The Biden proposal to raise the top federal long‑term capital gains tax rate to 39.6% (as announced in April 2021) will not be enacted into law in that form; the specific 39.6% capital‑gains provision will fail to pass Congress.
“It's not going to pass, but it's not going to pass. It's not going to.”
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Explanation
Biden's proposed 39.6% top capital-gains rate was never enacted; it was dropped from the final Build Back Better/Inflation Reduction Act legislation with the capital-gains rate left unchanged.
The tax increase on long‑term capital gains proposed by Biden in April 2021 will be included in the second 'human infrastructure' bill, that bill will pass Congress, and the federal long‑term capital‑gains rate for high earners will be raised substantially (significantly above 20%), even if the final rate is lower than 39.6%.
“I think I think it could pass because I think they're planning to do this tax increase as part of the second infrastructure bill... I think that bill will pass. I don't know if the rate will stay at 39.6, but I think there will be a big increase clearly in the cap gains rate.”
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Explanation
No capital-gains tax increase was included in or passed as part of any 'human infrastructure' bill; the final Inflation Reduction Act left individual capital-gains rates untouched.
Biden’s April 2021 proposal to nearly double the top long‑term capital‑gains tax rate to 39.6% is primarily symbolic; that specific increase will not be enacted into law.
“This is why I think this is like a sacrificial lamb, and I don't think anything's going to happen.”
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Explanation
Confirmed: the proposed capital-gains increase to 39.6% was never enacted.
Some version of Biden’s April 2021 capital‑gains tax increase proposal (raising the top long‑term capital‑gains rate for high earners well above 20%) will be enacted by Congress, even if the exact rate or details differ from the initial 39.6% proposal.
“I think it's going to pass. I think something like it's going to pass”
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Explanation
No version of the capital-gains tax increase was ultimately enacted by Congress; the top long-term capital-gains rate remained unchanged.
On appeal, Derek Chauvin’s defense team may cite Maxine Waters’ public comments as a ground for overturning the verdict, but that argument will not succeed unless they can show actual jury contamination from those comments; absent such proof, the conviction will be upheld on that issue.
“So yeah, they could use it. But but I don't think it's I don't think it's going to work unless they can prove that somehow the jury was contaminated by what they were hearing on TV.”
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Explanation
Derek Chauvin's conviction was upheld on appeal (the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed it in 2023 and the state supreme court declined further review); the Maxine Waters comments argument did not succeed in overturning the verdict.
Stripe (the company founded by John and Patrick Collison) will become the most valuable privately held company in the world, with the sole exception of SpaceX, at some future point after this April 23, 2021 episode.
“Yeah, those guys are those guys, that company zero. That's gonna be the most valuable, valuable company that's private right now besides space.”
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Explanation
Stripe has not been the second most valuable private company behind only SpaceX; other private companies including ByteDance and, more recently, OpenAI have carried substantially higher private valuations than Stripe.