The Team House - Peace Deal Between Ukraine & Russia: At What Cost? w/ Jack Murphy | EYES ON PODCAST

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

today we're joined by Jack Murphy to talk about the potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine and whether we are leaving our allies high and dry. Also we go down the disinformation rabbit hole.All things Jack Murphy:⬇️https://x.com/JackMurphyRGR?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5EauthorWe Defyhttps://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1NThe High Sidehttps://thehighside.substack.com/New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comSupport the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseFind Andy Milburn here: ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023https://amilburn.substack.com/https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operationshttps://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialhttps://open.substack.com/pub/amilburn/p/journal-of-a-plague-year?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=emo6q&utm_medium=iosFind Mick Mulroy here: ⬇️https://fogbow.com/https://www.loboinstitute.org/https://x.com/MickMulroy?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthorhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_apphttps://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.sociBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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That's a crazy URL. We'll change that. But don't worry, the link is in the description. Take a look. And in the show notes, if you're listening to us on audio, we really appreciate it. And thanks for the continued support. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyeson.

We got a very special guest today, Jack Murphy. Jack, how's going, bud? Going good, man. Long time, no, see. It feels like it was only yesterday. Yeah. Doing a team house interview. Yep, literally was probably 12 hours ago.

Yeah. And I forced you to come on and do an eyes on with us. So what's happening? Today, big news. I mean, relatively big news. Trump spoke with Putin for an hour and then spoke with Zelensky after that. talking about they both signal that they're interested in a peace deal um people are freaking out because it seems as though Trump is kind of uh the big thing i'm seeing from like the west

and nato people and like different media outlets is that it's it's trump and Putin that are going to carve up Europe and stuff like that really doing a lot of like analogous to the 1930s and stuff like that. So that's kind of where we're at. What do you? I mean, it's the same negotiated exit out of Afghanistan where we just negotiated with the Taliban. The Afghan government wasn't even a part of it really. Yeah. Yeah, which you would think, you know, they should be a kind of at least a part in it. I mean, Zelensky's saying all the right things. It seems like, you know, he's saying that he's interested in a peace deal. I mean, he can't really pop off about how really feels, right? Like, you know, everyone knows he hates Putin. You can't really blame him.

But because he can't really piss off Trump. Yeah. I mean, you heard, I mean, he also said today that, like, he wants to have a call with Xi and Putin and propose that, like, we all cut our defense budgets in half. And it's a lot of, like, pie in the sky kind of thinking. And I don't get into, like, Pete Heggseth. But, I mean, whether you, whatever you feel or however you feel about Donald Trump. I mean, his style is, you know, chaos as a leadership style. Um, he treats this stuff like it's a game show, you know, it's like, oh, maybe it's going to be this, but maybe it's going to be that. Yeah. Tune in next time, guys, and find out how it all ends, you know. So he has this propensity to throw out. And maybe he knows that some of them are pie in the sky, you know, just ludicrous, um,

suggestions. And I think we saw a little bit of that over just the last 24 hours even with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsef going to Europe. Yeah. Yeah. He was just speaking now to in Brussels, I guess, at NATO talking about how the U.S. is it. The U.S. Navy is not fitted to going up against Russia somehow. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry, but it's really clownish. You know, you reach a point where like, you know, everyone's going to say, oh, you have Trump derangement syndrome or something. It's like, no, when someone says something that's totally ridiculous and dumb, I'm just going to say that. And I think Pete put his foot in his mouth here. And, you know, he said the other day, it was just yesterday. He said that he sees no plausible scenario where Ukraine's territory, or at least all of

of it will be returned to them and doesn't see any possibility that Ukraine would ever join NATO. And so he put those two things. They weren't even preconditions. They were just handouts before negotiations even began. And then today he started walking it back. He's like, oh, well, the only person who can negotiate is President Trump, the leader of the free world. I'm not going to stand up on this podium and say anything, you know, one way or the other. So he was trying to like walk back his previous statement that had been pretty defensive.

just like 24 hours prior. And, you know, that just speaks to, I think, you know, him being out of his depth. You know, you could try to attribute it to malice or something like that. And maybe that's the case. I don't know. But I think it's inexperience. I don't think he really knows what he's doing.

Yeah, I mean, I kind of, listen, if I'm a European country, like a leader in a European country, Poland, Germany, take your pick, obviously. Yeah. I'm definitely coming out. I'm like the German Chancellor came out and like said, yeah, there's not this, you know, Europe's got to be involved in terms of what a piece it look like, you know. And I think like a big, the big question about like the peace deal or the ceasefire deal would be about like who would be managing the demilitarization area or like the lines.

Like are they going to be international troops? If so, who's going to like provide them? Also at that point, like if somebody. pops off, drinks a little bit too much vodka or something, and starts shooting at truth. There was a, there is a United Nations organization. And forgive me, if I can't remember the acronym, I think it's like UNED or UNCD. And after 2014, they came in and kind of managed to make sure both sides were following whatever agreement had been hashed out after the initial incursion into Ukraine.

Um, so I mean that that body could be brought back to do that ostensibly. Um, but yeah, I mean, these things are going to come up. Do you end up creating like a demilitarized zone like at the Golan Heights? And it's occupied by like Fijian and Pakistani and Indian peacekeepers. I mean, what would how is that going to work out? Those are all questions that will come up in the negotiations. Yeah. Yeah. And it, um, this was just recently, I think, um, probably 30 or so minutes ago. President Trump was asked if he trusts Putin And President Trump said, yeah, I believe he would like to see something In terms of what pieces With trying to get peace done I trust him on this subject He also says he wants to see Russia back in the G7 Which was kicked out of after crime

Annex in Crimea I think Putin would love to be back I mean I get like Trump This is how Trump speaks he speaks really Nonchalantly and kind of like you know Everyone's pal kind of thing I think that's why a lot of Europe and NATO countries are taking it this way, understandably so, because

you know, they're in the actual sphere of Russian influence, right? Like, they have to worry about, if you're Poland, like, you're fucking freaking out. There's a lot at stake here. And, you know, treating it like a game show, putting inexperienced people in these very senior positions, of course, that makes them nuts. It's, we must appear very schizophrenic to them. that they never really know where they stand. And again, I mean, I think President Trump has this very odd propensity to attack our allies and cozy up to our adversaries that I don't.

Is he is, you know, some people say, Jack, well, he's playing four dimensional chess. You don't understand, you know, how it's like, okay, I kind of get it. You want to try something different to get a different result. I can understand it to a check. But, I mean, running around starting fights with like Denmark. in Canada. Right. Yeah.

Sure. What are you doing here? Like, what's the point? Yeah. I mean, there's clearly no point in all that, like all that stuff. Yeah. I mean, listen, it's, it's, listen, I get it. I get why people are upset.

Like, he's playing nice with Putin. And like, I don't know how anybody can trust a guy like. And the thing, the thing you have to understand. And I mean, the, the, the, the, the, public. stated you know not policy but you know the outward facing

public statements that a government makes don't always reflect what's happening behind closed doors sure sure but I mean Putin is a dictator

and I mean this guy is not your friend this guy does not want what's best for America he doesn't give his shit about anyone here he doesn't give a shit about Americans

he doesn't give a shit about Europeans does not care about that at all. His main concern is regime preservation, which is self-preservation for him, and he will do anything it takes to maintain that. So seeing these people as like friends or like people we can cut a deal, it's like, no, these countries have interests and maybe we can appeal to their interests and we can reach some sort of a settlement on some issues. Some we're not, just to be honest, we're not going to reach negotiated settlements on all issues.

with China and Russia. That's not going to happen. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try and engage in diplomacy. But, yeah, I find this strategy, like, very curious. And I think the Russians are probably celebrating it. Yeah. I mean, the Russians came out and were like, yeah, we're willing, you know, taking it as a very positive thing, obviously, that they're willing to talk.

And I think they mentioned that, like, you know, Trump has the will. to get this done. The other problem, too, including Hexeth saying, like, you know, they'll never be in NATO, which Trump talking about, like, the lines, the pre-2014 lines or 22 lines or where the lines would end up.

And he said, you know, Russia really, I'm paraphrasing, Russia has really fought hard and lost a lot of guys for them, for that land. It's like, guy, it's not Russia's land. This isn't, you know, 1984. Like, this isn't like,

the Soviet Union. Russia has no claim to it anymore. And guess what? They invaded. And Ukrainians have lost a ton of people as well. It's just the language is tough for people. Also, if you're a good negotiator, it's like you're throwing, you're just giving them concessions out of the gate. Like, what are we talking about? Like, you could be jovial and gregarious and stuff before you go into a negotiation,

then be a cock sucker. I get that. That's part of it. but just throwing out main points that people are all, like, interested in is doesn't really make sense to me. I mean, he was talking about how like Ukraine never should have gotten into that war. It's like what they get into it. They got invaded. What are you talking about?

And I mean, when I listen to his statements, particularly now we're looking at second term President Trump. I mean, when he talks, it just sounds like old man babble to me. I mean, it's incoherent. It doesn't really make sense. You know, somebody's handing him an index card maybe with some talking points on it before he goes on camera. But, I mean, it's just like perfectly clear. This guy is not sound. Right.

And it's questionable if he has both hands on the wheel. Like, who's really driving this train? Yeah. I mean, the obvious answer is Elon Musk, but. Did you see the things that supposedly Elon's son was saying during the press conference? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just looking at that today, and I listened to it myself, and it sounds like that. Yeah, it does.

It's pretty wild. And I don't know if Trump's seething or, like, he just doesn't know what's going. He's just not listening. You know what I mean? Like, or maybe he's happy to go and do the press conferences and stuff like that and let, you know, Elon just run a muck behind the scenes. I don't know. Elon destroy the Constitution. Yeah, yeah.

Committee to end the Constitution. No biggie. Go for it, Elon. Yeah, the Elon kid stuff is wild. I mean, it's clearly a move, in my opinion, because he's had that whole aura and, like, that whole, like, narrative of him being a deadbeat father because he's got, like, 12 kids. And, you know, I've seen it, like, recently he's had, he has a kid on his shoulders. It was the kid was at inauguration parties, different things like that. And he brings him into the Oval Office.

I feel like it's definitely kind of stage managed. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think Elon can afford to hire a babysitter if he needs it. Right. Yeah. Right. Like your kids with you in the dojo offices, like just chilling. You know what I mean? It's like something I do where I drag my daughter around to work. Right. You're not worth $400 billion. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. And even like the Elon, the, the press conference yesterday with Musk and Trump in the Oval Office with the kid picking his nose telling Trump to shut it. They asked Elon questions, and he's, I guess he's learning from the school of like Trump, like, where you just deny everything. Yeah, just say, speak out of both sides of your mouth. Yeah.

It was like, there's nothing coherent coming out of you. They asked him about conflict of interest, right, with his DOD contracts for SpaceX or whatever. He's like, oh, no, I have nothing to do with that. My, the employees, the employees of SpaceX deal with that. It's like, dude, you're still the CEO of the company. are we like just going to go over that fact and like not hit not talk about that it was just it's kind of surreal what's going on oh it's very surreal yeah it's like it's not normal whatsoever and i get it Biden has mashed potato brains but yeah he was yeah yeah he was not

fit to be president at all whatsoever um and what's interesting is we've talked about this before like out of the democrat side like you see like real league no kind of resistance at all. Nothing substantial. Because you would know, like, you know, the Republicans, even if it was like a normal moderate president, like a Biden 2.0, right? They would be screaming from the rooftops

about everything and anything, right? Like trying to grasp at straws, whatever they can do to make the news, erode some of that support. And like, it is, the Dems can't get their shit together. It's pretty amazing. Like, Hakeem Jeffries, to me,

is a can't i can't even believe he's the leader the minority they just seem they seem neutered they seem yeah i'm emotionally lost um maybe traumatized even um yeah they absolutely cannot get their act together and i don't know i don't know if they'll be able to sure yeah no i mean either i mean no matter what your political views are um well i shouldn't say that that's a big assumption um but my my opinion is that it's good to have an opposition party in the united states right no party that is an opposition to the one that's in power, be it Democrat or Republican, you know, you want these checks and balances of someone out there, you know, challenging these decisions. Like, is this really the right thing to do? Is it the legal thing to do, et cetera?

Right now, I feel like we don't have an opposition party. No, no, it's totally like toothless. It's, uh, it's pretty wild to see. Um, I think they just didn't expect to lose. That's what I think. I really believe that. But then when they did, Why didn't they have a plan? Like some sort of a plan. Yeah, they have no plan whatsoever. No, no, they don't. No one is coming to save you.

No, right, exactly. Yeah, it's just you. So do something for the love of God. I mean, I guess some other news like Tulsi Gabbard got confirmed. So that's good, I guess, for Russia. Sorry, guys. I know you guys are going to get worked up about this. like let's call a spade of spade gabbert's an absolute liability yeah i think michael

was the only uh no Mitch mcconnell either i think he might have not voted for most yes he was the only republican he didn't vote for her and he voted against rfk junior rfk junior yeah um so just back quickly to uh i saw another quote from trump about talking about denuclearizing like deconuclearization it's like come on man come on i mean everybody would want that in a perfect world but we don't live in a perfect world as much as my i have liberal ideals i'll admit it right now it's like dude you you live in a real world like there's pragmatic ways of going about it you can't just denuclearize how are you going to trust another country to do the same thing right like it's it's just like

we're wasting a lot of bandwidth on bullshit i feel yeah yeah correct and you know the disappoint thing thing is that the Republicans came into power saying, A, the left has, you know, focused on the wrong things. They've been focused on DEI. They've been focused on transgender, all this other kind of stuff. And like to a certain point, I agree that the left focused way too much. Me too. Yeah, of course. But to see them come in, you know, and they, they too are like, like USAID is the big enemy that needs to be taken down. I mean, if you want to go through an audit them and make sure that their line item, or an order. I have no problem with that at all. But.

Or fire their director and get somebody in there who's going to, you know, do something like, don't circums, like, don't circumvent the Constitution. Attack, uh, attack this organization like it's the deep state. It's the embodiment of the deep state, um, you know, that because they hand out bags of rice to people overseas or, or engage, like give polio vaccines or whatever. Right. Um, or AIDS medicine or, you know, whatever. Yeah, like this, so this is what you're focused on.

This is it. Not the E. You're focused on USAID. Yeah, I don't understand why the USAID was the one that got like the got picked out of the bunch, right? Because there's a ton of departments that I'm sure have a lot of waste and fraud and stuff. I could speculate on where some of that may have come from, but I won't. They probably just saw it as low hanging fruit. Yeah, because.

Easy for them to go in. And I mean, that's what it is at the end of the day. they're building up these little straw men to knock over and then they can claim it as a victory like oh look what we did you know we tore down USAID yeah okay cool I mean now what what was interesting that's the problem when you get into a um a sort of personalized uh presidential I guess they're all personalized to an extent but with president Trump it's very much a personalized regime if you will and the question always becomes you know with a popular list too. What do you do for an encore? Right. Like what, okay. What's next? Yeah, what's next? Yeah. I mean, that's, uh, could be the scary part of it. Uh, yeah, I don't know what's next. Because like, you can't really see them going into the DOD and chop and shit out. There's, I mean, I would be surprised. They are allegedly already at Veterans Affairs. Um, they're at IRS, allegedly as of today.

I mean, they might send people and they might send these little teenagers into DOD at some point to muck around with the code. And I mean, who's going to tell them no? It's not going to be Pete. Right. I mean, he was put in there as Secretary of Defense because he doesn't have the wherewithal to stand up

to the president. They don't want another Mattis or Esper. They don't want somebody that might have a shred of independent thought at some point. Yeah. So they found this you know, overgrown frat boy and stuck him in there because you'll do what he's told. You think a ceasefire gets done in Ukraine? A ceasefire is a possibility, yeah.

Or a peace deal, whatever, you know what I mean, like a freezing of the lines. Possibly, yeah. So I'm talking about during the breadth of the Trump administration. So they have, you know, basically almost four. years to do that. I think it's possible. I think Ukraine and Russia have both thought themselves nearly to exhaustion, close to exhaustion, because the battle lines move a little bit here and there, but they are more or less solidified at this point. So if neither side can make further progress, then that I think opens up the door for negotiations. And I think, you know, those

looking for some sort of ceasefire or overall peace negotiations. I mean, it's always worthwhile to try. The terms offered, and I think that's why they haven't happened yet, is that neither side was really quite ready to begin negotiating. Neither side wanted to offer any compromise. I think we're far enough along in the war at this point that during the Trump administration, we could yeah see some sort of agreement yeah i mean i hope so and i hope it's not just like russia winning completely you know like every concession possible they get um yeah i mean that's the concern

because again you know the the administration that the trump administration wants a win in the box and a win for them is hey i negotiated this ceasefire yeah it doesn't matter the particulars don't really matter like where that borderline is you know does russia get key I mean, that's not going to happen. But just for instance, you know, we just give them half of the country. And, but that's fine for us because we got our settlement. You know, we got our negotiation. Yeah. And so, you know, that's the state of the union address talking point there in a press conference. Like, we did this historic thing. Even though you completely fucked our ally Ukraine and, you know, put Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, all in a tight space. buy. Yeah. They're the next on the chopping block and they all know it. For sure.

Yeah. I try to think about like alternate history. Like imagine Keeve did fall in a week or five days or whatever they said where they'd be at now. Like they would have to be at least creeping towards other. I mean, NATO states, but maybe not. I don't know. But it's wild how the last three years, almost three years since the invasion. how it's played out and like the paper tiger that is russia's military yeah yeah and their

economy is just destroyed basically and some people some economists think it'll never recover um and you know the russian system is is kind of unsustainable anyway i mean Putin is going to go eventually right one way or the other um and like i was uh so this is interesting i went to a um it was a Saitel actually in Manhattan. And it was one of the Russian prisoners. He was a political dissident in Russia. And we got him loose as a part of the, not the most recent prisoner exchange,

the one before that. We got this guy out. And he gave a speech and talked and like had a conversation about his imprisonment and about Russia. And then this famous Russian, a piano player, classical piano player. He's almost 90 years old, came out and played. And he, he became a political dissident at like age 87. When the war in Ukraine popped off. He was like, I don't support this. And he left behind a very prestigious career in Russia over this war in Ukraine

and his opposition to it. But the guy who was the political political person, prisoner in Russia was making the point. He was saying, you know, we can imagine in our mind a hundred different scenarios for regime change in Russia. But the reality is it's always going to be the hundred and first option that you haven't thought about. Yeah. And the other point he made was that we, you know, the Russian people have seen both in the collapse of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the the Tsarist era, that it all happened in three days. it was done like it happened very rapidly yeah and that is probably how it will go down again yeah oh that would be that's it's crazy to think about but that is the history right like that is

what's happened yeah um there's a great if i mean this we're getting like super nerdy now do it nerdy there's um i've been reading off and on this book oh god he told me about this book yeah yeah and uh it's kind of a somewhat famous book. I mean, it's written by a very prestigious professor, but also some of the passages in it are a little controversial and even got picked up by people who were conspiracy theorists. And I wanted to read the book for myself.

And actually, it's very good. It's a history. It's kind of a history of the world, really. But the chapters on the Soviet Union, on Nazi Germany, I'm trying to, I mean, There's so much in here, but the chapters are filled with these, like, very interesting cultural insights. And I mean, I learned things about the Russians. And, you know, it explains Putin, the tradition that Putin comes from, that he comes out of this tradition of, you know, the Russians seeing themselves as the most authentic expression of Slavic culture, which is the most authentic expression of humanity. and then it leads into all this like third room neo-fascism it's it's very odd and very strange to our

American minds I'll put it that sure yeah I remember you read me a part of it a couple pages when you started reading it and it was yeah it's pretty it was pretty fucking gnarly like that's the that's you know Putin's mindset I'm sure it's not like everybody in Russia's mindset clearly but i mean a strong man in russia you know russia's strong russia must be strong we must show the world how strong russia is like it's very cavemanesque if you ask me this and this book was published in 1966 oh wow wow yeah it's super interesting it goes through you know the dawn of civilization basically the russian empire and then it goes back and talks about the economy uh changing economic patterns, policy of appeasement.

I mean, and then I haven't even gotten to World War II yet. I think I just finished World War I. Wow. I mean, thinking about like how in Russian history, at least recent Russian history, whether it was the Tsarists or the collapse of the Soviet Union or whatever, I mean, we did see a flicker of that possibility with like the Wagner, the Wagner mutiny and stuff like that. granted i don't know if progogian would have been a better fucking leader than Putin right the caterer yeah yeah um but it showed a big chink in the armor like he's not

he's not untouchable and stuff i mean he eventually got his but you know what i mean there's a a great documentary um made by uh adam curtis called uh i believe it's called trauma zone if you look it up and it's a documentary he made with like uh file footage that was in archives of Russia. And it follows, you know, through Russian life and culture and even governance, follows the collapse of the Soviet Union and how traumatic that was for the Russian people to experience that. And again, it's a very eye-opening documentary for me as an American. I've only come to understand that partly through that documentary and also speaking with some Russian people in the last, you know, five years maybe, about how they, it wasn't just the collapse

of the Soviet Union. They felt like they lost their country. They lost their future. They lost everything and kind of one fell swoop. And then the early 1990s was just like pure chaos and Russia. And none of them, none of the people in Russia want to go back to that era. That's the fear. The 90s. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, listen, how many generations? under, you know, communist rule and stuff, and that's gone, uh, over, you know, over a short period of time. I could see how that could be traumatic for a lot of people. Yeah, I don't, I don't think we really get it as Americans. You know, I was recently in, uh, Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. And, uh, especially in Bishkek, um, you can see that, I mean, clear as day,

you can see the Soviet influence, um, you know, from the, uh, hammer and sickles everywhere to, statues of Marx and Engel. I'm not, was there a Stalin statue? I can't remember, but I mean, you very much get the sense that, you know, after the Soviet Union collapsed, some of these countries didn't quite get the memo.

They were Soviet Socialist Republics, you know, SSRs. And so it was kind of like mommy and daddy just abandoned their child at the playground, you know? Yeah. Also feels like one of those things where it's like, this is hyperbolic but you know like the japanese soldier that was on the island that didn't know the war was over right yeah yeah and he's still fighting a war his rifles pristine and he's fighting a war for 20 years yeah um but so it's also interesting uh that these countries you know that the former USSR countries

in central asia are kind of like trying to find their way forward and they're kind of jacked up But not that jacked up. They're not as bad as some people probably think. You know, you go to Kazakhstan and I mean, it's, it's a, Almadi's a beautiful city. You can go and hang out there and you'll feel like you're in a coffee shop in Brooklyn. It's not that different. So these countries are kind of finding their way forward, which is interesting.

But they are, they are emerging out of that Soviet legacy. I mean, as is Ukraine. I mean, we're seeing that pretty clearly. Yeah. What's your take on the That Tucker Carlson Where's that half of the weapons that are going to Ukraine are ending up They're getting sold to Mexican cartels

Tucker Carlson said that Oh you didn't see this today as a few days It was a few days ago It got buried I think That was basically I'm paraphrasing But that was this whole premise was that like a lot of the weapons that are Ukraine's being sent Are being sold to Mexican cartels

Okay So Mexican cartels have like artillery and Bradley fighting vehicles and attack them. Javelins. Javelins. Yeah, yeah. They're just waiting to invade Texas. I mean, this is like a very like interesting and honestly disconcerting period of history,

the sort of like post-truth era where I feel like I have to like try to be beholden to facts. Sure. Other people expect me to be beholden to facts. And I have to be calm and rational. But I know so many other people who feel no such obfinding. obligation whatsoever, even as they hold me to that standard, they can just say anything, say anything at all, no matter how gonzo it is.

Yeah. You know, claims like Tucker Carlson's saying things that are just blatantly not true. Yeah. People will look at you dead in the eyes and like, no, that's how it is. And I need to, I have to give it to Tucker. The reason why he gets paid the big bucks is he's very convincing. He's saying it with such conviction. And I don't know if that makes him.

smart or like both these are probably both like he's probably smart and also the probably the most evil person around in terms of like a propagandist right wing kind of mouthpiece kind of guy yeah i mean well that's the question with a lot of them like is it cynical right do you really believe this or are you just saying this because it's what the audience responds to he should win an oscar if he's being cynical and he's doing it's just for the audience like red meat for the conspiracy But I think also that when you do that kind of job, and I'm not just talking about Tucker Carlson, I think like any kind of like TV pundit, especially, when you do that job for a long enough time, I think you become like a caricature or a parody of yourself, you know, because you have to play it up a little bit for the camera. I mean, I guess we all do that a little bit. They really have to do it. They really have to bring it, whatever that is. Yeah. And I think over. time you can become like you know you start playing a character and then you become that character right right right yeah and he just walks around us talk of carlson like the tv guy or you know like the pundit

yeah i only brought it up because my friends in my group chat and god bless my friends i love my friends some of them are right wingers and i love them even though they are just going to be crazy sometimes um they were sending me that and uh And I watched it and I was like, yo, this guy is fucking good. He's good because he is so convincing. Like just that I said it before, like the conviction that he has saying it. It's like the CIA knows the intelligence agencies, no. It was incredible.

And now it's a thing like, and my friend who's not even like my friend who's more of a moderate who's like down the middle. You know what I mean? Like he just wants to be in the world, make money take care of his family. You know what I mean? And he's not one side of the other. He's not maga. not left. He's like, yo, is this for real? And I'm like, no, bro. It's 100% not. Like, you're telling me that fucking Sinoloa cartel and Juarez have fucking artillery, 155mm

fucking artillery shells that are pointing at something. See, I, yeah, I can't get too mad at a guy like that. And I understand, like, the information environment is so crazy now that, like, you can understand why people are confused. Yeah. have these questions like what the hell is going on what is real um and it's like that's it's a good question i mean in a in an information environment that is this intense and there's this much misinformation and disinformation yeah like what is real um and you know our construction of reality is you know based on these images and ideas in our mind um and a lot of them flowing into our mind are total bullshit so yeah yeah yeah brings up some unsubriced

settling questions. Yeah, that freak, that kind of freaks people. Yeah, that'll freak me out a little bit, right? Like, you know, what is, that's why we're living in the post-streuth world. And it was funny because it was so perfectly cut up. It was like made for like a one-minute clip for Instagram and TikTok and we're at Twitter. Or maybe he does believe it. And I mean, that's kind of the scary thing, right?

Like, I would actually be more comfortable if he's just like evil. Me too. Honestly, me too. Yeah. Like, this guy, yeah. Yeah. This guy's just playing the. roll and that's okay. I get it. You know what I mean? Like there's money in it. Um, going back to,

we're all over the place, but going back to like the misinformation stuff and disinformation. I found a really interesting, it was a very interesting coincidence today, two big podcast, Joe Rogan and Sean Ryan, uh, both had a guest named Mike Ben's. Uh, and in, in those shows, he tears apart USAID and says how like it's, it's a front for the, CIA and it's something about for drug cartels or something to that effect and they were both posted within like literally 12 hours of each other yeah while this yeah go ahead well president trump has appeared on both of those podcasts yeah so they the administration has a line to them they can you know make a phone call and i mean but that's the to me it's scary because like they

they talked about themselves and a lot of other podcasts you talk about themselves and a lot of other podcasts you talk about themselves as independent media, right? Like, we're, we're, we don't, we're not, we're not cowtowing to any, any one party, one whatever. And, uh, more and more, it doesn't seem like that's the case. Like, it seems like people are kind of taking their talking points and just their marching orders and just going out there and doing it. You know what I mean?

Like, and running spin for what's going on. Um, that, the algorithm is determining what they, truth is and the truth is that people want the most bombastic, alarmist thing every single day. How does, how does like hard news, like just regular fact-based news, even survive in an environment like that? And I mean, you're seeing it now. I think, you know, we talked about how ineffectual Congress is. I also think that in the last couple weeks, we may have formally buried the American press once and for all. It's kind of been lingering and dying since about the adjunctuary. event of the internet that really messed them up and they haven't really figured they were very late in

adopting the digital error and they still struggle for all the reasons everyone already knows about but you can see that these like big legacy institutions the new york times the washington post etc they still exist they still publish but they're also completely irrelevant yeah yeah they've become the niche, right? Like, they've become, like, not the mainstream. They've become like, oh, yeah, I read the Times, like the New York Times. It's been like that for a while, man. Even like 10, 15 years ago, if you took all the views that like Alex Jones was getting and stack that up compared to like the New York Times daily readership. Yeah. Like, it's not even close. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, a point like with Sean Ryan and Joe Rogan, like that podcast, that guy Mike Benz,

Those two podcasts combined will probably get upwards close to 30 million views and listens over the next week or so, right? No news network, no newspaper or magazine has that kind of circulation or that kind of reach. Yeah, it's just even like a guy like Rogan, like he used to have like everybody on, right? like he would have all all shapes and sizes and shades of the rainbow on um more and more it's become less that uh unfortunately because i think he could do a really good job of like just getting getting people on there that can talk about their ideas or whatever that are contradicted to each other and stuff like that it's just uh same thing with lex freeman i I know this is becoming like a bash podcast bashathon, but like Lex Freeman may be the dumbest human being I've ever seen in my life.

You just listen to him and like you really think like, is this guy really an AI researcher? Like is he really like super smart? Because like maybe it's the cadence of how he speaks, but he may be the most naive person I've ever, I've ever listened to. And he gets great guests. And I don't know. I just wish these guys did it. better job not of like being more combative with something that they don't agree with but I guess just being prepared right like well I think what's really important is to have a healthy sense

of skepticism about things regardless of the you know political party yeah or political policy I mean even policies I agree with I mean I still think that I should be a little bit skeptical and be like well really okay let's take a closer look at that and see yeah if that's for real or not or, you know, and something comes up in the news that I agree with, but maybe I should look a little bit deeper and see if that's actually true or not, you know? Yeah.

And I think maybe that's what you're speaking to, that sense of skepticism is lacking. Yeah, I think so for sure. I mean, I try to do the same thing, even if I'm liking what I'm hearing, like, I'm looking for, like, another source or like, is this for real? Like, is it bullshit?

Like, I'm always kind of skeptical about it. But yeah when it's when it's like very like emotionally manipulative, you know, Hillary Clinton eats puppies or something like that. Like you need to start asking yourself some questions. Somebody who's targeted you, whether you know it or not. Yeah, no question. I mean, even on the left too, you see the left like kind of fracturing now, especially like since the loss in the election where you see this hyper left. And not so much politicians because you do have the like social Democrat, Democratic socialist folks like Bernie and AOC and them. But the outside of politics really in like the commentator world, like you see a fracture where it's like.

And I think it really started with Israel Palestine, October 7th. I think that was a big, big hit because people, you have the tankies who are like, you know, American imperialism is horrible, like, who like run a spin for like China and stuff. And then you have like the more moderate social Democrats who are like, yeah, I think Israel probably should be exists as well as a Palestinian state. And that's like you can't have that opinion. If you have that, you're a monster. You know what I mean?

So yeah, I think like going back to what we said, their left is in a fucking, they're in disarray. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas the right is pretty much unified. Oh, yeah. Pretty much consolidated, unified. They got big tech on their side, which they always told us was really bad and evil, but now they're on their side. I guess they're okay.

Yeah, yeah. They got, you know, three branches of government. They got these corporations. I mean, Google is on their side. You know, they got Facebook. They got Twitter. I mean, they did pretty much on themselves. Yeah, they have everything.

Yeah. And the funny thing is they have both houses of Congress. They have the judicial, you know, the Supreme Court anyway. And if you have issues with the budget, pass a budget bill, cutting stuff, right? Like go through line item by line item and actually take cuts to it rather than circumventing what's going on with Elon Musk. I think that's the biggest beef people have with that.

All right. That's what I have with that. Right. But I mean, it's this is the plan, right? I mean, they're trying to basically roll back the New Deal. You know, the whole like New Deal America. They're trying to go back in time to, you know, like the 1890s or so and bring back the era of robber barons where you have like these railroad magnets who like just own America. Yeah. They're trying to bring back that era. And that's sort of like techno fascism. Yeah. I mean, that's good for them. It's good politics. for them. I don't doubt that. But for the country, for the vast, you know, the 99% of the people who live here, it's not going to be good for you. No, no. Also, I'd love to see where they could cut, right? Like, because I'm down. I'm sure there's a ton of departments. I consider myself to be like a small government guy. Right. In another era, another time, I would have been like a Ronald Reagan Republican. Right. It's just because of the times that we're in that I'm really not. Yeah. Yeah. Um, But yeah, I have no issue with like reviewing the agencies and institutions of government, making sure that they're spending their money, the taxpayers money correctly. I think that's completely legit. Yeah. And it's completely fair, right?

Because, you know, our taxes get taken out. Yeah. And we want to know where the money goes, like myself included, right? And I'm sure you could dig into most departments and find waste. And like, I just wish politicians, and this is like wishful thinking. but I wish politicians went into it with a little bit more good faith. You know what I mean? Like going in there trying to make changes that are actually beneficial for people.

I mean, it's totally wishful thinking. I'm a child. Yeah. It's okay. You can admit it. There's, yeah. I mean, the problem is like, you know, when you're dealing with a populist, you're basically just telling the public,

whatever they find emotionally satisfying on a day-to-day basis. Yeah. It's that quite difficult, I think. You know, what you need is another bad word is elitism. So we used to have elites that felt that they knew what was best for us. And sometimes they were wrong. But there used to be political leaders who would do that. And they would force, not force, but through the systems of governance institute

policy changes. And today we have politicians that are more interested on getting their Fox News hit in. Right. That is the main effort. The media spectacle is the main effort. Your social security, the deficit, Ukraine, none of that shit is the main effort. None of that matters. It's the spectacle that's important.

Yikes. Yeah. Getting the highlight, you know, getting that thing, that 10-word answer that like really goes viral. Yep. We're fucked. I get it. It's fine. I don't know how this got to this. We're supposed to talk about Ukraine.

I mean, I guess we did. So, but it's fine. People are freaking out in the comments. And that's fine. Freak out. Yeah. I mean, if you got to freak out, freak out. And, uh, and, you know, we'll talk later on.

It's fine, man. Yeah. Um, what else? Check out We Defy. Link is in the description. Jack's new book about special forces history. Project Green, like blue light.

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Really? No. You get a Zoom call. If you want a Zoom call with the guys, that's the $100 member, plus all the other perks. No. No, I was going to say,

something sexual. Jack shows his feet of. And that's it. You got to find me on Only fans for that. Jack, anything else you want to plug? High side, the high side, of course. Yeah, we're writing National Security Journalism that we publish on the high side. And otherwise, I'm actually hard at work on a new book project

that I can't really talk about yet. But it's a novel that I've been hired to write. So I'm having a lot of fun with it. Jack's doing the damn thing. author and journalist that's great the highside.com i'm going to throw that link in the description as well you and sean nailer of course and we're looking forward to that book that's all i got all right shack yes see you guys next time