On this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, we talk about the latest events in the Middle East, including the 7th of October massacre by Hamas in Gaza, and how it changed the narrative of the whole thing, and why we should be mad at them for it. We also talk about why it's so hard to see a map of Palestine on a map, and what it says about the current state of the Palestinian people. And, of course, we have a special guest, Mikey Brokman, to talk about all of that and much, much more! Thanks to Mikey for coming on the show, and we hope you enjoy the episode, because it's a good one. -Joe Rogan Joe's new book, "The Besties" is out now, and it's out on all of the social medias, if you search for it, you'll find it. Click here to buy a copy of the book on amazon.co/TheJoeRoganExperience. It's also available in Kindle, iBook, Paperback, Hardcover, and Audio Book format. Kindle $9.99, and Paperback $99, Audio Book is Free $19.99.00, and Audible Free $99.99 with Audible membership is also available. If you don't have a Kindle device, use the promo code: JOERoganPODCAST to get 10% off the first month of the course, JOEJOGRAN PODCAST, and get 20% off for 4 months, plus shipping + shipping free for 7 days shipping, plus a free shipping discount when you buy an additional month, you get an additional 3 months of shipping discount of $50 or more, and a year of shipping starts starting at $99/month, plus free shipping starts at $49/place get a maximum of $99 or a year, plus they get a discount, they'll get 10 months of JOE ROGAN PROMO, and they get 7 months free, plus an additional 2 years of JOBRAN PRODCASTING OFF THE FIRST MONTH, they get $10/month shipping? JOBERROGAN IS BACK! -JOBERAN EXCLUSIVE OFFER AND PATREON BOWLSYTHAN BOWL - CLICK HERE TO BUY TALKING ABOUT JOE'S NEW BOOK "The Worsties Podcast?
00:00:40.000Well, there's something happening in the Middle East that's taking everybody's eye off the ball and what's happening in Ukraine, which is amazing.
00:00:49.0007 October happened with that incredible medieval slaughter by Hamas, and I was amazed at how Quickly, right?
00:00:59.000I mean, I guess I know that people have attention deficit disorder, but you didn't see anything about Ukraine or the conflict for the next couple of weeks, right?
00:01:10.000It took them that long to then think, okay, well, we still got this thing going on over here, right?
00:01:14.000People die and there's a, you know, Putin continues to operate his meat grinder for the Russian soldiers.
00:01:21.000And, you know, so that was incredible.
00:01:24.000But then timing-wise, The other thing that I thought was amazing was despite the brutality of the 7 October attacks, And Hamas knew this was going to happen, but the number of days that it took to turn the narrative around,
00:01:57.000You know, their operation centers, their tunnels, their weapons stockpiles.
00:02:02.000That's why they put it all underneath civilian infrastructure, like the Al-Shifa Hospital that's been in the news lately and other places, because they know that they're going to end up with dead Palestinians, right?
00:02:15.000And that's kind of, this sounds wrong, but it's kind of their currency, right?
00:02:29.000But since 2006, really, they kicked out Fatah, they kicked out the Palestinian Authority and 2007. So you can tell by the fact that they've done nothing to improve the lives of Palestinians.
00:02:42.000They don't give a shit about Palestinians, right?
00:03:02.000They've got a good public relations group, if you want to call it that.
00:03:05.000They understand how international media works.
00:03:08.000They know that it won't take much time for condemnation of Israel because you end up with dead Palestinian civilians, which is incredibly sad.
00:03:17.000It's very sad for the Palestinian people.
00:03:44.000I guess it's hard to tell where I stand on this issue.
00:03:47.000It's so strange that some people, particularly like these really crazy leftists, have gone as far as saying they were happy when the slaughter took place.
00:04:43.000So I don't want to put all the protesters in one camp because, you know, some are legitimately working to better the lives of Palestinians.
00:04:49.000And yes, you can feel awful about what happens with the civilians.
00:04:55.000But I'm not sure what people expect Israel to do after what happened on the 7th of October and after Hamas continued to say, well, we're just going to keep doing this.
00:05:06.000It wasn't like they said, well, there you go.
00:05:26.000That's something that people need to understand that they are embedding these troops and they're embedding these weapons stockpiles and all these different things in civilian infrastructure.
00:06:11.000Disturbingly makeshift rooms or holding cells, so it appears as if they could have been holding some of the hostages there, moved them before the IDF got in.
00:06:24.000But they've done the same with al-Shifa.
00:06:27.000That's a large, large hospital compound.
00:06:30.000And they have been saying for years that they use al-Shifa as essentially the command central point for the military structure there for Hamas and also, again, for weapons stockpiles.
00:06:45.000I mean, you can't be more cynical as an organization like Hamas than to be storing ammunition and weapons underneath a children's hospital, as an example.
00:06:56.000So, yeah, I think the best thing that can happen...
00:07:01.000Sounds weird to say that in a situation like this, but yeah, Israel needs to be very transparent.
00:07:05.000They need to provide as much evidence of this to try to shift that narrative.
00:07:09.000At least the people who aren't rabid about this, but have kind of jumped on the, you know, free Palestine bandwagon because they like to feel righteous, right?
00:07:18.000So at least some of those people you can shift off of that narrative by providing evidence, by being transparent.
00:07:25.000So, you know, hopefully that's what the IDF does.
00:07:28.000The U.S. has come out and said, look, We back up that intelligence.
00:07:31.000We have independent corroboration that they've been using al-Shifa and other hospitals, Hamas has, you know, for their personnel, for their stockpiles.
00:07:43.000The reality is it's not going to change much of the narrative.
00:07:46.000I've been surprised by apparently how many anti-Semitic bigots were just like in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to jump out.
00:08:04.000Yeah, in 2023. I guess it's naive to think that maybe we didn't have that problem anymore, but it's there.
00:08:13.000Jewish people have always been saying it, and a lot of people have been saying, oh, you guys are exaggerating, and now I guess everybody has to shut the fuck up about that.
00:08:22.000Not only are they not exaggerating, they're kind of underplaying it.
00:08:26.000Yeah, they were definitely underplaying it, but I think that if you look at, again, if you look at what's happening here in America, there's layers to it.
00:08:38.000You get Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinian American in Congress, and she's a member of whatever they call it, the squad.
00:08:50.000So she comes out, and she's fairly rabid, right?
00:08:54.000Meaning, what she's saying about it is not particularly eloquent, right?
00:08:58.000And so she gets censured because she's just out there spouting almost what appears to be pro-Hamas or making some sort of equivalency, right?
00:09:07.000Well, she tweeted the incorrect story about the bombing of the hospital being the responsibility of Israel, and it wasn't.
00:10:00.000There was no thought that said, well, maybe before we run with the word of a terrorist organization that just proved how medieval they are, maybe we should do our own independent checking.
00:10:40.000It's a massively complicated history, right?
00:10:42.000There's nothing more complicated than the history of Palestine and Israel and the settlements and all the rest of it, and no one's probably ever going to solve it.
00:10:50.000But then you've got the campus activity, and again, those are youthful people that like to feel righteous about things.
00:10:59.000You got Barack Obama, right, going on a podcast talking about this.
00:11:20.000But in a very subtle, very sophisticated way, more sophisticated than others who get out there and scream from the river to the sea, he talked about this like, okay, well, it was unbearable situation for the Palestinians, which implies that You know,
00:11:37.000he's not justifying it, I guess, in a sense, but people will read that into it, right?
00:11:43.000And that's dangerous in itself, right?
00:11:47.000Because, well, I mean, he's listened to, right?
00:11:56.000Anyway, so I guess what I'm saying is there's layers of this antisemitism or there's layers of this excusing what took place while not, you know, again, I don't want to put words in people's mouths, but that's what they're doing, right?
00:12:10.000And by calling for a ceasefire, as an example, if you call for a ceasefire, then you're basically saying, I'm okay with the status quo.
00:12:18.000Because a ceasefire is not going to lead to a two-state solution.
00:13:02.000Clearly, there's a lot of people who have no interest in that.
00:13:05.000So I think their feeling, if we can degrade Hamas sufficiently, I don't think you ever destroy a terrorist organization or you're certainly never going to get terrorism down to nothing, right?
00:13:43.000Elon was on a podcast recently with Lex Friedman, and one of the things he was talking about was like, with every civilian Palestinian that dies, how many more members of Hamas have you created?
00:16:47.000The point of the Palestinian people is when you did that survey of who's best, you know, capable and who deserves to represent the Palestinian people, yeah, Hamas only got about 30% of the vote.
00:18:15.000But in terms of the planning of this, if you're conducting an operation, or you're conducting any intelligence, really, concern, then The first thing you need to worry about is need to know.
00:19:39.000You could legitimately argue the political leadership of Hamas, they had a sense, you know, I'm sure at some point they approved a large-scale operation, but the people who really knew about this were the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,
00:19:56.000the IRGC, which is an organization with the Iranian regime, and they're kind of the liaison partners for Hamas and Hezbollah, They manage a lot of the training issues.
00:20:07.000They funnel a lot of the money that goes to these organizations that are Iranian proxies.
00:20:12.000And so you can count on the fact that a limited number within the IRGC were aware of the planning and the training because they did train Hamas operatives in Iran prior to 7 October.
00:20:24.000So I think, yeah, it was simply a matter of them saying, all right, This element, this cell will have knowledge of this during the course of training.
00:20:40.000And maybe a handful of people will understand the full picture and will understand when we're going to do this.
00:20:47.000And it's all designed to keep it away from Israeli intelligence.
00:20:53.000And it was ridiculously successful in that regard.
00:21:01.000And also, you could argue, intelligence is a human operation, or an endeavor, so you're going to have failures on occasion, you just don't want them to be this massive.
00:21:13.000There were occasional comments about the inclination of Hamas to do something bigger.
00:21:23.000And Hamas also spent a great deal of time leading up to this, I mean years, convincing The Israeli government, through their words, through their actions or lack of actions, that it was a new day and that what they're looking to do is create a different dynamic or relationship with the Israeli government.
00:21:47.000And so the Israeli government became complacent.
00:21:50.000And when they became complacent, to some degree, over Hamas and the fact that there hadn't been any strikes or hadn't been any terrorist actions for a period of time, Then what you saw was then they kind of turned inward and people talk about the political divisions within Israel and the fact that the government was in a bit of disarray and there was it was a little dysfunctional a lot of arguments going on that in part was because you know they had the not the luxury but the ability to kind of turn in on themselves because they didn't feel necessarily
00:22:21.000that that except that threat outside was as bad as it had been right and that they thought perhaps it's diminishing perhaps You know, Hamas is changing its tune.
00:22:29.000And that was a deliberate attempt by Hamas to lull them into that state.
00:22:33.000And so there were a lot of things going on at the same time.
00:22:55.000Yeah, I mean, if you can get your head around that idea that they said, yeah, we're going to let Hamas or, you know, somehow encourage Hamas to come in and slaughter all these women, babies, children, men.
00:23:07.000I suppose that's, you know, if someone can get there, then God bless them, that's their right.
00:23:20.000No matter how many cameras you've got up, no matter how good your signals intelligence intercepts are, they dumb that down, right?
00:23:26.000I'm not calling anybody on the phone, because I know you're going to pick that up, right?
00:23:30.000I'm not going to talk about this anywhere.
00:23:31.000I'm going to hand a note to my cousin, you know, who runs a, you know, a part of a battalion in Hamas, you know, and they got, whatever, two dozen battalions.
00:23:42.000But I'm going to keep that communication as stupid as I can.
00:23:46.000And they dumbed it down, and it becomes much more difficult.
00:23:50.000They limit the number of sources who know about it.
00:23:53.000That limits your target pool of assets who can tell you something from a human perspective.
00:24:01.000And, you know, but, again, people are gonna...
00:24:04.000I've seen some pretty wacky conspiracy theories come out of this since 7 October.
00:24:09.000And, you know, I'm not buying that one.
00:24:13.000Yeah, the most conspiratorial was that Netanyahu was kind of on the way out with the people and that this is the way for him to sort of galvanize everybody and get support and maintain power and then do what he actually wanted to do,
00:24:42.000And, you know, I get that, because you have a lot of people who, you know, still refuse to believe that, you know, Hamas doesn't give a shit about Palestinians.
00:24:50.000And again, I keep going back to the same thing, which is, well, take a look at Gaza, you know, and tell me what Hamas has done for the people of Gaza.
00:25:00.000Because again, Palestinian people aren't lined up 100% behind them.
00:25:04.000You know, in fact, there's been reports of looting of Hamas facilities since they've been losing their grip on power.
00:25:12.000The Hamas leadership structure is enormously wealthy.
00:25:16.000They've stolen billions of dollars that was theoretically intended for Palestinian improvements.
00:25:36.000Look, I think the EU, the European Union is, I think, the largest donor still to the Palestinian people, and it comes through various organizations.
00:25:47.000So the United Nations, the Refugee Office, UNRW, the USAID, and some NGOs, well, quite a few NGOs.
00:26:02.000So money is donated or allocated by governments and the U.S. is given billions of dollars through these organizations for the improvement of Palestinian lives,
00:26:19.000And part of that came out of the Oslo Accords, the idea being, you know, Band together, improve the infrastructure for the Palestinians, create this, because that will march towards more stability,
00:26:34.000and eventually maybe that allows for a solution that will eventually come about, whether it's a two-state solution or however it's worked out.
00:27:35.000So over the years, they have the leadership, and particularly the political leadership, who all basically live outside of Gaza, in Doha, in Qatar.
00:27:50.000You know, some reports, and they're confirmed by the US Treasury, it's not just the Israelis saying this, you know, they're billionaires at this stage of life.
00:27:58.000And, you know, one of them's got a couple of kids who are on Instagram, right?
00:28:03.000And they're flying on private jets and they're, you know, they probably went to the World Cup when it was in Doha.
00:28:08.000And it's ludicrous because billions of dollars that literally were meant to provide clean water or better schools or whatever, and people just, you know, How is the money allocated?
00:29:30.000The most efficient way to move goods and services through Gaza at this point, because of all the work they've done in the tunnels, is the tunnels.
00:29:36.000So they tax goods moving through the tunnels.
00:30:12.000Yeah, I just, I keep coming back around to this notion that, you know, the Palestinian people have been getting screwed, you know, left and right.
00:30:56.000If you feel better about a ceasefire and kicking the can down the road, don't pretend like you're solving something.
00:31:02.000So when the money gets allocated, say if there's money that's being sent to Palestine for clean water, who's receiving that money?
00:31:13.000Well, it's funneled through the organization.
00:31:16.000So that money is, think about it like a bank account.
00:31:19.000It's deposited with the UN refugee office.
00:31:23.000They decide, they allocate, because they have essentially vendors, right, who are saying, okay, we're going to provide, whatever, penicillin, or we're going to provide hospital beds.
00:31:34.000So they're parsing this out to a variety of vendors, both in...
00:32:19.000You know, it's a bit like the IRA. The IRA started out with a very clear mandate, right?
00:32:27.000Eventually, an element of it was just about drugs and guns and, you know, money.
00:32:32.000So, you know, keep coming back around to Hamas.
00:32:36.000They realized they got a good thing going, right?
00:32:39.000Stability is not going to keep that gravitating running.
00:32:41.000So, you know, peace with Israel That cuts off a revenue stream for Hamas, right, in a sense, even though they still, theoretically, they could be smart and they could say, okay, if we have peace with Israel, then we establish a long-term governance thing here.
00:32:57.000Then we can keep that gravy train going.
00:32:59.000But, you know, they would lose their funding from Iran because, you know, the last thing Iran wants is peaceful coexistence with Israel.
00:35:22.000I think would stop short of being directly involved.
00:35:26.000You know, they've got enough in the way of proxy groups to probably keep this going for some time.
00:35:32.000But I think the goal here should be, yes, not a wider regional conflict.
00:35:38.000But you have to be pragmatic and understand that This is all emanating from, originating from the Iranian regime.
00:35:48.000So, if Hamas is sorted out, and the conflict as it currently stands ends, and you don't get something bigger up north with Hezbollah, you still have the Iranian regime sitting here.
00:36:04.000They still have Proxies, even if Hamas is degraded, it's not like that's down to zero.
00:36:14.000So the best answer, I know you asked about the worst situation, but the best situation would be if the Saudis and other nations in that region would normalize relations with Israel.
00:37:42.000A month, and you've had about 60 attacks.
00:37:45.000You've had almost 60 U.S. servicemen injured, some seriously.
00:37:50.000And yet, I think they made the announcement yesterday afternoon during a quiet time in the press room.
00:38:00.000But the Biden administration has agreed to extend a sanction waiver for Iran.
00:38:09.000And we're giving them $10 billion, $10 billion in what had been frozen assets owed by Iraq, right, to Iran for essentially, well, for the most part, for electricity, right, for purchasing.
00:39:11.000The State Department's very clear on that.
00:39:13.000They're saying, no, it's just for humanitarian aid.
00:39:14.000There's no way they can use it for anything else, which is what they said about the $6 billion that they unfroze before this situation kicked off at the beginning of October.
00:39:26.000And, you know, to that, the Iranian president said, hey, we'll use it for whatever we want to, right?
00:39:33.000And money's fungible, so if you give me $10 billion and tell me I can only spend it on beer, Okay, well, I'll take 10 billion dollars that I have over in this pot that I was going to spend on beer and I'll spend it on ammunition.
00:40:04.000Now, look, eh, you know, they've been fomenting trouble and creating chaos and causing trouble, I know I'm paraphrasing, before this $10 billion, and they're going to keep doing it regardless of whether they get the funds.
00:40:18.000So fine, let's just give them the money.
00:40:21.000They choose to fund destabilizing activities first, he added.
00:40:25.000They always have, as far as we can tell, they always will.
00:40:28.000So when it, looking at this money, we see the benefit to allowing these funds to move again to restricted accounts where they can only benefit the Iranian people.
00:41:08.000And the idea that they somehow imagine that this money won't be used for, you know, purposes other than what they're expecting is, I think, is ludicrous.
00:41:21.000But if all you said was just from the optic, even if they could control how that money is spent...
00:41:30.000Politically, the optic is awful, right?
00:41:32.000And so it's a confusing thing from this administration.
00:43:08.000Look, you know, you should want the U.S. government to do well, you know, regardless.
00:43:13.000We gotta, you know, at some point you gotta say, okay, I don't care whether Democrats or Republicans, I just want them to do well because that's good for us, you know, as in the U.S. Whether it's an economic issue or national security issue.
00:43:27.000But I haven't seen a logical argument.
00:43:38.000They were incredibly reluctant at the outset of this conflict to even mention Iran.
00:43:46.000And in part because they've They've spent three years now with a soft approach to trying to get back into a deal of some sort with them over the nuke weapons program.
00:44:03.000And they've been taking this approach that said, well, Trump had maximum pressure, so that had to be wrong.
00:44:12.000And just like with everything else that Trump did, they just reversed it, you know, like the border controls.
00:44:18.000No, that's all bad, you know, and so we just have to throw it all out.
00:44:21.000And they kind of did that, and they brought in to their various Iran-focused, Iran-forward positions, whether at the Pentagon or the State Department, they brought in people who were like-minded, who wanted a softer approach.
00:44:37.000And that in part was probably driven by an effort by the Iranians, by the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
00:44:44.000They were running an influence campaign here in the States.
00:44:49.000They've been running it for almost 10 years now, where they have worked to discredit any viable opposition to the Iranian regime, and they have...
00:45:35.000There's no real curious journalist asking where that stands, right?
00:45:40.000You've got an individual over the Pentagon who is still there, still in her job, and has been promoting, again, this idea that, you know, we have to change direction with Iran.
00:45:53.000So, you know, I know I'm kind of wandering down a weird path there, but I guess it's not a surprise It's just an odd decision from the Biden administration.
00:46:08.000And you would think at this stage of the game, if you're not convinced that you need to change course with the Iranian regime and treat them differently, every time we try to shake their hand, they smack it away.
00:46:18.000I don't know how many times that has to happen before the Biden administration learns...
00:46:22.000That's not the way to deal with them, right?
00:46:49.000This is going to sound weird, but I think long-term peace and stability in the Middle East, any road you want to take of a serious means to get to long-term stability and peace and prosperity and a better life for whether it's Palestinians or anyone else out there,
00:47:10.000I think that road leads through the Iranian regime, and we have to deal with them.
00:47:36.000At some point, we've got to have the stones to actually deal with them because it's going to be easier doing that now than when they have a nuke.
00:47:44.000And I'm curious as to what the current administration is thinking about in terms of their policy towards Iran.
00:47:53.000I don't profess to understand it, but I do think that You know, that you can't have stability.
00:48:03.000Every time you're going to get your way towards peace and stability in the Middle East in some fashion, the Iranian regime is going to screw it up.
00:48:10.000Because peace and stability means we're talking about Israel.
00:48:14.000And peace and stability, again, would imply that means they have a right to exist.
00:48:19.000And every time you get near that, then I think the Iranian regime will do whatever they can to stop that from happening.
00:48:25.000So, at some point, we gotta deal with it.
00:48:31.000What's the difference between the way this administration handled it and the previous administration?
00:48:38.000I think it was mostly the attention to the sanctions and the economic pressure on them and trying to enforce those sanctions.
00:48:50.000You know, there was, again, not touting for the previous administration either, but just saying that Their approach was tougher when it came to sanctions.
00:48:59.000Their approach was, we have an adversary here.
00:49:03.000We're not trying to become friends with them right now, right?
00:49:06.000Because that's not their mindset, right?
00:49:08.000I mean, it's like when someone keeps telling their kid, well, look, the bully, just keep putting your hand out and trying to shake his hand and try to be his friend.
00:49:16.000Maybe he's just misunderstood or he's lacking confidence.
00:49:19.000And he keeps punching you in the nose, right?
00:49:20.000At some point, you gotta figure out, okay, I gotta do something different here.
00:49:25.000So, I think the previous administration, they were much tougher on the sanctions, and they had an approach, much like with China, right?
00:49:36.000Yes, they're a competitor, but they're an adversary, and Xi's got a plan that gets him to the top of the food chain.
00:49:44.000The Iranian regime has a plan that destroys Israel, right?
00:50:51.000Did you hear that, what was it, some news organization from another country got robbed at gunpoint?
00:50:58.000Yeah, a camera crew got robbed covering the convention.
00:51:01.000Look, this is APEC conventions there for the week.
00:51:04.000Today is the big day when Xi and Biden sit down and talk.
00:51:08.000And supposedly, leading up to this, Biden's main point during a press conference was in the climate, climate crisis.
00:51:18.000Like, she gives a fuck about the climate.
00:51:21.000It's just, so again, it all kind of falls together in this world that the current administration is living in.
00:51:28.000You know, hey, it'd be lovely if that was the case and that was our biggest issue.
00:51:31.000But I'm hoping that part of this is not, that they don't spend a lot of time Although, having said that, John Kerry was there in San Francisco, because he's our climate czar, and he proudly announced,
00:51:46.000whenever, yesterday, the day before, that part of this meeting will be to agree to resume the climate, whatever it was called, climate working group.
00:51:57.000So the Chinese and Americans will get together now and will be re-energized to talk about how we can both improve the climate.
00:52:06.000Meanwhile, a very, very reputable report came out and said that...
00:52:14.000The Chinese regime is building six times more coal plants than the rest of the world combined currently.
00:52:22.000They're basically building two coal plants a week in terms of looking at their construction and the permitting process.
00:52:33.000You know, people are saying, well, you know, they're trying to find excuses.
00:52:36.000Well, you know, it's because they want to back up, you know, look, they're the biggest, you know, purveyor of renewables energy.
00:52:43.000So they just want the coal in case they need a backup.
00:52:47.000You know, she looks at coal as a real driver in terms of energy security.
00:52:52.000So anyway, my point being is they're going to sit down, and John Kerry spews this crap about, you know, they're going to have, look at this, we're working together to save the planet, and China's just digging coal as fast as they can.
00:53:05.000I find that part funny because it just shows that we're still misunderstanding China.
00:53:12.000You know, the CCP and how they operate.
00:53:23.000We don't even have consistent communication right now between the militaries, right?
00:53:28.000I mean, if we get sideways with each other, and you need to de-conflict, You know, that's a good thing if you have regular, consistent conversation between the military command structures.
00:53:39.000You would think that the President of the United States and the President or the head of China No matter who's in the White House, you would think that we would just be having regularly, you know, conversations maybe once a quarter.
00:53:52.000That would make sense, but we don't do that.
00:53:58.000So hopefully they come to terms on a couple of things.
00:54:00.000I'm sure one will be the climate working group.
00:54:03.000They are supposed to come up with an agreement on the use of AI in unmanned weapon systems and in the command and control systems for nuke weapons.
00:54:18.000I don't say nuclear because for some reason that's a tough word and I always get, you know, jammed up on nuclear and then people say, you just said nuclear.
00:55:41.000I mean, I hate to say it, I don't even view it as work or anything, right?
00:55:44.000It's just because it's interesting, and it's the shit that I would be reading and thinking about anyway, which means I've got a sad daytime life there, although I've got the world's greatest life.
00:56:03.000The folks that work on it with me, they do a great job.
00:56:06.000We talk in the morning about, you know, what are the topics that we think are going to be the hot ones for the day that we need to cover the next morning.
00:56:26.000Yeah, I just, I enjoy it because I like, for whatever reason, you want to know what the hell's going on in the world, particularly when it's as fucked up as it is now, right?
00:56:34.000So you end up kind of diving in, but you don't dive into social media sites, right?
00:56:39.000I don't, you know, don't get your news from there.
00:56:41.000You get your news from, you know, reputable sources if there still are some, but you read a variety of them, so hopefully it balances out.
00:56:48.000And, yeah, I spend a ridiculous amount of time and then, And then my boys, you know, Scooter and Sluggo and Mugsy, they have to put up with it, right?
00:56:57.000They have to listen to me bang on about shit, right?
00:56:59.000And so usually if I'm driving one of them to school in the morning, that's when I kind of talk to them about things.
00:58:54.000And if you don't have that, I mean, that's why, you know, you look around sometimes and you think, well, if people don't have role models, if they don't have mentors, if they don't have what looks like success, right?
00:59:06.000Well, then, you know, maybe it's not a surprise that they're not succeeding.
00:59:09.000And so you got to, you know, and this is a different example.
00:59:12.000I'm, you know, I'm not making comparisons there between, you know, what happens in the, you know, inner city and they don't get to see things.
00:59:18.000To that, because that's, you know, this is a very privileged opportunity that, you know, that these young folks have.
00:59:26.000And they hopefully feel very fortunate about it, right?
01:01:06.000What did you take on, like, one of the wildest things that's happened, we kind of touched on it briefly, is how quickly everybody forgot about Ukraine.
01:01:17.000It's like the moment Ukraine came along, that's when everybody stopped talking about COVID. COVID kind of just vanished, because like, okay, now we have a new thing to focus on and virtue signal over.
01:01:59.000There's a bus filled with UFC fighters.
01:02:03.000Ruthless Robbie Lawler, the former welterweight champion, Jamal Hill, who was the former light heavyweight champion, they're on the bus and they're smashing the windows of the bus and they slash the tires of the bus.
01:05:35.000Which reminds me that, we'll talk about that later on, but the Chinese have been kind of caught with their hand in the cookie jar over a very large-scale disinformation campaign, trying to influence policy and decision-making and attitudes here in the U.S. But it's what Hamas would do,
01:05:53.000it's what the Iranians would do with more resource, is to organize these types of things.
01:06:00.000And ideally, again, you want to make them seem spontaneous, you want to make them seem...
01:06:44.000They got to pivot a little bit and they got to start talking about ceasefire or the long pause or, you know, by God, don't be firing up a hospital or whatever.
01:08:34.000New York City, these secret police stations that the Ministry of Public Security, the Chinese Communist Party's Ministry of Public Security, was running here in the States, and still continue to run, frankly.
01:08:45.000But they had a couple of their MPS agents here in New York, and part of what they were doing was dealing directly with activists, basically threatening them, harassing them, and trying to, again,
01:09:05.000I mean, they were involved in spreading messages related to the George Floyd protests.
01:09:12.000So they've got evidence, and this is a report that, who did this?
01:09:18.000CNN, I think, put this together after studying a vast amount of documentation, right, and information that was FOIA'd and brought out from a variety of places and also from social media sites that pulled together their own research.
01:09:32.000So George Floyd protests, and then the second year of that, they're still promoting it, and the idea is they're pushing out narratives that say, you know, America is a completely racist society, you know, and democracy doesn't work, and, you know, that's exactly what you would expect them to do.
01:09:49.000But it's on a scale that I don't think we understood completely, right?
01:09:55.000And the U.S. government has just come out, basically, and felt like they had.
01:09:58.000And I think Meta was also involved in the research, and they've come out and talked about it and said, yeah, this is a problem.
01:10:05.000Now, whether Biden talks to them about that or not, I don't know.
01:10:09.000But the other thing they do is that they came out and they identified, but we talked about this before, is, you know, the Chinese regime, using this disinformation campaign, this spamoflage or whatever it is, Some of the specific examples where they went after a Texas-based rare earths processing facility.
01:10:28.000So basically working to shut that down, essentially.
01:10:35.000To get the voices in the community against this.
01:10:40.000Well, they promote, they sponsor, they encourage environmental groups and activist groups.
01:10:49.000Again, it's not as if people want to make a direct connection and say, are you telling me that Greenpeace is taking money from the CCP? And no, it's more sophisticated than that, right?
01:11:18.000And so what they've realized relatively early on was Even more so than going out and locking up mining rights overseas, right?
01:11:27.000If you're talking about, you know, the Congo, you're talking about Australia, South America, you know, for lithium, then even more important was impacting your main competitors' regulatory policies, right?
01:11:42.000And so they understood that if they can encourage local and city councils, state governments, and the federal government to And they really focus on local and state because that's an easier lift, right?
01:11:57.000Changing federal policy, they probably got tired of the bureaucracy.
01:12:01.000But they understood that if they can do that to enact anti-mining regulations, no, you can't explore, no, it's going to take you 10 years to get a permit to explore for lithium, you know, in Nevada or Idaho or wherever, that's right in line with their strategy to become the Provider of rare earth and critical minerals because they also understood they're smart enough They've got a long fizz in here and they look at the at the US
01:12:31.000they look at Europe and we're all Self-righteously banging out about how we're gonna.
01:12:38.000We're getting off this fossil fuels So they look at that go great Well, we're gonna we're on top of that, right?
01:12:44.000We're gonna be in charge of that market so That's what they've been doing, and they go after these local governments, and they encourage through the spammoflage or whatever, and also, again, in supporting environmental groups to push this, right, and create this groundswell.
01:12:59.000Some guy in a city council is looking and going, oh, yeah, I'm not approving that phosphate mining exercise, right?
01:13:05.000I'm not approving whatever, and, you know, you can't have agriculture, really, without phosphate for fertilizer, so that's a pretty important thing.
01:13:16.000But some city councilman, he's not going to sit there and go, well, I think this is probably, you know, maybe sponsored by the CCP. He just hears some environmentalists who come to the city council meetings and, you know, protest or make an argument.
01:13:29.000And he thinks, yeah, I'm voting against it.
01:14:12.000Well, at least it should be discussed to the point where it's a narrative where the general public is aware of it and Congress is aware the general public is aware of it.
01:14:23.000So this is something that's on the table.
01:14:25.000You can't just openly say, we can't mine because of this.
01:18:05.000It would be kind of irresponsible if the government of the United States knew that all these other countries were involved in propaganda against us and we weren't doing the same.
01:21:06.000First of all, the benefits of it are vast.
01:21:09.000There was a study out of Finland that showed that 20 years, they did this long-term study, People who use the sauna four times a week experienced a 40% decrease in all-cause mortality.
01:21:21.00040% decrease in stroke, heart attacks, cancer, everything.
01:21:28.000And the reason for that is heat shock proteins.
01:21:31.000What happens when you're in the sauna, you can't stay in there, right?
01:21:36.000You can only stay in there for a short amount of time.
01:21:39.000And what happens during that 20 minutes is your body's freaking out because it's 185 degrees in there.
01:21:44.000And you're sweating, and your heart is pounding, and you develop static cardio.
01:21:48.000So your heart rate, many times when I do it, I go straight from working out, my heart rate's already elevated, and I climb right into 185 degrees.
01:22:07.000But it extends your cardiovascular output and it creates heat shock proteins and heat shock proteins reduce inflammation throughout the body.
01:22:16.000There's amazing benefits for the sauna.
01:24:20.000And I woke up at Baylor Heart Center, which, thank God, is only a few minutes away from DFW. But ever since then, I've been on, you know, whatever.
01:24:33.000Blood pressure medicine, blood thinners, you know.
01:24:36.000If I'm out, if we're out doing something outdoors and everything and I cut myself, pretty much it.
01:24:42.000I just put a bullet in me because I'm bleeding.
01:24:45.000But that's what the blood thinners do for you.
01:25:08.000I've modified my diet, obviously, and kind of adjusted the way that I work out.
01:25:13.000None of that's going to make much difference.
01:25:15.000If it's in your family, it's in your family, in a sense, right?
01:25:18.000And it's the high rate of passing it on.
01:25:21.000So, you know, all my parents went from that.
01:25:25.000My brothers all have various issues and are carrying around hardware, right?
01:25:29.000I've got some stents and, you know, so...
01:25:32.000It's nothing, you know, I don't sit around, I'm not deep enough to sit around and worry about it, necessarily, except for things like this where I think, well, can I do that still?
01:25:41.000But I'm not, you know, then again, I'm also, like I said, I'm not organized enough to say, well, I should talk to my cardiologist.
01:25:46.000I think, ah, just do it, or I just, yeah, I won't, you know, but I need to be a little more curious.
01:25:51.000If you're not a, you know, I hear this all the time, if you're not an advocate for yourself in healthcare, you're fucked.
01:26:09.000It's geared towards giving you medication.
01:26:11.000Yes, it's geared towards giving you medication.
01:26:12.000So if you're not curious enough and if you're not aggressive enough and proactive enough and taking care of yourself or having someone who's doing that for you, you know, it's a tough ride.
01:26:23.000Back to nootropics what they're essentially the the building blocks for human neurotransmitters and What has been done through this like this is how we created on it in the first place okay when we created on it We were trying to fit well I got I got really interested in nootropics from a product called neuro one and I was on this radio station in San Francisco Sarah and no name And they had one of the no-name that was I forget his real name is
01:26:53.000but he had this stuff called neuro one that Bill Romanowski created after his football career because he was having Brunch problems from concussions and memory loss and all sorts of different things.
01:27:05.000So he started researching Different nutrients that enhance memory.
01:27:11.000There's a bunch of different ones That are considered nootropics.
01:27:18.000There's some stuff that I use called NeuroGum.
01:29:51.000UK intelligence, they came out with a report looking at the total number of casualties on the Russian side so far, and they are basing it on, they've done a fairly exhaustive study, and they're basing it on,
01:30:33.000Because neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians are being transparent for reasons that you can imagine in terms of morale, but they're not being transparent about their numbers.
01:31:59.000Regain and gain some ground before the winter months really set in.
01:32:04.000The counteroffensive that Ukraine's put together has been somewhat disappointing, to put it mildly.
01:32:11.000And then during the winter, what's going to happen?
01:32:14.000The Russians are going to spend their time attacking Ukraine energy targets to try to freeze them out during the winter, which they tried last year and had some success with.
01:32:35.000They're probably going to end up focused most of the time on supply chain.
01:32:39.000If they can cut the supply chain or the supply line for the Russian military, that's a big win.
01:32:46.000And that's why they've been so keen to get more advanced artillery systems in there because they want to be able to hit those They want to hit the lines.
01:32:56.000They want to be able to hit command and control.
01:32:59.000Because I think they realize, you know, they're getting into...
01:33:01.000One of their generals actually said this, and then Zelensky had to come out and clean up and say, no, we're not in a stalemate.
01:33:06.000But one of the generals said, we're kind of approaching a stalemate here.
01:34:58.000If he doesn't have U.S. assistance and U.S. aid, this thing goes from being a potential stalemate to it swings the other way in Russia's favor and not in a really lengthy period of time.
01:35:11.000So he knows he's got to be seen as doing everything possible to Stamp out corruption and also having the optic of stamping out corruption, right?
01:35:19.000Regardless of how successful he may be, but it's a real problem for him.
01:35:24.000And look, the EU is sticking closer to them.
01:35:27.000I mean, we're getting these cracks in support here in the US. The European Union is, they're still all in because they're right there, right?
01:35:38.000And so they understand that you can't let Putin win this.
01:35:45.000Look, the biggest problem we've got is we haven't gone after the energy sector for Russia, just like we really haven't for the Iranians, right?
01:35:54.000The EU implemented what they call an oil price cap.
01:35:58.000So they said, okay, We'll only allow Russian oil to be sold on the market at $60 a barrel.
01:36:45.000They figured out a way to beat those sanctions, and so they've doubled the amount of money that they made in October compared to September.
01:36:51.000So they're generating enough to keep the war effort going, is what I'm saying, in a not particularly eloquent way.
01:36:58.000And then there's the Nord Stream Pipeline, right?
01:37:01.000So Seymour Hearst reported that the U.S. destroyed the Nord Stream Pipeline, but now it's being talked that Zelensky and the Ukrainians destroyed it.
01:37:12.000Yeah, it looks like, what's his name, Zhevinsky?
01:39:18.000This has been two, not even two years, and you've got some people in the States going, fuck it, you know, we're kind of done, you know.
01:39:24.000Do we really need to worry about this?
01:39:27.000And, you know, yeah, it'd be great to figure out a way to be more efficient with our spending of our money and more transparent with it, but...
01:39:36.000You know, I don't think people should underestimate Putin's ability to keep putting people in the front line and just riding this out, because his calculation, much like it was with Hamas and Assad, knew what was going to happen with their narrative.
01:39:49.000I think Putin looks at the West and says, you'll get tired of this.
01:39:53.000I'll just outlast you, because I don't care.
01:39:56.000And he's dedicated to, you know, rebuilding in some fashion the old Soviet Union.
01:40:03.000Aren't they taking prisoners out and giving them, like, there's...
01:40:10.000That they were taking people that had these long-term prison sentences and they were giving them the option to fight in the war and that they would release them.
01:41:39.000So there may be something more to this.
01:41:43.000But yeah, on the other side, the Russians, the Wagner Group built itself up by pulling recruits out of prisons and throwing them in the front lines.
01:41:54.000But I guess the point being is that Putin...
01:41:59.000Is doing what, in a way, the Russian military has always done.
01:42:19.000Because they can put up with a lot of suffering.
01:42:21.000So I think that that's what Putin's counting on here.
01:42:24.000And again, he looks at the West and goes, yeah, you guys aren't going to last this one out.
01:42:28.000And, you know, again, if he's right, and USAID dries up for Ukraine, you know, that's fine if that's what people want, but they better understand what that means.
01:42:39.000And it means Putin's going to win, right?
01:42:42.000And so, you know, just understand what your actions could lead to.
01:42:47.000When Trump comes along and says, I could wrap all this up in 24 hours, how is that even possible?
01:43:42.000I'm not saying anything that's particularly clever, but it's an enormously difficult time right now.
01:43:48.000And people talk about, well, World War III. That was always the beef on Trump, was he's going to lead us into World War III. Well, I mean, I don't know.
01:43:58.000Can he do any worse than where we're at right now?
01:44:02.000You know, again, I think, you know, maybe so.
01:44:05.000But it's just, I don't think we're at the World War III point.
01:44:32.000I don't think it's going to happen in part because I don't think Israel is going to allow that to happen.
01:44:35.000Getting good intelligence on the state of the weapons program in Iran is a very heavy lift, but I think Israel, you know, has certainly better intelligence than they had on the potential Hamas attack that was building.
01:44:51.000So I think if they get that sense, I think they will act.
01:44:54.000Because they're probably thinking, well, same calculation.
01:45:15.000So, you know, people always worry about, well, why are we talking about the Iranians and getting the nuke?
01:45:20.000Well, look at the fucking regime, right?
01:45:23.000And look at what they're willing to do and look at the trouble that they instigate and the problems that they create, the instability that they generate.
01:45:52.000So, the previous administration had harsher sanctions, and what else did they do that was mitigating a lot of the problems we're seeing right now?
01:46:03.000Well, you remember they killed Soleimani from the IRGC. That sends a message, right?
01:46:11.000Soleimani had a lot of blood on his hands.
01:46:16.000The Iranian regime is also responsible for the death and injury of a lot of US service personnel, right?
01:46:24.000Because they were actively involved in working to get IEDs into Iraq, and they were training and providing support.
01:46:35.000So they were killing US service people, right?
01:46:42.000Again, we keep trying to imagine that somehow we can disconnect Iran.
01:46:45.000Okay, we're not talking about the Iranian regime.
01:46:47.000We're talking about their proxies and everything.
01:46:48.000But again, it all kind of flows back to them.
01:47:22.000They fired a couple of missiles, and they gave us a heads up before they did it, right?
01:47:27.000Because they were like, fuck, you know, if they're willing to do this, now we have to respond because we have to show our proxies, and we have to show our regional neighbors that That we're serious, right?
01:47:38.000We're not going to get pushed around, but they give us a heads up and say we're going to fire a couple of missiles.
01:52:16.000And, you know, Biden's doing his own thing over there, where his poll numbers are going down because of, you know, his own actions and the current administration's behavior.
01:53:25.000You have these guys, Jamie Raskin, Adam Schiff, all these guys that spent every day in front of the cameras talking about the evidence they've got.
01:53:53.000It's proven that there was an effort by the IRGC to influence government policy through the use of government staffers who were sympathetic to the Iranian regime.
01:54:07.000And also academics to push that narrative into school.
01:54:11.000You would think, you'd like to think, that Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff and all the others who were so concerned about being compromised and all that, you would think that they would be out there spouting this saying, we have to get to the bottom of this.
01:54:22.000We still don't really know the story behind the US Special Envoy to Iran being suspended and having a security clearance.
01:54:29.000They don't pull security clearances for no reason.
01:54:32.000Nobody's asking about that on the Democratic side.
01:54:35.000They're barely asking about it, to be fair, on the Republican side because they're focused elsewhere, but I think they're starting to.
01:54:41.000I think they're going to call in Mali and I think they're going to call in the Pentagon individual, Tabatabai, to come in and I think they're going to subpoena them and say, okay, what the fuck's going on?
01:54:51.000How could you not be concerned, right, with everything else that's happening with Iran that you now know that they've been running this disinformation campaign through cooperative contacts and the White House has been putting people into places that were amenable to talking to Iranian regime members,
01:55:09.000telling them what sort of the agenda could be for a meeting, getting talking points to talk through, you know, all in the desire to have a normal relationship With a regime that sponsors organizations like Hamas.
01:55:24.000Again, it goes back to other things that they do.
01:55:57.000It's some of the richest real estate in all of America.
01:56:00.000And even if there wasn't a Mar-a-Lago there, like this insane, beautiful resort, even if that wasn't there, just the real estate's probably worth $50 million.
01:56:23.000So they were probably pissed off as well, but nobody in their right mind actually believes that that's a legitimate assessment of that property.
01:56:32.000How can you get away with doing that and trying to enforce that in a court of law?
01:56:38.000Well, I think they'll probably win the day in terms of this This trial.
01:56:47.000They're going to pound this thing until, and then certainly it appears as if the judge is all in, right?
01:56:52.000I mean, he doesn't seem like he's inclined to throw anything out.
01:56:58.000So I think, but it's not going to win on appeal, right?
01:57:02.000And so, you know, but what they're looking for, what they're hoping for is, again, they see that, they see the video at the fights and they think, good God, we got to keep him tied up.
01:57:13.000We got to keep him wrapped up In these trials throughout the whole campaign period.
01:57:18.000And I think that's their goal, you know, whether they can make anything stick.
01:57:22.000But I think it has the opposite effect.
01:57:24.000The problem is it galvanizes his base, and it also makes cynical, objective people that are on the outside realize what's going on.
01:57:35.000Well, but I think it also, at the same time, they're hoping it reminds...
01:57:41.000Suburban moms and the people that he didn't get the second time around, because they were tired from the chaos and all the tweeting and everything.
01:57:50.000I think it reminds, they're hoping it reminds them of the chaos and all the tweeting and everything.
01:57:54.000And so they're hoping to keep those people off the field when it comes time to vote.
01:58:01.000Of course, it definitely galvanizes its base.
01:58:04.000And I think it will, you know, people who sit and think about this and ponder and say, objectively, you know, But then, you know, so how many of those people do you peel back over to the Republican side?
01:58:56.000But do you think that they're going to run him?
01:58:57.000Because Vivek, you know, during the Republican debates, he came out and said that, like, there's no way they're going to run him, and they need to just step up and tell us who they're going to run, whether it's Gavin Newsom or Michelle Obama.
01:59:43.000But if you just look at the age and say, okay, look, if they look at that and go, okay, we can't run him, because I don't think they'll factor the Biden family activities into that calculation.
01:59:54.000They'll just go, okay, we can't win because people view him as too old.
02:00:00.000They're certainly not going to then pivot and say, okay, up goes Kamala Harris.
02:00:06.000So they got to figure out a way to delicately or elegantly clear the decks.
02:00:11.000And then I think, I mean, God, because he's so desperate for it, but also because, you know, who else is running right now is Gavin Newsom.
02:00:20.000And the DNC, the White House, would have approved his meeting.
02:00:23.000He met with Xi during his trip to China.
02:01:55.000But eventually, I guess it's like, I don't know, and it's probably not a good analogy, but a friend of mine who was an alcoholic, well-recovered now, is a terrific guy, but he said, I didn't even think about recovery until I hit the absolute bottom.
02:02:14.000And he said, I didn't even know where the bottom was, and then I found it, and it was fairly self-evident.
02:02:19.000And I think maybe progressives are the same way in some of these cities.
02:02:23.000Until it really hits the shits, then I think they're willing to let it go.
02:02:28.000And then it gets to the point where they think, even for them, it's not good.
02:03:35.000Signing up made to the historical property.
02:03:37.000He bought it in 1998. He agreed to keep it in the status it was, including carvings, columns, doors, windows, light fixtures, floors, walls, ceilings, and 25 different rooms.
02:04:27.000I mean, it's not what Trump's folks are saying it's worth, but it's definitely not what the court or the prosecutors are saying it's worth.
02:04:35.000What are Trump saying it's worth over a billion, right?
02:05:44.000How does he get back those people who didn't vote for him?
02:05:46.000He gets them back by seeming normal, right?
02:05:50.000So back off all the other shit and just start, because the Biden administration is giving the Republicans all sorts of things to talk about, to campaign on.
02:06:00.000And, you know, the one thing they know they can, I think, this is them thinking it, I'm not saying they can win, but the one thing they think they can do is beat Trump, right?
02:06:09.000Because he just does it to himself, right?
02:06:12.000And they can keep pointing to all these problems, and they know it energizes the base, just like Trump's base is energized.
02:06:19.000But I think if Trump just swept all that to the side, he's not going to, he's not going to change his stripes, but...
02:06:24.000If you could do that and just talk about all the shit that's happening and how you improve the border and how you improve the economy and do the things that people actually care about, yeah, maybe that's a pathway to get those people back and then the numbers work.
02:06:39.000But then again, if you look at the numbers, it looks like he's on the poll results.
02:06:44.000For, you know, the potential match of a Trump and Biden.
02:06:47.000It looks like he's flipped Pennsylvania, right?
02:06:50.000And I forget, three other states that didn't vote for him the last time.
02:06:55.000But now poll numbers are showing that they would turn around and vote for Trump this next go around.
02:06:59.000So maybe they've got the pathway they need.
02:07:52.000Yeah, it's not create some endless runway of opportunity for you to mail in some ballots or get out there and not bother to have your signature checked, whatever it is.
02:08:06.000But I think we're going to stick with the protocols that were put in place because of the pandemic.
02:08:13.000And do I think there's room for voter fraud there?
02:08:37.000And I think that there are a lot of people that legitimately say, look, you have to make it as easy as possible for people to vote to participate.
02:08:49.000And then there's the most cynical take, is that the reason why they're letting all these people in through the border, and the reason why they're pushing for no voter IDs, is because they want these people to vote.
02:09:08.000Yeah, although the people that are busting up to New York, they're pissed off now at the administration because their hotels aren't nice enough.
02:10:09.000But I will say, if you've got a million and a half, which is a conservative estimate, a million and a half gotaways over the past couple of years.
02:13:07.000You don't need, it's not an army that's coming across, although it's an army that's coming across, but you don't need that, right?
02:13:13.000You need a handful of people who are motivated, who have a support structure here in the US that we don't have on our radar screen, And who are getting funding, whether it's from, you know, five different cutout businesses that ultimately go back to the Iranian regime or Hamas or Hezbollah, whatever it is,
02:13:28.000that's what you have to worry about, right?
02:13:32.000Because that's what, you know, that's how these things get kicked off.
02:13:36.000And one of the easiest things you can do, it's not easy, but one of the things they should be doing is securing the border.
02:13:43.000And again, you can do that and have a fair immigration system.
02:13:46.000I keep combining those two things because one doesn't defeat the other.
02:13:52.000And the White House should always want to do that because it's a national security issue.
02:13:57.000And their primary objective, their number one job, is to keep the citizens of the country Safe.
02:17:06.000That's your fucking choice, that dork?
02:17:08.000Well, and I will say, It is good in the sense that it doesn't seem like anybody's talking about Beto anymore or Pete Buttigieg or some of these cats that were running previously.
02:17:21.000And you thought, who are these people and why would you possibly think this?
02:17:24.000I mean, they were running Vanity Fair articles about Beto O'Rourke and he's the man.
02:17:36.000So, yeah, maybe they don't have success with Texas, but I do think it is a problem that, I mean, you've seen it here in Austin, right, over the years.
02:17:43.000And so I think we're going to get that same issue with Boise eventually.
02:17:48.000But, yeah, people just move and they think, ah, I'll just keep voting the way I voted.
02:17:51.000And then they're actually shocked when things start to go to shit again.
02:18:04.000They're certainly infected with a mind virus.
02:18:07.000It doesn't allow them to look at reality.
02:18:10.000And just, they're so loyal to their party.
02:18:13.000And when you're connected to an ideology, you subscribe to everything in that ideology.
02:18:18.000And you think you're on the good side.
02:18:19.000And there's social pressure from the people that are around you in your neighborhood, and they all want to think that they're doing the right thing, so that you're on their side, and we're all in this together, and Trump's Hitler.
02:19:38.000But I have to bring you in when I don't know what the fuck is going on, because you have a rare ability to sort of distribute this information and make it accessible to people.
02:20:12.000That's what scares the shit out of me.
02:20:13.000Both American politics and global conflict, it's like, all of it seems like it's moving towards a very bad direction that keeps accelerating.
02:20:21.000Well, I think, yeah, the problem is if we can, you know, there's got to be a very short timeline on the IDF on the Israelis degrading Hamas, right?
02:21:00.000So you have to understand that, and you have to step back and go, okay, there's a lot of civilian casualties, but what is the number, right?
02:21:05.000Again, I'm not taking the word of Hamas for anything.
02:21:09.000But you also have to be empathetic, and you have to look and go, this can't keep going on, but they've got a right to exist and defend themselves, and yes, they need a solution.
02:21:21.000Is it going to be a two-state solution?
02:21:23.000They talked about that all the way back in The late 30s, right?
02:21:39.000I mean, look, Palestine, the history of Palestine is fascinating, right?
02:21:44.000Controlled by, what, the Ottoman Empire for 400 years?
02:21:47.000And then the Ottoman Empire lost it because they sided with the Nazis during World War II. And so that broke up the region, and they kind of split it all up.
02:21:56.000And Britain was given the mandate to control it.
02:21:59.000And then they realized what a mess that was becoming.