On this week's episode of the Third Chair, the boys are joined by special guest Josh Firestein ( ) to talk about all things Tesla, Alex Jones, and much, much more! Thanks to our sponsor, Rumble, for sponsoring the show!
00:02:06.000You can't have this conversation everywhere without fear of retribution.
00:02:10.000And you see it, you know that because you're experimenting with it by talking to people.
00:02:15.000So what you're saying is, so for all this time that this has been correct, now this short amount of time, everybody's got to change on the dime.
00:03:26.000Glad to be with you and I guess today we are back We're back here on the YouTube and why didn't anyone tell me?
00:03:36.000So look hit the share button like it helps with the YouTube algorithm they want you to think that we're dead and if at any point Today and by that I mean at a certain point today with absolute absolute.
00:04:00.000We are going to be discussing... Well, we're going to do a deep dive today into EV batteries.
00:04:06.000That's something that a lot of people maybe don't know a whole lot about.
00:04:09.000Not just not electric vehicles in general, which we know are worse for the environment long term, but specifically what differentiates them from combustion engine vehicles, the battery.
00:04:47.000Before we hit this segment later, it's going to be- Just go with me!
00:04:51.000Go with me, because it's going to take a little bit of time and a lot of information, and we have the benefit of being able to do that on a slower news day, so this is something that I think a lot of people need the references for as they move forward in life, and it's a lot of fun to drive a Tesla.
00:05:24.000You'd be surprised as to how conservative and, of course, how much we have in common, but we were talking before the show, I said, is it G-R-A-Y or G-R-E-Y?
00:05:32.000And then we got into the whole conversation, color is not spelled with a U, where I was raised in Canada, and it was, so just, you can comment, is it A-Y, is it E-Y, and this will give us some regional insight.
00:06:58.000And then she even asked me, you guys will see, she even asked me about, what do you think about people coming into the country who don't speak English?
00:09:23.000Oh my gosh, it's Fifty Shades of Grey.
00:09:25.000Better not talk for him, unfortunately.
00:09:27.000This administration also refused to invite families of American hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas to the White House Hanukkah reception.
00:09:37.000This is a Hanukkah reception that the White House is hosting tonight to celebrate the fifth night of Hanukkah, hosted by the President and the First Lady.
00:09:46.000And what one of the family members of the families that have their family members that are missing in Gaza still believed to have been abducted by Hamas on October 7, they told me that they had reached out to the White House because several of the families were in town this week, had asked for an invitation to this event, but that they ultimately did not get invited.
00:10:06.000Now, despite this, former Vice President Biden, he did discuss his efforts, touted them, I guess.
00:10:13.000He likes to tout his efforts to free the hostages.
00:14:28.000I know that now he's trying to rebrand himself as this, you know, free speech advocate by hosting a bunch of different people, but when push comes to shove, he really does show his true colors.
00:14:53.000And yesterday in an article at the New York Post, Pierce Morgan was whining about Elon Musk letting Alex Jones back on X. And if you're on YouTube, you didn't see us yesterday with Alex Jones here on the show.
00:15:03.000And we're really happy, really proud of the fact that, you know, Mug Club, you guys, helped re-platform him.
00:15:08.000And if you want to continue this, you know, you have the Nashville Manifesto, Alex Jones being re-platformed.
00:15:12.000None of this happens without your support.
00:16:12.000All you've done by showing this monster mercy is reward him for his repellent treatment of already devastated families experiencing the same awful grief you felt when your son died.
00:16:22.000Well, thank you for telling him how he should feel regarding the death of his son, you pompous prick.
00:16:46.000This is also the guy, Pierce Morgan, who I guess you could say sparred with Count Dankula about this issue, Alex Jones, on his show just yesterday.
00:16:54.000Yeah, I think he's completely right in doing it.
00:17:38.000Yeah, I think he has a right to do it.
00:17:39.000Agreeing that someone has a right to do something isn't the same as agreeing with what they say.
00:17:43.000If we're saying, oh, this guy's not allowed to say his conspiracy theories or whatever you want to call them because some crazy guy out there might do something mental, then nobody can talk about anything at all.
00:18:00.000You're going to use that old hack argument of yelling fire in a crowded theater, trying to grift off of the right wing as a free speech warrior when you don't understand the First Amendment?
00:18:08.000And I understand why you don't understand the First Amendment.
00:18:10.000Because you come from a country that doesn't have one, that's why we left.
00:18:14.000You don't lose your First Amendment rights.
00:18:15.000Even after defamation, to be clear, you get charged with defamation.
00:18:20.000But you don't lose your right to speak.
00:18:42.000This idea, I mean he spent something like 16 minutes over the course of years on Sandy Hook, apologized for it, said that it was, he screwed up!
00:18:50.000He never called for violence or called for people to harass anybody.
00:18:53.000Pierce Morgan doesn't understand what freedom of speech is, which is why when he goes out there and acts as though he's a platform hosting people of different points of view, It's a lie.
00:19:55.000He said, look, if you're worried that some random guy is going to go do something crazy because you talk about something that we can't talk about anything, that's the natural extension of this.
00:20:03.000He's like, if Alex can't go out and make these comments, he can be sued.
00:20:07.000But he's not driving people to go do something.
00:20:10.000He didn't say show up at these people's doorsteps.
00:20:12.000He didn't say go to their homes and follow them in their businesses and make, wait a minute, I'm sorry.
00:20:15.000I'm talking like a Congresswoman saying, get in their faces in public and make sure they don't have a comfortable life so that they can hear it.
00:20:22.000That's not what happened with Alex Jones.
00:21:13.000He wants Twitter to not allow Alex Jones on the platform.
00:21:18.000Twitter, they benefit from Section 230, right?
00:21:20.000It's treated as a platform, largely like a public utility.
00:21:25.000They enjoy those benefits where they're not held liable for what people say on their platform, as opposed to a publisher.
00:21:29.000And just to prove how little he understands the concept of the First Amendment, and it's rivaled only by his ignorance on the Second Amendment, this brings us to Pierce Morgan's Rules for Me.
00:21:46.000He hosted Alex Jones on his very own program this year.
00:21:51.000You're never gonna get our First Amendment, and I'm glad you had to move back to England to live under your Islamic takeover when they're arresting people for being against transgenderism.
00:22:57.000This guy just wants to peddle and smut.
00:23:00.000This guy just wants to have all of the clicks, all of the clickbait, all of the eyeballs and ears while just claiming that he's being a neutral observer as he offers his...
00:23:09.000So why is he so upset that Musk is letting Alex Jones back onto X?
00:23:59.000That's why you're going to fail and the establishment knows, no matter how much propaganda, the republic will rise again when you attempt to take our guns.
00:24:07.000How many chimpanzees can dance on the head of a pin?
00:24:08.000You've got a lot lower gun crime rate because you took all the guns.
00:26:55.000And I think that there are a lot of Teslas out there that are... First off, it's a more American car than a lot of American car manufacturers are creating.
00:28:05.000How adults who are in position of responsibility can be avoiding responsibility for taking away those things that are killing people on a daily basis.
00:29:11.000The main difference, obviously, between supposedly eco-friendly electric vehicles and other eco-holocausting vehicles is that they use a battery instead of gas, instead of a combustion engine.
00:29:22.000That's really the differentiating factor, right?
00:29:24.000They both have frames, windows, tires.
00:29:27.000So what makes the EV better for the environment, allegedly, is the battery.
00:30:28.000The process itself pollutes the surrounding air, water, and it consumes a significant amount of fresh water in the mining process itself.
00:30:38.000Mining companies also use millions of gallons of fresh water, and in one of the driest places on earth, locals are scared of what that will do to their already scarce water supplies.
00:30:50.000And they worry they won't get their fair share of the white gold rush unfolding in their own backyard.
00:30:58.000Don't let them incite us, because we know when to get up.
00:31:05.000So, 2.2 million liters of water are needed to produce one ton of lithium.
00:31:11.000That's 21 million liters, just to give you an idea, per day, on average.
00:31:15.00021 million eco-friendly liters per day.
00:31:37.000I'm just, I'm using those as the premises here for the arguments that the left is making, these politicians are making, to try and force you to lithium cobalt batteries.
00:31:46.000All right, this should be pretty concerning.
00:31:49.000Because the largest lithium mines, they're smack dab in the middle of the desert where water is already hard to come by.
00:31:55.000Which brings us to another problem, where a lot of the lithium needs to be mined.
00:31:59.000So, another major source of lithium is in Afghanistan, which is, some would argue, a
00:32:07.000distinctly non-eco-conscious country under the control of a particularly non-eco-conscious
00:32:27.000The United States government estimates that the amount of lithium in Afghanistan could even rival that of the lithium triangle that we just mentioned there in South America.
00:32:37.000A lot of lithium comes from remote deserts with no water, from a failed state controlled by radical warlords who, by the way, even worse, are rumored in some instances to also be transphobic.
00:32:53.000And another little hiccup here, I don't know if you know this, they don't build Teslas in Afghanistan.
00:32:59.000So there's the matter of getting all of this shipped to a country with processing and manufacturing facilities where, you know, hopefully they don't burn people alive in cages because of a speech impediment.
00:33:11.000Now, this brings us finally to the fact that there isn't enough lithium to meet the coming demand.
00:33:43.000It's mined from pits, trenches, using tools like shovels, pickaxes, rebar, and of course the process involves this toxic dumping.
00:33:52.000It's ruining some landscapes, soil fertility, water quality, killing off fish from some rivers that serve as a major source of food for local populations.
00:34:00.000When we talk about cobalt, most of our cobalt resources, around 60% according to estimates, are concentrated In mines in Central Africa, specifically the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
00:34:14.000Now, I need to be clear about something here.
00:34:16.000I'm using the term Democratic Republic kind of loosely.
00:35:37.000Their wages are typically less than $2 a day.
00:35:40.000It's been reported repeatedly that children working these mines are drugged to dull their hunger, they're starved if they don't collect enough cobalt, they're often beaten and extorted by soldiers dispatched by the government, but they have weekends off and they are their own boss.
00:36:29.000I believe they're technically, depending on the list that you use, if it's a pound-for-pound list, but you know, the point is, they're bad.
00:36:36.000So when you talk about protesting GAP because of sweatshops, and then you say buy EVs, it's not even close.
00:36:43.000Because you're dealing with these rare earth minerals that need to be mined in ways that are impossible to do without, largely to meet the demand, slave labor of children.
00:36:53.000Luckily, Hollywood has picked up a story and is going to be bringing awareness to the masses.
00:36:57.000It's the hard knock life for us. It's the hard knock life for us.
00:37:42.000China now accounts for over 70% of global EV battery production capacity, and with over 20 years of consistent commitment to African nations, it has placed itself in the right position to access the resources needed to continue this trend, leaving the U.S.
00:37:57.000So, the Chinese government, just to be clear, tiny people but large ambitions.
00:38:03.000So it shouldn't be a surprise that they control 70% of the production worldwide according to researchers of lithium production world 70% of the lithium production worldwide China In 2020, all global companies, to give you an idea, some context here, all global companies combined, they acquired about 6.8 million metric tons of lithium.
00:38:29.000In 2021, Chinese firms alone acquired 6.4 million metric tons of lithium.
00:39:00.000A lot of Africa's lithium projects in countries like Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mali.
00:39:04.000And China is on track right now, as Well, they're on track to get more of it.
00:39:11.000And by the way, they're on the right track, because according to the World Bank, they report that global production is predicted to rise by 965% for lithium, and then about 585% for cobalt by 2050.
00:39:24.000So they've carved out a stronghold in the African mining market, the Chinese government, in exchange for development aid, and this is particularly prevalent, something that you see in Congo.
00:39:36.000Back in 2008, the Democratic Republic of Congo struck a big deal with Beijing.
00:39:42.000China's state-owned firms would build hospitals and roads in return for revenues from copper and cobalt mines.
00:39:49.000Thirteen years on, critics say few of the promised benefits have materialised.
00:40:24.000Let's just call it the old China screw job.
00:40:28.000China acquired a 68% stake in SICO Mines, a copper and cobalt disjoint venture with Congo's state mining operation, I believe it's pronounced Jekamine.
00:40:40.000I don't know how you pronounce it, but you guys, it's a French word I'm pronouncing, but you can correct me to say it the right wrong way in English.
00:40:47.000So China's also unbelievably active with their investments in Zimbabwe, a country with huge resources as it relates to lithium.
00:40:56.000Zimbabwe has been mining lithium for 60 years, and the government estimates that its Chinese-owned Bikita mine, located 300 kilometers south of the capital Harare, has about 11 million metric tons of lithium resources alone.
00:41:09.000In Zimbabwe, there are more than 80 state-owned Chinese enterprises, which have amassed a total of $10.4 billion in investments and contracts in the country from 2005 to 2020.
00:41:22.000has fallen behind, and relations with the nation have been shaky.
00:41:25.000Now I know that some of you are going to say this next part is ethnocentric, but it has nothing to do with the fact that, you know, that these are small Chinese people.
00:41:35.000And everything to do with the fact that they employ slave labor and, you know, as they see their economic boom there in China, total disregard for basic human rights.
00:41:46.000Their domination of these mineral markets is a big problem!
00:42:08.000So, currently, to give you an idea, and this, if you assume that all countries are equal in the way they treat the environment, now of course statistically they're not, The United States relies 100% on imports and secondary scrap materials for its cobalt consumption.
00:42:23.00090? No. 95? Incorrect. 100% on imports and secondary scrap materials for its cobalt consumption.
00:42:31.000China refines 72% of the world's cobalt, while the United States refines 0%. 0%!
00:42:39.000Again, you have to keep in mind that that means these products also, aside from the energy, the incredibly energy intensive process to mining them, to process them, it has to be sent across the ocean to the United States because we refine zero percent.
00:42:56.000So the United States, for example, we have about one main cobalt mine, at least that would be of note, stopped construction in late March 2023.
00:43:18.000And keep in mind, before we even get to transporting it, all of this mineral production, this comes from the country that far and away leads the world in CO2 emissions.
00:44:15.000Number one, and this is also a very important point, because anytime you get to eco-friendly proposals, there's sort of a few issues that you have to deal with.
00:44:23.000Okay, is this actually better for the environment?
00:44:26.000Assuming you believe that the earth is warming to a catastrophic degree, and that we would be able to stop it through government intervention, right?
00:44:33.000Let's assume you believe all those things, okay?
00:44:34.000You have to ask, is it actually better for the environment?
00:44:37.000This being presented as an alternative, is it?
00:44:40.000Then you have to say, is it something that is sustainable?
00:44:42.000And then you have to ask yourselves, okay, what would be the rate-limiting factor to getting this accomplished?
00:44:47.000And that's how you end up, for example, with inefficient solar panels being proposed and wind farms in the United States to replace what they consider non-renewables, but then they can't actually be built or installed, for example, solar panels in the Mojave Desert, due to an endangered insect.
00:45:02.000Because the same environmentalists prevent you from doing exactly what it is they told you you need to do.
00:45:10.000The United States does have vast lithium reserves.
00:45:13.000Now we're just, not cobalt, but lithium.
00:45:15.000Including huge amounts in Maine, California, Nevada.
00:45:18.000So Maine, for example, the Plumbago Mountain has 1.5 billion dollars worth of lithium ore.
00:45:25.000California, the Salton Sea, which is one of the creepiest places on earth, if you've ever been there, contains 500 billion dollars, potentially, of lithium.
00:45:34.000Nevada, the McDermott Caldera, That's on the border with Oregon.
00:45:38.000It contains 1.5 trillion dollars worth of lithium.
00:45:46.000Unfortunately, environmental concerns, now keep in mind, the environmental concerns that come from the same people who demand electric vehicles Which is why we have a demand for lithium and cobalt in the first place end up creating regulations that prevent the United States from ever actually getting their hands on their own lithium.
00:46:08.000So the United States, to give you just a really quick fact, takes 10 years to get a permit.
00:46:12.000You have any idea how much carbon dioxide is going to be released from China in those 10 years?
00:46:17.000And then, of course, you also have a lot of local communities who are completely opposed.
00:46:21.000Like, there are towns, entire towns in Maine that have passed laws preventing nearby mining due to fear of water pollution.
00:46:29.000He said, we need wind turbines, but not on Cape Cod out in front of my house!
00:46:36.000Both Biden, to his credit, and Donald Trump have tried to onshore some lithium mining, but they have had incredibly difficult... they've had an uphill battle to fight.
00:46:45.000So, for example, the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada, it was approved by then-President Trump.
00:46:53.000Okay, so the first answer is regulation from the same people who demand that we use these to artificially manipulate the market to begin with.
00:47:11.000They have made it financially impossible for us to do so at this point.
00:47:15.000And this is where the idea of global enterprises and companies that are too big to fail, who, you know, get to curry favor with governments, right?
00:47:24.000Multi-trillion dollar companies end up creating policies and taking actions that harm you, the American consumer.
00:47:30.000None of this, to be clear, none of this is dictated by the free market.
00:47:33.000So China has made it pretty much impossible to do so.
00:47:35.000So Bryce Crocker, the CEO of Australia's Javar Mining, This is a company, did I say, is it Jevoir?
00:47:52.000This company, they own that, they own that Idaho mine, the rights to that Idaho mine.
00:47:57.000They blamed the cratering cobalt prices caused by developments in China and the Congo.
00:48:02.000So China controls such a huge portion, basically a monopoly on the production, they can make it impossible for other countries to enter the market.
00:48:11.000So considering all this, it's really not a surprise that China is moving to increase the sale of cheap electric vehicles in the United States of America.
00:48:18.000And this presents what you might refer to, you know, The Goldilocks problem that the United States has when it comes to electric vehicles?
00:48:24.000If the United States, for example, wants to rapidly increase production of electric vehicles, can only do so relying on Chinese imports.
00:48:32.000But if the United States moves too slowly, low-cost Chinese EVs, they're going to make their way, like BYD is actually, oh that's right we have a clip, BYD.
00:48:43.000If they do it, if they try and do it fast, the United States, They have to do it through China.
00:48:48.000If they do it slowly, they get devoured by China.
00:48:52.000Companies like BYD, they're going to flood the U.S.
00:49:44.000Let's assume that there was nothing wrong with the mining of lithium and cobalt.
00:49:50.000Let's assume that the Chinese government was honest and they weren't releasing record numbers of carbon emissions into the air.
00:49:56.000Let's assume that it then did not have to be transported to the United States or anywhere else in the Western world because we have a dependency on basically a monopoly that is reinforced by international corporations and the communist Chinese government.
00:50:10.000Let's assume all of that and still believe that EV batteries, good.
00:51:30.000Meaning that the majority of them, the vast majority, if you do the math, 95% are just sitting around somewhere being a pollutant no matter what you try.
00:51:40.000See, we're creative, but that's really more of an arts and craft.
00:52:04.000So there are entire swaths of EVs that have been abandoned in what they call electric vehicle graveyards in China.
00:52:12.000Look, it's like staring into a crystal ball.
00:52:14.000Because it's all a money grab and it's a ridiculous scheme and a Ponzi scheme type situation in China, they just pumped these things out without doing proper market research, without actually seeing if it was viable or not.
00:52:26.000And so the end result is fields and fields of thousands of hundreds of thousands of abandoned vehicles that are now going to rot.
00:54:41.000But as it relates to the environment, as it relates to governments stepping in and punishing you, raising the prices of energy that you need in the name of the environment, it's a lie and they are.
00:55:01.000Okay, the ingredients that are required, these minerals, cobalt, lithium, right, now this of course relies on dirty mining, United States reliance on authoritarian owners of mines, the use of child slave labor, and then these batteries rely...
00:55:14.000Entirely on minerals that are procured through all of these practices that we've discussed.
00:55:19.000Countries run by places like the Taliban, the communist Chinese government that use child slave labor to make inefficient, uneco-friendly vehicles, all so that you can roll down your suburban street in your white guilt-mobile.
00:55:32.000Captain Planet, he's our hero Gonna take pollution down to zero
00:55:39.000So someone tries to tell you, you need to go electric They forced you to go electric into a car with a giant lithium battery.
00:55:51.000By the power of yours combined, he's a dick.
00:55:54.000That's been this installment of Climate Claims.
00:59:18.000Like if I have my phone in the wrong position in my pocket with a bobby pin, I'm gonna look like the Rocketeer?
00:59:26.000The bobby pin punctures the battery in your phone, but I think it'd take a lot to... Well, the back of the phone is supposed to be really strong compared to the front of the phone, right?
00:59:33.000I mean, that guy stabbed it like four times.
01:01:51.000I would say this, if you have to put a finer point on it, the only reason that people are driving these electric vehicles, thinking they're helping the environment, is because they have no worldview, and so they buy everything, hook, line, and sinker, just like they did with COVID.
01:02:02.000So, if you're watching right now, On Rumble, I think we're still on YouTube.
01:02:06.000If you're on YouTube, head on over to Rumble.
01:02:07.000But on Rumble, you click that button below, you can join Mug Club, and you'll just continue watching this seamlessly.
01:02:13.000We're going to do a segment, Would You Rather.
01:02:15.000Right now, you get a copy of my children's book, Beautiful Differences.
01:02:19.000Not a political book, just a love letter to my children.