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Speaker 2: There are some significant developments coming out of the Middle East,
Speaker 2: as it appears, maybe potentially that a Gaza ceasefire may
Speaker 2: well be very close to having been negotiated. Joe Biden
Speaker 2: spoke about this yesterday. Let's take a listen to what
Speaker 2: he had to say.
Speaker 4: Finally, coming into fruition, I've learned many years of public
Speaker 4: service to never, never, never, ever give up. So I
Speaker 4: spoke to Prime Minister Visual yesterday, I spoke to the
Speaker 4: Mirror Cutter today. I look forward to speaking with President
Speaker 4: CC soon. We're pressing hard to close this. The deal
Speaker 4: we have a structure would free the hostages, halt of fighting,
Speaker 4: provide security Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian
Speaker 4: assistance to the Palestinians who've suffered terribly in this war
Speaker 4: that I'm aus started. They've been through hell. So many
Speaker 4: innocent people have been killed, so many communities have been destroyed.
Speaker 4: The Palestinian people deserve peace and the right to determine
Speaker 4: their own futures. Are deserves peace and real security, and
Speaker 4: the hostage and their families deserve to be reunited. And
Speaker 4: so we're working urgently to close this, dear, and as
Speaker 4: we deal with media challenges, in my view, we have
Speaker 4: to look to the future.
Speaker 2: So Biden, they're trying to take credit for this potential deal.
Speaker 2: All indications are that he deserves no credit for this
Speaker 2: deal whatsoever. I want to come back to that because
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit about the outlines
Speaker 2: of what is at least being reported and what's being shared.
Speaker 2: The contours of this potential ceasefire deal is put see
Speaker 2: four up on the screen drop site. Our friends over
Speaker 2: there are doing incredible work as usual reporting this out.
Speaker 5: They say.
Speaker 2: A source close to negotiations tool Drop site that Hamas
Speaker 2: had accepted a final draft of the agreement with no
Speaker 2: new demands or proposed amendments, was waiting for Israel to
Speaker 2: accept the deal to local sources citing Egyptian sources are
Speaker 2: also reporting Hamas has agreed to the final draft.
Speaker 5: In addition, Sager, there.
Speaker 2: Was a draft of the agreement that has been reported
Speaker 2: at this point, and it looks pretty much exactly like
Speaker 2: the deal that was crafted back in you know, May
Speaker 2: June July. You'll recall Biden came out and gave a
Speaker 2: big speech, Oh, Israel has accepted this deal. We're waiting
Speaker 2: for Hamas to accept. That was always total, incomplete bullshit.
Speaker 2: In reality, it was always Israel and bb NET Yaho
Speaker 2: in particular that were throwing up new objections and trying
Speaker 2: to change the deal. Hamas has long been willing to
Speaker 2: accept this deal, and now here we are, months later,
Speaker 2: many more people killed, devastated, having suffered more rubble, more
Speaker 2: destruction during all those months, coming back around to the
Speaker 2: very same deal. And you know, as I said, Biden
Speaker 2: here trying to take credit for a ceasefire deal that
Speaker 2: maybe is coming together in the final days of his administration.
Speaker 2: But if we put put C three up on the screen,
Speaker 2: the reporting is that actually, really it was not Joe
Speaker 2: Biden that got this done. It was Trump's Mid East
Speaker 2: envoy who put the screws to net Yahoo and said,
Speaker 2: you're going to accept this Gaza plan and this is
Speaker 2: going to happen before Trump ultimately takes office. And there's
Speaker 2: so much to say about this, Agura. I mean, first
Speaker 2: of all, just the utter pathetic nature of all of
Speaker 2: the lies and gaslighting and moral depravity of the Biden
Speaker 2: administration lying times, Oh, we're really being tough on nat Yaho,
Speaker 2: We're really trying, We're working day and.
Speaker 5: Night to secure a ceasefire deal.
Speaker 2: Bullshit, bullshit, Because when the US finally said no, this
Speaker 2: is going to happen.
Speaker 5: Guess what.
Speaker 2: Even though this is actually going to be politically difficult
Speaker 2: for Bibi and Nania and we'll talk about that more
Speaker 2: in a moment, guess what it's happening. Biden had plenty
Speaker 2: of leverage to use. Israel could not have pursued this
Speaker 2: genocide without the full support and backing of the United
Speaker 2: States of America. Biden was never willing to pull any
Speaker 2: aspect of that support, and so yeah, lo and behold,
Speaker 2: ceasefire didn't happen. Now, I will say, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: BB wanted Trump to win. I think that there's long
Speaker 2: been a plan in place, basically to give Trump a
Speaker 2: ceasefire deal before he takes office. It is very reminiscent
Speaker 2: of like the Iranian hostage deal and Reagan coming in
Speaker 2: and having bat Chandel with him whatever. But that does
Speaker 2: not absolve Biden of culpability for having never been willing
Speaker 2: to put the screws to secure this outcome before this
Speaker 2: now very late day, after so much devastation and destruction
Speaker 2: has occurred. So listen, there's a lot of questions still,
Speaker 2: it hasn't come to fruition yet.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of question marks.
Speaker 2: There's also a lot of question marks about what Trump
Speaker 2: is offering in return for securing the ceasefire deal. You know,
Speaker 2: the theories are probably He's going to allow them to
Speaker 2: annex settlements in the West Bank, or there could be
Speaker 2: a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities or some other significant
Speaker 2: goodie that he is trading in exchange for you know,
Speaker 2: getting this ceasefire before he takes office.
Speaker 5: But again, the failures.
Speaker 2: Of Joe Biden here are so incredibly manifest and so
Speaker 2: incredibly does.
Speaker 3: That's what I would look at this as, is that
Speaker 3: actually Trump, ironically Biden's bear hug strategy was what by
Speaker 3: keeping him close, you can tell them what to do.
Speaker 3: I actually think Trump has successfully now pulled off the
Speaker 3: quote unquote bear hug by being more pro Israel than Biden,
Speaker 3: but then behind the scenes being like, hey, listen, man,
Speaker 3: you gotta wrap this shit up.
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't want to deal with this while
Speaker 1: I'm in office.
Speaker 3: And actually, this anecdote from the Israeli press is really interesting.
Speaker 3: It says Steve Whitkoff called from Qatar to tell Netanyahu
Speaker 3: he was coming to Israel the next afternoon. The aides
Speaker 3: have been trying to delay this whole thing because they
Speaker 3: don't want.
Speaker 6: To do it.
Speaker 3: We're like, oh, he's on the Sabbath, you can come later.
Speaker 3: Witkoff's quote blunt reaction took them by surprise. He explained
Speaker 3: to them in salty English, Shabat was of no interest
Speaker 3: to him. His message was loud and clear. Thus, in
Speaker 3: an unusual departure from official practice, the Prime Minister showed
Speaker 3: up at his office for an official meeting with Witkoff,
Speaker 3: who then returned to Katar to seal the deal. That
Speaker 3: is very reminiscent of the Clinton quote like who's the
Speaker 3: effing superpower whenever he got off the phone with Israel.
Speaker 3: I mean, it just goes to show that when you
Speaker 3: do even put modest pressure here, was Trump ever really
Speaker 3: going to cut net and Yahua from arms. I don't
Speaker 3: think so. I don't think it would have been politically
Speaker 3: tenable for him. But I mean allegedly that's what he
Speaker 3: was threatening behind the scenes, or maybe they could screw
Speaker 3: with him a little bit. I was reading that they
Speaker 3: have a lot of problems with jade m manufacturer and
Speaker 3: smart bombs, and that they have all these things they
Speaker 3: need to import from the US, and he's like, well,
Speaker 3: maybe you know the export license takes three to six
Speaker 3: months instead of what you know, the immediate fast track authority.
Speaker 3: The point is, even the modest amount of pressure here
Speaker 3: from the Trump team does seem to have put them,
Speaker 3: you know, much more closer to the finish line.
Speaker 1: I mean two with Hamas.
Speaker 3: The crazy thing about this deal is that, you know,
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways, Trump is reaping these benefits
Speaker 3: because this deal has not changed. It's the same deal.
Speaker 3: It's been on the table for months and months and months.
Speaker 3: It's always been there. Trump just had to come in
Speaker 3: and use a little bit of coercion and force. And
Speaker 3: one of the ways that we know that to be
Speaker 3: true is that the Israeli right wing is freaking out
Speaker 3: about this and is pissed off at Trump for forcing
Speaker 3: that and Yahoo to appear to take the deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems to be the best.
Speaker 2: Right And I think the other piece of this is, like,
Speaker 2: I mean, there isn't much more to destroy in Gaza.
Speaker 2: The idea that you were going to quote unquote, you
Speaker 2: know fully annihilate Hamas was always fanciful. So you know,
Speaker 2: I think it's kind of run its course, and u
Speaker 2: BB has other goals in mind, like, for example, you know,
Speaker 2: it was reported that Miriam Maddison gave Trumpe hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars for his campaign in order for him to exchange
Speaker 2: back annexation in the West Bank, So you know, that
Speaker 2: may be the next the next move for the Israelis.
Speaker 2: So again, there's a lot to you know, let's not
Speaker 2: paint this like this is some moral victory or like
Speaker 2: the pain for the Palestinians is ending. Here, there's still
Speaker 2: like a lot of question marks moving forward. But but
Speaker 2: you know, I think it's all obviously very clear that
Speaker 2: if Biden has taken a hard enough line and really
Speaker 2: been willing to put the screws to NETANYAHUO, this could
Speaker 2: have ended long ago and that will be his legacy.
Speaker 2: Like he oversaw a gem side in the Middle East,
Speaker 2: he ate and abted it, he shipped the weapons, he
Speaker 2: knew what was going on. They you know all this,
Speaker 2: all these lies coming from the state to Para. We
Speaker 2: don't really know, and we're investigating, but you know better
Speaker 2: than we know how much devastation there's been, how many
Speaker 2: war crimes there have been, how just absolutely barbaric, these
Speaker 2: atrocities have been, and you have not only stood by
Speaker 2: and let it happen, you armed it, You pushed it forward,
Speaker 2: and you lied to American people effectively when you said
Speaker 2: you were working hard.
Speaker 3: To because that's what the Trump thing really reveals. Yes, dude,
Speaker 3: I think I got elected two months ago. Yeah, even
Speaker 3: in office, it just does go to show with a
Speaker 3: pressure behind the scenes. I will say this is at
Speaker 3: least somewhat hopeful for makes me for Ukraine, that you
Speaker 3: will put some pressure here and actually.
Speaker 2: Has now that one's going in the opposite dra You
Speaker 2: had Mike Waltz come out and say, actually, we want
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians to draft.
Speaker 3: You know, I think that's a good idea because it
Speaker 3: makes the Ukrainian population be like, hold on a second,
Speaker 3: do we actually want.
Speaker 1: To do that? Because now they have to decide.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, you can keep the war going, but
Speaker 3: you're gonna have to sacrifice all your war dead or
Speaker 3: all of your entire young generation who's not dead, or
Speaker 3: we can all make a deal and make.
Speaker 1: This go away. These people can be alive. That's how
Speaker 1: I viewed it. I may be wrong, but see on
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 3: Listen, you got to give him credit for this. You
Speaker 3: have to give the Trump I am. It's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because this just shows you it wasn't that hard the
Speaker 3: whole time. If any you know, we're just people on YouTube, okay,
Speaker 3: But at the very beginning, it's about a balance of power.
Speaker 3: There's a balance sheet about the amount of aid that's
Speaker 3: flowing in, how dependent the military is. Anybody can read
Speaker 3: this spreadsheet. It's published by the State Department. We've been
Speaker 3: talking about it now for almost eighteen months, and the
Speaker 3: whole time we're like all you got to do is
Speaker 3: put a little bit.
Speaker 1: Of pressure on them, as you've seen in the past. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't hard.
Speaker 2: No, that's absolutely right, and it's less even like I
Speaker 2: don't think this was And I do think bb wanted
Speaker 2: to play ball more with Trump, wanted to give him
Speaker 2: this victory, There's no doubt about that. But the failure
Speaker 2: of the Biden administration here is absolutely undeniable and absolutely
Speaker 2: unforgivable as well in terms of the way that they've
Speaker 2: comported themselves. And you know, like I said, we'll see
Speaker 2: how it comes together, and we'll also see what was
Speaker 2: given in exchange, because that's the other part that is
Speaker 2: going to be very important. But to your point, Soger,
Speaker 2: you know, domestically, there's a lot of questions about what
Speaker 2: this is going to look like for BB Net Yahoo.
Speaker 2: There was already kind of a freak out happening on
Speaker 2: Israeli television. Can put C two up on the screen.
Speaker 2: I'll just read you a little bit of the translation
Speaker 2: of what is being said in this Hebrew language clip.
Speaker 2: If we can go ahead and play C two, they
Speaker 2: say this Net Yahoo proxy laments were the first to
Speaker 2: pay a price for Trump's election. The deal is being
Speaker 2: forced upon us. We thought we'd take control of northern Gaza,
Speaker 2: that they let us impede humanitarian aid as part of
Speaker 2: what is being said here. So a lot of upset
Speaker 2: among you know, right wing Israelis, of which there are
Speaker 2: many about this, about this potential deal. Go to C
Speaker 2: five now and we can talk Schiel ben Efram, who
Speaker 2: we've had on this show, who's like a liberal Zionist.
Speaker 2: He lays out why he thinks that Bbe thinks he
Speaker 2: can survive this ceasefire with Trump's help. There are two
Speaker 2: parts to his strategy, says First, he's patted his coalition
Speaker 2: and make it Ben Gavier proof. Ben Gavier being one
Speaker 2: of the you know, basically terrorists that are in this coalition.
Speaker 2: Of course I think they're all terrorists, but anyway, put
Speaker 2: that aside. Nayah, who successfully played divide and conquer between
Speaker 2: Ben Gavi and Smodridge, who are the two like most
Speaker 2: extreme parts of his coalition they hate each other, and
Speaker 2: is willing to stay if Ben gavere leaves. Netna, who
Speaker 2: also brought in Gideon Sar tore off a don roll
Speaker 2: from Yesha Tid and Al nog Co, and I don't
Speaker 2: know who these people are from ben Gavier. But anyway,
Speaker 2: he's saying divide and conquer between those two and now
Speaker 2: he's got the numbers. Second, he's hoping to get help
Speaker 2: from Trump that will come in the form of one
Speaker 2: or more of the following normalization with Saudi Arabia, which
Speaker 2: Saudi is still holding to. It would require some at
Speaker 2: least track towards a two state solution. So I don't
Speaker 2: know if that one is coming, but we'll see an
Speaker 2: attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities or annexation of the
Speaker 2: settlements in the West Bank with American approval.
Speaker 5: So that's what I was referring to before.
Speaker 2: I think that is quite likely to occur, given what
Speaker 2: we know about Miriam Addelson's priorities. Then he will say
Speaker 2: to the Israeli people that he got the hostages back, defeated,
Speaker 2: Hesbela killed, Sinwar and Nosurala, that Lebanon and Syria now
Speaker 2: have new regimes, and will add the extra assets Trump adds.
Speaker 2: He will say the war was worth it for all
Speaker 2: that that the Middle East is transformed. Many will agree
Speaker 2: his chances of survival are good, and Saguri you have
Speaker 2: to say, I mean you remember after October seventh, BB nine.
Speaker 2: Yaho's political goose was cooked. I mean, his approval rate
Speaker 2: was as low as it could be. People blamed him
Speaker 2: because he was mister Security. He was supposed to be
Speaker 2: the leader who would always keep the Israeli people.
Speaker 5: Safe, and he failed in that.
Speaker 2: October seventh occurs horrors, you know, traumatic horrors for the
Speaker 2: Israeli people, and his whole view of propping up Pamas
Speaker 2: in order to you know, again divide and conger between
Speaker 2: the West Bank and Gaza and make it make sure
Speaker 2: that since it was Hamas in control in Gaza, that
Speaker 2: he could always oh, there's no partner for peace. We'd
Speaker 2: love peace, but there's no partner for peace, so we
Speaker 2: can't possibly have peace negotiations. That strategy dramatically failed on
Speaker 2: October seventh, and yet here he is. Here he is
Speaker 2: an absolute political survivor, having held on, having delayed any
Speaker 2: sort of investigation into the failures of October seven, because
Speaker 2: remember also they knew in advance, they had the insight
Speaker 2: into the plans.
Speaker 5: In advance.
Speaker 2: They had spotters who were there close to Gaza who
Speaker 2: were saying they're planning something big that they ignored.
Speaker 5: They had moved some of the Ida forces up.
Speaker 2: To protect their extremist thug settlers in the West Bank,
Speaker 2: leaving the people near Gaza very vulnerable.
Speaker 5: The response on that.
Speaker 2: Day chaotic, absolute catastrophe, disaster, and he forestalled all the
Speaker 2: questions on that pushed him out into the future again
Speaker 2: and again and again and now here he is still
Speaker 2: surviving and still likely to maintain his power in the
Speaker 2: state of Israel.
Speaker 5: Absolutely unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's survived, and you can always give him credit,
Speaker 3: I guess for that in being a survivor, but he
Speaker 3: does still have some interesting pushback inside of his own country.
Speaker 3: I genuinely wonder what's going to happen, because the release
Speaker 3: of all of the hostages basically allows the Israeli left
Speaker 3: to or whatever is reminiscent of whatever it is, to
Speaker 3: at least ask some big picture questions about the war
Speaker 3: and what it could return, maybe even too debates around
Speaker 3: the settlers. I mean, remember there as a portion of
Speaker 3: Israeli society it's not pro settler. It's hard to believe,
Speaker 3: but it's actually true. There's a lot of debate, you know,
Speaker 3: inside of the country. Previously, some of that has been
Speaker 3: squashed now because of the ongoing war, but not only
Speaker 3: the war.
Speaker 1: Is effectively over.
Speaker 3: Now these big picture questions like do we want Gaza,
Speaker 3: do we want remember Syria, you know, which is currently happening,
Speaker 3: is actually reading behind the scenes too. The Trump people
Speaker 3: called Bibe and they're like.
Speaker 1: Cool off. In Syria, They're like, go on, you can
Speaker 1: stop there.
Speaker 3: But beyond that, like we don't need to go any further,
Speaker 3: because they also they were like, we don't need some
Speaker 3: war breaking out between the new Syrian government if you
Speaker 3: want to call that and the Israelis. They're like, maybe
Speaker 3: we just keep things where they are. So it's clear
Speaker 3: that at the very least are trying a containment strategy.
Speaker 3: Biden tried it too, But I think the key, the
Speaker 3: real lesson is America is still a superpower. Our power
Speaker 3: and our ability to course is immense when we want it.
Speaker 3: It's actually stunning to see it be used again.
Speaker 1: I've been waiting for this for a long time.
Speaker 3: As you said, look, if you're some you know, pro
Speaker 3: Palestine person, you ain't gonna get what you.
Speaker 1: Want out of this administration.
Speaker 3: This is probably as good as it's ever going to
Speaker 3: be for you. Just just giving you a warning but
Speaker 3: the lessons that you guys tried during the Biden administration
Speaker 3: was correct.
Speaker 1: American power is supreme.
Speaker 3: It has the ability to compel any state, even Israel,
Speaker 3: to be brought to heal and to do what we want. Now,
Speaker 3: let's use this lesson for all other nations across the world,
Speaker 3: for Ukraine and for others, and to actually for our
Speaker 3: own benefit for once in a goddamn.
Speaker 2: While, I wanted to also just a few details about
Speaker 2: this deal and what again, it hasn't been signed, sealed
Speaker 2: and delivered, so I want to, you know, reserve complete judgment.
Speaker 2: But based on what is being reported, it doesn't require
Speaker 2: Hamas to beyond of government, I mean effectively, like they
Speaker 2: did not destroy Himas and Hamas is very likely to
Speaker 2: take control on the Gaza strip.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 2: So again Shiel, who is the liberal Zionists we've had
Speaker 2: on the show previously. He says the reason this happened
Speaker 2: that he says, the victory for Hamas is remarkable.
Speaker 5: Those are his words. It is remarkable that all.
Speaker 2: Of these previous red lines for Israel are being waived.
Speaker 2: The reason this happened is clear, he writes. Despite incredible
Speaker 2: victories on the battlefield, Israel has not offered a political
Speaker 2: program to replace himas or move to remove them from
Speaker 2: Gaza as a governing force. Is failed to translate IDF
Speaker 2: gains into political ones. That has in essence nullified all
Speaker 2: of its military achievements. So you know, after all of
Speaker 2: this horror, bloodshed, women, children being murdered, schools, hospitals, mosques,
Speaker 2: churches destroyed. After all of that, Hamas is still going
Speaker 2: to be in charge. So which again, you and I
Speaker 2: could have told them on day one and tried to,
Speaker 2: but nobody listens to to us. So in any case,
Speaker 2: that's that's where things are ending up. There was one
Speaker 2: more PCR that I wanted to get to because now
Speaker 2: that it's now that it doesn't matter anymore. Suddenly a
Speaker 2: few media organizations have gotten around to reporting on the
Speaker 2: horse that our government and our tax dollars went to
Speaker 2: fund in the Gaza strip put C eight up on
Speaker 2: the screen, so this is from sixty minutes. They interviewed
Speaker 2: a number of the people from the State Department who
Speaker 2: had resigned over our support of these hors. They interviewed
Speaker 2: this former US diplomat who said she documented images coming
Speaker 2: out of Gaza for the State Department. Quote fragments of
Speaker 2: US bombs next to massacres of mostly children. Again, these
Speaker 2: people knew everything that was going on. They know more
Speaker 2: than we know about the horrors that were perpetrated here.
Speaker 2: And rather than doing anything to put pressure on Israel,
Speaker 2: and Jack lou admits in his it was the ambassador
Speaker 2: at Israel admits in his exit interview that we never
Speaker 2: really put any real pressure on Israel whatsoever. Instead, they
Speaker 2: continue to green light these horrors. And this last one again,
Speaker 2: this is like a media commentary. This is again sixty
Speaker 2: minutes is part of this broader package that they do.
Speaker 5: They have across the noun.
Speaker 2: Decimated Gaza strip in America's mark is everywhere. In footage
Speaker 2: shot by CBS News in May, the ground is littered
Speaker 2: with US made ammunition casings, some used to prop up tens,
Speaker 2: others turned into playthings by children.
Speaker 5: You had this footage in May.
Speaker 2: Why are you only releasing it now that it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter now after the fact, when probably a ceasefire deal
Speaker 2: is you know, in the offing in the next possibly
Speaker 2: even today. You've had this since May and you said nothing,
Speaker 2: So I mean, I guess, like, good job for finally
Speaker 2: getting around to about these horrors, but could have been
Speaker 2: a lot more useful and a lot more important and
Speaker 2: a lot more courageous, by the way, back in May,
Speaker 2: when you actually obtained this footage, and you know you're
Speaker 2: seeing a significant amount of this zager. I mean, there
Speaker 2: was a big New York Times report relatively recently that
Speaker 2: confirmed so reporting we covered a year ago coming out
Speaker 2: about the way Israel was operating in the Gaza Strip
Speaker 2: and how many civilian casualties they were perfectly comfortable with tolerating,
Speaker 2: and the way that they were using these power targets
Speaker 2: apartment buildings, hospital schools in order to try to inflict
Speaker 2: pain on explicitly on the civilian population in hopes they
Speaker 2: would turn against some US. Finally confirming this reporting again
Speaker 2: at a time when it doesn't really matter all that
Speaker 2: much anymore, except for the announce of history, which I
Speaker 2: guess is theoretically better than nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, theoretically better than nothing. I think that's a good
Speaker 1: way of putting in.
Speaker 3: But nonetheless it's a crazy development and absolutely lots of lessons.
Speaker 3: We say, so the next time this whole thing breaks out,
Speaker 3: because we all know that's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I don't know I give it what
Speaker 1: three years. That's usually the cool off period.
Speaker 2: I don't know that happened because I think I think
Speaker 2: they may go after the West Bank here pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: There's already indications of that.
Speaker 1: But we'll see what they could.
Speaker 3: But if they do, I mean, I hate to say it,
Speaker 3: but a lot of those people haven't been thrown out
Speaker 3: of there, right, you know, these settlers have already got
Speaker 3: moved in and made their territorially.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, is there even an ability to resist?
Speaker 3: I think I think Ryan just did a story about
Speaker 3: the West Bank or drops I just did some story
Speaker 3: about the West Bank and resistance. Anyway, we'll cover it obviously,
Speaker 3: But the best thing is what the Trump people need
Speaker 3: to door and want to do. And this was always
Speaker 3: the case made to me by all these folks is
Speaker 3: they're like, look, you're not going to like a lot
Speaker 3: of us Rhetorically, they're like, but.
Speaker 1: Trump has an anathema to conflict.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 3: And while yeah, you say a lot of things, but
Speaker 3: in general chaos, he especially understood during the Biden era
Speaker 3: how much that can sink from Afghanistan to Gaza to Ukraine,
Speaker 3: the ongoing chaos and the inability to wind these things
Speaker 3: up is actually very politically detrimental in a way I
Speaker 3: frankly would not have predicted in terms of how much people,
Speaker 3: when they want to, will pay attention to foreign affairs
Speaker 3: and at least absorb this feeling of everything has gone awry.
Speaker 3: So Trump is probably going to try his best to
Speaker 3: keep that contained. Now, look, a lot of the enemy
Speaker 3: gets a vote, and not just the enemy, a lot
Speaker 3: of people get the vote. Hamas and all these other
Speaker 3: people can decide how they're going to absorb this.
Speaker 1: You've got Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 3: Obviously they need to come to terms by themselves, even
Speaker 3: with significant amounts of pressure. There's so many different global
Speaker 3: problems that star are still out there. Who these There's
Speaker 3: a whole entire campaign that's happening. So anyway it will
Speaker 3: be I don't predict that things will be all rosy
Speaker 3: for the next four years, but I am at least
Speaker 3: heartened to see this.
Speaker 2: One last thing to note is I reference this interview
Speaker 2: from Ambassador Jack lu who was the US ambassador to Israel,
Speaker 2: and not only did he say that now we didn't
Speaker 2: really try to stop them on anything, but he also
Speaker 2: says he thinks that this may have well sunk the
Speaker 2: both Biden and Kamala Harris in terms of ability to
Speaker 2: get reelected. He thinks that this could have been the
Speaker 2: political death Noel for them.
Speaker 3: So I don't think that's true. I mean, you can
Speaker 3: make a case a small ye, conondering.
Speaker 2: How close, considering how close it was. I think there's
Speaker 2: a relatively persuasive case. And you know, when we interviewed
Speaker 2: those like working class, like the people who voted for
Speaker 2: Trump and AOC, a surprising number of them talked about
Speaker 2: you know, war and peace and talked specifically about Gaza.
Speaker 2: So it's hard to say, but it's obviously noteworthy that this,
Speaker 2: you know, prominent US official. He at least thinks that
Speaker 2: this was responsible for sinking Biden and by extension, Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: That's certainly possible.
Speaker 5: Should we get to the latest with take.
Speaker 1: Now, I love this story for reasons. Let's go and
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 3: China discusses sale of TikTok Us to Elon Musk as
Speaker 3: one possible option. This is from Bloomberg News and has
Speaker 3: now been actually confirmed by the Wall Street Journal. And
Speaker 3: what is amazing about this story, Crystal, is I think
Speaker 3: that there is something for everybody is one. Of course
Speaker 3: Elon is involved too. Why is Elon involved because he
Speaker 3: is a very very close relationship to the Chinese government
Speaker 3: because of his Tesla Giga Shanghai Tesla is one of
Speaker 3: his heavily reliant on China for batteries for minerals. Elon
Speaker 3: himself has said a lot of very questionable things about
Speaker 3: the CCP in the past, So they're assuming that they
Speaker 3: can play ball. But here is my personal favorite line
Speaker 3: in these stories, Crystal. The Chinese government has not communicated
Speaker 3: with Byteedance about the contingency plans. It has considered as
Speaker 3: in byte Edance, you have no say who you're getting
Speaker 3: sold to. If you do get sold, you will be
Speaker 3: sold Toever China decide that you will be sold too,
Speaker 3: kind of validates the reason why I think it should
Speaker 3: be banned, doesn't It is that they have literally zero
Speaker 3: control over their own corporate affairs. And in fact, byte
Speaker 3: Edance replied and commented on the story and was like,
Speaker 3: we have no comment on this supposed fiction, and it's like, guys,
Speaker 3: it has nothing to.
Speaker 1: Do with you. That's what you don't seem to get.
Speaker 3: The reason why the Chinese are considering selling to Elon
Speaker 3: is two birds with one stone.
Speaker 1: They've already got Elon.
Speaker 3: They have him, you know, in terms of their ability
Speaker 3: to put pressure and control on him. The Chinese not no,
Speaker 3: but I mean the thing is, the vast majority of
Speaker 3: his wealth is in Tasla.
Speaker 1: Tesla is a huge player in China, even.
Speaker 5: Though they have filed a huge factory there.
Speaker 3: It's one of their biggest producers. And in fact, while
Speaker 3: those Tesla's are banned from the United States, they are
Speaker 3: already being sold as far as Canada, right here in
Speaker 3: North America, all across the European Union, which don't have
Speaker 3: as strict export controls. Giga Shanghai is a tremendously important
Speaker 3: to the company. That's just manufacturer batteries, the stuff that
Speaker 3: goes into the Tesla, almost one percent reliant of all
Speaker 3: of the technology actually so the actual battery, the lithium,
Speaker 3: of the minerals, all of the refining. I forget the
Speaker 3: name of the company starts with a C. The major
Speaker 3: battery manufacturer that is Chinese is heavily is a big supplier.
Speaker 1: To the point is is that is very.
Speaker 3: Very reliant on the Chinese government, and he has met
Speaker 3: with them many times He even has I think a
Speaker 3: wee bo account or whatever it's called in Chinese social media,
Speaker 3: being like happy Birthday to the CCP, which he is posted.
Speaker 1: In the past. I've done a monologue. You can go
Speaker 1: watch it. So they have a good relationship with Elon. Two.
Speaker 3: Elon is a close ally of Trump. Trump wants to
Speaker 3: save TikTok. So who do you sell it to? You
Speaker 3: sell it to Elon? You know, kind of a vassal
Speaker 3: of the king somebody if you think back to aristocracy,
Speaker 3: No Geniusly, listen, you can say a lot about these people.
Speaker 3: They're smart, they know they understand our country much better
Speaker 3: than we understand our country. There's I've played that famous
Speaker 3: speech before, the Chinese professor being like, you think we
Speaker 3: don't know how to control Hunter.
Speaker 1: Biden, you know, talking about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but when you play the long game and you
Speaker 3: don't have to get elected, it's easy. What you can
Speaker 3: see from this is that they have decided a specific
Speaker 3: way to get out of this is to curry favor
Speaker 3: with Trump, curry favor with their oligarch, the richest man
Speaker 3: in the United States, who they already have significant control over,
Speaker 3: and use those two to do what we can see
Speaker 3: on TikTok, which at the end of day, TikTok is
Speaker 3: worthless to China, and in exchange we get what.
Speaker 1: A nice little deal on tariffs.
Speaker 3: Maybe we say that this is a big gesture to
Speaker 3: Donald Trump to Elon, we curry all this political favor,
Speaker 3: and maybe we get Elon to stop posting certain types
Speaker 3: of things about wigers or whatever.
Speaker 1: Oh, who knows.
Speaker 3: Maybe we do a little bit of China Taiwan trading
Speaker 3: and all of that. And I honestly think that you
Speaker 3: have to give them credit. It's smart, you know, for
Speaker 3: they what they do. They saw this, They're just going
Speaker 3: to tell by dance what to do. By Dance has
Speaker 3: zero say over its own affairs. But by facilitating said sale,
Speaker 3: they already know Elon has Twitter. They also know that
Speaker 3: if anybody has the amount of wealth and the ability
Speaker 3: to tap hundreds of billions of dollars in credit lines
Speaker 3: if needed, as long as a network of wealthy friends
Speaker 3: to buy TikTok, they may even sell it to him
Speaker 3: at a loss. They don't care about the money, because
Speaker 3: let's say they sold it to him for a hundred
Speaker 3: billion and it he saves, and then Trump gives them
Speaker 3: a favorable tariff rate, they save what six hundred billion
Speaker 3: a year? There's nothing to you know, TikTok is just
Speaker 3: a pawn in all of this, So honestly is a
Speaker 3: genius solution.
Speaker 1: We really do have to hand it to him.
Speaker 5: I mean, and we'll see if it haven't.
Speaker 2: Obviously, like you said, TikTok says, it's pure fiction, blah
Speaker 2: blah blah.
Speaker 3: Right, but they have no, No, they don't know because
Speaker 3: they don't even control their own company. This guy, the
Speaker 3: Singaporean or whatever he works for, the guy in the
Speaker 3: byte dance like, he doesn't even he's a subsidiary of
Speaker 3: his own company.
Speaker 1: And then that company is a.
Speaker 3: Subsidiary in foreign policy arm of the Chinese government. So
Speaker 3: the labyrinthian way that this all works is just always
Speaker 3: so hard to explain to a Western audience because it's
Speaker 3: so foreign.
Speaker 1: In Asia, this is very common.
Speaker 3: Like Samsung is an extension of the Korean government, Toyota
Speaker 3: is an extension of the Japanese government. Yeah, they're free
Speaker 3: your society's but it's still like this here.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you.
Speaker 3: Can say what you want about Apple, Facebook or whatever,
Speaker 3: the level of the gap between the two is just
Speaker 3: way bigger even if it's closer than Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, for sure. But I'm just saying, like
Speaker 2: it's not a done deal. So we'll see if it
Speaker 2: comes to fruition. But I mean the other piece of
Speaker 2: this is like it just makes Elin.
Speaker 1: Even more powerful.
Speaker 2: Already he is a rich man on the planet, which
Speaker 2: means that you inherently have tremendous power. He has obviously
Speaker 2: the most influenced in the Trump administration of any other actor,
Speaker 2: and including has kind of like come up against has
Speaker 2: already gone to war with the Magabase, and one has
Speaker 2: already you know, gotten his priorities realized through Spike in
Speaker 2: that spending deal that had restraints on in high tech investment.
Speaker 5: In China that was important to him. He got that
Speaker 5: stripped down.
Speaker 2: So he has won every battle in terms of the
Speaker 2: Trump administration thus far. We'll see where it goes from here.
Speaker 2: So he has that going form. He owns Twitter, which
Speaker 2: has continues to be extremely influential both obviously now it's
Speaker 2: like the beating heart of the like Maga Republican movement,
Speaker 2: but it also continues, I think, to be incredibly influential
Speaker 2: in terms of elite opinion and understanding of political trends.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably an undersold factor, to be honest
Speaker 2: with you, in some of the sort of like you know,
Speaker 2: more maga receptivity shift.
Speaker 5: Among a lot of elites.
Speaker 2: I mean, number one, they're looking out for Okay, we
Speaker 2: don't want to be thrown in prison, we don't want
Speaker 2: our contracts canceled, et cetera, et cetera. But also if
Speaker 2: you're taking in the conversation on Twitter, you're assessing if
Speaker 2: if you're extrapolating that to how the country feels at large, Well,
Speaker 2: Twitter is a very right wing space now, so that's
Speaker 2: going to impact how you view the opinions of the
Speaker 2: country at large. So he owns Twitter, and now if
Speaker 2: you own TikTok as well, like the app among young people,
Speaker 2: and you're able to influence like twitterify what's going on
Speaker 2: there as well and boost your own brand and your
Speaker 2: own self interests, et cetera. Like that is a colossal
Speaker 2: amount of power to be vested in one unelected individual,
Speaker 2: and you know, so his like the previous hawkish orientation
Speaker 2: towards China, I would be skeptical that that continues under
Speaker 2: the Trump administration this time around, because it does not
Speaker 2: serve Elon's interest obviously was very important to him to
Speaker 2: get to win in this H one B fight. Appears
Speaker 2: that he has one in that H one B fight.
Speaker 2: It's certainly any sort of like you know, contracts that
Speaker 2: he wants for his companies whatever. He's already a massive
Speaker 2: government contractor these regulatory fights that he's engaged in with
Speaker 2: various federal crubent agencies. I'm sure those are all going
Speaker 2: to go away. Concerns from the SEC about market manipulation,
Speaker 2: from the Labor Department about discrimination, all of those about
Speaker 2: from the NLRB about union bus, all of those things
Speaker 2: are going to be gone.
Speaker 5: Like he really is going.
Speaker 2: To have both tremendous political, financial, and cultural power. He
Speaker 2: already does, but TikTok would just further expand the amount
Speaker 2: of power that this one individual would have. There's one
Speaker 2: person in the MAGA movement who is not taking this
Speaker 2: line down. Yes, sucker, Steve Bannon put this up on
Speaker 2: the screen from USA today. They had all the juicy
Speaker 2: quotes from Steve Bannon, who didn't interview.
Speaker 5: This was in like an.
Speaker 2: Italian newspaper, I think, which is why we don't have
Speaker 2: like a video of him saying it.
Speaker 5: This was all.
Speaker 2: In the context of that interview, he calls Elon Musk
Speaker 2: an evil guy and vows to stop his influence over Trump.
Speaker 2: Good luck with that in any case. Let me read
Speaker 2: you some of these juicy quotes. He says before, because
Speaker 2: he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it,
Speaker 2: referring to the two hundred and fifty million dollars must
Speaker 2: contributed in the twenty twenty four campaign to help Trump's election,
Speaker 2: I'm not prepared to tolerate it anymore. Which let me
Speaker 2: just pause there and say, I don't know what you
Speaker 2: thought you were getting, buddy, but no one puts in
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty million dollars and thinks they're getting
Speaker 2: nothing out of it. And Elon's ideology was very easily
Speaker 2: ascertainable before this moment. So I don't know what you
Speaker 2: thought you were getting in this deal, but anyway, this
Speaker 2: was entirely predictable. He goes on to say, not only
Speaker 2: is he a truly evil guy, I will take this
Speaker 2: guy down, He says, I will have Elon Musk run
Speaker 2: out of hereby inaugeration day. I doubt it before, and
Speaker 2: then he goes on to say the thing about the money.
Speaker 2: Then he says he should go back to South Africa.
Speaker 2: Why do we have South Africans the most racist people
Speaker 2: on earth, White South Africans making any comments at all
Speaker 2: on what goes on in the United States.
Speaker 5: We've seen peak el on.
Speaker 2: His intrusive nature, is lack of understanding of the true issues,
Speaker 2: and quite frankly, is support of just himself. The sole
Speaker 2: objective is to become a trillionaire. That's his objective is
Speaker 2: aggregation of wealth and then through wealth power, That's what
Speaker 2: he's focused on. The American working people in this country
Speaker 2: are not going to tolerate it.
Speaker 5: I don't know. They seem likely tolerated certainly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, by the way, Lelon is enormously
Speaker 1: popular with the Republican Party. Sorry.
Speaker 3: He also expanded on some of this in video. Let's
Speaker 3: take a listen.
Speaker 8: He's got a glass draw he can't take because of
Speaker 8: the I don't know, the autism worries on the spectrum.
Speaker 8: He's clearly not He's got the maturity of a loven
Speaker 8: year old, you can tell that, but he's it's obvious
Speaker 8: he can't take criticism. One of his weaknesses is that
Speaker 8: he needs to be loved. He needs the masses to
Speaker 8: love him. You can tell he's on the stage. He
Speaker 8: needs that glory. This is to have a digital ghetto
Speaker 8: and to only have raised up what praises him. That
Speaker 8: that's the that's the that is like the little boy's mentality.
Speaker 8: If I want to be the superhero, I want to
Speaker 8: put the cape on and kind of skip around. You
Speaker 8: see this a lot in Danbury. These what they call Chomo's,
Speaker 8: what they call the these sex offenders. They've got this
Speaker 8: meant they've had a maturity level that has stopped and
Speaker 8: they want to you know, they want to be They
Speaker 8: all watch the movies that have the Cape Crusaders on there.
Speaker 1: Wow, very powerful.
Speaker 3: Here Steve Bannon expand on his experience in federal prison.
Speaker 3: But the danference to Danbury's in Connecticut, it's a I
Speaker 3: think it's a low security facility where they also house
Speaker 3: sex offenders.
Speaker 1: So for context, that's where that comes from.
Speaker 3: Also, Yeah, Vivek Ramaswami has not been heard from in
Speaker 3: quite a long time. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 3: the screen. This was his last tweet January third, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five. It is currently January fourteenth, the day that
Speaker 3: we are filming this he's been completely disappeared from doze, tweets,
Speaker 3: from mention.
Speaker 1: In the press.
Speaker 3: This is a guy who probably I mean, what should
Speaker 3: we say. He's been tweeting NonStop for I want to
Speaker 3: say four years.
Speaker 5: I would say, yeah, that's probably right.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. I've not even baked for a long time.
Speaker 2: Way before he was every cultural conversation. I mean, he's
Speaker 2: a he's a pro at like getting attention, getting to
Speaker 2: sell for some Fox News and selling his book and
Speaker 2: some Fox News.
Speaker 3: Brand wrote his book in twenty twenty one. I still
Speaker 3: have the dms like it could have come on your
Speaker 3: show to talking about book and uh, the anti woke book. Yeah,
Speaker 3: exactly vague. It's been a while and heard, uh. And
Speaker 3: he's a poster. He's look, you gotta give it to him.
Speaker 3: He's smart, and he posted his way to name recognition
Speaker 3: and a significant, you know, presence in the Republican Party.
Speaker 3: You have to respect that to a certain extent. But
Speaker 3: a huge part of that was Twitter and elite conversation.
Speaker 3: Is wealth, the stunts, cultivating his relationships, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And he has been unheard. Come nobody has heard from him.
Speaker 3: I genuinely it might be one of the longest stretches
Speaker 3: in the last four years that he has not tried
Speaker 3: to insert himself in the conversation, especially for somebody who
Speaker 3: loves and craze attention so much, so it's pretty extraordinary
Speaker 3: that nobody has. And look, there could be problems between him,
Speaker 3: and there could be problems between him and Elon, right,
Speaker 3: but from from the previous posts that he's made, there
Speaker 3: could be problems that are happening in terms of him
Speaker 3: causing the shutdown. Previously people got really really upset with
Speaker 3: him and Elon over that Elon is too powerful, So
Speaker 3: maybe they take out the vig. Maybe Trump just called
Speaker 3: him and was like, hey, you're done. You're not posting anymore.
Speaker 1: But nobody knows what it is, so we'll see matt lestweated.
Speaker 2: Imagine being a month from power and you blow your
Speaker 2: career up with a rant about the phrenology of Save
Speaker 2: by the Bell.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, so I don't watch Save by the Bell.
Speaker 1: I've never seen the show.
Speaker 3: But apparently the character who he said he didn't like
Speaker 3: actually got a higher says back, I didn't know that.
Speaker 5: That is like, okay, you got to not like dad?
Speaker 2: Is like, no, I've watched it's like the you know,
Speaker 2: start of a nerdy, dorky like kind of goofy character,
Speaker 2: and so he was saying like, oh, we should be
Speaker 2: lionizing screech.
Speaker 5: But yeah, if you know you're saved by the bell lore.
Speaker 5: You know that Zach actually got like a.
Speaker 2: Fifteen hundred on his destib I did not or whatever anyway, whatever,
Speaker 2: it was stupid that he called white people lazy and
Speaker 2: now they disappeared.
Speaker 5: The party effectively.
Speaker 2: My read is that he's effectively taking the.
Speaker 5: Fall for Elon.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know that Trump was probably irritated by this
Speaker 2: whole fracas in his coalition. He didn't like it, and
Speaker 2: so he's really I mean, this is all I'm just speculating,
Speaker 2: but I suspect he looked at this post for me
Speaker 2: from the VACAN was like, what the hell are you
Speaker 2: thinking about with this, because it really did, you know,
Speaker 2: putting all of the like policy debate aside. Like Trump's
Speaker 2: whole thing is he realigned the Republican Party towards a
Speaker 2: non college educated base centered around the white working class.
Speaker 5: And now that screed from the VAC is.
Speaker 2: Like a direct indictment of white working class culture. I mean,
Speaker 2: if Hillary Clinton tweeted something like forget about it, like
Speaker 2: they would be meltdown, everyone would be so enrayed blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, and so big does that And now, yeah,
Speaker 2: he hasn't really been heard fro him, So it is
Speaker 2: kind of funny just to go back quickly with a
Speaker 2: Bannon Musk war. Like, as I said before, that war
Speaker 2: for Bannon has already lost.
Speaker 5: It was lost when that deal was made.
Speaker 2: For all the money to go into the Trump campaign,
Speaker 2: like Elon was going to get what he wants out
Speaker 2: of this administration. And I think there's a Bannon is
Speaker 2: an ideological person, right. He has a very structured, thought
Speaker 2: out worldview that he is relatively consistent in applying. The
Speaker 2: only way he's really not consistent in applying it is
Speaker 2: when Trump fails him. There's never any smoke for Trump.
Speaker 2: It's only for you know, the people around Trump who
Speaker 2: always mislead him.
Speaker 5: It's never Trump's fault, blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But he has a well thought out ideological worldview. And
Speaker 2: I think he assumed that the maga Bass really you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about like the online influence. I'm talking
Speaker 2: about the random rank and file people throughout the country
Speaker 2: voted for Donald Trump right that they were similarly ideologically driven,
Speaker 2: And I just don't think that's true.
Speaker 5: I mean not to say that there aren't some.
Speaker 2: Like desires of policy impetuses, but at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, what we've seen with Trump is it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter where he is on an issue.
Speaker 5: What matters is.
Speaker 2: People will support him wherever he is on the issue.
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing he said, he understood it far
Speaker 2: better than Steve bannoned it when he said I could
Speaker 2: shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and they would still support me.
Speaker 5: The only area where I've.
Speaker 2: Ever seen the base pushback on Donald Trump is around vaccines.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 5: That's really the only area.
Speaker 2: And the one person that gots really spiked outside of
Speaker 2: Matt Gates, which was like that's kind of a separate story,
Speaker 2: but the one person who got spiked by the MAGA
Speaker 2: base in terms of this confirmation process with some sheriff
Speaker 2: who had done like COVID lockdown.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, yeah, Fordea, that was the one that there
Speaker 7: was a real like grassroots we aren't going to have
Speaker 7: this guy shut down churches during COVID, Like that's the
Speaker 7: one area where I've seen Trump be pushing on the
Speaker 7: base on everything else.
Speaker 2: Like his main accomplishment in this first term was a
Speaker 2: tax cut for the rich. It wasn't looking out for
Speaker 2: the working class. There's been so many on TikTok, he
Speaker 2: totally changes his colors. It doesn't matter. On you know,
Speaker 2: on crypto, he totally changes his colors. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: There's no backlash at any of that. It wasn't even
Speaker 2: on H one b Right, this is as core to
Speaker 2: the Trumpest view of the world as it could possibly
Speaker 2: be about foreign workers coming in taking American jobs, blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. He sides with Elon. Has there been a
Speaker 2: mass Backlashicut No, No.
Speaker 1: Not at all.
Speaker 2: Few online influencers and they buy and large by the
Speaker 2: time he weighed in, shut their mouths and got with
Speaker 2: the program too. So if you're expecting some sort of
Speaker 2: grassroots maga revolt against Elon and you know, in favor
Speaker 2: of some ideological version of Trump, like, don't hold your breath,
Speaker 2: it's not coming. It's never happened in the past, it's
Speaker 2: not gonna happen now. Outside of this one narrow thing
Speaker 2: of the way they feel about Zachon.
Speaker 1: I don't disagree with any of that.
Speaker 3: I do think that Bannon, to the extent that he
Speaker 3: could be successful, is only in whispering. And Trump's he
Speaker 3: or Trump does seem to trust him. You know, he
Speaker 3: likes him, they talk on the phone, etc. But you know,
Speaker 3: Ben is just going to be doing a show. He's
Speaker 3: not going to be in the White House or even
Speaker 3: in the way that he was in the first term.
Speaker 3: He can cry his best, but he's only one of
Speaker 3: a variety of side characters.
Speaker 1: So there we go.
Speaker 3: All right, We've got Matt Stoller standing by to talk
Speaker 3: about Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 1: Let's get to it.
Speaker 2: So we are very pleased to be joined this morning
Speaker 2: by our great friend Matt Stiller, who writes the big
Speaker 2: substack or yeah, big newsletter over there on Substack, That's
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to say, and also as a researcher
Speaker 2: at the American Economic Liberties Project.
Speaker 5: Great to see you, my friends.
Speaker 6: Good to see you man, Hey, thanks thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: So we saw Mark Zuckerberg on the Joe podcast saying
Speaker 2: some very interesting things and immediately thought the person that
Speaker 2: we want to hear from on this is Matt Stoller.
Speaker 5: Specifically, he he made.
Speaker 2: Kind of a similar move to Mark andresen of let
Speaker 2: me talk about some like cultural things that I think
Speaker 2: will resonate with the Republican like conservative base, and let
Speaker 2: me go ahead. And then you turn into trashing the
Speaker 2: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and any other agencies that are
Speaker 2: trying to come after and regulate my businesses.
Speaker 5: Let's take a listen to a little bit of how
Speaker 5: that went.
Speaker 9: They want us to take down this meme of Leonardo
Speaker 9: DiCaprio looking at a TV talking about how ten years
Speaker 9: from now or something, you know, you're going to see
Speaker 9: an ad that says, okay, if you took a COVID vaccine,
Speaker 9: your eligible you know, like for this kind of payment.
Speaker 9: Like so this sort of like class action lawsuit type meme.
Speaker 9: And they're like, no, you have to take that down.
Speaker 9: We said, no, we're not. We're not actually take down
Speaker 9: humor and satire. We're not going to take down things
Speaker 9: that are that are true. And then at some point,
Speaker 9: I guess, uh, do it flipped a bit? I mean
Speaker 9: Biden when he was he gave some statement at some point,
Speaker 9: I don't know if his press conference or to some
Speaker 9: journalists where basically was like, these guys are killing people
Speaker 9: and and and I don't know then like all these
Speaker 9: different agencies and branches of government basically just like started
Speaker 9: investigating coming after our company.
Speaker 1: It was it was brutal.
Speaker 9: It was brutal, and we had organizations that were looking
Speaker 9: into us that were like not really involved with social media,
Speaker 9: Like I like the CFPB, like this financial I don't
Speaker 9: even know what it stands for. It's the it's the
Speaker 9: financial organization that Elizabeth Warren had set up. Oh great,
Speaker 9: and it's basically it's like we're not a bank that yeah,
Speaker 9: so we're not a bank, right, It's like like what
Speaker 9: what does meta have to do with this? But they
Speaker 9: kind of found some theory that they wanted to investigate,
Speaker 9: and it's like okay, clearly they were trying really hard,
Speaker 9: right to like find find some theory. But it like,
Speaker 9: I don't know, it just it kind of like throughout
Speaker 9: the the the party and the government, there's just sort
Speaker 9: of I don't know if it's I don't know how
Speaker 9: this stuff works. I mean, I've never been in government.
Speaker 9: I don't know if it's like a directive or it's
Speaker 9: just like a quiet consensus that like we don't like
Speaker 9: these guys, they're not doing what we want.
Speaker 6: We're going to punish them.
Speaker 5: Probably the most.
Speaker 2: The part of that that irritates me the most is
Speaker 2: him playing dumb like he doesn't know what the Consumer
Speaker 2: Financial Protection Bureau is. But in any case, Matt, if
Speaker 2: you could break down what he had to say there
Speaker 2: and what you think he's really up to.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so.
Speaker 10: It the whole thing is, it's one of these things
Speaker 10: where there's it's so there's so much dishonesty packed it
Speaker 10: as such a short amount of time, it's hard to
Speaker 10: convey it. But like, let's just start with the timing. Okay,
Speaker 10: So Mark Zuckerberg is pretending that he doesn't know anything
Speaker 10: about banking regulation and that the only time that he
Speaker 10: encountered it is when you know, they were scuffling with
Speaker 10: the Biden administration over COVID speech and then all of
Speaker 10: a sudden, this random bureau that he's now ever heard
Speaker 10: of when after him. Okay, So one of his first
Speaker 10: early major hires was Cheryl Sandberg and she worked at Treasury.
Speaker 10: Right she was Larry Summers's chief of staff at Treasury,
Speaker 10: and he hired her.
Speaker 6: Explicitly because of that.
Speaker 10: He said, he said, Facebook is more like a government
Speaker 10: than a business. We're really setting policies.
Speaker 6: That's why we're.
Speaker 10: Hiring Cheryl Sandberg. I don't know why people forget about this,
Speaker 10: but Facebook tried to launch a currency.
Speaker 6: Can you remember that?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, he all covered it together.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean like I mean we yeah,
Speaker 6: it not hidden. Right.
Speaker 10: Mark Zuckerberg testified before the banking committees in Congress, right,
Speaker 10: I mean he's testified before the committee saying, here are
Speaker 10: all the things we want to do with our payments
Speaker 10: with our new currency system. And he defended him himself
Speaker 10: and said that these are all of the things we're
Speaker 10: doing with regulators. And this is during the Trump administration,
Speaker 10: and the Trump administration killed Libra, which was the currency system, right,
Speaker 10: So it's not like this stuff's started under Biden. It
Speaker 10: started way before Biden, way before COVID. And they have
Speaker 10: a money transfer licenses in states, I think forty nine
Speaker 10: out of fifty states, and they've had them for years.
Speaker 10: They have a system called Meta pay, they have a
Speaker 10: payment system. They want to become a payments network, and
Speaker 10: they are a payments network and they've been regulated.
Speaker 6: That way for a long time.
Speaker 10: So Mark Zuckerberg knows about that, and he's just pretending otherwise.
Speaker 6: So that he can frame himself.
Speaker 10: As a as somebody who's currying favor with Trump, just
Speaker 10: like in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one he was trying
Speaker 10: to curry favor with Biden by pretending to be progressive.
Speaker 10: He doesn't care about any of this stuff. He doesn't
Speaker 10: care about censorship, he doesn't care about He cares about
Speaker 10: policy concessions that he wants from the government.
Speaker 6: And I can go into a list of those policy concessions.
Speaker 10: But like, what this guy is standing for is himself
Speaker 10: and making more money, and that is that's really all
Speaker 10: he That's really all he wants. And to do that
Speaker 10: at this point, with so much money and power that
Speaker 10: he has, he needs favors from the US government.
Speaker 6: That's what he's trying to get from Trump.
Speaker 3: What I was really interested is to see is you know,
Speaker 3: he really is a weather vein in some respects. So
Speaker 3: he follows the Twitter decision to take down Donald Trump
Speaker 3: after January sixth. Previously in the twenty twenty election, he
Speaker 3: donates all this money to kind of pro democratic causes.
Speaker 3: He has now reversed DEI in his com Actually, I
Speaker 3: think we have that tweet. Can we put it up
Speaker 3: there on the screen. All of the things that Meta
Speaker 3: and Mark Zuckerberg have done now in the last week
Speaker 3: or so, brought back political content and to d hired
Speaker 3: a MAGA com staffer, elevated Joel Kaplan, got rid of
Speaker 3: fact checking, donated to the Trump inauguration, added Dana White
Speaker 3: to his board of directors, goes tomorro a Lago, goes
Speaker 3: to Rogan, and we have all of these things.
Speaker 2: He moves to Texas with him my views in some
Speaker 2: ways the.
Speaker 3: While yeah, moving the content moderation and takes, which is
Speaker 3: equally hilarious. All of that tells us what is that
Speaker 3: this is a person who is trying to curry favor
Speaker 3: with the incoming administration. You just talked about the actual
Speaker 3: political concessions, but let's get into that because we have
Speaker 3: these slawsuits that are going on against Mark Zuckerberg, against Meta,
Speaker 3: We have many Republican ags and others which have now
Speaker 3: longstanding legal theories and cases against this company.
Speaker 1: What do they have.
Speaker 3: To lose if things don't go their way under a
Speaker 3: second Trump administration?
Speaker 10: You know, So as you were talking, I just remembered
Speaker 10: something else which I think will really take it.
Speaker 6: Out of the partisan to the partisan context. You remember
Speaker 6: a while back when.
Speaker 10: Mark Zuckerg was trying to get into China and he
Speaker 10: asked Jijingping, the president of the leader of China, to
Speaker 10: name his firstbornshaw.
Speaker 1: I do remember that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, right?
Speaker 10: I mean, so this is not like a guy that
Speaker 10: has strong principles, right, this is a guy like or
Speaker 10: at least he does. But they're about, you know, promoting
Speaker 10: Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook's interest or Meta's interest, whatever they
Speaker 10: want to call it. So what does Mark Zuckerberg, what
Speaker 10: does Facebook actually want? Facebook has a number of legal problems.
Speaker 10: The first is the there's an anti trust suit that
Speaker 10: the Trump administration brought in twenty twenty and Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 10: has called the anti trust an existential threat to his company, right,
Speaker 10: and that will go to trial in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 10: Google lost a kind of similar case and is likely
Speaker 10: to lose another one. So Mark Zuberger knows that he
Speaker 10: could be in a lot of trouble and he wants
Speaker 10: that to go away. He wants the Trump administration to
Speaker 10: settle that. There's also a you know, remember the Cambridge
Speaker 10: Analytica scandal where they got fined by five billion dollars
Speaker 10: by the Trump administries. The Trump FTC, so they continue
Speaker 10: to violate their promises to the government. And finally the
Speaker 10: Federal Trade Commission said, you can no longer track children, right,
Speaker 10: you can't advertise to children, use it targeting advertising. And
Speaker 10: when you release new products, you have to get prior
Speaker 10: approval because you have consists distantly violated your promises to
Speaker 10: the government like three or two or three or four times,
Speaker 10: and they are in a big legal fight over that.
Speaker 10: That would be a huge problem for them. And because
Speaker 10: they want to advertise to children, because it's good business
Speaker 10: to addict children, and uh so they want that to
Speaker 10: go to go away, right, That's that's another thing that
Speaker 10: they want.
Speaker 6: They also Meta pay right.
Speaker 10: They want to become a big you know, payments network,
Speaker 10: and Mark Zuckerberg talked about that that's part of the
Speaker 10: VR strategy, the augmented reality strates. It's part of what
Speaker 10: they you know, making the world more open and connected.
Speaker 10: They that is what he talked about partly on Joe Rogan.
Speaker 10: That involves finance, so he's going to be regulated by
Speaker 10: the financial regulators, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau implemented
Speaker 10: a new rule to treat companies like Meta in Google
Speaker 10: and Amazon and other companies that have big payment networks
Speaker 10: to treat them like banks because that's what they're operating. Like,
Speaker 10: if you are handling someone's money, then you should be
Speaker 10: traded like either a bank orancial utility or a credit
Speaker 10: rating agency like that's you know that the that's all
Speaker 10: financial regulations. So they want that to go to way.
Speaker 10: Another example of something that Mark Zuckerberg needs is he
Speaker 10: has been training their AI model on illegally downloaded content.
Speaker 10: He personally gave the order to train on content that
Speaker 10: was downloaded via illegal means. And so they want certain
Speaker 10: changes to copyright law so that they can continue to
Speaker 10: expropriate content from people who make copyright and material, including us, right,
Speaker 10: I mean this is all copyrighted material, and train their
Speaker 10: AI audit so they can replicate our styles and systems
Speaker 10: and make money off of that. Some of the things
Speaker 10: he wants are not bad, right, Like he's really mad
Speaker 10: at Apple over the thirty percent app charge and the
Speaker 10: government has an anti trust case against Apple partly over that,
Speaker 10: so he would want that to continue.
Speaker 6: You. And then the.
Speaker 10: Other thing that he's been asking for is for the
Speaker 10: government to the US government to protect Facebook when they
Speaker 10: go abroad, so there's a lot of foreign entities that
Speaker 10: are regulating Facebook and Meta and WhatsApp like communication systems. Right,
Speaker 10: your domestic communication system, you're going to be regulated by
Speaker 10: that domestic government. And so he wants Trump to protect
Speaker 10: Facebook from rules around you know, whatever foreign company countries
Speaker 10: are trying to get.
Speaker 6: And sometimes that's not great. Sometimes it is great, you.
Speaker 10: Know whatever, but it's like, look, if you're operating in
Speaker 10: a foreign country, you have to obey their laws. And
Speaker 10: Mark Zuckerberg wants the US government to put pressure on
Speaker 10: foreign countries that are imposing laws that prevent him from
Speaker 10: making more money.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of.
Speaker 10: Other things that they want as well. There's an H
Speaker 10: one V visa thing. You know, they have a lot
Speaker 10: of visa engineers. They've been violating labor law on that.
Speaker 10: There's kind of a ton of stuf that they want.
Speaker 10: But effectively, at this point, Metta is a creature of policy,
Speaker 10: and so what he has to do to continue to
Speaker 10: grow or even to not be constrained or not have
Speaker 10: his company broken up, is to capture the policymakers.
Speaker 6: And so that's what he's trying to do.
Speaker 10: That's what he's always try to do, whether it's China,
Speaker 10: whether it's the progressives and Democrats, whether it's people all
Speaker 10: over the policymakers all over the world, whatever it is,
Speaker 10: that's just who he is and what he's trying to do.
Speaker 2: Last question for you, Matt, what role is Rogan serving
Speaker 2: in this? Because he just had obviously Zuckerberg, and he
Speaker 2: had Elon Muskon recently, had Peter teal On recently. We
Speaker 2: talked to you previously about Marc Andreesen, who also took
Speaker 2: him specifically at CFPB and some of the way that
Speaker 2: he portrayed the CFPB clearly had landed with Rogan because
Speaker 2: he kind of reiterates that view to Zuckerberg and said,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, Elizabeth Warren's agency that does the banging, which
Speaker 2: is just like total incomplete bullshit. But in any case,
Speaker 2: what role is Rogan serving? Why are they feeling like
Speaker 2: this is the place to go and try to effectively
Speaker 2: fleece the magabase and convince them that their cultural goals
Speaker 2: are in line with happen to line up with these
Speaker 2: companies financial interests.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I I mean it's kind of sad. I have
Speaker 10: been a like, I like listening to Joe Rogan. He's
Speaker 10: he's a really good interviewer. I like, you know, I've
Speaker 10: listened to him for years. Not you know, I'm not
Speaker 10: a religious devotee or anything, but I listen to him
Speaker 10: sometimes and I like, I like him. He's a he's
Speaker 10: a cool interviewer. It's not annoying. He's generally been open minded.
Speaker 10: But what has been disturbing or you know, it's just
Speaker 10: kind of like maybe how he's going is that he's
Speaker 10: just become essentially like a new Rushlan Ball right. And
Speaker 10: it isn't that he's a partisan Republican, although he's kind
Speaker 10: of you know, most a lot of the guests he's
Speaker 10: invited on or you know, even when they're cultural, he
Speaker 10: sometimes pushes them on poultics. It's not that he's a
Speaker 10: partisan Republican, though, It's that he's taken the kind of
Speaker 10: Wall Street, big business, big tech part of the Republican
Speaker 10: apparatus as opposed to the kind of right new right
Speaker 10: Josh Hawlly sort of JD Vance approach.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: He's not suspicious of corporate power.
Speaker 10: Although he says, you know, he is, and then he
Speaker 10: has Mark Zuckerberg on and doesn't really challenge him, and
Speaker 10: has Mark Indriesen on and has elon musk On and
Speaker 10: just is like, Oh, the big problem is the regulatory
Speaker 10: agency that's trying to stop poor people from like being scammed.
Speaker 6: By overdraft fees.
Speaker 10: Except he says it's you know, they're engaged in censorship,
Speaker 10: which isn't true. And it's just like sad to watch
Speaker 10: that because there is this really interesting populist part of
Speaker 10: the GOPM and you guys were just talking about it,
Speaker 10: and yet Rogan has kind of moved away from that,
Speaker 10: and so to me, it's it feels very much like
Speaker 10: listening to Pravda, Like just it just kind of it,
Speaker 10: you know, it just kind of sucks to be like, oh,
Speaker 10: this guy used to be really good and now you're
Speaker 10: like you're getting sort of weird lies from him about
Speaker 10: you know that are coming from Wall Street billionaires.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would, I look love Joe obviously we've been
Speaker 3: on the show. I think a lot of it is
Speaker 3: just the tech people themselves are skilled at this, and
Speaker 3: if you're not equipped with the backstory, as you and
Speaker 3: I just discussed. We know about Libra, the xijingping thing,
Speaker 3: that's longtime low for anybody who's been covering the ins
Speaker 3: and outs of Facebook or of Mark Zuckerberg and his
Speaker 3: various shifts in the winds. It's easy to be convinced,
Speaker 3: you know, if somebody has come to you and like, oh,
Speaker 3: well they wanted us of a sensor, a vaccine thing,
Speaker 3: and then they investigated our company, it's like, well, the
Speaker 3: investigation started in twenty nineteen, actually under the Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: You know, DJ. These are all the key backstory. But
Speaker 1: we appreciate you coming on as well. Matt. We love
Speaker 1: you and we'll see you again soon.
Speaker 5: Court to see Matt, thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Joining us now is James Fox.
Speaker 3: He is the director documentarian with a new film out
Speaker 3: called The Program. He previously has done Moment of Contact,
Speaker 3: The Phenomenon, I know what I saw out of the blue,
Speaker 3: Moment of Contact, a personal favorite of mind. We've got
Speaker 3: a trailer and then we're going to be talked to
Speaker 3: James himself. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, The New York Times.
Speaker 8: Published a story exposing a secret government program investigating UFOs.
Speaker 10: That story was kind of a catalyst for a lot
Speaker 10: of things that have happened since Members of Congress started
Speaker 10: to ask.
Speaker 6: Questions instruments report there is something there.
Speaker 3: There are flight characteristics that we can't explain.
Speaker 6: UAPs are unexplained. It's true, they need to be investigated.
Speaker 6: Here we are.
Speaker 8: Having a hearing where just a few years ago we
Speaker 8: didn't even acknowledge that these things were real.
Speaker 11: Do you believe that our government is in possession of UAPs?
Speaker 6: Absolutely?
Speaker 9: Based on interviewing over forty witnesses over four years.
Speaker 12: You're telling me people have come forward claiming first hand knowledge.
Speaker 11: Of of non human origin.
Speaker 6: That's correct.
Speaker 3: So, James, you've exposed a lot of new information in
Speaker 3: this documentary, just as if you have in the past.
Speaker 3: I was in the room for that hearing. Was a
Speaker 3: really exciting moment. Just tell us a little bit about
Speaker 3: why you decided to make this film after previous ones
Speaker 3: about specific incidents and some of the big things that
Speaker 3: you learned.
Speaker 11: So thanks for the intro.
Speaker 12: I did the phenomenon, The natural progression was the program.
Speaker 12: Because the phenomenon hinted at crash retrievals. We went into Roswell,
Speaker 12: but then I took a break and I focused on
Speaker 12: an alleged UFO crash case that happened in Virginia, Brazil
Speaker 12: in nineteen ninety six, and ultimately made a film about
Speaker 12: it called Moment of Contact, and the allegation is half
Speaker 12: the town has heard about it, that a UFO crashed
Speaker 12: and that live aliens were captured, and ultimately the United
Speaker 12: States flew in And that was an aspect that I'd learned,
Speaker 12: and on my last trip to Brazil, I investigated the
Speaker 12: case over twelve years with a partner, Marco Leal who's Brazilian,
Speaker 12: and a number of other folks. And so my natural
Speaker 12: progression was, Okay, now that I'm pretty sure the Americans
Speaker 12: were involved in this crash retrieval, I'm I'm gonna go
Speaker 12: to Washington, DC, and I'm going to investigate like because
Speaker 12: the case goes cold. Once the United States Air Force
Speaker 12: plane took off from a place called Campinas and back
Speaker 12: to the United States. And we have the Brazilian control
Speaker 12: flight control officer who went on the record just recently
Speaker 12: publicly describing that United States called it USAF United States
Speaker 12: Air Force plane that flew back to the States.
Speaker 11: The case went cold.
Speaker 12: But little did I know five months after I released
Speaker 12: a Moment of Contact, there would be a high level
Speaker 12: intelligence officer testifying under oath to a bipartisan group of
Speaker 12: lawmakers that we have a crash retrievent program and that
Speaker 12: biologics were So he opened the door for me, and
Speaker 12: so that made it a lot easier for me to
Speaker 12: ask those those questions that I never in my thirty
Speaker 12: year career thought I'd be asking city members of.
Speaker 11: Congress do we have aliens? Do we have recovered flight
Speaker 11: and saucers?
Speaker 12: You know, you'd think they would be asking me to
Speaker 12: up the doses of the medication that I'm not on.
Speaker 11: But but that's what that's where we are right now.
Speaker 12: And then you look at the legislation that's been written
Speaker 12: in the NDAA for twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four,
Speaker 12: it's right there in.
Speaker 11: Black and white.
Speaker 1: You're exactly right to trouble crash.
Speaker 12: Retrieval materials potentially, and uh, you know legacy program. So
Speaker 12: it's we're living in unprecedented times right now.
Speaker 3: James, What about the contours of the program were you
Speaker 3: able to uncover?
Speaker 1: I've been down this rabbit hole now for years.
Speaker 3: One of the most frustrating things I get from fans
Speaker 3: and others is so like, you guys, tell us it exists,
Speaker 3: but we only know things on the edges, the crumbs
Speaker 3: and others. You've done the best job in your film
Speaker 3: of actually bringing everything that we know to light and
Speaker 3: what can you give away to us, what can you
Speaker 3: tell the audience.
Speaker 12: I would say that one of the the aspects of
Speaker 12: the film that's jaw dropping a slack job. I think
Speaker 12: it's the exact terminology that was used. There is a
Speaker 12: high level government official correspondence with former Deputy Assistant Secretary
Speaker 12: of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellen that he shared He
Speaker 12: eventually went through the Dopster process of pre publication approval,
Speaker 12: and it's a correspondence between a high level government official.
Speaker 12: Now in the film, it's got some redactions, but it
Speaker 12: has the actual name of the gatekeeper to the crash
Speaker 12: retrieval program, and that unredacted version was given to select
Speaker 12: members of Congress, and I'm told people at Arrow, so
Speaker 12: John Koskolowski theoretically would have the name of the gatekeeper,
Speaker 12: certainly in twenty twenty of the crash retrieval program.
Speaker 11: And I think that's an aspect it's huge.
Speaker 12: I mean that means that there are members of Congress
Speaker 12: that have the name of who's.
Speaker 11: In charge of this crash retrieval program or the gatekeeper.
Speaker 3: Right, we have a gatekeeper, We have a name, and
Speaker 3: it is a frustrating process.
Speaker 1: But that's government.
Speaker 3: It takes a huge effort to make a to reveal
Speaker 3: a huge secret. That's something that I always say, James,
Speaker 3: with respect to your film, you spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time here in Washington. What was the receptivity the bipartisanship
Speaker 3: on this issue?
Speaker 1: Where you heartened by it?
Speaker 3: Are you excited about what may be come from the
Speaker 3: next administration?
Speaker 11: I am unbelievable.
Speaker 12: It's so refreshing to see a bipartisan group of lawmakers
Speaker 12: working together for the American people. It's like, oh, thank you,
Speaker 12: this is such a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 11: Let's continue this. Who knows that it took you.
Speaker 12: Know, so called aliens to get us to unite and
Speaker 12: work together. But I would like to say it's very exciting.
Speaker 12: Some people feel like things aren't moving fast enough. I'll
Speaker 12: remind you of someone who's been investigating these field. I've
Speaker 12: made six documentaries over the last thirty years. We've had
Speaker 12: three congressional hearings where we've had people testify under oath
Speaker 12: about the reality of the phenomenon, two people separately, one
Speaker 12: twenty twenty three David Grush and another one in twenty
Speaker 12: twenty four, Luel A. Zondo testify under oath to a
Speaker 12: group of bipartisan lawmakers that we have a crash retrieval program.
Speaker 12: I'm reminded what Cindra Rounds just recently said. I was there,
Speaker 12: I filmed it. He said, I know, things feel like
Speaker 12: they're moving slowly. I feel the frustration things aren't happening
Speaker 12: fast enough. We're not getting enough answers. I'll remind you
Speaker 12: that we are not running one hundred yard dash. This
Speaker 12: is a marathon. Stick with us. Can both continue providing
Speaker 12: support to this bipartisan group of lawmakers and let's get
Speaker 12: to the bottom of it, because the implications are global
Speaker 12: and so profound that we owe it to ourselves to
Speaker 12: continue the support.
Speaker 3: James, while I have you, one of the things that
Speaker 3: has captured the nation's attention was this new Jersey drone
Speaker 3: quote unquote incident, and I'd be curious for your thoughts,
Speaker 3: not necessarily about the incident itself, but in the context
Speaker 3: of what you and I know from studying this issue,
Speaker 3: which is that we have had longtime incidents of unidentified
Speaker 3: craft being and interfering with US military installations. Some of
Speaker 3: the video and other I know you talk about some
Speaker 3: of this in your show. I think the nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: four incident Ellis Air Force Base, and I'm curious if
Speaker 3: you could just shed some light about the patterns that
Speaker 3: we've seen now over the last seventy five years in
Speaker 3: the United States and how this might fit into that well.
Speaker 12: I'd say a very good case would be the two
Speaker 12: consecutive weekends in July of nineteen fifty two where you
Speaker 12: had incursions by these so called orbs uap UFOs. We
Speaker 12: had military jets scrambled. It was on the front page
Speaker 12: of every newspaper across the country two consecutive weekends, and
Speaker 12: we scrambled military jets intercept these things.
Speaker 11: They flew rings around US.
Speaker 12: I covered this extensively in the film of the Phenomenon,
Speaker 12: But that was nineteen fifty two. I mean, they had
Speaker 12: one of the biggest press conferences with General John Sandford
Speaker 12: at the time, who basically came forward back in nineteen
Speaker 12: fifty two. I have to keep saying that it said, yeah,
Speaker 12: there's something really inexplicable going on.
Speaker 11: It's not us. We don't think it's a foreign adversary.
Speaker 12: We don't know what's going on. And it's like that
Speaker 12: seems to be a big repeat today. Now I'll remind
Speaker 12: your audience that, Yeah, the vast majority of UAP of
Speaker 12: UFOs cannon have been explained away in down to earth
Speaker 12: conventional terms, and I'm sure there's a lot of them
Speaker 12: up there up in the sky that are being misidentified.
Speaker 11: Everyone's up in the night sky trying to get a
Speaker 11: glimpse of these things.
Speaker 12: But there's a core fifteen or twenty percent, and I
Speaker 12: think that these recent drones sidings will ultimately a core
Speaker 12: fifteen twenty percent that seemed to defy a terrestrial or
Speaker 12: a conventional explanation. Could I be wrong, I could absolutely
Speaker 12: be wrong, But that's my take on all the intel
Speaker 12: folks that I've been talking to you recently. Particularly fifty
Speaker 12: of these things came off the ocean and baffled the
Speaker 12: coast Guard and police, right.
Speaker 3: And when you hear the testimony from these law enforcement officials,
Speaker 3: what I often find is important is to go lower
Speaker 3: down the wrong because the lies are at the top, right.
Speaker 3: But when you hear from the people, the coast Guard,
Speaker 3: the actual police officers, the governors, some of the state legislators,
Speaker 3: they have no idea what's happening, not only do they
Speaker 3: have no idea they're reporting to us about the ability
Speaker 3: to just quote unquote go dark. And then there's generally
Speaker 3: a temporary amnesia, you know, across the country where we
Speaker 3: just seem to forget about these things. But within the
Speaker 3: pattern as you just set out you laid out, that's
Speaker 3: an excellent part of the phenomenon. Actually, right where I
Speaker 3: am here in Washington, some of these incidents occurred here,
Speaker 3: you know, right over our own airspace. With all of this,
Speaker 3: it does seem as if some progress is being made
Speaker 3: in the last decade. I do credit that twenty seventeen
Speaker 3: New York Times article. So any just last words you
Speaker 3: want to say for why people should watch the film
Speaker 3: and put it in the context of this body of
Speaker 3: work in this moment of time.
Speaker 11: We are living in unprecedented times.
Speaker 12: There is a current effort happening right now today, a push,
Speaker 12: unprecedented push for transparency on this issue. It's gotten the
Speaker 12: attention of lawmaker's household names, intel folk. There's whistleblowers coming forward.
Speaker 12: I'm told somewhere between eight and twelve first hand witnesses.
Speaker 12: Everyone's saying they want firsthand Grush was not a firsthand,
Speaker 12: firsthand witnesses that have met in skifts.
Speaker 11: Behind the scenes.
Speaker 12: Kirk McConnell, former Senate Armed Service Committee staff member, talks
Speaker 12: about it in the program. It's happening, Be patient, continue
Speaker 12: to support. This story is going to be huge.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I'd love to see it. Everybody, go
Speaker 1: watch the film.
Speaker 3: We'll have a link down in the description on where
Speaker 3: you can and check out James's entire body of work.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite journalists on the issue. We appreciate
Speaker 3: you joining us, sir.
Speaker 11: Thank you, thanks so much. I appreciate you having me
Speaker 11: on absolutely.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you.
Speaker 3: Great counterpoint show for everyone tomorrow and we will see
Speaker 3: you all on Thursday.