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Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.

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Speaker 4: A Russian oil tanker is being allowed by the United

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Speaker 4: States to dock in Cuba, President Donald Trump said over

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Speaker 4: the weekend, making this the first shipment of oil to

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Speaker 4: the government since early January.

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Speaker 1: And it'll take about a month.

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Speaker 4: To refine and distribute the fuel, and it's estimated to

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Speaker 4: account for roughly a one month's supply. It's unclear if

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Speaker 4: Trump has ended the oil blockade or simply allowed this

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Speaker 4: ship to come in, but the effect of it has

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Speaker 4: been devastating to the island. Cuba's healthcare system continues to

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Speaker 4: face extreme hardship amid the US oil blockade. So I

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Speaker 4: was recently able to tour two hospitals in Havana in

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Speaker 4: the midst of nationwide energy blackouts. In the footage here

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Speaker 4: you'll see a journalist colleague of mine, lizz O Leva Fernandez,

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Speaker 4: a Cuban reporter based in Havana for the independent news

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Speaker 4: organization Belly of the Beast. She helps set up these visits,

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Speaker 4: and if you're interested in news from Cuba, check out

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Speaker 4: their newsletter at Bellyofthebeastcuba dot com.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 4: Cuba has long been known for its focus on healthcare

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Speaker 4: and education, and until recently, its health outcomes mirrored or

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Speaker 4: exceeded those of developed countries. In twenty fifteen, President Obama

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Speaker 4: declared the decades of embargo a failure and moved to

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Speaker 4: normalize relations with Cuba.

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Speaker 1: With Trump in office.

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Speaker 4: Not only did we revert to the old policy, Trump

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Speaker 4: severely tightened it. In twenty nineteen, he implemented new sanctions

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Speaker 4: making it harder for banks to do business with Cuba,

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Speaker 4: harder for taurusts to visit, and allowed Americans to sue

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Speaker 4: based on claims from the nineteen sixties. Just before leaving office,

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Speaker 4: Trump added Cuba to the state sponsors of Terrorism lists,

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Speaker 4: which made it that much harder for them to do

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Speaker 4: business with anybody or access credit. President Biden then left

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Speaker 4: the designation on through nearly his entire four years.

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Speaker 1: Tightening the noose even during COVID.

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Speaker 4: Now, the night before we visit William Solair Pediatric Hospital,

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Speaker 4: the entire island was plunged at seven thirty pm into

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Speaker 4: a blackout. The hospital had a generator which takes a

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Speaker 4: little time to kick in. Now, at five thirty am

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Speaker 4: the next morning, power was restored to the hospital, thankfully

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Speaker 4: before the generator had run out of fuel. We spent

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Speaker 4: a few hours with nurses, doctors, their patients, and their parents.

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Speaker 4: So this is a depressing segment, but stick around for

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Speaker 4: the end because I promise it gets better. We'll be

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Speaker 4: joined in a bit by Fernandez, the reporter you saw there,

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Speaker 4: and by Brace Belden, co host of the Truanon podcast,

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Speaker 4: joined us for the hospital visit. You won't want to

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Speaker 4: miss the update to this saga that he'll have to offer.

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Speaker 4: So we met with anesthesiologists al Theo Fernandez. So this here,

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Speaker 4: this is this is my footage, which is not as

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Speaker 4: good as the footage you're going to see from the

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Speaker 4: Cuban videographers that were with us. This is a baby

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Speaker 4: named Eric, and doctor Fernandez is describing for us how

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Speaker 4: when he when the power goes off, they have to

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Speaker 4: kind of rush to the babies who are on these ventilators,

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Speaker 4: lift up that little device there, reach in and kind

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Speaker 4: of hand pump things until the generator power kicks in

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Speaker 4: and they can get the machines up and working, because.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can't. You don't just kind of pump oxygen.

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Speaker 4: You have to, you know, be you have to be

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Speaker 4: kind of uh, you know, calibrated about how you do it.

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Speaker 4: Too much is not good. Too little is uh, too

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Speaker 4: little obviously not good either. So let's let's roll a

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Speaker 4: little bit of the footage from the trip that Brace,

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Speaker 4: Liz and I made. So here is here's Liz talking

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Speaker 4: to a nurse at the hospital asking in those in

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Speaker 4: those five or seven minutes between the time when the

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Speaker 4: power goes out and the generator comes on, you know,

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Speaker 4: what are you thinking? And the nurse is saying, I'll

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Speaker 4: post these on Twitter so people can watch them in

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Speaker 4: full and listen to them in Spanish. She's saying, even

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Speaker 4: when we don't have babies on ventilators, we react instinctively,

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Speaker 4: We're like, oh my god, we have like we have

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Speaker 4: to rush to the babies. And then they realize sometimes, oh,

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Speaker 4: there's no there's no ventilators currently. And now here's doctor

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Speaker 4: Fernandez saying that two years ago that when when they

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Speaker 4: lost power, the generator did not kick in and they

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Speaker 4: were operating on a five year old boy, and he says,

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Speaker 4: we happened to be with an Australian doctor at the time,

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Speaker 4: and so they they pull out their phones and he said,

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Speaker 4: the Australian doctor is just absolutely freaking out because this

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Speaker 4: is not the kind of thing that you know, Western,

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Speaker 4: you know, developed country surgeons.

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Speaker 1: Surgeons are the biggest cowboys on the planet.

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Speaker 4: Turn off the lights on them that a lot of

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Speaker 4: that confidence goes right out the window.

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Speaker 1: So what he's what he says here is that there was.

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Speaker 4: A operating room kind of in a in a facility

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Speaker 4: nearby that did have that did have light and power,

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Speaker 4: and so they took this five year old boy, covered

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Speaker 4: him up, and then we moved him to this other

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Speaker 4: operating room. And he's describing how that how difficult that

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Speaker 4: makes him. He's the anesthesiologist. How's he going to how's

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Speaker 4: he going to monitor? It's it's already extremely hrrowing to

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Speaker 4: do anesthesialogy forty five year old in the best of conditions.

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Speaker 4: Now you're unplugging him, moving him, but they had no choice.

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Speaker 4: He also said it, you know, massively increases the risk

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Speaker 4: of infection, and stepsist and on and on.

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Speaker 1: What he's what he's saying here.

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Speaker 4: And while you're doing all this, you know, you're you're

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Speaker 4: under your own personal stress of living like every other

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Speaker 4: Cuban lives, which is, you know, very little capacity too,

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Speaker 4: you know, get get you know, food, electricity and such yourself.

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Speaker 4: And so let's let's start now because we have one

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Speaker 4: more clip that I that we want to get to.

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Speaker 4: But first I wanted to bring in uh Liz Alie

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Speaker 4: with Fernandez from Belly of the Beast and Brace Belden

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Speaker 4: from Truanon. Liz, uh, Brace, you know, thank you so

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Speaker 4: much for joining us.

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Speaker 5: Thank you, good to see you all again.

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Speaker 1: Nice to see you too.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, so the day before we had gone to

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Speaker 4: a separate hospital and met with another physician who described

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Speaker 4: how how they had previously bought this like three D

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Speaker 4: printer from a German company to try to make the

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Speaker 4: kind of unique medical devices that they were unable to

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Speaker 4: impoort from. One of them was a like an eighty

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Speaker 4: dollars screw that he described. Another is like, you know,

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Speaker 4: if you're going to do a jaw surgery, removing a

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Speaker 4: tumor from somebody's jaw, you have to then replace the jaw,

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Speaker 4: and described how the sanctions and the terror designation made

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Speaker 4: it such that even though they were able to buy

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Speaker 4: the three D printer and the brief window of kind

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Speaker 4: of normalization, then when they reached out to try to

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Speaker 4: get part spare parts for it and a tech to

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Speaker 4: come out, the German company said, nope, forget about it.

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Speaker 4: So then the next day Sunday, we went to this

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Speaker 4: pediatric hospital. It's, you know, under the best of conditions,

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Speaker 4: it's always devastating emotionally to visit a pediatric unit. But

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Speaker 4: but Liz, I wanted to get your get your reaction

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Speaker 4: to you know, you know, you know what we saw

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Speaker 4: in the in the two separate wings of of this

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Speaker 4: pediatric unit and compared to how things have been, you know,

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Speaker 4: over the last five years as things have really tightened,

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Speaker 4: and then previously during the kind of liberalizing period where

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Speaker 4: Cuba was actually allowed to trade with the rest.

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Speaker 5: Of the world.

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Speaker 6: Well, for me, it's really devastating.

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Speaker 7: I think, like before I start this journey with Belly

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Speaker 7: of the Bees and start to go deep inside of

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Speaker 7: the sentions, I mean even journalist, so it's supposed to

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Speaker 7: be no more the senis that I did in the

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Speaker 7: past because I grew up talking about Oh the block

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Speaker 7: is the bloka, so Cuba to have this, but.

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Speaker 6: It looks like it's so metaphoric.

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Speaker 7: It's like it's everything, but it's nothing you can touch it.

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Speaker 7: It's fairly tangible. And then like working with Belly of

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Speaker 7: the Bees and looking inside of the impact of the

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Speaker 7: stations on the given people and you see these cases,

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Speaker 7: that's everything that changed completely your mind because I think

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Speaker 7: like that's the first stept to understand how the sensis

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Speaker 7: affecting the given people. Because if it's like, oh, this

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Speaker 7: is affecting Cuba, but then they said, like it's affecting

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Speaker 7: this baby to have access to the medication, or it's

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Speaker 7: affecting this family that are struggling to.

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Speaker 6: Get the surgery for his kids.

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Speaker 7: That Cuba used to practice in the debet basis, but

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Speaker 7: then from a day to another, they stopped to do

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Speaker 7: it because they run out of resources. If you talk

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Speaker 7: to doctors in Cuba and Havana, everyone's gonna say, oh,

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Speaker 7: the things start to go worse after the COVID pandemic.

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Speaker 7: But of course because in two thou nineteen the United

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Speaker 7: States government that was the Donald Trump first administion and

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Speaker 7: start to implement new senttions and screwt the tools to

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Speaker 7: the Kuban government to try to suffolk in the country

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Speaker 7: in general. So I remember in two those on nineteen

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Speaker 7: September was the started the oil the block oil blockade

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Speaker 7: that started to sanctionce oil time girls that were coming

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Speaker 7: to Cuba to bring oil. That was the beginning of

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Speaker 7: all these journeys. Just it wasn't just January twenty twenty six.

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Speaker 7: And in May they also start to do like like

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Speaker 7: a tourism. So everything started to stop in Cuba. And

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Speaker 7: you can't see the fronde or another one, but you

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Speaker 7: see that it's getting worse and worse. And I feel

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Speaker 7: bad because I don't know what is the moment that

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Speaker 7: this started to going better again, right.

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Speaker 1: And so brace we can bring you in for a second.

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Speaker 4: So when we went to the hospital on that Sunday morning,

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Speaker 4: we first went to the neo nail unit. But speaking

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Speaker 4: of shortages, they had so few gowns that only Liz

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Speaker 4: and if you notice in that some of that footage

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Speaker 4: that Liz and I are in there because they didn't

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Speaker 4: have enough gowns for you and your producer Steven to

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Speaker 4: join us. But then as we were kind of in

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Speaker 4: the neonatal unit, they found a couple more and so

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Speaker 4: when we went to the more adolescent unit, you were able.

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Speaker 1: To join us.

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Speaker 4: You talk a little bit about, you know what what

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Speaker 4: what your reaction was to seeing the that adolescent unit.

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Speaker 8: Man, Yeah, like you're saying, it's it's I don't think

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Speaker 8: it's ever pleasant to visit a a pediatric unit anywhere,

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Speaker 8: but this was it was, it was. It was very

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Speaker 8: difficult to go in there because and first of all,

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Speaker 8: they had a kind of amazing uh nurse to patient ratio.

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Speaker 5: Looked like there was about two nurses in every room.

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Speaker 8: But the thing that we heard from everybody that we

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Speaker 8: talked to is they just didn't have basic things that

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Speaker 8: you would consider like the building blocks of trying to

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Speaker 8: get somebody better. So like, for instance, if you're sick

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Speaker 8: in there with an infection, they might have some antibiotics,

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Speaker 8: but they might not exactly have the antibiotics that you need.

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Speaker 5: But you need some antibotics, you'll take these ones. You know.

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Speaker 8: The Cubans are sort of admired, I think, by Americans

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Speaker 8: for their improvisation.

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Speaker 5: But the thing is they should have to.

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Speaker 8: Improvise, like you should be able to get you know,

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Speaker 8: tubes and bedpans and bags for medication and the medication itself,

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Speaker 8: but they can't. And so the first thing that I

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Speaker 8: noticed with it, it seemed well staffed, and it seemed

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Speaker 8: to staffed by very competent people, but they didn't have

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Speaker 8: very basic tools. And you know, from what I was understanding,

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Speaker 8: this is like we're the best hospital in Havana, which

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Speaker 8: means that really the best in Cuba. And I just

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Speaker 8: kept thinking, like, wow, if they don't have that stuff here,

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Speaker 8: they really don't have anything anywhere like in the provinces.

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Speaker 9: And on that note, let's go ahead and roll this

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Speaker 9: clip this in bea a vo. I want to get

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Speaker 9: all three of your reaction to this posted on Monday,

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Speaker 9: the Russia breaking of the blockade. We have a Russian

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Speaker 9: tanker carrying one hundred thousand tons of crude oil that

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Speaker 9: arrived in Cuba. So you can see a little bit

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Speaker 9: of this on the screen if you're watching a massive

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Speaker 9: tanker pulling up to the port in Havana. So, having

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Speaker 9: seen what you saw just what a week and a

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Speaker 9: half ago, Now, what expectations do we have about how right?

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Speaker 9: Maybe I'll just start with you, this will change the

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Speaker 9: situation on the ground.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's it's uh, I think it's it's it's a lifeline.

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Speaker 4: But you know, it remains be seen how quickly it

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Speaker 4: can be distributed. Liz, I'm curious when do people expect

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Speaker 4: that some of the shortages might be lifted as a

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Speaker 4: result of this, and for how long?

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Speaker 7: Well, actually, I think that of course, as you said

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Speaker 7: that this is a good news, but that's not the solution.

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Speaker 7: The solution is just Cuba being able to trade and

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Speaker 7: to buy oil whatever. We don't need to go so

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Speaker 7: far onto Russia. It's just part of way. We just

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Speaker 7: kept by it in Venezuela, United States.

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Speaker 6: So I don't follow, like, actually, what is what is

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Speaker 6: the goal? Because at the.

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Speaker 7: Beginning they say, well, we are we're going to like

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Speaker 7: terminate the countin.

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Speaker 6: We don't care or nothing.

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Speaker 7: We are going in and we're going to destroy everything

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Speaker 7: and then try and say, Okay, we are going to

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Speaker 7: allow this the Russian oil tinker to go in and

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Speaker 7: whatever it wants. But it's unclear what is this is

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Speaker 7: gonna work. And also it's like, why we need to

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Speaker 7: ask the United States permission to do like a normal

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Speaker 7: trade with the rest of the wall. Why they need

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Speaker 7: to threat countries like Mexico don't sell oil to Cuba.

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Speaker 6: This is crazy.

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Speaker 7: And also the situation that we have now is not

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Speaker 7: just because the lack of fuel or oil is going

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Speaker 7: beyond that, It's like the Cuba has been a stop

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Speaker 7: to have the capacity to buy raw materials that we

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Speaker 7: need to produce the medications that we need inside of Cuba.

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Speaker 6: We need to think about that.

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Speaker 7: Cuba is a country that used to produce the sixty

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Speaker 7: percent of the medications that we consume inside of Cuba.

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Speaker 7: And nowadays, no, you go to a drug store empty,

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Speaker 7: you go to a hospital, they don't have eyeps for patients,

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Speaker 7: they don't have surrunis, they don't have truckers. Like this

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Speaker 7: is crazy. We are talking in a country that is

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Speaker 7: able to create medication for lung cancer that is actually effective.

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Speaker 6: We are talking about a country that is actually.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so and we lost you for a second, which

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Speaker 4: is I think indicative of the difficult kind of internet

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Speaker 4: and electrical situation there. So you know, as we continue through,

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Speaker 4: as we continue through this adolescent word of intensive care unit,

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Speaker 4: we met a boy named Carlos and I want to

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Speaker 4: talk to him, talk about him briefly. And we met

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Speaker 4: his mom on nielis who is who is in the

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Speaker 4: room with him, her dad, His dad was with him

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Speaker 4: as well. So let's roll this. Let's roll this next

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Speaker 4: clip because and then we want to talk about where

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Speaker 4: you've gone. Says this is this is his his father

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Speaker 4: talking about a child here.

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Speaker 1: So Carlos has.

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Speaker 4: Cystic fibrosis and which is why he's on the ventilator here,

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Speaker 4: which is people know this is a degenerative lung condition

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Speaker 4: that if you have and BRACE knows more about this,

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Speaker 4: if you have the right kind you never have the

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Speaker 4: right kind. But if you have a certain kind of

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Speaker 4: cistic fibrosis, there is medication for it called Trikafta that

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Speaker 4: is extraordinarily effective. And so the parents said, you know

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Speaker 4: understand that this medication is what is what the boy

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Speaker 4: needs to be able to survive in this in the

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Speaker 4: sense he lives about an hour and a half outside

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Speaker 4: of Havana.

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Speaker 1: He'd been brought to this hospital.

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Speaker 4: He's been given palliative care here, which effectively means they're

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Speaker 4: doing the best for they can, doing the best they

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Speaker 4: can for him to make him as comfortable as he

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Speaker 4: can as he withers and dies. He was down to

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Speaker 4: forty four pounds when we met him last Sunday, but

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Speaker 4: a boy that was still full of life and a

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Speaker 4: full life ahead of him if he could just get

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Speaker 4: this treatment which his parents no exists in the past,

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Speaker 4: as the doctor Fernanis had said, medication that isn't produced

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Speaker 4: in Cuba. They would buy it and import it, but

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Speaker 4: they're just completely out of our dollars at this point

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Speaker 4: from the twenty nineteen tightening of the economy around them.

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Speaker 4: And so this is where we bring BRACE in. So

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Speaker 4: Brace you were familiar with this condition.

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Speaker 8: How so, cystic fibrosis is basically the only condition that

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Speaker 8: I'm really familiar with, because when I moved into the

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Speaker 8: apartment that I live in now, my neighbors across the

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Speaker 8: street had a little boy, I think it was like,

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Speaker 8: I think it was four at the time, and and

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Speaker 8: my office is right next to the I guess the

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Speaker 8: hallway or or like whatever, the foyer, the place between

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Speaker 8: our apartments, and I would always hear him coughing, and

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Speaker 8: he'd be coughing like an old ass man, like very loud,

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Speaker 8: very deep cost this yeah exactly. And so I was like,

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Speaker 8: what's wrong with a kid? And they're like, oh, a

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Speaker 8: cystic fibrosis, which I didn't I knew that it existed,

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Speaker 8: but I didn't really know about it. And uh, and

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Speaker 8: they're like, yeah, like you know, it's sort of a

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Speaker 8: shorter life expectancy. And then I just sort of blew

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Speaker 8: my mind. I was like, this kid's gonna die. So

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Speaker 8: I learned a bunch about it, and you know, I

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Speaker 8: became friends with my neighbors, hung with a kid with

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Speaker 8: the parents a lot.

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Speaker 5: Uh.

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Speaker 8: And then a couple of years after moving in, there

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Speaker 8: was a new medication that came out or they told

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Speaker 8: me about it before, but it became available called Trekafta,

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Speaker 8: and they're like this is They had a party once

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Speaker 8: he got prescribed it, you know, like it was a

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Speaker 8: it was a giant, big neighborhood thing.

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Speaker 5: Uh. And then he.

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Speaker 8: Just became basically within like a month, a normal kid,

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Speaker 8: like running around lets himself into my apartment, frequently plays

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Speaker 8: with picks up knives that I didn't even know I had,

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Speaker 8: runs around she's his sister with them. But it's like

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Speaker 8: a normal, very like energetic kid, whereas prior to that

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Speaker 8: he had been just like always sick, always home from school, uh,

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Speaker 8: kind of underweight and just coughing all the time. And

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Speaker 8: you know, cystic fibrosis is a you know, I'm not

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Speaker 8: an expert, but from what I understand, essentially, your body

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Speaker 8: just gets filled with mucus and it's not just your lungs,

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Speaker 8: it's other organs.

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Speaker 5: Uh.

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Speaker 8: You know, you mentioned that Carlos was forty four pounds,

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Speaker 8: which is quite low for a nine year old boy.

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Speaker 8: It's because your body can't really absorb nutrition because mucus

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Speaker 8: is literally clogging your organs.

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Speaker 5: Uh.

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Speaker 8: And so a lot of what happens is people die

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Speaker 8: essentially because repeated lung infections.

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Speaker 7: Uh.

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Speaker 8: And then either just like the closing of the airways,

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Speaker 8: like you really you literally choke to death on your

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Speaker 8: own mucus and and this, you know, this horrible scarring.

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Speaker 8: And in with Trikafta, it's kind of a miracle drug.

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Speaker 8: And I'm not really sure how it works. But but

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Speaker 8: it you know, again I'm not a doctor or anything,

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Speaker 8: but it essentially it really it clears out a lot

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Speaker 8: of the mucans. It's a very thick mucus. It clears

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Speaker 8: it out and you have to keep taking it. But

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Speaker 8: it can extend a life expectancy from anywhere. I mean

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Speaker 8: people assistic fibroscas can can die on their teens or

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Speaker 8: maybe their forties at the latest it appears now. I mean,

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Speaker 8: it hasn't been around long enough that you can actually

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Speaker 8: have a normal lifespan with them. So it really is

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Speaker 8: like the difference between I mean life and death for people.

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Speaker 4: And so the parents are well aware of this. The

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Speaker 4: medical staff was where that he needed this. So what

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Speaker 4: so how did so did you talk to your neighbor

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Speaker 4: when you got home? Like what was the what was

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Speaker 4: the upshot there?

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Speaker 8: Well, yeah, well so she was showing us those boxes

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Speaker 8: of tri kafta and I know what that is. Like

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Speaker 8: I'm like, I know that medication.

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Speaker 5: And I I mean, I it sucked being in that room.

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Speaker 10: It.

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Speaker 8: I got to tell you, I mean, not to be whatever.

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Speaker 8: I know this isn't exactly the question you asked, but

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Speaker 8: I was just like, you know, I talked to a

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Speaker 8: lot of people. I've been in a lot of bad.

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Speaker 5: Situations, I guess throughout my life.

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Speaker 8: This was like the first time where I was just like,

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Speaker 8: I was just crying in next I'm like, dude, this

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Speaker 8: kid is dying and if he had been born one

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Speaker 8: hundred miles from here, he'd be just fine, you know,

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Speaker 8: and uh, you know, addicted to Minecraft or whatever. And

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Speaker 8: I was just like Jesus Christ. And so that, I mean,

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Speaker 8: the whole, the whole. I was in a pretty sort

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Speaker 8: of down mood the entire time, but that really sort

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Speaker 8: of spun me out. And so when I was able

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Speaker 8: to get back to the US the next day, I

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Speaker 8: called my neighbor. I'm like, dude, this sucks. And he

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Speaker 8: was like, well, are we actually we have a bunch

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Speaker 8: of tre ca after and uh and because the kid

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Speaker 8: is aging out of this certain dose that he's on

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Speaker 8: and he's actually his weight is increasing too much, and

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Speaker 8: they're like, we have like a bunch of boxes of it.

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Speaker 8: And so I went crazy, and through read from Belly

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Speaker 8: the Beast and through a bunch of people's help, I

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Speaker 8: was able to get those boxes down to Havana. I

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Speaker 8: guess I got back on Monday, and they were in

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Speaker 8: Havana on Thursday, which is good. They were at the hospital.

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Speaker 8: But the thing is too though. The kid is and

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Speaker 8: and they're working. Parents sent an update yesterday. The meds

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Speaker 8: are working and the kid is. I mean again, he

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Speaker 8: wasn't pallut of care, which means he's gonna die, and

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Speaker 8: with the meds he's able to. And he was on

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Speaker 8: this breathing thing that I think is probably in the videos,

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Speaker 8: and you know it's because he has this tube and

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Speaker 8: as lung as lung as basically collapsed, but they can't

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Speaker 8: really do surgery because it's filled with his mucus. It's

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Speaker 8: a horrible situation, especially about nine year old boy. And

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Speaker 8: and with this they should be able to either operate

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Speaker 8: or clear it out. Yeah, there he is, which I

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Speaker 8: gotta say, he even looks in this a lot better

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Speaker 8: than what we saw, because he looked like a drawing

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Speaker 8: of a.

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Speaker 5: Sick kid, Like his eyes are all shallow.

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Speaker 8: He's on a thing, you know, he's got this, he's

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Speaker 8: got like a basically a cup in front of him

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Speaker 8: that he's like he has to expectorate into.

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Speaker 5: And the cost that this kid was doing. We were

438
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:21,160
Speaker 5: there for one of his coffee tech.

439
00:23:21,560 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 8: It's like, you cannot imagine a child making that sound

440
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:30,000
Speaker 8: like that is what is So I guess I kind

441
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,280
Speaker 8: of have I guess what you might call a manic episode.

442
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:33,720
Speaker 8: After I got back and I was like, I can't.

443
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 8: This is fucking insane. But it's crazy because there's only

444
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,920
Speaker 8: like one hundred and fifty thousand doses or excuse me,

445
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 8: doses diagnosed cases of cystic fibrosis. I think worldwide there's

446
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:47,960
Speaker 8: more people with it, but who are officially diagnosed with it.

447
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:50,679
Speaker 8: I think there's maybe about forty thousand in the United States.

448
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:54,440
Speaker 8: And I'm like, Jesus Christ, what a coincidence. My neighbor's

449
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:58,359
Speaker 8: kid has that and they have this exact medication, and

450
00:23:58,440 --> 00:23:59,680
Speaker 8: so I was like, well, you know, what are you

451
00:23:59,680 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 8: gonna do?

452
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 5: You gotta get this down there.

453
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 8: But the problem is, and this is the thing, so

454
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 8: he's gonna need I think longer term care, which is possible.

455
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:11,480
Speaker 8: All the stuff that I'm gonna strive it is possible,

456
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,720
Speaker 8: and it was possible until recent history for Cuban doctors

457
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 8: at that very hospital to do. But because of the blockade,

458
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:24,119
Speaker 8: like the scarring and his lungs is pancreas, I think

459
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 8: isn't working so hot. All of those things that would

460
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 8: be treatable are not as treatable or treatable maybe at all,

461
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 8: because of the US sanctions and the US blockade tightening

462
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 8: in place since twenty nineteen, but of course since the

463
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 8: beginning of the embargo. And so this was a direct

464
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 8: thing when we were standing in that room and we're

465
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 8: watching this child die, and you can't help but think

466
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 8: my government, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump, this is the

467
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:54,239
Speaker 8: intended result of this. And I was talking to nurses there,

468
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 8: and I was talking to and talked to everybody I

469
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:58,879
Speaker 8: talked to in Cuba. My basic question was, how do

470
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 8: you get to work in the morning. There's there's no fuel.

471
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:03,880
Speaker 8: You might let you know, Havana is a regular city.

472
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,880
Speaker 8: It's a normal city. I think there's people maybe exoticize

473
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 8: Cuba a little bit. This is ninety miles of Key West,

474
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:12,119
Speaker 8: Jimmy Buffett. This this is like a people take the

475
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 8: bus to work, People have cars, People do these things.

476
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 8: If you're a nurse taking care of this kid, you

477
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:19,040
Speaker 8: don't know if you're gonna be able to get there

478
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 8: in the morning because maybe there's no bus. There probably

479
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 8: isn't a bus. And so this is all these cascading

480
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 8: effects to where that end up with this child not

481
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,360
Speaker 8: being able to get care or let alone the medicine

482
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:36,920
Speaker 8: because of not only the the the vicious blockade that

483
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:40,720
Speaker 8: that Trump and Rubio put in, but also this new

484
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:44,120
Speaker 8: oil blockade. And so this is like, you know, you're

485
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 8: standing there, man, and I know it affected you too,

486
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 8: and you're just looking at this kid dying and his parents.

487
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 8: The desperation that was coming off of his parents, And

488
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 8: I don't mean to diminish them in any way. I

489
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 8: think it's the desperation that anybody with a child, or

490
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:59,720
Speaker 8: even without a child would feel in this situation. You're like,

491
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 8: I can't is there is something out there that will

492
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 8: save my child, that will let him live as close

493
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 8: to a normal life as is as he can, but

494
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:13,600
Speaker 8: I am being prevented from getting it because of rules

495
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 8: put in place by a billionaire real estate developer from

496
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,399
Speaker 8: New York and one of.

497
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:22,959
Speaker 1: The most South Florida.

498
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 5: Yeah, one of the nastiest Miami Cubans there is.

499
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 4: And for a very deliberate and precise strategic purpose. Like

500
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 4: that's that's what I want to underline here. Backing up

501
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 4: what Liz was saying earlier, the goal here of hurting

502
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 4: regular Cubans, like the goal of killing Carlos rather than

503
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 4: allowing him to live, is to make his family that

504
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 4: survives angry at the government so that they then go

505
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:58,120
Speaker 4: into the streets and overthrow the Cuban government and replace

506
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 4: them with a government made up of people from Miami

507
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 4: that we believe is a better government. Let let to

508
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 4: be the most generous that we believe is a better.

509
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 9: Government that's favorable to the government that created the conditions

510
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:12,880
Speaker 9: that hurt your son.

511
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 4: Right, So, so the immediate, the specific there is a

512
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 4: purpose to making it so that Carlos dies, and it

513
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 4: is to make it.

514
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: It is make people angry, and it is.

515
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 6: And it's complicated.

516
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 7: I think like then, because again we are talking about

517
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 7: one of the main hospital pediatric hospitals in Havana with

518
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 7: half the best cure.

519
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 6: Can you imagine this right in the place.

520
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 7: They just batanzas or baraka like for their province, countryside

521
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:49,200
Speaker 7: rural areas that there are more Carlos over there, but

522
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 7: other with other diseases that are abable to be fixed

523
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 7: in this twenty first century.

524
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 6: And it's crazy that they can't have the indications that

525
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 6: they need.

526
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:05,919
Speaker 7: I think like the most of the people are angry

527
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 7: in Cuba, but the most I think, like the general

528
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 7: feeling is frustration. Is frustration because why we need to

529
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 7: deserve it under these conditions. And I think, like the

530
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 7: doctor AliOS say is something that stuck with me. It's like,

531
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,400
Speaker 7: and it puts the example of the one hundred bucks.

532
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 7: It's like, if a country only have one hundred bucks,

533
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:31,399
Speaker 7: they need to be sure that they can help in

534
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 7: the most of the people, the majority of the people

535
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 7: with these only one hundred bucks, and Carlos and other

536
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 7: kids and other teenagers and other mother fathers, there are

537
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 7: other people that have also specific disease that the use.

538
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 7: The Cuban government used to buy medication just for them,

539
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:56,000
Speaker 7: and now they just they need to do trarash. Okay,

540
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,479
Speaker 7: we need this specific amount of money. Who we are

541
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 7: going to life with this? So sadly, Carlos can't get

542
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 7: into the list because as Bray said, it's just a

543
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 7: few number of people that have the disease.

544
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 6: So this is crazy.

545
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 7: So people get sad, get frustrated, get angry, but it's

546
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 7: frustration because Okay, this is the medical site. But then

547
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 7: the doctors and the nurses have to come back home.

548
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 7: You don't have electricity to a black house, or they

549
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 7: don't have gas so they can cook, so they don't

550
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 7: have anything. They don't have running water because there is

551
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 7: no electricity of course to pump in the water. So

552
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 7: this is the same people who need to be focused

553
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 7: the other day and needs to be rest to save

554
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 7: other children and other families live. This is crazy and

555
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 7: they need to go through all this, and they say, why,

556
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 7: who is there responsible for this? I can't think about

557
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 7: the US government. I can't play with because there are

558
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 7: two fight away from us. There are too fight away

559
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 7: from our life. We need to blame our own government

560
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 7: because they need to give an answer, They need to

561
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 7: do something to change.

562
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 4: These They're the ones you're interacting with on a day

563
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 4: to day basis exactly exactly.

564
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: So we're gonna we'll keep up with this.

565
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 4: And and you know, you know, I'm so grateful to

566
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 4: everyone who is able to like come together and get

567
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 4: Carlos this medication that absolutely should not have to come

568
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 4: to this. And the kind of the the relief on

569
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 4: on the face of his mother and father kind of

570
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 4: is you know, spells out to me.

571
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: The depravity of of the of denying it.

572
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 4: Uh, he'll probably you were saying you need to go

573
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 4: to the country of Columbia to get some some treatment,

574
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 4: which is which is possible, and we're gonna, well, you know,

575
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 4: but we'll we'll keep up with this, but ultimately what

576
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 4: the country.

577
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: Needs just to be able to do normal business and

578
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: and trade. But then, thank you.

579
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 4: Brayce co hosted a true on podcast Liz with Belly

580
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 4: of the Beast. Thank you so much for everything you're

581
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 4: doing for being here.

582
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 9: The Daily Mail dropped a midday bombshell yesterday revealing we

583
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 9: can put up on the screen that Christy Nomes' longtime husband,

584
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 9: I think they've been married for thirty four years or

585
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 9: high school sweetheart was reading what that was, leading what

586
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 9: The Daily Mail described as a quote secret double life.

587
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 9: The rest of the headline is Nomes cross dressing husband Brian,

588
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 9: the pouting, busty bimbo photos and trove of explicit messages.

589
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 9: Trove is not an understatement. The Daily Mail has its

590
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 9: hand on all kinds of screenshots showing what appears to

591
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 9: be a very clear fetish for Christy Noams husband. Again,

592
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 9: this is seems have been happening while she was the

593
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 9: secretary of the Homeland Security Department who is putting balloon

594
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 9: up his shirt, sending pictures of himself with like cartoonishly

595
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 9: large breasts to women who apparently he was also into

596
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 9: having cartoonishly large breasts. He was paying them money. I

597
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 9: mean up to potentially twenty five thousand dollars and this

598
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 9: is all coming out now, Christi Noman money. He's an

599
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 9: insurance guy. That's his background. So Christie Nome responds yesterday

600
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 9: after the Daily Mail drops this in the middle of

601
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 9: the day, quote, Misnome is devastated. This is her camp's response.

602
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 9: The family was blindsided by this and they ask for

603
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 9: privacy and prayers at the time. That's what her representatives

604
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 9: told the New York Post. Now Trump also reacted to this,

605
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 9: going to skip ahead to eat five. He told, uh

606
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 9: the Daily Mail, Wow, well, I feel badly for the family.

607
00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 9: If that's the case, that's too bad. Why does it

608
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 9: matter that? And Christynomer responded in this particular way, Well,

609
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 9: it's interesting because as salacious as this story is, this

610
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 9: is the Homeland Security secretary who was clearly vulnerable to

611
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 9: blackmail on an enormous scale. When these pictures are being

612
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 9: sent with her husband's face in them. It's not as

613
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 9: though he was trying to hide himself hide his face.

614
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 9: Some of the women he interacted with, apparently he was

615
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 9: paying and interacting with, said that they figured out who

616
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:31,719
Speaker 9: he was. They talked to him about it. They asked him.

617
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 9: One of them said she asked him about Corey Lewandowski

618
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 9: and his wife having an affair, and he said, well,

619
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 9: there's nothing that I can do about it. So if

620
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 9: Trump and Nome had no idea about.

621
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: This, wait, one of the sex workers he was engaging with,

622
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: who was.

623
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 9: Like, E four, did you see this? No? Mark Caputo

624
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:54,760
Speaker 9: reported how he was. He got a tip. So Mark

625
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 9: Capudo is the Trump White House reporter over at Axios.

626
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 9: He's in Florida. He said, quote, Yeah, I got a

627
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 9: weird lead. A source texted me February thirteenth. They said

628
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 9: an immigrant sex worker, possibly in the country illegally, wanted

629
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 9: to go public about Nome's husband using her services online.

630
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 9: It was vengeance for DHS's immigration enforcement. I couldn't land

631
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 9: the interview. Caputo posts a screenshot of his back and

632
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 9: forth with that source. He says, sharing because folks sometimes

633
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 9: wonder how reporting works here, I would have needed to

634
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 9: talk to the accuser and verify the info the way

635
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 9: the mail did. When we use anonymous sources, they're credible.

636
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 9: Sometimes it means someone else gets the story for what

637
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 9: it's worth. I understand. Yet another media outlet had been

638
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:39,960
Speaker 9: shown these pictures last year but declined to run them.

639
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 9: A woman then quote tweets another post and Kaputo points

640
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 9: to saying when this news broke, I recognized him, referring

641
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:50,839
Speaker 9: to Brian Nome as one of my clients, because I've

642
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 9: never seen a quote sissy sub have bigger knockers than him.

643
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:57,320
Speaker 1: But where did where is it?

644
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 4: Where do they say that the sex worker asked him

645
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 4: about the affair between Lewandowski and.

646
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 9: That's in the Daily mail store, that's the Daily Mail stow.

647
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 10: I got it.

648
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 4: I thought I had seen that somewhere. Yeah, so that's

649
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,840
Speaker 4: the other thing. Yes, you could blackmail her over this.

650
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 4: You could also blackmail her over this, like widely discussed

651
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 4: years long affair with this like the facto chief of

652
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:19,360
Speaker 4: staff or maybe like whatever, like whatever you want to

653
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 4: call Corey Lewandowski. Why why is she even still married?

654
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:29,840
Speaker 4: Like just she's clearly like follow your heart with Corey.

655
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 9: Like it's all very weird, and Corey is married to

656
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:34,800
Speaker 9: a nine to eleven widow. By the way, it's just

657
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 9: a really gross and sad situation. And they've been publicly

658
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 9: cheating on their spouses at GOP events for years now.

659
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 9: Everyone knows about it. Trump apparently thinks it's hilarious. But

660
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 9: that's the reporting from behind closed doores. I think the

661
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 9: Daily Mail has also gotten that reporting. It might have

662
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 9: been the New York Post, but either way, Ryan, the

663
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 9: national security implications of this are not like, it's not

664
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 9: insane to be like, did you have any idea? I mean,

665
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,320
Speaker 9: now they're saying they're totally blindsided by this. Trump claims

666
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 9: to have just learned this from a Daily Mail reporter.

667
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,359
Speaker 9: I mean, that's the implication of Trump's reaction. I don't

668
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 9: know that that. I mean, it seems almost impossible for

669
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:17,320
Speaker 9: the DHS secretary's husband to be sending pictures of himself

670
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 9: like this and to have it not be known. It

671
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:22,800
Speaker 9: looks like from the screenshots it's on WhatsApp, it seems

672
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,200
Speaker 9: really wild that that wasn't known at all by his

673
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 9: wife or at all by the government.

674
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 4: Well, it's only a national security issue if you think

675
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 4: that the Department of Homeland Security has anything to do

676
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:35,759
Speaker 4: with actually securing the homeland, Yes, and I've seen no

677
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 4: evidence of that. They do a lot of things, none

678
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:41,280
Speaker 4: of them are seemed dedicated to that mission.

679
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:43,400
Speaker 9: Yeah, well they have powers, yes, And.

680
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 4: She has a lot of horses that you can ride

681
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 4: around and there's like like t one hundred fifty million

682
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 4: dollars ad campaign videos.

683
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:50,919
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's pretty interesting that this is coming out after

684
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 9: she leaves DHS.

685
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: I know what it took this, It took this source

686
00:36:58,080 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 1: a while to get it published, but.

687
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 9: Absolutely wild story. What's going to happen to the Shield

688
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:06,759
Speaker 9: of the Americas because isn't that what she's in charge? Right?

689
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:09,799
Speaker 4: She's a special Envoy for Central and South America, which

690
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 4: is amazing because I think Central and South America take

691
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 4: their traditional morality a little bit more seriously apparently than

692
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:22,839
Speaker 4: are traditional moralists here in North America. So that'll that'll

693
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 4: be interesting to see how they react to this, this

694
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 4: Sheriff and Lewandowski going around.

695
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:30,399
Speaker 9: I mean, it could be another problem for I think

696
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,439
Speaker 9: the stories of coryption that have surrounded Christinomover, I would

697
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 9: say like the last five plus years, roughly the last

698
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 9: five plus years of her career are it's constant, and

699
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 9: that's usually where it's where there's smoke, there's fire, type

700
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 9: of situation, like it's every several months. It's like there's

701
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 9: a possible corruption story coming out of nomes Orbit. You know,

702
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 9: connections that contracts are going to people who are political,

703
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:00,120
Speaker 9: politically connected, person.

704
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 1: Meets righteous gemstones.

705
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 9: It's a life that's really all said, Oh my gosh,

706
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:10,800
Speaker 9: that's very good, and so it's not. It wouldn't surprise

707
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 9: me if there's more reporting that comes out suggesting that

708
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 9: in recent weeks this was known to the Nome family

709
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 9: and the government. Obviously, if reporters are sniffing around, it's

710
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 9: that wasn't getting back to the Homeland Security secretary. I

711
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 9: mean she was just replaced last week.

712
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: She should have just said, as everybody knows, we have

713
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: an open marriage. That would have been much leave us alone,

714
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: would have.

715
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 9: Been much more. Okay, cool, yes, right, and should we

716
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 9: move on to Bob Bear.

717
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 1: Let's do it.

718
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 10: All right?

719
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 4: Joining us next is Robert Baer, former CIA case officer

720
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:51,440
Speaker 4: of more than twenty years, turned author and political commentator.

721
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 4: Emily we pretaped this interview yesterday. He said he doesn't

722
00:38:57,560 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 4: actually get up in the morning, which.

723
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:03,400
Speaker 9: Okay, nothing but respect for that, nothing but my dream.

724
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: Yes, I aspire to that.

725
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:10,840
Speaker 4: And so Bear is a a highly respected kind of

726
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 4: CIA case officer who is unusual in the sense that

727
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 4: he knows of what he speaks, in the sense that like.

728
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 1: He's been all over the world, he's been an undercover officer.

729
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:23,359
Speaker 1: Like he we talked about earlier in the show.

730
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 4: He was made famous for a little while because they

731
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:29,839
Speaker 4: tried to us I believe, like tried to prosecute him

732
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 4: for attempting to assassinate Sodomsane and his defense effective it

733
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 4: turned out, was I was doing this on behalf of

734
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 4: the CIA, Like don't you understand what it's the CIA?

735
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 1: Don't you know what the CIA does?

736
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:43,839
Speaker 9: Was Syriana also roughly based on him.

737
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 1: Yes, that's that, that's correct.

738
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 4: One of his books was turned into Sirianna and the

739
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,760
Speaker 4: main the George Clooney character is modeled after.

740
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:52,800
Speaker 10: Robert behar.

741
00:39:55,360 --> 00:40:00,400
Speaker 4: Now and so he has he's kind of like the

742
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 4: best that the CIA has to offer in the sense

743
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 4: of unders trying to understand.

744
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 1: Our our adversaries and Iran particularly, But that.

745
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 4: Doesn't and I think I want people to want people

746
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 4: to understand that Ron and Iran particularly, but I want

747
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 4: people to think about that. As he mentions in our interview,

748
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:21,440
Speaker 4: he's only been there a little bit, and his understanding

749
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 4: of Iran is surface deep, which he would acknowledge, and

750
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 4: yet he knows it better than most most of the

751
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:31,879
Speaker 4: rest of the CIA. The major thing I took away

752
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 4: from the interview is just how screwed the CIA is

753
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 4: in our intelligence community, our intelligence Yeah that wow, Like

754
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 4: they they've they've they're just operating based on caricatures and

755
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:47,880
Speaker 4: like what they read and like the propaganda outlets that

756
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 4: we finance.

757
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:50,839
Speaker 9: This is dark literally and metaphorically.

758
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so we thought, we thought it.

759
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 4: He hasn't done many interviews over the last many months,

760
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:00,799
Speaker 4: but he agreed to call on the show, and we thought,

761
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 4: does not mean any of us agree with everything he

762
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:07,759
Speaker 4: said or remotely agreed. So interesting, but it was but

763
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:12,720
Speaker 4: interesting to hear you know where he thinks this is going.

764
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 1: Not not well for the United States.

765
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, put it that way, and he just he talks

766
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 4: about the Sampson option multiple times, which is also the

767
00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:24,840
Speaker 4: name of a Seymour Hirsch book, which is a reference

768
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 4: to this purported Israeli strategy that they would rather basically

769
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:33,720
Speaker 4: nuke the world than lose a war.

770
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:38,319
Speaker 1: And so that was that's not what you want to hear.

771
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 9: It's really not no, nor is his speculation informed speculation

772
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 9: of course, about where the intelligence is likely coming from

773
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 9: and how we're I think this was the most interesting

774
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 9: part of the interview from my perspective, is how we're

775
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:55,440
Speaker 9: making the decisions that we're making, How are those being informed,

776
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 9: what intelligence is informing them, and how are we gathering

777
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 9: that intelligence. So if anyone would know, it would be

778
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 9: him and a CIA folks, even former CIA folks are

779
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 9: limited what they can say, obviously and are sometimes still freelancing.

780
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, but to hear a CIA former CIA, well, no

781
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 4: such thing as format, as they say, former CIA official

782
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 4: openly discussing the Samson option, which which.

783
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: Again he brought it up. He brought it up a

784
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 1: couple of times.

785
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:28,880
Speaker 4: That's when you're watching this if you don't, if you're

786
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 4: not familiar with that fairly common reference. It is the

787
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 4: idea that Israel's nuclear strategy includes an option to use

788
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 4: overwhelming nuclear force rather than lose something strategically, even if

789
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 4: that means the obvious kind of annihilation of Israel.

790
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:47,000
Speaker 9: Well, let's get to it.

791
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 1: Well, Bob, thank you so much for joining us. Really

792
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:51,799
Speaker 1: appreciate it, of course.

793
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 4: So let's let's start with from your perspective, what do

794
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 4: you think is the thing that the US in Israel,

795
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:05,320
Speaker 4: or let's start go with the US most misunderstood or

796
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:08,760
Speaker 4: underestimated when they went into this conflict.

797
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:14,399
Speaker 10: I think it's the determination of the Uranians. I wrote

798
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:16,840
Speaker 10: a book about this that if they were under attack,

799
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 10: what they would do is bring down golf energy supplies,

800
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 10: which could be up to fifty percent of proven reserves.

801
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 10: Now think about that. Let's say you can take proven

802
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 10: reserves offline for two, three or four years. It will

803
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 10: destroy the world's economy, as it's starting to do. And

804
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:53,320
Speaker 10: I think what they confused Tehran with Caracas. You just

805
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 10: simply can't decapitate the Uranian regime and expect people to

806
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 10: pour out in the street. That's not Iran. I mean,

807
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 10: it's so few of these people. I don't know that

808
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:07,680
Speaker 10: anybody in the administration has ever been to Iran. They

809
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:10,439
Speaker 10: don't they don't understand who these people are. They don't

810
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:15,959
Speaker 10: understand they're they're the faithful, if you like. I've spent

811
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 10: a lot of time there not a lot, but enough

812
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 10: to see that in a way, let me be politically incorrect,

813
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 10: it's a death cult. These people, large segment, are ready

814
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 10: to die for their beliefs. You know, you go to

815
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 10: the martyrs Cemetery in Tehran and it's it's genuine. And

816
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 10: I've spent a lot of time with the besiege and

817
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:41,800
Speaker 10: that's genuine. They're going to fight. We can turn the

818
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:46,360
Speaker 10: electricity off if we like, we can. We can destroy

819
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 10: their desolenization facilities, all of them. We could, We could

820
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 10: turn the country into rubble. But they're still going to

821
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 10: come back. And I mean, look at look at the numbers.

822
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 10: You've got ninety three million in people. If you destroy

823
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 10: the economy, turn it into a failed state. And you

824
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 10: look across the Gulf at a country like Gutter, which

825
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 10: has only got three hundred and fifty thousand people. Who's

826
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 10: going to defend the Arab Shakedoms. I mean, I'm not

827
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:17,239
Speaker 10: big fans of them, but who's going to defend them?

828
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 10: Are we going to keep a fleet in the well?

829
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:21,759
Speaker 10: I mean, we can't even put boats in the in

830
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 10: the Gulf right now, it's too dangerous. But are we

831
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 10: going to keep boats there? And then what do you

832
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 10: do about ninety three million armed, desperate people and these

833
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 10: fragile countries around. Again, you take off fifty percent of

834
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 10: the world's oil resource. Let's say a Syria like situation

835
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 10: where it's total chaos in Mayhem, oil is closed down.

836
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:48,160
Speaker 10: The effect that we'll have in the world's economy will

837
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 10: look a lot like the Great Depression.

838
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:54,279
Speaker 1: And Emily, I'll like jump in one second. Let me

839
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 1: just follow up on the question the death cult.

840
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 4: The people would rephrase that as around a lot of

841
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:05,759
Speaker 4: people in Iran see this as existential, like we are

842
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 4: fighting them, you know, from Tampa, from Nebraska, from aircraft

843
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:13,319
Speaker 4: carriers that are out of out of range. They are

844
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:16,319
Speaker 4: in their country and they see this as as an

845
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:20,800
Speaker 4: existential fight and are behaving rationally. I think because I

846
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 4: think death cult suggests like a level of.

847
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's a bad word. Yeah it's not, but I

848
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 10: mean it was. They fought. They lost hundreds of thousand

849
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 10: people in the war on Iraq. They were prepared to

850
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:39,360
Speaker 10: defend their nation. They have a very strong historical sense

851
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 10: country that goes back four thousand years, any number of things,

852
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:48,760
Speaker 10: and they're also looking at it is look, they signed

853
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 10: off on the nuclear agreement JCPOA and we unilaterally ripped

854
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 10: it up. I mean, they were complying with the terms

855
00:46:56,200 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 10: of JCPOA the two times this administration and has gone

856
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 10: into negotiations with them. In the middle of it, they

857
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:06,919
Speaker 10: attack them. The intent and I think that you see

858
00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 10: this on the far right in this country is destroy

859
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 10: Iran for past wrongs, and that goes back to Lebanon,

860
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:20,839
Speaker 10: goes to Iraq and the rest of it. But they

861
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:23,759
Speaker 10: don't see it that way. I mean, look, look, look

862
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 10: at the attack on Ross Lafon. It followed our attack,

863
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:34,240
Speaker 10: or the Israeli attack on South Pars. They reply in kind,

864
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 10: it's a tit for tat and they've always done this,

865
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:41,320
Speaker 10: and it don't It's not a question of, you know,

866
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:44,640
Speaker 10: defending the Iranians. This is who they are. This is

867
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 10: our enemy, and we're so bad at misunderstanding our enemy,

868
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 10: what they'll fight for and what they want. I mean,

869
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 10: you go back to Vietnam. We had never understood North Vietnam,

870
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 10: just American history. We refuse to believe that our enemies

871
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:04,840
Speaker 10: have grievances, whether legitimate or not, and so we are

872
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 10: fighting their grievances. But in all fairness, let's say to

873
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 10: the Cia. It doesn't have anybody that's been to Iran

874
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 10: understands the Iranians. Those people have all retired, they've gone away,

875
00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 10: same way with State Department Farsi speakers. Very few of them.

876
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 10: The ones the Iranians we know are exiles. You can

877
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:31,120
Speaker 10: never trust exiles, as Machiavelli told us, you can't trust him.

878
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 10: So it's a black box. We're going into it, and

879
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:39,319
Speaker 10: I cannot tell you right now who's going to give

880
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:43,399
Speaker 10: up first. It could be the Trump administration, it could

881
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:47,640
Speaker 10: be the Iranians. We don't know. That's the problem. I mean,

882
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,480
Speaker 10: what could happen in this next week is what should

883
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 10: really worry us.

884
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 9: Well, Bob I wanted to pick up on that point

885
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 9: because something interesting happened in the beginning of March, where

886
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 9: Lindsay Graham had made recent trips to Israel came back

887
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:04,520
Speaker 9: hold the American press. Israeli intelligence would tell him things

888
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:09,120
Speaker 9: that US intelligence was not telling him, which is fascinating

889
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 9: and suggests that some information planted to Lindsey Graham is

890
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:16,760
Speaker 9: then going into Donald Trump. So what do you believe

891
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 9: who is giving Donald Trump information on Iran? That is

892
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 9: that's basically the information he's basing his own decisions off

893
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:26,920
Speaker 9: of what do we know about that? What can we

894
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:27,719
Speaker 9: surmise about that?

895
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:32,799
Speaker 10: Well, I think what's telling is that Trump yesterday said

896
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:37,439
Speaker 10: we don't know whether Mushtaba the Sun is alive or dead,

897
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:40,880
Speaker 10: and that tells me we don't know much about the country.

898
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 10: It's one thing for the Israelis to target Iranian nuclear

899
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 10: scientists because they all have smartphones. They've got apps. You've

900
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 10: got cameras in Tehran that can track people, you can

901
00:49:57,239 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 10: track any cell phone. They do a brilliant job at it.

902
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:05,920
Speaker 10: I mean, they really do. But the assembly of experts

903
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:09,759
Speaker 10: and the people who were making the decision are offline.

904
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 10: I've spent time in Kulm. These people do not do smartphones.

905
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:18,800
Speaker 10: It's very medieval. On top of that, you have the

906
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:24,960
Speaker 10: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has this mosaic defense and

907
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 10: that's commanded. Control is not vertical, and they know what

908
00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 10: to do and they don't need orders, they don't need communications,

909
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:37,319
Speaker 10: and they do it because they've been planning for an

910
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 10: attack like this for a loono back to Reagan, the

911
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:44,959
Speaker 10: Iran Iraq war. They've been planning for a long time.

912
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:49,759
Speaker 10: We in the meantime have ignored them, and the Israelis

913
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:53,359
Speaker 10: don't understand the country. You know, I love the TV

914
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 10: show Tehran, but trust me, they do not have MOSAD

915
00:50:57,600 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 10: officers wandering around staff officers Tehran. It's too dangerous. I've

916
00:51:03,520 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 10: spent you know. When I was there, I had an

917
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 10: Iranian ID card and I was stopped. My group was

918
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:11,960
Speaker 10: stopped every fifteen minutes. We were checked for our IDs.

919
00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:15,520
Speaker 10: And they're very they're very good cards too, they're not reproducible.

920
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:20,400
Speaker 10: So the Iranians, I mean, the Israelis are depending on MK,

921
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 10: the resistance group, the Iranians, you know, criminals and the

922
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:28,439
Speaker 10: rest of it. But that doesn't get to the heart

923
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:34,840
Speaker 10: of the Iranian regime, which is very much res opaque

924
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:38,560
Speaker 10: to us. So if the Israelis are saying, hey, we

925
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 10: decapitate the regime, it's a shot in the dark for them.

926
00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 10: They don't know, and I mean the Iranians probably how many.

927
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:53,840
Speaker 10: It wasn't even really the Grand Iatola. He didn't have

928
00:51:54,080 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 10: the the chops for it, the dissertation and the rest

929
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:03,719
Speaker 10: of it. He wasn't recognized as one. He was effectively

930
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:07,960
Speaker 10: the spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard corps. Now the

931
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:12,960
Speaker 10: people making the decisions and the mosques are you know,

932
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 10: we don't know what they're up to, you know, we

933
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:22,240
Speaker 10: just don't. When I went to coombe I, i debated

934
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 10: an Ayatola. But I can tell you right now that

935
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:27,839
Speaker 10: I didn't walk away from that debate or from going

936
00:52:27,880 --> 00:52:33,319
Speaker 10: to comb debating other people East Martin of what they

937
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:37,759
Speaker 10: would do. And my limited experience in Iran tells me

938
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:42,000
Speaker 10: how little the American government knows. You just simply cannot

939
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:44,640
Speaker 10: pick this stuff up from academic papers and the rest

940
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:45,879
Speaker 10: of it. It doesn't work that way.

941
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:50,879
Speaker 4: So the Israelis, you know, really have leaned into this assassination,

942
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 4: assassination strategy.

943
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:54,400
Speaker 1: You're the perfect one to ask about that. You're the

944
00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: author of the perfect kill, which you know you've got

945
00:52:57,520 --> 00:52:57,759
Speaker 1: in there.

946
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:01,080
Speaker 4: I think it's called twenty one Rules for Assassinations or

947
00:53:01,120 --> 00:53:03,880
Speaker 4: something along those lines. Like when you when you think

948
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 4: about those rules and your in your career as a

949
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 4: CIA case officer, how do you assess the effectiveness of

950
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:19,839
Speaker 4: kind of US Israeli assassination program, whether it's has Blahamas

951
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 4: or or now as it's rolling out in Iran.

952
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 10: Well, when I wrote the book, it was it was,

953
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:28,600
Speaker 10: like I write, so much somewhat is obvious. Had we

954
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:33,439
Speaker 10: assassinated Hitler, had he'd be had he been assassinated early

955
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 10: on in the war, we would have saved a lot

956
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 10: of bloodshed. But what we're seeing in Lebanon is these

957
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:47,359
Speaker 10: Surreelis have assassinated, you know, the leadership of his ball

958
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:50,359
Speaker 10: all of them people I know, Mugnia, the rest of them.

959
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:53,440
Speaker 10: But now they're in the middle of they're in a

960
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:57,640
Speaker 10: quagmire in southern Lebanon because there was a second and

961
00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 10: third tier of people that may be more effective than

962
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:04,040
Speaker 10: the people they got rid of. And I'm you know,

963
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 10: they assassinated Hamene, but we don't even know what their

964
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:11,919
Speaker 10: sons alive. I mean, I could see the Iranians knowing

965
00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 10: He's dad died in that first attack, yet carrying on

966
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:20,640
Speaker 10: with this whole idea of martyrdom and spirit. So I think,

967
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:22,920
Speaker 10: I think, you know, the proofs in the pudding and

968
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:27,240
Speaker 10: assassination in terms of Iran and his Balla is not effective.

969
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:32,560
Speaker 9: The Israeli outcome is if there's regime change. What we

970
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:36,439
Speaker 9: know is that they're not concerned so much about utter

971
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:40,839
Speaker 9: chaos englfing Iran. They actually see a week Iran as

972
00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:44,319
Speaker 9: a benefit to Israel even in the long term from

973
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 9: public reporting and statements and the like. What can you

974
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 9: tell us about how true that actually is? So, if

975
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:53,800
Speaker 9: we take Israel's argument at face value, is it actually

976
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:55,960
Speaker 9: true that Israel is safer in the long term with

977
00:54:56,320 --> 00:55:00,720
Speaker 9: Iran mired in chaos? Or does the factionalization and actually

978
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:04,800
Speaker 9: create an enormously different, enormously dangerous situation the likes of

979
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:07,120
Speaker 9: which we haven't even seen so far.

980
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:11,520
Speaker 10: I you know, Israel lives in a bad neighborhood, and

981
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:15,200
Speaker 10: I don't think at the end of the day, chaos

982
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 10: and your border on your borders is going to turn

983
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 10: out to be profitable. I mean it was. You know,

984
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:25,080
Speaker 10: if Oslo hit a work, they had to be better off.

985
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 10: And now you are going to once you destabilize, let's

986
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:33,279
Speaker 10: say Saudi Arabia. Let's take a scenario that tomorrow we

987
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:38,640
Speaker 10: hit carg Island. The next day, the Iranians take out

988
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:43,520
Speaker 10: ob cake, shut off seven million barrels a day, take

989
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 10: out water supplies. You're going to have an Arab world

990
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:51,160
Speaker 10: that's going to fall apart, including Jordan on their border.

991
00:55:52,160 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 10: And what do you do with all of these people?

992
00:55:56,920 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 10: You know, armed, and you're pushing into chaos and I'm

993
00:56:02,640 --> 00:56:04,520
Speaker 10: not that's not the best solution.

994
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:05,920
Speaker 9: Now.

995
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:09,919
Speaker 10: What destroyed any chance of a piece was seven October course,

996
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 10: which was horrific for the Israelis, and they are responding

997
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:17,520
Speaker 10: to it, and this administration is still responding to it.

998
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:25,360
Speaker 10: But look, Hamas is still in place in Gaza. The

999
00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:28,280
Speaker 10: West Bank is not getting any better, it's getting worse,

1000
00:56:28,520 --> 00:56:33,680
Speaker 10: and Jerusalem is and Israeli society is becoming less secular

1001
00:56:34,360 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 10: by the minute, which isn't good for It's not good

1002
00:56:38,120 --> 00:56:41,759
Speaker 10: for Israelis because a lot of Israelis is going to

1003
00:56:41,800 --> 00:56:44,279
Speaker 10: pick up and leave the ones that can, and you're

1004
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:49,360
Speaker 10: gonna have this very small state which is ultimately indefensible

1005
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 10: if the population is cut way down and you have

1006
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:55,719
Speaker 10: all this craziness on your borders. So I mean, we

1007
00:56:55,840 --> 00:57:00,760
Speaker 10: are really into unchartered waters here. You don't take value

1008
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:04,120
Speaker 10: of what net Yahu's done. You just see what he

1009
00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:07,720
Speaker 10: forces he's reacting to, and then you take the forces

1010
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:12,120
Speaker 10: the Uranians are reacting to. And you have two immovable

1011
00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:18,320
Speaker 10: forces here at Loggerheads. And the entire world will pay

1012
00:57:18,440 --> 00:57:21,440
Speaker 10: for this, you know, I see these these numbers from

1013
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:23,640
Speaker 10: Hedge Funds in New York about what this is doing

1014
00:57:23,720 --> 00:57:28,200
Speaker 10: the derivatives in the petroleum market. It's we've yet to

1015
00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 10: feel it, and there's no turning back right now. It

1016
00:57:31,440 --> 00:57:35,440
Speaker 10: can't be fixed. And if and if Iran controls Hormos

1017
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 10: and turns it into a toll booth and keeps it,

1018
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:45,000
Speaker 10: keeps arab oil from leaving or highly taxed, it's a

1019
00:57:45,040 --> 00:57:45,480
Speaker 10: new game.

1020
00:57:46,040 --> 00:57:47,960
Speaker 1: What's your sense of if you listen to Trump or

1021
00:57:48,120 --> 00:57:51,360
Speaker 1: hagsat the Rubio now the US is just cleaning up

1022
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:54,320
Speaker 1: and you know, really showing them whose boss? What's your

1023
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:56,680
Speaker 1: sense of who's winning this war strategically?

1024
00:57:56,760 --> 00:57:59,720
Speaker 10: At this point? I still think it's the Samson option.

1025
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:05,560
Speaker 10: I think that if it continues, Iran will become a

1026
00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 10: failed state. It'd be like Somalia or Syria. Whether ethnic problems,

1027
00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 10: you know, civil war comes of this. I can't tell you.

1028
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:18,040
Speaker 10: It's unknowable. So I don't think anybody's work, you know,

1029
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 10: winning in this. The point is the IRGC is in place,

1030
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:27,840
Speaker 10: it's calling the shots. We don't know who the second

1031
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:31,400
Speaker 10: tier commanders are, the third we don't know how devoted

1032
00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:37,360
Speaker 10: they are. And trust me, these people, the IRGC are

1033
00:58:37,480 --> 00:58:40,080
Speaker 10: tough people. I mean they have no sense of humor.

1034
00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:42,960
Speaker 10: When I was in Tehran, I went knocked on her

1035
00:58:42,960 --> 00:58:46,200
Speaker 10: embassy door and said, let me in. This guy comes,

1036
00:58:46,280 --> 00:58:49,720
Speaker 10: This officer comes out and says, go away. You know,

1037
00:58:49,920 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 10: I didn't give up, so I pounded it again. So

1038
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:53,800
Speaker 10: I'm an American taxpayer, let me in. I want to

1039
00:58:53,800 --> 00:58:57,400
Speaker 10: see her property. And he just slammed it. They are

1040
00:58:57,760 --> 00:59:01,640
Speaker 10: very very serious, as we know, and they mow people

1041
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:05,520
Speaker 10: down in the street. I just don't see them giving up.

1042
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 10: I mean, these people are still they live by grievances.

1043
00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:17,800
Speaker 10: When the prophet's grandson was murdered, that's foremost in their lives.

1044
00:59:21,360 --> 00:59:24,080
Speaker 10: You know, I just don't seem giving You know, even

1045
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:27,040
Speaker 10: if we do take out Kark, I would imagine no

1046
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:28,480
Speaker 10: one's going to dare surrender.

1047
00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:32,920
Speaker 1: Well, have you noticed the kind of meme.

1048
00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:37,920
Speaker 4: War that Iran has been waging. The jokes have been

1049
00:59:38,520 --> 00:59:41,800
Speaker 4: asymmetrically kind of in favor so far actually of the

1050
00:59:42,080 --> 00:59:43,040
Speaker 4: Iranian government.

1051
00:59:43,640 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 10: This time.

1052
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:48,000
Speaker 1: They seem to be laughing all the way to Samson here.

1053
00:59:49,080 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, I mean they you know, they've they've been

1054
00:59:52,280 --> 00:59:57,560
Speaker 10: Look here's the problem. Uranian actors from seventy nine on

1055
00:59:58,280 --> 01:00:03,280
Speaker 10: were blamed us for the Shaw. Yes, we participated in

1056
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:07,920
Speaker 10: the corruption, but nothing we did do deserve our embassy

1057
01:00:08,000 --> 01:00:11,240
Speaker 10: being overrun. And then there are various terrorist acts that

1058
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:15,320
Speaker 10: they've conducted that the military hasn't forgotten. They did the

1059
01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:19,040
Speaker 10: Marines in eighty three. It was them, not His Balla.

1060
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:23,200
Speaker 10: It was Iran who organized that. And I could go

1061
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:26,880
Speaker 10: on and I could just inflame, you know, with all

1062
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:29,960
Speaker 10: attacks that we know they did, and they took the hostages.

1063
01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:34,600
Speaker 10: It was Iran, not His Balla. So we have our grievances,

1064
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 10: but now they're meeting. But the Iranians had this deep

1065
01:00:39,880 --> 01:00:43,840
Speaker 10: sense of justice and injustice, and they think that they're

1066
01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:49,000
Speaker 10: the receiving end of an imperial United States. They look

1067
01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:56,040
Speaker 10: at Israel as, you know, an imperial state essentially run

1068
01:00:56,120 --> 01:00:58,640
Speaker 10: by the United States. You know that's not true, but

1069
01:00:59,160 --> 01:01:01,120
Speaker 10: the way they look at it in the street is

1070
01:01:01,200 --> 01:01:04,960
Speaker 10: that we are calling the shots in Tel Aviv. It's

1071
01:01:05,280 --> 01:01:06,760
Speaker 10: that's the way they look at the world. And they say,

1072
01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:09,920
Speaker 10: you know, there's some sort at the end divine justice,

1073
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 10: or it's secular too. And you know, when I talked

1074
01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:19,000
Speaker 10: to the besiege about suicide bombings and the Iran Iraq war,

1075
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:23,000
Speaker 10: they said, no, you people, you have it wrong. It's

1076
01:01:23,040 --> 01:01:25,560
Speaker 10: not because of seventy two virgins and they wear the

1077
01:01:25,560 --> 01:01:30,680
Speaker 10: little white keys. It's because you agree with one of

1078
01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:34,440
Speaker 10: your soldiers rushing and dying take out a machine gun

1079
01:01:34,560 --> 01:01:37,160
Speaker 10: nest in World War Two. We're the same way. These

1080
01:01:37,200 --> 01:01:41,600
Speaker 10: people are not stupid, and they know what they're doing

1081
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:45,320
Speaker 10: and what they've been hitting. The aluminum facilities and the

1082
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:49,200
Speaker 10: Gulf and the rest of it. It's pinpoint strikes and

1083
01:01:49,400 --> 01:01:52,040
Speaker 10: damage it's going to be doing to the West. You

1084
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:55,760
Speaker 10: look at the Islamic State and they just slaughtered for

1085
01:01:55,880 --> 01:02:01,880
Speaker 10: slaughter's sake. The Iranians are much more focused and have

1086
01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:02,360
Speaker 10: a plan.

1087
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:05,880
Speaker 1: What is the offering for Trump? Where does this? What's

1088
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: the best case scenario here? What's the worst case scenario?

1089
01:02:08,760 --> 01:02:11,800
Speaker 10: The best case scenario is he says, look, we changed

1090
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:17,280
Speaker 10: the leadership. You know, everybody's being assassinated with the bad guys.

1091
01:02:17,960 --> 01:02:20,480
Speaker 10: We can deal with these guys and we're going to

1092
01:02:20,520 --> 01:02:24,439
Speaker 10: come to He's going to declare victory and leave. That's

1093
01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:27,760
Speaker 10: the best solution. I don't think the Iranians are going

1094
01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:32,000
Speaker 10: to surrender to the demands. I don't think his ball

1095
01:02:32,160 --> 01:02:34,320
Speaker 10: is going to surrender. I think that's going to keep

1096
01:02:34,400 --> 01:02:39,360
Speaker 10: going on. So the best is declare victory and leave.

1097
01:02:40,480 --> 01:02:42,919
Speaker 10: You know, we set them back twenty years in their

1098
01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:46,000
Speaker 10: industry and the rest of it. But on the other hand,

1099
01:02:46,080 --> 01:02:48,160
Speaker 10: if they control the oil coming in and out of

1100
01:02:48,160 --> 01:02:54,240
Speaker 10: the Gulf, anybody looking at the numbers economically, it'll look

1101
01:02:54,320 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 10: like they won.

1102
01:02:55,720 --> 01:02:57,920
Speaker 1: Well, Bob, thanks so much for taking some time. Really

1103
01:02:58,040 --> 01:02:58,560
Speaker 1: appreciate it.

1104
01:02:59,040 --> 01:02:59,440
Speaker 10: Of course.

1105
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:02,040
Speaker 9: Well that's going to do it for us on today's

1106
01:03:02,160 --> 01:03:04,640
Speaker 9: edition of Breaking Points. Please do go to Breakingpoints dot

1107
01:03:04,720 --> 01:03:07,520
Speaker 9: com to get a premium subscription. Support the independent journalism

1108
01:03:07,600 --> 01:03:09,840
Speaker 9: that we're doing here on the show, help us keep

1109
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:13,160
Speaker 9: getting guests like Robert Pape and Bob Bear. Also that

1110
01:03:13,320 --> 01:03:16,200
Speaker 9: Cuba segment, Ryan, thank you so much for bringing this

1111
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:16,800
Speaker 9: reporting back.

1112
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:20,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if you want to support either Belly the Beast,

1113
01:03:20,360 --> 01:03:25,600
Speaker 4: the Cuban News Cuban US based but Cuban Cuban powered

1114
01:03:25,720 --> 01:03:29,440
Speaker 4: news organization Cuban Journalists, you can do that or the

1115
01:03:29,520 --> 01:03:30,360
Speaker 4: True Not Podcast.

1116
01:03:30,840 --> 01:03:34,200
Speaker 9: We're in the cusp of two million YouTube subscribers, so

1117
01:03:34,400 --> 01:03:37,200
Speaker 9: please please do go ahead and sub on the YouTube

1118
01:03:37,280 --> 01:03:40,360
Speaker 9: channel if you haven't done so yet, we appreciate it.

1119
01:03:40,440 --> 01:03:42,960
Speaker 9: Crystalin Soccer will be back in here tomorrow. We'll see

1120
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:45,040
Speaker 9: you on Friday's edition of the show,