Speaker 1: We have a quorum. For this week's minnesot we have
Speaker 1: Adam Davidson joining us.
Speaker 2: Great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1: So this week two Russians were arrested planning to sabotage
Speaker 1: and attack a US military base in Bavaria. So this
Speaker 1: is like a real conspiracy. These guys were going to
Speaker 1: attack and probably kill Americans. And I want to talk
Speaker 1: about the conspiracy theory for a minute. That why Putin's pacoderms,
Speaker 1: the Putin wing of the Republican Party, why they think
Speaker 1: the Russians are still so great Russian television today, said
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green. They called her a beauty. If al
Speaker 1: Qaeda was caught planning explosive attacks or attacks on a
Speaker 1: US military base, people would be all upset. And I
Speaker 1: don't think there'd be anybody in the Republican Party that
Speaker 1: would think that. It's like, hey, that's great, So what
Speaker 1: is it, Adam and John.
Speaker 2: I'm actually going to push back on the kind of
Speaker 2: thing because look at the Saudi government. Saudi Arabia is
Speaker 2: a complex country. There's a lot going on, but there's
Speaker 2: zero question that the highly financed of Wahabism around the
Speaker 2: world is a major cause of al Qaeda and all
Speaker 2: of the modern terrorist offshoots, and we have lots and
Speaker 2: lots and lots of super elite people bending over backwards
Speaker 2: to become friends with Saudi Arabia, even knowing that the reason,
Speaker 2: whether it's some big golfer or some political figure, that
Speaker 2: the reason they're making ungodly amounts of money is precisely
Speaker 2: the al Qaeda attacks. There's no reason why someone would
Speaker 2: accept hundreds of millions of dollars to start a golf
Speaker 2: tour if it was not because this is dirty money.
Speaker 2: You are being complicit. So I'm not making the stronger
Speaker 2: argument that Mohammed Bin Salomon NBS, the leader of Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 2: is an active supporter of al Qaeda, but he is
Speaker 2: an active supporter of a whole bunch of systems that
Speaker 2: are definitely wildly outside of US interest, and it's just accepted.
Speaker 2: I have so many friends in Hollywood, as an example,
Speaker 2: who have been approached for insanely lucrative jobs Jewish friends,
Speaker 2: by the way, a lot of Jewish friends insanely lucrative
Speaker 2: jobs to help Saudi Arabia enter Hollywood. There's similar things
Speaker 2: going on with architecture, with engineering, with on and on
Speaker 2: and on, and not one of those people I know
Speaker 2: said a blanket, no friggin way, I'm not interested. So
Speaker 2: I think that the human brain is a wonderful machine
Speaker 2: for justifying things. You know, as Sinclair Lewis said, when
Speaker 2: someone has paid a lot of money for something, it
Speaker 2: is very hard for them to see anything.
Speaker 1: Wrong with that's just greed.
Speaker 2: But it's more than greed. I would say it is
Speaker 2: an understanding of how the human brain works. That we
Speaker 2: think of rationality and explanation as a precondition for action,
Speaker 2: But as I understand it, it actually seems to be
Speaker 2: a post condition. You know, we do what we do
Speaker 2: for sex and resources and power, and then our brain
Speaker 2: comes up with a reason why that was exactly the
Speaker 2: right thing to do. And so I think that Marjorie
Speaker 2: Taylor Green and others are part of a very pre
Speaker 2: out human lineage of doing horrible, horrible things for money
Speaker 2: or power or resources and then justifying it as the
Speaker 2: most obvious moral thing to do.
Speaker 3: Well, Jerry, if the Germans caught two people working for
Speaker 3: the Russians, how many do you think, really you're doing it?
Speaker 3: Because if the Germans can pack too, that means there's
Speaker 3: probably a lot more because the Germans aren't the best
Speaker 3: at this. I have to say, no, they're not. No
Speaker 3: that we somebody probably tipped them off.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just saying yeah. I think there's lots.
Speaker 3: To Adam's point, though there's also a long history of
Speaker 3: a poker's just in general politics. You see just in
Speaker 3: the last few days Mody and India, as he's running
Speaker 3: for election again, is saying horrific anti Muslim things and
Speaker 3: spreading anti Muslim hate in India. But we're not going
Speaker 3: to say anything about that or criticize him because we
Speaker 3: now would like India to be a bulwark against China.
Speaker 1: Again. The Russian faction of the Republican Party, I don't
Speaker 1: think they're doing it for money, are they.
Speaker 2: First of all, there is a lot of money being
Speaker 2: poured around, so that is just true. Something like half
Speaker 2: of Russian wealth has left Russia. We're talking about trillions
Speaker 2: of dollars. And when I was running Planet Money, this
Speaker 2: was a thing we would try and convey that it's
Speaker 2: hard for people to take in the relative size of money.
Speaker 2: Trillions is real money, that's actually real money. It is
Speaker 2: real money that can shift the fabric of a political
Speaker 2: economic system. So when you have trillions of dollars pouring
Speaker 2: in to the West and you have an ability to
Speaker 2: access that money in all sorts of ways, you know,
Speaker 2: Goldman Sachs has been caught. Bank of America has been caught.
Speaker 2: It just to see has been caught all sorts of ways,
Speaker 2: legally or illegally. Because the law isn't moral, it necessarily
Speaker 2: the morality of it finding ways to help both the
Speaker 2: Russian state at Russian oligarchs, the Russian mob, and John
Speaker 2: are those three distinct groups?
Speaker 3: Or no, not necessarily.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One way to get rich is to create products
Speaker 2: and services that meet a need of some group and
Speaker 2: sell it at a competitive price and compete with others
Speaker 2: in a marketplace to create real value. Another way is
Speaker 2: to cozy up to dictators and get money and the
Speaker 2: machinery for getting that money into pockets. There's so many
Speaker 2: ways to be invited. To be a guest lecturer at
Speaker 2: this for forty thousand dollars. There are lots of people
Speaker 2: where I don't see how you explain it other than yes,
Speaker 2: they're actually getting rich. Some of them might be stupid
Speaker 2: enough to not realize that they can't also get rich.
Speaker 3: Let me give you the non money piece of this too,
Speaker 3: because I think there is a conspiracy here, and you're right,
Speaker 3: I agree money plays a part of it, but it's
Speaker 3: very easy, for example, when Jerry's talking about the extreme
Speaker 3: right to say, oh, they're getting paid off by the Russians.
Speaker 3: I've never seen any evidence that that's the case. I
Speaker 3: think they have a political reason to do it, but
Speaker 3: I do think it's a conspiracy. And the conspiracy is
Speaker 3: this is when there was a lot of public pressure
Speaker 3: on Donald Trump when he was running for election in
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, claiming that the Russians were supporting him, and
Speaker 3: the Russians were involved in the DNC hack, and the
Speaker 3: Russians were doing all sorts of things to spread this
Speaker 3: to help the Trump campaign. His answer was a conspiracy.
Speaker 3: He said, no, that's not true. It turns out it
Speaker 3: was the Ukrainians that were interfering in the American election.
Speaker 3: If you remember, he said there was a server at
Speaker 3: the DNC that was owned by Ukrainian company, and therefore
Speaker 3: it wasn't the Russians at all, and it was the Ukrainians.
Speaker 3: And he's continued that for period of time. I mean,
Speaker 3: he said, for example, I even wrote it down quote,
Speaker 3: Ukraine tried to take me down, and so political followers
Speaker 3: of him have just followed in line. And since that
Speaker 3: time there's been efforts to work against Ukraine, to call
Speaker 3: Ukraine corrupt, to cut back their funding. It took months
Speaker 3: and months just to get Speaker Johnson to be able
Speaker 3: to pass a very simple bill that passed in an
Speaker 3: overwhelming way to support the Ukrainians who've been invaded by
Speaker 3: the Russians. So I think the conspiracy in that sense
Speaker 3: is Trump decided he had to take pressure off himself
Speaker 3: for the Russian stuff. He said it was Ukraine, and
Speaker 3: therefore all these political people had to say the same
Speaker 3: if they wanted Trump's backing.
Speaker 1: Said folks out there thinking, ah, okay, these are three
Speaker 1: guys who don't like Republicans. I don't think that's true
Speaker 1: at all. I think if you're looking at Republican members
Speaker 1: of Congress are saying that Russian propaganda has infected parts
Speaker 1: of the Republican party. Right, people like Mitch McConnell are
Speaker 1: saying that Trump personally is responsible for holding up aid
Speaker 1: to the Ukraine, which has resulted in the death of
Speaker 1: a lot of Ukrainian soldiers for no reason whatsoever other
Speaker 1: than American politics.
Speaker 2: So this is something that's been on my mind for
Speaker 2: a few years now, as you can tell, because I'm
Speaker 2: getting all worked up that if you talk to like
Speaker 2: the most boring economic analysts, this isn't even complicated. It's like, Yes,
Speaker 2: money has a bunch of uses, and one of the
Speaker 2: uses is to co opt people in ways that I
Speaker 2: think we can call a conspiracy, and it's very good
Speaker 2: at it.
Speaker 3: Well, there's actually a lot of national security people who
Speaker 3: run over to Saudi Arabian places. It's hard to turn
Speaker 3: down money if you haven't had much money in the past.
Speaker 1: So John, we're not going to broadcast from Riad or
Speaker 1: Moscow next week.
Speaker 3: Depends on the price.
Speaker 2: But here's how it's going to happen. One of us
Speaker 2: is going to call the others and say, listen, guys,
Speaker 2: I know this is ridiculous. I know what you're thinking,
Speaker 2: but listen, there's a real reformer. This guy is the
Speaker 2: real data and he really sees us.
Speaker 1: The VLED has turned over a new leaf.
Speaker 2: I mean, there is a taboo that's been broken. It
Speaker 2: would have been harder in twenty fourteen, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 2: it's much easier now. Our dear friend Jan, the former
Speaker 2: Russian government money launderer, talks about they just were studying
Speaker 2: and studying and studying how do we get money into
Speaker 2: the American system.
Speaker 3: So today's Many episode was great. We didn't get to
Speaker 3: talk about Tucker Carlson on the Joe Rogan Show. We
Speaker 3: can do that at another time. Apparently, Tucker on the
Speaker 3: Joe Rogan Show said that the theory of evolution has
Speaker 3: now been proven false because of these supernatural beings in
Speaker 3: the ocean.
Speaker 1: Of course, the Joe Rogan Show will always give us
Speaker 1: lots of conspiracy grist for the mill.
Speaker 3: But our next episode will be with Denver Ringleman. Denver
Speaker 3: was an investigator with the January sixth Committee and has
Speaker 3: a lot to say about January sixth and is surrounding that.
Speaker 3: So join us then,