Transcript of The Interviews | Michael Lewis, Min Jin Lee, Erica Chenoweth, and Teddy Schleifer

You're listening to Comedy Central.

My guest tonight, bestselling author whose latest book is called "Blockers." Please welcome to the program, Michael Lewis, sir.

Good to see you.

Young man. The book is "Blockers." Now, you have become, if I may say so, enamored with the people that make up the anonymous heroes who, on a day-to-day basis, are working tirelessly to make this country function better, work better. How did that come about?

The civil servants.

The civil servants.

Which is different from what's on cable news right now, right? It's all politics.

Yes.

And those people are being elected to run the government, filled with the civil servants.

That's right.

And mostly, they don't know about the government. And that's what got me interested. It came about when Trump, the first time Trump was elected, and he fired his transition team right after he was elected. It was like 550 people who were supposed to go in and learn about the government for him. And I thought, he doesn't know anything about it. It's like the dog caught the bus. Now the dog has to drive the bus.

Right.

And you would think the dog would want the instruction manual. And when he fired this mechanism, I thought, it's kind of cool. I can go in, and my readers will know more about what he's supposed to be running than he does. And so that, like, you will know about the Department of Energy.

Right.

And when I did that, when I got in, I was shocked by the quality of the people I kept meeting. I was like, there is the stereotype of the lazy bureaucrat. You know, I'm sure they exist. There are 2 million people in there. But over and over.

2 million.

I mean, 2 million federal workers, right?

Wow.

And over and over, I found these people who were, like, working 70-hour weeks and being paid 40 and were doing wild stuff.

Right.

I mean, everything from, like, chasing loose nukes to, like, inventing whole sciences to it was one thing after another.

To inventing the science to find people that fall off of boats.

Right.

It was insane.

You know, it's one thing after another. And much of what they did as a group.

Yes.

They're sort of constitutionally incapable of telling their story. They, like, don't know they're the opposite of Trump. They don't know how to, like, advertise what they do. And they're not allowed to. So it was.

They can't name their desk after themselves? They can't do any of that?

So they are.

Interesting.

They just assume, now at this point, that if they're getting noticed, it's for a bad reason.

Right.

Like, it's they're so demoralized that way.

Do they feel the demonization? Is that.

They know not to call attention to themselves. So the great challenge with them.

Right.

When you're with them, is to get them, you know, they're like dogs that have been kicked a little too often. Like, you just to calm them down so that they will tell their story. But when you get into it, I mean, the reason I've stuck around is that they are amazing characters. And when this administration came in and set out to traumatize them.

The new Trump administration in 2024, he went about it differently this time. This book is much more about the hostile takeover. This is more about.

That's right.

DOGE.

It's DOGE and DOGE Plus, other stuff. And it's sort of like asking the reader to understand what's going on by what they've driven out. Like, it's sort of like a meteor hit the planet, and the habitats have changed, and some species no longer exist. They can't and each species that went extinct went extinct for a different reason.

Right.

And these are different sort of different people in different functions of the government who used to do things like, I don't know, stop your tax returns from being weaponized against you.

Right.

You know, this stuff that we just take for granted is all of a sudden no. It's like part of a big power grab. They have essentially they're trying to politicize a nonpartisan workforce. And that's going to result in a very different kind of government. I mean, when you like, would you rather have your air traffic controller.

I love this game. Go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, yes. Would you rather have this person selected on the basis of their ability to actually land a plane safely, or would you rather them have to go through a loyalty test to Donald Trump before they get the job?

You know me, I'm a woke liberal. I'd just rather they all be lesbians. I don't care about the.

No, it's like one thing after another.

Yeah. It was amazing that what I found so fascinating about this, maybe the story of the Institute of Peace will be revelatory. It's a hostile takeover. It reads like somebody stormed a foreign power stormed an embassy on the people who work for them in the government.

Yeah. Yeah. No, no, it's strange to me. I mean, I think it's just that they were able to do this, and now both damage and the sort of, like, the seizure of power. The only reason it's been allowed is that I think people just haven't paid much attention to what the government does and how it functions.

Right.

But this, I mean, the difference between Donald Trump 2 and Donald Trump 1, Donald Trump 2, he didn't care. Like, he was indifferent, ignorant.

Well, they came with a battle plan.

And this time, he wants to run not just the government he's supposed to run.

Right.

He's grabbing all kinds of stuff that he's not supposed to run. I mean, there are all these the.

The Institute of Peace.

And the Institute of Peace. Right. I mean, had you ever heard of the Institute of Peace?

I did not know that we were even looking towards that.

Yes. Yes. It is now called the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.

But it was. There's a guy in there. It's a crazy story. He evacuates the building, and he locks himself in the building to keep the DOGE guys from getting the keys.

Close. Can I correct that?

Yes.

Close.

You're close.

Thank you.

So, yeah, you're very close.

The security guard, that story.

A speed read.

Yeah. That story is told through the eyes of the security guard who is defending the building.

That's right. Yeah.

And he has a phone, and he can lock down various parts of the building.

Yes.

And when DOGE actually blackmails his private security firm and turns them so that they're invading the building rather than protecting it.

Yes.

They all end up in a wing of the building, and he hits a button, and all of a sudden, it's home alone. They're locked in.

Right.

And they're calling their moms and saying, we're locked in. Can you come help? And, you know, they're calling their bosses. And eventually, the hero calls the DC police because he thinks we've got the building, by the way, is not a government building. It's like it's your house. It's a privately it's a private it's a nonprofit.

Right.

They own the building. So DOGE is invading a private house and taking it.

And it's not particularly part of the government.

No, no, it's not part of the government. I mean, it's Congress. Look, it gets funding from Congress, but it was designed to be kept at arm's length from political control.

Right.

And so he calls the DC police. Come get the trespassers. Come get the invaders.

And the invaders, by the way, are, like, 320-year-olds.

Muskrats.

Muskrats.

Yes.

Like little black ties.

Yes.

That just want to get in there.

No ties.

Turn it upside down.

Sneakers.

Right.

Sneakers and little black T-shirts. But they but the DC police, they've been flipped. And so when they come, they take this they march the security guy out. So basically, I open with that because the security guy pointed out, he said, you know, this all starts by them getting control of all the guns. That it didn't look like there was no one fired a shot.

Right.

It didn't look like a violent thing.

By the way, there are guns in the basement of the Institute of Peace, a little like.

Not in the basement.

Or they've got a cache of guns in the Institute of Peace for some reason.

Yeah. Well, the security firm keeps them there. The reason they keep them there is this is against the law in DC to take your gun home from work. So they have to leave them behind. That's actually why they're there.

Really?

Who knew? But.

You're not leaving with your gun, are you, Bill?

No, I left it in the thing. But it is when you do take this 2 million person workforce, and you say, all of a sudden, you don't work for it's not an oath to the Constitution. It's not you work for the country. You work for this person who's in the White House.

Right.

It changes the way the whole government works. Everything is different. And each function is different in a different way. But you're the change is, like, profound. And you will, you know, you will feel it. You'll feel, like, a degradation of the place.

Well, you make the unbelievable so part of this is also, you know, it's Project 2025. And it's which is the architect of that is this guy, Russell Vought. I call him Vought from "The Boys," but Vought. So you tell this incredible story about the NIH.

Yeah.

And a gentleman at the NIH, Francis Collins.

Used to run the NIH.

Used to run the NIH, who is identified as a blocker.

Right.

They identify people that are blocking progress.

Right.

Francis Collins.

Yeah.

Explain how that all comes full circle with Project 2025 and Russell Vought.

So Francis Collins is a threat to this new administration because he is a every senator respects him. He can speak for science. And he is.

Been there forever.

He's one of the been there forever and one of those people that they try to do things to the science. He can go talk to people.

Right.

So but when they come in, he's just got his lab. He doesn't have any official authority. And they whack him right away.

Right.

It's like a bullet to the back of the head. And the kind of cool thing about the story, though it's distressing, is that though he knows he's been whacked, he doesn't know who did the whacking. Like, he doesn't know who issued the order. And so he creates it is a kind of murder mystery.

Right.

And.

He wants to find out.

He wants to find out. But what you need to know about Francis Collins is that among the many things that he has done in his career, is he early in his career, he found the genetic cause for cystic fibrosis.

Through government funding at the end.

Of course.

Yes.

Of course. The NIH has been returned, like, many dollars for every dollar invested. And it's cured diseases and all the rest. And the chief suspect, the most likely person to have whacked Francis Collins, is Russell Vought.

But tell me the story about.

Let me finish.

I was going to tell you.

Let me finish. Russell Vought's child has cystic fibrosis.

That's right.

So you have we have reached a point in our politics.

That's right.

Where there is no humanity, where it's so tribal that they don't even think. And it is this kind of darkness runs right through the story.

That's right.

The people who are getting whacked in the book are often people the people who are doing and the people doing the whacking, they have some relationship, but it's not being acknowledged.

And it's even worse than that in some respects because the research that he began with cystic fibrosis, and then they brought in other partners, they actually created a drug treatment recently.

Yeah.

That allows people with cystic fibrosis to take this drug that Francis Collins, through this government research, helped develop. She takes this drug, and her life is saved.

Yeah, that's right.

From that drug.

Yes.

If she had gotten cystic fibrosis born 10 years earlier, she would probably not be here.

It would it's you know, you're going to you're likely to die from cystic fibrosis.

Yeah.

Up until very recently. And so that's right. So the man who triggered the process that leads to the cure to the disease that this other man's child has is yes, that's the relationship. And so it's I mean, I think we're in a very dark place.

Yeah.

Right? We're in a place where you kind of it's the people under assault.

Yes.

The really good ones are the best among us. They are there not for themselves. They're not there to get famous. They don't tell their story.

Right.

They don't get paid much. They're there because they figured out that the key to their lives is serving other people. And they do it the best of them do it very, very well. The idea that these people are under assault is a shame. I mean, and I think that.

Astonishing.

And I think one of the things you're feeling right now is that. I mean, that the darkness of people not knowing, not being able to name who the real villains are, villainizing people that are literally searching for cures that your daughter may have are being called the villains and the parasites.

In the name of one thing. And it's the acquisition of power. It's like it's all about the power.

And, you know, there's this line in 1984, Orwell's book, where he says, like, how do I know if I have power? And it isn't that I can make you do whatever I want you to do because you might want to do it anyway. It's I can make you suffer. And the cruelty that runs right through this story is that. It's like it's reminding the people in power that it's a kind of psychological thing, the need to feel powerful.

He's even said I mean, Stephen Miller has said, we're not doing it. Like, might makes right like, a literal throwback to you remember all those ways that government used to work back when there were world wars and back when the continent was a bloody mess? We're going back to that.

Yeah.

What an incredible you know, from we're a shining city on a hill moving towards American exceptionalism to, hey, you remember feudalism?

Yeah. No, I know. And it takes a while for the country to wake up, I think. But I think the country's waking up.

Oh.

It's like it did.

I hope so.

Yeah, because this is not this is not a bright future, this path.

Have you interviewed is there any recognition amongst those, like Russell Vought, or I mean, some of the DOGE guys have apparently had a reconsideration of what they were doing there. First of all, they said, we're saving $2 trillion. Then it turned out they said they saved 10% of that. Turns out, most of that's even bullshit. You know, they didn't even do the thing they said they were going to do.

And they were never going to do the thing they said they were going to do.

Because it wasn't about that.

It wasn't about that. It was about traumatizing the workforce. It was about creating a smokescreen for seizing the power.

Russell Vought said it. He said, I want them to feel like they're parasites. He said that.

Yeah. So the wild thing about the DOGE kids, I mean, they were all the active ingredient in DOGE was young men ages 19 to, like, 28.

Mm-hmm.

That the ones most of them came in just they just wanted to be with Elon Musk, you know? And they would just do whatever he said.

Right.

But there were a couple who actually started to ask some questions. And it was interesting, those people, because one of them ends up in the book. He comes in with curiosity, not with contempt. And he's the I think he's the only one who got fired. And it was Sahil Olanyanyan.

Right.

And.

He came in with curiosity and not contempt.

But they were like, no.

No, you didn't.

No, you didn't. Do you know how hard it was to get fired from DOGE? You could make up the college you went to on your resume. You could be a Nazi.

What?

You could no, you could have a, like, a history of sexual abuse reveal. And JD Vance himself would ride to the rescue. But if you said this guy did, he a reporter called him after he'd been in the government for a few weeks. And he says to the reporter, I'm kind of surprised the government is not quite as inefficient as I thought it was. That's what you couldn't say.

No.

You couldn't yes.

That's the line.

That was the thing. That's the line. You can't and it.

Hitler was right.

Yeah.

Youthful indiscretion.

Yes.

Right. Government seems to work OK.

I mean, get out.

A lot of these people like their jobs and are good at them. He said things like that and got him in a lot of trouble. So but that guy, he's a great character, actually. That guy came in hoping to do some good. And when DOGE washed out, someone called him back, and he came back.

Wow.

And you have an app on your phone that will allow you to do your taxes on an app because it's going to happen because of him. And so he has actually figured out something. So there's.

But isn't that the tragedy that so when you think about look, one of the reasons why Project 2025 happened is people were dissatisfied that the government was no longer reflecting and triaging their more immediate needs.

Yeah.

And there is ridiculous cascading plumbing and wires in there.

Yeah.

That need to be addressed. Some of these people seem to have the skills. What a tragedy that they weren't actually applying that to the real function of it.

Yeah, that's right. And it was very there is a need to go in and refresh the thing.

Yes.

There's a constant need. What is hopeful is that there are people who exist who want to go in and still fix it. I mean, I don't think I didn't come away from this feeling like, oh, we're doomed. I came away feeling like it's good to know that, actually, the spirit of the country is in these people, these people who try to stop the bad things from happening and people who want to go in and fix it. And I think, like, the politics our politics has gotten so out of touch with the culture. Like, Americans aren't like our politics, basically. Right.

And the minute it becomes enough attention gets paid to this, I think that it gets fixed. That I think that there is a way out of this. But you got to listen to the right people. I mean, and you got to listen to people who are there for reasons other than just themselves.

It's so impressive that you're able to stare into the guts of this and come out with optimism. You know, I hear from a lot of young people one young person.

Yeah.

Who's in the audience tonight.

Yeah, yeah.

And he said, how do you remain optimistic? And I said, I don't know. But I bet Michael does. And that answers that, is you've seen the power of and that's what this kid's going to be.

Yeah.

Like.

That's right.

They haven't been corroded yet. They still believe in the possibility of uplift.

That's right. And look, we are not our politics is so strange now. But we're a nation of problem solvers. We're philanthropic. Communities form very easily. People don't want to be the noise on TV isn't enough.

It's not sustainable.

It's not sustainable. And the minute this thing and you're feeling it. The minute this mechanism, the government, starts to become really politicized, it becomes something very different from what it's been for 100 years, you're going to feel it every which way. You're not going to be able to eat the food. You're not going to be able to drink the water. You're not going to want to get on an airplane. You know, people right now say they don't trust the government, but they trust the government in their behavior. They own Treasury bonds. You know, they are still basically trusting the government to prevent bad things from happening.

Right.

And the minute they sense that's being eroded, that function is being eroded, I mean, I think there's a culture waiting to leap into action.

That's right. And hopefully, there's an electoral price there's two things that have to happen. There have to be an electoral price to pay for this kind of recklessness and cruelty. And the second thing is, if you are fortunate enough to be on the beneficial end of that electoral change, you better get your shit together and start governing.

That's right. And the I think the other thing that's going on, and it's subtle, is there's a kind of narrative war. Like, Republicans have been telling a story for a very long time.

Yeah.

That all the people in government are just, like, unnecessary.

Right.

Waste, fraud, abuse, all that stuff. The other story has not been told. And I think that telling that story, like, making a point of explaining what this government does is so important. Like.

Someone should do that. Someone should put it in a book.

It's fabulous.

It really is.

Thank you.

And I so appreciate it. I urge you to get it. For "Blockers," our best storyteller, Michael Lewis.

My guest tonight is a best-selling, award-winning novelist whose latest book is called "American Aghwan." Please welcome my good friend, the one and only, Lee Min Jin. Thank you. Oh, my God.

Thank you.

Can you please tell us a bit about this book? You don't have to summarize it because there's too many people in the comments section who don't read, and they want and they want us to explain this in, like, 30 seconds. That's impossible. Just read the book. But great book. I was every page, I was just engrossed. How would you kind of without any spoilers.

With any spoilers.

Without any spoilers.

So Helen and John are the parents. They have three kids, Bo, DH, and Mido. The kids are born in Paramus, New Jersey. The parents are South Korean. They go from Sydney to Seoul, back to Sydney, and they end up in Orange County. And they're trying to raise their kids between two different financial crises.

OK. It's a story about family. It's also a story about education.

It's about wisdom.

Wisdom.

About wisdom.

Yeah. And can you just tell for the ignorant Americans in the watching this what is an aghwan?

Aghwan is a learning center in which you pay money to learn a skill like tap dancing, how to be a broadcast journalist, to be a comedian. You can go to an aghwan in Korea for that.

Really? There's an aghwan for comedy?

Definitely. Definitely. Even K-pop drama, anything.

Oh, OK. But that's not you see, because when you this book, it really was like I felt like you wrote it for me.

I did. I did.

And everyone feels that way because the story in it.

I even interviewed your wife.

Yeah, you interviewed my wife for it as well.

I did.

Because in it, the family is from Asia. They go to Australia, which is what I did.

Mm-hmm.

And then also, I went to tuition centers in Singapore. I call it tuition centers.

Which are aghwans.

You call it aghwans. But the way you describe aghwans is way more holistic. In Singapore, you're like, people are tap dancing and, like, learning comedy. That's not what the is happening. In these Singapore tuition centers, they are beating the Chinese into people.

Did you beat did you get beaten?

Yeah, I got beaten all the time. I got beat Chinese because I went back to I went back to Malaysia, Singapore. I was the kid who I would wake up in Malaysia at 4:00 a.m., take the bus into Singapore to study. So I was going across the border anyway. And I went I was I moved back to Singapore when I was eight years old from America. So I had no Chinese in me. And I had to learn Chinese from scratch. And Chinese teachers hate eight-year-old boys, Chinese boys who cannot speak Chinese. They take it's a personal offense.

A front.

A front. And they beat it into you. And I know I've seen you do interviews where you also got beaten.

Yeah.

But you got beaten for, like you were just, like, walking in the back of the class.

That's right.

Yeah.

That's right. I got hit. I was six years old. I finished my worksheet, and I was walking back and forth in the class. And then the teacher said, come up in the front of the classroom. So I went to the front. She said, take out your hands, like this. So I held my hands out, and I thought I was going to get a present.

And you did. A present of discipline.

That's right.

Yeah.

And I got smacked in my hands quite a bit.

Yeah, so we get beaten all the time. And so whenever these American kids when American kids complain about some stupid bullshit, I'm always like, you guys are soft. And I've seen both sides. You've kind of I think you saw both sides as well, Western education and Korean.

Mm-hmm.

And I saw Singapore and America and Singapore and Australian, for that matter. So I was able to compare it. And I was like, yeah, they just beat it into me.

But do you think that you benefited from all those tuition centers?

Yeah, the beating I mean, the beating made me kind of, you know, whatever about the world. It was my villain origin story. I mean, the tuition centers well, this is the thing I was trying to get at before we talked about these beatings because, again, the tuition centers it's a lot of scared parents putting their kids into these things because they don't know what to do. And they're like, you know and I wasn't even a problem kid. I had I was, like, a straight arrow guy.

You have a job now.

I have a job now, kind of, you know, saying you to people. I don't know if this is a job. I wasn't even a problem kid.

You're a truth teller, Ron. You're a truth teller.

OK, sure. Thank you for beating me, Singapore. Thanks for beating the truth into me. But the tuition centers, did I benefit from it? I mean, I don't know. It made me tougher. I don't think it made me a better student. You know, I wasn't a great student, but.

I never went to aghwans.

Oh, you never OK, yeah. But you interviewed, like, 1,000 people about this.

Yeah, I interviewed a shit ton of people.

And I remember you said in interviews that you went in kind of, like, thinking these aghwans would be these terrible places where children are for and then you kind of changed your mind.

Oh, totally, because all these Koreans said to me, I hate aghwans. They're horrible. They cost much money. And then I said, well, then did you go to aghwan? They're like, yes. And I said, well, are you going to send your kids to aghwan? They're like, absolutely.

Right.

So I said, I'm confused.

No, that makes complete sense to me.

Right? So then I went to go visit all these aghwans, and I met the tutors. I met the parents. I met the kids. I went to the regular school.

Yeah.

The actual formal school.

Yeah.

And you see all these disconnects between the practice and theory of learning.

Right. And what and again, I'm sorry. I want to go back to what you were saying. You didn't go to aghwan because you talked about how your mother is a very well-adjusted woman who actually who actually didn't want to force it on you guys.

Yeah, she well, she was a piano teacher.

Right.

And her whole attitude is, you can't make kids study.

So was she wrong? Was she wrong? Because you can make kids study. You can't beat it into them with stick. I know because that's what happened to me.

Right. No, this is good. If you want to have a become a comedian.

Yeah.

This is good.

If you want to be a comedian, beat the Chinese into your kids every day.

Um.

Have I said beating kids too much on this interview?

No.

I kind of I feel like for five minutes, I've just been talking about being beaten. But and this is the other thing. It's like, Americans again, like, I'm going to overgeneralize here, but Americans are very weirded out by this because I talked to Trevor Noah about this before, about how we always get beaten as a kid. And Americans are like, what? You got beaten at school? Yeah, man. In Singapore, they would, like, beat us. And then they would.

It's illegal now in Korea.

Oh, is it?

It used to be actually.

Someone should tell Singapore because this is I don't know. They would, like they would call the I just want to interview to talk about this beating. So they would in Singapore, they would call assemblies.

Bonnie, are you OK?

OK. OK. Why? Why? Why? What? What? It's normal.

No, no, no. You're perfect. This is how we get it all out of our system.

Yeah. But again, so this so I really want to get your opinion on education here because that's kind of one of the big themes of this book. And I could tell you really care about education because you're very detailed about it in the book, the whole process of going to college and aghwans and everything and the stress that people feel. So, like, what so is education in America OK?

No. I'm really worried.

You know what would fix it?

I do know how to fix it.

Yeah, I also know how to fix it.

We just need this giant. We know how to fix it.

Yeah, so what is what is.

Well, I'm really worried about America because I think our general.

Why? It's fine. What are you worried about? It's fine. It'll be fine.

OK. Well, if you say so.

Yeah, just.

No, the general competence has really gone down. Our kids really are not doing so good.

Really?

And they're really worried, too. They're really anxious.

OK, but that's every generation.

Well, I don't know. And also, the average reading level of the average American is around sixth or seventh grade.

It's OK. Just watch YouTube. It's OK.

And I'm really worried about the fact that they don't know what's true or verified information.

So what.

Affect civics.

Yeah.

Just saying.

But what do you think? Is aghwans the answer in America? I mean, what is.

No, I don't know if aghwans are necessarily the answer, but I do think that we need to start talking about what's going on with the kids right now and also the fact that every single state in America has different standards. And all this choice is sometimes really good. But if the kids aren't learning the stuff that they need to know for a very fast-changing world, then maybe we should focus on it. Maybe the politicians start talking about it.

Yeah, that's never going to happen. That's never going to happen. These guys are these guys are just woke liberals in the thing. I just so I did. But, like but so you kind of went 180 on aghwans, right?

Mm-hmm.

So now so is that something in America that we should do? We should have aghwans with.

Well, what I did see is in California, for example, they had different kinds of aghwans. They had working-class people aghwans, and they also had really, really expensive aghwans.

Mm-hmm.

And some aghwans are basically daycare centers for working parents. So if you're a cashier in H Mart and you bring your kid to an aghwan because you've got no place else to send your kid, and it's about only $400 a month, and there's actually a van from the aghwan that picks your kid up from school and keeps them there until about 7 o'clock at night. That's basically daycare. And the kids get worksheets and a juice box and a pretzel.

But no, no, no.

It's not the worst thing in the world.

Yeah, sorry. I interrupted you. But yeah, I was going to say because you've talked about this before, but you don't mean that in a bad way.

No, I actually think it's a good thing because the kids are at least safe.

Right.

If you have the kid alone in an apartment, it's not safe.

Sure. You've also talked about how I also want to emphasize that this book is, like I don't want to put anyone off, people thinking that this is just for Asian people. This book is great. And one way no, no, but one way you described it in an interview was that you said that you love talking about the Korean diaspora.

Yeah.

That's your focus.

Yeah.

But you also said that everyone is a diaspora now.

That's right.

All in society. So.

Because you have all different kinds of diaspora. You have environmental diaspora. If your state is too hot and there's too many fires, maybe you want to move. That's environmental diaspora.

So white people can also be a diaspora.

White people are diasporic.

OK. So this book was also.

The original diasporic people were Jewish.

OK.

It's in the Bible.

OK.

And then you.

Oh, that's OK, another well, since we're talking about fiction, this so everyone can be a diaspora. This is not just for Asian people. One I'm trying to sell you a book here. It's not just for Asian people. There is another thing that's in this book, another theme in this book, which I find very interesting because I also related to it is the idea of these immigrant family units. So I don't know enough about non-Asian family units in America, so I don't want to overgeneralize.

Mm-hmm.

And every time they restart, there's this kind of they organize themselves very efficiently as a family unit. So the parents will work. They'll find whatever job they can to survive. They'll save that money. The kids will maybe delay their own schooling to help. They'll try to put one person through law school. And then that one kid, after he gets clears his debt, he'll take the money and give it back to his parents and kids. You know, it's like this kind of very efficient sacrifice. So I think that, like, I'm pretty sure any parent, regardless of race I think everyone here, everyone watching, we can relate to parents sacrificing for their kids.

You give your mom money, right?

Yeah, I give my mom money. Of course you give your mom you give your mom money. Do you know how quiet it is in the studio right now? That's how weird. That's how weird it is. It's weird. It's weird. Come at me, whatever. I don't care. But I just.

But you're a good son, Ron.

Sure, but I'm just this is a long-winded question to say that am I correct in saying that that's a very uniquely Asian thing, or am I off base? I'm happy to be.

No, I don't think you're off base. Like, there are certain values in Asian culture which really stress the sacrifice and also honoring your parents. And so filial piety is one of them.

Mm-hmm.

The thing that I wanted to ask in this book, which really troubled me because this is not about a dysfunctional family. This family is not dysfunctional.

Surprisingly, yeah.

I did that on purpose.

Yeah, yeah.

It's actually pretty easy.

It almost idealized.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

Because I wanted to ask the question, why do terrible things happen to good people?

Mm-hmm.

Right?

Well.

Because we want to know. Like, why do great things.

Well, it can't be God because he doesn't exist. So what is it?

We are going to.

So why do terrible things happen to?

So and I wanted to understand how to how do these terrible things happen, and then also how do good people who are trying to be decent when terrible things happen, how do they survive? And I notice these strategies that are in Asian culture. They're in other people's culture, too.

Of course.

And mostly, it was sacrifice and sequencing. So if you don't have generational wealth, and shit happens, and you don't like it, the way we're going to get through this is if you and I one of us sacrifices and one of us says, you know what? While Ronnie does this thing, I'm going to hold back. And when you're done, then I get my turn. And that sequencing and sacrificing was a really good strategy for people who don't have generational wealth. And that's what I wanted to focus on in the book.

Yes. And you did. You bring it out in a very entertaining story. So you're not just, you know, ranting about it, but it's the best kind of education where you learn about it despite.

I try not to rant.

Yeah. Well, I try not to learn. And I so because and I had to learn because of this. Now I know way more about Koreans and Christians than I ever wanted to know.

You're basically Korean now.

Yeah, I guess I'm basically Christian now because I read OK. So I got final last I got some you're such a smart social commentator. You're I just want to get your quick thoughts on these difficult topics.

Let's go.

Because I think you're the only person qualified to actually answer this stuff. So imagine that I am a MAGA Asian. And you don't have to imagine that hard, really. I'm 50% there. What would you say to, like, MAGA Asians who have sacrificed a lot, worked hard, did all the right things, were decent people, trying to put their kids into Ivy Leagues?

Mm-hmm.

And affirmative action comes in, and they believe it has screwed up their plans. And so they vote against affirmative action.

Yeah.

What would you say to me as a MAGA Asian?

I think one of the things that.

First of all, who did you vote for?

Democrats down the line.

OK.

I think that a MAGA Asian person who believes that race-based affirmative action is a bad thing has often been misinformed.

Mm-hmm.

I do. I think that race-based affirmative action is a good thing. Now it is actually illegal in America to consider race. That said, I think when you start thinking that this other group is the enemy, you really misunderstand the history of civil rights in America. Asian Americans have benefited significantly from all the work, the hard work and sacrificial work of African Americans in civil rights in the United States. And then to actually blame them, it's actually completely preposterous.

We. OK, so this book is kind of a critique on Ivy Leagues, college education. So higher education, Ivy Leagues, do we need it? Do we need it? Do kids need it?

I think that it's a nice thing if you could understand it for what it is. It doesn't guarantee a perfect life.

Mm-hmm.

I think that highly selective schools can be good. But very often, if you only focus on the brand name of a school, you are going to be heartbroken.

So what the are we supposed to do then? Just raise holistically well-adjusted kids? Yeah, but that's not going to work because it's too hard. They need a goal. So I mean, Harvard, not worth it.

Well.

You went to Yale. You can say that. Whatever. I don't even know anymore. Is it worth it? I don't even know. I don't know what's going on anymore.

The thing that I really want to focus on is that if you get into one of those schools, great. However, the idea that most people are going to get in, it's kind of silly because it's a numbers game. They just don't have the spots. Like, if they have 2,000 kids in a class, about 500 are really open to the general public. The other 1,500 are already spoken for.

OK. So imagine I'm a young MAGA Asian.

Sure.

OK. What would you tell me if I'm like, I need to get into these Ivy League things?

Mm-hmm.

What advice would you give me?

I would say if you want to go for it, like, look at the statistics that you have and all of your qualifications and whatever there is. However, basically, it's a crapshoot.

Mm-hmm.

And I would actually say that actually grad school is probably more important.

OK. So can I so should I go to Harvard or not if you can get in? But.

If you get in and if you really want to go, be my guest.

Well, I mean, one of the themes in the book is more that they're looking these tutors at an aghwan get so frustrated.

Yeah.

And they ask the parents to think of their kids more holistically.

Yeah. Well, because I think the tutors are looking at the kids and saying that the kids are really freaked out. All the young people right now, especially between the ages of 12 to 17, are trying so hard to professionalize themselves into thinking about trying to get into a highly selective school. They don't even understand what it means. All they know is they have these brand names. It's kind of like a Rolex watch or Coca-Cola. But they don't actually know what these schools mean and what they want. And they may not even like it once they get there.

Right. Because they weren't beaten enough in these tuition settings.

Mostly that, yeah.

OK. OK. This last question for you. How do you oh, man. There's so much to talk about. This book is so interesting. I got last two. Can I do two?

OK.

Is it OK? You got time for two?

OK.

So one of the themes of this book is the IMF financial crisis.

Yeah.

I call it the global financial crisis. Americans call it what happened. I don't know. So by the way, that's what I also love about this book. You put into words all these things which I've given up trying to explain to non-Americans. You've managed to put it into this story. So thank you so much for doing that.

My pleasure.

This IMF, which I lived through, the global financial crisis.

Yeah.

So there's been two this book covers two financial crises, '97 and 2008. What lessons for these kids do you have for the next one that hopefully does not happen? But.

Well, the first line of the book is the rules of engagement have changed already. What I'm really saying is that the reason why all of us feel like shit right now and are really worried is because the rules of engagement for every single field has changed, whether it's in how to get a job, how to do your job, how to find a partner. All those rules have changed. So what are we going to do if those rules of engagement have changed already? It's like we're going to have to figure out how to be a better problem solver and commit to relationships. That sounds a little strange, but when I did my interviews, the people who survived these incredibly huge economic shocks who didn't have a whole lot of money to ride out the storms, they were able to do it only when they had deeply committed relationships and people who stayed with you for the whole ride.

OK, this all sounds suspiciously Christian. So I'm just going to skip on. I'm just going to skip on to the last question. How do you reconcile America being the best place for these people to come to make a living and also being what it is right now?

You know, have you heard that expression, "America is a place even where our enemies want to live"?

No, but that's completely correct.

It's completely correct.

Yeah.

Because there is possibility in this country. I know that things are really tough right now. At least it seems that way for some people. But it is possible here to have many different acts. And in other countries, it's more difficult to pivot your career, your relationships. And here, it is possible.

Whoo! Yeah, thank you. Min Jin, thanks so much for being on the show. Your book is great. Thank you for doing what you do. Thanks for writing it. Thanks for speaking to us. "America Aghwan" is available now. Lee Min Jin! My guest tonight is a political scientist and professor at Harvard Kennedy School and also the author of "Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know." Please welcome Erica Chenoweth!

Sure. So thanks for having me, Michael.

You're welcome.

The 3.5% rule is basically the idea that no mass movements had failed during the 20th century.

Yeah.

Against dictatorships once they had reached the active participation of about 3.5% of the population.

OK. That in the United States is roughly 11 million, 12 million people?

About 12 million people.

But that doesn't seem like because this audience is 200 people. 3.5% is seven people. Are you telling me there's seven people up there that have this much power to overthrow me, the dictator of this show? No! No cheering at that. Can that small amount of people make change for real?

So a couple of caveats because you know I'm an academic. So we have those.

Yes, yes.

The first is that it was really particular to a period of history from 1900 to 2006 and a particular set of campaigns. But the other thing is that a historical observation doesn't necessarily predict the future.

OK.

So we don't know what would happen if that same number tried to mount a nonviolent uprising here.

Yes.

That said.

Yes.

What we do know is that the folks in the audience might be made up of all kinds of different kind of societal pillars, like faith leaders, labor unions, businesses, and people who have various interests in standing up for democracy.

You are giving this audience way too much respect. OK, but continue. Yes, yes.

The idea is that if that group of seven people coalesced around a shared goal that was compelling to at least some of those people in those different societal sectors and started to impact them and motivate them to organize and take action themselves, that's how you start to see the impacts of even a small minority of people become a popular movement that can really build power.

Does this also include what happened yesterday and voting? Is that a 3.5 because clearly, we've had more than 3.5% of people showed up yesterday.

So my colleague Steve Levitsky likes to say that people struggle for democracy in the courts, in the streets, and at the polls.

OK.

We have seen over the past two years all kinds of different civic groups, voting rights groups, and legal groups bringing suit against the Trump administration.

Yep.

We have seen huge numbers of people turn out in the streets in nonviolent protest.

Mm-hmm.

And for their neighbors and their communities to protect them. And yesterday, the voters had their say.

OK.

And so all three things are what supports a democracy movement.

Sustained what's the word you use for this for 3.5? You can't just show up once. That's the part that kind of sucks. It's a sustained organized nonviolent is that right? Am I saying that correctly?

Yeah. So in all of the different campaigns that my colleague Maria and Stephan and I studied, which is the sort of origins of the data behind that figure.

Yep.

All of them were situated inside longer-term movements.

Yep.

That were using not just protests, but also different organizing techniques, different forms of non-cooperation, like strikes and boycotts and such. And they were also doing other things very well, which is what propelled what might have seemed like a small minority into having major impact and influence on all kinds of different elements of society in support of democracy.

One of the stories that really shook me this year was when Jimmy Kimmel was canceled. They said indefinitely at the time. He came back three or four days later. But there was a non-cooperation of many thousands of people canceled their Disney accounts. I believe the stock fell. But is that an example of that? Should we be doing more of this?

So that is a great example of what people call.

Do what?

Non-cooperation, which is basically withholding support for the thing that people are expected to do to just go along with an authoritarian power grab, in this case, you know, regulation or a regulatory moment.

Yeah.

And so that is a great example of where people can withhold funds. They can unsubscribe. They can do consumer boycotts of various kinds. And that can compel, persuade, pressure businesses in this case to do the right thing.

Sometimes it can feel like taking on the president of the United States is too big of a task. But you've spoken before about there are targets that are lower down the rung that can make as much of a difference. Am I saying that correctly?

I think most people who study civil resistance and nonviolent action would argue that it's rarely possible to melt the heart of a dictator.

Right.

But what you can do is constrain his options.

Right.

And begin to withhold the social, political, and economic power and the pillars that they need in order to do what they want.

You've talked about the four factors: momentum, organization, strategic leadership, and sustainability. Let's start with momentum. How are we doing?

So momentum usually just means that a movement is building power.

OK.

And it's beginning to assert pressure on an opponent. And that's usually some combination of growing in its participation base and the diversity of the participation base.

OK.

And also, we're beginning to see changes in public opinion. You'd be seeing electoral results that are surprising.

Yeah.

And maybe surpass expectations. That would be a great indicator of momentum.

Organization. I mean, I was introduced to your work through "No Kings." Based on participation numbers, it feels like that is growing. Is that an example of an organization that has the right momentum and moving towards the right goal?

I think the emphasis on organization is basically just the ability of a movement to be resilient and to be able to have a strategic way of understanding the conflict and be able to stick to its own plan even as misinformation happens, even as escalation of violence might happen against a movement. And so movements that are engaged in organizing and also build organizations through which people can plug into a broader societal effort are likely more likely to succeed than those that try to just sort of protest and hope for the best.

It feels like protesting feels good and does send a message, but there's other shit we can do, right? And that's this word I love, mass non-cooperation, economic protest and boycotts. What are other examples of that?

Yeah. So during the South African anti-apartheid movement, non-cooperation played a really important role in shifting the willingness of the business community there to basically support reformist politicians that were willing to do business with the ANC and begin to transition the country toward a democratic transition. And those included things like Black townships refusing to buy for weeks or months on end and engaging in strikes, limited strikes in order to really impact the economic situation there.

Do you think my six and three-year-old are engaged in mass non-cooperation against me to give me the most financial impact against our family's financial future?

My experience with young children of that age is that they understand non-cooperation very well.

Very well, yes.

Yeah.

Why nonviolence? I mean, I know look, you're thinking it, too. Violence creates an immediate reaction, a big reaction. Are you sure that nonviolence is more successful than violence?

So I think the way to think about it is it can be helpful to think about how Gandhi thought about it, which was linking.

Usually what I do with my problems.

Linking the ends to the means. So if what one is struggling for is a more democratic future, then using the means that can build toward a democratic future, build new constituencies and coalitions that can work together and resolve conflicts peacefully, which is effectively what democracy is, then using nonviolent action to get democracy.

Yeah.

Is one of the most robust findings in the social science literature, actually, which is if countries want to be democratic, small-d democratic, nonviolent resistance is an important pathway to get there.

Yeah, please. Is part of what's challenging maybe about this in the United States is that it feels like our foundation, the Revolutionary War against the Brits, was a violent moment. And am I accurate in connecting it through in a violent way?

There's a very interesting correspondence that was pointed out to me through the writings of Walter Konczer, who's a historian, where John Adams actually wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson about a historian of their time who was going to be writing a history of the American Revolution. And what he said to Jefferson was, I really hope that when he talks about the revolution, he understands what the real revolution was. It had nothing to do with the war.

Mm.

He said the war was, in effect, and a consequence of the revolution which preceded it. And that revolution was in the minds of the people. And he talked about the way it was effectuated from 1760 to 1775 before blood was shed at Lexington at all.

Mm.

And that it involved peaceful protests. It involved the refusal of American colonists to actually send raw materials to the crown. It included their mass refusals to serve on crown juries. It included the creation of the Continental Congress in the first place. And in so many ways, the Declaration of Independence itself was the ultimate act of civil disobedience.

Wow.

And so.

That's some powerful shit.

Yeah.

You know, to think of it that way is so powerful. To think that our forefathers were also doing momentum, organization, strategic leadership, and sustainability. By the way, you guys know you can listen to the Declaration of Independence on Spotify, and it's like three minutes. And it's powerful. Did I interrupt your thought? OK. Big win for the Dems last night. Where do we go from here? Is thinking of it as wins and losses a futile exercise?

You know, I think the most important thing for Americans to think about today is that part of what happened over the past few years is we've seen a huge amount of engagement of the American public into the future of the country.

Mm-hmm.

And they should keep that going. Not just because of who wins or loses, but because the whole point of the American experiment was for each of us to play our part. And so if people had newly voted yesterday or in the weeks before during early voting, I hope that they become lifelong voters.

Yeah.

If people joined their first protest in the last couple of years because they felt like things were just wrong and it was time for them to stand up, I hope they join an organization and a group where they live and they continue to express their conscience and start to think about ways.

Yeah.

Yeah. Start to think about ways that they can continue to influence and impact their own environments and the future of the country. The most important thing I think that comes out of the sort of social science research on this is that we can do together what we can't do alone. So people should just stick together.

I yeah. Yeah. It brings great comfort for me to talk with you and to read your work because there's a, hey, you can do it, and also, it's hard to do it. But we need that. And I just thank you for coming and talking with us. I so appreciate it. Check out "Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know" with Professor Erica Chenoweth.

My guest tonight is a journalist who reports on billionaires for "The New York Times." Please welcome Teddy Schleifer. Teddy, you are a billionaire reporter. So close to being just a billionaire. How cool would that be?

You know, you could have stopped talking a few minutes ago and left it at billionaire.

You just left it there. How nice would that be?

A lot.

Well, the problems go away, right?

I went into media, and you know, it's a great beat. I mean, you get to cover the richest people in the world. I kind of feel like I'm on a safari. You know, I got my binoculars out, and I'm watching kind of all these peculiar creatures roam across.

Is that because you can't get close to them? You have to have binoculars outside their doors?

Yeah. I mean, a lot of these people don't want you to get close to them, and certainly not me.

Right.

No, but I do think about this as a way of covering inequality, right? Like, there's people out there who cover poverty.

Mm-hmm.

And this is sort of the opposite.

Yes.

And.

Oh, that kind of inequality.

Yeah.

The people who have nothing, and these are the people who have everything.

Yeah, but I feel like if we're going to have debates about taxes, we need to know how much people pay in taxes. Or if we're going to have debates about political influence, you need to know facts about the political influence. And I think this beat really requires specialists who really understand the way that billionaires operate.

Do you have Jeff Bezos's phone number? Because I'm still waiting on some toilet paper that has not arrived.

I'll let them know.

I'll let them know. Well, this has been a big week with the midterms. How are billionaires feeling about the midterms and how far their money went?

I was talking to someone yesterday who has that amount of net worth. And they were describing this as worse than 2006. And for a lot of I know. For them, that's a bad thing.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, this is a class of people that is used to being effective, right? And someone who covers these rich people. I mean, like in politics, there's sort of this gospel that's told, which is you raise a lot of money, you spend a lot of money, you buy the ads that poll well, and then you win, right? It's like easy.

Mm-hmm.

And I think even as someone who's been writing about this for a while, I think I have to remind myself that that doesn't always work out.

Yeah.

That sometimes you can really want something, and you can have a lot of money that you want to spend on it and lose.

Well, I mean, when you look at somebody like Elon Musk, who poured in almost half a billion dollars, a lot of that to Texas, and got none of the things that he wanted within Texas. And now he has a governor, a blue governor in the state that he now lives in. Talk to me about the effectiveness. Like, how are we supposed to how are we supposed to analyze this right now? Is money not going as far as it used to? Is it not being utilized in the same? When you have a billion dollars, is it going as far as it used to go?

Well, last night, Elon Musk deleted a tweet of his. It said, "Vote red." And then that tweet somehow disappeared. So that's the most introspection I think you're going to get from Elon Musk, which is like the deleted tweet. And I'm joking, but also not. Like, Musk deletes tweets at times with no fanfare. And he knows that people notice when he deletes his tweets, obviously. And I think it actually is a reflection of what he's privately thinking. It's like a diary, but the diary explodes, right? You can't actually read the diary because it doesn't exist anymore.

Mm-hmm.

You may remember last year he went to Wisconsin and made this huge thing about this judicial election being essential to saving Western civilization. He said that if this conservative lost, then the world was over. He put on a cheese head hat and was like in Packer's paraphernalia. It was a whole thing. He was handing out these huge, massive, oversized checks. He lost that race. And I think he's beginning to realize that he is more effective in the shadows, as lots of billionaires have, which is it's better to be quiet. You can still be kind of a power broker or a puppeteer or whatever, but don't tell people about it.

Is that the lesson somebody like Elon Musk is going to take from this? I mean, it's crazy how much money he spent on this election.

Yeah.

But if you look at, like you said, it's a pittance for Elon Musk. I think the average like, for somebody who makes $400,000 a year, correct me if I'm wrong, ballpark that, he spent the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars.

Yeah.

On the election.

Yeah.

So does Elon Musk go away from this election not getting the results that he wanted? He has a lot of businesses that are affected by the governance. Does he go away and think, like, I need to spend more money, but I need to this needs to be dark money, and it's money that people can't trace? Is that the mindset that the billionaires have now?

I'm often amazed people don't spend more.

Yeah.

If you believe that Western civilization depends on this judicial election in Wisconsin, like, why are you only spending $45 million, buddy? Like, add some zeros.

Yeah.

And I think there's a sense that some Republican politicians love to quote that there's more money spent each year on toothpaste or on Halloween candy than there is on elections. But politics matters. Policy obviously matters. And if you believe that abortion access is super important or low taxes are super important or education reform is super important, like, you should be willing to spend billions of dollars. And I think that lots of donors I talk to and billionaires I talk to think about their political giving as philanthropy.

You see the Democrats who have this blue wave, who were huge beneficiaries of dark money in this campaign.

Yeah.

Is that correct? Like, in fact, they were using they had more dark money than Republicans at one point in April?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not allowed to talk about it because I'm part of the dark money industrial complex.

That's yeah.

No. Clearly, I don't really know what I don't know on that front, frankly. I mean, like, there is so much money that comes in to Super PACs.

Because that is the point. Like, Super PACs, you have to at least.

Disclose it.

You have to disclose it right there, right?

Yeah.

But it's sort of unlimited for corporations. Dark money, at this point, you can just dump as much as you want, and nobody can find out. Like, as a reporter, how are you tracing something like that?

There's ways to kind of see maybe like the top of the grass on that. But like, so much of the political system, I think more so on the left now than on the right, is dark, opaque. Nowadays, if you want to support a candidate, doing it through disclosed money kind of makes you a sucker. I mean, like, you can do this stuff through there's a whole world of accountants and lawyers and operatives who are experts in the dark arts here. And if you want to be disclosed, it's basically a choice. It's an option to be disclosed.

You're like showing off at that point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But are you if you're donating to a Super PAC and not through dark money.

Yeah.

Are you doing that because you're signaling to the politicians that you have the money? Are people who are giving dark money and sneaking in that way, they're also signaling to the politicians, correct?

Yeah. I mean, their politicians know about the dark money.

Right.

I mean, like, let's take Trump, for example. Trump has been proudly, and maybe you could argue candidly, transactional in how he thinks about political giving in exchange for favors. My colleagues have really done a lot of reporting on the pardon industry, for instance, where you donate a million dollars, you get access to a dinner with Trump, and then maybe you get a presidential pardon for your son or your business colleague.

Just classic business right there, guys.

But a lot of that is based on the idea that you want Trump to know, and you want the public to know that you gave a million dollars to this. And Trump, in the Republican circles now, I feel like there's less dark money because Republicans had more to offer you if you gave publicly. Now the Democrats are controlling Congress. I wonder if that'll flip.

What do you think? Do you think there will be campaign finance reform? Will Democrats pursue that or?

I don't.

You don't.

Sorry.

No.

I think at this point, 15 years after Citizens United, which is basically what started this whole era, so much of the incumbent Democratic establishment likes the status quo. They won't admit that to you or to voters, but I think there is a whole world of progressive billionaires and their attendant operatives and lawyers and accountants who thrive on this, who basically have created a multibillion-dollar industry around keeping the status quo the status quo.

I'm curious what your take is on California had a ballot measure, essentially the wealth tax, to tax billionaires. And it looks like it's not going to pass.

Yeah.

Is that an example of money working?

Yeah. I mean, Elon Musk should wish that he had the political influence that these guys in California have. They spent a ton of money. Like, what is a ratio where the other number is zero? It's like infinite, right? If it's 333 million to zero, it's like they spent infinitely more money. That's basically what the billionaires did in California. They were going to pass this tax, which was going to allow you a 5% assessment on the billionaire's fortune. So if you're worth $100 billion, suddenly you've got to pay up 5. What's cheaper than paying up 5 is donating $4.99 to kill it.

Wow. This might be a shock to you, but I'm not a billionaire. I think I hear a lot of this. And there are elements of their stories this week about what happened with the midterms that does feel like people were open to changing their minds. It does feel like people are holding some politicians accountable for some of the actions that they've taken. And yet we are in this Democratic system where the billionaires have such an outside control of the Democratic process.

Yeah. I mean, I get it. I mean, ultimately, like, the a lot of Democrats this cycle, like James Talarico, he mentioned, talked about, like, up versus down versus left, as opposed to left versus right. There's a sense, I mean, like, amongst the very, very wealthy, even if you're far left or far right, Elon Musk or whomever, you benefit from the status quo. In a lot of ways, the status quo is the status quo because you made it the status quo, right? And I guess the best advice I can offer, Jordan, is that, like, change happens very slowly.

A couple centuries? A couple millennia? Do you think we got that much time, my friend? Teddy, well, I look forward to someday as the billionaire man for you can cover me and all of the wealth that I have so that I can use it to wield good in the world. Thank you for your insights. Billionaires Reporter for The New York Times, Teddy Schleifer.