Speaker 1: Well, it happens every once in a while.
At the last minute, an interview goes wrong.
And I don't mean wrong in the sense that yesterday's urine injector interview went wrong.
I mean, like, the interview just doesn't happen because of a problem.
So we're going to take a few calls.
Let's hear from a few people in the audience.
Rare that we're able to do this on a Wednesday, but let's see what we get.
Okay.
Why don't we start first with Jay from Ontario.
Jay from Ontario, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3: Hello?
Speaker 1: Yes, You're on the air.
Speaker 2: I was just curious with the all the news about Trump and whatever the other
guy's name is.
Giuliani, rather, selling pardons for 2 million.
I wonder if it's in the best interest of Democrats to try to pass a bunch of laws not allowing
presidents to have so much power.
And I know that that could be a wide range of things.
But I wanted to know your thoughts on that, if the Democrats should try to do that.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, sure, the problem is that presidential pardon power is not a
likely thing to be changed.
And so then the question becomes, what exactly are you trying to take away as far as powers
go?
Now, here's here's what I will say, Jay.
One of the realities that the Trump presidency exposed is that our safeguards and checks
and balances aren't as robust and impenetrable as maybe the framers of the Constitution believe
them to be.
And in the defense of the framers, they probably reasonably never believed someone as willing
to flout all of those checks and balances as Trump would come to power.
Now, you could say, well, they should have foreseen that.
Okay, but they didn't.
So then the question becomes, what exactly is it that you would want to change?
I don't know if you have something in mind.
Speaker 2: No, I don't.
And I think that's the big problem, is that the Trump presidency exposed that there's
probably a lot of things that we do need to worry about that we never thought that we
would have to.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
And when it comes to pardon, you know, the crazy thing, as we talked about earlier in
the week, it's not explicit.
It appears not to be explicitly illegal for the president to sell pardons, except if it
counts as a bribe or as a fraudulent or obstructive act.
And, you know, to be totally honest, I don't think this selling pardons for 2 million thing
is going to go very far.
I hope to be wrong and I hope to eat my hat on it, even though I don't wear hats.
But I actually don't think it's going to go very far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I agree.
Speaker 1: You calling from Ontario, Canada?
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Beautiful.
How is it there?
Speaker 2: Uh, no complaints.
Well, it's pretty good, I guess.
Speaker 1: That's good.
All right, Jay, thank you for the call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Thanks for having me on, David.
Speaker 1: Take care.
Right.
There goes Jay from Ontario calling in very strongly.
Let's go to Liam from Austin, Texas.
Liam, are you thrilled to have Elon Musk in Austin these days or what?
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Could you repeat the question, please?
Speaker 1: I was joking.
Whether you were glad that Elon Musk is in your neck of the woods.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
Not particularly.
You know, I'm coming to Austin.
Yeah, I'm in Austin for college, so it's really weird.
You know, campus is not the same as the city where it feels a lot more like San Francisco.
Right.
Speaker 1: Well, what's on your mind today.
Speaker 3: David?
This is more of a broad question, but it's addressed towards you specifically.
So of many of the political pundits that I follow, you come across to me as one of the.
Speaker 2: Most eloquent, well-spoken.
Speaker 3: Articulated.
And I just I wanted to ask you.
I know I think you majored in communications.
If I did my research right.
I just want to know, how did you get to that point?
Because, you know, I really want to be a good public speaker, but I feel like I'm just not,
you know.
Speaker 1: So a couple different things.
First of all, you could have even included a little more praise, really.
Liam, I don't like that you cut it off so early.
We could have done with more of it.
No, I'm kidding.
No.
So here's the thing.
There's a lot of different things.
I do think that there is some predisposition to people who are more or less comfortable
talking.
And I. I just think it's an open question.
It's to the degree to which one can kind of like learn to be comfortable talking.
But I think it's a bunch of different things.
First of all, I learned English as a second language.
It's a native language in the sense that I started learning it when I was five.
But I do think that the process of translating what you know in one language to a new language
probably helps language development to some degree.
I read a ton since I was a kid and I think reading is probably the best way to build
vocabulary and to experience different sorts of sentence structure and this sort of thing.
I think that working in sales was hugely helpful.
I've told my Circuit City War stories, you know, being 16 and being put in a position
of selling $3,000 laptops to, you know, 45 year olds, bringing their kid to college or
whatever, it kind of forces you to either sink or swim and develop rapport and comfort
thinking on your feet and that sort of thing.
And then I think just by like doing a show.
So I don't know that there's really an answer in there.
But I think all of those things, you know, I've attended, I've been invited to attend
sometimes like Toastmasters is a public speaking group where people take turns speaking and
stuff like that.
I don't know to what degree stuff like that is useful, but maybe it is.
But those are a few things that come to mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is very helpful.
Now, do you think?
Just as a quick follow up, do you think that you were kind of always, since you were, you
can remember, naturally predisposed towards speaking publicly?
You're very comfortable with yourself like that, because I've always felt kind of like
an anxious person.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, to be honest, when I do in-person stuff, it's like, you know,
we get one and a half million views a day on YouTube and 30, 40,000 podcast downloads
a day.
And it's just second nature at this point because I'm so used to it.
However, if I'm speaking to a room in person of 50 people, I still get sort of nervous.
So I don't I don't think that goes away.
And I've spoken to people who speak to really large groups in person.
They all have said to me, If you don't get a little anxious before that, then then something
actually might be wrong.
That's actually a good thing as a normal thing.
Obviously, if it becomes disabling, it's a problem.
Speaker 3: Right.
Well, David.
Sir, I greatly.
Tears in my eyes.
I just so much appreciate your time today.
Speaker 1: Well, Liam, I'm sorry I made you cry, but I do appreciate
the call.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
There
is Liam from Austin.