Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/15/25: 3 US Personnel Killed In Syria, Candace Owens Vs Erika Kirk, Israel Breaks Ceasefire, Saagar Loses It On Weed Rescheduling

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

Ryan and Saagar discuss 3 US personnel killed in Syria, Candace Owens Erika Kirk meeting, Israel breaks ceasefire, Saagar loses it on Trump weed rescheduling.    GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/zbcjn-support-the-hero-who-disarmed-a-bondi-attacker    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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First episode, How Southwest Airlines Use Cheap Seats and Free Whiskey to fight its way into the airline. The most Texas story ever. Listen to Business History on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me. In season two of RipCurrent, we asked, who tried to kill Judy Berry and why? They were climbing trees, and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. She received death threats before the bombing.

She received more threats after the bombing. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our women. episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right

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vowed Saturday to retaliate against ISIS after this attack in central Syria, killed two U.S. Army soldiers and a civilian U.S. interpreter. Again, I want everybody to stick with me because I think that we need to put a magnifying glass on this. Something about this just seems weird, doesn't seem to add all up. So the soldiers were, quote, supporting counterterrorism operations against ISIS in Palmyra, central Syria, when they came under fire from a lone gunman, Syrian security forces subsequently killed the gunmen. Three American military personnel, two members of the Syrian security force were also wounded in the attack. So it's a total of five people who we know, sorry, six of U.S. service members and or personnel who were in the area, in addition to two of these

Syrian pro-regime forces who are wounded in the attack. They say in the aftermath, American helicopters are then deployed to evacuate the wounded to Altanif that's in southern Syria that's come under attack before. So what this quote highlights, as they say, is challenges for the Syrian government. What it highlights to me is what are we doing here? We've got a thousand guys in Syria. For what exactly? And doing what, you know, and listen, like I said, if you read the internal thing, it says the attack unfolded outside a building where Syrian internal, ministry officials from the Capitol were meeting with their counterparts in the city. American soldiers and interpreter were providing security outside when a lone gunman

opened fire from a nearby building with what appeared to be a machine gun. Syrian security forces open fire killed the gunmen. The American soldiers killed were part of Iowa National Guard contingent assigned to the Syrian mission. Now, a spokesperson for the Syrians said that the Syrian government had warned American counterparts about the possibility of attacks by ISIS on their forces, quote, the international coalition did not take Syrian warnings, the possibility of an ISIS breach into account. This is what I mean about the circumstances of this is, first of all, you've got this meeting that's going on here, right? You've got the SDF, apparently, who were still kind of involved. We've got the Syrian regime guys. Then you've got

U.S. service members providing security for a meeting of what? They said some coalition-style group. Why are we there in the first place? Why are we providing security, right? This is, after the The president had eight, almost seven, eight years ago, which I literally covered at the time at the White House, I said we were withdrawing from Syria. I mean, we've been in Syria for 11 years. We've had troops on the ground there. It's, again, shocking. And, of course, a thousand people there. Nobody bats an eye here in Washington.

If anything, they're celebrating it. They should not be there. Doing what? They should not be in this circumstance. Iowa National Guardsmen providing security outside of a building, you know, for what exactly, without a requisite amount of support? And then you've got the Syrian, at least the Syrians, who knows, it might be covering their ass, they're like, hey, we told them, you know, it was a possibility, right? So everything around this smells. Something is not right, in my opinion, just in terms of why they were there in the first place, the lack of support, why we have a thousand people in Syria at all, especially in the midst of all this. Supposedly the Israelis love the Syrian president, right? Let them go, right? And support them. Except they've been bombing them constantly. Right, except that they're bombing them too, right? But that kind of gets to the whole, like, what are we doing? What exactly are. we still doing in Syria? Nobody can answer this question to fight ISIS. And I don't, I don't understand the National Guard part. Like, there's the 30,000 foot part that is utterly bizarre.

But we have a Delta Force. We have infantry. We have Marines. Like, we have a trillion-dollar-plus military. Yeah. Why are we calling up people from Iowa in the National Guard to get over to Syria? like that that just seems that just seems off and iowa absolutely cannot catch a break like they are their economy is in depression like circumstances oh so the tariffs the tariffs and like just in general like they've got some long-term structural problems that are being propped up by ethanol basically like this the mandate that we that you put basically corn into your car and the the like transition towards electric vehicles is not helping there either

lots of other issues going on with Iowa but so the political context in Syria you've got the Syrian Democratic forces which is basically the Kurds and the coalition that works with the Kurdish forces in the north which is allied with the United States

they used to be in conflict with Alshara and those other forces they're now fight each other for years Yeah, they're now... Murdered each other. And they have, they still have this Rojava area,

which is they consider to be this liberated, which is a liberated zone. The Syrian central government is saying you've got to integrate, you've got to integrate with the rest of the country. We've got to have a country. And so then they're negotiating the terms of that. How much autonomy would they have? You know, what would the central government's role be

or control over the area B? Meanwhile, Turkey is like, absolutely not. Like Turkey, Erdogan despises the SDF and basically wants them to not to exist. Turkey is going through its own negotiations with its own Kurdish forces of PKK just north of Syria in eastern Turkey. And so as those tenuous negotiations falter and go haltingly forward, you had Turkey threatening to invade just recently. And so into that, you have ISIS, which is a useful kind of mercenary tool for all of these different forces. Like basically, the understanding of the remnants of ISIS is that you can find different factions of it. You can basically just pay off to do the things that you need done.

You see that happening in Pakistan, Afghanistan, maybe Australia. like they become this like kind of useful vehicle and so who benefits from this attack well we know who could be hurt by it would be the SDF Kurds because the Kurds they want these thousand or two thousand American troops to stay because that's some protection right for them for them against the Syrian government and the Turkish government and so driving them out would be to the benefit of Turkey And to a slightly lesser degree to the Syrian central government. So if you're just going by cold calculus of who might have been – who had the incentive to do this?

Turkey's probably number one, Syria, central government. Who knows, right? By the way, they're saying that he's a former member of the Syrian government who then went ISIS. So, you know, same. Look, I do think – to me, what it highlights is why we have National Guard's been there in the first place. They should not be there. The National Guard should be, you know, cleaning up hurricanes, whatever. Like, they shouldn't be deployed in an undeclared war, providing security for God knows what, you know, and then putting themselves in harm's way.

And nobody can coherently explain to the American people. Here's why there's 1,000 people. Well, they were there to defeat ISIS. Like, well, I thought we defeated ISIS. Now they were killed by ISIS. And now that means we need to stay more so that we can kill even more of them, so that we can put more of our guys in harm's way. And we just never leave. I mean, it's an 11-year deployment now.

We can coherently explain, you know, why we should leave. Yeah, that's right. That's easy. A much younger Trump did exactly that. Let's roll President Trump almost, so this was December 19th, 2018. So seven years ago. Here's the 45th president of the United States. We've been fighting for a long time in Syria. I've been president for almost two years, and we've really stepped it up.

and we have won against ISIS. We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. We've taken back the land and now it's time for our troops to come back home. I get very saddened when I have to write letters or call parents or wives or husbands of soldiers who have been killed fighting for our country. It's a great honor. We cherish them. But it's heartbreaking. There's no question about it. it's heartbreaking. Now we've won. It's time to come back. They're getting ready. You're going to see them soon. These are great American heroes. These are great heroes of the world because they fought for us. So Donald Trump making a lot of sense back then. You covered this at the time? I was there. I was literally there. So what happened? Nothing. Mattis resigned.

Over this, right? He was over this policy. Mad Dog was furious. This, by the way, I remember this was a huge brouhaha at the time because that people were like, like, oh, he's abandoning the Kurds, right? There was that whole Kurdish discourse, and there was all these John McCain types who were like, this is why we need to stay in Syria. Like, you're boldening them. You were abandoning our allies and you're strengthening the Assad regime. And there was a big nationalist right, you know, brouhaha about it as well.

They're like, it shouldn't have taken this long. The fact is that the military was stonewalling at which they were. And he would multiple times be like, we need to get out of Syria. And Madison then would be like, yeah, you know, in six months or something like that. And this is ultimately what broke the camel's back, the straw that broke the camels back for their relationship. But ultimately, I mean, Mattis won in the end.

They all did. Never left. We just never leave. Like, once you're in, you have to have this base. I mean, let's remember the Altonif. Remember those multiple soldiers who were killed in Jordan a couple years back? You know, as a result of this Iranian drone? Remember that?

I mean, there's all, there's, for no, for some reason, once we establish a place, We can never leave. No matter how many one death, two death, three debts that these people are in harm's way. No one can explain it. No one can ever explain it to anybody. The New York Times coverage at the time is indicative of the way that this city and this country's elite kind of view these ongoing occupations. We could put up C4. The lead of the story tells you everything.

President Trump has ordered the withdrawal of 2,000 American troops from Syria, bringing a sudden end to a military campaign that largely vanquished the Islamic State. but seeding a strategically vital country to Russia and Iran. And so it's like, so that's the Times telling you like, I told you, yeah. How can we, we can't lose Syria to Russia. That's what it was like. And Iran's.

And so, and the military was like, actually, you're right. Yeah, we're not going anywhere. We're just going to hang out. Yeah. And we didn't. And we're still there. I mean, what's really, look, I'm not saying the lives of guardsmen are more important or anything like that, but this is not what they were designed for.

You know, imagine, you know, you respond to the commercial, the National Guard commercial, like, yeah, that's a good way to pay for college or something like that, one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer, way for me to bolster my income. I want to serve my country. And next thing you know, you find yourself on a deployment to freaking Syria in an undeclared war and providing security for what, you know, for what type of. Who knows who's inside that meeting? You got al-Qaeda, you know, allegedly ISIS is here. Iraq. I mean, you know, the Syrian Democratic, literally a geopolitical. pun for purposes that nobody can, you know, actually explain. I just think it's sickening. By the way, you know, can't let Pete Hexath here off the hook. C2 up here on the screen, his tweet in response to this attack. The Savage who perpetrated this attack was killed by partner forces. Let it be known if you target Americans anywhere in the world, you'll spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you and ruthlessly kill you. It's like, okay. I mean, no, actually, that's not what happened. Yeah, it's not really what happened. He was killed immediately. Unfortunately. By Syrians.

Right. And, uh, and. And in response to this, lawmakers on Sunday and others, when asked for this, were like, yes, this is why we need to stay and continue the fight against ISIS. It's a self-licking ice cream cone. I believe that that's what they used to say in the past. So it's just, you know, we were bonding Ryan and I over this about how you can, you know, when you're in business long enough, you can start, you could see stuff that we thought was all resolved almost a decade ago, bubble back up with the same dumb arguments, the same people who. who are involved, and the only people who pay the price are probably the thousands of American service members who have had to be deployed to Syria for no reason. Who knows, maybe probably a dozen or so, now that have been killed in this deployment.

At least the ones who were fighting ISIS, you could justify this. This one, you know, again, explain that to their parents about what exactly that they were doing there. Syrian Democratic who? International coalition? You're protecting al-Qaeda? The al-Qaeda gunman killed the ISIS. I mean, it makes no sense.

It boggles the mind. The Syrian story has to be the most psychedelic, because you have a former al-Qaeda guy who is just in the White House and is now running the country. Like, what? Huh? Okay. Welcome to America. All right, let's get to Barry Weiss. May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Barry's car.

I knew it was a bomb the second that it existed. I felt it ripped through me with just a force more powerful and terrible than anything that I could describe. In season two of Rip Current, we ask, who tried to kill Judy Berry and why? She received death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing. The man and woman who were heard had planned to lead a summer of militant protest against logging practices in northern California. They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. Timber industry, I mean, it was the number one industry in the area, but more than it was the culture.

It was the way of life. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Dr. Lori Santos from the Happiness Lab here. It's the season of giving, which is why my podcast is partnering with Give Directly, a nonprofit that provides people in extremely. poverty with the cash they need. This year, we're taking part in the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. And it's not just the happiness lab. Some of my favorite podcasters are also taking

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match your gift. That's give directly.org slash happiness lab to donate. For 25 years, I've explored what it means to heal, not just for myself, but alongside others. I'm Mike Delarocha. This is sacred lessons, a space for reflection, growth, and collective healing. What do you tell men that are hurting right now? Everything's going to be okay on the other side, you know, just push through it. And, you know, ironically, the root of the word spirit is breath. Wow. Which is why one of the most revolutionary acts that we can do as peoples just breathe. Next to the wound is their gifts. You can't even find your gifts unless you go through the wound. That's the hard thing you think, well, I'm going to get my guess. I don't want to

go through all that. You've got to go through the wounds you're laughing. Listening to other people's near-death experiences, and it's all they say. In conclusion, love is the answer. Listen to sacred lessons as part of the My Coutura Podcast Network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The International Summit that the world has been waiting for will convene today, Monday, December 15th. Candace Owens will be meeting with Erica Kirk. Put this first element up on the screen.

This was announced by Erica Kirk on X. Canis Owens and I are meeting for a private in-person discussion on Monday. December 15th. Real Candice O and I have agreed that public discussions, live streams, and tweets are on hold until after this meeting. I look forward to a productive conversation. Thank you. And it was everything in her power not to say thank you for your, thank you for your attention to this matter. Candace has responded this morning. I am very much looking forward to this discussion. So, there you go. So the context here is that her organization was a TPSA.

I was planning to release its kind of counter argument to Candace Owens as many, many arguments. She's putting that on hold, but it comes after a Saturday evening, 8 p.m., quote-unquote, town hall that CBS News under the new direction of Barry Weiss ran. Now, Barry makes for an unusual executive in a lot of different ways.

She is putting herself in front of the camera as well. And so let's roll D2 here a little bit from this town hall. He was murdered three months ago. If you go on the Internet, and frankly it is left beyond the Internet now into real life, and you talk to many seemingly sane people, they do not believe that the 22-year-old named Tyler Robinson that has been arrested and charged with his murder, is the actual murderer.

They believe any number of theories. They believe that Erica Kirk was his Mossad handler and that he was killed by a foreign government. They believed that she was tracked by Egyptian planes. They believe that the rings on her hand are signs of Illuminati. The theories themselves are absurd. What matters is that she speaks about this in the interview.

The brain rock that social media is allowing to spread. The way that it is detaching us from humanity, from our ability to talk to one another and our ability to discern the truth from just out and out lies is something that is incredibly important as a theme, I think. There's also a new theory that Egyptian aircraft have been tracking you. What is going on? Why are there so many conspiracies spreading about what seems to be a pretty open and shut case? This is the first time that we have seen evil on display where we have social media at our fingertips. Something so evil that happened, people are wanting answers immediately. They are wanting to figure out how to wrap their mind around this. Egyptian planes.

Do you believe that Tyler Robinson murdered your husband? Yes, I do. Why do you think it is so hard for so many people to believe that reality? Because it's too simple. Again, everyone always has to think there's more to the story. Well, sometimes there's not. I've seen the autopsy report. I've seen our case pulled together.

I've been in constant contact with our lawyers, the prosecuting team. I've seen it all. So, I mean, look, you put those two things together. Between the Candace, oh, and look, I don't know what's going to come of this summit between Erica and between Candace. I have no idea. Barry calling for censorship is a little bit too perfect, Ryan, whenever you consider that TikTok literally sponsored that event, right? And that it just so happens that her benefactor, the Ellisons, are trying to roll up the entire U.S. media industry and that she explicitly, at least, you know, according to Dylan Byers over at Puck, one of the reason, that the free press was bought and DeBerry installed

as editor-in-chief was Jew because of the Ellison family's concern overquote anti-Semitism and because they're strong supporters of the Zionist cause. I mean, all of this is out in the open. Like, I don't think they would even object to be called pro-Israel billionaires, right?

Like, they are almost self-described at this point. Ellison is known with his hundreds of billions, you know, donating significant sums to Zionist, like, causes. Now, the Tyler Robinson part of this and the Egyptian, I mean, I have been loathe to dillve into the whole Egyptian plane discourse, et cetera. I don't think that the evidence is all that compelling. I did see what Tucker Carlson said that the Egyptian planes was actually true. Again, I mean, based on the open source info that was released that I at least at the very least, like took a look at, there's some extrapolation, I believe, again, whenever.

it comes to claiming ownership. I will say, though, she did not deny it out explicitly. She did seem to make a mockery of it. I am not in any way trying to gain credence, you know, to this argument. I'm just at this point now, you and I know how this is every word of this is going to be dissected. And I did think that the answer, I mean, she did say, I believe Tyler Robinson, you know, et cetera, killed my husband. I believe that too. Now, for the record, you know, I've looked at the evidence, et cetera. I know there's concern, but the bullet, I mean, I asked him ballistic experts and all that you can believe who you want. The people I spoke to generally are very conspiratorial in their own right. The FBI and all of them have pointed to DNA

evidence. It wouldn't necessarily make sense to plant a different gun, right? Just again, based on my approval. I'm not saying the FBI didn't screw up the case massively. I'm not going to say that. But yeah, just in general, I don't know. I don't think your answers did much, at least in my opinion, to quell any, you know, continued kind of fervor about the questions around this case. Yeah, if you're already in that, if you're already in that skeptic camp, you're going to probably stay there.

But yeah, I actually kind of, I get where Barry Weiss is coming from on this point. And from her perspective, she's like, man, this is so obvious, like, who did this. And from her perspective, too, not only do we have the shooter, like, we could try to pin this on the left. Like, there's this, like, trans roommate,

and, like, this fits into, like, the thing that she was on for years over at the free press and before that at the new york time she's like this is a golden opportunity to like exploit these issues that that i've been into and yet instead all of a sudden now like people are accusing net yahoo of doing it and from her perspective and so i i actually sympathize from her perspective she's like this she's like this was perfect for us yeah and now it's been robbed well that's kind of by the right interestingly yeah and And the reason we're covering this at all, and you can, like, I, it's, I haven't,

it's been hard for me to understand, like, how it's a huge of a cleavage this has created on the right. But Emily was explaining, like, that this is like, this and the whole Fuentes thing that kind of flows into it is just driving the conversation on the right now in a way that is remarkable.

And I think when people look back on it, years later, it's like, what did, you know, what did MAGA II do with its, like, unified control of government? Like, oh, they argued about Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes and Tyler Robinson and Charlie Kirk while, well, like, everything burned. What's your sense on, of, like, how kind of major this is a fracture? Oh, it's huge. And I think that, listen, I, it's funny. I see people out there. Christopher Rufo, for example, was like, conspiratorial thinking is dominated. He's like, guys, come on. Yeah, he's like,

we need to stop. We need institutions. And part of the reason, my true fracture with maga, people want to know where I'm from, and where, you know, I was described as a cuck, it was stopped the steal. And it was because, at that time, I go, guys, you're lying to people. I said at the end of the day, lying to people is

bad. Like, playing footsie empirically, with a completely bullshit made-up claim is going to lead to things that you have no idea. So what people tried to do was rationalize it. And I've had this fight. A lot of these people are my friends. Darrell, for example, my martyr maid.

He had that whole post about imagine all these things have happened to you and that's why you feel the election was stolen. I mean, I'm pretty sure I said this to him in person. I was like, dude, like I just don't agree with that at all. Or there was all these books written about high, I call it high IQ stop this deal, right? I'm like, oh, well actually Zucker Buck's.

I'm sorry, it's not the same thing. Like when you say that, you're talking about influence. It's a Time magazine piece, remember, fortify the election. That is not the same thing. That's not the same thing as Venezuelan dominions who stole the election. Like, that's what Trump means. By the way, that's what the people who listen to him mean. I know.

That's why Trump wants to overthrow Venezuela now. I would tell you, man, oh my God, in 2021. I couldn't even get into an Uber without people would be like, hey, man, the election, like you really believe, right? Is somebody calling you and telling you to, I'm serious. This happened like dozens of times. I know it. I can see it for real.

Like, the people who believe this stuff, they believe it for real. Like, actually. And so that was. one of the original sins. Well, because the demand is always you have to listen to what Donald Trump is saying. That's the only empirical, you know, truth that exists. And once you kind of create that, well, Trump himself in a vacuum has created a place where reality is not reality, where any discussion of facts or of empirical, any discussion

of facts of reasonable thinking and in general of a systemic belief that somebody is, out to get you, which is, and by the way, what's difficult about this, sometimes it's true. A lot of the times, actually, it is true. A lot of the times about the deep state or conspiracy. And this is, what makes your and my job so difficult, for example, about reporting around Epstein, Israel, is the amount of effort that you and I put into fact checking, to making sure that everything that we say is backed up to validate people's real feelings around the world while giving them the facts to be able to color that in. It's made so much hard. Carter by a world where everyone can just color in the lines with whatever they want.

They pretend like defamation law and facts just don't exist. And that's, you know, a road to getting really, really hot on the internet. This is not just about Candace Owens. This is like an entire ecosystem. And that's why there's crocodile tears around this for people saying indulging conspiracy thinking. Stop the Steel was the ultimate conspiracy. And everybody tried to justify it by saying, oh, these people feel disinformed. It's not this, like, no.

And look, I may be guilty of that, not on stop this deal, but in some other instances, I'm like, for example, I'll give you one, the Haitian cats thing, right? It was a bullshit story. It was bullshit, right? And, you know, at the time, I was like, well, you know, what this is is about people in Springfield who were pissed off at the Haitians. And, you know, while, yes, what Trump said was a lie, et cetera, that doesn't mean that people there.

And, you know, to be fair, also, you know, all the whole left who pearl clutched around this was like, actually the people of Springfields. like, well, Springfield dramatically voted for Trump, okay? So like, let's be honest, too, around all of those dynamics. But the truth is, is that if you normalize and create an environment where stuff like that is just done and dusted and has accepted as truth, there will be shocking consequences to all of that in the future, where TPSA was a right-wing institution, right, that was led by Charlie Kirk, but Charlie himself was not immune to this.

He had to indulge a lot of stop-the-steel bullshit. He called constantly. He was constantly, his entire role was like trying to paper over fractures in the MAGA coalition, both from Israel, but I mean, that was just one of many other things. And, you know, to give a shout out to Richard Henania, where he's just empirically correct, is if you're going to have a shift in the dynamics of like who identifies with different political parties, if one of them is going to lose people who are college educated and to indulge like a vast array of people who have come to politics online and who are not familiar in general with like, I don't know, like reading the news at a most basic level, you are going, this is a logical consequence of like a low human capital led environment. So like institutions themselves cannot be genuinely representative or if they are, they're going to look like this. Right. They will look like a world where, you know, the Egyptian plains and all that is basically canon for a

significant number of people. Again, look, I looked into it, guys. We're talking about foreign registration planes, not proven. It's based on flight radar data. I'm not saying the planes themselves didn't exist. And there certainly have been claims made. And I don't think her answer was good. But that is not 100% convincing in the light of DNA evidence, which has not yet been contested in court. If Tyler Robinson and his lawyers can prove in court that that was fabricated, I will happily hold my hands up, right? And they would have every incentive in the world to do so, but they have not made that claim as of yet. Perhaps there'll be an O.J. Simpson case here. The other wild part about it is that you would have to believe that, so Charlie Kirk had that

summit on Long Island, where it's like a come to Jesus, it's a bad pun, but, you know. Allegedly. Yeah. So they have this. I'm not even sure I buy that, by the way. That there's, there was a come to Jesus thing. I mean, all the evidence points to, he was very pro-Israel. And he was doing his best to hold back. And knowing his best to hold back the forces. But let's say, and then he comes out of that and then let's, and now he's, you know, very angry and he's turning on Israel, you would have to believe that they went from inviting him over, having these meetings, like, having people call him, to being like, you know what, we give up, kill him. and then and then within like just a matter of short weeks you've pulled off the assassination and you found some other Patsy

like in Utah to like take the like does not make sense several things can be true did the FBI bungle the investigation yeah what did we lead our entire show with here did the run by a boob right it's run by a literal moron

all right allegedly Sorry, you know, they're from a legend moron. Yeah, an alleged moron. I mean that in a literal sense, not in any character way whatsoever there. But, yeah, it's run by Cash Patel, all right? So, yeah, they messed it up. There was the whole thing about the old man who was initially, I understand. But also, you and I have been in this business for a while, how many chaotic events have we covered?

Of course. Right. There's always reports. Chaos comes out of chaotic events. One shooter, two, right? Three, initial reports. Half the time initial reports are totally one. wrong, complete bullshit. You know, eyewitness is notoriously bad. You had multiple people of

interests who were taken into custody. I get it, too, in terms of Robinson, he takes taken into custody, and then we hear nothing. The text messages, which we covered here. Weird. I'm going to fully hit it. Weird. Okay. Definitely needs to be explained in court. What else was weird? Oh, the fact that the FBI freaked out at Joe Kent over foreign assassination tires, that's crazy, too. I agree with you. I agree with all of you. It's not evidence. Now, you know, absence of evidence is not evidence in the words of the famous Donald Rubbsfeld, okay? But all of that, again, just to me, just me, points much more to incompetence, bureaucratic infighting. Now, that said, I think all of those inquiries absolutely should be explored, especially if you do want to find justice, ultimately.

But the cold hard, like, rifle, DNA, just the countercase of like why, it to me does not make any sense. Personally, it doesn't make any sense. And I don't think that that's difficult to say. And I don't trust the FBI. I do not trust the FBI at all. And so what Barry Weiss is trying to do is create an institution. And she's trying to kind of put this genie back in the bottle. Let's roll a little bit more of the town hall clip.

Play the next one. But any good faith effort to stop political violence must hold both parties to the same standard and expectation. So in that spirit, will you condemn the violent rhetoric of Donald Trump, the most powerful and influential person on earth? I appreciate your question. You know my heart. Why would I ever say, yes, go murder people? This is so much deeper than just one. I understand your sentiment. I do. But this is also so much deeper than just one person. This starts at the home, okay? This starts with family. family. This starts with a seed that grows and grows. You can choose to have evil in your heart, or you can choose to have light. What you consume and what you absorb from the outside world

will manifest itself. No, I will never agree with political violence. My husband is a victim of it. I'm a victim of it. But what I'm trying to say here is that we can blame everyone else. We have to look in the mirror when you become a father, when you become a mother. How are you raising your kids? Are you taking responsibility or are you giving them a device and saying, go down that rabbit hole? I'm trying to go to Pilates class.

you can just sit in the corner and look at your iPad or look at your phone and go down that rabbit hole and see what you can learn from that instead of being a parent. So my call to action from that is parents step up. I don't understand why Pilates

is catching strays here, first of all. That was a very odd response. I mean, look, and she did not condemn, by the way. This is part of the difficulty. She walked around and decided not to condemn. I was talking about this with Crystal

because Crystal, unfortunately, there were some power of problems so she couldn't be here. But, like, this is where I am sympathetic to the difficulty of the left where Erica Kirk is both the grieving widow of Charlie. And like she's the first person I thought about, you know, after Charlie's death and his children, right? So I think that's a normal human reaction. She since has taken over Turning Point USA.

Now she's on, you know, she's selling Charlie. I think that's fine, you know, to sell Charlie's book in the memory of your husband and all. But it is, I mean, you're going to get into difficult, into dicey territory when you do want to be an overtly political actor, right? and you can't really have it both ways, at least in my opinion. And this is somebody who understands, like, and is deeply sympathetic to a grieving widow, but who also wants to take up the mantle

of her husband's political, you know, force, and then also kind of explicitly be involved in shaping politics and in everything. Like, there will be something that wears off. And, like, look, I don't know. I mean, with the whole town hall, like, that was kind of the duality of what it was. And I would say, for her,

in particular, the more you are in the latter, overtly political, working as an ally of the Trump administration, et cetera, you will remove a lot of, at least what I think, you know, the sympathy of the entire country, which I think rightfully exists over the death of your deceased husband. And, I mean, this kind of, that kind of like squares the entire thing, where Charlie's assassination was a personal, it was a political, and it became an intra-coelitional fight where, and I mean, that's where I find it, like, gross, right? We're arguing about the details of the death explicitly in the grounds of trying to make political points. But also, how can you escape that?

If it is something which was explicitly used, I mean, many people lost their jobs as a result of it. As I have said here before, I don't have a problem, at least in some cases with that, because the truth is, is all of us kind of believe in a little bit of cancel culture. It's true. I mean, it is true. Some of all of us believe that there are bounds in polite society. We don't necessarily believe the government should be enforcing it, which I don't think either you and I do. And the government at one point certainly wanted to in the midst of the Charlie Kirk assassination, which I condemn. I think it was bad. And obviously backfired dramatically, given their coalitional fights. So, yeah, the whole, that's why I questioned the decision for this town hall in the first place. I don't get it. I'll be honest. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get it.

But from CBS News's perspective, yeah, I mean, to me it just seems like Barry wants to use that, this is me outsider kind of looking in, is use the assassination, the aftermath like discussion and cleavages in the right to like assert herself as a controller of right-wing discourse. She's going to referee that stuff. Right, is to referee and to be the one who's pushing social media and oh, it just so happens to embrace a lot of pro-Israel politics. politics, right? And I think that's increasingly what it looks like. And the problem she's going to run into with her own business model is that one reason that the American news media has been so homogenous for many decades is that advertisers don't really want the controversy. And so we can put up this fourth element here. Major advertisers stayed away from this town hall. She said she's going to do a lot more of them.

they basically what all of the ads on here were just direct sales type stuff which is the kind of lowest cheapest kind of ad you can get on on TV but among according to variety here among the town hall sponsors so she did get some new sponsors were the conservative heritage foundation hallow a mobile app for Christian prayer I think that's on Tucker and other shows wow too David a new animated film from Angel Studios, which specializes in faith-based content, a small handful of more mainstream advertisers, including Spotify and TikTok, were also present. So she got TikTok to, so the Ellison's own, one half of the Ellison's own TikTok, the other half of the Ellison's CBS, and so they

are basically just paying each other. So how long, this is not a commercial play. This is obviously a political and ideological play. Yeah, which is the entire purpose. Right, so it's okay if it loses a ton of money. Let's all just remember, this is not about money. The Ellisons are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They are not buying anything for commercial purposes. They win and lose hundreds of millions of dollars every day as the market moves.

Exactly. There are hundreds of billions of dollars. Go and read the story at some point about Larry Ellison and how he owns like an entire island in Hawaii. It's nuts. They're one of the biggest islands on Hawaii. Yeah, he owns the entire, I think like 99%. He's like their whole landlord of everybody. It's psychotic.

It's great. It's literally a U.S. state, a significant portion of a U.S. state controlled by a single individual. And CIA helped birth his company. Like, I hate... And they actually look deeply into Oracle. I didn't know that. That's interesting. Yeah, I hate when the government makes these companies and then the billionaires get to get the money.

Why can't we be the billionaires? We made the company. Like, it's terrible and we don't like it, but like, at least we can get rich from it. No. Well, I won't say anything. All right. Okay. All right, let's get on to Israel, shall we? May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Berry's car. I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me with just a force more powerful and terrible than anything that I could describe. In season two of Rip Current, we ask, who tried to kill Judy Barry? And why? She received death threats before the bombing.

She received more threats after the bombing. The man and woman who were heard had planned to lead a summer of militant protest against logging practices in Northern California. They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. The timber industry, I mean, it was the number one industry in the area, but more than it was the culture. It was the way of life. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement.

Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For 25 years, I've explored what it means to heal, not just for myself, but alongside others. I'm Mike De La Rocha. This is Sacred Lessons, a space for reflection, growth, and collective healing. What do you tell men that are hurting right now? Everything's going to be okay on the other side, you know, just push through it. And, you know, ironically, the root of the word spirit is breath. Wow.

Which is why one of the most revolutionary acts that we can do as peoples just breathe. Next to the wound is their gifts. You can't even find your gifts unless you go through the wound. That's the hard thing. You think, well, I'm going to get my guess. I don't want to go through all that. You've got to go through the wounds you're laughing. Listening to other people's near-death experiences, and it's all they say.

In conclusion, love is the answer. Listen to Sacred Lessons as part of the My Coutura Podcast Network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, Dr. Lori Santos from the Happiness Lab here. It's the season of giving, which is why my podcast is partnering with Give Directly, a nonprofit that provides people in extreme poverty with the cash they need. This year, we're taking part in the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. And it's not just the Happiness Lab.

Some of my favorite podcasters are also taking part. Think Jay Shetty from On Purpose, Dan Harris from 10% Happier, and Dave Desteno from How God Works, and more. Our goal this year is to raise $1 million, which will help over 700 families in Rwanda living in extreme poverty. Here's how it works. You donate to give directly, and they put that cash directly into the hands of families in need,

because those families know best what they need, whether it's buying livestock to fertilize their farm, paying school fees or starting a small business. With that support, families can invest in their future and build lasting change. So join me and your favorite podcasters in the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. Head to give directly.org slash happiness lab to learn more and make a contribution. And if you're a first-time donor, giving multiplier will even match your gift. That's give directly.org slash happiness lab to donate.

Over the weekend in Gaza, Israel launched an attack that killed Rehadsad, who was a top al-Qasam commander, with a drone strike on a vehicle, which also killed a handful of other Hamas officials that were riding along with him, creating more gymnastics in the headlines around the world. The Times went with Israel, says it killed senior Hamas commander despite ceasefire. you had a lot of defenders of Israel saying that this wait until you see the identity of the person who was killed you will see that this was a justified attack you're like wait a minute what are you talking about there is no identity right of a person that justifies firing during during what is called a ceasefire I love the headline here despite ceasefire despite despite ceasefire utterly utterly incredible There was some speculation that Aboumuth, his top commander, they said he was instrumental in the October 7th attacks and that he's one of the kind of leading logistics experts,

particularly when it comes to explosives. There's an argument that he was taking stock of, you know, armament supplies, and also trying to figure out the best way to take unexplosion, Israeli ordinance and, you know, transform it into ammunition for for Hamas in the future. Let's pretend that all of that is actually true. Like, there's a ceasefire in place. Like, you also- Under this logic, this would mean that Hamas could try to, yeah, exactly, shoot at the IDF. Oh, well, there's an IDF general who was instrumental. I'm not justifying. I don't think we should do that, but, right. I was like, they could do that if they wanted to.

And they could say the same thing. Yeah. So there have been hundreds of people, hundreds of Palestinians killed since the quote-unquote ceasefire has been implemented. There really hasn't been a day. I don't think that has gone by that hasn't seen some Palestinians killed. An average of roughly two children a day have been killed during the ceasefire. And oftentimes we'll get questions about, you know, why is there, why do you even care so much? And if you think about how much you cared when you heard about what happened at Bondi Beach, where at least 15 people were killed,

and then imagine that you see all human life as valuable. Like, you're, you're, most days you're getting 10 to 15 Palestinians killed in the middle of this ceasefire. And that does not count the ravages of the lack of life essentials getting into Gaza. We jump to E4 real quick, and then we can go back to some of these other things. The inclement weather that has hit Gaza is an absolute nightmare. So the headline here, 13 Gazans, including three children killed by hypothermia, or building collapses amidstorm byron. One man dies in Israel.

the number of hypothermia deaths has climbed significantly above that since then you've had flooding and cold weather for people who are entering their third winter living in tarps and tents the tents are you know crap to begin with by the third winter you know they're they're offering you know very little like the they're offering very little protection against the elements and so when you had when you have this storm surge through. People are just left completely defenseless. Tens of thousands of tents have been completely destroyed. And Israel considers tent poles to be a, quote, dual-use item.

So they will not allow tent poles into Gaza. Wow. Because they say its dual use could be military. Pencils and paper are restricted. Like the amount of things that are blocked from going in are, It's utterly just absurd, and it would be comical if it wasn't. There was an article about, I think it was in the New York Times, about the Trump administration sent some logistics,

its top logistics efforts to this kind of center where they are working with the Israeli military to get aid into Gaza, because the thinking from the Trump administration was this seems like a massive logistical challenge, so let's get our top folks over it. there and send them in and they'll they'll figure this out they all left pretty quickly back to the united states and gave up they said there is no logistical challenge it's just israel won't let things in like here's the list of things they won't let in if you change that list you can

send things in it's like there are checkpoints there are crossings you there are trucks filled with life essentials drive them in and distribute them you don't need you know my big brain logistical take here And so they just have some news for you, Ryan. They just broke here. We can put it up here on the screen. We have the obligatory Barack Ravid Axios report. The White House has scolded Netanyahu for violating the Gaza ceasefire with the strike. President Trump, the White House sent a stern message to Prime Minister Netanyahu

the killing over the weekend constituted a violation to U.S. official tells Axios. The angry message from the White House comes amid growing tensions between the Trump administration and Netanyahu government around the next phase of the agreement and the war in Gaza. and over Israel's broader regional policy, Secretary of State, Steve Wickoff, and Trump advisor Jared Kushner, quote, have become very frustrated with Netanyahu. Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump

in Mar-Lago on December 29th. Oh, I didn't know that we were going to kick off the new year. Or, sorry, bring in the new year with, what will that be? Where else would you want to be there? How many visits will that be? Seven? Six, seven? Six, seven?

It's got to be a record. No, and the bombing continues. They also, and we have this in DropSight Daily, our morning newsletter, the Israeli Navy abducted for Palestinian fishermen. Like, what are you doing? If there's no food, you're not letting anything in, so you've got people out there fishing,

and you just abducted them off their boats? Like what, what is this? What kind of ceasefire is it? The fact that they're doing this in Lebanon is kind of the precedent for it. Like they agreed to a ceasefire with Hezbollah and just have not withdrawn and have just consistently attacked Lebanon on a near daily basis. It's like, what are we doing here? Absolutely crazy stuff. But yes, that is the full summary.

I guess we have so far. Oh, sorry. We got some Huckabee thing. I forgot. Huckabee did an AMA, which is like, what is going on? Like, I don't know. Right. They're too online. What are we doing here?

U.S. ambassadors should not be doing AMAs. They shouldn't even know what the AMA is. Right. In my opinion. In my opinion. So utterly ridiculous AMA from Israeli, U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, let's roll one of these. There's been some talk that Israel attacked the country of Qatar. It did not.

It did, in fact, send a missile to attack a terrorist who had been partly responsible for the murder of Israeli citizens, but it did not attack the country. There was one missile. It was aimed at one person. Now, unfortunately, there were some people who were near that missile strike that were injured or killed from it.

But that was not an attack on the nation of Qatar. I mean, first of all, it's about as absurd a thing, as you can say, also not true. It was not one missile. I think Jeremy reported it was like nine or 12 missiles. It's far more than one. It was not aimed at one person.

Also, it doesn't even matter because it killed a Qatari police officer. It intended target was. And it was aimed at the entire peace negotiation delegation, like not just one person. Yeah. So aside from the structural absurdity of the whole claim that you did not attack a country, you just shot a missile at them that exploded and killed people. happened unfortunately there were people near the missile and so you know that that happens but also none of that was true on top of the absurdity of the claim he also elsewhere in the aMA says there's just no evidence that there's any relationship between epstein and israel yeah okay oh okay

got it thank you for clarifying that uh mr ambassador right well next time he does an ama i wonder if that's for premium donors to yeah that's a good question who's part of this a m a yes Who is this organization? Can we throw in questions? Yeah. Yeah, honestly, I would just love to do an interview with the guy, but, yeah, I heard nothing on that front. We'll just do, we'll have to, like, work our way into the AMA, next AMA. Or we'll get our listeners to do so for us.

All right, let's get to wait. May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Berry's car. I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me with just a force more. powerful and terrible than anything that I could describe. In season two of Ripcurrent, we ask, who tried to kill Judy Berry and why? She received death threats before the bombing.

She received more threats after the bombing. The man and woman who were heard had planned to lead a summer of militant protest against logging practices in Northern California. They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. The timber industry, I mean, it was the number one industry in the area, But more than it was the culture, it was the way of life. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now.

Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For 25 years, I've explored what it means to heal, not just for myself, but alongside others. I'm Mike Delarocha. This is Sacred Lessons, a space for a reflection. growth and collective healing. What do you tell men that are hurting right now? Everything's gonna be okay on the other side, you know, just push through it.

And you know, ironically, the root of the word spirit is breath. Wow. Which is why one of the most revolutionary acts that we can do as peoples just breathe. Next to the wound is their gifts. You can't even find your gifts unless you go through the wound. That's the hard thing you think, well, I'm gonna get my guess, I don't want to go through all that.

You gotta go through the wounds, listening to other people's near-death experiences, and that's all they say. In conclusion, love is the answer. Listen to sacred lessons as part of the Mike Gutura podcast network, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, Dr. Lori Santos from the Happiness Lab here. It's the season of giving, which is why my podcast is partnering with Give Directly, a nonprofit that provides people in extreme poverty with the cash they need. This year, we're taking part. in the pods fight poverty campaign.

And it's not just the happiness lab. Some of my favorite podcasters are also taking part. Think Jay Shetty from On Purpose, Dan Harris from 10% Happier, and Dave Desteno from How God Works, and more. Our goal this year is to raise $1 million, which will help over 700 families in Rwanda living in extreme poverty.

Here's how it works. You donate to give directly, and they put that cash directly into the hands of families in need, because those families know best what they need, whether it's buying livestock to fertilize their farm, paying school fees, or starting a small business. With that support, families can invest in their future and build lasting change. So join me and your favorite podcasters in the Pods Fight Poverty campaign.

Head to give directly.org slash happiness lab to learn more and make a contribution. And if you're a first-time donor, giving multiplier will even match your gift. That's give directly.org slash happiness lab to donate. All right, last but not least, we'd had to get it in here, especially with my man, Ryan, here to throw down with over the subject of marijuana. President Donald Trump will allegedly or reportedly be rescheduling marijuana from Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3 substance. This has no bearing on your life whatsoever, but it does have the bearing on a few corrupt Wall Streeters and venture capitalists who have been lobbying for this in the White House so that their stocks can go boom. so they can get big tax breaks and access to the banking system. Let's take a listen, CNBC.

This is an administrative order. Trump's been very clear all along. The question was, could we get this in front of Trump and could it be something that has enough of a priority? It's very clear that the industry has engaged Washington in a way that I think is much more sensible, been much more focused. I think there's no question that top CEOs have been in Mar-a-Lago,

have been in D.C., have been working with the president's team. The implications for this are incredible for the industry. And I do think that this is the kind of a domino to fall that would get other things going that don't necessarily have to be legislative fall through either, including exchange listings, which I think is the holy grail here, because that really would bring in institutional capital. If you're investing in cannabis here, there's not institutional capital. So he said it, all right? The corrupt Wall Streeters are in on the deal, Ryan.

And Ryan, even though I know that you support this, you have to agree with me that the way the shit down is insane, okay? Put this Washington Post piece up on the screen. They beat me to it, to their credit. I was hearing some rumblings. I called Ryan, actually. I was trying to report it out for drop site, but they got in front of it for me. Trump, quote, seeks to cut restrictions on marijuana through planned order. Again, to be very clear, if you live in a state where weed is legal, this doesn't affect you at all. All this does is grant massive tax breaks and banking access to a bunch of weed companies who are being invested in by Wall Street. and by venture capitalists, as well as the pharmaceutical industry.

And in fact, the behind-the-scenes story, this is pure corruption, pure unadulterated corruption. Here's how this all went down. Donald Trump was visited by a woman named Kim Rivers. Okay. Now, for Kim Rivers, who is the CEO of a company called True Leave. True Leave is the Florida-based weed company, is the one that sponsored that amendment on the ballot in Florida. that thank God was rejected by the people of Florida. That multi-billion dollar pot company also hired a woman named Susie Wiles while she was not the White House Chief of Staff.

Okay. So what ended up happening is that the White House Chief of Staff brought in her former paying client, Ritzvers, to the Oval Office who convinced his Trump miraculously to grant her a gigantic tax break through Schedule 3, which would then mean. It's since stocks flying. Truly, stock itself. Yeah, by the way, you saw that there in C&PC. How nice is it, by the way? Let's linger on the fact that they're green for the arrow up. Oh, right.

Like, we've got to look better. Great. Yeah, at least something's going up. Certainly not aggregate IQ of the United States. So what ends up happening is Trump calls Mike Johnson, the speaker, and informs him of this decision. Johnson's like, I think this is a bad idea. Trump turns the phone over to her. in the Oval? And it's like, why don't you explain why this is a good idea? You can go do all the

research for yourself if you guys want to. Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 has no bearing on criminality, on legal enforcement, nothing. It has one reason is to make these companies wildly profitable. And in fact, as they showed on CNBC, institutional capital, big pharma, and venture capital. One of the stupidest conspiracies out there is that big pharma is trying to suppress weed. You think they don't want to, they'll sell you anything to addict you. Most of you losers are out there smoking every single day. You think they don't want to sell that to you? They only don't because it's illegal.

The moment it's illegal, they'll happily do it. On that point, I have looked, you know, I've heard of a book about this many years ago, I have looked for evidence around Big Pharma's kind of relationship with weed and illegal drugs. Yes. Along those lines that there's some self-interest here and blah, blah, blah. going back to the 30s, and the evidence is just not there. Like, pharma is more of a wait-and-see, and then we'll move into it and figure out a way to profit when they can. It's like this idea that it's a miracle drug that is going to make other pharmaceuticals less profitable.

There's just actually no evidence to it. Yes. Now, the current system, to me, is completely indefensible, where you have a multi-billion dollar above-board market where you can go into shops, buy things, and then the companies have two problems, well, they have multiple problems, but they stem from two different things. One is lack of consistent access to banking, because it's a Schedule 1 drug, and so a bank is not supposed to actually work with you if you're dealing with Schedule 1 drugs. And the second, as you said, is on the tax side, you're not really supposed to be able to write off expenses associated with an illegally, a federally illegal enterprise.

Yes. There's some, although there's some debate about this. And most companies do. Because imagine if you can't, if you're a business, you know, these are small margin businesses, even these, even these weed shops. Yeah. So let's say you do $10 million in revenue. in a month, but it cost you $9.9 million to buy your product, to pay wages, to do your rent, all of that. So you made $100,000 of profit in that month. You would then owe the federal government and the state government taxes on that $100,000. Yes. But if you can't deduct the costs of your illegal business, you actually technically should owe on all $10 million. So now you have a, you know, let's say $3 million tax bill on $100,000 worth of operating

profit. Obviously, you're bankrupt immediately. So this tries to rationalize that. I was saying on the Friday show that 20 years ago, you could see a mentality among the early marijuana business people who were getting into the medical world, that they thought the whole system was corrupt. It's all pay to play. That you need the right lobbyists. You need to hire the right people. And they went about doing that as soon as they could have had, as soon as they had a little bit of money, they'd hire some former member of Congress. And their vision-

John Boehner? Yeah. Former Speaker- Right. And then they got more money and they do John Boehner. Their vision was, we need to be as corrupt as the rest of American. industries are. They've succeeded. And they're there. They're wildly succeeded. You look at them from 20 years ago and you looked at this today. They'd be like, yes, that's exactly how we saw this was going to get over the time. We didn't know it was going to be Donald freaking Trump, but we knew we were going to,

where we were going to try to hire somebody who would then become a powerful government official. The fact that she became chief of staff is like even better. Like, that's like hitting the industrial lottery. Lottery. Boom. We're in. So go long on your week. weed stocks. Well, by the way, that's another insider trading thing. So if a weed CEO is literally in an Oval Office meeting where you know something's going to happen, I checked the weed ETF, MSOS or whatever, was up by 50% after this Washington Post Pro broke. So, oh, maybe you just

put out a little taste for your friends. When I'm not alleging that, I'm just saying it's potential for corruption. I'm not in this specific instance. And did it go up right before the story or did it go up after? It came up, it went up after those stories. So beforehand there was like, well, I mean, there was some movement throughout the day. As you know, I had the, I had the rumor. I was waiting, trying to get a confirmed. So a lot of people do. A lot of people in Washington knew. Like, hours before the Washington Post story broke. Yeah. I mean, I guess I'm an idiot because I didn't mind. Right. It's like, I had it when the market was open. I'm just not corrupt enough to do anything like that. We don't like. Yeah. We don't do that. Exactly. That's not, that's not my mentality,

but apparently that's a mentality of some people, because you could immediately see movement there in the hours beforehand. I just want to, again, whether you agree, disagree, this is not how stuff should be happening, all right? And I get it. This is a small ball, and most of the people who watch the show probably support it anyways. And that's fine. That's your right as an American. That said, this is an absurd way to be making, to be doing business as a country. As you explained perfectly around the tax implications and all of that, they're like, well, it's unfair. I'm like, no, it's not because we're living in an absurd system where it's technically state legal and not. Like, no, you have to change the law. If you want

access to the United States tax code, you have to change the law. Period. I just get to decide because of vibes, you know, based on schedule status, which is an executive order that's gone through. Also, on the polling, what that guy said in CNBC was total bullshit. There's a 13% drop just this year for legalization of weed amongst Republicans. I hope I can take some credit for that. And actually, there's a drop amongst independence and even amongst Democrats because of the system that's completely run amok. You have like big tobacco-era style. corruption and capitalism, preying on young minds. The entire system is built around addiction. That's what I was saying earlier. The vat—20-something percent of people who smoke weed

use it every single day. Addicted. Okay, you're addicted, period. There's no getting around that. And all the medical benefits are bullshit. Sorry. Just came out. Jama, new study. Almost every single widespread claim when it was analyzed showed no statistical benefit for so-called medical marijuana. Well, what about the appetite enhancement? Okay, Ryan, again, whenever it comes to solely just on marijuana itself, in comparison to the other miracle drug, which you just said, it doesn't exist. You can go read the study for yourself. Now, I'm not saying that people don't use it for said benefit. Fine. And I'm not even saying people should be locked up for using it. I've never believed that. I still don't believe it, even though it is bullshit. There's nobody in prison right now

for smoking weed. There's not a single person who's in prison for smoking weed. Nobody goes to jail for smoking weed. Some people... No, they don't, Ryan. It's been proven. It's, I can show you the statistics. It's completely false. I had a, I had a friend from the Eastern Shore who went to jail for, uh, for weed. Wait, in the 90s? This 90s early 2000s. Right. So there you, I'm talking about today. It doesn't exist. People don't go to jail for smoking weed. Did they go to jail for smoking weed? Did they go to jail in the past? Uh, no, even, actually. No, even that it would be difficult. The federal statistics on this are ironclad. Ariana Huffington and Joyce introduced me to Bill O'Malley, what's his name,

O'Malley, the Maryland governor. Oh, Martin O'Malley. And we were talking about Maryland, and I was telling him, like, he was a governor at the time. I was like, you know, I've got a friend doing weekends now. Oh, really? He's like, that's impossible. Like, nobody's in jail for weed.

Where's he live? And I was like, Eastern Shore. He's like, oh, okay, actually. That could be. Is there something up with the cops there? It's just much harsher. Okay, I don't know much about Maryland. It's a, these rural areas in general, they are just much harsher towards defendants than like Baltimore, for instance.

Sure. Okay, okay. Fair. Like, you go to a Baltimore judge over weed, he's going to yell at the cop. Like, what are you doing, wasting my time? Right, right. Weed in a more rural area. But even today, I don't think that that's the case. Probably not. I mean, I've looked at the, I've looked at the federal and the state stats, which are all like, like, there is nobody in jail, especially federal prison. Nobody is in jail for smoking weed. Bullshit. claim, just so everybody understands. That said, I don't think you should have existed in the past. I don't think she existed today. Now, one thing you might like about this is that moving it to schedule three opens up more... Yeah, now they have to justify it. It also moves it

to, it opens up more research possibilities. We don't need any research. We know everything we need to know. You can always have more research. There are tens of millions of people who use this drug every single day. We know everything we need to know. That's like me saying we need to study alcohol. What, I need to tell you that it gets drunk and it ruins your sleep? I don't need to prove that to you. It makes you dizzy. Huh? Yeah. Oh, Shaya. Yeah. Come on! Right? More research is good, though. No, for what?

For what? We just went through the medical claims are BS. It could be, so the other thing I learned from studying the history of all different drugs is that when you get a Wild West situation, you as a supporter of that situation might like it for a year or two. It never stays that way. Like the fact that there's now a little bit of a backlash that you're pointing to is completely. historically in line with all of the trends. Cocaine was, like, popular in the 1890s. Yeah, which was insane.

And then it's everywhere, and then people are like, ah, we don't like this everywhere, actually. Well, we had literal cocaine's who were robbing pharmacies. It was wild. Yeah, so then they cracked down on it. So you get this pendulum swinging back and forth. So if you actually are a supporter of weed, you want to see it more out in the open

and you want to see the harms discussed publicly in a way that allows the society to get it under control. control a little bit. Otherwise, you get the hammer instead. I'm the hammer. Yeah, it's socialism or barbarism. You're going to get the barbarism here. Yeah, I mean, it would be better than, you know, widespread weed use literally everywhere you go. But look, I'm being wildly hyperbolic. I always enjoyed talking about it with you. And just as a tease, Griffin and I have filmed our review of Reefer Madness. It clocked in at 90 minutes. We enjoyed the hell out of it. We enjoyed it. We enjoyed the hell out of just watching the film,

reviewing the film. It's one of the most important films of the last night. Is this going to be one of the holiday episodes? It's going to be one of our holiday episodes. We have all the clips. We have clips. It's a real movie review. Griffin was actually, because Griffin went to film school, so he actually really knows like how to dissect and do a film review. And then I insert my

I give some color commentary on the film, but we also delve into some of the claims of everything. I'm watching this one. It's a good, it's a in my, look, very few people probably will watch it, but I enjoyed the hell out of doing it. So I hope that you do so. All right, that's one of our many benefits

in addition to much more compelling content by Crystal Ryan and Emily, which I'm sure will be much more highly rated. Also shout out to the breaking points viewer who came to the reason debate. I had me sign his weed pen. That's disgusting. That's disgusting. As I told Saga, multiple people told me

bong rips for Saga. They're lying. That's a lie. Okay? No, anyone, if you were ripping a bong in the morning, in the morning, there's something wrong with you. saying it's it's it's empirically true who's doing it what do you what do you call somebody who drinks in the morning uh an alcoholic yeah all right let's be honest call a spade of spade yeah wait wake and if you have a drink wake and bake when you wake up in the morning yeah it should this is my

whole thing is it's like oh if if you pouring vodka into a diet coke can or like that it's always sunny episode and you're drinking red wine you are a disgusting alcoholic you have a problem bro you have a problem you wake in bed i was like oh it's So chill. So cool and chill. It's not. Like, no. There are people exhaling watching this right now. No, they're not. And if you are, put it down. All right? Throw the bong. Break it. Break it. I forget what I said something. I said bong tears or something like that. Apparently bonged tears are real. That's what a weed smoker informed me. Is that sometimes you hit it so hard. Do they cry? Oh, absolutely. I wouldn't know. All right? I don't want to know. You shouldn't know either. All right. Okay. We'll see you later.

I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me. In season two of RipCurrent, we asked who tried to kill Judy Berry and why. They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. She received death threats before the bombing. You receive more threats after the bombing. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now.

Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History, about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people. horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. We were in the car, like a Rolling Stone came on, and he said, there's a line in there about your mother. And I said, what? What I would do if I didn't feel like I was being accepted is choose an identity of other people can't have. I knew something had happened to me in the middle of the night, but I couldn't hold on to what had happened. These are just a few of the moving and important stories on my 13th season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.