The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1294

00:00:00.300 Good afternoon and welcome to the podcast of Lotus Eaters episode 1294. I'm your host

00:00:07.060 Harry joined today by Stelios and Beau. Today we're going to be talking to you about the

00:00:13.020 death spiral that we are trapped in. I'm going to be asking and trying to answer the question

00:00:17.840 of who MAGA is for after the disastrous bit of PR that they've done over the past few

00:00:24.440 days and finally we're going to ask what is happening with Sarkozy which is a question

00:00:30.200 I don't know the answer to so I'm very interested. With that I don't think there's anything else that

00:00:35.820 we need to announce so let's get on with it. Right so the UK economy is not in the best of shapes

00:00:43.460 it's in one of the worst shapes it has been lately and the labour doesn't convince people that they

00:00:51.320 can actually handle the situation. Now I'm generally speaking very much against what I

00:00:58.640 consider to be excessive welfarism. I think that it's the perfect recipe to create a culture of

00:01:04.900 dependency and then everyone is treating the state not as the government of the people but basically

00:01:11.500 as a mechanism to extort resources for resource extraction from one group and give it to another

00:01:17.960 and essentially leads society to economic and then moral corruption or you could say the in the

00:01:25.420 reverse order. Or if you're a commie it's the redistribution of wealth which is a brilliant thing

00:01:30.680 always. Yeah there's always this question of are they doing it deliberately or are they stupid 1.00

00:01:36.260 or are they both in case are they doing a Pol Pot? Are they deliberately stupid? Right so just because 1.00

00:01:44.080 we are going to talk about welfarism and the culture of dependency that labour is presiding over but

00:01:51.300 which has been created before labour they're definitely not the only ones who are guilty of that

00:01:57.180 we have the symposium that I did with Josh symposium number 58 the evil side of welfarism

00:02:03.580 you can subscribe to us with as little as five pounds a month gain access to all our premium content

00:02:09.680 and here with Josh we are discussing several of the themes that we are going to discuss today

00:02:16.620 these things are not working. Is this mouse working? The mouse is on this screen. There we are. Yep right so

00:02:22.960 you see here this guy saying basically give me give me give me give me it's the recipe for creating a

00:02:30.120 well that's the government whenever they want anything. Yeah but also some of the some of the groups that

00:02:35.420 ally with the government to get resources from groups they hate. Well yeah the government is the

00:02:40.760 mechanism of force exactly redistributes everything that I have earned right to people who haven't earned

00:02:48.640 it. Right so labour got elected last July not last July July of 2024 about a year and three months ago

00:02:57.400 and textbook leftists as they are essentially promised lots of free things to people and to some people

00:03:05.280 they do seem to be giving free things we are going to talk about that but as a whole for the entire

00:03:11.420 country for the entire economy they seem to be accelerating a particularly negative trajectory

00:03:19.540 particularly negative course. Right so according to commonslibrary parliament.uk unemployment statistics

00:03:29.920 have been quite volatile in recent months and there were 1.79 million unemployed people in the UK

00:03:37.340 in July to September 2025 an increase of 282 000 from the previous year. The unemployment rate

00:03:48.080 the percentage of the economically active population who are unemployed was 5 percent up from 4.3 percent

00:03:56.320 a year before which is one of the worst eras since COVID and especially in the beginning in 2021 where it

00:04:06.100 was a bit over 5 percent then it went it went down now it's coming back up again and also we have

00:04:15.900 youth unemployment problems we have 60 000 more young unemployed compared to last year. Right now according

00:04:25.180 to this website we have 702 000 young people aged 16 to 24 who are unemployed in the period of July to

00:04:33.500 September 2025. Last year there were 60k less. Is that including people who are unemployed but in

00:04:40.460 in education in education there? I don't think so. I don't think so. They have other metrics for them. This is more

00:04:48.700 for the economically active population. The others would count presumably as economically inactive and we

00:04:55.740 have here a measure also of people aged 16 to 64 of economically inactive who are 9.08 million.

00:05:05.260 They're not unemployed but they're economically inactive. That's the fun thing when you start to

00:05:13.020 look into this stuff is the unemployment rates is basically hidden by the economic inactivity rate. They

00:05:21.340 shuffle most of it into there so that you don't get a true idea of what the unemployment rate is because

00:05:27.820 look that's 16 to 64. That's the prime working ages for people. 9.08 million. That seems like a

00:05:37.820 staggeringly high number to me. It's interesting actually, I think I've said it before on here, I'm

00:05:44.060 really interested in the politics of Britain during the 70s, specifically the 70s. And if you go back

00:05:53.100 before the 70s, we would sometimes have full employment, full employment. And of course,

00:06:00.300 unemployment is probably at its height under Thatcher in the early 80s, up to sort of 13 million,

00:06:05.580 something like that. Especially in the very beginning of her. Yeah, right. It was actually

00:06:10.540 the previous Labour government shock and Dennis Healey, which made all that happen really. Stuff that

00:06:16.060 went down between 1974 and 1976, where we had to borrow money from the IMF. Yeah, real, real terrible

00:06:23.580 economic times. Anyway, still, that number there, over 9 million. That's sort of disastrous to me.

00:06:33.340 Yeah, that sounds disastrous. Look, it's almost a quarter of people aged 16 to 64. According to this

00:06:40.300 graph, this one here, economic and activity rate, is what, 22, 23%? That's absurd.

00:06:49.020 If you count it like that, that is higher then as a percentage than even in the darkest days of

00:06:54.540 early Thatcher. Makes sense. Looking around the country, it makes sense. It seems like there's

00:06:59.820 loads of people on the streets not at work when you go out at lunch or something. Yeah. Loads of

00:07:04.700 people. Why aren't you in work? What are you doing? The streets are full. How are you still able to eat?

00:07:11.740 We also have less vacancies. The safe vacancies fell over the year to 723,000 in August to October,

00:07:20.540 October 2025, which is below pre-pandemic levels. And if you see, you can see here metrics.

00:07:26.620 Redundancies are also rising. Vacancies are falling. If you see, there is a steady fall in vacancies.

00:07:34.700 And yet the inactivity rate isn't going down.

00:07:41.580 Yep. Really. It's staying pretty level. Employees are rising and the self-employed are not.

00:07:52.620 Right. So we do have some very negative data. Let's move on to more negative data.

00:07:57.980 Let's see here. So number of benefits claimants who never have to work hit 4 million for the first

00:08:08.700 time. And they're saying that this is a historic high. It has never been higher. So out of the

00:08:14.700 economically inactive, those who are basically not out of the economically inactive, sorry,

00:08:22.220 people who are not working, they are basically 4 million and they don't have, they are receiving

00:08:29.980 benefits without even showing that they're looking for work.

00:08:34.460 Well, surely this will be included in those economically inactive figures because, I mean,

00:08:40.220 4 million is more than the unemployment rate. Yeah. Or it's what you said before. I think what

00:08:46.780 you hinted at is that they are, they are moving some people from the unemployed to the economically

00:08:53.260 inactive depends on how they count it in order to shuffle things around so that the figures aren't

00:09:00.860 clear. So you can't get a true look at what is going on. But again, the statistics are fancy ways

00:09:07.260 of lying or lying to people or obfuscating. Just look at the streets if you want an accurate picture

00:09:12.780 of England. But also they are clear. They are very negative for the government. It's just that they

00:09:17.180 would be much worse. And most probably they are much worse than the government is already saying,

00:09:23.500 which already is a problem. Just to build on what Harry was saying there,

00:09:27.660 when I first became sort of fully aware of sort of politics and the political cycle,

00:09:31.660 probably during the John Major years, certainly by Tony Blair years, that was the thing they would

00:09:37.020 always do. Major, Blair and Brown. Well, they all do it, but particularly those will just come out

00:09:42.540 with new figures, say unemployment is down, but they've just, the Home Office has just twiddled

00:09:47.020 with the stats in some way to not include.

00:09:49.740 Right, so we have here the number of people receiving jobless benefits without having to

00:10:01.900 look for work has climbed above 4 million for the first time. Figures published by the Department

00:10:07.900 for Work and Pensions show the number of universal credit claimants with no requirement to look for a

00:10:14.860 job, rose to 4.03 million in October. This is up from 3.9 million in September and 50% above the 2.7

00:10:24.380 million level in July 2024, where Sarah Keir Starmer became prime minister. So it's as if...

00:10:31.660 We are about to have taxes raised on us.

00:10:33.980 It's as if the number of people who are incentivized to not work are rising under the Starmer government.

00:10:42.940 They were already present before, it was already a high number, 2.7 million, but Keir Starmer has

00:10:51.500 increased that number by 50%.

00:10:54.780 It means half of the record, 8 million people claiming Britain's main unemployment benefit are

00:10:59.500 now exempt from finding a job. What's the point of even working in this country anymore?

00:11:03.340 But that's the issue. That's one of the problems with welfarism. When it crosses a line, it's...

00:11:10.700 You come to a point beyond a particular threshold that there is no incentive for people to work.

00:11:17.100 And if you're being incentivized to get these benefits, basically, without having to look for work,

00:11:22.620 yeah, no wonder. You are going to create a class of people who are basically just feeding off

00:11:28.700 from the working population.

00:11:31.580 I mean, because what's the incentive? Because not every single one of those 4 million people

00:11:36.620 is actually going to be a position where they could never work again.

00:11:39.900 So there's going to be some fraud going on within that. So what are the major incentives to work?

00:11:46.380 Well, you earn a living, you earn money.

00:11:48.780 But what are all of the cons that come with that? Well, you've got to...

00:11:52.460 You have to pay taxes.

00:11:53.580 You have to pay taxes. You have to take on all of these different responsibilities.

00:11:59.020 Or you can find some loophole in the system and claim money, and you don't have to work,

00:12:04.460 your day's free, you don't have to commute, you can just stay at home.

00:12:08.460 The problem is that when you're creating a culture of dependency by these policies,

00:12:13.740 and these are diachronic policies. It didn't just happen with this Labour government.

00:12:18.780 They happened for a long time now.

00:12:22.300 In Beau's Britain, the bar would be so unbelievably high.

00:12:25.740 You'd have to be like a quadriplegic or paralyzed from the neck down.

00:12:30.300 That's the only two criteria.

00:12:31.740 This is a culture of rights without responsibilities, basically.

00:12:35.980 And the more this policy continues,

00:12:38.380 the more the class of people who want rights and benefits without responsibility rises.

00:12:44.060 And that's what Labour is doing. That's the stuff that creates voters.

00:12:48.620 And here we have the other thing.

00:12:50.380 The DWP figures also showed the number of foreigners claiming universal credit is also at the record

00:12:57.020 1.24 million with EU citizens who settled status accounting for the largest share.

00:13:03.020 Now, I will say this. I don't believe this.

00:13:06.140 I believe that behind the description EU citizens lie other data behind.

00:13:13.500 Because lots of people may come to Europe, they may get European passports,

00:13:18.300 and then they can be called EU citizens and come to the UK, and then they may count as EU citizens.

00:13:27.340 So there was a big scandal with Poland handing out Polish passports in North Africa,

00:13:32.220 so that they could come to Europe.

00:13:35.740 Yeah. And the reason I say this is not because I think that there are no EU citizens doing this.

00:13:39.980 Most probably there are.

00:13:41.100 Yeah, of course.

00:13:41.660 I mean, out of 1.24 million, some of them will be.

00:13:44.940 But the point is that we have consistent data across Europe and across the Western world

00:13:50.780 that shows that particular groups are a net drain.

00:13:55.740 And they're not the European ones.

00:13:57.820 Let's put it this way.

00:13:59.580 Maybe you go to Germany from Syria during the Merkel years.

00:14:03.180 Boom, you're an EU citizen.

00:14:05.420 So now you can go to the UK, claim benefits, and you count as an EU citizen.

00:14:09.500 Yeah, because this data consistently shows that it's not the European peoples who are doing this.

00:14:17.740 Right.

00:14:18.060 Let's go to another statistic here.

00:14:24.780 This is from Sky News.

00:14:26.620 Record number of Britons receiving benefits that amount to more than they pay in tax,

00:14:32.700 according to a study.

00:14:34.220 According to this think tank called Civitas, they show that 83.83% of all income tax is paid by 40% of

00:14:44.140 British adults, and the studies also say the net dependency ratio is the highest on record.

00:14:52.540 And basically what they're saying is that

00:15:00.220 a record number of people, 54.2%, 36 million, now live in households which received more in benefits

00:15:10.460 than they contributed in taxes.

00:15:12.460 Now, what I will say is that this is just one study.

00:15:15.900 There are other studies that give roughly different numbers, but they're roughly the same.

00:15:22.700 It's there.

00:15:23.900 Some studies show 53%, others 54%.

00:15:27.740 But basically they're saying that last year, before Keir Starmer took over,

00:15:31.260 it was somewhere like 52%.

00:15:34.060 So it's hardly that he created it.

00:15:37.180 The Tories definitely capitalized upon this.

00:15:41.260 But he is accelerating it.

00:15:43.180 And they're saying that roughly 36 million people live in households that are a net drain.

00:15:53.020 And they receive more in benefits than they contribute in taxes,

00:15:55.980 which raises the number of those who are contributing, raises the degree in which those who are

00:16:04.060 economically productive and considerably need to help and pay taxes and help the rest.

00:16:13.420 Surely on the face of it, that's just completely unsustainable.

00:16:16.460 Yes.

00:16:17.580 Surely just at a glance, common sense says that's completely unsustainable.

00:16:22.780 It is completely unsustainable.

00:16:24.620 And here we have the other problem of the welfare states is that in the long term,

00:16:32.220 this is an unsustainable policy.

00:16:33.980 But we have politicians who are thinking short term.

00:16:36.940 They just think of their reelection and they're not thinking of how the country will be shaped

00:16:42.540 by these policies 5, 10, 15 years down the line.

00:16:46.780 The only thing they care about is how they're going to be reelected.

00:16:49.820 And in order for them to do so, they don't even have to do a good job.

00:16:53.980 They can do what Harry mentioned before.

00:16:55.900 They can tinker data and say, no, we are lowering unemployment.

00:17:03.020 But lo and behold, if someone checks you on the economically inactive population,

00:17:07.100 you see that it's rising and vice versa.

00:17:09.740 But here it goes, it's a massive problem and they can't hide it, basically.

00:17:15.260 The question for them right now is how much are they going to hide it?

00:17:18.380 It's not whether they can hide it.

00:17:19.820 I think the statistic that I saw recently, I think Carl mentioned it on one of his segments a few weeks ago,

00:17:28.620 was that you need to be having a household income of something like £39,000 or £41,000 per year combined across the household

00:17:37.260 to be paying more tax than you are taking from whatever benefits that you're taking.

00:17:44.300 So that's kind of the threshold there.

00:17:46.860 So more than half of the households in this country as of 2023 in that article were earning

00:17:55.660 lower than £39,000 or £41,000, which for Americans watching this right now should put in stark contrast

00:18:03.980 just how much wealthier you are as a nation than we are.

00:18:07.820 Because that is, for a full household, if you've got two people earning in the household and they're

00:18:13.980 not able to get that together, that's not very great.

00:18:17.500 The problem with this, and yeah, I agree with you totally.

00:18:20.460 And I think that one of the main drivers of this is the idea that the state is going to be

00:18:27.500 the main engine for social change that lots of people have, especially the modern liberals and all

00:18:36.140 the leftists and the commies and stuff. But they are constantly trying to say, well, if we allow

00:18:42.620 if we allow the standard economic models to work where we aren't going to end up with

00:18:50.300 favourable outcomes, now that's very questionable, it's very questionable.

00:18:54.460 So we have to justify state intervention in the economy.

00:19:00.700 But for some reason, it always gets worse.

00:19:03.660 They constantly say, well, look, if we don't intervene, bad things are going to happen.

00:19:08.620 So let us intervene to prevent bad things from happening, but bad things are happening.

00:19:14.220 And as Beau said, this is completely unsustainable. So the next question is, how are you going to

00:19:18.940 change? And the answer is, give us more power so we can intervene more. Let us see what Rachel

00:19:25.980 Reeves has to say about taxes, where she and the Labour government did promise that there wouldn't be

00:19:34.540 a massive tax hike. But we all know that they can't fund their programmes otherwise.

00:19:41.180 They cannot sustain their voters. And it's not exactly that everyone's happy with Labour at the moment.

00:19:50.060 Will we discover in two years' time that for some reason why they've got to go up?

00:19:53.740 No. Or is this an absolute commitment?

00:19:55.180 It's an absolute commitment. It's now on us. We've put everything out into the open. We've set

00:20:00.060 the spending envelope for the course of this parliament. But we don't need to come back for more.

00:20:04.940 We've done that now. We've wiped the slate clean.

00:20:07.100 So you're saying, actually, there's not going to be an Oliver Twist moment. You're not going to come

00:20:12.220 back and say, we want another tax rise. Or if you did, that would be a huge failure for your

00:20:18.380 government, wouldn't it? Yeah, look, I'm not going to have to write five years'

00:20:21.100 worth of budgets on this show today. But what we have done...

00:20:23.820 I'm just saying, will there be more tax rise? You're right, Trevor. There's no need to come back

00:20:28.380 with another budget like this. We'll never need to do that again. We've now, Trevor,

00:20:32.460 set the spending envelope for the remainder of this parliament. We don't need to increase taxes further.

00:20:38.460 So she says we don't need to increase taxes. But the question is, how are they going to fund this

00:20:45.420 state that they have created and this kind of society that they are capitalizing upon?

00:20:53.180 We all know that they're going to raise taxes. In their manifesto, they were basically saying that

00:20:57.820 we are not going to do that. We are going to help the middle class. We're going to help everyone,

00:21:02.460 because they're a typical leftist. But here, as a lot of people have noticed, they hid the

00:21:09.740 Labour manifesto from their website, because they don't want people to remember what they promised 0.83

00:21:17.420 and call them hypocrites. Wait, so they actually changed it since...

00:21:23.020 Yeah, they erased this part here. That's the before. That's the after. Yeah.

00:21:29.660 You see, campaign for labour, campaign for labour, labour people, labour people. And then the Labour's

00:21:34.620 manifesto turned into a plan for change. Okay.

00:21:38.380 Which again, talk about secure borders, national security, economic stability. Nothing of the sort

00:21:44.940 is what they are doing. And one thing that we need to mention, because we have been mentioning it

00:21:50.300 again, and I'm surprised I didn't mention it before in the segment, is that it's not just

00:21:55.500 welfarism, it's also the combination of welfarism with open borders. And it's a massive problem.

00:22:02.460 And yeah, if you're going to send the signal to the entire world that if you come here,

00:22:07.980 you're never going to, you won't be deported, because it's a human right to get money from the

00:22:13.980 British taxpayer, you are going to have more people coming here to get money from British taxpayers.

00:22:19.980 It's as simple as that. The combination of an open borders policy where there's no cap.

00:22:27.500 Yeah. There's no cap on the amount of immigration into the country. Any discussion on having a cap

00:22:34.380 is just racist and bigoted and off the table. That combined with welfarism is economically suicidal.

00:22:42.460 Yes. Absolutely. It's a recipe to destroy a nation. To collapse its economy, at least.

00:22:49.500 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, she's going to raise taxes. She's planning to 1.00

00:22:55.180 raise stocks and shares, because they are going to market it as we are against the very rich,

00:23:00.780 we're going to eat the rich, and we're going to be for the middle class and the poor class. But we know

00:23:07.900 that that's not how the economy works. If you have, if you don't have investment, you don't

00:23:13.100 have opportunities. People like being promise free stuff, but that's not how it works. There is no

00:23:18.140 money tree. And this is a cliche, but it's a true one. And funny that they say that billionaires are

00:23:24.460 the problem. That's their mantra, isn't it? Yeah, but not the open borders that some billionaires

00:23:29.740 want for cheap labor. Right. They never do this. Yeah. This together. And here we have just this from

00:23:35.740 the Telegraph. Labor's U-turn on the sick benefits will cost each taxpayer about 600 pounds per year,

00:23:44.460 because there are surging numbers claiming sickness handouts that will raise the bill

00:23:50.540 to 27 billion pounds over the next four years. So the labor philosophy is to constantly accelerate on

00:24:01.660 this bad trajectory, because their whole modus operandi is to care only about the next election

00:24:09.420 and to win that next election. I think the best way to do so is to get to promise that they're

00:24:15.180 going to give free money. But long term, this is disastrous for the country.

00:24:20.140 Yeah, the irony being that they're almost certainly going to lose the next election anyway.

00:24:24.380 Yeah. So I had also get a massive washout. Yeah, I feel like what this is, this is,

00:24:30.140 these are Fabians, socialists, Trotskyists, communists, that want to the redistribution of

00:24:38.460 wealth. And they're just not saying that, but that's what they're doing. And that's what they're

00:24:42.860 doing, isn't it? It's absolutely this. And notice how they are, they went global in the sense that the

00:24:49.820 left before had a bit more of a local, had some local manifestations in its rhetoric, because they

00:24:58.620 were talking about the domestic working class and the rich and the poor. And now the rich are the

00:25:04.860 globally rich, and the middle class and even some of the poor people in England count as globally rich,

00:25:12.060 according to the globalist will to redistribute wealth. So if you want to go

00:25:17.980 redistribute, redistribute wealth from the globally rich to the globally poor, you're doing it with

00:25:23.660 global standards, not with domestic ones. And because we know that they hate Western civilization,

00:25:30.300 this means that most of the Western people count as globally rich. So they're saying no, you need to

00:25:37.740 shut up and pay for everything. 0.98

00:25:39.820 Even if you rinsed everyone in Britain down to penury, down to starvation levels, 0.95

00:25:44.700 the actual breadline or below, that's a drop in the ocean for the globally poor.

00:25:49.660 Yeah. Well, it takes my mind back to all of those adverts that you used to get where it's like,

00:25:55.020 Mbali in Africa, he lives on $1 a day. And there you go, like, well, that's a lot,

00:26:01.260 that's a lot less than what you're getting. Even if we do rinse you down to your last pennies,

00:26:05.260 that's probably still a lot better than what he's getting right now. But the problem is,

00:26:08.940 I don't care about Mbali from Africa or anywhere. I don't care about these complete strangers who 1.00

00:26:17.900 have nothing to do with me. And if they were to ever come to my country, would see me as a tax pig 0.96

00:26:25.260 to steal from.

00:26:26.380 If it moves, you tax it.

00:26:29.340 Essentially.

00:26:31.020 Anyway, Harry, can you get the Rumble Rants and Super Chats up on the screen for us down here,

00:26:36.380 so that I can actually see them? We've got two.

00:26:41.820 Squaw Blut, £5. Harry, I'll give £200 to a charity of your choice if you shave your head 0.99

00:26:48.700 live on stream. Joke's on you, I don't believe in charity.

00:26:52.540 And somebody else sends $50 in, thank you very much.

00:26:56.300 Bo, did you ever think you would one day have a digital harem on Twitter? They're a feisty lot too, 0.99

00:27:02.380 ready to throw down against any of your detractors. Have you seen this? Have you heard about this?

00:27:07.420 Multinational too.

00:27:08.860 There's never any doubt in my mind that I'd ultimately have a giant digital harem

00:27:13.980 that worships me and hangs on every word I say. There was never any doubt, I mean...

00:27:17.500 How much do the... No, no, I'm joking. It's crazy, it's weird, it's flattering.

00:27:26.300 I don't know what to say, yeah. It's nice.

00:27:29.020 It's nice having an audience.

00:27:31.020 Yeah, yeah.

00:27:31.740 There you go.

00:27:32.780 Having a cult of personality without actually ever trying to make one.

00:27:37.580 Because you are a personality, you know, just...

00:27:39.740 He's a character, this one.

00:27:41.180 Yeah, it's like you remember in Pulp Fiction, you may not have a character, but you are one.

00:27:46.860 In the end where he's at.

00:27:48.620 Now I wasn't talking to boys, just a cool line by Harvey.

00:27:52.220 I've not watched Pulp Fiction in years, or any Tarantino.

00:27:55.580 You saved it there. You saved it there by adding in years.

00:27:58.380 I've not watched a Tarantino film since I saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in the cinema,

00:28:02.780 and that was a good one, to be fair. Tarantino can be a little hit and miss,

00:28:06.540 but that was a good one. Anyway, moving on to the next segment,

00:28:09.980 we're going to go across the pond now and talk about America, specifically,

00:28:14.700 the MAGA movement, and ask the question, who is MAGA for?

00:28:19.020 Because that question is very relevant right now. After the past few days,

00:28:23.260 there has been one bit of disastrous PR after another.

00:28:28.300 The messaging that has come from Donald Trump himself and other parts of the movement,

00:28:34.860 particularly the more establishment members of the movement, like, for instance, Ben Shapiro,

00:28:41.900 telling New Yorkers that if you can't afford to live in New York anymore,

00:28:45.660 then you should just leave. Who cares if you've lived there your whole life? Who cares if your

00:28:49.900 family is from there? Just leave. That's the kind of messaging that got Mamdani into the

00:28:55.980 mayorship in New York. But alongside that, MAGA's been making some big mistakes recently,

00:29:01.340 and that's on top of it having been quite, for me at least, and many other people, quite a shaky

00:29:06.780 year. So again, it begs the question, who is MAGA for? And lots of people have been asking that,

00:29:15.020 and it's led to somewhat of a rift between the MAGA and America First sides, America First,

00:29:20.940 as being represented by the recent alliance of Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, which has created a lot

00:29:28.780 of controversy and generated a lot of questions about censorship and free speech, particularly

00:29:35.500 from organizations like the ADL. Because you could argue, no matter what you think of them,

00:29:41.580 that this new alliance of Tucker and Nick represents a more grassroots, genuinely populist,

00:29:49.100 America First, right-wing movement that has come out of the MAGA movement.

00:29:54.060 And the ADL and other people have been very, very upset about this, that Nick Fuentes is somebody

00:30:01.980 who has received more of a platform recently. As you can see from Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of

00:30:07.340 the ADL, posting about how, you know, like Mamdani, Fuentes, Tucker, and mainstreaming anti-Semitism,

00:30:14.940 they want to really bang on this drum, say that this is the new rise of anti-Semitism. See,

00:30:20.780 MAGA did really birth a new Third Reich movement in the form of America First, and Nick Fuentes,

00:30:27.020 how scary. Jonathan Greenblatt explicitly calling out Tucker here, saying, given his own,

00:30:32.700 his own unrelenting anti-Semitism, notorious anti-Semite, Tucker Carlson. The disgraced podcaster

00:30:42.140 defended mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani on the soundness of his anti-Israel positions, and will do little to

00:30:48.700 convince Jewish New Yorkers of their safety. And there are other articles here.

00:30:52.940 Unrelenting.

00:30:54.060 He's unrelenting.

00:30:55.260 Unrelenting.

00:30:56.060 I'm sure what Tucker Carlson is presenting, given that brief description that we saw there,

00:31:02.460 was that Mamdani, whatever you think of the rest of his policies,

00:31:05.980 in all of the debates leading up to the election, did present not necessarily America, but a New York

00:31:13.580 first position in terms of foreign policy, in that when people were trying to go on to discussions of

00:31:20.780 Israel, he tried to divert the conversation back to New York and the people of New York.

00:31:26.780 No matter what you think of the sincerity of that, it did play well with his voter base.

00:31:32.140 I mean, there are loads of videos of Mamdani constantly talking about the Middle East and not New York.

00:31:38.380 Of course, but in the actual election debates, that was the tactic that he took. I don't trust that

00:31:43.500 Mamdani is sincere if he says he doesn't actually care about Israel. Clearly, by everything that we've

00:31:49.500 seen of him, he's going to be very, very anti-Israel, and that's going to be something that will be

00:31:54.060 very much at the forefront of his mind. He has said that if Netanyahu were to step foot in New York

00:31:58.380 while he's mayor, he would have him arrested on the charges of international war crimes.

00:32:03.020 But still...

00:32:03.900 Yeah, and he'll be very effective in doing that.

00:32:07.100 But still, that's the kind of position that Tucker was putting forward. I don't necessarily agree,

00:32:13.580 but I don't think that you could charge him with anti-Semitism for that. And this article

00:32:18.940 here says that Daniel Kelly, director of strategy and operations at the Anti-Defamation League's

00:32:23.900 Center for Technology and Society, called the move, that being to platform Nick Fuentes,

00:32:29.340 a mistake. When you have bad actors, quote, like Fuentes on mainstream social platforms,

00:32:34.540 you're giving them a megaphone to spread hateful anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial,

00:32:38.380 and the like to many, many more people. The ADL described Fuentes' rise as a case study

00:32:43.580 in what happens when the major platforms backslide from enforcing safety and speech standards,

00:32:48.220 while Fuentes remains banned from Facebook and YouTube. The relaxation of content moderation

00:32:52.540 has eroded previous taboos against figures like him. So this is a call to, now that this movement

00:32:58.620 is picking up more steam, now that MAGA has been making enough mistakes to generate a positive

00:33:06.460 opposition who's presenting a different perspective on what America first should look like,

00:33:11.980 organizations like the ADL and some of the more mainstream establishment right, the center right,

00:33:17.980 are trying to censor him, they're trying to cancel him, they're trying to advocate for more censorship.

00:33:22.780 The ADL has worked alongside companies like YouTube in the past to try and get people and

00:33:29.260 to successfully get people banned off of these platforms. Some people are dancing around this

00:33:34.300 subject in his video on it. Ben Shapiro said, you know, this isn't cancelling, this is holding people

00:33:39.340 to standards. Mark Levin just came out and said straight out that, you know, we've cancelled Pat

00:33:44.380 Buchanan, we've cancelled Joseph Sobern, we've cancelled all of these figures in the past,

00:33:48.940 we're going to cancel you Tucker, and we're going to cancel you Nick. So he was much more

00:33:52.940 straightforward with it, that this is what this is trying to be. Whatever you want to say about,

00:33:57.260 like, old clips of Fuentes that you can dredge up of him trying to be edgy,

00:34:01.180 he is starting to make inroads and become a lot more popular thanks to his association

00:34:07.420 with Tucker. And these people see it as a threat.

00:34:10.380 Ben Shapiro is America though, right?

00:34:13.260 Yeah.

00:34:14.220 I mean, isn't Tucker allowed to have a podcast and talk to whoever he wants?

00:34:19.180 According to certain lobbies.

00:34:20.220 Ben Shapiro I mean, even if you don't agree with Tucker and or his guest,

00:34:24.700 isn't he allowed to, isn't it the land of the free, oh I'm sorry, I thought this was America,

00:34:28.140 oh I'm sorry.

00:34:28.700 Well the point of the first amendment was not that you have to tolerate and agree with

00:34:33.820 everything these people say, it's that you have to, you're not allowed to censor them,

00:34:39.820 you're not allowed to use government power. And the ADL is not the government, yes, but I do think

00:34:46.860 that it trying to exercise its immense power being adjacent to government to try and censor these people

00:34:53.740 is immoral for the sake of shutting down conversations and shutting down opposition to

00:34:59.740 the mainstream establishment center, which sadly MAGA has kind of been swept into,

00:35:07.020 in my estimations. But we'll get more onto that in a few minutes.

00:35:11.500 This has wound up really getting a lot of people in trouble because some people, like the head of the

00:35:18.540 Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, took a bow approach to this, saying that yeah this is America

00:35:27.020 actually, I don't have to agree with everything Fuentes does, everything that Tucker Carlson says,

00:35:32.540 or who he platforms, to be able to say that Tucker Carlson is still my friend, that he is somebody

00:35:38.220 that I'm going to support, and that there is a real sincere passion behind this movement that is

00:35:45.180 building up, that it will not help anybody if a large shadowy cabal of people tries to shut it

00:35:52.300 down. In fact, that is going to only add fuel to the fire of people's conspiracy theorizing.

00:35:59.180 That got him in a little bit of trouble. He immediately went out of his way to try and

00:36:04.060 clarify that, you know, I believe in free speech, but here are all of the awful things that I hate

00:36:08.700 about Nick Fuentes, again dredging up all of the same kind of old clips of him being edgy that Ben

00:36:16.380 Shapiro was talking, like used in his attack on the Nick Fuentes Tucker Carlson debate, oh sorry,

00:36:23.820 discussion that they had. And then it went even worse by him being forced to apologize for making the

00:36:31.580 video in the first place. It says here, in leaked footage of a heritage town hall from Wednesday,

00:36:37.820 staff has largely said that Robert's decision to align the think tank with Fuentes was a mistake.

00:36:44.700 Just to be clear here, to clarify, he never at any point aligned the Heritage Foundation

00:36:52.140 with Nick Fuentes. He said that Tucker Carlson is his friend, and that he can platform people if he

00:37:00.460 wants to, whether he agrees with it or not. But because they are close friends, he will not engage in an

00:37:07.100 attempt to cancel him. But apparently this, according to this, staffers within Heritage felt that that

00:37:16.460 was aligning himself with Fuentes. Robert said, I made a mistake and I let you down and I let down

00:37:23.020 this institution, period, full stop. He claimed that he did not know much about Fuentes before he

00:37:28.780 recorded a video and posted it on X, in which he defended Carlson as a close friend of the Heritage

00:37:33.660 Foundation. I'm just going to assume that that's not true. I'm going to assume that's him covering

00:37:38.940 his back. All right. He said that a chief of staff who has since resigned wrote the video's script.

00:37:47.980 Push that all onto this guy. He got fired now. Sucks to be you, I suppose. Goodbye. Trying to save his own

00:37:55.100 skin. But this is mafia group tactics that we're talking about here. That's what you're up against,

00:38:02.940 which means you're not good enough. Is Tucker allowed to have a conversation with whoever he

00:38:07.020 wants to? Yes. Yes or no? Yes. Is Tucker allowed to speak to whoever he wants to? That should be

00:38:12.860 and film it if he wants. Yes or no? Of course yes. Or the answer should be yes. The ADL, Kevin Roberts,

00:38:24.780 Heritage, whatever. Is Tucker at liberty to have a conversation with whoever he wants?

00:38:32.940 Well, if these people get their way, no, because the Heritage Foundation has a national task force to

00:38:39.580 combat antisemitism embedded within it. And as part of that, there are a number of different

00:38:44.860 people and people attached to other organizations like this one, the combat antisemitism movement,

00:38:52.060 who have decided to attack Heritage from the inside because of this video and have decided to all try

00:38:59.020 and pull out at once. And it's pretty shocking in this particular article, which is an open letter

00:39:06.940 to the Heritage Foundation. And Roberts personally, how far they go in the personal attacks,

00:39:14.300 which is not substantiated at all by the original video that he put out defending Tucker Carlson,

00:39:22.220 which, to remind everybody, was first started by the fact that people immediately tried to call for

00:39:29.260 Heritage to join in in cancelling Tucker Carlson because of his close association with the Heritage

00:39:35.340 Foundation. He took a principled stand and said no. And this is what he gets in response. They say,

00:39:43.260 after they go on about how terrible Tucker Carlson is and how terrible Nick Fuentes is,

00:39:48.620 they say, that's not the point, though. No. The genesis of this letter is our deep concern with how

00:39:55.660 you, Mr. Roberts, on behalf of the Heritage Foundation, have chosen to exercise your rights,

00:40:01.820 given the opportunity to apologise and retract your comments criticising a venomous coalition

00:40:07.420 of globalists, the globalist class, and their mouthpieces in Washington, comments that feed into

00:40:12.700 the very anti-Semitic tropes you claim to abhor, your speech at Hillsdale College yesterday fell well 1.00

00:40:18.460 short of the mark. Taken together with your defence of Mr. Carlson's decision to treat Holocaust denial

00:40:24.540 as a legitimate political discourse, begs the question of whether Holocaust survivors,

00:40:30.140 their families, and the American Jewish community at large have a home at Heritage. And then they go

00:40:36.300 on to talk about the Holocaust being an immutable historical event, and how Roberts is defending

00:40:43.900 tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists that believe the earth is flat and that Winston Churchill was the

00:40:49.420 actual villain of the Second World War. So this is going all the way back again to Tucker Carlson's

00:40:53.980 interview with Marta Maid, Daryl Cooper, around September of last year. And again, the willful, purposeful

00:41:03.740 misunderstanding that these people have taken from that interview where Daryl Cooper was talking

00:41:09.820 explicitly, explicitly about POW camps, which are different, and were different, from concentration

00:41:19.260 camps, and they try and take what he said about POW camps, assume that he was talking about concentration

00:41:24.940 camps, therefore assume that he was denying the Holocaust. And they are trying to take that

00:41:29.340 willful misinterpretation and put that on this guy.

00:41:33.180 So Harry, I think I'm against cancellation, right? I'm against cancellation, because I believe

00:41:46.940 in free speech. I've always been so. The only thing I've said was on the Jimmy Kimmel thing,

00:41:52.140 is that when people were saying he should get fired from the Jimmy Kimmel show, it's not an issue so much

00:41:58.780 of free speech, as much as it is an issue of the standards of the that they have, and freedom of

00:42:06.060 association. No one said he shouldn't be allowed to speak, speak his mind. So I'm against

00:42:12.300 cancellation. But I will say that I think that what I don't like about this discussion here, not ours,

00:42:20.780 not ours, but this discussion, is that everyone is screaming that they're being cancelled even when

00:42:26.700 they're not. And I'm not saying that there aren't people like Mark Levin who have said that

00:42:31.820 specifically, we cancelled XYZ individuals. But for instance, when it came to martyr maiden Daryl Cooper, 0.75

00:42:39.020 he was given the opportunity to debate Andrew Roberts. And I think he backed down. So it's not that

00:42:46.060 wasn't exactly a, we don't give you the opportunity to speak that was we do give you the opportunity to

00:42:52.460 speak and he didn't take it. So what I want to say is that when it comes to this, I think that

00:42:59.180 people who want to frame to form an opinion about this issue should be very careful about the framing.

00:43:04.860 And I will say this, that when it comes to the issue, I will say about Tucker and Fuentes very,

00:43:11.180 very, very briefly. I think I've said many times before, I don't trust Tucker Carlson.

00:43:17.100 I just don't trust him at all. Really? Yeah, not at all. Because I think he's constantly whitewashing

00:43:24.220 people who have a very, let's say, very authoritarian and totalitarian way of acting. He constantly tries

00:43:33.420 to normalize that kind of rhetoric. And anyway, I think I don't know much about what?

00:43:39.420 What? What? No, it's just I said base. I said base. Let's carry on. Do you want to carry on?

00:43:46.780 No, no, no. You can carry on. No, what I say this is because I doubt, I very much doubt

00:43:54.140 that the, that what Tucker Carlson is representing is representing an authentic grassroots movement

00:44:03.100 in the US. One thing, I'll give you a very small example. He, he did think that Operation Midnight

00:44:09.580 Hammer in Iran was going to lead to World War Three. He, he had a very, he had the rhetoric that

00:44:15.740 constantly said, I think, I think it's perfectly reasonable to worry about, to show concerns about

00:44:23.500 America striking. It is. It is. The point is that many people, many people thought that that would

00:44:30.540 cost Trump immensely, and it hasn't. And also, there's also the question, and I'll just,

00:44:36.780 just my opinion for, for the thing is just, I think that part of the, a significant part of

00:44:42.140 Tucker's audience is third world Hitlerites, who basically, they do love Hitler because they have, 0.74

00:44:48.300 they think of him as a sort of main engine for decolonialism. I, I find plenty of the, 0.51

00:44:53.100 the, and also very cringe. The idea that they're trying to promote this idea of Hitler as some kind of

00:44:59.260 multi-racial, multi-cultural coalitionist who was just trying to stop the Jews because they wanted 0.99

00:45:05.260 to stop black and white coming together is absurd. Yeah. It, it, it is absurd. It is completely, but you 0.95

00:45:12.140 do see, you do see that there are some people who are basically saying that the only, the one and only

00:45:18.060 criterion for anything in politics is not whether it helps America or England or Britain, it's whether

00:45:27.260 it harms Israel or whether it benefits Israel. There are many people who do politics through both sides

00:45:34.700 of this lens. And I think that what, what is interesting for me, who I'm trying to find out

00:45:42.700 what is happening here, I want to say who does each and sort of put them in a, put them aside and say,

00:45:51.660 right, sorry, these are not the only things that matter in politics. Uh, so it's not just either

00:45:58.140 Israel first or Israel or anti-Israel first as this, as a very large part of this conversation is

00:46:06.460 trying to, to lead towards. Okay. And I'm not saying, and with respect to Fuentes, I think he's a young

00:46:12.220 27 year old man. He's doing the edgelording things and whatever. I don't know that. I haven't watched him that

00:46:18.060 much to do to see him, but I would say that I have been very critical of Tucker. I think that he,

00:46:24.700 he is representing this side. Well, again, I think to steel man,

00:46:30.140 the Nick Fuentes, America first position, and then I will return to what you said about Marta Maid,

00:46:35.020 and then I'll carry on with the segment is that they are not purely Israel, uh, and anti-Israel.

00:46:43.260 It's not just the case of anything that is bad for Israel is automatically good for America. The

00:46:48.940 concern is that the Israel lobby and organized groups in America specifically are against the

00:46:58.220 interests of the American people, against the liberties and rights of the American people,

00:47:03.740 push foreign policy in America in a particular direction that is against the interests of the

00:47:09.020 American people and purely for the interests of the Israeli state in the Middle East. That is 0.62

00:47:15.900 their concerns. And when they see things like this happening, that Tucker Carlson can get some guy on 0.71

00:47:23.420 his show, and you could see it as well with Marta Maid last year, they get one guy on and immediately the 0.99

00:47:29.580 entire system coalesces to attack him and to try to, you can say it's not cancelling, but I think Mark

00:47:37.340 Levin was the most honest when he admitted that, hey, we're just going to try and cancel you, because

00:47:42.860 these were the same tactics used against Pat Buchanan in 1992 in his first presidential bid in the lead

00:47:50.140 up to the, to the Republican nomination. These are the tactics that William F. Buckley used against

00:47:58.140 Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobern, and what ended up getting used against Sam Francis. And you can say

00:48:03.580 that it's not cancellation, but it is ultimately an attempt at reputation destruction. It's an attempt

00:48:09.580 to willfully... That comes also from the other side. It's not that he's the only one who does it.

00:48:15.340 I've never said that. I'm saying that that's what this is. It's everyone's trying to destroy each other's

00:48:19.980 reputation. Because when you have this situation that, when you have this discourse that we have

00:48:25.580 one myth and we have the other myth, and they're all using that myth to lie to you, yeah, you are

00:48:31.500 doing reputation destruction. Both of them. I don't know what you mean by that myth. But if, if he's

00:48:36.860 saying we, if the Marta Maid rhetoric is, we have the Churchill myth, which whatever Churchill, whatever he

00:48:45.180 says about the Churchill, we do know that there is this line of argument that there is the Churchill myth

00:48:49.740 and it sort of has a very negative effect upon Western nations. So by implication, you are saying

00:48:56.460 that everyone who is propagating that myth is either a useful idiot or does it deliberately. 0.97

00:49:04.700 And when it's the latter, it is reputation of destruction and also the former. 0.94

00:49:09.580 Well, I mean, I do think that there are plenty of people who use the mythologized version of

00:49:15.740 Churchill to push the current multicultural, uh, regime that we live under. Anyway, anyway, 0.60

00:49:22.460 to do with the Marta Maid thing, um, from back last year, you mentioned the Andrew Roberts

00:49:29.020 interview. Daryl Cooper comes on and refers to a lot of information which can be found in mainstream

00:49:35.580 history textbooks of the, of the second world war. Oftentimes works, um, that are from people like

00:49:42.300 Andrew Roberts, Ian Kershaw, Andrew Roberts, uh, Neil Ferguson, these kinds of mainstream historians who

00:49:48.860 came out after that interview and attacked him. A lot of the conclusions that Marta made drew were from

00:49:56.300 those works. Well, but why doesn't he participate in these discussions? Because if you care about the

00:50:03.020 truth of the matter, you presumably become a member of a community of historians. Is that how it works?

00:50:09.660 The community of historians, you say it like it's this apolitical neutral thing.

00:50:13.900 No, but I don't think he ever claimed it.

00:50:17.020 It's orthodoxy. And he came to a heterodox conclusion whether or not it was using their

00:50:24.220 work in the first place, which is what happened. They immediately come out and go on this huge

00:50:31.180 press round, which is still going on to this day, to try to smear him, to try to claim that,

00:50:36.860 to willfully misrepresent his points and say, you are a Holocaust denier. When in that interview,

00:50:43.580 he never once mentioned the Holocaust. He was talking about Russian POW camps.

00:50:49.180 There's the other bit, though.

00:50:49.980 Let me finish. Let me finish, right? So he comes out and sees that everybody is trying to smear his

00:50:56.060 reputation, willfully lying about what he said. And then Andrew Roberts, who's part of the orthodoxy

00:51:03.420 of historians, says, no, we've poisoned the well, come have a debate with me, which definitely will

00:51:09.740 not be politically stacked in my favour and against yours. I've seen the debate that Andrew Roberts

00:51:15.660 had with Pat Buchanan back in 2012. Andrew Roberts, frankly, is a woeful debater. But guess what?

00:51:22.860 In the right environment, with the right crowd, that doesn't matter because he is preaching to

00:51:27.660 the choir. This would not have been a fair standard.

00:51:28.460 If I were a fan of his, I would like to see him do the debate,

00:51:35.180 because in the debate, sometimes it's not about the opponent. It's about the audience.

00:51:40.460 I mean, that's fair. But at the same time, I doubt the audience would have been fair against him.

00:51:44.940 I think the well had already been poisoned. And after receiving that onslaught, I think it was

00:51:49.020 perfectly fair of Marta May to say, I do not want to step into this arena on terms that have been set

00:51:55.820 explicitly against me. Either way, we've addressed that. I hope you've enjoyed that little divergence there.

00:52:02.380 I like Tucker and don't like Andrew Roberts.

00:52:06.300 There you go. Thank you for your contribution there. Anyway, so they go out of their way.

00:52:15.260 And this is, again, what I'm talking about with what happened with Daryl Cooper. These are the

00:52:19.820 tactics that they always use. This guy comes out and says, I don't support Tucker being cancelled.

00:52:25.340 And they immediately try to smear him as having sympathy with Holocaust denial, which I think is

00:52:31.660 just a completely immoral and disgusting attempt to smear this guy, right? And then what else happens?

00:52:38.860 Well, all of a sudden, within the Heritage Foundation, the National Task Force to Combat

00:52:45.260 Anti-Semitism sends out this email saying, OK, here's what we're going to do in response to you

00:52:51.820 trying to defend your friend's First Amendment rights to free speech. Well, you've got to remove the video.

00:52:59.020 That sounds a lot like censorship. OK.

00:53:02.780 You've got to apologise to the Christians and Jews that you've offended with this.

00:53:06.620 That sounds like, that's literally what, when I got cancelled out of my band, if I was told that I

00:53:12.220 was able to stay in my band, I was told that I would have to apologise about what I said.

00:53:17.820 So there's a pretty big parallel there.

00:53:21.260 Three, condemn any content, any content that Tucker Carlson has hosted or statements he has made.

00:53:28.540 Just in general? Is there an explanation there?

00:53:31.260 No, just an acknowledgement that you and Tucker have disagreements and that you disagree with

00:53:37.100 and condemn his anti-Semitic content. Again, I don't believe that Tucker has made any.

00:53:42.700 But one of the big ones that people found amusing was point six.

00:53:46.780 The task force would like also to host Shabbat dinners with the interns and junior staffs of

00:53:51.820 Heritage in partnership with Heritage to host conversations on Judaism and the Judeo-Christian

00:53:56.860 tradition. So we would like to invite you around for struggle sessions over dinner.

00:54:01.660 Is what that reads like to me. Is that there are a lot of people who are going to be staff

00:54:07.900 in your organisation who are going to have views that we don't like.

00:54:12.300 We want to sniff them out. We want to sniff them out. And when somebody came up

00:54:18.380 at the Heritage Foundation town hall meeting and asked a question about it,

00:54:24.220 it. The response that he got was it was tone policing, school marming, trying to accuse him of

00:54:33.980 being disingenuous.

00:54:35.900 Thank you, Mike. That's a hard act to follow. But you did a really good job. And I just want to say

00:54:40.780 I'm grateful for for all of our colleagues who are speaking up today and especially for our colleagues

00:54:46.540 on the National Task Force to combat anti-Semitism. I'm especially grateful for their work.

00:54:50.620 I also have a question about it, given some of the leaks that occurred yesterday.

00:54:55.740 Right now, the National Task Force to combat anti-Semitism is demanding that Heritage host

00:54:59.340 Shabbat dinners with Heritage interns and junior staff. The faith of many Christians here at Heritage,

00:55:04.780 myself included, would prevent us from attending these dinners in good conscience.

00:55:09.260 As you know, for many Christians, Friday is a special day of prayer and abstinence

00:55:13.340 to commemorate the death of Christ. I assume that no staff will be required to attend the Shabbat

00:55:19.100 dinners. But my concern is that these dinners will serve as a sort of informal litmus test.

00:55:24.460 And I'm worried that they will hurt many Christians who are not anti-Semitic, but don't feel comfortable

00:55:29.500 attending a Shabbat dinner. I would like to know how you guys would respond to that concern and how we can

00:55:35.660 be sure that the dinners won't be used that way when the people requesting them or someone has already been

00:55:41.660 leaking them to the media.

00:55:47.580 Thanks, Evan. The recommendations and that was the word there was no demand was made. That is a gross

00:55:54.220 mischaracterization of what was issued by the co-chairs of the anti-Semitism task force yesterday,

00:56:00.140 of which I am one. And I take some offense to that characterization.

00:56:05.020 This was a recommendation, one of six recommendations, that the co-chairs came to

00:56:09.740 in consultation with the task force to try to provide Dr. Roberts with a path forward.

00:56:16.220 As I said, they were recommendations. They came out of the conversation, which we were grateful to have

00:56:20.620 with you on this topic. And one of the offers was if any heritage staff would like to participate

00:56:29.100 in this kind of a dinner as an educational exercise, not as a betrayal of their faith.

00:56:35.580 That was an open offer from the task force. It was made in generosity of spirit and in the hopes of

00:56:42.220 increased dialogue on this issue.

00:56:43.740 And Evan, I'm deeply sorry that you could not see that as a generous offer,

00:56:50.700 but rather a personal attack on you. It was not.

00:56:55.660 The concern trolling there, the gaslighting in that response is pretty crazy.

00:57:03.020 But the Heritage Foundation situation is still ongoing, and we'll see where it develops from here.

00:57:09.500 There are other developments and other situations ongoing, such as Elijah Schaefer.

00:57:15.740 He was not somebody whose content that I watch,

00:57:17.820 but I know is a critic of Israel and America's involvement with Israel.

00:57:25.100 A few months ago, I believe, put out a Twitter post without any words on it.

00:57:30.620 It was a joke post. There are jokes going around that Kash Patel's girlfriend is, like,

00:57:36.460 an Israeli Mossad spy, right? I don't know if there's any truth to it. I just hear it as a joke, right?

00:57:43.020 I've never even heard her or seen her. I don't know her name or anything.

00:57:46.620 I know. Somebody put out a post saying about infiltration of the American government.

00:57:52.060 He, quote, tweets it with no words, just a picture of Kash Patel and his girlfriend, right?

00:57:57.180 He is now, for that, being sued for $5 million.

00:58:03.580 Surely they'll lose, though.

00:58:06.220 Potentially.

00:58:07.340 Well, not surely. Who knows?

00:58:08.620 Potentially, but who knows? Who knows? Apparently they're seeking a jury trial.

00:58:12.460 According to this video, he explains that they are seeking a jury trial

00:58:16.700 in a constituency that is likely to be stacked against him in this.

00:58:21.340 And in the complaint, in the legal complaint sent against him,

00:58:26.620 it mentions, essentially, that you did not say anything,

00:58:29.980 but given this and all of your other criticism of Israel, the implication was loud and clear.

00:58:35.660 So he's being sued for implied criticism of a foreign government.

00:58:39.900 I've got to ask the question.

00:58:42.460 Is she Jewish or Israeli? Can we see a picture?

00:58:44.700 I've never even seen a picture of her. I don't know her name.

00:58:46.700 I never see a picture of her.

00:58:48.140 I don't think so.

00:58:49.100 Okay. All right.

00:58:50.380 Either way, he is being sued for the implication of criticism to a foreign government.

00:58:57.180 I mean, what's the ground there?

00:58:58.540 It's just... 0.94

00:58:59.180 It's ridiculous. 0.74

00:59:00.700 If that's the... 0.96

00:59:02.940 It can't win.

00:59:04.860 I have also seen the people post screenshots of the actual complaint as well.

00:59:13.100 And he is right.

00:59:13.900 It is just saying the implication is why we're suing you.

00:59:18.380 Okay. All right.

00:59:22.220 So that's what...

00:59:23.500 That's what some factions, that's what some clients of MAGA get.

00:59:27.980 You, the person at home who voted because you wanted a stable economy,

00:59:32.620 who voted because you wanted to bring back industry into America,

00:59:35.980 because you wanted to punish the universities,

00:59:39.260 because you believed in the idea of an America-first MAGA

00:59:43.580 that was going to prevent legal immigrants coming into the country,

00:59:46.700 that was going to deport them.

00:59:48.780 What do you get?

00:59:50.300 Well, Donald Trump comes out in a recent Fox News interview

00:59:54.860 and plants his foot squarely in his mouth when talking about H-1B visas.

00:59:59.580 Everybody remembers the big controversy last year with Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk

01:00:04.540 going to bat because in Vivek Ramaswamy's words, you can see here,

01:00:09.820 uh, Native Americans, uh, just, uh, have a, have an American culture

01:00:15.820 that venerates mediocrity over excellent.

01:00:18.860 It's a culture that venerates Corey from Boy Meets World

01:00:22.300 or Zack and Slater over Screech and Saved by the Bell

01:00:24.700 or Stefan over Steve Urkel in Family Matters,

01:00:27.500 which means that you just don't produce the best engineers.

01:00:30.780 You're too busy living good lives to be productive,

01:00:35.340 like Vivek Ramaswamy and his army of H-1B Indians. 0.53

01:00:40.300 And what does Donald Trump say in this interview about H-1B as well?

01:00:45.660 Republicans have to talk about it a lot.

01:00:47.420 And does that mean the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration?

01:00:52.220 Because if you want to raise wages for American workers,

01:00:54.780 you can't flood the country with, with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers. 0.92

01:00:58.300 I agree, but you also do have to bring in talent when a country...

01:01:01.820 Well, we have plenty of talented people here.

01:01:03.260 No, you don't. No, you don't.

01:01:04.060 We don't have talented people here.

01:01:05.340 No, you don't have, you don't have certain talents and you have to, people have to learn.

01:01:09.500 You can't take people off an unemployment, like an unemployment line and say,

01:01:13.740 I'm going to put you into a factory or we're going to make missiles or I'm going to put you into...

01:01:16.700 How did we ever do it before?

01:01:18.380 Well, let me just give you an example in Georgia.

01:01:20.460 Good question.

01:01:21.500 He doesn't really answer that.

01:01:23.020 He gives in this example of South Koreans working on very particular batteries,

01:01:28.860 which he mentions five to six hundred people.

01:01:31.420 But he's completely ignoring that that is not what H-1Bs are actually used for.

01:01:35.420 H-1Bs are used to bring in hundreds of thousands, well tens of thousands at least, of people 0.82

01:01:41.740 to depress wages in low-skilled jobs.

01:01:44.860 And he also is ignoring here that there are countless university-educated young men

01:01:49.900 who can't get work in their chosen fields

01:01:52.860 because those companies would rather bring in lower-wage foreign workers.

01:01:59.580 Not a great look.

01:02:00.700 It's a massive disappointment, I must say.

01:02:03.100 Not a great look.

01:02:03.820 Like, Bannon must be fuming.

01:02:06.220 Yeah, this is explicit, this is the opposite of what Bannon wanted.

01:02:09.420 Yeah.

01:02:09.820 Regarding the economy.

01:02:11.340 Well, I mentioned the universities.

01:02:13.420 So what do the universities get?

01:02:15.100 The universities that have fostered wokeness.

01:02:17.500 The universities which have been ideological strongholds against Donald Trump.

01:02:22.940 The universities which people go through so that it can take hundreds of thousands of dollars

01:02:27.100 worth of debt.

01:02:28.140 And then, because of things like H-1Bs and mass migration, illegal or otherwise, 0.78

01:02:33.820 are unable to get work in their chosen field of specialty.

01:02:37.420 Well, what do the universities get?

01:02:39.100 They get over half a million Chinese.

01:02:43.260 Folks are not thrilled about this idea of hundreds of thousands of foreign students 0.99

01:02:48.300 in the United States.

01:02:49.740 We have about 350,000 Chinese.

01:02:52.060 At one point during COVID, you were going to push to get them out.

01:02:55.820 But that was pulled back.

01:02:57.820 You've said as many as 600,000 Chinese students could come to the United States.

01:03:02.380 Why, sir, is that a pro-MAGA position?

01:03:04.780 When so many American kids want to go to school and there are places not for them, 0.99

01:03:09.660 and these universities are getting rich off Chinese money.

01:03:12.460 Sure, sure.

01:03:13.740 Never said about China, but we do have a lot of people coming in from China.

01:03:17.420 We always have, China and other countries.

01:03:20.700 We also have a massive system of colleges and universities.

01:03:25.020 And if we were to cut that in half, which perhaps makes some people happy,

01:03:29.180 you would have half the colleges in the United States go out of business.

01:03:32.460 So what?

01:03:33.340 I think that's a big deal.

01:03:34.460 Are they fans of the United States?

01:03:36.940 Yeah, but you would have, as you know, historically,

01:03:39.820 black colleges and universities would all be out of business. 0.55

01:03:43.980 You would have a system. 0.87

01:03:45.900 We have to import half a million people, because otherwise the ideological strongholds

01:03:51.980 that hate me and my supporters, and also black colleges, might go out of business.

01:03:59.180 One thing that China is doing, because it has so many students who are going to other 0.84

01:04:07.100 nations to study, is it brings English-speaking personnel to Chinese universities.

01:04:13.420 So money stays in China.

01:04:15.740 So this is one of the measures that Trump may be doing in order to try to offset this.

01:04:26.140 One of the other things China likes to do is... 0.96

01:04:28.060 It doesn't mean that you have, you...

01:04:31.420 It's okay, but...

01:04:32.460 One of the other things that China likes to do is then spies. 0.75

01:04:35.820 When you have another lobby of...

01:04:39.100 When you have lots of people from another country on your...

01:04:42.540 On your ground, you could have extra leverage against that country.

01:04:50.620 I mean, potentially...

01:04:51.340 You could, you could.

01:04:52.140 There are exceptions.

01:04:53.100 We know of exceptions.

01:04:54.140 I just don't...

01:04:54.940 We know of exceptions.

01:04:55.500 I just don't believe that it's in the interest of the United States to have 600,000 Chinese students. 1.00

01:05:01.500 Bottom line.

01:05:02.460 And they're supposed...

01:05:03.100 Bottom line, it's just as simple as that.

01:05:04.860 Alongside Russia, I thought they were supposed to be the biggest geopolitical rival that America has. 0.69

01:05:10.300 And you want to train up their students who are going to take that knowledge back to build China. 0.95

01:05:14.620 And you're going to invite them into the universities where...

01:05:17.340 One of the reasons that China is as successful as it is, is because of all of the industry espionage.

01:05:24.540 And you're sending people over so that they can just perform more espionage.

01:05:29.100 Again, Bannon must be very disappointed, because I quite like the Bannon stripe of MAGA.

01:05:35.420 That's what I liked.

01:05:36.140 I think a lot of people...

01:05:38.380 Just basically, the number one thing is deporting millions of people in the United States that shouldn't be there. 0.99

01:05:43.820 That's like the number one thing.

01:05:44.940 When you listen to Bannon for a while...

01:05:46.540 Have we got that yet?

01:05:47.420 He makes it explicitly clear that everything comes after that.

01:05:51.900 And the Bannon's just not really doing it, is he, really?

01:05:54.860 No, and also, just the last thing, you're going to get a 50-year mortgage.

01:06:00.300 The bank's going to own you.

01:06:02.940 For life.

01:06:04.860 So that you can...

01:06:06.460 Because the economy is doing so great in America, and I'm sure it's doing better than England, but that's not saying much.

01:06:13.180 That you're going to get a 50-year mortgage, so that you can save $200 a month.

01:06:19.820 People haven't been happy about this.

01:06:22.140 And people could say that there were ways to spin all of this.

01:06:25.580 Donald Trump, in that Fox News interview, it's like she was trying to give him a leg up at points.

01:06:32.620 So like, hey, do you want to not...

01:06:34.620 Do you want to not piss off your entire base?

01:06:37.280 And Donald Trump went, no. 0.77

01:06:38.680 Yeah, she was like teeing him up for him to hit a homo, and he's like, no. 1.00

01:06:42.260 Yep.

01:06:42.640 Oh, let that one whiff by her. 0.89

01:06:44.180 There were ways to spin it.

01:06:46.900 There were ways to talk about this, or there were ways to just ignore it altogether.

01:06:51.220 Yeah.

01:06:52.140 They haven't done that.

01:06:53.420 So for them, they get to, you know, destroy foundations, cancel people without any consequence, trample over first, like, freedom of speech expression, and the First Amendment of the Constitution. 0.99

01:07:12.420 You get jack shit, mate. 0.99

01:07:15.560 That's what you get. 1.00

01:07:16.280 And I'll go through the super chats and rumble rants of what I'm sure was a very popular segment.

01:07:25.560 Ryan Hannigan, Vivek's business acumen, comes from scamming $360 million from his mother's fake Alzheimer's cure company.

01:07:32.060 She also had him on a student visa.

01:07:33.560 I didn't know any of that.

01:07:34.780 Did you not know that?

01:07:35.400 I didn't know any of that.

01:07:36.280 That's a fun bit of law.

01:07:37.620 Lone Wolf, H1B visa program, is why whenever a young person just starting out asks about going into it, I tell them not to waste their time.

01:07:45.500 Sigil Stone, we have to import talent, people have to learn, and the people doing the learning are going to be 600,000 Chinese instead of Americans. 0.98

01:07:53.320 I am Jack Stare of violent disgust.

01:07:55.340 That's a random name, says that Harry and Samson should cover Halo for Journey to the East.

01:08:01.380 Might be a little bit out of the remit, but we'll think about it.

01:08:04.260 At some point, you should do it.

01:08:05.920 We should just do something Halo-related, because I do like Halo.

01:08:09.180 Sigil Stone, this cancellation attempt is so similar in style, tone, and structure to Democrats.

01:08:13.500 Cancellation attempts even involves the same groups.

01:08:15.500 Talking heads and talking points, hmm.

01:08:17.660 Cranky Texan, people like Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones are in danger of moderating Fuentes.

01:08:21.840 That will not be tolerated.

01:08:23.020 The regime needs their boogeymen.

01:08:25.960 That's true.

01:08:27.140 Jairo Sanichiban says, don't let famously anti-MAGA people tell you what MAGA means. 0.90

01:08:33.360 Gatekeep those liars out. 1.00

01:08:35.440 I don't know which side you're referring to when you say famously anti-MAGA people.

01:08:39.840 I know that Fuentes has had a lot to say about MAGA.

01:08:42.660 Didn't he say people to vote for Kamala Harris?

01:08:45.020 Oh, that was a bad, that was...

01:08:46.840 Did he?

01:08:47.360 Yeah, yeah, he told people to vote for Kamala Harris.

01:08:49.520 How does that make sense?

01:08:50.660 Yeah, I think he was, I think what he wanted, because the Republicans weren't giving people,

01:08:55.340 what they were voting for from Republicans was kind of like a zero seats style American campaign

01:09:02.320 of punish them so that next time they give us what we want.

01:09:05.900 It was so wonderful.

01:09:06.780 Yeah, well that's the thing, is that there are definite drawbacks to that kind of tactic.

01:09:10.440 I always feel that's a flawed logic.

01:09:12.560 Yeah, and I'll read the two, some of the super chats, 1950s, there are 120...

01:09:19.040 The point is who it harms for some people, they don't care if it's good for...

01:09:23.820 Again, the logic to steel man it is if it harms the Republicans enough, they will know

01:09:30.040 to actually work with us and give us what we want next time.

01:09:34.300 Yeah, I understand it, it's not that complicated, I get it, I just...

01:09:40.280 No, I think the example with Labour in the UK is not looking great at the moment.

01:09:44.840 I'm thinking it's like the lesser of two evils, don't go...

01:09:47.960 I don't like accelerationism, for example.

01:09:50.680 It is basically accelerationism.

01:09:52.240 It is accelerationism.

01:09:53.780 Yeah, I'm not a fan of that particularly.

01:09:56.580 Anyway, anyway.

01:09:57.040 Anyway, on YouTube, 1950s, there are 120 million Africans who desperately need your help.

01:10:02.300 2025, after trillions in AIDS, uh, aid.

01:10:06.120 Slip of the tongue there.

01:10:07.580 There are 1.2 billion Africans who desperately need your help.

01:10:11.400 That is true.

01:10:14.340 Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin don't seem to understand how their rhetoric lands.

01:10:17.860 We can't spend years objecting to being called Nazis and then turn around and spew the same accusations.

01:10:22.300 I say this as a pro-Israel millennial.

01:10:24.560 That's the thing, is it turns people against them, and after the whole Charlie Kirk thing, 0.62

01:10:28.580 where we all rightfully said that, hey, demonising the right-wingers all being Nazis and fascists

01:10:35.440 is what led to people trying to kill him in the first place,

01:10:39.040 Mark Levin then turns around and starts using the exact same rhetoric.

01:10:42.760 It's self-defeating.

01:10:44.400 Anyway, sorry that took up so much time.

01:10:46.640 I wasn't intending it to.

01:10:47.720 You're bogarting the podcast, dude.

01:10:51.400 I'm joking, I'm joking.

01:10:52.540 I must have said that too, Deadpan.

01:10:54.560 Don't worry about it.

01:10:55.580 I don't know what bogarting means, sorry.

01:10:57.320 Hogging it.

01:10:58.020 Ah.

01:10:58.420 Hogging it.

01:11:00.020 Okay.

01:11:02.200 All right, let's talk about Nicolas Sarkozy.

01:11:06.400 Was he the president of the 127th French Republic?

01:11:12.760 128th French Republic.

01:11:14.100 Yeah.

01:11:15.700 Yeah.

01:11:16.220 So one of the first things I'll say is that he was, if anyone doesn't know, he was the

01:11:19.580 president of France from 2007 to 2012.

01:11:23.320 Now, some people that are young, if you're in your early 20s or even mid-20s, you was

01:11:28.980 a little kid.

01:11:29.560 You've probably not really heard of him, don't know.

01:11:31.240 It was before your time, sort of thing.

01:11:32.780 Or if you're foreign, you might not have ever cared. 0.99

01:11:36.000 But he was the French president.

01:11:39.540 Okay.

01:11:40.420 And now, he has gone to prison.

01:11:43.580 He was sentenced to five years in prison.

01:11:46.280 And that's unheard of.

01:11:48.180 I mean, Pétain went to prison after World War II for being a Nazi collaborator.

01:11:52.900 But he doesn't really count.

01:11:54.300 How long did he stay?

01:11:55.140 Oh, I don't know.

01:11:55.540 He's a really, really old man.

01:11:56.800 I can't remember.

01:11:58.420 But anyway, he doesn't count as a special, that's a special case, really.

01:12:01.500 So in a normal run of things, the head of state very, very, very rarely goes to prison,

01:12:07.860 right?

01:12:08.760 Very rarely.

01:12:10.200 Like someone like Nixon, you know, gets a pardon from Ford.

01:12:16.300 You know, someone like Boris Johnson, there's no question of him going to prison.

01:12:19.460 Someone like Bill Clinton or whatever.

01:12:20.980 If you're in the top job, it's very, very, very rare that you end up going to prison.

01:12:27.000 But Sarkozy did.

01:12:31.080 So I just want to talk a bit about it because it's been in the news a fair bit over the last

01:12:34.300 week or two.

01:12:35.100 And those seasons haven't done anything on it.

01:12:37.740 And I find it interesting.

01:12:38.920 I find it fascinating.

01:12:40.680 I remember all the Sarkozy years.

01:12:42.540 I was already sort of deep into my adulthood at this point.

01:12:44.840 I mean, do you remember much about those times?

01:12:48.740 Which times?

01:12:49.280 Well, 2007 to 2012.

01:12:54.080 I mean, depends.

01:12:55.640 Depends.

01:12:56.540 I was 11 to 16 years old.

01:13:00.440 Right.

01:13:00.980 I mean, do you remember?

01:13:01.660 I remember.

01:13:02.300 I remember.

01:13:03.760 I remember.

01:13:04.500 I was busy at school.

01:13:06.880 Do you remember when Cameron and Sarkozy were bombing Libya and Gaddafi got lynched?

01:13:12.080 I was not paying attention to the media at the time, but I do know that that happened.

01:13:16.100 Are you bombing Libya in a war game or something?

01:13:19.380 It was literally me.

01:13:20.280 I was the one pressing the big red button.

01:13:22.640 So I just want to run through the story because it's quite a big, long saga, really.

01:13:26.860 A bit of a long story.

01:13:28.480 Just try and explain it for people that might be interested in it.

01:13:33.440 Okay.

01:13:33.800 So Sarkozy's been in and around French politics for years and years.

01:13:36.640 He was like an interior minister long before he was ever the actual full-blown president.

01:13:40.100 And quite often he gets described as center-right.

01:13:43.840 I mean, he's a bit more right-leaning than most French socialist politicians.

01:13:48.720 But still, he's not really, really right-wing.

01:13:50.700 But they describe him as center-right all the time.

01:13:53.840 So you're just going to say something, Silas?

01:13:54.960 No, I've heard conflicting reports about him exiling a particular community.

01:14:02.560 Really?

01:14:03.080 Yeah, but I've also heard the other French people saying that he actually didn't.

01:14:09.380 About travelers.

01:14:11.020 Oh, okay.

01:14:11.900 I don't know much about that.

01:14:14.100 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:14:14.820 He got rid of gypsies, you mean? 1.00

01:14:16.940 Yeah, I think he...

01:14:17.840 Some say he got rid of gypsies and then others say that they came back and he did nothing. 1.00

01:14:24.160 And now we have all this video with French farmers spraying them manure. 0.88

01:14:28.740 Well, so anyway, to stay specific to this thing.

01:14:35.800 So he went to...

01:14:37.280 He's actually been convicted three times of criminal things, right?

01:14:41.660 Back in 2021, he was convicted of basically corruption, a type of corruption,

01:14:47.900 sort of interfering with a judge in his own case, which he really shouldn't have done.

01:14:52.980 He got convicted of that and got sentenced to like two or three years,

01:14:56.620 but like a suspended sentence.

01:14:57.800 And then again in 2023, he got convicted of a similar sort of corruption type dealio,

01:15:03.520 an old scandal.

01:15:05.860 Again, he was supposed to serve a year in prison,

01:15:08.280 but they said you don't have to actually go to prison until your appeal is done.

01:15:12.380 And that can take years, right? 0.93

01:15:13.640 That's how appeals shit works often, isn't it? 0.97

01:15:15.760 You can draw out for years and years, especially if you've got the best lawyers and endless money. 0.99

01:15:19.680 So they put like a tag on his ankle.

01:15:25.120 I mean, already there, an ex-president that's got a tag on his ankle and a double conviction.

01:15:31.160 Almost unprecedented.

01:15:32.020 And then now they've got him for a specific thing to do with Gaddafi in Libya, of all things.

01:15:38.640 And he was convicted, he was convicted of it and sentenced to five years in prison.

01:15:46.300 So what were the actual charges?

01:15:48.320 Let me tell you.

01:15:49.860 He was up on charges of criminal conspiracy, i.e. just whispers behind closed doors with Gaddafi.

01:15:56.240 You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. 0.97

01:15:57.700 If you do this, I'll do that. 0.95

01:15:59.420 But rising to a criminal level.

01:16:04.480 Corruption, just general, just a charge, corruption.

01:16:08.900 Misuse of Libyan public funds.

01:16:13.320 What's Sarkozy doing with Libyan public funds?

01:16:16.660 And illegal election campaign funding.

01:16:19.740 Now, he was acquitted on all of that, apart from criminal conspiracy.

01:16:24.260 So his enemies, OK, so here's the two sides of the equation here.

01:16:31.560 Sarkozy and his supporters are saying, this is all just lawfare.

01:16:35.380 This is all just my political enemies going after me.

01:16:38.640 And it's all, there's nothing there.

01:16:40.640 I didn't do anything wrong.

01:16:41.980 I wouldn't dream of taking money from Colonel Gaddafi.

01:16:44.200 Are you kidding me? 0.80

01:16:44.620 That's mental.

01:16:45.500 As if in a million years I would do that.

01:16:47.460 Didn't I get him, like, ousted from power and ultimately murdered in the streets?

01:16:52.100 Me? I took money from Gaddafi, please. 0.85

01:16:56.120 Right, and the other side of the...

01:16:57.380 Because no, there's never been such thing as a backstab in political history, has there?

01:17:02.180 Good point.

01:17:02.920 Also, that's the other, the other people saying, no, there's some evidence here or there that,

01:17:07.620 how come your campaign in 2007 suddenly seemed to be really well funded?

01:17:11.560 What's that about?

01:17:13.560 So, OK, he's been up on all sorts of charges and he was largely acquitted,

01:17:16.640 and a couple of co-conspirators, people that were his right-hand men during his time as president.

01:17:22.680 But he was acquitted of it all apart from criminal conspiracy.

01:17:26.700 Now, that's like a quite a nebulous thing to prove, really.

01:17:32.000 Like, you know, what exactly was said behind closed doors and what exactly...

01:17:36.820 The idea is that, the allegation, is that Gaddafi gave him money, literally suitcases full of cash.

01:17:45.940 Like, three different times or more, suitcases with, like, one and a half million dollars in it,

01:17:51.100 another one with, like, three million dollars in it or whatever.

01:17:53.700 And in return for that, well, which Sarkozy then spent on his election campaign in 2007,

01:17:58.280 and in return for that, Sarkozy will bring Gaddafi into the fold of the international community.

01:18:04.460 So he was a bit of a pariah, wasn't he?

01:18:07.000 You know, after...

01:18:07.900 He put in a good word for him.

01:18:09.940 Yeah, trying to bring him back into the fold a bit.

01:18:13.720 Make him look cool again.

01:18:15.220 So, yeah, make Gaddafi great again. 1.00

01:18:18.380 I hate Gaddafi, by the way, just to be clear on that, before anyone says anything.

01:18:23.900 So, he was convicted of this, sentenced to five years,

01:18:28.160 and he'll be serving it largely in, or almost entirely, in fact, in solitary,

01:18:31.880 with, like, one hour a day for exercise and all that sort of stuff.

01:18:37.760 Proper hard time.

01:18:39.800 Anyway, after three weeks, he was visited by the current Justice Minister,

01:18:45.520 Gérald Darmanin, who's an old friend of his.

01:18:50.520 And after three weeks, they said, you're right, we'll let you out.

01:18:54.100 No harm done.

01:18:54.920 We'll let you out after three weeks.

01:18:56.200 Gotcha!

01:18:56.580 Yeah.

01:18:57.840 Whee! 1.00

01:18:58.320 Well, actually, it's not quite as simple as that.

01:19:02.400 It's not like he's just free now.

01:19:03.820 They said, you can have the sentence sort of suspended,

01:19:08.560 or you can go home, but only until the appeals process is finished again,

01:19:12.880 which may take years.

01:19:14.440 You can work on your own bench press or something.

01:19:17.040 Yeah.

01:19:18.240 So, even when his appeal fails,

01:19:20.360 he will have to go back to prison at that point and serve the rest of the time.

01:19:23.140 But for now, he gets to go home to his very pretty wife,

01:19:28.840 who used to be a model, if you remember her. 0.99

01:19:33.220 I do.

01:19:33.820 Of course.

01:19:34.540 Of course you do.

01:19:35.740 Why are you saying of course?

01:19:37.340 Because of course you do.

01:19:39.840 If it was going to be anybody, it's you.

01:19:42.240 So, what's the actual story?

01:19:47.500 Gaddafi.

01:19:48.200 It goes back to Gaddafi.

01:19:49.920 Now, I've been fascinated by Gaddafi.

01:19:51.820 Always.

01:19:52.240 I'm fascinated by Saddam, right? 0.98

01:19:54.400 Fascinated by Kim Il-sung, all these people.

01:19:57.700 How they did it.

01:19:58.260 I'm a history nerd, so I'm fascinated by them.

01:20:01.140 And so this story is all wrapped up with Gaddafi.

01:20:04.180 Now, the Brits, the Italians, but a lot, the French, 0.99

01:20:09.020 have got a long and storied past in North Africa.

01:20:12.720 Particularly the French, in Algeria, for example.

01:20:16.020 Isn't it also Italy and Libya?

01:20:19.120 Yeah, well, sorry.

01:20:19.920 Italy have lots of presence in Libya?

01:20:22.300 They did do, yeah.

01:20:23.160 They controlled it for a while, as did Britain.

01:20:25.100 Yeah, yeah.

01:20:25.980 I mean, we won the North African campaign in World War II,

01:20:30.860 for example, right?

01:20:32.440 But yeah, at various times that bit of land

01:20:34.340 that is modern-day Libya has been controlled

01:20:35.880 by the Italians and the Brits.

01:20:38.400 But the French, post-World War II anyway,

01:20:41.000 have had, like, probably, you could argue,

01:20:42.980 probably the biggest influence in sort of Algeria, Morocco,

01:20:46.840 Chad, Libya, Tunisia, mainly Algeria.

01:20:52.000 But anyway, so Gaddafi does a military coup d'etat in, like, 1969.

01:20:56.960 And they had a king of Libya.

01:20:59.480 Gaddafi and his military, a cadre of his military officers take over.

01:21:06.360 And at first, they thought it would be like,

01:21:08.840 he said, we'll open up Libya, we'll make it much more democratic,

01:21:12.440 we'll have socialist economic ideas,

01:21:16.440 but this is like a new open golden age for Libya, it will be.

01:21:21.900 But quite quickly, it turned out that he was just,

01:21:23.840 he was basically just collecting powers into his own person 0.91

01:21:27.840 and sending kill teams abroad to kill his, 0.99

01:21:31.840 any exiled rivals he's got, 1.00

01:21:34.560 having people executed live on TV

01:21:36.900 in the middle of a basketball game,

01:21:39.940 clamping down on all his opponents,

01:21:41.240 being kind of a classic example of a dictator, really.

01:21:44.760 I don't think he wouldn't really be surprised by.

01:21:47.620 Yeah.

01:21:50.000 And, well, and by the 80s,

01:21:52.040 oh, there's some of his opponents that were murdered.

01:21:56.560 Stelios finds that hilarious, apparently.

01:21:59.340 No.

01:22:00.460 What? 0.73

01:22:01.320 No, he had history porn.

01:22:03.480 Did it?

01:22:03.820 If you go before, if you go down to the left,

01:22:06.160 it says history porn.

01:22:07.640 Oh.

01:22:07.840 I can't explain that.

01:22:11.320 I don't know what that's about.

01:22:12.860 I think that's the name of it.

01:22:14.160 Like how the eye just spotted it.

01:22:17.320 The trained eye.

01:22:19.160 Straight for that word.

01:22:20.120 The Vince McMahon eye spotted it.

01:22:24.140 Just quickly run through Gaddafi there.

01:22:26.300 By the 80s, he's,

01:22:28.680 the Americans in the CIA, George Bush Senior,

01:22:30.920 are accusing him of basically funding terrorism

01:22:34.260 and letting terrorists train in his country

01:22:36.500 and all sorts of things.

01:22:37.840 A discotheque in West Berlin in, like, 1985 or something

01:22:42.100 was blown up.

01:22:43.060 I remember Reagan...

01:22:43.960 With US servicemen in it.

01:22:44.760 Reagan had an address where he was telling the Americans

01:22:48.540 how he bombed Libya for this.

01:22:50.780 Yeah, yeah, Reagan.

01:22:51.260 It's on YouTube.

01:22:52.520 Yeah, Reagan.

01:22:53.800 Yeah, and I'd say it would have been Reagan.

01:22:55.200 Sorry, not George Bush Senior.

01:22:56.100 It would have been Reagan.

01:22:57.120 They wanted to totally kill Gaddafi and tried.

01:23:00.660 But sort of just about missed, actually.

01:23:03.320 Just kind of failed to.

01:23:04.420 Lockerbie in 1988.

01:23:09.640 It was definitely Libyans. 1.00

01:23:11.760 Because that plane that crashed over Scotland

01:23:14.180 was actually largely full of Americans.

01:23:17.780 280 plus people in that killed and 11 on the ground.

01:23:22.400 And it wasn't until years and years later...

01:23:23.720 Like, the intelligence services came out very quickly

01:23:25.440 and said this was Libya.

01:23:26.340 This was Gaddafi.

01:23:26.960 But it wasn't until years later

01:23:28.860 Gaddafi finally admitted, yeah, it was.

01:23:32.920 So at this point, there's no doubt that it was.

01:23:36.620 So it's a bad, bad dude.

01:23:37.540 There's a million other things.

01:23:39.160 There's another airliner over Nigeria

01:23:40.540 that was going on by them.

01:23:41.440 That's the individual.

01:23:41.940 You remember in Back to the Future Part 1,

01:23:44.040 the baddies in that are Libyans. 1.00

01:23:46.100 It's like the classic 80s thing 0.78

01:23:48.360 that the baddies are Libyans. 0.99

01:23:50.000 So anyway, it was Lockerbie.

01:23:53.900 Don't they still have slave trade? 0.99

01:23:56.480 Well, the country to this day is a complete mess.

01:24:00.340 I mean, Gaddafi is your classic dictator strongman.

01:24:03.780 There are, like Saddam, 0.98

01:24:05.760 there are some bonuses to that.

01:24:08.480 You can usually keep the lid on certain things.

01:24:11.340 But without him, even that has just gone to pot.

01:24:14.720 Yeah, so anyway, in 2007,

01:24:18.760 well, 9-11 happens and Gaddafi says,

01:24:21.660 now I want to be in George Bush Jr.'s

01:24:23.300 Coalition of the Willing.

01:24:24.420 I'll give up all my plans to make nuclear bombs

01:24:27.080 or chemical or biological warfare.

01:24:28.460 I'll stop funding terrorism

01:24:30.180 and all that sort of thing.

01:24:31.500 I want to be on your side.

01:24:33.300 And so there was an effort made

01:24:34.480 to sort of bring him into the fold.

01:24:35.940 Like Tony Blair went and visited him.

01:24:38.420 You can find pictures of Tony Blair and Gaddafi

01:24:40.280 walking along.

01:24:40.960 And so Sarkozy, a lot of the pressure

01:24:44.400 was on the French to be like,

01:24:46.000 look, you're the North African, 0.97

01:24:48.280 main North African country in Europe.

01:24:52.180 Why don't you try and bring him into the fold?

01:24:55.140 Right, it's better,

01:24:55.900 for everything he's done over the decades,

01:24:58.680 it's better to have him on side post 9-11

01:25:00.960 than not, right?

01:25:03.040 Okay, so 2007 comes along.

01:25:05.000 Then Gaddafi gets invited to Paris,

01:25:08.140 shaking hands with Sarkozy there.

01:25:11.780 And Gaddafi sets up, 0.58

01:25:15.520 it's quite an odd picture to see such a thing.

01:25:19.520 I mean, for years,

01:25:20.100 he's like an international,

01:25:21.520 full-blown international terrorist,

01:25:23.000 like sort of almost on the level of Bin Laden.

01:25:25.380 I mean, it's almost now

01:25:26.340 with what Trump is doing with the Syrian.

01:25:29.220 Yeah.

01:25:30.000 Yeah.

01:25:30.600 Yeah.

01:25:32.100 There's his little tent, 0.99

01:25:33.660 his shitty little tent 0.98

01:25:34.480 he's set up on the Elysee Palace Gardens. 0.99

01:25:38.700 Why?

01:25:39.300 Was he living in the tent?

01:25:40.580 Yeah.

01:25:40.700 Or was it just for diplomatic?

01:25:42.780 You can take the man out of North Africa. 0.99

01:25:44.980 Yeah.

01:25:46.420 There is Sarkozy and the colonel 1.00

01:25:48.960 in his stupid little tent. 1.00

01:25:53.160 There you go. 1.00

01:25:54.080 They let him speak at the UN in like 2009.

01:25:58.520 Anyway,

01:25:59.400 as soon as he goes to Paris,

01:26:01.200 he sort of immediately backstabs

01:26:02.780 the European Western efforts

01:26:04.540 to sort of bring him into the fold.

01:26:05.660 Just starts talking about colonialism

01:26:07.160 and guilt

01:26:08.180 and pan-Africanism.

01:26:11.180 Ibs.

01:26:11.640 In the UN.

01:26:12.640 Ibs.

01:26:13.180 Yeah.

01:26:13.640 And then...

01:26:13.900 He knew his audience.

01:26:14.680 And then a couple of years later

01:26:15.680 at the UN,

01:26:16.540 just rambling on for hours,

01:26:17.800 literally hours,

01:26:18.620 about how terrible

01:26:19.600 the rest of the world is

01:26:20.580 and how he didn't do nothing wrong

01:26:22.180 at any point ever.

01:26:24.920 But of course,

01:26:26.540 in the end,

01:26:29.580 the powers that be decided

01:26:32.560 that enough was enough.

01:26:35.740 And when there was

01:26:37.480 a very shaky period

01:26:39.180 in Libya in like 2011,

01:26:42.760 NATO decide

01:26:43.940 they're going to try and top him

01:26:45.200 and they start bombing Libya.

01:26:47.060 actually French planes

01:26:49.180 took one of the leading roles

01:26:51.480 in that.

01:26:53.000 Weren't intelligence agencies

01:26:54.400 also funding

01:26:55.420 funding rebellion movements

01:26:57.420 in the country as well?

01:26:58.660 Ever since Reagan,

01:27:00.360 the CIA have been

01:27:02.060 wanting to get rid of him,

01:27:03.620 of course, yeah.

01:27:04.400 They just view him as a complete

01:27:05.440 and never change their view, really,

01:27:07.120 that he's a complete enemy,

01:27:08.020 cannot be trusted.

01:27:09.640 And if there's a chance

01:27:10.480 to get rid of him,

01:27:13.080 they would.

01:27:14.140 So anyway,

01:27:14.460 by 2011,

01:27:15.200 during the Sarkozy years,

01:27:16.440 so it's a Sarkozy

01:27:17.300 that was supposed

01:27:17.780 to have taken money from him

01:27:19.080 and tried to bring him

01:27:20.500 into the fold.

01:27:21.400 Then a few years later,

01:27:22.740 he's like one of the leading actors

01:27:24.940 in destabilising

01:27:27.140 and destroying his regime.

01:27:29.020 And ultimately,

01:27:30.060 Gaddafi was sort of found

01:27:31.140 hiding in a pipe,

01:27:33.100 was dragged out

01:27:33.740 and lynched to death. 0.71

01:27:38.040 OK, so that's it.

01:27:38.840 So that's the story of Gaddafi.

01:27:40.060 Now, just before his regime,

01:27:42.040 like literally just a few days

01:27:43.340 before it completely crumbled,

01:27:44.880 various people,

01:27:46.220 I won't get into too much

01:27:47.540 of the weeds of it,

01:27:48.220 but there's a guy called

01:27:49.100 Ziad Takiadine,

01:27:52.240 as well as one of Gaddafi's sons,

01:27:54.940 came out and said,

01:27:55.780 oh, thanks, France.

01:27:57.180 Thanks, Sarkozy.

01:27:58.080 This is great.

01:27:58.700 This is how you repay us

01:27:59.640 after we gave you millions

01:28:01.100 and millions of pounds

01:28:01.820 to pay for your election campaign

01:28:04.180 in 2007.

01:28:05.080 Remember that deed?

01:28:05.860 They come out and say it publicly,

01:28:07.820 openly.

01:28:08.120 And the French Sarkozy's

01:28:12.060 political enemies in France

01:28:13.120 as well as the French media

01:28:14.040 are like, wait, what?

01:28:15.740 Wait, what now?

01:28:16.340 Is that true?

01:28:17.980 Really?

01:28:19.160 And so in the intervening years

01:28:20.600 after that,

01:28:21.560 after Sarkozy lost in 2012,

01:28:23.620 he's just been in and out of court

01:28:25.580 for years about all sorts of things.

01:28:27.560 So the question is,

01:28:32.260 and I don't know,

01:28:32.860 I've got no special insight.

01:28:33.800 I wasn't there.

01:28:34.300 I wasn't in the Sarkozy inner circle

01:28:35.880 in those years,

01:28:36.740 so I don't know.

01:28:37.960 But the suggestion is,

01:28:39.420 is that he did take millions of pounds,

01:28:41.900 dollars,

01:28:42.880 from Gaddafi

01:28:45.380 in order to pay for his 2007

01:28:47.720 election campaign

01:28:49.480 and his 2012 failed

01:28:51.220 re-election campaign.

01:28:53.100 Now, whether he really did or not,

01:28:54.420 whether it's all just lawfare

01:28:55.740 by his enemies,

01:28:57.080 and it's all completely unfair,

01:28:58.660 I don't know.

01:28:59.360 That's what Sarkozy insists

01:29:00.960 to stay completely innocent.

01:29:03.400 He wouldn't dream

01:29:04.300 of doing such a thing.

01:29:06.300 Didn't I topple Gaddafi?

01:29:08.500 Aren't I the guy,

01:29:09.340 I'm the least likely person

01:29:10.320 in the world

01:29:10.700 to have ever taken money from him?

01:29:12.080 But, well,

01:29:13.240 it got to a court

01:29:14.000 and they did find him guilty,

01:29:17.060 whether that's fair or not,

01:29:17.880 but they did find him guilty

01:29:18.780 of criminal conspiracy.

01:29:21.940 So it's not the end of the story

01:29:23.820 for Sarkozy.

01:29:25.440 He's still just only out

01:29:26.860 until his appeals are done

01:29:28.400 and we'll see.

01:29:30.260 I mean, even his wife,

01:29:31.800 Carla Bruni,

01:29:33.160 she's in a bit of trouble

01:29:34.500 that she may have tampered

01:29:35.540 with evidence.

01:29:36.460 I think she's going to have

01:29:37.160 a trial of her own,

01:29:38.800 whether she may or may not have,

01:29:40.020 you know,

01:29:40.500 tampered with evidence.

01:29:41.320 I think that's what she's up against.

01:29:44.360 It just seems,

01:29:44.900 well, Sarkozy is just

01:29:45.760 completely embroiled

01:29:46.760 in a legal mess.

01:29:49.980 So this whole thing

01:29:50.740 that he got sentenced

01:29:51.260 to five years

01:29:51.880 but let out after three weeks,

01:29:53.100 that's not the end of the story.

01:29:54.880 That's not,

01:29:55.140 he's just free now

01:29:55.840 and that's the end of that story.

01:29:56.920 No, no, no.

01:29:57.320 It will keep going

01:29:58.320 for years, this.

01:29:59.740 I saw it in the beginning.

01:30:00.820 I said that was quick.

01:30:02.140 Yeah.

01:30:02.600 Yeah.

01:30:03.200 Yeah.

01:30:03.900 So,

01:30:04.020 it's not as simple.

01:30:06.300 If and when

01:30:06.800 his appeals are finished,

01:30:09.200 I may bring the story back

01:30:10.380 and there may be

01:30:10.980 some sort of,

01:30:11.600 some sort of closure

01:30:13.280 on the Sarkozy,

01:30:14.340 Gaddafi story.

01:30:15.440 But Gaddafi,

01:30:16.720 even beyond death,

01:30:18.780 is still messing

01:30:19.640 with European

01:30:22.360 and Western leaders. 0.97

01:30:23.700 He's still screwing

01:30:24.400 with their program

01:30:25.080 even beyond the grave.

01:30:27.080 There you go.

01:30:27.500 I find it interesting.

01:30:28.360 I hope other people out there

01:30:29.320 have to do as well.

01:30:31.840 Well, there we go.

01:30:33.580 Have we got any more

01:30:34.880 Rumble Rants

01:30:35.580 or Super Chats in

01:30:36.520 while that segment's

01:30:37.200 been going, Harry?

01:30:39.940 Just scroll up to the top

01:30:41.580 for the Rumble Rants for me.

01:30:43.300 You can get the video comments

01:30:44.400 up while I read these.

01:30:45.880 I think it's just one of them.

01:30:48.280 Blood for the Blood God

01:30:49.300 sends in $200.

01:30:50.740 Thank you very, very much.

01:30:52.280 It says,

01:30:53.100 first round of drink on me,

01:30:54.820 backroom editors.

01:30:57.060 Nice.

01:30:57.780 You're going to say

01:30:58.340 thank you, Harry.

01:30:59.220 $200 US dollars.

01:31:00.360 Well, thank you.

01:31:01.860 Blood for the Blood God.

01:31:02.600 I couldn't hear you.

01:31:03.440 On behalf of the editors,

01:31:04.500 thank you.

01:31:05.400 Yeah.

01:31:06.520 There we go.

01:31:07.140 It looks like we've got

01:31:07.840 two video comments

01:31:08.900 and then we'll probably

01:31:09.700 have to call it a day.

01:31:10.680 We are on our way

01:31:19.200 to steal your jobs,

01:31:20.820 benefits and houses.

01:31:22.720 We are so close

01:31:23.780 to the UK now.

01:31:25.000 We're all so excited

01:31:26.240 for our adventure.

01:31:27.440 I really hope

01:31:28.340 someone welcomes me

01:31:29.780 into their home.

01:31:30.940 As you can see,

01:31:31.980 several boats

01:31:32.620 have now landed

01:31:33.300 on our shores.

01:31:34.180 Local men can be seen

01:31:35.240 assisting some of the

01:31:36.160 incoming Swedish migrants

01:31:37.460 as they disembark.

01:31:38.520 Now, this is an invasion

01:31:39.840 I can fully get behind.

01:31:41.900 What made you come

01:31:42.560 down here today?

01:31:43.480 Um, normally I'm

01:31:44.620 against this kind of thing,

01:31:45.920 but today I fully

01:31:47.160 support integration.

01:31:50.520 That's quite good

01:31:51.320 for AI as well, actually.

01:31:53.220 I also like that

01:31:54.240 it was from

01:31:54.600 Josh Firm's Top Guy.

01:31:57.920 Is that just Josh?

01:31:59.500 It might be Josh.

01:32:01.080 Or maybe it's Sam's.

01:32:01.560 It is important to note

01:32:02.700 Scrooge's money vault

01:32:03.640 contains only petty cash,

01:32:05.240 the spoils of his adventures.

01:32:06.980 The majority of it

01:32:07.820 is wrapped up

01:32:08.520 in intangible assets

01:32:09.620 not easily liquidated,

01:32:10.940 and it took 20 years

01:32:11.840 of constant failure

01:32:12.760 for Scrooge to make

01:32:13.700 his fortune.

01:32:14.520 Similarly,

01:32:15.240 nine years of mech work

01:32:16.300 has only produced

01:32:17.020 one mech,

01:32:17.880 but the majority

01:32:18.520 of that work

01:32:19.160 is in the discovery

01:32:20.000 of what did not work.

01:32:21.660 The left being midwits

01:32:22.720 can only recognize

01:32:23.800 when something

01:32:24.240 isn't literally true.

01:32:25.640 They lack the ability

01:32:26.440 to truly think,

01:32:27.580 which is why

01:32:28.020 they're so resentful.

01:32:29.360 They can't understand

01:32:30.260 the system they live in.

01:32:31.900 Yeah, they have

01:32:32.660 no inner monologue.

01:32:33.940 I agree with this.

01:32:35.200 See, for me,

01:32:35.820 the problem with

01:32:36.280 Scrooge McDuck's,

01:32:37.320 pool of money

01:32:39.040 is that he would

01:32:40.100 immediately break

01:32:41.120 himself on it.

01:32:42.300 Yeah.

01:32:42.740 There was a family guy

01:32:43.680 bit where Peter

01:32:44.640 got himself to it

01:32:45.480 and he's just like,

01:32:46.560 oh God,

01:32:47.260 this is hard metal.

01:32:50.340 This isn't viscous

01:32:51.420 at all.

01:32:52.300 I'm terribly wounded.

01:32:54.120 I can't remember

01:32:54.920 what he said,

01:32:55.360 but yeah.

01:32:55.860 Something like that.

01:32:56.980 You reminded me

01:32:57.560 of the Austin Powers

01:32:59.220 thing now.

01:33:00.140 Can somebody come

01:33:00.940 down to get me?

01:33:01.700 I'm terribly badly

01:33:03.120 burned.

01:33:04.380 I'm not dead though.

01:33:05.740 I'm not dead.

01:33:06.960 It's funny that

01:33:07.680 Scrooge McDuck's got

01:33:08.360 most of his wealth

01:33:09.400 tied up in assets.

01:33:11.340 He's not cash rich.

01:33:12.880 And yet still,

01:33:13.680 he's got that.

01:33:14.280 I've never done an audit

01:33:15.200 on his businesses.

01:33:16.140 Do you want to read

01:33:19.560 through a couple of

01:33:20.280 the website comments

01:33:21.460 and then we'll call it?

01:33:25.200 Yeah,

01:33:25.720 let me find them.

01:33:26.720 Sorry.

01:33:27.060 Comment from Thomas Dowling.

01:33:28.880 I don't see the...

01:33:30.320 That says Thomas Dowling.

01:33:32.940 Thomas,

01:33:33.280 is that actually you?

01:33:35.700 Let me...

01:33:37.000 Would you like me to...

01:33:37.700 The document.

01:33:38.540 Yeah,

01:33:38.880 please if you want

01:33:39.520 because I can't

01:33:40.420 find the document.

01:33:41.760 Thomas Dowling...

01:33:44.140 Am I going to see

01:33:44.980 John Wheatley next?

01:33:46.140 Ex-Lotacy to Thomas Dowling.

01:33:47.600 Yeah.

01:33:48.460 Says,

01:33:49.020 Finland has some of

01:33:49.900 the highest taxes

01:33:50.560 and one of the largest

01:33:51.220 welfare states in Europe

01:33:52.340 and yet somehow

01:33:53.280 the happiest population.

01:33:54.600 We need more focus

01:33:55.360 on how the state

01:33:56.820 spends the taxpayers' money

01:33:58.080 unless on how big

01:33:59.580 the state is

01:34:00.380 in the abstract.

01:34:01.880 Deportations will cost

01:34:02.680 a lot of money,

01:34:03.300 clearly,

01:34:03.740 but that's a worthwhile

01:34:04.620 investment, isn't it?

01:34:06.280 But it's not just

01:34:07.480 an abstract thing.

01:34:08.100 Thomas Dowling isn't

01:34:08.560 actually who typed that,

01:34:09.840 but I agree with the sentiment.

01:34:11.400 But it's not an abstract thing

01:34:12.700 that we're talking about

01:34:13.460 in the first segment.

01:34:14.300 That's fair.

01:34:16.720 Omar Awad,

01:34:17.620 it always comes back

01:34:19.020 to that Thomas Sowell quote.

01:34:20.780 How much of other people's money

01:34:22.200 are you entitled to?

01:34:23.780 The answer for anyone

01:34:24.540 outside direct descendants

01:34:25.760 is always none,

01:34:27.120 but your wealth

01:34:27.800 is always a price

01:34:28.800 they are willing to pay.

01:34:31.480 Anything to add to that,

01:34:32.640 Stelios?

01:34:33.200 There's a classic

01:34:33.820 Thatcher quote.

01:34:34.820 I think it's Thatcher anyway.

01:34:36.260 The problem with socialism

01:34:37.380 is you always end up

01:34:38.260 running out of

01:34:38.760 other people's money.

01:34:39.560 That is a Thatcher quote.

01:34:42.440 Zesty King.

01:34:43.880 This is the question

01:34:44.580 that plagues MAGA.

01:34:45.880 What matters more,

01:34:46.780 America's economic prosperity

01:34:48.140 and position as world hegemon

01:34:49.400 or the demographic

01:34:50.300 and cultural integrity

01:34:51.560 of the American people?

01:34:52.980 See,

01:34:53.280 the problem with MAGA

01:34:54.160 is separating

01:34:54.860 those two questions out.

01:34:56.120 I don't think

01:34:56.600 they are separate questions,

01:34:58.120 and I think that

01:34:58.700 America's economic prosperity

01:35:00.300 and strength

01:35:01.660 on the global stage

01:35:02.940 would be better served

01:35:04.660 by the demographics

01:35:06.520 and cultural integrity

01:35:08.220 of America

01:35:09.040 when it assumed

01:35:10.680 cultural hegemony

01:35:12.060 across the world

01:35:13.020 and was the world's superpower.

01:35:15.820 Spoiler,

01:35:16.500 they're very different

01:35:17.160 to how they are today.

01:35:19.240 Michael Drybelbis.

01:35:21.920 Much as I enjoy

01:35:22.700 some of Heritage Foundation's

01:35:24.120 presentation,

01:35:24.960 they will respond

01:35:25.560 to the same pressure

01:35:26.360 as anyone else.

01:35:27.780 They talk big about

01:35:28.700 free speech

01:35:29.180 and opposing cancellation,

01:35:30.440 but basically allow

01:35:31.280 their bullfrog mouths 1.00

01:35:32.320 to get their tadpole asses 1.00

01:35:34.340 in trouble. 0.99

01:35:36.300 I've never heard

01:35:37.600 that phrase before,

01:35:38.760 but I like it.

01:35:40.660 And do you want to read

01:35:41.920 through a couple of yours?

01:35:42.780 Not everyone bows

01:35:43.460 to the pressure.

01:35:44.540 No,

01:35:44.920 not everybody does,

01:35:46.220 but if they don't

01:35:47.420 bow to the pressure,

01:35:48.360 they become

01:35:49.440 the Nick Fuentes.

01:35:52.420 Okay,

01:35:52.980 Jimbo G says,

01:35:53.740 Sarkozy is what an AI

01:35:55.240 would render

01:35:55.860 as a generic image

01:35:56.860 of a French man.

01:35:57.500 Yeah,

01:35:57.660 he does look quite Gallic, 0.61

01:35:58.680 does he?

01:35:58.940 Just at a glance,

01:35:59.700 he's quite Gallic looking.

01:36:01.000 I must say,

01:36:01.460 that's a fair point.

01:36:02.860 Baron Von Warhawk says,

01:36:05.580 this is Gaddafi's revenge 0.53

01:36:06.980 from beyond the grave.

01:36:08.160 The Libyan dictator 0.81

01:36:09.080 must have become a mummy 0.97

01:36:10.320 and has returned 0.82

01:36:11.380 to curse Sarkozy

01:36:13.080 for his betrayal.

01:36:14.840 Yeah.

01:36:16.380 Derek Power,

01:36:17.240 master of chippies,

01:36:18.100 says,

01:36:19.140 so Bo likes

01:36:20.520 violent dictators,

01:36:22.000 no wonder the ladies 1.00

01:36:22.880 swoon over him.

01:36:24.020 It's true.

01:36:24.880 I've seen it happen

01:36:25.740 myself,

01:36:26.460 in person.

01:36:27.100 He pulls that face

01:36:32.260 and they just can't resist.

01:36:34.720 And with that deep lore

01:36:36.740 that I have just revealed to you,

01:36:38.720 I think that's all

01:36:39.260 we've got time for today.

01:36:40.600 Thank you very much

01:36:41.240 for joining us.

01:36:41.860 We'll be back again tomorrow

01:36:42.900 as usual.

01:36:44.500 Till then,

01:36:45.120 take care.

01:36:45.520 Take care.

01:36:47.860 Take care.

01:36:50.740 Bye.

01:36:51.620 Bye.

01:36:52.360 Bye.

01:36:52.620 Bye.

01:36:53.300 Bye.

01:36:54.820 Bye.

01:36:55.560 Bye.

01:36:56.000 Bye.

01:36:56.700 Bye.

01:36:56.780 Bye.

01:36:57.500 Bye.

01:36:58.080 Bye.

01:36:58.900 Bye.

01:37:02.960 Bye.

01:37:03.860 Bye.

01:37:05.420 Bye.

01:37:05.760 Bye.

01:37:13.860 Bye.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - November 12, 2025

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1294

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