Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 3: Folks, we have an amazing show for you this morning.
Speaker 3: How are we doing, Crystal and Emily doing well?
Speaker 2: Ryan is I think en route to Cuba is the idea,
Speaker 2: So just us this morning.
Speaker 3: Ryan is pursuing regime change in Cuba.
Speaker 2: I think Emily said he's going to be installed by
Speaker 2: the CIA.
Speaker 4: We don't know that he won't.
Speaker 2: It's that's true, that is true. We have no evidence
Speaker 2: that he will not be installed as the new Cuban
Speaker 2: puppet dictator of the United States.
Speaker 3: So waiting Comrad Groom, he stopped in Miami to pick
Speaker 3: up some ex pats. He picked up Clovicular. Now they're
Speaker 3: heading over to Cuba. That's exciting. We also have some
Speaker 3: other housekeeping. Sager later today is interviewing former counter terrorism
Speaker 3: official Joe Kent, so stay tuned for that. Between the
Speaker 3: two of them, we've never gotten closer to a host
Speaker 3: being arrested, sort of a Don Lemon style situation. So
Speaker 3: I'm very excited for all that. But we've got a
Speaker 3: big show today.
Speaker 2: You know, you did just inspire a thought though, Griffin,
Speaker 2: how amazing would a Ryan Clovicular interview actually be.
Speaker 3: Really really good?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean I feel like that would be groundbreaking. I
Speaker 2: don't know. Did you guys just see that Andrew Callahan.
Speaker 2: I know you did because I sent it to the
Speaker 2: chat Is moment.
Speaker 4: Yes, you saw it.
Speaker 6: I also saw the moment where he met his biggest
Speaker 6: supporter on kick because you sent it.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. That was really that was honestly just
Speaker 2: kind of heartbreaking, sad all the way around, as Clovicular
Speaker 2: off and is in my opinion, but the moment with
Speaker 2: Callahan where he's Cliviguilar's like, there's really nothing you would
Speaker 2: change about your face when you look in the mirror
Speaker 2: and Callahan just like leans back, crosses his legs and
Speaker 2: he's like, no, not a thing. Clar crashes out Major
Speaker 2: Cortisol spike and ends a interview. It's kind of extraordinary.
Speaker 2: Male self confidence is his kryptonite.
Speaker 3: Good point, which I think is also I think I
Speaker 3: think Ryan would destroy him. Then, yeahs as someone who's
Speaker 3: tried to upgrade Ryan's appearance, myself and he and you know,
Speaker 3: hit a wall there.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you try to look Smack got shut.
Speaker 4: Down the time he told you to fix his hair
Speaker 4: and he just went.
Speaker 3: But folks, let's get to some far more serious topics here.
Speaker 3: We have a lot going on in the show today.
Speaker 3: We have updates on possible ground deployment on or near
Speaker 3: the Iranian border with US troops. We've got some oil updates,
Speaker 3: and we've got some potential contradictions between what Hegseth heard
Speaker 3: from the fallen Soldiers family and what Hegseeth has been saying.
Speaker 3: And then we also have David Soota coming on to
Speaker 3: tell us a little bit more about the updates or
Speaker 3: the Phase two of the master plan, so we're excited
Speaker 3: to speak to him.
Speaker 7: Plus ye bunch.
Speaker 2: More focused on the unitary executive, like basically the way
Speaker 2: that previous administrations over decades and previous operatives over decades
Speaker 2: have turned the presidency into effectively a monarchy, just in
Speaker 2: time for Trump to come in and want to be
Speaker 2: king and have the powers.
Speaker 4: To do so.
Speaker 3: Really great timing there. But let's start with our friend
Speaker 3: Benjamin Netanyah, who Israeli Prime Minister Netanyah, who says can't
Speaker 3: do a revolution in Iran from the air, there needs
Speaker 3: to be a ground component as well. He says there
Speaker 3: are many possibilities for a ground component, but won't share
Speaker 3: what they are.
Speaker 7: What do we make of it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's certainly looks like that's the direction we're heading in,
Speaker 2: and we can talk about some additional reporting about you know,
Speaker 2: it's really coming down to the straight upfoe moves. It's
Speaker 2: also we now have the Huthis onsar a LA who
Speaker 2: are saying they are going to join the fight, which
Speaker 2: means that one of the alternative pathways for oil will
Speaker 2: potentially also be shut down because they successfully shut down
Speaker 2: that pathway previously just using you know, drones and menacing
Speaker 2: ships in the area. So you know, at this point,
Speaker 2: I think what Manyao is acknowledging here is that he
Speaker 2: has helped to get the US to a point where
Speaker 2: there is going to be no more significant strategic success
Speaker 2: without some ground troop component, which he's happy to see
Speaker 2: our service members go in and fight and get slaughtered,
Speaker 2: and US to be weakened in the region well, along
Speaker 2: with of course Iran and the GCC member states being
Speaker 2: weakened as well. And you know, I'm always very clear
Speaker 2: that ultimately this is all Trump's fault. He's the one
Speaker 2: who ultimately decided to go in. You know, I think
Speaker 2: a lot of the reporting about, oh, they have different
Speaker 2: aims and maybe there's going to be a blow up,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. I put that in the same category
Speaker 2: as the repeated leaks to Barack Ravine during the Biden
Speaker 2: the Brandon administration, where it was always very upset with
Speaker 2: net Yahoo blah blah blah. I think they're similarly absurd
Speaker 2: that there's some significant break coming between the Trump regime
Speaker 2: and the net Yahoo regime. But you know, one other
Speaker 2: thing that I'll mention here is in Netanyahu's comments, which
Speaker 2: we're going to place some mothers of that are very
Speaker 2: interesting that I want to hear Emily's take on for
Speaker 2: you in a moment, but he did a classic thing
Speaker 2: of in English. He was like, this thing could be
Speaker 2: over really quickly, I think in response to a question
Speaker 2: from Richard Engel, He's like, this could be over a
Speaker 2: lot quicker than people think. And then in Hebrew to
Speaker 2: the Israelis is like, this is going to go as
Speaker 2: along as long as it needs to go. We're going
Speaker 2: to be in here as long as we need to
Speaker 2: be there. So, you know, very different messages to the
Speaker 2: English speaking world versus the domestic audience in Israel.
Speaker 6: And I think the two things that seem right now
Speaker 6: fundamental things that seem to have been totally what's the
Speaker 6: right word here, like I don't want to use the
Speaker 6: word that's too generous, but seem to have been underestimated
Speaker 6: on behalf of the United States.
Speaker 4: Is the strait of her moves and.
Speaker 6: The what Iran would do, how far they would go
Speaker 6: with the strade of her moves, and the ability of
Speaker 6: anti regime coalition forces on the ground in Iran to
Speaker 6: stage some type of revolution. And that's where you do airstrikes.
Speaker 6: You see the presence saying this is for the freedom
Speaker 6: of the Iranian people. We now know that they were
Speaker 6: overly confident about what would happen in the strait of
Speaker 6: her moves, and with those two puzzle pieces being.
Speaker 4: Clearly I mean the administration.
Speaker 6: They probably weren't a hundred percent certain about either of them,
Speaker 6: but clearly they thought the likelihood that they would be
Speaker 6: able to have a revolution, They would be able to
Speaker 6: create the conditions for a revolution that would topple the
Speaker 6: regime if they kill the Iyatola and struck all of
Speaker 6: these different places and created chaos. These Raelis obviously have
Speaker 6: a different take on that than our government. But if
Speaker 6: you have those two pieces wrong, you can see how
Speaker 6: you start getting closer and closer to ground troops, which
Speaker 6: is exactly what people were saying, exactly what we were
Speaker 6: saying on this show. It becomes a spiral, and that's
Speaker 6: so easy for it to happen. But when you have
Speaker 6: those two puzzle pieces being incorrect, that's how you get
Speaker 6: ground troops. It's exactly the recipe that people predicted.
Speaker 2: It is the escalation trap, as Professor Pape has laid
Speaker 2: out for us multiple times on our show, where now
Speaker 2: the only way that Trump could actually end this war
Speaker 2: at this point would be not only for him to
Speaker 2: walk away, but for there to be significant concessions given
Speaker 2: to Iran. I mean, he would have to not only
Speaker 2: walk away, but walk away with his tail between his
Speaker 2: legs saying what would you like to make you feel
Speaker 2: safe and secure? Iranian government that is still firmly in
Speaker 2: place and now also is directly controlling who comes and
Speaker 2: goes from the Strait of Hormuz. So it's you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, he's in a he has created an absolute
Speaker 2: mess for himself, and you know, here's some of the indications.
Speaker 2: This is again Rock Ravine Mark Capudo about what is
Speaker 2: being considered Trumpmull's risky carg Island takeover to force Iron
Speaker 2: to open straight. We also have news that more marines
Speaker 2: are being rushed to the region. There's expected to be
Speaker 2: some overlap between this new deployment of marines and the
Speaker 2: marines that have already been rushed into the region, so
Speaker 2: that seems like it could be, you know, leading to
Speaker 2: some sort of boots on the ground. I did see Emily,
Speaker 2: do you remember who it was or Griffin, do you
Speaker 2: remember who it was? One of the Republican senators who
Speaker 2: was like, well, if the boots are only on an island.
Speaker 2: That's not the same as boots on the ground in
Speaker 2: like mainland or on. I liked that definition of boots
Speaker 2: on the ground. Yeah, I wish I could remember who
Speaker 2: it was, but in any case, revied reporting. Here the
Speaker 2: Trump administration considering plans to occupy your blockade Aron's carg
Speaker 2: Island to Iran to reopen the straight of horror.
Speaker 8: MOUs.
Speaker 2: Let me also show you this US warplanes and helicopters
Speaker 2: is from the Wall Street Journal kickoff battle to reopen Hormuves.
Speaker 2: So this battle has already started now. USNS allies have
Speaker 2: intensified the battle to reopen the Strait of Hormuves, sending
Speaker 2: low flying attack jets over the sea lanes to blast
Speaker 2: Iranian naval vessels, and Apache helicopters to shoot down Iran's
Speaker 2: deadly drones. According to American military officials, the stepped up
Speaker 2: operation is part of a multi stage Pentagon plan to
Speaker 2: reduce the danger from Irani in arm boats, mines, and
Speaker 2: cruise missiles which have halted ship traffic through the waterway.
Speaker 2: Not exactly Iran is getting the ships through that they
Speaker 2: want to get through, but in any case, if the
Speaker 2: danger can be reduced, the US could send US warships
Speaker 2: through the straight and eventually escort vehicles in and out
Speaker 2: of the Persian Gulf, but it will still likely take
Speaker 2: weeks for the US to clear out Iran's web of
Speaker 2: assets that have harassed traffic through a chow point for
Speaker 2: twenty percent of the world's oil experts in a large
Speaker 2: amount of commercial shipping traffic. And there is is a
Speaker 2: quote in here they're using these A ten wart hogs
Speaker 2: extensively in this operation, apparently for the military people out there,
Speaker 2: to whom that means something. And there is a quote
Speaker 2: in here where someone an analyst, as military analyst, says, look,
Speaker 2: even here it is lowering the threat to the point
Speaker 2: where ships can resume transiting the strait is doable, but
Speaker 2: it takes time, and you are probably never going to
Speaker 2: get to one hundred percent. We could reach a stage
Speaker 2: where we're getting ships through and they could still get
Speaker 2: a lucky shot. So that is the landscape. At this point.
Speaker 2: You know, the battle has already joined, they have already escalated.
Speaker 2: They're now trying to restore control over the strait of hormones.
Speaker 2: The ability of our ships and our ally ships to
Speaker 2: be able to pass through and it will take a
Speaker 2: lot of time, it will be very risky and very dangerous.
Speaker 2: And even after all of that work, even in the
Speaker 2: most optimistic scenario, you are still going to have the
Speaker 2: possibility of an Iranian drone coming in and lowing something up,
Speaker 2: with DEVI stating consequences for you know, for lives and treasure.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: I saw an update this morning that the death toll
Speaker 6: right now in Lebanon is around one thousand, and Iran
Speaker 6: is around thirteen hundred. And I don't know the breakdown,
Speaker 6: first of all, I mean it's I don't know how
Speaker 6: confident we are in those numbers or the reports are
Speaker 6: in those numbers. But and I don't know what the
Speaker 6: breakdown is of civilians to militants. That's two thousand already
Speaker 6: in this war. That's two thousand. I mean, we're double
Speaker 6: digits of Americans. That's two thousand people just in the
Speaker 6: time span of a couple of weeks. And just we're
Speaker 6: so numb to people being bodies in the Middle East,
Speaker 6: in particular in the Middle East, that's especially after Gaza.
Speaker 6: But that's that's it's hard for me to believe how
Speaker 6: little conversation there is about how much death there's already been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and we had a major incident yesterday as well.
Speaker 2: I can put this up on the screen, where an
Speaker 2: F thirty five aircraft was apparently struck by the Iranians.
Speaker 2: This marks first, This is an extraordinary This is like
Speaker 2: the highest tech of our high tech fighter jets. It's
Speaker 2: supposed to be stealth. The fact that they were able
Speaker 2: to hit this plane, this jet was apparently very significant,
Speaker 2: says US. F thirty five aircraft makes emergency landing after
Speaker 2: combat mission over Iran. By the way, there is some
Speaker 2: I think appropriate skepticism about exactly the story that we're
Speaker 2: being told here that the F thirty five fighter jet
Speaker 2: landed safely and the pilot is in stable condition. I
Speaker 2: have seen some conjecture they haven't said where or who
Speaker 2: or any of the specifics, so there is some conjecture
Speaker 2: over whether that part of this is true or not.
Speaker 2: I also saw some conjecture that another F thirty five
Speaker 2: may have also been been struck, but this is all
Speaker 2: still very unconfirmed. What we do know is that Iran
Speaker 2: was at least able to hit this one jet, and
Speaker 2: the Iranians release some of the footage that they purported
Speaker 2: to be from that takedown. They said. An F thirty
Speaker 2: five fighter jet from the US has made an emergency
Speaker 2: landing at n air Base in the Middle East after
Speaker 2: carrying out a combat mission over Iran. Aircraft landed safely.
Speaker 2: Pilot is in stable condition. We are aware of reports
Speaker 2: that a US F thirty five aircraft conducted emergency landing
Speaker 2: at a regional US air base after flying a combat
Speaker 2: mission over i Run. Aircraft landed safely. Incident is under investigation.
Speaker 2: CNN reported two anonymous sources saying the plane, which costs
Speaker 2: up to one hundred million dollars, was likely hit by Iran.
Speaker 2: So the fact that they can take shots at these things, this,
Speaker 2: according to the military analysts, is very significant because it
Speaker 2: makes it much more dangerous for the US to just
Speaker 2: fly these sorties over Iran because now you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: they have a capability. We did not know that they had,
Speaker 2: so now we have to plan for that, and that
Speaker 2: isn't you know, that is a very clear risk for
Speaker 2: these pilots who are involved. We've already had a number
Speaker 2: of other aircraft, American aircraft I saw, you know, upwards
Speaker 2: of somewhere around sixteen that have been damaged or destroyed
Speaker 2: in a variety of circumstances. Some of the circumstances I
Speaker 2: continue to believe we're not getting the accurate story about,
Speaker 2: including the three that just plummeted from the sky and
Speaker 2: they're like, h oops, friendly fire. We didn't know, you know,
Speaker 2: something happened. The refueling one is also big question marks
Speaker 2: there too.
Speaker 3: They said it was like it wasn't offensive or defensive,
Speaker 3: it was like a neutral error that those three planes
Speaker 3: went down. Is this like the ghost of Kuwaid or
Speaker 3: something like, I'm not really sure what's happening.
Speaker 2: One of the theories. One of the theories again unconfirmed,
Speaker 2: but listen, I mean, we just can't believe anything this
Speaker 2: government says. At this point. We'll tell you about some
Speaker 2: of the just insanely basic things that Pete Hegseth is
Speaker 2: out here lying about in a moment. But in any case,
Speaker 2: one of the theories is that it was actually like
Speaker 2: a GCC allied pilot that went rogue, a Kuwaiting pilot
Speaker 2: in particular and intentionally shot down are fighter jets. That's
Speaker 2: one of the theories to me, that's much more plausible
Speaker 2: at least than the idea like Oopsie's we just had
Speaker 2: some sort of an unspecified incident, and all three of
Speaker 2: these happened to you know, crash to the ground in
Speaker 2: the same day.
Speaker 4: Definitely doesn't make sense. No, definitely does not sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this reporter from Newsmax shared some about the
Speaker 3: accelerated deployment of the Marines and sailors heading to the
Speaker 3: Middle East. Four officials tell Newsmas the Boxer Amphibious Ready
Speaker 3: Group and the embarked eleventh Marine Expeditionary Units deploying ahead
Speaker 3: of schedule. There are roughly twenty five hundred Marines four
Speaker 3: thousand total service members seemingly to potentially take or blockade
Speaker 3: this carg Island area, which essentially, you know, seems strategically
Speaker 3: kind of like a killbox for.
Speaker 7: These US soldiers.
Speaker 3: Additionally, we have some sought here from Scott Besson talking
Speaker 3: about his ideas for carg Island.
Speaker 7: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: There's laser focus on it.
Speaker 8: As I said, there was a bombing campaign last week
Speaker 8: a military at Caragio and were destroyed. And the other
Speaker 8: thing I can tell you, if you're an oil worker,
Speaker 8: you don't want to work there. So all the oil
Speaker 8: workers that are being coerced to stay there and you know,
Speaker 8: we will see what happens with whether that eventually becomes
Speaker 8: a US.
Speaker 3: All right, so it could eventually become a US asset,
Speaker 3: maybe the fifty first state.
Speaker 7: You never know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And this is all amidst the fact that they
Speaker 3: tried to get other countries to come into the straight
Speaker 3: up our moves to provide back up. They're all like, actually,
Speaker 3: we're going to hard pass on that. So I guess
Speaker 3: now we're like, okay, we'll just dump all of our
Speaker 3: service men in there, see how that goes well.
Speaker 4: And I was I was watching a BBC report last night.
Speaker 6: This probably sounds obvious to many people, but Iran has
Speaker 6: prepared for these possibilities for a long time, and they
Speaker 6: have other ports that aren't just going to that. Carg
Speaker 6: Island is not going to US. Takeover of Carg Island
Speaker 6: is not going to prevent so prevent them from using So.
Speaker 4: It's just it does look like escalation spiral.
Speaker 6: It does look like Trump might have some excuse to
Speaker 6: say this limited operation.
Speaker 4: Just like Crystal said, it's not boots.
Speaker 6: On the ground and the boots on the island as
Speaker 6: though the island doesn't soil. And then from there your
Speaker 6: your boots on the ground. That's we all know how
Speaker 6: that goes. We've all seen how that has gone over
Speaker 6: the last twenty years.
Speaker 2: Well, and first from speaking of Professor Pape, you know
Speaker 2: what he warns is, first of all, we were taking
Speaker 2: a look at the geography of this area of these
Speaker 2: Sheer cliffs. To Emily's point, you know, the Iranians been
Speaker 2: gaming this out for literally decades thinking about this. They
Speaker 2: also learned a lot, well, they learned a lot from
Speaker 2: the Iran Iraq War, which we of course were you know,
Speaker 2: backing I rock in. And then we've learned a lot
Speaker 2: more recently from the Twelve Day War. And some of
Speaker 2: the speculation I've seen is actually this capacity to take
Speaker 2: down our F thirty five fighter jets or potentially take
Speaker 2: them down, was developed after the Twelve Day War. So
Speaker 2: that tells you they haven't just been sitting there like
Speaker 2: I'm sure this diplomacy with Jared Kushner and Steve Wicoff's
Speaker 2: gonna work out this time. No, they were clear eyed.
Speaker 2: They knew that this was very likely, if not, you know, inevitable,
Speaker 2: and they've been thinking about how exactly to prepare. So
Speaker 2: taking carg Island is one thing maybe you can. You
Speaker 2: could probably accomplish that, you know, with the US military
Speaker 2: come in full force, bomb a bunch of shit, you know,
Speaker 2: kill a bunch of kill a bunch of people, and
Speaker 2: probably some of our service members die as well. But
Speaker 2: then you also have to hold Carg Island and it's
Speaker 2: you know, very close to the Iranian mainland. Would not
Speaker 2: be hard for shaw He drones which had been apparently
Speaker 2: you know, been able to fly. It will basically wherever
Speaker 2: they want, damage whatever they want throughout this throughout this war.
Speaker 2: So you are in a very very difficult position. And
Speaker 2: now what Now you're entrenched on Carg Island and you
Speaker 2: know where you're gonna Now we're staying there forever. We're
Speaker 2: claiming this is a US asset. Not clear that that's
Speaker 2: going to certainly not going to topple the regime. As
Speaker 2: Griff and emilyin both of you guys are pointing out,
Speaker 2: they have other options which again they they developed partly
Speaker 2: during the Iran Iraq War. Actually, they it will definitely
Speaker 2: be damaging to their economic prospects, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 2: But again there this is existential for them, so they're
Speaker 2: willing to take a lot more pain, and because we
Speaker 2: hold carg Island also does not mean that we've cleared
Speaker 2: up the problems with the Straight of Horror moves, which
Speaker 2: is a separate and independent issue. It may help, but
Speaker 2: it's not going to solve that problem. So now a
Speaker 2: lot of the war focus is around this new problem
Speaker 2: that has been created in the war, where victory is
Speaker 2: effectively being defined as just getting back to some semblance
Speaker 2: of the pre war status quo. Though even if you're
Speaker 2: able through some you know, miraculous feed and ironie collat
Speaker 2: military class whatever to reopen the Straight of Horror moves,
Speaker 2: you have still created a situation where you have a
Speaker 2: more hardline government in place in Iran which is much
Speaker 2: more likely to pursue nuclear weapons and much less likely
Speaker 2: to engage in the future in any sort of diplomacy
Speaker 2: with you. And that is just sort of done and
Speaker 2: baked in at this point, which is part of why
Speaker 2: this escalation is very likely to continue. Because let's say
Speaker 2: there is some miraculous off ramp that has achieved right now,
Speaker 2: the Iranians rationally may very well begin pursuing a nuclear
Speaker 2: weapon or moving again in that direction, and Israel will
Speaker 2: be right here back in DC you know, Natannalhu himself
Speaker 2: and all of his allies saying you're not gonna let
Speaker 2: this happen. You said there can be no nuclear Iran.
Speaker 2: You can't let this happen on your watch, and we
Speaker 2: will be right back here all over again. So it
Speaker 2: is a very very grim landscape in front of us.
Speaker 6: Yes, and it's sadly going everything that you just laid out, Chrysal.
Speaker 6: I was struck by how this is what people were
Speaker 6: talking about the likelihood of this happening, exactly what we're seeing,
Speaker 6: Like the outline of this is exactly what people were
Speaker 6: warning was going to happen and being called pannikins or
Speaker 6: whatever else. But like just three weeks ago, it was
Speaker 6: fairly clear that unless Trump did a quick cut and
Speaker 6: run midnight hammer thing, which he was not indicating, is
Speaker 6: what he would do. Obviously this was something at a
Speaker 6: larger scale. This exact pattern, pattern is probably the right word,
Speaker 6: is what would reveal itself over the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 6: And I don't think it gives anyone pleasure to be
Speaker 6: right about that, but it's so it's going so closely
Speaker 6: to the script.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Yeah, everyone to know, Yeah, go ahead, can you
Speaker 2: cueue up the one where he's talking about number one
Speaker 2: state sponsor of terrorism and of course, yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 2: got that ready to go for us.
Speaker 3: So we got Pete Hegseth here talking about a little
Speaker 3: bit of the of the funding of the Iranian country.
Speaker 7: Let's take a listen here.
Speaker 9: That's why you had millions of Iranians protesting because they
Speaker 9: felt like their condition, quality of life did and match
Speaker 9: what it could be or should be, and what was.
Speaker 4: The Iranian state.
Speaker 9: There's a reason we come call Iran the number one
Speaker 9: state sponsor of terrorism because they took the money they
Speaker 9: make and they invested in tunnels, and they invested in missiles,
Speaker 9: and they invested in launchers and UAB two hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 9: I think that number could move. Obviously, it takes uh
Speaker 9: it takes money to kill bad guys. So going back
Speaker 9: to Congress and folks there to ensure that we're properly
Speaker 9: funded for what's been done, for what we may have
Speaker 9: to do in the future.
Speaker 2: Incredible in what we may have to do.
Speaker 6: Ye billion dollars. That tells you what they think is coming.
Speaker 6: That's exactly that. That is your indication they are preparing
Speaker 6: for a long drawn, drawn out war. At this point,
Speaker 6: they're asking Congress right now for an additional two hundred
Speaker 6: billion dollars.
Speaker 2: Yes, and isn't I think I saw some stats yesterday
Speaker 2: that's more than we sent to Ukraine in four years
Speaker 2: of that war. Just for perspective, like, this is a
Speaker 2: massive amount of money, and he says that that number
Speaker 2: could move. It's not moving down. The only direction it's
Speaker 2: gonna move is up. I actually saw Lauren Bobert this
Speaker 2: morning saying that she's a no on the additional war funding,
Speaker 2: so you know, she then got further pressed, oh, well
Speaker 2: do you you know, do you think that this war
Speaker 2: should continue? And she's like, that's up to Trump. So
Speaker 2: she kind of differs on that point, but at least
Speaker 2: as saying two hundred billion dollars, I don't think I'm
Speaker 2: voting for that. But the lack of self awareness here
Speaker 2: of Hegseth within minutes of each other, saying that the
Speaker 2: reason Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrors
Speaker 2: because they take their money and they spend it on missiles,
Speaker 2: and then moments later asking Congress for two hundred billion
Speaker 2: dollars for missiles, taking our money and spending on missiles
Speaker 2: for starting World War three and bombing little girls in
Speaker 2: grade school pretty and you know, the American public is
Speaker 2: so propagandized that I think most people won't even won't
Speaker 2: even really notice that. It's like it's it's it's different
Speaker 2: when we're on to us it than when we do it.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not the same when they do it.
Speaker 2: But you know, that is the reality of what our
Speaker 2: state is becoming. They're asking for one point five trillion
Speaker 2: dollar defense buddy, they already have one trillion dollar defense budget,
Speaker 2: and now you're coming back and asking for two hundred
Speaker 2: billion dollars more for a war that we're told has
Speaker 2: already been a glorious victory. Trump told us we already
Speaker 2: won this thing. This little excursion just so insane, and
Speaker 2: you can only imagine what good could actually be done
Speaker 2: with that money.
Speaker 6: Instead, I just want to say, I just pulled this up, Crystal.
Speaker 6: This is astounding so as according to the Council for
Speaker 6: Foreign Relations Counsole Foreign Relations, as of December thirty one,
Speaker 6: twenty twenty five, the US Congress has made available one
Speaker 6: hundred and eighty eight billion dollars in spending related to
Speaker 6: the war in Ukraine. According to the US Special Inspector
Speaker 6: General for Operation Atlantic Results. So think about that. Think
Speaker 6: about that everyone, over several years of war in Ukraine,
Speaker 6: one hundred and eighty eight billion, which is a lot
Speaker 6: of money, by the way, already a lot of money.
Speaker 6: We are two three weeks into I guess three weeks
Speaker 6: now into this war in Iran, and they're asking for
Speaker 6: two hundred billion dollars from Congress.
Speaker 4: However, a war, I mean again.
Speaker 6: Donald Trump said he would end the war in Ukraine's
Speaker 6: end the war in Gaza, but he said he would
Speaker 6: not start new wars, not start new wars. And this
Speaker 6: entire question of whether there was an imminent threat, we're
Speaker 6: playing semantics with it right now. But I think everybody
Speaker 6: understands because the Secretary of State and the Speaker of
Speaker 6: the House came out and said it. When the war
Speaker 6: started was nudged, at least the timeline was nudged by
Speaker 6: the Israelis.
Speaker 4: And I agree with Crystal.
Speaker 6: I think our government has plenty of agency if that's
Speaker 6: the case. We chose, we still made our decision. But
Speaker 6: the question of whether this is a war of choice
Speaker 6: or necessity has pretty much been answered, And two hundred
Speaker 6: billion dollars two hundred billion dollar requests three weeks into it.
Speaker 3: Speaking of he said, having a hard time selling this war.
Speaker 3: We have a clip here where he did a little
Speaker 3: story from his son on why we have to keep
Speaker 3: fighting this war.
Speaker 9: My thirteen year old son popped into my office last
Speaker 9: night while I was editing these remarks. He asked about
Speaker 9: the war and the families I met at and I
Speaker 9: looked at him and I said, they died for you,
Speaker 9: so that your generation doesn't have to deal with a
Speaker 9: nuclear Iran.
Speaker 5: True.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So the families who said finished this, we will,
Speaker 9: and I say the same to every American who wants
Speaker 9: peace through.
Speaker 7: All right.
Speaker 3: So the families, they of the fallen soldiers, they told Pete,
Speaker 3: you know what it's worth it, Let's finish the finished
Speaker 3: the damn job. Except some of the families are disputing
Speaker 3: that conversation. Father of service member kill and I Iran
Speaker 3: war said he never told Pete. Hegseth to finish the job.
Speaker 3: They go on to say in this article that they
Speaker 3: are just a little confused and unsure, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: then these are patriotic families, right, so you know these
Speaker 3: are this is not something that they want to believe
Speaker 3: that their son or daughter, you know, died for a reason,
Speaker 3: but they're just they just are not sure. And that
Speaker 3: was the conversations in this report that they were asking
Speaker 3: Pete about, I hope this.
Speaker 2: Is worth it just so senseless. And we actually had
Speaker 2: a video of another parents have fallen service member saying,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm actively wanting the war to stop, So
Speaker 2: to lie about something like this to me is just
Speaker 2: so incredibly low. Like to use these service members' families
Speaker 2: and then to put words in their mouths so that
Speaker 2: you can use them like a little puppet, you know,
Speaker 2: to get your talking points across, is so disgusting to me.
Speaker 2: Not to mention obviously the story with his own son
Speaker 2: is completely and totally fake. And even if it's not fake,
Speaker 2: I am driven completely insane by the gas lighting here
Speaker 2: about the timeline, let us not forget it was the
Speaker 2: first Trump administration that tore up the Imanian nuclear deal
Speaker 2: that was working, and it was this Trump administration that
Speaker 2: twice used diplomatic negotiations as a ruse to attack and
Speaker 2: start a war with a run in that second set
Speaker 2: of negotiations. We now have multiple people who are involved,
Speaker 2: we have the omanis, we actually have one of the
Speaker 2: British officials involved who said this, there were incredible concessions
Speaker 2: made here. This was a deal that was workable, that
Speaker 2: went beyond if you were concerned that the original deal
Speaker 2: with Obama wasn't strong enough, it went beyond that. And
Speaker 2: they didn't even bother these clowns to send negotiators that
Speaker 2: even understood what was being discussed. So to him, for
Speaker 2: him to say, oh, we're doing the work to keep
Speaker 2: Iran from getting a nuclear weapon to make the world
Speaker 2: safe for our children, what total and complete bullshit you
Speaker 2: have made it more likely that Iran, and by the way,
Speaker 2: a whole host of other countries around the world, pursue
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons because that is ultimately the only deterrence that
Speaker 2: may work to keep us from coming in and bombing
Speaker 2: their countries and murdering their children and their heads of state.
Speaker 3: And those also cut a bunch of the energy and
Speaker 3: nuclear scientists that would have been able to analyze and
Speaker 3: create like a new framework or a new deal for us.
Speaker 7: So thank you big balls for that as well. Emily,
Speaker 7: what were you saying.
Speaker 6: Well, I just said the idea that Iran's that you're
Speaker 6: going to stop Iran from wanting a nuclear weapon. So
Speaker 6: long as Israel has nuclear weapons, it's just not happening.
Speaker 6: And like that, that is just in the Middle East.
Speaker 6: There are multiple countries with nuclear capacity. So if you're Iran,
Speaker 6: you can't bomb away the sentiment that they want to
Speaker 6: be they want to have a nuclear weapon capacity, and
Speaker 6: you can try to you could even try to change
Speaker 6: the regime, and it's not going to bomb away the
Speaker 6: sentiment among people in Iran that that's something that they
Speaker 6: should have, that they need to have, and that, as
Speaker 6: Crystal saying, in of itself, is the idea that we're
Speaker 6: not going to be dealing with this in another generation unfortunately,
Speaker 6: tragically not happening.
Speaker 3: And on that note, Emily, we needed your expertise for
Speaker 3: this next one before we get to Seroda. So we
Speaker 3: don't know why we're doing it. We don't know who
Speaker 3: we're doing it for. Actually, we may now know who
Speaker 3: we're doing it for. The spirit of Genghis Khan. Let's
Speaker 3: take a listen to net and Yahoo here.
Speaker 5: Let's rule the lessons of history one hundred pages.
Speaker 10: In which she said this reproves that, unfortunately, I'm happy
Speaker 10: Jesus Christ has no advantage over Rginia's huntry because if
Speaker 10: you are long enough, people will overcome good.
Speaker 5: Compression will overcome moeration. So you have no choice.
Speaker 10: If you look at the world as it is today,
Speaker 10: you have to be blind not to see the democracy
Speaker 10: led by the United States have to reassert their will
Speaker 10: to defend themselves and to oppose their enemies in time,
Speaker 10: while there's still time before the jarring gong of danger.
Speaker 5: Wakes them up and wakes them up too late. This
Speaker 5: is where we.
Speaker 7: Are now, of danger.
Speaker 6: All right, Yeah, that's b.
Speaker 7: Family.
Speaker 2: I know you're always asking yourself, what would jingis con.
Speaker 6: The bracelet. I mean, apparently he's paraphrasing Durant, who was
Speaker 6: making a comment on human nature.
Speaker 4: Pull up that quote. I have it.
Speaker 6: Yet, nature and history do not agree with our conceptions
Speaker 6: of good and bad. They define good as that which survives,
Speaker 6: and bad is that which goes under. In the universe,
Speaker 6: is no prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan.
Speaker 4: And that's.
Speaker 6: It's my perspective of that him trotting out that paraphrase
Speaker 6: quote right now is that it does It feels almost
Speaker 6: like taunting. And you know, Nietzsche would Nietzsche's perspective on
Speaker 6: christ was that it was a sort of a slave morality,
Speaker 6: that the Christianity valorizes weakness, and that's been throughout history
Speaker 6: a criticism of of Christianity. And whether or not Natania
Speaker 6: who was intentionally trying to poke at Christians and Christians
Speaker 6: in America, like a Tucker Carlson for example, who are
Speaker 6: making Christian arguments against you know, the War Gaza and
Speaker 6: the like.
Speaker 4: I don't I don't know.
Speaker 6: I would recommend a couple of books, Dominion by Tom
Speaker 6: Holland and Air We Breathed by Glenn Scribner is a
Speaker 6: really good one too, about where there's the universalism in
Speaker 6: Christianity that.
Speaker 4: It again it feels like.
Speaker 6: Kind of taunting that Jesus comes along and says, go
Speaker 6: and baptize, go and make disciples of all nations, all nations,
Speaker 6: which is historically somewhat unique. And he says there will
Speaker 6: be one shepherd in one flock, meaning everyone in the
Speaker 6: world is covered by the sacrifice. And then Paul says
Speaker 6: there is no Jew or Greek that's in Galatians, and
Speaker 6: that Tom Holland rightly points out, changes absolutely everything. And
Speaker 6: is it true that Christians have done a poor job
Speaker 6: throughout his honoring the egalitarianism of christ message. Yes, of course,
Speaker 6: but that's still there's still a tension between Christianity and
Speaker 6: other religions because of that, and it does Yahoo tritting.
Speaker 4: Out that quote is.
Speaker 6: It feels it feels like he might have been intentionally
Speaker 6: trying to poke a bear, whether it's Tucker or someone else.
Speaker 2: Well, they came out after the fact and were like,
Speaker 2: it felt the need to issue a statement on the
Speaker 2: Twitter account, the official like Prime Minister of Israel Twitter
Speaker 2: account that was like, we meant no offense to Christians.
Speaker 2: We were just quoting this thing. But you know, the
Speaker 2: funny thing to me, like coming at this from a
Speaker 2: totally non religious perspective, is this this dodge that I've
Speaker 2: seen not just from him, but from plenty of other
Speaker 2: people who are not even like that sympathetic to him
Speaker 2: or were like, he's just quoting something. It's like, just
Speaker 2: because you're quoting someone else doesn't mean that that like
Speaker 2: original quote was also a good thing, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's still a choice. You're like co signing this idea,
Speaker 2: And to me, it was just very revealed of what
Speaker 2: I think is a dominant mindset, not just with net Nahu,
Speaker 2: but within Israel. They see themselves as inherently moral right,
Speaker 2: not based on their actions, not based on what they
Speaker 2: do in the world, which you know, to me is
Speaker 2: how you define moralities like what do you do? Do
Speaker 2: you cause harm? Or do you cause people? Like what
Speaker 2: are you?
Speaker 4: What are you?
Speaker 2: Are you geniciding children in Gaza? Because that seems to
Speaker 2: have a real bearing to me on whether you are
Speaker 2: a moral actor. But the view here offered by net
Speaker 2: Yahoo is we are inherently the good side. So even
Speaker 2: if we commit evil acts, it's in service of our
Speaker 2: own inherent goodness. And this is a you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is a supremacist ideology, which is what Israel, what
Speaker 2: Zionism is based on, as a Jewish supremacist ideology. And
Speaker 2: a lot of times when he's speaking to you know,
Speaker 2: an American audience or Western audience in general, then I'll
Speaker 2: talk about Western values, to talk about Judeo Christian values.
Speaker 2: So then we get also brought in the fold of
Speaker 2: the inherently good. And so he's saying here and again
Speaker 2: very noteworthy this is offered in English. I think it
Speaker 2: could be seen as a as a taunt to Christian.
Speaker 2: I think that's certainly the case, especially since there's been this,
Speaker 2: you know, this tension with the Tucker Carlson's of the world,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 6: And the Pope has called for a ceasefire, by the way,
Speaker 6: So it's yeah, it's not it's not just Protestant Protestants
Speaker 6: in America. There's a lot of religious backlash.
Speaker 2: That's that is that's a great point. But so you
Speaker 2: have that angle of it, but you also have him
Speaker 2: projecting some American audience. You may be feeling a little
Speaker 2: squeamish about this, like girls' school, that you just bond
Speaker 2: and murder all these children. But trust me, you're still
Speaker 2: the good guys here. You're still no matter what you
Speaker 2: do in this war, because if you don't act in
Speaker 2: barbaric ways, in evil ways, then the ultimate evil, the
Speaker 2: inherently evil under you know, and what's underneath the service
Speaker 2: there is Muslims, Persians, Iranian Arabs, you know, anybody who
Speaker 2: would the Israelis. If you don't act against that inherent
Speaker 2: evil in this barbaric way, then those people will win out.
Speaker 2: It's you know, it's a kind of a rehash of
Speaker 2: his Children of the Light versus Children of the Darkness
Speaker 2: speech at the beginning of the you know, the genocidal
Speaker 2: assault on Gazo, where again it's like anything is justified
Speaker 2: in our attempts here to decimate and destroy the Palestinian
Speaker 2: people because we're the good ones, not because of what
Speaker 2: we do, just because who we are, and they're the
Speaker 2: bad ones, not because of their age or who they
Speaker 2: are or what they do, but just inherently. And that
Speaker 2: is such an abhorrent, deeply abhorrent, destructive, disgusting worldview to me.
Speaker 2: But that's what you know, that is the ideology, that
Speaker 2: is the reigning ideology in Israel. You have to say
Speaker 2: at this point.
Speaker 6: I think what turned people like Tucker Carlson then actually
Speaker 6: like carry Prejon Boler against what they were seeing a
Speaker 6: Gazos precisely the part of their faith and it's emphasized
Speaker 6: all the time about the vulnerable. And again this was
Speaker 6: Nietzsche's contention with Christianity actually, and Tom Holland has done
Speaker 6: really great debates on those. People should just pop that
Speaker 6: into YouTube and watch his debates or read dominion.
Speaker 4: It's fantastic. But I think when you see the.
Speaker 6: Powerful abuse civilians that are powerless, that's very, very moving
Speaker 6: to a lot of Christians on everybody, but like Augustine
Speaker 6: or not agusting Aquinas, that is just war doctrine. And
Speaker 6: you can make a pretty good argument, and that's probably.
Speaker 4: Why Popolio has called for a ceasefire.
Speaker 6: If you look at the United States and Israel's decision
Speaker 6: to launch this particular war, you could you could argue
Speaker 6: that it's violating the Christian tradition of what constitutes a
Speaker 6: just war. And so Netanyahu, who is secular by the way.
Speaker 4: He's that's disputed.
Speaker 6: I mean, he's he's a political figure, and I think
Speaker 6: has tried to, you know, send different signals at different
Speaker 6: times in his career. It feels like, to your point
Speaker 6: about the children of life versus the children of the directness,
Speaker 6: he's trying to make this argument that you can use
Speaker 6: strength and that's that can be used against civilians because
Speaker 6: ultimately you're on the you're on the good side, and
Speaker 6: that's what's important, is protecting your people. You're like that,
Speaker 6: and I think that's attractive to a lot of people
Speaker 6: around the world. But the more you see like the girls'
Speaker 6: school for example, or other civilian abuses of civilians, it
Speaker 6: doesn't fly with other people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean being absolved for your crimes. I'm sure
Speaker 2: that does feel good to a lot of people, like, oh,
Speaker 2: here's an excuse where you get to act with impunity
Speaker 2: and you know, indulge your most barbaric and cruel instincts.
Speaker 2: But really, if you think hard enough about it, because
Speaker 2: you're good, it's all fine. The other thing, and you know,
Speaker 2: I think there are others who could probably who could
Speaker 2: probably lay this out more effectively and with more knowledge
Speaker 2: than me. But Jonathan green Blatt recently, in addition to
Speaker 2: saying all kinds of other crazy crap, he said something
Speaker 2: about we are no longer the like weak need Jews
Speaker 2: or the knock need jude or the Jews or something
Speaker 2: like that. And this is an idea that goes back
Speaker 2: to World War Two, deeply anti Semitic, but in a
Speaker 2: like sort of self loathing anti Semitic way, that the
Speaker 2: there is like victim blaming of Holocaust victims, that they
Speaker 2: weren't strong enough to stand up. And so part of
Speaker 2: the founding of Israel was the idea that like, we're
Speaker 2: going to create a state that is it will stand up,
Speaker 2: that will I mean committed terror, stax and ethnic cleansing,
Speaker 2: in order to found the state, and we are going
Speaker 2: to be barbaric in a way, you know, and cruel
Speaker 2: and tough and strong in a way that you know,
Speaker 2: our ancestors who were slaughtered in the Holocaust in a
Speaker 2: way that they weren't again deeply disgusting view, but you know,
Speaker 2: offered by someone like ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt, who supposedly is
Speaker 2: all against anti sempittiss sposed to be his whole thing,
Speaker 2: and it sort of reminds me of that as well,
Speaker 2: where it's like, you know, we can't afford to have
Speaker 2: to indulge in these little nice Christian values. We are
Speaker 2: the good guys, and we are going to use whatever
Speaker 2: means necessary to even if those things look evil to you,
Speaker 2: but underneath the surface, because we're the good guys always
Speaker 2: and forever, no matter what we do, you know, you
Speaker 2: just don't understand that we're actually fighting evil with evil,
Speaker 2: and we have to do that because we don't have
Speaker 2: the luxury of acting other ways any other way.
Speaker 6: Just my quick point on that would be that is
Speaker 6: the story of human history, like that is what tribalism
Speaker 6: that is very historically normal. That is what tribalism predating
Speaker 6: nation states.
Speaker 4: That's what it is.
Speaker 6: And liberalism after World War two was precisely conceived to
Speaker 6: overcome that because it leads to atrocities, and Israel has
Speaker 6: never been able to because of the trauma that the
Speaker 6: Jewish people suffered through the Holocaust, the industrial scale genocide
Speaker 6: that's within living memory of people. That's not like, not
Speaker 6: everybody has been on board with that because there's this
Speaker 6: constant fear and understandably, so I have another genocide coming along,
Speaker 6: and you know, we don't have to go like that's
Speaker 6: that just took us to a totally different deeper layer.
Speaker 6: But that's liberalism was meant precisely to overcome those instincts,
Speaker 6: will to power style instincts, and that's why we have
Speaker 6: international groups and.
Speaker 4: Treaties and laws.
Speaker 6: So that's I think a fundamental source of tension has
Speaker 6: been for the last one hundred years.
Speaker 2: Well, and let me say one last thing before We've
Speaker 2: got David Serota waiting here, and I do want to
Speaker 2: get him in, which is that you know, hag Steth
Speaker 2: and Steven Miller and the whole Trump regime they like
Speaker 2: to frame the idea of like international law or respect
Speaker 2: for civilians or rules of engagement as like weak and
Speaker 2: woke and pathetic and not realistic, blah blah blah. Steven
Speaker 2: Miller says it the most sort of like directly. Pet
Speaker 2: hag Seth does as well, though, And Pete haig Seth,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the things that he's famous for
Speaker 2: is going and trying to get pardons for war criminals.
Speaker 2: So that is his worldview. But I think we already
Speaker 2: see in the Iran war that when we blow up
Speaker 2: all of the rules of engagement and international norms and
Speaker 2: you know, and law and any sort of care and
Speaker 2: concern for civilians, this puts our own service members at risk.
Speaker 2: It puts the world economy at risk. I mean, it
Speaker 2: puts everything on the table. So we're already living with
Speaker 2: the consequences of blowing up all of those you know
Speaker 2: what would be perceived as sort of like woke liberal niceties.
Speaker 2: It's not just that you get to do what you
Speaker 2: want to your enemies. Your enemies also get to do
Speaker 2: what they want to you. And in a world where
Speaker 2: asymmetric power projection is more easily available than it ever
Speaker 2: has been before, that seems like a pretty foolish, pretty foolhardy,
Speaker 2: and ultimately destructive way to go outside of you know,
Speaker 2: any sort of moral concerns for morality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we should probably try to keep some of these
Speaker 3: planes in the air before we start acting like Janus Khan.
Speaker 3: On on that note, why don't we get over to
Speaker 3: the man uncovering the master plan? David Serota, David, are
Speaker 3: you there? I'm here, Yes, welcome, David. How are you today?
Speaker 7: Good? Thanks for having me. Yeah, we're happy to have you.
Speaker 7: What's going on?
Speaker 3: You know, we're told that there is It doesn't seem
Speaker 3: like there's a big plan with this war, but apparently
Speaker 3: you have uncovered the master plan, so update us on
Speaker 3: what's going on there.
Speaker 11: Well, I think the master plan is as it relates
Speaker 11: to the Iran war, It's like the president woke up
Speaker 11: one morning and decided to go to start World War
Speaker 11: three and there was no public justification and for it,
Speaker 11: there was no congressional authorization for it. It was just
Speaker 11: like the King woke up on the wrong or I
Speaker 11: guess in his frame maybe the right side of the bed,
Speaker 11: and decided to start World War three, which is destabilizing
Speaker 11: the entire planet. And the point of our audio series
Speaker 11: is to ask the question, how is something like that
Speaker 11: even possible. And so how is it that we've arrived
Speaker 11: at a place where a president has a constitution that
Speaker 11: says Congress declares war, and yet we're now where we
Speaker 11: are where a war was started almost basically like a
Speaker 11: World War three esque situation like that wasn't just like
Speaker 11: one bombing. We're now in like a World War three
Speaker 11: esque situation without any real authorization at all. And so
Speaker 11: it's this question of how did Donald Trump become a king?
Speaker 11: But it's not really only about Donald Trump. It's how
Speaker 11: did the presidency become a monarchy? And I think to
Speaker 11: answer that question you have to answer the question of
Speaker 11: how it started really over the court fifty years ago
Speaker 11: and how it's evolved over fifty years. We were at
Speaker 11: this place in our country's history, or a similar place
Speaker 11: to it during and after Watergate. Watergate was seen as
Speaker 11: a scandal about an imperial presidency that had gotten out
Speaker 11: of control, not just out of control in terms of
Speaker 11: targeting Richard Nixon, targeting his political opponents. But remember that
Speaker 11: was a time when Richard Nixon campaigned promising to end
Speaker 11: the Vietnam War and then secretly, months later, secretly expanded
Speaker 11: the Vietnam War. It was a time where Richard Nixon
Speaker 11: started cutting off spending that had been authorized and passed
Speaker 11: by Congress. Roads were in the process of being made,
Speaker 11: and then the road construction had to stop because Richard
Speaker 11: Nixon asserted the right to say he could decide what
Speaker 11: spending moved forward and what spending.
Speaker 7: Did not move forward.
Speaker 11: So all of the fights that I think that we've
Speaker 11: gotten used to now, and these examples of kind of
Speaker 11: an imperial presidency, we have been here before. But the
Speaker 11: thing is is that after Watergate, Congress really pushed back
Speaker 11: and took back some of that power. I mean, there
Speaker 11: was the War Powers Resolution, there was the Budget Impoundment Act,
Speaker 11: which was designed to stop presidents from doing what Nixon
Speaker 11: had done. But there was really a backlash to the
Speaker 11: backlash that started after Congress took back some of its power.
Speaker 11: And there has been an ideology on the I wouldn't
Speaker 11: call it the libertarian righte and in sort of the
Speaker 11: center of the Republican Party, you know, the sort of
Speaker 11: the Dick Cheney wing. Dick Cheney, of course, was the
Speaker 11: chief of staff to Gerald Ford right after Watergate. This
Speaker 11: real idea that Congress should never encroach on the president's authority.
Speaker 11: And that's I think part of why we are here today.
Speaker 11: Where we woke up, you know a few weeks ago
Speaker 11: when the President decided, Hey, I'm just going to start
Speaker 11: World War three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me go ahead and play for people a
Speaker 2: little bit of or we'll just play this whole trailer
Speaker 2: for the new season A master plan. First season was
Speaker 2: so incredible, such extraordinary journalism. I can't wait to dig
Speaker 2: into this one and see what you've uncovered here as well.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and play this for everyone so they
Speaker 2: can get a taste of the what you guys have
Speaker 2: put together.
Speaker 5: I have never been a quitter.
Speaker 11: Once upon a time, an imperial president was cast out
Speaker 11: of the palace, but all the president's men refused to
Speaker 11: relinquish the throne's power.
Speaker 5: I must America first.
Speaker 11: So they went to work rewiring the government. They didn't
Speaker 11: just take back the controls. They began building something new,
Speaker 11: something stronger.
Speaker 5: They gave the president.
Speaker 11: The power to go around Congress to launch unauthorized warsower.
Speaker 5: They ignored the law and cut secret arms deals.
Speaker 11: The Pentagon says millions of dollars worth of weapons were
Speaker 11: turned over to the CIA for shipment to Iran. They
Speaker 11: manufactured vast new executive powers for a war on terror
Speaker 11: that would characterize Montanamobig as the least worst place we.
Speaker 5: Could have selected.
Speaker 6: The Obama administrations continuing a Bush Era of policy authorizing
Speaker 6: the killing of US citizens abroad.
Speaker 11: The goal of this master Plan was to create an
Speaker 11: all powerful president, or, as some called it, the unitary executive.
Speaker 9: You're not going to be a dictator, I said, no, no,
Speaker 9: no other than day one.
Speaker 11: So when a man longing to be a king took
Speaker 11: the throne, he inherited unprecedented hours to get his way,
Speaker 11: and those powers are now turning our world upside down.
Speaker 11: Welcome to Master Planned Season two.
Speaker 5: The Kingmakers. How could President?
Speaker 2: First of all, that animation is fantastic.
Speaker 7: Ben Clarkson, the artist is amazing. He's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a sort of an AI could never
Speaker 2: AI could never.
Speaker 7: No, No, trust me.
Speaker 11: The number of screenshots and storyboards that he put up
Speaker 11: I saw him draw.
Speaker 7: That was like, that's the kind of thing AI can
Speaker 7: never do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is extraordinary. And one of the pieces I've
Speaker 2: been thinking about is, you know, on the one hand,
Speaker 2: you've got you've got these actors, you know, Bill Barr
Speaker 2: being another one, of these is really pushing forward the
Speaker 2: idea of the unitary executive. But perhaps what also the
Speaker 2: Founders didn't anticipate is the way that Congress would just
Speaker 2: be like, Okay, sure, we don't actually want any responsibility.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, because the last time they took a vote
Speaker 2: on war, the Iraq War, it ended up coming back
Speaker 2: to bite, you know, the vast majority of them who
Speaker 2: voted for it, bite them in the ass. So they're like,
Speaker 2: we don't really want to take a vote on this war.
Speaker 2: We would rather just you do it, and then down
Speaker 2: the road, if it goes poorly, we can say it's
Speaker 2: his fault and not have to, you know, face any
Speaker 2: sort of political repercussions for it.
Speaker 6: Well, and that in and of itself was the AMF
Speaker 6: was such a broad delegation of power to the executive.
Speaker 4: That plus it in that to Crystal's.
Speaker 11: Point, it's such a good it's such a good point, right, Like,
Speaker 11: Like I think the founders like they didn't get everything right, right,
Speaker 11: Like I think this idea that the founder's got everything
Speaker 11: right is is sort of this presumption and it's it's
Speaker 11: not actually.
Speaker 2: Like a religion, yeah, religious kind of faith.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And where I think they got things right. Okay.
Speaker 11: Generally speaking, is that the Constitution as a document is
Speaker 11: like afraid of concentrated power. That that's like the foundational
Speaker 11: baked in, Like it's the theory is we need to
Speaker 11: like disperse power a little bit because you literally.
Speaker 7: Do not want one dude having all the power.
Speaker 11: Okay, I think that's probably like good call, Like you
Speaker 11: got it right. Where they didn't get it right, you're
Speaker 11: at least for the modern era, is the presumption that
Speaker 11: the branches would protect their own power. That whether it's
Speaker 11: the courts or whether it's Congress, that the presumption was
Speaker 11: that they would jealously people in those institutions would jealously
Speaker 11: guard their power as an institution. And I think in
Speaker 11: the modern era, what we've seen is that actually the institution,
Speaker 11: especially when it comes to the Republicans, the institution that
Speaker 11: is supreme for the Republicans is the Republican Party and
Speaker 11: not the Presidency or the Congress or the courts. And
Speaker 11: so no matter where you are in any of those institutions,
Speaker 11: the Congress, the Courts, the Presidency, you're serving the larger institution,
Speaker 11: which is the Republican Party. And so yes, you're willing
Speaker 11: to like.
Speaker 7: Be a judge.
Speaker 11: The Supreme Court is constantly deferring to executive power when
Speaker 11: a Republican is in the executive. Congress is constantly deferring
Speaker 11: to the Trump administration when the Republicans control it. And
Speaker 11: I do think your point, Crystal is so important that
Speaker 11: that after the Iraq War, the Congress kind of figured out, like, hey,
Speaker 11: instead of taking tough votes to stop anything, we can
Speaker 11: just not vote at all. Like it's actually easier for
Speaker 11: us to not vote at all because who knows when
Speaker 11: any kind of vote is going to come back to bite.
Speaker 11: Maybe maybe it's the next election cycle, but maybe it's
Speaker 11: like three election cycles from now, so they haven't wanted
Speaker 11: to vote. And I think that's like a really dangerous situation.
Speaker 11: Like it not everything was better in the past, but
Speaker 11: it was better I think when Congress felt an institutional
Speaker 11: prerogative to fight with the executive branch over who gets
Speaker 11: to decide things, because that creates like power and countervailing power,
Speaker 11: which is supposed to create some kind of balance.
Speaker 6: Which is a really good argument for getting rid of
Speaker 6: the philibus. To be honest, what happens with that? And
Speaker 6: I wanted to ask the cause war powers the intelligence community,
Speaker 6: and even just thinking about Watergate, all of that goes
Speaker 6: into it. When you hear, like as someone on the right,
Speaker 6: when you hear federal society world talk about unitary executive theory,
Speaker 6: a lot of what you hear is it's about the
Speaker 6: growth of the federal bureaucracy. The argument, I think charitably
Speaker 6: their argument would be that the sprawling federal bureaucracy needs
Speaker 6: to come under the power of the democratically elected president.
Speaker 6: And the example I always use with Ryan when we
Speaker 6: kind of get into debates about this is you wouldn't
Speaker 6: want given the revolving door like an Exon mobile executive
Speaker 6: or an Exon mobile, just regular staffer coming into the
Speaker 6: EPA and under a climate concerned president making decisions that
Speaker 6: are undermining the decision of the president, or the will
Speaker 6: of the president, or the or the policy of the president.
Speaker 6: So I was going to ask David, like, how you
Speaker 6: see the way that this has been intentionally set up
Speaker 6: and designed to tackle those kind of different arenas where
Speaker 6: executive power is concerned. There's more power, but there's also bureaucracy,
Speaker 6: but then there's also the intelligence community. It's a kind
Speaker 6: of a tangled mess. I was curious to get your
Speaker 6: take on it.
Speaker 7: It's a great set of questions.
Speaker 11: And look, look, I think let me preface this by saying,
Speaker 11: I think the Democrats, if they ever take back the presidency,
Speaker 11: I think one of the big questions is, Okay, all
Speaker 11: this power has been concentrated in the White House, do
Speaker 11: you use that power or do you use your power
Speaker 11: in office to not use it or relinquish it?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 11: And I don't think it's an acceptable outcome to have
Speaker 11: where we're in this pattern where Republicans use all the
Speaker 11: executive power that's there in an aggressive way and grab
Speaker 11: even more executive power, and then Democrats get in office
Speaker 11: and either spend their time not using that power or
Speaker 11: actually relinquishing it.
Speaker 7: Like that's a ratchet effect. That's bad. I think when
Speaker 7: it comes to domestic policy.
Speaker 11: The example that you laid out, Look, I think that
Speaker 11: the question over whether a president with a mandate has
Speaker 11: the power to do what they have promised voters to
Speaker 11: do is at the heart in part of the democracy crisis.
Speaker 11: Like when I hear that term democracy crisis, part of
Speaker 11: what I hear and what I think about is presidents
Speaker 11: get into office. I think it's the Democrats often get
Speaker 11: into office and then don't really make an effort to
Speaker 11: really deliver on their promises.
Speaker 7: That shreds the social contract.
Speaker 11: That harms people's belief that democracy matters, and ultimately sows
Speaker 11: the kind of disillusionment that someone like Donald Trump takes
Speaker 11: advantage of it and says, I will get in and
Speaker 11: I will use all the power to deliver everything I
Speaker 11: am promising. Now, I don't think Donald Trump's actually done that.
Speaker 11: I think he's betrayed a lot of what he promised.
Speaker 11: The war is a good example of that. But I
Speaker 11: think that's like the dynamic we're in. And I think,
Speaker 11: but I guess I would say this. I think there's
Speaker 11: like a middle ground between the Democrats not really using
Speaker 11: executive power and being deferential to the to quote unquote
Speaker 11: norms and Donald Trump so aggressively using executive power that
Speaker 11: it's like sort of completely unprecedented. And I think in
Speaker 11: some cases, you know, extra judicial, extra constitutional right like
Speaker 11: I'll give you, let me give you like one random example,
Speaker 11: like I think of the Obama presidency and I think, okay,
Speaker 11: here's a person who used aggressively, in an unprecedented way
Speaker 11: executive power to prosecute the drone war, to assert the
Speaker 11: right to put American citizens on a kill list, right, Like,
Speaker 11: that's a really really, really extreme view of executive authority,
Speaker 11: right to extra judicially execute American citizens, right.
Speaker 7: Okay.
Speaker 11: I also think of the Obama administration not using existing
Speaker 11: unchallenged executive authority to change IRS regulations to close one
Speaker 11: of the biggest and most egregious tax loopholes on the books,
Speaker 11: the private equity tax loophole. I think of the Obama
Speaker 11: administration not using executive authority to require Fortune five hundred
Speaker 11: SEC regulated companies to disclose their dark money spending, something
Speaker 11: that the Obama administration could have done. So my point
Speaker 11: is is that I think there's like a middle ground
Speaker 11: here where Democrats get into office and use the existing
Speaker 11: unchallenged executive authority in ways that don't have to go
Speaker 11: beyond the Constitution, but are there for the taking. Now,
Speaker 11: one asterisk on this very quickly, which is I do
Speaker 11: think actually Joe Biden tried to do some of this
Speaker 11: at the agency level, like the FTC, the CFPB, And
Speaker 11: I think what's important to remember is that the opposition
Speaker 11: to that agenda, you know, anti trust enforcement et cetera,
Speaker 11: et cetera, will very quickly switch sides on their views
Speaker 11: of executive power when it's not their executive right. I
Speaker 11: mean it was like the concert, like the cut the
Speaker 11: Chamber of Commerce. Some Republicans were marching into court saying,
Speaker 11: you know, Joe Biden has no right to use the
Speaker 11: FTC or the CFPB and the way he's using it.
Speaker 11: And you're like, gi me, you guys are like the
Speaker 11: unitary executive Party, Like and I think this gets to
Speaker 11: the to the core of a problem here. It's like,
Speaker 11: you know, we're talking on the eve of the no
Speaker 11: Kings protest. My question for everyone is, Okay, do you
Speaker 11: not want a king or do you just not want
Speaker 11: the king that's not your king? Right, Like, let's really
Speaker 11: get to the issue here and let's really be honest
Speaker 11: about what each side actually wants. Do you do you
Speaker 11: not want kings or do you only not like the
Speaker 11: fact that it's not your king? I mean, I'm I'm
Speaker 11: like to be honest, I mean I don't want a king,
Speaker 11: but like I'm I'm torn on this question of like
Speaker 11: what ultimately needs to be done. I do think that
Speaker 11: at the cent or this again, I go back to
Speaker 11: it the democracy crisis. You're totally right, if a president
Speaker 11: gets elected promising climate policy and then is stuck with
Speaker 11: an EPA that's implementing exon mobiles agenda, right, Like, that
Speaker 11: is a that's not just an executive power executive branch problem.
Speaker 11: That's a democracy problem because the president has promised and
Speaker 11: gotten elected on those issues.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean FDR is a great example here. I mean,
Speaker 2: in some ways, it's kind of unavoidable to not just
Speaker 2: view the tools in like in the in theoretical terms
Speaker 2: of like this tool's good and that one's bad. I
Speaker 2: think it's kind of unavoidable to look at the content,
Speaker 2: you know, is the content of what is being done here,
Speaker 2: good or bad? Right, some of FDR's things were really bad, actually,
Speaker 2: but a lot of them on the economic front were
Speaker 2: very good, and they were very popular, and they were
Speaker 2: in accordance with the will of the people, which the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court, up until he threatened them with court packing,
Speaker 2: was effectively blocking. So you know, it's it is a
Speaker 2: little bit tricky when you get down to it. And also,
Speaker 2: of course you raise the prospect very much of like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: if Republicans are throwing out the rules and doing whatever
Speaker 2: they want, and then Democrats are like, we're just gonna
Speaker 2: you know, stay within these boundaries. Then that's an asymmetric fight.
Speaker 7: So let me let me add there.
Speaker 11: Yeah, there's an interesting question about the independent agencies that's
Speaker 11: coming down the pike right now in the Supreme Court.
Speaker 11: And for those who don't know, there are a set
Speaker 11: of agencies that aren't just like other executive branch like
Speaker 11: the Department of Homeland Security HHS. Those are normal, regular,
Speaker 11: non independent executive branch agencies. President has total hiring and
Speaker 11: firing power over them. There are certain regulatory agencies, like
Speaker 11: the Federal Trade Commission that that were designed to be
Speaker 11: slightly more insulated from the political cycles, where the commissioners
Speaker 11: have you know, five year terms. It's harder to fire them.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 11: And and the Trump administration is trying to say that
Speaker 11: Trump can fire members of these independent agencies, and there's
Speaker 11: really like a constitutional question, right. They're trying to use
Speaker 11: the Constitution to supersede the idea that such these kinds
Speaker 11: of agencies.
Speaker 7: Can even exist.
Speaker 11: And this is where I like, I get the idea
Speaker 11: that the president gets elected and wants to implement policy
Speaker 11: and want and therefore needs to hire and fire. But
Speaker 11: I also think, like what's dangerous here is that the
Speaker 11: Congress and previous presidents have set up these particular agencies
Speaker 11: deliberately to be independent. And my point is, if you
Speaker 11: want to argue that that's bad, right, you want to argue, okay,
Speaker 11: and independent FDC is bad, pass new legislation to change
Speaker 11: the independence of the FTC. Don't start making constitutional arguments
Speaker 11: that say that Congress is not allowed to create independent agencies.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 11: That's where I think we get into like when we're
Speaker 11: talking about a king. It's like, if you want to
Speaker 11: make the small d democratic argument that the SEC or
Speaker 11: the FTC are out of control and not letting presidents
Speaker 11: implement policies that they campaigned on, then pass legislation to
Speaker 11: change the structure of those agencies. Don't start making a
Speaker 11: unitary executive argument that says one line in the Constitution
Speaker 11: Article two means Congress is simply never allowed to create
Speaker 11: these kinds of agencies. I mean, I kind of think
Speaker 11: in a lot of ways those independent agencies, their independence
Speaker 11: has served the purpose that they were laid out, that
Speaker 11: they're supposed to be slightly insulated from the whims of
Speaker 11: this or that election because they are they're supposed to
Speaker 11: be more sort of empirical in their application. But let's
Speaker 11: have that debate rather than saying, yeah, these are not allowed,
Speaker 11: these are basically illegal.
Speaker 2: I mean, if we're going to have an authoritarian leader,
Speaker 2: I want one that's a lot better than the once we're.
Speaker 6: Be getting lately.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at you know, I'm looking at China, like
Speaker 2: they seem pretty smarter over there. I mean, if we're
Speaker 2: gonna have no freedom of speech here either, I don't know.
Speaker 11: Maybe yeah, I mean problem, Well, we got a good
Speaker 11: we got a good king who makes good decisions. Then
Speaker 11: you know, four years later, you're not going you probably
Speaker 11: aren't going to get to like I think that's the
Speaker 11: theory of the constitution, like like like like for every
Speaker 11: good king you're gonna have, you're gonna have a really
Speaker 11: a bunch of really bad ones.
Speaker 2: Well, let me let me ask you about this. And uh,
Speaker 2: this is some some new news that is pretty interesting. Trump,
Speaker 2: according to the Wall Street Journal, told Inner Circle some
Speaker 2: mass deportation policies went too far. President directs a new approach,
Speaker 2: as some advisors believe immigration is no longer as strong
Speaker 2: a political issue for him. He's seeking to lower the
Speaker 2: profile of his mass deportation effort has directed his top
Speaker 2: advisors too adopt a new approach on one of the
Speaker 2: central campaign promises. They go on to say, in conversations
Speaker 2: with top advisers and his wife, Milania, Trump has become
Speaker 2: convinced that some of his administration's deportation policies went too far.
Speaker 2: Voters don't like the term mass deportation, and he's told
Speaker 2: them he wants to see more attention on arresting bad
Speaker 2: guys and less chaos in American cities. Court of people
Speaker 2: familiar with the matter, now, I think a lot of caveats, right. Uh, well,
Speaker 2: we'll see what the actual actions are. We will say
Speaker 2: there hasn't been another like city invasion like we saw
Speaker 2: in Minneapolis. And to bring this back to you know,
Speaker 2: to your reporting here in master plan, now it looks
Speaker 2: very clearly like the mass protests and mass resistance in
Speaker 2: Chicago and Minneapolis and other states and countries across in
Speaker 2: LA and other states and cities across the country, this succeeded,
Speaker 2: you know, it worked as a check. So Congress may
Speaker 2: have laid down, Uh, the Supreme Court laid out the
Speaker 2: red carpet for this, you know, bullshit, cruel and unusual bullshit,
Speaker 2: and but the people really, you know, rose up and
Speaker 2: made it very made it very difficult, and created a
Speaker 2: lot of public awareness. Where they're right that the politics
Speaker 2: of this have completely shifted since Trump came back in office.
Speaker 2: So so, even as they've consolidated in all this power
Speaker 2: in the executive branch, and even as this president and
Speaker 2: his cronies seem to act like they're never going to
Speaker 2: have to face voters again, which is kind of scary,
Speaker 2: how much of a check do the people still serve,
Speaker 2: you know, for democratic accountability on the unitary executive.
Speaker 11: It's a great question. I am heartened by the news
Speaker 11: this morning. I will say I do think that it's
Speaker 11: not a coincidence that Trump initially pulled the deployment in
Speaker 11: Minneapolis back when Democrats finally started talking about cutting off funding.
Speaker 11: I do think that's that's that's a little part of
Speaker 11: the great point, you know, I do think that like
Speaker 11: Congress's power of the purse.
Speaker 2: But why did Congress do that exactly because they were
Speaker 2: under pressure from the base. It wasn't just a domino nowhere.
Speaker 7: But that's right, Yeah, you're totally right.
Speaker 11: So it's like public pressure on Congress to use its
Speaker 11: actual power. It's unchallenged power of the power of the purse. Ultimately,
Speaker 11: all of that colludes to back a president office at
Speaker 11: least momentarily. I should mention I think this is important.
Speaker 11: Another important lesson when it comes to the power of
Speaker 11: the purse for the Iran war, that public pressure on
Speaker 11: Congress to not just pass resolutions or try to pass
Speaker 11: resolutions of disapproval of the war, but to actually defund
Speaker 11: the war is going to be incredibly, incredibly important. Like
Speaker 11: this idea that Democrats can can say I'm against the war,
Speaker 11: but I'm going to vote for the two hundred billion
Speaker 11: dollars supplemental for the war is a lot of nonsense
Speaker 11: and everyone should be focused really on that specific thing.
Speaker 11: The Democrats trying to carve out this like middle ground,
Speaker 11: like you know, I can be against the war, but
Speaker 11: I don't want to quote unquote undermine the troops by
Speaker 11: defunding the war.
Speaker 7: That is a nonsense position.
Speaker 11: So I guess it's to say, the more pressure there
Speaker 11: is in public, the more it will create a more
Speaker 11: fortified opposition in Congress, and the more I think Donald
Speaker 11: Trump will be constrained. Now, I do think ultimately if
Speaker 11: Trump wants to continue seriously illegal, unconstitutional and wildly unpopular
Speaker 11: policies he can, and ultimately we have to mention it,
Speaker 11: like the question of impeachment should be real, Like I
Speaker 11: think this ultimately we are I think we're headed towards
Speaker 11: this question, especially on the Iran War, of if he
Speaker 11: never comes to Congress for a declaration of war, there
Speaker 11: is no explicit authorization, and this war drags beyond the
Speaker 11: War Powers Acts sixty to ninety day time threshold, there
Speaker 11: is a big question of like what to do. And
Speaker 11: what I worry about is like, if the Congress Act
Speaker 11: actually passes the War Supplemental Bill, is that interpreted legally
Speaker 11: and certainly within the administration as the authorization they need?
Speaker 11: In other words, it's just a funding bill explicitly for
Speaker 11: the war. Does that become the Iran Wars Gulf of
Speaker 11: Talking resolution? And if it does, then then you've taken
Speaker 11: a legal, a legal tool off the table.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know if you guys saw Scott Jennings
Speaker 2: doing his thing on CNN yesterday and I can't remember
Speaker 2: who was fighting with, but they got into this fight
Speaker 2: over whether this was a war or not, and he
Speaker 2: said America hasn't fought a war since World War II.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean with that, that's where we are, like,
Speaker 11: we're still it's a military incursion, a military what I mean?
Speaker 2: And Iraq was, and Afghanistan was, and Vietnam was. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like, you've got to be kidding. And whoever was?
Speaker 2: I wish I could give credit shame because off the
Speaker 2: top of my head and forgetting who it was. But
Speaker 2: he was, like, I think the veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan
Speaker 2: would have something to say about whether they were set
Speaker 2: to fight and die in a war or not. So
Speaker 2: you know what's interesting Orwellian abuse of language.
Speaker 11: Yes, so interesting that you bring this up. There was
Speaker 11: a debate inside of the Reagan administration that we uncovered
Speaker 11: in our reporting for Masterplan, in which it was John
Speaker 11: Roberts as a young lawyer. It was over whether to
Speaker 11: classify the Lebanon Military Operation and the Grenada Military Operation,
Speaker 11: both initially conducted without congressional authorization, whether to allow it
Speaker 11: to be classified as a war for purposes of providing
Speaker 11: veterans benefits and the like war combat war service benefits,
Speaker 11: to the to the to the soldiers who were in
Speaker 11: that and it was a debate over well, if we
Speaker 11: say they were wars and we didn't get a congressional
Speaker 11: authorization for a war, how to like, it's sort of
Speaker 11: a legal gray area. And I think, what's I bring
Speaker 11: it up only to say, look, these issues have been
Speaker 11: debated before inside of the executive branch, at least in
Speaker 11: like a serious way, Like it was interesting to see
Speaker 11: John Roberts taking the idea that Congress has war making
Speaker 11: authority like that was a serious thing. I think we're
Speaker 11: so far away from that now where it's just presumed
Speaker 11: that Congress doesn't really have in any real way war
Speaker 11: making authority. And I just go back to this idea
Speaker 11: that really, ultimately what we're learning is the only real
Speaker 11: power that Congress has. It may there may be a
Speaker 11: line of the Constitution to declare war. The only real
Speaker 11: power it has here is the power of the purse.
Speaker 11: Like I just I know it's like it's it's it's
Speaker 11: so important to underscore.
Speaker 3: David. So if you're saying that democracy is the antidote
Speaker 3: to these this this master plan, well that seems like
Speaker 3: something that we have to solve them. I got to
Speaker 3: get rid of democracy. Where does this save Act fall
Speaker 3: into this master plan in terms of, you know, depressing votes,
Speaker 3: making it more difficult to vote.
Speaker 7: What is your reaction to the current savee plan? Do
Speaker 7: you think it will.
Speaker 6: Pass if Congress, actually the democratically elected representatis of Congress
Speaker 6: actually pass it.
Speaker 4: Here's the question too.
Speaker 7: I know, I know.
Speaker 11: Well, look, I think the when we use the term
Speaker 11: master plan, what we're really talking about is there's a
Speaker 11: handful of powerful interests, oligarchs, billionaires, et Cetera's corporations for
Speaker 11: a very long time. If you're one of those those powers,
Speaker 11: you look at democracy as the problem, right because you
Speaker 11: need increasingly unpopular policies to maintain your wealth and power,
Speaker 11: to maintain a concentration of wealth and power in a
Speaker 11: small handful of a small.
Speaker 7: Group of players.
Speaker 11: One way you do that, that was season one of
Speaker 11: Master Plana. Legalize corruption so that the elections can be bought,
Speaker 11: so that it is less a one person, one vote
Speaker 11: democracy and more a one dollar, one vote democracy, so
Speaker 11: that the election choices, no matter what they are, deliver
Speaker 11: the unpopular policies you need. The second thing you do
Speaker 11: is you try to concentrate power in one person's hands,
Speaker 11: the president, so that the president so you don't have
Speaker 11: to deal with the Congress.
Speaker 7: You don't really have to deal with with.
Speaker 11: The courts, Like that's hard to Congress members have to
Speaker 11: go back to their districts every two years and deal
Speaker 11: with actual people. So part of the way to subvert
Speaker 11: democracy is to concentrate power. The finals part of this
Speaker 11: is to simply make it harder, if not impossible, for
Speaker 11: people to actually even vote, right I think, and I
Speaker 11: think that's you know, what the Save Act represents. And
Speaker 11: I think it's easy to like presume that the motive
Speaker 11: here is just like you know, doctor evil motives, right,
Speaker 11: Like it's just people like like the people pushing this
Speaker 11: just are evil because they want to be evil.
Speaker 7: No, it's actually a motive of self interest.
Speaker 11: We want to maintain power knowing that the policies that maintain.
Speaker 7: Our power are unpopular.
Speaker 11: So we have to do all of these things to
Speaker 11: essentially keep that power because if we allow an actually
Speaker 11: flourishing democracy to operate, we're not going to get the
Speaker 11: unpopular policies that we want. I mean, Lewis Powell in
Speaker 11: the Powell Memo in Season one Master Plan, I mean
Speaker 11: he lays this out, I mean literally, like the problem
Speaker 11: that the conservative movement saw at the time was the
Speaker 11: government has become too responsive to the people. Like the
Speaker 11: government is passing all the Ralph Nader is getting all
Speaker 11: these things past that we the oligarchy, do not like.
Speaker 11: And the problem is that the government has become too
Speaker 11: responsive to what the public wants.
Speaker 7: And I think ultimately this question of.
Speaker 11: We originally struck a balance, like the Constitution was supposed
Speaker 11: to strike a balance, like you don't want the hot
Speaker 11: passions of every whim that the public wants to be
Speaker 11: legislated at any time, because that can get out of it.
Speaker 7: You know, that's mob rule.
Speaker 11: So there needs to be like some you know, small
Speaker 11: are republican checks on that problem, you know, representative democracy.
Speaker 11: But I think we've swung so far to the other
Speaker 11: side that we're now at the stage of talking about
Speaker 11: making it harder for people just to cast votes. I mean,
Speaker 11: that's really how far this plan has gone.
Speaker 2: David, Where can people find Masterplan Season two and where
Speaker 2: can they support you guys over at lever News.
Speaker 7: Uh, thanks for asking.
Speaker 11: Go onto your phone right now, pull up your podcast app,
Speaker 11: whichever one is your favorite app. Just type in Masterplan, subscribe,
Speaker 11: go listen to episode one. If you don't have a
Speaker 11: podcast app, just go to Masterplan podcast dot com.
Speaker 7: All all the episodes will be.
Speaker 11: There that and we are the lever so you can
Speaker 11: find all of our reporting at levernews dot com. And
Speaker 11: just a huge thank you to Breaking Points and Breaking
Speaker 11: Points as audience for always being such great supporters of
Speaker 11: our work and letting your audience know about our work.
Speaker 11: We are independent investigative journalists. It's not easy to get
Speaker 11: our work, our work out there, but you guys are
Speaker 11: a huge help and we really appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Well, we have podcast Your podcasts are incredible.
Speaker 2: Sure they are really excellent.
Speaker 4: Storytelling is so good.
Speaker 7: I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Great to see us always, David, Great to see you guys.
Speaker 7: Thanks again.
Speaker 3: All right, that'll do it for us here in the
Speaker 3: first half of the show. If you want to see
Speaker 3: the second half, y'all know the deal. Emily, where do
Speaker 3: they go?
Speaker 6: Breakingpoints dot com?
Speaker 4: Of course? Where else?
Speaker 7: Of course?
Speaker 2: Where read the Breaking Points twenty six though, so sorry, guys.
Speaker 4: They've been liberated. They're taking Cuba with Ryan.
Speaker 7: That's right.
Speaker 2: One last thing before we get over the premium section, though,
Speaker 2: Thank you to everybody who' submitted questions for Sager for
Speaker 2: the Joe Ken interview. I know he was going over them, Griffin,
Speaker 2: I'm sure you dug into them as well, and he
Speaker 2: was saying, like, there's actually a lot of really good
Speaker 2: questions here, so really appreciate that input. And if you
Speaker 2: want to be able to, you know, contribute to such
Speaker 2: things in the future, breakpoints dot com that's how you
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, start doing our job for us, really
Speaker 3: good stuff.
Speaker 2: Yes, please pay us money and then also do our
Speaker 2: job for us.
Speaker 4: Created.
Speaker 2: How is this pitch going?
Speaker 6: Yes, this is going perfect. We should in an all
Speaker 6: credit to soccer. He created a massive list of his
Speaker 6: own questions for Joe Kent and then he got great
Speaker 6: audience questions and now there's a great synergy happening behind
Speaker 6: the scenes.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, yes, all right, we'll see y'all in the
Speaker 3: second half.
Speaker 1: Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button
Speaker 1: or leave a comment below. It really helps get the
Speaker 1: show to more people.
Speaker 2: And if you'd like to get the full show add
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Speaker 7: That's right at the full show.
Speaker 1: Help support the future of independent media at breakingpoints dot com.