Timcast IRL - Kash Patel CONFIRMED, Deep State PANICS, Mitch McConnell To RETIRE w/ Kevin Smith

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Phil, Elaad, & Mary are joined by Kevin Smith to discuss Kash Patel being confirmed as FBI director, Trump floating abolishing the IRS & income tax, a judge ruling Trump can continue mass firings of government employees, and Trump slamming Ukraine's president Zelenskyy for canceling elections. Hosts: Tim @Timcast (everywhere) Phil @PhilThatRemains (X) Elaad @ElaadEliahu (X) Mary @PopCultureCrisis (YouTube) Serge @SergeDotCom (everywhere) Guest: Kevin Smith @kevin_smith45 (X) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

you you The Senate has confirmed Kash Patel leaving only, I believe, four of Donald Trump's nominees out waiting to finish off. I think we've got Chavez de Rimer, Linda McMahon, Jameson Greer, and Elise Stefanik left. So most of the people that Donald Trump has looked to appoint have gotten in, the notable exception being a friend of the show, Matt Gaetz. But it looks like the primary people that Donald Trump has been looking to push forward, looks like he's going to get the cabinet of his choice.

So we're going to talk about that tonight. Let's see. There's talk about Donald Trump wanting to abolish the IRS and replacing it with tariffs, which I think is generally looked at as favorable among most of the people that are sitting around the table. But we'll discuss that. The Trump administration is talking about mass firing of federal workers and judge rules. That would be something that, again, we would be quite positive. We would look at as positive. We've got some movement on Doge. So there's the Doge dividend, which has actually gotten a lot of people talking on my personal Twitter page. I made a comment about it, and there's a lot of people with a lot of strong feelings about that as well.

Then there's some international news with Donald Trump talking to Vladimir. Well, I don't think actually Donald Trump's doing it, but there's, I believe was the secretary of state in the UAE or is it Saudi Arabia? I'm not sure where, but it's somewhere in the Middle East hosting the discussion between Russia and the U.S. about the Ukraine and the policies of the United States are changing. There's going to be a reverse on them. There's discussions about who's going to be taken care of Ukraine's security. And, and will the, the Europeans pick up the slack?

I believe Macron is going to Ukraine on Monday to discuss this. And France has said that they will pick up a large portion of it. So we'll get to that. But before we get into that, how about if you head on over to cast brew dot com and buy some coffee? We're going to go ahead and bring that up in a second. Casper dot com is our coffee, our coffee company. You can go and you can get the I think we can actually get Ian's Graphene Dream. That's the big seller lately.

You guys love the low acidity blend, and you're making a millionaire out of our good friend, Ian. He's selling coffee like it's going out of style. You could go and get Appalachian Nights. It's still available. You can get some of the uh two weeks till christmas blend which is me dressed up in a silly um silly uh santa claus costume um and then you can head on over to are we going to do the boonies too no okay well then

you can head on over to timcast.com and and become a member. Join up and become a member of the Discord. Then you'll be signed up for the Rumble After Show where you can call in. We do Rumble rants. But the really important thing is jump over there and join the Discord. You join the Discord and you can talk to like-minded individuals. There have been people that have been married. There are multiple podcasts that have started through the Discord.

The community is great, and that's one of the things that we here at TimCast are really trying to do. We want to build community, get like-minded individuals connected with people that feel the same way, that are looking to do things. Maybe you'll go ahead and open up a Cast Brew franchise

yourself or whatever, but join the Discord. So smash the like button, share the show with all your friends. Joining us tonight to talk about this and so much more, we have Kevin Smith. Hey, how's it going? Kevin, who are you? What do you do? My name's Kevin Smith.

Sorry, guys. I know you saw that and thought Silent Bob was going to be on here, but that's the story of my life. I'm an activist from Long Island. I run an organization called The Loud Majority. I'm also an advisory board member of the New York City Young Republican Club, and I'm an activist from Long Island. I run an organization called the Loud Majority. I'm also an advisory board member of the New York City Young Republican Club, and I host a podcast every day, 1 p.m. Eastern on LFA TV on Rumble. Awesome. Well, thanks for being here. Mary is here.

Hi, everyone. My name is Mary Morgan. I co-host Pop Culture Crisis here at TimCast. We actually had Phil on the episode today so thrashing thursdays it's called thrashing thursdays when phil is on hi lad hey mary how's it going uh hey everybody i hope you're having a good day my name is alad eliyahu i'm a journalist here at timcast phil let's get into it i did that on purpose a lot is great i love him so the senate has decided to confirm Kash Patel as Trump's FBI director. This is something that obviously we here at Tim Kast are very happy about, being that Kash Patel has been on the show multiple times. We consider him a friend of the show.

But CNN is reporting the Senate voted on Thursday to confirm Kash Patel as FBI director, installing a staunch loyalist of President Donald Trump and conservative firebrand at the head of the nation's top law enforcement agency. The Senate voted 51 to 49 to confirm Patel with Republican Senator Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joining with Democrats in voting against his confirmation, which should come as a surprise to no one. Both Collins and Murkowski are from purple districts, I think is a safe way to say, but they're also very independent minded. So maybe if they're maybe they're even if they're not specifically Democrat leaning, they're definitely independent and they have their own opinions. I think that around the table, we're all generally pro-Kash Patel. We like the idea of making changes in the bureaucracy. And the FBI has had significant political bias in the past, definitely four years, probably longer if you want to go back to the IRS targeting.

Well, that's the IRS doing it. But the IRS should have been investigated by the FBI. And it was it was the the Eric Holder, the AG, decided declined to investigate the the IRS targeting of conservatives. But what do you guys think? Do you guys have a fresh perspective on Cash Patel or is it is it kind of. No, honestly, I'm loving it. I'm loving the the change in D.C. I'm loving the fact that Democrats are getting exactly what they caused.

They think that politics happens in a vacuum. I can't believe Donald Trump would ever appoint someone like Cash Patel. And I'm sitting back here thinking to myself, if you guys hadn't acted the way you did over the last decade, you wouldn't have gotten many of these nominees. But if Donald Trump has shown one thing, it's that the harder you push against him, the harder he's going to push back. And Cash Patel is the, I would say, the strongest force forward for Donald Trump. And I can't wait to see what he puts out first,

what he thinks is the most important. Is it Epstein? Is it Diddy? Is it all this stuff? I want to know about the aliens. Do you know he's a Long Island boy? He is. You know, when you want something done right you get a guy from long island you get a guy from garden city shout out to kesh patel i'm not touching that one but so i now i know that there is a lot of people that are like oh the epstein list they're they're very interested in that they're

interested in the jfk files they're interested in possibly in UFO stuff. But I'm not sure that the FBI would have info on the UFO stuff. Do you guys get the sense that that's the stuff that's going to have the most impact on Americans generally? I understand that there are people that are extremely interested in this stuff. And there are people that want to see the if you go to Epstein Island and you rape rape kids I know a lot of people like yeah we want to see these people punished right and and absolutely I'm not in any way saying that that's not a valuable use of of government resources but when you hear people talk about you know Epstein Island or or the the JFK files do those things actually have the most tangible effect on on an American's day-to-day life?

Or do you think that there are other things? Because it's my sense that the FBI's biggest or the things that the FBI have done that are the most egregious are when they were targeting people that pray outside of abortion clinics, or when they were targeting parents that were going to school, you know, teacher meetings and saying that they're likely terrorists because they're worried about what their children are being taught. When they were targeting J-6ers that were, granted, there were J-6ers that did things that maybe they they should have been looked into. But most of the vast majority of the people that were arrested and had charges, those people were doing things that are constitutionally protected. And the FBI were picking those people. I feel like those kind of things are the real, tangible, important things that thebi needs to be to be i guess there needs to be changes at the

fbi because of those things again i don't it's not that i don't think that epstein is epstein island stuff is is important but that's not going to have tangible effects on real normal americans that's going to be the stuff that may feel good for for partisans. It's the flashy stuff. That's the big stuff. So much of what Kash Patel could do is less. He could do less of what was being done. He could do less of the school. I mean, we did a lot of work on school boards on Long Island

and just to know that there were people out there from the FBI checking people's license plates because overzealous PTA moms yelled at people over over masks and over curriculum. That's terrifying to me, particularly when, look, there are bad people in this country. There are and they should be going after those people.

They should be going after the people distributing bad stuff online. We'll say you can take that however you want. You know, there's so much stuff that they could be doing. Just revert that. And I think that's what Cash has talked a lot about, putting them out in the field and making them actual cops again, arresting actual bad guys. Phil, I think you're right that it's hyper-partisan to appeal to.

Like, we're going to uncover who's on the Epstein flight logs, and we're going to tell you about Diddy. Like, what's on the Diddy tapes? Like, that's hyper-partisan, like what's on the Diddy tapes? Like that's that's hyper partisan, but it's also chronically online. Like normies don't think or care about those things. So I agree with you on that. And something I've noticed, I think ever since the election is that there's been a lot more reporting on school shootings and school shooting plots, not only ones that ended up being executed but ones that were stopped there

was a recent one i forget which state but there was a plot by yet another um trans identifying teenager to shoot up a school and this is what you hear every time that headline comes out it's like the fbi was aware of this person and foiled the plot. But perhaps they were responsible for grooming that person in the first place into incriminating themselves. Can you expand on that? Would you go and articulate what you mean by grooming? Do you think that the FBI is actually involved in trying to... I mean, they're interested in convicting people. And to do that, I think they want to get into contact

with these people online and probably radicalize them, but also get them to say incriminating things so that they can stop the crime that they were planning, which they never would have planned in the first place had it not been for the influence of federal agents who were contacting

them. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time that's happened. And also offering to supply them with illegal firearms. Well, we saw that at things like Ruby Ridge. We saw that at the Gretchen Whitmer plot where, like, what, nine out of the 12 guys were FBI agents. So if they spend a little bit more time, even if we're not talking nefarious, known to the FBI,

all right, well, then maybe you should put three people on them and leave the school boards alone, and then maybe we could stop the foil of those plots. Maybe we could get those obviously very sick kids help before the plot gets brought into fruition. And I just feel like the allocation of the resources of the FBI have been so used in the wrong way. Can they stop infiltrating right-wing

groups like they're obsessed with it can they or will they will they now that cash patel is in charge i i don't know so there's so in response to that there's something that i've been mentioning on the show lately and that's that we kind of live in a milieu of leftist leftism. Right. And that the the the air that we breathe is steeped in leftist ideology. And when you hear, oh, the left is infiltrating right wing organizations, the knee jerk idea of right wing for normies, at least, is is bad right there's a there's an association of right is evil and i think that if we can if we do see a change at the fbi in that kind of demeanor i think that that would be a very good thing for um for the united I mean, an organization like Oath Keepers, unless they've actually done something, the only thing they're saying is we're going to keep our oath to the Constitution. The whole premise is we're going to abide by the law. And so to conflate that with knee-jerk evil,

or even the left has managed to make a significant portion of the United States associate the word Patriot with something negative. Oh, absolutely. And it's so, you know, we've been talking a lot about this over the last several weeks, not,

not only with the FBI, but with all the nonprofit stuff that goes on, you know, organizations like the ACLU organizations, like the Southern poverty law center, I'm on a Southern poverty law center i'm on a southern poverty law center list and to me i'm just like i don't know what i did to get on it i don't know why i'm on it but i've been denied jobs because of this stuff it's wild when when

somebody first sent it to me it was literally over the school board stuff that's exactly what it was so i want to know i know josh holly has talked about this with the splc like figuring out where they're getting their funding from who's paying for, how much of it's coming from a, for example, a USAID that gets funneled through a nonprofit that goes to an NGO that goes to another nonprofit. That stuff, if the FBI was really going to look into that, figuring out why it is that a nonprofit tied to Stacey Abrams somehow got $2 billion. If the FBI wanted to investigate those sorts of financial crimes, I think that that would go a long way in letting in stopping that machine that you're talking about from just equating right wing with bad no matter what i mean the way they smear people just oh he's

on the right like a rogan or tim or anybody and it's like no they're not like not traditionally not mike pence would not think anybody anybody in this room is on the right. George Bush wouldn't think any of us are on the right. But sure enough, we all – He might. Maybe. Elad's on the right. And the argument that I make is – or has – that I have been making is because of the fact that we're so steeped in leftism.

Anyone that's not left is immediately associated with the right so that's why you're that's why this this the discourse between uh elon musk and or about elon musk and ashley st claire and stuff people people can have their opinions about that situation but they're considered right wing and then the the conservative right was like well these people shouldn't be right and it's like well they're not really right. They're actually center. They're not right-leaning. It's just that we live in a milieu of leftism, and because of that, anyone not left gets associated with the right.

But you said that the other day, that there's a difference between right-wing and not left. Yeah. I think the not left is a lot of people. A lot of people come on this show who just go, you know what i don't know what that is but i don't want anything to do with that so this is my only option my point is uh that it's not the left infiltrating those right-wing groups um or even groups that are

unequivocally like identified as neo-nazi groups it is the fbi and the way i see it the fbi has been engaged in criminal behavior against the American people. So they're not going to investigate themselves. They're not going to incriminate themselves. They're only out to incriminate civilians and get civilians to incriminate themselves. If we want conviction, if we and I don't disagree with that. But if we do live in a a milieu of leftism, just the FBI saying, oh, we're going to investigate. That means that it is kind of the left investigating, isn't it? I don't know. Didn't you say?

I mean, because if if the if the arm of the Trump administration. Well, now, yes. But I'm I'm I'm referring to like pre-Kash Patel, pre... Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, definitely. Then it was the left investigating the right. When you had guys like Eric Holder say that he was Barack Obama's wingman, and now this CNN article, loyalist to Trump,

I'm sitting there going, where were you? And that's why you talk about the milieu, and it's so... Watching it change in real time over the course of the last month no leader on the left they are completely listless they have no idea which way is up and that's why we're getting some of the most ridiculous things ever like margaret brennan saying that free speech was used to start a genocide and i'm like where did what high school textbook did you read because you could go back to sixth grade, but because they have existed so long as the norm,

when they are actually the far left, they can't see that they are losing the world to the center. Yeah. I think the big questions around Kash Patel is how he's actually going to run the FBI and who he's going to choose to go after. And I think how we could tell this stuff is actually what he came up on. So he sort of got his MAGA bona fides in the Nunez memo,

where he helped explain and debunk different alleged Trump-Russian collusion that didn't really exist. And he helped expose that. That kind of earned him his early MAGA bona fides. And then he did a lot of press tour on that. While doing the press tour for that, one of the things that people fearmonger around that he said is that there's this one quote where people on the left and Democrats are mainly concerned about how they believe he will target a media. On the war room, he said, we will go out and find conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally, civilly, we'll figure that out. So I guess that's where the left fear mongers around. I don't truly think, you know, he's I think he's going to be a fair FBI director. I don't think he's going to go after people unjustly. I think time will tell that. But I know he has to he has a lot of bluster when he's on Steve Bannon's war room room but i don't truly believe he would actually run the fbi like that once you have to get confirmed and get in a position of power a lot of different things change so um you know things are different once you're out of the job and uh

kind of what's what once you are in it after you got the backing of uh so it's your bannon so is it your sense that he was not saying that he was saying things that he doesn't believe, but he would, do you think that when he was in partisan or on partisan podcasts, he was kind of playing to the audience? Is that your sense? I don't want to make him sound disingenuous. I think he believes what he believes. But once you get in the position to actually have to affect the change that he goes after. So for example, in this quote, we will go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media we're going to come after you whether it's criminally or civilly we'll figure that out i don't actually foresee him actually coming after nbc or something um so like trump is often also like blusters against the media um i can't i can't i can't think of a

direct quote of trump and i'm sure we could find it but i't foresee, you know, sometimes you have to bluster a bit. And that's what I think he's done in the past on a lot of these issues. I think he'll be a fair FBI director. And I think he said he would judge people based on the facts when he had his confirmation hearings. The problem is there's no righting past wrongs here, in my opinion. Just like with Trump being sworn into office, we have no idea the level of state secrets that he learned past and present going into that role similarly with kash patel we have no idea the secrets that he has already or is about to learn by taking on that role and the level of

responsibility that that comes with it's incomprehensible. And I don't I don't see any past wrongs being made right. I guess what. So, like, for example, Democrats in the past have went after Donald Trump when he was running. Would you like to see Kash Patel try to just, you know, what's the saying about a prosecutor could find, could indict Iraq? I don't know. I'm the person and I'll find you the crime. Kash Patel can find reasons to go after, I'm sure, different Democrat governors. There's a lot of slimy politicians out there.

But I guess the question would be, is he going to go looking for things? Is he going to apply a different standard of the law to Democrats than Republicans? I don't think he should. I don't think he will. Would you guys like to see that? Or like as a form of retribution, for example, I think is how Democrats fear Margaret. So, you know, they'd say, well, people in Joe Biden's administration went after Trump and different Republicans.

Now it's time for retribution. Isn't that the word that Trump used, though? Yeah, he said retribution. He didn't say that. He was like, I am your retribution. But, you know, not Kash Patel. Likeribution? He did say that. He was like, I am your retribution. But, you know. But not Kash Patel. Like you were saying. So great.

But like you were saying, we've lived in leftism for so long that if we actually ran things down the middle, the left would accuse us of going after them because they have basically run free for so long. When the media goes on TV. Wait, would you like to see retribution out of Kash Patel? No, but when he goes after someone who libels, when he goes after somebody who slanders somebody, when he goes after a media entity for just making things up about average citizens, it is going to feel like the DOJ is going after the media

when really they should have been doing it all along. It's not just going to feel like that. That's the narrative that you're going to hear any any type of of government action against a politician you know they're going to characterize it as if it's politically motivated i'm innocent this is just donald trump coming after me look he said retribution etc etc because they want to get the public on their side. And there's a portion of the public, possibly a sizable portion, a plurality, that will side with them no matter the evidence, no matter how damning the evidence is. I mean, just take an Adam Schiff, right? Let's say Adam Schiff's been out there lying, making things up.

We don't like him. All right. Let's say he's got a nephew who works for a nonprofit that's doing something wrong. And Kesha Patel goes and investigates him in that. Adam Schiff now has provided himself the cover to go, look, what did I tell you? He's going to come after us. I agree with you. Schiff will say that.

But Schiff, I'm pretty sure he was censured as well. Yeah. So, I mean. He's just one example. Everybody knows that Schiff is as shifty as it gets. That was just one example. But there's so many of them. If a media outlet

goes after somebody and makes something up and they're sued and the DOJ goes after them and they've actually done something wrong, everyone is now going to say look, we told you this was going to happen. We told you Donald Trump was going to come after his enemies when really they're actually just calling balls and strikes. But for the longest time, the umpire

was betting on one team. be and if he doesn't people actually lose more faith in the fbi than they already do so the more partisan he will act as fbi director we could anticipate it in the next democratic um so i would push back on that in that i i do i am of the opinion that the left has already is already going to be so partisan we know that the left has what they will do because they tried to do it to trump they've already imprisoned their political opponents their people based on politics the whole january 6th was all because of politics there they've used the government against you know against parents that would would defy the the you know the department of of Education or what have you, the LGBT stuff in schools, parents that would go and protest that. And they'd have the FBI look at them.

They've put people that have committed no crime onto the Quiet Skies list, which is essentially a no-fly list or extra screening, basically making it a hassle to do things. And I'm referring to Tulsi gabbard and she was a lieutenant colonel in the in the reserve so it's it's not just someone literally a war hero yeah well i mean and ostensibly it was because oh she she might be a risk to national security but she's already been vetted with multiple multiple times she got security clearances like lieutenant colonel is not a low-ranking officer that's you know that's like an 05 or something like that it's it's a fairly high ranking you'd be you're in charge of a lot of people and so that kind of scrutiny based on politics is the standard for the democrats so while i think you're right that

we shouldn't i don't want to see the republicans do it i don't think that we have a new crop of democrats that aren't going to behave different that are going to behave differently why don't you want to see the republicans behave that way because if you because i want to see an actually legitimate government because the things the things that they went after Republicans for, they didn't actually commit crimes. So if there's no crime, then I don't want the government going after people. If there's a crime, get them. Get them and use to the full extent of the law.

But like Tulsi Gabbard committed no crime. You know, the Jay Sixers that were just walking around, they committed no crimes. Wait, so Phil, first, who just got pardoned or got their sentences commuted, they should actually receive like financial reparations. Yes, 100%. But they're not going to. The DOJ just awarded some Antifa guy $7 million in Portland. He threw a grenade at a cop.

But sure enough, he threw an explosive at a police officer they turned around and you know did what you would expect they were going to do and then ended up seven million for seven million please come do like yeah come beat me i think it's easy to talk in abstracts but i will take that do you like for example do you think kash patel should investigate former president joe biden for example for maybe uh what was the exact line? 10% some amount for the big man. So like things like that. I mean, there's certainly enough evidence there to seek an indictment. Do you believe so?

So you think that Ash Patel should be going after people like Joe Biden for investigations? I think there is no problem with investigations. I do not want anyone to concoct charges. I don't want anyone to fabricate. I don't want them to look at the person and find the crime however i mean the fact that republicans slow walk this 10 for the big guy and the money coming from the moscow mayor and all the kazakhstan stuff and the fact that they slow walk that for four years so that they had talking points to run on rather than actually pursuing

something like is is i feel do you think um cash Patel should investigate Joe Biden for his alleged crimes with percent for the big guy? I don't think so, because I think that that going after Joe Biden is a waste. I think it's a waste of time because he's so old. I would I would say that he should have gone that they should go after like his family. But he's pardoned them all. For me, it's more about the truth than the retribution. I want to know exactly how much because the media sat there and said this this is not real meanwhile we're all looking at the evidence going then what is that oh that's

that's yeah i guess my frame of mind here is that every president's dirty and if we're just trying to sick our current fbi on on the former presidents i think we'll be finding a lot of dirt on a lot of our politicians i i hope that i can understand i hope they're like serious i mean all crimes are serious crimes but you know serious crimes that the fbi could be preventing i don't know some sort of domestic terrorism i would rather be doing that speaking you mentioned domestic terrorism this is one more thing that i want to talk about about the fbi that that i don't know if you guys have thoughts on it or not but i think that it's worth mentioning if the federal government if if the trump administration um declares that the cartels are terrorists and they actually do start treating them like terrorists and there there will be some type of effort by the cartels to strike back at the

united states whether they be at the american people or whatever. And I think that the FBI will have or should have a significant role in wrapping up as many terrorists or as many cartel members, which would be considered terrorists here in the United States as possible to in order to protect the American people. One of the things that I hear most of the time when we talk about or when I see the conversations on on X and stuff like that about the administration calling the cartels terrorists is oh you don't know what the cartels will do they'll blah blah blah and it's going to be so bad and there will be so many attacks and stuff and i do think that there will be attempts at that but i do think that the federal government has a pretty good line on

who is and is not a criminal and i think that the fbi can wrap them up and and prevent a lot of the the supposed or proposed more tax more of the designated as terrorist organizations i think that's more about federal allocation of resources because that opens up a few more avenues for them to like, you know, I know on Long Island. I think it's about airstrikes. I legit think. Into Mexico? Yes, I do. Do you support those?

Honestly, I don't know that I support it. I'm going to have to think about that one. I don't know that I support it, but I do think that, I mean, look, the CIA and stuff like that has dealt with narco traffickers before. It's not. But that's the stuff we're trying to get away from. No, it's not. I think that's meddling in other countries. That's not meddling in other countries' affairs because they're directly affecting the United States.

I understand we don't want to send military into the Middle East to decide who's going to be running Syria, right? I get that. But when it comes to Mexico and on our border and the amount of narcos that are involved in the government how many how many people died before they they decided that they would let a president live was it 36 people that the narcos killed before the president became yeah before the you know Shabam got elected or whatever so you know that the the reason Shabam

got elected or is alive is because the narcos said, OK, we'll let this one go. I will say that if that's the case, then it does make sense that and that's why the United States has said, hey, we're going to go ahead and declare them terrorists. And I'm not when I say airstrikes, I don't think they're going to be going after Mexican towns. They're going to be like it's going to be people finding the actual heads of the narcos and taking them out i will say you think that the media and the left has lost their mind over the course of the last month let donald trump drone a a like a a coca plant in mexico and just sit back and watch because people will lose their minds these cartels a total powder keg on our southern border. And beyond that, our country is deeply, deeply infiltrated with all of these different cartels and gangs. And I don't know if we'll be able to stomach if a real conflict arises, the damage that these

cartels will do to not only I mean, American, not only law enforcement, but civilians, and then also the damage done in Mexico on our border. The perfect way out of this, I don't American, not only law enforcement, but civilians, and then also the damage done in Mexico on our border. The perfect way out of this, I don't know. This needed to be nipped in the bud a lot sooner than now. Like, we're kind of really deep in the game of Mexico essentially being a narco state. They're not really run by their government. Their institutions are very weak compared to the... The point is, like, I mean, the military is on the border now.

They put the Marine Corps on the border now they put the the marine corps on the border right now like there are actual marines and they are they are they have a green light to engage should they should they be engaged by the cartels it used to be where if the cartels shot the border patrol had to get you know duck and cover and don't return fire the marines are there so i'm more worried about that i'm not worried about arms but like i've heard some stories in mexico it's like when you abduct one of these guys' sons, then they the cartel punishes you by abducting. I don't know the whole local government and all of their families and children. And then they end up like releasing the. So that's that was the reason that was the reason I brought up the FBI and the FBI. Does the FBI have the ability to actually wrap up?

You said yourself there's there's a bunch of narcos in the US. Does the ability does the FBI have the ability to find these people and protect the American people? But do we want not without regime change and taking over Mexico and literally nation building in Mexico? Then no, there's not a way to deal with this unless we were knee deep even deeper in mexico because the second they leave it'll continue to just be a normal state when you have to occupy mexico if we wanted to do that and i don't think that's something we want to do there's a hundred thousand americans that have died a year from fentanyl and stuff like that so do you i mean the do we just say well you know there's narcos and that's just the way that it is now? Every overdose death is

tragic, but I think it's distinct from a casualty, from being shot up by a... No, but I think it's so different. It's not an overdose. It's a poisoning. And that's the difference, because nobody you know, some guy goes out to a nightclub, takes too much stuff, ends up overdosing, that's an accident. Nobody is out there looking

for the crap that's on the streets, right? Unfortunately, the crackheads in a lot of different areas of our country are looking for the craziest fentanyl and actually when somebody ods on the stuff that's actually uh what's that new stuff mark it acts as like an ad to all the other crackheads it's like wow he had this good stuff i get what you're saying but that doesn't really answer my question so i'm going to go to mary mary do you think that it should be that the u.s should do nothing because the the cartels are too dangerous because that's essentially the argument being made here it's too dangerous to actually take the fight to the cartels because you don't win if you don't take the fight to the cartels you either take the fight to the cartels

or this continues i mean we can build a wall and we can stop it but like you said a lot they're here in the in the united states if you don't take the fight to them you don't fix the problem do you think that it's too dangerous is that actually the risk assessment that you're making uh i don't think the choices were between invade mexico and nothing say that i said take the fight to the cartels. Yeah. What would that mean in your... Not drone striking them? Well, I mean, well, so possibly sending in... I mean, it's chemical warfare

what they're doing. I agree. It's not accidental overdoses like that. It is poisoning. It's chemical warfare on the American people and it should be met with some kind of lethal force. The point that I'm making is we have as a country spent 25 years finding and dismantling terrorist organizations the argument that's made

when i say that is oh you can never actually win the politics side i don't think that we need to win the politics side if you're spending if you're sending special forces and and and terror uh terrorist um you know hrt teams and stuff in and finding the bad guys and wrapping them up that's what they did to noriega that's what they did that's what they did throughout the 80s and stuff this isn't something the united states has never done and there were times where the the violence in the united states was significantly worse now granted it might end up, we might end up seeing more violence here, but you don't actually defeat an enemy by just saying it's dangerous to fight them. Well, that's why I think that labeling them terrorist organizations

is more about reallocation of resources, because I've seen many of these cartels and many of these Central American gangs, I'm talking about takeover whole neighborhoods. They've taken over. We saw with the trend in Colorado, Brentwood on Long Island. That should have caused the governor to activate the National Guard and go in and take them out. I think there's a big difference between that, which I would support 100 support that then active duty troops in in i don't i don't i'm not talking about bigger i'm not talking about big army i'm not talking about artillery but when it comes to the way that

you get those guys it's it would be a similar thing to the way that they were dealing with um dealing with you know dealing with terrorists overseas it would would be like, okay, they did it. I mean, dude. Wait, I don't understand. Do you think taking out a few thousand cartel members would stop the drug trade? I mean, drug trafficking would continue. You'd have to have a sustained presence there.

I don't know if troops on the ground is necessarily the answer. We need to figure out a way to embolden the Mexican government to police their country in a proper way. Well, the first. We need to figure out a way to embolden the Mexican government to police their country in a proper way. Well, the first thing you need to do is get rid of the people that are making the decisions about killing Mexican politicians. And it's not, I mean... It's endless amounts of cartel members.

I can understand what he's saying. You just keep cutting the head off. Another gangster cartel member will just fill in the place. No, because... Because the demand is still there. I understand the argument that you're making but the the the united states has dealt with cartels like this before it doesn't feel like we've dealt with cartels in the past 50 100 years in any productive way the war on drugs was a huge failure yeah but that's like we did regime change is that what you want to do here there was no regime change to do

noriega noriega we arrest him and we yeah we change. Is that what you want to do here? There was no regime change to do. For Noriega? For Noriega. Did we arrest him? Yeah, we arrested him, but we didn't have to change governments to do it. We got the government to allow us to. We worked with the government of Columbia to do it. We didn't have to go in and take out the Colombian government. I think the big problem is that sometimes when you cut the head off the snake, somebody else just pops in. I mean, we got El Chapo.

The cartel is never going to end. The black market here isn't going to end. You need to address the market aspect of this and the Mexican government aspect of this. It's funny because I feel like I sound like an isolationist when it comes to this point. I do not want to get into some quagmire in Mexico on our border.

I feel like that would be... But like you said, I'm more worried about the armed conflict on the border between the cartels and the Marines that are down there. So Noriega was actually the military dictator of Pan. That's what it was. That's why I thought it was regime change. We did regime change with Noriega.

Wait, do you want to do something like that? No, but he mentioned El Chapo, and we wrapped him up. Yeah, but it didn't change anything with El Chapo. Just another person filled his place. The drug crisis didn't end with El Chapo it's only gotten a lot worse actually arresting el chapo actually some people would argue made it a lot worse so long as there's a market for drugs in america someone will get it here well unless the mexican government is emboldened to actually enforce their laws but they're not because they're a narco state though i'm sure we've tried to get

the mexicans to do it and they haven't why are you sure of that because administration after administration has put effort into it but we need to so you need to incentivize their government to do it have you do you have evidence of that or because i don't think i'm not so sure the mexican government has tried well no no no that the united states has tried to convince the mexican government because the united states has many many uh soft power methods they could go ahead and and i mean we're talking about uh tariffs right now and and tariffs to you know that has is has made you know mexico stand up and be like oh this is a problem for us there are there are a lot of a lot of soft power and actual military i think the mexican

government actually i have conflicting views it's kind of beyond of repair too at actual military i think the mexican government actually i have conflicting views it's kind of beyond of repair too at this point i don't know where that really leaves us so the point so then i and that's why i asked you do you think that we should just leave it as it is keep the powder keg don't shoot up the powder keg yeah i don't know let it keep accumulating again there's no perfect solution here i know a problem also that we need to consider is how china is heavily involved in this as well, because they provide many of the precursor chemicals to the Mexicans. So they're working hand in hand with these other criminals. Generally, I believe that we need a reinvigoration of the Monroe Doctrine.

Trump's kind of doing some of this stuff with what we're trying to do in Panama. Maybe we can make Mexico great again as well. You know, it sucks because I think it would be easier to just diminish the demand in America by making things a little bit better and giving 20-somethings a purpose to live rather than going out and doing drugs all day long. I think that the – I think that might be easier than fixing a car. I thought you were going to say the legalization card because many people just say legalize heroin. Something about that don't feel right. Look at California. I used to be very much pro, hey, if we just decriminalize these things and and stuff that it

will you know it'll have it'll take care of itself but there's a lot of things that have to happen in conjunction with that and you're not going to get a a government that to say okay nationwide castle doctrine and and we'll decriminalize drugs and if someone is using drugs outside of your house you can go out there and take care of the problem yourself and it takes that kind of of it takes property rights more than just oh we're going to go ahead and decriminalize drugs and then provide needles to people because then you end up with california yeah and that's that's clearly it's clearly a problem in california so we're going to go on to the uh this next story though donald trump wants to abolish the irs and it with tariffs. Can it work? I like the idea personally,

but I'm not exactly the most educated on economics. But I do like the idea of getting rid of the IRS and getting rid of the income tax because I think that the idea of making the American people pay for making money is bad. And I think that there are other ways to, to generate income for absolutely. And I,

from, from CNN, no one wants to pay taxes and practically every American dislikes the IRS. But as the saying goes, the only guarantee in life are decks and tax death and taxes. So the IRS is here to stay, right? Well,

maybe not according to commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, Donald Trump announces the external revenue service. taxes. So the IRS is here to stay, right? Well, maybe not, according to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Donald Trump announces the External Revenue Service, and his goal is very simple, to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let the outsiders pay, Lutnick said on Fox News Wednesday night. In other words, America will raise so much money from President Donald Trump's tariff plan that the Americans will no longer need to pay income taxes. This sounds great, but it's riddled with problems. Now, I do think the idea sounds great. I would love to see tariffs take care of the funding for the American government.

I believe that tariffs were the majority of the way that the United States used to raise money prior to the income tax in 1913. Thank you very much, Woodrow Wilson, you bastard. Burn in hell. Easily the worst president ever. He is the worst president. Both in practice and morality. Absolutely. But what do you think?

Do you think that this method would work, or do you think that it's a pie in the sky? Well, I think it's a pie in the sky and that it would work. The reason why is because I want to be clear, if we we have built so many systems now that rely on such an intense tax revenue that if we just pulled the bandaid off, it would absolutely blow out the deficit. It would eventually work itself out over time. But I think you guys are talking about this the other day about income taxes and how the rich don't pay their fair share and income tax. So glad a lot's not here. I know.

I should come back. I waited for him to leave, actually. But income tax actually benefits rich people because, as we know, they don't pay. They don't take an income. They got dividends and they got they got holdings and everything. If we got rid of the income tax and brought some sort of a VAT tax, a value added tax, where you pay, you know, we'll use a random number. You pay 10% tax on your milk and 10% tax on your yacht. That's actually a fair tax as opposed to, you know, a guy of Bezos Musk that, you know, they have a $1 salary while all of us are sitting here paying 42 percent

and they're just living the high life and to me i'm thinking to myself this is actually it's going to make things a little bit more expensive but it's going to make things a hell of a lot more fair and you know i think that would allow people look you want to buy your mcmansion i got no problem with that you're going to pay for it yeah i mean i i don't know about a value i don't know if a value-added tax is i haven't actually i'm not sure what the definition of value-added so it's basically just like a it's basically a sales tax a sales tax on consumption tax yeah because i like the idea of you know a a federal consumption tax because then you're not charged for saving money you're not charged on making money it You're not charged on making money. It depends on how much you spend. And if you want to go out and buy a yacht, well, then, you know, there's going to be a percentage of whatever you spend.

The U.S. GDP is $29 trillion or something like that, gross domestic product. So if you had a percentage of the GDP coming in as a tax on some kind of sales or value added or whatever you want to call it. I do think that the government could be funded. I also think that the government could probably cut their actual expenditures by a significant amount. And hopefully something like Doge is going to do that. But I do think that that's something that's worth discussing. Elad, do you have thoughts on a value-added tax or on getting rid of the IRS or on tariffs? We were just talking about you.

I'm not sure that tariffs would be able to make up for the shortfall. Mm-hmm. Do you think that? Okay. So Serge is pointing out. So that means tariffs would have to be at least 100% on all imported good for tariffs to replace income taxes. I mean, this is CNN, and I don't expect CNN to have a positive outlook towards.

I don't think solely tariffs would be able to fund our government. Look, I don't love taxes. We live in a society. Tariffs hold stance a lot lot i don't like taxes also tariffs uh it depends on how you view tariffs tariffs are actually a tax on you because they make products more expensive for you well that there's there's there's there's arguments about that but go ahead no i mean right so if like if an item that it's to de-incentivize even buying it to begin with but it's like for example example, I don't know, you buy a fancy shirt,

if there's a tariff on a fancy shirt from Italy, a 500% tariff, that money, you'd have to pay for it to buy it, and then that money would go to the government. Still feels like a tax to me, just... But here's the thing. Is that the person buying that expensive Italian shirt? Or it's anything abroad.

Can't afford it anyway. No, you buy any item abroad because that's what the tariff would be, right? I mean, if you look at a picture of Japan and you look at their cars, it's going to be all Japanese cars. And if you look at a picture of Europe, it's going to be all European cars. And if you look at a picture of America, it's all Japanese and European cars. Why is that? I feel like that's an argument for America, if anything, because Europe's a dump and Japan's dying.

So if anything, it sounds like the U.S. is more successful importing those Japanese cars and European cars, allowing Americans to buy cheaper-made cars. I prefer American ones. What I'm saying is that Europe and Japan makes American cars more expensive than they buy Japanese and German cars. We do the same thing.

Not on all of them. I guarantee you if you go to Munich right now, you will not see an F-150. Okay, so for example, Chinese EVs don't exist in the United States. We could argue about why. I mean, no, we don't need to. It's because we ban them and the TAF makes it too outrageous to buy. That's China, not Japan. don't need to it's because uh we ban them and the taft makes it too outrageous to buy so that's china not japan sure well i guess i'm kind of explaining to you guys the principle of what's going on here our free markets have benefit you um being able to buy goods from people worldwide

makes is a benefit to you um it makes it more difficult for american salesmen who have to compete uh in american businesses who have to compete on a worldwide market, but it makes it better for the purchaser. But what it also does is it also helps the multinational corporation export their jobs overseas because they know they can bring it back in with no tariffs. And, you know, this is a long game sort of thing. This is not going to be an easy fix. But the fact remains is that there are so many companies that have fled fled even with things like nafta where all the detroit motor companies all just made them in mexico brought

them back over paid slave wages and they're making big bucks and this is where i think this is where i think the populist left and the populist right can actually come together if you're an american company and you're going out of your way to screw over american workers, then you need to be punished. I think it's a nice populist message, but if we get to the crux of the issue, it's affordability. So, I mean, we obviously can't tell what would have happened otherwise, but for example, here's my fancy iPhone. I still paid around like, what, $700, $800 for it? And this is from components sourced from around the planet, and it's actually amazing that this product could even exist or do the cooperation of millions of different Americans across the planet.

But how much would this cost if it was purely American-made? Nobody would be able to have financial access to it. Nobody would be able to afford this. They might not be able to afford to get the new one every single time. Maybe you skip an iPhone or two. No, it would be three times, four times. Again, remember the slave labor you were talking about? This was made with Chinese slave labor.

Could you imagine how much it would cost if we had to pay for American unions to make parts like this? It wouldn't be comparable. So a lot of the products that we have that we sort of take for granted. Look, that's not to say that there aren't issues with different multinational corporations and then, you know, shipping different jobs overseas. But I think there's a balancing act of trying to understand the consequences of these policies. So free trade is what allows us to have this tech and other product revolution. See, I think there's a balancing act between the corporation and the American consumer where, look, Apple, I love my iPhone. This thing has changed the world. But you know what?

Maybe, just maybe, you might have to – Apple as a corporation should take – for the good of America and for moral reasons, maybe the company should take a little bit of a hit on their bottom line, on their quarterly earnings and say, you know what? You're right. We probably could make this overseas for nothing, but I think more Americans would buy it if we made it here. No. If American phones were made in America, not more people would.

Yes. The first car company. Not more people would. Yes. The first car company. Do you know how much more the iPhone would cost? I am telling you right now that if the CEO of Ford came out during the Super Bowl with a commercial and said, look, guys, we did ship our jobs overseas. Americans don't give a crap about this not being made in America. Every American has an iPhone already. And it doesn't matter if it were made here.

Not more Americans would have iPhones. Less would because they would be five times more so we'll use cars it would be unfathomable the first American car company labor is what produces these iPhones remember it's not just slave labor it's the it's the fact that you can send it over there and have it be made and then send it back and all of that transport cost is still less in the United States you could actually take the you could take a lot of the regulations and get rid of them in the United States. And a lot of the the the problems you get with unions and stuff and the cost of producing these things would go down. But that that's not something that that you hear anyone actually discussing very often.

Regulations are are a significant, significant contributor to the cost and the reason the prohibition or not prohibition, but the the hurdles to producing things in America. I mean, look, I was saying it before, the first American car company, Ford, GM, Chevy, to come out and say, look, our cars are going to be a little bit more expensive, but we're going to make them here. It's a different era. I guarantee you the first company that does that, there will be a pickup truck of that company at every construction site. Every soccer mom will be driving around

in whatever SUV that company has. People want to buy American. They won't be able to afford it, unfortunately. People want to buy American. At three, four, five times the price? But you're making up that figure. How much, again, this technology. You're saying that slave labor is involved. Let's start with cars.

People, we have to pay them. You're right. The company is going to have to take a little bit of a hit no the people would because that's who's going to pay for it it's a give and a take I don't really think it is there are Teslas that are made in the United States there are some BMWs they're heavily subsidized

both here and when they're also built in China well they're heavily subsidized but there's also massive regulations and there's unions that you have to deal with as well. Right. So you could probably get rid of the subsidies if you got rid of the same regulations and the unions. Yeah, that's the thing. And there's competition. Well, I mean, look, dude, you can smirk and kind of smile. No, because it's not.

I don't think you're doing a fair example because, again, Tesla gets a ton of its parts and its workers abroad. And like the downstream. The workers that are working in America, you think? Phil, so a lot of the parts that Tesla uses in the building of their cars, it's a global market. These items, these microchips, all these processors. I'm aware that no one can make a pencil a lot. I'm aware. I'm aware that no one can make a toaster. No one person can make a pencil a lot. I'm aware. I'm aware that no one can make a toaster. No one person can make

a toaster. No one person can make a sandwich. I know that the market, I know that there's a market out there and that it's the market that makes it possible for all the parts to be put together. That's not saying that you couldn't make things in America, though. I'm saying you can. It would just be

a magnitude of order more expensive. Based on the current structure of everything right now. You're forgetting that we could change the way things are. I agree with you. I understand your point. I totally do. But I'm saying that I think what he's trying to say is we should change the way that it works around here so that we have the ability to allow for American companies with incentives, which is the correct way to get people to do stuff, not by subsidizing stuff. You subsidize, you kill.

Don't do that. You incentivize American business to make things here for cheaper so that, like you said, you can have American-made cars and you don't have to have all these crazy send everything across the country or send it across the world. Then we don't have to have a Navy taking care of everything. I also understand, though, that we need to have a Navy there. I also believe in our 11 carrier groups because they're sweet, but I also think

that I see your point. I think what we're trying to say is we don't have to do things the way we always have done. There's a bias to want to do things the same way you've always done. You don't have to do that. You can do things differently, and we can radically change stuff. Look what we've been doing. So I understand what you're saying.

It would cost more to do in America if you're basing off the current structure right now. People should do paycheck to paycheck right now. I'm aware. People are complaining, right, there are issues with the rising prices of eggs. Now we're talking about these tariffs, again, that would affect the consumer in a negative way. I feel like there's a misunderstanding of what the tariffs are because, again, I still believe it's the purchaser who ends up paying the tax for it. OK, I know that was a big whole topic that we were hitting on there. If Trump is able to implement it properly, Trump has done, you know has flipped the table on a lot of different policy proposals

and how we handle things. Maybe we could check it. I have faith in Trump. We'll come back and we will chat about it. All right, so we're going to go on to this next story. Donald Trump, the Trump administration, can continue mass firings of federal workers' judge rules, which is something that we have been discussing to some extent

on the show lately about whether or not the executive has the authority to fire the bureaucracies or bureaucrats, people in the bureaucracy, or whether or not the bureaucracies actually are in control of the government. The Guardian reports, The Trump administration can for now continue its mass firings of federal employees. A federal judge ruled on Thursday rejecting a bid by a group of labor unions to halt Donald Trump's dramatic downsizing of the roughly 2.3 million strong federal workforce. The ruling of the U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., federal court is temporary while the litigation plays out, but it is a win for the Trump administration as it seeks to purge the federal workforce and slash what it deems wasteful and fraudulent government spending.

Now, one of the, now actually I'm going to try and look this up. I saw Stephen Miller talking today from the, from during the what's it called? The, the press briefing. And he had a great breakdown of this situation. I'd like to play it for you guys if I can find it. And I retweeted it, so it shouldn't be, shouldn't take too long. You have a sick timeline, Phil.

In a good way. You have a great timeline. Thank you very much. Okay, we're going to go ahead. Here we go. For four years, failed to cover the fact that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent and was not running the country. It is also true that many people in this room who have used this talking point that Elon is not elected, fail to understand how government works.

So I'm glad for the opportunity for a brief civics lesson. A president is elected by the whole American people. He's the only official in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation. Right? Judges are appointed. Members of Congress are elected at the district or state level. Just one man. And the Constitution, Article 2, has a clause known as the Vesting Clause.

And it says the executive power shall be vested in a president. Singular. The whole will of democracy is imb be vested in a president. Singular. The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president. That president then appoints staff to then impose that democratic will onto the government. The threat to democracy, indeed the existential threat to democracy, is the unelected bureaucracy of lifetime tenured civil servants who believe they answer to no one, who believe they can do whatever they want without consequence, who believe they can set their own agenda no matter what Americans vote for.

So Americans vote for radical FBI reform, and FBI agents say they don't want to change. Or Americans vote for radical reform under energy policies, but EPA bureaucrats say they don't want to change. Or Americans vote to end DEI, racist DEI policies, and lawyers in the Department of Justice say they don't want to change. What President Trump is doing is he is removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy by failing to implement his lawful orders, which are the will of the whole American people. Now, I mean, this is something that used to be obvious to people.

The the idea that the federal administration is bringing to courts. And that's, I think, the intent of a lot of the things, whether it be the for the question about the 14th Amendment, where where he decided that people no longer had birthright citizenship, which is going to end up in front of the Supreme Court and this stuff. This is all about getting the power back to the elected representatives. And Stephen Miller broke it down great. The point of the elected representatives is if you don't like them, you can get rid of them. And a bureaucracy that is protected by unions and when you can't fire people that means that regardless of who's in office you can't have any kind of any any you can't satisfy your your your gripe you can't get your your your arguments uh or your problems taken care of by electing someone else because it's the same people implementing the same same policies regardless of

who's actually in charge so i think this is something that we're all generally in agreement on but if you guys have any any input on this i'd like to hear it was this his rebuttal to people who voted for trump saying hey i didn't vote for elon musk why is he in the oval office all the time that's one of the things it's it's like Elon is Trump's shadow now. And I find it very creepy and unsettling. And I think he's deeply untrustworthy. So that's not the will of the people. Well, I wouldn't...

The people who voted for Trump did not vote for Elon. And also, how much money did Elon give Trump? Over $250 billion. Million, right? Million didn't know let me actually look at it i think he's only worth two and a half it was like something like around 300 million dollars 44 billion for x bro okay it was a few hundred million dollars and um that was because he could stand to benefit and his interests are much different from the interests of those who voted for Trump. They were interested in issues like securing the border, mass deportations, getting inflation under control.

Those are not the same as Elon's interests. So I'll expand on that. You don't think that the. He wants benefits for his business. So how does Doge, how does Dogege the work that he's doing with Doge? How does it benefit Elon Musk? Well, I mean, I think that he donated to Trump's campaign so that he could have influence over Trump's decisions for the next four years. So, you know, you think, well, OK, so he wants deregulation in his area of business.

I do think that that there's that he does have the incentive to have deregulation in at least with the FAA and with his ability to send rockets to space. I agree about that. I don't think that the motivation I don't think that I think that's why Trump changed his tune on H-1B visas. That could be. But I don't think that Musk is I definitely don't think that Musk is controlling Trump. He has some control over Trump.

He gave Trump a few hundred million dollars. Why would he do that if it didn't mean he could have some control? Just because he felt strongly about it? Influence is different from control they're not the same influence having no it's not it's totally not control means you're in charge influence means you can actually talk to the person and and and get your opinion in their ear

it's totally different influence is not control those are two totally different meanings um and then as for his his whether or not he wants to change regulation yes i agree about that i do think that he he want he wants to see less regulation on things like on spacex and stuff like that because he can't get rockets into space at the tempo that he wants to with the way that the faa looks at at space. So I agree with you there. But I don't think that the work that he's doing when it comes to things like this, right, firing of of federal workers and stuff like that. I don't know how that actually benefits Musk personally.

I don't know how I feel about him trying to cut costs in the federal government when he wants the federal government to subsidize his company. You know, you know, you understand that that doesn't make sense to you. Understand that he doesn't actually have any power to make cuts. An audit is just making recommendations. And then the president has to say yes. OK, sure. I just don't think anyone donates hundreds of millions of dollars to a presidential campaign, not thinking it gives them power. I think, like I said, I agree that real power.

I do. I agree that he assumes that he has influence. That is correct. That is not just an assumption. That is correct. I and again, I'm agreeing with you. I'm not disagreeing about that. I don't. But what I'm talking about is stuff like this, because the topic that we're kind of talking about right here is whether or not the executive has the power to fire people in the bureaucracy yeah i don't um i don't think that's the real issue at hand here i think there are multiple true things here at the same time but before i even get into those details i want to say mary i actually think you're completely spot on

and kind of brave to say that because now i feel like you can't nowadays if if you say something bad about Elon, he kind of built this people jumped on your throat personality around him. But I think everything you said is kind of plain and obvious. And like, I don't know how people would debate otherwise, like he was Trump's biggest donor, I looked it up, it was $290 million. There's conflicts of interest all across the board. And I mean, he could gish gallop his way into different things. So this affects me, this doesn't, but like, he won't be able to actually go through all the individual business dealings. I guess the real issue at hand here is that it's a creepy relationship. Wait, if I can finish, one second. Elon Musk and Donald Trump have a creepy relationship. It should be concerning. And I'm like, I think there's some validity to

people who are concerned about this relationship. Steve Bannon was actually one of the first guys on the right to say something about this. I think there will be a rift in that Trump does. It's a very odd relationship. There was a recent interview that he did with Sean Hannity where Sean Hannity had both of them on together. There was a weird dynamic. Steve Bannon issued a warning to conservatives and Republicans saying Elon Musk is one of the oligarchs who will abandon us. And I mean, like on certain top issues that are really important to MAGA, he already has abandoned us on. So, for example, like the H-1B visa stuff. So I think there's a lot of valid concerns around Elon Musk. And we shouldn't just sweep this all under the table. There's so many conflicts of interest between SpaceX, Tesla, his interests

in China. He has so many Tesla megafactories in China. Like we don't even fully understand the depth of conflict of interest that Elon Musk has. And I feel like the way like wading through it is so difficult to a point where it's impossible. I understand that. So you both have a kind of, I mean, essentially, for lack of a better term, you both kind of have the ick about it, right? And that's fine. It's kind of a strange relationship that the richest person on planet Earth donated the highest amount ever donated to a political campaign. And then, well, he and he's benefiting from it in one way or another. That's not to say Elon Musk could be doing some good work with things like in one way or another.

It's it then then it loses any kind of any kind of ability to actually debate. You're just like, well, he's benefiting in one way or another it's it then it then it loses any kind of any kind of ability to actually debate you're just like well he's benefiting in one way or another if you can't articulate how you think he's benefiting that's what i'm because he has a conflict of interest no i'm like what do you think is a kind of he gets he gets government contracts and now he's involved um in cutting some aspects and not others and he's getting this sort of influence in the halls of powers behind the scenes with a lot of these parties. Hold on, hold on. I think that you guys have this all wrong.

I think, and look, I want to be clear. I wish we had money out of politics like this. However, I'm going to play the same rules as the Democrats. They want to take hundreds of millions from Zuckerbucks and George Soros. I'm going to take hundreds of millions from Elon. Until we change the rules, I'm going to play the same rules as everybody else. What does Elon get for his money? I have no idea.

What do you think he gets for his money? Do you get anything? No. I told you there's a conflict of interest. You don't think he gets anything for the 300 mil? I absolutely think he does. You think there's conflict of interest with Elon Musk? When there is a conflict of interest, I will absolutely call it out.

But right now, I have yet to see any of that. I know that when NASA screwed up and left two astronauts in space, the first thing they did was call Elon and say, hey, can we get your help to go rescue these guys? So to me, I would rather spend the money on whatever Elon Musk is doing as far as SpaceX or Tesla, which, I mean, Tesla is just awesome. I would much rather spend the money on that than the absurd waste, than the comic books in Peru, than the –

any person who's ever worked in a government agency, any person who's worked for the government knows you could cut 20% of the workforce and not notice. Can all these things be true at once, though? So I agree with these cuts. He might be cutting things in proper ways. There may be good things that he's doing but i think the conflict of interest and then the the political contributions getting the what's the negative outcome that you're afraid of undue influence

by the richest people in our country influences in an outcome but that's nothing new and the conflict of interest that are downstream from that like but what what are the what what is it that you think is gonna musk is gonna say my main worry is that elon musk is a transhumanist okay technological accelerationist and i do think that he has a certain animosity toward the american people because he is not american and that's very clear by the absolute naked vitriol that he threw at americans who are against h1b visas the way that he spoke to them in that moment said everything about who he is i think even the way that he conducts himself in his personal life says everything about the type of person that he is and that he's untrustworthy so okay the the he has the most influence over the president i agree

with you about i agree with you about... Than anyone. I agree with you about all the transhumanist technology stuff. That's all... I think that that's... He wants to shoot us into space so that we can live underground in pods on Mars. So, okay, so I don't think any of that...

And then also, like, grow babies in laboratories. So, I get what you're saying, and I know... He's like an actual storybook supervillain. But, Mary, hold on, hold on, hold on. I get what you're saying. Like, it's like an actual storybook supervillain. I get what you're saying, and I understand where you're coming from. I understand your argument. I understand where it's coming from. The point that I was making from Elad was to get some kind of articulation more than I get the ick. He has conflict of interest.

I don't think he actually holds our values. And he's just using MAGA as a vehicle for his own interests. So that's how I explicitly believe. And for example, the H-1B visas, this is something that MAGA diehards know are all on the same page about. But oh, for some reason or another, Elon Musk isn't. And then Trump flips on a dime on this issue. Trump, the unfortunate thing is that trump is actually um able to be influenced by money it's not unique to any politician and trump's a politician here so for example another issue trump flipped on the tiktok ban many people have questions as to why he flipped on that well jeffrey yass um he has a large um ownership stake in bite dance

who is the parent company of TikTok. He stopped donating to Trump at one point. They rekindled their relationship. And now Jeffrey Yass's support was donated millions to Donald Trump as well. And then he suddenly changed his tune on TikTok. So I don't think, you know. Well, I think on some of those things, I think what Donald Trump does, he puts the idea out there, gauges public reaction and then makes a decision. And so that a lot of people were, I'm talking. Do you think Jeffrey Yass had anything to do with, and his donations to Trump had anything to do with Trump flipping his decision

to ban TikTok? See, but here's, here is how I'm going to answer this. And it's not a deflection. It's going to sound like it is until you can prove that. No, until there is proof that his donations had an impact until there's proof that Elon Musk subsidies are actually. He wasn't donating to him. And then and then Trump was for banning TikTok.

He stopped. He wasn't donating to him. Started donating to it, started donating to him. And then Trump flipped on this issue that he was outspoken about. Because I think I think a lot of people were against it. Don't you think that that Donald Trump is more more pliable when it comes to stroking his ego than monetarily donald trump is is unique in in politics in that i think that you can actually get more out of donald trump by telling him that his hair is nice and you stroke his ego with the money trust me he

still likes the i don't trust you millions i think that i really do think that the the the situation because i do i don't not that not that donald trump doesn't need money to donations and stuff like that but i really do think that donald trump is far more pliable when it comes to getting people to like him than when it comes to actual money donations if you give donald trump money and then you insult, he's not going to let that blood you're arguing. The issue here is you're arguing in the abstract and I'm trying to give you guys specific examples. But you haven't yet. You haven't given any specific.

No. OK. Ask Mary and she was able to articulate. So I'm trying to give you. OK, so I kind of want to hear more about that transhumanism thing. That's neural link. That scares the crap out of me. He literally wants to sew the internet into our brain.

There is nothing on earth I want less than that. I like taking this and putting it on the other side of the room for like an hour. The way that he describes it is simply that right now the interface for your... Everyone's already a cyborg, and it's just that the interface is slow because your phone is... You're using your thumbs. And his argument. Now I'm not,

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, Mary, but his argument is that, that the interface, if you can speed up the interface by having a chip in your brain, which is what Neuralink is, that people will be, will take the next step to become transhuman and cybernet.

He's, he's absolutely that. There's no way, there's no way that ends well. Well, I, I mean, look, I don absolutely that there's no way there's no way that ends well well i i mean look i don't there's no way it is i can't who wants to conquer human nature who wants to uh basically abolish death and also have complete technological control over human reproduction do you think that he wants to control it or do you think that he looks at it like that's what he thinks that human beings should be able to i mean he is that preeminent figure isn't he i don't know that

he has that kind of desire for control no i don't richest man on the planet he's the richest man on the planet but he's the richest man on the planet by taking like really really really big risks about things that he believes in whether or not you you agree with him, like you can you can totally disagree. And that's fine. But like, he believes that, you know, climate change is something that's important to worry about. So that's why he started Tesla. And he believes that it's possible for an asteroid to come and wipe out all of humanity. That's why he thinks we need to be multi planetary. He believes that it's important for people to have access to the internet, no matter what their government says. That's why he thinks we need to be multi-planetary he believes that it's important for people to have access to the internet no matter what their government says, that's why he started

Starlink he believes in free speech, which is why he bought X X is just a garbage dumpster fire of a social media it's so much more fun now no it's not, it used to be way more fun back when Jack Dorsey ran it

and I stand on that. Yes, it was. It was always more fun when you needed to get in trouble for saying something funny. And now everything on X is just brain rot slop. Damn, Mary, you're number one Musk hater right now. I am. I have Elon derangement syndrome. And you're spot on with your Twitter take and your Musk take.

Twitter is so much more fun now. No, it's really not. It's really not it's really not it sucks it's just a giant dump it's a giant dump of bot accounts pornography and clickbait and other than those first two we can get rid of those people engagement farming that's basically all it is totally and what do you know people are getting arbitrarily censored based on elon musk's personal tastes. Totally.

Spot on. He's not a free speech absolutist. He's free speech when it benefits him. I have questioned whether I should even tweet these certain opinions about Elon in case it throttles my algorithmic reach. That's not a free speech platform in the slightest. I think it's better. Look, you're definitely not wrong. But I think it's better than it was, where people were arbitrarily booted off and no one knew why from one side. I think Elon probably censors, he probably boots people. But I think it goes across the spectrum.

You had actual human conversation instead of robots. I wish that there was more transparency on it. You don't feel like you have human conversations now no i think a lot of people are completely botting their accounts and there are a lot of bot accounts that are promoting trump and elon and others but yeah i totally think that there's definitely foreign and domestic like influence campaigns going on rampant on other than that it's gambling ads it's pornography it's like stupid like power washing videos and like whatever like ai generated crap i definitely watched those that's not stolen content ripped ripped from other people's reporting it's not my that's not my experience at all i mean i follow a

lot of people so i think that my uh i don't know maybe it's just because a lot of people joined twitter after elon bought it so they don't know what it was like before. But I saw way more organic content and organic human conversation than I do now before he owned it. And it was a lot more fun. I had a Twitter account as early as 2015, and it was way more fun because people actually it was people talking. And, yeah, you got censored arbitrarily it happened to me but um even that added a bigger appeal to into the platform honestly dodging the bands you're like oh let's see if i can can skirt this issue all right well listen we're going to jump to this next story here uh and it's some international news. It's about Donald Trump.

And and I think that it actually speaks to the to the thing that I said about how you can actually get along with with or how what it's like to try to get along with Donald Trump from NPR reversing U.S. policy. Trump attacks Zelensky, blames Ukraine for a war with Russia. Now, I mean, I'm going to say right out front, like, it's not Zelensky's fault that Putin invaded. The whole thing is Barack Obama's fault for telling Medvedev that Putin could go in after his election. Yep. It was when Barack Obama said to Medvedev, he said, tell tell Vladimir that after my election, I will have more latitude. And after the election, that's when the little green men started showing up in Crimea. That's when when Putin went into Crimea and took Crimea. It was because he took he understood Barack Obama as saying the U.S. will not get involved.

You can go in after my election. He understood Barack Obama as saying the U.S. will not get involved. You can go in after my election. So it's not because of Zelensky. It's because of Barack Obama. And look, I want to be very clear. I have no doubt who the bad guy is here. However, to Barack Obama, I feel like that's the answer to a lot of that. I know who the bad guy is, Barack Obama. But now, look, obviously, Putin's not a great guy.

Obviously, he shouldn't have invaded Ukraine. But I think the Trump angle is just the same way he looks at everything else differently. We've been doing foreign policy with Russia the same way since the end of World War II, and we have gotten virtually nowhere. Yeah. Let me go ahead. The NPR reports Washington and Kiev. For the past three years, the U.S. has been Ukraine's leading supporter in its war with Russia.

Yet with a series of blunt comments, President Trump is now sounding more aligned with Russia than Ukraine. Trump, writing on social media, used his strongest language to date in describing Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, a dictator without elections. Zelensky better move fast or he's not going to have a country left with limited room for maneuver. Zelensky has said relatively little, but he did strike a nerve when he said Wednesday that Trump seems to be living in a Russian created disinformation space. It's my sense. And I think we talked about this a little bit at the very beginning of the show it's my sense that donald trump wants to see russia europe actually pay for the defense of ukraine because europe has the most to lose european nations have been living off the united

states as military the united states military protection for the better part of 60 75 years something like that since the end of world war ii the united states has taken the lion's share of role in in in making nato uh make nato uh an intimidating force there's been a lot of a lot of it has been intentional because the united states didn't want to see nuclear proliferation throughout europe the united states was trying to keep every country in europe from getting nuclear weapons because they that's just a recipe for disaster but the u.s spends out of our our gdp is like 29 trillion dollars the u.s spends 3.6 percent of our gdp on our military i think the nato agreement is every country in nat spend 3% of their – is it 2?

2, yes. 2% of their GDP on national defense, on their military, which in net dollars is vastly less than the United States, and they don't even meet their requirements to be in NATO NATO and they haven't forever the United States used to spend 15 percent in 1953 the United States was spending 15 percent of our GDP and it's been going down ever since like I said now it's about 3.6 or something like that but the rest of Europe who is the most threatened by Russia won't even pay for their own militaries they won't actually spend the money on their military they've been living under the u.s protection the united states protections for all of the cold war and since and now it's time for for the the european nations to actually spend

the amount of money that they're supposed to spend on their own defense and And I think that that's the whole goal. Now, there's personal animosity between Zelensky and Trump. When Zelensky went to Pennsylvania with Josh Shapiro during the election, that definitely pissed Trump off. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with him actually having a problem with that. Why a foreign country that we've been sent

just shoveling money into has their president come and actually pick sides in an election it's a bad look um and i don't think that there's there's going to be any way to save the personal relationship between zelinsky it's also worth noting that on monday macron is going to be going to ukraine to talk to Zelensky. And Macron has said that France will stand with Zelensky and with Ukraine. And I think that that's a perfect situation. If the French want to go ahead and pick up the tab, fine. I think we're at $70 billion that we've sent to Ukraine so far since the war started in 22, and an additional 70 since 2014,

when Barack Obama opened the door for President Putin to invade the first time. So it's time for the U.S. to actually stop paying for this, because there's been no changes. It's just a meat grinder, and Ukraine's going to run out of people to fight. No, and you know what? You are totally right. And just the way Zelensky operates, like, you mean you're not going to give me money? Like, I expect this.

Not thank you for what you've done so far. When it comes to foreign policy, I have spent my entire life. I'm 35. Why? It happened long before this. Every time there's an international conflict or a crisis somewhere whether it's an earthquake or a landslide or a famine something happening the entire united nations all get together and they look down the row and they go hey america you guys got this right

and i'm sitting over here going we are struggling we have problems there are people freezing to death in a tent in western north carolina right now and i don't know what the NATO nations have done about it. I don't remember getting a lot from North Macedonia. I don't think we're getting a lot from Slovenia. If we got invaded right now and the Slovenians were like, hey, guys, we're on the way. Do you feel safer about that? But no, we're paying for their top line expense.

And then we get to be lectured to by the Europeans. Well, we have free schools. We have free the Europeans well we have free schools we have free health care we have free this of course because you're not paying the most if somebody was paying my mortgage I could afford to drive a Lamborghini because I'm not I'm not paying the most expensive thing in my life and it is so frustrating to see all the other countries lecture America instead of sitting back shutting up and saying, thank you, daddy. I am sick of being the sugar daddy of the world. And I'm sorry it falls on Ukraine right now, but this is just the times we're living in.

It's the truth. I mean, a lot of my lefty friends always remind me like, oh, I wish I lived in Europe. I wish I lived there. I'm like, yeah, I'm sure you do, because essentially you're living in this little colony of the United States where we give you guys a ton of money so you can live this dream of a lifestyle with all these walkable cities and all this nonsense meanwhile the american guy is working ridiculous hours under all these crazy regulations to get enough money to feed his family and yet everybody can go and have a wonderful you know a wonderful i don't know a wonderful evening out in copenhagen you know whatever it's just not it's not fair copenhagen is a little bit else they're their own thing but i'm saying like

for instance, I would like to say France, I'd like to say England, but a lot has changed there recently, so I don't know. But they like to complain anyways. They glow online. I see my European friends, they're on vacation in the Canary Islands, and I'm like, man, I have a hard time getting to Philly.

Yeah. Like, you know, I'm just sitting, and it's like, why? I feel like the first, if you work a 40-hour work week, the first eight hours you work goes to foreign aid. Yeah. That's what it feels like. And it's not 80 why? I feel like the first, if you work a 40-hour work week, the first eight hours you work goes to four and eight. That's what it feels like. And it's not 80% of the time. It's not 90% of the time. It's every time something happens,

everyone just looks around and goes, well, America will take care of it. Meanwhile, like, even in the lefty paradise of California, like, all that money that we've given to Ukraine could be spent to go rebuild the people in California who, if we went, look, if we went $36 trillion in debt and we had, like, airplanes that didn't fall out of the sky and roads that didn't have potholes and kids that could read, I probably wouldn't mind that we were in debt.

But the fact that we're borrowing money from China to protect Taiwan from China seems like a recipe for disaster. Yeah. I mean, I know you've got a lot of foreign policy opinions. What are your thoughts on Europe and the spending and the treatment of Vladimir Zelensky by President Trump? I think it's extremely commendable that Donald Trump is making an effort to end wars, both in Eastern Europe and the Middle east right now and i think this rhetoric is trying to manage the expectations of the ukrainians um in a way with with rhetoric like this he's kind of letting them know your aspirations of getting back crimea and donbass

kind of aren't going to happen and um he's been the narrative that Zelensky has tried to has been has been pushing that they're getting back Donbass. Well, he has to he'd be extremely unpopular. And guess what? In Ukraine, they want Donbass, the Donbass and Crimea back. But I do disagree with the specifics of what he was saying. I don't think Ukraine started this conflict. So hopefully it's just a... Here's the thing. As we hand off this conflict to the Europeans,

because we are more interested in what's going on in the Pacific, where more of the world is being centered now, Europe's becoming old news. Ukraine, after a settlement is reached here, I foresee the Europeans not picking up the tab, and then eventually actually more of Ukraine getting bitten off. If we didn't support Ukraine to begin with, I think all of Ukraine would have fallen, which were the ambitions of Putin. And thanks to the money spent and the weapons sent over there,

the Ukrainians were bravely able to fight themselves. We didn't spill American blood in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians proudly fought off the Russians. So, you know, this is a negotiating ploy. If the Europeans do not step up, and if the Americans do decide to take a full step back, I foresee Putin just steamrolling through Ukraine down the line. It was part of the Russian Empire, it was part of the Soviet Union. And Putin is an irredentist who believes that the fall of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of his life, the greatest political geopolitical tragedy of his life. So I think we're going to see more ambitions of Putin as a result of this. But here's the question.

Hold on. Is it your sense that Putin actually does want to move into Europe and, like, say, get Poland and get the former Soviet states back? Within Putin's lifetime, it was a part, was Putin part of the USSR or the Warsaw Pact? It was the Warsaw Pact. Yeah, so the other country,

like I do believe that he wants to claw back as much former USSR countries as he can or former Russian Empire countries. Yeah, because he lost territory within his lifetime. He's seen his country

collapse into pieces. So totally, I think that's within his ambition to return Russia in his mind to its rightful place in world politics, where he sees Russia as a major world power. They've kind of been delegated to kind of an afterthought right now. But the Russian demographics are horrible, too. You know, Russia is going to struggle to move forward. You know, I know we like to talk about Ukraine and their struggling demographics. But beyond the war, Russia is in a complete demography collapse. Mary, what do you think about Ukraine? Well, what I wonder with looking at the combination of, first of all, like Trump's truth social post excoriating zelensky along with him meeting with

putin excluding zelensky to zelensky's deep dismay i just wonder like what is the safe uh or not the safe the face saving move for trump to make this not look like letting Russia win, basically. I think they're going to get what they want. And Putin doesn't actually want to throw his hands up and call it a day. He wants his objectives met. Is it your sense that he wants to take all of Ukraine? I don't pay close attention, but my sense is that he's not going to make compromises in negotiations, especially now that Trump has thrown Zelensky under the bus. It looks like, oh, the adults in the room have have come in to fix this.

I just wonder if that really just looks like Trump. I don't know. It makes it look like Russia has definitively won in this conflict. And that's a terrible look for the U.S. in terms of a global superpower. So I disagree that it's a bad look for the U.S. in that it wasn't the United States actually fighting. The U.S. was supporting and giving money to Ukraine. Also, Trump was giving lethally to Ukraine in 2020, which was a mistake. But I still don't think that it's actually the United States that's losing here. It is Ukraine. I honestly don't think that Putin is going to try to take all of Ukraine. I think that there's going to be a peace deal.

Do you think he's satisfied? Do you think Putin's war aims were just the amount of territory in Ukraine that he currently occupies? I don't know for sure. I think that he that the I think the parts of Ukraine that he took are actually the strategic parts, if I understand correctly. He wanted the warm water port. He wanted the Donbass because of the actual topography in the land there. So they made a move on Kiev early on in the war. People say like, oh, it's a feint.

It's a fake out. According to the amount of Russian casualties from that part of the invasion, I don't think so. Let me address that. I do think that his initial impulse was to take all of Ukraine. I do. I think that because of the stalemate, because of the support from the rest of the world, I think that he's going to have to take, he's going to have to settle for what he's got. And that's why I think that he won't go after the rest of ukraine i think that he i think that there's going to be some kind of deal and that's why i don't think that the u.s looks like they lose because the u.s was never going to get crimea back to or never going to invade get crimea back from the russians and give it to the ukraine now he did he did take

a little more um a little more territory but i don't think that he's going to be able to take all of Ukraine because I don't think that Russia has the – unless they were to drastically increase or escalate the violence, I don't think they have the ability to take it. Well, it's a war of attrition between us and them essentially because – And not between us and them. It's between Ukraine and them. But we're de facto funding Ukraine. Ukraine can keep funding. Wait, wait. It's not about funding.

It's about the people that are dying. No, it's not. Ukraine will keep fighting until we pull the plug. What's happening first here is not the Ukrainian will collapsing. It's the American will to continue supporting them collapsing. They have 50 and 60 year old men on the front. No, here's the difference. They will run out of people.

But that's not the current issue. They will. The current issue with why they would stop the war right now is not because they're running out of people. It's because the Americans would stop funding their arms. Here's the thing, though. If I'm a neocon Russian edition, what I'm saying is I'm trying to run this back in a decade or two, make the same move on Kiev, and I could take Ukraine in piecemeal. Like, hey, I'm the Russian neocon. Hey, I remember when, you know, this was a part of our country. Kiev was the first capital of our ancient Russian civilization that goes back centuries. I'm ready to do this all again. Look how successful we were. First, we started with

Crimea, right? Almost a decade later, now we took another piece of the dumbass. Now that the Americans aren't even interested anymore, they won't be sending them weapons. We only need to deal with the stupid Europeans now. They're licking their lips. And Putin's about to say, I'm going to send this message all around the world. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, says this guy's a dictator. Imagine how he's going to use that as propaganda. Who did Trump say started the war? He blames it on Ukraine. So I think that will be used as propaganda in the future. Also, I think Ukraine has such a malign influence on all of our politics that has yet to be fully exposed. And all of our social media platforms, they're looking to fund different things in different ways. And I think Ukraine has such a malign influence on all of our politics that has yet to be fully exposed. And all of our social media platforms, they're looking to fund different things in different ways.

And I think it's very important to stay cautious of Russia. I hate to make it like that. I'm not saying Trump's a Russian agent, but there's a ton of Russian propaganda out there. And if you don't think so, I don't think you're paying attention. No, I think that the American people are far smarter than to, you know the the their the entirety of their election election be decided by a couple hundred thousand dollars on facebook but here's the thing i think i think america could be influenced i think americans would have a lot more of a taste for this war if they felt like europe was doing their part and i think that wait a taste for this war and

supporting them not i don't want i don't want uh troops on the ground boots on the ground in ukraine well what's no no no what's the... No, no, no. Even financially. You're talking about them. Even financially. It seems like, as I said before, Russia invades Ukraine. The UN gets together and goes, ah, don't worry, guys, America will take care of this. Now Keir Starmer in the UK is saying that he's going to send some troops over there. The UK only has 72,000 active duty troops.

Do you know why? Because daddy America is paying their top line bill. They don't need to invest in a serious military because they know that if anything happens to them, here come the Americans over here. And I think that is the impediment to the America first idea that Europe, it is time for you to step up. We are not living in the Marshall Plan where every one of your countries is destroyed by World War II. You have rejoined the land of the civilized advanced nations. It is time for you to step up.

It was different after World War II. Everything was destroyed. So America was the only superpower. As an American, you should know better. The Europeans will never stand up. Well, then you know what? Then they can rise up to the occasion. The reason why, just like if you let a child live in your basement and never pay rent till they're 40

they're never going to grow up and it's time for the europeans to grow up and start paying their own bills is it your is it your belief that the that the europeans would allow russia to take more countries um when push comes to shove if the united states wasn't looking to get involved in um if they attacked a nato country well no i think i think a nato country i think that the united states would live up to its nato obligations i i'm i don't know if i agree with that like i i don't know how many americans would hear oh russia just invaded estonia mary do you think we should go to war based on the estonia mary like should we go you think we should go to war based on the Estonia, Mary? Like, should we go to nuclear? Should we go to war with a nuclear power? I know we have the

treaty obligation and that's important and it's supposed to be deterrence. But when push comes to shove, oh, they're invading Estonia. I feel I guess me and you are going to go, you know, I think there's going to be a conversation that needs to be. What do you think of that? You're 100 percent right. Well, with with Putin knowing that Ukraine is struggling to even rally like human capital to keep this war going and also knowing that the war is deeply unpopular in the US and among Trump's own voters. What concessions is he gonna make well no but i mean i mean he has more leverage based on that well i well i i think that i think that what russia's capable of is limited by the united states well i i get what you're saying but i think that it's limited by the u.s uh whether or not the u.s will fund right so if the u.s decides okay you're not going to come to the table,

then we can still make we can make this a nightmare for you because the U.S. does have that ability and that car, whether or not Donald Trump wants to play that card, that is a card that they're all well aware that the United States does have. Putin knows that the U.S. can print tanks like it prints money. He knows that the U.S. can print advanced weaponry and send it there if he changes his mind. So this is always an option for the United States. Russia doesn't have the ability.

They've always done lower tech, not that they don't have some high tech, but lower tech and just massive amounts, right? So whether it be tanks, people, whatever it is, they have a significantly larger population to draw on to send to Ukraine. Ukraine has almost exhausted their capacity to put young men into fighting positions and stuff. They're bringing in 50-year-old dudes, 60-year-old dudes that are fighting.

Now, granted, this is an existential war to Ukraine, so that's going to inspire men of all ages and some women to go and try to fight. But at some point, they run out. And the United States has the ability to pump money into Ukraine long after they run out of viable fighters. We can keep pumping money into that war until all of the people in Ukraine that could possibly fight die. And Russia has enough people to keep supplying the front lines with people longer than Ukraine.

Well, that's why it's... That's why it's about... That's why it's about... That's why there's an incentive for both to negotiate. Now, Putin doesn't get what he wants because he did want to go. I do believe that he wanted to take all of Ukraine. But I think that he will that he's he's fairly satisfied with what he's got because these the locations that he has now are strategic.

I don't know if the limiting principle is to go back. You can go back to Russia and say he got to win. Look, he got the one more report that he wanted. Exactly. We can actually say we're not funding this anymore. We're going to stop the dying in Ukraine.

All right. So we're going to go ahead and wrap this up. We're going to go to Super Chats. Don't forget to smash the like button, follow this page and share this video

with your friends if you like it, if you want more content. The best way to support TimCast IRL and the project we do here to share them with your friends if you like it, if you want more content. The best way to support TimCast IRL and the project we do here are to share them with your friends, send the videos to your friends, and stuff like that.

So let's bring this Super Chats up. What do we got here? Can you make these a little bit bigger? Yeah, we can. Where's that button? There we go. There we go. Keep going.

One more. There we go. Keep going. One more. There we go. All right. So Pochita says, oh, now it disappeared. There we go. Zoom it up. There you go. Pochita says, baby beanie fun congratulations tim pool and family yeah the

reason that i am running the show tonight in case you don't know is uh tim and his wife are out uh welcoming their first child to the world uh i have no more updates than that i don't know if the baby has been born yet or if Allison is still suffering. I don't think it will ever end, Allison suffering. Oh, I know. But that's why I'm here. I'll be doing the culture war tomorrow, and also I'll be running IRL tomorrow night because Tim is going to spend some time with the family, some well-deserved time with the family.

Mazel tov, Tim. Congratulations, buddy. Let's see. What do you got here just because I'm free says want to have your mind blown on what most of the money for Biden's inflation reduction act went to go to U.S. spending go to U.S. spending site and search the keyword climate justice, then look under the grant tabs. Billions are there. That is true. The Inflation Reduction Act was really just a bait and switch. It was the Green New Deal. They just changed the name, and most of the programs that were proposed in the Green New Deal were in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Well, that's why I'm so inspired when i see uh epa administrative zelden going we're gonna get that 20 billion back i love it we're gonna i mean look and the fact that they pushed it all out the door as biden was leaving just lets you know that this was not well thought out this was everybody's wish list everybody on the way out the door hung their ornaments on that christmas tree and took as much out as they could the minute they knew it was over. Is it just me or is climate change as a political issue just completely dropping off the Democrats interest and agenda? I don't know if it's above your abortion or transing the kids anymore or like climate change has really fallen off the Democratic agenda.

It's because they don't have a leader and they don't have anyone to message properly. And that's why you are seeing people going out there who you've never heard of before because they are looking for someone, anyone to be able to move them forward. And unfortunately, I think that if they continue to search for that voice, they are going to come up with some people they do not want. I think that the brand, the climate change brand was hurt by Greta a lot. Honestly, I think that when Greta was the, you know, doing her whole shtick at the UN when she was a little kid, it was compelling. But as she got older and people saw her in other places doing leftist activism, they started to get the idea that, you know, maybe climate change isn't really the issue that we thought it was. And I also think that part of the reason I think part of the reason is that, but also part of the reason is that the like, like Kevin said, the the left is kind of lost right now, they are having a civil war on the left, they don't know if they should

follow the extreme left, or if they should go back to the, you know, Democrat kind of mindset where we're not going to hate people for owning property. We're not going to hate people for doing for being capitalists right now. People like Jeet here and I just saw this this post today. People like Jeet here are saying we should go with the ideas that the DSA are talking about. Now, the DSA are the Democratic Socialists of America. That is not social Democrats. That is effing commies. They are absolutely communists.

They tweet about Marx and the the the immortal science of Marx that they were like, we follow the science. We follow the immortal science of Marx. I'll tweet that in just a little bit. But the DSA and the far left are fighting with the reasonable left, the people like like Ro Khanna and people like he's dangerous. He is. If they listen, if they listen to Ro Khanna, not that I'm giving Democrats any advice, but people like Ro Khanna, people like Richie Torres, people that are actual Democrats that are saying things like we need to get away from the identity stuff. We need to worry about when they're actually living through serious problems of their own and it's also the way they do the protesting i think that lane in the street thing blocking traffic people will like whatever you're

for i'm for the other thing absolutely the i mean the blm riots and stuff that did significant damage. Throwing soup on, like, the Mona Lisa. Like, come on. Yeah. So, all right. Let's see. Alien Starshout said, You guys are forgetting Elon donated to help win an election. What would have happened if Kamala won to Elon to business to us?

This is something that's legitimate. Like, Kamala Harris, I have some friends that work closely with people in the former administration that had friends in the DOJ there. And there was a lot of talk about going after people like Musk, going after people like Joe Rogan, possibly going after people like Tim because they were considered a threat to democracy. And I think that had Kamala won, the country that we live in would be significantly different. There would be significant attacks on their political opponents, people on the right. It would have only escalated. And it's a blessing that Donald Trump won, not just because of Donald Trump or because of Donald Trump's policies, but because he's trying the administration that he's put into place is the antithesis of what it used to be.

Tulsi Gabbard was on the Quiet Skies list. Kennedy was actually looked at as the persona non grata by the HHS and by the— Wasn't he considered for an Obama-level position? He was for a minute, yeah. Like a low administrator position? He was a candidate, yeah. was he was being talked about so um yes i do think that is a very very very good thing that she left for for multiple reasons um tim road rage langdon said elon offered to build a solar field and get electricity to native australians on his dime

because he feels people deserve that basic human right, and the Australian government denied it. The man cares. I think that was directed at you. Sounds like this guy has a great PR team or something, too. He was trying to help all the starving Africans, and then, I don't know, the African government blocked it. Where did the Jay Shields one go? What? Sorry.

I was talking to Serge. Go ahead. You were saying? I just want to do next Super Show. No, I just, I think the, we've done enough on Elon tonight. It's just, I found it real interesting that Bannon was willing to come out with those comments about him and Trump's relationships with people who work for him almost never last. So we'll see how long Elon Musk stays.

I will say this about the Bannon comments, and I find this interesting and I like this on the right, is that we all do disagree, but we all like we actually have the diversity of ideas that the left continues to shut out. And I think that's what this administration is going to show more than anything else. Like you said, with Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi and Bannon not agreeing and this one over here, former Democrats. But that's worth pointing out because I think that that speaks to the argument. We can hate the neocons. That speaks to the argument that I made earlier that like we have been living in a leftist milieu so long that now the people that are like conservative or save the right or saving the country, they are almost all former Democrats. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, you know, Tulsi Gabbard, Kennedy. These people are you. I mean, I'm a New Yorker. You know, we start out as Democrats in New York, the majority of people.

And then the more you read, the more you learn, the more you go, hmm, nothing here is getting better. Yeah. Maybe let's try the other way. When was that for you? I would say about halfway through Obama's second term when I started to see that things weren't adding up. Also, I went to college late. I went when I was like 26 and going to college made me a Republican because I was watching 18 year olds who had no jobs and no life experience tell me about like effective tax rates. And I'm like, you voted for Obama twice.

Damn, dude. Did you vote for Trump the first time? Damn, dude. Did you vote for Trump the first time? Damn, dude. Did you vote for Trump the first time? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The minute he was on that stage and said, only Rosie O'Donnell, I remember I was sitting

in journalism class when that happened. I just went, oh, this is over. This is over. They're like, what? Like, eh, it's over. He's done. And I'm like, no, he's going to win. Like that.

Because he's a normal person. And I think that's what the last 10 years has really shown is that more normal people are rising to the top than the children are our future. Performa 20 says, glad to see you here, Kevin. My wife was your nurse at Good Sam a while back. She told me to tell you about your rumble good to see you on well thank you very much hopefully it wasn't the most recent one where i had to have an organ removed but uh that was uh that's pretty wild happy to see that you're okay oh yeah it was a it was a minor one so i'm good. Minor work. I can't be stopped.

Shadav the Vedmac says, Hey, Phil, maybe review how the UAE is doing in regards to their no-income tax and VAT. UAE doesn't have as much infrastructure as America, which can mitigate most foreseeable pitfalls. Take care. I'll have to look into that. I don't know, but I know that the UAE is not some kind of third world hellhole if I understand correctly.

That's Dubai, right? United Arab Emirates. I don't think that's Dubai. Yeah, Dubai's the city in the Emirates. Is it? Maybe. Could be. Yeah, I think it is. I think that's the most advanced city in the world. Didn't they build it in like nine months? Meanwhile, it took 60 years

to build the second avenue subway in New York. Yeah, Dubai is in the UAE. It's kind of uncanny, though. I mean, you see videos of Dubai. I would never want to live in a place that looks like that. I could never be somewhere where it's that hot. It's in the middle of a desert and everything's concrete. And there's no plumbing.

Remember, there's no plumbing. They have to take trucks to literally take out all the sewage of every building and line up trucks for miles. It's not a wonderful, you know. They're doing marketing campaigns for Dubai. Trying to convince Westerners to move there. Is that where they're trying to build the line? Yes, that's Saudi Arabia. But there's a lot of projects that get funded by a lot of that oil money that are just like wild pies in the sky that may or may not happen.

They're doing a lot of excavation. I've seen whether or not it actually comes to fruition. I don't know, but they're doing a lot of digging out there. So anyways, Grim Wolf says, we have to weaken the cartels to the point the Mexican government can establish control, incentivize long-term proper governance, then they can keep a lid on things they

too will have to have a clearinghouse of corruption yeah i i think that that goes without saying but i i just don't think that saying well it's too dangerous for us to try to to fight the cartels is a good option because they're only going to infiltrate the u.s more they're only going to have more cities fall you you know, more areas come under their control. I don't see the, that the, I don't think that the U.S. just saying, well, we'll go ahead and build the wall and then not let anyone else

in. I don't think that that's enough. I think that if you're not on the offense, you're losing. So that's, it's not something that I'm hoping for. Like if this, I think the situation could have been handled, like Elad said, you know, a lot a long time ago could have been prevented. But now that it's here, I don't think that we have as many options as as people think. I think that it's it's kind of like we're going to have to do do some fighting to fix this situation um malikak zakav i hope i pronounced your name right

says please read this phil please read this phil you need to speak to ed calderon about cartels was previously on timcast irl uh cool okay um let see. What do we got here? Hal Gailey says, free trade only exists between free markets. The CCP market isn't free. Our trade is hobbled via a controlled economy. Each U.S. state has free trade with the other 49. It works because it's fair and free. Versus a controlled economy there.

What does it say? Our free trade is hobbled by a controlled economy. Or our free trade is hobbled versus a controlled economy there. What does it say? Our free trade is hobbled by a controlled economy, or our free trade is hobbled versus a controlled economy. Controlled economy, yeah. Yeah, so each USA has free trade and the other 49 to 2. It works because trade is fair and free. I couldn't agree more. There's only one of us that's trading fairly.

There's only one of us playing by the rules, and we're wondering why China's winning. Yeah, I mean, China kind of makes the rules that they're going to, you know, they make their own rules and they don't. I don't consider China to be an honest broker. I don't think that if we're not able to actually check to see if China's going to be living up to their commitments. They're not going to. You know, they lead the world in piracy and taking existing technology. I've listened to this podcast. I've listened to the All In podcast, and they've had people on saying, you know, you'll come up with an innovation,

and as soon as you release it in China, two weeks later another company has it because they reverse engineer stuff so quickly and if you're dealing with they they if you're dealing with that kind of um that kind of disregard for property rights it's it's tough for countries like the united states that have to have all the rules that they that we do have it's tougher for them to compete so let's see Afuera Media says Toyota makes the cars they sell in North America in North America they have plants in Texas Alabama Mississippi and Indiana among others good I like that I think that you know we should we should I think that we should incentivize making cars in the U.S. and I think that the incentives should be things like lower tax rates for the companies that make them or no taxes. I think that those types of incentives for manufacturers that produce jobs or for companies that make jobs,

I think those things are a net benefit for the American people and for the country as a whole. Let's see. Waffle Sensei says, if Trump didn't win, the Democrats would have destroyed Elon Musk. He donated to Trump for survival, then went all in. His reward was influence. I think that that's probably right. There were something along the lines of 12 or 13 different uh investigations into into elon musk's companies so and that was under the biden administration and the the administration

was clearly hostile to elon musk didn't the federal judge stop him from like was it buying stocks no from getting the reward for his stock so he basically said hey i won't take pay at tesla unless the stock becomes worth this amount of money um and everybody thought that's a ridiculous thing to do because there's no way that that stock is going to become that amount of money and then it did so essentially what he said is like look i won't get paid if i get paid if i do this i'll make a boatload of money but i won't get paid unless everybody that owns tesla stock makes a boatload of money, but I won't get paid unless everybody that owns Tesla stock makes a boatload of money first. He did it. And then a judge in Delaware stepped in and said, no, you can't.

So and that's all politically motivated. There is nothing quite like somebody who bets on themselves, you know, says, you know what? I'm going to make this work. And if I don't, I go bust or this entity goes bust. Yes. There's just so many conflicts of interest that are the issue with so many governments around the globe. Can you point to one person that doesn't

have a conflict of interest? He just has the ick. No, but I think... I mean, if the man owns X, like... If you work for a campaign because you want to get a job in the White House afterwards, do you have a conflict of interest? I think it's fundamentally different when we're talking about, like, the richest person on Earth. So, like... Elad just doesn't like rich people.

No, no, no. If you don't fundamentally understand that there's, like, again, Elon Musk donated almost $300 million to Trump campaigns through different PACs. He owns Twitter, SpaceX, Tesla. And so he has a lot of these interests across the board. Show me one person who could donate that level of money that doesn't have a conflict of interest. And I would love to get big money out of politics. But unfortunately, this is the world we live in right now. And as so long as we live in it, I'm going to keep playing by the sea. Yeah, I think I think Elon Musk isn't do you know, he's saying certain things and I don't think he believes in all of them.

And again, I think he's using the MAGA group as a vehicle for his own interests. And I think we'll be seeing the effects of that in the near future. Again, I don't think he was never MAGA right before. Trump's been president before. Maybe we're using Elon Musk. Trump was against electric vehicles until Elon Musk started donating a bunch of money to him and then he actually has a famous quote of when he says oh actually you know elon musk is donating a lot of money now i guess i gotta support evs and tesla well maybe we used elon musk for his money maybe we said all right we'll be nice all right so use

him for his money and then tell him to go continue running spacex and tesla and and um and all these other you know companies that he owns he sounds like he has more than enough work to do so. I think we're going to get burned by Musk down the line. We've got to get back to some Super Chats here. Laura says, Mary said X has less organic conversation and more bodded activity with no evidence. I guarantee you there's way less bot posts than pre-Elon.

X isn't perfect, but it's way better now, no question. What say you? I don't know. Let's way better now no question what say you I don't know let's just like glaze Elon fine what evidence do I need like what evidence would that be I don't know I'm only reading the super chat for you I don't have a study

for you no I'm talking about what it was like to be a user of Twitter versus what it's like to be a user of u.s and russia are like greek gods we can do anything to the low mortal countries as long as we don't fight each other i mean there's some substance to that your metaphor is stupid because there's only one god and so in your metaphor you know i'm not going to say anything yeah you know here's me not touching that at all um from that there's no equal footing of the United States and Russia. And like compare the two makes you like deeply have a deeply missed deep misunderstanding of how geopolitics and our economies interact.

There's no multipolarity here. You know, we're unquestionably the hegemonic power. And was this a win for you? Was this a win for Russia? It doesn't really feel like it. They didn't really achieve all their goals. And at the cost of under a million deaths in Russia. So if I'm a Russian, I don't know how much pride I'm taking in struggling to take piecemeal parts of Ukraine. You didn't even get all of it.

So I'm not wishing you good luck on the next try. All right. We're going to do one more. This one glazes me, as Mary says. Walken says, Phil, the new record is fucking fantastic. Rip Ollie. By the way, please confirm that the second bridge on Divine is a very respectful nod to Ollie's riff on Not Alone.

I know it and you know it and I love Jason for it. Cheers. Yes, it was absolutely a nod to Not Alone. All right, everybody. Smash the like button. Share the show with your friends. Tell everybody you know. And become a member at timcast.com if you become a member at timcast.com i believe you also become a member of rumble and you'll be able to jump into our after show there's the rumble

rants which we're going to touch we're going to we're going to talk about uh and we'll take callers every night after the rumble rants we'll take a bunch of callers from the Discord. So go ahead and join that Discord. And Kevin Smith, where can people find you? You guys can find me 1 p.m. Eastern on LFATV on Rumble or I stream on X or on my personal page, Loud Majority US. I want to thank you guys all for having me on. And real quick Tim congratulations

sorry I didn't get to meet your brother but I guess we'll take a rain check on that one yeah you can find me on Pop Culture Crisis we go live every Monday through Friday at 3pm Eastern noon Pacific time and you can go follow me on Instagram

and believe it or not X as well both at Mary Archived. Mary, it was so much fun. I feel like we were never on IRL together. So I had a really good time speaking to you tonight and others, of course. My name's Elad Eliyahu. I'm a journalist here at Timcast.

You could catch me on X at Elad Eliyahu and then on Instagram is BarelyInformedWithElad. I guess my DMs are available to be glazed or... Is that what you guys say now? Glazed? What? Is this something that you haven't heard before? Complimented or complaints. The DMs are open. I am PhilTheRemains on Twix. You can subscribe to me there. I'm PhilTheRemainsOfficial on Instagram.

The band is All That Remains. Our new record dropped on January 31st. It's called Anti-Fragile. You can check it out on Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, and Deezer. Oh, and on YouTube. And don't forget the left link is for crime. We will see you tomorrow morning with The Culture War. And if you are a TimCast member, stick around because we are going to be right here with the Rumble After Show.

So see you tomorrow. you