The Chris Cuomo Project - What’s Next in 2025? Chris Cuomo on Politics, Media, and Culture

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Chris Cuomo lays out bold predictions for 2025, tackling what Trump’s second presidency could mean for the economy, media, and public trust. From the influence of Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson on the media landscape to the evolving role of algorithms, Cuomo explores how technology, politics, and cultural shifts could define the year ahead. With insights on Supreme Court decisions, global relations, and podcasting trends, he breaks down the key forces that will shape America’s future. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com #cuomo #news #politics #2025 #trump #usa #tech #elon #joerogan Support our sponsors: Get Maine Lobster Right now, when you go to GetMaineLobster.com and enter promo code CUOMO at checkout, you get 15% off all orders. RadioActive Media Text Chris to 511511 or visit them on the web at radioactivemedia.com Text rats may apply.  Everyday Dose Head over to everyday dose dot com slash chris for 25% off plus 5 free gifts with your first order including a USB rechargeable frother, Go to everydaydose.com/chris for 25% off plus 5 free gifts with your first order. Cozy Earth A better year starts with better sleep—wrap yourself in Cozy Earth. Don’t wait! Head to CozyEarth.com/CHRIS now and use my exclusive code CHRIS for up to 40% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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advisor free of charge. VETMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Oh I hope 2025 is everything you wanted it to be. How do we know? We just started. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. I'm gonna do something that I don't really ever do. Make predictions about what we should be looking for, for better or worse, this year.

What do you say? And I'm bringing in for the help with this segment, the one and only, the inimitable, the new daddy, Mr. Greg Ott, not inimitable, the new daddy, Mr. Greg Ott, not real name, my producer. Here to help me along with predictions, he's got a ton. Real name, and I want to share with you, hey, I have a ton of predictions. One is I predict that it is a new year right now, and the prediction has come true.

Happy new year. Wow. Well done. What a clairvoyant, huh? Well done. Do you think you add to the brood this year, yes or no? Like the cicadas? The brood, the cicadas, the bugs? Yeah.

Talking about your family. No, they call that the cicadas, like when they're underground, that's like a brood of cicadas is when they emerge from the crowd after a long slumber. The ot brood. The brood of, the ot brood is staying put. It's not changing.

There are no plans for expansion in 2025? No, there are no plans for expansion period. Has this been run through the board of directors? The board of directors has been consulted and this is signed, sealed and delivered. I don't know about that. I'm sorry, closed for business. Whether it's a child or a cicada,

but I love both the child and the cicada we have living around right now. Cicada. Remember when we were so afraid about those? Very interesting thing to remember. Now we got drones and world wars and terror back on the rise. We used to be worried about those bugs and that all of the bumblebees were gone. You know, that actually-

What happened to that? There's an insectarium, I think, in New Orleans that last year when the cicadas came out, they were cooking them and you could go there and get like a cicada dish. Protein. Yeah, insect protein. So maybe that's a prediction.

I'm not gonna make that as a prediction, but like to kick things off, maybe people start eating more bugs in 2025. I'll tell you something, we're doing it with our dogs. My wife, Christina, runs The Purist, which is this wellness as an ethos. So it's not like just matcha tea. It's, oh, well, who made this shirt?

And what kind of dye do they use? And do they hire people the right way? So dog food, what are you giving your dog? I'm not into this whole human grade food for dogs. Like, if you wanna do that, that's fine, but it's really expensive and hard to store. For me, we found dry food. Oh, I don't wanna feed it.

Don't, do whatever you wanna do. But for us, I got three dogs. And we found this cricket-based dog food. They should actually advertise with us. They're called Jiminy Cricket. Yeah, I'll say it for free. Are they really? Yeah, and I'll tell you why.

The dogs don't go to the bathroom as much. Their weight has been very easy to maintain. And it's all based off what the serving recommendations were with the food on the back. And you know, the leaner the dog is, just like with us, the longer they'll live. So very important for us. One of our guys is getting up there.

Where do you want to start with predictions? I would like you to walk us through, if you have three to five of your top predictions for what's going to come 2025, this is going to be a big year. I mean, we have a new old president coming in. I'm looking at the Wikipedia breakdown of all the things. First of all, 2025 will be the first square year since 1936.

How about that? 2025 is the square of 45. So mathematically, it's already like quite interesting. I would have never put any level of interest in that. This is Wikipedia, anybody can write this, but I think it's pretty terrifying. So, let me just kind of go, I don't do this, okay? This is the opposite of what I do, right?

Which is, this is going on low information, high guess, from, you know, I usually do high information, low guess. So first thing, okay, I've got a prediction. Number one. The Podscape is going to change. And the people who were at the top last year will not be at the top all of this year. So this is pertinent to the podcast.

This is a podcast you're presumably watching. Here's what has happened, okay? Now, money rushed into the pod space and tons of big and bad deals were made in the last five years. That money has dried up. There's an aphorism in investing. You never wanna be first dollar in.

First dollar in got killed. People were given a lot of money for their podcasts and people have gone broke. They've been bad deals. Kind of like what happened when Sirius thought that having Howard Stern would make them like a household thing. Hasn't happened, just made him really rich.

But it's not like Sirius is everywhere now, right? They're just mainly in like rental cars. So the Podscape, second dollar in with the Podscape, with this election, people now know that you can get bang for your buck and you can get reach and resonance. And I'm telling you, on the right and on the anti-institutional side, you're going to do a lot better than Joe Rogan and his merry band of, you know, cut-rate comedians. And I'm not saying that those guys will disappear, but you're going to see better, bigger talent come in. Like what? A guy like a Bill Burr is going to get enticed into that space. A guy like Louis CK...

Bill Burr has a podcast. But I'm saying, ramping it up, that there is going to get enticed into that space. A guy like Louis C.K. Bill Burr has a podcast. But I'm saying, ramping it up, that there's going to be money that puts it into a sphere where he's sitting with major people, as opposed to it just being an end. That's what I'm saying. Instead of it just being like an end to what Bill Burr does, it's going to be his thing. Okay? Stephen A. Smith is going to explode

on the landscape of conversation, okay? And again, no disrespect to Rogan. You must give him his props for building a platform. Good for him. But now you're gonna have better talent in that space, okay? And that is my first prediction. It's in, just to piggyback on that, this came out recently that more people are watching podcasts now on YouTube and you is my first prediction. It's just a piggyback on that. This came out recently that more people

are watching podcasts now on YouTube and you've been doing this. This podcast dropped first on YouTube. You from the beginning were like, hey, let's put myself online. People want to see me and hear me. So it's like, you know, one product in one, but it's the confluence is interesting to me of like,

this thing you used to listen to, it's like, well, it's quite easy to get a setup, you know, in your house like this and broadcast. Yes. In a very DIY way. And people are now, especially a lot of the YouTube stats are more people are watching things on their televisions. And thus you sit down and watch a show.

It's kind of replacing talk shows. We talked about this before, but like, yeah, this is a Prediction 1A is you will see mergers in stream platforms. I went to YouTube early because I believe video kills is you will see mergers in stream platforms. I went to YouTube early because I believe video kills the radio star. People wanna see more than they wanna listen. I'm not telling you not to listen. Look, it's not my thing.

I do an audio book every now and then I'd rather read, but I wanna see why. Because I'm a visual learner and you take so much more in from people when you're actually seeing them. Obviously reading them texts you get the least context, the least feel. Hearing their voice you get more, but seeing them and hearing them. So to me it's a no-brainer, but what you will see prediction 1A is consolidation in platforms because the problem right now is there are too many different places that you have to go and you need to monetize and they are going to start buying each other up.

I just started watching the day of the jackal on Peacock. Have you seen that? Holy shit, that is some...the music, the acting, that is a show. And I didn't watch the original jackal, but I guess Richard Gere is like the Reddy Edmaine or Eddie Redmaine character. That's a... But it's kind of the thing. Like, back in the day, nobody was surprised by the movie you told them they should see, right? It'd be like, you should go see Gladiator 2, it's pretty good.

Everybody knew that Gladiator 2 was a thing, and you had to go to the movies. Now, there's a really good chance that I've never heard a fucking word about Peacock. I don't have it, I haven't done it. There's a chance. And because you have so many outlets, okay? And some of the big ones are gonna have their own.

That's what they did. That was the first step. The next step will be that Peacock will buy some second tier or three or four streaming platforms and take all of their content. That's the next step. Well, the only reason I have Peacock is because my parents have cable television and I have their account.

You ape it. Oh, I ape it big time. Yeah. My icon, my icon in there is the, the boss baby. Oh, really? When I log on, I see the boss baby and that, that means it's my time to watch television. My son found a really ugly, like caveman meets minotaur kind of figure that he has made my avatar

on all of our streaming. Oh, really? Yeah, which he thinks is hilarious. You, and you don't have a picture of it handy? No. But as a caveman minotaur. So Harry, does a minotaur have like a spike on the head? He just, it looks like kind of a cow-headed caveman.

Oh. He thinks it's hilarious. Oh, yeah. Muscles marinara, as they call them. Next category that you want a prediction. Let's go economics. Anything big in the world of, you know, world business? Yes.

First thing that's going to happen is Donald Trump is going to announce that the economy is already better just because he's here. And what this is going to be is politics, but it is politics of persuasion by evasion from the truth. Okay? He was running down the economy on purpose. Now he has the opposite inclination. So suddenly it's going to not have been as bad as it was. And in fact, that's going to be true everywhere because the Biden administration definitely made some problems worse and made some problems better, but didn't message it well.

Southern border, the numbers have been up and down, but they have been fixing infrastructure and dealing with some minute rule changes there that have actually flattened out with a couple of peaks that they had at the end of the year. There was one last big push that came in at the end of the year. People are trying to get in here before Trump. Interesting, right? It shows you how powerful narrative is, even in outside US audioscapes and listening spheres.

So he's going to say the southern border is already better, something he wouldn't have given Biden credit for, but that's where the credit deserves. Now, this is not unique to Trump. Very often presidents get credit for what happened before them. And very often they get blamed for what happened before them, right?

It can go either way. So the economy is gonna wind up being seen as much better, and I'm gonna tell you what, I'm not gonna believe it any more than I did when they were telling me it was terrible. You look at the media space, advertising to play off my first prediction, advertising is in the shitter right now.

People don't know how to make money with advertising anymore. They don't know how to measure it, they don't know who matters and where it matters and why it matters. Ah, another prediction, 1B. Okay, so prediction one, prediction one A, prediction one B. Television and podcasts and radio and whatever you want is gonna go back to single or double partner models.

You will see Chris Cuomo at News Nation saying, look, I actually drink Accenture. And here's why, I'm very sensitive to pH, whatever bullshit, it won't be bullshit, whatever it is. Yeah, pH, yeah. And be like, oh my God, this is such a sellout. Tell it to Edward R. Murrow, he did it. Tell it to Cronkite, he did it.

Tell it to Mike Wallace, he did it. Last time I checked, kind of giants of journalism, no? Well, Flintstone sold cigarettes. So this is what they used to do. Mike Wallace would be smoking at Chesterfield and tell you why he was. To me, at least it's transparent, what do you think? It's not a commercial enterprise.

You know it's a commercial enterprise. So everybody else is doing that. I think the link is affinity, okay? Like for me, I drive a 2014 Ford Raptor, why? I think that that truck was the best muscle truck evolution. And I like Fords. Now that used to not be a thing for me, right? My brother's a Pontiac guy.

I think as long as you have a direct affinity to whatever it is, I don't use Traeger grills because I think they're built cheap. You wanna go back and forth about that? If you're a Traeger, that's fine. But for me, I will advertise what I think works for me. That's what I do here. I take this shit, I use this stuff,

and we're gonna go back to major partnerships in media. To your first point, I don't know if, I'm sure you've seen this graph, but like about a week after the election, consumer sentiment index by party affiliation, it completely flipped. It went from Democrats to Republican. It was just like,

oh, Republicans are gonna be in power again. Oh, now we think the economy is great. Like it really, it shows what a partisan game. This has always happened. It has become more pronounced as the party system has become more of a binary battle to the bottom where they are looking at through the prism of their own advantage almost exclusively.

And to me, it's frightening. And these parties cannot be brought down in terms of their power and influence soon enough. And to the second point. Prediction number two. Prediction number two. Technically, it's really fine. Prediction number two. We're not going to have a major election, right, this year.

We don't have a presidential election this year. You will see a continuation of independence outgrowing and outpacing Democrats and Republicans in national elections. This is the best news in my lifetime for our politics. This is the best news in my lifetime for our politics. The more of you decide, look, I'm gonna go off critical thinking, I'm gonna go off what works for me in mind, I'm gonna go off what makes sense, I'm not gonna compromise for some group

that I don't give a shit about, and clearly they don't give a shit about me. The better it is for this country. You're not going to get rid of the party system. I don't think so. Not anytime soon. I don't even think you're going to get a real third party anytime soon. But I do think the more independence there is and the more independence there are, okay, so like independence from and then independence, you know, ENCE versus ENTS, as a number, the less influence they'll have, at least in the primary system.

We've got to move towards rank, choice, and open primaries. I know, but that would screw the parties. Fuck the parties. You need more moderate candidates. That's how you get them. The primaries is where we all get screwed because they play to a magnified minority that comes out to vote and you get the most extreme people because they have the most ardent supporters. Prediction number two. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from radioactive media, business owners, CMOs.

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obviously through the Chris Cuomo project. That's drinkag1.com slash CCP. Get yourself to a better place today. Try it, you'll like it. Let's go back to politics. You talked about independence, what they might do this year. I'm wondering if you can kind of give me a prediction

on like just the Democrats in general and the Democrats in general and the Republicans in general. Like with the Republicans, Trump is really spraying a lot of stuff out there. I haven't read everything from like, he wants to privatize the postal service and then you got Doge working on stuff.

I'd love, and then, you know, the Democrats are all over the place. So I'd love to see your just state of play or where you see each party going in 2025. Trump's play is gonna be obvious. Everything is better than it was before. And he's gonna use what was happening under Biden who did not message it well to his own advantage.

That's politics. His talk is not gonna match his walk. And that's not a surprise in politics so people aren't gonna be offended. The Democrats have to be very careful not to overplay the significance of that. And instead, ignore Trump's shortfalls and fill in the spaces of opportunity. And my prediction is that the big opportunity, perversely, is going to be in line with who was just targeted by the assassin. Meaning, the problem with disconnect in our society is cost structure.

Stock markets do earn really well. Inflation is on the way down. Right. There are plenty of indices, metrics to point out, but the cost structure of living, the cost of living is too high. And it's because we allow the providers to make much more money than anybody else ever can. And it plays to their advantage more than everybody else's.

Now, part of that is capitalism, but part of that requires correction also. And my prediction is that Democrats are going to start targeting the cost structure. What does that mean? Well, who makes our food expensive and why? How much of it is about what is in it? How much are our drugs and why? And what is Big Pharma making and how? Why is

insurance such a big and looming boogeyman everywhere in your life? Your health insurance, your house insurance, your car insurance, your co-op insurance, your pet insurance, everything's going up, up, up, up, up. Why? And why do they just get to keep making money hand over fist? Target the right bad guys. My prediction, not Trump, not his band of merry men and that they're all would-be dictators, leaving alone. Find the shortfalls in his own success and pick on the right bad guys.

That's my prediction. You go after the right bad guys, you get back in touch with how people feel. And then what about with tech? You know, Trump has been going back and forth on, you know, he was the one who started the TikTok ban, then he wanted to walk it back. And now he's meeting with the guy and who knows where this is going to land, you know, by the time he's actually president.

But I believe the ban is supposed to go into effect the day before he takes office. So not just TikTok, but like, you know, with everything, with Australia passing the social media thing that bans, is it teenagers from being on the platforms, on social media platforms? You got Grand Theft Auto coming out later in the year. You got Avatar coming out.

Is there anything in the world of like technology that you could see, that make a prediction for? You know, the beautiful thing about technology is that it overwhelms us consistently. And our world is changing so much, so fast, that anybody who predicts what's next, I mean, look, everybody's saying that we're getting closer and closer to where the technology gets integrated

into the body, right? You used to have to sit down in front of it, then you could carry it, then you could hold it, then it was part of you, now you're wearing it. The next step is integration into you. Like that chess player. What chess player? The one who is alleged to have cheated

using those vibrating anal beads. You see what I deal with? Alleged. He would have done anything. Some people tested it out to figure out anything to get vibrating anal beads in there. No, I'm just saying that's a use of technology to help someone, you know, progress. Your habits aside. I don't know.

I actually barely know how to play chess. The next step is going to be that it's in you. Okay, look, we've always done this with how we track our pets. It's only a matter of time before we put it inside of kids. And of course there'll be reaction formation to, what is it doing? What else is it doing? Of course, there'll be tension.

But the next step is obviously to integrate it into the person, right? And then you get all the scary things about becoming the machines, then the machines take us over, you know, all that. So that's where technology is taking us. And to me, it's not even predictive, it's just suggestive. That's the way it's going.

But I don't see anything this year that changes our lives as we know it the way this did. I do believe that you're going to see curbs and I guardrails, let's say, and I'm worried about them. I don't buy that TikTok is an instrument of China. and I guard rails, let's say, and I'm worried about them. I don't buy that TikTok is an instrument of China. I do believe that they don't use it there the way they allow us to use it here.

And I think there is a lesson in that. I think that the algorithms need to be shifted. And I think it defeats the censorship argument. The censorship argument is a good one. I believe in more ideas, not less. I do. I believe in that. And I think that you have to fight the fight and that the censorship is not worth what

it gives you because it empowers things that are being ignored or being censored and it makes them seem like they're more valuable than they actually are. So instead, I think you change the algorithm to reward different things. Now, I don't know how you make a high ground argument on the basis of what it's rewarding now. It's like constantly pushing you towards sex, provocative shit and outrage.

So is that the fruit of free expression? Any more than if it's pointing you towards success stories, life-changing moments, and technological advances? I mean, is one inherently more valuable as idea, as speech, than the other? I don't think so. And why is it that even my fitness videos take me to tits eventually? Like the algorithms just push you towards prurience. Oh, no, mine, bullshit, bullshit, okay? I'm just saying I have no problem

with changing the algorithms so that they reward different types of behaviors. Why is it free speech and free marketplace to have the algorithms constantly pushing you towards what makes us worse? It's not what they allow in China. That's something that I think is worth discussing as a guardrail.

And I think guardrails are necessary, but I'm very worried about them because I don't wanna limit people's access to things. The algorithms do that without being an expressed or understood limitation, but they are that. And we're obviously okay with it, right? Because we're all trying to figure out understood limitation, but they are that. And we're obviously okay with it, right? Because we're all trying to figure out

how to maximize those algorithms to create our own reach, right? Everybody's a brand now. I think the ban of a certain age makes sense. As a parent and as somebody who realizes that the influence is clearly beyond the control of the ability to balance the influence. And yes, my parents felt the same way about television.

But it was not like this. And I just don't see the positive yield. I don't hear the positive yield. There was a moment in time where all the gaming was making kids better hand-eye coordination. We're going to have a whole new generation of pilots. Oh, yeah. Didn't happen.

But what we are seeing is that they're less connected. There's more deviance. There's more loner syndrome, lone wolf syndrome, and there's disconnection. The internet was supposed to connect the world. Instead, it's made everybody individual silos within it. So we got something wrong here and there is a need for correction. With regard to Mr. Musk's purchase of Twitter,

I believe it's called the letter X now. What's it called? The letter X. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, he likes this letter, so he puts it in everything. I don't get it, but I mean, there's so many cool letters out there. He You know everybody's saying or a lot of people a lot of people are saying that it played a huge role in the past election but there are Charts that show the number of active users going down. It's been going down precipitously since he bought it. It's not as

Wide it's never been a major platform. It's very popular among journalists and media people, but it's never been one of the biggest social media networks. It's a big one, but it's not the largest. What's the largest? It's probably Facebook or Instagram. It's interesting because X gets all the hype.

Because that's where, I mean, for years, it was the fertile ground of like, journalists and people in media are posting here live. You can actively react to things in real time. And it was, you know, you would have like a municipal service set up to publish an alert of like, hey, the weather, you know, things like that. Now it's all on Twitter.

Well, it's all on Twitter, but what's happening is like, you know, NPR going, hey, we're not gonna publish here anymore because we don't like the platform. That's only a few left the outlets and they'll come back. Unless there's something better and blue sky and threads don't seem to really be like the platform. It's only a few left the outlets and they'll come back. Unless there's something better in blue skies, threads don't seem to really be getting the traction. Threads has that artificial force multiplier because everyone who's on Instagram is on threads.

Right. That's not really kosher. The only reason I'm bringing this up is I'm wondering to your point about algorithms, threads specifically does not show people political or news content. You actually have to go into your settings to say, yes, I would like to see political stuff.

But the app is so strange because it's all just like, things people were talking about two or three days ago as soon as you log on. And a lot of it, if you follow politics, yeah, you get some of it for the most part. It's these like strange old conversations. It's lagged. It's lagged.

And I'm wondering if you see anything in that scope changing, especially with like, you know, all these CEOs going over to Mr. Trump and saying, well, you know, we're sorry. Okay, we're going to give you some money for the inauguration and kind of capitulating a little early on. Like, do you see anything trending in that direction from an algorithmic perspective as in like, yeah, we're going to keep flushing news

down the toilet online because we really don't wanna promote this. We know it's hot water. We know we keep having to pay out of our ass for it. We don't wanna invite the bad attention. We just wanna avoid this altogether. Do you think threads is almost like a canary in the coal mine of like more of these platforms are gonna stay less

while Twitter, you know, stakes out its claim as the right-wing version of all this other stuff and blasts out their, you know, not outright propaganda, but certainly right-wing positive messaging on so many fronts. I can't point to anything in American culture that has become controlled by the demand for less. Can you? Everything seems to be in the direction of more. Some say less is more.

More media, well, depends on the quality of it, right? So more media, more outlets, more variety. Now, do you get this paradox of within the growth, a sameness that becomes pervasive? Yes, to my point, outrage, sex, everything salacious is what gets you these things. And you see it even in digital media, call me daddy and all of these things

that anything that's sex related blows up. So even though you have more, more, more, more, more, what works is less, less, less, less, less. And I think it's a problem. I just interrupt, there's a great video essay in the New York Times from somebody who, a creativity expert who explored why it seems that everything looks the same and sounds the same these days and it's because in his opinion the algorithms have reduced everything to

this little tiny tip of the iceberg. Whereas if you get down to the bottom of the internet, the bowels of this iceberg where I like to live, there's a ton of great stuff flourishing out there but because all these platforms are pushing out what they want you to see and it all is kind of homogenized. Well, yes, that's why we're all listening to like very similar sounding music and very similar looking movies. And I know there's an argument that's going on forever,

but like so much control is in the algorithm. Well, a lot of that, the music is true. I see it in my daughter and her friends, the 14 year old, and they're getting it all off TikTok. They're getting these playlists off of TikTok. So they're all listening to the same shit. And it's the same compendium, right? Because it's not like just Chaperone.

It's like, you know, these songs selects. And look, it takes us back to the same thing. So the prediction is algorithms are going to have to change. There's going to be pressure. Stop telling us that you're not manipulating the information. Stop telling us that you can't regulate it. This is what you do, you mofos. You figure out where to put your ads

on the basis of what's getting the most wattage so you know how to do that. We want to change what you're manipulating to get the most wattage, to have a broader aperture. And I know that won't be as good for you, but literally fuck you because it has been stilted in your favor for too long. And Elon may say he's doing it differently.

I don't know, because I think he's catering to a very specific agenda that he just likes. So that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about making more pie instead of figuring out how big a slice you can get in the existing pie. More pie. The algorithm should be changed to reward behaviors that aren't all prurient and bad for you.

Okay? It's all junk food all the fucking time. And I think that that can change and they can still make their money. And I think at a minimum it's a conversation. You may say, no, I agree or disagree. That's fine. Let's have the conversation and let's make something happen. that it's got best-selling bedding. Here's what I like about it. There's technology in the textile. When it's cold, it helps keep you warm.

When it's warm, it does help keep you cool. How? I don't know. And I actually researched it and I still don't get it, but it doesn't matter because they know how to do it at Cozy Earth. I like to be responsible about my purchases. And I do like to feel that what I'm doing may help make something I care about a little bit better.

They're using bamboo, not the materials that textile companies usually do, and bamboo is highly sustainable, it's not doing anything bad to anything, and it's fast and it's easy for them to use. A better year starts with better sleep. Wrap yourself in Cozy Earth. Please don't wait. Head to CozyEarth.com slash Chris. Use my exclusive code, Chris Chris up to 40% off

How amazing is that cozy earth comm slash Chris if you get a post-purchase survey? Please say you heard about cozy earth from the Chris Cuomo project podcast you guys send me the comments saying thanks You love the stuff tell them Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from Select Quote. Look, so much in life is uncertain. And the older I get, the more comfortable I am with my decision to have life insurance in place to take care of my family. Now, the problem is, it's complicated. You know, there's so many sales pitches. There's so much pricing.

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Get the right life insurance for you for less at selectquote.com slash Chris C. Go to selectquote.com slash Chris C today and you get started. Selectquote.com slash Chris C. today and you get started. Selectquote.com slash Chris C. Okay, we did a little bit of politics, we did a little bit of economics, we did some entertainment.

Any wild cards out there? Something that isn't on somebody's mind or like something that isn't top of mind right now that might like, not like a volcano erupting, but you know, something that isn't headline news right now that nobody's paying attention to that you might think. One, bills win the Super Bowl. Well, OJ is dead.

Yes. Two, war in Israel doesn't end. Oh, really? You think it's, oh. Three, Trump can't negotiate a settlement to Russia and Ukraine and it gets uglier before it gets better. I'm actually very surprised by those. So am I.

And I hope I'm wrong. Oh. Not So am I. And I hope I'm wrong. Not about the bills. But I hope I'm wrong. And I will just, so why am I saying it? What just happened in Syria? I cannot believe that one, you don't care. But whatever. The idea that this guy, Jalani, and his merry band of men

that just went in there are not gonna become extreme Islamists strains credulity. Well, but they're not flying the flag right now, I know. But everything about them reeks of not wanting a democracy. They just want influence over the people. And I think you're gonna have a new and worse actor in the region after Assad. And look, Assad was a bad guy

who did bad things to his people, not saying he isn't. I'm just saying he wasn't alone in that and he was a stable one. These guys are gonna be unstable and they're gonna be really open to influence because they're gonna be broke. So that is going to add to Israel's woes. And I think Bibi Netanyahu has changed people's feelings

in Israel about him, almost unheard of. He was the wrong leader at the wrong time. Many there were arguing. Now it's starting to shift. Why? They are in straight war mode. Ukraine is getting exhausted. They're running out of people.

They're running out of will. They're starting to listen to everybody trashing Zelensky as part of the problem. He will be pushed to hold elections. I guess these are more predictions. I don't believe that that's going to be true in Israel. I do believe it's going to be true in Ukraine. I do believe it's gonna be true in Ukraine. And I think Israel is gonna hunker down and say, we need to kill these mofos once and for all,

because otherwise this is like Groundhog Day for us, and it's gotta end. And I think Trump is gonna have a really hard time negotiating that, because his lack of sophistication, his lack of gravitas is gonna loom large there with Bibi Netanyahu and the regional players. Similarly, I think that the idea that he can get Putin to do anything is so naive. And this is now Putin's legacy.

And it's a situation that, to be honest, Trump couldn't give two shits about. It worked for him as a cudgel in the election. Too much money to Ukraine. Zelensky is a bad guy. Remember, there's one reason Trump thinks Zelensky is a bad guy, because of that phone call that got him in trouble. Perfect phone call.

That's the only thing he's got going. Remember, who did Zelensky replace? A Russian puppet. They voted him in, two rounds of voting, for change. So is Ukraine corrupt? Yeah. Distinguishing themselves in that way, yes. But Zelensky wasn't part of the kleptocracy or the cacistocracy.

He was a change agent. How well has he done? I don't know. We'll see in the next elections. But that is a false narrative that Trump used out of convenience. Now you're gonna need gravitas, you're gonna need intelligence, you're gonna need sophistication, you're dealing with really old established cultures

and players here. And I think he's gonna be way out of his depth and I hope that I'm wrong because we need these conflicts to end. To wrap this up, we start with some sort of personal predictions. You tried to get out of me about my brood of cicadas or whatever.

Do you have any personal predictions for yourself for 2025, like a mustache or an earring or? If I could grow anything other than pathetic facial hair, I would have a full beard and mustache. Really? One hundred percent. I am the guy who should, you know, my other producer here, Amrish,

literally looks like Captain Caveman. He should not have that beard. I should. Now it's in part cultural for him, not just aesthetic. Come over here, Amrish. He's very handsome. And I love him.

And I love how the team has come together. I mean, he's a beautiful guy, he's a smart guy, he's a talented guy. You gotta get in frame. He's more of an audio producer. Yeah, he's not a framer. He's an audio engineer, so I have to accept that. Amrish is into music and he's into tech

and he's into all these things, he's beautiful. But I should have this, This should be on my face. I am manly, he is a Renaissance man. You know what I'm saying? He's artistic and he's all these other things and creative and sensitive. I am a caveman. I should have a big, thick beard.

I wouldn't wear it like his because ethnically, it wouldn't match my people the way it does his, but I would want a beard and a mustache. Sadly though, there is zero predictive about this because unless Amarish decides to take part of his face and put it online. Why don't you go to Turkey? Go to, everybody's doing those like Turkey hair transplant.

Yeah, they look great too. Yeah, they do. They look fucking terrible. Come on. They look like doll heads. Oh, please. It's terrible. Don't do that.

Just look online. Unless you want to, hey, your body, your choice. Do whatever you want. No, hey, your body, your choice. Do whatever you want. No, no, bad choice, bad choice. So personally for me, I am going the wrong way on my health. My long COVID is not great because I'm not doing the things I need to be doing.

So I am under the weather on a regular basis and it sucks. My face is hot on a regular basis. People keep saying, well, but you look great. You're getting tanned somewhere. No, I'm not. I'm flushed from long COVID. It's histamine response. And I'm working with Dr. Rob, but you know, God bless her.

It's not her fault. I don't do the shit she wants me to do. Why? I have to work this year on caring about my happiness more. You know, not to get too complicated and, you know, how much do you really care about my shit? You got your own shit. But you can't just live through what you do for other people. Because what happens is you wind up acting out

and you wind up having negative behaviors and exaggerated indulgences to kind of offset the imbalance. And then that's a mistake. It's been a mistake for me in the past. And I have to focus more on my happy and what brings me pleasure and what makes me feel better health-wise, I gotta work on it.

So I'm doing it. I also am gonna have some big stuff this year. We're gonna have our oldest graduate from college. We're gonna have our youngest probably make a decision to go away to school, which is basically like having all my kids gone. Wow. So, because Muscle's Marinara is, you know, in school overseas,

so they will all be gone, and that will be really, really big change. Also, I think my wife is going to have a couple of big moves in business also this year that I'll have to accommodate. She's actually like a real boss lady, as opposed to like me being like a cog in the media machine. She like runs a business. So those are all big things to me personally. But there's a lot of personal development

that needs to be done this year. I have to find new ways to grow in the new environment that we're in politically and socially. To grow the podcast, to grow News Nation, because it's all about reach, right? You got the three Rs in communication. Reach, which is going to be a function of how

resonant or relevant you are, right? And that goes to what the algorithms reward, which doesn't work in my favor. And then you get revenue, which is how you monetize what you do and what you do with that revenue, which I also think is a big part of the equation that no one ever talks about in the media. What do you do with your money?

What are you doing with it? Like Joe Rogan, they just paid you a gazillion dollars? What are you doing with it? Like, you know, Joe Rogan, they just paid you a gazillion dollars. What does he do with it? Oh, well, that's his business. I don't know, is it? Everybody is actually contributing to what they pay him, right,

by subscribing to Spotify, right? So same thing here. That's why I tell you what I use revenue for. I'm not trying to impress you. I'm just being transparent. That's where we're helping people get long COVID treatment. That's why I want more of you to subscribe. I'm not impressed by the 60 bucks a year.

And I know that for some of you, that's a lot of money. I get it. But I think for a lot of you, it's not a lot of money and you spend that or more in like eight or nine things that you probably forgot about. So I'm just talking about it as a value proposition. And I think that that's something also that I'm gonna be working on this year

is to kind of have people understand that they're part of something with me. That's why the pod is called the project because it's working on something together. Well, just from my perspective, I hope that myself and Amrish and the team, that we're at least able to help bring you a little bit of happiness. I have a good time recording this.

We all usually have a good time doing this. We love working on this particular project with you. It's always very fun to come and talk about all this. Cicadas and sandwiches and my last name and all that. At the very least, I hope that as down as the news will likely get with everything you went over, there's gonna be a lot of ups and downs this year, as they are every year, but I don't know,

I hope that you can find a little pocket of joy in coming to your own apartment to pay to shoot your own thing that you released to these hundreds of thousands of people. I literally pay to have friends. I pay my friends. I definitely have joy. I want to work on having more joy. And one of the things that I have going for me is that I get to

do what matters most to me with people I love doing it with. And that has not always been the case, and it certainly is not usually the case. But it is here. I got these two guys here and the rest of the rabbit-gripping team that produces for us. And I got Dusty and the team at News Nation. I've never been better set up for success.

So that is all highly predictive of good things to come. Let's sing the New Year's song. Should all acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should all acquaintance be forgotten in days of auld lang syne. What does auld lang syne mean again? In the English speaking world, it is traditionally sung to bid farewell to the old year, the stroke of midnight. But what does it mean, auld lang syne? Long, long ago. See? Old, long since. Times long past. Days gone by,

old times for the sake of old times. Those are Green Day song really. I love Green Day. Me too. I guess it's over now. All right, wrap it up. ["Green Day"] Look, I'm not in the prediction business.

I'm in the business of helping you make sense of what actually happens around us. But sometimes it's good to project out into the future of what we think may happen. And sometimes that can happen to motivate what actually does happen. I'll tell you what, if you think you're going to strike out, the chance you strike out goes up. If you think you're going to hit a home run every time, you're not going to hit a home run every time, but there's a better chance that you don't strike out. So maybe if we plan for success, we may find more of it as long as we do the right things. And a big part of that is us

doing it together. Okay. I am so grateful and thankful for what we have built together to this point. And I am all in on doing even more and better this year with you. So what do you say? Let's get after it.