Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show
Speaker 1: for everybody today. Indeed we do. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: I think on all of our minds is what the
Speaker 1: hell is happening with all of these things that we
Speaker 1: are now seeing in the sky and getting shot down?
Speaker 1: What are they? Were they there before and we just
Speaker 1: didn't know about it? Crazy Pentagon press conference yesterday where
Speaker 1: they're like, we can't roll out aliens. So we're going
Speaker 1: to go deep into all of that because it is
Speaker 1: in our wheelhouse, and specifically in soccer's wheelhouse. So we'll
Speaker 1: bring all of that down for you. Also, we have
Speaker 1: some big twenty twenty four news. Nikki Haley apparently jumping
Speaker 1: in the race of this week. We've got a sneak
Speaker 1: peek at her first ad that she's going to be
Speaker 1: putting out. And we also have new war of words
Speaker 1: between Trump and Ronda Santis. Apparently the public nickname is
Speaker 1: Rhonda sanctimonious private nickname is meatball Ron devastating, Yes, so
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that. We also have some pretty extraordinary
Speaker 1: comments from Brazil's President Lula with Joe Biden about Ukraine,
Speaker 1: and also new indications that Russia is plotting a new
Speaker 1: offensive there. We have someone who is now accusing mister
Speaker 1: Beast of being ablest. You're going to enjoy listening to
Speaker 1: this piece. And we also have someone who is on
Speaker 1: the ground in Ohio is from that region of Ohio
Speaker 1: where that Norfolk Southern train was derailed and they ended
Speaker 1: up doing a quote unquote controlled release of the chemicals
Speaker 1: there that has resulted in a just catastrophic environmental devastation.
Speaker 1: A lot of questions there of our residents are actually
Speaker 1: safe to come back to their homes. So we'll get
Speaker 1: into that as well, But let's go ahead and start
Speaker 1: with whatever is going on above our above us in
Speaker 1: the skies right now. It has been one of the
Speaker 1: most insane ten days in modern history for our airspace
Speaker 1: for shootdowns. The NORAD commander actually said yesterday it's the
Speaker 1: first time ever that we've been shooting down objects in
Speaker 1: our skies literally in American history. So let that sink in.
Speaker 1: We've add now four shootdowns in the last eleven days.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this up there on the screen
Speaker 1: since we last saw you. The first object which was
Speaker 1: shot down was off the Alaskan coast over the Ileutian Island.
Speaker 1: So this object was downed at forty thousand feet and
Speaker 1: posed a quote reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.
Speaker 1: President Biden. All he would say about it is quote
Speaker 1: it was a success, and the object was shot down
Speaker 1: somewhere over the islands and allegedly crashed on ice. Now
Speaker 1: to this, what we know right now this object, which
Speaker 1: we will get to some of the characteristics of the
Speaker 1: object itself, has not yet been recovered by US investigators,
Speaker 1: despite initial promises that they would do. So they're blaming
Speaker 1: it on the weather. I mean, you know, you could
Speaker 1: empathize with that. It's pretty cold out there in Alaska.
Speaker 1: It literally landed out on the ice. So they're having
Speaker 1: some mission to try and go retrieve it. So, as
Speaker 1: of yet, we still have no photo indication, video forensics,
Speaker 1: nothing about this said object. That was obviously one that
Speaker 1: caused a lot of consternation because it came immediately after
Speaker 1: the balloon. But then lo and behold, on February eleventh,
Speaker 1: just two days ago, let's go and put this up
Speaker 1: there on the screen. Perhaps the most shocking one yet
Speaker 1: to date was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealing, quote, I
Speaker 1: ordered the takedown of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace.
Speaker 1: Nor AD Command, the North American Air Defense shot down
Speaker 1: this object over the of the Yukon territory. Canadian and
Speaker 1: US aircraft were scrambled and a us F twenty two
Speaker 1: fired at the object. So this was an object that
Speaker 1: was right above the Yukon territory in Canada, scrambled by
Speaker 1: the Canadians and by the Americans. Eventually the us F
Speaker 1: twenty two downs it. Now here's the thing with these objects.
Speaker 1: With the Alaskan one, we haven't yet received any initial indication.
Speaker 1: We got conflicting reports about what it looked like. With
Speaker 1: the Canadian one, though, we are looking at something that's
Speaker 1: very interesting. We have some pilots that apparently have been
Speaker 1: talking behind the scenes with media outlets saying that the
Speaker 1: object that was shot down interfered with sensors, and some
Speaker 1: pilots claim to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the
Speaker 1: object that shot down over Canada. This was described on
Speaker 1: CNN over the weekend. Just take a listen to that.
Speaker 1: Those pilots, we have learned, have given very conflicting accounts
Speaker 1: of what they actually experience, with some pilots saying that
Speaker 1: the object interfered with the plane sensors, other pilots saying
Speaker 1: that they didn't really experience that. Other pilots saying that
Speaker 1: when they looked at the object, they could identify no identifiable,
Speaker 1: identifiable propulsion system, and they did not know how it
Speaker 1: was actually staying in the air cruising at that altitude
Speaker 1: of about forty thousand feet. So this has all added
Speaker 1: to the Pentagon's wariness of describing in more detail what
Speaker 1: this object actually is. Immediately after the Canadian object, there
Speaker 1: was another indication let's go and put this up there
Speaker 1: on the screen over north central Montana, quote unquote, no
Speaker 1: time TAM was issued calling National Defense Airspace over Montana.
Speaker 1: That was one of the places where we have an
Speaker 1: intercontinental ballistic missile base. Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana put
Speaker 1: out this statement, quote, I am in constant communication with Norcom.
Speaker 1: They have just advised me they have confidence there is
Speaker 1: an object. It was not an anomaly. Now the reason
Speaker 1: why is that after this no TAM was issued, they
Speaker 1: called a false alarm crystal and they said, oh, actually
Speaker 1: the object, it was an anomaly, it wasn't there. Well,
Speaker 1: that turns out not to have been the case. The
Speaker 1: object was there. We actually lost track of the object
Speaker 1: until it was then shot down yesterday. So let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and put this up there on the screen, bringing
Speaker 1: us to our final shootdown. The final note TAM that happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so far, that's a good point. Final not TAM. It
Speaker 1: was issued closing over Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Eventually
Speaker 1: that object was downed. According to what we know now,
Speaker 1: US representatives had been briefed by the Pentagon that object
Speaker 1: was the same one that was seen over Montana. Was
Speaker 1: actually shot down at a distance much lower. It was
Speaker 1: like twenty five thousand feet. And this one, apparently the
Speaker 1: pilots say was had an octagonal shape. So for those
Speaker 1: who are keeping track, I've put this together. It's a
Speaker 1: real war on geometry. We've got an octagon, we've got
Speaker 1: a cylinder, we've got something else. Nobody knows what the
Speaker 1: hell's happened over Alaska. Some of them have no visible
Speaker 1: means of propulsion. They're flying all over the place. Forty
Speaker 1: thousand feet, forty five thousand feet, twenty thousand feet. It
Speaker 1: was eventually shot down. Any questions, Yeah, a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: What's happening here? So look, we're about to talk with
Speaker 1: a great guest, Tom Rogan, an old friend of the show.
Speaker 1: He's somebody very tapped into this. He's a fore UFO people.
Speaker 1: You will know Tom. He's done some great reporting on this.
Speaker 1: Now the reason why and I thought about this all
Speaker 1: the way back from kind of the beginning we were
Speaker 1: talking about the balloon, which is Christopher mellen, former cust
Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense, another person very big in the UFO community,
Speaker 1: has been talking about this for a long time. Here's
Speaker 1: the consider this reality. This isn't a new phenomenon. We
Speaker 1: just recalibrated our sensors. So what they've been talking about
Speaker 1: crystal is and Christopher Mellon has said this, Look, we
Speaker 1: gather all this data, but the way that we decipher
Speaker 1: that data is what tells us everything. Us nor AD
Speaker 1: radar sensors and all that they're calibrated for enemy aircraft.
Speaker 1: They were not calibrated for these smaller balloons and other
Speaker 1: type of objects. Hence, why whenever we found out that
Speaker 1: the Trump administration during that time that there were two
Speaker 1: Chinese overflights of balloons that happened at that time, they
Speaker 1: only discovered that after the fact because they rolled through
Speaker 1: the past data. So here's what happened after the balloon.
Speaker 1: They have recalibrated the data to actually make it sensitive
Speaker 1: to identify anything as small as a Volkswagen Beetle car.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons why a lot of what
Speaker 1: we're discovering our quote unquote car size car size objects.
Speaker 1: So Tom put this out there. Let's put this up
Speaker 1: there on the screen. He says, quote likely all of
Speaker 1: these scrambles for objects are not because the objects just
Speaker 1: started flying around, but because Norrad expanded its radar hits
Speaker 1: of interest to include balloons and smaller objects. And also
Speaker 1: it's political so that the White House told the Pentagon
Speaker 1: to tell Norrad intercept immediately if there is any doubt. Now,
Speaker 1: once again we have zero indication of what these objects are.
Speaker 1: I will leave it up to all of the imagination.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't dare speculate here on the show, but you
Speaker 1: can tell I'm excited. At the same time, it's a
Speaker 1: global phenomenon. People, let's put this up there. We've had
Speaker 1: two separate instances now, the Uruguayan Air Force saying that
Speaker 1: there were quote flashing lights in the sky over their airspace,
Speaker 1: and actually China scrambling some jets and saying that they
Speaker 1: were intercepting some sort of unidentified flying object spotted near
Speaker 1: the Yellow Sea, so it's almost like a UFO swarm,
Speaker 1: if you will. And then the final my personal favorite,
Speaker 1: while we were all watching the super Bowl, or some
Speaker 1: people were watching the Super Bowl by the way, condolences
Speaker 1: to my girlfriend's father, big Eagles fan. I feel bad
Speaker 1: for the guy this more, but congratulations is one of
Speaker 1: our cameraman who's one of the biggest Chiefs fans that
Speaker 1: you will ever meet. Congratulations Coviyn. Let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: play this clip. During the Super Bowl, the Pentagon was
Speaker 1: still giving a press conference about the object that we
Speaker 1: shot down yesterday over lake here on where he will
Speaker 1: not rule out the possibility of extraterrest real life. Let's
Speaker 1: take a listen. Have you ruled out aliens or extra
Speaker 1: terrestrials and if so, why, because that is what everyone
Speaker 1: is asking us right now. Thanks for the question, Helene.
Speaker 1: I'll look the intel community and the counter intelligence community
Speaker 1: figured that out. I haven't ruled out anything. At this point.
Speaker 1: We continue to assess every threat or potential threat unknown
Speaker 1: that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it.
Speaker 1: I haven't ruled out anything extraordinary. That is one of
Speaker 1: the most extraordinary quotes that I've ever heard ever. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I don't know what to say. Again,
Speaker 1: my personal bias has been that we have no idea
Speaker 1: what's been flying around up there for a long time. Also,
Speaker 1: here's the other thing. Everyone's like, oh, it's clearly balloons.
Speaker 1: If they were balloons, they would say, so all right,
Speaker 1: Like it was the Chinese balloon. We could see it
Speaker 1: from the naked eye, we had the video. If it
Speaker 1: was if there was even a string, they would tell
Speaker 1: us it was a balloon. They're not saying it's a balloon.
Speaker 1: The people who are one tiny, little, one little string
Speaker 1: hanging off that thing, they'd be like, oh, it's a balloon,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. They the reason why they're telling
Speaker 1: us they don't know is because they don't know. And
Speaker 1: from the pilots. Look these pilots, they're standing up for themselves.
Speaker 1: They're coming out and they're telling everybody exactly what they saw.
Speaker 1: They're like, look, we got no visible Everyone's like, oh, well, balloons,
Speaker 1: balloons don't have visible means of propulsion. That's actually not true.
Speaker 1: All modern spy balloons are equipped with propulsion that was
Speaker 1: including the Chinese balloon. By the way, part of why
Speaker 1: the explanation for why it blew off course was ludicrous
Speaker 1: because they actually have motors on board, including our spy balloons. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's put that one out the window too. Is
Speaker 1: in terms of the descriptions of these objects, we've got cylindrical,
Speaker 1: we've got diagonal, octagon, if you will consider also that
Speaker 1: that broadly conforms with some of the past UFO videos
Speaker 1: have been put out from twenty seventeen onwards. We have
Speaker 1: a gamble video, we have a triangle UFO, We've got
Speaker 1: pyramid videos that have come out, you know, so there's
Speaker 1: some dispute on the pyramid UFO, but look, the point
Speaker 1: is is that we have had irregular shapes, geometric shapes
Speaker 1: like this that have been well described by pilots who
Speaker 1: have spotted these things. The tic TAC as well, also cylindrical.
Speaker 1: So this is an extraordinary event. And here's the thing, Christal,
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of skepticism from people, rightfully,
Speaker 1: I mean think it should be. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: toxic Is this a syop all of that? I am
Speaker 1: going to err on the side of incompetence and what
Speaker 1: I've always aired on with UFOs, which is they're not
Speaker 1: trying to spin you. They have no idea what's going on.
Speaker 1: That's always been my theory, and they're too afraid to
Speaker 1: tell us we don't know what's going on up there. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it really does. So I buy the idea that, Okay,
Speaker 1: after the Chinese by balloon situation, and that was like
Speaker 1: an embarrassing situation administration, they recalibrate the radars and now
Speaker 1: they're picking up all of these things that it's not
Speaker 1: that they weren't there before, it's that we just weren't
Speaker 1: detecting them before. That part I buy. But that still
Speaker 1: leaves the gigantic question of, Okay, well, then what the
Speaker 1: hell are they look? Maybe they're all Chinese, maybe they're
Speaker 1: all from the same sort of like Chinese buy program.
Speaker 1: Taiwan is out saying, listen, this happens to us all
Speaker 1: the time. By the way, China is out this morning
Speaker 1: now accusing us of flying a bunch of by balloons
Speaker 1: over their territory. They're like, they've done this to us
Speaker 1: ten times, which I don't doubt, by the way, so
Speaker 1: they're like, why are you so upset when you're doing
Speaker 1: the same stuff to us over here. Could be all Chinese,
Speaker 1: but we just don't know. And to your points, I mean,
Speaker 1: the first one was very obvious. It literally had Chinese
Speaker 1: characters on it, like it was not in doubt. It
Speaker 1: was clearly a balloon, clearly had Chinese characters on it.
Speaker 1: So why are they having so much trouble describing what
Speaker 1: these are and explaining some American people what is going on?
Speaker 1: There's other little questions too, like why did Trudeau need
Speaker 1: us to get involved and shooting down the one over
Speaker 1: their territory? What's that all about? And then lastly, and
Speaker 1: then we'll go ahead and bring in our guests. So
Speaker 1: maybe I'm sure he doesn't have any definitive answers to
Speaker 1: these either, but he has a lot of insight into
Speaker 1: what might be going on here. There's an interesting edit
Speaker 1: in the New York Times regarding the extraterrestrial piece. So
Speaker 1: before that press conference with the NORAD commander when he
Speaker 1: said listen can't rule anything out, they had this line
Speaker 1: in the New York Times article that said the incursions
Speaker 1: seemed to become so common that Biden administration officials have
Speaker 1: found themselves issuing private assurances that there is no evidence
Speaker 1: that they involve extraterrestrial activity, but officials also acknowledge privately
Speaker 1: that the longer they are unable to provide a public
Speaker 1: explanation for the provenance of the objects, the more speculation grows,
Speaker 1: so revealing their little piece of inside reporting that even
Speaker 1: Biden administration officials are having to tell people around them like,
Speaker 1: I really don't think that it's extraterrestrial activity, which is
Speaker 1: remarkable in and of itself, but also an acknowledgment there
Speaker 1: that they can't really rule anything out now. Once the
Speaker 1: press conference happened and they got that answer from the
Speaker 1: NORAID commander, they updated with that answer and actually removed
Speaker 1: that piece about the internal Biden administration sort of deliberations
Speaker 1: and the way that they've had been having to issue
Speaker 1: guidance privately to people around them. But it is a
Speaker 1: it is just a remarkable situation, more questions than answers
Speaker 1: at this point. We have no idea. And the other
Speaker 1: thing is we've had some cleanup, you know, from some
Speaker 1: of these officials. They'll come out and they'll be like, well,
Speaker 1: it was it resembled a balloon. It's like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: well was it a balloon? Or not. And once again,
Speaker 1: none of the debris has been recovered from any of
Speaker 1: these sites, which I don't know if you remember this.
Speaker 1: We had that Chinese balloon in a boat like three
Speaker 1: hours later there was video literally of like guys on
Speaker 1: the scene with high resolution cameras who were capturing US
Speaker 1: Navy divers bringing the balloon into the boat. So where
Speaker 1: was suddenly? Look, you can I get that it's far away.
Speaker 1: Last time I checked, we created a thing called helicopters,
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm pretty sure that we'll be able
Speaker 1: to just fly to wherever the thing is and take
Speaker 1: it up and then right there. Yeah, and then yes,
Speaker 1: and what we have bases all over Alaska. You're really
Speaker 1: telling me that we can rescue somebody in a coast
Speaker 1: guard waters where you can't go out on the ice
Speaker 1: and go grab this thing or what. We don't have
Speaker 1: drones that can get high resolution footage. The sun doesn't
Speaker 1: shine up in Alaska, same in La. You know, I
Speaker 1: was saying, you know some amateurs who live around that area.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you should do this, but if you
Speaker 1: were to get in your boat and go check it
Speaker 1: out for us, that would be great because I would
Speaker 1: really I would really like to do. What the hell
Speaker 1: is going on? No photos, no forensics. All we have
Speaker 1: is actually, this is the real disservice that'll end on
Speaker 1: before we bring tomm in. All we have our anonymous leaks.
Speaker 1: Pilots say this, Some say that, oh well, it resembled
Speaker 1: a balloon, but it didn't. It wasn't definitively a balloon.
Speaker 1: Officials speculate enough enough. You cannot have this. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is one of the most again historically, this has
Speaker 1: never happened before in American history. Three subsequent shootdowns in
Speaker 1: less than a week all over US airspace of completely
Speaker 1: unidentified objects, and where is the president? The guy doesn't
Speaker 1: give us a press conference. I mean, people are rightfully scared,
Speaker 1: and they're like trying to figure out what the hell
Speaker 1: is going on. So anyway, we'll end it there. That's
Speaker 1: all we know at this time. You know, in terms
Speaker 1: of speculation, we'll do our best to go and bring
Speaker 1: you guys much more detail. We let's ahead and bring
Speaker 1: in our friend Tom Rogan, the show's standing by. Let's
Speaker 1: put him up here on the screen, Old friend Tom.
Speaker 1: Good to see you, Thanks for joining the show man.
Speaker 1: Good to be with you. Guys. Thanks Tom, you've been
Speaker 1: doing a lot of reporting on this. We read your
Speaker 1: tweet earlier about the recalibration of NORAD and systems. What
Speaker 1: is your read on this situation right now? What are
Speaker 1: your sources telling you? Well, I think the fundamental point
Speaker 1: that you guys just hit on there is number one.
Speaker 1: The government really has caught itself in a web here
Speaker 1: by basically playing down, along with a lot of people
Speaker 1: in the media, quite frankly, the idea that some UFOs
Speaker 1: are you know, truly unknown and to your point saga
Speaker 1: that we still don't have debris recovery officially for these
Speaker 1: most recent incidents. I think beggars belief based on how
Speaker 1: the military operates, you know, I fundamentally that I don't
Speaker 1: think is true. I think they just don't know, at
Speaker 1: least in a couple of these cases what they shot down.
Speaker 1: And now they've opened, you know, the basket of worms
Speaker 1: by recalibrating the radar systems and their intercepts. So as
Speaker 1: before they could say that, you know, some of the
Speaker 1: more unusual UFOs, let's say, to be generous, are you know,
Speaker 1: sensor aberrations things that you know it's a win the
Speaker 1: radar is misaligned, et cetera. It's too small to be
Speaker 1: a concern. We can just ignore it now because of
Speaker 1: their changes, because it's political, because of the balloon they're
Speaker 1: running up and intercepting all this stuff that's probably been
Speaker 1: there for a very long time and they don't know
Speaker 1: quite how to deal with. Then. I think the secondary
Speaker 1: point that's really interesting is the media spin now is well,
Speaker 1: there's no evidences extraterrestrial. Well, obviously, I mean, what are
Speaker 1: they expecting there that there's going to be some communication
Speaker 1: between these drones and something, you know, in outer space
Speaker 1: in a foreign language. What they're not saying, though, is
Speaker 1: there's evidence here of unconventional technology and capability. The closest
Speaker 1: we've got to that, which is the most compelling statement,
Speaker 1: I think, is the norried commanders saying we don't know
Speaker 1: how it's staying aloft and propulsion, which really roots back
Speaker 1: to the more extraordinary UFOs. Anyway, unconventional technology quite frankly
Speaker 1: means it ain't US, and it probably ain't China and
Speaker 1: Russia in terms of these capabilities. What we really need
Speaker 1: to see now, I think, is what is some of
Speaker 1: the radar showing with what these objects have been doing
Speaker 1: before the intercept. Have they been moving in ways that
Speaker 1: really then gets to you know, very far our speeds
Speaker 1: for example, an anti potentially you know, anti gravity style behavior.
Speaker 1: Excellent point. Yeah, those are all great points. You know,
Speaker 1: we've obviously been covering here that preliminary assessment about the
Speaker 1: unidentified aerial phenomena, all the reportings and sightings, the videos,
Speaker 1: the pilot accounts of you know, seeing things that they
Speaker 1: can't really explain, that moves and ways that seem to
Speaker 1: defy physics and technology as we understand it. How do
Speaker 1: these limited descriptions we have of these objects dovetail with
Speaker 1: some of those earlier sightings and accounts. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that the fundamental point goes back to clearly the military
Speaker 1: knows enough, or at least elements of the military know
Speaker 1: enough to know that these are you know, unconventional and
Speaker 1: when we look at you know, the reporting in recent
Speaker 1: years that unfortunately has been kind of limited to limited
Speaker 1: journalists wanting to do this, there are the things we
Speaker 1: would look for in terms of saying that something truly
Speaker 1: you know, extraordinary is going on with some UFOs with
Speaker 1: a very small percentage of UFOs, is you know, hypersonic
Speaker 1: instantaneous acceleration, trans medium travel, can go under water without cavitation,
Speaker 1: which is air bubbles so that the submarines will pick
Speaker 1: them up. On sonar, the ability to kind of stop
Speaker 1: on a dime, the ability to incur what we would
Speaker 1: perceive to be you know, g forces raising into the hundreds.
Speaker 1: What is really notable though, and I think goes back
Speaker 1: to that stigma point which is so central to this topic,
Speaker 1: and frankly, I think underlines where there's been such journalistic
Speaker 1: malpractice and not being willing to turn it from certain
Speaker 1: folks such as yourself, is the point that the military
Speaker 1: has been able to somehow, I don't want to say
Speaker 1: buy off, but blur off members of the media scientific
Speaker 1: community by saying, oh, that's probably a radar or sonar
Speaker 1: or satellite sensor malfunction, even when it correlates with you know,
Speaker 1: trained aerial observers. The point I always make that was
Speaker 1: made to me. You don't put someone in charge of
Speaker 1: sonar on an attack or ballistic missile submarine or a
Speaker 1: satellite system or at the highest end, you know, one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty million dollar fighter jet loaded with weapons
Speaker 1: if you think they might not be playing with a
Speaker 1: full deck, right, what they decide to fly. What if
Speaker 1: they decide to fly off to New York and do
Speaker 1: a nine to eleven style attack, if they decide to
Speaker 1: not alert that there's something coming on on the sonar
Speaker 1: in the submarine, like, this is just not this is ludicrous.
Speaker 1: The opposite is true. You put the most you know,
Speaker 1: coached people in charge as such. That is an excellent point.
Speaker 1: It's like for for people to say, oh, these guys
Speaker 1: were mistaken. You're saying that some of the most seasoned
Speaker 1: warfighters through the Global War on Terror, who have had
Speaker 1: flown thousands of hours of air missions, who have presumably
Speaker 1: in countered millions of different objects or whatever, cannot distinguish
Speaker 1: from their equipment what is an anomaly and what it's
Speaker 1: actually real. It's completely ridiculous. Tom One thing I think
Speaker 1: for people at home, I've received a lot of pushback
Speaker 1: on this. I'm sure you have as well, is this
Speaker 1: is a si oup? What are you guys falling for?
Speaker 1: Clearly this is all in preparation for this. There's a
Speaker 1: belief that the US government is competent enough or smart
Speaker 1: enough in able to craft this big narrative here in
Speaker 1: the lead up to something However, something you and I
Speaker 1: have discussed privately and often is the truth is is
Speaker 1: that they're just terrified to say, we have no idea
Speaker 1: what's going on up there. Giving your own experience, you're
Speaker 1: talking with Pentagon intelligence sources and all that. Which one
Speaker 1: do you think is the actual scenario that's playing out here.
Speaker 1: I think there's probably a very small element that has
Speaker 1: sustained really since the Manhattan Project in the Second World War,
Speaker 1: which has known that there, you know, is there's some
Speaker 1: other intelligence operating some of these things. But I think
Speaker 1: broadly the same principles that the military applied to this
Speaker 1: issue in the nineteen forties and fifties sustains today, which
Speaker 1: is to your point, they truly don't know. They know
Speaker 1: it's not US, Russia or China again in this very
Speaker 1: small percentile, But when they have the sensor data matched
Speaker 1: up with pilots, multiple different platforms, mouldible pilots, multiple aircrews
Speaker 1: and platforms, sonar operators, for example, something really is compelling
Speaker 1: going on there and they don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: Right they have it's an unconventional technology, it behaves in
Speaker 1: intelligent ways in terms of its counter maneuver. Sometimes when
Speaker 1: it's intercepted, and there's a tradition of credible witness accounts,
Speaker 1: police offers and military whatever you want, going back decades
Speaker 1: that talk to something going on. Either there is a
Speaker 1: mass hallucination that ranges over decades and has some kind
Speaker 1: of you know, telepathic communication based on people who've never
Speaker 1: met describing similar incidents, or you know, I think the
Speaker 1: more realistic answer, which is what we are going to
Speaker 1: I think find out in the next few years simply
Speaker 1: because of more journalistic and scientific scrutiny. That lesser point
Speaker 1: particularly is that really there is something going on here
Speaker 1: and the government just doesn't know what to do with it,
Speaker 1: and you know, how do you address that? And so
Speaker 1: the stigma point make it all a little bit silly
Speaker 1: and hope these things don't you know, create issues, although
Speaker 1: if you look at some of the nuclear weapons portfolio
Speaker 1: with this, there are points I would say of national
Speaker 1: security concern. You know, you're right, the government doesn't know
Speaker 1: what to do about it. Earlier, Tom, you said you
Speaker 1: felt pretty confident that this couldn't be Russian or Chinese technology.
Speaker 1: Why do you feel so certain because I think what,
Speaker 1: you know, what most people have sort of gone to
Speaker 1: outside of a extraterrestrial explanation is yea, these are probably
Speaker 1: all likely Chinese. You know, we had the one Chinese
Speaker 1: Bibles war Chinese by balloons or other sort of surveillance aircraft.
Speaker 1: Or maybe they're partnered up with Russia, or maybe Russia
Speaker 1: has their own capability or some other country, but you know,
Speaker 1: most likely I think fingers point at those two. What
Speaker 1: makes you so confident that they don't have the technological
Speaker 1: sophistication to achieve things that you know, we've been unable
Speaker 1: to achieve with regards to our own military and surveillance technology. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the first point to note is you know
Speaker 1: that some of these things will turn out. I mean
Speaker 1: these most recent ones. Why I say that is the
Speaker 1: nor Ed commander's statement that we don't. It's an unconventional
Speaker 1: propulsion source. The Chinese and Russian still at their next generation,
Speaker 1: which we have good insight too, and I meant least
Speaker 1: people I've taught to we have pretty good insight into
Speaker 1: how they're developing their next generation of capability, so hypersonic
Speaker 1: glide vehicles for example, still based on flight surface characteristics, propulsion,
Speaker 1: and also the fact that these unconventional things have been
Speaker 1: essentially described for decades in a way that you would expect,
Speaker 1: or you would an adversary or the United States would
Speaker 1: have deployed these interaction to China, for Taiwan, for example, Russia, Ukraine,
Speaker 1: the United States, so you know, maintain you know, global
Speaker 1: you know, foreign policy supremacy, whatever you want, they would
Speaker 1: have delivered. We have no intelligence information to suggest that
Speaker 1: there's been some breakthrough by these countries over a period
Speaker 1: long period of time. And secondly, I think that the
Speaker 1: point to note is that you know, when you look
Speaker 1: at things, these most recent incidents that again being described
Speaker 1: as unconventional, how are they're operating? Well, you need a
Speaker 1: launch platform to get them there, right, you need to
Speaker 1: you know, submarines can launch these things, but it's very
Speaker 1: hard for submarines to get that close to the United States,
Speaker 1: certainly very hard for them to operate something that would
Speaker 1: suddenly appear in the middle of the country, you know,
Speaker 1: and so it just doesn't add up. Again, there are
Speaker 1: like with the with the drone element off the West Coast,
Speaker 1: some of that although I think more limited than sometimes
Speaker 1: people or it's not everything. Certainly there is a Chinese
Speaker 1: the PLA will fly them off tankers, drones, advanced drones,
Speaker 1: but the unique ones that show again those breakthrough technologies
Speaker 1: in terms of the data and the witness reports the
Speaker 1: Tiktak in two thousand and four Dave Raber for example,
Speaker 1: that is not China, Russia in the United States. And
Speaker 1: because it's not that and no other nation, it leaves,
Speaker 1: you know, either the mass hallucination effect, which I just
Speaker 1: don't think is credible, or it leaves something truly unconventional
Speaker 1: going on. And again, I suppose the top line answer
Speaker 1: to your question is everyone I've talked to, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure far better journalists kind of doing the national security
Speaker 1: have talked to, there is no information to suggest the
Speaker 1: Chinese or Russians or another actor Ela Musk the United
Speaker 1: States have these capabilities in a del livered platform. And
Speaker 1: again we're talking decades here. This isn't just something that
Speaker 1: we've started. That's a good point. Let's actually I want
Speaker 1: to spend time on this just last thing, because this
Speaker 1: is an important point, which is they're like what you think,
Speaker 1: China or Russia doesn't have better technology than us. Here's
Speaker 1: the difference. Hypersonic missiles is an engineering problem conceptually has
Speaker 1: been known in science for decades. The atomic bomb was
Speaker 1: also an engineering problem in the nineteen what thirties or
Speaker 1: something we knew about the possibility of an atomic weapon.
Speaker 1: It was just something very difficult to try and create.
Speaker 1: The SR seventy one Blackbird a technological marvel, but going
Speaker 1: mock whatever you know, was theoretically possible. Moving this way
Speaker 1: is not known in modern science, has not been known
Speaker 1: even in the physics laboratory for decades. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: like you'd have to believe that they have an entire
Speaker 1: are an entire like stack of research and science and
Speaker 1: R and D developed outside of the United States, which
Speaker 1: has the most sophisticated and best, you know, academic environment
Speaker 1: in the world, which you can just go look at
Speaker 1: the Nobel Prize that that was developed somehow over the
Speaker 1: last fifty years. And in secret, am I right, Tom
Speaker 1: and describing it that way? Absolutely? And I think there's
Speaker 1: also more data here, you know. I think CNN actually
Speaker 1: sort of reported on this that some of the sensor
Speaker 1: systems supposedly with the jets may have been interfered with.
Speaker 1: One thing that's notable about this is you will get
Speaker 1: and why it has been perhaps easier for the government
Speaker 1: to say this is just ignore it. When radar different sensor,
Speaker 1: you know, imagery in red whatever, but radar is the
Speaker 1: particular one i've heard will get close to some of
Speaker 1: these things. You can get a distorted return that suggests
Speaker 1: there's some kind of effect on the radar going in
Speaker 1: and out, like a time dilation whatever. It is something
Speaker 1: really unconventional that again, we are talking about I think
Speaker 1: a new type of physics with these most extraordinary small
Speaker 1: potential ship of objects. And as you say, you know,
Speaker 1: we just had the announcement on nuclear fusion, which is
Speaker 1: nothing compared to what these things seem to exhibit and
Speaker 1: have seen to exhibit since you know, the nineteen fourties, right,
Speaker 1: I think it's chat GPT, it's broken loose jet. GPT's
Speaker 1: got nothing on as much. Okay, they laugh at Chatchy.
Speaker 1: It's great to see you and wonderful to have your expertise.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking some time with us today.
Speaker 1: We may be calling on you again here soon. I
Speaker 1: think you will be a fixture on the show. We
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Man, thanks for coming on. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Yeah, it's our pleasure, all right, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: So at the same time as whatever is going on
Speaker 1: in our skys, we also have here down on the
Speaker 1: ground some twenty twenty four news, especially with regards to
Speaker 1: the Republican primary. So Nikki Haley, who is beloved by
Speaker 1: donors and doesn't seem to be particularly beloved by the
Speaker 1: Republican base, but she thinks she got a shot at
Speaker 1: the presidency. She is announcing for president reportedly this week,
Speaker 1: just days away, and we're already getting a look at
Speaker 1: what her first campaign ad will be. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 1: It's the greatest force for good in human history, and
Speaker 1: we should never be ashamed to say that. For those
Speaker 1: that don't have our back, we're taking names. I wear heels.
Speaker 1: It's not for a fashion statement. It's because if I
Speaker 1: see something wrong, we're going to kick them every single time.
Speaker 1: And there it says two fifteen twenty three, where will
Speaker 1: you stand? That's the date of her reported announcement. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'll just go and get your reaction to how do
Speaker 1: you have a heal? Line? Literally makes me feel gnauxious.
Speaker 1: I mean not feeling the conservative girl boss should be there.
Speaker 1: Imagine having millions of dollars at your disposal. Underwritten by
Speaker 1: Paul singer, the hedge fund billionaire, presumably all of these
Speaker 1: people who do politics for a living. And this is
Speaker 1: the crap that you come up with as your initial
Speaker 1: teaser video. How can you possibly think that that is
Speaker 1: going to resonate in any way? And really what has
Speaker 1: come through is Desanta socide because the only formidable challenge
Speaker 1: these people's delusions of grandeur is something that I will
Speaker 1: never understand. For maybe that's why I'm not a politician,
Speaker 1: but I cannot understand how you possibly could think anybody
Speaker 1: cares about you remotely enough that you were going to
Speaker 1: win the presidency on such a lame ass message. Yeah
Speaker 1: like that, Well, this is someone who's been living in
Speaker 1: a bubble for a while, and this is not you know, Nikki,
Speaker 1: that's the Mike PUMPEII. I mean a lot of these
Speaker 1: John Bolton who apparently thinks he's gonna run a bunch
Speaker 1: of these people, you know, they live in these little
Speaker 1: elite circles where everybody treats them like their you know,
Speaker 1: kings and queens. Nicki Haley for former UN ambassador. And
Speaker 1: then you're in a group of donors who love you
Speaker 1: and tell you how you're the next big thing and
Speaker 1: oh it's time for a woman and a woman of
Speaker 1: color in the Republican Party. And you know they they
Speaker 1: bought the hype, They believe their own hype. They drank
Speaker 1: their own kool aid. However youone ultimately put it. So anyway,
Speaker 1: she's gonna jump into the race. Here. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: Kyle came up with this, love, but I think it's
Speaker 1: so accurate. She's basically the Kamala Harris of the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: Wildly overrated. I mean, you can clip out these little
Speaker 1: the high heel moment or whatever she has there, but
Speaker 1: if you actually listen to this woman give a speech,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a lot of Kamala Harris vibes. Ultimately.
Speaker 1: So this is someone the donor class loves, has love
Speaker 1: for quite a while, has nothing at the core other
Speaker 1: than like ambition and desire to climb the ladder. And
Speaker 1: so that's that's starting this week. So good luck to
Speaker 1: Nikki Haley. At the same time, we have new reporting
Speaker 1: for The New York Times about the Trump DeSantis fude
Speaker 1: and how that is developing and Summer England's go and
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen from the Times. The
Speaker 1: headline here is DeSantis's challenge when and how to counterattack Trump,
Speaker 1: as the former president loves insults and calls him Ronda sanctimonious.
Speaker 1: Governor Ronan DeSantis is carefully avoiding conflict, but if he
Speaker 1: runs for president, as expected, a clash is inevitable. The
Speaker 1: you know, the long and short of this is something
Speaker 1: that we've been tracking here closely, which is that it's
Speaker 1: a tricky maneuver that DeSantis is going to have to
Speaker 1: pull off here because if you don't engage, than you
Speaker 1: look weak and you allow Trump to take all these
Speaker 1: pot shots at you, which he has been and he's
Speaker 1: been ramping up. He shared the thing last week like
Speaker 1: claiming that ron DeSantis is the groomer. So if you
Speaker 1: don't respond, you look extremely weak. But if you try
Speaker 1: to get down in the mud with him, like Republicans
Speaker 1: you know, periodically did, especially during the twenty sixteen primary,
Speaker 1: that has never worked out for literally anyone on the
Speaker 1: Republican side. At the same time, they also have some
Speaker 1: reporting about the way that Trump is talking about him privately.
Speaker 1: I will read this quote from The New York Times.
Speaker 1: Since November, despite the criticism he faced at the time,
Speaker 1: mister Trump has periodically hit out at his potential rival,
Speaker 1: albeit to a relatively small audience. He posted his most
Speaker 1: recent innuendo about the governor on True Social where he
Speaker 1: has just under five million followers, and he has insulted
Speaker 1: mister DeSantis in casual conversations, describing him as quote meatball
Speaker 1: Ron and a parent at his appearance or shut down Ron,
Speaker 1: a reference to restrictions the governor put in place at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, one thing you
Speaker 1: got to say about Trump, he is never worried about
Speaker 1: like being a hypocrite. I mean, Trump is not a
Speaker 1: svelt man. He doesn't cut a lean picture at this
Speaker 1: point in his life, but still not afraid to go
Speaker 1: ahead and throw a jab at Ron RND Sandy. The
Speaker 1: thing is about Trump, He's been at his size decades now,
Speaker 1: whereas DeSantis actually was skinny not that long ago, and
Speaker 1: then became unseemly fat while he was governor, and that
Speaker 1: was proud he took some weight off. Look, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I I'll then rond de Santis on this one.
Speaker 1: A rare moment. Okay, some people struggle with their weight,
Speaker 1: and clearly this is like a battle that he has
Speaker 1: on going. Sure, it's fine, it's relatable, it's very relatable.
Speaker 1: It is relatable. That's said there is accurate. There is
Speaker 1: something about Trump though. How tall is DeSantis? DeSantis? I
Speaker 1: think he might be six' one. Uh. Trump is tall
Speaker 1: and for some reason, even though he is more overweight
Speaker 1: than Rhonda Santis, he's one of those people who can like,
Speaker 1: oh my, the way he wears this. See that's when
Speaker 1: you're short and you struggle with this makes it hard.
Speaker 1: It makes sense. Oh but yeah, Trump for some reason
Speaker 1: because he's tall and like the way he wears his
Speaker 1: suits and those like long ass ties. For some reason,
Speaker 1: Trump's big dude. Yeah, yeah, he just doesn't come. I
Speaker 1: guess he's got the big frame and like you know,
Speaker 1: it's just able to carry it. I think Trump is
Speaker 1: I got nothing against a big boy. That's not my
Speaker 1: issue with He's like six two sixty three. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's big, and he's big in stature. I remember seeing
Speaker 1: I remember, I just remember that whenever I met him.
Speaker 1: DeSantis never met him. But you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: the nickname, I think it is certainly going to stick.
Speaker 1: And look what I was talking about with delusions of grander.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen. Tim Scott
Speaker 1: is now raising presidential buzz with super Pac highers. And actually,
Speaker 1: just this morning, Crystal, it broke in the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1: It says Tim Scott prepares a presidential wow run. I mean,
Speaker 1: these people are they are so delusional taking steps running
Speaker 1: for president. People familiar with this plan said, looking to
Speaker 1: rest the party mantle from former President Trump. Yeah, good
Speaker 1: luck with that, Timlow, I'm sure that you are exactly
Speaker 1: the person that people are turning to. I mean this
Speaker 1: this has Scott Walker vibes written all over it. Let's
Speaker 1: try and to sign so. I think Nikki is the
Speaker 1: Tim paul Enti of the race. Tim Scott is the
Speaker 1: Scott Walker of the race. Both these people, as you know,
Speaker 1: are going to have ungodly amounts of money underwriting their
Speaker 1: campaign from donors who want to move on from Trump.
Speaker 1: DeSantis is the only He's kind of the Ted Cruz figure.
Speaker 1: He's the only credible, actual challenge to Trump. But as
Speaker 1: with Cruz, you know, Cruz at the end of the
Speaker 1: day was not able to unsee Trump because he did
Speaker 1: not have the capability to unite the party behind him
Speaker 1: in an actual head to head matchup. He always had
Speaker 1: Rubio in the race, or he had John Kasick in
Speaker 1: the race, and then with the delegate math, Trump would
Speaker 1: just get forty, sometimes fifty, especially as the race continued
Speaker 1: to go on and he wins the nomination, Trump actually
Speaker 1: comes in with even more of the benefit on his
Speaker 1: side in a non head to head matchup, with such
Speaker 1: a consolidated part of the base that's behind him. And
Speaker 1: just as we predicted, you know, you always can never
Speaker 1: these people are never going to do what is in
Speaker 1: that is in the party's best say, yeah, they're egomaniacal
Speaker 1: narcissists in a lot of ways. The Democrats are more
Speaker 1: willing to fall in line. You know, with klobchar and
Speaker 1: Buddha Jeedge bowing to President Obama, They're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're out. Yeah, Elizabeth Warren staying in and you know
Speaker 1: it would have been helpful if she got act. Every
Speaker 1: single person played their part. No, it's true. The Republicans,
Speaker 1: I mean, ever since twenty sixteen, really have had less
Speaker 1: control over their candidate field and over the party from
Speaker 1: like sort of the top down. And maybe it's been
Speaker 1: that way for a while. I think Republicans weirdly are
Speaker 1: more responsive to their base for whatever reason, than the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party is just a weak party leadership and the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party exerts stronger control, which I think is a
Speaker 1: negative thing, by the way, but that's I believe an
Speaker 1: accurate description of the two parties. And yeah, the irony
Speaker 1: here is all of these people who have the view okay,
Speaker 1: it's time to move on from Trump. By all of
Speaker 1: them jumping into the race, they're helping to ensure that
Speaker 1: the party will not be moving on from Trump now. Personally,
Speaker 1: I think even if it was head to head Trump
Speaker 1: versus DeSantis, I still think that's a tough road for DeSantis.
Speaker 1: The base of the party still loves Donald Trump. And
Speaker 1: as we've said a million times, it's one thing to
Speaker 1: be kind of out there, you know, doing your thing
Speaker 1: as governor, just weighing and occasionally say, hey, look at
Speaker 1: the scoreboard, or we did well in Florida. It's another
Speaker 1: thing to be on a debate stage with this guy
Speaker 1: and have him telling you your you know, meetball Ron
Speaker 1: and shut down Ron, and Ron to sanctimonius and you're
Speaker 1: a groomer and whatever, straight to your face. When you
Speaker 1: are in that situation trying to take the high road
Speaker 1: and just make a kind of offhand comment about it.
Speaker 1: A check the scoreboard. It's not going to be sufficient.
Speaker 1: You're going to look weak in that situation if you
Speaker 1: don't have a more forceful response. It's a very challenging
Speaker 1: situation ultimately for them to be able to navigate. I know,
Speaker 1: by the way, even if Ron DeSantis did win the nomination,
Speaker 1: then you have the prospect of is Trump going to
Speaker 1: endorse him? Is Trump going to actually run third party?
Speaker 1: I think it's more likely he would just you know,
Speaker 1: running third parties like a lot of work and requires organization,
Speaker 1: et cetera. I think it's more likely he would just
Speaker 1: take shots and not be a good soldier and you know,
Speaker 1: deplete sort of some of the energy among the Republican base.
Speaker 1: And then that's if you lose even a little bit
Speaker 1: of ground with your own people, then that's going to
Speaker 1: be devastating the general election. So I don't see a
Speaker 1: chance in hell, especially in a divided field. Now, look,
Speaker 1: I could be totally wrong, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: crazy stuff that could happen. It's just look with Desanders
Speaker 1: as you know, the idea of Trump telling that story
Speaker 1: about this guy like interrupting him. He begged with tears
Speaker 1: in his eyes for my endorsement, and you can see
Speaker 1: Desanters tenses up. He gets un comfortable in those press distances.
Speaker 1: My friend Henry Rogers asked him about it, and he
Speaker 1: was like, look, look, this is the press thing. He
Speaker 1: like pivots to where he's comfortable attacking the media. He
Speaker 1: pivots to I'm moving on. You know, look at the scoreboard.
Speaker 1: Actually was the best moment, and it's because he wasn't defensive,
Speaker 1: it was offensive well, and he had planned this out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and obviously that was a plan line. It's just a
Speaker 1: good one. It's very different, you know, having a plan
Speaker 1: line and being able to deliver it is very different
Speaker 1: from having to respond in real time. And we did
Speaker 1: get a taste of that. I mean, obviously one for
Speaker 1: governor quite easily. But there were moments in his gubernatorial
Speaker 1: debates where you know, he got asked like, oh, so
Speaker 1: you're just you're are you going to serve for the
Speaker 1: full four years? And he didn't have a prepared response,
Speaker 1: and he just kind of awkwardly stared into the camera
Speaker 1: and looked very flat footed, and then delivered one of
Speaker 1: these sort of like can prepared lines, so we'll see
Speaker 1: how it all goes. Listen, we're like facing an alien
Speaker 1: invasion right now, so I don't put anything is off
Speaker 1: the table whatsoever. But all of this cast of characters
Speaker 1: deluding themselves into thinking that they have a shot and
Speaker 1: going ahead and present, preparing their campaigns and having money
Speaker 1: behind them too. By the way, they're not just out
Speaker 1: there on a limb by themselves. They've got billionaire backing.
Speaker 1: This is uh, you know, this is the greatest gift
Speaker 1: you could possibly give to Donald Trump. You got to
Speaker 1: admit that, for funny's sake, the idea of aliens coming
Speaker 1: down in the first beating they meet is Trump. That's
Speaker 1: pretty funny. Yeah, you gotta say that. That would be
Speaker 1: He'd be like, they were like really, like, you're the
Speaker 1: leader of previous Okay, you're the most powerful person. Surreal timeline.
Speaker 1: I can possibly not saying it's aliens, but I certainly
Speaker 1: hope they are. Okay, let's go ahead and move on
Speaker 1: to Ukraine. So we had a fascinating moment here in Washington, Lula,
Speaker 1: the president of Brazil, newly elected, visiting DC, visiting allies.
Speaker 1: A Stafford interview actually with CNN's Christian amanpur where she
Speaker 1: pressed him over Ukraine and he refused to bow to
Speaker 1: say that he would send arms to Ukraine, instead pressing
Speaker 1: for negotiation. Extraordinary actually for any major power in the
Speaker 1: global style or really anywhere to talk this way. Let's
Speaker 1: take a listen to what he said. It looks like
Speaker 1: you're going to come up against President Biden on a
Speaker 1: key defense of the United States of democracy around the world,
Speaker 1: and that is Ukraine. You do not believe, I don't
Speaker 1: think in the Western support for Ukraine's defense, and you
Speaker 1: have said it many times. Why not? And some people
Speaker 1: have asked, in fact an article, why is Lula so
Speaker 1: committed to democracy at home and not abroad. I am
Speaker 1: highly committed with the markets in any part of the
Speaker 1: planet Earth. What I believe is that in the case
Speaker 1: of Ukraine and Russia, it is necessary to have someone
Speaker 1: talking about peace. It's necessary that we should build up
Speaker 1: interacts to talk with the different parties that are in confrontation.
Speaker 1: That's my thesis. We need to find interlock Aitrage that
Speaker 1: could sit with Breton Guten and show to him the
Speaker 1: mistake that he made to invade the territory integrity of
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian territory, and we have to show to Ukraine
Speaker 1: that they have to talk more so that we can
Speaker 1: avoid this war. We have to stop the war. And
Speaker 1: so why I'm going to talk with President Bidy. I
Speaker 1: don't know what he's going to say to me, but
Speaker 1: what I want to say to him is the following.
Speaker 1: It is necessary to build a set of countries to
Speaker 1: negotiate peace. And he as you wants to pursue methods
Speaker 1: to Ukraine, and you said, no, no, there's not the tanks.
Speaker 1: It was ammunition, okay, O, ammunition it was I didn't
Speaker 1: want to send because if I sent to the ammunition,
Speaker 1: I would join the war. If I sent the ammunition
Speaker 1: from Brazil, the ammunition that you're asking for. But you
Speaker 1: just agreed that it was the fest will take us
Speaker 1: to war. I don't want to go join the war.
Speaker 1: I want to end with the war. I don't want
Speaker 1: to join the war. I want to end with the war. Ah,
Speaker 1: that was an extraordinary moment there. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: not heard that from a major leader. Let's go and
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. So actually, while
Speaker 1: he was here in Washington, President Biden pressed him heavily
Speaker 1: to actually send ammunition to Ukraine, and he refused President
Speaker 1: Biden to his face, saying that that was not what
Speaker 1: was going to happen. He condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: but he suggested that Zelenski, share Selensky and NATO at
Speaker 1: least quote share some blame for the war. And he's
Speaker 1: refusing to sell weapons to Ukraine to try and maintain
Speaker 1: neutrality in the conflict. So he says, quote, we need
Speaker 1: to find interlocutors who can sit with President Putin to
Speaker 1: show him the mistake he made to invade Ukraine's territory.
Speaker 1: We have to show Ukraine that they need to talk
Speaker 1: more so we can end this war. So you haven't
Speaker 1: heard this from anybody. I think the craziest part was
Speaker 1: when he said I don't want to join this war.
Speaker 1: I want to end this war, and talking about the
Speaker 1: conditions necessary to push towards a negotiation. Now, look, obviously Brazil,
Speaker 1: they're probably not going to turn the conflict either way.
Speaker 1: But you know, it represents millions and millions of people,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest powers in all of Latin America.
Speaker 1: So what his position is on this could be a
Speaker 1: leading indicator, at least from their position in some room
Speaker 1: for dissent in kind of the global environment, and it
Speaker 1: would also be possible President Putin sees this, this could
Speaker 1: be a major opening right now. As to Lula's own
Speaker 1: role in perhaps bringing an end to this, I mean
Speaker 1: that's clearly his view is he wants to maintain somewhat
Speaker 1: of a neutral stance so that he could be trusted
Speaker 1: as a figure to be involved in potential negotiations to
Speaker 1: bring this thing to an end. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: joining my monologue today on an extraordinary interview from the
Speaker 1: former Israeli Prime minister indicating again something we already had
Speaker 1: hints of, but confirmed that early in this process there
Speaker 1: was a potential peace deal that was coming together. No guarantees,
Speaker 1: no one's saying it was certain, but according to the
Speaker 1: Israeli Prime minister, there was like a fifty to fifty shot,
Speaker 1: and the US and NATO, but led by the US,
Speaker 1: actively said we don't want the deal, we want the war.
Speaker 1: So Lula's perspective here that he's offering where he's talking about,
Speaker 1: he's critical of Biden, and he has been before in
Speaker 1: a Time magazine interview where he was saying, listen, before
Speaker 1: this war started he could have flown to Moscow, he
Speaker 1: could have engaged war. Instead, they sort of laughed off
Speaker 1: Putin's proposals and his red lines, and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: with regards to NATO, ignored them for decades. This is
Speaker 1: a view that is actually widespread outside of the US
Speaker 1: and outside of Western media. It's just extremely rare that
Speaker 1: a US audience actually hears another way of looking at
Speaker 1: this conflict, and another way of looking at the history
Speaker 1: and how we got there and exactly who is to
Speaker 1: blame and how much. Now, obviously, as we have said
Speaker 1: a million times here, Russia is to blame for the invasion.
Speaker 1: To ignore all the context of how we got here,
Speaker 1: and to just paint Putin as this like madman who
Speaker 1: can't be reasoned with, means that, of course you're not
Speaker 1: going to support diplomatic negotiations. At the same time, Rand Corporation,
Speaker 1: which is largely funded by the Pentagon, is out saying
Speaker 1: the most likely outcome here is not that Russia will win,
Speaker 1: our Ukraine will win, but that we will have a
Speaker 1: stalemate and that it is a disaster if we end
Speaker 1: up in a long war. It's very difficult, though, given
Speaker 1: how long this has already gone on and the level
Speaker 1: of atrocities that have been committed to now get back
Speaker 1: to the peace table and negotiating table and be able
Speaker 1: to come up with the type of deal that was
Speaker 1: coming together in the early days. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: really commend Lula for sticking to his guns here, for
Speaker 1: not mincing words, for laying out exactly how he sees
Speaker 1: this conflict, and just to give you, you know, a
Speaker 1: sense of this guy and how different the way that
Speaker 1: he talks about this conflict is from anything that you
Speaker 1: hear in the US press. In that Time magazine article,
Speaker 1: he was talking about Zelensky and he said, listen, you're
Speaker 1: encouraging this guy. And then he thinks, ses the cherry
Speaker 1: on your cake, we should be having a serious conversation. Okay,
Speaker 1: you were a nice comedian, but let us not make
Speaker 1: war for you to show up on TV. He then
Speaker 1: went on to be very critical of Putin as well.
Speaker 1: So this is someone who has been unafraid of speaking
Speaker 1: a very different way about this conflict than anything you're
Speaker 1: going to hear anywhere else. Oh. Absolutely, Okay, So let's
Speaker 1: move on to the next part here about the actual offensive,
Speaker 1: and this will be this really is the testing ground
Speaker 1: of what a quote unquote stalemate might even look like,
Speaker 1: and how Russia has, if at all, regrouped, what their
Speaker 1: power will look like. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 1: the screen. Russian offensive and Ukraine appearing to begin some
Speaker 1: of the preliminary movements. So we've had operations and treat
Speaker 1: movements around eastern Ukraine that have sharply increased sharply in
Speaker 1: the last couple of months as we move away from
Speaker 1: the more muddier season and the ground becomes easier to use.
Speaker 1: So here's what they say. They believe that the pace
Speaker 1: of Moscow operations over the past week has accelerated, specifically
Speaker 1: in western Luhansk, citing a lot of new skirmishes that
Speaker 1: are happening along the front line with marginal advances in
Speaker 1: that region. So it now appears to be committing a
Speaker 1: much more of its forces that were held in reserve
Speaker 1: ever since that highly controversial military draft that happened last fall,
Speaker 1: and what the actual push on the line will look
Speaker 1: like remains unclear. So there's thirty different settlements all across
Speaker 1: eastern Ukraine which have come under intense fire over the
Speaker 1: last couple of months. Specifically, Also, we remember Bachmut which
Speaker 1: President Zelensky visited here visited immediately before visiting the United States.
Speaker 1: What they say is that the all out, the all
Speaker 1: out multi front assault is very unlikely to occur at
Speaker 1: the same moment. Instead, they will likely prioritize a major
Speaker 1: advance aimed at seizing the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Present
Speaker 1: indicators suggest that Moscow is planning to launch this defensive
Speaker 1: sometime in late February and in mid March, So the
Speaker 1: traditional skirmishes, getting the intelligence, getting the men ready, moving
Speaker 1: material and supplies all up to the front line, a
Speaker 1: beer to be coming. Now. This is also going to
Speaker 1: be a big test for Ukrainians. Ukrainians had that stunning
Speaker 1: Spring offensive where they took back a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: territory relative to what was expected of them. Now we've
Speaker 1: been pumping them full of billions of dollars. We've got
Speaker 1: new weapons systems that are on the ground there, the
Speaker 1: tanks and all that are not operational, as I believe,
Speaker 1: because they still need to be trained on. But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: you know, they've been able to regroup, they've been pounded
Speaker 1: from Russian air power. But they've got now to test
Speaker 1: whether they can keep some of the areas that they withhold,
Speaker 1: and can they withstand against the actual Russian offensive, whether
Speaker 1: it turns into a stalemate or not, is all going
Speaker 1: to be proven probably in the next two or three
Speaker 1: months or so of probably terrible fighting, which is really
Speaker 1: you know, that's the saddest part. Yeah, absolutely, no, I mean,
Speaker 1: the general understanding is Thatussia's goal in this new offensive
Speaker 1: would be to take back the parts of the Donbass
Speaker 1: region that they had lost Ukraine in particular in that
Speaker 1: spring offensive. You know, the tanks haven't arrived yet. There's
Speaker 1: a reason why Zelenski has been flying around, you know,
Speaker 1: really putting the screws to leaders in the West to
Speaker 1: provide fighter jets and other capabilities, because they know that ultimately,
Speaker 1: i mean, the fundamental balance in this conflict remains what
Speaker 1: it was on day one, even as Russia has dramatically underperformed,
Speaker 1: which is, Russia just has way more men that they
Speaker 1: can ultimately throw at this thing if they want, way
Speaker 1: more munitions, way more of an industrial base, and so
Speaker 1: you know, Zelenski and Ukraine are wholly dependent on the
Speaker 1: West providing the resources and material that they need in
Speaker 1: order to be able to maintain their position. Or push forward.
Speaker 1: But again, you know, the most likely outcome here isn't
Speaker 1: that Ukraine is able to achieve total victory, and isn't
Speaker 1: that Russia is able to achieve total victory. It's a brutal,
Speaker 1: bloody stalemate that could go on endlessly if there isn't
Speaker 1: some attempt at a diplomatic resolution. Yeah, that's really where
Speaker 1: things appear to stand right now. We've got some maps
Speaker 1: we can put up on the screen there. People are interested,
Speaker 1: and it just shows what we were talking about those
Speaker 1: who are watching, where the actual frontline is in the
Speaker 1: dun Boss and where some of the expected war will
Speaker 1: take place. So it's going to be a big, big
Speaker 1: testing ground for the Ukrainian forces and for the Russian
Speaker 1: forces frankly, because if they crumble, or if this doesn't
Speaker 1: it's not victorious, even without any of the advanced weapons
Speaker 1: that we have provided to Ukraine, then Russia is in
Speaker 1: some serious trouble. In the years to comment, it would
Speaker 1: only really mean that they're going to have to escalate
Speaker 1: even more, perhaps another draft of vicious cycle there. So
Speaker 1: either side has got a lot to lose based on
Speaker 1: what the outcome is here. Yes, indeed, all right, there
Speaker 1: is no way for me to make a segue to
Speaker 1: our next Stas segment eloquently, but we wanted to give
Speaker 1: you a little update continued mister Beast arrangement syndrome. As
Speaker 1: we covered here previously, mister Beast put out a video
Speaker 1: gigantic YouTube star. For those of you who don't, I'm
Speaker 1: sure most of you do. I mean, he's actually the
Speaker 1: top YouTube creator in the entire world, so very famous
Speaker 1: and successful guy. He's known for these sort of acts
Speaker 1: of random charity and giveaways, and one of his most
Speaker 1: recent videos he paid for a thousand people to have
Speaker 1: their blindness treated so that they were no longer visually
Speaker 1: impaired and able to see again. He went into the
Speaker 1: data about how many people around the world suffer from
Speaker 1: curable blindness, and he was you know with people in
Speaker 1: the United States, where it's disgusting that they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: access to this, to this surgery without mister Beast coming
Speaker 1: in and paying for it. So you know, most normal people,
Speaker 1: in fact, I would say, all normal people look at
Speaker 1: this and go, that's good that he did that, right,
Speaker 1: that's great. A thousand people who wanted to see can see. Now,
Speaker 1: that's school all right, let's move on. But that hasn't
Speaker 1: stopped some people from being deeply offended by the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, mister Beast took this approach, let's gun and
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. This is from tech
Speaker 1: Crunch headline here mister Beast's blindness video puts systemic ablism
Speaker 1: on display. Let me read you a little bit from
Speaker 1: this piece. Recently, Megastar creator mister Beasts posted a video
Speaker 1: to his YouTube in which he spotlights numerous blind and
Speaker 1: visually impaired people who have undergone a surgical procedure that
Speaker 1: quote cures their blindness. As in this writing, the video
Speaker 1: has been viewed more than seventy six million times, and
Speaker 1: the responses have been visceral in both praise and contempt.
Speaker 1: For his part, mister Beast has taken to Twitter to
Speaker 1: publicly bemoan the fact that so many are so angry
Speaker 1: at him for putting on what amounts to a publicity
Speaker 1: stunt under the guise of selfless charity. The truth is straightforward,
Speaker 1: the video was more ablest than altruistic. His reasoning that
Speaker 1: he lays out in this article. He says, in the
Speaker 1: broadest lens, the biggest problem with wanting to cure blindness
Speaker 1: is that it reinforces a moral superiority of sorts by
Speaker 1: those without disabilities over those who are disabled. Although not
Speaker 1: confronted nearly as often as racism and sexism, systemic ableism
Speaker 1: is prev if they're on all parts of society. The
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is that the majority of abled
Speaker 1: people viewed disability as a failure of the human condition.
Speaker 1: As such, people with disability should be mourned and pitied.
Speaker 1: More pointedly, as mister b stated in his videos thumbnail,
Speaker 1: disability should be eradicated or cured. Okay, so the argument
Speaker 1: here is that rather than you know, people getting help
Speaker 1: if they wanted to you know, recover their vision manting,
Speaker 1: these people had been you know, had had perfect vision
Speaker 1: and then had become visually impaired. They wanted this surge.
Speaker 1: They wanted to be able to see again. It's not
Speaker 1: like mister Beast was like holding people down who were like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm good, I actually have like embraced my situation and
Speaker 1: my disability and I'm happy. Which if that's you, got
Speaker 1: more power to you, that's beautiful. But these are people
Speaker 1: who wanted to be able to see. So it's not
Speaker 1: like he was like holding them down and forcing them
Speaker 1: to cure their disability in a way that they didn't want.
Speaker 1: It's like the Jack Nicholson of having your your eye
Speaker 1: what does that movie one flew out of the whatever,
Speaker 1: I'm too young for that anyway, the Jack and Lilson
Speaker 1: meum of having his eyes like forced open and mister
Speaker 1: beast is there like hearing their blindless? No, like this
Speaker 1: is outright of course. Taylor Lorenz, by the way, got
Speaker 1: in on the action saying, clockwork Orange there it is,
Speaker 1: thank you, producer Griffin in my ear. So what do
Speaker 1: they what do we learn from this, which is that
Speaker 1: these somehow I don't know why these people despise someone
Speaker 1: being successful by helping people by hearing their blind list.
Speaker 1: I will never understand it, Taylor Lorenz, you know, tweeting
Speaker 1: this out as if it's some like incredible, you know,
Speaker 1: think piece that we're supposed to cherish this other sided perspective.
Speaker 1: What it look if he was saying I can't even
Speaker 1: believe that people live this way, you know, denigrating them
Speaker 1: or something, Okay, then I think that's a totally different case.
Speaker 1: And doing it not even really in an altruistic way,
Speaker 1: but doing it in a way where he's clearly doing
Speaker 1: it for clout or something like that. That'd be also
Speaker 1: another way of this by all accounts, I mean, watch video. People,
Speaker 1: I really real people are like it's it's emotional, like
Speaker 1: people are crying, there are families, they are happy because
Speaker 1: getting some of the money. They were like breaking down
Speaker 1: and enjoy and tears and they were I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a tough one to watch. And as you watch said
Speaker 1: in your monologue, the point is that such systems shouldn't
Speaker 1: even exist, right, It's like, how many more millions are
Speaker 1: afflicted by this? And what could we do as a
Speaker 1: society to make sure that it doesn't happen anymore. That's
Speaker 1: a perfect takeaway, one of which he came away with.
Speaker 1: At first. You know, we were thinking these are just fringe,
Speaker 1: strange characters, but no, I mean this is a mainstream
Speaker 1: look for people who don't know. Tech Crunch is a
Speaker 1: highly influential publication in Silicon Valley. Like this is as
Speaker 1: establishment as it gets for a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the tech industry. And I'm mystified as to what exactly
Speaker 1: even compels somebody like Taylor or someone like this guy
Speaker 1: Stephen Aquino by the way a Quino. He's a Twitter
Speaker 1: account by the way, because oh really, because of all
Speaker 1: that criticism. And Stephen, Stephen himself of which she talks
Speaker 1: about in the piece, has a number of disabilities, and
Speaker 1: in his view, okay, he embraces his disabilities. He doesn't
Speaker 1: want to you know, be quote unquote creed for them
Speaker 1: or over or like, you know, have them treat or whatever,
Speaker 1: because he feels like they've made him who he is.
Speaker 1: So that's the way that he's approached. That's fine, beautiful, wonderful,
Speaker 1: But why are you he says, he's not judging these
Speaker 1: people who wanted to have their vision treated and restored.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of the subtext here, is that if
Speaker 1: you have a disability and you would prefer to recover
Speaker 1: your vision or be able to see for the first time,
Speaker 1: then that's sort of a failing on your part. So
Speaker 1: he projects a lot of like, oh, able body people,
Speaker 1: they have a moral superiority over people with disabilities, which
Speaker 1: doesn't come out in this mister Beat's video whatsoever. But
Speaker 1: the subtext of this piece is some moral superiority over
Speaker 1: people with disabilities who choose to embrace those disabilities versus
Speaker 1: those who choose to have them treated. That's the real
Speaker 1: moral superiority that I see coming through in this piece.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot going on there, but ultimately, mister
Speaker 1: Beast did nothing wrong. That's mine. They didn't do a
Speaker 1: damn thing wrong. And I actually think it's important to
Speaker 1: people because you know, it's not like people in the
Speaker 1: mainstream press are speaking out and saying that Taylor is
Speaker 1: psychotic or Steven Aquino psychotic for going after mister Beats
Speaker 1: like that. They're mostly they'll roll their eyes in private,
Speaker 1: but people need to come out and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about. You're crazy. You're actually insane
Speaker 1: if you have this perspective. So anyway, I think we
Speaker 1: should stand up for the guy. I really do feel
Speaker 1: bad because, you know, of all, this is probably the
Speaker 1: best video he's arguably ever done. Squid Game, even just
Speaker 1: because it helped so many people, is not just some
Speaker 1: individual person, and it actually raised a real I think
Speaker 1: for a lot of younger people who watched this. Really, Hey,
Speaker 1: I had no idea that this even existed. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great thing. Yeah, bring people most of I'm not
Speaker 1: a big mister Beef consumer, but I've watched a number
Speaker 1: of his videos, and you know, most of them are
Speaker 1: not political at all. There's no underlying political message whatever
Speaker 1: this one there actually was. I mean, you talked about
Speaker 1: the statistics the number of people whould have their vision
Speaker 1: restored for one of this simple ten minute surgery, and
Speaker 1: so you know, on the contrary, it just it wasn't
Speaker 1: just like you know, a neutral here. The fact that
Speaker 1: you're raising awareness about how morally bankrupt this disgusting healthcare
Speaker 1: system for profit healthcare system that we have here, and
Speaker 1: the feelings that you know around the world as well,
Speaker 1: that you're raising awareness about that, that's that's a positive thing.
Speaker 1: That's a great thing. That's reaching people who otherwise may
Speaker 1: not have really thought that through. That are just you know,
Speaker 1: mister Beast's consumers and they're not deeply political. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's my view on it. There you go, all right, Tiger,
Speaker 1: are you looking at Well, We've been talking a lot
Speaker 1: here in recent weeks about childhood obesity and the role,
Speaker 1: if any, that the government can play in shaping it. Philosophically,
Speaker 1: it's actually a very difficult question. Individually. You can zoom
Speaker 1: in on parents, you can blame them for an obese kid,
Speaker 1: but what if the parents themselves are obese and then
Speaker 1: have been since children. What if they can't afford to
Speaker 1: eat healthier or what if they honestly just don't know
Speaker 1: anything about nutrition. To me, I like to focus in
Speaker 1: on those questions cost information policy. I'm not and would
Speaker 1: never claim that the US government can solve childhood obesity,
Speaker 1: but something I am claiming is that in an aggressive
Speaker 1: effort on the part of state local governments with the FEDS,
Speaker 1: could meaningfully affect it. I mean, just consider this, A
Speaker 1: ten percent drop in childhood obesity means literally millions of
Speaker 1: children will not be afflicted with a lifelong problem. The
Speaker 1: numbers are staggering considering just how many kids and adults
Speaker 1: in the US are on track for terrible health over
Speaker 1: the course of their entire lives. That's why I started
Speaker 1: paying attention and in in the last few days to a
Speaker 1: really interesting story out of New Mexico where traditional parts
Speaker 1: and blinders were not on display. Instead, we had a
Speaker 1: novel incident a lawmaker who just kind of wanted to
Speaker 1: help children and he was crushed by a big soda lobby.
Speaker 1: So New Mexico State Senator Greg Schmidi's he's a Republican,
Speaker 1: but probably more importantly for this story, Also, a practicing
Speaker 1: surgeon introduced a bill to prohibit the sale of in
Speaker 1: New Mexico public schools from pre k to high school. Importantly,
Speaker 1: his bill would only apply to school hours. It had
Speaker 1: exceptions for after school events like concession sales. Here too,
Speaker 1: it's also worth pausing we are not talking about adults,
Speaker 1: like Michael Bloomberg's proposed ban from a few years ago.
Speaker 1: I am of the opinion adults can make choices for themselves.
Speaker 1: If they want to be obese and they want to
Speaker 1: drink sixty ounces of soda, be my guest. I myself
Speaker 1: drink a seven to eleven big gulp of diet soda
Speaker 1: once a week. I am not perfect. Every time I
Speaker 1: drink it. I know it's not good for me. I
Speaker 1: like it. What can I say? But there's a big
Speaker 1: difference than in an adult with a fully formed brain,
Speaker 1: well aware of the trade offs being made with soda,
Speaker 1: and a child whose dopamine center is being hijacked by sugar.
Speaker 1: The discussion, at the very least, I think is important,
Speaker 1: and we need to develop parameters about children and protecting
Speaker 1: them in an environment where the state, by definition is
Speaker 1: responsible for their well being. Perhaps even more important than
Speaker 1: the idea than the bill, it's how viciously it was
Speaker 1: fought by big soda. According to the Senate, after he
Speaker 1: introduced his bill, Coca Cola flew six executives on a
Speaker 1: private jet immediately to New Mexico to kill the bill.
Speaker 1: They understood perfectly that if you let even a smaller
Speaker 1: population state like New Mexico ban soda, that the headlines
Speaker 1: would be devastating and that all other states might start
Speaker 1: asking questions. In fact, it's not just Coca Cola that
Speaker 1: got in on the action. After the bill was successfully killed,
Speaker 1: you had Pepsi Co executives doing backflips in the local press.
Speaker 1: New Mexico local media quoted in an executive who told them, quote,
Speaker 1: the bill is not needed. Why because quote current USDA
Speaker 1: regulations already limit beverage calories and schools are in place
Speaker 1: and followed by schools in New Mexico. Hmm, that actually
Speaker 1: gives a way whole game right now. While the USDA
Speaker 1: does discourage the sale of caffeinated beverages in schools, it
Speaker 1: still allows it. In fact, the regulations say, quote lower
Speaker 1: calorie beverages with up to forty calories per eight ounces
Speaker 1: or sixty calories per twelve ounces may be sold in
Speaker 1: up to twelve ounce portions. As the Senator said in
Speaker 1: his hearing quote, who are you going to trust more
Speaker 1: beverage companies or our committee to care for our children?
Speaker 1: Despite his plea, senators killed the bill why because they
Speaker 1: expressed concern that it would hurt sports and community programs,
Speaker 1: despite the explicit carve out in the bill for those
Speaker 1: very activities. You want to tell me with a straight
Speaker 1: face that the big soda lobby didn't have anything to
Speaker 1: do with destroying that bill or rigging those USDA regulations. Hmm, Look,
Speaker 1: are there bigger fish to fry when it comes to
Speaker 1: childhood obesity? Absolutely, But as I've laid out here before,
Speaker 1: the sugar industry has already rigged the system with the
Speaker 1: FDA where you can have a quote healthy food label
Speaker 1: on your food and you can't discriminate against the amount
Speaker 1: of sugar in a label product. Sugar consumption over the
Speaker 1: course of our lives has skyrocketed, especially in the last
Speaker 1: fifty years. It is unquestionably a major contributor to childhood obesity.
Speaker 1: Simply it's palatable. Unfortunately, in reverse, a similar Parson fight
Speaker 1: is actually playing out in a state of New York.
Speaker 1: Mayor Eric Adams, who I have major difference agreements and
Speaker 1: is pushing of vegan diets and meatless food, is trying
Speaker 1: to restrict the sale of chocolate milk in school. In response,
Speaker 1: Representative Elise Stefonic, who Trump has actually touted as potential
Speaker 1: successor for defending him on TV, introduced a bill and
Speaker 1: I'm not joking, to require chocolate milk in all schools
Speaker 1: across the country. Her statement reads quote and Mayor Adams
Speaker 1: fails to understand that delicious flavored milk is how many
Speaker 1: of our kids access the essential nutrients in dairy for
Speaker 1: their development, and taking options away from children is not
Speaker 1: the answer. Hm who wants to ask the congresswoman why
Speaker 1: exactly chocolate milk is delicious? It's because of the sugar
Speaker 1: in it. In fact, the average school chocolate milk in
Speaker 1: the United States has a full twelve grams of added sugar. Sure,
Speaker 1: it is not as bad as a full sugar soda,
Speaker 1: but this is a game of inches literally in terms
Speaker 1: of restricting weight bands. I want to reiterate again, if
Speaker 1: you are an adult, go for it. But schools we
Speaker 1: have a say We should not let partisan blinders push
Speaker 1: us away from talking about what we give kids while
Speaker 1: they're at school. More so, we cannot let big moneyed
Speaker 1: interests buy off representatives to quash even the slightest attempts
Speaker 1: at getting kids slightly healthier. This entire episode is a
Speaker 1: very small glimpse into what we're all up against, and
Speaker 1: I hope everybody is paying attention because it will only
Speaker 1: get worse in the years to come. Yeah, the chocolate
Speaker 1: milk thing is really glad you got that, to be fair.
Speaker 1: I mean, look with Eric Adams, he's trying to require
Speaker 1: plant based milk. And by the way, there's all kinds
Speaker 1: of problems with plant based even if you go in
Speaker 1: the production. So I'm not defending the guy on its merits,
Speaker 1: but if you're trying to have a baseline conversation of like, okay,
Speaker 1: should we have healthier milk in school or not, chocolate
Speaker 1: milk is not in that discussion. And she wants to
Speaker 1: require She's like, we should give our kids options. Really,
Speaker 1: you should give kids options. They're like five years old.
Speaker 1: What do you think they're gonna be. You're gonna pick
Speaker 1: the sugary one, obviously, they're gonna pick the sugar one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes me think back to the whole culture war
Speaker 1: about Michelle Obama during the Obama administration, because this was
Speaker 1: one of her bay like childhood nutrition and like exercise
Speaker 1: and fitness for kids whatever. That was like her thing
Speaker 1: that she really focused on as first Lady. And there
Speaker 1: was this whole culture war freak out I remember over
Speaker 1: on Fox News about like you'll take our school lunch
Speaker 1: cookies from our cold dead hands, et cetera. And at
Speaker 1: the time I just thought it was like sort of
Speaker 1: general Obama derangement. That was certainly a part of it.
Speaker 1: But now I look at it a lot differently of
Speaker 1: the sort of industry interests behind the scenes that also had,
Speaker 1: you know, a deep vested financial interest in keeping things
Speaker 1: exactly as they were. Oh yeah. And then the soda
Speaker 1: thing though, I mean, it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: nobody would pay attention to this. I happen to come
Speaker 1: across it because Cali means flagged it for me. But
Speaker 1: you got this like, look, he's in New Mexico State Centator.
Speaker 1: Nobody's paying attention to this, right, He's just surgeon. He's like,
Speaker 1: this is crazy. We shouldn't have so and then there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how you feel about this,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think it's the end of the world.
Speaker 1: You don't sell soda at a freaking football game, but whatever.
Speaker 1: All right, So they're like, oh, this might hurt Concession Stay.
Speaker 1: It's like, all right, fine, we'll fund them for they
Speaker 1: although that probably shouldn't be the way we fund our
Speaker 1: football teams. Whatever. So he carves out all of that.
Speaker 1: They still kill it based upon based upon those fake
Speaker 1: concerns after the lobbyist Coca Cola fly over there and
Speaker 1: if you think they weren't doling out money of some kind, yeah,
Speaker 1: in some way, you're crazy. And then they kill us
Speaker 1: on the state legislator level. They've got vending machines in
Speaker 1: my kids' elementary school, and they're constantly asking can I
Speaker 1: bring a dollar for the man? Like no, And there's
Speaker 1: nothing but crap in those things, like why is there
Speaker 1: a vending machine in an elementary school whatsoever? And this
Speaker 1: isn't a school where they're like hosting football games or whatever.
Speaker 1: There's no reason for them to be that. Look if
Speaker 1: you put them in the teacher's launch and you know,
Speaker 1: and the adults in the school, Okay, fine, but to
Speaker 1: have access for five and six year olds to be
Speaker 1: able to, like, you know, get their soda or their
Speaker 1: cookies or whatever their fixes. This is correct. And here's
Speaker 1: if you're a parent, you want to give your kid Coke's,
Speaker 1: do what you want. Yeah, you can't. What does a
Speaker 1: child know about what's in a damn vending machine. They're
Speaker 1: going to go for the sugary thing. Of course every time.
Speaker 1: I can't even believe you are allowed to sell this stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm starting to lose my mind. Well, and you said,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean big soda is I think as
Speaker 1: damaging to health, perhaps more than big tobacco ever was.
Speaker 1: And there needs to be the same level of scrutiny
Speaker 1: and acknowledgment of the way that they ring the rules
Speaker 1: to their benefit because it has devastating health consequences for
Speaker 1: people for their entire lives. Absolutely, Chrystal, what are you
Speaker 1: taking a look at? Well, guys, we're not getting the
Speaker 1: clearest picture to date of the early days of Russia's
Speaker 1: were in Ukraine, including Putin's thinking, the concessions that both
Speaker 1: he and Zelensky were actually open to, and critically the
Speaker 1: way that NATO, led by the US made a strategic
Speaker 1: choice to kill a budding piece deal that could have
Speaker 1: brought a ceasefire mere weeks into this horrific conflict. In
Speaker 1: an explosive interview, former Israeli Prime Minister enough Tolly Bennett
Speaker 1: goes into great depth about his role in attempting to
Speaker 1: achieve a negotiated settlement a week and a half into
Speaker 1: this war. Listening to this interview is to come face
Speaker 1: to face with just how much we have been lied
Speaker 1: to and propagandized by the Western press. Every detail about
Speaker 1: this conflict has been obscured and manipulated, from what the
Speaker 1: war is even about to what our role in it
Speaker 1: actually is. Now. Some of you might have seen excerpts
Speaker 1: from this interview already. It occurred over a week ago now,
Speaker 1: but it is five hours long, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: take some time to actually go through it thoroughly before
Speaker 1: I broke it all down for you. Also, the interviews
Speaker 1: in Hebrew. I'm going to read a bit of the
Speaker 1: English translation and put it the video up on the
Speaker 1: screen so you can just get a vibe of what
Speaker 1: it looks like. Right now. We're dropping into the interview
Speaker 1: after former PM Bennett has already described the outlines of
Speaker 1: the deal and his role in the negotiations when he
Speaker 1: explains why this diplomacy all came up empty handed, so
Speaker 1: he says, I'm just the mediator, but I turned to America.
Speaker 1: In this regard, I don't do as I please. Anything
Speaker 1: I did was coordinated down to the last detail with
Speaker 1: the US, Germany and France. The interviewer then asked him,
Speaker 1: so they blocked it, and he replies basically, yes, they
Speaker 1: blocked it, and I thought they were wrong. In retrospect,
Speaker 1: it's too soon to know. So in that clip, Bennett
Speaker 1: there says unequivocally that NATO, led by the US, blocked
Speaker 1: a budding piece deal. At another point, Bennett claim says, quote,
Speaker 1: I have one claim. I claim there was a good
Speaker 1: chance of reaching a ceasefire. The interviewer then queries whether,
Speaker 1: but it means they could have achieved a ceasefire had
Speaker 1: the US not curbed it, and Bennett nods yes in confirmation.
Speaker 1: Think of how explosive this revelation is. If there was
Speaker 1: an ounce of credibility in the Western press, this would
Speaker 1: be bombshell news. It reveals a portrait of the war
Speaker 1: in our role in it that is wildly out of
Speaker 1: step with the narrative that the US public has been fed,
Speaker 1: in which we are solely supporting Ukraine's ambitions, as Biden says,
Speaker 1: nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, and in which our only
Speaker 1: choices are to let Ukrainians be slaughtered or shipped tanks
Speaker 1: and probably fighter jets, and court war with the nuclearm superpower.
Speaker 1: In reality, Ukraine, led by Zelenski, wanted a deal early
Speaker 1: in this conflict and was willing to make some hard
Speaker 1: compromises to get there, and far from the imperialist madman
Speaker 1: presented the US press, Putin was also seemingly willing to
Speaker 1: make significant compromises to achieve a ceasefire. Bennett says it
Speaker 1: was his impression that both of these men wanted a
Speaker 1: ceasefire at that point. Now, most of the press simply
Speaker 1: ignored these revelations, which honestly was probably the safest choice,
Speaker 1: because the attempt to spin it was hilariously flailing. This
Speaker 1: attempt to spin from insider claims that actually the Hebrew
Speaker 1: was translated incorrectly, and when Bennett says quote they blocked it,
Speaker 1: the correct translation should have been quote they stopped it.
Speaker 1: Oh well, if the US stopped the peace negotiations. That's
Speaker 1: totally different than if they blocked the peace negotiations. Come on, people,
Speaker 1: they also trot it down. Of course, they're tried and
Speaker 1: true tactic for shutting down debate by smearing anyone who
Speaker 1: amplified this interview and the explosive revelations contained therein as
Speaker 1: a Russian propagandist. But whether the proper Hebrew to English
Speaker 1: translation is blocked or stopped, this is not the first
Speaker 1: indication we've gotten that the US killed an emerging deal
Speaker 1: and chose war over the possibility, not a certainty, but
Speaker 1: the possibility of negotiated peace. Bennett, for what it's worth,
Speaker 1: put that possibility of achieving a settlement in those early
Speaker 1: days at a fifty fifty chance, not a guarantee, but
Speaker 1: damn it was worth a shot. Now, you'll recall the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian press reported that then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson
Speaker 1: flew to Kiev early in the conflict, who personally informs
Speaker 1: Lensky we did not want a deal. We also had
Speaker 1: former US National Security Council official Fiota Hill writing about
Speaker 1: the outlines of that peace deal for Foreign Affairs, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on
Speaker 1: the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement. Russia would withdraw
Speaker 1: to its position on February twenty three, when it controlled
Speaker 1: part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and
Speaker 1: in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership
Speaker 1: and increase instead received security guarantees from a number of countries.
Speaker 1: So coupled those reports with Bennett's revelations here, and it
Speaker 1: becomes quite clear we wanted this war to go on,
Speaker 1: with all of the horror that that has entailed, and
Speaker 1: we blocked possible piece, or stopped a possible piece, if
Speaker 1: you prefer. There was a lot more. Though in this
Speaker 1: interview describing as negotiations with Zelenski and Putin, then it
Speaker 1: calls both leaders quote pragmatic. Again, that's a characterization that
Speaker 1: undermines media caricatures of both of these men. As part
Speaker 1: of the negotiations, Putin had already agreed to drop his
Speaker 1: demand that Ukraine disarm and had pledged not to kill Zelensky.
Speaker 1: He agreed to not have regime change. For his part,
Speaker 1: Zelensky had already agreed to stay out of NATO. That's
Speaker 1: an issue that Bennett describes as key context by the way,
Speaker 1: for Putin's decision initially to invade. Bennett says at one point,
Speaker 1: quote there are two very different narratives. The Wesse's Putin
Speaker 1: as an imperialist who wants to take over more places.
Speaker 1: Putin's perception was wait, when the wall came down, we
Speaker 1: reached an agreement with NATO that they wouldn't expand and
Speaker 1: would not touch the belt countries that envelop Russia. Don't
Speaker 1: bring me NATO my enemy or rival. And why are
Speaker 1: you introducing Ukraine into NATO. That's how he describes Putin's thinking.
Speaker 1: Bennett then goes on to explain that the US has
Speaker 1: its own Monroe doctrine of regional hegemony and Russia sees
Speaker 1: are medaling in Ukraine similarly as quote, don't come here,
Speaker 1: this is my backyard. Now. This is important, again, not
Speaker 1: because it erases Russia's culpability, but because it suggests that
Speaker 1: had we engaged in negotiations before the war, maybe this
Speaker 1: could have been preventable. It also suggests that this isn't
Speaker 1: actually a war over values the way it's portrayed, with
Speaker 1: Putin playing the part of genocidal lunatic in the USS
Speaker 1: heroic infallible savior. It's rather a more conventional conflict over
Speaker 1: resources and national interests, where our own arrogance and wilful
Speaker 1: disregard for Russian redlines plays a not insignificant role helpful
Speaker 1: context if you actually care about ending this war. It
Speaker 1: is astonishing the lengths that the US press has gone
Speaker 1: to in order to deceive the mayor and public about
Speaker 1: the very basics of this conflict, to shield us from
Speaker 1: any inconvenient facts, to mask any and all US complicity,
Speaker 1: such as our possible role, for one example, in blowing
Speaker 1: up the Nord stream pipeline, to thoroughly ignore the costs
Speaker 1: of our current strategy. And now is a particularly critical
Speaker 1: time to sober up and to start thinking a lot
Speaker 1: more clearly, Russia's preparing major offensive, and according the Rand Corporation,
Speaker 1: which is largely funded by the US government, is unlikely
Speaker 1: either Ukraine or Russia is going to outright when this war.
Speaker 1: That means the only end to this conflict is going
Speaker 1: to come from a negotiated settlement of the type that
Speaker 1: we killed. Rand also concludes we need to do whatever
Speaker 1: we can to avoid a longer war because the costs
Speaker 1: of such a protracted conflict are unacceptably high. Those costs
Speaker 1: of a long war include Ukrainian civilian deaths, Ukrainian economic destruction,
Speaker 1: global loss of life from increased food and energy prices,
Speaker 1: the risk of a direct hot war between NATO and Russia,
Speaker 1: and the risk of Russian nuclear usage. As a report
Speaker 1: drily explains, quote, avoiding these two forms of escalation is
Speaker 1: the paramount US priority. At least it should be the
Speaker 1: paramount US priority. Unfortunately, ASNF Tally Bennett himself acknowledges in
Speaker 1: the interview, a deal of the sort that was outlined
Speaker 1: those early days it might now be impossible to achieve.
Speaker 1: After the horrors of war, the hardening of everyone's positions,
Speaker 1: and a year of war propaganda, Achieving a ceasefire is
Speaker 1: certainly no easy task. Bennett name checks the Russian war
Speaker 1: crimes committed at Bucha in particular as the sort of
Speaker 1: atrocity which makes a negotiated settlement so much more difficult.
Speaker 1: But that degree of difficulty is no excuse for failing
Speaker 1: to try and continuing to pursue a policy that has
Speaker 1: only led to more escalation. From invasion to the present day,
Speaker 1: the Western press has given you a wildly disordered, one sided,
Speaker 1: and at times outright false understanding of the very basics
Speaker 1: of this conflict. They have painted a Disney version of
Speaker 1: it with simple narratives convenient to bide in the US state,
Speaker 1: and ignored or dismissed anything inconvenient or complicating for that narrative.
Speaker 1: Look no further than the total lack of media curiosity
Speaker 1: about who actually blew up the nord Stream pipeline. This
Speaker 1: interview is just the latest proof, whatever the media might say,
Speaker 1: Biden's decisions have guaranteed carnage and further disaster. It is astonishing,
Speaker 1: saga that most of the media just ignored this interview, Oh,
Speaker 1: totally ignored. They ignored the report we covered have been
Speaker 1: covering about Boris Johnson flying that was actually reported by
Speaker 1: Ukrainian like Western aligned Ukrainian media, total blackout here. They
Speaker 1: ignored what Fiona Hill said about the fact that, hey,
Speaker 1: here were the contours of the deal that came to light,
Speaker 1: and now you have, in this lengthy interview, detailed descriptions
Speaker 1: from former Israeli PM Bennett about how he engaged the calls,
Speaker 1: he had, the concessions they were willing to put on
Speaker 1: the table, and the fact that the US directly leading
Speaker 1: NATO said no, we don't want this. Russia's weakrelent. We
Speaker 1: thought we want the war. This was an extraordinary one.
Speaker 1: And also there is no reason to lie. Why would
Speaker 1: he lie about this? And the Israelis have been explained this.
Speaker 1: They have a much very different policy visa weird They
Speaker 1: don't care about Russia and Ukraine. First of all, they
Speaker 1: have a large Russian population. They care about themselves. They've
Speaker 1: always had very friendly relations with Putin because Putin is
Speaker 1: actually weirdly kind of pro Israel for similar reasons. Well,
Speaker 1: they're like allies in Syria. Yeah, exactly, their allies in
Speaker 1: Syriac exactly. So the point is that they don't care.
Speaker 1: They don't care exactly what happens. And that's why they've
Speaker 1: refused to sell a lot of weapons to Ukraine. Ukraine
Speaker 1: asked them for iron Dome, They're like, no, we're not
Speaker 1: giving it to you. To the extent that they've helped,
Speaker 1: it's that they allowed us to take a bunch of
Speaker 1: AMMO that we have in Israel and give it to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: That's it. So he has no reason to lie. He
Speaker 1: also was clearly privy to a lot of the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, and he's telling us what happened in our press.
Speaker 1: Just lets it go. I mean, it's totally It really
Speaker 1: is nuts, you know when you just consider like how much,
Speaker 1: how very different the world could have been. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing, this is one of those where when the
Speaker 1: history is written one hundred years from now, you bet
Speaker 1: that they're going to focus in a lot on this
Speaker 1: mab So this was a pivot. The reason I keep
Speaker 1: coming back to it is it is so much harder
Speaker 1: now to get back to that place where again, there
Speaker 1: were no guarantees. Bennett says, fifty to fifty chants, that's
Speaker 1: a much better chance than where we're at now. After
Speaker 1: all of the horrors and war crimes and atrocities that
Speaker 1: have been committed, and the propaganda and everybody hardening their positions,
Speaker 1: it will be so much more difficult to get back
Speaker 1: to that place. And so when I look at Okay,
Speaker 1: we're literally week and a half in, it was like
Speaker 1: a weekend, a week and a half in to the war,
Speaker 1: and they're having actual fruitful negotiations, both sides making key concessions,
Speaker 1: the outlines of a deal coming together, and we say no,
Speaker 1: we want the war. Think of all the hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of lives that have been lost between then and now.
Speaker 1: Think of the destruction of Ukraine, think of the global
Speaker 1: pain of the increased food and energy prices, and think
Speaker 1: of the continued risk of potential nuclear conflagration and the
Speaker 1: increasingly direct confrontation that we are having with regards to Russia.
Speaker 1: It's just I will never be able to let it go.
Speaker 1: And then the crime on top of that is the
Speaker 1: press just completely completely erasing it. When you hear how
Speaker 1: Bennett talks about this conflict in the early days, and
Speaker 1: I want to say, to be fair, he now says, look,
Speaker 1: maybe they did make the right choice. It's too early
Speaker 1: to say maybe they were right in blocking that negotiation.
Speaker 1: He says, at the time, I thought that they were wrong.
Speaker 1: But when you listen to how Brazil's President Lula when
Speaker 1: he was here talking to Biden, which we covered early
Speaker 1: in the show, the way he talks about it and
Speaker 1: the way Bennett was talking about it, you see a
Speaker 1: lot more congruity and again a portrait that is completely
Speaker 1: hidden from the US public. Ultimately, so it was astonishing
Speaker 1: to listen to this interview. I encourage you to take
Speaker 1: the time to interview itself is five hours the Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's maybe like forty minutes long. It's
Speaker 1: worth taking a listen to exactly how he describes this negotiation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well said, all right, guys, we've been closely tracking that
Speaker 1: Ohio train derailment is actually a part of Ohio that
Speaker 1: I used to live very close to, and it has
Speaker 1: turned into just an utter environmental catastrophe. There are reports
Speaker 1: of animals that have been dying. Residents are saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys told us it safe to come back. It
Speaker 1: still smells terrible. I'm still getting headaches. What the hell
Speaker 1: is going on? We have someone who is an independent journalist,
Speaker 1: they're locally, John Russell, who is going to give us
Speaker 1: the very latest on that situation. So let's get to it.
Speaker 1: John Russell is the author of the Holler Substack and
Speaker 1: he joins us now, Gritz Caesar, Griscia man, Hey, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me on. Good to be here, Yeah, our pleasure.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahad and put your latest piece up on
Speaker 1: the screen here. The headline is railroaded the Northern Southern
Speaker 1: Northbrook Southern Disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. Part one. Rail
Speaker 1: workers warned us about a preventable disaster like this, And
Speaker 1: before we jump into the latest, just so people know
Speaker 1: a little bit of your background. You're from this area,
Speaker 1: born and raised, you live close by. You also have
Speaker 1: you're an independent journalist, but you're also a man of
Speaker 1: the people. You're a dive bar bartender. So you hear
Speaker 1: a lot from local folks that have I wanted to
Speaker 1: have you on because you have a full picture of
Speaker 1: the local community and what the concerns are. So first,
Speaker 1: just give everybody who maybe hasn't been following this disaster
Speaker 1: that closely what exactly happened and where are we now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a very small rural community on the eastern
Speaker 1: board of Ohio and Pennsylvania. And what happened, of course,
Speaker 1: was a catastrophic derailment. You've seen pictures of the explosion.
Speaker 1: News media and officials are deeming it a controlled release.
Speaker 1: But Norfolk Southern had a train derail in this town.
Speaker 1: I think the really interesting angle here is the corporate
Speaker 1: practice something called precision scheduled railroading that could definitely have
Speaker 1: contributed to an axle failure, which is what happened on
Speaker 1: this train, which is what caused the derailment. Is directly
Speaker 1: related to a corporate practice that is cutting the training
Speaker 1: and the maintenance and an inspection of these trains that
Speaker 1: are rolling through tiny towns like mine, you know, with
Speaker 1: less safety measures and crew attending to the chemicals that
Speaker 1: they're carrying. So obviously that backfired and we have an
Speaker 1: ecological disaster on our hands right where I grew up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so right now we've got a quol controlled release
Speaker 1: of toxic chemicals that are happening in the area. The
Speaker 1: government claims everything's fine, people can come back. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: just just look at that. You want to live anywhere.
Speaker 1: People are saying that what is it? Pets are dying,
Speaker 1: that people in the air are suffering symptoms. What's the
Speaker 1: official narrative? And then what are people on the ground
Speaker 1: actually seeing and thinking. Yeah, So the official narrative that
Speaker 1: comes out of this, I think is a worthwhile thing
Speaker 1: to talk about. This area of the country is highly industrialized.
Speaker 1: We are used to industrial accidents, we are used to
Speaker 1: large companies coming in and extracting our wealth. That has
Speaker 1: been the story of this area for a long long time.
Speaker 1: So the official narrative in the press is really focused
Speaker 1: on how much cancer we're all going to get from this.
Speaker 1: And when I think that we should be asking the
Speaker 1: question why did this derailment happen? Why are we subjected
Speaker 1: to the chemicals that were released from this? And when
Speaker 1: you talk to workers on the railroad, it's pretty easy
Speaker 1: to piece together that a story of corporate negligence. Norfolk Southern,
Speaker 1: because of implementing the practices that cut training, that cut maintenance,
Speaker 1: that cut inspections on rail cards, have caught the axle
Speaker 1: that failed in this case. Because they've done all of
Speaker 1: those things, they've been able to amass immense profits. I mean,
Speaker 1: they did ten billion dollars in stock buybacks last year, right.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the press coverage here has been
Speaker 1: around the chemicals that have been released and not how
Speaker 1: Norfolk Southern made a ton of money and left the
Speaker 1: chance open for catastrophe like this to happen. When we
Speaker 1: talked to a lot of people on the ground in
Speaker 1: the area, they're just looking to go back to their
Speaker 1: normal life. But that is a hard thing to be
Speaker 1: focused on here because the long term effects of this
Speaker 1: kind of release of chemicals aren't going to be known
Speaker 1: for a very long time. Yeah, And the particular chemical
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of concerns around is vinyl chloride.
Speaker 1: It's described as a colorless compound. It's also a known
Speaker 1: human carcinogen can be deadline deadly if it's inhaled, and
Speaker 1: as Saga indicated, there were some local reports of chickens, dyeing,
Speaker 1: fish turning up dead in the stream, other animals that
Speaker 1: were ill, and human beings who also felt like they
Speaker 1: had headache. They could still smell these chemicals even days
Speaker 1: after the release, and even after officials said, oh, it's
Speaker 1: all good, it's all safe. Nothing to see here. I
Speaker 1: think an important context to John and what you really
Speaker 1: bring is, you know, this is the part of the
Speaker 1: country that used to be a sort of you know,
Speaker 1: very solidly blue, a lot of labor union presence, a
Speaker 1: lot of sort of like muscle memory for the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: And it's the region of the country and I know
Speaker 1: this because I used to live there that is moved
Speaker 1: the furthest to the right the fastest. So this is
Speaker 1: sort of like the epicenter of the Trump populist revolt.
Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of mistrust, I would say,
Speaker 1: at this point of authorities and officials. So when people
Speaker 1: are hearing from the government. It's all good. You can
Speaker 1: go home. That's not going to be any problem. We
Speaker 1: took care of it. You know, are they believing that
Speaker 1: I would say no, I would say no, they're not.
Speaker 1: But you know, we're used to this kind of corporate playbook.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at this. Here's another great way to
Speaker 1: think about this. This part of the country also was
Speaker 1: hit very, very hard by the opioid epidemic. I mean,
Speaker 1: I graduated with fifty five kids in my high school class.
Speaker 1: My connection to East Palestine, you know, I used to
Speaker 1: go up to their homecomings. When you're in a small
Speaker 1: rural county like this, a lot of the kids know
Speaker 1: each other. But even in a small high school, I
Speaker 1: had more, you know, more than ten friends passed from
Speaker 1: the opioid epidemic. When we saw pushes for accountability of
Speaker 1: companies that are here making a ton of profit and
Speaker 1: sticking areas like this part of the country with the
Speaker 1: bag from seeking that much profit, the playbook is always
Speaker 1: the same. You hear, you know, industry line that comes
Speaker 1: out in the initial initial news reports, and then these
Speaker 1: companies worth billions and billions of dollars. Nobody faces jail
Speaker 1: time for addicting a part of the country to pills.
Speaker 1: Nobody will face jail time for a train that derails
Speaker 1: because of profits heeking practices that foreclosed on maintenance. Usually
Speaker 1: what you see in these cases that are headquartered in
Speaker 1: this part of the country is these big companies making
Speaker 1: money handover fist and then just paying out damages when
Speaker 1: these kinds of things happen from the profits that they made.
Speaker 1: So I think, once again, this is just more from
Speaker 1: the corporate playbook in another tragic story for this part
Speaker 1: of the country. Yeah, I mean, this part of the
Speaker 1: country has just been like collateral damage for endless corporate
Speaker 1: greed and total lack of accountability. And I think you're
Speaker 1: right that it's, you know, exactly the same playbook that
Speaker 1: you see unfolding here. John, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time. Everybody, go and subscribe to his fantastic
Speaker 1: sub stack, The Haller, which gives you a wonderful look
Speaker 1: at life in this region. And also, you know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of broader national implications here and John's
Speaker 1: always in touch with the labor community there too, which
Speaker 1: something we care a lot about. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for your time today. Thanks man yep, thanks for having
Speaker 1: us on absolutely our pleasure. Oh what a fun show today,
Speaker 1: I think depressing now right to talk about that. We're
Speaker 1: going to stick on a couple of those stories UFOs.
Speaker 1: Of course, we've had a lot of interests. Some people
Speaker 1: are just waking up to what's happening. But this trainee railment,
Speaker 1: you cannot move on from this. This is the equivalent
Speaker 1: of like a major chemical disaster. I mean essentially like
Speaker 1: a chemical I'm not going to call it an attack,
Speaker 1: but like equivalent to what worst case scenario would look like.
Speaker 1: And I don't see any coverage of what's going on here.
Speaker 1: It's nuts. Well, you know, a lot of people could die,
Speaker 1: they really could. It's because the reason there's no coverage
Speaker 1: is because everyone is complicit, right, I mean, the Republicans,
Speaker 1: the Democrat like, they all have done the bidding of
Speaker 1: the rail industry. And we saw it very clearly with
Speaker 1: Biden and the Democrats and the Republicans all joining together
Speaker 1: to break the potential strike of rail workers and deny
Speaker 1: them any the paid sick time and other benefits that
Speaker 1: they definitely deserve. So I think that's why is because
Speaker 1: there isn't an easy partisan narrative and so the media
Speaker 1: doesn't really care. It tells you a lot about what
Speaker 1: captures their attention and what ultimately doesn't. But for the
Speaker 1: people that live there, I mean, this is an unbelievable disaster,
Speaker 1: and for the country, it's an absolute you know, the
Speaker 1: fact that it was predictable and that in fact was
Speaker 1: predicted is part of what makes this also galling and horrifying.
Speaker 1: Absolutely all right, Well, see you guys later. Thank you
Speaker 1: to everybody who supports the show. We've got a fun
Speaker 1: one plan for you tomorrow. We're gonna stick with all
Speaker 1: these stories and yeah, it's gonna be fun. Week shot,
Speaker 1: sh shot, shot, keep keep