On The Record (5-26-26).
Unf*cking The Republic
UNFTR Media
4.8 • 758 Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week we looked at the AI capital black hole—three companies with a combined $3 trillion in prospective market cap preparing to go public while public R&D budgets get gutted and the rest of the economy gets starved of investment. Then we checked in on consumer sentiment, which has basically fallen off a cliff, because when gas hits $5 a gallon and inflation keeps eating your paycheck, reality has a way of setting in.
Chapters
Intro: 00:00:38
Quick Takes: 00:01:33
Max Notes: 00:04:47
Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:18:17
Chart of the Week: 00:20:03
Headlines: 00:21:38
Outro: 00:22:57
Resources
The Vanguard: Jillian Michaels ROASTED by Her OWN AUDIENCE After Sam Seder SMACKDOWN (Plus She Calls US Out???)
CNBC International Live: Jeff Currie on potential U.S.-Iran peace deal: Sell the tweet, buy the molecule
National Science Foundation: Trends in U.S. R&D Performance and Funding
Goldman Sachs: Tracking Trillions: The Assumptions Shaping the Scale of the AI Build-Out
CNBC: Tech AI spending may approach $700 billion this year, but the blow to cash raises red flags
McKinsey: The cost of compute: A $7 trillion race to scale data centers
IG: SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic: upcoming IPOs to watch in 2026
New York Times: OpenAI Prepares to File to Go Public in Coming Weeks
Reuters: OpenAI lays groundwork for juggernaut IPO at up to $1 trillion valuation
Bankrate: The 10 Largest American IPOs Of All Time
WIPO: Global Innovation Index 2025 - Global Innovation Tracker
Nature: US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains
Scroll Deep: Why are they people-shaped?
ITIF: How Reducing Federal R&D Reduces GDP Growth
University of Michigan: Final Results for May 2026
WSWS: The Ebola epidemic, imperialism and the political economy of social murder
Truthout: The Justice Department Just Shut Disabled People Out of Essential Online Services for Another Year
The Lever: The Pro-Israel Lobby’s Quiet Cash Shuffle
UNFTR Resources
Video: On The Record 5/26/26 (Will SpaceX and OpenAI Starve the Market?)
Essay: The AI Black Hole.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is the story of a political pundit who looked at the world around him and just said, fuck it. |
| 0:07.7 | Gives the middle finger to authority and says, kiss my ass. |
| 0:11.6 | But instead of a revolution, he started a podcast. |
| 0:15.4 | Just what the world needs. |
| 0:17.6 | He started a podcast. |
| 0:19.0 | Another basic white guy who started a podcast Another basic white guy |
| 0:20.9 | Who started a podcast |
| 0:22.7 | But it's fun because he curses |
| 0:24.8 | All through the podcast |
| 0:26.5 | On the fucking the Republic |
| 0:28.5 | We're motherfucking podcast |
| 0:30.4 | This motherfucking podcast |
| 0:30.4 | This is UNFtR's on the Record for May 26, 2026. I'm your host, Max, and I'm told that the New York Knickerbockers might be a heck of a team this year. Something to keep an eye on. |
| 0:49.2 | Also something to watch out for? Apparently, artificial intelligence or A1, as our education secretary likes to call it, |
| 0:56.4 | is a really big deal. And I'm going to tell you just how big in Max Notes. Consumer sentiment, |
| 1:03.0 | in the toilet. But the Iran war is over. All we have to do is negotiate enriched uranium, |
| 1:09.8 | ongoing bombings, Israel's escalations in Lebanon, control over |
| 1:13.7 | the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions, and we're there. Jillian Michaels is a terrible debater. |
| 1:20.2 | Scroll deep for KLTW headlines from Truthout, The Lever, and World Socialist website, |
| 1:24.8 | all that and little else on this week's on the record. |
| 1:29.9 | So just to ease in with things a little bit, this weekend, my wife, my eldest, and I, we watched |
| 1:38.6 | remarkably bright creatures on Netflix, and listen, I love Sally Field. But this was |
... |
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