AI Bubble, Trump’s Pardons, Biden’s Autopen

The Politics Guys

Michael Baranowski

Politics, News

4.4 • 783 Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike, Michael, and Tim open with a discussion of the missing economic data and what that means for understanding the current economy. Tim explains that while unemployment remains low and markets are strong, uncertainty looms because key government reports haven’t been released. Mike argues that the apparent strength is concentrated almost entirely in AI and tech stocks, raising fears of an unsustainable bubble. Michael agrees the boom feels narrow and risky, warning that layoffs and overinvestment could lead to a painful reckoning. Tim counters that disruptive innovation has always produced temporary upheaval before lasting growth, while Mike remains unconvinced, seeing both short- and long-term dangers in overreliance on speculative AI promises. Next, the guys turn to presidential pardons and the controversy over Biden’s use of an autopen. Michael denounces Trump’s mass pardons and commutations—including for January 6 participants, George Santos, and crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao—as blatant corruption and transactional politics. Tim replies that excessive pardons are less worrisome than politically motivated prosecutions, blasting the “lawfare” against Trump and the intelligence community’s role in the Russia investigations. Michael pushes back, saying Russian interference was real and arguing that unchecked pardons—by any president—undermine accountability. Mike joins in, condemning Trump’s self-enrichment through crypto ventures and suggesting the pardon power should be subject to congressional override. The three clash sharply over Trump’s motives, Biden’s anticipatory pardons, and how to restore consistent standards of justice. After that, the hosts debate Biden’s cognitive decline, Kamala Harris’s rise, and the “No Kings” protests. Tim says Harris’s nomination lacked democratic legitimacy and that Democrats missed an opportunity for a real contest. Michael sees the protests as expressions of democratic frustration and solidarity, while Mike jokes that the entire argument over who “loves America” most is meaningless posturing. The exchange veers into civics, cynicism, and gallows humor about patriotism and protest culture. The guys close with rants and recommendations. Mike praises the Netflix series Boots for its realistic portrayal of Marine Corps boot camp and reflects on how the Corps reshaped his life. Tim jokes about Christmas decorations crowding out Thanksgiving, then earnestly recommends military service as a transformative experience. Michael laments the commercialization of college sports, calling for football and basketball programs to become separate for-profit entities and preserve academic integrity. The discussion ends with friendly sports talk, optimism, and weary affection for the teams that keep letting them down. Check out Tim’s Substack The Politics Guys on Facebook | X Check out the excellent Sustainable Planet podcast. Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys. The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Atheists, agnostics, long-haired widows, short-haired widows, vandal,
0:04.9	Oolagulligan.
0:05.2	I'm the government, hug the government, hug the government, hug the government, love, the government, hug the government.
0:12.0	Welcome to the politics, guys, a place for bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on American politics and policy.
0:18.7	I'm Northern Kentucky University political scientist Michael Barronowski. I'm joined Kentucky University Political Scientist, Michael Barronowski.
0:22.7	I'm joined today with not one but two co-hosts.
0:25.7	We have on my, I guess, Michael, you're a little bit to my left, so we'll say that anyway,
0:31.2	political scientist Michael Levy, you did call yourself progressive, so there we go,
0:36.2	as well as University of Austin economist
0:39.4	and former congressional staffer, Tim Kane. Great to have you back, guys. And as I said,
0:45.1	there's a lot we want to get into. And one thing we switched around a little bit was our economic
0:50.2	report, AI bubble discussion. And so why don't we lead with that? Tim, I will let you take us into that.
0:57.0	Fantastic. Well, there's, there's, you know, good news on the economic front, which is there's no news on the economic front. We're missing reports. October 30th should have been the latest GDP report. And that would have, you know, they're always a
1:12.4	little bit backward looking. So this would have been the first estimate of the third quarter.
1:17.0	And people were extremely curious to find out what would maybe have been happening because
1:22.1	the first quarter, it looked like the economy shrank at a rate of negative 0.6 for the year. So we put
1:30.3	them in these annualized rates. The second quarter sort of surprised everyone where it came in at a
1:35.4	3.8 percent estimate. Again, annualized rate. The third quarter, we don't know. I mean,
1:41.5	we have to assume it would have stabilized around 2%. It seems like that's the data we're getting from other areas. So what do you look to? Private sector estimates, corporate earnings, things like that. They all seem pretty strong. But what we're seeing in the labor market has been also, we're now missed two reports or we're about to miss
2:04.0	our second monthly report on what's the unemployment rate? What are payroll jobs? Now, I've long
2:10.6	advocated and I'll repeat, I think the best metric here is your unemployment rate. The payroll numbers,
2:16.4	as you guys know, they're going to be
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