Julian Dorey Podcast - #389 - “Powder KEG!” - Epstein, Iran, Inside Hezbollah & Israeli Settlements | RocaNews

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Starting point is 00:00:23 So no matter what day of the week, Go's got you covered. Find out more at goadransit.com slash tickets. He lives on the hill. We're on air now. So I'm talking about one of my editors, Christian Venezuela. And he lives on like the hill above Caracas. And so in the middle of the night, these fucking choppers come over. He's like, what the fuck?

Starting point is 00:00:54 Yeah. Runs outside and he just, he's like, bro, he's like, bro, boom, boom. And we were cheering. He was like, USAID. This shit was amazing. I was like, well, I'm glad you're alive. They were watching like the fucking Super Bowl out there. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:01:09 Wasn't there the theory too that on that hill, the, mausoleum with Chavez, right? Chavez. Yeah, is that true? Do they find that that's true? Rubio, they claim that Rubio out of spite bombed that too. I don't know if it was true. I saw one thing rebutting it, but...

Starting point is 00:01:24 I haven't even heard that. Yeah. I think on that, like, up there. Wild. Dude, wild, wild few months in news. Is it fair to say that? Remember when we were on the phone, like two days after Venezuela, scheduling this?

Starting point is 00:01:39 Like, oh, yeah, we'll talk about Venezuela. Yeah. That was like 40 wars ago. And then exactly. Yeah, that we have Iran. So the Big M. We also have the Big E to talk about. The Big E. The Big E. The Big J.E. The Big J.E. A lot of, no, but seriously, it's been insane for news. And then AI. Talk about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We got to talk about that story today. I want to hear about that. We're talking about that before. But it's great to have you guys here again. Enjoyed it a ton last time. I think this will be a regular kind of thing. What you guys are. doing with your channels is amazing. And you also, on Instagram, I love the, I know you're getting to more videos now, but I love just like the news wrapups and everything. No bullshit. Just here's what's

Starting point is 00:02:23 happening. No opinions on it. It's God's work. So please continue it. Seriously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. It's been hard to do God's work because man's domain has been popping off lately. But, but no, we are pumped to be back and, you know, it's been exciting

Starting point is 00:02:46 to see everything you all have been doing too. And, I see Johnny Kaye go crazy like that. And yeah, crazy time. I mean,

Starting point is 00:02:54 truly crazy time. I know people fall back on that line, but it really is a wild, wild moment. When were we here last? Was it August? Yeah,

Starting point is 00:03:01 it was the end of August. Two days later, Dief of me, went to fucking B&H and bought the fucking store. That's right. That's right. They were like,

Starting point is 00:03:08 the lenses weren't so big. Yeah. You were like, these guys look awful. We need better cameras. Yeah, I was like, pay your rent for the next three months.

Starting point is 00:03:16 Give me that. And they sent security out. That was the worst. Sent security? They wouldn't let me pay for it. They're like, no, no, this don't look right. Security came out.

Starting point is 00:03:25 They're like, I'm going to see that idea. I'm like, do I look like that poor? Do you trust the BNH team? You know, they're so good at selling the stuff and they say they don't take money. When they make a recommendation, do you believe them? Depends on the department. Interesting.

Starting point is 00:03:39 That's a sore subject. Interesting. They do a nice job over there. Yeah. I do think, I mean, they aren't commission. Put the camera on you and take some credit for this. Fuck. The BNH team, some of the greatest employees of any business establishment that exist.

Starting point is 00:03:56 And I'll leave it at that. Excellent. All right. So we've got a little nice ambiguity to start the show. We love that. That's right. We'll definitely talk J.E. today for sure. Yeah. Like, because I haven't had a chance to even talk with either.

Starting point is 00:04:08 Yeah, we haven't talked about it. And there's obviously so much on the bone. But we've been doing a lot of that. It is the biggest story in the world. We are going to continue to cover it. They're going to try to fucking cover this thing up. I'm going to do my little teeny fucking tiny part here to try to not let that happen. But I understand that you just took quite a trip to the Middle East to do some documentaries.

Starting point is 00:04:27 I did. I'm glad to be home. Safe and sound in New York City. But yeah, man, there's a good trip. Where'd you go? Interesting. Lebanon. Israel.

Starting point is 00:04:36 slash the West Bank and Egypt. Egypt, not really for work purposes. Just want to see the pyramids. All right. Well, let's start there. That's fun. That was that. Through the pyramids, you know, a lot of people hate on it going there and like how like all like the touts and scams and all this kind of shit.

Starting point is 00:04:49 I loved it, dude. It's awesome. And just being there, honestly being there walking inside the, have you been? I was there when I was 18. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but I couldn't fully appreciate it at the time. Now I'd be like, oh my God. Did you go and you look at it and you're just like, I mean, everyone has the same response. Like how'd they do this? But dude, it's like it's like it was built for giants like it straight up makes no sense and I don't know anything about it I'm not gonna talk but just like the feeling of being there is like awe-inducing

Starting point is 00:05:14 It makes no it makes no sense I saw this morning the same day we're there. There's did you go to Luxor when you're there like in the south Well, they have like all the big temples and the tombs and stuff like yes. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah Tiffany Trump was there the same day as us no way So didn't see her but yeah she got the private tour I'm sure no in the picture there a bunch of people seemed like everyone was there just chilling just just well she didn't He's the Trump kid that nobody ever talks about. So I think she didn't even need secret service. She just showed up and nobody knew it. Tiffany looked like.

Starting point is 00:05:46 It's like that kid in cheaper by the dozen where they bring it. FedEx. Yeah, FedEx. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Nothing but love for Tiffany, but yeah. That's a dangerous term to use though. It looks like it was built for giants.

Starting point is 00:06:01 I mean, we're on YouTube right now. Some people's heads are. they're going there yeah it's crazy man I mean I don't I don't know I was just on the whole flight back you know 12 hours I downloaded all the Rogan Pyramid episodes

Starting point is 00:06:13 and I was just listening through those I was like oh yeah do nuclear fusion that makes a ton of sense yeah I gotta have one who's the one guy Danny Jones just had on twice Landa Kim okay who lives out there

Starting point is 00:06:26 and he's got like he brings a lot of receipts for these other guys who will come up with all these theories and this dude who's there I guess like every day because he lives there. He's like, nope, here's why that doesn't work. But also he doesn't believe the story as we've been told, which, you know, even if it isn't

Starting point is 00:06:45 the craziest possible outcome, the idea that they're still trying to be like, yeah, no, they just got built, you know, they took these fucking 40 billion tonne rocks from 150 miles away, no problem got it done in 20 years. It's like, come on. Yeah. You know, I do think that in the future, I'm not denying that there could be some wild theory on the Egyptian pyramids, that one of those wild theories might be true. But I was thinking the other day, if you, like, I'm amazed at how regular shit gets built. Like, uh, being in West Virginia and seeing

Starting point is 00:07:15 a train track across mountains, I'm like, how did they do this? Right. And you think about the, like the next couple generations in an AI world where everything's going to be so automated and a lot of human thinking and innovation will be kind of factored out and robots will be making those. Don't, They'll wonder how we built the most basic stuff, like a stealth bomber, you know, in an era. The most basic stuff. That is so true. That is so true. You know, the kind of shit you build when you're a kid, like a stealth bomber.

Starting point is 00:07:43 But no, but in all seriousness, like a lot of the technologies we invented way before we had a personal computer. Like, that's an insane thing. It's nuts. Yeah. Humanity's wild, but also, I think if we've learned, yeah, phone? No, they weren't scrolling this. Oh, they weren't. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:08:00 Yeah, before this Middle East trip, two weeks before, we were, we did it. We shot a bunch of videos in the southwest, starting in Vegas and down to the border of Mexico. It's been a few days, like, in the border towns there. No, we got to talk about that today, too. That was honestly, given the stuff that's going on there right now, we were with the National Guard, our videographer of me, that's a whole other thing. But dude, the stuff you see in the desert in like Death Valley, you know, they have like

Starting point is 00:08:22 all the high tech, like all that's where they test all their jets and like the test pilots and all this kind of stuff, the Air Force. Dude, the shit you see just driving around is, is, is, you know, the high tech. mind blowing. I mean like jets and airplane stuff that you've like never you look at you like what is that thing and they're just flying all over the place. It's crazy. We got some on camera that where you look at you like holy shit. How long ago was that you were there? January 10th. He had back to back back to two week trips to the southwest and then Middle East. Yeah with in between our third co-founder's bachelor party in Miami. There you go. That's a wow.

Starting point is 00:08:57 I had to break it out. Mexico for blow bring it back to my I mean, get it all done, get the hookers out, go to the Middle East, cover yourself up and report some news. There you go. Exactly. That's it. You've got to get the energy somewhere. That's right. So you were in Lebanon, though, too. Did you ever see my buddy Brandon Buckingham's documentary on that? No. So Brandon was on a plane to go to India for some festival.

Starting point is 00:09:22 This is back. Oh, fuck. Can we look this up deep? I want to say it's September 2024, if I remember correctly. but he on the way to India on his layover something goes wrong with his visa so he's like fuck well I'm already out here where should I go decides to go to Lebanon lands in Lebanon the bombs start falling like that like literally the next day while he's there but he films this amazing hour 25 minute documentary and all these all these different Lebanese kids are talking about you know it's like normal they're having a good time like this beautiful country all this stuff and they're all dead like they're all dead. Insane. What were they? They just got hit after the documentary came out, obviously.

Starting point is 00:10:09 That's insane. But that's why I'm curious. Like, where were you? Take me there. Like, what was it like now? And what are the people saying? Dude, it totally depends on where you are. I mean, you know, it's so divide.

Starting point is 00:10:19 Obviously, about half the country, Shia, aligned with Iran generally, Hezbollah. 45, 40% Christian, rest Sunni. And depending where you go, it's totally different, right? It's kind of three countries. And really, it's like two countries in one, Lebanon, then like the Shia part, the Hezboa part, the people we were with there, the Lebanese, it called Hezboa Land. Hezbollah land. We went to Hezbollah land two days of the trip, which is surreal. And we went to the, we went at first.

Starting point is 00:10:46 I was like, I don't know, we're going to go. A reader of ours got in touch. He's from there. Oh, wow. And just like gotten to separately like five months ago. We're huge in Hezbollah. We're huge. That's our biggest market.

Starting point is 00:10:56 He said an email, just like the Roka email. like the Roka inbox. We're just like, hey, man, I really love your guy's stuff, whatever. And I missed it. But someone on our team said a couple weeks later, like, hey, you see that email from the guy in Lebanon. I was like, no. So I got on the phone with them.

Starting point is 00:11:08 I just liked the guy. We had a good conversation, stayed in touch. And they invited me to come visit. So we kind of planned the trip around that. And yeah, we did one day. We went to Balbeck, which is Eastern on the border with Syria. That's Hezbollah territory. That's where Hezbollah was created.

Starting point is 00:11:23 It's like their stronghold or whatever. We went to up the coast. Yeah, bro, that place. The place, insane. If this were in Europe, it would be the most visited place ever. Bro, because it's where it is, zero people there. Really? Dude, unbelievable.

Starting point is 00:11:39 Unbelievable place. What is that called, the Temple of Backus? The Temple of Backus. It's like, I mean, that's got a croplice vibes to it. It is unbelievable. I mean, to be in there by yourself. You went in there by yourself? Oh, there's no one.

Starting point is 00:11:52 There is no one there. You couldn't, like, live stream that or something? Yeah, I should have. Yo, what up, fam? chat way in here, bro. I think if Hezbollah finds out you're on their turf live streaming, it doesn't end well. But we did it. So we did it. We spent a day driving out there and we interviewed a guy in Hezbollah in that town right nearby, which is openly. How do you know he's in Hezbollah? Do they have garb? Well, dude, it's different than you think. I mean, I mean, the Hezboa thing, this is one of the most interesting things that I learned. I mean, there's so many interesting things. But Hezbollah is not what you think it is. Like they don't. In my head, I was like, oh, you probably can't go to these places. There's armed men out in the street.

Starting point is 00:12:28 That's not what it's like. That's just not what it's like. At one point, maybe it was a bit more like that, but Hezbollah's been totally weakened. And like now it's like the Lebanese military's in the process of like taking back control of all these places. Ever since the war, so October 2024. So. Wait, so the Lebanese military is now taking back control from Hezbollah.

Starting point is 00:12:46 They're trying to. And this is and here's a thing. There's a warning. There's a warning. When you're checking him for your flight to Lebanon, there's a warning saying no pagers on board. Yeah, you're like it. Yeah, 1999. Don't worry. I didn't answer.

Starting point is 00:13:00 Exactly. That's why I was MIA for the two weeks I was over there. Yeah. What are you watching the wire out of here? So we were there for a day. Then we went a day up the coast. There's Christian areas on the coast, really beautiful, up to the top of the city called Tripoli.

Starting point is 00:13:16 That's very troubled. It's like the poorest city in Lebanon, Sunni, some extremism. It's divided between Al-Oites, like the Syrian, like Assad's group and Sunnis. And they have their own kind of conflict there. then a day just in Beirut, which is an amazing place. Yeah. And then a day we went down literally, we were so close to Israel, like deep in like the, I mean, it's a war zone. And on the deep, close enough on the border that our phones connected to the Israeli internet, like LTE while there.

Starting point is 00:13:43 You get a little spooked being that close to it? Dude, that experience? Yeah. So we were there. We went. So we learned there's this town that's called Hasbaya. If you can look on the map, just to show where it is, it's H-A-S-B-B-E-S-B. B-A-I-A, I think.

Starting point is 00:14:01 And you'll see, hold on. Hey guys, three quick things. Number one, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe to huge, huge help. Number two, if you'd like to join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes, you can join via the link of my description or in the pin comment below. And number three, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make content from the show and make money, you can join via the Discord link in my description below. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:14:25 You see it? Zoom out a little bit. see on the map here. All right, deep, we'll throw this up. So you can see from Hezbaya, just, sorry, go to a bit more just to get the full context of it. So from Hezbaya to the border of Israel is probably like six miles or so, I don't know, 10 miles.

Starting point is 00:14:41 Lebanon's such a small country. Lebanon's smaller than Qatar. Wow. It's, it's tiny. Wow. So from there to the borders like five, like six or ten miles or so. But we went there because you're interviewing a guy, this guy there had started kind of like a we work type thing, trying to do like startups and like the Hezboa, like the, like the,

Starting point is 00:14:57 war zone, which is crazy. And we went there to interview the people who were working there. And one of the people there was like, hey, my uncle lives on the border. Like, you can see Israel from his house. Like, it's right there. And she's like, do you want to go? And I'm like, is it safe? Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:15:14 We get there and we're sitting there, like literally. I mean, again, like I'm not kidding. From here to like the back of your building would be Israel. Like that close. You're looking at it. And very chill. We're sitting out. We're having tea. This guy. He was like the mayor. the town and he's got this big orchard and she's with the mayor yeah and they're not they're not

Starting point is 00:15:33 shia though it's they're droos and that's that's a complicated thing yeah whichever in there when some they kept saying it on video and they're like yeah it's all the jews live there it's like no the jews it's like fucking pam or pan for the middle east yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah beautiful i mean beautiful day beautiful everything we're like oh how nice is this like we're in a war zone and they're like, look how safe it is. It's fine. Like, people can come visit. They can come see how we live and whatever. Five seconds later, and we start hearing shelling all around. And it went on. I mean, it was like a while. And after kind of shelling. Like, bro, we don't know. The, uh, yeah, I did my research before going. And there, I couldn't find any instances. Once, maybe the once a month, there was like a drone strike in this area. And on targeting, you know, it's a Hezbollah, whatever. Um, it's like, I'll take my chances. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like them always. Yeah, I mean. Just once a month, it's usually a drone strike.

Starting point is 00:16:31 You just got a lot to work. I mean, dude, the Israelis are so precise. And like, obviously, when they want to be, dude, in Lebanon, the thing is in Lebanon, they're not trying to like, you know, Gaza's one thing. You look at the way they conducted the war in Lebanon, totally different from what happened in Gaza. And this is the thing in Lebanon that a lot of people are like, they look at it as proof. There's two ways to look at it. When we were in Balbeck in the city with that temple, we are sitting in this plaza, your surroundings has been. of flags everywhere, pictures of like Hassan Nasrallah and the Ayatollahs and whatever. Literally in the

Starting point is 00:17:01 corner of like the plaza, there's a blown out building and like Hugh just wrecked. Just the bottom of like a five-story building, just the one corner is blown out. And I was like what happened here? And the guy were with was like, well, that was like a Hezbollah bank. And dude, so dense. I mean like a Manhattan block. And boom, right there. Right there. Nothing else touched. And they're like, it's, it's great. I mean, straight up to see it. It's wild. Everything else is fine. Literally people were sitting there, people told us, they were sitting there at the same place as us having lunch, just like that. And they went on with their, they went on with their day. And it's like, that's the precision that they can operate with. Yes, that they can operate with. Yeah. And now Gaza, you know, that we can talk about, because I went down to that you can't go into Gaza still. They, you can. We're going to get there. Let's stay with Lebanon. But yeah. But yeah. So essentially, I was like, oh, it's, well, you know, if they want to, I'm hoping they don't want to kill me. And they, you know, they're going for the Hezbole of guys and we'll be fine. But the fact is the stuff that happens, they're just not reported, right? Like shelling and this kind of stuff, it's not making the global news.

Starting point is 00:18:02 It's not something you can Google and find it. So, yeah, when we saw it, and they just started laughing. The guys you were with, they started laughing. Like, now you see how we live. Now you see it. And then they're like, and they all say the same thing. They're like, we're glad you saw this. And then as we were driving back to the city, we kept hearing it in around,

Starting point is 00:18:18 not like maybe like seven, eight times. And it was funny. We're driving this car. Two cars in front of us is. So I'm with my one friend, Ramsey, Lebanese guy. And the car in front of us is a local guy, Osama, who's, like, taking us around. And then a car in front of him is just a pickup truck with like a Lebanese laborer in the back. Like 18-year-old kid.

Starting point is 00:18:37 He's just sitting there to pick up truck just like this, just watching us, just like looking out, you know. Literally we hear over our heads. And then right over the hill, and this kid, I was like, I was like, holy shit. I mean, from, dude, he didn't even move his head. He just sat there. like that. And they're just totally unfazed, totally unfazed. And it was, I mean, it was wild.

Starting point is 00:19:02 It was a wild experience. But I mean, they're still, and the question is like, what are they doing? Why is this happening still? It's very, it's complicated. I mean, we subsequently went to the Israeli side of the border. Where there you hear the shelling in Lebanon from the Israeli side. And it's like, where are they, where are they firing it from? Dude, this is the question.

Starting point is 00:19:22 This is the question no one can answer. When I first heard the shell, when I first heard the shell, when I first, heard it I thought it was artillery and it was like a like a deep boom it sounded like artillery and we couldn't hear the humming of drones now in all these places after being like in like by the border with Gaza Lebanon you hear the the you know the sound of a drone like when you're when you're over there it's just like literally to the point we're going to go to dinner one night in the southern suburbs of Beirut which is where Hezbollah is based but it's like still a normal area that this is the misconception of Hezbo it's still like you can go you just can't

Starting point is 00:19:52 like take pictures and you got to be careful a little bit but literally we're going to go to dinner and then someone called us and like just you know there's a drone over dahia which is the name of the neighbor they're like i wouldn't go so we didn't go but like people just know you hear it you see it like whatever so we don't know the people the people in lebanon were like it's a drone strike and they're like it's always drones but we couldn't hear the drone it's always hear the drone it's always think about this idea all the time someone in levy someone subsequently in israel said it's most likely a drone but who knows no one knows but i always think about this idea all the time because I feel so fortunate to live here and be born here, which you don't get to decide where you're born. It's like winning the fucking lottery to me being here. For all our problems, God damn. Like, whoa, happy to be here. But the thing that kind of bothers me about a lot of society with our complacency

Starting point is 00:20:41 is that, you know, we've never been invaded with the exception of the war 1812 and a couple terrorist attacks. And it really fucking shows. Yeah. Like there's this idea that it's like, ah, no, can come across the Atlantic or do something like that. But what you're seeing up close is people who, because of the geography of where they live, every day, walk outside, they want to order a pizza or do whatever they do.

Starting point is 00:21:07 Shell's coming over, drones coming over, precision strikes happening. And it's like, we're lucky to live here. What's the Israeli rationale for those shells and the continued? I mean, the basic rationale is, Hesbullah is trying to rearm and is whenever Israel sees anything gets wind of anyone who's trying to bring artillery, rockets, guns anywhere in the vicinity of Israel, they strike them. That's not what was going on. The shelling is different.

Starting point is 00:21:39 That's a precision drone strike. Yeah. Right? If like what we heard eight different explosions and the people said this happens all the time, they don't kill anyone. I asked, I was like, how many people in this town have been killed from, from this? Like you say you hear it all the time, how many people have been killed? They said zero. So it's not about that.

Starting point is 00:21:55 And what military's kind of strategy says, you know, a lot of like artillery is about denial. It's about it's about making it so people can't use certain areas. Lebanese people think a lot of them that they're trying to depopulate these areas along the border by making it so impossible for them to live there that they move. When I was in Israel and we heard the explosions over the border, the guy I was with said, who was, you know, I mean, he had been in, obviously like everyone in the military had been in the Israel, everyone in Israel's been in the military. he said they probably saw a terrorist you know who knows like who's a terrorist though

Starting point is 00:22:28 that's what's the question right and but and balbeck the guy the hesbla guy we're with he's like they say we're all terrorists he goes these are all terrorists he's like these are all terrorists but the thing yeah i mean hesbola as i mean hesbola i mean it is a political organization it's a political party but they're i mean to me the the whole thing that they did after October 7th was just stupid. It was moronic. I mean, I don't care. Even if, even if you support their thing and you support the resistance and you support this and that, why would you attack Israel? And then they got destroyed. And they did it. And their method of attacking was rocket attacks and civilians. And it's like they forced Israel to do this. Now, maybe Israel would have done either

Starting point is 00:23:10 way. But the fact is they did it. And it's like, and then who suffers? Well, all the Lebanese people who live in these areas and who are stuck in the middle. That's why there is a huge appetite, huge. No one in Lebanon likes Israel. I mean, you're not going to find them. Some of the Druze people maybe. Yet a lot of them are like, well, you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In terms of they hate Hezbollah, the view Hezbollah as breaking the country.

Starting point is 00:23:36 And if Israel is going to kill them, you know, they like their sovereignty, but they don't, you know. All right. So I have a lot of questions here, but it's a really important point you just made right there because that's the thing. when a group like that has some power within a country where they take apart the vacuum, if you will, they then take actions that is collectively punished on everyone else. And I think where I run into a problem with Israel and other people run into a problem with them is that the response at some point crosses disproportionality and then they continue drastically after that. And also, you know, there's the matter of also provoking attacks in other

Starting point is 00:24:12 ways. What you're pointing out with Lebanon, that was a good example of where Hezbollah was just like, all right, fuck it, send it. And you're not going to beat the Israeli military. Yeah. If you're Hezbo. It's just what it is. But you also point out the precision of strikes. And we saw a very similar precision.

Starting point is 00:24:31 I will give Israel credit for this. When they attacked Iran before they fucking dragged us into it back in June, their strikes were very precise at the locations of who they wanted to get. And that's where people run into a problem. Because as you pointed out, you then look at Gaza and you're like, You're just taking out a whole city blocks because it's Tuesday at 11 a.m. And I guess we got to meet our quota. Well, you know, we never subscribed to the Douglas Murray.

Starting point is 00:24:56 You've never been an doctrine. But I do think that going in to this trip, I remember Frost pitching, you know, or just talking about the premise when he's like, I want to do this trip and I'm going to do it. It is, you know, we thought it would be fascinating to actually, if possible, and he ended up pulling it off, which was amazing. going to both Lebanon and Israel and seeing the parts of Palestine that you can see. And to really immerse yourself and talk to locals and get a real feel for what on the ground is like. And I think for the specific type of coverage you did, you kind of do need to be on the ground.

Starting point is 00:25:39 Less of the macro arguments and more. And so it was just fascinating to hear, you know, the rash. And then it comes to, I think the people's, you know, to everyone's own prerogative to judge whether something was disproportional or whether you don't even buy the basic premise or whatever it is. I think there's still a lot that the people can decide based on the videos you show and the reporting you have. But I think it's also important to see what you saw. Because I got to say getting the play-by-play updates, it was kind of like, wow, you know, I'm on this team. And then I'm like, oh, I really get how they feel, you know. And all the, and then, and then, you know, I mean, so like, I know we're not done with this, this whole trip yet.

Starting point is 00:26:22 But it was kind of fascinating to get each side of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The main thing I took away, it's very easy. If you actually stand and listen to people and you don't have any, like, objective on it, it's like, it's very easy to feel empathy for all people involved. Yeah. And it's like, there's no way.

Starting point is 00:26:38 There's no way that you can go to the West Bank. If you're not someone who has, like, a stake in, like, either, you're like, you like, you know, Israel or Palestine, if you're just like an objective observe and you go and you talk to people and you drive through, there's no way you can't have sympathy for the Palestinians. But then if you go to Israel and you just talk to, I'm not talking about like the, you know, the idea, whatever. You go talk to everyday Israelis. Do they all know people who've been killed? It's not like here. It's like it's a very different thing. So then again, you talk to them and then all of a sudden you have to have to have empathy for them in a way. Sure. And it's that and it's the same thing. In Lebanon, even the Hezbole guy we talked to. I mean, we probably talked to a number of them. This is the only guy I know is an Hezbollah. But he, his, I mean, this stuff goes back to, it's like a blood feud.

Starting point is 00:27:22 Like for him, Israel's, I mean, like the original sin, if you want to call it that, for Israel and Lebanon was invading during the Lebanese Civil War, trying to, trying to install friendly Christians to take over Beirut and whatever. That then created a bunch of people, you know, an Israeli occupation in Lebanon, which then created Hezbollah. And then, you know, and it goes and goes. So now you're in this constant thing, though, where now you have Israelis. You've been killed by Hezbollah. You have Hezbollah. It's like a gang war. You hear this in the inner cities here, right?

Starting point is 00:27:50 Where people are like, well, yeah, I don't know where the feud started. But, like, you know, his cousin, the generational, generational beef. And like, that's what it is. I mean, that's what it is. I do think Lebanon is very different than Palestine. Like, I think the issue with the Israelis and the Lebanese, I think if Hezbollah weren't there, it would be a very different situation. than with the Palestinians.

Starting point is 00:28:13 Without Hamas there, I think you're still going to have the issue with the Palestinian. I've got a question. I'm sure, Julian, you may have some thoughts on this too. But I think this is one of the most, I don't know, I don't think this question ever got enough attention is people do treat Israel like a monolith. And if you think about, like, if you were to cover the United States treatment of the Native Americans, if you went to not, we did go to Navajo Nation.

Starting point is 00:28:37 You go to a lot of reservations. That's not the best look for it. But if you're, if you like then vilify the entire country in the United States, you know, people in like, you know, New Hampshire, like, what the fuck did I do? I'm like guilty for that. I'd read a land acknowledgement. And, you know, and so I think there's like similarly some things our government does. Obviously, most people don't support. To what extent, but it's also, there's also a big regional component. I mean, consider Portland, Oregon versus rural Texas.

Starting point is 00:29:04 I mean, these are vastly. So with something like the West Bank settlements, to what extent do most, is. Israelis, and I'm sure there's also a feeling of, they feel a lot of criticism so they don't want to probably show too much vulnerability or self-criticized too much because they're like, where to get it? But like, to what extent do, say, Israelis and Tel Aviv go, yeah, that's kind of fucked, but it's only one part of our country. We don't, we don't have any guilt.

Starting point is 00:29:28 I'd say that is the, that is the typical thing of it's like, I someone, I asked, I said to someone, I want to go see the, I want to go visit settlements. I said, well, why would you want to do that? It's like, because I'm shooting a bunch of documentaries about Israel and Palestine. Like how you can't do it without without without yeah and that's kind of like the typical thing The I mean yeah is Israel such a complicated place in for so for so many reasons But I mean it depends it depends on it depends on where you go the thing is I pretty I don't know the numbers exactly But what I was told there was that before October 7th it was kind of 50-50 on the settlements and in terms of 50-50

Starting point is 00:30:01 Yeah after October 7th it's not it's way more in favor of the settlements Wow because they look at they pulled the settlements out of Gaza back in 2005 then October 7th happened, right? Hamas. So, so, there are so many things we got to talk about. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:30:15 But, but I'm saying, we're never getting to AI. In terms of their, in terms of their logic, right. They're like, so if we pull it out of the West Bank,

Starting point is 00:30:24 we'll have October 7 from the West Bank. Yeah, the PLO. Like, that's just like what very simplified form of thought, you know, about it. Like, but like people,

Starting point is 00:30:31 you know, obviously people have way more nuanced views, but like that view is, is prevalent among a lot of people we talk to. All right. I'm going to bring it back to the Hezbolla thing in a little bit too because I have a lot of questions about on the ground and when you were talking

Starting point is 00:30:43 with these guys and what it was like and all that but this is this is obviously the I guess like soup de jour a moment what you're talking about with Israel so Mata ball soup yeah a lot a lot of input exactly a lot of important things here number one you make a great point that like people are not their governments and so when I like right now especially with the Epstein stuff which looks how it looks and is what it is, you know, when I criticize a government and I criticize intelligence services, I'm not criticizing the people. Same way that when I criticize China, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, all these different places, I'm not being like, yo, fuck every person that lives there as well.

Starting point is 00:31:21 I think that's really, really important. Secondly, you have to remember with the Israeli government, it's not a two-party system. And I have to admit, I hate the two-party system. But when I look at other places, I have to be like, God damn it. Like, I'm one of these guys yelling about the two-party system, but I don't have a good solution because this is actually worse. You have a government there that has been put in place by 25% of the people. Let's call it what it is.

Starting point is 00:31:46 It's a lot of the Orthodox community and the hard, hardliners, right? So now everyone has to be responsible for what leadership does when, in fact, fucking two weeks before October 7th, they were on the brink of civil war trying to overthrow this government, right? Totally. Well, I mean, one thing that kept coming up on the trip. We saw the settlement where we were the Palestinian on the one side looking at the settlement where Ben-Givir, you know, the minister where he lives. You know he's got a picture of Baruch Goldstein over his dining room table. I didn't know that.

Starting point is 00:32:20 We went to the mosque where Baruch Goldstein went in and killed all the people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you talk to Israeli people and I mean, I don't want to, it's, it is not. Look, Israel proper like America is a very free country. Israel proper. I'm not talking about the West Bank. I'm not talking about Gaza. And the range of debate you have is it's like America. Like you can find every single opinion and you really get to generalize. Like Americans think this. Obviously that doesn't work. Right. So they say like Israel. What I kept hearing a lot of people say though, like they're like, you Americans, like you're always obsessed with, you know, what Ben-Vir says or Smotritch, like they're really far right ministers. But they say that they don't represent anyone. And I'm like, that that makes you. That be true, but like they're saying it. They're in positions of power. Like, this is an issue. Like, this is a major issue for the country. And the fact is, though, Netanyahu, the government is predicated on having their support, right? And you do have a friend. I mean, you have a real

Starting point is 00:33:13 hard, hard, hard, hard right side to, you know, the population there. And they've got serious influence right now. I think it's, I personally, I think it's a disaster for, for, I want to, like, weigh in on their politics, right? And like, whatever. I don't, like, it's not my whatever. But I think it's a disaster for them. I mean, just the fact to even say, because someone's like, why did you bring him up? When I brought up Bengavir and Smokrish. And I'm like, because they say this stuff.

Starting point is 00:33:40 You have to. And they're like, yeah, but it doesn't matter. I'm like, it matters to us. Like it matters to the people around. And they're like, well, we don't get like, essentially their thing is like, you know, we have to stand on our own. We're Israel. We're never going to have friends.

Starting point is 00:33:49 We've got to stand around. We appreciate America. We need to be independent. But the fact is it's definitely, I don't see how it's anything positive. Well, that's another reason why getting on the ground's important because like if you were, let's say, if you were in a separate media ecosystem and the only quotes you saw from American leaders were from Ilan Omar

Starting point is 00:34:05 or from Randy Fine, you know? Like, I would, I would hate America. Frankly, I think those two, you know, like, they are... They beat my first votes off the island from either side. You know what I mean? But like, imagine a media ecosystem that really feeds you those. And you see

Starting point is 00:34:21 they're one of the representatives and they get applause at this place and I'd be like, what are they cooking up in America? Seriously, like, if you were in a, So it's always, it's always important to see, like, okay, to what extent do they have political power? Because, like, Elon Omar kind of is on a fringe. Randy Fine is more or less on a fringe. I think some would argue he has more institutional power behind his view of, like, being ardently pro-Israel and everything.

Starting point is 00:34:45 But he is not representative, I would say most. So, like, hearing you talk about that's interesting. But as you point out, like, the coalition building of the government and, like, there is the hard right side. And there was all this political turmoil before October 7th about. you know, you know, involving their Supreme Court. Like, it is interesting that one thing that's, I mean, one of the most tragic ironies of this whole situation, we went to Kabits Kibbutz near Oz, which is like one of the hard, it was the hardest hit one in October 7th. 25. By the way, Max, I'm sorry, I should ask this early. Can you just explain, for people out there who aren't familiar with the

Starting point is 00:35:17 settlements when you're talking about this, can you just explain what that is? And then, yeah, I mean, there's two kinds. There's, there's, I mean, under international law, it's all illegal. Under Israeli law, you have illegal and legal ones. The legal ones are just towns. They're just towns that have been built in the West Bank and that's it. They come into land that's supposedly not theirs. It's complicated because the West Bank is divided up in three types of land. Areas A, B, and C. Area A is controlled by the – I may have some of these backwards, but area A is controlled

Starting point is 00:35:43 just by the Palestinians. No Israelis present. Area B, it's a mix. Maybe you'll have Palestinian governance, but like roads controlled by Israel. Area C is most of the land, but little of the population. Area A is a little of land, but most of the population. You're talking cities, towns, whatever. Area C is where most of the settlements are.

Starting point is 00:36:01 And it's complicated about whatever, the Palestinians. Look, I don't know enough about how they obtain the land. I know it's, I just don't know the nuance of it. Because to the Israeli side, the land is being purchased. The land is not being stolen, whatever. To the Palestinians, it is being stolen. And I don't know enough about the exact nuance for that. When we make the video, you know, obviously I'll do the interviews and get the nuance on that.

Starting point is 00:36:24 But you have essentially towns, but then you have the illegal ones. The Israeli government does not consider these licit. I mean, and this is like, these are cowboys. This is they go out, they go up to a hilltop where they get, it's like out of like the Wild West. They go up to a hilltop. They erect a bunch of, you know, little buildings and they just start farming and having their goats and whatever. And their hope is over time,

Starting point is 00:36:46 the Israeli government will legalize these. And because you have the hard right in power in Israel right now, they are increasingly being recognized and legalized. And then that land becomes, Israel land. And this is the theft, right? This is when people talk about, like, when they're saying, like, they're stealing the land. A lot of it comes down to what these people are doing. So they literally will just go out there to a hilltop. And it's rural? It's rural. But you have, like, where we went, we saw this. At the bottom of the hill, you had these Bedouin communities. These are nomadic Arabs,

Starting point is 00:37:15 very, very poor. I mean, they're living in what you'd find in, like, you know, in sub-Saharan Africa. Really shanty kind of things. And then at the top of the hill, you'll have the settlers come. And the settlers, they'll frank, a lot of of them, not all of them, a lot of them will come and terrorize them. And they'll, they'll come through and they'll walk through their stuff. And then the ones at the bottom, because they're nomads, they don't actually own the land, so they can't call the police, they can't do anything. They're kind of like, they're just there. And this is where you hear settler violence. This is where settler violence happens. So sometimes you'll have, they'll go down and they'll,

Starting point is 00:37:47 you know, they'll just, they'll just kind of fuck with them. And we saw it. We, we, we, this guy showed us a video. These kids, they're kids of settlers. They come through with like, like their sheep or whatever they had. They're like herders and the Israeli kids. And they would come through and just run them literally through the homes of the Arab nomad, the Bedouin. And they're, and they're just, they sit there and they're just like, we can't do anything about it. And but the settlers' goals to drive them off so they have more land for the settlements. But again, the land doesn't really belong to anyone in the sense of they don't own it, right? They're nomads. So it gets, it's way more complicated than it thinks than like it seems because you get into like

Starting point is 00:38:25 land rights, you get into like the Palestinian authority also really mistreats them. So it's a whole, it's layers to it. But you also, this is what I mean, when you don't allow a country to have their own military, a military is what backs an up whole effectively. This is not, there's a strong way of putting it. But if you're going to look at it, brass tax, that's effectively what holds up the idea of laws meaning something. Because it's like you have a standing military and then the government that is supposed to like control their actions or whatever when you don't allow that to happen you create organizations like the PLO like Hamas like these places because that power vacuum they're going to suck it up every time and say you guys live in shit and by the way we're going

Starting point is 00:39:14 to keep you in that but it's not our fault because it's them over there that's doing it and they have a way to be able to say that so when we see settler violence on the I won't even say the illicit ones in in in the illicit ones when someone dies is there a murder investigation does like obviously there's no fucking Palestinian cops yeah so like it's up to the Israeli authorities yeah so do they come in and like actually treat it like shit like Sherlock Holmes this is where the government matters I mean like I believe it's the deep keep pull up the interior minister of Israel I don't want to get the name wrong but essentially the people who control the police right now aren't policing this stuff and it's it's it's it's a political it's like

Starting point is 00:39:54 Well, Cash Patel. Here you go. Yeah. I don't want to get into the names and everything, because, again, I've got it all my notes and everything. Moshe Arbel. Yeah. To be honest, I don't know if it's him.

Starting point is 00:40:08 Which one is Smotrich? Which one's Bengevere? One is in charge of... Smotrich is finance. Benavir is like the national security. It's Benavir. So Benavir is the one who should be looking at this stuff. But yeah, they don't.

Starting point is 00:40:20 He won't. And it's politics. I mean, it's just like, But again, I don't, two things, two things worth known. One, I'll get back to what I was saying before about the kibbutz that we want to. The, I mean, the Palestinian issue, two things can be true that the occupation of the West Bank is wrong. And it comes with all these human rights violations and everything bad that you can say about it. There's also an issue in the West Bank.

Starting point is 00:40:48 For example, if you kill an Israeli soldier or an Israeli period, not a soldier, a citizen, you get payments from the Palestinian government to your family for the rest of your life, for the rest of your lives. Yeah, it's a problem. It's like, well, for the Israelis, they're just like, it gives them whether, whether it's cynical or not, that is, that lets the Israelis do what they do. And it's like, there is this ideological issue. Now, the reason that they have to allow that is because the threat to the government is Hamas, right? The threat to the government is not some secular, progressive, whatever. It is an Islamist group. So they get their, they get their credibility by killing Israelis. So what do you have to do? Well, you got to tolerate the ones who kill Israelis.

Starting point is 00:41:26 And this is a huge problem. Now, I understand, like, you know, it's just complicated. It's just complicated. And, and a lot, but there are certain issues in here. For example, like a lot of that money, it's like, that's just not good for anyone. And the thing that comes through every single conversation you have there. I'm talking three days with the Palestinians. And every conversation you have, they don't even mean to say it, but they'll say, you know, things used to be better. And then the first intifada happened and then we got the checkpoints. Oh, and then the second intifada happened, then we got the wall. Then October 7th happened, then more checkpoints. The point is, the violence has made everything worse for them. And I don't think it's made them closer to get a Palestinian state.

Starting point is 00:42:04 I think it's done the opposite. I agree. So two things. One, the violence is led from the tip of the spear, which is the organizations who are in charge who sees that power structure, whether or not the people in the rank and file may feel a certain type of way about Israel, they don't really have a choice as to who's in charge of them and what they do. And secondly, you know, I don't, in a perfect world, violence is never the answer. But what is the answer for them to do? Because you have to, in order to make deals, you have to have both sides wanting to make a deal. And I feel if I could point the finger at both sides on this, there has been a demonstrated history from the various Palestinian organizations and the Israeli government that almost throughout the entire history, neither side has actually

Starting point is 00:42:55 want to make a deal. You read all these behind the scenes accounts about these accords that happened in the past in the 90s and in the 80s and things like that. And they're just backstabing each other behind the scenes. One leaves the room and the other one goes, yeah, everything that guy just said, fuck that. Yeah. You know, and it's like, what are we even doing? I mean, look at the Oslo Accords. You look at, Yitzhakribin was killed. And then simultaneously, you have, suicide bombings intended to disrael and persuade the Israelis against supporting it. So, I mean, this stuff goes so deep. And that's why, like, you know, there's just certain things you look at this.

Starting point is 00:43:22 And you're like, if you see it from the Israeli perspective, it's, I mean, again, there's so many different Israeli perspective. I would just say this. You spend it a couple days with the Palestinians and you look at this and you go through all the checkpoints, the checkpoints, the checkpoints, the checkpoints, the checkpoints. That's the most tangible form of occupation for people. Like the raids, the housing demolitions, all this kind of stuff. most people don't feel that they don't see that you know they're just going about their lives like

Starting point is 00:43:46 whatever there's a misconception that everyone everyone everywhere everywhere you go you're getting search getting this like that's not about the west bank in the west bank the most tangible form of occupation to the average Palestinian the west bank is when they drive from city to city they may have to sit for hours in traffic because there's a roadblock corrected by the Israelis to check everybody's papers and you know see if they have guns and whatever you can imagine how much that pisses people off and it's like like imagine if here, imagine if in Texas, like, take the mentality of like a Texan. If driving between Austin and Dallas, you know, maybe it should take three hours, but instead, you don't know how long it's

Starting point is 00:44:21 going to take, because it might close the roads. And it could take 15 hours. You might have to sleep in your car. You might, it would piss people off so, so, so much, right? I don't think Texans would take that. No, they wouldn't. And so, and there's no way that you can experience that. And then, like, like, I said this to a settler and an Israeli settler. And I was like, this is what I saw. I was like, how could this not bother you? Like, doesn't this, don't you understand the anger that they have? And that sometimes this produces violence. And he says, yeah, but we have those checkpoints because of terrorist attacks.

Starting point is 00:44:52 And the terrorists, and then, of course, the Palestinian, say, well, we have the terrorist attacks because they are occupying our land. And whatever. But the point is, the violence certainly doesn't, the violence certainly doesn't achieve anything. That's the one thing I've really. You are right. You are proven right throughout history with that, unfortunately. But it's on, but again, you know, obviously there's violence from both sides. You got the Settler of Violence.

Starting point is 00:45:11 You got the IDF right there. I mean, you've got so much stuff that, like, it's just, it is just complicated. Anyone who wants to just paint it with a brush and say it's simple, unless you believe one way, there's two ways that you can just paint it with a broad brush. One is you do not believe Israel is the right to be there at all. You know, you're from the river to the sea person and therefore, whatever. Okay, fine. Like, if that's your perspective, then none of it is legitimate.

Starting point is 00:45:32 Israel's security concerns are not legitimate. None of it's legitimate. Or you are a hardcore, take it all Zionist who does not care about anybody else in there. And if you're not on one of those two fringes, like the Palestinian people I talk to, most of them were like, we just don't want to deal with this. Like, we don't really care what the borders are. We just don't want to have this stuff here.

Starting point is 00:45:50 And then now they don't, but they are not, that's not Hamas's position. Which is all that matters. Yeah. And on the other side, most of the Israelis say, you know, I don't want, we don't really want this, but whatever. But in any event, the October 7th, the kibbutz you went to Nero's.

Starting point is 00:46:06 25% of people there were kidnapped or killed on October 7th. Going, I mean, visiting it is eye-opening because I thought, we do these videos, we drive around from town to town, right? And we just go and talk to people. I thought we do that down by the border. Well, the towns are gone. I mean, like, it wasn't just like, I mean, this is just, I guess, ignorance on my part. I mean, obviously read a lot of October 7th, watched a lot of the footage and everything.

Starting point is 00:46:30 The town, like, it's as though it was just obliterated. I mean, everything is burned. Everything is gone. And there's people don't, I mean, a handful of people move back and they're trying to get more people to move back. But I met a lady who lived there and she took us around. It's one of the most progressive places in all of Israel. I mean, they were the kibbutz, I mean, you don't have a salary.

Starting point is 00:46:51 It's a communal farm and they share all the money equally between everybody who lives there. They're like hardcore lefties, peace with the Palestinians, peace with the Palestinians. And these are the ones who are massacred. And all the kibbutz on the border with Gaza, it was the most left-wing people, the most pro-piece, the most pro-two-state solution people. They're the ones who are murdered. And that's why that's changed the position in Israel by a lot. Because a lot of people are just like, why, if we want peace, this is how you'll treat us.

Starting point is 00:47:16 That's the way a lot of the Israelis see it. So that was, I mean, I remember just the two takeaways and you sort of just expressed both that you got where West Bank was worse than you probably had imagined it. Yeah, you're also doing a great job with this, like really seeing the nuance. Yeah, totally. It's hard. This is the hardest one of the world. A dislike ratio on these videos when we post it is going to be astronomical. It's all right.

Starting point is 00:47:41 That means you're doing your job. Exactly. And but then also that like October 7th, it was kind of like a holy shit. I get how this wouldn't shake a country so deeply to its core. It changed everything. I mean, it changed everything for the- Change everything. I do want to hear, I mean, one of the most interesting things you brought up that nobody

Starting point is 00:48:02 is really talking about in the media, especially the American media, is Oh, interesting. Deep just brought something up. Okay. Yeah, and this is the thing. I don't know if you ask people about this, but again, this is a prime example of people aren't their governments.

Starting point is 00:48:20 And like, by the way, if we're going to talk about America here, there's plenty of shit that's happened in this country where we can look at our government and say, what the fuck did you do here? You know, that was blamed on other people. But there was a stand-down order that was given on October 7th, And as an aside here, October 7th was a very weird day for me.

Starting point is 00:48:42 I should say this because that morning, the war is breaking out when we're waking up, 7, 8 a.m. I had a guy on a flight from Chicago while he was back in America. He was in the air when it was breaking out, who was a Jewish recon Marine who was born in Scotland, who's got a Scottish accent, came to America, ended up serving in the recon Marines, Mark Turner, very nice guy, who, ironically, he was coming here to do a podcast on some of the shit he had seen in Ukraine, which was nuts. And he was like, this war should be over. Like, we got to stop this.

Starting point is 00:49:14 But he had just spent the last six months working with IDF on the Gaza border. So he's in the air. This war is breaking out. And he gets here and I'm like, well, I guess we're doing two podcasts today. And it was a weird thing because there were things I was seeing. Like, he's opening his WhatsApp and we're hearing and seeing things to this day and will never be released. I'm sure. That was kind of surreal.

Starting point is 00:49:35 But, like, someone just got attacked. in a terrorist attack and you're like, whoa, right? And so I would handle that podcast a lot differently today, and that's on me for sure. Because, again, it's not his fault that he was here for that. But there were thoughts in my head that I was afraid to say at the time that, you know, even when he left here, I was like, come on. And one of them was, I know how tight the Gaza border is. And if you don't believe me, Charlie Kirk said this three days later.

Starting point is 00:50:05 And he was back then, I remember it, like five. days later on Patrick Bet David's podcast, but like you can't take a shit on the Gaza border without having, you know, a sniper rifle trained on you from the IDF. And so obviously this attack was horrible and who got hurt civilians in Israel and who did it, people that are not good people and fuck them. But, you know, did you ask anyone in these places what they thought about some of the stuff that's even been like have real evidence of like stand down orders and things like that that could involve their own government? They bring, I mean, they, people bring it up.

Starting point is 00:50:42 Oh, and the kibbutz, I was talking, talking to a guy. We met this family there. It was a guy, probably like 70 and, like, his two kids, like our age. And they were there that day because their house been destroyed in October 7th, but they're finally bulldozing it that morning. And they were there to see it one last time. Literally, right then they were bulldozing it, and we met them. Wow.

Starting point is 00:51:00 And the guy said to us, essentially said to us on camera, he was like, they abandoned us. Like, and I said, why? He said, that's it. Just, I asked someone else. They said, it's political. No one, no one knows. I don't think you're going to find, look, you're not going to find a single, sir, I talked, I talked to probably 150 people in Israel. I didn't talk to a single person who believes that the Israeli government, there's two, look, I'll be straight out.

Starting point is 00:51:29 There's two things that I heard. I didn't talk to one Israeli who believes it's a genocide in Gaza. I didn't talk to one Israeli who believes that the government. was behind it. This question, though, of what happened, how this happened on October 7th, I asked this one guy who took us around, the guy who took us to settlements.

Starting point is 00:51:46 I say he's Michael Bauer. He's kind of like a self-described lefty, pretty prominent geopolitical analysts in Israel, but also all over the Arab world. I mean, he's not like, he travels all over kind of meeting with Arabs and stuff like that. Michael Bauer? Yeah, he's an interesting guy.

Starting point is 00:52:00 Related to Eddie? I don't think so. But he's essentially when I asked him about it, He said, we just, he said, we didn't think that this was even, we just didn't think it was possible. It was a lack of imagination. It's whatever. This stuff about 9-11. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:52:17 Well, but it gets to a point where like everything feels possible in hindsight. What thing all said in the kibbutz? And they were used to this. They all, you know, they were armed. They had guns. The scenario that they planned for was a handful of people coming across the board because this is what happened before, right? It's the same in the north with Lebanon. I will say to the point about you can't take a shit on the border.

Starting point is 00:52:33 This shocked me on the Israeli side. the Lebanese border. Dude, Hezbollah was like, people would go to sleep. Literally, they would go to sleep and Hezbollah soldiers or whatever you would call them were on the hillside looking at them, taunting them. And the Israelis allowed it. And it was, it was like, literally I couldn't believe it. I was like the IDF let them sit right there with their guns taunting you guys. They said, yeah, we're used to it. And that's how it was. It was like a frog in boiling water, I think, where like it just kept like the temperature kept turning up and turning up and turning up and turning up and then all of a sudden boom it happened so so but in terms of this question the the people at the kibbutz there

Starting point is 00:53:14 and all those kibbutz along the way they feel like they were totally totally abandoned and they don't know why they no one to my knowledge no one i spoke to believes that it that it was nefarious by the Israeli government i'm sure there are people who think that but like within israel not the ones i talked to and i don't know i mean they were also there that day they lost family and friends it's impossible to put yourself in someone like that's position how your mind would try to even process that or make sense of that so that's fair but it's interesting that you know they're willing to say this is fucked up but also be like yeah no it's a failure of imagination that you know it it clocks though there's a lot of people have said that about things

Starting point is 00:53:56 like 9-11 and stuff who were there and i get it you know like you can't your brain's almost not it's not meant to process something like that. Yeah, I think it's also, I mean, I still think the burden of proof is certainly on that this was orchestrated, not explaining that it wasn't, you know. And like I think of the 9-11, on the one hand, people will find like us, you know, any sort of incentive alignment and then assume therefore action. And so like on this, maybe it would have been in, you know, to Netanyahu in the Hargright coalition's advantage to have licensed. A, shed their political scandal, their domestic political

Starting point is 00:54:35 turmoil, and B, then eliminate all the groups that surround them in a longstanding war, maybe get a shot it around, whatever the theory is. But it's kind of like 9-11. I also, they're also really good accounts, too, of like, like, for, you know, Building 7, like, basically, it would have been very difficult to pull that off. For the guys. I know a lot of people are rolling their eyes and being like they can do it. Really think about it, though. I mean, to line an entire skyscraper New York with explosives with not a single credible whistleblower, just sort of, you know, self-appointed like demolition experts on YouTube

Starting point is 00:55:14 generally going after, or whatever it is, it's kind of like pulling that off would be extraordinary. And I think probably, you know, we're always, we always want a scapegoat of like one evil person who did it or two really evil people who did it. And I think oftentimes it can be more complicated. So I still feel like on this stuff, at least from my perspective, if major bold claims deserve a high burden of proof, is my personal view. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Yes, I agree.

Starting point is 00:55:43 And that's the thing. Like, I've been doing this a long time now. And I think to be able to do this and be credible, you have to be willing to change your opinion on things when presented with new evidence. And I have to say I don't have an official opinion on 9-11 yet because there is a lot going on there like a lot like multiple governments around the world all kinds of fucking false permissions things like that But I have had to change what I'm open to on that over the years and there are takes that I would have given two years ago That I think are objectively provably wrong and that is because I have seen some evidence where the burden of proof does get met on that things. You know, one of the places I'm still not because there's a lot of evidence against it as unpopular as this is to say is that CIA themselves did it. I don't, I don't agree with that

Starting point is 00:56:39 because they literally went to the White House twice that summer documented on record, including with George Tenet, who was the head of CIA saying they're coming here, they're coming here, they're going to do something. And Condi Rice told them to shove it up their ass. So maybe the White House is it. I don't know. I'm open to it. But like when you look at Building 7, one of the things there, you know, the demolition doesn't really make any sense. It falls so perfectly. And also, when you look at who was in that building, CIA, Secret Service, all these different organizations that have proprietary information, I could totally see, and this is, this one's more of a hypothetical, I could totally see a building like that being wired for explosives in the

Starting point is 00:57:27 event of some sort of catastrophe where it was fucking mad max fury road and anyone could get in there you know that place 9-11 that day i've had a lot of people on the podcast who were there that day yeah and like it still doesn't get old here in the accounts because you're just like holy shit it just blew up the city well just to bring it back to just this one more time building i was about to get my toothpick tower and go well if one floor collapses you could have subsequent cascade when we're going to get the marshmallows out. I do think

Starting point is 00:58:01 like it's like honestly being being here and kind of like if you talk to a lot of, I mean I've talked to 9-11 survivors here and they're just like I mean obviously you can find anyone right who but like I've talked to people here who are so offended and horrified by the idea that anyone would suggest

Starting point is 00:58:17 it was conspiracy. Yes I have to in Israel that is certainly dude the mental the mental impact October 7th had. Dude Israel is not like the US Israel, like the U.S. is radically individualistic, right? And everyone's on their own. You move away from your family. You do this.

Starting point is 00:58:30 You do this. Israel is the opposite. Every single Friday night, the Israeli, you know, Israeli Jews come together for dinner, right? It is the national pastime. You do the same, even if you're not religious, right, which half the country is not religious. And they come together and they do this every single night. They go and obviously everyone's serving the IDF. Everyone, they go and live on these collective farms where it's like a family, right?

Starting point is 00:58:49 Your kids are raised collectively. Then all of a sudden, this happens. Yeah. The mental scar. that this is taken on the people there is vast. And now, this is not to minimize a situation in Gaza at all. Okay? I'm not, you know, I'm not saying anything.

Starting point is 00:59:03 I'm not commenting on that. Simply put, though, just like, everyone's like, oh, it's like nine, nine-elevens or whatever the number is. Yeah. Yeah. It is so different. And it's like the, it was every single person's there, worse fear manifest. And now you could like, obviously there's, so whatever, the debate about what it, all

Starting point is 00:59:21 I can, all I can say is that the toll it took on these Israeli people, I like, I, I, like, didn't really get it until going there. And it just like, it was a paradigm shift. And that's what produces a situation in Lebanon. What happened before was they were essentially defensive with a lot of this stuff where, okay, something happens. Okay, we'll bomb Gaza. But now it's like, we're not even going to let them get to the position where something can happen. So that's why you now have persistent shelling in southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire. That's why you still have persistent attacks on Gaza. And we were there. We could see literally, we got this in the video. You hear the the launching artillery and then you see the smoke rising from Gaza.

Starting point is 00:59:56 So it's still going on. And that's nuts. And like you have to look at this. And again, this is where I'm talking about the government and not the people because you are out there talking to the people who live in the country and they have their opinions and they have every right to have that. That's it's it's they don't take these actions and they also, you know, just like we do

Starting point is 01:00:15 here, you can get propagandized with things. But like I've studied Benjamin Netanyahu's life inside and out. All right. ironically, sometimes it's like sends a chill at my spine, but I was on a podcast with Jobie Warwick in January 2023, episode 134. And I remember like two hours into it, I made an offhanded comment about Netanyahu. And it was like a side comment. It had nothing to do with anything. He didn't think anything of it. And he just continued on the point. And basically what I said is, yeah, what's the difference between Netanyahu and Putin? And he was like, oh, no, it's an interesting point. He started talking. And while he was talking,

Starting point is 01:00:49 it was the only time in that sit down where I was like absent. for a minute and in my head I was like did I just speak out of my ass there? Like if I went to court and had to defend that with evidence would I be able to produce evidence? And I'm like I think I spoke out of my ass. Yeah. So I made it my project that year to just learn everything

Starting point is 01:01:06 about Israel, the conflict, Netanyahu. I've read fucking every word. That guy's ever written. And you know, ironically I finished somehow his 1,250 page autobiography two weeks before October 7th. So when October 7th happened I was like some would say you're a plant.

Starting point is 01:01:21 I'm fucking ready to go. But, you know, the guy, he has had an obsession with this. His entire political career. And when he was finance minister of Israel, after he was prime minister, when he was finance minister in the early 2000s, he was a very effective finance minister. He's a very smart guy. He's a sociopath, but he's a very smart guy.

Starting point is 01:01:43 And, you know, he set up their economy in a way they had never been set up. And he, they started talking about giving this land back in Gaza. and he was hardline. No, you do it. You do it. I will resign. He was dead serious. And so it was like being negotiated over a year or two. And then they did it. And he resigned, even though he was like popular in that job. And he had an obsession with not with getting Gaza back and that they never should have done that. And so it does ring in my head when you see him, because that's the thing about Netanyahu. This motherfucker got a big mouth. he's got a big mouth. You go run the tape on him. You run throughout his entire career. This motherfucker thinks people aren't listening. And when he tells people in the Knesset in 2019

Starting point is 01:02:32 that if you want to guarantee that you don't have a two-state solution, this is a direct quote, then you must be okay with funding Hamas. Yeah, my brain has to go to, what the fuck? Who's funding Hamas here? Like, I know the Iranians are. Don't get me wrong. I know they are.

Starting point is 01:02:48 But who else is doing it too? And do you want this to manifest? into what that is. Are you using your own people as a pawn? And this is where I defend the Israeli people. It's like they don't have control over what this fucking asshole does in a back room who only a quarter of the country even elected. And like those are questions you have to ask. Just like I'd ask questions about Xi Jinping, just like I'd ask questions about Vladimir Putin, just like I'd ask questions about the entire Ukrainian government, whatever the fuck that even is these days, just like I'd ask questions about Iran, just like I'd ask questions about UK.

Starting point is 01:03:18 I should be able to ask questions about the Israeli government and not be labeled fucking anti-Semite. Totally. Totally. But just, I mean, to straw man the other side of it, because I did ask, I asked a lot of people about the funding, about the funding of Hamas, you know, this whole, this whole situation. And the, I mean, the main, the main take that you hear is we didn't think Hamas was capable of this. We thought Hamas was essentially controlled opposition. And by allowing Qatar to give them the money, it kept their economy viable.

Starting point is 01:03:46 So we didn't have an uprising. we didn't have anything and then we didn't see this is going to come controlled opposition they used that term no no no i'm but you know it's like they they they thought it was under control they thought they had this they thought they had this they had essentially figured out katar gives katar and iran but katar gives money to hamas hamas then keeps a semi-functioning economy in gaza they aren't clamoring you know they have peace they have relative peace israel's not getting the two-state solution whatever it is and even the two-state solution stuff aside it was like well what what is, I mean, what, like, what is the alternative?

Starting point is 01:04:21 Like, you, like, to them, like, having, like, a semi-functioning Ghazan state led by Hamas that is not constantly trying to wage war against Israel, like, to them, even if you're not, like, trying to eliminate, even if you are a pro two-state solution, that may be the best outcome that you imagine. I mean, just being a total realist. It's like, okay, so. Uh, where are my gloves? Come on, heat.

Starting point is 01:04:50 Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have. have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at walla.com. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in store. Many promotions are available both in store and online, though some may vary. Okay, let's just say, I mean, first of all, the alternative to Israel funding Hamas was Israel saying Qatar can't let any money in. And then you're going to have the collapse of the Ghazan economy more than you already had, right? like that that was the alternative and that's one and then it's like okay so what is the what is the Gaza state obviously you can't have a Ghazan state it's not gonna it's not gonna

Starting point is 01:05:29 work on its own like that's just not it's not a it's smaller than like Hoboken I I mean it's like it's so that's that's not a viable thing either so to that to a lot of people even who weren't hardliners on this stuff they're like it was the best it was the best outcome and a lot of Ghazans were coming and working in Israel you were they're trying to kind of like whatever yes that's that's just the argument against it right against like the you could have the cynic, you could have the same exact, you could be a total cynic and not a cynic and reach the same outcome that the best scenario is allowing Qatar to pass some money into into Gaza. What the people in the kibbutz told me was even once you thought that that was like

Starting point is 01:06:05 that the status quo, they wanted a two-state solution. But they're like in the short term, like the issue was we, no one was tracking where the money went. The money was going to missiles, it was going to tunnels, there was going to this and that. And instead of going to improve the lives of the Palestinian in people, which is also true. Like, if someone were looking at this, and instead of all this money coming in from guitar, they could have built, they could have built a ton of stuff, right? And instead, they chose to build, the Hamas chose to build this stuff. And that's, but again, so in all these things, two things can be true, right?

Starting point is 01:06:31 Yes. Like, Israel destroying whole blocks of, you know, whole blocks of Gaza, whole cities and towns, like, obviously that can be egregious. And it can also be egregious that Hamas took zero efforts to protect its people, that it put the tunnels underneath all this stuff. and then essentially let them out to die. And you can't forget, too, like, Tucker has tried to, like, downplay the idea

Starting point is 01:06:50 that Hamas is an Islamist group. Hamas is an Islamist group. I mean, it's in everything they do. And the ideology. And again, just spending weeks in the Middle East, like, you just, like, religion is so important. And, like, it's so different. I was thinking in Egypt, in Cairo,

Starting point is 01:07:06 it's very rare in Cairo that you're walking around that you see a woman whose head is not covered, right? Imagine if here you had every single person walking around, you know, like a, wearing like Christian garb, right? That was how they went out in public, because they identified themselves as Christian. You'd be like, God, this is an insanely religious place. And yet for the middle, we don't apply that standard for places like the Middle East. And it's like, like two things can be true. And that's not even the same thing bad about them, right? I mean,

Starting point is 01:07:34 I love Arab culture. I love the Middle East. I love visiting there. But the, you know, two things can be true. They can have a very different worldview that's very hard for us in the West to understand because we're like atomized, individualistic, secular people. And they're like, they're just not that. Most of the people over there. So, you know, talking on a societal level. And Israel, similarly, a lot of Israel is secular and kind of Western and, you know, all this kind of stuff.

Starting point is 01:07:58 But also it's in the Middle East. It's a Middle Eastern culture. They see things in, for them, the stuff's not hypothetical, right? I mean, they're like they're right there. So that's just to say like all these different things can be true. But I do think culturally you're dealing with people with a very different outlook and it's hard for us sitting here in America. It's like, well, why can't you guys just all?

Starting point is 01:08:15 you know, go to college and get a job and become tech workers. It's like, well, that's not how it works. Co-exist bumper sticker does not work in the Middle East. You point out that there's a wide degree of differences, socially speaking, that just exist before you even start to get to the chessboard itself. Yeah. For sure. Do you ask anyone in Israel or anywhere in the Middle East about Epstein?

Starting point is 01:08:42 In Lebanon. Not to do an unsubtle pivot, but seriously. I heard I was like curious in both Lebanon and Israel I heard about it we're going to by the way we're going to put I think what I'm going to do is put out this podcast and then Sunny Fazz and Beck right after this and that is going to be a rigmarole of a week of perspective so sunny Fazz and Beck are two of my friends who I just had in who are both Muslim and what it's funny like listening to because we all use the terminology and everything but they were breaking down like how this terminology comes across and one of the things sunny was talking about was like the term Islamists. and where that came from. It was just they threw an ist on the end of it to make it sound like something. And it's true. But also where I'd push back on Sunny with some things is I'm like, there's also a, to your point, Max, like there's a degree. So if you are a member of the religion of Islam, there's a huge difference between someone who is from Albania and practices Islam and someone who's in Saudi Arabia and practices Islam and someone who's in Iran and practices.

Starting point is 01:09:44 Like, there is a, there are ranges to it. And some ranges, I would argue, you are not very viable with Western culture. Other ranges are great. Well, I'm not even necessarily talking about the viability with Western culture as much as just like a different outlook. But I think even like take Egypt or take the UAE or take Jordan, the leaders of all these places are Muslim. Like they practice Islam. They are not Islamists. They are not trying to enact.

Starting point is 01:10:08 I mean, you look at like the UAE, right? Like look at the UAE or MBS and Saudi. like they're trying to they're trying to have remove the ist from the islam right they're trying trying to make it compatible with modern you know modern progressive societies like the west yeah you know so so i do think i know i know there's a lot of islam is a very super political term and and you can use it in many different ways but i do think i i look i'm not an expert on this i don't want to it's more complicated than just adding an is to it i mean like there's political like you can be i can be i can be a christian and not think my christian

Starting point is 01:10:41 Christian values should dictate the policies of the United States. I can be a Christian. I can think my Christian values should dictate the policy of the United States. It's the same exact thing with Islam. That's the issue. Well, there's not the one you wouldn't be reading the Constitution, but yeah. Exactly. Dude, this is like the Justin Timberlake and social network. Drop the is cleaner. If he did that for rebranding the Middle East. But no, I totally, I mean, I think the pluralism point is key. Like, if you believe that a country can be pluralist with religion or culture, you sort of have to believe that if you're going to be in the West

Starting point is 01:11:14 and I think if you don't and whether that's innate to Islamism or all Muslim cultures or some I think there's obviously debate there I really think that like Ben Affleck, Sam Harris clip did you ever see that one on Bill Maher? Yeah, where they're talking about basically the concentric circles of Islam and to what, you know, the jihadist group

Starting point is 01:11:33 and then the Islamists and then those who are conservative Muslims who sort of support or at least justify and you know how big are those circles because, you know, people, they're extremists of every single group. Yes. But there are also some who've tamed their extremist wings more than others. And then some groups that institutionalize those more extreme wing, you know, and they have a power. And I think that, you know, if you look at the liberties of women in a lot of Muslim cultures,

Starting point is 01:12:03 these aren't like, this isn't, you know, it's not just Mike Huckabee or conservative Christians who have you believing that women can't vote or exercise few rights. That's the reality. General, female general mutilation is common practice. The killing of apostates in certain Muslim countries. These aren't fringe things because people will be like, well, well,

Starting point is 01:12:23 the KKK is Christian, right? You know, and it's like, well, yeah, it's, you just went to the KKK headquarters. How darn you do that. You know,

Starting point is 01:12:30 like it was. I've really been, I've been checking all the boxes. I know, I know, I know, I know. I know. Last time he comes in here, he's just back from Pakistan. Now he's going to the,

Starting point is 01:12:39 But like, but seriously, like, you go there and it's pathetic because like it's pathetic. It doesn't have political power. Yeah. And I know I know Tucker might say, well, evangelical Christians who are, you know, Christian Zionists have a lot of political power. But it's very different. And it's not institutional and legal. Anyways, I would just make that point to a lot of the people, because I do think a lot

Starting point is 01:13:00 of people do like the hits blunt thing. Like maybe you've just been told a lie. But as you have it. I mean, in some areas. I think we've also seen, you know, like just in sugar landouts. of Houston, which is like they're queens and it's white minority and all this and a ton of Muslims there. And by any metric, they seem to, A, be thriving and B, be like patriotic and C be like great American citizens, you know, and you see that all over. And, you know, it's just the new, you need

Starting point is 01:13:30 to have nuance. You need to have nuance. And like, just to give one more example, like, so when I was in Cairo last week, uh, it's right, like, kind of like in this downtown neighborhood, just like walking around. I met this guy. I went up to breakfast and whatever. The people are so friendly. And it's like everything like you think of like, you know, like the kind of like the propaganda machine might train like an American to think about like an Arab country, city people. It's just you just go there and you're like, okay, this is bullshit. And I'm there. I'm walking around. People, you can't make up how friendly people are. You want coffee tea. Oh, come in. Like like just super, super, super friendly. I Google that night out of cure. I was

Starting point is 01:14:08 Google and I was like, I was like, I think some of the 9-11 guys were Egyptian. Muhammad Atta, ahead of it. He grew up in this neighborhood in Cairo. So it's like two things can be true. 99% of the people, 99.9.9% of the people can be amazing. But like that, you couldn't make it up. This is like, do we've seen this now twice on, where in Dearborn, Michigan, the Arab majority city in America, everybody is so nice. Yep.

Starting point is 01:14:36 But at the end of the night, some of the wild takes start. coming out and then you hear about, you know, you see certain leaders that got like rallies and dearborn and you're like, okay, so there is a bit of a fringe. And then more notably, in a Muslim Savletown in England, it's just this Muslim segregated. Savletown. Savletown, yeah. And it's this sort of Muslim segregated town next to this English city called Duesbury. You meet the nicest people in the world. And then there's, you know, one of the most prominent car bombers, right? England,

Starting point is 01:15:09 youngest suicide bomber. English, they're from there. And so it's like this weird juxtaposition. You see this map in New York right here, right? Yes. This is one of my favorite parts about New York. Favorites the wrong word. It's just one of the most fascinating parts about New York to me.

Starting point is 01:15:22 You can walk on any one of those fucking blocks right there and all the blocks that we see that are off the map from this perspective over here. And when you stand there before you take out Google and Google things from that block, I can guarantee you. some of the most amazing things ever have happened there and some of the most darkest things ever have happened there. And it's no different in all these places you're describing. It's like you never want the sum of the whole to be described by the minority or like the bad, the 1% that does the bad things, if you will. You want the sum of the whole to be described by the majority of the

Starting point is 01:15:59 people there. And to be able to go see that and report on that, I think is really important. And you're doing it on both sides of a conflict like this as well, which is, which is very important. Dude, I love conversations like this because they're fucking dangerous. Yeah, they are. Right. Like, we are going to have a lot of people who are like, yeah. And then one minute later, be like, fuck these guys. And that means you are, you're somewhat over the target.

Starting point is 01:16:22 Totally. And I will say this. I do think people can also get so cultural relativists where they're like, they're all, I do think there are notable differences. Like, in the one hand, you travel around the world and you see, which I need to do much more. of, but you see this at the U.S., you see it just in international travels too, that, you know, people are all this human nature shared, all that, and that there are a lot of very similar, often eerily similar parallels between different cultures, and a lot of your preconceptions

Starting point is 01:16:49 are shattered. With that said, their culture is a powerful, freaking force. You see it in ethnic groups, culture toward work, family culture, all of it. And then you see it with sort of cultural principles. And so I do think some of it's notable, but you also do have to demystify. Anytime I think people like go huge blanket or it's like it sounds really bleak. That's when I'm like most tempted to see a community, you know, whether that's like the Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, which we've covered, or it's, you know, a Muslim town in England. Like it's always interesting to see what preconceptions you shatter.

Starting point is 01:17:29 Totally. Well, I just realized, too, also based on John Kerry, how do you say the last thing? Kiriaku. Kiriaku. Yeah. Based on his assessment, the U.S. was to bomb around today, right? Monday or Tuesdays. Yeah, Monday or Tuesday.

Starting point is 01:17:40 I don't think when we put that out, I'm with him on the report. I think the timing probably was off because that was one, usually this doesn't happen, but when he walked in that day, he discussed this with me. And like showed me. I was like, whoa. And I figured it was something who wasn't going to talk about it's like, fuck it. Let's do it. I was like, sure, he's like, fuck him.

Starting point is 01:18:03 and he did it. But, and to be clear, this was John reporting. We recorded on Friday evening, and he was reporting that President Trump had already decided he was going to attack Iran. I got a call from a second source, and I had a video ready to go to put out right behind the John report, and I decided against it at the time, and I think it was the right call, because the second source, in addition to having to give an anonymous source citing what he was doing, he also wanted his name off the record. and I'm like, all right, but it was, for what it was worth, it was a very good source. And he called me and said, um, John's over the target. I think he's off on two things based on who I'm talking to. Number one,

Starting point is 01:18:46 it won't be Monday or Tuesday. The timing's also, and this was something John said like, yeah, he's got the state of the union on Tuesday, but he wants to do it on Monday or Tuesday. Like, that was a little weird to John too. And this guy was like, that would be kind of tough to do, timing was. And then number two, he said, It is true. Vance is against it and Gabbard's against it. Gabbard's not really even in the room, though. There are a few more people against it. However, what this source did not say is he did not say that was the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which is interesting because that was a big part of John's report. He's like he was shocked that his source was saying that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are on board, and we've seen conflicting reports on that, but this guy seemed to also support that as well. Really, that they're on board. Yes. And he also, he said there's just, there's a few other voices in the White House that are not on board. but he did say what he said is that and these are direct quotes source to Trump is feeling a real sugar high

Starting point is 01:19:40 from Venezuela and he wants a quick victory and he's all about legacy obviously which all these fucking guys are and he wants to have it his legacy that the United States under Donald Trump is the one that finally took down the Ayatollah's regime and you know this guy that I'm referring to to is directly wired in to people at the White House. Like the guy who called me is directly wired the fuck in. And so when you look at everything that they have put on board and you look at Trump's postering, including, you know, yesterday putting out a big post specifically saying that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are on board, which would support John's reporting if he's telling the truth. I have to say that. You know, they're going to do this. It looks like we're going to

Starting point is 01:20:25 put out this episode in like a day or two. So, you know, we're seeing this pretty live right now if you're listen to it, but they're probably going to do this. And it's, in my opinion, in every way, the wrong move. This is a country of 92 million people. It is in the middle of a cultural pipe bomb, no pun intended. You were talking about the Middle East. This is not fucking Venezuela, bro. Venezuela, the whole country wanted that government gone. A lot of Iran wants that gone, once their regime gone. But this is a stronger, more tightly held regime with way bigger alliances than Venezuela, way bigger cultural technical alliances than Venezuela. You're talking about the middle of the Arab world. And once again, it's a situation where you have the Israeli government who is

Starting point is 01:21:14 legitimately concerned about Iran, and I understand that, trying to get us to clean up their problems over there when Iran objectively, no offense to them poses no fucking threat to us. That is just a fact. Now, Huckabee may have just thrown a fucking big wrench in the timing of this thing because John reported that on Friday the same day the Tucker interview comes out. And Huckabee is like, yeah, first of all, fucking guy can't even say the word Israel. He's like, Israel. Israel. I mean, he is fucking, that guy is so retarded. But like, you know, this idiot, and that is what he is.

Starting point is 01:21:51 He is a stone cold moron comes out and goes, yeah, and I think I'm perfectly fine if Israel, you know, could. controlled at all. Yeah, but yeah, that's not going to cause a fucking problem. They're talking about getting pieces of, taking the Smotrich line and getting pieces of Saudi Arabia. Yeah, they're not going to have an issue with that at all. It's like, I swear to God, man, we're being run by complete retards. And the last, the last administration was a dead guy. You know, it's just, I, it just feels like the Kardashians, but now it's the White House. Yeah, I mean, this Iran situation is really, uh, did you see our video? We, this, this, It didn't do well.

Starting point is 01:22:29 We put it out last week because we thought there's about to be war in Iran last week. And we put out this video about the Iranians in L.A. We went and interviewed them on the YouTube. Yeah. And if there is war, I think the video will get picked up by the algorithm. Probably. Just interviewing the Iranian community in L.A. We say in the video, like, it's impossible to know how representative they are of Iranians and Iran, right?

Starting point is 01:22:53 But they are, dude, it was wild. Whatever. Like, we went thinking it would be like a Muslim immigrant group in America. like going to Dearborn or like, you know, Sugar Land. Dude, it is literally the, it is so far the opposite. Not only are they like not is like Islamic. They are the most anti-Islamic people I have ever met. We have it in this video.

Starting point is 01:23:13 Dude, they have stuff. They have these Arabic words. One guy has the Arabic word for non-believer tattooed on his arm. Can we play some of this, Steve? We get some volume on it. All right, let's pump this. All right, so this is out in L.A. Yeah, L.A.

Starting point is 01:23:29 Irvine, Irvine in LA. Southern California. We turned that. We wanted to understand what they were like. That's all well. The American dream. We are the most successful immigrants in the United States.

Starting point is 01:23:42 We have a tremendous force going on, just like we did in Venezuela. So before school, you guys line up and chant death to America. My dad, holy cow! Middle Eastern immigrants are stereotyped as being religious and anti-American. Malcolm X said, we live in one of the

Starting point is 01:23:56 in his countries that has, ever existed on this earth. We found the opposite in Irvine. In our south of the L.A., that's my chant, Earl. Yeah. Tell me about this. Oh, more.

Starting point is 01:24:13 Actually, you know, now in the world, actually there are only two nations standing with Iranian, you know, it's just US and Israel. There are 57 Muslim countries, none of them actually is standing Iranian. So it's only this flag, it is standing with Iran. So we have to respect. Original Iranian flag, yeah.

Starting point is 01:24:28 Yeah, before this Islamic revolution, radical Islamic revolution, you know, 1,400 years ago, they attacked to Iran and oppressed Iran for 100, 1,400 years. And again, 47 years ago, this was happening again. The only good Islamic Republic was the youth, they're not Muslim anymore. Because Islamic Republic showed them the real Islam. Allah, for me, is a god of darkness. Armenianism and Islam only is the same. The only difference is that Allah is God of everything.

Starting point is 01:25:02 And there is no God. This pro-American and anti-Islam sentiment was totally different from other immigrant communities we've encountered in the U.S. These are all polyvites now. Yeah, they are. But that's a question, right? This is saying that I'm not. I mean, the question is just how much these people represent anything in Iran. The one lady we interviewed in here, she runs like a,

Starting point is 01:25:26 Iranian Persian language radio show the network they reach millions of people mainly in Iran they're like dissident

Starting point is 01:25:34 you know dissident radio and she insists as almost everyone we talk to that the vast majority of Iranians are extremely

Starting point is 01:25:43 anti-Islamic because of just like communism the Soviet Union right the people who came who came here after the end

Starting point is 01:25:49 after the fall of Soviet Union right like they're radically anti-Islam or anti-communism and for them that was the main thing I took away from this

Starting point is 01:25:56 I thought was interesting they don't view Islam as even as a religion. Like she said, they view it, I'm talking the people we talk to. I don't know about everyone else in Iran. They view it as the state ideology, which is very different from, it's just a different way of looking at things, right? And it is the fact, I mean, I think all the time here,

Starting point is 01:26:14 like, I'm always like, if, you know, if you want America to be a Christian country and you think the best way to do it is to legislate Christian laws, I can't think of a better way to discredit the religion than that. Having Trump standing up there and leading like a Christian revolution

Starting point is 01:26:26 in the country. And I think that is what happened in Iran to some extent. Now, the base of support for the IRGC and for the regime and in Iran, it's essentially poor young people and people on the countryside. And what percent that accounts? Like, nobody knows. Just straight up, nobody knows. So you're just rolling the dice with whatever happens. I've talked to a lot of Iranians recently. And they all have, the ones that I've talked to all have the thing in common that they don't like the current regime and they would like to see it go. That is where the commonalities end. Whoa.

Starting point is 01:27:04 I mean, the range. Like, I just talked to someone the other day who would look at these people like they're out of their fucking mind. Yet they want the same thing, but the two things, the way they want it to happen, meaning these guys are supporting, you know, United States going in and doing regime change and putting Pala V in charge. That's a whole separate thing. versus like the person I was talking to in this example wants the U.S. to have nothing to do with it

Starting point is 01:27:30 and wants the Iranian people to do it from within and elect their own leader. Right. And there's a lot of weird stuff going on. How do they think that's going to happen? You know, no one ever has a fucking answer to that. It's a great question. Because when I had Trita Parsy in here who's someone who doesn't want to see U.S.-led regime change, you know, he talked about the fact that he made an important point. when he's like in america we always think of of revolution as like that's what made this country which

Starting point is 01:28:00 which is he's like it was amazing what they what the founding fathers pulled off here was fucking incredible he goes look around the rest of the world though revolutions almost never work like a revolution full-blown overthrow like let's burn it all down and stuff like that he's like you have to do this more diplomatically as painful as that is and that's the closest thing to an answer i've gotten which i appreciated doesn't mean he's right I'm just saying that's more where he was. Yeah. You know, I think that, you know, I interviewed someone who's on the totally opposite side recently.

Starting point is 01:28:34 We did, we did kind of a both sides of the Iran issue, interviewed a Washington Post reporter who's held captive. And then Jason Razion, R-A-I-N. Like two years, I think. Yeah, for a while. And his wife was, she's Iranian. He's half Iranian, but born in America. She was born in Iran. And then also got him Michael Rubin, who's a, who's neocon and more much...

Starting point is 01:29:01 Not the fanatics guy. No, that guy has... Very different. No, this guy has pupil. Michael Rubin, the fanatics guy, the white party guy, he creeps me out. I don't know about you. That guy creeps me out. Like, he's a weird vibe from him.

Starting point is 01:29:15 Anyway, side note. This Michael Rubin, though, he did make some compelling. He's like, there would be no boots on the ground. And, you know, I mean, I will say this. I think one good point from the more pro-regime, maybe not even regime change, but let's just say the more, you know what group I'm talking about, like more pro-Israel, very anti-Islamic Republic. They do make the good point. Like, where all the protests over tens of thousands of protesters being killed?

Starting point is 01:29:45 Like in the U.S., most people don't seem to care. And I know one of the arguments as well, it's different in Palestine because we funded a lot of the destruction. and we were more tied to it. And that's a pretty fair counterpoint. With that said, I do think we have more of a connection to enough of the connection of Ron for that to elicit more outreach than it has. Like, I'm surprised that the degree of the, of the sort of punishment from the Iran government has been just so stunning and it's gotten so little attention in the U.S.

Starting point is 01:30:15 Like, it is great. I'm not saying, I'm not arguing for regime change, but I'm just saying I do think people can sort of like, you know, sort of not whitewash Iranian regime, but that they also don't know exactly what they're dealing with. That's what my views. You should be able to hold multiple thoughts at the same time. I know that's an original idea. The Iranian regime fucking sucks. They're terrible. They kill their own people. They don't allow free speech effectively when you speak out hardcore against them or try to be a dissident against them. They are aggressive when you're talking about the IRGC around the world with dissidents and stuff. We've seen that.

Starting point is 01:30:51 on our own soil. Yep. They're terrible. They can get fucked. It's not that simple, though. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you can't.

Starting point is 01:30:59 This is not going to be like going there for 28 minutes, you know, use some fucking fucking hypersonic missiles and call a day. Totally. Totally. The thing that's animating Trump right now, based on all the reporting, is the fact that when they killed Soleimani, there was no real retaliation. Last June, really not consequential retaliation. Pulling out of the Iran deal.

Starting point is 01:31:20 No real retaliation. And it's like, you got to wonder why the Iranians did this. Like, just like the, I mean, IR 101 is deterrence, deterrence, deterrence. If you do not have deterrence, people will take advantage of you. And the Iranians have lost all foreign deterrence right now. So it's like, it's like, it's like, just like any kind of like international relations theorists would be like, yeah, well, obviously Trump's going to go to war. Like with the slight exception of Soleimani, which was a direct attack one basically like their key guy at the time. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:31:47 And that was like, ooh. Yeah. And I've cited that before. what did Iran do? Nothing. They bombed the one base in Iraq where my friend was. It got concussion. Wow.

Starting point is 01:31:58 I'm sorry that your friend got a concussion, but yes. I was just saying. Effectively in the grand scheme of life. No, I'm okay. Yeah, listen, don't turn the lights on too high. But, you know. Steve Codhue's comeback, you've got back. Classic Julie.

Starting point is 01:32:12 No, I guess my point, because you're like, brilliant point, Max. A, Rod's not a great regime. My point there is I do think that there is this weird current of thought, especially among, I would say, leftists in America, young leftists as Zoranite types, and then also young sort of Fuentes conservatives.

Starting point is 01:32:33 They're not even, maybe not even conservative, but more, you know, right-wing young people, where there's this sort of like global relativism, where they're like the regimes that we think are evil are actually good and misunderstood, and they're only evil because you've been propagandized to believe they're evil. And then,

Starting point is 01:32:50 and then that pretty much from our perspective, it's the classic people were like, did you know that founding fathers were considered terrorists? You know,

Starting point is 01:32:57 and they're kind of like, therefore you don't, you misunderstand all rebel. But if you look at objective, like people do this all the time where they whitewash certain global leaders and they're like,

Starting point is 01:33:05 well, you've grown up in the American imperial system and therefore you view, that's just not true. I mean, look at how they handle protests. Look at how we handle protests. Look at how America handles dissent.

Starting point is 01:33:16 I promise I'm not sent from whatever, that, what is it, whatever Foundation Tucker's dad ran that was like, worked with the CIA, and it was like, was it voice of America? I think maybe voice of America. I'm not from Voice of America being like, we're good. But it's, but

Starting point is 01:33:31 like, the truth is, that just pisses me off because I do think I know, are we connecting dots here? But, um, I do. All I know is he spoke fucking Pashtun before he took this job. I don't know. I know. It is hilarious.

Starting point is 01:33:47 Yeah, I mean, This stuff just becomes political. Everyone just sees, everyone sees the stuff to their own political lens, right? And obviously we should see it through the lens of American interests, but we shouldn't see it through like left-right lens. And like, if you want to look at Iran,

Starting point is 01:33:59 at Iran, I'd be like, well, Trump is against them and Israel is against them and I'm against them, so therefore I am pro-Iran. Like, it's just stupid. Like, it's just stupid. But it's like, the question is, what is good for American interests? What is good for the world, you know,

Starting point is 01:34:14 and our role in it? Like, and that's it. And like, that's it. Remove all the, players, remove your opinions about them, treat it like a robot. Three things. Iran regime bad. Propaganda of Iran regime might even make them seem somehow worse than they are. That's possible. Yeah. But they're very bad. And I've said this forever. I'd love to see their people overthrow them. Number three, in a war with Iran to overthrow them, do I think we would do it? And do I think in the

Starting point is 01:34:45 short term would be victorious in that way? Yes. Do I think it'd be the biggest disaster since the Iraq war, though? Yes. Because what you're going to do is you're going to go in there. It's going to take way longer than you think too. This is not a 28-minute fucking invasion. Get the guy taken to Brooklyn and call it a day. That's not how this goes. You are going to give them what they want, which is effectively the last stand of the regime. They are going to kill a lot of our guys. So we're going to be bringing home fucking draped coffins again, which is not good for American morale and totally unfair and not worth the fucking struggle right here. And then what the fuck do you do in the aftermath?

Starting point is 01:35:19 How good are we a rebuilding nation since fucking Japan and Germany in World War II? Not very fucking good. How good are we at handling the aftermath of like situations where people are like, yay, liberators. And then a year later, they're like, yo, fuck these guys. Well, I mean, the other like honest consequence of what could happen in Iran is that Iran can break apart. I mean, only 60 or 55% of Iran is Persian. It's like the rest.

Starting point is 01:35:43 You have like, you know, Azari's bloch, Arabs, you have all these different groups. Who know? I mean, just who knows? I mean, look, the fact is if Trump goes ahead and does this, which for one thing, I was reading an analysis this morning about how Trump has backed himself into a corner on this, which is, I think is pretty accurate. It was someone in CF account, I think it's Council of Foreign Relations or Brookings. It's one of those things. They're going to quote it. There's a Financial Times article. And they were, but essentially the analysis, like by threatening them, by threatening them, demanding that they negotiate, sending this maximum pressure thing to demand that they negotiate,

Starting point is 01:36:17 they don't negotiate, then Trump ends up with two aircraft carriers next to Iran. Having given all these ultimatums, you have to act. And like, I'm not saying, you know, from my own opinion, right? I'm saying from like the IR perspective of it and whatever. Like that is like Trump now is like, regardless of what he thinks, regardless of what he wants, he has put so much pressure on himself to do something. And like that's where you can trip yourself into a war, you know? Like it's definitely possible Trump thought they were going to come to the table.

Starting point is 01:36:43 And this gets back to the point from before though. The real, I mean, think about their mindset. They do not care. The people in charge in Iran are like, fuck, we'll burn it down. Like, that's their mindset. Yes, they'll go down. This leads back to like the Middle Eastern, like people with very different psyches. That's right.

Starting point is 01:37:00 Like, I mean, imagine they're like, like Trump's going to do it. Like Trump. Yeah. I mean, I think Trump's going to do it. And like, they're like, oh, whatever. This is the difference too. Do you know, do you remember Obama's red line comment about, Syria. Yeah. The chemical.

Starting point is 01:37:15 dumb ass comment. All right. Barack Obama's foreign policy was putrid for the most part. What I respect about the aftermath of that is he made this absolutely insane comment where he publicly married himself at a time where we're trying to pull out of wars, married himself to having to declare war on Syria by saying, if you guys do this with the chemical weapons, that's a red line. We're going to come in. So then they fucking, they're like, well, okay, we're going to fucking do it. They did it. And he was pissed like his pride was hit. Yeah. And he could have launched some strikes that are not declaring war, meaning he could have done it without Congress. But he was so pissed off that he backed off and said, you know what? I'm going to send it to Congress just so

Starting point is 01:38:00 that it's done the right way. And he was actually so blind that he thought they were going to pass it. They voted like 400 to 100 or whatever. It's ironic on that one instance, Obama was like, yeah, we'll look, Congress. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The one time he did, and I respect it because it would have started a new war. Yeah. Do you think Donald Trump's going to do the same thing? Come on. Donald Trump, Donald Trump wants to fucking strike. He's going to strike. Like, this is an alpha, alpha, alpha dog. I do think there's a misconception here, though, but everyone talks about Iran, about Israel. And obviously Israel is the most influence that's say in the U.S. in terms of like Middle Eastern countries. But it's not just Israel that wants Iran out. I mean, again,

Starting point is 01:38:34 Lebanon, like, they view Iran is holding their country hostage. The people who aren't, oh, yeah, who are anti-Hezbullah in Iran, which is to say most people, do they hate Iran? Sunnis across Middle East despise Iran, not just the governments, but the main thing, dude, Iran came in and backed up Bashar al-Assad, well, he massacred hundreds of thousands of his own people. Yeah, these are bad guys. Saudi Arabia against, right? Huh?

Starting point is 01:38:57 Saudi Arabia against Saudi Arabia, I think is kind of a coin flip. No one really knows. But like in terms of like the average person, I mean, like the, this is something that comes up time and again in conversations, conversations we have with Muslims in America. Dude, the Syrian Civil War. Iran and Hezbollah of support of Assad alienated a huge number of just everyday Sunnis against Iran, against, you know, against Shia. And it's just more nuanced, like, no, like, there's, and there's two levels this.

Starting point is 01:39:23 I mean, already the whole Middle East is repositioning itself right now as though Iran is already irrelevant. And like, you know, forever you had Sunni versus Shia. Not forever, but, you know, for a while, you had Sunni versus Shia. And those are the two main axis, really since 1979. And now it's repositioning where you're having the kind of secular versus the, like, you know, Islamist, the Muslim Brotherhood, whatever. Turkey, Qatar versus

Starting point is 01:39:42 UAE, Egypt. You're having this whole new carving up with the Middle East happening. They're already, it's that quick since June, and really since October 7th when everyone kind of saw Israel, you know, what was going to happen with Iran and has blown whatever. The Middle East is totally, it's totally different from it was before, from how it was before.

Starting point is 01:39:58 It's changing already. You see it in Sudan. You see it in Libya. You see it in Yemen. You see it in Syria. All these countries. It's like they're being, they're being torn between these two new axes. developed. I haven't seen really anyone talk about it. But again, you go to Lebanon, you go to Israel, you go to Egypt. Everyone, this is this, Egypt, they don't really talk politics. But if someone will talk politics, you know, they'll, this is, this is the situation right now. Because it's

Starting point is 01:40:22 like Iran forever. It's like you had one Sunni, Shia. And now Shia is not really relevant. Sunni, what are they going to do? Sunni versus Sunni. And Turkey wants to recreate their own Ottoman Empire in a way. Saudi, Turkey, we forget about it all the time. Yeah, Turkey, we sleep on Turkey a lot. We sleep. on Turkey a lot. And also, also another funny thing to me, like, do a lot of this stuff, I remember when Bashar al-Assad fell. And I remember listening to Tim Dillon at the time.

Starting point is 01:40:46 And Tim Dillon was like, oh, clearly this is Israel and whatever. Dude, Israel does not like for Israel, having Bichar al-Assad there, it was like, it was quiet. They were, they had their little proxies in that part of Syria. Dude, now it's Turkey. I mean, Shara's Turkey's guy. And now you have him trying to seize all of Syria.

Starting point is 01:41:04 That's a problem for Israel. I mean, that's why Israel moved in there immediately after Bichar al-Assad fell and they took over that portion of southern southern Syria. But now you're ending up with the situation where you're having for the first time in over a decade you're going to have an actual Syrian government controlling the whole country. Like that's like the threat. There's just all these different things. Now you have the UAE, you have Israel supporting like the Druze and the Kurds and Syria. You got the fucking Kurds down there, bro. Who are getting totally, totally shafted right now. I mean, they're just, but I mean, it's a full-blown war in parts of Syria right now that's not even being talked about.

Starting point is 01:41:34 obviously Sudan they'll be all these places they're being carved up along new lines because already Iran is kind of fading from the picture that's right

Starting point is 01:41:41 God what a fucking mess bro oh my god we have officially pissed off everybody today I love that we've gone out and speaking of pissed off

Starting point is 01:41:49 I didn't need to take a lake real quick yeah yeah we'll be right back and we're going to get into some Epstein stuff when we get back I just have one more question about Hezboa

Starting point is 01:41:58 and then we'll go there well we just had a little podcast in the middle all the podcast right there, but we're back on air now. Before we get to the late, not great at all, J.E. Yeah. I did want to come back to one thing regarding Hezbollah because you actually were on the ground speaking with what's left of them post-Pager attack and all that. What, you know, you talked about this from both sides of the equation, speaking with people there and then speaking with

Starting point is 01:42:27 Israelis and speaking with the rank and file regular people and then speaking with the rank of file people in Israel when you were talking with the Hezbollah guys what you know were you like oh shit I'm with a terrorist right now or were you kind of like all right this is more complicated than I thought I mean it's it's it's I talk the people I was with from Hezbollah like that you know that I met that was interviewing were not they're not they're not the militant Hezbollah members right like they like Hezbole you got two things you have the political party then you have the armed I mean, you have way more than two things. In Lebanon, you have Hezboa grocery stores.

Starting point is 01:43:06 You have Hezboa banks. You have, you know, Hezboa, everything. I mean, it is a country within a country. So it's like, does the person who works the desk at the Hezbollah grocery store, like, are they a terrorist? Israel will probably say yes. I think that most people would say no. So it's like, yeah, we're sitting there. You're not like, I'm not, you know, it's not like ISIS.

Starting point is 01:43:28 Right. It's not like going into Hezbollah territory is not like going into ISIS territory. It is night and day different. Now, the thing in Hezboa territory is you will disappear if they don't want you there. And you just got to hope that they don't care that you're there. But you'll, I mean, you'll go away.

Starting point is 01:43:44 We spoke to a Shia woman who had become anti-Hesbla from a family of staunch Hezbollah supporters, everyone in her life pro-Hesbola. She grew up in a Hezbollah area. And essentially, she was like, you guys didn't have any problems? Like, you were in there at the camera?

Starting point is 01:43:59 And she's like, yeah. We're like, yeah. And she's like, no problems. I was like, no. I was like, what would a problem be? I was like, would they detain us? And she goes, if you're lucky, like, if we're not lucky, and she goes, you disappear. That's just how it is.

Starting point is 01:44:11 Now, they went last year, the last time I think journalists were killed or shot by them or disappeared, whatever, and during the war, a couple European journalists, I think they were Belgian, were taking a video of a Hezboa building that had been bombed by Israel, and they're just there with the cameras doing it, and they were kidnapped and shot, not killed, but shot. and then left on the side of the road. And, I mean, they survived, but... Wow. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:44:37 Yeah. But it's different. It's, they're paranoid. The worst, what you don't want is to be labeled a spy, you know? You don't want, like, that is like, the worst thing that can possibly happen to you in Lebanon is being labeled a spy. Don't tell them you worked at the American Enterprise. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:44:58 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's freaky. but like the guy said the guy had a great line who he interviewed and he was like he was like

Starting point is 01:45:08 so I'm paraphrasing but he's like this is my destiny it is my destiny to resist and if I die it is my fate

Starting point is 01:45:18 it was like like that's how he saw the world and it's like but again there the the Hesbill people have a resistance mentality

Starting point is 01:45:26 I mean it's like the ideology it's not like is not like like ISIS, if you'd say ISIS has like a radical Islamist ideology, that's not Hezboa's thing. Hezbollah's thing, it's a resistance mentality. It's a mix of left wing. It's a mix. It's kind of like a left wing populist, religious, military thing. And this is what Iran has created. This is like, it comes from this Iranian thing. And you got to also remember in Lebanon, the Shia, until Hezbole came,

Starting point is 01:45:53 the Shia were like the forgotten. They were the peasants. They were the poorest people. You had Christians and Sunnis who were like traitors, murderers. merchants, like whatever. And then the Shia were the peasants. And then Iran, they started to mobilize on a group called Amal, back to the Civil War. And then Iran comes in and organizes them and says, we're going to make you guys powerful. And they start giving them guns, except the training camps, the IRGC, all stuff. And then they emerge. And then they fight, they start blowing up like the U.S. barracks, stuff like that. Now, it's also worth noting. So before I went, I had it in my head. So for context, during the Civil War, I mean, they killed Steve Kerr's dad, who was the president of the

Starting point is 01:46:27 American University of Beirut, assassinated him, blew up the Marine barracks. blew up the French, French barracks, believed they attacked the U.S. Embassy. Tons of American journalists were kidnapped back in Civil War. Since the Civil War, there's no documented kidnapping of an American journalist in Lebanon. So it's different. They've shifted. I mean, that's not their thing. And if you think about it from their perspective, they say they were to kidnap an American

Starting point is 01:46:50 journalist, bro, Trump is going to go fuck them up. Like, that's how they see it. Like, it's not worth it. It's like, and that's why being an American can be a huge liability, but it can also be an asset, I think, in a lot of places. It was interesting. It's very different from what you would think. Hezbo, what it was like before versus now, I can't say the difference. I don't know what it was like before.

Starting point is 01:47:09 But Hezbo is much less present, visibly present now than they were before. I know that much. And like I said, we didn't have any issues, thank God. I think if you are very, very, I think most, I think nine times out of ten, you wouldn't have any issues. I think that it is possible that the wrong person sees you and whatever and you have issues. Well, I'm really looking forward to these documentaries. How many are there going to be? I think it's 12 altogether.

Starting point is 01:47:32 12? We got a series. Yeah, we were there for two weeks and we tried to do one a day. Holy shit. Yeah. So I think four from Lebanon, three from the West Bank. One would you take mushrooms inside the pyramid? And that's the secret.

Starting point is 01:47:45 That's for the substack subscribers paid premium content. Oh my God. Dude, the pyramid. The pyramids, that's a whole other. Yeah, that's, yeah. We're going to be stuck on that for a long time if we go there. But okay, so we're putting, we're recording this on Tuesday. They also go out, I think, on Thursday.

Starting point is 01:48:01 So that means those dogs are probably still to come. Yeah. So everyone check those out. And if you're watching this right now, we have this collabs. You can subscribe to Roka hitting literally right on the title of the video itself. The content is absolutely great. So, all right. We've been holding it off all day.

Starting point is 01:48:17 Story of Man of the hour for all the wrong reasons. Jeffrey Epstein. I got to tell you guys, I have obviously been covered in this case a lot. It is the biggest story of my lifetime, I think. But for all the wrong reasons, obviously, you know, I've studied it religiously since 2019. And yet, when this latest tranche came out on January 30th, it blew my mind. I mean, I really, it, I knew this was the worst thing. I knew it was total depravity.

Starting point is 01:48:52 I knew there were all kinds of powerful people involved. I knew there were all kinds of governments involved. People above government. I knew that. it's beyond even what I knew. What I mean, what was your reaction? I think that the first thing that surprised me was the breadth of it, kind of what you're referencing, where you have everyone from Peter Atia to, you know, all kinds of diplomats, all kinds of businessmen, all kinds of elites involved in one way or another. And it was, it was, it was, it was sort of stunning to see,

Starting point is 01:49:35 you know, all the post-conviction interactions. And that jumped out of me. And now there are some, you know, kind of stories we're following right now that I think are important in terms of the ban in relationship. I guess my big thing in the larger I've seen discourse that we're focusing on is we're a news company. So we try not to play the theory game. Some people have to, and we think that's an important role. Our role is to focus on the substance. And if I may, I think that it's important for people who really care about this issue to not let the crazies derail it because I think there have been some crazy theories that have gained a lot of traction and you look at them, it doesn't take a lot of research on justice.gov to see how, you know,

Starting point is 01:50:28 how wrong or misleading or weak. Some theories are that I think are getting a lot of attention. What are those theories too? Decaprio eating kids, you know. They're saying DeCabrio? Viral to eat tens of thousands of likes. I think cannibalism in general is weak from the latest files. I get that, you know, the reference to the cannibal. and that, you know, there was testimony from one guy who himself seemed a little deranged

Starting point is 01:50:56 and it was post-upteen death where he claimed there was cannibalism. I think that one's pretty weak. I think there are a lot of kind of red herrings that are popping up. So I think that is where you can, but I think there are some aspects that deserve, if you want real change, if you want heads, you have to be adherent to facts. because otherwise I think you made a great point. I think like Howard Lutnik, I think that if I were, now the problem is the guy in the White House

Starting point is 01:51:29 does also have kind of a complicated relationship with Epstein over the years where you hear on the one hand he's his best friend and Virginia Gufrey comes from Mar-a-Lago and you also, he's regularly calling the pad at the Palm Beach House and then you also have him reporting the crimes to the sheriff and you also have him talking to journalists, and you also have him sort of, you know, and in another sense, kind of being one of Epstein's biggest rivals.

Starting point is 01:51:56 So you have, like, he is a couple of gay. But Howard Lutnik, you know, I thought, I thought you made a good point. Like, why is he, why does he still have a job? You know, I think he lied in such an obvious way about his relationship with Epstein. I think we have gotten at this point of like, you know, not caring enough to issue real world consequences. And for some people, you need criminal proceedings. For some others, you just need adults to step up and go, you're fired. You know, you, you know, should not be a leader in a country having kept ties and lied about ties with a guy like Jeffrey Epsey. So I guess I don't know.

Starting point is 01:52:37 There's so much to talk about. I don't know, Frost, what you would say were your initial thoughts and kind of where you are now. Well, I'd say thankfully I was in the Middle East for most of the stuff. Yeah. So I always take it from a distance. Coincidentally. Coincidence? No.

Starting point is 01:52:51 Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, to me, someone like Howard Lutnik, it's just ridiculous. It's just absolutely ridiculous. I mean, to lie about this. It's obvious the Trump administration's policy with everything is to never show weakness. And if you fire someone and you force a resignation, you're showing weakness and you can't do that. The fact that Pam Bondi still has a job.

Starting point is 01:53:11 Like all these people, I mean, it's just discrediting to the entire government. beyond that, I mean, I don't know. I read the stuff. I read, obviously, all the pizza references, the grape soda references and everything. And you're like, what the fuck is going on here? The jerky. But I don't know. I mean, that's like, I've read it.

Starting point is 01:53:26 I've read the emails. I've read the stuff that our writer Max Hudgens has put up a bunch of stuff that's been really good. But beyond that, I don't have like a comprehensive theory of it. So let me ask you. So like the jerky thing. Like, we've read the same emails. Like, I read that. I'm like, okay, this is really weird.

Starting point is 01:53:41 Yes. I don't know how to go beyond that. Because I'm like, yeah, it's possible they're cannibals. That also seems like quite a large jump. So that's kind of where I am. I'm like, well, I don't know. Well, this is exactly what I was going to reply to with what you were saying, Toey, is that there are things that in the past, even as it pertains to this case,

Starting point is 01:54:03 if people have brought it up, I would have been like, come on, get the fuck out of here. Please stop. Like, the crazies are taken over. It does not mean that all those things have now happened, though. And people want to run with that. However, there are things, and I have to admit this, that in the past, I would have dismissed and ruled out that on a zero to a hundred probabilistic scale, I can no longer say or zero. I cannot say cannibalism is that a zero. Do I think it's at a 90%?

Starting point is 01:54:30 No. That's where I'm with you. I think the people are like, or the people are like 100% this happened. I'm like, I need more. Yeah. But what's in those other three million documents that they're holding back? Why is Tim Bray? I tend on to trust people from fucking Congress and governments.

Starting point is 01:54:46 So let me put a big, you know, asterisk on this. But why are people like Tim Burchett who have seen some of those files throwing around terms like cannibalism and stuff like that? You know, like you see these people talk and you're right. The jerky thing could be a lot of stuff. There was a guy I cited on the Kiriaku podcast, Steve. Can we look it up Epstein jerky documentary? It's like, Dr. Something reacts.

Starting point is 01:55:11 I really appreciated how this guy broke down the emails because he didn't draw any conclusions. He just said, here's the emails, here's what they're saying, here's all the references to jerky. It's weird. I will say part of this. And at the end of the day, you have to pursue truth. And so even if it makes you like nauseous, like reading the discourse around pizza, for example, where on the one side of you people saying, well, almost all of it was in conversation. Like most of the pizza references were Epstein talking to his urologist. and therefore pizza and grape soda and those contexts were referring to medicines he was taking

Starting point is 01:55:43 for like STDs and other things and most of the pizza references when you break it down. And then you read other ones and it's not as convincing. And so all of a sudden you just sort of feel nauseous having to do the due diligence for this story. I also do think a lot of the people on who show up to Congress, I mean, there are, you know, a few of them have certainly changed your tune dramatically in the last three years and they're you know, are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. But it's also true that, I think that some people who are so micro-focused on this story are missing the larger picture. And what's that? The larger picture being over that from not having a college degree, taking classes at NYU

Starting point is 01:56:30 to becoming the most trusted tax estate planner in the world and getting a hundred, however many million dollars from Leon Black alone and getting the most expensive townhouse in Manhattan for one dollar and being friends with Ehud Barak and two presidents. That like that journey is is bizarre and there are just so many profound oddities about the Epstein case. And I just, I'm still in the, I don't know what to make of it. I really don't. I really, I know that might sound, you know, like everyone's kind of.

Starting point is 01:57:08 expected to have a theory. I don't. I really don't. Like, parts of it lead to, yes, there are evil people and they have some friends who may or may not know the extent of their evil. And they kept up affiliations for one reason or another. Maybe they didn't want to have an explosion, a public fallout, whatever, or maybe they were deep in it. And then there were other parts like the Galane Maxwell, of all people, his companion is the daughter of Robert Maxwell. Of all people. Of all people. You know, and it's like, in the connecting, in his line to Putin and what do you make of that way?

Starting point is 01:57:42 I just don't know what to make of it. He was connected. What's clear, Dave Smith actually had a really good tweet on this that I'm not even saying I agree with, but it's a very interesting point to put out there and he said I used to think Jeffrey Epstein worked for Mossad. I now wonder

Starting point is 01:57:58 if Mossad worked for Jeffrey Epstein. I'm not there, but he draws a good point in the sense that it is very, very clear. It is crystal clear that it is crystal clear. that Israeli intelligence is involved with this, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a fucking duck, and that's an issue. It is also clear to me now that our intelligence is involved with it too. That also, that was already clear to me, but it's more than I thought. And it is also

Starting point is 01:58:23 clear to me that this guy was a peddler like a Robert Maxwell who peddled intelligence. We know to multiple different intelligence agencies around the world. I have no doubt that Jeffrey Epstein did things like that. That's why. I think Tucker is really spot on about this, about a super government where he's like, you elect people, but they work for people who are fixers who work for the real people. And Jeffrey Epstein is the fixer who works for the real people. But why do you think, I mean, like Robert Maxwell had ties to Soviet intelligence, UK intelligence, Israeli intelligence, American intelligence, right?

Starting point is 01:58:56 I don't know about ties to American intelligence, but the first three. Certainly the other three. Yes. So then why, I mean, don't you think they share intelligence? I mean, don't you think they just find these people? And like, I don't understand the thing of being above them. I've heard Tucker Tucker's super national stuff. I don't really get that compared to, yeah, they've got a guy who shares them information.

Starting point is 01:59:19 And they all identified the same guy. And on the super, I know there's always that clip of like the guy on Patrick Bed David who said, here are the most powerful people in the world and you don't know them. I'm like, I get how that's catchy. I don't know if I buy it. And I also think that let's if you assume that a lot of things about our world don't make perfect sense It's also true that the Jeffrey Epstein story needs explanation and there were a lot of bizarre But like there are just so many public dissenters

Starting point is 01:59:46 You'd think that they'd be a little better at weeding them out or at least controlling the system more I'm thinking if there were a super government what was that public dissenters Just people like you know would Tucker be able to speak the way he does if there were this all-powerful Okay so so here's the difference the world has changed in the last two years drastically. You couldn't talk about this two years ago. If I put the word Epstein spelled incorrectly in a title, boom, demonetized. We've talked about this.

Starting point is 02:00:14 You can go back to episode 39 with Mike Spear. We've talked about this case. And that video is demonetized, by the way. It's, there was a real lid on this. And what happened is the volume of people rose so large. And the story got so out of their control. these people that used to think they could just run the world without any, you know, any of the little people bothering their order of business at all finally got caught with their hands in the cookie jar

Starting point is 02:00:43 that they can't put a total lid on this anymore. The world has changed. And the fact is, and this is just the fucking 500 pound elephant in the room. You have a guy who was associated with Israeli and American intelligence for sure, for sure. That is, at this point, if someone does does not say that as a baseline, I can't really have a conversation with them about the case because they haven't studied the case. And we now have three million files that are, oh, it's locked away in violation of federal law, by the way, we're never going to show it to people. We have files that protected people who are tied to these intelligence organizations and now they've had to unredact some of those things because they got caught doing them. And the fact of the matter is, when you put this all into context with the fact, that the the Israeli government has had an awful PR campaign for over two years now

Starting point is 02:01:37 to where basically the entire world is against the government and what they're doing there. They ain't like that no more was shutting people down. I could have put out a video two years ago. Remember Mr. Bees used to do those videos when he was young where he would just say the same word fucking, I'm going to say this word. Oh yeah, $100,000. Yeah. I could have done a video where I was like, fuck Biden, fuck Biden, fuck Biden, fuck Biden.

Starting point is 02:02:01 like over and over and over and over again and it would have you know maybe done a million views or something like that but if i had said that and replace the word biden with israel you'd never hear my channel again that is not the case today that is not the case you have people who there is such a volume of people speaking against their actions that they cannot put a lid on it and sometimes and this is the fucking 60 chess play sometimes i wonder if that's the idea well i mean just to like we ran a three part or four part series on epstein back in 2021 and the new Instagram. It got over 100,000 likes across. And we were a smaller page down. We probably had like 600,000 followers. And it was just about about essentially, you know, the argument for why

Starting point is 02:02:40 Epstein likely was murdered. But it got out there. That's it. Did you get to like the, did you get to the Intel stuff? I honestly, it was 2021. Yeah, I can't remember. But it did, but it got out. I mean, I think we covered Acosta. Belonged. Yeah, we don't. Oh, we definitely got. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To that to that stuff. I just said like, like, Like when I look at it, again, I just don't know. And I haven't gone through it nearly as closely as I will at some point. But isn't it, it's definitely to me when I look at it, I don't see evidence. I haven't yet seen evidence that the most egregious things, that the child sex trafficking

Starting point is 02:03:23 stuff to all these powerful people happened. What I have seen evidence of is that he is a lot of people coming to him for, prostitutes, coming to him, trafficking other kind of women. Is that different? I mean, I don't know. Like, to me, like the whole, you have this thing. There were kids in those trafficking. Huh? There were kids. It's in the emails. He was trafficking young kids, too. It's in the emails. Fuck yeah.

Starting point is 02:03:45 What's it say? They're not even the ones in code. I got an 11-year-old. I got a 13-year-old, the stuff that Michael Tracy forgets how to read. Well, wasn't the Howard Lutnik one? Wasn't that him talking about his own kids? That's different. I'm not even referring. That was disgusting to me, but like, that's That's different. There are literally emails of them going back and forth talking about this. And then, Deef, can you pull up the email of Jeffrey Epstein saying, I'm that guy about the movie? Just, this is all you need right here.

Starting point is 02:04:15 Well, yeah. Can you put it up on the screen, Queen? Yeah, yeah. He's going to. He's trying to find it where he's like, where's the other one. God damn it. I thought this was it. I'm sorry.

Starting point is 02:04:27 The other one where he literally says, I'm that guy. Hold on. Can you go back? Just trying to read that again. Oh, this email made my blood boil. It's like you couldn't even write this in a movie. He's like, I almost, I almost fell over because I'm that guy. She had no idea, I'm that guy. And it's from the same time.

Starting point is 02:04:49 We've got to find that email. December 2018. A friend of a friend's guy because they wanted to move by. She said she was working. I just had an Epstein survivor in that chair, by the way, too. Really? Who was traffic to that island? Damn.

Starting point is 02:05:04 Yeah. This is a case. This is left and right. It is the most bipartisan case of my lifetime. They're guilty. Yeah. And it is such a fucking red line that makes my blood boil when people cannot go look. Like when I talk to other people in my life who are like, all right, what's the thing?

Starting point is 02:05:27 I'm like, you know what? I get it. You're going about your daily life. You don't have time to look into this. like I do, but like, please read some emails. Please just go look at the depravity of what this guy was doing. Listen to the people who survived it and are brave enough to talk about it. It's just, it's beyond the pale.

Starting point is 02:05:44 But my question that I come back to is, is I feel the outrage about getting some justice, getting some heads to roll. But my question is whose? you know, you have to start with actual, you know, targeted. It's not enough to say like we need the system to fall. Like if we want justice, I always wonder who do you start with? Like, is it Bill Gates? Well, to my understanding, I don't think Bill Gates went to the island. I think he kept close ties and went to the townhouse a few times in Manhattan.

Starting point is 02:06:23 I just always wonder like who goes down and in what order. because I think that the my thing is that the collective outrage I think is totally legitimate it's absurd that you know this was blocked up for so long but like you do have to be tactical in terms of who to go after

Starting point is 02:06:40 all right it looks like we're getting another picture up but I do want to hear your thoughts on that like who do you go after in what order you go after the people that are clearly implicated in this but you go at you go after the people that start with the ones that already have witness testimony all over them you I shout out to the UK for at least arresting Andrew

Starting point is 02:06:56 It's over probably the Al Yomama deal and not this yet, but that involves Epstein. But you start with the people who are clearly implicating themselves in here. You start with the fact that you have a guy who was listed as a fucking co-conspirator in the documents and covered up for it like Les Wexner, who's fucking in the emails going back and forth with this guy who gave him all his money inexplicably to a fucking college dropout. You start with the people who were trafficking these girls through modeling agencies. Some of them apparently are already dead because they unalive themselves and stuff like that. But you go and dig into the case like you would dig into any other case and you don't protect people simply because they pay the right people and are very wealthy.

Starting point is 02:07:36 I am with you, Max, that it like my instant reaction, right? Like I'm an emotional guy first and you see some of it coming out right now. I train myself to be logical. Yeah. I usually don't lose it on camera. I've lost it a few times since this case has come out. And I make no apologies for that. But like, I have to train myself to get it all out, which is usually on a phone call to someone close in my life, and then pace around, calm down, and look at the logic.

Starting point is 02:08:04 Yeah. Okay? So now I'm calm down. Yeah. And I'll look at the logic now after my little freak out. And the logic is that there is significant evidence against a lot of people who happen to pay all the right people who are wealthy that has been covered up. And that needs to be uncovered up. And we are talking about the most basic fucking thing that everyone should be able to agree on. here, which is that you don't abuse anyone, but you especially don't abuse kids.

Starting point is 02:08:30 So the fact that they are not, that Bondi has said they're not going to bring any cases about this already. Are you fucking kidding me? Shut the fuck up about the Dow. Yeah. The Dow. Julian, are you, are you, is you pulling up the one about the kids? So this is, this is my, this is essentially my understanding of this.

Starting point is 02:08:48 So like the way I've understand it, like the stuff that I've seen and I look at it, I'm just like, okay, what I understand from what I've read and what makes sense. to me. Jeffrey Epstein was trafficking women. I'm not saying that, you know, whatever. Just like, if I like go to these, because I haven't seen, I hadn't seen this one, but I've seen other ones. He's trafficking women to

Starting point is 02:09:06 other powerful people, and you have these people, like the Amaradi guy, you know, who's saying, I think they're going to Istanbul and saying, you know, can you bring me some girls here? Like, it's very obvious, like, what's going on there? The kids thing, that's where I look at it, and I'm like, I just, I haven't, to be honest, I just haven't seen the stuff.

Starting point is 02:09:22 I'm not saying it's not there. and the stuff I've gone through, I haven't seen that part of it substantial yet. I'm not saying Jeffrey Epsey himself. I mean, he literally went to prison for soliciting a child prostitute, right? Child prostitute, raping a kid. But, you know, in terms of the overall thing

Starting point is 02:09:35 of the cabal of these people, you know, taking their turns with these children, I have not seen that substance. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm not, I'm not rejecting it. But, well, I mean, like I said, I've gone through a bunch of them. I haven't said.

Starting point is 02:09:49 I cannot. But Julian, like, I always, I, I, I think that with some of this, like, I hate Bill Gates. I would beg you to look for a news company, too, that has hit AI, I think, like, has given it the scrutiny deserves and all these companies making fortunes and all the leaders behind them. And the tech world I'm deeply skeptical of. I'm shocked.

Starting point is 02:10:15 It doesn't get more coverage. There's part of me that wonders if Roe Kana, who represents Silicon Valley, isn't pushing this issue so aggressively, partly because it's, a huge distraction, Elon Musk begging for the file release when he's in them in an embarrassing and stunning fashion and yet he still wants discourse to be Epstein focused. Like there's part of me that wonders what their angle is and all this. But I'm also like I looked at all the Bill Gates stuff, all of it. And I can't pin him and I imagine prosecutors can't pin him to a crime.

Starting point is 02:10:46 Should he be societally canceled? That's another question because he associated with this guy. He got divorced over his, this relationship, and people warned him about Epstein. So maybe on a societal level, we start to look at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or the Bill Gates Foundation and just go, okay, we, we should, this is no longer a treasured thing. Maybe he shouldn't be speaking at all the Emirati summits or Davos or, you know, or the, what's it called, Sun Valley. Maybe he shouldn't be speaking at all these. But is Bill Gates criminally implicated? I bet Les Wexner. I don't know. I bet he would be. I bet he would be.

Starting point is 02:11:25 Leon Black, I bet he would be. J.P. Morgan, I'd like to see more there. I mean, they paid up a big settlement. I think it's like 290 or something, 2.30 or whatever. But I do want to see more investigations. I just, I guess I'd like to, I don't know, see more. And I don't trust Pam Bonnie to do it. Like, I don't trust Pan Bonnie to do it. But I would like to see some more. more criminal proceedings, but it's got to start somewhere. It's got to start somewhere. And to be clear, there are some powerful people that are fun to talk about because we hate them for a lot of reasons and we hate the fact that they're associated with the guy where right now we don't yet

Starting point is 02:12:03 have evidence that could say definitely was with a 15 year old or something like that. Yeah. Off the top of my head, maybe people in the comments can correct me if they found something in the emails, but like Bill Gates is a guy that I cannot say right now is someone that we have any proof that he was with a 15 year old or something like that. There's a lot of smoke. around it. I'll say that, but there are other people like Prince Andrew where we absolutely do. But like with Bill Gates too, it's like even the Russian prostitute, SED, that was an unsent email from Jeffrey Epstein to Jeffrey Epstein. Is it, do I believe it's true? That's everyone's judgment. I tend to think it's compelling. I mean, Bill Gates, we know, cheated on

Starting point is 02:12:38 his wife. Yes. That was known. Melinda was very concerned about his Epstein relationship. And that's quite a detailed thing to type to yourself if there's not some substance to it. So, like, to me, everyone can draw their own conclusion on that one. I think he's going. But, but, but like with the underage, that's where I'm like, I mean, also, those Russian girls, I think has the FBI looked into how they were procured and what they're, I don't know. So. And they would go get 15, 16 year olds from over there. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:13:11 Like, so I think there's a lot to look into. And I think Pam Bonnie's handling it poorly. I was surprised at how much of Trump world was caught up. this and it made me almost trust the DOJ a touch more and that they were willing to and like Howard Lutnik would have you know probably given his life for all that to not come out and Elon as well but still I would like to see all the files out you know um yeah they they they Nancy Mace who's been one of the few brave people on this going after it tweeted out last night that they're not they're not releasing the rest of the files because it would

Starting point is 02:13:47 implicate intelligence matters and kudos to her for doing that no shit Sherlock but i appreciate someone like in her position saying that publicly but it's like with who yeah who's it implicating yeah and why is why is that such an issue yes you know and it's because if there's one thing in society fuck there's people who have come back from the homicide yeah in some cases but if there's one thing that if it's written in stone you are not coming back from yeah it's being a petto yeah it is the ultimate as it should be it's the ultimate scarlet scarlet letter right on all of these people yeah and so you know sometimes do we try people on the court of public opinion before we have facts for sure for sure and and that's that's not fair but it is the ultimate blackmail weapon and by the

Starting point is 02:14:46 away and this is a conversation that you know especially right now people don't want to have because they just won't burn everything down and i get that but like are there guys who are probably sitting on hard drives and in probably fucking Tel Aviv that show proof that they had sexual relations with with an underage kid and had no idea when they were doing it that that was an underage kid yeah i have no doubt about that but their proof won't matter there's still going to be if it ever came out they're still going to be labeled that way and there are so many ways to get people with this and this guy that you are talking about a guy like in geoffrey ebstein obviously a six sadistic individual but it is very clear to me from all the accounts we've heard

Starting point is 02:15:35 of him and you know i just had one of them in here personally he was a master class manipulator he knew how to be like a parasite on your desires and your biggest weaknesses your biggest touch points and just attack him and so we've seen what he can do to so many people and it's like the rabbit got out of the hat at some point and these agencies decided oh my god we can never let anyone else know about it and now people know and I think it's a listen there are enough people who are totally uninformed on this

Starting point is 02:16:16 who haven't kept up with it which is what the government is counting on to make this go away while they distract this with fucking wars and Iran and all that there are enough people that if things don't happen soon sadly cynically this will drift off and nothing will happen

Starting point is 02:16:32 if that is not the case though and a bunch of people keep their voice loud and proud about this and say we're not letting this go this is a civilizational threat of a story and this is this is the point i want to make to to give you guys a chance to bite this off but like as much as my emotional reaction is like burn it all down i know that that ends really badly if you burn down all of western civilization overnight because you've decided that a bunch of people are satanic pedophiles and therefore everyone is well the world is

Starting point is 02:17:08 we know it ends. Instead, the harder thing to do, but the right way to go about this is imagine the greatest, biggest, most historical mansion you've ever seen in your life, like from the Roman times and it's sprawling. And it's got a million rooms in it. And you know that a bunch of those rooms are filled with asbestos and termites and cockroaches. And they got to go. The easy thing looking at the task in front of you is to be like, I know it's a story.

Starting point is 02:17:37 just burn it all down and we'll figure it out later. That's the easy thing to do. The harder thing to do is to put on a hazmat suit and go room by room one by one and clean it out. That's what we got to do. Julie, what about, I mean, all the people who aren't implicated? Like, in that world's view, I mean, that's to say, that's to say that you have the entirety of the elite,

Starting point is 02:17:57 but it's not the entirety of the elite. That's right. Look at the Bush administration. For everything George Bush did wrong, George Bush's name isn't in there, is it? Bro, he bombed brown people for the love of people. Well, but sure. But like that, but I'm not talking about that, but just like his name's not there.

Starting point is 02:18:10 Right. Or Obama's name isn't there. And like, that's right. There's a huge number of people who aren't there, which is to say, okay, then what's the, if, you know, if there is a, so for me, like, look, I guess I struggle to put together the coherent narrative. Because the coherent narrative is everybody's compromise. The idea here was to compromise everybody with power. There's a lot of people who aren't. So you're making my point.

Starting point is 02:18:32 This is what I'm saying. What? That you got to go after those ones who are. That's right. Yeah. You have to go room by room and find the rooms that actually have asbestos.

Starting point is 02:18:41 But how does that, if, okay, because if there's two ways of looking at this, one is that Jeffrey Epstein is a, you know, essentially a rogue individual who loved being at the center of the social circle.

Starting point is 02:18:50 He was peddling women to all these people or girls or whatever it is. For the love of, let's just say, if you're saying George Bush is bombing them for the love of the game, Epstein is doing this for the love of the game, right?

Starting point is 02:18:58 If that's one worldview. And then the other is that it's a concerted effort to blackmail everybody, right? And yet most powerful people are not implicated. I mean, there are legions of super, super, super powerful people. I talk about Jamie Diamond, right?

Starting point is 02:19:13 Talk about there, like there's all these people who shaped the world in many ways who aren't, who aren't involved here. Jamie Diamond is implicated. I was going to say JP Morton's a bad example. But, yeah, yeah, okay, sure, but, okay, but you know, I mean, whoever. I mean, there's lots, who aren't. Yes. So how does that, just like, I'm not saying this, like, whatever, but how does that, like, in your view, how do you explain all the people who aren't implicated?

Starting point is 02:19:35 Yes, you're making my point for it. This is what I'm saying. We are seeing so many powerful huge names across culture, across different levels of society, be it politics, be it banking, be it tech, be it international diplomacy, whatever it may be be, who are implicated. And the easy, angry response to that is to be like, therefore, all of them. I'll give you another example on this. On November 22nd, 19663, the United States government whacked the sitting president.

Starting point is 02:20:05 That's a fact. Let's say there was 100,000 people working at CIA and Pentagon at the time. You think it's reasonable to say 99,000 fucking 985 of them had no idea that was going to happen? I would say yes. Okay. Meaning like it was a small group of people, a little cabal, if you will, that decide to make that decision. Yeah. Therefore, and there's a lot of other things CIA has done very wrong. That's a long conversation. But if we're just looking at this issue, does that mean that, you should therefore the next day bulldoze CIA and bulldoze the Pentagon and not have them there.

Starting point is 02:20:44 No. Exactly. This is my point and you're making the same point as me. We are in agreement. I want to go room by room and find the people who actually are guilty. But my point just because I also, I'm not a big, I think Tucker is, I don't trust him in many areas. I think that first of all, he himself, I mean, talk about it by. He loves to analyze people in their incentive. and their like sketchy background. I mean, talk about him. Like a frozen food air whose dad ran the biggest propaganda

Starting point is 02:21:14 foundation, got him his starred in media, worked with the CIA for decades. Voice of America. Yeah, his dad, I mean, and like he remained very close with him. He goes up the ultra-establishment route,

Starting point is 02:21:30 calls out people who are pseudo-populous and dress like populace, even though they're of the elites. He's kind of done that reinvention. Some people say it's an authentic. the conversion, you can sort of read the man for yourself and his biography for yourself and see when he made the pivot. It was after Fox News and getting fired and all that. There are a lot of things about his biography where I just do not trust him. I do not trust him. And I think he's bad

Starting point is 02:21:51 faith in many ways. It doesn't mean everything he says is wrong. I think like a lot of people, he may cover things very well and he's a smart guy. He's a very smart guy. He's a good writer, all that. But when he talks about this super government, I'm like, I then start to read American history through that lens. And on the one, on the one hand, it's unfalsifiable. Like, if that's your worldview, you can probably justify every event through that lens. You can say, well, they, they planned it this way. And yeah, they wanted you to think it wasn't really one of them. But I'm still like, really, you would have picked Trump of all the leaders, like, uh, to come on. Now, you make the really good point of the world has changed. So that, that to me is an interesting

Starting point is 02:22:29 theory where like this, this entity may have had more authority 20 years ago or 60 years ago. I'm of the belief that the CIA used to be a lot more treacherous in the like 60s and 50s. I think they were a lot more emboldened and it's harder to pull some of these things off these days. I guess all my entire point there is like, as Frost said like Obama, I mean Catherine Rumler, you know, the top lawyer in the White House, she was. That doesn't mean Obama's implicating. Exactly. It doesn't mean he. Surprisingly Biden pretty clear. I mean, you know, like. Hunter, all that crack and no Epsi.

Starting point is 02:23:09 But he, you know, like he had, like, in Bush, the Bush is pretty safe. So you have a lot of people, and I know people will say, well, some in their orbit were caught. But still, the meat of the operation wasn't. So I'm like, I still think there's a group like this Larry Summers, Bill Gates, across Harvard, Davos. Like, I do think there's something there. I am not saying there's not. And again, we've covered this story since the beginning of Rome. aggressively. You can look at everything from our memes to the number of times we've covered it as a deep dive, all this.

Starting point is 02:23:45 My point in that is there's a ton to this story. I just am still like, I still feel like it's, it might be, I just haven't personally pieced it together. And I'm stuttering over my words just because I want to like have some theories and every time I think it's it. I just feel like you have to have a really good case before you, you launch it. And I'm still like struck in that, stuck in that spot of like piecing it all together. When I, when I had John in here the other day, the third hour of that podcast, yeah, 388 is essentially me and, you know, John's looked to this case for a long time. Yeah. There's new information stuff. He's looked at some of it. But it's just the third hour really shook me afterwards because much of it. is essentially me narrating emails

Starting point is 02:24:34 and looking to John whose head was just turned to the screen like this with his hand like this and John Kiriaku the man who I mean he never runs out of things to say the first two times I ever had him here they were both two podcasts apiece he was sitting there for six hours and I had to like stop him you know he was speechless he was he was genuinely speechless like I knew this was bad I have talked about how bad this is for a

Starting point is 02:24:58 long time I've talked about how much deeper this may go than we think for a long time, this is worse than even I imagined. And you are absolutely right. And it's not a popular thing to say. And I don't care. I won't just say the popular thing to say. Burning everything down at once is not the answer. Because there are plenty of also people who might, like if you want to use the sake of argument,

Starting point is 02:25:19 who might be really bad people. Dick Cheney was a really bad guy. Dick Cheney's not in these files. Right now. He's also dead now. But think of the people who are alive, right? Right. Like that's where you have to say, even the people I don't like, if there's not a there

Starting point is 02:25:34 there, then don't create one because that's where they win. That's where the people who pool the strings win. They want you to believe everything without evidence so that they can discredit you. And that's why like I get really firm on the stuff that very clearly does have evidence. Can you find the email the one you're talking about with the kids on that guy or is that this one. The, the, by the way, as this, as we look for that, the tech, the number of tech people in the email surprised me. If you want to talk about like, by the way, it is that I was frantic earlier reading this. It is that, let me read this again, Max. It is that bottom email right there. I want to read this

Starting point is 02:26:10 okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I read this too fast, but this is damning. It's from December 28, 2018. A friend of a friend of a friend Skype me because they wanted some advice. She said she was working on a sex trafficking movie. She said she met this really beautiful girl that used to be a sex for a guy with a private island. She met this pilot slash girl at Burning Man. I asked her if she had ever met Epstein. She said she hadn't. And I said, yes, you have.

Starting point is 02:26:36 She almost fainted. So it sounds like Epstein is sending this to a woman, to another, to a woman he was trafficking. I believe I had seen somewhere he was talking about, he was talking to Masha Drogovich. Who's that? She was like, I don't really know what to call her. So actually, a huge shout out to Sean Ryan.

Starting point is 02:26:55 and their team because this was a fucking unbelievable call. He recorded a podcast with Masha Drogovych, who's like this Russian dissenter Putin who's involved in a lot of shit. I actually have to look more into her to be perfectly honest. But he records this podcast with her maybe a year ago, eight, nine months, something like that. And, you know, Sean just had a gut. Something's off.

Starting point is 02:27:25 something's wrong here never tells anyone never puts it out she comes out in the emails as not only being tight because then he asked her on camera about epstein because he after the emails he put it out for people so they could see it where she denies really knowing epstein much at all she talked with them a couple times but whatever she was one of his main fucking people she's one of the most cited people in the email she's talking with him about racial supremacy and getting DNA tests and then only having parties with people who match a 98% in this case Jewish blood or more so they can procreate together because they're smarter than everyone.

Starting point is 02:28:03 And she was extremely, extremely tight with this guy. And Sean had an inkling that something was off and he never ran the episode. And that is a God tier level fucking gut feels. So shout out, Sean. So, but, sorry, Julian, do you think all these people, like, I'm just asking just, I'm not at, this is not a leading question.

Starting point is 02:28:21 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think all the people who he corresponds with were involved with the sex traffic? No. Absolutely not. And that's not people want to believe that. The problem is, I'll give you a personal example. Lawrence Krauss is set in that chair. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:28:38 Lawrence Krause. And I asked him about it when he was here. I got connected to him through another guest on the show, brought him in here. And like when he was coming in, I'm like, we already knew at the time. He was friends with Epstein. But Epstein funded fucking everyone in the Edge Foundation. I'm like, whatever. So I asked him about.

Starting point is 02:28:52 about it and he answered it. He was kind of, it was quick on the podcast. He was like kind of flipping about it. But he was like, he came in and funded stuff. We'd take money from people that fund stuff. He was like very direct about it. And we got along well. Seventy-five hundred emails. Wow. Trying to get Jeffrey Epstein on the Joe Rogan experience after he went on himself in 2017. Like, the chances of him not knowing something are low. Does that mean he's guilty? no 7500 emails that's a lot okay that's a lot like that's a lot or had 1100 yeah had 11,500 and I know what was she doing all day but your your question is exactly what you should be asking journalistically the thing is when you're so caught up with this guy many times post conviction

Starting point is 02:29:40 yeah you have to be like it's just I I burden of proof is on you to prove that you didn't I I um I uh But yes, maybe in a social setting, but in a criminal setting, that's why like the proof. To me, I have like a laundry list of stuff to look into. I still think his tech ties are crazy, especially in later stage Epstein, like the number of people. One area, like, if you look at presidents, it was actually like, you know, I mean, Trump and Clinton, but again, Obama, Biden, Bush, pretty clean. But if you look at the wealth list, it's pretty surprising. It's pretty surprising how many of like the tech people are implicated or or at least involved. So to me like Les Wexner is on my line of like the people who need a closer inspection.

Starting point is 02:30:29 Steve Bannon. Oh my goodness. I mean, that interview. Well, I just say what's your guy? I haven't watched it. What's your guys take on the Steve Bannon relationship? Well, he's rehabbing Epstein and trying to get him through this system. Now to what what, you know, Steve Bannon also seems to have like this weird streak of wanting to be a villain.

Starting point is 02:30:46 so maybe this was, I think the most, ironically, the most generous reading is he wanted to be like an edge lord and get involved with that. I think, though, the degree which I saw an interesting read that the Epstein-Belonged intelligence line, because that wasn't Alex Akos on a mic, that was a senior

Starting point is 02:31:02 White House aide saying Acosta said it and that they now think that maybe Bannon originated that. And that basically he deserves a closer inspection. I mean, if you're his PR guy down the stretch, Has this Denton ban standing with his audience?

Starting point is 02:31:20 I would think so. It should have. I mean, he talks about the global elite all day, and he's working, like, advising, that is insane to think about. I think Leon Black. I think I stopped. How about Leon Blacks? You just want to talk about optics, Leon Blacks. And by the way, sons are not guilty of what their father is, but from an optics perspective.

Starting point is 02:31:40 Yeah. These allegations have been out against Leon Black forever. And his son works in the administration. It's like a, it's like dude. Yeah. The William Barr, dad's Yeah, by the way, who's in charge of the transition team of the administration? Howard Lutnik.

Starting point is 02:31:57 Lutnik, to me, I think we have like overthought some of this too where like that was a big lie. You should get fired. You're fired. I think some presidents say what you want about like Obama and Bush. They would move people out of there. If there was like a scandal and I know people are like they were so deep state,

Starting point is 02:32:15 I mean, Eric Holder, I guess, is an exception Trump too? Obama. But no, no, I'm saying Acosta. Acosta was moved down there. That's sure, that's sure, that's sure. But I'm saying over this. Garumucci lasts in 10 days.

Starting point is 02:32:26 Well, Trump term one fired everybody. But yeah, this term, he's like, what does Cash Patel have to do to lose your job? That's one, that's my question. I agree with you. I think the weakness point is one reason. He doesn't want to be perceived as weak.

Starting point is 02:32:39 I'm saying he should be moving them out. Like, I don't think why Pam Bondi? I think it's probably either the weakness point or he doesn't want them to rat on what they know and maybe they know more than he'd like us to believe. Like if Bondi hit the podcast circuit, who knows what she's seen that they don't want out there? Who knows what tell all books she could put together about what Trump said about releasing the files and calling the American people? I'm sure like Trump was like, these fucking idiots won't drop this story.

Starting point is 02:33:10 Guess what I was friends with them. Everybody was friends with. Who knows what quotes he has. I'm making these up, obviously. I bet you Pam Bonnie could write a pretty explosive tell-all. I think that's another reading. I'm sure the audience will have some more theories. But I don't know, but I think that, like, there should be some basic accountability.

Starting point is 02:33:31 Elon Musk on this. I'm not looking past that either, by the way. I don't think he's an answer for that. I don't think he's, like, criminal per se, but like to want the epic parties, girls for the win and to consistently insist and they get rejected from the Pito Party not that it was a Pito Party

Starting point is 02:33:49 I do I do again we're in a different position like I don't want to say things that aren't true but going to the island is like it's like that college party we're like whatever house it is

Starting point is 02:34:01 whether it's the wildest frat or like my college didn't have frats but there was always a house where like you didn't know what was going on there but you knew the hardest drugs were happening you knew the girls that ran around there it was a little weird and whatever like when you walk

Starting point is 02:34:13 into that house, you kind of know what you're signing up for. You don't know exactly what's going on. I think a lot of people knew vaguely what Epstein was known for, like Trump in the early 2000 saying the younger women, even younger than I like them. You know, that line like in the New Yorker profile. Yeah. I guess, I guess a lot of people knew what he was about and still ran in his circles. Not to. So when we last weekend in our app, every, every weekend we do five deep dive stories in the weekend. Three of them last week were about Epstein. And the, uh, I was looking at the feedback from our, from our readers. And it's very, very, I'd say like 70% want more of the content. They're, I mean, they're just horrified by everything. They think it's a story of the year and

Starting point is 02:34:57 you know, story of the century and all this kind of stuff. And then the other 30% are essentially in the, it's a cover up. It's a distraction. Red herring. Red herring thing. And I do say, I mean, the point that two you made before, I do. So again, I, I, I, Like, I really, I'm not at all, I'm, I just don't know what to make of it, right? I want to learn more about it. I want to, I want to keep re-I want to keep attaining information, just figuring out where it is. I mean, I don't think, obviously nothing should be off limits and we should be pursuing the truth in every single aspect.

Starting point is 02:35:25 I do worry about, dude, I think this AI stuff, man, it is fucking terrifying. It's terrifying. And it's happening. Just in the period, since, like, say, July when this Epstein stuff really started popping off, dude like the AI stuff it's become everywhere I mean it's starting to shape everything and this is what everyone's talking about so I do I think two things can be true I mean there there there can be smoke and fire and it can also be that this is all everyone's talking about you I like I mean I'll just say my own this is my own opinion I'm terrified terrified about the

Starting point is 02:36:00 AI stuff I think the economic ramifications of it are massive I think the social to control for the government everything I think we're looking at a potentially most destabilizing period ever for the U.S. I mean, like, maybe since it's a great depression, but in modern, modern times. And instead, people don't even, people don't talk about it. And it's just, to me, it's like, and I know a lot of people think if you put it up on YouTube,

Starting point is 02:36:21 it's gonna get censored and everything, which I definitely, I mean, certainly one video we did not do well. So, so, so. You put AI in the title. Yeah. It's done. Dude, it's fucking done. Here's why I'm kind of of that opinion of, well, well, two opinions.

Starting point is 02:36:35 As we just said, we did a little 600%. or we bat 600 on Epstein stories last weekend. Like, we're going to keep covering this. You have to walk and chew gum in our business, especially when Trump's president. There are 15 million stories going on at once. I think that I... And so these stories shouldn't be competing.

Starting point is 02:36:53 They're separate. I do get skeptical about why Rokana. I mean, why weren't they clamoring about this in Obama? Oh, listen, I don't give Rokana, Thomas Massey, and Nancy Mesa, I will admit, because of how hard they're going in on this, they are a separate entity for me. That is a separate thing. But don't you think they may have their own motives?

Starting point is 02:37:17 Like I don't doubt that like Nancy Mace, I look at her record and how little I trust her and how like full of shit she seems in the reports from Stafford. Go watch her in the Tommy G documentary about Epstein four or five months ago. It's worth watching. Yes. Yeah. Because you can tell she's still trying to tow. She tried really hard to tow the Trump line and then look no farther than Marjorie Taylor

Starting point is 02:37:36 Green who talked about, this is a woman who when they were forced to wear mass at Congress wore a fucking Trump mask on her mouth. She was the biggest MAGA person ever and she talks about that conversation with Trump where she's like, I'm trying to help you guys. I believe you. I don't think you're guilty. Get out in front of this and he's like, you don't understand. I have friends who are going to get hurt.

Starting point is 02:37:58 You have peto friends who are going to get hurt? You're covering up Lex Wex. Like calling Lex Wexner a friend which we now know that's one of the people. he's referring to in the year of our Lord at the time 2025 is fucking insane. But Marjorie Taylor Green allegedly did the pivot after she didn't get the Trump endorsement for Georgia Senate. And why didn't she get it? But I don't necessarily buy because she's politically unpopular.

Starting point is 02:38:22 Like I'm not a Marjorie Taylor. I know, I know, I know, but my point is, my point is I'm, I think that those three are, I think have a grandstanding track record. I don't think Thomas. Massey has that. I, and Roe Khan as a guy I actually like when the Ukraine war broke out with like I felt like actually looked at it somewhat diplomatically at the time. I don't know his voting record on all of the fucking funding of Ukraine. But it's like he supported the insider trading bill and then it turns

Starting point is 02:38:51 out he has traded I think the second most of any sitting congressman. And it's like Thomas Massey, there's always been a history of a libertarian who loves the spotlight. Does it mean everything he does is wrong? No, not at all. But it does mean like I do wonder, when people are so vociferous about this. And, you know, I just do wonder why they're doing that. I think if you're going to examine motives, you've got to look at everybody's motives. You do. Nancy Mace has like the most insane track record for her ex-staffers, and I don't take that lightly. My point on all this is that I think that like AI is like in the last week, let me put it this way. There have been some disturbing Epstein revelations. There's also been Sam Altman talking about humans guzzling up more

Starting point is 02:39:36 resources than AI when it comes to acquiring new knowledge. And that comes on the heels of him saying in 2015, he thinks that AI will end humanity, but a lot of great companies will be created in the process. That's the CEO of Anthropic, Dario, who also himself has this weird track record. I'm talking about AI destroying humanity. I mean, and we're like, I think that that to me is more top of mind personally. I think both are massive stories. And I do wonder about those pushing this aggressively. Everything is a distraction for everything, bro. The war in the potential war in Iran here is a distraction for Epstein, which is a distraction for AI, which is a distraction for some other fucking government takeover. Everything is a giant circle and a distraction. And I agree with you.

Starting point is 02:40:22 You have to look at everything and the soup de jour is, whatever the moment is. And some people know more about other things than some other things. But like, I'm not going to let this go. No, fair, fair, fair, fair, fair. This is so. Like, it is so black and white at this point. And again, there's some stuff that is not at the worst end of the spectrum that I'm rooting to not be true, by the way. As much as I hate Epstein. I'm not rooting for it to turn out to be like, yep, there was cannibalism. I'm not rooting for that.

Starting point is 02:40:52 But like, the fact that I can't rule that out reading this stuff should shake people to their core. Yeah. And it's just, God, I'm just, I, this, this. one is really, this really, really fucking... Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I don't, I don't know what Donald Trump's the full extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Starting point is 02:41:20 I've defended him in the past as it pertains to Jeffrey Epstein and things that he did out in front talking to Brad Edwards, the victim's attorney in fucking 2007 and going on the record, being the only guy who would do it. Talking about him offhanded during the 2015, 2016, 2016 campaign about the, you got problems at that island. Now he's coming out there going, I like Bill Clinton. Why? Yeah. Why? Yeah. That is, why?

Starting point is 02:41:42 You guys are journalists. Why? And you guys are actually real journalists? Yeah. Like that, if you are not asking why is Donald Trump suddenly saying that about a guy who he stared in the face during a fucking presidential debate and said he raped people? Why is he now like, ah, I still like Bill Clinton. Right when Bill is going to go talk. Like, I mean, there ain't a defense attorney in America.

Starting point is 02:42:06 who won't tell you off the record that not to say he's guilty, but that the behavior doesn't look guilty. Yeah. I mean, Trump is not someone, if I were a defense attorney, I would not want him as my client personally, no matter how much you pays you,

Starting point is 02:42:21 because a lot of what he does is inexplicable. I don't view his moral track record as favorable even before all this. So like, I'm not a Trump defender by any means, but yes. No, I mean, Trump has the power to free to release all the files. It comes out to him. It's not Pambondi. It's him, right?

Starting point is 02:42:41 So it's just, it's clear. But like, that's, that's it. I mean, so what's, what's going to take to get him to do something? Nothing. Well, all, and also, every administration before this since Clinton has covered this up, they deserve absolutely no credit for this. Well, that's the thing. I don't give any political credit to people right now.

Starting point is 02:42:56 I told you those three are kind of a separate category. Everyone else can fuck off. They get no credit. They covered this up forever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They, I think a lot of people,

Starting point is 02:43:05 they love the game of noble lies. We saw this during COVID where they'd rather hide the truth from the public so as to not make them look bad or their institutions look bad. And I think that, you know, a lot of people are like, trust in government's low. Trust in Congress is at a historic low, which it is. And then they're like, so you know what we can't do? We can't show that we've been hiding this for a while. And so, yeah, I think there's been this, they are way too comfortable with noble

Starting point is 02:43:33 lies in the government. Like, let's hide this from the people. I mean, I do think there are state secrets. Like, I think it's dumb to just, I think some people are like, open source the government. And you can't do that. But there are issues where they don't trust the public and that feeds the public's distrust. And so that is outrageous. I think that's why a lot of people, we see it around the country and rural white communities and they're just like, I just don't trust the authorities.

Starting point is 02:43:59 I, you know, and that's a big, freaking problem right now. Yep. You just, there's certain things that need transparency and a light shine on them, especially when it's done. Yeah. Right. Right. And this, this, this stuff has happened. We cannot change that it happen. Yeah. But we can try to prevent it in the future and we can try to prevent the environment that allowed this to happen. And anyone who's involved should should be called out on that. You know, if I can't help but thinking if if fucking China were involved with this, these documents would have been released fucking six years ago. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:44:36 But they're not. Yeah. I mean, the thing that honestly scares me, I think we talked about this last time, but it's like, okay, well, if this is happening then, like, all these people, we're talking about 2010s, 2000s, right? Well, since then, it's like, obviously, it's not like this kind of stuff stopped. So it's like then, and then I can't remember as you, he said it when you were here last time or someone else I was talking to. But the person made the point they're like, well, you don't really need a Jeffrey Epstein now because everything is recorded. on your phone and literally everything. Yeah. So it's like, it's like, it's like there's nothing is private.

Starting point is 02:45:06 If you're doing something illegal, if you're doing something, you know, that's going to put the scarlet letter on you, somebody knows. Somebody knows. And it's just, it's, it's disturbing, bro. I mean, all this, all this stuff is extremely disturbing. But like, again, dude, the combination of this stuff, the tech stuff, every, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a dark time. It's, it's definitely a, what gives me hope are people, I think traveling the country, you see

Starting point is 02:45:30 great people everywhere. I think of my loved ones. And like all the, there is like a lot of human decency and so much value to life beyond, you know, your view of your governments and politics and culture, war and all this stuff. So like I do kind of rest on that. I think this is a great reminder of not placing too much faith in government. And, uh, and instead recognizing the, you know, deeper truths of life and the more valuable things. Um, and I, you know, on AI and, uh, I still remain hopeful. I really do. I think that, you know, we don't see the unseen sectors that will be created.

Starting point is 02:46:07 And we don't, we may underestimate the resilience of our species. Like I saw yesterday that it was the 20th anniversary that iPod mini coming out. And I'm like, dude, that was only 20 years ago. Think about life today. Yeah. And I'm like, and we're okay. I mean, you know, more or less okay. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:46:26 And yeah, so I guess I get some hope from that. But yeah, dude, insane time. I mean. It's a good time to be in the news business. It is. We didn't even get to talk about El Mancho. We did not. I'm going to be having a podcast coming out right after this with Katarina Schultz.

Starting point is 02:46:45 She's coming back into town. And let's just say she was on this story. Put it that way. She's covering it inside. But yeah, there's so much going. It's like you can't even decide. I appreciate you guys being good sports about this. I get worked up about this game.

Starting point is 02:46:59 Yeah. Well, dude, I just, I mean, I should be more informed on it. Like I said, I got back Sunday. And I was like, start running. Well, yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, it was just, honestly, it's like I was gone. And just like being in the mountains in Lebanon. I'm like, yeah, that shit's going down.

Starting point is 02:47:11 Yeah, one of the things the Epstein survivor talked about when she was in here with, she came from the modeling world and she was, she was just talking about how obvious it was. Really? Like the whole. And it's not just Epstein. Yeah. At all. Like, like, like, she's like, obviously, like, he's the,

Starting point is 02:47:26 worst guy knew, but they just traffic you everywhere. You know, and then she just got out of the modeling business. She was a modeling scout for 15 years after she was a model. Wow. You know, and she's like, listen, there's aspects of the industry that I enjoy that that are great. But then there's like this underbelly dark side that's just totally wrong. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:47:46 You know, and when you see that and what, you know, she was traffic to them all kinds of times. And she was one that was of age. Wow. But, you know, she would, she talked about. about the one time that she saw like a 13 year old girl in the car when she got in there. She talked about when she was on the island. There were girls who were underage there with Prince Andrew.

Starting point is 02:48:04 You know, like, just inviting the prince for the views. Yeah. Come on. It's, it, it just is what it is, man. But to your point, you got to go piece by piece and, you know, if you want to shun everyone who's in the files because they shouldn't have been associated with them, that's fine. when it comes to the criminal prosecutions, which I want to see, which apparently they're not going to do, but I want to see them and push for them. You have to get evidence on it and you have to get direct evidence on the people involved. And we have evidence obviously on the people that were running it, but we got to find the evidence on the people on the powerful people who were clearly, you know, it's like running a RICO case with the mom.

Starting point is 02:48:41 That's effectively what this is. They're talking in code. They're doing these things. I want to assume it's not, I mean, it is the worst stuff. I want to assume it's not the crazy stuff that you used to be like, all right, that's not even. proper for a 4chan article. Yeah. But, you know, or chat room.

Starting point is 02:48:57 But I don't know. I mean, you got John Kyriaku going, yeah, I used to rip everyone for fucking Pizza Gate who would talk about it. Like, what are you doing? And now it's like, maybe there's something there. And that is what, oh my God, that is wild for me to say out loud. Wild to say out loud. It's like not even comfortable to say out loud.

Starting point is 02:49:19 But here we are. Insane. I mean, yeah, again, last thing for me on this is like, I think. think that, you know, from our perspective, they're, there, I think you have to rank order issues to look into. And I think that, I think some of those VIP relationships still need more scrutiny, the Les Wexner. I don't think there's been enough reporting on how Epstein got wealthy. You know, the New York Times of that really long deep dive. But still, it doesn't really answer everything. Right. I think Leon Black, I think Steve Bannon, that I think the future file was released,

Starting point is 02:49:52 Will there be the remaining files? Will we see them? I think there are a lot of things that like we're going to stay focused on. And then also, you know, take the new theories as they come and start to give them serious treatment. Yeah. That's kind of how I view it. And, you know, and I hope that the public's fury scares any scheme like this from happening or at least people to walk on eggshells more and more. I think people are going to be more careful with the meetings they take.

Starting point is 02:50:20 I hope. I mean, we'll see because like this guy, I'd start doing Google searches. You know, email. Yeah. You know the four commas between everything. I love torture vid, comma, comma, comma, pizza. Yeah. Just a weird way of writing.

Starting point is 02:50:37 Anyways. Yes, it is. Julian, thank you for a man in the watch. Yeah, and thanks for seeing in there with me on this. I get worked up about this. Yeah, what's the cash vetted? Oh, God. Thank you.

Starting point is 02:50:49 We got the watch and I'll see you in Val Hall. God. Everyone subscribe to Roka. We got him linked in the literal title. Let's go, baby. Peace. Give it a thought. Get back to me.

Starting point is 02:51:01 What's up, guys? Thanks so much for watching the video. If you have not subscribed, please hit that subscribe button before you leave, as well as leaving the like on the video. It's a huge huge help. You can join my Patreon via the link in the description. And you can also join my clipping community via the Discord link down below. See you for the next episode.

Julian Dorey Podcast - #389 - “Powder KEG!” - Epstein, Iran, Inside Hezbollah & Israeli Settlements | RocaNews

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