The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Art of the Steal: Trump and the Economic Hit Man Presidency by John Perkins

Episode Date: July 19, 2026

The Art of the Steal: Trump and the Economic Hit Man Presidency by John Perkins https://www.amazon.com/Art-Steal-Trump-Economic-Presidency/dp/B0G7VFBY21 Johnperkins.org Since World War II, US presidents of both parties have relied on an economic hit man strategy. They have used the four pillars of that strategy (fear, debt, anxiety over insufficiency, and divide and conquer) to control other nations and enrich a growing oligarchy. In the groundbreaking Confessions of an Economic Hit Man trilogy, John Perkins exposed the complex, expansive, and clandestine global network that serves the interests of powerful corporate, financial, and political entities. In The Art of the Steal, he reveals its most dangerous evolution. Donald Trump represents a historic shift. He is the first US president to turn the economic hit man strategy into a personal brand and governing style. He has ascended the four pillars, brought the playbook home, and reversed the march toward the American ideal of liberty, equality, justice, democracy, opportunity, and an individualism that supports family and community. At the same time, he has forced what was hidden into the open. This book explains how this happened, why it matters, and what each of us can do to turn things around. Both warning and blueprint, it offers a pathway to renewing the American ideal—and using it to model a new global ideal. About the author John Perkins is the author of 12 books on global intrigue, economics, shamanism, and transformation, including “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,” and “Touching the Jaguar.” They have been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 70 weeks, sold millions of copies, and are published in at least 38 languages. His latest, “Message from Pleiades,” is the story of a life-and-world-changing experience in an ancient Mayan city; it is his first novel (written under the pen name of J P Moody). As chief economist at a major consulting firm, John advised the World Bank, UN, Fortune 500 corporations, US and other governments. He regularly speaks at universities and economic and environmental forums and is a founder of the Pachamama Alliance and Dream Change, non profit organizations that partner with indigenous people to protect environments and offer programs to change the destructive ways of industrial societies.

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Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm folks, Voss here from thecris Foss Show.com. It's known with the early season that makes official welcome to nearly 20 years and 3,000 episodes of the Chris Voss show. We are the oldest living podcast in existence that broadcast daily. There's a handful of us left from the originals, but we're the only ones still alive and

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on the internet. Today we're talking to an amazing young man in his new book that's in pre-sales for September. It's entitled, The Art of the Steel, Trump and the Economic Hit Man presidency by John Perkins.

He joins us on the show. We're going to get into with him. And all of his insights, he's a multi-book author, so be sure to check out all of his other works. In this groundbreaking new book trilogy, he exposes the complex, expansive, and clandestine global network that serves the interests of powerful corporate financial and political entities called the Confessions of an Economic Hitman trilogy. In his new book, it reveals the most dangerous evolution, along with, although every president since World War II has used economic hitman,

Trump is the first to bring the tactics in the open. As a chief economist in a major consulting firm, John was an advisor to the World Bank, UN, IMF, Fortune 500 companies and leaders of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, and his U.S. government agencies. He has 12 books and counting and is published in 38 languages, sold millions of copies and lectured in more than 50 universities.

He's been featured on ABC, NBC, CNN, Time, The New York Times, L. Der Spiegel, and he reaches the pinnacle of his career on the Chris Voss show. Welcome to the show. How are you, John? Yeah, I'm great. It's great to be here with you. That was a mouthful.

I was. And I was out of breath because over the intro, I went and grabbed an energy drink that I needed. So give us a dot-coms. Where do you want people to find out more about you on the webs? It's org. I'm a dot orgaz. Oh, organism. Everyone's got their thing, right?

Is there an only fan? So you're mentioning, never mind. Anyway. So, John, give us 30,000 overview. What's in your new book? I do want to point out that this, although Trump's name is in the subtitle, and appears on most every page, a book really isn't about him. It's about a system that's been in existence all of my lifetime of presidents who've used economic hitman strategy. There's four pillars of that strategy. It goes back hundreds of years. And it was what I really helped to develop in the modern form. and every president's used it during my lifetime, as I said, but Trump has taken it to a new level, brought it out into the open. He's the first president to actually be an economic hitman,

as well as a jackal. And those are the guys that come in when economic hitmen fail and neither overthrow or assassinate leaders of countries. So he wraps it all up. And there's a great, I think, is giving us a gift of bringing this out into the what's been clandestine is now out there for everyone to see, the corruption, the behind-the-scenes politics, basically. Everything's out there. So now this is part of a trilogy, is that correct?

No, the trilogy was the Confessions of an Economic Hitman trilogy. There were three of those books, the last one, which came out about two years ago being about China's economic hitman. This is a new one. Maybe it'll be a trilogy, too. Who knows? But no, right now it's enough. I hope there'll be no more on this subject. Wait, I recognize the cover of your one book. I think we had you on several years ago for that third book, the one that's got the storage containers on the top. And I think we had you on. Yeah. These are your second parents on the show.

You did. You did. So, Lay a foundation for us, what this hit man strategy is. And are they hiring? I'm sure they are. And especially media people. I have no doubt that you could get into this business very well. And it would probably, it might be lucrative for you.

Given the way Trump deals, I'm not sure about that. But anyway, so. The economic hitman strategy, our use tactics that we've really developed in the 1970s. As I said, they've been around for longer than that, but we modernize them. And they're based on four pillars. Those are fear,

debt, anxiety over scarcity, and divide and conquer. And if you look at each one of these, you want me to look at each one of these? Sure, if you want to, yeah, please lay it out for us,

because I've never heard of the terminology. So I did have you in the show in 2023. Was I smoking some during that interview? Probably. You just got to fill me back in. There was some stuff that went on between now and then. Yeah, yeah, absolutely a lot of stuff. And so you take number one, fear.

Historically, that's been fear of invasions, fear of neighbors, fear of ideology. Trump has really taken this to a magnificent level in the United States with the fear of migrants, environmentalists. windmills, health experts, windmills, Democrats, universities, and especially podcast hosts. Oh, yeah, those podcast hosts are trouble. Feel for scary people. Scary people.

Only when I'm naked. That's what my girlfriend says. I'm scary. She's like, ah! And abroad, of course, is Panama. We're going to take over Panama. Canada. Let's make Canada another state.

Greenland, Columbia, Venezuela, global institution. These are all incredibly fearful things that we have to be afraid of. And when the first address, he talked about what bad shape the United States was in. Everything was degrading. And the second inaugural, which was much longer, he went into much more specifics about how we've really got to fear. Columbia, Venezuela, and Canada, and Panama, and Greenland, and we need to take them over. So, you know, he's really used this fear pillar very effectively. debt, the second period, debt, the second pillar, debt.

And historically, as I talk about in the economic hitman books, that's the debt trap for domination of resources. So you give a country a huge loan from the World Bank. It's used to hire American corporations to build big infrastructure projects in a country like power plants and things that really benefit the rich people, a few rich people in the country, as well as our own corporations. And in the end, the country can't pay its debt. So we say, your collateral was your oil or whatever the resource is.

Now it might be lithium or rare minerals. You've got to sell those to our corporations real cheap without environmental or social regulations. That's the traditional. Now, Trump in the U.S. is his debts involve offering pardons to people. Yeah. Campaign endorsements. And you either accept what he wants you to do. and that becomes an asset then if you accept,

whereas if you refuse, you're a target. And it's kind of like it's a godfather syndrome. Don Corleone, you're okay? I'll call you for a favor. I gave you $10,000 for your daughter's wedding, and now I need to have this guy's legs broken. You go out and break his leg. And Trump basically does that.

Yeah, it's like mom. It's a lot like Russia, too. Moms really, it's really a mob government over there. Yes, and now we have one too, unfortunately. So nice for keeping up with the times as Americans. Yes, we do want to, we want to compete with Putin on a level playing field with him. We will let him define the playing field. And that gets into abroad, you know, he uses the debt traps, but also we kind of fear at NATO.

NATO's not really with us anymore because they didn't buy into the war. war in Iran that they had a decision about. Buy shit coin. Put yourself, you know, if you buy shit coins, I Trump and then indebted to you. I like your terminology for meme coins, shit coins. This is like junk bonds, right? Actually, that's what the Bitcoin people use. I gave a talk of the Bitcoin. I don't think about too long ago. And I say, you've got to distinguish between Bitcoins and shit coins. Stay in my hotels. premium rate, it's this whole, you're going to be indebted to me one way or another. And then there's the third pillar, which is anxiety or insufficiency.

There's not enough. There's not enough money. You don't, this country, listen, you're a really poor country. This is what I would say. You're so poor. You don't have good education. You don't have good health care. You don't have good nutrition.

You just, you don't have anything good. You're just, you're damn poor. And only I can save you. Only I. Yeah, and our strategy. Then you're going to take the depth of the other. So these pillars all tie together. Trump has just, again, talked about how the U.S. is falling apart, crime, drugs, industries collapsing.

That's just Fridays around the Chris Fosha. Yeah. No, you're right. Yeah. And fossil fuels. Oh, my God. We're running out of fossil fuels. We need more fossil fuels.

There's not enough fossil fuels. More coal. Get more, yeah, let's get more coal. And because we also like pollution, because then you have to pay to clean up the pollution. And they give somebody some money. Yeah, they just authorized more forever, forever chemicals to be put back in our farms and stuff. And then they just, they're trying to get two new coal plants started. And I guess it's really expensive to start a coal plant these days.

Most of those coal plants aren't like, what, 100 years old or something. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, everybody wants a coal plant in their back. Sure, yeah. I love black lung, man. That's my favorite.

Oh, yeah. We want to create those jobs that will be a black lung disease because that helps the medical establishment. That helps the drug companies. And we want to do it. They're good companies. They're good people. They're good people. And then abroad, this whole thing is there was shit coins under debt, but this is shit whole countries.

shit-hole countries. And when you're identified as a shithole country, you accept bad deals and resource extraction, trade imbalances, military operation, and military occupation. You have to vote against the UN when the United States asked you to, and you have to privatize your public sector and immigration policies. All these are foisted on the shithole countries because that's the only way we can save them. Nobody can save them except me or us. That's the secret here. Yeah. I was just quoting that earlier to a friend. Only I can fix it earlier. Yeah. You should run for president. I was quoting Trump, but maybe I don't think my ego is that big. And plus, the other thing is I'm pretty well hung and evidently, according to Stormy Dan is the president who's only for very

small mushroom. Anxiety over self or insufficiency. Insufficiency. And then the last, The last one is dividing caucus. We all know what that's about colonialism in Africa, the Middle East. Unified groups are hard to defeat. Competing ones can be easily bribe, manipulated, suppressed one at a time. And Trump has done a magnificent job, gerrymandering, propaganda, racial, religious, logical prejudices, red states versus blue states. You're either for me or you're against me. Again, it's that Don Corleone thing. abroad the European Union, let's divide them, let's get them all kind of fighting with each other over our policies and same with NATO and climate change agreement. Iran, you know, you're not with me

in Iran? My God, I didn't let you let you let me decide on helping me. I didn't let you make the decision of whether to go into Iran or not. But I certainly expect you to send you a young man off there to die. Russia, Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, and so on and so forth, Chris. It's a, it's Syops at its extreme. Blame others. Blame others. Not the system. And so what, yeah, what my book is really to a large degree about is to describe how this really is a system and around for a long time.

But Trump is bringing it out into the openness and the corruption that goes on that's just blatant. Yeah, they don't even hide it. No. It's almost like they feel they can get away with it if they don't hide it. Nixon hit his enemies list. We have it now on the White House front page or something. Yeah, exactly. And you get the courts to agree that they'll never prosecute any member of your family

or you or anybody if you cheat on your taxes. Yeah. And plus they're negotiating still with the international criminal court that processes crimes at the Hague maybe or something. They're still negotiating some sort of sweet deal where Hague Seth and a bunch of these boneheads and the admin will never be prosecuted for anything they do. Yeah, that's, don't you think that's fair, Chris? See, Hitler was dumb, man.

He should have just worked there, I guess. I don't know. He should have went to the international court and said, hey, man, if this doesn't work out, I need a blanket dismissals for all Nazis. Yeah. And these guys are making huge sacrifices for our country. Pete, Pete, Pete.

You should do stand-up. Pete Hexeth, whatever his name is. Yeah, the drunk one. Yeah, he could be making, He could be a trillionaire like Musk, but he's chosen not to, he's chosen to serve his country instead to be the head of the department of, what is it the department of anymore? We're not defending ourselves anymore. We're going to war without. Poor Pete, he needs to have some guarantees that in the future he won't ever have to pay taxes and nobody will go after it.

Yeah, if you've ever seen him trying to do push-ups or pull-ups or the other day he was jogging on the deck, I think of a carrier or something with a bunch of our military. folks and even girls were pointing their finger and he dances like a girl. So, yeah. It was pretty bad in the whole thing. You bring up a good point. I never knew this thing about the four pillars in this hitman presidency. In fact, they're kind of surprised. Maybe I think I remember it resonating with me when we had you on the show in 2023,

but I do two or three shows a day. So sometimes it gets lost. And there was this pandemic we had back then. You probably heard of it. It was there for a little while. Was that the one the Democrats caused or the Chinese? Oh, yeah, that one short and nice guy who cured AIDS or helped cure AIDS. Yeah.

I'm still wearing, I'm wearing a mask right now. No, I'm just kidding. I saw somebody making fun of somebody. I was one of these right-wing nut jobs on Twitter, right-wing nut ballville. And he was making fun of a guy who wore a mask on a flight next to him. And the guy was asleep, and he took a picture and was mocking him. And he goes, you're still stupid. And I'm like,

I started wearing masks like a year before COVID came. I actually had a bunch of them shipped to me, custom maids, because I kept getting sick. And I would get violently sick from all the crying babies and all the disease on those planes. So I started wearing a mask back then. And I don't wear a mask so much anymore, but I often think about it anytime I go on to a plane of crying babies. But I used to always get sick on coming home from events and speaking things and stuff.

I just get sick. Those planes are just like sickness. Oh, I do still wear a mask on a plane. Yeah. But why not? Especially if you're going off someplace where you're really interested in being and you'd like to be healthy when you get there. Yeah. I came home from South Byer or CS one time the CS show on a plane and I had two crying babies screaming their head off the whole two hours in the plane.

And they must have been sick because I, dude, I almost ended in the hospital with the walking pneumonia. In fact, they were trying to get me to go and I was like, just give me a Z-pack. I'll be fine. and some crack cocaine or something. Don't do crack folks. That's a joke. But yeah, so aside, that's an aside. So I never knew about these four pillars. And one of the things I did know about is that divide and conquer aspect.

And the, what is it the straw man effect of that man is stealing from over there, the immigrant? He's the bad one. You mean, while I'm picking your pocket and stuff where you're looking over there. And I'm like, this has been eons of time going back to Rome, going back to even governments before that, Aristotle. all. This is the oldest trick in the book politicians use. How are we this stupid as a human species? That's not probably what they call it. It's probably a double entonder or human species and intelligence is kind of like military intelligence. What do they call those things? But anyway, I never knew about the whole four pillars. And that completely makes sense.

Yeah. And but it still does assounds me that they can, the politicians can just play the same game. with us and we fall for it. It's something I've been saying on the show for years. It's my quote. The one thing man can learn from his history is that man never learns from his history and thereby we go round to round. People say, why would we attack Iran after knowing what happened in Vietnam and Afghanistan? But I have a bigger one than that because I've spent a lot of time in Iran in the 70s working for the Shah. And one of the things that we did was my company, and I personally was deeply involved in building these huge military bases along the Gulf of the Strait of Hormuz, Bandar Abbas, which was this little tiny fishing village, and we turned it into a huge military base.

The idea was that the U.S. military would basically have control of that base, and we knew then that anyone who has control of those bases has control of the Persian Gulf and of the oil flowing from there through the Strait of Harmuz. And when you have that kind of control, you essentially have control over a large sector of the global economy. And this is 50 years ago, Chris, that I was doing that. And for 50 years, the CIA, the Pentagon, presumably the White House, has known that if you attack Iran, they now have the military bases we built. And they've improved upon them. And we built and so we could control the world's oil.

supply and basically turned it over to them. And when we went in and took out the supreme leader, I'm thinking there's other people that can fit that role. That's, there's a lot of bureaucracy there. It's like, how would you do that without understanding that Iran's going to retaliate by taking this extremely vital waterway using a military basis that we built for them? Yeah. It's just extraordinary. Across the trilogy that you've written, and then this is like a pseudo-fourth book, I don't want to frame your work into that, if I'm incorrect. But across these books, do you outline all the different variances of how they're used by politicians? You said this goes back to some of the earlier presidents.

How far back has this always been used, or maybe every president's used as a semblance of it? Yeah, I really focus on my time as an economic hitman in the 70s. and the things I did, and I go country by country. It started in Indonesia. Then I was in Colombia and Panama and Iran and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait. It's on and on. And I go into some of those stories and the detail behind them. I like to tell stories.

I think people like to read stories. These are all true stories. But I write Chris like a novel as much as bringing in dialogue. I kept a lot of notes when I was doing this stuff. Because I want it to be fun to read, not some sort of an economic day. Nobody, only business school students read those, and these days, they don't even read them. They just, they get the summaries on chat GPT. But so I wanted to be fun.

And so I go into all of that and then how this has changed over time and particularly how it's made this radical change in the last few years, starting with the first Trump administration and now just escalating big time into this one. And then I go into a long, a long part of. it is how what each of us can do as individuals. Oh, really? Yeah. There's a instruction manual on how to fight back? Yeah, yeah. Because that to me is the most important thing. I'm a loyal American. My ancestors who fought the Revolutionary War. I really believe in this country, but I also believe that we need to understand our mistakes in order to correct them. Yeah. We've really got to look at ourselves, and Trump is forcing

us to look at ourselves. And now that we're looking at ourselves, we've got to try to figure out why did the balance of power not work the idea that there were three branches of legislative and judicial and they balanced each other but that's gone

that's gone now Trump basically controls them all and how did that happen for the first time in history I think that really happened that's open the door for us to look at our system and try to make it better

what's left of it no I agree with you there in the book what do you hope people when they read it even though it doesn't have the prayer part. When they read it, what do you hope in that they come away with and learn from it? First of all, I think to learn about the mistakes we've made so that we can go in and correct

them. And incidentally, these mistakes have fed right into China's hands. An interesting statistic is that in the year 2000, the United States, was the number one trading partner with 80% of the world's countries. And now China is the number one trading partner in 70%, over 70%. So it's just reversed in less than a quarter of a century. We've had this great reversal. And some of that's due to the fact that China has extremely good economic hitmen, as I read about it in my last book before this one.

But part of it also is because the United States has screwed up so badly. Part of it is that we put so many resources into fighting wars in the Middle East, supporting Israel and fighting against the supposed communism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan and China has put its resources into dominating world trade. It's done a really good job. And we've helped them. We're now enemies with all of our friends. And I remember several years ago, it may have been longer because it's all starting to

spin by, but there was several years ago where there was some gal who was a Chinese citizen who, I think she was a billionaire, some high-end sort of person. But Canada had declared her, I think, either a spy or some sort of crime that she committed and they were holding her. And China was rattling the sabers. Like, we're going nukes if you don't give us our gal back. I don't know if you remember who I'm referring to. And then to see the new Prime Minister of Canada Carney go over there and do an economic

deal with them because we abuse them so poorly, which is extraordinary to watch the flip of a few years earlier compared to now and they're doing deals. And you can't blame them. Let me ask you this. This has been a question that's been kicking around my head for a long time. And you have a lot of world experience, world leader experience and stuff. The first administration of the Trump admin, the world was kind of looking at us like, what the fuck did you?

You guys get drunk one night and let this happen? But now they're going, these morons have done it twice, almost in a row. I don't think, can people ever, if we get through this on the other side and we hold a legitimate election and everything goes as usually planned, I suppose. And maybe there's a time where my prayers are answered and there's a new president. Have we really fucked this where it's going to take 50 to 100 years during everyone's trust back? I think it's going to take a tremendous effort. And a president like a Washington or a Lincoln might be able to do it.

They had the charisma. We're trustworthy enough, although certainly the South didn't feel that way about Lincoln for a long time. It's a turn to war over it. Yeah, but no, it would take a tremendous force because the world is looking at us very askance. What the hell's wrong with this country? We believed in this country after World War II. The United States was a huge hero and for many years. And yeah, in the last year, Chris, I've spoken at events in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and North America.

Last year, I've been to all those places spoken at events, including the Republic of Georgia, which used to be part of the Soviet Union. And everywhere I go, people are just in disbelief. What does what what is wrong with this country? Are you okay? That's what my friends all say around the world. They go, are you okay over there, man? You're okay?

Well, yes, that's true. They're checking in on me. And no leaders at this point will trust any deals they make with the United States. Because it's not just Trump. Again, this is, he's broken deals that are. the president's made. So it's become obvious that in our current system, and this is why I'm saying this is a systemic problem, in our current system, a president can, one administration can make agreements, can make treaties with other countries, and another president can come along and break

them. And this is a debate as to whether the Constitution actually permits that or not, but Trump doesn't really care what the Constitution says. So, yeah, we've lost incredible credibility everywhere. And meanwhile, China's gaining credibility, which I find to be very sad. I just, I recently came back earlier this year from Latin America. And there's a question that's asked in Latin America. And that is, what's the largest banana republic in the world? And the answer is the United States. And it doesn't even have bananas. Sure. And bananas are expensive, too. Yeah, but the whole corruption, the whole idea. You got a lot of monkeys, Oh, one's a crazy-ass politician monkeys that are around with flinging shit everywhere.

Like they do at the zoo. And without any courage. That's terrible. That is the other thing. The lack of courage. One of my favorite stories is when he ran for president in the 60s. But basically the two of them went down, I believe it was, who was the German, Jewish gentleman? Anyway, they went down and they sat down with Nixon.

and they were with the Republican Party and they said, you've got to resign. Where are those Republican members now? Kissinger and, God, he's right. I can see his face and his glasses. I think my mom voted for him in the 60s. But yeah, they went down. Where is that now?

Where is that backbone now? It's just seeing. And then I think even more, I don't know if you've been shocked, but seeing the way the previous attorney general and the other members of the administration just went and pelted verbally abusing senators and house members.

Oh, yeah. That was the most extraordinary thing to watch. Yeah. I was just like, this is, and you can see the arc of the hidden hand there where, okay, I see what they're doing. They're saying, fuck you, you don't matter as a third branch. And we're going to treat you like stupid stepchildren. And which is weird because they filled the end.

I mean, I was stupid stepchildren. But what do I know? But yeah, it's an interesting thing. The book comes out in September for, and so people can pre-order it now. And stuff. On your website, anything you want to promote future events, book signings, speaking gigs, anything you got coming up? I've got a speaking tour coming up. And right now we're scheduled for San Francisco, New York. We're looking at Chicago, Miami, several other cities. And all of that will be on my website soon. And also if people put their email in a little box that appears on throughout my website, they'll get my once a month's newsletter. And at the end of that, it says where I'm going to be. And I'd love to meet some of your audience in person, find books for them. them or whatever, just shoot the shit with it. And so, yeah, please subscribe to that newsletter. You'll see what comes up next. You'll know everything about what. It's a fun newsletter.

Yeah, it's a fun newsletter. Economic hitman. Plus, they're also doing it. This weird thing we've done about blowing up boats that are fishermen and weird sort of flexing. Does that fit into the economic hitman strategy, like murdering innocent people, but dissembling USA and now millions of people have been probably dead or diseased or impacted by it. I think Elon's arguing with everybody on Twitter right now about it, whether he killed anybody with Doge. Does this murdering aspect fit into the four pillars or? That's the jackal aspect that comes in.

When economic hit men fail, the jackals go in, and those are the guys that are with three governments or assassinate them. The U.S. has admitted to doing this with the Yende and Chile, Mossadegh, and Iran, Lumumba and the Congo, Ziam and Vietnam, It's a long list. Ecuador, Ecuador, I mean, Roldos, and Panama. So there's a long list of these.

And so that's another interesting aspect is that Trump, not only is the economic hitman, but he's also the jackal. I don't know. In my time, nobody played both roles. He didn't want to play both roles. I don't keep these guys separate. I didn't want to carry a gun. Come on.

But I was happy to let presidents know that if they didn't accept my deal, there were guys behind me with guns, which the world. It's like them up. This is a pretty nice country you got here. Be a shame if somebody was to somewhere happen to it. Yeah, just remember what happened in Chile. There's some dark, these guys and suits are behind me. You got your money this month, right?

Because they look bad. The president is very aware of that. So, yeah, you know, another thing I heard when I was in Latin America about this bombing of these votes is, if you want to stop drugs, why would you take out the guys who might lead you to the leaders? In other words, the mules who are, if those guys in the boats really were running drugs, and we still don't know whether that's actually true or not, but assuming that they were running drugs, they're just the mules. They're just the care.

And traditional law enforcement would say you capture those guys, you interrogate them, you strike deals with them, and you have them identify the people up above them. And then you go for those people, and then you identify the people above them. But you don't kill these guys, unless it's in self-defense, which obviously this was not. So the question in Latin America, then I hear a lot from my friends in Latin America is, so who benefited from that? The drug lords benefited. Does that mean Trump is somehow tied in with the drug lords? And that's an assumption in Latin America.

Really? Really? Yes. and they've known presidents that have been tied in with the NACO traffickers. And so it's easy to assume that this was all orchestrated for that purpose. I don't know. I have no proof of that. It sounds like a pretty...

You can't blame them for coming up with that. I can see the logic in that. I don't know about all the Mexican leaders and presidents, but I know that one guy had two or three back. He was there for a while, and I think he was very popular, but he came under allegations that 100 or 110 million have been. paid to him to just kind of be president and just back off the cartels. Somehow he'd gotten one of those black bags or something.

Honduras, the president of Honduras, Hernandez. Yeah. He was convicted in the United States and then liberated by Trump, ardened by Trump. He was convicted of being a drug overlord. And so that's another one in Latin America. That's another. Yeah. So you've got a president who kills the guys that could lead to more information and

really don't have any kind of a significant role other than just running a boat if that's what they were doing. At the same time, you free one of the guys who's high up in the organization. And they're talking about releasing Maduro, too. I can see how the people in South America would come up with that because everybody knows all you got to do is pay into the meme coin, whatever your bribe is, and then you do your ask. In fact, there's one guy who's bitching about it. I guess he gave a, he has a criminal record. He's, I think he's a, I think he's a box or something, but he paid $600,000 to the, I don't know, whatever commission is. It's a gal who's running it that used to be a drug dealer and was pardoned at a prison.

She was like huge, too, when it comes to drug deals in America. But I can see how they can equate, you know what? The boats he was probably blowing up were the cartel paid him to blow up the competitor's boats. And I can see how that logic would work for them because that's kind of how the whole thing kind of operates down there. Yeah. It is always interesting to me how callous we are with South America, because you cited a lot

of the things. My first book I read was by Schlesinger, the first 1,000 days and talking about Cuba and all the shit that we're in, stuff with Reagan and Ecuador, and is it Ecuador? And of those other places, we pretty much for probably 100 plus years going back to maybe the Cuban War with Teddy Roosevelt, we have been fucking South America. so hard economically with our Democrat governments and shit. We have been doing that for so long. We've created the reason no one wants to live in South America and everyone comes here.

And then to be assholes about it, like, how dare they come up after we've destroyed everything? It's just the muckery that we've done, the muckery that we do around the world. We created Saddam bin Laden. We created all these problems that end up biting us in the hand. we cut them off. Like you mentioned building the base for the shop. We do so much of this stuff and we just, and it ends up biting us in the butt and we're just like, but I think the other thing that I think is really concerning is we used to have this kind of exceptionalism. It was kind of, it was a moving target because we did get a little out of hand with bombing weddings and

stuff in Iraq and hitting, with a lot of hitting, what do they call that when you hit people? You don't really want to hit, but it's part of the fallout. So you can collateral dam. collateral damage. But all the things we've always accused China and Russia and all the evil people in the world of doing, we've pretty much done a year and a half. So we're like, so no longer can we ever go, hey, China, if you would quit abusing the Uighurs, then we're, we're morally superior than you. Now, now we got our own concentration camps for building. And as I travel around the world, people say, yeah, the Uighers, that's a shame, but that's not that many people. What about Iraq, Afghanistan,

America is really the anti-Muslim country, much more than China. That's the way much of the rest of the world looks at it. Especially after Gaza, the whole last year and a half. Horrible, yeah. Yeah, that's quite the thing. I don't have a problem with the Jewish. I love the Jews and I love Jewish people and I have lots of Jewish friends. But this is an ultra-right-wing white nationalist government that BB has put in this last administration.

And so, in my opinion, it's not even really Jewish. It's just extreme white nationalist. But there's so many of them that administration over there that wanted to level Gaza, that wanted to kill all the Palestinians. They've openly talked about it. This isn't like rumor. It's kind of scary. We just went along with it because we're the second biggest,

or the first biggest white nationalist country now. We, it's so much fun. I love the winning. We're winning. So much. All right. So final thoughts as we go out, I give people a final pitch out to pick up your book and we'll round out the show. I have five questions. I like everybody to ask themselves. And I go into a lot of detail in the books.

I'll just very quickly go through this. Do we have time for? Yeah, we have all that's meant for you. Okay. So the first question is, what do I most want to do for the rest of my life? The indentured slave servitude to billioners. Is that the right answer? Because if you ask yourself, maybe that's it. But for me, it's right. because I like to write. I love to write. And I have a friend who's a carpenter. For him, it's working with his hands in wood. And question is, how do you do this in a way that makes the world a better place that gets us out of what I call a death economy and economic system that's polluting and

consuming itself into extinction, into a life economy, one that is cyclical, one that can continue, something we can move toward. And so for me, I'd answer that by saying, I'm going to write about these things. I hope to inspire people to understand what's wrong with what we're doing. My carpenter friend would say, I'm going to use sustainable materials. I'm going to plant or replant trees for every tree that I use. And the third question is, what's stopping me? And for me, it might be, I don't have enough time to write. I know I should write for at least two hours a day if I want to be successful. I've heard that. I don't have time. My carpenter friend would say, my clients don't have, they don't want to pay the extra money to hire me

to plant trees and use sustainable material. And the fourth question is when you face that perception, because perceptions mold reality, all of our reality is based on perceptions that then implement actions that then affect reality. So when you face that perception, how do things change? So for me, I say, I can stop watching television for two hours a night or get up a little earlier in the morning and write. And my carpenter friend would say, I'm going to tell my clients that the extra price isn't a cost, it's an investment in their future, their future and their children's future.

And then the fifth question is, what actions do I take immediately? The writer has to have to write. The carpenter has to get out there and plant trees and use sustainable materials and tell people that he's doing it. And I think, Chris, for me, the hope for the future in all of this is to recognize what we've done wrong, that we've created this death economy. I go in a lot of detail in this new book about what that really is. We can now be a catalyst into a life economy, and I go into a lot of detail there. It's not living in caves. It's people getting paid to do things that make the world better for our children and grandchildren.

And if every one of us moves in the direction of doing what we most want to do in a way that helps make that happen, we're going to get there. Yeah. If we all have the same destination, we can. take many different paths to get there. And I think, to end on a positive note, and I think we should all feel very blessed to live at this point in time, because we're not, we're at an inflection point in history. We're participating. We have the opportunity to participate in something really big, really important. And that is basically redefining what it means to be human beings, being human, on a very fragile, beautiful planet.

And this is an amazing time to be doing what you're doing, Chris, and for anybody who wants to participate and to do it in a way that they enjoy, that they're doing what they most want to do with their life. Sorry, I'm reading some of the bad shittery over on the YouTube comments, trying to figure out what's good and what's bad. But no, I agree with you. We all, I say this a lot lately.

We are all stewards of each other on this planet, but we're all stewards as well in this country of our democracy. I'm just flabbergasted. How old am I? It's the 60s again. I'm just flabbergasted by these young kids. I'm flabbergasted by people voted in this democracy for the Epstein files. That's not a reason to vote for the, really when you understand what the American experiment is,

we elect a president every four years as a baton runner. And his job is to carry democracy forward, ensure our freedoms, ensure our rights, ensure the Constitution, honor it, and at the end of four years or eight years, pass it on to the next guy. And that has been the greatest thing that passing on, the thing that George Washington started, I'm sure you know about the George Washington final speech. And that's really what this is about. You vote for the person who will preserve your democracy for the next four years. Maybe there's going to be some problems, maybe there's going to be some corruption, maybe there's going to be some BS. But for the most part, we'll get to the side and we'll be intact.

And we zig and we zagging, as President Obama said, that helped me through the first presidency, but I'm struggling now. I really see the zigging and zagging. I'm just seeing the, I'm just seeing us going circles in the cul-de-sac. But I believe what you said there, the prescription for that, because we all need to take responsibility. We need to quit going. Some guy elected's job. We need to quit voting and forgetting for four years and not paying attention to every move and every action.

And we need to stand up and speak. This is what all these great people who did were the framers of the Constitution. They debated. They spoke. They got in rooms together. They hammered out ideas. They circulated them with papers to sell the ideas to the American public and to kind of, kind of given them a chance to flesh out a little bit for criticism. We need to get back to that.

Those people spent their day concerned about politics because they realized in the end it affects each one of us. It affects our economy, our lives, our children's lives, our grandchildren's lives, our grandchildren, lives. I'm just astounded that people today are more concerned about watching whatever the latest Kardashians episodes going than giving a shit about their children or their grandchildren or great-grandchildren's future because they really have one now. When you really understand how big that debt is, what is it? Trump is responsible for 27 percent of the national federal debt over two administrations. Two presidents are responsible for all this shit. One-third of our debt. And at a debt load that we're not going to be able to sustain, especially with the declining population.

So anyway, thank you very much, John, for coming to the show. It's my pleasure, Chris. Thank you for doing what you do. Keep doing it. You and me. We'll keep up the good fight, and hopefully we'll be bunk together in the camp. Everybody else out there is going to join whatever level they care to do. I just collect a group of lists and names of people that I want to bunk with in the camps when that time comes.

So hopefully I'll see you there. Or hopefully I don't see you there, and you've got free and made it to Canada. Anyway, thank you very much, John, for coming the show. We really appreciate it. Folks, order up his book wherever books are sold. And remember, this is your democracy. This is your world. You have to fight for it every single day.

And it matters because when you're broke and you can't pay the bills, which a lot of people can't right now and gas prices, that's on you. You get the government you deserve. You get the government, you vote. So if you don't like what's in the mirror, it's probably you. The art of the steel, Trump and the economic hitman presidency by John Perkins. Pre-ordid it now for September.

2006. Thanks for my eyes for us for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortresschus Christfoss, LinkedIn.com, Fortresschusch, Christfoss, YouTube.com, forcest Chris Foss and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe and you'll see you. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning.

Good. I mean too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast. It can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irons. Assistible, sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed.