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Welcome to The Week from Prof G Media, where we break down what mattered and what it all means. I'm George Hahn, and it's Friday, May 22nd. This week, we talked a lot about rules. Rules around war, rules around markets, rules around political power, and what happens when people making decisions stop following them. Let's get into it. On Wednesday's Prof. G. Markets episode, Ed sat down with Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications director and founder of Skybridge Capital, to go through the 3,700-plus stock trades the president made in the first quarter of 2026. That's more than 40 trades a day, altogether valued somewhere between $220 million and $750 million. dollars. And as Ed laid it out, a lot of those trades weren't random.

January 6th, he buys up to a million dollars worth of NVIDIA stock. And then January 14th, just a few days later, he approves NVIDIA to start selling chips to China. That to me is like, OK, that's a very big deal. Similar thing happens January 12th. He buys a bunch of Oracle stock. A week later, the deal for Oracle to buy a stake in TikTok is finalized. And of course, the only reason it's finalized is because he approves it. His administration approves it. Similar thing with Boeing. He buys Boeing stock and then he says that China is going to purchase all these Boeing jets. Like there are several examples here where it seems very, very plainly obvious that he had very important material, non-public information. And this is just the way that the law talks about it. And then before that happens, he goes in and he buys the stock. And so in those cases, to me, I'm thinking that's just illegal.

You know, I guess there's three things I want to say. Number one, it's disgusting. It's probably legal, Ed. That's the irony of the whole thing. They've created these loopholes for themselves. But it's absolutely disgusting and it makes people very cynical and very turned off by politics. Number two, I think this is probably the most important thing about it, is he doesn't care, which means that worse things are on the way. You're going to see a tsunami of corruptive activity over the next two and a half years, and it's going to be put right in your face. The bottom line is this is going to happen. OK, the bottom line is for your viewers and listeners, life is unfair. And these guys are sitting there ladling money into their own accounts for their own self-interest. And it would be hypocritical of me, Ed, if I just went after the president on this. You have to go after the Democrats that are also doing this. This is a bipartisan thing. Now, you can say, and this almost makes me laugh about Trump. And if Galloway was on with us right now, he would laugh at this because I know the son of a bitch. Prof G would be like, yeah, no, he's right. Trump is doing it to the 29th power compared to these guys. OK, so if Pelosi's taken five million, Trump's taken 500 million. And so all he's done is pumped himself with unethical steroids. He took the unethical steroid needle. He pumped it into his biceps and he's out there making.

billions of dollars for himself,

but they're all doing it, Ed.

Yes.

And I think it would be remiss of us to pretend that it's not happening on both sides.

And these trades were just one story. On Raging Moderates, Scott and Jess discussed another controversy. The DOJ announced a new $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund created to compensate people who say they were politically targeted by the government. The money comes from a settlement tied to Trump's lawsuit over the 2019 leak of his tax returns. Under the program, a commission appointed by the attorney general decides who gets paid. Those decisions can't be challenged in court. And the government isn't required to publicly disclose where all of the money goes. Critics argue it rewards loyalty, while supporters argue it corrects abuses. Scott saw something bigger.

The notion that the president filed a suit against the IRS or someone at the IRS for leaking his tax documents. He was the first president to not voluntarily release his documents, his tax filings, and then sue his own administration and then decide to settle the case brought by him. I mean, this is just, it's so circular and weird and it's such blatant corruption that I think Putin is just in total awe and admiration at this guy right now. And the notion that they tried to soft pedal it a bit by saying it's, you know, a compensation fund, it's a slush fund for him to do what any good autocrat does, and that is reward his allies and punish his enemies. And this gives him $1.8 billion to go dole out money to people who are willing to commit crimes in support of him, it also creates a real atmosphere of danger around 2026 and 2028, because there's got to be a general feeling that people think if I show up to a polling booth and start harassing people and democratically strongholds, if I show up to the inauguration and refuse to swear in a Democrat if a Democrat wins and I commit crimes and I create a series of intimidating actions, criminality, that the president will save me and bail me out because he's now got a $1.8 billion fund to even reward me. I mean, we're not only talking about pardons for these people, we're talking about giving them money.

But frustration with the rules extends well beyond Washington. This week, California put on the ballot a one-time 5% wealth tax on assets over a billion dollars. The debate on Tuesday's Markets episode with Jason Calacanis and Bradley Tusk got to the core of why people are angry and why the proposed fix might not work.

If you are a poor person, right, and you need public housing, you need Medicaid, you need food stamps, you don't care about social justice. You care about the money being there on the budget to provide you with these things. So if California, which I believe it would at the conclusion of if they do an access tax, or New York right now has less money to be able to help the poor, then you're not solving for the problem of inequality. You might be solving to make people who are upper middle class and highly progressive feel better emotionally because they feel like now the people who did better than them are being justly punished. I don't care about their emotional state or needs. I care about helping poor people.

And if the conversation this week was partly about institutions weakening at home, China Decode asked whether America is losing leverage abroad, too. James King argued something remarkable happened during the Trump-G summit last week. For perhaps the first time, China looked like it had the upper hand, not because America suddenly got weaker, but because leverage shifted.

The potentially game-changing outcome was that the US and China are now trying to work together to put into place what China calls a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability. I know that's a bit of a mouthful, but to me, that means they're trying to climb down from a situation in which China and the US are constantly adversarial in their relationship and moving towards a much more stable relationship. And I think one of the pointers towards this is that Trump invited Xi Jinping to visit the US in September this year, and Xi Jinping has agreed to go. So there's a measure of continuity there. I think quite a lot of people will be wondering whether or not this really was a historic summit. And in the sense that I reckon China had the upper hand, I think you can see that from the fact that Trump was trying to be as friendly as possible. He said to Xi Jinping, you are a great leader. He said, it's an honor to be with you. It's an honor to be your friend. The relationship between China and the US is going to be better than ever before. And I think one piece of essential background has changed a lot in the way these two countries see each other, and that is China's enduring chokehold over rare earth and critical mineral supplies.

We'll be right back after the break.

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Welcome back. The conversation eventually landed somewhere where rules matter most, war. On Prof. G Conversations, Scott sat down with David French, Iraq veteran, constitutional lawyer, and columnist at The New York Times. They discussed Iran and one basic question, who decides when America goes to war? David argues constitutional guardrails aren't technicalities. They exist because democracies work best when institutions hold.

Well, the Iran war is a really good example of why the law matters so much. So under traditional just war doctrine, you're not supposed to be able to go to war. You should not go to war under the old school just war doctrine unless you're going to war under the command of the lawful sovereign for a just reason and to pursue just ends.

has that happened here in the United States? And the answer is no, because American law requires for the declaration of war that that's a role reserved to Congress. So that doesn't mean that a president can't respond immediately when there is an attack on our forces or there's an emerging urgent and immediate situation that requires military force. But even in those circumstances, the president is supposed to go to Congress immediately to get ratification and support of his actions. It is actually very important to the ability of the United States to wage war and to wage war effectively. Because if there's one thing that we know from history, it's that democracies that have achieved public support for a war are among the most powerful entities we've seen in the world. So even if you thought it was wise to attack Iran, for example, the fact that we didn't do the constitutional process undermines the entire war.

But constitutional process isn't the only thing wars test. They test budgets, institutions, and our ability to honestly account for trade-offs. On a recent Prof G Plus deep dive, Scott explored how much war actually costs. Last month, the Pentagon said the war in Iran had cost $25 billion. That number has since been updated to $29 billion. But economists argue that number captures only the narrowest slice of the bill. Missiles fired, aircraft deployed, equipment destroyed. The harder costs often come later, maintaining troops in the region, higher oil prices, inflation, veteran care, and long-term economic consequences that outlast headlines and administrations. History suggests governments consistently underestimate those costs. Economist Justin Wolfers discussed that on a Prof G Plus deep dive this week.

either there is or damn it there should be someone inside the white house or inside the treasury saying mr president bombing iran upends the global economy it upends the american economy and it will affect people's lives in the following ways um that's a far broader question either they're not asking that because this has not been a carefully thought through war or they know the answer to that and they're keeping it secret but what i do know is the other group of folks who trying to price this thing are folks on Wall Street. They're figuring out not the full cost of war, but they're figuring out, you know, what did my new GDP forecasts look like? What did my oil price forecasts look like? Employment forecasts and so on. And no matter which way you slice it, Wall Street is saying that the true number is at least 10 times larger than the Pentagon saying. But there's an even deeper problem here, Scott. You said, why do we always tend to low ball? And the answer is, that's the nature of war. I might try and fight you. Well, I might meet you in a dark street outside a London pub. And you might say, hey, Justin, do you want to fight? And most days of the week, I'm like, no, Scott's taller than me. I'm not going to. The only times in which I'm going to say, yes, Scott, I am, and then take a swing is when I underestimate the possibility that this is going to be expensive. So it's in the very nature of conflict that I decide to have a swing at you because I think you're not that big of a bloke and I'm big and tough and strong and you swing back because you make the exact same mistake. Look, any fight, whether it's a fight with your spouse, a fight down a darkened alley, a war, or your work is striking, you're usually better off not having a fight. You're saying at the end of this fight, something's going to happen. The fight's messy and awful and hurts me and it hurts you. Let's not have the fight. Let's get to that negotiated outcome. All conflict is waste. And so the only way that conflict ever occurs is we fail to negotiate or alternatively, we think we're mistaken by how easy it is to win.

By the way, if you want to hear that full conversation with Justin Wolfers, it's available exclusively on Substack. And before we wrap up a quick victory lap, Scott correctly predicted that Elon Musk's lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI was going nowhere. Musk, bruised ego, deep pockets, army of lawyers, spent years trying to undo his biggest regret, leaving open AI and watching Altman turn it into one of the most valuable companies on Earth. He sued for $150 billion. He wanted Altman removed. Here's what Scott said on CNN's Smirconish.

From a legal standpoint, Courts like argument and evidence, not...

regret and indignance. From a legal standpoint, this is Marvis Frazier versus Mike Tyson. This should be over in 30 seconds of the first round. Musk has no leg to stand on here. And now he wants to control the one piece of the internet on totally baseless legal grounds that he should own it. What could go wrong? This should and will be a knockout in the first round.

we'll be back next friday with a fresh edition of the week from prof g media breaking down what mattered and what it all means until then we'll see you around the prof g universe