TRIGGERnometry - Live from the White House with Dr Sebastian Gorka

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Sebastian Gorka is a British-Hungarian-American media host, commentator, and government official. He is currently serving as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism in the second Trump administration. Follow Seb on X: https://x.com/SebGorka SPONSOR. Shipstation. Go to https://shipstation.com and use code TRIGGER to sign up for your FREE trial. SPONSOR. Express VPN. Go to https://www.expressvpn.com/trigger/ to get 4 months FREE Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Introduction 04:46 The Iran Question 11:05 Has Trump Met His Match On Ukraine? 19:24 Is The Ukraine Deal Being Rushed And Will It Guarantee Security? 26:26 Is Trump Trying To Prevent A Russia/China Alliance? 29:37 Will China Invade Taiwan? 35:23 Trump's Rhetoric On Greenland And Canada 44:25 The State Of The US Economy 47:12 What Is The Biggest Challenge For The Trump Administration? 47:51 What's The Thing We're Not Talking About That We Should Be? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a historic moment. How do you feel it's going so far? We have a lot of work to keep Americans and our allies and our friends safe from the scourge of global jihadism. His demand, even more than eight years ago, is that if you share the threat assessment that jihadism is bad, then you need to step up. You need to be more active partners, whether you're Arab nations in the Middle East or whether you're Western nations that have terrorism occurring on your streets. So can you reassure sensible people around the world that in attempting to do a deal quickly, Ukraine isn't going to end up in a position as bad for the world and bad for America?

He's truly horrified by what he's seeing. This isn't about a quick fix and move on. This is about stopping horror. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business, from designing a website to marketing, to sell, and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like

Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into, sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. Seb? Yes. Our good friend, Dr. Sebastian Gork, a deputy assistant to the president, and you deal with counterterrorism above all. We're sitting here with the coffee cups with the president of the United States on them in the room where the American government found out Pearl Harbor had happened. So you, this, that was a historic moment. This is a historic moment. How do you feel it's going so far? Absolutely incredible. I pinch myself every single day, not simply because of my personal

reasons that I've been waiting about 25 years for this job. But it feels like we've been here for seven months, not seven weeks, because of the pace, the alacrity of what the present has achieved, from seating the border to new deals, to as we are recording this, he just announced from the Oval Office with Secretary of Defense, Hexseth next to him, the new F-47 fighter jet, big secret for the last five years. So, I mean, it's just keeping up with him is one of the toughest things in life.

But it is, it's just an amazing time to be alive and it's an amazing time to be an American. And what do you do day to day? So I'm the senior director for counterterrorism in the National Security Council, working for the National Security Advisor Mike Walts. And so my job is to coordinate all counterterrorism policies and activities for the president, for Mike Walts,

to make sure that we are, well, as my colleagues tell me, they ask me as I bump into them in the West Wing, have you killed more jihadis today? So we have a lot of work to keep Americans and our allies and our friends safe from the scourge of global jihadism. Well, you say that in a way that it will sound kind of like political to a lot of people, but the president has come out

and been very, very clear, and Tulsi Gabbard also, that you guys see jihadism as one of the, big threats to America, which seems a bit of a pivot? Well, look, it's not a univolent situation. There's not one threat. So I'll be completely, you know, open here. When I came into this building eight years ago for the first Trump administration, my background was Canada Territus, was teaching the military, the intelligence community,

how to deal with al-Qaeda and ISIS. And I thought I'd be doing that. And once you get the clearances, and once you read the president's daily intelligence briefing, you realize there's only one real strategic level threat to America, and that's China. And the president understands that. And with people like Peter Nabarro, back on board, people like Scott Besson to the Treasury, we are dealing with that strategic level nation-state threat. But when it comes to counterterrorism, look, the last four years have been absolutely catastrophic.

Let's start with Biden's surrender of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is the nation that gave aid and succor to al-Qaeda. to bin Laden prior to 9-11. The last administration, in ways that made the Saigon withdrawal look like a walk in the park, deserted Afghanistan, deserted the people who had fought with us against the Taliban, against al-Qaeda. Now the organization that helped the al-Qaeda terrorists

is back in control of that nation. We've withdrawn all of our capabilities from that region to do counter-terrorism as we did previously. So when I came into the building, I was told that we have an increased threat of global jihadism on the Sunni side. Iran is now stronger than ever because Biden released tens of billions of dollars. So the president is very serious about the threat of jihadi terrorism. And that's why you've seen one of the first actions, second week of the administration, is the strikes against ISIS in Somalia. The Houthis, President Trump took action just last weekend.

So, yeah, the president takes this threat very seriously. And if you look at the events in Europe, the Christmas market attacks, you look at the events in the UK, the stabbings and so forth, those three little beautiful goals. Yeah, he gets it and we are taking action. And it is my honor to be part of that. It's interesting because on the one hand Trump has saying that he doesn't want to have this neocon attitude where he puts troops on the ground.

and he influences regime change. But let's be brutally honest, said, Iran. Yeah. Unless you've sought Iran, whatever that means, that is the source of the poison which causes much of the disruption in the Middle East. So you're absolutely right. The president is not a neo-conservative interventionist.

He's not an isolationist. There are people who say, oh, he's an isolationist. Garbage. America first does not mean America alone. The fact that he strengthened NATO by getting two-thirds of the NATO members to actually pay their duty. used, which was not the case when we came into the White House the first time round, demonstrates that. But when it comes to Iran, he's not interested in regime change in terms of the 82nd airborne going in and changing nations. His first question is,

whenever we brief him, why are we there? Why do we have boots on the ground anywhere? And his demand, even more than eight years ago, is that if you share the threat assessment that Jihadism is bad. If your citizens are being killed on your streets, then you need to step up. You need to be more active partners, whether you're Arab nations in the Middle East who are threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood, by Al-Qaeda, by ISIS, by Anusra, or whether you're Western nations that have terrorism occurring on your streets. So it's not up to us to change regimes. We have to suppress the terrorist threat. And as far as I'm concerned, I would love to see the nation of Persia, with all the ethnicities that are inside Iran today, take back their country.

And the saddest, the most cripplingly tragic thing is by the end of the First Trump administration, the Islam of fascist regime of Tehran was on the brink of collapse. I mean, the Iranian stock exchange, thanks to our sanctions, had lost more than 50% of its value in just over a year. And now, for the last four years, it's been pumped full of cash by the Biden administration. Now, the collapse of the regime in Syria has hurt them. The rear application of sanctions has also undermined them. What Israel has done, God bless Israel, since the horrific loss of Jewish life on October the 7th, has put Iran back on that teetering level.

But, yeah, we're not going to invade Iran, but we would like Iran to be free. So what does that actually mean? Are you going to ratchet up the sanctions? Absolutely. It's happening right now. And what else? Is it just that? There's certain things I can't discuss, but when it comes to economic pressure, political pressure, working with our allies, we are falling right now. It's called the maximum pressure campaign. So they use every element of national power, which is not kinetic in terms of finance, intelligence, economics, sanctions, to just squeeze that regime until it.

it just loses control of this fascist system. It's put in place since 1979. Because that is not only the only challenge, obviously. You also have the situation in Gaza. The ceasefire has just been broken. This is going to take a long time to sort out. Yeah. Look, with regards to Gaza,

the people of Israel, the prime minister, the IDF, I think you've finally come to the realization that when a population has a majority upwards of 80% that agrees with the horrific attacks of October the 7th, you don't solve that overnight. I mean, this is a shocking reality of Gaza, that you have a population that thinks, and I've watched the unaided versions

of what happened over the 7th. I was allowed to see young girls being slaughtered, children being blown up. When you have a population says, that's good. and we agree with that. That's not going to be fixed with a piece of paper saying, you know, we have peace and things are normalized. Right now, Israel, quite rightly,

is making sure that that certain piece of territory cannot be used to affect mass casualty attacks against the peoples of its nation. And I think that is a very reasonable approach. You're not going to fix it overnight. So do you think people don't understand this? Like, I think even I feel like I probably didn't understand. Like, before we start,

I hope you don't mind me mentioning. you were on the phone with an American hostage who'd just returned from the Middle East. And you're literally there on the phone saying, you know, welcome back to America. Most people are so, our lives are so far away from that that I think understanding any conflict, really, but Gaza in particular, it just feels like,

I don't think people get it really. Do you know what I mean? But how could they? I mean, and I'm not making excuses. If you come from where you come from, if you come from the former Soviet Union, if your family comes from Venezuela, if like my father, you literally escaped a political prison, we understand that there are things in life more important than the Wi-Fi signal strength at Starbucks.

This is what I always say. What's the biggest problem somebody who grew up in the West has? Well, I've only got two bars on my Wi-Fi when I'm at Starbucks. And I'm not being facetious. Really, what is the biggest problem? Is it the fact that you may be slaughtered this weekend like the Alawites were? Just a few days ago in Syria, literally a thousand unarmed civilians, families. You can watch the videos, mowed down because they belong to the wrong ethnic religious group. The West has had it very, very good for about 70 years. And as such, can you relate to a man who, you know, a man who, you.

you just heard me have a conversation with who's been in a Taliban prison for more than two years. How do you even compute that when your biggest problem is, you know, I've run out of things to binge watch on Netflix tonight, right? It's hard to, you know, what do they say? You know, easy times breed soft men. That's where we are today. It is where we are. And one of the things, you know, we've, all the three of us have been friends for a long time. One of the things I've always liked about you is you're very, very pro-President Trump, of course you would be. But you're not an ideologue. You're a pragmatist. And one of the things that I think you would concede is you can't focus on everything at once. So one of the challenges is as you guys focus more in China and on the

threat of Islamism, which are both big, serious threats. Obviously, the Russia-Ukraine thing, you know, the president, I think is quite clear, he's keen to wrap that up. But I don't have to be a critic of the president to observe that he promised they will be done on day one. And right now, a lot of people, Seb are saying, you know, it looks like Donald Trump may have met his match in terms of negotiations. You know, how do you think about that? So first, and this isn't because my first degree was philosophy and theology. I really do believe this. Words matter. You called me a pragmatist and not an ideologue. I could take that, I could take umbrage at that and consider that an insult because, you know, pragmatism has been.

been used as a slur as a pejority. Oh, I meant as a compliment. No, I know. But let me unpack that comment. And I came to this through an amazing friend of mine, Bob Riley, who wrote the book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind. I don't have an ideology, and neither does President Trump. This is really incredibly important to understanding who this man is. Because I came to realize, thanks to Bob, that what an ideology is is a distortion of reality.

An ideology is a lens through which you interpret objective truth. I don't have a lens through which I interpret objective truth. I have the truth. And for me, that's what a conservative is, right? Because you can say, okay, conserve, conserve what? Conserve that which has been demonstrated to function over millennia, like families. Like, you know, man is a man, a woman is a woman. It's good to have a father when you're a young.

child, these aren't ideological statements, they're not permutations of a reality, they are a reality. And the way to understand President Trump is he looks at the world as it is. He doesn't put an overlay, neoliberal, neoconservative. No. What's the reality? There's a moment in the first Trump administration where he was being briefed at the cabinet level and the then National Security Advisor. who was a former tank commander, had this whole massive set of PowerPoint slides,

as you do in the U.S. military. And each slide started with the same sentence. The Islamic Government of the Republic of Afghanistan will. The Islamic Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan will. Every page. And the president, before we start the briefing, he just looks at this. And he says, what government of Afghanistan? And he's absolutely right.

There wasn't a functioning government in a Westphalian sense. They didn't exercise sovereignty over a nation with 36 languages and, you know, 24 disparate tribes. That doesn't fit into the elite way of looking at the world because you've got to have labels. You've got to have IR theory, international relations theory. You've got to have an ideological bent, a stamp on your forehead. He doesn't have this. You can't be one of the most successful men in business for 50 years if you have an ideological filter through which you see the world. So that's important to understand about the president. If you want to know him, read the book.

I tell people, you don't have to love my boss, but read the art of the deal. If you want to understand how he functions and how reality is his metric, not some kind of predefined ideological lens. With regards to Ukraine, look, I'll be completely honest. There's nobody else in the world who's going to fix this. It's only going to be President Trump. And I look at the current deal from Moscow. You know, as well as anyone else, what the ceasefire on energy targets really means.

It's a face-saving gesture. The Kremlin cannot say, yes, we agree to your terms, and we're going to have a 30-day ceasefire as the Ukrainians agreed to. They're going to give us a little bit of concession, so they still look tough. That's completely the...

standard operating procedure of a former KGB colonel who's now president. At the end of the day, as I said to the BBC recently, name me one other political leader in the world who's going to bring peace to that. Oh, no one would deny that President Trump is the person who has to do this. But he hasn't met his match. He hasn't? No. Well, the Russians have rejected the ceasefire. The deal isn't being done. Right. But let's go outside of negotiations. At the beginning of the war three years ago, there's a thing that comes out of the UK from IAS called the military balance. It's an artifact of the Cold War where you have all the militaries of the world listed in terms

of their power, how many men, how many ships, how many nuclear weapons, whatever. So it's a ranking of all the world's militaries. When the war began three and a half years ago, Russia was ranked second in the world in terms of military might. Ukraine has ranked 20 second. 20 second. So who's met their match? I think Moscow's met their match.

When somebody who's ranked 20 positions behind you basically fights you to a standstill, which they've done. At the end of the day, look, you know better than anyone else. Everybody talks about the Brandenburgate speech, tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev, talks about the pressures economically inside the Soviet Union. What was one of the first chinks in Yemen? Nobody talks about this now. Nobody talks about this now. When was the first sign the Soviet Union was heading towards collapse when after nine years of war in Afghanistan,

Soviet grandmothers, Soviet mothers publicly protested at their 19-year-old children, their sons, their grandchildren, were being shipped home from Afghanistan in cardboard boxes. That's not very long in the memory of the Siloviki nomenclature of the Soviet system. So there's a point at which the Kremlin has to say, okay, guys, let's sit down.

They're not going to do it fast, but they have to sit down. Chaos comes in all shapes and sizes. Last week, a guest showed up late because they couldn't find the studio. And we had to juggle schedules on the fly. Talk about stress. But here's the thing. While some chaos is unavoidable,

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And it's easy to see why. Start simplifying your shipping today. Go to shipstation.com and use a code trigger to sign up for your free trial. At shipstation.com code trigger. Shipstation, make ship happen. Well, Seb, you know us. We come at it from a very realistic perspective. We're not trying to catch you out or anything. But let me share my concerns, and perhaps you can address them,

and the concerns that a lot of people share. What I'm saying is, if you, I understand why America needs to focus on China. I understand, absolutely I understand, particularly from the UK, why Islamist terrorism is a big problem. But the concern is, in the desire to focus on those things, there may be a sense of unnecessary,

like, how do you say, unnecessary urgency is not what I mean, but like, let's just get this deal done, no matter what happens. And then you get a deal for Ukraine that means that this invasion is repeated the next time. Let me just finish this, because it's important. There's two dimensions.

President Trump's no longer in office. So whatever strength he has, you know, you've got to, let's say, Biden comes back out of the carbo box and he's president, right? And then Putin can invade again because there's no permanent security because we rush the deal now because we needed to focus on other things. Number one. Number two is there are a lot of small countries, as you well know, with your Hungarian ancestry, in Eastern Europe, who are very concerned about Russia. To them, this idea that Vladimir Putin is a scary guy is not theoretical because they know history, right?

And a lot of places around the world elsewhere that have powerful enemy, smaller countries, are going to look at this and go, well, look, if there is no. order in the world, if it's the strong against the weak, we need to get nuclear weapons and protect ourselves, right? So can you reassure sensible people around the world that in attempting to do a deal quickly, Ukraine isn't going to end up in a position that's bad for the world and bad for America? Absolutely. There's nothing about what the president is doing that is driven by a sense of haste. What's driving the president, number one, and the left one believe this, and the mainstream won't believe this, but it's fine. I know the man better than they do.

He's truly horrified by what he's seeing. That comes across. Doesn't it? A hundred percent. I said it on question time like a week ago. Whatever you may say about him, the fact that he clearly wants the human suffering to end comes across completely authentically.

But that's the number one thing. That's the number one thing. And when my boss, the Nash School Advisor, who's the first ever Green Beret, Special Forces officer, former Green Beret, is serving that position, In Jeddah, or was it Riyadh, says, we have to stop the meat grinder of Ukrainian men and Russian men. He means it because this is a man who's fought the Taliban in Afghanistan.

He knows what a meat grinder looks like. So number one, this isn't about a quick fix and move on. This is about stopping horror. And secondly, and I, Julia, why did you do this? Julia Hartley-Brew just didn't get it last week. She was obsessed as so many are with, we need that piece of paper. We need that security guarantee. We need Western nations to, you know, NATO membership or something.

And I'm like, hang on a second. First, read the NATO treaty. The NATO treaty is explicit. It's only 14 paragraphs long. And it states you can only be a member of NATO if you are a functioning representative democracy who can contribute to the alliance. Just two requirements. You're not a functioning representative democracy when your territory is occupied.

pied, right? Just like you're ruled out. You've got to be in control of your territory. And then you've got to be able to contribute to the alliance. And then I said to Julia, you know what's much more important a piece of paper by the NATO alliance or the Budapest memorandum, remember that? What the president offered Zelensky. This is the biggest mistake in terms of analyzing the whole peace process. If you sign a trade deal, a rare earth minerals deal with America, you will have thousands of U.S. citizens on your soil. Now that's a guarantee. Got a piece of paper.

Big U.S. companies, U.S. personnel. That's when inimical nations think twice. Okay. Let me give you a counter-example scenario. The president of Russia, whether it's Vladimir Putin or whoever, five years down the line, says, Mr. President, Mr. President, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, whoever, right? We're invading. You've got a few thousand of your people digging stuff out of the ground. Get them out now because we're invading tomorrow.

America is going to go to nuclear war with Russia over a few thousand contractors? No, you're not. Right. You're going to pull them out. So let's be clear. The safety of Ukraine is a function of who's in the White House. and to your hypothetical scenario, let's be clear, when was it invaded on multiple occasions? Agreed.

Under Obama? Yeah, yeah. So I can't give you a full-proof guarantee of no war on Europe if a Democrat is in this building. If President Trump, as he is for the next four years, and then maybe J.D. Vance for the next eight years, it changes the geopolitical calculus of the Kremlin. But a Democrat will be in this building at some point. But that's not something I can prevent. I know, but I know.

But neither, neither will a piece of paper help if a Democrat's in the building. That's why Europeans are talking about peacekeepers, because it's the only way to... Can we, again, stick to the real world? Europe has been talking about military forces under the EU since I cut much. teeth on NATO issues, 1997. It's cloud cuckoo land, okay? The idea that we have NATO with target force goals, with commands, and then suddenly you're going to replicate stuff when you can't afford to actually run your healthcare services, when you're having debates upon, you know, retirement benefits. Let me have a cold shower effect on those who are thinking

that Europe will suddenly duplicate NATO and then deploy assets to parts of the continent that aren't members of the EU. I've heard this story for 30 years, and it never amounts to not anything. If you want to look it up, look up CFSP, common foreign security policy from the 1990s, look up common defense forces. The EU's been talking about this for decades. As far as I'm concerned, as somebody has been doing this for a long time, it's all talk. There's America, there's Article 5, and there's NATO.

And there's leaders who, unlike Biden, don't say, well, if Putin invades it depends upon the size of the invasion, which is what he said. You're in inviting trouble. It's about American leadership and the systems that work, which at the moment and for the last 70 years is NATO. So what would you say to those people who are saying that the reason Trump is being quite friendly to Putin and speaks about him in quite... glowing terms in some instances is because he is worried that if he alienates Russia to such an extent and they side with China, that is going to cause major problems for the globe. No, look, I'm not going to speak for the president, but I know that any rapporteur between Beijing and Moscow is a tactical one. These are nations that are in dire competition with each other.

And we can discuss the demographics and the economics of all that. But no, let's be very honest. When you want somebody to come to the negotiating table, do you call them a murderer? Do you call them evil? Or do you want to actually get them to the negotiating table? This is the asinine request of the mainstream media during the first Trump administration.

Why are you talking to Putin? Why are you talking to Xi? I mean, it's far more important to look at what the president does when he's talking to them. One of the most important things the president did in the first administration is when we briefed him, and this is now declassified, that there are chemical weapons about to be put on aircraft in Syria to target civilians in Syria.

When the president was briefed this, this is under Assad, he said, turn that aircraft base into Ashida glass. We launched 52 cruise missiles, literally just obliterated this facility as what was happening at the same time. Xi Jinping was in Marilago having a state banquet. And the president, you can see the footage right now, Now, leans over Xi and through the interpreter, she's eating the best chocolate cake in the world,

says, I just thought you should know I just dropped 52 cruise missiles on Syria. He didn't invade Syria. He didn't do a regime change, but he sent a message to who? Not just Assad, who's going to use chemical weapons again, against his own citizens because they're from the wrong ethnicity. He sent a message to Xi. He sent a message to Kim in Pyongyang, and he sent a message to Putin.

This is not a man to be trifled with. The prior administration talked about red lines. And then what happened? The red lines were crossed again and again and again, and they said, well, um, um, uh, um, right? We don't talk about red lines. You do bad stuff, and we act, and we act decisively in ways that change the complete geopolitical reality.

I mean, look at what happened with the Houthis last weekend. The president was told that a U.S. ship has not been allowed to traverse that waterway for the last year without being fired upon, and that 147 times U.S. vessels have been shot at by the Houthis. And he said, well, that ends now. Sorted out Secretary HECSeth, sent com, turned the Houthis into dust. That's not red lines. That's not empty promises. That's not, well, it depends what kind of military invasion Putin's going to affect. No, it's taking action to make sure maritime freedom of the sea lanes. is affected. That's Donald Trump. And I think most bad men who run countries understand that language.

Well, we're talking about bad men who run countries. And I've been speaking to a lot of Australians, particularly high-ranking Australians in government and so on and so forth. And they're very concerned with China and its covetous eyes towards Taiwan. How, I mean, let's be blunt here. Do you think that's going to happen, the invasion of Taiwan, and how long do you think it's going to take? Well, first thing I'd say with regards to the PRC and to the capabilities of the People's Liberation Army, ironically named as it is, is that a lot of what China says about its military capabilities is very good propaganda. Yes, they are the number one strategic adversary for the United States. Yes, for the 100th anniversary of the revolution in 2048, they wish to be the only hedge of

demonic power in the world, with every other nation a satrapy or a tributary state. Nevertheless, don't believe the hype when it comes to all the things they say about their capabilities. For things like that to occur, you have to have very large-scale expeditionary forces, not just a lot of guys in uniform, but the capacity to project them like America can. Nobody can touch us when it comes to projection of forces. However, I'm not diminishing the level of the threat. Literally, two days ago, I was with a very high-level Australian delegation here in the White House,

and they understand that the threat to their part of the world, the influence China is exerting and buying amongst smaller, weaker nations of the region, is very disturbing. The president gets it, but again, I would say the bad men understand who the commander-in-chief is. I cannot guarantee in the future how they will look at this building, but for the next four years and maybe the next 12 years under J.D. Vance, they will understand this is not a building to be trifled with. Because the one thing that I don't think people understand is China's tentacles extend to South America, in particularly Venezuela. Correct. My family in Venezuela tell me about Chinese investment. And Africa.

Yeah. But it's more pertinent for America, the fact that Venezuela is only a couple of hours away to Miami. and you've got Hezbollah training on the island of Margarita. You've got Iran. This is a very serious problem. Quite literally, you have enemies stationed in the Caribbean. No, and we're fully aware of that. I mean, as I said, I'm a kind of terrorism guy,

but I'm fully cognizant to the fact that the only peer-level threat we face is China. A China that is, let's be honest, acting in a neo-colonialist fashion, not just in Venezuela, not just in our hemisphere, but Africa. Talk to the leaders of the African states where, you know, communist China goes in, promises infrastructure investments, but at what cost? I'll build that port for you, but we're going to own it for 50 years and we're going to put a military base next to it. We are fully aware of this fact.

So I thought you made a really good point earlier when you talked about the fact that President Trump has got Europeans to start paying their way when it comes to NATO. And as you well know, we've been talking about this for a very long time. So I've got nothing against that and everything for that. But also, I do think there is some truth to the charge that is being made, that you are nicer to your enemies than you are to your friends, just in terms of the way that you talk. Not you personally, but this building, let's say.

Yeah, but do you think there's some truth to that? As a man and as a father, let me ask you a question. Do you judge a man by what he says or what he does? You judge a man by what he does, absolutely. Right. So there's what is. said? And then there's a reality of what is done, right? And I would say, it's like, who was it? It was that great journalist who wrote the best description of, you know, Trump derangement syndrome.

I think it was eight years ago, Selena Zito, who you should have on your show if you haven't. Selena said, President Trump's supporters don't take him literally, but take him seriously. And everybody says, oh my gosh, he said what? They take him literally, but they don't take him seriously. Look at Gaza. Let's talk about, you know, Gaza. When the President Trump said, we're taking over Gaza, what do we mean? People say, oh, my gosh, it's going to be, you know, Gaza Lago?

Is it going to be gold-plated hotel towers coming out of, you know, the Middle East? No. But analyze what happened. He makes a comment. Certain nations of the region have a fit. Oh my gosh, how dare he say that for 24 hours? And then the self-same nations, three days later, who've done nothing for the Garzans for 50 years,

say, huh, maybe we should invest in the future of the Garzan people. So, again, this is the art of the deal. Everybody likes to talk about the Oberton window. You've got to enlarge the Overton window. President Trump does not enlargeon the Overton window. He takes a sledgehammer to the frame, the walls, the roof, and he blows it out of the water. And then he does what? He engenders radical discussion.

Countries who've done nothing for that benighted region say, you know what? Yeah, I don't like that Garza comment, but maybe we should finally do something. That's how President Trump should be judged. not by, you know, clips of things he said at a press conference by what he's done. That would be our recommendation. No, no, and I get that. And it's something that I think is a fair criticism that people freak out a little bit about the language too much. However, when you talk about, you know, annexing Greenland and making Canada part of your country

and breaking up NATO as some people around President Trump are doing, I mean, if it's said often enough, people are going to listen to it. You said yourself earlier, words matter. Data brokers collect and sell everything you do online, your browsing history, searches, even your location. That's bad enough. But did you know they also sell this data to government agencies like the IRS? I'd rather keep my digital life private,

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and how far it is from Europe. And then look at Greenland during World War II and look at the waterways, look at the airways, and then get back to me about, oh my gosh, that language is so shocking, but instead, talk to me back to geopolitics. But hang on, Seth. We can say something about Argentina and La Albania. Oh, yes, we can. We can. But is it of geopolitical importance? All right. But this is the

trick you're playing, though, because you're saying, well, don't take him literally, but then when it comes to Greenland, oh, actually, we actually do need Greenland, right? No, no, but not necessarily as part of the United States. Okay. Right? So it's the art of negotiating, right?

So it's, you do this, right? Say, I want 150% people get horrified and then you get 80%. You're never going to get 80% if you start off negotiating for 80%. You never get it, ever get it. You can only get the 80% if you enlarge in the aperture to twice that size and then the elastic snaps back to something that otherwise would never have been deemed possible, but because you blew past the Overton window, you create the space in which to...

Look, let me illustrate this another way. One of the biggest ways to get in trouble with President Trump, I saw this in the first administration. I saw this with three-star generals, right, is when he asked you, so why are we doing it this way? And if they said, and I've seen this, well, Mr. President,

it's because we've been doing it like that for 30 years. The American people, 77 million of them, elected a man whose job it was to dojify America, to shake the tree, to say, no, men are men and they can't get changed with teenage girls in bathrooms. I'm sorry, you're insane. The idea that we can't have borders is absolutely suicidal, and we're not going to be on the side of the rapists, the muggers, the murderers, who right now judges are protecting because reasons, right? So this is, you have to understand we have arrived at, and I think your book, An Immigrants Love Letter to the West, you know, supports that.

There's a point at which you have to shake the nation and the establishment by the throne and say, guys, just because you've been doing it like this for 30 years, is crazy. And that's why you need language that actually has, an effect to wake you out of that soporific state. And in Europe, as I concede, that has happened as a result. So I'm not coming at it from any kind of hate-up kind of place.

But I guess the worry for a lot of people is, and this isn't what President Trump has said, but I hear Steve Bannon saying, we're going to have President Trump run again in 2028, and we're working on it. It's good for clicks. But Steve Bannon isn't a homeless guy on the street with all respect. Neither is the inside this building.

So I would like not to be judged by what somebody else says. Is that unreasonable? Should you be judged by what Francis says? Absolutely not. Carl Benjamin says. Yeah. Right? So really, I don't care.

He used to be inside his building and very close to the place. Many people were. People who were saboteurs were inside. this building. People like John Kelly, a former Marine Force General, were inside this building. Not anymore. I mean, this is why the second administration is so very, very different. You know, think of this. The power you have to get things done when your friends and you're all trusted by the president, the director of the FBI is a friend of mine, Cash Patel, Pete Hexeth, Secretary of Defense, he's a friend of mine. Pam Bondi, the director of the CIA. We have people

we'd never heard of before. Rex Tillerson, CEO, X, Y, and Z. This is a team. that is defined by one thing. The president trusts them, and they love America. And the people who aren't in the building are not in the building for a very specific reason. And to go back, let me just, you know, this is really important for all those who... Would you get how scary that is to a lot of people, said.

A guy who used to work for the president, who's still part of the MAGA movement, he's not been cast out as far as I know, talking about ending the constitutional order of the United States of America. Yeah, I never thought you'd be a shrinking violent. I'm not a shrinking violent, but I'm pro-democracy. Yes, we all are. That's why we want our borders back,

and that's why we want a government that isn't sending, you know, tens of millions of dollars transvestite opera in Africa. So, again, I can't do better than this. Can we judge my boss on what he did for four years? It's not difficult, right? What he did for four years, we destroyed the caliphate of ISIS. We strengthen NATO.

We sealed the border. This is what he should be measured by, not by what Steve Bannon or anybody else says. Not by clips of speeches. What did he do for four years? That's the metric, in my opinion. I would agree with... But. When you call Zelensky a dictator,

that has very real world impact. I was in Texas and I was sitting around of a group of guys who were All Maga and we were having a conversation and then the topic of Ukraine came up and they were very much anti-intervention when it came to Ukraine

and let's be honest, they were pro-putin and when I asked them why, they were like, well, President Trump says Zelensky's a dictator. Words have impact. Hang on, hang on. Are you truly telling me that these grown-ups

became pro- Putin because of that one line? No, but I'm saying it reinforced their world view. Did it bring him to the table? Oh, no doubt about that. No doubt about that. But my point is, is that has an impact on culture as well. It does.

That does. And I found that kind of comment profoundly, look, if it was just on the geopolitical level and if it's just mainstream media having a meltdown, I wouldn't care. But it also, you know, people listen. And that's their worldview, and that's what they take from Ukraine. And it got into the table and what's the present interested in? Right at that moment in time, the only thing he cares about is to stop the meat grinder. To stop the meat grinder.

And if you're being recalcitrant, if you're refusing to come to the table, and if you're not a nuclear power, maybe this is the language that gets to the table. Did it? I think it did. And then he made the decision he made with regards to what he was going to say in the Oval. Right? And we're looking and we're talking about things that are happening around the world. And I'm looking at what's going on in the US. And I come here and I love this country, sir.

I think it's... We're waiting for you to move here, dude. San Antonio's calling, all right? San Antonio. Where is the road thing? Austin. Sorry, Austin. Austin.

We have higher ambitions. Anyway, carry up. But I'm looking at this country economically. And it's not in a good place. The gap between rich and poor is growing day in, day out. We went to a really lovely sandwich shop around the corner who said, we're going to have to put up our sandwiches. We contain eggs by a dollar because of the price of eggs.

Now, for everybody who's sitting around, that's not a major problem. But there are a lot of people in this country who live paycheck to paycheck, and that is a major problem. Absolutely. And that's why I tell everybody, if you want to understand how 64 million Americans, a lot of them working class blue-collar Democrats, voted for the billionaire from Manhattan, you have got to read J.D. Vance's book.

I mean, this is the great, you know, the reshaping or the reorientation of politics. There's no conservative, Republican, Democrat, left-wing anymore. There's the metropolis. There's the Wi-Fi's two-week at Starbucks for me, crowd. I've got a gender studies degree. And then there's a people who, which Richmond and my friend calls the accountables.

people for whom the price of eggs and petrol actually makes a difference on a day-to-day basis. Most of the people in the metropolis have no idea what the price of, you know, a gallon of petrol is. That's the problem. And as a result, you have a billionaire who's broken through all of these barriers. It's like the Brexit vote, right? How many Labour voters voted to leave? They broke through those red wars. And the president, by the tariffs alone, demonstrate to you,

what? He wants Americans to have good paying jobs in America. And he will punish you as an American company if you think, I'm just going to leverage slave labor wages in China or cheap labor in Mexico. No, I want those jobs to be here. And the hillbilly energy is the best expectation from a man who didn't like President Trump back then of how both parties betrayed the working Americans. The Democrats who said we're here for the workers and the Chamber of Commerce GOP who said, well, you know, you can outsource jobs and it's going to make products cheaper. That's how Donald Trump became president the first time round. And think of this. That was 64 million.

And then he gets 77 million. It's pretty impressive. So before we ask our last question, because we're running out of time, you're a busy guy and we appreciate it. Before we ask the last one, what do you think is the biggest challenge for the Trump administration over the next four years? Lawfare. Lawfare. We're witnessing it right now with judges who think they control the executive, who say the president cannot use enacted powers as the commander-in-chief, as the chief executive, to ship literal terrorists out of America, rapists and murderers. Judges who say you have to order the plane to come around and not go to Venezuela, lawfare is, in my opinion.

And what's the one thing we're still not talking about, that we should be? And I say this as a great sinner myself when it comes to this sin. Put your stinking phone down and switch it off and read a bloody book. And preferably by a white guy who died over 400 years ago. Shakespeare in Beyond, right? So from the ancients... Shakespeare is cancelled, ma. I don't know if you've heard.

Not in my library. You know, just knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, and AI again. It's like I was talking to a friend of mine earlier today, Alex Marlowe, the editor of Breitbart. And he says, you know, you can write books without researchers now. You put it in the grok and you'll get something that will have taken you a week to do. Who's going to learn, who's going to actually learn how to read books and do research in the future? Notes. Yeah.

It's going to be a very small percentage. Tiny amount of people. Right. I was being facetious, but it's absolutely true. Right. So, you know, switch the phone off, read the book. Perfect. By Den Y guy. Seb, appreciate your time. Thank you, guys.

Thank you for watching. There is no substack for this interview because Seb is a very busy guy. We don't have time, but we incorporate as many of your questions as we could in the main interview. Head on over there now and subscribe. What are the biggest differences that you as an actual insider observe in the culture and functioning of the present White House staff as compared to the previous Trump White House? You know,