Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - Trump vs Zelensky, Epstein List Letdown, Stephen A. Smith for President?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Flager family, hello, how are you? I'm very excited for this episode, not only because of our illustrious guests, but also because right now, March 4th, my Netflix special, Life, is streaming currently. Right now, you can go watch it, you can watch it right now, you can watch it after the episode, halfway through, however you want, whenever you want.

Starting point is 00:00:18 I just wanna say thank you so much to everybody who came out to the tour. Thank you so much everybody who came out to the tapings. I'm really proud of this piece. Man, I worked really hard on it. And I hope you go and you get something out of it. You get some laughs, get some feels. And if you want to spread the word about it,

Starting point is 00:00:34 that'd be amazing, that'd be incredible. Let's blow this thing up, man. Let's blow the fuck up. Let's set some records. I wanna set some damn records. So spread the word, scream it from the rooftops. And again, thank you guys so much for all the support throughout this entire process.

Starting point is 00:00:48 I love y'all, now let's start the show. What's up everybody, welcome to Flaker, and today we are joined by, I would say the perfect guest to explain all the chaos happening around us, we have Sagar back in the building. Oh, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Thanks for having me. What's up, Sagar? We have a lot of things we need to us. We have Sagar back in the building. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me.

Starting point is 00:01:06 What's up, Sagar? We have a lot of things we need to discuss. We got Zelinsky. Yes. And Trampito and Vance. Vance making a big move. The Tate brothers coming back to Danny. Yep, that's true.

Starting point is 00:01:15 The Tate brothers coming back to the West. Shout out the West. Welcome home. Welcome home. They're like the new Britney Griner. They'll be the clip, yeah. Right? Whatever y'all said about Britney Griner,

Starting point is 00:01:23 y'all better keep that same energy about the Tates. Yes or no? A weed pen versus human traffickers? Yeah, yeah Yes or no a weed pen versus human traffic Another great point if you got an issue with the Muslim migrants, keep that same energy. That's right. Now what we can say on this part is that's an American struggling abroad that needs our help. And we've got to go protect those Americans. He's a dual citizen though.

Starting point is 00:01:54 He's a dual citizen. He's an American. He's American, he's also Romanian. So it's like, well, which law triumphs? American. What's your American, you're always American. Yeah, all right, all right. That's like in Rome, it's like when you're a Roman citizen, nobody fucks with you.

Starting point is 00:02:06 Is that, that was the rule? Do you guys ever watch the HBO's Rome? Do you know what I'm talking about? No. There's a great, spoiler alert, sorry, I came up 20 fucking years ago. So get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:02:15 But where I think it was Pompeii got his head cut off by, I think it was Cleopatra or the Egyptians. And Caesar arrived and they're like, we cut his head off and they're expecting him to be happy. And they're like, we cut his head off, and they're expecting him to be happy, and they're like, nobody executes a Roman citizen except for another Roman citizen. And I was like, I fucking love that. I like that, yeah.

Starting point is 00:02:34 So we ought to go, so if you're American, you're American always. That's the rule. Even if you don't get that other certain little citizenship. We are an empire, so we might as well start acting like the Romans. Yes, like, let's be honest. If you saw two passports at the airport,

Starting point is 00:02:43 and one was the American one And then the other one was like magenta wherever colors the other people's yeah, which one are you taking? I'm taking America. I mean, I don't even believe in dual citizenship to be clear So I think it I don't even think should be allowed. Can I go one further? Yeah, go ahead I don't even believe we need passports. Okay Yeah, you're right Thailand and they're like you gotta get 45 days like $20 you shut up. Yeah, I

Starting point is 00:03:19 Don't want to get nothing from no official anywhere in the world. You're totally right You should be able to go wherever the fuck we want. It's insulting when I show up to even Canada We should be able to go wherever the fuck we want. It's insulting when I show up to even Canada and they ask me about that. Especially, right. I feel insulted. Yeah, you're right. How long are you going to stay? As long as I please. As long as I please.

Starting point is 00:03:30 You are welcome. You're in the 51st state now. That's right. Listen, Greenland, I don't even know if I want Greenland the way they're acting. You want Greenland. No, no, no. But the way they're acting, I did want to give them the opportunity to be American. Oh, really?

Starting point is 00:03:43 And the fact that I don't see a lot of tweets on Greenland Twitter or whatever like that, I need to see more energy and excitement. Why not? I mean, they wore their MAGA hats for Trump Jr. Did they really? Well, I mean, there's controversy around it. Why not? Well, because they're saying that they rounded up a bunch of homeless Greenlanders and gave

Starting point is 00:03:58 them MAGA hats. I don't know if that's true. They say that it's not true. I don't think they're homeless Greenlanders. That's what I was thinking. I was like, there's only 50,000 of you. It's a huge place. It's not that hard to find. Listen, Greenland,. It's Greenlanders. That's what I was thinking. I was like, there's only 50,000 of you. It's a huge place. It's not that hard to find.

Starting point is 00:04:06 Greenland, Greenland, Greenland. We're gonna give a quarter pound of whale blubber to anybody who wants to join America, okay? You can cut it open with that little. What is it, 50,000, $1 million each. How much is that? I mean, what is that, like five, either what? Five, we're not paying anybody to be American.

Starting point is 00:04:21 All right, all right, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's too much math. We don't pay anybody to be American. Look at that, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, there you go. That guy be American. Alright, alright. That's too much math. We don't pay anybody to be American. Look at that. That's what I'm talking about. That guy looks American. That's a Greenlander.

Starting point is 00:04:30 Yeah, that's a Greenlander. Yeah, that looks like a Dagestani wrestling show. Anyway, listen, we got a lot. No, what else we got? We got a Doge. We need to explain Doge. You're the expert on Doge now. Apparently. Yeah, yeah. You're the Doge now. Apparently. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:04:45 You're the Doge guy. Yeah. Apparently, I'm the expert. I actually, I have no fucking clue what's going on. I really have no clue, but you came in today like I think, what did you say? What did I say? That I'm going viral. Oh, that you are going viral. Yes. You and Charlamagne's back and forth on Doge has been, I've seen it everywhere.

Starting point is 00:05:00 That also could be my algorithm. We are the top political analysts in the world. That's right. Yeah, you are. No, no, no. Not taking, not taking, sir. But when people want to know what's happening in America. You're the top MMA journalist. You're the top political my algorithm. We're the top political analysts in the world. No offense. No, no, no. I'm taking. I'm taking, sir. When people want to know what's happening in America.

Starting point is 00:05:08 You're the top MMA journalist, you're the top political commentator, the top comedian, you're the top everything. It's just too much. Now it feels like I've been bragging or something. You're like a polymast, you know? Yes, I'm that. You and Jarl made our account of breaking points. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:05:18 Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, no, it's the same concept. That's true. It's the same concept. I'm liking it. Whoa. Yeah, dude. Did you steal our shit? Yeah, I think I did.

Starting point is 00:05:27 For smart people? You're just brilliant brilliance Okay, um, and then we got more like there's a bunch of things that you are absolutely perfect to explain to us Oh the gold card citizenship. I wanna know I wanna know like why Steve Bannon's back around. Like I just want to know all these things. So where do we want to start? Obviously the Zelensky thing is the biggest. Did you watch the whole?

Starting point is 00:05:49 I watched the whole thing. Can you give us your honest breakdown of it? Sure. I mean, I will let me disclose my bias. I've been very, I've been very against more aid to Ukraine, been for a settled, you know, a settlement of the conflict now for quite some time. So my bias like totally upfront. And so seeing that all happen was very pleasing to me.

Starting point is 00:06:09 I'll try and be just like neutral. So it was a 53 minute interaction. It was during something called a pool spray, which is, so I used to cover the White House. The way that these things usually work is you have the King chairs where Trump was in that chair and you have Zelensky here. It's like the head of state chair.

Starting point is 00:06:24 We usually the camera. so like if you and I were sitting the people who are watching, there's just be a wall of cameras right here. And it's supposed to just be diplomatic fineries. Like it's supposed to just be like, yes, Mr. President, we welcome you to our country, blah, blah, blah. For about 40 minutes, it mostly was totally chill.

Starting point is 00:06:39 Even Trump was like, you guys have been very brave. If you watch a lot of this, he was very much trying to keep things under control But there was this moment and what happened is that is that? Zelensky hates JD Vance for a variety of reasons well back when JD was a Senate candidate so 2022 I had a viral moment where he was like I don't care about Ukraine at all Yeah, he said that on camera became a huge controversy obviously became a villain inside Ukraine But he's also been kind of a chief opponent of more military aid

Starting point is 00:07:07 to Ukraine or what I would call is like the Atlantic religion, like this idea that the United States and Europe are inextricably linked, that the invasion of Ukraine is not only an attack on democracy, it's an attack on America itself. So that's kind of the Eurocentric Atlantic mindset, very Cold War mentality. All right, so Vance is somebody who's much more of a realist. He thinks that there are checks and balances and that stockpiles are actual trade-offs, right? So he's like, we can't just ship unlimited weapons to Ukraine because we have to worry

Starting point is 00:07:37 about our own stuff or we need to worry about Taiwan or we need to worry about any other allies. Pretty reasonable. I would say it's quite reasonable, but they would say otherwise. And that's fine. It's a democracy. But anyway, so put that all together. JD, I think, was making a statement about bringing peace.

Starting point is 00:07:53 And it was at that moment that Zelensky really, you could see him lean forward the way I am right now. And he's like, let me ask you a question, JD. And that's when I was like, oh shit. Because well, first of all, JD was calling him Mr. President. He's calling him JD He's got a lot of hatred there. Don't forget either Zelensky came to Pennsylvania and as JD called for Josh Shapiro

Starting point is 00:08:14 Not only that he gave an interview here on US soil attacking JD Vance saying I forget you might be able to find it, Mark He either said he was too radical or something like that. So Zelensky's had it out out for JD for a long time. I love your comfort telling Mark to go look some shit. I say, if you don't mind, yeah. I was saying last time. Yo, you know Sacher's making money when he's telling white people what to do. I love it. He's in comfort. That's just the way I love it. That's our natural state. That's what Vivek showed. As Indians, our natural state is to tell you what to do. Exactly. Sell that low-cast piece of shit. Go Google something, man.

Starting point is 00:08:48 What do you got? He's too radical. There it is. All right. Google Waller. Zelensky. Google Waller. Oh, man.

Starting point is 00:08:58 Zelensky calls Vance too radical, suggests that he needs to study World War II. Yeah, so that was September. That was right before the election and they start bickering basically over the terms of the 2014 ceasefire. And it was then that this all starts to get very, very contentious. So can I ask a real quick question?

Starting point is 00:09:16 Yeah. This whole meeting, was this to present the agreement on the ceasefire? Is that the idea? Well, there's no ceasefire yet. So it's called the Minerals Deal. So over the last, let's say a couple of weeks or so, the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besson,

Starting point is 00:09:32 went to Kiev basically to negotiate this long-term minerals deal. The terms of the deal are, it's kind of complicated, but like basically it would give the United States rights to Ukrainian rare earth minerals, and US companies would effectively have a monopoly over that. In exchange, there would be a interest from the United States in a free and a sovereign

Starting point is 00:09:51 Ukraine that would not be attacked. Now Zelensky wants something called an explicit security guarantee. So if you attack us, we start bombing you. Exactly. So he wants his full blown NATO membership. That's not going to happen because it would mean Article 5 get triggered. That would obviously bring the United States into a nuclear war. He's willing to settle, of course, settle for an explicit US guarantee over what I think Ukraine

Starting point is 00:10:14 controls now, although he's never even said that. That would be a concession for him. So this was supposed to be a meeting of fineries. We're like, yep, we're here. We're here to work together. We're here to work towards peace. Zelensky just loses it over a couple of fineries where we're like, yeah, we're here, we're here to work together, we're here to work towards peace. Zelensky just loses it over a couple of things. One was Trump being like, this guy can't even say anything about peace with Putin, which, you know, I mean, let's give Zelensky the benefit of the doubt and all this. His country's been invaded, he's been at war, his people are being killed. So that's probably a lot to swallow.

Starting point is 00:10:40 But the thing is, is that from a pure diplomatic point of view, there's a template for all of this. The King of Jordan was here two weeks ago. Him and Trump are huge differences over Gaza, right? Trump controlling Gaza. And Trump says all this, oh, we're going to control Gaza. Yeah, Jordan, they're going to give in. I mean, that Trump Gaza ID post was nuts. It was wild. It was wild. What the fuck? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:11:01 Even the guys with the women with beards. You didn't see that? Those women with beards, I think, women with beards I think were great. I mean, it's a very progressive Gaza. That's right. Gaza's gone woke. Maybe that's why they cover them up. Yeah. Okay, go on.

Starting point is 00:11:13 All right, so what happened, but the king sits there, you know, it's all diplomatic fun. And then afterwards he releases a saving. We had great discussions, but, and he just lays out his terms. So that's an idea of contentious meeting U.S. ally, but Jordan, you know, at the end of the day,

Starting point is 00:11:26 we're seeing a shit ton of USAID, we're a major guarantor of their security. Zelensky just can't take it and he breaks down. So you can even see his posture. He starts going at JD, both over a ceasefire, and he starts questioning basic facts. So the fact that really set Zelensky off is when JD said, you are pressing your own male population

Starting point is 00:11:47 into forced conscription because you don't have enough manpower on the front lines. That is an objective fact. The average age of the Ukrainian military is somewhere between 40 and 50 years old, which is insane. That's like late stage Nazi Germany fighting in World War II. That's the Civil War, the Confederate military,

Starting point is 00:12:04 the Confederate armed forces at the siege of Petersburg. Who's left? Yeah, exactly. But that's actually a key point. Remember, the Ukrainians refused to drop their draft age from, I think it's 25 or 27. I'm not exactly sure. There's a whole generation of 18 to 25 year olds or 27 that are not currently eligible

Starting point is 00:12:22 for the Ukrainian draft. And it's because it's massively unpopular in Ukraine. So out of both sides of their mouth, they're like, we're total war, we're throwing everything, we got this. On the other side, they're like, well, we're also preserving our prime age male population to repopulate the Ukrainian state in the future. So they're not really throwing everything that they do have here. And in fact, previously, one of the US demands was, hey, you guys got to drop your fucking

Starting point is 00:12:43 draft age down to 18. The reason they don't want to do that is A, the guys don't want to fight because they've watched probably a million or so people get killed is B, they're just going to flee. I mean, if you guys go, so I was in Hungary and in Budapest, my guide, we walked past the Four Seasons Hotel and he's like, you see all these license plates? And it was like, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. These are all filthy rich Ukrainians who've been living in the Four Seasons Gresham Palace in Hungary. Until I go to Vienna and same thing. My guide is like our strip clubs have never had better business.

Starting point is 00:13:16 They've been just throw these Ukrainians have been throwing money around. They don't want to fight. I mean, a huge portion of their population is gone. So, all of that came to head when JD was like, you're forcibly conscripting people. Empirically true, there are videos of people, dude, sadly, even people who are mentally retarded, who have been pressed into service.

Starting point is 00:13:36 Probably the strongest. It's horrible. It's horrible. But I mean, they can probably do a lot of like. You can also look at the amputations. And they don't even need a gun. You just send them out there. This is Christ.

Starting point is 00:13:44 They're just ripping Russians apart with their bare hands This is some Soviet This is like Soviet Union 1943 I'm just saying What does a coach do? He defines a role for the coach Where you're gonna start hanging on his roll They got the helmets on already

Starting point is 00:14:00 Guys Dates, first of all thank you everybody who came out to Zany Sick Sold Out Show, so of all, thank you everybody who came out to Zany. Six sold out shows, so fun. Nashville, underrated city. March 14th and 15th, I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tickets aren't really moving there, so buy them. Omaha, Nebraska, March 21st and 22nd. Columbus, Ohio, these tickets will sell out March 20th and 29th.

Starting point is 00:14:19 Make sure you buy them. Also, April 10th through 12th, we are making up for the shows that I missed in Tampa. Those tickets are already almost gone. Hurry up and buy them. Also 420 shows in Denver. I'm hyped for this. You know what I do on 420? I get high.

Starting point is 00:14:31 So April 17th through April 20th Denver, Colorado at ComedyWorks. We're going to be at both locations. Those dates and more at AkashSingh.com. I love that. Suck his dick. Hell yeah! You'll finally be somebody. What's up guys?

Starting point is 00:14:43 World's fastest ad read. Rochester, New York March 26th, April 27, Portland, Maine. I'll be there, Joey Avery. Iron Portland girls can suck dick. That's Portland, Maine, not Oregon. I'll see you guys there. Both Portlands. Let's get back to the show.

Starting point is 00:14:54 Thank y'all so much, bye. So the feeling or the sentiment is, Elise, online, that the population is fractured in terms of their support of the war. Yes, that's right. Which is not uncommon with countries at war. I mean, America, Vietnam, right? It was probably divided.

Starting point is 00:15:07 Even in an invasion, you have to remember, this is a country which as a polity, like was very torn apart, like it had a significant portion of their population which spoke Russian, had affinity for Russia. That's largely the part that Russia kind of controls right now. The Donbas region is it?

Starting point is 00:15:22 But then you also have, yeah, the Donbas region, you're right, the Donetsk,. But also you have this new Ukrainian identity, which has really emerged very distinct from how it used to be in the Soviet times and others. So anyway, it's fascinating. Have you been at that? No, I've never been to Ukraine. I've been to all around Ukraine, but never actually inside Ukraine. Ukraine is awesome. Kiev is awesome. Really? When did you go? We went during the last war. Which one? Crimea. Oh, okay. So 2013? No, it was that far. Something like that. I knew something was up because I got an email from Expedia and they were like, by the way, it

Starting point is 00:15:59 was something like, would you like to rent a car for your trip? By the way, this is an active war zone be safe It was unbelievable food was amazing culture and party or beautiful people the food was incredible. Yeah, it was incredible Really? Yeah, I don't prostitutes were just so Incredible like the girl I saw that's another sad part of it What is that? That's just incredible. The girl I saw at the strip club. That's another sad part of it. What is that? Just the number of Ukrainian women who are apparently being human trafficked all over Europe.

Starting point is 00:16:30 Apparently it's a disaster. Like all over Hungary, Vienna, in terms of prostitution. They're being totally taken. We're trying to figure it out. I'm like, what? We're trying to figure it out. It's easier with the retards. Listen, that's fucking horrible.

Starting point is 00:16:41 But these were in Ukraine. Do you know how fucking horrible it is? We're trying to figure it out. It's easier with the retards. So you can... Listen, that is... that's fucking horrible. Yeah. But these were in Ukraine. Do you know how fucking miserable those people in those countries they're going to be? Those people are gonna be fucking furious. Because I saw a girl who had areolas like churchwafer.

Starting point is 00:16:58 They were the whitest areolas I've ever seen in my entire life. And I had to go to four different ATMs to get enough money Now the salute to her salute to her man, you know shout out Zelinsky Okay, so it seems like there's waning support Club with the white nipple chicks. 18 to 25, they're in the strip club. Or they want to leave. I had to fake an orgasm with them. It's a problem.

Starting point is 00:17:30 So, and I had to fake an orgasm. Because I had sex once, and then my boy had a girl, and then he had sex, and then he went back for number two, and I'm just sitting on the couch with this poor girl, I don't want to hurt her feelings. So I take her back, and I got the udon noodle, my shit is not even close to hard. And then I just kind of pumped away for a little bit

Starting point is 00:17:50 and then I was like, cease fire, cease fire, cease fire! Cease fire Ukrainians can support. Exactly, yes, okay, so you were saying. Okay, so in this meeting. Also been to Russian strippers too. I didn't do anything, didn't touch them at all. Okay, so in this meeting. Also been to Russian strippers too. Okay. I didn't do anything, didn't touch them at all. Just wanna let you know.

Starting point is 00:18:09 Makes sense. Well, you probably should, you should say something. I would. All right, so what we have in this meeting is not only all of this beef around conscription, but really what happened is that Vance started to get very frustrated. And he was like, you come here to the Oval Office

Starting point is 00:18:22 of the United States, you disrespect this office. The worst mistake Zelensky made is that as Trump is getting furious this Zelensky. This is the line This was the lie. Yeah, you have no cards you have you remember this the line was The line to me that ended it. Yeah was You don't have to worry now You have a notion so you don't have to wait now, but in the future, you have a notion. So you don't have to worry now, but in the future you will worry. Yes, that's right. He was like, don't tell us what to be afraid of. I mean, this is Trump.

Starting point is 00:18:51 Trump is not only transaction, it's about respect. Apparently they told Zelensky to wear a suit before he came and Zelensky decided not to. Trump called him out. Did you see Trump call him out? Yeah, he goes, what did he say? He's like, he dressed up. That's fantastic. But that line to me is where he lost he goes, oh, you're dressed. What did he say? He's like, you're dressed up. You're dressed up. Yeah, that's fantastic.

Starting point is 00:19:05 But that line to me is where he lost everything. Absolutely. Because you're threatening. You're basically, he's basically acting. He's been acting this way for three years. That's the shocking part of it, is he has this false, oh look, I mean, this is where I'm gonna put my own bias on the table.

Starting point is 00:19:18 Let's look at all of the arguments for supporting Ukraine. Number one is that we need to defend NATO. And you're like, okay, well, Ukrainians are are or Ukrainians not in NATO. Okay got it. Two, we need to defend democracy. It's like yeah I mean it's a democracy in the way that any corrupt Eastern European country is. Zelensky's canceled elections, their parliament or their constitutions, they can't even hold an election. During wartime he has banned opposition parties, censored the media. I mean it doesn't look that democratic to me. And actually, one of the core demands of the United States is like,

Starting point is 00:19:48 hey, you need to hold an election. And he's like, no, we can't do that. We can't have that until even in his interview on Fox News afterwards, they're like, would you resign? He's like, that is up to Ukrainians. I'm like, how? They can't vote, dude. Yeah. It's like, how does that work? Three was okay. and this is the most sinister and the disgusting one is well We need to support Ukraine because we're weakening Russia, which means what which is that we are forcing the Russians to pour millions of men into Ukraine and kill as many Russians as possible and Somehow that's in the national interests of the United States is that we're weakening Russia and we're making their economy poorer Here's the thing Russia's not like here.

Starting point is 00:20:27 It's also not a democracy in a sense. They don't give a shit about a million guys who got killed. Go look at their history. What always happens? The war is a disaster. It's a total shit show. They make up for it with the vast population that they have. They pour as many people in there very inefficiently.

Starting point is 00:20:44 They kill a shit ton. And for some reason, the population, I mean, they don't many people in there, very inefficiently, they kill a shit ton, and for some reason the population, I mean they don't love it, but they're not rioting in the streets in the way that, I mean, can you imagine America? It's like, dude, it's part of their lore. In the Soviet Union, they lost almost 20% of their population, that's a foundational myth

Starting point is 00:20:59 of their country. We went to Russia as well, we did comedy in Russia. Not what we did in Ukraine. That actually must be hard. What we did in Ukraine. So basically, and I was asking them about this, and I think that what they have culturally is a lower expectation of happiness. Absolutely. You're absolutely right. And the advantage of that is there's like a suffering built into the culture. It's in their story. Their story going back to the 1600s is just invasion,

Starting point is 00:21:26 is projection, all of Russian national security policy, all the way back to the time of the czars, is what? Defense through death is vastness. Our population, we conquer as much as we can, force the population to come through. I mean, they've had horrible episodes. They were conquered by the Mongols that went through and devastated all the way up to Kiev.

Starting point is 00:21:44 Obviously invaded by the Nazis, that went through and devastated all the way up to Kiev. I mean, obviously invaded by the Nazis, invaded by Napoleon. Their strength is their vastness, is their population, and their just capacity for suffering. The Chinese have very similar. Capacity for suffering is huge. It's built into the culture, it's built into their literature.

Starting point is 00:21:59 There is this understanding that one does suffer. And something very powerful about that, I think this is something that like Americans maybe do not have right Since we haven't seen more on our front lines, and I'm talking about actual war since the Civil War Oh, yeah, that's the closest we ever came and remember what was that 2% of the US population was killed remember They got 20% of their population that was killed They had general orders during Stalin, the not one step back policy. Stalin's son was captured and he threw his daughter-in-law in prison because they said any person who gets

Starting point is 00:22:32 captured, your whole family is going to the Gulag. That is the DNA of the Russian state. I don't know if this is like a benefit to this, but what happens when 20% of your population dies and it's men, is that any man that's alive? He's like an absolutely has six women. Yeah, that's right And this is why there was no standard for like not being an alcoholic or not being a piece of shit like And it's true it literally because if you had a cock that works That was the only way to continue procreating You know, I spoke to a guy who was like taking us around Ukraine

Starting point is 00:23:03 He was like essentially our fixer right there. And that's what he does. He takes people around these places where you might feel a little uncomfortable. And he's like, yeah, there was a time where six is an understatement. You could have 12 different girls. If you had a job, you could pay the bills

Starting point is 00:23:16 and you could feed them. And the girls had to kind of put up with it. Now they get upset with that. So what happens when they get upset about it? There is a sexual revolution because you have to compete for the guy. You're not in the position to be like, you know, I'm keeping my pussy tight because seven other girls are like, I'll open it up for whatever. So now you have this like, yeah, 20% of the guys die, but the guys who are alive are like,

Starting point is 00:23:38 it's party time. Not even 20% of the guys. They just only lived. War was probably only women, right? Only men, right? They just lived. They were probably only women, right? Only men, right? They just lived through the worst conflict. I actually read a book about what Moscow was like when they thought the Nazis were about

Starting point is 00:23:51 to come. Yeah. And it was the most debauchery-ous party that Moscow apparently had ever seen. People were just housing vodka, having sex in stairwells. They were excited for it? There were just like, this is it. They're about to die. We're all about to die. And so it was crazy, man.

Starting point is 00:24:11 It's the same way, if you read about how our guys behaved in London, the Airmen, in World War II, you're like, yo, dude, this is disgusting. That's still loud, bro. You're like, this is bad, man. The US Army's trying to find prophylactic kits that will actually work.

Starting point is 00:24:27 The entire Piccadilly Circus was a literal whorehouse for US soldiers. Do they have, this is part of the World War II. My grandma was there. My grandma was there. I was waiting. I was waiting. Dude, they've been doing this nonstop, okay?

Starting point is 00:24:41 My grandmother survived World War II. I want British power. She survived. Give me a British power. David doing his non-stop, okay? My grandmother survived World War II. I want British power! Give me a British power! They barely survived. She was a victim. She was in a bunker. Jimmy and my stockings, apparently that's what they really like.

Starting point is 00:25:00 Don't you dare. No, US soldiers were paid five times the wage of a British soldier at that time. The guys had no chance. The Brits were furious about it. They're like, our invasion is here, all these yanks. And we're like fucking everything.

Starting point is 00:25:15 They're over sexed, overpaid, and over here. That was like, I don't understand. That was fucked up, it was like all my family was over there at that time. Yeah. That's it. The boys. Wait, you said Russia doesn't care about losing people, but why did they recruit North Koreans to fight for?

Starting point is 00:25:33 Well, that's actually an interesting thing. So first, I think the North Koreans want battle experience because they have one of the world's largest militaries. But two is the North Koreans have tons of ammunition. They have a stockpile. And actually, this is a useful thing for geopolitics. I saw a tweet today, they're like, why is the world take Russia seriously? Like smaller GDP than Texas, you know, all of this.

Starting point is 00:25:54 And I was like, oh, the answer is like 9,000 nuclear weapons. That's like the same thing with North Korea. I don't even know what the North Korean GDP is, like probably a county in like chocolate in Mississippi. It's nuclear weapons and natural resources. Yeah, of course. Because if you just have one, you can't really compete on the global stage.

Starting point is 00:26:10 But when you have nuclear weapons and you have oil and gas, no one can really tell you what to do. Bro, I was in Istanbul, and I saw the Russian oil ships coming through, because they have to go through that. Yeah, that's right. What is that little? It's bosporus.

Starting point is 00:26:24 Bosporus, yeah. I think that's what it is. and they basically took away the Russian lettering on the side of ships, right? So that's like remember there's a good oil embargo. Nobody's gonna buy Russian oil totables They just painted over the side of the ships and then Russian oil became this is a very useful exercise in like how power works So America like our economy doesn't do we don't produce anything. We're a service-based economy. And so we were like, oh, well, we'll cut the Russians off from here and we're gonna fuck them over. And it's like, oh, Russian GDP is exploding.

Starting point is 00:26:51 Their war production is incredible. They've increased year over year. Their GDP is expanding, or their economy is expanding because of war production. We tried to Karen them. We canceled them. We're like, don't you dare do business with Russia. And then we went woke and they made a lot of money.

Starting point is 00:27:06 And they made a shitload of money. Actually, the European Union has spent more in year three just on Russian oil than they have given to Ukraine. So there's a lot of talking out of all sides of their mouth. But this is a very useful lesson for America. Guns, bullets, oil, that's the only shit that matters. That's all that matters. Oh, Nvidia stock or what?

Starting point is 00:27:23 It's bullshit Hold me we need this market to hold bad signs on the horizon What's the S&P 500 I don't think it's good it's been dropping like 1.5 Earnings and they have a new chip that's gonna do really well Actually, but there's a lot of Bitcoin I need to buy back Look over the last month The S&P is flat on the month, which is not great, but it's been dropping a little bit from some of these early highs Yeah, there's some signs that it looks like they might be Yes, I mean don't get me wrong. It's like we're still doing fine

Starting point is 00:27:58 I hit up my guy and I was like are we selling? Crypto's in the tank Yeah, crypto's in that guy, but Okay, not really though. It's like when Bitcoin crashes from 100 to 80, you're like, come on, bro. Like, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like. Two months, that's kind of crazy.

Starting point is 00:28:10 Okay, sure, but I'm not saying this. Okay, it's like, what does crash mean? Like, and this is also where we should be honest about the S&P, where it's like, look, it's still up 20% on the YouTube. Don't even talk about S&P. Like, it's fucking fine. Just talk about Nvidia.

Starting point is 00:28:22 Like, you gotta speak about Nvidia. What is Nvidia right now? I don't know. Well, let's look at the one year? You gotta speak about it in the same way as Bitcoin then. Sure, yeah, absolutely. Because if you're gonna look at that exponential growth over the past decade. I'm saying in terms of national character, for example, I've been thinking a lot about this with cars. American cars, if we're being honest and if we had a totally free market, I'm buying a

Starting point is 00:28:43 Chinese EV yesterday. Are you kidding me? They're incredible. There's this guy, Forrest Auto Reviews, he's so good. He does all these videos showing BYD, the Xiaomi cars. The BYD just rolled out full self-driving for even their car that cost fucking $10,000. If you buy a Tesla, FSD will cost you an extra eight.

Starting point is 00:29:04 No, no, no, I don't want these to be sold here. I don't want them to be sold here. But that's my point, is that we have to recognize our cars, even though they suck. This car industry, it's not only jobs. During World War II, what did we do? The Ford factory, that's rolling tanks off of there, right? That's what the Russians have.

Starting point is 00:29:20 The Russians don't prioritize economic growth. They prioritize guns, bullets, and strategic autonomy. So this is also the problem with Ukraine. Ukraine does not have any of that. They're totally reliant on the United States and on Europe. So why is he pulling up talking shit? That's my point. I just don't understand why you would do this. So you're giving us the facts, you're giving us the truth behind it. You're acknowledging your bias, but I think most Americans are just reacting emotionally to this.

Starting point is 00:29:45 Which they always do. Of course, as people do. And it's important to speak to them at the emotional level because that's where most people lie. So the idea that we have here is, hey, we've been giving you billions of dollars and then you came up and you were kind of talking spicy to the person who's feeding you. That's right. Now, I don't know why he thinks

Starting point is 00:30:06 he can't just come kiss the ring. Does he think he'll lose the support of the people in Ukraine if he doesn't? I think he's- Why does he feel like he has leverage? That's what I'm trying to understand. I think he's been huffing European glue. So the thing is, is that if you look right now,

Starting point is 00:30:17 so right now, literally as you and I are speaking, they're in London crafting a peace agreement, which they're gonna propose to us. But this is where it's all bullshit. So France and Germany came up with a peacekeeping plan. We'll have 30,000 troops there. You don't have to do anything. No US troops on the ground.

Starting point is 00:30:35 I'm like, okay, good. They're like, but you have to pay for it. You have to provide ISR, which is intelligence support, you know, and all that. You have to do your ISR. You have to provide all the bullets. You have to pay for it. And so what are you revealing to us? Is that France and Germany don't even have the capacity

Starting point is 00:30:48 to forward deploy 30,000 peacekeeping troops in a tiny country like Ukraine. I'm saying compared to the rest of the globe. What should that tell you? These militaries are nothing. NATO's own chief says that the Russians produce more ammo in three months than all of NATO combined in an entire year. That's with the United States. Zelensky is acting as if there's another option.

Starting point is 00:31:08 Yes, he thinks that the he can't be so naive. He is. Oh man, I think he is the rhetoric that's coming. Is he trying to do a deal? He wants the UK and France and Germany and all the other NATO countries to give him a security guarantee before he will provide or he will sign any ceasefire or any deal. But again, as I just told you guys, any peacekeeping deal signed by France or Germany

Starting point is 00:31:30 is bullshit without the United States. They don't have anything. So here's the thing. They're paper tigers. I heard what he said. I heard what he said in it where he's essentially like, hey, we could do this ceasefire agreement, but they haven't respected ceasefire agreements

Starting point is 00:31:43 in the past, which I understand. No, he's actually correct about that. So, so, so he's like, why would this matter if I do a ceasefire agreement if we know for a fact that they don't respect them in the past? Well, it matters because Uncle Sam is the person who is signing underneath it. That's the fundamental difference. We've also signed protections before for the Ukraine, if I'm not mistaken. You're talking about Budapest? Well, was it in Budapest that we decided if they would relinquish their nuclear weapons, who would support them? Okay, so let's talk about that too.

Starting point is 00:32:06 I hear this a lot from the pro-Ukraine. But wait, before we go back to that, before we get to that, again, I'm not trying to catch you here. What I'm trying to do is somewhat understand his perspective. And this is what I thought, because there's a part of me that goes, listen, as long as Trump is in office, Russia is not doing a single thing if this is agreed upon. Yeah. Nothing's, and if Trump was gonna be in office for the next 40 years, this version of a ceasefire

Starting point is 00:32:30 where it doesn't guarantee American muscle behind it, this version of a ceasefire, Russia's gonna respect 100%. Here is my concern if I am Ukraine, or if I am Zelensky. And I think he handled it horribly in the room. There's a much better way to say, like if I was him, if I did want to litigate in the media, as JD Vance said, what I would say is this, I know I could sign this deal with you

Starting point is 00:32:51 and you would protect us, and I know that Russia would not mess with you because they take you seriously, and they would not, but what happens if next election we get the same people back that they did not take seriously and they're not afraid of. Yes. How do I get security?

Starting point is 00:33:08 I'm not worried about the next four years because I know that Putin would not be stupid enough to mess with Donald Trump. I would keep on going that he would be crazy because you would do the ultimate thing. But in four years, according to your laws, you're not going to have Donald Trump. We don't know what would happen. And now we're left in the dark and the next administration could have the same sway with Putin as the last one did, which is Putin is not afraid with him. He'll do what he wants.

Starting point is 00:33:31 You're not wrong at all. And that's why you should shut your fucking mouth and you just sign that minerals deal because in that minerals deal, it was in strategic interest for the United States to have a free, a sovereign Ukraine, a business relation. For example, why do we care about Europe or Taiwan or any of these places? You think we care about fucking democracy? We care about the TSMC chip in Taiwan, okay?

Starting point is 00:33:49 Why do we care about Vietnam? Because they make all of our clothing. Why do we care about Germany? How many German cars are on the road? All relations between states come down to trade. That is a fundamental insight. The problem of the post-World War II order is what's led to this, is that we have decided,

Starting point is 00:34:03 oh, it's democracy and feelings and all this other bullshit. It's like, no, the purpose of a Navy is not to- So you're saying the trade deal would incentivize the United States to protect them because if Russia invaded any further and it negatively impacted- Bingo, our world economy, yes.

Starting point is 00:34:19 Now what if they invaded further, but it didn't impact the places where our resources came from. Yeah, well, that's a bigger question of whether we should even have NATO membership for a lot of these, look, it's settled, it doesn't matter. The US Senate has ratified the treaty, but there were a lot of people in the 90s

Starting point is 00:34:36 when they were talking about NATO expansion into Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, were like, guys, this is in the traditional, not only sphere of influence, but what compelling interest does the United States have in these three countries? Like bilateral trade of those three probably does not even equal bilateral trade

Starting point is 00:34:51 between us in a single province or a single state in Mexico. Like, and see, this is the thing, we don't wanna talk in balance sheet terms, and it's important. But coming back to your point, you're right, but here's the problem, you have no leverage. That's at the end of the day, you do not matter to the United States.

Starting point is 00:35:09 And this is my bias again, but at the end of the day, the United States has no compelling interest over who compels the Dnepr region of Ukraine. They just don't. In fact, all of Ukraine, even before the invasion, ranked like 50 some billion bilateral trade with the United States.

Starting point is 00:35:24 That's one fourth of what we do with Brazil. If Brazil was invaded by Argentina and be like, see you. Yeah. I was like, good luck. Work it out. I'll buy my coffee from Colombia. You know what I'm saying? Like arrogance.

Starting point is 00:35:34 Like he must know something we don't know. Well, by creating a financial alignment, I feel like he loses even more leverage. Like by creating an ideological position. You know, you're exactly right. That's more of a position. Because know, you're exactly right. Yes Because on that can you explain that? In my mind like if you just very purely financial then Russia could now brokerage and be like hey if we can which they did They said that they were like, hey, we have rare earths too, by the way Which they do they actually have a lot more so by making it like purely like financial now Russia just come in and be like

Starting point is 00:36:01 Hey, it's a race to the bottom. Yes beat them on them on press. Or Russia could go, we're going to invade. We're going to take over those resources and we're going to give them to you for half price. You know what we would say? Russia just got a little bigger. Zelensky knows this is a race to the bottom. So then now he has to say it's ideological. We have to protect democracy. Yes, yes, yes.

Starting point is 00:36:20 Double click everybody on that one. So we have to protect democracy even though he is not protecting democracy That's in his own. It falls apart on its very own. Sure, but but emotionally he's doing the right thing to protect the longevity He's played his cards incredibly. He's not this moment No, not this very poor until this you will study Zelensky and I do not like Zelensky I think he's taking advantage the United States Yeah Arrogant prick all of this.

Starting point is 00:36:45 The way he handled himself immediately after, with the media, by convincing the West and others that there is this compelling interest, he was managed to get $100 billion from the world's superpower, more than we spent on 20 years of the Afghan National Security Forces we have sent to Ukraine in three years.

Starting point is 00:37:00 Think about that, that's fucking insane. The greatest transfer of military aid in modern US history. On top of that, he convinces all of these European nations, Germany, France, the great powers, not only come to his defense, but to tie his borders to their own and say it is the strategic interest of the French,

Starting point is 00:37:18 of the German, of the UK people to make sure that we're compelling. And you know, in the beginning, a lot of them did support that. But, and this is where it all starts to fall apart. Now we're watching what will actually happen with the Europe led by Europeans. So when we look at the polling that's in the UK and France and in Germany, they're like, support for Ukraine was sky high. Now they're like, should we continue or should we have a deal? In almost every country it's flipped. So the Europeans are now in a position

Starting point is 00:37:44 where they would probably have to increase military aid to their maximum capacity, give them everything not stripped down to the ground, and they would still maybe, I don't know, maybe one sixth or something like that. And it wouldn't matter to Russia because Russia just keeps drawing bodies. Oh no, it wouldn't matter at all. I mean, already the United States, we have given Ukraine $67 billion in military aid. That's more than every other country in the world combined, right? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:38:06 The Europeans are like, oh, we've given Ukraine a bunch of aid. It's like, bro, you bring them fucking refuge. Yeah, but I'm saying, but I'm saying you can throw 10 trillion at Ukraine and Russia will just match it with dead bodies. Yeah, almost certainly. I mean, it's a little more complicated than that. I think the only thing that would really change is nuclear weapons on the ground, which is not happening.

Starting point is 00:38:24 But that's actually let's return to that because one of the ways that the Ukrainians often bring up why America has to support them and not just should is the Budapest agreements and back the Budapest memorandum, which was in the nineties where they agreed to give up their nuclear weapons and in exchange, the United States was like, yeah, we'll think about protecting it. Oh, it's not we're going to put it. No, no. And even if we had said that it was never ratified by the US Senate.

Starting point is 00:38:48 And this is where you have to flip it and think about the Russian justification for invasion, where they said, your secretary of state said, we will not expand NATO. That's true. Our secretary of state, James Burns, under George H.W. Bush, he was like, look, we're not going to expand NATO. Don't worry about it. They were like, OK, that's the position of the.W. Bush, he was like, look, we're not going to expand NATO. Don't worry about it. They were like, okay, that's the position of the U.S. government.

Starting point is 00:39:08 Well, what changed? They lost the election. Bill Clinton came into office. George W. Bush came into office. They changed the policy. But the thing is, is that the Russians are like, but you said it. And what we would say is, yeah, what you just said, the administration at the time said it.

Starting point is 00:39:22 That didn't make it the treaty binding obligation of the United States where two-thirds the United States Senate Ratified we will never expand NATO. So no, it's not fair to say that America guaranteed That's not how our system works nor should it write the word of the president. She's not a king who sets foreign policy It's in perfect time exactly. And so the Budapest memorandum. yes, it was a policy document, but it provides no obligation from the United States to lift one finger for Ukraine. And if we think about again, where the Russians are coming in, they're like, okay, so in the post Cold War era, you guys bombed Kosovo. Is that in NATO?

Starting point is 00:39:59 Why was that a NATO operation? You guys, NATO literally took out Gaddafi. You know, one of the things that the North Koreans always tell us, because we're like, hey, give up your nukes. They're like, I'm not giving up my nukes. Gaddafi gave up his nukes. You shoved a right rod up his ass and blew the shit out of his own country. What a dumb idea to give up your nukes. Don't give up your nukes. Kim Jong-un will never give up his nukes. If I was them, I'd be like, fuck you. If I was any country in the world right now, I would be trying to develop them in spite

Starting point is 00:40:28 of whatever agreement is going on. It's the only thing that maintains your security. You're absolutely right. And Libya proves that. Iraq proves that. The North Korean regime surviving to this day proves that. And Russia, its ability to invade Ukraine and frankly get away with most of it is what? Nuclear weapons.

Starting point is 00:40:44 I don't love that reality, but it's just true. For Zelensky then, if we cannot trust the daddy country, i.e. America in this situation to protect, then why make a deal that you know that they won't reinforce? So then you're just going to fall apart without us. Don't fall apart. Say we will say give us nukes. Okay. Yeah, you can say that and we'll just say, no. Yeah, like, no, next question, right?

Starting point is 00:41:08 Give us nukes. You know what I would say? Develop it yourself then. If you're so great, you have all these great scientists, all of this, go ahead, nothing's stopping you. You can do whatever you want, all right? Oh, yeah, usually we do stop them, but if they're trying to enrich your area.

Starting point is 00:41:19 I'll tell them this, if you guys wanna go for it, go for it. I mean, you literally will, first of all, you're being invaded. Second, I mean, your country, their own analysts tell us that they'll fall apart in three months after the cutoff of USAID. This is, again, just where we have a small nation

Starting point is 00:41:33 that thinks it's a great power and can dictate terms to the United States. Why do they think that? That's what I don't understand. I think it's the Europeans. Where's the coolie? I really do. So the Europeans are propping him up and thinking that they're like the last line of defense for democracy.

Starting point is 00:41:45 I can't fathom. How do you not read a spreadsheet? That's what I do. I'm like, bro, look at the number of bullets coming in. I'm just some more. I'm not even talking about the spreadsheet. I'm talking about like, what interest does Putin have in expanding Russia into Europe? Well, here's the thing.

Starting point is 00:41:59 Does he have an interest? In tradition, Russia controlled vast swaths of all that territory, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, all of these parts were a traditional part of the Soviet or Russian Empire. But here's the thing, three of those countries that it's named are in NATO, so the interest you have to not do it is to avoid nuclear war.

Starting point is 00:42:18 Also, Russia is a Christian nation. That's true. I don't understand why he would expand west into Europe with all these Muslim countries England and Germany and France Why do you want Muslims to add to the Crusades? He actually does use a lot of that though. He talks a lot about the Orthodox Church and about how Ukraine is attacking the Russian Orthodox Which is true. It actually has been been happening. And they're like, they're attacking the Russian Orthodox and how it's like a defense of Russian, whatever.

Starting point is 00:42:48 I don't like that stuff. So, okay, so how does this play out in the very near future? What do you think happens? Near future, what's going to happen? Does he tuck his tail? He refused to. He'd had Fox interview immediately afterwards. He had hours to think about it.

Starting point is 00:43:04 He did it live. He was four hours in between to apologize. He didn't apologize. He just said, no, he's like, we had to have honest dialogue. He's huffing the Europeans. He believes that Europeans can protect him. He's in London, literally, as I said, as we speak. The near future is they're going to propose some peacekeeping plan. America's going to say, no, why should we pay for that? Why should we continue to do it? And it'll be, look, it's up to Trump too. I mean, if I were Trump, to continue weapons flowing into Ukraine when they're actively working

Starting point is 00:43:33 against your policy is ridiculous. Like, I think that Zelensky needs to find out tomorrow what reality. And this, again, this is my personal opinion moving from analyst, this country, its is my personal opinion moving to from analyst this country Its greatest victory is survival you get to live Do you know how lucky but they don't that's what I'm trying to say somebody's drinking a Kool-Aid over there I don't know what the fuck I don't get it. But yeah, I mean I do get it in a sense would I accept that?

Starting point is 00:44:00 No, but I'm an American citizen. We have nukes. We have the greatest military I want to hear what you have. I don't get it because Let's just be honest here There's only a few countries Every other one exists based on the relationship. That's right. Where's the influence theory? That's what you're talking about. It's like China is a real country. Russia is a real country. China, America is a real country Russia, the US, UK, Germany. Well, UK, Germany, I don't know if they're real.

Starting point is 00:44:29 I mean, they have nuclear weapons, so like, you know. Yeah, it buys you something, okay? And they have the what, G7 economies. Like they're not ridiculous and low, but they are definitely going down the hill. If you can't bang on your own, you're not a real country. I agree with you, by the way. I'm totally with you.

Starting point is 00:44:43 Yeah, but I think when you have a nuke, you can do something. Fair enough. Fair enough. But now does it? Real quick, real quick. So the point I'm trying to say is like, if Ukraine cannot defend itself. Yes. Imperatively, they cannot. From Russia. There's no chance without the support of these other countries. Yes. You can't dictate to those other countries what the policy is. That's right, right? Because you don't have sovereignty That's right. You're not really a sovereign nation. Absolutely. You are a sovereign nation as much as someone else will do I have a state. Yes, you are a vassal state if we think about the old This is this is the issue with the way that we talk about this stuff

Starting point is 00:45:18 Is that Americans and unfortunately a lot of people don't want to speak in reality is America? You know rules brace international order and unfortunately a lot of people don't want to speak in reality, is America, you know, rules brace international order, is that for the benefit of everybody else, or is it the benefit of the United States consumer? Like, let's all be honest here. Like, let's be, that's one of the things I actually love about Trump.

Starting point is 00:45:33 Trump is a mercantilist. He says shit where he's like, yeah, we'll protect you. You have to give us 500 million in minerals. Or billion in minerals. People are like, what? No, democracy, all this other stuff. It's like, guys, oh, we protect democracy, but one of our greatest allies is Saudi Arabia,

Starting point is 00:45:47 which fucking kills gay people. We don't give a fuck. We don't like, yeah, it's like, oh, you have oil? Okay, let's go. They don't kill gay people anymore, okay? They're promoting a lot of botching matches. They're doing great work over there. I apologize, Sheikh Mohammed.

Starting point is 00:46:02 There you go, there you go. Sheikh Zayed, please. They're doing fantastic work over there. I apologize, Sheikh Mohammed. There you go. There you go. Sheikh Saeed, please. They're doing fantastic work over there. We've been told for the longest Russia is the enemy, Russia's bad. Why all of a sudden are we OK with just like, hey, Russia, you can invade another country and take their land? I think that's a fair question. And it comes down to, I feel bad for the people who really believe that

Starting point is 00:46:23 and are now watching how geopolitics works in real time. Like the idea that the United States, who invaded Iraq for literally no reason, is going around dictating illegal and illy, that's one of my favorite things by the way, is Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. I was like, what's a legal invasion? I was like, there's just an invasion.

Starting point is 00:46:41 There's just an invasion. There's just a successful invasion or an successful invasion. But to return to your point, that goes to the religion. That's what I was talking about, the Atlantic religion. This idea that all borders are sovereign, that they do not change from post-World War II. Countries don't just invade each other. And I don't think they're wrong.

Starting point is 00:46:59 The real politic answer for that would be invasion and all of that is bad for business. But the point that comes down to it is what compelling interest does the United States have in continuing this war? Not only for our economy. You know, the United States consumer probably paid an extra buck 50 for gas for two straight years

Starting point is 00:47:17 because of Russian sanctions. It was a disaster for our economy. I actually think it's a huge reason Biden lost the election. If you think about a lot of the inflation, where that came from, but even more so what we, what we know at the end of the day is that we cannot change the reality of this war without direct United States intervention.

Starting point is 00:47:35 But shouldn't be the interest of the world to not let countries do that. There's no such thing as an interest in the world. That's just keep doing this. Well, NATO actually is that Russia, well NATO actually, is that we have NATO membership around all of these other countries and they're not gonna invade because we're gonna nuke them.

Starting point is 00:47:50 But every other country in the world is like, first of all, we have no obligation to do it. But second, what is the impact on America? Do some deals. I think Saqib's point is- Buy some Russian oil. All this shit is propaganda. Like all this, and the US is kind of a victim of its own propaganda. It doesn't need to be an oil. Yeah, all this shit is propaganda like all this and yes It's kind of a victim of its own propaganda like to be our enemy. There's no reason then if we can't 1991

Starting point is 00:48:10 There's literally no reason to say like why are we like let's let's what is that? What is it the McDonald's theory or whatever like two countries with the McDonald's haven't gone to war which I think they have now I'm stupid, but yeah, but the idea is like this a mutually assured success Well, actually I disagree with that really it's called democratic peace theory The idea is like this mutually assured success. Like let's give each other pockets. Well actually I disagree with that theory. It's called democratic peace theory. It's the idea that democracies don't go to war with each other, but there's also beyond that

Starting point is 00:48:31 is like countries that trade and become more westernized. It's like, well, China has got a lot of McDonald's and they've actually become more authoritarian. Like the more trade. Yeah, but we're not going to war with them. No, I agree, but my point is that it doesn't lead to democratic outcomes per se. I don't care if they have to.

Starting point is 00:48:46 I'm done with everybody having democracy. Democracy is hard. I hate this idea like a country got to get a democracy and within 10 years figure it out. We had a whole civil war over democracy. This shit takes hundreds of years and even then every election it's good versus evil and presidents are getting shot at. Let's stop acting like they got to figure it out immediately.

Starting point is 00:49:07 And if they don't want it, fine, you don't want it. But this is what happens. Whatever we say goes. That's the rule. Correct. That's the rule. Yeah, but I mean, it's not happening. No, but why?

Starting point is 00:49:17 I think what Sager's saying is throughout history, it's never actually been about that. We didn't give a fuck about Vietnam having democracy. There was some other resource we wanted. We didn't give a fuck about Vietnam having democracy They're some other resource we wanted we didn't go fuck about We wanted oil. Yes, but that was a good That's a very good example is that was when ideology trumped national interests Ukraine Vietnam Ukraine Vietnam Iraq all have three things in common. They are wars not of national interest. They are wars of ideology That's where the American people see through it, clearly. We're good.

Starting point is 00:49:47 We're nice. We want to protect and stop bad things from happening. But after a while... Is that front-facing ideology or is it actually ideological reasons? Because what I'm picking up from you is... Okay, go ahead. What I'm picking up is we give the American people this ideology and that's why we need to invade it.

Starting point is 00:49:59 And maybe not Vietnam. I don't see it, but with Iraq it was oil. It was whatever. Get back for George Sr. Who knows? There was another real reason and it's probably what Trump seems to be kind of cutting through is like I don't give a fuck Yeah, I'll give you freedom. It's not about your freedom. It's about what you can do for us That's exactly and that seems to be what it actually has always been about what I'm picking up here

Starting point is 00:50:18 When you look at liberals and their main concern right now, they're like America did not vote with the rest of the United Nations I'm like so who gives a fuck? So the UN had a resolution condemning the invasion of Russia. And they're like, oh, America did not vote. And I was like, okay, so Montenegro voted for it. I'm like, why should I give a fuck with Montenegro? Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys,

Starting point is 00:50:41 guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, is that? But see, you say un-American, where it's like, well, for example, like what is un-American about Russia invading a territory which has been disputed by their own population? You know?

Starting point is 00:50:54 Because we say so. Wait, okay, but we didn't really, I mean, we don't have a treaty saying that we care about Ukraine. If we did, I'd say, look, let's go for it. We have to honor our words, but that's not the same thing. Now they take over all their resources. Now Russia gets stronger. Is that advantageous

Starting point is 00:51:10 to us? It depends, right? It depends on our relationship with Russia and what we want out of it. I want us to reduce our nuclear weapons pointed at each other and actually focus on where the real economic growth of the world is happening in Asia. So this is a very Obama-like idea. They pivot to Asia. Is that Europe is a declining continent? Empirically true. If you look at their economic growth versus ours, 50% of global GDP will be in Asia by 2030. Not that long ago, only five years. If you look at the concern the American foreign policy elite has for Germany, for France, for frankly these countries where, you know,

Starting point is 00:51:46 they're basically have chosen their social welfare state. Fine, but they have not backed up their defense or ability to protect themselves. We pay for French healthcare, you know, whether people like it or not. Like we protect them so they can have their nice socialist beliefs or Germany or any of these economies. You're saying if they had to pay for their own military,

Starting point is 00:52:04 they wouldn't be able to have this deal. Impossible. Look at the way it's done. I mean, look at their militaries and their inability. They say this is such a compelling interest. I'm like, well, fucking fight for it then. Go ahead. You won't do it. And you think the average Frenchman will give up his health care to protect Ukraine? No. That's another reason why it's all complete bullshit. But my point is to rebalance for what's important for us. And I think that that changes, I think it changes your opinion emotionally. Now, there are certain advantages to having this type of leverage on the world. Of course. Right, like obviously if these countries cannot defend themselves,

Starting point is 00:52:35 they have nuclear weapons, France has nuclear weapons, but if they cannot defend themselves on the- They can do it in a very dire situation, but I'm saying in a situation like Ukraine, it's like, throw fuck off. They're not boots on the ground, they're not gonna do it. One billion euro to Ukraine, it's like, they're not boots on the ground. They're not going to do it. One billion euro to Ukraine. It's like, piss off, bro.

Starting point is 00:52:47 You have nothing. Yeah. What military do you have? It's a joke. The ideological thing of like, how can we let this happen is like, what do you mean? I actually think it's kind of chauvinistic to say that we have the ability to conduct all of the affairs of the world. Like really what's happened, that might've been true in 1991, in what's called the unipolar moment when the United States was the sole superpower. That's just

Starting point is 00:53:08 not the case. Like we have a total return to multipolarity where you have the rise of China, of India, of you know, even Russia continues to punch above its weight. Japan, South Korea, North Korea, all of these countries. This idea that I think is actually un-American is that we should be conducting all of the affairs of the world. Instead, what we should return to is to lose some of our hubris and actually say, okay, what's actually important to us? What are we going to do?

Starting point is 00:53:39 This is the line right here, and this is traditional American foreign policy, going back to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine was, you guys do whatever the fuck you want, just don't come over here to the Western Hemisphere. This is ours, right over here. And we acknowledged the great powers of Europe. And from that point forward, even in the Cold War, we're like, look, it sucks that Hungary is communist, but what the fuck are we going to do about it? Hold on, hold on. They've got news.

Starting point is 00:54:03 Let's not go crazy. We're bending over, right? Hold on, hold on. It's not bending got news. Let's not go crazy. We're kinda bending over, right? Hold on, hold on. It's not bending over. No, no, no, it's not bending over because we're not taking anything. But I like the idea, this is what I like the idea. I like the idea of extending our influence

Starting point is 00:54:14 around the world as far as we wanna go with it. But I don't want that influence to be like in place or whatever it is. That's a great point too. I don't care about identity politics influence. I care about geopolitical influence. I care about pushing certain countries to agree with us on certain deals that are advantageous to us. I want the best deal that we could possibly have for America with every single country in the world. I don't care if you're

Starting point is 00:54:39 a democracy. I don't care if you're a dictatorship. I don't care if you're pro-trans. I don't care if you're anti-trans. None of that personal shit I give a fuck about. I just care about the money. But I do wanna exert that influence around the world because that influence benefits Americans and that's what I care the most about. I think the problem is that right now we piss all this money and influence away.

Starting point is 00:54:55 For example, the United States, the blue. Oh, can I say one thing real quick? I actually think that it reduces our global influence when we're trying to push these identity politics issues to these other countries that resist it culturally. Where back in the day, I think that we had so much gravitas with these other countries because they looked at the West,

Starting point is 00:55:15 especially America as this beacon of hope. When you're seeing a guy on a fucking horseback with a revolver going around and shooting, you're like, oh my God, America looks kind of cool. Now when you see some neutered cuck telling you that like his four year old daughter is actually a boy, you're like, I don't know if I want to be American. Dude, you're at first of all, you're nailing it. I'll give you a perfect one on this. Okay. Our ambassador under Biden to Japan was

Starting point is 00:55:37 Rahm Emanuel. Rahm Emanuel inserts himself into a gay marriage debate in Japan because Japan was having a debate about gay marriage. The Japanese conservative party is furious. I go, oh, the US ambassador to Japan has one fucking job. How many Toyotas can get open? That's it. The irony that Rahm Emanuel was just on Bill Marshall, and he said this sentence.

Starting point is 00:55:59 He goes, we need to get back into the education of the kids in schools. He goes, he says this specifically, because they were talking about like Chicago and all these like, dem cities that were like, kind of struggling. And it wasn't posed as like a lib suck. It was like, what do you think about this?

Starting point is 00:56:14 You've run a city. And he goes, he says, he goes, we need to get into the classrooms and out of the bathrooms. The irony. Yeah, right. Exactly. He's petitioning for gay marriage. I don't care what you guys do with your gays over there.

Starting point is 00:56:31 Matter of fact, if you got some really talented gays over there and you want to kill them, let's bring them over here. Because we do great shit with our gays. Gays flourish in America, right? It's just my point. It's like Japan, third largest economy in the world. They're all gay. Our concern with Japan is one thing.

Starting point is 00:56:46 How do you find a gay guy? Toyota, Panasonic, any of these other, that's it. That's all we should be fucking caring about. Are they coming over here and saying, oh, you guys do this? No, they don't give a shit. Well, they don't have that influence. But that's the influence,

Starting point is 00:56:58 and I think that's where it's like, we have to have some restriction. I love our influence, especially through like cinema, TV shows. Yeah, soft power. I love the soft power. I love it through social media. I love that. As long as it's not taking away from our ability to have advantageous trade deals.

Starting point is 00:57:20 Yeah, absolutely. So if you wanting to be American makes you want to be capitalist, makes you want to be an entrepreneur, makes you want to be a hustler, and that in some way gives you empathy for our culture. And now we have some leverage in your country. That's awesome. Awesome. The second our American influence starts to make you feel uncomfortable like it has in the Middle East. Listen, democracy doesn't work in the Middle East. Let them do what the fuck they want. I agree. Once they get addicted to money, democracy, it's not gonna be democracy,

Starting point is 00:57:49 but we're gonna get everything that we want at. My point is just let them do whatever the fuck they want to do, all right? So like I've lived in Qatar or whatever, it's like yeah, it's like a literal monarchy. Like an actual religious monarchy. It works for them, it's like okay, I wouldn't want to live there.

Starting point is 00:58:02 I didn't like it there, to be honest. But do whatever you want. I don't care. That's all I really think, that's how I feel about Japan, about any of these other countries, is it's all just about us coming together. And this is the world order, this was the point of the construction. When do you have to leave, by the way?

Starting point is 00:58:17 Probably like 2.30. Okay, we got some time, we have other topics. We have a lot that we gotta talk about. Okay, so that's Alinsky. We can stop this, yeah. Yeah, okay, that we want to talk about. We got a lot that we got to talk about. We can stop this. Okay, that's a lint key. Alright guys, let's take a break for a second. Look, we know that for decades food companies have been putting all kinds of processed

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Starting point is 00:59:48 and they're ready to fight for you too. Learn more at forthepeople.com slash flagrant. That's F-O-R, thepeople.com slash flagrant. Now let's get back to the show. Guys, I have some fantastic news. After years of our beloved Shifty posting our clips on TikTok for absolutely no monetary gain at all, finally, TikTok is paying us.

Starting point is 01:00:12 That's right. They are paying us money for me to tell you what I'm about to tell you. See apparently small businesses can thrive on TikTok. I did not know this. We had no idea. I had no clue. It's true. My wife sends me three different brands every day on TikTok. See what not know this. We had no idea. I had no clue. It's true, my wife sends me three different brands every day on TikTok.

Starting point is 01:00:26 See what happens? TikTok shop. TikTok shop, is that what it's called? TikTok shop. Look, people are making money on TikTok. Now we're making money on TikTok. TikTok. TikTok.

Starting point is 01:00:38 Okay, now it's happening, finally. I think for five years we've been posting on TikTok. Billions of views, because Shifty's a genius. Yep. Yep. I don't know because Shifty's a genius. Yep. Yep. I don't know if I got paid a penny. Nope. Turns out, 7.5 million US businesses are on TikTok

Starting point is 01:00:51 employing more than 28 million people. Yeah. Wow. I'm losing thousands of dollars every month because my wife is buying stuff. You know what I mean? I've been losing tons of money buying stuff on a TikTok shop. If Uncle Donald did not save TikTok.

Starting point is 01:01:02 Where would we be? I know where I would be. I'd be talking to my wife before I go to sleep at night. I know that. Yucky. Instead of both of us just doom scrolling. Now I know this. So Donald, unbeknownst to him maybe, I don't even know if he knows that there's 28 million

Starting point is 01:01:16 people employed by this TikTok. It seems like TikTok does good for them. It seems like it. I think that's what they want us to communicate with this ad. The only thing I care about is TikTok is paying me money to say this. Yeah. They're paying you money and you money and you money too.

Starting point is 01:01:29 It's good for our small business. If they, TikTok is supporting our small business. Finally TikTok, we've been waiting for this. But if you'd like to learn more about TikTok's contribution to the US economy and most importantly, flagrant, you can go to TikTokEconomicImpact.com. Did you know that? Now, you know.

Starting point is 01:02:03 First thing, just discussing Doge really quickly. I think that there are very few Americans that would say that they do not support a reduction in waste and inefficiency. Correct. Especially when it comes to government institutions. So this is a bipartisan measure that Americans are supportive of. Doge has become incredibly partisan. First, can you tell me why you think that is?

Starting point is 01:02:33 I think it is about wars of credibility of institutions and of process. So something I think is really- What does that mean? It's just really- And speak to me emotionally. Like why does, I'm not talking about like politically why it has, I'm talking about why the average person on Twitter feels compelled to be so critical of Doge.

Starting point is 01:02:56 Like what do you think is being communicated to them and why are they having such a knee-jerk reaction to it knowing that they do wanna reduce government efficiency? For them, it's about Elon's complete and total judgment over this. They don't trust Elon. I would say that's it. And is that fair? Yeah, I do think it's fair.

Starting point is 01:03:12 I do think it's fair for a number of reasons. Let's make that argument. What's the steel man against? The steel man against Doge is that you have a person who is unelected by the United States, who is the sole power over what gets cut, which violates the constitution because the constitution, the power of the purse is within Congress. Congress gets to decide what programs get cut or not. He is, according to them, illegally shutting off and doing these things and also at times has conflicts, major conflicts of interest in

Starting point is 01:03:39 many of the decisions that he is making. What is an example of those? The perfect example is right now. State Department was, my friend Ryan Grim, he works with us at Breaking Points, broke a story about there was originally going to be some State Department contract awarded to Tesla for, I forget the number, it was like maybe four million or something.

Starting point is 01:03:56 After Trump got elected, that contract went up to 400 million for Tesla's armed up Cybertrucks. And then they actually took the word Tesla off the website and changed it to electric vehicle. Now, okay. It's not great, right? Can we all agree it's not great? So this is good.

Starting point is 01:04:12 Before we move on, we gotta appease people emotionally who see things like this and go, hey, this doesn't feel constitutional. This feels manipulative. We feel taken advantage of. That's a pretty steel steel man. Pittsburgh Steel. Bethlehem Steel.

Starting point is 01:04:29 So it's like, that's why like I feel like there's a lot of gaslighting going on and as much as we all agree, we want to reduce government efficiency. I mean like Akash hilariously says it every single week here. He's just like fire them all. 98% of them can go yeah so yeah so 99 there is there is that feeling but we have to give some credence to a situation like that and there might be more context system there might be a more nuanced take to it i get it maybe elon could describe it sure but on the surface people acting reacting emotionally to it that does look like corruption in another way. Right? Yeah, like the Charlemagne thing.

Starting point is 01:05:07 I heard your argument about this. What was that? Well, I thought it was interesting where you were like, hey, if you're a cop and you come to me and I'm like, yo, don't look in the basement. You're like, there's some shit in the basement. There's some shit in the fucking basement. There's some shit in the basement.

Starting point is 01:05:16 100%. But also just the idea of government spending, going to certain people, this happens on a municipal level, where like the mayor is friends with the person that has the construction company, and that construction company gets the rebuilding project for the local bridge, and then he gets the kickback. Now, we know that that's a form of corruption.

Starting point is 01:05:40 When we see this, it's okay for someone to look at it and be like, that kind of feels like the corruption you're trying to scrub out. Now, he might make the best vehicle for that job. It might be right to increase that spending, but I also need some transparency there, and you need to come out ahead of it, not wipe Tesla off the car, you need to come out ahead of it and gain my trust

Starting point is 01:06:01 as an American and go, hey, this was the original deal. This amount was gonna be spent over here. We think that this is better for these reasons and that's why more money is spent there and I totally get why you think this looks like a favor handed over. Like stop, the American people are done being lied to and when we see shit like that, we have such little trust.

Starting point is 01:06:20 It's almost like a girl who gets cheated on by every boyfriend. They kinda should have little trust. They're not wrong, they're correct. The girl that gets cheated on by every boyfriend. And by the way, they kind of should have little trust. They're not wrong, they're correct. The girl that gets cheated on by every boyfriend. The second a dude is talking to a waitress and she's laughing, the knee-jerk reaction is, oh, that motherfucker's cheating too. So that's what we feel like when we see this.

Starting point is 01:06:34 Yes, yes, you're right. And I think it is important to talk about it in that way. And that's where it comes back to process. So like you said, we've got Doge, which is kind of unilaterally deciding what and what is not gets to be spent according to them. And so one of the interesting things I took away from your thing with Charlemagne, and if I were Charlemagne, what I would have said is,

Starting point is 01:06:50 Andrew, it's fine to look, but they're not looking, they're actually acting. And the acting is the part where I think a lot of the liberals are, I think, correctly upset. I mean, let's be honest, like if George Soros or whatever was deciding what is not getting spent, I mean, we would freak the fuck out. You're okay with it.

Starting point is 01:07:06 You being, not you, but like, let's say conservatives are more okay with it because your guy is doing the cuts. Yeah, that's right. But if it was, George Soros is a perfect example. The right would rightfully. It'd be, they'd be like, this is a constitutional crisis. They're like, we need January 6th again.

Starting point is 01:07:21 You know, it would be wise. So that maybe the best way to do this is have Doge look into it, share the findings transparently what they are doing, and then hand it over to- It would be Congress. Congress to make the cut. If you wanna do this, like, and this is, you know, remember when I said process?

Starting point is 01:07:36 That is actually a huge part of it, because the real problem that they have is the unilateral decision making, the conflict of interest possibly being over, I mean, there have been a ton of shit like that, like the NLRB and other things. I sound like Crystal right now, she's got a list like 15 pages long

Starting point is 01:07:52 of all this conflict of interest stuff. And you know what I have to say, I go, yeah, you're right. I was like, empirically, this is not good. Like when you look at it in that way. And now if he had sold all of his Tesla stock, if he had actually offloaded all of this and he was still doing it now, I would have a lot more trust in that way. And now if he had sold all of his Tesla stock, if he had actually offloaded all of this and he was still doing it now, I would have a lot more trust in that.

Starting point is 01:08:09 And I think most people would do. And I think, I don't think that members of Congress and others should be allowed, anybody in the government should be allowed to be able to even have the appearance of corruption because of the way that corruption is now so in bedrock into our- I was very hopeful for Doge.

Starting point is 01:08:24 And then I feel like honestly, they just kicked the wrong person out. Um, yeah, not even just. Obviously, I'm biased toward him. But like he's his entire thing was I'm going to use the Constitution. I'm going to do this in a way that is palatable, but it's going to be uncomfortable and he was upfront about all that. Elon is just kind of like what shocked me about it is Trump's deference to Elon. I think that's the part where maybe you guys

Starting point is 01:08:47 can help me understand it because I don't, first of all, it drives me fucking crazy when Elon's in the cabinet room wearing a fucking T-shirt and hat and everybody else is in a suit. It's so corny. And he's standing in a room where, if you guys ever been in the cabinet room, the president's chair is bigger than everybody else's chair.

Starting point is 01:09:01 No person ever is supposed to be higher than the president. There's a rule, there's a famous scene in the West Wing. It's like when the president stands, nobody sits. And in my opinion, when the president sits, nobody should stand. Why is he not standing? Why is he? It just to me, it's like, this is where the libs are correct, dude. Like there's some weird shit going on here.

Starting point is 01:09:17 I don't really get it. I can tell you, it's my fault. From talking to Trump, if Trump feels like someone has information that he does not have, he becomes a listener. Yeah, he's a deferential. You're right, you're right. The second he's like, you know something I don't know, and I think that's what makes him so much better than anybody that the Democrats had

Starting point is 01:09:44 in terms of understanding the problems of everyday people. Oh, sure. Because unfortunately I think, and Republicans too, like remember, he's not like a traditional Republican guy. So it's like, politicians in general, there is a snobbishness to them, this feeling of like, we know what you need, let us handle it.

Starting point is 01:10:02 And he's the type of person, just from that interaction we had, who's like the second you have information he doesn't have, he gets quiet and he kind of keys in. Even if it's what is the life of an everyday American? Cause I don't live that life, you have it. It doesn't have to be what's the science behind, blah, blah, blah.

Starting point is 01:10:19 You see this all the time, when he's in the barbershop or whatever, he's a genius because what he does is he'll take your problem and he'll turn it around into the campaign. And he's like, that's what the greats always do this, is that they take the questions. They listen to what people are struggling with. They go to the essence.

Starting point is 01:10:32 No, but they don't say. How low is the bar for politicians that were like, well, unfortunately fucking low. Oh wow, this guy listens to us. He's a genius. Yeah, well what they do is they take you seriously, but not literally. So my favorite moment in a debate is when

Starting point is 01:10:45 some lady in the 92 campaign asked Bill Clinton about the national debt, and it's like, she didn't really know what she was talking about, and he's like, she's talking about the economy. He's like, we've had four years of trickle-down economics, it hasn't worked, you know, all this. He didn't ask her the same question about the national debt. But the point is, is that he's like,

Starting point is 01:10:58 she's talking about the economy. He can see the truth, the truth behind it, exactly. And that's what Trump, I think, is very good at. That's what all the greats are very good at. And yeah, I mean, continue, like, the Elon thing to me, I, and this will make me very unpopular, I think it's becoming a problem. I think that this liberal, no, because right now

Starting point is 01:11:19 there's a narrative online, which is, in my opinion, cope, is that a lot of these liberals, like, cope, as in like, they're coping that, they're coping. Like they're getting an excuse. Yeah, they're living in denial. There's a cope right now from the right that all of these liberal gatherings are astroturfed.

Starting point is 01:11:35 And you know what, you're right. But the thing is that you actually. There's a lot of terms that some people might not know. So in astroturf. Astroturf means, yeah a fake grass, right? So what it means is that people are being paid to protest. I do not think that's true. I think that these groups-

Starting point is 01:11:52 This has happened in the past. This has happened in the past, and it is an integral thing. But that's actually what a lot of liberals said about the Tea Party back in 2010. They're like, the Koch brothers are paying for it. I'm like, yeah, bro, but you can't just pay people to show up and be angry, and you still got blown the fuck out in the 2010 elections. What I'm worried about is the perception, perhaps correctly, that Trump is not completely in control of his own presidency. And we do see some of that, like in terms of the priority. The priority

Starting point is 01:12:18 right now is not only with Doge, it's like the media capture around this Elon as the force, where I think it should be on Trump. And Trump has, in my opinion, a 10 times better political understanding of America. I think if his narrative of the election was about immigration and it was about the economy, what I worry about right now for Trump is he's absorbing all of this pressure where Elon is, you know, slap shot, cutting this, bringing people back by his own admission. I'm not making this up. He's like, we fire people who are doing Ebola. We brought them back.

Starting point is 01:12:47 Right now. They just fired a bunch of people from NOAA, the National Oceanic Administration, which those are guys who fly into the hurricane and be like, it's a category four or whatever. And it's like, dude, I've seen politics in the past. Like the most dangerous thing a politician can do is misinterpret their mandate. So the most recent example we have is 2004, George W. Bush, the last Republican to win the popular vote. Republican, he wins that popular vote for one reason, keep us safe. Iraq, 9-11. You know what he does? Let's privatize social security.

Starting point is 01:13:15 He's like, yeah, the American people voted for me. I want to privatize social security. Blown the fuck out in the 2006 midterm election. Not only that, Katrina. And what I'm worried about for Trump is, dude, even if it's not your fault, if there's a natural disaster and the Dems can point to Noah getting, you're about to get fucking crucified, dude. Same with, you know how lucky they are

Starting point is 01:13:38 that crash happened in the first week of the Trump administration? Can you imagine if that happened a year from now, after some doge cuts or whatever with the FAA? They would be destroyed. So they will be responsible. I am very worried for them that they're hitching their entire political reputation and the most critical part of your presidency, the first hundred days, if all history of a presidency is almost certainly the first 18 months and of those 18 months, always the first 100 days. Where about 37 days or whatever when you're talking right now, it's not that much longer

Starting point is 01:14:09 to go. And in that first 100 days, Elon has been the number one story. If I were Donald Trump or whatever, I would want my number one story to be historic or whatever executive action on inflation. I'd be having inflation press conferences every single day and Tom Homan and mass deportation. That's all I'm doing I'm just talking about Mexico. I'm talking about shutting down the border I'm having Tom Homan on television every single day not to say isn't but he's drawing away

Starting point is 01:14:32 I can control the narrative. He's taking control. I think it's brilliant right now is to let this happen So I I thought that for a time like you tell me why I think I want as a shield right? I'll be because all these cuts are gonna be difficult. Yeah, but at the end of the day, he's still absorbing all of that energy right now. But right now, everyone's looking at Elon doing it. That's very true. I actually thought that for a while. I was like, maybe Elon is the whipping boy

Starting point is 01:14:55 to sit there and absorb, but I'm very worried that Trump, this is why you asked me about Steve Bannon. There's a reason, dude, I think Bannon is the smartest person in the MAGA movement. And Bannon is a person, oh, absolutely. I mean, talk that shit. Let's go.

Starting point is 01:15:11 Absolutely, talk that shit. 100%. He was MAGA before MAGA. Real quick, before we get off this, if I felt like these were Trump's ideas to cut these things and Elon is doing it, I would be on board with you. These don't seem like Trump ideas,

Starting point is 01:15:21 they seem like Elon. No, no, no, I agree. That's why I don't agree. Can I double click on that quickly? Because there's a very important point. I'm sorry. Yeah. I like that.

Starting point is 01:15:31 I love that. I love that. That's a good point. Yeah, it was. Indians, we talk tech. Yeah, we're talking tech. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Starting point is 01:15:38 Uh-oh. You said that earlier. You didn't text me. I can't say it earlier. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah, all right. For all of our young listeners, back in the day you had to click something twice in order to open it. I think we still do. I think you meant that as liking it.

Starting point is 01:15:52 Well, I meant like expand. You might be too young. I know. Okay, go open that file. This is why I was talking about Bannon. There are multiple theories which intersect, like if you think of, what am I thinking, a Venn diagram. Like the Venn diagram is that Elon is part of libertarian right. Like cut the government to the end of cut the government. Now Bannon would say attack the administrative state to replace the administrative state.

Starting point is 01:16:19 As in the government itself should be the power, the determination of the path of the country, of business, of breaking up the centers of gravity that are non-governmental powers, Facebook, Google, et cetera. Elon is somebody who's very against something like that, much more like an anarcho-capitalist. And on top of that is like traditional conservatism,

Starting point is 01:16:38 which agrees a little bit with this, but is also obsessed with like the religious right, constitution, et cetera. So like right now, my fear is that MAGA, while it definitely agrees with the administrative state here, is that they are losing the capacity to make their argument that no actually, and this is what Trump and JD I think believe, is that the government itself should have power over the direction of the country, should have the ability to tell social media companies don't censor, as opposed to having a

Starting point is 01:17:03 billionaire buy it. Like that's a nice work around, but look, I mean, Zuck went on Rogan and said, oh, we're not gonna fact check anymore. I did a post about Lyme disease, it got fact checked the next fucking day. And it's still not down, right? And you know, there's no enforcing mechanism within that. Only the government can fix that problem for me,

Starting point is 01:17:19 or for all Americans. So that's where I would say it's like, there's important theories of government, which are very at odds right now. So there is that like Bannon group like and again I don't think Bannon actually cares about the country as much as he likes like rallying people up for attention Really? I think he's a surprise about I think he's a really I think he's an acute listener So I think he can like spot trends early

Starting point is 01:17:39 And I think that he's a good enough communicator that he can fan the flames of those trends early. And those things can grow to be bigger things. Now. Oh, like the Nazi salute. Sure, sure, exactly. This is that trend. That's like a perfect example of like, he probably knew what he was doing

Starting point is 01:17:55 and he didn't do it enough. He definitely knew what he was doing. Yeah, yeah, so it's like, so but there's a perfect example, like he's not actually trying to like make it better. Like if you really cared about American patriotism, you're not throwing up a Nazi sloop because you would have some respect to all the Americans that died fighting the Nazis.

Starting point is 01:18:08 I think he hates liberals and he wants to mediate. Exactly. But again, I think it's just an attention seeking thing. It's dog-whistling. How can I throw up on him? Now, I think there are ways, that's why I don't take him seriously, as someone who actually cares about America and more someone who just cares about causing ruckus and getting some attention in the midst.

Starting point is 01:18:25 Now what I would say is that it's very easy to pacify the base that he's riling up. So anytime he riles some people up, you just need a headline to be like Disney cuts all DI programs. And then they go, all right, well, exactly. Anytime they start riling up, you just need a headline that goes doge to give back $5,000 every single minute, and then they calm down. It don't matter how many fucking not to. Which is not even gonna happen. Of course, but neither is anything that Bannon says.

Starting point is 01:18:51 Well, I don't think that's true. I mean, like what? Like what does he say that's not gonna happen? What's gonna be executed? Well, what about mass deportation, dude? Like what about? Trump literally ran on it. He could do it if he wanted to. Yeah, of course. No, no, no. Again, when I say like anything that Bannon says, of course there are things that he is supportive of. I don't know every single belief that he has

Starting point is 01:19:09 or anything that he's written on. And I'm sure that certain things like deportation is not a specifically Bannon thing. I think there's a lot of support for it. What I'm trying to say is there are gonna be these people that can rally the support of the disenfranchised and he's incredibly good at it. This is one of the things that, I don't wanna get away from Do incredibly good at it. This is one of the things that like,

Starting point is 01:19:25 I don't wanna get away from Doge right here, but this is one of the things I think that Dems really struggle with, is that like, they could very easily win the next election if they made this a class issue. Like they just need to make it a class issue. Like it's tough for them though. Yeah, because they're in the pockets of the rich,

Starting point is 01:19:39 and all the people that are running the party are these Ivy League trust fund babies. So if Ivy League trust fund babies are the people making the intellectual decisions for your party, you can't speak to the poor. Now, like her or dislike her, AOC, it doesn't matter your thought. People fuck with her because they think

Starting point is 01:19:55 she's trying to help. You might disagree with how she's gonna help, but she comes across as a working class girl that wants to help. That's what Dems need. Bernie, you wanna- And she outran Biden in her district. She had a lot of- Exactly.

Starting point is 01:20:07 I interviewed, or on our show, not me, but our team, we interviewed a ton of AOC Trump voters, and they were like, yeah, I trust them both to fight for the working class. Exactly. I thought it was actually fascinating. So the Dems should look at that specifically and be like, oh, wow, she's locked in,

Starting point is 01:20:21 and people believe she wants to help them, and they don't really, they become disillusioned with these other figures. In my opinion, they're probably in the pockets of the billionaire class a little bit too much so they can't make it about money, which they could make it about money so easily and regain the working class in a heartbeat. They have to make it- I'm not so sure about that.

Starting point is 01:20:40 Okay, maybe not, but they'd have a better chance than making it about identity politics. I agree with you. Which they did make it about before. And now it seems like even Rahm Emanuel is moving away. Let's get out of the bathroom. And look, they say a lot of, there are political realities that are huge problems for Democrats.

Starting point is 01:20:52 Number one, rich white people are now Dems, right? The base of the Democratic party. It's more nuanced than that. It's Ivy League educated, nepo babies. I was about to get to that. There are tons of rich white people that are like, yo, I'm over this shit. It's the specifically Ivy League,

Starting point is 01:21:10 like four generation money. Sheltered. Sheltered, they've never had a real job. Of course. Those are the people out there that are like telling you what you should feel and how you should vote. And real working class people, like people who've actually had a real fucking job

Starting point is 01:21:23 in their life, do not want some trust fund kid telling them what they should vote for. It's pretentious. What I was gonna get to is, when I say rich white people, I mean a very specific class, where one of the number one determiners of how you vote in party ID is four-year college degree. So if you attend a four-year college degree institution,

Starting point is 01:21:38 which also correlates very much with income, then you are much more likely to be a Democrat. And that's why, you know, even rich white is not exactly the right term because we all know blue collar trucker millionaires down in Florida. They're fucking Republican as shit, right? But these guys did not go to college necessarily. And they have very different cultural attitudes.

Starting point is 01:21:55 I think I talked about this the last time I was here. Charles Murray, one of my favorite books of all time is called Coming Apart. And it's exactly about how Americans with college degrees have concentrated themselves in something called super zip codes. You know, the Whole Foods index, like if you have a Whole Foods, you're much more likely to vote for a Democrat. If you have a whatever generic or Aldi, right? You know, much more likely to vote Republican. What's happened is that America is culturally separated, probably more than ever before. Are we all watching White Lotus? I am. I love White Lotus. That's actually a signifier of like, you're out of touch, right? The most popular show in the country is NCIS, or Landman.

Starting point is 01:22:31 Oh my god. Okay, I love parts of Landman, but dude, what a fucking disaster. We can talk about that. But there's a perfect example. It's like, some people, it's elitist. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't think women act that way. Maybe that's just me. I genuinely... Why? Are they like rational on the show? Or what's going on? It's like... Billy Bob, you need your dick sucked. Yeah, you need your dick sucked. Why are we recycling when I can be stuck on your dick?

Starting point is 01:22:56 Okay, I'm glad you feel this way. This sounds like a great show. Yeah. This is why we're skintrushed out. For some guy who's like, yeah, this is that women talk. I was like, what the fuck is going on here? Why is a 29 year old playing a 17 year old in panties?

Starting point is 01:23:09 What is happening? Fire. Anyway. I mean, not fire. Yeah, right. Most popular show in the country. So what the fuck do I know? But like my point is exactly about the cultural separation

Starting point is 01:23:20 is why it's hard for Democrats. And I think even for AOC, AOC and them may speak in the language of the identity politics and also hold class politics. And what I really have come to believe is that we live in a cultural moment. So there is a, so previously, 2020,

Starting point is 01:23:38 well, I'm fascinated by that election, the highest turnout in modern history, equivalent turnout not seen since like decades. And if we read about other high turnout elections in American history, Equivalent turnout not seen since like decades. And if we read about other high turnout elections in American history, it was in something called the age of acrimony. That's a book I really recommend, which is what does that word mean? Acrimony is, uh, acrimonious would mean like, uh, tension of fighting. It's a very, uh, it's a lacrimony thing means crying in lacrimony. Acrimony life. An acrimonious place would be...

Starting point is 01:24:05 Stop. It would be all of us yelling at each other. Sometimes you're smart, bro. Sometimes... Yeah. Anyway, he's an agent of acrimony. Dumbass indeed. I know.

Starting point is 01:24:15 Finally! He's like, I wasn't telling you! Finally, I got it! Let's go! Get you at the lab! Yeah, like, yeah! He's back to Jay! He's back to Jay!

Starting point is 01:24:23 Google something! Go, go, go! I'm going to go to the lab. I'm going to go to the lab. I'm going to go to the lab. I'm going to go with the laugh. Yeah, like that. He's back to it. He's back to it. Yo, more Google something. Yeah. Go, go, go. All right, age of Akramonie is the 1890s, and unfortunately, that was also when? The Gilded Age.

Starting point is 01:24:35 Now, why was America all up in arms at that time? Bro, it wasn't just, it wasn't really about class. That's when all the rich people really took advantage. It was basically like, should black people have civil rights or not? That was like the number one animating issue of the South. There's an entire thing called Southern populism, which is basically just like whipping up poor white people against blacks so that you can prop up a new plantation class of rich people from the post civil war. And even in the Northeast, like where we are

Starting point is 01:25:04 here, that's how the robber barons and all of them came to power. And they funded a lot of this culture warfare and benefited from it. And it wasn't until Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Era started, they said, no, the real problem here is combination, is all of these standard oil trusts taking advantage of us. And that was a complete reverse of the way things were. Real quick slow down.

Starting point is 01:25:24 So essentially what the Southern populism was doing and the rob bands were doing was essentially saying, yo your life was way better back when- No they had the population fighting over black civil rights. That's what I'm saying, so and the way they did it is they said, hey your life was way better when these black people didn't have all these rights and having all these rights and this upward mobility is taken away from you. Bingo. And then Roosevelt on some Bernie Sanders shit came in and was like, yo it's not about all this rights and having all this rights and this upward mobility is taken away from you. Bingo.

Starting point is 01:25:45 And then Roosevelt on some Bernie Sanders shit came in and was like, yo, it's not about black and white. It's about these billionaire motherfuckers that have taken all this money. These guys came in. That's what I'm saying the Danes should do. I agree, but it's very difficult because the problem is- They're in the fucking pockets. That's what's difficult.

Starting point is 01:25:58 Well, not only pockets, it's not only they're controlled, but they speak in the language of exactly the type of people- Gay people. No, they speak gay. And it is true, they do speak that way. Well, I mean, everyone should go watch AOC's 2020 DNC speech. It was like for black, indigenous, for land acknowledgement, BIPOC, I know, BIPOC.

Starting point is 01:26:19 And I think on the modern, I'm like, I'm out. I'm calling Tupac BIPOC from now on. You see him in the ballet recital. That is BIPOC. What is BIPOC? Oh, Black Indigenous People of Color. How have you not heard of this, man? Come on. This is old school.

Starting point is 01:26:31 This is an old school acronym. I had never heard about that. Black Indigenous People of Color. That's right. It keeps people like Akash and I out. Fair enough. And Mexicans. Oh, wow.

Starting point is 01:26:41 I thought we were People of Color. It's not about us. Huh? I thought we were People of Color. No, it's black indigenous people of color. Only there? I thought it was the whole... No, it's only BIPOC. It's not us.

Starting point is 01:26:49 What's a black indigenous person of color? No, it's saying black and indigenous people of color. As in like, it's a way to keep people like us out. Like the Asians and the Mexicans. A white passing white out. It's a divisional of a division. It's like a divisional of a division. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, this is interesting. A white passing white. It's a divisional of a divi- it's like a divisional of a divi- Kind of like a black popular.

Starting point is 01:27:05 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so,

Starting point is 01:27:13 so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so I'm still trying to figure out how to be acrimonious. But Black Hawk is an acrimonious of black. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good, got it. Okay, I got that shit now. Okay, so that's genius. So you're just flipping it and it does feel good. It does satisfy you in that moment. You're like, I don't have something.

Starting point is 01:27:35 They're the reason why I don't have it. But they're unable to execute the task at hand, which is really, hey, there's a lot of people who got a lot of money. They could be fucking Indian, they could be white, they could be Jewish, they could be whatever the fuck they are, and in order for you to get some money, they're going to have to have a little less of that money and influence, potentially. Even if that's wrong, if they run on that, it is so much more digestible. And they need credibility.

Starting point is 01:27:59 Where do you get the cred from? That's the problem is that I think that AOC and a lot of these other people are so, you know, these statements in the past This is what fucked Kamala. Kamala has been so fucked from those 2019 press conferences We need a health care for all illegal immigrants. I'm like, yo, why don't we just start with health care for America? You need Luigi. You need Luigi, bro. No, but that's interesting because the second AOC runs for president, they're gonna run the BIPOC. Dude, easy.

Starting point is 01:28:25 It'll be everywhere. You know what? That will affect Sar-go-go-go. This is where you're kind of fucked in a primary system where you have to appease the most extreme voters because they'll come out in the Democratic class to support. Yeah, and then as soon as you run, generally, people are going to be like, look what this bitch said. That's why I think the next Democrat has to come from fucking no- Oh yeah, I want to know what you guys think. Steven A.

Starting point is 01:28:45 Real quick, Miles had a very interesting take from what was it, Colin Calhart? Basically he said, picture LeBron. You think about LeBron, no, like great passing, great disc, great that, picture MJ, ultimate winner, picture this guy. Now he goes, not picture Jason Tatum, nothing. And then you had a point from Gilbert Arenas

Starting point is 01:29:04 that you were talking about earlier, where he said the league just won't give him, they just won't get behind him. And I might be misquoting Gilbert, but it seemed like he was trying to say the league won't get behind Jason Tatum, despite him having all the intangibles. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:29:16 Like he got the skills, he got the ring. Yeah, but I think he's just, he's not likable. There's nothing, like you don't like this guy. He is, I think I said this to you, oh yeah, this is a post game when he won the championship finally. He didn't play great. And then his speech is just like copying everybody else's.

Starting point is 01:29:34 And I think everybody was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you're just light skinned. You're just light skinned. So I agree with everything you're saying. But the league does seem to get behind the guy who was suspended for shooting people. Because he's exciting. So they don't really care about if you break the law anymore. I guess not.

Starting point is 01:29:53 I think we don't care. And everyone's got a bunch of baby mamas he's trying to abort. Like the guys who are taking over the league, they don't exactly fit the mold of what the league would get behind. Say whatever you want about Michael Jordan and like gambling. They don't exactly fit the mold of what the league would get behind. Yes. Say whatever you want about Michael Jordan and like gambling. Nobody knew any of that shit. They kept it out in the news.

Starting point is 01:30:11 He was the face of the league and also he was never in trouble about anything. Is this a LeBron? LeBron, never. Model citizen all things considered. Steph Curry. Model citizen for real. Jason Tatum is a model citizen. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:30:23 Why not give them the league? Because I think the league reflects what we want to support. So they're doing the wrestling thing now. David Stern would be like, I'm going with who's the most professional and who's gonna be, you know, match the character of the league. Whereas Adam Silver is like, what do the people fuck?

Starting point is 01:30:40 No, Luca needs to go to the Lakers? All right, we'll push that trade through. That works for us. Yeah. Fucking. Yeah, that trade might not get pushed through back in the day. We were just talking about that. That wouldn't stick, man, Luca needs to go to the Lakers. All right. We'll push that straight through. Yeah. Yeah. That trade might not get pushed through back in the day. We're just talking about that. That's Winnston Manshitt. Yeah. 100%. What is Tatum exceptional at? Stupid fucking idiot who made it to the top.

Starting point is 01:30:53 What is Tatum exceptional at? He's very well rounded. He's a great scorer, good defender. Like well rounded. He's good. No, no, he's unstoppable scorer. But that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Oh, if you say he's an unstoppable scorer, then maybe. And like a guy who's, you go go. I just don't feel like he has something in his game that's just so out of this world,

Starting point is 01:31:11 the way like all the other people you named. I think what Alex is saying rings true, which is like we relate to disruptive play. So Steph Curry was disruptive. Alan Iverson was disruptive. LeBron. And Edwards was disruptive. Allen Iverson was disruptive. And Edwards is disruptive. LeBron like weirdly, I think LeBron was so disruptive to be honest because of his passing ability too.

Starting point is 01:31:33 If he was just like a guy who's dunking on you. Same with Luka. Exactly, yes. Yeah, but I also think if, I think we're forgetting that. Also Luka's white, I'll be honest with you like, if Luka's not white white his style of play I don't know how marketable he I think he's less marketable but if he was black he would be in better shape yeah but do you know I'm saying? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:32:05 He's kind of like slow and plodding. It's easier to get behind that for a white guy. You don't expect athleticism. I mean, do we look at Luca as Tim Duncan if he's black? Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. And Tim, yeah, go ahead.

Starting point is 01:32:19 Yeah, no, both talk shit actually. Tim Duncan would talk, I guess his shit talk was funny, but he'd be like, nice try. You ever heard Kevin Garnett talk about Tim Duncan would talk shit? He'd be like, almost got me. Like little things like that. There you go, that was good effort. No, I will say Tim Duncan's in the post and it's a little bit more boring style of play like Luke is doing Step Back 3. So the game has definitely changed. But in terms of being like, he's not very like, like flash and excitement. Yeah, he's really using speed and the ability to slow down and he's using his body weight to score. And I'm trying to find a black player that's like that. Harden. Harden. No, Harden is athleticism and just fucking. I think it's Harden got a little older and you know, didn't take care of his body. I'm saying in the heyday of Hardin, yeah. Yeah, it's just, I hate making that argument,

Starting point is 01:33:06 but you have to calculate race in the somewhat, and he's not like, I don't wanna shit on Luca, but he's not like, oh my God, when you watch Steph, you go, oh my God. Yeah, fun, but not like Steph. But I will say also, I think the reason David Stern cared more about character is the United States is more puritanical and cared more about character.

Starting point is 01:33:26 And now we don't give a fuck if you gamble and you fuck girls. Trump has shown us if you are funny and engaging, we'll get behind you in this day and age. So I think the league is like, all right, Jason Tatum, you're a model citizen, but you're not as funny and engaging as these other guys. And that's who the people are getting behind. So that's who we're getting behind. It's interesting. And Jordan's gambling issue, I feel like the only issue is that he didn't do stake. Yeah, because if he did stake,

Starting point is 01:33:50 if he used the leader in global betting in US social consumers. Oh my gosh. He would love a social consumer. Bro. That's the only reason Lebron's better. Shit. It is, wait, no, I'm not, I am not.

Starting point is 01:34:03 Oh, you almost got him. You almost got him. You almost got him. He was not almost got him. You almost got him. You almost got him. He was not in his head. You almost got him. Now I know that Jordan did like to like take some time on his own. And I'm sure at that time,

Starting point is 01:34:13 Stake would have like an anti-social casino. But right now, they are the leader in US social casinos. And you can bet on top sports and political events and use the promo code flagrant and you're gonna get your welcome bonus. Did you know that? A welcome bonus? You're gonna get a welcome bonus. Welcome flagrant you're gonna get your welcome bonus, did you know that? Welcome bonus? You're gonna get a welcome bonus.

Starting point is 01:34:26 Welcome. And you're gonna get your bonus. Go get your bonus. Go get your bonus. Let's get back to the show. That's really destructive. I wanna know what you guys think. Stephen A.

Starting point is 01:34:35 Do you think he has a chance? No. I think he has a chance. He wants it, he's real. He's coming on the show. He wants it bad. He's coming on the show. He wants it bad, but no chance.

Starting point is 01:34:42 No, he's a great communicator. He has the communication skills and he has the star power because you do need the star power. He has that centrist, he's relatable because all the men that let's say voted for Trump on masculinity will see that in him. I totally agree. 100%.

Starting point is 01:34:57 But he doesn't have the emasculated, ugh, this is gonna drive fucking Democrats crazy, but they do have this deep insecurity about looking emasculated, this is gonna drive fucking Democrats crazy, but they do have this deep insecurity about looking emasculated. I said that thing on fucking, on Brilliant Natives, where I was like, I don't know, a guy who identifies as a Democrat over five nine, and that fucking riles up.

Starting point is 01:35:17 I've never seen so many people, and I think it was just emblematic of this feeling, people going, they think we're bitches Yeah, that's right. And and so deep down they have that's so funny because I'll pretend these 511 That wasn't always the case You're laughing a little too hard. No, but think about it. He wears lips. Insults.

Starting point is 01:35:48 The conservatives when I was growing up got no pussy. They got no pussy. They had gay relationships on the side. They weren't getting anything. They still do. They crash and grind her. But Eli got 17 kids. He just had another one. You guys see that?

Starting point is 01:36:04 Bill Clinton was getting ahead in all the office. Right, like Democrats were the ones that were actually cracking cheeks. They were winning the culture war. 1,000%. Yeah, that's true. The cool war. That is kind of flipped because the Democrats now

Starting point is 01:36:15 have to be so concerned. Now, Stephen A doesn't have that. Stephen A's out here like, yo, Latina's got big asses and I like Latina. So why do you think he has no chance? Yeah. I just don't think that. He doesn't have the same baggage, dude. Like, whoever comes next, it has to...

Starting point is 01:36:26 Obama came out of nowhere because he didn't vote for Iraq. Like you have to have somebody who has got credibility. Or you have to have somebody who doesn't give a fuck. Because look at the amount of baggage Trump had. But yeah, but... Let me take away no chance. Let me take away no chance. Yeah, he has a chance.

Starting point is 01:36:42 He has a chance. I need to see some credibility. I think what worked for Trump, even if it doesn't even make sense, but we could bridge the gap, like the cognitive dissonance in our brain evaporated when we're like, well, he's made these deals. He likes making deals. He could make deals abroad. I need to see Stephen A.

Starting point is 01:37:05 I need to believe that Stephen A could talk to Putin, talk to Kim Jong, and make some deals go through. And I understand what I'm saying. That's interesting. Sounds crazy. But a lot of- No, I understand that. What I think could help him in the primary is I think he can't beat whoever the Republican

Starting point is 01:37:19 bring. Yes, absolutely. So in a primary, he's good at arguing. He doesn't give a fuck. Dude, he goes on CEDA and actually does pretty well. I can see him out arguing. He doesn't give a fuck. Dude, he goes on Hannity. I can see him actually does pretty well. I can see him arguing whatever a public he doesn't give a fuck.

Starting point is 01:37:28 I like that. And then maybe in the election, the general, you say, I don't know if he can do politics, diplomatic, shit, whatever. Watching him on Hannity, he's got another thing. That's a good point. All politicians need this. You need a love of the game, dude.

Starting point is 01:37:39 And Stephen has the love of the game. I mean, think about it. You wanna give up your wife and your children's future to be in a Secret Service bubble. Do you know how narcissistic you have to be to actually pursue this? You have to be kinda fucking crazy. I won't do another podcast a week.

Starting point is 01:37:54 That's what I'm saying. Like, yeah, it's like you. I wanna go to my daughter's gymnastics class. And that's normal, right? That's what normal people do. I wouldn't do it, but having spent some time around these people, like the burning need for attention, you need a black hole inside your chest that can never be filled.

Starting point is 01:38:12 And when you read all these guys, Clinton, you're like, oh, he had four stepfathers, they used to beat the shit out of his mom. And what did he need? He needed affirmation from women, from people. So he's always running. Freshman year, he runs for president. JFK, same thing, he's like watch out for his insanity at home and all this.

Starting point is 01:38:26 He needs women the way that his father needed women. He needed the love of the people as the second son to the first son. His dad wanted him to be president, right? His dad wanted the older brother to be president. His first son, yeah. Didn't you always say that? No, that was JFK.

Starting point is 01:38:37 No, that was the other guy. I thought you said Clinton. No, no, Clinton too. I said the dog. He talks so well. Yeah, yeah, he talks a lot. You're so smart that it takes us a second to catch up. Who had four dads?

Starting point is 01:38:48 Clinton had. Okay, that was close. And then you moved to Kennedy. Are you still on Clinton? No, I was like, these guys have... This fuck is going on. If we're being honest, Trump's entire desire is what? Pleases his father and his mother.

Starting point is 01:39:00 It's like that is, that edible like need is like deep. Yeah, yeah. What about John Stewart? I think Steven has that. What about John Stewart? Oh, I would, I think he'd do it, but I would love it. I think he's brilliant and I think he's a great critic. I don't know if he has that.

Starting point is 01:39:14 I don't know if he has that same love of the game. And I mean, again, we have to think about what are you giving up? John is a complete human being. You will give up everything forever. John is a great communicator, but I don't think that he has that same desire to play. I mean, politics is also a coalitional sport.

Starting point is 01:39:32 You have to say something and then meet with somebody who totally disagrees with you, and then go on a stage and be like, we're the best friends ever, right? Like, that requires kind of some self-hatred and like some weird shit to do, like absorb all of that. And I think John is almost too honest and like too good of a guy.

Starting point is 01:39:48 And that's why he has our trust. He has... I love John. He has the level of trust that we need, but you're right, he might not have that deep black hole that is needed to go out there and give everything up. Are you saying he couldn't win or you're saying he would never run? He might not want it enough. Maybe either.

Starting point is 01:40:05 I mean, and I think he wins. I don't know, man. Democratic nom, yes. You have to put, yeah, that's different. But like, and actually, even then, I'm still not quite sure. Like what you need, you need a fighter. Like look at the liberal energy right now. I mean, frankly, like I kind of make fun of them because they're like, these guys are

Starting point is 01:40:13 going viral and from town halls, they're like, get up there and get yourself arrested in the Department of Education. Like, bro, what the fuck is that? I mean, I think he wins. I think he wins. I don't know, man. Democratic nom, yes. You have to put, yeah, that's different.

Starting point is 01:40:21 But like, and actually, even then, I'm still not quite sure. Like what you need, you need a fighter. Like look at the liberal energy right now. I mean, frankly, like I kind of make fun of them because they're like, these guys are going viral and from town halls, they're like, get up there and get yourself arrested in the Department of Education. Like, bro, what the fuck is that gonna do? Like, what are we doing? Did that make you feel bad that he like lifted his voice in

Starting point is 01:40:33 octaves? Like he didn't even know he was doing that. He raised his voice in octaves. That's a problem. That's true. No, seriously. And I know obviously you're gonna have some bias, but like they have to. And yes, I am very biased. Please don't mind.

Starting point is 01:40:49 But I speak about this like purely culturally. Like they have to address that issue so that they can become more relatable. And I think Stephen A addresses that. There's no guy that looks at Stephen A and thinks of like an emasculated. Yeah, he's not a bad child. Can I change?

Starting point is 01:41:03 I'm just like, you're not a bitch. There's a clip I know you've seen. This is where John Stewart, I don't think wants to, but he would win. Tucker Carlson. Got his high voice out, talking all this ranting and raving. And I know that's your boy, I don't like him.

Starting point is 01:41:17 But then John just goes, Tucker, you wear a bow tie. Done. That's the shit Trump does. When Trump is in a debate and he just gets you John by occupation yes we'll do that a lot of these guys when John wants to when when remember when he destroyed was it Jim Cramer that was yeah oh my that's the most like you have this stating takedown I was like almost crying he became the joke after yeah he is I mean he I mean, he's a joke. But still like, it was like the moment where everyone realized, oh, wow, this guy's a joke.

Starting point is 01:41:48 Exactly, I mean, look, I like John. I think he could do well. Stephen to me reads what the liberal base wants. Another, oh, and by the way, when I said the Democratic base, I didn't get to finish. It's also old black people. Like elderly black people are the absolute, like most loyal people to the Democratic party.

Starting point is 01:42:04 Remember, they showed up for Jim Clyburn and Joe Biden. They saved Joe Biden's ass in South Carolina. They're the people who gave Obama the presidency after he won in the Iowa caucuses, basically put him on the path to victory. So I think Stephen embodies their like want to fight and like the fight is the same thing for Trump. Like Trump animated the Republican base and all of these working class whites who are like, he's standing up for us against

Starting point is 01:42:30 these corrupt Ivy League fucks who I fucking hate. So his mere existence, his occupation of the Oval Office is enough for me to see these people scream, to tire, to go out to the streets. It's the Eric Cartman licking Scott Peterson's tears, you know from South Park where he's like, oh Scott I'm looking at He's like licking his tears. So I forget Scott Tetterman must die. It's a great South Park episode I don't watch it. They make fun of black women That's that's what Trump is to me. And this is part of the problem for the Democrats is when you have a group that is explicitly hatred of your leaders, of the cultural elite,

Starting point is 01:43:12 of which you are one, no matter what you think, you have a huge messaging problem. That's part of the reason why I think that Stephen could be powerful though, because he's not connected to that in the same way. And he gets some of the sports fans from the other side. Dude, of course. I've watched this guy for years.

Starting point is 01:43:26 I fucking hate him. Yeah, think about his name ID forever. Also, he's cool as shit. Yeah. I never met him. You need cool. No, you need cool. Yeah, he's cool.

Starting point is 01:43:34 I agree. Yeah, you went from no chance to last. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go. You see, listen, I'm a plastic bag in the wind. Yeah. You gave me two good points. I was like, man, we're about to have our second black president. The fact you said no chance makes me think he has a chance.

Starting point is 01:43:52 By the way, Netflix is dead. But if it's alive, March 4th, you can watch my special. Wow, that's really interesting. And I think it solves a bunch of problems. It solves the masculinity issue. It solves centrist trust, 100%. He's the outsider, so you don't have him saying a bunch of other shit on record. Like stupid shit.

Starting point is 01:44:11 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, wow. And he does want it. He wants it. He said something he's like. And he has the fire. When I see his eyes twinkle, when he's going at Sean Hannity,

Starting point is 01:44:21 I'm like, this fucker loves the game. And he's just like Trump. All the greats, they live for those moments. Like Clinton said, the most depressed he ever was when he had to leave the White House. Like, that's who they are, dude. Yeah, we had to stop at a red light for the first time. Like, that's what they live for. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 01:44:40 But like, that's what it takes. You know what's crazy? For three years before that, every day he was going home to his daughter. Yes. Looking at him as he's having this cheating scandal. He's got to talk to her. He's got to go lie to the entire country. He's the worst of his life.

Starting point is 01:44:56 He's the one who leaves all of that. I have to leave all of that. Yes. I have to leave all of that. I remember he was like, he's like, first time I walked into a room. That's genius. The most depressing. Now I have to look my daughter in's genius. That's the most depressing.

Starting point is 01:45:05 Now I have to look my daughter in the eye. I have to get my dick sucked by the internet. That was fun. I'm getting peaked. That's fine. He's like, I'd walk in a room, they wouldn't play Hail to the Chief. I didn't know what was going on. Dude, like this.

Starting point is 01:45:17 That's insane. That's who they are. Yeah, these people are nuts, man. And listen, they're great. You know, that's why we need them. We need somebody else to absorb all this bullshit because the rest of us wanna go to our daughter's gymnastics class.

Starting point is 01:45:27 You need some. That's a great observation from obviously being, you know, years in politics and understanding like the constitution of the person that's gonna do the job. Oh, absolutely. They do need that burning desire for approval and the need to fight.

Starting point is 01:45:41 Yeah, that is, wow. I think Steven has that. And that's why when I look at, I don't, I, and Kamala, of course, never had, she had the narcissism and all of that to pursue it, but she didn't have, she wasn't a star. She just was, she couldn't convey that. She couldn't combine that, I guess, for the, for greatness. But I think she has the same, she's got horrible baggage. Who else is there anybody else? Any other outsider that's interesting? I would have made a case for Dean Phillips,

Starting point is 01:46:05 the guy who ran against Biden in the primary, only because he has the same thing Obama had in 02. So in 02, Obama, fucking nobody, literally gives a speech outside the state Senate against the Iraq war. Dean is the only establishment Democrat who can credibly say, I called out Biden's age before it was obvious to the world. Because he ran against Biden in the New Hampshire primary.

Starting point is 01:46:30 He's made some weird moves since then. The other thing is, Dean is filthy rich. So that helps, right? You can self-fund a campaign. You can get your name ID out there. But again, he's the same Obama thing of, I told the truth when it was uncomfortable. He even didn't even run for Congress again.

Starting point is 01:46:46 Like he lost his political future and got blown out in the primary on a single message of we cannot win with Biden. And he was empirically correct. So I think Dean, I mean, I don't know if the Democrats will reward him in the same way, but Buttigieg, I mean, he wants it, he's desperate. He has the need, he has the blackboard.

Starting point is 01:47:03 I like Buttigieg. But his problem is he's got the baggage, dude. He's desperate. He has the need. He has the black. I like but his problem is he's he's got the baggage Dude, he's got that 2020 primary stage. I do raising my hands for illegal health care and all this It's like dude that stuff is just cancer. Here's what I would say about him. Yeah, here's what I'd say about booty Judge he will engage the other side and I think that is Refresh. Oh, yeah the appearance of a gift shop. Have the appearance of. And on Fox News. You know what? You're right. He loves the game too.

Starting point is 01:47:26 He loves to go on Fox. He likes to combat with Alexander Smith or whatever. He's smart. Huh? He has the appearance of smart, but yes. And that's important. That's important. Okay. Let's talk about that.

Starting point is 01:47:36 The appearance of smart is more valuable than actual intellect. Absolutely. When it comes to running for public office. No question. Michael Bloomberg is objectively smarter than everybody on that stage. Yeah. He could not communicate that intelligence in a way that was effective in convincing us. Now we loved him as mayor of New York. Mayor of New York is second most powerful position in the land. Like let's just be honest, like you are the mayor of New York. You're really the president.

Starting point is 01:48:01 Like I don't really care. You're basically the president. Yeah, Eric're really the president. Like I don't really change. Do you know what I mean? You're really the president. You're basically the president. Yeah, Eric Adams is the president. I'm doing presidential things right now. Keep it in the book. This is the proof right here. Mayor Adams, the entire state comes after him. What's happening right now?

Starting point is 01:48:18 What happened to that? What? Nothing. Charges dropped because you're the real president. Well, that's good. Because the real president part, basically the real president told the DOJ not to go after you. Cause you're the real president. Well, that's good. Cause the real president part, basically the real president told the DOJ

Starting point is 01:48:26 not to go after you. Cause the real president told the second president to pardon the real president. That's what I'm saying. When you're president of New York. And they're convening a New Yorker position. But, when you're the mayor of New York and the real president.

Starting point is 01:48:37 Stop derailing the real point because you gotta defend New York. Go to the real point. He forgot it. He forgot his real point. We're getting the migrants out of real point. The appearance of intelligence. I actually do think it would be nice to have like shitlibs stand up for their city.

Starting point is 01:48:51 Cause there is like this weird, cause you guys notice this, I'm sure too. What's a shitlib? Like just like somebody who's. Did you just call him a shitlib? No, not him. I guess a shitlib to me is like the classic, the pink hair, the pussy hat, like that.

Starting point is 01:49:06 But for me, it's like there is something annoying. We should call them the coffee party. Like, they're the barista equivalent of the tea party. The tea party and the coffee party. That's actually good. Thank you, you're welcome. So good. I mean, doesn't it annoy you when some guy in like Alabama

Starting point is 01:49:22 is like, man, crime in New York is out of control, and you're like, dude, shut the fuck up. Every time I go on Rogan, I have to tell him New York is still dangerous. It's always been dangerous. Yeah. I mean, it's also not that dangerous. So empirically, it's just like not that dangerous. It's gotten worse for sure. It's dangerous for them.

Starting point is 01:49:37 Yeah, fair enough. If you live in a suburb, sure. But any city is dangerous for anybody who lives in a suburb. But that's what I'm saying. Like the Delta is minimal. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. My point is just, I do think there would be something, people need to stand up for America's cities. Cause I think what's unfortunate right now is that a lot of Republicans have like Psy-op themselves, especially younger guys, like they

Starting point is 01:49:55 don't want to come move to a city anymore. And I'm like, no, like the city is the greatest place that you should move to. That's where commerce connection is. We're going to meet everybody. You're young, you can meet your wife, whatever. Like that's where you can get shit done. You can go out, you can have a good time. You can move to that's where commerce connection that's where you're gonna meet everybody you're young you can meet your wife whatever like that's where you can get shit done you can go out you can have a good time you can move to somewhere later but this is where shit happens this is where you can yeah this is where you compete yeah I totally agree that's why I moved here you guys all did the right thing yeah yeah yeah no it's a like I want somebody to stand up and this is like almost a liberal but like I want someone to stand up for fucking America's cities I want like Chicago

Starting point is 01:50:27 it's a good thing in a more credible way what's it like actually crimes it is like no bitch like don't be a pussy awesome yeah that's what I do don't they get identified as city elites and who can't relate get identified as city elites and who can't relate. Yeah, we're elite. We're elite. Why are we afraid of being elite? That's not the end of the story. We think we're better.

Starting point is 01:50:49 We do. And when you move here, we don't even consider you from here. We treat everybody who moves to New York like an immigrant. Isn't that crazy? We go, then you go, I'm from New York. We go, well, when did you move here? And they go, oh, seven years ago. We're like, yeah, I'm from Montana.

Starting point is 01:51:02 Fuck you. We are elites. But that tests off the rest of the country. And so they move here, and they want to be from here. I would be pissed off if I lived where y'all live too. I travel the country. I know what it's like. We are elite, and it's good that we're elite.

Starting point is 01:51:15 I agree. There needs to be this confidence moving again. That's what I'm saying. 100%. Get the migrants out. What? When I'm talking about migrants, I mean everybody from Maine, everybody from New Jersey, everybody

Starting point is 01:51:26 from Pennsylvania. Exactly. Get out of here. Get out of here. Mark is cool. Mark is cool. I'm with you. I'm with you.

Starting point is 01:51:34 I'm with you. I'm with you. You know, the problem with the coffee party though is self-loathing is intrinsic to their existence. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm talking about. They cannot exist without hating themselves and everything about them. So I have to hate New York City even though I live here.

Starting point is 01:51:48 I have to hate America even though I live here because I hate myself. Can I ask you a question? I totally agree with this. Can I ask you a question about this? Does it come from, and I'm curious about this, does it come from actual self-hatred or does it come from a need to be liked and accepted

Starting point is 01:52:01 and the feeling of if I shit on my existence these minorities might accept me. Aren't those kind of one in the same? Doesn't one feed into the other? Again, I don't know chicken or the egg, but I don't think that they're doing it just because they hate themselves. They might hate themselves, but they desperately care about the appro- because people who hate themselves, they just kill themselves.

Starting point is 01:52:21 And it's like, you know, solid. I like that. I'm not saying they should. Suicide hotline. got mumps on it. I love that. I love that. No, I'm not saying suicide. Suicide, not mumps. I'm not saying they shouldn't do that. I'm not saying you should do that.

Starting point is 01:52:31 But if you just have this pure hatred for self, but don't you feel like sometimes there's like this, like a need of approval from these people? With the appearance of self-loathing. Yeah, totally. It is diametrically opposed to stand up for a big city when you're like, your whole existence appears to be Shit on everything that is of my existence. I also think it might be education

Starting point is 01:52:48 Like there's this guilt that is like in ingrained in you in the college system, right? Like America's bad, you know, it's like the existence of the country's bad Like the things that we do are awful and there's like this thing that gets embedded within you Whereas like a working-class kids or whatever built with more patriotism, both in the home and probably just around like the way that they think about things. They're like, yeah, we do bad stuff, but it's a great place. The easiest way to deal with privilege

Starting point is 01:53:12 is to apologize for it. And not actually do anything to help. It's just to apologize for it. It's the great point. Yeah, whereas people like, I didn't grow up poor by any stretch, but I feel like I worked up, I started in comedy, blah, blah, blah, so I don't feel like

Starting point is 01:53:24 I have to apologize for this. If I, my kids, God willing, but I feel like I worked up, I started in comedy, blah, blah, blah, so I don't feel like I have to apologize for this. If I, my kids, God willing, I'm successful, I want it, they might feel a little bit apologetic. I didn't earn this. So you know what, instead of actually like going on doing community service, why don't I just apologize all the time for my existence? And I think that's a lot of the times why those guys

Starting point is 01:53:38 are the loudest ones in the Democratic party, and they've taken control of the narrative. Well, a lot of it is also about like this need for control. Like that's where I think the, if you were talking about how the right wasn't cool and the mid 2000s, like, cause they were trying to tell people what to do. But like the modern right has basically become a socially libertarian right. I mean, I don't think he likes when I say this, but I've for years, I've been like, I think Dave Portnoy is one of the most important political figures in the country. He would love this. Go on. No, he would not. I don't think he likes it because I think what I always say is like

Starting point is 01:54:06 Barstool Republicanism is the new basically wave of conservatism in America, which is you do what you want to do, but don't fucking tell me how to speak, right? Because I think Dave would love that. I don't know. I'm not sure. Republican and Democrat. Well, that's what I'm saying. He doesn't want it to say Republican, but like they are Republicans. But if you just talk about cultural influence, I think that he would really appreciate that. I think you're right. That guy could be president.

Starting point is 01:54:27 The thing about Portnoy, Barstool, whatever, is it's about saying fuck you to the man. And in the 2000s, the man was George W. Bush in the church trying to tell us, or gay people or whatever, not to get married. Now it's, oh, you don't know BIPOC? You fucking racist? Or you're not just racist,

Starting point is 01:54:46 you can't just not be racist, you have to be anti-racist. You have to read this stupid fucking book by this grifter, Ibrahim Kendi, and all of a sudden nonsense, right? And America is very social libertarian because we're not really religious anymore. And so now we're like, oh, I'm gonna live my life like all the grilled ad conservatism. There's a lot of different like words for it.

Starting point is 01:55:04 But it's like, just fuck off and don't tell my kids about transgender ism or whatever Yeah seven and I think that like bar stool kind of the brand exemplifies what I'm saying Which is saying fuck you to the cultural elite well there's success in general love to say fuck you Of course that's who we are. That's literally yeah We love where I'm like and we also love and this is something I hope Democrats start to understand is we love abundance. You have to sell on abundance Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's one thing that like the Democrats haven't done what they're with what? Oh, you would love the new Ezra Klein stuff. They have a book about it been okay. So I Co-auth is named Derek Thompson. Fuck that guy. Fuck him. No, dude, no.

Starting point is 01:55:45 He's got a great podcast. No, no, no. I'm too. That is a great podcast. Yeah, it's a great podcast. Let's not shout out of the podcast. He's a liberal, he's obviously a liberal-united guy. Yeah, they're Democrats, but capital D.

Starting point is 01:55:57 I think there's one thing, and again, I get away from Republican Democrats. Let's just talk about culture, because obviously things shift, right? If the Republicans were the party of censorship and now they're the party of libertarians, it's like, let's just talk about like culture, because obviously things shift, right? If the Republicans were the party of censorship and now they're the party of like libertarians, it's not really a damn Republican thing. It's just like, which party is accessing the things that Americans need or care about? And this idea of like, we're dreamers, right?

Starting point is 01:56:14 It's like in our DNA, we are risk taking dreamers. We need people who are talking shit and willing to take risks. We're the frontier. That's who we are. Everybody in our family, if you go back a generation, left their entire existence to just try to make it here, right?

Starting point is 01:56:26 So when a Democrat is coming in, I need them to say some wild shit. I want them to say, listen, there are all these developers in New York and they're trying to put these fucking buildings up. So yeah, we're dead in that. Matter of fact, we're going to take that land over there. We're going to build 10,000 fucking units. That shit is going to be cheap. And now you can live in Manhattan for under $3,000.

Starting point is 01:56:47 Even if they don't do it, tell me that. Fuck, yeah, absolutely. If Trump can say we're taking Greenland, you could say you're taking a little patch of land in Manhattan and building affordable housing. Say some wild shit that makes people go, whoa, whoa, that kinda sounds, that sounds fire. I totally agree.

Starting point is 01:57:03 And don't make it, yeah, we're gonna shoot every kid up with the fucking hormone or whatever the fuck they don't actually say that but that is the rhetoric But there's a tacit accept. It's pretty wild. There's an acceptance of then you have politicians who just make a bunch of bold claims That they never do and oh welcome to America Then we go right back to losing trust in our politicians At least doing the shit that he's going to say. Where's the wall? If you like it or not, he's doing it. I wouldn't say that, man. I actually am not like the real that's my problem with Doge is I feel like the whole Doge thing is not really how it was sold to me. What's the Democrat build the wall? There's no wall. Healthcare. But for the

Starting point is 01:57:41 problem is I go, okay, what about illegal immigrants? So like, and I go, is it gonna cover transgender? Is it gonna cover abortion? And they flip it out. It's like low key, you almost gotta stay away from healthcare because they're all in the pockets of healthcare. Give me the Democrat build the wall. If Democrats go, yo, eggs are a dollar. Mm-hmm. That's it.

Starting point is 01:57:58 That's right. Don't even tell me how you're gonna do it. Eggs are a dollar. We subsidize corn, we subsidize milk, we subsidize all this other shit. We're subsidizing chickens. Eggs are a dollar. We subsidize corn, we subsidize milk, we subsidize all this other shit. We're subsidizing chickens, eggs are a dollar. And then have Republicans go, oh, well, we'll actually-

Starting point is 01:58:11 Press control. We can, that's a riddle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you go, you sound gay. Eggs are a dollar. Yeah, I think tax the rich. Call this man. I think tax the rich would be-

Starting point is 01:58:21 See, I actually think his is better because it's tangible. Like build a wall with something you can point to. Eggs are a dollar. As opposed to tax the rich would be. See, I actually think his is better because it's tangible. Like build a wall with something you can point to. Eggs are a dollar. As opposed to tax the riches is, it could be, it's been too coded and it could be attacked. They've been crying about it for years. This right here is just like. You're not gonna tax the rich.

Starting point is 01:58:34 They're gonna find a way to get out of it. And also, That's what you just said. Here's, no, this is cultural. This is a really important cultural distinction. Every poor American, not every, but most think they're gonna be rich. That's the problem.

Starting point is 01:58:44 So if you start saying, I'm going to be rich one day. Exactly. But you know what? Eggs are a dollar right now. Say this in New York. Yo, New York, we got to rule eggs are a dollar. Just say it. Whoever says that first word, if Stephen A. Smith goes, yo, eggs are a dollar. Hey, listen, Stephen, call him. It's that simple. I need a Democrat build a wall. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:59:02 Give me five build a walls for Democrats. Eggs are a dollar. But you're touching the class problem and I think part of the self-loathing is the social problem that they've been addressing for the last 10 years. Bring that, bring that. I think the internal self-loathing we're talking about

Starting point is 01:59:17 from the left comes from this idea of, oh, we're elitists, so we need to bring ourselves down and we need to ingratiate ourselves with the disenfranchised, the trans, the bi-pods, all that stuff, when the real problem underlying all of it is the class issue that eggs are too expensive and that there's no affordable housing. Well, I would say housing is number one.

Starting point is 01:59:34 I actually think what you were saying, mortgages or something like that, I'd be like, all mortgages are 2% from now on. JP Morgan, fuck you. Yeah, everyone would be like, what? Figured it out. Figured it out. They'd be like, no, that's not positive. JP Diamond's gonna you. Done. Yeah. Everyone be like, what? Figure it out. Figure it out. No, that's not part of it. JP Diamond's gonna be like, well actually, that sucks. I'm gonna take all these eggs that are a dollar and I'm gonna throw them at your fucking belly.

Starting point is 01:59:57 We had this. We had this. You remember the guy that was running, yo, the rent is too damn hot. I do remember that. That was one line, the rent is too damn high. I do know that. One line, the rent is too damn high. And the guy was forever. People love him. That guy was forever. He was a celebrity. Well, he lost. He lost. Yeah, he lost. Well, he was part of that fringe party.

Starting point is 02:00:10 He became nationally famous. He had nothing to do with New York. I know about this guy. He was a homeless guy. He ran and almost won. He ran and almost won. Out of one line. He didn't almost win.

Starting point is 02:00:18 He lost really bad. He lost really bad. He's a homeless guy. It doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying that's a bonus. Of course, rent is too damn high. You're homeless.

Starting point is 02:00:25 That makes sense. But that's proof, I think that's proof of the point. And Stephen A says rent is too damn high and also has some fucking policy and is able to sell it. And eggs, we're gonna make them a dollar. I love that bill at the wall point. It can't just be the one thing, but if you have some kind of very cashier. The other thing about Trump and part of the reason they're Democrats. Sorry, sorry, sorry, but the guy from Squid Game that said he was going to give $1,000 to every person.

Starting point is 02:00:46 Oh, that's right. Yeah. Wait, which one? I mean, not exactly, but... Andrew Yang? Andrew Yang! The guy he said he was going to give a thousand dollars to every American. I thought you were talking about the actual Squid Game in the new season. And I was like, well, they kind of did say that.

Starting point is 02:01:02 They were giving... they're're gonna split all the money. Number 351 was running for president. He said he was gonna give $1,000. He was never in Swiggin'. I don't think he was. Mark, stop fucking. You should have him on here. I don't think you're on here.

Starting point is 02:01:15 Can you go back? You know why he's bitter? Because we wanted him on when he ran for New York and he didn't come because it was risky. I'm not bitter. And then he lost. I'm not bitter. And that's why Andrew would come on now.

Starting point is 02:01:23 That's why he got killed in a script game. Oh, of course he's come on now. He needs it. What I told him been here. I'm not been here. And that's why Andrew would come on now. That's why he got Kilman's Squid Gift. Oh, of course he's here. He needs it. When I told Andrew Yang is you cannot win, you cannot become mayor of, he's 351. Oh, that was Andrew Yang. That was Andrew. You cannot become mayor of New York

Starting point is 02:01:36 without coming on this podcast. Okay. It's a simple fact. Right? Okay. Eric Adams did it. Most people that voted for Eric Adams think it's Alex Mead. Wait, are you gonna get Cuomo?

Starting point is 02:01:43 You gotta get Cuomo. Oh, is he running again? Dude, he announced yesterday? Yeah, you gotta get him on Oh, yeah, I would love that. That would be fucking which one is the Cuomo? Andrew. Yeah, so he's going he's going from government. See that's a governor of New York sauce monkey I call it Sauce monkey, but he does it That's how powerful mayor of New York is you go from governor to mayor that is an upgrade I go I don't know who the governor of New York is. I'm gonna be completely

Starting point is 02:02:23 The last governor I knew it was the blind guy You know who the governor of New York is. The last governor I knew was the blind guy. That was the last governor of New York. That was Spitzer in New Jersey? There was a blind guy. What are you talking about? Dinkins? No, there was a blind guy that took over after somebody stopped and he was blind. And they brought him to the Yankees game and gave him a fucking... Who the fuck are you talking about?

Starting point is 02:02:42 David Patterson. Do your research. Yeah. I thought you know shit. I don't fucking live in New York, dude. I don't think it's not the capital of the world. Look at that. It is the capital of the world. It's not the capital of the world.

Starting point is 02:02:54 No. That was the governor of New York. No, he's Stevie Wonderblom. He's vegan. When was this? Yeah, I remember this. When was his term? I have no idea. Come on, man. Just say backspace.

Starting point is 02:03:04 The best terms. Yeah. Just hit the backspace. Come on, man. Just say backspace. The best terms. Yeah. Just hit the back. God damn, soccer. Stop. These fucking shit niggas don't know that. What the fuck is that? Free Luigi.

Starting point is 02:03:17 We need Luigi back. What the hell? All right, guys. Let's take a break for a second. Listen, we talk a lot about freedom on this podcast. Okay? A love for America, patriotism, girth. There are many things that are important to us on this podcast.

Starting point is 02:03:36 When I say girth, I'm talking about something thick that you could put in your hands. Okay? Something you could crack open and give you a jolt. Something exciting. Something to give you energy throughout the day. You just grab it in your hand. You can almost feel the veins in it. What am I talking about?

Starting point is 02:03:53 I'm talking about black rifle coffee energy drinks. Free yourself of exhaustion. Free yourself of those eyelids slowly closing on you. Free yourself of another thing that basically means you're tired. What I'm telling you right now is if you need that 200 milligrams black rifle energy right here, zero sugar, why is it zero sugar? Because sugar is from communist countries. Sugar is from tyrannical dictatorships. They've done unthinkable things to their people. We don't need that in America.

Starting point is 02:04:27 What we need is energy, songs, sugar. I can't believe I even used a French word. Somebody, I'm not gonna say it. I was gonna say something, but some of you might take it seriously, so I'm not gonna say it. I understand the influence that I have. The point is, 200 milligrams right inside this.

Starting point is 02:04:44 American caffeine. American caffeine cat look at the girth You can't even I can't even touch fingers on that. Mm-hmm. Where do you think that goes when you drink that? Where do you think that goes? Yeah, where do you think it goes? Mmm straight to your shit. Yeah straight to your you know, it come on guys Yeah, go on stop fucking playing around with me. Mm-hmm. It goes right to your cock. Yeah It goes right to it Okay, it goes right to your cock that's where it goes 200 milligrams of caffeine directly to your cock Yes, as the great Will Ferrell once said a river of ejaculate would spray upon whoever sucks it up down. Yeah

Starting point is 02:05:24 Let's get back to the yeah of ejaculate would spray upon whoever sucks it up down. Yeah. Let's get back to the after. Yeah. The point that I'm trying to make is, if you're exhausted. You need to storm the Capitol. You, whoa, whoa, whoa, Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark. I'm saying if you need to. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Starting point is 02:05:36 For America. Mark, we're not doing that. We're not doing that. We're not doing that, but free those people. But we're not doing that, we're not doing that. The point that I'm trying to make is, if you are exhausted someday in January and you want to make a change, you want to make a change for the

Starting point is 02:05:50 better. Do you know what I mean? Go to a voting booth. That's what I would recommend. Yeah. Even if it's January, wait there with a sawed off shot gun. Just make sure you vote. Okay. Black rifle.com. You've got to use the promo code flagrant You're gonna get 30% off today and America if you really want America Okay to win World War three. Yeah You think we're gonna be able to do that without 600 milligrams of caffeine Do you think that that would be actually possible

Starting point is 02:06:23 of caffeine directly to your cock. Do you think that that would be actually possible? What do you think is scary when we like take drones over there to Russia? No, when we're walking around with huge fucking five and three quarter inch cocks poking straight out of our military trousers. That's what Russia's gonna be afraid of. Cock-a!

Starting point is 02:06:41 Point I'm trying to make is black rifle energy. Energy you can trust, energy that makes you free, energy for America, energy that will make Greenland ours. Let's get back to the show. All right, guys, you see the lights. You already know what time it is. It's hard dick season. Okay.

Starting point is 02:07:00 We're about to come out of winter. Guns blazing. Guns blazing. I know some of y'all get that hermit dick in the winter Maybe you get that seasonal depression dick Don't get as hard as it should and you haven't been blue chewing because you're foolish your ego got in the way Okay, so you know who needs it your girl needs it your side chick needs it that baby mama Who's lonely behind on her rent? She needs it

Starting point is 02:07:21 Everybody needs it and you do too and you what, you can get it for free. I don't even know why we're making this a financial issue. All you gotta do is pay $5 shipping, you're getting it a month free. You go to BlueChu.com and use the promo code FLAGRANT. It's really that simple. Hardest dick you've ever had in your life. Same active ingredients inside Viagra, Cialis.

Starting point is 02:07:38 Who the hell uses those anymore? Viagra or Cialis? Yeah, what are we, 95? I know, it's like drinking out of a colored water fountain. You gotta update, you gotta use the new new, okay? The blue chew is the new new, you're welcome, get after it. Now let's get back to the show. With tons of free reality shows,

Starting point is 02:07:56 you are totally free to watch what you love on Pluto TV. And for me, that's Dance Moms, Bar Rescue, The Challenge, and Jersey Shore, all totally free on Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never. We have limited time here. So do you think that we got to something from Doach? I think we did.

Starting point is 02:08:14 I think we fixed the Democrats. I think so. Yeah, I honestly think a lot of Democrats should listen to this. And if you're a Democrat or whatever out there, you should send it to people. Oh, Pat Ryan, you know what's also funny? I try, like, I try to.

Starting point is 02:08:25 I mean, we had the conversation on Brilliant the other time we talked about here. What I realized is I gotta go on more, I was telling you this, I have to go on many more left leaning shows and I realized this, even when I was doing some press for the pod, is that one, those conversations are so much better because there's a perception, I guess, of me

Starting point is 02:08:43 and once they actually have a conversation. They think you're literally MAGA. Yeah, they literally think you're MAGA. And here's the thing. People ask me that. Of course. I'm like, dude, I don't know what you're talking about. But I have empathy for them.

Starting point is 02:08:52 No, I have empathy for them because I'm sure the way I think of anybody who I've only seen a headline of and that I see one little clip of, but in my mind, we kind of work really hard to make sure that we have diversity in guests here. I'm obviously never a woman, but in terms of the male guests, right? In my mind, we kind of work really hard to make sure that we have diversity and guests here. I'm obviously never a woman, but in terms of the male guests, we have a lot of diversity. All that does is just reminds our base that we care about these different opinions and

Starting point is 02:09:15 then we have these conversations. I could be on a podcast with Charlemagne, who's literally riding so hard for the Democrats and Comma. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is when you go into their territory and have those discussions and then they get a different sense of you. That's interesting. And I think that's what works so well with John.

Starting point is 02:09:31 I think when John would go on Fox News, it's not about having the Fox News guys on his program. He would go over there because you're going into the lion's den. Yeah, you call the lion's den, but then they get a sense of you. So it's something that I realized is something I'm'm gonna make more of an effort and we should all do Going on other pods. I assume just having diversive guests over here all those people listen. They don't know it's our listeners How much content is out there? How much other shit do you know? You're right? You're 100% right? Yeah, you're 100% right Anyway, you were saying oh man. I fucking remember

Starting point is 02:10:02 Pat Ryan you think you have a chance running Pat Ryan? Yeah. Who am I? I don't know. He's a black guy probably. No, he's actually not. Really? Oh, the representative? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, dude, no. He's a nice... Okay. I heard him a few times. What about Ah Newsom? That's interesting. I think he's got too much baggage. French Laundry is just so fucked. It's so bad. He's got the same problem. Can you explain that to everybody who doesn't know? Oh, sorry.

Starting point is 02:10:31 He dined at the French, which is like one of the three star Michelin restaurants. I think it's Thomas Keller, right? Yeah, he dined at the French Laundry. He was indoor dining when all of rest of California had non-indoor dining. During COVID, it was a huge scandal, rightfully. It was ridiculous to shut down all these businesses. I think shit like that. He reads to me as too elitist. He's got too much of the

Starting point is 02:10:49 baggage and he's also trying too hard. He just started his new podcast. I'm like, ugh. He gives me the fucking ick. I agree. With how desperate he's contorting himself. It's just too much. That's why, again, I come back to my, it has to be an outsider. Also, it's not like- And the way Trump broke the Republican Party has to come from outside It's it's Obama like the state the perception the state could be flourishing But the perception of the state from the outside is that it's struggling. I mean empirically they lost what half a million people It's just true. But even if even if they were doing really well, totally Yeah, the perception is so important and not being able to control that perception

Starting point is 02:11:23 I guess what he shouldn't be doing is starting his own pod. He should be going on Rogan. Yes. He should be going on any right-leaning pod that he possibly can. Plus he's afraid. Like, you know, and that's the funny thing about it. People have done Rogan, I'm like, dude, he's not going to attack you. He's going to fucking talk to you and try to understand what you're doing.

Starting point is 02:11:39 He let Federman talk and that guy can barely fucking talk. Like, what the fuck? And to be honest, I think if Fetterman didn't have that stroke, I think he would have a chance for the Democrat. Maybe, he was very talented. And he reads- The clothing thing drives me. I know it drives you crazy, but it reads, it reads every man, blue collar, not super cucky,

Starting point is 02:11:56 social to a Democrat, it reads a blue collar Democrat, it reads like, that's our guy. I don't know. To me, he's like the costume of the working. I thought that exact thing until I saw him at the inauguration still wearing the sweatpants and the shorts and I was like, oh, you're just putting on an outfit

Starting point is 02:12:13 so that working class people will think that you are them. And now it lost all authentic, it lost all authentic. It felt so inauthentic. I really believed it until that moment. You knew the inauguration's happening. You can rent a suit for $50. Bro, he wore a suit when BB visited the Senate slick. What the fuck, you know So it's all I'm just saying When the United States president is being inaugurated

Starting point is 02:12:42 Okay, he can wear the suit when he wants to. Okay, okay, okay. We have a very boring reveal about the Epstein List. Yeah, right. Can you explain, or anybody who knows here, I haven't really been keeping up to date on it, why was it underwhelming and what is the future of the Epstein List? Well it was all publicly available. The rollout was a disaster. Like, let's just, you know, like, can you discuss that?

Starting point is 02:13:08 Why was disseminated in that way? I according to the people there, they would not expect it to be photographed immediately. So let's for people who haven't even seen this. Here's what happened is a bunch of conservative influencers or whatever were at the White House. They were given binders to the Epstein files on them. They come out of the White House, they're photographed and tweets start going around of them holding given binders that said the Epstein files on them. They come out of the White House, they're photographed and tweets start going around of them holding up binders that say the Epstein files. People are like, hey, hold on a second, why are you giving this to some conservative journalists? This is supposed to be just posted

Starting point is 02:13:35 online for everybody, right? So then they were defending it. The other thing is it starts to leak out that everything in there is already publicly available information. The only new thing that came out of the Epstein files was a claim by the attorney general that the FBI is currently covering things up. But like that's just a claim. That's not a file. Right. So there's redacted info. They actually redacted some stuff which is publicly available already, which is less fucking hilarious. So like in some ways it's actually less information in this. And they also, the house judiciary committee, GOP posted a in some ways, there's actually less information in this and they also, the House Judiciary Committee, GOP posted a link being like, here's the Epstein files and it was a literal Rick roll,

Starting point is 02:14:11 like a link to Rick rolling and it was like, dude, we're talking about children who were sex trafficked, like a dangerous pedophile, like you're turning this into a meme and the whole point is not a meme, it's actually like a sick. You should never joke around about it. Nobody thinks. Make jokes about that. If you're a professional comedian, you never joke around about it. Nobody- You make jokes about that.

Starting point is 02:14:25 If you're a professional comedian, you can joke about it. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're the House Judiciary- Yeah, maybe not. You're like, oh, this is actually serious. This is real shit. So what does all this shit mean? I mean, first of all, I'm starting to doubt whether the Epstein file is real, whether it even exists. At this point, why would the FBI, I mean, they burned all the JFK stuff, they burned a lot of the UFO stuff

Starting point is 02:14:47 or they've covered it up. Like is it even in physical format? Can it be released? But also, do we also, I think we need a lot of, oh, we already know a lot of what we need to know, that the Israeli Prime Minister, Eud Barak, was like sleeping in this house multiple times, that Bill Clinton's flying on this guy's jet,

Starting point is 02:15:03 that Bill Gates is asking this dude for marriage advice or whatever. Why did Epstein have the connection to get Bill Gates a Nobel Prize? I'm like, I think we know. The only thing that needs to be declassified is some of the intelligence connection, which they admitted was part of the reason that they pushed through the 2007 plea deal with Epstein. And so anyway, my Epstein files is get Alex Acosta, who was the DOJ, the US attorney, and then the secretary of labor who resigned over this, let's sit him down, we give him immunity.

Starting point is 02:15:33 And we're like, what actually happened? Who called you from the CIA? Because he gave a quote back at that time where he said, somebody intelligence called me and told me. Massad or CIA? Well, nobody knows. I mean, it could be CIA or the Hague and told me. Mossad or CIA? Well, nobody knows. I mean, it could be CIA or the Mossad, nobody knows. What is the quote?

Starting point is 02:15:49 The quote is, the intelligence told me to let it go. That's right, they said, let it go. That's what he said that on the record. So we give Alex a cost of immunity. We go, look, you have total immunity. Just tell us what happened. And Ghislaine, we need to get. Ghislaine, same thing.

Starting point is 02:16:02 We're like, look, you're already locked up for life, whatever, and all of that, you have immunity at this point from prosecution, tell us everything. Is this possibility even being discussed? No, I mean, I haven't heard it. I'm saying this is my solution. I think, first of all, it's a great solution. I also think, I'm not saying these people

Starting point is 02:16:17 are gonna be heroes. I don't think there's any world where Gilan's a hero, right? Alex Acosta, there is a version where your entire identity doesn't become hiding child sex traffickers and allowing them to continue. He's gotta carry this shit on his chest for 20 years. It cost him the secretary of labor. If he does it, if he goes out and does it, and then somebody kills him afterwards, he'll at least die. Yeah, he'll die die hero. Dude, I sat next to him on a plane. I'm still ashamed of myself. And you didn't ask?

Starting point is 02:16:47 Dude, it was like a 11, 15 PM flight from Miami and it was dead silent. And I was just like, I'm like sitting there like itching. Right next to me? I was like, I was like, right next to me? Dude, right fucking next to me. Gotta get him some drinks. I know, you want it.

Starting point is 02:17:01 Same thing, you probably want it. Two drinks in the middle of the night. I want a baton. I didn't want to be the guy that was like, excuse me. I'm like, so, and all the fan, I just want a great regrets in my life. I didn't say that. You don't want to know who's on the list? No, I don't.

Starting point is 02:17:14 I'm not sure the list as we understand it exists. I think a lot of the list is, bro, the list as he wants to know the list, of course, but I'm saying the list, we already know Leon Black, the head of Apollo Group, who had to resign, the most powerful private equity firm in the world, fucking Dershowitz, like who else? Aude Barack, Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Galen Maxwell, every person who was ever out there,

Starting point is 02:17:37 Reid Hoffman, all of these folks, it's like, it's out there, it's public record, and they all give us this, or Les Wexner, actually that's another one, He needs to get immunity too. We're like, Les, how old is he? Fucking 90 years old or something? We're like, just say it, dude. Tell us what happened.

Starting point is 02:17:50 Tell us what the fuck happened. You bankrolled it, where were you bankrolled? Why, why? What the fuck was going on? That's what I think. So Alex Acosta is the key figure. If we give him immunity, I don't even trust Ghislaine to be honest with you.

Starting point is 02:18:02 Yeah, fair. Because she's too incentivized to lie. She's playing ball at this point too. Exactly. So I think it's Acosta. Acosta says what intelligence told him, or whatever it is. Yes. Maybe then you give him immunity to Ghislaine

Starting point is 02:18:12 to just figure out exactly what's going on. But I think that that would pacify the American curiosity. Yeah, it should. It might not satisfy us, but we'd at least go, okay. We need to get Cash Patel on the show. We need to get him. But that's my us, but we'd at least go, okay, we need to get Cash Patel on the show. But that's my thing is I don't even know if Cash could, it's people say this, I mean you're a UFO guy too, people are always like, oh does the government have the truth about UFOs? I'm like yes, but not in the way that you think man. Like there's no

Starting point is 02:18:36 smoking dog. It's way more boring. It's just like, it's all within layers. The radar blip. Bro, if you're into JFK stuff too, like you know this already. You're like, look, we already have it. What is it? What happened? We already know that the CIA was complicit in an assassination plot against John F. Kennedy. That's all on the record. All of the official evidence, it doesn't matter. We know about the Bay of Pigs, about the elements within the CIA.

Starting point is 02:18:58 We're upset about getting caught up. The Drellas brothers. Jack Ruby. Jack Ruby. All of it. This is like, it's been proven, it's been decades, right? Where we can lay out all of the holes in the official narrative. Magic bullet, right?

Starting point is 02:19:09 It's all bullshit, but is there a file in the CIA that's like, we killed John F. Kennedy? No. What it is, is you will find a file talking about these Cuban elements or whatever who had access to stockpiles, and maybe just like 9-11, where the FBI had knowledge, or the CIA had knowledge of these people being in the country but didn't do anything about it,

Starting point is 02:19:28 that it was more like, yeah, we were aware. We didn't think they were gonna do anything serious or whatever and then they were like, oh my God, we're gonna cover this shit up immediately. Like that's kinda how it all went down. So the information's there. Like on Charlie Manson, read the Chaos book. It's there, like we know.

Starting point is 02:19:42 What's the Charlie Manson thing? Oh dude, that would take me hours to explain. But the Charles Manson chaos, highly recommend the book. Tom O'Neill, spent 20 years on it. Charlie Manson was a CIA asset, but he was part of mind control experiments by the same guy who wiped Jack Ruby's mind. Jolly Swift.

Starting point is 02:19:56 Jolly Swift. Yeah, that's right. He was the LSD CIA advisor on all of those like brothel plans. Jolly West. Jolly West. That's his name. Jolly West. Jolly West was the person feeding Alastair to Charlie,

Starting point is 02:20:06 the Manson family and all that, was part of an FBI plot to instigate like a race war. That's one of the things that they wrote on Roman Polanski's wall, was trying to instigate this. And it was all part of this crazy shit that was going on inside of the FBI at that time. We know this, we know all of this, even from the church committee onward.

Starting point is 02:20:24 But it's like people think that there's smoking guns. It's just like, that's not how it works. Like with MLK, with Manson, with JFK, UFO, etc. Like it's all covered up and the real smoking gun stuff, those people are dead. And I think the crazy part about the Manson stuff is that even on their deathbeds, they still won't tell the truth. Who is dead? Who is dead? The cops involved, the FBI, all of there's been foot... Why? Why do you think? I don't know, man. I don't know. I genuinely don't know. I think either the information, it's not that it would be too shocking, it's just that don't let it ever be confirmed because only weirdos like me ever read

Starting point is 02:20:56 the book and come on a show here and tell you about it, right? It's like most people just move on with their lives. Like yeah, whatever, Manson, is he still alive? You know, what's going on there? Is it possible to watch the Tarantino movie? You know, it's like, that's it. Is it possible that the like extreme conspiracy theories are, uh, I don't know what the term for this would be, but they're developed by the people that are hiding the truth. Oh, people think that. Yeah. A lot of people. What is that called? I mean, like disinformation. Yeah. So, so the idea is like, get people controlled opposition. Yeah. So get people to think that's a fake one.

Starting point is 02:21:25 An even crazier thing happened. Well people say that the term conspiracy theorist. Yeah, is a op, you're exactly right. Was created as a side op. So let's just say. Is what people say. Best case scenario, this is just best case, I don't even know if it's the best case, but a scenario.

Starting point is 02:21:39 FBI is aware, choose not to intervene. Really bad thing happens. Leader of the FBI goes, fuck, if people know that we were aware, this is on me. The guy who's only on the job for one week on 9-11? Oh, weird. He's like, why would he have any incentive to cover that up, right? So we go, shit, if I don't cover this up, it's going to come down to all of us. We're all going to lose our jobs. Correct. And then you go to all your constituents, you go, hey guys, if we don't cover this shit up, this is on us. So let them think an even crazier thing happened

Starting point is 02:22:06 or we put that idea out there in the world because the truth is kind of boring and it's ineptitude, which is oftentimes how can it work? It's pure ineptitude. That's exactly what happened. That's what 9-11 was. It was complete cluster, we've had the information since 05, Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower,

Starting point is 02:22:19 everybody should read that book. That book lays out exactly how the FBI and the CIA had everything they needed to stop 9-11, and it didn't happen because of a bureau crack clusterfuck. It's like what we do with our girls. Like, you know, we'll just be at a strip club, and they'll be like, and then, dude, what are you talking about?

Starting point is 02:22:36 And then someone's like, no, you were cheating with a brothel with 40 different people, we're like, I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about, that didn't even come close to happening. So you just did something crazier for them to fix it on. And then you'd be like, there's no way I was in a brothel. I don't even know any of these people. When in reality, you were just at a little Korean

Starting point is 02:22:52 strip club in Hawaii. You don't have a lot of first-hand knowledge about this. I was just making hypotheticals. Let's get a metaphor. This is a Psyop right here. Textbook Psyop. I hope your wife doesn't watch this show. She watches all the time. I love you baby, I'm a good guy.

Starting point is 02:23:12 Samara-se, Samara-se. Or whatever you say when you walk into a Japanese restaurant. Honey mustard, honey mustard. What are you thinking? Asumi-masen? That means excuse me. Honey mustard, we say honey mustard, but it's not that. When you walk into a Japanese restaurant. Konnichiwa.

Starting point is 02:23:25 No, no, no. They go. Cause that would be a good day. Asai masu. I was just there. Fucking love Japan, by the way. Really? That's where I got this watch.

Starting point is 02:23:32 Oh, it's a beautiful watch. Vintage watch. I like it. Gotta go vintage. It is. Oh yeah. Ohai go saimasu. That means good morning.

Starting point is 02:23:40 Ohai go saimasu. You was off, bro. No, mine is terrible. No, no, no. You okay? You say samasui. I mean, not that. Okay. Okay, okay, okay, what's up? He was off, bro. No, I got mine is terrible. No, no, okay. You say summer. So you were not dead Okay Okay, okay. Okay. All right. What else now we're into this now we're into this little sphere right here with E-dash. Oh, yeah, that's it. You know, some I say

Starting point is 02:23:56 Innocence that's it. Can you do the the vocal thing? Oh, do they have that? Oh, just yes. Yeah Boy Oh, do they not have that? But just guessing. Yeah. Yeah. Boy, focus. Irashamase. Irashamase. Irashamase. That was kind of close to us. Yeah, actually it was. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:24:13 Irashamase. All right, what else, what else, what else, what else? We can talk about Tate Brothers, we'll leave that to the end. I actually don't know a ton about the case. I'll be honest. No, there's no... It's one of those I intentionally, I never did the deep dive into the fucking human trafficking shit, because when you get into they're like well actually

Starting point is 02:24:26 I don't care about that. I don't care about it's more this idea that like they were trashing the West so much Yeah, and now at least for me. I'm a patriot. I love America. There's nothing I love more than America so when people shit on America even Americans I'm a little bit defensive now as Americans as they are. I wanna protect, they gotta come back, I don't like this idea that they're not allowed to be here just because they criticize it. If you're an American, we got your back no matter what, and you have the freedom to say whatever the fuck

Starting point is 02:24:51 you wanna say. But there is a part of me that's also like, I need a little bit of a, okay, America's not that bad. Tuck that shit in a bit. Hey, because when the going got tough, you got American. The US justice system is fucking nice. Daddy's pretty cool. Neither Sharia law or whatever.

Starting point is 02:25:07 Fuck your bullshit. The West is falling. It seems like the West is up. It seems like we're up with open arms. Well, stop using the West, America. I will say America. That's what I'm talking about, bro. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 02:25:18 It's best to our Europe conversation. Yeah, what's the West? We have different values. We're America. Can I just tell you something? When I say the West, I just mean America. Exactly, just say America. I never met all the-

Starting point is 02:25:29 Just say it then. That's it. The Islamic countries in Europe that I traveled to when I was in college, I'm not referring to them. I'm referring to America only. I do love going there for weekends. I mean, it's beautiful.

Starting point is 02:25:40 Yeah, it's a nice place. It's great to visit. You're wrong about the coffee 100%. You're wrong about the coffee.%. You're wrong about the coffee. Bro, we are here in Soho. This is one of the greatest places in the world for coffee, maybe outside of Tokyo. And you think that the better coffee

Starting point is 02:25:53 is in some shit hole cafe with a Doppio espresso in Milan? No, no, I didn't say the coffee's better. You said the coffee sucks. What I will say is- Yeah, it does, because it's bitter. They don't even do drip. America. You said the coffee sucks. What I will say is- Yeah, it does, because it's bitter. They don't even do drip. America is built on the man drinking his fucking, what is it, motor oil at 7-Eleven on his way

Starting point is 02:26:11 to work. Talk that shit. These fuckers are sitting there with their goddamn wafer in their little ceramic, drinking wine at like 1030. I love that. To be honest, that sounds awesome. Yeah, because they don't do anything. This country sounds awesome.

Starting point is 02:26:22 Yeah, but that's the point, is don't do anything. This country sounds awesome. Yeah, yeah, but that's the point, is that America's built on 7-Eleven fucking coffee, man. No, I will be honest. On the guys in line with Red Bull, Red Bull, and 7-Eleven extra large at 5.30 a.m. You know, I had that convention. Those are the men who built this country.

Starting point is 02:26:39 Yeah, yeah. I agree with you, everything around that is better. But an espresso at a beautiful cafe in Europe is 10 times better than 7-Eleven coffee. It's a vacation! It's not the same thing. Okay, and first of all, again, we're in Soho. Five of the places, I literally was walking with my wife today.

Starting point is 02:26:50 What's the machine that they use to make the coffee around here in Soho? Wait, what do you mean? It's called a Lamar Soca. Yeah. Definitely made in America. That's if you're drinking espresso. I'm drinking fucking drip coffee, which is an American and a South American thing, because what we want is like the pour over culture. All of third wave. Some people call it a French press. All of that comes from here.

Starting point is 02:27:08 No, no, they don't call it French for that. I'm not drinking your fucking French press. This is so bad. So you're talking about a French press. I don't understand, bro. But the food quality. You guys literally live in the capital of one of the best coffee neighborhoods in the world. Here's one pushback, Europe-wise. The food quality, and I don't mean the cooking, but the quality of the ingredients is undeniably so much better in Europe. Because in America, you're just allowed to do whatever. This is actually, Morgan & Morgan is doing a lawsuit against it.

Starting point is 02:27:37 I would say medium food in Europe is better, but the high-end food in America, if you want the non-GMO food, our shit is better. If you want the pasture-raised beef, our stuff is better. If you want the pasture raised beef, our stuff is better. If you want like the really good stuff, but you're right. The median food of ingredients in Europe for the European is better. I don't even know if I trust American organic. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm not talking about organic,

Starting point is 02:27:57 you're saying, I'm saying if you want high quality ingredients in America, in America where the land- The best restaurants in the world are here. Yeah, of course. Simon's Club. New York, Los Angeles, that's it. By here, stop with the Los Angeles it's New York only

Starting point is 02:28:07 no Los Angeles is not like a foodie destination dude no I don't think any restaurant that's popped up in Los Angeles started in New York unless it's a taco truck no unless it's a taco truck I think the Asian food in Los Angeles might be better in San Francisco and whose idea was it to bring them here? Yeah no it's it's from New York. Yeah, someone needs to start the fucking training. Is there a Burmese restaurant in New York yet? Yes, of course. Are you sure? Yes, because I used to go to it as a kid.

Starting point is 02:28:31 What is it? Shout it out, actually. Because I like to go. I don't know if it's still. Because Burma Superstar, shout out, San Francisco. It's one of the best fucking food in the world. I'll tell you right now where it was. It was on 7th Street between 3rd Avenue and 2nd Avenue.

Starting point is 02:28:41 And there's this beautiful Burmese restaurant. We used to eat it once a week. I would have it. We would order it from there all the time. All right, all right, you win, you win. And we walked in. Little Myanmar? I don't know, is that the one? It's on second.

Starting point is 02:28:51 It's on second. It's on second. Come on, man. You don't know. Aren't you a native New Orphan? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, kind of.

Starting point is 02:28:59 But... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They had the tree that you would attach the dollars to. And it was to raise money for whatever war they had going on in Burma at the time. And so you were actually funding Rohingya genocide or something like that? I thought you could take the dollars.

Starting point is 02:29:14 I didn't understand what it was. Okay, what else? What else? Whatever you guys want. Good food cities in America. New York, New Orleans. Austin. I think Philly's underrated.

Starting point is 02:29:24 Austin. Stop it with Austin. Guys, guys, guys, guys, Austin. I think Philly's underrated, Austin. No, stop it with Austin. Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys. It's about Mexican food, bro. Stop it, stop it, stop it. We're fucking Texans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's different.

Starting point is 02:29:33 It's different. I just need, listen. Yeah. Austin has great food. Your Mexican food sucks here. I'm not debating that. I'm not debating that. I'm not debating that.

Starting point is 02:29:41 And Los Angeles, too, if we're being honest. I just want to, let's just point this out. With the food culture in Austin. Austin has great food if you come from a place that doesn't have restaurants. Yes. So you go there. Have you come from middle America?

Starting point is 02:29:55 Yeah, most people that move there from middle America are like, holy shit, what's a sushi roll? Like they have no clue. That's not what we're talking about, the sushi restaurant. That's the most amazing, but the idea, I don't like that we're like, we're putting Austin as this food destination. I understand. It's not a food destination.

Starting point is 02:30:10 I wouldn't say it's on the plane to New York. Sushi means the best. They're good. Yeah, but they didn't start in Austin. This is a perfect example of what we're saying. I would defend Austin for the Tex-Mex alone. I can agree with that. Just because you and I are from Texas.

Starting point is 02:30:19 Tex-Mex is fucking great. Tex-Mex is the best. The best. It's our thing. That's why I would recommend for Austin. Barbecue Tex-Mex. I'm not putting-Mex is the best. The best. It's our thing. The best. That's why I would recommend for Austin. Barbecue Tex-Mex.

Starting point is 02:30:27 I'm not putting it on a New York or LA plane. That's what I'm saying. I understand it's very exciting if you've never eaten in a restaurant and you go there and you're like, wow, this is really good food. But nobody from New York or Los Angeles or Paris or London or Miami goes to Austin. They're like, this is the greatest cuisine I've ever had in my life. I don't know. I was like, okay. Like Vegas cuisine I've ever had in my life. I don't know. So like, I was okay.

Starting point is 02:30:45 I like Vegas gets all of America's best. Were you actually impressed? Were you actually impressed by the food scene in Paris? I wasn't at all. I did not think the food. I was. This is the thing I hate about European cities is that if you want just French food, fine. In New York, like you just said, Burmese, I can go to Curry Hill and have fucking South

Starting point is 02:31:02 Indian food, North Indian food. I was, I had sushi last night or whatever here in New York. I can eat anything. It's the best food in LA. It's like in Manhattan, not that good. There's bungalow was good, Sema even though I don't really like the chef was pretty good. Okay. But yeah. Tamarind is phenomenal. Go to Tamarind.

Starting point is 02:31:18 Oh, the Tribeca one? Yeah, that's an incredible restaurant. It's an absolutely incredible, shout out Tamarind. But yeah, I mean like, yeah, if we're talking about like the best food, and look, New York is the greatest city in the world, there's not even a question. I don't know man, it might be Tokyo. After I went to Tokyo, I think it might be Tokyo. If you want to live in a loveless city

Starting point is 02:31:34 where people walk around like Tesla robots, New York's the most loving, northern place. This is the most loving, northern place in the world. In Tokyo? loving, nervering place in the world. Wait, have you been to Tokyo? Yes, I have. There's more to it than in New York. It's extremes. I actually think New York is bipolar. Yeah, that's right.

Starting point is 02:31:53 The thing about Tokyo is not only is the media and experience incredible all the time, their food, like if you look, best pizza is going to be in Tokyo. I tried this. I know this is... I made this argument. I probably went to the place you went to. Best French food in the world, Tokyo. Best French food in the world, Tokyo. Best Italian food in the world, Tokyo. The Japanese, their culture is built around refinement.

Starting point is 02:32:10 So they're done making their shit, and now they're like, okay, we're gonna perfect everybody else's shit. And they do. Yeah, they're so good. There's this Japanese DJ, his name is Yosuke Yukimatsu. That was the guy whose boiler room set they were playing. Boiler room set is amazing.

Starting point is 02:32:22 Oh, that was insane. He's incredible. Oh, is that why you're playing this? He's incredible. He's saying that? you were playing this morning? He's incredible. Yeah, thank you. And here's the thing. The second I saw, and this shows you my prejudice. The second I saw a thumbnail with a Japanese person DJing,

Starting point is 02:32:33 I knew it was gonna be the best DJ set I've ever heard. Because culturally, to put themselves out in front of people with something like that, they would not do it. Unless it's five star. The best. That's right. Whereas every female model that turns 30 in America they would not do it unless it's five star. The best. That's right. Whereas like every like, every like female like model that turns 30 in America is like, I'll be a DJ too.

Starting point is 02:32:51 Like there's no, there's no, there's no like, oh, you could give shame to your family by going to do this. So Japanese for fun, it is incredible, the best of us. But for me, part of culture, like when I go visit these places is I need to feel the love of people I need to feel the affection like when I go to Mexico Mexico is the greatest for like it's outside of

Starting point is 02:33:11 America it's great the love you feel like in Italy when you're in Italy just the love the fucking passion that you feel yeah are you from Libya or something like that? Like you take a boat over here and I'm like, no, it's EOS passport actually. I'm like, I fucking own your restaurant. I taught this shit. Should you be selling oranges on the street? Yeah.

Starting point is 02:33:30 It's like, I'll take two of your limoncelloes, bitch. Yeah. So yeah, there is, so I appreciate the refinement, but in terms of like the actual like cultural appreciate, like I got chastised at an illegal bar for kissing my wife. Whoa. The bartender was like, finger stop that. No I love that dude. Why? Because it's about decorum man. It's about we all act a certain way. When you're on the subway in New York. That's the most conservative shit you know. I thought you were a libertarian. Get out of my business. No I didn't say I'm a libertarian. I said I appreciate it. I'm the most conservative guy. Also I want to give a couple quick shout outs. Grammatic, who did one of the songs for the special,

Starting point is 02:34:07 and he's also done music for us throughout the tour. He's absolutely incredible. He just dropped an album, so you guys can go check him out right now. He's phenomenal, seriously. One of the most talented people I know in music, so make sure we go fuck with Grammatic. He did the closing song for the special,

Starting point is 02:34:24 and it's fantastic, so go check that, but also go fuck with Grammatic. He did the closing song for the special and it's fantastic So go check that but also go check out his album and matter of fact go check out some of his live shows I know he's got red rocks coming up So if you're in Colorado and you want to see a spectacle go check him out also the garbage boys Are you garbage just put out a really cool piece on YouTube? They they were on this tour I think they called the route 66. Tour, if I'm not mistaken. And they put out this like great piece that encapsulates the tour. It's also got scenes from the live shows that they were doing.

Starting point is 02:34:53 And yeah, it's just really awesome. I love what those guys are doing. So make sure you go check that out on their YouTube. And also our boy Chrissy D. Chrissy D has a new special out on Hulu. So make sure you check out Chrissy's special. Chrissy's absolutely hilarious. So check out his special, check him out on tour as well. And shout out to New York boys, man.

Starting point is 02:35:11 We're doing it, we're doing things. So love you guys, let's get back to the show. I love it when you're passionate about these things. You're 100% wrong about European coffee. But you are right about Japan in terms of you want that like strict culture and you want, and everybody follows the rules. I get that. I like third world Lucy Goosey.

Starting point is 02:35:29 I get it, I get it. Look, it would never work here. I'm just saying I appreciate it when I'm there. And when you're on the subway and you're rammed up against somebody and nobody's saying a fucking word, you can hear a pin drop when people are polite to you. Nah, I don't like that.

Starting point is 02:35:40 I love it. Dude, when they're- Hold on. When I get on the subway? I'm understanding how not Indian you are. You and you. Yeah. It's not fucking. Yeah, you're right.

Starting point is 02:35:50 These are the things that come out of your mouth. These are the things that can't stand when I go to India. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it all makes sense. Yeah, it's true. It all makes sense. Sorry India, it drives me fucking crazy. No, no.

Starting point is 02:35:57 I remember me in a taxi. This guy's going through a red light. He's like, only the biggest fool in Agra stops at a red light. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good answer. I was like, why are you doing this? He's like, only the biggest fool in all of Agra stops at a red light. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good answer. I was like, why are you doing this?

Starting point is 02:36:07 He's like, only the biggest fool in Agra would stop at this red light, sir. Well, that's Agra. It's where the Taj Mahal is. Oh, fuck. I gotta go to India, dude. India's a slick. If you can get past the smell, you'll love it. I'll tell you what, it's dynamic.

Starting point is 02:36:17 It's dynamic. And that's what America has, too. We're a dynamic country. I love it. It's a great thing. We don't want to be told what to do. We don't want restrictions. We don't want rules. Yeah, but when they all tell each other what to do, it's so pleasant to be told. It's so pleasant. It's so sorry. It's dynamic. It's dynamic. I'm that's why America has to wear a dynamic country

Starting point is 02:36:25 I love what it's a do. We don't want restrictions. We don't want yeah But when they all tell each other what to do, it's so pleasant to visit when you it's a clean and this orderly and they Also, that'd be a nice walk. How long were you stopped sign? I was two weeks two weeks I loved it. I was I loved it for like the first date forever. No, I could have stayed forever No, but that's again. He likes these a conservative. No need they don't Allow Sudafed in that country, you know what Sudaf't pay, they don't even allow Sudafed in that country. You know what? No Sudafed.

Starting point is 02:36:48 You are. They will confiscate your Sudafed at the airport if you bring it into the war. What about the declining birth rates? Yeah, no, it's a huge problem. It's a disaster. Why? They'll fuck. I don't know.

Starting point is 02:36:57 This is one of those things too, they have the greatest place, it's the greatest place in the world to have children. Like, they have daycare, they have the incentives, they have everything going for them. Nobody's having kids. Why do you think? I have no idea. I think what it is is have everything going for them. Nobody's having kids. Why do you think? I have no idea. I think what it is is vitality. Come on.

Starting point is 02:37:07 It's the vitality. Come on. And it's like the diet, like in America, and actually there's only one Western- No primal urges. They remove every primal urge. And the culture restricts it. To back up your point,

Starting point is 02:37:18 there's only one Western country in the world with an above replacement birth rate, Israel. Even among secular Jews. Really? Yeah, I don't know why. Nobody knows why. I think it's because they're at war and it's about national survival with an above replacement birth rate, Israel. Even among secular Jews. Really? Yeah, I don't know why, nobody knows why. I think it's because they're at war and it's about national survival and like all of this.

Starting point is 02:37:30 America, we're low, Korea, Japan, Sweden, Finland. They all have, we all have, except America, like pretty generous social welfare. We've got a year of paternity leave, doesn't make a fucking dent. When did the birth rate in America start declining? In Hungary, probably, it's been a while, probably 1960. I think it was the time of the sexual revolution,

Starting point is 02:37:48 contraceptive, but in terms of the current birth, what are we at right now? Like 1.7 or something like that? I think when gay marriage got legalized, we could finally get away from these hoes. And it went decline. My point is, is that you can throw all of the money, all of the social incentives that you want.

Starting point is 02:38:03 Hungary, they literally pay your mortgage if you have four children. People just don't do it. Like it's like, there's something about it. Oh wow, that's actually lower than I thought. That's not good. 1.6. Now we're coming back though.

Starting point is 02:38:13 But what's Korea at? Korea's like 0.9 or 0.8. It's so bad. South Korea. Yeah, 0.7, disaster. That's for people who don't know, that's the total, it's the TFR, is the total fertility rate, which means the replacement needs to be about 2.2 to be to grow as a civilization.

Starting point is 02:38:29 Japan loses 0.5% of its population every single year. So it's a disaster. And no immigration. Well, yeah, and they have zero immigration. But that's the thing when you go there, like, makes sense. They're all like they police each other as part of their culture. Yeah. That's what makes it great. As you describe it, you like that I you want to be policed. There's something about it Which is so comforting would you raise kids like that though? No, I probably would Frontier shit inside of me and as much as I love the rules and all of that when somebody tries to tell me what to do Or I started my own business just like you

Starting point is 02:39:04 all of that when somebody tries to tell me what to do or I started my own business just like you, you know, And you see those salarymen walking around Japan, but it's nice it's a nice place I recommend do karaoke alone. It's one of the saddest things. I don't get that. Well, they they need outlets for their passion Like one person will just go buy themselves in their work in their working outfit And they'll go and they'll sing fucking Bruno Mars until their fucking heart falls out of their chest. It's like so sad. No, it's incredible. There's elements of, the longer you stay in Tokyo,

Starting point is 02:39:33 the more depressing it becomes. And you start to see the lovelessness of the culture. When you first go there, it's the most culture shock you'll ever experience. And it is, I wanna go back, I wanna go back with you guys. You're gonna have the best food you've ever had. You're gonna have the best massage you've ever had you're gonna have the best massage you've ever had you're gonna have the best of every anything yeah it's

Starting point is 02:39:49 incredible but when you start to talk to the people there especially if the people who speak English yes and they can talk to the women if it's it is the most sexist place I've ever been in my entire life yeah it is actually the most sexist developed country in the world it is is without a doubt. It's like, it is. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Well, here's the problem. Women have no upward mobility in terms of, not jobs, in terms of their sexual identity. So they stop sexually aging at like 13. Old women can be cute, they can't be elegant, they can't be beautiful or stunning. Everything is cutesy.

Starting point is 02:40:24 They're just like, hee hee hee. If you go into the nicest stores over there to buy clothing, all the women's clothing are skirts that come down to their ankle. Yeah, that's true. Now I'm not saying women should be revealing and slutty, but there's nothing that even wraps itself around that. So the female identity is, I'm a 12-year-old little girl

Starting point is 02:40:40 with my little cartoon makeup. What do they call it, kawaii? What are you talking about? I think that's the term that they use What do they call it, kawaii? Kawache, what are you talking about? I think that's the term that they use for cute. Like everything's kawaii. Yeah, so it's all about cuteness. And what about waifus and shit like that? Isn't that?

Starting point is 02:40:53 No, it's bifurcated. It's like a barbell culture, where it's like you either are extremely sexual or you're very conservative. And they exist in the same plane. But even in the extreme sexual, they're being young cartoons with big tits. Yeah, it is weird.

Starting point is 02:41:05 It's weird. It's this, and then you see the relationships, you see people out eating together. I'll see a couple out eating together, and both of them are on their phones playing Fruit Ninja, not even looking at each other. I'm telling you, it is one of the most tragically sad places you'll ever go to, while at the same time,

Starting point is 02:41:20 one of the most unique and brilliant and incredible. So there is a cost to that brilliant. Absolutely. And the cost to me is like the reason I like to travel. I would never give any of it up. Would I ever want that culture here? But there's something I love about it for that. Yeah, go dip in.

Starting point is 02:41:35 Go take it. Just to come in there and just be like, man, I'm so safe. Dude, when you watch little six-year-olds go to walk by themselves to school in Tokyo with their backpacks on at night, you're like, this is fucking insane. This would never happen. Just seeing shit like that, you're like, what the fuck?

Starting point is 02:41:48 You never feel a danger at all. Zero, nothing. Our boy, Ben Uyeda, got blacked out drunk there, streets of Tokyo, fell asleep, woke up, his shoes and socks put next to him, socks folded, his sweater put behind his head as a pillow, and people just walking around him to go to work in the morning Yeah, it's beautiful the way that they care about each other there in terms of like protection and respect. Yes, but there's everything's about respect Yes, all about respecting but no there's huge cost to it But the cost yeah, the cost is high dude you go to Mexico and you feel the love in that culture

Starting point is 02:42:20 like it's like vibrating like if you have a kid, the way that they, even when I was there when my wife was pregnant, the excitement about her being pregnant, they wanna tell you about their kill, and you're just like, ugh, it's just, it's magnificent. It's amazing. But the emotional volatility is also bipolar. That is true.

Starting point is 02:42:38 And I mean, like, it's by far. Bro, there's trade-offs for everything. That's it. That's all. I do think more Americans should experience Japan. How about that? Agreed. Agreed, because there's elements-offs for everything. That's it. That's all I do think more Americans should experience Japan I agree agreed because there's elements of it that we should yeah We're like hey, it's actually pretty nice to live in a city. That's pretty fucking safe. Amazing things can happen Commerce like you can walk around you can send your kid there now a wife can work if she wants to take you know

Starting point is 02:42:58 I have to worry about her kid not coming home at night or we don't deal with I mean isn't that like the I don't I get into like fucking evolutionary biology, but like isn't that the, isn't that what takes humans out of the chimpanzee realm? Is like safety? Oh, civilization. Yeah. Am I safe enough to develop ideas? Absolutely. Like if you watch that chimp show, every second they're worried that the alpha is going to just start a fight. It's either violence or eating. Like that's all you worry about.

Starting point is 02:43:22 Your base instinct. That's what almost the animal kingdom is. Once those are satisfied, we start building skyscrapers. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, OK. There is something. OK, OK. What's your take on the economy?

Starting point is 02:43:32 Do you think Trump has been good for the economy, bad, or it's too early to tell? Too soon to say, obviously. There is a problem. There's something called thermostatic public opinion, where the idea is it's like a thermostat. You can push it up or push it down. So the day, for example, that Trump took office,

Starting point is 02:43:46 Democrats flipped from saying the economy was good to bad and Republicans flicked from the economy is bad to good. Because they're like, Biden's economy was bad. Exactly. So it's like, is it really about the economy or was it about something else? Right. It's like, this is why it's hard to say. We have some data points. We're talking about the S&P or whatever before.

Starting point is 02:44:02 The problem right now is consumer sentiment is going down. People are a little worried about tariffs. We have issues. Can you explain what consumer sentiment really means? Consumer sentiment is the confidence in the ability to purchase things either, consumer sentiment is like to purchase things either cheaply or the want to consume in the future. It's actually an index that people measure. And that's based on my confidence that I'll have the money in the future to buy. And if

Starting point is 02:44:26 I don't feel like I'll have the money- It's not a future purchasing pattern. That's another part. So if we're at all restrictive in our spending, it's an indicator that we don't have confidence. Got it, got it. America is a consumer-based economy. We don't build anything. 70% of the GDP is literally just consumption. That's all we do here. We're very good at it. So there's that. Home prices sky high in January. That was a big reason that we had're very good at it. So there's that. Home prices sky high in January. That was a big reason that we had a correction in the market. There was mortgage rates remain around

Starting point is 02:44:49 like six, seven percent disaster. Average home price is still like 400,000 in America, roughly a million in a metro area. That's really bad. Credit card debt is an all time high. The gambling thing doesn't fucking help. Like there's a lot of indicators there where this is why I think Trump won the election, a big reason. And if people, here's the thing about the economy, Americans can deal with the economy being bad. They understand that there's no magic fix, but they need to feel as if you're doing everything about it. And this is a key point. One of my favorite books is called freedom from fear. And it's a history of the Roosevelt administration. Here's what no, the conservatives even said this at the time, empirically, the New Deal didn't work.

Starting point is 02:45:28 Like, it did not work in terms of its immediate goals of making the economy better. But you know what people felt? Roosevelt is fighting for us. And that was enough. And that was it, and he was a god for that. He was a king, the last king of America. So real quick, the New Deal, just so you can explain it,

Starting point is 02:45:44 there was a lot of government work projects. The WPA, the CCC, these were all for the Work Projects Administration. The most extreme example is digging holes and then other people filling them. Exactly. But the idea is get people working. Yeah, get people working at Keynesianism, injecting money into the economy. But the point was, is they were like, Roosevelt is fighting for us. He's doing everything. When the Supreme Court tells him no, he does something else. He's an ideas man. He's doing everything. When the Supreme Court tells him, no, he does something else. He's an ideas man. He's telling Congress to do this, the rural electrification. America did not physically, economically get all that much better, but it was about vigor. That was another thing about JFK that used to say he had vigor. Like he would constantly be flying around the country. And even though he wasn't particularly good president in terms

Starting point is 02:46:23 of getting anything done or passing any legislation They were like this breath of fresh air. That's what America needs That's where Biden's ultimate failure was if you think about his slide It was about and nobody said you have a magic egg button or a gas button Yeah, you're just like you're not doing we don't think you're doing anything. Can I not doing okay one thing to that? That's the danger that Trump has, is with this Doge stuff, is if we don't get to vigor, dealing with things on a daily basis,

Starting point is 02:46:50 America gives you about a nine month runway. If we look at Biden, he sank in October with Afghanistan. It was really about a lot of other stuff. Trump's got about eight more months to go. You see that comment on Twitter all the time, where it's like, a Gulf of America,

Starting point is 02:47:01 and then the first comment will just be like, are eggs cheaper now? And I'll have a thousand. So to to this when I was looking at the market, and I know nothing about the fucking market Okay, but I have some money invested obviously and My first reaction to someone telling me hey this market looks a little suspect my first reaction was Man Trump wouldn't let the market fail Now what is he can he do anything to keep it up? No, but-

Starting point is 02:47:28 A little bit, but yeah. Of course, of course. But there's a part of me that goes, in my mind, he cares so much about how that would reflect on him, that he would do everything in his power to maintain it. Can he? Who knows? But that little feeling, like you were saying about Roosevelt- By Roosevelt, yeah. Is this feeling is like he wouldn't let or he is trying to do it. And that's really important to us. Yes.

Starting point is 02:47:51 The idea that we're being... That's everything. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's very key. But that's what I'm saying. My worry about Trump is this distraction. And look, America, something's going to happen. Like every presidency, 9-11, right? Nine months into the Bush administration, 9-11, all of a sudden the whole narrative is different. Under Biden, Afghanistan, it didn't, it wasn't planned, it just fucking happened.

Starting point is 02:48:10 The Ukraine, Trump won, COVID literally changed everything. You know, something will happen, Katrina or whatever. And those are the clarifying moments when the magnifying glass comes onto you. And when, if the magnifying glass, if America doesn't like what it sees, they will turn on your ass so quick. George H bush went 91 to losing the election in a span of 18 months like you can just get blown the fuck out so it's your reaction to that cataclysmic it's

Starting point is 02:48:34 usually usually when you say george you're lost you mean he won the down the republicans lost in 2008 no in 1992 george hw bush george h Bush had a 90% approval rating in 1991, blown the fuck out in the 92 election. Like, again, 04. Was that something happened, or was it Ross Perot splitting? Dude, it was just like, there was an economic modest depression at the time. People felt 12 years of trickle-down economics,

Starting point is 02:48:57 like, I don't fucking trust you anymore. Boom. Safety was an issue too. H.W. Yeah, so H.W. Remember, Clinton ran on that, like, hey, we're gonna, yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Starting point is 02:49:06 The Cold War, whatever. They thought it was too. My point is just that America's very fickle. They will turn on your ass very quickly. Almost every president, the biggest danger, don't, you don't, you read too much into your mandate and you do something that didn't people quite voted for and then you also under deliver on what you did.

Starting point is 02:49:24 And if you fall into that trap, even at a feelings level, you lose. That's the great worry. Yeah, that's a huge. With Canada and Mexico. Look, I'm very supportive of tariffs because I believe in American manufacturing,

Starting point is 02:49:35 but the problem is that it cannot be something that's ad hoc and haphazard. It has to have a plan. We need to feel as if, yes, the washing machine will cost more. It's because my cousin is gonna get a job at this factory that's gonna be coming back to here. And when we feel as if it's like,

Starting point is 02:49:50 it's coming in and it's off and it's all capricious, as in like it's up to Trump's, like however he feels that day coming back and forth, and the markets are swinging like this, and I still don't have the plan yet. That's when people start to, and again, he's still got a lot of runway. He's got runway, but you need to be careful.

Starting point is 02:50:06 I'm worried about Doge, I'm worried about the tariff stuff too, we need plans. Recently Bezos. Yes, oh the post. Yeah, came out and said that his op-ed section of the post. Opinion, yeah. Is that op-ed? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 02:50:21 His op-ed section, or his opinion section of the post. So the newspaper operates in itself, and there's also this section on the newspaper called the Op-Ed. And the opinion part of a newspaper, and you could probably speak more to this, maybe you describe it, it'd probably be better. Okay, so the opinion part of a newspaper is old school tradition, and it's when guys like William Randolph Hearst and similar oligarchs owned these, and they wanted to use their

Starting point is 02:50:40 paper to express an opinion. Now- Wait, wait, wait, wait. When you use the word oligarch, it's like triggering. Oh, sorry. Oh, but they actually were oligarchs. No, I know. But when we think oligarch, we think like Russian bad guy, villain.

Starting point is 02:50:51 Just say he was a filthy rich politically connected person who had a agenda. Magnate. He was a journalism magnate. Perfect. OK. That's who William Randolph Hearst was. Yeah. OK.

Starting point is 02:51:01 So Bezos, what he has done is he wants the Washington Post. And it's also, let me explain this about newspaper economics. The op-ed section is always the most popular. Like, the most read thing in the Washington Post is not the news. The news in and of itself has always been subsidized by something else.

Starting point is 02:51:17 By read, he means consumed, not politically. Yeah, that's right, exactly. So for example, the news itself, people don't wanna pay for it. They wanna pay for opinion, they wanna pay for classified ads. The news has always been a secondary thing funded by something else. The problem is here is that Bezos is showing us he doesn't actually care about his business

Starting point is 02:51:33 because the Washington Post subscription base are people who what? Democracy dies in the darkness. That's why 200,000 of them canceled their subscription whenever they didn't endorse Kamala. They just lost 75,000 more by saying we're only gonna support free markets. So what did they say? So usually the op-ed section has differing opinions.

Starting point is 02:51:53 Yeah. Right? Ish. The idea behind it, let's just talk about the fair idea behind it, so it could be that your paper leans left, but in the op-ed you would have right-wing writers, you have left-wing writers, different opinions on these subjects. So the newspaper is like, here's what happened, and then the op-ed is here are opinions about

Starting point is 02:52:11 what happened, and these are potentially differing opinions. And Bezos just announces that the op-ed is now going to change from that to espousing free market ideas, so essentially like pro-capitalism, and then what else? What is it, personal liberty? And then personal liberty. So he's basically saying our newspaper is going to take a specific point of view and share opinions that reflect that specific point of view. Now what you bring up is an interesting wrinkle I didn't even...

Starting point is 02:52:40 Personal liberty is pretty vague though. Say again? Personal liberty, isn't it? Well, no, here's the thing. What he really means is, no, here's the thing. That's what he's calling it, but go. What he really means is let's fire all the woke people and let's get rid of the people who are Russi-gators, which is what the Washington Post op-ed page has been

Starting point is 02:52:53 for the last basically eight years. And let's promote Bezos's agenda. Yeah, exactly. Which is free market. Free market, but not anti-trust. It's like that's a little not too free enough for us. So the worst interpretation of it is essentially, I'm going to use this as a propaganda tool to protect my business endeavors and the endeavors of my colleagues, if you will, the other billionaire

Starting point is 02:53:17 class. Now that's the worst interpretation of it. It might be the truest interpretation. Let's take Bezos out of it. Let's look at all of the biggest news companies. That's what they are. For example, do you know, like look at Bloomberg News. That's one of the most important things.

Starting point is 02:53:31 Its job is to do what? Is to protect the Bloomberg terminal and the integrity of the US market. So this is really interesting because what I believe most of us have come to learn, and I've been incredibly naive about this, is that the billionaires or the people with immense power in America outside of controlling the narrative can fluctuate in that power based on the narrative. So the intelligent ones, like Bill Gates, MSNBC is Microsoft NBC, what they do is they usually purchase or develop a media platform to protect their interests.

Starting point is 02:54:05 Bezos, as he rides to superstardom, purchases the Washington Post. With that in mind, we would imagine, I don't think he's going, hey, I just want the best ideas to be out there. No, you gotta protect the fact that you're a billionaire buying a $10 million yacht. Which you have to take a bridge apart for.

Starting point is 02:54:23 Exactly, so it's like a bridge that was built in 1500, you got to take it apart so it can go out. Now I'm some poor guy that can't afford eggs and I see you walking down the street. I'm not going to Luigi Mangione, but somebody else might want to do something like that. But what's interesting is before that happened, nobody explicitly said that was the purpose. Everybody operated in this idea like, hey, we have integrity and this is the news and this is the information and the American people can decide what is true or false. He straight up said, he's not straight up saying it. Can I just say this though?

Starting point is 02:54:53 Please, please, please. This is actually a return to normal and I appreciate this. Can you explain how that? Back in the old days, newspapers were partisan vehicles. Like Alexander Hamilton ran the post or whatever. Yeah, the federalist papers. Sorry, but actually it's a little bit more past that. I thought it was that or the Post. No, Alexander Hamilton was a

Starting point is 02:55:08 Federalist. Anyway. I'm just gonna move past the Post. All right, let me give you an example. During the Civil War, you would have papers that are like the Kansas City Democrat and the Kansas City Republican and it was in the name. They were a party paper. And what they did is they ran news and op-eds that was like, we're fucking Democrats and fuck the other side. That is the history of the American newspaper industry. Now, what happened is basically you had- Founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton.

Starting point is 02:55:34 A New York Post. The fuck else you think I was talking about? I think it was the Washington Post. What do I care about? What do I care about? I'm wrong. There's one post and it's the New York Post. Okay.

Starting point is 02:55:44 You big. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun I'm wrong. There's one post and it's the New York post. Okay. He was an orphan. Okay, so in the past, newspapers were explicitly partisan. I mentioned William Randolph Hearst. William Randolph Hearst was like, I want to go into the Spanish American war. That's something I want. And so he used his op-ed and his newsmen to push that agenda. But he was very open about it. He was like, this is my agenda. This is what I want to go into the Spanish-American war. That's something I want. And so he used his op-ed and his newsmen to push that agenda.

Starting point is 02:56:06 But he was very open about it. He was like, this is my agenda, this is what I want. Later on, he wanted to keep America out of World War II. He would run a lot of Lindbergh stuff. That's what his agenda was. What happened is after World War II, we had this very weird moment where you had nonpartisan media, which was still partisan,

Starting point is 02:56:22 where you had, but the problem is the distribution. So you had the big papers and the big networks, the big three channels, which all Americans were watching. They had to appear nonpartisan, and so corporations could sponsor them and reach as many people as possible. And that's what created this idea of unbiased journalism. No, biased journalism is the most authentic journalism

Starting point is 02:56:41 that has always existed. It's called the yellow journalism industry, and it was born on the streets of a great American city here in New York. You had the New York Herald, you had the New York Post, you had the New York Star, and they were all different competing both ideologies. And it was one not only just for attention, but it was about pushing agendas. These people were open. People would love, for example, the guy who worked, who loved the Herald, I'm blanking on his name. They liked him. He was not just an oligarch, he was a society figure, a Gilded Age person. People would support him. And it was all, it was about picking teams, and I think that's a good thing. I think it's

Starting point is 02:57:15 healthy because it removes the veneer. The news was just as fake and partisan in 1960 as it was today. It's actually worse, in my opinion, and if you think about Vietnam, James Gordon Bennett, that's right, an amazing figure. But my point is like, when Walter Cronkite was seen as nonpartisan, it was easier for us to push into war in Vietnam. And it shouldn't take Cronkite being like, the trust has been broken, America cannot lose a win here in Vietnam. It's like, no, we needed the grand debate instead of the manufactured consent, which is what pushed us into all of these Bay of Pigs. I mean, this is what, they were very conscious about it.

Starting point is 02:57:53 There was this controlled op-ed page in the Washington Post, which was nonpartisan, even though, yeah, okay. The guy who was running it, Catherine Graham's husband, is best friends with John F. Kennedy. And it just turns out that Kennedy one of the very first stops he makes on his inauguration night is to a bunch of Washington Post columnists who later become the chief Proponents and defenders of Vietnam policy which was Kennedy's policy to keep America in Vietnam, but they were seen as nonpartisan It's like no we need to remove the nonpartisanship partisanship is good

Starting point is 02:58:23 It's like, no, we need to remove the nonpartisanship. Partisanship is good, actually. You just need to trust. Anyway, go ahead. What you're saying is it's good compared to the illusion of nonpartisan. The illusion is so dangerous. And that's what we have. Why is the illusion dangerous? Because, like I said, I mean, when all of America's news was telling us that the war

Starting point is 02:58:40 in Vietnam was good and that we needed to go and find it, Americans believed that and they signed up to send their sons and daughters. Dude, Iraq is the perfect example in 03. I mean, we did not have, if we had what we had today, just based on the information, somebody like me, Glenn Greenwald, who was actually fighting this fight at the time, I'd be like, yo, yellow cake uranium,

Starting point is 02:58:59 complete bullshit. This is wrong. The outcome of this would be a disaster. America didn't even have an option on cable television. And of course they support the hammer. Roger Ailes saying this is the real news. The real news. Did you read that book I recommended?

Starting point is 02:59:15 Dude, can't recommend enough. The loudest voice in the room. Roger Ailes and how he understood, he has a great quote which is, people don't wanna be informed, they wanna feel informed. That's how he understood America. He created Fox News. He created Fox News.

Starting point is 02:59:27 That's right. Raymond Rupert Murdoch. But then don't you have way more echo chambers and more separation? You know what though? At the end, it's like the printing press. The printing press led to 30 years of war on the European continent and mass death. It was still a good thing. We have more information because yes, it led to the Protestantism.

Starting point is 02:59:42 It led to civil war. It led to all of these debates. But at the end of the day, it was like the Protestantism, it led to civil war, it led to all of these debates, but at the end of the day, it was like the Catholic Church no longer controlling the minds of the serfdom. It led to the Renaissance, it led to ideas. So look, the internet is the printing press. We're returning to the mean, like we have a new form of distribution.

Starting point is 02:59:59 We can debate, how long have we been going here? Like three hours? We're sitting here, we're fucking talking and all that. This would never air. 45 years ago, America was locked the fuck in to bullshit. Well, non-stance. And the thing is, that echo chamber is 10 times worse than any echo chamber today.

Starting point is 03:00:16 Even the most echo chambered Republican still has access to liberal media, even the most echo chambered liberal still has access and can go at any time they want to Ben Shapiro or whatever. Somebody's out there. 45 years ago, there was no option. Nothing. So you got to get a train soon. But just to button this, being biased is at least more honest.

Starting point is 03:00:39 So it's an improvement on honesty. Whereas before the illusion of being unbiased takes a reader who thinks he's just getting the news. Now at least I get to look at the Washington Post and I go, okay, this is gonna be maybe a more right-wing perspective. I can look at, give me a good left-wing outpost. Like actual left-wing, Jacobin, sure,

Starting point is 03:01:00 the socialist newspaper. The socialist newspaper, it's called Jacobin. So Jacobin, and if I wanna get that take, I'll read thein. So Jacobin, like, and if I want to get that take, I'll read the same story at Jacobin. If I want to get the right, I'll read the Washington Post. Or you could just listen to Breaking Points. And you get both. But no, but my point actually on that,

Starting point is 03:01:14 did you guys notice how when I was talking about Ukraine, I was like, hey, I have a real bias. Because I cannot tell you, honestly, Ukraine is probably one of my top issues, like foreign policy. I cannot give you the real pro Ukraine side with the same enthusiasm. Yeah, I tried I tried to do the old steel man thing. Yeah, but I have a I'm just not gonna do it like if you want to hear that go to David Ignatius go to Max boot go to

Starting point is 03:01:39 Anne-Marie slaughter any of these people these real neo cons. Yeah, they believe in this shit. Please go read them Don't just listen to me, because you need all your information. This is how you get trusted institutions. I agree with you, that's what I'm saying. Yes. Understand what you're digesting. If you tell me that food is healthy,

Starting point is 03:01:52 and then I eat it, and I get some sort of disease, I stop trusting the people who are telling me it's healthy. If you tell me something is not healthy, every cookie spot we go to, they go, yo, this is a thousand calories. When I feel like shit afterwards, I'm like, you better give me that thousand. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 03:02:06 If I feel healthy after that cookie, then you're lying to me. So, okay, at first I was concerned about the bias in information. As long as there are equal, I don't wanna say equal, but as long as there is information that's accessible out there that shows the opposition, and both are being honest about it,

Starting point is 03:02:24 maybe this is a good thing. Yeah, I agree. This is great. And I like the fact that you said that the original idea of this is the information comes from wanting to sell more ads. Dude, it's only a 50 year old idea. It's an aberration in America. America has always been, dude, we have the California Democrat, the California Republican,

Starting point is 03:02:41 they're at war with their own state. How should we govern gold policy? Should we be in the civil war? Even in the Confederacy, they had different papers being like, we need to do this. No, we don't need to do that. Like it's the bias and the dueling perspective. That's how it's always been. The 1950s was an asterisk in an otherwise like a country that has always been, we've always recognized that news and information in and of itself is not actually all that valuable, as in X, Y, and Z happened.

Starting point is 03:03:11 People don't wanna know that. They wanna go X, Y, and Z happened and what did it mean? And that is what the newspaper and the information industry is all about. So I'm still very optimistic because in the internet age, it's not just about declining trust in mainstream media, it's about an explosion of a new possibility. and there'll be a lot of bullshit out there Just like the invention of the printing press was mostly what pornography conspiracy theory, whatever it was

Starting point is 03:03:34 Starting wars it was chaotic But the net benefit was lack of control by singular institutions with their own agendas And I think the decentralization of this will be very chaotic and it will not necessarily be comfortable, but I think we'll end up in a better place. Sagar and Jeddie, breaking points. Go check it out. Thank you so much. We love you brother. We appreciate you.

Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - Trump vs Zelensky, Epstein List Letdown, Stephen A. Smith for President?

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