Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for
Speaker 1: everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
Speaker 2: Indeed, we do many interesting things going on. So we've
Speaker 2: got new indications of Trump's plan visa v Ukraine.
Speaker 4: Would break that down for you.
Speaker 2: We also have the very latest with regard to DOJ
Speaker 2: and Elon getting a nice new four hundred million dollar
Speaker 2: contract from the State Department is not nice for him.
Speaker 2: Inflation ticked up, very worrying sign given that there have
Speaker 2: been very few tariffs put on at this point. So
Speaker 2: where is that heading egg prices sort of leading the
Speaker 2: way in terms of inflationary items. Jadie Vance gave an
Speaker 2: important speech on a I want to take a look
Speaker 2: at that and some other troubling indicators with regard to
Speaker 2: that tech development. Democrats are getting really mad. Democratic leadership
Speaker 2: really mad at the activists who are calling their office
Speaker 2: demanding that they stop being like the biggest losers on earth.
Speaker 2: So we'll get into that. And Nancy Mays is lying
Speaker 2: to sexual abuse survivors, so kind of a horrific story there,
Speaker 2: and we'll give you all the details on that as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, Well we'll talk about it. There's a
Speaker 3: lot to say, so as christ before we get to that.
Speaker 3: Thank you though, to all the premium subscribers. We appreciate you.
Speaker 3: Breakingpoints dot com. We just got a very big interview
Speaker 3: scheduled here for the show.
Speaker 1: Can we give it away? Should we? What do you think?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 1: Anyway? So Stephen A.
Speaker 3: Smith took notice of our segment and he has agreed
Speaker 3: to come on the show.
Speaker 1: So we're working on that.
Speaker 3: Thank you to our premium subscribers, you guys are the
Speaker 3: people who make that type of stuff happen. We're working
Speaker 3: with this team now, and I guess we'll have him
Speaker 3: on soon.
Speaker 2: It's always really for real when famous people you know
Speaker 2: are aware of the show.
Speaker 3: I feel the same way. I cannot say because he
Speaker 3: didn't just post on Twitter. I also posted on his Instagram.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: I got so many text messages from people who are
Speaker 3: not interested in politics at all.
Speaker 1: They're like, dude, isn't this your show?
Speaker 3: And I was like, I, obviously I'm not even aware
Speaker 3: of this all happening. So that's how I found out
Speaker 3: on top of the Twitter thing.
Speaker 1: So thank you. You guys are the people who make
Speaker 1: that possible.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we haven't locked in a date in the time,
Speaker 2: so it's never done until it's done. But he said
Speaker 2: he would do it. We're in touch with his team
Speaker 2: working on dates and times.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, like you said, he put it publicly.
Speaker 3: He said I'm happy to come on the show, which
Speaker 3: is fascinating.
Speaker 1: So there we go. All right, we'll have Stephen A.
Speaker 3: Smith and I'm excited to see it before we get
Speaker 3: to And now that we've gotten that out of the way,
Speaker 3: let's get to Ukraine because this is probably the biggest
Speaker 3: global news. It is the start of the Munich Security
Speaker 3: Conference today, which is like usually a big gathering of
Speaker 3: the Transatlantic elite, but there's been a real record scratch
Speaker 3: with the election of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Jade Vance will be there along with the Secretary.
Speaker 3: Of State, and it comes on the heels of Secretary
Speaker 3: of defensee. Hegsat, who gave a big speech laying out
Speaker 3: new US policy towards Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine, but
Speaker 6: we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre
Speaker 6: twenty fourteen borders is an unrealistic objective. The United States
Speaker 6: does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a
Speaker 6: realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead, any security guarantee
Speaker 6: must be backed by capable European and non European troops.
Speaker 6: If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at
Speaker 6: any point, they should be deployed as part of a
Speaker 6: non NATO mission and they should not be covered under
Speaker 6: Article five. There also must be robust international oversight of
Speaker 6: the line of contact to be clear as part of
Speaker 6: any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed
Speaker 6: to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: So several elements of US policy to change. Here, I'm
Speaker 1: going to lead them out.
Speaker 3: Number one, he said, an official declaration that a return
Speaker 3: to twenty fourteen borders is unrealistic. Too, NATO membership for
Speaker 3: Ukraine is off the table.
Speaker 1: Three.
Speaker 3: Only European troops would be considered for peacekeeping forces, and
Speaker 3: for those forces will not be covered under Article five.
Speaker 3: So if you pair that together with Donald Trump then
Speaker 3: and his most recent comments confirming talks both with Vladimir Zelenski,
Speaker 3: the president of Ukraine, as well as Vladimir Putin, the
Speaker 3: President of Russia.
Speaker 1: Here's what Trump had to say yesterday in the Oval Office.
Speaker 3: Just to be clear, if you see any future in
Speaker 3: which Ukraine returned through his twenty fourteen.
Speaker 7: Borders, well, I think Pete said today that that's unlikely.
Speaker 7: It certainly would seem to be unlikely. They took a
Speaker 7: lot of land, and they fought for that land, and
Speaker 7: they lost a lot of they lost a lot of soldiers.
Speaker 7: But it would just seem to be And I'm not
Speaker 7: making an opinion on it, but I've read a lot
Speaker 7: on it, and a lot of people think that that's unlikely.
Speaker 7: Some of it will come back. I think some of
Speaker 7: it will come back. Yeah, some of that land will
Speaker 7: come back. Dealing with President Putin largely on the phone,
Speaker 7: and we ultimately expect to meet. In fact, we expect
Speaker 7: that he'll come here and I'll go there, and we're
Speaker 7: going to meet also, probably in Saudi Arabia, the first
Speaker 7: time we'll meet in Saudi Arabia. See if we get
Speaker 7: something done. But we want to end that war. That
Speaker 7: war is a disaster.
Speaker 3: So we can also put Trump's truth up there on
Speaker 3: the screen where he says, I just had a lengthy
Speaker 3: and a highly productive phone call with President Putin of Russia.
Speaker 3: We justscrossed Ukraine, in the Middle East, et cetera. We
Speaker 3: both reflected on the great history of our nations. We
Speaker 3: agreed we want to stop the millions of deaths taking
Speaker 3: place in war with Russia and Ukraine. President Putin even
Speaker 3: used my very strong campaign model of common sense. We
Speaker 3: both I think it might mean a little something different
Speaker 3: depending on who you're talking to, we both.
Speaker 1: Believe very strongly.
Speaker 3: We agreed to work together very closely, including visiting each
Speaker 3: other's nations. We've also agreed to have our respective teams
Speaker 3: start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President
Speaker 3: Zelenski of Ukraine to inform him of the conversation. So
Speaker 3: it does seem cristal that things are moving in that direction.
Speaker 3: President's Lenski put out a reaction, a muted reaction, considering
Speaker 3: how many of his demands have now been struck down.
Speaker 3: Let's go to the next part please, Just to show here,
Speaker 3: he just met with the Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessant,
Speaker 3: where he said, we value our partnership with the United States.
Speaker 3: I'm grateful for the support and defending our independence. Security matters.
Speaker 3: Moscow and its allies cannot be allowed to gain control
Speaker 3: over Ukraine, and that means we must work together across
Speaker 3: this free world. So things are really aligning against the
Speaker 3: position that the Biden administration and others took. I mean
Speaker 3: this is also, of course, goes without saying full blown
Speaker 3: freak out here in Washington, I watched the Press secretaries
Speaker 3: briefing yesterday. I would say ten out of twenty questions
Speaker 3: were on Ukraine, and it was all like, oh, why
Speaker 3: have you given up concessions before they've even started. It's like, well,
Speaker 3: it's not a concession to say that a twenty fourteen
Speaker 3: border control is unrealistic. That's not a concession, that's reality
Speaker 3: of where we are right now. It's a tragedy too,
Speaker 3: because if you think about the amount of territory that
Speaker 3: Ukraine is inevitably going to have to give up now,
Speaker 3: if they had just taken that deal in April of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty twenty two, none of this would happen, and an
Speaker 3: entire generation of Ukrainian men is dead. The country is
Speaker 3: completely decimated, their economy, and it's going to take hundreds
Speaker 3: of billions for them to be able to rebuild it.
Speaker 1: They've basically resorted.
Speaker 3: To being like, hey, United States defense contractors, you can
Speaker 3: have free reign. You don't have to pay any taxes
Speaker 3: in this country for the future.
Speaker 1: So they have.
Speaker 3: Their prospects are just devastating right now. Whether they wanted
Speaker 3: to continue to fight, which is effectively impossible, can we
Speaker 3: were to give them the weapons considering their manpower. But overall,
Speaker 3: it's a diplomatic resolution and it's one that I'm very
Speaker 3: happy to see. We're not there yet, and there could
Speaker 3: still be some Trump idiocy concerning rare earth metals, which
Speaker 3: we will mention in a little bit, but overall, I'm
Speaker 3: happy to see at least things are moving in.
Speaker 1: The right direction.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the rare earth minerals part is actually
Speaker 2: really central because it's Trump, yes, exactly, no, and it
Speaker 2: reflects the very different foreign policy world that we live
Speaker 2: in now, whereas previously, you know, the Biden administration of
Speaker 2: course wrapped this conflict in these values about you know,
Speaker 2: a fight between authoritarianism and democracy, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: They had their own real goals in pushing Ukraine to
Speaker 2: continue fighting this war even you know, beyond when there
Speaker 2: was a possibility of coming to some sort of a
Speaker 2: peaceful resolution, because they thought this would be effective proxy
Speaker 2: war to weaken Russia a global adversary.
Speaker 4: That was what was really going on here.
Speaker 2: Okay, in the you know, I would say, post Israeli
Speaker 2: genocide in Gaza, post Donald Trump coming into office and
Speaker 2: really ushering in this William McKinley.
Speaker 4: Style like throwback style colonialism, imperialism.
Speaker 2: Russia to Ukraine is no longer in their worldview, is
Speaker 2: no longer any kind of a crime. I mean, here
Speaker 2: we are talking about taking Panama, taking Greenland, taking Canada,
Speaker 2: it's taking Gaza, et cetera. And so you know, with Trump,
Speaker 2: everything is very unmasked. So no longer is it, Oh,
Speaker 2: we're going into a rock because we're you know, we're
Speaker 2: gream fighters and we're bringing ushering in democracy. Oh and
Speaker 2: it just so happens that they sit on top of
Speaker 2: these gigantic oil reserves.
Speaker 4: But that has nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2: Now with Trump, it's all out there on the table, like, hey, Pudin,
Speaker 2: you got the arms and the strength to take territory.
Speaker 4: We're not really going to stand in your way.
Speaker 2: But on the other side of it, we might back
Speaker 2: Ukraine because they've got some rare earth minerals that we
Speaker 2: want to be able to get and Zelenski being a
Speaker 2: savvy operator as he is, and we could go ahead
Speaker 2: and put this is all in a five that tearsheet
Speaker 2: New York from the New York Times. He immediately shifted
Speaker 2: the way that he was pitching continued support for Ukraine.
Speaker 2: So when it was the Biden administration, he was pitching
Speaker 2: it in the terms that they wanted to hear about,
Speaker 2: you know, this global fight between authoritarianism and democracy, blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. Now he's saying, hey, let's make a business deal.
Speaker 2: You keep supporting us, and we will basically allow you
Speaker 2: to exploit the significant mineral deposits that we have through
Speaker 2: you know, your your interest in making sure that we
Speaker 2: can provide that in terms of you know, the development
Speaker 2: and this is important for electric vehicles and all kinds
Speaker 2: of the sort of new technology that's coming up. And
Speaker 2: apparently this idea was floated to him by a billionaire
Speaker 2: donor who was interested in these mineral deposits, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And so that's effectively what Zelensky has pitched.
Speaker 4: And you know it's not an accident. That is the
Speaker 4: Treasury Secretary.
Speaker 2: Who is making the truck over there and visiting with Zelenski,
Speaker 2: because that is the way Trump is now looking at
Speaker 2: this conflct. He does not see Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Speaker 2: as being any sort of like problem or violation of
Speaker 2: international law. He wants to operate in the world in
Speaker 2: this very same, like brazenly imperialist manner. But if he
Speaker 2: can get something out of the deal on the other
Speaker 2: side and find it to be beneficial, then he may
Speaker 2: be up for continuing to support Ukraine and provide them
Speaker 2: with aid. That's basically the pitch that Zelenskia is taking up.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's true, but Zelenski's trying to use it as
Speaker 3: back door to effectively forestall negotiations with Russia and to
Speaker 3: actually stop any sort of peace process. And look, I
Speaker 3: don't dispute necessarily anything that you said, but I appreciate
Speaker 3: its honesty because what have the critics of the US
Speaker 3: LED International Were or LED Order always said, this is
Speaker 3: just a fake guys for your imperialism. And guess what,
Speaker 3: I will be honest, they're right. And so what this
Speaker 3: does is just lays it out on the table and
Speaker 3: we're like, listen, we gave you guys two hundred billion
Speaker 3: at this point, seventy five percent of it was probably stolen.
Speaker 3: By their own admission. They've even said that. The Ukrainians,
Speaker 3: they're like, hey, did all the money go amazing?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: We weren't even allowed to ask that Congress if what
Speaker 3: was that rand Paul tried to get it just have
Speaker 3: a rider attached to Ukraine aid for an inspector general.
Speaker 1: And Congress would not even vote.
Speaker 3: For that because they would not even require scrutiny of
Speaker 3: this amount of aid. So Trump is like, listen, we're
Speaker 3: going to take something from you. I also think that
Speaker 3: this goes back to Lindsay Graham. If you'll remember who
Speaker 3: was one of the reasons that he started pitching MAGA
Speaker 3: on this on Fox News. He's like, look, they've got
Speaker 3: all these minerals over there. If they tried this with Afghanistan, yeah,
Speaker 3: as well. By the way, they're always like, oh, there's
Speaker 3: one trillion dollars in Afghanistan. That's why we need to
Speaker 3: continue to occupy it forever. So there is a dishonesty
Speaker 3: in the inverse of it as well, which is, oh, well,
Speaker 3: we're doing it so that women and girls can go.
Speaker 1: To school in Kabble.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, so that's worth you know, X amount
Speaker 3: of billion dollars per year. What's happening right now is
Speaker 3: that we've seen the inversion of Zelensky, where he's caught
Speaker 3: between a rock and a hard place.
Speaker 1: He's trying to play the game.
Speaker 3: But the reason why I think he ultimately would be
Speaker 3: the biggest thorn in the side of this deal is
Speaker 3: based on my conversation with Lex Freedman.
Speaker 1: I don't think you would mind me saying this.
Speaker 3: He said a lot of it publicly in his reflection
Speaker 3: over this Lensky interview. I got to spend some time
Speaker 3: with him during the inauguration my first I was like,
Speaker 3: so Zelenski, what are your impressions, and he was like
Speaker 3: he believes it, like he is a strident, like Churchillian
Speaker 3: type figure. But Lex's analysis, which he also voiced on
Speaker 3: his show, was He's like, it's just a mismatch of
Speaker 3: the moment because it doesn't match the resources, the international mood.
Speaker 3: You know, the Ukrainian population now, as Trump even alluded
Speaker 3: to yesterday, has much more mixed feelings about some sort
Speaker 3: of negotiated piece, and it really came through in his
Speaker 3: interview with Lex Freeman, which we have some of that.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: To make it clear, Let's describe the idea that you
Speaker 8: are speaking about. I would like to offer you other
Speaker 8: ideas too, but right now, your idea is that NATO
Speaker 8: accepts Ukraine minus the five regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zapparizia,
Speaker 8: Kerson and Crimea.
Speaker 9: Just so you understand the situation, the invitation to NATO
Speaker 9: is legislatively issued to Ukraine, so to us, all those
Speaker 9: territories are still Ukraine, but the NATO so far can
Speaker 9: only act in the part that is under Ukrainian control.
Speaker 1: This can be negotiated. I am sure about that.
Speaker 10: Yes, this would not be a great success for us,
Speaker 10: but if we see a diplomatic way to end the war,
Speaker 10: this is one of the ways.
Speaker 1: These are our borders and we.
Speaker 9: Must understand what is going on there well. The NATO
Speaker 9: guarantees for Ukraine. Actually this is also a security guarantee
Speaker 9: for the Russians. Frankly, I talked about this many times before.
Speaker 1: So what you took.
Speaker 3: Away really from his was about his demands for NATO membership.
Speaker 3: Basically every demand that he laid out in his Freedman
Speaker 3: interview has already been struck out by the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: And this is actually for return to multipolarity, which is
Speaker 3: really what you were talking about, and that collapse. Part
Speaker 3: of that is what is that we are the great powers,
Speaker 3: which is the truth. The United States and Russia will
Speaker 3: figure this out, and this is part of the fallacy
Speaker 3: also of the Ukrainian you know, what was it nothing
Speaker 3: without Ukraine, nothing with nothing for Ukraine without Ukraine.
Speaker 1: This is ludicrous.
Speaker 3: We are talking about two big nuclear powers, people who
Speaker 3: like it or not obviously have an outsized impact on
Speaker 3: the conflict. You know, we would always talk about this
Speaker 3: in terms of the European Union, and it's like, listen,
Speaker 3: if you even look at the amount of military aid,
Speaker 3: it's this is United States versus Russia. And that was
Speaker 3: the dishonesty behind so much of the Biden administration. And
Speaker 3: occasionally they would say the truth, which is like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is about killing as many Russians as possible, and
Speaker 3: so what we are watching is really the fall of
Speaker 3: a lot of concepts around this. Israel obviously complicated this
Speaker 3: from day one, and Zelenski he even knew that. I mean,
Speaker 3: I remember in the days after October seventh, he was
Speaker 3: desperately trying to get himself back into the news. But
Speaker 3: then so many of the you know, so much of
Speaker 3: the death toll, and so much of his own, so
Speaker 3: much of the United States posturing around Ukraine, while simultaneously
Speaker 3: backing is it just fell apart to the point where
Speaker 3: it just went to the back burner and we did,
Speaker 3: you know, basically ignored it for a two year period.
Speaker 3: And now where in a must work situation Ukrainians have
Speaker 3: lost who nobody really knows. Trump said something like six
Speaker 3: seven hundred thousand people have been killed.
Speaker 1: It could be that number of.
Speaker 3: Killed or casualties regardless, I mean in terms of their population,
Speaker 3: which was even there.
Speaker 1: That's devastating. It's a disaster.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's bad for Russia too, which probably lost an
Speaker 3: equal number of men, but they have a much larger
Speaker 3: population and all of the hopes of coups it didn't work.
Speaker 3: I mean, Putin seems stronger today than ever before in
Speaker 3: terms of his control over the Russian oligarchy and then
Speaker 3: the economy. Their remarkable ability to basically sanction proof themselves
Speaker 3: hang on to the Chinese, who would be their financial benefactor,
Speaker 3: do weapons deals with the North Koreans. They are more
Speaker 3: insulated from international sanctions than anyone in modern history, like
Speaker 3: a state that was aligned with Europe. Something I've been
Speaker 3: reading to Crystal is that the Chinese and other countries
Speaker 3: have been studying the Russian sanctions regime, and now the
Speaker 3: adversaries to the United States are much more sanctioned proof
Speaker 3: as a result of what happened with Ukraine than ever before.
Speaker 3: So there have been so many massive failures in US
Speaker 3: policy heres. My main thing is, look, you know, in
Speaker 3: trump Wards, I want to stop the dying, and this
Speaker 3: is the inevitable conclusion that could have been reached earlier.
Speaker 3: And I think it's devastating that we even had to
Speaker 3: allow this all to happen in the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we'll see, because I mean when Treasure Secretary
Speaker 2: Bussent presented Zelenski with the economic cooperation Plan, he said
Speaker 2: it would be in exchange for the US continuing to
Speaker 2: provide material support for Ukraine. You know, multipolarity has potential
Speaker 2: benefits and it has potential dangers. I mean the most
Speaker 2: obvious one is like, you know, we were in a
Speaker 2: multipole world when everybody gets dragged into World War One, right,
Speaker 2: so you can end up in a situation where it
Speaker 2: is more dangerous, more possibility for larger conflagrations, et cetera.
Speaker 4: So's there's that.
Speaker 2: It's also important to understand, you know, some of the
Speaker 2: like Petertials of the world, who are these like this
Speaker 2: idea of the quote unquote network state where they can
Speaker 2: effectively instead of having nation states, have like corporate entities.
Speaker 2: And again, I know this sounds wild, but they're actually
Speaker 2: like doing this in certain cities around the world. Apparently
Speaker 2: Greenland was one of the targeted places to have one
Speaker 2: of these quote unquote network states. They like the idea
Speaker 2: of multipolarity because if you don't have any one nation
Speaker 2: that is the superpower nation. They feel like that opens
Speaker 2: up the possibility for them to have more power, to
Speaker 2: be able to execute on their like weird utopian ideas
Speaker 2: about these network states. So that's part of the push
Speaker 2: here as well, and part of why Elon is interested
Speaker 2: in multipolarity as well. The other thing I would say
Speaker 2: is there are also pluses and minuses to a movement
Speaker 2: away from the you know, post World War two international
Speaker 2: order where things were wrapped in this coding of like
Speaker 2: democracy and human rights. So even something that was as
Speaker 2: brazenly a resource grab as the war in Iraq had
Speaker 2: to be justified in these terms around human rights and democracy,
Speaker 2: et cetera. On the one hand, you're right, it's kind
Speaker 2: of refreshing, I guess, to have the honest truth out
Speaker 2: there of like, now we just want the minerals, and yeah,
Speaker 2: we just like we don't really care about Russia taking
Speaker 2: illegally taking whatever territory they want and are able to take,
Speaker 2: but we're going to make sure we get our end
Speaker 2: out of the deal. And you know, I understand why
Speaker 2: there's like an appeal to that. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: first of all, if you're just in the law, the
Speaker 2: jungle might makes right, Like, in a world that is multipolar,
Speaker 2: then that can very much come back to bite you
Speaker 2: when another entity feels they're powerful enough to make a
Speaker 2: play on your interest, et cetera. Can contribute to the
Speaker 2: volatility of the world. And then the other piece that's
Speaker 2: a question for me is like, even though the justifications
Speaker 2: in places like Iraq were completely fake and phony, the Ukraine,
Speaker 2: same thing. Ukraine is the perfect example of this that
Speaker 2: you know, wrapped in this language of democracy that at
Speaker 2: this point is just not sustainable because at the same time,
Speaker 2: we're like funding this genocide and you know in Gaza
Speaker 2: and speaking out of both sides of our mouth at
Speaker 2: the immediate time, like, did the necessity of politicians at
Speaker 2: least trying to pretend, having to try to pretend for
Speaker 2: the public that there was some larger good that was
Speaker 2: being pursued.
Speaker 4: Did that act as a check on some of.
Speaker 2: The larger like imperial ambitions, because it created a pressure
Speaker 2: point where, you know, once the Iraq War started going
Speaker 2: sideways and people started to turn on it, the distance
Speaker 2: between the rhetoric about democracy and.
Speaker 4: The reality of the reasons we were.
Speaker 2: Really there, that became an effective political pressure point. You know,
Speaker 2: it becomes an effective political pressure point to point out
Speaker 2: the distance between what we're doing in you know, Gaza
Speaker 2: and what we're doing in Ukraine. So that's why, you know,
Speaker 2: I feel very I don't feel great about this shift
Speaker 2: into the new era of just like might mix right,
Speaker 2: law of the jungle. The big players can do what
Speaker 2: they want, take what they want when they want, et cetera,
Speaker 2: and having it all just out in the open of No,
Speaker 2: it's just going to be a grab for resources and
Speaker 2: those with the biggest guns get the biggest pay.
Speaker 3: I think it's just always been that way, and I'd
Speaker 3: rather ask to be honest about it. So, this entire
Speaker 3: idea of the international order, it's like, well, then, how
Speaker 3: does the UN Security Council make any sense?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 3: Because the p five plus one powers or whatever the
Speaker 3: nuclear powers on the UN Security Council are the people
Speaker 3: won World War Two, They have the nukes and we
Speaker 3: get to do what we want. So, you know, in
Speaker 3: an ideal world, like you just use the word illegal,
Speaker 3: there's no such thing as an illegal invasion. There's just
Speaker 3: an invasion. An invasion can either be repelled or can succeed.
Speaker 3: This is all fake, I mean, this is entire thing
Speaker 3: is an artifice designed to try and keep peace throughout
Speaker 3: the world. But the truth is is that that peace
Speaker 3: was backed by US aircraft carriers, US nuclear weapons. NATO
Speaker 3: itself was a you know, it's no great, big democratic
Speaker 3: forces a world. It's a tool of the United States
Speaker 3: and its empire to secure basically, you know, to the
Speaker 3: extent that we want democracy, it's because democratic societies do
Speaker 3: better business with America. The purpose of the United States Navy,
Speaker 3: I talk about this all the time, is not to
Speaker 3: deliver humanitarian aid. That's all bullshit. The point of the
Speaker 3: United States Navy is to secure commerce on the high
Speaker 3: seas and the blue water, to preserve ocean tankers so
Speaker 3: the gas doesn't cost more than four dollars a gallon.
Speaker 3: Let's all just be truthful, and in that truth we
Speaker 3: can achieve something. Now, what you're talking about with imperialism
Speaker 3: and all that is important. And actually, if you want
Speaker 3: to talk about McKinley, one of the reasons that Americans
Speaker 3: turned in the past on the Spanish American War, the
Speaker 3: imperial project in the Philippines is because it was dressed
Speaker 3: up in this fake language of oh, we're liberating these
Speaker 3: Filipinos and we're bringing all of this greatness. Americans were
Speaker 3: not concerned, but they were like, hold on a second,
Speaker 3: you're spending X, Y and Z. We're getting people who
Speaker 3: are killed over there as a result of this fakery.
Speaker 3: You're actually enriching all of these Gilded Age oligarchs which
Speaker 3: are using this to secure riches for themselves. So our
Speaker 3: guys are going over there dying. You people are all
Speaker 3: getting rich. What exactly?
Speaker 11: You know?
Speaker 3: The cognitive dissonance on this is just ridiculous. So I
Speaker 3: think that the honesty is good. I think it's important.
Speaker 3: And with that honesty, we can actually talk and instead
Speaker 3: of going to the North Koreans and saying, hey, you
Speaker 3: guys should give up your nuclear weapons and we'll make
Speaker 3: you really rich, and they're like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well look at Gaddafi. It's it's not going to happen.
Speaker 3: And we all dance around this idea that the what
Speaker 3: was it, the International Atomic Agent the IAEA is like
Speaker 3: this sacrasanct, you know, Sacrisanct organization. Meanwhile, Israel has nuclear
Speaker 3: weapons and we don't demand that they become Non Proliferation
Speaker 3: Treaty compliant. So when we go to India, even to
Speaker 3: this day, if you go to India and you try
Speaker 3: and tell them what they should do. They're like, yeah, well,
Speaker 3: we remember when we went nuclear to secure ourselves against
Speaker 3: Pakistan and you shook your finger at us and all
Speaker 3: this when we developed a nuclear weapon. And what we
Speaker 3: always say, what about Israel? You guys don't demand anything
Speaker 3: from them. So the fact is is that this has
Speaker 3: always been a tool for whatever we want. By instead
Speaker 3: reverting to just saying outright, what's happening here, it leads to,
Speaker 3: in my opinion, better relations. And this lack of this
Speaker 3: hypocrisy almost becomes the point. And when you argue within
Speaker 3: that hypocrisy. For example, Saudi Arabia is our greatest ally, it's.
Speaker 1: Like this, they treat their own population.
Speaker 3: With barbarism, and then we're like, oh, we're the paragon.
Speaker 3: And then we'll go to some tiny African nation and
Speaker 3: we'll be like, you guys need to repeal this law
Speaker 3: against gay people, and they're like, what what are we
Speaker 3: talking about here? One of your greatest allies has the
Speaker 3: same laws on the books, and so they're like, screw you,
Speaker 3: We're not even gonna listen. Where if we talk in
Speaker 3: the language of gas, then everyone's like, okay, I get
Speaker 3: it now, you know, I think that's better.
Speaker 1: I think it's better for everybody.
Speaker 3: It dispels as a hypocrisy, and it allows for honest
Speaker 3: dealings with the world, where in that you know, in
Speaker 3: the rest of the world they look at us like fools.
Speaker 3: Around this whole democracy, human rights nonsense, post Iraq, it's
Speaker 3: all falling apart. That's one of the things that led
Speaker 3: to the demise of the image of the United States
Speaker 3: abroad because people falsely used to believe all that rhetoric,
Speaker 3: and then when you see the most brazen invasion for
Speaker 3: no purpose whatsoever that destroyed our own nation, it immediately
Speaker 3: caused a major turn against us. And then you still
Speaker 3: have idiots like Max Boot and others who are actually
Speaker 3: preaching those values and then going abroad worse and lecturing
Speaker 3: other people. Just I don't want to be in the
Speaker 3: business of lecturing other countries.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: And there's that famous interviewer forget exactly who the president.
Speaker 3: I think it might be the Turkmenistan president who's talking
Speaker 3: to that BBC interviewer because she's asking him about human
Speaker 3: rights and press freedoms, and he's like, who's in your
Speaker 3: jail right now?
Speaker 1: Julian Assan. Yeah, and she fell apart, right, That's that's
Speaker 1: the problem with us. Yes, this is what we do.
Speaker 3: We go abroad and we a tut tut and tell
Speaker 3: people what to do. But if they're really rich, they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: forget about it. Prince Faisal, he's one of our greatest friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean obviously on the hypocrisy point,
Speaker 2: there's no doubt about it. And you're correct that this
Speaker 2: really starts.
Speaker 4: To come undone with the rock. That's where really starts.
Speaker 2: All the like edifice starts to come apart with the
Speaker 2: Iraq War, which was you know, which was foolish.
Speaker 4: I just you know, I do worry about.
Speaker 2: A world when we have just completely pushed aside the
Speaker 2: idea that nations should have territorial integrity and that that
Speaker 2: should be something that you know, is kind of like
Speaker 2: a if you don't want to say it's illegal, you know, invasions,
Speaker 2: just like taking territory because you can and you want it.
Speaker 2: Then at least the norms were in place that it
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, this is something that's really bad to do,
Speaker 2: and it did help to create some level of global stability.
Speaker 2: It did, you said, you know, the reason to put
Speaker 2: it in place was to keep peace around the world.
Speaker 4: I mean, that was the idea.
Speaker 2: Now the downside of that is us being the world's policeman,
Speaker 2: us operating with you know, whatever suits us at the moment,
Speaker 2: and the fact that we were so brazenly hypocritical about
Speaker 2: that has led to this place where the edifice is
Speaker 2: no longer sustainable. And I do think that our facilitating funding,
Speaker 2: you know, Bear hug support of Bibi Netna who as
Speaker 2: they were committing a genocide in Gaza, really was the
Speaker 2: last thing that made it completely unsustainable. But you know,
Speaker 2: I'm just saying there's first of all, I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: opposed to the whole imperial product project of what we're
Speaker 2: going to take Greenland, We're going to take Canada, We're
Speaker 2: going to take the rare earth minerals wherever we want
Speaker 2: for whatever we want from seems pretty serious about it,
Speaker 2: at least according to Trudeau and himself, et cetera. But
Speaker 2: but there are risks also involved in the shift away
Speaker 2: from the sheen of international order, democracy, territorial integrity, human rights, etc.
Speaker 2: There are risks involved in that, and it could lead
Speaker 2: to a much more volatile, much more volatile and much
Speaker 2: more barbaric world.
Speaker 3: I don't have a I don't disagree, per se. I
Speaker 3: just think it was probably going to happen regardless, and
Speaker 3: I think that the worst outcome is being some Biden boom,
Speaker 3: silent gen worshiper of democracy, human rights and all that,
Speaker 3: and hypocritically having a real politique foreign policy which agree
Speaker 3: with the rest of the world. All knows this Jimmy
Speaker 3: Carter Kumbaya stuff. It's always been a complete farce and anyway,
Speaker 3: so the fall up part of it is something that
Speaker 3: I'm going to cheer forever.
Speaker 4: All Right.
Speaker 2: So we got a couple questions yesterday, both to the
Speaker 2: White House Pros Secretary and also to Trump himself about
Speaker 2: whether or not he intends to comply with the court
Speaker 2: orders that are coming down these At this point, it's
Speaker 2: just mostly temporary injunctions against some of the actions they've taken,
Speaker 2: gutting agencies, illegally firing employees, et cetera. Let's take a
Speaker 2: listen to what the White House Pros Secretary had to say.
Speaker 5: More on the judges does so, what House believe the
Speaker 5: courts have the authority to issue these nationwide injunctions? We
Speaker 5: believe that the injunctions that have been issued by these
Speaker 5: judges have no basis in the law and have no grounds.
Speaker 5: And we will, again, as the President said very clearly yesterday,
Speaker 5: comply with these orders. But it is the administration's position
Speaker 5: that we will also ultimately be vindicated. And the president's
Speaker 5: executive actions that he took were completely within the law,
Speaker 5: they were constitutional, and we look forward to the day where.
Speaker 1: He can continue to implement his agenda. And I would just.
Speaker 5: Add it's our view that this is the continuation of
Speaker 5: the weaponization of justice that we have seen against President Trump.
Speaker 5: He fought it for two years on the campaign troll.
Speaker 5: It won't stop him now.
Speaker 2: So she alludes there to comments from the President. Let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and take a listen to what the President
Speaker 2: had to say.
Speaker 12: If the judge does block one of your policies part
Speaker 12: of your agenda, will you abide by that ruling?
Speaker 11: Will you come by the courts? And then I'll have
Speaker 11: to appeal it. But then what he's done is he
Speaker 11: slowed down the momentum and it gives crooked people more
Speaker 11: time to cover up the books. You know, if a
Speaker 11: person's crooked and they get caught, other people see that,
Speaker 11: and all of a sudden it becomes harder later on.
Speaker 11: So yeah, the answer is I always abide by the courts,
Speaker 11: always abide by him, and will appeal.
Speaker 4: So he says he'll comply.
Speaker 2: This is the big question right now, because I mean,
Speaker 2: the truth of the matter is he's already in non
Speaker 2: compliance with a couple of the orders, specifically with regard
Speaker 2: to USAID and with regard to the payment freeze. But
Speaker 2: you know they're holding their position is that, oh, we
Speaker 2: mean to be in compliance. We're just confused about what
Speaker 2: that means. And it's hard to do this with the
Speaker 2: federal government. Blah blah blah. So it's different than if
Speaker 2: they're just brazenly out and out, undeniably flouting court orders.
Speaker 4: So that's what they're saying right now.
Speaker 2: She also got a question, Caroline Levit did about Elon
Speaker 2: Musk having massive conflicts of interest across all of government.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen to how she responded to that.
Speaker 12: You talked about the true transparency with DOJE and Elon
Speaker 12: Musk's print availability yesterday. There is a conflict of interest
Speaker 12: law in place that says that people who have personal
Speaker 12: interests can't interact with government entities that could touch on those.
Speaker 12: Has President Trump signed a waiver for Elon Musk?
Speaker 1: Does such a thing exist? If it does, will you
Speaker 1: guys release.
Speaker 12: It in the interest of transparency that he's committed to.
Speaker 5: I have not seen the law that you are referring to.
Speaker 5: What I can tell you is that Elon Musk, as
Speaker 5: I've confirmed before, is a special government employee. He is
Speaker 5: filing the proper financial disclosure and he is complying with
Speaker 5: all applicable federal laws. As you also heard Elon address
Speaker 5: this directly yesterday and the alleged conflict of interest, and
Speaker 5: he said, everything he's doing is very public, and if
Speaker 5: you all perceive a conflict of interest, you're welcome to
Speaker 5: bring that up. And as the President said, if he
Speaker 5: feels like Elon is engaging in something that's a conflict
Speaker 5: of interest.
Speaker 1: He will tell Elon not to do that.
Speaker 5: And Elon also said yesterday that before he moves forward
Speaker 5: with anything, he consults with the President of the United States.
Speaker 5: So we're very confident with the ethics and the guardrails
Speaker 5: that have been put in place here.
Speaker 2: Obviously a preposterous answer given, I mean, the first of all,
Speaker 2: there's barely an agency that Elon must could touch that
Speaker 2: he wouldn't.
Speaker 4: Have a conflict of injurans.
Speaker 2: But if you go down the line of the agencies
Speaker 2: that he has gone after boast vociferously, you can see
Speaker 2: in almost every case, oh they were investigating him. Oh
Speaker 2: they were investigating him over here. Oh they ran a
Speaker 2: foul of them over there, and had you know, previously
Speaker 2: had issues with almost all of these ages. The CFPP
Speaker 2: is like the most brazen one because X has just
Speaker 2: signed this deal with Visa. He wants it to be
Speaker 2: the everything app. He wants to get into payment processing.
Speaker 2: They were said to be regulated by the CFPP no longer.
Speaker 2: That is all done just to get into the specifics too.
Speaker 2: The question there because some of the details of why
Speaker 2: she asked that particular question is important. Special government employees
Speaker 2: are subject to it's actually a criminal statute to avoid
Speaker 2: conflicts of interest. So it says they can't participate personally
Speaker 2: and substantially in any government matter that could affect their
Speaker 2: financial interests. And again this is not civil. This is
Speaker 2: actually criminal, violating the laws of felony. It could result
Speaker 2: in fines, it could result even in imprisonment. Now, not
Speaker 2: that we think any of that is going to happen
Speaker 2: with DJ and Trump cat pardon him, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But that's why she's asking specifically about, hey, did you
Speaker 2: give him a waiver because to avoid coming into conflict
Speaker 2: with this criminal statute as a special government employee.
Speaker 4: And she says, well, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Waivers can be granted for special government employees in certain instances,
Speaker 2: but even those can be challenged in court and deemed
Speaker 2: unlawful if you're just like you know, if it's not
Speaker 2: done in good faith, if they don't comply with legal standards,
Speaker 2: or if they violate ethical guidelines. So that's why she
Speaker 2: asked that specific questions about whether or not Elon had
Speaker 2: been subject to any kind of a waiver.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a smart question actually there on the way,
Speaker 3: but I mean, look, we return he said he would comply.
Speaker 3: I think that's important. That's one of the I'm not
Speaker 3: saying necessarily that what did you say that there's different
Speaker 3: types of non compliance in terms of hey, it's taking
Speaker 3: a while for us to negotiate all of this, but
Speaker 3: as of now, you know, the liberal fanfic about just
Speaker 3: openly saying that I'm going to defy as like not
Speaker 3: materializing and not happening. I do think that the elon
Speaker 3: thing is objectively crazy. There's no way that you can
Speaker 3: just certify that somebody has just like I grant you
Speaker 3: conflict of interests like with the magic can you imagine.
Speaker 3: I also do think this is worth explaining to people
Speaker 3: special government employees, actually, all government employees who work for
Speaker 3: the president are subject to rigid conflict of interest laws,
Speaker 3: excluding elected officials the vice president and the president, and
Speaker 3: members of Congress, and those are so stringent that it
Speaker 3: is often heard of here in Washington that when people
Speaker 3: go to work for the office of the President they
Speaker 3: have to offload their entire stock portfolio famously in two
Speaker 3: thousand and nine that I feel bad for these people,
Speaker 3: but I'm just telling you, many of the people who
Speaker 3: went to go work for Obama had to sell at
Speaker 3: the bottom just to be able to go and work
Speaker 3: for the White House. So it's an immense I agree
Speaker 3: with you one hundred percent. I think it is outrageous, however,
Speaker 3: because I just always want to highlight this that the
Speaker 3: members of Congress themselves have specifically have specifically exempted themselves
Speaker 3: from these same government interest laws.
Speaker 1: These laws should be on the books for everybody.
Speaker 3: So it makes no sense that the employees who are
Speaker 3: making forty five thousand dollars a year as staff assistants
Speaker 3: have more rigid conflict of interest compliance and they will
Speaker 3: get as you said, they will be criminally prosecuted. There
Speaker 3: is an entire office in the government that reviews You're
Speaker 3: not even allowed to buy stocks, including in ETFs and
Speaker 3: index funds without reporting them when you're a schedule see
Speaker 3: political endpointee. Yet whenever you're you know, member of Congress
Speaker 3: or whatever, you don't.
Speaker 1: Now this is where the Elon thing is important.
Speaker 3: It imply it applies not only to public holdings, but
Speaker 3: to private holdings especially. So for example, space x is
Speaker 3: an entirely private company. Now their private companies also is
Speaker 3: relying on government contracts. So this is where there is
Speaker 3: lack of transparency because at least with Tesla Tesla's a
Speaker 3: fortune five hundred publicly traded company, we have tons of
Speaker 3: insight into their financials. To Elon's, I mean you can
Speaker 3: literally go up and look his own you know, stock ownership,
Speaker 3: the number of shares, et cetera. Does all of these
Speaker 3: sec compliance and things that you have to do whenever
Speaker 3: you're publicly traded, but in your private stakes, so things
Speaker 3: like the boring company as the SpaceX, et cetera, you
Speaker 3: don't have the same reporting requirements. There's literally no obligation
Speaker 3: to ever release your financials like any business that's private.
Speaker 3: That is where I think that the most objectionable conflict
Speaker 3: of interest stuff can come. And it's just the most
Speaker 3: glaring hole for Elon in the future. Like it's one
Speaker 3: of those where if you don't have this stuff buttoned
Speaker 3: up right now, you're going to be spending the next
Speaker 3: decade in federal court.
Speaker 1: Like, let's all just look at this. Clearly, what you think.
Speaker 3: Some democratic ag is not gonna let this go.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I guess you could.
Speaker 3: You're right, So I don't think, but it would have
Speaker 3: required it would require a literal pardon, just like the
Speaker 3: same type of pardon that Hunter got, which I pardon
Speaker 3: you for all crimes in the past and in the future,
Speaker 3: which okay, I mean, I guess we've normalize.
Speaker 2: I think I think that's I don't think there's any
Speaker 2: reason to expect that Elon would be left in any
Speaker 2: sort of legal jeopardy here. And just to to drill
Speaker 2: down on what you're saying here, you know, for anyone
Speaker 2: who believes this is some you know, noble mission to
Speaker 2: root out corruption and government, I want you to understand
Speaker 2: the trajectory of the Trump administration here. The very first week,
Speaker 2: what was one of the first illegal acts that he took.
Speaker 2: Late at night, he fired almost every inspector general across agencies,
Speaker 2: including ones that he had himself put into that position
Speaker 2: in his first administration.
Speaker 4: So they were all fired.
Speaker 2: These are the people that are meant to be the
Speaker 2: watchdogs at the agencies to provide some public accountability, and
Speaker 2: we've relied on the ports that these itubes have put out,
Speaker 2: both regard to Biden and with regard to Trump. So
Speaker 2: they're gone, so you no longer have people in position
Speaker 2: to watch over what's going on. So almost like a
Speaker 2: blackout there, you had him fire the top government ethics
Speaker 2: official that is supposed to be reviewing conflicts of interest
Speaker 2: and other things of that nature. With regard to the
Speaker 2: White House, he actually signed an executive order rolling back
Speaker 2: a Biden anti corruption executive order that also was meant
Speaker 2: to apply to the White House. And then just for fun,
Speaker 2: because this is something that dear and dear to Trump's
Speaker 2: own heart, in terms of being the global real estate magnate.
Speaker 2: He also has rolled back enforcement of foreign bribery laws,
Speaker 2: so now you can, you know, as a business person
Speaker 2: overseas trying to make a deal, bribe whatever officials you
Speaker 2: want to to be able to secure that for yourself.
Speaker 2: So there has been a systematic effort to avoid Oh
Speaker 2: and one more thing. Y one also has said he's
Speaker 2: not going to make his personal financial disclosure public, so
Speaker 2: Elon is supposed to be enforcing for himself whether there's
Speaker 2: any conflicts of interest here. And you know, it's like
Speaker 2: I said before, if you look at all of the
Speaker 2: different agencies that he had run a foul of, you know, Transportation,
Speaker 2: Intoior Justice, agriculture of the natural a relations for many
Speaker 2: lawsuits there, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Consumer Financial Protection
Speaker 2: Bureer or the SEC, the Defense Department, the FBC that's
Speaker 2: a federal election commission, the Office of Government Ethics. Oh,
Speaker 2: that's the one I just mentioned where they just fired
Speaker 2: the top top person. So it's insane to imagine that
Speaker 2: the richest man on the planet, who has some fifteen
Speaker 2: billion dollars in federal government contracts, after the over the
Speaker 2: post past number of years is going to avoid these
Speaker 2: conflicts and avoid self dealing. We already know that that
Speaker 2: is the polar opposite of the case, and I think
Speaker 2: it's always really important to keep in mind what the
Speaker 2: goal is here. The goal is a very ideological, like
Speaker 2: radical libertarian vision of stripping the government down, so that
Speaker 2: even if you don't go through Congress and roll back
Speaker 2: regulations you know that would be enforced by the CFPB,
Speaker 2: that would be enforced by the SEC. They are so
Speaker 2: short staffed and they are run by people that are
Speaker 2: ideologically opposed to those regulations, So it's effectively deregulation by
Speaker 2: defunding and by you know, firing all of these employees
Speaker 2: that you possibly can. You know, obviously this benefits someone
Speaker 2: who has a lot of business interests and wants to
Speaker 2: just be able to do whatever it is that he
Speaker 2: wants to do. So that's you know, a big part.
Speaker 2: That is the primary thing that is going on here.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, you know that education contracts
Speaker 2: are being frozen, and you had the healthcare the health
Speaker 2: research freeze that's been rolled back temporarily at least by
Speaker 2: a judge. We'll see if they're complying with that. But
Speaker 2: while you have all these problems that are frozen in
Speaker 2: contracts that are being frozen and rolled back Elon himself,
Speaker 2: his contracts are going right through. This was a great
Speaker 2: scoop by Ryan and Jeremy over at drop site News.
Speaker 2: So Tesla is set to win the largest State Department
Speaker 2: contract of twenty twenty five. They're getting from the State
Speaker 2: Department four hundred million dollars for armored Tesla's. This is
Speaker 2: apparently armored cyber trucks, in particular that they are so
Speaker 2: four hundred million dollars in armored cyber trucks to the
Speaker 2: State Apartment, according to procurement.
Speaker 4: Documents that they reviewed.
Speaker 2: So again, the largest contract for the State Department for
Speaker 2: all of twenty twenty five, thus far four hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars into the pockets of Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: How do I buy one? How do I get it
Speaker 1: nice for him?
Speaker 4: Very nice for him.
Speaker 3: Look, I think there's a couple of things. I don't
Speaker 3: think it's deniable that anything that you're saying is correct.
Speaker 3: I have noticed with great interest of a recent talking point,
Speaker 3: which is that Elon is so rich that he has
Speaker 3: no incentive to steal from you, Which is an interesting
Speaker 3: way to think about it, because by that logic, it
Speaker 3: means we should just take all of the richest and
Speaker 3: most powerful people and we should put them in charge because.
Speaker 4: They're surely the most honest.
Speaker 1: Right soccer, Look, that's wild.
Speaker 3: Well, let's move past it and just think about what's
Speaker 3: I think there's a couple things.
Speaker 1: I think Elon is obviously getting his pet stuff.
Speaker 3: The reason why this is right now is just so
Speaker 3: overwhelmingly popular with a lot of the Republicans is because
Speaker 3: it's also dismantling this like professional managerial class center of gravity,
Speaker 3: and that is really Elon's political genius here. And what
Speaker 3: I keep thinking about is he has to wait. They
Speaker 3: have to wait for him to screw up, to touch
Speaker 3: something that will really set people off before anybody's going
Speaker 3: to care about all of this conflict of interest. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, I remember how many times in the Iraq
Speaker 3: era would we talk about Halliburton and all of those
Speaker 3: no big contracts that they would get, and Republicans would
Speaker 3: just shut up and say, oh, no, no.
Speaker 1: George W. Bush told me that it was all okay.
Speaker 3: It probably took a decade for people to with what
Speaker 3: was also obviously a very brazen corruption scandal right now
Speaker 3: by targeting all of these things which are niche and
Speaker 3: which would also force Democrats to fight on on popular grounds.
Speaker 3: So for every talk that you're talking about education, you know,
Speaker 3: cut for what we've seen right now, it's like what
Speaker 3: a rural health clinic and a few different states. I'm
Speaker 3: not downplaying it, but it's not going to make you know,
Speaker 3: international news. You have to wait until you hit something
Speaker 3: that genuinely affects every single citizen. And if you don't
Speaker 3: do that, I'm unfortunately going to tell you it's going
Speaker 3: to be popular because what are you going to mount
Speaker 3: your defense on, Oh, we're standing up for the NCAA's
Speaker 3: right to have transgender athletes, or you know, the education department.
Speaker 3: Like I said, as long as the funds continue to
Speaker 3: go through to all the schools, I don't think this
Speaker 3: person's gonna give a shit about actually dismantling the education department.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe you know, if we have some denied
Speaker 3: program or something, it affects tens of millions of people.
Speaker 1: But by and.
Speaker 3: Large, the lack of trust right now in the government
Speaker 3: is so low, and then the lack of the lack
Speaker 3: of really like faith that these people staying in their
Speaker 3: jobs was genuinely working for the average person. Is just
Speaker 3: it doesn't think it exists at a Zeitgeide level, Like
Speaker 3: there's something very attractive to the American citizen, just broadly
Speaker 3: from what I've seen here in terms of the popularity
Speaker 3: and the enthusiasm around those that there is this permanent
Speaker 3: bureaucracy that is taking advantage of people. And I mean
Speaker 3: one of my favorite stats that I see everywhere on
Speaker 3: Normy Instagram is about how the Coller counties around Washington,
Speaker 3: DC are the richest in the United States. That is
Speaker 3: fundamentally the problem is that, you know, we we talked
Speaker 3: about the post World War two order, but a lot
Speaker 3: of this can be blamed on Bill Clinton, you know,
Speaker 3: for the privatization of government and of contract explosion of
Speaker 3: government contracts, of the deficits. So that's really why I
Speaker 3: think the Democrats are in a very difficult position. It's
Speaker 3: like people really hate a lot of these agencies, and
Speaker 3: they genuinely do feel like the HR and make workification
Speaker 3: of so much of government has done absolutely nothing for them.
Speaker 3: That it's going to be very hard to convince people
Speaker 3: and until something is genuinely taken away from them.
Speaker 2: I think there's probably something to that, but I also
Speaker 2: think that like they're going for it. I mean, Elon
Speaker 2: is out there posting repeatedly about social security. The Republicans
Speaker 2: are targeted.
Speaker 3: Take them out fraud and say everybody does know that
Speaker 3: there is a ton of fraud in so look, I'm
Speaker 3: not defending it. What I'm telling you is that it
Speaker 3: will be popular.
Speaker 2: People know Medicare touches their social security, their Medicare, their medicaidblic.
Speaker 2: I mean, the only able to freak out about their adoborities.
Speaker 2: We're fleecing the government trillion dollars. It cuts to mandatory spending.
Speaker 2: Seventy percent of mandatory spending is social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Speaker 2: There is, Yes, I'm fraud, especially in Medicare. Yes, you
Speaker 2: really think they're going after that because that requires going
Speaker 2: after rich people.
Speaker 4: No, they have an.
Speaker 2: Ideological far right libertarian agenda to strip down as much
Speaker 2: as they possibly can.
Speaker 4: That is the goal.
Speaker 2: And so while you know we're in the early phases
Speaker 2: here and it's rural health clinic there and meals on
Speaker 2: wheels here and a school bus procurement in I think Illinois,
Speaker 2: that hasn't gone through. I think it's inevitable that they
Speaker 2: do hit bone, and they intend to, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean that's what move fast and break things means, they
Speaker 2: intend to hit bone.
Speaker 4: So there's that piece.
Speaker 2: The other piece is I want people to understand that
Speaker 2: these first few weeks of the Trump administration have been
Speaker 2: a historic bonanza for the richest of the rich in
Speaker 2: corporate America.
Speaker 4: The level of regulatory rollback is truly.
Speaker 2: Like at this speed is truly not something we have
Speaker 2: probably ever seen. And as I said before, it's not
Speaker 2: coming through, you know, passing laws through Congress and rolling
Speaker 2: back previous regulation because people would object to that, right,
Speaker 2: I don't think they could do that. So instead, what
Speaker 2: they're doing I don't know, is they're gutting the enforcement.
Speaker 2: They're gutting c FB, they're gutting the SEC. They're gutting
Speaker 2: the FTC, they're gutting all of these the NLRB, they're
Speaker 2: gutting all of the bodies that are meant to be
Speaker 2: the sort of white collar cops that go after elite crimes.
Speaker 4: That has been a massive giveaway to.
Speaker 2: Elon and the other you know, billionaires who have an
Speaker 2: interest personal interest in such thing. And then next up
Speaker 2: on the agenda is a massive tax cut. So while
Speaker 2: they're all running around austerity and the deficit and the
Speaker 2: debt blah blah blah, they're about to pass if we're
Speaker 2: trillion dollar tax cut that goes predominantly to them. So
Speaker 2: you're right that what is being cloaked in is DEI
Speaker 2: and trim.
Speaker 4: This and Marima and whatever.
Speaker 1: True, that's the problem, but so much let me.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you a question, Sager. Yeah, what do
Speaker 2: you think is more popular right now? DEI or Dose?
Speaker 3: Well, I saw your tweet on the subject. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure if we're going to take again if the tweets
Speaker 3: or are these polls and all of that.
Speaker 1: To the bank.
Speaker 3: I think it could be an inference point. Now we
Speaker 3: will find out in the midterm election. So Democrats and
Speaker 3: all these they're talking about resistance and all that. But
Speaker 3: my main position here is I'm done being sigh opped
Speaker 3: by many of these polls, just considering what happened in
Speaker 3: the election. All of the polls that indicated some sort
Speaker 3: of cultural left resistance or whatever was all bullshit. I mean,
Speaker 3: and look, let's just be really, let's be very basic.
Speaker 3: Do we think that affirmative action, which is di I
Speaker 3: is on steroids, which was nuked at the ballot box
Speaker 3: in the most liberal state in California, is as popular
Speaker 3: as cutting government spending, specifically if it's cloaked in fraud
Speaker 3: and in diversity program at a fundamental level, do you
Speaker 3: really believe that's true?
Speaker 1: But it's just not true.
Speaker 2: This is no way I will grant you your caveat. So,
Speaker 2: first of all, to answer the question is if you
Speaker 2: look at the polls, the is actually more popular one
Speaker 2: poll which is popular actually even surprise me.
Speaker 3: Which is probably shit libs being like, well, well Republicans
Speaker 3: here against de I. So I have to be pro d.
Speaker 2: I think also you have to admit, like there is
Speaker 2: a there is a color blind merit instinct in the public,
Speaker 2: and there should be. And so when it when the
Speaker 2: you know, when there was a movement towards like too
Speaker 2: much focus on these racial divisions from the left, there's
Speaker 2: a backlash against that. But I think there's also you
Speaker 2: know a sense of it can go too far where
Speaker 2: now you're just you know, you're you're swinging too far.
Speaker 4: In the other I want to put that, but it's not.
Speaker 2: But that's the thing is merit is is one thing
Speaker 2: and rolling back, you know, iber Mex Kendy's like, pointless
Speaker 2: corporate training is one thing, cutting into civil rights is another.
Speaker 2: And I think there's there is but there I think
Speaker 2: I think that's where they run the risk, but I
Speaker 2: want to to to move from that. I think where
Speaker 2: you're right is there's a reason why they cloak all
Speaker 2: of this in government efficiency and anti corruption and anti fraud,
Speaker 2: et cetera. But where there's a giant risk is if
Speaker 2: you ask people how much influence billionaires should have in
Speaker 2: our government, they're like, none.
Speaker 4: We don't like this at all.
Speaker 2: And I don't think people are so stupid as to
Speaker 2: not realize that there's a major problem with the richest
Speaker 2: man on earth making himself CEO dictator of the country
Speaker 2: and calling the shots.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I think the polling about how whether you think the
Speaker 2: numbers are absolutely correct or not, but the shift against
Speaker 2: Elon and the sense like we don't really want this
Speaker 2: guy to have this much say in our government, even
Speaker 2: among Republicans. I think that's really important because there is
Speaker 2: an instinct of these oligarchs have too much control over government.
Speaker 2: They're already too involved. And that scene in the you know,
Speaker 2: in the White House where in the Oval office where
Speaker 2: he's standing there, you know, sort of over Trump, and
Speaker 2: Trump is looking up at him. And the level of
Speaker 2: deference that Trump has shown to him has really been
Speaker 2: and perplexing and surprising to me. I mean, we've never
Speaker 2: seen that sort of deferential behavior from Trump. But again,
Speaker 2: at Hammer's home, who is really calling shots and who
Speaker 2: is really in charge? And I do think that there
Speaker 2: is a visceral reaction against that. Now, when there is
Speaker 2: likely to be some sort of inevitable you know, either
Speaker 2: catastrophe or touching some program that really does have massive impact,
Speaker 2: I think you will see a swift turning on this.
Speaker 2: But it's already really not that popular.
Speaker 3: I think it's possible. I'm not trusting these polls on
Speaker 3: this at all. Zero, I'm genuinely I'm My number one
Speaker 3: thing I'm waiting for is that Virginia election. I want
Speaker 3: to see the level of resistance, whether all of that
Speaker 3: is true, because there's just too much countermanding evidence against
Speaker 3: the idea that cutting government spending or elon or all
Speaker 3: of this is unpopular. I mean, just considering the election,
Speaker 3: considering the mandate, I mean, we had remember mandate, Okay, Fine,
Speaker 3: I mean won the popular vote.
Speaker 4: No, I am a point.
Speaker 1: Okay, so one and all seven of the swing state.
Speaker 2: Biden won by four and a half points the congressional
Speaker 2: The congressional margin is like the smallest in history. And
Speaker 2: also that was Trump getting elected, not Elon Musk. But
Speaker 2: much of what they're doing, like, no one was saying
Speaker 2: in the when they were running for office, we're going
Speaker 2: to dismantle the CFPB. That was not something Trump was
Speaker 2: running on. And in fact, in fact this well, that's
Speaker 2: why we're here to explain to them that's the anti.
Speaker 4: Can't play.
Speaker 1: Vote for him anyway.
Speaker 2: No one ran on we're going to defund the white
Speaker 2: collar crime cops, right, That was not a part of
Speaker 2: the pitch. And I know they want to sell this
Speaker 2: idea that voters wanted some like massive revolutionary reform that
Speaker 2: you know, led by an anarcho capitalist and the richest
Speaker 2: man on the planet.
Speaker 4: I don't think that's at all what people voted for.
Speaker 2: In fact, the way I know that that's the case
Speaker 2: is what was the whole purpose of Trump going on
Speaker 2: all of those like bro podcasts. It was to make
Speaker 2: him seem normal and not extreme. And it worked, right,
Speaker 2: It made people Oh, they're saying he's going to do all.
Speaker 4: This crazy stuff. He's not going to do crazy stuff.
Speaker 2: He's just gonna like try to get prices down and
Speaker 2: be a good businessman. Because that's what I remember from
Speaker 2: the first administration, is that prices were lower and my
Speaker 2: dollar went farther. You know, we're about to talk about inflation.
Speaker 4: He's completely moved back. He doesn't care about that at all.
Speaker 2: He's happy to have he even himself said previously, I
Speaker 2: don't really think that inflation is why people voted for me.
Speaker 2: I do think that was a big part of the reason.
Speaker 2: I absolutely think that was a big.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason. Actually, I still think it might
Speaker 1: have been more immigration in culture.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think immigration is part of it, for sure.
Speaker 2: But I also am quite confident that people were voting
Speaker 2: with their pocketbook. They felt like things were better economically,
Speaker 2: and they buy into the idea of Trump as this
Speaker 2: great businessman. And he did a very effective job of
Speaker 2: like humanizing himself and making himself seem like not this
Speaker 2: scary threat. And then you come in and you're like, oh, actually,
Speaker 2: you know what. Twenty twenty five plus was the project,
Speaker 2: not just the project twenty twenty five. But we're actually
Speaker 2: going to go way beyond that. We want a revolution.
Speaker 2: We're guiding your public schools, We're coming for social security,
Speaker 2: none of them. We're going to you know, annex Greenland
Speaker 2: and Canada and Gaza and whatever like. None of this
Speaker 2: was pisched on the campaign trail. So I think the
Speaker 2: notion that this program in total is what people voted for.
Speaker 4: I don't think that that is backed up by.
Speaker 3: A tell I'll tell you why I think that's wrong,
Speaker 3: which is that what's crazy to you is not what's
Speaker 3: crazy to a lot of people. What's crazy to you
Speaker 3: is the idea of dismantling the CFPB. What's crazy to
Speaker 3: the rest of the at least the people a lot
Speaker 3: of people voted for Trump is the very existence of
Speaker 3: permanent bureaucracy, d I, transgenderism, etc. So for them, it's
Speaker 3: actually normal cool and what they want to dismantle the
Speaker 3: very interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that there aren't plenty of people like that,
Speaker 2: but we're not talking about the Trump base who will
Speaker 2: justify anything. But if we're out there now, like actually
Speaker 2: us owning Gaza is a.
Speaker 3: Great in the normal pro the pro cast, shall we
Speaker 3: to them permanent bureaucracy, permanent managera class liber whatever you
Speaker 3: want to call it.
Speaker 1: They're the crazy ones.
Speaker 3: And in fact, I mean I sympathize and I understand that.
Speaker 3: What gets to it even more with the CFPB and
Speaker 3: all this stuff is that at the heart of it,
Speaker 3: regulatory agencies and all them.
Speaker 1: Nobody runs on it. But I didn't run on n
Speaker 1: lr ever, nobody gives.
Speaker 4: A sh about that. Rob That is not what did
Speaker 4: you say?
Speaker 1: And when did Kamala say NLRB on the campaign trail.
Speaker 2: Think of the contours of the fight between Bernie Sanders
Speaker 2: and Hillary Clinton. He was running on breaking up the
Speaker 2: big banks. That is a regulatory reform.
Speaker 1: That's okay, okay.
Speaker 3: That's also was more of a culture argument at the time,
Speaker 3: which because what you did, your old.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, that is a regulatory reform. And Hillary
Speaker 2: did what these people are doing, which is to say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: breaking up the big banks isn't going to end racism discrimination.
Speaker 1: In democrats structure.
Speaker 2: And you're right, it was very effective. And guess what,
Speaker 2: the whole Bernie Sanders movement, the Donald Trum movement, comes
Speaker 2: out of the destruction of a previously effective regulatory regime.
Speaker 2: When you deregulated the banks over successive administrations, but especially
Speaker 2: with the end of Glass Seagle, which separated the like
Speaker 2: you know, wild speculation part of banking from the traditional
Speaker 2: like you put in your deposit kind of banking. That's
Speaker 2: what helps to lead to a complete financial crash, so
Speaker 2: to wave, Oh, nobody cares about the CFPB, No one
Speaker 2: cares about the SEC. No one cares about it until
Speaker 2: you have a massive bubble that pops and destroys the
Speaker 2: entire financial system. And that's the path they're on, Like
Speaker 2: the level of deregulation that is going on right now
Speaker 2: by stripping and gutting these agencies, making it so that
Speaker 2: there is no enforcement whatsoever. Even it has been so
Speaker 2: radical that David dan and Matt Sueller were tracking this,
Speaker 2: the banks were like, actually, we need some guidance about
Speaker 2: what's even legal now and what we can do because
Speaker 2: we can't operate in this just deplete wild West system.
Speaker 2: So even the banks are like, we need a little
Speaker 2: bit of guardrails and guidance here because it has been
Speaker 2: rolled back so precipitously. So listen, what will happen in
Speaker 2: terms of how people feel about this or that, etc.
Speaker 2: We're both just guessing, right, based on what we think
Speaker 2: about the politics and how it's going to play out,
Speaker 2: who's going to make the pitch most effectively, whether people
Speaker 2: will be revolted by this billionaire or they'll buy into, like, oh,
Speaker 2: cutting the waste, fraud and abuse.
Speaker 4: That sounds great. That's all guesswork.
Speaker 2: What I can tell you is that what's being done
Speaker 2: is very damaging and creates massive risks of a giant
Speaker 2: bubble popping, of a redux of the financial crash that
Speaker 2: we had before.
Speaker 4: It is a smash and grab.
Speaker 2: It is a destruction of any force that could have
Speaker 2: been oppositional, not just to Elan, although that is his
Speaker 2: primary goal, but to the entire cast of billionaires, the
Speaker 2: ones you like and the ones you don't like as well.
Speaker 2: That's why that's what matters about what's happening right now.
Speaker 2: And you're right that it's being wrapped in these you know,
Speaker 2: things that are or popular. But that's why I want
Speaker 2: people to really understand the big goal here, which is
Speaker 2: not about you know, cutting some DEI program or condoms
Speaker 2: to whatever nation they're sending condoms to Jordan. That's the
Speaker 2: big ideological play is to destroy these regulatory agencies so
Speaker 2: that the masters of the universe, billionaire class can do
Speaker 2: whatever the hell they want to do. And the other
Speaker 2: thing I'll say is some of this it's very hard
Speaker 2: to put like even the destruction that's already been done,
Speaker 2: will be very hard to undo, even with these temporary
Speaker 2: restraining orders, and even if they do ultimately comply with
Speaker 2: the judges wishes and blah blah blah, even if Democrats
Speaker 2: win in four years from now or take the House,
Speaker 2: and not that that even really matters two years from now.
Speaker 2: Once you strip down and you're right about Clinton starting
Speaker 2: the privatization trend, once you strip down the capacity of government,
Speaker 2: it is very hard to build back up, and so
Speaker 2: destruction that is happening right now is going to have constant.
Speaker 3: I understand your argument now, which is that it's not
Speaker 3: about in the interm it's about in the future. And
Speaker 3: I don't even disagree. I've said from the beginning, I
Speaker 3: think the big risk is that the smash and grab,
Speaker 3: the move fast and break things can in government. It's
Speaker 3: not like in the It's not like an industry where
Speaker 3: you know, ultimately we were just talking about money.
Speaker 1: We're talking about peoples lives, talking about programs.
Speaker 3: If there is some massive bubble, You're absolutely right, they
Speaker 3: could get blown out and everybody will look back as
Speaker 3: they did. You know, nobody in two thousand and seven
Speaker 3: knew what Glass Steagle was by two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: or when did the big short come out?
Speaker 1: I'm forgetting.
Speaker 3: And you know you have the famous scenes that Adam
Speaker 3: McKay has in there of people literally explaining these you
Speaker 3: know previously, what was it?
Speaker 1: CDOs and CEO square. I remember learning about.
Speaker 3: It too when I was in college, complex financial terminology
Speaker 3: that nobody outside of Wall Street had any business knowing.
Speaker 3: I totally will grant you that. I just I am
Speaker 3: trying to process it in the moment about how is
Speaker 3: it exactly that we got here and to what end
Speaker 3: this will be? And I think the risk also for
Speaker 3: a lot of the Democrats is you can have all
Speaker 3: this language about how it's going to be bad and
Speaker 3: all of this in the same way that they did
Speaker 3: from Trump in twenty seventeen, but if none of it
Speaker 3: ends up happening, then you actually will end up looking
Speaker 3: either alarmist or as if you didn't have any understanding
Speaker 3: of the public. I think that's a big reason why
Speaker 3: Russiagate and the interim like trump rehabilitation of his image
Speaker 3: came to be was people said, oh, this is going
Speaker 3: to be the end of the Republican We're like, wow,
Speaker 3: it wasn't so bad, right. Actually, maybe democratic norms and
Speaker 3: all of that rules is worse. That's why a lot
Speaker 3: of people ended up voting for him. So I do
Speaker 3: understand how the process argument you're making. I think I'm
Speaker 3: just trying to think politically and where what if the
Speaker 3: alternative happens, where they do cut medicare, cit apb SEC
Speaker 3: and all of that, and the S and P five
Speaker 3: hundred continues to grow by twenty percent for the next
Speaker 3: four years, there's no crash and there's no major international crisis.
Speaker 3: I mean je or Donald Trump junior, probably Trump Junior.
Speaker 3: And now I guess since talk about that a little
Speaker 3: bit later, it's going to be sailing to election. You know,
Speaker 3: he could It could be easy. It would be one
Speaker 3: of the easiest power grabs and successors in modern history.
Speaker 2: If things going on, it is gonna give me a panic, really, so.
Speaker 1: Maybe should come on the Vans train.
Speaker 3: At least you can think, right, Is that is that
Speaker 3: even something that Americans value?
Speaker 4: I guess point should be honest with you.
Speaker 2: I said this before, like, I'm just cheering for Trump
Speaker 2: to take back control of his own presidency. What do
Speaker 2: you make of him being so like deferential and cowed
Speaker 2: by this? Like what is going on?
Speaker 3: I think Trump is wowed by attention, uh, and he
Speaker 3: understands the power of like celebrity.
Speaker 1: And money more than anyone else.
Speaker 3: And the reason why he's deferential to Elon is I
Speaker 3: think he has gotten it into his head that this
Speaker 3: like control and this like Elon has almost a Steve
Speaker 3: jobs as quality of like the reality distortion field around
Speaker 3: him where he can turn whatever his pet issue is
Speaker 3: into a thing that people on Twitter and others are
Speaker 3: just mindlessly willing to turn it. I mean, Usa, I
Speaker 3: nobody gives a shit about usaid until Mike Benson Elon
Speaker 3: must start a tweeting about him, Like, let's be honest, right,
Speaker 3: nobody cared. Literally, I would single handedly give credit to
Speaker 3: Ben's and then to Elon for paying attention to it. Elon,
Speaker 3: I mean that whole UK thing. I covered that scandal
Speaker 3: at the time a decade ago. I thought everybody had
Speaker 3: moved on, and then he think over overnight is able
Speaker 3: to you know, create this thing.
Speaker 1: So Trump views that as an extremely powerful I don't
Speaker 1: think he's wrong.
Speaker 3: Actually, I think he might be right in terms of
Speaker 3: Elon's ability to just like completely on a dime, create
Speaker 3: narratives and really bring a lot of the elite billionaire
Speaker 3: class people who really look.
Speaker 2: Up to emails have given him that power exact way
Speaker 2: to be able to drive. I mean, that's when he says,
Speaker 2: like you are the media, That's what he means, Like
Speaker 2: he is able to He doesn't have to try to
Speaker 2: make it interesting for traditional news media to cover whatever
Speaker 2: his like pet project is that day. He can do
Speaker 2: that and pull the levers all himself. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I'm I just there's something weird going on with that
Speaker 2: relationship between el and Trump. I don't think it's just
Speaker 2: because even even you'll relate to this the spectrum of
Speaker 2: Elon in the Oval and.
Speaker 4: A T shirt.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, listen, I'm hating it, trust me.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, and you know, Trump is more
Speaker 2: probably of a stickler for dress code than you are,
Speaker 2: famously okay, on the same level, on the same level,
Speaker 2: and so to see Elon there standing over him in
Speaker 2: a T shirt, I was like, whoa and we know
Speaker 2: that Trump has changed a bunch of his views to
Speaker 2: match Elon's project, you know, in the question of what
Speaker 2: was going to win out the like you know, national conservatism,
Speaker 2: right wing populism, whatever I want to call it, or
Speaker 2: the anarcho capitalism like Javier Malay crap, Javier, Like, it's
Speaker 2: pretty obvious which direction things have gone in. Even though
Speaker 2: that is and this comes back to, like, that is
Speaker 2: not how Trump positioned himself on the campaign trail.
Speaker 4: You know, we continue he was driving the dump.
Speaker 2: Truck and working at McDonald's and trying to get unions
Speaker 2: to endorse him or at least stay out of the
Speaker 2: race or whatever. Like, he was still positioning himself in
Speaker 2: that way versus this is Koch Brothers on steroids. This
Speaker 2: is Javier Malay on steroids. That is actually what he
Speaker 2: is now allowing to happen under his administration. So I
Speaker 2: don't know, I think there's something something else going on
Speaker 2: with this relationship.
Speaker 1: I don't know any one.
Speaker 3: You're right, I'm curious to see actually how it plays out,
Speaker 3: Like I said, watching for those elections and all of
Speaker 3: that stuff very very closely, just to see what how
Speaker 3: whether it matches elite Democratic cast.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing, and in Virginia they're gonna get
Speaker 2: crushed because you know how.
Speaker 1: Many crush to what you know, how many you know.
Speaker 2: How many federal government employees there are in Virginia. I mean,
Speaker 2: and I'm not just talking about northern Virginia, no, I know,
Speaker 2: like where I live, the whole town is, you know,
Speaker 2: civilian scientists. If you go down to Virginia Beach, I mean,
Speaker 2: these are the big population centers. Okay, Northern Virginia dominates, right,
Speaker 2: And it's not just federal government direct workers, the.
Speaker 4: Contractors there FBI.
Speaker 1: That's the whole.
Speaker 4: Ecosystem in uh you know.
Speaker 2: And then there's a lot of military bases Virginia Beach,
Speaker 2: massive number of government workers.
Speaker 1: There as well.
Speaker 4: That's Virginia Beach Norfolk, that's all.
Speaker 2: And then the other one is Richmond, which would be
Speaker 2: less you know, less dependent on federal government.
Speaker 4: They're going to get crushed in Virginia.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's see if they lose by fifteen
Speaker 3: is lose by if they lose by five.
Speaker 2: Actually, I'm actually just giving you a point that you
Speaker 2: can use at the time, which is that it may
Speaker 2: not be reflectible, but
Speaker 1: Good part I like it,