The Culture War - Tim Pool - DEBATE： MAGA vs Democrats, Trump's Agenda vs Biden's Legacy w⧸ Myron Gaines, Andrew Wilson, Luke Beasley, & Jessiah of Pondering Politics

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00:01:27.640 We're a couple days away from Donald Trump entering the office as the president.

00:01:34.720 The inauguration will be on Monday. So let's take this opportunity to debate Joe Biden's legacy,

00:01:40.560 Donald Trump's legacy. And we have an eclectic bunch with us who are going to give their ideas

00:01:45.480 on whether or not, I don't know, Trump's a fascist or women should even be voting in the first place.

00:01:49.380 So you can tell it's going to get wild in this room. Why don't we start with you, Myron?

00:01:53.980 One half of the Fresh Fit Podcast. Happy to be here. I also run my own political talk show,

00:01:58.180 Myron Gaines X, Monday through Friday, 5 p.m. Fresh Fit after that. And yeah, let's get into it.

00:02:02.860 Happy to be here, man.

00:02:04.220 Luke Beasley, liberal political commentator. You can find me on YouTube at Luke Beasley.

00:02:08.080 Pumped. Good to be back. Tim, Myron, Andrew. Nice to meet you all.

00:02:11.620 Yeah, my name is Andrew Wilson. I'm the host of The Crucible.

00:02:14.120 It's a popular entertainment channel on YouTube. Political analyst, political satirist,

00:02:19.460 and a blood sport debater. Happy to be here. Thanks, Tim.

00:02:22.660 Yeah, Josiah with Pondering Politics, liberal commentator. Looking forward to this conversation

00:02:26.720 because this is like some of the biggest MAGA influencers I've ever encountered,

00:02:30.700 and I'm looking forward to understanding a bit more.

00:02:32.380 Well, let's get started with the simple question. Is Trump a fascist? I know it sounds a bit generic,

00:02:37.700 but this is the big talking point that kind of persisted for the past 10 years. Donald Trump is a

00:02:41.800 threat to democracy. He's authoritarian. He's far right. He's fascistic, et cetera, et cetera.

00:02:46.380 So I don't know who wants to start off first, but is. Luke, is he a fascist?

00:02:50.040 Yeah. You know, we can debate that particular label. I've noticed when I've watched past debates

00:02:54.980 among MAGA folks, the benefit, or at least what they seem to thrive off of, is getting real into

00:03:01.340 the weeds on a particular semantic debate. That's less relevant to me than going through the specifics

00:03:06.120 of why I might call him that. But let's not get so focused on the label, but instead,

00:03:09.820 whether or not we find moral, whether or not we find.

00:03:12.300 No, let's get focused on the label. So listen, here's why you can't defend.

00:03:15.840 Well, first of all, I'm going to finish this. You can't defend what he does. So then you try to

00:03:21.640 distract from that with just really abstract discussions from what he's done or lies.

00:03:28.200 No, no. So first of all, hang on, Luke, semantics are super important to a debate for a reason.

00:03:34.240 It's so that we have clarity in what we're actually talking about. So when you go, Trump's a fascist.

00:03:38.400 Yeah, it's very important that you clarify exactly what that means, why it means that,

00:03:42.900 what the historic standard is that you're providing against that.

00:03:45.520 But I'm saying that debate is an interesting one. I've had it a bunch of times, less relevant

00:03:49.420 than whether or not you can defend the things he did factually, not the labels, the facts of what

00:03:53.580 he did.

00:03:53.780 Why are you calling him a fascist then, Luke? If you're not prepared to defend it.

00:03:57.480 Tim brought that up. Tim brought that up. I'm interested in...

00:03:59.520 Well, it's so...

00:04:00.280 You call him that, Luke. Why do you call him that unless you can defend it?

00:04:03.220 He called in the media a fascist over and over and over again for 10 years.

00:04:05.980 He calls him that.

00:04:06.640 And my question is, most importantly, then we can get to that.

00:04:09.860 Uh-huh.

00:04:10.560 Can you defend the things that we point to as a threat to democracy, as anti-democratic,

00:04:16.480 whatever that will you use. I just don't care about getting that...

00:04:18.220 Can you defend that he's a fascist or not, Luke?

00:04:21.000 I absolutely have had that discussion a bunch of times.

00:04:23.740 That's not what I asked you. Can you repeat my question?

00:04:26.020 I asked you, can you defend that he's a fascist?

00:04:27.840 He would point out things that we might describe as authoritarian or fascistic, even if you

00:04:31.260 don't agree with a particular label. And that's what he's saying we want to talk about.

00:04:34.500 So, for example, did he plot to overturn the 2020 election? Did he resist the peaceful

00:04:38.700 transfer of power? Does he command a cult of personality? These are factual questions.

00:04:42.840 Does he threaten...

00:04:43.380 Does that... So, this is not... I'm not going to make a what about us. I'm going to say,

00:04:47.400 okay, let's start from that presumption that would make Trump a fascist. That would also make

00:04:51.040 Obama or Biden or Kamala much the same.

00:04:53.240 Which we can sell.

00:04:53.760 Yes, which is false.

00:04:54.600 What you just described as Donald Trump would apply to them in...

00:04:58.440 They assemble fraudulent states of election.

00:04:59.900 Yeah, when have they ever resisted the peaceful transfer of power or plotted to overturn an

00:05:03.460 election?

00:05:03.900 I believe this was the first election in 52 years. The Democratic Party has not challenged

00:05:08.160 the election.

00:05:08.620 No, you're talking about the thing that is within congressional rules, which is you can

00:05:12.420 object to the account. That's different than assembling from different states, people

00:05:17.360 who aren't the lawful electors, and then trying to get them counted by your vice president

00:05:21.440 as the real one.

00:05:21.940 Right.

00:05:22.120 It's completely different.

00:05:22.860 But that is also a procedure.

00:05:23.780 One is a...

00:05:24.780 No, you can't just get random people to sign fake forms saying they're the real electors.

00:05:28.540 They're not fake forms.

00:05:29.000 They were.

00:05:29.560 They're not fake forms.

00:05:30.560 You know why the people were prosecuted in the seven states?

00:05:31.840 What do you think we mean by fake forms?

00:05:33.020 Obviously, it's not an invisible piece.

00:05:34.400 You need to define what a fake form is.

00:05:35.300 We don't mean by an invisible piece of paper. It was a fraudulent document.

00:05:37.880 Wait, that's semantics, Tim.

00:05:39.620 Like I said, very important to debates.

00:05:41.740 We don't want to spend 45 minutes on what's a fake form.

00:05:44.620 So the issue here is we're talking about a play upon precedent with what Donald Trump did.

00:05:51.880 And the basis for what Donald Trump did and his lawyers in 2020, 2021, was built upon what

00:05:58.420 happened in the election between Nixon and Kennedy when Hawaii sent a non-certified slate.

00:06:04.580 Would you call that fake as well?

00:06:05.580 No, in that case, this was before the certification had happened.

00:06:10.940 The state sent two slates.

00:06:13.020 In these cases, there were certifications by each state and then verified by the governor,

00:06:18.540 then sent to Washington, and those were the ones Trump wanted to get counted.

00:06:24.980 It did not represent the lawful outcome of the elections in those states.

00:06:29.140 Y'all agree with that?

00:06:31.560 Agree with you about what?

00:06:32.740 That's what Trump was trying to do, getting electors that weren't the ones lawfully certified

00:06:36.820 by the states to get counted?

00:06:38.360 No.

00:06:39.220 Okay.

00:06:39.500 What do you think?

00:06:40.240 Cool.

00:06:40.920 Then.

00:06:41.380 Wait, what was he doing?

00:06:42.460 So we'll pull this up.

00:06:43.400 Hang on.

00:06:43.560 Okay.

00:06:44.460 One step at a time.

00:06:46.220 So in Hawaii, and it just disappeared on me.

00:06:48.960 Why does it do that?

00:06:51.240 And I'm using Wikipedia, which I'm not a big fan of because it is oversimplified and often

00:06:56.020 wrong.

00:06:56.720 But it says that Hawaii official results showed Nixon winning by a small margin.

00:07:02.220 Hawaii's three electoral votes were cast for Nixon.

00:07:05.300 Acting Governor James Kiliow has certified the Republican electors and they cast Hawaii's

00:07:08.920 three electors for Nixon.

00:07:09.900 However, clear discrepancies existed, blah, blah, blah.

00:07:12.080 The court challenge was still ongoing at the time of the electoral count's safe harbor

00:07:14.800 deadline.

00:07:15.580 But Democratic electors still convened on the constitutionally mandated date of December

00:07:19.220 19th and cast their votes for Kennedy.

00:07:20.840 Would you consider those to be illegitimate votes because it had already been certified for

00:07:24.220 the Republican?

00:07:24.500 And then.

00:07:24.800 Can we keep reading?

00:07:25.880 Continue.

00:07:26.100 The recount completed before Christmas resulted in Kennedy being declared the winner by 115

00:07:30.940 votes.

00:07:31.720 On December 30th, the circuit court ruled that Hawaii's three electoral votes should go to

00:07:34.920 Kennedy.

00:07:35.520 It was decided that a new certificate was necessary with only two days remaining before Congress

00:07:38.720 convened to count and certify the Electoral College votes.

00:07:41.400 A letter to Congress saying a certificate was on the way was rushed out by registered airmail.

00:07:45.180 Both Democratic and Republican electoral votes from Hawaii were presented for counting

00:07:47.800 on January 6th.

00:07:48.940 And Vice President Nixon, who presided over the certification, graciously said, without the

00:07:52.480 intent of establishing a precedent and requested unanimous consent that Democratic votes for

00:07:56.440 Kennedy be counted.

00:07:57.540 Right.

00:07:57.800 So the clarification here, let's let's make sure it's very clear.

00:08:00.140 Sure.

00:08:00.620 The Democratic votes were never certified.

00:08:02.520 They were intending to certify.

00:08:04.100 But because the deadline was approaching, they submitted false documents, as you described

00:08:08.800 it, before certification was done.

00:08:10.760 No, because the circuit court ruled that the electoral vote should go to Kennedy.

00:08:14.880 Hold on.

00:08:15.160 Hold on.

00:08:15.440 I got to stop you.

00:08:15.980 The circuit court has nothing to do with the with the convening of Democrats to file false

00:08:19.540 papers.

00:08:20.280 Did the Democrats convene without a court order?

00:08:22.480 And signed documents that were not real.

00:08:23.960 Was the president trying to get the one that didn't?

00:08:26.320 Let's answer the question.

00:08:27.200 This is the question.

00:08:28.400 Because we're talking about Donald Trump's actions.

00:08:30.260 Right.

00:08:30.460 So we're starting with precedent.

00:08:32.100 We're talking about Donald Trump's actions.

00:08:33.580 I asked you a question.

00:08:34.380 Did the sitting president at the time try to get, after the court cases had been resolved,

00:08:39.780 try to get the Democratic?

00:08:42.400 We have to start from the beginning.

00:08:43.560 All the electors counted.

00:08:44.040 They didn't.

00:08:44.500 Let's start here.

00:08:45.660 Did the Democrats?

00:08:46.100 None of y'all are even engaging with that fact.

00:08:47.840 Are you going to answer the question or not?

00:08:48.820 You're going to go, where, where, where, where, where, where, and spin and spin and spin,

00:08:50.920 because you can't engage with the fact that you know, you do, you're pattering, you know,

00:08:54.380 you're pattering, that Trump was trying to get pins.

00:08:56.700 I'm going to say, you're pattering.

00:08:57.040 What was Trump trying to get pins to do?

00:08:58.260 You are pattering.

00:08:58.900 What was Trump trying to get pins to do?

00:08:59.820 You are pattering.

00:09:00.680 Can we stop and go back to the debate?

00:09:02.260 Keep repeating that.

00:09:02.800 Sure.

00:09:03.020 This is the debate.

00:09:03.880 What did the president of the United States do at the time?

00:09:05.740 You're just pattering.

00:09:06.740 All right.

00:09:07.000 I'm going to say it again.

00:09:07.620 We are reading a specific passage on what Hawaii did, and we are at a specific point in the

00:09:13.100 logical question.

00:09:14.900 Hawaii Democrats were not certified.

00:09:19.560 They filled out paperwork.

00:09:20.820 Pause.

00:09:21.780 Courts had not approved anything.

00:09:24.160 Were those documents yes or no, real or fake?

00:09:26.240 At that point in time, the recount hadn't even concluded.

00:09:29.120 Yes or no, were the documents real or fake?

00:09:30.900 When the Trump electors met, Georgia had already counted its ballots.

00:09:33.660 Okay, you're changing the subject again.

00:09:33.820 I'm explaining to you that if those forms had then been asserted as the lawful ones during

00:09:41.040 the counting process, that would be fraudulent.

00:09:43.360 Yes, but they weren't.

00:09:44.620 So they submitted documents that were unapproved, not certified to the federal government.

00:09:49.480 Which ones ended up being the ones that the federal government was going to certify?

00:09:54.760 Why is this so hard?

00:09:56.160 Oh my gosh.

00:09:56.880 Why is it?

00:09:57.300 No, the reason that it seems to be-

00:09:58.760 Okay, I'll lay it up.

00:10:00.500 You're doing it out with y'all.

00:10:01.880 See, this is the thing.

00:10:03.500 You guys are trying to present some sophistry as to your argument.

00:10:06.120 No, you can't engage with what Trump did.

00:10:08.000 That's exactly what you're doing.

00:10:09.220 I'm going to make my point.

00:10:09.680 You can't engage with what Trump did.

00:10:10.720 I'll make my point.

00:10:11.760 Stop patterning.

00:10:12.360 And then will you let us make our points?

00:10:13.740 So, absolutely.

00:10:14.900 The problem is I'm asking about Hawaii and you keep changing the subject to Trump.

00:10:17.920 So let's go through Hawaii.

00:10:19.120 The Democrats had no right, by your logic, to fill out this paperwork and submit it to

00:10:23.300 the federal government as the certified slate of electors.

00:10:27.060 Only after the fact did the court make a decision.

00:10:30.220 Now let's go to 2020.

00:10:31.100 2020, if there is pending court decisions, and there were, Republicans doing the same

00:10:36.400 thing Democrats did-

00:10:37.380 No, no, no.

00:10:37.720 You're wrong.

00:10:38.620 The circuit court decided that a new certificate was necessary-

00:10:42.660 After the fact.

00:10:42.960 After the fact.

00:10:43.720 Before Congress convened.

00:10:45.740 Yes, but after it already submitted the documents.

00:10:48.400 That's why I'm asking you, when you said they were false documents, I didn't say anything

00:10:51.000 else.

00:10:51.680 What makes them false?

00:10:53.200 It's the same as Hawaii.

00:10:54.380 If you want to make the argument that Democrats did the same thing in 1960, I will agree with

00:10:57.840 you.

00:10:58.060 But we're not making that argument because that's not what they did.

00:10:59.920 See, this is the point.

00:11:01.960 In 1960, while there was still a recount going on and ongoing court cases, and it was so narrow

00:11:08.120 they really didn't know which way it was going to go, then they didn't even submit those

00:11:11.340 or try to get them counted to the sitting president at the time.

00:11:13.120 Until a court.

00:11:13.940 Until it was determined.

00:11:15.340 Trump's case-

00:11:15.700 They submitted them.

00:11:16.160 He got all seven states after this whole process had been concluded.

00:11:19.600 It wasn't close enough for the recount to flip it.

00:11:22.620 The recounts had concluded, and he was trying to get, not let's have two standing by because

00:11:26.960 we don't know how this recount's going to go, but from seven states that we know the

00:11:30.060 outcome of, but I'm making false claims of fraud on them, I'm going to get Pence to

00:11:34.180 keep me as president by accepting fake electors.

00:11:36.600 Tim, for a second, because we're supposed to be debating them, I think, could they also

00:11:40.180 try to defend this stance?

00:11:42.020 Yeah, because you're comparing apples and oranges thing as far as I'm concerned.

00:11:44.580 Let's let- I mean-

00:11:46.140 That was silly.

00:11:46.920 Yeah, like if a court decided in one of the five or seven states that Trump tried to

00:11:51.940 peddle the false elector scheme, that if a court contested the democratic slate of

00:11:55.860 electors, then I think you would have an apples-to-apples comparison, but that's not

00:11:58.940 what happened.

00:12:00.100 In none of the seven states-

00:12:01.080 And it wasn't close enough to where they didn't know which way it was going to go.

00:12:03.500 Right, there was no actual ambiguity.

00:12:06.560 Andrew, anything?

00:12:07.620 Myron?

00:12:08.180 Well, what's the argument here?

00:12:09.440 Is it fascism, or because you guys went into a whole other tangent?

00:12:12.160 Because you guys went- I don't know if you guys- it started with fascism, but we went

00:12:15.340 into a Kennedy election in the 1960s.

00:12:16.720 I'll explain.

00:12:17.220 I'll explain.

00:12:17.640 One of the key tenets of- again, I know y'all get really triggered, so I'm trying to stay

00:12:21.680 away from that particular term, but we can say fascism, authoritarianism, anti-

00:12:24.480 Fascism is based.

00:12:24.880 I don't know what the problem is.

00:12:25.280 Anti-democracy.

00:12:26.720 It's pretty fucking based.

00:12:27.820 I don't know what the issue is, baby.

00:12:29.260 Is that legitimate or a joke?

00:12:30.400 Because we can go into that.

00:12:31.360 That'd be interesting.

00:12:32.020 I mean, we can go into-

00:12:33.180 Now something you want to talk about fascism.

00:12:34.520 One of the key- yeah, one of the key tenets is rejecting democratic principles and the

00:12:39.380 democratic process.

00:12:40.040 According to who?

00:12:42.080 According to every single fascism scholar ever, and the definition.

00:12:45.880 Okay.

00:12:46.100 Do you mean according- or do you mean according to who, like, what determines the democratic

00:12:49.540 processes?

00:12:50.180 No, I'm asking according to who-

00:12:52.360 Yeah, sure.

00:12:52.720 Read it.

00:12:53.040 Yeah, go ahead.

00:12:53.580 So, far right, authority- no, no, no, no, no.

00:12:59.460 Pull up Giovanni Gentile.

00:13:01.140 This would be the person that you guys would like to use-

00:13:03.840 You see?

00:13:04.200 As an authority, yeah.

00:13:05.140 The audience can watch-

00:13:06.380 They're terrified.

00:13:07.260 Gentile?

00:13:07.720 I thought it was Gentile.

00:13:08.560 When did we cite him?

00:13:09.540 I'm sorry, is reading a Wikipedia article proof of your position?

00:13:13.320 No, no.

00:13:13.640 Getting into a hyper-specific definitional discussion.

00:13:19.120 I don't care what you call it.

00:13:20.320 Bad.

00:13:20.780 Let's say bad.

00:13:21.640 Bad is what I think Trump did.

00:13:22.980 And that's what I'm trying to get you to see, not the definition, because I know you

00:13:26.620 feel way more comfortable spinning around and reading about whoever.

00:13:29.800 Instead, we can just talk about, regardless of the definition, is it good or bad to reject

00:13:33.620 democratic results?

00:13:34.380 Is it good or bad to threaten the media based on my principles which value democratic results?

00:13:37.460 We may threaten the media.

00:13:38.800 So, Trump has repeatedly called for, like, investigations into reporters, into media outlets.

00:13:44.000 He believes that the business licenses of, like, ABC and CBS, MSN, DC, he says, should

00:13:49.340 be pulled.

00:13:49.900 I mean, you don't see these sorts of threats from the Democratic Party.

00:13:52.060 Okay.

00:13:52.680 So, let's get into them.

00:13:53.880 I mean, if you did.

00:13:54.760 Has Trump pulled anybody's license ever as president?

00:13:58.520 Has he actually sent any government officials to do any investigations at any major media organization?

00:14:04.200 So, you agree, though, him saying it's bad.

00:14:06.120 Stop, stop, bro.

00:14:06.900 I just let you go through your whole stupid spiel.

00:14:09.400 You keep not making sense, though.

00:14:10.580 Has Trump actually done that?

00:14:12.260 Are threats not bad?

00:14:14.600 First of all, hyperbole isn't a threat.

00:14:16.800 That's one.

00:14:17.480 Trump?

00:14:17.940 Hang on.

00:14:18.720 CBS should be taking off the air, should they?

00:14:20.080 So, what I want to see, so, as Spergly over here keeps on losing his mind, he doesn't

00:14:26.640 want to get into hyper-specific.

00:14:28.280 He doesn't want to get into hyper-specific semantics because that would cause what we'd

00:14:32.120 like to call clarification.

00:14:33.460 That way we're not talking past each other.

00:14:34.900 I don't think you're hearing what I'm saying.

00:14:35.900 Yeah, just, dude, I just gave you your whole spiel.

00:14:39.300 So, anyway, the reason I want to get specific about this, about what fascism is, about whether

00:14:44.240 or not Trump is actually a fascist, whether or not Trump actually enacted fascist policy,

00:14:48.540 all of these things is because you guys, you can't sit on your, like, shows and say,

00:14:54.700 this guy's a fascist, he's an authoritarian, he's a dictator, he's a threat to democracy,

00:14:59.860 and then give us nothing.

00:15:01.000 Just like, oh, he used some hyperbole about the media.

00:15:03.380 We just talked about examples.

00:15:04.360 He tried to stay in office despite losing an election.

00:15:06.460 Yeah, okay, hang on.

00:15:07.300 We'll get to that stuff in a second.

00:15:09.200 Right now we're talking about something else.

00:15:10.460 We're talking about the media.

00:15:11.620 Calm down.

00:15:12.440 Calm down, Spergly.

00:15:13.280 That's what's so annoying about these conversations.

00:15:14.660 But, Andrew, like, that's just a misrepresentation of our position.

00:15:17.780 You say that we give you nothing.

00:15:18.800 We're giving you specific things that he did, which-

00:15:21.480 Not with the, no, no, no.

00:15:22.320 You made this claim that Trump has done bad things to the media.

00:15:27.800 He wants to pull their license.

00:15:29.000 He wants to do, he wants to take something away from them.

00:15:31.700 He's threatened to do those things.

00:15:32.420 Where has he done them?

00:15:34.120 So do you think that it's acceptable unless he follows through on it?

00:15:36.460 Yeah, I think that hyperbole is fine.

00:15:38.060 I think that presidents use hyperbole all the time.

00:15:40.560 I think that liberals use hyperbole.

00:15:42.360 So, for instance, I'm going to give you an example.

00:15:45.420 When you say Trump's a fascist, I think that's hyperbole.

00:15:48.300 Would you-

00:15:48.620 Because I don't think you actually think he's a fascist.

00:15:50.760 I think that you just think fascism means authoritarianism.

00:15:53.940 You don't even know what the fuck it is.

00:15:55.200 You don't care about it.

00:15:56.380 Hang on.

00:15:56.780 So you just, you, you, I think you're actually using hyperbole when you're talking about fascism

00:16:02.060 in general.

00:16:02.600 So when Trump uses it, when Trump uses hyperbole, when Trump is speaking this way, Trump bad.

00:16:09.420 When you're speaking this way, that's fine.

00:16:11.200 Andrew, you're a smart guy.

00:16:12.240 You should be able to recognize meaningful differences between just a random schmuck and

00:16:16.520 then the president.

00:16:17.200 Show me the meaning.

00:16:17.700 That's number one.

00:16:18.120 Number one.

00:16:18.700 Number two.

00:16:19.340 Number two.

00:16:19.880 I don't think it's hyperbole at all.

00:16:21.520 We're talking about specific things, specific examples of things that Trump has either done

00:16:25.880 or threatened to do.

00:16:26.920 Like he said, Zuckerberg should be in prison now.

00:16:29.120 Zuckerberg's too many policies that are more friendly to him.

00:16:31.360 So let me ask you guys a question.

00:16:32.820 We're talking a lot about the threats and Andrew asked about what he had done.

00:16:37.220 Do you think if Donald Trump threatened to kill an American, that would be fascistic?

00:16:42.420 Well, fascistic?

00:16:43.700 Well, I mean like, so, so we're going to-

00:16:45.160 Just a clear point.

00:16:45.680 I know, I know it's really, you're going to try to go somewhere.

00:16:48.340 I want to stay focused because what I'm seeing here is-

00:16:51.100 No one's allowed to talk, but it's burglary.

00:16:52.640 Yeah, come on.

00:16:53.320 No one's allowed to talk, but it's burglary.

00:16:54.940 I'm trying to advance the conversation by asking a question to clarify the points.

00:16:57.260 Okay, but I'm going to go back to what we were talking about.

00:16:59.100 You guys said he's threatening the media.

00:17:00.880 Andrew said that he hasn't actually done it.

00:17:04.240 So I'm trying to say, what if it was a more extreme threat that wasn't just, I'll pull

00:17:07.900 the license?

00:17:08.340 What if Trump said he would kill an American citizen?

00:17:10.960 Would the threat of killing an American in and of itself without the action of doing it be

00:17:14.680 fascistic?

00:17:15.080 Like-

00:17:15.440 And this is for everybody.

00:17:17.000 Like he's going to-

00:17:17.880 Like if Trump said, I'm going to shoot a guy on Fifth Avenue, I'm going to go do it

00:17:20.280 right now.

00:17:21.000 My point being, threatening to take legal action, we can argue whether, like, it seems

00:17:25.540 kind of a legalese question.

00:17:27.620 So I'm trying to shift it to, let's talk about an extreme action Trump could threaten.

00:17:32.120 Well, I still haven't gotten an explanation of how it's acceptable to try to block the

00:17:36.160 peaceful transfer of power from Andrew, which is what I keep saying.

00:17:38.680 You brought up the fashions award.

00:17:40.040 I said, hey, I get that people get real bogged down, which is why I've had hours of discussions

00:17:44.480 about that particular term.

00:17:45.440 I came here interested to see if MAGA figures could defend the actual actions, not the label,

00:17:51.180 but the actions.

00:17:52.280 And I'm yet to hear you walk through any of them.

00:17:55.180 We're getting a little bit to the specifics of the media, so I appreciate that.

00:17:57.940 But him trying-

00:17:59.100 So to answer your question, him trying to induce a feeling of fear among the media as it's

00:18:03.120 working with his rhetoric, with clear intentions, some of which he didn't actually get done

00:18:07.220 the last time, but like he wanted-

00:18:08.640 Let me explain why I asked the question.

00:18:09.760 And I'm still waiting on either of them.

00:18:12.040 So here's why I asked the question about killing an American specifically.

00:18:16.020 Obama, I know.

00:18:16.960 No.

00:18:17.580 It's because whether or not the government can pull a license is a legal question over

00:18:22.900 whether or not they violated a public license.

00:18:25.060 And so you guys are then arguing outside of the actual confines of a legal issue.

00:18:31.120 So let's make it definitively an issue of illegal or legal.

00:18:35.260 Or we could talk about what Trump is saying.

00:18:36.460 Okay, the federal government grants public licenses with stipulations.

00:18:39.740 If you want to debate whether or not they can or can't, that's a legal procedural question.

00:18:43.940 You understand you can have the governmental power to do something, but how you leverage

00:18:48.180 it for the purpose-

00:18:49.660 This is why I tried shifting away to something more direct like killing somebody.

00:18:52.900 A threat to kill somebody is a direct question.

00:18:55.080 Again, the government can kill people.

00:18:56.040 The government can kill people.

00:18:57.360 Right, so that's what I'm saying.

00:18:58.020 To me, this belies the point of it, like this idea that it can't be authoritarian or it

00:19:02.320 can't be fascist if it is within the technical legal confines of the federal government.

00:19:07.060 That's absurd.

00:19:07.360 That's not the point I'm making.

00:19:08.060 Of course.

00:19:08.520 Which is why, again, the semantics would be really important here to clarify what we

00:19:12.380 mean when we say fascist.

00:19:14.080 No one's bringing that up.

00:19:15.640 We don't care about the labeling.

00:19:17.900 Yeah, I'm bringing it up, Spergly.

00:19:19.900 We're giving you a specific example.

00:19:20.800 Yeah, but it doesn't actually tell me what we mean by this.

00:19:24.480 Sure, it makes for great clips, but we don't need the ad hominems.

00:19:26.840 You called him boring, you're calling him Spergly, we don't need to do that.

00:19:28.900 Oh, well, boring.

00:19:29.560 I'm in the conversation.

00:19:30.080 I don't think you're boring at all.

00:19:30.700 I don't think you're boring.

00:19:31.800 I'm not.

00:19:32.100 I just thought the conversation was getting boring.

00:19:33.340 And he is Spergly.

00:19:34.960 So, but anyway.

00:19:36.360 Call me, whatever.

00:19:37.160 So, I'm like, I'm actually happy to dive into this.

00:19:40.480 You say that I'm avoiding your questions, I'm not.

00:19:42.300 First of all, I'll answer them directly.

00:19:43.960 Sure.

00:19:44.300 It's well within Trump's rights, even if it was.

00:19:46.640 Let's just say he were right.

00:19:47.800 Let's just say I grant it.

00:19:48.780 It's within his rights to set alternative electors.

00:19:52.380 He's well within his rights to do that.

00:19:54.080 Tell me why that's even wrong.

00:19:55.280 Aren't people being prosecuted in states for participating in this scheme?

00:20:00.180 Who?

00:20:00.660 The fake electors.

00:20:01.280 The fake electors.

00:20:02.180 Wait, wait, wait.

00:20:03.200 I got a question.

00:20:03.820 Does the law prescribe morality?

00:20:05.940 No.

00:20:06.240 Wait, you said the right.

00:20:07.240 Do you mean legal right or moral right?

00:20:08.220 Yes, you're not a right.

00:20:09.000 Don't get mad about it.

00:20:09.940 Oh, sorry.

00:20:10.500 No, I thought it was a good question.

00:20:11.860 So, what's actually wrong with it?

00:20:13.260 So, why is it even problematic?

00:20:15.800 Because he didn't win the election.

00:20:17.100 So, let's just say he didn't.

00:20:18.740 Okay, okay.

00:20:19.160 Well, then agree.

00:20:20.020 Stop, stop.

00:20:20.500 Stop, Spergly.

00:20:21.160 Let's just say he didn't.

00:20:22.060 Let's just assume it.

00:20:23.200 Stop, Spergly.

00:20:23.980 I have a back and forth for two seconds without you nipping my heels.

00:20:28.900 This is interesting that we're even on this.

00:20:30.420 Like, the election was stolen, guys.

00:20:31.840 That is why.

00:20:32.480 The 2024 election?

00:20:33.220 The 2020 election.

00:20:34.460 Oh, shit.

00:20:34.960 It was stolen.

00:20:35.660 I mean, I'd like to just dive into this so that we can figure this out real quick.

00:20:39.060 Why was it stolen?

00:20:40.260 How was it stolen?

00:20:42.000 Well, two different factors here.

00:20:43.540 I mean, I wrote it down.

00:20:45.300 We got the mail-in ballot fraud.

00:20:47.220 That was a pretty sleek move there.

00:20:48.960 Dominion voting systems, vote counting observers, late night ballot dumps, ballot harvesting,

00:20:53.300 double voting, foreign interference, improper voter registration practices, manipulation

00:20:57.480 by poll workers, geolocation data, surveillance footage, whistleblowers, vulnerabilities in

00:21:01.900 election laws, suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop.

00:21:04.260 I mean, what else?

00:21:05.000 I mean, I think anyone with any common sense would understand.

00:21:07.520 Because we're talking about the fascism, and he challenged the election, all this other

00:21:09.880 stuff.

00:21:10.300 Let's talk about why he challenged it.

00:21:11.760 It was-

00:21:12.360 Because he lost.

00:21:12.980 No.

00:21:13.340 Because it was stolen.

00:21:14.220 Right.

00:21:14.580 It was stolen.

00:21:15.200 There's a multitude of evidence to show that the 2020 election, there was some type of

00:21:19.960 interference to some degree.

00:21:21.080 There's a multitude.

00:21:21.980 Remind me which court he was able to demonstrate that in?

00:21:24.100 Pennsylvania in the lower court ruled on the merits that they violated-

00:21:27.340 It was like a procedural, but not-

00:21:28.780 No, it was actual here in where the judge said that the constitution of Pennsylvania was

00:21:32.600 violated by the implementation of universal mail-in voting.

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00:22:52.340 The Supreme Court overturned the rule.

00:22:53.840 And he just—

00:22:54.340 Well, that's a higher—that's the higher court, right?

00:22:56.080 So we should probably defer the Supreme Court.

00:22:56.720 He asked me which conservative.

00:22:58.140 Right.

00:22:58.640 I understand.

00:22:59.100 But I assume he's referring to, like, a court's verdict or a court's ruling which actually

00:23:03.020 stood.

00:23:03.200 And you just listed a bunch of—like, you brought up geo-location data.

00:23:06.400 That was in, like, 2000 Mules, and they had to admit when—

00:23:09.340 The reason this is a terrible argument is because if I say, okay, well, then who got prosecuted

00:23:15.680 for insurrection?

00:23:16.660 You'll say, well, just because they weren't prosecuted for insurrection doesn't mean it

00:23:19.860 wasn't an insurrection.

00:23:20.760 It's like, oh, okay, great.

00:23:22.340 Just because—well, hang on.

00:23:23.680 Hang on, Luke.

00:23:24.360 Well, just because he wasn't able to demonstrate that the election was stolen in a court because

00:23:29.560 they threw most of it out on standing doesn't mean it wasn't stolen.

00:23:32.840 It just means that we had a bunch of judges who went after it on standing.

00:23:37.380 But we have—there is a lot of evidence here that should be looked at.

00:23:41.320 I'm not saying it was stolen.

00:23:42.460 It's not my position.

00:23:43.820 Okay?

00:23:44.160 But I am saying that—

00:23:45.540 Do you have a position?

00:23:46.320 Just that curiosity.

00:23:47.460 I think it should be investigated, and it never properly was.

00:23:50.020 Being investigated.

00:23:50.800 Yeah.

00:23:51.180 When Trump is in office, I think he should actually run a real investigation into it.

00:23:56.980 I think that the idea that—

00:23:58.600 Well, Trump—so Biden takes the White House, that there was a legitimate investigation done

00:24:05.420 by the Biden administration for the guy he could have lost to.

00:24:08.460 I think that that's ridiculous.

00:24:10.040 But—but doesn't that motive work the opposite way, too?

00:24:12.400 Go ahead.

00:24:12.620 Like, doesn't—no, seriously.

00:24:13.640 Like, doesn't that motive work the opposite way?

00:24:15.340 Because Trump's position was, before the election, it's stolen.

00:24:18.240 It's rigged.

00:24:18.800 Well, and during the—like, it doesn't sense—

00:24:20.420 I mean, that's a fair criticism.

00:24:21.360 I just think that you have enough third-party people which can be approached who could investigate

00:24:26.180 this in a way in which it was fair.

00:24:28.360 They hired—they hired, like, third-party groups.

00:24:30.600 So, like, was it cyber ninjas and some others?

00:24:32.700 First of all, they weren't able to subpoena a lot of the evidence that they wanted.

00:24:36.220 They had a lot of the circuit courts throw things out on standing.

00:24:39.900 I do not think that this was a legitimate investigation.

00:24:43.080 And there are some things that should be investigated.

00:24:45.080 For instance, it's not a secure election to have people just dropping ballots unsecured

00:24:51.020 in a ballot box.

00:24:52.180 That's insanity.

00:24:53.160 Yeah, but respectfully, Andrew, like, subpoenas and standing, these things are, like, valid

00:24:56.360 legal constructs.

00:24:57.880 Like, you have to meet, like, probable cause for a subpoena.

00:25:00.220 If you don't have probable cause to get a subpoena, then that's on you.

00:25:03.540 And if you don't have standing to bring a case, then, again, that's on you.

00:25:06.780 The problem is, is that—

00:25:08.400 Are you saying—

00:25:08.940 Hang on.

00:25:09.540 It's an allocate—can I answer one question at a time, dude?

00:25:12.240 I'm trying to let you.

00:25:12.960 And I'm just, like, literally trying to talk to the guy.

00:25:15.760 I think that it's fine.

00:25:18.020 And I think you bring up a valid point.

00:25:19.500 But I think when you have a Justice Department, you can instruct your Justice Department how to

00:25:24.420 prioritize different situations.

00:25:25.820 I think it's fine for Trump to say, listen, I still think that there was foul play in

00:25:30.940 this election.

00:25:31.740 And even if there wasn't, let's just decide it once and for all.

00:25:34.340 Let's get it figured out once and for all and instruct his Justice Department to begin

00:25:38.420 investigating whether or not there was some type of foul play going on.

00:25:42.340 And at least once an investigation.

00:25:42.980 And who conducted the investigation?

00:25:44.160 You said they got—someone got hired.

00:25:45.160 Who did it?

00:25:46.360 A guy named Kim Locke, I think, in Arizona hired.

00:25:48.440 He was an independent.

00:25:49.220 They got, like, cyber ninjas.

00:25:50.180 Cyber ninjas in Arizona.

00:25:51.600 Okay, so they're already lost because they don't have the authority to properly do the investigation.

00:25:55.300 You need federal agents, 1811s, FBI special agents to do the case.

00:25:59.400 That's how it goes.

00:25:59.840 Trump's administration was the one investigating it that then came back to Trump and enraged

00:26:04.500 him by saying, we can't find any evidence.

00:26:07.060 Because they don't have the authority to properly do the evidence.

00:26:09.740 This is what you're going to do until the end of time is say there's never been enough

00:26:15.060 investigations or you could admit that all of the available evidence doesn't prove that.

00:26:19.280 Let's advance on the election.

00:26:20.360 Warren, we can point it.

00:26:21.300 Okay.

00:26:21.900 So, yeah.

00:26:22.480 So don't just keep moving the goalposts.

00:26:23.920 You have to admit that of the investigations have been done and all the evidence that we've

00:26:26.900 gathered—

00:26:27.120 That's the last thing I want to add on this, too.

00:26:29.080 To me, it's like, what about the standard?

00:26:30.640 Did you call for investigations into 2016?

00:26:32.800 What about 2024?

00:26:33.760 Should Democrats, the next time they're in power, like forensically audit, you know, the

00:26:37.160 2024 election, would you be satisfied with that?

00:26:39.080 They do.

00:26:39.680 They do ask for these things.

00:26:41.120 Okay, but we're off of that.

00:26:42.620 I'm sorry.

00:26:42.960 We're off of that.

00:26:43.640 So then we're off of that.

00:26:44.680 But do you agree?

00:26:45.680 Well, I've got a topic for you guys based on what you have asked.

00:26:48.620 So I want to ask a question.

00:26:49.580 So one of the things that kicked this off was you guys asked about Trump's threats to

00:26:53.020 the media.

00:26:53.700 Yeah.

00:26:53.860 Recently, Mark Zuckerberg went on the Joe Rogan podcast and said that he was getting phone

00:26:57.180 calls from the Biden administration screaming and cursing at him and that they were effectively

00:27:01.020 pressured into censoring information.

00:27:02.820 One of these stories in particular, Mark Zuckerberg said that the feds went to him and said there

00:27:07.420 will be information on Hunter Biden.

00:27:09.000 This will be Russian disinformation.

00:27:10.260 Knowing that they were pressuring and screaming at them, Facebook ultimately removed this

00:27:14.780 story, which according to a few pollsters, they believe, did swing the election by a

00:27:19.280 few or swing public opinion on Trump by a few points.

00:27:22.660 I'm curious your guys' thoughts on that story.

00:27:25.040 I was just to say, if there's like any evidence that the Biden administration threatened Facebook

00:27:29.500 to like censor disinformation, that's fucked up.

00:27:32.460 And I would condemn it wholeheartedly, 100%.

00:27:34.740 But so number one, I think Zuckerberg was asked about this by, was it Rogan?

00:27:38.880 And it was like, do you have any evidence of that or any recordings?

00:27:40.900 He was like, no, unfortunately.

00:27:42.300 And to me, the other thing I really want to emphasize here, every administration, including

00:27:46.400 Trump's, engaged with social media to like, like intelligence agencies to like say, hey,

00:27:52.220 this might be a potential terroristic threat.

00:27:53.940 This might be a violation of national security.

00:27:55.420 This might violate your own TOS, number one.

00:27:58.040 And number two, I recall during the Twitter files congressional hearing, we found out that

00:28:03.220 even on petty shit that the Trump administration reached out to Twitter to ask them to remove

00:28:07.220 a tweet by Chrissy Teigen, John Legend's wife, because she called him a pussy ass bitch.

00:28:11.820 Like on there's, it's, there's never like a perfectly demarcated line, but I expect that

00:28:17.780 there's going to be engagement between social media and the intelligence agencies of every

00:28:22.360 administration.

00:28:23.220 But when you're asking people to take down tweets because you referred to the president

00:28:26.880 as a pussy ass bitch, that's, that's weak shit.

00:28:28.980 So let me respond to this.

00:28:30.060 Yeah.

00:28:30.360 But if they did, we'd be interested.

00:28:32.100 Dude, I don't like, just calm down.

00:28:35.340 You'll get a chance.

00:28:36.340 So anyway, uh, to respond to this, that I think you make some valid points, but there's

00:28:41.480 some there that aren't really valid.

00:28:42.940 So yeah, sure.

00:28:43.920 So, uh, let's say someone in the Trump administration or even Trump himself is like, hey, can you

00:28:48.060 take this tweet down?

00:28:49.080 I don't like it.

00:28:49.920 It hurts my feelings, right?

00:28:51.840 Fine.

00:28:52.580 Uh, you can condemn it.

00:28:53.840 You can say, ah, it's an abuse of power or something like this seems like a kind of vague

00:28:57.560 abuse of power, but there's a distinction when Facebook is being contacted by the Biden

00:29:02.520 administration to tell them to censor all anti COVID vaccination information period, uh,

00:29:08.820 to take those things down, to throw people off who are disseminating this information,

00:29:12.900 this and that he says, this is now narrative building.

00:29:16.440 This is, I want you, this giant, enormous media outlet to, uh, to build the narrative that

00:29:23.460 my administration wants and I'm going to use the coercive power of my office to do it.

00:29:28.880 There's a distinction, I think, between that and I don't like this tweet, take it down.

00:29:33.660 So again, if that, if that's exactly what happened, I'd probably be inclined to agree,

00:29:39.340 but there's no evidence of that.

00:29:40.480 The number one, it was just Zuckerberg saying, wait a minute.

00:29:42.600 What I mean is, so again, it depends very much on the nature of the engagement between

00:29:48.960 the government and Facebook.

00:29:50.120 Again, if they threaten Facebook, if you don't take this down, there will be consequences

00:29:54.140 or something like that besides just requests or even strong requests.

00:29:58.940 There's also a public health emergency at issue here.

00:30:02.160 So even if you disagree with what, uh, the federal government under Donald Trump, by the

00:30:06.020 way, cause a lot of this happened in 2020 and under the Biden administration, if you disagree

00:30:10.060 with why they were pressuring it to me, because that line is not perfectly demarcated, it's more

00:30:16.620 understandable why the federal government would be urging social media companies to crack

00:30:20.760 down on disinformation they believe will kill people.

00:30:23.020 Well, just let me finish.

00:30:23.820 As opposed to the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, pressuring

00:30:28.900 a social media company because a celebrity insulted him.

00:30:31.140 That is indefensibly stupid.

00:30:32.540 Okay.

00:30:32.940 First of all, there's far less.

00:30:35.960 Let me finish our exchange, dude.

00:30:37.760 You'll get a chance.

00:30:38.440 How long is your exchange going to be?

00:30:39.320 You'll get a chance, dude.

00:30:40.560 You'll get a chance.

00:30:41.720 We're almost done with our exchange.

00:30:43.280 Calm down.

00:30:43.680 How long is it going to be?

00:30:44.240 So anyway, look, this will be the last thing, okay, Luke?

00:30:47.160 And then we'll take it over to you.

00:30:48.760 Anyway, this is called rational discussion.

00:30:51.680 I know it's hard for you, but anyway, I think it's fine.

00:30:55.240 I think it's fine to make the criticism.

00:30:56.940 I don't want the president to call and ask to take down a tweet.

00:31:00.060 Fine.

00:31:00.820 Again, though, when you're talking about narrative building from the Justice Department, contacting

00:31:06.180 Facebook itself, trying to construct a narrative, how much more fascistic can you get, authoritarianism

00:31:12.460 can you get, then there's a counter-narrative out here about COVID.

00:31:16.160 There's a counter-narrative here about some of the therapeutics.

00:31:19.940 And by the way, Zuckerberg has since said some of the things that they were saying on

00:31:23.620 the counter side were true, and they were asking us to take these things down, and we

00:31:28.540 complied.

00:31:29.560 And it's like, that's pretty fascistic.

00:31:31.560 That's pretty authoritarianism.

00:31:32.900 Let me throw in one thing before we jump to Luke.

00:31:36.340 Luke, I actually, personally, don't care for either story, COVID vaccine stuff.

00:31:42.000 It's big.

00:31:42.420 I get it.

00:31:42.940 And targeting someone because they're personally mean to you is actually kind of worrying.

00:31:46.180 The more concerning thing to me that often is missed was the censorship of Eric Charamella,

00:31:50.480 which, just by saying that name, YouTube might delete the stream.

00:31:53.420 Don't say it, then.

00:31:54.160 Shit.

00:31:54.440 This is why I came all this way.

00:31:55.740 Let's do it.

00:31:56.780 Just say Eric C.

00:31:58.140 We'll send you the broadcast.

00:31:58.920 When an employee of the CIA, I believe it was an employee, but when someone working

00:32:03.560 with the CIA released information that resulted in the impeachment of Donald Trump, and the

00:32:09.020 real clear investigations released the report that the individual had been identified by

00:32:12.660 as Eric Charamella, every major social media platform, I think Twitter did not do this at

00:32:16.960 the time, would censor any information with that name without warning, without a strike,

00:32:21.740 just simply remove it.

00:32:23.200 So I think when we look at the censorship of big tech, we can talk about public information

00:32:28.920 like COVID vaccines.

00:32:30.260 It is particularly worrying to me that Facebook, in all of this, especially with the story they

00:32:34.320 had a portal made for the feds to report, quote unquote, misinformation, were actively

00:32:38.540 censoring stories of deep political merit, and they still have never accounted for it

00:32:43.640 or answered for it.

00:32:44.940 Yeah, so let me jump in.

00:32:45.760 And Zuckerberg says he was coerced.

00:32:46.760 Let me jump in.

00:32:47.220 He said he felt coerced.

00:32:48.180 So as Josiah and I mentioned, we're not really interested in being blindly partisan, as some

00:32:54.380 folks are.

00:32:54.980 And so if you have an example of the Biden administration crossing the line, we'll just

00:32:58.220 denounce it.

00:32:59.400 Strange that you wouldn't do the same with Trump, which is part of what I'm trying to

00:33:01.900 flesh out here.

00:33:02.540 But whenever the case was brought to the Supreme Court relating to some of this with Facebook,

00:33:06.420 you might remember, and they ended up ruling against the plaintiffs who were saying they

00:33:10.140 were unfairly censored because of the government being involved.

00:33:13.700 And one of the things they found out was that the social media platforms, long before government

00:33:18.440 was asking anything on COVID misinfo, already was implementing a term of service stuff on

00:33:23.120 that.

00:33:23.240 And you can have an issue with that.

00:33:24.360 And in this new world where we have these platforms, all this power, we're going to

00:33:26.920 be grappling over what the right term of service, probably not no term of service, but certain

00:33:31.000 rules.

00:33:31.500 But we can all disagree on how that's structured.

00:33:33.820 But whether or not it's like a violation of the First Amendment relating to the government

00:33:36.800 getting involved, it got slapped down by the Supreme Court because there's just not

00:33:40.180 the evidence that the platforms felt coerced because you will look at the percentages, even

00:33:45.020 in portals like this one, where they would say, hey, we think this violates your term

00:33:47.520 of service, and the platforms would go, no, no, it doesn't.

00:33:50.280 And they would say no, and then the government would go, all right, that's all we can do.

00:33:52.320 I mean, censorship in general is a problem.

00:33:54.460 Well, this is new stuff.

00:33:56.560 What we're talking about now, this is new stuff which is coming out.

00:34:01.100 Zuckerberg whistleblowing about a bunch of stuff we did not previously know.

00:34:04.680 So you're referencing stuff that has come out, what, multiple years ago.

00:34:10.380 What I'm saying to you specifically here is that there's no way for you to say, if you're

00:34:15.340 going to say Trump is an authoritarian, he's evil, he's there to curtail the media, this

00:34:21.820 type of thing.

00:34:22.780 If the Biden administration's working in tandem, their Justice Department, trying to be coercive

00:34:28.180 to Mark Zuckerberg to censor off information, specifically from conservatives, by the way,

00:34:33.080 they were the ones who were mostly trying to give a counter-narrative on the COVID-19

00:34:37.180 stuff, different political stuff, the J6 stuff.

00:34:40.180 He said he was approached by the DOJ on all of these different things, and so was Facebook.

00:34:44.300 It sounds like they're trying to create a narrative within one of the largest social

00:34:48.040 media company platforms, which is out there, which benefits their administration.

00:34:52.440 How much more authoritarian can you get than that?

00:34:55.040 And they banned Trump off everything right after.

00:34:57.120 Yeah.

00:34:57.500 Like, they literally banned him.

00:34:58.640 He got nuked off the internet.

00:34:59.700 That was while Trump was president, number one.

00:35:02.140 But just real quick on this, so this, yes, he's referencing a Supreme Court case, which

00:35:08.100 could you agree, you're right that the Zuckerberg revelations are relatively recent.

00:35:13.300 But I mean, here's my question.

00:35:15.580 Sure.

00:35:16.140 Do you trust Mark Zuckerberg?

00:35:17.420 Here's the reason why.

00:35:18.420 I know you don't, Tim.

00:35:19.900 Fuck Zuckerberg, man.

00:35:21.560 So I think it's important because a lot of people who even now are happy that Zuckerberg

00:35:28.620 is adopting a more MAGA posture, for example, they don't trust him.

00:35:32.400 They call him a fair weather friend because wherever the political winds blow.

00:35:35.400 Is it possible, especially because as far as I know, he's not produced any corroborating

00:35:39.240 evidence, that he's bullshitting just to try to ingratiate himself with you?

00:35:42.680 Yeah, so you have a couple of problems here, which is what would his motivation actually

00:35:48.240 be to do this?

00:35:50.120 So to be fair, do I trust Zuckerberg?

00:35:52.900 No, of course not.

00:35:53.980 I don't trust any of these tech giants.

00:35:55.640 And that includes Elon Musk.

00:35:57.160 I don't trust him either.

00:35:58.980 But here's the thing, right?

00:36:01.440 People do have motivations for the things they do.

00:36:04.420 What would Zuckerberg's motivation be in expressing?

00:36:07.880 And by the way, he began expressing this before he knew what the outcome of the new

00:36:11.140 election was going to be even.

00:36:12.780 OK, he was expressing this before that.

00:36:15.000 Yeah, but he didn't like drop like any of these sort of like.

00:36:16.960 So the thing is, is like, what is his motivation here for explaining that the Department of Justice

00:36:22.620 is reaching out and trying to censor various conservative content, except that he wants to

00:36:28.340 be freed from the yoke of governments approaching Facebook and doing this because it creates all

00:36:33.280 sorts of problems for him in his market, right?

00:36:35.260 He actually has more of an incentive to tell the truth about this than he does to lie.

00:36:40.040 Well, I don't know if he's lying.

00:36:41.300 I'm just saying like there seems to be even on the MAGA side and understanding that he

00:36:44.940 is a credibility issue, number one.

00:36:46.400 Number two, as far as I know, he's not corroborated any of these claims, which perhaps he will

00:36:50.300 in the future.

00:36:50.920 And number three, I think that he would have an incentive to say these things, certainly

00:36:55.540 after the election, given that Trump won, but even before when the outcome is in doubt,

00:36:59.940 in order to, you actually said it yourself, to distance his social media company from any

00:37:05.780 government intervention.

00:37:07.100 Yeah, but his incentive then would be to tell the truth about this.

00:37:10.520 There could be, for instance, a guy like Zuckerberg has such a high profile.

00:37:14.960 It would not surprise me if he was called in for congressional hearings, if they were running

00:37:18.500 investigations into various forms of interference, things like this.

00:37:22.720 Um, he would need to actually have his story straight, but he just said like, but like that

00:37:27.900 specific example, this big like headline explosive event where, you know, they called me on the

00:37:31.780 phone and, you know, they were cursing us out.

00:37:33.400 Rogan said, ha ha, those recordings would be sick.

00:37:35.860 And he's like, no, we don't have any recordings.

00:37:37.160 So he's almost making claims specifically that as of this moment, he can't possibly corroborate.

00:37:43.060 Yeah, but the thing is, it's like, I'm not disputing that he can't corroborate those

00:37:47.740 claims at the moment, right?

00:37:49.140 And like you said, evidence could go out in the future, right?

00:37:51.160 What I'm saying to you is it's a matter of incentives.

00:37:53.280 What's his actual incentive to lie versus telling the truth about this?

00:37:55.840 Seems like he has more incentive to tell the truth about it than to lie about it.

00:37:59.860 Let's have self-preservation.

00:38:01.540 I mean, he's doing this in line with donating, you know, meta donating a million dollars to

00:38:04.660 Trump's inaugural fund and also speaking more positively about Trump and also hiring Dana

00:38:10.300 White and like doing a lot of things that will make Trump like him more and Trump goes

00:38:12.580 on video.

00:38:14.380 Yeah, I think this is in response to my threats.

00:38:16.580 And so my point about bringing up that case was I think he's just blowing it out of proportion

00:38:19.900 because every time...

00:38:21.420 No, surely you give a shit about that.

00:38:23.160 Oh no, I'm about to respond when he's done.

00:38:25.200 Yeah.

00:38:25.480 Every time it's been sort of there's been a chance to prove that there's this coercion

00:38:30.360 going on.

00:38:31.200 They can't, which is why I brought up the thing.

00:38:32.740 He is bringing like new versions of the allegation.

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00:40:29.740 But they're just overinflated versions of what they were saying before, which they can't

00:40:33.500 prove because in reality, unless something crazy comes out, that's not really the phenomenon

00:40:38.460 that's in place.

00:40:38.840 But I do want to just note that I, both Josiah and I, have demonstrated on our own shows

00:40:44.140 constantly that we can criticize the Biden administration.

00:40:47.280 I'm curious.

00:40:48.560 And this is why we came here.

00:40:49.480 Hang on.

00:40:49.520 And I, before you shift it, before you shift it, I want to respond very briefly.

00:40:55.060 I want to, I want to, I want to give you guys the final point on this topic before we

00:40:58.520 move on.

00:40:58.920 So if you want to hit it or.

00:41:00.100 I want to hit it real quick and then.

00:41:01.400 Yeah, I'll go after you.

00:41:02.120 Okay.

00:41:02.260 So listen, I watched your coverage of what you just talked about when you were talking

00:41:06.980 about Trump threatening Zuckerberg, right?

00:41:10.340 You were reading or you were watching CNN pundits who were discussing this and they left

00:41:14.640 a critical part out.

00:41:15.660 And so did you, interestingly enough, Luke, which is where Trump said, if he's guilty

00:41:21.180 of crimes, if he's guilty of crimes, that was the actual tweet.

00:41:26.640 If he's guilty of crimes, then we will, uh, we will take action.

00:41:31.700 You left all of that out.

00:41:33.400 Oh no.

00:41:33.980 Yeah.

00:41:34.340 Oh no, you did.

00:41:35.480 You're right.

00:41:35.700 You left it all out.

00:41:37.540 And I, I know we're going to move on, but just so you know, that's what Trump says every

00:41:41.120 time.

00:41:42.000 Obviously if MSNBC.

00:41:43.720 Yeah, you left it off.

00:41:44.540 You left it out on purpose.

00:41:45.520 Well, and he didn't just say take action.

00:41:46.800 He said imprison him for life.

00:41:48.320 If he was guilty of crimes.

00:41:50.520 Of course he didn't say that.

00:41:51.200 Shouldn't he be guilty of crimes?

00:41:52.440 Oh no, did the president say if you're guilty of crimes, I'm going to imprison you?

00:41:55.980 Oh my God.

00:41:56.880 What crimes?

00:41:57.560 Which crimes merit life imprisonment?

00:41:59.500 I will note that next time, I promise, because it doesn't change the argument.

00:42:02.400 I stand by what I said.

00:42:04.100 I'll note that he said, if that's going to be his argument.

00:42:06.680 That's important.

00:42:07.660 Luke, that's the crux.

00:42:08.940 What's wrong with the president saying, if you're guilty of crimes, I'm going to put

00:42:12.240 you in jail?

00:42:12.780 Nothing.

00:42:13.340 Would you grant that premise for Trump's convictions?

00:42:15.800 Trump is guilty of crimes.

00:42:17.320 What crimes?

00:42:18.500 Falsifying business records.

00:42:19.540 34 counts.

00:42:20.280 He was found guilty in a court of law.

00:42:21.460 Oh my God.

00:42:21.860 No, no.

00:42:22.180 Wait, wait.

00:42:22.740 There we go.

00:42:23.000 There we go.

00:42:23.600 No, no.

00:42:24.060 Listen to me.

00:42:24.580 Listen to me.

00:42:25.000 But here's my point.

00:42:26.400 You can think that those charges are bullshit.

00:42:28.340 But this idea that, oh, it's no big deal if he's guilty of crimes.

00:42:32.500 And if the president said, President Biden came out and said, if Trump's guilty of crimes,

00:42:36.760 which he has, right, he should go to jail, which he has.

00:42:40.200 Yeah.

00:42:40.360 And you know what the liberals say?

00:42:41.800 Hang on.

00:42:42.180 The liberals go.

00:42:42.920 Yeah, absolutely.

00:42:43.920 I'll address this.

00:42:45.040 It's like, what are you talking about?

00:42:46.140 We can address this because there's a perspective issue.

00:42:48.860 I think you make a good point that saying if someone's guilty of crimes behind this view

00:42:54.760 that there's a fear Trump will levy false crimes is a legitimate concern.

00:42:59.200 The issue with the perspective is people do not believe Trump is legitimately guilty

00:43:03.500 of crimes.

00:43:04.300 Sure.

00:43:04.800 And so the argument is that Trump is saying legitimately guilty of crimes and the crimes

00:43:09.980 that Trump has been charged with are illegitimate.

00:43:11.620 Yeah.

00:43:11.740 That's the perspective.

00:43:12.320 So we're saying the people he chooses to say that about are people he has political

00:43:16.320 differences.

00:43:16.620 I think the perspective here is they're saying, isn't it, if Trump says this, shouldn't you

00:43:23.380 hold the same standard with Democrats, but we do.

00:43:25.560 Biden has said this multiple times.

00:43:26.920 Biden has said, if Trump's guilty of crimes, he should go to prison.

00:43:30.180 If this person is guilty of crimes, they should go to prison.

00:43:33.120 Like they say it.

00:43:34.220 You know what I mean?

00:43:34.820 I'm not aware of Biden ever advocating on Trump's guilt or innocence publicly or saying

00:43:39.980 that he should be in prison.

00:43:41.040 My understanding is he's been about as fastidious as a politician can be.

00:43:44.660 Maybe there's some exception, but I'm not aware of it.

00:43:47.140 And by the way, if-

00:43:48.760 Wait, you think that Democrats, the entire Democrat party-

00:43:52.380 No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

00:43:53.640 Biden too.

00:43:54.380 Yes, Biden too.

00:43:55.240 We've been having a good thing here.

00:43:56.020 Yeah, Biden too.

00:43:56.940 If it is the case, okay, that-

00:43:59.280 You guys have actually had the better thing, I'll be honest with you.

00:44:00.960 That any of these people come out and say, if Donald Trump is guilty of-

00:44:05.560 Like, wouldn't you guys say that?

00:44:07.000 If Donald Trump is guilty of crimes, he should go to prison?

00:44:09.280 Wait, wait, wait, yes.

00:44:10.020 Like, what do you mean?

00:44:10.880 Let me just lay a little framework here.

00:44:13.200 I agree.

00:44:14.240 Of course, the statement is uncontroversial.

00:44:16.880 If someone's guilty of crimes and they're, you know, of a certain level, they should go to prison.

00:44:20.480 Obviously, but any person who unjustly imprisons people says that.

00:44:25.900 And so we're saying, of the people Trump chooses to say they should be put in prison or say they should be locked up or say that they should be targeted by the government, it's a very specific set of people he chooses, which is when someone wrongs him politically, all of a sudden now he randomly mentions, if you're guilty of crime, you should go to prison.

00:44:45.080 When they're not accused of crimes, there's no reason to believe they've committed crimes.

00:44:48.360 He'll just throw it out.

00:44:49.580 Obviously, that would be his justification.

00:44:51.540 Zuckerberg committed crime.

00:44:52.540 But he's just saying that to scare him because there's no reason-

00:44:54.840 That's an interjection of an emotional state, not a provable one.

00:44:58.360 I don't see any difference between the-

00:44:59.660 All you're doing is interjecting your-

00:45:01.500 This is how I perceive it.

00:45:02.980 I perceive that he's politically targeting people because instead of you're guilty of crimes, you're going to jail.

00:45:06.740 So, President, I'll just, again, throw you a bone here because maybe there's something out there that I miss.

00:45:11.000 I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of Biden's, you know, every statement he's made.

00:45:14.760 If he ever adopted the same sort of posture that Trump did of like-

00:45:18.820 Fox News.

00:45:19.280 Fox News is a great example.

00:45:20.340 They had to pay $787 million in the biggest defamation settlement in American history because it was very possible that they would lose that case against Dominion.

00:45:30.140 We've never seen anything like that in liberal media.

00:45:32.520 Biden could have, by Trump's own logic, said, you know what, Fox just had to pay nearly a billion dollars in a loyalty tithe to Donald Trump.

00:45:40.600 We've never seen MSNBC or CNS.

00:45:42.660 You know what, I'm ordering my DOJ to investigate Fox News.

00:45:45.620 And if Fox News executives are guilty of these things, we're going to throw them away for life or imprison them for life.

00:45:51.460 Biden could have said that.

00:45:52.420 He didn't.

00:45:53.000 And if he did say it, that'd be super fucked up because I do think what you're describing-

00:45:56.640 Yeah, unless there's secret subpoenas.

00:45:57.920 Well, what you're describing as-

00:45:58.880 Which would surprise me.

00:45:59.940 What you're describing as an anodyne statement, to me, it takes a sinister tone when it comes from a person in power.

00:46:05.820 Oh, it's a sinister tone.

00:46:07.200 So it's an emotional state.

00:46:08.820 Obviously.

00:46:09.220 It's an emotional state.

00:46:10.040 Well, you could reject-

00:46:11.400 I'm just saying that I would hold Biden to the same standard if he did some of that shit.

00:46:15.480 Let's jump to this next subject.

00:46:17.340 Donald Trump is expected to sign, I mean, some reports say 100 executive orders in a single day.

00:46:21.800 It's going to be nuts.

00:46:22.740 Many of them pertain to drilling and energy.

00:46:26.040 Joe Biden just banned drilling-

00:46:28.500 Is it near shore?

00:46:29.940 The near shore, that it's going to be difficult to overturn those orders.

00:46:34.860 We don't know for sure.

00:46:35.780 When Joe Biden first got in, he did two major things.

00:46:37.960 He shut down Keystone, and he banned fracking on public land.

00:46:40.760 Trump wants to reverse these things.

00:46:42.540 So I'm curious your guys' thoughts.

00:46:43.700 Well, being soy liberals who believe in climate change, I mean, I would love to see a more at least diverse energy portfolio where we try to embrace renewable energy as much as possible.

00:46:57.520 I will just say that energy production under Biden achieved the highest levels in recorded history even compared to Trump's.

00:47:05.260 I don't know what Trump is going to do.

00:47:08.440 Including oil production, to be clear.

00:47:09.900 Yeah, including oil production.

00:47:11.280 I mean, my God, at the end of his, I think, first year, he was producing or he was signing lease and permits for drilling and fracking at a rate that was higher than under Trump.

00:47:19.640 He was just trying to quell, like, new permits and leases because there was a huge backlog.

00:47:24.380 Got it.

00:47:24.660 So, yeah, energy production is great under Biden compared to even Trump.

00:47:28.220 I don't know what it is about these particular EOs.

00:47:31.140 It's going to be so difficult for Trump to undo with a stroke of a pen because my understanding is if the president signs it with an EO, it can be revoked pretty easily with an EO.

00:47:38.400 Oh, Biden was invoking, like, an old law, which is why.

00:47:41.620 However, that was mechanically important.

00:47:43.240 Oh, so it wasn't done.

00:47:44.060 Okay, gotcha.

00:47:44.220 With the other ones.

00:47:45.120 Yeah, I think Biden should get a lot of credit with that.

00:47:47.840 The crazy thing is, as Trump was going out, a part of the deal that he was making with, like, Saudi Arabia and Russia, we can pull up the specifics.

00:47:55.320 It's been a long time since we've reviewed them, but was to reduce oil production because of the collapse.

00:48:00.400 Before COVID, I think, yeah.

00:48:01.800 So a lot of the recovery to get back to the energy production we were before was pandemic-related, in part, deals that Trump was making to try to help the oil industry.

00:48:08.860 Some made sense because of the collapse of the oil industry.

00:48:10.620 But I will say Biden's doing a good job of both trying to progress green energy initiatives while not rocking the system too much energy-wise.

00:48:19.180 And that's why oil production is still so high.

00:48:21.280 But we're getting green energy incentivized so that as we transition off, it's the least economically painful, but we can get there.

00:48:27.620 There's not going to be a transition off.

00:48:29.760 So that's a long day away, and one of the reasons for that is because of logistics with semi-trucks.

00:48:37.180 You need the diesel engines, and that's that.

00:48:39.820 So the thing is—

00:48:40.860 You just wait until the first Prius—

00:48:42.020 When you're talking about—

00:48:43.520 You just fucking wait.

00:48:44.800 When you're talking about fracking and things like this, yes, that is true.

00:48:48.980 I agree with you that Biden does have high energy output in the nation, but Trump got all that ball rolling when he moved into the fracking sphere.

00:49:00.080 I mean, that was a big thing for him, and he brought it back in a big way.

00:49:04.200 And yes, did Biden—was he able to capitalize on that?

00:49:06.840 Sure, he was able to capitalize on that, but you can't take that away from Trump that he—

00:49:10.920 I mean, he definitely pushed fracking in a very big way.

00:49:15.920 And the thing is about that type of energy, right, it's not even that detrimental.

00:49:21.720 It's not that detrimental.

00:49:23.020 What I would like to see—

00:49:24.100 And here, maybe we can find some common ground here.

00:49:27.980 I'd like to see—

00:49:28.600 I'm about to make Andrew Soy as fuck.

00:49:29.580 I'd like to see a switch to nuclear energy.

00:49:33.000 Yes.

00:49:33.320 That's the cleanest—

00:49:34.540 That's the cleanest—

00:49:35.600 But Chernobyl, Andrew.

00:49:37.040 Yeah, but that's all Soviet panic-mongering done by guys who are like,

00:49:41.480 the fascists, the commune, the fascists.

00:49:43.860 It's done by you guys, but anyway.

00:49:45.380 We should move over to complete nuclear energy, and we should do that immediately.

00:49:53.960 There's no good reason not to.

00:49:55.800 The chances that we're going to have these meltdowns, things like that, they're very, very rare.

00:49:59.740 When they do happen, we do have things we can do, which is bury it usually.

00:50:03.680 But the truth is that it's very, very safe.

00:50:06.600 It's very safe.

00:50:07.360 I totally agree.

00:50:08.240 And it can power everything.

00:50:09.560 It seems like it's a very good way for us to—there's the great compromise.

00:50:14.680 Whether you believe in global warming, you don't believe in global warming, it doesn't really matter,

00:50:18.520 because both sides can agree on the fact that nuclear energy is the best way forward,

00:50:23.160 and it will reduce the greenhouse emissions so that you latte soy fuckers can be happy.

00:50:28.780 You mean we latte soy fuckers, asshole.

00:50:32.000 And then on this side, I get cheap energy so that straight guys can go have families, right?

00:50:37.840 So everyone's happy.

00:50:39.340 Yeah, so I'd love you to be on the same page with climate change, but honestly, I don't give a fuck.

00:50:42.860 You're right.

00:50:43.280 I mean, who cares what the motivations are at the end of the day?

00:50:45.460 We agree on policy.

00:50:46.560 Yeah.

00:50:46.740 I will say, y'all agree that a lot of the right was lying about Biden's energy record, right?

00:50:51.660 Because I still hear that energy production is crushed under him and oil production.

00:50:55.060 He stopped oil production and all this.

00:50:56.480 There's not a single fucking oil rig working in this country and shit like that, yeah.

00:51:01.120 Yeah, and that's a big part of my economic—

00:51:03.120 I mean, you're attacking positions.

00:51:05.080 You should attack the positions of people in the room with you.

00:51:07.700 I'm not—

00:51:08.000 Yeah, but we're not attacking.

00:51:08.600 Not the positions of, like, some obscure right-winger or something.

00:51:11.520 You're, like, really hostile.

00:51:12.160 I feel like I'm being very nice right now.

00:51:14.180 So, yeah.

00:51:14.480 You guys are going to be friends.

00:51:15.100 A lot of my economic message on Biden or analysis—

00:51:18.940 We're going to be.

00:51:20.560 —does relate to—he actually has a really strong economic record.

00:51:24.820 I would love to talk about that.

00:51:26.100 Some of it's out of his hands.

00:51:27.280 Like, I think the Fed did a really good job of managing interest rates and getting us out of it.

00:51:30.780 We agree that the Federal Reserve should be—

00:51:33.340 Controlled by Trump.

00:51:34.420 He has much money, as he said.

00:51:36.340 But there was a really successful—which is why I think Harris lost.

00:51:40.200 Wait, you want the Fed to stay separate?

00:51:43.440 Yes.

00:51:43.540 You don't want Congress to coin money again?

00:51:45.960 Well, no, I mean separate from, like, not under, like, at will, fireable by the president.

00:51:52.580 I think there should be a degree of independence the way it currently is.

00:51:55.880 They're responsible for our money supply.

00:51:57.900 They need to be answerable to our government.

00:51:59.400 Well, I mean, you could discharge the chairman of the Federal Reserve for cause, but I just don't think that they should be, like, a political appointee.

00:52:04.980 I think that's fair.

00:52:05.500 Think about during times of, you know, the reason that people thought that Biden would—

00:52:08.820 Wait, would you want us soy liberals, like, just, like, firing casually?

00:52:12.400 No, I think that Congress should be in charge of the distribution of money in the United States, not a private banking institution where you can have a single guy who can raise or deflate the currency at will.

00:52:23.760 That gives them so much unilateral power that they could be on par with the president of the United States when the entire world uses the dollar as the reserve currency.

00:52:34.800 Having a single guy like Alan Greenspan who can say, here's this lever, we increase the money supply and inflate it, or we decrease it so that we can deflate it.

00:52:43.640 The control of interest rates can result in a president winning or losing an election.

00:52:46.180 I mean, it's totally—

00:52:47.860 Well, that's what we're saying.

00:52:48.900 Jerome Powell to try to—

00:52:50.100 No, that's not why.

00:52:51.140 He wanted to do—

00:52:51.960 Wait, please.

00:52:52.280 What Trump wanted, the reason that Trump wanted interest rates low is because his economic advisors were telling him something which is true.

00:53:00.440 The Midwest is starving for credit, okay?

00:53:02.540 They've just had Democrat governors everywhere, all over the place, and they have been putting the squeeze on manufacturing there with business taxes, everything else.

00:53:11.500 They can't get access to credit.

00:53:13.340 What happens when the interest rates go low?

00:53:16.020 Well, hang on.

00:53:16.940 Everyone borrows money.

00:53:17.500 Hang on.

00:53:17.980 What happens when the interest rates go low?

00:53:20.020 Everyone borrows money.

00:53:21.600 The credit is there.

00:53:22.980 And so what he was doing is he said, not only are we going to cut business taxes by 30% for corporations,

00:53:28.980 but we're going to give them an incentive to borrow money to expand, right?

00:53:33.480 And then we're—

00:53:33.800 But if we want to give them incentives to borrow money, we've got to have a lower interest rate.

00:53:37.260 His entire economic team told him that.

00:53:39.080 By the way, it makes sense.

00:53:40.620 And by the way, they borrowed a shitload of money.

00:53:43.180 And a lot of these businesses did expand.

00:53:45.220 Please, please, please, please.

00:53:46.460 What was it?

00:53:47.680 Please, me?

00:53:48.680 Well, can we—

00:53:50.020 Please?

00:53:50.140 Yeah, go ahead.

00:53:51.000 I just want to—

00:53:51.880 Will y'all then, regardless of that, because that's the whole thing, the stance on the Fed,

00:53:55.760 but I shouldn't have thrown that in there, I'm just saying, will you acknowledge that,

00:54:00.460 whether it was Biden or his team or whatever, of the power they had,

00:54:04.960 did a really good job managing the recovery out of the pandemic?

00:54:08.120 No.

00:54:08.820 Okay.

00:54:09.280 Because that's what I would love to discuss.

00:54:10.760 Because we did better than our comparable economies.

00:54:13.680 Let's just say it objectively.

00:54:15.320 Better than projections.

00:54:15.500 The people of this country did not believe the recovery was good.

00:54:17.700 That's not a—

00:54:18.360 That's their feeling.

00:54:19.180 You're right.

00:54:19.340 Well, no.

00:54:19.620 The economy was listed as one of the top issues, and Donald Trump did win the popular vote.

00:54:23.600 Oh, I'm with you.

00:54:24.540 I'm with you that people believed it was bad.

00:54:26.000 In general, the people did not believe the recovery was good.

00:54:28.100 Yeah, but to me—

00:54:28.640 No, I agree.

00:54:29.260 Yeah, but that's a separate issue.

00:54:30.360 Like, there's no question that Biden was not able to persuade the majority of Americans

00:54:34.740 that his economic stewardship was good.

00:54:36.820 Because prices went up, as they did around the world, but we managed to get it down faster

00:54:40.000 than our comparable economy.

00:54:41.400 The rate of inflation down.

00:54:42.400 Explain that to me.

00:54:43.120 People believe—the reason for that is, like me and Myron were discussing this this morning,

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00:56:06.360 Realize economics.

00:56:07.780 I know you've talked to O'Connell Boy.

00:56:09.000 He's a smart guy, right?

00:56:10.180 And he'll tell you the same thing.

00:56:11.400 It's faith-based, okay?

00:56:12.400 Sure.

00:56:12.920 One of the things that's happened under Biden is a bunch of wars.

00:56:15.800 Yep.

00:56:16.080 Right?

00:56:16.460 He's been, he's involving the United States in a bunch of wars.

00:56:19.180 Now, you can say they're justified for him to be involved in these, not justified for

00:56:22.980 him to be involved in these, but it shakes people's faith.

00:56:25.920 And you have good shortages now, right?

00:56:28.340 You have, you have some good shortages coming from, you know, Eastern Bloc country, possibly

00:56:32.620 imports.

00:56:33.500 I know, like, here's an obscure one, but ammunition to the United States from Russia, right?

00:56:39.320 For like private consumption.

00:56:40.860 They need it right now.

00:56:41.500 For like private consumption.

00:56:43.320 You know what I mean?

00:56:44.240 That has skyrocketed.

00:56:45.760 Uh, I mean, Obama had outlawed it for a long time.

00:56:48.820 So the thing is, is like, yes, it's, it's faith-based when you involve us in different

00:56:53.580 wars, things like that, it shakes people's confidence.

00:56:55.800 When we're not involved in, in foreign affairs, we're not involved in foreign wars, man, people

00:57:00.440 feel way more comfortable when it comes to their spending habits, when it comes to expansion,

00:57:05.180 when it comes to things like this, because they have that sense of certainty.

00:57:07.940 My, my understanding is that consumer spending habits have been pretty like incongruous with

00:57:14.000 like the public's opinion on the economy.

00:57:15.760 Like they spent a fuck ton during this holiday.

00:57:17.620 It's like pre-pandemic.

00:57:19.460 There's a data point for clarification though.

00:57:21.800 I believe that was largely higher income earners were spending exorbitantly and lower income

00:57:25.340 earners were not, which created an average or a median.

00:57:27.440 But we've seen like in, in almost every single economic metric, a miracle coming out of the

00:57:33.680 pandemic, including purchasing power, getting back to what it was pre-pandemic, which is

00:57:37.400 stunning giving, uh, given the price increases that were happening.

00:57:40.240 I think, I think the economic, it's not a miracle.

00:57:42.060 I think the economic, cause, cause all you, what happened, I've been, I've been really

00:57:45.640 trying to really try it.

00:57:47.120 Um, I will, I will, I will say, so we're, we started outperforming even projections pre-pandemic.

00:57:53.120 We outperformed our other wealthy country counterparts.

00:57:55.840 We brought down inflation faster.

00:57:57.540 We got purchasing power back.

00:57:58.740 We got wage growth back.

00:58:00.200 All these things.

00:58:01.140 Labor force participation.

00:58:02.020 That's a crazy one.

00:58:03.080 The highest employment's low.

00:58:04.380 And so in Western country after Western country, you've seen sort of an anti-incumbent bias because

00:58:09.720 of price increases, which makes sense because people don't know like what all the exact

00:58:13.560 data points are.

00:58:14.360 Understandably, they're just going, they're buying things and they're mad that the prices

00:58:16.800 have gone up, but that doesn't mean that the management of the economy was, uh, bad.

00:58:21.100 It means that there's been a effective messaging campaign to convince people the reason prices

00:58:25.840 went up was because of Biden when it was really a global phenomenon that he, you can't put

00:58:29.820 it on propaganda.

00:58:31.260 You can't say that the people were just propagandized into believing that the economy, that the economy

00:58:36.800 would acknowledge any of the points I made at all.

00:58:38.840 I'm acknowledging.

00:58:39.740 Like deal with any of them.

00:58:41.120 What?

00:58:41.420 I'm literally going through all of this.

00:58:42.620 Why did we outperform other countries?

00:58:43.800 Why did we give?

00:58:44.220 Yeah.

00:58:44.420 Okay.

00:58:44.740 But hang on, hang on.

00:58:45.980 Look, first of all, okay, let's go over it.

00:58:47.740 Like real wages, for instance.

00:58:49.080 If you look at real wages under Trump, they were the highest that they were, that they

00:58:52.620 ever were ever.

00:58:53.940 So real wages, you can pull it up.

00:58:56.040 Highest they ever were.

00:58:56.920 It was on a trajectory to do this.

00:58:58.960 So it's been, it's been on an upward trajectory under Trump.

00:59:03.300 It was high.

00:59:04.060 Okay.

00:59:04.980 Um, Biden has taken advantage of a lot of Trump's economic policies.

00:59:10.440 Okay.

00:59:10.820 He's been able to take advantage of many of them.

00:59:12.620 All that happened here.

00:59:13.920 It was not a big miracle.

00:59:15.280 Like you're putting it, you're saying, oh, it's, it was miraculous.

00:59:18.280 We were able to recover from this.

00:59:19.680 Yeah.

00:59:19.760 That's what happens when you take the chains off of industry and the chains off of people.

00:59:23.320 What actually happened is this in reality.

00:59:25.740 Why didn't ever the Biden administration was still pushing a narrative of masking mandates

00:59:31.580 and other things that was coming out of the CDC, Fauci and these, the rest of these

00:59:35.940 individuals.

00:59:36.400 Okay.

00:59:37.620 Largely, they did not move those restrictions off.

00:59:40.420 People just ignored them.

00:59:41.440 They just finally said enough and they just began ignoring them outright.

00:59:46.580 They ignored them.

00:59:47.640 Yeah.

00:59:47.780 But what restrictions, I don't remember like federal restrictions on like just the American

00:59:51.580 people were like, no, no.

00:59:52.600 So what happens, what happens, what happens, what happens, what happens, what happens, what

00:59:55.440 happens, what happens, what happens, what happens, what happens, what happens, what happens,

00:59:58.580 no, no, no, no.

00:59:59.480 I'm sorry.

01:00:00.100 I, to clarify, just to be clear, I know that there were some federal regulations, like I think

01:00:03.960 on the military as well, like with vaccines.

01:00:05.940 No, no.

01:00:06.380 I just mean like a brought over the broad American population.

01:00:08.640 No, no, no, all of this was part of a greater narrative of it's your patriotic duty to do

01:00:14.480 distancing.

01:00:15.160 It's your patriotic duty to not give people COVID and et cetera.

01:00:18.740 You're going to kill grandma, right?

01:00:20.540 This was all part of the kind of greater narrative and it was very harmful to business.

01:00:24.200 You saw that there was lots of big business winners and a lot of small business losers

01:00:28.840 that came out of COVID-19.

01:00:30.620 So let me just clarify, this is a GPT generated image based on data.

01:00:35.440 So take it with a massive boulder of salt, but it does correlate with data that I think

01:00:40.760 Andrew has been pointing out that a lot of people pointed out.

01:00:42.440 I asked GPT to generate a graph showing real wages adjusted for buying power from 2070 to

01:00:46.640 2025.

01:00:47.460 You can see that when COVID comes around, it does drop significantly.

01:00:50.720 It increases in the last year, but then in the Biden administration, it did drop quite

01:00:55.960 a bit.

01:00:56.860 Yeah, real wages.

01:00:57.720 Wages may have increased, but buying power decreased.

01:01:00.300 And, and, and that's not, and so, so that's, but that's what we're talking about with real

01:01:03.840 wages, right?

01:01:04.500 It has to be on par with the buying power.

01:01:07.200 That's how we're adjusting for the real wage.

01:01:08.700 So under Trump, real wages went up more than, more than anybody else in like, I think of

01:01:14.360 like 40 or 50 years.

01:01:15.560 I don't know where that.

01:01:16.560 And so the thing is, is like, what's, what's really interesting when you look at the data

01:01:20.660 set for economics, like, no, people clearly know that their dollar wasn't going as far.

01:01:26.040 And here's what they know.

01:01:27.340 They know under Trump, I was doing better under Biden.

01:01:31.220 I was doing worse.

01:01:32.380 That's all you need.

01:01:33.480 Like you don't need any more than that.

01:01:35.500 No, I do think it's fair to point out that COVID is anomalous and the average person has

01:01:39.400 no frame of reference for what a recovery should or should not be.

01:01:42.540 All that really mad when it came to the election was that people didn't feel good.

01:01:46.040 And listen, that's uncontested.

01:01:47.900 I don't dispute that at all.

01:01:49.920 I don't know how to send this to you, but I would love to.

01:01:52.400 I don't know.

01:01:52.840 So that is like the opposite of every single source I'm pulling up here that is seeing

01:01:57.280 we've gotten back to inflation adjusted wages higher than they've ever been.

01:02:01.180 So that being like the exact wonky, I think might be a.

01:02:04.660 But again, I just want to say I'm not contesting what the perception of the economy is.

01:02:08.580 Where I do agree with Luke, though, is it seems like when you compare us to other nations,

01:02:13.280 how we recover the soft landing from the pandemic, the fact that we avoided a recession,

01:02:16.840 you know, jobs, not only the bounce back jobs, but also the rate of jobs that increase per month

01:02:22.320 under Biden were even higher than they were under Trump.

01:02:23.980 I mean, I don't think we're disputing the fact that we did better than a lot of first world

01:02:27.020 countries when it comes to our person.

01:02:28.200 But even G7, Myron, respectfully, I mean, like even like G7 countries like Japan.

01:02:32.180 Yeah, we were better than all of them.

01:02:33.600 You said first world.

01:02:34.560 I'm sorry.

01:02:34.820 I thought you said third world.

01:02:35.560 Yeah, no, no.

01:02:36.340 We were already on the upper trajectory under Trump before the COVID pandemic happened.

01:02:41.980 And all the numbers that most of the Democrats source, they source when the pandemic came in,

01:02:46.480 the economy was shut down.

01:02:48.320 Before that, the economy was skyrocketing.

01:02:50.560 Yes, it was.

01:02:51.380 And again, you can look at the real wages.

01:02:52.900 Well, I don't think he's disputing that.

01:02:54.160 I was saying we would never be like, let's compare Biden non-COVID to Trump COVID.

01:02:58.860 Obviously, like when you look at end of Obama to Trump, a lot of times we'll do those comparisons

01:03:03.240 because Trump just kind of inherited the economy that was...

01:03:06.120 No, Biden inherited Trump's economy.

01:03:08.000 That's what happened.

01:03:09.480 Disagree, yeah.

01:03:10.260 During an economic crisis.

01:03:12.040 But yeah, every...

01:03:13.440 You could pull up metrics and the one that you just pulled up, again, I hope...

01:03:16.440 You can just tell me what it is.

01:03:18.140 I'll Google the title.

01:03:18.900 This one's U.S. News and World Reports.

01:03:21.020 The other one is...

01:03:22.100 What's the title of the...

01:03:23.520 Okay, here, let me type it.

01:03:24.620 Yeah, look, I don't think we're disputing that the U.S. was doing better than a lot of

01:03:27.900 other countries, like when it comes to our purchasing power, et cetera.

01:03:30.820 Americans' inflation-adjusted incomes.

01:03:32.600 I hear you.

01:03:33.160 I don't think we're disputing...

01:03:33.940 We're not disputing that.

01:03:35.040 I see you're making the argument that like, hey, Joe Biden's economy isn't as bad as

01:03:38.520 mega-Republicans think it is.

01:03:39.640 Because we can agree that we're better off than a lot of other countries.

01:03:43.460 I mean, Japan is a great example where their yen just fucking tanked over the past few

01:03:47.040 years.

01:03:47.060 We're doing better than China.

01:03:48.000 We're doing better...

01:03:48.560 Yeah, I can...

01:03:49.460 We're not disputing that.

01:03:50.380 I guess my point is if Biden had done such terrible things...

01:03:52.600 Not in trade surplus, though.

01:03:53.660 ...to spike inflation, because that was the big argument, right?

01:03:55.760 Like, Biden made bad, irresponsible decisions that caused inflation to spike.

01:03:59.460 That's the one I'm trying to get to the core of, because if you agree, like, yeah, he

01:04:01.940 kind of managed things fine.

01:04:03.080 And you could say it was because of Trump.

01:04:04.380 It was because of whatever.

01:04:05.060 But just acknowledging we got out of it pretty dang well, and then you can attribute whatever

01:04:09.300 to credit that for.

01:04:10.880 That's a big difference from the mainstream right-wing message, which is that Biden messed

01:04:14.960 things up.

01:04:15.380 Yeah, but the problem...

01:04:16.600 So the problem here is...

01:04:17.480 It depends on in what regard did he mess things up.

01:04:19.360 Like, for me, for example, foreign policy, fucked up, right?

01:04:22.320 The conflict with Ukraine and Russia, that actually drove up the cost of food significantly.

01:04:26.760 No one talks about that for obvious reasons, because Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe.

01:04:30.060 If you strain food in one area, it's going to strain resources in other areas, and the

01:04:33.300 price goes up.

01:04:34.160 So I find it interesting, because Kamala campaigned on, oh, yeah, I'm going to go after

01:04:36.960 the grocery stores for price gouging, et cetera.

01:04:39.000 But the Democrats created that problem with bad foreign policy, allowing conflict to happen,

01:04:43.540 not keeping Russia in its place.

01:04:44.680 So, you know, I think the issue here is...

01:04:48.000 I see where you're saying, like, hey, the economy wasn't as bad, given the circumstances.

01:04:51.360 Okay, I can see your perspective on that.

01:04:52.680 But we also got to look at other things like foreign policy, where we're talking about,

01:04:55.400 where conflicts absolutely play into the price of food, the price of goods.

01:04:59.820 Energy prices.

01:05:00.780 Yes, for sure.

01:05:01.800 On that point, the moment at which Joe Biden's favorability dropped below 50% was the Afghanistan.

01:05:08.820 Can we read this?

01:05:09.640 Because since you pulled out, the inflation-adjusted median income of U.S. households rebounded last

01:05:12.480 year to roughly its 2019 level, overcoming the biggest price spike in four decades to

01:05:16.340 restore most Americans purchasing power.

01:05:20.100 So just since we put that other one up on the screen, I want to make sure we add that

01:05:23.700 to it.

01:05:24.540 Yeah, there's no way for me to dive into the details of these numbers.

01:05:27.400 Okay.

01:05:27.880 But...

01:05:28.400 Just probably...

01:05:29.080 But I'm happy to reset this up.

01:05:32.200 If you guys want later for, like, a one-view one, I'm happy to do it.

01:05:35.420 Let's get into the foreign policy aspect of this.

01:05:37.180 So Joe Biden's favorability, his approval rating, it dropped because of Afghanistan.

01:05:41.540 And during Trump, we had the end of ISIS.

01:05:45.180 We had the Abraham Accords.

01:05:46.400 We had attempts at peace agreements.

01:05:48.520 We still had the Afghanistan war.

01:05:50.320 Certainly did.

01:05:51.320 And it was during Trump's administration, the negotiated withdrawal took place.

01:05:56.180 So you can argue both...

01:05:57.620 My liberals screamed about it.

01:05:58.760 You can argue both administrations were involved to some degree, to whatever degree you want

01:06:01.620 to argue.

01:06:01.960 My point is, Biden administration has been marked by war and conflict and crisis.

01:06:08.680 I just...

01:06:09.920 I think a lot of...

01:06:10.880 Either...

01:06:11.640 The two main ones, being Gaza and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I think deserve two separate

01:06:16.400 discussions.

01:06:17.840 The Russia one, I'm not compelled at all by the Trump-initiated piece because we saw...

01:06:23.000 I mean, we've seen sort of a trajectory of Putin's activity that, of course, he would wait

01:06:29.680 to see how much Trump could damage our international alliances and see the worst of what he could

01:06:37.700 do before invading and the pandemic hits and maybe that delays.

01:06:41.100 I think there was an inevitability to, at some point, him going for Ukraine.

01:06:43.860 So what I care about the most with Biden's response was, is he going to be very supportive?

01:06:47.300 Because I do believe being really supportive of Ukraine is in our interest.

01:06:51.400 Based on what?

01:06:52.180 What do you think?

01:06:52.740 Yeah, that's the money and time.

01:06:54.080 So you're saying, oh, it was just inevitable.

01:06:56.840 Like, it was inevitable.

01:06:58.060 He was going to...

01:06:58.460 No, that's not inevitable.

01:06:59.920 No, I agree.

01:07:00.340 It's not inevitable.

01:07:00.720 Hang on.

01:07:01.360 Where are you even coming up with it?

01:07:02.660 So what you did is you just give yourself...

01:07:04.640 You just grant yourself the starting position.

01:07:07.020 It was inevitable that eventually Russia...

01:07:09.560 Let's get into the meat and potatoes.

01:07:10.860 ...Russia's going to attack Ukraine.

01:07:12.120 It's like, no, that's not inevitable.

01:07:13.760 Let's get into the meat and potatoes on this one.

01:07:14.940 I'm saying, watching the last couple decades play out, why should we be involved in Ukraine?

01:07:19.560 You said it's in our interest.

01:07:20.520 Like, I don't think we should get directly militarily involved with Russia.

01:07:23.640 Avoid a hot war.

01:07:24.360 We're all in favor of that.

01:07:25.900 Avoid a hot war with Russia.

01:07:26.740 But in terms of how much we spend to be geopolitically, militarily competitive and prepared national security-wise against Russia, generally we're spending trillions and trillions and trillions over the course of decades for that purpose.

01:07:39.120 This is a much more direct way to send what is relatively a small amount of money compared to what we're normally spending on the same cause to oppose the aggression of Russia that I think is destabilizing to the world.

01:07:51.000 Okay, but you do realize when you guys say we don't want a hot war in Russia, that if you're trading and supporting and funding the enemy of Russia that they're in a war with, that drastically increases the chances that you get attacked by that nation trying to cut off the supply, the endless supply of funding to the nation they're fighting with.

01:08:15.680 That's just common war doctrine.

01:08:18.760 Of course, that increases the chances of a hot war.

01:08:21.760 Okay?

01:08:22.380 It's silly.

01:08:23.080 The containment method is not good.

01:08:24.800 And ultimately, Russia is going to beat the Ukraine.

01:08:27.400 Does appeasement work, though?

01:08:28.640 Like, because to me, it's like there are two major camps, right?

01:08:30.620 You say containment, the other one appeasement.

01:08:32.200 Do you think appeasement works?

01:08:33.220 I think that ultimately, in this case, what's going to happen is this.

01:08:37.540 Russia is going to take their objective.

01:08:39.860 They're going to get a large portion of the Ukraine.

01:08:42.140 Not all of it, but they're going to get a large portion.

01:08:43.420 They're going to control almost all of the eastern Ukraine.

01:08:44.580 Yeah, the chances that they don't is not good.

01:08:48.340 And our generals predict it themselves, at least Donbass region, right?

01:08:51.780 Can you clarify just real quick?

01:08:53.380 Do you think it will be because Trump forces a settlement like that, where basically where he freezes things?

01:09:00.040 Or do you think that even if Trump doesn't intervene?

01:09:03.260 Well, no, no, no.

01:09:04.280 Intervention at this point would actually probably be better to negotiate this settlement rather than the lives continue to get lost until Russia gets it anyway.

01:09:13.420 Now, if the Ukraine wants to fight to the last, there's not much anybody can do about it.

01:09:17.240 But Zelensky has, I think, somewhat signaled that he's ready for some kind of ceasefire because they're running out of troops.

01:09:23.920 I mean, this is the problem.

01:09:24.940 They're running out of troops.

01:09:25.640 They're already using the rubble in eastern Ukraine.

01:09:26.760 Yeah, I mean, they're drafting 60-year-olds now.

01:09:29.980 I mean, they're going to run out of soldiers.

01:09:31.580 And women.

01:09:32.060 Yeah, and women.

01:09:33.060 But they can't send them to the front line because they just get killed.

01:09:36.400 Don't tell Pete Hex that.

01:09:38.060 But anyway.

01:09:38.720 Don't tell him.

01:09:39.400 The point is, it's like they're going to take this region no matter what.

01:09:43.900 This is going to happen.

01:09:45.560 This, though, when you talk about containment of – what's that?

01:09:49.280 Aren't you saying there's an inevitability to Putin wanting that land like I said?

01:09:52.760 No, I'm saying that once he invaded, it's inevitable he wins it.

01:09:56.700 Not that it was inevitable he would invade.

01:09:58.840 I don't know.

01:09:59.320 I mean, I agree that if Ukraine were to say, all right, we're not in it for this, we don't want it, then I'm not saying push them to keep going.

01:10:06.700 But as long as they're saying we're going to fight, I'd rather them have a better shot to do more damage than the war goes on, but they're just getting crushed more.

01:10:16.380 Yeah, but the reason why they say that they're going to fight is because we support them.

01:10:19.580 It's the same thing with Israel.

01:10:20.840 The reason why they speak, they act the way that they do is because they know that we're going to give them money.

01:10:24.660 So if we had told them no more aid, it would force them to negotiate.

01:10:27.540 Yeah, what do you think Zelensky is going to do?

01:10:28.980 Go in and be like, oh, we're about to surrender.

01:10:31.040 That would be terrible rhetoric.

01:10:32.300 Of course not.

01:10:33.020 No, I understand.

01:10:33.820 But I'm saying that in the beginning of this, there was also the belief that there was an inevitability to like two weeks or a month or whatever, all of Ukraine is done.

01:10:41.440 And we've seen that hasn't been the case.

01:10:42.500 That is true.

01:10:43.000 And again, on my channel, I talk like U.S. domestic politics, so maybe I'm missing something.

01:10:47.780 But my understanding was during the initial invasion, everyone from far-right experts to I believe Hassan Piker was like, this is going to be over in like a week.

01:10:56.440 Yeah, the only reason it didn't get is because of the enormous amount of aid and money and like literally like the only reason Ukraine hasn't been taken is because of us.

01:11:04.400 But I don't think they would have been taken in a few days.

01:11:07.320 And like Putin is like, you know, being nice about it.

01:11:09.540 He could have just airstriked them to fucking Libya.

01:11:11.020 Yeah, but what I want to know is this.

01:11:12.260 What do we get from our riches and are we sacrificing lives in vain for our riches?

01:11:17.340 That's what I want to know.

01:11:18.240 And so the answer to this is like, you don't know and you don't know.

01:11:22.180 And so the thing is, is like if it is the case that all of our generals project the chances that this region is going to go to Russia anyway and we can save thousands or tens of thousands of lives in this conflict, it seems wiser to me to just back away from funding this whole nightmare.

01:11:38.600 And the mainstream media did everything to not tell Americans the truth that they were losing.

01:11:42.660 This is why like you look at like someone like people that were reporting, right, that were saying, look, Russia is going to win this.

01:11:47.260 Like Gonzalo Lira or Jackson Inkle, et cetera.

01:11:49.260 They're getting banned, censored, et cetera.

01:11:51.120 It's not till years later the news is finally coming out.

01:11:53.700 Yeah, you know what?

01:11:54.280 We're losing.

01:11:55.600 We're losing.

01:11:56.820 They did kill Lira.

01:11:57.800 Yeah, Lira was killed.

01:11:58.440 Yeah, he got killed.

01:11:59.080 But like when he had his YouTube channel and he was putting out this information, he was shadow banned.

01:12:02.620 Jackson Inkle banned him.

01:12:04.000 And they're like, oh, these guys are just Russian propagandists.

01:12:06.180 Well, they're kind of telling the truth when it comes to this conflict.

01:12:08.020 But Russia is winning.

01:12:09.300 And it took years for the mainstream media to say, you know what?

01:12:11.620 Yeah, they are kind of winning.

01:12:12.540 We should probably maybe have a ceasefire.

01:12:14.480 It took years for the American public to figure it out.

01:12:16.140 Those were the guys we're talking about that kept falsely predicting it's going to be over here and then here and then here.

01:12:21.060 And they kept being wrong.

01:12:22.240 But they were correct.

01:12:23.180 Way better.

01:12:23.700 But they were correct that Russia was decimating them.

01:12:25.780 Most people don't.

01:12:26.020 They were correct about that.

01:12:27.000 That's, I mean, Russia.

01:12:28.740 That's important.

01:12:29.320 That's relevant to America's sentiment to fund the war.

01:12:31.660 Wasn't Russia's military pretty fucked up as a continent?

01:12:34.900 Yeah.

01:12:35.240 Look at how many people are dying in the Russian military, which is tragic.

01:12:39.000 But how much their military is losing as well.

01:12:41.740 But my point is that they can sustain it.

01:12:44.400 I mean, that's what Russia's been doing.

01:12:46.320 I think Russia won already.

01:12:47.580 Russia did.

01:12:48.220 I mean, they repelled the Germans with a million peasants.

01:12:51.700 They don't care.

01:12:52.340 They'll continue to throw soldiers into the meat grinder until they get their objective.

01:12:56.400 They don't care.

01:12:57.380 Famously, Russia's strategy is referred to as the Zep Brannigan strategy, where he sends wave after wave of his own men.

01:13:02.540 Yeah.

01:13:03.440 Exactly.

01:13:04.260 Until the enemy runs out of ammo.

01:13:06.040 Right?

01:13:06.680 Like, literally.

01:13:07.640 But they're not yet.

01:13:08.380 We're never sending them ammo.

01:13:09.760 When they first invaded in early 2022, I remember watching Gonzalo talk about this.

01:13:13.020 He was like, yeah, they're going to win, et cetera.

01:13:14.500 They're winning.

01:13:15.280 And he was getting shadow banned.

01:13:16.700 The American media wasn't reporting it because they didn't want the American public to know that, look, we're funding this war and we're fucking losing.

01:13:22.900 It took years for the American public to finally figure out they're losing.

01:13:26.560 I'm willing to have a nuanced conversation about how long we should be willing to do this, how inevitable is it.

01:13:32.540 But that point's not true at all.

01:13:34.300 The overwhelming mainstream media consensus was that if Russia invades, it's all over.

01:13:39.120 And then it was like, whoa, Ukraine, now years they've been able to-

01:13:41.460 Yeah, but they were holding back the fingers and not being honest about them losing.

01:13:45.160 Ukraine lost.

01:13:45.660 I mean, they didn't, but-

01:13:47.980 They did.

01:13:48.400 Do you see the map in front of you?

01:13:49.900 Look at how much of Ukraine is not taking it.

01:13:51.560 Look at all that non-red Ukraine.

01:13:53.900 What was Russia's stated objective?

01:13:54.980 The objective wasn't to take Ukraine, though.

01:13:57.400 That wasn't their objective.

01:13:58.080 What was Russia's stated objective?

01:13:59.300 So if all they're interested in is the eastern portion-

01:14:02.200 It's the land bridge to Crimea.

01:14:03.160 They've been there.

01:14:03.700 Yeah.

01:14:03.920 They've been there.

01:14:04.620 They've taken it.

01:14:04.900 They've taken it.

01:14:05.480 Right.

01:14:05.800 So-

01:14:06.540 We're not-

01:14:07.020 What?

01:14:07.600 Of course.

01:14:07.900 That was their purpose.

01:14:08.560 Of course.

01:14:08.800 That was their purpose.

01:14:09.340 I'm shocked to take this long.

01:14:10.340 The Russian objective was attained a couple years ago.

01:14:13.860 I don't know how that at all relates to what we're saying.

01:14:16.080 Again, because-

01:14:16.800 Because more-

01:14:17.740 No, no, wait.

01:14:18.160 Why is there still fighting if they achieve their objective?

01:14:20.020 Because Ukraine wants the land bridge.

01:14:21.020 Right, and the U.S. is providing funding.

01:14:22.880 Yeah, but that's why I'm saying that then you can't-

01:14:24.800 I take your point that they have the land seizures that they sought, but it's clearly

01:14:29.380 not secure.

01:14:30.120 There's a reason the conflict's still going on.

01:14:32.540 Russia is suffering casualties-

01:14:34.980 Well, let's clarify.

01:14:35.680 From Ukrainian resistance.

01:14:37.020 Yes.

01:14:37.400 Russia has secured its objective and is now seeking to defend its position.

01:14:41.300 I still don't know if, like, secure-

01:14:42.620 Because, again, it doesn't seem particularly secure, but, like-

01:14:44.900 No, no, no, no.

01:14:45.720 This map shows that Russia has taken control of the Donbass region.

01:14:50.460 Yeah, I see-

01:14:51.120 We're with you on it.

01:14:51.860 I understand what you're saying.

01:14:53.060 You're saying, look, it's not secure if they're still fighting a war of it.

01:14:56.200 That's a fair point.

01:14:56.820 What I mean to say is they are in control of this territory as per the battle maps that are

01:15:01.640 presented by the BBC and by Arcus.

01:15:03.560 No, we agree with that.

01:15:04.400 And so, of course, if the U.S. wasn't supporting Ukraine, the war would be over.

01:15:09.420 Yes.

01:15:09.560 That, I disagree with.

01:15:10.380 Well, I mean, they would still be resisting, but I think the resistance would be, based on

01:15:16.000 my limited understanding, minuscule in comparison.

01:15:19.020 Yeah, they don't have a weapon.

01:15:19.820 Yeah, they wouldn't be able to do anything.

01:15:21.260 You know what I mean?

01:15:21.600 But I think they're also receiving-

01:15:23.520 Aren't they receiving even more from European allies?

01:15:25.940 Again, this is where-

01:15:27.040 They get a lot of aid, yeah.

01:15:27.860 Yeah, even outside the United States.

01:15:29.720 My understanding is, like, they're getting a lot of shit from the United Kingdom, the European

01:15:32.600 Union.

01:15:32.780 From everywhere.

01:15:33.140 Yeah.

01:15:33.500 So, because if those other countries, like, if Ukraine sees this as an ultimate, you know,

01:15:38.800 fight to the death.

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01:16:57.420 For their homeland, and then other European countries feel threatened by Russia doing this,

01:17:02.040 and they're going to be supporting Ukraine somewhat already, and Ukraine's going to be

01:17:05.500 fighting, regardless of if we send aid.

01:17:07.860 I'd rather them have our aid and do more damage to Russia and maybe hold back some Russian aggression

01:17:13.180 further than standing back and Ukraine gets even further.

01:17:17.720 Yeah, so basically that's a very bloodthirsty position for a progressive, isn't it?

01:17:21.460 So the idea here is I want American funding to go to Ukraine so that they can spend their

01:17:29.420 soldiers, right, in what looks to be a fairly fruitless battle long term to get slaughtered

01:17:37.020 over and over and over again so that you may not have to deal with the Ruskies later.

01:17:41.260 It's like, here's the thing, you're going to have to deal with them later, and here's

01:17:44.620 why.

01:17:45.200 They're a nuclear-armed nation.

01:17:46.340 Did you forget about that part?

01:17:47.560 Yeah.

01:17:47.780 They have nuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it's like, you're

01:17:52.060 going to have to deal with them whether you like it or not.

01:17:54.620 This idea of the ground pounders in Ukraine who are battling it out in the trenches, all

01:17:59.480 of that is actually beside the point.

01:18:02.100 They're a nuclear-armed nation capable of intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

01:18:07.440 Exactly, which is why we can't directly involve ourselves militarily with them, because it

01:18:11.980 would be a nuclear war.

01:18:13.260 Right, so spend other people's sons.

01:18:14.600 You're saying bloodthirsty.

01:18:16.240 My point is, as long as Ukraine would be fighting, our aid can prevent more deaths.

01:18:23.380 How?

01:18:24.600 How is our aid preventing more deaths?

01:18:27.400 Let's clarify.

01:18:28.600 Our aid is the reason why they even go.

01:18:30.900 We have to clarify.

01:18:31.840 We have certain equipment that allows them to not even have to send troops, like whatever

01:18:35.640 Biden recently sort of sent them.

01:18:36.920 Let's clarify something.

01:18:38.140 It was the U.S. that sunk the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet.

01:18:42.080 You can say a Ukrainian pulled the trigger, but Russia doesn't see it that way.

01:18:45.160 It can be the perspective of the narrative in the United States that the U.S. is not

01:18:48.240 involved.

01:18:48.720 Russia does not see it that way.

01:18:50.260 The U.S. provided missiles, like attack-ems, provided the training and the equipment, and

01:18:54.840 then asked the guy standing next to them, special forces in Ukraine, press that button

01:18:58.480 to blow up the Russian flagship.

01:18:59.900 Russia doesn't see that as Ukrainian attacking.

01:19:01.700 Well, they do, because they're not attacking, they're not like-

01:19:04.120 Russian state officials and media have already said, we are at war with NATO.

01:19:09.620 Yeah.

01:19:10.040 I mean, yeah.

01:19:10.920 They always believe that.

01:19:11.680 But I agree.

01:19:12.340 They do believe that we are- I agree with all that.

01:19:15.040 I just don't think-

01:19:15.800 Right, so let's put it simply.

01:19:16.480 That means that we're actually going to get into a military conflict with-

01:19:19.480 In no courtroom, would you be able to claim that you were not involved in the murder of

01:19:23.120 a person when you handed the gun to the guy, asked him to do it, and told him to pull the

01:19:25.920 trigger?

01:19:26.020 And we gave him the equipment.

01:19:26.740 Of course.

01:19:27.300 I'm with you.

01:19:27.920 So that means the U.S. is literally at war with Russia.

01:19:30.600 And then I disagree that we technically are neither-

01:19:32.740 Yeah, we're not legally at war with Russia because Congress hasn't declared that.

01:19:35.060 Yeah, we weren't legally at war with Vietnam either.

01:19:37.100 It was a police action.

01:19:37.900 There was no declaration of war.

01:19:39.060 That we're going to have to sacrifice American soldiers to invade Russia, or Russia's going

01:19:44.460 to do that to us.

01:19:45.800 There's not really a threat of that right now.

01:19:47.160 First of all, Luke, I think it's very naive on your part to pretend that there's not American

01:19:53.760 special forces who are in Ukraine right now doing all sorts of sabotage mission, training

01:19:58.780 ops, all sorts of things.

01:20:00.920 It's totally naive to believe that in every other theater-

01:20:05.200 I didn't even blame that.

01:20:05.500 Every other theater that we're involved in, where we're training people in advisory roles-

01:20:10.820 I think you think you're debating with someone.

01:20:12.200 We're always-

01:20:12.720 That's not what I'm claiming.

01:20:13.360 Well, you make the claim like, no boots on the ground.

01:20:16.520 No boots on the ground.

01:20:17.020 It's like, there's already boots on the ground, though.

01:20:19.180 We already have-

01:20:19.700 I guarantee you, we already have special forces boots on the ground.

01:20:22.000 If you don't hear what I'm saying, then-

01:20:22.880 I think foreign wars in general are a big waste of money.

01:20:26.880 It's not a W for us.

01:20:28.480 It's an L.

01:20:30.100 Let's just be honest here.

01:20:31.520 This whole situation with Russia and aggression containing it, it's to fund the military,

01:20:35.280 industrial complex.

01:20:36.280 We need to be able to rationalize and justify our armament, so we need to go ahead and have

01:20:40.280 this conflict with Russia, when in reality we need to figure out some type of diplomatic

01:20:44.460 middle ground with them versus having an issue with a nuclear-armed superpower.

01:20:50.040 I think peace is the way to go, but we want to sit here and substantiate our military-industrial

01:20:54.460 complex, which is problematic.

01:20:55.800 Okay.

01:20:56.220 Russia is so strange.

01:20:58.260 Russia was the one who violated peace.

01:21:01.220 So we had peace, and then Russia made it no longer peace.

01:21:03.760 And then they were fighting, and we went, hmm.

01:21:05.660 I mean, a little bit before-

01:21:06.500 We were promising not to expand NATO for decades, and we just keep doing it.

01:21:09.560 Actually, we never formally promised that, but-

01:21:11.600 Formally.

01:21:13.240 Yeah.

01:21:14.060 Yeah.

01:21:14.760 It was a memo.

01:21:16.080 It wasn't a treaty.

01:21:17.280 Well, that number one, but number two, like, was that-

01:21:20.520 Of course anyone can do NATO.

01:21:21.040 We didn't invite Ukraine into NATO.

01:21:23.280 Is that what you guys are talking about?

01:21:24.260 Like, there was no-

01:21:24.900 Before they invaded, Ukraine specifically said, we're not going to be in, like, we're not

01:21:29.060 entering NATO, and the United States was like, yeah, it's not happening, and Russia's still

01:21:31.620 invaded.

01:21:31.860 It is not.

01:21:32.520 Yeah, well-

01:21:32.920 Let's clarify.

01:21:33.460 The issue wasn't NATO.

01:21:34.420 The issue was the European Union.

01:21:36.120 And so, Vladimir Putin went to Ukraine and said, if you open up your borders to trade with

01:21:42.500 Europe, and we have open borders with you, European goods will flood into Russia, and

01:21:46.860 it'll destabilize our economy, so you have to choose either Europe or Russia.

01:21:49.760 The issue was, Ukraine largely was like, you mean we get access to the Schengen zone and

01:21:54.400 European trade, but we lose Russia?

01:21:56.540 Europe, Russia got pissed and said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, hold on.

01:22:00.560 We need Sevastopol.

01:22:01.920 We need Crimea.

01:22:02.640 We can't lose that to the West.

01:22:04.200 Now, you can make the arguments about what you think happened with the ousting of Yanukovych.

01:22:07.520 A lot of people believe that it was USAID and the CIA that went in to help foment

01:22:10.700 these groups that ultimately stormed his mansion and ousted the guy, forced him to flee

01:22:13.560 to Russia.

01:22:14.840 But this bubbling conflict in the country and political destabilization was definitely

01:22:19.740 both Russia and NATO, Western forces, vying through political means to gain control of

01:22:24.960 Russia, of Ukraine, sorry.

01:22:26.300 Yeah.

01:22:27.020 I'm with you.

01:22:27.700 I think that all that dynamic is very important.

01:22:31.360 And I don't think Russia should have a say in...

01:22:33.960 Yeah, so it's not like they just invaded out of nowhere, you know what I mean?

01:22:36.180 I think it's important to understand, like...

01:22:38.720 What?

01:22:39.260 Yeah, that is.

01:22:39.940 It's what you were just, like, you kind of just back off immediately on your own position

01:22:44.120 right away.

01:22:44.980 You clearly don't even know what my own position is.

01:22:46.740 I'm saying all of those things contribute.

01:22:49.280 That doesn't make it justified.

01:22:50.800 Someone can be...

01:22:51.540 No, you said there was peace and then Russia violated it and then backed off in the position

01:22:55.100 the second it was clarified by Tim.

01:22:56.600 Wait, wait, wait, wait.

01:22:57.440 Hold on, hold on.

01:22:58.360 What are you talking about, Andrew?

01:22:59.220 I don't think that was a contradiction.

01:23:00.340 You could say...

01:23:00.920 Okay, okay.

01:23:01.480 You could say that...

01:23:02.280 Our position, I think me and Andrew's position is we need to stop sending aid to Ukraine and

01:23:06.740 end this agreement.

01:23:07.060 Yeah, we got your position.

01:23:07.880 That's our position.

01:23:08.580 You can violate peace for a reason.

01:23:10.480 He had a reason.

01:23:11.300 I just don't think it's a justified reason.

01:23:12.680 We shouldn't have started a war over it.

01:23:14.480 Let's ask a simple question.

01:23:15.160 Can you acknowledge there's a difference between what you just said, Andrew?

01:23:17.480 No, no, no.

01:23:18.120 Your implication was everyone was minding their own business and getting along fine and then

01:23:23.180 the Russians moved into the Ukraine, right?

01:23:26.280 Everything was perfect.

01:23:27.740 Let's ask the question that Myron brought up.

01:23:29.600 Should we cut off the aid and just say no more involvement in Ukraine?

01:23:33.780 Zero.

01:23:33.980 No.

01:23:34.380 I don't think so.

01:23:35.160 I think end all aid, stop it, end the fight now.

01:23:38.600 Like, we need to end it now.

01:23:39.480 If Ukraine wanted to end the fight, then we could figure out what-

01:23:43.400 Wait, who cares what they think?

01:23:44.280 We're not at the mercy of the-

01:23:44.840 Hold on, hold on.

01:23:45.640 Let me say this.

01:23:46.520 They're the ones fighting.

01:23:47.520 We're not going to start our end the war.

01:23:48.140 If we're funding the conflict, we're giving them all the aid.

01:23:50.680 We dictate what happens.

01:23:52.040 I find it interesting how we let these other countries like Israel, Ukraine dictate our foreign

01:23:56.560 policy.

01:23:57.120 We give you the money.

01:23:57.900 We tell you what it is.

01:23:59.280 Fuck that.

01:23:59.760 It's not true.

01:24:00.620 Ukraine would-

01:24:01.480 Or-

01:24:02.480 Tell Zelensky, hey, dumbass, we put you in power.

01:24:04.840 You do what we say.

01:24:05.640 Let me ask you these questions.

01:24:08.440 This question is wild.

01:24:09.640 What is the strategic, economic, or otherwise benefit of our involvement in Ukraine?

01:24:15.380 My understanding is-

01:24:17.000 Zero.

01:24:18.040 Well, go ahead.

01:24:18.700 Fuck you.

01:24:19.740 Zero eight.

01:24:20.460 But also-

01:24:20.880 Zero eight.

01:24:21.500 Zero benefit.

01:24:22.040 My understanding-

01:24:22.680 The best answer of the debate so far.

01:24:24.240 Fuck you or zero.

01:24:25.280 Zero, my understanding is this should not be the primary motivator, and I'm not sure that

01:24:31.980 it is, but if you take just morality out of the equation, looking at Russia as a geopolitical

01:24:36.240 rival, they have been weakened as a consequence of this.

01:24:39.040 Now, you can say that they're going to win, and certainly they have still the stronger military,

01:24:42.960 but they are not in a better position now than they were prior to the war, number one.

01:24:46.620 Number two, we consider Ukraine an ally.

01:24:49.200 We consider them somebody that we have diplomatic and economic incentives for them to succeed.

01:24:57.900 Also, by definition, the European Union as well.

01:25:00.480 So it seems like we have diplomatic and economic reasons and to try to weaken Russia, number one.

01:25:05.500 But I just want to be clear, at least for me, and I'm sure Luke would agree, if Ukraine

01:25:10.580 did not want to fight-

01:25:12.340 I don't think we should be forcing or coercing Ukraine to fight.

01:25:16.100 If they decide, like, you know what, fuck it, we just- we've resisted, let's have either

01:25:21.980 a settlement or just wave the white flag all the way around, I mean, I think it would suck

01:25:27.160 that we were empowering and rewarding Putin, but, like, at that point, yes, the aid should

01:25:32.140 be cut off, but my understanding is they still want to fight, and they just need help.

01:25:36.520 So-

01:25:36.640 Who is they, though?

01:25:38.100 Ukrainian people, right?

01:25:39.120 Isn't there-

01:25:39.680 In the Ukrainian government?

01:25:40.560 Zelensky wants to fight.

01:25:41.520 Well, I believe largely the population has either resisted conscription or fled the country.

01:25:46.920 Yeah.

01:25:47.040 Not the majority, I'm saying, but-

01:25:48.520 Oh, I'm sure there's people doing that, yeah, I'm saying-

01:25:50.200 I mean, they're drafting women and elderly, if they're not-

01:25:52.300 I don't think people want to-

01:25:53.200 I'm sorry, you're right, to be clear, I'm sure the number of people who want to pick

01:25:56.840 up a gun and fight Russian soldiers, I'm sure that that number-

01:26:01.280 And that's what matters.

01:26:02.400 Not the puppet that we put in place.

01:26:03.840 No, no, no, no, I agree, not even Zelensky.

01:26:05.240 Let's not even call it a puppet, let's just say, the government of a small group of people,

01:26:10.100 do you guys believe that the small government, this limited amount of people, have a right

01:26:14.280 to force the people of Ukraine through conscription to go fight a war?

01:26:17.540 No, I'm saying-

01:26:18.200 Well, I mean, yeah, if they have drafts, they could probably draft people, yeah.

01:26:21.900 So the question that becomes, when you say, Ukraine wants to fight, you're talking about

01:26:24.960 the oligarchs and the politicians not to keep fighting.

01:26:27.240 Yeah, I was about to specify.

01:26:27.540 Well, what they're actually-

01:26:28.600 Wait, wait, just let me specify, if public opinion was against it, I would say, well, they democratically

01:26:34.020 should listen to the public opinion.

01:26:35.360 The government of Ukraine has largely been described for decades as an oligarchy.

01:26:38.980 You guys know how the oligarchy formed in Ukraine?

01:26:40.060 And corrupt, super corrupt.

01:26:41.660 Let me answer your question.

01:26:42.660 I'm making-

01:26:43.180 I'm going to ask the question.

01:26:43.780 Sure, I'm making a point about the structure of the government, that's why I asked the question.

01:26:47.020 After the fall of the Soviet Union, the general story is that you've got these Soviet factories,

01:26:52.200 for instance.

01:26:53.180 They run up the chain of command through the Communist Party, that's how the Soviet Union ran.

01:26:57.460 When the Soviet Union collapses and Ukraine effectively becomes its own state, where does this

01:27:01.740 factory answer to now that the party has been shattered?

01:27:04.020 What happens was, there's one story of a guy, one of the oligarchs, got a couple of his

01:27:08.220 buddies with some guns, walked into the factory and said, who's in charge?

01:27:11.440 And I'm the foreman.

01:27:12.240 They say, okay, we're going to take care of everything for you.

01:27:14.340 We're the bosses.

01:27:15.060 This is our factory now.

01:27:16.120 And they say, well, what does that mean?

01:27:17.280 It means all the supplies you need to come in and make the factory work, we will take care

01:27:21.500 of, but you answer to me.

01:27:22.980 And the worker said, that sounds great to us, actually, because we don't know who we're

01:27:26.500 supposed to answer to.

01:27:27.540 This created a massive wealth gap in Ukraine for decades, where you had a very small group

01:27:32.620 of ultra-wealthy individuals.

01:27:34.300 One of the most interesting things I found about Kiev is that the price of a condo or

01:27:37.240 a house was comparable to a house or a condo in the United States, despite the fact that

01:27:41.820 these people were making about 400 bucks a month.

01:27:44.080 So with the government being largely oligarchic, the question of whether or not Ukraine wants

01:27:48.220 to fight this war is an interesting one.

01:27:49.840 And I'm curious what you guys think.

01:27:51.400 Yes.

01:27:51.740 So back to just public opinion.

01:27:54.120 If there was an overwhelming opposition within Ukraine, among Ukrainian citizens, for continuing

01:27:59.360 this war, then I think that they should resolve it, because democracy.

01:28:04.260 Yeah.

01:28:04.720 I mean, again, this is not something I focus on on my channel.

01:28:08.280 So for all I know, there's compelling evidence that the public sentiment is, fuck it.

01:28:12.880 Let's just, again, either negotiated settlement or concede the land.

01:28:15.920 Wow, 25% of the population has been displaced, with 7 million as refugees fleeing the country.

01:28:22.820 Yeah, man.

01:28:23.160 By the way.

01:28:23.700 They don't want the war.

01:28:25.040 Again, it's American media that controls it.

01:28:27.080 Like, yeah, we're going to go out and fight this war.

01:28:28.540 We got Zelensky in, who's obviously like a puppet of the United States.

01:28:31.440 It's the United States saying, we need to weaken Russia at any cost.

01:28:34.180 If it means Ukrainians die and we spend a bunch of money, we're going to do it.

01:28:37.080 People don't want the war.

01:28:37.960 This brings up a more compelling question I'd like you to answer to, Luke, which is this.

01:28:43.060 Wow.

01:28:43.460 Do you think, ultimately, that Russia likely is going to win the conflict with Ukraine and

01:28:51.340 get at least a large portion of Ukrainian land?

01:28:54.020 Do you think, ultimately, that's going to happen?

01:28:55.980 Then the entailment, actually, of your position is this, when you say weaken Russia, that you

01:29:00.700 want the United States to fund an oligarchical government which will continue to draft the

01:29:05.040 citizenry of the Ukraine to go die to weaken people you don't like.

01:29:09.300 Exactly.

01:29:09.620 That is the action, hang on, I just want to make sure, what did I just say there that's

01:29:14.460 incorrect?

01:29:16.720 All of it.

01:29:17.460 Okay, which thing?

01:29:18.420 Yeah.

01:29:18.900 So, I keep saying, and as I'm pulling up, pulling myself, it's been pretty quickly dropping

01:29:24.820 year by year public support for this.

01:29:27.040 And so, as we get less and less support among you, because I'm not saying they should die

01:29:32.620 for us if they don't want to.

01:29:34.500 And as more people don't want to die for us, bro.

01:29:37.800 Nobody wants to die for us.

01:29:39.800 Some of them are willing to die for their own country.

01:29:41.460 For their country, yes.

01:29:42.360 At least not 10 million of them.

01:29:44.000 A quarter of the country.

01:29:45.440 I'm sorry, yeah, but that's what he meant.

01:29:47.460 Like, he's saying...

01:29:48.740 You're saying you want American treasurer to prop this up in order to assist these war

01:29:54.060 fighters for your interest to go die on behalf of an oligarchical nation, which is drafting

01:29:59.900 their own citizenry.

01:30:01.240 You want to pay for that because it weakens a geopolitical rival of yours.

01:30:05.340 I think, you correct me if I'm wrong, because I know this is my position.

01:30:09.540 I think the position is we should be continuing to support an ally as long as they want to

01:30:16.320 resist an invader, a foreign invader, which incidentally also benefits us directly because

01:30:23.980 it weakens a foreign adversary, that same invader.

01:30:27.160 For me, the calculus changes tremendously if it turns out that Zelensky is forcing the Ukrainian

01:30:34.140 people to resist.

01:30:35.400 Like, they don't want to resist anymore.

01:30:37.580 He is, and that's our point.

01:30:38.360 No, no, I understand that he is drafting people.

01:30:40.720 Yeah, what's a draft?

01:30:41.500 He's kidnapping them.

01:30:42.620 He's literally kidnapping of age men and taking them and forcing them to be in the military.

01:30:47.200 There are people who are trying to leave as refugees who are grabbed and then dragged

01:30:50.580 back, kicking and screaming.

01:30:51.680 The people don't want this is what I'm trying to say.

01:30:53.960 Yeah, so then we would...

01:30:55.160 There's videos of this stuff.

01:30:56.000 Well, no.

01:30:56.400 So we agree then.

01:30:57.060 You see the videos of the women being captured too?

01:30:59.500 It's nuts.

01:31:00.500 You guys are saying...

01:31:01.060 Let's just start with a fundamental question.

01:31:02.760 What is a draft?

01:31:04.140 You are taking of age people and forcing them against their will.

01:31:08.640 Compelling them into service.

01:31:09.340 You're compelling them, yes, to fight.

01:31:10.880 Yeah, so the thing is, is like when you say, if it turns out this government is forcing

01:31:15.220 people, like, what are you talking about?

01:31:16.820 Yep.

01:31:17.140 The entailment immediately of I'm drafting your ass is that you're being forced to go fight

01:31:22.660 when ordinarily you wouldn't.

01:31:23.940 Why wouldn't you just have a volunteer armed forces instead of a draft?

01:31:26.960 Because you're compelling a populace or a group of people who doesn't want to fight

01:31:30.620 to go do it anyway.

01:31:31.600 No, I understand.

01:31:32.220 Again, so let me ask you if you recognize any distinction between this, because perhaps

01:31:35.280 this is a distinction without a difference.

01:31:37.000 Do you recognize that there are people who do not want Russia to conquer Ukrainian territory

01:31:42.820 or Ukraine writ large, but are not prepared to pick up a gun and voluntarily attack?

01:31:48.660 Of course, sure.

01:31:49.280 Yeah, sure.

01:31:49.600 Is that a distinction worth noting?

01:31:52.120 Because what I'm referring to is the former, not the latter.

01:31:55.300 I totally concede that based on reports, there's been drafts and conscriptions for months?

01:32:01.500 No.

01:32:02.260 Years?

01:32:02.660 Okay.

01:32:02.800 But my understanding is that the public sentiment of the people in Ukraine is that they don't

01:32:08.760 want Russia to take this territory.

01:32:10.860 If that's wrong, then my interest in funding the war, whatever it is, or propping up Ukrainian

01:32:17.560 resistance to Russia plummets dramatically.

01:32:19.860 But wait a second.

01:32:20.580 What you're talking about here still brings up another question, which is, let's just

01:32:25.880 say it's like 55% or 60% of the nation, right, who wants this war, right?

01:32:33.060 They want to keep themselves sovereign.

01:32:35.340 Let's just say that that's all the public sentiment.

01:32:36.560 Like a small majority.

01:32:37.300 Yeah, a small majority or whatever.

01:32:39.480 They can institute a draft against the minority who can fight, which is going to be kids, mostly

01:32:45.500 young men, right?

01:32:46.560 That's going to be your warfighter age, 18 to 25.

01:32:50.180 Obviously, they're going to be outnumbered by other people.

01:32:52.040 So they can compel their citizenry to go fight even because they don't have to, right?

01:32:57.600 But ordinarily, they would not be able to do this nor do this compelling service unless

01:33:02.720 they were enabled by the treasury of a large first world nation, which is supporting it.

01:33:08.120 So it seems like you have a moral quagmire here, a big problem.

01:33:11.640 Oh, there is.

01:33:12.500 A big problem on your end of thinking that, hey, we can use this as a buffer against our

01:33:18.080 geopolitical enemy, regardless of who it kills.

01:33:19.780 I think it's also very important to know Eastern Ukraine is ethnic Russian mostly, and

01:33:23.980 a lot of them do want to be a part of Russia.

01:33:25.760 So I do want to move on.

01:33:27.140 Unless you want to make a quick final point, guys.

01:33:28.700 Sure, we could talk Israel.

01:33:29.420 No, I think as far as, again, I'll totally concede that this is a very morally ambiguous

01:33:35.260 conflict, that you pointed out that even if a majority of Ukrainian citizens want to

01:33:41.860 resist Russia in the sense that they don't want Russia to come take over.

01:33:44.680 They're not the ones fighting.

01:33:45.220 I think any draft or conscription at the bare minimum, and I'm not a debate philosopher

01:33:50.440 like you are, but is morally ambiguous to say the least.

01:33:54.300 60 years old.

01:33:54.900 I just think that as long—my understanding is Ukraine wants to resist Russia, and I

01:34:01.880 don't have any issue with the United States continuing to supply the means by which—

01:34:05.860 So let's move.

01:34:06.600 If the premise—

01:34:07.380 I'll wrap it.

01:34:08.760 If the premise is wrong, I would be happy to revisit that.

01:34:11.180 Let's talk about Israel.

01:34:12.520 Can I—my closing is not controversial.

01:34:14.440 Another reason, I agree.

01:34:16.300 Public support is dropping.

01:34:17.300 It's kind of complicated for what they support, what type of peace deal they support, what's

01:34:20.240 being taken, all that.

01:34:20.840 And I have the same stances from when we started based on public sentiment, and I understand

01:34:26.220 what you're saying.

01:34:27.200 I'll note that I also think for leverage to get a better deal for Ukraine, it's important

01:34:32.420 that the United States stands—like, we're going to support them to infinity and beyond

01:34:37.720 so that Russia doesn't feel like, wait, if we just wait out American support for Ukraine,

01:34:42.620 we can take even more, right?

01:34:44.000 So that they believe, gosh, we're just—we're stopping up at this line.

01:34:46.680 Okay.

01:34:47.060 Let's talk about Israel.

01:34:47.880 So a couple days ago, it was announced that there was a ceasefire that was reached.

01:34:51.360 We're still waiting to see if it happens.

01:34:52.820 There's going to be a vote in Israel.

01:34:54.840 There's contention over who is responsible.

01:34:57.140 Biden says it was his diplomacy and his plan.

01:34:59.280 However, some foreign policy experts, including The Atlantic, wrote that Trump is the one who

01:35:03.040 pushed this over the limit.

01:35:04.440 So there's a lot of questions pertaining to Israel.

01:35:06.500 Should we be involved in this conflict?

01:35:08.320 Should we continue to fund them?

01:35:10.320 What degree of support for Palestine do you guys have, and how do you view the war?

01:35:13.980 And I don't know who wants to jump in first.

01:35:15.380 Who wants to go first?

01:35:16.040 Well, I'll just—I'll put my position out there.

01:35:18.960 I don't think that we should be supporting either the Palestinians nor the Israelis in

01:35:24.740 this conflict.

01:35:25.420 Never have thought so.

01:35:27.020 It's a terrible entanglement for us.

01:35:29.140 We can't win, regardless of which side we were to back.

01:35:33.600 We can't win if we back Palestinians.

01:35:35.860 Not in the court of public opinion.

01:35:37.820 The entire Arab world would love us, whereas most of the Western world would hate us if we

01:35:43.120 back Israel, the exact opposite.

01:35:45.440 Most of the Arab world will absolutely hate us, and there will be blowback in consequence.

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01:37:06.900 Consequences from that too.

01:37:08.420 It's another great reason why our foreign policy should be one of disentangling ourselves

01:37:15.060 from these foreign conflicts and especially in Israel, we need to back away from that conflict

01:37:19.960 as fast as possible.

01:37:21.420 And that's always been the case.

01:37:22.900 It's the first time I've ever heard progressives actually say something like that.

01:37:26.140 So for that, I'll give them some credit.

01:37:28.640 No foreign aid to Israel.

01:37:29.860 I think Israel has caused the United States a lot of problems.

01:37:31.860 They run our foreign policy every single, if you look at every single terrorist.

01:37:35.720 Why'd you soy face, Tim?

01:37:37.020 Why did you soy face?

01:37:38.980 200,000 Ukrainian troops deserted.

01:37:42.240 Yeah.

01:37:42.820 Yeah.

01:37:43.580 AP reporting.

01:37:44.720 The official number is 100,000 charged and estimates of upwards of 200,000 people have

01:37:49.880 deserted.

01:37:50.180 That's why they were kidnapping people.

01:37:51.560 I don't want to get back on Ukraine, but when I saw that, I went, holy crap.

01:37:54.500 It's terrible.

01:37:55.800 Yeah.

01:37:56.200 But no, it's crazy.

01:37:57.720 That's why I'm saying the conflict in Ukraine is a waste of time.

01:38:00.040 But yeah, when it comes to Israel, I don't see any strategic advantages the United States

01:38:03.760 enjoys from supporting Israel.

01:38:05.060 There's virtually none.

01:38:06.400 Oh, we have our eyes and ears in the Middle East.

01:38:09.100 Well, the Middle East wouldn't hate us if we did not support Israel.

01:38:11.900 So yeah, I think when it comes to Israel and our support of them, the only reason we

01:38:16.760 do is because we have very rich lobbyists that make sure that we do.

01:38:19.100 And our support of Israel needs to drop off.

01:38:21.760 Don't tell me you guys are going to support Israel now.

01:38:24.240 So number one, I think you asked about the potential peace.

01:38:29.360 We're going to have to see how it's implemented, if it works, because even immediately it was

01:38:32.980 sort of, is this.

01:38:33.640 Netanyahu delayed the vote.

01:38:34.860 Go through.

01:38:35.280 I think they ended up voting today.

01:38:37.960 But, and then the next, because a part of the deal is that later parts of the deal are

01:38:42.300 going to be negotiated later.

01:38:43.740 So seeing how all that plays out.

01:38:45.620 Days two and three and stuff like that.

01:38:46.920 But the fighting stopping, the dying stopping, the carnage stopping is obviously good.

01:38:51.660 Interestingly, I've seen some people on the left not acknowledge at all what you're talking

01:38:54.760 about with the Trump envoy's role in this.

01:38:58.100 Josiah and I both said we, did we cover this?

01:39:00.860 No.

01:39:01.580 You covered it.

01:39:03.080 I haven't done a video in like three days.

01:39:04.740 For us, it's obviously silly to not acknowledge at all the months of negotiations and the deal

01:39:10.860 that's been constructed under the Biden administration.

01:39:13.160 Biden's still the president.

01:39:13.900 So if you, if you're giving credit, that would, some would lie there.

01:39:18.380 But I acknowledge that the bipartisan presence in these negotiations adding to, hey, it's

01:39:25.320 not just us.

01:39:25.780 You can't wait out the clock on Biden, Netanyahu.

01:39:28.780 And, you know, Hamas.

01:39:30.820 Trump is also saying the same united voice about what we're going to, what's going to

01:39:35.340 happen here.

01:39:35.800 And that united front, I do think was powerful.

01:39:38.760 And with all my feelings that you've heard throughout this show about Trump, I'd give

01:39:42.400 him or his on-boy Steve Whitcoff, is that right?

01:39:44.680 Yeah, real estate guy.

01:39:45.740 No, 100%.

01:39:46.860 Like, I don't want to put the cart before the horse because, again, foreign policy, not

01:39:51.260 my area of expertise to the extent I have any.

01:39:53.420 My understanding was there have been like-

01:39:55.400 Well, I mean, even experts get it wrong constantly.

01:39:57.460 Well, and, but haven't there been like ceasefires negotiated or talks, we got a ceasefire and

01:40:02.220 then it didn't happen.

01:40:02.880 So I'm with Luke, like you got to wait and see, but I am happy to give Trump a lot of

01:40:08.960 the credit here, some of the credit here, because it was bipartisan effort.

01:40:12.080 It was Biden's deal, my understanding of the framework of the deal, and Trump left them

01:40:16.420 no safe harbor.

01:40:17.580 He was like, you take this deal because you're not getting, I want this done before inauguration

01:40:21.780 day.

01:40:22.200 I completely agree with you.

01:40:23.660 Trump is the best.

01:40:24.540 He's the greatest president.

01:40:26.700 I'm going to withdraw that fuck you that I gave to you and I'm going to toss it your way,

01:40:29.840 all right?

01:40:30.100 So wait, what is your guys' stance on Israel though and support though?

01:40:32.560 I see that you guys agree with the deal, which I, you know, it's good that there is

01:40:35.600 a ceasefire.

01:40:36.360 I agree.

01:40:36.740 But I think in general, our aid of Israel has created a lot of problems for the United

01:40:40.720 States.

01:40:41.460 I think in general, throughout the conflict, there's a lot, lots of times and reasons to

01:40:45.120 be supporting Israel.

01:40:46.560 But it, by, I think what we're learning a little bit through the end of this process is Biden

01:40:50.780 should have done a lot more leveraging, thus threatening, withdrawing and potentially withdrawing

01:40:55.080 aid to get a better resolution earlier.

01:40:58.920 Um, and the fact that that didn't happen, I think is, is a stain.

01:41:02.220 I'm, I'm uncomfortable.

01:41:03.180 I was just going to say as a, as a general proposition, and I'm not sure there's any

01:41:06.580 nation that supplies to accept Israel.

01:41:09.440 I'm uncomfortable with the notion of unconditional support to any ally.

01:41:12.940 And I feel like even more like the United Kingdom or even Ukraine, I feel like with, like Israel

01:41:19.060 gets a blank check from the United States as far as like, that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

01:41:22.660 We shouldn't be, they have nuclear weapons.

01:41:24.100 We shouldn't even be giving it time off of that.

01:41:25.680 I kind of feel like there's a large, largely, uh, I don't want to say complete agreement,

01:41:29.080 but large agreements over, we shouldn't be funding these wars.

01:41:32.200 Trump did help get this past the line.

01:41:34.440 I think this has been like the easiest subject for us.

01:41:36.420 Nobody likes APAC.

01:41:37.080 Like who'd have thought Israel was the easiest subject for this debate?

01:41:40.260 Everyone's kind of like, yeah, you know.

01:41:41.360 Yeah, I think it's the, the, the whole, uh, support of Israel.

01:41:44.640 One thing I've noticed is that, um, whether left or right, uh, both people oppose Israel

01:41:49.380 for different reasons on the left.

01:41:50.680 It tends to be for more humanitarian reasons on the right.

01:41:52.700 It's more for, they influence our foreign policy.

01:41:54.820 And this is a problematic economic too.

01:41:56.880 Yeah.

01:41:57.540 Economically as well.

01:41:58.240 So, um, you know, I think this is why the ADL is rallying so hard.

01:42:01.220 Like we need to stop this blah, blah, blah.

01:42:02.960 Jonathan Greenblatt was literally in Israel talking about, we need some type of sophisticated,

01:42:06.020 um, situation where we stopped these dissenters of Israel.

01:42:08.760 Like we did with the Hezbollah Pager attack.

01:42:10.560 And I'm like, holy shit, this guy's over there.

01:42:12.300 He's an American citizen, right?

01:42:13.640 Allegedly, um, in a foreign land talking about how we need to, um, police language in the

01:42:18.100 United States.

01:42:18.500 That's crazy.

01:42:19.520 But that's what they do.

01:42:20.160 Let's, uh, we don't, we have about a half an hour.

01:42:21.900 So I do want to make sure we get into the harder culture, culture war issues.

01:42:24.960 We talked about Trump as a person actions he's, he's taken.

01:42:27.840 We talked about the 19th.

01:42:29.560 Yeah.

01:42:30.040 So let's, let's, let's, let's start here.

01:42:32.340 Um, and, and I'm going to kick it off with something that's, that's, that's rather speculative,

01:42:36.160 but we saw the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

01:42:38.580 The argument largely from the Supreme court is like, what are we doing here?

01:42:42.060 Right?

01:42:42.500 They, they, they, they seem to take this position that this, this is not an answer for this.

01:42:45.300 There's not a question for the Supreme court.

01:42:46.780 Let's start at the States.

01:42:47.900 I believe there's a strong possibility in this next coming Trump administration.

01:42:51.060 We see the overturning of Obergefell, which is the 2015 case, which codified gay marriage

01:42:56.340 basically required all the States to recognize that if a gay marriage had existed and they

01:43:01.600 moved to another state, they have to be recognized.

01:43:03.700 Yeah.

01:43:04.040 Right.

01:43:04.600 I think that, uh, elections have consequences of which one was not directly, but, uh, with

01:43:10.320 this structure of the Supreme court, it seems likely that we're going to see a massive

01:43:13.860 cultural shift.

01:43:14.960 I think it's probable that, uh, we, we, we do have a case.

01:43:18.380 I believe that's going through now.

01:43:19.640 I forgot which one it is that could see gender identity removed as a protected class.

01:43:24.500 I also think the Supreme court may likely if challenged, or I should say, if a challenge

01:43:28.900 is presented overturned gay marriage.

01:43:30.700 And I'm curious, uh, what the, our non-liberal friends think, because largely it's conservatives

01:43:36.260 aren't going out there and making a principal issue that gay marriage should be ended, but

01:43:39.340 I think they'd probably support the end of gay marriage.

01:43:41.840 I'll, I'll, uh, I'll go first on this than that, Andrea, cause I know you have more

01:43:44.680 nuance.

01:43:44.900 Mine is very simple.

01:43:46.200 Um, gays should be able to have civil unions, not gay marriage.

01:43:49.640 Um, it's a religious sacrimony.

01:43:51.400 Then, you know, obviously we all know the Abrahamic religions forbid homosexuality.

01:43:55.200 So I don't think that they should have the ability to marry, but they should have all the

01:43:58.220 civil liberties and protections that come from marriage.

01:44:00.460 But the title itself needs to be changed.

01:44:02.420 I also think that gay marriage is, uh, kind of a slippery slope.

01:44:05.560 There's a lot of, uh, allowed a lot of sexual degeneracy to kind of flourish, right?

01:44:08.920 Whether it's, uh, the 99 genders, all the other problems that we have with the drag queens,

01:44:13.320 et cetera.

01:44:13.780 I understand that it's a small minority of transit represent 1%, but, um, it's, it's

01:44:18.660 been problematic and gay marriage has absolutely allowed that to flourish.

01:44:21.660 Okay.

01:44:21.920 Let me, uh, let me first, and then you give your position and I know.

01:44:25.340 Yeah.

01:44:25.700 So anyway, okay.

01:44:26.560 Stop.

01:44:27.160 Stop.

01:44:27.900 You stop Luke.

01:44:28.880 You said that every time.

01:44:29.780 Calm down, Luke.

01:44:30.340 I thought I was about to go.

01:44:31.660 Well, Luke, let him give you your position and then you can refute.

01:44:34.120 He literally said, I'll go first, then Andrew.

01:44:37.420 Calm down, Luke.

01:44:38.020 There we go.

01:44:38.500 Go for it.

01:44:39.080 Remember how Tim said, I'm interested to hear from the non-liberals, their position.

01:44:42.820 I forgot about that, yeah.

01:44:43.520 That's not, are you a non-liberal?

01:44:46.280 No.

01:44:46.600 He's going to say it's a liberal area.

01:44:47.840 Stop talking.

01:44:48.660 Luke, stop talking, Luke.

01:44:50.180 Luke, just let me.

01:44:50.940 Stop talking.

01:44:51.740 Okay, guys, guys.

01:44:52.620 And then you can refute it.

01:44:53.580 Luke, I know you disagree with us.

01:44:54.520 I don't actually care to go right now.

01:44:55.760 I'm just curious, like, why you're this wound up.

01:44:58.100 Okay, guys, guys.

01:44:58.860 The only person in Bergen is you.

01:45:00.460 Right, okay, guys, the reason I ask the non-liberals is because they're going to present the argument

01:45:03.980 that is outside the current standard.

01:45:05.660 It is currently the standard that Obergefell is up to.

01:45:08.000 Yeah, so marriage is only as useful as it is recognized.

01:45:11.800 And the state cannot force people to recognize marriage.

01:45:16.240 They can't do it.

01:45:17.540 People's purview of marriage is that it's between men and women.

01:45:21.500 There's a reproductive status which occurs with it and that it's an institution which is sacramental

01:45:27.760 through religion.

01:45:30.120 This is the purview of most people who still identify in this country.

01:45:33.980 By the way, the majority still identify as Christian, like it or not.

01:45:36.820 They still do.

01:45:38.120 And so marriage is only as useful as it's recognized.

01:45:41.720 We've had gay marriage now for a while, and it's still not recognized.

01:45:45.100 The truth is that Christians still don't recognize it.

01:45:48.120 They still don't consider it to be valid.

01:45:50.560 They may say you're married.

01:45:51.740 They may, you know, the state can imbue you with marriage.

01:45:53.640 And you can even have polls where conservatives say, you know what, fine, whatever, right?

01:45:59.000 But they themselves, they don't recognize it as being valid.

01:46:02.840 So I think it's completely fine for the Supreme Court to say, look, this is invalid.

01:46:08.960 This should be a religious institution.

01:46:11.020 We should take it out of the state's hands anyway.

01:46:12.860 Just to clarify, the ruling on Obergefell wasn't about whether it was a religious institution

01:46:17.360 or not.

01:46:18.000 It was about whether.

01:46:18.460 No, I know.

01:46:19.080 It was a core component was whether states should recognize licensing from other states.

01:46:23.820 Yeah, just the secular part.

01:46:25.200 Right, yeah, and it was five to four on the liberal side, which is why I think it might

01:46:28.660 go five to four, inverting, overturning.

01:46:30.380 It could be okay.

01:46:30.680 Before you respond, because Myron said something interesting that I did not hear Andrew echo,

01:46:36.920 and I'm curious on that.

01:46:37.840 He made a caveat for like civil unions or like secular unions.

01:46:41.640 Would you do that as well or no?

01:46:43.680 No, I think, here's what I think.

01:46:45.720 I think that marriage itself as an institution from the state is gone anyway.

01:46:50.780 I mean, look at the divorce rates, everything else.

01:46:52.680 It's basically destroyed from a secular paradigm.

01:46:55.900 I actually don't even understand the point of marriage for secularists.

01:46:59.680 If it's just for tax purposes.

01:47:00.940 I was about to say, taxes.

01:47:03.160 That's why I gave that.

01:47:04.520 Spoiler alert.

01:47:05.400 That's the only reason I gave it.

01:47:06.620 Then all you have to do is simply reform the tax code so that these breaks are still given

01:47:12.180 to whoever, or you can just reform the tax code.

01:47:15.040 I think you two are much more likely to accept gay marriage than we are to reform the tax code.

01:47:19.680 Hang on.

01:47:19.980 Don't throw that out there.

01:47:20.740 So you could, I mean, that's one thing you can do.

01:47:24.160 The second thing is, is the breaks aren't that great.

01:47:26.200 That's, and that's the truth.

01:47:27.640 They're not.

01:47:27.920 And at a certain level, they're not.

01:47:29.080 The third thing is, is that as far as like a prime directive or things like that, you

01:47:34.160 can give that to your best friend, Doug.

01:47:35.780 Like you could give your advanced directive to your best friend, Doug.

01:47:38.520 You can do that to anybody who you're with.

01:47:40.740 So all of those things you have access to regardless of your marital status.

01:47:46.140 Secularists, it doesn't even make sense for them to be married.

01:47:48.100 And if they are, why can't they just say, well, I declare that I'm married.

01:47:51.240 Again, just.

01:47:51.820 I declare I'm married.

01:47:52.880 No adoption of children either.

01:47:54.440 Gays should completely be removed from being allowed to be around children.

01:47:57.140 Can I, just again, just to further clarify one last, I'm sorry, one last thing.

01:48:00.540 So in your, in your construction, there would be like no state involvement with marriage

01:48:06.960 or civil union at all.

01:48:08.560 Yeah.

01:48:08.680 The only way that the state would become involved and necessarily it would have to would

01:48:13.040 be for some things which could be custodial, things like that.

01:48:16.020 But generally.

01:48:17.460 There'd be no license.

01:48:18.340 But generally religion has always governed these things.

01:48:21.240 And there's ecclesiastical authority standards from the Catholic and Orthodox Church, for instance,

01:48:26.260 that govern how marriage goes.

01:48:29.200 And by the way, the more religions, more religious you are, if you defer to the church for assisting

01:48:35.480 you and if they grant a divorce in the first place in custody arrangements, things like

01:48:41.380 this, they have a great track record of that.

01:48:42.900 State doesn't.

01:48:43.660 The state doesn't have a good track record of it.

01:48:45.340 They generally favor one parent over the other.

01:48:48.200 And that's been the woman for a long time.

01:48:49.680 That's been the standard.

01:48:50.540 It is slowly changing.

01:48:51.520 Thank God.

01:48:51.940 But that has been the case.

01:48:53.520 There's actually no good reason, no compelling reason for secularists to get married at all.

01:48:58.260 Definitely no compelling reason for homosexuals to get married.

01:49:01.760 They're not going to be able to get married in Christian churches anyway.

01:49:04.700 So who are they getting married by?

01:49:06.080 Just the state.

01:49:06.900 There are Christian churches.

01:49:07.600 No, those aren't Christian churches.

01:49:10.260 Identifying some idea if I'm Christian doesn't make you Christian.

01:49:13.920 Okay.

01:49:14.260 Go ahead.

01:49:14.660 Yeah.

01:49:14.820 Let me go.

01:49:15.120 So you mentioned, yeah, I know some of yours is detaching from, because you're saying even

01:49:21.060 marriage in general is tarnished now, but to Tim's question, marriage isn't religious

01:49:28.440 when the state is the one bolstering it, right?

01:49:30.660 We have the separation church state, so it has to be a secular concept.

01:49:33.960 Why does the state need to be involved in marriage?

01:49:35.100 Even if it's bolstering something that crosses over with a religious practice, which is marriage.

01:49:41.140 So the state honoring a marriage, which is just, it's just a legal commitment between

01:49:46.320 two people.

01:49:46.820 And that's something that people who are secular also want to make.

01:49:50.120 And that's the state honoring, because I do think a society is better off when people

01:49:54.000 make such commitments to one another.

01:49:55.600 Yeah.

01:49:55.700 Why do you need the state for that commitment?

01:49:57.240 There's all sorts of things that the state will incentivize, even like as we try to implement

01:50:01.020 some pro-family policies that give you better family.

01:50:04.760 Gays should have families.

01:50:06.720 Let me finish.

01:50:07.460 Let me finish.

01:50:07.720 Okay, go ahead.

01:50:08.000 Come on.

01:50:08.340 Um, and that, you know, child tax credit, there's things that you want to support and

01:50:14.060 incentivize through the implementation of policy.

01:50:16.480 I think marriage is one of them.

01:50:18.000 And so it can't be about whether or not it's tarnishing the religious concept of marriage,

01:50:22.120 because those two things are separate concepts.

01:50:24.440 Then you brought up, and I hear this a lot.

01:50:26.040 Can we do it one point at a time?

01:50:26.800 Well, you made a lot of points as well.

01:50:28.380 Um, but you brought up that marriage is believed to be a man, woman concept.

01:50:36.120 Yes.

01:50:36.520 We've actually, I feel like that's a strange thing to put your argument on, because it's

01:50:40.360 just public opinion and public opinion has shifted so radically.

01:50:44.180 Um, like right here, is this support for same-sex marriage?

01:50:47.000 Yeah.

01:50:47.320 So there's actually a majority support if you want to look up there.

01:50:49.980 Um, it shows that, but this, but he was, it's dropping, but he, you were wrong.

01:50:54.120 No, I wasn't wrong.

01:50:54.820 You were wrong that people don't support, um, same-sex marriage because you were saying

01:50:59.380 the concept is believed to be by people between a man and woman, which is not what the polling

01:51:03.140 shows.

01:51:03.300 That's not what I said, Luke.

01:51:04.180 And then you talked about it being for reproduction.

01:51:05.940 So I would ask any restrictions you would implement for same-sex couples, would you, would

01:51:10.620 you implement for like infertile couples?

01:51:13.020 Okay.

01:51:13.380 So let's, let's back up.

01:51:14.820 And yes, I'll answer your question, but I'm going to take these one at a time.

01:51:17.980 All right.

01:51:18.500 Okay.

01:51:18.780 So let's start with what I actually said.

01:51:20.700 I did.

01:51:21.280 I said, literally said, Luke, that the person, it's the perception of the religious, these

01:51:26.560 aren't valid.

01:51:27.260 They're not saying you can't do them because they just consider them to be invalid.

01:51:31.180 And when you dig into the data, that's what you find.

01:51:33.220 That's one.

01:51:33.880 The second thing is, is, uh, the government's job.

01:51:37.580 If this, when the state gets involved for marriage, it's supposed to be for the promotion

01:51:42.060 of the health and welfare of the state with the, that would be the family unit.

01:51:46.720 Now we can look at birth rates in the United States and we can see marriage has not done

01:51:51.680 us any favors when it comes to reproduction.

01:51:53.760 It has not done us any favors when it comes to intact family units, more single moms than

01:51:59.340 ever, more now, more single fathers than ever.

01:52:02.560 Uh, people, there's no virgins, almost no virgins who get married.

01:52:06.540 I mean, it's basically that ship has sailed.

01:52:08.960 Okay.

01:52:09.340 The institution of marriage itself is cheap.

01:52:10.880 And you also go on to say, what about child tax credits?

01:52:13.940 You get those.

01:52:14.460 Even if you're not married, Luke, you get the earned income credit, even if you're not

01:52:19.400 married, Luke.

01:52:20.020 And as an example, the government incentivizing.

01:52:21.820 Yeah.

01:52:22.080 But the government's not incentivizing that through marriage because you get it.

01:52:26.080 Even if you're not married, you get it.

01:52:28.500 Yeah.

01:52:28.800 Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke, let me respond.

01:52:31.540 Let me finish the response.

01:52:32.840 Relationships as well.

01:52:33.320 Let me finish the response.

01:52:34.020 Just like how through other policies, Luke, can I finish the response, Luke?

01:52:37.280 You said something fake about what I was saying.

01:52:38.940 So I just wanted to explain.

01:52:39.440 Yeah.

01:52:39.780 Okay.

01:52:40.100 Even though you said it, you said we have things in marriage, like the earned income

01:52:43.380 tax credit.

01:52:44.000 It's like, no, that applies.

01:52:44.980 That's not what he said.

01:52:45.800 Yes, it is.

01:52:46.460 Let me explain so you can continue.

01:52:47.020 Rewind the tape, bro.

01:52:48.200 No, I said, I believe that marriage as a state concept, because you asked why, why should

01:52:52.540 the state do it?

01:52:53.280 I said, well, because I actually do think people building wealth together, building a life together,

01:52:57.840 same sex or not, is a better structure for a society.

01:53:01.300 And so incentivizing that through honoring it by the state is good, just like how we incentivize

01:53:05.360 other things, like having children through child tax credit.

01:53:08.340 It was just a separate, just like how we do that.

01:53:10.140 No, that wasn't, but to answer to your question, when.

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01:54:30.440 And it comes to women who are infertile or can't reproduce.

01:54:35.560 And Andrew, you said a component of marriage is reproduction.

01:54:38.840 Remember, this is a component of marriage, not the entire purpose of it.

01:54:42.360 In my view, the purpose of marriage is that the man is representing the Christ head, the

01:54:46.840 woman, the body of the church.

01:54:48.060 That's what the purpose of marriage is from the religious standpoint.

01:54:50.860 That aside from the secular standpoint, when you're talking about women who get married

01:54:56.060 and they cannot reproduce, there's still a set standard for what is called normalcy.

01:55:00.900 Meaning if you are promoting the normalcy of men and women together reproducing, even the

01:55:07.340 few who cannot reproduce, it still sets the standard for reproduction.

01:55:12.580 In other words, it's still a reflection of reproduction itself because it's a man and a woman.

01:55:17.820 So it sets that standard.

01:55:19.700 And we have a different, I guess, obviously, moral framework because I'm saying I think

01:55:23.000 the normalcy that should be exhibited, the behavior that should be encouraged through

01:55:27.340 this institution is committed relationships to one another.

01:55:32.640 And because I am fine with gay couples adopting, I think that...

01:55:35.800 I think that's problematic.

01:55:36.740 Hang on, I got to ask one thing.

01:55:38.060 I got to ask...

01:55:39.020 I think that that's a good way to bond.

01:55:40.740 I got to ask, is that actually true or is it actually true that you don't care if people

01:55:45.180 have polygamous marriages, that you don't care if people have orgies in their marriage,

01:55:49.920 that you don't care if they open their marriages up, and that you don't give a shit about they're

01:55:53.720 not sanctified to you in any way, shape, or form?

01:55:55.780 Do you actually care if gays have big-ass sex parties, gay husbands, they open their marriage

01:56:01.860 up?

01:56:02.400 Is there any concern for any of those things as you're talking about, well, wait, I do believe

01:56:07.000 that it's good for society to have this healthy normal standard.

01:56:09.200 What is the healthy normal standard?

01:56:11.520 Yeah.

01:56:11.920 This is what I was mentioning earlier with the tone.

01:56:13.620 I don't know why.

01:56:14.380 I can explain it yet.

01:56:15.140 I agree that whether or not I care about what other people are doing in their lives, I do

01:56:21.260 acknowledge when things are societally advantageous.

01:56:24.180 And I think it's societally advantageous to legally, contractually, by the state, support

01:56:30.420 people's commitment to one another and bonding of their lives, finances, etc.

01:56:35.260 Well, what's the normalcy?

01:56:37.500 That commitment.

01:56:38.380 But if the commitment doesn't mean anything because you can just open your marriage up,

01:56:42.400 you don't care about that.

01:56:43.180 No, I care about it.

01:56:44.800 Yeah, you can do all these things.

01:56:46.340 What's the normalcy?

01:56:47.500 I haven't even said a statement about opening your marriage up.

01:56:49.280 Okay, do you care if people open their marriage up, Luke?

01:56:51.520 Other people's ways of handling their marriages, I can think, is not the best thing for their

01:56:59.540 own happiness or whatever.

01:57:00.800 Sure.

01:57:01.020 And that's why marriage right now is still between two people.

01:57:05.240 Yeah, but what about the normalization aspect of what I'm talking about?

01:57:07.640 And so the normalization—marriage is normalizing the commitment.

01:57:11.100 What happens outside of that, just like in straight—man-woman relationships, crazy stuff

01:57:15.080 happens too.

01:57:15.720 And we can say, all right, I'm not going to hate on you for that, but I might have a stance

01:57:19.460 that something else should be an affirmative good that we promote.

01:57:24.980 Fine.

01:57:25.660 Yeah, so when we're talking about normalization, the reason that you think that marriage is

01:57:31.260 advantageous is because there's a normalization aspect of society.

01:57:33.940 I agree, but just telling two people, well, you can commit through the state via a contract

01:57:38.340 for what, though, Luke?

01:57:40.980 For what?

01:57:41.900 What is the purpose?

01:57:42.960 The purpose would be reproduction.

01:57:45.180 The purpose would be a family unit.

01:57:47.180 The purpose would be intact family homes.

01:57:49.840 The purpose of it would not be for, like, orgy sex or for opening the marriage up or for

01:57:54.500 things like that.

01:57:55.320 You would have to have a—

01:57:56.860 I can't have a family unit with two dads or two moms.

01:57:58.780 I also at some point want to talk about the legal stuff.

01:58:00.220 You cannot have a family unit with two dads or two moms.

01:58:02.260 You cannot.

01:58:02.700 You cannot.

01:58:02.720 You cannot.

01:58:02.760 You cannot.

01:58:03.940 For example, with the—it's 400,000 people who are currently in the foster care system.

01:58:08.520 Some of those who are available to—you can, you know, foster them or adopt them.

01:58:13.100 I'd love, and I think it's a societal good for a same-sex couple, which outcomes for same-sex—kids

01:58:19.420 of same-sex couples are great.

01:58:21.520 They're not worth—

01:58:22.080 Funded by—funded by LGBTQ study groups.

01:58:24.560 Yeah, yeah.

01:58:24.860 It's always funded by everything I know.

01:58:27.280 But you never have studies refute it.

01:58:29.120 And so—

01:58:29.340 Actually, we do.

01:58:30.400 We have a lot.

01:58:30.540 I think that it is societal good if people are starting families together.

01:58:33.540 Even if it's not with kids, but they have this commitment, which is good for them, good for wealth generation, good for life stability, which then all makes the community prosper more and I think leads to better outcomes.

01:58:49.600 I don't want to cut you off, but we are kind of going in a circle here, and I know that you want to throw something in there.

01:58:53.580 Well, you mentioned something interesting in the very beginning, which is like the legal implications of this because Obergefell was a 5-4 decision.

01:58:59.220 And Clarence Thomas did say in the Dobbs decision in his concurring opinion that perhaps we should—now having overturned Roe v. Wade, we should use the same standard to potentially overturn a Bergefell.

01:59:10.280 I do think that that's very possible given the current composition of the court.

01:59:14.680 And, of course, more religiously conservative legal activists would love the opportunity to overturn a Bergefell.

01:59:20.940 But what will be interesting is in 2022 after the Dobbs decision—and I'm blanking on the names either Defensive Marriage or Respect for Marriage Act.

01:59:28.860 I think it was Respect for Marriage.

01:59:30.240 That was signed into law by President Biden.

01:59:32.280 So in theory, the Supreme Court could overturn that as well because it's just federal statute.

01:59:35.800 But a lot of gay marriage protections have been codified, not quite at the level of Obergefell, but by the Respect for Marriage Act.

01:59:43.300 So it will be interesting to see.

01:59:44.660 So we'll advance a little bit.

01:59:45.920 One of the arguments made back in 2008, you had Prop 8 in California.

01:59:50.520 Then seven years later, you get Obergefell.

01:59:53.020 One of the arguments made by conservatives was that this is a slippery slope where they begin teaching children about gay adult activities.

02:00:00.000 Liberals largely said that will never happen.

02:00:02.140 And I know because I actually campaigned for the Human Rights Campaign in California using those arguments to get people to give money.

02:00:09.180 Sure enough, here we are, and I am arguing against these books showing graphic adult content including anal sex to children in schools.

02:00:14.800 It happened, and the argument maintained by the left, one of the principal arguments is, if a teacher is gay and a child asks about the gay marriage, they should teach it.

02:00:24.800 As it pertains to sex education, the argument presented by many liberals is that it would be discriminatory to only have heterosexual sex education.

02:00:34.280 If you have sex education in schools, it must be for all protected classes of which orientation and identity are protected.

02:00:41.740 Thus, these books are in grade schools, and the liberals have defended children seeing fetish content.

02:00:46.200 No, so just like how the liberals have defended children seeing fetish content.

02:00:49.320 And this is what I mean when I said the slippery slope, right?

02:00:51.480 When we allowed gay marriage, we allowed all this other degeneracy in.

02:00:54.380 And my thing is like, look, you want to be gay, you want to do that, awesome.

02:00:57.440 Keep it away from the kids completely.

02:00:58.860 I don't think gays should be allowed to adopt children, be around children, re-drag to them, any of the stuff.

02:01:03.800 Be in public, Myron?

02:01:05.540 Be in public?

02:01:06.400 I mean, if we're going to be all the way, I think they should have gay only zones.

02:01:08.200 No, no, no, don't.

02:01:09.420 Gay only zones where they can only have PDA there.

02:01:12.180 I don't think they should.

02:01:12.880 Talk about a slippery slope.

02:01:13.900 Okay, but.

02:01:14.220 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

02:01:15.580 I want to do this again.

02:01:16.160 We're going to ask that question.

02:01:17.140 I thought there was a line there.

02:01:18.480 Sure, go ahead.

02:01:19.060 Clarifying point.

02:01:20.000 Yeah.

02:01:20.480 To a degree, public displays of affection are illegal.

02:01:23.480 There's a limiting factor on it.

02:01:24.700 Of course.

02:01:25.100 Go ahead.

02:01:26.640 Yeah, okay.

02:01:27.380 I thought you meant.

02:01:27.700 I just asked be in public as a smartass.

02:01:30.100 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:01:30.760 I didn't say have public sex straight or gay.

02:01:34.020 Just for the record.

02:01:34.860 Like, yeah.

02:01:35.520 Which they do.

02:01:36.760 Hold on.

02:01:37.340 I got to bring it up.

02:01:38.320 They literally do it in California.

02:01:39.660 It's on video, and it's horrifying.

02:01:41.340 It's illegal, and they don't enforce against it.

02:01:43.300 Yeah, they enforce against it.

02:01:44.120 But, like, let's not pretend that that doesn't happen.

02:01:45.760 My thing is, good luck going to California and asking the police to actually enforce

02:01:51.040 the actions against what they're doing in public, because they are on video.

02:01:53.520 Yeah, all sorts of crazy things in a country this size happen, including in the school

02:01:57.260 I went to, some crazy stuff being taught that's way to the right.

02:02:01.880 So, like, inappropriate things happen.

02:02:04.200 And we can get into that discussion, but first, let me answer your question, which was

02:02:07.580 about books.

02:02:08.320 I have seen examples of books.

02:02:10.220 Straight content or gay content.

02:02:11.240 If it's overly sexual for a young person, of course you don't want them to have that.

02:02:15.760 That doesn't really cross over into then that becoming the justification for banning all

02:02:19.900 sorts of books that aren't offensive at all on all sorts of topics, and that's what we

02:02:23.000 oppose.

02:02:23.760 But then on sex education, I don't think it's bad when, you know, at parents' homes they're

02:02:30.000 teaching sort of the more foundational moral framework to a kid, and that's up to them.

02:02:34.820 At school, not too young, wherever we as a society have drawn the line of when sex education

02:02:40.520 is the correct time, you actually find that people end up being safer and don't have a

02:02:46.620 teen pregnancy, et cetera, whenever you have comprehensive sex education, which will include, because

02:02:50.580 this might apply to some of the people, teaching about the risks of STDs across all different

02:02:55.920 people.

02:02:56.540 And I don't know why you converge those two.

02:02:58.940 Inappropriate books, gay or straight, shouldn't be there.

02:03:02.180 But what we define as inappropriate might be.

02:03:04.140 But like pornographic, obviously, out.

02:03:06.280 But then on sex education, teaching about the concept of certain types of sexes, which

02:03:14.380 isn't really making a moral statement about it, but instead is teaching all the things

02:03:18.180 so that when they go out in the world, they're prepared to operate as an adult.

02:03:23.240 Let's clarify.

02:03:24.000 So sex ed was largely defined as, here are the reproductive organs of a male, here are

02:03:28.740 the reproductive organs of a female, here's how they operate.

02:03:31.280 What it has become now is there's a book called This Book is Gay in which it describes

02:03:35.860 eating feces.

02:03:37.240 And literally, I believe the book explains to children how to use Grindr.

02:03:41.580 The argument made by prominent liberals is, that is gay sex ed.

02:03:46.220 This is how gay people have sex.

02:03:48.200 If you say they cannot teach this because they do these things, that's discrimination

02:03:54.280 under the 1964 Civil Rights Act as orientation and identity are protected.

02:03:58.640 Therefore, it must be taught in schools.

02:04:00.060 No, it's...

02:04:00.760 Let me clarify.

02:04:01.660 There's also poo fetishes with straight people that you want to teach about.

02:04:05.440 It's not really about that.

02:04:06.440 So let's clarify.

02:04:07.420 There is no such thing as LGBTQ sex ed.

02:04:11.360 If sex ed is quite literally reproductive organs, and that's all it is, and how they

02:04:16.420 operate...

02:04:16.820 That's not what sex ed is.

02:04:17.420 Yeah, I would just...

02:04:18.620 Sex ed does not...

02:04:19.240 You don't think we should teach it all about STDs or contraception or anything like that?

02:04:23.080 That's science, organ, virus, etc.

02:04:25.340 It's not teaching people different types of fetish practices.

02:04:28.460 No, I agree.

02:04:28.820 But I don't think we agree with it.

02:04:30.460 Just to be clear.

02:04:30.960 If you're saying prominent...

02:04:31.360 If you're saying prominent...

02:04:32.500 Republicans are not...

02:04:33.840 So let me ask...

02:04:34.360 All sorts of crazy people.

02:04:35.740 That doesn't mean that's what we're saying.

02:04:36.780 What gay sex is educational and scientific that should be taught to children?

02:04:40.120 Sorry, ask that again?

02:04:41.040 What?

02:04:41.600 What LGBTQ sex is appropriate for children in your view?

02:04:46.500 Yeah.

02:04:46.840 So to lay out the exact presentation I think a teacher should give in whatever grade it

02:04:51.540 is, I obviously want to go look at sort of the curriculum and all that.

02:04:54.660 But I can tell you that the sex education goes beyond just here's your reproductive organs.

02:05:01.020 And I think that's important.

02:05:02.000 And when I've seen research about this, it's actually...

02:05:04.320 Like how?

02:05:04.660 To y'all's interest, making people safer and less likely to end up getting hurt because

02:05:09.820 of things related to sex.

02:05:11.360 So as I mentioned, having sex, because this is something that happens whether you want

02:05:16.100 it to or not.

02:05:16.560 STDs, we agree on.

02:05:17.100 Right.

02:05:17.640 Even if it's between same-sex people, you probably want to inform people of all different orientations

02:05:23.580 of the practices that you can take.

02:05:25.460 So are you saying that you would teach...

02:05:26.960 Question.

02:05:27.620 I have a question for that.

02:05:28.200 I'm going to finish.

02:05:28.800 You made a point.

02:05:29.900 I'm going to finish.

02:05:30.340 You made a point.

02:05:31.220 You literally just made two points.

02:05:32.440 I was finishing my point, Tim.

02:05:33.760 Let me finish my point.

02:05:34.940 Whoa, whoa, Spurgley.

02:05:35.340 Come to the point.

02:05:36.280 My question for you is, because you just said...

02:05:38.040 I think there's one other joke about it.

02:05:39.420 There's STDs.

02:05:40.600 There's STDs in explaining to children how to avoid these things.

02:05:44.200 Does that mean schools should teach children about anal sex?

02:05:48.260 So that's what I'm saying.

02:05:49.200 I would have to look at what the research has shown is the most...

02:05:52.420 Not research, but like educational professionals have laid out is the most appropriate because

02:05:56.520 I really haven't, until right now, not thought about sex education.

02:05:58.780 The answer should be no.

02:05:59.460 It should be up to the parents.

02:06:00.800 The parents should get a slip.

02:06:01.980 You want your kid to learn X, Y, Z, and it should be yes or no.

02:06:05.140 And if they say no, then they don't teach the kid that.

02:06:07.000 The parents choose.

02:06:07.940 That's how you spike teen pregnancies rates at a really crazy amount.

02:06:12.520 Oh, really?

02:06:13.300 So there was tons of teen pregnancies in the 1920s, were there?

02:06:16.260 There was a lot more teen pregnancies.

02:06:17.560 Wait, wait.

02:06:18.420 There was a lot more teen pregnancies in the 1930s, 40s, 50s?

02:06:22.240 What?

02:06:22.780 Was there more teen pregnancies in the 30s, 40s, and 50s?

02:06:24.980 Unless it was like they were getting married because they were getting pregnant.

02:06:26.540 Wait, wait.

02:06:26.920 I'm asking.

02:06:27.540 In other countries, too?

02:06:28.760 Like, we can pull it up.

02:06:29.440 Out of wedlock, out of wedlock, teen pregnancy.

02:06:31.900 You might know that I sent, so that we could have a thoughtful discussion, a list of topics.

02:06:36.400 This wasn't on it.

02:06:37.440 And so if you want to come back and I can do all the research to understand exactly what sex education happens at this grade and that grade and what's most common, we can do it.

02:06:44.860 But I do not know the rates of teen pregnancy in 1920 at the top of my head.

02:06:48.200 But we're on it, so let's have the conversation.

02:06:50.580 So, Dee, are you saying that in the 30s, 40s, 50s, there's less teen pregnancy?

02:06:55.460 So you can't answer the question?

02:06:56.340 To be fair, he said he couldn't because he's not prepared for it.

02:06:59.480 With the 1920 teen pregnancy rates.

02:07:02.380 No, I don't know that.

02:07:02.740 Well, because it stands to reason if you're for gay sex education, you would have to agree that when gay sex education –

02:07:10.800 Yeah, okay, but when gay sex education wasn't taught in, like, the 50s, let's say, or the 40s, or things like this, and you say, well, necessarily, we teach these things because it reduces teen pregnancy, it reduces, you know, X, Y, and Z.

02:07:24.220 Shouldn't we see those high rates back then when they weren't teaching it?

02:07:27.780 And we don't, Luke?

02:07:29.040 Yeah, well, you do have – I can't speak to every exact stat, but you do see the way that we've addressed STDs.

02:07:35.500 Yes, how we've decreased teen pregnancy at least recently.

02:07:37.860 Through abortion?

02:07:40.620 No, but –

02:07:42.040 I can look at the rates of that too.

02:07:44.860 Yeah, so is there anything based on what he said about the level of education that you disagree with?

02:07:50.480 Because it seems pretty comprehensive to me.

02:07:52.240 At whatever grade you start teaching sex education, you should be, like, you know, discussing to the extent to protect against STDs and things like that.

02:08:01.160 I don't think people should be teaching – would you refer to it like –

02:08:04.520 Like fetishes.

02:08:05.320 Fetishes or –

02:08:06.040 Like, of course, eating feces and – I was going to say shit like that, pun intended, but, like, no, I don't agree with that at all.

02:08:12.240 So, those books are in schools, for instance.

02:08:15.060 We've already addressed this.

02:08:16.080 We have bipartisanship.

02:08:17.500 Get inappropriate books out.

02:08:19.120 Right.

02:08:19.400 I don't agree that a book about, like, someone's journey being black or something, which one of them was –

02:08:24.620 There were ones like that.

02:08:26.260 Should be banned.

02:08:26.720 And so there's a nuanced line there.

02:08:28.280 We all agree with that.

02:08:29.280 Well, my thing is I don't even think it should be in the educational system unless the parents allow it.

02:08:34.080 I think the parents should make the decision, do I want my kid to get this sex-type education, this grade, whatever.

02:08:39.600 And if the parent says no, they don't teach it.

02:08:41.520 Kid leaves when they teach it.

02:08:42.740 I think it needs to be on the parents, not on the education.

02:08:44.680 Just to clarify, do you feel that way about, like, all sex ed, that there should be, like – like, all sex education should be voluntary?

02:08:50.680 All of it should be done through the parents.

02:08:52.140 The parents decide when it's taught, how it's taught, and they have strict oversight of it because some parents want to have that conversation with their children to educate them in their own way.

02:09:00.000 I think that should be 100% on the parents, and then they decide.

02:09:03.340 And then, obviously, they know what's going to be taught at different grades, et cetera.

02:09:06.320 The parents should have 100% of the students.

02:09:07.360 But even, like, sex education, I do know this for sure, but we could pull up the studies to get the exact numbers on this.

02:09:13.300 A part of – it doesn't matter how I know, but, like, my mom works in a space where there's a big emphasis of making sure people are being educated properly.

02:09:20.440 Because even, like, assault and knowing how to prevent sexual assault and knowing how to go to the proper authorities and, like, all of those things and understanding what assault is and when someone, a teacher or something is crossing a line, whenever you're just depending on a parent who may not do it comprehensively or students to tell them about all these things, they end up being put in a more dangerous situation.

02:09:40.240 Well, the parents need to know what will be taught.

02:09:42.080 It's not your decision to make.

02:09:42.680 That's the importance of educating the parents on them.

02:09:44.580 This is what we plan to teach.

02:09:45.740 There should be – yes, I agree.

02:09:47.000 And then the parent can decide.

02:09:47.880 Yeah, there should be total –

02:09:48.240 That's my point.

02:09:49.420 Well –

02:09:49.620 You need to know – the transparency needs to be there.

02:09:51.400 What will be taught?

02:09:51.620 Because the parent might be the one abusing.

02:09:53.080 There should be –

02:09:54.020 Look at the teacher.

02:09:56.200 When they should be taught – exactly.

02:09:57.900 There should be transparency.

02:10:00.020 I was just going to say, we agree that there should be transparency.

02:10:02.740 I don't – I think the state has an interest in protecting children as well and, you know, educating about sex and, you know, avoiding the STDs and things of that nature.

02:10:11.080 So we are – just about at time, but I will – I do have one more question for everybody.

02:10:16.040 Do you believe that parents should have the final say when it comes to the medical decisions of their children?

02:10:21.540 Final say.

02:10:24.400 There's –

02:10:25.540 I have a caveat.

02:10:26.880 I want to agree with this, but I do have a caveat.

02:10:29.560 There are, like, religious nutcases who exist who will – they won't give their kids any treatment for anything, not a broken bone, not a – you know, they have a – you know, like a terrible infection.

02:10:43.220 They won't allow them to have antibiotics.

02:10:44.700 They just, like, pray over them, right, and this type of thing.

02:10:47.720 I do support some sort of intervention on behalf of those children so that they get the treatment they need so they don't die of these, like, horrible infections or, you know, something like this from a broken bone.

02:11:01.680 I think within the confines of reason, this should be ascertained.

02:11:06.240 But generally speaking, of course, parents should have the right over the medical decisions of their kids.

02:11:12.220 Who else should?

02:11:13.420 So do you guys agree with that?

02:11:14.520 I agree with that wholeheartedly.

02:11:17.520 The only thing I would say is, like, if they want to say, I want to transition my kid, then no.

02:11:21.480 Because there are some loonies out there that say, yeah, I want my kids to transition.

02:11:23.200 But I put that on par within the confines of reason.

02:11:25.820 I wanted to add that.

02:11:26.820 I wanted to just add that.

02:11:27.960 But, like, yeah, you know, serious medical situation or transitioning their kids, that's the two times where the parent's decision doesn't really – no.

02:11:34.740 I was just going to say as a general heuristic, yeah, I think that when it comes to minors, parents, like, should generally have the final say.

02:11:42.360 But I agree with Andrew that there should be some exceptions.

02:11:45.080 Like when it gets to the case, like neglect.

02:11:46.800 Yeah, exactly, or abuse or things of that nature.

02:11:49.540 So I think it's just, like, trying to identify that line.

02:11:52.160 And I'll totally admit that I don't know where that line is.

02:11:53.640 People who don't have their own –

02:11:55.460 It's not arbitrary, but there is interpretation with it.

02:11:59.780 There's no way around the fact that there's interpretation.

02:12:02.020 So we do have to go – but the reason why I'm going to ask and kind of go quick with it is that in blue states, if a child is distressed and the doctor prescribes gender transition, the parents say no, the state intervenes and says you do not have the right to decide for your child.

02:12:20.380 In red states, it's inverted.

02:12:22.140 In red states, it's inverted.

02:12:24.160 If the parent says my kid should get a transition, the state intervenes and says no, you can't.

02:12:29.760 So I bring this up because there is this principle that people like to bring up that the parents should ultimately decide.

02:12:35.480 But the reality is, based on the moral worldview, people will easily break from that principle.

02:12:39.220 Yeah, yeah.

02:12:39.780 Well, I think it's because we all agree that the framework should be if you're not yet able to decide for yourself because you're not a legal adult, then you have to decide in accordance with your guardians.

02:12:51.200 It's just a matter of where do we draw the line of when sort of you lose guardianship because you're making such –

02:12:56.280 Well, what's so bizarre is I feel like the right –

02:12:58.800 Oh, but also the blue state stuff is often distorted.

02:13:00.960 I feel like the Christian right is the only ones who are consistent on this.

02:13:04.020 So, like, we would say the same thing.

02:13:06.100 If you're taking your two-year-old and getting full-body tattoos for the two-year-old, you take your two-year-old to the tattoo parlor and give them full-body tattoos, we would be like, no.

02:13:16.140 You're not allowed to do that.

02:13:17.780 What's that?

02:13:18.340 It's not consistent.

02:13:19.240 What's inconsistent?

02:13:20.380 It's impossible to be consistent on this issue because it's based on morality, not on legal –

02:13:24.240 No, I'm saying their moral position is consistent within the principle of their morality.

02:13:28.500 You're saying in the Christian paradigm –

02:13:29.320 That's my point.

02:13:30.060 Everyone's dependent on their own morality.

02:13:31.300 Yeah, it's not a question of whether parents have the right.

02:13:33.440 It's a question on whether it adheres to your morals.

02:13:35.120 Yeah, I know, but other moral positions are not consistent to their principle on this.

02:13:40.400 I'm arguing, I think, that the Christian position is consistent in its moral principles on that issue.

02:13:47.040 I think it is actually consistent.

02:13:48.840 I don't think that the – or the – like, the harm reductionists or the utilitarians, things like this, I don't think they're consistent because I think that if you're trying to do harm reduction as your principle, that you can clearly see that this is not a reduction of harm to a child to put them on puberty blockers and things like this.

02:14:08.020 Though they argue it is, they can't really make that declaration correctly.

02:14:12.980 I think that they're not consistent.

02:14:15.300 I think that the Christian principle is actually consistent here.

02:14:17.740 We're going to wind things down.

02:14:18.880 We'll wipe it up.

02:14:19.360 So, everybody, thank you for hanging out.

02:14:20.860 It's been a blast, and I hope to do more of these.

02:14:23.060 We'll just go around for final thoughts, and we'll start – we'll go around this way so that Josiah has a chance to get back in here.

02:14:27.380 But did you want to give final thoughts and a shout-out to your – where people can find you?

02:14:29.940 Yeah, sure.

02:14:30.740 My name is Andrew Wilson, host of the one and only Crucible popular entertainment show on YouTube, often guested on Tim Pool.

02:14:37.680 Thank you again, Tim, for having me.

02:14:38.960 I really appreciate it.

02:14:40.280 Any time.

02:14:41.680 And Myron, again, thank you too.

02:14:44.180 This was actually a more productive conversation than ultimately I thought it would be, though I think we got off in the weeds about a few things.

02:14:51.220 I'd be open to discussing more with you guys in other settings too.

02:14:56.560 If you want to really dive into more of these issues, I'm happy to do so.

02:15:00.060 But I really appreciated the venue, and ultimately we won.

02:15:03.580 Luke Beasley, Luke Beasley on YouTube.

02:15:09.220 Yeah, I always appreciate the dialogue, and thanks for having me on, Tim.

02:15:13.860 Where can people find you?

02:15:14.960 Luke Beasley on YouTube.

02:15:15.860 Oh, okay.

02:15:16.280 That's it.

02:15:16.660 Yeah, that's it.

02:15:17.540 Myron Gaines went out for the Fresh Ship Podcast.

02:15:19.080 I also have my own talk show where I talk about culture and politics.

02:15:22.160 Myron Gaines X on there, Fresh to Fit on YouTube, Rumble.

02:15:24.940 Rumble's the home base for us, obviously, with some of our takes.

02:15:28.740 And Tim, thanks for having me, man.

02:15:29.800 It's always great to be here.

02:15:30.700 Right on.

02:15:31.700 And last but not least.

02:15:34.640 Sorry, I was holding that in for a while.

02:15:36.220 I was basically doing kegels in my chair.

02:15:39.900 I know.

02:15:40.460 When you guys kept going, I'm like, come on.

02:15:42.460 I'm Josiah with Pondering Politics, liberal commentator.

02:15:44.960 I enjoyed the conversation.

02:15:46.160 Thank you for the invitation.

02:15:47.960 And it's going to be a long and brutal four years.

02:15:49.920 I hope you all are happy.

02:15:51.180 I'm pretty happy.

02:15:51.860 Of course, this fucker.

02:15:52.720 Yeah.

02:15:53.040 It's going to be a good time.

02:15:54.160 It's going to be a good time.

02:15:55.480 All right, everybody.

02:15:56.260 Thanks for hanging out.

02:15:56.960 We're back with several clips over at YouTube.com slash TimCastNews throughout the day.

02:16:00.700 And then YouTube.com slash TimCastIRL tonight.

02:16:03.400 Myron's going to be hanging out.

02:16:04.300 Yep.

02:16:04.680 I'll be hanging out.

02:16:05.280 Yeah.

02:16:05.520 It was good.

02:16:06.240 Thanks for hanging out, guys.

02:16:06.980 We'll see you all then.

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The Culture War - Tim Pool - January 17, 2025

DEBATE： MAGA vs Democrats, Trump's Agenda vs Biden's Legacy w⧸ Myron Gaines, Andrew Wilson, Luke Beasley, & Jessiah of Pondering Politics

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