Speaker 1: Colson Media.
Speaker 2: This is it could happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 2: newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world,
Speaker 2: and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today.
Speaker 2: I've joined by Bufford Evans, Nia Wong, James Stouts, and
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichterman.
Speaker 3: Tragically, we all have ed all right, I got it
Speaker 3: out of the way. We can continue the episode.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: This episode, we are covering the week of February twenty
Speaker 2: seven to March five, Number Go Down, Public Humiliation Ritual
Speaker 2: of Vladimir Zelensky and the age of US global supremacy
Speaker 2: is overcome.
Speaker 5: Welcome to the end of the American Empire. It sucks
Speaker 5: way more than I thought it would.
Speaker 3: Yeah, uh huh, Well, I mean, look, some of us
Speaker 3: have been saying this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's just tragedy that is faster and then
Speaker 4: it's whatever the fuck is happening now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have crossed the tragedy farce horizon. We're well beyond.
Speaker 3: We're well beyond anything Marks could have anticipating, Well, we're going.
Speaker 3: We don't need foss.
Speaker 2: Like I am upset about how Landy and everything is
Speaker 2: becoming like I feel like you have to be almost
Speaker 2: forced into being an accelerationist now, like there is no
Speaker 2: other way out.
Speaker 4: Did you watch the Democrats last night, Garrison.
Speaker 2: It's like this non consensual acceleration as up. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that like people spent years trying to resist this accelerationist push.
Speaker 2: That even now I'm seeing like analysts like embrace, Like,
Speaker 2: I guess we have to be accelerationists now, which is
Speaker 2: very bizarre to see.
Speaker 5: Yeah, That's what I've been saying. There is no more
Speaker 5: ideology called accelerationism. There is just acceleration of what you
Speaker 5: do about it. So funhole we've gotten ourselves into. Yeah,
Speaker 5: speaking of let's start with talking about.
Speaker 2: Ukraine, a place which accelerated and that Oval office meeting
Speaker 2: that happened last Friday. That was a little bit odd,
Speaker 2: wasn't it.
Speaker 6: Folks Garson say thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yes, I realize I've been under your employee for for
Speaker 2: four years now. I've said thank you many times.
Speaker 6: Each of you thank me. No, I'm kidding Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: Wow, Sophie, Sophie has gone mad with power.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm. I'm going to go callote the EU because
Speaker 4: Sophie has asked me, yes, So.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm sure people saw like a two
Speaker 2: minute clip or something. I watched the full ten minute section,
Speaker 2: which is much more crazy.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And like in Trump's push to get like this Seaspire deal,
Speaker 2: Zelensky's hesitation has been because Putin has broken multiple Ceaspire deals,
Speaker 2: so how can we be sure that he will respect
Speaker 2: this one? And that's kind of what jump starts this
Speaker 2: extra combative exchange between Trump, Zelensky, and eventually little boy JD.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Robert and James, you your war understanders.
Speaker 4: Uh, yeah, that's that's that's what it says. When I
Speaker 4: got into my h job, hege the.
Speaker 3: The increasing story of and this this affects Ukraine, but
Speaker 3: is not just limited to it. The the story of
Speaker 3: the next several years is going to be the mass
Speaker 3: rearmament of Europe and almost certain nuclear proliferation. France, who
Speaker 3: has I think two hundred and ninety five nuclear warheads
Speaker 3: and extremely advanced first strike capability as well as a
Speaker 3: first strike doctrine is under Macron has just made a
Speaker 3: statement that he's willing to have France be the nuclear
Speaker 3: shield for the rest of Europe. The UK also has
Speaker 3: enough nukes to kill way more people than actually live there. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: their nuclear defense system and reaction system is very tied
Speaker 3: into the US one. I expect you will see them
Speaker 3: sever it from the United States as the United States
Speaker 3: becomes more and more of a geopolitical adversary to England
Speaker 3: and to everywhere else in Europe. I think you are
Speaker 3: going to see more smaller states in Europe get the bomb.
Speaker 3: I think in general, I'm shocked if in four years
Speaker 3: there's not at least another four or five states that
Speaker 3: have gained access to the bomb. Yeah, because the overarching
Speaker 3: international lesson from Ukraine has never ever, ever, ever, ever
Speaker 3: ever give up a nuke and get one at all costs.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Famously, the European national anthem WONOLOBE because if it's
Speaker 4: not love, it's the bomb that will bring us together. Yep, Garrison, I.
Speaker 3: Don't like that that. Like I'm not saying this because
Speaker 3: it's it's good, but it's also literally like if I
Speaker 3: was in charge of European security, that's where you priority
Speaker 3: would be. Let's get as many fucking nukes out here
Speaker 3: as we get.
Speaker 4: I think we should say that, like, this is how
Speaker 4: US diplomacy happens. This sort of shouting at and humiliating
Speaker 4: non US leaders is what the US does. The difference
Speaker 4: here is that Trump did it in front of the
Speaker 4: entire White House, press corps and TV cameras, yes.
Speaker 2: In the Oval Office, for everyone to see.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it doesn't give Zelenski a place to back down. Right, Like,
Speaker 4: he's a leader of a country that is at war.
Speaker 4: He needs to show strength and like certainly sort of
Speaker 4: with the current understanding of leadership, he needs to show
Speaker 4: strength and to show strength, he doesn't have many places
Speaker 4: to go when he's been humiliated like that, right.
Speaker 2: Well, and like you know, Trump was yelling about you know,
Speaker 2: World War three and then and then and.
Speaker 4: Advanced China sat with.
Speaker 2: His with his little like thank you speech. And I think, Robert,
Speaker 2: I think I think you pointed out to me earlier,
Speaker 2: like why Vance jumped in on this the way he did,
Speaker 2: in like a way to establish dominance when Vance and
Speaker 2: Trump have very little cards to play, because this is
Speaker 2: a guy who has been like at war for years now,
Speaker 2: and like they need to feel superior to that. And
Speaker 2: that's why it's a public humiliation ritual because that's the
Speaker 2: only method they had yet right now.
Speaker 3: No, because there's nothing really like they play act at
Speaker 3: masculinity and there especially Trump's base really like feeds into that.
Speaker 3: But they they definitely also have that deep security insecurity
Speaker 3: that because of aspects of our culture and media. I
Speaker 3: think most men who have never been to war have
Speaker 3: a little bit of that. I don't think it's a
Speaker 3: natural thing for men, but I think it's a natural
Speaker 3: thing in our society. I think it is extremely common.
Speaker 3: Vert jing on universal. I went to war in part
Speaker 3: because of that derangement. And by the way, war doesn't
Speaker 3: do anything to make you better. Yeah, but what it
Speaker 3: does do it what it has done for Zelensky and
Speaker 3: why he acted the way he is, is that like
Speaker 3: he's he's literally been in the position of his entire
Speaker 3: family and him having Ak forty seven shoved into their
Speaker 3: hands because a Russian kill team was in the city
Speaker 3: gunning for him and his family as bombs fell all around. Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's just he's I think he just has too much pride. Sorry,
Speaker 3: pride's even the wrong thing He's learned over the course
Speaker 3: of fighting this war. When you are up against a
Speaker 3: strong man, you can't back down, Like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you just keep getting pushed back further. And further
Speaker 4: if you do that.
Speaker 3: Because he wouldn't have gotten anything if he had like
Speaker 3: sat there and been nice and let them make fun
Speaker 3: of him. And like, like the the the ending would
Speaker 3: be the same. They'd made up their minds prior to
Speaker 3: that meeting.
Speaker 4: Right, and like the one of the things that Zelenski
Speaker 4: has going for him, and like there's a lot that
Speaker 4: he doesn't have going from he's not a coward, and
Speaker 4: like no people have noticed that he's not a coward,
Speaker 4: and that has brought him some of the support, and
Speaker 4: like it has allowed him to remain in that position
Speaker 4: of leadership a relatively uncontested right. They haven't been able
Speaker 4: to have elections. This is something that the Ukrainian opposition
Speaker 4: have also kind of consented to. It's not like he's
Speaker 4: he's being a dictator here, as Trump is alleged, but
Speaker 4: like his personal bravery and willingness to confront these strong
Speaker 4: men is something that like people draw strength from in Ukraine,
Speaker 4: and he can't afford to let that go.
Speaker 2: He actually was fairly submissive in this exchange. He was
Speaker 2: letting Trump talk way over him. Zelensky did not raise
Speaker 2: his voice. I don't I frankly, I don't understand how
Speaker 2: people have even deluded themselves into thinking this makes like
Speaker 2: Zelensky look bad or like he wasn't proper.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he handled it like a grown up would handle it,
Speaker 4: Like he tried to point out what you're saying is wrong.
Speaker 2: This was clearly like a coordinated trap from like the
Speaker 2: entire White House team, from like the press corps. Yes,
Speaker 2: like talking about like why he does wear a suit,
Speaker 2: and like someone like Rubio, like a neocon that has
Speaker 2: more of this like geopolitics focus. Like he was like
Speaker 2: literally like syncing into the couch as this was happening,
Speaker 2: like like Rubia was not thrilled at this.
Speaker 3: Ye, no, no, because Rubio he has no personal pride
Speaker 3: or backbone, so he is willing to try and remake
Speaker 3: himself as a Trumper. But in his actual heart and soul,
Speaker 3: he's a Reagan republic he totally sure, or maybe at
Speaker 3: least a Bush Republican.
Speaker 2: Definitely Bush, And I don't know, Like Zelenski was literally
Speaker 2: kicked out of the White House on Friday, He's now
Speaker 2: trying to find a way back into the negotiating table.
Speaker 2: On Monday, the United States suspended all military aid to
Speaker 2: Ukraine after Trump has continued to inflate the numbers in
Speaker 2: regards to the amount of military aid we have sent
Speaker 2: to Ukraine, often by a magnitude of two hundred billion
Speaker 2: dollars and I don't like this. Was one of the
Speaker 2: first things that me and Robert noticed at the RNC,
Speaker 2: like how much Ukraine was like a top issue for them,
Speaker 2: Like people wouldn't shut up about Ukraine. And it took
Speaker 2: us a few days to like acclimate, be like okay,
Speaker 2: like why why are they talking about it in this way?
Speaker 2: Like it was?
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 2: It was very odd and Robert did a deep dive
Speaker 2: on that last year with front of the pod Rudy
Speaker 2: Giuliani Garrison.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to up that you have been talking
Speaker 3: with Rudy about the album that you and I wanted
Speaker 3: to drop with him, and he is on board, so
Speaker 3: we will be moving forward with that this spring.
Speaker 2: That's exciting a little taste for all you listeners.
Speaker 6: And I like this.
Speaker 2: This is very much a part, in my mind, a
Speaker 2: part of Bannon's push for like this quasi douganism, this
Speaker 2: idea of a multi pope polar world of Trump and
Speaker 2: Putin with Putin expanding power into Europe. While Trump tries
Speaker 2: to see his control over more parts of North and
Speaker 2: Central America, you know, taking the Panama Canal eventually Canada
Speaker 2: and Greenland, you know, and like both people wanting you know,
Speaker 2: more more Arctic land that will be useful considering climate change.
Speaker 2: And Russia already has their fair share. So that's why,
Speaker 2: you know, Greenland is so essential for national security, like
Speaker 2: Trump talked about endlessly in his joint session speed, I guess,
Speaker 2: uh miya, do you want to add something about this
Speaker 2: mineral thing before we go to break?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So I think I think one of the important things
Speaker 5: here is that this is this is the definitive break point,
Speaker 5: Like this is the moment that people are going to
Speaker 5: point to and they look back on the moment the
Speaker 5: old American Empire died and that empire, you know, the
Speaker 5: sort of post World War two international order thing. Right.
Speaker 5: The way, the way, the way the US maintained its
Speaker 5: geopolitical and economic power was by a network and system
Speaker 5: of alliances with a bunch of the you know, with
Speaker 5: their allies and sort of in places like Japan, but
Speaker 5: also you know, across Western Europe. They maintained this series
Speaker 5: of economic and political alliances that was able to win
Speaker 5: the Cold War, I you know, make make the US
Speaker 5: like the world's low superpower. But in order for it
Speaker 5: to function, the US has to like maintain the alliance
Speaker 5: system even as it's doing imperial power protection and use
Speaker 5: its allies well.
Speaker 3: And like, the US's power primarily has always come from
Speaker 3: the fact that, like or at least in this century,
Speaker 3: has been from the fact that we of the center
Speaker 3: of the global economy.
Speaker 5: Yeah right, And and and the second part of it
Speaker 5: has been has been its ability to wield power in
Speaker 5: international institutions, right, yeah, you know, the US season control
Speaker 5: of the IMF and the World Bank, and and you know,
Speaker 5: using sort of trade like trade doctrine to to sort
Speaker 5: of empower itself. And this is all fucking gone. The
Speaker 5: US is alienating like everyone in the fucking globe basically
Speaker 5: except for except for Russia. And you know, now we're
Speaker 5: entering this really kind of Argentina maybe well well well
Speaker 5: we'll we'll see, we'll see how long that government holds.
Speaker 5: Just like okay, yeah, but you know, like and the
Speaker 5: thing that it's pivoting to now, right is the stuff
Speaker 5: that used to be there. There'd be a sort of
Speaker 5: like coalition thing and the and American corporations would do
Speaker 5: this stuff behind the scenes is now just unbelievably explicit.
Speaker 5: The US is just straight up openly doing resource colonialism,
Speaker 5: like they're straight up they're demanding that Ukraine exchange its
Speaker 5: mineral resources for protection, like it is right up a
Speaker 5: protection racket.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The proposed way that it works is that there's going
Speaker 5: to be like a quote unquote development fund controlled by
Speaker 5: the US and Ukraine like jointly.
Speaker 6: But I mean.
Speaker 5: It's just control by the US. I don't know why
Speaker 5: people are pretending that Ukraine is going to like have
Speaker 5: a say in this. I'm going to read from the
Speaker 5: proposed agreement. We don't know what the text of the
Speaker 5: final agreement is going to be. Zelenski has recently expressed
Speaker 5: that he's willing to sign it, but we don't know
Speaker 5: exactly what's going to look like. Here's the quote for
Speaker 5: the document that we had. The Government of Ukraine will
Speaker 5: contribute to the fund fifty percent of all revenues earned
Speaker 5: from the future modestization of all relevant Ukrainian government owned
Speaker 5: natural resource assets, whether owned directly or indirectly by the
Speaker 5: Ukrainian government, defined as deposits of minerals hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas,
Speaker 5: and other extractable minerals, and other infrastructure relevant to natural
Speaker 5: resource assets such as liquefied natural gas terminals and port infrastructure,
Speaker 5: as agreed by both participants, as maybe further described in
Speaker 5: the fund agreements. Another quote, the funds investment process will
Speaker 5: be designed so as to invest in projects in Ukraine
Speaker 5: and intract investments to increase the development, processing, and monetization
Speaker 5: of all public and private Ukrainian assets, including but not
Speaker 5: limited to, deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, et cetera, CEA, ports,
Speaker 5: and state owned enterprises, as may be further described in
Speaker 5: the fund agreement. So what they're talking about here is
Speaker 5: not just like seizing control of Ukrainian mineral reasons. They're
Speaker 5: talking about like privatizing the Ukrainian state and selling it
Speaker 5: off and taking the profits from that. They are talking
Speaker 5: about seizing ports, which I have I have seen no
Speaker 5: media coverage of. I do not know why it is
Speaker 5: any agreement, you can just read it there. I notably
Speaker 5: on the show am not like I am well known
Speaker 5: as not a China supporter, but I deeply remember for
Speaker 5: five years everyone losing their fucking minds about China doing
Speaker 5: this exact same fucking thing with port lease agreements, and
Speaker 5: THEYS is just doing it now. And this is just
Speaker 5: what the new international order is going to be. It's
Speaker 5: the US just very very openly instead of instead of
Speaker 5: working through allies, instead of working through sort of like
Speaker 5: resime shamed operations. It's just the US going to be
Speaker 5: going like, okay, like you are all going to die
Speaker 5: unless you give us all your money.
Speaker 2: Speaking of giving us all your money.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 4: Hell yeah, that's right, magnificent.
Speaker 6: That was art.
Speaker 2: Here's some ads. All right, all right, we are back, Robert.
Speaker 2: You want to talk about Syria?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Syria, I hardly know, Okay. Anyway, I was sent
Speaker 3: to a document by my good friend Joey Aub from
Speaker 3: the Fire This Time podcast. It's sorry the Fire in
Speaker 3: These Times podcast. Joey's great. It's a document that the
Speaker 3: US is sending out to NGOs around the world. This
Speaker 3: one was sent to an NGO doing humanitarian work in Syria,
Speaker 3: and it's basically, you have to fill this out in
Speaker 3: order to have a chance of retaining the funding that
Speaker 3: has been paused right now, right so it's part of
Speaker 3: the USAID pause. If you want to get that money.
Speaker 3: You have to fill this out and basically prove that
Speaker 3: you are in line with the new executive orders and
Speaker 3: policies of the United States government. There's a bunch of
Speaker 3: questions on here that you have to answer. A lot
Speaker 3: of them are yes, no, and some many of them
Speaker 3: are just like normal shit.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Does your organization have a current risk management framework or policy? Yes?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: If yes, please describe the framework or policy right, not
Speaker 3: extreme or anything like that. You have to say that
Speaker 3: you're not working with cartels, narco human traffickers. But then
Speaker 3: you have to say you have not quote organized groups
Speaker 3: that promote mass migration in the last ten years, which
Speaker 3: is interesting, and when you're dealing with like war torn
Speaker 3: areas that are helping like refugees escape, is clearly going
Speaker 3: to be damaging to a lot of NGOs that have
Speaker 3: done very good work to save people.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: Number five is does your organization encourage free speech and
Speaker 3: encourage open debate and free sharing of information?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: And then right under that, does the organization have a
Speaker 3: clear policy of prohibiting any collaboratioration, funding, or support for
Speaker 3: entities that advocate or implement policies contrary to US government interests,
Speaker 3: So free speech unless it's not stuff that.
Speaker 4: We like, right, Yeah, that's kind of always been the
Speaker 4: way to be fair.
Speaker 3: Now kind of the most I mean not kind of
Speaker 3: by a wide margin. The most fucked up thing about
Speaker 3: this is that it then goes down again right after
Speaker 3: the free speech thing. First off, I should note number
Speaker 3: eleven after the free speech question, can you confirm your
Speaker 3: organization does not work with entities that associated with communist,
Speaker 3: socialist or totalitarian parties? And then below that is a
Speaker 3: basically a question of like whether or not, and they
Speaker 3: frame it as like, does this project take appropriate measures
Speaker 3: to protect women and to defend against gender ideology? Is
Speaker 3: defined in the below executive order, and then it links
Speaker 3: to the Defending Women from gender ideology extremism and Restoring
Speaker 3: Biological Truth to the Federal Government executive Order. And then
Speaker 3: it asks does the project take appropriate my to protect
Speaker 3: children and links to the same executive order. So it
Speaker 3: is basically saying your organization has to support effectively like
Speaker 3: transphobic policies in Syria in order to continue to get
Speaker 3: us money right like and the fact that that is
Speaker 3: n one a requirement for aid organizations receiving aid worldwide
Speaker 3: now is deeply harmful. And it's also just like Syria
Speaker 3: was already transphobic, like the Syrian governments not really pro
Speaker 3: trans but the fact that this is just being like.
Speaker 2: This is going to be like across the board.
Speaker 3: Yes, everywhere, this is going to be everywhere in the world.
Speaker 3: We want to get US funds to save human lives,
Speaker 3: to stop the spread of diseases, you have to officially
Speaker 3: embrace transphobic policies. That's the stance of the United States
Speaker 3: government that that matters more than stopping the spread of
Speaker 3: a bola in the Congo.
Speaker 2: Oh and this is like particularly worrying for you know,
Speaker 2: HIV prevenatives across the world as well. Most of the
Speaker 2: language that's used there has been heavily targeted. We're just
Speaker 2: gonna get a whole bunch of people sick and die yep,
Speaker 2: because of these actions.
Speaker 4: Yeah, until it starts getting people sick and dead in
Speaker 4: this country, but we probably won't stop.
Speaker 2: Then, probably not. James, I ptivot to you on our
Speaker 2: semi regular border update.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's me the border guy. I was down at
Speaker 4: the United States border this weekend, the one with Mexico
Speaker 4: and not the Canada one. And when I got back
Speaker 4: from the border, I saw an announcement from the Pentagon
Speaker 4: which announced the deployment of a Striker Brigade Combat Team
Speaker 4: and an aviation battalion. So what's the Striker Brigade combat team?
Speaker 4: You ask, Normally there are like four four hundred soldiers.
Speaker 4: In this case, they're sending twenty four hundred soldiers from
Speaker 4: the fourth Infantry Division based in Fort Carson in Colorado.
Speaker 4: Striker Brigade Combat teams are based around Strikers. Strikers. They
Speaker 4: are armored fighting vehicles with eight wheels.
Speaker 3: They're pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've hung out in a couple.
Speaker 3: A lot of them have fully automatic grenade lodgers. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they have decent air conditioning, you.
Speaker 4: Know, big vehicle outside, small vehicle inside, as with old
Speaker 4: military vehicles. Great when you're six foot three like me,
Speaker 4: but famously not really something you can use for like
Speaker 4: policing the border.
Speaker 3: No, Honestly, a lot of arguments as to whether or
Speaker 3: not they were good at their stated role in warfare.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Bradley's have been having to
Speaker 4: come back in Ukraine. The Striker is not so much.
Speaker 4: What they're not good at is moving through incredibly rugged
Speaker 4: mountainous train stuff where I was on Saturday.
Speaker 3: This is something Chuds don't understand, because a popular thing
Speaker 3: among Chuds is to take their Toyota Tundras, or their
Speaker 3: f one fifties or their Jeep Gladiators and send them
Speaker 3: down to this company in Florida that adds an extra
Speaker 3: axle in two more wheels so that they have six wheels,
Speaker 3: because they think it makes truck go better.
Speaker 4: Just why it ruins everything.
Speaker 3: It's a horrible, wet thing to do to attract I
Speaker 3: know that the people at Jeep have actually been thinking
Speaker 3: about how to make Jep better for quite a while.
Speaker 4: Actually very amusingly. The place I was down at the
Speaker 4: border this weekend, there's a very rugged road that you
Speaker 4: drive down and then you get off and you hike.
Speaker 4: And I remember a few years ago a guy fresh
Speaker 4: minty fresh TRD hundress straight off the lot. And I've
Speaker 4: just negotiated this in a nineteen eighties erratoryo to pick
Speaker 4: up with my friends standing in the back to counterbalance
Speaker 4: and add weight as we go. I offered the spot
Speaker 4: for this guy. He says, no, he doesn't need it
Speaker 4: because it's a tid immediately destroys absolutely.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, very fun, beautiful.
Speaker 2: Love to see these strikers are doing pretty pretty good
Speaker 2: as we're hearing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so we're excited to see the strikerfect perfect vehicle
Speaker 7: for the Terraine. The other vehicles that we're going to
Speaker 7: see are UH sixty black Hawks and Shooks from the
Speaker 7: General Support Aviation Battalion who are deploying along side them.
Speaker 7: They are also about eleven hundred soldiers from sustainment units, right,
Speaker 7: people who facilitate the in this case, infantry and aviation deployment.
Speaker 7: There's some public affairs soldiers, there's people with logistics, people
Speaker 7: who are going to help make this deployment happen.
Speaker 4: Right. In the press release, NORTHCOM that's the North American
Speaker 4: Command of the United States Military, New United States Army
Speaker 4: said to us, carried out by a second strike of
Speaker 4: a gade combat team will include detection and monitoring, administrative support,
Speaker 4: transportation support, warehousing, logistics support, vehicle maintenance, and engineering support.
Speaker 4: Personnel will not conduct or be involved in interdiction or
Speaker 4: deportation operations. So this is the the possecommatatis thing right
Speaker 4: that they're not directly going to be doing cop stuff.
Speaker 4: It's going to be helping border patrol do cop stuff supposedly,
Speaker 4: but this is still very different to the previous deployment.
Speaker 4: We saw that the previous deployments were of like engineers
Speaker 4: and military police, right, the engineers and the marine Cormethine
Speaker 4: is what they seem to do is get up every
Speaker 4: day and put razor wire on fence and then wait
Speaker 4: for someone to take photographs and put razor war on
Speaker 4: fence again.
Speaker 3: Right, And marines love putting razor wire up. It's not
Speaker 3: the job that everyone hates the most.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, everyone loves razor wire. Handling razor wire is
Speaker 4: famously fine.
Speaker 6: Easy.
Speaker 3: Does it get you horribly? Cut the fuck out?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just what you're signed up to do. I
Speaker 4: think what are the MP's doing that they will be
Speaker 4: facilitating CBP operations. I'm guessing like singing, like helping with intelligence,
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff. Probably anti drone stuff. There's been
Speaker 4: a lot of talk about drones. I have not seen
Speaker 4: any small drones mast of the areas where I go
Speaker 4: in the border of federal wilderness or state wilderness, so
Speaker 4: drones aren't allowed there any way, but I've never seen one.
Speaker 4: What makes this different is that these are infantry soldiers, right, like,
Speaker 4: this is a concentration of troops. Everyone in the military
Speaker 4: that kills people, it helps people kill people. These are
Speaker 4: the killing people, guys and girls and well and a
Speaker 4: closeted they thems. Yeah, if you're a close to day
Speaker 4: them in a military, best of luck to you. That's
Speaker 4: what makes it different. Right, this is a significant concentration
Speaker 4: of troops on the border with one of our allies.
Speaker 4: This is coming as the United States has used drone
Speaker 4: over flights to pass information to Mexican authorities that resulted
Speaker 4: in the arrest of cartel personnel in Sinaloa. Right, So
Speaker 4: it is a significant change, and I imagine, based on
Speaker 4: what I've heard from sources, that we will see more
Speaker 4: of this. Right. The US's deployable infantry troops will be
Speaker 4: coming to the border. It means that we might soon
Speaker 4: be seeing foot patrols, right, soldiers on foot walking through
Speaker 4: the mountains to the border, because we ain't going to
Speaker 4: see striker mounted patrols out there if they want to
Speaker 4: keep their strikers. They're adding more helicopter assets, right, which
Speaker 4: can both move people to more remote areas and do
Speaker 4: more surveiller surveillance. I would assume, yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: like when a hiker was shot down at the border
Speaker 4: a few weeks ago and I was out there very
Speaker 4: quickly thereafter, and they used a UH sixty first, well,
Speaker 4: actually didn't evacuate the person in the UA sixty. They
Speaker 4: went to the UA sixty of back to them in
Speaker 4: a eurocopter, and then another military black hawk was kind
Speaker 4: of flying over after that, and I'm guessing that was
Speaker 4: just to kind of provide cover for the like the
Speaker 4: first responders right who were going there to I think
Speaker 4: in that case they're investigating the scene the person had
Speaker 4: been evacuated, but there are very remote areas of the
Speaker 4: border which probably are best access by helicopter, and so
Speaker 4: that's what they will be doing. But this does represent
Speaker 4: a significant concentration of combat troops on the border with
Speaker 4: that ally, which is not a normal thing to do.
Speaker 5: And it's worth bearing in mind that as we're doing
Speaker 5: troop build ups in the Mexican border, there are a
Speaker 5: lot of people in the Trump administration who want to
Speaker 5: do just full on cross border US military operations in Mexico.
Speaker 5: They want to do invasions, they want to do like
Speaker 5: what would they think of as like hell actions.
Speaker 4: So yeah, sort of support for like drone strikes right now,
Speaker 4: which the terrorist designation does kind of pave a road to.
Speaker 4: But obviously it's worth noting for those not familiar that
Speaker 4: Mexico is a different country and you don't just get
Speaker 4: to drowned strike other countries.
Speaker 6: That's an active war.
Speaker 2: Well, and speaking of they them's in the military, I
Speaker 2: will do a quick follow up before we go on break.
Speaker 2: We mentioned last week about efforts from the Navy to
Speaker 2: house trans naval members. I guess, I guess they kind
Speaker 2: of all are sailors, aren't they, But basically, how's them
Speaker 2: with people matching their assigned gender at birth, same thing
Speaker 2: with access to intimate spaces like bathrooms. This has escalated
Speaker 2: further to now a general quasi ban of trans people
Speaker 2: from the military altogether, with a few implementation paths towards this,
Speaker 2: a form of like don't ask, don't tell. We will
Speaker 2: report on this more in the fewuture as a part
Speaker 2: of a larger piece on the lavender scare currently happening
Speaker 2: across the government. But that that did happen literally like
Speaker 2: a few hours after we record it, we got word
Speaker 2: that they are seeking to disband trans people from the
Speaker 2: military altogether. Anyway, we will go on break and return
Speaker 2: to talk ter us.
Speaker 3: We're back. Hey, I wanted to note something I was
Speaker 3: unaware of because I have not changed my friend's name
Speaker 3: and my phone, but Joey now goes by aliyah ayub.
Speaker 3: I apologize for the error there, but James corrected me.
Speaker 3: So we're good team.
Speaker 4: What makes a dreamwork?
Speaker 3: And never changing people's names in my phone makes well?
Speaker 1: Actually, I usually I was gonna say, I'm impressed you
Speaker 1: have a name saved in.
Speaker 3: Your alas is a friend, so I actually have their
Speaker 3: name saved in my phone. Of the texts coming at
Speaker 3: me at any given time is just a series of
Speaker 3: unlabeled phone numbers, and my it's chaos. I'm just guessing
Speaker 3: that people are who who raise someone I should be
Speaker 3: in contact with?
Speaker 2: That's absurd. Well, there's no tariffs or butts about it.
Speaker 2: But the economy is it a bad spot?
Speaker 6: No, I was gonna do.
Speaker 5: I was gonna do, speaking of absurd but no, no,
Speaker 5: even worse worser Garrison.
Speaker 3: You know what, Gear, I'm proud of you. That's almost
Speaker 3: as good as my rock the kas Bo joke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you wanna do you wanna do? Tariff talk?
Speaker 6: No? But do we do it anyways, So.
Speaker 5: After those horrors we got we have other horrors, question mark.
Speaker 5: So on Tuesday, Trump's tariffs on Canada and Mexico and
Speaker 5: also an additional ten percent tariff on China went into effect.
Speaker 5: So these are twenty five percent across the board tarriffs.
Speaker 5: There's some I think there are only like ten percent
Speaker 5: on Canadian oil.
Speaker 2: Canadian energy, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: Like energy stuff.
Speaker 5: Weirdly that's not also applied to Mexico, even though we
Speaker 5: this's a shit ton of oil.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 5: And at sort of the last moment, if there was
Speaker 5: a kind of he got called by all three of
Speaker 5: the heads of the big three auto manufacturers who were like,
Speaker 5: if you don't exclude auto tariffs, we're all gonna die.
Speaker 5: So he's he's like pushed tariffs out for one month.
Speaker 5: They're suspended on automotive imports. We still don't know what
Speaker 5: the fuck that actually means, because it's unclear whether he
Speaker 5: just means like cars and trucks or whether it also
Speaker 5: includes auto parts. Deeply unclear. There's also all tariff alune
Speaker 5: women steel imports. He announced that a tariff on in
Speaker 5: the speech the copper Rolem.
Speaker 6: We knew about.
Speaker 5: I don't think we knew about the illune women's steel imports,
Speaker 5: which are new, which are also going to be sort
Speaker 5: of catastrophic. I want to read this amazing c quote
Speaker 5: from CNBC. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that Trump's tariff
Speaker 5: will cause quote higher prices, but he maintained that only
Speaker 5: some products would be affected and that price hikes would
Speaker 5: be temporary.
Speaker 2: Famously, price hikes are only temporary.
Speaker 6: Hold on, hold on, it gets better. We've got to
Speaker 6: the other part.
Speaker 5: Yet, Lutnick consisted that those rising prices should not be
Speaker 5: considered inflation. Okay, as the President said last night, there's
Speaker 5: going to be a short period where there be some
Speaker 5: higher prices on certain products. The cabinet secretary said on
Speaker 5: Fox News, it's not inflation. That's nonsense, certain products for
Speaker 5: a short period of time. He said, No, Now, the
Speaker 5: definition of inflation, and I kind of emphasize this enough
Speaker 5: is prices going up, so.
Speaker 6: Great great stuff here.
Speaker 5: There's also, you know, as this has been unfolding, there
Speaker 5: are been reciprocal tariffs from Canada. The first round of
Speaker 5: negotiation between Trump and Trudeau basically went nowhere. Canada's putting
Speaker 5: tariffs on And this is of both Canada and China,
Speaker 5: who have both done reciprocal tariffs. They've been more limited.
Speaker 5: They're only targeting sort.
Speaker 6: Of specific sectors.
Speaker 5: Well, the Chinese rates are lower. China's Yeah, rates are
Speaker 5: really a ton of fifteen percent, the big one from China.
Speaker 6: And I'm very.
Speaker 5: Confused about this whole the way everyone's talking about this,
Speaker 5: because everyone only seems to be talking about Canada and
Speaker 5: Mexico and these, even though the terrorfraid on China is
Speaker 5: now up to twenty percent.
Speaker 4: Yeah he did it out of a two steps, right
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, he slid under the rada, you know, obviously,
Speaker 5: Like yeah, okay, So like the US and Mexico and
Speaker 5: the US and Canada have the two largest trading relationships
Speaker 5: on Earth. However, Comma, the Chinese cciprocal tariffs are really
Speaker 5: going to hurt because one of the big things that
Speaker 5: they're targeting is US soybean exports. Now, we do twelve
Speaker 5: billion dollars of soybean exports per year. This matters enormously though.
Speaker 5: It has an outsized impact regardless of sort of the
Speaker 5: dollar amounts here because Midwest farming, huge parts of it
Speaker 5: is based on yearly rotations between soybeans and corn to
Speaker 5: maintain soil quality. Right, like the farm like that I
Speaker 5: grew up near, Like this is what they did, right,
Speaker 5: this is this a massive portion of mid Western agriculture
Speaker 5: functions off of this.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just also just like soybeans and corn are
Speaker 3: like primarily what human beings grow. Yeah, yeah, and rice
Speaker 3: like those are really the big three.
Speaker 6: You can't you can't eat that corn, but yeah, well.
Speaker 3: You don't, but it's part of your foods.
Speaker 2: Eventually it becomes yeah, yeah, it's it's corn syrup.
Speaker 3: And ship but yeah, well corn syrup and also it's
Speaker 3: you know what the animals be yeah yeah, when they
Speaker 3: feed it to cattle and chickens, yeah.
Speaker 5: And so and so this is this is going to
Speaker 5: have a massive disruption on American agriculture. Trump has also
Speaker 5: been talking about imposing attacks on all American agricultural exports.
Speaker 5: Is some sort of weird like American autarchy thing. So
Speaker 5: interest the thing people are calling this a terriff. This
Speaker 5: is not a teriff. You don't impose tariffs on something
Speaker 5: that you are exporting to. How this works, you know,
Speaker 5: like you can go back to a basic hey, division
Speaker 5: of powers.
Speaker 6: Congress has the power of taxation. Wait, how is he.
Speaker 5: Doing who knows? I don't know where where where were
Speaker 5: so far beyond that. But like the thing that he's
Speaker 5: hinting at here right, like if he really is trying
Speaker 5: to sort of like prevent all US agricultural exports, this
Speaker 5: is apocalyptic. Yeah, and it's also worth noting this thing
Speaker 5: has also been lost in the news.
Speaker 6: But he's been talking about this. He's been talking.
Speaker 5: About doing these tariffs to the EU twenty five percent
Speaker 5: across the board, terrafs A, the EU. Now, what I
Speaker 5: think is important. So the markets today on Wednesday have
Speaker 5: been going back up. They immediately tanked like Tuesday.
Speaker 2: This week was nasty like Monday. Tuesday was red.
Speaker 5: And what's happening here is that none of this shit,
Speaker 5: None of the analysts, none of the people getting paid,
Speaker 5: like fucking thirty million dollars do you do to financial analysts?
Speaker 6: What other the fuck?
Speaker 5: Like, none of these people, none of them thought this
Speaker 5: these terrorists were actually going to happen.
Speaker 6: They all just assumed.
Speaker 5: But they were, Oh, he's not actually gonna do it,
Speaker 5: He's not actually gonna do it this it's just negotiations. No, No,
Speaker 5: he was He's doing it, and he was going to
Speaker 5: do it. They probably will be like sector bisecond negotiations
Speaker 5: to get temporary lifts on them. But none of this
Speaker 5: shit was priced in. None of the financial animal like
Speaker 5: no one was doing business planning or whatever, like, none
Speaker 5: of this shit was supposed to be real, you know.
Speaker 5: And what's happening right now is sort of like they're
Speaker 5: latching on to this thing with some of the auto
Speaker 5: teriffs being lifted for a month again one month, not
Speaker 5: and not an actual lift, but one month. They're latching
Speaker 5: onto this and they're going, Okay, maybe we can sort
Speaker 5: of reverse this.
Speaker 6: But this is the.
Speaker 5: First moment that the financial markets have actually had to
Speaker 5: grapple with the fact that Trump is going to do
Speaker 5: all of the shit he says he's going to do.
Speaker 5: And like, like that afternoon, Bloomberg had a guy on
Speaker 5: like calling Trump a dictator and saying he wasn't gonna
Speaker 5: have elections. We are we are beginning to see capital
Speaker 5: flight from the US, where investors are like are openly
Speaker 5: talking about like pulling their fucking money out of this
Speaker 5: country and pulling into somewhere else because it's no longer stable.
Speaker 6: And this is something that you know.
Speaker 5: I think the next dam will be when the US
Speaker 5: is like credit rating gets downgraded, but we're starting to
Speaker 5: see the damn break on the financial class and all
Speaker 5: of these analysts and like people on Wall Street realizing
Speaker 5: that no, he is going to continue to throw bombs
Speaker 5: at the entire world economy in order to sort of
Speaker 5: carry out He's like, I want to be like the
Speaker 5: fucking big man Empire guy.
Speaker 2: I like Trudeau. I had a call with Trump on Wednesday,
Speaker 2: basically going, hey, what's what the fuck man? I thought
Speaker 2: I thought we had a deal, and Trump was like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not seeing much progress on the whole Fentanel thing.
Speaker 2: And Trudeau's like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 2: And Trump then basically pointed towards him not being satisfied
Speaker 2: until there's a new Canadian government, like he's not gonna
Speaker 2: want to lift these until Trudeau is out of office
Speaker 2: and ask Trudeau when the next Canadian election, is hinting
Speaker 2: towards the fact that he just is going to refuse
Speaker 2: to seriously negotiate with Trudeau and will wait until whoever
Speaker 2: the next guy is. Meanwhile, you haven't post from the
Speaker 2: Chinese embassy in the US saying if war is what
Speaker 2: the US wants, be it a teriff for a trade war,
Speaker 2: or any other type of war, We're ready to fight
Speaker 2: till the end.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I will say. I will say.
Speaker 5: The guys they put on the embassy pr comms are
Speaker 5: giftshits like. Those are not the guys running the Chinese government.
Speaker 5: Those are like the fucking clowns they put at these
Speaker 5: administrative posts to like scream about wolf warriors or whatever
Speaker 5: the fuck. The reporting I've seen from inside the Chinese
Speaker 5: government is that they also were like what the fuck
Speaker 5: are you doing? And they're they're trying to figure out
Speaker 5: like okay, like how do you negotiate with this guy?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Like yeah, And they're having real issues because like for all,
Speaker 5: for all of the Chinese government does like this is
Speaker 5: a government of capitalists.
Speaker 6: They want to make money, and.
Speaker 5: They're looking at a guy who is willing to just
Speaker 5: blow the entire thing up.
Speaker 3: Here's my pitch for what we should do with China, right,
Speaker 3: you know how, China has this border conflict with India
Speaker 3: that could endo the world, but usually just involves two
Speaker 3: groups of people with spears that were originally made in
Speaker 3: the thirteenth century having failing fights. In the mountains. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we should just send over a couple of thousand marines
Speaker 3: and do that with China. Get it all out of
Speaker 3: our systems, this whole all this war talk. Just have
Speaker 3: a couple thousand dudes, have a big old speared fight.
Speaker 3: We filmed the set of a bit. We get some drones,
Speaker 3: we bring it. Maybe we bring in Tarantino. He'd be
Speaker 3: great to film the fucker. You know. We really just
Speaker 3: have a good time with it, and then we just
Speaker 3: go back to not not doing stuff like this.
Speaker 5: Look, I think if we get us and trying to
Speaker 5: compete each other in the against each other in the
Speaker 5: US Special Forces Games, and we show this to Donald
Speaker 5: Trump and we have the Chinese government take like a
Speaker 5: stage loss or something, we could solve most of our problems.
Speaker 3: You can just edit it to be whoever like for
Speaker 3: both countries. Right, you have an America version and a
Speaker 3: China version.
Speaker 2: We already do this.
Speaker 6: So the last.
Speaker 5: Sort of serious thing that I want to talk about
Speaker 5: here is that this, especially the stuff he's talking about
Speaker 5: with you, but also with sort of Canada, this has
Speaker 5: broken the sort of international coalition that all of these
Speaker 5: people have been setting up for a really law time right,
Speaker 5: this whole sort of coalition of all the sort of
Speaker 5: world's right wing governments like coming together in this like
Speaker 5: national thing, and like they're really fucked now. Like the
Speaker 5: Canadian right was just like about to take power and
Speaker 5: they might not now. And even if they you take power,
Speaker 5: they're gonna have to like deal with the fact that
Speaker 5: they've all been like fucking maniac Trump supporters this whole time,
Speaker 5: and Trump has just been like fucking their entire country.
Speaker 5: And like these people are now talking about like again
Speaker 5: like shutting off power to the US, and this is
Speaker 5: happening all over the world with all of these fascist
Speaker 5: parties who've been allied with the US right. They're now
Speaker 5: having to grapple with the fact that the US is
Speaker 5: just gonna it's just gonna fuck them. Weirdly, the thing
Speaker 5: it reminds me a lot is like the situation you
Speaker 5: got at the end of the seventies in East Asia
Speaker 5: with the communists, where it was like, Okay, so we
Speaker 5: have three nominally communist governments on the border with each other. Right,
Speaker 5: you have China, you have Cabodia, and you have Vietnam,
Speaker 5: and I guess you have Flows and then then those
Speaker 5: three governments instead of like forming a united bloc, like
Speaker 5: all go to war with each other. And that's like
Speaker 5: sort of what we're seeing with the fascists right now
Speaker 5: is like because Trump has decided to just be like
Speaker 5: fuck it, like we're just gonna do tariffs on everyone
Speaker 5: it has, it is really starting to tear his coalition
Speaker 5: apart and hopefully this rolls back a bunch of their
Speaker 5: gains everywhere else in the world. And yeah, they suply chit.
Speaker 2: And I think Trump is using for leverage here beyond
Speaker 2: even tariffs, like a cutting out Canada from the Five
Speaker 2: Eyes Intelligence Group, halting intel sharing with Ukraine, very very
Speaker 2: like drastic steps in terms of like national security and
Speaker 2: intel sharing.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's just deeply clear that what's happening
Speaker 3: is we're ending every single thing the US used to
Speaker 3: do that Trump does not see as a direct financial
Speaker 3: benefit and largely aligning ourselves with Russia against every state
Speaker 3: that does not have the physical power to stop us.
Speaker 2: Yep, well that does it for us today. I know,
Speaker 2: on Tuesday night, Trump did a speech to a joint
Speaker 2: session of Congress. We have a whole episode on that
Speaker 2: that released yesterday. Because there was just so much to
Speaker 2: talk about. So if you want to hear our thoughts
Speaker 2: on that, you can check out yesterday's episode on his
Speaker 2: congressional speech Full of Somebody. A summary, yes, because the
Speaker 2: speech was very long, focused a lot on trans people,
Speaker 2: focused a lot on the border, talked about national security,
Speaker 2: really skipped over the economy because yeah, no, guys, so great,
Speaker 2: because that's not really going too good.
Speaker 6: Keep shooting holes in it.
Speaker 2: Let me skip over that. Focused more on trans people
Speaker 2: as the single greatest threat facing this country. But yes,
Speaker 2: if you want to hear about that, check out yesterday's
Speaker 2: episode on the it could happen here feed.
Speaker 1: The shortest summary possible speech bad.
Speaker 4: Speech bad?
Speaker 2: Yeah, speech bad. The era of woke is over would
Speaker 2: be the other summary I give.
Speaker 4: The era of woke is over? Where where you're employed?
Speaker 4: If the era of woke has ended your employment and
Speaker 4: you'd like to reach out to us, you can using
Speaker 4: our proton metaddress. That doesn't mean that it's not like
Speaker 4: if you're not using proton that it's not end to
Speaker 4: ending crypto. If you are, then it's encrypted, but it
Speaker 4: doesn't mean it's necessarily totally safe. So you need to
Speaker 4: do what you think is best. It is cool Zone
Speaker 4: tips at proton dot me. If you don't work for government,
Speaker 4: but you do work for Elon Musk in another capacity,
Speaker 4: it would also be very funny to hear from you
Speaker 4: about what that is like. So yeah, cool Zone tips
Speaker 4: at proton.
Speaker 2: Dot me increasingly relevant considering that social Security layoffs have
Speaker 2: started and they're now seeking to cut possibly upwrints of
Speaker 2: fifty percent of the Social Security workforce and the irs.
Speaker 4: So I'm sure that's going to work out great for
Speaker 4: government revenues.
Speaker 2: I'm sure everything will be fine and America will be
Speaker 2: back on top in no time.
Speaker 4: It is back. America is back. I learned that last
Speaker 4: night we reported the news.
Speaker 5: Yes, we certainly did.
Speaker 6: We reported the news.
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