Some More News - Some More News: Trump's Bored Of Peace

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Hi. On today's episode of Some More News, we look at Trump's invasion of Iran, Trump's teased future invasion of Cuba, Pete Hegseth's Christian Crusades, and why all of our old wars are new again.Hosted by Cody JohnstonExecutive Producer - Katy StollDirected by Will GordhWritten by Marco Siler-GonzalesProduced by Jonathan HarrisEdited by Gregg MellerPost-Production Supervisor / Motion Graphics & VFX - John ConwayResearcher - Marco Siler-GonzalesGraphics by Clint DeNiscoHead Writer - David Christopher BellPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/join#somemorenews #Iran #BoardOfPeaceStop putting off those doctors appointments and go to https://Zocdoc.com/MORENEWS to find and instantly book a doctor you love today.DripDrop is offering our audience 20% off your first order. Go to https://dripdrop.com and use promo code morenews.Pluto TV. Stream Now. Pay Never.0:00 - Introduction3:55 - Everything That Has Led To The Iran War14:09 - How The Dumb President Got Tricked Into War27:57 - Pete Hegseth - Christian War Freak29:15 - The United States Weird Grudge With Cuba44:56 - Trump’s Bored of PeaceSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Folks. People, ladies, babies, buddies, air buddies. Snow buddies. Here's some news. War. And here's some more news. More war. There's a lot of it.

There was even a little war at the White House Correspondence dinner. See, this is why we need to build that wall, or the ballroom, or whatever. Build something. Also, like and subscribe to this channel. Build the channel for America. Anyway, back to these some even more. New War. War.

It seems to be oozing out of every one of our red, white, and blue orifices. Not the fun Nickelodeon ooze. It's more like that black drool that foments at the mouth of a hobbit-hungry Urukai. I think it's called Flom? Maybe squand. Just within the last year or so, we've invaded Venezuela and kidnapped their president, bombed 200 people in the Pacific, threatened to invade Greenland and Mexico, and Canada, and Cuba. And all the while, we've continued to aid Israel in their audience.

ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Cease fire, shmese fire, as they say. A lot of impressive multitasking, though, I guess. And all that, it turns out, wasn't even the main war we were going to do. A few hours ago, the United States launching what the president is calling major combat operations in Iran. Yep. A whole other war.

Those previous wars were just appetizers. And amuse boom, if you will. And this U.S. combat operation has now snowballed into a months-long carpet-bombing campaign of Iran, which has already destabilized the Middle East and the global economy. Geez, it's sort of weird. I recall being promised that Trump was the peace president? And that a vote for the Democrats would lead to World War III. I mean, look at this firecracker back in 2016.

The war in Iraq, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, we don't even have it. Iran is taking over Iraq with the second largest oil reserves in the world. Obviously, it was a mistake. George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East. So you still think he should be impeached?

I think it's my turn, isn't it? You do whatever you want. You call it whatever you want. I want to tell you, they lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none, and they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Okay, all right.

Poor Jeb. Stand up for yourself, man. Own your family's legacy of bloodshed in the Middle East. This debate was effectively Alan Iverson stepping over to Ron Liu in the NBA finals moment of the Republican primary, which is a reference that you'll get because of it's from basketball. I knew that. Wow.

I forgot that Trump actually had energy back then. These days, he perpetually looks like he's just been bitten by a snake. You can see why now a lot of his MAGA base are allegedly dumping him over this new war. We're actually going to do a future episode about that specifically. Because that guy in that video I just showed, well, he's not around anymore. But it's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis.

You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have to guard the country. God, he omit it! Seriously though, check him for snake bites. He looks like he's bleeding out somewhere. But whatever. Let's talk about all the war.

Donald Trump loves war and wants to marry it. I'm gonna come. It's true. Donald Trump loves war and wants to kiss it right on the lips and tips. But to be more specific, he really likes old tired wars. He's an old tired man after all. He can't even do a new war. He's like a movie executive who promised to shake up the industry before pitching a bunch

of Peter Pan films. Like, hey, stop. Stop making those. We're good. And with Iran, it's not just that we've like been there, done that, but more importantly, his actions to go to war are reverberating everywhere. The decision of one guy is screwing up life for everyone. There are, of course, some degrees of separation depending on where you live.

Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormoz has choked off about a fifth of the world's oil and gas exports, along with other commodities like fertilizer. So folks in the U.S. might be feeling a pinch at the pump. Taxi drivers in Sri Lanka are forced to ration petrol to 15 liters a week. Farmers in Thailand are cutting back on crops because they can't afford fertilizer. But if you're, let's say, a young schoolgirl in Iran, well, there's actually a actually zero degrees of separation. One of the first strikes of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran

hit a girl's school in Minab in southern Iran. The death toll is now at least 175, most of them primary school girls. Oil isn't the biggest problem, is my point. And this single bombing of a school on day one should have been the single reason a lot of people throughout their MAGA hats. It should have been the moment where lots of people lawmakers on both sides of the aisle stood up and said, actually, we don't want the United States

to commit crimes against humanity. That didn't happen because apparently we do. So it raises the question, is there some greater purpose for this war that is worth this level of death and destruction? I mean, is there ever? But perhaps there's a 4D chess move we're not detecting. Maybe we're too sick with Trump derangement syndrome or TDS as the doctors say. to see that the Orange Man, who is bad, is pulling off some masterful gambit in geopolitics

that positions America on a gilded path. Is Trump secretly living out stupid Dune? Spoiler, no. Oh boy, no, no, oh my gosh, no. Big N, big O. What Trump is doing here is simply an extension of decades of U.S. foreign meddling in the Middle East. The Great Plan is just the same plan as before, our long desire to maintain U.S. supremacy and hegemony along with, of course, controlling oil in the region.

For historical context, in the first half of the 20th century, the United Kingdom had significant stakes in Iranian oil production through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. At first, it was a pretty one-sided deal that favored the British. But by the 1950s, Iran's political momentum swung towards. nationalizing the country's oil supply. Iran's parliament voted in as Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh, a Swiss-educated lawyer who promised to follow through with nationalization. By this time, the British and U.S. intelligence services were already in cahoots. Colonialists gotta stick together, you know? The U.S. feared that if Iran could shake off Britain's grasp,

then other countries would follow suit and threaten U.S. oil interests abroad. In order to turn public sentiment against the democratically elected government, the CIA weaponized and took advantage of Iran's Islamist religious community and their leaders, the Ayatollahs. It was a mutual enemy kind of dilly. The Ayatollah saw Mossadegh's growing power and secularism as a threat to conservative religious influence in Iran society. The CIA's coup d'etat hinged on sewing chaos, sparking civil unrest within the country. And then having Iran's monarch, Shah Mohammed Reza Palavi, established a royal decree to cement power. The CIA gave the Ayatollah's funding to stage attacks by communist agitators in order to stoke

resentment and division among the public. Basically, a bunch of powers, including foreign governments, came together to destabilize a country in order to either plunder it or regress it into their conservative religious ideals. It's like if, hypothetically, Russia was funding. right-wing media in America in order to push propaganda designed to divide and weaken us. Hypothetically. So after the Shah established order in the country, the Anglo-Iranian oil company resumed operation under British control. As the years went on, the Shah remained a loyal ally to the U.S., buying American weapons and adapting foreign policy to benefit our interests in the

region. The Shah, like most Western puppets, cracked down on opposition groups in the country, including an Islamic cleric named Ayatollah Rouhola Khomeini. Khamenei was exiled in 1964, only to come back 14 years later riding the wave of anti-Shah sentiment and revolution. As a result, the Shah was ultimately exiled and taken in by the U.S., all of which culminated in the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. That was when a group of people were in the war. of Iranian students invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran and kidnapped 66 American diplomats and staff, demanding that the U.S. return the Shah to Iran to stand trial.

And if President Carter does not release the Shah? Yes, we can fight. What will you do? We have to fight. He has to give us back the Shah. Images like that were broadcast all over American television. It was one of the first times that many heard the slogan, Death to America, and realized that people halfway around the world hated them. And for good

reason, not to condone anything here or pick sides or whatever, we are, after all, rushing through this very complex history. But the Iran hostage crisis was the result of the United States constantly meddling with the country, harboring their exiled leaders, and people of that country being like, Hey, fucking quit it. Tensions between the US and the now Islamic Republic of Iran have only, um, yeah, gotten worse. Iran has insulated itself within a network of proxy militias in the region while seemingly attempting to start a nuclear program

for either power or bomb reasons, while the US has attacked those proxies and placed escalating sanctions and embargoes on Iran's economy. This is how we get to Obama, and the nuclear deal his administration managed to with Iran in 2015. It was a big deal. It took 20 months to negotiate.

They used the good pens to make it. In return for sanction relief, the deal heavily restricted Iran's access to enriched uranium over the next 10 years and required Iran to allow international inspectors into its nuclear facilities indefinitely. Basically, we stop messing with their money, and they agree not to build a nuke. We get off their lawn a little, and they put their lawn a little,

and they put down the theoretical shotgun, you know? Was it perfect? Nope! Iran's leaders are certainly not good. The country has a long history of human rights abuses we should be concerned about. But there has to be an effort that exists between isolationism and fucking bombing a place and picking their leaders for them. Right?

Anyway, then what happened? Iran is going to be unbelievably powerful and unbelievably rich, and Israel's in big trouble. Israel is in big trouble. Obama has really let Israel down. There is. It's like a wet dog at a dinner party, right? There to fuck it all up. Trump unsurprisingly withdrew from the deal in 2018.

In response, Iran resumed its uranium enrichment program, which to be clear does not actually mean they were building a bomb. And to be more clear, our own intelligence said that they weren't even close to building a bomb. But this gave Trump more than an excuse to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities last year, and more recently inform a bunch of children of their impending doom. They would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks. Remember we sent that beautiful B2 bomber in and we blew up their nuclear potential.

It was obliterated for those that are not aware and to a point where they would take them weeks to dig down and we wouldn't let them dig down. We have our eyes on it all the time. But it was a very important thing. So we would have had an Iran with a nuclear weapon, and maybe we wouldn't all be here right now. I can tell you, the Middle East would have been gone, Israel would have been gone, and they would have trained their sites on Europe first and then us.

That was at an event for youth sports and fitness. Youth sports and fitness. Look at them. Look at those kids. Just the worst field trip ever. But at least they still have field trips, unlike the schoolchildren that we did bomb. Anyway, shortly after those strikes, Trump said Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.

Great. I guess we didn't need that stupid nuclear deal in the first place. Just bomb them. Although it turns out that Trump has his own definition of what obliterated means, because Trump's own intelligence agencies found that that they're not that they're not. the bombing only set Iran's nuclear program back by a few months, which all kind of brings us to where we are now. As reporting from the New York Times shows, Trump went to war with Iran based on a gut decision.

And by gut, I mean, Netanyahu got him to do it. The Israeli prime minister met with President Trump inside the White House Situation room just days before the war broke out. Netanyahu pitched a plan that a coordinated Israeli-U.S. attack on the United States attack on Iran now would lead to the fall of the current Ayatollah and harbor regime change, crush Iran's ballistic missile cash, and end once and for all their nuclear program. This was apparently something that Netanyahu had been pitching to past presidents for a while, none of whom were stupid enough to go along with it.

Until now! And despite Trump's top intelligence and military officials, clearly knowing that this was complete pie in the sky bullshit and trying to tell Trump this, as much as you can tell him anything, he decided to go with it anyway. Donald Trump, President Rube, was talked into a war with Iran by a guy who has wanted to eradicate that country from the face of the earth for his entire career. Way to go, dummy. So we did all the bombs, killed those dastardly school children, and in the process also managed to kill Ayatollah Ali Khomey, an 86-year-old man who had ruled over Iran for 36 years.

Trump then released a video urging the people of Iran to rise up against their government. Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered, don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. Oh, cool! Regime change! The thing they said this wasn't about and that certainly worked out for us in the past. Except ah shucks, it didn't pan out. For starters, no one in Iran is rising up against their government in part because we keep blowing them up. We blew up a school! The first thing we did was blow up a school and were then like, you're welcome, folks,

you take it from here. And while US forces killed Ayatollah Khomeini, he's just been replaced by his son. Although Iran doesn't have the massive military, budget we do, they've been incredibly successful in bottlenecking the global economy by shutting down access to the Strait of Hormoz. Meanwhile, the war against Iran has given Israel the cover to invade and occupy parts of Lebanon again. Israel's fight against the Iranian proxy militia known as Hezbollah includes dropping thousand-pound bombs on tightly packed residential neighborhoods, which have killed thousands

of people and displaced over one million Lebanese residents. In other words, our military campaign against Iran has so far accomplished pure bloodshed, while most likely putting Iran in a stronger position to negotiate a favorable deal for themselves. What a stupid thing to do! After decades of war in the Middle East, Obama came in and actually tried to establish a deal with Iran, only to have the deal ripped up by a failed casino owner with zero experience, who then got tricked into doing the same wars before while somehow thinking it's gonna be better this time.

It's like we were finally calming the bees nest we shook and someone came in like, hey, I got a better idea. Let's shake it up again. It's stupid stuff from a perpetually stupid man. But counterpoint from someone who once called Trump America's Hitler, his current vice president. I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East, I understand the concern.

But the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives. So this is not going to be some long, drawn out thing. We've got in, we've done the job of setting their nuclear program back. We're going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years, and that is what the president has set out to do. Not super compelling, JD. He pointed and stared directly at the sun

while someone shouted, don't look at it. Seems like, actually, he's dumb and doing absolute dummy shit. Bad president. Boo! Go to your room. And now more people are dead and everyone is worse off because obviously that's what would happen.

Nobody wanted this. Or rather, almost nobody. After all, Netanyahu isn't the only dickhead whispering in Trump's ear. There are, in fact, dickheads here in America who also wanted this. For somehow even worse reasons. So let's do an ad break, come back, and talk about dickheads. Different dickheads from the previous ones, but also the previous ones as well. Ads.

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Those were ads. This is not ads. Welcome to some more horrors with your host. Me. We were speaking of the horrors of this current and very unnecessary war, which our impressionable president got tricked into waging, which is now making everything worse. Everything sucks.

Thanks, Mr. President. Weird, anyone voted for you. No one is happy, or rather, almost no one. We hinted that it wasn't just Netanyahu who wanted this war. Indeed, there are a lot of freaks who pushed for this. A lot of dickheads on both sides, in fact. Because much like how there are a lot of religious fundamental, medalists over in Iran, there are just as many here in the States. You know, fringe weirdos who see this as some kind of holy war, a God-ordained crusade,

fringe weirdos, otherwise known as our Secretary of Defense. Shot down on a Friday, good Friday, hidden in a cave, a crevice all of Saturday, and rescued on Sunday. flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday. A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for a nation rejoicing. God is good. Fucking. Huh?

That's him describing the U.S. airman who was allegedly shot down and allegedly rescued recently. And there's like a 50-50 chance that Heggseth is pitching us a pilot Jesus topgun spin-off, which, let's be honest. I would watch. So this is unsettling, right? Whatever your religious beliefs are, we certainly don't want our military officials comparing soldiers to Jesus, if only because that's deeply unhinged, and a lot of pressure on the soldiers, too.

And yet this isn't the first time that Hegsef has associated Scripture with America's military, because old slick Pete belongs to an extreme and secretive sect of the evangelical church called the communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. According to Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies of the University of North Florida, Hegset's Church doesn't, quote, believe in social equality among people. They think that God created the world and that some people are destined to have authority and to rule over other people, and other people are destined to be followers.

Legitimate authority comes directly from God. Just one of many instances of religious fundamentalists, finding weird little sex to justify being a bad person while still maintaining a sense of superiority. Turns out, the Bible says that I can spit on homeless people after all. Ha ha! How convenient for me and the life I've lived! Anyway, Hegsseth is obsessed with the Crusades. You know, when Christians waged a war against Muslims over the control of Holy Lands a thousand years ago, give or take? In his book, American Crusade, Hegeseth wrote that the survival of the country rested on the destruction of Islam and

and leftist ideology, which I guess to him are similar. Quote, we don't want to fight, but like our fellow Christians 1,000 years ago, we must. Kind of sounds like you do want to fight, Pete. The leader of Hegseth's church, Doug Wilson, has openly told reporters that his ideal society would be theocratic and that Christianity would be a part of every facet of American society.

I'm not saying that Hegsettheseth is taking orders from Wilson, but Hegeseth has clearly demonstrated that he is more than happy to direct the military to kill and bomb his perceived religious enemies as much as possible, and has gone as far as comparing the critics of the Iran War to the persecutors of Jesus, we must assume, Christ. Hegeseth has hosted monthly prayer meetings at the Pentagon, where he has called for violence against the country's enemies in Jesus' name. According to New York Times reporting, Pete Hegseth was the biggest supporter among Trump's cabinet for the U.S. going to war with Iran.

Because of course he is. Dude wants a holy war. He can't wait to wipe out a country. He gleefully tweets about bombing people back to the Stone Age and brags about shirking legality in favor of lethality, aka war crime stuff. He's a sadist cloaked in a thin veneer of Christian morality. Ironically, hellbound, if such a place existed, much like a lot of Christian nationalists in this country. But whether or not Stinky Pete is going to hell doesn't matter since he's here right now creating hell for us. He's in charge of our military, folks. Trump gives him the green light to bomb and Hegseth decides how many bombs to drop.

And unlike Trump's first term, there's just no one in the room anymore who isn't some kind of weird ghoul. ready to immediately carry out even his most unhinged ideas. Not just cowards who won't stop bad things, but who actually also want the bad things to happen. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think our military should be run by people who not only believe in a biblical judgment day, but who want and are trying to make that happen.

Death cult freaks who are more than willing to Jonestown the entire country because they think it'll give them a larger mansion in heaven. who ransacked the Bible, looking for any and all words that could justify their violent urges as righteous. And if they can't find any, just pull some fake ones from a movie. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy One when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Yeesh. Like, if nothing else, do we really want to be really want.

a guy who quotes Pulp Fiction running our military, there is a 100% chance that Pete Hegseth owns at least one Boondock Saints poster and that should chill you to your core. That's all he is, after all. He's just a violent dickhead who saw movies where violent dickheads were heroes, or, more likely, who saw movies where violent dickheads were misinterpreted as heroes, and has carved out a justification for being a violent dickhead. The kind of guy who will punch someone, while playing laser tag, who buys a bottle of liquor because it's shaped like a skull. In a sane world, Pete would be doing YouTube reviews of pocket knives, not running the goddamn military. Meanwhile, there's Trump, a man who has been comfortable and privileged his

entire life, thinks everything is like a business deal, is constantly being manipulated, and just kind of assumed this would all work out. The president told a reporter over the phone, that Iran had agreed to all of his terms for lasting peace. And then just two days later told Fox News that if Iran didn't accept the terms, then the whole country is getting blown up. Let me just reiterate that he is trothing war crimes. Like, he's doing this every day because he's not getting what he wants, and no one will hold him accountable.

My guess is that Trump was told that coercing Iran into some sort of regime change and landing a favorable nuclear deal would be just a, as easy as kidnapping Venezuela's president. I'm guessing that the people who told him that knew it wasn't true, but didn't care because they wanted this war. But because Trump is stupid and also likes war, he believed it. Can't stress it enough. Trump has no idea what he's doing and doesn't have any serious people around him and is now just being pointed in various directions by ghouls who all have ulterior motives. After all, the Middle East isn't the only place where Trump is starting shit. President Trump declaring a national emergency over threats by Cuba, the president

issued an executive order tonight saying the policies and actions of the Cuban regime directly threaten the safety and national security of the United States. The executive order also threatens to impose tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the island nation. Following the capture, this This month of Nicolas Maduro, the Trump administration has cut off Venezuela's oil flow into Cuba, crippling the island even more. Wow, cool, great Cuba, why not? According to the Trump administration, Cuba has made themselves a hub for transnational terrorist

groups, making them an imminent threat to the national security of the United States. Wow, a rogue nation harboring dangerous terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas, just 90 miles off the coast of the U.S. mainland sure sounds dangerous, except Trumps. Trump has provided no proof that Hezbollah fighters are sipping Cuba Libres in Havana, but that's become par for the course of this administration. If you haven't noticed already, it's kind of Trump's go-to tagline when he wants to invade a Latin American country. And Cuba is, of course, THE country to get.

Like, just take a moment to think that an island nation so close to the U.S. has somehow remained almost completely independent from the most powerful imperial nation in the world. That's kind of a miracle. It's like a mouse fell into a snake pit and just started living there. And everyone's sort of watching and waiting for the inevitable. Because, mind you, that independence came at a price. And so once again, Trump going after Cuba is yet another tired and old conflict. Trump, the peace president, is playing all the classic hits, like really classic.

because our beef with Cuba started over 100 years ago, around the turn of the 20th century. At the time, it was a Spanish colony and formerly a major hub for the transatlantic slave trade. The Spanish colonial power in and around Cuba was already shrinking while the United States was looking to expand its influence and power in the region. The U.S. press would often report on the horrible atrocities committed by the Spanish colonial government against Cubans and how they were thinking. threatening U.S. business interests in boom crops like sugar and coffee. It wasn't long before public opinion turned to support some sort of military intervention.

Cuban revolutionaries had already been fighting the Spanish for decades before the U.S. sent a battleship in 1898. On February 15th of that year, the USS Maine mysteriously exploded while at Port in Havana, killing over 260 Americans. It was never discovered how the ship actually blew up, could have been Cthulhu, but it was exactly what the U.S. war machine needed to invade the country. Teddy mustache ride Roosevelt wrote at the time, If we will not fight for the blowing up of the Maine, and personally, I believe we should have fought long ago because of the atrocities in Cuba, we are no longer fit to hold up our heads

among the nations of the earth. It only took a matter of months for Spain to submit to the Treaty of Paris, where they gave up virtually all of their colonies in the Caribbean and West Indies. The Cuban government then negotiated its own independence from the U.S. under the agreement that the two countries keep exclusive trade relations and that the U.S. would have the right to intervene in Cuban affairs. It also leased Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. military. Weird deal, I must say.

We were basically like, you can be independent so long as you only deal with us and we can just barge in at any time. A lot of Cubans obviously weren't that jazz to just be traded from one colonial power to another. And the U.S. would keep close tabs on Cuba in the decades following, often helping Cuba's government to tamp down any revolutionary movements that might threaten U.S. business interests. Then, early in the Cold War, the U.S. threw its weight behind Cuban dictator Fulhencio Batista, with the endgame of stamping out any communist movements in the country. This was known as Operation Batista Bomb by myself and just myself. By the 1950s, Cuba had become a world attraction largely driven by a tourism industry that was backed by U.S. Capitol.

Havana in the 50s was one of the great party cities of the Americas, and it was a very lively and very wealthy city as well. attracted tourists, not just from the US, but right around the world. Looks fun. At the time, Havana was raking in more cash than Las Vegas, all of which was flowing into the pockets of U.S. corporations and Batista himself. The CIA even trained Batista's forces on how to effectively torture and perform counter-servalance operations against communist revolutionaries.

Batista's brutal tactics against the Cuban working class only sparked a more ferocious uprising under communist revolutionary Fidel Castro. That guy! He was friends with the T-shirt guy! And by 1959, Batista fled the country under encroaching pressure from Castro's forces, who then assumed power and pretty much pushed America's dicks in the dirt. What they think is the United States have been not worried at all

about our feeling, our democratic feeling, United States speaking about democracy, and forgetting the... feeling, democratic feeling of those countries of Latin America. And between then Cuba, do you see those chairman tanks, do you see those airplanes, do you see those big bonds of 500 pounds? They were sold by government in the United States to Batista. And Batista was always telling to the soldiers, to his soldiers, United States is with us,

United States is helping us. United States giving armed to us, you know? He's not wrong there, talking about how the United States was arming Batista, giving him planes, and one imagines, bombs. This was known as Operation Batista's bombs. I can do the same joke twice! Who says I can't? You?

Nah! It's not against the law, is my point. So, yeah, the United States wasn't too pleased with this Castro fellow. He was a young, charming, and charismatic communist leader, directly calling out the United States. out the U.S. government for its hypocrisy on primetime television. In the earlier stages of the Cold War, this was kind of the worst-case scenario for anyone in the U.S. who saw Cuba as a lucrative business asset and strategic military outpost. Castro quickly rose to number one bad guy on the CIA's hit list.

According to the former head of Cuban intelligence, Fidel Castro survived over 600 assassination attempts by the U.S. government over a 40-year time span. There was the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 when Cuban exiles backed by the CIA attempted to invade Cuba, only to be thwarted at the beach and foiled immediately by Castro's forces. This actually had the unintended effect of consolidating Castro's grip even tighter over the island. Hey, sounds familiar. So after that botched job, the CIA got creative. Poisoned Cigar. exploding seashells, a flesh-eating wetsuit, toxic pens, big old bombs, death by milkshake. The CIA was absolutely Acme-style bonkers for Castro.

Genuinely surprised they didn't try to drop a piano on his head. As one US Foreign Service officer put it on, I assume a sign they held up before looking down to discover they weren't standing on anything. Cuba seems to have the same effect on American administrations that a full moon has on a We may not sprout hair and howl, but we behave in the same way. In fairness, we don't know for sure that America isn't a werewolf, but it's still a good metaphor. Meanwhile, the U.S. has imposed the longest-running trade blockade in modern history against Cuba. Practically every president since Kennedy has added to or modified this embargo.

Reagan added them to the state sponsor of terrorism list. Father Bush barred U.S. companies operating in other countries. from selling goods to Cuba. The United Nations has estimated that the financial and trade embargo has cost Cuba more than $130 billion over the last 60 years. We are really mad at Cuba, folks. And keep in mind, the U.S. is largely alone in this. Europe and Latin America had mostly reopened trade with Cuba by the 1970s.

This is a personal grudge that's honestly pretty one-sided at this point. Our long-standing opposition to Cuba has had this sort of snowballing effect that has led to even stricter rules and even more hostility toward the island nation. You see, as Castro's communist government took root, hundreds of thousands of Cubans started to flee the country and land on the shores of Florida. The majority of these Cubans were middle to upper class who saw their land or wealth expropriated by the revolution. The U.S. government, in turn, was happy to give anti-Castro Cubans a comfortable land. landing spot. Refugees received food, clothing, and a monthly stipend, $120 per family, just enough to start over. People were given an opportunity here, and America is all about giving people an opportunity.

The Tamiami Trail now symbolizes an economic miracle brought about by Miami's Cuban refugees. It's estimated that approximately one out of seven Miami residents is now Cuba. It was enough to get started, to get a foothold, and to start making the connections with a community. that was starting to rise here. So during Castro's rise, wealthy Cubans benefited from one of the largest refugee settlement programs in U.S. history. And it wasn't long before anti-Castro Cubans became a powerful political force within Florida. By the 1980s, conservative Cuban-American lobbying groups had built considerable influence with state

and federal lawmakers while centralizing their power within the critical swing state. One of those lobbies, the Cuban American National Foundation, explicitly modeled themselves after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or APAC, if you need a reminder of some of the political discourse over the past couple years. Lawmakers backed by the KANF would then go on to support harsher trade embargoes and pass legislation specifically targeting Cuba. Keep in mind that at this point, we have normalized trade relations with other communist countries like Vietnam and China, and yet we're still punishing Cuba.

Logistically, it doesn't make much sense. It's just a grudge we have. pushed by lawmakers who are being pushed by this niche group primarily located in a swing state. Who else lives in Florida, I wonder? Oh yeah, that guy! Let's go to our final ad break, and when we come back, we will take this story to today. And yet another instance of Donald Trump doing other people's dirty work for them. Be right back.

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That's dripdrop. promo code more news for 20% off. Stock up now at dripdrop.com and use promo code more news. Oh gosh, I'm gonna lay down. I'm gonna lay down. This is how I lay down. That's probably not good. Alright everyone. Okay, I get it. You don't have a lot of time. Guess what? Neither do I. So let's just dispense with the formalities and I'll get right to list movies that Pluto TV has for free.

No more wishy-washy hammering. No more bits. We're all adults here. We don't need that child's stuff. You don't need to hear how I've taken up. I don't know. Inter tubing as a hobby and have that weave throughout the ad elegantly to the point where you forget that that's what the bit was and then it circles it back around at the end and it's

really funny. Who needs it? Who needs it? Let's just finish the dang. thing. Get on with the show. List the movies and the TV shows. Just do it. You know, like ghosts.

SpongeBob Squarepants. Gladiator. The Star Trek film franchise, Pineapple Express, the fairly odd parents, Survivor. And then just get you back to the show. You aren't a child. You don't need movies. Spoon

fed into your mouth like some little movie seal, which I guess you might see. while floating on an inner tube, I don't know. You don't need to hear about all the creative new films they've got. You really don't. You really, you really don't. I mean, for the sake of the argument,

I guess you could watch space lasers from outer space, the equestrian sequestration. Blue-O, the legally distinct animated Australian cattle dog for kids. Mop But. In my life, I love you smores. Cantankerous old bag. curmudginial bats. Hey everybody, it's Gump.

Fool on the hill in the rain who won't get fooled again. Glue boys, the mighty, mighty boss hog, and plotch. But you, you don't need that. You don't need this. Just get back to the show which you're watching on a computer or on the tube. The inner tube. Ha ha!

I did it. Who cares? cares. Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never! We're back! No time for chit-chat. Don't you dare chit with me or chat at me? So before this alleged break, we were discussing the history of America holding on to this weird grudge against Cuba on account of the country daring to want like independence from us. And while that was justified back when we were fighting the commie menace by the 2000s, this squabble didn't really make sense anymore.

And A1, Barack Hussein Obama realized this. And so, in an effort to normalize relations, Obama became the first president since Calvin Coolidge to visit Cuba. The idea behind normalizing relations was that the majority of more recent migrants from Cuba were not political exiles, but rather economic ones. The Obama administration understood that the long-standing U.S. sanctions crippling Cuba's economy were just incentivizing young Cubans to embark on the dangerous migration path to the U.S. in search of better opportunities, and that Cuba's future depended on retaining their younger

population. In response, Obama eased travel restrictions, dropping their designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, and urged Congress to lift the embargo. In return, Cuba agreed to begin opening up parts of its economy to the private sector. From 2015 to 2017, the island saw hundreds of thousands of visitors come into the country which spurred a struggling tourism industry. I wonder what will happen next. Perhaps a certain wet dog will show up. Because of course, of course, Obama's favorable gestures toward Cuba would piss off the likes of Cuban-American lawmakers like known dildos, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. Both Cruz and Rubio are the sons of Cuban immigrants raised with stories around the horrors of Castro.

I mean, can you blame them? Ted Cruz's father was tortured by communists. Tortured. Look, my father was imprisoned and tortured in Cuba. I hate Communists. It was actually Batista that tortured my dad. Oh, oops! Correction.

In real time, Ted Cruz hates communists because his dad was tortured by the U.S.-backed dictator Batista? The guy Castro pushed out? So he hates Castro? Because his dad was tortured by the guy Castro also didn't like? Did we get that right? Ted? Seems weird.

Similarly, Rubio has built his... entire political career as an antagonist to the Cuban government. In stump speeches, Rubio would often label himself as the son of exiles and say that his parents fled the Castro regime to seek a better life in America. The truth, of course, if you haven't guessed the pattern yet, is that Rubio's parents did not flee Castro's regime. They came to America over two years before Castro came to power, which meant that they fled from Fulhencio Batista.

So literally, both of these guys were hurt by American imperialism and interventionism, and we're like, ah, the damn communism afterward. It's like people who blame Biden for things that happened in 2020. Seems like they're craven liars, is my point. People with no shame, completely unbeholded into logic, just asserting the direct opposite of reality. Par for the course. Well-established pattern.

It sucks. Fuck. Anyway, Trump then became president, and everything Obama did was moot, partly because Trump obviously wants to make literally anything Obama ever said or did moot. Also, Marco the liar Rubio is now our Secretary of State and is running the show when it comes to our foreign policy toward the island nation. You can kind of imagine how that's going. But you don't have to. He was one of the leading voices cheering on our recent intervention in Venezuela and said out loud that taking

down President Nicholas Maduro would be another step in crippling Cuba's government. Rubio doesn't have any interest in normalizing relations or bargaining. He's not looking to coexist. He just personally hates Cuba's government and wants to crush the country into submission. Back in January, Trump signed an executive order threatening to tariff any country exporting oil to Cuba. While the U.S. has restricted trade and finance from Cuba for the better part of a century, Implementing a blockade on oil is a severe escalation, like an extremely cruel and unnecessary thing to do. Life on the island is sort of grinding to a halt. Because when you cut off oil, you cut off the economic life of the country.

So if you show up in Havana right now, and the first thing you'll notice is there's not many cars on the street. There's not a lot of activity. There's no buses. So what does that mean? It means people can get to work. It means that businesses are showing. down and it means that you may not have fuel to cook with. It means that you may not have water because the water pump's not working. So it's affecting every aspect of life. We're just fucking bullying this country that hasn't done anything to us, hurting their people because the freaks in our government have an ideological bone to pick with them.

Because we just, as Trump said out loud in front of many people and cameras, one to take them. That's what it comes down to. After Iran, it just really sounds like we're going to try to invade Cuba. We're already soft-launching this idea. We've got our best and dumbest propagandist on it. All right, depending when this comes out or if it does, we are currently being told by Cuban intelligence here in Havana, Cuba. Oh, Nick, maybe stop trespassing in random places with a full camera crew. See if that helps. Also, check out Polly Market. So yeah, we're bullying Cuba.

Of course we are. We want to control another country that's not ours to control in order to siphon their wealth and desperately grasp at further expanding our disintegrating empire. So we're bullying them. The Trump administration has recently allowed a Russian oil tanker to deliver a shipment of fuel to Cuba, not in a sign of good faith, of course. I think it's safe to say that good faith is out the window. Trump is giving them a little oil now because that's how to truly bleed out a country.

It's not so much diplomacy as it is gangsterism. You don't just rob a guy once, you extort him over the long run for more money. That's why Katie makes me pay rent for this suit. Trump says he'll deal with Cuba once they finish the war with Iran. Again, for what reason? What does Trump ultimately want with Cuba? Probably beachside hotel property. Honestly, that is probably it.

Like he's bombing the Middle East while posting AI videos of Trump resorts on the Gaza Strip. It's not a secret, it's what he gets out of this. The president of the United States is starting wars with other countries for the purpose of making money for himself and his family, long after he's the president. That is, after all, the purpose of his board of peace. Today is a tremendous honor to welcome you all

to the United States Institute of Peace for the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace. We're providing a model for how responsible sovereign nations can cooperate to take responsibility for confronting problems in their own regions. Together we can achieve the dream of bringing lasting harmony to a region tortured by centuries of war.

And hopefully we can lift up the eyes of the world to envision how other intractable conflicts can be settled. How inspiring! The Board of Peace is a coalition of 28 countries on which Trump himself is serving a life term as chairman. That's right, Trump created a phony international governmental organization and made himself its leader in perpetuity. Feels like a president shouldn't be able to do that.

He certainly shouldn't be able to take billions of dollars from the State Department funds meant for peacekeeping and international disasters and reroute them towards his passion project. That really, to me, seems to me, seems like something you go to prison for, right? Aside from all the other reasons he should be in prison, the president is just using our taxes

to start a personal scam operation, a special club that he's the forever leader of that anyone can join for the humble admission price of $1 billion or else. If you give any response to President Macron saying he will not join the board of being. Oh, did you say that? Well, nobody wants him because he's gonna be out of office first.

and say, you know, that's all right. What I'll do is if they feel like costo, I'll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes, and he'll join. My goodness, it's literally like when the mob makes a small business owner pay a monthly sum for protection. How is that not literally extortion? How is the president allowed to make his own little floating extortion ring

that will, in theory, go around bullying other countries long after he's the president. This freelance colonialism machine. Because of course, the board's current objective is to rebuild the Gaza Strip. And of course, those plans are spearheaded by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner without the input of a single Palestinian representative.

But I'm sure he'll be very fair to the Palestinian people who were driven out of their homes. But also, there are real fears on the part of Arabs, and I'm sure you talk to a lot of them, who think, Once Gazans leave Gaza, Netanyahu's never going to let them back in. Maybe, but I'm not sure there's much left of Gaza at this point. So, I, I, this is really dark, right?

Donald Trump, a real estate casino scam guy, became the president somehow, perhaps dark magic, and is using the American war machine to make business deals with other countries to enrich his family and himself. We gave a used car salesman a fucking nuke, and sure enough, he's using that nuke to sell his shitty cars. Or else. It's an unimaginable crime, this web of corruption that will take forever to untangle, the result of which is death and despair and the erosion of our relationship with the world, on top of our now crumbling economy, and also the death and despair happening here. the continued plunder of the United States and other countries by one sleazy guy, bully crime shit, bombing boats, shooting protesters. It's all pretty well summed up by this one activist.

You're unhappy that your economy doesn't work for you. You don't have freedom. You don't have an opportunity to express yourself. You know, you've got friends that have been shot in the head because they're out protesting. And he just, it's heartbreaking to him to see that these people are abused in this way and have no measures to take against their own government as a result of it. Right now you have a country who is unlawfully, criminally,

and illegally taking possession of an international waterway and blowing up commercial vessels and putting mines in the water. I don't know if people appreciate it like how outrageous this is, how unacceptable it is, that any country would fire and try to sink commercial vessels. Yes, thank you, Freedom Fighter. Perfect description of what Trump is doing

both here and abroad. Not gonna look into the context of those clips. And the reason Trump is being allowed to do all of this is because his goals are aligned with the establishment politician's aspirations of defeating these long-despised enemies. See, the irony here is that Obama came in and actually tried to normalize relations with Iran and Cuba, specifically by allowing them to remain autonomous from us. And we couldn't have that.

That's not how we do things. We don't actually want peace, you see. We want our version of peace, where we get everything across the board. You know, a board of peace. And so here comes Trump, the anti-war outsider who promised to take down the deep state. It was such an obvious lie from the start, one that many people were warned about. Trump believes in nothing. Well, maybe himself, but nothing else.

He never has. And so not only is he now doing all the war, but the exact wars that the establishment has always done and loved. This anti-war renegade pulled the plug on Obama's actually anti-war efforts, in these specific countries at least, in order to wage wars for the very deep state he claimed to be taking down. A puppet for the corporations and longtime politicians who want to do the same old imperialism, go after the same old enemies, only now it's dumber, dumb war, made even dumber by how many people knew this was going to happen this entire time.

It's depressing. I'm feeling depressed and a little vulnerable. So if anyone wants to, you know, Amazon drone over some weed, I mean, you don't have to, but I'll take it. That's why I'm announcing my brand new board of weed where you send me weed or else I'll, I don't know, nuke you. I could do it, I've been enriching so much uranium. Uranious, been enriching buttholes. So, get ready. For those buttholes. Thanks for watching.

Buttholes are in the mail. Make sure to like and subscribe and leave a really nice comment, please. Check out our podcast, even more news. It's on this channel twice a week, and we've got a live stream we do at least once a month. Maybe the date's up there,

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