Trump's Big Week: Middle East Trip, China Deal, Pharma EO, "Big, Beautiful Bill" with Ben Shapiro

Chamath’s on‑air statement in the May 17, 2025 episode explicitly promised: “We will be doing an event during the F1 in Las Vegas where we will be launching our poker tournaments… let us know late November, guys. Book it… you need to come November 22nd.”(podscripts.co)

The 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix ran November 20–22, 2025.(en.wikipedia.org) During that same window the All‑In hosts did in fact tape at least one live podcast from Las Vegas – the episode “Epstein Files Fallout, Nvidia Risks…” is described in its own listings as having “Bestie intros LIVE from The Venetian Las Vegas,” with thanks to The Venetian for hosting, and a guest poker pro (Alan Keating) discussing poker strategy.(podcasts.apple.com) A subsequent episode with Molly Bloom is likewise billed as “Molly Bloom joins the besties live in Las Vegas!”(podcasts.apple.com) These confirm a live All‑In event in Vegas around F1, but they are presented publicly as podcast shows, not as All‑In‑run poker tournaments.

Critically, there is no public evidence that the group “launched [their] poker tournaments” or hosted an All‑In–branded poker tournament series during that F1 week. The official All‑In events page only lists an All‑In Holiday Party in San Francisco on December 6, 2025, with no Las Vegas poker tournament or series in late November.(allin.com) Coverage of the All‑In podcast’s commercial ventures through late 2025 similarly notes the launch of their tequila brand but does not mention any proprietary poker-tournament product or series.(en.wikipedia.org) Given (a) F1 Vegas 2025 has already taken place, (b) the only documented All‑In activity that weekend is a live show at The Venetian, and (c) the lack of any announcement or poker‑press coverage of an All‑In tournament launch, the specific prediction that they would host a poker event launching their own poker tournaments during the Las Vegas Grand Prix appears not to have come true.

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” they were discussing is the House GOP reconciliation package that became the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1, 119th Congress), signed into law on July 4, 2025.

Observed deficits so far: For the first full fiscal year in this Trump term (FY 2025, ending Sept. 30, 2025), the federal budget deficit was about $1.8 trillion, essentially flat versus FY 2024 and well below $2.5 trillion. (reuters.com) That is after the bill’s passage, so the realized deficit has not yet “climbed to $2.5 trillion” annually.

Forward-looking projections under current law and the bill: Before the bill, CBO’s January 2025 baseline already projected deficits rising from $1.9T in 2025 to about $2.6T by 2034–2035. (americanactionforum.org) After enactment, CBO scoring (summarized by the American Action Forum) found the One Big Beautiful Bill increases cumulative deficits by about $4.1T over 2025–2034, with annual deficits rising to about $3.0T in 2034, roughly $400B higher than the pre‑bill baseline in that year. (americanactionforum.org) A separate analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts post‑bill deficits over 2026–2035 about $1T higher than CBO’s earlier baseline, with 2035 around $2.6T. (reuters.com)

Implication for the prediction: Friedberg’s normalized claim is that, under this bill and current trajectory, the deficit will rise to roughly $2.5T per year and then stay around that level for multiple consecutive years. As of November 30, 2025:

• We have only one completed fiscal year after the bill’s introduction and only a few months after its enactment.
• The realized deficit is ~$1.8T, not ~$2.5T.
• Long‑term projections do show deficits eventually approaching or exceeding $2.5T in the 2030s, but those years have not occurred yet, and projections could change.

Because the core of the prediction concerns the medium‑/long‑run level of the deficit in years we have not yet reached, there isn’t enough realized data to say whether the U.S. will, in fact, sustain ~$2.5T annual deficits for “the foreseeable future.”

Therefore, the status of this prediction is inconclusive (too early to tell).

1. Condition on the bill being enacted:

   • The House tax-and-spending package at issue is the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (H.R. 1), whose tax provisions were developed jointly by House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith and Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo; reporting at the time explicitly describes the tax section as a Smith–Crapo effort. (youngkim.house.gov)
   • That bill, with only negotiated modifications around the edges, passed the House on May 22, 2025, passed the Senate on July 1, 2025, and was signed into law by President Trump on July 4, 2025. (en.wikipedia.org)
     → It is reasonable to treat Friedberg’s condition (the Smith/Crapo House tax bill being enacted “substantially as proposed”) as having been met.

2. Did the bill materially reduce the deficit?

   • Multiple analyses of the enacted One Big Beautiful Bill find that it increases, rather than reduces, deficits relative to CBO’s January 2025 baseline:
     • CBO’s static score of the House-passed version estimated about $2.4 trillion higher cumulative deficits over 2025–2034. (nypost.com)
     • A later CBO letter analyzing the enacted law finds it will raise deficits by $4.1 trillion over 2025–2034 (including interest), taking the annual deficit from about $1.9T in 2025 to roughly $3.0T by 2034. (americanactionforum.org)
     • The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget similarly estimates post‑bill deficits over 2026–2035 will be about $22.7T, roughly $1T worse than prior projections. (reuters.com)
   • So the specific sub‑claim “the bill ultimately yields no real change in the annual deficit / will not materially reduce the deficit” is clearly supported by the best available evidence and is, at this point, effectively correct in direction.

3. Did the deficit rise to about $2.5T per year on a sustained basis?

   • Friedberg’s stronger claim is that the annual deficit would climb to roughly $2.5 trillion per year on a sustained basis in subsequent years.
   • As of late 2025, we do not yet observe such realized deficits:
     • CBO’s January 2025 baseline (before the bill) projected the deficit at $1.9T in 2025, rising gradually toward about $2.6–2.7T by 2034–2035. (edwardconard.com)
     • Post‑enactment analysis of the One Big Beautiful Bill suggests higher future deficits—around $3.0T in 2034, relative to the baseline. (americanactionforum.org)
   • Some commentary summarizing CBO’s outlook notes projected deficits of about $2.4T in 2033, $2.5T in 2034, and $2.7T in 2035, i.e., in the ballpark of his “$2.5T per year” description. (foxnews.com)
   • However, these are forecasts for the 2030s, not outcomes. As of November 30, 2025, only the 2025 fiscal year is underway, with the deficit still around the ~$1.8–1.9T level; the multi‑trillion‑dollar deficits Friedberg foresaw have not yet actually occurred.

4. Why the verdict is ‘inconclusive’:

   • We have strong evidence that:
     • The Smith/Crapo bill was enacted in substantially similar form, and
     • It does not materially reduce deficits; in fact, it worsens them.
   • But the key quantitative part of the prediction—sustained annual deficits “roughly $2.5T” going forward—is about fiscal outcomes in the early‑to‑mid 2030s, well beyond the current date. Only projections exist so far; they can change, and the actual realized deficits for those years are unknown.

Because the decisive part of the prediction concerns deficit levels more than a decade out, and those years have not yet occurred, the prediction cannot yet be said to have “come true” or failed, even though current forecasts broadly align with Friedberg’s warning. Hence the appropriate status as of November 30, 2025 is inconclusive (too early).

• What was predicted? Friedberg described a hypothetical mechanism: if global investors began to seriously question the U.S. government’s willingness/ability to honor its 30‑year Treasury obligations, even a small increase in perceived default risk would push 30‑year yields up by ~1–2 percentage points into the 6–7% range, raising interest costs and annual deficits in a self‑reinforcing debt spiral.

• What actually happened (through Nov 30, 2025)?

  • 30‑year U.S. Treasury yields have been elevated relative to the 2010s but have not sustained anything close to the 6–7% range. In 2023–2024, they peaked around ~5% and have more commonly traded in the 4–5% band, driven largely by inflation, Fed policy, and term‑premium dynamics rather than an outright loss of faith in repayment of U.S. debt.
  • There has been no full‑blown market episode where investors broadly priced in a serious chance that the U.S. would not meet its long‑term Treasury obligations. While ratings downgrades (e.g., S&P in 2011, Fitch in 2023) and recurring debt‑ceiling standoffs have raised concerns about governance and fiscal trajectory, markets have not treated U.S. Treasuries as if default or non‑payment over 30 years were a live probability high enough to trigger a sudden jump to 6–7% yields.
  • The U.S. is experiencing rising interest costs and larger deficits, but these have been primarily associated with higher policy rates after the post‑COVID inflation spike and ongoing primary deficits, not with a discrete, confidence‑driven default scare on 30‑year Treasuries that matches the scenario Friedberg described.

• Why the result is ambiguous rather than right/wrong:

  • This is a conditional structural claim (“if investors start to doubt repayment over 30 years, then yields jump 1–2% into the 6–7% range and a debt spiral ensues”), not a dated forecast (“by year X, 30‑year yields will be 6–7%”).
  • The key condition—global investors meaningfully doubting the U.S.’s willingness/ability to honor 30‑year Treasuries—has not clearly occurred. Without that trigger, we don’t have real‑world data to test whether yields would in fact move specifically to 6–7% and whether this would mechanically produce the spiral in the way he outlined.
  • Economic theory suggests that a sharp upward repricing of default risk would raise long‑term yields and, all else equal, worsen debt dynamics, but the exact magnitude (1–2 percentage points, to 6–7%) and the inevitability of a runaway spiral are not empirically verifiable given current history.

Because the core scenario hasn’t actually materialized, we can’t decisively say Friedberg’s quantified causal chain is either confirmed or falsified. It remains a plausible but untested mechanism, so the appropriate classification is “ambiguous.”

The prediction is conditional on the outcome of the next U.S. federal election cycle after the episode date (May 17, 2025). In the U.S., regular federal general elections occur in even‑numbered years; after the November 2024 elections, the next regular federal cycle is the November 2026 midterm elections, which will decide control of Congress and therefore whether Democrats "come back into power." As of today (November 30, 2025), the 2026 elections have not yet occurred, so we cannot know whether Democrats regain the presidency and/or Congress, nor whether they subsequently "put a blockade" on large‑scale monetization of federal assets. Because the triggering condition and the predicted response both concern future events, there is not yet enough information to evaluate whether Friedberg’s forecast is correct.

The prediction is about whether over roughly the next 10–15 years new revenue from aggressively monetizing U.S. federal assets (land leases, resource extraction, etc.) will ramp up fast enough to fully make up for large projected federal budget deficits.

As of November 30, 2025, only months have passed since the May 2025 podcast—far short of the 10–15 year horizon. We therefore cannot yet observe the final outcome.

Current evidence does suggest that:

• Even with new Trump‑era policies (tariffs, the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” discussions of a sovereign wealth fund backed by public lands, increased leasing, possible land sales), federal deficits remain very large in official projections. (reddit.com)
• The Congressional Budget Office’s January and March 2025 outlooks project annual deficits around 5–6% of GDP and cumulative deficits of about $22 trillion from 2026–2035, with debt rising to roughly 118% of GDP by 2035, even under current law. (americanactionforum.org)
• Existing natural‑resource and public‑lands leasing revenues are in the tens of billions of dollars per year at most—tiny relative to multi‑trillion‑dollar annual budgets and near‑$2 trillion annual deficits. (reddit.com)

These data points so far are directionally consistent with Friedberg’s skepticism that asset monetization alone will quickly erase the deficit, but they are still just early‑period projections, not realized 10–15‑year outcomes. Major policy shifts, economic shocks, or changes in how assets are valued and sold could still occur before the horizon ends.

Because the stated time frame (10–15 years) has not elapsed, the prediction’s truth value cannot yet be definitively determined, so the status is “inconclusive” (too early).