The nation’s first-ever “crypto czar” got into a bitter spat with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers during an appearance on the All In podcast on Sunday.
David Sacks—the red-pilled Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur whom President Donald Trump appointed to oversee White House policy on digital currencies and AI—was speaking about the historic loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China when Summers fired the first shots.
“The millions of Americans who lost their jobs in the heartlands because we let China into the [World Trade Organization], which is something that Larry supported, that’s what started this whole thing,” Sacks said.
“Respectfully, you’re talking nonsense,” Summers shot back.
“What are you talking about, Larry?” Sacks retorted. “You were Treasury Secretary when we walked China into the WTO, and you’re still defending it!”
Summers wasn’t backing down, continuing to speak over Sacks before the Silicon Valley entrepreneur finally blew his top.
“Wait, wait, wait. Why am I the only one who gets to talk for two seconds before I get interrupted?” Sacks railed. “You guys get five-to-ten minute speeches! Is that the way this works? I get to speak for two seconds, then you interrupt me, [and] you speak for five or ten minutes!”
Given space to finish his thoughts, the crypto czar continued to use the former Treasury Secretary’s support for China’s WTO membership to lay the blame at his feet for the loss of “millions of industrial jobs” over the past 25 years.
A libertarian and close associate of Elon Musk, Sacks has been widely recognized as one of the key figures spearheading Silicon Valley’s ongoing charge to the political right under the new administration, despite his historic support for much-reviled Trump opponents like Hillary Clinton and Ron DeSantis.
He was supposedly also instrumental in lobbying for Trump to pick tech-friendly fellow venture capitalist J.D. Vance as his running mate and has praised the president for moving at “tech speed” on regulatory issues near to his heart, such as ending the Joe Biden government’s supposed “war on crypto.”
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