Speaker 1: Folks, it is Friday, April twenty forth, and a story
Speaker 1: that's kind of funny, kind of shocking, and kind of
Speaker 1: surprise it doesn't happen more often. A US soldier is
Speaker 1: under arrest forgetting paid with inside information he had about
Speaker 1: the Venezuela raid. And with that, welcome to this episode
Speaker 1: of Amy and TJ. Rose. Let's just put the number
Speaker 1: out there first. They said this US Special Forces soldier
Speaker 1: made four hundred thousand dollars betting on Venezuela and the
Speaker 1: raid that captured Maduro. Your initial response to hearing the
Speaker 1: idea of something like this happened.
Speaker 2: It's appalling, It's disgusting. Really, Yes, he helped plan and.
Speaker 3: Execute the raid on Madura, and he goes online and
Speaker 3: tries to profit off of it, and that tries to
Speaker 3: is successful in profiting off of that. That is criminal.
Speaker 3: And I actually I plaud the fact that they got
Speaker 3: him and that he is being charged and he is
Speaker 3: going to face consequences.
Speaker 1: And you know who hasn't been so hard on him
Speaker 1: yet is President Trump. We'll tell you what the President
Speaker 1: said in response to this. But yes, and folks, you're
Speaker 1: hearing it and it sounds kind of shocking, and it's
Speaker 1: making headlines. But this is a thing that people have
Speaker 1: been keeping an eye on, insider trading, as it relates
Speaker 1: to war, as it relates to our military. We'll get
Speaker 1: more into that. But ropes Pier point blank. This US
Speaker 1: Special Forces soldier arrested for placing a bet on the
Speaker 1: Venezuela raid in which President Modureau was captured. This soldier
Speaker 1: made bets, probably about thirty three thousand dollars in bets,
Speaker 1: but he ends up making four hundred thousand.
Speaker 2: Dollars because he knew what was going to happen. Well,
Speaker 2: you knew when it was going to happen.
Speaker 1: Nobody's denying that add all, but.
Speaker 2: He should have made more.
Speaker 3: But do I mean you're gonna go for it, Go
Speaker 3: go for it all the way, go big a goal,
Speaker 3: almost like one certainty.
Speaker 1: He knew, Hey, this is the US Special Force. This
Speaker 1: guy who put up thirty three k I don't know
Speaker 1: what his financial situation is, but he put that money.
Speaker 1: He made four hundred grand robes. Now, you called it appalling,
Speaker 1: just the idea of it, the idea of it. But
Speaker 1: others would say he was only betting on himself. He
Speaker 1: was only betting on the United States. He wasn't betting
Speaker 1: against the United States. I'm only playing devil's advocate here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And if you can't see this at home, because
Speaker 3: you're only listening, But I was rolling my eyes as
Speaker 3: you were saying, and that's why.
Speaker 1: I defended myself. I'm only playing devil's advocate. That's what
Speaker 1: you were hearing there and me trying to stop an
Speaker 1: argument a real one. But this guy has now been
Speaker 1: charged with unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain,
Speaker 1: theft of non public government information commodities, fraud, Why or fraud?
Speaker 1: How did he do this? Robes? These are big problems
Speaker 1: right now. Polymarket is uh, it's the largest one out there.
Speaker 1: But Robes these are apps sites that will allow you
Speaker 1: to bet on damn near anything that might happen in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, I didn't know that this existed.
Speaker 3: When I first saw the story, I thought, wait, what,
Speaker 3: how was he betting on?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: How would that even be a scenario? How would anyone
Speaker 3: have even known to create a category or a subcategory
Speaker 3: that Maduro would be I guess basically removed as president.
Speaker 3: And just the fact that there are millions of scenarios
Speaker 3: out there of what could happen in the world, from
Speaker 3: the small to the large, and you can place bets
Speaker 3: on them daily.
Speaker 1: Yes you can.
Speaker 3: This is all new to me. Is this isn't legal
Speaker 3: in every state, correct.
Speaker 1: Or every country. It's actually has to be based. Can
Speaker 1: you need a VPN to get to it. It's based
Speaker 1: somewhere else in innother countries because it's just too much
Speaker 1: regulation they would have to get through here. But folks
Speaker 1: have been after these markets and saying these need to
Speaker 1: be regulated because of things like this role. It's kind
Speaker 1: of the wild West. You've got some side information about war,
Speaker 1: and this isn't the only case of this. We'll explain.
Speaker 1: But Rose, he's got outside information. He bet he opened
Speaker 1: this they say in December of last year. The raid
Speaker 1: was what January? Yes, so he created this polymarket account,
Speaker 1: they say in December and just a matter of days.
Speaker 1: I believe it is. Before the raid he places a
Speaker 1: thirty three thousand dollars bet on several things, but mainly
Speaker 1: that Maduro would be out of office by January thirty
Speaker 1: one and lo and behold robes. He was right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so shocking.
Speaker 3: But yet I believe that in total, they say he
Speaker 3: made approximately thirteen bets from December twenty seventh through January
Speaker 3: twenty six because he was involved not just in the
Speaker 3: executing of this raid, but in the planning.
Speaker 2: Of the raids.
Speaker 3: He new, he knew what was happening, when it was happening,
Speaker 3: how it was happening. And yes, that's why he was
Speaker 3: able to win a significant amount of cash.
Speaker 1: So the way they put his profit, he made at
Speaker 1: twelve one hundred percent profit. That's pretty good, twelve hundred
Speaker 1: percent return.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I said he should have bet more.
Speaker 1: That's what happened. So this happens, right, Grobes, This was
Speaker 1: flagged almost immediately, right, you can this is an odd
Speaker 1: to be right, almost immediately after placing a bet that's big,
Speaker 1: is gonna get flatted And it's so specific.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, seriously, was this on anyone's radar? No,
Speaker 3: it was not so for someone to place like a
Speaker 3: very large bet on something so out of the realm
Speaker 3: of possibilities, or certainly not even on anyone's mind.
Speaker 1: But you know, the president had been talking about Venezuela.
Speaker 1: You remember he was playing cute with reporters about Venezuelan.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? Well? I don't know, I
Speaker 1: might do some stuff. I got everything on the table,
Speaker 1: so I guess maybe that could be used as part
Speaker 1: of his defense.
Speaker 3: No, it couldn't, because he was involved specifically in the
Speaker 3: planning of when this was happening, So to say it
Speaker 3: was going to happen before specific date that was based
Speaker 3: on information he could only know, and that's classified government
Speaker 3: information that he had access to.
Speaker 2: That is wildly criminal.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're right, and this doesn't help. I was trying
Speaker 1: to make an argument on his behalf. But they say
Speaker 1: afterwards he tried to delete the account because it started
Speaker 1: rose before he was attached to the story. There were
Speaker 1: plenty of stories out there about this weird bet that
Speaker 1: was placed on this prediction market, so he started seeing
Speaker 1: coverage of what he had done and then started to
Speaker 1: go back. They said, try to delete the account, change
Speaker 1: the email that was associated with account. So they said
Speaker 1: he tried to cover it, and that.
Speaker 3: Makes obviously him look even more guilty. Although I can't
Speaker 3: even imagine he would have a defense of any kind
Speaker 3: given the access he had to the information the bet
Speaker 3: he's specifically placed. It's just kind of they say, smoking gun.
Speaker 3: This one is just like the flames are shooting out
Speaker 3: of this gun.
Speaker 2: It's very obvious what happened.
Speaker 3: But now I am going to actually rescind what I said.
Speaker 3: Oh before, he should have just done a small bet. Yeah, why,
Speaker 3: Like that wouldn't have raised too many He could have
Speaker 3: made a little bit of cash and probably would have
Speaker 3: been able to fly under the radar.
Speaker 1: You know what, he should have put money on the
Speaker 1: leader of Columbia being out the leader of Cuba. You know,
Speaker 1: spread it out a little bit.
Speaker 3: You know, he was going to take some losses, but
Speaker 3: then like go ahead and just have one.
Speaker 2: Oh look at that.
Speaker 1: We're talking like we've done this before. We have not.
Speaker 1: But come on, man, you can't place a bait a
Speaker 1: bet that's specific. Now they do have anonymous accounts, so
Speaker 1: your name is not attached to it, at least publicly
Speaker 1: when you see.
Speaker 3: It, but you know someone's going to go after and
Speaker 3: look for somebody who makes that large of a sum
Speaker 3: of cash. It kind of like in reverse, don't take
Speaker 3: out like a five million dollar life insurance policy on
Speaker 3: your spouse who you're about to kill.
Speaker 2: Like, there are just.
Speaker 3: Certain things that are red flags when you go back
Speaker 3: and look at something when you have like a big
Speaker 3: number right before a major event, you're probably gonna get
Speaker 3: tied to it.
Speaker 1: Arry, Yes, this isn't really a story about insider trading
Speaker 1: so much as a story about his stupidity.
Speaker 3: Okay, Like just use your common sense, Like obviously that's
Speaker 3: going to raise eyebrows and raise red flags. And what's
Speaker 3: your excuse or defense going to be? You have none,
Speaker 3: So now you have to try to act like it
Speaker 3: wasn't me.
Speaker 2: It wasn't me.
Speaker 3: Take the email and they will digitally be able to
Speaker 3: trace you. Okay, there's no way you're getting out of it.
Speaker 1: You can't say it wasn't him, as far as the
Speaker 1: account goes and robes you were just looking before we started.
Speaker 1: He can't say it wasn't me in photos either. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's there's evident we know where he was and what
Speaker 1: he was doing. He was specifically in close proximity actually
Speaker 1: to Maduros.
Speaker 3: After the US government apprehended Maduro and transported him above
Speaker 3: the aboard the uss Ewojima, a photograph of Van.
Speaker 2: Dyke was taken and uploaded to his Google account.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, what do you do he was there? Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you do? Okay?
Speaker 2: During the mission Okay, that's.
Speaker 1: Been well established. We have not heard from him at
Speaker 1: this point. We have not heard from any representative of
Speaker 1: his if he has an attorney, so we don't know
Speaker 1: what his response to any of this would be. I
Speaker 1: actually don't know what the penalty is. I should look
Speaker 1: this up, but I would imagine Rose they are pretty strict.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, look, I actually did for a second
Speaker 3: feel sorry for the guy because you look and see
Speaker 3: for him to be where he is, in the position
Speaker 3: he's in US Special Forces. This is a brave, hard
Speaker 3: working dude who has risked his life for our country
Speaker 3: and is probably as sharp as they come when it
Speaker 3: comes to just his ability to do his job. And
Speaker 3: so you appreciate men and women like him who do
Speaker 3: what they do. And then you think, why did you
Speaker 3: take all that good, all that hard work, all that
Speaker 3: bravery and honor that you've I'm sure accumulated and it's
Speaker 3: been well earned over the years, and throw it all
Speaker 3: in the trash by trying to earn a quick buck.
Speaker 3: That just makes me sad for him and his family,
Speaker 3: because I'm sure he probably could be a really good,
Speaker 3: decent guy who just saw an opportunity, got to did
Speaker 3: and took it, and now his entire military career and
Speaker 3: all the good he's done is probably just now swept away.
Speaker 1: Well, you said how specialized his training is, how good
Speaker 1: he probably is at his job, how well trained. But
Speaker 1: is he well paid? This is something right robes.
Speaker 2: So that's a fair point.
Speaker 1: Military members are not well paid, and all of them Robes.
Speaker 1: They have the same issues and bills and problems and
Speaker 1: families that we do.
Speaker 3: And Babe, you know what, that's a dangerous thing to
Speaker 3: have the men and women who are putting their lives
Speaker 3: on the line, who are as sharp and as smart
Speaker 3: as they are, to be hungry for money. That leaves
Speaker 3: open a lot of opportunities for problems in misconduct when
Speaker 3: you have that sort of situation occurring, when they're not
Speaker 3: being paid enough to do the kind of job and
Speaker 3: work they do.
Speaker 1: And again i'm special for is this he probably higher
Speaker 1: up the scale than some but still that has to
Speaker 1: you think about. It was one of the first things
Speaker 1: I thought about, like, what was his situation, What is
Speaker 1: going on with him that he felt this he knew
Speaker 1: it was wrong and we don't know this at all,
Speaker 1: But rogues anytime you tell me somebody as a member
Speaker 1: of US Special Forces. I sit up straight and I
Speaker 1: respectly because we know what the hell they went through.
Speaker 3: Just a shame. I look at it like that. Really,
Speaker 3: it's maybe it was just a massive lapse in judgment.
Speaker 3: Maybe there was some need that we don't know about
Speaker 3: that motivated him beyond greed.
Speaker 2: But it's just a shame.
Speaker 1: I guess it could just be greed to. It could
Speaker 1: be that simple. Now, we did hear from the President
Speaker 1: and we heard from the Department of Justice on this.
Speaker 1: I thought they had a pretty strong statement rogues about
Speaker 1: how wrong and the two statements right, the DOJ's statement
Speaker 1: against the guy was stronger than the one the President
Speaker 1: had against the guy.
Speaker 3: All Right, the DOJ statement is this, Rather than safeguard
Speaker 3: the information as he was obligated to do, Van Dyke
Speaker 3: decided to use that classified information to place trades on
Speaker 3: a prediction market platform for his personal profit. Van Dyke
Speaker 3: subsequently tried to conceal his unlawful use of classified US
Speaker 3: government information by attempting to obscure the source of his
Speaker 3: unlawful proceeds and to disguise his connection to the accounts
Speaker 3: linked to the illicit trades.
Speaker 1: Ah, that sounds pretty strong, pretty straightforward. But what do
Speaker 1: you think about it, mister President? When asked yesterday about this.
Speaker 3: Situation, he says, that's like Pete Rose betting on his
Speaker 3: own team. They kept him out of the Hall of
Speaker 3: Fame because he bet on his own team. Now, if
Speaker 3: he bet against his team, that would be no good.
Speaker 3: But he bet on his own team. I'll look into it.
Speaker 3: So he's almost saying, good for him. He was betting
Speaker 3: on the United States to actually do what we set
Speaker 3: out to do, and so he's almost kind of proud
Speaker 3: of him for that.
Speaker 1: Okay, he might change his tune later, but what if
Speaker 1: he does in robes Because when I read that, the
Speaker 1: first thing came to mind, and it'll come to your
Speaker 1: mind probably as well. Kid Rock. Kid Rock and those
Speaker 1: helicopters on a training mission that flew by his hillside
Speaker 1: home in Nashville to salute him. They those soldiers were
Speaker 1: on a training mission and they were doing something that
Speaker 1: everybody admits now they shouldn't have been doing. There was
Speaker 1: an investigation and what happened.
Speaker 3: Pete heggsas said, we are not going to punish our
Speaker 3: proud members of our military.
Speaker 1: Shut the investigation down, carry on, move on, is there
Speaker 1: any chance, Robes, just that what he said there seemed
Speaker 1: to lead the way lay some groundwork, or at least
Speaker 1: give you some insight into where the President's head is
Speaker 1: on this guy, and maybe he gets a slap on
Speaker 1: the risk versus a jail sentence.
Speaker 2: I mean that's possible.
Speaker 3: That's possible because he was a part of this mission
Speaker 3: that President Trump is very proud of us. And perhaps
Speaker 3: maybe he'll address an issue that our special forces should
Speaker 3: be paid more so they aren't left to have to
Speaker 3: resort to these types of tactics.
Speaker 2: That's possible. To look, anything's possible with this administration.
Speaker 1: But this administration has been warning its own employees about
Speaker 1: this very thing. Yes, insider training when it comes to
Speaker 1: the Iran war is a big deal with big money,
Speaker 1: and it's been happening more than we even realized. We'll
Speaker 1: explain that and Robes, this soldier isn't the only one.
Speaker 1: You had three congressional candidates also placing insider trading bets
Speaker 1: on their own.
Speaker 4: Damn racist Stay here, all.
Speaker 1: Right, we continue here on Amy and TJ. Everybody get
Speaker 1: rich off this war, right, or at least trying to.
Speaker 1: Some are Robes we're talking about the one soldier who's
Speaker 1: now been arrested after making four hundred thousand dollars after
Speaker 1: placing a bet on whether or not Maduro would be
Speaker 1: removed from office. But Robes, this was March twenty third
Speaker 1: is the big one that a lot of people have
Speaker 1: pointed to, and a lot of members of Congress. There
Speaker 1: have been in some of these prediction markets. Polymarket is
Speaker 1: one cow sheet with the.
Speaker 3: Other one, I don't know about it, and Kalshi, but
Speaker 3: I don't know about any of these sites.
Speaker 2: Never seen them, never got on them.
Speaker 1: This has been a thing, Robes, and they have seen
Speaker 1: huge spikes in trading that have come in some instances, Robes, minutes,
Speaker 1: we're talking less than a half hour before the president
Speaker 1: makes an announcement about him doing something in the.
Speaker 2: World that's insane.
Speaker 3: Yes, on March twenty third, five hundred and eighty million
Speaker 3: dollars in oil stocks minutes before Trump announced he was
Speaker 3: extending the Iran deadline for opening the strait. So yes,
Speaker 3: everyone knows when President Trump says something about the strain,
Speaker 3: oil prices will either go up or down, or anything
Speaker 3: about the Iran war for that matter. And so yes,
Speaker 3: people who have inside information about what he's going to say,
Speaker 3: can jump on and quickly place a bet because they
Speaker 3: know what he's about to say, and they know what
Speaker 3: that is going to mean for the markets.
Speaker 1: They're looking into those robes we're talking. That's not the
Speaker 1: only instance of that, but times within minutes, you're talking
Speaker 1: about hundreds of millions of dollars being placed in the
Speaker 1: direction and that the President is about seeing. Nobody is
Speaker 1: policing it because there's no regulatory arm here in the
Speaker 1: United States, because these things are based in other countries,
Speaker 1: so here in the US, you're not supposed to do it.
Speaker 1: Use it, yep. I can get a VPN go around it. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm placing bets overseas that they have no way to
Speaker 1: regulate here. It's the wild West ros This is a
Speaker 1: big issue. This one was kind is this This one
Speaker 1: was kind of funny where they trying to make money necessarily,
Speaker 1: but three candidates various races around the country robes. They
Speaker 1: have now been fined and suspended from one of these
Speaker 1: Calshi is the name of this one. Another prediction website.
Speaker 1: They've been suspended robes. They were betting on their own races.
Speaker 1: It didn't look like they were trying to make big
Speaker 1: money necessarily, but trying to make.
Speaker 3: Some that's just so bizarre is that, And that's not
Speaker 3: allowed even if it's your own race.
Speaker 2: You don't know if you're gonna win or lose.
Speaker 1: But you do. One of the guys here, which I
Speaker 1: don't know which one it was, but it was a
Speaker 1: Senate candidate, brig and then by the way, yes, they
Speaker 1: did that need to be said.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I think it is fair to say and
Speaker 2: not shocking at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, but Virginia Senate, Canada, Texas Republican primary Canada, and
Speaker 1: Minnesota House candidate. All three of them bet on their
Speaker 1: own races. They all bet on themselves to win. But
Speaker 1: one of them bet on who would get into the race.
Speaker 1: Obviously that's his decision to make. So if he's betting
Speaker 1: on who's gonna get into the race and then he
Speaker 1: gets into the race.
Speaker 2: Ob small like I shouldn't.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to minimize a state representative or anything
Speaker 3: like that, but these are small races.
Speaker 2: Even they have online bets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, you can put anything. You can bet
Speaker 1: on anything, you could there's a bet we could place
Speaker 1: a bet on when our wedding is going to be
Speaker 1: how many people are gonna be at it and we
Speaker 1: can bet anonymously and then we can go plan the
Speaker 1: wedding and then go That makes no And this is
Speaker 1: the argument that many people are making.
Speaker 3: Money, the house money. Who's giving and paying out that money?
Speaker 3: You would think they would be incentivized to make sure
Speaker 3: that people placing the bets don't have the information to
Speaker 3: then profit from those bets.
Speaker 1: I love how you're getting into the betting market. Yeah, swear.
Speaker 1: It's the wild West. You can't turn on the TV
Speaker 1: and there's not some advertisement about somebody betting something, usually
Speaker 1: sports bro. It's just exploded everywhere with these apps and
Speaker 1: online and you can have access all over the world
Speaker 1: and just money is flying. And yes they're trying to
Speaker 1: get everybody's trying to game the system and cheat and
Speaker 1: win big wow.
Speaker 3: And the White House has gotten to such a level
Speaker 3: now the White House is warning its staff.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's the Yeah, they put it out right
Speaker 1: around the wrong world, told them all, hey, head's up,
Speaker 1: don't just don't do it. We want to avoid the
Speaker 1: appearance even of insider trading. So this one's not going away. Yes,
Speaker 1: the headline today is about the one soldier, but This
Speaker 1: is a big, big issue that a lot of people
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill have been railing about. So folks, always
Speaker 1: appreciate you. Just wanted to give you a quick update
Speaker 1: as we start this Friday. Always appreciate you spending some
Speaker 1: time with us. Of course you Morning Run will be
Speaker 1: coming your way. Also, we got another episode coming up.
Speaker 1: I believe Ropes we're gonna be. Did we decide we're
Speaker 1: gonna do Rabel or not.
Speaker 3: We've been on the fence about it, but I think
Speaker 3: maybe we will, okay, because there's been new pictures, there
Speaker 3: has been new statements made, and this story that we
Speaker 3: thought was over with is just continuing to explode.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, folks, look for all of that on
Speaker 1: the feed. We always appreciate you spending some time with
Speaker 1: us on TJ. Holmes on behalf of my dear Amy Robot.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to y'll soon.