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All-In PodcastAll-In Podcast

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

Follow the crew: https://twitter.com/chamath https://linktr.ee/calacanis https://twitter.com/DavidSacks https://twitter.com/friedberg Follow the pod: https://twitter.com/theallinpod https://linktr.ee/allinpodcast Follow the bestie guesties: https://twitter.com/bgurley https://twitter.com/phil_hellmuth https://twitter.com/altcap https://twitter.com/jcpolls Show Notes: 0:00 The besties & Phil Hellmuth on Trump’s early lead, live betting odds, the Latinx reversal 10:09 Sacks intros political expert Michael Newman on vote tally timing discrepancies, why some states skew a certain way early & more 20:33 Assessing the 180 in the gambling markets & equity markets towards a pro-Trump outcome 24:18 SurveyMonkey Chief Research Officer Jon Cohen joins the show to talk about polling updates from 2016 to 2020, understanding the race so far, electoral college & more 41:51 Biden losing Florida, tax policy, cultural repudiation of the elites in 2020 50:43 Chamath on the stupidity of the establishment, socialism, Democratic ideology for 2024 if Biden loses 55:40 Mid-show predictions, Jason goes off on Trump 1:07:58 What will happen in the time until we have a clear winner, Trump as a middle finger 1:17:55 Brad Gerstner joins the show to talk about stock futures, what the Democrats keep getting wrong - coastal elites losing touch with normal people, rebuking lockdowns 1:38:24 Reviewing the race swing state by swing state 1:47:28 Bill Gurley joins the show to talk about divisiveness, urban/rural rapture & more 1:55:53 Pete Buttigieg as the future of the Democratic Party, Chamath calls out the democratic leaders 2:00:43 Reconciling middle America & the coastal elites, respecting each other’s differences, understanding Prop 22 2:11:34 Diagnosing states that flipped from Biden to Trump, anti-business California state propositions failing, union impact on legislation 2:23:01 Senate races, market talk, which Democratic candidate had the best chance of beating Trump, voting for character over policy 2:34:32 Jason & Sacks debate Russian election interference legitimacy 2:41:34 Sacks unveils his Trump Derangement Score tracker, updated outcome scenarios & more 2:51:51 Trump declaring victory could tank markets, live reaction to Joe Biden’s election night address #allin #election #news

Jason CalacanishostChamath PalihapitiyahostPhil HellmuthguestDavid FriedberghostJohn CouvillonguestJonah Gottlieb (election / betting analyst friend of Sacks; exact identity less certain)guestJ. C. Polls (John Couvillon / pollster guest referenced in description)guestGuest (farmer / lockdown-impact commentator, name not clearly stated)guestHost (short interjection, likely one of the four besties)hostBrad GerstnerguestAntonio García MartínezguestBill GurleyguestAlex Tabarrok (or similar policy/econ analyst; exact identity uncertain, but guest commentator)guestJoe Bidenguest
Nov 4, 20202h 59mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 10:09

    The besties & Phil Hellmuth on Trump’s early lead, live betting odds, the Latinx reversal

    1. JC

      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?

    2. CP

      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-

    3. JC

      All right, well-

    4. CP

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

    5. JC

      This is a hell of a nail-

    6. PH

      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-

    7. JC

      Okay, so for people, uh, Phil, who are not gamblers...

    8. PH

      If you bet three dollars-

    9. JC

      Let's put this in dollars. You bet $3...

    10. PH

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

    11. JC

      Yeah.

    12. PH

      ... 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.

    13. JC

      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?

    14. DS

      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.

    15. JC

      Um-

    16. CP

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

    17. JC

      (laughs)

    18. CP

      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-

    19. JC

      << Cult of personality >>

    20. CP

      ... 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.

    21. JC

      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.

    22. DS

      Right.

    23. JC

      But Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, these are different countries. They're not all the same.

    24. DS

      Venezuelans. Yeah, Venezuelans.

    25. JC

      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.

    26. PH

      (laughs) Can you hear me?

    27. JC

      Uh, we've got Bestie Phil as our first bestie guestie of the night, and-

    28. PH

      Bestie P., how are you, Bestie P?

    29. JC

      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?

    30. PH

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

  2. 10:09 – 20:33

    Sacks intros political expert Michael Newman on vote tally timing discrepancies, why some states skew a certain way early & more

    1. JC

    2. DS

      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.

    3. JC

      I have been obsessively following politics since, uh, the Reagan election of 1980, so... (laughs)

    4. DS

      (laughs)

    5. JC

      I, I, I, I-

    6. PH

      I, I wasn't alive then, so I don't know.

    7. JC

      (laughs)

    8. JC

      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.

    9. JC

      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?

    10. JC

      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.

    11. PH

      Well, can I-

    12. DS

      Yeah.

    13. PH

      Can I, can I just, can I just ask a question? I mean-

    14. JC

      No.

    15. PH

      ... 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?

    16. JC

      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.

    17. JC

      (clears throat) Wait a second.

    18. JC

      Yeah.

    19. JC

      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-

    20. JC

      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-

    21. JC

      Okay.

    22. JC

      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-

    23. JC

      Florida is off the table.

    24. JC

      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-

    25. JC

      Texas had an early lead for Biden, which was crazy to see.

    26. JC

      Mm-hmm.

    27. JC

      Right now, it's got Donald Trump at 50.3%, Biden at 48.3%.

    28. PH

      Guys, again, again-

    29. JC

      So that's starting to normalize.

    30. PH

      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.

  3. 20:33 – 24:18

    Assessing the 180 in the gambling markets & equity markets towards a pro-Trump outcome

    1. JC

      right now. Let me just double-check that source.

    2. PH

      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-

    3. JC

      Correct.

    4. PH

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

    5. JC

      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?"

    6. JC

      They're way behind.

    7. JC

      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.

    8. DS

      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.

    9. JC

      Is that what's giving, is giving-

    10. JC

      By the way, a 9,000 vote margin would probably trigger an automatic recount of North Carolina.

    11. PH

      Yeah, yeah.

    12. DS

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

    13. JC

      Okay, so let me-

    14. JC

      I think it's gonna po-

    15. JC

      ... 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-

    16. JC

      Yes.

    17. JC

      ... in order to have a victory. Right, Michael?

    18. JC

      I, I absolutely agree with that. Uh, he ha- he had to have those five, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, and Texas.

    19. JC

      Okay. So we have Florida he's got, now there's four left. One-

    20. JC

      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-

    21. JC

      So we leave Georgia on the side. So now we got four-

    22. JC

      Yeah.

    23. JC

      ... states we can work with. North Carolina is in Biden's pocket by just a hair.

    24. JC

      Yeah.

    25. JC

      That could change, and it would trigger a recount, which would take days to weeks.

    26. JC

      Yes.

    27. JC

      Now, there are three states. Let's go through them systematically one by one, Michael.

    28. JC

      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-

    29. JC

      He had about a 400,000 vote lead would have to vote.

    30. JC

      Correct, and when you look at the betting odds, he was five to one underdog to win the state.

  4. 24:18 – 41:51

    SurveyMonkey Chief Research Officer Jon Cohen joins the show to talk about polling updates from 2016 to 2020, understanding the race so far, electoral college & more

    1. PH

    2. JC

      Okay. We now have John Cohen on the line.

    3. PH

      Yep.

    4. JC

      John is a, uh, member of the SurveyMonkey team. John-

    5. PH

      Mm-hmm.

    6. JC

      ... welcome to the All In Pod. Can you hear us?

    7. JD

      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-

    8. PH

      (laughs)

    9. JD

      ... let me know what I'm coming into.

    10. PH

      Well, we were waiting for you. (laughs)

    11. JC

      We were waiting for you-

    12. PH

      Okay. (laughs)

    13. JC

      ... to get here. Tell us, as we start, what your prediction was earlier today.

    14. JD

      Well, we're very clear to say that we're doing measurements, not predictions.

    15. JC

      Okay.

    16. JD

      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.

    17. JC

      What about Ohio-

    18. PH

      John-

    19. JC

      ... and Georgia?

    20. JD

      So we had Ohio-

    21. PH

      ... and then some authority.

    22. JD

      ... 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.

    23. PH

      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?

    24. JD

      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.

    25. PH

      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-

    26. JD

      Yeah.

    27. PH

      ... if this happens again?

    28. JD

      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-

    29. PH

      Well, what are, I mean-

    30. JD

      ... of the country-

  5. 41:51 – 50:43

    Biden losing Florida, tax policy, cultural repudiation of the elites in 2020

    1. PH

      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-

    2. JC

      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-

    3. JC

      Mm-hmm.

    4. JC

      ... 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.

    5. JC

      It feels insurmountable now, right? That 3,000 or 400,000 votes. Right.

    6. DS

      Florida, Florida's over. Florida's over. It's about, now it's about

    7. JC

      Yeah.

    8. DS

      ... 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?

    9. JC

      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-

    10. DS

      Yeah.

    11. JC

      ... Hillary won it by 29 in 2016, and she lost the state, so...

    12. JC

      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-

    13. JC

      Well, come on Jason-

    14. JC

      ... Elizabeth Warren.

    15. JC

      ... Trump moved to Florida, it's his beloved state, he has a, a, a place there...

    16. JC

      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.

    17. CP

      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."

    18. JC

      (laughs)

    19. CP

      (laughs)

    20. JC

      (laughs)

    21. JC

      But I mean-

    22. CP

      Fuck taxes.

    23. JC

      ... there, there's a moment where taxes don't matter.

    24. JC

      Who, who doesn't think that?

    25. DS

      Well, but Romney-

    26. JC

      If, if you're, no, but if you're-

    27. DS

      ... 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-

    28. JC

      And it was, it was more than that.

    29. DS

      ... 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-

    30. JC

      So you're saying-

  6. 50:43 – 55:40

    Chamath on the stupidity of the establishment, socialism, Democratic ideology for 2024 if Biden loses

    1. JC

      if they were-

    2. PH

      ... with the stupidity-

    3. JC

      Yeah.

    4. PH

      ... 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.

    5. JC

      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-

    6. CP

      Isn't it, isn't it-

    7. JC

      ... more in the Bernie mold. It's go- it needs to be left but not woke.

    8. CP

      Isn't it gonna be socialism?

    9. JC

      It's- it probably is gonna be socialism, but it's-

    10. CP

      'Cause I mean, that's, that's-

    11. JC

      ... but it needs to not be-

    12. CP

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

    13. PH

      Well, I'm gonna-

    14. CP

      ... 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-

    15. PH

      I mean, that-

    16. JC

      She won't be the right brand though, because she's woke.

    17. PH

      Guys, there's two things I think.

    18. JC

      You need a Sherrod Brown, you don't need a AOC.

    19. PH

      We need a charismatic Democratic candidate, someone with a lot of energy-

    20. JC

      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.

    21. PH

      I, uh, I wanna, I wanna take up on what-

    22. JC

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

    23. CP

      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.

    24. PH

      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.

    25. 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.

  7. 55:40 – 1:07:58

    Mid-show predictions, Jason goes off on Trump

    1. PH

      Uh-

    2. JC

      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.

    3. JC

      Okay. (laughs)

    4. JC

      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.

    5. JC

      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.

    6. JC

      Okay. Phil, you're looking in the camera. Who do you think is gonna win?

    7. PH

      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.

    8. JC

      Trump wins. Who do you got, Sax?

    9. DS

      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-

    10. JC

      Gotta pick one.

    11. PH

      (laughs) Take somebody, Sax. Take somebody.

    12. DS

      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.

    13. JC

      What do you got, Friedberg?

    14. CP

      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.

    15. DS

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

    16. CP

      Like a Jedi. Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

    17. JC

      All right, Chamath-

    18. PH

      I will win.

    19. JC

      ... four of four so far picking Trump at-

    20. PH

      I will win.

    21. JC

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

    22. PH

      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.

    23. JC

      And I, uh, am going with Biden.

    24. PH

      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-

    25. JC

      Oh, it should be, it should be 500,000. It should be 500,000.

    26. PH

      Well then 500,000 would carry the state for Joe Biden.

    27. CP

      Yeah, they've, they've, they've counted to 100,000, so they've got-

    28. PH

      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-

    29. JC

      One thing I... Okay.

    30. PH

      What an incredibly poignant place for the election to be won and lost.

  8. 1:07:58 – 1:17:55

    What will happen in the time until we have a clear winner, Trump as a middle finger

    1. JC

      If we don't know tonight, what is going to happen over the next week in America?

    2. PH

      Well, we're gonna be, we're gonna be-

    3. DS

      We're gonna need a lot of gummies, Jason.

    4. PH

      No.

    5. JC

      No, I mean, joking aside, there are people-

    6. PH

      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-

    7. JC

      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.

    8. DS

      Well, you, you mean since this summer? I mean, what about all the looting and rioting and protests?

    9. JC

      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-

    10. DS

      Well, but, but, but, but Bush-

    11. JC

      ... this horrible human being is-

    12. DS

      Bush wasn't a hero of mine, but, um, I'll, I think-

    13. JC

      But putting it aside-

    14. DS

      Yeah. I think Reagan was a good president, but-

    15. JC

      Maybe Bush Sr. was.

    16. DS

      Yeah. Look, I respect him.

    17. JC

      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-

    18. DS

      So, so Jason, I'm not gonna defend-

    19. JC

      ... for what's gonna happen in the next week. Because if people-

    20. DS

      I'm not, I'm not defending-

    21. JC

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

    22. DS

      (laughs)

    23. JC

      You are fake news.

    24. DS

      (laughs)

    25. JC

      Thank you for that. You are fake news.

    26. DS

      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.

    27. JC

      Yes.

    28. DS

      And they ripped the empire jersey off their back to go after this guy, Trump. And, um, and, and-

    29. JC

      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-

    30. DS

      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.

  9. 1:17:55 – 1:38:24

    Brad Gerstner joins the show to talk about stock futures, what the Democrats keep getting wrong - coastal elites losing touch with normal people, rebuking lockdowns

    1. PH

      and, and I just want to introduce our next bestie guesty. Brad Gerstner is here. He-

    2. Oh.

    3. Ooh.

    4. BG

      Yo.

    5. PH

      Brad runs a, uh, multi-billion-

    6. BG

      Hey, fella.

    7. PH

      ... dollar... I believe you would call it a hedge fund or a fund.

    8. BG

      Yeah.

    9. PH

      Um, and he invests large swaths of money in the American economy, has a very-

    10. Is he the best travel investor of all time, Jason Calacanis?

    11. BG

      (laughs)

    12. PH

      (laughs) He's up there, but, um, he... Certainly, I would, I would guess Brad, with COVID and airlines being grounded, this has not been the easiest year for you. So apologies that- No, Brad, Brad just made $10 billion on Snowflake. He's fine. Uh- But, uh, Snowflake may have- (laughs)

Episode duration: 2:59:57

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