Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 932: Fauci is Grilled, Third of Democrats are Democratic Socialists

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

CNN Poll: A third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists | CNN Politics Americans support Netanyahu arrest by 22-point margin: Survey CNN Poll: Voters favor Democrats by an 8-point margin heading into the midterms Trump Seems Trapped by Iran War, Even as He Wields the World's Biggest Hammer - The New York Times Kash Patel Loses Lawsuit Against Man Who Called Him "Googly-Eyed" Chud | The New Republic White House admits it scrapped grants to blue states because they didn't vote for Trump Fauci Pleads the Fifth, Refusing to Answer Questions on Covid Origins at Senate Hearing - The New York Times A message for the Democrats: It's the corruption, stupid

This episode of Cognitive Dissidence is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. Recording live from Glory Hole Studios in Chicago and beyond. This is Cognitive Dissanance. Every episode to be blessed anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic of the

It makes the news makes it big or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome at. Today is Friday, July the 31st. And Cecil. Yeah. I was thinking today as I was driving to the studio that normally I'll launch in with whatever fresh hell has occurred in the last 48 hours.

And I think we have, at this moment, a status quo of hell. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, I'm not saying that it's gotten better. I'm just saying that in the last 48 hours, it's just stayed like sixth ring, right? We're kind of in the center zone. I got sent a message this morning, and I did not verify it. Okay.

So I don't know, but it was a picture sent to me by someone who I, we're both very good friends with. Sure. They sent me a picture this morning that said that there was a conference somewhere that the U.S. was presenting at, the State Department was presenting at, and the map of Africa was egregiously mislabeled every country. So I'm going to look into that afterwards, but if it's a joke, it's funny. And if it's not a joke, it's tragic.

I hope it's something like AI created for somebody. Oh, God, it's so funny. They just dropped an AI slopslide into their presentation. And it's just everything is gibberish. This was some time ago. Democratic Republic of Kornga. I don't remember why we did it, but this, and maybe it was maybe six, nine months ago. This was a minute ago in AI world.

But like, Haley and I were using chat GPT. And for some reason, we asked it to give us like a diagram, create a diagram, a medical diagram, cross-section of a pregnant woman. And I remember why. And it did it. Like, it was like, yeah, sure, I got you. But it doesn't look things up. It just responds to the request. and the labels were fucking bonkers, man.

It was like, it was like labeling like, here's the prostate. You're just like, I don't think. I don't know. You did a good job. I thought it would be awesome. My first thing that popped in my head is if chat TPT put a little computer inside the tummy. There's like a little homunculus of Elon Musk living inside of it. Yeah.

Did you listen to his interview? No. Uh-uh. Yeah. So he's interviewed by the economist. Oh, God. It's insanity. He is such a...

I can't believe that man is that rich. He is the stupidest person I've ever talked to. He is genuinely just like a fucking... I can't... I've heard him called like an 80 IQ guy and I don't disagree. Like, I think he is... I think he is genuinely deficient.

Like, when you hear him speak, you can't imagine that that person is like this ultra-genious that everybody keeps playing him out to be. I can't understand at all. all the mythology around that guy where people are just like convinced that he's got the answers. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they are, right?

They're convinced it. He's like some next level fucking super genius guy. And I'm like, I've seen no evidence of that at all. The only evidence you could point to is like he has clearly manipulated people into believing his bullshit well enough that like he's got a bunch of companies that are in the red that are valued way over their actual revenue projections. like he's manipulated people, I think, financially. So is that a kind of intelligence? I don't know. I mean, it's a kind of craftiness.

Being able to find good investments is also, you know, sure, that's fine. But like, most of the company, I think all of the companies, even like, like SpaceX, which had its IPO. It was like the biggest IPO in history. And like, they changed all these rules to basically force your 401K and these other ETFs. they had to buy some pieces of SpaceX. And generally speaking, an IPO in its first launch won't even be available in most of these, like, bigger Vanguard-type funds. They changed the rules that SpaceX was not only available, but by some of the other

securities rules, essentially de facto required to be purchased by. So everybody that has a 401K owns some piece of SpaceX, whether you wanted it to or not. You essentially could not divest from it, which helped to kind of create this massive launch. But they have to- And also the massive sell-off that's been attacked. people. Because there's no, it's in the red. SpaceX is not producing profit.

Most of these companies, that's crazy to me, most of these big tech companies are not producing a profit. Seems like a lot like dot-com bubble. How long can you live on venture capital and investors and, you know, little plug for a show that I just recently did for citation needed.

I covered a party that was thrown during the dot-com bubble, but I do explain the dot-com bubble. And it really was. all about just genuinely people creating a thing that had market share but did not have to have profitability. Yeah. So that's it.

That's all they were selling. They were just selling market share. There's so much of that. Like the entire AI industry is built entirely. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the AI industry, like in all the pieces that support it, the chips, et cetera, like that is, those are the main drivers of economic growth right now.

And it's all speculative. there's nothing like in terms of like the fundamentals right now there's nothing that underlies that sure sure it's insane to me yeah it's insane like i i don't know like i don't want to get too like into the economics of it but like i keep watching every day it's like bond yields are higher than they've ever been that's not great and like all the primary growth in stocks is coming from these big tech companies none of these guys have like the on the i i side they don't have a way to turn a profit at least nothing that they've announced and then you We've got like Google and Microsoft and meta and these other big companies just spending all of their cash reserves, like all of their cash reserves on data centers and AI investments.

And it's just like, God, we've got so many fucking eggs in this basket. There's a lot of, it feels like a lot of bubbles. Definitely does. It feels like one of those. It feels like the Lawrence Welk bubble machine. Yeah, man. It's scary, dude. It's scary.

I don't know. Like, I'm sure I'm not that there are like way smarter minds than mine. who are going to say this is not a bubble. This is all fine. There's great underlying fundamentals. But I don't know. I literally can't find a single article that supports any of the underlying economic fundamentals. It's all just like, well, we're just going to keep building it and hope that it works good.

And you're like, neat. Well, what do you think should happen to them? What would be a fair sentence? Do you think they deserve to die, Mr. Heddon? Answer the question. Collie, don't deserve to die. Yes, they deserve to die. And I hope they burn it in hell.

All right. his stories from the Hill. American support Netanyahu arrest by 22 point margin, according to survey. That feels like bipartisan. It's like 47% of Americans are like, yeah, that guy should just be arrested. Yeah. And what I think is interesting is we've seen such a turnaround because of the way in which I think Israel has clearly manipulated the United States. into doing, well, manipulated Donald Trump, who has literally authoritarian control over the United States, into doing a bunch of things.

And I think a lot of people, the sort of the cover that they were doing their magic trick over before is gone. Yeah. And now there's a lot of people who are saying that are not interested. And this also dovetails with a couple of other stories. The first one is from CNN. Voters favor Democrats by an eight-point margin heading into midterms. And then this other one from CNN,

that says a third of Democrats now identify as Democratic Socialists. And I think I wanted to bundle all these together because it shows to me a very different trend than we've been on for a while. I think what I like about these two things, especially the Democratic Socialist one, is there seems to be a message that's resonating with young voters and is,

get the current leadership out. The current leadership is very in bed with Israel. So get the current leadership out. The negativity of Israel is also adding to their bad numbers and how well they look polling with this young group. And then you also see just like a level of hardship economically and a level of people tired of corruption, people tired of people who were lied to,

essentially in the last election. and blatantly lied to. And I think all those things are a really interesting confluence of events that I'm excited to see the Democrats fuck up. It's so funny you say that because it's like, well, here's all these great things in the favor of the Democrats. We should be able to really accomplish some things politically. And honestly, like, if the thing that we accomplished in 26 in November

is that we just put a cock block in place. That is the biggest possible victory. We got to control the committees, have some oversight. Senate's probably not going to go. Yeah, I think that that is... The Senate's probably going to stay a lost cause. Republican or very, very close to where it is now.

So you're not going to get anything super special out of that. But I think you could get the House. Yeah, I think all signs are pointing to the House is probably going to flip. there was, I think there was some more optimism than I share that the Senate was able to flip. I think the real problem is that like now we essentially don't have anything functionally to get excited about in Maine. We really, it comes down to every seat in the Senate. And with Graham Platner being a terrible human being, I think that kind of fucks Maine over. Susan Collins almost certainly win Maine now.

I think that's likely or more likely than it was even three or four months ago. Yeah. That's a bummer. Yeah. Because every. seat is just so incredibly important. So there's just no wiggle room. Yeah. And the fuckery around Mitch McConnell too. Oh, yeah. The fuckery around that is another thing because we are closing in on the date where they could

just be like, you know, I think it's the third. August 3rd is when Monday. Yeah. So if if they're basically saying like if they can, I think if they can hold out to August third, then they can't, they won't be able to do this any kind of special election at all in the new election cycle. And so I think, I mean, I feel like everybody should just sort of get a dead pull ready on when they're going to say he's dead, but it's going to be after August 3rd. I feel like it's the week.

So it's the 10th they're going to say he's dead. That's my guess. Is there going to be like he's dead or brain dead on the 10th? That's my guess. It's going to be in August. Yeah. They're not going to. And the thing is, like, it could be the fourth.

Right. It could be the afternoon of the third. Right. Right? Because they don't care. No. What do they care? Yeah. What are they worried about the optics of cheating?

Yeah. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I interrupted. No, no. So, yeah, well, I was just going to say, like, I think the Democrats, like, if there is a way to fuck this up, we seem to have, like, every ability to find it, right?

We have all of these pieces going into the midterms, which should mean that we actually should take the House and the Senate. Like, but if you look at what Americans actually want, but the Republicans have cheated so much, they've put so many structural barriers in place. with the gerrymandering and then just the way the Senate always naturally favors the Republicans, the way that, like, it's just built out. I'll be very, very surprised if we get the Senate. I think three or four months ago, I would have said, yeah, man, I think it's 60, 40,

we will actually get it. Now I think I feel about 60, 40, we won't. I feel like even if they win the votes, I'm not sure you're going to get it. Oh, God. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like at a certain point, there could be a moment after the election where they couldn't do the things they wanted to do to stifle the election. And it could be that after the election, they're just like, yeah, we're just not going to change the people are just going to stay.

We're just going to keep them. He's going to cheat it out. We're not going to, we're not going to, that election is going to, they're going to find a way to be like, that election doesn't count. Sure, yeah. We'll have an election when we pull it out of the hand. It's not a practice. And what makes me, there's nothing in me that says that if that makes it to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court would be like, yeah, that's fine. We'll, we'll overturn that. They would 100% agree with it. I mean, like when the enforcement arm, the executive branch is the enforcement arm of the federal government. And then the Supreme Court is obviously the judicial branch.

When those two are working in concert and they can decide and collaborate on what they will and won't pursue, then what that means is you can break the law and the law will protect the breaking of itself. So, yeah, I don't disagree with that at all. If that happens, if that happens and we see that, like just we are, I think officially with like a stamp and everything no longer a democracy. You're a failed state. Right. You're a failed state at that point. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, no, 100%. With the largest nuclear-powered failed state in history. Understand that immediately the entire world, the economy would tank. Immediately, the entire world economy would collapse after that. Collapse. What I do want to roll back to a little bit of hope, just a tiny bit, right? And I think like getting, having a level of clearly they're up by eight points now, solid, that's awesome. The lean towards the Democratic Socialists also good.

And I think having something that says, because there's been so much lately about, even in the Democrat and the Republican Party, about things that aren't the economy, whatever it is. And it could be a million other things, things that aren't the economy. and what the lead of the Democratic Socialists and the people who are part of that group, what that shows me is, is like, you've been paying attention to the wrong things. You've really got to lead first step with the economy. That's the thing you got to lead with.

Because if you're seeing that many people with as poisonous a word as socialism is in our country, leaning towards that. And I want people to understand, I don't personally, think it's poisonous. Right. Right.

I think it's great. I think socialism is awesome. I think there should be a lot more socialism in the United States. Absolutely. But the Overton window has shifted so deeply on that very particular topic that it's literally like it's almost like when people are talking about, it's almost like it's satanic in some way. It's evil in some way.

It's been turned into something absolutely abhorrent. And people leaning that deeply into it this far with the Overton window shifted over to me says that it's really genuinely all about the economy. And you've got to really reach people. I was the other day, I don't want to brag, but I am a proud Costco member. All right. Executive membership or standard? No, just a regular standard membership. But in any case, I went to the gas station.

And their gas is almost always cheap. Like it's cheaper, right? I don't know what they do to make their gas cheaper, but it's obviously there's some. sort of bulk thing that they do that makes it cheaper. It was really expensive. It's real expensive, right? It was like $5 a gallon at Costco. That's real expensive because even when it was like pretty high before, it was like $3.90 or something. Now it's over five at Costco. That's insanity, man. It is. So we're at a place now where I think everybody's feeling the pinch. And that, we talked about before, that gas gauge, the amount of money that you spend on that, that affects all your money.

Because everything you put, all the money, everybody has to travel places. And so we're in a situation now where I think people are realizing that if you don't change things fundamentally in the government, there's just going to continue to be this inequality, it's deep inequality in our country. And I think I hope, it's my hope that this is one of those things that turns the, not only the beat around, but turns the, Democratic Party around and makes it so that they start kicking out some of this leadership, because this leadership is terrible. They've been coddling too many business interests and too many foreign interests for way too long. The leaders in the Democratic Party have been trash for a long time,

and they need to go. And I hope that this is turning the new page on all that. I do too. And I think I agree with you. The economy is the message. It is 100% the mess. It is 100% the message. And it would be difficult to run on the economy, I think, and not drum up a lot of, like, disgust and anger and, like, reach into people's, like, hearts and pockets. Because, like, it's not just money. Like, if you're rich, I think, like, if you're rich, money is just money, right? Money is not worries. Money is not stress. Money is not whether or not your kids get educated. Money is not whether or not there's food in the refrigerator. When you're rich, money is a score that you keep.

that's all that really is. And you want to get a better score because it makes you fucking feel good or whatever the reason for it is. But when you're anything but rich, what money is is like whether or not your kids go to college, right? It's money is whether or not

you bought groceries this week. Money is whether or not you were able to put gas in the car. Money is your life. Money is existential because it's the way that you have to engage the world and provide for yourself and provide for those that you love.

So when you're on that cusp, they function differently, I guess. Like money is not even the same thing for somebody who's rich as opposed to somebody who's not. Somebody who's rich in the groceries, what difference does it make to me if I've got $10 million if I spent $400 on my grocery bill or $200 on my grocery bill? It's negligent. It doesn't actually mean anything. If my grocery bill doubles and my budget didn't have an extra $200 in it this month, then that difference is everything.

That difference is whether or not I'm getting medication maybe or whether or not I bounced my rent check or whether or not I saw an article about this. More and more people are putting their groceries on credit cards. Jesus Christ, dude. You put your groceries on credit cards. Like, your credit runs out at some point. And you're paying 17% interest on your...

You're lucky to get 17%. Or whatever. I don't know what it is. I want to talk about that too real quick because it's another place where money is different for regular people than it is for rich people. If I'm a rich person, I use a credit card, and I pay that credit card every month, all the credit card does for me is good things, right? It just gives me points and benefits and perks and protections and all that kind of stuff.

But most people, I was just reading up, most people are racking up credit card debt, so they're not paying their cards off every month. That's the vast majority of credit card users. And the average credit card interest rate right now is over 24%. 24%. Imagine getting a loan. Your grocery bill is going to be 24. it's already this expensive. Then you use the credit cards, tack another 24% onto it.

And then it's just going to keep compounding. Yeah. Time over time, over time. And then eventually you're going to run out of credit. And those bills come due, and you can't pay them, and then you can't buy groceries the next time

because you no longer have available credit. These are compounding existential problems for people. And that, I think, is going to drive people to the polls. The Trump administration, you know, they ran on, we're going to make these groceries cheaper. I'm standing at a table. full of canned goods. They ran on America first and an isolationist policy and all of the activity

and all anybody wants to talk about is all the stuff that we're doing overseas. So how do you not feel betrayed by that? If you've been the guy driving around fucking rolling coal this whole time, you got a fucking giant truck because that's what they told you to buy and it gets fucking 13 miles to the gallon and this is the America you thought you were going to be in and all of a sudden you can't fill your fucking F-350 up and you can't put food on the table. even if you're not going to vote Democrat, you just might not vote. Yeah, you just not motivated and vote then.

I saw a video the other day, and again, I have no idea, you have no idea in any way to really vet the information you see on these videos, these social media videos. And I saw a person walking around a high school or an elementary school talking to the teachers

and asking the teachers and then showing their job, like what they do. So like some of them were like speech pathologists and other stuff at that school and whatever, basically asking, how much money do you think is in your bank account right now? And there was so many people that were under $100. Yeah.

Because it was right before payday. And so they're like, how much is in? And they're like, I think $6. And then they would turn it and be like, oh. And I know what that's like. And you know what that's like to have $6 in your bank account. You know what that's like, right? I don't have that happen to me anymore.

Like, I don't have that. My wife is gainfully employed. I make enough money to get by. It's good, right? So I don't have that moment anymore where I look at my bank account and be like, I only have $6 in. Right. But I know what it's like to feel like that. And I know what it was like to feel like that for many, many years of my life, like many years of my life where you look at it and like, holy shit. Now, it took 22 years of a career to get me out of that. Right. Right. But for a long time of my life, it was, oh, wow, I can't do this this week or I can't do this or I can't go shopping. I've got to find something in the thing. I've got to. to look in the pantry or whatever. And again, I don't know how true that is,

but I don't know that it necessarily individually has to be true for each one of those people for me not to realize that the things that, the hardships I went through as a young person are multiplied today. Multi- Right? So even if it's not 100% true and these people are just,

maybe it's a made-up thing for social media, I have no idea. But I recognize that I went through that and my generation went through that 20 years ago. during the, you know, when, when the markets crashed because of the, the amount of money that we put in the real estate and how bad everything was back then, we went through that 20 years ago. Yeah. And it was shit for a while afterwards. It was shit.

So I know what it's like to go through that then. What's it like to go through now? And what's it like to go through for all these young people now that are, that are like just getting out of college, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, it's a fucking tragedy. Yeah. Like, it's a tragedy for people. I don't know how true that video is either, but I do know that the median household median household income in America is under $85,000. And I don't know how you survive on that when groceries cost.

Like I have a family of six and like I bought groceries yesterday and we didn't buy any meat in this grocery purchasing order because we had bought meat previously and frozen it. I got no meat for family of six. My grocery bill is almost $500 with no meat. meat. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's about a week's worth of groceries. That's insane, dude. But like, I'm like, well, I got a family. I have six miles to feed. Yeah, dude. So, like, I don't know how people are doing it. And the answer from what I've seen in the research is they're borrowing. Yeah. And that is a Ponzi scheme. And that's not, it's not their fault. It's not their fault, but it's not, but they're in a situation where they can't change that.

It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. This ain't deal or no deal. And I'm not howie fucking Mandel. really hard for me to think right now because you have me tied up. From the New York Times, Trump seems trapped by Iran War even as he wields the world's biggest hammer. This article is the best. There's some great moments in this article. But basically what it shows is how petulant and shitty a person he is. Last week we were talking about the Saudi deal.

And in this article, they're like, yeah, he said there's this big Saudi deal to give him enriched or teach him how to enrichering him or giving the tools or whatever, sell them the tools to do that sort of thing. And then the next day, he's like, you've got a sign of promise that says, Israel is the bestest. And they were like, no.

And he said, okay, fine, you're not getting your stuff then. And he stomped away. And then there's like another bridge that he was invited to open up was a bridge to Canada. And then there was some problem with Canada. So he gave him tariffs. And then they disinvited him to the bridge opening.

It's just all this, it's all just this petulant, shitty person. Stomping around the White House with these, you know, these whims that he goes out on. And it is, it's so embarrassing just to read this article and to hear all the, all the ways in which he is so, like, it's so flighty. And it's just so, like, the vicissitudes of his, of his decision making and how quickly he changes his mind is so, embarrassing and not statesman-like. And we see, what I just, you just want to grab somebody and be like, like, you wouldn't allow this.

I realize you're a Trump voter, but you wouldn't allow this if this was your kid. Right. Yeah. You wouldn't allow this if this was your kid treating you like this. But you let your president treat you like this. Man, that's a great point because like when you are a parent, like you're raising, you should be raising your kids. Like, hey, stand by your word.

Yeah. Right. Your word should mean something to the people around you. And if it doesn't, you have no, if you don't have any integrity for yourself, if people don't think that you're a person of integrity, then that is going to harm you and your reputation in these important ways. And Trump, like, one of the things that, like, his supporters and he has always, like, touted is that his unpredictability is one of his greatest assets.

It's not that he's unpredictable. It's that he's capricious and he's a liar. And that capricious lying bullshit and he's an underestimator of everybody around him. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Because he thinks he's the smartest guy in every room he walks into. Now we're at war with Iran. And Iran's like, awesome. Thank you. This has actually worked out great for us. If you're Iran, like, this is a really interesting thing that is developed in Iran.

So we killed their Supreme Leader. They put in charge the Supreme Leader's son. That guy has been completely incommunicado with his public and the public ever since. He was hurt very badly in one of these airstrikes. I guess his face. and its head were damaged. It may not be possible for him to even speak. So he is literally a figurehead at this point. That means that the Iranian Republican, the IRGC, Iranian Republican Guard, whatever,

the IRGC, the military arm, right? They're even more hardline than that guy. And so the recent strikes on the tankers were not authorized by official channels, but the official channels aren't necessarily in charge. and they have no interest in stopping the war. They actually want the war to continue. They see a lot of advantage in this war continuing with America.

So they restarted that shit. The military basically is running the show. They kind of always have been, but the cleric in charge is completely out of the picture. He's out of pocket. So now you've got these ultra, ultra-hardliners in charge who want more conflict with America because what did they get out of the first round of it?

Well, they got the straight of Hormuz. which they didn't have before. And now they have it. And they'll be damned if they're going to give it up. And they understand that, like, they can absorb more pain because they don't have midterm elections in 2026. Like, they look at this. Like, you have a short-term problem.

We have a generational solution. It's so interesting to me that the whole time, what was keeping them in check from not taking that piece of water, was the fear that America would come in and basically drop bombs on them and attack them. And then when America walked in and said, we're going to drop bombs on you and attack them, they're like, oh, that wasn't so bad.

Right. And then they just took it. And then they were just like, oh, they just took it. Because what you did was, you went in there and you thought you could bully somebody because that's literally how Trump spends his entire life. He thought he could bully him. That's what happened in Venezuela, right?

Well, it just so happens that Venezuela can't just look out and be like, well, we're just going to take the entire Pacific Ocean. Right, man. Right. So it's a different story. It's a totally different feeling. So you walk in there, you take over, et cetera, et cetera. It works its way out. It works itself out in payroll in some ways and certainly works out in Trump's payroll as he's

collecting billions and billions of dollars that we don't know where that money's going. It's just getting collected from their oil. We're not sure where that Venezuelan money is going. But hey, who cares, whatever. Hey, forget about it. Money. Here's a hundred dollars before you. Shut your mouth there, kid.

go get my car. But in any case, they thought it was going to be a Venezuelan solution. That's what they thought. They thought they'd roll in and be like, oh, look at how big our dick is. We're going to swing it around. We're going to knock a couple of chess pieces off the board.

And then we're going to walk away and you guys are going to respect us. But they, when you walk in and you shoot at them and they're like, oh, that didn't hurt so bad. Now they're like, cool. Well, we'll just take this over and we'll just fuck you over. And there's nothing you can do because, and I think it's because, And I think it's because Trump is afraid right now to do more. Because if he does more and he gets his ass kicked, that's a real, real problem.

Right. And in this article, they said this couple of options are increase military, get a peace deal, or one of the options was just declare victory. And in the article, they don't say it's a victory. They just say declare it. Like bankruptcy, right? Like fucking Michael Scott with bankruptcy. he's just going to declare victory.

And you're like, that's not real victory, guys. That's just an old man saying, I won something, even though he didn't actually win. So this is where you're at with your leadership in your country. They fuck things up so badly. They put a fucking TV host in charge of the country. They put a TV host in front of the Department of Defense. That TV host changed it to the Department of War.

They went to war. And neither of them know what they're doing. Yep. Yeah, man. And like, I don't want to say I fucking called it, but I do want to say, for the record, I fucking called part of this. Because one of the things that I was worried about immediately was as soon as you go to war, one of the things that you expose is the way that you fight war, your resources for war,

your vulnerabilities and weaknesses. And you show that to everybody who's watching. And everybody is watching. And one of the things that we've demonstrated to the world is, hey, we're actually running out these really important defensive interceptor missiles. So our ability to continue to wage war in Iran is limited to the point of being perhaps even stopped because we've already run through by most reports 50% or more of our interceptor missiles. And we have to keep a certain amount of those in reserve for other conflicts. So Russia sees this and China sees this and all of the other folks

that we may have conflict with. We took the mythology of American presence and we said, oh, let me show you guys exactly what's behind the curtain. And I'll take you on a fucking walking tour of what's behind the fucking wizard's curtain. If the curtain opened and you decimated 100% of every bit of infrastructure and power in Iran, that's a different story. Sure.

But if you go in and you have zeeze at the entire time and then they're completely, I mean, they're not fine, right? People have died. It's been a terrible situation over there. but they're still strong enough to hold that straight. You didn't win. No. You lost.

Yeah, you've lost because, like, the other thing, too, is that Iran's maintained its missile program. They've been able to launch and get missiles through, which struck an base in Jordan. So they still have, we didn't take out their ballistic missiles program. We didn't take out their ability to fire ballistic missiles. We did not destroy their drone capabilities. So they've got very inexpensive drones. These drones that they're using cost somewhere around $30,000 U.S. to make and launch. And we're trying to intercept them with missiles, like Patriot missiles,

that cost millions per interception. So the asymmetry doesn't work in our favor there at all. It works in their favor. And we've shown the world that there are really inexpensive, like, chinks in our armor that can be exploited in a conflict. I think what we should have seen is, like, we should have looked at the battle between Ukraine and Russia, all of the world, and said, you know, actually, because of the way that weaponry and technology have evolved, it's very difficult, even for a much, much larger military force, absent the use of overwhelming nuclear options to take the kind of overwhelming, decisive, like a blitzkrieg kind of action that used to be possible in fights of yore, right?

There's no shock and awe, swoop in, devastate, takeover. Ukraine had a much, much smaller. Everybody said, like, it's going to be days. They've held on for years. It's longer than the World War I right now. Yeah. And people were predicting when that first started that it would be like 14 to 21 days. It's been fucking years.

And I think we should have looked at that and said, hey, actually, there's something really important happening in terms of the way that battles are fought and the way that, like, technology works. And it is actually much, much cheaper to be on one side of the conflict than the other. And instead of looking at that and saying, let's try not to get in a fucking conflict, right? Like, it's actually way harder to overwhelm. Like, all these systems we have on this side are very, very expensive, very, very limited in number and scope. And there's all these very cheap, very effective countermeasures and other options that can go through.

We just say, oh, fuck it. Israel said to do it. We're going to swoop in. I bet it'll work out. I bet there'll be a revolution. That's what he was counting on. That's why he stood at the fucking podium and said, hey, this country will be yours for the taking. He was counting on a revolution to do all the work for him.

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, hey, you shut your face. If we want to hear you talk, I will shove my arm up your ass and work your mouth like a puppet. You hear me? You hear me? Cash bar. Tom, we're going to have to read this one aloud.

I love this. This is from the New Republic. Cash Patel loses lawsuit against a man who called him Googly-eyed chud. Hold on a second, guys. Can you tell me if that is not the most perfect photo of him? It is amazing. It looks like somebody took his eyes and then they made him close him. And then they took a Muppet.

And they took the eyes off the Muppet. And they put him on him. It is the best picture you could possibly place with this. And the best part is it is protected speech now. I love this. To call this man a googly eye judge. I will read you guys this article. But Cash Patel in this picture, you know, one of like one of my favorite things to do

is get those little like, you know, dime store googly eyes and like put him on things around the house because it just makes everything look funny. Cash Patel literally looks like somebody came up and googly eyed him while he was sleeping or something. Like he passed out drunk, typical. And somebody fucking googlyed his eyelids. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Federal Judge Tuesday tossed FBI director Cash Patel's $10 million lawsuit against a blogger who called him a Googly eyed Kremlin bitch. By the way, everybody, you're allowed to do that now. This is a thing. So you're allowed to whenever you refer to Cash Patel, that is a perfectly valid way to refer to him. In his final order, Nevada Chief District Judge Andrew Gordon, dismissed Patel's lawsuit against Jim Stewardson, finding that he did not have personal jurisdiction over the internet commentator. Gordon's order put an end to a legal saga that began long before Patel was ever made director of the FBI.

In June, 2023, Patel filed a complaint that Stewardsen was smearing him online by calling him a blatantly incompetent chud. Yes! And a Kremlin asset who plotted to overthrow the government on January 6, 2021. Initially, Stewardsen didn't respond to the lawsuit, which led to Patel winning a $250,000 default judgment in August of 2025. Stewardsen challenged a default judgment on the grounds that he had no meaningful ties to Nevada, where the case was filed, and declared that Patel was a googly-eyed Kremlin bitch and again, a chud. Stewardsen celebrated the final order, which referenced his comments in a footnote. I'd like to commend the judge for including googly-eyed Kremlin

bitch in his ruling, Stewartson wrote. PSA, now that my case is settled, you're free to refer to at FBI director Cash as a chud, a googly-eyed Kremlin bitch and a traitor without fear of legal repercussions.

That is fucking greatest thing I've ever seen. It's so fucking good. So good. And you've got to love it. You got to love it. And I think the the lesson here and this is one of those things that like

I realize that there's been a lot of bad stuff that's happened but there definitely is and has been some pushback and not all because obviously the fucking I think that the Supreme Court is compromised but there has been at least some pushback against their ability to try to silence other people through the courts, etc., etc.

And there's been pushback against that. So I've at least been happy to see them lose court cases, even though there are some court cases that they're winning at the larger level, the personal ones they're losing, they are perfect, absolute chef kiss. So good. You know, the Republicans have control over so many federal judges, but not all of them. Not all of them. And even some very conservative federal judges understand that like rulings create precedent. And some of this shit backfires on you. If you rule, in this sort of like crazy fascist authoritarian way.

So even some of those rulings from like Trump appointed judges. They're like, okay, but like we do still want a rule of law of some kind, right? Because like we'll need it eventually too, guys. Right? Huh? Right? I'm going to do a terrific show today. And I'm going to help people because I'm good enough.

I'm smart enough. And dogg on it. People like me. This is from the Maddow blog. White House admits it scrapped grants to blue states because they didn't vote. for Trump. So federal funding, they're just, they basically are just like, yeah, we're not going to give federal funding in states that didn't vote for Trump. Just blue states are just going to get less of the available federal funds. And we're just going to overtly declare that like, we are not a

government of the people and for its people. We are a government of its people and for the people who fucking voted for us. I will say anybody who's going to be president. next. And if it's me, great. If it's other people also cool. My suggestion is do the exact same thing until they make a rule and do it way harsher. Like every single red state would have to weather the storm for a little while until Congress got its shit together and made it so that that's not possible again. I would make them, I would make them hurt for as long as it takes Congress to act. I would be like, oh, that's fine now? Right. Cool. Cool. We're going to. We're going to. We're going to do that for sure. And then every state that didn't vote for me, I'd be like, yeah,

no, we're 100% doing that and you're not getting anything. Yeah. I'll come in and take things. What are you kidding? Like, I'll be like, I'll come in and bill for your office. Like, I will, I would 100% make it sting until they change the rule on that so it's not allowed it. I mean, what else can you do, right? We have a system that doesn't expressly disallow things that we all agreed nobody would do because it's fucking evil. And we don't want to cut off our nose to spite her own face. But now you've got an administration who's walking around fucking a fucking meat cleaver chopping its own

fucking face into bits like it looks maxing. And we're just like, cool, bro, awesome. We got to make that not cool and awesome. So many of these like things that we didn't do, we didn't do because they were norms. Yeah. You got to structurally fix this. You got to fix them all.

You got to fix it. If you don't fix it, then what you're going to have is a pendulum, right? You're going to continue to have, well, they're doing it on the Democrats and the red states aren't getting it. And now it comes back and they're doing it for that. And what people seem to forget is that red states don't only include red people, right?

I know. There's a lot of people who voted for that particular president or whatever or for their senator or for their house representative that are also in the same party as you and you're fucking them over. That's what they're doing to all the people that are in red areas of Illinois. Yeah. That's what they're doing to all the people that are in red areas of California that are in. And it's not like they don't have red senator, not red senators, but red, they don't have red, they have red representatives. Sure. The same thing happens in all these big blue areas.

They have red representatives in New York. They have red representatives in California and Illinois. You start naming all the big democratic strongholds. There's almost always going to be House of Representatives people that are part of their, their giant area is going to have a lot of people that are, that voted for this president. And they're not getting any help now. Yeah. Well, this is because it's never been about the constituents. Yeah. Right. It's always been about the consolidation of political and economic power. So it doesn't matter if they do the math and they're like, okay, well, we're going to piss these people off, but these people will never vote blue anyway. Or if they do, we know that numerically it doesn't matter to us politically if we lose this segment or that segment. So we want to hurt those people. We are okay with hurting these human beings as long as we hurt more human beings. They trolley problem. Yeah. And the trolley problem. And the trolley. And the trolley. problem, the calculates they're running is not how do I help the most people, how do I eliminate the most damage, but it's how do I consolidate the most power? I think the difference too is

the blue states most of the time are the ones that are the earners. So if you were to fuck around and not give them all the funding they need, they can find that in other places because they're making money, right? There's some money to be had. If you were to switch this around, and you were to be like, oh, guess what, Alabama, we're not going to give you any funding. Oh, guess what? Mississippi, you don't get anything. Arkansas, sorry, none for you. That changes the calculus. That changes the, like, how it feels for those people. The other thing, too, is blue states normally care about the people who live there. So they're going to be like, oh, well, we'll pick up the slack. What happens in a place where those people are like, fuck the government, all those people are going to get fucked. Yeah. Like they're going to, you live in a, you, you have the unfortunate to live in a red state and you're just a regular person and the government cuts your funding off and then your government,

governor doesn't give a fuck about you. What happens to you? What happens to those programs you were relying on? What happens to those things? Well, here's what I'm wondering while you're talking. I wonder how many people don't understand what they're really relying on and where the source of funding comes on. We know that's true. From Medicare.

We know that's true from Medicare. Because people will think like, I oppose that federal Medicare money. And it's like, well, look, your state administers it. So they might call it like Hoosier Hospital or some bullshit, right? Or like, you know. Falcon care or something. Right. Yeah.

Buckeye doctor. Yeah. Sinner or some bullshit. You know, they'll call it some fucking state-centric thing. Exactly. Right? So you don't, you're like, I'm not on no federal government money. And you're just like, you.

don't know how the world works. Yeah. You don't know where your bread is buttered, dummy. What happened in California, I would have no idea that this happened, but in L.A., they had a ballot measure when they were voting for mayor. And I only found this out because I had to research what was on the ballot because people were spreading lies on Joe Rogan show about how they voted for their own taxes. And so that's how you know that these ballots are fraudulent because all these people overwhelmingly voted to increase their own tax. Well, if you look into the ballot, they actually voted to increase taxes on unregulated marijuana dispensaries and on online booking companies that were doing loopholes to get out of taxes before for hotels.

And they also said that they wanted to get a sales tax increase. Well, they wanted to get the sales tax increase because the government shut their funding off for a specific health care that was allowed to be given to people there. And the government shut that money off. So they had to supplement it somehow. So they raised their own taxes in order to help pay for that. Because in L.A., you can raise the sales tax by 0.5%. And you're not going to crush people because you want to make sure that certain people have health care. So again, it's how people handle those things around them.

Think how many states in red, how many city, big cities in red states would vote to increase their own taxes to take care of their people? Not many, right? Right. Sir, is it true you were a crack cocaine dealer for seven years? I plead the fifth. Sir, will you tell us about the cartels you dealt with in your time as a crack cocaine dealer? No, but I can tell you that I plead the fizzif. New York Times, Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment more than 100 times in bitter Senate hearing.

You see this? I read a lot about this. I didn't watch it. Yeah, I didn't watch it either. So the Fauci hate has got, I've gotten to thinking about this. And there's a couple of things that I think I just want to start off by reminding people because there's a narrative of the six years ago, five, six years ago, that feels weird to me.

It feels like that Mandela effect where people are remembering shit that did not happen. And so like, I just want to like lay out, there was no federal vaccine mandate. Yeah, that never occurred. Nobody at the federal level shut yourself. state down. There was no federal shutdown. Some federal departments, like military, required it. Yeah. So some jobs, some jobs required. So you might, there might have been a local mandate. I'm just wanting to talk about like federal. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. So there was no vaccine, federal vaccine mandate. There was no federal shutdown. Six or seven states didn't shut down at all,

actually. The longest shutdowns lasted about five or six weeks in terms of like the total shutdowns. many people or employers stayed home longer, but those are local decisions. Those weren't even state level decisions. I just looked this up to be sure about this the other day. All of that, not most of that, all of that happened during the Trump administration. None of those shutdowns occurred during the Biden administration. By the time Biden took office, there were no lockdowns. Yeah.

There were no federal lockdowns at all. That never happened. There was also no federal mask mandate. There was no federal mask mandate. there was no vaccine passport. That was not a thing. That was the thing people were worried about. That never happened.

There was no federal vaccine mandate. That never happened. There's a narrative out there where people are walking around talking about how Fauci made them wear a mask. And Fauci made them get a vaccine. And Fauci made this happen. It made that happen. Fauci was a fucking scientific advisor to the federal government. none of the decisions that maybe you didn't like around COVID were made at the federal level.

Not one of them. Not a single fucking one of those things happened. But there's a narrative. I've seen it online a million times in these comments sections for like news articles like this, where people are blaming Fauci and Biden for things that, one, literally never occurred. And two, when they did sort of occur, when there was like recommendations for things, they occurred during. the Trump administration, the first one. But there's this insane Mandela effect where people are misremembering the events of five years ago, six years ago, and they're conflating what happened and they're telling themselves a story that never happened, man. And it's insane. It makes me feel like a crazy

person. Like I live through an alternate reality that's different than the alternate reality these other people live through. That's a really interesting point. And it's something that I think a lot of people need to hear because I think a lot of people, they might misremember how these things went down too. I listen to a lot of Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan constantly talks about vaccine passports. He constantly talks about mandated vaccines. He spreads these false memories to all the people who listen to him. I think that what this is and what this particular hearing is is desperately trying to get away from the economy in Iran. In any way that they possibly, can, they are doing their very damnedest to run away from these difficult hard issues that are

right now battering their party, making it seem like they are incompetent. And all they can do is look to, hey, guys, what were people tuned up about? What can we tune those people up about to get them to forget? Yep. Right. This is peanut butter on the spoon of a pill for your dog. Yeah, yeah. That's what this is. This is trying to figure out whatever they can to try to coat all the terrible shit that they're doing in some sort of outrage

to get people mad about Anthony Fauci. To get them because they are mad, they're still mad, and they're mad because these people who are in office were the ones to tune them up in the first place. They were the ones to tune them up. The other thing that is crazy to me

is that it feels like there is two competing narratives that are happening the entire time that we're talking about this particular, you know, Anthony Fauci's time on there. There's two competing narratives that these people are asking questions about. And they seem to inhabit the same space and exist at the same time. They coexist. But they essentially, what they do is they cancel each other out. And the two competing narratives are, America helped fund a super, bio weapon in in China and fouchi was at the head of that that's their one piece that they're saying and the other is is that none of the mandates and things were actually made to protect people

right so what you're saying is you have a super bio weapon and you should protect yourself against super bioweapon because if not you're fucked right but instead we didn't need the stuff to protect ourselves from the super bio weapon that was perched ready to destroy humanity So which is it? What is it? I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that it was a false flag bioweapon? And that it, they were making it, they were inflating it up somehow.

Well, if that's the case, why wouldn't he release? Why wouldn't we release and say, well, actually, it was a bio weapon by China. If you wanted to control people, wouldn't you just say, well, it's a bio weapon by China. We got to be real careful. And then suddenly the entire world shuts down, if you say that. But instead, they were like, hey, man, let's just try to see. where the evidence leads us. That's called science, folks. Yep. That's where it is. That's what it is. And the thing is, like, what they're trying

to get him on, they released a bunch of pages from his journal as well, right? So he was journaling while he was part of the government. And what they're trying to get him on is because he's like, oh, it might be that it leaked out from this thing. We're not sure where it came from. And he's writing all this stuff down in his journal, right? Oh, my God, that's a smoking gun. No, it's happening during January. He had no idea. This is all speculative. He doesn't know. There's been no investigation whatsoever yet. He's just speculating. Maybe it came from there and no, it maybe it made it to the wet market.

We're not sure. Whatever, whatever, whatever. They've figured out since then that there's no real link to that. The only way you'll ever find out and you'll ever hear that it's actually been like engineered by the government there is if you listen to Rand Paul or you listen to Joe Rogan or you read the official pages of the government where they lied to us to say it's official now, we know it was from a lab. That's the only place you'll see it. You won't see it anywhere else.

No. And like, I want to add a couple of pieces of the absurdity. Like, this whole thing is like, it's an absurd comedy. There's so many, to your point, there's so many moments of cognitive distance and mutual exclusivity in the same, like, right-wing narrative. COVID is so dangerous. And my God, whoever released it killed millions. And also, COVID is no worse than the flu, right? That's what you're talking about. Yeah. And like, we need a vaccine. I got Operation Warp Speed done. And my God, everybody sucked my dick because I got this vaccine pushed through and I'm Donald Trump and nobody's ever done anything like it. But also, you don't need a vaccine and don't take one.

And it's dangerous. It's a dangerous vaccine is dangerous. And we're not going to mention the non-MRNA vaccines that are made that are perfectly normal vaccine types. Also, the non-MRA ones also had complications. Right. Genuine complications. The Johnson and Johnson won. Genuine problems.

Genuine issues. And those are the non-MRA-A-N-A-Ns. The MRI ones seem fucking fine. Yeah. And like we're supposed to believe that Anthony Fauci somehow is running a bio-weapons lab in China. Do you think that America runs its bio-weapons labs in a country where we have, to say the least, tense relationships with? Why would we not run our own bioweapons labs in our own territory and country? or at least in places where we have like a much more strict alliance.

It makes no sense at all. And Anthony Fauci, he's just like, we already don't deserve that guy. This is a guy who spent his entire life fighting AIDS effectively. This is a guy who spent his entire life as a virologist as an advisor to four presidents. This is a guy who dedicated his life to public service. He's arguably the most competent virologist in the world, depending on what you read. This is a guy, and he could have made much more money in the private sector, and he chose to work in the public sector, and he chose to work to help an administration and to advise a president that, like, undermined him at every turn, at every turn.

He ruined his own life to help save so many millions of other lives. We don't deserve this guy. In a sane world, there would be statues of Anthony Fauci, that we would be kissing his fucking feet everywhere he went. Now he's got to have fucking personal security. How atrocious is that? How atrocious that this guy dedicated his entire life to try to help save the world from virus and disease and illness and plague and pestilence.

And now he's being pestered by small-minded ophthalmologists. Well, and literally this is, they bring them up there. Who cares? Yeah, right? Like, you're at this point where you're just like, okay, regardless of what happened, what are you hoping happens from this? Right. Like, what's the 100% end game?

You get vengeance on somebody? Like, even if any of the stuff you say is true, what, first off, even if the stuff you say is true, I just don't, I just don't think any of that stuff is like, I think like no matter what they're going to blow anything that happens out of proportion. I don't believe any of the stuff that they're saying is true. Right. But like let's say that somehow we were funding something in another country.

Like, okay, so you're funding something in another country. That doesn't mean you have control over what's being funded, like perfectly controlled. It doesn't mean that you have say over how that all 100% of that money gets, sometimes you just pay money. You're just like, hey, I would like a thing that happened, whatever. So again, like how. How does that shit roll uphill to Anthony Fauci? Right.

The same thing happens with all the other stuff that you were talking about. He wasn't in charge of anything. Right. So even if you're saying like the Mandela effect of all the things they're trying to get him on, even if you're saying any of that stuff, it still wasn't his decision to make. It wasn't a politician. It was just his ability. Like, so even in the worst case scenario, what do you want to happen?

Like, what's the thing you want to see? Do you want to see them publicly executed? Like, what is your final end game? And the end game is nothing. Because what they want to do is they just want to like pocket sand the United States so that they don't think about the things that are happening right now. I know. They don't stay. If I pocket sand you with Anthony Fauci, I don't have to fucking deal with the economy.

I don't have to deal with Iran. I don't have to deal with high gas prices. I don't have to deal with high food prices. I don't have to deal with blatant corruption in the U.S. government. I don't have to deal with Trump earning money fucking handoff. over fist for all these places. I don't have to deal with his sons, like, investing in crazy shit all the time and

getting obscenely rich while he's the president. I don't have to deal with him saying out loud. Oh, of course they get insider information. Yeah. They talk to me. Sure, no problem. They get insider information. So I don't have to deal with any of that stuff if I fucking pocket sand you with Anthony Fauci. And that's literally

all it is because there's, like, what do you want to happen? What is it that you want to happen? And the thing is, they're trying to get them on corruption charges now. They're trying to say, Oh, well, guess what? You know what? That pardon doesn't protect you from lying in front of us. So he just pled the fifth.

Yeah. He's just like, I'm just going to plead the fifth. Because it's a corrupt government, man. Yeah. And they're trying to fucking, they're trying to find some way to fuck this guy. They're trying to find some way to railroad this guy. When there's a kangaroo court, don't jump in the pouch. Exactly.

Corruption is not bad. Corruption is only bad if I'm not involved. Yes. but if I'm part of that corruption, I'll defend it. And getting back to your previous point, this from the Hill, a message for the Democrats, it's the corruption, stupid. This is an opinion article from the Hill. And I just want to say, like, I understand that our side and many people, I think, who are plugged into politics,

see, recognize and abhor the corruption that is happening in the Trump administration. It's awful. But I do not believe that it is the corruption that is going to spin any of the things inside of government, inside of the election process that makes it so. After this is all over, it's a clean sweep if you just mentioned the corruption. I think your average voter doesn't give a fuck. What they care about is how much it costs to fill up their truck. That's what they care about. they don't care that Trump is stealing from them.

Now, they may care a little more if you can somehow continually frame it as if it's your money they're stealing. They might care more then, but I don't think they care as much. And I don't think this is a good strategy. I think this is personally a stupid article. Thank you. I could not agree more. I think that this is very upsetting and motivating in a sane world. but we know we've long passed that same great point great point 11 12 years ago this would have been

all anybody would talk about right this would be all that mattered it would be just abject obvious corruption here's 12 different places where this corruption should just be like morally legally politically indefensible and we should just you know we'd be all we would talk about but that world is long gone we don't get to have that world back we don't get to you don't get to walk down the halls of insanity and then decide at any point to that you're turning around and taking one step back and everything's normal again. The Biden administration proved that. I think that's what they wanted to do.

They wanted to return normalcy. Yeah. But normalcy is gone. You just have to accept that like we don't, we will never again live in a more normal world. What we will live in from now on and forever is a increasingly less normal, more misinformation and disinformation-based world. So this stuff, no one gives a shit. They only care and the elections proved it.

They only care about. themselves. How are they hurt today? Who aggrieved them? Did somebody Brown agree with them? Did someone teach me that somebody Brown aggrieved me? Then I care about immigration. Why do I care about it? Because my pocket, my money, my jobs, and you've told me it's the Browns that make that a problem for me. It all comes back to my own personal biases, angers, feelings of like having been dismissed or unheard or unhelped. Those are the things that motivate voters. Where am I hurting personally today? Everything else, like, I think if the economy was humming along and we weren't at war with Iran and gas was a dollar 99 a gallon and somebody was like,

hey, Trump got four billion dollars. He just literally stole it from the treasury. We have them on camera stuffing his pockets with gold coins. People will be like, I don't really care. Yeah, you're 100% right. You're 100% right. And the thing is, is like, Trump is in his first term, obviously kept his businesses. There was this idea they sort of like waved corruption under your nose. You could tell that it was there,

but it wasn't as blatant as it is now. Now it's 100% blatant. And this article, admittedly, as much as I didn't like the premise of the article, this article does a great job of laying out all the corruption of his sons and all the corruption he has taken part in, right? All the things that he's done,

as well as all the ways in which he's enriched his family and his sons. Great. And I think that that's all perfectly valid and something you should talk about. And it's not something we should forget about. I don't want to make it seem like I don't care about these things. I absolutely do. I think it's awful that we're at this place now where there's so many people who are willing to let these types of things fly under the radar, especially Republicans who have always seemed to have this rule of law ideal that they've been running on for decades. And then to watch a guy come in and literally say, well, there's nothing in it for me if I don't see. steal. I'm going to steal. I'm going to steal. Of course, nobody gave me any prizes because I didn't steal last time, so I'm going to steal this time. And then he blatantly steals. And he's doing it in ways that it's so obvious now, and nobody's doing anything about it. I think, you know, you're absolutely right. Joe Biden came in and what he did was he thought we could go back to the status quo, which was

the handshake agreement. And I am 100% sure you can't do that anymore. Yeah. There's no more handshake stuff. Because even if you agree to the handshake shit, I don't think they will ever agree to the handshake shit again. So you've got to either just not do anything that's ever going to be within bounds anymore or you've got to legislate that stuff. You can't just walk by with these gentlemen's agreements that they've had forever.

You can't do that anymore. That's not a thing. That is 100% in the past. And Trump realizes that. And he's absolutely pilfering whatever he can and scamming and doing whatever he can using the office of the government to do those types of things. Absolutely.

his family's doing the same thing. All his friends are getting rich. He's going to almost certainly give a bunch of no big contracts to a bunch of people when he tries to fix a bunch of stuff up. I saw this week that they were talking about investing more money in the airport in Washington. Oh, yeah. So there's a ton of money that's going to go to that. Billions of dollars are going to go to refinishing and refurbishing it. But everybody is predicting that what's going to happen is there's a bunch of no big contracts that are going to go to people who he knows. because again, there's no punishment for this, right? All the rest of us have to take a conflict of interest,

human resource thing every year. He doesn't have to do that at all. Right. So this is all, and it's all terrible, but I just don't think it's something you put on it. It's nothing you're going to get, you can maybe make a couple of attack ads out of it, but in my opinion, if this is the only thing you ran on,

you would lose. You would lose. I hope people vote their grocery bill. I do too. Yeah. Okay, that's going to wrap it up. for this week. We'll be back on Monday with a full show, but we're going to leave you like we always do with skeptics creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-babelon bullshit. Couchton

Scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quazi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, late night info docutainment. Leo Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death and towers, tarot cars, psychic healing, crystal balls, bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts. Shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. expose your signs. Thrust your hands, bloody, evidential, conclusive.

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