Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 4: Good morning everyone, especially to Sager and Jenny, who is
Speaker 4: recovering from the Eagles game. He was actually there, so
Speaker 4: big congrats to Ryan and Sager.
Speaker 5: Crystal Howard, Oh that's right, Ryan is an Eagles fan.
Speaker 5: This is outrageous. This is outrageous.
Speaker 1: Not good, it's good.
Speaker 2: I was a long suffering Wa Washington football fan. I
Speaker 2: you know, when I was a kid, they were so good,
Speaker 2: and then they were just terrible forever.
Speaker 5: So I hadn't watched.
Speaker 2: Any of their games in like a decade, and then
Speaker 2: I watched this one, and of course because I watched,
Speaker 2: they lost. So I'm sorry everybody. I really blowed myself.
Speaker 1: She really was beating herself up this morning.
Speaker 2: I'm attest to that, and I'm a curse on every team, so.
Speaker 1: At least you have some self awareness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so sorry, guys, I will stop watching again, don't worry.
Speaker 2: Lots to get to you this morning, including we had
Speaker 2: to add yesterday evening there was a big showdown between
Speaker 2: the Columbian president and Donald Trump. Will tell you where
Speaker 2: that stands this morning, over deportations on military planes. There's
Speaker 2: actually a number of countries that are taking a lot
Speaker 2: of issue with that, so we will break all of
Speaker 2: that down for You've also got some, you know, very
Speaker 2: disturbing comments from Trump pushing ethnic cleansing in the Gaza strips,
Speaker 2: so we'll break all of those details down for you.
Speaker 2: And also the israelis really violating the cease fire agreements
Speaker 2: both in Gaza and in Lebanon. Elon decided to go
Speaker 2: and speak at the AfD rally, that's that far right
Speaker 2: party in Germany.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you what he said.
Speaker 2: Okay, more controversy about his political views.
Speaker 5: Trump purged a.
Speaker 2: Number of inspectors general, it appears to have been blatantly
Speaker 2: illegal the way he did it, so there is a
Speaker 2: fight brewing there as well, with even Republicans who are perturbed.
Speaker 2: I guess I would say by that, we're also taking
Speaker 2: a look at This is maybe the most important story
Speaker 2: of the day. A new AI development out of China.
Speaker 2: They have now launched a competitor. A Chinese company launch
Speaker 2: a competitor to Chat, GPT and Meta's offerings, etc.
Speaker 5: Called Deep Seek.
Speaker 2: They did it for wildly less money and less what
Speaker 2: they call compute in terms of the chips that it requires,
Speaker 2: and really has shocked Silicon Valley. Could put a real
Speaker 2: squeeze on our stock market. Huge implications here. We're going
Speaker 2: to have Arnault bertrand join us to break down these
Speaker 2: developments and what it means more broadly, and very excited
Speaker 2: to have Andrew Callahan on of Channel five News. He
Speaker 2: just dropped a new documentary. It's really interesting. It follows
Speaker 2: this one man who's been sort of like radicalized into
Speaker 2: all the wildest conspiracies on the magaside.
Speaker 5: And what led him there and what.
Speaker 2: He's all oft and he just sort of like digs
Speaker 2: into this man's life and his family etc. And it's
Speaker 2: really interesting. I think you guys will like it. So
Speaker 2: we're excited to talk to Andrew about that.
Speaker 4: Yes, we absolutely are. It's fantastic and he will be
Speaker 4: here later in the show. So Crystal, let's get started
Speaker 4: with Columbia, because yesterday was a roller coaster for Colombians
Speaker 4: for the United States, and it looks like maybe there's
Speaker 4: resolution at least for now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the TLDR is, you know, all of these
Speaker 2: Central and South American countries have been routinely accepting deportation
Speaker 2: flights from the US, typically ice charters, civilian planes, but
Speaker 2: Trump has decided to use an addition to those civilian planes,
Speaker 2: use military planes, and they really have taken this as
Speaker 2: a sort of affront. In addition to the treatment of
Speaker 2: the migrants, of the deportees who are on these planes,
Speaker 2: there have been images circulating. In fact, we can put
Speaker 2: this first tweet up on the screen which contains some
Speaker 2: of these images. You can see people being led off
Speaker 2: the plane. I think this is actually in Brazil, in shackles,
Speaker 2: in handcuffs and shackles. There were also reports that some
Speaker 2: of these deportees to Brazil in particular, were denied water
Speaker 2: denied bathroom and treated, according to them, with a total
Speaker 2: lack of dignity. So this is the president of Columbia
Speaker 2: weighing and saying a migrant is not a criminal, must
Speaker 2: be treated with the dignity that a human being deserves.
Speaker 2: That's why I turned back US military planes that were
Speaker 2: carrying Columbian migrants. I cannot allow migrants to remain in
Speaker 2: a country that does not want them, but if that
Speaker 2: country sends them back, it must be with dignity and
Speaker 2: respect for them and for our country. We will receive
Speaker 2: our fellow citizens on civilian planes without treating them like criminals.
Speaker 2: Colombia is respected. So Trump, wasting no time, jumps in
Speaker 2: with a major economic threat here, he says, I was
Speaker 2: just informed that two repatriation flights from the US with
Speaker 2: a large number of illegal criminals were not allowed to
Speaker 2: land in Columbia. This order was given by Columbia's socialist
Speaker 2: president Gustava Pedro, who is already very unpopular amongst his
Speaker 2: people patriots. Denial of these flights has jeopardized the national
Speaker 2: security and public safety of the So I've directed my
Speaker 2: administration to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory
Speaker 2: measures number one, and this is the most significant emergency,
Speaker 2: twenty five percent tariff on all goods coming to the US.
Speaker 2: In one week, the twenty five percent teriffs will be
Speaker 2: raised to fifty percent, a travel ban and immediate visa
Speaker 2: revocations on the Columbian government officials and all allies and supporters.
Speaker 2: And there were a number of other sanctions and provisions
Speaker 2: here which were threatened. So in the next development, the
Speaker 2: Colombian president chimes in and offers to allow the use
Speaker 2: of his presidential plane to help repatriate deportees.
Speaker 5: From the US.
Speaker 2: So he's offering the use of his presidential plane, again
Speaker 2: underscoring that what was really objected to here was the
Speaker 2: use of military planes to know, to do these flights.
Speaker 2: There were hundreds of these during the Biden administration. It
Speaker 2: was the change to use of military planes that irked
Speaker 2: this president. Also, I think the president of hunt Ors
Speaker 2: has weighed Lula down in Brazil was upset by this.
Speaker 2: Claudius Scheinbaum, it appears, may have also rejected one of
Speaker 2: these military planes landing.
Speaker 5: So that was really kind of the beef.
Speaker 2: And then we have the next piece, which is a
Speaker 2: lengthy post from Gustavo Pedro. I won't read the whole thing,
Speaker 2: but suffice it to say that he and President Trump,
Speaker 2: Emily I would say they sort of match each other's freak. Yeah, Trump,
Speaker 2: I don't really like to This is a translation from Google.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's not entirely accurate, so do take it
Speaker 2: with a grain of salt. But he says in part Trump,
Speaker 2: I don't really like traveling in the US. It's a
Speaker 2: bit boring, but I confess there are some commendable things.
Speaker 2: I like going to the black neighborhoods of Washington, where
Speaker 2: I saw an entire fight in the US capital between
Speaker 2: Blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me,
Speaker 2: because they should join together. I confess I like Walt
Speaker 2: Whitman and Paul Simon and Nome, Johny and Miller.
Speaker 5: I don't know who Miller.
Speaker 1: Is, do you. I'm not sure what he's going for.
Speaker 5: I'm thinking not Steven Miller, probably.
Speaker 4: Oh you know what, But what if it is? What
Speaker 4: if this is his appeal to Trump.
Speaker 2: That would be that would be a real anyway. At
Speaker 2: some point, I think I believe he indicates that Trump
Speaker 2: is trying to push him out of power. He says,
Speaker 2: overthrow me president, and Americas in humanity will respond.
Speaker 4: But don't forget producer Max's favorite line, aybe one day
Speaker 4: over a glass of whiskey, which I accept despite Mike aestritus.
Speaker 2: We can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because
Speaker 2: you consider me an inferior race, and I'm not nor
Speaker 2: as any Columbia. Anyway, the TLDR of this is that
Speaker 2: he ends up also threatening retaliatory tariffs in response. That
Speaker 2: was where things stood yesterday until later in the evening,
Speaker 2: and now it looks like we have come to some
Speaker 2: sort of a resolution and put this last piece a
Speaker 2: six guys put up on the screen. This is some
Speaker 2: of the things that we get from Columbia. But in
Speaker 2: the final communication, it looks like Columbia's confirming some sort
Speaker 2: of deal has been made, notes that Columbia's foreign minister
Speaker 2: and ambassador the US will be holding high level talks,
Speaker 2: and also states Columbia's present continues to make the presidential
Speaker 2: plane available for Columbia nationals who were set to be
Speaker 2: deported to return home, and they even accepted Emily the
Speaker 2: use of the controversial military planes. So anyway, that's where
Speaker 2: everything went. Obviously, the big picture here is you know,
Speaker 2: these heads of state bumping heads and the you know,
Speaker 2: Trump administration being quite aggressive. But also I mean I
Speaker 2: just look at this, and I know that people are, oh,
Speaker 2: Trump stood up to them, and they want I mean,
Speaker 2: first of all, it's Columbia, Like, who do you think
Speaker 2: is going to win in that fight against the giant superpower?
Speaker 2: But second of all, you won what the ability to
Speaker 2: continue to do deportation flights that have been going on
Speaker 2: routinely for years and years with no incident. So sort
Speaker 2: of this like drama and fight and spectacle over really
Speaker 2: kind of nothing.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: There's also an argument.
Speaker 4: I was talking to one W. D. Rojas, who covers
Speaker 4: Central America. Yeah, well, and he was saying, the effect
Speaker 4: of this, the consequence of this might actually push Columbia
Speaker 4: closer to China.
Speaker 5: Oh absolutely right, and not just Colombia.
Speaker 1: Oh one hundred percent. And that's already a problem.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously it's the problem that Donald Trump says
Speaker 4: he's responding to in Panama. But that's I mean, this,
Speaker 4: if that's the consequence of this, which it very likely
Speaker 4: could be, that's very problematic for the Trump agenda in
Speaker 4: Central America.
Speaker 1: So we'll see.
Speaker 4: Obviously there's more to come on that, but I mean,
Speaker 4: I think there is something to the stepping back when
Speaker 4: Petro was saying, you can't treat Colombians like criminals. It
Speaker 4: goes back to I think back to those flights of
Speaker 4: Haitians that were taking place during the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: They were basically rioting to get off the planes.
Speaker 4: They so badly did not want to go back to
Speaker 4: Porta Prince that they were. You know, so I understand
Speaker 4: why the Trump administration is flying them back in handcuffs.
Speaker 4: But then you would also understand why the president, who's
Speaker 4: far left would be saying, this is causing me a
Speaker 4: problem because now I look like I'm cooperating with people
Speaker 4: who are being treated poorly, Colombians who are being treated.
Speaker 2: Poor It's just a sense of disrespect because these are
Speaker 2: by and large people who are just you know, in
Speaker 2: certain instances like in Venezuela for example, of Venezuela does
Speaker 2: not accept our deportation flights, but they're literally fleeing like
Speaker 2: the sanctions that we have imposed in the economic hardship there,
Speaker 2: so to have people shackled. The other thing is the
Speaker 2: use of the military planes. It's it's really meant to
Speaker 2: sort of provoke these fights. Like I think that Trump
Speaker 2: feels like this whole showdown really serves his the propaganda
Speaker 2: he wants to put out about we're really getting tough
Speaker 2: on immigration, and we're throwing our weight around in the
Speaker 2: world and we're not being pushed around anymore, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 2: But the reality is there's no real reason to use
Speaker 2: military planes. In fact, I looked it up, so the
Speaker 2: cost of the civilian flights that ICE charters are roughly
Speaker 2: around eight thousand, nine thousand dollars. The cost of these
Speaker 2: military flights is upward of eight hundred thousand dollars, so
Speaker 2: wildly more expensive, sparking diplomatic crises throughout you know, Central
Speaker 2: and South America. And I think the broader picture is,
Speaker 2: like you said, Emily, and Arnold Bertrand was, who we
Speaker 2: have on later in the show, is a you know,
Speaker 2: good observer of these things too.
Speaker 5: It's very late.
Speaker 2: I mean, Trump's already picked fights with Canada, Mexico, with Panama,
Speaker 2: you know, with now we've got Honduras in Brazil and
Speaker 2: obviously with Columbia, and it's kind of like over what
Speaker 2: and all of these countries individually, no one of them
Speaker 2: can hope to sort of stand up against the economic
Speaker 2: military might of the United States of America. But at
Speaker 2: some point they're going to get smart and say, but
Speaker 2: you know, we do have other alternatives at this point,
Speaker 2: like the multipolar world with bricks and with China that's
Speaker 2: already a reality. We have other patrons that we can
Speaker 2: go to and that we can become more cuzy with,
Speaker 2: and we can ourselves band together and have more strength
Speaker 2: than numbers, because individually, none of them stands a chance.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's a preview of I think that
Speaker 2: the way are going to continue to operate, and it
Speaker 2: could have really far reaching ultimate consequences if he continues
Speaker 2: to behave in this way. And again it's like for
Speaker 2: what to be able to fly these deportation flights which
Speaker 2: have been a regular occurrence for years and years, and
Speaker 2: you just provoked this incident and are now like claiming
Speaker 2: a victory just to be able to do the thing
Speaker 2: that has already been done without incident for years.
Speaker 4: You know, it's interesting because I guess one counter argument
Speaker 4: would be on the point of respect. I think what
Speaker 4: Trump is trying to say, is that he feels as
Speaker 4: though they actually are criminals because they committed a crime
Speaker 4: by crossing the border illegally. And that's sort of the baseline,
Speaker 4: like we just can all accept He's trying to say.
Speaker 4: I think if we all accept that, then we can have,
Speaker 4: you know, whatever, diplomatic negotiations.
Speaker 1: But if you won't accept that, it's a matter of respect.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: What's interesting about that is not every government in Central
Speaker 4: America has facilitated the exodus, right, like it's it's not
Speaker 4: like Mexico is a very different case study. Like Mexico
Speaker 4: actually really hasn't facilitated the exodus of people up through
Speaker 4: these cartel pathways, which is so sad to.
Speaker 1: See what it's done to those countries.
Speaker 4: And I'm not saying that Donald Trump has that in mind,
Speaker 4: like pushing back on the cartel takeover of some of
Speaker 4: these countries, which is obviously a problem in Mexico. But
Speaker 4: Cloudyer Shinbaum, for example, I mean, it's hard to connect
Speaker 4: her to actual cartel, like she's not in the pockets
Speaker 4: of cartels.
Speaker 1: There were some of that with Amlo. There was some.
Speaker 4: Speculation going back years when it came to Amlo, but
Speaker 4: they're not all in the pockets of cartels. But that said,
Speaker 4: I think there is something really important about understanding from
Speaker 4: the President's perspective that if you continue to allow people
Speaker 4: to send all of these migrants, it's just patting the
Speaker 4: pockets of the cartels that are literally taking over their territory.
Speaker 4: And that's actually helpful for negotiating because a lot of
Speaker 4: them want help with that too. And I mean, if
Speaker 4: you're pushing them closer to China, I don't know that
Speaker 4: any problem gets solved.
Speaker 2: He doesn't want to frame him as criminals in the
Speaker 2: sense of like they committed the crime of crossing the border.
Speaker 2: He routinely talks about he made up this thing, ab
Speaker 2: ouh you're emptying your mental asylums whatever, which many people
Speaker 2: have speculated He's confused between people who are seeking asylum
Speaker 2: and who were at insane asylums because there's no I mean,
Speaker 2: there's no evidence that any of these countries emptied their asylums.
Speaker 2: This isn't like some you know, burial boatlift situation from
Speaker 2: Cuba where they literally did like empty their prisons and
Speaker 2: send them to US. So I think he wants the
Speaker 2: imagery of all migrants are criminals, like hardened criminals, like
Speaker 2: committing violent crimes here in America, which we know is
Speaker 2: obviously not the truth, Like there are some who have
Speaker 2: committed crimes, but the overall crime rate is lower among
Speaker 2: both documented and undocumented immigrants the US. So in any case,
Speaker 2: I think the use of the military planes, the insistence
Speaker 2: on shackling people and treating them like they're these like hardened,
Speaker 2: like they're freaking serial killers or something like that, I
Speaker 2: do think this is this is sort of the fight
Speaker 2: and the imagery that he ultimately wants, and I think
Speaker 2: there will be a lot of that in terms of
Speaker 2: his immigration policy.
Speaker 5: Like obviously what he's.
Speaker 2: Done with his executive orders and his you know approach
Speaker 2: is already very hardline. But in addition, you know, ICE
Speaker 2: doesn't have any more resources than they did under Biden.
Speaker 2: In fact, so far, the number of deportations under Trump,
Speaker 2: it's very early days, obviously, but it's roughly the same
Speaker 2: number that Biden has been had been doing, you know,
Speaker 2: on a daily basis during his term and office as well.
Speaker 2: So what he wants, in part is this show of
Speaker 2: force to overcome the fact that you know, they don't
Speaker 2: have nearly the amount of resources to detain and deport
Speaker 2: every undocumented immigrant who.
Speaker 5: Is here in the US.
Speaker 2: So, whereas the Biden administration really wanted to kind of
Speaker 2: keep under wraps these images of deportations, ugliness and the
Speaker 2: sort of cruelty.
Speaker 5: Involved in that, Trump.
Speaker 2: Has the exact opposite motivation, which he wants to put
Speaker 2: it on display.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Biden quietly bribed Haiti into taking back flights like
Speaker 4: they didn't want anyone to know it.
Speaker 1: It was reported in like the New York Post.
Speaker 5: Biden deported more.
Speaker 2: Now, there were more migrants coming in, but Biden deported
Speaker 2: more people than Trump did during his first four year
Speaker 2: term in office.
Speaker 5: You would never know.
Speaker 2: That, both because of the way it was covered, but
Speaker 2: also because yeah, the Biden administration did that didn't serve
Speaker 2: the propaganda, you know, direction that they wanted to go.
Speaker 2: And whereas with Trump, I think you're going to see
Speaker 2: some of these you know, they're they're highlighting these ice
Speaker 2: rates that are going on already, et cetera. So I
Speaker 2: think this is part of that spectacle that he wants
Speaker 2: and he can sort of like claim this win here
Speaker 2: and also underscore his narrative of the world that these
Speaker 2: migrants are criminals, and not just in the sense of
Speaker 2: like they cross the border illegally, but they're with the cartels,
Speaker 2: or they're drug dealer, they're you know, their murders, they're violent,
Speaker 2: et cetera. That's part of what you want from imagery
Speaker 2: of people who are like, you know, shackled and treated
Speaker 2: in this way on military planes.
Speaker 4: Well, they're definitely going, I mean, and they've said that
Speaker 4: they're starting with people who are in the country illegally
Speaker 4: and have committed crimes, which is going to be an
Speaker 4: interesting thing in Chicago because right now the Chicago's a
Speaker 4: sanctuary city technically doesn't have to cooperate with ICE when
Speaker 4: they're trying to get people out of the prison or
Speaker 4: out of the jails basically. And that's now one of
Speaker 4: the things that Tom Holman, I think it was in
Speaker 4: the Wall Street Journal just this morning, is talking about,
Speaker 4: is like, if you don't let us into the jails,
Speaker 4: we're going to have a problem. Because what we're trying
Speaker 4: to do in this first couple of weeks is deport people,
Speaker 4: send people back who have committed crimes beyond just crossing
Speaker 4: the border illegally. And I think where the rubber is
Speaker 4: really going to meet the road is when the Trump
Speaker 4: administration doesn't have the optics of just flying military aged
Speaker 4: men back on military planes, which is when you look
Speaker 4: at the images at least from like a pr standpoint.
Speaker 4: As sad as it is to say, you can see
Speaker 4: what they're doing, they're actually like going specifically for military
Speaker 4: age males, the least sympathetic case.
Speaker 2: I know, in the instance of Brazil, there were families
Speaker 2: and kids on those places.
Speaker 4: Really, so the ones they're putting out the ones the
Speaker 4: administrations like.
Speaker 5: This was highlighting leading with that makes sense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so I think where the Rubb's going to
Speaker 4: meet the regis where we see them going into cities
Speaker 4: like Chicago, whatever. And you know, maybe they take the
Speaker 4: people out of the jails and they get cooperation, but
Speaker 4: then what happens, like then, what's next?
Speaker 1: How are they going to handle that? Are they going
Speaker 1: to keep going full home?
Speaker 4: And uh when it is you know, when the optics
Speaker 4: are you have news cameras with you and it's it's
Speaker 4: women and children.
Speaker 2: I mean I think that they want that. I genuinely
Speaker 2: think they want that because they believe in this like
Speaker 2: deterrent effect, right that if you put sort of like
Speaker 2: fear and cruelty on display that that will force people to.
Speaker 5: Leave, to not come in the first place.
Speaker 2: So that's part of their you know, their theory and
Speaker 2: their ideology. And the irony is if you compare the
Speaker 2: Trump administration the first time and the Biden administration in
Speaker 2: terms of the number of actual criminal like not just
Speaker 2: crossing the border, but actual criminals who were released, there
Speaker 2: were more under the Trump administration. And that makes sense
Speaker 2: because the Biden administration and the actually the Obama administration
Speaker 2: deported more than any of these people. He earned that
Speaker 2: title the deporter in chief, but they made a concerted
Speaker 2: effort to focus their deportation efforts on criminals. And if
Speaker 2: you know that that's sort of the policy of the government,
Speaker 2: then if you're not a criminal, you feel like, I'm
Speaker 2: probably okay. I need to be careful, but I'm probably okay.
Speaker 2: The Trump administration, both in the first term and it
Speaker 2: appears in this term as well, they would rather have
Speaker 2: cast a broader net because that helps to put the
Speaker 2: fear of deportation in everyone, so you don't have that
Speaker 2: sense of like, well, if I didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 2: I'm probably going to be okay. So that's part of
Speaker 2: their sort of ideologically different approach is that they actually
Speaker 2: don't laser focus on just the criminals and the Lake
Speaker 2: and Riley Act, you know, a similar thing requires people
Speaker 2: who have been you know, who have been arrested for
Speaker 2: even like something really minor like shoplifting, requires them to
Speaker 2: be detained and then prioritize for deportation. Well, again, there's
Speaker 2: only son. Ice doesn't have unlimited resources. So if you're
Speaker 2: focused on just to use like the most sympathetic like
Speaker 2: a mom who shoplifted diapers over an actual gang cartel member,
Speaker 2: you know, that is a change in prioritization that means
Speaker 2: you are going to have fewer resources to go after
Speaker 2: actually the war hardened criminals who have you know, who
Speaker 2: are undocumented. Then you know, the Trump administration wants to
Speaker 2: to sort of capture a larger number of people and
Speaker 2: a larger sort of breadth of types of migrants who
Speaker 2: have come here, some of some of them who even
Speaker 2: came here through this process set up with the bidenministration,
Speaker 2: the cp wh've won app yeah, claimed asylum and all
Speaker 2: of that as well.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's probably the most difficult thing for the
Speaker 4: Trump anddministration. And actually as much as I sadly do
Speaker 4: believe in the deterrent problem here, the deterrent effect here,
Speaker 4: because I've talked to people who work in Mexico, like immigration,
Speaker 4: at refugee centers and everything, and they say they've begged
Speaker 4: the government to do more and tell people don't come,
Speaker 4: don't come. And one of the reasons I think it's
Speaker 4: so tragic is that the Biden administration with their asylum expansion,
Speaker 4: has put a lot of people in those situations now
Speaker 4: where they get into the country, they try to start lives.
Speaker 1: Most of them have work permits, and.
Speaker 4: The Trump administration and the Biden administration, if the Trump
Speaker 4: administration takes people who are here legally through asylum expanded
Speaker 4: asylum and deports them, that's disgusting. As much as they
Speaker 4: may want to and as much as they may be
Speaker 4: men who are abusing the system and people are being
Speaker 4: used as mules, whatever, that's disgusting.
Speaker 1: They're here legally.
Speaker 4: You can you hear their asylum cases faster, and you
Speaker 4: can be more stringent and hearing their asylum cases, but
Speaker 4: they're not here illegally. The Biden administration made sure that
Speaker 4: this was they they're actually really reclassified a lot of
Speaker 4: this legal illegal immigration to legal immigration.
Speaker 1: So they're here legally, and that's now going to be one.
Speaker 4: Of the most difficult things for the Trump administration to
Speaker 4: deal with because in the last a few years, a
Speaker 4: huge proportion of the people who crossed the border, and
Speaker 4: there were a lot of people crossing the border did
Speaker 4: it through expanded asylum.
Speaker 1: So good luck with that.
Speaker 4: It's a totally different ballgame than just taking people out
Speaker 4: who the cross the border illegally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in any case, you know, the fight is
Speaker 2: I guess sort of resolved for now, but an interesting
Speaker 2: window into how things are going to go, how Trump
Speaker 2: is approaching things, how you know, he's he sort of
Speaker 2: has an interest in picking these kind of fights for
Speaker 2: show and throwing the weight of the United States government around.
Speaker 2: And so it looks like we have a resolution here
Speaker 2: with Columbia specifically, But I don't think this issue of
Speaker 2: upset and a sense of like the dignity of a
Speaker 2: whole country being threatened by the use of these military
Speaker 2: assets and the deportations and the treatment of you know,
Speaker 2: Colombians or Mexicans or you know, people from hundred Doris
Speaker 2: or whatever. I don't think that issue is going to
Speaker 2: die down because you've already had a number of other
Speaker 2: heads of state express their upset about it.
Speaker 4: Last thought, actually it's just on Petro. It reminds me
Speaker 4: a little bit going back to OMLO. Trump had a
Speaker 4: very interesting relationship with Omlo, somebody who is like a
Speaker 4: cause you know, Latin American politics are so interesting, and
Speaker 4: they confuse our binary and interesting ways, like our left
Speaker 4: right binary and interesting ways. Petro obviously is different than AMLI,
Speaker 4: although they're not entirely dissimilar. And Trump loves those relationships
Speaker 4: with other charismatic leaders. He obviously likes being able to
Speaker 4: like stomp on other countries and it flex America's power.
Speaker 4: But it is kind of interesting how he can get
Speaker 4: on the same wavelength. And you were saying that Petro's
Speaker 4: letter sort of matches the freak of Trump in terms
Speaker 4: of like incredible like.
Speaker 1: Press releases and tweets.
Speaker 4: So I don't know, I mean, maybe this is a
Speaker 4: beginning of an interesting relationship that Trump has with some
Speaker 4: of these like genuinely charismatic and interesting features leaders in
Speaker 4: Latin America.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, Columbia has long been sort of our strongest I mean,
Speaker 2: because they mostly have had these like extremely right wing
Speaker 2: governments that we you know, are very cozy.
Speaker 1: With and drug cooperation.
Speaker 2: Yes, very much though, and patrist is a real break
Speaker 2: from the typical political mold. And Columbia was a big
Speaker 2: deal when he was elected, et cetera. So in any case,
Speaker 2: very unusual to have this kind of fight between the
Speaker 2: US and Columbia, which has been a very reliable ally
Speaker 2: for US in the region. All right, let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and move to these Trump comments with regard to Israel
Speaker 2: and Gaza, which are quite disturbing. I mean also just
Speaker 2: quite overt the audio, and this is not great. He's
Speaker 2: on the plane, he gets asked about, you know, what
Speaker 2: he wants to do with regard to the Gaza. Strip
Speaker 2: good and play this and then I'll tell you on
Speaker 2: the other side if in case it's difficult to hear
Speaker 2: the audio exactly what he said, too, General.
Speaker 7: Of CC tomorrow sometime I've lived and I'd like Egypt
Speaker 7: to take people. Don't like Jordan to take me if
Speaker 7: I can. You're talking about rob million and a half people,
Speaker 7: and we just clean out that whole thing. It's you know,
Speaker 7: it's over the centuries. That said, many many conflicts, that's side.
Speaker 7: And I don't know, it's something has to.
Speaker 5: Happen, but.
Speaker 7: It's it's literally a demolition side right now. Almost everything's demolished.
Speaker 6: And people are dying there.
Speaker 7: So I'd rather get involved in some of the Arab
Speaker 7: nations and build housing at a different location where they
Speaker 7: can maybe live in peace tempywhere either could be either
Speaker 7: it could be temporarily, could be long term.
Speaker 2: So the key quote there is he says he's going
Speaker 2: to talk to General c.
Speaker 5: C IF Egypt.
Speaker 2: He says, I'd like Egypt to take people, and I'd
Speaker 2: like Jordan to take people. You're talking about a million
Speaker 2: and a half People's referring there to the entire population
Speaker 2: of the Gaza strip and we just clean out that
Speaker 2: whole thing. I mean, it's obviously brazen call for ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 2: And you know, this couples emily with comments that both
Speaker 2: he and Jared Kushner made about he kind of alluded to.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, it's a demolition site, and previously he
Speaker 2: had said when he was in the Oval office, you know,
Speaker 2: it's very interesting they have all this beautiful like you know, coastline,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 5: Kushner had talked before about.
Speaker 2: Waterfront development in Gaza, so you know, as a capitalist
Speaker 2: real estate developer, he looks at Gaza, the Gaza strip,
Speaker 2: and he sees dollar signs and says, let's just push
Speaker 2: out all the people there entirely into Egypt and Jordan.
Speaker 4: And he said, this is one of the the thing
Speaker 4: is with Trumpet's like this was the most galaxy brain
Speaker 4: like libertarians smoking pot in their dorm room approach to
Speaker 4: the problem where you're like, oh, okay, so here's all
Speaker 4: of this rubble, we need to clean it out. Using
Speaker 4: the word clean, I mean, it's like you use the
Speaker 4: word brazen. I think that's a great description. And he
Speaker 4: says towards the end of this like answer that he
Speaker 4: it could be temporary, it could be longer term, and
Speaker 4: it's like, dude, your idea is to take people off
Speaker 4: of the land that they have spilled so much blood
Speaker 4: over the years to stay on because it means something
Speaker 4: to them. The land itself is important to them. And
Speaker 4: that's the most basic takeaway from what's happened over like
Speaker 4: the decades that he references there and the many many
Speaker 4: conflicts that he references theirs, it's specifically their homeland that
Speaker 4: they care about, So.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of. It's so so you're.
Speaker 4: His realism like bumps into galaxy brain dorm room libertarianisms,
Speaker 4: like this is actually not that smart, it's missing the
Speaker 4: most basic reality of this.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm bumping into developer brain too. There's the profits
Speaker 2: to be turned here, Like I just got to get
Speaker 2: all these pesky people on, clean that out that whole thing.
Speaker 5: That's what he says.
Speaker 2: You're talking about a million and a half people, and
Speaker 2: we just clean out that whole thing. You guys might
Speaker 2: remember back kind of early after October seventh. I don't
Speaker 2: remember exactly the time frame. I want to say it
Speaker 2: was like a couple months in the Biden administration was floating, hey,
Speaker 2: why don't, hey, Egypt, why don't we just you know,
Speaker 2: open up the borders here and let Palestinians flow into
Speaker 2: the Sinai desert and set up camps for them there.
Speaker 2: And they were actively trying to like, you know, basically
Speaker 2: bribe the Egyptians into accepting this. And obviously Jordan already
Speaker 2: has a huge number of Palestinian refugees, has for years
Speaker 2: and years. The Queen of Jordan is herself Palestinian, and
Speaker 2: neither one of these countries wants to be party to
Speaker 2: ethnic cleansing, not to mention that, you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: quite would be quite a lot for Egypt, which is
Speaker 2: already in kind of economic chaos, to take people in.
Speaker 5: So they there.
Speaker 2: Was a huge backlash to that idea from a variety
Speaker 2: of sectors, and so they kind of dropped that whole thing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Trump just comes out and say's the quiet
Speaker 2: part out loud that the basic plan what he would
Speaker 2: like to see in effect here is a wholesale ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 2: We have some additional Trump news here too from Axios
Speaker 2: to put this up on the screen. So I don't
Speaker 2: know if you guys remember there was this one shipment
Speaker 2: of two thousand pound bombs that the Biden administration had
Speaker 2: like as a token withheld out of concerns for how
Speaker 2: they could be used in Rafa in particular. Now now
Speaker 2: that there is this temporary ceasefire in effect, we've gotten
Speaker 2: a better look at Rafa, And some of the Biden
Speaker 2: administration cope was like, oh, well, we constrained them in
Speaker 2: Rafa and didn't let them do what they really wanted
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 5: Wrong. Rafa is utterly destroyed.
Speaker 2: But in any case, they did put this hold on
Speaker 2: the shipment of two thousand pound bombs. And so even
Speaker 2: the sort of like token signs of upset at the
Speaker 2: way that Israel has conducted themselves in Gaza have been
Speaker 2: rolled back by Trump, not just that, but also Emily.
Speaker 2: You probably remember there were some like also token sanctions
Speaker 2: put on a handful of extremist violent settlers that the
Speaker 2: Trump administration has also now rolled back. So that is
Speaker 2: very much the direction that they're going in. We can
Speaker 2: put up Trump's truth about this this action. He says,
Speaker 2: a lot of things that were ordered and paid for
Speaker 2: by Israel but have not been sent by Biden are
Speaker 2: now on their way. So certainly no qualms here about
Speaker 2: shipping two thousand pound bombs or whatever else Israel wants.
Speaker 2: And also, just to add one more thing to this,
Speaker 2: the Trump administration issued in executive order putting a freeze
Speaker 2: on all foreign aid with the exception of Israel. Yes,
Speaker 2: no qualm there. Got to make sure that they're getting
Speaker 2: everything that they want.
Speaker 1: You know, it's about customer service, Crystal.
Speaker 5: It's right.
Speaker 2: You have to order something. You order the two thousand
Speaker 2: pound bomb, you expect to get it.
Speaker 4: You know, he's been having a lot of conversations with
Speaker 4: Jeff Bezos, who knows more about customer service than anyone,
Speaker 4: so he's prepared to fill his orders in a timely
Speaker 4: fashion with great integrity.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know they want the prime service.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, yeah, it will way be on two days
Speaker 4: at this point, so he has a lot of ground
Speaker 4: to make up for. But I mean, it's interesting to
Speaker 4: see the freak out that you and Sager covered last
Speaker 4: week about people like Dan Caldwell and others in Trump circles.
Speaker 4: They did the same thing with Albert Colby, who have
Speaker 4: somewhat heterodox realist views for the Republican Party when it
Speaker 4: comes to focusing on the Middle East versus Asia, and
Speaker 4: you have this like neo conservative hissy fit over these
Speaker 4: people with different ideas coming in, or Steve Whitcoff, for example,
Speaker 4: brokering the ceasefire deal, and then you have the sanctions
Speaker 4: being lifted and the bombs being delayed. So honestly, Trump
Speaker 4: has said some somewhat interesting things about the conflict, but
Speaker 4: we have no indication of him significantly changing course other
Speaker 4: than this eastfire deal, which no other Republican president would
Speaker 4: have been coverable with. But if it's just that, if
Speaker 4: it starts with that because he wanted the kind of
Speaker 4: optics of ending the conflict. It's just that, and it
Speaker 4: doesn't go any further than all the freak out was
Speaker 4: for nothing from the neo cons Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, not only that, but Israel has expanded their war
Speaker 2: aims to include the West Bank. And I know Ryan
Speaker 2: and Jeremy over a drop Side have been doing a
Speaker 2: great job covering that expansion, that deadly expansion in the
Speaker 2: West Bank. There's been settlers who are rampaging and also
Speaker 2: the IDEF backing up those settlers and you know, doing
Speaker 2: raids in various villages in the occupied West Bank. So
Speaker 2: one of the things that has long been speculated and
Speaker 2: that you know, has been publicly reported, this is what
Speaker 2: Maria Madison wants is for mass annexation in the West
Speaker 2: Bank to occur under this Trump administration. I think you
Speaker 2: should have every expectation that that is ultimately going to occur.
Speaker 2: Another interesting development here out of Gosam we can put
Speaker 2: this up on the screen, is so we had another
Speaker 2: hostage exchange between the Israelis and Palestinians. And as part
Speaker 2: of that, Hamas has really been coming out trying to show,
Speaker 2: like you know, it's a real show of force. Here
Speaker 2: is their propaganda video that they put out showing the
Speaker 2: latest These were actually female soldiers for female soldiers IDF
Speaker 2: soldiers who were released in this latest exchange. They you know,
Speaker 2: show them here smiling and getting goodie bags and various gifts,
Speaker 2: et cetera. But you know, again they're they're really trying
Speaker 2: to show, look, we're still here. You didn't to feed us.
Speaker 2: And by the way, Tony blancoln on his way out, said,
Speaker 2: you know, we are. Analysis is that they recruited as
Speaker 2: many new fighters as were killed during the conflict. So
Speaker 2: certainly the fantasy, which we always knew was a fantasy,
Speaker 2: that we're going to be able to thoroughly destroy Hamas
Speaker 2: through military means has been completely disproven at this point.
Speaker 2: And there again you see is the hostages, the Israeli
Speaker 2: hostages being released.
Speaker 1: They spent a little bit more time.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, it's a few.
Speaker 2: You know, if Biden hadn't withheld that shipment of two
Speaker 2: thousand pound bombs, I think that would have done that.
Speaker 4: Hamas would have been gone forever. They were so close,
Speaker 4: and you thorted it personally, it's cheerful, it's cheerful, but actually,
Speaker 4: I mean, it is such a ridiculous argument, and it's
Speaker 4: one that you're just expected to swallow whole cloth on
Speaker 4: the right or even in the center, that if Biden
Speaker 4: hadn't you know, been Truly the argument is that there's
Speaker 4: some type of like Iranian cell operating within the deep
Speaker 4: city of the American government and especially the Biden administration,
Speaker 4: and they were taking every possible maneuver to make it
Speaker 4: look like they were cooperating with Israel, but at the
Speaker 4: same time we're thwarting Israel behind the scenes. And all
Speaker 4: that you need to do is let Israel fight, Hamas
Speaker 4: will be gone. You'll let them fight the world they want,
Speaker 4: and Hamas will be gone. But it's such a it's
Speaker 4: always from the very beginning, but an absurd goal. There's
Speaker 4: no signs Hamas can be significantly they can be significantly defeated,
Speaker 4: but like fully defeated. We've clearly seen that to be like,
Speaker 4: there's no way that they're going to be able to
Speaker 4: do that.
Speaker 2: Violent resistance is going to be popular as long as
Speaker 2: there is no peaceful alternative, Hamas is not going to
Speaker 2: be defeated through Bomb's period. I mean, if this doesn't
Speaker 2: prove that to you, I don't know what could. And
Speaker 2: part of why Bibi did not ever want this bombing
Speaker 2: to stop in Gaza is because when it does, you
Speaker 2: have to reckon with that reality. And that's very difficult
Speaker 2: for him politically, because he promised these maximalist goals that
Speaker 2: Hamas would be eliminated, they would be eradicated, and obviously,
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of that, they were very successful
Speaker 2: in turning Gos into what Donald Trump describes as a
Speaker 2: demolition site, and I think accurately.
Speaker 5: So they're very successful.
Speaker 2: At killing god knows how many people, orphaning tens of
Speaker 2: thousands of children, creating mass numbers of amputees. They were
Speaker 2: very successful at those things. But in terms of the
Speaker 2: actual set out war aims, it was. This is manifestly
Speaker 2: evidence that it was a dramatic failure.
Speaker 4: And do you know who's going to be really susceptible
Speaker 4: to Islamism radical Islamism is orphans?
Speaker 2: Yeah, imagine, imagine you know, your only experience with this
Speaker 2: country is them destroying your home, murdering your parents, you know,
Speaker 2: creating all of this pain and trauma that doesn't exactly
Speaker 2: typically lead people down a path of peace and harmony.
Speaker 5: So and we know this from the past.
Speaker 2: So in addition, there were some updates with regard to
Speaker 2: this quote unquote temporary cease file fire.
Speaker 5: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: So over the weekend, the IDF was preventing Palestinians from
Speaker 2: returning home.
Speaker 5: To northern Gaza.
Speaker 2: These are, you know, people who are traveling with their belongings,
Speaker 2: trying to return to Northern Gaza. DF actually fired on
Speaker 2: some of these people and killed at least one injured
Speaker 2: a number of others. There's an update this morning that
Speaker 2: apparently this morning Palestinians are successfully returning to northern Gaza.
Speaker 5: Again.
Speaker 2: This was a key part of this phase one, part
Speaker 2: of the ceasefire deal. They were supposed to be allowed
Speaker 2: to return to northern gazas so it does look this morning,
Speaker 2: early indications are that that is actually happening. At the
Speaker 2: same time, you'll recall there was a ceasefire deal with
Speaker 2: Hesblah in Lebanon, and we can put this up on
Speaker 2: the screen. They have been completely blocking Lebanese people from
Speaker 2: returning to their villages. And this says fifteen killed, it
Speaker 2: was actually twenty two people ultimately killed by the IDF.
Speaker 2: At least one hundred and twenty wounded as the IDF
Speaker 2: fired on these Lebanese civilians who are just trying to
Speaker 2: return to their homes at the time that the ceasefire
Speaker 2: agreement stipulated that they should be allowed to.
Speaker 5: Return to their homes.
Speaker 2: So, as far as I know, that block on people
Speaker 2: returning home continues in Lebanon.
Speaker 5: The Israelis are claiming.
Speaker 2: That the Lebanese army isn't ready to take over their responsibilities.
Speaker 2: But right now, as of today, you have the Israeli
Speaker 2: army occupying a significant portion of southern Lebanon, with a
Speaker 2: lot of questions over whether they ever intend to leave.
Speaker 5: And they also continue to occupy.
Speaker 2: Portions of Syria as well, so in addition to obviously
Speaker 2: Gaza and the West Banks. So that's the current state
Speaker 2: of affairs. And there's a stunning image that came out
Speaker 2: of this confrontation between the Lebanese civilians trying to return
Speaker 2: home and the IDF. We can put this up on
Speaker 2: the screen, have this lone woman standing up to a
Speaker 2: tank and trying to I guess argue with the IDF
Speaker 2: soldiers inside, and you know, people watching on you can
Speaker 2: see people there on the road trying to return home.
Speaker 2: So and as I said before, that the idea fired
Speaker 2: on some number of these people, killing roughly twenty two
Speaker 2: and injuring over one hundred more. So both ceasefires are
Speaker 2: really kind of I mean, the Lemones cease fire they've
Speaker 2: just clearly brazenly violated. Honestly, the one in Gaza as well,
Speaker 2: they've brazenly violated in terms of the letter of what
Speaker 2: they're supposed to be doing. They're certainly not supposed to
Speaker 2: be firing on civilians. They were supposed to allow people
Speaker 2: immediately to be able to return to northern Gaza. But
Speaker 2: so both really sort of already teetering on the brink.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, absolutely, And if this Trump administration really is
Speaker 4: so unconventional and Steve W.
Speaker 1: Kofferly is just an enemy of.
Speaker 4: Israel, surprise, this comes as a surprise to the people
Speaker 4: of Gaza in the last couple of days.
Speaker 5: Yeah, very much.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get to our friend Elon Musk fresh
Speaker 2: off his your friend of course, of course, Yeah, he's
Speaker 2: not really your type.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I know, you guys are close.
Speaker 4: I don't want to it's it's stolen valor really to
Speaker 4: come in and act like you guys, go.
Speaker 2: Here fresh off his awkward gesture, his awkward Hyle Hitler
Speaker 2: esque gesture.
Speaker 4: Sager and I very much are on the other side
Speaker 4: of this one.
Speaker 5: With you ryot yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Hold on, though, I have to say even now, I
Speaker 2: mean because like after he did the he has never
Speaker 2: denied that he was trying to, like in a trollish way,
Speaker 2: do this wink wink, nod nod thing.
Speaker 1: He said he was throwing his heart to the crowd. Girl.
Speaker 1: It was the next line of a speech. It would
Speaker 1: be extraordinary.
Speaker 5: It is twice Emily.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it would be extraordinarily stupid for
Speaker 4: a man with billions and billions and bill millions of
Speaker 4: dollars on the line to go out there do a
Speaker 4: brazen Nazi.
Speaker 5: He does a lot of brazen stuff.
Speaker 1: He does a lot of Brazins stuff. He does a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff does exactly makes sense.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing that Okay, here's this. So in addition
Speaker 2: to the AfD thing we're about to show you, which
Speaker 2: I think I think bolsters my side of the case here.
Speaker 2: Any reservation I had about whether this was intentional was
Speaker 2: eliminated when first of all, he's posting on Twitter about
Speaker 2: how much a troll he is, and he was sharing
Speaker 2: that sceme of like the goose with like the thing
Speaker 2: like there, and it's like the thing I'm not supposed
Speaker 2: to do, you know that? And then he's doing that
Speaker 2: thing he's not supposed to do, and it's like you
Speaker 2: knew what you were doing, You one hundred percent knew
Speaker 2: what you were doing. And you know, to me, whether
Speaker 2: it's a quote unquote troll or whether it's like.
Speaker 5: Done in earnest.
Speaker 2: Given his politics and his support for the furthest right
Speaker 2: most reactionary forces in Europe in particular, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: that it really makes all that much of a difference.
Speaker 2: But in any case, he decided to speak again, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is the thing that a troll would do. Fresh
Speaker 2: off of this, Kyle Hitler con Germany decides to go
Speaker 2: and speak to the far right reactionary a FD party
Speaker 2: in Germany. Okay, so the scene of the crime, so
Speaker 2: to speak, and tells this assembled audience that he doesn't
Speaker 2: think that they should feel guilty for the Holocaust anymore.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen to how that went.
Speaker 6: I'm very excited for the I F T. And I
Speaker 6: think I think you are really the best hopeful Germany.
Speaker 6: I think some things that something I think that is
Speaker 6: just very important is that people take pride in Germany
Speaker 6: and being German. This is very important. It's okay to
Speaker 6: be proud to be German. This is a very important principle,
Speaker 6: and it's proud. It's okay. It's good to be proud
Speaker 6: of German culture, German values, and not to lose that
Speaker 6: in some sort of multiculturalism. That that that that deludes everything.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: I think there's like frankly, too much of a focus
Speaker 6: on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.
Speaker 6: Children should not be guilty of the sins of their
Speaker 6: parents or even let on their parents their great grandparents.
Speaker 2: So you know, be proud of German culture, don't feel
Speaker 2: guilty about the past. And I mean, whether you want
Speaker 2: to call it guilt or not, I think it is
Speaker 2: appropriate to like, the whole thing is you never want
Speaker 2: something like that to happen again, right, So to carry
Speaker 2: some emotion around that and to keep fresh the lessons
Speaker 2: and the warnings of the past, which should be lessons
Speaker 2: and warnings that all of humanity takes in, because there's
Speaker 2: nothing particularly distinct about the German people versus any other people.
Speaker 2: We're all made of the same you know, good and
Speaker 2: evil inclinations and tendencies. But yeah, I think I think
Speaker 2: we should carry that forward. And obviously these are you know,
Speaker 2: these are talking points that AfD wants to hear part
Speaker 2: and parcel of their sort of like you know, their
Speaker 2: right wing ideological positioning in Germany.
Speaker 5: But again, you know, he.
Speaker 2: Wanted to push the envelope coming off of the Heil
Speaker 2: Hitler controversy and wanted to continue to kind of flirt
Speaker 2: with this, and you know, I think does it quite
Speaker 2: successfully here.
Speaker 4: He's been flirting with AFT for a while because AFT
Speaker 4: is genuinely so it's different than the other like reactionary
Speaker 4: populist movements that have cropped up in that it came
Speaker 4: about in the like I guess maybe this was like
Speaker 4: the middle of Merkle's periods, like twenty thirteen, as this
Speaker 4: libertarian like almost mela anti government type of party, which
Speaker 4: is so different than other populist movements across Europe that
Speaker 4: are reactionary and have this blend of like cultural reactionary
Speaker 4: conservatism and then economic leftism. And so Elan has had
Speaker 4: this like magnetic interest in AfD because it's anti immigrant
Speaker 4: and also like very libertarian.
Speaker 2: Very like right wing economics. It's not like the you know,
Speaker 2: Li Pen or somebody who's like social safety net but
Speaker 2: just for the French and keep on all the immigrants
Speaker 2: kind of.
Speaker 1: A deal, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: So it's an interesting movement and it does thrive. I
Speaker 4: mean AfD does have some legitimate it's not like a
Speaker 4: smear to say that AfD has some extreme associations and
Speaker 4: that's like actually been a legitimate problem for AfD. But
Speaker 4: you know, I work for a British publication, so have
Speaker 4: a little bit of context.
Speaker 1: Like they thrive on.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like Trump in a way, that criticism
Speaker 4: of them and how bad their enemies are politically, that
Speaker 4: like Germany is having such a hard time getting on track,
Speaker 4: and AfD is able to then say we have to
Speaker 4: totally close the borders and remigrate and blah blah blah,
Speaker 4: and then the opposition is so hysterical and freaks out
Speaker 4: about it that more and more people go to AfD,
Speaker 4: and AFT keeps on growing, and so it's just this
Speaker 4: awful doom spiral that's not unfamiliar to the rest of us,
Speaker 4: and somebody needs to make Elon must stop being a
Speaker 4: diplomat because he just is not a diplomat.
Speaker 1: He is not a diplomat.
Speaker 4: But when he's in this like random unpaid advisory position
Speaker 4: for the US government, true and talking to foreign countries,
Speaker 4: it carries the weight of diplomacy. Not that it wouldn't
Speaker 4: given that he's like a zillionaire who has all of
Speaker 4: these really powerful companies and military contractory, a starlink which
Speaker 4: controls foreign conflicts and has influenced significant influence over foreign conflicts.
Speaker 4: But like he's now basically speaking on behalf of the
Speaker 4: US government.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So it's like we're just all letting it happen and.
Speaker 2: Back in characters like Tommy Robinson, who even Nigel Faraj
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, I draw the line.
Speaker 5: So yeah, there's some reporting.
Speaker 2: I'm curious what you think about this, Emily, about some
Speaker 2: upset within the Trump administration. I personally think the theories
Speaker 2: about how Trump and Elon are imminently going to have
Speaker 2: some major falling out, I just don't see it because
Speaker 2: I think that they I think they really find this
Speaker 2: to be both of them mutually beneficial.
Speaker 5: Elon is taking actually a lot of heat.
Speaker 2: His approval rating is plummeting in the US, which I'll
Speaker 2: show you momentarily. Trump's is not, and he gets to
Speaker 2: go in. And I mean, part basically why Pete Hedgsteth
Speaker 2: got confirmed last week is because Elon Musk threatened to
Speaker 2: primary Joni Ernst or anyone else who didn't fall in
Speaker 2: line and has a bajillion dollars to make that threat reality,
Speaker 2: so he doesn't even have to do it.
Speaker 5: And so for Trump, you know, Elon can.
Speaker 2: Be very effective enforcer of whatever it is that he
Speaker 2: ultimately wants to do. But put C two up on
Speaker 2: the screen. There was some there was some reporting to
Speaker 2: the indication that Trump's chief of staff Susie Wilde, who
Speaker 2: he apparently calls the ice Maiden.
Speaker 1: Did you know that? Amazing?
Speaker 4: I think she's Joe Bennett from the office Kathy Bates character.
Speaker 4: Oh really, yes, it's the Florida vibes.
Speaker 1: It's immaculate.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I'll take your word for it. That
Speaker 2: sounds that sounds correct. But in any case that she's
Speaker 2: trying to limit us direct access. One of the things
Speaker 2: that I had seen is that he is going to
Speaker 2: take office space in the old Executive Office building, which
Speaker 2: is adjacent to the West, but it is not actually
Speaker 2: in the White House, and that he wanted, actually wanted
Speaker 2: to be in the West Wing. And she was like,
Speaker 2: that's not happening. But he's still plenty close to Trump.
Speaker 5: Don't worry.
Speaker 1: Then give up your business conflicts. If you want to
Speaker 1: work in the West Wing, then divest.
Speaker 2: Why should he when Trump himself has the greatest business
Speaker 2: conflicts of you know, of old time.
Speaker 4: He formally divested. But it's that's why it's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a joke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a total incomplete Joe. I mean, Elon is
Speaker 2: one of the largest government contractors. Yeah, one of the largest,
Speaker 2: has all kinds of regulatory disputes of our a legend,
Speaker 2: labor and SEC violations and environmental violations. I mean massive, massive, massive,
Speaker 2: unimaginable conflicts of interest.
Speaker 4: But yeah, Starlink is a not insignificant part of the
Speaker 4: Ukraine War.
Speaker 5: That's that's true. Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: Obviously, the NASA contracts with SpaceX are gigantic, so I
Speaker 2: mean just massive amounts of conflicts of interest. We can
Speaker 2: put this next piece up on the screen from Politico.
Speaker 2: Trump's staff, furious after must trash's AI projects, Cleary's abused
Speaker 2: the proximity to the president. But again, this is all
Speaker 2: like staffers leaking to Politico and probably the most you know,
Speaker 2: And there's no indication that Trump is furious, just that
Speaker 2: the staff is furious, which makes sense because they, I'm sure,
Speaker 2: put a lot of work into this big announcement, getting
Speaker 2: these leaders there and doing the whole thing. This has
Speaker 2: in reference to the five alleged five hundred billion dollars
Speaker 2: Stargate investment effort, and Elon immediately goes out and is like,
Speaker 2: they don't have the money.
Speaker 4: Yep, Well because he's in an anti trust suit against
Speaker 4: Sam Altman. Right, It's like, that's to this big question
Speaker 4: about whether the Trump and Elon relationship ultimately implodes.
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I think it's they both have way
Speaker 1: too much on the line.
Speaker 4: Like again, with Trump, this is a man who, via
Speaker 4: Starlink and SpaceX, is controlling so much of the country's
Speaker 4: domestic and foreign policy one man. Yeah, so he can't
Speaker 4: really afford to blow up that relationship. Elon Musk certainly
Speaker 4: can't afford to blow up that relationship because he has
Speaker 4: now staked his entire reputation not just as a person
Speaker 4: but as a businessman on Donald Trump as a leader
Speaker 4: on Donald Trump, as a diplomat on Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: And so that's.
Speaker 4: How high the stakes are for both of them to
Speaker 4: play nice with each other. It doesn't mean that they're
Speaker 4: not going to get incredibly annoyed. I think it's more
Speaker 4: likely that Trump gets annoyed with Elon Musk than the
Speaker 4: other way around.
Speaker 5: But like those Elon seems like a pretty annoying person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he does.
Speaker 4: Those leaks are I feel like the Trump White House
Speaker 4: is either going to encourage them forever like quick and
Speaker 4: Elon's just going to have to get used to them,
Speaker 4: or if Musk is really sensitive, they're going to shut
Speaker 4: those down really quickly, and we'll find out in the
Speaker 4: next couple of months. But I mean, the relationship is
Speaker 4: just way too high stakes for either of them to bungle.
Speaker 4: And yet Elon Musk continues to now go and you like,
Speaker 4: act as a as a diplomat and make policy by tweet. Yeah,
Speaker 4: as somebody who's not like a government, who has not
Speaker 4: divested up as conflicts of interest, cannot take a paid
Speaker 4: position with the US government because he hasn't done it,
Speaker 4: but is in this position of the US government. It
Speaker 4: means the entire arrangement is completely insane. And I think
Speaker 4: Trump thinks and Trump supporters think that it's the type
Speaker 4: of thing where a hundred years you look back on
Speaker 4: and you're like, this was brilliant, This was a gilded age.
Speaker 4: You know, JP Morgan saving America because you know, someone
Speaker 4: one of the presidents asked him to. And that's a
Speaker 4: hell of a bet. That's a that's a hell of
Speaker 4: a risk, and it's one that they're in it so
Speaker 4: deep right now there's no way really out of it.
Speaker 1: You can't really dig yourself out of this hole.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, that's right.
Speaker 2: And obviously some parts of the MAGA coalition are very
Speaker 2: upset with the influence and sway of Elon, who they
Speaker 2: don't see as you know, an ideological ally of the
Speaker 2: like original MAGA view that broke out into the opinion
Speaker 2: with the h one P fight. But you know, Steve
Speaker 2: Bannon really been cooking with the with the Elon insults,
Speaker 2: calling saying that he called him evil. He said that
Speaker 2: white South Africans are the most racist people on the planet.
Speaker 2: I wonder if he agrees with me about the sigil salute.
Speaker 1: Oh that interesting, Yeasayden.
Speaker 5: But anyway, Well, I'll leave that at that.
Speaker 2: But the key quote from the piece on Politico was
Speaker 2: the problem is regarding Elon, the president doesn't have any
Speaker 2: leverage over him, and Elon gets zero. The president has
Speaker 2: no leverage because he's the richest man on the planet,
Speaker 2: he owns a major communications platform, he has his own
Speaker 2: funning base of cult support, and you know, really and
Speaker 2: also he spent more than a quarter of a billion
Speaker 2: dollars getting Trump into office. So yeah, he feels like,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do what I'm going to do and
Speaker 2: you're really not going to have any saying it. And
Speaker 2: that means like undercutting your announcement on Twitter. You're just
Speaker 2: gonna take it. And actually Trump did just take it.
Speaker 2: Let's go and play Eric if we can. Trump got
Speaker 2: asked about Elon undercutting him on the AI thing, and
Speaker 2: you know, he was very unruffled about it. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: well he hates one of the people involved, referring to
Speaker 2: Samul's and he says something funny, something very Trump like,
Speaker 2: I have certain hatreds too, So let's take a list
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 6: It bother you that Elon Musk criticized a deal that
Speaker 6: you made publicly that he said that he treated that.
Speaker 7: No, does he hates one of the people in the deals?
Speaker 4: Have him since then?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: No, well I've spoken Elon, but smoking.
Speaker 7: All of them actually people in the deal of very
Speaker 7: very smart people, but Elon one of the people. He
Speaker 7: happens toy. But I have certain hatreds of people too.
Speaker 5: I'm certain hatreds of people too.
Speaker 1: So it's so that was a classic Trump moment.
Speaker 4: I mean, just we all hate people that we do
Speaker 4: deals with, right, were adults about it, and we.
Speaker 5: Move on, move on.
Speaker 4: He does have he has some leverage over Elon mus
Speaker 4: because clearly Musk has something, he has a lot at
Speaker 4: stake in his relationship with with Trump and the US government.
Speaker 4: And that's part of the problem is that he's expecting
Speaker 4: favors in return. But Musk obviously would have so much
Speaker 4: power even if he fell out with Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I mean that's yeah.
Speaker 2: And we were talking about countries that have other places
Speaker 2: to turn, like, you know, to China, like Musk also
Speaker 2: can turn more to China. That's huge, yeah, because he
Speaker 2: has significant business relationships there and has really you know,
Speaker 2: gone on his way to cultivate I mean this was
Speaker 2: also important.
Speaker 5: You remember that whole.
Speaker 2: Spending bill fight that he and at that point Viveigue,
Speaker 2: who's now been excised from that kingdom. But in any case,
Speaker 2: that they picked over that spending bill, and one of
Speaker 2: the things that got pulled ultimately out of the spending
Speaker 2: bill was these restrictions on high tech investments in China
Speaker 2: because Musk didn't like that.
Speaker 5: So he that is.
Speaker 2: His agenda that was not originally Trump's agenda, but he
Speaker 2: was able to successfully get it through just by u
Speaker 2: using Twitter and throwing his weight around and threatening primaries
Speaker 2: in that context as well. Last piece here put C
Speaker 2: four up on the screen. So both Elon and Doge
Speaker 2: are not popular. They are really unpopular, and this Musk
Speaker 2: approval rating has dramatically fallen. I mean, Americans have sort
Speaker 2: of it's interesting, Americans have a reflexive bias against I
Speaker 2: would say appropriate so not biased in a negative way,
Speaker 2: but against billionaires as a group in general, but specific billionaires.
Speaker 2: You know, they really buy into this. Oh they must
Speaker 2: have done something great and they made a great product.
Speaker 2: They must deserve what they got, et cetera.
Speaker 5: Et cetera.
Speaker 2: And Elon had a very positive approval rating until pretty recently,
Speaker 2: and now his approval rating is roughly that of Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: So disapproved is fifty two percent, so majority approve is
Speaker 2: only thirty six percent. So you're talking about about a
Speaker 2: third of the country that is still on board with
Speaker 2: this guy.
Speaker 5: Doge also not popular.
Speaker 2: I mean, you still have a good number of people
Speaker 2: in these numbers who were like, I don't really know
Speaker 2: what that is, and I haven't made up my mind,
Speaker 2: but it's underwater by ten points. You've only got twenty
Speaker 2: nine percent who are like yes to Doge, which to me,
Speaker 2: I'm actually kind of surprised about Emily because you know,
Speaker 2: the idea of like we're going to root out fraud,
Speaker 2: Like who could be against that? But because Elin has
Speaker 2: become such a toxic figure that you know, has sort
Speaker 2: of tanked the whole Doge project in terms of public perception.
Speaker 2: And then lastly, and I think this is the big
Speaker 2: Achilles seal for the Trump administration if Democrats were able,
Speaker 2: slash willing to exploit it. Sixty percent of people think
Speaker 2: that billionaires advising the president is bad and only twelve
Speaker 2: percent say this is good. And when you compare, you know,
Speaker 2: when you pair the Musk influence with all of those
Speaker 2: guys that were behind him on the DAYA Suckerberg and
Speaker 2: Bezos and all of these people that all these billionaires,
Speaker 2: four of the five richest people on the entire planet
Speaker 2: standing behind him at the inauguration. You know again, this
Speaker 2: is this is I think a real vulnerability ultimately for Trump.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean, Trump thinks the world sees him
Speaker 4: as having co opted these CEOs and he can parade
Speaker 4: them around like trophies.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that's clear.
Speaker 4: You know, that's and sounds like what I just said
Speaker 4: is entirely obvious. But Trump thinks that people are seeing
Speaker 4: him as the conqueror of Silicon Valley as opposed to
Speaker 4: the conquered, and Silicon Valley understands that, which is why
Speaker 4: they are allowing Trump to kind of frame it that
Speaker 4: way and are being absolutely obsequious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's yeah.
Speaker 4: And Trump, on the other hand, or they, I should say,
Speaker 4: Silicon Valley, on the other hand, has all of these
Speaker 4: plans actually to conquer the US government and to get
Speaker 4: these monopolistic contracts. Actually, interestingly, one of the things that
Speaker 4: Elan is fighting Sam Altman on is the Open AI
Speaker 4: relationship with Microsoft. Elan is trying to compete in the
Speaker 4: AI space and issuing them for monopolistic practices. And he's
Speaker 4: completely right that it's a monopoly. It's a government sanctioned
Speaker 4: monopoly essentially, and our relationship it's turning into like crony
Speaker 4: capital not turning into it is crony capitalism when it
Speaker 4: comes to AI. It's a crony industrial policy that is
Speaker 4: being paraded as this like Melay esque libertarian triumph and
Speaker 4: it's nothing of the sort at all. And so the
Speaker 4: American public, when you have sixty percent saying they don't
Speaker 4: like the billionaires, Trump still thinks he has room to
Speaker 4: operate with that because it looks like he's kind of
Speaker 4: he's on the same page. He's right, like, these guys
Speaker 4: aren't running the government. I'm running these mother efforts like
Speaker 4: they're answering to us. They're answering to the US. And
Speaker 4: his thing going forward is going to be whether the
Speaker 4: public sees him as the conqueror or the conquered, and
Speaker 4: that for him is going to be a challenge to
Speaker 4: make it look like he really won because these guys
Speaker 4: are getting a hell of a lot at the end
Speaker 4: of the arrangement, and increasingly more and more and more
Speaker 4: so good luck.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, that's that's absolutely right.
Speaker 2: I mean they're already getting you know, the five hundred
Speaker 2: billion dollar star rate thing is like they're putting up
Speaker 2: the money. It's not supposed to be public funds, but
Speaker 2: just getting that big White House announcement and all that access.
Speaker 5: Trump already rolled back.
Speaker 2: There were a few like modest AI safety type of
Speaker 2: things executive orders that Biden had signed, which we need
Speaker 2: to do way more, but at least it was something.
Speaker 2: He's already rolled those back. You know, they're doing their
Speaker 2: exploration about a digital asst reserve, which is just like,
Speaker 2: to me, so disgusting because, like I said before, imagine
Speaker 2: he puts the Trump and Millenia shit coins in the
Speaker 2: digital asset reserve.
Speaker 5: That means you and me and you are all.
Speaker 2: On the hook for pumping up the price of this
Speaker 2: just total like fake invented scam and many others. Besides,
Speaker 2: if it's a digital asset reserve, it could be any
Speaker 2: number of things that are.
Speaker 5: In that and all.
Speaker 2: I mean it's basically listen, Crypto is an even more
Speaker 2: unequal marketplace than the like general economy. There are a
Speaker 2: handful like a few dozen gigantic whales that own the
Speaker 2: overwhelming bulk of crypt currencies, and so they have a problem,
Speaker 2: which is that if they sell a bunch into the market,
Speaker 2: then it completely tanks the price and they can't pull
Speaker 2: out any like real dollars out of this ponzi scheme.
Speaker 4: Theoretically, they like to talk about theoretically the democratization that
Speaker 4: comes with crypto, but that's not in practice what's happening at.
Speaker 2: All, not at all, not at all, And with these
Speaker 2: meme coins, like there's not even a theory of that really,
Speaker 2: it's just like, yeah, it's just it's just anner.
Speaker 5: It's just it's it is a pyramids.
Speaker 2: It's just can I get more people to be greater
Speaker 2: fools than me and get in after meat and pump
Speaker 2: the price up. I mean, there's not even an illusion
Speaker 2: of Like the Bitcoin, there's some illusion of like, oh,
Speaker 2: this could be used for transactions and you know, evading
Speaker 2: sanctions is the use that I personally prefer for bitcoin
Speaker 2: as like the best use case. But with these there's
Speaker 2: not even like a theory of that of it being
Speaker 2: used or useful in any way other than just like
Speaker 2: Borzen speculations. So in any case, he is doing a
Speaker 2: lot for them he is, you know, taking any sort
Speaker 2: of breaks off in terms of AI development, and also
Speaker 2: well has I mean he removed Lenakhan, so and the
Speaker 2: guy that he put in is much less signaled to
Speaker 2: be much less aggressive in terms of anti trust enforcement. So,
Speaker 2: and they're all going to get a giant tax cut,
Speaker 2: that much is for sure. So they already have gotten
Speaker 2: a lot out of the deal. And I think your
Speaker 2: way of framing it, Emily is totally correct about it's
Speaker 2: going to all come down to whether Trump is seen
Speaker 2: as like the victor or the vanquished of these billionaires, right.
Speaker 4: And you know it's not just that he I think
Speaker 4: he understands. You know, a lot of people are arguing
Speaker 4: this this sort of basic point that it looks gross
Speaker 4: to surround yourself with all of these oligarchs. But I
Speaker 4: think Trump sees that differently. His perception of it is
Speaker 4: that he looks like he's taken over the men who
Speaker 4: opposed him at every step. And it's true, like Zuckerberg
Speaker 4: is a great example of somebody who poured a lot
Speaker 4: of money into the twenty twenty election, and it wasn't
Speaker 4: with the goal of getting Donald Trump elected or getting
Speaker 4: as many.
Speaker 1: People to the polls as pop possible.
Speaker 4: It was you know, he supported Joe Biden, and here
Speaker 4: Trump has him on his dais that is inauguration. It's
Speaker 4: not just about, you know, the proximity to power. It's
Speaker 4: about saying I own you now. But the public may
Speaker 4: not see it that way going forward, for the very
Speaker 4: reason that Trump was successful in the first place, which
Speaker 4: is that people hate billionaires and Trump came out of
Speaker 4: somebody who hated other billionaires.
Speaker 2: Good luck, yeah, so true.