WEBVTT - Michael Ian Black Has the Answers 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.440 I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.840 CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:09.520 in Europe, Russia, and in Asia. 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.640 And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.840 and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:17.799 our adversaries. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.720 Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:23.520 theories large and small. 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.280 Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated? 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:28.800 This is mission implausible. 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:36.239 So Michael Ian Blank is a comedian, actor, writer, and 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.560 a keen observer of the absurd and American culture, which 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.120 aimfully is these days one in the same and you're 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.159 repeat offender on mission in Plausa, Yes, Sam, on a 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.080 more serious thing, on one of your more serious works, 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.440 one of the classics you've written, A pig Parade is 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:58.600 a Terrible idea twenty ten. And in A Pig Parade 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.280 is a Terrible Idea, you claim that while people can 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:06.160 be convinced that a pig parade might sound like a 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.560 great idea, it just isn't in practice. 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:14.800 The pigs are a metaphor for capitalists. You think it's 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:16.959 gonna be great, You know you're gonna you're gonna You're 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:19.039 gonna throw open the doors, and then what are they 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.880 gonna do. They're gonna snuffle all over everything. They're gonna 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.600 eat more food than is their share. They're gonna be destructive, 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.120 they're gonna be sloppy, and at the end of it, 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.640 who's cleaning up the mess us the proletariat. 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.160 And it fits on top of that there is going 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:37.440 to be a parade. We're told in just recent days 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.679 that President Trump is gonna hold a military parade like 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.360 he wanted to do in his first term, which happens 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:45.000 to be on his birthday. 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:50.160 He's an asshole. Can we just make Has the United 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:55.040 States ever held an official military parade? We must have, 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:57.240 right at some point. I'm not saying that outside of 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:00.520 wartime when we're sort of, uh, we're not not bringing 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.840 back soldiers from the Gulf or something like that, But 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:04.640 have we ever just had, for the hell of it, 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:06.160 a military parade? 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.200 I think the military is usually against that type of thing. 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.040 There's been times, like when President Kennedy died and there 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:17.120 was a kison with some military. You know, there's ceremonial times, 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.040 but I don't think we've ever had one like he 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.079 wants that. Apparently he saw military prede in France and 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.480 said we need to have that with tanks and everything, and. 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:26.280 They didn't want to do it because the tanks were 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.880 going to chew up Pennsylvania Avenue. And like the I 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:29.400 think they. 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.040 Also didn't want to do it because it's not who 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.000 we how we want to represent ourselves as a purely 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:39.960 martial power. But now that we have reduced and or 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:44.800 eliminated all of our soft power, why not just have 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.440 pershing missiles flying down constitution. 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:50.760 Pete Hagg's got doing push ups on the top of 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:57.440 a Bradley fighting Don. 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.120 Bongino in his personal pretoriat? Is that what a preetoriat 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:00.640 guaritorian guarding? 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:02.760 Yes, go back to Roman times. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.160 Apparently he's the first deputy of the FBI who has 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.720 to have a security detail because normally FBI agents are 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.040 trained and can carry guns, and he is not. 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:15.320 He's not trained to carry a gun, or he's not 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.959 allowed to have a gun because of things in his past. 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.080 Yeah, I didn't read deep enough into the article I 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.120 saw on this, so I. 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.919 Did have a question about conspiracies in the US government 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.000 and your background as a poker player, right, I never 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:29.720 want to play poker with you. You want you know 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:31.720 you're a pro, You want to want a lot of 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.880 words and competitions. And so we're involved in like the 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.920 biggest fucking poker game ever with this right now, at 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.680 least economically, with these tears. Do you think, with what's 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.000 going on now, that they have a plan, the conspiracy 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.800 to pull this shit off their eight dimensional chests or 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.240 is this just like general fuckery, like you've got to 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:52.120 rub at the table. 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:56.520 Well, in recent weeks, what we've seen is Trump deploying advance, 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.920 deploying the poker metaphor remember how many times Trump has 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.640 said of Ukraine, they just don't have the cards, they 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:06.760 don't have the cards. And Avance said it about Greenland. 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:08.600 I think that are the car I mean, they just 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.880 they keep talking about the cards. But what your question 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:18.080 presupposes is that they're actually that they have something in 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.680 mind that they're trying to achieve. And I do have 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.360 a sort of wild eyed conspiracy theory about this very topic. 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:26.200 Let's here. 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:33.600 It begins, this conspiracy theory with Trump believing in climate change. 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:39.160 It begins with Trump, maybe during his first administration or 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:43.200 some other time, being surrounded by advisors who say, you know, sir, 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.520 and these are big advisors, tears rolling down their faces. 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.839 You know, sir, climate change is real. Here's the data. 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.919 In the next one hundred years, the southwest and some 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:56.760 of the south of the United States is going to 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:01.040 become less and less hospitable to human life. And Trump 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:02.960 may have pooh poohed that poop pooh, that poo poo that. 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:09.000 The second part of my conspiracy is the assassination attempt, 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.279 which I'm saying is real. If somebody tried to kill him, 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.719 and then immediately after, if you recall, everybody was saying, oh, Trump, 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.080 he's a changed man. He's become more reflective, he's different now, 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.960 and we all thought, those of us from a distance, thought, oh, 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.360 that means he's going to become kind and compassionate. I 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.040 think the opposite happened. I think it made him more 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:33.400 belligerent and hostile. And so when you combine those two 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:37.720 things plus the other part of the assassination attempt that 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:39.920 I think it did get him thinking about was Oh. 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:41.520 I think it did get him thinking about his own 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.240 mortality and thinking that he's going to be dead at 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.520 some point, and what is his legacy going to be. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.240 And I don't think he necessarily considered that before that, 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:51.320 because I think he thought of himself as immortal. Okay, 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:53.800 you put all that together, what do you get? You 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.440 get a guy thinking about his legacy who understands that 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.240 the southern half of the United States over the next 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.680 hundred years is going to become lad less than hospitable. 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:04.560 At the same time, up in Canada, all of that 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.840 land is going to warm, all those resources are going 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:11.640 to become more available, more accessible. Up at the Arctic Circle, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:16.000 all of those resources are already in dispute and already contended. 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.919 At the same time, you've got Greenland where all of 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:24.200 this is taking place climate wise. At the same time, 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.599 you've also got demographic trends in the United States which 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:29.960 say that by the year twenty forty something or whatever, 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.360 white people are going to become the minority. We know 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.520 that he has surrounded himself by white supremacists and fascists 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.680 who believe that white people should be in charge of everything. 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:40.800 What does Canada have a lot of white people? What 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.279 does Greenland have a lot of land? What does Russia 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.719 our new ally have a lot of white people? And 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:51.360 ultra Christianity, Orthodox Christianity. So you combine all those things, 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:53.320 and what I think that I think, my wild eye 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.320 conspiracy is that Trump and his people are trying to 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:02.160 position America as a soup superpower for the next one 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:05.040 hundred and fifty years or two hundred years, which is 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:11.160 allied with Russia, as a bulwark against Russia and against Asia. 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.320 And so you have this massive land mass which is 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:21.360 North America minus Mexico, Canada, Greenland, You've got the Arctic Circle, 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.160 and then you've got our closest new ally Russia. And 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.160 what you've done is you've created a scenario where we 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:34.040 become impregnable and incredibly formidable. That's my conspiracy theory. 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.000 What's the fee that's as delusional as the UFO stuff 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:46.760 you talk to us about less. 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.320 Podcast, I said, delusional. Don't you think that makes perfect sense? 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:50.560 White people, Russia, Christianity, Liban Swum. 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:52.680 Let me ask you this, have you seen anything else 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.360 in Trump's history in the last twenty five years that 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:56.040 makes sense? 0:07:57.720 --> 0:07:58.800 Like you're saying, like. 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.200 A guy can think of a plan more than five 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:02.040 seconds ahead of. 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:04.840 But what I guess what I'm saying is it's not 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.360 his plan. He's just sort of instituting it, and he's 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:10.480 being sort of led down the from Rose path by 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.560 Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon and the coupal of weirdos 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.400 who's guiding this presidency. 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.400 The Heritage Foundation. I, you know, genetically just don't like 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.080 conspiracy theories. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna actually say that 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.480 I think there's elements in that that that actually resonate 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:29.720 with me. The thing about a legacy, I think, the 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.640 thing about wanting a white Christian nation, although he's hardly Christian, 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.720 but not really the white nationalist thing. I think his 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.280 whole thing of expansion. And when was the last time 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.920 a president's went around praising William McKinley, right, I mean 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.439 it's been a lot. I'm the only one who's read 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.320 his memoirs recently, but but yeah, I mean, will I 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:55.920 think there's there is something to that, although I suspect 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.560 it's less of a cunning plan than just feral instincts 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.240 that that come together. But I think this is an 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:07.240 administration riven by conspiracies and conspiracy theories. I mean, look 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:12.320 no further than Laura Lumer walks into the Oval office 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.679 and suddenly and a sort of Madame LaFarge's head start 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:20.920 to roll, and there's no understanding why the head of 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.760 the n essay was fired, and just people in airal 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.720 security and a sea are being fired, like why. 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.600 I think the more pregnant question, and I use that 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.959 word advisedly, is why is Trump listening to Laura Lumer? 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.240 Why is she always in and out of his orbit? 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.160 Of all people like she's such a weirdo. Everybody around 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.400 him hates her. They all try to keep them apart. 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:50.000 And the question is why why does she have his ear? 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:52.280 And I think that's I think that's an interesting question. 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:53.640 Does she have just his ear? 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.319 Almost every one of those things you brought up to 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:58.680 talking about they they they And one of the things 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.640 I see with that Trump and this time it was 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:06.040 a little different last time, is there's a they is 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.800 not a cohesive thing. I think he has overlapping and 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.040 very different people who work for him. So he's got 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.280 Musk who has a completely different view of what where 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:16.840 the world should go and should go to Mars and 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.400 we should destroy the democracy. And then you've got the 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.520 economic tariff people, and then you've got the true crazies 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:26.960 and the lower Lumer people. You've got a group of 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.080 real pro China people and then a separate group of 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.640 real anti China people. Even just yesterday they were asking 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:33.760 about the tariffs and are they going to stay, are 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:35.080 they not going to stay, or they just to do 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.840 Different people in the administration, senior people who conceivably were 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.640 in the same meetings together, say absolutely the opposite things 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:45.959 because there's no coordination. So, Michael, with that lead up 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:47.880 and the fact that I think these people do have 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.400 different agendas and I think you agree to that, what 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.360 do you think Elon Musk's agenda is? 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.880 And with his fighting with Peter Navarro, can there be 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.920 only one who must be out? Or Navarro be out 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:01.480 two months from now? 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.120 Well, Musk has already said he's leaving. Musk is saying 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:08.199 that he's going to leave by early May. Ockham's razor 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:14.120 would suggest that Musk is primarily interested in Musk. So 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:21.520 how does all this random nonsense benefit Elon Musk? And 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:25.880 obviously like he's destroying all the agencies that would regulate 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:30.880 his particular industries, But then why go after Social Security? 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.240 Why go after USAID? Like I don't understand, I don't 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:38.240 understand it at all. I don't understand how the nation 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:42.800 as a whole just accepted the premise of waste, fraud, 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.160 and abuse. We just were like, oh, yeah, well, the 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.240 government spends too much money, and there's too many people 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.160 in the government, and it's doing too many things and 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.360 it's but why did we just accept that premise? I 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.320 never accepted that premise. It seemed to me that the 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.120 government in general's probably doing a pretty good job. Like, 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:01.880 I know people who work in the government, they work hard. 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:04.199 You guys worked in the government, you work hard, you 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.000 did good work. I'm friends with people who work in 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.880 the UN World Food Program. All they do is try 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.800 to feed people. That's their whole thing. Trump just destroyed 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:18.280 their program. All the scientists, the meteorologists, the firefighters, Like, 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:22.720 why did we just accept that premise? I find it infuriating. 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:27.720 I also find the premise and narrative around immigration infuriating 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.160 that we just accepted that illegal immigris Is. 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.520 That because is it an education thing? Do you think 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.280 the American public just don't understand their government because I 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:38.720 don't accept any of those things. 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:43.560 I think we've been propagandized so effectively by the right 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.480 wing media and pireennial what you want to call it. 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.240 I think Historically, I think we all know that Americans 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:55.160 have a kind of fundamental, inbred distrust of government that 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.040 stems from our origins as a nation. But over the 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.640 last few centuries, we've asked the government to do more 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:08.079 because we needed as we became more complex economically, militarily, industrially, technologically, 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.600 we needed people to regulate this stuff, to look at it, 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.400 because when we don't, we end up with things like 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.320 the Great Depression or all the depressions that preceded the 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.840 Great Depression, or we end up with a sort of 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:25.000 hodgepodge of like laws around who gets educated and who doesn't, 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:26.920 and who's allowed to buy real estate and who doesn't, 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.160 and who can get married and who doesn't like all 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.360 of these things. We've asked the government to provide some 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:35.400 oversight and regulation because it was necessary and for the 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:37.199 American people that just turn around and go, oh, yeah, 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:39.760 we didn't mean any of that. You didn't think. You 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.880 hadn't thought it through. That's the issue. And so now 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.160 we're seeing what happens when you think it through and 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.720 you start asking people left and right, and suddenly the 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.720 Social Security Administration you can't get through on the phone. 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.160 Why because we're getting rid of the phones. It's just insanity. 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.800 And I don't understand what Musk's role is in all 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.240 of this. To answer your question, I don't know. It 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.679 doesn't make any sense to me other than if your 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:09.760 goal is to actually rip apart the government, which it 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.200 seems like that is their goal. But to what end? 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:14.960 That's getting back to your original question about the poker. 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.040 To what end? What are they trying to accomplish? And 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.120 I don't know that they've articulated it in any way 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:21.520 other than to say we're going to make it. 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.120 I've come to think that this is chaos, that there 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.800 is no conspiracy here. There is no three dimensional eight 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.120 dimensional chess here. The American society, and I know people 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:34.200 are going to like balk at this. We have it. 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.800 We currently have it so good. We don't even think 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.400 we need these things anymore. We haven't had people die 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:45.800 of measles or measles outbreaks in twenty thirty years. Polio 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.160 is gone. The Great Recessions was the nineteen thirties. We 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.920 haven't had a land war in Europe in eighty years? Right, 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.560 Why do we still need vaccines? Why do we still 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.440 need NATO? People don't think they need them because like 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.240 we have work because they've worked exactly right. Yeah, we 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.000 haven't an award because we've had a we have an alliance, 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.920 and we also and this is much more difficult. Globalization 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:14.000 is a fact. It just friggin' is. And there are 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:18.600 winners and losers, just like there was when we moved 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:23.280 from horses to the internal combustion engine. Right, if you 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:27.320 were in the horse tending business, you were fucked, you know. 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:31.240 Henry Ford was the Elon Muskiv's day, and you know, 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.280 when we're moving towards green energy, and I think a 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.160 lot of people are scared, and I think that has 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.080 been pushed, but there's no plan other and this is 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.800 one conspiracy that I do buy into Project twenty twenty 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:45.160 five with the Heritage Foundation. I think they do have 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:45.560 a plan. 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:49.160 Just hold on for a short break. 0:15:49.160 --> 0:16:03.600 We'll be right back. All right, we're back from the break. 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:04.600 Let's get back into it. 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:10.040 I think because people are scared, perhaps one thing is 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:14.800 that people around Trump are thinking is, yeah, it's like authoritarianism. 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.280 Let's just give them a simple solution. And that is 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.080 something we see in history over and over and over again, 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.400 going back to ancient Greece when you get the Athenians 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.480 afraid they're going to look for a tyrant, or the Romans, 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.240 or let's go to nineteen thirty three with the Germans. 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.800 If you can make people afraid and offer simple solutions, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.640 you can have power. And I think that's the pot 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:38.720 at the center of the table at this poker game 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.040 is power. What they want to do with it, I'm 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.040 not really sure because I don't think there's a day. 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.920 I think there's different days. Peter Navarro where he wants 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.280 to go, and where Milan Musk wants to go, and 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.320 where the Koch brothers want to go. But it's a conspiracy. 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:57.160 Everybody's looking to control this tired, confused old man at 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.680 the nasty old man at the sitting and sitting behind 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:04.160 the Resist desk with Elon Musk's kids booger on it. 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.480 But I think Musk is different from Project twenty twenty five. 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.840 I think they am different, and I need to dig 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.280 into it more. But I think the Musk people, there's 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:15.960 some books and things that Peter Teel and Musk and 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.840 sort of these South African tech guys have this view 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:21.720 that the US government is just a giant and giant 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:24.680 insurance company with an army, and the problem with the 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.199 government is it spends all its money to support the 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.840 Week in society, and the Week are holding us down. 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.080 And if we're going to move to a new world 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.080 that's in Mars and Ai driven, we have to actually 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.159 destroy that and get rid of the Week and have 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:40.960 a group of white people who could do things. And 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.399 so I think his view is different probably than a 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:44.919 lot of these other people around Trump. 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.639 Yeah, I think you're exactly like Peter Teel and Elon 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:53.160 Musk and like David Sachs, the other South African member 0:17:53.240 --> 0:18:00.000 of this troika. They're part of this techno utopian slash 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:07.119 feudal vision for how they see the next phase of 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:11.800 human development playing out. And they've utilized the bizarre writings 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.960 of Curtis Jarvin, this sort of weird philosopher of the right, 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:20.000 as a kind of intellectual undergirding for their project, which 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:24.239 basically just amounts to a new feudalism where you're going 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:30.760 to have these tech overlords controlling literal land masses as 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:35.240 private essentially countries that you can then move to and 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.760 become a citizen of. But it will be but they 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.800 will be ruled over by these monarchs, the Peterteels, the 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:46.199 Elon Musks, the David Sachses of the world, and you 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.520 will abide by their rules, and presumably you will have 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:51.520 freedom of movement. I guess if you decide you don't 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:53.439 like their rules, and then you can go to some 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:57.040 other tech oligarch's country. But then what happens when the 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.639 tech oligarchs start fighting, as they inevitably will. Are they 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.600 going to maintain their private tech oligarch armies and there? 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.040 I mean, what are we doing? What are we doing? 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:06.280 What? 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:08.280 And how do they even envision the role of the 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:12.080 United States in all of this? And I don't really know, 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:14.920 other than maybe it's what you said. They'll be a 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:16.879 kind of insurance company with an army, and they'll be 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.520 there to sort of mediate these disputes so that David 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:24.240 Sachs and Elon Musk aren't sending armies of in cells 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:26.320 to fight with each other. I don't know. None of 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:27.080 it makes sense to me. 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:32.520 On Social Security. My grandmother had a an Irish immigrant. 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:36.320 She had a third grade education. She had four kids 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:38.960 and was pregnant three months pregnant with my father when 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:41.919 her husband died of par toniis she would have starved 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.960 a death without Social Security. But it's like Roosevelt friggin 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:50.120 saved her. But dismantling that Muscus called it a Ponzi scheme? 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.760 Is there money to be made here by first of 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:58.080 all making Social Security inoperable, cut its funding, cut its 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:02.120 it budget so it doesn't function anymore, Then blame it 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:05.520 for being poorly run after you've made it poorly run. 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.080 And then, of course the next step is to privatize 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:10.560 it or just not pay it out, so that the 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.600 vast majority of people are then dependent on sure on 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.240 what on the government and or on people like Elon Musko. 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:22.760 What's your sense why would tech brows and Musk in particular, 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.119 why would they be setting their sights on Social Security? 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:28.359 Because they must understand something has to come after it. 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.360 I can only assume what you just said is accurate, 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:33.359 that they want to privatize it, and that they know 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:35.840 that there's tremendous amounts of fees to be made in 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.159 financial transactions and management and all of this billions and 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.040 billions of dollars that they can then line their pockets 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.080 with to pursue their dreams of going to Mars or 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.680 whatever the hell they're trying to do. And I think 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.080 you you could make the good faith argument, although I 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.040 don't think it's necessarily very good faith argument, that social 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.919 Security could be made more profitable if you invested it in. 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:02.040 Those funds into the market are sort of risk your investments. 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:04.919 But all of that is blied by the events of 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.280 the last week. If you're relying on the market for 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.800 your retirement and then you see it crashing fifteen percent, 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:16.159 maybe twenty percent by the time this podcast airs, well, 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:20.040 aren't you shooting yourself in the foot. So security was 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:24.760 never designed to be an investment vehicle. It was designed 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:29.120 to be a safety net so that when you reach retirement, 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:31.880 or you have a disabled child, or you are a 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:36.040 young widow, you don't have to worry about that money 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.800 coming in. It was never meant to be a get 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:43.119 rich quick scheme. It was meant to supplement whatever retirement 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.800 savings or pension or later on for a one K 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:49.959 that you might have. And if you don't have those things, 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:52.640 then it will keep you, at the very least hopefully 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.959 right out of poverty. And that's enough. That's all it 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:58.000 was meant to do. That's all it ought to be doing. 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.280 And it drives me crazy, having a mother who worked 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.720 in source security for many years, it drives me crazy 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:09.600