Thanks for tuning in to the Adam Carolla Show. You can watch the full show on YouTube. Just search Adam Carolla Show and hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can also get the podcast wherever you like to listen. And for extra content, ad-free episodes and more, you can head over to our Substack and sign up today. Yeah, get it on. Got to get on a choice on mandate. Get it on. Welcome back to the show, The Mooch. Anthony Scaramucci's got a book. It's out as we speak. All the wrong moves. How three catastrophic decisions led to the rise of Trump. And again, it is out as we speak. And Angie's written, I guess this is his sixth book. Is that correct?
Yeah. 66. I mean, the first political one. The rest of them have been trade books. But first of all, it's awesome to be back on the show with you. You know, I'm sending you lots of love and by the book it, you know, the book is not a you you would like the book, Adam, because it's not that partisan. It's just a economic and political observation of both parties trying to do their best and making some decisions that just went not in the direction that they thought they were going to go in, which has led to some of this collapse of living standards of lower and middle income people. So again, not a partisan book, just more of an economic observation.
Well, that is your field of expertise. And you know, as I think about it, we talk a lot about the government these days and, you know, what they're going to do and what they're not going to do. I kind of missed the part where we didn't talk about them so much. You just sort of went about, you know, they weren't that involved. I I'll give you an example. Well, you tell me. You tell me.
Good point. I was trying to watch some Monday Night Football last week and the Bears, I don't think there San Francisco was beating, I'll look it up, but the point is is the entire drive was consumed with penalties. It was like holding flags got dropped, flags got picked up that you know, hit the quarterback step too late, using too many hands. Now it's interference. Now it's it's like the Rams lost a real tight game. Like game three, the guy intercepted the ball down by the goal line, but then there was laundry. He put his hands on him. It was a bad call. Like I don't want the refs that involved. I just want I want to I want to let him play a little bit. I don't want entire drives being dictated. The the the Bears had an entire drive I think that was all penalties. They just marched down the field on they converted all their third downs on ticky-tack penalties. And I know sometimes you think, well, who which team are you rooting for? That'll that'll dictate which penalties you like. But I just in general liked when the refs just sort of stood back a little bit. And I feel the same way about government. Like we're going to do this, we're going to fix that, we're going to take care of this. I don't want you that involved. I don't want to think about you that much.
Well, you got to move to Singapore, Adam, because that's what happens. You know, they're low-key policy-driven bureaucrats. They get paid a ton of money. They get paid millions of dollars to operate the government in Singapore. So there's no incentive for corruption or things like that. And they're rarely in the news, you know, because they just do their jobs. And so when I got to Washington and I had a short-lived stay and this week, I don't know what the hell happened to me, but somebody beat me at my own record this week. We had a thoroughbred come running through Washington and lose her job after 5 days.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, God bless her. I mean, I wish her nothing but great success going forward. But when I got to Washington, one of the analysts from the CIA said to me, Anthony, there are workhorses in this town and there are show horses. And you'll know right away who the workhorses are, who the show horses are. And the truth of the matter is, we do have a lot of workhorses in the government. There's a lot of good people in government trying to keep us safe and keep the water clean and all the different things that have to happen in the government. But sometimes we just make decisions, Adam. We think they're going to go one way, they don't go. We open the market to China. We allow them into the WTO. We expect them to open their 1.3 billion consumer market to us. They don't do that. But they end up stealing lots of our trade secrets, lots of our technology. And they sort of replicate our manufacturing processes in China. And then we allow them to sell those goods into the United States relatively unfettered because they're treated like an emerging market country, right?
Uh and when they got to be the size of Germany, we didn't check them. We didn't say, 'Okay, well, we got to start treating you like Germany.' So, uh you know, that was a doctrine of unintended consequence. You know, it cost wage earners in the country a lot of money. Actually, by the way, in the Bears Atlanta game, the Bears committed 12 penalties for 133 yards. Um, Walter Payton probably didn't have seven games in his Hall of Fame career with over 133 yards. So I want less politics and I want less referees and less penalties. But,
I think it's well said. I think all of us want that. The problem is we are starting to get real comfortable with the idea of sort of what's the government going to do for me. And like I was talking to Dr. Phil earlier in the week and I said there's too much corruption. Like how many people on these programs actually need to be on these programs? Like how many people who are collecting a check for disability are actually physically disabled and unable to work in these modern times? You're not working, you know, on a railroad. It's modern times. It involves sitting in a chair with a lumbar support and air conditioning and doing some clerical work or something. You can't physically do that. I said everyone's, I feel like there's a group, I said there's a lot of people ripping off SNAP. No doubt there's syndicates and it's billions of dollars ripping off SNAP. But then there's another group that is just on SNAP and really doesn't need to be on it, you know? And that's a large group that no one really wants to talk about. Like, hey man, you're healthy. You're able-bodied. Get your stuff together. And Phil pushed back and he's like, I talked to a couple. They were both school teachers. They work full-time. They don't live in California and they needed SNAP. And I'm like, I don't if you both work full-time and you're both school teachers, figure it out. I don't think you need the government involved with buying you food. Now look, you're not eating sushi every night, but you're both adults. You're both gainfully employed. You both have a profession. You're both school teachers. Figure it out like people used to figure it out.
Well, I mean, you know, I'm on the board of City Harvest. I don't know if you know that food bank, but it's the largest food bank and food delivery organization nonprofit in the United States. And you know, we're feeding or helping to feed 1.2 million people in this city. And so, you know, I don't want to use food insecure on your show because it sounds like
sounds like a bully line.
No, some people need it. I look
There are people that need it, but I'm saying there far too many people that are just taking it because they can. I mean, there's there's there's two, you know, it's what people do with the tax code. You know, you have the spare bedroom in your house. You're going to declare it an office so you can write it off. It's you're not doing any work in it. It's your kids' old room, but fine. They went to college. You know, your car, you lease it, so you can call it a work vehicle. You know, like people are going to just do what they do, you know. And I'm not saying there's not hungry people or people who aren't worthy of getting free food or food banks or SNAP. I'm not saying any of that. I'm saying if you have a full-time job and your wife has a full-time job and you're both school teachers, figure it out. You're not who we need to stop from falling through the cracks. This is for another group.
Well, listen, I mean, you know, this, you know, if you got Elon Musk involved with this, he was in the process of trying to put in that monitoring, you know, and I if you're saying that there are people on the margin taking advantage of the system, we both know that that's the case. I guess what I am worried about though is that there is a large group of people I can tell you people that we service at the food bank. They do have two jobs, but they're making a combined income of about $70,000 in New York after their taxes. It's hard on them because, you know, we've had this expando situation, Adam, with food, energy, rent costs, all different types of stuff. The affordability in the city anymore. You can make $50, $60,000 in other parts of the country, but here in New York, it's rough, sir.
No, you got to leave. LA I mean an average house and you know they'll do a thing where they go an average house is $1 million. It's not one. It's any place you would you deem as safe and you would agree to live in that was like safe and orderly and halfway decent is 15-17. I mean that's the bottom. That is the bottom. And you got people making, you know, $47,000 a year. I first off, you got to move. You I hate to be the harbinger of bad news, but look, reality on reality's terms. If you're making 42 a year and your wife's making 37 a year and you're a young couple and you'd like to be a homeowner one day and raise a family, you're going to my Indiana. You'll probably end up enjoying it from your own home. But New York, LA, San Francisco, not. And you can go, 'Hey, I love San Francisco. I love San Francisco too. I'd like to live in Monte Carlo, but all right.' But I but I, you know, I don't take issue with anything you just said, but I will say this. An earlier generation, you and I are contemporaries, but an earlier generation like my dad, he could work a $30,000 a year job and buy himself a $16,000 house
No, my dad was actually a crane operator. He was a union guy.
That's right. Your dad was a crane operator. Yeah, you know, you're actually think Ken Langone, who I just saw yesterday, his father had a plumbing supply business, but also worked in that same sand pit as my father. And so Kenny is, you know, one of my mentors, and we talk about this all the time. That era is long gone from the United States, but it doesn't have to be, Adam.
You know, there there there's things we could do to make it more affordable for the working class people. You know, we've grown a little indifferent to the problem, if I'm being honest.
My mom's house was $10,000. My grandparents house was $12,000. Sure.
Yeah. I mean, for sure. Here's my thing. I'm saying to this couple to move to Muncy, Indiana because whatever this is we're say we're going to do, it's not getting done. This administration, next administration, whatever whatever the promise of this is, it's not happening. And so at a certain point, you just go reality on reality's terms. You go, I would like to be a homeowner in Indiana. I'd like to be a homeowner in Los Angeles, but it's not going to no matter what people say, it's not happening.
Yeah. Listen, I'm with you. Look, I'll tell you the $16,000 house that my mother still lives in and I lost my dad. The taxes on the house out on Long Island, ma'am, $22,000 a year.
Okay. So, you know, without me, forget it. My mother could never live in that house, you know, and so they bought it for 16. Zillow says it's worth 780.
But if you want to stay in the house, you got to pay $22,000 a year in property taxes. And that's with a so senior citizens abatement. You know, they give you a little bit off because you don't have kids in the school district, you know.
Yeah. It's kind of interesting, you know. I don't know who I was talking to about it, but like do you really own your house? I mean, you're paying the government $2,000 or, you know, $1,850 a month rent essentially to live in your house.
Think of it like a land lease, Adam. You don't own the property because the government is going to tax you come hell or high water. It's almost like you have a land lease. They'll give you permission to sit on that property, but you got to pay them an annual rate to sit on the property. And by the way, you know, you have that proposition in Florida. I don't know if you saw that, the Homestead Act. They're going to try to move it from 250 to 500,000 on the exclusion. I think that will happen. But most states are very indifferent. You know, California and New York, where you and I live, way indifferent. Texas and Florida a lot more sensitive to that issue. And again, you know, we could debate whether the services are worth it in California or New York. I'm a New Yorker, so I'm not going anywhere. And I pay my 53% taxes, but I do tell people I'm a minority partner in my own life. It's Donald Trump, Mayor Adams, Governor Hochul, those are my three majority partners. They get 53% of my income.
I'm able to keep 47 cents on every dollar that I make. Well, I and you know, I don't complain about it, by the way. I'm not here complaining. I'm just pointing out that you know, at the upper end, that's what the numbers are if you want to stay at a city like this.
Yeah. Which I think was okay for most, but then some people started wagging their finger at folks like us and telling us we needed to pay our fair share. And that's when it got a little bit insulting.
not fair. Oh, if you look at if you wanted to go a definition of what a fair share would be, it'd be 10 people go out to dinner, the bill's a hundred bucks, and everyone pays 10 bucks. That's how that's what a share is, and that's what a fair share is. But we're now really getting into this sort of class warfare stuff that I'm always a little bit insulted where it's like why first off taxing people is not the solution to fix all of life's problems and money isn't the solution. You know when you go what's going on with these schools they're underfunded. You get a bunch of good students in there, the funding will come in a distant second to the student, a disciplined student, intact family, study habits, mom and dad read to them when they were kids, you know, all the stuff everyone knew, you know, what I always call diet and exercise. Like, everyone's a weight loss expert. Diet and exercise, eat your broccoli, do your push-ups. We're all an expert. Like, you knew it, your grandpa knew it, everyone knew it. No one ever needs to write another weight loss book or come out with a medication or come out with another granola fudge bar with high protein. Everyone knows it. We don't want to do it and less and less people are doing it. But you know what that answer is? It's called diet and exercise. So, this the the the government and I don't know what you think about the DSA, but they keep growing and growing and growing and the plan is is put us in charge. We'll get more money from the people you don't like and we'll fix everything for you. And I'm like,
well, look, I mean, I think you know my opinion on the DSA. It's an unmitigated disaster. But I, again, I'm just going to suggest to you as a trained economist that incentives matter. And so, as an example, Mayor Adams said rent control apartments are going to have a 0% increase. Well, then the question would be, well, what about the property taxes, mayor? Is that also going to be 0%? No, no, the property taxes are going to go up. What about the fuel oil? No, no, the fuel oil is going to go up. What about the parts and equipment that are now tariffed to bring the parts and equipment in to fix the boiler and other things that you need in the apartment building? No. No. Those are also going to go up. So now you told the landlord no rent increase, but every single factor to afford to keep people in the building safely has gone up. So you've just lowered his ability to make money off of the building. So, what do you think's going to happen? You're going to shrink the supply of rental units in the area. And it's just not the right thing to do. If you look at Mike Bloomberg, Mike Bloomberg said, 'Okay, we're going to do affordable housing, but here are the benchmarks so that the property developer is incentivized to borrow money, put the apartment together, and get the units up and running so that he can earn an effective economic rent, an effective economic fair share on the money.' These DSA guys don't want that. They want you to lose money on the rental apartment. And by the way, guys, take a look at Cuba. That doesn't work. You'll have a dilapidated nightmare on your hands without the appropriate incentive. So, no, I don't think well of the DSA guys. Also, I think the mayor doxing Ken Griffin like that. This guy's gonna put several hundred million dollars of buildings and hundreds of thousands of employees to work in the city of New York. You're standing outside his house taking pictures of it, berating him. I mean, what the hell are you doing?
Um, I think what he's doing is he's kind of virtue signaling to his base. I also think there's a kind of a fantasmic sort of approach to life, which is it's sort of in all the everyone's made a meme out of the poor Parisian blonde woman who's like standing in front of the store going, 'Wait a minute. What are we doing? This is not what we're here for.' It's like, 'That's not what you're here for. You don't you don't know what they're here for.' It's a it's a kind of a in in in Seattle the mayor of Seattle I think when she's given a presser I don't know eight months ago or something and someone asked her about big companies or Starbucks or whatever relocating and moving out she's like bye-bye bye-bye and that it's it's a it's a kind of a childlike you know it's it's it's like a 9-year-old saying to a pro wrestler you better when I get my hands on you I'm going to fuck you up you It's like, 'No, you're not. No, you're not.' And so, at some point, she has to give another presser saying, 'I was just I didn't really mean bye-bye. I we need your companies to come back and pay taxes so we can have money.' So, it's like part of it is a kind of a prefight ritual where the guy's mugging and acting tough and telling them he's going to destroy. But once they get in the ring, it's a different story. But part of it is just kind of mugging for the camera and and there's a part of it that shows a kind of inexperience, a lack of pragmatism and a naive like Yeah.
Listen, I agree, but let me ask you the following question. I want to get your reaction to it. So, I have made a dollar. I now got taxed at 53 cents and I have 47 cents left over. I've now decided, Adam, that I am going to invest that money. I'm not going to spend it on a Lamborghini. I'm not going to spend it on high flutin stakes or champagne, but I'm going to make the self-sacrifice to put it in the stock market. Let's say I buy SpaceX with it in 2003. So, so now I paid my taxes. My 53% went to the government, but in rather than consuming it, I made a decision to eat canned beans and I put the money into SpaceX. And now SpaceX is worth $10 million. Should you then wealth tax me? You already taxed me on the way in. You're going to eventually tax me when I sell it. Are you should you be taxing me every year and now you're going to destroy my incentive to save the money and put the money into the capital markets so that businesses in the United States can use the money? You're now going to say to me, okay, listen, you know, we're going to give you a 5% wealth tax every year. So, just like we tax your property, which is effectively a wealth tax in some ways, we're going to tax your savings. Yeah. Is that fair?
No, it's all falls under the heading of unintended consequences.
Exactly right. That's exactly right.
The thing they do is they go and and there's there's the top of the food chain and the bottom of the food chain in the unintended consequences department. The top of the food chain is we're going to have a mansion billionaires tax. Every mansion in Los Angeles, every property that sells, you know, more than $5 million going to be is going to be taxed at 4%. It's more than $10 million is going to be at 5%. They always go the wrong direction, by the way, which is nuts. Like, you know, you go to a car auction, you buy a car under 100 grand, it's 12% VIG. You buy one over a million, it's 10% VIG. They give you a break because you're going that direction. Only the city can go the other direction with it. You know, 5 million is 4%, 10 million is 5%. Like, okay. So, what happens? People stop building mansions. The people don't sell their mansion for 5 million. They sell for 4.9999. You know, whatever it is, you got a different outcome that you were looking for. You were looking for a ton of free money and instead you got a bunch of developers to go to Texas and Florida. So unintended consequences. That's the top of the food chain. The bottom of the food chain is is we have too many people in prison. We have too many people of color in prison. We need to not make shoplifting a felony or whatever. Anything under $999 is going to be a misdemeanor. Okay. So people start coming in and ripping off everything and stopping right at 99. The people at the bottom get it? The guy selling this mansion for 4,999. He gets the he just doing the same math.
What you guys get is a bunch of Walgreens and CVS's and close stores closing down because they can't keep up with all the retail theft. Now, you thought you were doing something that was a good idea, just like you thought you were doing something at the top with the mansion tax as you did at the bottom with the stealing. But the outcome was an unintended consequence. And you're going to have you don't need a crystal ball. You're going to have to start figuring this out in advance.
Well, I listen, I'm with you and I'll just buttress the argument. The city of San Francisco, they implemented all of those woke policies. They destroyed the city. They had to get Dan Lurie involved who's now the mayor up there. And he's trying to get back to the middle somewhere on policy like safety and policy like law enforcement and the shoplifting issue. I mean, they hollowed out the retail in that city and people said, 'Sorry, we just can't afford to have a retail store here.' You know, I was in the city of San Francisco, not making this up. Guys walked into the Walgreens with shopping bags and they were just going like this with the shopping bags and they were calculating what the number was and then the the people that are running the store are told that they can't do anything because god forbid somebody's got a gun, somebody gets killed.
Everybody I know that went to San Francisco or Oakland got their car broken into. Every we parked on the street, they went in the coffee shop, they came back and their computer and their guitar was taken, you know, like
Yes. Yeah. So now it's time to undo what was done, but what was done was done under the opaces of unintended consequences. What if we just give out clean needles to people so they can have a dignified place to inject drugs and not have to go into the back? Okay, it's a shit show in 10 minutes. Okay. So, we're going to have to get a little better at basically at some point. For me, I always go, it's dogs in the airport. I traveled my whole life. I never saw one dog in the airport. I saw a seeing eye dog and I saw a dog that was sniffing out contraband. And then somebody said, 'Look, we're on the honor system. You get a note from your doctor. You can travel with your companion dog, but you have to have a legitimate, you know, you have to have anxiety. You have to be a real service dog. 10 minutes later, place is crawling with nutty broads and their stupid dogs. Okay, you have to know that's coming. That's the part we need. We can't, you know, if you're making policies, if you're making policies like your job as a football coach, getting back to football, it's to call plays for your team, but the other part is to know what's happening. Like you better know that onside kick is coming and have your hands team out there. If you just have a bunch of backup guards and and tackles and guys who've never handled the football and that kick comes now, now they have to dictate the kick. But I'm saying as a metaphor, the reason I think it was the New Orleans Saints when they played the Colts in the Super Bowl, they started the second half with an onside kick. And nobody starts a second half of a Super Bowl with an onside kick. And they caught the team offguard and they got the ball and it was a huge momentum shift. But if the team just scored and there's 41 seconds left and they need another score, send the hands team out. You need to prepare for this. You need you can't get caught off guard by everything or you need to be fired as a coach. So if you think, you know, changing the number of retail theft to 999, whatever, and handing out clean needles and having heroin and a vending machine at the park, you're bad, coach.
and and we need good coaches. I mean, ultimately, we want to know, you know, what's coming and when it's coming. You want a tsunami. If you live on an island, you have to have a tsunami warning system. Otherwise, the government's not doing their job.
Listen, you know, I agree with everything that you're saying, but the question for me is, so when is the pendulum going to stop? Because we go the right will do some things that you both we would both agree are whackadoodle. We certainly don't want the left. I mean I don't think this whole w culture thing has been wildly damaging to the country. And I would tell you it doesn't even poll well at them. So I don't even know where these guys are coming from. Even AOC, okay, as crazy as she is, has told her contemporaries woke one was crazy. And even AOC took her pronoun usage off of her social media feed. Yeah, she did. After the 2024 election, she dropped her pronoun usage from all her social media. When she was asked why, she said, 'Well, a lot of people in my district voted for me, but they also voted for Donald Trump.' And I asked them why they did it, and they said it has to do with the culture. And so, she made a statement three weeks ago, woke one was crazy, right? Well, what
who do you think is going to be there on the Democratic side of the ball? I mean, I guess on the Republican
you're a Californian. Is Kamala Harris running again?
Uh, I don't think I think she wants to run, but I don't think her party wants her to run.
Yeah. And I don't think she has the money or the resources to put together to run. Okay. Is Gavin Newsom running? I think he'd like to run. I mean, I think he'd like to be like emperor of Japan if that seat was open for him. I don't I think he has endless ambition and energy when it comes to this. Now, he made the proclamation he's not running. If Con is running,
well, that's what I'm asking because one of the two of them is running, right? Probably, right?
Yeah. I would assume if I'm not Khi, but I would say somebody will dissuade Kamala from running and Newsom will run. And then there's AOC, you know. Well, I mean, here I mean, look, I'm not a Californian, and I know there's a lot of people unhappy with Newsom in California, but my experience, 35 years in presidential fundraising, my experience is the number one thing you need to be president of the United States, number one, name recognition. And so he is whether you guys like him or dislike him, he is the one person that does the universality of name recognition. These other people, whether it's Josh Shapiro, Assaf, you pick the person, they're not as well known as Gavin Newsom.
The other thing I would say is I'm a lifelong Republican, and let me tell you how smart the Republicans are. They know who their core adversary is. That when when when Hillary Clinton showed up in 1993, Adam, they said, 'Holy shit, she might be the first Democratic president.' They targeted her. Billions of dollars was spent.
first female president, I meant to say, and they targeted her. And then look at what happened with Biden. The Trump guys said, 'Well, who's the adversary?' They said it was Biden. They told him, 'Pick up the phone, call Zelensky, try to get some dirt on Biden.' And I'm telling you that the Fox News guys, they go after Gavin Newsom every night on Fox. They spend an hour. They spend an hour a night blasting him. They're not blasting Shapiro. They're not blasting Osaf. They're not blasting Buddha Jag.
And so I'm telling you from an adversarial matchup perspective, whatever they think of California, how they're going to paint California, they're worried about him.
Okay? And and he's a good debater because you may like Ronda Santis, but he did beat Ronda Santis on this on the Sean Hannity show two and a half years ago. So I again I don't know. I think Vance is going to be the guy for the Republicans. I know it's early, but but Rubio is telling people he's not running. He says he needs money. He's been in Washington for 15 years. He's got four children. And he's not indicating that he's running. And I don't think he wants to be in a slugfest with Vance, who is running.
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I think so. And he has more tools than JD Vance, but you know, it's not all about, it's not all a punt, pass, and kick competition. You know, part of his like, you know, Gavin Newsom has great hair and a great smile and people like him, you know, so then, you know, that goes a long way. You know, there's a kind of charisma side of it. you know, Nixon debating Kennedy, getting a sweaty upper lip, you know, and there's a lot of, you know, they're after all we're human beings, you know, and
And you know, you know, it's a popularity contest. It's not a hiring decision for the Americans, you know.
Yeah. It it Well, it's it's it's a hiring decision for a minority of Americans. The rest are just like, right, hey, I like this guy. He'd be a good guy to have a beer with. And and also, most people don't really sweat the details. I mean, you look at it this way. One of the biggest purchases a a a person can make, especially in the middle class, but just anybody, is their automobile. And you know, when somebody gets a automobile, because I'm a car guy, you know, they'll go, I got a new car and it's a $50,000 car. And then I go, did you get the V8 or the V6? The 3 L V6 or the 5.2 V8. And the guy goes, it's peppy. And I go, "You don't know what size. You just spent $52,000 on a car. You didn't even find out what size engine is in the thing or what any you don't know anything about the car." And I like the way the car looks. You know what I mean? And that's kind of how we roll. You know, I I like the look of this guy. Like the guy's got a good vibe.
I didn't I didn't expect to be exposed on the Adam Corolla show for my car purchasing behavior.
Yeah. No, you you should know that. Nobody knows cuz I don't I I buy the cars. cuz I have no idea what's in there. I'm buying them. My wife wants that. I go to buy it. I don't know what that was.
Well, you can afford to be dumb, but others
No, I know what you mean.
Yeah. So, yeah, you're low information car buyer. That's all. That's what we'd call you. So, you know, people go, I like Gavin Newsom. Seems like a good-look dude. I'd like to have a You know, it was Obama got a lot of I'd like to have a beer with that guy. Seems like a good dude. you know, and so Rubio doesn't have a lot of that. Now, I like Rubio to me. I'm like um I don't know, you know, you know, back when they'd say like, "Oh, the ladies love Henry Kissinger, you know, and I think they loved him because he his knowledge, not because of his jawline or his hairline, you know, but they they they liked what was in his head, you know, and so I could go,
You know, you don't you don't think it was his pee pee?
Well, the pe they don't find out about the pee pee until it's too late. So, I I like Rubio because of of of what's in his head. Like, I think that guy's super sharp, but he's not a charismatic guy and and as we get further into our
Well, okay. So, explain that to me because he's a very articulate guy, but I agree with you.
I think Trump is less articulate than Rubio, but is more charismatic than Rubio. Yeah.
So then explain to me what makes somebody charismatic.
Like you take a guy like Ben Shapiro. I like Ben Shapiro.
Filled with information, facts and information, just tons of numbers and facts and information, but he's not a charismatic guy, you know.
Okay. Well, we both see that. Yeah.
And so you go, well, this guy's highly qualified to, you know, do about anything, but he doesn't have that sort of it factor they call it in Hollywood that some people have. And in in a world where most people aren't sophisticated enough to even understand all the numbers and all the statistics and all the names of all the terrorist organizations and all the years and and everything that pops out of his mouth, we we tend to just look at the, you know, guy like a logo or packaging and go, I I I kind of like that one, you know, and it's tough to, you It's tough to win. You know, you can be successful and you can run companies and you can make millions of dollars, but I think it's at the end of the day when it comes to president president and also a lot of women are voting and a lot of women respond to just sort of I like that guy and the other guy kind of gives me the creeps or I don't like his vibe. I don't like his attitude or he said that one thing about that other guy or whatever that is. I just think at the end of the day JD Vance has more sort of downhome kind of he's kind of ashy kind of we know his backstory and he's went from rags to riches and we just like that story you know and and he comes across in a in a way it's like who's the most beloved guy to ever get in a booth and call a game John Madden was he the most articulate did he have the most stats in his head. No, he's like, "Look at this guy. This guy's sweating over here. He likes gravy. He's getting some turducken. Look." Boom. You know, he punched that guy. Like, what do we love? What do we love about John Madden? Was he in great was he an Adonis? Was he have mine idol good looks? Was he the most articulate? No, he was none of those things, but he was John Madden. And like we wanted to have a beer with that guy. I think it's well said. I So I think that you're saying if I, you know, and I correct me if I'm wrong, the authenticity matters.
So sometimes when people are speaking, they could be very articulate, but you're feeling a little bit of a wrinkle of inauthenticity. Somebody like Madden was raw. I mean, he was as authentic as you can get. And that is gravitating to people. Isn't that fair to say?
Oh, 100%. And the whole thing is Rubio may be 100% authentic, but there's a but authentic is in the eyes of the beholder.
Well, that's exactly right. You know, the one of my one of my bosses at Goldman had a great line. You either better be very sincere and authentic or you better be really effing good at faking being very sincere and authentic. Right.
Right. So, and so, yeah, you can't tell. So, with some people, even if they're who they are, they may not come across in the way that you need them to to grab your eye.
Yeah. I think Camala Harris has an authenticity issue and and it and it it's not helping and and so I think when people are then then they attempt to synthesize authenticity by laughing and nodding and and telling sort of stories about being poor and you know out doing sort of mundane kind of I was out pulling weeds in my backyard card the other day and I had to fix the garage, you know, go what? And then we catch you feigning authenticity, you know, and then we get rubbed the wrong way. So like
There's a you know there's a version where you just go that guy that guy Larry David's just Larry David man he's not nice he's not friendly he's not charismatic he's just but he's Larry David through and through and I believe that that's exactly who that is
And then when you get busted that's what happened to Ellen
You pretend to be nice you pretend to love dancing you pretend to be sweet and saccharine tweet and everything. At some point, we start finding out that's not who you are. Listen, Ellen is still nicer than Larry David. We just found out that Lar Larry never pretended to be nice.
Oh, said said differently. If you're an [__] there is a saving grace to you knowing that you're an [__] Yes. Yeah. People give you a little bit more slack. I'm an [__] but I know that I'm an [__] All of a sudden, people are like, "Okay, we will accept Here's what we'll accept. will accept a genuinely nice person and we'll accept an [__] but what we won't accept is an [__] pretending to be a genuinely nice person. That's
That's I think it's well said.
That's uh that's where we stop. So, I don't know. I think I And then there's AOC. You know, AOC is uh on the vanguard of a lot of this stuff and may very well be running.
Well, I'm just going to tell you something about AOC. She is a worker. Okay. You I don't like her policies. I want to get away from some of the craziness. She certainly cost us here. I don't know if you know Long Island City was about to put the Amazon uh campus there. That would have been a h 100,000 jobs north of $150,000 a year. So, think of the delies, dry cleaners, small business owners in the area, the whole ecosystem. and think of the tax revenues that the city would have benefited from. But she blocked it. She blocked it because there was going to be a tax incentive that the city and the state was going to pay Amazon because they were in a competition with other states. Adam, so Amazon moved this to Northern Virginia and Northern Virginia got all the economic benefit of that uh corporate capital spending. And so AOC's policies are ridiculously bad. But I'm going to tell you something about her. She works her ass off and she's a very dangerous politician for that reason.
Well, it's it's back to the unintended consequences. She got Amazon not to build a campus there and then she took a victory lap talking about how much money she'd saved the taxpayers, right? because she didn't let them capitalize on the tax incentives.
She didn't she didn't understand it. She they said that Amazon was getting $4 billion and literally when they interviewed her, she thought there was a check getting written from Amazon from the state for $4 billion. That's not what it was. It was a tax savings over 10 years to incentivize them to be in the state. And so now they're in another state. Yeah, it was just a really it was a really bad thing. And by the way, by the way, Bill Delasio, Adam Corolla, Bill Delasio supported it. I mean, this guy is almost Carl Marx. He supported it, you know.
Well, look, we we did the same thing here in California with Runaway Productions, you know. We just drove all this industry out of what used to be the hub of it. We drove it all out. And and by the way, when you drive it out, like you're talking about the delies and the dry cleaners, you know, these are the caterers and the grips and the and the transportation guys and all the set guys like all I mean so many people made their living as editors in this town. You know, when you think drove it out, you're kind of picturing Denzel Washington shooting shooting in Georgia or Prague or something like that. It's not him. that that's 200 people that support him and all those other industries. That was just I mean when I hit those sound stages in the mid9s late mid 90s they were teeming with activity. Every there was everything. of catering vans and wardrobe and every stage was full and they you know you'd stand there and they go they do Living Color on that stage and they do that show on that stage and that's the the you know every stage was full. It's full of employees and and these people, the hair people, the makeup people, they were making money and they were buying houses and it was all and it's it's a ghost town now. has drove it drove it all out and it's more unintended consequences. You think, well, we're just going to go ahead and tax and regulate these people and then we'll get more money from them. No, no, you're going to get a higher percentage of zero. AOC, you saved what you thought was a bunch of tax dollars except for you got zero in return.
I you know I mean so look I mean
We need to know what we're doing right and wrong and not make it about left or right.
Yes. And we got to look at it through the prism of what's right or wrong for the people. What's right or wrong for the country
As opposed to this hard left or this hard right analytic? You know, and I and I, you know, I when I wrote the book u u that just came out, I I said that you let China in, you didn't protect the worker. When you started those wars, you know, the Bush team thought those wars were going to last months, Adam, they lasted decades. Two wars, two tax cuts, two decades of fighting. That was an $8 trillion credit card bill. You know
Who's the kind of person that you would like, you know, first off, we shouldn't have people run for president. We should tap them on the shoulder and they'll go, "What?" And they go, "You're president."
Well, now you sound like Alan Greenspan because Alan Greenspan said, "If you want to be president, that is the first disqualifying sentence, right, of you being president, right?" And so Alan Greenspan said that he worked for nine presidents. There was only one normal one really. said, "Okay, who was that?" Allan and he said, "Jerry Ford." And he said the reason was he had no interest in being president. Didn't expect to be president, right? And got tapped by Nixon and he felt a national urgency to do it. And then of course when Nixon left, you know, Jerry Ford got the presidency and he said he was the most normal of all of those people cuz they were all searching for something in the presidency in a way to launder their lives, you know. But, uh, to me, you know, look, I mean, he'd never run, and I don't even know if he'd be electable, but somebody like Jamie Diamond, who runs JP Morgan, a very competent guy, a very hands-on manager, great delegator, he's a great decision maker. Uh, you know, Mike Bloomberg was a phenomenal mayor, okay? He was a Republican, centrist Republican. He then became independent, but he was a phenomenal mayor, and he grew the city and kept the people safe. Uh we actually had population expansion in New York under Bloomberg's tenure. Uh he's too old now to be the president. But I'm just saying there are there are competent executives that could run for president, you know, and they and would I'm not saying they could get elected though, but they would do very good job.
Yeah, I I agree. That's a funny story about Ford, about Gerald Ford.
Yeah, that was in Alan Greenspan's book, his memoir. He he he basically said what you just said. If you want to be president, that should be the disqualifying feature.
Well, if you want to be president, maybe you start with a pure heart and a pure soul or pure compass. But all along the way, there's just so many compromises to make in the name of money and and and groups and power. But I just mean, it's like, look, if you want to if you want to run California, you're going to need the teachers unions to support you. And then you're going to have to support the teachers unions. And then CO's going to come around and then you're going to think we should reopen the California economy and the schools and then someone from the teachers union's going to tell you we don't want the schools reopened and if you want our support next time around and before you know it we have a corrupted system and your kids sitting at home waiting for the school to open. So that's how all of it works.
So So that's an example at the local level. Let me let me let me say this. You got five months of munitions from a Department of Defense that spent $1 trillion on our annual defense. So they they got five months of munitions. So that's telling you something's broken, right? The circuit between the lobbyist, the defense contractor, the senator, and the Pentagon, that system is broken, Adam, it's to your point about the unions, you know. So, wait a minute. I want to kill that project. No, you're not. That's in my district. I'm not losing those 20,000 jobs.
Okay. But we don't need that project anymore. That project is obsolete based on the way modern warfare is going. Right. Okay. I don't care about that, right? You see what I mean?
So, so we have to clean that whole circuit up. That circuit is failing the country.
I agree. There's a, you know, there's a big pharma version of it. There's a there's a version
Yeah. Wherever there's a ton of money, there's a version of what we're talking about. And it can go no other way because you have people that have huge interests and tons of money. And then you have people that are going to affect their livelihood by the decisions they make, which will be the politicians. And so then you're gonna invent lobbyists and they're going to go talk to those people and make, you know, make an argument on your behest and and and it almost has and not almost, it has to go this way. It's what shall be. So my thing is with a lot of this stuff, we talk about fixing it. It's a lot of we need to fix this system and fix that system. I I don't know that there is a fixing of it because of how inherently flawed it is. I think you have to get rid of certain systems. I I the the whole sort of lobbyist or the whole thing where you know you were a senator and and you were on the board of the uh um you're on the CDC and and now you're working for Up John or whatever. You go from Up John to CDC. I mean that whole sort of incestuous kind of you know how the game is played. Everyone is everyone makes, you know, $183,000 a year and is magically has a net worth of $250 million somehow, you know, like that whole system needs to be just sort of deconstructed, right?
Yeah, it's terrible. I I agree. I mean, you know, remember what I said when we started the show. The in Singapore, they pay seven figure salaries, but they don't allow for the insider trading and they don't allow for all the gimmicks and the political junkets and all that other stuff.
Well, let's tell me about Singapore. Tell I'm curious.
No, you would just be better off pay. So, listen. I mean, the the bad news about Singapore is they control the press and they control the media. So, I'm not it's not a perfect place, but I'm just making the point in Singapore, they pay the politicians a lot of money. Like I I'll give you a Buffett example and you'll totally get this. If you so told every polit you told the 435 members of the House and the 100 senators, you said, "I'll tell you why. We'll pay you $20 million tax-free. You can put it in your pocket for your family." That's only $10.7 billion, Adam. But you have to balance the budget, right? You see what I mean? The incentives are now [__] Of course, we're going to balance the budget, right? You see what I mean? And so, but we have totally misaligned the incentives. But my only point about Singapore, these bureaucrats are making and these elected leaders are making seven figure salaries. So, you know, listen, Marco Rubio is making 10020 $250,000 a year for 10 years, you know, and it's very hard for him to afford his lifestyle. His wife's working. I'm sure he sold a book and he's done maybe some real estate investing with a couple of people, all that stuff that they do. But but the truth be told, you'd be just better off paying them, you know, and it wouldn't even be that big of a hit to the Treasury.
No, I look, I you know, I don't think people, you know, when they hear the stories about somebody making, you know, $375,000 a year. It may sound like a lot, it is not a luxurious life and it's not a game changer. And it reminds me a lot whenever I laugh when they talk about LA because I'll go, you know, Camala Harris bought a $8 million mansion in Malibu. Is not a mansion. There's no $8 million mansion. There's a $37 million mansion in Malibu. 8 million is uh
Well, they they did that to Andrew Cuomo out here in the Hamptons. They did the same thing to him.
Right. Right. Now, it's still she can still afford to buy an $8 million house. So, you can make all the argument you want, but just get the word mansion out of there because she's living on point Doom. I used to have a house out on Point Doom. You can live in a ranchstyle house from the 50s that's 2700 square foot and it's going to be $8 million.
I know the I know the area. I know how aggressive it is, right? So people do this thing where they go, "This guy draws a salary of $385,000." Yeah, believe me, he wants more money than that. That ain't that ain't a game changer. You ain't flying private. That you ain't even flying first class at at that after taxes.
Not not in this. Well, just but just think about that. And you were talking about your parents and you were talking about your grandparents. So imagine telling your grandparents in 2026 someone could make $400,000 a year, but they would feel themselves pretty tight or pretty constrained from a living perspective.
I remember, you know, my my parents my my parents don't get it. You know, my my mother's still with us, thank God, but she's can't believe the price of something.
Listen, they used to say milliondoll house, and they didn't even mean million dollars. That was a 5 $40,000. That's a million dollar house and that guy's got a million dollar smile. I remember talking to my realtor after I bought my first house in the Hollywood Hills in 1996 for 350K. I had to do a lot of work on this house. A lot of work. It was a real fixer upper, but it was 350. And at some point, maybe five, four or five years later, somebody offered 675 for it or something like that. Right. Right. And she said, "Oh, you you better you should take that." And I said, "Nah, I don't I don't really feel like selling it." And she goes, "Oh, you should take it." I was living somewhere else and maybe renting it out. And she goes, "Oh, you should take it." And then she looked at me and she goes, "Well, it's never going to be worth a million dollars. It's not a million-dollar house. That house is 24.
Now, and that wasn't that long. That wasn't that long ago either.
I'm going to really embarrass myself here. Okay. I bought in 2003 the Batman Returns Batmobile. This was the second Batman movie with Michael Keaton.
[__] you should have brought this up at the beginning, man.
Okay. Okay. Okay. But Batman, Michael Keaton, Michelle Fefeifer, and Danny DeVito were in the movie. Okay, you ready? I paid $140,000 for it. Three years later, I was offered $350,000 for it.
I sold it and you know, it went to auction last week, sold for $7 million.
Okay. How about that? How do you like How do you like those apples? Okay. And let me just point out to people that was a 19% compounded return and I'm in the investment business. Do you know how hard it is to generate a 19% compounded return? But I had an asset that if I had just held the asset, you know, I would have been well rewarded from the asset. So it's your point about housing or owning a high quality collectible or high quality stock, you know. So, that Batmobile, not the most famous Batmobile?
No, not the most famous. It It's on a Ford F-150. The George Ferris Batmobile is the most famous one. That's the 19
Bars. I'm sorry. George I I meant to say Bars. I'm sorry. The George Bars one with a B from the 1966. The old Ford Futurama. Yeah, that's the the platform that it was on is the most famous.
But you know the difference with between that Batmobile and you know there were like 30 plus of the George Baris ones. There was only two or three of the Michael Keaton ones.
So God Jeff Dunham comedian ventriloquist has a few Batmobiles. Not sure. And you have to be careful because sometimes they had the hero car and the backup car and the camera car and the one they crashed. you know, they had to have a a copy.
I had a I had a fully authenticated certificate. And remember, you may know this, and I bet your friends know this. If you buy one of those cars, you sign an agreement like you can't put like Sal's Pizza or Adam's, you know, uh, you know, you know, deli. You can't, you know, you have to only use it for display purposes. You can rent it out to an auto show or something like that, but you can't use it for commercial purposes. So, you bought it for 140 in what year?
2003 is not that long ago.
What auction. We got to find out what auction it went off on. Do you know?
Yeah. I bought it from a private collector. Oh, yeah. I'm not sure which one. No, it was in the It was in the New York Post last week.
All right. Look it up, guys. You bought it for 1403. You sold it for 375 in what year?
Yeah. I was trying to ease the pain a little bit.
Yeah. No, there's no there's just tremendous pain. Okay. The body the body's been skinned and salted, Adam. It's a tremendous pain.
Everybody who's listen I could tell you stories about Lamborghini Mur is the same thing. Anyone who's been in the game will have a story. But uh what year did you sell it then?
Yeah, 2006. So three years later.
All right. But, you know, as as salty as that skin may be, it's still a hell of a return for 3 years.
By the way, you know, I drove around in that car. That car was not road ready. You couldn't really drive it, but I was driving to my neighborhood. I had the Batman outfit on driving around in the car on Halloween. It was one of the funnest experiences of my life. But I sold the car because I was like, "Oh man, here you go. There's a big payday here. You're going from 140 to 350, right?" And uh but you know, it's your point about the Malibu house. You know, I mean, the house is never going to be worth a million dollars. You're right. It's not worth a million dollars. It's worth $2.4 million.
Yeah, that's Hollywood Hills house. Malibu is uh was another one.
You know what I mean? You know, you know the point I made.
The Batman Returns Hero Batmobile is scheduled to go to auction. I'm reading my screen here.
Oh, it hasn't sold yet then. Okay. They said it was 7 million end of November and it's supposed it's estimate is 5 to seven. So, okay. All right. Someone told me it went for seven. But anyway, five to seven. If it sells for five, you know, is slightly less salt on the skin, Adam, but there's still a lot of salt. Okay.
Uh the book is called All the Wrong Moves: How the Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump. out as we speak. Anthony Scaramucci, when are you going to be in LA? When are you going to be in LA next?
Well, you know, I'm going to be out there in December. Can I come see you? I'd love to come see you if you're around.
Yeah, we always talk about me, you, and Dr. Drew getting a steak.
I would I would love to do that. You know, he's he's one of my favorites. I lived in a tent with him in special forces. You know that, right? Back in Jordan.
That's right. Well, listen, circle the calendar and let's sure make that happen in December. I would love to see you and my best to your team who I adore.
Appreciate you having me on, my man.
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It's time to check Adam's voicemail.
Aceman, I've heard my whole life about people suffering in silence. Could you take up the mantel for those folks that are outwardly happy and proud of it? Kind of a cognto gruntlement campaign. Let me know what you think. Get it on, brother. You can leave us a message at 8886341744.
God, I I miss the days when people suffered in silence.
Suffering and silence. But what he's saying is he wants people to be happy in silence. Shut up.
Do that. I'll go for both.
