Nate and Maria discuss the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and the psychology of conspiracy theorists. They talk about what Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance means for the election. And they parse the latest in the Democrats’ intra-party fight over Biden.
Also on the show: Nate’s day at jury duty is a case study in bad bluffs.
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The Leap from Maria Konnikova
Silver Bulletin from Nate Silver
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions. I'm Maria Khannikova.
And I'm Nate Silver. Today we're going to be talking about mostly politics again. There's a lot of news, including an assassination attempt against former President Trump.
And yeah, and we'll be talking about Biden and Biden's chances and the jd Vance nomination. And then Nate, you're going to have a very personal take on something non political.
Yeah. I flew home earlier than I might have otherwise in the World Chairs Poker because I had a jury summons, which I've ducked in the past, and I didn't want to duck again. But we'll talk about like a little bit of the strategy about why you shouldn't lie to like a.
Federal judge or I guess like a state judge in this case.
That seems like smart policy. All right, So talking about, you know, everything that's happened in the political world, I think we obviously need to start with kind of the most pressing news of the moment, which is that there was an assassination attempt on the former President of the United States Donald Trump during his rally in Pennsylvania. We still don't know much about the shooter except he was right, twenty years old, local, and that's about it.
Twenty years old, twenty years old was a registered Republican, although had made at least one donation to a Democratic constituency, to a democratic cause. I guess no, he's dead, so he's not here to explain his motives. He might fit into some sort of in cell if you know that term stereotype a little bit. He seems not to have had like a lot of social contacts or friends. But we may never know very much about his motives. You know, we do know, we we don't know.
Uh.
Look, I think the country has been lucky to avoid something like this. I mean, for sure, talk a lot on the show about like the vagaries of fate and things like that. And a bullet apparently graized Trump's ear. He apparently was looking at some uh some sign or some whatever.
Irate He said it was an immigration graph, so he said, border control, border control saved.
To always look at charts, right, that might literally save your life. And he tilted his head to look at the chart. The guy was apparently not a very good shot, and therefore it just graves his ear.
I think we don't actually know that.
Much about like I mean, you know, we talk about like President's not disclosing medical information, but an issue with Biden. We also haven't really gotten any reports about like did this like rupture his ear drum or something Trump, but he seems at least more or less okay.
And after fighting spirits.
In fighting spirits, I mean, he had this iconic photo that was so iconic that some Democrats think, oh, it must have been staged. Right, It's like, give me a break, And I.
Want to actually go back to that in one second. Let's talk a little bit more. But I do, I do want to touch a little bit on the psychology of kind of the conspiracy theories around all of us.
Were gonna ask you about that?
Yeah, yeah, because because I think that it's I think that's a really important point and the conspiracy theories are going on on both sides. Did you want to finish up your thought before we get into that. No.
Look, we are taping this on Wednesday, early afternoon, New York time, Wednesday morning, Vegas time.
We don't really have a lot of polling.
I know it sounds crass talk about polling for how it's affected the race, and we may never know because what's happening this week is there's a Republican convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Typically conventions it's like a big paid advertisement for your party and so typically produces like a short lived bounce in the polling. Trump has also nominated his vice presidential candidate, Senator j. D. Vance of Ohio. There's a bunch of stuff piling on top of each other. In other words, what we can say is that President Biden trails and the large majority of these polls, virtually all of the nonpartisan polling and swing states and most of them, not all of the national polls.
You know, in the short run, it will probably get worse. But yeah, I mean.
Again, the contrast between Trump surviving this attack and raising his fists and saying fight, fight, fight, versus Biden being still quite feeble. There have been a bunch of more public appearances by Biden. They've been mixed. When you say mixed, it's a euphism for shitty usually, right. You know, he's been better in some venues than others.
Uh best, by the way, and you know when he was speaking in NATO and did a really good job on f policy, He's still called Kamala VP Trump and called Zelenski Putin and people say, oh, you know, you mess up all the time. People always have these sorts of gaffs. Yes, but right, like this is clearly taking a lot out of him, and as we've said over and over, it's only going to get worse. This is you know, he he is pulled in and we can see him fraying in those moments. And I think the NATO appearance was one of his best.
Yeah.
Look, I mean even in the prepared demarks he gave after the assassination attempt, he said battle box instead of ballot box repeatedly. And this is reading off I presume a teleprompter. Look, you take some average performance and like on his best days, Biden is like a B B plus, right, and the worst is like well into f territory.
Yeah.
And by the way, we're not getting that large saple because he doesn't do that many events relative to like another president always tried to increase the number recently, but we have a large enough sample size to say that like this is extremely mediocre at best and consistent with the pattern of declining cognitive ability. I don't think there's any other way to say that. I mean, you know, maybe by some weird coincience, he just can't speak very coherently. But the other facilities are fine, right, I mean faculties, facilities, whatever. Like maybe it's okay, but like he wants to be present for another four years and it's just kind of I mean, it's really like an emperor. This is a title of a previous episode, right, It's like an emperor has no close moment. It's plainly obvious that like he has lost his fastball. He might have even lost his change up. Right, he is like lobbying pitches up over the center of the plate. And because we're a very partisan country, I mean, he's gonna get whatever forty four percent of the voter something in a three way race with also three party candidates on the.
Ballot, and like maybe he could win.
I don't know, right, I mean, he's not that that that far behind in the polling. It's a problem for him or any Democrat that like the electoral College favors Republicans. But like it's hard to imagine another Democrat doing worse than this, I guess, right, yeh, I mean, I you know, I mean in a poll that came out this morning from the Associated Press and the NRC, which is a survey organization at the University of Caigo. Two thirds of Democrats say he should be replaced. When two thirds of your own party wants you out, I mean, I don't think there's like any precedent for this. People can cite Trump in twenty sixteen after the Access Hollywood tap, like, but Republicans Democrats are different, and Republican voters were very loyal to Trump. Democrats, or I think, are a little bit more realistic apparently, except maybe the party leadership, which is lying to itself and lying to the American public. And there's like, there's no other way to put it, right, It's some combination of lying and cowardice, two qualities that I really dislike. Right, So, if you're at the ven diagram of gutlessness and lying, then you know, I have no respect for you. It's like a permanent we'll never respect you a gain in your life if you pick one right, tell us strategically, you know, lie once or twice, right, and we've all lied in our life, right, or you know whatever. But like in that if you're in that overlap of being a coward, and a liar, then I will never respect you again. And if I were a donor, I would never want to ever give any money to any Democrat as long as like the people that are currently run the Democratic Party are in charge of the party.
Yeah, no, I mean I think that's fair. I think that's fair, and we should definitely let's let's talk a little bit more about the Democrats. But before we completely pivot to that, let's do a little bit of a recap on kind of the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Trump, because I do think it's really important to address the fact that we do have conspiracy theories emerging on both sides. Right, you have Democrats saying, oh, look at this photograph, this was stage. You have Republicans, I mean mostly it's Democrats actually saying that this was this was stage. But you have people saying that this was staged, that it wasn't an actual attempt, that you know, how you know, how did this gun man get here, blah blah blah. And by the way, there were definite security lapses. Right, we now know that people fucked up to allow this gunman there. I think to say that it was staged is just like absolutely ludicrous because of many reasons. But first of all, if a bullet grazed his ear, do you realize, like the level of precision of marksmanship that you would have to have to make sure that it grazed the ear and not something else. What if the winds changed, What if, you know, last minute, something happened, like you could kill the person that you're supposed to just pretend to assassinate, and people in the crowd died. Right, we have one death, we have critical injuries. So I think that to call this fake is just absolutely disconnected from reality. And yet we are seeing more and more of these moments where conspiracy theories, conspiratorial type thinking is gaining ascendence, and I think that that has actually that pattern started during the first Trump presidency, because he is someone who loves to kind of endorse conspiracy theories and say, oh, you know, this person did this, they meddled with this, the election was stolen. There all these hidden forces and a lot of the reasons why Trump appeals to voters is actually a lot of the reasons why conspiracy theories appeal to people's brains. So what we know about conspiracy theory thinking is that First of all, when you're feeling kind of out of control, when you're feeling disenfranchised, when you're feeling you know, left out, like things are spirally out of control, Conspiracy theories are amazing because either you have to just say, Okay, shit happens and random bad shit happens, and shit happens for no reason, or you can say, there are these bad guys and there are these bad forces, and they actually like have this whole big thing, and that's why this is happening. Right, there's someone to blame. I have a scapegoat. I can say that this is the reason that bad things are happening to me, This is the reason why I'm poor, why I'm disenfranchised, Why this, Why that because there's this big bad thing in the world. Whereas you know, the other explanation that it's just random, it's just noise doesn't intuitively appeal to the human brain. And there's also been you know, a lot of work that shows connections between stress, anxiety, all sorts of those types of feelings and conspiratorial thinking. When you know, we talked in the past about some of my research on why people fall for con artists, and you actually see yeah, that ven diagram overlaps a lot the people who fall for con artists and the people who fall for conspiracy type thinking, because what we said with con artists is that you find that people when they're in moments of transition, uncertainty, change, anxiety, when things are wrong in their life, they love the story, the nice narrative that con artists offer, the hope that they offer, and conspiracy theories. It's the exact same thing. When you're in those types of moments in your life, that's when you embrace them. That's when you say, oh, you know, well this is happening and this is wrong. Funny thing is here, you know, it's an irony here that this type of thinking which is embraced by Republican followers of Donald Trump and by don you know, stoked by Donald Trump, that we see this now in the Democrats who might be feeling disenfranchised, who might be feeling like people aren't listening to them, and so who might who might now be saying, oh, this is staged, and so it's funny that it's actually bipartisan, this type of thing.
You know, you can't have a conspiracy without con I guess right, I was gonna ask you about that.
No, and like and.
Probably among the like donor elite class, the biggest defender of Biden has been Reid Hoffman, who was a founder of LinkedIn. His chief strategist a guy named Dimitri. I think it's Melhorne M E H L H O r N send an email on like Saturday night saying, you know, this is a Russian tactic. This is what Putin would do. And I don't think it's a coincidence. Maybe it's a little unfair, but like, but like you are denying basic reac to say it's a good idea to nominate Joe Biden.
Like never mind even.
Like the political implications, like this guy shouldn't be president for four more years.
It's just obvious you cannot speak consistently enough.
And so so you're selecting for and again, two thirds of Democratic voters in some polls a little bit less, you know, but half to two thirds, depending which pole you look at.
I think the nomination should be replaced.
So you're you're you know, you're selecting for the one third of the party that's like out of touch with reality, I guess, But no, Look, I think as someone who thinks a lot about as we both do about like game theory and incentives. I mean, when you're the party that says we are the righteous people, right, we are the people that are speaking truth to power. And maybe it was true five years ago, but when you when you think that and you begin to act like that, and then you begin to behave, kind of behave kind of badly, when you're like, we're the party who is on the side of justice and truth, and like, I don't know, I mean, it's deeply disappointed by the way I got in a fight with Jamie Harrison, who is the head of the Democratic National Committee right out of the DNC.
I mean, where the who looks worse?
I think he does because I'm just a fucking blogger, right, I'm just a little brawler blogger and his job. It's the week of the RNC instead of driving messing about the DNC. And the reason I gotten into the fight is that he is lying and the Democratic Party is lying about this need to advance a date at which Joe Biden is nominated.
So the convention is in mid August. What is it like?
I think the twenty second ish of August is like the date, right, somewhere around then. So, however, they are claiming that they had to have this virtual role call to nominate Biden originally in like a week, and now they're pushing it back to August seventh.
That's just not true, right, It's a lie. Right.
So the reason is that originally the state of Ohio had a law that said you have to nominate your canap by August seventh, which is before the Democratic Convention. Right, how well that law would have held up in reality, I'm not so sure. It would have been subject I think to a lot of constitutional and legal challenges. But they changed that law and said, Okay, that was stupid. Now you have until September first instead, or you have you know, there's plenty of time whoever you nominate at the convention. It is, by the way, August twenty second is a last day will be printed on ballots in Ohio. Democrats are claiming that, or Jamie Harrison's claiming, and the DNC is claiming that, like, oh, you never know what Republicans will do next, and so therefore we have to still have this virtual role call ahead of the convention. When election law experts say this isn't true, that like experts in the primary process have literally called this misinformation. I mean, and by the way, it's also you talk about like lying and cowardly in the overlap, Well, the DNC is in that very much, in that Venn diagram of being cowardly and lying to people, because like, first of all, the Democratic Party sets its own rules, and the rules say that you nominate the candidate at the convention and have a vote of the delegates, who are by the way, like literally dealt into the process. In most states when you vote, if you read the fine print, right, it actually says you are voting for delegates to the Democratic Convention.
You're not voting for Joe Biden.
Technically, I mean, that's like kind of the beauty contest aspect of it, right, You're voting for delegates. In some states you actually have to check the circle the box for the names of delegates.
In some you don't. It's automatic.
But like that's the process that's in place, is that you have Joe Biden delegates. And in most states, Democratic delegates are not legally bound to vote for the candidate that they that they were selected for. Right, they have a conscious clause that says if you think, in good conscience, you can't nominate this candidate, then then you can pick somebody else. If there's no majority on the first ballot, then also super delegates get involved, are who are not necessarily Biden loyals, and they've been trying to circummit this process and like and like lying about the need for about a law that was changed and which anyway, you shouldn't let the Republican Party if you're a Democrat, if you're supposed to defend democracy, you shouldn't let the Republican Party dictate your terms. I mean that's like bad strategy. And I'm not sure, like who are they trying to bluff? I mean, they're they're not just liars. They're like the stupidest fucking liars I've ever fucking met in my life. They're running a bad, obvious bluff and they and they have such a short time horizon, meaning they're trying to win the news cycle and not thinking about like, well, you're just kind of digging yourself a deeper hole and like torturing your credibility later on. It just it's offensive to me, yeah, now as an American voter, but also as like someone who cares about like strategy, like what are they doing?
No, I mean they're playing a very short game, which you know people people ask me sometimes about you know, Oh well, since I'm working on a book about cheating, right, why why don't people like cheat more in these types of situations where they're talking about like poker or something like that. And I always say, well, you can't. You know, you can think about, Okay, you can cheat in one game and you know, make off with however much money. However, you need to consider reputational costs and what this actually means. If you get caught, if you develop that reputation, that's it, right, Like you're done. You will never you will never be able to be in this ecosystem again, or at least that's how it should be.
We'll be back in just a minute now.
The reason that sometimes cheating does happen, and right now, I know we're talking about lying versus cheating, but there are similar types of things. When you're talking about game theory, right when you break the rules, when you when you misrepresent what's going on. Is if you think that you're going to be able to get away with it, and that there will be enough kind of gray area around whether or not you actually did it. And if you think that there aren't going to be repercussions, even if it turns out that people did catch you cheating, right, even if you know they say, okay, yes I cheated, but I'm changed now, I'm better, and there are no repercussions and you're allowed back into the community. Then that's when cheating becomes profitable. And when you realize, Okay, you know, in this one off, I cheated. I defected. If we're talking game theoretical terms, right, I defected, I made I made the payoff. You know, I was the bad guy. But then they let me play the game again. They said, okay, we forgive you. We believe that you're not going to do it again, and you can keep playing. Then that actually incentivizes it. So I'm wondering, Nate, do you think that that sort of dynamic might possibly be in play in their thinking here?
No?
Oh, because I think if Biden loses, then they're gonna be incredible recriminations and like the people associated with it will be like I mean, look, famously, it's hard to get permanently kicked out of a party, but like, look, people have like for literally two years been saying this might be a bad idea to renominate Biden, but particularly since the debate, right, this will be like the most widely predicted slow motion car crash and political history, and the people that are responsible for it will Again I'm cynical about the Democratic Party and the Republican Party certainly, but like, I think that, like, if you're one of these people, if you're Jamie Harrison or Ron Klain who's one of the chief strategists for Biden, or these other people, right, I think you're gonna be remembered by history, or at least by Democrats in history, as a villain. So I'm going to offer amnesty to Jamie Harrison or Ron Klain and whatever else. Renounce this horrible decision you're making. Come on this program and renounce it, or come on and like and let's have an actual conversation and have an adult conversation and a real conversation about strategy, right, and not lie to people. Come on this program, and then I will promise not to write mean tweets about you ever again.
Yes, and the only F bombs will be in conversation and a.
Very organic yes organic No.
I mean I think I don't know, Like it feels like every single episode these days, you and I are talking about sunk cost fallacies, but like once. But it's just we're seeing it over and over, just like what you're saying right now, come on and kind of renounce it. It does not mean that you know you were an idiot. It means that you're being smart now. Information changes and you have to change your decision when the information set tells you that you need to change your decision. That's the smart thing to do. That's the responsible thing to do. That's the intelligent thing to do. It makes you look good. It does not make you look weak. And this, this whole you know, this whole thing is about being afraid to look weak. And I think that that's something that's uniting the Democrats who are afraid to kind of speak out more. It's uniting Biden in being afraid to step down. Everyone is afraid that, oh, this will make me look like less of a man. Sorry, but it is a very masculine thing to do that, even though you know RBG yet we talked about females doing similar things, but it is often like a very macho thing, Like I do not want to look weak. I do not want to look like I'm wishy washy changing my mind, et cetera. And that actually is what looks weak. And sometimes the much stronger thing is saying, okay, you know, time to time to change my mind, time to admit I was wrong. And it takes, you know, it takes a lot of guts to say I was wrong. You know, I'm sorry, Mia culpa. Let's let's move on from this playing field. But I think that that needs to happen. But Nate, I'm actually, as we get into mid July now closer and closer to August, like I'm starting to I don't know if despair is the right word, but like it's the odds of Biden stepping aside to me seem to be going down, at least in my own personal mind. I'm curious what your personal take is on this. Are you are you seeing are you still? Are you still much more confident than I am that Biden will step aside? Or are you losing a little confidence? As well as partly closer and closer if.
You go to Polymarket, which I should disclose I am kind of proudly an advisory to Polymarket, but it is the most robust of the exchanges. Biden has a thirty seven seven percent chance of dropping out. I think I'd still buy that. I think i'd probably put it at closer to fifty to fifty. But as you were implying, Maria, like I was above fifty to fifty, and maybe that maybe that like concedes to much rationality to the Democratic Party. But like, yeah, what's like kind of the the catalyst. You wouldn't expect it to come this week because it is like the RNC. It's a little bit weird to be like Jimmy Harrison off message and fighting with people. I'm not a Democrat, but like fighting with people who would ordinarily be sympathetic to you when the other party's having it's conventioned. You want a message that like jd Vance is this guy that's not very good, not many whatever else. I think next week is kind of I wouldn't say, like the last straw, because until August twenty second, or if they moved in earlier August seventh or whatever it is, right and even after that, by the way, the candidate, like if Biden dies, if Biden's dominated August twenty second and dies the next day, August twenty third, you can still have the RN or the DNC rather replace the candidate, and by that point it would still be time to like print up new ballots. By the way, if you're one of these Democrats who like is like, well, whin Spiden's nomine you'll have to like root for him and point out like, no, don't do that, can't you can't do that. You're playing You're playing a long game here. I'm gonna notice and I will send me in tweets about people that like that, like have been team replaced Biden, and then all of a sudden they say, well, we have to defend that. It's like, no, you don't want to bet behavior that's this bad and that's just dishonest.
Right yeah, well let's let's uh. In terms of people who were you know, replaced Biden and now Team Biden, I think we have a very huge example of something similar on the Republican side, where the nominee for VP jd Vance was team Never Trump and then and then became the vice presidential nominee and seems like he might potentially be like a true believer convert, which are your your best allies? I saw a cartoon, which to me just really summed it up. It was a cartoon of JD. Vance and the caption said something like, yes, sir, I'm so sorry that I compared you to America's Hitler and so relieved that you took it as a compliment, And that just about just about summed it up perfectly.
So we're god because like in another world, like JD. Vance would be hosting a podcast or something, right.
Absolutely, absolutely. It's so funny by the way, when people are like, oh, he was such a natural speaker at the convention, I'm like, yeah, no, shit, like that's what he used to do, right, Like he was a best selling author who who was kind of this pundit and ended up, you know, being able to win a senatorial seat with zero experience. I mean, whose first political office is senate? Is you a senate? Like how often does that happen? I actually don't know the answer to that 's.
Like it's pretty rare because we you know, I've actually modeled congressional races and there's a variable for like what elected office have you held before. There's like a four tier system, right and jd Vance is in tier zero. He has not held elected office before. I think he hadn't run for elected office before.
I'm not sure what you think, Like I do think.
Like objectively unquote, he's you know, in the certainly upper tier of like the Q spectrum, I guess, but I don't know. I think someone who's very smart and very craven maybe is not the best.
No, I mean I think that's no. I think that that's actually very dangerous. You know who else is very very smart and in the upper echelon of IQ skills Vladimir Putin, Right, So he was also someone who people thought, oh, he's not serious, he's just using this as like, you know, he doesn't actually believe all this stuff, like let's install him to power in Russia and he's going to be easily pliable and malleable and do what we say and hahaha, right, jokes on you, like, absolutely fucking not. He was exactly what you know what he is now, and he was just very smart and playing the very very long game. And I actually see TRACE's advance in that. I think he's very smart. I think he's playing the long game. I think he is absolutely devoid of a moral center and he wants power, and that is very very scary, and that is something where he overlaps with Donald Trump. I think they're both. This is why, you know, when I've talked before about Donald Trump as a con artist, said what motivates conn artists?
Power?
Control, control over other people. That's the that's the main motivation. And I think that that's what Trump sees Advance. That's somewhere where they completely overlap. And that's a very scary ticket, especially since you know jd. Vance is young, and he is a very good speaker, and he is good at appealing to people, and so you know, if Trump wins, the chance of Jadvan's becoming the next president is not low.
Yeah, I know people talk about the implications for this November, but like if you're a VP nominee for a major party, particularly one that is more likely than not to win this election, then and there's like a you know, there's like a fifty to fifty is chance that Jadvan's become president at some point. By the way, the first person on a presidential take get nominated, who's like, who's younger than me?
Right?
When when Tom Brady retired, right, he was the one athlete who was like older than me, Like that was that was depressing. And now you have a nominee who's younger and shorter than me for vice president in the Republican.
Party five six, five nine ish.
Well he's five six, he's shorter than me.
Yeah, no, and there have not been very many short presidents elected recently. We can debate whether that's signal or noise, I suppose, but but yeah, and also you kind of like you kind of become.
The con.
It's some I mean, I I don't want to say he's a con, but like it's hard to maintain, like I don't want to play this role as character.
Yeah, I don't think. I don't think it's possible. And I think that he has shown himself capable of these absolute shifts by the way, he had a section of his website which was like I'm one hundred percent anti abortion, no abortions ever, blah blah blah, like went on and on, and it seems that that section was deleted, and so you know that I don't know if it's still deleted or if it's back up. That's why that's why I'm padging this. But someone who who is basically capable of these like complete pivots in the moment. You know, Trump isn't America's next hitler. Donald Trump is the savior you know, these types of things. Is someone who's incredibly dangerous because it's someone who really really has, as I said, no moral center, but also just no conviction, no self other than you know, what self do I need to be to put myself in the position of greatest power?
Right?
What do I need to do? What face do I need to put on? The ultimate con artist, kind of the impostor the person who can be anyone to anyone depending on what's going on. But the fact that he did have these you know, one hundred percent anti abortion, et cetera, et cetera, I think does show kind of some of his views and some of the things that he does take with him. And you know, I've heard I've heard people say, and I think that this makes a lot of sense that another reason why he's so good on the Trump ticket is he's someone who's you know, he is someone who it will be very focused on actually pulling those levers of power to pass the very conservative America First agenda. Unlike people he's being compared to. Some people are comparing him to Reagan or to Nixon, but you know, those presidents were much more global minded as well, and JD. Vance seems like he's going to be very much America first. I mean, he was one of the leading voices against against Ukraine, right against aid to Ukraine, which is you know, and against all of these packages, which is really troubling because if you think about the fact that we have to think about, you know, global alliances, the fact that when Trump was president he pulled out of a lot of these different agreements, that a lot of them were fraying, and that Biden has tried to kind of do do the opposite, undo some of that. But now if we have a Trump Advance ticket, you know, think, let's think ahead, because you need to. Elections are not just about this year. We're talking about the next four years, about the next eight years. We're talking about a huge chunk of political future and personal future for a lot of people. And you have to when you think in those terms, it becomes very frightening to think of a president and a vice president who feel the way they feel about involvement in the external world. What does that mean, you know, for America's role in the world, What does that mean for foreign conflicts. What does that mean for everything? I mean to me, like those things are obviously as a woman, like the abortion stuff is very personal and like very immediate and very worrisome on that level. But I'm also very worried as a human being, as an immigrant, as a gommal citizen, you know, as someone whose dad is Ukrainian, right, Like, I'm very worried about the implications of things like that as well. And I think that we haven't talked enough about that, and people are just being way too focused on the present moment. And I'm actually quite concerned about the JD. Van's nomination.
Yeah, Trump has soft pedaled abortion a little bit.
I mean, look, if you look at the two parties, and it seems like Republicans care about witting more, which, since elections are a popularity contest, is something which I find not admirable exactly, but like at least strategically wise. Although with this pick, you know, Ohio is not a swing state, I do not understand how he appeals to swing voters. Maybe he'll give a good speech, I guess tonight as we're taking this is like going to be his convention speech, but like it seems like.
Not I don't know.
Apparently they're reporting that like Trump wanted to pick Doug Burgham, who is the governor of North Dakota, and was dissuaded by it by Eric Trump, his son, and his other son, Donald Trump Junior. So we think that like, oh, we kind of model out. Oh here's this rational behavior. You have some phdcs rational behavior among political balltapah. Right, Actually, it's just fucking Eric Trump and Donald Trump Junior on the one hand, and apparently, according to other reporting, hunter fucking Biden and Jill Biden on the other end.
That was just beside.
Yeah, yeah, on both sides. Right, who is the advisors? Who's actually advising? Like your sons, your wife and your son. I mean, this is it is. It is kind of crazy. It would be hilarious if it weren't so serious, if we weren't actually in an election. Yeah, okay, So Nate, bottom line, what does the fact that Donald Trump has picked JD. Vance as his vice presidential nominee mean for his chances of winning the election?
Look, I think it means, among other things, that he's not ticking the high road. I mean, Vance is quite partisan. After the assassination attempt by the way, He sent out a tweet saying that, like Joe, Biden's rhetoric was like responsible for for the environment that led to the assassination attempt. Before he was picked, it was kind of like a raise your hand, oh, mabie me like teacher, teacher, pick me, picked me, pick me.
But no, it's it's.
A not the high road approach, and I think not the smartest one. Look, Trump might have picked somebody totally wacky, right at least this guy, uh has been a center for a year and a half, or he's been in the military. Best selling author, you know, Maria, as best selling authors, we should be championing our author turned vice president. But it's it's not the choice that I think would maximize the chances of winning the electoral college. And especially given that like unlike Biden, Trump is ahead now, he should be fairly risk averse. Maybe he thinks he's so far ahead that he's gonna win anyway. And therefore here's a guy that will like perpetuate trumpiness, ma goodness or magodness or however you say it, and be my heir apparent. But you know, as the candy who I think has run the smarter of the two campaigns so far. This is a I think a medium bad decision, a medium bad misstep.
I meant to.
Say, we'll be back after a quick break.
So, Maria, the World Series of Poker is is it over?
Today?
It's well today, Today is the last day of the live events, and then there are two more online.
Events, okay, which are kind of fake, but let's not talk about so we won't.
We won't talk about the fact that their online events are fake, especially if I want to if I went, I don't.
I love the World Series of Poker, but I don't mean literally fake. But like I think it's just a different species.
Of PA I totally I totally agree. I totally agree. I do not think there should be any online Bracelet events. So so we're actually on the same page there. But yeah, it's winding down, and man, Nate, I am exhausted, you know, I and I took time off. I haven't been here the whole time, and I am just tired, tired, tired. So today is my last event. It's one thousand dollars super Turbo so event.
Last year or something.
Right, it's a little it's a little bit depressing that, I mean, they're like literally like boarding up the Paris and Bally's or horses. Excuse me as you're playing. It's a little bit, a little bit depressing. I flew home early because I had a jury summons yesterday, which was Tuesday.
So yeah, Nate, I've been called for jury duty three times and I've gotten out of it all three times. All three have been in New York. The first time I was in grad school and it was an asbestos trial. So they're like, this trial is going to be for at least like four months or six and I was like, I'm a grad student, like and they were like, okay, I dismissed right, like that.
That was That's what happened is I went in.
You know, I didn't want to like tell because honestly, if you're a journalist, then probably you could like go and like and say, I'm a journalist, I have all these strong political views, right, you probably won't get selected. But like, I didn't want to like tell any lies or like literally you're sworn in, right, you raise your hand and say I will not tell a lie whatever else, right, and the and the judge says that, like because if it had been this week, I mean we'd have I would have worked around it, right, I could have, like I, you know, and because a lot of these trials are like two or three days, but the judge was like, this is going to go for a couple of weeks. If you have conflicts, raise your hand. And I raise my hand because I have, like, I have hard conflicts. I have travel next week, I have this book promotion thing that things that like I prescheduled, I can't avoid, so therefore I can't really serve. And they're understanding of that. But don't don't bluff, right, because they also said because the judge also says she's this funny woman, she's like, you know, by the way, it's important for you to understand that just because somebody was arrested, this is a guy who was arrested for some robbery. Right, just because the guy was arrested doesn't mean that he's guilty. Sometimes people are arrested for the wrong reasons. It's important that you understand that as a juror just everyone in the room. At this point, we haven't select the jury yet. There are probably sixty people, right, you know, raise your hand if you don't understand that, right, And as like woman raise her hands. She's like, I believe if the cops arrest somebody, they must be guilty.
It's like a.
Very bad bluff. Uh, And the judge is like, Okay, you're not fit for this criminal trial, but we're gonna put you back in the rubber room and you'll get a civil trial, and the civil trials are longer. Right, So like that bluff was like yeah, yeah, so like that woman sucked up. Don't like, don't give these bullshit unverifiable excuses, right yeah, uh, you know, I don't know what ultimately happened to her, but like the rest of us who like who had legitimate excuses, were like put back in this room and told to go at three thirty.
Right, that was up to some different room.
I'm not sure if she'll ever be heard from again, but like, don't don't lie to a judge about like, oh I believe that like all you know, she's her always right.
Yes, she's the subject of uh Kafka's next novel, written from Beyond the Grave. Yes she she she definitely fucked up. But no, I think I think Jerry duty is a really funny thing because obviously, like we want to serve by the way, I never actually got to the in front of the judge. I've always been dismissed beforehand before that. But it's, uh, it's one of these things where like you feel like you need to serve because like you want to do your patriotic duty, but like, oh fuck me, like I really do not want to serve on.
I'd be a good juror. I'm telling you that, man, I would.
All right, everyone, did you hear that? Bring Nate back?
So you know I.
Got four years now I'm off, I guess, but yeah, I know did so? Would you say it was a successful World series for you? Because I wouldn't say that about my World series?
No, no, no, no, My my World series was awful. I'm down a lot. You know. It's still not the end. We have one more, we have one more event and then the two fake online events to play. But I'm down a lot. I haven't finished my equity calculations mate for our bet. Well we'll sum that up for next week. But I think that I'm winning our bet. Unfortunately, as you and I have discussed, you know, yesterday was a pretty great example of that. It's basically how my whole summer's been going. You know, get in aces against pocket nines and they hit their nine and you're out. You know that that's basically you know, that's that's the types of equity flips that I've been in. And those aren't flips, right, those are the situations where you're huge, your huge favorite, you should be winning, and I've been losing almost all of them. I've been playing well, so I actually have been able to accumulate lots of chips, and my strategy, looking at my all in history, basically since it's like lost loss loss loss loss loss loss loss, like, my strategy should be never to get all in because whenever I'm in those situations, I lose, but otherwise otherwise I do pretty damn well. So so it's been a fun it's been a funny world series, and it's you know, it's it's amusing. You have to have perspective when you see you're running that poorly. Obviously I wish I warrant, but you know, this is the moment where I'm like, damn, we shouldn't have bet six hundred and sixty six dollars. What about sixty six thousand, you know, something like that would have been better to save my summer.
I'm not sure that you're gonna be me. I have I've run pretty bad on all ends too. You know, also, uh like this, I mean, when you have when you have a lot of distractions, right, I'm not sure my mind.
The thing I love about.
The World Series and all experiences hopefully next year, right or maybe whenever I play poker next in December at the wind probably right, come to me. There's a nice feeling about being totally immersed in poker.
Right.
All I have to do is wake up, play poker, and maybe hang out with my friends a little bit or something.
Right, I'm not doing that.
I have, like I have to wake up and like write a blog post and run the model and do five other things and return these emails and then then play poker for ten hours.
It's a challenge. It's tough.
It's one of the reasons I think that we're both I mean that I'm so exhausted is because you know, this has not been a World Series where I've been able to focus exclusively on poker for obvious reasons, and that does matter. But you know, just breathe, breathe deep, reboot and try to think well and play well and do better next time. Now, today, of course is super turbo, so I have to run well in all ends. For people who don't play poker, what a super turbo means is the levels get very high, very quickly. So that means that you do have to get into these all in confrontations. You do have to win, you have to get lucky. Turbos are basically the highest variance Hyen's highest variance variant of poker, right because they move so incredibly quickly, So you have to run well. So maybe today my luck will completely reverse and today will be the day that I end up losing our bit.
Join us next week where Wheelchairs a Poker Brace. The winner Maria Kannakova and I will talk about how she navigated her turbo way into poker glory or I'm not sure.
What poker glory, poker history.
I love it, poker history.
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kannakova and me Nate Silver. The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
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