Jennifer Welch and co-host Angie Sullivan react to reports that tech billionaires, especially Palantir CEO Alex Karp, have suddenly embraced progressive politics. They revisit Karp's earlier remarks about Democrats, men and testosterone, and discuss his company's work with ICE and its role in immigration enforcement.
The hosts are skeptical of these shifts and link them to campaign donations, wealth taxes and the cost of living. They also read online reactions to Karp's new image and close with a call for politicians who cannot be bought.
In this episode Angie Sullivan, Jennifer Welch
This IHIP News episode on tech billionaires' political shifts was made with the same technology HappyScribe uses for Zoom transcription.
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The most predictable thing on the planet has happened, as Kara Swisher predicted months ago. All of the tech oligarchs are now woke. They are rainbow flags, pronouns, you name it. They're progressive Democrats. Crystal Ball has, uh, reported the following—pop this up—Alex Karp now says that Palantir is progressive. He's always been a Democrat. Trump went too far on immigration, which, by the way, Palantir's embedded into all the immigration stuff, government contract. And his primary commitment is to—wait for it—economic justice.
Because when I think of oligarchs, I think, yes, they are the working man's friend.
Absolutely.
These are the guys who sit around having stage five meltdowns on X because they might have to pay a wealth tax, which, FYI, they'd still be rich AF after they paid it.
Well, and they're also building bunkers and doing—just, here's the thing—they have lost all credibility. The minute they were all on the inauguration stage for Donald Trump and saying, "Oh yes," then they took him trophies and, you know, all of these things. You cannot—you did that on full display. Trump made sure you were on full display. You—you're not going to convince everybody. After you've told us, in the case of Palantir, that, you know, I'm not quoting exactly, but Peter Thiel, who is the owner of Palantir, says, "Democracy really isn't going to work.
We need the rich, i.e., me and my cohorts, to rule them because they're just not really that smart." That's kind of what the vibe is. So please do not tell me he is worried about immigration policies and economic justice. That just is the biggest bunch of horse shit I have ever heard.
And it's important to note that the reason Trump has been successful at tearing down democracy these last two years is because he's a fascist, and fascism is propped up by the elites. These people, these companies are fascists and/or, worst case, fascist collaborators, which is one and the same in my book. And so now this is why corporate Democrats are a liability for us, because now these fascist elites are looking for more fascist collaborators. They're looking for which Democrats are open for business.
But let's take a walk down memory lane. Just within the last 24 months, this is the kind of shit that Alex Karp was saying. Play the clip.
Absolutely. Probably shouldn't say this. This is why I thought the Democrats were going to lose the election, and why they did. Because people want to live in peace. They want to go home. They do not want to hear your woke pagan ideology. They want to know they're safe.
All right, and here's another one.
Both parties—and again, let me just go to the party where I have more credibility—like, the way in which the Democrats just completely neglect males. Like, there is nothing wrong, and it's admirable to be a somewhat too high testosterone male.
For sure. I now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, anybody who talks about testosterone levels.
Right.
I don't know this for a fact, but somewhere deep inside me, I know it, has low tea. I think it's just a huge tell. Like, Donald Trump saying he passed the cognitive test.
Yeah.
Tells me he—he flunked it. And then Alex Karp also was making headlines for saying shit like this. Pop this up. Palantir CEO claims company is first to be completely.
Yeah.
Anti-woke, backs Trump administration's bombing of drug boats. This we cannot let stand. This duplicity, this breathtakingly embarrassing hypocrisy. Palantir is an evil corporation. Uh, it's—it's Alex Karp is clearly a lunatic who likes to traffic in, um, white male grievance, of which does not exist in this country, contrary to what all of the low-tea, beta males say on X.
It—that is nonexistent. Um, Peter Thiel is a completely evil immigrant. When—when MAGA talks about immigrants and how horrible they are, the top two horrible recruits we've ever had in this country are Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel and Alex Karp are 100% fine with their technology and, uh, taking government subsidies from an administration that commits war crimes. Their technology is embedded in ICE.
And now they see the winds shift, and now they're going to say, "Hmm, who can we buy off? Who can be fascist collaborators with us on the left?" And that's why there's such a pushback against Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies right now.
Which makes me so happy that we are now seeing Democrats come out that are not beholden to these companies. Because if you are beholden to these companies and they are your big corporate donors, you owe them. They have paid you, and now they expect something quid pro quo. That's why Robert Garcia is standing up so firmly. In my mind, he can do that because he has not taken money from these people.
We need fighters in the Senate and in the House who can't be purchased. And what Alex Karp is doing right now is he is ushering in the era of prostitution politics, which he has excelled with both parties, particularly with Trump. And he wants to now go, "Oh, the winds have changed. Who can I—which Democrat can I buy? Who are the prostitutes on the Democratic side?" And that's why this argument that establishment Dems give us, that in order for us to be in the arena, we have to take this money too, is such horse shit because this is fascist collaboration.
Palantir is an evil company through and through. It is just a damning indictment that they back the United States of America killing innocent fishermen and kidnapping—and granted, Maduro was a dictator, whatever. We're not in the regime change business. That has never benefited the American taxpayer ever. We have $40 trillion in debt. What does every American worker have to show for it? Nothing. But all of these guys, these big fat cats that nurse off the government tit and then just completely, uh, you know, change themselves up.
I mean, he's trying to do this rollout like he's been queer-eyed, and he expects that we're so stupid that we believe it. And it gets worse. Here is Karp's history of supporting an adjudicated rapist and a convicted felon and an—we saw him stoke the insurrection, hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence. After all that, pop this up. Karp—Karp has become an enthusiastic enabler of Donald Trump. His company works with ICE to target people for Trump's mass deportation campaign.
It's helping the administration compile enormous amounts of data on Americans, which could, as The New York Times reported, give the president untold surveillance power. Karp donated $1 million for Trump's inauguration, and Palantir is helping to pay for his new ballroom. This is fascist collaboration. He can—he can try to woke himself up and queer-ey himself up as much as he wants to, but we need to call attention to this. This shit affects every American, and this is where there's so many people that sit on the sofa instead of going out to vote.
We have such a low voter turnout because many people see both parties as being a uniparty. And this is exactly why. This guy glow—I mean, he's, you know, he's a—he wants to embrace high testosterone males. He's all about war crimes. He's all about ICE. He's all about all this tough guy shit. Now he's like, "I'm about economic justice."
I mean.
It's just prostitution politics of the highest order.
I completely agree with you. And for—I mean, first of all, why did Palantir need to come out in support of the Department of Defense bombing fishermen? I mean, what did they have to gain by that? They were stoked. They were going for Trump. And this idea that you had, probably right after the ballroom was announced, and I think it's a great one, and I'm still all for it. All the people that, you know, now they're so progressive because Alex Karp may be the first one we're discussing right now. He might be the one. He won't be the last. It's going to be just an assembly line of them.
The people that donated to the ballroom, the people that put themselves center stage at the inauguration, the people at the state dinners that Trump had, we need to remember them. And so your idea of keeping a log so we know, into history, who these people were and what they stood for. Because it's one thing to say, "Well, you know, I was really progressive. I'm really about economic justice." Really? Because you were giving the Trump administration information on immigrants, and now you're against the policy? And you were talking about it in private.
What stopped you? You are a billionaire. You have a company with so much power. What stopped you from saying that at the time, in public? We need to rein in these practices. We are using our technology in ways that make me feel uncomfortable, but they didn't do that. They wrote checks for the ballroom.
Yeah, because these people are fascists. They are oligarchs. This is an old, old story. They are the most broken people, the most exploitative people, are banding together because they are trying to extract as much as they can. Extract labor, extract resources, extract government contracts, and then lie to the public and say, "Oh, I'm woke AF, MFers." I mean, it's just—it's ridiculous. And here's a clip from Alex Karp's interview post-Blue Nami with Politico.
Play the clip.
Trump has said that he thinks immigration hurt Republicans in the midterms. Palantir was involved in some of that with ICE. Do you agree with that?
Well, I was really happy to hear the president be honest that, you know, his words, I believe, were something like, "Yeah, we kind of went too far." I have been saying in private, like, there's always a question, what do you say in public? What do you say in private? But I think anyone who's interacted with me in private has heard several messages. One, you can't explain to the American people that we deserve to be 20 times whatever you've heard this, blah, blah, blah. Two, there are different kinds of progressives. Three, I am someone who believes in very controlled migration, but it has to be humanely done and competently done.
And Americans are deeply fair people.
Okay.
So if you want.
When you have politicians—when you have CEOs like this trying to speak for the American people, the American people this, the American people that, this is the—this is the era of prostitution politics slash bullshit politics. Alex Karp is so detached. I want to know, when's the last time that motherfucker went through a TSA line?
Right.
It's probably been decades. This is a guy who is completely 100% detached with what so many millions of Americans feel right now because of a war in Iran, which I'm certain Alex Karp supports and cheered on up until last Tuesday, when he—now he's queer-eyed. Um, he has no idea what it's like for a person in suburban America that goes and it used to be $50 to fill up your car, and now it's $100. And then four days later you do that again and again and again.
And people like Alex Karp fight against a wealth tax. People like Alex Karp are in the same billionaire class where they lecture working-class peoples, "Pick a protein. Pick a different protein. Lay off the Starbucks." For these people to lecture us of what the American people think is the most patronizing thing on the planet. The Republicans do this, corporate Democrats do this, and billionaires do this. So out of the three categories that I just gave you, I relate most with the word Democrat.
We need to get rid of the corporate, and we need to return to a party of FDR. A party—these people that get these government contracts should not be players in politics. Period. They—he is so incredibly partisan. And this—all of them talk about this testosterone shit. Remember Mark Zuckerberg got on a podcast after Joe Biden won, and he said, "You know, it's so nice to feel like you're not neutered at work anymore." I just—I cannot believe somebody would say that out loud, that Joe Biden, an 80-year-old man, neutered you at your office when you're a fucking billionaire.
What a pussy. But nonetheless, that's what all of these guys are. And they're very bad, dangerous, duplicitous, out-of-touch actors. And the bottom line is this: we cannot afford these people. If somebody creates something great and they make a lot of money and they live a fabulous life, I don't have resentment about that. But when people don't feel like they should pay a higher tax rate than somebody who makes $40,000 or $50,000 a year, that shit is where I get really pissed off.
And then when people are getting government contracts and then they're paying hundreds of millions of dollars to, uh, PACs to elect prostitution-style politics, that shit pisses me off. And we reported earlier, Chris Van Hollen is working on legislation actively right now to go around that loophole, which is—which are quick fixes into Citizens United. But this is the stuff. Like right here, this is—I'm so glad he came out right now.
Right.
At the same time that we saw the Democrats intentionally sabotage the impeachment of Pete Hegseth. Because right now, immediately after the Blue Nami, we are getting an immediate crash course in exactly what the symptoms are that led to Trump 2.0. And honestly, these are gifts. What the Democrats just did and what Alex Karp is doing is a gift to us to realize what the problem are. Having a D or an R next to your name is irrelevant. It should be more of a dollar sign that we're looking at.
People that work for us shouldn't be gaming and exploiting the system like that—like this.
No, that is so well said. Because the reality is, like you said, this guy doesn't know what it's like to say, "Okay, do I want to buy food or medicine?" That kind of thing. And yet he thinks that because he has a lot of money, that he is entitled—and this is what I've seen with all these billionaires—I am entitled to tell the working class, people that don't have as much money as me, what they need to think and do because I am superior. And as long as these people continue to act like they're so superior and they're, you know, are we really that stupid that now he wants economic justice?
What? I mean, they're building bunkers, these billionaires. It's just ridiculous.
All right, so now we're going to read the internet's reaction to all of this. And I just want to say, I proactively condemn my reaction to all of these tweets. Here's the first one from friend of the show, Matt Bernstein. Pop this up. "We're like one month away from rainbow ICE agent uniforms if these people aren't actually held accountable." It's so true. Okay, next up. Brett Micellus post, "Alex Karp after Dems win the midterms in a historic landslide."
And for those of you listening, Alex Karp has pink and blue hair, rainbow eyeglasses, a rainbow pin on his lapel, and a he/him button with his pronouns. And here's another one we found on the internet. It says.
That's my favorite.
It says, "Support queer-owned businesses." Palantir with a big rainbow. So, you know, obviously, this is—this is just—this is the whole ballgame right here. This is the entire ballgame. And I'm so grateful that the Democrats—I want Pete Hegseth impeached, but that they showed the rotating villain strategy is real and they will sabotage the will of the people with cock-and-mamy chicken shit excuses.
Pete Hegseth, that should be advancing today. The Democrats should be taking a victory lap on that. And they fucked it up like they fucked up the whole Merrick Garland appointment and all of that. And we just cannot stand for it. And Alex Karp, all of a sudden queer-eying himself, is just more than I can take. And we need to expose these exploitative welfare queens. This guy's on the—he's a billionaire, but Palantir exists because of the American taxpayer. They're on the government tit. And yet they want to call you lazy and regulate how many cups of coffee you can have.
It's just more than I can take. All right, that's all we have for this episode. Please subscribe to YouTube, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, order my book. I talk all about this in it. It's called Not Today Fascist. And we'll be back later with more news.
Tech billionaires are flipping fast.
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