The Young Turks - Ballroom Secrets Exposed - April 29, 2026

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Congress responds to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner attack with five separate bills aimed at building Donald Trump’s long-desired White House ballroom, even as Trump reportedly tells aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran. Thanks to today's sponsors: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at shopify.com/tyt Just go to this exclusive web address right now to try ZipRecruiter FOR FREE: ziprecruiter.com/tyt Go to cookunity.com/tyt or enter code TYT before checkout to get 50% off your first order. Use less data, get paid by switching to Noble Mobile: https://go.tyt.com/getnoble Hosts: Ana Kasparian SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip.

Or that and enjoy. Via rail, love the way. I need it. And it's good to be back. I was out yesterday. illness. I'm still feeling a little bit under the weather. So I'm working from home today, but I didn't want to miss out on an Anna Solo show. So we've got a lot to get to. The rundown today is a little different from some of the news we've been covering lately. We've been covering

a lot of war-related coverage. But today, we will be giving you an update on Iran later in the show. But before we do that, we're going to give you some updates on the real funding behind the so-called White House ballroom, which we have learned is definitely more than just a ballroom. And you, the American taxpayer, will be paying for it. I'll give you those details in just a bit. Later, we'll also talk about the ongoing efforts in censoring Americans and violating their First Amendment rights in an effort to prevent criticism of a foreign country. And of course, that's the country of Israel. Laura Lumer makes an appearance. Mark Levin, unfortunately, makes an appearance, but we got to keep track of who's attempting to silence American citizens

as they engage in criticism and critique of a foreign country. We don't even have those types of standards here when it comes to critique of our own country. And when it comes to critique of our own country, obviously I want to maintain and protect our rights to expression and speech. But the idea that those same protections wouldn't be available to us when it comes to criticism toward Israel. Anyway, I've got a lot to say about that. We're going to get to that later in the show. Hopefully, if we have some time, we'll also jump in on the Elon Musk lawsuit against Open AI and Sam Altman. That story is super juicy. Can't wait to give you the details. So without further ado, why don't we get started with our very first topic, the White House ballroom?

There's not one dime of government money going into the ballroom. Now the military is building a big complex under the ballroom, which has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed with the military's building a massive complex under the ballroom. And that's under construction. And we're doing very well. So we're ahead of schedule as part of it. And the ballroom essentially becomes a shed for what's being built under the military, including from drones and including from any other thing. About a month ago, the American people learned that Trump's ballroom renovation actually included a lot more than just renovating a ballroom. He disclosed to the American people that there would be construction done on this underground bunker. And we all know how much

President Trump loves his underground bunkers, especially as protests are occurring. Seems like he wants to be prepared for a doomsday type scenario. We should be concerning to everybody. But the real question here is, where is the funding really coming from? Because fact of the matter is, while we've heard over and over again that Trump's private benefactors, his donors would be the individuals who would be funding the renovations of this gaudy ballroom that he's trying to build, we also had learned that public money would flow into the construction of that underground bunker. And thanks to the response by President Trump following the shooting at the White House Correspondence dinner, where a would-be assassin, allegedly went after him, he took that as an opportunity to promote further construction on the ballroom, which of course there had been a stop to that construction thanks to a ruling by a federal judge. Now we're learning some more detail about what Congress is willing to do

in order to give Trump the ballroom and the underground bunker that he so desperately want. So let's get to the details. Now, as I mentioned earlier, within hours of this shooting that took place at the White House correspondence dinner, several members of the Republican Party came forward, made very similar statements and said that, you know, we need to build this ballroom. It's very, very important. We need to build this ballroom. So for instance, according to Washington Examiner, which by the way, is a right-leaning publication. So they're reporting on this, and I think that they're reporting on this is important. They note that on the House side, representatives Lauren Bobert and Randy Fine have announced separate plans to introduce legislation to authorize the ballroom.

Okay, fair. Now, Trump's big argument was I don't need authorization from Congress because public money is not to be used for this ballroom. Of course, Congress has the power of the purse. However, we don't need Congress. We don't need the power of the purse because, you know, all the donors who purchased me like a prostitute, during the election, a plan on funding this ballroom that I so desperately want. But it's actually a little more complicated than that. And in fact, what the Senate is proposing kind of provided a giveaway, if you will. On the Senate side, Senator Lindsey Graham, Katie Britt, and Eric Schmidt are backing legislation to appropriate at least, get a load of this, $400 million to build the ballroom. Wait, what? I thought we didn't need public money for the ballroom.

Why are they appropriating $400 million for the White House ballroom? Weird, except it's not when you do a little bit of digging, which I did and I'll get to the details in just a second. But further, you have Tim Sheehe and Rand Paul who are expected to introduce their own separate bills on the topic as well. Now, Rand Paul, who fancies himself a libertarian, a libertarian who really wants to go after the frivolous spending by Congress has put out a statement saying, I am willing to support construction of the ballroom as long as we don't appropriate additional funds for it. Now, let's see if he's actually willing to make good on that promise. But going back to the $400 million that the Senate lawmakers want to appropriate for this ballroom construction, what is that really about? Well, it turns out this whole debacle was actually revealed through the lawsuit that was filed against the Trump administration's construction project. So the ballroom proposal was the subject of this legal challenge by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

And recently, as I referenced a little earlier, district judge Richard Leon, who is a Bush appointee, by the way. He was appointed by a Republican, actually halted construction on the project as this. legal case was playing out. Now, why would he do that? Well, it's because, well, Trump's legal team claims that public funds are being used to build the bunker only and that private funds are used for the ballroom. If you look at the contract given to the developer in this project, the developer, by the way, who didn't have to deal with any bids when it came to being granted the ability to do this project, you'll see that the wording is, well, telling to say the least. It allowed for or made way for public funds to be used for the ballroom.

So for months, the public has been told, according to this incredible piece written by the Dre dossier, that's over at Substack, I highly recommend reading the entire piece. But they write that for months, the public has been told that donor money pays for the visible ballroom and taxpayer money pays for the underground. Two separate things, two separate streams. Don't worry about it. But the contract says something different. The contract does not say that, in fact, the scope language draws no boundary between above ground and underground between ballroom and bunker between the building and what the building is sitting on. The wall the administration keeps drawing in public is not actually in the document that governs the money. And as we know, the contract

is everything. The contract will determine how the funds are used, which funds are used for which part of the construction, the ballroom or the underground bunker. And so that is the reason why. The wording in the contract and the lack of clarity on which funds were being used for which part the project is what led to this federal judge ruling that there should be a stop to the construction as this legal case plays out. Now, in the aftermath of this White House correspondence dinner, the assassination attempt that took place, these GOP lawmakers are basically doing the best that they can to send Trump the $400 million, while by the way, Americans, of course, are struggling with a pretty devastating economy. The economy wasn't so great to begin with.

We all knew that. That's the reason why Trump won the popular vote. He claimed that he wanted to focus on doing something about inflation and affordability. But he came into office and decided to start a war with a country that has control over the Strait of Hormuz, where 20% of our oil and liquefied natural gas, global oil and liquefied natural gas, transits through. That's also the strait that a third of the world's fertilizer is transported through. So as a result, we're already experiencing significant inflation. That's only likely to get worse as this war plays out. And we are in a stalemate right now. We are dealing with a really difficult situation in which Trump is unwilling to admit defeat. The Iranians see this as a fight for survival. So this war is going to continue. And as long as this war continues, as long as there is no deal made to open the Strait

of Pormuz costs on not just the war, American people, but people globally will continue to skyrocket. Now, AOC was recently asked about the Ballroom Project, and she gave us a hint about how there's some funny money taking place here. Take a look. He demolished the east wing of the White House, a historic jewel of the American people, and he started to build this ballroom long before any incident. He also promised the American people that this was going to be built with private dollars. And so the idea that they are now trying to change the rationale for this in retrospect doesn't quite add up.

I don't believe that in an era where they are jacking up prices on the American people, when they are gutting everyone's health care, when people cannot afford to pay their rent and their mortgages, that we should be choosing our precious treasure, little treasure that we have in this country, to build an ornate castle on a scale of which is quite unprecedented and unbelievable without any sort of accountability to those funds. And I'm sure that anyone who believes in, you know, these values of so-called waste, fraud,

and abuse would agree with me on that. We'll be back with the news, but first, I want to tell you about something that's made my day a lot easier, and that's Cook Unity. Cook Unity has helped me stay balanced and nourished with my everyday meals, especially when I run the company and I host a show, I have so little time to cook. They're the first meal delivery service bringing you high quality, locally sourced meals from award-winning chefs right to your door. Lately, I've been looking for Sunday eat between the tons of meetings I have throughout the day,

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That's 50% off your first week by using code t-y-t or going to cookunity.com slash t-y-t. So Congresswoman Acacio-Cortez is absolutely correct in the framing of her statement there, because if you put everything in perspective, look, if we were living in an economic situation in which we have, a federal surplus or we have debt, but it's not, you know, $40 trillion. If we were living in a situation in which we were not at war with a country that has control over the Strait of Hormuz, if we weren't dealing with the stalemate as a result of that war, I mean, maybe you can make the case that, yeah, look, the ballroom needs to be renovated. If you go through the proper channels and you do it appropriately, that's fine.

I really, I got to be honest with you guys, I really don't care that much, right? But I do care when the federal government, when Congress at the behest of President Donald Trump, cuts a trillion dollars from Medicaid funding and then proceeds to spend like crazy on wars for Israel. Let's be clear about that. On military weaponry and military funding for Israel. For a ballroom and an underground bunker. I mean, this is obviously spending that is unnecessary. And how do you justify that spending, given the fact that, you know, in the name of cutting waste fraud and abuse,

the federal government cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid, thus robbing disadvantaged Americans from the only health care they had available to them? I mean, that is an injustice of epic proportions, if you ask me. when you talk about the rural hospitals that are harmed as a result of that policy. I mean, it's just unacceptable. It's infuriating. And so that's when it becomes a huge problem. And once you dig even deeper into this story, you get a sense of just how utterly brazen and corrupt our federal government really is. So let's get to the details on that because it turns out that the contractor for the construction of this ballroom and underground bunker was able to secure.

a contract without having to deal with any bidding wars, right? This was a no bid contract. So there's more to it than that. So the contract for the construction of the ballroom contains a section about conflict of interest reviews, right? And so to prevent donations from being given to Trump for this ballroom that could lead to potential conflicts of interest, there's supposed to be a conflict of interest review. However, the review only checks, for conflicts with the National Park Service. It does not check, my God, so crazy. It does not check for conflicts with the Department of Defense.

It does not check for conflicts with intelligence agencies. Now why is that important? Now I have no doubt that Trump is going to take donations from his donors to help bolster the funding for this ballroom project. But the donors might be engaging in some play to, you know, to play scheme here. So what do I mean by that? Palantir, Bose Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, Amazon, every defense and intelligence contractor on the donor list passed a conflict of interest review specifically designed to avoid looking at any of their conflicts of interest. So that's a

huge problem, huge problem. Because again, that paves the way for pay to play schemes. This is corruption, So how did Trump get away with it? Well, he fired the commission of fine arts in October of last year in 2025 and then decided to replace them with loyalists, of course. That's a common tactic that you'll notice with the Trump administration. And then the body that reviews federal construction in Washington, which is known as the National Capital Planning Commission, was also gutted and replaced with loyalists. In fact, the new commissioners for the NCPC were sworn in on the exact same day, they voted to approve Trump's project. It's amazing.

And so the Trump administration also used a loophole to grant a no-bid contract to Clark construction to build the ballroom bunker project. Okay. So they're supposed to be like in order to save money for the American taxpayer, the reason why you go through, like a bidding process is to make sure that you get get the lowest possible contract. You don't want to overspend needlessly on something like a White House ballroom, right, or the underground bunker. But Clark Construction was able to secure this contract without having to deal with any bidding wars. Why is that? So they did use a loophole.

The Trump administration did. And I want to give you some details about what that loophole is. So Clark Construction, the same firm building the ballroom, was handed a $17.4 million, no bid contract to renovate the fountains in Lafayette Park. I mean, let's pause for a second. Let's pause for a second. I'm going to read that graphic from the beginning again, but I want you to come back to me. Why do we need to renovate fountains when we're $40 trillion in debt?

We're having a conversation about renovating fountains. Listen, I'm one of those women who loves beautiful things, like interior design. I like, I mean, I crave getting new furniture. every other month. I don't do it because I'm not insane and I don't have the money for it. But I get it. I get wanting to renovate things. We are 40 trillion dollars in debt. We are at war with Iran. And at this point, who knows how much it's costing us. Pete Hegesith had to testify before the House Armed Services Committee today. He doesn't even know how much we're spending

on this war against Iran. Disaster. Absolute, complete and utter disaster. Why are we renovating fountains. Okay, but let's get back to it. So Clark Construction, the same firm building the ballroom was handed a $17.4 million no-bid contract to renovate the fountains in Lafayette Park. The going rate for the same job under an existing competitive contract was only $3.3 million. So how is this justify? How did they do this? What's the loophole? Well, apparently there is a loophole having to do with emergency. So let's say there's a natural disaster. There's a crazy hurricane. And the hurricane causes some very real damage to critical infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt immediately. Now, engaging in a bidding process is going to prolong the construction or reconstruction

of whatever infrastructure or whatever needs to be rebuilt. So that loophole exists for those types of emergencies. But the Trump administration has decided to use that loophole in order to grant a no-bid contract to Clark construction, not only for the ballroom and the underground bunker, but also for the renovation of these fountains at Lafayette Park. Now, guys, I want you to understand that it would be a massive mistake for you to think that this is merely a partisan thing. Now, Trump is the most brazen about it on a federal level in the White House for sure. However, as a Californian, I have seen this happen again and again and again on a state level. I've seen it happen on a municipal level where suddenly there's no bidding process. You have these private contractors who get these no-bid contracts.

You're like, why did that happen? And the excuse is always the same. Well, we needed to get it done right away. Oftentimes, it's to secure these projects, these no-bid contracts for friends of the politicians and positions of power. And in California, as you guys can imagine, we are dominated by the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party. So this type of grift, this type of graft happens all over the place all the time. And it's just another sign of how broken our political system really is, not just on a federal level, but on a state and local level as well. And this stuff happens when the media is asleep at the wheel. They're not paying attention to what's going on. And the American people as a result of that have no idea what's going on.

But make no mistake about it. The reason why American taxpayers end up paying these insanely inflated prices and contracts for projects like this is because they find these, you know, squirly ways to prevent the bidding process to ensure that we're getting the best possible price for the construction of whatever it is that we're trying to build or renovate. So that's what's going on here. Anyway, I wanted to give you guys those updates because you're going to hear over and over again that like, oh, no skin off our back, who cares? This isn't being funded by the taxpayers, except it is. And maybe in the grand scheme of things, you don't think $400 million is all that much money. But I actually think that it's yet another sign of how easily Congress is willing to

spend money on frivolous nonsense while cutting resources from taxpaying American citizens. I want Medicaid to be funded. I don't give a damn about the fountains in Lafayette Park. And I certainly don't care about the White House ballroom. I do care when we're expected to pay for it. I do care when we're being lied about it. And that's what's taking place here. And the final thing I'll say is, you know, there's a lot of people wagging their fingers at ordinary Americans who are conspiratorial about what happened during the night of the White House correspondence dinner.

Can those people at least acknowledge that the conspiracies stem from the fact that immediately after that alleged assassination attempt, Trump exploited that horrific event, that horrific event, to push for funding, to push for the construction of the ballroom. Right before I launched TYT, the doubt was real. What if nobody watches? What if it doesn't work out? I got past those initial hurdles, but when we launched our shop TYT store,

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That's Shopify.com slash t-y-t. I mean, someone allegedly tried to, rob you of your life and the first thing you think about is the ballroom, that's strange. And that's what fuels the conspiracies. And to be honest with you, a lot of conspiracies ended up not really being conspiracies. So I don't know. I don't know what the truth is when it comes to what happened that night of the assassination attempt. What I do know, though, is that Trump seems super motivated to build this ballroom and exploited what could have been a absolute. tragic and devastating event, regardless of what you think of Trump, if he actually got

assassinated, that would be incredibly dangerous for our country, period. He exploited that to push for the ballroom, an underground bunker. It's amazing. And it makes me feel like we're not living in a serious country right now. So, all right, well, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll switch gears and talk a little bit about the latest updates in the war against Iran. You don't want to miss it because it has a lot to do. with your pocketbook. We'll be right back. What's up, everyone? Welcome to our first social break of the day. Jedi 6 writes in and says, I really hate this ballroom talk. It's a waste of time. I mean, look, I mostly agree with you,

except for the fact that we're, I mean, when I say we're paying for it, I mean, technically we are, even though we're just going deeper and deeper into debt in order to pay for a project that we should not be even considering right now. That's how I really feel about it. I get it, the ballroom isn't grand enough. But I mean, it would be like me saying, oh, my two-bedroom condo isn't grand enough. I don't have money to buy anything bigger and I'm like deeply in debt, but let me go ahead and go even deeper in debt. I can't pay my bills, but let me go deeper in debt in order to buy a bigger place. It's ridiculous. Anyway, let's keep going. We've got Wang June who says, I remember another world leader, a certain moustachio,

individual who also had a ballroom that functioned as an underground military bunker. I know what you're talking about. A lot of people have been drawing those parallels. Maple Flame says, against all odds and pain, Anna is here for a wonderful, salty Wednesday show. We love you. Maple Flame, I love you right back. Thank you so much for watching and thank you for the support. Let's go to our Twitch community where Bradshaw, Bradshaw crew of one says gas hit $4.99 a gallon

in West Michigan. Two months ago, it was 269 a gallon, almost double in two months. I know, and it's only going to get worse. I really do sadly have to tell you that. Let's get back to the show. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to the show, Anna Casparian with you. I think we're all experiencing a little bit of brain rot with the amount of time we're

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So check it out at t.yt.com slash switch or download from the app store or Google Playwright. store. Now, I wanted to read a few super chats before we move on to our next story. There's a lot of them. Thank you for writing in. Dav Mill says one of the ATF rules Trump is modifying is engaged in the business rule, a rule so broad, I would have been in risk of 10 years in prison if I gifted a 22 LR rifle to my children or grandchildren under Biden. I don't know what any of that means, DAV, I apologize, but thank you for writing in. DAB also says Adam Smith spoke of the hows and wise government always overspends on everything. Why subsidies always raise prices, lowers quality and increases corruption.

I wish more people would read wealth of nations. Look, I don't consider myself a libertarian, but I will say that the last few years especially have helped me understand. and the ire many libertarians have toward the government, how much they spend, how inefficient the government can be. I don't agree with them overall, but I can see why they make those arguments. I think that, you know, you can remedy those issues with adequate oversight by the American people. And those methods of oversight haven't even been considered. But nonetheless, I get it. And they do certainly waste our money and make all sorts of, you know, no-bid,

contract deals for their buddies. It's absolutely sick. All right, I'll read more of your comments a little later, but I wanted to move on to some updates on the war. Is it over? What's going on? Are we going to start bombing again? Well, here's the details. What would you pay to ensure Iran doesn't get a nuclear bomb? What would you pay? I reclaim my time. Do you not know? You had no one do the analysis of what the increased cost of gas and food and the American people are going to be? What is the cost of Iran holding that's right at issue with nuclear weapons. It's $631 billion, which means it's an increase of $5,000 a year for American households. Now, let me give you this point. You're saying that your operation is preventing a nuclear Iran. Will you acknowledge that there is an economic cost to the American people?

Secretary of Defense Pete Hagezeth testified before the House Armed Services Committee today and was, well, in a word, embarrassing. He didn't really know how much we are spending on this war. He didn't really have any answers in regard to what the White House's and Pentagon strategy is in winning this war against Iran. We don't even fully know what our goals are at this point. But nonetheless, President Trump is planning for race for impact, an extended blockade of Iranian vessels, which means one thing, the strait of Hormuz will remain closed indefinitely. You know, the straight where 20% of oil and liquefied natural gas is transported through. In the beginning of the war, President Trump decided to lift sanctions on both Russia and Iran

in order to increase the oil supply. So gas prices don't, you know, shoot up as much as they have already. But then he decided, you know what, I'm going to be. going to respond to Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz by doing my own blockade and further limiting oil and gas supply. That'll show them. Now, to be fair, it is hurting Iran's economy. Trump's blockade of Iranian vessels is having an impact on Iran. But this is really a game of chicken. And the real question is, who can withstand the economic disaster? Iran or the United States. And you got to remember, we've got the midterms coming and more. So let's get into the

details here. According to the Wall Street Journal, in recent meetings, including a Monday discussion in the situation room, Trump opted to continue squeezing Iran's economy and oil exports by preventing shipping to and from its ports. He assessed that his other options, resume bombing or walk away from the conflict, you know, carried even more risk than maintaining the blockade. And that's according to what officials told the Wall Street Journal. Now, I don't want him to go back to bombing. I think that's a terrible idea. I would like the United States to engage diplomatically with individuals who are not Israeli assets. So sending Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner to negotiate is not a good idea,

considering the fact that Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner essentially sabotage, peace talks, leading up to the war. And they're not to be trusted. They're not interested in peace. They're doing Israel's bidding. They obviously care about that more than what's best for the American people and what's best for the economy globally speaking. But that's not what Trump is doing.

Trump's not going to bomb, but instead he's going to try to squeeze Iran economically until they cave to his demands of giving up their nuclear program. Now, when I say nuclear program, I want to be clear about something. Our intelligence agencies on multiple occasions made it abundantly clear that Iran was not building nuclear weapons, that their nuclear program was not in the quest of building a nuclear warhead. That's not what they were doing. Now, they did enrich uranium. That's true.

And they did that for leverage in the negotiations with the United States. The Ayatollah that the United States assassinated at the behest of Israel. did basically put a fatwa out against building nuclear weapons. And now we have people in charge who are certainly hardliners. But even so, you have Donald Trump saying over and over again that we obliterated Iran's nuclear facilities in Operation Midnight Hamper. So what are we even talking about here? Like the idea that Trump is going to continue the blockade over what can best be described as Israel, like, oh, we're so afraid of Iran's nuclear weapons.

No, they're not. No, they're not. They wanted regime change. That's what this war has been about. Israel has been very clear about that. And Israel is the country that dragged us into this war in the first place. So knowing that this war is not really about nuclear weapons, what are we doing here? Like, what are we doing?

This is so stupid. So Iran has offered to open the Strait of War Moose as long as Trump, Trump lifts the blockade. And their offer to the Trump administration was that we will revisit the nuclear program at a later date. We're going to table it for now. But Trump is not in favor of that. Okay.

So Trump told Axios that the blockade is somewhat more effective than bombing. I agree with him on that. I mean, the bombing wasn't really going to accomplish a damn thing. They are choking like a stuffed pig, Trump said. and it is going to be worse for them. They can't have a nuclear weapon. Okay. Now, again, let me just remind you that there are many countries that we don't, I mean,

North Korea has nuclear weapons, Pakistan has nuclear weapons. There are many nuclear powers that were honestly not friends with necessarily. I wouldn't put Pakistan in that category. North Korea is certainly not friends of the United States. Are we constantly fearmongering about North Korea day in and day out? No, we're not. Now, there is a country that has nuclear weapons that they are not willing to acknowledge officially or be part of the nonproliferation treaty.

And of course, that's Israel. Israel's the country that has bombed all its neighbors. Israel's the country that is leveling southern Lebanon as we speak. Israel's the country that carried out a genocide in Gaza. and continues their mass slaughter campaign. Over 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire. They're the ones with nuclear weapons, and it's totally okay. In fact, if you listen to some of the more recent hearings at the UN Security Council,

it's just amazing how often that issue tends to come up these days, but the U.S. just pretends like it's not a problem. Because we're occupied by the Israeli government. Let's just keep it 100. That's why. So they're allowed to carry out genocides. They're allowed to slaughter innocent people. They're allowed to have a clandestine nuclear program and then dictate to the American people

that we need to bleed American soldiers and treasure in order to ensure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon when there's no indication based on our own intelligence community that they were building nuclear weapons. It's just, and none of this makes any sense. And at the end of the day, the people who suffer are ordinary individuals, both in the United States and across the globe, because this is wrecking the global economy. There's no question about that. A senior U.S. official said the blockade is demonstrably crushing Iran's economy and our own, by the way, and our own. It is straining, meaning Iran, is straining to store its unsold oil and sparked fresh outreach by the regime to Washington. So you have a U.S. official anonymously telling the Wall Street Journal like, ooh, Iran's reaching out now. They want to make a deal.

I don't believe it. They've lied to us on multiple occasions about how Iran desperately wants to make a deal. And then we find out that that's actually not the case at all. In fact, just this past weekend, Trump pretended as though his special envoy and Jared Kushner we're going to travel to Islamabad to engage in another round of talks with the Iranians. And then he never sent anybody because the Iranians never agreed to another round of negotiation. So they lie to us. And that's something to be concerned about because if this blockade lasts longer, I don't even know the extent to which the global economy will be wrecked.

And I'm not just talking about oil. I'm not just talking about liquefied natural gas. I'm talking about things like helium, which is necessary for MRI machines. I'm talking about things like fertilizer, a third of which comes from that region of the world. Farmers are absolutely furious because the price of fertilizer has already shot up significantly. On Monday, Iran had offered Trump that deal that I mentioned, right? But Trump said, no, I'm rejecting it. He told the Washington Post, I don't believe that the Iranians are engaging or negotiating in good faith. Can you imagine being Trump saying that with a straight face?

The United States did surprise attacks on Iran not once but twice in the middle of negotiations. You want to talk about engaging in bad faith. And by the way, it pains me to say that. I want to be proud of my government. I want to look at my government and say, no, they're doing things morally, ethically. They're actually thinking it through. It's strategic. None of that is happening right now.

Now, obviously, prolonging the blockade means that gas prices and overall inflation will worsen. And that's because the blockade has caused the lowest number of transits through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began. But Iran is under the impression that they can totally outlast the United States. And I don't deny that that could be the case. The reason why I don't deny it is because Iran views this war as a fight for their own surveillance. survival. Is the U.S. seeing it that way? I don't think so. So they are willing to fight to the death. And that means that we could be in for a lot of economic pain. So business leaders, close to the president, worry that a shuttered strait of Hormuz or more war would only hurt

the economy, a potential political death knell heading into the November midterm elections. I mean, hey, GOP, you guys were really thinking about the midterms now? I mean, I wouldn't even bother. I wouldn't waste my time fundraising at this point. I wouldn't waste my time campaigning. No, right now the American people think Republicans, they think Trump, they think of what the economy looks like right now, and it's only going to get worse. So I think that they've missed their chance at making their case toward the American people in order to bolster any support that they might have left. So we'll see how this all plays out. But I do want to move on to the economic costs when we come back from the break because the economic costs are real. And I want to get to some of the highlights

from that House Armed Services Committee hearing today featuring Pete Heggseth. Come right back. What's up, everyone? Dana writes in and says in our member section, Roe Kana is the only one besides Bernie out there telling the truth and trying to talk sense into his fellow politicians, plus the media, plus the voters. Dana, he's winning me over. He's even winning my absolutely cynical, black-pilled heart over. And that's good, that's good, because it takes a lot for me to start opening my mind up to congressional lawmakers again, Democrat, Republican, it doesn't matter.

I've been like so furious with the lack of representation the American people have gotten. But he's out there and he's fighting and he's willing to work with any, one that it takes to, you know, solve some of the very real problems we have. And you're going to see some highlights from his participation in during the hearing today when we come back from the break. Excuse me, guys. Okay. Let's go to our super chats.

Pakistani American Huck Sentinel says, ever wondered how a single Hamas attack on Israel triggers America to empty its treasury for endless war and blank checks. But the same, but the exact same jihadist. terrorist hitting France, UK, or Germany. Just a quick thoughts and prayers, tweet some Islamophobic and anti-Muslim hashtags, and everyone's back to brunch that evening. I'll read the rest of your comment when we get back from the break. Welcome back to the show, everyone. I'm Anna Kasparian. During the break, I was reading a super chat by Pakistani-American Hawk Sentinel, and I want to read the rest of it because this, I'm just going to say chatter. I don't know if you're male or female,

is making a point about how all it took was one attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7th, horrific attack, of course, that convinced the American Treasury to drain resources and engage in all these wars. But when there's an attack on a European country, they don't behave the same way. Well, look, to be fair, European countries don't quite have the military industrial complex that we have here in the U.S. So oftentimes when we talk about... talk about, you know, the war lobbying that goes on. We do focus a lot on the foreign lobby or the Israel lobby, but that's not to take the influence or minimize the influence of defense contractors because they certainly profit off war as well. And our system of government has

corruption baked into it. So our Supreme Court said, yeah, corporations can spend unlimited money on buying elections, buying politicians, and that happens all the time now. It has totally devastated our democratic process. So you're right about that. Anyway, let's move on to some of the economic elements to this war that I think legacy media doesn't focus on enough. I mean, they talk about the broader economy, but they don't really talk about the impact of this war against Iran on everyday Americans. So let's get to it. The war against Iran, is costing Americans and, of course, the broader global economy, a ton of money. And so for Americans, the costs are racking up both when it comes to the war itself and how much our government is

spending on the war, but also when it comes to war-related inflation. And that is definitely heating up. So let's begin with the cost of war itself, which Defense Secretary Pete Heggsett seems to know very little about. Now, how do I know that? Well, he was testifying before the House Armed Services Committee this morning, and he was asked by Congressman Rokana, how much is this costing us? Do you know what you're doing? And you're going to get a little taste of how little he actually knows. You've testified that it was $25 billion in cost in terms of the munitions we used and what we paid for it. But when you add to that, the damage that was done to our bases and today's dollars for buying replacement munitions and replacement aircrafts, what has the total cost

been over the last 60 days? That number right now reflects the total cost that we're seeing. Including buying in today's dollars, the new weapons and replacements and including the damage there? That's your testimony. If there's adjustments to that, I would defer to the coptroller on that. And how much are you seeing in terms of, are you asking in terms of supplemental funding just for the Iran mission from this committee? If and when a supplemental is submitted, the majority of it would not just be for, would not be for Iran. Munitions related to the entirety of what we want to get done. A number. What would you submit? It would be within the, on Iran, it would be less than 25 billion.

But there's a lot more we would ask for beyond this. You're saying it's 25 billion. Okay, I would just, if you come back, you want to revise those numbers because all the experts are disagreeing with you when it comes to today's dollars and damage. Rokana is right about that. Now, the $25 billion figure is bad enough, but that was the figure that was cited prior to learning through NBC's latest reporting, that the damage done to American bases in Gulf countries is estimated at about $5 billion, which I think is a devastatingly low underestimate. I think it's going to cost a lot more if we choose to rebuild those bases slash are allowed to rebuild those bases because at this point hosting an American military base in your country makes you a target. It doesn't make you safer. We weren't able to protect our Gulf allies, even though they were willing to host American bases in their countries. And so I think that once this war is over,

We're going to have a very different, you know, global power structure. I just want to be open and honest about that. That's the sense that I'm getting. But what's amazing to me is the lack of clarity that we're getting from both the federal government and our own media, to be quite frank, in regard to the costs associated with these wars. Now, we've given Ukraine hundreds of billions of dollars. They've only lost territory since.

They should have taken the peace deal at the beginning of the war when they had the opportunity. I'm just keeping it real with you guys. This war has been devastating for Ukraine. I am sick of looking at videos of men getting snatched from their homes, getting forced to fight a war that they know they're likely going to die in. They have lost so many people. But that's Ukraine. Okay, there's that.

Since October 7th, we have provided at least $30 billion to Israel. And that's on top of the hundreds of billions of dollars that we have historically given to Israel. It's on top of the nearly $4 billion we give to Israel in aid literally every single year. And then there are the, there was Operation Midnight Hammer. How much did that cost Americans? How much does that cost? Do we know? There is no clarity on that whatsoever. Oh, we obliterated their nuclear facilities. Okay, great. How much does that cost us? Because our intelligence community said that they weren't even working on a nuclear weapon.

So we needlessly carried out that mission and it cost us something. So what did it cost us? And then you fast forward to the recent war that Trump started at the behest of Israel, right? that was reportedly costing us one to two billion dollars a day. The fact that Pete Hegesith can't be bothered to give us concrete figures in regard to the cost of this war, the fact they didn't even think about looking into it to get us concrete figures before he walked in to that House Armed Services Committee hearing. Tells to do everything you need to know about our federal government. They don't care about this country or our future. Because the idea that we can just keep spending, spending, spending,

and when we keep spending, we're just going deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into federal debt. For what? Are we getting anything out of this? What are we getting out of this? Okay, so lack of clarity when it comes to the actual costs associated with this war on our federal government, which of course has an impact on every single one of us in the United States. States. Okay, fine. But let's get a little more personal. How much is this costing American households specifically? Let's watch. You know how much it will cost Americans in terms of their increased cost in gas and food over the next year because of the Iran war? I would simply ask you what the

cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb. I'm going to give you that. I would simply ask you what the playing gotcha questions about domestic things. I'm not. You're asking, you're saying it's a gotcha. You're saying it's a Got your question to ask what it's going to be in terms of the increased cost. Why won't you answer what it costs to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb? I give you that, sir. But let me- What would it cost? What would you pay to ensure Iran doesn't get a nuclear bomb?

Do you, what would you pay? I reclaim my time. Do you not know? You had no one do the analysis of what the increased cost of gas and food and the American people are going to be? What is the cost of Iran holding that straight at issue with nuclear weapons? It's $631 billion, which means it's an increase of $5,000. a year for American households. Thank you to Congressman Rokaneh for actually giving a damn about what that cost is to each American household.

Thank you. Thank you for looking into that and actually giving a damn about it. But unsurprising that Pete Higgs doesn't care about it. But I'd love to answer Pete Hags' this question. It's not like the American people were ever asked. In fact, the vast majority of Americans did not want to go to war with Iran to begin with. This was the first war in American history that was unpopular from the very beginning. So they never gave a damn about what we thought or think.

But if I had the opportunity to answer that question for Secretary Hegsith, how much would you be willing to spend to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? My answer would be zero, zero dollars. Zero. Because there was no indication that Iran was building a nuclear weapon. And in fact, we had evidence that they were not building a nuclear weapon. And to be honest with you guys at this point, just to get Israel off our back on this issue, I would prefer Iran to have some sort of deterrent to prevent us from ever engaging in this ridiculous war to begin with.

That's what I would have preferred. Was I ever, can I ask you, like, how many countries has Iran invaded? Seriously. Now ask yourselves, how many countries has Israel and nuclear power? invaded just over the last two years. So I just, the answer is zero, zero dollars. That's how much I would be willing to contribute to this effort to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon that they weren't even pursuing in the freaking first place. That's my answer. Now, Hegsith even got called out throughout the hearing over the fact that Trump on multiple occasions said that we

obliterated Iran's nuclear facilities that we've just caused so much damage and weakened them so much. And it's like, okay, well, how do you square that circle? Because you're contradicting yourself. On one hand, you're fearmongering about nuclear weapons. On the other hand, you're boastful about how you destroyed Iran's nuclear facility. So which one is it? And Hegzeth tried to have weasel out of, you know, that difficult line of questioning by arguing that like, oh, but they were, they were motivated and quickly pursuing a nuclear weapon. No, they weren't. You got to provide some evidence because they weren't according to American intelligence agencies, including the director of national intelligence. So the lies aren't going to fly. Americans have been lied into war

far too often for them to be dense enough to just buy the fear mongering from members of the Trump administration, including a freaking alcoholic weekend Fox anchor, Pete Hegseth. Anyway, globally, we're making a ton of our allies absolutely furious. In fact, CNBC reported this morning that Brent Oil tops $118 after Trump says he will blockade Iran until it agrees to a nuclear deal. Now remember, Israel never even cared about Iran's nuclear program. That was just the cover story because they wanted us to attack Iran and spur regime change. That's what they want. They've always wanted regime change.

Their weapons were always the cover story. By the way, notice that Trump isn't even mentioning Iran's ballistic missiles anymore. And that's because no one cared about the ballistic missiles. No one actually thought Iran was building a nuclear weapon. Again, that was the cover story to drag the United States into a moronic war in an effort to change the regime or lead Iran into a failed state that can be balkanized, similar to how Syria ended up. So we're having a fake debate. We're having a fake conversation right now. And that's what's so infuriating about this.

Now, oil prices jump 6% after Trump announced that he will be, you know, extended. this blockade on Iranian vessels indefinitely, which means Iran is going to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed indefinitely. Energy market participants were also digesting the ramifications of the UAE's abrupt decision to quit the OPEC plus cartel. So that means limited oil on the global market for the foreseeable future. And according to Politico, the German Chancellor Friedrich Mears was speaking at a high school. He probably thought, I'm speaking at a high school in rural West Germany. No one's going to pay attention to anything I have to say. People were paying attention. And Homeboy is angry. Okay. So apparently he told students that the

U.S. had been humiliated by Iran's regime. Lacks a strategy for ending the war and has left peace talks empty-handed, causing significant economic damage. to Germany given the resulting surge in energy prices. You guys really should not have decommissioned your nuclear power plants. That was a bad idea. I know a bunch of people are going to get mad at me at that, but we need nuclear power. We just do. And it would have been far better if Germany had access to nuclear power right now.

But they don't. And the people of Germany are suffering as a result of what the U.S. has engaged in against Iran at the behest of Israel. I wish Maers was a little clearer about that because, yes, he's right about the U.S. being humiliated right now. I as an American feel very embarrassed and ashamed of what we have engaged in. There's no question. But like connect the dots and finish the sentence, if you know what I mean. He also said that the war is costing us a lot of money, meaning Germany, a lot of taxpayer money,

and it's costing us a lot of economic strength. This war against Iran has a direct impact on our economic performance, and for that reason, it must be brought to an end as soon as possible. Now, you might be saying, who cares? It's just one country, not a big deal, it's just Germany. But the point that I'm trying to make here is that we are doing nothing other than making enemies globally. We are turning allies into enemies, we are alienating ourselves from the global community. And the only ally we're going to have left is just going to be Israel, which doesn't care about our country,

only uses and abuses us for their wars and their expansionist policies. And so, I mean, the reason why you have alliances is because it's a give and take. You get something out of those alliances, whether it's a, you know, defense pact, whether it's some sort of treaty, economic agreements. Now we're in a situation where long-time allies of ours are absolutely furious and think that we are a joke. Now, Trump responded to Friedrich Mertz by going on truth social, of course. That's his favorite method of diplomacy of policymaking. I don't know. And he basically just said that, you know, Germany wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

He never said that, of course. But he did accurately call out the fact that the Trump administration has no real plan here. And the global community is suffering as a result of that. Now, while Trump appears to have opted for the path of economically squeezing Iran by keeping this blockade of Iranian vessels in place, he's also consulting with Warhawks. So I want to give you some details on that. President Donald Trump is getting some advice from individuals that he probably should, be getting advice from. Now I say that because these are the same individuals who go to the

United States into war with Iran and it has been devastating and incredibly embarrassing. As we can see, we are now in a stalemate. We don't know how this war is going to end. It doesn't look like the Trump administration has a real plan other than extending a blockade on Iranian vessels, which means that the Strait of Hormuz is going to remain closed, which means that oil and gas prices are going to go up. We're going to have a lack of fertilizer on the global market, lack of helium and other incredibly important resources necessary for the medical industry. So Trump has been speaking with the notoriously hawkish Senator Lindsey Graham, retired U.S. Army General Jack Keene, I don't know if you've ever seen that guy on Fox News.

He is a complete nutter lunatic. And Mark Theson, a Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter for George W. Bush's administration, who has been urging the president, to kill more of Iran's leadership. I didn't even know who this decent guy was until recently. And that was when life was a little better. But this is a guy who like salivates at the thought of slaughtering more people. And if you don't believe me, here are his recent comments on Fox News, which Trump, by the way, reposted on truth social.

Take a look. If there are two factions in Iran, one that wants a deal and one that doesn't want a deal, let's kill the ones that don't want a deal. If it's that simple, we've killed over 50 Iranian leaders so far. Let's go back. Let's end the ceasefire and finish the job. Admiral Cooper has taken out about 70 to 80% of the targets he was assigned. There's another 20 to 30% to be done.

Let's finish that. Let's take out the leaders who don't want a deal. And then we threaten to destroy Karg Island if they don't give us the nuclear dust and bring them back to the table then. Oh, wow. What a genius. Oh, wow. They pay them the big bucks to be a column.

over at the Washington Post because he's got such great ideas. You're not giving me what I want, so I'm just going to kill you. Wow, what a genius. Pathetic, immoral, unethical, disgusting. What else is there to say about a clown like that guy? But what is problematic is that these are the individuals surrounding President Donald Trump. And I wonder how these are the people who have access to Trump, right? You know, his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who worked on Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election campaign in 2020,

she's a bit of a gatekeeper. She gets to decide who consults with the president of the United States on questions of war and peace. So you've got Senator Lindsey Graham, freaking Jack Keene. Oh, my, bro, you're not fooling anyone with that leathery-ass face. Okay? Just let it go gray. Let it go gray. We all. know how old you are. Just chill out. But aside from that, he's a total lunatic and has only provided commentary on Fox News that has proven to be disastrous because Trump has followed through with that advice. And we are now in a stalemate with Iran with the Strait of Hormuz closed, oil prices are skyrocketing. Farmers can't get their hands on fertilizer. And if they can, it's astronomically priced because there's a shortage of fertilizer thanks to the Strait of Hormuz being

closed. Now, these are people with means, right? These are people with money. Maybe they can withstand the economic pain. But the American people were already struggling economically before this war began. But who cares? Just kill more people. You're not giving me what I want. We're just going to kill you. Okay, and then what? And then what? What happens to a country of 92 million people after you, I mean, if you even manage to get what you want, you turn it into a failed state, that refugee crisis is going to be real difficult to deal with, isn't it? Get ready, Europe, get ready. And of course, the worst warhawks in Trump's ear are Israeli officials,

because they are still in his ear. Let's be clear about that. Israel has also made clear that it's eager to restart airstrikes on Iran. Of course they are. I mean, what would Israel be if they weren't eager to kill more people? Israeli defense minister Israel Katz said last week that Israel is awaiting a green light from the U.S. to kill the rest of the Khomeini family and plunge Iran into the age of darkness and stone by blowing up central energy and electricity facilities and crushing national economic infrastructure, echoing similar threats made by Trump. Going back to what we heard from Thesson in regard to killing people who don't agree with you and aren't easy to negotiate with, that sets a real bad precedent. Because given the, I mean, the lack of support for Israel among the American people, I can envision a day. I know it seems impossible, but it's not. I can envision a day when the U.S. is no longer an ally to Israel. And if we live in a global community where it is now normalized to just kill world leaders that you don't like and you don't agree with, how would Israel feel about that?

If a military superpower came in and just assassinated their leaders because we don't like what they have to say. Just something to think about. I don't want to live in a world like that. But Israel has pushed for us to live in a world like that. And so far they're succeeding. And I would just caution them. Be careful what you wish for. We'll be right back.

Indisputable is still the fastest growing news show in America compared to CNN, Fox News, and 30 other networks. We tell the truth on indisputable because the truth is indisputable. We go places that other news media outlets refuse to go when there were human rights abuses happening at the Victorville Prison, Guards and members of the community, contacted us. You through your investigative reporting, unearthed, very troubling allegations about specific forms of abuse and discrimination in the federal prison system. It really doesn't take much to be a trusted voice. All it takes is to be fearless, report on matters, be an advocate.

I called it the bullpen intentionally because it's a place of preparation. We present individuals who may have an opposing view. So we debate. Sometimes we interview individuals because their stories deserve to be heard. A survivor of significant police misconduct and his attorney. We covered this story earlier and to remind you of the horror of one man being shot at damn near 100 times by the police. We take time on this show to showcase the temper tantrums of carings in the wild. We do this not because we want to see people's emotional outburst in public, but because these incidents are emblematic of a bigger societal issue taking place across the nation.

And it has to be checked. my big homie attorney at law Benjamin Crock. I just want to thank you, man. An educated, articulate brothers like yourself speak truth to power. It makes a great difference in changing the landscape in America. Listen, no matter what you do,

don't allow the politics of ideology to evaporate the soul that still exists inside of you. They don't stop, I don't stop. Racism won't stop. I won't stop. Systemic bias won't stop. I won't stop. People still need health care, so I won't stop.

People still need criminal justice system reform, so I won't stop. You won't stop you. I'm wearing one of our pieces of merchandise. So the funny thing about the Dragon Squad, and that's what our viewers call themselves. That's the name of the group, but every individual chooses their own name. You might have Cincinnati Dragon. You might have Harry Potter Dragon. We have a Grandma Sunshine Dragon is one of those that I remember. These are people that like to have an element of themselves, their lives, what's significant to them reflected as a part of the community. But the concept of the Dragon Squad is just something I threw away a joke. I was mocking the proud boys, these like right wing groups that come up with a name for

themselves that they think is cool, but it's actually really lame. And I thought, you know, off the top of my head, I can come up with something that's still kind of lame, but much cooler. And so I threw out Dragon Squad and I just moved on with my life, but everybody liked it. And so they kept it going and so we've embraced it. And I think again, it was this was during the period of the pandemic. I think it was it was sort of nice to have a renewed sense of community, a feeling that you're a part of something when everything seems so chaotic. And as a result of that, we've got independent artists online streaming, making beautiful digital art of dragons. We've got, you know, we've released a number of pieces of merchandise that people love sending us photos of

them. And then by the way, for me personally, people send me, like you can probably see in the background like a knitted dragon, someone sent me. There's a dragon book they sent me. Dragon board games they send me. People have done like custom ironworks making dragon bottle openers. Like the fans are super invested in diamond art and things like that. And so it's great that they send this stuff. Sometime we're going to have to set up a wall of all of it. But yeah, it's definitely brought the community a lot closer together. The fact that we were no longer in this big studio, I felt a lot more personally attached to people. It felt very immediate and I know that I personally needed the connection. This guy, Hassan Piker. He celebrates 9-11. He says he is a patron to the United States.

No, I love it when people tell me I'm right. So I'm going to go ahead and read a few comments where people tell me I'm right. Let's start with 00-083, who says, Anna, you're totally right about no rhetoric regarding North Korea now because they have nuclear weapons. But you have looked back to before North Korea had nuclear weapons and it was the same old song. Yeah, I mean, remember when they were developing nuclear weapons, very similar hawkish commentary in columns and on television and now all of a sudden, you know, you don't hear, I mean, you hear a peep here and there about North Korea, but certainly no talk of going to war with North Korea. Jubey Skinner says, I'm going to need Anna to deep dive into UAE leaving OPEC,

and being the new and sixth permanent country with a Fed swap line. So UAE gets cheap money and we pay out treasuries to another wealthy country. I don't know if that's how it's going to work. But I agree with you. I want to do a deep dive. I actually came across that story soon before we went live, guys. So I wasn't able to do a deep dive into it, but it's definitely in my ballpark. It's the kind of thing that I want to look into.

So I promise you I will. And I'll report back as soon as I do. I will not be on the show tomorrow. I'm going to be traveling and you guys will find out why pretty soon. But I will be back next week on Monday to do the show as I regularly do. All right. Let's read one more. DJ Payne 1, 2, 3, 6 says him wanting a ballroom after someone tried to take his life is super strange. My concern is why and what they aren't telling us. I agree with you on that. By the way, one of the things that went viral during that White House correspondence dinner was Erica Kirk. I know that she put out a video.

I was kind of iffy on whether or not we'd cover it, but we are going to cover it. So just stick around for that. We'll do that later in this hour. Maybe the bonus episode for our members. And if it does come to that, you can become a member by going to t.yt.com slash join. I'm not saving it for the bonus episode, but as you guys know, there's so much to cover. and I want to prioritize other stories before we get to that. So let's get to our next story.

We need to start having justified, I guess you could call it, like a mainstream mass red scare movement where we start rounding people up who express these sentiments in support of communism and Islamic jihad. And you hear people say, don't you believe in the First Amendment? They don't we know what the First Amendment believe? Do you want to de-platform people? know, the lips do that. I don't have any problem with deep platforming Nazis or jihadis. Yeah, well, the problem is Mark Levin labels anyone and everyone who simply and merely

criticizes Israel a Nazi or a jihadist. And so if we're going to allow lunatics like that to violate Americans' First Amendment rights because they dare criticize Israel, if we're going to allow them to be the arbiters of who is deemed a Nazi, then you can kiss your First Amendment rights goodbye. Now, Laura Lumer and Mark Levin, two of the most fervently pro-Israel commentators in American media, are now calling for Americans to lose their rights for merely criticizing Israel. And anyone that they smear as an Islamist or a jihadist or a Nazi would be a target of this witch hunt brigade. I'm not kidding. So I'm going to show you the receipts, including a lengthy list of the individuals that Mark Levine specifically has referred to as a Nazi. Disturbingly, both

Lumer and Lavin have the president's ear, and that's why they're worth discussing and talking about here. So the Lumer segment that you just watched in that video was from last night's edition of Lumer Unleashed, no one wants that, where she was discussing the second indictment of James Comey. That's a story that we will be covering on the show a little later. But you'll notice that she mentions several people who have nothing to do with James Comey at all, right, who have never threatened the president in any way, shape, or form, but have definitely been critical of Israel. So she exploits the Comey indictment in which the federal government, the DOJ, alleges that Comey threatened Trump's life. We'll get to that story later. You can decide whether or not you believe that. But my point is Lumer

exploits that to make a point about Israel's critics in the U.S. and she just smears them as people who made threats against Trump without providing a shred of evidence that that's the case. She's inciting violence toward these people. So let's get some more of her take here. year. People need to start going to jail. You shouldn't be allowed to make these types of comments if you're Jimmy Kimmel and Kathy Griffin and all these other crazies out there, Ronseo Donald and James Comey. We know all the worst defenders, right? Hassan Piker. Who else out there? There's so many of these lunatics out there. There's so many of these communist Muslim freaks that make threats against the president on on a daily basis.

Medi Hassan, I mean, these people are just so sick. The worst of the worst in our society. And it's time for them to start getting rounded up in jail. They need to go to jail. I think Medi Hassan needs to be denaturalized. I think a lot of these Muslim agitators who are at these protests holding up these signs and the communists as well, we need to start rounding these people up.

We need to start channeling our inner Joseph McCarthy. We need to start going on our own witch hunts in America against these communist jihadists. Yeah, mission accomplished, Laura. That's what you do every day. Someone's funding you to literally do that every day. The people she listed haven't made threats against Trump's life. Medi Hassan, really? He made a threat against Trump.

Where? When, how? And we're talking about Laura Lumer who regularly dockses private Americans. These are people who are not public figures, but happen to be married to or in a family with someone who is a public figure and is just simply critical of Israel. Okay, she did it to Trump. She did it to Jenk's wife. Another person whose identity I definitely know and will be revealing soon once I get one more piece of confirmation, which I'm very close to, did it to me, docks my husband and his place of work. When you're doxing someone's place of work, what do you think you're doing there?

Now, they do it under the cover of we're trying to get them fired, which by the way, is bad enough, especially since they're trying to engage in collective punishment over an American citizen's criticism of Israel, which is protected by the First Amendment. But that's bad enough, trying to get someone fired over the commentary of their spouse. bad enough. But Lumer knows what she's doing. Okay, the so-called Persian Jewess on X, Rachel, who decided to docks my husband, knows what she was doing. They're inciting violence. They're literally letting people know these unhinged Zionists in this country who put out insane threats against Americans on a regular basis. I can show you the social media messages I've gotten,

including IDF soldiers showing me their weapons and basically implying that they're going to come for me and slaughter me, they make those threats all the time. So they know how unhinged these individuals are. And when you're putting a person's place of work out there in the public, you're making a call for action, aren't you? That goes a little beyond just getting someone fired. You're directing violence toward them. That's what Laura Lumer does every single day. She directs violence against American citizens the same way her injector, okay, incites violence against her face. Girl, you've got to balance out the temples. You're going to plump up those cheeks.

You've got to balance out the temples. What's you doing? You look like a clown. Okay, but that's beside the point. You don't need that much filler in your cheeks. That's crazy. But she's not the only one. She's not the only Israeli fester who hates our constitution.

rights because our constitutional rights protect our freedom to be critical of a foreign country like Israel, which is leveling southern Lebanon right now as we speak, including Christian villages. So Mark Levin is also going on his own personal crusade, his own little McCarthy witch hunt against Israel's critics. And again, you'll see Mark Levin claim that his main concern here, His real concern is the rhetoric surrounding Trump and whether or not it incites violence. Okay, but then you'll catch what Levin is actually concerned about. Take a look. I'm talking about the kind of speech that really gets in the head of people who want to do grave damage to other people. Incitement. And I'm not talking about it in an ambiguous way. When you get a guy that talks about killing a senator, oh, I really didn't mean it.

or when you get a guy that says, yeah, I don't know if there's really rape. Can you prove it? And so forth on October 7th. Well, he's allowed to say that. But in the pattern of what this person is saying, what is it that they're trying to do? Have a real discussion?

No. Now, no, he'll say that, but he's not. The overthrow of the country? Let me ask you this. Do you think the founders would have put up with this? If you want an example of the types of discussions or debates that Mark Levin engages in, just check out his interview with Joe Kent. You know, the Trump official who stepped down from the administration after Israel goaded us

into a disastrous war against Iran, yeah, that Joe Kent. Because he was kind enough to go on Mark Levine's show. Mark Levin wasn't interested in having a debate or a discussion. The hog pretended like he couldn't hear Joe Kent. As soon as Joe Kent started cooking, he immediately went to break. that's who Mark Levin is. Mark Levin's loyalty is not to the United States or its Constitution or the American people. Mark Levins' loyalties lie someplace else, and he proves it every single day.

Whenever someone in this country, someone who has a microphone, someone who has the power of the bully pulpit to push for something, decides to push for the deterioration of Americans' constitutional rights on behalf of a foreign country, that person is not loyal to the United States. Clearly, clearly. My heritage is Armenian. I love Armenia. I love the Armenian people.

You can be as critical of Armenia as you want. The idea that I would ever even consider going on a witch hunt against my fellow Americans because they're critical of the Armenian government. And that's the other thing. Man, that insecurity, that is some deep-seated insecurity where you can't handle criticism, where you have to silence it, you have to squash it immediately. Why? Why is that? What is it that you don't want the American people to learn about?

Is it the same things that Robert Maxwell didn't want American children to learn about in our public schools as he was publishing our history and social studies books? You know, the same Robert Maxwell who worked for Mossad and was Galane Maxwell's dad. Do you share some commonalities with him? Levin? Now, over the weekend, Levin referred to the Marxist Islamic Left. This is my favorite tactic of like the Fox News crowd. Just put a bunch of scary sounding words together, even if it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But anyway, so we referred to the Marxist.

Islamic left and the woke rike referring to conservatives who were critical of Israel, as the enemy within, I would venture to say the enemy within would want to, you know, take rights away from Americans. I think that's the enemy within. And in case you're not quite tired of the phrase Islamic jihadist yet, here's more of Levin's crash out. This guy, Hassan Piker, who is a radical Islamist, if not jihadist. He celebrates 9-11. He says he has no patriotic connection to the United States. And on and on and on.

October 7th, he was okay with all the raping and the murdering and the mayhem. The Democrat Party embraces this guy. You got people like Groh Kahanah who go on a show and they're proud of it and he'd go back. You've got Democrats campaigning with this guy, and he urged people, I think, to harm you, as a matter of fact. What do you make of that? Roe Kahana, huh? Interesting. Look, sometimes it pains me to defend Haas because Haas has never once defended me, even though he knows who I am and knows that the attacks against me are ridiculous. But nonetheless, I'm going to go ahead and defend Haas. I disagree with him on some stuff. Who cares?

He is not a jihadist. That is an insane statement to make. But he is vocally critical of Israel, and he is obviously incredibly popular and influential. And that's the thing. They target those who are affected in communicating what's actually going on. How much of a chokehold Israel has on the United States. How much undue influence Israel and its lobby has on the American political. system. And Mark Levinno like that, he yearns for the days when the gatekeepers were able to

withhold that information from the American people. But Mark, those days are gone. They're gone. And the harder they try to censor us, the more it backfires. That's the thing. They don't realize it. I mean, I don't want to help them out. But if they were smart, they would realize, oh, yeah, all that censorship we're trying to do is actually backfiring. It's making people more curious about what Israel's up to. How do I know that? Well, because I know people who have been targeted by the likes of Mark Levin, Canary Mission, stop anti-Semitism,

all these gross, shadowy groups who target specific individuals who are private citizens. And they might not have even said anything about Israel. They might not even be political in any way shape or form, but they have someone in their family who's a public figure that's critical of Israel. And then when they become targets, you know what happens? They get real curious. They get curious about what Israel's up to.

And then they learn more. So what Mark Levine and Laura Lumer and Rachel, you know, the Persian Jewish, like to do on social media by doxing people and targeting people and censoring people, that is only helping Americans who want other Americans who are in the dark to know what the truth is about Israel and its undue influence over our political system. So thank you, I guess. Now, it would be okay, I guess, if it didn't incite violence or attempt to destroy the lives of innocent Americans who are doing absolutely nothing wrong. But it's a lose-lose situation when they engage in this. But they're too dumb to understand it or realize it. Just because you were able to effectively censor Americans in the past.

And when I say effective, I mean literally effective. So many Americans were in the dark about what our relationship with Israel really is. But you can't do that anymore. Those days are gone. They're done. Finished. We just had two and a half years of a live stream genocide. You think we're going to be able to unsee that?

We see how much money we're willing to sacrifice, how many American soldiers were willing to sacrifice for Israel. You think we're going to forget about that because you censored Hassan? Wake the F up, man. And by the way, let's get back to the notion that Americans should be rounded up and jailed simply by being determined as Nazis, by the actual modern-day Nazis, the people who have think the mass slaughter of innocence is okay. People like Laura Lumer and Mark Levin. Who have, who has Mark Levine referred to as a Nazi? It's a long list, real long list. And I want to thank the redheaded libertarian for putting this list together on X. This has been, what I'm about to share with you has been adapted from the list that she shared on X. So this is, again,

everyone who Mark Levine has called a Nazi since 2024, the Democrats, like the entirety of the Democratic Party, okay, the Democrat media, an Australian bakery, the Pakistani defense minister, Scott Horton, he calls Scott Horton a Nazi, the entire libertarian party, man, whole political parties are apparently Nazis, according to Mark Levin here. College students, just in general, all college students. You guys are all Nazis, according to Mark Levine. You should be rounded up. You should have your First Amendment rights stripped from you.

The Ayatollah, Jake Shields, Nick Fuentes, Putin's buddies. I don't even know who Putin's buddies are, but apparently Putin's buddies. Dan Bilzerian, the Houthis. Dave Smith. Dave Smith is Jewish, but okay. Tucker Carlson, Beirut, the entire city of Beirut, Lebanon. Hezbollah, a veteran who asked Mark to be more tolerant. There's more, there's Myron Gaines, the city of London, everyone, everyone in London's guilty.

Hamas, Thomas Friedman, the terrorists, the woke Reich, Graham Platner, the entirety of the United Nations, of course, obviously Harvard, top university in the country, if not the world, Nazi. Amsterdam, Columbia University students, the New York Times, which has provided a cover for Israel's war crimes time and time again and serves as stenographers oftentimes for members of the intelligence community that try to drag us into wars to begin with. I mean, it's never ending. The Iranian Nazi regime, the Islamic Nazi regime, the Islamist Nazi regime, all of Iran, the new Nazis, a protester on Subway. I mean, Rashida Talib, Ibrahim Raeisi, the New York Times correspondent, Joe Biden's entire State Department, the president of Turkey, college basketball analyst, Bruce Pearl.

What did Bruce Pearl do? What did Bruce Pearl do to be called a Nazi by Mark Levin? By the way, for all the right-winger who get upset at left-wingers referring to Trump as a fascist or a Nazi, because they feel that it incites violence toward him. Come get your boy, right? Because he's literally calling anyone and everyone a Nazi merely for being critical of Israel. That's it. That's all it takes. Certain Arab liberals and journalists, anyone who associates with Dave Smith.

Oh, I guess I'm a Nazi then because I associate with Dave Smith, who, by the way, very well read and crushes in debates. That's why he's calling him a Nazi. reporter Lulu Garcia Navarro, ISIS, 17 random dudes on X. Okay. All right, you guys get the point. You guys get the point. So if it were up to them, if it were up to Mark Levine, all of those people, places, cities, whatever, institutions I listed, Nazis should be rounded up, thrown in prison, First Amendment rights taken away. These people are unhinged, and they don't realize how counterproductive they're being for their own cause.

And look, I want to end with one other thing because it's really important. This kind of garbage unfortunately reflects poorly on the Jewish community, and it's unfair to them because they didn't ask for this. But when you have lunatics like Laura Lumer and Mark Levin, you know, presenting themselves as the representatives of the entire Jewish community, idiots are unfortunately going to believe them and think that, yeah, this is what all Jewish people want. They want violations of constitutional rights. They want Americans to be rounded up and thrown in prison over criticism of Israel. No, but they don't want that. Some do, unfortunately, but you can't make blanket statements about an entire population of people

because there are plenty of Jewish people who look at this, they hate it. And honestly, they're afraid for their own safety because this is the kind of stuff that unfortunately leads to unhinged people directing violence towards. them. So please don't do that. Please, because it's so dumb to stoop as low as these bottom feeders like Laura Lumer and Mark Levin. Jewish Americans are our fellow Americans, period. They should be protected. Their rights should be protected. Our right should be protected. And the only people in this story that deserve condemnation are the likes of Laura Lumer and Mark Levin. All right, we've got to take a break. We'll be right back.

This guy, Hassan Piker. He says he is a patron to the United States. Everyone, welcome to our social break. Lots of comments to get to. Let's go to our member section. These are our YouTube members. First of all, welcome to Kaffahisa, who's a new member, beautiful name. With It, gal says, nice to know our leaders will be safe when crap hits the fan.

I know. That's what they're, I mean, clearly that's what Trump is thinking about here, right? He knows he's hated. Simon Moody says he did something about inflation and affordability. He made it worse, meaning Trump, promises made, promises kept. He certainly did make it worse. Veggie Owl Girl says that money could give kids free breakfast and lunch at school. That's what I would like to see my tax dollars go toward.

But I mean, we got to fund a war on behalf of a foreign country. That's way more important, isn't it? I'm being sarcastic in case you didn't pick up on that. Free speech is dead. He says, I love your passion, Anna. You have personal stories of Palestinians and their love you felt. I heard your change of tone of voice. Yeah, I, every day, every day.

I don't know if you guys go through this. I certainly do. And it's impossible to avoid, for me at least. Sometimes I'll be on social media and you come across a video of just the utter depravity carried out by the IDF. you'll see a parent, you know, running with their dead child in their arms after a strike. And it's just, I can't, I can't stand it. It kills me. Really. I wanted to read one comment from our Twitch community. By the way, you can become a subscriber on our Twitch account by joining through Amazon Prime. You get a free subscription every month. Just go to t.yt.com slash prime to learn how. But I wanted to read a comment from why.

ITP renewed, because I kind of agree with, not kind of, I definitely agree with you on this. Forget the bidding process when it comes to government contracts for projects like the ballroom and stuff like that. Forbid all private company involvement in public services and nationalize all public services directly so as to open the books on every possible conflict of interest. I think that there's a little more nuance to that, but I mostly agree with you. I just, I want more oversight. And I want more than anything, consequences when loopholes are misused, like that emergency loophole the Trump administration used in order to grant that no-bid contract, like there should be consequences for doing that. That was not an emergency. Like,

remodeling fountains is not an emergency, obviously, obviously. So is anyone going to do anything about it? No. Okay, then why do we even have these rules and laws to begin with if they're not going to be enforced. It drives me crazy. Anyway, let's get back to the show. I'm going to be honest with you guys. I don't care that much about the story. I just don't. And I think it's just going to fizzle out and go nowhere. But I think it's important to cover it anyway because your resources are being utilized in order to pursue this case. With that in mind, let's get to it. Another back, this time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina beach a year ago. And this won't be the end of it.

But nothing has changed with me. I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So let's go. But it's really important that all of us remember this is not who we are as a country. This is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be. And the good news is we get closer every day to restoring those values.

That's right. If anything, the Department of Justice is a government body that is supposed to withhold, you know, Epstein files from the American people and engage in cover-ups. That's something that they're really good at doing. Anyway, that was former FBI director, James Comey. It turns out that the Trump DOJ, Department of Justice, has indicted former FBI director James Comey. Yet again, this is now the second time. The first time didn't work out so well for Trump, who weirdly holds a grudge on everything except his would-be assassins. When it comes to his would-be assassins, water under the bridge, don't care, never talks about it again. When it comes to James Comey or his political opponents, won't let it go. When it comes to the fact that he lost the 2020 election, won't let it go. Assassins, though, totally fine. Not a big deal and not suspicious at all. Anyway, so when it comes to the indictment this time around, it's over a 2025 Instagram post, allegedly threatening President Donald Trump. I totally forgotten about this, but apparently Trump hasn't, and he is so

thirsty to retaliate against what he views as political opponents. And to be fair, you know, James Comey, the whole Russigate thing, was pretty bad. And I fell for it. I have no problem admitting I fell for it. I have no problem apologizing when I realize I'm wrong, despite people thinking that I don't. I definitely do. And I, that's probably one of the most embarrassing moments in my career. But nonetheless, Trump wants retaliation. And so he's looking for anything that could potentially work. And the indictment this time around has to do with this post for May of last year. This is what James Comey posted. It's a photo of seashells. He says, cool shell formation on my beachwalk.

Okay. So apparently that was interpreted as a threat to Trump's life, which sounds crazy, but you read a little deeper into it and you can kind of understand the rationale, even if you disagree with it. So in restaurant lingo, for instance, 86, let's put the picture back up while I describe it. So 86 is code for getting rid of or canceling an item on the menu. It could also mean like killed this item on the menu, but that's typically, not what 86ing something is associated with. It just means getting rid of something on the menu.

So since it's 86-47, with Trump being the 47th president of the United States, it's been interpreted as a threat to Trump's life. Okay. Now, Comey has deleted that post since. He said that it never even occurred to him, that it would be interpreted as being violent. And to be quite frank, I don't know what Comey is thinking, whether or not, you know, it occurred to him or not. But in a subsequent Instagram post in May, Comey said that he assumed the shells he saw on a beachwalk were a political message. Okay, let's pause. Wait a minute. So you're assuming it's a political message, but you don't know what the political message is, and you felt the need to post it on Instagram. That's not doing you any favors, home boy, but I'll continue with the rest of that.

So he says that, you know, he saw on the beach walk were a political message and that he didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence, adding that he opposed violence of any kind. But, you know, Trump holds a grudge and he despises. He loathes James Comey. So he used that post as, you know, an avenue in which to get an indictment against Comey. So the charges which were approved by a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina include the following, making a threat against the president of the United States, transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. And these are truly ambitious charges. So we need to be real about that. I think you guys probably could figure that out without me having to spell it out for you. But nonetheless, Comey had suggested that he stumbled on the shell formation during a walk-a-law. the beach and did not arrange the shells himself. There is generally a high legal threshold to charge someone with threatening a person based on their language. And legal experts said it would be tough for the Justice Department to build a strong

case with just the seashells. So that's the question. Like, was this really a threat? What were Comey's intentions? Like, you have to prove that he intended to threaten the president's life or threatened violence against the president of the United States. Now, attorney general, well, acting attorney general, I should say Todd Blanche, was asked whether this is going to be a case they can actually win and whether they can prove what they're claiming here. Let's see how Blanche did when he answered.

How will you prove intent when, as the director had acknowledged, Mr. Comey said he did not associate 86 with doing harm and he took it down promptly said it was political speech, not an intent to harm the president. Well, it's not, it's not this case was indicted today. This conduct occurred about a year ago, May 15th of last year. There's been a tremendous amount of investigation and how do you prove intent in any case? You prove intent with witnesses, with documents, with the defendant himself to the extent to the extent it's appropriate. And that's how it will improve intent in this case. And so I think that talking about what Mr. Comey will or not do if there's a trial, when there's a trial, it's not as very premature for me to do that

today. Who are your witnesses? Come on, come on. Okay, well, let's give him one more chance. Maybe he can elaborate a little more. Give us something, something to tell us that there's actually a case here. Let's watch. You at least give us a sense of whether you have hard evidence or evidence that shows that Mr. Comey intended for President Trump to be harmed, and then secondarily, for critics who say, where does free speech end and an actual threat of violence begin? I don't know what critics say that, especially today, but it's not a very difficult line to look at, and it's not in my mind a difficult line for one to cross over one way or the other. We cannot. You are not allowed, to threaten the President of the United States of America.

That's not my decision. That's Congress's decision in a statute that they passed that we charge multiple times a year. And so whether whether there is a defense, as you just described, maybe, maybe there is. But the government will have evidence. I am not going to talk about the evidence that we have. That's unfair to him. It's unfair to the prosecutors. But it's enough to say that the grand jury returned in a dive in.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you think maybe we could bother you to investigate some of the names in the Epstein files? You know, considering that has to do with like the rape of minors, the rape and trafficking of minors, you think maybe you could look into that since it seems like you've got a lot of time on your hands where you're like literally prosecuting someone over an Instagram post that might not have anything to do with Trump or might not be a threat at all. I mean, it's so obvious based on his behavior in that press conference that they don't have evidence that this is lawfare.

And I get it. Trump is bitter because he feels that he's a victim of lawfare. So can we just end it? Can we end all of it? Let's just stop. Let's please stop because we, the American people, pay for this. And it's obviously, in my opinion, based on what we've seen so far, a sham investigation, a sham indictment. Okay, so CBS News pressed Blanche on a similar post that Jack Posobiac made in 2022 about Joe Biden. I guess this like this is a code that I just wasn't privy to. But back in 2022, Jack Posobic wrote 86, 46, 46 referring to Biden as the 46 president of the United States. And yeah, I am really curious, you know, why the double standard? Is Jack Posobiac going to be prosecuted for making a threat on the president's life?

Let's see what Blanche has to say about that. Let's do a compare and contrast, Mr. Blanche. In 2022, someone well known in right wing circles, Jack Posobic posted on X, 8646. He did not take it down. He did not apologize. Mr. Comey has done both of those things. The Biden Justice Department never prosecuted him. By the standard of that grand jury, Jack Posobics should face charges as well.

Will the Justice Department pursue that case? Because they sound very similar. That's just completely not true. That's not how a grand jury does its work. They don't just look at a single image and then say, okay, yes, we'll indict or okay, no, we won't indict. They do an investigation. This conduct took place in May of last year, May 15th.

It has been almost a year. I assure you, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the U.S. Attorney's Office have not been sitting around doing nothing. They have been investigating. I have no idea whether there was an investigation into the other times that that post has been made and whether that investigation yielded the different results. This investigation that we undertook resulted in a two-count indictment. It's just, it's embarrassing. Now, to be clear, I don't think Jack Posobic should be indicted based on that post. I also don't think that James Comey should have been indicted based on his Instagram post. I think this is a giant waste of time. I think there are other examples of what

the Department of Justice should be pursuing that for whatever reason they've decided against pursuing, including, you know, the Epstein File investigations and all that stuff. This is obviously a politically motivated lawfare project, and it's sad, it's pathetic. It makes Todd Blanche look pathetic. If there's a genuine threat to the president's life, absolutely pursue that. But what is he talking about here

when he says like, with Jack Fasobig, it was just one post and like, you know, there's no other evidence. You have no other evidence on Come on. Come on. Now, I hate being put in a position

to defend Comey. I think Comey sucks. But it would be wonderful if we were led by political leaders who actually cared about making our lives better, as opposed to making good on whatever grudge they have with their political opponents. And again, it is super weird to me

that Trump is more obsessed with going after Comey and never makes mention about the individuals who actually attempted to rob him of his life, allegedly. Anyway, we got to take a break. We'll be back with more. I'm not sure what we're going to cover because we have limited time, but there's a lot. So come back for the surprise.

I did everything right and they indicted me. Who's a boomer writes in and says, for heaven's sake, if Levin locks up everyone, he's listing there, there won't be, there won't be anyone left. He's, that guy is so unhinged. It's wild, absolutely wild. Let's go to our super chats since the show is almost ending. I want to make sure I read your super chats before we head on over to our member section. I will be reading some member comments during the bonus episode.

Callie Millie says Netanyahu urge Iranians to overthrow their regime, promising to solve Iran's drought-driven water shortages as the reward. Oddly massive rainstorms have replenished reserves right after Israeli military radar sites were hit. Weird. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to make of that. But I'm glad that they've got water. That's important. I don't want innocent people dying on either side. I want to live in a world where civilians aren't being slaughtered, certainly in the amounts of slaughter that we've been seeing in the last two and a half years.

So I would like this war to end. I would like a diplomatic approach to ending this war. And I would like the United States to decouple from Israel, not just distance. Decouple entirely. No relations. I want Israel to be the new normal. North Korea for America. Yeah, I mean it. I know that we're not anywhere near that, but one day. YTP Renewed says they should call BS on nuke fear mongering outright. I totally agree.

Our member user error says, so they'll be saying that sea shells are WMDs. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. I really wouldn't. So we'll see, we'll see how that case plays out. But my guess is it's going to fizzle out, unless, you know, Todd Blanche is being honest. is being honest, I doubt it, and has other evidence to bolster the case against Comey. All right. But now I want to focus a little bit on, you know, the dystopian world that we are headed toward with artificial intelligence.

We're going to describe will probably sound like a bad science fiction movie, but that's what's written into law. Right now in law, that's going to be implemented for the, it says for 2026 and beyond. Now the reality is the technology doesn't exist, but that doesn't keep legislators from imagining things that they would like to do to infringe on civil liberties. But there's a law that states that every vehicle manufactured is going to have to have a kill switch in it. And yet another example of Congressman Thomas Massey looking out for the American people and being incredibly principled in his libertarian values. He and other lawmakers are warning Americans about what is known as these so-called automobile kill switches. Now, the majority of Congress voted to support

this notion, this idea, this policy. And so it is set to become law this year. But there are nuances to the story that I think are important to know about. And I want to be clear, the whole idea of these kill switch, you know, car features, devastating, disastrous. The fact that Congress supported this, tells you everything you need to know about our lawmakers, we need to vote them out. Okay. Any lawmaker who supported this needs to go. So bear with me as I explain the kill switch. So it's the provision that originates, not from the Trump administration, let's be clear about that. It originates from section 24,220 of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. So Democrats, please come at me.

about how Biden accomplished so many wonderful things with this infrastructure bill. Did he though? Did he? Because when I look at that infrastructure bill, what I see personally is a lot of handouts to private companies, violations of our privacy and all sorts of, you know, privatization of public lands. So I just need the American people to not buy into the partisan scam anymore and realize that both parties are effing us hard, very, very, very, hard. So the section that we're going to discuss reads as follows, okay? To ensure the prevention of alcohol impaired driving fatalities, advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology must be, must be standard equipment in all new passenger motor vehicles. But why?

Why are we making the assumption that we're all like drunk drivers and we need to be monitored in our own private property? Our cars are our property, right? So our cars are now going to be monitoring us? Okay, let's keep going. I hate this. By the way, Gavin Newsom pushing hard for a policy that would automatically slow down your car if you go over the speed limit. What is this nanny state BS? I hate this kind of garbage.

Anyway, let's keep going. The term advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology means a system that A can passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether the driver may be impaired and prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected. Oh, wow, we're really relying on this monitoring technology to not only monitor us, which is super creepy, but on top of that, to be accurate. in determining whether or not we're impaired. And by the way, hold that thought because the technology ain't there. So we should all be concerned about this.

Now further, it can passively and accurately detect whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than 0.08% and prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit is detected or is a combination of systems described in subparagraphs A and B. Okay. So in other words, our lawmakers voted in favor of installing, mandating technology in our cars that monitors every single one of us, collects data on every single one of us, and gets to determine whether or not we are allowed to operate our own vehicles.

Now, if you are someone who has a history of substance abuse, you're driving under the influence, I thought we had a solution for that. I thought you blow into the device and that gets to decide whether or not your car starts. Why is every single American indiscriminately going to be monitored by their own cars? What is this? This is garbage. So that same year, by the way, 2021, Congress passed legislation that specifically mandates that the technology be installed in new cars. So the Department of Transportation was tasked with creating and, you know, and implementing the standard for these kill switches. But as the years have passed, there's been a lot of problems, as you can imagine, right? So the technology to carry out the mandate still isn't good enough because it's oftentimes inaccurate. This year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wrote the following. Currently, detection technology around the legal limit continues to have an error rate that could be unacceptably high.

But who cares? Congress should just vote in favor of it anyway. They can't be bothered to A, read the entirety of the legislation they're voting in favor of and B, determine whether or not that technology is accurate enough to

implement a mandate on. Even a 99.9.9% detection accuracy level could result in millions to tens of millions of instances each year where the technology would incorrectly prevent or limit drivers from operating their vehicles or fail to prevent or limit impaired drivers from doing so. Remember when we were all diluted into thinking that technology improves our lives?

Well, we've now surpassed that era. We're now in the era of how can technology be mandated in Americans' lives to make their lives a lot worse? Okay. So it's not entirely clear how this technology would, work in practice, right? So it could take the form of a breathalizer-like device. We already have breathalizers, so why don't we just keep going with that system? Or maybe the car would monitor the driver's behavior, like how much they're swerving on the road. But there's still no clear timeline. And that's what I wanted to be clear about in this story, because there's a lot going

around on social media about how beginning in 2027, the kill switches will be mandated on every car. That's not necessarily true. So no further congressional approval is needed for the mandate to proceed, but NHTSA must finalize the rule before automakers face compliance deadlines. As of April 2026, no final rule has been issued and full implementation is not expected before 2027 at the earliest. The technology applies only to new passenger vehicles manufactured after the effective date of the final standard, not of the, you know, 2027 law. So it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to go into effect in 2027. You have to wait for, you know, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to finalize their standards. And it seems like they're having a difficult time doing that

because the technology ain't there yet. So it will not be retrofitted into older cars. So keep your older cars. Don't get rid of them. If you own a car outright, keep it. If you don't own a car outright, try to do so. Buy a car that doesn't have this technology mandated within it. Once the NHTSA finalizes their rule, car manufacturers will have two to three years to add that technology to their cars. In the meantime, Massey is working really hard to try to defeat this mandate. In January, for instance, he proposed an amendment that would prohibit funds for implementing the kill switch. which in my opinion is fine, but doesn't go far enough.

And by the way, that amendment failed. I hate Congress. You don't hate Congress enough. You do not hate Congress enough. These people hate you. They work against you. They make your life worse. Vote them out.

They're garbage. And only four Democrats and 160 Republicans, I should say, voted in favor. So bonus episode is next. I'll see you there.