In this episode of The War Room, host Stephen K. K. B. Bannon is joined by Kurt M. Mills and Mike E. Howell of Oversight to discuss the latest in the Yemen conflict, Iran, and the Democratic Socialists of America.
00:07:25.260I think, you know, yes, Iran and Ukraine are separate theaters.
00:07:30.180But the hawks so often sort of link them.
00:07:33.180You know, they'll say, oh, look, you know, the Ukrainians or the Russians are using Iranian shothead drones.
00:07:39.020That's, you know, how it's all one fight.
00:07:40.840The world is breaking up into access of autocracies versus, you know, the Western democracies.
00:07:46.960This sort of inevitable, unavoidable fight is very redolent, frankly, of the World War I or the pre-World War I environment where these, you know, endless series of alliances tripped us into a huge world war.
00:08:03.220And that's why I think these sort of alliances, unquestioned, unambiguous and lockstep, even with some of our closest partners, are should be evaluated and are pretty dangerous.
00:08:17.000I see it happen a ton with China, whereby these neocons sort of co-opt the PRC issue.
00:08:24.160And, you know, I think accurately estimate the, you know, threat that it is existentially, geopolitically.
00:08:30.600But then they use that not really to actually take on the CCP, but just to justify the newly minted trillion dollar defense budget.
00:08:39.100And in some ways, I think you see the bolstering of a lot of these enemies, you know, to justify that continued spending at a, you know, exponentially, if not logarithmically increasing rate.
00:08:48.800I'd love to get your thoughts on the, I believe I'm correct, the, you know, trillion dollar defense budget, the sort of reorientation, putting more measures and just preparation into the sort of anti-China front.
00:09:04.300Or do you think that it's, you know, regrettably just sort of, you know, Washington politics as usual, forget who the president is, no matter what, you're going to see defense spending balloon?
00:09:13.040Yeah, I mean, look, the budget put forward by OMB, you know, last week was, you know, on the second derivative positive, but it was still an increase.
00:09:27.120And yet the sort of hawks on the Hill, very much anchored around the Senate Armed Services Chairman, Roger Wicker, complained that it wasn't enough.
00:09:35.780And so I think, you know, it shows that, I think oftentimes there's this sort of perspective, like, well, we should just, you know, it's a big tent, we should try to balance all these factions, et cetera, et cetera.
00:09:45.560But the reality, I think, is that the neoconservatives and the hawks, it's never enough.
00:09:49.840I mean, even if the U.S. were to do a regime change war in Iran, the next thing that would be asked would be to do a regime change war in Turkey.
00:09:58.540Same thing with, you know, the Pentagon budget.
00:10:00.780If you give them $200 billion more, they'll ask for $500 billion more.
00:10:05.440I just view it as a far more of a tradeoff.
00:10:08.260As to the China question rather directly, I think it's always very curious that those who would want to hike the Pentagon budget most prodigiously are often the ones who have long records of wanting to trade with the Chinese openly, right?
00:10:24.820We're talking about increasing the Pentagon budget for this allegedly existential threat that we need to, you know, sink more and more resources into while the country's industrial capacity sort of withers away.
00:10:34.600The average American thinks the country is going in the wrong direction.
00:10:37.740And on the other hand, you know, you can't have any question about the tariff regime or lack thereof on the PRC.
00:10:43.260I think it's just an entirely failed sort of globalist cast of mind that has been the default architecture of decision makers in Washington since at least the 80s.
00:10:55.720Kurt Mills, always an honor to have you on.
00:10:58.500I know the audience loves keeping up to date with your writings, your Twitter.
00:11:02.680As Steve would say, you're always coming in hot.
00:11:05.060Where can people go to follow you and keep up to date with everything that you're working on?
00:12:31.720Well, no, I have to say that Mr. Martin did a good job of explaining how there were people that probably got caught up in it.
00:12:40.200But they made the stupid decision to come through a building that had been breached and that the police officers and others were saying stay away.
00:12:47.980So, the difference wasn't that they should be charged in my estimation.
00:13:36.980But the disagreement there had more to do.
00:13:38.920If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district except the district where January 6th happened, the protest happened,
00:13:47.480I'd probably support him, but not in this district.
00:13:50.060When you said he's not being advanced to the markup, was he operating under that understanding that he's not being advanced through to a markup?
00:13:55.780I think Mr. Martin, I'm sure they're looking through it.
00:13:58.520I mean, be clear, some of the deadline has to do with the length of time he can operate his acting.
00:14:03.660And the administration can work through that if they want to have more time and potentially work him through.
00:14:09.880But at this point, I've indicated to the White House I wouldn't support his nomination.
00:14:14.880Mr. President, the president and I talk all the time.
00:14:17.060Now, Mike Howell, I've had my chance to tee off on this guy in the 5 p.m.
00:14:23.420I love this man who can find, you know, more grace and nuance for the illegal aliens that he wants amnesty for,
00:14:29.760or Zelensky, who he thinks we need to be thanking, despite, I mean, canceling elections, I think, is a little worse than, what, debating three days versus three years.
00:14:38.820Apparently, he can't find that same, shall we say, consideration for Ed Martin.
00:14:43.020That's how you know this guy is, I was going to say a rhino, but maybe just political hack bought and paid for by donors who don't want Ed Martin substantially and significantly investigating the crimes that have gone on in D.C.
00:14:55.860Maybe that's a better way to put it, but I will stop there.
00:14:59.140I will let you sort of walk our audience through what you guys have been doing over at your, the new spinoff of Heritage Oversight Project,
00:15:07.500but your thoughts on this sort of whole Ed Martin debacle, which I don't know about you.
00:15:11.100I'm kind of getting PTSD and deja vu from all these just horrific, feckless Republicans, not even doing nothing, but actively sabotaging President Trump's agenda.
00:15:21.500Yeah, that's ultimately what this is about.
00:15:24.960It's whether Trump can make his hiring decisions or not.
00:15:28.740And then the outcome of that is if the Senate effectively gets turned over to Durbin, Schiff and Schumer with the assist from Senator Tillis or others,
00:15:37.020it's about ending the forward progress of the Senate and executing President Trump's mandate.
00:15:42.220So this is really not just about U.S. Attorney Martin.
00:15:47.480And if you take a look and listen to Tillis' comments, you have to wonder, why don't they apply to President Trump or Cash or Bondi or anyone else in the cabinet?
00:15:58.320Why pick Ed Martin over January 6th at this moment?
00:16:02.680And so it's really a criticism of President Trump.
00:16:06.260And that's what I see Senator Tillis saying.
00:16:08.840Lucky for him, he's not voting for January 6th.
00:16:12.260He's voting for Trump's U.S. Attorney.
00:16:14.140And so hopefully he can put his concerns aside because U.S. A. Martin's record on these issues as U.S. Attorney is terrific.
00:16:23.720No one's gone harder at people who go after cops than U.S. A. Martin.
00:16:27.660No one's gone harder for law and order in Washington, D.C. than Martin.
00:16:34.260And I'm hoping by Senator Tillis laying out that reasoning,
00:16:37.160he eventually can be reasoned with because this is not a vote to condone whatever his view on January 6th is.
00:16:44.240It's a vote of whether he supports President Trump's decision to put his people in the spots where he thinks they can serve the country best.
00:16:51.900And I don't know what's going on with Senator Tillis and President Trump,
00:16:55.440but this is a highly unfortunate fight for the senator to pick at a really critical time.
00:17:01.000And I think we're all hoping that he can get to yes on this critical post.
00:17:06.180And walk us through maybe the other, shall we say, sleeper cells of potential opposition.
00:17:11.620We know people like Norm Eisen and Mark Elias have come out in very staunch opposition to Ed Martin.
00:17:17.440I'd ask Tom Tillis why he finds himself on the same side of any issue as people who have declared war open season on this wonderful republic.
00:17:25.580But of the 12 members of the Judiciary Committee, which I believe we need unanimous support from to actually not have, you know, Judge Bozberg,
00:17:35.780like I said, the only man who, based off of physiognomy, probably looks more concerning than Senator Tillis
00:17:42.100and apparently likes illegal alien criminals to stay in this country.
00:17:46.600But do you think that there could be any other potential defectors among the existing Republicans,
00:17:52.000those that have not explicitly come out and supported him?
00:18:19.500And so what's really happening here is starting, you know, a month or so ago, Schumer, Durbin and Schiff started shopping oppo around, trying to peel people off.
00:18:29.500And they basically had a bunch of smears.
00:18:32.480They accused Martin of being anti-Semitic.
00:18:36.080It actually ended up getting him a ton of Jewish support from main leaders and groups coming out.
00:18:40.940They accused him of not having any experience or the support.
00:18:44.260And then what happened was all the law enforcement groups came out to support Martin.
00:18:47.940And then all the state attorneys generals came out to support him.
00:18:51.840So he's got support far, wide and deep.
00:18:55.260But this is all reaction to the oppo shot by Schumer and co.
00:18:58.640And you can't let it work because if it works in the unprecedented event of Trump losing his guy were to pass, you might as well hand over control of the Senate to the Democrats.
00:19:09.120And you don't want to do that before reconciliation or any of the other major items.
00:20:09.940And the sequence of events that follows don't work out well for anyone.
00:20:14.600Well, and also, I mean, I'm sorry, too.
00:20:16.740We'll take what he said at face value.
00:20:18.420I mean, even say what Senator Till has said about, oh, his little, you know, checkered record when it comes to some January 6th defendants.
00:20:28.140Again, you know, our position in the war room, we call it the Fed's direction.
00:20:31.340We think people use the term January 6th or too woke.
00:20:35.540I don't know about you, but last time I looked around the state of this country, we need people who are fighters.
00:20:41.680And even if you might have some ideological differences with him on January 6th, Senator Tillis, I would much rather have someone who's willing to throw down and actually understands what accountability means as opposed to what some weak Fedsoc type who has no lived reality or lived experience and actually bringing up about accountability outside of the confines of, you know, having worked on the Hill for several decades, having accomplished virtually nothing.
00:21:08.720So it's just a fundamental mismatch to, I think, of understanding the state of the country, the state of the battle, the war that we are in.
00:21:18.060And, I mean, I guess it's people like Senator Tillis who got us here in the first place.
00:21:22.220It's no wonder why we have to have an AG Ken Paxton on the show earlier today, not just also supporting Ed Martin, but talking about how wonderful policies that Senator Tillis has allowed to manifest and metastasize in this country,
00:21:33.940relating to the Chinese Communist Party overtaking data, farmland, and, I guess, politicians, too.
00:21:39.380Maybe we'll need to investigate Senator Tillis on that front.
00:21:43.340Mike, how will you always call it how it is?
00:21:46.380And I know last time we were on, we were talking, I believe, about the deportations, where we stand there.
00:21:51.380You mentioned how Judge Bozberg would be the man that would choose Ed Martin's replacement should Senator Tillis want to have,
00:21:58.820maybe we'll call it his John McCain moment on this vote.
00:22:03.860Where do you think we stand now on the deportation stuff?
00:22:08.620Are you a fan of the $1,000 stipend proposal?
00:22:13.460Yeah, so real quick, just on January 6th, because I got it, you know, I'm passionate about this.
00:22:19.140People need to understand that is the fulcrum point by which the left weaponized the entire law enforcement apparatus.
00:22:24.660They use January 6th as the justification to go after everything ranging from Catholics, you know, praying at Mass to school board parents.
00:22:34.300It provided them just like a war on terror.
00:22:36.000That was their one event where they said, we can do anything we want after this in the name of January 6th.
00:22:40.800It led to the January 6th committee, et cetera.
00:22:43.140It was that abuse and that original sin of the weaponization after it,
00:22:47.280why people receive pardons and the much-needed correction to the system.
00:22:50.820And so I think there's a lot of revisionist history happening by people taking these stands now and trying to relitigate the event that day.
00:22:59.040And it's highly unfortunate, particularly when it's going to threaten what everyone just voted for.
00:23:27.540And so you've got to think, how do we add up, you know, the other millions that we need?
00:23:30.960And that means every tool needs to be on the table to get people out.
00:23:34.900I think there's a lot more that can be done.
00:23:37.220I think we need to revisit illegal aliens being in public schools.
00:23:40.400I think it's outrageous that we're paying to, you know, crowd our classrooms and make our children speak, you know, two languages in the school.
00:23:48.940It reminds me of when I went to elementary school.
00:23:50.680We had so much mass immigration, they just rebranded it as Spanish immersion and pretended it was a good thing that everyone had to speak Spanish all day.
00:23:57.320I did Spanish for about 14 years, and I still can't speak a lick because of the just flood of mass illegal immigration.
00:24:03.240So everything all at once, homeward bound.
00:24:06.320That's what I think we should be doing.
00:24:07.600We need to get commas of people out here fast.
00:24:13.160Mike Howell, give us a minute and talk about how you spun off the oversight project, which people know I had you on a ton when Steve was in prison, but you, I think, long predate his four-month sentence.
00:24:27.780You guys have always been ahead of the curve.
00:24:30.420Talk about what you guys are doing now and just how you kind of pivoted off of Heritage.
00:24:34.080Yeah, so we started at Heritage in 2022 because when Kevin Roberts took over, he invigorated the place, and we wanted to sue people, go on offense, launch these massive investigations.
00:24:46.000We need to get out in the states, and we need to be more overtly political and say what needs to be said regardless of, you know, IRS, C3 issues.
00:24:53.840So we reorganized ourselves as a 501c4 organization and kind of restructured our bones so that we could be very active in the states and have a more national presence because it is those blue states where everyone's trying out for president as a governor, you know, whether it's Pritzker, Newsom, Westmore here in Maryland, wherever.
00:25:13.540And so we needed to restructure the operation so we can nimbly go after and sue in those areas and then talk about it the right way.
00:25:20.760And so with the support of Dr. Roberts and Heritage, we basically got, you know, a starter amount to get rolling, and we're going to just rock and roll.
00:25:50.560So the Oversight Project can be found at itsyourgov on X and itsyourgov.org.
00:25:55.940And that's because it's your government is our slogan because I think people forget that it actually is our government and they view the government as like a management company that we just have to tolerate and know they work for us.
00:26:05.700And so that's what we want to remind people of.
00:26:08.080If you want the more PG-13 tweets, follow my personal account at mhowelltweets.
00:26:15.060We always keep it PG-13 here, I think, in the war.
00:26:51.600I love the guys down in Texas, the great state of Texas.
00:26:54.440They're lucky to live under AG Ken Paxton.
00:26:56.300If you didn't watch that interview, make sure you go and see what he's doing to make sure that the Chinese are not stealing your data, much like Patriot Mobile.
00:27:02.640It's nice to not have China, whether it's Alibaba, Huawei, take your pick.
00:27:06.520All these companies embedded and infiltrating this country, Patriot Mobile actually takes a stand and pushes back.
00:27:13.660We will be right back after this short break.
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00:31:51.480Crozier, I'm going to hope I got that right.
00:31:53.860Joining us with what is a really wonderful story.
00:31:57.800Warren Posse, you know, we track all the sort of resistance verticals who's funding these groups.
00:32:02.020And though the Democratic Socialists for America might seem like a clown organization,
00:32:06.280a lot of these protests, they're often listed as sponsoring or co-organizing, in some cases funding them.
00:32:12.020So the, you know, meme videos from their organizational conferences, or I guess maybe their struggle sessions.
00:32:18.880Aside, I don't think this organization is a total joke, at least ideology aside.
00:32:24.180But Hudson, you have a great new piece sort of walking through how a certain mayoral election could potentially lead to maybe a resurgence or a rebirth,
00:32:33.980not implying that they're totally dead.
00:32:35.480But of the DSA here in the United States, I'd love if you could maybe walk the audience,
00:32:41.340just give us a little background on what exactly this organization is,
00:32:44.380but how it intersects with this campaign, potentially infusing it with kind of a new lifeblood on the American political scene.
00:32:53.240Right. So thanks for having me on, Natalie.
00:32:55.540Right. We've got a very important election coming up in New York City where the DSA is involved.
00:33:00.780A lot of people might know DSA from backing Bernie Sanders for president back in the day,
00:33:06.960but now they moved on to trying to install their own radical socialist as mayor of New York City.
00:33:14.940And based on the polling, the Democrat primary for New York City mayor is pretty much becoming a two-person race between him and Andrew Cuomo.
00:33:24.180And what you've got is this very interesting generational battle for the Democratic Party going on where Cuomo represents sort of the old guard
00:33:33.500and Mamdani represents the new, younger, more radical leftist crowd that's super against Israel and wants all these free programs
00:33:42.860and is skeptical of police and so on and so forth.
00:33:46.980And so despite the DSA somewhat falling out of relevance in recent years,
00:33:53.080if they could install somebody as mayor of New York City, that would be a pretty huge deal.
00:33:59.700We refer to ourselves, I think, as a proud home of right-wing populism here in the war room.
00:34:05.100And I'm just curious your thoughts if you see this as maybe a reflection of sort of the broader metanarrative that's been being pushed out,
00:34:11.320the idea that these, you know, AOC and Bernie rallies are so widely attended that this more kind of strain of left-wing populism may be taking over that party.
00:34:20.880In other words, is his potential ascent or rise being something that is, you know, championed or favored by the Democratic establishment?
00:34:29.060Or do you get the sense that this is, you know, sort of something that they want to suppress?
00:34:36.620But the thing about New York City, much like D.C., it's kind of a place where all the political forces you could possibly imagine are converging on each other and fighting each other.
00:34:47.300And so whatever happens here is probably going to be a trendsetter for what's going to happen across the country.
00:34:54.060And so if DSA makes an example of somebody like Andrew Cuomo by installing someone as radical as Mamdani,
00:35:02.020it will really give legitimacy to these more radical socialist factions of the Democratic Party saying,
00:35:08.980OK, yeah, we should absolutely double down on this stuff.
00:35:12.560There are basically two schools of – two major schools of thought in the Democratic Party right now since Trump won re-election.
00:35:19.420It's did we lose because we were too radical and we need to walk back on some things and be more centrist?
00:35:26.140Or did we lose because the Democrat establishment is just incompetent and too milquetoast and we actually need to embrace a newer brand of politics or, like you said, the populist left?
00:35:38.860That's what's at stake in this upcoming race.
00:35:41.360And is this the only DSA candidate who's, you know, having their seven minutes of fame right now, like being well-received across other states?
00:35:52.700Are you seeing a similar uptick in not necessarily favorability but just reception towards their ideas or do you think this is sort of an isolated incident going on in New York?
00:36:03.020I haven't looked closely enough across the country to be able to tell, but this is definitely the biggest, most high-profile candidate they're endorsing,
00:36:12.400especially because he's doing so well, I would say defying expectations.
00:36:16.600He's, like I said, polling in second place.
00:36:19.940He's raising way more money than all the other candidates.
00:36:23.240Now, to be fair, some of that is because the other candidates are having procedural difficulties with getting their campaign funds.
00:36:29.900But nevertheless, he is defying expectations, for sure.
00:36:36.440Defying expectations and probably causing a lot of nightmares among our audience.
00:36:41.000Hudson, thank you so much for joining us.
00:37:13.920We are joined now by the one and only Sam Faddis.
00:37:21.020I have to say, every time I host this show from the DC studio, I get like deja vu PTSD to Steve Bing in prison.
00:37:27.840And I know you were one of my go-to guests, so I am eternally grateful for that.
00:37:32.100But I guess how things have changed, never would I thought I'd be sitting here asking you for your thoughts on what the heck is going on between India and Pakistan.
00:37:39.660It sounds like India is attacking to some extent.
00:37:42.880Can you sort of walk us through the audience?
00:37:49.960So, in a nutshell, because we could spend the rest of the night talking this issue alone.
00:37:54.620The Indians and the Pakistanis have been fighting over the Kashmir area, the state of Kashmir for, well, since there's been an India and a Pakistanis independent nations, disputing over who it should belong to.
00:38:07.980And the Pakistanis have been supporting Islamic terrorist groups that operate in Kashmir and fairly regularly stage attacks against the Indians.
00:38:17.520So, there was relatively recently such an attack in Kashmir.
00:38:22.000The Indians are blaming the Pakistanis for it, have, since it occurred.
00:38:27.420And they are now retaliating, staging what appears to be, as far as I can tell, airstrikes, but airstrikes with missiles, meaning the Indian aircraft didn't actually enter Pakistani airspace.
00:38:41.180They fired the missiles from their own airspace and hit a variety of targets that seem to all be, if the Indians are being straight, targets that were connected to Pakistani intelligence and special operations folks.
00:38:59.180In other words, the guys who would have been working with the terrorist group to carry this out.
00:39:04.700On balance, I would say, right now, looks like the Indians have done what they were compelled to do, which was strike back, but they have limited it.
00:39:16.040They're kind of giving the Pakistanis a chance to step off the path to escalation and let it go for the time being.
00:39:29.360And do you see any room or potential for, whether it's the, you know, eternally warmongering neocon side of things, to advocate for U.S. involvement here?
00:39:39.880Or is this something that you think that will blow over?
00:39:59.320You notice they never volunteer to go themselves, though.
00:40:01.800Right now, if this plays the way I'm guessing the Indians want it to go, which is, yeah, there'll be a lot of yelling, but this will die down and be like, let's leave it alone.
00:40:21.080But the problem, of course, is that that assumes cooler heads and rational thought on both sides in Pakistan and India.
00:40:29.320All it takes is somebody in Pakistan to say, hell no, and do yet something, another stupid thing, and poke the Indians and compel them to ratchet this thing up.
00:41:13.480But your sort of broader assessment of what you see going on there, we described with Kurt as sort of perhaps the kind of internal factions within the Trump administration,
00:41:22.020the back and forth between the, you know, forever warmongering war in Iran, crazy people.
00:41:27.380And those who even as you sort of saw, you know, I think, and I guess ironically, the signal group chat, people who are a little more averse to getting involved.
00:41:35.080I guess maybe it's a Meersheimer-esque approach to things.
00:41:38.620But your thoughts on what we've seen unfolding there.
00:41:43.080Look, I'm hoping that what we're seeing is real and that the president's characterization of it is real.
00:41:52.480I'm not suggesting the president is deliberately misrepresenting something.
00:41:56.060I'm hoping that what I'm saying is I'm hoping that what he's saying the Houthis have told us turns out to be legitimate and the Houthis are serious and they stand behind their assurances.
00:42:09.540Because, yeah, in D.C. there's always somebody saying we should bomb somebody.
00:42:14.000They don't ever have a plan for where exactly that's going to take us or how it's going to resolve it.
00:42:23.020So assuming the Houthis are for real and they really want to de-escalate this and they've had enough, I'm 100 percent on board with the let's see where this goes and see if we can't ratchet this thing down.
00:42:38.340But, you know, the issue is obvious there, though it's implied by the way I phrased it.
00:42:46.300I mean, are the Houthis for real or not?
00:42:50.260Have they had enough and is this legit and are the Iranians poking them to make, you know, to walk this thing back or are they just going to catch their breath and then turn around in a couple of days and do something dramatically different?
00:43:08.240It's worth most definitely worth seeing if we can't de-escalate one of these things, right, instead of being in a hurry to start another war.
00:43:16.420And Sam, I'm curious, Steve and I were discussing on a show last week, I think it was first reported, I guess coincidentally, in the Washington Post talking about the Trump administration's plans to fire some people from the CIA.
00:43:33.700The number that they gave was about 1,200, they said maybe from some other agencies, too.
00:43:40.080But if you really read the sort of fine print, it wasn't actively firing anyone.
00:43:44.760It was essentially, you know, amplifying the speed of people who had already expressed or indicated that they wanted to retire.
00:43:51.940Certainly not, I think, the mass firings or, you know, change or cleaning house that maybe some people in our audience certainly believe is necessary.
00:44:02.020I mean, the fact they don't think there's just one person there that should be fired is a little wild to me.
00:44:07.120But I'd be curious your thoughts on those numbers, those estimates, what you think is going on on that front.
00:44:14.160Well, as I understand it, we were talking somewhere in the neighborhood of like 1,200 people, and it was more or less like folks retiring early, this kind of thing.
00:44:30.880Would I like to see the firing targeted more at the specific people we need to get rid of?
00:44:37.860Like DEI hires, folks that were hired who are completely unqualified, not helping the retired guy who's leave six months early, but let's fire the person who never should have been there in the first place.
00:44:50.960Let's fire the folks, and we can identify a number of them by name, who were involved in efforts to prevent Donald Trump from ever getting in the White House the first time,
00:45:02.080destabilize his administration the first time, and then who worked throughout the Biden administration against him.
00:45:11.640I personally would like to see, if you will, more targeted firings.
00:45:18.260Let's get rid of the folks who are the problem, not just say we'll get rid of 1,200 people, let experience go out the door and keep folks that should have never been there in the first place.
00:45:29.380And last question before I let you go, obviously the Ukraine mineral deal, that was something that I think the war room posse, Steve and I were a little, shall we say cagey about,
00:45:42.820just because it seems like a nice pretext to opening up the door for, you know, forever continued United States involvement,
00:45:49.380maybe a little more euphemistically than a forever war.
00:45:52.040Sure, it's a more Marshall Plan-esque in the spirit of rebuilding Ukraine, not the United States of America.
00:45:59.380But I'm just curious your thoughts on that deal, and if you think that it could potentially snowball into something where we see, you know,
00:46:08.760heavy United States involvement or presence there, what that would sort of look like, or maybe you, you know, have a different opinion, you think it's a good deal.