Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/4/26: Shawn Ryan Says Trump Duped Him, Ivanka Kushner Private Island, Rubio Confronted On Trump Falling Asleep

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss Shawn Ryan says he was duped by Trump, protests erupt in Albania over Ivanka Trump island, Rubio confronted on Trump falling asleep. Ken Klippenstein: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Two T's in a Pod on the I Heart 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 that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you,

please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. There are increasing signs that Trump's decision to launch these attacks on Iran and start this needless, illegal war of choice against Iran has effectively destroyed his presidency. And one of the signs has been some of the influencers who were previously behind him and were part of the MAGA coalition, who had publicly broken with him over the war and over other issues as well. Two note worthy examples of that are Sean Ryan and Megan Kelly, who recently sat down for a conversation together and were sort of like sorting through the wreckage of Trump and the mega movement.

Let's take a listen to a little bit of what they had to say. I don't know what to think anymore. I don't even trust my own intuition when it comes to politics because I thought things were going to be so different. And I got fucking duped. Nobody knows anything about anything. It's one of the themes of the year. The thing is, like, the Trump thing is so disappointing because he did seem like he was going to be different. You know, he was independently wealthy,

so there was some reason to believe he wasn't going to need their money or be swayed by it. He's such a fighter and a middle finger. He's a walking middle finger. We took Trump too much at his word on the, I'm not going to start any more wars, especially not Middle East wars. especially not one with Iran.

We could be here for the next hour running those soundbites. We were too non-sceptical when the answers were right there. If you looked at who was backing his campaign the biggest donor, and it wasn't just Miriam, there were many, who's, you know, he said her loyalty is more to Israel. Why didn't we pay more attention to that? Why didn't we pay more attention to that? And I do think, you know, you could sort of hear whatever you wanted to hear in Trump's pitch.

Because you could certainly play clips of him, too, sounding very hawkishan Iran. We all know the record from the first administration backs out of the JCPOA deal courts, potential war with them by assassinating Qasem Soleimani. But, you know, people heard what they wanted to hear. And now it's interesting to hear Megan and Sean reckoning with that. The other thing that I've noticed is there have been a few noteworthy instances recently where Trump has either taken some sort of legislative L, Republicans, pushing back in ways that are a little bit, you know, that are very unusual and quite rare on

some things that seemed important to him. Trump himself or his administration walking away from some things that, you know, the earlier part of the administration, they definitely would have would not have walked away from. So let me put D4 up on the screen first. We all know how freaking obsessed Trump is with this damn ballroom, okay? Obsessed. It is literally, and I'm not saying this like generally, I'm saying literally by an analysis

of his speech. it is the thing that he talks about the most. So originally, Trump was like, oh, don't worry about it. This will all be funded by private donors, which has its own problems. But, okay, it's not going to be taxpayer funds. So he says, oh, I don't have to go to Congress. Well, then he said, actually, I need a billion dollars for this thing. So Senate Republicans have now officially ditched an effort, HuffPost Rights, to fund President Trump's ballroom at the White House, money for the Secret Service, and the East Wing modernization project was omitted from a new version of Republicans' bill to fund immigration enforcement operations at the Department of Homeland Security. So this is what's called a reconciliation bill. They only have to pass it with the majority of votes. So Republicans have the majority in the Senate so they should be able to get this through. So this is completely an intra-Republican fight. And what was holding this up primarily, there are a few other things, but primarily was this ballroom funding where they did not want to do it. So now Thune has basically put us foot down and say, we're not appropriating a billion dollars for your freaking ballroom. It's

not going to happen. Yeah, I thought that one was significant, but I actually think D5, which I've been trying to shoehorn into the show because I agree with you about how big of a deal it is. Yeah. This was the biggest one to me. The administration has completely backed off this anti-weaponization fund for $1.8 billion after the announcement. And not just backed off, but has like the entire Senate caucus effectively came out and was like, this is not happening whatsoever. Restrict it to kill it. they even are going to codify it in legislation, saying that not only if they keep it off, that they're going to make it so that they can't create one in the future. Well, Democrats that are pushing that part because they've got, so reportedly, Ted Cruz went

on his podcast and was like, oh, I totally support this weaponization fund, sir, but there are a lot of Republicans, and he says about half the caucus that would vote against it. And so Democrats sensing a divide and a weakness here are wanting to push for, okay, let's codify it. Like, don't just pull this, you know, don't just say, okay, we're not going to do it, we're not going to authorize it. Actually, and right now it's being blocked by a court, by the way, we're going to codify that no pride, not Trump, not anybody else can do this to make it uncomfortable for Republicans and force them to have to go on the record. But when's the last time you saw the administration take a lower court ruling and just say, yep, that's just going to be the way it is. Never, right, never.

That's why. Yeah, they were looking for an out because they saw that this was huge backlash, politically unpopular, blah, blah, blah. Apparently, Johnson and Thune both went to the White House and were like, this is not happening, period. They're like, if this goes before Congress, like it's going to get voted down. So they had it out with the judge. These guys were in Congress on January 6th.

So you're talking about not only did I pardon all the insurrectionists, not just, you know, the ones who were okay, it was trespassing, but the like actual ones who were fighting with cops and beating up, you know, and were violent. And these, so not only are going to pardon them, now they can receive millions of dollars in compensation. Like, I guess even for these Republicans are pretty shameless in most regards

in complete sycophance. For that was even like, okay, you've got to be kidding me. How can I possibly defend this? But all of this happened after J.D. Vance was, of course, sent out to defend this monstrosity. Yeah. I flagged that in our JD block, but part of the problem, right,

is with always having to remain so, like, slavish. The other one is D.C., up here, let's put it up here on the screen. There was a lot of, you know, we didn't have the time covering this. Basically, USCIS put out this new guidance for green card applicants, saying if you're in the U.S. and you're applying for a green card, you have to return to your country of origin to apply for said green card. That's if you're already here on a visa, like a H-1B visa or some sort of working visa.

Huge outcry. A lot of people were very upset about it. But it appears that they are now seeking to downplay, quote, this impact in the scope of this change. Because initially, this would have applied to every single green card applicant. Well, what they say now is that this appears to dramatically limit the process known as adjustment of status. At the time, they had said someone who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a green card must return to their country of origin. But over the weekend, DHS is now issued a statement saying it is far less sweeping, arguing the memo issued last week, just restated longstanding law and policy.

policy will not prevent any alien from obtaining a green card who legitimately and properly qualify, and the department said that the guidance will result in some who did not merit the discretionary benefit ultimately applying within the Department of State overseas rather than USCIS in the United States. They didn't issue full-scale guidance, but this is a huge walkback from the administration because it's pretty unequivocal that at the time they were like, no, everybody who wants to apply has to leave to apply before they can come back in. It reminds me of an additional status that they, adjustment that they had made on H1B. If I recall, this was months and months ago.

Yeah. By the way, there is a through line here if you're interested for why they backed down on this one. And it's called the big tech companies and all of the other businesses who employ many of these people who picked up the phone and were like, hey, this would disrupt my business, you know, dramatically. So there's definitely like a cronious story behind it. But nonetheless, you know, when you start to put all of these things together, they are. trying their absolute best to avoid bad headlines, I would say, on their most vulnerable issues. Immigration was here, the weaponization fund. I can't even really think of a major win that they've had in the press now, especially with Iran, for weeks and weeks. And this is what, you know, I talked about this about W, but I remember talking with some people who were real neocons,

and they still believe it, which is insane, but let's put that to the side. And I would be like, you know, what went wrong for you guys? And they were like, you know, what we didn't realize is that Iraq destroyed not only W's presidency. It destroyed everything else that we ever had worked on. Like for the people who were really believed in all the low tax policy and free trade, again, I don't agree with this. But for them, they were like, you don't understand Iraq killed that because we were all attached, you know, to the same project. It killed the compassionate conservative. It killed the entire W worldview in the GOP. Now, policy-wise, obviously that still continues, at least in some form.

But it was not popular. Like, that's what ended up in the 2016 campaign. We needed to kill all of that harder. I agree. But I'm more just saying for the people who believed in it, they still blame. Many of them are bitter about how Iraq destroyed a lot of their project. Again, I'm glad it did. But I think Iran is going to go down in the same way.

I really do. Because this is an example of how, oh, you carry a lot. about immigration. Yeah, sorry. They're like, can't be taking any more hits whenever it comes to that. Oh, you cared about, you know, what was it? If you're a January 6 guy and you're like, this is my number one priority. Whoa, nope, you just backed down on that one, didn't you? Same with the ballroom. Being a January 6th guy where that's... I know some, actually. I'm serious. I actually know, I know a few who are like, who are like the pardons and all that didn't go far enough. And this is the old, you know, this is like the one thing that they care about. But, you know, if you're

one of those people, and again, I know some for them, they're furious. about this. And I think you were going to see this now for the rest of his presidency. Any major project which he once might have been able to put some political capital behind, actually fight behind. Iran has just sucked the air out of all of that. And inflation now will persist, as we just said, for years to come. Yeah. And look, at the same point, I don't want to overstate it. His people that he backed in primaries mostly won, although he did also take a loss in Iowa. I know. That was crazy. What Senate candidate that he got behind or was the governor candidate?

Yeah. Zach Law. The Fox News now has a poll out that have Democrats winning both the governor and the Senate in Iowa. Same thing. Oh, sorry, that was Ohio. Iowa, there's also separate polling. It's not Fox News that has Democrats leading for the governor's race. I mean, these are states that have been like sort of written off for years.

And this shows you how weak Trump is politically. and that's part of what is fueling some of these retreats that they're having to make. That, again, think of in the era when they were rampaging in L.A. and then in Minneapolis and whatever. Can you imagine them making a major immigration change? And make no mistake about it. Forcing all green card applicants to leave the country is a monumental change in immigration policy. But they've made other monumental changes that they have stuck to.

Because you're talking about people who are like married to a U.S. citizen. And then you're forcing them to go and then they lose their job. Are you even going to let them back in when they, you know, if they get their green card, whatever. But in any case, almost instantly, oh, no, no, no, we didn't mean that. Well, the language literally said in all but extraordinary circumstances, you're going to have to leave the country. And now they're pretending like they never said that. Oh, there's no change of policy. Then why do you even put out a memo if it's just the same policy going forward?

It was a retreat. And there's another significant immigration one. You know, I think we can all tell. Not that the, not that the immigration enforcement is like, you know, kind and gentle now. that it's, you know, gone back to, you know, the sort of enforcement that I would want to see focusing on violent criminals. But we also aren't having National Guard and massive deployments and the sort of insanity that we saw during the winter months in Minnesota. They put Mark Wayne Mullen in charge. Now he's clearly taking a different approach. And part of that is we put D7 up on the

screen. It's another extraordinary change. All of those, not all, some of the mega warehouses that were purchased for immigration mass detention, they are now looking to sell. And that is a clear indication that they are just not planning to hold in detention nearly as many immigrants as had been originally planned under Christy Noem. And some of this has been,

there's been real local backlash. You can imagine some of these are rural communities that presumably voted for Trump, but they're small towns. They're like, we don't want our population to be massively searched, this is going to be huge burden on all of our infrastructure or water treatment plants, etc. So there's been local backlash.

And then the other question to watch for all of this is apparently there's an inspector general that is looking into the price that was paid for these places, which appear to have been in certain instances vastly over market value. So there may have been some corrupt dealings here as well in terms of the purchase of these facilities. But in any case. I know. This administration, corrupt dealings.

I know it's shocking. Christy's in a different category. She's well. No, she's in the same category as many of these people, but yeah. Spending a quarter bill for ads to make yourself look like Barbie and Fox News is pretty pretty cool. Well, we're about to get to Jared Navanka and what's going on with them. So I think she fit in until Trump decided. I think Iran is just going to suck it all.

Look, it's very, very similar. But I shouldn't say that because Trump was already unpopular, you know, even before going into all of this. Epstein was a huge jump-off moment. Yeah, you could say the podcaster is in all. that stuff don't matter. Sorry, I don't buy it, actually, at all. There's even, you know, general conversation now within the real MAGA people who were like, yeah, the vibe shift is over, so what do we do about that? Because that was the real, only cultural moment, you know, that we had, and now it's basically gone. So I think you can really look at a lot of this, and I will certainly.

I think Iran was the nail in the coffin for public opinion, and it will, just like with W, it will bleed into all. And what's so crazy is that there are so many, people at the highest levels of the U.S. government, who I have spoken to about this exactly in reference to the Iraq War and why we should never do something like it again to make sure that a domestic political project, which everybody believed in, doesn't get over on. And then that literally happens under Trump. You can't even make this shit up. Yeah.

I should write a book about it. Yeah. Another failed disastrous Middle East War. This one in certain ways, not in the death count, but in terms of the impact on. on the U.S., more disastrous, I think, than the Iraq war, undoubtedly, at this point. And so, you know, obviously a lot of uncertainty about it. Will there be a deal done? Will this sort of status quo just stumble on with high oil prices and gas prices indefinitely until it becomes untenable?

Will we go back to hot war and convoy? I think any of that is on the table. But in terms of Trump's presidency, the damage is already done. I think it's Biden-esque. Biden was cooked by Afghanistan. Yeah. That's when it switched. There genuinely was no coming back from it.

His entire, you remember, even with the midterms and all of that, he was, he sucked. What did Favro say that Biden was losing New Mexico by 2024? Yes. Or it was like in doubt, at least. That's basically kind of where it, once the inflation kicked in and it was baked in, and they clearly had no plan, not just planned, they had no actionable things that they could do about it. And then same with gas, as well as the raging conflict with era. with Ukraine and then October 7th, pour gas on that. It was over.

Well, and here's the thing. Last comment on this. I think Trump is right to suspect that if he does the deal that's on the table right now with Iran that will require dramatic concessions and acknowledgement of that loss, which is what happened in Afghanistan. It was an acknowledgement of the failure of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. If he has to take that loss, it is going to get worse for him. Because right now he at least has like the neocombs hanging in there. if he you know if the ron's assets are unfrozen and the sanctions are lifted and they have control over the straight of mormuz and we're basically like leaving the middle east with our tail tuck between our legs they are not going to hold back because they were not really they were not core believers in the maga project to begin with so they're going to turn as well and you know the numbers are only going to continue to go south once he has to reckon with that failure but don't tell him that let's go with the joe kenlan you will be seen as a great leader, sir, if you're able to extricate us.

Not exactly, but you know, that's the way his approach is like, only Trump is strong enough to make the deal that's required to get out of this, and then everybody is going to love him again. Let's go with that one. Yeah, I agree. Let's get to the island. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. IAR Radio.

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Number one hits, millions of records sold, awards, sold out tours. You think that Jonas Brothers are satisfied? Nope, it's podcast time. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Hey, Jonas is available now. Now, and their first guest is a big one, Paul Rudd. You know, Steve Carell is a great singer. Can you tell you not to audition at the office or something?

I told him. Whoa. We were filming Anchorman. Clearly, I was the idiot. Thank God he didn't listen to him, right? Listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy is essential, and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it, or simply hope it into life.

But now, there's a new and exciting way to start. your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Entertainment legends, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy,

tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Joy after a breakup. Joy is an empty nester. Joy after a loss. This new podcast will speak to you. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby starting June 10th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If there's one thing that I personally love about the Trump administration, it's the way that a whole cavalcade of billionaires and Nepo babies are able to live out, their fondest wishes, dreams, and desires. And so in that spirit, I want to bring to you,

Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have apparently stumbled upon this private island in the Mediterranean, part of Albania, that is just their dream come true. And Ivanka is able to achieve exactly what she wants by their acquisition of this large private island in the Mediterranean. Let's go ahead and listen to her talking about this dream fulfillment and really culmination of all of her skills and talents coming together in this project. I'm working on an incredible project with my husband in the Mediterranean. It's massive in scale. I think that's an understatement. Can you explain? There's no power on this island. You're building, you're building everything from scratch. Correct. It's an unbelievable, beautiful 1,400 hectare private island in the

middle of the Mediterranean. We were on a friend's boat and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that's how we found it. We swam to the islands. We went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top and we were just captivated and it stayed with us ever since. And over the course of many years, we developed the opportunity to help realize its potential and transform it, but with a lot of restraint and care because the land is so beautiful that really the architecture has to be fully integrated into it, almost rise from it. You know, it's not even a business for me, despite the scale of it. Not only the island, but we have five miles of beachfront directly across from the island, this beautiful peninsula with a lagoon on one side, the ocean on the other, beautiful white

sand beaches. For me, this is, it feels more like a challenge than anything else. The, the culmination of all of my experience in real estate, all of my travel, a lot of reflection on how I want to live, how I think people increasingly are wanting to live. So apparently how she increasingly wants to live is on a private island, and she thinks this is increasingly how others want to live, yeah. It sounds nice. Must be nice. Can I get in?

Actually, I'm joking. I don't want to live on a private island in Albania. Sorry. I'm not leaving. I'm sure it's beautiful. This is my country. I'm not going in. I'll get to it in a moment. The Albanian people are furious about all of their mass protests going on. They're like firebombing politicians, houses. I mean, it's like really, really heated up because they're pissed off about what appears to be corrupt dealings with regard to her acquisition of this.

They feel this island is a public asset that is now they did some, you know, quick changes to make it possible for them to buy it. There's all kinds of shady figures that appear to be involved. There's questions about who even owns the land and how it was able to be acquired. Before I get to all of that, though, let's go ahead and take a listen to Jared Kushner talking about this same island deal because Ivanka, her story, oh, we were on a friend's boat and then we went swimming and we found this island. This is like very European settler colonial coded, right? We found the America and we discovered it, right?

In any case, here is Kushner identifying whose boat they were. were actually on and how this all went down to enable them to fulfill their wishes and dreams with regard to this private island. Let's take a listen to that. I was on a vacation after we left government in the summer of 2021. We were on our friend Nat Rothschild's boat. We got picked up in Montenegro and then we started sailing over to Corfu and we spent a couple days in Albania. One of the nights there, Prime Minister Rama came to the boat. I had not met him when I was in government. But I was very, very impressed with his vision for what he wanted to do with Albania. I really didn't know anything about the country. I didn't understand the history and the darkness

of the history with the communism and the terrible leadership actually led to it being fully undeveloped as a nation. But Eddie came in. He has one of the cool things I was attracted to is the fact that he seemed like a very skilled politician as a very strong and smart leader, but also the fact that he was an artist. I thought it would be very cool to see. what a country really led and built by an artist could be. So slightly different story there from Jared. So first of all, it's apparently Nat Rothschild's boat, which we can run this slideshow of this mega, what do they call the mega yachts?

It's like $180 million. You can see it here. You've got the heliport, you've got the library, all the things that one would expect on their friend's boat. Okay. So they're on Nat Rothschild's boat. And then the prime minister joins them to talk about, about how amazing Albania is, and then, lo and behold, they do this deal to acquire this island.

And let's go ahead and put E6 up on the screen to show you some of the backstory here. So there had to be a change made to the status of the island in order for this acquisition to be made. And lo and behold, Zagher, the timing on this is really very special for Ivanka and Jared. right after Ivanka's father was inaugurated president is when that change in status was made by the prime minister so that they could acquire this island. And I just think that is, I think, fate coming together for them to bless this acquisition is what that looks like to me.

In any case, some people in Albania for some reason, we could put E4 up on the screen, not super excited about this deal and the selling off of this island. This actually is pretty horrifying. You could see here, this is a protester who was assaulted in being dragged by private security guards. They're already, and this is on the island, there already were protests that were ongoing at this point. And then the revelation of this video just shocked the public.

And so, as you can imagine, the protests have only escalated since these private security guards dragged this protest to the cops were apparently standing by just watching this as this occurred. Albanian Prime Minister responds, it is very important we remain welcoming. We remain fair. Under no circumstances do we receive the stigma of being a country where investors are met with hostility. There is absolutely no chance that the investment will stop as long as I am here. The Albanian government has also previously defended the development as in compliance with environmental rules. Developers have also said they intend to move forward with the project. Our focus remains on responsible stewardship, environmental enhancement, job creation and creating long-term value for local communities. We respect the ongoing public institutional process, the chairman of the development person, said,

to Reuters. So that's the status. I mean, who amongst up has not been on a Rothschild megiat and then gotten in for a swim after talking to a prime minister to go to an island, to buy said island, and also be related the daughter and son-in-law of the president of the United States. It's a relatable story. Very normal, very relatable story. I will say, you know, on the rotschild front, this is the one where it remains to me the most, one of the most important Epstein stories with no additional reporting that has come out. That email, which I flagged consistently at the time, where the...

Remember, the Roshelel family is large. They're talking about Nathaniel Roshild. I believe he's like a hereditary heir in the British parliament. But obviously they're all part of the same family. There's different branches of this. This one relates to the Swiss family. Although Nathaniel Roshchal's name, if I remember, was in the Epstein Black Book.

So this, remember where Arianda Roshchild hired Epstein to negotiate that settlement with the Department of Justice regarding the Edmonde-Roschal Bank in Switzerland where they actually paid Epstein almost as much as the fee that they end up settling with the Department of Justice. And it was like 15, if I remember, it was like 25 million for Epstein and an additional 10 million for that woman, Kathy Rumler, who was the General Counsel at Goldman, and also previously was a deputy White House counsel under Obama. And then it was settled either

with Loretta Lynch or with Eric Holder at the Obama Justice Department. To this day, nobody has any idea why that why they paid Epstein that large amount of money to negotiate the deal or what discussions he ever had with any of those senior people over at DOJ. That's all we know. And then they actually clawed back some of that settlement later on, just so you're all clear. So Nat Rothschild, this is according to the AI on Google. Okay. They say he has not been publicly linked to Epstein. However, his ex-wife, the late British socialite and Ladies of London star was Annabel Nielsen was deeply intertwined with him. The DOJ document release revealed numerous emails between them. She referred to Epstein as Babe and Honey and offered to, quote, put a little

group of girls together for him when he's in Europe. So anyway, not necessarily him, but the ex-wife seems to have been tied in. In any case, I just want to show some of these video of the protests here in Albania, just so you can get a sense of the size and scope. I believe this is E5. that we have via of the protests, which again, with multi-day long, thousands of people in the streets, you know, not that large of a country here. So people pretty upset about this change in status and selling off of their resources for this mega luxury resort that is being planned by at Jared Navanka. I also think there's, there was another deal in, I think it was in Bosnia nearby that fell apart for similar reasons because there was such a big uproids.

against the Trump name. And so I don't know if they've really grappled with how much people have discussed for them, both here and around the world. Like, I think they're kind of cut off from reality of how much antipathy and horror there is that the idea of like this becoming and the Albanians are calling it, quote, unquote, Trump Island. Let me put the last piece here up on the screen. I don't know. This is E8. I don't know if these two stories are related, but they might be related. And like you, wanting to be. to get the weaponization fund into the show. I've been wanting to get this into the show. Peter Teal, who is major backer of J.D. Vance, seems like his political project has sort of come to fruition

here. You know, some of the companies I invested in are very, and helped a found, are very influential in this administration. He's got a bunch of his politicians who are now in office, including J.D. Vance, who may well be the heir apparent to Donald Trump, although there's now some question about that, apparently. In any case, right at that moment, when it all seems to be coming together for him, he is leaving the United States and he is decamping to Argentina, which is raising a lot of questions about why. One of the things people are pointing to is this potential billionaire tax in California, which would be pennies. I mean, it would be minuscule in terms of his net worth, the amount that he would have to pay into this. So I'm not buying that whatsoever. And in any case,

he didn't have to flee the country. He could have just left for Texas or whatever. Yeah, he's addressed that before. He said, there's a segment of him on Rogan talking about how he couldn't decide if he should leave California, if he should leave the U.S. Oh, really? What did you say? It's very teal-esque, and there's about 90,000 ums that are in the, the general thesis was, if I'm going to leave California, there's no reason that I shouldn't just leave the United States because it's going to be the same problem. Look, the billionaire tax is an excuse. It's basically like he thinks there's like failed governance.

I don't know why I would go to Argentina. There's failed governance, like, you're the guy who helped to put this government in place. Yes and no. You know, look, he's an eccentric, hyper-techno-libertarian. These people effectively live lives of teleportation. Like, whenever it comes to their private jet, there's that book, I'm totally blanking on the name. Ryan Holiday wrote it. Conspiracy, this is off the top of my head.

It's about the Gawker case. But I remember reading that, and I was like, this is an insane way. where it's like every place that Teal is that he has a car which is idling 24 hours a day in case that he wants to get in said car and then a jet which is on standby. I mean, he lives on multiple continents between the U.S. He's got houses all over the globe, houses in Miami, Los Angeles. I think he has New Zealand citizenship. Yeah.

And he's got a bunker out there. I'm pretty sure he's got another citizenship too on top of that. Really? I'm pretty sure. Isn't he German? I think he's German. So he's got like three passports. I just, I wouldn't take it as like some denunciation necessarily.

I'm not taking it as a denunciation. I'm taking it as. Well, I don't know what I'm taking it as. But some are saying that here's a guy who is at the forefront, the bleeding edge of AI, okay, development. So one possibility is he's looking at this and it's like, this may not work out well. Now, to your point, him and a bunch of these other oligarch billionaires

have already been in their doomsday mode for quite a while. like 20 years. I think is part of the, like, the nihilism that has allowed them to fling themselves wholeheartedly into AI development, even though many of them know that there is a significant possibility that it certainly destroys society, if not all of humankind. You know, a lot of these guys would talk openly about how they think that it's not 100%, but some significant possibility that continuing this direction will literally lead to the end of humankind, which Teal, when he was asked about whether he cares, whether humankind persists or not, when Ross doubt that asked him that he was a little unsure. So that's discomforting. So you have that. Another possibility is that,

you know, he sees the political trends, thinks there's going to be like broad sort of, not necessarily civil war, but societal collapse here because of how divided the country is and how dysfunctional, et cetera. The other possibility is that he sees that there's massive political backlash to the Trump administration and is like, let me get out of here before the, he gets too hot because people are going to be furious at anyone who was associated with what's going on here. Another possibility is just that, you know, he is very tied in with Javier Malay in Argentina. They'll basically let him do whatever he wants with his, like, networked state.

He can basically, like, be his own little emperor in his own little city state there, and so he can live out his tech god dreams. But all I'm saying is I think it's noteworthy that both the president's daughter and Peter Thiel are both like, you know what, private. island type life, that seems like the direction that I would have gone over now. I think it's all the above what you just said with, look, he's always been a dumer whenever it came to American politics. I will say, I mean, it was incredibly insightful. There's a book, uh, George Packer, unwinding. That's what it's, I think it's written in 2013. He interviews Teal. I think about this

a lot, because it's one of the only people in public life who would say it. He said, I think the next president of the United States will articulate American decline, where the entire story of American politics is that they're always trying to articulate a story of American. in progress. And if this was before Trump came on the scene, came down the escalator, it was one of the main reasons why back Trump in 2015, I want to say, was one of the first people, the major like industrialists or not oligarchs or whatever to support Trump, is because he was like, no, I think that the country is going downhill. And so this has kind of been his vision of the U.S. now for some time. It combines with the techno-libertarian dream for

Argentina and for Malay. My take, though, if I would ever talk with these people, is how would you bet on the political stability of Latin America, Argentina fascist dictatorship to socialist, to libertarian? I'm like, yeah, that's not a very stable political system. I'm saying hawks to the World Bank and all kinds of the United States to the World Bank, their own population, you know, I mean, look, they change their minds all the time. Their modern government artifice, again, as I understand it, is only a few decades old. Like, they had a dictatorship in living memory, you know, like, people,

alive, we're like 50 in Argentina, spent most of their lives under a dictatorship as opposed to this. Hyperinflation, that's the country that you would bet on? If they reverted back to the dictator, like he's not afraid of a dictatorship, as long as he's in good with the leader of said dictatorship. Yeah, but what's the story of that? Is that, oh, they get overthrown, like, pretty quick and violent revolution? Like, why would you ever bet your political future on that one? I also, again, with just some limited personal knowledge, he's a weird guy, okay? People who are obsessed with antichrist and teleportation. Literally, we're like going all over the world and, you know, being spotted at chess clubs

and reading books about obscure Christian theology. They're not normal people. All right. So that's where sometimes you shouldn't read, you know, sometimes there's like an easy political answer and there's also like sometimes you have a 1802 IQ and you're just a freak. The other thing is if it was related to like the impending AI apocalypse, I don't know why you would think that Archie Cated. And I have to think that he can put that together, but who knows. Who knows? If I had to flee anywhere, I mean, he's a New Zealand citizen. That's where I would go.

It's the most beautiful place. Seems like a logical. They got a lot of new, they got a lot of, they got a lot of nice natural resources, small population. It's isolated from the rest of the world. Seems like a cool place. I would love to go, by the way, New Zealand. I hope you let me in. All right. Let's get to Ken Clippenstein. He's standing by. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. IR. Radio. Canada's number One streaming app for radio and podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada, your favorite hits, and must have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists, like back in the day pride. Come together, celebrate, love.

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Thank God he didn't listen to him, right? Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy is essential. and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it, or simply hope it into life. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101.

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So there is a mystery that I've been tracking rather closely of this New Jersey. Congressman named Tom Keene, who has been missing for over three months at this point. Mike Johnson says he's working remotely. We have no information about what's going on other than it's some sort of a health issue. So to speak to this and many other instances of a lack of transparency with regard to health issues or our rapidly aging political class here in D.C., we have the nation's foremost expert on such matters, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, and he joins us now. Great to see you, Ken.

Hey guys, good to be back. Shout on to your substack. Everybody go and subscribe for Ken's reporting on this and many other important matters. I wanted to start with the president of the United States because we're going to investigate the darentocracy here in America. So obviously, let's start at the top. Yesterday there was quite a remarkable moment where Ted Lou for about six minutes just grilled Marco Rubio on Trump falling asleep in meetings, which he now does all the time. Like, as a matter of course, it is rare that you have some lengthy White House meeting that doesn't end up. with Trump like hitting REM sleep in front of everyone, everyone just pretending not to notice.

So let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of this exchange. It starts off with Ted Lou playing a clip for Marco Rubio, where Trump is obviously falling asleep next to him. Let's look. And what American farmers grow and produce has a fair shot to be sold around the world. On issue after issue, that's been the case. You talk about foreign aid reforms. This is not our money.

This is taxpayer money. Secretary Rubio, have you been at more than one meeting? where President Trump has fallen asleep. That's false. That's false. I've never seen him fall asleep. On the contrary, the guy doesn't sleep, which is a big problem,

because he calls me at 2 in the morning, he calls me at 5 in the morning. And, you know, I like to sleep a little bit, maybe not 12 hours, or at least 6. So he works, the other day he was at the Oval Office until 12.30 p.m. 12.30 a.m. I don't know what you're talking about.

Secretary Rubio, I'm going to show you at a moment a video that shows you just lied to Congress. Oh, okay. So this is. This is a video of a cabinet meeting literally from last month where Donald Trump is sleeping while you're talking. Please show this video.

A coalition of countries that line up behind the peace deal, behind the board of peace, and it's still an hour. Every day is a challenge, but it's been driven personally by the president. It's the reason why we're involved in this whole Ukraine, Russia conflict. That's not our war, it's not the president's war. This war started, it never would have happened if you've been president. But this war is going on, and the president is trying to end it. You are literally talking about issues of war and peace,

and Donald Trump is sleeping right next to you. No, he's not. If Donald Trump cannot stay awake at these important meetings where the cameras are rolling, imagine what he's like when the cameras are not there. So I'm going to ask you, have you been at classified meetings where Donald Trump has fallen asleep

or had trouble staying awake? I've never been at any meeting where you're finding, and the things are showing me now he was not falling asleep. Unbelievable. My favorite part of the second clip is that Trump is like out, and then he wakes up and looks at Marco, and then he's just like, yeah, I'm going back to sleep. I mean, it's incredible. And this happens all the time. And Rubio has to be the, oh, no, I've never seen him fall asleep.

That's what you just showed me. He's not asleep. I think the White House has said this is extended blinking or something like that. Yeah. So President Trump is actually the second oldest president at 79. And on this month, this very month, is the occasion of his birthday. and he will become the oldest president in U.S. history. And in addition of that, I assume you guys have seen all the photos of his discoloration on his skin, on his hands, things like that.

The White House did announce that he has what's called chronic venous insufficiency, which is like the veins and ability to pump blood to extremities, which in itself is not a life-threatening condition. But it's often a consequence of another condition that someone has. that's usually something you see that's like related to something else. And that's something else we don't know. It could be something as serious as heart failure or it could be something less serious. We just don't know because we get these kind of summarized, you know, brief releases from the White House. But it really is an extraordinary moment in American history, not just with, you know, Trump being the oldest president later this month, but his predecessor Biden being the oldest president at that time.

I mean, this is all really unusual. Yeah. And the thing is, Ken, what, you've always been excellent in flagging. is just how bipartisan of a phenomenon this is, and everybody just seems to cover up their own old and decrepit individuals. One of the more recent stunning cases, which this one even isn't necessarily age-related, but just shows how they cover up health of public officials,

is Tom Keene, he's a GOP congressman, he's been missing for literally three months. Nobody knows why. Nobody even knows what is going on. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, just gave us an update yesterday saying is, under the care of health care providers. There's no scandal. Don't worry.

Here's what he had to say. I talked to Tom a couple of days ago, maybe Friday or Saturday. He's in good spirits, but as his public statement that went out yesterday explained, he's dealing with a health issue. He's under the care of health care providers, and they've told him he needs it a little bit longer to recover. Now, that's all I can say, that's all he said. It's not a scandalous thing at all.

People deal with health issues. Maybe that's a news flash for you. Even members of Congress get sick as well, right? He's dealing with that right now. Tom Kane is an extraordinary member of Congress. He has delivered for the people of New Jersey. He ran without opposition in the primary yesterday, and he deserved to because he has been a phenomenal member of Congress and a great member of our team here. He comes from a long legacy of public service and his family, as you know, he's a famous family. He is going to be back. He'll be back. He's working remotely right now, as he explained in his statement yesterday, and he's anxious to come back in person and be here voting. voting every single day. So it's not scandal as Ken. He's coming back. He's actually working remotely, even though he literally cannot work remotely. Like, you can't vote remotely. What do we know about this guy about Tom Kane? Surprisingly little. As you guys know, I cover national security as well. And looking at this story, I realized it is literally easier for me to find out what the Pentagon is doing and planning in like covert operations and things that is for me to find out what the congressman

like this is what's happening with him. There was a very mysterious. No, Bleak reference in the New York Times where one of his staff, someone identified as a staffer of his, you know, was asked, okay, like, why can't we get a photo or like a proof of life? It was almost like they're talking about bin Laden, like, where is he? And the guy says something very mysterious. He says, where he is, there are no cameras. Yeah, we have that. I don't know what that means. On the screen. He literally said, where Tom is, there are no cameras. What does that even mean? I don't know.

You know, he also, what's crazy is he won his primary. And recently, I put out a statement, went after the Democrats, he won his primary. He's endorsed by Donald Trump, even though nobody has seen him. We literally have no idea what is going on, Ken. Yeah, and I literally tried to run, I called, made calls, and I realized it's like, this is harder than I'll just go back to national security because I can't figure out what's going on here. And this is one of two people that disappeared at the same time. There was a Democratic Congresswoman who disappeared for, I think it was a month at that point, and she had undergone eye surgery. To her credit, there was this backlash against, I think she's 87 or something.

And she announced that she won't be running for re-election after this backlash. But there really needs to be a norms update around Congress because there's at least an expectation that, you know, you have the White House medical physician. There's some amount of like they're expected to say something about health stuff. Like, yes, they don't say enough. But there's some kind of expectation on Congress. they don't have any reporting requirements for this stuff. And it's like, shouldn't there be something that some guy can't just disappear for two months without even, like, shouldn't the constituents have some way to know, okay, he's gone,

maybe I'm fine with that, but at least we have some idea of what's going on. I mean, another case sort of similar to that is John Fetterman. Like, you listen to him speak. He can barely put a sentence together. His political views have completely shifted. And yet voters are just stuck with this guy who's not remotely what they're. thought they were getting and who also is not upfront whatsoever about whatever is going on with him, you know, health-wise, et cetera. And so you're right, it's not just like, it's not just the elderly.

There's also these various health conditions that get covered up. Wasn't there an issue? Didn't you? Was it you that uncovered, we had a member of Congress who was literally living in hospice care, unbeknownst to anyone and undisclosed, certainly to her constituents? Yeah, she was in a memory care facility in Texas. This was K.G. Granger. Oh, that's right. And she herself had disappeared for, I think, a year. And that hadn't even come out, you know, which is a scandal in itself that these people can disappear for that long and nobody even notices. And I think to myself, okay, if there's no discernible difference in the work product when they're gone, what does that tell you about what it is they do? Do they do anything?

Is this all just being run on autopilot out of their offices? So there's the gerontocracy issue. And there's a health issue, which of course overlaps with the gerontocracy one, because as you get older, it's easier to have health issues. But what's striking about that is there's been much less attention on the latter case. There's at least some consciousness around. I've been talking about gerontagogy for years now, and it's getting much easier to talk about now than it was several years ago. That's not the case on the health side.

Like the Rand Corporation, the Pentagon-backed think tank. They actually put out a report a couple of years ago warning, and they're obviously not an activist outfit by any means or even really political, saying, like this is a national security threat. Like we have guys on the gang of eight on, you know, we have senior intelligence officials read into stuff. And like, what is the plan for if they start going a little batty? Like they were just worried about it from a counterintelligence perspective.

And they flag it as a national, it was a great report. And it's just funny that it's like it can get to these organs, but it's like hard for Washington, like kind of media to process. It's very strange. Tim, what are some of the other cases that you found that are just totally insane that audience may not know. So, so there are five cases of Congress, members of Congress that died in office, this term alone. And we were just talking off camera. Yeah, there was, and prior to that, there were another four in the previous term, I believe. And so all of this is really unusual,

the amount of, and if you look at the cases, it's like several people that had cancer and then ran for office beforehand, like Jerry Connolly. So it wasn't like it just came out of nowhere. It was clear that they had health issues. Another case was. George Scott, a Democratic congressman from, or sorry, David Scott from Georgia. And he had a run in with media where someone was pushing him in a wheelchair. And he started cursing out a reporter for taking a picture of him like in public in front of the Congress. And so it was like this open secret that this guy has seen now.

And then he dies. And it's this whole thing of like, oh, so sad. How could anyone have seen this coming? And it was like, I'm not making this up. I just clicked on some of his, he was reading from a piece of paper, kind of pausing, looking down. I just watched some of his random videos on his YouTube page. And one of them was him recalling being at the premiere for the, what was the movie,

the Charlton Heston movie, the, what is it, the Ten Commandments? Oh, the Ten Commandments. Like in 1950, like, 50. Yeah, yeah. It's like, I'm not even digging that far to find this stuff. Yeah. And look, they're counter examples. Like Bernie still seems very sharp, right?

And he just introduced some legislation on AI. So he's like, I would say he's probably the best in Congress in terms of understanding the likely impact and thinking up legislative solutions, et cetera. But yeah, I mean, overall, as you age, it's going to be a problem for you, both health-wise and in terms of your mental state. There's been a lot, I think post-Biden, there's been a real public awareness and concern about the aging nature of our politicians. Have you seen that have an impact?

I know you mentioned one congresswoman who said, look, I'm not going to file for re-election. Have you seen more of these people willing to step aside and say, okay, this is getting ridiculous? Maybe I should go, like, spend some time with my grandkids or something and let someone else do this job. Oh, definitely. Gary Peters of Michigan released a statement. And they're openly saying, like, you know,

I've got to give a chance to the next generation to have a shot here because the incumbency advantage makes it. hard for new blood to come in completely aside from just like the raw number of the age. It's like when someone's had a seat for years and years, it's really hard to let the composition of the Congress change. So he put out a statement saying, attributing his not running for reelection to needing to give the next generation a chance. The Illinois senator, Dick Durbin made a similar statement.

So we're definitely seeing change, no question, in part because of. I think the catastrophe of Biden made it impossible for people to ignore this problem. But it's a serious problem in Congress because Congress is not really democratic in the sense of like every member has an equivalent amount of power. Like the chairs have enormous amounts of power and all of the chair, almost all the chairs, particularly on the Democratic side, which literally goes off of, they generally go off of seniority in a way that the Republicans don't necessarily. That means that you have a bunch of 70 and 80 year olds with like the lion's share of the

power on the committee, because if you're just a rank and file member of the committee, you have nothing like the power that the chair or ranking member does. So to me, that's like the big problem. It's like, shouldn't we pick the leaders of these committees based on, I mean, maybe it is the oldest person that's the best suited for it. But, you know, presumably sometimes that's not the case. I'll tell you. Yeah. Senior decision was a disaster and really was one of the worst things about Congress. In fact, it's one of the few good things the GOP did in, I think it was in the Tea Party era, actually, where they kick the seniority system on their side. But you're absolutely right. Seniority is, it's just kills any legislative advancement. The generational turnover.

Well, these guys are in charge of like policy on internet and it's like an 80 year old. Exactly. Do you what I mean? Yeah, this, no, the seniority system locked up the United States Congress for almost a 50 year period. And it was, I mean, if you want, you can read the master of the Senate book about this. There's several others in the Robert Carey. Articulates it incredibly well about how much progress. have actually held up at the time. It really, really needs to go. Anything else, Ken, before you go? I would just point out that, yeah, there's been a huge change on the age question, and I think the health one is another thing that I hope gets, you know, debated more. Because obviously there's a balance that you have to make between someone's privacy, even a, you know, member of Congresses.

But there's just nothing in terms of transparency for what the public gets to know. So I hope that's the next thing that people push me. I don't really have that much. If you want your privacy, like go live a private life. You know, people are electing you. I just, you know, a level of disclosure would be nice. And kudos to you who sort of shamed Susan Collins into revealing what was going on with her tremors. Was it the-so, yeah, she says it's a, what is it called, Ken? It's like a benign, some sort of benign tremor.

She claims that it's a, what is it, a essential tremor. That's the term for it. Which is something that, I mean, is a whole other complicated issue. I'll let the hell. And it was crazy because of something that, Everyone could see. And I was like, I thought, oh, for sure this has been reported before. I literally couldn't find any mention of it anywhere.

Yeah. Well, it started going viral because in her re-election ad, she was like taking shoes out of a box and visibly shaking so much. And if you just watch her. And so, look, people can evaluate for themselves, but you, you know, should put the information out. There's something visibly going on with you. What is it so that voters can decide whether this is what they, you know, what they're signing up for. She's 73.

I thought she was like 65. Bring chicken. She's not even one of the oldest ones, Sager. My God. Yeah, she's been in office for 30 years. You're from Maine. It's one of those beautiful states. The license plate for Maine

literally says vacation land. Enjoy it. You know, it's like, you got a few years. Just, you know, go by a lake or whatever. I don't get it. She may have that opportunity soon. We'll see how it goes. In any case.

Ken, shout out to your substack. Everybody go check it out and subscribe. Great to see you, as always, my friend. See you, man. Good seeing you, guys. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. Friday show for everybody tomorrow.

See you then. record sold. Awards, sold out tours. You think that Jonas brothers are satisfied? Nope, it's podcast time. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Hey Jonas is available now and their first guest is a big one. Paul Rudd. You know, Steve Carell is a great singer. Can you tell you not to audition the office or something? I told him. Whoa. We were filming Anchor Man. Clearly, I was the idiot. Thank God he didn't listen to him, right? Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy is essential, and it's also elusive.

But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby starting June 10th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, this is Teddy Mellencamp. And Tamara Judge from Two T's in a Pod. There's been one scandal that's consumed our lives these last couple of months.

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