The Young Turks - Tim Pool Accuses Donald Trump Of Becoming A “Neocon-Neoliberal”!!! - December 2, 2025

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/TYT and use code TYT and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! The Trump administration can't get their story straight on the Venezuela boat strikes. Tim Pool says Donald Trump is becoming a neo-con and slams the Venezuela regime change op. New details regarding hte alleged DC shooter, who was recruited by the CIA as a teenager. Trump attempts to put an end to Israel's strikes in Syria. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Get no frills delivered. Shop the same in-store prices online and enjoy unlimited delivery with PC Express Pass. Get your first year for 250 a month. Learn more at pceexpress.ca. I take.

It's not working. We finally beat Medicare. Well, hello. All right, welcome the youngsters, Jane Uger, Anna Kasparan with you guys. Big show ahead, Pete Higgs is in a lot of trouble. He's trying to blame everybody but himself. Is he going to be up on murder charges? Well, come on.

Come on. But how the Republicans in the Senate are reacting continues to be interesting. So on top of that, we've got a lot of stories for you guys where people are taking each other on. Tim Poole criticizing the Trump administration. Trump administration becoming the Biden administration, writing strongly worded letters to Netanyahu and then kissing his ass right afterwards. So of course Israel is now attacking Syria because they're allowed to attack any nation they like. And so we'll get to that story in a little bit and so much more. So, Casper, good to see you.

Good to see you. All right, let's do it. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get to our first story. I'd really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hexeth to make it last a long time so that they lose a limb and bleed out a little. Well, here we are again, Jank.

The same conservatives who salivated over the George W. Bush administration's war crimes are now coming out of the woodwork to essentially cheer on Trump's war crimes. So Jank, honestly, it feels like 2003 all over again, but I'm curious what you think. What are your two cents? Yeah, 100%. This is one total replay. We were on the air during the Iraq war. We said don't do it. This doesn't make any sense. Here we are, total BS allegations of wrongdoing, needless war. Oh, it's an oil rich country. Same exact playbook. And I think what's really interesting here and that why the Megan Kelly clip is instructive is which way are Trump voters going to go? Are they going to fall for it again just like they did with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney or have they learned their lesson? And I think that's the critical part here. And we'll see here in the story. Well, let's give you the details and then the audience could decide for themselves. And this story really has to do with what's being referred to as a double tap or a double strike on one of those fishing boats. that the Trump administration and Pentagon had suspected was a drug trafficking boat. Now, just to give you a little bit of context before we get to the reactions to this by conservatives,

let me just tell you that it happened in September, September 2nd, to be exact, the Pentagon had targeted a boat that had 11 individuals on it. The Pentagon has, by the way, already killed 80 people, at least 80 people as a result of these strikes on various fishing boats in the Caribbean. Now, some current and former U.S. officials and law of war experts, as if laws of war even really exist or followed. I mean, I think it's a joke at this point, but nonetheless, there are experts in that field. They've said that the Pentagon's lethal campaign is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution, which I personally find laughable. If there's one thing I know as an American, American and Israeli war crimes are never

punished. Now, experts say that the traffickers do not pose an imminent threat to the United States and are not in an armed conflict with our military, which is why the boat strikes in general are being questioned. The legality of those boat strikes are being questioned. But the strike that we're talking about in particular happened on September 2nd. Basically, the Pentagon suspects this boat carrying 11 people is trafficking drugs. They carry out a strike. And then they notice that that there are two individuals kind of hanging on to parts of the boat that had been blown to smithereens. And they were trying to survive. At that point, another strike takes place to kill the two surviving individuals. So because there is no legitimate war between the two sides,

killing any of the men in the boats amounts to murder, said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised special operations forces for seven years at the height of the U.S. counterterrorism campaign. Even if the U.S. were at war with the traffickers, an order to kill all the boat's occupants if they were no longer able to fight would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime, said Huntley, now director of the National Security Law program at Georgetown Law. Now, Admiral Frank Mitch Bradley, happened to be the commander overseeing the operation from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And he defended the double tap in a secure conference call, essentially arguing that these survivors were legit targets, okay, because they could have, I'm not kidding.

This is what he argued in the conference call, that they were legit targets because they could have called for other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo. How is that an imminent threat to the United States? That's insane. He ordered the second strike to fulfill Hegsith's directive that everyone must be killed. But it's also worth noting real quick that three people who spoke to the Washington Post said that the protocols were actually changed after the double strike to emphasize rescuing suspected smugglers if they survived the strikes. Seems like there was an admission internally that, hey, doing these double taps flies in the face of international law and could lead to prosecution. So they kind of change their protocols. But it also looks like there was an effort to kind of cover up the double tap strikes. So in the weeks following the attack, the Trump administration notified Congress that the U.S. was in a non-international armed conflict with designated terrorist organizations supported by an opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal counsel. So after the fact, the Trump administration comes out with these claims, I guess in a way to basically set them up to defend the strikes should it become a big controversy, and it has in fact

become a big controversy. The DOJ alleged that because the U.S. was in an armed conflict, personnel taking part in military strikes who were following orders consistent with the laws of war would not be exposed to prosecution. And since the first attack happened, the Pentagon has struck at least 22 additional boats, killing in total, at least 80 individuals. By the way, we still have not seen a shred of evidence that indicates that these individuals who have been killed were in fact trafficking drugs. Now, shockingly, the Trump administration's boat strikes have sparked a potential bipartisan investigation, meaning Republicans are wanting to investigate this, which is honestly shocking because they've been nothing but lap dogs for Trump. They're

terrified of Trump, even if he's doing things that are not popular with the Republican voters. But Senator Roger Wicker, who's a Republican from Mississippi and Senator Jack Reed from Rhode Island, a Democrat, respectively, the chair and senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a statement about the alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels saying that they intend to conduct vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances. And perhaps that's the reason why Trump is now saying that he would not have wanted a second strike on the alleged drug boat and even regurgitated Pete Higgsith's initial denials about all of this. He said, quote, this is Trump. I wouldn't have

wanted that a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine. But Pete said it didn't happen. I have great confidence in him. Now, Pete Hegzith called the Post reporting Washington Post, which broke the story. He called the reporting fake news, basically, saying, in a post on X. And this is part of this post. There's more to it, but it was lengthy. This is the relevant part. As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated inflammatory and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland. As we've said from the beginning and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be lethal kinetic strikes. The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy

narco boats, and kill the narco terrorists who are poisoning the American people. Look, at this point, If you've been following this story, you know that that's a bunch of hooey. It's a complete, utter lie. But the way he wrote that post makes you question is, Heggsith, what is he denying exactly? Now reporters asked Caroline Levitt that question, so let's take a quick look at that. Secretary Hexat had denied that that second strike, that reported second strike on an alleged drug vote on September 2nd, the secretary said to the president that that didn't happen. But to clarify, I just wanted you to clear this up.

In his social media post, Secretary Heggsat didn't go into details about that strike. He just said U.S. operations in the area were lawful, and he said that the story and media reports were fabricated. So to be clear, does the administration deny that that second strike happened? Or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hegset gave the order? The latter is true, and I have a statement to read for you here. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war.

With respect to the strikes in question on September 2nd, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. you buy prize picks. It's the holiday season, the best time of the year for everything, including sports. You got bowl games, basketball matchups, playoff pushes. It's all happening at once. And while you and I are out here making decisions every day, what gifts to buy, what to eat, which game to watch, there's one place where it feels good to be right. Prize picks. I've been playing fantasy football forever. And then once I started on prize picks, I realized why did I wait so long? It's so straightforward and easy to use. I don't have to calculate

any confusing odds. The payout multipliers are right there. And I love that I could have Patrick Mahomes and Steph Curry in the same lineup. It makes every game much more exciting. And what I really like is the flexibility. You can choose a power play for the biggest payouts. Do I like those? Of course! Or a flex play where you can still get paid even if one of your picks misses. And I like that one a lot too. So it's a great way to put your sports knowledge to the test and you know I love putting my knowledge to the test. So download the Price Picks app today and use code TYT to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code TYT to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.

Price picks, it's good to be right. Okay, so Hegzith authorized Bradley to do these strikes, which are illegal and flying the face of international laws. And by the way, Senator Rand Paul, who is not in favor of this buildup to a war with Venezuela, not happy, right? He had something to say about Hexas saying yesterday, they said, absolutely, Pete says he didn't do it. And then today, they admit that he did it. You think there would be ramifications. Was he incompetent enough not to know that it happened or was he lying yesterday? And then today during a press conference, Hegsith issued some statements about it. Let's take a quick look at what he had to say. I watched that first

strike lot. As you can imagine at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do. So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting. A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the, which he had the complete authority to do, and by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sunk the boat, sunk the boat, sunk the boat, and eliminated the threat. And he was the right call. We have his back, and the American people are safer because narco-terrorists know you can't bring drugs through the water and eventually on land, if necessary. To the American people, we will eliminate

that threat and we're proud to do it. So, Jank, I need to get some comment from you on this because what do you think is happening here? Do you think they're just throwing, you know, Admiral Bradley under the bus? And by the way, you are the Secretary of Defense. You couldn't wait to see the operation conclude. You decided to be halfway through it. Like, I've got other things to do. What do you have to do, Pete?

Like, what are you up to? I mean, on one hand, Jank, he's talking about narco terrorists and how they're a big threat to the United States. And then on the other hand, halfway through this operation, it's like, yeah, I got, I had other things to do. Yeah. Did you? Yeah, there are two obviously related stories here. One is the effort to start a war with Venezuela. Another is whether Pete Higgsith or Admiral Bradley committed a war crime and should be brought up on charges of murder.

So are they throwing Admiral Bradley under the boat, if you will? Of course they are. Otherwise, Hexeth would say, yeah, it's a legal strike. And I ordered it. Why are you trying to shift the blame to Bradley? The buck stops with the secretary of defense. So if you thought it was a perfectly legal order, you wouldn't bother saying, it was him. It was him, right?

Okay, that's what cowards do. All this tough talk, right? Oh, you generals, you're too overweight and too many of you have beards. I don't I don't like your grooming and I'm gonna make comments about your pants or whatever the stupid fashion advice he's giving them. Meanwhile, the minute he's in trouble for giving an illegal order, it was them. It was them, you coward. That's what Hagsith is. By the way, bombing these boats is a total act of cowardice.

So Rand Paul made another good point. And he said, of the boats that are stopped historically that are these type of boats coming from Venezuela, you know, good news, a lot of them actually do carry drugs, good news for the administration. So, you know, some of them are narco-terrorist, well, like terrorists is a stupid word, but our drug dealers, we should stop them, we should prevent the drugs from coming in, they're not going to America, there's no way a boat that can go 100 miles, can it go 2,000 miles to America. But either way, perfectly happy to stop them, end the drug dealing, even if it's

going to trade it out or wherever it's going, okay? But 21% of the boats were perfectly innocent people, 21%. Imagine an error rate of 21% on any lethal action we're taking. Oh, we killed a bunch of, you know, drug dealers. First of all, is that what we're supposed to do? Are we supposed to kill drug dealers? And didn't do Twerte get into a lot of trouble in international criminal court for killing drug dealers without trials, right? Well, society has been degraded since then. Yeah. So now we're apparently- Think about how much things have devolved since Duterte was the leader of-

Yeah, so now we're apparently like the, you know, the head of a junta in a third world country. I don't know if we're allowed to say that anymore, but who cares, right? And so now we're just like, oh, okay, there's someone I kind of think might be a drug dealer. Let's just murder them and, oh, we didn't kill all of them. And I'll remember why we're doing this and having this conversation in the first way's because the last time there were survivors in one of these bombings, the American government was embarrassed because it turns out they were innocent and they had to let them go. Oops, that means everyone else they killed on that boat was also innocent and we

murdered the wrong people. So says Hegseth and Trump and the entire administration don't want to be embarrassed that they're killing random people from time to time. And in fact, a good percentage of the time, they're like, and they have no evidence at all, at all. They've never presented a single drop of drugs. They've never presented a single piece of evidence. So since they're obviously wildly acting illegally, that's why they're like, Admiral Bradley, it's all his, I mean, we stand behind him. I mean, when he says he stands behind him, what he's saying is, yeah, I'm standing behind

him, I'm pushing him under the bus. Okay, so that's the kind of cowards there. Look, guys, the most important part of this story is they're trying to start another war. Okay, it's this textbook, same exact thing is right. Oh, don't worry, we have secret intelligence. Well, show me the intelligence. Oh no, no, they're very dangerous. Now we came out with a new word just so we could use the word terrorism,

narco-terrorists, and are you in favor of Maduro? Are you in favor of Saddam? You sound like a narco-terrorist sympathizer, right? I've been through this movie before young Turks on the air during the Iraq war. So to me, Anna, the surprising parts of the story is, Why is Roger Wicker, a Republican senator and so many other Republican senators, all of a sudden considered about, care about war crimes? I've never seen them care about war crimes.

America's murdering innocent people are military because of the orders of some jackass in Department of Defense, Republican or Democrat. I've never seen them care, never, ever, ever. So it's weird that that's happening, that's interesting. Maybe it's a positive turn of events, I don't know if it's something else. And then most importantly, Anna, to me is how conservative media is going to deal with this. Because in the old days, it was just Fox News, New York posts all owned, Wall Street Journal, all owned by Rupert Murdoch, and they would all tell you, war is the only answer,

we must destroy all the terrorists, your babies are in danger if we don't start this war on behalf of oil companies, Israel, et cetera, et cetera. Back in the day, this seems to be mainly oil companies and defense contractors. So, but now Megan Kelly's like, yeah, let's kill them. Kill the innocent people and watch them bleed out. But Tucker Carlson is saying, this looks a lot like Iraq. I don't know why there's a pressing need for the American people to start a war in Caracas and have ground troops there. This is mental.

So yeah, Tucker's totally right. Megan Kelly is a dinosaur of the media elite from the Bush administration. It's actually devastatingly embarrassing. So before we go to our video, I just want to give you another fact toy that's really important to keep in mind. As we all know, there's been a military buildup off the coast of Venezuela. There have been additional American troops who have been sent to the area and there are some contracts that have already been signed that I know about as a result of Dave DeCamp's

incredible reporting over at anti-war.com. In a video that he published yesterday, he disclosed that the U.S. has signed contracts to provide meals to soldiers who have been deployed through 2028. We're going to war. It doesn't matter what the American people think. It doesn't matter what kind of war crimes are being committed. This is the real world. And the real world means that none of us matter. The rules of engagement don't matter. And the lives of our soldiers don't matter. They're just pawns for various wars that were carried out by moneyed interests and, you know, the unhinged presidential administrations. Now with that in mind, you're about to hear unhinged commentary from the likes of Megan Kelly. So I really do kind of not only want to see

them killed in the water, whether they're on the boat or in the water, but I'd really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hexseth to make it last a long time so that they lose a limb and bleed out a little. Like I'm really having a difficult time ginning up sympathy for these guys who 10 seconds earlier almost got taken out by the initial bomb, but because they managed to get ejected a little too soon had to be taken out in the water. I realize legally it may make a difference, but truly, Mark, this is a tough case to really gin up the sympathies of the American people. We don't know anything about the 11 people who were killed.

Nothing about them. We haven't seen a shred of evidence indicating that they were actually engaging in drug trafficking. And even if they were engaging in drug trafficking, so that's where we're at now as a country, that our government should be allowed to engage in extrajudicial killings, no due process, even though it's part of our constitution, just kill whoever you want on the mere suspicion that they are attempting to bring drugs to the United States. Yeah. And by the way, let me just say one final thing about that.

I thought, I thought Trump secured our borders. What happened? So I guess our borders aren't secure. So much so that we literally have to bomb and do double taps of boats off the coast of Venezuela or in the Caribbean sea. Okay, anyway, Jake, take it away. Yeah, she sounds like Dick Cheney. Of course. Yeah, we've got to do enhanced interrogations.

I don't want to just kill them. I want to see them bleed out. and et cetera. So what happened? Republican voters or Trump voters? I thought you guys were against Dick Cheney. I thought you guys were against unnecessary wars. Now you're gonna buy the same load of crap again? Come on, guys. So, and by the way, another talking point that she used from the old days is it's hard to gin up sympathy for this. Oh, it's hard to get sympathy for Saddam. Why do you have sympathy for Saddam? Oh, he likes Saddam. He likes Saddam. We should go lose 5,000 American boys in Iraq because he likes Saddam.

And you should all hate Saddam. You hate him, hate him. Hate Maduro, hate Maduro. Now go die there. But we have meals for you guys. All right guys, on whether the Hegsith double tap is illegal, this is a hilarious fact. So not only is it illegal under international law, it's illegal under U.S. law, but the military, our military, U.S. military, has an example of a killing that is definitely

a war crime and illegal. It is when a ship is sunk and there are survivors of that ship and you kill them. It's literally in the manual, this exact example. Yeah, what they did was definitely murder. Now, I'll grant you that Israel does it all the time. America did it with the Apache helicopter video in Iraq and probably did it many, many times in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this is getting stupid now where we say, okay, we'd like to invade your country because you have the number one oil reserves in the world. So we'll pretend that you guys are narco terrorists and we're the good guys, even though

we're the ones doing the extra judicial killings of you that are totally outside of even our own laws. But you see how we're the good guys and you're the bad guys. No, I don't see it. Saddam was a bad guy, Maduro's a bad guy, that doesn't mean we should invade Venezuela and that we should kill random people on boats. And just to really just end the conversation about how this is about narco-terrorists, Trump pardoned someone and released them from prison today, actually. And that individual, this is such an incredible story. So former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez,

he was in prison for drug trafficking, and he was just pardoned by President Trump. He's been released from prison. And Glenn Greenwald is going to give us some more details on that. Let's take a quick look. Trump just pardoned one of the most malicious and destructive

actual drug drug traffickers from that same region Latin America pardoned them the president of Honduras the former president of Honduras who was convicted with ample evidence not just that people in his country were sending drugs into

the United States but that he himself was overseeing the drug trafficking ring and benefiting from it. Hopefully, Megan Kelly can spare a minute or two to maybe opine on that on her show. I doubt that's going to happen. But maybe in between salivating over watching people, potentially innocent people, bleeding out through illegal double taps that the United States military is carrying out, maybe just spare a moment to talk about the fact that a prolific drug trafficker was just released from prison,

thanks to the president that she pretends to love so much. Yeah, we cover that story yesterday on the Young Turks. And if you missed that, there was a trial here in the US of this guy. Drug cartel leaders said, yeah, we picked them from when he was a rural congressman, because he was willing to work with us. We elevated him to the presidency of Honduras, and then he knew the dozens of murders that we committed. I mean, he's one of the worst drug traffickers in human history. We just pardon them for no reason at all while we're pretending to care about drugs being brought in this country.

And Anna, last one, if you didn't see the quote, he has this amazing quote about how he's like, we're gonna shove that cocaine up the nose of the gringoes and they won't even know it. So that's the guy we're letting go, but the random fishermen were murdering. Okay, gee, I wonder if it has to do with the oil. Mm-hmm. All right, we got to take a break, but when we come back, Tim Poole is right for a change and we'll tell you what he's right about. We'll be right back. Anna, so were you about to say something during the social break? No, look, the only thing I wanted to say, and we got to move on to, there's so much other news to talk about. But look, fentanyl is a real problem in this country, you know, and I think part of the reason why I'm so furious at the people who are carrying water for Trump on this issue and lying about what the Trump administration's actual intentions are is that it's exploiting a real problem in the country to lie to Americans to drum up.

support for what the Trump administration is doing. At the same time, the very problem that needs to be addressed hasn't really been addressed in a meaningful way. Now, the Trump administration claims that they've had talks with China to try to get China to stop allowing for the export of the, you know, the of the fentanyl to Mexico, and then it gets smuggled into our country through Mexico. I had to talk. I had to talk. I get along with the leader of China. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. Okay, so that's interesting. So when it comes to fentanyl, which is the drug that's killing, okay, close to 100,000 people per year, and meth is also part of it, but it's a smaller percentage, I'll have a polite conversation, you know, with the leader of the country that's sourcing

the drug. But when it comes to small fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela, we're going to bomb them and we're going to do double taps and commit war crimes. I just, no one cares about us or this country. And that's the thing that really bothers me. And people are really suffering. Drug addiction is a very real problem. And I see it on the streets every single day, every single day. No one care. Democrats don't care. Republicans don't care. No one cares. Anyway, go ahead, Jake. Yeah, just one last sentence. I, there is a 0% chance that any of those boats could reach America. They don't have enough fuel. They don't have anywhere near enough fuel.

We're just killing both people on boats that are going to other places. It's absurd. It's beyond absurd. Okay, let's continue. All right, we've got some more details on the D.C. National Guard shooting that took place. And I want to give you those details and more. Let's get into it. It's not to justify any kind of U.S. intervention. I'm actually opposed to it. I don't think Trump should be doing this, not a fan.

No new wars. We can't feed the poor, but we got money for wars, as a saying goes. Trump seems to be going a little bit into the neoliberal. On yesterday's edition of the Tim Poole show, he actually went on the record to say something I fully agree with, which I don't get to say often on this show. He is very much opposed to a regime change war in Venezuela, which is very clearly what the Trump administration is currently waging. Jank, your two cents? Yeah, look, this is super encouraging that some in the right-wing media are remembering that they pretended to be anti. No, but in this case, not pretended.

They actually, it turns out, we're actually anti-war during the campaign that they don't appreciate Donald Trump going back on his promises. Amazing. Okay, tell us more. Yeah, and to your point on that, I think it's an important point to emphasize. for me, whether or not I engage in conversations with people I typically disagree with really depends on whether or not they're good faith actors. Are they honest individuals? I genuinely think that people are led astray. I think our media and journalism in America is really lacking. So sometimes people are misled. I understand that. But I'm not interested in having any conversation

with anyone who's just simply carrying water for a tribe or a political party or a president. I want people who actually want the facts. Our opinions might differ, right? Our decisions or opinions based on the facts that are presented might differ. But we have to at least agree on the facts. So with that in mind, earlier in the segment, Poole had explained that he believes that the Trump administration is targeting Venezuela in order to free up their supply of oil, something that we've also floated here on the show. Let's hear Tim Poole make the case. Their country used to be the wealthiest in South America.

They have a lot of black gold down there, a lot of oil. Everybody wants it. Donald Trump says we're going to get it. And that's likely the big reason for all of this. But I'm not going to be so naive to say it's just that the U.S. is basically going, let's steal their oil. What the U.S. is basically saying is your stupid communist system is restricting the oil trade. We're not going to have that.

I'm not excusing U.S. foreign military operations, but I'm just saying it's not as simple as the U.S. saying, we found oil boys, let's go get it. They're basically saying, okay, you've bankrupted your country. The oil's not flowing properly. And you know what? There's a variety of issues here. I do think it's principally oil. And the companies are going to come in and take it. But again, it's, I'm not justifying the old oil intervention. I'm saying that, issue behind it is the mentality of these corporations and the government has is, if we get a new government in Venezuela, companies can start pumping oil. Venezuela's standard of living will dramatically improve. They will be wealthy again. So I think Tim Poole is right for the most part. There's

one wrinkle to the story that I don't think is getting reported enough. So I'll just talk about it here, which is the fact that, you know, Nicholas Maduro does not want war. Very clearly does not want war. So he actually told the Trump administration, and Trump himself confirm this, I will give you what you want. You want access to the oil reserves? I will give you access. I don't want war. Trump was asked about that by a reporter. He not only confirmed that Nicholas Maduro said he was willing to give him anything he wants, he just doesn't care because he wants more than the oil. For Trump, and more importantly, for Marco Rubio, this is also about ousting Nicholas Maduro. They want Maduro to step down. And that's something that he is

unwilling to do. I guess that's the one red line for Maduro. He wants to step down on his own time and not do it immediately as the Trump administration is demanding. Now later, let me go to one more video, Jank, and then I want to hear from you. Poole said that he believes that the Trump administration wants to gain access to Venezuelan oil in order to lower costs and influx. And inflation, in the short term. And here's Poole explaining why he's opposed to that plan. In order to be able to expand your house, move on up, build a savings, you need to spend less than you make.

That's every country. You need to do more work for everyone else. And instead, the United States does not do that. The United States just says, we'll blow you up and we control the petro dollar. And I think the Republican play right now is after Trump. They want to go neocon. They want to go world police all over again, and they're going to find reasons to do it. So I'll talk about there.

But I'm going to wrap it up for you, my friends. I'm not a fan of the war, and I don't want it. I think Maddo's a scumbag, communist, but I think we'd be better off creating internal working structures for our economy, where we actually do the work to increase our wealth instead of playing the stupid neocon, neolib, liberal economic order, BS. The neocons never left the Republican Party and are still very much part of the White House, part of the Trump administration. I think that's pretty clear at this point. But what do you think, Cenk? Yeah, he said after Trump, they're going neocon. No, they're going neocon right now.

Yeah. Threatening to invade Venezuela is textbook neocon. So, but look, Tim's generally saying the right things there. And Petro Dollar is a real concern, and he brings that up, educates his audience about. about it, you know, and that was one of the issues with Saddam Hussein and potentially taking oil, the trading form of oil off the dollar. And that was another thing that might have precipitated the Iraq war. There's a number of reasons as we've discussed before. A fun fact, just something funny, Maduro even looks like Saddam Hussein. Like when we show those pictures, I'm like this is like an exact replay. When we're coming to Iraq, I mean, come on. When we were covering Iraq war, they had all these fun-

Oh my God, you're so right, right, yes. Yeah, look at him, look at him. We used to cover these stories, Ben and I used to make fun of this thing, the day we say, oh, Saddam has a lot of doppel gangers, right? And we never found any of the doppelgangers. Well, maybe there they are, with Venezuela afterwards. God, it's just so textbook.

Yeah. So look, there's, I think Anna, there's one piece of hope here that this war is not going to definitely happen, because yeah, it's, It's the same old textbook thing of the neocons and they're currently, they never left the Republican. They are the Republican Party. And Trump has always been part of the establishment, wants to be part of the establishment, wants to be part of the elites. He's not trying to topple them. He was just trying to gain entrance, right? And now he's gained interest and he's doing the same exact things as they are, right? So, but, but last time in Iraq, we had oil,

we had the defense contractors, we had the banks speculating. All three are still here in in Venezuela. By the way, don't underestimate the bankers, because once they've got, you know, loans in some direction and they need to recoup those billions of dollars, they often are the strongest force pushing us into war, almost never talked about in legacy media. But in this case, look, Israel's a tiny factor here. Somehow they claim that Hezbollah is working with Venezuela or some lunatic thing like that. But yeah, there's one other thing that happened today real quick I got to mention so that Venezuelan lawmaker out of Florida was interviewed and she like floated this

ridiculous conspiracy about how Venezuela is stealing enriched uranium on behalf of Hamas yeah I mean look I think that they're trying to get the Israel first guys on their team by saying that that's my best guess right but yeah like if if they're actually doing anything with Hamas or has well then they're gone because then Israel first will demand it, and it's over, he's already dead, and we're already in Caracas, right? But I think the reason why we might be able to prevent this war is because I'm not sure that Israel first is on board for this, and they're an enormously powerful group. Instead, who's on board for it is the Cuban Americans. Marco Rubio wants to topple Venezuela so he could topple Cuba, right?

And so I don't think the Cuban Americans are that strong politically. Exactly. So if they try the same trick as Israel did with Iraq, they might run into a brick wall. So I think that might prove critical. I don't think it's impossible for Tucker Carlson and Tim Poole and a lot of Trump's base to turn around and go, no, we said anti-war, we meant anti-war, and maybe Hegseth getting in trouble with the double tap, et cetera, might push it over the edge to not necessarily go to war, if Israel's not on board.

Israel's usually the key. Oh, jank, oh jank, ever the optimist, we're going to war. They've already signed contracts that go through to 2028 that provide food for the troops in the buildup near the coast of Venezuela. It's over. Yeah, it's over. All right, it's just the last few things. As I like that Tim is being principled and I'm thrilled to see it, right, I do have to say him saying like, oh, no, don't worry, it might improve the standard of living of Venezuelans. Remind me of we'll be greeted as liberators in Iraq, right?

Okay, but all right, one last thing that I'll guarantee for you guys is if we don't attack Venezuela, then they definitely had nothing to do with Hamas or Hezbollah. Because if they did, this war has already begun. 100%. I totally agree with that. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll then do the story. I promised you. Sorry, I had my order mixed up.

We'll talk a little bit about the individual. who shot and killed a National Guard member in Washington, D.C., and severely wounded another. We're learning more about how this individual was actually an asset to the CIA in Afghanistan. And maybe we should question whether or not that's a good idea. So that and more coming up, we'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jankana with you guys. Also box, thank you for gifting a membership on YouTube and get a load of this, Fat Satter and Ecclectic miscellaneous with 10 gifted memberships at peace.

That's amazing, you guys are awesome. Whoa. We appreciate you guys. All right, Casper. Well, we've got some updates on the individual, the Afghan National, who shot and killed a National Guard member and severely wounded another in D.C. So without further ado, let's get to those details. The person who committed allegedly these crimes, Lackenwall, had a gun put in his hand when he was a child by the CIA. Apparently when he was 14 or 15,

he was brought into the zero unit number three around Kandahar. The United States made this person into a child soldier and now is experiencing what I think is one of the most horrifically bright-line cases of imperial blowback that we've seen throughout the war on terror. If the United States wants to find out whose culture is responsible for this horrific crime, it needs to start by knocking on doors at Langley. I could not agree more with that take. Now, of course, for good reason, Americans are trying to understand the motivations behind the killing of a national guard member, a young woman by the name of Sarah Bextrum, and the shooting of another National Guard member who luckily survived, but has severe wounds as a result of this shooting that was carried out by a national guard.

I'm sorry, that was carried out by an Afghan national by the name of Romanollah Lackinwal. Now, he has been charged with murder, rightfully so, and he will be brought to justice for his alleged acts here. He hasn't been convicted yet, so I have to say alleged. But, you know, before we get to the CIA angle, I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about the fact that a young woman 20 years old was shot and killed in Washington, D.C., robbed of her life. And we don't really know the full extent of the injuries that are suffered by the other National Guard member, Andrew Wolfe. But, you know, usually there's a quick, knee-jerk reaction that becomes very political. And you have the two sides that fight each other, one side, you know, almost, it comes across as if people are trying to carry water for the person who carried out this disgusting act of violence. And I don't want anyone to think that I have any interest in doing that.

What happened was an injustice. But what's important is to understand why it happened and how we can prevent it from happening again in the future. Was this individual vetted before he was allowed into the United States? We're going to give you the details on that. What was the extent of his cooperation with the CIA as the war in Afghanistan was taking place? Why was he recruited when he was a kid 15 years old? So we're going to get to all of that. But first, you're two cents, Jank. Yeah, so we've done how many billions of dollars in surveillance?

Hmm, it seems like we never catch the guy. I wonder if the surveillance is to catch terrorists or to catch us and monitor us. And then I wonder if this is productive or counterproductive. That's not a tough one. So if this guy really wanted to help the cause of Afghans or Muslims, or immigrants, he could not have done anything worse or more counterproductive, which then makes me wonder, what was the true motive? And that's an interesting conversation. Right. So, you know, usually when there's an act of violence like this carried out by a Muslim, you start seeing the headlines about how there's radical extremism in the country. And look, radical extremism exists. But so far, we haven't seen any evidence to indicate that radical

extremism is what motivated him to carry out this act of violence. But we, We do have a little more information about the impact that working with the CIA, especially as young as 15 years old, may have had on his mental health. That doesn't justify what he did, but it should maybe get the CIA and this country in general to rethink some of the military procedures that are deployed in various conflicts abroad. So with that in mind, per the Washington Post, Lackinwal was recruited into the CIA's zero unit at around or in around 2011. So the unit's job was basically to perform counterterrorism missions in Afghanistan alongside U.S. forces. Now, Lackenwal's squad was responsible for locating individuals affiliated with al-Qaeda, who apparently were very friendly with now. But nonetheless, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, then the rest of his unit would essentially swoop in to kill the target. Now, there were Afghan interpreters and people working with our military who might not have really seen much violence, or maybe they saw minimal violence.

But that was not the case when it came to Lock and Wall. So according to the reporting here, official documents indicate that he's currently 29 years old. and 14 years ago in 2011 is when he was recruited by the CIA, meaning that he was just 15 years old when this happened. Now, he said Mick Mulroy, who is a retired Marine and CIA paramilitary officer, who served with the Afghan teams, said of this CIA unit in which Lock and Wall was working, they were in the heaviest fighting. It was almost every day.

I don't think a 15-year-old's brain is able to cope with that much bloodshed, violence, slaughter. You get the picture. It's obviously going to have an impact on someone's brain. Now, the Taliban regained power immediately after the United States had withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2021. I'm going to give you some details about Lackenwal's, you know, involvement in that. And more importantly, whether or not he was vetted properly before he was allowed into the United States. But before we do that, just a little bit of information from journalist Seth Harp about the zero units. Take a look.

Zero unit number three was the one apparently that he was assigned to. Also known as the Kandahar Strike Force, which was headed by a U.S. ally, a warlord named Ahmad Wally Karzai, who got the top drug lord in Afghanistan as a fair way to describe him. He ran, you know, the zero units for basically U.S. proxy forces that operated at the direction of the CIA and the special forces in Afghanistan. And they primarily did what's called night raids, euphemistically known as night. They're more like assassination missions. And they were used extensively throughout the country to kill people that the U.S. intelligence suspected of being Taliban, whether or not they actually were Taliban is quite a different. matter. A lot of these proxy forces, proxy militias, in fact, practiced something called Bacha Bazi, which was a really despicable cultural practice where underage boys were trafficked and sold. All of this ugliness, the stuff that went on in the sort of in the criminal client state that the U.S. American national security objectives in Afghanistan, the Kandahar strike force that he served in was in the middle of all of it. There's more stuff to it than that as well. Yeah, that's pretty horrific stuff.

Now, by the way, one other note about the, you know, oh, we're fighting al-Qaeda and all of that. What's really amazing is that while we were fighting al-Qaeda, when it came to Syria, the U.S. was arming al-Qaeda in order to destabilize the country and overthrow Bashar al-Assad. And in an email exchange with Hillary Clinton, Jake Sullivan made abundantly clear that al-Qaeda is on our team when it comes to Syria. They're the good guys when it comes to Syria. It's just so disgusting. Anyway, but let me move on. So as I mentioned, the Taliban gained power immediately after the U.S. withdrew from the country back in 2021. But as the U.S. was withdrawing lock and wall and his unit specifically was the one to secure the Kabul airport, which is, laughable because it wasn't secure, as we all know. We had troops that lost their lives as a result of the withdrawal and how incredibly messy it was, poorly planned. But Lockenwell, in addition to

his earlier vetting to join the zero units, underwent extensive vetting by U.S. counterterrorism authorities, including the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center, before entering the United States, according to people with direct knowledge of the case. So, look, it is very important to bring this guy to justice 100%. But we also have to take a look at what the United States military, the CIA, what they're engaging in. Because to be honest with you, I don't trust the CIA in vetting anything. The CIA can't even keep members of our National Guard safe in Washington, freaking D.C. So I'm curious what you think, Jank, because the CIA is the very government agency, the intelligence agency, that decided to recruit a freaking 15 year old to engage in counterterrorism missions.

Yeah. So look, first of all, Chris Cuomo came after me today for talking about some other case. I don't even remember which case. He said, well, yeah, how come you're not talking about this guy? Where's the question? Like, so a guy goes and kills one member of the national card, terribly injures the other. So the guy's a terrible guy and it's a terrible act, where's the question, right? So okay, so that's obvious, it's reprehensible. The only question then results from that is, why did it happen so that we could prevent it from happening, as Anna alluded to, right? So now in his case, probably the most likely answer is what the papers are reporting,

which is that he had a very rough time adjusting here because he mainly killed people. for a living, right? And now he had a lot of respect and money because of that position in Afghanistan. He comes here has no respect or money, no ability to get a job because he got asylum, but he had a very limited work permit. So he couldn't get a job. He had menial jobs, couldn't take care of his family. So all these, he had a fight with his brother, etc. So is that it? Probably, probably. And so that's a tough one to be able to counteract And I suppose like a better transition process, etc. For folks who helped our country in other wars and we made promises to, etc.

But overall, like if that's why it happened, there's not much you could do about randos who, you know, then lose it, etc. I mean, for if you're like, there's this idea out by some of the people who hate Muslims that somehow like this is like a pro-Islam thing. Are you insane? Nothing hurts the Muslim community more than this. So the people who are hurt most are obviously the victims, the National Guard who got shot. But I would say after them and well, after them, because they're the ones who actually literally got hurt. But after them is Muslim Americans and immigrants and Afghans, because those are the guys who now everybody's going to take it out on, right? So if- Can we just not recruit child soldiers? Can we do that? Obviously there was a deal made here.

Okay, the deal is, hey, 15 year old, you know, work with us. And eventually when this war is over, you get entry to the United States. How about, how about we don't do that? Yeah, no, there's no way they're not going to do that. Am I asking too much? Am I asking too much? How about we don't employ child soldiers? Yeah, I honestly, I don't know what the CIA is good for.

Nothing. I hear, I know that they're supposed to be secret and stuff, but I mean like in the history, I have never heard of a CIA do our CIA ever helping America ever ever all I hear is story after story about oh a coup against a democratically elected person because the banana company wanted it the oil company wanted it the CIA doesn't even work for us they work for the multinational corporations that fund our politicians so now they have child soldiers in Afghanistan and that blew up in our face oh nobody could have seen that coming

right and so and look I look the guy worked with the CIA. So it does make me wonder, I mean, this deeply, deeply counterproductive thing to the Muslim American community happens when boy, some forces really, really wanted it. Like God, it's so well timed to be able to say the Muslims, the immigrants, all these things, right? And so now we have it. I, congratulations CIA. I don't know. I don't know what happened there, But I do like my most likely answer is he was disgruntled with how life was going. Okay, but either way, hold on Anna, one last thing, either way, whether they plucked him as a child soldier and poisoned his mind and then all he knows is how to kill and then we bring him here and then he kills people or the CIA put him up to, which is less likely, either way, it's definitely the CIA's fault and he chalk up another disaster from the most toxic organization in the history of the country. In January of 2024, a volunteer wrote the following email.

So he had a bunch of jobs, so it's got a graphic four. He held jobs for brief periods and hosted gatherings at his home, the volunteer said. But by 2023, he began isolating himself and appeared defeated by the challenges of finding steady work and adapting to life in the United States. Let me just note, plenty of Americans are struggling in the United States. And they don't carry out acts of violence like murder as a result of that. But in January of 2024, the volunteer wrote the following in an email. Quote, he spends most of his time in his darkened bedroom, not speaking to anyone, not even his wife and older kids.

I personally believe that he's suffering from both PTSD and from his work with the U.S. military in Afghanistan. 15-year-old minors are not suited to see that level of death and destruction, to actually take part in it, which is what he was doing at the behest of the CIA. Now, I just want to note some other things real quick. So the Washington Post also reported that Lackenwal had refused many of the entry-level jobs available to him as a recent immigrant, but the Post did not explain what those jobs were, nor did they explain why he refused. On November 26th, Lackenwall allegedly shot the National Guard members killing one of them, Sarah Bextrum.

Beckstrom was killed, Wolf is recovering from severe injuries. But notably, the shooting took place. This is important. The shooting took place just two blocks from the White House. You would assume that that area is just flooded with law enforcement, right? That flooded with members of the intelligence community, secret service. But friend of the show, Ken Clippenstein, referred to the location as the most heavily surveilled and guarded place on earth. he argues, the suspect is a textbook profile of the very kind of attacker, this sprawling

multi-billion dollar national and homeland security apparatus is supposed to catch. Then he goes on to list the institutions that failed to prevent the shooting. That includes the Capitol Police, the CIA, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, the NSA, the Secret Service. And I want to repeat, this is not to take the blame away from the guy who carried out the act of violence. But if we want to ask ourselves, how was he able to do that? What can we do to prevent it from happening in the future? Maybe we should question all of those three letter government agencies, our taxpayer dollars go toward, yet they fail to keep us safe time and time

again. Anyway, that's meanwhile, you know, you have Christyneum and others exploiting the situation to be even more restrictive when it comes to immigration, which is par for the course. But that's all I have on this. Yeah, and she uses terrible words as Trump does, everybody does. So all right guys, two things about, so surveillance, we're told we have to give multi-billion dollar contract after contract after contract. And then if anyone that's bothering the powerful does anything wrong, oh look at this, we found this new piece of evidence, right?

And everybody's being surveilled and everybody's being monitored. But golly gee, CIA trained terrorists are the only ones that could escape that drag net. So if the surveillance never catches the terrorists, what's the surveillance for? That's a good question. That question will never be asked in Washington, where they'll just sign a blank check over to Palantir in other places,

other companies that will then use it to terrorize us and to never actually protect us. And guys, there's differences. The FBI catches a lot of bad guys. They do things that are wrong too, but at least we have shown on this show, shown on this show dozens of times. Hey, look, FBI actually stopped that plot. Nice job FBI, okay? The CIA, I don't know what they're good for at all. So which leads to the second

point. So everybody has a bunch of different parts of their identity, right? And people use those different parts whenever they want to make a political point. So this guy was, for example, male. He was Afghan. He was young. He was a Muslim. He was an immigrant. And he was CIA trained. Okay. So what has our politicians and our media decided to focus on? Not the young male part, which is what is the connective tissue to every single, almost every single mass shooter. Not the guns. That's not not connective tissue, not any of that, right? No, Afghan, Muslim, immigrant, attack, attack, attack, it's because of that. Now, do you think it's more likely that he did this because he's an Afghan and all Afghans are wild-eyed terrorists? Or is it more likely that the part of his identity that mattered the most in this shooting was that he was trained by the CIA to murder people at the age of 15? I would argue the CIA training is the most relevant part of his identity as it regards

to the shooting. But all of American media and all of American politicians disagree. They go, the Muslim, the Muslim, remember, you have to hate all of them, because hating other people that didn't do this somehow will prevent this. By the way, if you said it about any other religion, of course everyone would be horrified, horrified, right? You say it about Muslims, everybody's like, yeah, it's the Muslims. No, no, they're lying to you, and they're doing it so that the Palantiers of the world can

rob you blind. The CIA can screw you over and they could do God knows what with our national treasure. When we come back from the break, we'll talk a little bit about how Trump is allegedly wagging his finger at Benjamin Netanyahu as he prepares to visit the White House for the fifth time in less than a year of Trump's second term. We'll be right back. I don't know.