00:01:28.000I am Matt Gates, thrilled to be guest hosting here with some of the smartest people I know in Washington in the media and commentating on all of the interesting things going on in the news.
00:01:37.000We are what a week into this shutdown, and like many one week olds, the shutdown is getting crankier by the moment.
00:01:44.000And so we will analyze who is winning that and how we're likely to get out of it, and if we even really care, and is it going to affect people?
00:01:51.000Uh there's differing opinions on that subject and how we actually uh would address this shutdown as a mechanism to fight some of the challenging concentrations of power that are frequently discussed on this platform.
00:02:04.000We will talk about this day in history, uh, what it means from a foreign policy standpoint, from the US Israel relationship standpoint, and a lot of folks are talking about these things in the wake of uh Candace Owens releasing state uh text messages showcasing a real disagreement between Charlie Kirk and some folks who are trying to push him more in the direction of supporting a robust US Israel relationship.
00:02:27.000Turning point USA has responded to that.
00:02:29.000We will get into all of it, and we'll just take a trip around the world and see what the United States is up to in places like Somalia and Venezuela and Ukraine.
00:04:26.000Phil, as a counter-revolutionary, are you what are you rooting for in this shutdown?
00:04:30.000Uh well, I mean, we need to know where the counter-revolutionary force is here.
00:04:35.000I I mean, I like the fact that the government shut down because the government can't do bad things generally.
00:04:41.000Um, but if you really take an honest look at it, look, if the government's shut down, that doesn't mean that the military's not doing stuff.
00:04:48.000that doesn't mean that that you're gonna stop paying taxes or there's gonna be like a a two or three week break.
00:04:54.000So I think the American people that rely on the government for stuff kind of are the losers.
00:04:58.000Um, you know, like you were mentioning before the show, people that are are waiting on the VA to to f you know decide on what their their you know payment is for disability or or what have you.
00:05:09.000Um people that that are gonna be waiting in line at the T you know for TSA when they're down to just one one lane or whatever, the the you know, the the air traffic controllers.
00:05:19.000For the most part, it's the American people that lose.
00:05:22.000I I would like to say that the Democrats lose because they're the ones that kind of initiated it with unnecessarily, but it is legitimate the to say that the uh the tax breaks that were connected to the ACA and stuff like if if they don't get renewed or whatever, there's that's gonna be a significant increase for people that are actually paying uh their own uh insurance.
00:05:43.000Um so I I kind of feel like the American people are the losers, really.
00:05:47.000I I don't even know if the American people know what this is about yet.
00:05:50.000It has a sort of festivist energy to it.
00:05:52.000People are mad about the deportations, people are mad about the tariffs, people are mad about executive power.
00:05:58.000There's the Obamacare rug pull, which by the way, so rich that Democrats are blaming congressional Republicans for a cliff in credits that they set up.
00:06:08.000Like it's not like Republicans picked this day in history and said this will be the day that the Obamacare credits end.
00:06:13.000It was designed this way by the Democrats, and yet I do not see a single poll that suggests the American people are not blaming the Republicans for this in some way.
00:06:25.000Kurt Mills, can can you explain why Republicans are losing the messaging war on a shutdown objectively caused by the Democrats over external policy demands?
00:06:34.000Uh not really because no one's really paying attention to this thing, but I will attempt to.
00:06:38.000Um I think in general, the historical record since this shutdowns started, so government shutdowns of memories sort of began starting in the late 70s and through the mid eighties, but the very famous one that caught everyone's attention was the Gingrich Clinton first shutdown in the mid-90s.
00:06:53.000There's a second one that kind of uh presaged gingrich's exodus from politics or exodus from the House in the late 90s.
00:07:00.000And I looked into this a few years ago and there's very little correlation.
00:07:05.000People think like the government, you know, whoever is accused of of of causing the problem will lose the White House or lose the Congress afterwards.
00:07:12.000It's not clear at all, like literally.
00:07:15.000Uh and so uh I think that also sort of makes this not super important.
00:07:20.000I think if you had to put a p uh a finger on why the Republicans are getting blamed with the Democrats, is because there's an impression of Republican power right now because the Democrats are invisible, and so the sort of eyes glazed just scrolling through whatever is that Trump is the president, he sort of rules everything, Congress is uh, I guess a co-equal uh branch of government.
00:07:44.000Uh but the reality is uh that uh you know heavy lies the crown and so Trump is blamed for something going on in Washington, DC underneath his reign.
00:07:53.000Yeah, but we all know that you have to get 60 votes to pass a Mother's Day resolution in the United States Senate if you're not under the reconciliation rules.
00:08:01.000And so now Trump is being blamed for having not done something, keeping the governor government open that he cannot do without the Democrats.
00:08:09.000And it and it seems as though this is more of a spasm reaction where they just they need to fight on something.
00:08:15.000Like who's in charge of the Democratic Party right now?
00:08:18.000I would argue probably Gavin Newsom, because at least he is a guy utilizing his power in California to redraw congressional districts to seize power, to deprive Republicans of the majority they want.
00:08:30.000And uh the congressional Republicans or Democrats all look like they're just extras in the movie and they want to play a role.
00:08:38.000And so they've brought this shutdown upon the country.
00:08:43.000How do you think how do you think the White House ultimately responds to people that work for the executive branch of government missing a paycheck, missing two paychecks?
00:08:52.000Like I I I think there is uh a lot of good that can be done with the OMB Rust vote, clean out some of the dead wood, get rid of some commissions and councils and agencies.
00:09:02.000But at the same time, like we can't look like we're enjoying it too much.
00:09:06.000Well, I think that's why the Republicans are getting blamed, though.
00:09:08.000People, frankly, like they they've been able to create villains like vote like Miller.
00:09:12.000The Republicans are using this crisis as uh as a pretext to do all the scary things they want to do.
00:09:17.000Which we should, but we just shouldn't talk about it so much.
00:09:19.000Well, the White House has leaned into it.
00:09:21.000I mean, I mean, like he he Trump bragged for the first time overtly that of votes, Project 2025 associations, uh sort of a gleeful uh thing.
00:09:29.000I I haven't seen him use that word basically since he claimed that he didn't have a lot of people.
00:09:33.000No, it struck me as it was pre like the the shutdown gaining you know the uh the certainty of feeling.
00:09:42.000But you're still you're still a bit of a house nerd.
00:09:44.000Like the people are just really paying attention to the top lines here.
00:09:48.000Oh, I would I would I would run such a more dramatic shutdown.
00:09:51.000No, no, no, I I I told you off camera that uh that this is this is what's going on here is that you're not in the house.
00:09:56.000And so like it would be much more interesting if you were.
00:09:58.000Well, and and one of the uh pressure points people put on me when I deprived the speaker of the necessary votes, and and then when I remove the speaker is now we're not getting to the important business.
00:10:09.000To which I was like, what, Biden's agenda?
00:10:11.000Like what we can't rush to go and like give Joe Biden the next version of the CHIPS Act or his next like military supplemental number.
00:10:21.000I remember I didn't really mind like if we just sat around and played tiddly wings and didn't have a speaker and uh you know did not advance demise.
00:10:31.000Not in a nihilistic way, but I just didn't feel I didn't feel pressure.
00:10:34.000Whereas here, Trump will want to get stuff done that people will tell him will be somewhat impaired, and then stuff is just gonna start to happen that's annoying.
00:10:42.000When you have to wait four hours to get through TSA, it's gonna suck.
00:10:46.000When you when you just see like a third of the flights canceled because a bunch of the air traffic controllers called in sick because they weren't getting paid, that's gonna suck.
00:10:53.000And uh I I wonder how people react to it.
00:10:55.000Well, I I mean I'll tell you, you know, this it's tough to even be aware that there's a shutdown, you know, from what I do, because I focus all on US foreign policy.
00:11:03.000Um I I keep forgetting that there's a shutdown because we keep bombing places and shipping weapons to Israel, like that that hasn't stopped.
00:11:10.000Um so it is kind of the worst elements of the government that continue, you know, and and it's things like you mentioned that actually get shut down.
00:11:26.000Uh we're only like seven days into the shutdown, so I don't think until people really start feeling the pain, will it matter?
00:11:31.000And I think the important conversation we need to have right now is too about um is why are the Democrats holding out and uh the current incentive structure surrounding the Democrats is that they need to posture and show that they are fighting back against Trump to their base because Schumer and um who and and Jeffries need to demonstrate to their base so they cover their left word flank from people attacking them.
00:11:53.000So I think that's the real issue at hand here.
00:11:58.000That they just have to show how long until that burns off.
00:12:02.000They need to be able to go back to their constituents and say we are fighting the fascism that is Trump.
00:12:06.000Trump is trying to do mass deportations and we are trying to hold him up in in the house.
00:12:10.000That is gonna be more and more ridiculous.
00:12:12.000People like fascism wasn't my letter carrier who delivered the mail, but now like Ethel isn't getting paid, and I think that's kind of unfair.
00:12:19.000And like the you know, the face of fascism isn't some airman who is stuck at Ramstein Air Force Base, like with a family wondering if they're gonna be able to provide for it.
00:12:28.000Now, you're what you're talking about is honestly like that's that's tangible reality stuff, and what he's talking about is just like the base of the Democrats that don't need any contact with reality.
00:12:39.000They just want people to tell them, hey, I'm fighting Donald Trump, which is a terrible way to do politics, but it is the way that it's a good thing.
00:12:45.000So let me grant the premise that that that Curtin David laid out, which is no one actually cares yet.
00:12:52.000How long what what is the point at which uh the things I'm saying about angst around shutdowns actually becomes part part of the body politic?
00:13:03.000I think I think it's once a couple pay periods.
00:13:06.000I don't think I don't think it'll be two or three months.
00:13:08.000I think a couple pay maybe maybe this, I guess this Friday is when people would are supposed to get paid.
00:13:12.000When the people that are reliant on the government for their their whatever, their their pay or or whatever uh funding they get, when those people don't get paid and then they're complaining to their friends at work.
00:13:24.000That like when when people that hear, oh, my my neighbor or my the guy in the cubicle next to me or what have you, he can't make his his his mortgage payment because they're the government shutdown.
00:13:35.000That kind of stuff is when it's the median checking account balance in the country is like $2,800.
00:13:40.000Yeah, that's why we're in the Chad GPT.
00:13:45.000And I think once once word gets around that there are people suffering.
00:13:48.000At that point, will the Republicans at least be able to say that they didn't cause this?
00:13:51.000How bad do you think the shutdown was in 1819?
00:13:54.000Uh I think it was one of the three points during Donald Trump's presidency, where his approval rating wasn't durably at 42%.
00:14:02.000If you look at at three times during Trump's presidency, where he dipped a little before that very durable 42, it was Charlottesville, Helsinki, and when he got out of that shutdown, because a lot of people felt like if there was going to be the pain of this shutdown, uh there should be the payoff of the wall money that he sought and you know ultimately got out of the house.
00:14:28.000If it goes past the Halloween thirty getting pretty bad.
00:14:30.000Okay, so the let me let me posit this other theory, Phil.
00:14:34.000I believe the elites have insulated themselves from the pain of shutdowns.
00:14:38.000Like there's no real part of life for the American elite that is going to change about a shutdown.
00:14:44.000And so, in a way, it's quite corruptly something where the the elites by virtue of this this performance politics are causing the problem, but life kind of goes on in the clouds.
00:14:58.000Yeah, I think that the the aver the people that are being hurt are obviously people that live paycheck to paycheck.
00:15:05.000And and like you said, like that's the vast majority of of I don't know about the vast majority of Americans, but that's probably the majority of Americans.
00:15:13.000And and so, you know, the elites there look at if you if you own assets, right?
00:15:18.000You own a couple hundred thousand dollars in stock and you got a a portfolio and stuff, like it it's like, all right, well, if I need to pay for something, I can sell a stock.
00:15:27.000And it's like it sucks because they don't want to, but it's not like I can't do this.
00:15:42.000The futures markets didn't take any days off.
00:15:44.000Like nobody's nobody's CDs stopped paying if they had accumulated wealth.
00:15:48.000No one's home stopped appreciating in value, right?
00:15:50.000So the boomers did did just fine in the shutdown.
00:15:53.000So there uh Mark Mitchell's this pollster for Rasmussen.
00:15:55.000He comes on my program, he posit deposits this theory that actually Trump needs the shutdown to reconstitute his base of the under 39 crowd.
00:16:05.000That like if you look at uh at the time of the election, the age group that made the most meaningful contribution to the Trump coalition as a distinct force in American politics, it was the 18 to 39 crowd.
00:16:17.000And largely the reason they voted for Trump was because they believed they had lived in a system that had screwed them over for their most of their adult life, and they they believe Trump would do more violence to that system than Kamala Harris.
00:16:31.000So do you think they're happy about this then?
00:16:33.000Well, I I I the pollster was saying since the election, that cohort has degraded to some extent.
00:16:42.000And they have degraded because they uh have seen Trump assume power and become the system.
00:16:49.000And like not everything was uh taken down to its studs in the first week or in the first year, and there is some uh discontent with that.
00:16:59.000And so what what uh happened in the administration that swelled approval rating among that constituency the most was the doge stuff.
00:17:08.000Like when people every day got another dopamine hit of like these are the USAID workers walking out of the building, here's everybody from the Department of Education taking their protractors and chalkboard erasers home.
00:17:20.000Like there was a sense that like, yeah, we're actually making a fundamental difference here.
00:17:25.000Uh does does Trump need the shutdown in some sense to get back that cohort?
00:17:32.000I don't think 18 to 39-year-olds who voted for the president in large numbers in the past election are particularly um interested enough in politics to know about the shutdown.
00:17:42.000I feel like it just hasn't hit the average everyday Americans yet in a tangible way.
00:17:46.000Like I said, and most Americans probably don't even know that the shutdown is happening.
00:17:49.000If you're not tapped into politics, you likely don't know that the shutdown's happening.
00:18:09.000And you know, I I've never been personally affected by a government shutdown, but I'm not an elite.
00:18:14.000I'm someone if I didn't make two paychecks, I'd be in trouble.
00:18:17.000But uh, you know, the I'm just saying, like for I have the instinct, maybe because I am in that 18 to 39 range that when I hear a shutdown, I go, aha, you know, the you know, they're to take that feds or something.
00:18:31.000But the points you make are are valid that it's not like the you know, the the people really running the show who are being affected by this.
00:18:40.000I think you're a little bit more tapped in because you're a former member of the House.
00:18:42.000So you hear shutdown and your alarms are going off, but to most people they're like a government shut shutdown.
00:18:47.000Like I'm disappointed they didn't do it with Panache.
00:18:49.000No, I mean I think I think there is something I mean something about this shutdown.
00:18:54.000I I think we've entered a new, and there's nothing about this Congress.
00:18:57.000This is this is the most boring Congress I can remember in my lifetime.
00:19:03.000People asked about whether or not Mike Johnson should be replaced as House Speaker, and I said, Mike Johnson will give President Trump anything he wants.
00:19:55.000I mean, Jeffries is getting super beat up this year because of all this Mam Dani stuff.
00:19:58.000So, like uh so and then Schumer's worried about a primary from AOC.
00:20:02.000Yeah, well they're both trying to demonstrate.
00:20:04.000They're trying to demonstrate that their ability to like fight back against Trump to try to cover that left work flank is my political understanding.
00:20:10.000Then who is the le answer your own question?
00:20:25.000If you're if you're old, white and male in the Democratic Party, yeah, your your days are no longer.
00:20:30.000And then on and more hawkish than average on the B. So I agree, I agree with you about Newsom, but what does that say?
00:20:36.000Because I I also agree with Matt about his about, you know, like if you're old white and male.
00:20:41.000Not that Newsom's particularly old, but he's a white guy, and his when you take a look at a picture of his family, everybody's blonde, blue-eyed and stuff, and that just you know, the Democrats are allergic to that now.
00:20:50.000What does that say to his ability to actually get win a primary?
00:20:55.000You know, I I think there's a lot of sort of self-flagellation and hatred on the Democratic side.
00:20:59.000I I've heard a a lot of like we're not gonna make that mistake of nominating a woman again.
00:21:04.000And we're not gonna make the mistake of uh nominating a minority again.
00:21:07.000And so uh I think that's not why they lost.
00:21:10.000Uh, but I think a lot of Democrats, because they are so plugged in on identity politics, believe that identity politics are super real, and uh accordingly, this could redound to Newsom's benefit.
00:21:21.000Um I think Trump, they're like, maybe it'll work with any white people it worked with Biden for us.
00:21:28.000I mean, I think there's like I mean, like I think it's it's it would be i uh so we're very far out.
00:21:32.000I mean, if we're having this conversation in October of 2021, I think DeSantis might have been traded high higher in the markets than Trump, and that would have been really dumb.
00:21:40.000And so, but uh right now it seems Newsom's a very soft front runner, and maybe in the way that like Pete been around, Mayor Pete.
00:21:47.000Well, I mean he feel like he's getting a big thing.
00:21:52.000I was just gonna say the Democratic Party.
00:21:55.000If you're trying to build your coalition out of like yuppies, transsexuals, and like the you know, the pitbull adopting lesbians, there's not enough of them that vote in the yeah, but faction too.
00:22:06.000Yeah, right, like the the left, the left toy.
00:22:09.000Yeah, the left doesn't the left toys are gonna lose their mind if Ben Buddhist is the nominee.
00:22:14.000Newsom is a little bit like Biden, where it's like uh, you know, he doesn't he's not really one of our guys, but he's not ideologically committed to the center in this way, and I feel like they're they're not gonna revolt on it.
00:22:24.000I mean, California is the great liberal progressive project.
00:22:27.000It's it's being covered very mediocrely.
00:22:29.000Uh, but you know, they don't he doesn't rankle them in the same way.
00:22:34.000Matt, I wanted to follow up with something you hit on because um the Speaker Johnson's obviously one of the most important politicians uh in Washington, DC.
00:22:41.000Are were you in effect saying that he's sort of a rubber stamp on the mega agenda?
00:22:56.000So my my point my point is that the House uh is there to simply facilitate the actions of the administration.
00:23:04.000And I think most uh people in the House would say at this point we're fine with that.
00:23:07.000We haven't been well led by really anyone.
00:23:10.000Uh and we we have no unifying principle.
00:23:13.000One of the frustrating things for me about being in that meeting of 200 plus House Republicans is there was no thing that really united us.
00:23:21.000There were like seven different political parties in the room.
00:23:24.000We were we were barely a coalition, and uh I think that you know that doesn't lend to a speaker having the authority to go and say we're gonna do welfare reform, we're gonna do you know, spending reform, agency reform, sunset different features of the case.
00:23:40.000The weakest Congress has been in American history.
00:23:52.000And uh does Mickey miss George Santos at all?
00:23:56.000I always gave it to the hilarious that goes without saying so yeah, no, George Santos is back in his camp.
00:24:03.000I can I can confirm after speaking to his lawyer today that George Santos has been returned from solitary confinement to his uh more amenable camp.
00:24:14.000Wow, uh he had been in solitary confinement because the FBI was investigating a plot to assassinate George Santos in prison.
00:24:23.000Oh, reflected in a series of letters being presented.
00:24:31.000I know Representative Green said she was lobbying for a pardon for Santos.
00:24:35.000Do you think Santos deserves a pardon?
00:24:37.000Uh I I think that uh George Santos probably will not serve his entire term.
00:24:43.000I think whether it's a commutation or a pardon or you know, some other feature of the justice system, I I don't know that like George Santos being locked up for seven years was a just result for misusing credit cards on OnlyFans and Ermays.
00:24:58.000And by the way, you know what he spent the Hermai's money on partially?
00:25:01.000He bought gifts for members of the steering committee.
00:25:04.000Because they tell you when you get to Congress that that your fate w uh rests on whether the steering committee will put you on your committees of preference.
00:25:12.000And so for me, I was like, well, how do I get on the Armed Services Committee?
00:25:15.000And they said, You have to have 150,000 to us in the next 10 days.
00:25:39.000He he flipped uh important seat on Long Island and uh, you know, once they kicked him out of Congress, they had to deal with an even slimmer majority, which is part and parcel why Congress is so weak right now and and Mike Johnson can't do much.
00:25:50.000Do you think do you think that we had if we all yeah, if we had like a 220 like you know uh is there, like a three seat or thirty or two hundred and forty, I don't think it would be fundamentally different.
00:26:00.000I mean think we have two twenty-two now something.
00:26:02.000I don't know, are we caught are we counting Massey as a Republican or not?
00:26:04.000Because I don't know, often he supports anything.
00:26:49.000Like imaginable for more wars overseas for I mean, like I mean, Massey should be the heart of what the party's well I think the president's agenda is agenda.
00:26:57.000I think if Thomas Massey ran on a national platform that on that platform in a national race, he would lose badly.
00:27:03.000He's not running for president, he's not a good thing.
00:27:22.000Thomas Massey could get into a race like that, cobble up enough like libertarian kind of Jeff Yass money and uh could be a force and could be in the United States Senate.
00:27:34.000That could be an easier path than what you describe as a very uh doesn't sound like they doesn't sound like they have much of a in his seat.
00:27:41.000I mean, they I they haven't really recruited anybody credible.
00:27:44.000If we support parts of the mega agenda that include things like mass deportations, having these flip floppy libertarian type Republicans in the party is what holds us back, and they're essentially a Trojan horse for the left in our party.
00:27:58.000Rand Paul, when Rand Paul questions deportation.
00:28:02.000And when Thomas Massey tries to hold up the continuum resolutions in Congress, and then when libertarians go and rally at their anti-war rallies with communists, I think there's specials to be had about how much of how much they're truly helping Republicans or just you know a Trojan left.
00:28:17.000For against some of the dumbest things in public policy in the last seven years.
00:28:24.000Uh, you know, I don't agree with him on everything, but like this this man is so much more interesting.
00:28:29.000He's pretty much the only Congress that I like him and uh Marjorie Taylor Green, I would like the only ones that I what is the MAGA agenda?
00:28:36.000You can say the MAGA agenda all the time.
00:28:38.000Well, Speaker Johnson and Thomas Massey have two very different jobs, right?
00:28:42.000Speaker Johnson is trying to get all the Republicans in a caucus on the same page so they could continue to pass legislation that's broadly popular with the Republicans.
00:28:49.000Thomas Massey just needs to play to his base, and it's a completely different, you know, organization that he has to run.
00:28:54.000You know where I used to fight with him was on the antitrust stuff.
00:28:58.000But on the Judiciary Committee, when I would try to have the back of like the Gail Slater type policy around uh concentrated corporate power, you know, when I had views that were at times maybe I was the Democrat.
00:29:11.000Uh I had views aligned with, you know, uh uh, you know, people like Jerry Nadler on on the question of antitrust enforcement.
00:29:18.000And uh Massey was like very reliably with the corporate right against that kind of bull moose energy of uh of our movement.
00:29:29.000Yeah no, but like it shows that there's nuance to these things.
00:29:32.000Yeah, but I don't think you can paint someone's like pro-MAGA, anti-MAGA.
00:29:36.000Well, the president does and so I think he has the mantle to say so.
00:29:40.000The issue with um like being in government and being an anti-government guy, it's like you're it's self-defeating.
00:29:45.000It's like I you're you're elected to effectively not get much done.
00:29:49.000Like that's this is this I mean I remember Massey spoke at uh tax uh the American Conservative of the magazine that I'm uh the executive director of.
00:29:56.000He spoke at uh one of our events uh this is before I was involved in the magazine formally in November of 2016, and I distinctly remember this.
00:30:03.000And he was the I'm not even sure this video's online, but he was the keynote speaker of it.
00:30:07.000Um he talked about how that you know of the candidates in the 2016 primary field, uh, that Trump was his second favorite.
00:30:18.000Um, that he waited a little bit to endorse him because Mr. Trump was very mean to Rand Paul, his good friend during that race, and but ideologically, although they hadn't gotten the Rand Paul presidency, Massey was pretty happy with what the result was.
00:30:32.000Compare that with the Mark Levin's of the party, the Ted Cruz's of the party, but the outright never Trumpers who are quote on the MAGA agenda, on the president's agenda.
00:30:48.000Massey actually was there in the grassroots at the beginning 10 years ago.
00:30:53.000Yeah, Rand was his guy, but Trump was a second choice, and I think we should defer to someone like that uh over people who just say they are for this stuff, but it's basically MAGA and drag.
00:31:03.000It's fascinating that you have to go back almost a decade.
00:31:06.000We could go off what the president says and thinks right now on the case.
00:31:52.000And so we always had to deal with Massey on that question.
00:31:54.000But I on on uh he was also initially not too thrilled about using the military money for the wall, but I think I think ultimately APAC and you know his stance on Israel.
00:32:06.000That's one of the big reasons why he's the only reason.
00:32:10.000And I know you're pretty pro-Israel, so that might be one of your problems with him too.
00:32:13.000I think Israel's great, but I think based on our conversation and what we've said so far, I think him being antithetical to the MAGA agenda is the bigger issue at hand.
00:32:27.000Okay, so he's weak on the board, he's weak on the border and immigration to get the wheel.
00:32:31.000Well no, we have we haven't established that there's there's just two things that he had issues with.
00:32:34.000He didn't he isn't hasn't made any kind of stink about all of the mass deportation stuff.
00:32:40.000Like you don't see him getting out in front of Congress or getting out in front of the press saying, you know, Donald Trump needs to stop sending the the National Guard to Chicago.
00:32:48.000He needs to stop sending the National Guard to the United States.
00:32:50.000Well, Rand Paul suggested that we shouldn't use the military mass.
00:33:09.000Massey has not said anything about having a problem with using the National Guard to defend ICE while they're trying to carry out their lawful duties.
00:33:19.000He hasn't said anything that I'm aware of about the mass deportations that we've done so far.
00:33:24.000So the idea that he's he's an obstructionist to the to the probably the most important issue in the quote unquote MAGA agenda is just that's just ridiculous.
00:33:52.000I mean, I just want to run through a couple examples because I wanted to give specific things.
00:33:55.000So we voted against funding for the border wall and ice spending HR 3401, and then recently in 2023, he was opposed to the Secure the Burder Act as well.
00:34:04.000So I'm saying flimsy, weak obstructionist libertarian types when it comes to the biggest thing.
00:34:09.000I think you'd be called flimsy and weak when he's when it comes to standing up on party.
00:34:23.000I stopped calling myself a libertarian.
00:34:24.000Doesn't mean that I'm not sympathetic to a lot of their policies, but I don't call myself a libertarian.
00:34:28.000I think that's the president on this one.
00:34:29.000I think there's more of a libertarian streak in MAGA, at least there was at the beginning because we were like outcasts.
00:34:35.000If you supported Trump over candidacies like Rubio or Jeb, you were there was something like a little off about you.
00:34:42.000And then it it we were kind of the the I think he ate Rand Paul's constituency.
00:34:46.000I think a ramp Ram Rand Paul was what was super hot in 2014, 2015.
00:34:51.000I think uh Rand got somewhat unlucky by the rise of ISIS.
00:34:54.000Um I mean, if you talk to Rand reporters, uh sorry, Rand Flax, Rand operatives, they would say basically their problem was that you know, quietly maybe Rand isn't uh presidential charisma, and then also Jihad John, the the ISIS better guy who got very famous at the time that ran out Rand Paul was on the Time magazine.
00:35:11.000But Trump was echoing all of this stuff.
00:35:14.000He just did it in this sort of more nuanced way versus you know, Rand was obviously associated with his father's, you know, pretty down the line.
00:35:21.000Trump was a far better communicator than Rand uh about Randall.
00:35:24.000Trump was far too Donald Trump is Donald Trump.
00:35:27.000Trump is far taller than Rand Paul, and as a short guy, I know like that matters, especially when you're running for president.
00:35:32.000Okay, so I I do want to get into uh the what has got the internet going crazy today, and it's these Charlie Kirk text messages.
00:35:42.000Uh can we get this Candace Owens clip of her going through the uh the texts that that originally were questioned as to authenticity, but but were later authenticated.
00:37:14.000So after that hit the uh interwebs, you had a lot of people questioning whether or not that was legit.
00:37:20.000Andrew Colvet, uh, the person who, you know, other than Charlie Kirk's family, I believe Andrew Colvet probably loved Charlie Kirk more than any other person on the planet Earth.
00:37:29.000Uh was constantly at his side, his business partner, uh, his co-operative on almost every project.
00:37:35.000Here's Andrew Colvet addressing those text messages.
00:37:40.000Some of the things that have been going around on public, namely about a text, a group text chain that has been made known uh and released uh by Candace Owens.
00:37:51.000And I just want to address it head on because uh, you know, that was a text grab, a screen grab that I had shared uh with people.
00:38:00.000And I want to go into it because I actually am really excited that the the truth is out there.
00:38:05.000I first want to say the reason I have I didn't share that screen grab publicly is because it was a private, it was a private exchange, and I felt like it didn't necessarily comport with things that were already public.
00:38:19.000I wanted to not betray my friend's trust in that way.
00:38:22.000But I did share it with some people in government because it happened really quick.
00:38:26.000It was a you know, it took 33 hours for authorities to get their suspect.
00:38:31.000And in that first in those first moments, we wanted no stone unturned.
00:38:44.000So one of the reasons, Blake, that I'm glad to have this now public.
00:38:50.000It was not mine to share publicly, but you know, one of the criticisms we've been we've received is that we don't care, we're not investigating every lead, we're not looking under every stone, and that somehow we're just like, you know, sweeping things under the rug.
00:39:04.000And when I say that we want justice for Charlie more than anybody else, I really mean it.
00:39:30.000So the the lead there to me is Andrew Colvett, who's there and in the moments following Charlie Kirk's death, feels the need to share this message with someone in government with some responsibility to investigate the the murder of Charlie.
00:39:48.000Well, I want to ask you something about this because I saw that you had Max Blumenthal on your show recently.
00:39:53.000Yeah, to talk about his reporting about this.
00:39:56.000And in that text, he talks about the pressure uh for having Tucker and and Candace there.
00:40:00.000And it seemed like in that interview, you suggested that there might have been some pressure about having you speak at turning point events.
00:40:07.000Well, uh first of all, in the moments where Charlie was having those discussions, he was reflecting the very same thing to me.
00:40:14.000That he was feeling this dual pressure.
00:40:16.000He had been pro-Israel uh and had defended Israel's right to exist publicly and forcefully, and yet at the same time, he was willing to platform someone like Tucker Carlson, who is a hero, and uh platform someone like me who I I've taken controversial positions on on foreign policy matters, and there were people who are contributing to this experience for young people who didn't feel like the voices that you would get from a Tucker Carlson or a Mac Gates or a Candace Owens.
00:40:42.000Not not that we're a homogenized group, but uh that those viewpoints would not be helpful for young people to hear.
00:40:49.000Charlie resisted that, but I'm telling you, this was a guy who this pained him.
00:40:53.000Because I have a different viewpoint on on this than Kurt does.
00:40:56.000Kurt said on my program recently, he wants a divorce from the Israel first crowd in on the right.
00:41:04.000That he doesn't believe that these things, in if I'm paraphrasing you incorrectly, you can say I actually want a movement on the right that can exist with people who want to listen to Mark Levin and hold his views, but then also those who don't want to go to war over uh the Middle East anymore.
00:41:21.000And uh I actually think that that was what Charlie worked so hard to try to curate, keeping these things together.
00:41:27.000And there is a part of me who uh Char Charles is my friend, cared deeply for him, you know, that's I you see this play out publicly, and and it's not what Charlie would have wanted.
00:41:36.000He would not have wanted his death to be something that's like yeah, that like accelerated the the divorce.
00:41:44.000Um he really was trying to like stay together for the kids, or at least the midterms.
00:41:50.000Yeah, I mean the whole thing is really interesting.
00:41:53.000Like I I remember I watched you on on Matt's show when you talk about you want a beautiful divorce basically from the Israeli military, right?
00:42:00.000I mean this is I think that I think there's the term is now getting uh perhaps more than I anticipated.
00:42:05.000But yeah, I think I think that U.S. foreign policy should be beautifully divorced from Israeli foreign policy.
00:42:10.000But do you think the right in America can exist with the pro-Israel contingent and the contingent that reads the American conservative and questions the depth of this relationship?
00:42:20.000I mean, again, like this is a this is like a shell, right?
00:42:23.000So like uh like Netanyahu is the prime minister, and it's a question of what Israel be without Netanyahu as prime minister, and it's a question of what Israel is becoming.
00:42:31.000But in the current time, uh functionally one on offer is this, which is uh Israel is gonna prosecute this forever war.
00:42:39.000Uh it is now heightened from uh sort of back channeling in Washington, DC and New York City and other places to try to get the U.S. involved in Israel's wars that that's been going on since the eighties and nineties um to outright uh this is the whole thing.
00:42:55.000And I remember talking uh to somebody, this is like a month or two ago, and this is a somebody who does not have my foreign policy uh priors.
00:43:02.000Um, but they were like, you know, the thing that you you you do raise, Kurt, that I think is fair.
00:43:08.000And this is a person who is I you know, this person Jewish, this person is uh probably supportive of Israel's campaign against Hamas.
00:43:14.000Um this person said though, uh the thing about the Israel crowd, though, is they ask for everything.
00:43:21.000It is the whole political capital of the administration right now.
00:43:25.000And so I'm far more skeptical of ability for the of the Mark Levin's uh and the people who want something more like a divorce to exist within the same movement or the same party, because the reality is what is President Trump spent a lot of time on?
00:43:40.000Uh I think you need a uh a tough measure here, which is cutting US military support for Israel, cutting U.S. diplomatic support for Israel as long as the war goes on, and a red line on really caring about Iran, and then we can talk.
00:43:55.000Uh there are certainly similarities between the Israeli project and the American project.
00:44:00.000Uh, but for now, for the foreseeable future, um, I don't see a way in which these two societies can really coexist in a way that U.S. can pursue its interests first.
00:44:10.000Can I follow up on something that you said uh just one point on the end here?
00:44:16.000How do you think the United States should react to Iran's perceived nuclear ambitions?
00:44:21.000I mean, at this point we're so deep in this game, but like I I think the reality is we have an offer on table.
00:44:27.000The offer on the table from the Iranians in April of this year, uh with you know, in Oman in Muscat with Witcoff's team, was 3.76% enrichment, which is nowhere near nuclear bomb bomb grade.
00:44:40.000And the U.S. could have accepted that.
00:44:42.000Above ground inspections were also rumored.
00:44:44.000Uh these are not uh UN inspections, these are American inspectors that you can put in the biggest tough ass non-prolificer.
00:45:00.000It's a better deal than the Obama deal.
00:45:02.000And I think Trump and the U.S. should take it.
00:45:04.000I think that deal could still be procured.
00:45:07.000And I think that's much better than the track we're on.
00:45:09.000Is that to say that you don't think the United States should allow Iran to ultimately acquire nuclear weapons?
00:45:16.000I think it's a false question because there's a deal on offer to avoid that.
00:45:20.000Yeah, that wouldn't be like the other scenario wouldn't be just letting Iran have a nuclear weapon.
00:45:24.000You know, they're moving, we're making it way more likely.
00:45:26.000Like not dealing with Tehran diplomatically could make them conclude that we have to lunge for some sort of rudimentary bomb.
00:45:33.000We have we have made every policy choice to make nuclear proliferation more likely.
00:45:37.000So if what we're really talking about is nuclear proliferation, it's the Hawks who are agnostic about whether or not they get the bomb.
00:45:44.000And another thing about that deal, I just want to mention so the apparently the deal that was on the table that they were discussing would have been some sort of consortium for the nuclear enrichment for that 3.67%.
00:45:54.000There wouldn't be any Iranian only it would even have this absurd, basically Israeli invented neoconservative invented uh pretext of zero enrichment.
00:46:03.000There was even a sort of hole in the Death Star, if you will, to have zero Iranian only enrichment.
00:46:09.000It would have been shared with Saladi and possibly that further.
00:46:14.000But that was on the agenda for the talks on June 15th.
00:46:17.000You remember there was a there's supposed to be talks between the U.S. I've heard mixed things about whether or not that could have actually happened.
00:46:26.000And what did President Trump say on Truth Social when the Israeli jets were in the air?
00:46:30.000He said, Oh, I'm committed to a diplomatic solution with the Iranians or something along those lines.
00:46:36.000And according to the reporting, he sent that out when the Israeli jets were in the air, when they were attacking Iran.
00:46:43.000Um so you know, this relationship, it's made us complicit in in you know going back on our word, just d destroying our diplomatic credibility like that.
00:46:51.000And I think it just it shows how toxic.
00:46:53.000So you think our diplomatic credibility is even judged by our relationship with Iran?
00:46:57.000I mean, they they I think I mean in the region, like uh, you know, what we the things that we say and do they all hate Iran in the region.
00:47:04.000Uh though those Sunni countries around there, they view Iran as as a participant in this mischief to some degree.
00:48:02.000I mean, I I think that I think the Obama deal was basically working.
00:48:05.000Uh Trump wanted to have a better deal, so that was what he was cited.
00:48:10.000I mean, if you go back to April of 2020, uh, that's when he flushed out McMaster.
00:48:14.000Uh, he flushed out Rex Tillerson, and he installed Pompeo in Bolton.
00:48:18.000And I think it's pretty clear that he wanted to leave the Iran deal because Obama signed it.
00:48:23.000And uh meanwhile, the guys who wrote the policy on it uh wanted no deal.
00:48:28.000They were his rationale uh for leaving the deal was super personalistic and different than Bolton and Pompeo's.
00:48:36.000Trump said he would meet with the Ayatollah.
00:48:38.000Uh this is the guy who wanted to bring the Taliban, I know not Iran, wanted to bring the Taliban to Camp David.
00:48:43.000His uh justification was basically he didn't personally negotiate uh this deal with Iran.
00:48:48.000Now, putting aside whether or not that's a great thing for the president of the United States to do, that's what he did.
00:48:53.000Uh but I think veil of ignorance, he wants a deal.
00:48:56.000And I think if you didn't have Israeli subterfuge and neoconservatives within the Republican Party uh making all of these moves, we would already have a deal.
00:49:04.000Aaron Powell Do you think there is any deal that could be done with Iran that would please the more pro-Israel components of the political right?
00:49:12.000So there's a few different um things that I feel like we need to talk to about to like include in the part of the the conversation.
00:49:18.000So I feel like uh with Obama's deal, if I'm not mistaken, there was an ultimately a timeline, which down the line they were able to achieve uh a nuclear bomb.
00:49:26.000No, no, it's a sunset provisions that the deal the deal had to be renegotiated in 10 to 15 years.
00:49:30.000But that but that would be had the non proliferation treaty.
00:49:34.000They still would have been a signatory to the non proliferation treaty.
00:49:36.000Yeah, and I guess there's also the issue of Iranian proxies in the region, which is responsible to uh of the death.
00:49:42.000Well, but before we get to the proxies, just on this question of denuclearization.
00:49:46.000Because I think I think the proxy question is a total of the problem.
00:49:48.000No, because if we don't okay, so the consequences of not having an Iran nuclear deal, though, is significant um sanctions on Iran.
00:49:55.000And then if we have those significant sanctions on Iran, they're not in a position to support their proxies as much.
00:50:00.000So that's why this gets tangled up in all of that.
00:50:19.000Because uh as an American, I know that these Iranian proxies have the death of more American service members on their hands than any bomb that they'd ultimately acquire.
00:50:29.000I think a tough thing that needs to be a lot of people.
00:50:33.000I mean, uh Iranian nuclear bomb that doesn't exist hasn't killed any American service members, but their proxy groups have already are responsible for the deaths of hundreds, depending on how you count it.
00:50:41.000I think a big question here too is how much of a threat is Iran really?
00:50:45.000You are in Congress, you I'm sure you were in you have more uh access to information regarding the threat from them.
00:50:50.000When they say things like death to America and I mean the fact that the Iranian revolution was based on anti-Americanism, uh how serious should we take their threats?
00:50:58.000Are they just posturing to try to get you know popularity within their country?
00:51:02.000Or do they mean it when they say these stuff, this stuff, and attack our troops in the Middle East?
00:51:06.000Some people say we shouldn't have them in there to begin with, but I don't even take it all that seriously when people scream in my face.
00:51:12.000I certainly don't take it that seriously when they scream at me across several oceans.
00:51:16.000So an Islamist Islamists screams death to America, and you're not taking that threat seriously.
00:51:38.000Iran, even if Iran had a ballistic missile that could shoot at us, they don't have a re-entry vehicle to get a warhead back in into the atmosphere.
00:51:45.000And so, like when I look at their kind of chance and their their naughty talk toward us, it just means less to me.
00:51:51.000What about a guy who joined Al Qaeda after 9-11 to go fight Americans in Iraq and then went over to Syria to found Al Qaeda in Syria, and then he becomes the president and we welcome him to New York City.
00:52:02.000Like, you do you have a problem with that?
00:52:06.000I think my neo connery is going to go there.
00:52:08.000Like, I don't know, no, I'm just saying, suggesting that I support the president of Syria.
00:52:12.000No, I'm just saying that the talking points about death to America, their proxies being a threat to us, like it it's just clearly being used to push an agenda when on the other hand in Syria we've literally just rolled out the not thinking this is the same.
00:52:24.000We literally just rolled out the red carpet for uh the leader of al Qaeda in Syria.
00:52:29.000Uh and you think I'm a big fan of that?
00:53:10.000Matt, do you think that Iran shouldn't be able to acquire nuclear weapons, or do you think the president should have gone into that nuclear deal with uh with whatever percentages are?
00:53:17.000I don't know how we think we're gonna stop any of these Gulf countries from acquiring nuclear weapons.
00:53:23.000Especially security guarantees, that's what it's been.
00:53:25.000I kind of think that in our lifetime, Saudi's gonna have a nuclear weapon, the UAE will have a nuclear weapon, Qatar will have a nuclear weapon, Iran will have a nuclear weapon.
00:53:34.000I I think the era of proliferation in the Middle East is upon us.
00:53:40.000But when you look at the democratization of talent around this space, you're not going to be able to keep that amount of money away from that amount of desire to have the deterrent that a nuclear weapon affords.
00:53:52.000The Israelis cooked up the proliferation issue in the 90s.
00:53:54.000I mean, like, I mean like I mean, you don't think you don't think all those countries you don't think all those Countries acquire nuclear weapon.
00:54:01.000I I think if we can get a durable deal with the Iranians that they won't proliferate.
00:54:05.000I think I think if that uh if Netanyahu is allowed to toss over a country uh again, then uh Istanbul is gonna panic, Saudi's gonna panic, Egypt's gonna panic, and I think then you will see a lunch of the bomb.
00:54:17.000That's just the Saudi sign that defense deal with Pakistan.
00:54:20.000Yeah, which is the heavy nuclear game.
00:54:22.000We've already seen the results of this.
00:54:24.000So if we if we actually care about nuclear non-proliferation, it is incumbent upon us to do a reasonable deal with the Iran.
00:54:31.000If we're saying F it, then I mean what do you guys think?
00:54:32.000I'm not saying F. No, wait, you're not like a finish.
00:55:41.000But I think it is a false question, you know, because there is a deal on the table where we that we could enter with Iran and that they're not gonna get a nuclear weapon.
00:55:48.000Yeah, I think the president's conversation having the deal.
00:55:50.000I think the president is more informed than you guys are on the other hand.
00:55:53.000On the specific nuclear deal, and I think he's getting a bad deal.
00:55:55.000I think I mean you guys may think otherwise, but uh, but you acknowledge he wants a deal.
00:56:45.000Until women don't have to wear a burqa.
00:56:47.000They're not wearing them in Tehran anymore.
00:56:49.000Like they're there, they're not like since the new president in June, if you talk to anyone who goes in and out of Iran, they're basically not wearing them.
00:56:55.000I mean, the the the Iran is a more secular country in a lot of ways than Saudi.
00:56:59.000I mean, I don't think it's even close.
00:58:05.000You know, I mean, and and I say that not uh not as an observer of it, but as a participant, because Charlie was the tip of the spear in this effort to showcase to the White House what would happen to the right if we were in some extended war with Iran.
00:58:21.000Charlie believed that so much of what he had built in getting disaffected young men to show up, register to vote, vote for Donald Trump, would be thrown asunder if we went into some you know multi-year war as we had been in you know the 90s and early aughts and uh he was so specific about it, he would coordinate when Steve Bannon would go to the White House, when Tucker Carlson would go, when he would go, when I would call, when other people would call.
00:58:48.000Charlie was such an effective operator that if he knew that he or I would be on television at a particular time discussing this issue and and wanting our views to be understood by the president, he would do everything he could to get the people on Air Force One or in the Oval Office to flip it to RAV or or One America News uh to get absorb those messages, sometimes delivered by the two of you on on my program.
00:59:14.000And uh I wonder what's gonna happen without Charlie to um to hold that view and to express that view in what I think are probably pretty pretty likely coming hostilities.
00:59:27.000No, I think Israel mogged the countries, Iran and their proxies sufficiently.
00:59:31.000I think actually on the October on the anniversary of October 7th, obviously we're talking now, but like the two years since then, obviously two years ago was one of the most terrific days in Israel's modern history, um, a bunch of war crimes.
00:59:43.000Um I think it was like 800 civilians and 900 not civilians in Israel were murdered by Hamas.
00:59:48.000But since then, how effective Israel was at taking out the Hezbollah, and then I mean, in their exchange with Iran, I feel like Israel's gotten the better of that with the toppling of Al Isa um Assad in Syria, who was an ally, some would say a proxy of the Iranian regime.
01:00:05.000The Houthis have been stampered down to the world.
01:00:26.000Well, I think I mean, I think a lot of people from your um foreign policy persuasion like to fearmonger around things that happen around these situations that don't pan out.
01:00:35.000So, for example, a lot of people said during this exchange that it was going to be World War III was breaking out now that that they were exchanging, there's gonna be boots on the ground, but none of that actually came to the without Charlie Kirk, it might have ultimately they they cut they cut it short.
01:00:49.000You don't think Iran was got the better of that exchange.
01:00:52.000They were hitting better, they killed more people.
01:00:54.000Your impression is that you hear what I said?
01:00:56.000I said they killed more people, but they were striking Israel to the last minute.
01:01:00.000I mean, and they did some serious damage, isn't it?
01:01:03.000You think he's really not like I think better if that's the same thing.
01:01:06.000I think the I think that they were running on interceptors.
01:01:09.000I think I think the ceasefire at the end of the day was brokered on Israel's behalf, not on Iran's.
01:01:13.000Um I just think with the amount of um enemies of the state of Israel and um proxies of the Iranian regime that Israel was able to kill since October 7th is something that they should be really proud of.
01:01:23.000It's a set I didn't I know I didn't I relax.
01:01:26.000You don't need to freak out over there.
01:01:28.000I want to take this full circle though.
01:01:30.000It seemed as though some people um after Charlie Kirk's death, it are I we don't know what Charlie Kirk thought, but they seem to try to imply that he was progressing or growing in a certain direction with his narratives towards Israel.
01:01:42.000I as I understand you used to be relatively more pro-Israel than you are now.
01:01:46.000Can you talk a little bit more about how you grew into that position as somebody who was very pro-Israel and what the situation was like in Congress for somebody who was, and then now on the outside who is, I don't want to call you, I don't know if you'd say anti or just less supportive.
01:01:59.000Yeah, I I question the depth and the degree of the relationship now, and I have migrated on the issue.
01:02:04.000And by the way, I think a lot of young Americans have.
01:02:06.000I think Charlie Kirk's migration on the issue, my own migration on the issue tracks where a lot of Americans are.
01:02:11.000And for me, um initially I resented the fact that there was no appreciation for nuance.
01:02:17.000Like if you if you asked any questions about any decision of the uh Israeli government in any place regarding settlements, regarding Gaza, regard whatever, you were like you you you had deviated from the script.
01:02:31.000And I just in any policy area, I I had resentment over that.
01:02:35.000And then I saw the way the APAC worked, and that that was weird for like a country lawyer like me.
01:02:42.000I remember my first APAC reception, and like your fundraiser tells you you have to go, and your chief of staff tells you you have to go, your committee chairman all tell you you have to go.
01:02:51.000And you get there and you wear this name badge, and I remember there's a QR code on it.
01:02:55.000And what you were supposed to do was go talk to donors, and then if they liked you, they scanned your QR code to make a donation, like on the spot.
01:03:05.000And so it's this can you just imagine how demoralizing that is to like be told that your job for the next several hours to go chat people up, hoping they would scan you like a can of tomato soup on the way out of the meeting.
01:03:18.000I mean, it's like literally purchasing.
01:03:20.000And so I I saw that and I was like, wow, that is so freaking weird.
01:03:24.000And then I, you know, I was in Israel, I went multiple times, and I did not like the fact that I found someone in my room rooting around in my stuff that should not have been there at the King David Hotel when I came back to my room when uh no one was expecting me to be back in my room.
01:03:39.000And I just presumably Israeli launched.
01:03:44.000All of these things combined are odd, and then the policy outgrowth seems to be an obsession about the Middle East that has not served my generation well.
01:04:35.000I I didn't cause that to happen, but I believe Netanyahu is trying to externalize his conflict.
01:04:41.000I believe he has serious domestic problems, and the way around those problems is to just sort of send the Middle East awash and chaos and regime change and maybe some war migrants moving around.
01:04:52.000And if all of that happens, then there will be a reversion to the mean.
01:04:57.000Uh London and New York will run things again, and we won't have to deal with the the pesky emergence of these uh of these Arab markets.
01:05:05.000Aaron Powell If I could follow up with you, it seems as though there's a growing anti-Israel sentiment, definitely on the left, also on the right.
01:05:13.000What do you think is fueling this anti-Israel sentiment?
01:05:16.000I think that with young people it's it's it's uh more driven by age than anything else, more than by politics more than anything.
01:05:22.000So what is it about young people that is uh is really causing this change?
01:05:27.000And I think that whenever you tell young people there's certain things you can't say or can't talk about or can't do, there is like a natural resistance.
01:05:35.000Like this is our ideological curfew that that that we're being given by the boomers that we're not allowed to question the US Israel relationship, and there's there's natural reaction to that.
01:05:44.000Like, even the whole BDS thing, all we we'd heard on the right is uh BDS is anti-Semitism.
01:05:51.000We have to be against BDS, BDS is the worst thing in the world.
01:05:53.000And then Mike Huckabee gets mad at the secret at the Interior Minister in in Israel uh because he's not approving visas for touring Zionist Christians.
01:06:04.000And Huckabee says my response to this is to tell people in the United States to cancel their trips, to stop sending money to these groups, and I may respond by punishing the Israelis by not approving their visas to the United States, which sounded a whole lot like boycott uh the trip, divest your donation and sanction with visas.
01:06:22.000And so we went from saying this was anti-Semitism to watching Mike Huckabee become the leader of the BDS movement.
01:06:27.000I mean I mean, the left-wing view on the world is that the uh big villains of the current conflicts are the Russians and the Israelis.
01:06:33.000Uh but I will say this for the Russians.
01:06:35.000Uh they're not asking anybody else to pay for it.
01:06:37.000They're not anybody asking anybody else to have diplomatic cover for it.
01:06:40.000They're not asking anybody else to handle the refugee problem that will happen for the as a result of their actions.
01:06:52.000The US is Israel's backman, effectively, what is supposed to be a global forum for reducing conflict.
01:07:00.000Um, additionally, uh for any of Israel's major uh objectives, which basically undeclared regime change in Iran, they need the United States.
01:07:09.000Um and additionally, uh, if they're not going to just murder everybody in Gaza, which I think they still could, uh, most of the real plans are a US redevelopment plan in Gaza or uh basically a U.S. ethnic cleansing by moving all of these people on boats to places like Libya or Madagascar.
01:07:27.000The Israeli Navy is nothing to really write home about.
01:07:31.000And when you're talking about subverting the MAGA agenda, quote unquote, uh and talking about how mass deportations aren't happening, let's just be because of Thomas Massey.
01:07:39.000Uh I think we are far less likely to do mass deportations in the United States because we are spending all of our time doing mass deportations in Gaza.
01:07:47.000That's odd given the biggest supporters of the president who's uh this is agenda is for is our Zionists, of course.
01:07:53.000I did want to have a biggest supporters of the president who pushes agenda for our are Zionist.
01:08:15.000He was like he he was more Rand Paul than Rand Paul.
01:08:19.000He he would call Rand Paul and say, I'm more libertarian than you are.
01:08:23.000Do you think like the the sort of like laid off glass uh uh factory uh worker in Toledo who voted for Obama Biden twice in twenty and twelve, but then pushed, you know uh the button for for Mr. Trump in twenty sixteen was like, ah, I am just excited to get a real Zionist in there.
01:08:40.000But no, I said some of his biggest donors and you said his biggest donors and supporters.
01:08:45.000I'll let you uh amend the record, but you did not say some of it.
01:09:10.000Uh but I'm just saying it is like against the MAGA agenda when it comes to the grassroots, like the people that came out and voted for Trump.
01:09:16.000Like especially the young people, they want nothing to do with these wars in the Middle East.
01:09:20.000But the problem is is that you know, wanting to get out of the Middle East and also be this supportive of Israel just doesn't compute.
01:09:26.000You know, talking about Syria in 2019 when Trump said he was gonna stay, because he was initially gonna leave, but then he decided to say everybody remembers he said I'm gonna stay and secure the oil.
01:09:35.000That's one thing I always appreciate about Trump is you know he says things like that.
01:09:38.000But another thing he said was that he was staying there because Israel asked him to.
01:09:42.000Um so this is something that you know, Israel and Jordan.
01:09:46.000And why do we give military aid to Jordan?
01:09:50.000It's like you're never gonna get out of that region if you're like Well, why not?
01:09:53.000Why can't we just be honest with all of our friends?
01:09:55.000I I don't believe that we have to like shun Israel in order to achieve some sort of foreign policy balance.
01:10:01.000I think we just have to say, okay, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu, you have to go home and face the music with your own domestic politics without starting war with your neighbors.
01:10:09.000Um I I I don't I don't think Israel needs to be BDS'd.
01:10:12.000And then and I think I think we are entering the zone in which Israeli security is more precarious because of what they're doing.
01:10:19.000I mean, I I mean I think I yeah, I mean, I think look, I've got to be like a squish on this, but I think there was uh basically an era of Israeli politics where a two-state solution was super possible and Netanyahu's entire political career has basically I mean he let his opponent get murdered, you know, uh in order to become Israeli Prime Minister, basically on the issue of two-state solutions.
01:10:38.000He just said recently he visited a settlement and he said, I kept my promise.
01:10:41.000Remember, I was here twenty years ago.
01:10:43.000I said I would never allow Palestinian state.
01:10:46.000So he I think it's much more open about it.
01:10:49.000I think the heightening of contradictions on that is actually what could actually be the most uh could usher into the demise of Israel.
01:10:55.000And if Israel doesn't exist in eighty years, uh it'll be remembered that Netanyahu, not anybody else, was the greatest enemy of the Israeli people.
01:11:02.000I want to talk a little bit more about the domestic situation, re-Israel and how Americans feel about Israel writ large.
01:11:08.000Um I definitely agree that there is a growing segment of the right that is anti-Israel.
01:11:13.000But I think a bigger concern for Israelis should be the growing dissent within the Democrat Party and the far left.
01:11:32.000Uh I think the reason for that is because Israel is right wing coated and they believe that Israel is a settler, colonial settler, colonialist society.
01:11:40.000And because of that reason, Israel is uh irredeemable.
01:11:43.000And that they should be able to do that.
01:11:56.000So Israel among the left, Israel is white and right Wing coated and they believe that they are a white settler coloniist colonialist state in the vein of how America was set up.
01:12:07.000So I feel like for many far leftists and socialists, it's a self-loathing of their Americanism that helps evolve into anti-Israelism.
01:12:14.000In our country, the socialist left is the biggest constituency for anti-Israel people.
01:12:19.000And I feel like um isolationist types should keep in mind that who they're allying with in this case are oftentimes people who are anti-white, pro-immigration, hate uh hate ice are usually Antifa and uh are far left agitators.
01:12:35.000I've seen this manifest, I've I've seen this manifest in how um the libertarians are willing to have rallies with literal communists in the vein of being anti-war.
01:12:44.000I have no common cause with communists.
01:12:46.000I think it's bad to have common cause with communists.
01:12:48.000I'm an ardent anti-communist, as Phil would say.
01:12:50.000So uh I think we really need to take that piece in mind when we see people on the right willing to work with these people on the left who literally hate their guts.
01:12:58.000If it's something wrong and something evil, then we should oppose it no matter who opposes it.
01:13:02.000I mean, again, this what we've seen over the past two years is like mass murder live streamed and you can justify it and argue for it, uh but at the end of the day, it's a foreign country.
01:13:12.000Yeah, it's not in our interest to support this barbaric.
01:13:18.000You do way too much if you don't align with what I want, then you're aligning with with the bad guys.
01:13:25.000You do that with libertarians, you do you're doing that right now with the with the situation election.
01:14:20.000Well, I think there was one particular version of the bill.
01:14:22.000I don't I think President Trump has come out in the upset head.
01:14:24.000But he has c he has come out in in favor of uh congressional stock trading bans on on a number of occasions, including recently.
01:14:31.000And your stuff like uh again, we covered this a lot at anti-war.com, the bills you would introduce to pull out a certain conflicts, Somalia, Syria, and you know, the people that would align with you, you know, you would have some Republicans but also some progressive Democrats.
01:14:45.000Yeah so I don't think there's anything wrong with working.
01:15:01.000Yeah, I mean, obviously, American voters in some levels are are basically a principle, uh prisoners of of the first past the post system that we have this ridiculous two-party system.
01:15:09.000Um I don't think we should do anything to strengthen that system.
01:15:12.000It's already it's already uh uh enough of a bind as it is.
01:15:16.000Yeah, my politics are antithetical to the left.
01:15:18.000I'm I'm an anti-left, so I don't think you should put it to the left.
01:15:21.000What is the what is communists, literal communists rallying a lot of these actual anti-war rallies who are giving you a specific example?
01:17:02.000My boss always says, my boss Eric Garris, who founded the site, he he's always proud of you know some of the examples, like when the site first started, Pat Buchanan was a columnist, and so is Daniel Ellsberg, and they like hated each other.
01:17:13.000Well, and but you know, we were publishing both of them.
01:17:16.000Um from my experience, working with people kind of all over the political spectrum on one issue.
01:17:22.000I mean, I think it's good for the country because you'll have people on the left who think like you know, libertarian or people on the right are just you know monsters, and obviously you get that vice versa.
01:17:33.000You get to know each other, you you get to understand that like your political opponents aren't you know necessarily evil, and then like it changes people's mind and it can bring people to closer to our ideas.
01:17:45.000So I think there's a lot of positives to this, and like you know, optically having a rally and people with like the hammer and sickle there, that doesn't look good.
01:17:53.000But single issue stuff in general, I think is a is a is a net positive thing.
01:17:58.000Especially when it's something as evil as what Donald is happening on the as the party's standard bearer, this is not a doctrinaire Republican, he's never been his entire life.
01:18:14.000He will change his opinion if the results on the ground are not proving what he thought, whether it be tariffs, whether whatever the situation is, if it's not getting Donald Trump positive, if it's not getting actual positive results for the American people, right?
01:18:29.000Now, maybe he maybe he misinterprets data or whatever, but if if in his estimation it's not producing good results for the American people, he will change his policy.
01:18:39.000There is nothing that Donald Trump wants more than to go down in history as a positive, good president, and you don't do that by making the American people miserable.
01:18:55.000But the idea that Donald Trump is trying to hurt America or trying to do things that are bad for America, or that he won't change a policy if it's not proving to do what he thought, that's ridiculous.
01:19:08.000That's why he went to the Republican Party to run in the first place.
01:19:12.000He saw I think Trump saw the Republican Party as just an acquisition target, like uh an asset that had been put into such atrophy, like with the likes of Mitt Romney and John McCain, that he was like, I can just do a hostile takeover of this asset and I can improve its value.
01:19:29.000Sir Serge, do you have the uh the parscale article that I want to talk about uh bring I want to continue the the points you were making about the domestic reshaping of uh perspectives on US Israel policy?
01:19:42.000And there was this uh there's this article we had where I guess Israel had filed a Farah form that they were spending 4.1 million dollars uh to target American Christians.
01:19:57.000Yeah, so uh this is something that uh the Israeli foreign ministry itself is actually funding this, and the budget is up to 4.1 million dollars.
01:20:06.000Um and they're calling it uh the largest Christian church geofencing campaign in US history.
01:20:13.000Essentially, what it is is targeted digital ads targeting American.
01:20:19.000And they're gonna plow message into those churches.
01:20:22.000Yes, and uh specifically pro-Isra Israel anti-Palestinian message according to the documents.
01:20:28.000Um and so this is a targeted propaganda campaign at American Christians.
01:20:31.000They also have this plan to create an October 7th mobile experience, like a trailer that's gonna be designed by some Hollywood people.
01:20:39.000I don't know exactly what what that's gonna be.
01:20:42.000But this is a big information campaign uh because of you know what we are seeing, uh, you know, the the growing skepticism among American Christians and evangelicals are are historically a very strong base for Israel, but not everybody is like a Christian Zionist in the sense that they believe they have a theological reason to support Israel, like uh Mike Huckabee.
01:21:03.000Um so this I think really shows the the desperation.
01:21:06.000But so this is you know, a foreign country specifically targeting American Christians.
01:21:11.000Um Do you have a problem with that, Phil?
01:21:15.000Um 4.1 million just doesn't seem like that much money.
01:21:18.000Yeah, I mean, in the like when it comes to like the the grand scheme of things, like the whole US, it doesn't seem like a lot of money.
01:21:24.000I mean, if they're going after Protestants, they're going after churches that are like in between Buffalo Wild Wings and like the shoe spot.
01:21:29.000So I don't really care a whole lot, to be honest with you.
01:21:31.000Well, th but that those are just the Farah filings.
01:21:38.000That's a that's an important point because Israel, the way APAC is set up, you know, there's a lot of uh lobbying that goes on that is not reported by like this.
01:21:46.000But I what I think it shows, you know, it's not so much the scale, the the number, although I do think you know they're gonna spend three point one five to three point two five million over five months on this, like that's a pretty big budget.
01:21:57.000Um I don't think that they're gonna get traction posts.
01:22:01.000Yeah, I don't think they're gonna have traction.
01:22:02.000I don't think I really don't think that that spending you know, spending money on ads is gonna help Israel because the internet has has already like done such a uh uh uh it's such a betting but they're betting we're wrong.
01:22:14.000I mean, I mean, obviously Israel's falling victim to grifter influencers is what I is what I'm seeing in this stream.
01:22:20.000I honestly think they would be better.
01:22:23.000But I think this shows that they there is some desperation here, and they see that they're losing.
01:22:27.000They would be better off not doing this messaging, I in my opinion at all.
01:22:30.000I mean, like it like uh to merge threads, I mean, I the that guy, uh the the number of times that he had to deny that they had anything to do with Charlie Kirk's death fed into the narrative that they did.
01:22:41.000Uh I not asserting that, but it struck everybody as very suspicious.
01:22:46.000And isn't it weird that the waved around?
01:22:49.000Yeah, Netanyahu had this letter from Kirk that he waved around like constantly in the moments after his death, and then like ha hasn't released the whole thing.
01:22:56.000And uh what I've heard is there's a great deal more context in that letter, and um I didn't know that.
01:23:03.000I do think that the idea of there's like it was just excerpts that he put out.
01:23:07.000Yeah, no, I I I'd I'd heard some suggest that there was there was more information.
01:23:12.000Well, it is strange, you know, like they I mean that's why this conversation is important because Netanyahu immediately tried to make you know him basically a martyr for the pro-Israel cause.
01:23:28.000But the like I agree with you guys that not Nyahu did that, but the idea that like the Israelis had something to do with his his murdering.
01:23:44.000What's your basis to to disprove that?
01:23:46.000Uh well, I think that well, I mean, the Tyler Tyler's dad turned him in, the kid's dad turned him in, like the the gun was was his father's.
01:23:53.000If there's new information or information that I don't have, and I'm not sure what I'm saying.
01:23:55.000I'm not suggesting there's I'm not suggesting there's any evidence that Israel had any involvement, but I just think that to um make any uh determinations about the evidence uh seems misguided.
01:24:07.000I wouldn't make any determination about anyone's culpability or not culpability until I mean full story.
01:24:12.000I do think it's interesting that that Andrew Colvid, one of the people closest to Charlie Kirk in the world, felt like one of the things he needed to share with authorities in the moments after Charlie Kirk's death was this uh this rather raucous exchange about money being withheld and Charlie saying he's leaving the pro-Israel.
01:24:27.000Well, I mean, look, the I'm I don't have any insider information.
01:24:29.000So if there is stu something that comes out that says that says that Israel was was involved, then hey, I'm wrong, right?
01:24:36.000But as of right now, I don't see anything or I haven't seen anything it speaks to the civilization, the society they put together that so many people suspect them.
01:24:47.000I mean, this is this is I feel like the people that are most vocal about that are are kind of knee-jerk anti-Israel anyways, though.
01:24:53.000Like they're gonna be like, but I mean Israel, I mean, it's just this is in the Ronald Bergman book Rise and Kill First.
01:24:58.000I mean, Israel has killed uh through assassination uh more and uh more people through assassination than any Western country since World War II.
01:25:26.000I think Candace Owens like is playing into this because it's an opportunistic for a way for her to be anti Israel.
01:25:31.000There's also a very influential Arab comedian called Basim Yusuf who like he's playing the comedian card where it's like, oh, I'm just I'm just some clown, although he's spreading misinformation about Israel being responsible.
01:25:41.000I mean, look, if there's a lot of evidence that Tyler was the person who murdered Kirk.
01:25:45.000Look, if if you've got if you've got people that are if you got people who like Nick Fuentes that are saying, no, I don't think so.
01:25:50.000I mean, and that guy's the first person to you know hatch at Israel, you know.
01:26:12.000You know, if if this is if Tyler was some person that had some some great grievance with conservatives or free speech or these events, you'd you would think you would have an assault technique that would that would tragically have been more like the Mandalay Bay shooting where Charlie Kirk was more important than any of the other guys around him.
01:26:31.000As long as he took out him, that was his ultimate goal.
01:27:02.000And I think 4.1 million is kind of chump change as you mentioned earlier.
01:27:06.000And I don't think Israel is unique in in doing this.
01:27:08.000And so, like this is just the globalized information game that we're all a part of like that there is a part of me that looked at the criticism of what they were doing and just saying, look, information is so globalized now.
01:27:19.000There's so many powerful forces trying to plow information into various cleavages of the American electorate and the faith community.
01:27:26.000But far uh for registrations are fairly uh few and far between, uh at least in this kind of media blanket.
01:27:53.000I don't think he's Well, I mean the joke's not that good because like if if if it was truly analogous situation, I mean he would have flown to West Hollywood and make sure Hassan Piker was on message for big Turkey, right?
01:28:04.000But that's what Netanyahu actually did.
01:28:07.000And also the Oracle, the the TikTok thing.
01:28:11.000Did you see that clip when he was speaking to influencers in New York?
01:28:14.000And he said, What's the most important thing happening right now when he was asked about this, you know, losing sub the the uh uh evangelical Christians kind of losing their support for Israel, and he said social media is the tool of battle that we have to use.
01:28:27.000And what's the most important thing happening right now?
01:28:56.000He doesn't he doesn't give money to Israel.
01:28:57.000He's like just giving it to the guys who have to be.
01:28:58.000Yeah, because I mean that's that's probably bigger than than any of this, is the Yeah, yeah.
01:29:02.000The TikTok and so are are you betting that when we're back here in 120 days, like resolving our core disagreement about whether or not hostilities are going to increase or decrease, you actually think that peace will, you know, will for his principle of the state.
01:29:16.000No, by the way, we we hope you're I hope you're right.
01:29:18.000I think there are a lot more dramatic ramp-ups in other parts of the world that we should be more concerned about, but I think for one reason or another, Israel no, not Sudan.
01:29:31.000I will say this to some of the viewers.
01:29:32.000If you have any dreams of getting into the influencer game or becoming a journalist, I will say this any story on Israel will get a lot of attention, no matter how insignificant.
01:29:40.000If you want some eyes on your scoop, no matter how small, Israel does anything.
01:29:44.000You could bitch and moan about Israel, you could praise Israel.
01:29:46.000We love to give Israel a ton of attention.
01:29:48.000So if you're trying to get into the game and get eyes and clicks on your stuff, talk about Israel.
01:29:52.000That's that that's uh why I guess there's so many powerful people in media who criticize Israel.
01:30:05.000I do want to talk about Venezuela though, because you raised that point.
01:30:08.000It is something we want we want to address, and we will be the the good thing about the Israel discussion is we've made a series of pretty binary predictions and we'll be able to revisit them and the internet will remember them forever.
01:30:17.000Venezuela, you have been critical of the administration's approach.
01:30:58.000Without the cocaine that they're sending, people probably wouldn't take as much fentanyl because they cut the cocaine with fentanyl.
01:31:04.000It's possible some fentanyl is getting through Venezuela.
01:31:06.000But the most of the fentanyl, I mean the the the villains of the fentanyl trade are China and Mexico.
01:31:11.000And even if you get the US consumer with cocaine, though, most of the cocaine out of Colombia doesn't go through Venezuela.
01:31:16.000So what do you think are the administration's goals in Venezuela?
01:31:19.000Oh, I mean, uh I think that they are they are moving towards soft regime change.
01:31:24.000I think this is what um Secretary Rubio uh uh has long wanted.
01:31:30.000Um I think he's changed and contorted his ideology a lot of different ways the last 10 years, but something that is a clear hallmark of it is pretty extreme hawkishness on Venezuela, and I think they think they can knock it over pretty easily.
01:31:42.000I I I think you know I wouldn't make up a story, but I I have a very different experience with President Trump and Senator Rubio at the time over Venezuela.
01:31:50.000Remember when John Bolton was running around with like 5,000 children.
01:31:54.000Yeah, uh, and yeah, there was this notion that Juan Cuido, someone you would probably call a communist, uh, was gonna be like either rightful the who we recognize as the rightful government.
01:32:05.000I think the real communist rightful government.
01:32:13.000Yeah, they were they were both probably uh communists.
01:32:16.000But but either way, uh you had Rick, you had Senator Rick Scott, who I have a very high view of on on many issues, trying to convince President Trump that we needed kinetic military action in Venezuela.
01:32:28.000And Rick Scott laid out a compelling case from for that foreign policy viewpoint.
01:32:32.000He had done all his homework, laid it out.
01:32:34.000And before I could even get in the conversation, Marvel Rubio took the other side.
01:32:39.000And Marco said, if you get into some war in Venezuela, it is a jungle conflict, there's gonna be a guerrilla feature to this, we will be bogged down there forever.
01:32:50.000Um Rubio had specific information about where different naval assets were and explained that getting them in position to launch this as a moving assets was impractical.
01:33:01.000Yeah, but like Rubio was taking the anti-intervention side as it related to Venezuela.
01:33:09.000But I mean, I think the proponents of the evidence is that he is supportive of a pretty hard-line uh tact on Latin America and on Venezuela, that he's been fighting this sort of shadow war with Rick Cornell about it, uh, that Rick Rodnell has is losing as of now, and that we are ramping up and that a lot of this is being driven by the State Department, but also the war defense department.
01:33:27.000Matt, if I could ask you since you're a Florida jit, there's a ton of people in the cabinet who are Floridian, and as I understand, there's a large Venezuelan expat population throughout Miami or or Florida largely that help influence the politics when it comes to this a lot.
01:33:41.000Could you speak to how that could influence I don't know, Susie Wiles or Marco Rubio or Pam Bondi's?
01:33:47.000I think that constituency has a lot of influence.
01:33:50.000Yeah, no, it's a it's a fair question.
01:33:52.000There are hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan voters in Florida who uh are swing voters.
01:33:58.000And there were political figures like Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar saying that if the Trump administration would always take a maximalist view against the Maduro regime, that would be the best path to secure the support of those voters.
01:34:13.000And the reason that mattered at the time was because Florida was a swing state.
01:34:20.000We we are not going to elect a Democrat statewide in in in our state for the foreseeable future.
01:34:26.000And so this like highly important, you know, political group in Florida that received all this attention probably gets less uh of that now just as responsible.
01:34:34.000I mean, that's why the embargo is still in place on Cuba, right?
01:34:36.000Because of the Cuban Americans there, they all want a hard line on Cuba, the sanctions to stay on.
01:34:43.000Uh this is this is an issue Marco and I've discussed frequently we have different views on the subject I think that if sanctions worked Cuba would be the Garden of Eden.
01:34:53.000But uh I have the view that if something has failed for half a century, maybe try something different.
01:34:58.000And I don't think we're any closer to the Cuban people being free.
01:35:00.000I've I have a great connection to the Cuban people but I uh I don't believe the sanctions have weakened the regime more than the people who are trying to survive there.
01:35:09.000And uh you're right that that that key a group of hardcore Cuban voters has been very politically powerful.
01:35:16.000It's where Jeb Bush got a lot of his initial momentum when he ran statewide and uh it it just is different when you're not a swing state.
01:35:25.000Also generationally these third generation Cubans are probably less tied to embargo politics because they don't think they're going back.
01:35:36.000Like the first and second generation actually thought they were going to go back and get their plantations back by the third generation no one's like eager to make that happen and so that that animates how people think about it.
01:35:45.000I've seen Kurt battle with Venezuelans on on X. Yeah I did not know that there were there they have a presence and I mean uh what maybe you know his name he's a congressman Carlos Jim and Jimenez Jimenez.
01:35:56.000When they bombed the first boat off Venezuela, you know he's like tweeting in Spanish celebrating it.
01:36:02.000And I mean these are you know foreigners agitating for a a war in a foreign country.
01:36:06.000I just feel like I'm like a dove's dove but I just feel like we have way more expensive bad bunny speaking Spanish we don't care about Carlos Amendez that's right.
01:36:14.000I don't think Spanish at all just in Spanish did you have an English I think it was just in Spanish.
01:36:19.000A lot of them do like they do dual yeah spoken Spanish.
01:36:23.000No I'm just saying it's like this is a uh constituency of people like from this country who want our government to intervene there.
01:36:31.000Yeah it's high conviction expats basically like I mean like it's it's people who have and I think that's really what's driving this.
01:36:36.000Of course it's I mean it's it's it's it's a lot of our foreign policy I think there's other aspects that we need to touch on too there's also the um oil markets that play into this if we were able to install a friendly regime there we would be able to compete harder.
01:36:50.000I mean, basically, we don't have any...
01:36:52.000The administration has been sabotaging any of the deals Weren't these the same communists that nationalize their industry oil industry anyways because they kicked out all the companies communist and narco terrorists what is he both communist narco terrorists that Trump recently No what do you mean they the they traffick drugs and they're communists over there am I am I mislabeling them?
01:37:12.000I think there are is drug running in Venezuela and I think at a certain point if you're a isolated impoverished regime you are looking the other way and in fact as if your society and your administration are involved in it but the idea that like Maduro sits down like Joseph Stalin and there's lines of cocaine everywhere and like you know this is the fentanyl that's that's the president of Colombia actually I mean I mean like I mean it's just it's it's it's it's a child's view of the universe so another point.
01:37:36.000Well no no no wait you you don't uh because I I've studied Venezuela a good bit.
01:37:39.000I don't have a child's view of it and I think that Maduro in many ways has to answer to the conglomerate of of narcos that control portions of his economy.
01:37:48.000I'm sorry with setting up a straw man but my my my basic yeah I think I think he's in a tough neighborhood and he's involved in it but the idea that there's not going to be drug running in that part of the world regardless of who there's I'll tell you why there isn't any El Salvador I mean there is a there is there are two models right now for Latin America.
01:38:03.000There's the Maduro model which I think is far too permissive of that type of malign activity.
01:38:08.000And then there's the Bukele model and the two the two are really at war for the soul of a lot of these Latin American voters as elections are getting ready in Argentina Well if we're speaking of the Latin American voters though I I do and we're talking about like future Republican uh consolidating gains of Hispanic voters.
01:38:23.000I think if the administration spends its times killing basically Venezuelan fishermen on boats, I think that's actually going to repeat runners that's what they say anyone cares they're not fishermen.
01:38:32.000Well that's what they say I think they're people that are paid a thousand dollars to move drugs okay but those aren't fishermen are people who go out and see in boats and they take their rods in and then they reel in I don't know I think it's a traffic should have shown that it will lie about the issue.
01:38:46.000Second of all they haven't they haven't proved anything about who these people are and I know I wouldn't be surprised if they ties the drugs ties being like they're gophers uh to move this stuff but they're they're not hardened criminals and if they are the administration will produce the evidence but they haven't we have people have to produce evidence of the thing we have I think we should I think I'm against the drug you can't just blow people out.
01:39:06.000Yeah I'm against the drone striking against Obama terrorist it seems as though they're carrying payloads of drugs.
01:39:12.000I mean those seems that's not how we handle drug trafficking like are we going to start it's how we should handle drug trafficking we after nine eleven we moved towards a broad a broad dragon of terrorism.
01:39:23.000And I don't think it served the American people well.
01:39:25.000If we if we had treated it as a police action, Osama bin Laden wouldn't have brought to justice and we wouldn't have had all these.
01:39:45.000No, I mean, look, and I'm widely viewed as a dove, but I think we have actual interests here.
01:39:50.000I think we have an achievable interest.
01:39:52.000The interest in the Gulf of America is— Is deterrence.
01:39:56.000Look, if you blow a few of these things up and you get that rolling on social media, I think people might think twice about about uh traversing.
01:40:03.000To your point, Colin Rugg was just uh just tweeted a little while ago that the Sinaloa cartel is threatening to target American citizens at popular tourist spots like Cabo in response to lab raids and seizures, according to Breitbart.
01:40:15.000A banner was recently erected addressing FBI director Cash Patel.
01:40:19.000The banner first surfaced on Sunday in Baja California, where gunmen left two banners allegedly signed by Los Chapos Chapitos, I think.
01:40:26.000The banners claim that starting on Sunday, they will be targeting U.S. citizens in Mexico in response to recent lab raids and weapon seizures, the banners were quickly taken down by authorities.
01:40:35.000Look, if that happens, then I do think that the I don't even believe that.
01:40:40.000Why would this why would why would the Cinaloa that seems to be something that somebody would say about the Sinaloa cartilage of false flag?
01:40:46.000Because they are the ones who own the resorts in Cabo.
01:40:49.000Why would they do that to their own tourism industry?
01:40:50.000I I just think it's I I'm not sure what it you think this would work?
01:40:55.000I mean, you think you think we could just bomb the drug problems?
01:40:58.000Like, like uh there's gonna be always gonna be this big market.
01:41:00.000Like the issue is that there's a big market for drugs in the U.S. Americans love drugs.
01:41:13.000People are gonna want drugs more because they see a Venezuelan bomb.
01:41:16.000No, I mean, when it comes to the the stabilization, I mean, you know, one reason why we're targeting Venezuela right now is because we can.
01:41:23.000Because you know, they're under all these sanctions, they don't have any real allies.
01:41:28.000No, they do have allies in the Caribbean that they provide cheap energy to.
01:41:31.000I mean, that's why that's why they were getting screwed often times in the votes in OAS because they were subsidizing a lot of people.
01:41:36.000But they don't have anybody not gonna come to the defense.
01:41:38.000Yeah, it was like sure, but uh, so if we start bombing Mexico Suriname might but if we start bombing Mexico against the will of the Mexican government, I mean, what is that gonna do?
01:41:48.000Like, the Mexican government to me is a construct.
01:41:50.000It's like saying the Afghan government.
01:41:52.000The Mexican government is is but a feature of the narco traffickers.
01:43:02.000No, I feel like China's a bigger issue, and I feel like more of the hawks in government are reoriented.
01:43:06.000I think Venezuela and China are more of an important issue than Israel.
01:43:09.000But we've always like realized that there we there's a moment, and uh they always try to froth up non-armed services committee members for big defense budgets.
01:43:19.000So they have this idea at Republican retreat, which I hated going to because I felt like we were always in a state of retreat.
01:43:25.000But they bring us out there and uh they they say we're gonna do a war game with the US and Taiwan.
01:43:31.000And so, like, you know, the war game starts out, and like as the war game goes on, they're like, now thirteen people from your district have died.
01:43:38.000Now, like this many U.S. cities have been annihilated.
01:43:41.000It's like, don't you see we need more uh money for the defense budget to stop these things from happening?
01:43:46.000I was like, you all had me at just give China Taiwan.
01:43:50.000Like, wait, why is it easier to defend Taiwan than just to find the smart people there that make computer chips and move them to the deserts of Arizona?
01:43:57.000Wait, is that your position that if China were to invade Taiwan that we should let them?
01:45:33.000So this so folks that stick around for an extra hour will be know what I was about to say.
01:45:38.000Now we're good uh now we're we're gonna get into other parts of the world, the wars that are not being talked about, and uh it'll it'll be good stuff.
01:45:45.000The genocide of Christians somewhere in Africa.
01:45:49.000If you look right at the screen, you can just read the name of the persons right here, which in this case is bruh.
01:45:54.000Matt, if you were the attorney general, would you have reopened the investigation of the USS Liberty?
01:45:58.000I don't think that's uh that's something that would uh I I think I think that would have required a lot of coordination with the defense department.
01:46:35.000My contribution, whether you're pro or anti-Israel, beware of the rumor, Dems and Antifa have a campaign to use this to divide us before the midterms.
01:46:44.000Decide what is more important, be smart about this.
01:46:46.000And this is my sort of my point that I actually want the pro-Israel people in our church.
01:46:52.000Maybe not the pulpit, but certainly in the congregation.
01:48:57.000I I I have to say my my knowledge of the Postal Service uh funding regime is uh is diminished.
01:49:02.000Can we get opinions on the Monroe Doctrine in relation to Venezuela and Venezuelan's oil exports to America's adversaries?
01:49:10.000Monroe doctrine is good and we shouldn't be isolationists.
01:49:14.000Um not in the world stage or in the Western hemisphere.
01:49:18.000Isn't there something weird about like our opp our opposition to the war in Ukraine and then like the way that that's impacted Venezuela policy?
01:49:25.000Because we had to do all these sanctions on Russia, which then meant that Biden had to sort of loosen up the secondary sources of Venezuela to get more onto the global markets to reduce price.
01:49:35.000So at the end of the day, like if we're just picking which dictator gets to sell oil, you know, is there an is there any moral clarity to it at all?
01:49:43.000Yeah, I mean, I would say just lift the sanctions and buy, you know, trade the oil.
01:49:47.000Yeah, I mean I mean, I'm pro Monroe doctrine, but I think it's m I I just looked it up.
01:49:54.000What is the Monroe doctrine actually say?
01:49:56.000It says European powers should not interfere or colonize with the newly independent nations of the Western Hemisphere, 1823, happy twenty hundredth anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine, uh all those who didn't celebrate it two years ago.
01:50:16.000Uh and I what I would do is bring in whoever rules Venezuela more into the fold instead of making it accessible for Russian Chinese and Iranian money.
01:50:24.000I think Maduro wants to do a deal, and there's a way to do that without like murdering him and a bunch of people in Venezuela.
01:50:29.000They've been accepting deportation flights.
01:50:32.000That's something that I believe Rick Grinnell got.
01:50:34.000People in the administration have been have been going out of their way to isolate the Venezuelans.
01:50:38.000And and and I don't you have personal experience with Rubio, but all the available reporting is that uh Rubio State Department and Rubio's guys are driving the hard line on stuff like not trading oil of Venezuela.
01:50:51.000He also in 2019, when they tried when they backed Guaido and everything, Rubio tweeted out a picture of Qaddafi, the moment that he was being brutally killed as a threat to Maduro.
01:51:01.000And I think Maduro is I think we remember that?
01:51:04.000You Florida Jets, they have an affinity.
01:51:13.000You break it, you buy it, and you're gonna have all these refugees coming across the med to the United States, and we already have seen elements, it's probably getting me in trouble with more Venezuelan people on the internet, but like we've already seen elements of refugee crises out of Venezuela into Colombia.
01:51:27.000Doesn't like a third of Venezuela live in Colombia right now?
01:51:31.000Well, I think the number you know, the migrants crisis was exacerbated by the sanctions, and there was all these warnings that Department of Homeland Security was writing up these reports saying basically, you know, if you put these sanctions on the is it gonna be even more migrants from Venezuela, they did it anyway.
01:51:46.000This was John Bolton and Elliott Abrams leading who's Elliot Abrams is a is a neo-con you know, these were the guys leading this policy in the first administration and to create a migrant crisis and you know similar thing would happen here.
01:52:03.000And then and if and if the Venezuela What are the features of that deal?
01:52:07.000Uh oil trading, uh perhaps controls on uh Chinese money uh going in there would be something I would drive a hard bargain for.
01:52:14.000Um I mean, I we've kind of talked around this.
01:52:16.000I do think uh that uh while I'm a non-interventionist on this stuff, I do think within the MAGA fold, uh China and Latin America will be more divisive among people who are intellectually honest uh than Iran or Russia, uh because yeah, people could see how you know Venezuela.
01:53:15.000I mean, but people forget that like nobody would nobody would name China as a huge major threat.
01:53:20.000But like, I mean, like they they would do it in this very like elliptical way.
01:53:23.000Like Trump Trump Trump blamed China for stealing a uh generations worth of jobs, Trump blamed all this stuff.
01:53:29.000Trump's Trump argued sorry, not well stated, Trump took the call for the Taiwanese president people during the first uh presidential transition.
01:53:37.000So there were all these uh elements of hawkers to Trump's rise to power uh that were way more China hawkish.
01:53:44.000But again, within the continuum at this point, uh uh Trump has not committed uh troops to Taiwan if they're invaded.
01:53:52.000Biden did, and Trump wants to do a deal with the Chinese, and it's very clear that major parts of his administration do not want to do that.
01:54:00.000Well, Trump wants that deal just on trade, principally, right?
01:54:03.000He likes Xi, I think, and I think he doesn't want a war, and I I think he won I yeah, I think and I think he's afraid of an economic a wider economic war of China.
01:54:16.000I mean, I mean I mean, I I think like China is different than any country in the world.
01:54:19.000It is an actual pure competitor of the United States.
01:54:22.000And so uh I approach it a little bit differently.
01:54:24.000Like I just said, like I think we should maintain strategic ambientity with Taiwan.
01:54:28.000I don't see why we have to get into the academics very similar to the Iran debate.
01:54:32.000There is a deal on offer, I think it would work.
01:54:34.000Um and I think if we if we are gonna care about the preferences of the governments in places like Caracas, then one of the d bargains we should drive is like, hey, maybe less Chinese cash and less Chinese people.
01:54:44.000And I think that's the way to do it besides sanctions and bombing.
01:54:48.000Like I think that's just gonna make them.
01:54:49.000Driving China out of South America is I think is like a cogent goal that can be done non-kinetically.
01:54:55.000I think a lot of those Latin American countries just play us off of China and realize that they can get cash a I think we're gonna do I think I think they're more likely to do it if we start invading them again.
01:55:07.000Like, I mean, like I mean, the it's the same thing with the with the Middle East.
01:55:11.000It's like it it it just will cause panic.
01:55:13.000If Venezuela can be topped over, why not Chile?
01:55:42.000They want to prevent him from ever meeting arachi or right after the inauguration, uh Rick Grinnell went over to Venezuela, shook Maduro's hand, and came home with some Americans who were in jail there.
01:56:00.000I mean, you know you know the president more than anybody on this table combined, and then some uh I mean fundamentally my root of a lot of his foreign policy is that he's underratedly not a disagreeable personality.
01:56:09.000Now, I mean famously this guy who fired people on television.
01:56:12.000Um he's famously very combative on true social.
01:56:15.000Um but I mean he'll have Rupert Murdoch in his skybox and then the next day sue him.
01:56:20.000He's sort of like impersonal about that.
01:56:22.000And so like, I mean, even with the Ukraine situation, I think the the basic story, absent all of the int intellectual discussion around it, is that Zelensky repaired his relationship with him, and then Trump kind of digs the European hawks on a personal level.
01:56:34.000He likes Ruta, he's likes Kirst Armer, which nobody had in the bigger card like a year ago.
01:56:39.000He likes Macron, he's very amused by him very famously, and he also likes Putin, so where are we?
01:56:44.000We're at status quo, we're at stalemate.
01:56:54.000So I think we're just scroll through these things here.
01:56:58.000The thing that's driving people away from being Zionists is everyone from the president to the mayors are having to talk about Israel 24-7.
01:57:09.000I think people are certainly tired of hearing about it.
01:57:12.000I think that's one of the big things on the right, you know, among the younger people.
01:57:15.000Like the default was to be pro-Israel, uh, because it's like, oh, the leftists are on the other side, you know, we'll I'm pro-Israel, but it's just come it's just too much now.
01:57:22.000There's just you know, if you're if you're on like just being on X, like there are times where people will just like randomly make comment, like you'll be talking about something, and then they'll just be like, well, but Israel, and it's just like why why?
01:57:42.000Because it to me, uh Israel's like there are people that think that Israel is the most important thing.
01:57:47.000I think it's one of the most important issues because especially for my line of work, because it's like we see what we're supporting over there.
01:57:56.000But the but the point is there are people that are like this is the most important thing because Israel controls the United States.
01:58:01.000And I understand that Israel has way outsized influence compared to how many like Israelis there are and how big of a country Israel is.
01:58:08.000But at the same time, like I think that China, I think that actually Venezuela, those are those are actually more important topics that we should be talking about.
01:58:15.000And I think Israel is like way down the list.
01:58:18.000I I like take that super chat person who gave us two dollars.
01:58:52.000Let's go like uh this is a good one here.
01:58:57.000Uh Matt, Oregon governor marched with Antifa arrest question mark.
01:59:04.000I mean, if you when you look at the way Todd Blanch and uh and the Justice Department have unlocked these authorities to go after Antifa, like what people the Trump administration were saying to me is we're even using Biden authorities, you know, which is I guess like the worst thing you can do to people.
01:59:36.000It'll either be horrible, uh, or it will be politically horrible.
01:59:40.000Yeah, but there hasn't been I I guess I don't doomcast about it because there like I don't think you've seen the Trump administration of the power.
01:59:47.000Not in the same way you're while there's like bluster at times that comes off the internet.
02:00:42.000I'm just saying, like, it will look really dumb if like the Republicans cosplayed as authoritarians for four years and then get kicked out of Washington because people thought that was the impression.
02:00:53.000Serge, are we uh gonna go to our special hour?
02:01:36.000Like if you're Casey DeSantis, you have universal name ID, you have the best image rating.
02:01:39.000Byron Donaldson has been running for governor for months and can't seem to get above the mid-20s in any ballot test.
02:01:45.000You know, I think that she looks at it and says, why do I have to be in now?
02:01:50.000There's a general rule that I like to follow, which is you typically want to be a candidate for the least amount of time as is absolutely necessary to win the election.
02:02:37.000I write for anti-war.com and I also do a daily podcast and YouTube show called Anti-War News, where I cover US foreign policy from our anti-war non-interventionist perspective.
02:02:47.000And if you're watching on YouTube, go subscribe to Anti-War News, or we're also on Rumble, Odyssey, and then wherever you listen to podcasts.
02:02:56.000I'm the executive director of the American Conservative magazine, a magazine founded here or founded in Washington, DC in 2002 against the Iraq War by Conservatives and Friends.
02:03:07.000Uh a recrudescence of such wars through our activist journalism.
02:03:11.000If you want to check us out, try WW The American Conservative dot com to follow my own personal commentary at C U R T M I L L S on X. Thank you.
02:03:22.000Don't forget tomorrow morning Tate will be back doing the morning show.
02:03:30.000You can check us out on Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, and Deezer.
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02:03:42.000Uh don't forget the left lane is for crime, and we will see you guys in the after show.
02:03:48.000In the after show, we're gonna continue our foreign policy discussion with these great experts.
02:03:52.000We're gonna go deeper into Russia Ukraine and uh what we think are some of the origins of that conflict.
02:03:57.000There is a battle raging in Africa you don't even know about that we're gonna get into, and we'll get perspectives on a way too early assessment of the 2028 Republican field.
02:08:20.000Yeah, so um since Trump came in, uh the this Trump administration really ramped up the US air war in Somalia, which very few people are aware of is even happening.
02:08:30.000And the reason why is because there's no media coverage.
02:08:33.000A lot of times I'm literally the only person and like on an American news site that's covering US air strikes in Somalia.
02:09:16.000Uh I believe that's twenty-five to thirty thousand.
02:09:20.000They're you know, they they are sizable, they they control a good amount of territory in central and southern Somali, and we've been fighting them since two thousand and seven.
02:09:28.000What are we hoping to win against Al Shabaab?
02:09:31.000I mean uh and also so that this story's about an air strike in Puntland where we're bombing an ISIS affiliate that popped up in 2015.
02:09:38.000So after uh you know, almost ten years of bombing Al Shabaab, another group popped up that we had to start bombing too.
02:09:44.000It's very similar to Afghanistan where we were fighting the Taliban and then you saw ISIS K pop up.
02:09:49.000Um and th this war in a lot of ways is kind of like a mini Afghanistan where they're fighting against the Sunni Muslim insurgency, propping up a government that relies on foreign funding to really you know, exist and uh you know it it it seems like it's only a matter of time, you know, before this, you know, at some point we decide to either gonna negotiate some kind of deal or just pull out and watch Mogadishu fall.
02:10:14.000Um they they've been back on the counteroffensive, they just lost a lot of territory to Al Shabaab over the past few years and now they're launching this like counteroffensive against Al Shabaab and that's why we've seen a big increase in the air strike.