The Joe Rogan Experience - #2064 - Mike Baker

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Mike Baker is a former CIA covert operations officer and current CEO of Portman Square Group, a global intelligence firm. He's also the host of "Black Files Declassified" on Discovery+ and the Science Channel, author of "Company Rules, Or Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the CIA," and host of "The President's Daily Brief" podcast. http://www.portmansquaregroup.com/https://www.thefirsttv.com/pdb/

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Hello, Mr. Baker. And greetings to you, Mr. Rogan. We always have to bring you in when the world's fucked. Yeah. Someday we'll bring you in when everything's great. That would be, you know what, I'd look forward to that.

And we could just talk about other things, but... You are my go-to guy when there's international conflict. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, I appreciate that because we have some conflict. That's what I hear. God. Yeah. So what the fuck is going on, Mike?

Tell me the real deal. What's happening? Well, there's something happening in the Middle East that's taking everybody's eye off the ball in what's happening in Ukraine, which is amazing. 7 October happened with that incredible medieval slaughter by Hamas. And I was amazed at how quickly, right? I guess I know that people have attention deficit disorder, but you didn't see anything about Ukraine or the conflict for the next couple of weeks. Right. It took them that long to then think, OK, well, we still got this thing going on over here. Right. People die. And there's a you know, Putin continues to operate as meat grinder for for the Russian soldiers. soldiers and um you know so that was that was incredible but then timing wise the other thing that i thought was was amazing was despite the brutality of the 7 october attacks

and hamas knew this was going to happen but that the the the the number of days that it took to turn the narrative around right so everybody was horrified at how terrible the slaughter was. And then within a matter of days, it was like, nah, it's Israel's fault. Right. And how did that happen? Hamas knew that was going to happen because that's what they count on, which is why they embed themselves with civilians. It's why they put their operation centers, their tunnels, their weapons stockpiles. It's why they put it all underneath civilian infrastructure, like the al-Shifa hospital that's been in the news lately and in other places, because they know that they're going to end up with dead Palestinians, right? And that's kind of,

this sounds wrong, but it's kind of their currency, right? It's kind of what they expect. And they don't give a shit. I mean, you can see just by the way that Hamas has governed, if you can call it that, Gaza for, what is that? That's new math for me. But since 2006, really, they kicked out Fatah. They kicked out the Palestinian Authority in 2007. to improve the lives of Palestinians. They don't give a shit about Palestinians, right? That's not their point. Their point is the extermination of Israel because they're overlord in the Iranian regime. That's their purpose in life too. So it's, you know, I hate to start off on a really, really, you know, cynical rant, but they know because they're very, they're clever. They've got a good public relations group, if you want to call it that. They understand how international media works. They know that it won't take much time for condemnation of Israel because you end up with dead Palestinian civilians, which is incredibly sad.

It's very sad for the Palestinian people. Their plight is legitimately awful. Their plight is legitimately awful. But to imagine somehow that Hamas cares about them or has been some sort of benevolent. I knew I was going to be able to say that. That's a word. That's a fucking word. Benevolent. Wow.

Your governing body of Gaza is ridiculous. So I don't know. I guess it's hard to tell where I stand on this issue. It's so strange that some people, particularly like these really crazy leftists, have gone as far as saying they were happy when the slaughter took place. I've seen that. You had staffers in the UN's refugee office. I mean, again, keep it in perspective, not a lot of them, maybe in private they were,

but you had some staffers celebrating openly, right, through social media, about what happened on the 7th of October, right? You've got, well, college campuses filled with useful idiots

who are happy to, you know, spout the Hamas narrative. And you've got protests in the streets and some people, you know, happy to, you know, spout the Hamas narrative. And you've got protests in the streets and some people, you know, earnestly, you know, hoping for a better situation for Palestine. You know, other folks couldn't find, you know, Gaza on a map if you took a map and shoved it up their ass, you know, it wouldn't work, right? They just, they don't care. You know, it's the latest thing. So I don't want to put all the protesters in one camp because, you know, some are legitimately working to better the lives of Palestinians. And yes, you can feel awful about what happens with the civilians. happened on the 7th of October and after Hamas continued to say, well, we're just going to keep doing this. It wasn't like they said, well, there you go. That was a one-off. No, they said, we're

going to keep doing this because that's their purpose in life is the destruction of Israel. I mean, I believe people sometimes when they say things and that's what they mean. It sucks. That's something that mean. It sucks. That's something that people need to understand, that they are embedding these troops and they're embedding these weapons stockpiles and all these different things in civilian infrastructure. Yeah, there was a lot of, I think there's, well, there has been a lot of skepticism about that. And people saying, no, that's Israel's excuse for targeting civilians. And, you know, now we're getting some pretty good evidence that that's not the case. Isn't a lot of that stuff blown up underneath?

Well, like, they were just releasing evidence of what they found when they went into the Rantisi Children's Hospital in Gaza. And again, weapons stockpiles, disturbingly makeshift rooms or holding cells. So it appears as if they could have been holding some of the hostages there, moved them before the IDF got in. But they've done the same with al-Shifa. They've gone into this, and that's a large, large hospital compound. And they have been saying for years that they use al-Shifa as essentially the command central point for the military structure there for Hamas, and also for, again, for weapons stockpiles. I mean, you can't be more cynical as an organization like Hamas than to be storing ammunition and weapons underneath a situation like this, but yeah, Israel needs to be very transparent. They need to provide as much evidence of this to try to shift that narrative, at least the people who aren't rabid about this, but have kind of jumped on the free Palestine bandwagon because they like to feel righteous.

So at least some of those people, you can shift off of that narrative by providing evidence, by being transparent. So hopefully that's what the IDF does. you can shift off of that narrative by providing evidence, by being transparent. So, you know, hopefully that's what the IDF does. The U.S. has come out and said, look, we back up that intelligence. We have independent corroboration that they've been using al-Shifa and other hospitals, Hamas has, you know, for their personnel, for their stockpiles. You know, the reality is it's not going to change much of the narrative. I've been surprised by apparently how many anti-Semitic bigots were just in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to jump out.

Crazy, right? Yeah. The open anti-Semitism online is so shocking. People chanting in the streets, death to the Jews, like what? Yeah, from a variety of quarters. In 2023. Yeah, in 2023, yeah. Yeah, in 2023, yeah.

And I guess it's naive to think that maybe we didn't have that problem anymore, but it's there. Well, Jewish people have always been saying it, and a lot of people have been saying, oh, you guys are exaggerating. Yeah. And now I guess everybody has to shut the fuck up about that. Not only were they not exaggerating, they were kind of underplaying it. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, they were definitely underplaying it.

But I think that if you, if you look at, again, if you look at what's happening here in America, right, there's, there's layers to it, right? You get, what's her name? Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinian American in Congress. And she's a member of whatever they call it, the squad. And, you know, so she comes out and she's not, you know, she's fairly rabid. Right. Meaning what she's saying about it is not particularly eloquent. Right. And so she gets censured because, you know, she just like out there spouting almost what appears to be pro-Hamas or making some sort of equivalency, right? Well, she tweeted the incorrect story. Yes. About the bombing of the hospital being the responsibility of Israel, and it wasn't. That's actually a really, that's a great point because the attacks took place 7 October. And then a few days after, there was that explosion at the hospital.

And not only Rashida Tlaib, but- The New York Times. New York Times, major news outlets, took the word of Hamas, the group that had just days before conducted this awful slaughter, right? They took their word and said, oh yeah, yeah, it was an Israeli airstrike targeting a hospital. Yeah. And they went with it. Yeah.

And you think, what the fuck is wrong with you? Not only that, it hit the parking lot. It didn't even hit the hospital. Yeah. And there wasn't 500 people dead. No. There was no journalistic curiosity. There was no thought that said, well, maybe before we run with the word of a terrorist organization that just proved how medieval they are, maybe we should do our own independent checking.

But, I mean, I get it. In today's world, everybody wants to beat the clock and be the first with a story. But how do you do that when you're in the New York Times? Apparently, it's not difficult. How do you do that when you're a congresswoman? Yeah. Yeah. But she comes out.

And I guess the point is she's one layer of this, right, of this sort of anti-Semitism. And, you know, she's trying to couch it in, you know, I'm not an anti-Semite. I just, I'm drawing some sort of moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel. And I get it. It's a massively complicated history, right? There's nothing more complicated than the history of Palestine and Israel and the settlements and all the rest of it. And no one's probably ever going to solve it. But then you've got the campus activity.

And, again, those are youthful people that like to feel righteous about things. You've got Barack Obama, right, going on a podcast talking about this whose podcast are you going what's that called uh pod save america um but on that he basically attempted to well he didn't attempt he did but in a very subtle, very sophisticated way, more sophisticated than others who get out there and scream from the river to the sea. He talked about this like, OK, well, it was unbearable situation for the Palestinians, which implies that, you know, it's kind of not he's not justifying it, I guess, in a sense. But people will read that into it. Right, right? And that's dangerous in itself, right? Because, well, I mean, he's listened to, right? And he's beloved. I guess I could use the word beloved. Anyway, so I guess what I'm saying is there's layers of this antisemitism or there's

layers of this excusing what took place while not, you know, again, I don't want to put words in people's mouths, but that's what they're doing, right? And by calling for a ceasefire, as an example, if you call for a ceasefire, right, then you're basically saying, I'm okay with the status quo. Because a ceasefire is not going to lead to a two-state solution. It's not going to lead to, you know, stability. It's going to lead to more violence, more terrorism. And the only people that win in a situation like that would be Hamas and the Iranian regime. So, you know, I think it's, again, it's the most complicated issue of our time and for generations, right? And I don't think there's going to be a solution. So from Israel's perspective, they're saying, all right,

we understood that international condemnation would be coming as soon as we tried to deal with the problem. We have to deal with the problem, though, because who else is going to do it for them? Who else is going to help them? Clearly, there's a lot of people who have no interest in that. So I think they're feeling if we can degrade Hamas sufficiently, I don't think you ever destroy a terrorist organization or you're certainly never going to get terrorism down to nothing, right? It's not a zero-sum game. But if you can degrade it enough so that they can never govern again in Gaza, they can never conduct their terrorist operations again, at least you've advanced the ball towards something that could be more stable. Now, it depends on what backfills Hamas's governance of Gaza, and that's a massive question.

But anyway. Elon was on a podcast recently with Lex Friedman, and one of the things he was talking about was like, with every civilian Palestinian that dies, how many more members of Hamas have you created? And that's a very good point, right? It's a very good point, yeah. Thousands of civilians have died now. But Hamas has also spent years kind of shaping curriculum, right? Teaching children to hate Israel, teaching children that killing Jews

is kind of your lot in life, right? So yes, I mean, but so then you're faced with this. What do we do? Do we keep them around? Do we allow them to keep doing what they're doing? Or do you try to remove that cancer, right? And do you try to say, okay, whatever comes in, maybe that's better. Look, it's not like the Palestinian people overwhelmingly support Hamas. There was a poll, believe it or not, doing polls out in Gaza,

asking who is best served to represent the Palestinian people. Would it be Hamas or would it be Fatah? And only 30% of the people felt that Ham their, their answer. 40 plus percent said neither. Right. So it's not as if the Palestinian people are all out there, you know, cheering for Hamas, right? Clearly some are. But we have to imagine what does it look like? At some point, the conflict ends. Some point, they are degraded sufficiently. Some point, the international pressure is just to the point where they have to stop, I suppose. And then you have to ask, what does that look like? It can't be a long-term Israeli occupation. They don't want that. So, you know, the U.S. steps in. That's what the U.S. administration always does. And they imagine that they've got an answer. And so they say, well, let's have the

Palestinian Authority govern Gaza, because the Palestinian Authority govern West Bank, of course. And we have this two-government situation, because back in 06, or whenever, 06, I believe, Hamas violently kicked out Palestinian Authority. They said, We're taking over Gaza. So they took over Gaza. West Bank is left to Palestinian Authority. So the U.S. is saying, well, you know, we'll let Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Authority come in. Anthony Blinken goes over, talks to Abbas, you know, and they'd say, well, maybe this. You know, Israel is against the idea. Why is Israel against the idea?

Well, they're saying in part, they're saying in part because, look, they're saying Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Authority haven't even bothered to condemn what took place on the 7th of October. So they say, how can you then have this same group running? He says, that's not a solution. That's not advancing the ball in any way that's their point point of the palestinian people is when you you did that survey of who's best you know capable and who deserves to represent the palestinian people yeah hamas only got about 30

percent of the vote uh fatah got only 20 of the vote so it's not like they want them there either um but the u.s is kind not like they want them there either. But the U.S. is kind of wedging that in as a scenario, saying, look, this is the way we go. Just kind of like, you know, Biden comes in and says, well, we should have a pause. No, we should have a three-day pause. We should. And, you know, they almost get a little petulant because Israel is not listening to them. And Israel, you know, obviously gets a lot of support from the U.S.

But this time is different. This time is, you know, I think a lot of support from the U.S. But this time is different. This time is, you know, I think what happened on the 7th of October marks a complete sea change from their perspective. So they're going to do what they need to do from their perspective and move on. But that question of, again, what backfills, what comes in behind is critical. But nobody's got a good answer. From an intelligence perspective, how did that October 7th thing not get detected? I mean, doesn't the IDF, don't they have agents embedded in Hamas? Don't they have like the most intense security system ever and surveillance system ever? They do.

Yeah. And it was a massive intelligence failure. And in part, it was a very, it was a very, I don't want to say sophisticated, sophisticated is the wrong word. But in terms of the planning of this, if you're conducting an operation, or you're conducting any intelligence really concerned, then the first thing you need to know, you need to worry about is need to know, right? So how do you limit information? How do you limit the dissemination of information about what you're doing? And that's just good OPSEC. That's good operational security. Now, that's what they did. They displayed extremely sophisticated, I suppose, operational security over this. Because you're right, there's human sources that the IDF and

Shin Bet and others in Israel have within Gaza. There's the communications intercepts, signals intelligence. There's just general surveillance that they're doing of the region in terms of movement of goods. But most of that movement of goods happens underground. 300, maybe 300 miles of tunnels in Gaza that they've built, using money, by the way, using money that was probably meant for clean water works and other infrastructure and improving schools and hospitals. waterworks and other infrastructure and improving schools and hospitals. That's a whole different angle to talk about. But I think the security side of things, by doing that, by limiting who knows about the operation and by, because again, you could legitimately argue the political leadership of Hamas, they had a sense, you know, I'm sure at some point they approved a large-scale operation.

But the people who really knew about this were the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, which is an organization with the Iranian regime. And they're kind of the liaison partners for Hamas and Hezbollah. They manage a lot of the training issues. They funnel a lot of the money that goes to these organizations that are Iranian proxies. And so you can count on the fact that a limited number within the IRGC were aware of the planning and the training because they did train Hamas operatives in Iran prior to 7 October. So I think, yeah, it was simply a matter of them saying, all right, this element, this cell will have knowledge of this during the course of training. These guys over here will know this. These people will know this. And maybe a handful of people will understand the full picture and will understand when we're going to do this.

And it's all designed to keep it away from Israeli intelligence. And it was ridiculously successful in that regard. And also you could argue intelligence is a human operation or an endeavor. So you're going to have failures on occasion. You just don't want them to be this massive. There were occasional comments about the inclination of Hamas to do something bigger. No details, no specific details. And Hamas also spent a great deal of time leading up to this, I mean years, convincing the Israeli government through their words, through their actions or lack of actions, that it was a new day and that what they're looking to do is create a different dynamic or relationship with the Israeli government.

And so the Israeli government became complacent. And when they became complacent to some degree over Hamas and the fact that there hadn't been any strikes or hadn't been any terrorist actions for a period of time, then what you saw was then they kind of turned inward. And people talk about the political divisions within Israel and the fact that the government was in a bit of disarray and there was a little dysfunctional, a lot of arguments going on. That in part was because, you know, they had the, not the luxury, but the ability to kind of turn in on themselves because they didn't feel necessarily that that threat outside was as bad as it had been, right? And that they thought perhaps it's diminishing, perhaps, you know, Hamas is changing its tune. And that was

a deliberate attempt by Hamas to lull them into that state, right? And so there were a lot of things going on at the same time. But yeah, there's no way around it. It's a massive intelligence failure. The most cynical and conspiratorial take on it is that they let it happen because this is the best way to destroy Hamas. That they knew it was going to happen, so they allowed it to take place. Yeah, that's pretty cynical. Yeah, I mean, if you can get your head around that idea that they said, yeah, we're going to let Hamas or somehow encourage Hamas to come in and slaughter all these women, babies, children, men. I suppose that's, you know, if someone can get there, then God bless them. That's that's their right. But I'm not buying it.

You know, I've seen I've seen intelligence failures before. I know it can happen no matter how many cameras you've got up. No matter how good your signals intelligence intercepts are, they dumb that down, right? I'm not calling anybody on the phone because I know you're going to pick that up, right? I'm not going to talk about this anywhere. I'm going to hand a note to my cousin, you know, who runs a, you know, a part of a battalion in Hamas. You know, they got whatever, two dozen battalions. So, but I'm going to keep that communication as stupid as I can.

That's what Al Qaeda did, right? And they dumbed it down and it becomes much more difficult. They limit the number of sources who know about it. That limits your target pool of assets who can tell you something from a human perspective. And, you know, but again, people are going to, I've seen some pretty wacky conspiracy theories come out of this since 7 October right and you know I'm not buying that one yeah the the most conspiratorial was that Netanyahu was kind of on the way out with the people and that this is the way for him to sort of galvanize everybody and get support

and maintain power and then do what he actually wanted to do, go in there and attack Hamas. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's one theory. Yeah. But- Whenever you have something this chaotic, you're always going to have a bunch of wacky theories.

Yeah. Yeah. And I get that because you have a lot of people who still refuse to believe that, you know, Hamas doesn't give a shit about Palestinians. And again, I keep going back to the same thing, which is, well, take a look at Gaza, you know, and tell me what Hamas has done for the people of Gaza. Because again, Palestinian people aren't lined up 100% behind them. In fact, there's been reports of looting of Hamas facilities since they've been losing their grip on power. The

Hamas leadership structure is enormously wealthy. They've stolen billions of dollars that was theoretically intended for Palestinian improvements. Can you explain that like how did they get a hold of the money and how is the money allocated like say where is the money coming from when they get money for the improvements of sanitation and education and schools and all that it comes from it comes from a variety of sources look i think the the eu the european union is i think the largest donor still to the palest. And it comes through various organizations. So the United Nations, the Refugee Office, UNRW, the USAID, and some NGOs, well, quite a few NGOs. So money is donated or allocated by governments. And the U.S.

is given billions of dollars through these organizations for the improvement of Palestinian lives, right? And part of that came out of the Oslo Accords, the idea being, you know, band together, improve the infrastructure for the Palestinians, create this, because that will march towards more stability. And eventually, maybe that allows for a solution that will eventually come about, whether it's a two-state solution or however it's worked out. come about and whether it's a two-state solution or however it's worked out. So that money flows in. But since 2007, Hamas controls what goes. It's like when we give money to the Taliban now, giving money to the Taliban in Afghanistan. And we like to pretend like they're going to use it for good causes. We like to pretend we know where it's going or how it's being handled. But this money flows into these various organizations and Hamas controls what happens, right? So one way or another, they get their hands on that money and they decide what they want to do with it.

And for the most part, it has been for the betterment of Hamas as an organization, in part because that's what Iran expects them to do. And Iran also provides them with funds, not the Palestinian people. Iran directly funds Hamas. So over the years, they have the leadership, and particularly the political leadership, who all basically live outside of Gaza in Doha and in Qatar, you know, some reports and they're confirmed by the U.S. Treasury. It's not just the Israelis saying this, you know, they're billionaires at this stage of life. And, you know, one of them's got a couple of kids who are on Instagram, right? And they're flying on private jets and they're, It's got a couple of kids who are on Instagram, right?

And they're flying on private jets. And they probably went to the World Cup when it was in Doha. And it's ludicrous because billions of dollars that literally were meant to provide clean water or better schools or whatever. And people just, you know, continue to shake their fists and say it's all Israel's fault. How is the money allocated and where does it go? And how does Hamas get their hands on the money? Like what is, what's the expectations when they're giving this money? And how, I mean, I don't understand.

If they know that it's going to Hamas, why are they still sending money? Well, in part because that's the purpose. So the U.S. funds, say the U.S. says, okay, this year we're giving, whatever, $400 million through these various aid organizations. Now, the aid organizations at some point on the ground, right, have to make a difference, right? middlemen. It has to go to somebody running a business who's then going to provide resources, whatever that is, grain, something, whatever, transportation, trucking to move things around Gaza, whatever it is. And Hamas, it's like a criminal gang, right? It's like an extortion racket almost. They take their cut. They tax the resources that are brought in, right? Most of those things have to move. The most efficient way to move goods and services through Gaza at this point, because of all the work they've done on the tunnels, is the tunnels. So they tax goods moving through the tunnels. They make their money, right? And I'm not equating Hamas necessarily to a mob, but it's kind of what they've been doing.

And so now the money that comes from Iran, that's a different – that's – That's direct to Hamas. That's direct to Hamas. Again, they take their cut, right? I have it off. But then they spend it because they're beholden to Iran. They spend it on what they're supposed to, which is, you know, more weapons, more gear, paying their fighters. And so, yeah, I just I keep coming back around to this notion that, you know, the Palestinian people have been getting screwed, you know, left and right. There's no doubt about it. Right. And civilian casualties are tragic and sad right but we live in a very pragmatic world you know hopefully we're not i mean you can't rule this thing by feelings and hope and you know

positivity it's not it's hamas chose a certain path and they have to be dealt with right because um if you stop and allow them to say okay OK, well, Hamas is still there. They're still running things. Nothing. Nothing changes. Doesn't improve the lives of the Palestinians. Right. Continues to fuel and fund terror. So, OK, fine. If you feel better about a ceasefire and kicking the can down the road, but you're not. Don't don't pretend like you're solving something. So when the money gets allocated, it's like say if there's money that's being sent to Palestine for clean water, who's receiving that money? Well, it goes, it's funneled through the organization.

So like that money is, think about it like a bank account. It's deposited with the UN refugee office. the UN refugee office, they decide, they allocate because they have essentially vendors, right, who are saying, okay, we're going to provide whatever penicillin or we're going to provide hospital beds. So they're parsing this out to a variety of vendors, both in, you know, there's an attempt to try to ensure that it's Palestinian businesses. And Hamas also runs enterprises overseas, right? So, or sorry, outside of Gaza. So they run, you know, businesses in Turkey and a variety of other countries, right?

So sometimes that money is going to a Hamas-controlled business, right? To then purchase, theoretically purchase whatever is necessary. We shouldn't imagine that Hamas is, they're not like Al-Qaeda. They're not sitting in a cave somewhere, right? They've been doing this for a while. And, you know, it's a bit like the IRA. The IRA started out with a very clear mandate right eventually an element of it was just about drugs and and guns and you know money um so you know i keep coming back around to hamas they they realize they got a good thing going right stability is not going to keep that gravy tain. So, you know, peace with Israel, that cuts off a

revenue stream for Hamas, right, in a sense, even though they still theoretically, they could be smart, and they could say, okay, if we have peace with Israel, then we establish a long-term governance thing here, then we can keep that gravy train going. But, you know, they would lose their funding from Iran, because, you know, the last thing Iran wants is peaceful coexistence with Israel. And part of this was they looked at the Saudis talking to Israel. They looked at the possibility of that meeting that there would be normalized relations with Israel. And they're just not going to allow that to happen. And so, and for the time being, it worked, right?

You've got, I mean, look, you've got, what are there? How many members of the Arab League? There's 22 member states in the Arab League, and there's maybe half a dozen that recognize Israel. Iran doesn't want any more. They certainly don't want the Saudis, right? Because that could be a sea change in terms of other countries going, yeah, it does make sense. because that could be a sea change in terms of other countries going, yeah, it does make sense. Maybe if we do that, maybe if we normalize relations, then maybe that means better prosperity, more stability, economic development.

Maybe that's a good thing for our people. But again, that would imply that Israel has a right to exist. And the Iranian regime draws a line at that. Yeah. What is the worst case scenario here? Well, the Biden administration would tell you the worst case scenario is we get into a shooting match with the Iranian regime, right? And again, this is not the Iranian people. Iranian people have an amazing, rich history and, you know, they've been under the thumb of the Ayatollahs for, you know, all these years. I suspect there's a number of them who would like to see a sea change in Iran, right? But I think, you know,

from the Biden administration's perspective, a regional conflict that expands, right? And not just Hezbollah up north really getting into it. And things are heating up up there, right? So it's getting a little testier up there with Hezbollah in Lebanon. But a wider conflict than that, right? And, you know, look, the Iranian proxies in Yemen have been, you know, firing their own missiles towards Israel, not with much success. But you're getting these little, you know, probes there. Iran, I think, would stop short of being directly involved. You know, they've got enough in the way of proxy groups to probably keep this going for some time. But I think the goal here should be, yes, not a wider regional conflict. But you have to be pragmatic and understand that this is all emanating from, originating from the Iranian regime, right? So if Hamas is sorted out and the conflict as it currently stands ends and you don't

get something bigger up north with Hezbollah, you still have the Iranian regime sitting here. They still have proxies, even if Hamas is degraded. It's not like that's down to zero. The problem continues to exist. So the best answer, I know you asked about the worst situation, but the best situation would be if the Saudis and other nations in that region would normalize relations with Israel. Is that possible now after all this? Yeah, I think it is. I think it is. I think the Saudis realized that they were going to have to, you know, back off for the time being. It puts them in an interesting situation. But I do think that they'll look at it in the long term and think, yeah, we have to, I think we have

to, we have to move in that direction. Who knows how long it could take. So you can be hopeful, I think, about that. But, you know, I mean, until, you know, as long as the, But, you know, I mean, until, you know, as long as the IRGC, the Iranian regime runs Iran, we're still going to be dealing with this problem. It's not going to go away. Now, interesting thing. I forgot about this. The Iranian proxies have launched, I don't know now, we're almost at 60, 60 different attacks, right? Drone attacks, missile attacks on a variety of U.S. facilities and bases and personnel in Iraq and Syria. Since 17 October, what is that? So we're going on a month, right? A month and

you've had about 60 attacks. You've had almost 60 U.S. servicemen injured, some seriously. But the Biden administration has agreed to extend a sanction waiver for Iran. And we're giving them $10 billion, $10 billion in what had been frozen assets owed by Iraq, right, to Iran for essentially, well, for the most part, for electricity, right? For purchasing, they get a significant amount of their energy supply from Iran. So Iraq, I think, gets almost half or 40, 40%, 45% of their energy supply from Iran. So you had $10 billion sitting there, frozen assets. And so in the past 24 hours, despite the Iranian proxies doing this for the past month and before, to be fair, they were launching missiles at some of our facilities in the Middle East before the conflict with Hamas. They've decided that a good idea is to release the $10 billion. And it's going to be for humanitarian aid, they say. And they won't be able to use it for anything else. That's what they tell us. The State Department's very clear on that. They're saying, no, it's just for humanitarian aid. There's no

way they can use it for anything else, which is what they said about the $6 billion that they unfroze before this situation kicked off at the beginning of October. And, you know, to that, the Iranian president said, hey, we'll use it for whatever we want to, right? And money's fungible. So if you give me $10 billion and tell me I can only spend it on beer, okay, well, I'll take $10 billion that I have over in this pot that I was going to spend on beer and okay well i'll take 10 billion dollars that i have over in this pot that i was going to spend on beer and i'll spend it on on ammunition right it's it's all it's fungible so it's it's it's a ridiculous argument and then the state department compounded the ridiculous discussion by saying well i forget who it was it was one one of their spokesmen, Miller or somebody. He said, look, they've been fomenting trouble and creating chaos and causing trouble.

I know I'm paraphrasing. Before this $10 billion. And they're going to keep doing it regardless of whether they get the funds. So fine. Let's just give them the money. They choose to fund destabilizing activities first, he added. They always have, as far as we can tell, they always will. So when it, looking at this money, we see the benefit to allowing these funds to move again to restricted accounts where they can only benefit the Iranian people.

That doesn't make any sense. Yeah. This is, how are these people doing this? Yeah, they've decided that. But why would they decide that? That's what I don't understand. What's in it for them? I don't you know, the optic is awful. Right. It's not as if, you know, the American public's going to look at that and go, yeah, that makes sense. We've been reading headlines about these missile and drone strikes caused by Iranian proxies now for the past four weeks. So, sure, it makes sense to us that President Biden's decided that this is OK.

for the past four weeks. So sure, it makes sense to us that President Biden's decided that this is okay. So I don't understand. I'm confused over what they think. And the idea that they somehow imagine that this money won't be used for purposes other than what they're expecting is, I think it's ludicrous. But if all you said was just from the optic even if they could even if they could control how that money is spent politically the optic is awful right and so it's a it's a confusing thing from this this administration i don't i don't understand it and it's the wrong anyway i mean besides from that it's the wrong direction we should be going in the other direction we should be you know, Iran has, you know, they have realized, I don't want to say a windfall, but their oil, you know, revenues have not been degraded. We have not really gone after

their energy sector in terms of sanctions. And so we should be going after that. We should be really stepping on the gas in terms of saying that's enough, right? I mean, because what have we done? We've had three responses to the missile and drone strikes that they've been responsible for over the past four weeks. Three responses. And after every response, we just get more missile and drone attacks so it's not deterrence we're not doing anything to deter the behavior right we're just we're it's almost like a a political decision saying well we got to show the american public we're doing something and we take it seriously so let's blow up a weapons depot in eastern syria and it's it's doing nothing to

deter the attacks so i don't think giving them billion, if maybe that's their calculation, if we give them something, they'll stop. I mean, that's awful. I don't think they're that stupid. So that can't be the reason. So I don't understand. It's a confusing decision on their part. Does anybody have any sort of rational argument for why they're doing it? Not that I've seen, but, I mean, I'm going to keep looking.

Maybe there is one. It'd be nice to think because, look, you know, you should want the U.S. government to do well, you know, regardless. We got to, you know, at some point you got to say, okay, I don't care whether Democrats or Republicans, I just want them to do well because that's good for us, you know, as in the U.S., whether it's an economic issue or national security issue. So but I haven't seen I haven't seen a logical argument.

It's a new development. They've just basically announced this. And I again, it makes no sense. They were they were incredibly reluctant at the outset of this conflict. To even mention Iran, right, they were very and in part because they've they've spent three years now with a soft approach to to trying to get back into a deal of some sort with them over the nuke weapons program. sort with them over the nuke weapons program. And they've been taking this approach that said, well, Trump had maximum pressure, so that had to be wrong. Had to be wrong. And just like with everything else that Trump did, they just reversed it, like the border controls. No, that's all bad. And so we just have to throw it all out. And they kind of did that. And they brought in to their to their various Iran focused Iran forward positions, whether at the Pentagon or the State Department.

They brought in people who were like minded, who wanted a softer approach. And that in part was probably driven by an effort by the Iranians, by the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They were running an influence campaign here in the States. They've been running it for almost 10 years now, where they have worked to discredit any viable opposition to the Iranian regime. opposition to the Iranian regime. And they have encouraged and supported the Iran Experts Initiative, I think it was called, IEI. And that was a bunch of academics and others who, you know, all believed in the same soft approach to Iran and changing the narrative. the same soft approach to Iran and changing the narrative. And that's where you got, you know, the U.S. special envoy to Iran in the Biden administration, Robert Malley, who's now suspended, had his security clearances pulled. There's no real curious journalist asking where that stands, right? You've got an individual over the Pentagon who still there, still in her job and has been promoting, again, this idea that, you know, we have to change direction with Iran.

So, you know, there's there's I know I'm kind of wandering down a weird path there, but I guess. It's not a surprise. It's just an odd decision from the Biden administration. And you would think at this stage of the game, if you're not convinced that you need to change course with the Iranian regime and treat them differently, every time we try to shake their hand, they smack it away. I don't know how many times that has to happen before the Biden administration learns that's not the way to deal with them. So, yeah, yeah, it's disappearing down a rabbit hole. It just doesn't seem like there's any it doesn't seem like there's any rational solution to this. This is what seems so fucked to someone that's watching. There's no like, oh, well, hopefully this will happen and it'll all work out. Yeah. This is going to sound weird, but I think

long-term peace and stability in the Middle East, any road you want to take of a serious means to get to long-term stability and peace and prosperity and a better life for whether it's Palestinians or anyone else out there, I think that road leads through the Iranian regime and we have to deal with them. And I don't mean militarily, right? I mean, we have to, you know, although if they keep us up, right? I mean, if one of these missiles hits one of these facilities and kills, you know, God forbid, a number of U.S. servicemen, then what? What the hell are we going to do? Are we going to pretend like Iran still has nothing to do with it? You know, unfreeze more assets? deal with them because it's going to be easier doing that now than when they have a nuke. And I just, I'm curious as to what the current administration is thinking about in terms of their policy towards Iran. I don't profess to understand it, but I do think that you can't have stability. Every time you're going to get your way towards peace and stability in the Middle East in some fashion, the Iranian regime is going to screw it up.

Because peace and stability means you're – we're talking about Israel. And peace and stability, again, would imply that means they have a right to exist. And every time you get near that, then I think the Iranian regime will do whatever they can to stop that from happening. So at some point, we got to deal with it. And what's the difference between the way this administration handled it and the previous administration? I think it was mostly the attention to the sanctions and the economic pressure on them and trying to enforce those sanctions. There was, again, not touting for the previous administration either, but just saying that their approach was tougher when it came to sanctions. Their approach was, we have an

adversary here. We're not trying to become friends with them right now, right? Because that's not their mindset, right? I mean, it's like when you, you know, someone keeps telling their kid, well, look, the bully, just keep putting your hand out and trying to shake his hand and, you know, try to be his friend. Maybe he's just misunderstood or he's lacking confidence and he keeps punching you in the nose, right? At some point, you got to figure out, okay, I got to do something different here. So I think the previous administration, they were much tougher on the sanctions. And they had an approach, much like with China, right? Yes, they're a competitor, but they're an adversary. And Xi's got a plan that gets him to the top of the food chain. The Iranian regime has a plan that destroys Israel, right? That's their goal. So I think that's what it was. I think the Biden administration is more inclined to think that we can all become a community of nations, right? Unicorns flying out our ass and everybody's singing Kumbaya, whatever the hell that song was.

So I sound like a cynical asshole no you sound like someone who actually knows the fuck is going on which is scary yeah this administration's so goofy they're so weird it's so i just don't understand any of this well you know what's happening right now while we're talking um biden is sitting down he might even He might even be right now sitting down with Xi Jinping in San Francisco. Did you see how they cleaned up San Francisco? Doesn't it look good? I want to buy a condo there. Isn't that amazing?

Yeah. Yeah. It's fantastic. Yeah. It's crazy because that city was a shithole. Beautiful, beautiful physical setting, right? Great place. But it was a shithole. Beautiful, beautiful physical setting, right? Great place, but it was a shithole. Well, it still is.

Still is, yeah. Did you hear that, what was it, some news organization from another country got robbed at gunpoint? Yeah, a camera crew got robbed covering the convention. This is APEC conventions there for the week. Today is the big day when Xi and Biden sit down and talk. And supposedly leading up to this, Biden's main point during a press conference was in the climate crisis. Like she gives a fuck about the climate. about the climate. It's just, so again, it kind of, it all kind of falls together in this, like,

this, this world that the current administration is living in. I, you know, hey, it'd be lovely if that was the case, and that was our biggest issue, but I'm hoping that part of this is not, that they don't spend a lot of time talking. And although, having said that, John Kerry was, was there in San Francisco, because he's our climate czar. And he proudly announced whenever, yesterday, the day before, that part of this meeting will be to agree to resume the climate, whatever it was called, climate working group. So the Chinese and Americans will get together now and we'll be re-energized to talk about, you know, how we can both improve the climate. Meanwhile, a very, very reputable report came out and said that China, the Chinese regime is building six times more coal plants than the rest of the world combined currently. They're basically building two coal plants a week in terms of looking at their construction

and the permitting process. And, you know, people are saying, well, you know, they're trying to find excuses. Well, you know, it's because they want to back up, you know, look, they're the biggest, you know, purveyor of renewables energy. So they just want the coal in case they need a backup. And that's bullshit.

She looks at coal as a real driver in terms of energy security. So anyway, my point being is they're going to sit down. John Kerry spews this crap about, you know, they're going to, look at this, we're working together to save the planet. And China is just digging coal as fast as they can it's it's I I find that part funny because it just shows that we we're still misunderstanding uh you know the CCP and how they operate it's it's fantastic um but I hope that I hope they do come to some agreements because again you want them to you want the dialogue you want these two countries talking we don't even

have consistent communication right now between the militaries right i mean if we get sideways with each other and you need to de-conflict um you know that's that's a good thing if you have regular consistent conversation between the military command structures we don't have that right now you would think that the president of the united states and the president of the head of china no matter who's in the white house you would think that we would of the united states and the president of the head of china no matter who's in the white house you would think that we would just be having regularly uh you know conversations maybe once a quarter right between that would make sense but we don't do that i mean it's it's kind

of fucked up so hopefully they come to terms on on a couple of things i'm sure one will be the climate working group um they are supposed to come up with an agreement on the use of AI in unmanned weapon systems and in the command and control systems for nuke weapons. I don't say nuclear because for some reason that's a tough word. And I always get, you know, jammed up on nuclear. And then people say, you just said nuclear. And that's a tough word. And I always get jammed up on nuclear. And then people say, you just said nuclear. And that's all I get. I get 2,000 Twitter messages saying, what the fuck's wrong with you? You can't say nuclear.

And so I just say nuke now. Nuclear. Anyway. I think a better solution is stop reading Twitter. Yeah. Although, although I, no, you're right. Actually, that is, that is probably you. And you've told me that before. Don't just don't read what, what people write. It's not good for you. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, although I've been getting a lot of compliments about the president's daily

brief. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Did I just throw that out there? Yeah. Um, yeah, yeah. It's number one on Spotify news now. Fuck yeah. I know. That's awesome. My primary goal was to beat NPR, and we did. And now we're doing an afternoon edition, too. So you get your PDB in the morning, the President's Daily Brief, and then in the afternoon on your way home, or when you're unwinding over a cocktail, you get the afternoon bulletin. And yeah, it's been a great experience, but I digress.

Do you enjoy diving into all this stuff now because you're doing this podcast? I do. I mean, I always have, right? So this is just a nice... I mean, I hate to say it, but I don't even view it as work or anything, right? It's just

because it's interesting and it's the shit that I would be reading and thinking about anyway, uh, which means I've got a sad, sad, uh, daytime life there. Um, although I've got the world's greatest life, but I think, um, uh, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's a straightforward process. Um, the folks that work on it with me, they do a great job. We talk in the morning about, you know, what are the topics that we think are going to be the hot ones for the day that we need to cover the next morning. So we talk about that. We put it together. We finalize the morning edition by late in the evening. Now we're doing the afternoon bulletin. So we're kind of doing the same thing, but in a much shorter view. bulletin so we're kind of doing the same thing but in a much shorter view um and it's yeah i i just i enjoy it because i like for whatever reason you want to know what the hell's going on in the world particularly when it's as fucked up as it is now right so you end up kind of diving in but you don't dive into social media sites right i don't you know don't don't get your news from there you get your news from you know reputable sources if there still are some.

But you read a variety of them, so hopefully it balances out. And, yeah, I spend a ridiculous amount of time. And then my boys, you know, Scooter and Sluggo and Muggsy, they have to put up with it, right? They have to listen to me bang on about shit, right? And so usually if I'm driving one of them to school in the morning, that's when I kind of talk to them about things. Oh, boy. They're like, oh, yeah, I know, exactly. That's what you want when you're a 16 or, you know, 12-year-old. Yeah, the middle boy, he's still out in boarding school at IMG.

So he doesn't have to listen to me anymore as much. But I tell you, that's an operation. IMG, fantastic. He's really loved it. Not that you asked, but I love talking about it. What is IMG? It. He's really loved it. Not that you asked, but I love talking about him. What is IMG? It's an academy. It's a boarding school down in Bradenton, Florida.

And he started there in late August, plays basketball. And it started as a tennis program, Nick Boletari. So Agassi and a bunch of folks went there. And they've built it up. And it's amazing. It's like a D1 campus. And they do a great job. So, he's loving it down there.

Their weight room is crazy. Look at that weight room. Whoa. I mean, yeah, exactly. That's like a major sports team's weight room. Yeah. That's nuts. That's awesome.

It is crazy. And their teams. So, he's in middle school, plays basketball and, but they're, you know, they're national champions in a variety of sports regularly. Their football team looks like, it looks like Alabama, right? Their high school football team. And you're giving kids an opportunity. A lot of those kids, they just love the sport. They're not going to advance to play college ball because that's a small number. But you give them the opportunity to excel or to see what excellence looks like. And that helps them in a variety of other things and propels them, I think, in life.

Because they know, I want to get to that point. This is how hard I got to work. Now I got to make the decision. Do I do that or not? And so they give them that opportunity. It's been great. And being a part of a structured program makes you realize like what's involved in success. Yes, exactly. And if you don't have that, I mean, that's why, you know, you look around sometimes and you think, well, what, if people don't have role models, if they don't have mentors, if they don't have what looks like success, right? Well then, you know, maybe it's not a surprise that they're not succeeding.

And so you got to, you know, and this is a different example. I'm, you know, I'm not making comparisons there between, you know, what happens in the inner city and they don't get to see things to that because that's, you know, this is a very privileged opportunity that, you know, that these young folks have. And they hopefully feel very fortunate about it, right? That's the other thing, gratitude. You got to feel like you appreciate, you know, your opportunities. But, you know, I think I worked on a, I worked with a nonprofit for a while in New York City that was focused on education of middle school students. And the idea being is that those kids in the city, in New York City, as an example, they make a decision. Is education for me? Am I going to stick with it? Am I going to high school, right? They

make those decisions in middle school, right? And that's a hard cutoff for a lot of them, right? If they just get that impression that this is not for me, I'm not going to succeed I'm not going to do it, I don't see any reason for it I don't understand why I'm supposed to go to high school so the idea was you work with those kids and you give them the opportunity, you show them

what success looks like, you show them what opportunity can do for them and you encourage them and they've got to do the work again. They've got to try. But, you know, a lot of those kids just don't have that. They've got a mom who's working, you know, four jobs, you know, put food on the table, make ends meet. They don't have role models that they need.

So it was a real eye-opening experience and a very good one. But it was called Citizen Schools. And anyway, so yeah, back to your original question. I very much enjoy the President's Daily Brief. It's been a really good experience so far. And I think I mentioned that we're number one in news on Spotify. Yes, you did mention that. I did mention that.

Okay. What did you take on? Like one of the wildest things that's happened, we kind of touched on it briefly, is how quickly everybody forgot about Ukraine. It just went out of the news. Yeah. It's like the moment Ukraine came along, that's when everybody stopped talking about COVID. COVID kind of just vanished.

Cause like, okay, now we have a new thing to focus on and virtue signal. That's a good point. Yeah. Instantly. Yeah. Yeah. It just, the pandemic just ended. Went away.

Went away. We're all good. Even with like crazy liberals that are still masking. They kind of eventually took their masks off and said, I think we need to just, Ukraine is the focus now. Have you been on planes lately where you've seen people with masks still? I see them walking down the street. In New York City, I saw quite a few people on the street with masks on still. Yeah.

Also in New York City, I was there while the Free Palestine protests were going on. Those were wild. And they attacked a UFC bus. There's a bus filled with UFC fighters. Ruthless Robbie Lawler, the former welterweight champion. Jamal Hill, who was the former light heavyweight champion. They're on the bus, and they're smashing the windows of the bus, and they slash the tires of the bus. Why did they target that bus?

Because- Wrong time, wrong place? They were going through and blocking traffic. Okay. And the bus tried to make it through before the protesters did. And they just charged the bus and started smashing it and breaking windows. They thought the bus was trying to run them over or something. Oh, God.

Yeah. And, you know, Robbie Lawler was on the bus. He told everybody to stay calm. And he goes, we're going to need our energy if we have to fight. Because that is the last fucking dude you want calm and ready to fight. I mean, he would have gone out and slaughtered 20 people. I was going to say, could you imagine? Because you've seen what these protesters look like.

Most of them, at best, are a buck, right? They look like a bag of milk. Yeah. They've been eating a lot of oat milk and veggies. Not that that's a bad thing. But they're so confident in numbers. It's so crazy. Well, yeah, I was there last week.

There was a massive protest. Not massive. I don't want to overstate it. But there was a big protest outside the New York Public Library. And I was just walking down. I was heading towards, I forget where, Grand Central or something. And you could hear the noise start to build, right? You kind of block after block.

It gets louder. It gets louder. And there you go, and you see it. And I was kind of fascinated because I thought, okay, well, who is here? And there's all these diverse groups, right? There's like LGBTQ for free Palestine. Which is wild. That's wild.

That is wild. That's crazy. I saw a sign that said Koreans for free Palestine. I'm thinking, what? How did you get roped into this? Or was this just like a side hobby of yours? You've always loved Palestine? But you could also see people, the faces of people walking, passing you on the streets, and sort of the unease. Because it was underlying it. It just seemed hostile. And it seemed angry. It wasn't a protest out there just like you might normally see for some benign issue.

This was a little ugly. And it's shocked people, I think. Is this organized? And is it organized and funded? And if it's organized and funded by who? Well, when you look at it, you see lots and lots and lots of graphically well-designed, professionally produced posters being held up. And then you see occasionally, you'll see that like the one-offs, the hand-scrawled koreans for free palestine um and you see the rows of porta-potties right somebody's putting this together right and so somebody's spending money and they're getting permits and they're doing these things right it's not like some random they want you to believe that it's this grassroots thing it's it's it's funded and it's organized. And, you know, where that money is coming from, who knows? I'm sure it's coming from a variety of leftist organizations. And, you know, it's who knows, maybe some of it's coming from Hamas, you know, businesses and organizations. That is exactly what they would do, right, is to promote this. And the Iranians are busy, you know, on social media sites doing

the same thing. Like, disinformation's everywhere. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a disinformation campaign. And which reminds me that we'll talk about that later on, but the Chinese have been kind of caught with their hand in the cookie jar over a very large scale disinformation campaign, trying to influence policy and decision making and attitudes here in the U.S. But it's what Hamas would do. It's what the Iranians would do with more resource is to organize these types of things. And ideally, again, you want to make them seem spontaneous. You want to make them see. And so, you know, and it works. You see that on the news. You see, oh, my God, we've got these protests.

And you say, well, you know, there's a lot of people against this. And, you know, the next thing you know, there's this international pressure. And suddenly the White House is talking out of both sides of their mouth. They have unequivocal support for Israel. You know, I think we might need a pause here. You know, we might do this, you know, I think we might need a pause here. You know, we might do this, you know. Okay. That's simply because of the Biden administration looks out there. They make a political calculation. They see all these protests here in the U.S. I mean, the college campuses, they've got a 2024 election coming up. They don't want to lose the Arab American vote.

They certainly don't want to lose the youth vote. So what do they got to do? They got to pivot a little bit and they got to start talking about ceasefire or the long pause or, you know, by God, don't be firing up a hospital or whatever. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. I think the IDF knows not to, you know, go in, you know, full bore inside a hospital, right? I think they're going to be a little more strategic than that. But the White House does it for, I think they're going to be a little more strategic than that. But the White House does it for – so they're basically driving foreign policy because of U.S. domestic political concerns, right? What's going to happen in the 2024 election. So I don't think that's necessarily a good way to run foreign policy.

What is the China thing? You're saying China got caught with their hand in the cookie jar? Oh, yeah. It's another good thing. It would be nice if Biden would mention this to Xi when they're sitting down, which they are. But they called it spamouflage, or I think it had a codename of Dragon Bridge. And the idea was the Chinese Communist Party,

through their Ministry of Public Security, And the idea was the Chinese Communist Party, through their Ministry of Public Security, is running a large-scale disinformation campaign. And part of it is targeted at Chinese dissidents. So part of it's targeted here in the States at Chinese journalists and activists and others who speak out against Xi and the regime. And so the idea being is that they basically hunt these people down online, they troll them, they overwhelm their message by using thousands and thousands of accounts that they've set up in these farms. Most of this has run out of Beijing. And the idea being they're just basically either trying to push down the activist voice, right, and create a better, more positive narrative for Xi, or in some cases, they're actually trying to find them, right, and create a better, more positive narrative for Xi,

or in some cases, they're actually trying to find them, right, and influence them directly. And so there was that story about New York City, that the secret police stations, that the Ministry of Public Security, the Chinese Communist Party's Ministry of Public Security was running here in the States, and still continue to run, frankly. But they had a couple of their MPS agents here in New York or in New York. And part of what they were doing was was dealing directly with activists, basically threatening them, harassing them and trying to, again, shut them up. They've done other things, too. I mean, they were involved in spreading messages related to the George Floyd protests. So they've got evidence. And this is

a report that, who did this? CNN, I think, put this together after studying a vast amount of documentation, right, and information that was FOIAed and brought out from a variety of places, and also from social media sites that pulled together their own research. So George Floyd, you know, protests, and then the second year of that, they're still promoting it, and the idea is they're pushing out narratives that say, you know, America is a completely racist society, you know, and democracy doesn't work, and, you know, that's a completely racist society, you know, and democracy doesn't work. And, you know, that's exactly what you would expect them to do. But it's on a scale that I don't think we understood completely, right? And the US government has just come out basically and

felt like they had. And I think Meta was also involved in the research, and they've come out and talked about it and said, yeah, this is a problem. Now, whether Biden talks to him about that or not, I don't know. But the other thing they do is that they came out and identified, but we talked about this before, is, you know, the Chinese regime using this disinformation campaign, this spamouflage or whatever it is, some of the specific examples where they went after a Texas-based rare earths processing facility, right? So basically working to shut that down, essentially, right? To get the voices in the community against this. And how do they do that? Well, they promote, they sponsor, they encourage environmental groups and activist groups.

And so, you know, it's not as if, again, it's not as if people want to make a direct connection and say, are you telling me that Greenpeace is taking money from the CCP? And no, it's more sophisticated than that, right? But they are doing that. They are promoting these environmental activist groups to basically push that message that mining's bad, right? You don't want to go after rare earth minerals because that's bad for the earth, right? Certainly not processing. And so- Meanwhile. Meanwhile, they have a fucking monopoly on the whole thing, right? But they've been doing that for years, right? And they know. And so what they've realized relatively early on was even

more so than going out and locking up mining rights overseas, right? If you're talking about, you know, the Congo, you're talking about Australia, South America, you know, for lithium, then even more important was impacting your main competitors' regulatory policies, right? And so they understood that if they can encourage local and city councils, state governments and the federal government to, and they really focus on local and state because that's an easier lift, right? Going and changing federal policy, they probably got tired of the bureaucracy. But they understood that if they can do that to enact anti mining regulations.

No, you can't explore. No, it's going to take you 10 years to get a permit to explore for lithium, you know, in Nevada or Idaho or wherever. That's that's right in line with their strategy to become the provider provider of rare earth and critical minerals. Because they also understood they're smart enough, they've got a long vision here. And they look at the US, they look at Europe, and we're all self-righteously banging on about how we're going to, it's all electric. We're nothing but electric. We're getting off this fossil fuels. So they look at that and go, great. Well, we're on top of top of that right we're going to be in charge of that market so that's what they've been doing and they go after these local governments and they and they encourage through the spamouflage or whatever um and also again in supporting

environmental groups to push this right and create this groundswell and some guy in a city council looking and going oh yeah i'm not'm not approving that phosphate mining exercise. I'm not approving whatever. And, you know, you can't have agriculture really without phosphate for fertilizer. So that's a pretty important thing. But some city councilman, he's not going to sit there and go, well, I think this is probably, you know, maybe sponsored by the CCP. He just hears some environmentalists to come to the city council meetings and, you know, protest sponsored by the CCP. And he just hears some environmentalists to come to the city council meetings and, you know, protest or make an argument. And he thinks, yeah, I'm voting against

it, right? It's good for the earth. Now I get to feel good about myself too. So anyway, those are the sort of things that take place that, you know, again, do most people think about that sort of shit? No, I don't think so, right? But it's what makes the world go round, right? Everything's interconnected. And so shit doesn't happen without a reason. So when you ask, you know, are these protests sponsored? Who's paying for them? That's a great fucking question for journalists to dig into, right? If they were curious enough, you know, I don't think they are. But it would make an interesting story. And if someone did that, yeah, maybe they, you know, get an award.

I don't know. Well, at least it should be discussed to the point where it's a narrative where the general public is aware of it and Congress is aware, the general public is aware of it. So this is something that's on the table. You can't just openly say we can't mine because of this. Environmental groups have said that. There should be some discussion like, hey, why are they saying that? What's funding that? And if you look at the funding, oh, look, it's tied to China. Oh, look, they're running cobalt mines in the Congo. Oh, look, they're the ones who

are doing all of these rare earth mineral mines. They have a monopoly on this business. They don't want us doing it for business reasons. Right, right. And then also they are the providers of that. The more we buy electric, the more they sell these minerals. Yeah. I mean, they've got a lock on processing.

But you have to admire the fact that they've got a lock on processing. It's a wild scam. But you have to admire the fact that they've thought this through. Right. Right? And they kind of went soup to nuts. The start of the process to the finish. All right. What do we do?

How do we control it? I never understood that term, soup to nuts. Soup to nuts. What is that term? Do you get it, Jamie? Yeah. Have you ever understood it? Can we look up the origin of soup to nuts? When you say it, I know what you're saying.

But I'm like, where the fuck did that come from? It's derived from the description of a full course dinner. Really? So you start with soup and you finish with nuts. Who finishes with nuts? It may also refer to a 1930 feature film starring the Three Stooges called Soup to Nuts. Ah, the Three Stooges. Ah, that's it. I love the Three Stooges. All roads lead to the Three Stooges. But to Nuts. Ah, the Three Stooges. Ah, that's it.

I love the Three Stooges. All roads lead to the Three Stooges. But only Curly. Yeah, Curly's the best. Shemp, no. Nah, Shemp. That'd be Curly. I was not a fan of Shemp.

Yeah. My wife, the world's greatest person, she has a theory that women only like the Three Stooges when they're dating you, right? They'll pretend that they like the Three Stooges. She says, but no woman out there, nobody likes the Three St stooges when they're dating you, right? They'll pretend that they like the three stooges. She says, but no woman out there, nobody likes the three stooges. She's on the female side. But if they're dating you, they'll pretend to like the three stooges. I know.

I think she's not wrong. They don't have to do that. I think she's not wrong. I don't want anybody pretending they like anything. Yeah. No. You know? I know.

If a woman was pretending she liked things, I'd start thinking maybe this lady's pretending she likes me. Yeah. This could be a fucking full-on scam. Yeah. Where. You know? I know. If a woman was pretending she liked things, I'd start thinking maybe this lady's pretending she likes me. Hmm. Yeah. This could be a fucking full-on scam. Yeah. Where does this end? Yeah.

Where does this deception end? Oh, God. Tell me you think the three stooges suck. We could still get along. I don't. No one has to like. Curly doesn't suck. He doesn't suck.

No one has to like what I like. I never understood that. Yeah. Imagine dating someone. They have to like what I like. I never understood that. Yeah. Imagine dating someone. They have to like everything you like. Oh, God. No. My wife was getting up in the morning like, when are we bow hunting?

Mark Harmon called it special. Oh, no shit. Yeah, soup to nuts. Oh, that's right. He did. That's right. That's where I heard it recently. Mark Norman, the fucking man.

But we go back to the same question. Who finishes a meal with nuts? Yeah. Have you ever done that? Never. Anybody want some nuts? Never. No.

Nuts are something to eat for a snack. You start, maybe. Maybe you start, you have a drink before you sit down at dinner. Sure. And maybe there's some nuts. Yeah. Soup. There's a lot of...

Was that a thing they did back in the day? Nuts was dessert? I think that was it. Yeah. Maybe you had nuts in a cheese plate. I think you finished with cheese too. That's also odd. It is odd because you've got a full meal and then somebody brings you a big wheel of cheese

and you're supposed to put that down. Isn't that something also that you have on a charcuterie board? That's like the beginning of the meal, a little appetizer. Is it charcuterie or charcuterie? I don't know. I don't know. I never know what to say. This is the sort of thing that I may little appetizer. Is it charcuterie or charcuterie? I don't know. I don't know. I never know what to say. This is the sort of thing that, you know, I may have to dig into.

Soup to nuts. Just look at this. Yeah. So anyway, that's the spamouflage. That's a Dragon Bridge program that the Chinese were running or are running. Oh, they must still be running. They're still running. But are we running something like that, too?

We have to be. It would be kind of irresponsible if the government of the United States knew that all these other countries were involved in propaganda against us and we weren't doing the same. Yeah. No, I don't disagree. Probably the best example would be Voice of America, right? Back during the Cold War days. The whole point of that exercise was to change hearts and minds, convince people behind the wall that democracy was the bee's knees.

Can we look that up too, the bee's knees? So, what the fuck? What is happening? All the bells and whistles was coming up too, but I don't know where that came from. All the bells and whistles. That seems like just like, oh, everything's crazy.

Running up the flagpole stuff see who salutes all right we got we got a million of them but let's not um so um yeah i completely forgot what the fuck we're whether or not we're running some sort of a propaganda campaign as well and that we have to be yeah does that ever happen to you though where you just in a second you've forgotten what it is that you were just talking about. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I worry about that sometimes. I worry like, okay, I'm advanced age. Should I be paying attention to this? You can mitigate that with nootropics.

Do you ever take nootropics? No. What's that? Nootropics or – do we have any later on here? Nootropic – yeah, here. Alpha brain. This is my favorite. This is alpha brain black label.

This is the stuff that I take if ever I'm going to talk to a scientist. I take it for most podcasts. I didn't take it today. But I take it for most. I take it when I'm talking to a smart guy. I just did. I'm just being honest. I didn't take it today.

No, I appreciate that. But most of the times I take it. I wouldn't want you to pretend that I'm smart. No, I would take it for you. Then I got to wonder, do you actually like me or not? Listen, I came right out of the gym and walked right in here. That is true. So it's like I'm already energized, jazzed up.

We already did the sauna. So I'm fired up. How hot is that sauna? Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Is it true? Because my wife always says, look, don't do the sauna. I mean, because I've had some heart issues.

And so, but is that true? Sauna is bad for someone with a heart condition? I don't believe it is. I think you could probably overtax yourself in the sauna, just like you could overtax yourself with extreme cardiovascular working out. But what the sauna does do for sure is elevate your heart rate. But what it's essentially like, it's like doing static cardio. What I would say is someone who has a heart condition,

definitely speak to a physician, definitely talk to your doctor about it. What does it say here? Can individuals with a heart condition use a sauna, and is it dangerous? While the use of a sauna is considered safe for most individuals, exceptions for those with unstable heart disease. For individuals with any of the following conditions,

it may not be safe. Unstable angina pectoris. Do you have that? So let's see what the heart diseases are. I don't believe so. Yeah. But I think these are people that are like ready to die. Yeah.

Recent heart attack within two weeks. Now mine was a while ago. Uncontrolled hypertension. Decompensated heart failure. And severe aortic stenosis. Yeah. I don't think it's bad for you. This is what it does.

First of all, the benefits of it are vast. There was a study out of Finland that showed 20 years. They did this long-term study. People who use this sauna four times a week experienced a 40% decrease in all-cause mortality. Shit. 40% decrease in stroke, heart attacks, cancer, everything. And the reason for that is heat shock proteins. What happens when you're in the sauna, you can't stay in there, right? You can only stay in there for a short amount of time. So you do 20 minutes. And what

happens during that 20 minutes is your body's freaking out because it's 185 degrees in there and you're sweating and your heart pounding, and you develop static cardio. So your heart rate, many times when I do it, I go straight from working out. My heart rate's already elevated, and I climb right into 185 degrees. My heart rate stays elevated. Okay. And it gets as high as 150 beats per minute sometimes, especially if I'm doing like heavy-duty cardio and then I jump right into the sauna.

It's rough, but it extends your cardiovascular output and it creates heat shock proteins, and heat shock proteins reduce inflammation throughout the body. There's amazing benefits for the sauna. Does it dilute blood vessels? Does it constrict? I don't think so. Why would it constrict? I don't think so.

Why would it constrict? I don't know. I was just asking. Cardio doesn't constrict. So I don't think it would constrict. I'm just asking. You just have to make sure, A, you're hydrated. You have to take electrolytes, which I do.

I take a lot of electrolytes and I stay hydrated. And then you get in there and you're essentially, you know, you're treating your body in a way that your body, it's not sustainable, right? So your body knows like, oh my God, I'm going to fucking die if this guy stays in here. And so that process of your body compensating for that heat creates these heat shock proteins. And these heat shock proteins are amazing at reducing inflammation in your body. You feel great when you get out of there. You just feel loose and relaxed and there's an overall sense of wellness and well-being. It's just really good for you.

I always liked the sauna. It was never as aggressive as the protocol that you go through. Yeah, but you don't have to do that. You could do 160 for 15 minutes. Just any time you can get into the sauna and get those heat shock proteins, it's good for your body. And if you're worried about your heart, just don't do it so hot. Just do it 160 and do it for 15 minutes and build up. Build yourself up to it.

But it's great for your overall health. Yeah. I've been meaning to mention it to my cardiologist, but I'm too disorganized. What is the issue with your heart? I don't think I ever told you. I was on a plane, boarded a plane with my wife. We were going to Puerto Rico. So we went through Dallas, Fort Worth.

So we get on the plane to go from DFW to Puerto Rico, and we're taxiing. We've basically gotten to the runway and now they're turning out of the runway. They're getting ready to wind the engines up. And I'm just sitting there and I look at her and I said, you know, I don't feel that. And that's where I went out. And I had what they called a widow maker, right? Oh, you told me about this. Yeah. And so I just went down and I woke up at Baylor Heart Center, which thank God is only a few minutes away from DFW. But ever since then, I've been on whatever, blood pressure medicine, blood thinners. If we're out doing something outdoors and everything and I cut myself, pretty much it.

I just put a bullet in me because I'm bleeding. And so, but that's what the blood thinners do for you. What is the condition? What is it? You know what? It's heart disease. It's, I forget, they have a word for it. It sounds very depressing when they say it, congenital heart disease or something like that.

So, you know, so it's a genetic thing. Nothing I can do about it, congenital heart disease or something like that. So it's a genetic thing, nothing I can do about it really, right? So I could modify my diet, obviously, and kind of adjust it the way that I work out, but none of that's going to make much difference. If it's in your family, it's in your family in a sense, right? And it's the high rate of passing it on. So all my parents went from that. My brothers all have various issues and are carrying around hardware, right? I've got some stents and, you know, so it's nothing, you know, I don't sit around, I'm not deep enough to sit around and worry about it necessarily, except for things like this where I think, well, can I do that still? Is that still, but I'm not, you know, then again, I'm also, like I said, I'm not organized enough to say,

well, I should talk to my cardiologist. I think, ah, just do it or I just, yeah, I I'm not you know then again I'm also like I said I'm not organized enough to say well I should talk to my cardiologist I think I just do it or I just yeah I won't you know and but I need to be a little more curious if you if you're not a and it's a you know I hear this all the time if you're not an advocate for yourself in health care you're fucked yeah or if you don't have somebody to advocate for you right because the health care system in the U.S. is so complex and not geared towards preventing. It's geared towards treating sickness. It's geared towards giving you medication. Yes, it's geared towards giving you medication.

So if you're not curious enough and if you're not aggressive enough and proactive enough and taking care of yourself or having someone who's doing that for you, it's a tough ride. Back to nootropics. They're essentially the building blocks for human neurotransmitters. And what has been done through this, like this is how we created Onnit in the first place. Okay. When we created Onnit, we were trying to fit. I got really interested in nootropics from a product called Neuro One. And I was on this radio station in San Francisco.

Sarah and No Name. nootropics from a product called neuro one and i was on this radio station in san francisco uh sarah and no name um and they had uh one of the no name that was i forget what his real name is but he had this stuff called neuro one that uh bill romanowski created after his football career because he was having a bunch of problems from concussions and memory loss and all sorts of different things. So he started researching different nutrients that enhance memory. There's a bunch of different ones that are considered nootropics. There's some stuff that I use called NeuroGum, and this is some stuff, NeuroMince. I have no affiliation with these people other than I buy their stuff. I do have an affiliation with Onnit. So we created this. And when we created it,

it was a lot of people like, oh, this is snake oil. So we ran two double-blind placebo-controlled studies at the Boston Center for Memory. And it showed increase in verbal memory. It showed increase in reaction time, peak alpha flow state. It works. And with Onnit, we have 100% money back guarantee too. So if you try it, it doesn't work. You get your money back. What it does do is it enhances... I want to make sure they still have that. I'm saying that. The bottom line is what it does is it enhances your memory. Your mind works better when you take it. And again, it's not just Alpha Brain, which I do take. There's another product that I've taken called True Brain that works really well.

I really like that Neuro One stuff. You just mix it with water. The Neuro Gum is great because I'll chew a couple pieces of Neuro Gum before I do stand-up, before I do different things where I have to really think clearly. It works. Okay, yeah. Well, I'm sold.

I'll give it a try. There's real nutrients that have been clinically shown to enhance memory. And what we have done is created a synergistic compounded blend of these, and we sell it in that form. And this is the strongest form of it was Alpha Brain Black Label. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,

because there are times. Well, give me some. Yeah, there are some times when I'm just like, I don't know. It'll help you. Yeah, 30 seconds and I'm like,

what was I talking about? It'll help you. I guarantee it'll help you. There's a ton of my friends who swear by it. I've given it to them and they're like, holy shit, this stuff works.

You know, my friend Anthony who's the director of the UFC he takes it every time you know when you're producing the UFC there's all these fucking moving parts and camera get this guy over here move that you have to be on point and he said it's made a tremendous difference for him but it'll help your memory

yeah it does work and it's where do you get it online or yeah you can get it online I'll send it to you. I'll just give me the address. I'll have a bunch sent to you. Cool. I was going to mention Ukraine because we started talking about that and how quickly we turned off it. But you see Zelensky's asking for credit now because we won't give him any more money. Yeah. Yeah. Give me credit and I'll pay you back. Yeah. That's A, that's not a good road to go down.

But look, they're in a bind. I was going to mention that UK intelligence, they came out with a report looking at the total number of casualties on the Russian side so far, and they are basing it on, they've done a fairly exhaustive study, and they're basing it on,'ve done a fairly exhaustive study and they they're basing it on they think it's about 300 000 right 300 000 casualties not all dead i mean i think

there's 120 000 of those are dead but to put that in context right it's it's not even two years yet for uh for russia uh in terms of this war and so 120 000,000 dead, they lost in Afghanistan, which for them was 10 years, they lost about 15,000 or so, again, according to estimates, right? I mean, that's because neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians are, you know, being transparent for, you know, reasons that you can imagine in terms of morale, but they're not being transparent about their numbers. that you can imagine in terms of morale, but they're not being transparent about their numbers. On the Ukraine side, it's, again, decent U.S. estimates.

It could be about 70,000 or so casualties. So it's a lot more Russians than Ukrainians? A lot more, but they have a lot more personnel, right? I mean, you think about it. They're three to one, right, in terms of outnumbering the Ukrainians on the battlefield. That's pretty extraordinary, though. It is. It speaks to poor command and control. It speaks to poor battle management, right?

There's a lot of reasons. It also speaks to just a complete lack of concern over the lives of a lot of the soldiers they're throwing out there. Those numbers, by the way, they don't even involve the Wagner Group or private contractor groups. So who knows how many of those folks went. But the problem is, is that, yeah, you look at that and you go, that's awful, right? But it shows Putin's mindset. He doesn't care, right? He's willing to keep throwing people into this grinder and say, yeah, fine. So it does look like, and the winter months are approaching, which slows everything down. It does look like this thing is going to go on for a while. And I mean, unless they can come up with some settlement, but right now the Russian military

is pushing offensively, right? They're trying to actually regain and gain some ground, right? Before the winter months really set in the counter offensive ukraine's put together has has been you know somewhat disappointing to put it mildly um and then during the winter and what's going to happen the russians are going to um they're going to spend their time attacking uh ukraine energy targets to try to freeze them out during the winter which they tried last year and had some success with. They're also going to dig in. They're going to harden their lines where they're at.

You got the Ukrainians. Things slow down. They're probably going to end up focused most of the time on supply chain. If they can cut the supply chain or the supply line, sorry, for the Russian military, that's a big win, right? And that's why they've been so keen to get more advanced artillery systems in there because they want to be able to hit those facilities. They want to be able to hit the lines. They want to be able to hit command and control because I think they realize, you know, they're getting into one of their generals actually said this. And then Zelensky had to come out and clean up and say, no, we're not in a stalemate.

But one of the generals said, we're kind of approaching a stalemate here. But to your point, yeah, all those people are out there waving flags saying we stand with Ukraine. Nobody gives a fuck right now. It's over. It's over. I mean, so and, you know, Republicans are. I always thought the Republicans wanted to defeat communism and defeat, you know, somebody like Putin. But, you know, they're the ones breaking ranks right now saying, oh, we don't want to spend it.

Now, you know, their point is we want to see transparency. You know, we want to know where that money's going. And that's a good thing. Some of them are just kind of reading political tea leaves and saying, you know, I think the general public's getting tired of this. Some of them are legitimately saying we're spending way too much money on Ukraine. Why aren't we spending it here? And what kind of accounting do we have on the money that goes over to Ukraine? Well, and here's where it's complicated in the sense that we spend a lot of time berating Ukraine for being very corrupt.

And it has been. It's been very corrupt. And so that's part of the problem is we knew going into this that they had a real corruption issue. Then we give them 80 plus billion dollars and we don't necessarily have the best accounting.

Going back to we're giving 10 billion dollars to Iran, but by God, we're going to know exactly where every penny's spent. Didn't they catch one guy in Ukraine that embezzled a billion dollars and they just fired him? That's it? They didn't arrest him? They didn't? They've got some, actually, they've got some of their military personnel now who are responsible for procurement. They've got them in jail and coming up on charges and you know they'll probably be convicted um

now they have to say they've stamped out the problem is ridiculous because alinsky knows that he's got to be seen as being very aggressive towards corruption because that's going to keep the money flowing right and and he desperately needs that if he doesn't have u.s assistance and u.s aid this thing goes from being a potential stalemate to it swings the other way in Russia's favor and not in a really lengthy period of time. So he knows he's got to be seen as doing everything possible to stamp out corruption and also having the optic of stamping out corruption, right? Regardless of how successful he may be, but it's a real problem for him. And look, the EU is sticking closer to them. I mean, we're getting these cracks in support here in the US. The European Union is,

they're still all in because they're right there, right? And so they understand that you can't let Putin win this. So they're tightening sanctions. Look, the biggest problem we've got is we haven't gone after the energy sector for Russia, just like we really haven't for the Iranians, right? The EU implemented what they call an oil price cap. So they said, okay, we'll only allow Russian oil to be sold on the market at $60 a barrel. That's the cap. Now, the Russians figured out pretty quickly,

because that's what they're good at, how to bust that sanction, right? So they created their own tanker fleet, and they started getting around. And, you know, initially when that oil cap was put in place by the EU, their revenues really dipped. And when oil revenues dip in Russia, Putin can't fuck around, right? He can't do what he's doing. He can't support it. And we haven't been serious about maintaining that. We haven't because, you know, in part, it's energy. Europe needs some of that energy. So they got to keep it flowing. But, you know, they figured out a way to beat

those sanctions. And so, you know, they've doubled the amount of money that they made in October compared to September. So they're, you know, they're generating enough to keep the war effort going is what I'm saying in a not particularly eloquent way. So, yeah, I don't know where- And then there's the Nord Stream Pipeline, right? So Seymour Hearst reported that the U.S. pipeline, right? So Seymour Hearst reported that the U.S. destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline, but now it's being talked that Zelensky and the Ukrainians destroyed it. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like, what's his name? Zivinsky. I forget what his name is. But it does look like, based on the latest reporting, that it was a special operations effort by Ukrainian military. And the reporting is that it was a small team operation, that Zelensky was kept in the dark, in part because they wanted to give him plausible deniability.

You know, they wanted to give him plausible deniability. It's not necessarily good luck if they don't, you know, go to the leader and say, this is what we're thinking about doing. Do you authorize it? Zelensky probably would have said no. So there's an element of that. They probably thought, well, we think it's a good idea, so we're going to do it. Let's keep him in the dark. And then he can say he didn't know anything about it.

But it does look like it was a small team operation. They sailed a boat, maybe two boats out there, you know, dove down, blew up the pipeline. And then it's been, but it's been confusing ever since, right? How did Seymour Hersh get it wrong? I don't know. I don't know what his sources were. So I don't want to say anything. He's a very, you know, he's a focused and energetic investigative guy. He certainly got a lot of experience. So I don't know what his sources were. But there was, you know, it was Russia was being blamed. People were saying Russia did it, which, you know, was not out of the realm of possible. People were saying it's the U.S. People were saying it's Britain. People were saying it's Ukraine. You know, everybody was blaming everybody else. And it's still not completely clear, but it does look like it was something that the Ukrainians did. And, you know, at the end of the day, that would make sense, I think. But it still needs a little more clarity. But I think that seems to be where it's going in, it's, it's, it's remarkable because what February will be two years.

And we were in Afghanistan for what, 20 years before people just said, fuck it, we're done. Right. We can't do it anymore. This has been two years, not even two years. And you've got some people in the States going, fuck it. You know, we're kind of done you know do we really need to worry about this and you know yeah it'd be great to figure out a way to be more efficient with our spending of our money and more transparent with it but you know i don't think people should underestimate putin's ability to keep putting people in the front line and just riding this out because his calculation much like it was was with Hamas and Haas, knew what was going to happen with their narrative. I think Putin looks at the West and says, you'll get tired of this. I'll just outlast you because I don't care.

And he's dedicated to, you know, rebuilding in some fashion the old Soviet Union. Aren't they taking prisoners out and giving them? Like there's what was the report that they were taking people that had these long-term prison Sentences and they were giving them the option to fight in the war Well, I would release them. That's yeah, that's exactly right. Um, and that's where You've got any progression who? Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's where Evgeny Prokhorin, who ran the Wagner Group, or was the owner, essentially, of the Wagner Group. And then he died in that completely mysterious plane accident. After he tried to stage a coup.

Yeah. I don't know what happened. I'm going to look into that. Because I'll bet there's a conspiracy there. But I'll bet we could get to the bottom of it. It says it's unverified, but they are reporting it. Ukrainian POWs being sent to fight their own army. Russian news claims.

Oh, wow. So they're taking Ukrainian POWs. Unverified footage from state media shows captured soldiers swearing allegiance to Russia as a part of a new battalion. Wow. Well, that makes sense. Well, now, it depends on where those folks were taking POW. And it depends. Because if they were in eastern Ukraine, remember, then—

The Bombas region? Yeah. The Russians have been there for, you know, what, going on 10 years. And the Russian argument is always, well well these people are more russian than they are ukrainian they're actually should be with the motherland so you know you may be talking about folks who got picked up and we're like fuck it i just got conscripted into this i didn't you know not me i'm russian all right i consider myself to be russian so it it may there may be something more to this um but yeah on the other side side, the Russians, the Wagner Group built itself up by pulling recruits out of prisons and throwing them in the front lines.

in a way the Russian military has always done. They've just outlasted. You look at World War II. I mean, what they put up with there and the losses that they had. It's insane. It's insane. And I think the German calculation was always, well, we'll get to a certain number

and they'll give in. And they never did, right? Because they can put up with a lot of suffering. So I think that that's what Putin's counting on here. And again, he looks at the West and goes, yeah, you guys aren't going to last this one out. And, you know, again, if he's right, and USAID dries up for Ukraine, you know, that's fine if that's what people want, but they better understand what that means. And it means Putin's going to win, right? And so, you know,

just understand what your actions could lead to. When Trump comes along and says, I could wrap all this up in 24 hours, how is that even possible? What is he saying? Yeah, that's a good one. I know. I'm the only guy. What does he say? He says, I'm the only one who can solve this.

I'm the only one who can sort these things out. Like, you know, he's, you know, Trump's being Trump. But he's, you know, he doesn't believe that. You know, I think he's not an idiot. He says these things and he knows he's saying it and he's going to get a soundbite. And for Trump, you know, all media is good media. So, but no, there's no way to solve this one easily. Look at this.

I mean, we've got two fucking major conflicts going on in two different parts of the world that are enormously complex. And you look and go, okay, what is this? How are we wrapping this one up? How are we going to end this? It's a very, you know, I'm not saying anything that's particularly clever, but it's an enormously difficult time right now. And people talk about, well, World War III, you know, and that was always the beef on Trump was he's going to lead us into World War III. Well, I mean, I don't know. Can he do any worse than where we're at right now? You, I think, maybe so, but it's

just... I don't think we're at the World War III point. We would be. The potential for a bad thing to happen if Iran had the nuke, that increases exponential, because then in that

situation, you don't know. And maybe it does happen. Iran attacks Israel. Yeah, Iran attacks Israel. I don't think it's going to happen in part because I don't think Israel is going to allow that to happen. Getting good intelligence on the state of the weapons program in Iran is a very heavy lift. But I think Israel, you know, has certainly better intelligence than they had on the potential Hamas attack that was building. So I think if they if they get that sense, I think they will act because they're probably thinking, well, same calculation.

We can't we're certainly not going to be able to find stability once they get that. Right. Because that's just going to loom over the region. And then the Saudis will say, okay, we want one too, right? Maybe more than one. You usually have more than one in your closet. And then all hell breaks loose. So, you know, people always worry about, well, why are we talking about the Iranians and getting the nuke? Well, look at the fucking regime, right? And look at what they're willing to do and look at the trouble that they instigate and the problems that they create, the instability that they generate. And you think, really? You think it's going to get better if they get what they want with a weapons program? So I think the Israelis, the IDF would make every effort to degrade that

capability if they thought that the breakout was too soon. And who knows? Maybe the U.S. military, depending on the administration, maybe they would step in and provide that support. I don't know. So the previous administration had harsher sanctions, and what else did they do that was mitigating a lot of the problems we're seeing right now? Well, they did. You remember they killed Soleimani, right, from the IRGC.

That sends a message, right? Soleimani had a lot of blood on his hands. Look, you have to remember, the Iranian regime is also responsible for the death and injury of a lot of U.S. service personnel, right? Because they were actively involved in working to get IEDs into Iraq, and they were training and providing support. And I mean, so they were killing U.S. you know, again, we keep trying to imagine that somehow we can disconnect around. OK, we're not talking about the Iranian regime. We're talking about their proxies and everything. But again, it all kind of kind of flows back to them. with them you know don't get me wrong but i do think there are things we can be doing that can then they can um perhaps uh minimize their desire to pursue this path or at least make it more difficult for them to you're not gonna you're not gonna get rid of that desire but yeah so

killing sulamai was uh was a good example of what they understand right they look at that and go okay they fired a couple of missiles and and they gave us a heads up before they did it, right? Because they were like, fuck, you know, if they're willing to do this, now we have to respond because we have to show our proxies and we have to show our regional neighbors that we're serious, right? You know, we're not going to get pushed around. But they gave us a heads up and said we were going to fire a couple of missiles. So that shows you, that's deterrence, right?

And that tamped them down. Occasionally you get a Houthi missile flying over from Yemen. So I think that's, again, you have to do something that's deterrence. And blowing up a weapons depot in response to a couple dozen missile and drone strikes, and then they keep doing that. And then the last one, I think, was Sunday. This past Sunday, we hit a training site and a safe house, I think, used by IRGC and also by some militants that they have in the area um and then immediately after that that was the third response immediately after that we get more missile and drone strikes so

you know again uh you know repeating the same thing over and over again expecting what is that saying expecting a different result it's a definition of uh insanity um so the previous administration you know they had a lot of, you know, flaws and problems. But I think in dealing with Iran, I think they were demonstrably tougher. And I think also in dealing with China, I think they were demonstrably tougher. We'll see what happens out of this meeting today with Biden and Xi. Not particularly optimistic. What's your take on this whole Trump trial? Because one of the wildest aspects of it is that every time they go after him, he rises in the

polls. And, you know, he was at the UFC this weekend in Madison Square Garden, and he's showed up at the UFC before. And the response back then was a lot of cheers there were some boos this is a couple years ago now when he walked out of madison square garden it was fucking bananas really it was the whole place was cheering he walks out to kid rock's american badassass with Kid Rock and Tucker Carlson walking in like the right wing Avengers. And the place went nuts. He's on the screen. And I'm telling you, 99% other than Bill Burr's wife, 99% of the people. Well, Bill Burr's wife.

Yeah, that was that. That's a Bud Light moment right there. Yeah. I mean, can you hear it? I don't know. Give me some volume. Why isn't it? I'm not sure.

See if you can get some volume, because I'm telling you, the fucking cheers of the crowd were nuts. I mean, it was overwhelmingly in support of him, and it lasted a long time. I mean, it was a roll. That's crazy. We got two title fights coming up at UFC 295 here in a matter of moments. Live from Madison Square Garden. I mean, you had to hear what the crowd sounded like before he walked in, and then when he did.

I mean, it was just overwhelming cheers that's for like over a minute I mean just imagine a minute of people screaming at the top of their lungs yeah well obviously you look at you look at the trial and you have to assume you can kind of tell but oh this is the Ferreira fight. Okay. And obviously, this is a cage-fighting crowd. Yeah.

This is not like a fucking unbiased sample of the general public. Yeah, the Nework elite buying tickets to the cage fight it's certainly not the liberals but yeah if you look at the trial um look the democrats look at that and they think the same thing which is what the fuck right i think how you know how do we beat that right and so, you know, maybe you beat it by just, you just keep throwing shit at the wall until something sticks, right? And, but to your point,

every time they do that, his poll numbers go up. And, you know, and Biden's doing his own thing over there where his poll numbers are going down because of, you know, his own actions and the current administration's behavior. But it's not just that. It's not just that. People realize he's really rapidly deteriorating.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was a video the other day that was showing before the 2020 election, Biden was talking and is a marked difference between his ability to communicate then versus now. Yeah. I mean, it takes years off of anybody, right? Yes. You look at any of these presidents recently. Except Trump.

He did seem energized by it. Like water off a duck's back. He just fucking went right through it. Despite all the crap, right? Despite three years of the Russian collusion, you know, witch hunt and story and all that that went on. And, yeah, it is fascinating. There's people that still believe in the Russian collusion narrative. Yes, I know some of them. Which is narrative. Yes, I know some of them.

Which is wild. Yeah, I know some of them. I've had conversations with people. What about this whole Russia thing? Yeah. Like, what Russia thing? Tell me what happened. Tell me what the reality of it was.

How much of it do you know how much of it was bullshit? How much of it was just Hillary Clinton propaganda? Well, and then we have, on the other side of this, so you have that. You have these guys, Jamie Raskin, Adam Schiff, all these guys that spent every day in front of the cameras talking about the evidence they've got. And this is to save America. And this is the angst over trying to destroy our democracy. And it's all about compromise, you know, being compromised and disinformation. And then I go back to that story I mentioned earlier about Iran and the Iran initiative, which there's a lot there. government policy and through the use of government staffers who were sympathetic to the Iranian regime and also academics to push that narrative into school, you would think, you'd like to think that Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff and all the others who were so concerned about being compromised and all that, you would think that they would be out there spouting this saying, we have to get to the bottom of this. But we still don't really know the story behind the US special envoy to Iran being suspended and having a security clearance.

They don't pull security clearances for no reason. So we don't nobody's asking about that on the Democrats. You know, they're barely asking about to be fair on the Republican side because they're focused elsewhere. But I think they're starting to. I think they're going to call in Malley and I think they're going to call in the Pentagon individual, Tabata Bai, to come in and I think they'll subpoena them and say, okay, what the fuck's going on? How could you not be concerned, right, with everything else that's happening with Iran, that you now know that they've been running this disinformation campaign through cooperative contacts, and the White House has been putting people into places that were amenable to

talking to Iranian regime members, telling them what sort of the agenda could be for a meeting, getting talking points to talk through, you know, all in the desire to have a normal relationship with a regime that sponsors organizations like Hamas. Again, it goes back to other things that they do. It's a confusing thing, but I don't expect any curiosity coming from Schiff and the others on a subject like that, which means maybe the Russia collusion story was all about politics. I believe it probably was. I think it might've been. But what happens with Trump now? Is there any weight to these allegations? One of the things that's so bananas is the overvaluing of Mar-a-Lago, I think it might have been. But what happens with Trump now? Is there any weight to these allegations?

One of the things that's so bananas is the overvaluing of Mar-a-Lago. Yeah. Because they tried to say it's worth $18 million, which is so fucking crazy. It's an enormous piece of land. Yeah. It's some of the richest real estate in all of America. And even if there wasn't a Mar-a-Lago there, like this insane, beautiful resort, even if that wasn't there, just the real estate's probably worth $50 million.

Absolutely. Just the land. Yeah, the land itself. At least. I think all the liberals that may be living in the area down there were probably like, oh God, this is going to completely devalue our property.

So they were probably pissed off as well. But nobody in their right mind actually believes oh, God, this is going to completely devalue our property. So they were probably pissed off as well. But nobody in their right mind actually believes that that's a legitimate assessment of that property. How can you get away with doing that and trying to enforce that in a court of law? Well, I think they'll lose. They'll probably win the day in terms of this trial. They're going to pound this thing until, and then certainly it appears as if the judge is all in, right? I mean, he doesn't seem like he's inclined to throw anything out. So I think, but it's not going to win on appeal, right? And so, you know, but what they're looking for, what they're hoping for is, again, they see that.

They see the video at the fights and they think, good God, we got to keep him tied up. We got to keep him wrapped up in these trials throughout the whole campaign period. And I think that's their goal, you know, whether they can make anything stick. But I think it has the opposite effect. goal you know whether they can make anything has the opposite effect the problem is it galvanizes his base and it also makes cynical objective people that are on the outside realize what's going on this is banana republic shit well but i think it also at the same time it they're hoping it reminds suburban moms and the people that he didn't get the second time around because they were tired from the sort of the chaos and all the tweeting and everything. I think it reminds, they're hoping

it reminds them of the chaos and all the tweeting and everything. And so they're hoping to keep those people off the field, you know, when it comes time to vote. And, but I think you're right. Of course, it definitely galvanizes his base. And I think it will, you know, people who sit and think about this and ponder and say objectively, you know, maybe they don't have a dog in the hunt. But then, you know, so how many of those people do you peel back over to the Republican side? You know, who knows? I think a lot. I really do. Well, I don't.

I think there's a lot of closet Republicans out there now. There are. A lot of people that have switched over. I get tapped on the shoulder all the time in Los Angeles in particular if I'm there. People just kind of go like this. Yeah. Like this. But they don't want to talk about it.

They don't want to say anything. Like what you're doing for America. Yeah. Good job. Good job. Keep it up. And so you're right. America. Yeah. Good job. Good job. Keep it up. And so you're right. Maybe that changes. Maybe they come out and vote because like you said, at the end of the day, who's going to

vote for Joe Biden again, right? Based on what they're seeing. But do you think that they're going to run him? Because Vivek, during the Republican debates, he came out and said that there's no way they're going to run him. And they need to just step up and tell us who they're going to run, whether it's Gavin Newsom, Michelle Obama. Who is it? Who are you running? Because you know you're not running Biden. Yeah, I don't think they will. I think they'll be a hard stop at some point. Well, we're a year away now. I know. But their problem is they got to clear the decks of Kamala Harris, right?

Right. Because they know that if their concern is that Biden can't win because he's just – God, look, everybody gets older, right? Not just older, but the corruption that's been exposed. Well, yeah, it's the whole package. But if you just look at the age and say, okay, look, if they look at that and go, okay, we can't run him, because I don't think they'll factor, you know, the Biden family activities into that calculation. They'll just go, okay, we can't win because people view him as too old. They're certainly

not going to then pivot and say, okay, we, you know, up goes Kamala Harris. She's top of the ticket. So they got to figure out a way to delicately or elegantly clear the decks. And then I think, I mean, God, because he's so desperate for it, but also because, you know, who else is running right now is Gavin Newsom. And the DNC, the White House, would have approved his meeting. He met with Xi, you know with Xi during his trip to China. That sort of thing has to be cleared. He's not going to do that and then surprise the White House, oh, by the way, I was there and I got a chance to stop by and have coffee with Xi.

So there's a planning that goes into that. And so that tells me that's an indication that, yeah, they're looking to set the table, get them some international experience and exposure, right? That's always important. You know, are you presidential? What do you have foreign policy experience? Well, you know, I sat toe to toe with Xi and, you know, bullshit, but it's Gavin Newsom. He's fucked up California. Hey, you know, fuck up America. Did you see what he said about this whole cleaning up San Francisco thing? That when visitors come over, you know, fuck up America. Did you see what he said about this whole cleaning up San Francisco thing? That when visitors come over, you

clean your house? Yeah. Like, what do you just let everybody else shit in your house all over the carpet when visitors aren't coming over? Like, what are you talking about? That's the dumbest excuse for it ever. And just the anger that people must have, particularly people that own stores there that had to close down.

Yeah. When you're going, you mean you could have cleaned this up the entire time that quickly? Commercial allowed. And you're only doing it because of dictators in town? Commercial estimates are that over 30% of space down there in downtown San Francisco is vacant now. It's an unsustainable situation. But yeah, I saw him talk about that. And I thought, I agree with you.

If you're, I know some folks that live in San Francisco, and they are legitimately pissed off, right? And they're very progressive. But eventually, I guess it's like, I don't know. And it's probably not a good analogy. But a friend of mine who was an alcoholic, well-recovered now, is a terrific guy. But he said, I didn't even think about recovery until I hit the absolute bottom. And he said, I didn't even know where the bottom was. And then I found it, and it was fairly self-evident.

And I think maybe progressives are the same way in some of these cities. Until it really hits the shits, then I think they're willing to let it go, right? And then it gets to the point where they think even for them, it's not good. I was looking at an article from earlier this month on Newsweek that may explain why there's a difference in value for Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, but it's Newsweek. It just explains what happened. So he changed it in 2002 from a private property to a club. And in order to do that, that's what changed the value. So as a private property, as a house that someone would live in, it could be worth over $100 million, but it's not.

It's a club. And in order to make it a club, they have to make a bunch of agreements. I found another article from 2017 that explains some of the agreements he agreed to make um and that alone like right when this happened and from 1996 it changed the value six million dollars just from signing this piece of paper yeah it's still the property it's still the property and still and you know you're always good yeah nuts yeah you're is nuts. That's the explanation. Somebody would roll in there and say, I don't want Mar-a-Lago. I'm going to raise that fucker,

but I want that land. And I'll pay you, like you said, 50 million. Yeah. That's part of signing up made it a historical property. He bought it in 1998. He agreed to keep it in the status it was, including carvings, columns, doors, windows, light fixtures, floors, ceilings, and 25 different rooms.

That's interesting. I would imagine that probably would devalue it because you can't do anything with it because it's an historical property. Right. However, still, just the property itself, if I could buy it for $18 million, I'd buy it. If I found out it was for sale? You know what? I'll chip in with you. Yeah.

And I'll live in the carriage house. Are you crazy? Yeah. I'll start it as a podcast studio. You know, we could do the President's Daily Brief from there. Yeah, we'll have a bunch of podcasts out of Mar-a-Lago. Broadened $69 million just between 2017 and 2019. Okay.

So in two years, it made $69 million, and they're saying it's worth 18. That seems low. I mean, it's not what Trump's folks are saying it's worth, but it's definitely not what the court or the prosecutors are saying it's worth. What are Trump saying it's worth? Over a billion, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, hey, a billion dollars here or there.

Hamas political leadership could buy it. They got the cash. Or China. Imagine if China buys Mar-a-Lago. If Biden wins again, China buys Mar-a-Lago because Trump goes to jail and it has to go for sale. Oh, my God. Is there a chance he can go to jail? God, never say never

with this situation, but I don't know. That's way above my pay grade. I just think, I don't think they even care whether he goes to jail. They want the noise to extend as far into the campaign season

as possible. That's my take on it. There's also, he has said that he has unequivocal proof of election fraud. But where is it? I think if he was, again, what do I know? But if I was a political strategist, I'd probably tell him back off of that.

Focus on the shit that's happening around the world and the economy. And how does he get back those people who didn't vote for him he gets him back by seeming normal right so back off all the other shit and just start because you know the the biden administration is giving the republicans all sorts of things to talk about to campaign on and you know the one thing they know they can i think this is them thinking it i don't know i'm not saying he you know they can win but the one thing they know they can, I think this is them thinking it. I don't know. I'm not saying they can win. But the one thing they think they can do is beat Trump. Right. Because he just he does it to himself. Right. And they can keep pointing to all these problems and they and they know what energizes the base, just like Trump's base is energized. I think if Trump just swept all that to the side, just he's not going to he's not going to change his stripes. But if he could do that and just talk about all the shit that's happening and and and how you improve the border and how you improve the economy and do the things that people actually care about. Yeah, maybe that's maybe that's a pathway to get those people back and then the numbers work. But then again, if you look at the numbers, it looks like he's on the poll results for the potential match of a Trump and Biden.

It looks like he's flipped Pennsylvania, right? And I forget, three other states that didn't vote for him the last time. But now poll numbers are showing that they would turn around and vote for Trump this next go around. So maybe they've got the pathway they need. I don't know. Do you put any weight at all into his claims of election fraud do i think there's some election fraud sure and i think we'll get more of it uh the further away we get from in-person voting show up at a fucking voting poll or a poll center show your id whether it's your fucking driver's license or your immigration card or whatever you

got right that's not tough. Everybody can get a fucking Costco membership and just vote. We used to be able to count all the votes, right? And in the course of the evening, you go, okay, they won. But the problem during the pandemic was the mail-in votes. The mail-in votes. They got everybody scared. You don't want to go there. And the campaigns or the Democrats want to keep that.

They're saying, well, it's really good because it promotes it. And yes, you want people, you want to make it as easy as possible for everybody to get out and vote, but it's get out and vote. In public. Get out there and not bother to have your signature checked, whatever it is. But I think we're going to stick with the protocols that were put in place because of the pandemic. And do I think there's room for voter fraud there? Sure. I'm not saying it's not the same thing as saying, you know, was the election stolen? It's just saying you've created a system that allows it to be easier to commit fraud if you want to. And do you think that's the intention of the system? It could be. It could be. It could be. And never say never. And I think that

there are a lot of people that legitimately say, look, you have to make it as easy as possible for people to vote to participate. Yeah, I agree with that. So open up more voting centers, right? Use more of the schools. And then there's the most cynical take is that the reason why they're letting all these people in through the border and the reason why they're pushing for no voter IDs is because they want these people to vote. Yeah.

Because they let them in. And they know the people that let them in and they'll they'll yeah i mean loyal to those people yeah although the people that are busting up to new york they're pissed off now at the at the administration because their hotels aren't nice enough um so who knows maybe they'll switch their flip their vote um they got more concerned when they come said the folks coming across the border i'm more concerned that it's a bunch of folks coming across the border and we don't know who they are. Right. And that is a real concern.

And it's a real concern. And particularly in an environment like today where you've got a lot of chaos in the Middle East and, you know, that raises the stakes. That creates more of an alert level for law enforcement and intel community. It's not tough to have a controlled border and a fair immigration system you just have to have uh folks in washington that aren't fucking dysfunctional right and are willing to work together and make it happen we could have a secure border and we could have a fair immigration system but yeah for whatever reason we seem incapable of doing that every other country out there protects their borders.

You know. Yeah. That one continues to be a puzzle. But I will say, if you've got a million and a half, which is a conservative estimate, a million and a half gotaways over the past couple of years. Which is wild. Which is wild. Then we have no idea. We've got thousands of known encounters of special interest aliens, right?

Thousands of known encounters. And special interest aliens simply means they're from a country that promotes, supports, or is otherwise troubled with terrorism. And so you think about that. Think about, okay, those are the known encounters. Then you've got a million and a half or so gotaways, and we don't know who they are because they're fucking gotaways, right? So how many of those are special interest aliens? How many of those are people who are intending to come here to cause trouble? We don't know. Could be a small number, could be a big number. But because we're

seeming capable of taking this seriously, you know, we've got a real security issue. It's a self-inflicted wound. It makes the job of law enforcement and the intel community much more difficult, right? And anyway, but I, you know, again, that's barking up a tree there. They're looking to impeach Mayorkas. I don't think they will, but that you know, again, that's barking up a tree there. They're looking to impeach Mayorkas. I don't think they will. But that wouldn't solve anything because he's just the messenger. He's just delivering the policy that the White House wants, right? Impeaching Mayorkas, okay, again, it makes people feel good.

Oh, look what I did. But it doesn't solve a problem. The border policy seems so fucking insane. It just doesn't – I don't understand how anyone would ever support that. It's just the possibility that someone could get through that's a terrorist is so high.

And when you fly in, there's all these checks. If you fly in, like, what is it about an airplane that if you fly in on an airplane, they have to check you, but if you just walk across, they're like, oh, you're good. Here's $1,200 and a cell phone. Yeah.

Well, never underestimate the power of folks wanting to feel self-righteous. Yeah. And so the idea that they may look and go, we welcome everyone. It's like I can't swing a dead cat in my neighborhood without walking that's an interesting saying yeah so we should look up the origin of swinging a dead cat yeah why are you swinging dead cats yeah i know it's uh so i thought he was going there uh god i gotta take some of this because i just fucking blanked out again what the hell um well it's a lot to juggle yeah it's a lot to it's a lot to juggle uh the border talking about it people coming across

the potential for terrorism potential for terrorism i mean if you've got a million and a half getaways just think of just small terrorist cells yeah yeah that what the kind of damage they could do if they're well-funded. They don't, you know, and that's a good point. You don't need, it's not an army that's coming across, although it's an army that's coming across, but it's, you don't need that, right? You need a handful of people who are motivated, who have a support structure here in the U.S. that we don't have on our radar screen, and who are getting funding, whether it's from, you know, five different cutout businesses that are ultimately go back to the Iranian regime or Hamas or Hezbollah, whatever it is. That's what you have to worry

about, right? Because that's what, you know, that's how these things get kicked off. And one of the easiest things you can do, it's not easy, but one of the things they should be doing is securing the border. And again, you can do that and have a fair immigration system. I keep combining those two things because one doesn't defeat the other. So, and the White House should always want to do that because it's a national security issue. And their primary objective, their number one job is to keep the citizens of the country safe. Again, it goes back to other things. It's like, who in the White House sat around the other day and said, you know what we should do? You know

what would look good? If we gave the Iranians $10 billion, I'll bet that would get those poll numbers up, right? Who makes these decisions? So I agree with you. It makes no sense. Who are the people that think open borders are a good idea other than people who think everybody's welcome? I know what I was going to say. I couldn't swing a dead cat around the neighborhood without hitting one of those signs that says all are welcome here. And then it lists all the people who are welcome there. And it's in their front yard. And I guarantee you they wouldn't be welcome there.

Pull that bus up that's been dropping people off in Eric Adams City. That's in your neighborhood? Yeah. Boise is a great town, but it's also, you know, it's a Democratic city council. It's a blue spot in a red state, right? How does that happen? Is there a university there? There is a university there, but it's not, yeah, it's a good question. I don't know. Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know how it happens, It's a good question. I don't know how it happens. But in part, it happens because liberals, progressives, I think are better at the concept of, you know, we want to control things. Let's control it at the base, right? Let's control it at the bottom. Let's get the city council. Let's get the PTA. Let's do those things. And, you know, the next thing you know, then, you know, conservative folks, Republicans are like, what the fuck happened?

But, I mean, I get it. You know, they do their best. And Boise is a great town. The state is fantastic. And I'm supposed to shut up about that. I'm not supposed to talk about that. I, what did I do? I mentioned this.

I go visit a great bar. It's a bar and restaurant in Boise called the Stagecoach. And I think it's the greatest place. And it's been there forever. And people are fantastic. Bartenders are great. You always know what you're going to get. It's a very, very old school.

The waitresses used to wear these cowgirl outfits. They got rid of that. But with the fringe skirts, you know. It was just a great place. And I mentioned it at some point when I was there. And people were like you know no stop stop talking about it stop talking about Boise how great it is stop talking about this because you know too many people and we're getting a ton

of people moving up there I bet getting it's it's it's how people are fleeing California yes exactly and then they're bringing their fucking goofy ass politics to Boise yeah cuz they don't they don't draw a line right they say wow this place has really gone to shit. I gotta move. That's nice. That's a nice place, whether it's Boise or Montana or wherever. And they don't draw a connection between that and how they voted in the previous

location. Right. So, yeah. I mean, maybe one day it gets to be like that. But then we'll just move up to the mountains. Oh, Christ. What? Oh, no! No! Everybody just keeps moving away and hiding. And the problem just keeps getting bigger. Yeah. No, no, no. Everybody just keeps moving away and hiding, and the problem just keeps getting bigger. Yeah.

No, you're right. There is that element. You're right. You keep moving. Well, people are worried about that with Texas because so many, you know, there's all this turn Texas blue, which good luck with that. Yeah.

You don't think that's going to happen? Nay. Yeah. Nay. Especially when it's guys like Beto O'Rourke. Oh, God. That's your fucking choice, that dork? Well, and I will say it is good in the sense that it doesn't seem like anybody's talking about Beto anymore or Pete Buttigieg.

Some of these cats that were running previously. Yeah. And you thought, who are these people and why would you possibly think this? I mean, they were running Vanity Fair articles about Beto O'Rourke and he's the man. Such a fucking tool. Right. 330 million people and that's your guy? So yeah, maybe they don't have success with Texas, but I do think it is a problem that, I mean, you've seen it here in Austin, right? Over the years. And so I think we're going to get that same issue with Boise eventually.

But, yeah, people just move and they think, ah, I'll just keep voting the way I voted. And then they're actually shocked when things start to go to shit again. And then they move. They're like a swarm of locusts. I just compared the progressives to a swarm of locusts. That's probably not good. I want to hear about that. They're certainly infected with a mind virus.

It doesn't allow them to look at reality. And just they're so loyal to their party. And when you're connected to an ideology, you subscribe to everything in that ideology. And you think you're on the good side. And there's social pressure from the people that are around you in your neighborhood. And they all want to think that they're doing the right thing so that you're on their side, and we're all in this together, and Trump's Hitler. Yeah. No, I think that's where it's – and that's the problem we've got.

How do you correct that? How do you right the ship? How do you get – and we talked about that before. I don't think there's a way to do it because, you know, people have retreated to the trenches, right? And it's like the Ukraine-Russia conflict, right? I mean, they're on both sides. Nobody's moving, right? The lines, it's like World War I. Nobody's moving the line. And so here we got the same problem. Everybody's sitting in their trenches on the right and the left and throwing fucking hand grenades at each other. And you think, how do we get back to something that's normal? And you got this primary system that encourages, right, this divisiveness, the primary

system encourages the hardened edges to get out and vote during the primaries. So then what do you do? You end up with a candidate who appeals to them, and they're going to try to soften it up a little bit for the general election. But, you know, it's a selective process that I don't think does our country any good. So for what that's worth, wow. I disappeared down that rabbit hole, didn't I? Mike, you never disappoint, but you always freak me out. You know. But I have to bring you in when I don't know what the fuck is going on

because you have a rare ability to sort of distribute this information and make it accessible to people. Well, I think, yeah. There's a – no, fuck it. No, I was about to say there's a positive side here or there's a – to look on the bright side. I'm going to have to work on that. I'm not sure what that is right now. Yeah, that's the real concerning aspect of all this. I don't know what the positive side is.

And I keep going to, I don't know how this ends well. That's what scares the shit out of me. Both American politics and global conflict, it's like all of it seems like it's moving towards a very bad direction that keeps accelerating. Well, I think, yeah, the problem is if we can, you know, there's got to be a very short timeline on the IDF, on the Israelis degrading Hamas, right? I mean, look, they have, by some accounts, Hamas was made up of about 30,000

fighters, 30,000. Numbers aren't clear in terms of how many militants have been killed. The health ministry, newspapers always cite the Gaza health ministry. It's run by Hamas, right? So when the Gaza health ministry says there are 11,000 fatalities and 40% of them are children, that's coming from Hamas, right? So you have to understand that and you have to step back and go, okay, there's a lot of civilian casualties, but what is the number? Right. I'm not going to get I'm not taking the word of Hamas for anything. But you also have to you have to be, you know, empathetic and you have to look and go this. This can't keep going on. But they've got a right to exist and defend themselves. And, yes, they need a solution. Is it going to be a two state solution?

They talked about that all the way back in the late 30s right that was when it was first come up two-state solution it was uh you know before world war ii and they were saying you know this is this is what we need to do it came out of previous to that i mean palestine the history of palestine is is fascinating right um controlled by what the the Ottoman Empire for 400 years, and then the Ottoman Empire lost it because they sided with the Nazis during World War II. And so that broke up the region, and they kind of split it all up. And Britain was given the mandate to control it. And then they realized what a mess that was becoming. World War I, they create a, what was it called, the Balfour Declaration, right? I mean, this thing is a, and then eventually they got to the late 30s, and the Peel Commission decided, let's do a two-state solution.

The Arab world unanimously said no, right? The Jewish population, some said, okay, we could consider that. And others said no. There's no good answer, you know, to this. And that's why I guess I was about to, I always try to end on something. My wife says I need to end on something positive. I couldn't come up with one. Tell her to come up with one.

Yeah, exactly. Let's give her a call right now. Let's get her on. And we'll see. What do you got going? Give us the bright side of this. God. Anyway, listen,

I appreciate it, man. I always love the conversation. I do as well. I appreciate you coming on. And one more time, President's Daily Brief. It's available, number one on Spotify,

I heard. That is, you know what? I'm glad you mentioned that. It is number one on Spotify News. That is actually pretty fucking awesome. Congratulations on that. Thank you, man. That's fantastic. It know what? I'm glad you mentioned that. It is number one on Spotify News. That is actually pretty fucking awesome.

Congratulations on that. Thank you, man. That's fantastic. It's available wherever you get your podcasts. It's so great that you beat NPR. I know, right? I just hope that continues, man. Thanks, Joe.

I appreciate you, man. Appreciate you, too. Bye, everybody. Bye.