The Young Turks - Brink Of War - February 18, 2026

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

Tucker Carlson went to Israel and said his producer got interrogated by Israeli officials. Donald Trump moves closer to a potential major conflict with Iran as former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warns that Turkey now poses a rising regional threat. An Israeli father complains about Tucker Carlson to Mike Huckabee and demands that America protect IDF soldiers. Thanks to Shopify and Zip Recruiter for today's episode: 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 Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur 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. There are some problems here. Sorry, big time. I'm so upset. Oh my God. Begha! Come here watching The Young Turks. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. Very excited for today's show.

We've got some breaking news that we're going to start off with right off the bat. It's a controversy, if you will, involving Tucker Carlson. and his visit to Israel. Later in the show, we're also going to give you an update on Iran. And I'm about a point now where I don't even want to play this game anymore. We're going to go to war with Iran, and we just have to accept it because this is not a country by the people for the people. This is a country just fully occupied and controlled by Israel and their interests. So this is not going to be a war that will benefit the American people in any way.

But we're going to do it anyway. So I'll tell you why I have reached this conclusion in a little bit. But one of my favorite stories in the rundown is actually in the first hour. Drop site is just dropping bombs, okay? Just totally killing it. Their reporting is the best in the country. And I genuinely mean that because they actually care to, you know, do reporting, including their latest report about how involved Israel was in monitoring Epstein's apartment. Now, why would they do that? You're going to have to wait and see. I'm going to give you the story. It's going to be a good one. And then we've got a whole bunch of

economic news to get to in the second hour, including an update on the housing market. Oh, you guys are going to love the show. If you want to help support what we do here, all you need to do is like and share the stream. That's a free and easy way to support us. You can also become a member by going to t.yt.com slash join. And there will be a bonus episode today behind a paywall. That is the plan moving forward every Wednesday. I'm so excited for today's bonus episode because I finally get to talk about some hot goss. Okay, there is hot goss in the right wing ecosystem. It does have to do with the so-called trad community. Big scandal, big explosions, bonus episode is going to be lit. TYT.com slash join to become a member. All right. Well, without further ado,

This is a story that kind of popped up into my radar later in the day. It's not a produced segment or anything like that. But I do want to discuss something that I think would be really relevant to hardcore Zionists like Bill Maher. So let me give you the details. Tucker Carlson made a little trip over to Israel with the expressed intent of interviewing the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. Now, Huckabee and Tucker had been trading barbs online because of the fact that Tucker, a devout Christian, is not happy about the way Israelis treat Christians in Jerusalem, in the West Bank, the only Catholic church in Gaza was bombed by the Israelis. And he feels that as the U.S. ambassador to Israel and as someone who purports to be Christian, Huckabee has done nothing to protect the Christian population in the area. And so they were going back and forth about this online. And then finally, Huckabee argued that I think it'd be best if we sat down and had a debate. And so that is why Tucker Carlson, in my opinion, risked his life to go to Israel. And why do I say risked his life? Because Israel assassinates people all the time,

okay? And not just in their own country. I'm talking about assassinating people outside of Israel. Okay? So it is risky as hell to be a vociferous critic of Israel as Tucker Carlson is and decide, no, you know what, that conversation with Huckabee is really important. So I'm going to go ahead and take that risk. So he flies over there and he never left the airport. So according to Tucker Carlson, he was unable to leave the airport because of the fact that upon arrival, he and his colleague who was with him had their, they were separated. They had their passports confiscated.

And then while they were detained, they were asked all sorts of questions about why they were there, what the interview was about, right? At that point, by the way, I should know. So the interview happened, I guess, at the airport. Tucker claims that he didn't even leave the airport. Interview happens. And then they ask about, you know, what was the context of the interview? What were you asking him? Now, what's hilarious about this story is the fact that the U.S. Embassy in Israel has tried to debunk what Tucker is claiming he. I'll get to their claims in just a second. But let me just read you verbatim what Tucker Carlson told the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail got an exclusive interview with him about this matter. Men who identified themselves as airport security took our passports hurled. I'm sorry, hauled. Took our passports, hauled our executive producer into a side room and then demanded to know what we spoke to Ambassador Huckabee about. It was bizarre.

were now out of the country. Now again, as the Daily Mail reports, before the interview even happened, Carlson had posted a photo on social media, on X, of himself and his business partner, Neil Patel, in front of Ben Gurian Airport. And I'm glad that he did that because it's sending the world a signal, a little sign.

I'm in Israel. Anything happens to me. You know where I've been. At least that's what I think he was doing. there, maybe not. Maybe it was just an innocent posting of a picture and not a big deal at all. But now let's go to what is being claimed by the U.S. Embassy in Israel, which I think is as credible as, I don't know, Galane Maxwell, like no credibility at all. I'm not really interested in what you have to say. But to be fair, I'll go ahead and read their debunking of Tucker Carlson's claims.

So the U.S. Embassy in Israel denied Carlson was detained in a statement, which said that Carlson received the same passport control questions that countless visitors to Israel, including Ambassador Mike Huckabee and other diplomats, receive as part of normal entrance and exit from Israel. It is not accurate that Israel only was going to let Tucker into the country for the interview. The only engagement the embassy had with Israel about his visit was to coordinate his private plane landing as part of facilitating a seamless visit. Okay. So the argument that, no, no, the terrible way that Tucker Carlson was treated at the airport is just standard operating procedure for us. This is what we do to everybody. Is that a good? Is that a good thing? Is that supposed to make you look good? that you like separate people who are traveling together, take their passports, and then start asking them probing questions. And we know how how Israel feels about journalists, especially those

who like to cover their atrocities. And look, the main reason why I want to cover this story is not because it's like, oh, we're so worried about Tucker Carlson. He's fine. He left Israel. He's okay. I wanted to bring this up to ask one specific person, Bill Maher, whether, Israel is really the place that people like me can go to to feel safe. Am I really going to feel welcome in Israel, Bilmar? You will. You definitely will because you're on your knees for Israel day in and day out. But for me, I would venture to say that it would not be a friendly, welcoming place for someone like me. Now, he asked me that question because he was hoping that I would say,

oh, Tel Aviv is the only capital in the Middle East where someone like me would feel safe, where someone like me can wear a dress and not be harmed in any way. No, I think I would be harmed in Israel. I would not feel safe in Israel. I'd feel safe in Beirut, as long as the IDF isn't bombing it, of course. I'd feel safe as an Armenian, even in Istanbul. But I would not feel safe in Tel Aviv. Just ask the Armenians who live in Jerusalem, how they feel with the way Israelis treat them.

And they don't even run their mouths like I do about. the Israelis. So just something to think about. Anyway, let's move on to more important news because the war with Iran appears to be imminent. At least that's what the major reporting is today. And I want to give you the details. So let's get into it. A massive amount of U.S. military equipment continues to flood into the Middle East in preparation for action against Iran. Reports indicate the U.S. has moved more than 50 fighter jets to the region over the past 24 hours alone, along with the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group already in place, and the USS Gerald R. Ford on the way, there are a variety of other U.S. Navy assets in the Red and Mediterranean seas.

Here in Israel, officials reportedly believe war could erupt in a matter of days and are preparing accordingly. Well, to be fair, Israelis are always thinking about and preparing for war. But that's neither here nor there. What's important here is what the actions of the United States happen to communicate to the people of the U.S. and more importantly to the globe. And so far, every signal I'm seeing from the Trump White House is that we are going to go to war with Iran. Now, the military buildup is pretty extreme.

I talked to you guys about that earlier this week and the Trump administration has continued building up its military assets in the Persian Gulf. So you don't do that simply to bluff. You don't do that simply to coerce Iran into a new nuclear deal. I just think that these negotiations, and I've said this before, they're just trying to buy time to ensure the U.S. is ready, to ensure that, I guess Israel's ready. because Iran will retaliate by, you know, sending their missiles over to Tel Aviv. So we'll see if they're ready for that. Now, we here in the United States are not concerned about our safety,

but I'm definitely concerned about the safety of the men and women in our armed services because as Senator Lindsay Graham, one of the biggest cheerleaders for this war said earlier this week, yeah, you know, there's risk. Some people could die. I want to do it anyway. and I've been pushing for it for literally years. So I'm sure Lindsay Graham lost it in his pants today when it became abundantly clear that the Trump administration is preparing to go to war with Iran.

And unlike the hit it and quit it situation that we experienced last summer where the Trump White House just did these strikes on the nuclear sites in Iran, it does appear that they're preparing for a sustained war that they claim will last several weeks, but I think it'll likely last longer than that. Now let me give you the details according to Axios reporter and Israeli insider, Barack Ravid.

He says that a U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month's pinpoint operation in Venezuela, sources say. Now, Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff, unfortunately, are still very much involved in all of this. They met with Iran's foreign minister for three hours in Geneva on Tuesday. And it looks like that was a giant waste of time. Both sides said that the talks made progress, but the gaps are wide and U.S. officials aren't optimistic about closing them. Well, they were never optimistic about closing any gaps.

They never engaged in negotiations in good faith. They were just buying time. And so Peter, Peter Thiel's butt boy, J.D. Vance, says that Trump has kind of reached his limit with Iran. Take a look. While talks on Tuesday left both sides saying that progress was made, there are still major questions about Iran's willingness to curb their nuclear program or address the growing regional ballistic missile threat. Yesterday on Fox News, Vice President J.D. Vance was asked about the negotiations. They agreed to meet afterwards, but in other ways it was very clear

that the president has set some red lines, that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through. So we're going to keep on working it, but of course the president reserves the ability to say when he thinks that diplomacy has reached its natural end. We hope we don't get to that point, but if we do, that'll be the president's call. You know that moment right before you launched something new, that pit in your stomach? I remember when I started to IT, I thought to myself, what if no one watches? What if we run out of money tomorrow? It was scary. Still thinking about that every once in a while, but you push through and having the right tools makes all the difference. Like when we launched

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Less abandoned carts, more sales for you. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash t-y-t. Go to shopify.com slash t-y-t. That's Shopify.com slash t-y-t. Now, if there's anyone expressing concern that Iran was unwilling to negotiate about its nuclear program, which doesn't even exist. If there was anyone who told you that Iran didn't want to dilute their enriched uranium,

I just want to be very clear. Those people are lying to you because Iran on multiple occasions has made it very clear that they do want to engage in good faith and reach a deal. And if you don't believe me, let's just take a look at the latest example. This is Iran's president. We have stated these many times. My own statements are not important. What matters from an ideological standpoint is the policy and the fatwa of the supreme

leader. We are in no way seeking nuclear weapons. Whatever form of verification they want to carry out, we are ready for that verification to take place. So the only thing that's off the table for Iran is their ballistic missiles. You want to know why? Because they have a hostile country in the region that has bombed every single one of its neighbors. Israel has bombed seven different countries over the last two years.

So if you don't have any way of defending yourself, I mean, aren't you stupid for giving up your ballistic missiles and essentially opening yourself up to attacks from Israel? And that's what Israel wants. They're not worried about Iran necessarily when it comes to their military capability. wants regime change. That is the whole point. The weapons is just an excuse. That's all it is. That's all it is. It started off with like, oh, we're so afraid of their nuclear weapons, even though they don't have them and we do. But anyway, we want regime change. You should go to war. Okay, Trump bombs their nuclear sites. We want them to get rid of their ballistic missiles and their drones and any means to defend themselves. And Iran is like, no, no, not in charge.

Sorry, we're not stupid. We're not going to do what the leadership in Jordan considered doing, which was dismantling and disarming Hezbollah, which opens the way for Israel to come in and annexed more land in Lebanon. I'm not saying this as someone who like, ooh, I love Hezbollah, but maybe take a look at why Hezbollah exists and what Hezbollah's main role in Lebanon has been, namely protecting Lebanon from being annexed by Israel. So that's why Iran doesn't want to get rid of its ballistic missiles, and I don't blame them. I think it's unreasonable to demand that of them. And then remember when we went through that phase of our government and the Israeli government pretending like they care about the Iranian people? Yeah, they forgot about that already.

Now the focus is, oh, we're so scared of their ballistic missiles. Please, please, go to war. This war is about regime change. And for the Palaavists in Iran, I hope you engage. I hope you enjoy. Your country will be bombed to smithereens. Many of your people will die. And you'll get a sense of just how much the United States and Israel cares about you and your well-being. But anyway, let's move on to the rest of this because the US is spending a ton of money for this, in my opinion, ridiculous military buildup in preparation for this war. More than 150 U.S. military cargo flights have moved weapons, systems, and ammunitions to the Middle East.

And then in the last day, the last 24 hours alone, another 50 fighter jets that includes F-35s, F-22s, and F-16s sent to the region. And then, you know, Trump's advisors do not view this deployment of all of that hardware as Trump's engaging in a bluff. They very much intend to use, you know, that those assets in this war against Iran. Now, Barack Ravid, going back to his reporting, also maintains that with the attention of Congress and the public otherwise occupied, I don't know where he got that from, but he says there is little public debate about what could be the most consequential U.S. military intervention in the Middle East in at least a decade. Is this guy awake? What are you talking about? There's no public I'll tell you Barack Ravid, like exactly what's happening.

The American people overwhelmingly don't want this war, but we don't live in a country for the people by the people. And so our government, which is fully occupied by Israel's interests, is going to do something that the American people don't want. And there's nothing we can do about it. At least for now. So like that framing was really dumb because it makes it appear as though, oh, all these,

don't be Americans. They're so busy and occupied with other things. They don't know about this super consequential war. No, we know. We know. Everyone knows. It's just that we're acutely aware of the fact that there's nothing we can do about it. Trump doesn't care about his own damn base. His own base doesn't want this. Now, if you're wondering if it's worth sending tens of billions of dollars that we don't have or risking American lives because, you know, precious Israel wants regime change in Iran. I would say no. I think I've been pretty clear about that, but we're also talking about a country that carries out, we're doing this on behalf of a country that carries out genocide, land theft, ceasefire violations, both in Gaza and in Lebanon. I mean, in Lebanon alone,

they've carried out over 1,000 strikes since agreeing to a ceasefire. Okay, we're talking about a country that doesn't respect the United States or its people. You have Benjamin and Yahoo coming to our country. I mean, he's met with Trump seven times during his second term already. And then he gives these giant speeches where he makes it clear that he thinks he's entitled to our money. He's entitled to our military. He's entitled to our soldiers risking their lives on his behalf. And by the way, just to give you some more updates on what our special allies up to, they just killed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy in Jabilia, that's in Gaza, using a drone. Literally, they used a drone. 12 year old boy.

That is a targeted hit. Man, they really do get their rocks off on killing children, don't they? So that's the country that we're going to go to war for. Real question is, what are the stakes for Israel? What are they putting on the line? It looks like not much. The U.S. will go it alone. But I'm sure Iran will retaliate.

And as that retaliation is taking place, I don't want to hear any damn crying from any damn Israelis. This is what you wanted. So enjoy. We got to take a break. We'll be right back. Special thanks to With It Girl, or With a Gal, who gifted 5 TYT memberships. We also have CDN Norse Dog Dad who gifted one TYT membership.

Welcome to our new members. You guys are probably going to have a lot of fun in the bonus episode today. At least I know I will. Let's read some of our member comments, starting with Snow Wolf V-O-O-V. Anna, thank you for saying it, how it is, cannot express enough, how relieving it is to have people just telling us what we need to know. Goodness gracious. Yeah, I just, I've hit, I've definitely hit a point in my life where, and it's not, maybe it's not good. Like, you should probably care a little bit about how people perceive you. At this point, I don't care at all. Like,

things need to be said. People need to know what's actually going on. I'm just sick of false pretenses, the dog and pony show. I'm sick of all of it. Okay. This is what's actually going on and people just need to know. And I'm not interested in providing cover for anybody. Left, right, I don't care. It's just there is a real market in this country for journalism. And right now it's being fulfilled by places like DropSight News. And you know, we're doing our part here as best we can.

But it's just amazing to me how misled a lot of Americans are intentionally. And it's hurt our country in so many different ways. All right, let me read some super chat starting with sales peacock who says, Huckabee isn't allowed to be, oh, Huckabee isn't allowed to be labeled a Christian. Mike Huckabee self-identifies as a Christian Zionist, and they don't want Tucker there because he'd be spit on too much. I forget the name of the guy. There's a former cop who now does content.

I don't know why I'm forgetting his name, but he actually went to Israel. And he's supposedly a devout Christian. He's like, yeah, you know, we got spit on just once. Like, he wasn't that big of a deal. It's just embarrassing. Anyway, Michael Catalano says, Dear God, imagine Netanyahu's reaction of Tucker Carlson really does run for president in 2028. Yeah, I mean, look, if I were Tucker, I would probably worry about my safety and I'm not,

I'm not exaggerating. But that shouldn't discourage anybody from running for president in their own country. Let's just be clear. Let's go to Abdullah, who says, do you think Tom Alexandrovich will be extradited back to the United States? So he faces charges for trying to have sex with a child? No, I don't think. You know, it is interesting because it seems like pedophiles and sex offenders have a pretty easy time entering Israel. Way easier than Tucker did, apparently.

Davy Mill says after Edward, after Edward armed every Englishman, oh, Edward the first armed every Englishman, serfs became Freeman. In his Dred Scott v. Stanford decision, I'll read the rest when we get back. I'm running out of time. Sorry. Stop with the questions. Celebrate. What's up everyone? Welcome back to the show. I was reading a comment during our break and unfortunately we ran out of time. So I want to do do this again because Davil sent in a comment, a super chat.

And a comment deserves to be read. So after Edward the first armed every Englishman, Serbs became Freeman. In his Dred Scott v. Stanford decision, Roger Taney wrote, if blacks were citizens, then were not, then not even slaves could be denied firearms. I don't know what that's a reference to, but I'm glad I read your comment. Okay, I also want to tell you about our partner, Noble, where you will get money back for the data you don't use. In fact, they're literally incentivizing you to use your phone less, which is a good thing. I feel like there's so much pressure to constantly be on your phone and be plugged in.

So if you want to learn more and save money, just go to tyt.com slash switch. That's tyt.com slash switch. You can actually try Noble Mobile for only $10 your first month. So got to learn the deets. TYT.com slash switch. All right. Let's move on to one of my favorite stories of the day. It's just another example of the excellent reporting that you can expect over at DropSight.

Let's get into it. The reporters over at DropSight News just revealed that the Israeli government installed and in fact maintained a security system at an apartment building managed by Jeffrey Epstein. But you know what? We got to talk about Jeffrey Epstein's connections to the Russians because that's more important. No, but in all seriousness, I mean, just drop. Upside's latest finding here is just the latest and a long list of evidence tying Jeffrey Epstein to the Israelis. He had very close ties to the Israelis. This is just another example of that.

So 301 East 66th Street in Manhattan was technically owned by a company connected to Epstein's brother, Mark Epstein. But effectively, that building was managed and controlled by Jeffrey Epstein. So this is the residence where former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, frequently stayed for stretches of time. So it wasn't just like a quick visit. He'd be there for days, weeks at a time. And that seems to be the reason why the government of Israel got involved here. So under Israeli law, former prime ministers typically receive a security detail, like security service after they leave office. kind of similar to what we have here in the United States. You know, former presidents tend to continue having some security.

And here's what we know about this whole setup. Okay, so the emails that were released show that Jeffrey Epstein authorized meetings between his staff and Israeli security officials. Obviously, he would have to do that so they can coordinate. Now, in early 2016, Raffi Shlomo, then director of protective service at the Israeli mission to the United Nations in New York and head of Barack security, corresponded with Epstein employees to arrange meetings to discuss security and coordinate installation of specialized surveillance equipment at the 66th street residence.

I'm sure all of that surveillance was meant to protect Ehud Barak and not record anything else. I'm sure. I'm sure that's the case. Now, Shlomo personally controlled access. to the apartment for guests and even conducted background checks on cleaners and Epstein's employees. So are you telling me that Israel didn't know that underage girls were being raped in that building? Had no idea? Interesting. A January 26th email exchange between Ehud Barak's wife and an Epstein employee who appears to be his longtime assistant, Leslie Groff, discussed installing alarms and surveillance equipment at the residence.

Including six sensors, I'm not the one who wrote that. I just want to be clear, right? So this is from the email. So including six sensors stick to the windows, these people are morons, and the ability to remotely control access to the premises. Now, Pirelli, that's Ehud Brock's wife, informed Epstein staff that, quote, they can neutralize the system from far before you need somebody to enter the apartment. Gee, why would you want to do that? Why would you want to disable the surveillance from afar before someone would want to enter the apartment? Is it because you don't want to get surveillance of a certain person entering the apartment?

Let me continue, though. The only thing to do is call Rafi. from the consulate and let him know who and when is entering. So the work done by the Israeli government was so significant that Jeffrey Epstein himself had to personally approve it. So I just want to be very clear. Everyone knows what's going on here. Okay, no, there is no like, oh, oh, these Israelis are shocked, shocked that this Epstein guy was trafficking minors. Like, come on. Okay, so in one email that Groff, remember, this is Epstein's assistant, wrote to Barack and his wife, she said that Jeffrey says he does not mind holes in the walls, and this is all just fine. So I'm assuming putting hidden cameras in the walls, that's why you'd have holes in the walls.

But in a January 2017 email to Shlomo with the subject line, Jeffrey Epstein regarding Ehud's apartment, an Epstein assistant provided Israeli officials with a list of employees who would need access to the apartment, adding, I understand from you already, I understand from you already have a copy of her ID from a while ago. She is the maid and has been going in and out of the apartment for a long time now. Okay. Now a few weeks later, the assistant wrote to Epstein himself that Rafi, the head of Ehud's security, is asking if I could meet him at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Tuesday the 14th, at his office. Then there's the office's address regarding Ehud's apartment. Epstein approved the meeting. Now, the emails show that the Israeli mission in regular contact with Epstein's representatives

over multiple visits by Barack and his wife happened throughout 2016 and 2017. Witnesses at the building also recalled to Business Insider specifically years ago that they had seen Israeli security agents with Ahud Barak in the building on multiple occasions, which shouldn't really surprise you. I mean, even before the files were released, we saw like a video of Ahud Barak entering an apartment building belonging to Jeffrey Epstein. So none of this is really that surprising. The surprising part of it is just how involved the Israeli government was and how much they knew about, you know, Ehud Barak's very friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And as it turns out, the Baroque's weren't the only Israeli staying at the property.

So Barack's longtime aide, Yoni Corrin, who died in 2023, was another frequent guest at Epstein's 66th Street apartment. So according to Dropside News, Corrin stayed at the apartment on multiple occasions, including in 2013, while he was still actively serving as Bureau Chief for the Israeli Ministry of Defense. And that's according to calendars released by the House Oversight Committee investigation into Epstein and emails released by distributed denial of secrets, released by distributed denial of secrets email correspondence from Barack's inbox also showed Corrin exchanging information with Epstein for a one. wire transfer. So units in the building were apparently also often loaned out to other Epstein

contacts like Jean-Luc Burnell. That was one of the individuals who was trafficking underage girls to Epstein and allegedly committed suicide while in prison. But anyway, so all these like other people, you know, the building being loaned out to Jean-Luc Bernal, also allegedly used to house underage models as well. So I don't believe for a second that Israel, oh, Israel didn't know. They didn't know underage girls were being trafficked in that building when you literally have like a security detail that's being coordinated by the Israeli government on behalf of Ehud Brock because homeboy like practically lives with Jeffrey Epstein. And all that surveillance, where's all that surveillance?

No, just curious. You know, we've got some serious surveillance going on. So what happened to those videos? I'm sure that they can maybe shed some light on what was going on in that property. But yeah, let's go back to talking about the Russians. I can't believe that corporate media, like, had the audacity to try to pivot from any relationship that Epstein may have with the Israelis and instead pin this on the Russians. It's so pathetic. They've lost all credibility. Any publication that published that claim, no credibility whatsoever. All right, we've got some time. Great. So let's do one more story before we go to break, because as we are barreling toward a war with Iran, I just want you all to know that you shouldn't ever breathe a sigh of relief because if you think it's all over after Iran, like these Israelis will finally leave us alone. No, they won't. They won't.

Because they're already building the narrative against Turkey. Let's get into it. As the United States inches closer to war with Iran, on Israel's behalf, of course, it's only fair that we begin to ask ourselves who the men and women in our armed forces will end up risking their lives fighting for or fighting on behalf of Israel for after Iran. And that country happens to be Turkey. I'm not kidding. If you just pay close attention to the discourse in Israel, if you read Israeli publications or listen to the speeches given by Israeli politicians, it is very clear that they are already building a pro-war narrative when it comes to Turkey.

So let's get to the details on that. Why am I saying this? I want to show you the receipts. So while addressing a conference of presidents of major American Jewish organizations in Jerusalem, Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister of Israel, who plans on running for that position again, said this. Turkey under president Erdogan poses a new strategic threat to Israel. Naftali Bennett described Erdogan as a sophisticated and dangerous adversary who wants to around Israel and cautioned that the country must not turn a blind eye again. When has Israel ever turned a blind eye to anything?

Israel sees monsters where they don't exist. But let me just be very clear. These are the beginning stages of what at some point, it could be five years from now, it could be 10 years from now. Who knows, it could be next year. They are setting the stage for the United States to go from one disastrous warning. Iran to another disastrous war against Turkey. Now, you might be thinking, Anna, you're crazy. Like, you're being hyperbolic, you're being insane. Turkey is an ally to the United States. By the way,

I've got no love for Erdogan, obviously. Okay, I've got love for the Turkish people, but government or Turkey, no, I don't, I don't have any love for them. So I want to be clear about that. But I also don't want to go to war with them. That would be disastrous. But despite the fact that Turkey is, is considered a NATO ally, a G20 country. It doesn't matter. The United States will literally throw its own people under the bus for Israel. So what would make anyone think

that our government would maintain its ally ship with Turkey if the Israelis want to go to war with Turkey? No, we will go to war with Turkey. I mean, we've seen how all of this is played out with Iran. Nobody wants to go to war with Iran outside of neocons and Zionists. But the American people certainly don't want to go to war with Iran. The government's going to do it anyway.

But let me give you more from Naftali Bennett because he goes further and attacks some of the other U.S. allies. So Bennett highlighted what he described as a growing axis of concern in the region, linking Turkey, Qatar, and the Muslim Brotherhood with Pakistani nuclear capabilities, saying the alliance is attempting to incite host. against Israel, including influencing Saudi Arabia. I just, everyone, everyone's out to get them. Everyone's out to get Israel, aren't they? I mean, the only thing Qatar has done in the last two years is try to broker peace deals. The largest military, U.S. military base in existence, exists in Qatar because they are our ally.

But who knows? Maybe somewhere down the line, they won't be our ally anymore because Israel demands it. Now, if Israel gets its way, these two countries, again, will likely be our enemies. And that's totally unnecessary. They shouldn't be our enemies. Iran wasn't an enemy of ours. Until Israel decided, Iran should be an enemy of yours. And here we are. Now, in fact, Bennett wants that to happen. Like, he would like us to have poor relations with Turkey and, Qatar. So he emphasized the need for Israel to act simultaneously against threats from Tehran and Ankara. So you guys are going to start attacking Turkey now? That's what you're going to do?

So okay, a new Turkish threat is emerging, he says. We must act in different ways, but simultaneously against the threat from Tehran and against the hostility from Ankara, Bennett said. it doesn't end, right? Like there's no, oh, Israel's our special ally. And there's a country that poses a legitimate threat to their safety. And so we're going to step in and protect our ally. No, no, it never ends. It never ends.

Because what Israel wants is more than just protection. They want to expand. And in order to do that, there can't be any competition. There can't be any powerful competition. country in the region that could serve as an obstacle to the Greater Israel Project. So again, they've got their site set on Turkey. So Bennett intends to be Israel's next prime minister. He is already dropping hints that he intends to run.

And I wanted to make that point because usually there's a lot of attention on a few figures within Israeli politics, right? There's Benjamin Netanyahu. People think like, oh, he's the worst or the worst. He's actually pretty indicative of what the culture is like in Israel right now. It's true. It's a far right country and they're out for blood. And they will stop at nothing.

Well, I mean, they might stop if they realize they would have to go it alone. But as long as they control our government, they know that they can get our government to risk our soldiers and spend money we don't have to fight in wars we shouldn't be fighting in, including against our own allies. So buckle up, that's coming. And this is this type of rhetoric. This isn't new. But what I'm noticing is this anti-Turkey conversation is happening a lot more frequently in Israel.

And the reason why I know that is because I read Israeli media and I listen to what their politicians say. So buckle up, it's coming. I have no doubt. For now, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk a little bit about someone crying over. the proposal that we end dual citizenship in the United States. I think we should, and I'll explain why when we come back. Joseph writes in in our member section and says Ramadan Kareem, TYT family.

Yes, happy Ramadan. We've got Michael Napin. Of course, it's going to be a great show. It's Anna Solo Wednesday. Thank you. Although Box, I didn't like your comment last Thursday, and I remember it, okay? the whole thing about like, oh, I miss Jenke yelling. I see you, box. I see you.

Anyway, Don Dada Dragon says Salt Queen Duncan, get his ass, Anna. I don't even know who I was dunking on, but I will. I will get his ass. Asimov's prophet says, TYT should do a cost ticker on how much all this stuff with Iran is costing the American people. I mean, certainly the future of this country is cooked. I mean, we're literally taking out more debt to do this. It's just so unbelievably stupid.

Dragon slowly says, watched Anna on her take earlier and now on TYT. She's a machine. By the way, I'm going to be on an after party after the main show tonight with Emily Jaczynski. And I don't know why I do this to myself. Like, I love her and I'm looking forward to it. But I do like, I don't know how to say no. Let's go to AKA Delaware Dragon.

How do we stop the madness? The worst people in the world are crappifying everything for everyone. And all of life on earth, we collectively don't have enough time left, climate change, to pass through this unhinged, contrived mayhem, and then recover from the damage that the sociopaths inflict. So we lost like 15 subscribers yesterday because I, I dared criticize AOC for her dog crap foreign policy views, which she's just not informed on. And the reason why I do that, guys, isn't because it's like, oh, yes, I'm a secret, conservative, yes. No, it's because I'm sick of having no options. We get all the way to election, and then we have two crappy options. And people don't want to hear any criticism about the Democrat because, oh, my God, the Republican will win.

Don't, Anna, you alone are going to change the outcome of the election, which is obviously BS. Okay, we've got three years. If you're so sensitive that you can't handle constructive criticism of someone on your own side, you're part of the problem. Keeping it real, you're part of the problem. because if you don't want J.D. Vance to win, and I certainly don't want J.D. Vance to win, we need to have a formidable opponent. And if she's really thinking about running,

and that's what her foreign policy is, we're in trouble. So just, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. There's plenty of left wing shows that will, like, glaze the hell out of AOC for you. It's not going to happen here. We're not glazing anybody unless they deserve it. And honestly, right now, she doesn't deserve it. All right, let's get back to the show.

Welcome back to the show, everyone. Let's get to our next story. The question is a very real, significant problem. You can ask your friend Tucker, who wants to call them traitors, genocidal, SS, fascist, killers, worthy of the SS, worthy of the Einz Group and sons and daughters of generation of the Holocaust. But a very practical matter in my son's unit, I don't want to mention the United. unit. Half of them are lone soldiers in America, France, Belgium, who are fleeing because they cannot travel. They are outed. The Hague is looking for them. Keep talking. Keep talking dirty to me.

Now that whiny man that you just heard from is an Israeli who took part in a town hall in Israel. As you can see, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Hukabee, was part of this discussion. You don't see the gentleman speaking, he's in the audience, but he's asking a question about IDF soldiers. Clearly, he has a son and family members in the IDF. They are being accused of committing genocide. They have definitely carried out atrocities, which we've been covering on this show day in and day out. And he doesn't like the fact that they are not welcomed in other parts of the world that haven't been fully captured by Israel. And so he's about, to ask a question about dual citizenship. Because lately, there have been more and more Americans,

some prominent Americans like Tucker Carlson, really questioning whether it makes sense for someone who has an American passport to fight as an IDF soldier. So we can have a discussion about that after we hear more from the gentleman at the town hall. Even to the United States, even the United States, there have been calls, I guess, you know, our new mayor of New York, wants to basically obey the Hague over America. So I want to ask you a very practical question to protect the best of the best. Yeah, what will happen? Because I think eventually it's going to happen to be tested somewhere of this world. They're going to grab an American citizen. They've identified. They know who they are.

They know thousands of their names. They're preparing cases. One of my son's comrades had to flee Germany and other had to flee South Africa. Africa arrested and other have to flee Belgium. When is it going to come in America? Are you prepared and what will be done at that moment so they can be secure in what they have done for all of Amia Skoril and all of America too. They fight for America here. They're not traders to America as they've been called publicly on television by politicians and your friend Tucker, who says they'd be stripped of their American citizenship immediately. I agree with Tucker Carlson. These IDF soldiers are not fighting for America. They're getting paid with money that we took out in the form of loans to carry out mass slaughter of innocence, not just in Gaza at this point.

They are a formal terrorism group. They should be listed as such. And the reason why they are being wanted by the Hague, by the international courts, is because they have broken international laws. They are criminals. They don't represent the best of us. I get that he thinks that because he's a racist and loathes Arabs and thinks that they should be probably wiped off from the face of the earth. But normal people, people who aren't genocidal don't think that.

Normal people who actually value human lives, regardless of the identity of said human lives, would like justice to be served when terrorists carry out terroristic acts and kill innocent people. And that's what the IDF has been doing. Does that hurt your feelings? I mean, if it does hurt your feelings, number one, good. But number two, I could show your receipts. In fact, you just watch this show over the last two years and it's receipt upon receipt upon receipt. But I'll give you a little more right now. I have got a lot more where that came from.

Now, Mike Huck would be the U.S. ambassador to Israel and a traitor to America. Be very clear about that, considering the fact that he met with Jonathan Pollard, a guy who worked for our CIA, stole our secrets and gave those secrets to Israel. he proceeded to basically pleasure this man, you know, the panicky Israeli and let him know, like, don't worry, the U.S. is working around the clock to protect you. That's the only thing the U.S. government does. But who cares? We don't need to listen to that. We already know what kind of answer he's going to give.

But Israelis should be aware that they're the only people who, like, they're the only people who think, like, the IDF are heroes. Literally, they're the only people. So like when I went on that rant and said that Israel is hated on the international stage, I meant it because it's true. And they've got to be aware of that. They have to be aware of that because all of us pay consequences based on our behavior. If you go around slaughtering innocent people, mocking the dead.

One of the stories that I just could not get past, I can't get past. We didn't even report on it. I just, IDF soldiers like dig up graves in Gaza. They dig up the graves of Palestinians. And then they will then like either leave the bodies out or if they're nice enough, maybe throw all the bodies in a mass grave. They're terrorists. They're disgusting people. The IDF writes the names of Americans who disagree with their mass slaughter campaign on missiles.

on missiles that they're about to kill more innocent people with. In fact, they wrote Jank's name on one of those missiles. I mean, Jank partially paid for those weapons. So think about how insulting that is, that we live in a situation where our government forces us to go into a tremendous amount of debt so these terrorists can mock us and write our names in a threatening way on missiles that they're going to use to slaughter innocent people, mostly women and children.

So yeah, yeah, the IDF ends up getting run out of town, regardless of which country they go to, the U.S. is an exception, unfortunately, because they're hated on the international stage. And it's not because they're Jewish. It's not because they're Jewish at all. Jeffrey Sachs is Jewish. He is welcomed anywhere. He's welcomed in my home. I love that man because of what he stands for. What does the IDF stand for right now? Again, mass slaughter. Let's talk about that a little bit. I want to show you a visual. So you kind of get a sense of why I'm not interested in having these people hold a U.S. passport. Take a look. Okay, so here you can see the Israeli soldiers are now forcing all of these shops to close because there's a tour of Israeli settlers who are here. Can we go this way? Why?

I'm an American journalist. Are we not allowed to go this way? Can you explain why this area is being close? Okay, I'm walking, I'm walking. I'm walking. I'm walking. I'm walking. One by one, Palestinians are forced to close their shops and leave the area. People wanting to return to their homes are prevented from doing so.

Can you explain just to be what's happening exactly? Here? Yeah. It's not your job to picture here, everything. Huh? What's your job to picture? So the settlers went on what they called the tour of the old city. It strange just how normalized this situation is for Palestinians,

where their lives can be disrupted in such a way on a weekly, if not daily basis. I mean, terrorists wouldn't care about their inconvenience, so I'm not surprised by that. And last September, the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner put out a report on the IDF's war crimes. And I want to give you some excerpts from it, but I also want to just say this is one of several reports detailing the IDFs, atrocities, and war crimes. So the commission has been investigating the events on and since October 7th, 2023 for the last two years. Again, they put this out September of last year and concluded that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of genocide. By the way, I don't know if most people know this is a little bit of trivia for you. The term genocide was actually coined by a

Jewish individual and he did so after the Armenian genocide happened. So, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions. of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births. Remember, there was a fertility clinic in Gaza that they made sure to bomb the hell out of. All those embryos, all of those future babies gone. She, I wonder why they did that. Explicit statements by Israeli, civilian, and military authorities,

and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group. Now, Navi Palais, who is the chair of the UN Commission that put out this very report, says the following. The commission finds that Israel is responsible for the nomination of, I'm sorry, let me start that again. The commission finds that. that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza. It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the genocide convention. The commission also finds that the Israelis had failed to prevent

and punish the commission of genocide through failure to investigate genocidal acts and to prosecute alleged perpetrators. Now, if you're wondering, like, how do they establish these determinations? Well, in establishing genocidal acts, the commission examined the Israeli military operations in Gaza, including the following, killing and seriously harming unprecedented numbers of Palestinians, imposing a total siege, including blocking humanitarian aid leading to starvation, systematically destroying the healthcare and education systems in Gaza, committing systematic acts of sexual and gender-based violence. I'm going to pause right here for the gentleman in the audience who was very, very worried

about IDF soldiers being mistreated. Remember, we also all witnessed that surveillance footage of IDF soldiers gang raping a Palestinian in hostage and then never facing any consequences for it. I wish I could ask that gentleman whether or not he's okay with IDF soldiers engaging in gang rape. They're the best of us, aren't they? Anyway, let's continue. They also looked at committing systematic acts of sexual and gender-based violence

directly targeting children, which we know they do, carrying out systematic and widespread attacks on religious and cultural sites. And disregarding the orders of the international criminal court, the very international criminal court that that man is furious with because they would have the audacity to call out the IDF's obvious war crimes. Now, just to get back to the issue of dual citizenship, I don't think any American should be fighting in any foreign country's military. I think that that is grounds to have your citizenship revoked. You got to make a decision. If you want to be Israeli, if you want to fight on behalf of Israel as part of the IDF, great, go live in Israel. I hear Tel Aviv is great.

But leave the rest of us alone. Because I think we've had enough people governing our country, certainly, who couldn't care less about this country. And if you happen to be a genocidal maniac, we don't really need you. I prefer you don't have U.S. citizenship. That's my view. But if you are a U.S. politician, you should be an American citizen and American citizen only, period. You can't be a public servant and have like a dual loyalty situation going on with any country. I don't care if it's freaking Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, whatever.

I think you're good with one citizenship, and that should be the citizenship for this country if you want to live here and more importantly, govern here. So those are my views and people can cry about it if they want. But it's really important for us to have self-awareness. The IDF apparently has no self-awareness at all. But I'll let them know you're hated for good reason. We got to take a break. Yeah, we got to take a break. We'll be right back with more, including Randy Fine,

and how embarrassing he is as part of our Congress. That and more coming up, don't miss it. What contributions to the progressive cause are you most proud of? Um, I mean, I don't, I don't have super high aspirations for a singular role that I can play in the movement or anything. I just, I try to present myself as what I think that I am, which is a progressive man who is driven by a, I think, well interrogated and well organized system of values that I try to stay consistent on and I demonstrate that that's the sort of life that a person can lead. and be successful and be happy and all of that. And that should not need to be done, but there are so many people on the right

that are trying to push men in the opposite direction that I want to be able to do that. Along the way, if I can get people to care about some topics that they wouldn't necessarily care about, or that for some men, they might think that's not a topic that they should be focused on, that's definitely something that I relish doing. And along the way, I mean,

we've been able to introduce people to a lot of candidates. That's been a big part of what we've done. You know, not all of them necessarily got in office. Probably most of them did not. And a lot of them, you might not even remember their names. But it was great to be able to provide people the platform where they had the chance of, you know, making a difference. Obviously, AOC and all that. But there's been a lot of great people along the way.

In the bonus episode for the members, we do some inside baseball. We're going to look at John's desk. Nice little spaceship here. Nerd. But it is kind of look. Who has Legos? Oh, no. He's taking apart a keyboard. Who has a mouse pad that's this big? He's got a dog with a nose that you can hang something like. You know what this desk screams to me? Nerd. And that's how we like him. We love Johnny Pye. He's got his own personality like everybody does at TYT. Come meet us all in the bonus episodes. TYT.com slash team. Davis, sir, Neanderer. Is Adam Green Drop by? Charlemagne.

Congress, great to have you. It's great to be with you, Jake. Your show is a great thing. You're informing people. A lot of the shows that I live on, you know, my CNN and my MSNBC and even Fox and any of the other shows, MPR. They are so quick to decide that they know what this building means today. The one thing that I hate that politicians do, you know, they talk about the people they should be talking to. Do they have any idea that they're their establishment and that they're hated or do they not realize that at all? People are so deeply in their little universe. I think it's very easy to not really question what you're doing.

Voters have a right to ask questions of any nominee, whether they're independent, Republican, or Democrat. The system is monopoly that suppresses competition. How is it the year 2024? And we're still like maybe they'll talk about paid medical. I know, it's the same. How is that like, at one level it's like, good, what we're talking about it now. You're like, it's 2024.

And that's always been the critique, that your critique of us is, Well, you guys give good speeches. You put out good tweets, but you're not wielding actual power. Now we're starting to. My favorite news platform by far. It's not even close. It's about a country and a principle, and that's what you and I both work to achieve. And I'm so glad that at least half the battle has now been one. If you want to go really hear what's going on, honestly, you should tune into the Young Turks. Thanks for doing. Such a great job. Please keep it up. Hang tough. Yeah. That makes me so happy. Oh, I like making you know about that.

This is a happy Anna Kasparian. You're welcome, YouTube. Join the Dragon Squad by becoming a YouTube channel member. Click the join button below or sign up on tYt.com slash join to get access to fun emojis, a member only chat, exclusive shop TYT designs, ad free watching and so many other amazing perks. Plus you get bragging rights for being part of the coolest community on the internet and help us drive real positive change in the world. The Dragon Squad awaits. So join today. After a workout, have some beers.

You ever played quarters? Come back to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. And Eddie James wins best comment of the day so far. So far. Others could impress me. We'll wait and see. But here's what Eddie says. I'm so sick of Democrats canceling people because they dare criticize another Democrat.

We criticize because we want them to be better, not because we want them to lose. Yeah, I know. But people have a hard time with that concept. And by the way, same goes for, because look, as you get closer to an election, people become more and more unhinged about the criticism because they literally think one host on one digital news show is going to like change the course of the election by being critical of the Democrat. Anyway, let's move on to Randy Fine before I go on a rant that I'll probably regret. So I made a simple statement. If I have to choose between having my dog and you living here,

and taking my dog away, the choice isn't hard. You can leave and go home. And the fact of the matter is the world went crazy. And what's fascinating is all the Democrats that have attacked me, not a single one has said you have the right to own a dock. They are all coming down on, you can lead your dog to slaughter if that's what we have to do to make Muslim immigrants happy in the United States. Okay, look, I think the biggest injustice,

is that Randy Fine has a dog. Someone needs to save that dog. Okay, that man has no business owning a dog. He literally salivates at the thought of Muslim children getting slaughtered and has said as much on social media. So we'll get to that in just a minute. But first, Randy Fine, the largest bigot in Congress, in a Congress full of bigots, to be honest with you,

he's now facing calls for censure by Democrats specifically. after he made one of the most vile statements I've heard from a lawmaker in a long time, and that's saying something because there are a lot of lawmakers saying a lot of vile things. But nonetheless, this whole saga began when he tweeted the following. If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one. Okay. Now, he followed that up with this for context, and he's quote, tweeting someone. This is the leader of one of the key mainstream Muslim groups that supported Mamdani.

Based, I need to follow her. So Nardin Kiswani is the person that he's referencing and she's the one who in a obvious satirical way said, finally, NYC is coming to Islam. Dogs definitely have a place in society, just not as indoor pets. like we've said all along, they are unclean. Okay, so she's like doing a satire of Muslims, right? Like she's doing a cartoonish characterization of Muslim culture. Okay, there are plenty of Muslims in America that have pets, indoor pets, idiot.

And I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about Randy Fine. So he reads that. He takes it seriously. He quote tweets it. And honestly, more than anything, he just saw that as an opportunity to, again, signal his deep rooted hatred for Muslims. That's all this was.

He just saw it as an opportunity. Now, Kiswani is the co-founder, by the way, of the pro-Palestinian activist group within our lifetime. And for the record, she told NBC News in an email that her original comment was satire based on a hyper-local NYC conversation about dog waste in the city after the recent snowstorm, adding she was satirizing Islamophobic hysteria portraying Mom Donnie's mayorality, mayoralty as a societal takeover. Yeah, and by the way, like, at this point, I just revel in the Mamdani-related panic from these Israel firsters. Like, honestly, any opportunity to see them

in emotional distress, I'll take it. I'll take it. But fine is a moron and can't understand simple concepts like satire or calorie restrictions. So here's how Kiswani responded to Fynne's post. Let's take a quick look. Randy Fine posted this genocidal statement about me. Thing is, no one is forcing you to choose. He's just like the millions of other racists hounding me this past week looking for a reason to be Islamophobic. I happen to agree with her on that. She also pointed out the rank hypocrisy coming from her critics saying that Christy Noem literally bragged about shooting her own dog. I think it was a puppy. And most of you did not bat an eyelash. A Muslim in New York City says maybe the city is not the best place for pets. And it is days of death threats from Maga and Zionists. Okay, hot take here. I don't think New York is the best place to own a dog. I just don't. I don't know how you guys do it. It's kind of amazing. It's not a comfortable place to own a dog, especially if you want to have a bigger dog.

They need space. They need, you know, at least there's Central Park. But I know this is someone who also lives in a building, right? Luckily, California has a lot of parks, a lot of places I can take my dog. But it is a little bit inconvenient to have a dog in New York City. That doesn't mean that there's like literally a campaign to ban New Yorkers from having pets. That's insane. Now with that in mind, Randy Fine was immediately met with backlash, good, but from Democrats only, not good. Nah, I'm going to be fair. There were some on the right who were criticizing him. I've noticed Megan Kelly actually got into a fight with him on X over this, and I commend her for that, even though she has definitely said some things about ICE recently that I hate, make me really

uncomfortable, but we'll put that aside for now. GOP representative Don Bacon told Axios, I appreciate Randy Fine for many things, but I don't agree with this. We should be respectful to others. However, Bacon also added, you need to remember he's frequently targeted by Code Pink and pro Hamas types. There's animosity here. No, I'm not buying it. I'm not buying it. Okay. Oh, Oh, Code Pink hounds you about your love and support for genocide. Oh, then your excuse. Then totally you can devalue Muslim lives and say disgusting, bigoted things about them as much as you'd like. What kind of argument is that?

Anyway, Code Pink should fry bacon while they're at it. Now, Fine has continued to double down, and that's what he does. During an interview on Newsmax Tuesday, he continued to lie about Democrats wanting to He thinks Democrats want to ban dogs. It's just a total clown show. Take a look. Here's my view. It's not enough for Democrats to think anyone who wants to come here illegally should be able to do that.

They also think they should be able to get whatever free stuff they want. Now they're demanding that we change our values and how we live as Americans. My post was in response to a major Muslim leader saying dogs should be forbidden from New York City because to some Muslim, it bothers them. Well, if they're going to make us choose between our dogs and them going home, the choice is easy. And people should know, Democrats like AOC are saying, we are going to get rid of your dogs. Americans need to keep that in mind when they go to vote in November. AOC never said that. Okay, look, I'm going to be super honest with you guys. And this is going to make people uncomfortable. I think that human beings value dogs more than human beings. I do. I think

we just live in that culture right now because they look at dogs or they look at pets and they're innocent. They're defenseless. You get what I'm saying? And I mean, just think about it. Like the Christy Gnome killing a puppy thing, I actually disagree. That did lead to a lot of backlash, including from a lot on a lot of people on the right because people love their dogs. No one's having a discussion about banning dogs. What is this guy? He's literally lying to you. Okay, but putting that aside,

I have to address the whole thing about like, oh, people wanting free things. They want handouts. They want, what about Israel? Let's pull aid from Israel and see how they fare. You want to talk about handouts? You want to talk about handouts. Israel lives off our welfare.

Anyway, on another program, he accused Democrats of being on, on this being on the side of puppy killing. Okay, that's what he said. Like, just shameless lies. He also mocked his critics by repeatedly posting the Gadsden flag with a puppy in place of the snake. No step, no step on snake. That's what it says. No, I'm kidding. It just says, don't tread on me with a super cute puppy. Okay. And then yesterday he fearmongered more about Islam taking over America, even though Israel has fully taken over America, and that's been the case for some time now. Anyway, take a look.

This is a clear and present threat to the United States, and we don't have to theorize. We can look at what has happened in the United Kingdom, where their parliament now actually is debating whether cousin marriage should be allowed, because that is Sharia compliant. But we've even seen peaks of it over here, the call to prayer, being broadcast. early in the morning in Manhattan where 9-11 took place. Muslims calling for the killing of dogs. These giant mosques in Texas and Florida, it's coming here. And we've got to do something about it. And that's why the Sharia-free caucus has been created. About five years ago, CBS News, shockingly, honestly, did an in-depth report about how Israel provides

safe harbor for American pedophiles and sexual people. predators. And in fact, when a high level Israeli government official, Tom Alexandrovich, was caught in an FBI sting operation attempting to have sex with a 15-year-old, unfortunately, he was allowed to fly back to Israel, has not been extradited because Israel provides safe harbor for pedophiles and sexual deviance. Just thought I would share that with you and provide the receipts if you want to look into it for yourselves as Randy Fine lies about the Muslim population and just fearmongers about them with that disgusting slop that you just heard. But anyway, I don't know if I can really stomach more of this guy, but let me tell you

what the Democrats are up to. So his comments have been so offensive that Democrats in Congress are now considering forcing a vote to censure fine when they return from recess. Oh, they're on recess because they're always on recess. But when they come back, okay, for the few days that they might do some work, they're planning on maybe holding a vote to see if they can censure Randy Fine. Now, leading the way are two congressional progressive caucus members, and that includes Rokana, because Rokana is just, he's on fire lately, and I love to see it. He told Axios in a text on Tuesday that, quote, I have raised with the Congressional Progressive Caucus leadership that Fine must be censured. We cannot stand idly by as Muslim Americans are described as less than dogs by a sitting member.

Many of my colleagues feel similarly. Well, one of those colleagues happens to be Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan, who agreed and wrote on X. I usually hate censure resolutions against members, but I've never seen someone deserve one more. Yeah, I agree with you on that entirely. Now, the House only needs a simple majority to censure. Any member can force a vote. So there's a real possibility that they could do this here. But honestly, it's a symbolic gesture more than anything. I'll take it because this guy needs to know he's a piece of crap. But there's something else that's being proposed here and I hope it happens. So Oversight Committee, House Oversight Committee ranking member Robert Garcia said Mike Johnson should strip fine of all committees. assignments and he should be forced to resign. I do think that the punishment needs to be more than like, tut, tut, we held a vote and we think you're very bad. It's just my view. But anyway, I do think it's unlikely that Republicans will play ball with that proposal. But you know,

some Republicans are even publicly praising Randy Fine, including Representative Mark Harris. Let's take a look. Oh, I think it's ridiculous that the Democrats are calling for such action. Let's face it, when she paid that post, she went back and tried to say, well, she was just kidding. There was no joking in that post. When you read that post, it was clear. Randy responded to that post, and I support him. I think his post was on the spot.

And the reality is people don't want to talk about the fact that what has happened in New York City is a shift like we've never seen before. We warned it was going to come. And I think it's of major, major concern. And listen, I stand with Randy, and I'm very grateful for his courage. For his courage, for his courage. Oh, yeah, real courageous to engage in anti-Muslim bigotry on social media. So courageous. God, these men are so pathetic.

Nobody should be surprised by Fien's latest comments. He has repeatedly been openly hateful toward Muslims and Palestinians. And last year, when commenting on literal starvation in Gaza because Israel blocked humanitarian aid for three straight months, fine posted, release the hostages until then starve away. This is all a lie anyway. It amazes me that the media continues to regurgitate Muslim terror propaganda. And last May, he also suggested that Gaza should be nuked. Take a look. The fact of the matter is the Palestinian cause is an evil one. The only end of the conflict is complete and total surrender by those who support Muslim terror. In World War II, we did not negotiate a surrender with the Nazis.

We did not negotiate a surrender with the Japanese. We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender. That needs to be the same here. There is something deeply, deeply wrong with this culture, and it needs to be defeated? The only thing that needs to be defeated right now is human garbage like Randy Fine. Luckily, he does have some challengers for his congressional seat. Honestly, at this point, anyone, but that embarrassment to the human race. All right, we got to take a break. Man, it boggles the mind that evil like that can even exist. But it does. It does. Bloodthirsty,

hateful. Every accusation is an admission because everything he says about Muslims, he seems to display himself. It's really interesting. Anyway, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about, you know, a little bit of a division among team MAGA on the topic of Bannon. And that's because of some of the revelations we've learned from the Epstein files. I'll share that and more when we come back. Don't miss it. All right, we've got to do a rapid fire round of comments, super chats especially. I don't know if all these super chatterers are members. I'll try to read some member comments, you know,

throughout the show and also in the bonus episode for our members. Dav Mill writes in and says, Amazing how fast Rhode Island shooting at a high school hockey game got memory hold by the press. Middle age man turned trans targeting ex-wife and his children by morning. It dropped off the new cycle. Rhode Island, is this different? So I was on Tucker Carlson's show this Monday, this past Monday, and we were actually talking about a shooting that sounds very similar to this one, but it was out of Canada.

Dev, look, I don't know how to keep up. I don't know how to keep up with the news. It's overwhelming. And every day, it's the morning, I used to love the mornings. Now every morning, it's like agony, struggle, trying to figure out, like, what can I fit in the show? Is it possible that maybe we could squeeze in one more story, you know? Anyway, but yes, a lot of things do get memory hold. I wasn't even aware about this particular shooting, so I apologize. I think people are overwhelmed. There's so much going on right now, and it's hard to keep up. Tom 33067, thank you for the super chat.

Gargoyle dragon says, seriously, do our politicians love war this much or exactly how much dirt do they have on them? Well, look, I'm sure that our politicians have different reasons for cheerleading for this war against Iran. Some of them are hardcore Zionists and they want it for that reason. Others are getting paid by defense contractors, which of course stand to profit off of war. So, you know, it's all about self-interest. It's not about public service. And that's the big problem that we're experiencing with our institutions right now. These people have no interest in being public servants. And we got to get them out. And we need to do, I don't know if you can reform these institutions.

These institutions are too corrupt, but we need to find a solution because we can't keep going in this direction. I know I can't keep paying my taxes and continue building the resentment that I'm feeling toward my own government. I don't trust my government. I don't like my government. And it's not about like, oh, it's because Trump's in charge. No, I was feeling this way under Biden as well. They don't serve us. They don't care about us.

Why am I giving them my money so they can use it on garbage? Anyway, sorry to sound like a libertarian there, but for like the first time ever, I kind of understand where they're coming from. Now, I'd rather live in a society where we have a government that's accountable to the people. And under that type of scenario, you're actually able to push for policies like Medicare for all, for instance. But you think I'm going to push for Medicare for all with the government we've got now? Please. We got to change the government. Okay, we got to change our institutions, like deep.

deep, deep reforms. Anyway, let's go to Titan of Olympus, 03. Just saw the story on ICE in Minnesota posing as a woman having car trouble. Jesus, Flores left his home to help and was ambushed by ice. These people are disgusting. They're just gross. Anyway, let's get back to the show. CBS News is reporting that Trump intends to bomb Iran on Saturday.

And CBS would know under the leadership of Barry Weiss, of course. So we'll see. For now, why don't we talk about the purvey wankers that have influence here in the United States? Well, he's going to get a third term. So Trump 28, Trump is going to be president in 28. And people just ought to get accommodated with that. So what about the 22nd Amendment? There's many different alternatives.

At the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is. But there's a plan. And President Trump will be the president in 28. publicly, Steve Bannon has really positioned himself as a loyalist to Donald Trump. Even when he was ousted from the Trump administration in his first term, Bannon didn't seem to hold a grudge against Trump, at least not publicly. But privately, it seems like he kind of had a different perspective on Donald Trump. And we know about that thanks to the release of the Epstein files.

And Homeboy was real buddy, buddy with Epstein, way more than he was. would have you believe. Now, we already knew about the fact that Bannon was, you know, filming Epstein for a documentary. The documentary, of course, was meant to launder Epstein's reputation, but now we have a better sense of how often the two corresponded and what they would talk about. So, without further ado, let's talk about those conversations right now. Many of those conversations, you know, actually kind of had to do with the two not really liking Trump all that much. I did notice the tone of these messages kind of implying that Bannon thinks less of Trump than he would have you believe. So that came into question when, you know, people looked at this like

text exchange between Bannon and Epstein. It took place on December 31st of 2018. That was actually a few months before Epstein was arrested. And I want to read the exchange to you. Let's put this up on the screen. Okay. So it says, Epstein says, hell of a year. Next will be biblical. Bannon responds. We either own 2019 or it will surely own us. Epstein writes back. I'm back in the F&B biz only. And then Steve Bannon says F&B director. Okay. So it's about to get good if you're wondering like, okay, what is that about? You're about to find out. At that point, Epstein says, no, it does not stand for F and blow. Spoke to my Dems this weekend, boy, our emotions running high. Bannon responds, going to blow him up right out of the box. White House has zero

plan to punch back Fort Apache with no cavalry route. They're talking about Trump. Bannon is talking about Trump there. So remember, the year is 2018. So at that point, Epstein writes back, and no soldiers in the fort, he really is borderline, not sure what he may do. And this is when Bannon responds. I think it's beyond borderline, 25th Amendment, which is something that you heard Jank say a lot about Trump in his first term. Invoke the 25th Amendment, get him out of office, he's not mentally sound. Turns out Bannon agreed. Turns out Bannon agreed. So these text messages were after Democrats had taken control of the House in 2018, when the blue wave happened during the midterms. And of course, this had a major impact on the second half of Trump's first term because it

hindered him or prevented him from passing any more legislation. But I want to be clear, I don't think he had any interest in passing any other legislation anyway. Now in his second term, He's made it clear, I'm not planning on passing any more legislation. I already did everything I wanted to do. Mainly the tax cuts for the rich, you know, the big beautiful bill. That's all he wanted. He just wanted tax cuts. Everything else and everyone else can go ahead and F off.

But anyway, now, according to the New York Times, in an effort to kind of be fair to Bannon, I'm going to give you his self-defense. So the Times writes that a torrent of text and email exchanges show that after Bannon and Epstein met in late 2017, Epstein first tried to meet with Bannon in November 2016 after Trump won the presidency, the document suggests. But Bannon, a top campaign strategist for Trump and later a senior White House official, agreed only after the president fired him in August of 2017. So at that point, they start messaging each other, text messaging each other. So Bannon wasn't working for Trump during the period of time that he had this or sparked this relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

But he still had connections to the Trump White House and made himself a household name, you know, within the conservative movement, which is pretty obvious. So this is why conservatives and, you know, part of the MAGA crowd is questioning Bannon and what his game was, right? So former national security advisor, General Mike Flynn, posted a response to the text message exchange featuring Bannon and Epstein. And he says this, the White House, or at least D.R. OJ needs to come out and say what they plan on doing with this information. I remember all the 25th Amendment talk back in the first term. It was really ugly. If Bannon and Epstein were behind it, Bannon needs to be brought in for questioning. And he needs to address this and all the other crap he was doing on behalf of Epstein. So look, there are people who are really upset. I'll read more

comments from the right in just a minute. But since I have your attention, and if you happen to be on the right, and now you're questioning Bannon. Please believe me when I say that he got arrested because of the fact that he promoted a sham fundraiser for a border wall and then proceeded to pocket the money. He is not your friend. He stole from you. He is a bad guy.

Okay, so there's really nothing else to say about him. One of the other exchanges with Epstein that I thought was incredible was Epstein basically telling Bannon, you know, this whole populist schick, you do it better than Trump does. You should take it and make it your own. It's all a schick. It's a facade. It's not real. Okay. But anyway, Marjorie Taylor Green also weighed in on this and said the following on X. I agree completely. Steve Bannon went to jail for Trump. I was there. But back on January 1st, 2019 after Dems took the house, he was texting with Epstein about the 25th Amendment. Also, there's no excuse for having such a friendly relationship with Epstein post-conviction.

By the way, I mean, yes, that's absolutely right. I mean, you're hitting homeboy up, 2017, 2018, whatever. This is like obviously many years after Epstein had pled guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution, which I don't even like saying that. It's just the legal way of phrasing it, minors can't engage in prostitution. Okay, so soliciting a minor for rape, really. Anyway, so the New York Times notes that in the six months before Epstein was arrested and charged with the sex trafficking of minors in July of 2019, so this was a second arrest. Bannon's name appears nearly every day in the files.

Okay, so often because the men were exchanging text messages. So he gets arrested again. And Bannon's like, we're still buddies, not a big deal. And this set of text messages isn't even the start of the growing fury, Maga's feeling toward Bannon right now. So I'll give you a few people. There's Brendan Dilly who says, it's easy to see who takes his money and relies on his influencer network because they're all silent about his overt friendship and working relationship with Epstein. You know who you are.

You're all cowards. You shun me because of my language, but you have zero integrity. I know nothing about Brendan Dilley at all. But I commend him for calling a spade of spade, at least in this case, because there does tend to be this weird urge that some people have, and I do see it on both sides, where the guy you support ends up doing something that's like, that goes against everything they claim to believe,

that goes against everything you like, right? And then their supporters, for whatever reason, don't want to stop supporting them. So they make excuses or they stay silent. We need to live in reality. Okay, you need to acknowledge when someone that you admired turned out to be a piece of crap. And to be honest, I always thought that about Bannon anyway.

Now, Larry, another person on X, says, has he offered any explanation for this? and he posted a headline from Dinesh D'Souza, who had posted a headline saying Steve Bannon was planning to produce a pro-Ebstein documentary on the day of financier's arrest. Now, of course, Bannon says his relationship with Epstein was strictly professional. He says this, I am a filmmaker and a TV host with decades of experience, interviewing controversial figures.

That's the only lens through which these private communications should be viewed. documentary filmmaker working over a period of time to secure 50 hours of interviews from a reclusive subject. So does documentary filmmaking require you to want to invoke the 25th Amendment against a president you're pretending to be loyal to? That's interesting. Adding to the film, which he says he plans to release later this year, he says that it will fully expose Epstein and destroy the very myths he created. I'm sure. I'm sure that's what's going to happen. And his spokesperson also said that Bannon sought only to interrogate, oh, integrate, only to integrate himself with Epstein for the documentary. Yeah, yeah, Michael Wolf too.

Like, you know, giving, being super buddy, buddy, super friendly, giving Epstein advice on how to, you know, maneuver certain issues. You're doing that for, for your craft. for the work that you do, for your journalism, for your documentary, I'm sure, I'm sure. Anyway, but the documents show that Pete at least entertained those perks with, you know, being friends with Epstein, Bannon did, and Bannon's spokesperson couldn't provide receipts to prove otherwise. So the lies, like, aren't good at this point. I don't think most people are buying it, but if this was all about the film, why did Epstein introduce you to all the political figures he knew because you wanted to advise right-wing foreign politicians.

And why would you also purposely paint yourself as a bad guy helping a pedophiles image just for the sake of a documentary? So here's another exchange. Steve Bannon starts this one out. Need the list from the attorney today. Let me know how Oliver goes. Then he gets a response. Okay. Thanks. Appreciate it. As numbers go, I guess my. my 38 is still worse than your 1.7. And here's the relevant part. He says, we need to work around your 38. First, we need to push back on the lies, then crush the pedotrafficking narrative,

then rebuild your image as philanthropist, which is what a lot of shady rich people do in order to launder their image. They engage in philanthropy. So good job, Bannon. I guess that's what you need to do in order to put out a documentary. You need to give a pedophile advice on how to beat the pedotrafficking narrative. Anyway, these men are sick, and I'm glad that now we have some evidence that we can show, provide that evidence to double down on what a lot of us already knew.

Bannon is gross. Bandit is not to be trusted. and he literally stole from the very people who trusted him most to invest in a border wall. Sad. We've got a housing crisis and new reporting indicates that it's gotten a lot worse. I want to give you the details on that when we come back from the break. Don't miss it. Everyone, welcome to our final social break of the day.

So I'm going to read all of our remaining super chats first. Michael Cotevili says publicly Israel hates cutter. But privately, they have no problem when Netanyahu. whose cabinet gets paid by Cutter, Netanyahu then fired the investigators. I'm not surprised by that at all. Dav Mill says, as 18th century Italian criminologist noted on crime and punishment, disarming the law abiding only empowers criminals. I'm not giving away my gun at this point. Sorry, but let's move on. Let's go to CDN North Dog Dad, who says, I don't have a problem with people having dual citizens.

But why do Ted Cruz, Pam Bondi, Lindsay Graham, Randy Fine, and others in Congress and in government, I'm assuming you mean, have Israeli passports? I don't think they should. I don't think that public servants should be dual citizens of any country. Just want to be clear. Eddie James says, oh, I already read that. Oh, such a good comment. I kind of want to read it again, but I won't. It's the one where, you know, Eddie says, we should allow Democrats to do constructive feedback on Democratic candidates, which is how they get better. Okay, let's move over to our members. Welcome to our new members, Marjorie.

Thank you so much for joining. We also have Tom, user, with a bunch of letters and numbers, which I'm not going to repeat. Bowie Bear, Joe Glazer, 6993. Thank you so much for joining. We're going to have a super fun bonus episode today. I'm really looking forward to it. Let's read some member comments. We've got Adam Christman,

Chrisman, yeah, Adam Christman, who's been a member for 18 months. The war will be another attempt at distracting us from the Epstein files. We're still going to cover the Epstein files. Don't you worry. Joe says still don't want Tucker as president, but it would be nice for the next president to really mean America first and no more senseless wars. Could not agree with you more. I would like to actually have a president who's interested in representing

the American people. That would be great. Allie writes in and says, the president will decide. The president is unfit. Who's in charge here? I love your outrage. I feel it every day. Tom from Ah says, so Israel's going to pay for this the way Ukraine is expected to? Oh, no, no. I mean, with Ukraine, there's like the pretend they're going to pay. And look, I think some of the money we've given them was in the form of loans. When it comes to Israel, there's no like, they drop the pretense completely. Like, no, we just, we take out more debt to give them money to carry out atrocities. That's, that's how this game is played. Patrick says, and with a son entering the military, oh my gosh, entering the military at this time truly scares the issue out of me. I am so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm really, really sorry. a while since we've talked about housing. So why don't I give you the latest? Existing housing, people that own their homes, we're going to keep them wealthy. We're going to keep those prices up. We're not going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody that didn't work very hard can buy a home.

We're going to make it easier to buy. We're going to get interest rates down. But I want to protect the people that for the first time of their lives feel good about themselves. They feel like they've, you know, that they're wealthy people. And I want them to understand it. You know, there's so much talk about, oh, we're going to drive housing prices down. I don't want to drive housing prices down.

I want to drive housing prices up. That would probably be a bad idea, considering the fact that housing is so expensive that people are unable to buy a home. So how does this make any sense? Now, President Donald Trump recently stated that he wants housing prices to go up. in the middle of our already disastrous housing crisis. But according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors, they indicate that Trump's getting his wish because housing prices are now at a literal all-time high.

It is so expensive to buy a home that home sales have actually dropped significantly, but despite the fact that home sales have dropped, the price of housing continues to move upward. Now, using data from last month, the National Association of Realtors found that January 2026 housing prices hit a record high. Now, its chief economist says that the U.S. is stuck in what he refers to as a new housing crisis, as if the one we were already in wasn't bad enough. But let's get a little more specific here.

So in January, the sale of previously owned homes fell by 8%. Now, sales were 4.4% lower than January of 2025, specifically. That is the slowest pace since December of 2023 and the biggest monthly drop since February of 2022. But since there are less and less people attempting to purchase homes, we would all be under the assumption, right? That that obviously means that prices are going to come down. less demand. That's going to open up supply, right? No, not exactly.

Supply limited that housing prices, they just keep going up. They keep going up. The median price for a home sold in January was $396,800 up 0.9% year over year and the highest January price on record. So look, I mean, look, congratulations to Donald Trump. he actually succeeded in something. We've got higher housing prices in the middle of a housing crisis. Congratulations, America. But January's inventory was still up about three and a half percent year over year.

So Dr. Lawrence Yun, who is a chief economist over at the National Association of Realtors, stated that we are in, what we're experiencing right now is this so-called new housing prices. We don't need to dub it anything. It's the continuation of an already bad housing market. We don't have to say, ooh, it's a new housing crisis. But he says it's because Americans who want to buy a home are stuck. We've been in this position last year and the year before and the year before that. It's not a new housing crisis.

It's a continuation of a devastating housing crisis that our government has no interest in actually doing anything about. But he also argues that renters are stuck in a really bad place because since they can't buy a home, which is really the only vehicle to build wealth for a lot of Americans, they're stuck renting and they are unable to build what he refers to as housing wealth. But if you already own a home, you're probably doing real well, and it's very likely that you don't want housing prices to go down because that equity is pretty sweet. How sweet? Since January of 2020, a typical homeowner would have accumulated $130,500 in housing wealth,

meaning equity on their property. I don't care about the equity. I think that we should engage in a mass home building project because we desperately need inventory. But unfortunately, people get a little bit of wealth and they want to hold on to it for dear life and live in squalor basically right outside their door because people can't afford homes

and they live in tent encampments instead. I don't know how that's a society that people want to live in, but that is the society that we're living in right now. So the price to borrow has also come down a bit. You know, the Federal Reserve has been cutting interest rates. So the average 30-year mortgage rate came in at around 6% last month. A year ago, it was closer to 7%. But honestly, lowering interest rates is not enough. It's just not. We all know this. Giving people a little bit of money to make buying a home more affordable doesn't work. work because the heart of the issue here for the billionth time is that we don't have enough housing. We don't have enough housing. We just need to build more housing. It's a very simple answer,

but the execution is difficult because there are all sorts of money to interest, all sorts of people who own homes who don't want to build more housing. It'll lower the value of their home, temporarily if you ask me. But more importantly, look, I also understand this. There are people who live in like single family home neighborhoods. They don't like the idea of housing density. I also don't like the idea of housing density. I think that people who want to live in a single family home should have the right to do so. However, however, I also argue that there are certain corridors and certain places close to public transportation where you can definitely build like apartment buildings, or I should say like condos and things like that. That will definitely make sense. But I don't

I don't know. I just feel like there isn't a genuine will to do any of this. So let's go to Robert Armstrong of the Financial Times, who says all of these little gimmicks and tricks that we keep hearing from the government, it's not going to help our current housing market situation. He argued that one of the three things that need to happen for Americans to get relief, much higher incomes, ha, ha, he, he, that's, in the age of AI, I don't even know what that's going to look like. or if we're ever even going to have a world where people are paid appropriately for the work they do. But lower mortgage rates. And then he says much lower housing prices, this guy is an expert. We just need to build more homes. We just need to build more homes.

Like telling Americans, you just need to make more money is it's a choice. Now, time will tell what will come to pass. So how's the housing market looking these days? Well, if you're a renter, not great. Let's go to CBS, which did a report on this. I haven't watched this video yet, so I'm a little bit worried, but let's take a look. Here's a side of the times for you. Older Americans are increasingly on the lookout for a roommate, not because they want to relive their youth, but because housing costs are now so high, a roommate is the only way to make rent.

Here's Elaine Quijano. Alan Ferber shares a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in New York City with a roommate. At 87, escalating rent costs hurt. So the rents have gone way up along with that. It's gone insanely crazy. More than a million Americans, age 65 and over, lived with unrelated roommates in 2024, a 16% increase from 2019. If you didn't have a roommate, could Social Security, you think, cover all your expenses?

Really? I'm so furious right now. elderly Americans shouldn't have to look for a roommate in a panic so they can afford rent. I can't like this is our country right now is an embarrassment, not because of the people, but because of our leadership. It is an embarrassment. A million seniors are living with a roommate who isn't a relative because they can't afford rent. This is how far we've fallen, guys. This is insane. And when you dig even further into this data, the numbers are pretty bleak.

So in the 50 largest U.S. cities, the rent for a one-bedroom apartment climbed an average of 41% between 2020 and 2025. And that's according to lending tree. Meanwhile, the average American worker has less than $1,000 saved for retirement, according to a new report from the National Institute on Retirement Security. This is what our political leadership has accomplished in this country. Maybe a little less concern about what's right for Israel, a lot more concern for what's right for the American people. Because if we're going to borrow money, I think it makes more sense to borrow that money to construct more housing. But that's not what's happening. We are borrowing more money to give it to a foreign country to drop bombs on innocent people.

Congratulations, America. All right, let me do one more story before we move over to our bonus episode. Let's talk about affordability. President Trump and the Republicans in Congress, I think, have done a pretty good job of getting inflation down from 9% to 3%. But we've got to do more. And just telling the American people, everything swell, don't believe your own lying checkbooks is not going to get it. Wow, Republican Senator, John Kennedy, all of a sudden, concerned about affordability as we get closer and closer to the midterms. In fact, he is begging his own party to do more on the issue of

affordability, but he faces one big problem, and that problem is named President Donald Trump, who couldn't care less. So we'll get to him in just a moment, but before we do, a little more from Senator Kennedy. When moms and dads lie down to sleep at night and can't, they're not lying there worried about or thinking about whether a man can breastfeed. They're worried about the cost of living. What I would do if I were keen for a day, I would, in running the Senate, I'm not. I would bring through reconciliation if we have to, every single bill I could think of to lower the cost of living in America. John Thune is a good friend of mine. Only he can bring a bill to the Senate floor. I can't make him do it, but I have begged him pretty pleased with sugar on top

and a cherry to please bring bills to address the cost of living in America. Now, I haven't convinced him yet and time's running out, but I'm going to keep chasing him on that like he stole Christmas, man. Yeah, I don't really care about your cat fight with Thune. I want specifics on what kind of legislation you'd like to pass that would tackle affordability. No specificity at all, which signals to me, I'm really worried about the midterms. Let me give the appearance of being concerned about affordability. If you really want to do something, you should have drafted a bill and you should be specific about what that bill would achieve, how it would achieve it, and use the bully pulpit to apply pressure to your party to get a vote on that bill. Otherwise, this is nothing

but theater. Anyway, I'll continue, though. So here's a proposal that he has put together And look, this gives me a little bit of hope. He apparently worked with Elizabeth Warren on it. So maybe we'll get a little bit of specificity. Maybe it's something that we'll like. But I'm trying to get you guys to stop buying political theater as governance or politicians actually springing into action on your behalf. We need to see results. We need to see action. So let's hear what he has to say about that and judge whether the policy makes sense. We give, I don't know, billions, I think three to four billion dollars a year, maybe more, to the cities every year in America. They're called community development block grants. They come through HUD. This is free money, not a lot of strings attached. The cities can spend it out they want. What Elizabeth and I want to do is turn to the cities and say, here's the deal.

Every single city has to increase housing starts. every year by let's say 3%. I'd like to go 5%. Every year, you've got to increase housing starts. We don't care how you do it. We're not going to tell you how to do your job. Now, if you do that, we're going to reward you. We're going to give you extra CDBG money.

And you say, well, where's that money coming from? And then we tell them, well, here's the bad news. If you don't do it, you don't have to. But we're going to take away proportionally your CDBG money. I will allow it. I will allow it. I will allow it. No, no, no.

He like, okay, I'm actually impressed because he cut through the BS and actually tackled one of the main reasons why housing is unaffordable. We don't have enough housing. So I love the fact that he's proposing. Look, he needs to actually push for this legislative. to get a vote. I think this is a really good idea. I think it's a better use of our federal resources. We need to incentivize state and local governments to build more housing. And this could potentially work. I actually am really interested in hearing more about this policy. Anyway, both Kennedy and his

interviewer, Ben Shapiro, stated that Trump's policy of, you know, claiming that he wants to ban institutional investors from buying single family homes would not say. substantially lower prices. I actually agree. I don't, it might lower prices a little bit, but it's not the main issue when it comes to why housing is unaffordable. With that said, as we experience this housing shortage slash crisis, I do think that institutional investors should be banned from buying homes that we don't have enough of, at least temporarily there should be some sort of ban. But anyway, for the record, Kennedy isn't the only Senate Republican who's slamming his own party. When asked if his party is doing enough, Senator Tommy Tuberville, of all people,

said, are we doing enough? We're not doing anything. Everybody's working on getting elected. I appreciate your candor, Mr. Tuberville. I appreciate your candor. I mean, what's the point of getting you reelected if you have no interest in doing anything for the people, right? And as I've mentioned earlier, Trump has already made it abundantly clear that he has no interest in passing any more legislation in his second. term. He's already gotten what he wants. And those were massive tax cuts for himself, his buddies, and corporations. Bonus episode is next. We're going to have a lot of fun. Members only though, t-y-t.com slash join to become one. And we'll see you there.