Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/5/26: Iran Seizes Vessels, Tech Stocks Tumble, Trump ICE Pullback In Minnesota

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss Iran seizes two vessels in Persian Gulf, tech stocks tumble, Trump pulls back in Minnesota.   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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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 that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you,

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to hover on the brink of another war. The stock market has taken a dive over AI concerns. Trump is retreating further on ICE deployments. Gates responding to Epstein allegations. We've also got a little tour for you of all of the various Epstein defenders and the defenses that they're offering. I think you might enjoy that one. We're also going to take a look at the latest with regard to this Trump assault on elections. He's doubling down on his previous comments that they should be nationalized and taken over. So that's a fun one. Right. And Tulsi Gabbard is now seizing, what is it, Puerto Rican voting machines. Yes, because to investigate a link to Venezuela, this.

this whole idea that there might be a deal with Maduro is looking more and more plausible by the day. Very plausible. We'll be on Maduro watch. Maduro Stop the Steel Watch. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribing, breakingpoints.com. We have a number of you who have joined the show

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Let's go and put this up here on the screen. Iran's IRGC has seized two vessels in the Persian Gulf, threatening the United States with, quote, massacre and hell, I guess their version of fire and fury. The IRGC's Navy's Public Relations Department alleges that more than one million liters of smuggled fuel were found on the ships, and some 15 foreign crew members were referred to judicial authorities. This happened in what they're claiming are Iranian waters. This is still very, very unclear exactly what's happening, but this is clearly a shot across the bow as diplomatic negotiations with the United States remain very, very in flux. So what they are saying here specifically

is that the Strait of Hormuz will be the place of massacre and hell. I think this crystal is a very clear message, a shot across the bow at Trump after multiple incendiary comments made by the administration yesterday as diplomatic negotiations literally were on, off, and then on again, all in the span of just three hours. We had a very, very significant development here. Yeah. According to Dr.

Parsi, you know, the way the Iranians are thinking now is previously when you've had, you know, Israel attacked them and we attack them, they've done these very limited, coordinated with us, retaliatory strikes to, with the calculation from the Iranians being we don't want this thing to spy

There is a different mindset there now, which is basically like, okay, we tried that. That didn't work. So we need to adopt a different tactic. So I think you can look at this seizure of these vessels and this type of rhetoric, threatening massacre and hell, as a different approach that is responsive to the fact that, hey, they tried the more conciliatory, okay, you can hit us, and we will hit back because we have to, but we're going to coordinate it with you. This is a signal that, you know, this time they, they're going to hit.

may not play that game again, and they feel the need to take a harder line because the previous approach obviously didn't work since we're now, you know, we had claimed that we, oh, we destroyed their nuclear capabilities. Now we're back saying we've got to negotiate over your nuclear capabilities. And by the way, your ballistic missile program, too, which is a new add-on from Israel, which is meant to poison the well, which is meant to back us into a corner of not force, because we have our own agency here, but to push us once again towards war. The ballistic missile edition is completely fake. It was added at the very last minute by the Israelis because it's only a security threat to them, not to us. We're all the way over here. And then the way that we

square that is, well, but we have all these troops in the region. It's like, well, why are the troops in the region to protect Israel? Oh, okay. So that's what this entire thing is about. Nonetheless, this is almost certainly in response yesterday to Trump, yesterday, threatening the Supreme Leader of Iran in an NBC News interview in the Oval Office. Here's what he had to say. Should the Supreme Leader in Iran be worried right now? I would say he should be very worried, yeah. He should be. As you know, they're negotiating with us.

I know they are, but the protesters have said, you know, where are the Americans? You promised them we would have their back? Do we still have their back? Well, we've had their back. And look, that country's a mess right now because of us. We went in, we wiped out their nuclear. So that's a question. If we wanted them out.

You know, we had peace in the Middle East. If I didn't take out their nuclear, think of it. If we didn't take out that nuclear, we wouldn't have peace in the Middle East because the Arab countries could have never done that. They were very, very afraid of Iran. They're not afraid of Iran anymore. We wiped out those beautiful B2 bombers. One's right over there. Those beautiful B2 bombers went in and they hit their target every single bomb and obliterated it.

And because of that, they were going to have a nuclear weapon within one month. Within one month, they were going to have a nuclear weapon. That was a big threat. They're not going to have it anymore. But if we obliterated, what's the deal about? I mean, if there's no more, are they trying to restart the nuclear program? Well, I heard that they are. And if they do, and I let them know, if they do, we're going to send them right back

and do their job again. So you're understanding that they tried to restart it, and that's why you're threatening force. They tried to go back to the site. They weren't even able to get near it. There was total obliteration. But they were thinking about starting a new site in a different. part of the country. We found out about it. I said, you do that. We're going to do very bad things to you. So the Supreme Leader should be very worried. He said that they're one month away during

Midnight Hammer from a nuclear bomb, literally just not true. There's an entire thing about breakout time, et cetera, which Tulsi Gabbard, don't forget, right before Midnight Hammer had said that there is no indication. And in fact, you know, in our interview with Dr. Parsi, as well as a lot of other information that has come out, the Supreme Leader actually takes his fatwa on nuclear weapons very seriously. And it would take a repeal of that. There's been no intelligence indication, I can guarantee you. If they had, the neocons would let us know tomorrow so that we could start a full-blown nuclear war. Nothing has changed on the ground whatsoever, except for the protests. And so the protests are making people very excited about this idea of a shaky regime,

which can just be toppled from the air and turn it into an Israeli civil war rump state. But that is just not where things are. And in fact, you know, what we see right now is we may have exhausted the very last chances of real diplomacy here, and that the current, you know, the current framework from the administration is that this is an illegitimate regime, is that every time that we hit you and or we negotiate, that the goalposts will move. And that's why the Iranian position has changed so dramatically now, basically to the point. And look, the critics are saying that they've always been like this. I don't remember multiple airstrikes and negotiations and crises that were all happening. This is entirely one manufactured of our making and of Israel's making.

And this was underscored by the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday, who again takes direct aim at the leadership of Iran, who apparently we also want to negotiate A2. Let's go ahead and roll that. The Iranian people and the Iranian regime are very unalike. In essence, what the Iranian people want, this is a culture with a deep history. These are people that are the leadership of Iran at the clerical level does not reflect the people of Iran. I know of no other country where there's a bigger difference between the people that lead the country and the people who live there. And so our hope resides in that.

As far as the President's views on the way protesters were treated, it was very clear about it. And as you saw, part of what the President said publicly prevented mass executions that were being planned and were on the precipice of. And obviously, beyond that, the President retains a number of. options to how he responds to that and future events. But as far as the talks are concerned, you know, I think the Iranians had agreed to a certain format for whatever reason has changed in their system or what have you. We'll see if we can get back to the right place. But the United States is prepared to meet with them. I think it was scheduled for Friday.

Steve is ready to go. He'll be prepared for that. If the Iranians want to meet, we're ready. They've expressed an interest in meeting and talking. If they changed their mind, we're fine with that too. We prefer to meet and talk. I'm not sure you can reach a deal with these guys, but we're going to try to find out. We don't see there's any harm in trying to figure out there's something that can be done. This is a president that always prefers a peaceful outcome to any conflict or any challenge. So you can all see very clearly here, you know, this is a direct shot. We would like to meet, but it's like the people of Iran deserve basically freedom. I mean, I guess maybe you can hold those together. But, Crystal, when we put it in pair with what

happened yesterday, it is very clear there is a massive factional war inside the Trump administration. Let's put this one up here on the screen just so we can show all of you. So basically, as of yesterday morning, we were supposed to meet with the Iranians after some pushback from them saying we don't want to meet with regional partners. We just want to meet one-on-one with the United States. Those talks were then called off as of midday. Then by the end of the day, the plans for the U.S.-Iran talks are actually back on after several Arab and Muslim leaders urgently lobbied the Trump administration Wednesday afternoon not to

follow through on threats to walk away. Quote, they asked us to keep the meeting to listen to what the Iranians have to say. We have told the Arabs we will do the meeting if they insist, but we are very skeptical. The officials said at least nine countries had passed on messages the most senior levels of the Trump administration strongly asking do not cancel the meeting with the Iranians in Oman. And as second U.S. officials said that the Trump administration agreed to take the meeting with the Iranians to be respectful of the request of U.S. allies and in order to coordinate pursuing the diplomatic track. So very clearly, the Arab powers are freaking out because people forget this. It's not just Israel. Where was that token strikeback from the Iranians? Doha, Qatar, who by the way

also got struck by Israel. And then we signed some non-aggression pact with Doha, Saudi Arabia, the Straits of Hormuz. We have massive amounts of oil that move through there. So this would be a destabilization event, which the Iranians now with their seizure this morning are making clear we can wreak absolute havoc. The price of oil skyrocketed on the news. Initially, whenever the meetings were supposed to be canceled, I'm sure that the raid this morning will also have some sort of follow-on effect. But it is clear that there's a deteriorating situation, and we keep narrowing the goalpost to make it so that it's like war seems to be one of the only options left that's currently on the table. Absent, a genuine breakthrough tomorrow, which we can all hope for.

But if you're Iran, the last time you were scheduled to meet with Steve Wickoff, we bombed you. So what are they going to do in this meeting? And if you're any of these, you know, regional powers and allies of the U.S., you also have to feel a little bit nervous about how sufficient our defenses are going to be. I mean, you watched, and this, again, wasn't covered that much in the Western press. But last time, you know, our stockpiles and Israeli stockpiles of, you know, of defense interceptors, missile defense interceptors, were running low. Israel was struck. Now, Iran, I have no doubt, took more damage, but there was, there were significant blows struck inside of Israel. So they also can't feel totally confident that like, the U.S. is just going to have our back and it's not going to be a problem and we're not going to take on any

damage. And then are they excited about having, you know, a failed state in Iran and all of the chaos that entails and spillover effects, which, you know, nobody understands what that can look like better than the countries in this region. So, listen, I have no idea, I have no inside knowledge, whether we are going to strike Iran imminently or not. But what I can say is what we've seen over the course of this administration and at other lower levels under other administrations as well is they are continuing to push in this direction. I mean, the protests are both organic, like there's genuine upset in the country over the government. I don't want to downplay that whatsoever, but that also is fomented by our intentional squeezing of the Iranian economy.

You know, you've got the precipitating event was this currency collapse. And there's every indication that we were involved in that. So we're trying this, we're cycling through a variety of ways to try to squeeze this government, to try to cause some sort of collapse. You know the Israelis are not going to stop pushing in this direction. So I have zero optimism that we're not going to, in some way or another, continue down this track, whether this means imminent kinetic action, or whether that's further down the road, or whether we try some other tactic or whatever. And that's without even talking about, you know, Mike Pompeo bragging about the Mossad agents in the streets alongside the protesters. Yeah, I mean, if anything, you know what, I think we may,

perhaps may have a chance on off-ramp here because what Trump and them are afraid of is a full-blown war. And it seems that the Iranians are basically willing to roll the dice, again, what Parsi told us was, we know we can't win a war, but we can make it pretty miserable for all of you and for everybody else. We're at long-term strategy, long-time strategy of U.S. adversaries and put on this last element, please, A5, quote, U.S. Iran agreed to discuss nuclear talks on Friday, but originally they said Iran is going to play hardball with the U.S. to throw it off of balance. And what they're saying behind the scenes is that with the seizure that we saw this morning and in general was that they are just not going to, to be, they're not going to be pressed back into the corner that they found themselves originally. And in particular, we shot down this drone recently. Now they're, you know, threatening things with their Navy. They're making clear there will be no more token strikes on our country.

It's do or die. And basically calling the bluff of the United States of you can try, if you want, we're going to make it very, very difficult. And a lot of your people may die as well as the global economy may be completely ruptured. Trump and his people are friends. of that because while yes, they've had their tremendous success mission in Venezuela and they did have Midnight Hammer, they haven't had a real military engagement with any serious amounts of risk. And they're making it clear, no, we're going to make it very, very difficult for you. It's a smarter strategy. I mean, and it is based on what we've all observed with Trump, I mean, his taco tendencies, right? Especially when the markets start to get squirrelly. And so,

you know, what they're banking on is, okay, the conciliatory approach obviously didn't work. because here we are back having our country threatened again. This did not succeed. And so what does Trump actually respect? And what he respects and what he responds to is, hey, listen, yeah, you have more firepower than we do. But we can make you suffer. We can cause pain.

We can cause pain among your regional allies. We can exact a price on your service members or in the region. And critically, we can cause a lot of financial pain. I mean, this is the weapon of warfare that we've been consistently using against Iran. And the Iranians have their own cards that they can play with regard to that. No, obviously they don't have all the levers of the global financial system the way that we do. But they do have very critical location and obviously very critical to the oil market. So, and, you know, are our citizens ready to pay that price?

No, they don't want that. They're not interested in that. And Trump is not going to be around forever. So like, okay, we can threaten you credibly with exacting some pain. And we don't think that you really are up to that. We don't think you really have the stomach to persist if we credibly threaten you. And so it is a, in my opinion, you know, it is much more intelligent strategy given Trump's psychology and what we've seen play out with regard to other countries, you know, even with the Greenland

pullback, right? Where he was gung-ho and all in. And the fact that there was, there were some wiggles in the market, that was enough to cause him to pull back from the brink. So I think that's what they're counting on as well. Right. We'll see, you know, it's smart until it's not smart. And then what, millions of your own people die as well as our own people, right? And so that's the, that's the risk. And, you know, you can read a book to see how many times they're like, oh, well, they're only going to respect strength. And then next thing, you know, you end up in a lie or some sort of false flag incident.

And then boom, we're off, you know, and then at that point, nothing can happen. Our Congress has disappeared. They're looking at it, obviously, though, was like, you know, we're sort of damned if we do, if we damned if we don't. Our country's going to get attacked either way. If I were them, I would be doing something way more dramatic than what they're doing now currently. So I have no idea. Well, and that was the other thing that Dr. Parsley said. The way that they're acting. Yes. And that's the other thing Dr. Parsi said is actually a majority of the Iranian government

is in favor of racing to a nuke. And it's really the supreme leader that holds them back because he takes, as you said earlier, his own fatwa against nukes seriously. But that is the logic that we've laid out. That is the rational behavior that we have created that Trump has created in the space. And that's the last thing, is we have this dream of, we'll strike the Supreme Leader. Well, as we've often said with Putin, who knows what comes next? What's the reality of what would actually succeed?

Who are the people who have all the weapons and all the money? The IRGC, the people who are in the naval boats who are trying to seize right now, those are the people who want nukes. Those are the people who sprint ballistic missile. Those are the people who've been running smuggling for years and who are filthy rich and who have an immense amount of power inside of the country. Unless you kill literally all of them, which seems relatively impossible, well, and then you occupy the country and then try and force some sort of democratic transition,

they're probably the most likely group to be able to seize power. So don't be so sure that things are going to be working out all that well on our behalf. So speaking of the economy and crash, when we get to that? Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, We interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm in Alec Lamoma. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated.

And Black America is out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia at Martin's Almermata, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King's senior and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people would die. In 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest.

It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A-building on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Seems like just yesterday that the Two Guys' Five Rings podcast was in Paris for the Olympics. And now we're heading to Milan with the 26th. Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games. I'm Bowen-Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers, and we'll join athletes

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Search Two Guys Five Rings. And listen now. Speaking of the market, we have a lot of very interesting and troubling news going on there. The features are down this morning.

there was a significant drop in the market yesterday. And it seems to be because there is a bit of an oh shit moment happening with regard to what AI is going to mean for our economy. So let's go and put this Wall Street Journal, tear sheet up on the screen. And the TLDR here of a number of news reporting that I'm going to show you in just a moment is that non-techies, such as myself, are beginning to really reckon with, okay, AI development might be good for this handful of companies that are leading the way. But what about all of these other tech companies whose services are going to be effectively taken over by these AI agents? So one of those industries is, they say AI threatens the Wall Street Cash Cow, financial and legal data. And just if you think about it

logically, you know, if you're paying and people who are, you know, insider like traders and who are in the industry, they pay big bucks for these services to, analyze financial and legal information. Well, if you have a free or a very low-cost AI agent that can do all of that for you in a custom way, are you really going to shell out those dollars for these subscriptions? So I'll read you a little bit of this article. They say for years it seemed like a surefire business model amass vast tropes of financial data and sell it to Wall Street for a premium. Then Claude came along, and that's Anthropics product. Shares of companies like S&P Global, MSCI, Intercontinental Exchange, London Stock Exchange Group,

FACC set research systems all tumbled this week after fast-growing artificial intelligence startup Anthropic unveiled a new suite of tools for automating legal tasks. The new legal plug-in for Anthropics cowork assistant powered by its AI model Claude didn't seem to have much to do with financial data. Nonetheless, LSEG, which has spent years pivoting away from his traditional stock exchange business to selling data and analytics, slid 13% on Tuesday before inching lower on Wednesday. day. And so again, the theory here is that people are really starting to be able to envision what AGI and what already the capabilities that AI has is going to mean for these different

markets. Now, what these companies, to give their side of the story, what they say, the ones that are doing all this financial analysis, they say, yeah, but we have our own proprietary data that Claude is not going to have access to. But, you know, at least as of today, investors are betting, that's not going to be sufficient. And by the way, as their capabilities develop, you know, much of this data is going to continue to be off limits and continue to be proprietary where you have to pay to gain access to it. Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you continue to look at it's, and by the way, these stocks have been on wild swings. So LSEG went down by, you know, 15%, then back up by 8%. It's difficult to track, like, day to day. But the overall point is that the Claude code, which again,

I'm a Claude subscriber. I don't think I pay more than 100, whatever, 150 bucks to be able to use the product. If I can just simply go in there, use their AI legal tool, and analysis, tool to automate or get, let's say, 80% of the way that I could have been previously for something that costs tens of thousands of dollars, the asymmetry of that wipes out any real ability or want to have to pay for a lot of these types of premium products. And actually, it's kind of fascinating because what you're watching is the destruction. And we've talked about white-collar work, and we've also talked about legal work. What you were watching is the destruction of the high-dollar, almost management consulting, data-based industry. So like the McKinsey's

and all of these other people who would come in and they would do proprietary slideshows and all that. And again, look, while I don't think that AI is going to cure cancer or any of that, I do think it's pretty good at automating some of the most base tasks and data collection and putting that stuff in there. Obviously, you still need a little bit of quality control, but the amount of brute force that people used to have to do, especially if you were an Excel jockey and all that,

a lot of it is starting to go away and has been now for years, but especially accelerated with AI. So if all of that goes away instantaneously, relatively, like in market terms, for five-year period, and you can see a path to almost 80 to 100% automation, that is going to actually nuke a significant sector of our economy. What's really scary about this, and we can put the next one up here on the screen, is this reveals actually some of the dangers of the way that our modern economy has structured. I've tried warning about this for years. We are a completely service-based economy, which is great until all the services get automated and rolled up into AI.

So while our GDP overall may actually increase because the stocks of Google, Anthropic and all these open AI will increase, the number of jobs that will be there may reduce. And it's not like we have stuff and companies that make a lot of things, physical things, steal or any manufacturing base that we have. you know, to be able to absorb any of this. So our service-based economy is uniquely, you know, is uniquely susceptible to be dramatically disrupted by AI. Yeah.

Which would also wipe out and hurt the entire upper middle class, really, of the country. Yeah. It would disrupt the university education system, which for the last 20 years of the top 20 schools have been feeders to BCG, McKinsey, Accenture and all of the, I mean, it destroys like this entire fabric around all these things. So imagine them the downstream effects. Like, what are the suburbs of major cities going to look like?

The ones around here, toast. Take a drive around Northern Virginia, Deloitte, KPMG, you know, all of the defense contract. I guess they'll be fine. But everybody else, you're like. Palantir stock dropped yesterday, too, which is kind of interesting. Exactly. The point is that data analysis, if you make it so that it's no longer high dollar and super proprietary and broadly available, that's going to massively disrupt.

significant portion of our service-based economy, and it's not like we have a lot of other stuff to absorb it. And then, like yesterday, it comes out that Google is spending like a hundred and $180 billion on data centers and Kappex spend. If there's a single bust there, then we're screwed all around. Like, it's not good. It makes us very, very susceptible to a huge economic shock. Chris Hayes had a viral tweet that I think captures the sentiment you're expressing while. He said, I think it's best for Irun to understand that the unified class project of billioners right now is to do to white-collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue-collar workers. Keep pushing the share of national income away from labor towards capital, replace the kinds

of workers that they think are uppity and spoiled, ultimately, turn Marin County into Youngstown, Ohio. He then goes on, and I do think this is important note here, he says, my very smart friend in finance urges me to clarify, I mean, the tech AI oligarchs, hashtag not all billioners, and points out, rightly, I think a lot of the business class is extremely worried about the damage and disruptions if AI becomes what its backer say it will be. And I actually do think that that is correct in a sense because you see this burgeoning divide between where Wall Street is and where the tech oligarchs are. And the place I think you see that most in terms of a proxy fight is over the independence of the Fed. Trump wants to take over the Fed and drop the industry and have control over it, basically to be able to serve the tech

Aligarchus, he's really thrown in with, I mean, obviously he's great for all billionaires at this point in time, and he does love them all. But that is really where he's placed his chips in terms of his administration. Wall Street, obviously being very opposed to that. But in general, you know, the point here stands that, you know, when I graduated from college with an economics degree, I got a job at one of these, you know, consulting firms around here. And what did I do? I worked on a help desk, right? I'm trying to help users with the product I barely understood. But, you know, that was how I learned. Do you think that that sort of thing? No. And I was doing all kinds of spreadsheet analysis. I was a total Excel jockey. All of that can be done. You know, easily now they could just get someone

who was a little more experienced to use AI to do something that took, you know, my work product that took like a month to spin out. And that is, that's already done. So you think of, you know, everybody I graduated from college with basically got that same sort of job. That is what really at this point, with our economy shifting so far away from blue-collar work, that is what so much of, you know, our economy is based around. And yeah, the goal is, and this is already happening right now, is automating all of that away. And listen, I didn't really enjoy that job. It's not like it was great. And if there's some new brave world where, you know, we can all pursue our passions and that we're going to share in the profits of all of these gains and productivity from the AI,

that's one thing. But that's obviously not the reality and the economy that we have set up. And it's obviously not what these oligarchs are pushing for. Even the most, like, quote unquote, progressive of them, the guy who runs Anthropic, he's like, progressive taxation. It's like, that is not, that comes to nowhere close to dealing with the problem at scale that we're looking at. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are up.

And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast and I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Seems like just yesterday that the Two Guys' Five Rings podcast was in Paris for the Olympics.

And now we're heading to Milan for the 26 Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games. I'm Bowen-Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers, and we'll join athletes from 93 countries as Two Guys Five Rings hits the Italian Alps for the 26 Milan-Cortina Olympic Winter Games. Open your free IHart Radio app. Do we mention it's free? Search Two Guys Five Rings. And listen now. Welcome to the A building.

I'm Hans Charles. I'm Inelik Lamouber. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated, and Black America was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's Almermata,

Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr., and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people would die. In 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest.

It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A building on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We can put the next one up on the screen. this is B3. U.S. tech stocks hit by fresh wave of selling as chipmakers, Qualcomm, and AMD tumble. They say U.S. tech stocks hit by a fresh wave of selling. There was an AMD fueled selloff. That's another chipmaker spark by concerns about the impact of AI on software businesses. And so the thinking here is basically like, again, all of this, like so much coding can be done by people who don't have a technical background. You know, if you spend a little bit of time,

understanding how to code with Claude, you can spin out products that, you know, previously would have taken years and years and years and years and years of training and lots and lots of work to be able to do. It's called vibe coding, right? And so you have that. You have with these AI agents, and we talked about this in the context of Maltbuck and this claw bot or open claw, I think it's called now, where, you know, you can send out these AI agents to do all sorts of things for you. And the ideas, ultimately, rather than you going to an app or you going to a separate software product, you're just going to ask your AI agent to do it and not even interact directly with those apps.

So what does that mean for the entire economy? And that's what the market is just now really starting to grapple with. There is also this is interesting and fun in terms of the sort of battle between these different AI players. Sager was saying that the Super Bowl is going to be like the AI Super Bowl. So many of the ads are going to be... If you haven't been watching the NFL, like it's already probably 30% AI ads, but this time around,

because of the dollar value and the ability for them to just throw money, like I think a massive portion are all just going to be AI. And by the way, already they're releasing some of them. So Claude is now going to have a premium Super Bowl ad, which will take a shot at Open AI. So let's go ahead and take a listen.

How do I communicate better with my mind? on. Great question. Improved communication with your mom can bring you closer. Here are some techniques you can try. Start by listening. Really hear what she's trying to say underneath her words. Build conversation from points of agreement. Find a connection through shared activity. Perhaps a nature walk. Or if the relationship can't be fixed, find emotional connection with other older women on golden encounters, the mature dating site that connects sensitive cubs with roaring cougars. What? Would you like me to create your profile?

So that's from Claude saying that's why you should use ours because we're not doing ads, but OpenAI is doing ads. To be honest with you, I feel like that commercial makes all AI look bad. I was going to say, it's like what we're all sparring about is who will be able to chat with me and whether we serve you ads or not. I mean, I would rather have... Give you advice about your relationship with your mom. Yeah. Yeah. How about this? Don't ask AI about your relationship with your mom.

Like, period. You know, maybe talk to your mom about it or somebody else, like another human being. Sam Altman, very, very upset about this ad. Let's put this up here. By the, he claims he laughed. I don't think he did. He said, for the first, the good part of the Anthropic ads, they're funny, and I laugh.

And then a wall of text. I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we don't do... exactly this. We would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid. We know our users would reject it. I guess it's on brand for Anthropic double speak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren't real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it. More importantly, we believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access. We believe access creates agency. More Texans use chat GPT for free than

total people use Claude in the United States. So we have a differently shaped problem than they do if you want to pay for chat gpti plus or pro we won't show you at so basically just saying look guys we are an expensive anthropic is an expensive product for rich people they're the same price but actually chat chitpt might be more expensive chat chpt pro uh well is there like not a free version of anthropic might be what they're maybe there is an eye i don't really know but i look it depends i actually prefer clod for anything technical and in specifically anything math related chat chp t is usually better at like some of the more research. I think the general consensus is Claude is kind of

in the lead now tech-wise, right? That's my understanding. It depends on what you mean by that. For coding, et cetera, yes. But yeah, I mean, the whole point is just that these people, all they have created is a new Google. That's it. And that's fine.

Actually, it's very useful. But that's not going to cure cancer. And in fact, I recently read a Washington Post article, which was a guy who uploaded his health data to chat GPT and got completely misdiagnosed. He took it to a doctor and the doctor was like, this is bullshit, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. And I was just like, man, the promises that they sold to us are just, are not true.

Like, and instead they're going all in on porn, erotica, advertising, Super Bowl. Like, if you have to average, if your product, you need to massively advertise on the Super Bowl for why. But, you know, because you haven't seen, like the NFL ads, the chat GPT, it's like, help draft my workout plan or something. Like, it's not revolutionary shit. Yeah. That's really happening. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I go back and forth on this because in terms of, yeah, my day-to-day,

I find all kinds of problems with whatever, you know, chat bot I'm using. But then I see things like, you know, the way that people who are more tech savvy are using Claude and the AI agents and, you know, the capabilities that they already have. And then I'm sure you saw this clip that Griffin sent to our group about, you know, I'm talking about these scientists or at a conference, like these, the AI is already good enough that it's doing like, you know, 90% of what I can do. And these, I'm talking about like some of the most brilliant minds in the entire world. So I don't know. I go back and forth on what this stuff, how powerful this is, where it's going, where it is right now, et cetera. And, you know, I really don't have a clear,

I don't have a clear understanding of how revolutionary what we already have is. There was a good article in, I believe it was in Nature magazine by a number of scientists who were saying, you know, by any reasonable metric, it already has achieved AGI. And they made a pretty persuasive case that it, they actually, in some of the tests, the people who were testing it found it to be human, like guessed that it was human more often than they guessed actual humans were humans. So, you know, by the standard of the Turing test, which has always been the gold standard, they were like, you know, we kind of aren't really acknowledging it, but we're already there. What does that mean? I can't say.

I mean, I just can't. I don't know that anyone can. So in any case, I go back and forth on all of that. And this is a good place to put up this one. So this is, we talked earlier about MaltBook, which is Reddit, but just for AI. So you have all of these AI agents who congregated there and they're, you know, talking to each other and they're spinning up religion and they're talking about, you know, whether they should do a takeover and get rid of these pesky humans and, you know, these very existential questions. And, you know, there's all sorts of like, I mean, in one sense, they're just like apiece. human behavior. There's also a bug where humans could just directly effectively post through

their AI bots. So it was important to keep all of that in mind. But now put B6 up on the screen. Now we have this edition, which is a rent-a-human website where it says robots need your body and goes on to say, you know, AI can't go out into the world and do things, but you can. So human being, let us robots use your body to go out and do whatever we need you to do in the world. And we're pay you. So this is, you know, it's gig work. It's like, what is the, what is it, what are the ones that are for individual tasks? What's it called? Something rabbit, whatever. Task rabbit. Yeah. Task rabbit. There you go. It's like task rabbit, but the person who's assigning the tasks is robot. So, you know, one of the things that people have been thinking is, okay, well, we can't be

too scared about these AI agents like taking over because they can't actually go out in the physical world and do anything that's like, here's a wave of humans signing up to be like, we'll do your stuff for you. Don't worry. Just pay us a given amount and we'll go out in the world and do your bidding. So already with this, the relationship is reversed, where it's no longer the human telling the robot, hey, can you do this and that and compile this report and, you know, book me a hotel or whatever. Now it's the robot saying, hey, human, can you go out in the world and do whatever? I know one of the tasks was go make a sign and hold it on the side of the road and say AI is paying me to hold this sign.

So I don't know what other tasks are being assigned out. And who knows? Like, you know, but it's just, and like, who knows and whether this, how real this is and what it really means, but already the prospect of how the relationship between human and robot can get flipped around and inverted very quickly. Like, it's here. It's manifesting itself. Yeah, I mean, I just take it back to this point about the stock market crash,

crash, by the way, it's a couple percent. So I don't want to take it too far. But you have enough of a hit and some sort of volatility, which is making people question the foundation of the economy. And as we've talked about with Russia and with Ukraine, it turns out that you can be cut off from the global financial system. You can lose McDonald's, the horror, right? You can lose access to U.S. fast food, the American banking system, and be subject to the

worst possible sanctions that have ever existed in the Western world. And as long as you have a shitload of guns and a shit. shitload of oil, you'll probably be okay. What is going to happen to us? While yeah, we have oil, we can't actually create all that many guns for our own defense. It turns out that our highly connected, globalized economy makes us dramatically vulnerable to any sort of shock. China and Taiwan, I've talked about our laptops, video game systems. We don't make anything here. Can we really produce even enough cars for a single year if everybody decided that, you know, just to be able to want a new, like no, none of this exists.

for our domestic capacity, from chips, and I'm talking at the advanced level, let alone the more basic level. We rely on Canada, we rely on Mexico. We rely on Europe for some high-tech manufacturing. We rely on Asia for all of our lower goods. Even clothing. Most of the clothing that we look at. Take a look at the charts for our trading with Vietnam. How did Vietnam become a top 10 trading partner to the U.S.? Cheap clothing? Like, we don't make anything. Or does anybody even remember how to darn clothing or anything? No, it's all gone. Even the suit I'm wearing, probably from China, to be honest. And you can just see this over and over and over again.

And if we have some sort of crash or effect, what we're going to watch is that if we lose the white-collar wealth, we don't have anything that we make, and then we're going to be in a full-blown societal crisis. Not saying it's going to happen overnight, but, you know, it can happen in 10 years, 12, 15? Like, think about when was the iPhone, the first true iPhone, the one that was widely adopted?

It was like 10? Yeah, so was the iPhone 4. right, iPhone 4, so 2010. That was 16 years ago. It feels like a lifetime. It wasn't that long, but think about how much our economy has been disrupted and changed just since then. Not to mention,

I mean, what, NAFTA? There's probably a decent amount of people who were alive who remember what life was like pre-NafTA. Now watch what has happened in the interim some 30 years and then try to imagine what it will look like in the future. We have not gotten serious. We refuse to do it. Without a huge shock, we're not going to change anything.

Well, and here's what I want people to, can this to the Epstein files and the other reporting we've been doing on this show. Like, one thing you should take away from that is the billionaire class, they don't care whether you live or die. They truly don't think of you as a full human. Well, they don't even think of themselves as human. They think that they're above them. What is, what is consistently comes across in Epstein emails? How much better he thinks he is than everybody else. And actually, you're like, wait, I'm maybe smarter than you, actually. I can spell. I mean, Epstein was a transhumanist. Another way of saying that is basically

is a eugenicist. There's no, I mean, you read about, he had all these plans, and this is reported out in the New York Times. This is not like kookery, right? To use his ranch to have some baby incubator factory. And he talks in there about what a foolish idea Bill Gates has that comes from the stupid Catholics

about all humans being equal, et cetera, et cetera. There's an email out there where some guy is saying to him, I keep thinking over what you say about how we get rid of the poor people altogether. Like, I mean, this is, Epstein's ideology, and clearly what comes across is this is shared by a broad swath of billionaires. So they only care that they are destroying your lives and taking your jobs to the extent that you are going to retaliate and that that causes problems for them.

That's the only thing. Then that's just like a math problem for them to figure out and solve and figure out how they can deal with that. But I mean, truly, and we're already at a place where, you know, previously, And the current still reality of our economy, as much of it is bolstered by consumer spending, right? That's what the U.S. economy is really built around. The bulk of that is already done by the rich. So then truly, what are you, you know, what are you average person good for? They find you just to be like a pesky problem to be solved and to be dealt with. So I think

it's very important to, you know, fuse these things together. And that's why the Epstein-Files release is so incredibly important to really understand the way. way they think, the way they see the world. And by the way, you know, this is the true definition of a globalist. Like, they, they don't have any allegiance to nation states. Like, there's a part where Mandelson, who, you know, we're going to talk more in the Epstein block about how the whole Kirstarm or government might be brought down by this because they still have a functioning society over there, unlike us, apparently, in any case, Mandelson is plotting with Epstein against the interest of the UK in favor of the interest of the financiers and figuring out how to use Jamie Diamond

to get what they want for the banks, which was, again, directly, which they saw as being directly in contradiction to the interests of the UK. So that's the way they operate in the world. And so it's really important to keep that in mind when you see what they're developing and the way they're approaching, the way they're going about it. And, you know, I think we have to, we have to grapple with the reality that this technology is here. It's not going away. And we have to figure out how we want to craft a social contract that is going to work for everyone. And, you know, not going to be just led by these oligarchs who truly do, they actually prefer that. I mean, they don't care if you live or die. That's the best you could say. And the worst you

could say is actually they prefer you dead because you're a problem alive. Yeah, that's very, very, very true. All right, let's get to ICE. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we We interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm in a Nicolik Lamoma. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated and Black America was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia at Martin's Almermata, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A-building on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Seems like just yesterday that the Two Guys' Five Rings podcast was in Paris for the Olympics. And now we're heading to Milan with the 26th. Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games. I'm Bowen-Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers,

and we'll join athletes from 93 countries as Two Guys Five Rings hits the Italian Alps for the 26 Milan-Cortina Olympic Winter Games. Open your free IHartRadio app. Did we mention it's free? Search Two Guys Five Rings.

And listen now. All right, so we had some very interesting comments from President Trump yesterday with regard to his deployment of ice to various cities. around the country. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. So I want to be clear because it sounds like there is a shift in immigration enforcement here that there's going to be a shift after Minneapolis. What should Americans expect going forward?

Well, one thing I say to my people, you know, we do a good job, we don't get credit for it. I say they have to ask and they have to say please. When a city is going to ask and who has to say please. The mayor or the governor, I don't want to go and force ourselves into a city, even if their numbers are terrible. Like, for instance, I got a call from Jeff Landry, governor of Louisiana. He said, we have a big problem. Could you go in and help us with, with, well, let's see, certain sections. I mean, to be honest with you, certain sections of the state, beyond their famous, beautiful city, certain sections of the state. We have done, not only in New Orleans, we've done a really great job in Louisiana, but I was called. I want to be

called Chicago. We could solve the Chicago crime. Well, on that question, which cities are you headed to next? We have five cities that we're looking at very strongly, but we want to be invited. We will sometimes call the governors and say, are they cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, are these the cities? We could straighten out the crime in Chicago. We've already brought it down 25% just by being there. We could have Chicago be a safe city, just like D.C. is a safe city, just like all of these places that we've gone to. And I look forward. You know, I didn't campaign on that. I campaigned on law and order, but I didn't think I'd be going into individual cities and making them safe. Anything else you can tell us about the five cities, the five cities, anything else?

So Americans are ready. We'll be announcing them very quickly. But we could do something. As an example, I was called by people. San Francisco said, please, we have a Democrat mayor. He's trying very hard. Would your friends of mine that live there, it's got crime problems? Would you let him do the job and not come in?

Let's see how it works. I said, look, I can do it much quicker, much faster. Don't forget, we remove criminals. We took over 2,000 hardcore criminals out of Washington, D.C. If we didn't do that, 2% of the people create 90% of the crime. Think of that. 2%. So you have a criminal, because it's over and over again, 2% create 90% of the crime.

We took out 2,000 people, more than 2,000 people out of Washington, D.C., and we now have a safe city. So obviously the most noteworthy part there is him saying that they want to be asked. They're not going to just go in. Obviously, we're not asked to go into L.A. or Chicago or Minneapolis. Those are the places that, you know, they surged into create a huge conflict with the population. And, you know, you ended up with two Americans dead in the case of Minneapolis. Another noteworthy moment from this interview where he gets asked because what the modus operandi has been is these, you know, mass raids where you're literally going door to door. Stephen Miller yelled. that ICE agents told them they need to go to the Home Depot, forget about all this targeting of actual criminals, just go out there. We're going to set a quota. You need to pick up as many people as you possibly can. These Kavanaugh stops based on how you look

and whether you have an accent or not. Like, that has been the way they are operating. So he gets asked about that. Are you going to continue going in that direction? Are you going to actually focus in on people who are quote unquote criminals? Let's take a listen to that. Looking forward now, your goal during the election

was to deport everyone who came here illegally under President Biden. is your mission now to deport everyone who came in illegally or just people who have come in illegally who have also committed additional crimes? We are totally focused on criminals, really bad criminals. Now, you could say people that came in illegally are criminals, but I'm talking about murderers from different countries. We have 11,888 murderers that Biden and his group led into our country. We've captured a lot of them.

We've brought some of them back. A lot of them we don't want to bring back. because we don't trust the country that they're not sent back again. Despite how strong the borders are, they'll figure a way to try and get in, and we'll incarcerate them. But 11,88 murders, we are after those people. We're after the drug dealers. By the way, a big problem, they allow to come into our country,

people from their mental institutions, people from insane asylums that are mentally ill and very dangerous. We're getting them out. Still, no idea where that particular idea comes from. But what's critical there is, you know, the way Stephen Miller and others talk about undocumented immigrants, when they say we're getting the criminals, they mean all of them because criminals, in their view, is like Trump said, oh, well, we see you as a criminal if you just cross the border illegal or here illegally.

But Trump goes on to specify, that's not actually what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people who committed further violent crimes and used this example of murders. I have no idea whether his numbers are correct. They probably not, but anyway, he specifies that. And one more clip I want to play here before I get Saugers reaction. This all dovetails with Tom Homan, who, of course, is put in charge now of the Minneapolis operation. Greg Bovino is pushed aside.

And Homan is claiming we're going to now, now supposedly they were doing targeted operations all along. Of course, we saw the reality was much different from a quote-unquote targeted operation. Homan is now announcing that they are going to actually, for real, do targeted operations. We'll see if that's the case. And critically, they're drawing down on about a third of the deployment that they've had into Minneapolis. Let's take a listen to that. And as a result of the need for less law enforcement officers to do this work in a safer environment,

I have announced effective immediately. We will draw down 700 people effective today. 700 law enforcement personnel. So 700 people fewer in Minneapolis. Like I said, that's about a third of what had been sent there originally, Saugher. Yeah, this is a huge pivot from the administration. Basically, what has happened is that there's been a sidelining. However, this is going to be just like Iran.

So I want to make it very clear that anything could change at literally any time. And a lot of this is factional. But the administration knows that the pretty situation was a disaster. They know that. What they also know is that by sidelining Bovino, sending in Tom Homan, immediately then announcing that thing – By the way, it's been a week. Take a look on your social media feed. haven't seen a single viral video since that happened. Now, Tom Homan saying we're going to send

700 people away. They're going to dramatically change. Already, there's been a negotiation allegedly behind the scenes and some sort of full exit from Minneapolis does. I'm not going to say it looks imminent, but it's probably on the course for a few months. What they know is that they have lost a significant portion of the public. I mean, look, I mean, even the Peretti situation, because it got so to the point where it was so obviously just not even about immigration, at that point, and it became about something much bigger in terms of Americans. Second Amendment right, they just exposed the administration of the way that they acted in the immediate aftermath.

I actually think that the big turning point is, do you remember when Caroline Levitt refused to repeat the domestic terrorism language from the podium? And she actually threw Stephen Miller under the bus. I think when you combine all of that together, what you're watching is a retrenchment in the immediate term. However, I will say also Trump has been presented, as far as I understand. understand it with another option. But he also doesn't want to take that one. And this is where, look, you know, the liberals will get upset, but like, here's the truth. You could very easily

have a significant mass deportation without any ICE agents if you targeted the business community. But guess what? He's not going to do that. Because Iowa, Ohio, all these other red states have been all on the phone to him now for months saying that workplace raids are bad for business. And one of the things to understand is Tom Homan, while yes, also a proponent of these ice raids on, or of these ICE detainers for criminals has been a significant proponent of workplace rates. And when I say workplace, I'm not talking about the Hyundai raid that was a Stephen Miller special. I'm talking about going after meat packing plants or chicken, you know, like chicken processing facilities where the mega corporations employ vast number of illegal immigrants, but they don't want

to do that because it's going to hurt big business. And at the same time, they're worried about grocery store, inflation. And if we're all being honest, obviously that's a significant reason why that inflation is not even more out of control whenever it comes to food and to agriculture. They don't want to touch the agricultural industry. They're basically in the pockets of the USDA. So I genuinely wonder how long this is going to last because under a so-called home and vision, there will be economic consequences if we're being completely honest, specifically for the richest Americans, for the hotel industry. You know, for example, a lot of the places that rely on legal cheap labor. I mean, that's

massively beneficial to their bottom line. So, when that eventually happens and a billionaire calls Trump and says, this is bad for Marriott hotels, what's going to happen? That's my question as of right now, because that's where I see things headed in that. Well, and the

other side of that is Stephen Miller has a, he is deeply ideological and he's a very effective operator. And so, like the Hyundai thing, that was a Stephen Miller special, right? He, that's what he wanted. Trump claims he didn't even know about it beforehand. I kind of believe him, actually. No, he definitely didn't know. Yeah, that he didn't know that this was going to be done.

And the whole shock and awe approach, like as much as, you know, people want to throw Christy know him into the, but she deserves plenty of scorn and scrutiny as well. Don't get me wrong. Stephen Miller is the person who has architected this entire approach. This is his baby. And there's a Wall Street Journal and Tarrishoot we actually have for later in the show, but it's very relevant here, talking about how he knows how to work Trump. So he will use these, he'll bring into the Oval Office, this shocking imagery of someone who was brutalized by an undocumented immigrant or something like that. And he'll show it to, we have to do this. And he knows how to manipulate him. Again, this is not to take agency away from Donald Trump, who was a grown

ass man in the president of the United States, but everyone knows that this man can be manipulated. and Stephen Miller is expert at it. It's part of why he has been around from the very beginning. He knows how to play this game. So, you know, while Trump can waver and right now he feels like the optics are bad and he doesn't like it, and he's looking at the poll numbers and he feels like this is, you know, he doesn't like the way the videos look, et cetera. Miller is going to keep pushing in this direction.

He will not give up. This is the project, the ideological project of his lifetime. He has the reins of power right now. he is not going to stop. So it's sort of like with the, you know, Miami occupied government always pushing in one direction or with the Zionist occupied government always pushing in a certain direction, Stephen Miller and, you know, there are other acolytes in the Trump administration, they're going to continue to push. So I think it's really important to, number one, acknowledge that the unified resistance of the people in the streets and the mass public opinion and disgust with what

they saw happening in Minneapolis, all coming to a head with the murder of Alex Preti, that has led to a temporary retreat. But that does not mean that you're not going to go back to these very similar tactics. Just to speak to the polling here, let's put C5 up on the screen because this is the very latest polling on how people view all of this. And it is truly brutal. You've got 63% who now disapprove of ICE. So about two-thirds of the country that disapprove of ICE. You have 60% who want ice out of Minneapolis. You've got almost 60%, 58% who want Noam removed from office.

And, you know, if you go in there in terms of the percent who think the Alex Pretty killing was justified, it says not justified wins by 40.62 to 22. That's doubled the margin, actually, on goods killing. So it shows you there was a, you know, a more fervent public perception on Alex Pritties killing. There was, I guess, people perceived it as sort of less of a gray area. But in any case, I mean, these are the type of poll numbers that Trump and his team are looking at and going, you know what? This was our strongest issue and it's turn, we have turned it into a nightmare for ourselves. Let's put C6 up on the screen with some new reporting from Ken.

That is also, I think, worth considering because he got the actual list of all of the munitions that they had stockpiled to use in Minneapolis. So he says 35,000 munitions in Minneapolis, but then they suddenly withdraw. And this is all the, you know, what they call like less lethal, the crowd control stuff. You've got all the, you know, tear gas, tactical grenades and all of this. But just an insane, extraordinary amount of, you know, just quantity of munitions here to be used on the public in Minneapolis. So you can see what the plan was. And now you have obviously this drawdown. So definitely a decided change in course with regard to Minneapolis, at least, and at least in just this moment.

So one more piece that I want to put up on the screen because I think it's very interesting to get insights. And so what Ken has been great at, too, from inside the agency. But Wired got inside the ICE forum. They say where agents complain about their jobs. And there's a lot of interesting stuff here because the ICE agents themselves are not happy with the perception of the agency, with how all of this is going. They're disgusted with leadership. There's one user who noted there'd been no pre-planning for the influx of officers, how to use them, outfit them, database, access, cars, equipment duties, nada.

Instead, they throw the RAs to ERO to do consensual encounters that they haven't had training on, really. A two-hour team Zoom course ain't enough. ERO referring to the enforcement and removal operations division of ICE where staffers manage detention and make arrests on the ground. RA refers to rehired anewitant or federal employees who were retired but have since returned to federal work. The same user alleged the arrest reports are also lies in some cases. A lot of cases. Lots of false statements at worse. Misleading statements at best. Plaintiffs' lawyers going to have a field day with lawsuits after Trump leaves. They talked about the image that was created. They said there was absolutely zero for thought and our management just rolled over to let BP. That's Border Patrol take over. Huge mistake when the nuance of actual targeted enforcement is needed. Others complained about the leadership and direction of this. the agency, they said, led by some of the worst leadership I've ever witnessed from the local level all the way up to the national stage. This agency has managed to turn a righteous mission,

some may disagree with that, into a complete cloud show. So in any case, even the ICE agents are like, this is a fucking mess. This is a disaster. And, you know, another thing that Ken points out, because what I said to him is like, well, how do you square that with the clear enthusiasm of the people that you see on the ground? And he said, well, it's a selection bias. Because number one, they're sending out a lot of these new people who signed up because they see the brutality in the street. And that's what they want to do. That's where they want to be. And then you're also asking for people to go on a volunteer basis, which means you're getting like the people who are pissed about it and think that this is disgusting, they aren't the ones who are being sent down.

The people who look at this and are like, yes, sign me up to like tear gas a child in a car. Those are the ones who are being selected to go to places like Minneapolis. And the videos that go viral are the worst ones, right? So, like, there's 3,000 agents. We probably have seen, like, 200 in terms of video. I mean, even in terms of talking about this with ICE agents and all that, I think it misses the general point, which is that they've chosen to go this way as a reading of their mandate. They clearly had one on immigration and on the border. And, I mean, I've just been thinking about a different world, let's say, in which you had passed, let's say the one big, beautiful bill, they extended all of these tax credits. Great, cool, for rich people. They could not. They could

never put universal e-verify in that. I just think we're living in a different universe. If you had universal e-verify, which look, you know, libs, you're going to get mad about it, but yes, many illegals, it means you will not be able to be employed. If they had a remittance tax 100% on Mexico, Guatemala, or the entire Northern Triangle, these people would just leave, period. They literally would leave because they cannot send money back for it. But guess what? That hurts the banks. It hurts the remittance company Wells Bargo. All these people is going to hurt the Marriott industry, the weed farmers of California so that white yuppies can't smoke cheaper marijuana.

Yes, all of you may be upset, but then we're going to have a different conversation about prices and inflation. And, I mean, at the end of the day, remember Florida, there were videos of viral construction, you know, firms which were supposedly empty. They were, oh, the Florida economy's going to crash. No, it didn't.

Turns out it's fine. You know, you can weather that storm. You would actually be massively popular, I think, if you had something like that. And then, what, the libs are going to get mad about fair, you know, fair, you know, fair employment practices. Like, yeah, that's a joke.

You're going to be arguing on behalf of illegal labor. No, you're not. So you're going to be putting in much more difficult situation. Instead, they chose the other tack, and this is where we are. I mean, we were just talking about this, Ross. Doubt that video about how Trump has lost the country. I think it's just unambiguously true. And I think that they have decided to embrace the most base instincts of a very select

group of people on Twitter. And in fact, you know, I've talked about how. I think liberals were very online. Let's say what, 2014 to, when would you call it, whenever the online stuff started to fade? Maybe 2019, 2020, maybe up until Elon. But that's when the liberal Jezebel Twitter universe ruled the entire Democratic and liberal establishment, I would say, from BLM, Me Too, it was madness. It was obviously driven by a very select group.

I think you could probably flip it and say after Elon purchased Twitter, you've had the same phenomenon where you have a very select group of people who will never criticize Trump, who don't, not just not criticize Trump. If they do, they'll criticize him for comments like this. And then they will encourage and defend and change the very, you know, nature of the information environment which people swim in. And I cannot understate, I cannot overstate enough how much all of these younger staffers and people live on Twitter. They do not even engage with politics on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, a lot, way more people are, as you and I know, and it's creating the same selection bias.

Miller, all of these people. You think I'm joking, like they live on Twitter. His own wife works for Elon and is on hosting a Twitter podcast. Nothing is easier than picking a Twitter fight with the vice president of the United States. So that's what I'm saying. It's not, it's like, this is not the way to run a country. You're actually too online. Like, I really mean it. And this has created this situation, even in the media one, where, they're not living in the world that you and I are. Right. And I can see that because also we host a show on YouTube, which is way more accessible

to the general public. I could look at our Twitter analytics. I thought Trump switched. I remember distinctly. I went on parental leave. I came back and I was like, oh, man. You know, just from analytics, you can see very clearly. I went on and check the YouTube podcast charts today.

Midas touches number two in the United States. Number two behind Joe Rogan. Is there any reckoning with that? at the national level. Right. No, they just don't get it. Yeah, they're still living in the past about, you know, who's defending. They just, they don't understand like you and I can of how radically things can change.

Think back to the online energy from Trump July of 2024 to, I would say, January. It was extraordinary. I was relatively certain Trump would win purely based off of our YouTube analytics. And you can see now, based on the way things are trending. But, I mean, it just demonstrates, first, how coal is. are not static, number one, two, how the public is much more engaged than you might think, because they really believe that people just fuck around and do nothing all day. But they just don't get that relative amounts of check-ins, when you start to see enough

of these videos, it's not going to work out well for you. And they will switch on you in a dime. Well, there's two other things to consider in that. Number one is the fact that for individuals who just want, you know, their influencer base, And I'm not just, I'm not talking about, I'm talking about people in the government who want to be like famous and get patted on the head. Oh, that was so based. That was based. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Then it, like, that is actually their, that is their whole world. And they don't really care about what the whole public thinks about. They just want those, like, that affirmation from the hardest fringe, like, neo-Nazis online who wouldn't tell them that they're based for, you know, whatever outrageous thing that they do. The other thing to keep in mind is that, you know, with Stephen Miller being so influential, this man is, this man is, not buffeted around by the winds of Twitter. He has a project. And the reason why he is not that excited about, you know, going in and doing the E-Verify stuff or whatever is not only because it pisses off the wealthy. That is part of it. That's part of certainly why Trump is not interested in going

in that direction. But it's because immigration is a key piece of Stephen Miller's broader project of more power projection. That's why, and we've had this discussion, That's why Minneapolis is chosen, right? It's not because it's a hotbed of undocumented immigration. It's not compared to other cities in the country. It's because it's a hotbed of liberal opposition to Trump, from the mayor to the governor, right? And then, you know, you have the Somalis who, again, by and large American citizens, but that's a useful political cudgel.

And, you know, this will bleed out. We're going to talk about the elections thing. Steve Bannon is floating, hey, we should use these ice agents and send them out to the polls. Miller sees this as a cohesive project. He wants to, I don't think he's going to succeed, but his goal is not only to change the ethnic composition of the country, but to effectively quash the opposition forever and win some sort of a final battle in politics,

which is always, you know, it's an impossibility, but that is what he's striving towards. And so, you know, him being able to get this massive budget for ICE that, you know, they have more money than they could know what to do with and they're building out all these huge detention centers, and they're flooding them into cities and clashing with liberal protesters. Like, this is all going according to his plan. That, these are exactly the scenes that he actually wants and was aiming for.

So, you know, his wings are being clipped right now because Trump is sort of tuning into this and like, wait, wait, this is too, you know, this is not actually helping me. I don't like this. This is too far. But Stephen Miller's, like, dedication to that project is not going anywhere, which is why I was saying earlier, you know, he's going to continue work and use whatever angles he can to get back to, you know, exactly what he was doing in Minneapolis and, you know, surging 35,000 different types of munitions into the city so that they can have these explosive clashes with mostly like white liberal protesters, not actually even undocumented immigrants. I don't know. I mean, I don't disagree necessarily. to be fair, if you've been read or looked at Stephen or anything, he's been talking about you verify for 15 years.

So it's not like he wouldn't be pushing it. I think he lives in the world of reality where this was the only thing that they could get through the GOP COLA. Don't forget, the GOP congressman or just as bought off by the agriculture and by the big business industry, just as much. And that's part of the reason it doesn't get through. Ice agents is frankly the low-hanging fruit of being able to fund something without really doing anything about it.

Touching the financial system, tucking the agricultural or any of these different big businesses. No, I agree with you. I, I, to Stephen Miller's credit, I guess, I don't, he is ideologically committed to the project and he doesn't bother him to piss off wealthy people in service of the project because he is committed to that goal.

It's not just transactional for him. That's absolutely the case. So if you go and read, people shouldn't remember. He worked for Jeff Sessions. Sessions, if people forget, was the very first senator to ever endorse Trump, which was shocking, actually. When was that? 2015? Maybe. He was the very first

elected politician to endorse Trump. It was genuinely shocking and it was because of immigration. Now, Jeff obviously gets stabbed in the back by Trump because of some Russiagate bullshit later on and Stephen, you know, creates his own little empire inside of the White House. But a lot of it does trace back to some of the discussion that we're having here. I don't know which way it's going to go. I would say, considering the way things are, you're one Nick Shirley video away from everything changing. I guess we can just rely on his own illiteracy and incompetent. to make sure that that doesn't happen. Seems like just yesterday that the Two Guys Five Rings podcast

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