Two American-born Ukrainian mercenaries have been arrested and may be sentenced to death for fighting for the pro-Ukrainian government in Ukraine. What does this mean for NATO and the U.S. government? And what does this have to do with Elon Musk's bid to take over the world's most popular social media platform, . Today's America First is hosted by Nicholas J. Fuentes and Alex Blumberg. Our theme song is Come Alone by Suneaters, courtesy of Lotuspool Records. Our ad music is by Build Buildings. This episode was produced by Vevolution and edited by Haley Shaw. It was edited by Annie-Rose Strasser and Matthew Boll. The show was mixed and produced by Matthew Boll, with additional editing and mixing by Patrick Muldowney. Music by Jeff Kaale and Hayden Coplen. Additional music by Ian Dorsch and Mark Phillips. Art: Mackenzie Moore. Editor: Will Witwer. Fact checking: Matthew Boll Music: John Kimbrough Additional production by Jeff Perla and Christian Blanchflower Editing: Patrick McElroy and Mark Knost Logo by Ian Somerhalder We are working on transcribing this episode of America First, a production of Gimlet Media's newest podcast, "America First" and a new song written and performed by John Singleton, produced by Bobby Lord for our theme song written by David Fincher. We hope you enjoy it! Thank you for listening to this episode! -- -- and -- "A Little Bird" -- "The Best Thing I've Got It?" -- "It's a Bird" by John Rocha, "A Bird's Song" -- "A Big Bird" "The Realest Thing" by Kaitlyn Hopkins, "I've Got A Big Deal" by Fergie, "The White House Is My Name?" -- -- & "I Can't Say It's a Little Bird?" -- and "It'll Do It Better than That's a Big Deal? " -- "I'll Hear It Better Than That's Better Than This" -- by Mr. -- by Ms. John Ralden, Jr., -- is a song written & Recorded in Baltimore, Jr. and "I'm Too Effing Good, Too Good, I'll Tell You What's Better than This?" -- & More?
Transcript
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00:00:23.000Big, hilarious, hilarious story tonight.
00:00:29.000Maybe you've heard about this, maybe not.
00:00:31.000American media not really covering it so much probably because they're seething about it.
00:00:38.000The Russian Federation has captured two American-born mercenaries fighting for the Kiev government in Ukraine and the Russian government has said that they've not ruled out the death penalty for the mercenaries.
00:00:56.000So, two dogs were born in Alabama and they went overseas to go fight for the illegitimate Jewish puppet state of Kiev in Ukraine where they surrendered to Russia and were arrested as mercenaries and now they very well may be sentenced to death.
00:01:17.000And the Russian Federation does not have the death penalty
00:01:22.000But the same cannot be said of the independent republics of Luhansk and Donetsk.
00:01:28.000So trial will be held and maybe they will share the same fate as other mercenaries who were just sentenced to death recently there.
00:02:48.000We'll also be talking tonight about Elon Musk and his bid to take over Twitter, which is advancing another step today after it was revealed in a disclosure that the Twitter board has actually accepted Elon Musk's bid.
00:03:05.000And so there was a very negative response from the Twitter board when Elon Musk first made his play to acquire 9% of the company and then
00:03:16.000Went out there to try to perform a takeover, but according to new filings, we now know that the board has accepted the bid.
00:03:26.000And Elon Musk has said that there are three things that remain before he is able to acquire Twitter and then take the company private.
00:03:36.000And those things are, first he will need the assent of the shareholders of Twitter for the deal, which I think is
00:03:46.000Likely, given that for every share, a shareholder will make a $15 profit on the deal.
00:03:56.000Because I believe the price that Musk is buying it is at $53 and the current Twitter price is $38.
00:04:05.000So for every share that a shareholder holds, they'll make 15 bucks, which is a pretty good, that's a pretty good return on a company like Twitter.
00:04:14.000So that's number one, is the shareholders have to agree.
00:04:17.000Number two, he has to secure the money, he has to secure the financing for it through lending institutions.
00:04:26.000And then lastly, there's this unresolved issue of what
00:04:31.000Actual percentage of the Twitter engagement and of the Twitter users is inorganic, which means bots.
00:04:39.000What percentage of the posts and what percentage of the users on the site are real people and what percentage of them are spam or bots?
00:04:49.000Because when Elon Musk made the proposal for the $53 share price as well as a $46 billion valuation, Twitter said that it was 5%.
00:04:59.0005% of the user base they estimated was bots.
00:05:05.000Elon Musk says that probably the number is at the minimum 20%.
00:05:11.000It could be 10%, but he says that it may be as high as 20%.
00:05:14.000Either way, this is multiples more of the 5% that Twitter said, and that obviously would represent something like mischaracterization.
00:05:27.000You could say willful, maybe not willful.
00:05:30.000But they misrepresented the state of the company when Musk made the deal, and so that would allow him to get out of the deal and then maybe make a better deal.
00:05:46.000You know, not crazy, not big news, but some interesting stuff.
00:05:51.000I've heard a little rumor... I've heard a rumor that there's gonna be big news on Thursday.
00:05:59.000I don't want to say where I heard that, but I heard a rumor from a little bird, you could call it a bird, I think, that we will be hearing a big news story either tomorrow or on Thursday, perhaps a game-changing huge news story.
00:06:19.000So we'll see about that, but tonight, you know, it's not big news, but there's some stuff going on.
00:07:12.000Tomorrow, during the show, tickets will go on sale.
00:07:16.000In case you missed it, I announced on Friday that we will be doing our first ever film premiere in Las Vegas, Nevada on Thursday, July 14th.
00:07:28.000We will be screening the America First mini-documentary series, which includes the first two episodes, which you may have already seen, which are already out there.
00:07:39.000And we will also have the world premiere of the third episode, which was shot at AFPAC 3.
00:08:38.000The premiere and then we'll be having an after party at a penthouse suite on one of the big hotels on the Strip after the event.
00:08:47.000So the VIP package is going to be an all-night thing.
00:08:50.000Dinner, the movie, the Q&A, the meet-and-greet.
00:08:53.000Front row tickets as well as an awesome VIP after party with everybody And it's going to be a lot of fun.
00:09:01.000I've been talking to the AF people and almost everybody's going I hear that Tyler Russell, Dalton Clodfelter, Kai Schwemmer, John Miller, Party Goy, Beardson are all going to be there
00:09:15.000I'm sure more people are going to come as well, but those are just the people that I've actually just heard from indirectly.
00:09:21.000So basically everybody's going to be there.
00:09:32.000We're not talking anywhere near $1,200.
00:09:37.000So you're gonna want to make sure to get them as soon as possible because the events also in three weeks, you know, so But they're gonna go on sale.
00:09:45.000I think tomorrow during my show so stay tuned for that.
00:09:48.000I'll post the link on my telegram I'll remind you tomorrow, but we're setting up for that.
00:09:52.000I'll also be making a big announcement at the event We'll be screening a trailer for another event that we've got coming up, which will be a lot bigger later this year So it's gonna be a really it's gonna be a really fun thing So there's that
00:10:14.000I will say, so, some people are asking why we're doing a movie premiere like this, and if you don't know the backstory, so we submitted this film series
00:10:24.000To the Libertarian Film Festival called Freedom Fest, and they cancelled us.
00:10:29.000We submitted it, and we were actually supposed to screen the film at this big festival, and I was gonna speak there, I was supposed to be able to do a Q&A there, and I was gonna be a speaker and a guest and we'd air the movie.
00:10:46.000They reached out to the directors of the film, Jason Rink and Paul Eskindon, and they said, yeah, we watched your film, and Nicholas Fuentes is a white supremacist, and that's just not appropriate.
00:11:24.000And I just want to read this to you to give you an idea.
00:11:27.000This is the kind of stuff that we have to go through.
00:11:29.000It says, a few weeks ago, some of you might have heard, this is an organizer, Sean Malone.
00:11:35.000A few weeks ago, some of you might have heard about Freedom Fest cancelling a film by Jason Rink, ironically called The Most Cancelled Man in America, about the government freezing America's first live stream show host, Nick Fuentes' bank accounts.
00:11:50.000And putting him on a no-fly list without having ever accused or convicted him of a crime.
00:11:55.000The basic facts of the situation are as follows.
00:11:58.000One, the Anthem Libertarian Film Festival originally accepted the film to be shown next month in Las Vegas.
00:12:06.000Two, Jason offered to bring Fuentes to the film festival to participate in the screening Q&A.
00:12:12.000He also said that he would understand if Anthem wasn't interested given that he is such a controversial figure.
00:12:18.000Joanne Foster Skousen, who's the director of the festival, agreed to Fuentes' appearance and prematurely made a public announcement that Fuentes would attend.
00:12:29.000This announcement created a significant backlash from folks.
00:12:33.000I've heard Nick Gillespie, David Bowes, and others who saw this as an endorsement of and giving a platform to Fuentes' views, which are decidedly not libertarian.
00:12:47.000After this backlash occurred, Anthem rescinded the invitation to Half-Went to speak and asked Jason Rink to modify the trailer for the film.
00:12:55.000When Rink refused to recut the trailer, Anthem ultimately chose to remove it from the festival.
00:13:01.000As a result, Joanne and other people at Freedom Fest have been accused by some very uncharitable critics of supporting Fuentes' views, which they emphatically don't,
00:13:11.000And Jason Rank sees this as another example of his more controversial work being cancelled, which has happened several times in the last year and has made a few extremely public posts about the situation on Substack.
00:13:24.000He's gone on various podcasts and made other media appearances talking about it.
00:13:28.000So this has all been kind of a shitshow for Freedom Fest and a lame experience for RINC at the same time.
00:14:28.000Which, if you're a libertarian, you should obviously be opposed to that.
00:14:32.000The basis of libertarianism is supposed to be freedom of thought, right?
00:14:37.000And freedom of conscience, and freedom of action, and property rights, and all of that flows from the fundamental freedom of thought, and speech, and conscience.
00:14:48.000And obviously, if I'm being persecuted by the government, and by society, and by the private sector,
00:14:56.000For the things that I think and then therefore say, libertarians should be the biggest opponents of that.
00:15:02.000It shouldn't matter what the content of the thoughts are, it's the freedom which is being abridged which is important.
00:15:09.000And so they're acknowledging that they don't really care about that.
00:15:39.000We submit the film to the Libertarian Film Festival, where, again, the theme of the festival is cancel culture, and is put on by Libertarians, and they admit they were going to allow the film to be screened, they were going to allow me to speak at the festival in the Q&A and be on the stage, and then, basically, they got attacked by the left, or, I guess, by Libertarians,
00:16:06.000Saying that, well, the film is a racist film and the libertarians are racist if they air it.
00:16:13.000And they said, well, either censor the trailer or you can't show the film.
00:16:18.000They pulled the plug on the Q&A and they were going to allow the film maybe, but they said, hey, you have to censor it or else we're not going to air it.
00:16:46.000As someone who's been friends with Rink for a very long time and who has been a judge at the film festival for the last five years, I found myself in the middle of this nonsense.
00:16:56.000After speaking with everyone involved at length, I think I have a perspective which is a little different than what you might have heard.
00:17:02.000For the record, I haven't commented on any of this publicly yet.
00:17:07.000But now I have seen the film, and although I don't necessarily want to blow the story up any more than necessary, I feel compelled to talk about it.
00:17:14.000The super short version of what I'm about to say is that basically, Jason is wrong.
00:17:22.000And Joanne and the Film Festival were right to pull it from the event.
00:17:26.000Additionally, I don't think what happened is actually an example of cancel culture, but rather an example of a group of people who made a poor decision based on information that was intentionally withheld.
00:17:36.000Now with that out of the way, and so he goes on and he says, I know exactly why Joanne would have accepted the film in the first place.
00:17:45.000She had no idea who Nick Fuentes really was.
00:17:48.000The film intentionally avoids providing sufficient detail about Fuentes' beliefs or who he really is.
00:17:56.000In fact, the first several minutes of the film make Nick Fuentes look positively libertarian.
00:18:01.000He talks about how his first political influences were Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell.
00:18:06.000Fuentes acts as if he is fondly remembering his intellectual heroes while standing in front of his own America First branding, which is ironic if you spent any time reading Friedman or Soul.
00:18:17.000Whatever influence they had on Fuentes must have died long ago, but the film doesn't say that.
00:18:22.000There's no mention in the film that Fuentes is a avowed ethno-nationalist who thinks Turning Point USA's bomb-throwing idiot leader Charlie Kirk isn't conservative enough.
00:18:33.000There's no mention of Fuentes' numerous inflammatory statements, which Fuentes...
00:18:39.000alternately plays off as statements of his actual beliefs or jokes.
00:18:43.000He says that women shouldn't be allowed to vote, or that he's an incel because having sex with women is gay, or that the government is controlled by the Jews, or if he's just promoting some classic Alex Jones conspiracy theories.
00:18:57.000But he does seem to be serious about a lot of this stuff.
00:19:00.000Towards the end of the film, Fuentes supports unconstitutional legislation where the government could dictate to tech companies who they can and cannot ban from their platforms because he's upset about being kicked off Twitter.
00:19:16.000So, anyway, the article, the post goes on and on about this, but he's basically saying, well, it's not really cancel culture because they didn't say he was put on a no-fly list for being a Nazi.
00:19:29.000I read his Wikipedia page, and Wikipedia says that he said these shocking things.
00:19:36.000And he says things like Alex Jones says and and he's really we don't know what he even really believes and blah blah blah.
00:19:46.000Also he's not even a real libertarian because he wants the government to regulate Twitter which isn't very free speech at all.
00:20:19.000When the Ron Paul revolution was happening, or a little bit afterward, and being a libertarian was about being in favor of the free market and, like, opposing war, and things like that.
00:20:32.000And now being a libertarian seems to be like, what, being a pedophile?
00:20:38.000Being a libertarian is about doing drugs and being a pedophile and being gay and being a faggot?
00:20:45.000Because when it comes to the things that matter, like, you know, for example, the federal no-fly list, when you want to talk about the Constitution, why don't we start with the federal no-fly list?
00:21:30.000So the government regulating Twitter is unconstitutional and is against liberty.
00:21:37.000But the government protecting Twitter from legal liability with a special regulation called Section 230 enshrined in the law by Congress, that's not unconstitutional.
00:21:50.000The government creating a special stipulation for a certain class of companies, essentially creating a monopoly.
00:21:58.000All monopolies, or most of them, are enabled by the government
00:22:03.000In the Communications Decency Act in 1996 they have a special part in there called Section 230 which protects the tech companies from legal liability.
00:22:26.000So he goes on and he says, uh, but that line doesn't actually get explored any more than any of his other views, so the film not only fails to tell you who Fuentes really is, it actively avoids challenging him on libertarian grounds when it is extremely easy to do so.
00:22:43.000So his contention is that, you know, the film talks about me being oppressed by the government, but it doesn't say why I'm being oppressed by the government.
00:22:54.000And even though the film was submitted to a Libertarian Film Festival, it doesn't argue the Libertarian case to me as the subject of the film.
00:23:06.000Because, I don't know, I guess the film festival can only be about Libertarians.
00:23:12.000If you're not a libertarian, you can't be the subject of the film.
00:23:16.000Forget about a director, you can't be in the film if you're not a libertarian.
00:23:22.000Well, we were gonna let him show a movie about how the government put him on a no-fly list, but, you know, they didn't actually explain, like, why he was put on the no-fly list.
00:23:46.000It does make it clear he's a vocal Trump supporter, but apart from that it doesn't give the audience any meaningful sense of him overall.
00:23:54.000Instead, it packages Fuentes as someone who just happened to be generally controversial and was railroaded by the government for no reason.
00:24:04.000In Fuentes' own words in the film, I'm a person who's done nothing wrong, I haven't violated the law, I've not been charged with a crime, convicted for committing a crime, and yet I'm essentially being punished and imprisoned in a certain way, like I'm on house arrest.
00:24:17.000They've taken my money, my freedom to travel, because I'm a political activist they don't agree with.
00:24:25.000He then compares himself to MLK and Malcolm X. And while he's talking about this, the music and imagery gets empathetic and heroic and makes him seem like he's some kind of good guy.
00:24:57.000You have a literal crybaby running this festival.
00:25:01.000Libertarians used to be, they used to celebrate the rugged individualist and not say what I'll die to defend your right to say what you want and
00:25:12.000And now this is what we have going on.
00:25:15.000And by the way, I've read like half of the post.
00:25:18.000There's still like a thousand more words here.
00:25:53.000So, and then the essay just, then his post just turns into this screed about my views.
00:26:00.000You know, he says, well, the film pretends like he's being railroaded by the government for no reason, but he's an anti-Semite and a narcissist, so they don't even talk about who he is.
00:26:22.000Because if you're saying it matters who I am, then you're essentially saying, like there's no lies in the film, he's just saying well they're omitting things which are ultimately irrelevant.
00:26:49.000My views would only become relevant if you thought that my treatment was justified based on my views, which is not a libertarian position.
00:27:00.000If you believe that the federal no-fly list is an obvious assault on civil liberties, it shouldn't matter why somebody was put there.
00:27:10.000If somebody is disallowed from buying a plane ticket and traveling through the air, not by the airline, but by the government, by a security agency, if somebody is put on a list like that without a trial due process notification, some would say even for that to happen at all.
00:27:31.000is an assault on civil liberties, but especially without a trial or notification.
00:27:36.000Some would say altogether though the existence of such a list of such a phenomenon is a violation of fundamental rights, fundamental civil rights.
00:27:47.000But what he seems to be insinuating is that my views are relevant to that having happened to me.
00:27:56.000Which means he thinks that if you're a Nazi, if you're a racist, if you have the wrong political views, well then, what?
00:28:06.000You deserve to be put on the no-fly list?
00:28:08.000You deserve to have your civil liberties assaulted?
00:28:12.000You forfeit your rights when you have a certain view?
00:28:15.000And again, it doesn't matter what his view of my beliefs is.
00:28:21.000It doesn't matter what my beliefs actually are.
00:28:23.000It doesn't matter what anybody's view of my beliefs is and if that's correct or what their opinion is about them.
00:28:30.000What matters is that it's because of the views!
00:28:33.000It's because of my thoughts and words that I'm being attacked.
00:29:26.000If I get in, you know, I'm going to be respectful and follow the rules and everything, but I'd like to talk to this guy and I'd like to talk to the directors and, you know, if I can find them there, I would like to talk to them and ask them about this.
00:29:45.000I'm gonna try and buy a ticket and get in and if not you know maybe maybe I'll try and just go anyway maybe I'll try and sneak in anyway but this is outrageous this is ridiculous and it just goes to show that
00:30:00.000This is what's wrong with libertarians.
00:30:02.000This is what's wrong with with almost everybody in politics is that, you know, nobody seems to care about the true opponents of the regime.
00:30:11.000True opponents of the regime aren't at the Libertarian Film Festival.
00:30:15.000True opponents of the regime are not on Fox News.
00:30:18.000True opponents of the regime are not Zionists, actually, because Zionism is a big characteristic of the regime.
00:30:27.000And so when people like Andrew Anglin are totally censored from everything, nobody cares.
00:30:33.000Republicans don't talk about it, Libertarians don't talk about it because of what he says.
00:30:39.000And when Alex Jones is censored, some people talk about it, but most people don't talk about it.
00:30:44.000When Laura Loomer is censored, same thing.
00:30:47.000When I'm censored, nobody talks about it.
00:30:50.000When Julian Assange is put to death, nobody cares.
00:30:52.000Well, I guess Libertarians care about that.
00:31:00.000You know, a lot of these institutions, even the ones that don't even stand a chance, and this, in my opinion, makes kind of a broader point about institutionalization.
00:31:10.000Libertarians don't even win elections.
00:31:13.000You know, that's the funny thing is, Libertarians, they're lucky to get, you know, 3% of the national vote.
00:31:20.000They would be lucky to win a House race.
00:31:23.000They would be lucky to win one seat in the entire Congress.
00:31:29.000They'd be lucky to win a seat in a state legislature.
00:31:33.000And so the point is, what are the stakes here?
00:31:39.000The Libertarian Party and the Libertarian movement as a concept is not institutional, and it stands no chance of being institutional, and it stands no chance of being institutional in the near or even the medium-term future.
00:31:53.000They have a film festival, and they won't even let me show a movie at their film festival because they're being accused of being racist.
00:32:10.000This highlights the psychology of buy-in.
00:32:15.000Of buying in to respectable regime politics.
00:32:19.000Libertarians who are never going to win the presidency, who are never going to win a Senate seat, who are never going to win a seat in the House of Representatives.
00:32:27.000The libertarian moment happened 10 years ago and it's passed!
00:32:34.000Whatever libertarian moment there was ten years ago, Donald Trump killed it in 2015 and it's been dead for six or seven years since he came down the escalator.
00:32:47.000And even libertarians who stand no chance in making any kind of meaningful reform, who are the laughingstock ever since Gary Johnson said, what is Aleppo?
00:33:42.000And we've got to do things that the enemy likes.
00:33:44.000We've got to be complicit in the deplatforming and the blacklisting and the ostracism of true dissidents because the regime doesn't approve of them.
00:33:55.000Even though the regime is punishing those very people that are doing it, those people
00:34:01.000have it in their head that they're in the rat race and they're, you know, even though the Libertarians are so outside the concentric circles of power, they're closer in proximity to those concentric circles than Nick Fuentes.
00:34:15.000So they will dutifully and obediently throw me under the bus to try and pull themselves even closer and they'll never get in.
00:34:26.000And this is why politics is slipping further and further to the left.
00:34:42.000Everybody to the right of Joe Biden is trying to appease the left.
00:34:48.000They're trying to appease the person to the left of them and convince them why they're really not so bad and they're really not that extreme and you know they may be this much extreme but they're not that extreme.
00:35:00.000And that's why the center of gravity is over there, pulling everything towards it.
00:35:05.000And until people start to say, we are our own pole, we will sort of have our own gravitational pole, and exert our own independent program, independent from the left, you know, then we're never gonna win.
00:35:23.000So if, you know, the Greupers are too extreme for Turning Point, if the Greupers are too extreme for the Libertarian Party, if they're too extreme for, you know, for some other people, it's like, how then are we going to move to the right?
00:35:39.000I haven't, you know, I can't really parse that one out, right?
00:35:46.000If we can agree that, you know, even Ron DeSantis is insufficiently right-wing, but somebody like me or the Groypers are too far right, how is the party going to move to the right?
00:35:58.000How are people in the middle and in the center right and further along, how are they going to move to the right if we've set a hard line at how right-wing you can really be?
00:36:09.000And everybody seems to be moving to the left.
00:36:13.000You know, so never mind the fact that liberals see libertarians as, you know, racists or gun nuts or some of the worst aspects of right-wing.
00:36:23.000Of course, you know, we're further to the right than the libertarians, so they're gonna throw us under the bus and put on their lousy film festival.
00:36:31.000And it's like that attitude has just got to stop across the board.
00:36:38.000So anyway, so I'll be there asking the tough questions and that that's why we're putting on the film festival But I just I read this essay from the guy running it and the guy's just an idiot.
00:36:50.000That was my first impression as I'm reading this post on Facebook, and I'm like, you know, it starts out saying, well, well actually, here's why this isn't cancel culture, and what exactly was the explanation?
00:37:02.000The subject of the film isn't a libertarian, so disallowing him from attending or airing the film is not cancel culture?
00:37:27.000So, you know, even the libertarians with nothing to lose are still playing not to lose.
00:37:35.000They have nothing to lose, because they don't have anything, and they're still playing with this loser mentality of, if we just compromise, and if we just play it safe, and so on, well, you know, maybe we'll have some shred of respectability.
00:38:05.000I could say, you know, Donald Trump, golden showers, and Stormy Daniels, and divorces, and I could say Donald Trump, personal scandals, you know, he's Israel, this and that, and we could say things about DeSantis, and we could say things about Alex Jones, and we could say about Tucker,
00:38:26.000We'd say about Tucker, he tried to get into the CIA, and he wears a red bracelet, and we can say things about everybody, but we obviously all have, you know, 70, 80, 90% of things in common, at the minimum, in opposition to the regime.
00:38:44.000And at the most, we agree on a lot of... I'm sure I and the libertarians would agree about gun rights, about free speech.
00:38:51.000We'd agree about, generally speaking, deregulation, lower taxes.
00:38:56.000We would agree on a lot of these types of things.
00:39:15.000Church Militant putting AF on blast after that Salon article saying, they're white nationals, they're anti-semitic, whatever.
00:39:22.000It's like, you're a militant Catholic organization, isn't that?
00:39:26.000We're living in a satanic Jewish world order.
00:39:30.000And the militant Catholics over there and the militant Catholics over here can't put aside their differences to work together against that?
00:39:37.000Well, no, because those guys are actually racist!
00:39:50.000Take a look around you and, you know, if you can't see the forest for the trees, you want to lose!
00:39:56.000And I have no patience for people that want to lose.
00:40:01.000So, you know, between the Libertarians and these guys, it's like, show me the fighters, show me the people that want to win, show me the people with balls, show me the people that care more about winning for the right than they do about not losing against the left.
00:40:20.000Because until we find those people, it's over.
00:40:53.000So it's gonna be, you know, the Catholics over here, and then the Catholics that they think they're real racist, and these Catholics over here that think these guys are not to f- You know, seriously?
00:44:11.000That makes me the freest man there is.
00:44:18.000And it makes me a little bit more Catholic because I'll talk about the perfidious Jew that we pray that they will
00:44:26.000Repent and come back to God or they'll burn in hell That makes me more.
00:44:30.000I think that makes me more on the on book.
00:44:33.000I'm really more on book than Catholics that don't talk about that and refuse to talk about the Talmud and refuse to talk about the wells and the plague and the the blood sacrifices and and all of that
00:44:56.000You know, you want to talk about like, oh, you know, what is the, you know, Brandon, Joe Brandon sucks.
00:49:35.000Our first story is about Elon Musk buying Twitter.
00:49:39.000And I actually didn't know what was going on with this for a long time.
00:49:42.000I'm sure like a lot of you, I was a little bit confused.
00:49:47.000Because, you know, he made this big announcement months ago that he was gonna buy Twitter.
00:49:53.000And then, you know, he makes the deal, it seems like it's going through, and then he makes a stink about the bots and the whole thing seems like it just got scuttled.
00:50:02.000But it turns out that actually the board of Twitter has now accepted Elon Musk's bid to buy the company and take the company private.
00:50:12.000It says, quote, Twitter's board unanimously recommended that its shareholders vote to approve Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition of the social media giant.
00:50:25.000And this is the statement from the board.
00:50:26.000It says, quote, the Twitter board, after considering various factors described in the section of this proxy statement, captioned the merger recommendation of the Twitter board and reasons for the merger, has unanimously won
00:50:39.000Determine that the merger agreement is advisable and the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement are fair to, advisable and in the best interest of Twitter and its stockholders, and to adopt it and approve the merger.
00:50:54.000The filing comes, as Musk said in an interview on Tuesday at the Qatar Economic Forum, that shareholders' approval was one of the three unresolved matters that stands in the way of the deal.
00:51:06.000In addition to shareholder approval, Musk said that debt financing for the deal would need to come together.
00:51:11.000The billionaire has pledged $33.5 billion in equity financing.
00:51:17.000And has received commitments from Morgan Stanley Senior Funding Inc.
00:51:20.000and other financial institutions for up to $13 billion in debt financing.
00:51:26.000He also said he is waiting for a resolution to his dispute with Twitter over the total percentage of spam and fake accounts on the platform, which he called a very significant matter.
00:51:37.000Though Twitter has maintained that spam and fake accounts make up less than 5% of its users, Musk believes the figure is at least 20%.
00:51:45.000Earlier this month, Twitter reportedly agreed to hand over a firehose of data to Musk after he threatened to walk away from the deal.
00:51:54.000He claimed that the company breached its obligation under the merger agreement by actively resisting and thwarting his right to information on the spam and fake account data.
00:52:34.000The board had a fiduciary duty to accept the deal because they have an obligation to the company and to the shareholders.
00:52:43.000Fiduciary duty means when you're on the board of something you have an obligation
00:52:48.000To put the company above your own personal interest.
00:52:52.000The interesting thing about fiduciary duty is that it actually sometimes persists after you like resign from a board too, which is interesting.
00:53:02.000In any case, so they have a fiduciary duty to take the deal.
00:53:06.000The deal is good for the shareholders.
00:53:10.000They would have to prove, for instance,
00:53:14.000In an obvious lawsuit that would result, if they didn't take the deal, why Elon Musk valuing the company at $46 billion and offering $54 per share and offering his management expertise would not be in the best financial interest of the shareholders?
00:53:37.000It's a change in management, which is obviously beneficial That's a case that they couldn't prove unless they got a better offer, which apparently they never got So the board accepting the deal was always going to be I think that was always going to happen
00:53:54.000Because of that fiduciary responsibility.
00:53:56.000Some people said, oh, the board just shouldn't take it.
00:53:59.000Well, you actually can't just not take it.
00:54:02.000You can't not take it because you don't like Elon Musk.
00:54:07.000The board has to do what's in the best interest of the company.
00:54:10.000And the company being valued at $15 higher than the current share price is something that is, almost legally speaking, beneficial for the company.
00:55:12.000I'm trying to do the quick math, but it would be substantial.
00:55:15.000That would be a substantial return on investment.
00:55:18.000So shareholders probably going to get it.
00:55:21.000And then in terms of the financing, it's already there.
00:55:24.000Elon Musk has the equity, obviously, and the lenders have already pledged the debt, which will make up the difference.
00:55:33.000So the only thing really that remains before this becomes a done deal is
00:55:38.000This unresolved issue of the Twitter spam.
00:55:40.000And this one I'm a little bit worried about because the Twitter spam is definitely more than 5%.
00:55:45.000It's definitely more than 5% of the content.
00:55:50.000It's definitely more than 5% of the users.
00:55:55.000Like, I mean, I don't know that, but it seems apparent that 5% is a little bit low.
00:56:04.000And we all know that because we all use Twitter and if you use Twitter you see a lot of inorganic activity And so I wonder if that when that comes out is that gonna scuttle the deal I guess the question would be The stipulation of the deal is this The obligation in them if you read the article closely it says that Musk will walk away from the deal
00:56:33.000Because the company, Twitter, is breaching its obligation under the agreement by resisting and thwarting his right to information.
00:56:41.000Well, if they tell him the information, that's not really a breach of the agreement.
00:56:48.000If Musk walks away from the deal, he has to pay a $1 billion penalty.
00:56:53.000If Twitter's in breach of the deal, he doesn't have to pay the billion-dollar penalty.
00:56:58.000But Twitter, it seems, is only in breach of the deal if they withheld, or rather, thwart his right to information.
00:57:05.000Well, if they give him the information he requests, it may reveal that the number is higher than 5%, but it's not clear that that
00:57:29.000This revelation constitutes a breach of the agreement.
00:57:32.000Because the breach is not that they said it was 5% but realize it's 10%.
00:57:36.000The breach would be that they are resisting his right to access that information.
00:57:40.000If they give him that information, they're not in breach.
00:57:43.000And if they're not in breach, then Musk really can't walk away from the deal without paying a billion dollars.
00:57:49.000And I don't think he's going to pay a billion dollars cash to not acquire the company and to walk out of the deal.
00:57:57.000So, I'm a little bit concerned about that because the question would be this.
00:58:02.000If, somehow, this revelation makes Twitter in breach of their deal, then the deal is sunk.
00:58:10.000Now, that being said, if the deal sinks, Twitter's share price is going to crash.
00:58:15.000Theoretically, Elon Musk could come back to Twitter then with a lower offer.
00:58:21.000You know, because there's two scenarios here and it really has nothing to do with whether or not the spam is what Twitter said it was.
00:58:32.000If the agreement is in breach, Musk walks away.
00:58:38.000If the agreement is in breach, also that would mean that the spam is way higher than Twitter said.
00:58:42.000If that's true, those two developments, the spam and Musk walking away, would tank the stock price.
00:58:51.000If it was 38% now, based on 5% spam and Elon Musk doing this deal, it's going to go way lower.
00:58:57.000Because the business is about the users.
00:59:01.000The valuation is only as strong as the company.
00:59:04.000The company is only as strong as the user base, because the users are the product.
00:59:09.000That's the profit-making potential of Twitter is the amount of users.
00:59:13.000And so if they misrepresented the amount of real engagement and real users on the platform by multiples, if they misrepresented that by a magnitude of 2 or 4, then the stock price is going to go down.
00:59:28.000And if Elon Musk, who is going to buy the company and make it profitable, if he walks away, that is also going to make the stock price go lower.
00:59:37.000And so if the stock price goes lower, then there's sort of two branches, which is that Musk can walk away from the deal, and that's it.
00:59:45.000And Twitter will be destroyed, or wounded.
00:59:48.000Or, Musk can then go in and submit an identical offer, but lower, because now the stock price is lower.
00:59:55.000And so if the stock price goes down to $25, he can go in and make a deal with a valuation based on a $40 stock price.
01:00:03.000Suppose a $14, he could get the company for cheaper.
01:00:08.000But that's not a guarantee, and if the deal is scuttled, that will take longer.
01:00:12.000It will take longer for us to start this all over again, and for a new deal to be drafted, and a new deal accepted, and financing secured, and that will make it last longer.
01:00:42.000Maybe the stock price tanks and maybe him walking away makes a stock price tank and he could either continue to walk away or make a new offer.
01:00:50.000Or he's not in breach or Twitter is not in breach and the deal goes through as-is.
01:00:56.000Now the deal going through as-is would be the best for us because that would be the most expeditious timeline that we would be able to get back on Twitter.
01:01:06.000If the deal is just good as is and all that's required is the shareholders and the financing, then we're good!
01:01:13.000And it should happen within the year that Musk will acquire the company and then hopefully within the year implement the changes and change the direction of the company.
01:01:24.000Now, in these other scenarios, if Twitter is in breach, even if they're not in breach, there's a scenario where he walks away from the deal and either comes back after paying a penalty or not paying a penalty.
01:01:35.000And if he comes back, Twitter will be at a lower price.
01:01:56.000And it's really just a question of the details, which is price.
01:02:00.000And so for him to make this big stink, for him to make this big overture, for him to announce that he has a reason for buying Twitter and he seriously wants to achieve this,
01:02:12.000So if he's demonstrated seriousness and there's a goal and he can execute this, I would assign a very low probability to the outcome that he just walks away after having been through all his trouble.
01:02:28.000Because if he cares about it, if he's serious about it, if there's a sort of humanitarian activist motivation behind it, and if it's doable with or without walking away to lower the price, you would have to think that he would do it.
01:02:50.000I think that probably and unfortunately the most likely option is the middle option where after a prolonged negotiation the price is brought down because the spam is revealed and he's able to get it at a lower price and we're able to return eventually.
01:03:08.000But obviously the sooner the better, and the sooner the better because the reason he's doing this is because of the public square's impact on the power structure, particularly elections and democratic government.
01:03:20.000And so, you know, the longer that this takes, the less time that we will have
01:03:26.000To recuperate our losses essentially and then be able to be effective in this upcoming election or at the bare minimum the next election.
01:03:37.000The all-important last shot, last chance 2024 election where Trump may run.
01:03:50.000Because one of the biggest weaknesses that Trump has going into 2024 is that he's not on social media.
01:03:56.000That was one of his enormous strengths in 2016 and in 2020.
01:04:01.000And not having it in 2024 is going to be a significant obstacle for him.
01:04:07.000A lot of people aren't thinking that way yet, but Trump not having access to at least one of the big social media platforms is a massive hindrance, and makes it a lot more difficult for him to compete.
01:04:22.000And it also makes it a lot more difficult for him to compete if his people are not on Twitter, which is not just me, but also all the Trump supporters too.
01:04:32.000It seems like the only people left are the Never Trumpers.
01:04:35.000So it's not just about him, it's about this entire constellation of pundits and voices and citizen journalism and independent opinion that is going to help him get in.
01:05:03.000So I think it's a very low probability that he'll walk away from the deal.
01:05:06.000I think he will execute the deal, and we will get back on Twitter eventually.
01:05:11.000It's not just a matter of patience, it's a matter of, you know, what this whole thing is really about, which is the ability for the people to compete with legacy media for elections.
01:05:26.000Will average people be able to speak their mind in the election and impact who becomes the next president in the most important election of our lifetime to date, which is the next one.
01:05:44.000I hope that within the existing framework maybe they could drop the price.
01:05:47.000I don't think that's how that works though.
01:05:51.000So it looks like we're going to have to wait.
01:05:53.000And that's not just going to be annoying and frustrating, but it's also going to be critical time lost.
01:06:00.000So I just hope this thing is wrapped up as soon as possible, because frankly, I think Musk understands, and I think other people understand, that this election is an important one.
01:06:11.000And we may not be able to do it without social media.
01:06:14.000It's going to be close, and we need every tool that we can have.
01:06:18.000And these things matter in principle as well.
01:06:22.000But there's a really big opportunity coming up and it should not be squandered if we're not doing everything in our power to succeed.
01:08:27.000This one's really just more like a feel-good.
01:08:30.000It's one of those, you know, after a long day of a lot of negative news and a lot of scary stuff that makes you anxious and nervous and depressed, this is one of these feel-good stories like, you know, a lost dog is found.
01:08:48.000And, you know, little boy hugs the lost dog.
01:08:51.000Or, you know, the whole town comes out in a parade for a veteran returning home from war.
01:09:02.000Or Spider-Man goes to visit a sick child in the hospital.
01:09:20.000And the big featured story is about how Russia is now probably going to execute two American mercenaries who surrendered to Russian forces in Ukraine this week.
01:09:30.000And this is a story which I'll read to you.
01:09:38.000A spokesperson for the National Security Council said on Tuesday calling it appalling that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov would even suggest such a possibility.
01:09:51.000Alexander John Robert Druecke and Andy Thai Ngoc Hunya have been fighting for the Kiev government in the area north of Kharkov.
01:10:03.000They were reported as missing on June 9th, the same day a court in Donetsk convicted two Britons and a Moroccan for being mercenaries and sentenced them to death.
01:10:15.000Last Friday, the mercenaries were shown alive and in a detention facility in Donetsk, prompting fears they might meet the same fate, if we're lucky.
01:10:25.000Asked about them by NBC News on Monday, Peskov called them soldiers of fortune who were involved in illegal activities and fired on Russian troops and said their fate would depend on the investigation and the subsequent trial.
01:10:41.000The 39-year-old and 27-year-old mercenaries are both from the state of Alabama.
01:10:45.000In an interview with Russia Today, they said they had been left behind by Ukrainian soldiers and ended up surrendering to a Russian patrol.
01:10:53.000Their families reportedly hope this will be the distinction that will spare them from the same fate as the mercenaries from Britain and Morocco captured by Donetsk People's Republic near Mariupol in May.
01:11:08.000Aidan Aslan, Sean Pinner, and Sadun Ibrahim were convicted by a Donetsk court earlier this month and sentenced to die, though the executions have not yet been carried out, pending appeal.
01:11:19.000Russia does not have the death penalty, but the Donbass Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk do.
01:11:25.000All three agents that foreign volunteers fighting for Ukraine are mercenaries and therefore unlawful combatants who are not protected under the Geneva Convention.
01:12:06.000Do you not care about international law?
01:12:09.000International law says that mercenaries, paid fighters, are not protected by the Geneva Convention and are treated as mercenaries under the law where they'll be tried and killed in Donbass.
01:12:28.000If we care about international law, if we care about the Geneva Convention, these men have to die.
01:12:34.000They just simply have to be executed by Russia.
01:12:37.000And the United States can complain, they can cry their crocodile tears, but the law will be followed.
01:12:44.000And these two people, by everything that's right, should be put to death by Russia.
01:12:49.000So we await their trial and we sort of laugh at their fate and the fate of any American mercenaries that try to fight against the Russian regime.
01:23:31.000I mean, how many degrees of separation are there between a guy who's complaining about not being held and like a baby crying for their mom?
01:24:22.000So you have this big Trojan horse which is like, talk to girls so you can get a girlfriend and get married and have kids and save the white race and this is trad and blah blah blah.
01:24:32.000And inside the Trojan horse are a bunch of soldiers saying, I need women's attention for validation.
01:24:41.000I am nothing without validation externally and I didn't have a good relationship with my mom so I need a hug and I have been held and I'm a little weakling.
01:25:26.000So you need to take that voice in the back of your head saying, you know,
01:25:32.000life is hard you know i want to be held all that kind of stuff you got to take that you have to subdue it you have to subdue it like this you have to strangle it to death and you've got to say you got to be like no it's like sort of like
01:25:47.000Remember in Tombstone, when Wyatt Earp is being held down in that valley, the cowboys are shooting at him and he goes, NO!
01:25:56.000And he goes out and starts blasting them?
01:27:27.000Any person that says, I like my girlfriend because she's so smart about politics, I guarantee you, no matter what woman you're talking about, I could find a man that's better at politics than any woman.
01:33:53.000I got a little bit of vibe because I have a little bit of a chipper vibe and I have a little bit of a Squidward vibe and a little bit of a Plankton vibe.
01:34:28.000I'm like Zack because I'm sort of like... You know, don't play by the rules and he's sort of like...
01:34:37.000Now now, everything properly, I'm sort of like Zack, like wearing a shirt with flames on it, and he's like Cody with like a sweater vest, and he's like, and I'm like, hey sweet thang, to London Tipton, or no, Maddie, Ashley Tisdale.
01:34:58.000I'm like, hey sweet thang, hey candy girl, and Cody is like, Irma, everybody was like,
01:38:27.000Because I see it all the time, and it's great.
01:38:29.000Being a kid with money is great, and it's cool to flex every now and again, but don't be that guy.
01:38:34.000Don't be that guy who made a couple bucks.
01:38:40.000Don't be that guy that made a couple bucks and then is like oh now I'm a baller or something don't don't be that guy because I see that a lot and there's a big temptation to do that and And I will tell you it's distasteful, and I will also say that it's a good way to lose money actually so Be be very conservative like I'm not really gonna flex until I make like you know a
01:39:05.000If I get to a hundred million, you know, then I'll start to really flex.
01:39:08.000But until then I'm very conservative with my money.
01:39:12.000I've bought one nice thing for myself, which is my car.
01:39:15.000And in terms of how much money I make and how much I have, honestly it's relatively modest.
01:39:22.000But that's the only nice thing I buy for myself, you know.
01:39:43.000I don't go and take luxurious vacations.
01:39:46.000I didn't go and rush out and buy a luxury condo or toys or things like that.
01:39:51.000Be sensible and modest with your money and people respect that and it's classy and also it's smart.
01:40:01.000Because there's a lot of kids that make a couple bucks and then they go and flash it around and guess what you look like you don't look like a baller you look like a kid that made his first couple bucks and I've seen a lot of people to do that and it is what it is, but Some people like it some people think that's fun, but it is it is what it is so That's my that's my advice to you
01:41:36.000Some people are not like this, but I think it's very tacky.
01:41:42.000I think it's very tacky and I think it's distasteful to be a guy that's like extremely flashy.
01:41:49.000Unless you have like a billion dollars, like a hundred million dollars.
01:41:53.000I think it's sort of tacky to be the guy that like came into money and then you like that's like oh you're a guy that didn't have money and then came into money you know that's what it looks like it it is it looks like exactly what it is you're not fooling anybody you know and that's I'm very modest like I said I I made money I have wealth now I I have a good income
01:42:17.000And I didn't go out there and, like, go and blow it all.
01:43:02.000that's that's how you play that's how you play and be smart with your money because another thing that people will do is this another people another thing that people with money will do is this they'll make lots of money and then they will lose all of their money because they think that they're smarter than they are and they'll blow all their money and i see this a lot with like crypto people you see this like on reddit a lot where people make a lot of money in crypto and they keep betting all their money and then they they literally lose all their money
01:43:53.000He made lots of money and then he sold and he was smart with his money and now he's retired and now he's good.
01:43:59.000I know... I actually know quite a few people that have done that.
01:44:03.000And you don't want to be the guy that makes a lot of money and then like, you know, spends it all on things that are frivolous or bad investments.
01:44:13.000You want to be the guy that makes a lot of money and puts it into smart things.
01:44:17.000You know, the recession may happen in the next year and a half.
01:44:58.000Um, you know, you want to use strategies like dollar-cost averaging.
01:45:03.000This is not financial advice, by the way, but this is smart.
01:45:06.000This is what smart investors do, is you dollar-cost average in.
01:45:12.000And, you know, people say you can't time the market, but here's the thing.
01:45:17.000They'll show you the annualized average return if you kept investing year over year and didn't try to time it, but what they don't tell you is that the people that were in the market on the best days and were not in the market on the worst days did really, really well.
01:45:31.000And so it's like, you know, you can't time the market, but you can like, and I think you can kind of time the market.
01:45:37.000You can dollar cost average and you can kind of time it.
01:46:00.000uh so you know that guy was telling me you can't time the market you just put a lot of money in now and then start dollar cost averaging and i said well i'm gonna wait for this pandemic thing to play out and then the market crashed and then i bought a bunch of stuff and then
01:46:46.000And it was automatic so I didn't have to do it it was just automatic would just get taken out of my account and Then when things really go on sale, then you make then you put more money in okay, then you put more money in and You diversify your holdings, you know, you get a little real estate you get a little stock market you get a little crypto and
01:47:08.000And this is how good investors, this is what good investors will do with their money.
01:47:14.000So anyway, I know you didn't ask for that advice.
01:47:29.000Very few people are entrepreneurial, and very few people make money.
01:47:33.000And then within that category, you want to be the person that is smart, you know, and you want to make your money work for you, and you don't want to act like a black guy.
01:47:45.000You don't want to act like a black guy that came into some money, either.
01:47:50.000You don't want to act like a black guy that just found a bunch of money.
01:49:13.000No, that's the purpose of them is to create influence and make money and things like that.
01:49:21.000You know, the government is probably... Here's the thing.
01:49:24.000When Elon Musk buys Twitter, we may learn things about how the government is working with Twitter and how the government is sponsoring influence operations on Twitter.
01:49:33.000I'm sure the government is one of the biggest perpetrators of this to change the discourse.
01:49:38.000You know, public opinion is a very powerful thing, easily influenced.
01:49:43.000Especially when you consider how, you know, a well-equipped agency
01:50:35.000It's classic and it was innovative, but at this point it's dated.
01:50:40.000You know, the most... the most... the most...
01:50:49.000Complex the richest the most exuberant production was beautiful dark twisted fantasy The most decadent so you mean so what are you asking for 808s?
01:50:59.000It's very good production, and it's very innovative for the time, but it's very minimal You know you look at these tracks like bad news It's very minimal
01:51:12.000But it's, as apples and oranges comparison to something like Power, where Kanye spent a thousand hours on it, it's very detailed and complex and layered.
01:53:39.000It's a return to form, because he ditched the organ, he ditched the minimal, and it's sort of like he brought back 808s, and he sort of brought back the Life of Pablo Yeezus type sounds, and this is how you get true love, and this is, well, not maybe true love, really more so like, um,
01:54:14.000Do you have any daily rituals slash habits slash good practices that you recommend?
01:54:19.000Or do you consider all such stuff self-help garbage?
01:54:22.000You could, like, wake up at the same time and, like, take a cold shower and, like, crank out some push-ups and sit-ups and, like, do some mindfulness meditation and, like, put your phone down an hour before you go to bed.
01:54:35.000Shut the f... Like, do you come here for that?
01:56:25.000We liked Patrick Witt, but he dropped out.
01:56:28.000We liked Patrick Witt, but he dropped out because he thought Trump was going to give Vernon Jones the endorsement, and then Vernon Jones lost anyway.
01:57:23.000The regime relies on the populace's ignorance of the illegitimacy of Wikipedia, since it serves their purpose of yellow journalism and libel against people with our views as a byproduct.
01:58:28.000So, I mean, I think a lot of those interventions like Chile and, you know, the attempted overthrow of Castro and, you know, arguably the overthrow of the Shah.
02:04:21.000That is very true because he had all these weird thoughts about me and you know he thought I was like plotting against him or whatever and he was just wrong.
02:04:32.000And it ended just like in the show, with me kind of like this, except it didn't work out like it did in the show.
02:05:44.000And then I think he gave up that lifestyle, if I'm not mistaken.
02:05:48.000That was our initial point of contention, because he was like, you're just gonna ban gays from your little Catholic ethnostate, aren't you?
02:06:03.000I think that was his initial beef with me, if I'm not mistaken.
02:06:08.000Maybe I'm mistaken, but I distinctly remember a tweet like that where he was like, oh what, you're just gonna ban everyone you think is degenerate when you have a Catholic ethnostate?