The Auron MacIntyre Show - 1st Anniversary of the Miracle in Butler ｜ Guest： The Prudentialist ｜ 7⧸14⧸25

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody. How's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy. It's been a year since the miracle in Butler and a lot of people won't like that phrasing, but it is what it is. I think it's very clear that Donald Trump was saved by something that day.

00:00:20.780 And yet, despite this incredible event, we rarely talk about it. We rarely think about its implications. We rarely honor those that did die in that moment. And unfortunately, also, we haven't learned much about the people involved. Donald Trump had multiple people try to assassinate him.

00:00:40.660 And to this day, we hear very little about the motivations or where these people came from, why the security detail was not up to snuff for Trump. Very little looking into that by the administration so far. Wanted to talk about this on the one year anniversary. Also, Donald Trump is looking at possibly sending more weapons to Ukraine, despite many people hoping that we would be winding that war down as soon as possible.

00:01:08.800 And the New York Times has just admitted that they now have evidence of what pretty much everyone knew, that Joe Biden did not sign his own pardons, that in many cases he did not even evaluate the people to be pardoned. And this brings in the question, are those pardons in any way eligible? Like, are these legitimate? Would they actually hold up if they were put under scrutiny? Joining me to talk about all that today is everyone's favorite frog, the Prudentialist. Thank you so much for coming on, man.

00:01:37.960 Thank you again for having me on, Orrin. It's always a pleasure.

00:01:41.720 Absolutely. So let's just go with the anniversary stuff first. Like I said, I, like a lot of people, found out about this live. I was actually just leaving church that day and checked social media and saw that Donald Trump had been shot at, did not know at first what had happened, had he survived, what was going on.

00:02:04.820 Remember a lot of people around the church, you know, also simultaneously finding out they hadn't made any kind of announcement, but it's a large service.

00:02:12.580 And we just so, you know, we kind of heard the pockets of discussion as each person started to find out what was going on.

00:02:19.180 A lot of people very concerned about whether the president had survived in these things.

00:02:23.340 And as the events unfolded, we learned that Donald Trump had very narrowly escaped death, had of course been hit in the ear by a bullet that otherwise would have exploded his head on live television.

00:02:35.920 And the fact that he had survived this simply because he had tilted his head very slightly when looking at an immigration chart, I think it is a miracle.

00:02:46.620 I know that's a lot of people are going to dislike that language, but I think the world is as enchanted as you want it to be.

00:02:53.880 If you want to look for some kind of explanation for everything that's completely materialistic, you can do that.

00:03:00.520 Yeah, I just happened to get lucky at just this moment with just this tilt to the head.

00:03:05.420 Okay.

00:03:05.820 But for me, especially at the distance, the shot took place.

00:03:10.440 That is quite an amazing thing.

00:03:13.140 I think, though, we often don't also talk about Corey Compitor enough, somebody who went out of his way when he heard these bullets flying to put himself between his family and those bullets.

00:03:26.420 And tragically, he did not, was not spared this end.

00:03:31.420 But he did go down, you know, doing something that I think is incredibly virtuous, incredibly worthy, incredibly masculine and something that deserves to be honored on a regular basis.

00:03:44.740 So I just wanted to remind people that, you know, these are stories that are still incredibly powerful and relevant, even though our news cycle moves so fast that we barely talk about these things anymore.

00:03:56.040 But Prudentialist, what are your thoughts on this one year anniversary of, you know, the missed the missed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania?

00:04:06.460 Yeah, like you, I was also getting out of church.

00:04:09.440 I was having dinner with some friends and then all of a sudden someone's like, the president's been shot.

00:04:13.940 And we all usually have like a no phones rule, but we all went for our phones to find out what had gone on and found out just the same way.

00:04:19.860 I think millions of Americans did that day.

00:04:22.080 And just like what we found out in the weeks that followed what happened a year ago, even to today, we still have little understanding of what took place.

00:04:31.600 It is going to be this wasn't even the only time that the president had faced attempted assassination.

00:04:37.040 And you're right.

00:04:37.960 It was divine providence.

00:04:39.940 It was something that had allowed him to look and turn his head at the right time to narrowly avoid probably whatever the assassin had wanted, whether it's whatever, whoever the parties or conspirators involved may have been.

00:04:53.680 The goal was to have Donald Trump's head explode on live television for millions of people to see and to demoralize and to strike fear in the hearts of every American that supported him or had ideas that were similar to what Trump purports to stand for, which is making America great again.

00:05:08.160 So, you know, thankfully that that didn't take place.

00:05:11.220 And we're here today now in the second Trump administration having conversations about anti-white policy and being the cause for sanctions and talking about mass deportation.

00:05:20.160 So, I mean, we would not have this had any of those assassins been successful.

00:05:24.280 And again, we're very grateful for that, whatever history may provide for us coming down the line.

00:05:29.880 But overall, right, it's we're not going to know.

00:05:32.280 I don't think we'll ever get the true history of things.

00:05:34.520 And just like what happened a year ago, I've had this conversation with other commentators and writers where if you were to ask someone our age or older, you know, what are the famous photographs of the 21st century?

00:05:48.200 You have a pretty fine line where you can kind of tell, well, these will be famous photos like 9-11 or even in 2013 with that small Turkish or Syrian infant that had drowned off of Turkey.

00:06:00.160 But even then, we are camera phones are everywhere. Smartphones come with three or five different cameras nowadays.

00:06:05.860 So the value of a historical photograph like the one where Trump's bleeding out of his ear and he's raising his fist telling you to fight that kind of went and just became another photo of the Trump administration or the Trump phenomenon that has been now over a decade since he announced his candidacy coming down the elevator just earlier last month.

00:06:24.440 And so it really does come to show that, you know, these things happened.

00:06:27.860 They're very historical and that because of how fast our social media and our information comes to us now through our technology, we kind of pass over the historical or political significance of these events, whether it's Trump's survival or the loss of Corey Campatore's life.

00:06:44.520 Yeah, and I think you make a good point, something that it's easy.

00:06:49.600 A lot of people are angry with Trump right now, understandably.

00:06:52.400 I think there have been some decisions recently that should have questions put to them.

00:06:59.040 But it is important to remember how much worse this timeline could be, right?

00:07:03.080 That, you know, we very easily could have been in a truly horrific position, you know, possible civil war, most certainly a Kamala Harris presidency or something equivalent.

00:07:18.200 And so just extremely important to remember that just, you know, for the slight turn of a head, the entire world could be very different.

00:07:27.000 And I wonder, you know, in retrospect, we'll get to the how quickly everyone's moved on in a moment, because I think that is a very important discussion to have as well.

00:07:36.220 But, you know, in hindsight, I remember as soon as Trump got hit, you know, that visceral, you know, him standing up, pumping his fist, fight, fight, fight, the blood pouring from his ear, defiantly pushing back against Secret Service as they tried to haul him off stage.

00:07:52.160 In that moment, of course, you know, it was all about glad he survived and, you know, feeling terrible for Compator's family and everything that happened there.

00:08:02.680 But a few days later, after, you know, the natural feeling and everything was occurring, you start to, you can't help it, especially if it's your job to work in politics, you start to think about the political ramifications.

00:08:16.020 And I remember at that time, you know, saying very explicitly, now is not a question of whether Trump wins.

00:08:21.400 It's a question of whether or not he gets like a Reagan style landslide, right?

00:08:24.980 If he gets a Nixonian landslide that really cements everything.

00:08:30.640 And it's kind of amazing that for a while, that was not something people believed.

00:08:35.820 After a few months, everyone, they all faded in the background.

00:08:39.440 And it was Kamala Harris's brat. 0.98

00:08:41.360 And, you know, she's got some video with a coconut on the Internet. 0.95

00:08:44.040 So she must be super, you know, she eats Doritos. 1.00

00:08:47.080 And so she's suddenly the social media star.

00:08:49.540 There really was this attempt to take this like once in a lifetime event and almost immediately wash it out of the public memory and say, no, actually, this is a viable candidate.

00:08:59.460 Now, I always thought that there was a lot of smoke and mirrors there.

00:09:02.860 I always thought that she was very unpopular.

00:09:05.580 But it really was something that even a lot of conservatives picked up and ran with.

00:09:09.440 It was like this assassination attempt was almost immediately washed out of the public consciousness and replaced with this idea that actually Kamala Harris was a really viable candidate.

00:09:21.100 Obviously, what ended up happening is that Donald Trump completely trounced her.

00:09:25.740 We saw a large mandate, not a Nixonian second term or a Reagan second term win, but still a very substantial one, much more than any Republican has received basically in my lifetime, my adult lifetime for sure.

00:09:43.740 And so ultimately it was clear, but but that Trump was winning.

00:09:49.360 But how much of that win do you think can be attributed to the events in Butler and how much of it was just, you know, Kamala Harris was already terrible and Trump was already going to win anyway?

00:10:00.020 Well, it certainly gave the Trump campaign a great optical you couldn't ask for a more theatrical style third act comeback for a main character.

00:10:11.780 And in fact, our mutual friend, more guts review had kind of written this piece after the election of Trump, where it was like only Trump can embody this like echo of the 80s action star and the third act comeback.

00:10:24.960 And because he was he's the living embodiment of that sort of 80s American capital and chauvinism and just that swagger that came with that decade.

00:10:33.720 And now we get to kind of live that third act, so to speak.

00:10:36.700 But also on top of that, I mean, we found out after the election that according to the Harris, as well as the Trump campaigns from internal polling, that there wasn't a single poll where Harris came out on top.

00:10:47.260 You already had, I think, Trump more or less cemented in a good position after the first debate with Biden.

00:10:53.360 And then you take a famously unpopular Democratic candidate by, you know, Vice President Kamala Harris didn't poll above one percent during any time in the 2020 primary.

00:11:03.920 She was brought on board because she was literally a diversity hire and because Biden needed to win Jim Clyburn support in the South Carolina primary by promising he'd have a woman of color as his vice presidential pick. 1.00

00:11:15.720 And so while Butler, for us, I think on the base kind of cemented that there was no greater avatar of middle American radicals like what Sam Francis would write about, even though he's not a middle American at all.

00:11:29.440 So Butler really just came to conclude that, like, no, if there was any, even if you're not a believer, like the divine right of kings or divine providence or whatever, there was no greater sign right then and there to say, all right, this man is in charge of the movement.

00:11:42.580 This man is in charge of the Republican Party.

00:11:44.600 And this miraculous event more or less cemented that in the public consciousness.

00:11:49.700 And I think whoever was going to vote for him just wanted to scream harder and vote for him more if they could.

00:11:55.420 So I don't know how much of it contributes to the election, but it certainly contributes to the aura that this was a man.

00:12:01.580 And I mean, even Trump said it just days after Butler going to the RNC to take on the nomination officially that, you know, he had been spared by God.

00:12:08.160 Whether you believe that or not, it's a whole other story, but I mean, it does issue the optics there that this is the man that has been chosen by factors beyond human control.

00:12:18.320 Now, as you mentioned, obviously, we we seem to go through this.

00:12:23.260 The news cycle seemed to make this irrelevant almost immediately.

00:12:27.020 It was shocking the speed at which this all moved.

00:12:30.760 And a big part of that was the attempted assassins themselves.

00:12:35.160 We know, obviously, as you mentioned, this wasn't the first time that there had been an intention to assassinate Trump.

00:12:41.800 But obviously, getting hit on live television is a very different thing.

00:12:45.800 And, you know, a lot of people looked at Thomas Matthew Crooks.

00:12:49.100 They looked at basically his entire lack of presence online.

00:12:53.660 Very little information was issued about his motivations.

00:12:57.540 The left, of course, immediately is like, well, is a Trump supporter because what else are they going to say?

00:13:02.180 Right. Like, obviously, their people are assassinating people. 0.66

00:13:05.260 They're not going to own that.

00:13:06.940 But there, you know, he had donated to an Act Blue cause at some point, but it wasn't anything serious.

00:13:13.460 Seemed largely apolitical in some ways.

00:13:16.420 His parents eventually reported that they had had concern about his mental health.

00:13:20.780 But, you know, nothing significant was was found about, I think, his larger political project.

00:13:26.020 And obviously, the circumstances around the assassination, the fact that he was allowed to get on a roof so very close that it seemed that the Secret Service was relatively incurious about a guy, you know, crawling around on a building very close to the president during that time, that his details seem woefully unprepared for this kind of situation.

00:13:51.700 They weren't even, you know, we could we sorry, we can't clear the roof because it's.

00:13:56.020 Got an angle on it, you know, like just insane justifications for this.

00:14:01.480 You know, you think back to the assassination of Kennedy and obviously this is a successful assassination. 0.87

00:14:07.800 So it's going to hold on to the public imagination more.

00:14:10.820 But, you know, that has been something that people have been obsessed about for years and years and years and years.

00:14:16.440 And it has been such a huge part to this day.

00:14:19.640 People want to see all of the Kennedy assassination files.

00:14:22.700 And yet we hear almost nothing about the fact that, you know, the Secret Service seemed to put little to no effort into actually securing the most important candidate, opposition candidate of that moment.

00:14:36.420 That we know very little about the shooter.

00:14:39.040 We also know very little about Ryan Routh and who who attempted to ambush Trump later on on the golf course.

00:14:46.280 It just seems that the American public is very incurious about these events.

00:14:51.920 And the question is, has something shifted in the American psyche where like violence against the president just isn't as big a deal or is it really the media?

00:15:02.580 The fact that the media does not feed this and without the media feeding the constant attention, Americans will just go wherever they won't focus on it no matter what happened.

00:15:11.240 Well, you know, it's funny, as soon as we started talking about this, the Republican Study Committee apparently is hosting some kind of press conference on, you know, the anniversary of the Butler shooting.

00:15:21.820 We'll see if we'll see if they have anything to say.

00:15:24.320 Maybe hopefully some breaking news there.

00:15:25.780 Yeah, maybe maybe.

00:15:26.340 Maybe.

00:15:28.380 But I'm not holding my breath if they're going to tell me anything new.

00:15:31.140 So just just like with other big political events, things usually get kicked to Congress or some committee or some investigation or a commission, and then we're buried left trying to dig through whatever report Congress produces and things like that.

00:15:43.660 I mean, for JFK, you know, it's the Warren Commission for the 9-11 attacks.

00:15:48.920 It's the 9-11 Commission report where people are still questioning and talking about stuff to this day.

00:15:53.140 I mean, we've become so partisan, and also it's just because there's no collective American sense of Americanism.

00:16:02.620 There's no American identity that really holds the country together anymore, like even 9-11 or with the JFK assassination.

00:16:09.820 There's no greater understanding of like, oh, well, you know, I didn't vote for Kennedy or I was going to vote for Goldwater in 64 against Kennedy, but he's still the president and I still respect him.

00:16:20.740 And it's the same thing with 9-11, even though, you know, the country was still different then.

00:16:24.280 Like that was an attack on American soil, something that we hadn't really seen since Pearl Harbor in 1941.

00:16:30.040 And so now all of a sudden you're like, well, what do we do?

00:16:32.600 And of course, America has been radicalized by a facilitated invasion, both through legal means of various immigration laws, as well as the Biden administration and others just shipping random third world, you know, nationals into middle America. 0.53

00:16:47.620 Or, you know, the open migrant invasion that Biden ushered in in hopes to sort of permanently demographically suppress the country and, you know, stop Trump from winning or stop Trump from getting anything done.

00:16:59.040 And so it's hard to say like, oh, well, why aren't we covering this more often?

00:17:03.060 Why isn't this a big deal?

00:17:04.420 And you have a media institution, an apparatus of government, partisans, activists and the rest.

00:17:10.680 I mean, this is, of course, all with the violence that happened in 2020.

00:17:13.920 This is everything on top of the fact that the entire world had declared since he went down that escalator a little over 10 years ago that this man is somehow a, you know, New York reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, despite the fact that, you know, his closest friends and advisors are all individuals of Jewish background.

00:17:34.260 And he was a real estate guy, not a politician or a war veteran or anything like that.

00:17:38.340 And we decided, you know, that the anti-fascist state was going to be all on board.

00:17:42.620 And so, yeah, anything to stop, you know, the second coming of this great 20th century devil.

00:17:48.340 And you and I have kind of read, you know, the works of Renaud Camus and how, you know, the great replacements become a thing.

00:17:55.400 And that's heavily implicated in that is that anti-fascism.

00:17:58.480 So, yeah, we're not going to cover it.

00:18:00.200 Why would they cover it?

00:18:01.120 They engage in the delight of hurting people that vote for him.

00:18:05.600 They want things to be that way.

00:18:07.340 We've seen the worst kind of Democratic spokesperson.

00:18:10.180 I mean, let's keep in mind that their idea of winning young men back is to have people like Destiny and Hassan on their side.

00:18:16.780 And they're celebrating the death of girls who had drowned tragically in Kerrville, Texas, due to natural disaster. 0.52

00:18:22.980 So, of course, they're not going to cover this and treat this like a great American tragedy because to the progressives, to the left, to their ethnic voting box, the representation of white Americans is worthy to be destroyed. 0.66

00:18:36.680 And they cheer it on.

00:18:37.700 So, of course, it's not going to have the same coverage as national tragedies and events of the past because there is no collective American sense of identity where all of us can come together and be like, this is a great, important event that we should take stock of.

00:18:50.840 Well, and, you know, many people find this cynical, but I think that, you know, being people who assess politics and the flow of power, these are questions that have to be asked.

00:19:05.680 Obviously, when the Democrats had something like January 6th, they leveraged it as hard as possible to eliminate their political enemies, right?

00:19:14.320 They, a bunch of MAGA grandmas walked around, you know, a building and, you know, we were ushered inside, stayed inside velvet ropes, you know, that kind of thing, took some pictures.

00:19:27.860 And that was used to chase down, you know, purge the American military and get rid of all of these, you know, different groups, different organizations on the right, you know, prosecute people, hunt down, you know, basically just a blank chat for all of the administration's enemies.

00:19:45.500 If there was any way they could make their lives hell, they did, right?

00:19:49.260 They used this as a casus bell against basically all of the right.

00:19:54.880 Now, you would think that a presidential assassination would be a pretty good excuse to do the same thing, right?

00:20:01.260 You can order commissions, you can do inquiries, you can subpoena people, you can look for connections.

00:20:09.260 Hey, this guy was inspired by Antifa, this guy was inspired by this ideology, you can start getting names, you can start getting roll calls, you can start going after these people in a very real way.

00:20:22.340 And yet we have not seen any of this for the Trump administration.

00:20:25.460 Now, currently, obviously, the Trump administration is having a lot of problems where we promise we're not going to spend a lot of time on this.

00:20:34.880 But, yeah, the Epstein files has really grasped a lot of the conservative conversation, what's going on.

00:20:42.120 And the Trump administration's excuse to not really addressing that stuff has been more or less, well, the DOJ is really busy, right?

00:20:49.080 We're really busy working on all these other cases and the FBI has to go after real stuff.

00:20:53.060 And so we just don't have time to chase down all of this, you know, all of this Epstein stuff and figure it out.

00:21:00.240 And, you know, there would probably be a lot, I'd be more receptive to that explanation if we were rolling up Democrat, you know, organizations left and right.

00:21:09.380 If we were booking thousands of Antifa violent rioters and protesters and organizers, if we were defunding and stripping away credentials and disbarring people and having them lose medical licenses and professional licenses,

00:21:25.740 if they were in any way involved in any of the organizations that ultimately helped to fuel the ideology of shooters.

00:21:32.660 If we were doing these kinds of things with our time, I'd say, OK, you know, I don't like that this is getting pushed to the side.

00:21:40.020 But look at the Trump administration just throwing our enemies in jail for, you know, for or destroying their organizations that helped to create this really violent attack against the president.

00:21:52.060 And this air of, you know, being able to take shots at the president in a very literal sense.

00:21:58.920 If there was more of that, then I'd be more persuaded on the idea that the DOJ is too busy to mess with the Epstein stuff.

00:22:06.340 But we haven't seen any of this leverage.

00:22:08.860 Do you think this is just because the Trump administration generally just has goodwill towards these people?

00:22:14.440 They don't want to see it be seen abusing power.

00:22:18.080 They just haven't gotten it together yet or these things are coming.

00:22:21.020 What are your thoughts on why the right has not used this very obvious attack against the American way of life and the political norms inside our society to roll up their enemies in the way that the Democrats have?

00:22:36.900 Well, I think a lot of it does have to do with just how power is wielded.

00:22:42.260 I mean, yeah, I think a good example of this would be like all the work that Christopher Ruffo has done with some doctor who had blown the whistle on a lot of transgender child mutilation stuff that has happened.

00:22:55.180 I think it was in Texas.

00:22:56.540 And at no point in time has Governor Greg Abbott stepped in to try and clear him or to provide political cover or coverage on any of these issues.

00:23:04.000 And if you're doing these in red states, that should be like this is a basic culture war victory 101.

00:23:08.440 And it like gives red meat to my base because oftentimes, you know, red state governors will do a lot of things that the base likes and then a lot of things that they don't.

00:23:17.120 I mean, Abbott's a really good example of this.

00:23:19.240 But even on top of that, you know, you've got for the Epstein stuff, regardless of whatever your position might be on that issue.

00:23:26.660 Number one, it is a very, very bad PR 101 screw up.

00:23:31.900 You do not go back a couple of months ago where Pam Bondi is talking about the thousands of hours of footage, all the files.

00:23:39.640 I've got the list and we're going to invite all these conservative influencers to talk about that.

00:23:44.160 And this isn't to denigrate the influencers.

00:23:46.160 I would take an opportunity if someone at the White House was like, hey, do you want to come on board and talk about this like a major story and break it to your audience?

00:23:53.500 Yeah, I would say take that in a heartbeat.

00:23:54.700 My my froggy self would be right up there right now.

00:23:57.940 But, you know, you can't go from there.

00:23:59.860 And then to say he did kill himself, we have no client list and we're not doing this, despite the fact that Epstein died during the first Trump administration and got Alex Acosta in trouble.

00:24:11.780 And we had to go back into his history back when he was in Florida in 2007, 2008, when they had to have charges dropped against Jeffrey Epstein with allegations of trafficking and the rest.

00:24:20.880 So major PR screw up, number one.

00:24:23.220 And then, like you had said, number two, I would probably be I'm still upset about it.

00:24:28.120 But at the same time, I probably would be a lot less upset about that if I don't know, we were opening investigations into Representative Ilhan Omar and the false marriage allegedly to her brother and trying to process on getting all these Somalians out of there. 1.00

00:24:41.120 Meanwhile, another anti-American, anti-Trump Somali guy wants to run for the mayor of Minneapolis in Minnesota.

00:24:47.640 And it's like, oh, interesting how all the people that are ruining Minnesota just happen to not be from Minnesota to begin with.

00:24:53.780 And all of those things are on the board.

00:24:55.900 And, you know, you and I have joked about tanks in Harvard Yard and stuff like that.

00:24:59.640 And it's just like, well, none of that's happened.

00:25:01.140 But we also have to kind of understand, like, yeah, there's no magic wand or poof.

00:25:05.160 Everything that we get is going to be magically granted to us in politics.

00:25:08.320 But when you're scrambling and going back on things that you had said just months ago about one of the greatest areas of political intrigue, foreign influence and foreign intelligence operations not happening just inside the United States, but globally, there's a lot of things that we're not going to know about.

00:25:26.100 I'm sure there's probably cause that maybe we don't want to cause an international scandal or worse, that there is foreign pressure on the American government.

00:25:33.120 And that's also a huge red flag because the American government should be only held and sovereign to the American people, not a foreign nation.

00:25:40.620 But overall, like, you know, if they were doing more, I would appreciate that.

00:25:45.540 But I also have to understand, just like with the first Trump administration, everything is stacked against them.

00:25:50.460 But it does put a lot of questions of confidence and competence into who Trump has at these positions of power.

00:25:58.800 So speaking of kind of promises that Trump has made, you know, when he was on the campaign trail, Trump said repeatedly, you know, I'll have a deal done the first day I'm in.

00:26:09.660 The Ukraine war will be over.

00:26:11.040 You know, the Russia, Ukraine, your war would have never happened if I had been in charge. 0.71

00:26:15.580 And as soon as I'm back in charge, I'm going to clean this out immediately.

00:26:18.900 Now, Trump obviously is very bombastic.

00:26:21.740 He makes a lot of, you know, hyperbolic claims.

00:26:24.320 I don't think anyone really believed day one he was going to immediately just make a phone call and end this thing.

00:26:29.860 But obviously, his rhetoric gave you a general sense that we were moving towards the end of this war.

00:26:35.180 And let's be honest, the war only exists because the United States is funding Ukraine.

00:26:40.040 There's a functionally a proxy war between the United States and other NATO partners and Russia using every man in Ukraine as long as they can.

00:26:50.400 And so as difficult as it would be, ultimately, I think for these guys to kind of take a lump on this one.

00:26:57.120 If the United States simply walked away and said we are no longer funding Ukraine and the chips are going to fall where they may, then the war would end itself more or less.

00:27:07.160 Russia would probably win, take a decent amount of what it wanted, and then we would move forward. 0.95

00:27:12.880 That's, again, a not ideal outcome.

00:27:14.860 It's not like I'm pro-Putin in any way.

00:27:17.180 But those are just the realities on the ground.

00:27:19.600 You know, Russia may not have had the easy time it would have wanted in Ukraine, but it also is very clearly, I think, winning that war decisively, even despite having to face down the funding of a large amount of the Western world.

00:27:32.940 And in the process, we have sent a lot of our munitions to Ukraine.

00:27:38.600 Like many other countries, we have delved dangerously deep into stockpiles of limited resources in order to continue to use, you know, because it, well, as Lindsey Graham would say, as long as, you know, we're killing Russians with, you know, they can kill Russians with our ammunition all day long. 0.66

00:27:54.000 And we end up in the scenario where Trump is now saying he's going to have to send the Patriot batteries to Ukraine.

00:28:05.980 You know, these are not just completely defensive weapon systems.

00:28:09.300 You know, they're offensive weapon systems.

00:28:12.180 And so we have the scenario where Trump, you know, said we were getting out of this war.

00:28:17.580 Obviously, we had the strike in Iran, which is its own animal, and we're continuing to fund Ukraine. 1.00

00:28:23.760 Now, a lot of people pointed out, and I think there's a lot of truth to this, that ultimately Trump wants to be in a position to negotiate with Putin.

00:28:30.740 And much like Iran trying to get a bomb so that it can, you know, not so that it can fire it at the U.S. because it could in any way, but so that it can have that threshold potential in order to put itself in a better position in the negotiating table and force people negotiating table.

00:28:46.720 It feels like Trump is basically sending these weapon systems not because he ultimately believes that Ukraine is going to use them to win the war, but that this will somehow give him a better negotiating position with Putin, who otherwise seems resistant to making a deal.

00:28:59.940 So, you know, as somebody who focuses a little more on geopolitics and international relations, what do you think the move is here?

00:29:07.620 Is this Trump doubling down on the war in Ukraine?

00:29:09.940 Is he looking for a continued and extended conflict in this area?

00:29:15.340 Is he going to maintain the status quo?

00:29:17.140 Or is this, you know, a 40 chess move to set himself up to actually do the deal he wants to get done?

00:29:23.580 Well, there's a lot of pressures, I think, on the Trump administration to maintain a presence in Ukraine.

00:29:29.720 I mean, not just the neoconservative or Ukrainian lobby that wants to keep this war going, either A, in perpetuity, or B, or until Russia is completely repelled out of pre-2014, you know, to return to that, you know, pre-2014 territorial border and the political borders that existed then.

00:29:50.000 But also that you have European allies that are greatly concerned.

00:29:53.560 I mean, as soon as Trump had gotten to office or taken on this de facto role that he was going to be the guy to win the Republican nomination, I mean, it was Britain and France that talked about trying to do things on their own, or at least act as some sort of political and strategic tripwire to keep the United States involved.

00:30:10.600 And, of course, there's the looming Article 5 question.

00:30:13.920 But at the end of the day, let's not kid ourselves.

00:30:17.080 I mean, the United States doesn't actually completely control Ukraine.

00:30:22.220 You know, during the course of this conflict, there had been talks between then Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the Russian Ministry of Defense and Foreign Minister about what had been going on, sort of trying to talk to each other about, you know, was this something that you guys signed off on?

00:30:37.980 Was this the Ukrainians doing? 1.00

00:30:39.180 And despite attempts to negotiate or offer ceasefires and have peace talks, either Zelensky would not go or Putin wouldn't acknowledge it or the United States would be pursuing terms that neither party really liked.

00:30:51.460 And that even while you're negotiating, as we see in conflict and as we see during all these, you know, they're called like rational choice theories or the bargaining model of war, that even while you're negotiating, you're still going to pursue and maneuvers that are going to put you in a strategically advantageous position and thus in a diplomatically advantageous position because you now have more tactical leverage over the battlefield and thus the negotiating table.

00:31:15.140 Both Russia and Ukraine have been going at each other's throats. There still hasn't really been any stop to the conflict. There's been an increase in air attacks. There's been an increase in drone usage.

00:31:24.860 And that, of course, drags in countries like Turkey and Iran and China and North Korea now for munitions and the rest of things like that.

00:31:32.680 So trying to end this also means it's not just the Russians we're dealing with here. It's also the Ukrainians and it's also the nations that I had just mentioned that want to be involved or have a, you know, leverage at the negotiating table.

00:31:43.960 And with our European partners as well. I mean, you know, the Trump had announced with the new secretary of NATO about what they're going to do in a press conference in the White House just the other day, and that we're selling upwards of about $10 billion of equipment is what I had read.

00:31:59.440 And it's a sale and it's meant to, you know, say that this isn't the United States doing it directly.

00:32:05.060 So you're trying to give yourself that strategic and political distance from your own actions, even though you're openly supporting this military power in this conflict.

00:32:13.140 It's difficult because at the same time, you know, there had been discussions that Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War, as Trump likes to now call them, you know, Pete Hesketh and Marco Rubio had been doing these reviews about munitions.

00:32:25.520 But the main question is still at the end of the day, like, how can we replace these things?

00:32:29.220 We're still not producing as much of our own munitions and we're selling a lot of surplus that we might need in another conflict or anything that we might want to pursue for our own defense capability.

00:32:40.000 It puts us, I think, in a strategically precarious position, but also that, you know, Trump has tried his best to negotiate over the last five months and has tried probably talking behind the scenes as well during the campaign trail.

00:32:52.320 Nothing has managed to successfully come to a conclusive piece in that area in the same way that there really hasn't been a conclusive piece to what's been going on in Gaza or in the Strait of Wormuz with Iran either.

00:33:02.860 So, you know, you're going to have to pursue the pressure.

00:33:06.060 And if that means sending more offensive or defensive armaments, that's a very blurred, fine line between that term, that you're going to have to deal with the fact that, OK, we haven't been able to get any of these guys to come to the negotiating table, get a managed settlement.

00:33:20.220 So we have to continue to pursue all options available on the battlefield.

00:33:24.920 Does that come with risk of escalation?

00:33:26.500 Yes.

00:33:26.920 But so far, all parties involved are still talking to each other.

00:33:30.140 It's really concerning when they stop talking to each other diplomatically or even behind the scenes through back channels.

00:33:36.060 And so far, that hasn't happened yet.

00:33:37.620 So at least in my perspective, probably not what Trump had wanted to do to get the war to end.

00:33:43.360 But I think that he has tried to pursue peace at every available option, at least publicly speaking.

00:33:48.160 And now to be doing this, yeah, I'm sure it does irritate a lot of the anti-war, the anti-Ukraine crowd inside of his base or inside of Congress.

00:33:55.440 But at the same time, it's not like Russia is a particularly strong ally of the United States either.

00:34:01.560 And, you know, the United States has unfortunately gotten itself involved with two very corrupt Eastern European powers, one of which we've been playing, you know, what's been known as the great game between either England or now the United States and Russia for centuries.

00:34:14.140 And this conflict is going to continue to see itself out until it's a logical conclusion on the battlefield.

00:34:20.840 But hopefully this renewed pressure does bring parties back to the negotiating table.

00:34:25.120 But only time will tell.

00:34:27.640 Is there any scenario where the United States simply walks away from this, says, look, if we stop funding Ukraine, then whatever happens, happens?

00:34:35.700 Or does it need to be a deal?

00:34:37.180 You have to get the peace treaty.

00:34:38.780 You have to work out things from all sides.

00:34:41.160 I mean, I know ultimately that's ideal.

00:34:44.020 You secure a certain level of global stability and, you know, you save a certain amount of face, makes it clear that you're still a major player that everyone has to bend the knee to, you know, ultimately sets you up in a situation where trade and other things are much safer without this constant conflict.

00:35:01.540 But is there is there any efficacy to the idea that America just stops the funding and walks away?

00:35:07.800 Or is that just a political impossibility at this point?

00:35:11.940 Well, I think it's a political impossibility because I don't think Congress would allow it.

00:35:15.560 And they're still, constitutionally speaking, the ones in charge of the purse.

00:35:18.660 I mean, yes, there's a lot of leeway, the executive branch, I mean, since really Eisenhower onward in American history, where the executive branch can kind of do what it wants without really congressional approval, as long as they submit some kind of notice, as we see with authorized use of military force, war powers, the rest, etc.

00:35:35.420 But I mean, there's also the European question in mind.

00:35:39.900 A lot of people see Trump's actions as, you know, either abandoning its sort of security mantle in Europe from the post-war order.

00:35:47.680 There's been a lot of discussion about from the French, as well as from other European leaders about trying to decouple itself from the United States.

00:35:54.460 And typically, that, excuse me, usually means just going closer towards China, which has been what a lot of American pundits and a lot of American security experts, both Republican and otherwise, have said would not be an American interest at all to see one of America's closest trading and security partners now be closer to its greatest geopolitical threat in terms of the economy, as well as its strategic and political influence and infiltration inside the United States.

00:36:19.500 So I don't see a situation where Trump says, you know, we've done everything we can, we're walking away.

00:36:26.300 Also, Trump has threatened this before.

00:36:28.360 I mean, this administration has threatened to sort of walk away from things and let things go where they lay.

00:36:32.200 And they've kind of always come back to it for a variety of reasons.

00:36:35.380 So I don't see it being realistic.

00:36:37.360 I think that personally, Trump probably wants the nice big peace treaty or some kind of negotiated settlement where he can say peace and that I managed to accomplish this in my administration.

00:36:47.440 No other president's done this.

00:36:48.740 But again, I'm I'm not a soothsayer.

00:36:52.040 I have no idea.

00:36:53.360 But to me, I don't see ourselves upping and leaving anytime soon.

00:36:58.700 So obviously, this conflict is a ugly meat grinder, and I don't think that ultimately the Russians want to send their young men into it more than anyone else does. 0.72

00:37:07.760 But is there a level at which this conflict is advantageous for Russia because it's become an Afghanistan of sorts that's just siphoning the munitions and the all these other. 0.58

00:37:19.460 I mean, obviously, Russia would rather just win this war, but it is, you know, in a way, the US was like, haha, we will kill so many Russians without having to put any of our troops on the ground. 0.60

00:37:29.860 What a victory for us.

00:37:30.880 And in a way, it's more like Russia saying, OK, no, you're now trapped with us here.

00:37:35.620 You have to burn all of this money.

00:37:37.700 You have to burn all these munitions, all this political and and military capital is being extended on a regular basis.

00:37:45.260 And we're going to win this inevitably anyway.

00:37:47.100 So we're just grinding your resources and your political will while we move towards inevitable bill, inevitable victory.

00:37:54.960 Is that a possible way that Russia is looking at the conflict now and why they may not be interested in running to the table to get this deal done?

00:38:04.400 Potentially.

00:38:05.320 It was it was funny when the conflict had started or right before the invasion in Ukraine had started.

00:38:10.880 I had said that two things happen, either, you know, the increased presence on the border from America and NATO allies kind of deters Russia from doing anything.

00:38:20.820 Or this conflict turns into something akin to the Syrian civil war, where there's going to be millions of dollars and billions of dollars of weapons pouring in.

00:38:29.520 There's going to be militias and terror groups that will get a hold of this stuff and cause untold damage.

00:38:34.240 And we'll be there for a decade.

00:38:35.520 Now, I hope we're not there for a decade, but so far we've been there now for several years and we've spent billions of dollars trying to train people to give away vital munitions.

00:38:45.820 And of course, there is nothing more advantageous than for our enemies to look at how our munitions interact with their own military equipment, as well as the fact that even we have had to respond to that.

00:38:57.160 I mean, Secretary of Defense Pete Hesketh had already talked about, you know, unleashing America's drone potential because everyone and their mother has now seen hundreds of thousands of people, you know, through footage online that we can all go look up where people are blown away and mutilated and killed almost instantly through, you know, FPV and other drone footage of, you know, just people getting blown up with loitering munitions that they can just drop at will from a long distance.

00:39:23.060 It's not like what we were doing in Afghanistan and Iraq with predator drones, far more different, far more dehumanizing and far more up close and personal.

00:39:30.420 I think that the Russians kind of have benefited from the fact that this wartime economy has kind of allowed them to show off their industrial muscle.

00:39:37.280 They have produced a lot of things domestically, even more neoliberal commentators and The Economist magazine have pointed out that the Russian economy has not suffered the effects that a lot of people thought would from sanctions or trying to cripple them internationally on the world stage.

00:39:51.080 And, of course, we're still watching other countries go and find ways to get around sanctions when it comes to purchasing Russian oil and natural gas, whether it's via India and it being resold at a higher rate back to European countries or even to the United States and others in the Western Hemisphere.

00:40:07.480 So, you know, there's probably a benefit in the Russian calculus where they're like, well, we can throw people in from, you know, the backwater or the former Soviet satellite states or even those from North Korea. 0.63

00:40:17.880 So, you know, we'll throw as many as we can to do this in the same way that I'm sure the Ukrainians are happy to have militias and other groups come in and do these things, which, of course, makes it a hotbed for terrorism and makes whatever kind of peace or ceasefire harder to attain. 0.90

00:40:33.180 Because now people that are on a mission, either to, you know, achieve some ethnic blood feud and accomplish a genocide or whatever, they now all have access to weapons, intelligence and arms dealers.

00:40:45.580 So the that area becoming a terror hotspot in the decades to come doesn't wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

00:40:52.220 So I think peace is going to be harder, but I'm sure it's somewhere in the Russian calculus where they know that they can keep the United States and Western Europe effectively bogged down politically, economically and militarily in this region for several years to come. 0.86

00:41:06.560 So our last topic today is, you know, the fact that the left has the media has been slowly rolling out the fact that.

00:41:15.580 Joe Biden obviously wasn't the president of the United States and this has been, you know, it reminds me very much of the covid stuff where obviously they were lying about the origins of the disease and silencing anyone who had any questions about it.

00:41:32.320 And then over time, when it became clear that the lab leak theory wasn't just crazy or conspiracy theory, but the obvious truth, we got this slow drip of information coming out of liberals.

00:41:45.880 Sources. Well, maybe it was the lab and maybe the wet market thing wasn't real.

00:41:51.300 And eventually we got the full blown New York Times story and it was OK for your aunt who read the New York Times to admit the thing you had known for three years that she had screamed at you for being a conspiracy theorist about.

00:42:03.240 And we're undergoing the same thing, this this like, you know, this disclosure after the fact in an attempt to kind of smooth over and repair the media apparatus and trying to basically stitch the reality back together after they've torn it apart with one side saying, no, everything you see is a lie.

00:42:23.160 And actually, we dictate reality. At some point, they have to kind of like go back and stitch it together and be like, no, we kind of always said this.

00:42:30.540 They've been admitting that that Joe Biden has not been in charge. One of the things that's really been focused on is the use of the auto pen.

00:42:36.260 Obviously, the president has to sign a lot of things, you know, traditionally, the auto pen was thought of this way to like sign birthday cards and proclamations and all the dignitary stuff that the president does that, you know, doesn't have a policy load bearing aspect to it.

00:42:55.140 And you can just churn it out in that way. The president isn't spinning large chunks of his valuable day when he could be governing the nation, signing a bunch of cards for the Boy Scouts of, you know, Tupelo, Mississippi or something.

00:43:08.220 And instead, what it's become is this way for basically the autocracy or I should say the oligarchy to really run the presidency without the president.

00:43:19.540 It gives them the ability to sign his name when he's not cogent or, you know, can't can't be pushed for more than a few hours a day because he's too old to function.

00:43:29.060 And clearly, Joe Biden was in this position quite often, rarely making any serious decisions, often having other members of the administration, lots of speculation, whether Blinken or, you know, Mayorkas or who was really having tons of influence in these scenarios.

00:43:44.940 But it's very clear that the auto pin played a role. And recently, the New York Times confirmed something a lot of people had suspected that Joe Biden had very little control over or involvement in his pardoning process.

00:44:01.760 Rather than having individual names brought to him, for the most part, his staff brought him entire blocks of people under particular criteria.

00:44:11.240 So, OK, well, we might want to write them a pardon because they meet X or Y criteria.

00:44:18.460 He would look at the criteria, say, OK, that looks fine. And then they would go and find the individuals that they were going to pardon.

00:44:25.720 And in many cases, they were signing revisions on the pardon with the auto pin.

00:44:30.740 And so the question, of course, is what is the legitimacy of those pardons?

00:44:35.280 And people had already raised this idea that the pardons may not be legitimate because Joe Biden was not cognitively there.

00:44:45.460 But on top of that, we now have confirmation that he didn't even evaluate individually or sign most of the intermediate paperwork involved in actually preparing and delivering those pardons.

00:44:58.140 And this matters because a number of critical people who were involved in different cover ups, be it COVID or the election, they have been identified as people who were pardoned with this auto pin mechanism.

00:45:14.000 And so especially with Donald Trump recently releasing this post saying, well, we're not going after Epstein or wasting our time on that because we have all this other stuff to do.

00:45:22.700 And one of the main things he pushed was election integrity. The election was stolen and we are going to be going after that.

00:45:28.480 Pam Bondi is going to track these people down. The FBI is going to investigate, you know, and if these pardons don't hold up, if they are actually something you can challenge,

00:45:37.920 then perhaps that means there is more leeway to get some kind of retribution, some actual penalties for the people who abuse the American system.

00:45:47.220 Do you ultimately think that the administration will pursue any of these individuals, that they will try to overturn or challenge any of these pardons?

00:45:56.280 Or is all this information just going to be this post hoc rationalization, you know, this disclosure after the fact that kind of takes out the trash and knits the narrative back to reality?

00:46:08.000 But the Trump administration just doesn't take any any shots at it.

00:46:12.620 Well, you had mentioned early on when we had talked about the Epstein files that, you know, you would probably be a little more OK with it if the Trump administration's DOJ was so busy going after its leftist and progressive enemies.

00:46:25.380 Like it would be nice to see RICO, you know, act being read all over for those organizing Antifa or various organizations responsible for helping facilitate, you know, migrants and human trafficking.

00:46:38.400 But we're not seeing that either. So I don't know if anything will come out of this at all.

00:46:41.660 I think that it's very similar to what we had with covid where, oh, what you and I already knew gets confirmed by the media.

00:46:48.560 And then everyone's given this collective, you know, like, oh, hand wave.

00:46:52.640 Like, oh, yeah, it's OK. You know, like you can forget about all this time that had passed.

00:46:55.740 And it's that old American tradition where it's just like, hey, you remember that like terrible thing that we did that you never had proof of?

00:47:01.840 Well, we declassified it. So what are you going to do about it? Huh?

00:47:04.280 And I feel like that's going to be part of this American tradition, because you and I've already talked about, I think, in previous episodes, as well as on Twitter, where you have all these CNN journalists that are trying to rehabilitate Joe Biden and say, like, well, he obviously wasn't.

00:47:19.500 He was obviously non-composmentous. He was obviously not always there.

00:47:22.820 And, you know, we're here to tell you the truth and shine light on it.

00:47:25.600 It's like, OK, you're trying to rehabilitate your image after you've been a sycophant for Biden and the Democrats for as long as I've been alive in longer than that.

00:47:33.860 So why am I to believe you now? Like, you're not sunshine is the best disinfectant.

00:47:38.240 You're here covering your own butt. Like, that's all that you're doing here. 0.99

00:47:41.980 If the Trump administration wants to say and challenge either in court or preferably just say, listen, these were signed with an auto pen.

00:47:49.800 The president of the United States at the time was not mentally competent to do that.

00:47:53.060 And I think even Peter Ducci or however you say his name in the White House press corps had even pointed it out during the last waning days or the early days of the Trump administration.

00:48:02.840 Like, listen, the only one that has an authentic Joe Biden signature is the one that pardons his son.

00:48:09.300 The rest are all in auto pen. Like, what are we going to do about this?

00:48:12.240 I don't think that there was ever really an official answer given.

00:48:15.060 Does this hopefully light a fire under the Trump administration's rear end under the DOJ to do something? 0.52

00:48:20.900 I think it would give Pam Bondi a necessary optical win in the media, especially for conservative media if she said, yeah, we're looking into this and those pardons are probably going to be reneged. 0.99

00:48:31.160 And now we're going to open investigations into Fauci and everyone else that had been done so, because clearly these were illegitimate pardons.

00:48:39.620 And, you know, we have the legal history to prove it until that happens.

00:48:43.340 I feel like this is going to be just like you said with COVID, something where the right wing is affirmed by the mainstream press years later, where nothing is going to happen as a result of consequence.

00:48:54.300 Unfortunately, I think you're right about that. And it's it's very dangerous.

00:49:00.020 You know, I know. You know, we're always saying maybe at some point we'll hit an edge, right at some point we'll hit a limit and people won't take this anymore.

00:49:10.320 And I'm after COVID, sadly, my trust in the American people to actually, you know, have a line that won't be crossed is pretty much gone.

00:49:22.460 You know, I think that people are going to take almost anything that's been handed to them at this point and swallow it.

00:49:28.640 So it's not that I think that tomorrow people are going to wake up and recognize what's going on, but it does just degrade the ability of any Americans to believe that there are political solutions and political participation has any kind of consequence.

00:49:45.320 And that's a really dangerous place to be, I think, ultimately, especially when we're in the position we're in, where you recognize that even if you win this election, you put someone like Trump in charge.

00:49:57.220 Can you actually get any kind of justice? Can you actually get any kind of retribution?

00:50:02.660 Will anyone pay a cost for locking everyone in their homes, getting people killed because they couldn't get cancer treatment?

00:50:09.300 Will anyone pay a cost for shooting at Donald Trump? Will anyone pay a cost for not, you know, not protecting this man?

00:50:16.600 Will anyone pay a cost for these different, you know, all these different things that will will will the Biden administration ever pay the toll for basically, you know, having a coup in the United States and taking over the presidency and putting up a puppet that in no way actually ran the country and then trying to swap them in for another puppet?

00:50:34.080 That, you know, as people see that then that the other shoe never drops, you know, that this is going to constantly, I think, create a huge rift in American society and nothing good happens for the body politic.

00:50:47.900 But sadly, I feel like your assessment is more realistic than than I'd like it to be.

00:50:53.940 So that said, we have a number of questions that people stacking up here.

00:50:58.040 So, Mr. Prudentialist, now that we've ended on this glorious and happy note, where can people find your excellent work?

00:51:04.780 You can find me anywhere where you see this amphibian on screen.

00:51:08.100 I'm on Twitter at Mr. Prudentialist on on Substack, theprudentialist.substack.com, as well as on YouTube.

00:51:13.620 I have a brand new video out called Tweet Me Deadly talking about our media ecosystem and how it affects our ability to be very A-B when it comes to politics.

00:51:22.700 Like, you know, like the Epstein thing is a really good example where we can we can say it's either one thing or the other.

00:51:28.380 And there's no ability for us to discern what's actually going on because we've kind of been programmed to post and we're not really looking into how we can discern actual truth because that's basically been destroyed.

00:51:38.160 And, you know, it's really important, Oren, as you had said, like all of this does is it gives people the illusion that there is no political solution or that it tells people that there is no political solution.

00:51:46.320 And what that gives people is the sense of illusion where they can take matters into their own hands.

00:51:51.340 And we already know that the left has no problem doing that because they've tried killing ICE agents.

00:51:55.360 There were, you know, it was like a trans terror group that killed one in the transition period between Biden and Trump.

00:52:00.800 I think it was in November of last year after the election.

00:52:03.080 We've had people try and shoot up ICE facility raids.

00:52:05.820 We've had makeshift, you know, basically almost not IEDs, but we've had very close things trying to take out ICE vans carrying agents as well as illegal immigrants that they're sending off for deportation.

00:52:15.680 And all of this is really telling the left is that the Trump administration isn't going to do anything about their actions outside of posting some really cringe memes about swiping right on, you know, marriage fraud with ICE.

00:52:27.860 And don't get me wrong, it's good to shut down marriage fraud.

00:52:29.960 But you have to understand that there is an active network of left wing paramilitaries that would love to reenact the days of rage against your administration.

00:52:36.980 And I think that that's really more important than anything we discuss here is, is that for Trump's enemies and by the extension, the enemies of the people that voted for him, that's the that's their mindset that they're under if he doesn't crack down.

00:52:49.600 Yeah. And, you know, while I appreciate the Department of Homeland Security taking one of my memes, you know, it would be nice to see them arresting Antifa members, not just not just posting my internet work.

00:53:01.660 So really hoping that we do see some significant consequences, because if we don't, then, like you said, it really becomes, you know, people, you know, recognize that they have this kind of learned health helplessness, no matter what they vote for, no matter who they're supporting.

00:53:18.720 It's not going to make a difference. And then your question is, like, do you just not care what happens at all?

00:53:23.620 Or do you take actions to your own hands? And as you point out, the left has already done this. It's extremely dangerous.

00:53:28.780 It's not a place you want to be as a country. All right, guys, let's go to the questions of the people here.

00:53:37.020 Manayude says, if there's anything that can be said about what happened in that day in Butler, it proves that God still plays in human affairs and that history hasn't stopped.

00:53:47.900 Trump was shot, but Fukuyama is dead. Yeah, I think that's correct.

00:53:52.000 Again, I know some people will get worked up over the idea that, you know, there's any divine interaction with our affairs, but sorry, there is.

00:54:01.300 And obviously there was there. And I think that that's going to continue to be the case.

00:54:06.380 And you're going to have to work harder and harder to deny that the things you see are somehow influenced by forces beyond your control, whether you like that or not.

00:54:15.400 That's very true. Although for not to do the um, actually or fact check thing, but Fukuyama is still alive.

00:54:21.440 And of course, I know like his book is a meme that a lot of people use, but I would really recommend people actually read it because Fukuyama spends a lot of time talking about the critics of his thesis towards the end of the book.

00:54:32.800 And he's more terrified of the right wing critique of his idea than he is the left wing one.

00:54:38.220 So I'd recommend it. And if you ever get the chance, Warren, you might want to give him a might want to give him a call.

00:54:43.340 Well, the problem is I read, you know, was it liberalism and its discontents?

00:54:49.900 It was so bad.

00:54:51.340 It's it's so so it's everything that people imagine end of history is right.

00:54:55.980 It's the problem is that Fukuyama started as a more complex and nuanced thinker and then became the meme.

00:55:03.560 And so, you know, a lot of people will yell at me, oh, well, that's not what his book says.

00:55:06.520 Not as the book said. OK, but eventually that's what he said.

00:55:09.560 And so, yes, I understand that he was more complex at one point, but now he is just a cartoon.

00:55:15.180 And I'm sorry, but as long as he's going to run around and be the liberal Toby Keith, I'm going to mock him.

00:55:20.440 Right. Like, I'm sorry.

00:55:21.600 As you should. As you should.

00:55:22.640 Yeah. Yeah. So Cripper Weirdo says, are we going to talk about blue and on in depth?

00:55:29.300 Yeah, I know that there are people have, like, tried to brand the left and their conspiracy theories as this thing.

00:55:37.080 And yeah, I'm sure it has some validity.

00:55:39.100 I'm not here to tell you not to, you know, do good propaganda if you can.

00:55:44.320 I just think it has less of an impact because the main way the left sells the idea of conspiracy theories is they control the media outlets.

00:55:51.640 Right. So, like, you are, of course, entirely reasonable to ask questions about Jeffrey Epstein or COVID or any of these things.

00:55:58.380 But the left controls whether or not that has any traction because they just get everyone on their platforms to say, oh, that's crazy.

00:56:08.480 That's crazy. That's crazy.

00:56:09.440 It doesn't work for the right because we don't control enough of the mainstream opinion shaping apparatus to drive that.

00:56:15.320 It's a little less true now than it used to be.

00:56:17.200 You can get a little more traction with that.

00:56:19.360 But trust me, even though your wine aunt on MSNBC has been completely brainwashed into believing the Russiagate scandal and supporting Ukraine and buying into every 19th shot on COVID, none of this will register as a conspiracy theory for them.

00:56:35.200 It's just never going to matter to them that you call them conspiracy theorists, because ultimately the sources that tell them what are right and wrong are telling them that, yes, they are correct to continue to believe in these these lies.

00:56:47.580 And I just don't think that's going to change.

00:56:51.660 Florida Henry says, looking at the numbers, both candidates got below 50 percent.

00:56:56.020 Also, a thousand votes switched.

00:56:59.800 Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Kamala and Waltz would have won the Electoral College.

00:57:07.560 Scary, very scary no mandate.

00:57:10.220 I mean, I'm sorry, like you win if you win every branch, like if you want to run the numbers and find the razor's edge, you can do that.

00:57:18.340 Obviously, Trump won the Electoral College by the most in quite a while for a Republican and actually won the popular vote or, you know, very close, depending, I guess, on how you want to parse this.

00:57:32.400 But ultimately, I think it was a significant win for Trump.

00:57:36.300 And I really don't think it does anyone any good to play that down.

00:57:40.720 It is again, it was not a Nixonian or Reagan like victory.

00:57:45.800 I'm not trying to pretend it was that kind of landslide.

00:57:48.600 But I think calling it a mandate is pretty fair.

00:57:51.040 I don't understand what it gets you to deny that.

00:57:54.360 Yeah, I mean, it's the first time that the Republican won the popular vote since George W.

00:57:58.900 Bush's reelection campaign in 04.

00:58:00.660 But also, I mean, you know, we can split hairs on the voting numbers.

00:58:04.840 The reason why we're never going to have a Nixonian or a Reagan-esque sort of mass landslide where it's like 48 or 49 states go red is because we do not have the demographics of 1972 or 1984 America.

00:58:18.460 If we ever return to those demographics again, then, yeah, those kind of landslides are possible for Republican candidates.

00:58:24.060 But until the tide of that is stemmed and that is lowered, then, you know, we can split hairs like that and it would be justified, in my opinion.

00:58:32.840 But Trump did do something that is politically unseen as a comeback story.

00:58:37.420 So we should at least give him that.

00:58:39.280 Yeah, I get pretty frustrated with people.

00:58:41.480 Like, if you want to look at what Trump's doing right now and be angry at him, by all means, I'm not I'm not going to pretend that's not the case.

00:58:47.380 But guys, don't don't do the you know, the pro-lifers made this mistake with Trump where, you know, oh, he doesn't use exactly the rhetoric I like and therefore I need to completely abandon him and run DeSantis in his place or something else. 0.99

00:59:02.160 And they all just ended up looking really idiotic. 0.97

00:59:04.920 And, you know, Trump got Planned Parenthood funding removed. 0.99

00:59:07.960 He got Roe versus Wade overturned, not by himself, obviously, but he presided over those victories. 0.51

00:59:13.800 He's he's won more victories than all the people who used your rhetoric when when you wanted them to.

00:59:20.940 And I feel like the same thing has happened with some of the right, you know, the online right now.

00:59:24.580 They're like, well, Trump isn't doing everything I ever wanted.

00:59:27.180 And we should criticize him when he doesn't do the right thing.

00:59:30.540 But like, don't just immediately throw the baby out with the bathwater.

00:59:33.780 Don't ignore the accomplishments that Trump has made.

00:59:36.520 I don't don't ignore the fact or rewrite history and pretend like he did not win in a spectacular fashion just because you're currently angry at him. 1.00

00:59:45.560 I just it seems very stupid. 1.00

00:59:48.160 It seems to be cutting off your nose to spite your face. 1.00

00:59:50.480 I just don't understand it.

00:59:53.660 A creepy where it says I ask because it shows that the left really has nothing to attack the right with.

00:59:58.740 We are not as forgiving as we once were.

01:00:01.460 Well, the left certainly doesn't have much to attack the right with right now, though we're doing our best to hand that back to them.

01:00:07.600 But seriously, when you think about it, what is the left doing right now?

01:00:11.380 Where is the left?

01:00:12.600 Right.

01:00:12.960 Like they're desperately hoping we get into some kind of extended war.

01:00:16.800 So they at least have something to talk about, because ultimately all they can do is push like what?

01:00:22.440 You know, defending wife beaters and drug dealers and gang members and pushing some foreign, you know, Africa, India by way of Africa socialist in New York.

01:00:35.820 Like this is what they got.

01:00:37.600 It's no traction.

01:00:38.960 You know, the immigration riots and terrorism in L.A.

01:00:42.900 Like that's that's what they're going to stand on.

01:00:45.140 The left is still floundering at the moment.

01:00:47.480 They still have not found a place to stand.

01:00:49.180 We're working really hard to give it to them, but at this moment, I just don't think they have much.

01:00:53.820 Well, I I'm I'm probably going to disagree.

01:00:56.500 I think that what has kind of come to pass in this instance is that the left, sure, on a national level may not have much to flounder or, you know, put out morbidly obese Mexican women to talk about how to win back young men. 0.91

01:01:08.400 But when we look in the cities and we look in places where they have the the numbers, whether it's in New York or Minneapolis, we're seeing the future of what the Democratic Party is, which is the logical conclusion of, you know, invade the world, invite the world.

01:01:22.640 And we're going to witness a 2025, you know, Africa, a deal play out in virtually every Democratic institution in the United States.

01:01:31.200 Like David Hogg will get kicked out. Yeah, sure, because he's straight, white and male in the same way that you have a lot of podcasters trying to rebuild rehabilitate and try and make sort of this moderating, you know, masculine force of Gavin Newsom something.

01:01:43.120 But at the end of the day, I mean, what we're really kind of witnessing here for like what is the left doing or what are Democrats doing is they still have a variety of institutions that will support them and will happily relent and offer their support.

01:01:54.460 Like people that are considered moderate Democrats have already thrown their support behind the presumptive new mayor, incoming mayor of New York.

01:02:01.740 I'm sure that there'll be a lot of support for the guy running for the mayor of Minneapolis, who's a Somalian.

01:02:06.240 I just think that, you know, they're going to just probably embrace in a very camp of the saints fashion, the people that they've imported as their liberators, as they burn the oak door that their ancestors crafted.

01:02:16.380 It's fair. And you're right that in the cities where the demographics have permanently shifted and they feel that they can fully embrace this third world ism, this hatred of the United States and its people unapologetically.

01:02:30.280 You're right. They are getting bolder in those areas. You wonder if that if that necessarily loses them anything with the remaining American population.

01:02:39.560 Uh, the answer might be, no, it might be that doubling down on this kind of woke ideology, uh, especially when it comes to this third world worldist, you know, derivative, uh, then yeah, it could, it could ultimately be that that is the winning strategy for them.

01:02:54.260 I do wonder if it won't cost them something nationwide, but you're certainly right that in, it is significant that in urban areas where they have this footprint, where they have this stronghold, they do feel emboldened to double down on it and they don't see themselves losing much for it or they don't care.

01:03:11.100 You know?

01:03:12.000 Yeah, I certainly hope I'm wrong on that point, Oren, but so far.

01:03:15.640 Y'all do.

01:03:17.060 Yeah.

01:03:18.540 Philosophical Thirstworm says the DOJ isn't releasing the Epstein files.

01:03:21.600 Sure.

01:03:21.900 Okay.

01:03:22.360 But the DOJ is also not doing anything else.

01:03:25.360 Bondi is on Fox 24 seven, uh, with zero arrests.

01:03:28.800 Yeah.

01:03:29.040 And again, that really is the issue.

01:03:30.780 I would not be okay with the Epstein stuff getting, uh, put under the rug and in any sense, but if you were at least, like I said, like we both said, if you were deporting, if we had, if we were had 10 million deportations on the, on the slate and you know, we were rolling up Antifa cells and we were, you know, defunding everyone.

01:03:51.580 One of the organizations that had ever had any contact, uh, with any of the assassins or, uh, taking a donation from any of these guys.

01:03:59.360 If we were really leveraging all this stuff and Pam Bondi was just putting, you know, left wing terrorists in jail all the time while we airlifted millions of illegals out of here, I'd probably be a little less, you know, preoccupied with whether or not there was any there there for the Epstein files.

01:04:18.020 But since we're getting none of that, it, it, it becomes very obvious very quickly.

01:04:22.680 Yeah.

01:04:22.840 And there was a great thread by, uh, a gentleman, I think he goes by like Tom Brady, T H O M Brady on Twitter, where he says, you know, Pam Bonnie's getting a lot of the flack because she has no PR wins in the way that Stephen Miller or Tom Homan have when it comes to the, the issues that they've placed her in charge of.

01:04:41.360 And so she's getting most of the flack and rightfully so, because the DOJ, while I'm sure it has done a lot of things that would constitute wins, um, it doesn't appear so to the American media and especially to the conservative base.

01:04:52.700 Cause we would be covering them if we thought they were good or she had really racked up something we thought was like a big W, but it does come to show that, you know, we're, we would like to see more happen.

01:05:03.640 I understand it's six months.

01:05:04.920 I understand that, you know, you can't wave a magic wand and undo decades of, you know, what the deep state or whatever, like it is going to be a problem.

01:05:12.500 I do agree, but at the same time, um, a little more aggression would be great.

01:05:16.880 And thirstworm follows up saying, I can understand that Trump doesn't want to lose five Senate votes and his term gets absorbed, absorbed by the Epstein stuff, but Bondi isn't doing anything else.

01:05:28.060 And again, the, I can't help but agree.

01:05:29.680 I, I actually, sorry, I actually basically just made the same case to, to Tom Woods.

01:05:35.620 I was just on his show, uh, you know, and, and I said, look, I, under no circumstances would I be okay with burying the Epstein stuff. 0.87

01:05:42.300 But yeah, I understand why the Trump administration doesn't want this to take, I mean, the likelihood is that releasing this would unspool most of the Western ruling class.

01:05:51.620 And while many of us hearing those words would get very excited, the truth is, if you're a guy like Donald Trump, who really just wanted to close the border and have a good economy, he would recognize that none of that stuff would get done.

01:06:02.280 And this would basically engulf his entire presidency.

01:06:04.480 And does he want to do that?

01:06:05.640 I don't think that justifies anything he's doing, but if you, if you do ultimately make that calculation, then yeah, you got to get some wins on the board, right?

01:06:14.140 Like you have to justify why you are sidestepping this.

01:06:17.780 So we need to see massive wins.

01:06:19.460 And if that's not coming, then the questions become, well, Pam Bondi is not doing anything else and she's not doing this.

01:06:25.040 You know, what are we doing here?

01:06:26.540 Yeah.

01:06:26.960 Agreed.

01:06:28.200 Matt Greer says, I don't like Pam, uh, Pam Bondi, and it's not because of her embarrassing statements on Epstein.

01:06:33.300 I mean, hope this admin will wake up and, and start taking radical action.

01:06:37.120 Yeah.

01:06:37.320 And again, uh, you know, Trump has already doubled down behind Pam Bondi and, uh, you know, I, I think a lot of people aren't happy with that decision, but yeah, then you need to make some, you know, we got to see some deliveries.

01:06:49.520 If, if, if you're not delivering on any front, then you're going to get pushback.

01:06:54.320 And by the way, say what you want about, you know, the administration or MAGA fans.

01:06:59.640 I think this proves once and for all that, you know, the Trump following, the MAGA following is not a cult that it does have principles.

01:07:06.020 It does have goals.

01:07:07.000 It's not just going to shut up every time Trump sells it to shut up.

01:07:10.260 Uh, you know, yes, they're generally loyal to Trump.

01:07:12.880 Yes.

01:07:13.100 They're willing to give him a lot of leeway, but ultimately there is a result that has to occur.

01:07:17.880 And the low, the more we're not seeing that result, the more people are asking questions, uh, the more of the Trump administration delivers, uh, the more good faith it has to say, Hey, we know you want this, but we trust us.

01:07:30.460 We've delivered on these 10 other things.

01:07:32.280 And if this one thing isn't getting a priority, it's for a good reason.

01:07:35.760 I am a little more inclined to listen to that when I've gotten 10 huge wins in a row.

01:07:40.160 But when you're coming to me with not very many wins and saying, just trust the plan.

01:07:45.360 Now I start to wonder.

01:07:46.040 Yeah.

01:07:47.700 And again, if we see more deliveries and the, uh, you know, I know people listen in the administration to your show.

01:07:53.720 I know that plenty of people are tapped in and a lot of our former Twitter mutuals are now working in this administration.

01:07:59.520 I, I know that they want us to have faith in them.

01:08:02.540 And I know that they've kind of, they've, they've earned it in a lot of ways over the years, but at the same time, I think it's really important for them to recognize you taking some actual meaningful action against demographic change.

01:08:14.220 And radical left-wing terrorism that is funded by plenty of people.

01:08:17.740 Like we know the names of the people that did the majority of the funding for the no Kings protests.

01:08:22.640 Like you could investigate them under the DOJ for a variety of reasons.

01:08:26.320 In the same way that Obama had the IRS target conservative groups in the wake of the 2012 election or in the way that, uh, we saw under Joe Biden with January 6th and pro-lifers and everything like that.

01:08:36.600 The, the precedent is there and the tools are at your disposal.

01:08:39.340 Um, you know, we had said this after the, the, the Butler shooting a year ago, you know, like there is a crown in the gutter and your head has been spared by the powers that be to ensure that you can pick that crown up and rule effectively.

01:08:53.160 Um, and as much as I like Tom Homan and Stephen Miller and others in the administration, um, if we had the same zeal that those individuals had in all facets of the executive branch, um, I'm sure that we would have a much different tone.

01:09:05.240 And I think I don't, I can't speak for you, but I think that this is pretty safe to say for both of us that, uh, we want Trump to succeed.

01:09:11.720 We do, but, um, I would like to also make sure that success actually happens.

01:09:17.020 I don't spend all my time becoming emotionally incontinent and railing against Trump because it's not productive.

01:09:22.080 And I think ultimately it's not fair in a lot of levels, but as you point out, victory is its own argument here, right?

01:09:28.180 Like if you guys are stacking W's, you're going to gain my trust on these issues much easier.

01:09:33.240 If you're, if we're, it's always an excuse and we can't quite get this done and we're not quite there yet across the board, I start to get very concerned.

01:09:41.800 So you, you want it, you want to silence the critics.

01:09:44.120 You want to earn the trust.

01:09:45.320 You want me to say, okay, I don't know what's going on here, but you know, these guys have just crushed it over and over again.

01:09:52.080 So I'm going to believe them on this one, or I'm going to give them, you know, some space to figure this one out.

01:09:56.680 You want that guys let's go.

01:09:59.080 Okay.

01:09:59.320 Let's, you know, the rhetoric's cool.

01:10:00.640 The memes are cool.

01:10:01.860 Let's get it done.

01:10:02.660 That that's what people are looking for.

01:10:05.040 Uh, thirstworm finally says a YouTube won't even let me write what I really want to do to Ukraine at this point.

01:10:11.500 All right.

01:10:12.180 Well, thank you very much guys.

01:10:13.480 I appreciate you coming by as always.

01:10:15.900 You should be checking out the Prudentialist stuff.

01:10:17.860 And for some reason you have not done that.

01:10:19.840 You should fix that immediately.

01:10:21.080 If it's your first time on this channel, you need to go ahead and subscribe, click the bell notifications, all that stuff.

01:10:26.400 So, you know, when we go live and if you want to get these broadcasts podcast, you need to subscribe to the ORA McIntyre show on your favorite podcast platform.

01:10:33.860 Thank you everybody for watching.

01:10:34.880 And as always, I will talk to you next time.

01:10:37.440 You

The Auron MacIntyre Show - July 14, 2025

1st Anniversary of the Miracle in Butler ｜ Guest： The Prudentialist ｜ 7⧸14⧸25

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