The Joe Rogan Experience - #2355 - Mike Baker

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Mike Baker is a former CIA covert operations officer and current CEO of Portman Square Group, a global intelligence and security firm. He’s also the host of the "President’s Daily Brief" podcast: a twice daily news report on critical events happening around the globe available on all podcast platforms. https://www.portmansquaregroup.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Rogan Podcast, checking out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. We're up, we're up, we're up. Mike Baker, what a good time to talk to you. What a fine time to have you in. What a fine time. There is so much chaos.

There is so much madness. Oh my God. Did you see the South Park episode? Which which which one they did a Donald Trump? One with Satan. No, no, it's Fucking I got I got away. I love the show is fantastic I raised my three boys on that show way much to my wife's poor, but it's a great show But I haven't seen that episode it when you think like Bridget Fetice had a funny quote like when you think that they have reached The bottom of the highest level of not giving a fuck they reach unseen levels

Is it the whole the Epstein thing is so crazy like and him saying like what you care? Why does everybody care what I'm stealing? Well, that's it yeah, but it is Although again going back to South Park Yeah, once they did the woodland creatures episode all those years ago. You thought okay? That's got to be the worst they can get woodland creatures. Oh my god. You got it look it up. It was it's fantastic I'm not gonna do it justice if I try to explain what it's about well Remember they did a teacher where you had a whore off with Paris Hilton. He stuffed her up his ass

We had a gay teacher, we had a whore-off with Paris Hilton, he stuffed her up his ass. This was the only one. They're all critters, they're all cussing and... Oh, that's right! Oh, I forgot about that one, yeah. That was 17 years ago. They don't give a fuck, dude. They haven't given a fuck since the beginning, and it's the greatest show of all time. Yeah, and honestly, if you said what would be the best job that you could have imagined it would be being one of those two guys.

Yeah, they're killing it. And the thing is like it's so beautiful because they have cartoons and you could do things with cartoons you could never do with real people. You can kill them, they can fuck each other, they could stick things up their ass. Yeah, Cartman gets that alien probe. Anything can happen because and it's also they're not realistic cartoons so it's like you're somehow or another detached from it Yeah, no, they they and if they they did a documentary one time

I don't know if you saw that. Oh, yeah, they tracked the six days. It takes them to make the show Well, you remember the Satan and Diddy episode. That was fantastic. I didn't see that one. The Satan and Diddy episode and then they had the mass murderers. This was a few years back too. It was a Diddy party and he wanted to, it's a long story, he wanted a Lamborghini cake, but it was like the devil wanted it and they said, no, Diddy did it already and it's fantastic.

Remember when they had the movie with Saddam Hussein? Saddam Hussein was in a gay relationship with Saddam Hussein. Oh, God. We could spend the entire time, people are like, oh, they're going to talk about this the whole time? But yeah. The Epstein stuff is so crazy because when Cash Patel was on here and he was like, there's no, there's nothing.

And I was like, what are you talking about? I didn't even know what to say. My thought was, and people are like, there's no, there's nothing. And I was like, what are you talking? Yeah. I didn't even know what to say. My thought was, and people are like, why didn't you push back more? My thought was like, I'm just going to put this out there and let the internet do its work. Cause there's nothing I can, the guy's saying there's no tapes, there's no video. That doesn't make any sense. Everyone knows it doesn't make any sense. Let's just, and then he didn't know about the Mike, the Michael Bad Baden stuff the autopsy stuff where it showed that he had three Broken bones in his neck which never happens Yeah, when you hang yourself even when you like leap from somewhere with a rope around your neck

And it snaps your neck you never have three He's not launching himself off the first floor balcony the whole thing is nuts, and then they really he's like well We have a film we're gonna release that film and the film has all fucking minute missing from it Yeah, like do you think we're babies like what is this? Also, you got you got people may including damp on Gino right making bank for a couple of years talking about how awful It is and we got to get this shit and this is a huge conspiracy and and then you release a two-day You know a two-page memo that says, yeah, there's nothing to see here.

Yeah, because you're walking by your bedroom window and you see a little laser, a little red laser moving across your chest. But it really is, it's so, look, you know me, I'm not a conspiracy guy by nature. Oh, you are today. You are today. But I am today. Today. I'm fully on board with this shit.

Everybody's in today. Yeah. No, but they're actually doing great. As we speak, and I find this fascinating, is that the assistant attorney general, Todd Blanch, is down in Florida for an interview with Ghislaine Maxwell. She's serving 20 years in a Florida prison for sex trafficking. To who though? What's that?

To who? Well, he's down there to interview her. But I'm saying she's sex trafficked to who? Well, she was a co-conspirator of Epstein's, right? But don't you have to have a person who you're sex trafficking to? Exactly. And they talked about the victims somewhat during her trial. It was a very difficult trial in the sense of they're trying to protect certain victims and others who are coming forward. But my surprise was nobody from DOJ has ever, according to her legal team, nobody has ever

interviewed her from DOJ. Department of Justice, so this is the first time the Department of Justice, you're telling me, and meanwhile up on Capitol Hill, you've got Democrats like Adam Schiff and others going, we have got to release these fucking files. They had four years under the previous administration, right? Look, everybody's fucked in this situation, but they had all that time to do whatever they wanted to do. Nobody up until this point apparently has talked to it.

Now, some folks on the legal side are saying, well, look, if she had anything interesting to say, she would have said it during the course of her trial right to save herself or to cut a deal no but now I don't think so I don't yeah killer yeah well the smartest thing for her to do is to keep her fucking mouth shut which is what she did right they put her in a cushy prison where she could do yoga yeah yeah yoga in prison that doesn't sound good here's one of my favorite ones I'm gonna I'm gonna send you this Jamie because this Somebody tweeted this and it's just so perfect and it's it just shows you how crazy this this whole thing has been like from the very beginning this is

Someone tweeted this from the Atlantic and this is what what's funny about this Check this out Jamie, so it's these fucking people, it's like, they all knew her. They all knew him. So many people knew him and knew her. And they're all pretending that they didn't. That no one knew him. Check this out. This is the Atlantic says, scroll up beggar so we can see it. So we can see the quote below it.

No, go back. Scroll up, beggar, so we can see it. So we can see the quote below it. Below it. I'm trying, I'm trying. I zoomed. No, go back. No, I zoomed it. There we go. I can't read it. There it goes. This is what the Atlantic posts.

If the Epstein scandal teaches us anything, it's that America needs a dedicated and decently funded group of people whose job it is not to just ask questions but to find answers and then this guy Sean Davis posts the woman on the right is Galaine Maxwell she trafficked children for Jeffrey Epstein the woman on the left owns your magazine this is so fucking wild just that alone is so wild that they would have the balls to post that. We need dedicated journalists, not just people asking questions, which is like, for sure, an attack on podcasts.

Like, listen, you guys didn't do shit. You didn't do shit. So just asking, just the fact that we're just asking questions along with that, or is this a knock on the defunding of PBS, which is essentially a propaganda network for the Democratic Party? Yeah, which is now being apparently, we'll see if that happens, but apparently being defunded. But yeah, look, everybody's, everybody's worried now, right? At first it was like, okay, again, I go back a handful of years, nobody was pushing for this, right? At first it was like, okay, again, I go back a handful of years. Nobody was pushing

for this, right? Because you got people from all sides probably on whatever that list looks like, whatever that Epstein file looks like, whoever was involved. You got people from all sides of the spectrum here going on. And so everybody's worried. So it looked like, all right, you know, there's kind of this bizarre bipartisan moment where we're not going to push for this really. We're not going to make a big effort here. We're not sending anybody from DOJ. The Dems aren't, during the Biden administration, calling for the release of the files.

Now all of a sudden they smell blood in the water and a particular political motivation here. So let's get these files out. And nobody's going to look good from this, but again, I would caution some, just because a name might be in a file, no matter whose it is, doesn't necessarily mean there's nefarious activity. It could be like any police file that says, okay, the individual stopped at this particular location and this person was there.

Doesn't mean they're connected to something awful. They weren't fucking underage girls. Maybe they were if they're in the file, right? But I'm just saying there's a lot of people probably in that file that are gonna be named if it ever comes out Who may or may not have been engaged in in in illegal activity, but just release the goddamn things Yeah, there's probably a lot of people who just went there Did I send you that thing where this guy was breaking? Did I say NPR PBS earlier? I meant NPR thing where this guy was breaking, did I say NPR or PBS earlier? I meant NPR. Did I send you that thing, that link where this guy's breaking down all the different

tweets that the lady who is the CEO of NPR made? She's getting questioned on whether or not she's biased and then this guy like goes over all the different tweets. God damn it, I know I saved it, but I should have been prepared I know I have it in here because it's so funny. It's so funny listening to her See if you could find you might be able to find it But of course you found it beautiful because it's it's so adorable this pretending that this was an unbiased new source. Yes Directly from her own account. Well Well this is one of them, but this one guy broke it down. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. When it

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for a free trial, or go to squarespace.com slash Rogan to save 10% off your first website or domain purchase. Maybe I sent it to Dave Smith. Hmm. We'll find it. Yeah but again anybody who at this stage of the game thinks that the media you know doesn't have an agenda that they're not complicit in one way or another with whatever maybe come on. Yeah, it's a joke. It's a joke. And they're all funded. And they're mean the fact that the government was funding NPR is crazy. Like, this you can't have a completely biased one sided media organization that's funded by the government and taxpayers that's crazy and they went over all the amount of people that were on NPR that were Democrats and it's 100% yeah it's like out of 87 people it's 100% so look at the New York Times yeah I mean so that none of that should be a

surprise to anybody who's paying half of mine. But the New York Times is at least a privately funded company right I mean it's like the NPR relied on tax money and there's this giant outrage that the government's going to defund it. Well, a lot of, and what they're trying to do is they're trying to couch it as saying, look, you're taking away the only source of news for rural locations, for example. Like you've got someplace up in North Dakota that has no other access and so they rely on NPR for their news. I don't know a lot of people up in North Dakota that say I wonder what NPR is saying about this Well, not just that but it's like at the end of the day the reality is the internet exists. Yeah, and we don't need You don't need to fund publicly fund something that's clearly biased when the internet exists, right?

You can get whatever you want if you want to just absorb and consume only left-wing media, there's so much available. You can go find it. But our tax dollars should not be going to that. No, no. And to be fair, if anybody wants to know what the hell's going on in the news, they can just listen to the President's Daily Brief podcast, frankly. Oh, your podcast. I'm good, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're saying. That's some, yeah, boy, I just stuck that in there. I can't find this fucking thing. Yeah. Did you find it? So as you can let's hear it That's fantastic as far as the accusations that were biased I would stand up and say please show me a story that concerns you because we want to know and we want to bring that conversation back to our newsroom

conversation back to our newsroom. And then they have all these... Ohhhhh. Fatphobia and its racist past and present. Some white people may choose thumbs up because it feels neutral, but some academics argue that opting out... What does that mean? Thumbs up signals, lacks awareness about white privilege, akin to society associating whiteness with being raceless.

What? Oh God. What does that mean? How about how racism became a marketing tool for country music? Oh yeah, that's a good one. This right-wing conspiracy theory about eating bugs is about as racist as you think. No, that's like, literally, this is... And here's another great quote that she said, if you look on the right side, Jamie, where

it says the truth is a distraction from getting things done. That is such a fucking Orwellian thing to say. Click on that just so you can hear her say this. Because it's so bananas that someone would say this out loud and not think it's... One of the most significant differences critical from moving from polarization to productivity is that the Wikipedia's who write these articles aren't actually focused on finding the truth. They're working for something that's a little bit more attainable, which is the best of what we can know right now.

And after seven years there, I actually believe that they're onto something that for our most tricky disagreements, seeking the truth and seeking to convince others of the truth isn't necessarily the best place to start. In fact, I think our reverence for the truth might have become a bit of a distraction that is preventing us from finding consensus and getting important things done. What? Oh my God. That's fantastic. I love that. Wild is that. And you want government money.

That is such a wild thing to say. You know, going for the truth as a journalist, no, no. It's not important. No, it's not important. It's a distraction. The truth is a distraction. You know what I hate? I hate that.

And you see that all the time. And I don't know whether that's a TED talk or not. But as soon as I see that type of forum where they're earnestly standing there and they've got their little mouthpiece there around there and they're talking and they're looking out into the distance and you think, oh, climb out of your own fucking ass, right? It's just awful.

Anyway. I don't like any of those things. Yeah. I don't like that little Bobby Brown microphone either. Unless you're on stage. The Bobby Brown member. Yeah, I remember. At least to sing with that. Yeah. A little step I take. Unless you're on stage. The Bobby Brown. Remember? Yeah, I remember.

You used to sing with that? Yeah. It was a step I take. Oh, sorry. Step on your line, I'll join in for the chorus. I don't like those little microphones. Hold the microphone like a real fucking human. That's a madness.

That video clip is madness. That's a piece of madness. That's a crazy thing to say I will say truth gets in the way. I will say that that the the Epstein the Epstein situation is gonna be so disappointing to so many people now because I have this theory that nothing ever gets done in Washington DC, right? Investigations go to die there, nothing ever happens. There's never any real consequences of any nature.

And we got all sorts of things happening right now, right? So the Epstein case is just one of them. But right now you've got the Dems focused on Epstein because, you know, again, they see, this is just a good opportunity here to go after Trump, regardless of who else is in the files, right? And the Dems, I think, were worried for quite some time and didn't pursue it because, you know, years back they were thinking, okay, Clinton's going to be embarrassed.

We don't want that. So again, my point would be just release everything. I don't understand how, if you just look at the way that they handled this logistically, whoever thought, because the mob wants to eat, right? And they've been throwing red meat to the mob about Epstein files now for years. It's part of how they got elected. Right, and so whoever in their communications group

or in their strategic thinking arena in the administration thought, you know, that we can get away with just saying, there's nothing to see here, they should be fired, right? Because there's no way you can satisfy this mob. And now the mob is oddly bipartisan because it's got the Dempsons, it's got part of the base of Trump in there. Pete Slauson Yeah.

Jared Slauson And they're all, you know, screaming to have this, god damn it, just release this shit. Otherwise, this is going to be around like Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy and you know. Pete Slauson Well, that's what's crazy. They did release more Martin Luther King documents. Which is really crazy. Like, why are you holding secrets about the murder of one of the most beloved historical figures of all time from 1968? And you just released it? Yeah, part of that's a family request. The family has asked, you know, in the past on

a number of occasions, they really don't want some of this because some of it look some of It's salacious about you know Martin Luther which doesn't take away from everything that he did right as a leader of a cause in a movement But some of it is you know extra marital affairs Yeah, so there's been some push to could be concerned about that, but but yeah now do the Epstein files Well, they'll do it in the same amount of time, 56 years from now. Just like they did with them. It's 56 fucking years later they released this stuff. And we're still not any closer to,

I mean, again, I don't want to disappear down that rabbit hole, but we're still not any closer with Martin Luther King. Again, not a conspiracy got it except today, apparently, but there's shit there. Well, you said, you've said multiple times, if there's one that you think looks really bad, it's that one. It's that one.

But going back to, I know I'm bouncing around here, but going back to the Epstein thing, I don't understand how they handled this so poorly, right? For Pam Bondi to come out and talk about the files, and oh my God, and then like within a blink of an eye, they come out with this bullshit Sunday night memo saying there's nothing to see. How could they possibly have thought?

Do you think there's just a lack of coordination? Yeah, I do. Yeah, that makes sense. I think it's a messaging problem is always kind of a key element of the Trump administration, whether it's this one or not. And now look, that's not a, you know, I'm not knocking a lot of the policies. I like a lot of the policies that come out of this administration. This one in the previous, the first administration. But I'm just saying, a hallmark of a Trump administration is the ability to have a self-inflicted

wound, you know, shoot yourself in the foot because of messaging usually, right? So I think they've done it again. And I don't see how they walk this back. They're trying to, I think, with this interview with Ghislaine Maxwell to say, look, we're trying, we're talking to her. But how does Pam Bondi say we have thousands of hours of footage, and then Cash Patel says, we don't have anything that you're looking for? And then Tim Dillon said he has lunch with JD Vance, and JD Vance says that 10,000 hours is commercial pornography.

Right. yeah. You think this freak show of Epstein wasn't, like, it didn't have hidden cameras, it wasn't taped and shit? I mean, come on. 100%. 100%. Yeah. Well, that was the thing about that house, that house they had in New York City,

which is, by the way, for sale. Oh, really? Yeah, nobody wants to buy it. You wanna buy Epstein's house? Do the cameras convey? Well, this is the thing. I mean, you gotta gut the walls. How are you gonna know what the fuck is in there? Yeah, imagine you're walking around your house naked and you think that the CIA is got Are you you're working your organization? Whoever they just got hours of videotape of me walking around naked. I'm sure yeah, but

Massad whoever it is that was involved in this intelligence gathering. I mean, I'm just guessing I have no idea But there's fucking pinhole cameras all over that house. Maybe they took them down. You have to start from that perception, right? Because again, if anything else, you're just being naive if you think, no, there's nothing. Again, God damn it.

You gotta take it down to the bare beams. You gotta strip the wallboard off. You gotta fucking, every baseboard, you gotta pull everything. Who fucking knows what's in that house. We had a we had a situation in Moscow one time where we were building. It was the new embassy, the US embassy in Moscow. Right. And for some reason, you know, part of the deal was to allow Russian contractors to work on the construction of this. Yeah. So but it's a it's a government thing, and so you can imagine, to your point, there's not a lot

of coordination. So, the Russian contractor's thinking, oh, this is great. We're helping to construct the US embassy. They know there's going to be sensitive areas within there, the station for the agency and other areas. Anyway, at a certain point, they're just about finished with construction. And just by, not by happenstance, I mean, there were efforts to try to examine what the Russians were doing, right?

So the security side of things, they were concerned about the fact that the Russians were working on it. You know, you had the State Department and others that were like, no, it's a good idea, you know, it helps with diplomacy. So the security guys were doing things. They were x-raying parts of materials that were coming in for the construction. And apparently, at one point, what was going on

was the Russians were installing listening devices inside the rebar of the construction process. And apparently, at one point, one of the wires on the on one of these communications devices that was stuck in there had broken and so they soldered it the Russians did they soldered it with aluminum that showed up when they were x-raying that particular large bit of material that they were going to install and that was the way that they found out and they said what

the fuck then they had to tear the entire goddamn thing down I forget I think it was two or three different floors of this embassy they had to remove they bit by bit shipped it back to the states to examine fully and and it was just loaded with with listening devices by the Russians right so it's gonna be the same with the idea long story short it's the same at Epstein's place you've got to tear it down yeah it's a nice house too and it's the same at Epstein's place. You gotta tear it down. Yeah, it's a nice house too, and it's like right on the park. Yeah.

And I was like, wonder why that's still for sale. And then I was asking for it. I think it's like 60 or 70 million. Oh, I might look at it. It's pretty dope. It's sold in 2021 for 51 million. Holy shit. But it's for sale now though, right?

That I didn't see. I'm pretty sure it's for sale right now. I wonder if it gets a premium because it's Epstein's place, you know, you know like a celebrity premium for a home Case, you know you'd have to be a fucking psycho to want to live in that guy's house. The same guy's gonna buy Diddy's spot. Yeah Yeah, I don't know what that fuck god but there's So you've got you've got the Epstein thing going on like how does that get resolved? This is the question like if you are the administration you're looking at this puzzle And you're trying to figure out how to make this a PR win

Too late for that. What do you have the fuck can you do at this point? Oh, is it for sale? 65 mil two years ago it says Holy shit. Is this not for sale right now Zero bedrooms only one bath. That's not a very nice place This is one fuck all Yes, yeah, we call it the playroom. This is the house. Oh my god looks like a Saudi 65 million bucks in Manhattan. What the hell? The wild thing is though, it's like right on the street.

Like anybody can come to your door and just knock on your door. Like walking by. Yeah. Prince Andrew. It's weird. Living there is weird. Yeah. Look at that.

Meanwhile, no one can explain where he got the money. No one can explain why he got so rich. You know, and Eric Weinstein, who is like a legit financial guy, said he talked to him. He had a meeting with him once. He's like, it was really clear that he's a construct. He's like, he doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't know anything. That's not for sale right now. That didn't say it was. It's listed on Zillow, but not for sale. It's like, well, everything is still on Zillow, kind of.

Oh, like it was for sale. Maybe there's another service that's sick, because sometimes Zillow doesn't have all the stuff, because someone I know was looking at it. Yeah, maybe it's on cheap old houses. That's a good site. It's a bargain. It's a fixer-upper though. Yeah. But like you'd have to go through that house.

You'd have to hire like the top of the food chain security experts to go, and they would probably recommend you take that house apart Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you did you you could do a Install a sweep of the thing and and you know, but that's not gonna guarantee right? You really have to pull the walls down and and look because I again Maybe i'm wrong. There's never say never but I can't imagine that a psycho like Epstein wasn't enjoying videoing some of the activity that was going on. So, yeah.

Anyway. So, what do you think, from your perspective, what do you think that was all about? Who do you think was involved in that? Do you think it was the Mossad? Do you think it was some rogue intelligence agency in America? Was it a coordinated effort? You know what, I know there's a lot of talk about, you know, did he have some sort of intel connection, right? From my perspective, it's complete speculation, but I will say,

like, from an operational perspective, I have no idea. Was it Mossad? Was it anybody? Who knows? Right. Like, from an operational perspective, I have no idea, was it anybody? Who knows? But, from an operational perspective, if you see a guy like this, who's super connected, and all the way back to, what, 2008, was like his first trial, right? So he's had a long history of these problems. But if you know that he's kind of engaged in a variety of things. As an example, if I'm Chinese Intel, and I just read the goddamn entertainment news, and there's these rumors and allegations of high-level people flying off to his island, I'm going to think that's interesting because potentially if I could get an access source

there, if I can get somebody inside that operation, whether it's Ghislaine Maxwell, whether it's Epstein himself, whether it's somebody who's just on the outskirts of it, maybe I'll start picking up some pretty interesting leverageable information on people that maybe I want to influence. And it's so funny to me that it's always comes down to like carnal needs and carnal desires. It's always sex. Because these guys, when you get to like this Bill Gates level and Bill Clinton level, you can't just go pick up gals at the bar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're a super famous super freak, and you like chasing skirts, but you can't do it,

like what do you do? Well, you do what he did, right? Which is he get, you know, somebody to procure for you, which apparently was primarily Maxwell's job. Yeah. She's out there and, and you know, she was described, you know, usually as his girlfriend, but she was clearly operating as his pimp or whatever the female version of a pimp is. Yeah. Curator. Curator. Yeah. It's a curator. Yeah. And so he's, you know so she's out there doing that, but look, again, I can't speak to the rumors about him working for one intel agency or another, but I will say if I'm working for an intel agency and I see something like that, yeah, I might find that of interest. Oh, for sure.

And then I would definitely go after somebody to see what's going on. if for no other reason then you know again, maybe it's a just a opportunity there You know, it's the easiest connect the dots puzzle of all time. Yeah, you got rich powerful people and hot chicks and probably drugs Yeah, and cameras. Yeah, and I tell you the Russians love nothing better than you know, the the truth The reality is in terms of recruiting an asset, recruiting an asset by using blackmail is tough, right? That window starts closing immediately, right, in terms of their operational usefulness, right?

Because there's a lot of issues there, right? You're blackmailing somebody for their cooperation. At some point, that's going to go south on you. It's not like you've recruited somebody for ideological reasons, or even something as straightforward as like they need the money because they're kids sick, or whatever it may be. So blackmail is like, but having said that,

look, the Russians in particular love that. And Chinese Intel, they'll do whatever works from their perspective. The agency, again, people are going to say that's bullshit. The agency tries, the blackmail is never really ever on the table as an option because it always leads to a problem. And sometimes those problems can be very, very bad. In what way?

What do you mean by that? Well, you know, the asset will turn on you, right? Next thing you know, you've got an agent working now, a double agent working for the other side, right? Because they're just so fucked over by the fact that they've been blackmailed. And at some point, they lose their shit and they decide to roll for the other side. But aren't you constantly monitoring them and looking at their phone? There's only so much you can do, right, in terms of maintaining, particularly with a

hard target, particularly with an asset who's in a difficult or challenging environment, you know, for us, and you've got limited access to them, whatever it may be. So you're really relying on clandestine communications. You don't have a lot of face-to-face meetings And at some point you never know when things are heading south, right? And then the next thing you know, look, you know that so it's that's a that's the Operational reason for trying to avoid blackmail, right? Has it ever been done? Well, sure. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying it hasn't been done Of course, but some services go to it much quicker than others do yeah

I'm which service and I would well again the Russians You know our primary users of something like that They don't did because they've got a shotgun approach Yeah, Israelis have been known to do that and the honeypot operations that they'll do and other things But the Russians throw a lot of shit at the wall and see what sticks right? that's a very much a shotgun approach right and You know honestly sometimes you know that that can work right wasn't that kind of if you thought about this island if you're bringing a approach, right? And you know, honestly, sometimes, you know, that that can work.

Wasn't that kind of if you thought about this island, if you're bringing award winning scientists, like famous people, politicians, world leaders, all to one place, you're basically throwing as much shit against the wall as you can. Yeah. And then you have all this stuff on all these different people and they know it. And so then you just kind of like Wasn't there like some CEO that had a step down because he wound up giving Epstein it was found out that he gave Epstein like 150 million dollars that they couldn't explain why oh When that yeah, not the case Jamie

So it's one of those things where There's obviously value in having all these people on your side Yeah Where there's obviously value in having all these people on your side. But when you do get all this information on these people, like what are they trying to accomplish with it? This is the question. Are they trying to get support for a policy to step down after firm finds more payments to Jeffrey Epstein?

158 million. He paid the convicted sex offender 158 million. He paid the convicted sex offender 158 million. What does it if you can can you scroll down a little bit? Yeah. His plan to step down as chief I've advised the Apollo board that I will retire CEO before my seventh birth 70th birthday in July remain as chairman is going to remain as a chairman. New York Times detailed at least 75 million in payments and found that Mr. Black had paid

Epstein $158 million in a five-year period ending in 2017. He also lent Mr. Epstein more than $30 million, only $10 million of which was paid back. So that's a guy that they got something on. I love this. Leon viewed Epstein as a confirmed bachelor with eclectic tastes. This was after his 2008 guilty plea. Wow. Jesus Christ.

Mr. Epstein's advice was worth perhaps $2 billion in tax savings to Mr. Black, according to the report. Right. What the fuck? Again, this is what Weinstein said, Eric said that this guy is not, he's not good. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He wasn't a good financial advisor.

Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is you can say, okay, why was he collecting people around him? Why was he doing, was he keeping a file? Right? You still have to figure out what that file looks like. Part of it could have been initially self-preservation. I mean, he's engaged in all sorts of activity. He gets a few people into it, then suddenly,

he doesn't look so bad. And he's kind of protecting himself, because now I'm surrounded by people who also have to keep that secret. But then the question becomes, at what point is he or somebody in this little tight circle there are they approached? Right by anybody who's interested in some of these folks But we don't know because we don't know who the fuck's in these files right so

Or if the files even if the files even exist and apparently you know there's nothing in there according to Pam Bondi and cash Patel the whole thing's nuts yeah, and then, you know, have Bongino and Cash Patel saying he definitely killed himself. Like, what? Yeah. What? Okay. This just, the level of convenience. It's so convenient that the guards were asleep, so convenient that the cameras didn't work, so convenient that years later you have a recording of the outside of the cell, but a minute is missing from it? Yeah, three minutes.

Three minutes? Yeah, they found out it was like, almost three minutes was missing. Two minutes, like 53 seconds. It's like the missing Watergate tape. Oh, I thought it was just one minute. It did, it started off as a minute, and then people kept looking at the metadata,

and metadata, they're like, okay, it was saved this many times, and it was actually up to three minutes missing. God, okay. That's plenty of time to kill somebody. Three minutes is more than enough time. Oh, three minutes, you could. That's plenty of time to kill somebody. Three minutes is more than enough time. Oh, three minutes you could get a whole bunch of people killed by then.

You saw that guy that was his cellmate too, right? Yeah. That guy is a fucking gigantic human being. A huge guy who was a mass murderer, who had killed multiple people, a bad cop, who was built like a brick fucking shithouse. The kind of guy that you could really easily get to strangle somebody yeah it would take him I could kill him in 30 seconds yeah no how's this fucking giant dude could do

it easy metadata from raw Epstein no thanks metadata from raw Epstein prison video shows approximately two minutes and 53 seconds were removed from one of the two stitched together clips. The cut starts off at the missing minute. Wow. Yeah, shocker. Yeah.

Yeah. So a guy like that decides, yeah, he's going to off himself. And again, here's the thing. It's like these guys that are all involved in this are still, they've been around for a long time and they have this mentality that existed before the internet Where you could just kind of put stuff out there and you wouldn't have all these Psycho sleuths out there that are gonna go over everything with a fine-tooth comb

Especially guys who are tech wizards who can look at the metadata and you can figure this kind of stuff out Well shit dad a lot quicker. You're right So something would happen and look we still, right, collectively as a nation, right, and things move on. And I think maybe that's what they're, you know, some people are saying, look, they've called the recess on Capitol Hill because they figure by the time they come back in September everybody will have moved on from this, right? I think they're wrong.

I don't think this is, again, this feels like and just looks like that one of those handful of conspiracies again you go to JFK Oh, whomever that's just gonna hang around the line in the sand. This one's a line in the sand Yeah, because this is one where there's a lot of stuff about You know when we thought Trump was gonna come in and there a lot of things gonna be resolved Yeah gonna drain the swamp gonna figure everything out and When you have this one hardcore line in the sand that everybody had been talking about forever and then they're trying to gaslight you on that.

You would have thought that- Take your phone. I hope not. Oh, it's my wife. Should I answer? It's on silent. Yeah. It was on silent, but it still goes.

How does that happen? It literally is on silent. Are you sure? Yeah. No, I'm positive because it's got a little thing up top that says silent. Your phone's compromised. The CIA doesn't trust you. You're friends with me. They don't trust you anymore. They did call me this morning, what are you gonna talk about? Do they ever talk to you about that? Do they ever have questions about your appearances here? No, no. In fact, I'm in the building on occasion and we're actually working on a show that's going to be a great TV show based on this amazing museum that's inside agency headquarters.

But nobody ever says that. We have a really nice relationship. They don't tell me what to say. If I go on TV to talk about something, it's not like they're going to call up's not like they're gonna call up and say, well, here's our, here's our view on this. They trust you. Yeah, they trust me. I'm not going to open my app and talk sources and methods. And at the same time, you know, I'm just going to try to just talk from an operational perspective.

But yeah, so that was my wife, which reminds me, it's my boy Muggsy's birthday today. Happy birthday, Muggsy. Yeah, thank you very much. With a thing like this, what is the general feeling about people that you talk to that are still in the agency or people that are still involved in the government? Like how are they feeling about this? Because like the general public is outraged, right? Yeah. Do the people inside, are they frustrated? Like people that wanted this stuff to be exposed? Yeah, it's funny because with the agency, it's not like the Bureau of the Agency. I think most people honestly don't really probably give a shit about the Epstein files.

They're more concerned now about this release from Tulsi Gabbard and the talk about manipulating intelligence for the 2016 election and Russian collusion and all of that. That speaks more to the agency than the Epstein files does, just from a, you know, whose responsibility is whose, right? This is Epstein thing is a DOJ, FBI issue. I think if they're concerned about it, it's because of how it erodes trust in organizations, institutions, right?

And then that's happened a lot. So, you know, there's a lot of good people, I know again, every time I talk about the agency, people are like, fuck you, you're such a shill, but there's a lot of good people doing very difficult work for the agency. I believe that, I believe that. And so, you know, I think if anything,

they take it personally when people think, oh, fuck the CIA, you gotta burn it down and start over again, like they said with the FBI as well. I've talked about that many times, like you don't know what the fuck is going on in the world. The world is filled with chaos. Like you need people that are paying attention to that shit and they should be on your side.

They should be on the side of the American people paying attention to threats. If you'd think that not paying attention at all is gonna do you any good when there's all these countries out there that are fucking plotting constantly, you're crazy. You're living in a utopia. You're living in a fake world. The real world is filled with madness. You got to have people paying attention to it.

So I think that to answer that question, I think they're more focused on or interested in or looking at this issue of, you know, and it's surfaced again right at the same time as the Epstein files, right? Now it's like sucking all the oxygen out of the room for the past couple of days. Tulsi Gabbard comes out and says, I'm releasing these documents. She releases these documents. What do you think about all that? So this is the accusation, they're throwing around the word treason, they're saying that Obama knew that Russia did not meddle in the election, did not have any impact in the election, but yet promoted this idea, and then there's been

some incredible clips of all these different news reporters, CNN and MSNBC just saying over and over and over again, clear evidence of Russian collusion. Yeah. And you've got Hillary Clinton saying, you know, it's an era of illegitimacy around Trump's victory from 2016 because of this. I mean, she was very clear about it. And as were many others. The noose is tightening on Trump.

It's all going to come out. He's an agent of Russia. Yeah. Adam Schiff coming out on camera numerous times saying, you know, I can't tell you what I've seen, but I've seen things that's a lot more than circumstantial evidence about this collusion. So yeah, but again, it's much more complex, it's always the same thing, it's much more complex than what folks tend to hear just in like a two and a half or three minute news

segment, right? So the Democrats want you to think there's nothing to see here in these documents How could you possibly spend time doing this? You're just trying to distract from the the Epstein files and The Republicans are saying Obama committed treason, right? The reality is as it oftentimes is is somewhere in that middle, right there there there's a lot of conflating of issues here. So nobody is questioning, not Republicans or Democrats, nobody's questioning that the Russians meddled in the election, just like they did in the previous one, just like they did in this last one, just like they're always, but they've been meddling

since World War II, right? Since the end of World War II. They've always had an interest in influencing US politics. Now when you say metal, do you mean like social media bots? Do you mean like influencing politicians? Like what do you mean by metal? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, in the early days, what were they doing? In the early days, they would pay off trade union representatives to push a certain line, to push for a softer tone, much like the Chinese do now, push for a softer tone against the

Soviet Union. Or during World War II, to push for isolationism, keep the US out of the war, before the Nazis turned on the Soviet Union and they tended to need us. Or they would pay journalists to write articles pushing a particular point of view. And so there were those things. Now social media meddling is a lot easier, right? It's a lot cheaper. And for sure they do that.

Yeah, and for sure they do that. And for sure they did that in 2016. Absolutely, and nobody's questioning that, right? What's happening is that, once again, there's a bit of a messaging problem from the Trump administration. The Trump administration, at the end of the day, is saying, what was bullshit was this Russia collusion angle, right? Was the idea that, you know, this is complicated to explain, and I'm not doing a very good

job of it, but they're saying, yes, there was meddling, but you pushed a story, meaning Brennan and Comey and all the others that were involved in this and then going up to the top with Obama, saying you took what was an Intel community assessment, ICA, because everything has an acronym, that said there was no indication of Russian efforts to push or influence in a particular direction the election, right? And most of that initial reporting was on election infrastructure. So there was a fairly significant bit there that said the Russians

weren't able to hack into election machines and actually alter vote counts. So they said, we have seen no evidence of that. And so you could argue that in part, the Trump administration is having a hard time explaining, much like I am am that the problem here wasn't that there was anybody saying there's no meddling there's meddling they just saying that you at a certain point around about December 9th I think it was you had a meeting where Obama was sitting in there with Comey and Andrew McCabe and a variety of others and the president himself requested a different intelligence community assessment, which is a little unusual for a president to say, I'd like you to do an ICA on a particular thing,

which is what he did. Can you elaborate on that? So they were telling him what? Well they were telling him, we don't see that Russian meddling impacted the election, basically. The Dems are saying, well that's just about the electronic infrastructure, about the voting machines, right? In reality, the ICA was also, that instruction, the PDB, the President's daily brief, and the writing that had been done, the analysis had been done up to that point, was saying, we haven't seen anything that the Russian meddling influenced the outcome

of the election. Well then, shortly and then they they squashed that particular piece right they said let's let's shelve that and that's what a lot of the emails at tulsi gabbard uh... released show right is that the all this agonizing it's amazing if shit gets done in the government when you read these emails going back and forth between james clapper at the d n i

and and other places yeah you sent me some of that yeah exactly yeah the analysts and others. And they're all saying, okay, well, what kind of tone do we give it? What do we say about this? And you can also see in there that they're saying, we don't think the Steele dossier is credible. You know, the two senior Russian analysts, right, at the agency were telling John Brennan at the time, if you put the dossier in there as a piece of information into this assessment, you're

compromising the credibility of the whole thing because we don't believe it. This is December, and Brennan instructed, and it's in writing, instructed them to go ahead and do it because he liked the narrative of the Steele dossier. So he chose that over the analytical process, over the discipline that you need to corroborate information that's going to go to a high level intel assessment. If anybody's in the crosshairs right now, it's probably John Brennan, right, in terms of, because he went up on Capitol Hill at some point and said that, you know, the Steele dossier didn't form an important point of, you know, wasn't in the document, wasn't in the ICA.

The ICA is now out there and sure enough, it was not only in the annex, it was in the body of the report, which gives it much more credibility. So yeah, so he, you know, I'm not a lawyer, but you know, I think he should be concerned a little bit about where that might go. But Obama reportedly, and it's in email traffic, you know, requested a different ICA. And so shortly thereafter, they produce a report. How does he say it? I forget what the exact wording, I'm not going to get it. Because that's a crazy thing. If you have a bunch of experts that give you an assessment,

these are the facts, this is how it went down. You're like, I don't like those facts. Well I don't think you said I don't like the facts, and that's where this is going to be a problem. Anybody who thinks Obama's going to go to prison for treasonous conspiracy, I think, again, much like Pam Bondi, you Bondi with her treating of the Epstein files, which was ridiculous, Tulsi Gabbard's gotten out over her skis. Treasonous conspiracy. Is that what she said? That's what she said. It's not going to happen. Anybody who thinks Obama's going to, forget about it. You'll be lucky if you get any consequences of anything out of this. Again, I'm very cynical

about where investigations go. Well, this is also based on the Supreme Court's justification of everything that Trump did while he was in office. He said you can't try them for things they do when they're off. Immunity. Yeah, immunity for acting under the authority as a president. And it's also very nuanced, right? He can sit in there. He's perfectly got the right to sit in a meeting and say, okay, well, I tell you what, let's sit on this, and James Clapper and the others agreed, we're going

to take this document and we're going to set it aside that we all worked on. Now we want to restructure it, focused on the outcome of the election and the Russian meddling and where this went and how they... So it was, he can do that, and it's it's nuanced and he can never get in trouble because, yeah, fine, you've got the right to do that. I mean, it's not illegal by any means. But there is no doubt in my mind that there was a desire to drive this thing in a certain direction, right? And so there is no doubt in my mind that, A, first of all, using the Steele dossier in there

was just horse shit. Because that thing, there hasn't been any allegation in that Steele dossier that's been verifiable and they knew that. So they went and they remember they used that Steele dossier in part to then go to FISA courts and get warrants, right? So that's another issue that I think from a legal perspective, again, not a lawyer, but I think some people should be probably concerned about how they represented that information knowing, right? Based on kind of what we're seeing from the document releases from Tulsi Gabbard.

But again, you can see by virtue of how difficult I'm trying to explain this, it's much more complex than just them bad, these guys good, these guys good, these guys bad. There's layers here that I think need to be examined and I think that at the end of the day, you're not really going to get, much like every fucking everything else that happens in DC, you're not going to get a lot of satisfaction on this one. But I do think, I'm convinced that, yeah, they drove this narrative. Shortly after, into January, when they released the new ICA, then suddenly, leaks to the press, and that's when the Russia collusion story happened, right?

And that's the thing that they should be focused on, right? They're losing the message because they're throwing shit out there. There's a lot of detail and people get bored. And so I think that's a problem they're going to have here trying to push this thing forward. And I do think also that Tulsi Gabbard should have been a little bit more circumspect in the way she explained this, right, and how she described the actions. Because I think there were some people who are culpable in terms of going after this narrative and pushing this Russia collusion story that then wasted a couple of years and, you know, God knows how much money on investigations and impeachment hearings and all the rest

of it. But they- Why do you think she chose to frame it that way? Do you think she was instructed to do that or she was guided to do that or encouraged to do that? Yeah, I don't know. Because if it's not warranted, if you don't believe it's warranted based on the evidence that you've looked at, she's the director of national intelligence.

Well, part of it is the realization that looks I mean you put that information out there I think it would have been more Appropriate if she'd released all the documentation Said here's and lay out in a very good like almost like a PowerPoint Presentation for the you know make it very simple for the press because the press isn't inclined to pursue this because the press were complicit Right so you're trying to say this is what these people did and you helped them. Now, what we want is for you, meaning the media, to uncover all of this and report on it.

They're not going to... They were winning awards, journalistic awards for their coverage of the Russia collusion story. So the idea that they're going to somehow now say, yeah, that was a problem. So I think they should have maybe just made this more factual based, stayed away from the sort of the hyperbolic statements about treason and all the rest of it, and then tried to explain it to the American public in a way that they can digest a little bit better, right? But when you throw out things like treasonous conspiracy, once again, much like with the Epstein thing, you're creating this kind of howling mob that's going to expect something.

I just don't know that they're going to get it right so do you think that it's possible that she was encouraged to do this because this kind of takes away some of the heat off of the abstain thing i'm sure that was a thought process in their somewhere yeah possibly yeah i think it's a reasonable assumption look it's an important issue right if you have the intel the Intel community or you have the White House deciding to themselves, look,

we know this information is kind of bullshit, but it certainly serves a narrative, which is we want to delegitimize the new president that's coming in because we can't stand him, then that's a really, really serious problem that needs to be examined. It's also so short-sighted because Do you not know that that information is eventually going to come out that's going to compromise the confidence that people have in Anything that the intelligence agencies put forth after that? Yeah Well, I think a lot of you know part of what was going on was the expectation that Hillary Clinton was going to win, right? So like with the Steele dossier, trying to dig up leverageable information or dirt on Trump, you know, I think they were all under the assumption, well, Hillary Clinton's going

to win. It doesn't really matter what we do right now because she's going to cover for us, right? And, you know, I don't think they ever expected Trump to win. So then suddenly they've got to shift course a little bit and think, okay, well now that didn't work. Now what? Well, let's say that, and we've got this document over here talking about Russian meddling, is it that much of a push to kind of say that we believe there might have been collusion? And the media ran with it, right? They didn't have to do much. They ran with it for three years. For three years, yeah.

Three years, hardcore, all the time every time They talked about Trump. Yeah, which is crazy Regardless of how you feel about Trump if you're the biggest Trump hater in the world, I understand But understand this that that is dangerous It's dangerous to have the media in lockstep with the government who's saying something that's not true Yeah, yeah, I mean and they and they, and they scream about threats to democracy all the time. Let's just be a little bit more self-aware. Realize what that looked like.

People were just bullshitting about evidence that they had or that they saw. Well, the Democrats saying anything's a threat to democracy is wild when they haven't had a primary since 2012. That's wild. Yeah, yeah. That's really wild. I mean, they kicked Bernie out, they made sure RFK Jr. wasn't in, and then when it came time for Kamala to run,

no primary at all. They just put her in position. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah, they didn't know what else to do. And by the way, there's so much going on right now. Today, speaking of Kamala and now, speak about Biden, but today was his name, the Chief of Staff, the former Chief of Staff for Biden, I think he was only there for a couple of years, Ron Klain was up on

Capitol Hill to talk because they're holding these interviews up on Capitol Hill to try to figure out what the hell was going on, right? At what point did people decide they're going to cover up the mental condition of Joe Biden? And that's another, look, I mean- And then they're all pleading the fifth. They're all pleading the fifth. Kevin O'Connor, the White House doctor, pled the fifth. Senior advisor to Joe Biden, what's his name, Bernal, Andrew Bernal, pled the fifth, right? You know, and Ron Klain apparently stayed up there for a couple hours talking, right? But you know, again, he wasn't there for the last couple years of the administration, I

think, but he was there for the debate prep, right? And he's come out publicly and said, I was shocked at his condition. So you know, people- I think they set him up for failure in that debate. Why, first of all, why are they having a debate that late? Why would they agree to a debate at 9pm? When you got a guy who's really old and kind of broken down. Why would you do that?

Television timing, who knows? And it seemed like, didn't someone blame it on him being on Ambien? Yeah, Hunter did. Hunter did. That fantastic interview that Hunter just did with, I forget his name, Andrew Callahan or something like that. Yeah, he referenced, now he's walking it back saying, you know, I wasn't meaning that he was on Ambien during the debate, I'm just saying, you know, they had him on Ambien because

he had his travel schedule. The guy was at Camp David and resting in Delaware for 10 days prior to the debate. So yeah. I don't know. Jesus. What a mess. I think they set him up. I think they wanted him out and this is the way to do it. Get him in the debate.

Don't give him his medicine. Excuse me. Don't give him the proper medication to keep them up and peppy and let him out They're all confused and apparently had a cold at the time too. So but if you if they were gonna do that Wouldn't you think that they would? I Don't know have a better plan a plan B No, they didn't have a plan and I think the Biden administration the people didn't want him to step down There's people inside the organization that didn't want him to step down particularly

Supposedly Jill Jill did not want him to step down, but then there's the cancer thing like How do they not know that he has cancer? Well, they had for yeah. Yeah. Yeah, which is crazy like That's I'm at years of developing. Yeah Yeah, I just think if there was a plan, if there was a nefarious plan to have him step down, I think they thought he would get through it. I think they did. He might have if he performed the way he performed in the first debate. Yeah, I don't know. It seems to me that they were caught in the headlights at the point where he did so poorly. Take some water, buddy.

Yeah, I'm gonna, I know. Jesus Christ, what the fuck is going on with you? Yeah, I know. It's the ambient. It's starting to kick in. Have you ever taken that stuff? No. No.

Have you? It scares the shit out of me. No. You don't? No. My friend Kevin took it and he got up in the middle of the night, cooked a meal, went to bed, and didn't know he cooked a meal. So he went back and saw the plates in the kitchen, thought someone broke into his house

and cooked. Like, yeah, that's not good. No. No. I've never taken it. Have you taken Xanax? No. No. Neither have I. never taken have you taken Xanax? No, no, neither. Yeah, that's tough scary That's what's what fuck Jordan Peterson up. That stuff's really hard to kick. Oh

Yeah Benzodiazepine is one of the hardest things to kick It's one of the things that if you get off a cold turkey and kill you good God. Yeah. Yeah, and they put everybody on it Yeah, yeah, that's what I was gonna say. It seems like it's readily available If you get off a cold turkey and kill you. Good God. Yeah. Yeah. And they put everybody on it. Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to say. It seems like it's readily available.

As is Adderall. Yeah. Readily available and fucking super bad for you. Although during the, what was it, during the pandemic, you couldn't get Adderall. I remember that being an issue. Right. I remember writing stories about that. Right.

Make it overseas? Couldn't, yeah, exactly. As they do with most of our pharmaceuticals including what we've been talking about And so then people probably bought black market at a raw which probably has fentanyl in it Which probably contributed to a lot of deaths. Yeah. Yeah, I got this voice now. I sound like Kim Carrons, you know I'm Betty Davis eyes Kim Carrons. It's very sultry voice. I've got going on here for a second Yeah, well, I suspect most people have time wait for no one. Yeah. But I think, yeah, so the Biden, let's call it a cover up. That's

again, it's an example of how people are not more upset about that, right? I mean, again, with the idea that we've got ADHD and everybody's moving on, but you would imagine that that story, if none other, right? Because it's not quite as complicated as the Intel issue or even as the Epstein files. It's pretty straightforward. People hiding the condition of the leader of the free world. So anyway, that's, it's just a thought. I'm surprised that it's gone away.

Well then there's the auto pen as well. That's another wild thing. Because so many of these people that were pardoned, were pardoned by auto pen. And so you have to, it begs begs the question like how was that negotiated? Like who was involved in that who made those decisions? What was their motivation? Were they compensated? Like what was and it look he was he says the former president Biden says he was advised on all of this He was in on all of these and and the auto pen was primarily used for you know, you know sort of wrote pardons, collective pardons, where they're pardoning, you know, for an action, and so you have a number of people

included in that that you're giving pardons to. But all of this, whether it's that, whether it's any of the other things we've been talking about, at the end of the day, it's no wonder. Look, people's confidence level in politicians and government institutions and the media is at an all-time low. I think that's a really dangerous thing, but I don't see how you walk the dog back on that. How do you do that? How do you suddenly create more trust in any of those things? Well, I think a lot of people thought that draining the swamp would create trust, right? The idea of Trump coming into office, we had four terrible years under Biden, Trump's going to come in and clean things up, everything's going to make sense now. But everything is

just as chaotic, if not more, and just as confusing. I mean, there's good things that are happening, the closing of the border is clearly a good thing. That was fucking scary and dangerous. Yeah, no, look, from a policy perspective, look, the other day they had like nine crossings, right? Nine, right? Compared to maybe 10,000, 11,000, 12,000 a day

in the previous administration. So that's a huge win. And that's what they should be talking about. And they should be talking about the trade deals. They got a good trade deal with Japan. They got a good trade deal with Indonesia. They got a good trade deal with Vietnam. They signed one with the UK.

They're getting ready for the European Union. There's things that they should be talking about. And instead, once again, we're fucking consumed with what we've been discussing. Epstein, and the intel manipulation, you know? I mean, you think in Biden's condition and- Obama, treason. Yeah, yeah.

So it's really, it's disappointing, but again, I don't know how, I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than the fact that it's very depressing if you think about where our focus is right now. There's a lot of flashpoints around the world, a lot of real serious crises and threats to national security and concerns. The White House can't seem to, you know, get a focus, right, on things. But yeah, the border thing is a great win. That's a very, from a national security issue, that's a terrific win. Yeah, the fact that it was open for so long is so insane to think that anybody would think

that would be a good idea unless you wanted chaos. Yeah, that is always discussed as like, was it intentional? I don't see how it's not intentional. Right? And I mean, that's because we can see now after six months of the second Trump administration that you can fix the problem, right? They could have fixed it instantly. They could have done it and they chose not to.

So you know, clearly there's a lot of people in that in the Dem Party and the Democratic They could have fixed it instantly. They could have done it, and they chose not to. Clearly there's a lot of people in the Democratic Party that are fans of or believe in open borders. But there's also the moving of the people to swing states, and the fact that it changes the number of congressional seats regardless of whether or not someone's there legally or illegally. Once they do a sentence on how many people live there, it raises the number of congressional seats that's available. Yeah.

Which is crazy. Well, yeah. All that's so wild that it's so transparent. I mean, look at Europe. I know that's kind of a, you know, people talk about this, but look at France, look at the UK. I mean, you know, much smaller environments, and you can see what happens when you have massive migration.

Look, I'm not against immigration, I'm just saying it should be legal. You should know who's coming across your border. You should have security. You can't pay for everybody. So opening up your borders and say, come on in and we're going to provide you with whatever Mom Donnie in New York is providing, new free grocery stores and free bus and free childcare and everything's going to be free. And they're going to tax businesses.

That's how they're going to pay for it. That's what he said. He said, and if you're wondering how I'm going to pay for this, I'm going to tax the rich. You think like, oh my God, Stalin, you've been going all the way back to, the communists have been talking that way for years, feeding the same bullshit lines to gormless sheep, where just now, Mom, Donnie's just talking to a new generation of sheep, and he could well end up as the mayor. Utopian perspectives are really attractive to young people because you see the way these older rich people have been running the world, it's all corrupt, they don't

care, they're all capitalists and monsters, all they care about is money. I don't have any money, I want them to take the money away from the rich people and give it to the poor people and then everything will be fine. Yeah. It's like a common thought amongst young people. I get it, if you're a young person you probably look at your parents, if your parents have look, I get it. If you're a young person, you probably look at your parents. If your parents have done okay, done well, and you're thinking, well, maybe I'm not going to be able to do that, right? I mean, there are a lot of young folks now saying, I can't buy a house.

How am I going to get a down payment for a house, right? I'm drowning in school loans, which of course they took out. So I get the frustration in a sense. And so I think Mamdani is doing again what a lot of slick socialists or communists in the past have done. He's speaking to the masses and he's using all these platitudes and there will be an element that buys into it because they haven't seen how shitty it can be. Well, it seems like a huge element bought into it.

He won the primary. He won the primary, yeah. So what happens now? So Eric Adams is the current mayor. So if this guy wins the primary, is Adams even, is it possible for him to run? Like what, how does it work now? Well I guess, I mean he could run as a, he could run as an independent, which maybe is his intention. Because he apparently is still running, right? Yeah, absolutely. He plans on running?

Wasn't Cuomo also planning on running, or did he drop out again? I believe he's still trying to run as well. Yeah, I think he's... So he lost the primary, and I think people think that people are so horrified that Mondani's in that they think that maybe it's possible. And then there's Curtis Llewa. He still wants to wear that stupid fucking hat. And then there's Curtis Llewa, he still wants to wear that stupid fucking hat. Yeah, God bless Curtis Llewa.

If he took that fucking hat off, maybe he'd have a chance. Yeah, at some point he's got to stop that. But I think there's a good chance that if Eric Adams ran as an independent, maybe that's the plan. And if Cuomo dropped out, I think if they split the vote, then I think mum Donnie wins But they're going to have to and the Democrats, you know nationwide seem to have some real concern over mum Donnie, right? Because that's not the message they want to send at a time when they see Sort of this cultural shift in in America where we think okay We might be done with this whole woke issue, right and then they see mum Donnie out there doubling down bullshit doubling down And you got Bernie Sanders back and you got got Jerry Nadler backing them, and New York

backing them, you got obviously AOC backing them. So they rightly so, because what do they want to do? They want to reclaim the White House, right? And they want to reclaim the Senate. They're not going to do it right in the backs of a valed socialist, right, who wants to reclaim the- More than a socialist than essentially a communist. Yeah. Yeah, so And he's you know, he's You know again, you know, god bless the ideology of the youth

But you know people should you know do a little bit more research into His ideas and how they've worked elsewhere to his ideas and how they've worked elsewhere, right? And maybe they might change their vote. There's only one way to enforce those ideas, and that's with guns. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's how you force people. That's a government grocery store.

Get the hell over there. Yeah, government grocery stores and taking money away from the rich people. Like, how are you going to enforce that? You need force. Well, they're trying to. I mean, look, California tried to, I think maybe they've even enacted it. They've tried to figure out a way to tax people who are leaving the state.

Yeah, that was a thought that they had that I don't think is constitutional. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they wanted to, I think it was five years. So if you had left with it, so me, I could get taxed. God. For even though I've been out there for five years. So if you had left with it, so me, I could get taxed. God. Even though I've been out there for five years. But that's just, they're just so irresponsible with what they've done with the tax money. They have some of the highest taxes in the

country and it's chaos. And then they're also like upset that people want to film what's going on in the palisades in Malibu. Oh shit, yeah. Yeah, I was there not too long ago and nothing's happening. Nothing's done. It's still a war zone. Right? You drive up towards Malibu and everything's just gutted. So you think, and it's because you've got thousands and thousands of regulations in

place that prevent the reconstruction, right? Just trying to get a simple permit for something takes you forever. It's going to be years. Yeah. you forever and yeah, it's gonna be years Yeah I think it's gonna be interesting because Gavin Newsom obviously is in sort of a soft campaign right now to set the table to run for President I mean he's desperate. He's like, you know, he's he's like some kid who wants to be the class president I'm on Sean Ryan's podcast. Yeah, I did not I'm sorry. I miss that one Wow, it was a disaster. Well, he's got his own podcast, right?

Allegedly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how'd he do on John's? Terrible. Yeah.

Of course. Terrible. It was terrible. I mean, there's only so much he can say. Like, the record speaks for itself. His record is terrible. And that's a problem. People are fleeing the state.

The disaster that came about because of the fire, the homeless situation is untenable. It's all madness. But look, if you look at the Democrat Party and you say, okay, so what does that mean? Because right now they're flailing about, right? They're doing this autopsy of what happened from this last election, even though they're not going to address the issue of Joe Biden and at what point did we know that he shouldn't be running. They're going to leave that off the table.

But the purpose of the autopsy is essentially to try to figure out what's our next step, who's our next leader. And they did a survey not that long ago and they said who's the top of the Democrat party? The top three individuals were AOC, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sanders. None of them got more than like a 10% of the total on the survey. When you've got those three as your option and you're trying to figure out how do you how do you appeal more to? You know a larger mass They got an issue because it's not yeah, I agree. It's not gonna be Gavin Newsom. It won't be Pete Buttigieg They've got a solution Jamie. I just texted you something. This is the solution the solution. Yeah

Here's a solution It's coming up. I hope it's not Hillary. Finally a Democrat who could shine on Joe Rogan's show. Hunter Biden is unrepentant by Helen Lewis. Helen, take your medication. Oh my God. He did the best ad for crack ever though. Yeah. It was a great ad for crack. It was not just an ad.

It was a cooking show. That fucker taught American youth how to make crack. I was astounded as he sat there. He loves crack more than anything in the world. It sounded great. He was romantically involved with crack. He said it's safer than alcohol. Yes.

Take that to the bank, kids. Holy shit. It's a thing. What the fuck? Talk about not learning from what happened during the crack epidemic ruined American cities. Yeah, no. Which reportedly was done by the the agency by the way

reportedly yeah, again conspiracy theories But yeah, I I am well, excuse me battling a summer cold apparently. It's probably allergies. There's so many allergies here in Austin God Yeah, I that that interview with but how is it apparently that the family has no control over Right? That interview with...how is it, apparently the family has no control over him, but how is it that they allow him to go and do podcasts or interviews of any sort? They need to do an intervention and, you know, look, I hope he's clean, I hope he's not, you know...

Is he clean? When he was talking about it, I mean, he said, I'm reluctant to explain this, but he was being honest about like why it works and what's so euphoric about it. Well, it feeds into the Democrats have decided apparently that they need to be tougher, right because after the last election And so they would send Tim waltz out there and you know Elmer Fudd and in his hunting gear to try to try to appeal to middle America and So I can see it, you know, you and you see, you know more Democrats getting out there and swearing, because that makes them tougher.

So that interview with Hunter Biden, I can see feeds into this idea that the Democrats strategists have is we've got to be more mainstream, right? We've just got to be, which again is kind of in part why they're so concerned over Mamdani in New York City. Yeah, well, they were trying for a long time to squash masculinity and frame it all as being toxic. And people rebelled against that in a huge way. Eventually, it took a while. Well, a lot of young men in particular

went to the right because of that. And a lot of young men that would ordinarily have probably voted Democrat if you were just fucking reasonable. But you turned them into villains for no reason other than just being men Yeah, and that was a narrative that people were really sick of and it's like the pendulum swings one way And the other way it always does it always has this is how we course correct we try to figure out our way through this world and

People go one way too far and then they over-correct going the other way and then we try to bring it back to the middle and it never really kind of goes there. Yeah, no, you're right. It is, and that's been the problem for quite some time is that it is. It's like that pendulum. You have, you're over here and then instead of it like settling in the center, you're back over here and that happens every administration change, right?

So you get this knee-jerk reaction and you know from a legislative perspective that's a real problem right because you never you really never do get shit done right because you're bouncing from extreme to extreme. There's also a problem with this four-year term thing it's like every four years we have a new person or the same person does it twice these are the option the only options that you have so you have this terrible situation where you're always like shitting on the other side and there's no, there's no like, hey, this is the president now, let's all work together. Yeah. What if you had a set up like Mexico, Mexico has a presidency where you can,

you serve a six year term and that's it. You're done. One term, but it's six years. I don't know. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. You know, it was like, we, these people fucked it up. We're going to do a better job. And then they get in and it's the same fucking thing. Well, and also you get the self-interest. Obviously, that's not rocket science. But if you can be a senator for 46 years or however long. Which is nuts. Which is nuts.

And you can make hundreds of millions of dollars somehow or another. Right. And that's another thing. I always wonder how do people not, and again, maybe some intrepid investigative journalists if there are any left, I mean, who wouldn't want to do a story about the wealth gains by politicians? Just look at the past 10 years, right? And take them on both sides, right? So you look at Chuck Schumer and AOC and you look at, on the other side, you look at Grassley and you look at Mitch McConnell, whatever, right?

And you look at those. And that would make a fascinating series if you just said, how the fuck did you make your money? It's 100% both sides too, which is so important. Because everybody wants to point to Pelosi, and Pelosi made a lot of money for sure. But it's a lot of them. It's a lot of them.

I don't handle any of our finances, because I'm not smart enough. We do have a fund that tracks Pelosi. There's a Pelosi Tracker Fund. It's done very well. It's done very well. I'm always fascinated, because I'm thinking, well, of course it does well because you're sitting up there on God damn Capitol Hill. You hear in these hearings, you hear about developments, and it doesn't have to be about

a particular company. It could be about our particular dealings with a country and regulatory concerns with that country, or it could be about a sector and where we're going and you can yes of course you can use that information to your benefit unless you're a moron but it shouldn't be legal right shouldn't be legal no no it's insider trading yeah and they put Martha Stewart away for insider trading yeah so how about you know politicians but actually they put her away for lying did they yeah they didn't get her on insider trading they got her for lying oh because you know and? Yeah, they didn't get her on insider trading. They got her for lying. Oh. Because, you know, during the investigation, she didn't tell the truth about something.

But they didn't actually, I don't believe she was actually jailed for insider trading. It's always the cover up. It's always the cover up. It's all just horse shit when someone like Nancy Pelosi is able to do it legally. If you're able to make hundreds of millions of dollars legally through some... where your salary is so low. Most people who make... and not that it's low, but most people who make a salary of... it's a great salary, but most people make $170,000 a year might have $170,000 in the bank. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. They won't have $200 million. Yeah. That's crazy. And they'll argue, well, I get a lot of it from speeches and from books and I don't know.

I don't think you do. Yeah. Well, you can track it. You can see how much money she'd made in the stock market. Well, that's what I'm saying. That would be a fascinating series if that's what you did, is if you did asset tracing and, you know, a financial review of, of, you know, modern day politicians, how did you make your goddamn money? Also, why are you still doing it? You're older than Biden. She's older than Biden. Like, chill out. I know. Go on a vacation. It'll never happen. People, it's not even about the money, it's about the access, the power, the people who carry your bags and toady after you, you know, and then they love that shit. So I get it. I get what the attraction is I'm just saying that you know if if we had any balls, you know, we would have had enacted term limits quite some time ago

Yeah, anyway, yeah. Well and at the very least they should block insider trade you I'm sure you've seen that time Which she was questioned about insider trading. Yeah Well, we should be able to protect you You're not participating, lady. You're making hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah. It's insane. And this is not a partisan... I agree with you, 100%.

It's not a partisan issue. Not at all. It's everybody gets up on there. Yeah. If you look at the trades, if you look at it between the red and the blue, it's across the board. They're all doing it. I think it lures them in.

I think once they get into office, and even if they have good intentions, they get lured in by a corrupt system, and then they play ball. And then they get paid. Well, and then you get a lifetime pension, which again, makes no sense. How about you say, okay, fine,

you're going up there on Capitol Hill, you get your pension while you're up there, your pay is maybe similar to, I don't know, the military, your congressman, maybe you get a major's pay. I have no idea, I'm just making that shit up. Take the financial incentives and the excitement out of it, and maybe you get a different group of people who want to pursue that work. And then they just go to hell back to wherever they came from and work a job. But also there's a problem that the campaigns are so ugly. And we've agreed sort of as a

society that that's how we do it. And that these people are going to attack each other. You know, I remember one of the things during the, but when Biden was running, when Kamala Harris was saying that he was guilty of sexual assault. Like, you remember that? And then afterwards she gets interviewed, I think it was by Colbert, and she's like, it was a debate. It was a debate. Like, imagine that. It's a debate. And so you're willing to say something in a debate that's not true? Well, it's this policy that you can, I think it's partly just a disdain for the American voter and the belief that you can, people will move on and they do. Maybe that's, you know, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. People tend to, you know, forget pretty quickly. Well, we're overwhelmed by information now.

We are constantly, consistently overwhelmed by the news cycle. And it is almost impossible. You have to have some sort of a Mike Ben style recall in your head, where you can keep track of everything. Because it's just coming at you so fast. And Doge and Elon and this and that. I had some guy ask me last night, do you think that the Elon Musk

and Donald Trump thing was staged? And I go, do you think it's staged? He's like, absolutely, I think it's all fake. I go, do you think that they made an agreement that Elon would say that you're on the Epstein client list and that's why you won't release the file? Do you think that Donald and Elon came to that agreement? That you're on the Epstein client list and that's why you won't release the file you did like yeah Donald and Elon came to that agreement. Yeah, just sitting around over a diet coke. Yeah

That's a good idea. Yeah, they're all in on it. Like are you out of your fucking mind? What do you think about Musk's? political party First of all, my wife told me you really can't name it the America Party. It's not legal all my wife told me you really can't name it the America Party it's not legal really yeah why I don't know yeah she told me I believed her Jamie you didn't follow up thanks honey we're gonna dinner she was you know you can't just call your party the America Party I go really she was no you can't you can't use the term America for your party, which makes sense But I don't think you couldn't because I'd be like fuck you. I'm the America party. Yeah, it's the whole country

You know I'm saying if you decide you're the American Party, and I'm against the America Party well that sounds like I'm against America I guess you but you couldn't you take I'm calling the American Party I'm gonna trademark that name that was my problem with Patriot Act You can't call it the Patriot Act you motherfucker because then if you go against that you're against the Patriots. God damn, right? That's right crazy the terrorists win. Yeah, is it legal to call your party the America Party? I'm looking into this for example Additionally, New York State laws outlawed the use of words like independent independence America and America names of political parties yeah yeah there you go there you go okay so she's right yeah so listen just in New York gotta come up with it oh just in New York it sounds like so nationally it's legal if it's in New York I'll bet

it's what does an independent call himself in New York then if you run as an independent and it says you can't well you can run as an independent you can't call your party the independent party. Yeah, it's all quite sus Sus look at you Yeah, I know everything's us likewise You know, like what is he gonna do with this party? You're not gonna get you know, how's that gonna work? Yeah, I don't think this I you know as much as I don't I think there's there should be room. I guess I should say it that way There should be room for another party 100%

But I don't think there's enough oxygen to to do it here It is the name America Party has been used by several different political parties in the United States most famously as the official name of the no nothings the official name of the Know Nothings. The Know Nothings is my favorite. That's what you should call it. Why doesn't he call it the X party? He likes the term X. A nativist group sometimes dubbed the America's Third Party that rose to prominence in the years leading up to the U.S. Civil War. The Know Nothings were during the Civil War. That's crazy. Pete The name America Party is an attempt to brand the party as a force of patriotism uni that's what you're saying yeah okay as well as the names of an anti-mormon party in Utah and the

supporters of George Wallace Wow Jesus Christ he's not a handsome man boy he looks evil yeah I'm not you and you're fucked up eyebrows bro some people just look like they are you know what I mean? George Wallace, I remember watching, I mean it was tiny, but I remember, still to this day, watching when he got shot at that rally that he was at. Oh, that's right. Put him in the wheelchair.

But yeah, I don't know. Again, I don't think there's room for a third party. There should be, but I just don't see it happening. We're too entrenched in the way that we do things. And you start splitting the vote. And I think maybe it's, who knows, maybe I get more chaos than we've currently got. Yeah. I mean, those two together, it's like, geez, I saw that coming.

I was like, this is not going to work out. When his son was with him in the Oval Office and the son told him to shut up, he told Trump to shut up. The little kid told Trump to shut up and he said, you're not the president. Oh my God. What is that? It actually lasted longer than I thought it would. Well, it destroyed Elon.

Yeah. Destroyed his company, destroyed Tesla. I mean, and then on top of that, when people started putting swastikas on Teslas and keying Teslas. Firebombing shops. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Madness. Yeah. Madness.

I mean, and then people were probably very reluctant to buy a Tesla Because they were worried like hey if I buy this fucking thing and park it somewhere someone's gonna key it I know somebody who actually covered up the Tesla insignia on their car We're behind someone the other day on the highway and they had a fucking thing on their car that said I bought this before Elon went crazy bought this before Elon went crazy. God.

Like, oh God. You know. You're conceding. You're giving into the mob. Yeah. And it was also- You're giving into the dumbest mob, too. But there was an element also that was like, oh, you know, it's a legitimate form of protest

to, you know, what? To blow up a fucking Tesla dealership? Right? That's not legitimate. To blow up charging stations? It's certainly not legitimate to destroy people's private property Yeah, who are just paying a lease on a car that they probably had for three or four fucking years before any of this shit went Down. Yeah. Yeah, but they've not but they do it if someone walks by and keys the car right keys the car at Tesla and you can just use a they I don't know why they all tend to look alike but they do and

All it they're just like this this this tend to look alike, but they do. And you just saw it there, just like this sense of self-righteousness. I deserve to do this because I'm in the right. I'm on the side of good, so therefore I can do whatever the fuck I want. So anyway. Just mentally ill people. And there's a lot of them in this country. And unfortunately, you can weaponize them.

Yeah. And we've also played into it, right? I mean, so it's you know Oh the US Olympics by the way, the US Olympic committee Just said, you know males will not be able to participate in female sports shocker shocking I had no idea that we had to actually say that I love it Apparently we do where they're gonna take that gold medal away from that dude who pretended he was a woman and won the boxing Yeah, got that bizarre Fuck off, man.

So crazy. That's where this woke thing just hits the wall, where people who have daughters and people who just like, hey, look, I want you to live your life and be whoever you want to be. I really do. I don't want to infringe upon your right to express yourself. But at a certain point in time, when you impose this on other people and you fuck up their lives, and Vivek had

a great term, he was calling it the tyranny of the oppressed. That the oppressed, people who are legitimately oppressed in a lot of ways, then they turn that on everybody else and they want everyone to concede to their demands. It's like, okay. Yeah. It's that, you know, I'm the victim, so therefore I deserve the following. Therefore we're going to throw society into a woodchipper.

Yeah. I agree with you. I want, yeah, again, I'm busy enough that I don't have to spend a lot of time worrying about what other people are doing. At the same time, I don't need to play along with your imaginings. And so I think that's where it started to... Once it started to impact other people, like a kid who loses a race because now suddenly she's racing against a dude. Yeah, exactly.

900 medals lost during this time. Really? Yes. 900 medals lost during this time. Really? Yes, 900 medals that would have gone to biological females that were won by biological males because of this crazy ideology over the last few years. And so think about how many girls lost out on scholarships, think about how many girls just like felt fucked over by the system,

where you've got a guy in the fucking locker room with his dick hanging out and you're supposed to pretend that that's a woman. It's crazy. Yeah. And then God forbid you go against the idea and a handful of people did and spent a lot of time getting pilloried for it. Riley Gaines. Riley Gaines, yeah.

Good example. You see people attacking her all the time online. It's just wild. I think it's dying down a little bit. I think we hit that top and then I think it's coming back down to where people are saying enough is enough. Again, with the idea that, look, you want to do that, you want to pretend that you can, you know, you want to believe that a dude can have a baby, fine, you do that.

I don't need to pretend with you. I don't, I'm not going to infringe on your thinking that that's the case, you know, and yes, you need some protections in place for people. Of course you do, right? But at a certain point, I kind of lost track. It used to be that you had gay dudes and you had lesbians, right? That was kind of it, right? You had guys who liked guys and you had girls who liked girls, and you're fine.

We made progress in that regard, where people that used to have to hide that, they don't That was kind of it, right? You had guys who liked guys and you had girls who liked girls, and you're fine. We made progress in that regard where people that used to have to hide that, they don't have to hide that anymore. Right, right. It's pretty much accepted by society for the most part. And then they're trying the same thing with this, and it's like, no, this is a different thing. And a lot of the gays, they don't want this in their group.

They're like, no, this is a different thing. This is, this is not your sexual orientation. You're attracted to men. This is an identity thing. This is a totally different thing that you're dealing with. And then you also have to factor in, as uncomfortable as this is for people, you have to factor in perverts who all of a sudden can just say, I'm a woman and wear a dress dress and now they can enter into women's spaces and you can't stop them and that's real man, that's real. That's not discounting actual trans people or discounting gay people or lesbians, it's not. But you're opening the door for fucking sexual predators. People who are out of their fucking minds man.

And you also had, one of the things I never quite Figured out was you also have the you have the parent who's like they've got a Three-year-old son who says I'd like to play with the dolls and then suddenly the mother's the enabler, right? I want to get him on hormone blockers. Yeah, and you're thinking like how about you just let the kid be a kid You know, maybe tomorrow they want to play football. Maybe the next day they want to do interpretive dance Maybe the following day they want to play football. Maybe the next day they want to do interpretive dance Maybe the following day they want to play baseball let the fucking kids grow up in a certain way without trying to impose Exactly, you know this this this bizarreness on them So they do it because they want that kid to be whatever yeah, whatever it is

Well, they want them to be queer they wanted to be trans For them it makes them look more progressive and they they have their kid like a fucking flag they plant in their lawn and it's gross but there's a lot of these pathological monsters that happen to be parents they're just nuts yeah everybody anybody gets a license to be a parent it's like boat drivers and the other day we were out on the lake in a boat and it was close to fourth of july and I realized, really anybody, anybody can drive a boat. Yeah, you don't even have to have a driver's license. No, you don't have to do a breathalyzer.

I mean you should and we've got sheriffs out there trying to stop people from drinking a boat. They bust people drinking, but they do it. Yeah, they do it. They do it all the time. It freaks me out. Yeah, it's bizarre because the same people would not say, I'm gonna shotgun 12 cores and then drive my car. But god damn it, they'll be happy to get behind that boat

and take off and do things. And so we've got, our boys have started driving the boat on their own, taking their friends out and that sort of thing. And it's actually more nerve wracking when they head out on the lake than it is when they get in their car and drive somewhere, right? Because of just like the craziness that goes on. So yeah, I watched one of our boys head off in the boat. He had like, there were like three dudes and seven

girls on there. It was his dream, right? He was heading off to the lake. They were going to go cliff jumping and some surfing and everything. And I watched him go on and I said, God bless you. But I was inside, I was so goddamn nervous. Of course. So anyway, they did fine. People think they're invulnerable when they're young too, which is also a problem. You don't think anything's gonna happen because nothing's happened yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You haven't had enough like severe injuries where you go, oh, I'm vulnerable as shit. This is dangerous. Like people can die. You need to see it. They go bridge jumping, they'll climb up to the top of a bridge, jump off, and it's just like, oh my god. I know a girl did that and she's fucked for the rest of her life, her back was ruined.

She felt funny and hit her ass in the water and it destroyed her spine. It's like, I mean, you get higher up there, and it's like concrete. It's like concrete, yeah, exactly. And then if you over-rotate or you under-rotate or whatever, but yeah, you know. Fuck that. There's a balance, right?

Because with the boys in particular, you don't want to take away that risk-taking element, right? You want them to take risk, right? So there's a fine line of saying, no, don't do that. That's dangerous. Whether they're doing that or they're going to the dirt track or whatever they're doing. And you think, okay, how do you balance that out? Be smart, you know, but I don't want to stop you from taking risks, if that makes sense. No, it does make sense.

Listen, you're talking to someone who spent the majority of my teenage years fighting, you know, with no health insurance. So, like, I'm not, I'm talking from a position of not being one of the wisest people. But I was never into, like, jumping off of things. I didn't want to ski, I didn't want to do any of that because I knew how vulnerable I was. Which is crazy. Which is crazy because you're risking getting clocked every time you have to fight You think like I'm getting clocked in the head all the time in the gym

Well, yeah constantly getting kicked and punched and yeah, but I realized like hey, I don't want to ski. I could ruin my knees. Yeah I might I might fracture a rib there. I don't want to do that I just wanted to take as few risks outside of this one risky thing as possible. And I think a lot of kids don't have enough controlled risks. So then they start wanting to jump dirt bikes and you wind up breaking every fucking bone in your body. Yeah, our youngest boy, yeah, happy birthday Mugsy, but he went over his bike, you know, wearing a helmet, very good helmet, still banged his head.

This was just a couple days ago. So I'm on the road and I'm like, okay, keep him up. Don't, you know, make sure he's good. And so anyway, yeah. But again, I don't want to, then when I talk to him, I don't want to say, well, you shouldn't have done that. You know, you want to say, okay, you're good? Now you know. Do you know what you did wrong?

And he's like, yeah, I didn't get the back wheel on the... He's like, okay. But anyway, that's parenting. Yeah, you don't want to completely shelter your child, but you don't want them to expose to unnecessary risks. But there's this balance that you have to achieve that's really hard. Because you don't want a sheltered child that's scared to take any risks at all. Yeah. We're sending the oldest one off to university in a couple of weeks.

Wow. Going down to Ole Miss. And yeah, you're right. I mean, that's a big step. So he's going down. He's been down there a couple of times already, he's met some of the folks down there, he's had a good time. Some of the guys taking him out to the bars.

And so at a certain point you lose control of him, right? And so all you can do up to a certain age is just hope you've set the compass right. Yeah, you have to set the compass right. And at a certain point in time you have to realize that's an individual human being that you don't have control over anymore. And one of the worst things that parents do is they try to control their kids when they're in their thirties and forties. Like they still treat them like their children. Like you're just going to have a resentful person.

Like they don't want you to be the boss of them when they're 30 fucking years old, you know? Yeah. Or, or honestly, twenties. They just, you know? Yeah, or honestly 20s. They just, you know, I think they still, they wanna know that there's a place they can go or that someone they can talk to or advice they can get. But yeah, at a certain point you just,

and I think, you know, who knows what that point is. I mean, it changes. I think kids seem to be growing up a lot quicker now. Well, it's because of the internet, right there so much information comes their way and Yeah, it's and then we're you know, we're at the precipice of artificial general superintelligence Which is gonna bust out of its cage if it hasn't already I mean There's real good arguments that it's already done it and we're not aware of it yet because it hasn't assumed control of things. It hasn't acted in a way. It doesn't

have a physical form where it can move around yet. Right. We're definitely moving in that direction. I think we're probably already there. We're just unaware of it. But I think people at the cutting edge, I think. But yeah, we went from a Rogan show that was done by AI to now you can't swing a dead cat on the internet without hitting Rogan babies, right? Oh, those babies are hilarious. Oh my God, the babies are great. Theo Vonn is the best one.

Yeah, yeah. Theo Vonn's a great baby. I will say, anytime, and I don't spend a lot of time digging through things like that, but anytime I see the baby episodes with you and Theo, I'm like, yeah, I gotta watch this, son of a bitch. Then I send it to the boys. Yeah. Oh, God. But they don't, there's no authorization. You have no control.

Right. No, there's no, it's just a wild west right now. And it's happening so fast. You know, we had, who was this showing us the Skywalker thing Was it Joe DeRosa? Yeah, so my friend Joe DeRosa was showing us this They're doing Star Wars AI

Like fan created AI scenes of stuff that they wanted to happen Yeah, and it looks better than the actual Star Wars. And it's young Luke Skywalker. It's Mark Hamill from like Star Wars 1. Like that, like look at this, watch this. Look how incredible this is. And look at this. That's AI. I mean, this is nuts, man. I mean, this is like better quality than the original Star Wars itself. And it's his voice, it's his face. It's all perfectly synced It looks incredible like look at this Yeah, that's we my company does some work for

The entertainment industry for the movie movie business and I was out there talking to one of the studios. So to remain nameless Not that long ago and this is a massive issue for them. I look they they're seeing not that long ago, and this is a massive issue for them. Look, they're seeing full scripts out there, written by AI for some of their franchise movies and characters, and they're seeing, they're animators, they're writers, all these people are obviously worried and they're convinced that they're about to be made useless. And they're right. And they're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because what they're finding, they're just what you're looking at here. They're finding, but there's places where they're dumping full-length scripts and pieces of movies out there and it's going to upend, much like whatever Netflix and the others did with the television market, it's going to upend the whole industry Netflix and the others did with it with the television market It's gonna upend the whole industry. It's gonna 100% There's no way around it at this point if someone can make something like this the Skywalker stories thing I mean, this is just a person doing this with an AI video generator Again, you just do it through prompts. I mean- Yeah. Or you say to yourself, okay, I want to write a scripted TV series.

What am I going to write about? You spend 20 minutes feeding some ideas into whatever. I forget what the, aside from chat GPT, there's a bunch of them out there. And it will feed back to you in short order the entire show map. It'll give you all the characters, it'll give you a character map, it'll give you pitch lines, it'll give you episode plots. It's remarkable. It means all those people who work in Hollywood writing, or wherever they're based, writing

shows or coming up with pilots, they're superfluous to the whole business now. Yeah. And not just that, it's also music. Drake had a song that was a hit Drake song that came out that wasn't him at all. It was all done by AI. And they could just kind of guess what people like. And they could just formulate what the big hits were, what's similar, what's common, what

are the phrases, what are people, what's catchy. Yeah, exactly. Give me the last six songs, the commonalities that made them successful. Exactly. Fine, give me that. Is Drake still beefing with Kendrick Lamar, or is that over? I can't keep track. I think he had to back off of that.

Okay. All right, yeah, I don't know. That's the sort of question we need to be asking. Different people have different perspectives. Some people think Drake won, some people think Kendrick won. I don't really give a fuck quite honestly. I'm not a fan of those kind of beefs, but they do make some good songs sometimes. Beef does, you know, like Ether with Nas. That was a good fucking song. There's... It's just... I was about to nod like I knew what the hell you were talking about. Oh, yeah, yeah, ether with Nas that was a good fucking song there's I was about to nod like I knew what the hell you were talking about oh yeah yeah ether with

Nas yeah you don't know that young gravy a little gravy there's a thing that's gonna happen within our lifetime where all creativity is going to be suspect because you're you're not going to be able to know unless someone's doing something off the cuff Like live in front of you. You're not gonna be able to know whether or not something's AI generated anymore Like they have AI generated stand-up comedy now. That's it's not great, but it's okay You know where you have a guy on stage. The audience is fake. They're laughing what he's saying is comedic The timing is pretty similar to comedy. God.

It's nuts, man. And this is, by the way, impossible three years ago. Probably impossible two years ago. Probably impossible a year ago. Now ubiquitous. It's everywhere. So like, where does this go? And what does five years from now look like? We're just guessing

Well in terms of driving narratives or telling stories or getting people to think a certain way I mean think about how how simple that is now from a Hostile element right like if I'm working Russian propaganda for the FSB How easy is it now for me to create a clip? of whatever let's take a hot topic right and suddenly you me to create a clip of whatever, let's take a hot topic, right? And suddenly you've created a clip where Trump is talking about being in the Epstein files or somebody

around Biden's circle is talking about how they cover it up. People will see that, they'll release it, right? People will see it, they're not gonna necessarily question whether it's, because that's not how people work, right? They see shit on the internet and they go, oh yeah, I'm going to send that to my buddy. And yeah, you got some people who might be more cynical than others, but for the most part people just eat that shit up. And so...

Which is also... Yeah. ...shows you the incompetence of the government that they released that video from the cell that's got two minutes and 53 seconds removed. Because these aren't the best people in the world that are doing that No, no, and that's it that I mean this yeah that you could argue that the on the hostile side on the on the Whatever you want call them hackers or people on the cutting edge of doing things and using this technology for nefarious purposes They they you know, I'm not saying the government doesn't have good quality people doing it But you tend to have you know cutting-edge not saying the government doesn't have good quality people doing it, but you tend to have, you know, cutting edge folks on the hostile team.

Yeah, they're not going to be working for the State Department. No, no, no. They're going to make money otherwise. I got to pee real bad. Let's take a little break and we'll come back. Okay. We'll be right back, folks. Maybe it's a joke, but did you see see that I'd send you the Lockheed Martin thing right? I also sent you the thing that I was looking for earlier which is I think I believe he's a senator that's reading off the most ridiculous tweets from the the CEO former CEO of NPR. Oh yeah. Which is that, do you know? I don't know. Hold on, I can find out.

Eric Schmidt? Yes. From Missouri? That's who it is. Okay, yeah, senator from Missouri. Okay, yeah. Watch this. This is the CEO. Put my glasses on here. I'm so done with late stage capitalism. America is addicted to white supremacy. I do wish Hillary wouldn't use the language of boy and girl. It's a racing language for non-binary people. Lots of jokes about leaving the US, and I get it. But as someone with cis white mobility privilege,

I'm thinking I'm staying and investing in ridding ourselves of the specter of tyranny. Never underestimate the ability of white people to center ourselves. White silence is complicity. I'm white so my hair doesn't automatically carry with it the freight of my race. Worse than everyone else's encoded assumptions. I'm grateful those who have pointed out my phrasing could be understood as trans erasier. Horses inspire awe. Horses inspire awe and foster a sense of identity. More kids should have access to these incredible animals. But most horse spaces are white spaces.

Horse spaces are white spaces. It keeps going. I love the music. The music is good. I think whoever came up with that soundtrack is good God Yeah So the the thing that I sent you the Lockheed Martin thing is people are claiming It's again a lot of horse shit who fucking knows that Lockheed Martin created that tic-tac and that there's been three different versions of it. I sent you that right? Who are the people claiming?

The idea is this is what I wanted to ask you about so this is a congressman who says this Congressman Eric Berlison Dropped the bombshell evidence that Lockheed Martin has developed three generations of Tic Tac UFO technology Is that real though did he say that or is this just a fucking tweet let's I understand that but is did he actually say that or is that just a quote on Twitter I believe he said that okay okay so he says I've had two people come to me that say that the tic-tac is Lockheed Martin creation the latest person come came to, says he has video of the

first, second, and third iteration of the Tic Tac, Berlison revealed. This isn't speculation. This is a congressman with direct access to classified information. The implications are staggering. Lockheed Martin allegedly discovered a revolutionary new propulsion system and has been secretly developing it for decades, according Burleson source they used it in the first iteration which was the tic-tac they have an intermediary one that they are they are more advanced with and then now they're putting it inside what looks like conventional so that it's not obvious okay yeah I'm gonna have to about it? Yeah, I'm going to have to call bullshit on all that. Look, it's interesting, if you scroll back down, there's an interesting, you know, when

you start to dissecting this, he says, I've had two people come to me that say that TicTac is a Lockheed Martin creation. Now, he doesn't say who those two people are. I've had two people come to me that said they had sex with Bigfoot. Yeah, that's right, I did. But you've got, then it says, this isn't speculation. This is a congressman with direct access to classified information, which is the implication that while the people that came to him with this have access to classified information,

which is, there's no connection there. So they're taking a data point and another data point and they're drawing a line between the two of them. Right, making sense. Yes. He's getting this from classified. Verifying it. Yeah, exactly.

Also, the next part has been secretly developing for decades. I'm here to tell you that if Lockheed Martin was developing something for decades, a new form of propulsion... Maybe I'm just a cynical son of a bitch, but I don't think they'd be keeping it secret for all this time. I don't think it would have been able to be kept secret because somebody would have opened their yap or the Chinese would have gotten their hands on it in their economic and Intel espionage efforts. So I don't know.

This strikes me as, and then I've got video of it. Okay, well, how about you show us the goddamn video? It's always the same thing. It's always the same thing. It's always like, I've seen video. Well, thing. Yeah, it's always like I've seen video Well fucking show me bitch. Yeah. Yeah, and then here's the problem the more time they wait the more It's Luke Skywalker shit, but you're gonna show me something. How the hell do I know what's real anymore? Six months away from never knowing right right that is exactly right and that's a problem and they're look

We I think we've talked about this before there are And that's a problem. And look, I think we've talked about this before, there are companies out there, private companies that are working trying to figure out how do you get ahead of the curve of deep fakes, right? An AI-generated material. And it is really difficult, right? And it's lagging that defensive capabilities lagging behind the offensive potential for AI-generated material.

So again, I agree with it. Someone's going to show this, or it's going to be grainy, blurry, and going like, see, see there it is. Oh, I had a guy recently come to me with a bunch of videos that he needed me to look at and every one of them was fucking blurry. And I'm like, I'm not interested in this. This doesn't mean anything to me. Every time you've got another hearing up on Capitol Hill, it's always the same.

I can't talk about it. I've seen this shit, but it's in a skiff and I can't... It's very sensitive and kind of goes back to people getting in front of the camera and saying, I've seen evidence, but I can't tell you about it. You're just going to have to trust me. So I don't know. I'm not a buyer necessarily. If the congressman wants to make a point of

this, then he needs to be more clear on this, right? Right. And when people say things like that and then nothing comes of it, it makes you more and more inclined to believe it's all bullshit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Whereas that's where I am. So I'm like, I think the possibility of alien life, of course. Yeah, of course. There's so many planets, so many stars, and the idea that we're alone seems crazy. That seems more unlikely. But I don't know what's real when people describe things and talk about things and things are

moving underwater at 500 knots. Okay, show me. Show me. Like, I can't anymore. I can't respond. I can't get excited. No, I agree. And sure, yeah, everybody's chasing, just like they're chasing a better battery, everybody's

chasing a new form of propulsion, right? I mean, that's a leading part of what governments are spending their money on if they have the resources to do it. So yeah, there's a national security issue there, and you would think that the congressman then would say, oh, okay, maybe if you're telling me this, I'm not going to go out in public and say it, right? Maybe if we're talking about this, maybe I shouldn't be talking about what Lockheed Martin is doing and obviously working hard, if it's correct, to keep it secret because that's

a national security issue. So what the hell is he doing here? I don't know. It all, it all sounds like it's a sack of bullshit. Well, it's also like the problem is a lot of these politicians, it's kind of a form of entertainment in a lot of a way, because they're trying to get attention. It's like they're almost like reality stars, right? They're trying to do something outrageous to get attention, and that'll help them get elected, that'll get the constituents on their side and they're gonna, I'm gonna

be the guy that releases all this information. Oh, let's vote for Bob. I'm the UFO Congressman. Yeah, but it's like, you're not producing anything. Show me, tell me, or shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. Yeah, I agree, and it does. I'm approached maybe once a month about doing a new series focused on UFOs, and my point is always the same, which is, what are we going to talk about? What are you going to show that's going to be something new that maybe people learn something

about? Right. And it's always the same. Look, I'm not saying, again, I agree with him. There's definitely stuff out there, right? We've explored a drop of water in a glass of the universe, right? So there's stuff out there. I approach it all from a skeptical point of view.

Well, I think you have to because there's also, unfortunately, a market in talking about these things. And there's a lot of grifters out there that have made a career out of telling you they know. I have the information, it's been brought to me and I'm going to release it and it's like Lucy and Charlie Brown with that goddamn football. Charlie never gets to kick that football like this is the time, this is it. He never has has he? Never has. Every time he goes to kick that football that bitch just pulls it away from me and he goes flying up in the air

Damn it. Yeah. Yeah, maybe he needed to identify as trans then she give him a break I don't know where I came up with that one. Oh, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get lambasted for that come for you Oh, they're gonna come for me. You reached on that one. Yeah, I did It's just like I want there to be some information that's real and I think there are like commander David Fravor's depictions and his descriptions of what happened and there's other fighter pilots are involved they have video evidence yeah that's compelling yeah what is that what does it mean what is it doing how is something able to go from 50,000 feet above sea level to zero so quickly like what is that yeah no I agree that's it we've talked about that that's that's

one of the few things that I think is legit right out there and needs further investigation. Again, you have to pick and choose. Is there a reason to have an identification program in the Pentagon? Of course, goddamn, there is. It's a national security issue. Figure out what the hell's flying around up there, right? Right, if it's real.

If it's real and the Chinese come up with a new form of propulsion, right? And if they did, they undoubtedly stole it from Lockheed Martin. There was just a... because there's never... you can never do one of these episodes without me kicking the Chinese Communist Party in the ass, but they just finished the sentencing for an American Chinese citizen. This is a fascinating... Another one? Yeah, people always roll their eyes when I talk about Chinese espionage, so I always love to highlight an example. Oh, they shouldn't roll their eyes.

Yeah, they shouldn't, but they do. There's so much, you want to talk about evidence. That's not UFOs, bro. Yeah, oh no, it's true. So this guy, Chen Guang Gong is his name, he's like 60 years old, has been sentenced or I think he's awaiting sentencing. He's out free, believe it or not, he's free on bail right now. And so he went to work in 23, so this stuff has been sealed for quite some time, but he went to work in 23 for some California based company that was contracted with the Pentagon. He was only there for a month.

During the course of that month that he was there, he downloaded some 3,600 files or so on the technology that this company develops on behalf of the Pentagon related to sensors. Sensors that are very sensitive information that used to detect nuclear missile launches, used to detect and track hypersonic and ballistic missiles, used for fighter jets to track incoming missiles, heat-seeking missiles. So, it's very classified material. He downloaded, during the course of his four weeks there, downloaded all these files onto his personal storage devices. And they couldn't find all the hard

drives that he had taken with all this information. They've gone missing somehow. So as it turns out, the amazing part about this story is he accepted a job during the course of his brief period of time with this California company working on these centers, except with a competitor, right? So they were going to hire him. But ever since like 2014 when he's been working for US companies, he's apparently, nobody gives a shit. Nobody's doing any due diligence. Nobody's doing any due diligence. Nobody's doing any background investigations.

From 2014 on, he's been applying to the Chinese Communist Party for what they call talent programs. The Chinese government puts out these proposals, you know, hey, send us your information. If you're working on information of interest, they call them talent programs, and they'll provide funding to people who get their applications accepted. Well, of course, what the Chinese Communist Party is doing is they're fishing for people with access, right? And then you'll put in a proposal saying, I'm working on the following.

I think it could be really interesting. And this guy did that. He took several trips to China. He applied for funding for these talent programs from the, which is essentially the Chinese Communist Party. He stated in emails that he thinks from the, which is essentially the Chinese Communist Party. He stated in emails that he thinks it could be really beneficial to the Chinese military, some of the work that he's doing. So from 2014 on, he's been doing this, and people are still hiring the guy.

Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's incredible. So now he's out on an almost $2 million bail. I don't know how they're allowing him to roam around free. But it's just another example I guess is what I'm saying of what happens out there and why people need to be aware why companies that are engaged in anything almost because the Chinese party is interested in everything. But you see this and you think, okay, I get it, the guy was stealing information, but then you look and you go, how the fuck did he keep on doing this all these years?

How was he... He'd go from a company and get hired by another company and they were obviously excited by his expertise, but nobody bothered to dig into him. That's always how businesses, for the most part, get fucked is they don't have a proactive mindset. if businesses, for the most part, get fucked, is they don't have a proactive mindset, right? They're not thinking about that when they're hiring somebody. They're not thinking, oh, but there's a hostile state-sponsored entity out there that'd like to steal our information. Well, so isn't that also part of the problem with having these administrations that are

only in office for four years? So they have all their problems that they have to deal with, they get in, they're basically starting the job anew, and then you've got these companies out there that are hiring Chinese nationals and you don't even know it. Yeah. You're not even aware, there's no way you can pay attention to all of it, and the people that are running the companies, all they want to do is get that company off the ground, start making a lot of money. Yeah, get a government contract. Yeah. Now you know, they're supposed to be going through a variety of security processes

about the dissemination of information, who's got access to it, and all these things. But clearly, it's not working all that well. Anyway, so that's the thing. And then apparently, the news just broke that there was a breach, and I think it was Microsoft's SharePoint software that attacked the Department of Energy, and it was Chinese hackers. Again, this is just the past 12 hours or so. And they were going after, among other organizations and agencies, the group that's responsible for maintaining our nuclear stockpile, which sits inside the Department of Energy. So it's the National Nuclear and Security Administration, something like that. hostile world out there, and going back to your point, you need to have organizations that are out there trying to secure the national security interests of America.

So yeah, that sounds like I'm standing. The idea that you don't is crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so naive. Well, it's the idea that everybody, if we just would all get along, it's all going to work out fine. And the world's really messy, it's ugly, I mean we can see that, and we're talking about the Middle East right now, which is a mess.

You're looking at the Ukraine-Russia conflict. There's just a lot of shit that happens out there. And so you do need these organizations. Now again, we talked about this, you need them to be as transparent as they can be and still be operationally efficient. But yeah, Middle East, that's a fucked up situation. Yeah. Yeah.

So what do we know about how much damage was done by those bunker buster bombs? I saw some video, and again, I don't know what's real, but it looked insane where they were reviewing the damage and they were kind of climbing into this giant canyon that was created by these bunker busters. Yeah. That's a, it's a really interesting point. And I think, you know, we talked about earlier about how you can get out over your skis. Tulsi Gabbard probably did it, and Pam Bondi about the Epstein files and everything. And I think the Trump administration got out talking about, completely obliterated, all three sites, Isfahan and Natanz and Forto.

And you know what? Wait for the battle damage assessments to come in with credible intelligence, right? Just say we've done this, we're assessing, how about that, right? Just keep it like that. Prevent yourself from having to then walk the dog back, right? So they didn't, they came out and said we've completely obliterated these sites. What appears to be now coming from some of these assessments, at least the early assessments,

is that they did significant damage to one of the sites, Fordow. And then the other two sites, they did some damage, but that's where it's questionable. And these are coming from Israeli and US intelligence. And honestly, when it comes to Iran, sometimes we rely very heavily on what the Israelis have, because their intel tends to be a little bit better. It's their existential threat, so they've spent decades developing sources. So I think, did we destroy all three? No, absolutely not.

We didn't. Did we degrade their ability to enrich uranium in the short term? Yeah. But does that short term mean, you know, three months, six months? I think that's kind of where they appear to be at. They don't know. There's still questions, and the Israelis think that they actually did manage to keep stockpile of some of the enriched uranium that was buried way down inside of, I think it was Isfahan, the site. And so it was successful to a degree, right, but not to the degree that it was discussed early on and what they're still saying, right?

So I think that's, you know, and that's a realistic approach. I think the military was fairly clear in some of their scenarios that they were drawing up prior to this that we don't have high confidence that we can completely destroy these sites. But if they've destroyed and damaged a large number of centrifuges, well, that takes time to replace. And so what I think what's going to happen is the regime, and I think they're already doing it, they're going to disperse all of their efforts. They're not going to stop trying to enrich uranium.

They're not going to stop this drive towards a nuclear weapon, because now in particular I think they view it as, that's our only leverage going down the road. So they're going to disperse it to smaller sites, going to make it more difficult to create a single strike scenario where you take it out for the most part. I think that's where we're going with it. The Israelis, during the course of their 12 days or so, they degraded the missile capabilities, which was a big part of what they wanted to do, significantly. Now, depending on who you talk to, that significantly is like 40% destruction of launchers and missile stockpiles to 50%.

That's a lot, but again, they still have the ability to make them and they still will. So we've kind of kicked the can down the road. We've bought some time in terms of, okay, they're not going to get to a breakout point next week, but we haven't really solved the problem. You don't solve the problem unless the regime goes away. Then people talk about regime change and then everybody gets all squirrely. You're going to have this same problem, and they've already said they are going to continue to arm their proxies.

And there have already been weapons shipments that have been interdicted, going to the Houthis, going to Hezbollah. That process of them getting weapons to their proxies is more difficult in part because Syria's fallen, and the Syrian government is... it doesn't like Iran. The new one, the Islamist government that's there doesn't like Iran. So they're shutting down some of that traditional routes that they use to move weapons back and forth and other resources.

But they're going to keep doing it. They're going to keep trying. So we've kind of... again, it's putting lipstick on a pig. We've created a better situation in the short term, but it doesn't solve the problem Are you shocked that we intervened that we? Bombed their nuclear sites. No by the time we got in a few days into what the Israelis were doing It looked like there was really very little option We're gonna have to go in and do that because the Israelis did not have the ability to do that. They were, there are operations, again,

people can argue about, eh, they should have done it, but from an operational perspective, it was pretty damn impressive. Taking out some of the military leadership, taking out some of those nuclear program managers, directors, scientists, was really impressive. One of the things that was so impressive was when they tricked them with a fake phone call, everybody get together in the bunker.

Yes. Then they blew the bunker up. Yeah. I mean, it shows the depth of their intel capabilities because again, they've been doing this for years because it's an existential goddamn threat. And so that's their target. In the US, our intel operations are focused on a lot of different things, right?

For the Israelis, for the most part, it's Iran. Yes, it's subsets of Hezbollah, Houthis, and Hamas and all that, but those things wouldn't exist without Iranian support and backing. So their focus over the years has been how do we develop sources, how do we create access? So when the time comes, they pull out their playbook and they open it up and go, let's do this, and they just push the button, right? And they're able to accomplish these things. But it does show their capabilities.

They didn't have the munitions, so they don't have these bunker busters to penetrate and get down to Natanz or wherever. So it wasn't a surprise that we did it. Again, I just think we should be, and I suspect the Pentagon felt like we should have been more circumspect in how we described the success of it. Now the foreign minister from Iran's come out the past couple of days, right? And he said, oh, you know, serious damage, we've had to stop all uranium enrichment. People going, look, you know. And even the White House has said, well, see, you know, we've significantly damaged all

their enrichment capabilities. Okay, if you believe what the goddamn Iranian foreign minister says, right? But he's a spokesman for the mullahs and for the IRGC. Why would you? Yeah, so- Right. Why would they be honest about the losses they've taken? Yeah. So he's pushing a message, right? Right. And so, who knows? But I think there's been damage, but not to the degree that they would like to have seen.

But a lot of people didn't understand why at this point did we do that. One of the narratives was that they had the capability of enriching uranium to 90%, but they didn't plan on doing it. They only wanted to have it so that they could use it as leverage. Yeah. There is no civilian purpose for having 60% enriched uranium. So yes, maybe they thought if we get a stockpile of it, then we're very close because it's an easy lift getting from, well relatively speaking, getting from 60 to 90% for weapons grade.

So yes, maybe their thought was only we'll just use it as leverage and we're not actually going to pursue a weapon. But I don't know that you want to, you know, you want to make strategic decisions based on the hope that that's the case, right? I think everything else that's shown in the past, their obfuscation, their hiding of their program, backing off of past agreements, none of that showed that they were earnest negotiators or that they were honest brokers in what that weapons program was like. So I think there sounds like there was significant intelligence that came into the Israeli services

that said they're fast-tracking this whole effort. And that may have been in part because of the damage done to their proxies. Right? So they may have looked and seen, look, Hezbollah's leadership was torn apart, right? Their stockpiles were incredibly degraded. Same thing with the others. And so maybe, you know, that was the motivation, perhaps, I'm speculating, for the Iranian regime to say, okay, let's get this done. You know, let's push. If the Israelis picked up on that, then that would be sufficient justification to say we've got to act now. 06 But the thing is, it's like we had to get dragged into it.

06 Yeah. Yeah. 06 That's where it gets fucked up because one of the things that people voted for with this new administration was no more wars, no more useless wars. And then six months in, we're bombing Iran. Yeah, no, I look I'm not here to argue whether, you know, I know there's a lot of people that say we should not be doing any of this shit, right, we shouldn't be, you know, we shouldn't have been in Iraq, we shouldn't have been in Afghanistan, we shouldn't, you know, gone to Vietnam, we shouldn't,

okay fine, you know, you know, there's a lot of people that that argue that we should just sit in a bubble because the world will happen and it won't impact us. Some of the shit that happens outside the US borders will come back in a massively serious way and bite us in the ass. Could a conflagration out in the Middle East, if we don't take any part in it, could it impact US national security as well? Yeah, it could.

But it's a call. I get it. People are saying, draw the curtains and we shouldn't be at war and we shouldn't be doing any of this and we shouldn't support Israel and what are we doing? I understand the mindset. I just don't agree with it. So I think the limited participation in terms of providing the necessary munitions to attack those sites, again, wasn't a surprise.

Don't disagree with the decision. I just think we need to be pragmatic about how much damage we've done and what the potential is for us having to revisit this whole issue. Right? So I think- I think it's like people are so skeptical about motivations now. They're so skeptical about public narratives. Like why we're doing this and why we're doing that.

And I think one of the things that's important, Nate, hearing it from a person like yourself that's spent most of your lifetime involved in this, that there are things like we really shouldn't be meddling in every part of the world but sometimes we have to meddle. There are occasions, there are times, again it would be great if we lived in a world where we could just worry about ourselves. But that's not, you know, maybe 250 years ago it was, right? Because it would take the armada a long time to make its way across the ocean. But you know, shit happens with remarkable speed now, and I just think it's an idealistic idea that you can ignore what's happening and you can just say we're only focusing on

us. We're not going to get involved in anything that happens out there. I agree. There's a lot of things that we don't need to be involved in. Looking back on Iraq, looking back on Afghanistan. Now Afghanistan should have been a surgical move. We should have gone into Tora Bora, blown the shit out of that, tried to get bin Laden. And then we should have said, look, if you do this again, meaning if you let your country be a sandbox for the terrorists, we're going to come back here and do this again. And then we should have gotten the hell out and not worried about, well, maybe we can

build a stable federal style government in Afghanistan, which has never happened, in which we could have looked at what the Soviets said and said, yeah, that's not going to work. So there's things where we should be learning or we're not very good at, we should be learning and saying, but my point being is you got to leave the door open because there are times when shit can go really seriously wrong. And if the Iranians suddenly, if you're wrong about the hope that, well, I think they just for peaceful purposes because I'm going to for some reason believe, counter to their actions up till now, I'm going to believe the Iranian regime, so it's peaceful purposes.

And then they announced that they're a member of the nuclear club, you got a shit storm going on in the Middle East because it's not like the regional actors like the Saudis are going to go, okay, no worries, we're going to let Iran have the bomb and we're not going to get it. Now you're going to have multiple nuclear armed nations sitting in the Middle East. At odds with each other. At odds with each other, and I don't know that that's a really good scenario, because you're inching closer to use of a tactical nuclear weapon. Like Putin's already, and his moronic puppet medvedev, keeps rattling the nuclear sable.

Remember, we'll use a tactical nuke, maybe. Yeah, you start getting closer to that, and that's a real problem. So I think there are times when you got to step in in an intelligent way, but you got to be pragmatic about what that means. And so what I'm saying about with Iran is we didn't really solve anything, right? And nothing will get solved. The Iranian population isn't going to have a better life until there's a change in that

regime. I'm not advocating regime change unless it comes from inside Iran, right? That's what you would, you'd like to think maybe at some point they rise up and say fuck it enough's enough Right. Yeah, you know and but that hasn't happened and despite people hoping it would happen. Yeah Yeah, it's um, it's very It gives people a lot of anxiety and we think about all the possibilities of all over the world all the different things that are Happening whether it's Ukraine and Russia, Iran and Israel. It's constant what's going on in Gaza.

It's like everything is, it's just like this constant feed of doom. You know, if you're paying attention and you kind of have to pay attention a little because it is kind of crazy and it could it could affect your life, which is I think why Why we're so quick to want to you know glom on to what's happening with Epstein and what's happening with the you know The Intel assessment or there because it it it takes away the focus from you know, there's shit happening in the world You know, they could create bigger conflict right and could drag us into something something bigger Look the European Union is they're heavily focused on what's going on with Russia because they're sitting on the border, right? Could drag us into something bigger. Look, the European Union is, they're heavily focused on what's going on with Russia because they're sitting on the border, right? And so, you know, right now, yeah, Putin, he has no interest in peace,

right? He thinks he's still kind of winning, right? And there's this hope that, well, we think the Russian economy is about to crumble. It doesn't look that way. I don't think it's going to crumble. So, but I mean, my point being is about to crumble. It doesn't look that way. I don't think it's going to crumble. But my point being is that the EU looks at it from a different perspective than the US does. Now, I think one of the things that Trump's done very well is to get the EU to focus more of their own resources on this. That's a great move.

People should be able to say, yeah, whether they're Democrat or Republican, yeah, it makes sense. Focus more on it. It's in your backyard. And so I think that's a good step from this administration. They should be talking about it more. But does that mean we should back off entirely? Well, again, I hear from folks all the time and they're like, yeah, why do we give a shit? Why should we be spending our resources on Ukraine. And fine, if you're okay with Putin winning, then fine.

Okay. Then I get your point. But at least admit that what you're saying is we shouldn't be supporting Ukraine, and frankly without US support, Ukraine's not going to win this fight, and whatever that win means, right? not going to win this fight, and whatever that win means. Right? The win, at some point- Can they even win?

Not in terms of like a, we've reclaimed all our territory. That's never going to happen. Right? So it's over for that? It's a negotiated settlement of some sort that's not completely unpalatable for the Ukrainian people. So what they're going to... Who knows? Maybe the goal is clearly to get everything back, but they're not going to get Crimea

back. They're not going to get some of the eastern region that the Russians have been sitting in now for quite a long time, right? Even before the invasion. So you've got some negotiated settlement that they can accept, but if we say we're not going to support them and you can't inflict enough pressure or whatever you want to call it, pain on Putin, to get him in a serious way to the negotiating table, then ultimately, yeah, the Russian military will overwhelm them, right?

Because they've got the support of China, they've got certainly the support of North Korea. North Korea's about to send another 30,000 troops to the front lines on behalf of Putin. That's crazy, but we've got North Korean troops and by the thousands fighting and dying in Ukraine. The US providing military support that keeps them in the fight long enough to hopefully, with the EU expanding what they're doing, to hopefully get Putin to think, okay, fuck it, I do have to sit down at the table. Great.

Well, this is what's discouraging is that Trump said, when I get into office, I can fix this in 24 hours. Yeah, yeah. That seemed- Messaging problem. Again, messaging problem. Yeah. Yeah, it's always, again,. Again, messaging problem. Yeah. Yeah.

It's always... Again, I go back to that same thing. There's always a problem with... And again, this is not a... I'm just saying maybe get better comms people and try to get just a tad bit more discipline. But the idea that you're going to fix this problem in a day, it's hyperbole, but people buy into it. Then you get a mob that are saying, well, how come we couldn't? What are you doing here? Rather than saying, well, no more wars, just say the world is an unusual, unstable, chaotic

place. There may be occasion when we need to be involved, but I'm going to try to minimize that. Say something like that, and then you don't have to throw more red meat to the crowd. The Ukraine situation, and Zelensky's got some other problems, right? It's an interesting situation that hopefully doesn't bore people, but it's important to keep on the radar, is that Zelensky has just signed a bill that kind of gutted the two primary anti-corruption organizations in Ukraine. And Ukraine's had years and years of history of being a corrupt nation.

And it's always been a roadblock to them getting into the European Union because they're saying, you've got to do something to clean this goddamn place up, right? So Ukraine has had a history of, not just with Zelensky, but prior to that. And so, the parliament wrote up a bill basically handing over control of these two anti-corruption independent organizations that monitor corruption inside the Ukraine government, handed over that control to the prosecutor general, government control of these organizations. And they put that bill that they wrote, a Zelensky supporter wrote it, put it on Zelensky's desk like 48 hours ago.

And he had the choice to either sign it or veto it. Again, here's the problem. We think like who the fuck is advising him? Veto that goddamn thing, but he didn't. He signed it. And now you've got street protests, significant, large street protests in Ukraine against this because they considered this authoritarian takeover, and they know what their history was like, and so the people are worried about this, so they're out on the streets protesting.

Putin's looking at it going like, ah, it's fantastic, because Putin's been saying that Zelensky's an illegitimate leader for some time now, and one of his demands has always been I'll negotiate but you know The Zalensky needs to go and because he wants a pro Kremlin leader in there So you've got all this going on and then Zalensky decides he's gonna sign this bill now He's got the protest now. He's gonna have to he's trying to scramble So now he said we're gonna we're gonna introduce a new bill to strengthen our anti-corruption efforts so now he's trying to you know cauterize that wound so

You know, that's it's just again. It's a it's a self-inflicted wound. He shouldn't have done it, but I'm just, I'm trying to speak to the complexity that's going on out there right now. Jesus Christ, Mike Baker. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Yeah. Anyway, so that's, we touched very, we haven't even talked about the situation with Hamas and Israel, but I'll leave that for another day, because I'm sure if we got together again in another half a year, it's still going on. There's no ceasefire that's going to happen.

Every time you turn around, the U.S. Whitkoff or somebody in the U.S. administration or the Saudis or the Egyptians or the Qataris whoever's handling mediation is saying yeah We're very close to a ceasefire. It's just not it's just not happening. So Yeah, it's gonna be a mess. We can talk about that some other time Yeah, yeah, I know that's a does there any way you can give us some happy news to wrap this up Is there anything positive? Yeah, well, I know you got a bunch of notes over there I do I do anything like hey, you know, okay, what am I? I know I know what I none of them I got well, I got one about well Ozzy and and Hulk Hogan

I mean, that's not positive. No, yeah, damn. That's Hulk Hogan today. We did Hulk Hogan. What a guy and then Ozzy I mean Goddamn career the Ozzy thing is less surprising because he'd been battling Parkinson's and he was very old, but the Hulk Hogan thing was crazy. He was here just, how long ago? A year ago? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In the podcast for a year ago. Well, Ozzy did that concert on the 5th of July. I know. Yeah. I mean, in his chair. But Hulk went in for some surgery apparently and he got an infection. Yeah, yeah. I think it was neck or spine surgery or something that he couldn't come back from. But yeah, and then it's all in the same week. And then what? What's his name? Then the other guy, this poor guy, it always happens, right?

Malcolm Jamal Warner, the kid from the Cosby show, he dies and then nobody thinks about him because the day after Ozzy dies and then Hulk Hogan guys. They always die in threes. They always say that, celebrities die in threes. Why is that true? But poor Malcolm, I mean, he goes and his death

is completely, it's like if you and I were on a plane and plane went down and be like we lost a legend today You know Joe Rogan is gone along with 240 others, and I'd be like the other you know I'd be a sad moment Malcolm died Swimming right it gets caught in the under yeah. Yeah, it was a swimming incident in Costa Rica Yeah, got pulled out by a riptide Yeah, thank you. Man. You got to be able to swim and you got out fuck with the tides. Yeah, it's scary shit Yeah, we were out in in the Caymans My wife and I for had gone down there to give a speech at something. So we said let's go, you know snorkeling whatever and

So I went out I didn't take a PFT I didn't take a PFT, I didn't take an inflatable device with me, right? I should have just grabbed a belt, you know, you could just pop it and get it. So I was out there swimming, snorkeling around, and at some point I was like, I don't feel good, right? I don't feel right. And then I could tell, because I had an art issue in the past, right? And I knew exactly what was going to happen. And so I could tell, because I had an art issue in the past, right? I knew exactly what was going to happen. And so I started feeling this, and I could just kind of feel the energy drain out of me. But I'm out in the middle of the fucking water, and I kind of look up, and there's no... I

can see my wife off in the distance, but I'm like... And so I'm just trying to keep my goddamn head above water. And so I get her attention finally. She comes over, and she's a brilliant person, and she's a great athlete, very strong swimmer. And so she's trying to help. But now I'm doing that dude thing where I don't really want the... I don't want to make a fuss. Oh no.

So I'm out there in the water and I don't want to take my mask off and I'm saying, ah, I'll be okay. And I'm just kind of like barely going... But I'm doing that dude thing, right? When you have, as a dude, if you're having a heart attack, you don't want to alert anybody because you're like, I don't want to cause a scene. I don't want to be a problem. I don't want to show that I'm weak or whatever. So she literally hauls my ass back to shore, right?

And so it was one of those moments. I got back down, but I was fine after a little bit, but it was just one of those moments where we realized this would be a fucked up way to go, right? Just kind of drowning and being at the bottom of that and then you got to fish you out. So I feel bad for Malcolm Jamal Warner, but then also his news got blown out by Ozzy and now Hulk. 06 It is weird that they always die in threes. 06 Yeah, yeah. I don't know what that's all about It's but it's so common cosmic retribution something's going on It's like there's a pattern to the universe where that happens. Yeah, so but not as far as Jen, you know good news

I'm really working on this one here here. Yeah. Yeah, we're here. Got tickets. Everybody listening is still alive. Going to Seal Oasis. So that's good news. Oh, nice. Yeah, gonna go Seal Oasis and like, yeah, coming to Los Angeles. Nice. Big deal. I'm glad they're back together. God damn it, right. I'm just hoping. It's not, because it's not till September. So the danger is... That they've feud between now and then. They feud, they break up. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck off. Yeah, so it's, but it's gonna be,

should be a great show. They've been doing a bang up job, but as long as they stick, come on guys, stick together, make it to September and we'll be fine. But other than that, no, there's, you know, there's good news happening out there. I'm sure I just haven't, I haven't seen it. All right. I'm sorry about that. Tell everybody your podcast.

Oh, yeah, thank you. It's President's Daily Brief. It's available. We got a YouTube channel At presidents daily brief well, so yeah is what you on the charts all the time. Yeah, we're up there we're always in the hovering around the top ten and I think it speaks to the fact that You know for the most part look we're just trying to tell people what's happening without telling them how to think about it Yes, and that's what people want because there's not a lot of that and it's worked out Well in that regard and any occasionally I'll say something I get a little comment in there But I try to keep the opinion out of it, but it's yeah

It's all the podcast platforms a YouTube channel and it's it's it's gone. Well, it's been a great adventure So far and it's been growing which again for me that that is very satisfying in the sense that nowadays, everything's opinion, right? Everything got to have opinion, right? And- Not just opinion, but again, what you were saying, telling you how to think. Telling you how to think about it, yeah.

Yeah. This is how you have to think. Yeah. So it's the President's Daily Brief. Anybody gets a chance, check it out, subscribe, whatever you do. And I appreciate you letting me bang on about that. I appreciate you telling me about things and explaining things. I get lost out there.

I always feel like I come in here, I bum you out. You definitely do. Yeah. You definitely did today. Dude, I'm going to your show tonight, I'm going to love it. America wants to know this before I go. The White House card, is it happening? Supposedly happening supposedly yeah supposedly July 4th next year. Yeah, okay? Fourth next year yep, okay. That's it's gonna be amazing. It should be wild is Jones coming back

I don't know you know it's a lot of time between now and then He's a wild card. Yeah, all right. I'd like to see it. I'd like to see him Are you kidding fight for the title yeah on the White House. That'd be pretty wild. It's crazy. No, okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to drag that one out. But anyway, thank you, man. All right. Thank you. Bye, everybody.