care of, Chamath. There's a business for you, is somehow we can d- deliver the right data on elections quickly. There you go, Saxon.

David Sacks 21:45 Yeah, well, I think the betting markets know something we don't know, because, um, Trump is just... Y- you know, if you look at, like, the live stream on Twitter or the New York Times or something, Trump just slightly took the lead in Ohio, b- but that's the state he's supposed to win. In North Carolina it looks like, with over 99% reporting, it looks like he lost by 9,000 votes.

Jason Calacanis 22:05 Is that what's giving, is giving-

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 22:05 By the way, a 9,000 vote margin would probably trigger an automatic recount of North Carolina.

Phil Hellmuth 22:10 Yeah, yeah.

David Sacks 22:10 And there's like 100,000 absentee ballots there. I don't know if those have been, been counted yet.

Jason Calacanis 22:15 Okay, so let me-

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 22:16 I think it's gonna po-

Jason Calacanis 22:17 ... let's pa- let's pause for one second on this, everybody. North Carolina is one of the four or five states Trump has to win-

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 22:24 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 22:24 ... in order to have a victory. Right, Michael?

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 22:26 I, I absolutely agree with that. Uh, he ha- he had to have those five, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, and Texas.

Jason Calacanis 22:31 Okay. So we have Florida he's got, now there's four left. One-

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 22:35 There's four left. Geor- Georgia's a very slow counting state. We really don't know. A- all of Atlanta could be out, for all we know. But-

Jason Calacanis 22:41 So we leave Georgia on the side. So now we got four-

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 22:43 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 22:43 ... states we can work with. North Carolina is in Biden's pocket by just a hair.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 22:50 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 22:50 That could change, and it would trigger a recount, which would take days to weeks.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 22:56 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 22:56 Now, there are three states. Let's go through them systematically one by one, Michael.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 23:00 Okay. Uh, Ohio, uh, was th- the biggest surprise of the night when Biden built an early lead there, although again, a bit of a blue mirage based upon, uh, the fact that the mail-in vote and the early vote came in so strong for the Democrats this year, uh, because they emphasized it and the Republicans kind of fought against it. Uh- Yeah, but Michael, Michael, with 49% of the vote in Ohio, okay, he had a m-... Right now, Biden had a massive lead and yet, yet-

Jason Calacanis 23:27 He had about a 400,000 vote lead would have to vote.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 23:28 Correct, and when you look at the betting odds, he was five to one underdog to win the state.

Jason Calacanis 23:32 Yes.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 23:33 So something doesn't add up there. And you can, you can say, all right, some of that is all the early voting went for Biden. We know that to be a fact.

Jason Calacanis 23:39 Yeah.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 23:39 But there's something else there.

Jason Calacanis 23:42 Okay, I'm just looking at the, uh, results for Ohio. We'll stay on Ohio for one more moment and then we have another guest who just jumped on. Ohio is currently showing Donald Trump with two point... Rounding it up, 2.4 million votes to 2.2 million, slightly rounding up for Joe Biden. 52% to 47% with 78% reporting. Does that mean we feel comfortable with Trump-... uh, winning Ohio at this point.

Phil Hellmuth 24:13 Unless all of Cleveland is outstanding, I would say that's a Trump state, yeah.

Jason Calacanis 24:18 Okay. We now have John Cohen on the line.

Phil Hellmuth 24:20 Yep.

Jason Calacanis 24:21 John is a, uh, member of the SurveyMonkey team. John-

Phil Hellmuth 24:26 Mm-hmm.

Jason Calacanis 24:26 ... welcome to the All In Pod. Can you hear us?

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 24:28 Thank you so much. I, I, I'm sorry, I didn't hear what was going on. I don't, I don't know how much you've been disparaging pollsters so far, um, so-

Phil Hellmuth 24:35 (laughs)

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 24:35 ... let me know what I'm coming into.

Phil Hellmuth 24:36 Well, we were waiting for you. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 24:37 We were waiting for you-

Phil Hellmuth 24:38 Okay. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 24:38 ... to get here. Tell us, as we start, what your prediction was earlier today.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 24:45 Well, we're very clear to say that we're doing measurements, not predictions.

Jason Calacanis 24:49 Okay.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 24:49 That said, the measurements that we are doing clearly pointed to Biden advantages across the board. But we didn't have... We, so far we have no surprises. You know, we had Florida had been Trump plus two, basically all week, going to dead even, um, you know, uh, coming into Election Day itself. We don't know where the final votes will be. S- uh, most analysts think that it's in Trump's camp. It may end up there, but it's super close. We had Georgia close, we had North Carolina close. Although... and North Carolina had been closing. It had been a big Biden lead. It was down to under two points, um, with the Senate, you know, kind of even closer than that in some of our data. So, you know, kind of so far there's no obvious surprise here, like, "Damn, the polls were really wrong." Certainly ours. You know, it's ear- it's early though. We're not declaring victory on those. Obviously, there's a lot to watch, but nothing really to surprise, um, you know, us given the numbers so far.

Jason Calacanis 25:39 What about Ohio-

Phil Hellmuth 25:40 John-

Jason Calacanis 25:40 ... and Georgia?

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 25:41 So we had Ohio-

Phil Hellmuth 25:42 ... and then some authority.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 25:42 ... pretty consistently in Trump's camp. We had him up four, so it's trending that way now. We had it as close as two points for Trump. I mean, again, I haven't s- mentioned the word margin of error. That's in my professional, uh, obligation and duty to mention it. It's around three points, I believe, two and a half in Ohio, so close, but we always had it in Trump's camp. Again, Biden, that wasn't part of Biden's, you know, any of the past victory that their campaign was counting on. So, you know, no big deal. But we went from having a early night to now we're, we're su- for sure in for a really late night here.

Phil Hellmuth 26:15 John, um, let me ask you the, one of the most basic questions that I've had, which is, what did we learn from 2016? And tell me, what exactly did people try to fix? Like, what was the thing that everybody got wrong, and what changed?

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 26:30 Well, the biggest thing that polls fixed was how they adjust their polls by education. What we see in polling, no matter how they're conducted, whether online as we do at SurveyMonkey, or still on the telephone, which most media pollsters do, is you get people who, with more formal education to answer those surveys, in far greater proportions than you do people with lower education. So the biggest thing you gotta do, and we'll... look, we always did it, so we weren't in the, among the state pollsters who kind of failed, I think, um, you know, kind of w- negligently to a- a- adjust by, um, education at all. We always adjusted by education, but we, what we failed to notice in 2016 was, there was an increasing gap between those with post-graduate degrees and those with BAs. They've always been both a pro-Democratic group, but the gap in 2016 was abnormally large. A fix to our polls, which I should just point out, weren't, you know, kind of, were actually standouts in the, in the Upper Midwest, in terms of showing it as a close race, not clear Clinton victories. We broke apart post-grads and grads into two distinct categories, and that released, kind of, w- about a point and a half of unforced air, uh, in our polling from 2016. So that's fixed. We've used it to good effect. Again, this time around, we weren't showing what all the other, um, national polls were showing. We've had this between a four and six point national lead. Again, we'll get quickly into why national results don't matter, but you all know that all too well. Everyone knows that all too well. But we've had it kind of more narrow, and that plays out in the states that I mentioned. We had Florida tied, not a four point Biden, 5.5 advantage elsewhere, you know? But we'll see how it plays out in the Midwest. We also had Wisconsin. What was our final margin there? I think it was, you know, kind of nine and, 9.5 points, not the 17 points that you saw from my former colleagues at The Washington Post and ABC News. So we've always had it a little bit tighter, but it, again, it plays to how it's gonna play out in these states. And so far, no surprises, but the night is early and I'm, I have a healthy dose of pollster's paranoia. Jamal, I don't know if that answered your question well enough, but that was the main thing people did.

Phil Hellmuth 28:25 I- it's, it's really helpful, but, and now take off your pollster measurer, you know, chief research officer hat for a second, and put on just the American hat. Um, what does it mean when, you know, we had effectively a repudiation of the establishment in 2016, and despite everything that's happened over the last four years, we may be on the brink of another repudiation again. If you, you know, where you're there to measure the pulse of what's going on, but less in sort of measurement speak and just more in just plain American English speak, John, what, like, what's going on-

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 29:03 Yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 29:03 ... if this happens again?

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 29:06 So you're, you're absolutely right. There's something major. I would also like to caveat it. We are looking once again at, if Trump wins, it's because of the electoral college. Like, he is going to lose the popular vote. There's still far more Americans and American voters who voted today and, you know, kind of over the past several weeks, who would prefer Joe Biden to be president. So again, we can't characterize with a broad brush the American voting population, when this is about, effectively, I hate to call it a quirk, but this is about our system of, of vote tallying. And the president, you know, but to pull back your point about kind of, there is something major here. The fact that many people, you know, some of us might be friends with can't understand why this isn't a 100 to 0 race, fail to understand that, you know, the president's base isn't small. It is, you know, we've had it 44 to 46% approving of his job performance for many years now. Like, he has a completely durable, solid floor. He also has a high ceiling, right? So he was never gonna win the popular vote this time around, but he had a chance at that electoral, you know, squeaking out another electoral college win because he's been so stable. You know, this is a president who, you know, kind of, "Oh, Trump now ahead in NC." Thank you for, uh, the chat window. So I think you're right that we need to understand more about what is the componentry of that 45% that they would support Trump when the other 55% are so dead set against him and see it as something really wrong with the country.So we saw two thirds-

Phil Hellmuth 30:31 Well, what are, I mean-

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 30:31 ... of the country-

David Sacks 30:32 Oh, no, go ahead.

Phil Hellmuth 30:33 No, I, I, what, what have you guys done to though understand the people that are voting for Trump better? Because I think that they are protesting, and they're protesting a lot, and I think that, you know, if we didn't listen to them in '16, I think it's almost criminal to not listen to them in 2020. So what are they, what are they saying? What are they rejecting, or what is it that they want?

David Sacks 31:00 Yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 31:00 Because at the end of the day, you know, I think his incompetence can't really be debated, competence versus incompetence. I think what we can debate is he's a vessel, and in that, I think that it's incredibly important what's happening, irrespective of what happens today, because we were supposed to walk into a landslide. We're not. As you said, we're gonna be in a nail-biter. What i- what are, what are they using him as a vessel to communicate to everybody else?

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 31:25 That's a really good question. I mean, some of that will depend on, you know, a closer analysis of the surveys. Ours, where we talked to more than a million voters, and the exit polls that are being conducted by two separate organizations today about what's the, what are the storylines that come out of the election? You know, one of the things that's being reported early is there's a much tighter Hispanic vote in Florida than many early polls, you know, predicted. How will that play out as we start to get votes, you know, coming out in Texas? How will those be in Arizona? Is Arizona looking positively for, um, Biden and Mark Kelly in the Senate, you know, in Arizona? You know, kind of is it, is it really Hispanic votes that are driving some Trump strength in these states? Or, you know, kind of is it the obsession that the news media's had for the past four years around the kind of Trump middle-aged white male voter with less than college education who has been displaced by, you know, technological and industrial trends over the past 20 years? I think it's gonna depend on what that voting coalition looks like for Trump, and it's more diverse than I think we've been focusing on for four years.

Phil Hellmuth 32:22 I think you're- I think you're saying an incredibly important thing. I think that that was a ruse, and I've, I've always thought that that was bullshit. It's not some under-educated rube that's running around voting for this guy. Um, I think that there are-

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 32:33 You know, of course-

Phil Hellmuth 32:34 ... there are people up and down the, the age spectrum, the socioeconomic spectrum, and this is what I mean by he has become a vessel for so many different messages. And I think we really have to start figuring out what the hell these messages actually mean because, um, if Biden loses, to your point, maybe in Florida, it's a repudiation of socialism. Okay. But in Pennsylvania, it's gonna be something else. In Michigan, it's gonna be something else. In Ohio, it's going to be something else for him to keep winning, right? Um, and, and I just don't think that there's a consistent idea, and it's very dismissive to say that... I'm not saying you are, but I'm saying, you know, that idea that it was, um, an out of work ex-factory worker, you know, in rural Ohio that was protesting. This is going to be much bigger than that because even if Biden wins the popular vote, until we figure out how to rebanc- balance the electoral college (laughs) in a completely, you know, new way or just get rid of it all together, um, we're gonna have to live with understanding how some folks in these extremely pivotal states, um, are pushing back. Are they pushing back on political correctness? You know, that's one thing-

David Sacks 33:46 Yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 33:46 ... that I've always thought. I think that there's a huge vote here against, um-

David Sacks 33:51 Cancel culture.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 33:52 Yeah, so

David Friedberg 33:52 Cancel culture-

David Sacks 33:53 So let's-

David Friedberg 33:53 ... all of that stuff.

David Sacks 33:54 Absolutely.

Phil Hellmuth 33:55 Yeah, uh-

David Sacks 33:55 Absolutely. There's no doubt-

John Couvillon 33:56 Cancel culture and, and lockdowns. I think those are the under-reported, uh-

Guest (farmer / lockdown-impact commentator, name not clearly stated) 34:00 Lockdowns are the, I think, the biggest, one of the biggest drivers for-

David Sacks 34:03 So-

Phil Hellmuth 34:04 No, go ahead, John. Go ahead. John, go ahead.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 34:05 No, I was gonna say, one of the components here that we have to pay a lot of attention to is gender. Right? Kind of, you know, the storyline for a long time, and, and when you think about, you know, kind of Republican and Democratic politics, is that, you know, when you talk about Black voters and Hispanic voters, talking about them as if they're monoliths. What we have seen consistently over the course of the year is that Trump does exte- much better among Black men and Hispanic men than he does among Black women and Latinas. And that is just kind of like, you know, whereas Black women are 95/5, you know, he nears 20% among Black men. It blends into the, what we've, the 90/10-

David Sacks 34:39 100%. Here he is.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 34:40 ... we've always seen.

Phil Hellmuth 34:40 There's a real difference there.

David Sacks 34:40 Look, but I, but I, look, the- these are measurements. These, these are measurements.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 34:44 Absolutely.

David Sacks 34:44 I don't think they're telling you the whys of anything, and, um, I think for the whys-

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 34:49 Yeah.

David Sacks 34:49 ... you have to go a lot deeper. I mean, first of all, let's, let's talk about the lockdown issue. Can we just pull up that tweet, Nick? I mean, so this is what I said back in May. This was, like, months ago, before the election even hit, you know, w- which is, "If the 'woke' left insists on permanent lockdowns, Trump will have an issue that supersedes the incompetence of COVID response." 'Cause I think, you know, we all, we all agree on that. Which is whether our lives and livelihoods belong to politicians to meter out in dribs and drabs as they see fit. And this was back when Elon was being shut out of his factory in Fremont, and then there was this hairdresser in ch- uh, named Shelley Luther in Texas who was basically, um, put on trial for opening up her hair salon, and the, the judge wanted her to, to, to grovel and beg for forgiveness. And this was the beginning of the rebellion over lockdowns, and it was so obvious back then that lockdowns weren't gonna fly. They weren't sustainable. They were too politically unpopular. Um, they weren't gonna work, and, and, and by the way, if it was something, a cause that the left agreed with, like, you know, a BLM rally or something like that, then you were allowed to do it, you know? It was that whole standard around, um, you know, doing things that were essential. And so, you know, th- this insistence on lockdowns, even after the public had really repudiated them, I think was a major issue for, for Trump. And it was crazy to me that Biden was still insisting on lockdowns, you know, still. I mean, that is his official position. Um, I, I don't think it's the only reason why-

Phil Hellmuth 36:25 Yeah.

David Sacks 36:25 ... he's in trouble right now, but I think it's a big one.

John Couvillon 36:27 I think if he, i- if Trump breaches the blue wall again, of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, lockdowns is the biggest reason why because those are three states-

Guest (farmer / lockdown-impact commentator, name not clearly stated) 36:35 Yeah.

John Couvillon 36:36 ... that had extensive, and still have, uh, extensive lockdowns.

Guest (farmer / lockdown-impact commentator, name not clearly stated) 36:39 It hurts, it hurts people. I'll, here-

David Sacks 36:41 Yeah.

Guest (farmer / lockdown-impact commentator, name not clearly stated) 36:41 ... I'll read you a tweet, and I won't name who it's from. It's from a farmer.

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:47 ... in, um, in the Corn Belt who's well followed on Twitter. Believe it or not, there's a whole (laughs) t- uh, ag Twitter community. And he says, "Well, it's the day. Does this country turn down the road to be like Venezuela or do we continue on the road of capitalism?" And, um, he's had this acute, um, feeling that he's kind of, uh, vocalized on Twitter for, for months now on how painful the lock- uh, lockdowns have been on him and his family and his business and on the community. And, uh, it just feels like overreach to a lot of people, that the recognition that, um, you know, the left might be using to justify the decision is just not there. That the, the impact, the near term impact that folks are feeling is what's there. And that's-

Phil Hellmuth 37:27 Mm-hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:27 ... driving a lot of behavior right now.

Phil Hellmuth 37:29 Boys, all markets are now up. Everything is green. Dow Futures-

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 37:33 (laughs)

Phil Hellmuth 37:34 ... S&P 500 Futures, Nasdaq Futures. (laughs) Oil is up. Gold is down. And-

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:39 And come on, there were some guys that made some heavy bets against the dollar going into this, thinking we were gonna have massive inflation with Biden policy coming up. And, um, some big fund managers that went really big on, uh, on shorting the dollar this last week. Um, and the dollar's up right now.

Phil Hellmuth 37:54 Yeah, the dollar's up right now, yeah.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 37:54 Well, sticking-

David Sacks 37:55 By the- by the way, we should, we should make sure at some point tonight to talk about these very important Senate races, because it's not just Trump versus Biden. Uh, there's also a bunch of Senate races-

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:05 John Hickenlooper, Hickenlooper won in Colorado.

David Sacks 38:07 Hickenlooper won in Colorado. But there have been some... You know, some of the Republicans who look to be in big trouble, like Lindsey Graham, have, uh, have pulled it out and have won. And, um, so it's looking like the Senate is still very much in play. I- I'd say as big a favorite as Biden was, the, uh, Senate shifting t- uh, from Republican to Democrat, well, I'd say that was considered as equally big a favorite. And that, that may not happen now. So we should make sure to talk about that at some point.

Phil Hellmuth 38:36 North Carolina right now is 49.8% to 49% for Biden, 2.6 million versus 2.58. Ohio is at 2.4 to 2.2. 51-

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 38:49 Okay.

Phil Hellmuth 38:50 52% to 47% Trump is beating Biden. I, um, I have a question for Jon Cohen. John, um, let's go back to, um, sort of your understanding as you've been measuring different trends. Have you measured, um, people's sympathy towards lockdowns on a state-by-state level? And then second question is, have you measured people's sympathy to cancel culture at a state-by-state level? And by the way, you're on mute, so if you wanna just take yourself off real quick.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 39:19 Yeah, thank you. We have- we have not done anything on cancel culture. We've done a lot on the coronavirus. We've been tracking that actually in three countries since, uh, mid-February, and we have a state-by-state look. And what's interesting is we asked the question, like, "Is this primarily an economic issue or primarily a he- health issue?" And those two have been running neck and neck. But health, you know, kind of more people on average say it's a health issue than an economic one. Trump, with Trump supporters overwhelmingly saying that the crisis is one that's financial, not health-related. So there's always been that. But it's been like a 45, 55 gap there. So we've been measuring it state by state. But there's a solid core of people, and it gets to David's point about why, what are they focused on? What is the- what is affecting them and their, you know, pocketbooks? It is the, you know, lockdowns and the kind of clamping down, and what is this economic crisis, not a healthcare one, even though that's what we all say that they should follow. I mean, in the news media.

Phil Hellmuth 40:13 There was a- there was a- there was a fantastic line that the Democrats coined which essentially said something to the tune, Saxypoo, you'll tell me if I get this wrong, but it was, "Socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the- for the rest of us," is essentially sort of their grab bag phrase for, um, for this election cycle, and sort of to frame a lot of policies. But when you have in these states, again, if we say this cuts along socioeconomic lines but then maybe bleeds into, um, college and even, you know, uh, graduate level educated folks, is there a vote here for, um, rugged individualism and just leave me the fuck alone?

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 40:56 There certainly could be. I wanna go back to what David said about measuring versus the why. 'Cause I mentioned gender to point out a big difference that we're seeing across racial groups, across the levels of education. But I'm, you know... We're s- we're polling every day, so you guys have the right why question, you know, send it to me, you know? Send it to Xander. We'll- we'll- we'll ask it. You know, we polled 9,000 people today on, you know, kind of their willingness to accept the results. And so we'll be putting that out, you know, tomorrow. We have a, we'll have an exit poll running, uh, every day from here on, to-

Phil Hellmuth 41:25 Mm-hmm.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 41:25 ... certainly till we get a result. So if you have the question you wanna ask, send it along. We'll- we'll- we'll get you the data at the state level.

Phil Hellmuth 41:31 All right, John, we very much appreciate you coming on the pod. And, uh, we will be checking SurveyMonkey's amazing data as we go. Um, I'm gonna switch now and just get people-

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 41:41 No problem.

Phil Hellmuth 41:42 ... updated. John, John, thank- John, thank you. And Xander, thanks for do- for hooking that up.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 41:45 You're welcome.

Phil Hellmuth 41:45 Thanks, John.

J. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description) 41:46 Thanks, guys.

David Sacks 41:46 Thank you.

Phil Hellmuth 41:47 A- and we'll have some more bestie guesties coming up, some fan favorites from the Twitter and the poker

Phil Hellmuth 41:51 group. I just wanna point out right now that it's very interesting to see that Fox has Biden at 129 electoral votes and Trump at 109. And, um, some of the other networks have it much lower. How do the networks make these decisions of when to call, uh, a state? Because it's too early, according to many, to call Florida, but we're sitting here with a pretty clear understanding of where Florida's at. Does anybody have any thoughts on that, of w-

John Couvillon 42:25 Well, I think they're erring on the side of extreme caution because of the strange year that it is and the fact that there is all this... We had 100, over 100 million votes banked early through the mail or through early per- in-person voting. And-... nobody sure how many more mail ballots, they're, uh, according to one site I looked at, there were still 27 million ballots outstanding. Now, some of those are redundant ballots, like, uh, David's father-in-law who got th- three ballots in the mail (laughs) in Pennsylvania, a- and a lot of those are probably going in the trash. But there could be am- another 5 to 10 million of those to come in that are postmarked by today. Many states will accept them after the election, as long as they're postmarked by election day. So, they're probably being very, very careful that they don't make a premature call. Of course, they all have PTSD about what happened in 2000 when they first prematurely called Florida for Al Gore-

Jason Calacanis 43:18 Mm-hmm.

John Couvillon 43:18 ... then prematurely called it for George W. Bush, and we spent the next 37 days trying to figure out what the hell happened in Florida. So, uh, I think they're gonna err on the side of extreme caution across the board. Although, uh, I feel like the margin in Florida at this point is insurmountable.

Jason Calacanis 43:34 It feels insurmountable now, right? That 3,000 or 400,000 votes. Right.

David Sacks 43:37 Florida, Florida's over. Florida's over. It's about, now it's about

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 43:41 Yeah.

David Sacks 43:41 ... and it's about Ohio. By the way, the betting markets have just moved again big time. So, Donald Trump was at minus 600, now he's minus 250 on Bovada. Phil, what do you think about that?

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 43:51 D.A. is snapping back. I will say, let me, let me address what Jake, Jason was talking about a s- few seconds ago, and that's that, you know, basically Florida, even The New York Times had them at, at 6:00 PM, at 95% to go to Trump. At 95%. That was The New York Times site, my wife and I looked it up. And the betting odds had him at, at over 10 to 1. This was at 5:30, this was two hours ago, so I mean, I just think there's a huge inefficiency with, with the way the news is ... I think it was over as soon as the Miami Day dump showed that Biden only won the early vote by nine points. I mean-

David Sacks 44:24 Yeah.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 44:24 ... Hillary won it by 29 in 2016, and she lost the state, so...

Jason Calacanis 44:31 How much of this do we think has to do with tax policy? People in Florida are retiring. We have the AOC gang. We have-

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 44:41 Well, come on Jason-

Jason Calacanis 44:42 ... Elizabeth Warren.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 44:43 ... Trump moved to Florida, it's his beloved state, he has a, a, a place there...

Jason Calacanis 44:47 Okay, so, so hometown favorite Mar-a-Lago, I get that. But you have so many retirees and we, we have this bifurcation of how taxes should work in the United States, so I just wanna open that up for the entire group to discuss, of are, are we seeing old people, are we seeing people who are concerned about taxes? Because we have had a flight in the last couple of years of people from high tax states to low tax states. Is this about taxes, do you think? Let's start with you, Friedberg.

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:18 No- no one wants to pay taxes. The fuck kind of (laughs) like, no one's gonna raise their hand and say, "I want to pay taxes."

Jason Calacanis 45:23 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:24 (laughs)

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 45:24 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 45:25 But I mean-

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:26 Fuck taxes.

Jason Calacanis 45:26 ... there, there's a moment where taxes don't matter.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 45:28 Who, who doesn't think that?

David Sacks 45:29 Well, but Romney-

Jason Calacanis 45:30 If, if you're, no, but if you're-

David Sacks 45:30 ... Romney, Romney was in favor of taxes, and he, you know, he, he didn't win a- any, any of these elections like the way that, that Trump looks like he's going to. I think that tr- the, the traditional Republican messages, message of taxes is sort of necessary, but not sufficient. Um, Trump obviously brought a whole set of issues that previous Republicans hadn't, um, ha- hadn't brought. And I think that you, I think you have to look at 2016 separately from 2020. And so starting with 2016, I think the big issue that Trump, that no Republican really had ever figured out, except maybe Pat Buchanan 20 years ago, was the trade issue with China. You know, we forget that in the 1970s, when the great Chinese economic reformer, Deng Xiaoping, decided to open up the Chinese economy, the average Chinese was making $2 a day. And today, their economy is, is roughly the size of the US. Now, you know, what, what was the reason for that? Well, we had a bipartisan consensus in this country for 30 or 40 years on the part of both Clintons and both Bushes, that we should, you know, open them, we should welcome them with open arms. And we opened up our market to Chinese products, we brought them into the World Trade Organization-

Jason Calacanis 46:49 And it was, it was more than that.

David Sacks 46:49 ... and then offend. But, but, but that was the start, that was the start of, that was the, the killer app or the killer issue that Trump figured out, and that's what shattered the blue firewall in those Rust Belt states. I mean, if you're gonna try and figure out, going back to 2016, why Trump won, you have to explain why he won Michigan, Wisconsin-

Jason Calacanis 47:07 So you're saying-

David Sacks 47:08 ... Pennsylvania.

Jason Calacanis 47:08 ... our jobs, they took our jobs. But what I'm saying is-

David Sacks 47:10 The jobs, the manufacturing jobs went out, and the fentanyl came in. I mean, that's his argument.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 47:15 Yep.

David Sacks 47:15 And, um, that was a killer argument. I mean, and the proof is in the pudding. It's, and the proof is that he won these states that Hillary thought were so in the bag that she didn't even bother to campaign there. Uh, that was-

Jason Calacanis 47:27 So now let's look-

David Sacks 47:27 ... the big surprise.

Jason Calacanis 47:28 ... at 2020-

David Sacks 47:29 Right.

Jason Calacanis 47:29 ... and the issue of taxes.

David Sacks 47:31 Well, no, no, no, no, no.

Jason Calacanis 47:32 Because we are fearing-

David Sacks 47:32 No, let me, let me explain what's going on in 2020. In my opinion, okay? This is not a partisan explanation.

Jason Calacanis 47:37 Yes.

David Sacks 47:37 But I think that after the loss in 2016, look, i- in business, we know that when you lose, when you make a mistake, you make a bad investment, or the company does something wrong, you analyze what you did wrong, right? And then you figure out what changes to make. The Democrat party did not do that. What did they do? They blamed Facebook, they blamed it on Russian interference. They never really analyzed why they lost these Rust Belt states and made changes. Instead, what they began was this hysterical denunciation of Trump. Um, you had this sort of, um, you know, you sort of had this, this sort of, um, you know, media culture, uh, tech, uh, industrial complex who decided that Trump was a, an illegitimate president. And you know, and so what they did is they went all in on impeachment, they went all in on this Russia stuff. And in the process, they created this enormous backlash. And I think that 2020, if 2016 was an economic repudiation of the elites, 2020 is a cultural repudiation of the elites. That is the big issue in 2020.

Jonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain) 48:45 Yeah, I, uh, I tend to, I tend to... I'm sympathetic to David's view. I don't completely agree with all of it, but, um, just to build on something you said, I don't think, Jason, this has anything to do with taxes. Um, I think that in Florida-

Phil Hellmuth 49:00 ... the- if we, if we end up really getting to the bottom of what happened, I think there's a lot of people, um, older people that probably lived through some version of McCarthyism, and immigrants who actually fled really shitty totalitarian countries, who are like, "You wanna do what? Here?" Um, and I think that there was a lot of people that basically are giving a very clear signal, which is, "I'm a Democrat, but if you push me to the brink and talk about a socialized nanny state, I'm gonna vote Republican." So, to David's point-

John Couvillon 49:33 Totally, totally agree.

Phil Hellmuth 49:34 ... t- to David's point, if there was an economic repudiation of sort of traditional globalism in 2016, and Donald Trump ends up carrying the day in today, then it's a repudiation of sort of these cultural manifestos and norms that we're s- swinging to. Now, the- the answer to that may be to say, change the electoral college because it doesn't represent the majority or the plurality of Americans. I hear that. But in the same way that, you know, we've said for years now that the Republicans will have to change to win the electoral college, or to change to win what's evolving in terms of, um, people's perceptions on social policy. Uh, it may actually be the Democrats that also have to change if this doesn't swing hard back in Biden's favor.

John Couvillon 50:23 So, a- and, Chamath, when you, when you made that statement, I think what's particularly prescient is the Democrats believed that because of the demographic shift from White Americans to people of color, Latinos, Black Americans, that they were just going to win, all of them.

Phil Hellmuth 50:41 Well, this is, this is the problem-

John Couvillon 50:42 They assumed that

John Couvillon 50:43 if they were-

Phil Hellmuth 50:44 ... with the stupidity-

John Couvillon 50:44 Yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 50:44 ... this is the problem with the stupidity of the establishment. Like, if you take a thousand brown people and put us in a room, what I will tell you is, just in case, here's a fucking memo for all you White people out there, we're not all the goddamn same. Okay? And if you put a thousand Black people, here's the memo now for the Democrats and the Republicans, they're not all the same. You can take a thousand Hispanics and it turns out they're not all the same. So, maybe, you know, you could take a thousand straight people, a thousand gay people, they're- we're not all the fucking same. So, maybe what this means is that we've moved past color, and now ideology and social policy and economic and monetary and fiscal, all of these things that the totality of how a rational, well-developed person makes a decision, maybe that's at hand. And before, if we historically only thought, you know, older White men and White women could do it, maybe now it actually applies independent of color and gender.

John Couvillon 51:45 Yeah, I absolutely agree with that, and I would add to that, that, um, uh, if, if Trump's victory in 2016 laid waste to the Republican establishment, if he wins again tonight, it will lay waste to the Democratic establishment. And the theory of the case that they've had for 20 years, this sort of, uh, chair, uh, emerging Democratic majority case that they just had to sit back and let demography become destiny, and they could just, uh, graft an identity politics onto the same neo-liberal economic agenda they've been pushing since the late-1980s, and it would all just somehow magically produce, um, m- majority results in the country. They are gonna have to go back to the drawing board, and, and I think get more populist themselves, and come up with some kind of version of politics that is-

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:33 Isn't it, isn't it-

John Couvillon 52:33 ... more in the Bernie mold. It's go- it needs to be left but not woke.

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:37 Isn't it gonna be socialism?

John Couvillon 52:38 It's- it probably is gonna be socialism, but it's-

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:40 'Cause I mean, that's, that's-

John Couvillon 52:41 ... but it needs to not be-

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:41 ... like if you, if you lay waste to the center, you know, you're left... (laughs) Like, I mean, that's basically what happened-

Phil Hellmuth 52:46 Well, I'm gonna-

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:47 ... 2016 with the Republicans, and now if you're saying the same is gonna happen with the Democrats, this time around you're gonna have AOC running for president in four years. And-

Phil Hellmuth 52:55 I mean, that-

John Couvillon 52:55 She won't be the right brand though, because she's woke.

Phil Hellmuth 52:58 Guys, there's two things I think.

John Couvillon 52:59 You need a Sherrod Brown, you don't need a AOC.

Phil Hellmuth 53:03 We need a charismatic Democratic candidate, someone with a lot of energy-

John Couvillon 53:05 Somehow Sherrod Brown keeps getting elected in, in increasingly red Ohio as a old school, gravely voiced, Irish Labor Democrat. And somehow Bernie ignited a movement as a very old school, uh, gravely voiced, uh, Jewish Democrat, uh, neither of whom gave a damn about identity politics really. They were c- principally concerned with inequality and, uh, income redistribution.

Phil Hellmuth 53:30 I, uh, I wanna, I wanna take up on what-

John Couvillon 53:32 I don't want to see that happen, but I think that's the only path forward for the Democrats.

Chamath Palihapitiya 53:34 Hold on. Let's- let me go to Phil, because Phil had something he wants to add there. And then we'll go to you, Chamath.

Phil Hellmuth 53:39 Yeah, I wanna say that we needed, for the Democrats, and, uh, they just needed a, I think they needed a very, they needed a charismatic, powerful leader with a lot of charisma. I mean, I know that, you know, the... I was hanging out with one of the Trump guys that was with him on the plane in the 2016 election, he said that, you know, he outworked Hillary. There's no doubt that he outworked Biden. I mean, this guy is going to seven rallies a day, um, showing up with a ton of energy, and he has, you know, like him or not, he has a lot of charisma. Also, I can't help but think that you're talking about re- re- repidi- repid- repudiating, sorry, I'm getting that word wrong. Um, to me, this is all about, I think a lot of people are really scared of socialism, okay? And I think it's just like, even the young people that, you know, even the young people, you know, who say that they love it, they're looking at their path to the future. And, and with- and, you know, they can, they can still do great things. There's no doubt you can still be a 20-year-old and, and make a billion dollars by the time you're 30 or 40. And I think with socialism, that goes away.

54:44 I think that, um... Look, I, uh, I- I think if Trump does win, um, I don't think what it means is that you need a s- a, a person that's at the extreme left to win. I actually counterintuitively would say the op- the opposite, which is that you need just a more credible centered person. Now-That may only be possible if the Democratic Party cleaves in two. And the reality is, the Republicans may actually quasi-cleave in two independent of whether Trump wins or not anyways. Um, and we'll see, as David said, how some of these Senate seats break, because if that goes in a different direction, you know, for example, if Trump wins but we have, you know, a Democratic tie in the Senate, maybe that's not possible. Um, but, um, I think that would say a lot around, um, the need for pragmatic but more youthful leadership.

Phil Hellmuth 55:41 Uh-

Jason Calacanis 55:41 Okay, I want to go around the horn right now. What is your gut telling me? Who is going to win given what we know right now? Everybody give it a thought. Uh, when you're ready, look into the camera and I will call on you. Michael, you're looking into the camera.

John Couvillon 55:55 Okay. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 55:55 Who's gonna win? If you had to pick one right now, Michael, give us your best guess for The This Is War All In Podcast. You have a place to bet.

John Couvillon 56:00 Um, can you spot me the winner of the race down in North Carolina because that would tell me a lot. But, uh, uh, I increasingly think Trump is going to win.

Jason Calacanis 56:08 Okay. Phil, you're looking in the camera. Who do you think is gonna win?

Phil Hellmuth 56:11 We've seen this movie before, um, except that Hillary was actually a five to one favorite last time. And I watched these numbers go straight up and now I'm watching the same thing. It seems like... Although I will say this, uh, you know, Sax has been posting some stuff within our channel about the numbers popping up and down. I'm getting texts and they are popping up and down, but still the lowest I've seen is two point five to one, I think, Trump wins.

Jason Calacanis 56:34 Trump wins. Who do you got, Sax?

David Sacks 56:37 Well, I'm gonna assume the betting markets know something. Um, I'm still a little bit unclear on, on North Carolina, um, because I saw some tweets that Biden had won it by a few thousand votes. But the, um, the, the North Carolina website is showing, um, that actually Trump's ahead by like 70,000 votes, so I'm not sure who to believe. Um, and, uh-

Jason Calacanis 57:03 Gotta pick one.

Phil Hellmuth 57:04 (laughs) Take somebody, Sax. Take somebody.

David Sacks 57:04 Well, yeah, I mean, look, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with what the betting markets are saying, which is Trump. And, um, you know, I thought that he... I thought he had a much better shot than the polls were reflecting, and then that's what it was looking like.

Jason Calacanis 57:17 What do you got, Friedberg?

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:21 Donald Trump took on coronavirus for us. He killed it. He is our true leader and he will prevail here in the United States of America tonight. At least the betting markets are telling me, and the treasury markets, and the S&P futures are telling me (laughs) that Donald Trump's gonna win. But I do think that the fact that this guy has never conceded defeat to anything in his life gives him a huge leg up. And he, uh, war- You know, he's, he is like Steve Jobs, he warps reality. And he tells everyone, "I am going to win. I have killed coronavirus." And it happens.

David Sacks 57:57 (laughs) Wait, like a Jedi knight? It's so interesting.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:59 Like a Jedi. Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 58:01 All right, Chamath-

Phil Hellmuth 58:02 I will win.

Jason Calacanis 58:02 ... four of four so far picking Trump at-

Phil Hellmuth 58:04 I will win.

Jason Calacanis 58:05 ... uh, exactly 7:45 PM California time. Chamath, who do you have at this point if you had to shove your chips all in?

Phil Hellmuth 58:13 Uh, I still think the path is, um, um, uh, I, um, I think it's Biden. And I have the advantage of some information, which is that, uh, they just announced, breaking news, they aren't counting mail-in votes in Philadelphia tonight.

Jason Calacanis 58:34 And I, uh, am going with Biden.

Phil Hellmuth 58:36 So, so we don't know, uh, Pennsylvania tonight. So if it's down to a few thousand votes, Philly, I think, is gonna break... I think you can count that as three or 400,000 votes. Uh, and if-

John Couvillon 58:50 Oh, it should be, it should be 500,000. It should be 500,000.

Phil Hellmuth 58:53 Well then 500,000 would carry the state for Joe Biden.

Chamath Palihapitiya 58:56 Yeah, they've, they've, they've counted to 100,000, so they've got-

Phil Hellmuth 58:59 So I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick with Biden here because I think that, uh, that Philadelphia vote count is, uh, crucial. It turns out that it may c- it may come down to Philly, which by the way-

John Couvillon 59:10 One thing I... Okay.

Phil Hellmuth 59:11 What an incredibly poignant place for the election to be won and lost.

John Couvillon 59:16 (laughs) . The city of underdogs, the city of Rocky. Uh, I, I think we can safely say that Biden is gonna win the popular vote and it might be by four points, five points, which means that there is a discrepancy, uh, between the popular vote and Electoral College. We're gonna hear a lot about that, uh, because, uh-

Jason Calacanis 59:33 I, I am gonna go with Biden-

Phil Hellmuth 59:35 Jason.

Jason Calacanis 59:35 ... because my heart is gonna be so broken if this country picks this sociopath to run it for another four years after his absolute failure to conten- to do even the most modest things to battle coronavirus. And the strife he has caused between Americans and his personal style is so heartbreaking to me that I don't know that I can believe in America if they put this absolutely sociopathic person who has the least amount of character of any other human being anybody on this call has ever met in their lives. It would be a complete, absolute, utter disgrace if he makes it into office for a second term. And it's an existential problem-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:00:27 Jason, what do you really think?

Phil Hellmuth 1:00:27 Sax, are you gonna respond to that, Sax?

Jason Calacanis 1:00:28 ... for the entire-

David Sacks 1:00:28 Well, look, I mean, the American people-

Jason Calacanis 1:00:30 It's an existential threat. Hold on. It's an existential threat-

Phil Hellmuth 1:00:33 Is he still going?

Jason Calacanis 1:00:35 ... to the entire planet and humanity and democracy across the world if this country puts that maniac into office again for four goddamn fucking more years.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:00:44 I'll make a prediction-

Jason Calacanis 1:00:45 And that's my personal feeling. I can't... I don't care what the statistics say right now. In my heart, I cannot give that man even a benefit of the doubt.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:00:56 If he wins-

Jason Calacanis 1:00:57 He's garbage.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:00:58 If he wins, is Fauci the first guy fired?

Phil Hellmuth 1:01:01 (laughs)

John Couvillon 1:01:01 Oh, I think you can count on it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:01:03 And Fauci's gonna-

John Couvillon 1:01:04 Fauci and Christopher Wray, the FBI director, and-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:01:07 And on, right? ƒ

John Couvillon 1:01:07 And increasingly maybe Bill Barr too.

Jason Calacanis 1:01:10 Any, anybody else who has any-

John Couvillon 1:01:10 And somehow Bill Barr is not enough of a sycophant.

Jason Calacanis 1:01:12 ... shred of credibility or honor...... is gone.

Phil Hellmuth 1:01:17 I wanna, I wanna just say to, to J Cal, I, um, I really empathize with how you're feeling, 'cause, um, I have never... As a person that has been a citizen of three countries, when I moved to America in 2000, I have never really... I mean, you know, edge cases, yeah, I've felt some racism here, obviously. You know, I've f- but I've never felt so unwanted. And I remember 2016, for the first time in my life, feeling a level of insecurity I had never felt before, because I was so afraid. I didn't know what it meant for Donald Trump to be elected. Four years later, um, you know, in, in, in so many ways, uh, it's like two realms of a coin, you know? Um, I leave my house, and, uh, you can just see that there's just so much pain and divisiveness. I come back into my little world, and things seem to be really great. And that's a really, really terrible feeling to have, Jason. So, I, I know exactly what you're talking about. I wanted to tell you guys, um, you know, I... There was like a... I, I've always been sort of like, "Okay, Biden's gonna win, Biden's gonna win, Biden's gonna win." And then, there's a weird thing that I did, and you guys can see it in the FEC filings, but I gave a million bucks this year in the elections. But I gave 750 to the Senate, and I gave 250 to Biden, and I didn't understand why I did it. Um, and I, and I, and I explained it to Nat as... She's like, "Why did you do it that way?" And the best way that I could explain it is, I, I think that there is so much I don't know about what is driving the vote for President, that I wanted to make sure that, you know, there are checks and balances. And the best check and balance was to, you know, make sure that there was actually some Senate, um, check and balance on Biden. I mean, on, uh, on Trump. So, you know, I'm, I'm gonna, Jason, I'm gonna accept the result. Um, I'm gonna try to figure out what the fuck I don't know, because this is yet another layer of, I clearly don't know what the hell is going on. Um, but I d- I can tell you pretty assuredly, guys, uh, any result that's called tonight I think is going to be, uh, incomplete, because they're not gonna call Pennsylvania, because they're not gonna call Philly. And so, if there are, in fact, three... No, I think the, the exact math is about 350,000 votes that show up in Philadelphia. A gap of 350,000 votes that show up in Philly, um, Biden will, uh, do what he needs to do. By the way, how many people live in Philly? Does anybody know? How many registered voters? Friedberg, does that, is it, is that on the-

Jason Calacanis 1:04:04 No.

Phil Hellmuth 1:04:04 Philly, there's supposed to be-

Jason Calacanis 1:04:04 Maybe we'll look it up now.

Phil Hellmuth 1:04:05 ... there's supposed to be like half a million votes coming in there, and I think they've counted 100,000, um, and so there's-

John Couvillon 1:04:11 Oh, I think it'd be more than half a million. Usually, the Dems', uh, margin is about half a million.

Phil Hellmuth 1:04:17 The margin?

John Couvillon 1:04:18 Yeah. Ph- Philly is, uh, I wanna say, our fifth- or sixth-largest market, uh-

Phil Hellmuth 1:04:22 They've actually got it listed on the-

John Couvillon 1:04:23 ... 'cause they're pretty significant population.

Phil Hellmuth 1:04:25 It's on that, that link I sent you there, uh, Nick.

John Couvillon 1:04:28 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Phil Hellmuth 1:04:28 And then if you click on, um, click to view precinct reporting, you can, uh, see the-

John Couvillon 1:04:33 There we go.

Phil Hellmuth 1:04:34 Sorry, it's, it's tough to read. Yeah, I mean, we care about Allegheny. And then, what else do we care about?

John Couvillon 1:04:42 You care about Philly, and you care about those immediate suburbs outside of Philly, like Bucks County and Chester County. And, um, now there's a, there's four or five ringed suburbs of Philly that used to be the, uh, centerpiece of country club Republicanism. They're the, the counties that elected Arlen Specter to the Senate. But over time, as the Republicans moved right, they moved more toward, toward the Democrats.

Phil Hellmuth 1:05:05 Michael, do you know why they're gonna stop reporting, um, mail-in ballots tonight? Why would they do that? Uh, they just-

John Couvillon 1:05:11 Uh, probably just, uh, to go home and, uh, sleep for a while before they, uh, pick it up tomorrow. Pennsylvania, unfortunately, and Michigan as well, are states that aren't allowed to start tabulating until all the polls are closed. Uh, that's why those, uh, states in the Sun Belt, we were all looking for, uh, to be a early bellwether, because-

Phil Hellmuth 1:05:29 Look at that, guys.

John Couvillon 1:05:30 ... they can count, yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 1:05:31 Unbelie- 4.81%. This is unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Jason Calacanis 1:05:37 What, what are we seeing here? What's unbelievable, Chamath?

Host (short interjection, likely one of the four besties) 1:05:39 That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Phil Hellmuth 1:05:39 So, what that means, Jason, is that, uh, in Philadelphia, there are 1,706 precincts, okay? Of those, only 82 have reported the, their ballot tallies. So, you have 95% of the precincts in Philly not reporting. If you take Michael's framework and say there's a swing of 500,000 votes if it goes historically Democrat, as it has in the past, you attack on 500,000 net new votes to, um, to Biden-

Host (short interjection, likely one of the four besties) 1:06:14 Total.

Phil Hellmuth 1:06:14 ... and, you know, and, uh, he, uh, he ekes out a win.

John Couvillon 1:06:18 Yeah, he, it goes blue, probably, in that scenario, yeah. So then, it'd be a-

Jason Calacanis 1:06:23 Yeah. So, so let's go-

John Couvillon 1:06:23 ... it becomes about-

Jason Calacanis 1:06:24 So, so let's go.

John Couvillon 1:06:24 But remember, though, if Trump is holding, um... If he, if he manages to hold Michigan, he could lose Pennsylvania and it wouldn't matter. Uh, he had a little bit of a margin. He had, what'd he have, 306 electoral votes last time. Uh, so if he holds everything he had, minus Pennsylvania... Actually, he could lose Michigan too, as long as he carried Wisconsin. He has to, he has to have one of those two. And I think Wisconsin's difficult, so-

Phil Hellmuth 1:06:52 By the way, uh-

John Couvillon 1:06:53 ... that's all you see, yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 1:06:53 ... for all of our, uh, listeners and watchers in New Jersey, they legalized recreational pot. So, go out and get yourself some.

Jason Calacanis 1:07:01 (laughs) Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm, I, I just took four gummies after my little tirade there, because-

John Couvillon 1:07:07 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:07:08 (laughs) ... the two Xanax weren't working. So, it's gonna get really strange for me in about an hour. Um...

David Sacks 1:07:16 (laughs)

Phil Hellmuth 1:07:16 So, just to go back. The reason-

Jason Calacanis 1:07:19 I mean, are we gonna crack a bottle of wine or what? Somebody-

David Sacks 1:07:21 I already got, I already got one.

Phil Hellmuth 1:07:23 Yeah, I'm gonna get mine now.

Jason Calacanis 1:07:23 Well, this, this is mostly coffee, but trust me, there's some Irish whiskey in here too.

David Sacks 1:07:27 Michael, I guess I'm speaking to you, but it looks like I'm seeing reports of the same out of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Jason Calacanis 1:07:33 Unfortunately, all four of those states are gonna probably take at least a day. Arizona, three days, I think, to count. Um, maybe not this year because so much of the vote was early. Maybe it'll move faster. But they are notoriously slow counters. So, settle in. It could be the weekend before we have a result.

David Sacks 1:07:54 Wow.

Jason Calacanis 1:07:55 Okay, so let, let me just drop this.

Jason Calacanis 1:07:58 If we don't know tonight, what is going to happen over the next week in America?

Phil Hellmuth 1:08:06 Well, we're gonna be, we're gonna be-

David Sacks 1:08:08 We're gonna need a lot of gummies, Jason.

Phil Hellmuth 1:08:11 No.

Jason Calacanis 1:08:11 No, I mean, joking aside, there are people-

Phil Hellmuth 1:08:14 I think everybody's gonna be tense, Jay. I think... I don't, I don't think you're gonna see a lot of action one way or the other. I think that people... I think people in America are incredibly good people. I think that folks are just gonna sit tight and hope that the folks whose job it is to do their job, do their job. Um, I, I, but I-

Jason Calacanis 1:08:31 And I hope you're right, Chamath, but when I see a group of trucks surrounding people's cars, when I see people bringing guns on both sides, horrible people on both sides bringing guns, militia-style to specifically taunt each other. When you see people getting shot in the street, chasing each other down over politics, this is something that has not happened in our lifetime. I mean, Phil's very old, so he kind of remembers the '60s. But for the rest of us under 68, we, we have not witnessed Americans shooting each other in the street over politics. We have not witnessed people taking people out of their lives because of politics. And this has got Trump's fingerprints on it from top to bottom.

David Sacks 1:09:18 Well, you, you mean since this summer? I mean, what about all the looting and rioting and protests?

Jason Calacanis 1:09:23 My point is, when Trump got in office, his character and his ability to trigger people, his ability to abuse people, his rhetoric, put everybody on tilt. I'm not saying people looting stores are correct. But what I'm saying is, George Bush and Ronald Reagan, your heroes, Bill Clinton, Obama, other people's heroes on this call, there was a, there was a, a kindness in our differences. And when people conceded, they conceded with grace. And this individual-

David Sacks 1:09:59 Well, but, but, but, but Bush-

Jason Calacanis 1:10:00 ... this horrible human being is-

David Sacks 1:10:00 Bush wasn't a hero of mine, but, um, I'll, I think-

Jason Calacanis 1:10:03 But putting it aside-

David Sacks 1:10:04 Yeah. I think Reagan was a good president, but-

Jason Calacanis 1:10:05 Maybe Bush Sr. was.

David Sacks 1:10:06 Yeah. Look, I respect him.

Jason Calacanis 1:10:09 We, we had a classiness and we had a mutual respect for each other that this deranged individual has removed from America. And I fear-

David Sacks 1:10:19 So, so Jason, I'm not gonna defend-

Jason Calacanis 1:10:20 ... for what's gonna happen in the next week. Because if people-

David Sacks 1:10:22 I'm not, I'm not defending-

Jason Calacanis 1:10:23 ... people were shooting each other leading up to this, I think the next week- You are fake news. ... could be incredibly violent.

David Sacks 1:10:28 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:10:28 You are fake news.

David Sacks 1:10:30 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:10:31 Thank you for that. You are fake news.

David Sacks 1:10:33 Now look, uh, Jason, I'm not gonna, like, disagree with you about any of that. Um, I, the, the only thing I would add though is, I do think that the media has been a co-equal partner in sowing this chaos and divisiveness. Um, because, you know, we used to have a media that thought its job was objectivity and neutrality.

Jason Calacanis 1:10:53 Yes.

David Sacks 1:10:54 And they ripped the empire jersey off their back to go after this guy, Trump. And, um, and, and-

Jason Calacanis 1:10:59 And why do you think they did? Money. It's very profitable. Trump, Trump has made big money from the media. Picking aside. Picking aside is, is definitely more profitable. You get more subscribers. It might also be that they were absolutely suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, from the fact that the person lies and that he wants to separate children from their parents at the border, and that-

David Sacks 1:11:20 Listen, they're, yes, but they're supposed to... They have a job to do. They're supposed to be neutral. They're supposed to be a rational opposition to Trump.

Jason Calacanis 1:11:27 100%.

David Sacks 1:11:27 Yeah, but... Exactly. But the, but the reason why Trump is doing well or better is because the opposition to him is increasingly irrational and, um, and people have voted for Trump to, to, to basically give the middle finger to, you know, to, to the, to the media who, you know, again, who are taking sides to these big tech censors. You know, who don't want us to read things that are critical of Trump. Um, you know, and so on down the line. I mean, I, I, I tweeted earlier, I mean, Rich Lowry had a great post explaining why, if Trump was gonna win, why, you know, why, why that would happen. And it's because he's the only middle finger available to these people. And, uh, you know, I don't disagree with you. He's not being... No one's voting for Trump because of his integri- perceived integrity.

Phil Hellmuth 1:12:15 Oh, no.

David Sacks 1:12:15 Or, um, well-

Jason Calacanis 1:12:16 Integrity? This is the first time I've heard integrity in the same sentence as Trump.

David Sacks 1:12:20 I, uh, you're... I'm agreeing with that point.

Jason Calacanis 1:12:22 Yeah.

David Sacks 1:12:23 Um, I'm saying they're not voting for him because of that. They're not voting for him because of even a second-term agenda. They're voting for him in order to s- to stop cultural forces they don't like.

Jason Calacanis 1:12:35 Mm-hmm. I think Graham has won-

Phil Hellmuth 1:12:36 I, I have two things to say.

Jason Calacanis 1:12:37 ... decidedly, by the way.

Phil Hellmuth 1:12:39 Two things to say. Um, according to, um, the national political writer for the Philly Inquirer, Jonathan Tamari, his tweet of 7:35 PM said actually, it was even greater than we thought. There are still 2.2 million mail-in ballots to be counted in PA, about 87% of the total. So, if that's true, then we have that and Philly, number one. The second thing I wanted to say is that if you actually look at the sum counts right now in Pennsylvania, it's 371,500.... 91 votes that separate Trump and Biden.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:13:21 (sighs) Wow.

Phil Hellmuth 1:13:21 So it's, uh, you know, not that much, guys, if 2.2 million vote, votes are outstanding.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:13:28 Yeah, but if it's, if it's two... If it's, let's see, 60% or two-third kind of to one-third/40%, and it's not... Let's say it comes in under that, right? They've probably counted a couple of hundred thousand already. I mean, it is still pretty close.

Phil Hellmuth 1:13:44 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:13:45 Um, really close. Let me, um, let me ask, uh, Chamath, do you think that part of the reason we're seeing futures markets jump and the dollar jump and, um, (smacks lips) uh, and all the kind of, uh, obviously correlated assets moving the way they are is not necessarily because of a Trump win, but because the risk of a hung election seems to be coming out of the system right now? That it seems-

Phil Hellmuth 1:14:12 That's-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:14:12 ... like we're gonna have a much more clear outcome here than we thought we would. Florida's going to be much more clear. That's always a, a worry state. Um, Georgia's going to be clear. Obviously, we've still got Pennsylvania to kind of figure out here, but i- it seems like this is going to break one way or another, whereas a lot of folks were concerned we'd end up in the court fighting over hanging chads for months, and there was concern in the markets for months about that. Mm-hmm.

Phil Hellmuth 1:14:35 Um, do we think that's-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:14:36 I, uh-

Phil Hellmuth 1:14:36 ... thing's breaking up?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:14:38 No, I think that people were basically... Um, look, there's a reason to be long Biden in the markets, which is essentially that there are certain sectors of the economy that would have done very well. Um, those sectors of the economy were probably slightly different than Trump's. Um, under a Trump regime, the reality is that corporate taxes, broadly speaking, are not going to go up. And so, you know, you can forecast higher earnings power for every stock, and so everything goes up. Um, I think what's happening right now is more of that relief trade of maybe Trump was winning, so you could be kind of long everything blindly. Um, but, you know, the real canary in the coal mine was like, if you looked at tech futures, tech futures was just going bonkers when they thought he was going to win. Um, because they will probably disproportionately benefit of just having to pay no taxes, because they pay no taxes today. Um, I, um- (clears throat) So, so that's like kind of like what I, what I think is happening on, on that side.

Phil Hellmuth 1:15:37 I mean, Trump is very pro-business, so that's why the markets are ripping, right?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:15:40 I think... I don't know. I mean, I feel like there was a real concern, like there was a, a, a non-zero case here, call it a 30% case, that we were going to get stuck for a few months with uncertainty and litigation about where the selection was gonna go.

Phil Hellmuth 1:15:53 I think, I think it's fair to say that we, we still... We, we could still have that, David, because we don't... If, if this goes to tomorrow, I think it's fair to say that, that the game theory would tell you that tomorrow, whoever loses Pennsylvania should ask for an immediate recount.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:16:08 Right.

Phil Hellmuth 1:16:09 Right?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:16:09 They have to.

Phil Hellmuth 1:16:09 And I don't know what the pro- They have to. I don't know what the process for that is. If whoever loses, um, Arizona should ask for an immediate recount. You know, it... Whatever is possible under the law, I think both Biden and Trump will exercise, because let's face it, this is the highest stakes possible, and so you would hate to not, if it's a margin of a few thousands of votes or tens of thousands of votes or even 100,000 votes and you're allowed to do a recount. So, um, if that's the case tomorrow morning, if we go to bed in another hour and a half, or if we finish this thing in another hour, and there is no winner, uh, clear winner, I think markets will be back to sort of modestly risk off tomorrow. Um-

1:16:49 So, David, your thesis is that... Your thesis is a clear winner, the market's ripped either way?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:16:55 I think, yeah, clear winner, it just like... There was a lot of grinding expected here that was gonna cause a lot of, you know, uh, trepidation and bouncing for a while that folks were concerned about, and if you feel like you're going to have a clear election outcome or whether or not it gets litigated, i- if... You feel clear about where it's gonna go, because it's 55/45-

Phil Hellmuth 1:17:13 But-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:17:13 ... you know, I'm sure they're gonna ask for a recount, but like-

Phil Hellmuth 1:17:14 It's good news for everybody, it makes sense.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:17:16 Okay.

David Sacks 1:17:16 Look, I, I think the market does not want those Trump tax cuts repealed.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:17:20 Right.

David Sacks 1:17:20 Stocks just ripped after-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:17:22 Yeah.

David Sacks 1:17:22 ... um, Trump passed those corporate tax cuts, so um, if either Trump wins or the Republicans hold on to the Senate, then that would be a reason for the market to rip. Doesn't mean-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:17:33 What's, what's the Senate?

David Sacks 1:17:33 It doesn't mean Trump has to win, but it... But, but if we have divided government-

Phil Hellmuth 1:17:37 Right.

David Sacks 1:17:38 ... gridlock-

Phil Hellmuth 1:17:38 So between the two of you, the best, best possible scenario for the market is if Trump clearly wins?

1:17:43 Okay.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:17:43 Well, I think, I think Sam's point, like-

Phil Hellmuth 1:17:44 We have another bestie on the line.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:17:46 Is it the case... If we look at the Senate races, um... I don't know if anyone... I don't know if there's an easy way for us to pull this up, but-

Phil Hellmuth 1:17:53 But could we have a- Go pull it up, David,

Phil Hellmuth 1:17:55 and, and I just want to introduce our next bestie guesty. Brad Gerstner is here. He-

1:17:59 Oh.

1:18:00 Ooh.

Brad Gerstner 1:18:00 Yo.

Phil Hellmuth 1:18:02 Brad runs a, uh, multi-billion-

Brad Gerstner 1:18:04 Hey, fella.

Phil Hellmuth 1:18:04 ... dollar... I believe you would call it a hedge fund or a fund.

Brad Gerstner 1:18:08 Yeah.

Phil Hellmuth 1:18:08 Um, and he invests large swaths of money in the American economy, has a very-

1:18:12 Is he the best travel investor of all time, Jason Calacanis?

Brad Gerstner 1:18:16 (laughs)

Phil Hellmuth 1:18:16 (laughs) He's up there, but, um, he... Certainly, I would, I would guess Brad, with COVID and airlines being grounded, this has