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On this episode of On The Tape Guy and Danny discuss the state of the market (4:49), the meme madness in Bed, Bath & Beyond this week (8:02), the gamification of the stock market (11:28), Wall Street calling the Fed’s bluff (21:08), bank stocks (29:05), Walmart earnings (31:44), and Nvidia earnings next week (36:16). Later, Guy and Dan sit down with Tommy Vietor, co-founder of Crooked Media and co-host of “Pod Save America” and “Pod Save the World,” and discuss where we are in Ukraine (44:09), tensions with China escalating (54:14), and the midterm elections (59:40).
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Show Transcript:
Guy Adami: [00:00:00] CME Ad [00:00:01][0.4]
Dan Nathan: [00:00:30] iConnections Ad [00:00:31][0.3]
Guy Adami: [00:01:21] There’s a saying, Danny Moses. When the cat’s away, the mice will be heard. Have you heard that saying when the cat’s away, the mice shall play. Is that true? [00:01:28][7.6]
Danny Moses: [00:01:29] It’s not time to make a change – Cat Stevens. [00:01:31][2.6]
Guy Adami: [00:01:35] Well, Dan Nathan is away as we’re doing this. He’s on the campus of Georgetown University. He’s taking his oldest daughter to school. I think that’s beautiful. [00:01:44][8.7]
Danny Moses: [00:01:45] That’s a good school I heard. You like that place. [00:01:45][0.9]
Guy Adami: [00:01:46] Georgetown University is typically ranked anywhere from 18 to 22, depending on what publication you buy, whether it’s U.S. News and World Report, Forbes, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, any of those things. If they had a larger endowment and perhaps if the on the tape podcast becomes something, I can help them with that. [00:02:06][19.5]
Danny Moses: [00:02:06] You’ve helped them. You’ve put a lot of kids through there. I think you’ve done your part. [00:02:09][2.8]
Guy Adami: [00:02:09] On the the tuition front. Yeah, but you know what they so they lack there they lack in the library category and they’re weak in the sciences but working on it. But it’s a wonderful school, I would submit outside of a few schools it’s the best school in the country. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about. Our conversation is the cat is away. The cat comes in the form of Dan Nathan. So as I look at his empty chair, I’m staring at two $50 bills. By the way, on the $50 bill for you. Playing our home game is Ulysses S Grant. [00:02:38][28.8]
Danny Moses: [00:02:39] That is true. You’re right. [00:02:40][1.4]
Guy Adami: [00:02:40] Now why is that there? I didn’t put it there. [00:02:43][2.7]
Danny Moses: [00:02:43] Last show I made a bet to Dan that by the time we record this today, the market will be down for the month of August. And that was wrong. [00:02:51][7.4]
Danny Moses: [00:02:53] That was wrong. I’m going to rehash it for next week. But he’s not here to collect the one time he takes money from me, the one time he’s not here to collect [00:02:59][6.8]
Guy Adami: [00:03:01] But see what’s going to happen [00:03:02][0.8]
Guy Adami: [00:03:03] By definition you have to double that and he’s the wind up losing twice. He should have won the white up losing twice as much. So as I mentioned, when the cat’s away, the mice shall play. It made me think so. This is how my mind works. I think of mice. I think of John Steinbeck. I think of Steinbeck’s classic of Mice and Men, which was released in the late 1930. [00:03:25][21.2]
Danny Moses: [00:03:25] Where’s the rabbit, George? [00:03:26][0.6]
Guy Adami: [00:03:27] Look, you are. See, that is so good. But even script this. But my point is this was written in the late 1930s by John Steinbeck. It’s a wonderful piece which everybody should read or should reread, but it’s really it’s portraying sort of early depression era era stuff. Now, before you start @ my ass on Twitter, I’m not suggesting we’re on the verge of a depression. But if you go back in history, by the way, Danny, and look at some of the things that were happening leading up to and things leading up to now eerily similar. Before we get started, this is the on the tape podcast I’m Guy Adami today I’m joined just by the devastatingly handsome Danny Moses. Dan Nathan as I mentioned in parts unknown, although we know where he is in a few minutes we’re going to have a conversation with the pod. Save the Queen or pod save America or pod. Save somebody. [00:04:21][54.7]
Danny Moses: [00:04:22] Save Somebody. [00:04:23][0.3]
Guy Adami: [00:04:22] Yeah, he’s saving the world. [00:04:23][0.9]
Danny Moses: [00:04:24] Yeah, save the world. That’s theirs too. They have that also. [00:04:26][1.9]
Guy Adami: [00:04:26] Save the world. Yeah, I by the way, I’m just messing around. The guy is a genius. Tommy Veitor is going to join us on the tape. That’s going to be a great conversation. As I mentioned, Dan’s away. Oh and oh, by the way, for those that care, on Monday, we’re dropping a special podcast with Peter Boockvar of the Book Report. We’re going to talk markets, we’re going to talk all things leading up to Jackson Hole. He’s going to have a conversation with Doug Seafood. So that’s coming as well. So much to talk about. But I started Of Mice and Men, which is my sense, the title of this podcast, am I making any sense whatsoever? Are you seeing similarities, hauntingly familiar things from the textbook in the 2030s to what we’re seeing right now. [00:05:10][43.6]
Danny Moses: [00:05:10] Other than looking to find the rabbit George to see where to pull it out of a hat. Right. Oh, you like what I did there, so I don’t know if similar or not, but like I said before, this state of the markets is a lot of the last 50 60 or 70 years as a little piece of everything. So to answer your question, I don’t know what year I would say we were in the twenties at this point. We’ve already been through one major dip. We know what happened in the twenties and then we had a nice rally and then it’s all off again, right? So if that’s what you’re insinuating, too, I think that that can happen. Yes, I think that can happen. The SEC, which I’m going to ROTT about later, was formed after that. Correct. [00:05:45][34.9]
Guy Adami: [00:05:46] Alright so hold on a second and by the way, we’re going to have a ROTT by Danny Moses. I’m not asking you to insert that. I’m just doing that now organically. Please continue. [00:05:54][8.4]
Danny Moses: [00:05:55] Danny No. So listen, there’s I don’t know, the simulators are because I wasn’t around then. You were. [00:05:58][3.4]
Guy Adami: [00:05:58] Nor was I, nor was I. Don’t be a wise guy. I wasn’t around. I know people make fun of my age. I’m old, but I’m not that old. [00:06:04][5.9]
Danny Moses: [00:06:05] But I will say again the one thing the people owe of themselves right now is do bottom up work. And none of that is happening right now. At least none of it is paying off and that will pay off over time. So the crowd moves in various direction. Everybody moves together. I like to think against the crowd. Right? I like to use behavioral finance. So if you were a behavioral finance person during that time period, you would have been okay. You would have picked up on those signals. [00:06:25][20.7]
Guy Adami: [00:06:26] Are you a fan of roller coasters? I’m going someplace with this, so indulge me for a second. You are? I see. I’m not really, but I’ll do it. So typical roller coaster. You go up very slowly. It’s a slow rise. You go up, you hear the creaking, but it continues to rise. You never think you’re going to get to the top. And then you finally get to the top and you pause for a brief second before you sort of go down a huge hill. It feels to me as if in terms of the market, we already went down the first hill and we saw that in June. We’ve been sort of climbing the next hill, which might actually be the longest climb. And then I think subsequently a lot of feels like it’s never going to end. It ends abruptly. And I do think that’s we’re on the precipice of this move. And the S&P 500 is basically got us a 50% retracement of the all time high made much earlier this year or late last year, depending on when it was and the recent low we saw in June. This is a textbook 50% correction, something we alluded to, by the way, in mid-June as well. Here we are. I will tell you, although people will say earnings have been great, great, great. No. Earnings have been fine. The price action on the back of the earnings has been great. And we still have some big boys yet to report. And I’ll point you to Nvidia in a second. But again, markets at some point, fundamentals come into play. And to me, the fundamentals suggest that earnings growth is going to decrease. There’s significant headwinds out there and the multiples are still too rich in a number of different sectors. [00:07:58][92.8]
Danny Moses: [00:07:59] This is a big difference. Companies that actually make money, have a real business, are going to survive, are separated from the companies that don’t. And now the companies that don’t, it’s almost as if they’re on a different rollercoaster. It’s almost as if you don’t want them to have real earnings or real revenue because it’s easy to fantasize on some of these meme stocks and dans out here. So I can talk about the meme stocks since he’s talking about it, but that’s where. So we’ve got to separate those in two worlds. [00:08:19][20.4]
Guy Adami: [00:08:20] When you look at a company like Bed, Bath and Beyond, Symbol BBBY comes out b, b, b, y, as we used to say. Yeah, when you see something like that, to me it’s not a sign of a healthy market. It’s a sign that the insanity is still out there. [00:08:34][14.4]
Danny Moses: [00:08:34] Yeah, I mean, you had a stock, so let’s go back to March when Ryan Cohen decided he was going to become an activist and take a stake because he wanted them to sell. Bye bye, baby. He wanted to get on the board. You want to do these things. So stock was 15. We were on air the next day. I think that happened. Stock traded pre-market 30 back to 15. Back to a four round trip. [00:08:53][18.1]
Guy Adami: [00:08:53] Round trip you talked about. [00:08:54][1.1]
Danny Moses: [00:08:55] I did. And now look what just happened again. I know what. Same thing. Where did it hit? It hit 30 the other day. Right? Then he comes out, he goes, I’m selling my stake. So there’s activists and then there’s activists, right? So you got the value acts of the world, the Elliott management of the world. The third point, the other world that actually want to go in, restructure companies, help them grow value. And then you have the Ryan Cohen’s of the world or the Adam Aron’s of the world or even the Musk, whatever the world. They just say things because they think it’s cool and want to do stuff really never amounts to anything. And that’s my point. You can’t really fix a bed, bath and beyond. You can go in and fix a Disney to tell them to sell ESPN or spin that out. You can go in and fix certain things right there, certain companies. And I think I was I was going to go through that whole exercise here. We are seeing a lot of activists right now and people should pay attention to. Those are real activists. You may not like the geckos of the world, but they’re tearing apart because. [00:09:39][44.8]
Guy Adami: [00:09:40] That’s exactly right. Sir Lawrence Wildman actually wanted to fix Blue Star 17 Apple. Yeah, if you remember, like he actually had a vested it, like he thought he could fix it. Gecko didn’t. [00:09:52][12.8]
Danny Moses: [00:09:54] Want to go. [00:09:54][0.3]
Guy Adami: [00:09:54] To buy the stock. Watch it go higher, break it up, do that whole thing. It’s very interesting that you mentioned. I think in some ways activists are good. There’s an altruistic element to that and I think sort of Lawrence Wildman in the movie Wall Street was that character Gordon Gekko, portrayed by Michael Douglas was not. He was in it for himself. By the way, nothing wrong with that. But let’s make sure we identify what’s going on in terms of what happened just now with Bed, Bath and Beyond. That stock was going nowhere. I don’t think it was coincidence, Danny Moses, that the options deep out of the money options that he bought somehow made it into the ether. People will say, well, he thinks it’s going, you know, he doesn’t. That to me is a low cost advertising way of getting your position higher. And that’s exactly what happened. So if he’s going to lose, let’s just throw numbers out $1,000,000 in his options and I’m making up numbers now, but he makes $10 million in the stock move. Guess what? You do that trade every single day. [00:10:54][59.6]
Danny Moses: [00:10:54] Yeah. So those options were bought previously, right? Yes. Part of this run up. Yes. So on the same page, he bought a lot more stock than he did options. But yes, it was $60 strike price I think. [00:11:02][7.6]
Guy Adami: [00:11:04] 60 and 80 I think. Now again, people will say to me, well, guy, he thinks the stock is going. No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t think that at all. That, to me, is a way, again, to get the sort of the juice, the after burner going, understanding when that makes its way out there into the public. People start talking about it and it becomes self-fulfilling. He never I’m just speaking for him. I don’t know. Obviously, in his wildest dreams, he didn’t think it was going there. But I think he did know that once the Reddit wallstreetbets crowd gets their arms around it, the underlying stock was going to go to a level that made him a shitload of money. Yes, I said shitload. [00:11:39][35.1]
Danny Moses: [00:11:40] Yeah. Listen, let me go back to all this activist investing that’s been going on, the real stuff. So, Elliott investment management sold out of their SoftBank. Why? Because they believe for a period of time that SoftBank should buy back their stock because they thought there was a mismatch on what the value of their portfolio was to where the equity was actually trading. They figured out over a period of time that the assets were mismarked and they got out. What they did, they got involved. Cardinal Health, PayPal, Pinterest, Aerojet, right. These are all things that they’ve been involved in. There’s a thesis behind all of them. Dan Loeb at third point, right? Disney, he’s like I just before he wants to spin out ESPN. Right, Corvex, empty your resources. Right. There’s activists, they’re like, read those verses. Reading this other stuff is what I’m talking about in the market. By the way, in hindsight, price should have been talking about this before has been ripe. Activist investors what this market did we always said there’s opportunities alongside in the short side. They do real work. They’re evaluating this and they take a stake and they announce and yes, they’re doing it to make money. Guy, let’s not kid ourselves. They’re not doing it to help people necessarily, but they’re capital. That’s what they get paid to do. So take a look at that versus all this other bullshit that that’s going on, because here’s the SEC, right? Who’s done nothing? You know why they’re doing nothing. This is now my ROTT. I’m ROTTing now. [00:12:47][67.3]
Guy Adami: [00:12:48] oh, no. [00:12:49][0.7]
Guy Adami: [00:12:50] So wait a second. [00:12:51][0.8]
Danny Moses: [00:12:51] rip off the tape brought to you by the absent Dan Nathan. [00:12:53][2.2]
Guy Adami: [00:12:53] Without further ado, Danny Moses is going to rip off the tape. Something here on the tape podcast, we call a ROTT, Danny, please not sponsored yet. We should get somebody to sponsor it like some jockage commercial, right. Save your ROTT, go to Danny Moses. Something like that on now. I’m just throwing it out there. Amanda I’m sure he’s smiling right now, but please continue. [00:13:13][19.6]
Danny Moses: [00:13:13] So let’s go back to GameStop a year and a half ago, right where all hell broke loose, right with the buy button Supposedly it was canceled and all that shit and everybody got upset at the retail world again, it’s Wall Street screwing us. So the SRC realizes they’re in a tough position, to protect the retail investor from themselves by going, you know, going after and trying to figure out what happened. They kind of did nothing right. If you remember, at the end of the day, the report was, yeah, there were some inefficiencies. Nothing really happened. We’re not exactly sure what happened. Yeah, maybe Citadel was colluding here and there with with Melvin Capital, whatever might have been whatever. So it goes by the wayside. So now we have this second run up, which is an SEC nightmare and all these names, right? GameStop, bed, bath, when you name this, ten of them. 12 of them now at the running out. So what do you do? Does the SEC have an investigation? Do they look and see what’s happening? No. The reason they won’t do it is because retail world, who they’re supposed to protect thinks that they’re out to hurt them. Right. So what do they wait for? They wait for the stocks to get killed, go back to the levels that they think that they should be, and then they’ll come out and announce some type of examination. Their hands are completely tied. And where did this all start Guy? This all started with Elon Musk, the whole thing by not reprimanding him to the degree that they should have just a $20 million fine for a fake 420 buyout. That’s all it really was. It allowed to go unchecked. It opened the door for all of this. So now if you’re the SEC, you didn’t go after the biggest meme stock in the world. How do you go after all this stuff that’s going on? You have Adam Ehrin at AMC talking about what’s going to happen when he reports the quarter. Stay tuned. Eight fans. I got to surprise you. How is that even legal to even trade on? Right, that kind of shit? Musk The other day, I think I’ll buy Manchester United Soccer Team. I think that’s what I’m going to do. Stock trades up five, but this shit that’s going on, so the SEC has done nothing. They’re completely powerless. The only thing the SEC has done right was not allow coins in the crypto world to actually make it into the real world or to stop those from happening. Like I give them credit for that. That just I think they got lucky. [00:15:00][107.2]
Guy Adami: [00:15:01] They got lucky with that. [00:15:02][0.9]
Danny Moses: [00:15:02] So this is all again, people think, oh, you hate meme stocks, not about hating the meme stocks, it’s about telling. I know we have people that listen out there that trade these stocks. [00:15:10][7.8]
Guy Adami: [00:15:10] Which which is fine. [00:15:11][1.0]
Danny Moses: [00:15:12] You’re right. Some may may make money. This kid at USC, this 20 year old, made $120 million trading bed, Bath and Beyond or whatever you just did. Congratulations to him. Right. We should have him on the show, by the way, but they’re going to end up losing money. The majority. These people will lose money because they’re just hoarding. They’re just joining a club or a crowd and they believe in it. There’s no way without any question. Back to the poker reference card speak in the long run. You can have these things trade to wherever they want to go. We saw Voltswagen 12 years ago. Weeks we’ve seen crazy shit Tilray. We saw it for years. We’ve seen stuff guy in our careers. We know how this ends. Yeah. So shame on the SEC for not being very vocal about it and saying just a statement. Hey, retail and a retail investor, I’m out to protect you guys. You need to do fundamental analysis here because you shouldn’t pay attention to a lot of the gossip and stuff that’s out there and it’s just shit. It’s just bad. [00:16:02][50.2]
Guy Adami: [00:16:02] Oh, look, I agree. They’re so far behind the curve on this one. This completely blindsided them. I don’t think they understood the power of the mob, the mob in this case, you know, visa vis social media and what it can do and how quickly these stories begin to sort of get around the market. And how quickly these stocks move. My concern with this one specifically is for probably 75% of the people that got involved, I’m sure they’re the people that bought the stocks somewhere north of 25 and a day later it was a teenager. That’s a problem. And I think people are like, oh, my God, it’s sort of the old horse adage, they’re off, you lose. And that’s exactly what this here. So we’re not trying to protect you from yourselves. We’re not trying to be arrogant here. There’s no condescending comments coming out of us. Just understand what the game is, and if you can gamify it as well as some of these other people go at it, but understand that that’s exactly what it is. It’s the gamification of the stock market, something you talked about 15, 16 months ago Danny. [00:17:04][61.5]
Danny Moses: [00:17:04] Yeah, we talked about that and we talked about sports gambling, which is part of that as well, which I want to lead into here also, which is the same aspect, right? People had a DraftKings account, a Robinhood account and a Coinbase account, and they kind of see that. And you can see that still is pervasive. I’d much rather have the Yankees last night, bottom of the 10th, the odds were 20 to 1 for them to win and hit that right Guy. It a nice walk up that was a nice one. [00:17:25][21.1]
Guy Adami: [00:17:25] By the way Josh Donaldson about time. This is an MVP of the league that’s done Jack shit all year finally had his signature moment as a New York Yankee. I hope Danny Moses and I think you would agree that might be that might turn the tide back for the Yankees. [00:17:42][16.4]
Danny Moses: [00:17:42] Just to be clear, I’m not a Yankee fan, but I’m a sports fan, so I like seeing cool shit like that last night. That was cool. The Mets are going to sweep them next Monday. Tuesday. We should make a bet on that. But that’s actually quite a spectacle, you know? [00:17:52][9.5]
Guy Adami: [00:17:52] See, you and Dan do your thing. Yeah. If you’ve noticed over the last we’ve been together a long time now, I mean, we started this in January of 2021, is that correct? [00:18:01][8.6]
Danny Moses: [00:18:01] Yep. [00:18:01][0.0]
Guy Adami: [00:18:02] So what is this August now? [00:18:03][1.2]
Danny Moses: [00:18:03] We started right when GameStop does hold. That’s when it all started [00:18:05][1.9]
Guy Adami: [00:18:06] I understand. I’m just trying to do the math here. I mean, we’re some 20 months into this thing close. Have you ever heard me make a bet? [00:18:11][4.7]
Danny Moses: [00:18:11] No, no. [00:18:12][0.6]
Guy Adami: [00:18:13] No. That’s you and Dan. And Dan went down that rabbit hole, and he’s never been able to extract himself from it. Here he is with $100 sitting in front of him in the form of two $50 bills And he’s not here to collect so tough shit. [00:18:25][12.5]
Danny Moses: [00:18:25] So let’s talk about the gambling stuff for days. So for years I get it. DraftKings, FanDuel, would they all spend tremendous amount of money? Right. So it’s all marketing costs and I get it. I know the short thesis very well. We are now the anniversary here on like two or three years of kind of sports gambling being legal. It’s going to get approved in California by later this year. So on the cusp and all these companies that are competing against each other, BET, MGM. [00:18:46][20.2]
Guy Adami: [00:18:47] FanDuel, Caesars, all of them. [00:18:49][2.3]
Danny Moses: [00:18:49] All right. So you see, that’s all you see. I don’t know. I don’t remember what ads are used to be on sports before gambling. I can’t even remember Gatorade. I don’t know what it was, but they all kind of come to the realization they’ve got to slow down the spending that they’re entrenched. Now, this is going to be a huge season. Obviously, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out this will be a record breaking season for online gambling. But I think the seeds have been sown and these stocks now look at sportradar SRAD. Right? Look at MGM. These things are starting to move entain. These things are at DraftKings like, yes, they’re moving with kind of the rest of the market. But I actually believe the short thesis a lot of these names, I’m not saying they’re not overvalued, but that’s a tough macro train to be short ahead of. And so when you think about Sportradar came out their numbers, how many businesses in this world right now are accelerating like in terms of revenue growth? Right. And marketing spend is coming down. So that’s going to be a great combination, obviously, to see better growth in these companies. So I would not be short these names right now. I think you’re going to see if anything, consolidation may come in these names. And listen, there’s two sectors right now that we’re going to need over the next several years. It’s sports gambling. I’m talking for tax revenue because we’re if we’re going to what we think we are. [00:19:52][63.3]
Guy Adami: [00:19:52] But I bet I know what the other one is. [00:19:54][1.2]
Danny Moses: [00:19:54] What is it? [00:19:54][0.2]
Guy Adami: [00:19:54] Cannabis. [00:19:54][0.0]
Danny Moses: [00:19:54] Yes, correct. So meanwhile, so those two kind of go together sometimes, I guess if you’re crazy enough to bet anyway. So do you think that the Big Ten just signed this? You know, Bbll. Okay, what? Why? Why go. [00:20:05][10.9]
Guy Adami: [00:20:06] I know. [00:20:06][0.5]
Danny Moses: [00:20:06] Why Guy? [00:20:06][0.1]
Guy Adami: [00:20:07] Because of gambling. [00:20:08][0.6]
Danny Moses: [00:20:08] Exactly right. [00:20:09][0.5]
Guy Adami: [00:20:09] Sports gambling. [00:20:09][0.6]
Danny Moses: [00:20:10] Let me read you let me read you the opening weekend in college football that with the exception of the alumni of these teams and players, family and the players, it’s the marquee schedule, right? This is August 27th. The real season starts September 3rd. But the reason you have these names on the 27th in these games, Austin, P and all the stuff, which is great, I love Austin P does it. My point is that people watch it now. Why are they watching it? There’s only one reason why they. [00:20:32][22.6]
Guy Adami: [00:20:33] Cause they got action. [00:20:33][0.0]
Danny Moses: [00:20:34] Because they got action. So those type things to me in game. In game. And we’re going to have Chris Bevilacqua on here in a couple of weeks to kick off the NFL season. Pun intended. Guy with us who runs Simple Bet, who’s partners with DraftKings, who do who’s doing real in-game live wagering stuff. Right. Using artificial intelligence, which, by the way, I got to talk about in a second, artificial intelligence for lending an artificial intelligence or sports gambling are two different worlds, obviously, but it’s exploding here. So it’s no going back. You know, I’m not saying there’s not bad things that can happen from people being addicted to to gambling, but it is what it is so. [00:21:04][30.0]
Guy Adami: [00:21:04] I want to talk about the broader market, by the way, Chris Bevilacqua. I like saying that not to be confused. [00:21:09][5.1]
Guy Adami: [00:21:10] Kurt Bevacqua, who had a cup of coffee with the Yankees as you’re listening to this podcast. It is Friday. Maybe you’re listening to it on Saturday. I don’t know. But you’re not listening to it on Thursday, Thursday, the 18th Wall Street Journal headline. This is really interesting because I said exactly this a week ago. Wall Street bets that the Fed is bluffing in a high stakes inflation game. Here’s the point of that headline in my opinion. Markets getting bought up, people are buying stocks thinking at exactly that with the data coming out as soft. It’s it’s been the Fed’s going to have to back off and they don’t want to be behind that curve. They want to be ahead of that curve. And they hear the Fed talk tough. They hear him talk hawkish. We’re going to fight inflation. But the data suggests maybe at some point they’re going to have to stop. And people have been buying stocks hand over fist in anticipation of that. I would submit that’s completely wrong course of action. Now, it’s been right that stocks have gone higher. But I got to tell you something, I think this Fed is steadfast in their want to get inflation down. And they’ve trotted out just about every single Fed governor imaginable and people that aren’t even there anymore to say exactly that yet the market thinks they’re bluffing. Thoughts? [00:22:29][78.2]
Danny Moses: [00:22:30] I’m Captain Obvious, so let me explain. So in the Fed minutes, it says they could see the pace of hiking slowing, really back to back 75 bips yeah you bet your ass the pace is going to start slowing at some point, right? It’s hard to imagine more. So I don’t think anyone believes there’s 1% rate hike coming on the table during a meeting. There’s either 50 or 75 may be coming next. Who knows, maybe 25 if things really slow down a lot. So they honestly that from those Fed minutes, if you really read them, don’t take the quotes and extract them to how you want to view the market positive or negative. Read them in the in their entirety. Because really what it said to me is they have no effing idea. That’s by the way, that’s fine because I don’t think anybody really has a sure thesis for what’s going to happen. [00:23:08][38.5]
Guy Adami: [00:23:09] Nor do I. But I’m not a Fed governor. I’m not the one that was begging for inflation for years and then saying somehow I could control it once we got it, and then saying it’s transitory for months, months, months, when it was clear to the entire frickin world that it was anything but transitory, then finally throwing in the towel in November now have an inflation rate which peaked at 9.1%, which recently made it eight and a half percent. You wanted to get to two? I’ve got to tell you, the move from 9 to 7 might be pretty easy. The move from 7 to 2 is going to take a lot longer than people think. And oh, by the way, this is off topic, but I’ll just mention it. Crude oil getting off the mat over the last couple of days. Keep an eye on it. But the one that nobody wants to talk about for whatever reason and the one that actually has an equal impact on industry is natural gas. And look what’s been going on in nat gas over the last week or so. Yes, Danny Moses, it’s been going higher and it’s going to continue to go higher. [00:24:02][53.5]
Danny Moses: [00:24:07] Car charts. Yes, exactly. Love that change. That can’t change that card. But yeah, listen, that’s a big problem, right? You’ve been talking about this. The flip side of all this excitement about the market the Fed done is that it’s going to force the Fed to keep going because that will reinforce inflation pressures are going to occur. So other side of Goldilocks, you’ve said that a hundred times. I won’t say it again, but the other impact this is having is on corporate bonds, right? [00:24:27][20.3]
Guy Adami: [00:24:28] Yes. [00:24:28][0.0]
Danny Moses: [00:24:28] And on yields. And so S&P global ratings, who we can talk about what they did in 2008, that’s a whole nother discussion that now they want to save the world. Right. They’re talking [00:24:36][8.0]
Guy Adami: [00:24:36] Interesting. You said save the world seven times to saver, by the way. But in a few minutes time, Tommy Vietor of Pod Save the Queen will be here. Back to you. [00:24:43][6.9]
Danny Moses: [00:24:43] So they have it in corporate bond world. There’s something called fallen angels. There’s a great article this morning. I think it’s in the Journal about the amount of fallen angels. So you get downgraded into junk status that you’re then a fallen angel. So just a point of reference. Last year I think there was $32 billion total of debt that fell into this category. S&P estimates that globally that number potentially could reach 176 billion this year. What does that mean? It means you’re HYG and you’re J&K and all the stuff and pension funds can’t buy things that are rent. So this is what we’ve talked about before about bond selection and stock selection, right? You can’t just buy a passive fixed income ETF. You’re better off buying a broker’s. Don’t know how to do this an individual corporate bond. Right. Can you imagine [00:25:22][38.9]
Guy Adami: [00:25:23] Can you even do that. [00:25:23][0.1]
Danny Moses: [00:25:23] Can you imagine? [00:25:24][0.9]
Guy Adami: [00:25:24] I don’t think people know who does it. I’ll tell you who does that. Federal reserve. [00:25:27][2.4]
Danny Moses: [00:25:28] Yeah. [00:25:28][0.0]
Guy Adami: [00:25:29] That’s true. [00:25:29][0.2]
Danny Moses: [00:25:29] That’s true. You got it. That’s true. I’m so glad Dan’s not here to talk about this, because you guys move on from the Federal Reserve. No, but it’s true. There’s been no price discovery. [00:25:35][6.2]
Guy Adami: [00:25:36] Okay, dan you’re not here. We’re going to move on from the Federal Reserve. The problem is, that’s the story. Everything is predicated on these bozos. Back to you. [00:25:44][8.4]
Danny Moses: [00:25:45] Yeah. So, listen, it doesn’t it also has an impact on other things, right? So we talked about this before, funding costs. We’re going to talk about the banks in a sec. Yes. Before we get to real banks, let’s go to fake banks. Right. So Upstart and Affirm in these guys again, Carvana companies that depend on the ABS market to fund their balance sheets. What does that mean? They make a loan. They’re not a bank. They don’t hold it. They have to sell them to invest. So banks provide them capital. They create the ones who then put them in packages and sell them. As soon as that bottlenecks up. As we’ve seen, they have choices. Well, last week, I don’t know if anyone saw in Upstart pstart. Right. They actually came out and said, you know what, we’re going to do, we’re going to buy back our own paper. Because we’re so we’re going to use our cash to buy back paper later. That happened to subprime. That’s exactly what happened. So Wall Street cut the funding to all the subprime lenders and, you know, 2005, six, seven a period of time. Those companies had no choice but to say, you know what, we’re going to balance sheet these loans. [00:26:36][51.3]
Guy Adami: [00:26:36] No, no. I want now. Yes, I remember that. And the way they position it, the way they package it was, we’re so confident that that’s where we’re going to buy our own stuff back. In reality, they had no choice. It’s all the way they package it then and it’s the way they’re packaging it now. [00:26:53][16.4]
Danny Moses: [00:26:53] So, I mean, this is the quote from the upstart it was last week, right? I don’t how I missed it, but whatever. So Upstart plans to start using cash reserves to buy some of its own asset backed bonds, company executives said on an earnings call last week. Our mission is to try and bring people who might not seem optically creditworthy through their traditional banking lens into the system. This is was the CFO. [00:27:14][20.8]
Guy Adami: [00:27:15] What is optically we said somebody wears a suit. [00:27:17][1.8]
Danny Moses: [00:27:17] optically. So you have a 535 go. But it must be different because we’re going to run. We’re on a journey of convincing the market so they can rely on our technology and we are comfortable stepping in with our balance sheet to provide financing to do it too, which I wrote to myself, to mention to myself. And then underneath it to myself I wrote Nighty night. Okay, that’s it. It’s over. It’s over. Okay. So I was short upstart, right? I’m reengaging, reengaging Batman here because that’s all I need to see. And let me explain. I want to talk one other thing. I don’t want to lose people, please. So these things like people don’t because there’s no cycles, right? People don’t see cycles. That’s bullshit what that guy just said. But there was a guy named Mark Rosenthal, really close friend of ours, who ran a fixed income fund for us when we were at Front Point, right? He was he was at sea bass. He saw the world ending. He told me and our group how to trade the world. And he was one of the really instrumental guys to kind of do it in 2003 and four and five, when subprime was really taking off, something happened. Traditionally subprime bonds. Everybody hang with me here. Subprime loans tend to default within 12 to 18 months. That’s what they do. You get a car, you make payments for first seven or so much, you buy a house, you make payment, whatever it might be, you tend to try. This time was different in 2003, four and five. Why? Because brokers, mortgage brokers and banks were inventing new products. They invented 228 mortgages. 327. What does that mean? Arms. Right. Come out. So what happened was subprime bonds. Hang with me everybody were prepaying within six months. So you never saw the deterioration. Okay, you follow me, guy? [00:28:50][93.6]
Guy Adami: [00:28:51] Yeah, I completely follow. [00:28:51][0.8]
Danny Moses: [00:28:52] So what happened was Moody’s, S&P, everybody just jumped on the train. This time is different. No, lending is never different. Let’s shift to the banks here. But lending is never different. My my point is, look under the sheets and what is going on? Affirm up start in these guys. It’s all bullshit. You can’t. You can’t. AI lending just doesn’t work. [00:29:07][15.2]
Guy Adami: [00:29:07] That deterioration was there. They just created products that created it’s opaque environment where you couldn’t see it unless you were Danny Moses or the aforementioned Rosenthal [00:29:18][10.5]
Guy Adami: [00:29:23] Rosy, let’s talk about the banks and we’re going to talk about in a couple of individual stocks as well. And if you listen to this, we’re not to stop with the doom and gloom stuff. We’re not. You have to understand what’s going on with the markets. I think I understand. And I got to tell you, this high stakes game of chicken, I think that’s exactly what’s going on. But you should look at some of the stocks you own over the weekend and say our stock X, Y and Z is run 30% from where I bought it or 35% since the June low. What am I thinking here? Those are the conversations you have to have yourself. Banks are really interesting and I’m telling you folks, this one we nailed on the screws when Goldman Sachs was trading 275 before earnings. [00:30:02][38.3]
Danny Moses: [00:30:02] right at book. [00:30:02][0.5]
Guy Adami: [00:30:02] We came in here on the On the Tape podcast and I said, look, folks, I’m telling you now, Goldman is now trading at book value. Goldman’s quarter is going to be excellent in the form of fixed income, currency and commodities. They’re going to crush it on the trading front. And I said, I’m not certain how much the market will reward them for it, but this is going to be a great quarter. The stock will trade higher. Fast forward to today. Goldman Sachs has completely outperformed some of the other banks. That to me is not a great sign. It’s a great sign if you own Goldman Sachs. But when you look at it, Jp morgan, which bottomed out I think around 106 or so in a middle of June, currently trading either side of 120. That’s not nearly commensurate with the move Goldman Sachs has seen over that same period of time. And that is telling a story. We haven’t even mentioned the fact and we’re not going to dwell on this, that, again, two tens around 40 basis points or so inverted, that bottomed out around 50 basis points. By the way, you’ll see that again, folks coming to a theater near you that does not augur particularly well for traditional banks despite what you hear from people out there. [00:31:10][67.1]
Danny Moses: [00:31:10] Yeah. So the banks we’ve said are going to trade like utility stocks, right? Safe places, write a lot of capital. They’re fine. Why is Goldman outperforming? Because they’re great at what they. Because what they’ve made up for in lack of M&A, mergers, acquisition or lack of, you know, initial public offerings, IPOs, as we call them, they’re trading their way out of this. So they might be losing some counterparty customers in the trading world, but doing great job of trading themselves, as we well know. Morgan Stanley is a, I think, play second fiddle to that. But I think that’s how they also get viewed. Then you have the consumer banks, the Jp morgan, the Wells Fargo, the Bank of America. We’ve been saying this all along. Don’t buy the XLF, buy the individual stocks. And if you had done that on Goldman, you would have seen right guy massive outperformance relative. So the banks are a safe place to be. They’re just not sexy. So can you park money there? Yes. But look again, look for the companies that have increased their credit reserves and not released them or built them accordingly because they’re in for a rude awakening, because credit only has one way to go. [00:32:02][51.8]
Guy Adami: [00:32:02] Guy back. Probably a year or so ago, you sort of put a bull’s eye on Walmart and you and you created a bullish thesis, which was right for a long period of time. The world obviously changed quickly underneath their feet. And, you know, I don’t want to go down what happened at Walmart. But I will tell you, as you know, the inventory build that they saw was like four standard deviations, worse than the worst one they’d ever seen. I mean, typically, Walmart’s a company that understands inventories better than any company in the history of mankind, and somehow they managed to screw it up. The thing that saved Walmart was the next day Target did exactly the same thing in their release. That’s a couple of quarters ago. Why do I mention Walmart? Because, again, if you listen to these things and the stock has bounced and it’s basically gotten back half of the move we saw from the recent high five or six months ago to that trough low. We’re about halfway through it, but we’re still not there. But if you listen to what they’re saying, their customers are being affected by exactly what’s going on in the world. Inflation is a problem. And again, does it go away overnight? No, it doesn’t go away. But when Walmart tells you this, when Target tells you this, when a litany of companies tell you the same thing over and over again, when the Federal Reserve tells you this, it’s a problem, the stock market says, no, it’s not. I say, listen to the reports, listen to the CEOs, the CFOs, and then make your own judgment, Danny. [00:33:24][81.9]
Danny Moses: [00:33:25] Yeah, I feel like it’s Peter Lynch one on one, right? Yes. Listen what they say, just like don’t overthink it. What is Walmart doing? So just so we know, Walmart has basically round tripped probably since we started this show. It’s gone. It’s gone as low as 115 or one whatever, 112 as high as 165. It’s sitting at 140. But the one thing that that is happening, which I thought might happen is the middle and upper class are starting to trade down. Exactly. So that’s why. [00:33:47][22.3]
Guy Adami: [00:33:47] If you listen to that now, people took that as a good thing. No, no, no, no. [00:33:51][3.8]
Danny Moses: [00:33:51] maybe for Walmart. [00:33:52][0.8]
Guy Adami: [00:33:53] For Walmart. It might be a good thing for Target. It might be a good thing. But what is it really saying? It’s not. Again, you have to sort of do two standard deviations away from this. What is that? What is that telling you? To me, it doesn’t paint a rosy outlook. [00:34:07][14.3]
Danny Moses: [00:34:07] No. And what’s really interesting is we talked that Walmart may have preannounced, you know, the day before the Fed meeting, just as, hey, Fed, look at this. This is what’s happening in the real world. And then they beat the numbers. Actually, they beat revenues decently, right? Not not a ton percentage. [00:34:20][12.9]
Guy Adami: [00:34:21] Lowered guidance. [00:34:21][0.3]
Danny Moses: [00:34:22] And they beat it a week later. Just so we’re know, the quarter was closing in five, six, eight some. So. Okay, so then they wanted to, you know, give upside surprise to the street. And then I think they raised the low end of their guidance for the rest year, whatever. My point is that I feel now from a to 2 to 3 standard deviation, they released that the day before the Fed. The Fed would see it for a reason. I think when companies like Walmart report, if you’re not if you’re the Federal Reserve and you’re not listening to Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s, what better real time information can you get? I don’t need to know what a Dr. Jobs report is or what. Oh, continuing claims go up at it, but initial jobless claims go down. No, I want to know what is happening in the real world, not on statistics, which I’m not saying they’re all manipulated. I’m saying they’re very inconsistent at times. So, you know, we’re going to get we’re going to get one more round here. We got we’re going to have Jackson Hole and we have another round of economic data for the August print before the September. We’ll see what happens. [00:35:09][47.3]
Guy Adami: [00:35:09] Interesting. Jackson Hole is coming up. And we’re going to obviously we mentioned Peter Boockvar. We’re going to talk to Peter on Monday. That’s going to drop. And we’re talking about exactly that. Peter’s got some great thoughts. But I’ll ask you this. I made this point on fast money. And again, this is what makes markets. I think the higher the market goes, the more latitude it gives Jerome Powell specifically to talk hawkish and actually be hawkish. What are your thoughts on that? [00:35:34][24.7]
Danny Moses: [00:35:34] Yeah, I agree. We talked about that before. I think it actually gives them more ammunition to feel like, all right, let’s do this. We weren’t going to go 75 in September. It seems like the market can take it, though. Let’s do the 75 instead of the 50. That’s the incremental difference, guy. I think with what you’re kind of talking about there. [00:35:49][14.2]
Guy Adami: [00:35:49] I agree. And it’s going to it’s going to be fascinating to see what comes out of that, because, again, you know, from 91 to 85, everybody’s doing jumping jacks in the world is saved. The reality is it’s still a problem. So we’re going to see and I guess the good news is they gave themself enough runway. And this is the way the calendar lined up between the last meeting and the meeting we’re going to have in mid to late September. So that’s going to be interesting to see. What sticks out to you here, though, because, again, the crosscurrents, Danny, are many, to say the least, and. You know, I’m trying to piece this all together. I will tell you, semiconductors to me again. I think semiconductors say in Tim Seymour said to so I’m not trying to steal it from him but semi’s today are where crude oil was 15 or 20 years or so ago. I mean, semiconductors are basically the lifeblood of a lot of things. And you listen to a lot of these companies lowering guidance, cutting revenue forecast. There are some school of thought out there that Nvidia lowered revenue, lowered guidance a couple of weeks ago on gaming. And now there’s a thought that, you know, when they released earnings, I believe on the 24th, we’re going to see them do it again. Thoughts. [00:36:54][65.5]
Danny Moses: [00:36:55] Things don’t start to trend down like that and just reverse course that quickly. Right. We’ve talked about this is a 13, 14 year build up. This is secular, not cyclical. So as that unwind starts to occur, you’re not going to you may have less bad occurring, which I think is a reason the markets have rallied and that’s fine. And certain companies can excel in this in this market environment for sure. But I just think less bad is not a great investment thesis. If you’re expecting a V or even a U at this point, there could be sectors that will benefit from it. But to me it’s just been a washing machine. This I and and I don’t even think I’d be doing well. I would say if I was actively trading on a desk I wouldn’t because it’s nonsensical is right. This is not a fun tape to trade. And I said on our last show right now, if you’re a hedge fund, you’re entering you know, you’re in the Ides of August. You’re you’re heading into the end of the summer. You want to take down your book, go into Labor Day, enjoy your last few weeks. If you’re even for the year, maybe you’re down five, maybe you’re up three. There’s a big difference in being even a down five and down 12 and down 15. They see what they need, where they need to be. And so the thing that’s been happening also is the pairing of the risk down, right? So a lot of these meme stocks and other stocks, I may not be even be teams that run up that have high short interest hedge funds are like, you know what, just cover it and get out of the way. Well, we’ll come back to it. And if you’re bullish on the market, the last thing that you want to see from a technical perspective is that shorts go cover everything because they are your natural buyer. So I don’t know if I answered your question. I think there’s a behavioral finance aspect to this and a realization that these companies that have been doing well for ten, 12 years is start to not do as well. They don’t snap back and do well again. It’s not these are one quarter phenomenons. And so if the inventory build up indeed at Target and Walmart and Home Depot and Lowe’s because of the shortage of products, they wanted to make sure that they had them and code and supply chain. Yes. Yeah. Well, you can you can squeeze that out over a period of maybe 6 to 8 quarters before you kind of normalize again. So I figure for every quarter that went by when they were building, you got to kind of have that on the other side. So every company is different. I’ll just say this again, like take the time. The markets are fun. Markets are a great place to trade. The market’s incredible, it’s dynamic, but do yourself a favor and spend more time really understanding these companies. Don’t get caught up on the on these on these Reddit boards and all this stuff just to be a part of something. Because you will lose. You will lose. [00:39:00][125.1]
Guy Adami: [00:39:01] Last year, you had an epic and historic run in the league where they play for pay. That’s a hat tip to Mike Francis. Yeah, it was I just sitting watching it every week. It was it was staggering. The accuracy with which you pick games in the NFL. As we get closer to the beginning of the season, my sense is you’ve been doing some work on some teams and I just want to give a taste to some people out there. The obvious teams are the obvious teams. They come in the form of the Buffalo Bills, the bills of Buffalo. I think there’s some people out there that think the Chargers might have some magic left in their tank. We shall see. I think there’s some Raven fans out there that still thinks somehow, magically they can do damage. In the NFC bit of a horse of a different color. Can the Rams do it again? I don’t know. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens there. Is anybody coming out of the NFC East? Chances are no. Do the Vikings finally figure it out? Is there a team on your radar screen that you’re really doing work on in some of your over under work? Or just do want to sort of give the audience just a taste of how Danny Moses thinks? [00:40:10][69.2]
Danny Moses: [00:40:10] You know what, the Buffalo Bills are going to win the Super Bowl barring injury, barring Josh Allen getting hurt they are when you get that close and you that that’s what it takes you’ve got to lose a couple of those those games to get there. So I like to take a few weeks at the beginning of the season and see how teams are playing, what other surprise teams will be. I’m not going to give those out right now, guys. I’m going to wait a couple of weeks just because you had injuries and you got things that are happening. I don’t want to be out there, but as it stands right now, the bills should win that division. Right. And they should go they should have home field and they should go to the Super Bowl. That’s what I believe. And I think they’re going to win it. I think they have all the tools. [00:40:40][29.3]
Guy Adami: [00:40:40] Joe Burrow, if you’re listening, we didn’t mention you. I dig you, by the way. I think there’s a chance that you make it back as well. But when we come back, Tommy Vietor from. [00:40:50][9.8]
Danny Moses: [00:40:51] Pod Save America. [00:40:51][0.6]
Dan Nathan: [00:41:42] CME Ad. iConnections Ad. Masterworks Ad. [00:42:13][31.0]
Guy Adami: [00:43:04] Tommy Vietor is co-founder of Crooked Media, co-host of Pod Save America and the host of the Foreign Policy Focus Pod Save the World. He worked for President Obama for nine years, including serving as the White House national security spokesperson. So Dan last week on the On the Tape podcast featuring you and the intelligent, brilliant, sexy Danny Moses, we brought up the name of Tommy Veitor. And I said, So what’s that podcast like on the tape on the Save the Pod, Save the World podcast? I mean, what are those cats do? And so I figured I might as well get him in here to explain it without further ado. Tommy Vietor, ladies and gentlemen. [00:43:45][41.0]
Tommy Vietor: [00:43:46] Guy, it’s great to see you. Dan, also great to see you. [00:43:48][2.2]
Dan Nathan: [00:43:48] Here’s the deal, Tommy. You probably heard your name and we really appreciate your listenership on the tape podcast. [00:43:54][5.4]
Tommy Vietor: [00:43:54] I’m a power listener now. [00:43:55][0.9]
Dan Nathan: [00:43:56] I know when you were on last back in April, I mentioned to you that I’ve been listening to you guys on Pod Save the World and Pod Save America and I think we’re guy got tripped up here a little bit was he’s like are you guys America first. He’s like, what are your he’s trying to figure out what’s going on here. What are you saving? What is your pod saving? And has anyone ever suggested that you guys are an America first pod? [00:44:19][22.8]
Tommy Vietor: [00:44:19] You know, when we started the show, we thought it was like a funny, ironic, stupid thing. Suggest that a podcast could do anything, let alone save the country or the world. And I think people might have forgotten about the irony along the way. Although when Obama came on Pod Save the World, he called the podcast The World, which is a good slap down and a reminder of sort of who we are and our station in life. But here we are. [00:44:41][21.8]
Guy Adami: [00:44:41] So, Tommy, I’m half-Italian, half Sicilian, Roman Catholic, although I will tell you I’m not a hugely practicing Roman Catholic, so I’m not one to quote from the Talmud. But the Talmud says, To save one life is as if you’ve saved the entire world. So I would submit that if you just reach one person, I’m now I’m actually being serious. If you can just reach a few people, I think you’ve really done what you’ve set out to do and hopefully those people then talk to other people becomes a viral thing. [00:45:09][28.0]
Tommy Vietor: [00:45:10] I didn’t expect this to be sort of a spiritual journey, but I like it. I also I want you to know that I know, like as a power listener, I know you like pop culture. I know you like movies, music. So I came prepared with some new lingo for you. I want you to be able to reach kind of like the Gen Z ears of the world. I think the sky’s the limit for this show, but you just got to expand. [00:45:27][17.5]
Guy Adami: [00:45:28] Tommy Embedded in that statement is the notion that I’m somehow not reaching those people. Maybe you want me to reach them at a deeper level. [00:45:35][6.4]
Tommy Vietor: [00:45:36] It’s just a lingo thing. So lingo thing. A couple of words. We can get into it later, but we’ll talk about it later. [00:45:40][4.1]
Dan Nathan: [00:45:40] I think Tommy’s picked up on that Guy. Really touches with a specific audience. It’s somewhere in the boomer crowd. Oh, no, let’s get into it. Because Tommy does positive America, and they’re primarily focused on a lot of domestic issues here. And there’s a whole host of stuff to talk about. But last time you were on in April, we’re really focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and just really some of the kind of knock on effects that we spend a lot of time talking about supply chains, inflationary pressures on industrial commodities, access to food. I think you guys have covered this really well. Almost a quarter of the world’s wheat is produced in Russia and in Ukraine here. So we want to follow up on some of the things that are going on in Europe and how you see it kind of playing out a little bit and some of the things that have just passed and what I think a lot of people are labeling as sort of historic. I think we all agree that the inflation reduction, the I.R.A., it’s kind of maybe some mis branding here, but we want to hit on that. There’s some really important political implications. And then, of course, we’ve been talking about this issue with China and Taiwan for a while. We touched on it with you in April a little bit. It seems like there’s definitely some things have been bubbling up of late and then how all of this relates in to what might happen in the midterms. Because for us, this is really important stuff as it relates to the economy, as it relates to markets and the kind of gaming of it. So let’s just start with where we are in Ukraine, at least how you see things kind of playing out. I think you told us a few months ago this was not going to end anytime soon. Where are you right now Tommy on all this? [00:47:13][92.6]
Tommy Vietor: [00:47:14] In the same place. I mean, it’s just a slow, brutal, truly horrifying grind. I mean, I saw yesterday that the U.S. estimates that Russian casualties are around 500 troops per day that’s killed and wounded. That’s a staggering amount of people Con call, I think is the deputy secretary of defense thinks that there’s been like 20,000 deaths for the Russian side. 5,000 of those are this the Wagner group, which is a group of sort of private mercenaries. The Ukrainians are suffering enormous losses to the thing has been a bit of like a World War One style trench warfare stalemate for a while. Ukraine is now going on offense in the south. They’re using these high Mars long range rocket weapons that the US has given them recently to hit ammo depots, air defense sites, other high value targets in there. And they’re making some progress. They also hit deep into Crimea recently, which was sort of a strategic game in a lot of ways if the Russians suddenly have to defend the entire Crimean peninsula. But the truth is, there’s not a clear end in sight. It’s incredibly ugly. And as you guys have talked about on the show, the knock on economic effects across Europe in the world are still enormous. [00:48:19][64.6]
Guy Adami: [00:48:20] Well, as it turns out, all quiet is not on the western front or eastern front, for that matter. I read the book, believe it or not, saw the movie too, for that matter. But it’s all quiet here because it’s now. You know what? We don’t seem to talk about it here in the United States anymore. It was 24 seven for that period of time, rightly so, by the way. Now we’ve moved on to other things. That’s problematic to your point, because things have gotten worse there. And one of the things I’ve said, Tom and I absolutely believe this, if you get what you think about Putin, my sense is this whole thing with Ukraine on top of trying to reunify the Soviet Union of the Russian empire, whatever the hell it is, is to control the commodities market in the form of Ukraine, which Dan just said it’s the fourth largest commodity nation on the planet. [00:49:02][42.0]
Tommy Vietor: [00:49:03] Yeah, no, look, the knock on effects in terms of people starving all over the world, mostly in poor countries, a lot of them in Africa, is just beginning to be felt. I mean, the Russians allowed a couple of ships worth of grain out of Odessa, the port in Ukraine recently. That’s not going to begin to fill the gap that is going to be created by constant warfare. I mean, you can’t farm in the midst of constant warfare. And then there’s the natural gas piece of it. As I saw this morning, a company called Uniper, which is Germany’s largest importer of natural gas, reported a loss today of more than $12.2 billion for the first half of the year because there were dwindling supplies from Russia of natural gas and they had to seek more expensive gas on the open market. I mean, Germany’s we could be in a situation where people are rationing gas in their homes and entire industries collapse because German, it’s like a heavy industrial nation. They do aluminum chemicals. These are huge industries and they’re incredibly energy intensive. And I think the Germans get like 35, 40% of their gas from Russia. And so, I mean, it’s going to get worse as we go into the winter. [00:50:09][66.0]
Dan Nathan: [00:50:10] So the other point, you said diplomatically, there’s been no progress made and you just mentioned the fact that Crimea, the ammunitions depot and then a strike on what looked like nine jets, Russian jets. And I heard you guys on Pod Save the World. You and Ben, I think on the episode that dropped on Wednesday here is that this really opens up I was just talking about Fronts. It really opens up a new front. It almost is a sort of messaging in a way. And you said that Zelensky, in a comment this week suggested that they will not cede until they retake Crimea. And so, again, I think all of us would love to see some sort of diplomatic solution, but is it really opening the door for a much longer protracted fight if the Ukrainians are just not willing to kind of seed anything here and the success in which they’ve had in some of these occupied territories, does that just kind of mean that they are digging in here? [00:51:03][52.9]
Tommy Vietor: [00:51:03] Yeah. I mean, I think the challenge for Zelensky is twofold. I mean, one, the more we learn about the Russian treatment of civilians in these occupied areas, the more horrifying it is, the more it starts to feel like echoes of World War Two, indiscriminate torture or slaughter of individuals, children being shipped over the border from Ukraine and forced to emigrate into Russia. I mean, sort of the worst things you could possibly imagine. So if you’re Zelensky, I don’t know how you can talk to a population that’s seeing this, that knows people that are experienced this and suggest that you’re willing to give up any amount of Ukrainian territory, whether it’s eastern provinces where there’s been an ongoing war since 2014, or Crimea, where the Russians moved in and basically took it over without firing a shot and have frankly, like more legitimate is the wrong word, but kind of like defendable historic claims or ties to the territory. So it’s not clear if Zelensky is about setting up a negotiation and he’s anchoring his initial offer as a maximalist one. But if we take him literally, it doesn’t speak to an easy outcome that any of us can see here. [00:52:10][67.0]
Guy Adami: [00:52:11] This is just my opinion. We should we the United States should be doing all we can because it’s the right thing to do. Full stop. I mean, it begins and ends there. Okay, so let’s get that out there. We should also be doing everything we can, because economically, if we don’t, this could potentially be a disaster for Europe, which it’s becoming, and then subsequently a disaster here. Unfortunately, it seems as though and I don’t follow this as closely as I probably should, this comes down right on party lines right now. You know, you put on Tucker’s show and zelensky’s a corrupt guy and what are we doing there? And then the flip side of the coin, we should be doing everything we possibly can to help. I mean, it’s probably pretty obvious. Question Why has it become so polarized and such a political hot button topic? [00:52:56][45.3]
Tommy Vietor: [00:52:57] I think it’s a little more complicated than that guy. You’re right, that like the Tucker Carlson’s of the world, the Rand Paul’s of the. World are a lot more isolationist in their thinking, like their comments are basically we shouldn’t be interfering in any of these wars anywhere. I do think if you look at the comments and actions by Mitch McConnell or a broader sort of subset of Republican senators, there is a lot of bipartisan alignment. I mean, I forget the exact number, but they passed a bill months and months ago that authorized like $40 billion in aid to Ukraine. And so they’re beginning to draw that down. So they did set this thing up for the long term. And I agree with you. I mean, I think there’s a long sort of like tick tock that’s a nerd speak for a back story story in The Washington Post yesterday that talked about how sort of October of last year to today, how the U.S. learned about this intelligence efforts to prevent the war negotiations. And it talks about how Macron and the French kept trying to broker some sort of peace talks with the Russians, and they thought they were making progress and Putin just lied to them. So I’m with you in that I don’t think Putin backs down from this. I think he probably views it as existential for the country and for himself, and that there’s a credible argument to be made that the way to end the war fastest is to help the Ukrainians win it, because I’m not sure that Putin’s going anywhere. [00:54:14][77.1]
Guy Adami: [00:54:15] Fair enough. So let me rephrase then. I agree with you. Maybe in terms of politically, in terms of our representatives, it’s become bipartisan, which is a good thing. I will tell you, for the man and woman on the street, it comes right down on party lines. And that to me is problematic because it speaks to a bigger problem in this country, which we’ll probably get into. I mean, everything now is you’re either on the right side of things, on your left side of things, and people that don’t believe in this are pissed off. And there are other people that are pissed off that we’re not doing enough. [00:54:48][33.4]
Tommy Vietor: [00:54:49] Yeah that’s Fair. And listen, I think people are right to wonder why, after 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan, that just ended after a disastrous war in Iraq, all sorts of other conflicts that, you know, my former boss was part of Barack Obama. Why we would be so heavily engaged in another war. I do think you have to continually message why this matters. [00:55:06][17.0]
Dan Nathan: [00:55:06] The irony of all of this is that there’s another geopolitical hotspot that we’ve talked about in the past, and that’s the situation with China and Taiwan. And one of the reasons why this has kind of flared up, because some of those same people on a certain side of the aisle who oppose involvement in Ukraine are over there going to Taiwan and doing bipartisan trips there. They know that that’s going to aggravate the Chinese. And so I do think it’s interesting in the last few days or so that the Chinese are sending soldiers to Russia, to do joint exercises? This is at a time where Chinese military are running exercises in around and over Taiwan. So Tommy, how have you come to think about this issue here a little bit? Because, again, it’s a very complicated political thing. It goes back decades, multiple presidencies in administrations, and there’s really no clear cut answer to it other than the fact that I think our tensions are probably never been higher with China and our support for a democratic part of something that China thinks is theirs is really likely to kind of have repercussions from potentially militarily, but obviously economically at a time where the global supply chain is fairly strained. So thoughts there about what’s going on in China and how likely are we to see some sort of dust up in 2022? [00:56:24][77.9]
Tommy Vietor: [00:56:25] I think a lot of smart people, analysts that understand this stuff better than I do think it’s sort of not a question of if, but when the Chinese Communist Party tries to, quote unquote, reunify with Taiwan. In other words, invade. Xi Jinping is definitely someone who sees himself in historic terms. I think it was 2017 that the Chinese Communist Party literally enshrined his words into the party’s constitution, which means like you cannot you will not. QUESTION Xi kind of elevates him to the level of Chairman Mao. And Deng Xiaoping right now is the founder of the Chinese Communist Party. Dong was the guy who modernized the country and made them rich. That’s the company he sees himself in. Great question. I don’t know that this is a 2022 problem or even 2023 problem. Again, I’m literally guessing. But the Pelosi reaction was instructive. Like they ran days and days and days of large scale military exercises. Ed Markey, the senator from Massachusetts, just led a delegation. The reaction was lower key, probably because he’s not third in line to the presidency. He’s maybe less of a critic. I don’t think his trip was public in advance, but it’s certainly alarming. It’s alarming for the people of Taiwan. The United States is required by law to provide military support to Taiwan so that they can defend themselves. It’s a constant debate about how much support that entails, how advanced, how sophisticated it. But, you know, you guys are talking many times about the the economic stakes here when it comes to semiconductors, etc.. [00:57:58][92.5]
Guy Adami: [00:57:59] I think it’s a story for sure. I hope you’re right that it’s not a story this year or. Next year. I just think things move much quicker in today’s world and look, in terms of what’s going on domestically, I do think and this is not a political comment, I’m just trying to be down the middle on this one. I think the Biden administration has a lot of wins here. I think they do a shitty job of messaging, but that’s probably for another conversation unless you want to address it. But what I’ll say is, you know, as we get closer to the midterms, which, by the way, you’re going to wake up one morning, going to be right here, inflation’s still a problem. And that seems to be the one thing that everybody is harping on. Dan mentioned this Inflation Reduction Act, which is one of the worst named things in the history of mankind. But again, I don’t make those decisions now. What are your thoughts here? I mean, it seems as though they stem the tide then being the Biden administration in terms of their approval ratings and stuff. But it’s still not going particularly well, at least on the public sentiment side. [00:58:54][55.3]
Tommy Vietor: [00:58:55] Yeah, I do think the approval rating is going to be a lagging indicator here that your earlier point about bipartisanship, it’s interesting and I think also unfortunate that the only way we can pass these kinds of industrial policies, these American renewal policies, is when you frame it as competition with China. I don’t know that that’s a good thing. Like I’m glad the Chips Act passed. I think there’s probably some some real fair critiques of it. It’s kind of like corporate welfare and encouraging companies to do things they might do otherwise investment wise. But it’s a bit of a bummer that like jingoism is what gets to bipartisanship. But again, that’s another story. I do think Biden has racked up some really impressive successes. The Chips Act is one, the infrastructure bill. I don’t think your people are going to be excited about it on the campaign trail, but it’s a significant investment. The Zawahiri strike, the IRA. I hear why you guys think it was unfortunately named. I do think there’s real value for like a Joe Manchin or other moderate Democrats to run around the country and say, we just passed the Inflation Reduction Act. That value gets turned on its head. If inflation is not reduced, rate does say, hey, you promised us this was all going to be fixed and it hasn’t happened. But the truth about the IRA is like this is a bill whose impact will not be felt for years kind of by design. [01:00:11][76.7]
Dan Nathan: [01:00:12] Obviously, you’re very close to politics. But now, since leaving the White House years ago, you’re a media guy here in messaging is really important. You also spent a lot of time thinking about campaigns and how to successfully get messages across. So it’s easy for us to cherry pick a name of something that we think is kind of silly or whatever. But all that being said, when you think about 2022 in where we are here and as we barrel into the midterms, we know that there’s obviously some very important primaries that have gone on just this week alone. Obviously, the one in Wyoming is not that important, but it’s interesting to kind of see where the Republican base is on a lot of these topics. And if you think about 2022 is like, okay, Biden was limping into this year. I think that we were still, I think, bipartisan, reeling from the pull out of Afghanistan, record low approval rating. The economy seemed to like all of a sudden hit the skids when interest rates started going higher. We had this geopolitical mess where right out of the gate. I don’t think we were as emphatic as we ended up being in support of Ukraine. We had a stock market that was careening lower. Inflation, as Guy said, was on everybody’s radar. Are we starting to come out of this here? The stock market’s up, what, 15, 16% or so from the lows. We’re starting to see inflation come down. Guys, point about Ukraine not being on the front page is probably not a horrible thing politically. If the situation with China cools out a little bit, might we see a different political environment than a lot of us thought we were in the last point I’ll just make without debating what the Supreme Court did with Roe here, you guys have done a great job documenting the political implications. If you look at that Kansas referendum, red state, Kansas on this, you guys made the point a hundred thousand independent voters who could not vote in the primary were activated and came out to vote on this referendum on Roe or on abortion rights in general. What does this all mean? The political calculus as we head into now, we are, what, two months away from the midterms? [01:02:14][122.0]
Tommy Vietor: [01:02:15] Then sometimes I need to like slap myself and remind myself that I’m a nerd that pays attention to politics all day, every day. And that makes me like a space alien for most other people who don’t give a shit. I hope I can say that. So I think that sometimes it’s better to be lucky than smart. And the fact that gas prices are cratering is an enormously important thing for the Biden administration. I do think a lot of the anxiety people were feeling, the right track, wrong track numbers, the hits to his approval can be tied directly to people literally seeing $5 gas every time they drive by it. And it wasn’t just like mainstream media coverage. Like, I’m not a big TikToker, but like there was constant coverage or jokes about gas prices on TikTok and on Instagram. Right? There was I think people were talking a. All the time in the fact that basically the Chinese economy is cratering, is leading to a reduction in gas prices, is going to benefit Biden enormously. I do think, though, in terms of like policy choices, messaging choices, the thing you’re going to see the most is talking about abortion. It’s currently the focus of most midterm television ads, I think. The New York Times that a piece the other day that said Democrats have spent $31.9 million in ads on ads about abortion. I think that is beneficial because it’s something a lot of people care about. You can message it in a way that is basically where you say Republicans want the government to dictate your own personal medical decisions. Remember how annoying masking was? This is like that, right? And that reaches people who might be personally anti-abortion but are more libertarian in nature. And I think that’s what you saw happen in Kansas. So I think this will be the Democratic Party’s focus. We’ll see if it works. We’ll see if the messages about Joe Biden is too old. Inflation is too high. Gas prices to rise. Maybe that will swamp these abortion ads, but time will tell. [01:04:09][113.8]
Guy Adami: [01:04:09] The reason we ask these questions and I know you know this in terms of politics and those things, because if and obviously this seems to be it was a bigger if a month ago, I think it’s a lesser of an off now. But if let’s just say the Democrats are somehow able to hold serve in the midterms, obviously that opens potentially the gates for more fiscal stimulus and things that are going to affect, obviously, the economy and subsequently the stock market. So you understand the questions. I guess my pushback is what does it look like right now? I mean, again, you watch Fox News and they’ll tell you there’s a red wave coming in the fall and then you go the other way and it says, you know what, it looks like we might be able to get through this somewhat unscathed. What are your thoughts on that? [01:04:51][41.7]
Tommy Vietor: [01:04:52] I think you’re right. The grounds have been shifting beneath our feet the last few weeks. Biden’s approval is terrible. His approval rating has been low for a very long time. No one can spin that. And I think but if that ticks up a few points, I think that can help a lot. Sort of like the mood music. Same with the right track, wrong track. Those numbers have been terrible for a very long time. If that takes up a little bit, I think that can help all Democrats running in the country. The thing that’s really interesting is Republicans have nominated some terrible Senate candidates like Dr. Oz is a weirdo. Yesterday he got asked how many houses he owns. He said two. The answer is 10. It’s the 210 split. That’s not a very good answer. John McCain actually faced a similar question in the 2008 campaign and we ran ads against it for months. Just because you’re like, he’s out of touch. There’s a video of him going grocery shopping. [01:05:39][47.0]
Guy Adami: [01:05:39] I don’t even know what crudity is. I mean, that was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life [01:05:44][4.3]
Tommy Vietor: [01:05:45] Guy this wasn’t a video that some oppo research person put out. This is a video his campaign filmed and released. And like John Fetterman is running a great campaign. We got exciting candidates in Wisconsin. Mark Kelly is a strong candidate in Arizona. [01:05:59][13.7]
Guy Adami: [01:05:59] So like look at Georgia, though. I mean, I don’t know what goes on in Georgia. I really have no idea. I mean, mtg. I watch those. My wife thinks I’m obsessed with her. I think I might be for the life of me. I can’t understand how she was elected. I mean, forget it. She shouldn’t be a dog catcher in the state of Georgia, let alone representative. And it’s to me, it’s frightening. But Herschel Walker, who was a great football player, the greatest college football players of all time, just again, just watching things. I mean, he is not equipped to be in the Senate or the Congress and just my opinion. But yet there’s a good chance he gets through. [01:06:33][34.1]
Tommy Vietor: [01:06:35] Yeah its tough. Look, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene, there’s one answer that explains her political existence, and it’s gerrymandering. When you have a bright red district or a bright blue district, you can get some wacky people in there. And she’s kind of like the MAGA flavor of the month. And it is what it is. And like, I think everyone thinks she’s a joke, but she’s a pain in the ass and someone we’ve to deal with and can be actually damaging. Herschel Walker is trying to run statewide and it’s an interesting year in Georgia because you have a real deal race at the top. You have Stacey Abrams versus Brian Kemp, who are both incredibly strong candidates. And that’s going to be a really tough race. And then you have Senator Raphael Warnock versus Herschel Walker. And Warnock has proven to be a strong candidate. He’s got a bit of a record now in the Senate because he’s been there for a couple of years. He’s going to run on his bio and the things he’s going to do for the fight for the state. But his message, the message that the Warnock people are going to go with basically is exactly what you said, that Herschel Walker is not up to the job. And there have been brutal ads that talk about previous spousal abuse, including pointing a gun at his ex-wife. I mean, that is frightening. The guy lied about being an FBI agent, which is really weird, although maybe a joke about it. Like he might have dodged a bullet there because the FBI is not very popular in the Republican Party right now. There’s the crazy thing you said about climate change. He compared himself to Jesus because he had dissociative disorder. And but Jesus did, too, because he’s like the Holy Spirit. Like it’s the craziest stuff you’ve ever heard. [01:07:56][81.2]
Guy Adami: [01:07:57] Okay. So I agree with all of that. When they pulled that video a month and a half before the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump talking whatever that Entertainment Tonight, I forget his name about all the things we’ve heard a thousand times. That should have been it. That should have been game over. I actually think that helped him win the election. I know that’s perverse, but I mean, these things might work to Herschel Walker’s favor in the world we currently live in. [01:08:23][26.6]
Tommy Vietor: [01:08:24] They might. I think that Donald Trump, as much as I dislike him, as much as Dan disliked him, is incredibly talented politician. He can be funny. He can be charming. He can hold a crowd. He can have a rats audience. He doesn’t care about the kind of sacred cows in Washington. He could run as an outsider. Those are powerful, powerful things. And he would. He was tireless on the stump. You know, he’s give an hour and a half long speeches like four times a day. Herschel Walker has not shown that level of acumen yet. He might he could still win. It would be very bad. [01:08:56][32.8]
Dan Nathan: [01:08:57] Yeah, well, it’s funny. We spent some time talking about some kind of whack job candidates running against people like Warnock. The guy has already proved himself in a very short time in the Senate. And he’s a guy of great character and he’s the sort of candidate, I think, no matter whether you’re red, blue or purple state, which is really what I think a lot of people think Georgia has turned into. But then when you think that that same state has people like Marjorie Taylor Greene representing them and possibly Herschel Walker, it’s just insane. And then take it all the way back. You just mentioned Mark Kelly. Here’s a great candidate, a former astronaut, and he’s in the Senate. Guy is running against him. Lake Masters and you and I, Tommy, were talking about this last week. Go read this article, The Violent Family. There was an op ed actually in The New York Times. The violent fantasies of Blake Masters is a guy who worked for Peter Thiel for a long time, funded by Peter Thiel. He’s smart. This guy’s smart. And I almost think that I’d much rather have guys like Herschel Walker scratch that itch for some of these far right sort of people than a Blake Masters, because Blake Masters seems dangerous to me. So talk to me a little bit about that, because you do have this barbell situation in the Republican challengers here. [01:10:06][69.2]
Tommy Vietor: [01:10:07] Yeah. I mean, Blake Masters is a real weirdo like Peter Thiel acolyte, far right, scary dude. He is smart. He’s trying to tack back to the center now, as every candidate does always in the general election. I think it’ll be a big turnout election. The thing I think Democrats screwed up in 2016 is they were like, look at this quote or video from Donald Trump. Look how bad he is. Look how offensive he is and kind of left it there. I think the thing we have to do is be like, look at Dr. Oz, look at what a weirdo he is. And you know what that means. And he doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about inflation. He doesn’t care about prescription drug costs making the turn. That explains why he’s not a good representative for you. That’s the kind of thing we need to do in Arizona, because I don’t think anyone knows who Peter Thiel is. No one cares except for nerds like us, but they need to make the case that this guy is not going to actually fight for them. But Mark Kelly Will and like, look, it’s going to be a tough race. It really is. [01:10:58][51.1]
Guy Adami: [01:10:58] What did you call yourself a super listener or the uber listener of honesty. [01:11:02][3.8]
Tommy Vietor: [01:11:03] Power listener. [01:11:03][0.3]
Guy Adami: [01:11:04] Power? [01:11:04][0.0]
Tommy Vietor: [01:11:06] I like that that power. I listen enough to know that you guys dump all the different shows on the same feed, but they all come to me, so that’s helpful. I don’t have to subscribe to Mark. Carl ends on the tape. I get them all so. [01:11:15][9.7]
Guy Adami: [01:11:15] You don’t have to go to your favorite podcast store like Dan tells me all the time. Yeah. You know what we think of what you do in your arena? You’re second to none. How do you. And this is self-serving question, if there ever was one. But, you know, in terms of markets and stuff, are we speaking the language? Do we make it accessible? [01:11:31][15.4]
Tommy Vietor: [01:11:32] Yes. The reason I like the show, I started listening. I was like, okay, I’m going to do some of the things that these guys recommend. So then you have a little bit of skin in the game. There’s a casino element, right? There’s a sports gambling element. You’re watching the markets and you kind of are invested literally. But I also was watching because I thought it could have a huge impact on sort of general sentiment about how people feel about the economy and what that meant for Biden. And I was pretty worried about it in June. So I was listening to you guys contextualize it. I think you do a great job. I had to yell at Dan the other day because someone was talking about like high volume delta and I was like, Hey, man, I didn’t go to business school. I don’t know what the hell these super genius people you’re talking to are talking about. So I was, like, dumb it down for the dummies. But also, guy, I want you to get on TikTok and reach generation. So I just think need to work in a couple of things like I want to hear you say why from so far I you know I don’t simp for Elon Musk you know what I mean? Like talk to the kids. [01:12:28][55.5]
Guy Adami: [01:12:29] So I’m going to try that. Okay. You ready? I’m going. [01:12:31][2.3]
Tommy Vietor: [01:12:31] It’s Simp. I used it in a sentence. [01:12:33][1.6]
Guy Adami: [01:12:34] Simp e y from so far, you know I don’t simp for the musk. [01:12:38][4.6]
Tommy Vietor: [01:12:40] There you go. That’s a good one. Man is a 41 year old telling a slightly older gentleman how to talk to the kids. So take this advice with a grain of salt, you know, maybe work in like a no cap if you want to signal that whatever you just said was honest. I’m just trying to give you the lingo that I know Amanda wants you to use. [01:12:55][15.5]
Guy Adami: [01:12:56] What does that mean? Help me with that. No, cap. What does that help me with that? [01:12:59][3.1]
Tommy Vietor: [01:12:59] It means, like, kind of what you said previously was was honest. But you meant it sincerely. [01:13:03][3.4]
Guy Adami: [01:13:03] Yeah. Well, Tommy, I love you, man. No cap. [01:13:06][2.3]
Tommy Vietor: [01:13:06] Dad, if he really says this, that’s going to be bad. [01:13:08][1.9]
Dan Nathan: [01:13:09] Oh, he will. Oh, I. [01:13:10][0.9]
Guy Adami: [01:13:10] Will say it. [01:13:11][0.6]
Dan Nathan: [01:13:11] You know, we sit in the green room right before we’re going on fast money, and we’ll be having some cockamamie conversation. And Guy Tommy will be like, Oh, I’m going to work that. And he’ll work that word into the show, like during the things. Here’s one thing, Tommy, that I don’t think Guy really appreciates. Our mutual friend Steve Huntzberger, who I think is a great political mind, also a market mind who introduced us. He knows I was been a big fan, but you have no idea. Tommy. Jon Lovett. Jon Favreau, Dan Fifer, Ben Rhodes. These guys that he pod’s with. Okay. They are literally rock stars. I saw them to an sold out crowd at the Beacon Theater. And back in the seventies, you’ve probably seen the Allmans in the Beacon. You were probably doing your thing or whatever. These guys go out there, they get huge applause for what they do in front of big crowds. Where were you guys, Tommy? A natural. You guys were the Grand Ole Opry with former Vice President Al Gore this past weekend. I mean, talk to us about that vibe. [01:14:09][57.9]
Tommy Vietor: [01:14:10] It confuses me. I remember we started The Pod 2017 because we all felt guilty about not being a part of the last election we lost. All our friends were like, What do I do now? How do I fix this? And the answer is, you don’t. There’s no easy fix, right? Democracy and citizenship is a every day kind of baby steps process. We wanted to try to address what we thought was bad reporting and be a little more entertaining and substantive and then help people figure out what they can do in their real life. At some point along the way, someone said to us, Why don’t you guys do live shows? And we’re like, Who the hell is ever going to come to that crap? And somehow, for some reason they do. And so I’m very grateful. I’ll tell you, though, the Nashville show is one of my favorite. And Al Gore was like fun and funny and goofing around and making jokes about himself. And we made like 7 2000 election jokes at the end that we played a game with him. At the end, Lovett told him, Mr. Vice President, you actually got more votes, but you lost me. Laughed at that. [01:15:09][59.2]
Dan Nathan: [01:15:10] I heard it. He was a great sport, man, and I felt bad. Last week on our pod, we made a joke about Al Gore, but he really stood in there and took those body blows and he was a great voice. And I think your conversation on climate change and how he’s been involved in that fight for decades now is really impressive. And I think your coverage of the IRA and what it means and the significance of it and your old boss going on the Twitter yesterday calling it a BFD, I mean, that was kind of cool, too hot. So guys should not use BFD on the pod. [01:15:40][29.8]
Tommy Vietor: [01:15:40] That’s fine. It’s just sort of like an inside joke to a bunch of inside joke recipients. I do think the IRA is a big thing. I mean, just for listeners, it’s like 370 billion in clean energy. It increases health care spending by almost a hundred billion. So a bunch of people who got more subsidies from the Affordable Care Act don’t see their premiums go way up. I don’t know what you guys think about this corporate minimum tax, but 15% doesn’t seem high to me, nor does a 1% excise tax on buybacks. Just dividend it out or invest in human beings. How about that? And then the fact that our own government didn’t let Medicare directly negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies is one of the dumbest things in the history of this government. And I think fixing that problem is going to save nearly 300 billion over ten years. And so Republicans are focused on this IRS piece. They’re claiming that 87,000 new IRS agents are going to be kicking down your door. That’s not true. The IRS thinks they can hire 87,000 employees by 2031. Most of them will be replacements for workers who retire. Half of that money goes to enforcement. The rest is going to be like I.T. support and people who take your phone call when you try to figure out what’s going on. So I think you guys under estimated in the past the amount of revenue that could come in from this. Again, I’m literally just regurgitating what Larry Summers thinks, but he’s been right on a lot of stuff and he thinks that this will bring in a ton of cash. So, I don’t know, maybe it’ll reduce the deficit. That seems good. [01:17:06][85.5]
Guy Adami: [01:17:06] Well, Laura Ingram, if you’re listening, you heard it here from Tommy Vietor. And watch what I do here, Tommy Veitor the quintessential the pride of KENYON College. No cap. I’ll simp for you any day. [01:17:20][13.1]
Tommy Vietor: [01:17:22] I’m so sorry, Dan. I’m so sorry. [01:17:23][1.7]
Dan Nathan: [01:17:24] I know, man. Well, listen, we appreciate you jumping on and making us smarter about all of this stuff, and we appreciate your support, and we love what you guys do, so we hope you’ll come back soon. Man Thank you. [01:17:35][10.7]
Tommy Vietor: [01:17:35] Thanks for having me. I will be able to listen to this one because I can’t hear myself talk. But are you excited for the next episode. [01:17:40][4.8]
Guy Adami: [01:17:42] Thanks once again to CME Group and I connections for sponsoring this episode of On the Tape. If you like what you heard, make sure you hit, follow and leave us a review. It helps people find our show and we love hearing from you can also email us at on the tape at risk reversal. Dot com any time. Follow and connect with us on Twitter at on the tape pod and we’ll see you next time. [01:18:05][23.5]
Dan Nathan: [01:18:06] On the tape is a risk reversal media production. This podcast is for informational purposes only. All opinions expressed by me and Nathan Guy, Danny, Danny Moses and any other participants are solely our opinions and should not be relied upon for specific investment decisions. [01:18:06][0.0]
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