Evan: Welcome to Universal Basic Caution, guys. Mike, what's up?
Mike: Not too much my friends, what's up with you guys?
Evan: much cold cloudy day in New Jersey. you don't know where you are. it's a good McKenna is a McKenna is on assignment in Switzerland. Um, we're going to, uh, do a deep dive on the Republican primary tonight. Uh, the two year off, 2028 Republican primary. Um,
Mike: I don't think any of us really do. It's a simulation.
Evan: Let's start by talking about some core dynamics. And I would start by saying this race couldn't be more different than what the democratic primary is. ⁓ So Mike, why don't you lead us off, just kind of take us through the history of pricing in the market and then we can get into some fundamental dynamics and go through each of the candidates.
Mike: All right, sounds good. the calcium market opens in November of 2024 if the Trump wins. At that point, Vance is pricing at about 55 cents to be the nominee. And DeSantis is at 20, because you'll recall probably DeSantis was quite a bit more popular than he is now. And we'll talk about that. So DeSantis then calls a Florida special election to redraw districts. And his price spikes into December. and early 2025. ⁓ January, famously, we have the Venezuela operation ⁓ with which Rubio was intimately involved and he seemed to be sort of a cheerleader for the Venezuela operation. His price rises on the, I guess, perceived success among Republicans that it was an in and out operation. So he goes to about 14 cents. ⁓ Vance at that time is about 47 cents and falling. ⁓ When US and Israel launched their joint operation, the first concentrated attack against Iran, ⁓ Vance again declines, but Rubio continues to rise and that reflects a broader trend since December ⁓ where Rubio seems to be gaining on Vance pretty significantly. know, the Santa's is just falling by the wayside in terms of price. ⁓ We get to. April of 2026, this is, you know, obviously the Iran war is underway and ceasefire talks begin to open. Vance is at 40 cents then, Rubio at 25 cents and bringing us kind of into, you know, the present where Marco seems to be on the tail of Vance and Vance right now sits at 35 cents to secure the nomination. Rubio at 29, so those are the two clear front runners. But just in the last two weeks, Carlson's price shot up quite a bit on some, I don't know, intimation and murky rumor that he might run. So he's at six cents and then he's trailed by Don Jr. and Ron DeSantis, both at five cents presently. And Donald Trump, the man himself at four cents to secure the nomination for the Republicans.
Evan: Right. Which, ⁓ based on our, ⁓ on our earlier discussion, ⁓ I'm up, ⁓ I'm up some money on, although I'm holding it because it's an offset bet. Anyway, what's your, ⁓ Mike, what's your just initial core take on Vance's price. You think it's about right over under.
Mike: I would say it's about right. mean, he has a huge advantage in that, you know, he's the presumptive nominee. Usually the vice president becomes the nominee from what I can tell. ⁓ Rubio and the other thing I'll say about Vance is, you know, he has strong backing of the tech oligarchs, which we've talked about on the show before. I think they wanted him to be a heartbeat away from the president. in route to becoming the president himself. So I think that plays well for him. But Rubio, who I'm going to cover later on in the episode, he has an advantage in that he can really straddle the line between hardcore MAGA and wanting to be respectable, independents and institutionalists. ⁓ I think he can sort of coalesce those two crowds probably better than Vance can.
Evan: where are you at? straight up on the favorite. Is the favorite, is the favorite fairly priced or is it a favorite to beat or underpriced? I think he's fairly priced right now because he's the institutional favorite. So the, the Republic, the GOP favors him, but I don't think the voters of the GOP will actually end up favoring him come 2028. And that's going to be a cold realization for the institution. In a sense, I the GOP is bought at this point by the likes of Peter Thiel and that's essentially who installed him back in 2024. And that's why I think a lot of these talking heads and pundits believe that JD Vance is going to be their best shot at it. Well, I think that's a relevant point. mean, Vance is going to be a fully funded candidate. That's yeah, that I mean, Vance will have a billion dollars to run a full fledged campaign. so that
Mike: Yeah, no question.
Evan: that can't be dismissed. Let me just start by saying a couple of framing things about elections like this in history. So there is no instance I can recall or could come up with in recent American history where a departing incumbent candidate was not succeeded as the major party nominee by the vice presidential nominee. It is a very, very strong current to swim against. a couple of recent, recent ish examples after Reagan's second term, Bob Dole did primary George Bush. ⁓ But Bush one-handedly, I think, as I recall, Dole won five primaries. Folks may not recall ⁓ that in 2000, after Bill Clinton had finished his second term in the a fateful election that ends up being decided by the Supreme Court. Al Gore faced a reasonably serious primary challenge from Bill Bradley, the Senator from New Jersey, former New York Nick, a very serious intellectual, Princeton graduate, very well regarded congressman. ⁓ I'm a huge fan of Bill Bradley as a politician and ⁓ as a human being. he effectively had no chance I don't recall that he carried ⁓ he carried any seat. It's a very, very tough trend to buck. People have tried. Now. So, you know, I always start off with Bayesian bass lines. If you just said to me, two term president, all right, Trump's a special case, I get that it's two out of the three last terms, but term limited out, being succeeded by, what's the chance that he's succeeded by his vice presidential nominee? If you didn't name the person, I would just say significantly greater than 50%. Okay, so it's remarkable at the start that Vance is trading at less than 50%. The second thing is this is obviously Trump is ⁓ uniquely, Okay. I'll choke down a little bit of vile as I say this charismatic candidate. So the Republican party has been captured by Trump. If Trump were to endorse one of the candidates that would effectively decide the primary. Now, Trump, I presume will operate as he always has by the rules of the apprentice, which is stay tuned to the next episode.
Mike: Yes.
Evan: and see who I'm going to endorse or fire. ⁓ I can't imagine Trump endorsing either Vance or Rubio until it's clear that they're the nominee. ⁓ He would certainly...
Mike: Or it's clear that he can't deploy police powers or emergency powers and just keep them the presidency for himself, right? Yeah.
Evan: Well, right. I mean, we're going to we've discussed that before in our episode about whether Trump would run for a third term and that is certainly relevant here. And I think like a Don Jr candidacy is sort of a proxy for a different type of Trump term. Now. A third just fundamental dynamic is Vance is extremely unpopular. ⁓ Vance is. Right.
Mike: I keep coming back to that too, yeah.
Evan: I think Harry Inton said that Vance is the most unpopular vice president, incumbent vice president in this point in, you know, in administration. I looked at the poll, Vance is a minus 10 to minus 15, ballpark 31 to 35 favorable to 43 to 47 unfavorable. That's pretty significant. I mean, a lot of times the vice presidents are running, running under the radar. ⁓ So I think Vance is tempered by Vance's would be overwhelmingly likely ascendancy to be the presidential nominee is tempered by his unpopularity and Trump's reluctance to endorse. ⁓ So that's how what I think the core dynamic here is I'll just say one other framing thing. The core issues in the Republican primary, some of them are going to be similar. So what emerges is concerned with the economy and that is a major concern. Continued concern with immigration and the war, which Amir has correctly pointed to a number of times before as shifting the MAGA base. There's no doubt. is the first thing that's really eroding some support for Trump among his core supporters. Now what's interesting there is that Vance has repositioned himself and Rubio has repositioned himself to be aligned with the war, even if I'm not sure that that is their actual genuine position. So to me, there's some room there for another lane. And I'll talk about that in a second, but I'm going to share, I'll talk more about Vance in a minute. I sort of share both of your vibe that this is around the right price. ⁓ Notable in that it's below 50 cents.
Mike: I keep coming, when you were talking about Vance and I said, I keep coming back to, you know, how deeply unpopular he is. mean, you might recall from, ⁓ back when Trump, before Trump had declared his vice presidential nominee, when he picked Vance, it struck people almost as like a victory lap, kind of, we can take on this liability now because we feel so confident in our position to win the general election. Whether or not that was true based on the data at the time, it did ultimately turn out to be true. They did win the election. But he never struck me as a charismatic person. I think he's a deeply intellectual and intelligent person. I actually believe that. ⁓ I just think that, you know, he's probably in the Peter Thiel space of deeply intelligent, intellectual people. ⁓ But he's not charismatic and he's just sort of... He was brought on kind of at the last minute, not because people thought he was going to be a boon to Trump, but just that they thought they could sustain the liability of having him as the VP pick.
Evan: in order to attract the financial support of the AI Silicon Valley community.
Mike: I think, yes, to sort of get the blessing of the oligarchs right.
Evan: ⁓ I think that's right. ⁓ Now, have either of you, did either of you read Hillbelly Elegy? Mike, do you read it?
Mike: I've read most of it, yeah, not the whole thing, but I've read, yeah, I have it on my shelf. Like most books, I read 60 % of it.
Evan: I haven't even watched the movie yet, but I hear it's fairly decent. So Vance, I think your characterization of Vance, but I'm just saying this part of why I think there's... What underlies some of his unpopularity from my standpoint is a genuine inauthenticity about how he's presenting himself. Whereas Trump is authentically one of the most repugnant human beings that I've ever seen in my life, right? I mean, he doesn't seem to be faking narcissism. He's genuinely narcissistic. And I think that people respond to that. That's just who he is. Okay.
Mike: Correct, yes. He embodies the rage of the American public very, very well. mean, people are pissed and they want to see somebody who's pissed and they got their guy. Yep.
Evan: Vance's, so I read Hillbilly Elegy around when it came out and he was on my radar screen right from the start. Vance's origin story, ⁓ so he grows up in Middletown, Ohio, his family's from Appalachia, he makes it to The Ohio State University and ultimately to Yale Law School where he's mentored by a famous infamous professor named Amy Chua. Amy Chua is the Tiger Mom. ⁓ and Amy Chua as has been widely reported in the New Yorker among other places is the conduit for right-leaning students to conservative clerkships. And she, as I understood the story is more or less the reason that Vance is able to publish that memoir. Hillbilly Elegy. I, I had, I liked Hillbilly Elegy when I read it. ⁓ I, I had a medium amount of.
Mike: Me too.
Evan: There's a little bit of gate closing dynamic to it. I think you have some vibe that he benefited from some social programs that he's ⁓ strongly criticizing in the book, but it felt authentic to me. It was a genuine representation of his experience and he has a lot of disdain ⁓ for... There's some really strong negative cultural arguments about the folks in Appalachia and about the welfare state, I would say, but... He sees them as exploitative. Now, it's interesting. One thing I'll say, different perspective I have on this. So I am working, actually finished a first draft today about an article about a college in Kentucky called Berea College. It's an incredible place. It's tuition free. 75 % of the students come from Appalachia and everybody works. They have a $2 billion endowment. Incredibly, Mitch McConnell went to bat for them when Trump passed his excise tax. Anyway, I had occasion to interview in a amazing woman who ⁓ is a ⁓ state representative, a state senator in Kentucky. She went to ⁓ Yale undergrad, Law School? Harvard, Harvard undergrad, Yale undergrad, Harvard Law School. And yeah, yeah, yeah. And she wrote a memoir called Hill Women. And she's very critical of Vance for
Mike: ⁓ same thing.
Evan: the gate closing dynamic. Her memoir is as optimistic and celebratory of Appalachian culture as Vance's is critical. But let me just sign on to what you said. That is a smart human being who's thoughtful even if we don't agree. That 2016 Vance version. And he was super critical of Trump. Now Vance, okay. I don't have the document to prove it, but he sold his soul, right? He sold his soul to the Peter Thiel, anti-Antichrist, Silicon Valley access, which effectively buys him an Ohio Senate seat. He is now publicly converted to Christianity. I'll take him on his word that that's authentic, but he's presenting a completely different person to the world than he did. when he published Hillbilly Elegy. And that's a tough thing to present. What's interesting is Trump's conversion. mean, folks don't remember Trump was pro-choice when he was ⁓ a New York businessman, but everybody understood that Trump was mostly pro-Trump, right? So he's never changed being pro-Trump. So that essence of his character has not changed, but Vance is selling something different. And I think that's very hard. I certainly feel in Vance,
Mike: Well, he was a Democrat, right?
Evan: ⁓ some awkwardness and some occasional intellectual condescension even if that's a charge that's usually levied against liberals ⁓ but I think that's what makes his his stock hard to sell I'm on board with that and that's mentioned the fact that he was a finance guy before he entered any of this
Mike: Now, Abira. Amir, was thinking about what you said earlier that you think that Vance best embodies the establishment now. Was that the establishment GOP? Okay, because I kind of have a different take, so I'm curious about what you mean by that. So I actually think there might be some desire among, you know, Senate Republicans to return to some fusion of normal with MAGA, right? ⁓
Evan: Yeah, 100%.
Mike: I actually see Vance as the presumptive standard bearer of the sort of, what would you say, I want to say crazy, let's emotionally charged MAGA movement, right? And I see Rubio more consistent with an institutionalist picture. What do you think about that?
Evan: I think they're comparable. But I think what Evan said is ultimately right. It'll narrow down to whoever Trump endorses. And I think it's really going to be JD Vance because he has the money to basically run those campaign ads. I completely agree with you. think that's what the GOP senators want, but I'm not so certain that that's what Americans want. I'm not so certain that that's what Republican voters would want. But my thought is I don't think Trump will endorse anybody at any stage in the primaries where it's relevant. I'm going back to, I just think he's going to go by apprentice rules. It's going to be, you know, throw, I don't know what the right metaphor is, throw the sharks in the tank and whichever one emerges. wins so I mean I only think he would endorse somebody if they had won 17 primaries. I completely agree with you but in that in that shark fight I think JD Vance wins over Marco Rubio. I don't think Rubio has the the money or the backing or the wherewithal to actually go toe-to-toe with JD Vance.
Mike: I Rubio is superior presenter though. think he, like Evan said, Vance has a huge awkwardness problem. I mean, sometimes he talks, and I remember famously when he became the vice presidential nominee, he came out and gave just such an awkward speech. People weren't sure whether to clap or whether, who this guy even was really, right? ⁓ So yeah, just an observation there.
Evan: He does, Mike, you do have a point. this will, I think, become important when people start to criticize the Trump administration, you know, the people inside of it about the Iran war. Marco Rubio very early on distance himself from the decision making process. He actually called out and said Israel was the one that pushed Trump's hand into it. And JD Vance couldn't make that pivot as quickly. this will sort of tip a little bit where my thinking is. So when you think about lanes here, right? Everybody's going to run a run in, I run in the, I'm the heir or successor to Trump lane. And I think Vance has done as much as he can to try to set him else self up to do that with maybe an air of younger, more tech friendly. Rubio's lane, I think is a tough one. So to me, Rubio's lane becomes the. never Trump Republican lane, even though I don't think he would say I'm never Trump. I just think he would present himself and I think he is. actually think he's the most rational, most reasonable of anybody in Trump's orbit. You know, he's a perfectly reasonable secretary of state, which is not to say that I agree with everything he says, but he seems like a thoughtful, ⁓ phlegmatic human being who presents himself diplomatically to the world. He's is, is He doesn't present like Trump. Now that has been a, an extraordinarily unsuccessful lane, right? So when we think in recent memory about who ran in that lane, it sure didn't work for Mike Pence. It sure didn't work. guess Ron DeSantis maybe sort of tried to be a younger Trump at some point, but it doesn't feel super viable to me. Even if I, I have to say I might even sign on, I'm sure we've all made these deals with the devil. I might even sign on to Rubio being president right now if I could avoid what I think of as some of the more catastrophic scenarios, including Trump being president for a third term.
Mike: That would make that bargain. That would make that bargain too. If I had a button in front of me, I would be smashing it right now, I think, because I just think that there's so much uncertainty in the future. There are clearly worse candidates. There's also the possibility that Trump just uses emergency powers to try to remain president, which would be disaster.
Evan: Right. Yeah. Speaking of smashing a button, smash that like and subscribe. We really, really appreciate it when you do that. ⁓ yeah, I.
Mike: ⁓ yeah!
Evan: I think Rubio in terms of merits deserves to be more than 25 cents. I think in terms of his actual likelihood, I don't think if you ran history forward from this point a hundred times that he's the Republican nominee 25 times.
Mike: Yeah, the structural barriers and the incentives of the political class and oligarchs sort of just make it difficult. I agree. But if you took him on his merits, he's clearly stronger.
Evan: Do either of you want to make a stronger case for him?
Mike: For Rubio? You know, I was gonna give people just some background about him and make the bold case if you want. Sure, okay. So Rubio was born in Miami in 71. He's the son of Cuban immigrants. So, you know, he's Latino and he has a success story that's based on, you know, overcoming some marginalization. He worked his way up through the Florida house. He became speaker, then US Senator from Florida from 2011 to 2025.
Evan: Yeah. Sure.
Mike: He ran for president in 2016. And it's funny at that point, I actually thought that he was going to beat Trump for the nomination. I thought Republicans would not let this happen. It would, you know, put the adult in the room in there, but here we are. He's now Treasury, rather, excuse me, Trump's secretary of state. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate and, you know, he's Cuban. He's the son of working class immigrants. He came up in the Tea Party era and my biggest sort of selling point for Rubio is I think he can navigate the populist right and the old guard institutional right really, really well. So the bull case for him is kind of consistent with that. You know, a normal anti-Trump Republican, as you pointed out, Evan, has no chance in the GOP primary, but a covert anti-Trump Republican who, you know, pays homage to Trump in public could do well. ⁓ The price data shows that the gap between Rubio and Vance is closing significantly and Rubio hasn't gone down since the beginning of the year. He's only really gone up. ⁓ Most of the polls do show that Vance is ahead of Rubio, but in a late ⁓ Atlas Intel national poll, and Atlas Intel used to be one of the top pollsters, but now is sort of like a mid to high range pollster. Rubio led a hypothetical 2028 Republican primary field among self-identified Republicans, 45 to JD Vance's 30%, with Ron DeSantis at 11%. The same poll, though, wasn't totally rosy for him. Rubio's national image is underwater, but it's not as underwater as Vance's. people's, yeah, it's 46 % positive versus, you know.
Evan: That's right. Rubio is definitely, definitely less unpopular, much, much, much higher likeability ratings, which is one of the things that leads me not to, cause I think he has a tough lane, but leads me to sort of keep his, his price as it is. Rubio is also, ⁓ doing double duties, right? He's national security advisor. He, he's a very serious person. Now we're always careful to say that these bets are a function of both whether the person runs and then whether they prevail in the primary. And it's a reasonable play to just think you bet on somebody with the idea of selling after they declare their candidacy. Now Vance is certainly going to run. That's as close to a hundred percent as anything could be. I don't think it's a hundred percent that Rubio runs. Now Rubio is in his mid fifties. I think he'll be 56 when Trump leaves office, 56 or 57. and ⁓
Mike: Don't do it Amir, don't do it, don't you dare even, no, no, don't do it.
Evan: I already did it. I already did it. ⁓
Mike: Six, seven.
Evan: It's possible that he waits, in there are very few examples of somebody waiting their turn. So Obama in 2008 was an example of someone that you would have thought should have let Hillary serve. I'm sure he could have been secretary of state as Hillary was. And remember his rationale was the fear surgency of now. I think it's going to be very hard for Rubio to resist. And he, was a very credible candidate, ⁓ in 2016. ⁓ who would have thought that branding someone little Marco making fun of their height would turn out to be an effective rhetorical tactic, but it did. And I guess he forgave Trump enough that he would take his cabinet position. So I think Rubio runs, is there a bump when he runs? Maybe a little bit. I just think this is, there's a lot of uncertainty in this. I. This seems to me ballpark right. ⁓
Mike: Yeah, I agree. I mean, just two other points on Rubio that I think help his case. So his CPAC straw poll performance was quite good. The 2026 CPAC straw poll, he finished second at 35%. It's only 3 % the year prior. And we can't forget that he's a Latino and Latinos are, mean, rather Republicans are going to hemorrhage Latinos this election cycle. I think, you know, that swing of minority voters, especially male working class minority voters. is going to go away, unless the guy's a Latino, so...
Evan: Now, uh, you talked a bit about Tucker Carlson last time a year. Okay. I, I'm, I have a case you can go first though, if you want. definitely do. I do think his current price is right around where it should be. He's currently priced around 6 % on Cal she, I think a little bit higher on poly market, but you know, about that, maybe 10 % was, is realistically where you should be. I think what Tucker represents is more of an idea. of what Republicans are looking for and how disenfranchised they are by MAGA and the current GOP. But just to go a little bit into his bio, before he developed the Tucker Carlson Network, which now enjoys 56 million views per episode, which is, I believe, most watched show on the internet currently that runs consistently, especially in the political realm. He hosted Fox. ⁓ show himself and it was one of the most popular, well it was the most popular Fox show, nighttime shows on the network. He also developed the Daily Caller back in 2010, turned that into another success story and he's really developed this grassroots Republican support from both the young and middle-aged GOP Republican voters. He was partly responsible for putting Trump into office in 2024 and now has famously flipped on that and one of the only Republicans who has been honest in that decision-making process, who said, look, this is what we wanted back in 2024. This is what we thought we were going to get. And we just haven't gotten X, Y, and Z things. And I do regret that those things haven't happened now. I wish the best for the country and the best for the president. But at this point, I don't support him. Tucker Carlson. I'm old enough that I remember Tucker Carlson. ⁓ got his start on crossfire. ⁓ he used to be, ⁓ it was a great show. It was on CNN. ⁓ sometimes Pat Buchanan was on one side. Sometimes James Carville was on the liberal side. and Paul Pagala at one point and Tucker Carlson, he used to wear bow ties and I guess he still does sometimes. And he was a totally reasonable conservative voice. So. The person that I saw on Fox News did not seem recognizable to me for it. I'm sorry to cut you off. didn't. I would actually argue the other way around. think on Fox, he was more of this crazy Republican. now he's kind of turned into this populist person who just, I mean, you know, he was on this New York Times interview or podcast where the person asked them, you know, who do you think is is a greater threat to society at this point? Ted Cruz or Nick Fuentes? And he just said the answer straight up. He says Ted Cruz. And the reporter was shocked. She was like, why is that the case? Isn't Nick Fuentes this racist who influences hundreds of thousands of nationalists in America? And he goes, sure, but Ted Cruz actually has power to bomb a bunch of people. And I think that's way more influential than whatever Nick Fuentes could. Why does Ted Cruz have power to bomb people? Well, he's in the Senate. I hope senators don't have the power to bomb people. But he signed on to Israel's war and all these kinds things, which Tuckers is vehemently
Mike: ⁓ yeah, ⁓ well they should. In theory, if we followed the constitution, he would have the power to bomb people, but we just don't ask for authorizations anymore.
Evan: Okay. Tucker Carlson's lane feels a lot more plausible to me than Marco Rubio's does. Tucker Carlson's lane would be anti-war populist. And working class. Well, populist is,
Mike: He's very concerned about the affordability crisis. mean, I've watched a few of his episodes. He's perpetually talking about how the generation of Americans being born now are just never going to have a house. They're never going have a stable career. ⁓ He's vocally in opposition to the banks and to high credit card interest rates. So his position is that we should, and I might be misrepresenting it, so correct me if I'm wrong, Amir, but I believe he wants to cap credit card interest at 10 % across the board. All of these ideas and grievances would be wildly popular and especially if they were presented by somebody who was intellectually coherent as opposed to deranged and narcissistic like Trump.
Evan: you So I'm in full agreement with that. fact, when Trump made his Iran truth social about it, he's going to bomb the crap out of these people and said some derogatory things about Eid and Islam in general and about how, you know, smite them or something. Yeah. Carlson. Yeah. Carlson distanced. mean, condemned it. Yeah. And that was just for me, that was shocking. You know, he said only a person, only a non-Christian would say something like that and denigrate another religion, which was like, did he just win Muslim voters? Cause he might have. No, no,
Mike: Yeah.
Evan: serious he actually might have. To me, the bet with Carlson is very different. I have a lot of doubt that he's going to run. If he did run, I think he would do very well. This was certainly before both of your time. But in 1992, Papu Cannon ran a very credible primary against the incumbent George Bush, the elder, who was had finished serving his first term. And and Buchanan ⁓ took Bush to term on to task on breaking his no new taxes pledge and foreign interventionism. And you may not remember Pap you can't but Pap you can in his I'm going to guess Tucker Carlson's media role model. Papu Cannon was the bow tie wearing conservative on the McLaughlin group. If Tucker Carlson was 80 instead of 50, he would have been on the McLaughlin group. I think, I mean, first of all, none of us think that there's any barrier to someone who's just a product of media or social media with no government experience running for office, right? So Trump has conclusively proved that. I mean, there's a lot of uncertainty in this, but if Carlson, you know, called me tomorrow and said, I'm going to run for sure. I'd get some shackles down on him because he's, he's, he's going to run. He would run well. I agree with you in theory. Can I tell you why I'm scared of that scared of what you just said or what you said becoming reality potentially. And I think, so I'll tie in Thomas Massey into this because he's running against Ed Golreem, I believe, the 19th, May 19th, I believe. And so this is a seven term, you know, house representative from Kentucky who's wildly popular all these years. And suddenly he starts questioning, you know, or he starts going after the Epstein files, the Trump and the GOP base, and then starts going after Israel and APAC and all these different things.
Mike: Go Massey. think his election, what is it, tomorrow or the next day? Hopefully 19th. Yeah, yeah.
Evan: And out of nowhere, there's this, you know, very, very, you know, heavily funded pro-maga. Yeah. Pro-maga, but somehow is also receiving money from Democrats and leftist groups. Opponent that just challenges him and in his, you know, the probability of him winning dropped down to 40 % at one point is now at 60%. This is someone who should easily, you know, retake his seat in the house again. And by the way, at Galerín hasn't even showed up to a single debate. I've never... heard the person speak against or like in a debate or something like that. And yet he has what? 40 or 30 % chance of winning at this point, which is insane. Right, right. But I think that's exactly what's going to happen to Tucker as well. And who's he going to take money from? He doesn't have the Miriam Adel scene. ⁓ you're saying if he runs, he just has so many financial and institutional obstacles ahead. OK, so I'm not saying that Tucker Carlson would win.
Mike: He's useless, he's just bankrolled, that's it. I mean, he's useless.
Evan: All I'm saying is that in an early primary state, okay, if the New Hampshire rep, and I, I actually, think the Republicans haven't changed the order. If the Republican, if the New Hampshire primary was first in a three way, boy, I think Tucker Carlson would have a reasonably good chance of prevailing ⁓ in the New Hampshire Republican primary. Now, does that mean that I think he wins? I think, I think you're, I think you're right. I There's no doubt that JD Vance will be a fully funded candidate. There's tons of doubt that Tucker Carlson could be a fully funded candidate. It's not actually clear what his base would be. On the other hand, certainly possible to imagine him having a Bernie Sanders type level of public support with the average contribution is $32. And, you know, I mean, I don't think he could rise a billion, but it's totally easy to imagine him raising hundreds of millions. I, just going to, So, so all I'm saying is if he entered, I think his polling numbers would spike. don't that for me wouldn't be a buy and hold through to the end. ⁓ it would be a buy and hold through the New Hampshire primary. I'm going to reframe what I said. I'm curious. So I think the mass. you curious about two things? You're not by curious. I'm not by curious. I'm curious about this one singular mono.
Mike: You know, we have the same jokes in our head, course. Go ahead.
Evan: So I think the Massey-Gallereen election is really going to tell us if American politics has come to a point where money, where the influence of money in politics has less control over who the ⁓ winner is. So in a sense, I know what you're saying about how JD Vance is going to be, he's going to get the billion dollars easily, but I think we are reaching a point where that billion dollars, the ROI on that has decreased to the point that maybe if Tucker raises 500 million. ⁓ that. ⁓ So you initially sounded like you were arguing against me. Now it sounds like you're sort of on the same. We're on the same side. I mean, I'm just I think the Massey election is going to tell us where we're at, because if Massey loses, then it just tell that just tells the whole world that no money still controls politics and you could just buy ⁓ a house. Yeah, or maybe. Yeah. ⁓
Mike: Or maybe it just controls Kentucky, I don't know.
Evan: or maybe it just
Mike: But it would be an indicator. agree with you, Amir, but I don't know if it's generalizable.
Evan: Right. Well, I'm, I'm, that was a very broad statement, obviously, but it, you know, Thomas Massey is wildly popular and yet somehow not winning. Well, I guess he's not wildly popular or you're going to have to change your definition of wildly. Well, wildly popular amongst young Republicans. I'll Carlson's an interesting, I'll just stand by Carlson's an interesting proposition for me now.
Mike: like messy.
Evan: Having said that, I think he's a little undervalued.
Mike: Do think he's presently over or undervalued? Like, would you buy now? Yeah, I would agree. He's a little undervalued.
Evan: except I don't think he's gonna run Carlson he has a great life he lives in Maine he does his show remotely he has complete control over his time I don't see that dude going out for 16 months and kissing babies maybe it's irresistible but I'm not I'm not And And, you know, he's, he's denied it in the past, I guess, this time around, what didn't he say he would relish? He really hates Ted Cruz. So we would relish the idea of debating Ted Cruz, but I,
Mike: Yes. I think he has a heart. I mean, that's the one thing that could potentially draw him into the contest. mean, you could say his values are misplaced. You disagree with his policy proposals, but I actually do think that he is genuinely infuriated by what the Trump administration is doing. And I think he's grieving the loss of not only the constitutional order, but the succeeding generations that are going to have to emerge into this quasi dystopia that we're. going to live in.
Evan: He's not sorry. He's one of the only prominent Republican pundits who's against AI optimization. So he would be a direct indirect opposition with JD Vance. Nothing is more depressing than the decline of the constitutional order. The, the New York times has a, a series of metrics which show our decline to authoritarianism and you know, every they change it periodically and One of them is rule of law. One is cult of personality. ⁓ anyway, it's just, it's just depressing. It's like, you know, the, the frog in the boiling pot of water, right? You don't really notice it getting hotter and then you assess where we are. And it's, it's, ⁓ it's definitely very depressing, but, ⁓ Carlson bears an enormous, enormous share of blame. So for me,
Mike: us.
Evan: I'm not interested in Vance as a betting proposition, Rubio, nor Rubio, a little bit interested in Carlson. ⁓ I own some Trump as an offset to my no bet on whether Trump would run for a third term. So that one I have a guaranteed return on and you could still lock that in if you want to make that bet.
Mike: I bought one cent Trump and sold the three and I was happy. I made a few hundred dollars.
Evan: Good for you. and, ⁓ Trump Jr. ⁓ that's possible, I suppose, but yeah.
Mike: Yeah, do any of the long shots on the list strike you as interesting? To me, no, but I'm asking you guys.
Evan: Not to me, I was really interested. I'm really interested in the Tucker Carlson lane, but I think the only person that's trading that could fill that lane is Tucker Carlson. I can imagine like some democratic equivalents. like if there were a Mark, if Mark Cuban ran the other way, I would see him doing well, somebody like that doing well, but there's nobody on the list. I mean,
Mike: Yes.
Evan: some of them just seem preposterous to me. RFK Jr. there's no chance that he's going to be the Republican nominee.
Mike: He's too busy drinking warm milk and, you know, being a conspiracist. Even though, I don't know.
Evan: I think Thomas Massey might actually be underpriced. So he's trading at 1 % at the moment. And depending on how his election goes, he is not denied maybe potentially running for president. He does have lot of GOP support, GOP voter support, not necessarily institutional support.
Mike: Yeah, Glenn Yonkut, who's that?
Evan: and he would be the next kind of like, you know, anti-establishment. What anti-establish, is he anti-establishment or is that make him a never Trump Republican? He votes, you know, for Republican policies, like something like 94 % of the time. OK, so then he's not anti-establishment. Anti-establishment in this like the new sense that he's like he wants to get money out of politics. He is a I know, obviously, in opposition to the war. He's kind of, think, fenced hitting the AI issue and
Mike: At end of the day though, think, I mean, Massey is sort of a libertarian, right? So he's just going to let the banks do what they want and the financial system can charge 50 % interest rates. That's fine by him, whereas it wouldn't be for Carlson,
Evan: Look, those seem like so those are not new lanes. ⁓ The libertarian lane. Okay, so if Rand Paul ran for the nomination, Rand Paul would have effectively no chance. ⁓ The never Trump Republican lane if Liz Cheney ran for the Republican nomination, she would have no chance. And the get money out of politics, get America out of foreign wars.
Mike: Yeah, right.
Evan: If Bernie Sanders ran in the Republican nomination, Republican primaries, he would have effectively no chance. So I just don't think those are viable lanes. mean, even though, you know, thank God for him and I hope he wins, but if you're not completely certain he's going to win his house race, it's hard to imagine, you know, his house race in Kentucky, it's hard to imagine him being a highly viable presidential candidate. And remember, what I said about the baseline difficulty of running for the presidency from the house. It just doesn't happen. ⁓ I think he's unrealistic, like, as far as winning primary or anything like that. I just think he's slightly underpriced. Right? I think, you know, yeah, from 1 % to 3%, you could, like Mike said, make a hundred bucks, a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, you guys, I said this to you last time.
Mike: Right, I might even agree with you there.
Evan: It's hard to get to 3%. Like something has to happen that changes the math and like, you know, I guess if you had an angle there, but if he announced his candidacy for the presidency tomorrow, you know, it would land on page 27 of the New York times. and really? Yeah. Like his recent scandal thing. Yeah. His recent scandal thing was just front.
Mike: I don't know about that. Yeah, I might push back on that. I think it would be upset.
Evan: center and all of this recent scandal thing. I would say, yeah, right around there. Yeah. I, I, my historical perspective, I just don't agree. I just don't think representatives announcing races for Congress get any significant attention, but anyway, you, you could, you could try it. Um, it's, uh, seems implausible to me, but that's all right.
Mike: Page four, page four of the New York Times.
Evan: ⁓ All right, well, so Mike, are you gonna be in on this?
Mike: ⁓ Nothing's really attractive to me in any of the contracts we've discussed. I'm probably with you in that I think if I had to pick one, I would put in a buy order for Carlson.
Evan: You're buying some Thomas Massey. Maybe. Even if he loses on May 19th. No, no, no. I would base my decision on that. All right. If he, if he pulls it out, you're in. ⁓ is he going to, ⁓ I see. And he can, he can run for the house after he pulls out of the primary. All right. Well, there you have it. ⁓ really enthusiastic endorsement of all of the,
Mike: We talked a lot and now we know that the market's accurately priced.
Evan: possible betting propositions here. Please take a minute and like and subscribe ⁓ if you're watching this on YouTube or leave us a rating on wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back next week with another episode of Universal Basic Housely, guys. Until then, take care.
Mike: Take care folks, thanks.
Mike: Not too much my friends, what's up with you guys?
Evan: much cold cloudy day in New Jersey. you don't know where you are. it's a good McKenna is a McKenna is on assignment in Switzerland. Um, we're going to, uh, do a deep dive on the Republican primary tonight. Uh, the two year off, 2028 Republican primary. Um,
Mike: I don't think any of us really do. It's a simulation.
Evan: Let's start by talking about some core dynamics. And I would start by saying this race couldn't be more different than what the democratic primary is. ⁓ So Mike, why don't you lead us off, just kind of take us through the history of pricing in the market and then we can get into some fundamental dynamics and go through each of the candidates.
Mike: All right, sounds good. the calcium market opens in November of 2024 if the Trump wins. At that point, Vance is pricing at about 55 cents to be the nominee. And DeSantis is at 20, because you'll recall probably DeSantis was quite a bit more popular than he is now. And we'll talk about that. So DeSantis then calls a Florida special election to redraw districts. And his price spikes into December. and early 2025. ⁓ January, famously, we have the Venezuela operation ⁓ with which Rubio was intimately involved and he seemed to be sort of a cheerleader for the Venezuela operation. His price rises on the, I guess, perceived success among Republicans that it was an in and out operation. So he goes to about 14 cents. ⁓ Vance at that time is about 47 cents and falling. ⁓ When US and Israel launched their joint operation, the first concentrated attack against Iran, ⁓ Vance again declines, but Rubio continues to rise and that reflects a broader trend since December ⁓ where Rubio seems to be gaining on Vance pretty significantly. know, the Santa's is just falling by the wayside in terms of price. ⁓ We get to. April of 2026, this is, you know, obviously the Iran war is underway and ceasefire talks begin to open. Vance is at 40 cents then, Rubio at 25 cents and bringing us kind of into, you know, the present where Marco seems to be on the tail of Vance and Vance right now sits at 35 cents to secure the nomination. Rubio at 29, so those are the two clear front runners. But just in the last two weeks, Carlson's price shot up quite a bit on some, I don't know, intimation and murky rumor that he might run. So he's at six cents and then he's trailed by Don Jr. and Ron DeSantis, both at five cents presently. And Donald Trump, the man himself at four cents to secure the nomination for the Republicans.
Evan: Right. Which, ⁓ based on our, ⁓ on our earlier discussion, ⁓ I'm up, ⁓ I'm up some money on, although I'm holding it because it's an offset bet. Anyway, what's your, ⁓ Mike, what's your just initial core take on Vance's price. You think it's about right over under.
Mike: I would say it's about right. mean, he has a huge advantage in that, you know, he's the presumptive nominee. Usually the vice president becomes the nominee from what I can tell. ⁓ Rubio and the other thing I'll say about Vance is, you know, he has strong backing of the tech oligarchs, which we've talked about on the show before. I think they wanted him to be a heartbeat away from the president. in route to becoming the president himself. So I think that plays well for him. But Rubio, who I'm going to cover later on in the episode, he has an advantage in that he can really straddle the line between hardcore MAGA and wanting to be respectable, independents and institutionalists. ⁓ I think he can sort of coalesce those two crowds probably better than Vance can.
Evan: where are you at? straight up on the favorite. Is the favorite, is the favorite fairly priced or is it a favorite to beat or underpriced? I think he's fairly priced right now because he's the institutional favorite. So the, the Republic, the GOP favors him, but I don't think the voters of the GOP will actually end up favoring him come 2028. And that's going to be a cold realization for the institution. In a sense, I the GOP is bought at this point by the likes of Peter Thiel and that's essentially who installed him back in 2024. And that's why I think a lot of these talking heads and pundits believe that JD Vance is going to be their best shot at it. Well, I think that's a relevant point. mean, Vance is going to be a fully funded candidate. That's yeah, that I mean, Vance will have a billion dollars to run a full fledged campaign. so that
Mike: Yeah, no question.
Evan: that can't be dismissed. Let me just start by saying a couple of framing things about elections like this in history. So there is no instance I can recall or could come up with in recent American history where a departing incumbent candidate was not succeeded as the major party nominee by the vice presidential nominee. It is a very, very strong current to swim against. a couple of recent, recent ish examples after Reagan's second term, Bob Dole did primary George Bush. ⁓ But Bush one-handedly, I think, as I recall, Dole won five primaries. Folks may not recall ⁓ that in 2000, after Bill Clinton had finished his second term in the a fateful election that ends up being decided by the Supreme Court. Al Gore faced a reasonably serious primary challenge from Bill Bradley, the Senator from New Jersey, former New York Nick, a very serious intellectual, Princeton graduate, very well regarded congressman. ⁓ I'm a huge fan of Bill Bradley as a politician and ⁓ as a human being. he effectively had no chance I don't recall that he carried ⁓ he carried any seat. It's a very, very tough trend to buck. People have tried. Now. So, you know, I always start off with Bayesian bass lines. If you just said to me, two term president, all right, Trump's a special case, I get that it's two out of the three last terms, but term limited out, being succeeded by, what's the chance that he's succeeded by his vice presidential nominee? If you didn't name the person, I would just say significantly greater than 50%. Okay, so it's remarkable at the start that Vance is trading at less than 50%. The second thing is this is obviously Trump is ⁓ uniquely, Okay. I'll choke down a little bit of vile as I say this charismatic candidate. So the Republican party has been captured by Trump. If Trump were to endorse one of the candidates that would effectively decide the primary. Now, Trump, I presume will operate as he always has by the rules of the apprentice, which is stay tuned to the next episode.
Mike: Yes.
Evan: and see who I'm going to endorse or fire. ⁓ I can't imagine Trump endorsing either Vance or Rubio until it's clear that they're the nominee. ⁓ He would certainly...
Mike: Or it's clear that he can't deploy police powers or emergency powers and just keep them the presidency for himself, right? Yeah.
Evan: Well, right. I mean, we're going to we've discussed that before in our episode about whether Trump would run for a third term and that is certainly relevant here. And I think like a Don Jr candidacy is sort of a proxy for a different type of Trump term. Now. A third just fundamental dynamic is Vance is extremely unpopular. ⁓ Vance is. Right.
Mike: I keep coming back to that too, yeah.
Evan: I think Harry Inton said that Vance is the most unpopular vice president, incumbent vice president in this point in, you know, in administration. I looked at the poll, Vance is a minus 10 to minus 15, ballpark 31 to 35 favorable to 43 to 47 unfavorable. That's pretty significant. I mean, a lot of times the vice presidents are running, running under the radar. ⁓ So I think Vance is tempered by Vance's would be overwhelmingly likely ascendancy to be the presidential nominee is tempered by his unpopularity and Trump's reluctance to endorse. ⁓ So that's how what I think the core dynamic here is I'll just say one other framing thing. The core issues in the Republican primary, some of them are going to be similar. So what emerges is concerned with the economy and that is a major concern. Continued concern with immigration and the war, which Amir has correctly pointed to a number of times before as shifting the MAGA base. There's no doubt. is the first thing that's really eroding some support for Trump among his core supporters. Now what's interesting there is that Vance has repositioned himself and Rubio has repositioned himself to be aligned with the war, even if I'm not sure that that is their actual genuine position. So to me, there's some room there for another lane. And I'll talk about that in a second, but I'm going to share, I'll talk more about Vance in a minute. I sort of share both of your vibe that this is around the right price. ⁓ Notable in that it's below 50 cents.
Mike: I keep coming, when you were talking about Vance and I said, I keep coming back to, you know, how deeply unpopular he is. mean, you might recall from, ⁓ back when Trump, before Trump had declared his vice presidential nominee, when he picked Vance, it struck people almost as like a victory lap, kind of, we can take on this liability now because we feel so confident in our position to win the general election. Whether or not that was true based on the data at the time, it did ultimately turn out to be true. They did win the election. But he never struck me as a charismatic person. I think he's a deeply intellectual and intelligent person. I actually believe that. ⁓ I just think that, you know, he's probably in the Peter Thiel space of deeply intelligent, intellectual people. ⁓ But he's not charismatic and he's just sort of... He was brought on kind of at the last minute, not because people thought he was going to be a boon to Trump, but just that they thought they could sustain the liability of having him as the VP pick.
Evan: in order to attract the financial support of the AI Silicon Valley community.
Mike: I think, yes, to sort of get the blessing of the oligarchs right.
Evan: ⁓ I think that's right. ⁓ Now, have either of you, did either of you read Hillbelly Elegy? Mike, do you read it?
Mike: I've read most of it, yeah, not the whole thing, but I've read, yeah, I have it on my shelf. Like most books, I read 60 % of it.
Evan: I haven't even watched the movie yet, but I hear it's fairly decent. So Vance, I think your characterization of Vance, but I'm just saying this part of why I think there's... What underlies some of his unpopularity from my standpoint is a genuine inauthenticity about how he's presenting himself. Whereas Trump is authentically one of the most repugnant human beings that I've ever seen in my life, right? I mean, he doesn't seem to be faking narcissism. He's genuinely narcissistic. And I think that people respond to that. That's just who he is. Okay.
Mike: Correct, yes. He embodies the rage of the American public very, very well. mean, people are pissed and they want to see somebody who's pissed and they got their guy. Yep.
Evan: Vance's, so I read Hillbilly Elegy around when it came out and he was on my radar screen right from the start. Vance's origin story, ⁓ so he grows up in Middletown, Ohio, his family's from Appalachia, he makes it to The Ohio State University and ultimately to Yale Law School where he's mentored by a famous infamous professor named Amy Chua. Amy Chua is the Tiger Mom. ⁓ and Amy Chua as has been widely reported in the New Yorker among other places is the conduit for right-leaning students to conservative clerkships. And she, as I understood the story is more or less the reason that Vance is able to publish that memoir. Hillbilly Elegy. I, I had, I liked Hillbilly Elegy when I read it. ⁓ I, I had a medium amount of.
Mike: Me too.
Evan: There's a little bit of gate closing dynamic to it. I think you have some vibe that he benefited from some social programs that he's ⁓ strongly criticizing in the book, but it felt authentic to me. It was a genuine representation of his experience and he has a lot of disdain ⁓ for... There's some really strong negative cultural arguments about the folks in Appalachia and about the welfare state, I would say, but... He sees them as exploitative. Now, it's interesting. One thing I'll say, different perspective I have on this. So I am working, actually finished a first draft today about an article about a college in Kentucky called Berea College. It's an incredible place. It's tuition free. 75 % of the students come from Appalachia and everybody works. They have a $2 billion endowment. Incredibly, Mitch McConnell went to bat for them when Trump passed his excise tax. Anyway, I had occasion to interview in a amazing woman who ⁓ is a ⁓ state representative, a state senator in Kentucky. She went to ⁓ Yale undergrad, Law School? Harvard, Harvard undergrad, Yale undergrad, Harvard Law School. And yeah, yeah, yeah. And she wrote a memoir called Hill Women. And she's very critical of Vance for
Mike: ⁓ same thing.
Evan: the gate closing dynamic. Her memoir is as optimistic and celebratory of Appalachian culture as Vance's is critical. But let me just sign on to what you said. That is a smart human being who's thoughtful even if we don't agree. That 2016 Vance version. And he was super critical of Trump. Now Vance, okay. I don't have the document to prove it, but he sold his soul, right? He sold his soul to the Peter Thiel, anti-Antichrist, Silicon Valley access, which effectively buys him an Ohio Senate seat. He is now publicly converted to Christianity. I'll take him on his word that that's authentic, but he's presenting a completely different person to the world than he did. when he published Hillbilly Elegy. And that's a tough thing to present. What's interesting is Trump's conversion. mean, folks don't remember Trump was pro-choice when he was ⁓ a New York businessman, but everybody understood that Trump was mostly pro-Trump, right? So he's never changed being pro-Trump. So that essence of his character has not changed, but Vance is selling something different. And I think that's very hard. I certainly feel in Vance,
Mike: Well, he was a Democrat, right?
Evan: ⁓ some awkwardness and some occasional intellectual condescension even if that's a charge that's usually levied against liberals ⁓ but I think that's what makes his his stock hard to sell I'm on board with that and that's mentioned the fact that he was a finance guy before he entered any of this
Mike: Now, Abira. Amir, was thinking about what you said earlier that you think that Vance best embodies the establishment now. Was that the establishment GOP? Okay, because I kind of have a different take, so I'm curious about what you mean by that. So I actually think there might be some desire among, you know, Senate Republicans to return to some fusion of normal with MAGA, right? ⁓
Evan: Yeah, 100%.
Mike: I actually see Vance as the presumptive standard bearer of the sort of, what would you say, I want to say crazy, let's emotionally charged MAGA movement, right? And I see Rubio more consistent with an institutionalist picture. What do you think about that?
Evan: I think they're comparable. But I think what Evan said is ultimately right. It'll narrow down to whoever Trump endorses. And I think it's really going to be JD Vance because he has the money to basically run those campaign ads. I completely agree with you. think that's what the GOP senators want, but I'm not so certain that that's what Americans want. I'm not so certain that that's what Republican voters would want. But my thought is I don't think Trump will endorse anybody at any stage in the primaries where it's relevant. I'm going back to, I just think he's going to go by apprentice rules. It's going to be, you know, throw, I don't know what the right metaphor is, throw the sharks in the tank and whichever one emerges. wins so I mean I only think he would endorse somebody if they had won 17 primaries. I completely agree with you but in that in that shark fight I think JD Vance wins over Marco Rubio. I don't think Rubio has the the money or the backing or the wherewithal to actually go toe-to-toe with JD Vance.
Mike: I Rubio is superior presenter though. think he, like Evan said, Vance has a huge awkwardness problem. I mean, sometimes he talks, and I remember famously when he became the vice presidential nominee, he came out and gave just such an awkward speech. People weren't sure whether to clap or whether, who this guy even was really, right? ⁓ So yeah, just an observation there.
Evan: He does, Mike, you do have a point. this will, I think, become important when people start to criticize the Trump administration, you know, the people inside of it about the Iran war. Marco Rubio very early on distance himself from the decision making process. He actually called out and said Israel was the one that pushed Trump's hand into it. And JD Vance couldn't make that pivot as quickly. this will sort of tip a little bit where my thinking is. So when you think about lanes here, right? Everybody's going to run a run in, I run in the, I'm the heir or successor to Trump lane. And I think Vance has done as much as he can to try to set him else self up to do that with maybe an air of younger, more tech friendly. Rubio's lane, I think is a tough one. So to me, Rubio's lane becomes the. never Trump Republican lane, even though I don't think he would say I'm never Trump. I just think he would present himself and I think he is. actually think he's the most rational, most reasonable of anybody in Trump's orbit. You know, he's a perfectly reasonable secretary of state, which is not to say that I agree with everything he says, but he seems like a thoughtful, ⁓ phlegmatic human being who presents himself diplomatically to the world. He's is, is He doesn't present like Trump. Now that has been a, an extraordinarily unsuccessful lane, right? So when we think in recent memory about who ran in that lane, it sure didn't work for Mike Pence. It sure didn't work. guess Ron DeSantis maybe sort of tried to be a younger Trump at some point, but it doesn't feel super viable to me. Even if I, I have to say I might even sign on, I'm sure we've all made these deals with the devil. I might even sign on to Rubio being president right now if I could avoid what I think of as some of the more catastrophic scenarios, including Trump being president for a third term.
Mike: That would make that bargain. That would make that bargain too. If I had a button in front of me, I would be smashing it right now, I think, because I just think that there's so much uncertainty in the future. There are clearly worse candidates. There's also the possibility that Trump just uses emergency powers to try to remain president, which would be disaster.
Evan: Right. Yeah. Speaking of smashing a button, smash that like and subscribe. We really, really appreciate it when you do that. ⁓ yeah, I.
Mike: ⁓ yeah!
Evan: I think Rubio in terms of merits deserves to be more than 25 cents. I think in terms of his actual likelihood, I don't think if you ran history forward from this point a hundred times that he's the Republican nominee 25 times.
Mike: Yeah, the structural barriers and the incentives of the political class and oligarchs sort of just make it difficult. I agree. But if you took him on his merits, he's clearly stronger.
Evan: Do either of you want to make a stronger case for him?
Mike: For Rubio? You know, I was gonna give people just some background about him and make the bold case if you want. Sure, okay. So Rubio was born in Miami in 71. He's the son of Cuban immigrants. So, you know, he's Latino and he has a success story that's based on, you know, overcoming some marginalization. He worked his way up through the Florida house. He became speaker, then US Senator from Florida from 2011 to 2025.
Evan: Yeah. Sure.
Mike: He ran for president in 2016. And it's funny at that point, I actually thought that he was going to beat Trump for the nomination. I thought Republicans would not let this happen. It would, you know, put the adult in the room in there, but here we are. He's now Treasury, rather, excuse me, Trump's secretary of state. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate and, you know, he's Cuban. He's the son of working class immigrants. He came up in the Tea Party era and my biggest sort of selling point for Rubio is I think he can navigate the populist right and the old guard institutional right really, really well. So the bull case for him is kind of consistent with that. You know, a normal anti-Trump Republican, as you pointed out, Evan, has no chance in the GOP primary, but a covert anti-Trump Republican who, you know, pays homage to Trump in public could do well. ⁓ The price data shows that the gap between Rubio and Vance is closing significantly and Rubio hasn't gone down since the beginning of the year. He's only really gone up. ⁓ Most of the polls do show that Vance is ahead of Rubio, but in a late ⁓ Atlas Intel national poll, and Atlas Intel used to be one of the top pollsters, but now is sort of like a mid to high range pollster. Rubio led a hypothetical 2028 Republican primary field among self-identified Republicans, 45 to JD Vance's 30%, with Ron DeSantis at 11%. The same poll, though, wasn't totally rosy for him. Rubio's national image is underwater, but it's not as underwater as Vance's. people's, yeah, it's 46 % positive versus, you know.
Evan: That's right. Rubio is definitely, definitely less unpopular, much, much, much higher likeability ratings, which is one of the things that leads me not to, cause I think he has a tough lane, but leads me to sort of keep his, his price as it is. Rubio is also, ⁓ doing double duties, right? He's national security advisor. He, he's a very serious person. Now we're always careful to say that these bets are a function of both whether the person runs and then whether they prevail in the primary. And it's a reasonable play to just think you bet on somebody with the idea of selling after they declare their candidacy. Now Vance is certainly going to run. That's as close to a hundred percent as anything could be. I don't think it's a hundred percent that Rubio runs. Now Rubio is in his mid fifties. I think he'll be 56 when Trump leaves office, 56 or 57. and ⁓
Mike: Don't do it Amir, don't do it, don't you dare even, no, no, don't do it.
Evan: I already did it. I already did it. ⁓
Mike: Six, seven.
Evan: It's possible that he waits, in there are very few examples of somebody waiting their turn. So Obama in 2008 was an example of someone that you would have thought should have let Hillary serve. I'm sure he could have been secretary of state as Hillary was. And remember his rationale was the fear surgency of now. I think it's going to be very hard for Rubio to resist. And he, was a very credible candidate, ⁓ in 2016. ⁓ who would have thought that branding someone little Marco making fun of their height would turn out to be an effective rhetorical tactic, but it did. And I guess he forgave Trump enough that he would take his cabinet position. So I think Rubio runs, is there a bump when he runs? Maybe a little bit. I just think this is, there's a lot of uncertainty in this. I. This seems to me ballpark right. ⁓
Mike: Yeah, I agree. I mean, just two other points on Rubio that I think help his case. So his CPAC straw poll performance was quite good. The 2026 CPAC straw poll, he finished second at 35%. It's only 3 % the year prior. And we can't forget that he's a Latino and Latinos are, mean, rather Republicans are going to hemorrhage Latinos this election cycle. I think, you know, that swing of minority voters, especially male working class minority voters. is going to go away, unless the guy's a Latino, so...
Evan: Now, uh, you talked a bit about Tucker Carlson last time a year. Okay. I, I'm, I have a case you can go first though, if you want. definitely do. I do think his current price is right around where it should be. He's currently priced around 6 % on Cal she, I think a little bit higher on poly market, but you know, about that, maybe 10 % was, is realistically where you should be. I think what Tucker represents is more of an idea. of what Republicans are looking for and how disenfranchised they are by MAGA and the current GOP. But just to go a little bit into his bio, before he developed the Tucker Carlson Network, which now enjoys 56 million views per episode, which is, I believe, most watched show on the internet currently that runs consistently, especially in the political realm. He hosted Fox. ⁓ show himself and it was one of the most popular, well it was the most popular Fox show, nighttime shows on the network. He also developed the Daily Caller back in 2010, turned that into another success story and he's really developed this grassroots Republican support from both the young and middle-aged GOP Republican voters. He was partly responsible for putting Trump into office in 2024 and now has famously flipped on that and one of the only Republicans who has been honest in that decision-making process, who said, look, this is what we wanted back in 2024. This is what we thought we were going to get. And we just haven't gotten X, Y, and Z things. And I do regret that those things haven't happened now. I wish the best for the country and the best for the president. But at this point, I don't support him. Tucker Carlson. I'm old enough that I remember Tucker Carlson. ⁓ got his start on crossfire. ⁓ he used to be, ⁓ it was a great show. It was on CNN. ⁓ sometimes Pat Buchanan was on one side. Sometimes James Carville was on the liberal side. and Paul Pagala at one point and Tucker Carlson, he used to wear bow ties and I guess he still does sometimes. And he was a totally reasonable conservative voice. So. The person that I saw on Fox News did not seem recognizable to me for it. I'm sorry to cut you off. didn't. I would actually argue the other way around. think on Fox, he was more of this crazy Republican. now he's kind of turned into this populist person who just, I mean, you know, he was on this New York Times interview or podcast where the person asked them, you know, who do you think is is a greater threat to society at this point? Ted Cruz or Nick Fuentes? And he just said the answer straight up. He says Ted Cruz. And the reporter was shocked. She was like, why is that the case? Isn't Nick Fuentes this racist who influences hundreds of thousands of nationalists in America? And he goes, sure, but Ted Cruz actually has power to bomb a bunch of people. And I think that's way more influential than whatever Nick Fuentes could. Why does Ted Cruz have power to bomb people? Well, he's in the Senate. I hope senators don't have the power to bomb people. But he signed on to Israel's war and all these kinds things, which Tuckers is vehemently
Mike: ⁓ yeah, ⁓ well they should. In theory, if we followed the constitution, he would have the power to bomb people, but we just don't ask for authorizations anymore.
Evan: Okay. Tucker Carlson's lane feels a lot more plausible to me than Marco Rubio's does. Tucker Carlson's lane would be anti-war populist. And working class. Well, populist is,
Mike: He's very concerned about the affordability crisis. mean, I've watched a few of his episodes. He's perpetually talking about how the generation of Americans being born now are just never going to have a house. They're never going have a stable career. ⁓ He's vocally in opposition to the banks and to high credit card interest rates. So his position is that we should, and I might be misrepresenting it, so correct me if I'm wrong, Amir, but I believe he wants to cap credit card interest at 10 % across the board. All of these ideas and grievances would be wildly popular and especially if they were presented by somebody who was intellectually coherent as opposed to deranged and narcissistic like Trump.
Evan: you So I'm in full agreement with that. fact, when Trump made his Iran truth social about it, he's going to bomb the crap out of these people and said some derogatory things about Eid and Islam in general and about how, you know, smite them or something. Yeah. Carlson. Yeah. Carlson distanced. mean, condemned it. Yeah. And that was just for me, that was shocking. You know, he said only a person, only a non-Christian would say something like that and denigrate another religion, which was like, did he just win Muslim voters? Cause he might have. No, no,
Mike: Yeah.
Evan: serious he actually might have. To me, the bet with Carlson is very different. I have a lot of doubt that he's going to run. If he did run, I think he would do very well. This was certainly before both of your time. But in 1992, Papu Cannon ran a very credible primary against the incumbent George Bush, the elder, who was had finished serving his first term. And and Buchanan ⁓ took Bush to term on to task on breaking his no new taxes pledge and foreign interventionism. And you may not remember Pap you can't but Pap you can in his I'm going to guess Tucker Carlson's media role model. Papu Cannon was the bow tie wearing conservative on the McLaughlin group. If Tucker Carlson was 80 instead of 50, he would have been on the McLaughlin group. I think, I mean, first of all, none of us think that there's any barrier to someone who's just a product of media or social media with no government experience running for office, right? So Trump has conclusively proved that. I mean, there's a lot of uncertainty in this, but if Carlson, you know, called me tomorrow and said, I'm going to run for sure. I'd get some shackles down on him because he's, he's, he's going to run. He would run well. I agree with you in theory. Can I tell you why I'm scared of that scared of what you just said or what you said becoming reality potentially. And I think, so I'll tie in Thomas Massey into this because he's running against Ed Golreem, I believe, the 19th, May 19th, I believe. And so this is a seven term, you know, house representative from Kentucky who's wildly popular all these years. And suddenly he starts questioning, you know, or he starts going after the Epstein files, the Trump and the GOP base, and then starts going after Israel and APAC and all these different things.
Mike: Go Massey. think his election, what is it, tomorrow or the next day? Hopefully 19th. Yeah, yeah.
Evan: And out of nowhere, there's this, you know, very, very, you know, heavily funded pro-maga. Yeah. Pro-maga, but somehow is also receiving money from Democrats and leftist groups. Opponent that just challenges him and in his, you know, the probability of him winning dropped down to 40 % at one point is now at 60%. This is someone who should easily, you know, retake his seat in the house again. And by the way, at Galerín hasn't even showed up to a single debate. I've never... heard the person speak against or like in a debate or something like that. And yet he has what? 40 or 30 % chance of winning at this point, which is insane. Right, right. But I think that's exactly what's going to happen to Tucker as well. And who's he going to take money from? He doesn't have the Miriam Adel scene. ⁓ you're saying if he runs, he just has so many financial and institutional obstacles ahead. OK, so I'm not saying that Tucker Carlson would win.
Mike: He's useless, he's just bankrolled, that's it. I mean, he's useless.
Evan: All I'm saying is that in an early primary state, okay, if the New Hampshire rep, and I, I actually, think the Republicans haven't changed the order. If the Republican, if the New Hampshire primary was first in a three way, boy, I think Tucker Carlson would have a reasonably good chance of prevailing ⁓ in the New Hampshire Republican primary. Now, does that mean that I think he wins? I think, I think you're, I think you're right. I There's no doubt that JD Vance will be a fully funded candidate. There's tons of doubt that Tucker Carlson could be a fully funded candidate. It's not actually clear what his base would be. On the other hand, certainly possible to imagine him having a Bernie Sanders type level of public support with the average contribution is $32. And, you know, I mean, I don't think he could rise a billion, but it's totally easy to imagine him raising hundreds of millions. I, just going to, So, so all I'm saying is if he entered, I think his polling numbers would spike. don't that for me wouldn't be a buy and hold through to the end. ⁓ it would be a buy and hold through the New Hampshire primary. I'm going to reframe what I said. I'm curious. So I think the mass. you curious about two things? You're not by curious. I'm not by curious. I'm curious about this one singular mono.
Mike: You know, we have the same jokes in our head, course. Go ahead.
Evan: So I think the Massey-Gallereen election is really going to tell us if American politics has come to a point where money, where the influence of money in politics has less control over who the ⁓ winner is. So in a sense, I know what you're saying about how JD Vance is going to be, he's going to get the billion dollars easily, but I think we are reaching a point where that billion dollars, the ROI on that has decreased to the point that maybe if Tucker raises 500 million. ⁓ that. ⁓ So you initially sounded like you were arguing against me. Now it sounds like you're sort of on the same. We're on the same side. I mean, I'm just I think the Massey election is going to tell us where we're at, because if Massey loses, then it just tell that just tells the whole world that no money still controls politics and you could just buy ⁓ a house. Yeah, or maybe. Yeah. ⁓
Mike: Or maybe it just controls Kentucky, I don't know.
Evan: or maybe it just
Mike: But it would be an indicator. agree with you, Amir, but I don't know if it's generalizable.
Evan: Right. Well, I'm, I'm, that was a very broad statement, obviously, but it, you know, Thomas Massey is wildly popular and yet somehow not winning. Well, I guess he's not wildly popular or you're going to have to change your definition of wildly. Well, wildly popular amongst young Republicans. I'll Carlson's an interesting, I'll just stand by Carlson's an interesting proposition for me now.
Mike: like messy.
Evan: Having said that, I think he's a little undervalued.
Mike: Do think he's presently over or undervalued? Like, would you buy now? Yeah, I would agree. He's a little undervalued.
Evan: except I don't think he's gonna run Carlson he has a great life he lives in Maine he does his show remotely he has complete control over his time I don't see that dude going out for 16 months and kissing babies maybe it's irresistible but I'm not I'm not And And, you know, he's, he's denied it in the past, I guess, this time around, what didn't he say he would relish? He really hates Ted Cruz. So we would relish the idea of debating Ted Cruz, but I,
Mike: Yes. I think he has a heart. I mean, that's the one thing that could potentially draw him into the contest. mean, you could say his values are misplaced. You disagree with his policy proposals, but I actually do think that he is genuinely infuriated by what the Trump administration is doing. And I think he's grieving the loss of not only the constitutional order, but the succeeding generations that are going to have to emerge into this quasi dystopia that we're. going to live in.
Evan: He's not sorry. He's one of the only prominent Republican pundits who's against AI optimization. So he would be a direct indirect opposition with JD Vance. Nothing is more depressing than the decline of the constitutional order. The, the New York times has a, a series of metrics which show our decline to authoritarianism and you know, every they change it periodically and One of them is rule of law. One is cult of personality. ⁓ anyway, it's just, it's just depressing. It's like, you know, the, the frog in the boiling pot of water, right? You don't really notice it getting hotter and then you assess where we are. And it's, it's, ⁓ it's definitely very depressing, but, ⁓ Carlson bears an enormous, enormous share of blame. So for me,
Mike: us.
Evan: I'm not interested in Vance as a betting proposition, Rubio, nor Rubio, a little bit interested in Carlson. ⁓ I own some Trump as an offset to my no bet on whether Trump would run for a third term. So that one I have a guaranteed return on and you could still lock that in if you want to make that bet.
Mike: I bought one cent Trump and sold the three and I was happy. I made a few hundred dollars.
Evan: Good for you. and, ⁓ Trump Jr. ⁓ that's possible, I suppose, but yeah.
Mike: Yeah, do any of the long shots on the list strike you as interesting? To me, no, but I'm asking you guys.
Evan: Not to me, I was really interested. I'm really interested in the Tucker Carlson lane, but I think the only person that's trading that could fill that lane is Tucker Carlson. I can imagine like some democratic equivalents. like if there were a Mark, if Mark Cuban ran the other way, I would see him doing well, somebody like that doing well, but there's nobody on the list. I mean,
Mike: Yes.
Evan: some of them just seem preposterous to me. RFK Jr. there's no chance that he's going to be the Republican nominee.
Mike: He's too busy drinking warm milk and, you know, being a conspiracist. Even though, I don't know.
Evan: I think Thomas Massey might actually be underpriced. So he's trading at 1 % at the moment. And depending on how his election goes, he is not denied maybe potentially running for president. He does have lot of GOP support, GOP voter support, not necessarily institutional support.
Mike: Yeah, Glenn Yonkut, who's that?
Evan: and he would be the next kind of like, you know, anti-establishment. What anti-establish, is he anti-establishment or is that make him a never Trump Republican? He votes, you know, for Republican policies, like something like 94 % of the time. OK, so then he's not anti-establishment. Anti-establishment in this like the new sense that he's like he wants to get money out of politics. He is a I know, obviously, in opposition to the war. He's kind of, think, fenced hitting the AI issue and
Mike: At end of the day though, think, I mean, Massey is sort of a libertarian, right? So he's just going to let the banks do what they want and the financial system can charge 50 % interest rates. That's fine by him, whereas it wouldn't be for Carlson,
Evan: Look, those seem like so those are not new lanes. ⁓ The libertarian lane. Okay, so if Rand Paul ran for the nomination, Rand Paul would have effectively no chance. ⁓ The never Trump Republican lane if Liz Cheney ran for the Republican nomination, she would have no chance. And the get money out of politics, get America out of foreign wars.
Mike: Yeah, right.
Evan: If Bernie Sanders ran in the Republican nomination, Republican primaries, he would have effectively no chance. So I just don't think those are viable lanes. mean, even though, you know, thank God for him and I hope he wins, but if you're not completely certain he's going to win his house race, it's hard to imagine, you know, his house race in Kentucky, it's hard to imagine him being a highly viable presidential candidate. And remember, what I said about the baseline difficulty of running for the presidency from the house. It just doesn't happen. ⁓ I think he's unrealistic, like, as far as winning primary or anything like that. I just think he's slightly underpriced. Right? I think, you know, yeah, from 1 % to 3%, you could, like Mike said, make a hundred bucks, a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, you guys, I said this to you last time.
Mike: Right, I might even agree with you there.
Evan: It's hard to get to 3%. Like something has to happen that changes the math and like, you know, I guess if you had an angle there, but if he announced his candidacy for the presidency tomorrow, you know, it would land on page 27 of the New York times. and really? Yeah. Like his recent scandal thing. Yeah. His recent scandal thing was just front.
Mike: I don't know about that. Yeah, I might push back on that. I think it would be upset.
Evan: center and all of this recent scandal thing. I would say, yeah, right around there. Yeah. I, I, my historical perspective, I just don't agree. I just don't think representatives announcing races for Congress get any significant attention, but anyway, you, you could, you could try it. Um, it's, uh, seems implausible to me, but that's all right.
Mike: Page four, page four of the New York Times.
Evan: ⁓ All right, well, so Mike, are you gonna be in on this?
Mike: ⁓ Nothing's really attractive to me in any of the contracts we've discussed. I'm probably with you in that I think if I had to pick one, I would put in a buy order for Carlson.
Evan: You're buying some Thomas Massey. Maybe. Even if he loses on May 19th. No, no, no. I would base my decision on that. All right. If he, if he pulls it out, you're in. ⁓ is he going to, ⁓ I see. And he can, he can run for the house after he pulls out of the primary. All right. Well, there you have it. ⁓ really enthusiastic endorsement of all of the,
Mike: We talked a lot and now we know that the market's accurately priced.
Evan: possible betting propositions here. Please take a minute and like and subscribe ⁓ if you're watching this on YouTube or leave us a rating on wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back next week with another episode of Universal Basic Housely, guys. Until then, take care.
Mike: Take care folks, thanks.
