The Young Turks - Oval Office Showdown

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

Trump & Vance Feud W/ Zelenskyy In Heated Oval Office Meeting. MAGA Furious At Pam Bondi For Epstein Files Nothingburger. Elie Honig Shreds Elon Musk’s “Flagrant” Conflict Of Interest. Hosts: Yasmin Khan, Cenk Uygur, Maz Jobrani 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 megaphone.fm/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. Bexie! Bexie! Bechee! Bechee! Drop it like it's a peace deal in Ukraine.

All right, Power Power Panel on the Young Turks, Jake Ugar, Yasmin Khan, Maz Jabrani, Yasmin's on Rebel headquarters, Maas is everywhere. Also on Rebel headquarters. By the way, killing it. Both of you guys are killing it on Rebel headquarters. Everybody check that out on YouTube. So this might be our first all-Muslim. power panel. So very, very powerful. At least we were Muslims at some point in our lives.

Okay, anyways, but we're not mainly in the news. Ukraine, Oval Office, and many other things are. That story is amazing and has a lot of twists and turns that a lot of folks don't know yet. A lot of breaking news on it that is super important. So let's go to that right away. Yes, take it away. Yeah, breaking news and one of our more ridiculous stories, but let's roll the tape first. You have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the fusion. God bless. You don't know that. God bless.

You don't know. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. Have you said thank you once? There's a lot of times. No, in this entire meeting, you said thank you. We gave you military equipment and you met up brave, but they had to use our military. If you didn't have our military equipment, if you didn't have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks and what if they what if anything what if the bomb drops on your head

right now okay what have they broken this is going to be great television i will say that all right so as you can see that was a joint press conference with president donald trump vice president jadey vans and ukrainian president wottimer zolenski things got a little out of hand today and the negotiations between Ukraine and the U.S. have collapsed at least for the time being. We have more video to show you, but Jank, what do you make of this? This is crazy. Yeah, so we got to get you the details, which are just coming in now, because what happened before the meeting, it turns out, is the most critical part and what probably led to the blow up in the meeting. We're asking you in the live chat, who's at fault here, Zelensky,

or Trump and Vance, that's a little complicated in my opinion. I think there's plenty of blame on both sides. And I don't say that in a both-side-ism kind of way. I think that as you'll see here in the commentary, I think Zelensky did one thing to trigger all this, but ultimately, especially when you find out what happened before the meeting, the blame's gonna shift over the folks who are trying to get something out of Ukraine that doesn't make any sense, and that's totally wrong. So I think it is Trump and Vance ultimately, but let's take you through the twist and turns first.

Yes, back to you. Okay, so yeah, we do have some details, but it's still a developing story. But in the exchange, it began whenever Trump asked if he was aligning or he was asked if he was aligning with either Ukraine or Russia too much. Trump argued that because he's trying to make a deal with both Russia and Ukraine, he's not aligning with either of them. And he just wants what's better for us here in the United States. J.D. Vance then, he jumped in on Trump's answer to bash President Joe Biden, don't know why that was relevant, saying that Biden was all talk and no action. But Trump's administration was doing the right thing by engaging in diplomacy, as he just saw in that clip. That was diplomacy that was happening. And then Zelensky jumped in on that statement. And he was, he started telling J.D. Vance that previous efforts at diplomacy between Ukraine and Russia resulted in Russia.

invading Ukraine in 2022, and he asked, what would be different this time? And that is when things really started to go off the rails. Let's take a look. I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country. Yes, but Mr. President, Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.

You should be thanking the president for trying to bring it into this conflict. Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have? I have been to come once. I've actually watched and seen the stories. And I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. Do you disagree that you've had problems bringing people into your military? And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent?

the destruction of your country. Okay, so then Zelensky replied to all of that by suggesting that Russia could possibly threaten the United States in the future before along, which Trump did not like. Here's that. During the war, everybody has problems. Even you, but you have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the fusion. God bless. You don't know that.

God bless, God bless, you will not have the war. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you. Because you're no position to dictate that. Remember this. You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel.

We're going to feel very good. We're going to feel very good and very strong. You're right now not in a very good position. You've allowed yourself to be in a very bad position and he's happens to be right about it. From the very beginning of the war. You're not in a good position. You don't have the good position. cards right now. With us, you start having cars. Right now you're playing cards. You're playing

you're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country. That's back to you. Far more than a lot of people said they should have. Oh, that's giving me a headache. But afterwards, you know, they all shook hands and everybody started to get along a lot better. Just kidding, that's not what happened at all. Here's more. You think that if you will speak very loudly about the war, you can-

He's not speaking loudly. He's not speaking loudly. Your country is in big trouble. Can I ask. No, no, you've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble. I know. I know.

You're not winning this. I- I- know. You have a damn good chance. of coming out okay because of us. Mr. President, we are staying in our country, staying strong from the very beginning of the war. We've been alone. And we are thankful. I said, thanks.

You haven't been allowed. You haven't been allowed. We gave you, this stupid president, $350 billion. You voted for your president. You gave you military equipment. And you met a brave, but they had to use our military. If you didn't have our military equipment, you invited me to have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.

in two weeks. In three days, I heard it from Putin in three days. This is something in two weeks. Of course, yes. It's going to be a very hard thing to do business like this. I'll tell you, just say thank you. I said it a little bit of time. Except that there are disagreements and let's go litigate those disagreements rather

than trying to fight it out in the American media when you're wrong. Okay, so all of it finally ended when a reporter asked one final question. of the three gentlemen there and asked what would happen if Russia and Ukraine did sign a ceasefire agreement, but then Russia went on to violate it. But Trump was like, don't talk about my boy Putin like that. Things got extra heated. Here's that. What if the bomb drops on your head right now, okay? Why did they break it?

I don't know, they broke it with Biden because Biden they didn't respect him. They didn't respect Obama. They respect me. You might have broken deals with Obama and Bush. and Bush, and he might have broken him with Biden. He did, maybe. Maybe he didn't. I don't know what happened, but he didn't break him with me. He wants to make a deal. I don't know if you can make a deal. The problem is, I've empowered you to be a tough guy. And I don't think he'd be a tough guy without the United States. And your

people are very brave. But you're either going to make a deal or we're out. And if we're out, you'll fight it out. I don't think it's going to be pretty, but you'll fight it out. But you don't have the cards. But once we sign that deal, you're in a much better position. But you're not acting at all thankful. And that's not a nice thing. I'll be honest, that's not a nice thing. All right, I think we've seen enough.

What do you think? What's this negotiation? This is going to be great television. I will say that. So there was supposed to be another joint conference after that, later later that day. But the White House has canceled it, as you can imagine. Trump also issued the following statement on truth social. It said this is a statement from President Donald J. Trump.

We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. It's amazing what comes through and comes out through emotion. And I have determined that President Zelensky is not ready for peace if America is involved. Because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don't want advantage, I want peace. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for peace.

Go to your room, you can come back when you're ready to talk. But now that we've shown you the whole dramatic situation, the whole confrontation, we should note that according to a report by Fox News, tensions were already high going into this meeting. They report, according to sources close to Zelensky, tempers had flared even before the event began. The Ukrainian president was apparently presented with a mineral for security agreement by the Trump administration prior to the press event, but the deal included no security guarantees to protect Ukraine from another Russian invasion. Zelensky had warned repeatedly ahead of his trip to Washington, D.C., that in order to reach

a mineral agreement, Kyiv needed the security assurances. Even so, he angered Trump in advance by rejecting the deal, a source said. And then John Hudson tweeted that the Trump administration is considering ending all ongoing shipments of military aid to Ukraine in response to Zelensky's remarks in the Oval Office on Friday and his perceived intransigence in the peace process per senior administration official. This is complicated because we know that these highly diplomatic negotiations and, you know, I guess it feels weird calling this diplomacy because it was so undiplomatic, but that's what this is, right? So whenever you have these, these big world global conflicts, geopolitical conflicts that involve millions and millions of people,

as Trump pointed out, everything also feels so fickle, right? It's so big, but also so fickle, so easily breakable. And I am worried that just because Zelensky lost his temper a little bit, or appeared ungrateful in the eyes of Trump in Vance, that millions and millions of people could indeed suffer for it. So, Jenk, what do you make of all this? So I'm gonna say what I think, Zelensky did wrong and then Trump in Vance, but understand that the mineral rights are what's causing all of this. And understand that the top mineral we're talking about is lithium. That's what goes into Tesla's batteries. So that's the curveball here. Elon somehow got involved in this mess. And now we can't get to a negotiated piece that we all want because now there's

a third actor involved, America slash all of Elon Musk corporations saying, no, I want a piece of action. Where the hell did you come from? And why are you making this harder? Okay, so I'll get back to that. So in terms of what Zelensky did wrong, look, I watched the whole thing. You got 40 minutes in the beginning, things are, you know, are going relatively okay. Then where did it start to go wrong, it was Zelensky asking Vance a question. Now, normally they're answering the reporter's questions and Zelensky asked a question of Vance that did challenge him. Now, it wasn't rude, but it was challenging, right? So he didn't call him any names, he didn't say the things that Trump and Vance said that you just saw with your own eyes. But Zelensky started

that interaction. Okay, then from then on, J.D. Vance took apparently great offense to that and then just started insulting him and Ukraine and the war effort, and then it devolved and you saw the rest. Okay, so you could say, hey, if you're Zelensky and you're coming hat in hand and we've given them, we've assigned $183 billion to go there. We've already spent $140 billion. A little bit complicated because the weapons do go there, but there are older weapons. The money's actually going to defense contractors in America to get new weapons for us to keep. But but 140 billion of weapons kind of has already gone to Ukraine. So and also assistance outside of weapons.

So as we're giving this to Ukraine, yeah, of course we're hoping that they're that they're grateful for it, et cetera, et cetera. But now to be fair to Zelensky, he has said that he's grateful for it and thanks the American people and the government. I don't know, 200 times, 2,000 times. So Vance is making it seem like he's never done it. And I guess he caught feelings because Zelensky asked him a question and he thought that that was disrespectful. Give us your goddamn minerals. We're not going to give you any security guarantees. And how dare you disrespect this?

So now when you get to the fault of Vance and Trump, guys, I'm not like other people. And I think you all know that in a lot of ways. But what I mean by that is I mind that mess a lot less than I mind the substance. Right? If we had that mess of a conflict in the Oval Office, everybody was like, a gas, you know, the diplomacy is working out. Well, kind of maybe, but it really depends on the substance and the result. So if you got that kind of weird chatting match, we don't expect it is unprecedented in our lifetimes where the president yells at one of our allies in the Oval Office with cameras in there, but maybe chalk it up to transparency.

Okay, that's a really generous take on it. But when you get to the substance, No, look at all these things that Trump and Vance in that confrontation are just giving away leverage to Russia in everything they say. They say you don't have enough manpower and you've got problems on the front lines. When you bring people into your country, you're just doing a propaganda tour. Like he's the bad guy. And then like Russia's not doing propaganda. The Ukrainians are doing propaganda. Trump said over and over again, you're not in a good position.

You don't have any cards. You might create World War III. You're not winning. So guys, why that's so important, no matter what side of the political divisions you are here in the U.S., I hope that all of us want to get to peace. When you are trying to get a deal with the other side, that is yes, Russia, Russia is the other side here, you want to show as much strength on your side as possible. I mean, we're in good shape, Ukraine's in good shape.

We can keep this war going forever. We don't want to. We want to get to a settlement, but we're really strong. That's how you create enough leverage so you can get to a compromise and a deal and to peace. That should be your goal. But every piece of leverage you give away, oh, Ukraine's in terrible shape, it's not winning, it doesn't have the right cards, it doesn't have enough manpower, and we might take its money away. Then Russia's gonna go, why do I want a deal?

I don't want a deal, I want everything now, I want to keep the land, I might want more land. I don't even know if I want peace, if it turns out I'm gonna be able to take this country when America withdraws. So if you're trying to get the peace, Trump and Vance could not have played it worse. But that gets the heart of it, which is that I don't think they're trying to get the piece. Look, I gave Trump credit for, hey, listen, you want to drive towards peace? Great. Did I give Biden discredit for not trying to get the peace at all between Ukraine and Russia? I didn't see any effort at all.

It seemed like they were thrilled to be draining Russian resources at the expense of the Ukrainian people and our budget, right? So I'm if Trump was actually driving towards peace, even if it was a painful piece, which is what all peace negotiations are at the end and deals are, no problem. But if we're not trying to drive towards peace and we're just trying to get a whole bunch of minerals from them, then then again, it's not a negotiation and it isn't diplomacy, it's just a robbery. And I'll remind you guys of this if you missed the earlier show. The way that this all took a giant curveball when Trump started calling Zelensky a dictator and pretending that Ukraine invaded Russia instead of the other way around, it's because all of a sudden the Treasury, our Treasury Secretary went to Ukraine, went and met with Zelensky and passed him a piece of paper that said, we want $500 billion of your mental rights in Ukraine for free.

And Zelensky's like, what? And he's like, sign it out, sign it now. Seleski's like, I'm not going to sign it now. This gives away the natural resources of my people. And you guys, you know, again, have given 140 billion. I really appreciate it, but why am I giving you back 500 billion? And who am I giving it to? It doesn't even clarify. Because they, guys, this is super important for you to understand it,

especially if you're in the right wing, or if you watch mainstream media, you've listened to this propaganda your whole life. When we rob the natural resource of another country, like whether it's, you know, in the Middle East for oil, or in this case, not mineral. in Ukraine. We don't get it. The American taxpayers don't get any of it. American corporations get it. And in this case, the corporation that needs lithium the most is Tesla. So this is a dirty deal the whole way through. And that's why Zelensky seemed to have a short temper. I think he did

have a short temper. But the reason is because he probably didn't even want this deal. They come in, they go minerals for security. He's like, God damn it, where the hell did this mineral thing come from? But okay, fine, I'll pay the ransom. And then they come in and they go, switch your route, just kidding. No security guarantees, but give us the minerals anyway. As I've told you before, it reminds me of the big Lubowski, where they say, we want some money anyway, Lobowski. Well, that doesn't make any sense.

Is this a deal or is it not a deal? And what happened to negotiating with Russia? We've totally forgotten that. Instead, we're badgering and bashing and negotiating against our own ally. And now I see the right wing saying Ukraine's not an ally. But guys, I mean, I don't know what top seat every world you're living in, where Ukraine is not an ally, but what, Russia is? And what Ukraine is an aggressor? When we all saw with our own eyes, Russia invade them? Yes, there's nuance in Russia wanting to not have NATO encroach on their borders, but there's no nuance that Russia definitely invaded Ukraine.

Ukraine is definitely our ally. We took away their nukes and said, if you give your nukes away after the Soviet Union dissolved, we will protect. to you, how is that not our ally? So right now, the cause of peace has been set back greatly. And the number one culprit is the thing that the media is barely talking about, which is that our random insistence that American corporations get the natural resource of Ukraine in the middle of these negotiations, an issue that had not arisen at all before. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for $5.00 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants.

Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Well, you make some good points. one of the things you said that actually then you also elaborated on which which talks to the fact that you said you're not as worried about what was happening the decorum and all that stuff but then you also came back and said that the problem is the there's a negotiation going on and the strategy and basically they revealed their cards to Putin I mean Putin now has a much higher upper hand on this situation because he knows that America does not have Ukraine's back and they did it in front of cameras.

It's kind of like when Vito Corleone tells Sonny, don't talk about the family business in front of other people, and that's what they were doing here. So that's the danger in doing what they just did. It felt like J.D. Vance was this obsequious son who was angry at his brother and started yelling. And he didn't respect Dad. And Zelensky's going, I respect Dad.

What do you mean I don't respect? You don't respect Dad. You're going to feel the pain, too. We're not going to feel the pain. I mean, it was just like, what is going on? And part of what I thought he was saying when he said, you're going to feel the pain. It's not just that Russia may start a war with America, but also the results of these types of things where you end up with people fleeing war-torn areas, people fleeing countries that have been attacked. And then, you know, here we are as Americans going, we don't want anyone else coming to America from these other countries.

And yet we're involved in causing chaos in these countries so that those people will want to come. here. And it, and it goes back to your point also of the natural resources and how this is colonialism. This is modern colonialism. This is what we're doing. And we're getting in cahoots with Putin. And what I watched was that Trump and J.D. Vance are Russian assets. That's what I saw. Yeah, I think that it, look, I don't want to get into whether they're Russian assets. I really, I genuinely don't know what Trump has with Putin, if they have deals or not. Guys, right now, as you're going to find out later in the program with the other stories we're doing, there's just brazen bribery going on.

There's a guy who runs a crypto company that just gave Trump's meme coin or whatever the F they're doing, $75 million. They're just literally bribing the president. And now Elon Musk is saying, oh, we're going to cancel Verizon's deal with the FAA. Okay, okay, you're doing $2.4 billion in cuts. No, no, no, we're not cutting. We're reallocating to wear Starlink. That's your company.

That's crazy. That's crazy. The robbery has begun, and the mineral in Ukraine is part of that robbery. So, like, so guys, here, here, one more thing. One of our members wrote in something, the same exact thing that I was thinking, and he put it well. Eclectic miscellaneous on t.com says, so now we're yelling at world leaders in the Oval Office. Okay, Trump, now do Netanyahu. See, I think that contrast is really interesting because everybody can see, and by the way,

the right wing was also aggrieved about this. When Netanyahu comes in, Trump is the nicest guy in the world. Oh, Mr. Brian Dennis, oh, great to see you. He literally put in the chair for him like he was his butler or something. Trump did for Netanyahu. So kit gloves for Netanyahu and allies that are on your team, whatever team that is, Team America, but Team Trump and Team Jared Kushner, et cetera, and whatever moronic plans you have for waterfront property in Gaza, all of a sudden, everybody's hunky-dory.

To your point, Maas, I don't know why Trump treats Putin like he's his best friend. But at the end there, we showed you a piece of it, he made Putin look like the victim. He's like, oh, poor poor, me and Vlad, we've been through so much. We went through the Russia, Russia hoax, and poor Bladimir and how he was treated by Biden and all this stuff. No, we don't say that guy now has invaded how many places, Georgia, Ukraine, Crimea. It goes on and on and on, and he's encroaching against our allies, and you make it seem like he's the victim, but Netanyahu is like the world's greatest guy. So I don't know who's funneling money to Trump or Elon Musk or to all these guys, but

if you think that Trump and those guys don't care about their own personal well-being and their finances, you're unbelievably naive. So get to the American people's business. The American people don't care about your stupid company deals and whatever deals you have with Putin or Netanyahu or whoever's putting money into your stupid meme coin. We wanted peace and yelling in like this in the Oval Office while you take away one piece of leverage from us after another, after another, after another, doesn't get you closer to peace. It gets you much, much further away from peace. And so look, if it last thing for me, if you want to get to say, okay, you know what,

we're tired of paying for this, we can debate that. And I think that's a legitimate conversation. And I would say, hey, look, Europe keeps saying this is an existential threat. They've given about the same amount we have maybe a little bit more than us. They're a little bit, European Union is a little bit larger than us. Their GDP is a little bit lower than us. But you know, I can make an argument for the European Union carrying two thirds of the load or three quarters of the load here in this war. But that's that's about the American taxpayers and we're not having that conversation instead we're having a random conversation about lithium rights.

This is crazy and this is not how you take care of the American people or world peace. Yeah, I think what stood out to me in that interaction was first of all, it felt like a waste of energy because now, Now that's going to be the conversation, especially in right wing circles. I think we can expect to see a lot of conversations and discussions, especially on social media about who was in the right, who lacked decorum, who was behaving in a way that they shouldn't have been lacking, I've been acting. But at the end of the day, and Trump was the one who actually pointed this out, millions and millions of lives are at stake here.

Millions and millions of lives are going to be affected in one way or another. So whatever these tantrums are that these big strong men are having, that these rich power men are having, they need to get over it. Whatever ego bruising they've endured here, they need to get over it because people are actually going to suffer on the ground, you know? And here are just these people who are in a very cozy, comfortable office. And I'm not saying that Zelensky lives this way normally, because usually I know he is very involved in the war effort back home. But, you know, it's easy for Trump to say something like, you know, you're, you're a little ungrateful. So you need to be careful because otherwise millions and millions

of wives are going to be affected. Coming from somebody like Trump, that is so rich because he makes decisions impulsively, it's theme that do impact millions and millions of people right here at home and around the world, right? He has no problem doing that. He has no sense of responsibility to these people apart from the fact that he needs their loyalty. And so he's willing to throw them a bone every once in a while. So this whole interaction feels more like it's just going to overwhelm the headlines and overtake the discussion regarding what happens as far as the United States relationship to Ukraine and to Russia. And our role in whether or not we continue funding Ukraine and their defense against Russia or whatever. And again, coming from Trump, you know,

this is the guy who just said that he wants to make the Gaza Strip into some kind of luxury resort. He tweeted this weird AI video, which featured him, you know, just on making a new Riviera in the Gaza strip with a big Trump statue there. Like, that's that guy. He's not worried about the millions of lives of the Ukrainian people or the Russian people. And then to Jenks point, yeah, this is all about resources. This is all about Lithium. This is all about Elon Musk and his businesses. That's why we're involved in Greenland. That's why we're involved in Panama. That's the only reason why we're involved geopolitically anywhere in the world. And that is the case throughout history. The United States loves to pretend that, you know, we go on these crusades around the

world protecting democracy here, but we're very selective over which conflicts we choose to get involved in. And there's a reason why some of these conflicts are deemed to be more important than others, because some of them we have something to get out of and the other ones we just don't. It's not worth it for us to get involved, regardless of how much we posture about, you know, what is the right thing to do and we're the world superheroes and we're the ones who are going or protect all these people. That's just the PR aspect of things. That is just the politicization of what is actually going on.

And what's actually going on is going on is business and the business of warfare. And what that means is, as Maas put it, colonization, colonialism. And by the way, one of the thing to keep in mind, Zelensky was jet lagged. Now I don't know if you guys have ever flown to the other side of the world and got into a meeting, but you're grumpy. And so he's got a little more excuse to act out the way he did than little diaper wearing J.D. Vance. Not just grumpy, but he's fighting a war at home. Trump is. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, I wake up for this. Why am I doing? Yeah, that's my impression. Look, I think that he also was offended that they made it seem like the, you know, the Ukrainian people fighting back against Russia was no big deal. and that it was all America, America.

But I don't really, guys, whether they were offended, jetlight, et cetera, I don't think that, I think there's some chance Zelensky was so frustrated by the fake pretenses with which they brought him here that he might have, you know, halfway consciously or subconsciously blown up this so-called deal because he didn't want it. Because he doesn't want it. I mean, if you don't have security guarantees, why is he giving away hundreds of people? billions of dollars in natural resource of his country. But, and to be fair, to Zelensky, if I was him, I wouldn't have taken that deal.

That's crazy. I mean, they tell you here, come on, we're gonna give you security guarantees if we give us the minerals. He gets here and he's like, they're like, ah, just kidding. Now we go to the old office and take the deal, we want your minerals and we're not giving you any security guarantees. Well, what does he get out of that? I'd have blown up the deal too.

So Trump had said before, I don't if you saw this, maybe a couple days ago, he said, yes, You'll have security because we'll be in Ukraine working, you know, with you for these minerals. So he was, you know, using the pretense that since we'll have our companies there, you'll be secure. But we all know that's not how it goes. If an actual thing were to happen where there'd be further attacks on Russia, all you do is you pull out your American employees and you leave them there without security guarantees like you were saying, Jenks. So absolutely, he's in the right to not take the deal. Yeah. All right, guys, when we take the break, I'm going to read a lot of your comments. So if you're whether you're a member or using super chat, and I want to thank new members,

mainframe militia, Susan Kosanetti. Thank you for joining by hitting the join button below the video on YouTube. We appreciate it. And when we come back, a lot of different opinions, I'm going to read it all and respond. We'll be right back. All right on TYT, Jank, Yaz and Mazz with you guys. By the way, if you want to join to become a member, you could hit the join button below, but you could also go to t.com where annual membership gets you two months off. All right, yes, what's the next story? you're on you know it's not all right roll the tape

you said last week that you have the Epstein files on your desk is when can we see them and what's taking so long to release them I do Jesse there are well over this will make you sick 200 victims we have to make sure that their identity is protected other than that I think tomorrow Jesse a breaking news right now, you're going to see some Epstein information being released by my office. All right. Well, today is tomorrow. And after hyping up the release of the long-awaited Jeffrey Epstein files and then delivering a whole lot of nothing, conservatives MAGA people are upset at U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and she's beginning to feel the full force of the MAGA wrath.

Jank, I know you guys covered this a little bit on the show yesterday. Are you surprised at things have only gotten worse for Pam Bondi? I'm not at all surprised. So MAGA's turning on Trump super hard on this one. And so that's going to be really interesting to watch. We've got some news on that. I had a little bit of an exchange with Elon Musk about this on X. We'll get to that as well.

But right now, this does not look good for the Trump administration. And I have a prediction on this coming up in a minute as well. Let's get more of the details. All right. Well, I'm sure you do. So here are the details. This is reporting from the independent says the information released on Thursday includes an evidence list, white logs, Epstein's contact book, and a redacted masseuse list featuring over 250 entries, much of which was already public. Some notable new information did prop up, however, including that Epstein had Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, actor Alec Baldwin, and Supermodel Naomi Campbell in his list of phone contacts. But there was, more information that for some reason was not released. Can't imagine what that reason was, at least according to the letter,

Bondi sent FBI Director Cash Patel yesterday. It said Bondi suggested in a letter Thursday to FBI Director Cash Patel that more records were recently discovered. She ordered the FBI to hand over the full and complete Epstein files to her by Friday morning and directed Patel conduct an immediate investigation into why her order to the FBI to turn over all the documents was not followed. And the shocker, the deadline for this was 8 a.m. on Friday, February 28th, that is today.

Today is Friday, February 28th, and it's way after 8 a.m. And we still have nothing. The documents were never handed over. And MAGA is angry, like they're furious, specifically at Pam Bondi. Not only because, again, most of the information that was released was already available under the Biden administration, but because the Trump administration pulled this little PR stunt regarding the whole thing. Here's a tweet from Laurel Lumer, Trump's BFF, and she says, there is one person who takes the blame for what happened today. It's Pam Bondi. I think she should

resign. She went on Fox News and said the files were on her desk. Then she went on Fox News last night and said we would have files today. She's a total liar. Just face it. That's not all she said. She had more. She said, I'm told the organizers of the event at the White House yesterday have told all of the influencers involved to post selfie videos denying Pam Bondi's involvement and to claim they all had no idea they were getting binders. Everything is so scripted. Pam is the one who handed them the binders and strutted into the meeting to make a big deal about the binders. How can they say she wasn't involved now? Are we resorting to lying now? I don't know. Is that what we're doing? Are we just lying? now? Is that what they're doing? But MAGA isn't the only one. They're not just questioning Pam Bondi here. They're also starting to question Trump's leadership. So this is going all the way up to the top. Barstool Sports co-founder Dave Portnoy had this to say in a tweet yesterday. If I'm going to be fair, these questions need to be asked today. Why is the release of the Epstein list always a en show? What's the point of booting out illegals and criminals

while somehow becoming a safe haven for the Tate brothers. Why is crypto in the toilet if Trump is crypto king? How far does Tesla stock have to crash before Elon gets back to work? Those are all wonderful questions and we would all like those answers. Elon Musk did quickly come to Bondi's defense, however, and he tried to sue things over in the MAGA world. He said this, people don't understand that you don't get instant power here, which is funny, coming from Elon Musk. He said reposting and ex post by user Wall Street Mav that said that the attorney general is fighting a leftist culture within the DOJ and FBI and asked her critics to give her a chance. Imagine if you were suddenly appointed AG or head of the FBI.

You are just thrown on a ship with a hostile crew until you appoint some new crew members and figure out the ropes. You can't steer the ship effectively. It's literally impossible. Again, that is rich coming from the richest man in the world who was literally given the reins to the entire American government and he has used it since to just enrich himself in various ways. But Laura Lumer is back and she had another great point that she made. She tweeted one week ago, Pam Bondi said, the Epstein files are on my desk. Now she's claiming the deep state set her up. What deep state? Trump is in office and all of his cabinet

members are bragging about how they fired the deep state. I'm confused. I was told we fired the deep state. Those are excellent points coming from Laura Lumer. And it's interesting because it speaks directly to a lot of the cognitive dissonance that we see coming out of the right where they say one thing and then they just don't identify it whenever it comes from Trump, right? They're mad about this thing. But whenever the Trump administration or Republicans do the thing that they're mad about. They don't see it or they don't care about it or they make excuses for it. And there are various examples of that. Various examples of that that we're going to cover later on in this very show. Maas, what do you make of all of this? What do you think is going to come out of

this? Are we ever going to see the Epstein list? And are we ever going to see Trump implicated in any of this? Well, you're right. When you're reading a Laura Lumer tweet and you're nodding in agreement. The world is just confusing. And Portnoy also made some good points. You know, I blame Geraldo Rivera because if you remember, no, you might be too young for this. I know Jake remembers. Heraldo promised us that he was going to go into Al Capone's secret vault and find a bunch of things. And all he found was some rocks and empty bottles. That was he didn't find anything. And so that's what these people, it feels like the right has been waiting for the Epstein files to come out because it's going to reveal this big thing and how the deep

state has been eating the blood of children and, you know, all these sexual things and all that other stuff. And I'm not saying that that stuff wasn't going on with the sexual stuff that was going on with Epstein, but the right, I think, feels like, you know, it's going to take down the Clintons and the Obamas and the, everything. everyone else has been involved in getting us to where we are, this deep state. And the irony is, you know, you look at the travel logs and the flight logs, and I think Trump even shows up in them. So then they somehow explain it away.

And in my opinion, it's just amazing how passionate they are about finding Epstein's, like, what's in the Epstein files. And we're in a world now where like with P. Diddy and Epstein and all this other There's nothing's going to shock us. So there's nothing shocking. And you know what's shocking is that you guys are so stupid that you think that this is what we should be concentrating on when the guy that you voted for said he's going to bring the price of eggs down. And he sold the presidency to the richest dude in the world who's telling you, just like you said, Yasmin, that, oh, you know, it's hard. It's hard getting started here.

You don't have control right away. and he's sitting there cutting all these jobs, cutting all these agencies that actually are needed in America and around the world, and they're now just obsessed with the Epstein files. I wish they would put a little more energy into maybe just reflecting upon themselves and going, wait a minute, I voted for this guy and this is what he's doing. It's like all the Palestinians that had the, or all the Arabs that had the awakening when the Gaza video came out and he wanted to make Gaza a resort,

They go, oh, I voted for that guy, or the Venezuelan lady who was with the video where she was like, Trump is the best. And then he got rid of the temporary protection status. He's like, Trump lied to us. So I think Trump lied to us is a T-shirt that should be printed and worn by all these people. And pretty soon, everyone that voted for him will be wearing that shirt. I want to get into the two different issues here. One is Epstein and the other is the MAGA reaction because I think they're both important. And one of the questions I want to address is deep state, who's deep state?

So hold out thought because that's what that one's important. So first on the substance of Epstein. So they released names that we are. already knew. And remember, those names don't necessarily mean they did it. There's, that's just Epstein's contact list on his phone. So he has like, a lot of women on that list. They didn't necessarily get massages at all, right? So my point there is that was a big giant nothing burger. Now that leads to part of what I want to talk about with the MAGA reaction, which is that in, in my experience in the first term, if Trump did this, they would have been like, oh yeah, of course, the names, that's all we needed.

And the fact that we don't even know anything about the names, it's beautiful. Trump is the greatest. Trump is a demigod. This is, no one should criticize him. He's, he got Epstein, right? That's, that's my experience with what happened in the Trump first term, right? What's interesting is this time around, they're like, wait, that's a nothing burger. Remember, Trump doesn't give a damn what the left thinks, right?

Trump doesn't care what the mainstream media thinks. But it's his own base going, what the hell is this? You lied to us. This isn't the Epstein file. You think we're stupid? And so that leads the prediction number one. Guys, they're going to get caught. And I don't mean caught by us. It's easy for us to rant about it, etc. And it's easy for us to be right. But that doesn't mean you're going to convince the voters that you need to win the next election. Remember, he won the popular vote, right? So you've got to convince Trump voters that he's on the wrong path. And my point has has been throughout, you'd be surprised.

A lot of those Trump voters have a way more open mind, not all of them, not all of them, maybe not even a majority of them, but a lot of them have more of an open mind than they did in his first term, partly because they're listening and watching different media. So here they are, they get tested on Epstein, a thing that, I mean, right or wrong, you're right, that they care a lot about. They cared a ton about this. And so when Pam Bondi said, it's on my desk and I'm gonna give it to you, and then she him this nonsense and thought she could trick them, they were super pissed.

Having Trump's voters super pissed to Trump is great for the country, not because ha ha, we got Trump, but because it means that some of them, a lot of them, are thinking for themselves. So that's an enormous development. So prediction number one is, this is just the beginning. They're gonna get caught over and over and over again, not just by us, but by their own voters. I'm gonna get to prediction number two in a second. Now, to the Epstein substance, so the names are nothing, we learn nothing from this at all. The files, she said exist and were on her desk.

Now she's trying to blame the Southern District of New York, and she said, it's okay, I'm gonna go get him from the FBI, Cash Patel is in charge of the FBI. So I'm sure the biggest Trump loyalist there is, you know, when he has the damning Epstein files, he's gonna turn it over, but he hasn't, he hasn't turned over today. So what do we think is happening? Well, in order to determine that, you have to think about, well, What happened to have seen? So number one, did he commit suicide?

Well, on the Young Turks, the day that the news broke, I said on the air, guys, if the camera in the hallway of that where he was being held in that prison is working, then he committed suicide, as they say. Because you'll be able to see people going in and out. And if there's nobody going in or out and he was in his cell by himself, okay, suicide. I said, if the camera is magically not working, then it wasn't a suicide. They definitely killed him, right? And the reason I tell you about that prediction is not, ha, ha, yeah, I was right. No, it's to show you that I'm not Monday morning quarterbacking this. I'm on tape saying if the camera isn't working, then clearly he didn't commit suicide.

And then it turned out not only was a camera not working, the two guards happened to be off at the same time. They happened to take his cellmate out of the cell right before. Come on. I mean, if you were going to murder them, those are the first three steps you would do. And step number four is going in murder. So then that leads to the inexorable question, which is going to make a lot of people uncomfortable. What is a force that is powerful enough to kill someone inside a maximum security United States prison and get away with it? And have no one talk, whether it's a Biden administration or a Trump administration, about how the camera is out and the guards are off

and all these obvious, obvious things we could all see with our own eyes. And then all of a sudden the files, oh, golly, gee, where are the files? I can't find out. What is the one force on earth that has both of our parties completely under their control?

Are you sure it's our deep state? That's the problem? Because our deep state's filled with a bunch of clownish bureaucrats. Okay, you guys think that there's some sort of like genius boogeyman in there. I haven't seen it yet. Right? But there is another deep state from another country that is super powerful and super effective and isn't just occupying different countries, but perhaps here as well. So if somebody's got a better explanation, I'd like to hear it. But my, that leads to prediction number two. They ain't going to find those files. Those files are going to, we're not on Pan Bondi's desk. They thought they could trick their own voters. Those files all of a sudden, it will be announced. that they are suddenly missing.

Oh, golly, gee, we were gonna hand over the Epstein files. But my boss's boss is called and it turns out there's a force we can't mess with. So you will never, ever see those files. Or they'll say, oh, they were somebody that was in the deep state got rid of them earlier. Wink. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we'll see if I'm right. But but I think that if they keep going like this, they're messing with an issue to, again, to Maz's point, an issue their base cares a lot about.

And they think they could just trick them. I don't think they can't. Real quick, guys, I know because we're running out of time. Look, I wrote about the same thing on Twitter. I talked about who's strong enough to do this. I don't know anyone else who is. And then Elon Musk wrote back in that comment and said, my guess is that he did. meaning he committed suicide, that Epstein committed suicide, but the suicide would have been stopped

if the guards were there or the camera was functional, so it was likely assisted. He may have been promised something in exchange for killing himself, that's what I'm curious about. And I wrote back, when someone comes to assist you in killing yourself in prison, you usually didn't ask for that assistance. I said on the young church when the news broke, if the camera was in the hallway where it's working, it's a suicide. If it wasn't, they killed him and it wasn't working. Part of the reason I read you that is because, and you can go look at that tweet yourself online, you'll see a lot of different comments, but it appears that the most common comment was the one graphic 13 here.

Of people who are right wingers, Trump fans, Elon Musk fans saying this, God, I hate agreeing with you, okay? because they care about this and they have eyes and ears, they saw Epstein didn't commit suicide, Pam Bondi didn't have the files, they never gave them over, they've been lying the whole time, which is definitely leading them to ask what the hell is going on here. Yeah, I think that's somehow the more comforting aspect of this story, for me at least, is that there is a lot of unity as far as the way that people are starting to look at the world, you know, we're starting to realize that, you know, in this story and even in the last story, that, you know, there are things that are binding and that are common between more people

than we realize because, you know what, it's been really exhausting the last 10 years at least, let's say, just being so divided as a country. And especially here on the left, and I always say that one of the curses of being a progressive is that you tend to be ahead of the curve on certain things and you're just waiting for people to catch up. And I don't mean that in like an arrogant way. I'm just saying that we tend to be pushing more for things as the name would suggest, right? So at this point, we are starting to see that a lot of people are starting to realize that a lot of the things that the Trump administration is fighting for and a lot of the things that they are actually doing isn't helping people and it isn't delivering the things that people

want to them. And for whatever reason, a lot of Trump supporters really care a lot about these Epstein files. They want to see them. They want to see all the Democrats so they can implicate with the files so they can feel justified and say, look, see, I told you, I told you this is what's going to happen. I told you all the Democrats were evil. I told you they were all doing things that they weren't supposed to be doing. They want that moment for themselves. They've waited years for that kind of a release and they're getting antsy and they want it. They were promised it and they're not going to get it. And I feel bad for them, but I feel like that's a wake up call that they need to experience. And of course, whatever Republicans happen to be

on that list as well. They're just going to say, oh, no, they were just there investigating. They were just trying to stop all the bad stuff from happening. You know, whatever it is that they need to tell themselves to make themselves feel better and to make themselves feel as if they're on the right side of things. Personally, I kind of don't care about the list, right? I don't think that a whole lot is going to come from it. I don't think that once all these names get released, we're going to be like, oh, my God,

I can't believe this person was on the list. I don't think that anything meaningful is going to come from it. I would love to know more about Jeffrey Epstein and his death and, you know, who who was behind it and all these things, what he was hiding. Like that story is interesting and valid to me. But again, with the Trump administration currently in power, I'm a little nervous about, you know, like maybe if all this stuff does get released, what is going to come from it? I'm not sure. Maybe something if we're being optimistic, but at this point, I really just can't see it. All right.

We've got to take a break here. I'm going to read more of your comments during the break. And when we come back, the out and out corruption has begun, where they're now just canceling contracts and giving him to Elon Musk. It's unbelievable. So we'll have that to you when we return. Jank, Yaz, and Maz, make sure you're checking Yaz and Maas out on Rebel Headquarters,

which is another TYT channel on YouTube. All right, yes. All right, last story. Let's roll the tape. This is as flagrant as conflicts of interest. Get, you're talking about Elon Musk, who now works for the federal government in some capacity, recommending that the federal government give a $2 billion contract to a private company

that he owned. All right, so yesterday, CNN's senior legal analyst, Eli Honig, spoke out against Elon Musk and his push to have the federal aviation administration or the FAA scrap a $2.4 billion contract with Verizon. Jank, do you have any idea who might get that contract instead? Just coincidentally, total coincidence. It might be Starlink owned by Tesla. But now the right wing thinks, oh, no, he's going to do it for free. Well, I got bad news for you on that front in a little bit. Okay, yeah. So you're absolutely. right. It's looking like Starlink is going to get that $2.4 billion contract instead of Verizon.

So in 2023, Verizon was awarded this $2.4 billion contract by the federal government. And under that contract, Verizon would replace an aging technology called the FAA Enterprise Network Services Program or FENZ. FENZ is what the FAA and air traffic control offices use to communicate with each other. And outside reviews have concluded that Fence is indeed in desperate need of repair and updates. And so this is where Elon Musk comes in because he is nothing, if not an opportunist, all in the name of making things great for America again. The Washington Post reports that there are already SpaceX employees who work for inside the FAA, and they have decided that Starlink should get Verizon's contract.

This is reporting from the Washington Post says the FAA was scheduled to make a final decision on whether to start paying Verizon for the contract next month, said one of two people briefed on the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But instead, must team determine the job should go to Starlink, the person said. Several senior FAA officials have refused to sign paperwork authorizing the switch, according to the person who has been briefed on the internal deliberations and resulting fallout. So Musk team is now seeking help from the acting administrator of the agency, Trump appointee, Chris Rochelow, the transportation secretary, Sean P. Duffy. So in fact, the FAA has already started using Starlink. Surprise, surprise. This is from CNN.

That's earlier this week, the FAA confirmed that it is testing three Starlink terminals. Musk said those terminals were sent to the FAA at no cost to the agency or taxpayers at this time. And he added that the shipment of terminals was done on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity. Okay, so Musk has now spoken out about this whole situation on X, his own social media platform. Earlier this week, this is what he posted. He said the Verizon system is not working. And so is putting air travelers at serious risk. And then he doubled down later by writing yesterday, to be clear here, the Verizon communication system to air traffic control is breaking down very rapidly.

The FAA assessment is single digit months to catastrophic failure, putting air traveler safety at serious risk. And then Musk issued a correction to those posts writing this. Correction, the ancient system that is rapidly declining in capability was made L3 Harris. The new system that is not yet operational is from Verizon. So this story is crazy. As Jenk was teasing earlier in the show, this is all about corruption. This is all about streamlining. And this is almost like, Elon Musk is really, I referred to him in one of my Rebel HQ videos as Pinky and the brain are running the country, Trump and Elon Musk.

Elon Musk is trying to take over the world. Every day he wakes up and he's like, what am I going to do today? Try to take over the world. He wants everything underneath him, under some kind of, under his umbrella of influence, right? This is the FAA. And this is the thing that we've seen happening several times, especially with this administration. But it happens throughout the history of government. They say, look, this is something that's bad.

They don't do anything to help it get better. Even in the case where this administration is the one that's in charge, they're saying, look, the government can't handle this type of responsibility. The government isn't equipped to deal with something like this. Again, even though the government is in charge, it's a Trump administration. So what they do is they just let it get worse and worse and worse. Then it becomes a PR nightmare. And then people say, look how bad it is.

we don't want that. We have to go private. Let's just give it to Elon Musk. So now Elon Musk is just like racking up all these government contracts. I don't know. Jenk, what do you have to say about this? Okay, so let's break this down. So Musk says I investigated it. I'm Doge expert here and I came in and I realized the problem with the FAA is my competitor. I mean, Verizon. Verizon is a giant problem. They shouldn't have that $2.4 billion contract. Two minutes later, fine, it's not I made that up. Or I'm such an expert, but I didn't know that Verizon didn't have the old contract. They have the new contract.

Boy, that gives me a lot of confidence that you know what's going on. So conveniently, you attack the people with the new contract and then had to walk it back later and say, oops, it wasn't them. So Verizon hasn't done anything wrong. In fact, that contract was signed in 2023. They were about to start. These things take forever, right? So now if we stop that contract, which is what the FAA is considering doing right now as we speak,

then it'll take a long time for Starlink to get in. Even if they went with Starlink and even if Starlink was better, you're going to delay it a lot. Now that gets to the second point. How do you know Starlink is better? So when I talk about this online, there's a bunch of right wingers who are like, oh, no, no, of course, Verizon's terrible. How do you know how good Verizon's communication system is in regards to the FAA? Did you analyze that?

Like, where's that assumption coming from? And then they say Starlink is better. Oh, come on. How do you know Starlink is better than Verizon? Are you an expert in federal aviation? That's absurd. That's insane. So, and by the way, guys, I've said this many times in the show.

Starlink is an amazing company. So I've got no beat with Starlink and they've got contracts with the government. I don't begrudge them that, et cetera. But now you're going to tell me that without even looking at what they're doing, because Elon didn't even know which company it was, he comes in and goes, it's wrong, cancel that $2.4 billion contract. And his team just conveniently says, give it to Elon's company. No, no, that's not just conflict of interest is not, doesn't do that justice.

That's out and out corruption. Even if somehow they miraculously proved overnight to the FAA that they were wrong about this two year process where they picked this company and they convinced them in one day or a couple of days that Starlink is better and they should go junk this entire process, junk all the money they already spent on it, which by the way, isn't cost savings at all. It actually adds costs, but just switch it over to Elon Musk company. Guys, I still would say no. That's insane, that's insane.

That's like me going into a Bernie Sanders administration and going, oh, they have a contract with CNN, that's for $2 billion. No, CNN is terrible. I'm guessing, CNN might be terrible, but I'm guessing and giving it to TYT. Everyone would normally have the reaction of like, really? And you decided that as soon as you came in. But that was the right thing to do. And then he throws this thing out there, like I already gave Starlink for free.

And then you look at right wing on social media. He's doing it for free, he's doing it for free. No, he's not guys. It's a trick. He's letting them test Starlink for free. If I was gonna get a $2 billion contract, I'd let you test things do for free. Of course, of course. They're gonna just transfer the money to Elon Musk.

Why return on investment? The brother spent $270 million on Donald Trump's campaign. so he wants his investment returned and getting a 2.4 billion contract, let alone all the other things they're about to do that alone would pay for his investment in bribing, I mean contributing to Donald Trump, Maz. Yeah, I think it's time for MAGA to realize that Trump is making Elon great again. It's mega because he, to your point, he paid that money. I believe that was either actually said or it was implied when.

Elon was saying, hey, I can put this $2.70 million into your campaign. And if you win, you will avoid going to prison. And I think that that probably played out somehow. And it's now at this point where, you know, Donald Trump's mind is going, well, you're going to bet profit. I'm going to, we're all profiting. He didn't divest himself. You know, he was making money from his hotels in this first presidency. And Elon, if he were to do this right, he would either have to get out of Doge and say, I'm not involved with the government. And now I want to, you know, try and challenge Verizon and show you why we're better and then get the contract or divest from Starlink and be a government person.

But he is not doing that. He is just sitting here right in front of our eyes, just, you know, bribing his way through stuff, making profits. And I don't understand. I really don't understand why MAGA has not rebelled against this. Because once again, the promise was day one, your life is going to get better. It's going to get things are going to get cheaper. Inflation is going to go down.

And it's the opposite. We just saw that consumer confidence is dropped. The stock market has been dropping. And egg prices have been rising. Other prices have been rising. Inflation has gotten worse. So at what point do these people not realize that the grift is on? The grift is on.

been on from day one because that's who they voted for a grifter and now he's just found all these other grifters and you got all these tech bros and we got an oligarchy and they're just running rough shot all over this and and and it's just it's not even that they're doing it as much as it's what you were saying these right wing people that just keep defending the guy I go why do you keep defending the guy it are you are you like is he your your your brother is he your uncle or grandfather, no. They just can't admit that they're wrong in handing the country over to these thieves. And that's where we're at. So, well, Ma's not just as the stock market down, but Elon Musk's, his own Tesla stocks are down pretty significantly. I don't know if that

is an indicator that something good. It might be happening, at least with consumer confidence in him and his companies that he really isn't running right now. We actually did see some evidence of that in David Portnoy's tweet from the other story that we covered earlier on the show. But to answer your question, Maz, I think one of the reasons why people just let him do things like this is because of his branding, right? His whole brand is that he is an American genius. He is an American innovator, even though he's not American at all. And people really need to believe that there are people out there in the world who are rich and powerful and are looking out for them, right?

And anything that somebody like Elon Musk or even Donald Trump does that they don't really understand, they say, you know what, they're smarter than me because they have more money than me. And they must know something that I don't. They must know what they're doing and I don't get it. But eventually all this good stuff that they're doing is going to trickle down all the way to me and my family and I'm going to feel happy and satisfied and safe here in the United States of America like I'm supposed to feel. And they're just waiting to feel better and they're putting all of their energy into these people who are not looking out for them at all.

And I fear that they are going to be very disappointed eventually if, if, that's a big if, if they ever realized that they were duped by these people. Okay, last things here, guys. Just so you know, Eli or Eli Honig on CNN is correct. when you give yourself a government contract when you're inside the government. That is illegal. That's not just, oh, that was a slight violation of etiquette. In 2020 and 2021, 10 such prosecutions, 2020, 12 prosecutions, 2019, 13 prosecutions. So this is a thing that you can go to prison for.

Now they're just doing it out in the open. But will there be any consequences? Well, the people who usually check in on that are the inspector generals. The only problem is the very first thing they did when the Trump team got in charge was they fired all the inspector generals. The people who would be the only ones who could watch the watchers, they got rid of them first. Not a good sign, not at all a good sign. By the way, Elon is a U.S. citizen, but the rest of it holds. All right, when we come back, Joe Biden's team admits they were gaslighting the country.

That's a hell of a story. Then Bill Burr versus Ben Shapiro. So a lot more to come. Make sure you're checking out Yasman Khan and Maz Jabrani on Rebel headquarters. And check out Mazza's comedy, mazrabani.com, right? Yes, I'm on tour. People can find me on tour at Mazurbriny.com. Yeah, love it.

All right, and modern context podcast for Yaz as well. All right, guys, much love. We'll see you in a minute. Thank you. I'm sorry. I don't know.