The Young Turks - Threatening War Crimes - July 16, 2026

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

A stunning 100 House Democrats have voted to cut U.S. aid to Israel, marking one of the biggest congressional breaks with longstanding bipartisan policy as the war continues to reshape American politics. Meanwhile, a Republican congressman is threatening to turn Iran into “a parking lot” if Tehran refuses to negotiate with Donald Trump, while reports claim Iran warned JD Vance that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were abusing their access to sensitive negotiations. Thanks to today's sponsors: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at shopify.com/tyt Get 40% OFF the Ground News Vantage Plan when you sign up at ground.news/tyt Stay informed without the media spin at ground.news/tyt Visit www.sleep.me/tyt to get up to $255 off your Chilipad 2.0 with code TYT Use less data, get paid by switching to Noble Mobile: https://go.tyt.com/getnoble Posting a job is easy at upwork.com Check out new podcast series by searching for Future Hindsight wherever you get podcasts Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ryan Grim 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. The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus. Starring Emmy Rossum, Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice. And as their lives start to intertwine, the line between. right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original

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Turk's Jake Huger, my guest hosts today. Ryan Grimm, fun for everybody. Welcome to the show, brother. How you doing? Fun for the whole family. I'm doing good, how you doing? Good, good, good. We're featured in that book back there.

We've got people. And not only that, that's up on shop t. T.Y.com, go purchase it now. Get your copy. They're going fast. Oh yeah. They're gone almost. I need you to panic.

Shop dyat.com. All right. Seriously guys, we got a big show ahead for you guys, including a couple of stories from Dropside News, including the Iranians warning J.D. Vance that Kushner and Whitkoff are self-dealing and using the peace negotiations and make money for themselves. Jesus, man, no bounds at all. And new plans for concentration camps in Gaza.

So that's also a little bit later in the program, potentially attacking Cuba and how and why are we going to attack Cuba and the devastation we're already causing there. But my favorite story of the day is later in the program where Pete Hagsdeth makes a case for gender affirming therapy. I did not have that on my bingo card. That is wild. Okay, so that's later in the show. And oh, by the way, and tonight at 9 o'clock special coverage on TYT, I will be covering

Trump's nonsense speech to the nation tonight. I will be doing play-by-play coverage and a summary afterwards. And I think that there might be some surprise in that speech, but we'll see. I have my own theory on that. We'll do that later in the program. But let's start with the Iran War. So Donald Trump has an idea for how to take a disastrous war in Iran and make it much, much worse. So what's being considered now, not only a much heightened full out war against Iran again, but ground troops.

Ryan, let me get your quick thoughts on how disastrous this could be. Quick thought is it's completely and utterly insane. It was a terrible idea when the US had its full magazine of ammunition and defenses and aircraft carrier groups a couple months ago. Didn't work then. How we could do it in a much weakened state is like just the fantasy of a sundowning lunatic, frankly. Yeah, well, there's a couple of lunatics at play here, including Benjamin Nanyahu, of course. So I want to talk about the practical effects of the war in a minute, because that's a really important point. But first, find out the facts of what's happening today, so you get a sense of why we're so concerned that it's going to get to that level. So we go to the Wall Street Journal first.

They explained Trump hosted a situation room meeting Tuesday evening to discuss the potential seizure of Karg Island, which, to be honest, sounds like a pirate island. It's here from the pirates of the Caribbean, Caribbean. Anyways, and other territory along the Strait of Hormuz using U.S. troops as well as the potential bombing of a tunnel complex. Oh, oh, more tunnels. At Pick Axe Mountain, curiously with an English name in Iran, and nuclear links side at the U.S. has yet to target. Oh, great, we have something we have left to target in Iran. Okay, the president hasn't made a final decision on next steps.

And the war official said, and he insists privately and publicly that he would prefer resolving his dispute with Iran diplomatically. I want to come back to that with Ryan, because I don't believe that that's true. Or I'm not sure that it's true. That's why I want to have the conversation. But more from Wall Street Journal. But the diplomatic gridlock has prompted Trump to ask aides for new escalatory options that could force Iran to surrender or at least promise to stop attacking commercial vessels in the street. All right, let's pause here because we're going to get the ground troops in a minute.

But Ryan, two things there. Number one, is it, do we think that it's Israel that's gotten these crazy thoughts into his head or is he just genuinely this dumb? Is it like defense contractors with their tentacles inside the White House? Because this idea that if they escalate the war, Iran would be more likely to surrender is totally detached from reality. Like it would be one thing to say, hey, we could obliterate Iran. Well, we could, we could launch nukes, we could do a lot of damage. That's not detached from reality. It's terrible, but not detached from reality.

saying that Iran's about to surrender is the ravings of a lunatic mind. So is it propaganda aimed at us or does he really believe it and where is this coming from? I mean, I hate to rely on kind of Trump's psychology as the explanation for anything because usually there are more kind of structural or geopolitical forces at work. But in this case, the only thing that makes any sense is Trump's inability to take the L, like in order for him to do what is the smartest thing for the United States and for, for him and really in this moment is to acknowledge that he lost this war to Iran. And you know, he could he can lie about it, but like the reality of it would be, Iran is finishing the conflict in control of the Strait of Hormuz and with sanctions getting lifted and with the Iranian Republic like reentering the global community.

And that to him is just apparently too much of an embarrassment. He's too ashamed to allow that to happen. So he's doing entirely self-destructive, self-defeating things, like continuing with the fighting with no rationale for why that would lead to anything else except it's Netanyahu like in the way that it just kicks the can down the road. It's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not remotely a solution, but it just, but at least, you know, Netanyahu at least is buying himself like another week of not going to prison.

All Trump is buying is like another. week of not losing the war, even though he's going to have to acknowledge at some point that that's what happened. Yeah, look, before we even get to losing the war, like, I know I hate trying to analyze the psychology of Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn't even know what Donald Trump thinks until he comes out of his mouth, but do you think there's like the essence of that question is, is it propaganda for us so that like whatever remains of the Maga cult that watches Fox News really believes that Iran's on the edge of surrender and hence gives popular support to this war,

which seems impossible, is that about 20% right now? Or does he really believe this propaganda, whether it comes from the Israelis or anyone else, that he might be able to get Iran to surrender by hitting them harder? Yeah, what he's probably convinced himself of is that if he keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, maybe something will happen. I mean, that's kind of his like strategy in life. Like you don't, you don't know exactly what's going to happen. But if you just stay alive long enough, you stay in the fight day to day, something crazy could happen. So, you know, they're hitting the south of Iran, the Belok region.

And to his mind, well, maybe the, the Belok separatists will like that the CIA has been trying to like, you know, really like, you know, fluff up for decades. Maybe they, maybe they'll rise up, you know, maybe the Kurds will come in from the north. maybe, maybe this, maybe that just a wing and a prayer that that something will change. If you just keep putting coins into the slot machine, because if, you know, once you walk out of the casino, like, then it's done. You've lost. And so I think as long as he's got somebody's money to play with, he's like what he's thinking is he's just going to keep playing and hope he hits some kind of jackpot that nobody sees coming. Yeah, and look, I hope that he really still believes in diplomacy as even a potential option. I can't tell if all of that is fake or not. We'll come back to

that too, but let me tell you more about the developments here. So Warhawks keep saying that we should take Carg Island. I don't know if they add I'm AT at the end of each of those sentences, but earlier this week, Trump said that other people would send troops to Carg Island. What? Yeah, Panama's about to send troops. Anyway, Let's listen it. A ground campaign in a limited capacity. I don't want to say that either. But I would say no if I thought it was appropriate.

Sometimes you need a ground campaign, but we have other people that will do the ground campaign for us. But we already hit Cargalland, as you know, twice. Even three times, I said hit everything but the oil. Just leave that little area from 25 yards out. Leave that little area. Don't touch the oil. Because I don't want that in terms of the, world economy. It's a, you know, it's a chunk of the world economy. So we haven't hit that at some point

we could. But I think it's unlikely. As far as taking it is concerned, if we degrade them far enough and deep enough back, I would do that. Real quick, let's talk about something that holds way too many businesses back. You've got a great idea, you've got momentum, but you're stuck because you don't have the right person to execute on it. And hiring, full-time recruiting takes weeks, weeks you don't have. Here's a tip. You don't have to do it all yourself. Upwork is a one-stop platform to find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations, and more. Upwork helps grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent across more than 125 categories so you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster, and scale support up or down without committing to full-time headcount.

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about that in a second. But apparently we also have a new target. This one also out of the Pirates of the Caribbean, Pickax Mountain. And apparently that's potentially a nuclear site, but we don't know that at all. And we can't see any entrances to it. So it might be totally in our imagination, but we have to be really concerned about it and maybe bomb it. So Wall Street Journal explains pickax is a heavily fortified underground site consisting of tunnels built into granite, some 300 feet to 475 feet beneath the surface of a mountain peak, far deeper

the Iran's nuclear enrichment sites at Natanz and Fordo, which the US and Israel bombed last summer. Okay, like I said, they explained we can't even see the interests to it. So it might or might not exist. Okay, great, I'm glad we're bombing phantom things now, even if it exists and we can't get to it, what are we gonna do? Well, that's the problem, we're leading to ground troops here. So first of all, we've been bombing around for five straight days now. This is a very curious definition of a ceasefire. Iranian officials say US strikes killed more than 35 people and wounded more than 300 others.

But one of the things we're deeply worried about is our casualties because of these developments. Attempting to seize Karg Island, Iran's main oil export hub would harm the country's oil industry. but it also would put American forces directly in harm's way. Troops would be easy targets for Iranian missiles and drones, U.S. officials and analysts say. Now, I want to tell you something. The whole article is about like, oh, got to hit him and oh my God, I'm with my crumbull and blah, blah, blah. That was the third to last paragraph. Like, oh, by the way, this would greatly endanger our troops.

Now let me read you the very last paragraph of the article. Trump is also discussing ideas to occupy other islands along the street. to assist with shipping and to destroy heavily militarized territory with analysts pointing to Abu Musa, greater tomb, and lesser tomb. As the likeliest targets, US troops would also be vulnerable in those locations according to officials and analysts. Oh, so they would be vulnerable and we are definitely talking about ground troops. Okay, so Ryan, come back to you on whether this was always inevitable, you know, the whole peace

negotiations were they fake in the first place and some theories along those lines, including Anna has been saying for a while that they've been fake. I tend to think that they weren't utterly completely fake because the Israelis seem to have gotten mad for a minute and a half about it, right? But was this the plan all along to put in ground troops and just to restock during the ceasefire break? No, I think your point is a good one that if the talks were fake, they would not have required this like massive israeli campaign to try to undermine them they just would have

made a few protestations publicly but they wouldn't have really invested so heavily into into undermining these talks um i i don't think it's as uh i don't think it's as as well kind of calculated as people think it is i think it is what we see it as which is that trump and the united States miscalculated their power going into this war with Iran. Netanyahu in his in his February kind of little address that he gave to, you know, in this situation room privately to Trump and the rest of his war cabinet said, you know, we're going to kill the Ayatoll and all the top commanders. We're going to topple the government. We're going to lead an uprising. We are going, you know, we're going to, we're going to handle business. The CIA came back and said, yeah, they can probably

kill the Ayatollah and also assassinate a number of senior Iranian officials. But the idea that they're going to install a new government is fanciful. We don't assess that that's possible. Marco Rubio even called the entire assessment BS. Trump went ahead and did it anyway. And so I think like it's it really is that simple. Netanyahu told him this is what we're going to be able to do. And Trump said, let's go ahead and do it. And, Netanyahu and Trump were both wrong. Like they, they miscalculated the strength that they had and they underestimated how much ability the Iranian government had to survive these attacks.

And so now they're just, now they're just flailing. Yeah. Now they're just kind of playing for time. Yeah, so, but I would add a lot of nuance to that because I don't think Netanyahu was just wrong. So in fact, I think maybe he was lying for on purpose. for about three quarters of it. I agree with you that he was wrong about some things.

I think that he thought that regime change would be a little bit easier than this. And so his calculations about that were wrong. The Ahmadinejad ploy was ill-conceived. The Kurds didn't show up. So wrong about plenty of things. But overall, it's not like he was like, oh, he really thought that they couldn't close the Strait of Hormuz. or that the regime change would happen in a minute.

No, he was lying about all of that to try to trick Trump into the war. And then with Trump, was he just, is he like this dupe who's like one of the dumbest people in the country? Yes, on the other hand, he's also gotten hundreds of millions of dollars from the Israeli lobby. And God knows what other threats that Netanyahu has over him. So it feels like, they're like, you wanna lie to me? Good, I wanna believe the lies. Yeah, keep lying and I'll keep believing it.

because it's in our interest to go in this direction. But since Trump's a while, man, it makes it a little bit more difficult. But I wanna give you a last couple of videos here and then discuss how it goes with our ground troops and how all this, how does this movie end, right? First, let's go to Addison McDowell. He is an American official who is a terrible person. And he's proposed terrible ideas. Let's watch. Iran needs to understand something very clearly.

If you do not negotiate with the president and you continue to try to kill American troops, and build bombs and build missiles that you're going to use to attempt to kill Americans, we will turn you into a parking lot. I mean, Iran has no Navy. They cannot control the Strait of Hormuz. We're not going to let them. They need to understand who holds all the cards. They might try to push the envelope, but we're driving the mail truck and we'll run them over.

Well, stuff. All right, I like that. Yeah, I like that. We're going to roll them over. Yeah, okay, yeah. I like what you say. That's not the question. The question is it true?

Also, you really like what he said? You're gonna turn it in Iran into a parking lot? That means destroy everything there. Kill all the women and babies and children. I like what you said, help. Okay, all right, but it's not a movie when you go to take Carg Island. And another huge problem is that our guys are gonna get killed there. You don't like that as much, right?

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It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash t-y-t. Go to shopify.com slash t-y-t. That's shopify.com slash t-y-t. They want to settle so badly. They don't like what we're doing. And they do want to settle. We'll find out whether or not we settle with them or we just finish it off.

So much can go wrong. And it can all be so incredibly. And it's like, what are we, the Bernie Sanders of the DOD now? Just assuming we can write blank checks for everything. So, you know, it's like, I am a bluff old traditionalist in terms of my limited governmentness. And I don't just think that government can be abused and corrupted, you know, in the name of poor people like the socialists do. I also think that it can be corrupted in the name of blowing things up. Unfortunately, what the president could do is blow up his own legacy with these good intentions.

I believe he's in charge. I believe he has good intentions, but we don't even know who we're dealing with. When the president says Iran is coming to the table, who is he talking about exactly? Like someone who will be dead very soon, someone who hates the Ayatollah and wishes they were in charge and should be? And maybe like Jalen Brown has a Ph.D.? Like who exactly are we dealing with? talking about the people that are he's negotiating with. So even some Fox news anchors are like, bro, are you sure we know what we're doing?

And I love how she throws it. I mean, Trump's got beautiful intentions. And the real problem is Bernie Sanders, right? But it doesn't seem like we have a plan. So which brings me back to you, Ryan. So let's game this out. So if they go in this direction, which I think now they're exceedingly likely to, in fact, let's talk about that first.

I'll come to what happens with ground troops second. But at this point, I don't see that they're, what, they're gonna make a deal? The Iranians are barely at the table and we keep going and going, we're gonna kill you all. You wanna do a peace deal? We're gonna kill you all, you wanna do a peace deal? So like, we're so, you know, topsy-turvy, nobody can make sense of what we're saying. So do peace negotiations have any chance at all, or are we definitely going with this plan B? No, I think that peace negotiations still have a real chance just because of the structural forces pushing on the Trump administration.

Strategic Petroleum Reserve, you know, you're staring at the bottom of the barrel. Inventories around the world are way down. They need to get oil back into the global economy. And the Iranians are saying that the Houthis, the Ansar Allah, are going to close that Bob El-Mendab's trip. if their kind of electrical infrastructure is attacked in Iran. If you close both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, that takes it, that takes a cataclysmic economic collapse coming in September. That moves it up even even closer. Either way, we the US and kind of the Western governments don't have the room that they need

to push Iran in the first. So that that's why I think that they actually will have to reach a deal, not because they want to, but because they're going to have to. And putting troops on Carg Island, while Iran still has the capacity to launch drones at Carg Island, like, what are the troops going to do there? We've seen, we saw the Israelis in southern Lebanon getting hit with these like, you know, $50 drones that Hezbo is throwing at them. Iran has much more sophisticated drones. And if they're just blasting Carg Island, any troops there are just going to be complete sitting ducks.

It's just not a realistic scenario. Yeah, so I tend to think that the Karg Island things have bluff that they're going to go and try to put ground troops around the Strait of Hormuz and try to control the straight. And they keep talking about it up there too though. No, no, of course they'll get hit there too. So that's not going to help that much. But the Navy's not going in and out of the straight. Yeah. So the I think that that's kind of a head fake, but it doesn't matter really because

wherever you land your ground troops, you're going to have massive problems with the the drones, the mines, that actually being on the ground and exposed to guerrilla warfare, et cetera. So I diverge for me. I don't think that we're going to get to any kind of peace deal, not in the beginning at all. I think Trump, to your earlier point, is going to go, I don't know, all right, let me try this, let me try this. And one of the things he's going to try is ground troops and bombing them more. Everything he's saying right now, Ryan, indicates that He's frustrated, which he always is, and he wants to lash out. And that's what children do.

And he's always had the temperament of a spoiled child, right? So he thinks, and the more he says these over the top stupid things, I think the more he gets himself to believe it out. They're almost done, they're almost going to surrender. We have him. So I think he and Netanyahu are going to talk himself into attacking more. And then it's gonna go very disastrously. And then when it does, and then I'm curious what you think happens, like how bad can it go for our troops?

And then at that point, there's some chance that Dave Smith is right. He was on the show on Tuesday and he's like, we might just leave, like, in the middle of the night without even a deal and say, I don't know, somebody else opened up the straight of hor moves. So, but tell me about stage two and three. If I'm right and the peace negotiations aren't going to work, how badly does it go for us if we continue the war and how do we end it? And that's kind of the Joe Kent solution too.

He's been urging Trump to just say, just leave. Just like slowly be like Homer, just walk backwards into the hedges. Like hey, I was never here. And Iran would take that in the sense that they would then start cutting bilateral deals with every country. So they'd still have these US sanctions on them, but they'd have to figure out a way or these other countries have to figure out a way to work with them because they would need to work with Iran to get their, you know, get their oil flowing back through the Strait of Firmuz.

So and then that would be embarrassing for Trump too because now Iran would be striking all these bilateral deals, not just with, you know, let's say South Korea and France and UK and elsewhere, but also Oman, you know, the UAE, Qatar, Iraq, they'd be integrating themselves into a regional architecture of a new Middle East that would emerge and probably be arguably more stable without the U.S. being there. And then Israel would be left say, well, what's our role here? Who's our protector? So that by itself is not necessarily a solution for Trump either. But I think you're right that that's what he would prefer to do.

do and then just bomb them once a week, you know, forever. But, but then we get back to the physical limitations of the of the oil needed for the global economy. So yeah, that's why, that's why I keep going back to like, no, he's responsible for the global economy. And so he's going to have to get it flowing again. Yeah. No, ironically, you've convinced me of the opposite, right. Okay. So I think that this stock market is the number one problem. in this entire equation and it's not being talked about enough. Since those lunatics on Wall Street keep buying and the Dow is over 52,000 and oil is relatively down, right?

I think Trump thinks, oh, we solved it. No, no, the market's doing great. Oil is come down, like Obama again. Oh, it turns out there were no consequences. So I can't imagine Trump not doing something rash, especially as he's been pumped up by the Israelis, pumped up by the market, pumped up by the defense contractors. No, he's gonna do something wild and rash and terrible and likely put in ground troops. And then after we suffer terrible consequences, then likely he'll run.

That's my estimation of how it'll go. But right now, yeah, last thought on right. No, I mean, yeah, anything's possible. I think that, you know, he threw through a heroic effort at market manipulation and an absolute kind of dumping of the strategic petroleum reserve, which is not at all the purpose of the SPR, he has managed to keep the global economy from completely seizing up. It's terrible in Africa and Asia. It's bad. It's not good. But it's not catastrophically bad. But I don't think he can do that for much longer. And that's why I think that something has to give because he's he's going to run out of manipulative tricks to like, you know, move oil futures around when you're staring at the bottom of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. You're like,

oh, these barrels are empty. Like, that's a problem. Yeah. It's a huge problem. It's a huge Another huge problem is running out of defensive missiles. Because when you run out of defensive missiles, you have to withdraw your ships. Otherwise, you're a lunatic endangering aircraft carriers. So you know what? What's super lasting, Ryan? I always want to ask somebody, and you're the right guy to ask. You know, the USS Gerald Ford and how we found out recently that it turns out there

there was 200 service members injured on that ship. They said it was a problem in the laundry room. But did Iran hit the Ford or do you think it really was a problem in the laundry room? I feel like if they had hit it, we would have heard. You know, that many sailors have a lot of friends. That information can often like get out. Because those are, these are not, these are normal folks who are just like on the, aircraft carrier and they have a lot of friends that I think it would be very difficult to cover that up.

But, but, you know, it was clearly under intense pressure from the Iranians that led to the disaster. Like, they're not just having a random kind of underwear disaster on the, on the aircraft carrier. It has, it's whether it was hit or whether it was the result of, you know, how the difficult operating environment that they were in, it's in some ways the same thing. But obviously, not entirely. But the fact that they moved so far away from Iran is itself, you know, indicative of kind of how how weak these aircraft carrier groups are in the face of what is a, you know, a modest, you know, this is not, we're not talking about Russia or China here, talking about a country that's clearly it has a formidable military, but it's not a superpower.

And meanwhile, have you noticed like, we're still like, yeah, let's build more battleships. Let's build more aircraft carriers. Yet as soon as the war started, like they had, they had to run. They had to get as far away from the fight as possible. I was like, why would we, not that I'm telling the military how they need to be most effective, but like why would we just keep investing in that? Doesn't seem in this era that these are the things to do, but whatever. Ooh, ooh, I am an answer, professor.

I think it might be the corruption. They're all built in Maine. Okay, mostly. Interesting, yeah. We had to take out grand planner. Anyways, okay, when we come back, well, we got a little bit of a revolt in Congress against Israel. Didn't think I'd see that in my lifetime, but did the revolution succeed? We'll tell you when we come back.

All right, so I'm reading these blind. We go to t.yt.com members, Asimov profits, says Jenk taking edible before Trump speech. We want to see what Jenks high mind thinks people are saying. One of these days, I really should do that. That would be fun, a little dangerous. Your left tone says Ryan Grim fans should be called Reapers. That would be B-A. Oh, badass.

Reapers. Interesting. Okay. That was my high school nickname, Reaper. Oh, is that right? Okay. Well, I don't know. That one is so harsh that I even go.

Okay. Well, let's see what we sow. All right, Killjoy 100 says, look, they've threatened to let the Houthis shut down the straight and plan to hit regional targets. If we can't export oil, nobody can. So, yep, that's one of the issues. Shmoopy Dragon, which is a hilarious name, says, hi, Jank is my 44th birthday. And Brett very rudely interrupted my birthday shoutout on damage report this morning. Can I get a do-over shout-out?

Love you guys, even Brett. Okay, happy birthday. No, I'm kidding. Happy birthday, Shmoopie Dragon. Johnny Moot 51 says Trump calls on defense contractors to do magnets. President Donald Trump called on more defense contractors to partner with U.S. and do magnets. A request that comes after a venture capital firm linked to his son, Donald Trump Jr. took a stake in a rare earth magnet manufacturing startup.

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Mr. Anti-War has started endless wars. Mr. Drain the swamp has filled the swamp completely. R2 31 says having Ryan and Jenk is therapy. Thank you for saying that. That was a YouTube member. We'll be right back. On TYT, Jank and Ryan with you guys, but also Sass Bucket, super fun handle. And Danny Beck's 1988, both joined through t.com slash join.

We appreciate that and we do need it since we are besieged. Also thank you to Rosa Roscoe for gifting. YouTube membership. All right, let's go to the next story now. Oh my God, they took a vote on defunding Israel in Congress. That's already amazing. Second of all, it got 104 yes votes. Third of all, it lost. Okay, so I have a lot of facts on this. And it's really interesting, which side different Democrats came out on. But first, Ryan, is this progress or is this not nearly enough for both? Well, objectively, by definition, it's progress. There was a vote that was similar to this two years ago, and it got 37 votes. So just, I'm not a math, I'm not a mathematician,

but, you know, 104 is higher than 37. So like, there's, that's progress. However, it's not 218. You know, it's not, it's not the amount that you need. You know, Thomas Massey was on breaking points this morning and he said that Republicans, Republican leaders allowed this vote to happen, as they thought it would be good to create the dissension within the Democratic Party. That's that's their strategic or tactical outlook here. But, you know, they may, you know, that might be short-term thinking on their part. Because I don't think that an uprising like this is going to be contained to just one party. Yeah, I wonder about that. I'm very skeptical about that.

But let's, we're going to get to that because I want to give people that context and see all the backroom dealing that happened in this vote. in which side people went on. So you gotta know, we have a 10 year memorandum of understanding with Israel, which is absurd to begin with. We say we're gonna give them $38 billion unconditionally, no matter what they do in that 10 year stretch. Absurdily absurd, right? Five billion goes right away in terms of hard costs into their missile defense appropriations,

and then 3.3 million every year. So that's the 3.3 million that the Massey Amendment was trying to take away this year, okay? So now let's go to the hill to explain the rest. The amendment to the fiscal 2027 funding bill for the State Department and the national security would have prohibited funds from the bill from being used for Israel and reduced the foreign military financing program by $3.3 billion matching the amount that would be designated for Israel. So as we told you, the amendment failed.

It was 314 to 104, so 104 Americans and 314 Israelis in Congress as things stand now. Just over two years ago, as Ryan pointed out, only 37 House Democrats, mostly on the parties, as Politico calls it, hard left flank. That's where 60% of voters are for the whole country. And we appreciate the shoutout that 60% of the country is hard left. But okay, voted for a similar bill bid to crack down on US aid for Israel. This time, a much broader swath of Democrats came along, 103 of the 211 members voting, Wednesday plus another 10 who voted present. Of course, the 104th vote was Tom Massey on the Republican side.

So a bit of a seismic shift here and off course driven by what's happening in elections. So the vote came after months of contentious primary elections where progressive candidates toppled incumbent after incumbent by publicly issuing spending from pro-Israel groups and promising to recast America's relationship with the nation. That's where I was saying that the New York elections were the beginning of the revolution. So where Mamdani's victory was maybe the shot hurt around the world. The New York victories were Concord in Lexington, and then the Colorado victory has apparently clarified the thinking of some Democrats in Congress.

It's all a bit of a ruse because even half the people that voted to take away the funding, We're like, no, I hate this and I don't really want to vote for this. But given the current circumstances, which I love hearing that, because number one, I know they're frauds. All those guys have taken giant amounts of money from APEC. But the fact that you, the voters, put pressure on them is awesome and how a democracy is supposed to work. So let's give you more. Now we go to the sellouts. Wesley Bell is an Israeli asset inside of U.S. Congress.

He's taken $15 million from the Israeli Pax, and he used that to defeat Cory Bush. Cory Bush's crime, of course, was criticizing Israel. And although the Israeli lobby has no control, somehow they spent $15 million defeating her, and 18 million against Jamal Bowman and 16 to 32 million against Tom Massey, and now 50 million against Abdul El-Said, let alone the hatchet job they did on Grand Planner. But remember, they have no influence at all in Washington. That's why they got 314 votes. Anyway, so we go to the sellout Wesley Bell.

He says, today I vote against a slew of reckless amendments offered by Republicans, were they? Following a Trump doctrine that does nothing but destabilize the Middle East, weaken our allies, and withholds humanitarian aid from those who need it most. So that's deception. So he's making it sound like he's opposed to Trump and the Republicans. This is the part where I tell you, he voted with all of the Republicans except Massey. And it is a trap by the Republicans.

They're gonna get us to, you know, vote on popular issues, but I'm not gonna fall into that trap. I'm gonna stay on the unpopular side with my Republican friends who I'm pretending to oppose. Okay, whatever you say. Oh, I wonder what the connective tissue is between them. Oh, right, they all take A-PAC money. Okay, now we go to Akeem Jeffries. He has two different funny parts of this statement.

We told you on earlier shows this week about how he's like, oh, I'm doing it for humanitarian reasons. I would have fund the peace building. Yeah, is that what Israel's doing with the 3.3 billion? Are they building peace? Is that what we've seen in the last three years? Anyways, he said, quote, in my view, there are more decisive ways to achieve urgent change necessary when it comes to the far riding in Yahoo government.

Really? More decisive than taking away all their money? And why are you keeping it in your back pocket? If you have such a decisive way of changing their genocide and wars, why don't you use it now? And then he added, Republican leaders are desperately trying to weapon. an amendment, they do not support for nakedly partisan reasons. Weaponize it how? In general elections, and I want to ask you this, Ryan, because I get that some Republicans

and their infinite stupidity might have thought, let's introduce Massey's amendment even though we hate Massey, so some Democrats will, what, lose funding from their donors by voting against Israel? Or do they really, are they so deluded in Washington that they think that anti-Israel position is unpopular in elections? I think that they believe that any fighting is good. And actually among Democrats is good. And actually, you see the reverse sometimes when Republicans are fighting over some

kind of core issue that they're going back and forth over. You'll see a lot of kind of democratic, establishment types, you know, saying like, oh, I'm grabbing the popcorn. Like they just love it when Republicans are fighting. And they don't actually think through, Like actually, what if the fight that they're having is useful to them and they're going to emerge on the other side of it with a kind of reconstituted position that is stronger than the one that they had before? And but I think the Republicans, Republican leadership, Mike Johnson, the others are doing the same thing here.

They're not, they're not thinking about it. They're just like, oh, Democrats are going to yell at each other about Israel. And that'll, that's good. It's great when they're in disarray and they're fighting with each other. But for Wesley Bell, of course, like, there is no Republican opponent in his district in or in Cory Bush's district because she's running again, as I know your viewers know, and she might beat him on August 4th. Like she has very little money, but it's a race where she might get some outside support and everybody knows who she is. So money doesn't matter as much as it does in like a New York race where, you know, you're going from being. you know, a community organizer or a bartender or whatever else and running.

Like everybody knows who Cory Bush is. Everybody knows who Wesley Bell is. This is bad timing for Wesley Bell. I would say an APAC is coming in heavy in the St. Louis race. But yeah, like, I noticed as the vote was going on, there were three Republicans who had voted for the amendment. But by, but they switched their votes. And by the end, it was down to one. We don't know what happened there who voted and switched their votes.

But it is remarkable that even though the kind of right wing podcast world is a place where this debate is really happening in a serious way, it does not at all translate to Republicans either in the Senate or House. It's just, you know, they're still completely lockstep with Israel. Yeah, a couple of things here. So number one, I love it when people are not bright on the other side and make you. mistakes because they believe in dumbass conventional wisdom. So this conventional wisdom in DC is that all fighting is really bad within a party. Is it? Because Trump started a huge fight within the Republican Party and then he won two elections.

So- Three as he'll claim tonight. Yeah. So there's no evidence that fighting is bad. In reality, fighting, strong primaries, etc. produce generally speaking stronger candidates and more victories. It's just not empirically true at all, but they're like, oh no, it's great to be united behind the donor class.

The voters love that, do they? So I think what's gonna happen here, Ryan, is this is a huge own goal by the Republicans, because what they've done here is they've declared the Republican Party is definitively the corrupt anti-Israel party. They work for Israel, they don't work for America, their America last. And now I see on social media, three time Trump voters, former Republicans, we're not even talking about independence anymore that supported Trump. We're cutting into like significant Republican voters here going, wait, we're the America

last party? No, I'm out, I'm out, I'm gone. Ryan, something shocking has happened. Some of them are even saying, man, 104 Democrats or 103 Democrats, and Democrats, voted for America first, maybe I'll start considering the Democrats. Before the next track starts, have you ever wondered,

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We've got ancestors. Offer ends July 22nd. 26. Visit Ancestry.ca slash beginners for details. Terms apply. Yeah, Tucker Carlson, I know if you saw them today, he said the Democratic, Democratic voters have like saved America. It wasn't saying Democratic Party, but Democratic voters who pushed on this, you know, so furiously are, like he's looking at them and saying, good for you. Like you guys, you guys stood up here. And I don't know if you saw this. We, and I know we're going to get into this later, but we've got of fascinating comment from the White House yesterday for this article that we did about J.D. Vance.

And in it, let me see if I can find it. They called us like America hating. Oh, they said it's sad that Dropsite news reporters are so filled with hate for America and devoid of respect for themselves that they have become full-throated propagandists for the Iranian regime. Said White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly. What's so to me revealing about that comment, and this isn't the first time they've said this about drop site. They keep coming at us as America last and America hating because they sense that their number one vulnerability is the gap between their claim that they are America first and the fact that their foreign policy exposes that to be a lie. So they have to then accuse their opponents of being America last or or hating themselves.

And I like the devoid of respect for themselves part. They didn't even need to throw that in. That was just a little extra bonus. But I think it does really reveal that they recognize this Achilles heel of theirs, that it's a huge vulnerability, that they so flagrantly are violating their America first campaign promise. Like, it's very simple. I'm going to be America first. Like, kudos for coming up with like a campaign slogan that is as clear as that one. But you couldn't any, anybody can understand what that means.

To then operate completely in contrast to that is just fully undermines their integrity and who they say they are. And I think that they get that. Like it's that bad that they understand how difficult it's going to be to square that. Yeah. And so the Republicans are partly reacting that way because and voting with Israel because they saw what happened to Tom Massey. So they're like, yeah, the Democratic voters are in a rebellion and you guys might lose

your seats if your America last. But our party is okay with it. Our voters are still voting with, you know, the ads. They see their older voters, they're seeing the ads and they're telling them, oh, yeah. You know, the ads don't even talk about Israel. They're just a bunch of lies that APEC throws out there on other issues. But it worked and Massey lost. So they're saying, well, look, if I go against Israel, I'm going to have $32 million spent against me.

So I'm going to make sure that Israel's interests are served before American interests. And that's how politics works. The only people who don't know that are the people in mainstream media. And so, and I used to say the establishment Democrats, but even some of them are catching on now. So the last part of this story is amazing. Seth Moulton, who's a huge pro-war Democrat, establishment Democrat, but he's running as Ed Markey for the Senate. seat in in Massachusetts. So all of a sudden he's like, I'm begrudging, begrudging, but yes, I'm going to vote for defunding Israel. Nancy Pelosi voted to defund Israel. And her statement was like,

wow, this is the most painful thing I've ever done. I'm so sorry, Israel. I have to do this. You remember what she said six or seven years ago that the capital itself could crumble to the ground, but our support for Israel would remain regardless. Wow. Capital still standing, Pelosi voting to strip all funding from Israel. Wow. So that's how much things have changed. But we're not there yet.

We're still getting outvoted three to one in the American Congress. Okay, one last part of the story that I want to get to guys. So, so there was a vote 314 to 104. to try to take out funding for Israel. It failed, the 314 Israelis voted to keep the funding for Israel. Of course, they're all funded by the Israeli lobby. That's why they sell you out. Haley Stevens is a Democrat who voted, yes, keep the money in for beloved Israel.

She of course has Israel come to earn her dreams. She's now running for the Senate seat, that's her quote, Senate seat in Michigan against Abdul al-Said. Abdul says that would have easy no vote for him for funding Israel. Yes, vote on the Massey Amendment. And so she says, no, no. And she said earlier that she had gone to Congress to serve Michigan. Just kidding, to serve Israel.

She literally said to serve Israel. So there, even though it's greatly harmful to her in her Senate race, and the polling indicates that, she still had to vote for Israel. why they've put in $50 million against Abdul al-Said in Michigan. They're like, he's a Muslim. He won't even serve Israel at all. We have to find a traitor like Haley Stevens and send us her $50 million plus dreams. So she votes for us.

But that was kind of expected. Now we go to others chastising the Democrats from the Republican side. So both sides, you know the Unip Party. saying, how dare you vote against Israel? This is Mike Pence's spokesperson, Jonah went, and he wrote, here are the 103 Democrats who just voted to cancel U.S. military aid to Israel. The Democratic Party has a massive anti-Semitism problem. That's right.

If you don't take your wallet out and hand it over to Benjamin Netanyahu, anti-Semite, okay, if you don't let Netanyahu come in and steal your V. I was about to say your VCR, how old am I? Okay, your TV, your computer, everything you own, you're an anti-Semite, okay? How dare you vote for your country instead of a foreign country, anti-Semite? So Nikki Haley jumps in for governor of South Carolina and ran against Trump in the Republican primary for president, says Democrats have drawn a reprehensible line in the sand when it comes to Israel because 103 of them voted to strip away funding, she says, she quotes Genesis 123.

I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So that's from the Schofield Bible, which is a brilliant Zionist trick to put a line into the Bible that says you should support the, if a Zionist state of Israel comes, you should support that. Note to people who read the Bible, it was written before 1948. The country of Israel. I can confirm that. Yeah, there's a reporter confirming it right there, okay? Israel, the country, the nation, the government of Israel did not exist when the Bible was written. Anyways, here's Nikki Haley saying, if you Americans dare to defy my beloved Israel that has given me millions of dollars in campaign contributions and the only reason why I'm a relevant candidate for any race, you'll be.

cursed by God. She's saying that to us, that America will be cursed if we don't bow and kneel to Israel. I don't know anything that's less America first than that. Now back to the Democrats because it's a unit party. Federman says if our party ever becomes and just makes it official the anti-Israel party, that's when I would leave because that's been a moral clarity for me. To which I say, good riddance, can't happen quickly enough. By the way, Ryan, I've always been kind of amused by that, right?

So we've in our careers seen different people switch parties. And they go, you know, usually based on one, maybe two issues, right? And in this case, he's like, well, if you don't, you know, get on your knees for Israel, then I want nothing to do with this party. Okay, I hate Americans, I only want to serve Israel. Okay, John, we already know that, we all know that. But what that would entail Ryan is he would then presumably have to switch all of his positions to caucus with the Republicans thereby saying I've been a fraud all along.

I never meant a word I said. This has all been for my own political power and aggrandizement. Isn't that kind of baked into that statement? It is and that's why several months ago when he was asked about this, he said no. Like I'm not going to leave the Democratic Party because, you know, not. 90% of the things that I believe in, the Republican Party is against. So like he agreed, he agreed with you just a couple months ago. Apparently, that's out the window if they get, luckily for him, like, there's still going

to be half the Democratic Party in elected office who's going to be pro-Israel. Like I don't, I don't think that he's at any risk of being in a full on anti-Israel party any time soon. All right, so I'm going to say something wonderfully outrageous. So, look, Federman, I'm going to ask if you know, because I don't know and I don't know anyone who knows, is he Jewish? And I'm not asking that in a negative way. I actually think that if he is, I get a, I grow up with Turkish propaganda. If he grew up with propaganda, like I get it more, right?

If he isn't, then I have my outrageous theory. Does anybody in Washington know or no? I have, I don't think he's Jewish. I have never thought about that. I don't. He's never said what religion he is, which is already weird and curious, as far as I know. Okay, so, okay, anyways, but if he's not, if he didn't grow up with like a natural affiliation with Israel that I would understand at least, then I have a power ranking number one for who

Israel has blackmail on. Every video of this looks like a hostage video. And he's so extreme for no reason. Like, oh, I'm going to antagonize every voter I have. 80% of Democratic voters are against Israel. He's like, I will draw the line on Israel. I love it so much. You all anti-Semite.

What is that about? The problem with that theory is that I don't even necessarily think that the pro-Israel world in D.C. finds him to be helpful. Like I think he's such an outrageously over the top defender of Israel. And like he will defend things that every other Israel, Israel supporter will recognize tactically you need to criticize and separate out and say, well, we, that's something that does not represent, you know, what Israel truly is. And, you know, it's blame it on Netanyahu and move on and say we're, you know,

we're going to work to make sure that something like that doesn't happen again. To have him out there in such a vitriolic, like clearly nasty, like just mean-spirited way, I don't think actually does them favor. So like if they did have blackmail, I think they'd be using it to say to dial him back. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Ryan. Guy, guy, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're being too rational. Uh, the Israelis at the We also had a stroke and his brain broke. I think that's got to play into it. Yeah, that might play into it.

That's much more plausible. The Israelis have no brakes in their car. So if you told them what should we have our puppets say, they would say, you know, Israel is God and you would be cursed. I think the Israeli government has no breaks on its foreign policy. But I think the Israeli lobbying operation in DC is very sophisticated. And, you know, good at like, they've got Democratic majority for Israel to deal with the Democrats. They got, you know, A PAC now mostly Republican.

And they've got then Norpack that's like a little bit more extreme. Like they've got, they got different people working on different universities. Like they're, you know, they're very good. And I think they're better than John Federman. Like I don't think that they would design him in a lab and say, this is what we need to make our agenda more palatable to the American public. Instead, they might go with Rahm Emanuel, who's far more sophisticated. Okay, but you know, super last thing on this, Ryan, real quick. His sanction thing is amazing, by the way. Who, Rahm Emmanuel?

Did you see his idea, like, that if an Israeli bank is working in the settlements, that the Israeli bank needs to be sanctioned? Yeah. That would be the entire Israeli financial infrastructure. No, no, it's amazing. I don't believe him at all, but I'm glad that the movement has pushed them to that position, right? So look, the last thing is, so you're a reporter in Washington for Dropsite News, so obviously very different than the mainstream media reporters.

But I am curious about your interactions with them. Like, look, we see this and we all see that the money going through APEC to all these people. Like, they used to try to trick people and call them anti-Semites and stuff if they noticed that the 94% of Congress is being funded by the Israeli lobby. Are the reporters in D.C. still mental? Like, do they still think that if you point out that most of the Congress, you know, Congress is funded by APAC, that you're some vicious anti-Semite and that's not true and they just can't look at numbers and they don't understand that money actually affects politicians and they think politicians are wonderful, honest people. I mean, are they that stupid or are they purposely lying in their articles because they're worried they're going to get fired? No, they now see opposition to APEC as a pragmatic political move that a member of Congress can take for non-anti-Semitic reasons.

Like that, we're at that place now because it is such an electoral liability. And reporters in Washington understand that the number one priority of a member of Congress is to either stay a member. of Congress or and then at some point, you know, become like some super rich lobbyist. But in the meantime, they really want to stay in power. Like the power to them is more, is more interesting than the money. Like Joe Crowley, for instance, is fantastically rich right now compared to how much money he had while he was in Congress. I bet he would truly rather be in Congress. That's what power is worth to, to these folks. And so they now recognize that siding unapologetically with Israel while it's carrying out of genocide comes with political

risks and that members of Congress believe that without being anti-Semitic. So there is a more pragmatic coverage of it or an ability to look at it. Yeah, but I mean, look, there has been before. But Ryan, you're partly saying like, they still think it's anti-Semitic because they're morons. But they're saying, but since all the voters in the whole country are anti-Semites, we get the political pressure on the Democratic politicians. You know, a lot of borders are young. But the main question, the main question is, sorry, I'm going to let you finish that thought in a second.

The main question is like, do they not understand that money might affect politicians? Are they really, really that on intelligent? Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if.

Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. No, and I think that they definitely understand that. And A-PAC getting so heavily into the Super PAC game, and A-PAC then moving money through these shell packs to try to cover their tracks so that it's not clear that it's A-PAC spending the money until the primary is over. Like a lot of reporters who've done reporting on this have themselves then gotten called anti-Semitic,

saying like, oh, you're accusing like Jews of like operating behind the scenes and pulling strings. And the reporters are like, no, we're not saying that at all. We're saying that A PAC, which is, you know, a Christian and Jewish organization, but it's pro-Israel. It doesn't matter what the religion is of the donor. It's a pro-Israel group that is not spending through its own pack. It's setting up other shell packs so that it can influence this campaign without its fingerprints on the campaign. Like, we're just describing reality what's happening. That doesn't mean we're endorsing these anti-Semitic tropes. And so I think so many reporters and others have gotten caught up in these cynical attacks that it has defanged them in a serious way to say, like, oh, you're accusing me of being anti-Semitic when I'm just reporting honestly on what's happening in this campaign. Well, maybe their attacks on other people are also need to be looked at with more skepticism.

Oh, wow. A little dose of reality in D.C. didn't think that would come. Breaking through. Okay, all right. Creeping in. Think about what a hilarious conversation this is, guys, if you're watching out there. Like, all the reporters in D.C. are so blind and stupid that for the first time they are beginning to think, Maybe the whole country isn't anti-Semites because they finally experienced false charges of anti-Semitism for the first time. They're like, huh, that's weird. We believe that you were all bigots and hated Jews, and that was the only reason you

oppose Israel. But it turns out it might be because of a genocide. Huh, huh, huh. Reporters. Okay, all right, we gotta go to the next story because it's about, brought to you by Dropside News and it's a doozy, so let's go to that. People are always going to try to influence the United States of America, whether they're allies of ours or whether they're enemies of ours. But again, when I open up the pages of Time magazine and I see that there's a literal foreign influence campaign being funded to tank the very deal that I was pursuing.

And oh, by the way, many of the people who were receiving that money were actually attacking me in completely dishonest ways. You know, my response to that is, well, go to hell. Interesting. I wonder if he's gonna say the same thing now to Jared Kushner and Stephen Whitkoff, because Ryan Grimm's drop site news reporting today that the Iranians sent Vance a secret note saying, hey, you gotta pull these guys from the negotiations, they're self-dealing. Here's the headline, Iran sent message to JD Vance, warning that Kushner and Wittkov were abusing their inside access to negotiations.

So Ryan, before I get to some of your reporting here and telling all the facts, of the story. Just quickly there, do you, that is kind of extraordinary. Have you ever seen one side give a warning to the other side in a negotiation that, hey, you know, your guys might actually not be in favor of peace. Like your own negotiators might be betraying you. Well, you know, in negotiations, people are always looking for, you know, who in their counterparty is available, is like more willing to make a deal and who's not. And before we like suggest that the Iranians are like these, you know, upstanding virtuous advocates of transparency, they actually told the mediators and we reported this in the story too that their estimate was that kind of Trump's circle, not just Whitkoff and Kushner, but Trump's circle more broadly, had had probably. upwards of $9 billion from market manipulation throughout this process. And then they said, and so therefore we deserve 50% of it, which is pretty funny.

And maybe it's that, maybe that's their opening bid. Yeah, they're willing to like come back for maybe 30% or something. Yeah. But yeah, so yeah, exactly. Yeah. So look, not exactly moral high ground when you say that's right half of that corruption. corruption. And since we're actual reporters and in actually in journalism, we look at all of it skeptically, the American side, the Israeli side and the Iranian side. Of course, everybody

has an agenda. So let's tell you what Ryan and Jeremy Scahill reported and then we'll discuss because there's three different parts to their objections on Kushner and Whitkoff. So let's get started here. They wrote the Iranians warn Vance that the continued presence of President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Whitkoff and son-in-lawjard Kushner, would undermine the chance of turning the June 17 framework into an enduring deal, a senior Iranian official told drop site. In the message, according to the official, Iran conveyed to advance that the pair were more interested in exploiting insider knowledge of the negotiations to profit in financial markets than they weren't reaching a deal.

So then they explain, this is back in April, the Guardian reported, 16 bets made $100,000 each accurately predicting the timing of the U.S. airstrikes against Iran on February 27th. Later, a single user would make over $550,000 after betting that the Aitol Ali Hamine would topple, just moments before his assassination by Israeli forces. On April 7th, right before Donald Trump announced a temporary ceasefire with Iran, traders bent $950 million at oil prices would come down, and they did. So now that's from a different story from the Guardian, so they're not saying that Whitkoff and Kushner did all that. Someone is definitely doing all of that and we're wondering if, and apparently the Iranians are wondering if Whitkoff and Kushner is part of that.

So back to the drop site reporting. In the weeks leading up to the signing of the memorandum of understanding the officials said Iran presented written documentation to mediators of what it characterized as evidence that individuals close to President Trump were abusing the Iran war and diplomatic developments to manipulate financial markets. An anonymous Iranian official said even before the Islamabad talks kicked off in April, we had already said, multiple messages to Trump through the Pakistanis, warning them about Whitkoff's overall destructive role in the previous negotiation. So now that's to the point of their potential corruption. Now there's a second point, which is they're dumb asses and don't know what they're doing, and they're lying about what's happening, and we're wondering, the Iranians are wondering

if they're purposely sabotaging the negotiations. So to that point, Ryan and Skahill explained. Whitkoff and Kushner showed up with no subject area or nuclear experts and appeared oblivious to the technical aspects of the negotiating the nuclear issue, Iranian negotiators, presented an outline of their existing stockpile of emergency uranium and assessed that their, quote, unbelievable level of flexibility formed the basis of what Foreign Minister Abbas Araqqi said on February 25th could be, quote, a historic opportunity to strike an unprecedented agreement. But Whitkoff went on Fox News afterwards and said Iran's going to build nuclear weapons. They're like, what?

So the Iranian negotiators said to us, this is according to Whitkoff, with, you know, no shame that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60%. And they're aware that they could make 11 nuclear bombs. And that was the beginning of their negotiating stance. Whitkoff told Fox News on March 3rd while defending the decision to attack Iran in the middle of negotiations. So the Iranians are like, wait, we told you we're going to give you an unprecedented offer on taking away our nuclear program. You go and tell people in America that we're building 11 nuclear weapons. What the hell is this? So that's a fair question.

And then you get to this third possibility. And this is from Axios back on March 4th. Interesting piece of reporting from Barack Ravid here. A U.S. official said special envoy Steve Whitkoff and Trump's advisor and son-in-lawjard, Kushner talk almost every day to Netanyahu and to the director of Mossad David Barnia and to other Israeli officials and that regardless of ups and downs in the past, the coordination over the last month was very close. So Ryan, is it that they're self-dealing and they don't really care about the peace negotiations

and they're just trying to make money off this thing? Is it that they're actually coordinating with the Israelis to destroy peace, negotiations. What's going on here? I think it's all of those things. Like I think I think he's genuinely an idiot on that on that one piece of information. Because otherwise he wouldn't have paraded his ignorance publicly. Like if he let's say because some people said, well, that that was tactical on his part. He was never serious about a deal. And so he basically lied to Trump you know, about what the Iranians had said. But why would you need to do that?

If Trump was always going to go to war, like, then he can just go to war. He doesn't need his special envoy saying stupid things publicly that don't make any sense. Think about it. If you're the Iranians and you're offering to give up and downblend your enriched uranium and you're highly enriched uranium, you're obviously going to tell the other side precisely what you have. Like, of course, like, how can you offer to get rid of it? it if you don't tell them what you have. Like if they didn't tell them what they had,

Wittkoff would have been like they're, you know, they're being, you know, devious, sneaky Iranians and, you know, not sharing with us what they have.

So I do think that there's some genuine stupidity at play there. But I think also they're, they, I think they were working obviously very closely with Netanyahu and Mossad, as they say. There's no reason to think they were lying about that. And also making, you know,

enormous amounts of money. on the timing of the different announcements that were coming. And we should never forget what kind of a deal the Iranians were offering. Because you alluded to that at the very top there. At the end of February, they were basically offering to get rid of their entire nuclear program, as well as making significant concessions on lots of other things that Trump wanted around proxies and other things. And all they wanted was some level of sanctions relief. And that is a kind of thing that could be snapped back and taken away if you think that they're not abiding by the terms of the agreement.

Nowhere in that notice is we're going to control and charge fees for the strait of Hormuz. Like what was available to us on February before we killed thousands of people and lost our own American service members? and sent the world economy into a tailspin is so much better than what is available to us now, and which keeps getting worse probably every day. So this is a harsh question, but it really is worth asking in terms of the technical definition of this word. And I don't mean to imply any of the consequences that flow from it. But if, if Kushner and Whitkoff are working with the Israelis and Trump, actually told them go make a peace deal and then they took orders from the Israelis to kill the peace deal. Isn't that treason? So what's what's interesting is that this class of people,

what you know, which you know, I think is aptly referred to as the Epstein class or the other people is called the Davos class. The people who, these are people who do not actually feel any connection to any particular nation state, any government. Like they don't feel a sense of like, oh, I am American or I am even Israeli or I'm Swiss or I'm French. Like these are people, they belong to Davos. They belong to the Epstein class. They belong to this multinational kind of just 0.1% that just bounces around from London to New York to Miami to do. Dubai to Tel Aviv. And so the idea of being disloyal to a country requires that and to have any

sense of fundamental loyalty to a particular country. Now the fact that Wickhoff is literally the envoy for the White House, like it's his job to reach a deal, suggests that he's supposed to have some level of loyalty. Cushner's not even a, he's just a citizen. He's not even a government official at this point. But I think ultimately Trump, they're doing what Trump wanted him to do. I think Trump wasn't serious about these negotiations in February. He wanted to, he wanted to kill the Ayatollah and all the top Iranian leaders. And so I think in that sense, they were carrying out the orders of the American president. So in that sense, it's not actually treasonous. Yeah. And if Trump- Unfortunately, just doing what they were told to do by an idiot.

Yeah, I want to be absolutely clear. If Trump told them to ruin the peace negotiations, then it's definitely not treason. Which I think he did. I think he did. Like mid-February, Netanyahu tells him, you know, makes his presentation in this situation room. And within days of that, Trump has approved the attack. And they're just kind of waiting for the opportunity.

So yeah, those negotiations that happen between mid-February and end of February, We're totally fake. Yeah, last thing, Ryan. So we talked about the possible Israeli connection and then there's the profiting, right? And today, coincidentally, Wall Street Journal breaks another story, Trump media to sell faster access to president's social posts. So to your point about the Davos class, so you can now buy quicker access to Donald Trump's true social posts. If you're not sophisticated in the world of markets, you might think, who the hell cares if you get Trump's dumbass posts a minute earlier than anyone? But of course, the whole point of that is very literally corruption.

There is no other point because that means you could trade on the markets based on that insider information before the public gets it. So when you combine these two stories, Whitkoff and Kushner self-dealing potentially while it. But during the peace negotiations, certainly Kushner's been self-dealing during both terms and getting gobs of money from the Gulf countries, et cetera. And now you've got Trump basically saying, if you're corrupt and want to do insider trading, hear ye, hear ye, come here and pay me, and I'll give you insider information. This is an impossible question, but once he's out of office, is there any chance that these guys are gonna get prosecuted for the most brazen, over the top corruption I've ever seen in my

life? They'll all be pardoned, but there are still state laws on the books about corruption. So you could imagine, and maybe they get prosecuted in some other country as well, because they're committing crimes all over the world. But yeah, the charging to get Trump's truths early is the most kind of over the top and obvious admission that, yeah, He's intentionally moving markets. They've been, they've proven that you can make billions based on Trump's, you know, word, which if you really want the, if you really want to do the insider trading, you have to call him and, you know, get, get it, you know, more directly.

But if you're just a regular Goldman's tax trader, then you, then you pay the like, whatever, the gigantic, I don't know what they're going to charge yet. it will be funny to find out what it is. I'm sure they could charge in the thousands of dollars per month or more. And the traders would kind of have to do it. Oh, yeah. It's moving billions of dollars around. Yeah, they can charge almost anything they want.

They could charge in the millions and people will still do it. Because if you have that kind of insider information, you're going to make tens of millions, hundreds of millions, maybe billions. You know, you're going to lose. Yeah. Or you're going to lose. That's right. And so it almost forces all the markets to do insider trading.

And I know, you got to twist our arm. But like, this is corruption on steroids. All right. Yeah. Ryan Graham from DropSight News, you're awesome. We appreciate you joining us today. Thank you, brother. Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it. All right. Now when we come back, we've got a lot more news for you guys, including Benjamin Netanyahu might do a whole new bombing campaign in Gaza. Oh, for God's sake, when we return. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Rich and powerful men abusing, assaulting, and abandoning young women. These rich and powerful men donate to the politicians in Washington, D.C., play golf with the elites in Washington, D.C.

They are foreign leaders who we don't want to offend. They interact with our intelligence agencies that we don't want to disobey. There is something rotten in Washington. And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? All those congressmen you just saw there are on the record as protecting the child rapists who were clients of Epstein. They have not prosecuted a single person outside of Epstein and Maxwell. Yep. Not one.

Is Trump engaging in this cover up because he's in the Epstein files? I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff. So as the government keeps selling us, yeah, there's other people. Yeah, they rape those girls. So what? We're going to cover up for them. Why are you guys so mad?

A nation that chooses impunity for the rich and the powerful at the expense of our children is a nation that has lost its moral purpose. Are you on the side of the people? Are you on the side of America's children? Or are you on the side of the rich and powerful who've had their thumb on the scales and shafted Americans for decades? The rest of the news media says you should not fight for positive change. you do, you're not really a reporter or a journalist because reporters and journalists don't care what happens. I don't agree. That's not written anywhere. That's not a law. It's just a rule that they invented so that reporters didn't actually challenge the people that are in power.

Well, we don't agree with that. We think we should challenge the people in power, that that actually makes you a better journalist, not a worse one. Who do you guys use? AT&T, and how much do you pay per month? 345, and that includes a company discount. How many people? iPhone. $70 a line, right? I've started a wireless company called Noble Mobile that is trying to cut everyone's bills in half. What would, like, a family of four costs? The average Noble mobile mobile user is paying 42 a month, but also they're using their smartphone 17% less. Okay. How's that work out? We give you $20 back in cash every month based upon how much data you use or don't use. You know when you're doom scrolling or messing around on your phone, you're like, oh, wait, I'm actually costing my money. myself money right now. The goal with Noble mobile is to encourage us to look up at our children's

lovely faces like touch grass, appreciate life. A friend of mine calls these things are rectangles of sadness. So we're trying to change that and improve everyone's relationships with their phones. It's a very noble cause. Well, thank you, sir. That's what he is. Been on YouTube for 20 years. The original political partner on YouTube, the young Turks, the young Turks, the Young Turks. Godfather of independent media. Favorite new news. platform by far. Oh, it's not even close. The Young Turks. It's the largest online news show in the world. I watched you guys before I had a channel at all. And I watched Jenks. So Jenks really the start of it all. Big shout out to Cheng from Young Turks. Junk Yugar, founder of TYT, a man who

probably needs no introduction. Jank, it's so great to talk to you. Great to talk to you, David. Santa you worked for a long time, man. Anna Kasparian is one of the most followed and influential progressive women online. I love Anna. Your presence has been essential. for me to really grow. To all of you know the young Turks, this is why what young Turks are doing is so important. I've watched you for many years. You are insightful.

I thank you for that. I was going to introduce myself, but it sounds like you guys might know it. I just love you. And Captain Morgan's back. Dr. Morgan, okay, Elliot Morgan. Now a lot of nicknames that we came up with just this week. I like all of them.

Okay, so we, and also by the way, Andre Miller, thanks for joining through the join button below on YouTube. We appreciate you guys. Elm Romero, if I'm doing that right, thank you for joining through t.com slash join. We appreciate you guys. And I want to tell you about a couple of quick things tonight at 9 o'clock Eastern. Donald Trump's gonna give a speech to the nation, God help us. I'm gonna cover it, play by play, and I'll tell you what he's actually saying, what he means.

The facts behind it, new quick summary of it, and I have a secret theory on that. So check it out at 9 o'clock Eastern tonight. And then fun little fact, I'm going to be at Turkish festival. That's actually the first Turkish festival I'm going to. It's at August 1st and 2nd at Tinley Park Convention Center. It's about media and demonetization of Muslims, problems, and solutions. So if you wanna come, there's some great speakers there and good Turkish food from what I understand. So check that out, Tinley Park Convention Center on August 1st, 2nd.

Okay, and then one word from our sponsors and then we gotta tell you about Cuba. So I wanna tell you about Upwork. Upwork is a one-stop platform to find hire and pay expert freelancers across the web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations, and more. You can browse profiles, review past work, and get help scoping the role so you can hire with confidence and get started quickly. It's free to sign up and posting a job is easy. Visit upwork.com right now, post your job for free.

That's upwork.com to connect with top talent, ready to help your business grow. That's upwork.org.com, upwork. All right, so now let's get to it. Let me tell you about Cuba. So Cuba's been plagued with blackouts and it has massive and disastrous constant. We've been doing that to them and I want to tell you about how it's affected them so badly But first we got to talk about what the world's going on are we gonna attack Cuba Elliot tells the story. Yeah, so Cuba experienced a massive blackout on Tuesday which makes it the third blackout since the US oil

embargo began stressing the country's grid per the associated press fuel has been running out across Cuba since January when US President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the island, deepening the island's ongoing economic and financial crisis. Public transportation has largely been halted, and officials have canceled tens of thousands of surgeries. Cuba currently can only produce 40% of its oil needs, and these outages affect daily necessities, like water supplies and cooking and telephone and internet services. The blackouts have a significant impact on the population, and combined with the energy embargo, have led to transportation limitations, reduced work hours, and flight cancellations,

in addition to serious public health consequences. Alternative fuel solutions for Cuba have not been discussed as the U.S. is the island as its next military target per CBS. Military planners have in recent weeks examined a range of options for possible action against the island, including an army-led air assault involving thousands of U.S. soldiers to be carried out by the 101st Airborne Division, the only unit trained for such a task, according to multiple U.S. officials with knowledge of the discussions. But any overt movement on those efforts is being presented with some pause as any operation against Cuba would confront the Pentagon with a significant problem because much of the U.S. military's attention and some of its most valuable offensive capabilities are already committed elsewhere. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has emphasized the U.S. prefers a diplomatic option for a transition to a new government, led by technocrats and willing to make economic reforms. So two months ago, CIA director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba to make the case for economic engagement with the U.S.

But that conciliatory tone was undercut because Ratcliffe also brought along one of the operators who's involved in the U.S. mission to capture then-Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro. in January, making a point of introducing the paramilitary leader to the Cubans as the one who would kill their people in Venezuela, several people familiar with the trip told CBS News. So Trump has long had it out for Cuba, even reversing within hours of his second term, Biden's decision to remove Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terror. The Trump administration expanded that approach when Rubio reinstated restrictions on business transactions with Cuba's military-controlled conglomerate GAESA, arguing that the armed forces, not Cuba's private sector, control much of the island's hard currency economy.

Weeks later, the State Department broaden visa restrictions targeting Cuba's overseas medical missions, accusing Havana of exploiting doctors and nurses through a state-run labor export system that Cuban officials insist is voluntary. The campaign escalated further earlier this year when Trump declared Cuba an, quote, unusual and extraordinary threat and extended sanctions to foreign governments and companies supplying the island with oil. Additional actions included sanctions on senior Cuban officials and penalties targeting Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canal and other top figures. Despite the administration's claim that they are aiming for a diplomatic resolution,

their actions suggest the exact opposite. Now, Jank, I do follow this historian by the name of Daniel Bessner. He studies foreign policy and a lot of Cold War stuff. He has this idea that in the coming years sooner or later, we will eventually take Cuba. China won't do anything about it. China might take Taiwan, we might not do anything about it. I don't know if that's how everything's going to play out. But it does seem like it's a possibility given what's going on here.

But what are your thoughts? So there's a couple of different thoughts that I have about it. The first is what we're doing to the Cubans is sick. And if we had any decency, we wouldn't be doing it. So first of all, when they lose power to the whole country, they lose power to the hospitals. And tens of thousands of surgeries have been delayed at a minimum. And people are having trouble eating. And we're punishing the average person in Cuba.

And there aren't a lot of rich folks in Cuba. So other than the people in charge, they're all struggling to begin with. And now we're hitting them with a two by four. So we have to have some degree of conscious and morality. And this one's not Israel, we're doing it, we're doing it, okay? And we're not getting dragged into doing it, we're doing it voluntarily. And it's sick, it's not right, and it's not what a shining city on a hill should do, okay? Yep.

So then the second part of it is, well, what's gonna happen in Cuba? Okay, look, as with Iran, I'm stuck on this, right? So I don't like the Iranian regime. It's fundamentalist religious government. I don't like the religious fundamentalist settlers in the West Bank. I don't like the religious fundamentalist regime in Iran. They're from two different religions, but the thing that binds them together is fundamentalism. But attacking Iran makes that regime stronger, not weaker, so that doesn't make any sense.

In the case of Cuba, it has nothing new with religion, obviously it has to do with politics and economic model. Now, we're really fighting communism? Honestly, who cares about communists, right? Like what an old thing to theoretically worry about? And is there any communist nations left? Maybe Cuba, maybe North Korea, but North Korea is just a dictatorship, right? And China is a mixed model with massive amounts of capitalism in there, right? So is there any threat that the communists are gonna take over?

Of course that, it's absurd. We're fighting a phantom. So is this just about appeasing rich Cuban Americans in South Florida who want some of their property back? Or on the other hand, Elliot, and that's why it's complicated, it's, I would want a better regime in Cuba to get more prosperity for the Cuban people because they are suffering. So then what do we do? Yeah, I think my understanding is Mark.

Rubio's been chomping at the bit to do something about Cuba for as long as he's been around, basically. And I think you're right, like this, no, especially young people, they're not going to buy the idea of being scared about communism and doing this whole red scare thing again. I mean, if anything, the polling suggests that young people are more inclined to be pro-communism, at least pro-socialism in some way. But there is this idea, I think, called the spheres of influence that I think might be coming back into play where it's like, we're basically gonna be left alone to do whatever we want,

with whatever countries are around us without impunity and other places like China will be able to do the exact same thing. But you're right, I don't think it's like a good thing. It's not like a, I don't think there's a good outcome right now with these possibilities. Yeah, look, the one thing that's easy is we shouldn't do the military option. People are going to get killed. Some of our guys might get killed. There's no need to kill Cubans. That's crazy, right? And China shouldn't do the military option in Taiwan. And if we don't want China to do the military option in Taiwan, we shouldn't do the military option in Cuba. But that's acting rationally.

That seems like way too much to ask from our government. So in this case, you know, are Cuban American donations to Republican politicians a little bit relevant? Sure, of course they are. Donations are always relevant. Campaign contributions, bribes, whatever you want to call them. But I think probably the most relevant is that they finally got a Cuban American with that same ideology as Secretary of State.

And they're thinking, this is our one chance. some other factors like Big Farm or A-PAC are kind of forever, right? They're gonna be around and they have an enormous amount of power and wealth. The Cuban American community has some power and wealth, not an enormous amount. They need somebody like Marco Rubio to push the ball forward to get, to get a war. I mean, normally only the Israelis get wars, right? So I feel like Rubio is trying to push the dominoes here because this is their last chance. I know war's not the right option.

I think in my ideal world, I would say this. We should lift all the sanctions and let them do whatever the hell they're going to do, right? Incentivize democracy, but not necessarily capitalism, not because I think, oh, I think communism's going to work or I'm against capitalism. I call myself a capitalist, but because, hey, look, let them do whatever. Maybe it works, okay? And I really, really, really doubt it, right? But it's not our country, it's their country. But more likely, if you encourage any kind of democratic impulse,

if we can make a trade, right, hey, you know, we won't invade you, but give me some real democracy. Not full-blown, they would never agree to that, right? But some provisional democracy that international peacekeepers, et cetera, can monitor. Because at that point, then at least you empower the Cuban people to go, well, I want to stay on this track or I don't want to stay on this track. Does that make sense? That makes sense.

Yeah. And then live and let live, I think, is just a decent foreign policy. Just stay out of other countries' affairs and let them do what they're going to do. Yeah, I know. But what we just discussed is what would be the rational thing? We're not going to do that. But at the same time, war is not baked in because the Cuban American packs are not anywhere near as powerful as the big boys, right?

So if they were powerful enough, like the oil lobby, I'd say, it's over, we're going into Cuba. But they're not that powerful. So with just Rubio, they might not be able to pull off this war. So cross your fingers on that one. And for the first time, knock on wood that I'm right, right? And no jinx. Okay, because usually I have disastrous predictions.

So I hope apocalyptic. Yeah, yeah, I hope my prediction that we probably won't go into Cuba is right. Yeah, amen. Yeah. All right, you know what, let's take a quick break here. When we come back, data centers, people are super pissed, but people like Ben Shapiro are going to say, no, no, we must protect beloved corporations. And that is turning into a nationwide war.

And then our favorite story, both me and Elliot's, Pete Heggzith, now apparently in favor of gender affirming therapy. What? Okay, we'll explain. We'll be back. All right, let's go to Super Chat. James Kelly Rodden, what I don't get is that with all the written on the wall for decoupling from Israel and data centers, why keep going? It's not like people's anger is going to change with trying to force us to do what they want.

We Americans have always been defying. James, there are two real reasons for that. Number one, they don't care. They only only care about retaining their power. That's why the Democrats have started to vote against Israel because they lose their power. If they don't, you saw the elections in New York and Colorado. But for the Republicans, if they vote against Israel, they'll lose their power because they saw what happened to Tom Massey.

Within Republican circles, the money still works in buying those elections. So that's why they don't care about you at all. These politicians have never cared about you. It's always been a giant line told to you by mainstream media. So the same exact thing applies to data centers. They are also enormous donors, and that's why you're getting what you're getting. They've never cared about the voters. James also wrote it in the beginning of the show.

I feel like about Trump that he's going to do something during his speech. James, I feel the same way. I don't think that it's just going to be about the elections. I think there's some chance that he's gonna have a surprise announcement about the war, but we'll see. We'll talk more about it at 9 o'clock. I'll be covering it for you guys. Ricky Rage DeRogio, which is an awesome name, by the way,

wrote in, hey, are you guys going to cover the Vance Rogan interview? And then he wrote back in and said, oh, okay, you just did. So we did a little while ago on this show, but yesterday we covered it at length. So check that out right here on this same YouTube channel. And Happy Warrior says Ryan Grimm is the goat. We've got people is excellent. Keep up to amazing work. Thank you for all that you do.

Thanks for saying that about Ryan. And that books on Shop, Ty, on TYT. On TYT, Jank and Elliot with you guys. So now we got more fun stories for you. Let's go to the next one. Wait, I put it away. Here it is. No, no, I've lost my favorite.

place today, that's okay. Ah, ah, yeah, thank you, Elliot, I appreciate it. Okay, okay. So Ben Shapiro's got to take on data centers. He's decided to be incredibly unpopular again. Let's see if that worked. Elliot, what do you got? Oh, let's see here.

Thank you, Jen. Nail it. Yeah, so Ben Shapiro is once again in hot water with his own audience after putting out a video in which he claims opposition to data centers is actually all parts. of an overt op on the part of Russia and China to destroy the U.S. economy. Take a look. There is a reason why China and Russia are trying to destroy the sort of data center movement in the United States. They're trying to destroy the economy of the United

States. It's an overt op. And his audience took that personally. Here are some of the video's top comments. Time for Daily Wire to send out investigative reporters to actual data center. and interview the people who live near them. Another commenter wrote, is this Ben Shapiro volunteering to have data centers right next to all his own properties? And my personal favorite, damn, that's a bad take. So short to the point, really great stuff.

But also bad takes can often be bipartisan. An analysis that was published in The Guardian yesterday suggested that swing state Democratic leaders might be putting their midterm prospects in jeopardy as they continue to cozy up to our AI overlords. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer angered her own constituents after appearing last month alongside Sam Altman to celebrate the construction of a $16 billion data center. One former supporter of Gretchen Whitmer said, I felt just rage and sadness for like a month. It made me sick just thinking about it. I'm extremely angry watching her essentially throw us under the bus casually. And she is evidently not alone.

A recent Ipsos poll shows that both Republicans and Democrats oppose the construction of new data centers in the U.S. Despite this Democratic leadership does not seem to be getting the chat GPT written message. There are, however, exceptions. For example, Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Talib called Whitmer's position disgusting and Senate hopeful. Abdul Al-Sayed is calling for part public ownership of data centers. El-Said appears to be one of the few Democrats in Michigan to fully appreciate the anger data centers have fueled in voters. So it seems like this should be a layup, it should be a no-brainer, it's bipartisan,

and yet Democratic leadership seems to be dropping the ball more often than not. Jank, your thoughts? No, really? Democratic leadership going with the money instead of their voters? Shocking. That's gotta be the first. So breaking news, okay. So when they don't do that, we'll do breaking news for you guys. So look, this is not a hard mystery to solve. Why are they going with the deeply, deeply unpopular data centers? Because they got millions in campaign contributions to do so.

This is, look guys, when we talk about Israel, for example, they go out to so conspiratoria. Are you saying that people supporting Israel are secretly funneling money to our policies? No, I'm not saying that because it's not secret. They do it openly. They go here, here's hundreds of millions of dollars, now do exactly what Israel orders you. They literally have a pledge that says you have to support Israel unconditionally. Now what I want to ask you is you think Israel's the only one doing that? We basically legalize bribery.

Everyone's doing that. So big farmer does it on an even bigger scale. Big oil gets even bigger subsidies and robs is even more. And then when the data centers came in, there's billions on the line. You think they're not going to grease the politicians? And you think the Democrats are above it? Corporate Democrats? Establishment Democrats?

No, you've got to be like a cable news zombie to believe that like, oh, no, they must have a really good reason for the data supporting the data centers. No, it's the money. It's always the money and the corruption. So what's interesting about it, Elliot, is that, again, we've come to a point. Now this is on the war, on Israel, on data centers, on corruption. Now, this is a lot of things where the right and the left have come together going, I hate it, I don't want it. Let's do something about it.

Yeah, and in that Guardian piece, I mean, the writer was mentioning that this might have tanked Whitmer's presidential, like, hopes as well. Like, this is having a horrible effect. I understand if there's stuff behind the scenes going on where, you know, they're absolutely taking money from their donors and there's nefarious things happening. But the fact that they're just getting up and just owning it and almost bragging about it in front of their constituents who have made it abundantly clear that they do not want these things, absolutely blows my mind. Yeah, so look, I want to come back to what Shapiro said, but what's your take on why they hate the data center so much? So data centers, my understanding is they're sold to communities under the pretense that it's going to drive up employment. It doesn't. Whatever employment, it does drive up is temporary. There's no one actually in the data centers except for like transient jobs.

or you know, your kind of sanitation workers basically. So then it kind of bottoms out. Then it drives up energy prices. It's noise pollution. I think they're ugly to look at for a lot of people. And I think people feel like they don't have a say in their communities. And for a lot of people, I think politics is a very abstract thing. But data centers are something that are meeting people right directly in front of their faces.

And it's making them go, yeah, no, we don't want them. And they use up an enormous amount of water. But I think the number one thing that started this whole revolt against the data was they started charging the community for their costs. Yeah. Who the hell wants to pay for a data center's cost? All of a sudden your utility bills and your electric bills are so much higher and you're like, what the hell happened?

And they're like, oh, a data center happened and corruption happened, so now you have to pay their bills. Look, what the hell am I paying their bills for, right? And so usually they're more subtle about transferring wealth from us to them, to the donor class. But in this case, they're literally reaching into your pocket with the electric bill and stealing your money every single month. And so that's why there's such a fury. And that's why when they do the normal propaganda, and I'll get to Shapiro's propaganda in a second. But like, data centers are your friend. They are going to give you jobs.

Corporations are so patriotic. They're human beings who love you. People are like, yeah, bro, he just stole from me. And he did it last month, he did it this month, and he's gonna do it next month. I don't want him to keep stealing for me. So don't tell me that this guy, this corporation is my friend, okay? I'm not buying it because he's literally robbing me every month and I don't care about him a Democrat or Republican, right?

So now to Shapiro's propaganda. He's like, China and Russia have a secret conspiracy to infect our local politics in America. and you should be really worried about the foreign governments infiltrating our government. Hey, Ben, do you think Israel might also be infiltrating to affect our local elections? Anti-Semite Jew hater! Wait a minute. So China and Russia are obviously doing it when, in fact, in reality, people are just pissed and they have higher utility bills, right?

China and Russia didn't need to make them angry about their electric bill. The bill did it on its own, right? But that's your theory that they wouldn't have been angry. They would have loved to pay more for the data center cause if only are the meddling China and Russia hadn't gotten involved. But on Israel, when the Israeli lobbying pours in hundreds of millions of dollars to 94% of Congress, an outrageous conspiracy that foreign nations might be interfering in our politics, while you have to be a lunatic to believe that.

Yeah, I also think it just, it betrays a total lack. of understanding about your own audience. Like these are real people living real lives and Ben Shapir just comes off, I think, a little disconnected when he's going like, okay, let's all motivate ourselves around the idea of the AI arms race as if normal people have any stake in the AI industry. The people who are gonna profit from it are gonna be the same five people who own all of these companies. So I like El-Sayed's idea of like some kind of part ownership or part public ownership.

So the communities can actually be benefiting. from these data centers rather than just the same six people. And so if you're wondering, look, Shapiro seems like he's doing the same thing as the politicians, like purposely sabotaging himself. Like he's driving away all of his viewers, right? Like Whitmer is driving away her voters, and she's a Democrat, and then tons of Republican governors are doing the same exact thing, Republican congressmen. So why are they punching themselves in the face?

Because they're getting paid to. That's why I solve the mystery for you, right? So Shapiro could get money from the audience, but we know how hard it is to survive in the digital media, just relying on the normal programmatic add rates, etc. Even if you have a huge audience like we do, it's not easy, right? That's a very, very hard thing to build up a big enough audience given five, 10 bucks at a time to be able to sustain yourself. That's not Shapiro's model.

Shapiro's model is go to super wealthy people and say, I will do property, do propaganda for you. And by the way, he did not start on Israel. So Shapiro, of course, as a natural affinity for Israel, could there also be donors to Daily Wire or funders, investors, daily wire who have the same interests? Very, very likely. But what we do know for sure is that one of the first, I think it was around 20 million, don't quote me on that, but a huge amount of money came from these two brothers out in Texas who were fracking giants. So that's why when Shapiro is always telling you drill baby drill and how oil and gas are great and climate change is non-existent and you shouldn't do anything to save the planet, he was literally paid to say that. By the way, if you're on the right and you didn't know that, a lot of your right-wing shows have been paid to tell you that climate change isn't real because they were paid by the oil and gas companies.

So when we know for example Dennis Prager got 23 million dollars a year free not as an investment but here do propaganda for us and that two sets of people that do that all the time are foreign governments. We saw Russia did it with a couple of influencers a little while back. That's the thing that got Dave Rubin and Tim Poole and Benny Johnson in trouble. And we obviously know that Israel does it on a mega level, they've got a $700 million propaganda budget to do it. Yesterday on the show we covered how Trump's former advisor has now become a foreign agent

for Israel and has doled out millions, tens of millions of dollars to influencers across the country, right? So there's that pocket of money, the foreign government money, but the much larger pocket is the corporate money. So whether it's oil, big drug companies, or data centers. And so if you're wondering why they're driving away their audience, they were supposed to, you know, trick as many people as they can. with that propaganda, that's what they were paid for.

So if they stopped doing that to try to get audience, they'll lose all their money. And then they'll be out of business immediately. So that's how that game is played. And look, final thing on this, Elliot, is that it looks, look, I have a saying, I don't know, I came up with it, but, or I got stuck in my head for something else I read, but the internet is gonna catch you, right? And so it catches everyone. And the politicians starting to get caught, Israel got caught, right?

These neocons got caught. And so now guys like Ben Shapiro are getting caught. So to me, this is a much healthier media ecosystem where the audience is moving around trying to find honest actors, right, and unbiased people, and they're leaving the dishonest shows in droves. Then the old system of mainstream media, where everybody was stuck on these three channels with their conveyor belt of industrial propaganda in a couple of different directions, but all converging around corporate power, foreign government power, et cetera.

So is the internet catching these guys and a much healthier ecosystem? Hopefully, yeah, I mean, in the propaganda that they've been doing, especially around climate change, you can read about merchants of doubt. But they took some of the same people from the tobacco industry, which got sued in the middle of the 20th century for doing, massive amount of propaganda. And the way they do it is they don't overtly say it's not true. They spread doubt in different ways.

So it's either not manmade or it's gonna, there's nothing we can do about it economically, but they switch it around constantly depending on what's most effective with their viewers. But hopefully that's gonna come to an end thanks to the internet and this new ecosystem. Yeah, they used to manufacture consent. And part of the way they did that was manufacturing doubt about real problems you have and to confuse you. But now manufacturing consent has been. become a lot harder now that we have access to a lot of different shows and a lot of different

information, it's much harder to lie to you guys, which we love, because we built the young Turks on actually delivering you the truth to the best of our ability. So this is a media ecosystem that I can't get enough of. All right, speaking of things I can't get enough of, go to the next story. Department of War, we have the most elite warriors on the face of the earth. Every single day, to your absolute physical and mental limits to master the profession of arms. Our most decisive tactical advantage will always be the individual warfighter.

We have a sacred duty to maintain that advantage, which is why we must constantly look for new ways to optimize your performance, your resilience, and your long-term health. And to meet that commitment today, I'm authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency. Oh my God, is Pete Hagsith arguing for gender affirming therapy?

He's going to make people take testosterone. Isn't that what people transitioning do? How is this for a loop-de-loop? All right, Ellie, tell us all about it. Yeah, okay. So in a video uploaded to X yesterday, Pete Heggiz announced the new and improved high tea department of war, everybody. I know it was the top of everybody's concern. How will he achieve that? Well, let's hear

Heggzeth's plan. It's well-established science that as we age, testosterone levels often naturally drop. Under the supervision of our world-class medical professionals, warfighters age 30 and older, are going to be tested annually as part of their periodic health assessment. It's a health assessment that happens every year. We're just adding this test. Those under 30 can voluntarily choose to get the test as well. If treatment is recommended, it's entirely your choice to receive testosterone replacement therapy. This initiative, it's not about artificial enhancement. It's about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight.

It's your choice to take it, but if you say no, they're going to shove you in a A locker. Now, of course, Pete Heggzeth did not address the over 200,000 women who are currently serving as active duty. But according to a DOD official, everyone over 30 years old will be tested annually. But going back to what Pete Hegseth said there, he's offering testosterone replacement therapy, it seems, like gender affirming care style hormone replacement therapy. Yes, and Democrats like Primala Jopal are calling Hegseth out on this one. The Secretary of Forever Wars, Pete Hagseth, said that they are going to provide hormone therapy for male service members who don't have enough testosterone.

This, by the way, is gender-affirming care. And by the way, male members of this committee, watch what you vote for. Do you really want the government getting into your business, taking your testosterone levels, and determining whether or not you have enough testosterone? Are you male enough to be in Congress? So a lot of people in the Trump administration do support access to testosterone replacement therapy, just not for transgender people. Okay, no double standard there.

Also that includes Secretary RFK Jr., who has promoted it for anti-aging. He doesn't look at bay over leather, so that's pretty cool, but it's also unclear if women who have low testosterone will be able to get TRT as well. But overall, Pete Heggseth's testosterone test and treatments are a bad idea. At least within the general population, universal testosterone screening for men is not considered standard practice. The endocrine society recommends against testing for hydrogonadism, the medical term for when the body doesn't produce enough testosterone or sperm, unless a man has symptoms such as,

erectile dysfunction. The American Urological Association guidelines say that a low testosterone diagnosis shouldn't be made based solely on a test. That's because testosterone levels can vary widely and a man with a lower than average number might still be perfectly healthy. Also, testosterone levels do go down with age. However, levels usually start to decline around age 40, but they don't fall off a cliff. They tend to dip about 1 to 2% a year. Other factors, such as Maintaining a healthy weight and getting enough sleep can also play a significant role. It's also unclear what exactly the baseline will be for these new tests. And also even when Dr. C,

testosterone level drop below normal, TRT is not always the first thing recommended. Again, you can do more exercise, you can get more sleep, you could even maybe drink a little less. Those are all things that Pete Hegzeth might want to try before immediately trying to boost your actual testosterone. around. So anyway, oh, here's a clip of Pete Hegzith and all of his testosterone. Come on, let's get said it. Incredible stuff. The only question I have here also is who exactly is making these tests and is this some sort of contract and are they going to make a lot of money? Is there maybe a tiny bit of corruption going on here? And I don't know that's necessarily the case, but given this administration's behavior, I wouldn't be that surprised.

All of this seems very silly and I think our world is run by dorks, but Jack, what do you think? Okay, so there's a lot to go over here. First of all, projection is a hell of a drug. Right, brother, if you got low T, that's your problem, not our problem, okay? Number two, whenever somebody starts with, it's not about, it's about that thing. And in that case, he said, it's not about artificial enhancement. So it's about artificial enhancement, okay? And so this then that gets into this Gattaca issue, right? Well, we're gonna create superior human. And so how are we going to do that? We're fighting men, okay? We're gonna pump him up full of testosterone until they're like, let's kill somebody, right?

First of all, it's like a comical way of looking at the world. It's not that simple, right? But it's almost like this is such a bizarre analogy that I'm gonna do, so buckle up. My son and I are rewatching Breaking Bad. And so obviously he's watching for the first time. And you remember Tuko in the first season? And so he's this wild drug dealer was crazy. But But whenever he takes meth, he gets even more pumped up and then beats the crap out of people. Eventually, Heggis is going to try that. Well, the testosterone didn't work. Let's give him some meth.

We got to have him kill more people. Pete, just calm down. So, by the way, also huge insult to the troops. So I remember during the Iraq war, you know, we're the oldest show in Internet history. So we were around. And Ben Mancos and I were against the Iraq war. We were one of only two national shows to say we shouldn't go in. And everybody would scream at us back down.

Support the troops! Now these same guys come in and go, these troops are so weak and so unmanly. We got to pump them full of testosterone. Otherwise, they're no good. It's an enormous insult to the troops. Yeah. Also, my understanding is only about 10 to 15% of folks in the military are in combat roles at all. So why do we need 85% of the people in military who aren't in combat roles to be jacked up constantly on testosterone?

And also to your point earlier, I think also the Nazis did that. They were high on emphetamates the entire time. So who knows? There's plenty of ideas to go around if this doesn't work out for hexagon. Yeah, and they also believed in not doing defense, but doing war. And here's the Secretary of War telling us we got to hop people up on drugs so we can have more war. That is a haunting analogy. you had forgotten that, that's a great point.

And lastly, look, I'm atheists, so this is not my bag, but isn't it a little bit disrespectful to God to say, no, you didn't create them right? And so we're going to have to give them artificial hormones and testosterone to make them better than you could. I don't believe that. I think I don't really care what you do with your body. That's your business, not my business, right? But for these guys pretending to be religious and saying, God didn't build you well enough,

and we're gonna enhance you, also disrespectful to their religion, to God, and everything else that they claim to stand for. So a bit of a disastrous policy, but you do have to hand it to them a little amusing that they'd go in the gender affirming care direction. I didn't have that on my bingo card. What is every accusation is a confession?

Just keeps popping up every day, it's beautiful. Indeed. All right guys, so I'm gonna do the revolution next. We're gonna give you a great group that's trying to help the populace win. And then at nine o'clock Eastern tonight, play by play on the Trump speech. So stay right here. Elliot, you're awesome. Check him out on Rebel HQ.

And all of you all come right back.