Timcast IRL - Tim Pool - LEAKED Memo Says NO BACK PAY For Federal Workers Amid Government Shutdown | Timcast IRL

00:01:26.000 Welcome to Timcast IRL.

00:01:28.000 I 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.

00:01:37.000 We are what a week into this shutdown, and like many one week olds, the shutdown is getting crankier by the moment.

00:01:44.000 And 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?

00:01:51.000 Uh 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.

00:02:02.000 Also, it is October 7th.

00:02:04.000 We 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.

00:02:27.000 Turning point USA has responded to that.

00:02:29.000 We 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.

00:02:38.000 It'll be terrific.

00:02:39.000 Before we have that discussion, a few words from our sponsors.

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00:02:55.000 Smart people right now, they're locking in their winter gear because this is the best time to prep for coming.

00:03:00.000 I've been told that many times.

00:03:02.000 Before we get started, my friends, we got a great sponsor.

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00:03:14.000 Smo smart people right now, they're locking in their winter gear.

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00:03:30.000 All right.

00:03:31.000 Well, let's start with introductions.

00:03:32.000 Um I was so flattered with how you said you were some with some of the smartest minds around here in DC, uh, Mr. Gates.

00:03:38.000 So it's a pleasure to have you hosting today.

00:03:39.000 My name is Aladdin Eliyahu.

00:03:41.000 I'm the White House correspondent here at Timcast.

00:03:43.000 I've also been covering a lot of immigration stories.

00:03:45.000 Um let's go around the circle.

00:03:47.000 What about you?

00:03:47.000 Yeah, I'm Dave DeCamp.

00:03:48.000 I'm the news editor for anti-war.com where I cover the news and uh I appreciate Mr. Gates having me on here.

00:03:54.000 I'm a regular now on his show, the Matt Gates Show, which is cool.

00:03:58.000 And I'm very happy to be here.

00:04:00.000 Kurt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative magazine, likewise.

00:04:04.000 Uh a guest on Mr. Gates's uh new show.

00:04:09.000 Uh the uh the new underground, as I've termed it.

00:04:12.000 And uh excited to be here in this new capacity, or at least this temporary capacity.

00:04:19.000 Hello, everybody.

00:04:20.000 My name is Phil Labonty.

00:04:21.000 I'm the lead singer of the heavy metal band, all that remains.

00:04:22.000 I'm an anti-communist and a counter-revolutionary.

00:04:24.000 Let's get into it.

00:04:26.000 Phil, as a counter-revolutionary, are you what are you rooting for in this shutdown?

00:04:30.000 Uh well, I mean, we need to know where the counter-revolutionary force is here.

00:04:35.000 I I mean, I like the fact that the government shut down because the government can't do bad things generally.

00:04:41.000 Um, 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.

00:04:48.000 that doesn't mean that that you're gonna stop paying taxes or there's gonna be like a a two or three week break.

00:04:53.000 So really it's theater.

00:04:54.000 So I think the American people that rely on the government for stuff kind of are the losers.

00:04:58.000 Um, 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.

00:05:09.000 Um 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.

00:05:19.000 For the most part, it's the American people that lose. 0.71

00:05:22.000 I 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.

00:05:43.000 Um so I I kind of feel like the American people are the losers, really.

00:05:47.000 I I don't even know if the American people know what this is about yet.

00:05:50.000 It has a sort of festivist energy to it.

00:05:52.000 People are mad about the deportations, people are mad about the tariffs, people are mad about executive power.

00:05:58.000 There'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.

00:06:08.000 Like it's not like Republicans picked this day in history and said this will be the day that the Obamacare credits end.

00:06:13.000 It 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.

00:06:22.000 And I am completely flummoxed by it.

00:06:23.000 I don't understand why.

00:06:25.000 Kurt Mills, can can you explain why Republicans are losing the messaging war on a shutdown objectively caused by the Democrats over external policy demands?

00:06:34.000 Uh not really because no one's really paying attention to this thing, but I will attempt to.

00:06:38.000 Um 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.

00:06:53.000 There's a second one that kind of uh presaged gingrich's exodus from politics or exodus from the House in the late 90s.

00:07:00.000 And I looked into this a few years ago and there's very little correlation.

00:07:05.000 People 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.

00:07:12.000 It's not clear at all, like literally.

00:07:15.000 Uh and so uh I think that also sort of makes this not super important.

00:07:20.000 I 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.

00:07:44.000 Uh 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.

00:07:53.000 Yeah, 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.

00:08:01.000 And so now Trump is being blamed for having not done something, keeping the governor government open that he cannot do without the Democrats.

00:08:09.000 And it and it seems as though this is more of a spasm reaction where they just they need to fight on something.

00:08:15.000 Like who's in charge of the Democratic Party right now?

00:08:18.000 I 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.

00:08:30.000 And uh the congressional Republicans or Democrats all look like they're just extras in the movie and they want to play a role.

00:08:38.000 And so they've brought this shutdown upon the country.

00:08:41.000 Trump must be frustrated with it.

00:08:43.000 How 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?

00:08:52.000 Like 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.

00:09:02.000 But at the same time, like we can't look like we're enjoying it too much.

00:09:06.000 Well, I think that's why the Republicans are getting blamed, though.

00:09:08.000 People, frankly, like they they've been able to create villains like vote like Miller.

00:09:12.000 The Republicans are using this crisis as uh as a pretext to do all the scary things they want to do.

00:09:17.000 Which we should, but we just shouldn't talk about it so much.

00:09:19.000 Well, the White House has leaned into it.

00:09:21.000 I 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.

00:09:29.000 I I haven't seen him use that word basically since he claimed that he didn't have a lot of people.

00:09:33.000 No, it struck me as it was pre like the the shutdown gaining you know the uh the certainty of feeling.

00:09:42.000 But you're still you're still a bit of a house nerd.

00:09:44.000 Like the people are just really paying attention to the top lines here.

00:09:48.000 Oh, I would I would I would run such a more dramatic shutdown.

00:09:51.000 No, 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.

00:09:56.000 And so like it would be much more interesting if you were.

00:09:58.000 Well, 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.

00:10:09.000 To which I was like, what, Biden's agenda?

00:10:11.000 Like 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.

00:10:19.000 That was Ukraine.

00:10:19.000 That was when Ukraine was the big agenda.

00:10:21.000 Right.

00:10:21.000 I 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.

00:10:30.000 I was kind of okay with that.

00:10:31.000 Not in a nihilistic way, but I just didn't feel I didn't feel pressure.

00:10:34.000 Whereas 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.

00:10:42.000 When you have to wait four hours to get through TSA, it's gonna suck.

00:10:46.000 When 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.

00:10:53.000 And uh I I wonder how people react to it.

00:10:55.000 Well, 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.

00:11:03.000 Um 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.

00:11:10.000 Um 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.

00:11:17.000 I mean, that's a rig, you know?

00:11:19.000 Yeah.

00:11:20.000 You mentioned something.

00:11:20.000 I think we shouldn't have to pay federal withholding during this period, you know?

00:11:24.000 So um a few things.

00:11:26.000 Uh we're only like seven days into the shutdown, so I don't think until people really start feeling the pain, will it matter?

00:11:31.000 And 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.

00:11:53.000 So I think that's the real issue at hand here.

00:11:56.000 Uh well, the Democrat spasm.

00:11:58.000 That they just have to show how long until that burns off.

00:12:02.000 They need to be able to go back to their constituents and say we are fighting the fascism that is Trump.

00:12:06.000 Trump is trying to do mass deportations and we are trying to hold him up in in the house. 0.99

00:12:10.000 That is gonna be more and more ridiculous.

00:12:12.000 People 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. 0.88

00:12:19.000 And 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.

00:12:28.000 Now, 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.

00:12:39.000 They 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.

00:12:45.000 So let me grant the premise that that that Curtin David laid out, which is no one actually cares yet.

00:12:49.000 No one's paying attention.

00:12:50.000 It's only spinning seven days.

00:12:52.000 How 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?

00:13:01.000 I think two or three months.

00:13:02.000 No, I don't think it's that long.

00:13:03.000 I think I think it's once a couple pay periods.

00:13:06.000 I don't think I don't think it'll be two or three months.

00:13:08.000 I think a couple pay maybe maybe this, I guess this Friday is when people would are supposed to get paid.

00:13:12.000 When 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.

00:13:24.000 That 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.

00:13:35.000 That kind of stuff is when it's the median checking account balance in the country is like $2,800.

00:13:40.000 Yeah, that's why we're in the Chad GPT.

00:13:42.000 You missed two paychecks.

00:13:43.000 A family is in crisis.

00:13:45.000 Absolutely.

00:13:45.000 And I think once once word gets around that there are people suffering.

00:13:48.000 At that point, will the Republicans at least be able to say that they didn't cause this?

00:13:51.000 How bad do you think the shutdown was in 1819?

00:13:54.000 Uh I think it was one of the three points during Donald Trump's presidency, where his approval rating wasn't durably at 42%.

00:14:02.000 If 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.

00:14:21.000 How long was that?

00:14:21.000 That was 35 days.

00:14:23.000 Yeah, that was 35 days.

00:14:28.000 If it goes past the Halloween thirty getting pretty bad.

00:14:30.000 Okay, so the let me let me posit this other theory, Phil.

00:14:34.000 I believe the elites have insulated themselves from the pain of shutdowns.

00:14:38.000 Like there's no real part of life for the American elite that is going to change about a shutdown.

00:14:44.000 And 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.

00:14:57.000 You agree?

00:14:58.000 Uh yeah.

00:14:58.000 Yeah, I think that the the aver the people that are being hurt are obviously people that live paycheck to paycheck.

00:15:05.000 And 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.

00:15:13.000 And and so, you know, the elites there look at if you if you own assets, right?

00:15:18.000 You 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.

00:15:27.000 And it's like it sucks because they don't want to, but it's not like I can't do this.

00:15:32.000 You have money gives you options.

00:15:34.000 So the people that have you know a million dollars tucked away for retirement or whatever, they don't worry about this.

00:15:40.000 The stock market didn't take any days off.

00:15:41.000 Yeah.

00:15:42.000 Right?

00:15:42.000 The futures markets didn't take any days off.

00:15:44.000 Like nobody's nobody's CDs stopped paying if they had accumulated wealth.

00:15:48.000 No one's home stopped appreciating in value, right?

00:15:50.000 So the boomers did did just fine in the shutdown. 0.99

00:15:53.000 So there uh Mark Mitchell's this pollster for Rasmussen.

00:15:55.000 He comes on my program, he posit deposits this theory that actually Trump needs the shutdown to reconstitute his base of the under 39 crowd.

00:16:05.000 That 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.

00:16:17.000 And 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.

00:16:31.000 So do you think they're happy about this then?

00:16:33.000 Well, I I I the pollster was saying since the election, that cohort has degraded to some extent.

00:16:42.000 And they have degraded because they uh have seen Trump assume power and become the system.

00:16:49.000 And 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.

00:16:59.000 And so what what uh happened in the administration that swelled approval rating among that constituency the most was the doge stuff.

00:17:08.000 Like 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.

00:17:20.000 Like there was a sense that like, yeah, we're actually making a fundamental difference here.

00:17:25.000 Uh does does Trump need the shutdown in some sense to get back that cohort?

00:17:30.000 And what else would get them back?

00:17:32.000 I 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.

00:17:42.000 I feel like it just hasn't hit the average everyday Americans yet in a tangible way.

00:17:46.000 Like I said, and most Americans probably don't even know that the shutdown is happening.

00:17:49.000 If you're not tapped into politics, you likely don't know that the shutdown's happening.

00:17:53.000 I am relatively tapped into politics.

00:17:55.000 Again, I focus on foreign policy, and I and but still like I pay attention to what's going on in DC.

00:17:59.000 And it keeps kind of going out of my mind that there's even a shutdown.

00:18:03.000 So it seems like business as usual as far as Washington DC is still going.

00:18:07.000 From my angle, yeah.

00:18:09.000 And you know, I I've never been personally affected by a government shutdown, but I'm not an elite.

00:18:14.000 I'm someone if I didn't make two paychecks, I'd be in trouble.

00:18:17.000 But 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.

00:18:30.000 That's like my instinct.

00:18:31.000 But 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.

00:18:40.000 I think you're a little bit more tapped in because you're a former member of the House.

00:18:42.000 So you hear shutdown and your alarms are going off, but to most people they're like a government shut shutdown.

00:18:47.000 Like I'm disappointed they didn't do it with Panache.

00:18:49.000 No, I mean I think I think there is something I mean something about this shutdown.

00:18:54.000 I I think we've entered a new, and there's nothing about this Congress.

00:18:57.000 This is this is the most boring Congress I can remember in my lifetime.

00:19:01.000 Uh we have a lot of people.

00:19:03.000 People 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.

00:19:09.000 Yeah.

00:19:09.000 Just like he gave the last president anything he wanted.

00:19:11.000 Yeah.

00:19:12.000 And that's kind of what we've gotten from Mike.

00:19:15.000 Yeah, he like he's not I know you know him, he's just not much of an entity, at least for public consumption.

00:19:21.000 Uh, you know, I mean all the other speakers were were were uh you're saying, so to speak.

00:19:27.000 I mean, I mean, I mean, even your good friend Kevin McCarthy is a character.

00:19:30.000 I mean, like he clearly a villain, but a character nonetheless.

00:19:33.000 I mean it's just like there's there w there isn't any drama.

00:19:35.000 And then like even the the leading Democrats um aren't in leadership or aren't in the Congress, right?

00:19:41.000 Newsom, Whitmer, um, you know, AOC's not heavily involved in the shutdown politics.

00:19:46.000 Yeah, who is the leader of the Democrats, like you said.

00:19:48.000 It's like OC and Burning, Schumer and Jeffries.

00:19:52.000 No, AOC and Bernie.

00:19:55.000 I mean, Jeffries is getting super beat up this year because of all this Mam Dani stuff. 1.00

00:19:58.000 So, like uh so and then Schumer's worried about a primary from AOC.

00:20:02.000 Yeah, well they're both trying to demonstrate.

00:20:04.000 They'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.

00:20:10.000 Then who is the le answer your own question?

00:20:12.000 Who's the leader?

00:20:13.000 Who's the leader of that church?

00:20:14.000 Ostensibly it's Schumer.

00:20:16.000 I mean, like I mean, that that is probably the person with the most power to stop this shutdown on the Democratic side.

00:20:21.000 And he's on borrowed time, frankly.

00:20:22.000 He'll be out of the way.

00:20:25.000 Yeah, dude.

00:20:25.000 If you're if you're old, white and male in the Democratic Party, yeah, your your days are no longer.

00:20:30.000 And then on and more hawkish than average on the B. So I agree, I agree with you about Newsom, but what does that say?

00:20:36.000 Because I I also agree with Matt about his about, you know, like if you're old white and male.

00:20:41.000 Not 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.

00:20:50.000 What does that say to his ability to actually get win a primary?

00:20:55.000 You know, I I think there's a lot of sort of self-flagellation and hatred on the Democratic side.

00:20:59.000 I I've heard a a lot of like we're not gonna make that mistake of nominating a woman again.

00:21:04.000 And we're not gonna make the mistake of uh nominating a minority again.

00:21:07.000 And so uh I think that's not why they lost.

00:21:10.000 Uh, 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.

00:21:21.000 Um I think Trump, they're like, maybe it'll work with any white people it worked with Biden for us.

00:21:28.000 I 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. 0.75

00:21:32.000 I 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.

00:21:40.000 And 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.

00:21:47.000 Well, I mean he feel like he's getting a big thing.

00:21:52.000 I was just gonna say the Democratic Party. 0.75

00:21:55.000 If 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. 1.00

00:22:06.000 Yeah, right, like the the left, the left toy. 0.98

00:22:09.000 Yeah, the left doesn't the left toys are gonna lose their mind if Ben Buddhist is the nominee.

00:22:14.000 Newsom 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.

00:22:24.000 I mean, California is the great liberal progressive project.

00:22:27.000 It's it's being covered very mediocrely.

00:22:29.000 Uh, but you know, they don't he doesn't rankle them in the same way.

00:22:33.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:22:34.000 Matt, 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.

00:22:41.000 Are were you in effect saying that he's sort of a rubber stamp on the mega agenda?

00:22:45.000 Is that a good thing?

00:22:46.000 And what do you think like what do you think he's doing as speaker?

00:22:49.000 Yeah, what are the differences between Donald Trump, Trump, and Mike Johnson on policy?

00:22:52.000 Take all the time you need.

00:22:54.000 Well, he just does whatever he tells him to do.

00:22:56.000 Right, right, exactly.

00:22:56.000 So my my point my point is that the House uh is there to simply facilitate the actions of the administration.

00:23:04.000 And I think most uh people in the House would say at this point we're fine with that.

00:23:07.000 We haven't been well led by really anyone.

00:23:10.000 Uh and we we have no unifying principle.

00:23:13.000 One 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.

00:23:21.000 There were like seven different political parties in the room.

00:23:24.000 We 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.

00:23:40.000 The weakest Congress has been in American history.

00:23:41.000 It's astonishing.

00:23:42.000 I mean, it's just like I mean, I we were we've been struggling to cover Congress of the magazine before the shutdown.

00:23:48.000 It's like what the hell is going on?

00:23:50.000 Like, and it's just not very much.

00:23:52.000 And uh does Mickey miss George Santos at all?

00:23:56.000 I always gave it to the hilarious that goes without saying so yeah, no, George Santos is back in his camp.

00:24:03.000 I 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.

00:24:14.000 Wow, uh he had been in solitary confinement because the FBI was investigating a plot to assassinate George Santos in prison.

00:24:23.000 Oh, reflected in a series of letters being presented.

00:24:31.000 I know Representative Green said she was lobbying for a pardon for Santos.

00:24:35.000 Do you think Santos deserves a pardon?

00:24:37.000 Uh I I think that uh George Santos probably will not serve his entire term.

00:24:43.000 I 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.

00:24:58.000 And by the way, you know what he spent the Hermai's money on partially?

00:25:01.000 He bought gifts for members of the steering committee.

00:25:04.000 Because 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.

00:25:12.000 And so for me, I was like, well, how do I get on the Armed Services Committee?

00:25:15.000 And they said, You have to have 150,000 to us in the next 10 days.

00:25:19.000 Uh uh and so I went and did it.

00:25:20.000 Uh but for Santos, he was like, I know exactly how to win him over, and he went and bought everybody like an erme's pocket square.

00:25:27.000 And then got apparently that's against a whole lot of really good laws.

00:25:30.000 I think it's worth mentioning too that the district that he used to represent has been um blue ever since.

00:25:35.000 And you know, blue before.

00:25:37.000 Sure.

00:25:37.000 So yeah, he's a good thing.

00:25:38.000 George was the only one that won it.

00:25:39.000 He 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.

00:25:50.000 Do 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.

00:26:00.000 I mean think we have two twenty-two now something.

00:26:02.000 I don't know, are we caught are we counting Massey as a Republican or not?

00:26:04.000 Because I don't know, often he supports anything.

00:26:06.000 Massey is a Republican.

00:26:07.000 Massive government agenda often in Congress and voting with Democrats.

00:26:13.000 Well uh on on on on what core thing?

00:26:17.000 I mean, I guess I guess he had some constitutional questions about the wall that I didn't have.

00:26:21.000 Um but on issues like opposing foreign entanglements and spending reductions, I've been aligned with Massey.

00:26:27.000 I think he's pissed the president off enough to get him to endorse his opponent.

00:26:31.000 I forgot exactly what bill it was.

00:26:33.000 Maybe the previous continuum resolution where he voted against and was holding up they're not gonna be able to get rid of Massie, though. 0.53

00:26:38.000 That's what the only thing he's got too much.

00:26:40.000 Yeah, Massie's the only interesting things that's going on in the Congress.

00:26:43.000 Yeah.

00:26:43.000 I don't know if holding up the MAGA agenda is interesting, but mediocre demands.

00:26:48.000 I'm not very happy about it.

00:26:49.000 Like 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.

00:26:57.000 I think if Thomas Massey ran on a national platform that on that platform in a national race, he would lose badly.

00:27:03.000 He's not running for president, he's not a good thing.

00:27:06.000 But I know I'm saying his policy.

00:27:09.000 My question to Thomas Massey was if they're gonna spend twenty million dollars against you, why even run for the House again?

00:27:14.000 Why not just run for Senate in Kentucky?

00:27:16.000 There's no runoff in Kentucky.

00:27:17.000 It's first past the post.

00:27:18.000 It's McConnell's old seat.

00:27:20.000 It's an already fragmented field.

00:27:22.000 Thomas 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.

00:27:31.000 And that could be an easy.

00:27:34.000 That 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.

00:27:41.000 I mean, they I they haven't really recruited anybody credible.

00:27:44.000 If 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.

00:27:56.000 I no totally what do you mean?

00:27:58.000 Rand Paul, when Rand Paul questions deportation.

00:28:02.000 And 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.

00:28:17.000 For against some of the dumbest things in public policy in the last seven years.

00:28:21.000 Yeah, the COVID stuff, the Ron War.

00:28:24.000 Uh, you know, I don't agree with him on everything, but like this this man is so much more interesting.

00:28:29.000 He'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?

00:28:36.000 You can say the MAGA agenda all the time.

00:28:37.000 Trump changes his mind all the time.

00:28:38.000 Well, Speaker Johnson and Thomas Massey have two very different jobs, right?

00:28:42.000 Speaker 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.

00:28:49.000 Thomas Massey just needs to play to his base, and it's a completely different, you know, organization that he has to run.

00:28:54.000 You know where I used to fight with him was on the antitrust stuff.

00:28:56.000 I mean, fight in good nature.

00:28:57.000 Yeah.

00:28:58.000 But 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.

00:29:11.000 Uh I had views aligned with, you know, uh uh, you know, people like Jerry Nadler on on the question of antitrust enforcement.

00:29:18.000 And uh Massey was like very reliably with the corporate right against that kind of bull moose energy of uh of our movement.

00:29:28.000 He doesn't like the government.

00:29:29.000 Yeah no, but like it shows that there's nuance to these things.

00:29:32.000 Yeah, but I don't think you can paint someone's like pro-MAGA, anti-MAGA.

00:29:36.000 Well, the president does and so I think he has the mantle to say so.

00:29:40.000 The issue with um like being in government and being an anti-government guy, it's like you're it's self-defeating.

00:29:45.000 It's like I you're you're elected to effectively not get much done.

00:29:49.000 Like 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.

00:29:56.000 He 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.

00:30:03.000 And he was the I'm not even sure this video's online, but he was the keynote speaker of it.

00:30:07.000 Um he talked about how that you know of the candidates in the 2016 primary field, uh, that Trump was his second favorite.

00:30:18.000 Um, 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.

00:30:32.000 Compare 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.

00:30:44.000 This is MAGA music.

00:30:45.000 It means nothing.

00:30:46.000 It's just Pablum.

00:30:48.000 Massey actually was there in the grassroots at the beginning 10 years ago.

00:30:53.000 Yeah, 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.

00:31:03.000 It's fascinating that you have to go back almost a decade.

00:31:06.000 We could go off what the president says and thinks right now on the case.

00:31:13.000 Trump's endorsing his opponent.

00:31:15.000 Trump said that he is not MAGA.

00:31:17.000 Yeah, yeah, no.

00:31:17.000 But he actually said I believe he said it along the lines of him being antithetical to the MAGA agenda.

00:31:21.000 And to answer your question from earlier, what is the top issue for the Republicans of the MAGA agenda?

00:31:25.000 It's mass deportations, and libertarian obstructionists get in the way of achieving that goal.

00:31:30.000 And having Republican does Massey take up a stance against the case.

00:31:34.000 Well, on the immigration debate, I know this was some granularity.

00:31:37.000 There was one issue that Massey did not like in the House position on the immigration debate.

00:31:42.000 He did not like the e-verify stuff.

00:31:45.000 He felt like e-verify was a step to a government surveillance control over data thing.

00:31:51.000 Yeah.

00:31:52.000 And so we always had to deal with Massey on that question.

00:31:54.000 But 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.

00:32:06.000 That's one of the big reasons why he's the only reason.

00:32:08.000 There's all this money behind it.

00:32:10.000 And I know you're pretty pro-Israel, so that might be one of your problems with him too.

00:32:13.000 I 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.

00:32:19.000 But I just mean a few of the people.

00:32:23.000 With the money on Israel, it's not about the MAGA agenda.

00:32:25.000 It's about his yeah, that's what I mean.

00:32:26.000 That's who's that's who is.

00:32:27.000 Okay, so he's weak on the board, he's weak on the border and immigration to get the wheel.

00:32:31.000 Well no, we have we haven't established that there's there's just two things that he had issues with.

00:32:34.000 He didn't he isn't hasn't made any kind of stink about all of the mass deportation stuff.

00:32:40.000 Like 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.

00:32:48.000 He needs to stop sending the National Guard to the United States.

00:32:50.000 Well, Rand Paul suggested that we shouldn't use the military mass.

00:32:53.000 I know.

00:32:54.000 Rand Paul's is libertarian.

00:32:57.000 Rand Paul is a different person.

00:32:59.000 I understand.

00:32:59.000 Let me finish.

00:33:00.000 Stop.

00:33:00.000 But I'm talking about bigger issues here.

00:33:03.000 I know that you hate libertarians, but the fact of the matter is, if you're talking about one person, stay on stay on the one topic.

00:33:08.000 Okay.

00:33:09.000 Massey 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.

00:33:19.000 He hasn't said anything that I'm aware of about the mass deportations that we've done so far. 0.86

00:33:24.000 So 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.

00:33:33.000 He's not. 0.62

00:33:34.000 Also, we just talked about for 20 minutes about how irrelevant Congress is.

00:33:38.000 Congress isn't blocking the administration for mass deportations.

00:33:41.000 The administration's inertia is.

00:33:43.000 That I mean, that's I mean, like if they wanted to.

00:33:44.000 I don't know that much is being blocked.

00:33:46.000 What is being blocked by the Congress?

00:33:48.000 Like like nothing.

00:33:49.000 Well, I guess I guess the continuing resolution.

00:33:50.000 Yes, okay, yes.

00:33:51.000 Okay.

00:33:52.000 I mean, I just want to run through a couple examples because I wanted to give specific things.

00:33:55.000 So 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.

00:34:04.000 So I'm saying flimsy, weak obstructionist libertarian types when it comes to the biggest thing.

00:34:09.000 I think you'd be called flimsy and weak when he's when it comes to standing up on party.

00:34:14.000 Do you care about Masti Picture?

00:34:15.000 I think libertarians have a different agenda.

00:34:17.000 Illog just hates libertarians.

00:34:19.000 Yeah, he thinks that they're leftists.

00:34:20.000 I don't blame him for that.

00:34:22.000 I listen, I agree.

00:34:23.000 I stopped calling myself a libertarian.

00:34:24.000 Doesn't mean that I'm not sympathetic to a lot of their policies, but I don't call myself a libertarian.

00:34:28.000 I think that's the president on this one.

00:34:29.000 I think there's more of a libertarian streak in MAGA, at least there was at the beginning because we were like outcasts.

00:34:35.000 If you supported Trump over candidacies like Rubio or Jeb, you were there was something like a little off about you.

00:34:42.000 And then it it we were kind of the the I think he ate Rand Paul's constituency.

00:34:46.000 I think a ramp Ram Rand Paul was what was super hot in 2014, 2015.

00:34:51.000 I think uh Rand got somewhat unlucky by the rise of ISIS.

00:34:54.000 Um 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.

00:35:11.000 But Trump was echoing all of this stuff.

00:35:14.000 He 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.

00:35:21.000 Trump was a far better communicator than Rand uh about Randall.

00:35:24.000 I like I like that.

00:35:24.000 Trump was far too Donald Trump is Donald Trump.

00:35:27.000 Trump is far taller than Rand Paul, and as a short guy, I know like that matters, especially when you're running for president.

00:35:32.000 Okay, 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.

00:35:42.000 Uh 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.

00:35:56.000 It's gonna come through the speaker.

00:35:58.000 Volumes down on it.

00:36:00.000 Well, look on this on the screen.

00:36:02.000 Twitter video in the video.

00:36:03.000 Okay.

00:36:04.000 I promise.

00:36:05.000 See.

00:36:06.000 Yeah.

00:36:06.000 There you go.

00:36:07.000 So Charlie writes in the screw chat just lost another huge Junior donor.

00:36:12.000 Uh two million a year because we won't cancel Tucker.

00:36:16.000 I'm thinking of inviting Candace.

00:36:18.000 Somebody writes.

00:36:19.000 Ugh.

00:36:21.000 Charlie writes, Jewish donors play into all of the stereotypes.

00:36:25.000 I cannot and will not be bullied like this, leaving me no choice but to leave the pro-Israel cause.

00:36:34.000 And somebody writes, donor writes, please do not invite Candace.

00:36:38.000 That might feel good short term, but it's not good long term, in my opinion.

00:36:41.000 Like all groups, you're going to get a wide variety of opinions.

00:36:44.000 That nasty free will thing that God bestow on us makes life frustrating at times after the dust settles a bit, maybe.

00:36:51.000 So again, this is 48 hours before Charlie Kirk was Sassy.

00:36:55.000 He was very clear and he was very explicit, and he did not back down out in that Hamptons meeting, which they're all lying about.

00:37:00.000 Nor in this text thread.

00:37:02.000 I am not going to reveal the names of the other seven.

00:37:05.000 Actually, you know what?

00:37:06.000 I disagree with myself four seconds ago.

00:37:07.000 Let's just throw in Josh Hammer for funsies. 0.99

00:37:09.000 He's on this chat.

00:37:10.000 Okay.

00:37:14.000 So after that hit the uh interwebs, you had a lot of people questioning whether or not that was legit.

00:37:20.000 Andrew 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.

00:37:29.000 Uh was constantly at his side, his business partner, uh, his co-operative on almost every project.

00:37:35.000 Here's Andrew Colvet addressing those text messages.

00:37:40.000 Some 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.

00:37:51.000 And 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.

00:37:59.000 So it it is authentic.

00:38:00.000 And I want to go into it because I actually am really excited that the the truth is out there.

00:38:05.000 I 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.

00:38:19.000 I wanted to not betray my friend's trust in that way.

00:38:22.000 But I did share it with some people in government because it happened really quick.

00:38:26.000 It was a you know, it took 33 hours for authorities to get their suspect.

00:38:31.000 And in that first in those first moments, we wanted no stone unturned.

00:38:35.000 We wanted to leave nothing unturned.

00:38:37.000 So I shared it with a few people.

00:38:40.000 Don't know where it went from there, apparently.

00:38:42.000 Uh, but here we are.

00:38:44.000 So one of the reasons, Blake, that I'm glad to have this now public.

00:38:50.000 It 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.

00:39:04.000 And when I say that we want justice for Charlie more than anybody else, I really mean it.

00:39:09.000 And no stone on turn.

00:39:11.000 I mean, I I don't know if you want to chime in on that part alone, but I have more to say.

00:39:15.000 Yeah, I so it's it has been so frustrating to have people blow up about this.

00:39:19.000 And you know, we've stated I've certainly stated publicly.

00:39:22.000 The reason I haven't waited on things is I am an eyewitness to events, and they've said anything.

00:39:28.000 Yeah.

00:39:29.000 All right.

00:39:30.000 So 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.

00:39:47.000 What does that tell us?

00:39:48.000 Well, I want to ask you something about this because I saw that you had Max Blumenthal on your show recently.

00:39:53.000 Yeah, to talk about his reporting about this.

00:39:56.000 And in that text, he talks about the pressure uh for having Tucker and and Candace there.

00:40:00.000 And it seemed like in that interview, you suggested that there might have been some pressure about having you speak at turning point events.

00:40:06.000 Is that right?

00:40:07.000 Well, uh first of all, in the moments where Charlie was having those discussions, he was reflecting the very same thing to me.

00:40:14.000 That he was feeling this dual pressure.

00:40:16.000 He 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.

00:40:42.000 Not not that we're a homogenized group, but uh that those viewpoints would not be helpful for young people to hear.

00:40:49.000 Charlie resisted that, but I'm telling you, this was a guy who this pained him.

00:40:53.000 Because I have a different viewpoint on on this than Kurt does.

00:40:56.000 Kurt said on my program recently, he wants a divorce from the Israel first crowd in on the right. 0.99

00:41:04.000 That 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.

00:41:21.000 And uh I actually think that that was what Charlie worked so hard to try to curate, keeping these things together.

00:41:27.000 And 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.

00:41:36.000 He would not have wanted his death to be something that's like yeah, that like accelerated the the divorce.

00:41:44.000 Um he really was trying to like stay together for the kids, or at least the midterms.

00:41:50.000 Yeah, I mean the whole thing is really interesting.

00:41:53.000 Like 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? 0.87

00:42:00.000 I mean this is I think that I think there's the term is now getting uh perhaps more than I anticipated.

00:42:05.000 But yeah, I think I think that U.S. foreign policy should be beautifully divorced from Israeli foreign policy. 0.78

00:42:10.000 Yeah.

00:42:10.000 But 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?

00:42:20.000 I mean, again, like this is a this is like a shell, right?

00:42:23.000 So 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.

00:42:31.000 But in the current time, uh functionally one on offer is this, which is uh Israel is gonna prosecute this forever war.

00:42:39.000 Uh 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.

00:42:55.000 And 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.

00:43:02.000 Um, but they were like, you know, the thing that you you you do raise, Kurt, that I think is fair.

00:43:08.000 And this is a person who is I you know, this person Jewish, this person is uh probably supportive of Israel's campaign against Hamas.

00:43:14.000 Um this person said though, uh the thing about the Israel crowd, though, is they ask for everything.

00:43:21.000 It is the whole political capital of the administration right now.

00:43:24.000 It's not just part of it.

00:43:25.000 And 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?

00:43:38.000 Israel Gaza.

00:43:40.000 Uh 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.

00:43:55.000 Uh there are certainly similarities between the Israeli project and the American project.

00:44:00.000 Uh, 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.

00:44:10.000 Can I follow up on something that you said uh just one point on the end here?

00:44:14.000 You said like put off the Iran issue.

00:44:16.000 How do you think the United States should react to Iran's perceived nuclear ambitions?

00:44:21.000 I 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.

00:44:27.000 The 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.

00:44:40.000 And the U.S. could have accepted that.

00:44:42.000 Above ground inspections were also rumored.

00:44:44.000 Uh these are not uh UN inspections, these are American inspectors that you can put in the biggest tough ass non-prolificer.

00:44:51.000 Send Mark Levin.

00:44:51.000 They can send Mark Dubois, they can say Mark Levin.

00:44:53.000 They can send Josh Hammer.

00:44:54.000 They can go to Iran themselves and take a look around.

00:44:57.000 I know one.

00:44:57.000 That's a pretty good deal.

00:44:58.000 It's a better deal than JCPOA.

00:45:00.000 It's a better deal than the Obama deal.

00:45:02.000 And I think Trump and the U.S. should take it.

00:45:04.000 I think that deal could still be procured.

00:45:07.000 And I think that's much better than the track we're on.

00:45:09.000 Is that to say that you don't think the United States should allow Iran to ultimately acquire nuclear weapons?

00:45:16.000 I think it's a false question because there's a deal on offer to avoid that.

00:45:20.000 Yeah, that wouldn't be like the other scenario wouldn't be just letting Iran have a nuclear weapon.

00:45:24.000 You know, they're moving, we're making it way more likely.

00:45:26.000 Like not dealing with Tehran diplomatically could make them conclude that we have to lunge for some sort of rudimentary bomb.

00:45:33.000 We have we have made every policy choice to make nuclear proliferation more likely.

00:45:37.000 So 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.

00:45:44.000 And 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%.

00:45:54.000 There wouldn't be any Iranian only it would even have this absurd, basically Israeli invented neoconservative invented uh pretext of zero enrichment. 0.88

00:46:03.000 There was even a sort of hole in the Death Star, if you will, to have zero Iranian only enrichment. 0.76

00:46:09.000 It would have been shared with Saladi and possibly that further.

00:46:14.000 But that was on the agenda for the talks on June 15th.

00:46:17.000 You 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.

00:46:21.000 But then what happened on June 13th?

00:46:26.000 And what did President Trump say on Truth Social when the Israeli jets were in the air?

00:46:30.000 He said, Oh, I'm committed to a diplomatic solution with the Iranians or something along those lines. 0.59

00:46:36.000 And according to the reporting, he sent that out when the Israeli jets were in the air, when they were attacking Iran.

00:46:43.000 Um 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.

00:46:51.000 And I think it just it shows how toxic.

00:46:53.000 So you think our diplomatic credibility is even judged by our relationship with Iran?

00:46:57.000 I 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.

00:47:04.000 Uh though those Sunni countries around there, they view Iran as as a participant in this mischief to some degree. 0.98

00:47:12.000 They hrael too, though.

00:47:13.000 Well, I didn't say they didn't say they didn't.

00:47:15.000 But I but like, you know, uh I I don't know that I buy into the fact that like our our chastity in our negotiations.

00:47:25.000 Israel's a useful foil for other countries in the like domestically. 0.96

00:47:28.000 They can they can say, well, you know, blame it.

00:47:30.000 One big difference about these negotiations between when Obama did it is that the Saudis wanted the Iran deal.

00:47:35.000 So did the English people.

00:47:36.000 They did not want the Iran deal back under Obama.

00:47:38.000 The Muslim world was united for the United States.

00:47:40.000 So you think it's who didn't want it to be.

00:47:41.000 So they believe that a deal can be done with Iran.

00:47:44.000 The critique that I would often hear in Congress is there's no deal that can be done with them.

00:47:49.000 Any deal you do, they will cheat.

00:47:50.000 Let us give you the long parade of horribles as to the times when they've deviated from uh their otherwise stated agreements.

00:47:57.000 What is what is the answer to the argument that the Iranians simply can never be trusted?

00:48:01.000 I think that's made up.

00:48:02.000 I mean, I I think that I think the Obama deal was basically working.

00:48:05.000 Uh Trump wanted to have a better deal, so that was what he was cited.

00:48:10.000 I mean, if you go back to April of 2020, uh, that's when he flushed out McMaster.

00:48:14.000 Uh, he flushed out Rex Tillerson, and he installed Pompeo in Bolton.

00:48:18.000 And I think it's pretty clear that he wanted to leave the Iran deal because Obama signed it.

00:48:23.000 And uh meanwhile, the guys who wrote the policy on it uh wanted no deal.

00:48:28.000 They were his rationale uh for leaving the deal was super personalistic and different than Bolton and Pompeo's.

00:48:36.000 Trump said he would meet with the Ayatollah.

00:48:38.000 Uh this is the guy who wanted to bring the Taliban, I know not Iran, wanted to bring the Taliban to Camp David.

00:48:43.000 His uh justification was basically he didn't personally negotiate uh this deal with Iran.

00:48:48.000 Now, putting aside whether or not that's a great thing for the president of the United States to do, that's what he did.

00:48:53.000 Uh but I think veil of ignorance, he wants a deal.

00:48:56.000 And 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. 0.73

00:49:04.000 Aaron 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?

00:49:12.000 So 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.

00:49:18.000 So 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.

00:49:26.000 No, no, it's a sunset provisions that the deal the deal had to be renegotiated in 10 to 15 years.

00:49:30.000 But that but that would be had the non proliferation treaty.

00:49:34.000 They still would have been a signatory to the non proliferation treaty.

00:49:36.000 Yeah, and I guess there's also the issue of Iranian proxies in the region, which is responsible to uh of the death.

00:49:42.000 Well, but before we get to the proxies, just on this question of denuclearization.

00:49:46.000 Because I think I think the proxy question is a total of the problem.

00:49:48.000 No, because if we don't okay, so the consequences of not having an Iran nuclear deal, though, is significant um sanctions on Iran.

00:49:55.000 And then if we have those significant sanctions on Iran, they're not in a position to support their proxies as much.

00:50:00.000 So that's why this gets tangled up in all of that.

00:50:03.000 Sure.

00:50:04.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:50:04.000 Would you accept the argument that I actually care about the Iranian proxies considerably less than the Iranian nuclear program?

00:50:11.000 And that I might be willing to trade Iranian proxy capability for knowing that there would not be a nuclear Iran. 0.51

00:50:18.000 Just as an American.

00:50:19.000 Because 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. 0.93

00:50:29.000 I think a tough thing that needs to be a lot of people.

00:50:33.000 I 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.

00:50:41.000 I think a big question here too is how much of a threat is Iran really?

00:50:45.000 You are in Congress, you I'm sure you were in you have more uh access to information regarding the threat from them.

00:50:50.000 When 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?

00:50:58.000 Are they just posturing to try to get you know popularity within their country?

00:51:02.000 Or do they mean it when they say these stuff, this stuff, and attack our troops in the Middle East?

00:51:06.000 Some 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.

00:51:12.000 I certainly don't take it that seriously when they scream at me across several oceans.

00:51:16.000 So an Islamist Islamists screams death to America, and you're not taking that threat seriously. 1.00

00:51:21.000 We just welcomed it. 0.65

00:51:22.000 You know what I mean?

00:51:23.000 You know what I took seriously?

00:51:24.000 You know what I took seriously?

00:51:25.000 Their intercontinental ballistic missile program.

00:51:27.000 And when they abandoned it in 2013, I took them considerably less seriously.

00:51:32.000 Like I I I actually take the North Koreans a lot more seriously because they have a delivery mechanism. 1.00

00:51:36.000 They have a re-entry vehicle.

00:51:38.000 Iran, 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. 0.74

00:51:45.000 And so, like when I look at their kind of chance and their their naughty talk toward us, it just means less to me.

00:51:51.000 What 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.

00:52:02.000 Like, you do you have a problem with that?

00:52:04.000 That's just so Syria, by the way. 0.92

00:52:05.000 I mean, Syria is the country.

00:52:06.000 I think my neo connery is going to go there.

00:52:08.000 Like, I don't know, no, I'm just saying, suggesting that I support the president of Syria.

00:52:12.000 No, 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. 0.66

00:52:24.000 We literally just rolled out the red carpet for uh the leader of al Qaeda in Syria.

00:52:29.000 Uh and you think I'm a big fan of that?

00:52:32.000 No, I'm just saying.

00:52:32.000 I'm just saying that the talking work Israel's bombing um Syria still, even though this new guy in office is.

00:52:38.000 Yeah, even though they they helped the regime change and celebrated it, and Netanyahu took credit.

00:52:42.000 So I don't know what your angle is.

00:52:44.000 No, I'm just saying that the reason why they wanted to oust the Assad was because Assad was an ally of Iran.

00:52:49.000 There was the weapons pipeline to Hezbollah, and they would prefer an al-Qaeda guy in there over an ally of Iran.

00:52:55.000 I mean, that's clearly true.

00:52:56.000 I mean that's that's just good old-fashioned Shia Sunni politics. 0.77

00:53:00.000 Right?

00:53:00.000 I mean, the conquered.

00:53:02.000 The Saudis are thrilled with this guy in Syria because they view him as more closely aligned to Saudi than Iran.

00:53:09.000 This is very normative.

00:53:10.000 Matt, 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?

00:53:17.000 I don't know how we think we're gonna stop any of these Gulf countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. 0.98

00:53:23.000 Especially security guarantees, that's what it's been.

00:53:25.000 I 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.

00:53:34.000 I I think the era of proliferation in the Middle East is upon us. 1.00

00:53:37.000 I don't celebrate that.

00:53:38.000 I'm not cheering for it.

00:53:40.000 But 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.

00:53:52.000 The Israelis cooked up the proliferation issue in the 90s. 0.99

00:53:54.000 I 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.

00:54:01.000 I I think if we can get a durable deal with the Iranians that they won't proliferate. 1.00

00:54:05.000 I 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.

00:54:17.000 That's just the Saudi sign that defense deal with Pakistan.

00:54:20.000 Yeah, which is the heavy nuclear game.

00:54:22.000 We've already seen the results of this.

00:54:24.000 So if we if we actually care about nuclear non-proliferation, it is incumbent upon us to do a reasonable deal with the Iran. 0.97

00:54:31.000 If we're saying F it, then I mean what do you guys think?

00:54:32.000 I'm not saying F. No, wait, you're not like a finish.

00:54:34.000 Yeah.

00:54:35.000 I I mean if the idea is F it everybody gets nuclear weapons, maybe I mean, what about Ukraine getting a nuclear weapon?

00:54:40.000 We wouldn't have to be able to do that.

00:54:40.000 No, he's terrifying.

00:54:41.000 I don't think Ukraine should have a nuclear weapon.

00:54:42.000 Okay, you seem more terrified about Ukraine having a nuclear weapon than you did potentially Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

00:54:47.000 A lot of times missing from the conversation, too, is the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons and due to his factors and everything.

00:54:52.000 I'm telling you, I don't just have no, but no, seriously then.

00:54:56.000 We wouldn't we would not need to send weapons to Ukraine and they would have a credible deterrent if they had a nuclear weapon, right? 0.93

00:55:00.000 So I what's the logic?

00:55:02.000 There are Republicans in Congress who hold that view.

00:55:04.000 There are Republicans in Congress who do believe we should create a strategic force for Ukraine that includes a nuclear component.

00:55:10.000 Yeah, I don't think we should.

00:55:11.000 Well, yeah, I I don't think we should do this with any of these countries.

00:55:14.000 I don't think any of us seems to be saying that he believes nuclear proliferation is inevitable.

00:55:19.000 But for rich countries, not Ukraine.

00:55:21.000 But yeah, but it's not that I don't think the argument is for the countries that like you know bribe World Cup officials.

00:55:28.000 If you don't have World Cup bribe money, I don't know that it's like guaranteed that you get a nuclear weapon.

00:55:32.000 But if you do, you're probably I mean, they have real military capabilities, right?

00:55:36.000 I mean, they were it's I and they had a nuclear program 40 years ago.

00:55:40.000 Sure, we got them to abandon it.

00:55:41.000 But 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.

00:55:48.000 Yeah, I think the president's conversation having the deal.

00:55:50.000 I think the president is more informed than you guys are on the other hand.

00:55:53.000 On the specific nuclear deal, and I think he's getting a bad deal.

00:55:55.000 I think I mean you guys may think otherwise, but uh, but you acknowledge he wants a deal.

00:55:59.000 Trump wants an Iran deal.

00:56:01.000 Yes, he wants a deal.

00:56:02.000 And and what would be the core features of that deal?

00:56:05.000 Trump could strike with Iran that you could support. 0.80

00:56:09.000 I don't think they should be able to achieve the nuclear weapons.

00:56:12.000 Okay.

00:56:12.000 So you have to take you have to take ultimate achievement of that off the table.

00:56:15.000 Yeah.

00:56:16.000 That's a ultimate achievement.

00:56:17.000 And the supporting of proxy group needs to be a key aspect of this as well.

00:56:21.000 That's not a nuclear.

00:56:21.000 And it's not gonna happen.

00:56:22.000 That's not a nuclear deal.

00:56:23.000 Is that a nuclear thing?

00:56:24.000 So is every Shia who like launches a weapon or sets off a roadside bomb being funded by Iran? 0.99

00:56:29.000 I I know, but every Shia group that gets weapons from Iran, Iran sends them off.

00:56:33.000 As the Houthis, wait, you know the Houthis. 0.93

00:56:34.000 No, yeah, I know they're backed by Iran.

00:56:35.000 Has been not only back, like they're sub they're wondering.

00:56:42.000 Houthis make their missiles. 1.00

00:56:45.000 Until women don't have to wear a burqa. 1.00

00:56:47.000 They're not wearing them in Tehran anymore.

00:56:49.000 Like 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.

00:56:55.000 I mean, the the the Iran is a more secular country in a lot of ways than Saudi.

00:56:59.000 I mean, I don't think it's even close.

00:57:01.000 What about ballistic missiles?

00:57:02.000 Would you want them to have to limit their missile program?

00:57:04.000 Uh yeah, I don't think.

00:57:05.000 Would you accept the deal without that?

00:57:07.000 No.

00:57:07.000 Well, then it's not gonna be a good idea.

00:57:08.000 And they just don't know about the US and Israel.

00:57:10.000 We will accept it.

00:57:11.000 Total surrender.

00:57:12.000 Yeah.

00:57:13.000 It wouldn't be total surrender because guess what?

00:57:14.000 We're not doing regime change, and they're lucky that's not happening.

00:57:17.000 Look at the Maduro treatment that he's about to get right now.

00:57:19.000 They are, I think they should be, they should know that they're on thin ice.

00:57:22.000 I think they're aware.

00:57:23.000 Like congratulations.

00:57:24.000 Like, like that there is a there is a religious gerantocracy atop their society. 0.62

00:57:29.000 Um they, in order to maintain some level of power, have to have some stability for their regime.

00:57:37.000 I'm not justifying that.

00:57:39.000 But asking them to throw over all of their cars to use the president's term is a non-starter.

00:57:43.000 They'd rather go ready to go to war.

00:57:45.000 And so you're so basically the the hard line position is setting up a deal so bad that we're gonna go going to go to war.

00:57:50.000 And I think the war is way too risky.

00:57:52.000 I think it's not a good idea.

00:57:54.000 And I think I think we should avoid it.

00:57:55.000 What was that, Dave?

00:57:56.000 I think another war is probably coming pretty soon.

00:57:58.000 Yeah, I think it's like you know who one of the biggest forces was against extended involvement in that war?

00:58:03.000 Charlie Kirk.

00:58:04.000 That's right.

00:58:05.000 You 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. 0.57

00:58:21.000 Charlie 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.

00:58:48.000 Charlie 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.

00:59:14.000 And 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.

00:59:25.000 Do you think hostilities are coming?

00:59:27.000 No, I think Israel mogged the countries, Iran and their proxies sufficiently. 0.99

00:59:31.000 I 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. 0.84

00:59:43.000 Um I think it was like 800 civilians and 900 not civilians in Israel were murdered by Hamas.

00:59:48.000 But 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. 0.62

01:00:05.000 The Houthis have been stampered down to the world. 1.00

01:00:07.000 They're the Al Qaeda guy over Assad. 0.91

01:00:09.000 Yeah.

01:00:09.000 So hold on, this is important.

01:00:12.000 No, this is important.

01:00:13.000 But if you're wrong, if you're wrong though, if the hostilities re-emerge in say the next 90 to 120 days, will you support them?

01:00:19.000 Or are you opposed to it?

01:00:20.000 What?

01:00:21.000 Well, because you just said they got mobbed.

01:00:22.000 They said you said that so there's no crisis.

01:00:24.000 I don't see no crisis anymore.

01:00:25.000 So why did the Israel. 0.94

01:00:26.000 Well, 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.

01:00:35.000 So, 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.

01:00:48.000 Israel did not win that war.

01:00:49.000 You don't think Iran was got the better of that exchange.

01:00:52.000 They were hitting better, they killed more people.

01:00:54.000 Your impression is that you hear what I said?

01:00:56.000 I said they killed more people, but they were striking Israel to the last minute. 1.00

01:01:00.000 I mean, and they did some serious damage, isn't it?

01:01:03.000 You think he's really not like I think better if that's the same thing.

01:01:06.000 I think the I think that they were running on interceptors.

01:01:09.000 I think I think the ceasefire at the end of the day was brokered on Israel's behalf, not on Iran's.

01:01:13.000 Um 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. 0.99

01:01:23.000 It's a set I didn't I know I didn't I relax.

01:01:26.000 You don't need to freak out over there.

01:01:28.000 I want to take this full circle though.

01:01:30.000 Yeah.

01:01:30.000 It 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.

01:01:42.000 I as I understand you used to be relatively more pro-Israel than you are now.

01:01:46.000 Can 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.

01:01:59.000 Yeah, I I question the depth and the degree of the relationship now, and I have migrated on the issue.

01:02:04.000 And by the way, I think a lot of young Americans have.

01:02:06.000 I think Charlie Kirk's migration on the issue, my own migration on the issue tracks where a lot of Americans are.

01:02:11.000 And for me, um initially I resented the fact that there was no appreciation for nuance.

01:02:17.000 Like 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.

01:02:31.000 And I just in any policy area, I I had resentment over that.

01:02:35.000 And then I saw the way the APAC worked, and that that was weird for like a country lawyer like me.

01:02:42.000 I 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.

01:02:51.000 And you get there and you wear this name badge, and I remember there's a QR code on it.

01:02:55.000 And 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.

01:03:05.000 And 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.

01:03:18.000 I mean, it's like literally purchasing.

01:03:20.000 Right.

01:03:20.000 And so I I saw that and I was like, wow, that is so freaking weird.

01:03:24.000 And 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.

01:03:39.000 And I just presumably Israeli launched.

01:03:41.000 Well, I don't know who it was.

01:03:42.000 I just thought like this is weird.

01:03:44.000 All 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.

01:03:52.000 I just don't think we're good at it.

01:03:54.000 And that is not a criticism even of Israel.

01:03:57.000 Like we've been talking about Syria.

01:03:59.000 We had battles in Syria where forces funded by the Pentagon, we're fighting forces funded by the CIA.

01:04:06.000 If you just wait long enough in Syria, whoever you're giving money to becomes the enemy, and whoever you're fighting becomes your friend.

01:04:12.000 And I think that increasingly Israel uh views the world this way. 0.64

01:04:18.000 There used to be like two dominant capital markets in the world, New York and London.

01:04:23.000 And Israel felt like they were very comfortable under that dynamic.

01:04:26.000 And now we live in this world where the most important capital markets are in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi and Dubai and Doha.

01:04:33.000 And I don't love that.

01:04:35.000 I I didn't cause that to happen, but I believe Netanyahu is trying to externalize his conflict.

01:04:41.000 I 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. 1.00

01:04:52.000 And if all of that happens, then there will be a reversion to the mean.

01:04:57.000 Uh 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. 1.00

01:05:05.000 Aaron 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.

01:05:13.000 What do you think is fueling this anti-Israel sentiment?

01:05:16.000 I 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.

01:05:22.000 So what is it about young people that is uh is really causing this change?

01:05:27.000 And 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.

01:05:35.000 Like 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. 0.69

01:05:44.000 Like, even the whole BDS thing, all we we'd heard on the right is uh BDS is anti-Semitism.

01:05:51.000 We have to be against BDS, BDS is the worst thing in the world.

01:05:53.000 And 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.

01:06:04.000 And 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.

01:06:22.000 And so we went from saying this was anti-Semitism to watching Mike Huckabee become the leader of the BDS movement.

01:06:27.000 I 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. 0.86

01:06:33.000 Uh but I will say this for the Russians.

01:06:35.000 Uh they're not asking anybody else to pay for it.

01:06:37.000 They're not anybody asking anybody else to have diplomatic cover for it.

01:06:40.000 They're not asking anybody else to handle the refugee problem that will happen for the as a result of their actions.

01:06:44.000 Uh Israel is. 0.57

01:06:46.000 Israel is asking for endless U.S. financial and military support.

01:06:49.000 It's asking for unending diplomatic cover.

01:06:51.000 I mean, cover the United Nations.

01:06:52.000 The US is Israel's backman, effectively, what is supposed to be a global forum for reducing conflict.

01:07:00.000 Um, additionally, uh for any of Israel's major uh objectives, which basically undeclared regime change in Iran, they need the United States.

01:07:08.000 They they say that openly.

01:07:09.000 Um 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.

01:07:27.000 The Israeli Navy is nothing to really write home about.

01:07:29.000 It would have to be the U.S. Navy.

01:07:31.000 And 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.

01:07:39.000 Uh 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. 1.00

01:07:47.000 That's odd given the biggest supporters of the president who's uh this is agenda is for is our Zionists, of course. 0.61

01:07:53.000 I did want to have a biggest supporters of the president who pushes agenda for our are Zionist.

01:07:58.000 Who pushes the other than Joe Biden?

01:08:00.000 Part of the MAGA agenda that's a very good thing.

01:08:01.000 Yeah, I'm a Zionist.

01:08:03.000 That people voted for was to get out of the Middle East. 0.91

01:08:06.000 No one is more America first than Zionists. 1.00

01:08:08.000 I mean, I I mean it's it's quite it's quite the claim.

01:08:11.000 Donald Trump went to South Carolina and called George W. Bush a war criminal.

01:08:14.000 Yeah.

01:08:14.000 Over these wars in Iraq.

01:08:15.000 He was like he he was more Rand Paul than Rand Paul.

01:08:19.000 He he would call Rand Paul and say, I'm more libertarian than you are.

01:08:23.000 Do 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. 0.75

01:08:40.000 But no, I said some of his biggest donors and you said his biggest donors and supporters.

01:08:45.000 I'll let you uh amend the record, but you did not say some of it.

01:08:47.000 You said his biggest.

01:08:48.000 You said you used to the vanguard of the Magic.

01:08:51.000 I will say that the funders of the Trump campaign.

01:08:54.000 Fun is different.

01:08:55.000 Yeah.

01:08:57.000 Well Elon Elon was the biggest funder of the campaign.

01:09:02.000 I I think I think Elon's work in Pennsylvania actually uh got got a lot more attention to the right.

01:09:09.000 Zionist money isn't big enough. 1.00

01:09:10.000 Uh 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.

01:09:16.000 Like especially the young people, they want nothing to do with these wars in the Middle East.

01:09:20.000 But 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.

01:09:26.000 You 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.

01:09:35.000 That's one thing I always appreciate about Trump is you know he says things like that.

01:09:38.000 But another thing he said was that he was staying there because Israel asked him to.

01:09:42.000 Um so this is something that you know, Israel and Jordan.

01:09:46.000 And why do we give military aid to Jordan?

01:09:48.000 Why do we give military aid to Egypt?

01:09:50.000 It's like you're never gonna get out of that region if you're like Well, why not?

01:09:53.000 Why can't we just be honest with all of our friends?

01:09:55.000 I I don't believe that we have to like shun Israel in order to achieve some sort of foreign policy balance.

01:10:01.000 I 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.

01:10:08.000 I agree.

01:10:09.000 Um I I I don't I don't think Israel needs to be BDS'd.

01:10:12.000 And then and I think I think we are entering the zone in which Israeli security is more precarious because of what they're doing. 0.99

01:10:19.000 I 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.

01:10:38.000 He just said recently he visited a settlement and he said, I kept my promise.

01:10:41.000 Remember, I was here twenty years ago.

01:10:43.000 I said I would never allow Palestinian state. 1.00

01:10:45.000 Well, here we are.

01:10:46.000 Yeah.

01:10:46.000 So he I think it's much more open about it.

01:10:49.000 I think the heightening of contradictions on that is actually what could actually be the most uh could usher into the demise of Israel. 0.90

01:10:55.000 And 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.

01:11:02.000 I want to talk a little bit more about the domestic situation, re-Israel and how Americans feel about Israel writ large.

01:11:08.000 Um I definitely agree that there is a growing segment of the right that is anti-Israel.

01:11:13.000 But I think a bigger concern for Israelis should be the growing dissent within the Democrat Party and the far left.

01:11:18.000 And why is that?

01:11:19.000 Why I mean I I think you guys could agree to that, right?

01:11:21.000 Uh it's incre Israel's increasingly more. 0.97

01:11:24.000 I think they're the biggest vulnerabilities on the right.

01:11:26.000 Okay.

01:11:27.000 I think among the far leftists, Israel is um less popular.

01:11:30.000 And why why is that?

01:11:32.000 Uh 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.

01:11:40.000 And because of that reason, Israel is uh irredeemable. 1.00

01:11:43.000 And that they should be able to do that.

01:11:43.000 What if it's just whiteness?

01:11:45.000 It is, it is what if it's just that.

01:11:46.000 I think it's also seen pictures and videos of children like ripped apart by bombs every day.

01:11:52.000 You could say it's a good idea.

01:11:52.000 I mean, this is just something we haven't addressed yet.

01:11:54.000 Okay.

01:11:55.000 So we'll we'll address it after.

01:11:56.000 So 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. 0.55

01:12:07.000 So I feel like for many far leftists and socialists, it's a self-loathing of their Americanism that helps evolve into anti-Israelism.

01:12:14.000 In our country, the socialist left is the biggest constituency for anti-Israel people.

01:12:19.000 And 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.

01:12:32.000 And I think they're making causes.

01:12:33.000 So I've seen the one more sentence.

01:12:35.000 I'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.

01:12:44.000 And you know what?

01:12:44.000 I have no common cause with communists.

01:12:46.000 I think it's bad to have common cause with communists.

01:12:48.000 I'm an ardent anti-communist, as Phil would say.

01:12:50.000 So 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.

01:12:58.000 If it's something wrong and something evil, then we should oppose it no matter who opposes it.

01:13:02.000 I 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. 1.00

01:13:12.000 Yeah, it's not in our interest to support this barbaric.

01:13:18.000 You do way too much if you don't align with what I want, then you're aligning with with the bad guys.

01:13:25.000 You do that with libertarians, you do you're doing that right now with the with the situation election.

01:13:31.000 And that is nothing off the list.

01:13:32.000 That's not how that's not how normal.

01:13:35.000 That's not how normal people think.

01:13:36.000 He's not at all how normal people think.

01:13:38.000 Okay, look who else is in Congress.

01:13:40.000 Thomas Massie is a one of one as far as he goes in Congress.

01:13:42.000 You you allied with people on like, you know, you consider the far left in Congress on single on certain issues.

01:13:48.000 Yeah, well, uh like the stock trading issue is is a is a classic case that's presenting right now.

01:13:53.000 I don't believe members of Congress should trade stock.

01:13:56.000 Turns out that the communists uh in some cases are unbought communists.

01:14:00.000 They they sincerely are communists, and no one is paying them to hold those positions.

01:14:05.000 And just like I resent people that hold positions for money, they resent that.

01:14:09.000 And so I am actually willing to work with the communists to ban congressional stock trading.

01:14:14.000 Uh uh, you know who's who opposes that?

01:14:17.000 President Trump, of course.

01:14:18.000 I mean, he attacked Hawley.

01:14:20.000 Well, I think there was one particular version of the bill.

01:14:22.000 I don't I think President Trump has come out in the upset head.

01:14:24.000 But he has c he has come out in in favor of uh congressional stock trading bans on on a number of occasions, including recently.

01:14:31.000 And 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.

01:14:45.000 Yeah so I don't think there's anything wrong with working.

01:14:47.000 I don't know.

01:14:51.000 Yeah.

01:14:51.000 That's I mean that's exactly what we should do.

01:14:53.000 The idea that, oh, look, if you don't agree with me about this particular topic, then you're just against the entire agenda.

01:15:00.000 I totally reject that.

01:15:01.000 Yeah, 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.

01:15:09.000 Um I don't think we should do anything to strengthen that system.

01:15:12.000 It's already it's already uh uh enough of a bind as it is.

01:15:16.000 Yeah, my politics are antithetical to the left.

01:15:18.000 I'm I'm an anti-left, so I don't think you should put it to the left.

01:15:21.000 What is the what is communists, literal communists rallying a lot of these actual anti-war rallies who are giving you a specific example?

01:15:29.000 Libertarian party.

01:15:30.000 Libertarian party is not communist. 0.99

01:15:31.000 That is the most absurd, ridiculous thing that you say. 0.64

01:15:35.000 Angela Merkel held a rally for representing the liberal libertarian Angela Merkel. 0.97

01:15:41.000 She was like the spokesperson from the Libertarian.

01:15:42.000 Yeah, I went to that.

01:15:43.000 We know who they're talking about.

01:15:46.000 Is it a congressperson?

01:15:47.000 This isn't a good one.

01:15:48.000 No, hold on, hold on.

01:15:48.000 Libertarianists, Angela Mahome.

01:15:51.000 Who used to be the LP's uh the chair.

01:15:54.000 Go ahead and make your point.

01:15:55.000 Is having anti-war rallies with communist groups.

01:15:59.000 You will never find me rallying alongside any communists.

01:16:02.000 I'm staunchly an anti-communist.

01:16:03.000 And I don't think you should uh broken clock is right.

01:16:05.000 Like citing you're citing a third party, uh the nation's largest third party libertarian party.

01:16:11.000 So there's that.

01:16:12.000 But uh doing an alleged event with literal communists.

01:16:16.000 I would like I'd well I'd like to see who were at the rally, right?

01:16:20.000 Were they literal communists?

01:16:21.000 I was there.

01:16:22.000 There was some communist groups there.

01:16:23.000 Literal communists.

01:16:24.000 All right, fine.

01:16:24.000 All right, just make sure.

01:16:25.000 So, like, what's an example in like mainstream politics where quote small L libertarians are aligning with literal communists.

01:16:33.000 Like I I have never seen Thomas Matthew.

01:16:35.000 Well, the Libertarian Party, right?

01:16:36.000 I mean, I guess you're right.

01:16:37.000 Thomas Matthew's largest party.

01:16:39.000 No, he's not.

01:16:39.000 I don't think so.

01:16:40.000 No.

01:16:41.000 He's like, he's like a cardinal.

01:16:42.000 Yeah.

01:16:42.000 I mean, I think most of their events.

01:16:44.000 I mean, I think I demonstrate.

01:16:48.000 Does that make him a literal communist?

01:16:50.000 No.

01:16:51.000 I think that's a good thing.

01:16:51.000 Does that make a vague swami?

01:16:54.000 I think that all let me make a point.

01:16:56.000 Let me make a point because I work on a single issue project, anti-war.com.

01:17:01.000 We run stuff.

01:17:02.000 My 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.

01:17:13.000 Well, and but you know, we were publishing both of them.

01:17:16.000 Um from my experience, working with people kind of all over the political spectrum on one issue.

01:17:22.000 I 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.

01:17:33.000 You 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.

01:17:45.000 So 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.

01:17:53.000 But single issue stuff in general, I think is a is a is a net positive thing.

01:17:58.000 Especially 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.

01:18:05.000 No, I don't know.

01:18:06.000 I mean so the idea that we're gonna start dividing like I don't think even he wants that.

01:18:10.000 No, I mean look, Donald Trump is a pragmatist if nothing else, right?

01:18:13.000 He's not ideological.

01:18:14.000 He 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?

01:18:29.000 Now, 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.

01:18:39.000 There 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.

01:18:48.000 You can hate Donald Trump.

01:18:49.000 The left is always gonna hate him.

01:18:50.000 That's perfectly that that is absolutely obvious, right?

01:18:53.000 That is it's self-evident. 0.92

01:18:55.000 But 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. 0.87

01:19:05.000 He's not an ideological guy. 0.71

01:19:06.000 He's never been an ideological guy.

01:19:08.000 That's why he went to the Republican Party to run in the first place.

01:19:12.000 He 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.

01:19:27.000 I very very business approach.

01:19:29.000 Sir 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?

01:19:42.000 And 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.

01:19:52.000 Oh, there it is.

01:19:53.000 There, yeah, oh that's Dave.

01:19:54.000 That's uh Dave's piece.

01:19:55.000 Dave, why don't you tell us about?

01:19:57.000 Yeah, 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.

01:20:06.000 Um and they're calling it uh the largest Christian church geofencing campaign in US history.

01:20:13.000 Essentially, what it is is targeted digital ads targeting American.

01:20:17.000 They're gonna geofence Protestant churches, yeah.

01:20:19.000 And they're gonna plow message into those churches.

01:20:22.000 Yes, and uh specifically pro-Isra Israel anti-Palestinian message according to the documents.

01:20:28.000 Um and so this is a targeted propaganda campaign at American Christians.

01:20:31.000 They also have this plan to create an October 7th mobile experience, like a trailer that's gonna be designed by some Hollywood people.

01:20:39.000 I don't know exactly what what that's gonna be.

01:20:42.000 But 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.

01:21:03.000 Um so this I think really shows the the desperation.

01:21:06.000 But so this is you know, a foreign country specifically targeting American Christians.

01:21:11.000 Um Do you have a problem with that, Phil?

01:21:14.000 You okay with it?

01:21:15.000 Um 4.1 million just doesn't seem like that much money.

01:21:18.000 Yeah, 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.

01:21:24.000 I 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. 0.89

01:21:29.000 So I don't really care a whole lot, to be honest with you.

01:21:31.000 Well, th but that those are just the Farah filings.

01:21:34.000 Yeah, that's just the Farah.

01:21:35.000 These are so overt they had to register.

01:21:37.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:21:38.000 That'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.

01:21:46.000 But 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.

01:21:57.000 Um I don't think that they're gonna get traction posts.

01:22:00.000 I don't think it's gonna work.

01:22:01.000 Yeah, I don't think they're gonna have traction.

01:22:02.000 I 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.

01:22:14.000 I mean, I mean, obviously Israel's falling victim to grifter influencers is what I is what I'm seeing in this stream.

01:22:20.000 I honestly think they would be better.

01:22:21.000 Finally, Israel has been victimized. 0.59

01:22:23.000 But I think this shows that they there is some desperation here, and they see that they're losing.

01:22:27.000 They would be better off not doing this messaging, I in my opinion at all.

01:22:30.000 I 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.

01:22:41.000 Uh I not asserting that, but it struck everybody as very suspicious.

01:22:46.000 And isn't it weird that the waved around?

01:22:49.000 Yeah, 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.

01:22:56.000 And uh what I've heard is there's a great deal more context in that letter, and um I didn't know that.

01:23:01.000 I thought he put out the whole thing.

01:23:03.000 I do think that the idea of there's like it was just excerpts that he put out.

01:23:07.000 Yeah, no, I I I'd I'd heard some suggest that there was there was more information.

01:23:12.000 Well, 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.

01:23:21.000 Yes.

01:23:21.000 Um so this conversation definitely needs to happen.

01:23:24.000 He was a warrior for the West, a warrior against Muslims. 1.00

01:23:27.000 Yeah, but he said all these things.

01:23:28.000 That's that's true.

01:23:28.000 But 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.

01:23:37.000 I was PR.

01:23:38.000 I'm not saying that you are, but there's a lot of people that are saying that on the internet.

01:23:40.000 And I think that's a good thing.

01:23:41.000 I think they're failed PR.

01:23:42.000 Why do you think it's a fascinating?

01:23:44.000 What's your basis to to disprove that?

01:23:46.000 Uh 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.

01:23:53.000 If there's new information or information that I don't have, and I'm not sure what I'm saying.

01:23:55.000 I'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.

01:24:07.000 I wouldn't make any determination about anyone's culpability or not culpability until I mean full story.

01:24:12.000 I 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.

01:24:27.000 Well, I mean, look, the I'm I don't have any insider information.

01:24:29.000 So if there is stu something that comes out that says that says that Israel was was involved, then hey, I'm wrong, right?

01:24:36.000 No big deal.

01:24:36.000 But 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.

01:24:46.000 I mean, that they they are.

01:24:47.000 I 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.

01:24:53.000 Like 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. 0.90

01:24:58.000 I mean, Israel has killed uh through assassination uh more and uh more people through assassination than any Western country since World War II.

01:25:07.000 Yeah, but who are they killing?

01:25:09.000 Enemies of Israel, presumably.

01:25:10.000 And was Charlie Kirk an enemy of Israel?

01:25:13.000 Well, uh that the conspiracy theory theory asserts that he was becoming one.

01:25:16.000 Yeah.

01:25:16.000 Well, I mean that's the that's the I think anti-Israel opportunists are using this as uh an opportunity to just try to imply that.

01:25:24.000 David I was obviously responsible.

01:25:26.000 I think Candace Owens like is playing into this because it's an opportunistic for a way for her to be anti Israel. 1.00

01:25:31.000 There'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.

01:25:41.000 I mean, look, if there's a lot of evidence that Tyler was the person who murdered Kirk.

01:25:45.000 Look, 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.

01:25:50.000 I mean, and that guy's the first person to you know hatch at Israel, you know.

01:25:54.000 I I don't think.

01:25:56.000 I'm not sure if the facts on the I'm not at all.

01:25:59.000 I'm not saying any wins.

01:25:59.000 And like I said, if there's if evidence comes out that that connects Israel to it, then fine.

01:26:04.000 Like I don't, you know, I'm I don't have a dog in that fight.

01:26:06.000 But as of right now, I don't think that there is evidence.

01:26:08.000 I understand people.

01:26:09.000 You know what's weird to me?

01:26:11.000 No one else was like killed.

01:26:12.000 You 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.

01:26:31.000 As long as he took out him, that was his ultimate goal.

01:26:33.000 I don't know.

01:26:33.000 No, I that very well may be true.

01:26:35.000 That that that may well be true, but I mean one shot from that distance.

01:26:39.000 It's not a difficult shot to make, all things considered as I understand.

01:26:43.000 Okay.

01:26:44.000 Right, Phil, you shoot more guns, that it's not a crazy thing. 0.57

01:26:46.000 That's not a hard shot.

01:26:47.000 Not at all.

01:26:47.000 As I understand.

01:26:48.000 No.

01:26:49.000 Yeah.

01:26:50.000 Because I'll take your word for it.

01:26:52.000 Yeah.

01:26:52.000 So I don't.

01:26:54.000 Uh so uh but but on the on the the paid influencer thing, is it is it your view that that could work?

01:27:01.000 Uh no.

01:27:02.000 And I think 4.1 million is kind of chump change as you mentioned earlier.

01:27:06.000 And I don't think Israel is unique in in doing this. 0.64

01:27:08.000 And 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.

01:27:19.000 There's so many powerful forces trying to plow information into various cleavages of the American electorate and the faith community.

01:27:26.000 But far uh for registrations are fairly uh few and far between, uh at least in this kind of media blanket.

01:27:33.000 Only because people break the law.

01:27:34.000 And then additionally, I mean it is it this is what Benjamin who's spending his time on.

01:27:38.000 I mean, uh other than Trump or meeting he's he's at the pro.

01:27:42.000 I mean, like what other I didn't see Erdogan meet with a bunch of Turkish influencers when he was in New York a while ago.

01:27:48.000 Like Well, he uh San Piker, I don't know if he's a proud Turk, so did they meet with Erdogan?

01:27:52.000 No, no, I'm making a joke.

01:27:53.000 I 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? 0.85

01:28:04.000 But that's what Netanyahu actually did.

01:28:07.000 And also the Oracle, the the TikTok thing.

01:28:10.000 I mean, Netanyahu said it.

01:28:11.000 Did you see that clip when he was speaking to influencers in New York?

01:28:14.000 And 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.

01:28:27.000 And what's the most important thing happening right now?

01:28:29.000 The TikTok purchase.

01:28:30.000 And who's buying that?

01:28:32.000 The main the company with the main stakes is gonna be Oracle.

01:28:34.000 What is it, Larry Ellison, you know, super pro-Israel huge.

01:28:38.000 Is there is there a person on the planet Earth who donates more money to the IDF than Larry Ellison?

01:28:43.000 I think they say that's like they say he's the largest private donor to the IDF.

01:28:48.000 Uh I think that's based on like a fundraiser from a physical.

01:28:50.000 The IDF itself, really?

01:28:52.000 Yeah.

01:28:52.000 That's hilarious.

01:28:53.000 The friendly idea now he owns TikTok.

01:28:55.000 You're right.

01:28:56.000 He doesn't he doesn't give money to Israel.

01:28:57.000 He's like just giving it to the guys who have to be.

01:28:58.000 Yeah, because I mean that's that's probably bigger than than any of this, is the Yeah, yeah.

01:29:02.000 The 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.

01:29:16.000 No, by the way, we we hope you're I hope you're right.

01:29:18.000 I 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.

01:29:25.000 How about Venezuela?

01:29:26.000 We're gonna try to do regime change in Venezuela, but for some reason we're always a lot more focused on Israel.

01:29:30.000 Let's talk to you.

01:29:31.000 I will say this to some of the viewers.

01:29:32.000 If 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.

01:29:40.000 If you want some eyes on your scoop, no matter how small, Israel does anything. 0.97

01:29:44.000 You could bitch and moan about Israel, you could praise Israel. 0.71

01:29:46.000 We love to give Israel a ton of attention. 0.97

01:29:48.000 So if you're trying to get into the game and get eyes and clicks on your stuff, talk about Israel.

01:29:52.000 That's that that's uh why I guess there's so many powerful people in media who criticize Israel.

01:29:56.000 Yeah, the Congress and the Congress.

01:29:58.000 Why do you meet with Israel?

01:29:59.000 It is a new thing.

01:30:00.000 Like all the old. 0.98

01:30:00.000 I guess that's why media is controlled by Israel critics right now. 0.98

01:30:03.000 Israel's legal. 0.53

01:30:04.000 Oh, and CBS.

01:30:05.000 I do want to talk about Venezuela though, because you raised that point.

01:30:08.000 It 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.

01:30:17.000 Venezuela, you have been critical of the administration's approach.

01:30:20.000 Why?

01:30:23.000 Where to begin?

01:30:24.000 Um I'll go with the easy one.

01:30:26.000 Um I am concerned that members of the administration are just pretty openly lying about this.

01:30:33.000 And I think that has clear uh echoes of the Iraq war run-up where they were just fabricating intelligence left and right.

01:30:41.000 Uh the big one to obviously flag is that Venezuela is not involved in fentanyl in a major way. 0.89

01:30:47.000 So the argument that we are targeting narco-terrorists transporting fentanyl, and thus they should be murdered.

01:30:53.000 But fentanyl gets into the cocaine that Venezuela allows to be transported.

01:30:57.000 Right.

01:30:58.000 Without the cocaine that they're sending, people probably wouldn't take as much fentanyl because they cut the cocaine with fentanyl.

01:31:04.000 It's possible some fentanyl is getting through Venezuela.

01:31:06.000 But the most of the fentanyl, I mean the the the villains of the fentanyl trade are China and Mexico.

01:31:11.000 And even if you get the US consumer with cocaine, though, most of the cocaine out of Colombia doesn't go through Venezuela.

01:31:16.000 So what do you think are the administration's goals in Venezuela?

01:31:19.000 Oh, I mean, uh I think that they are they are moving towards soft regime change.

01:31:24.000 I think this is what um Secretary Rubio uh uh has long wanted.

01:31:30.000 Um 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.

01:31:42.000 I 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.

01:31:50.000 Remember when John Bolton was running around with like 5,000 children.

01:31:53.000 And the Guideau guy, yeah.

01:31:54.000 Yeah, 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.

01:32:05.000 I think the real communist rightful government.

01:32:06.000 Yeah.

01:32:07.000 I mean, that's what the government's stance was.

01:32:09.000 I guess I mean based on the.

01:32:13.000 Yeah, they were they were both probably uh communists.

01:32:16.000 But 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.

01:32:28.000 And Rick Scott laid out a compelling case from for that foreign policy viewpoint.

01:32:32.000 He had done all his homework, laid it out.

01:32:34.000 And before I could even get in the conversation, Marvel Rubio took the other side.

01:32:38.000 And those guys get along really well.

01:32:39.000 And 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.

01:32:50.000 Um 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.

01:33:01.000 Yeah, but like Rubio was taking the anti-intervention side as it related to Venezuela.

01:33:05.000 I remember may have changed.

01:33:09.000 But 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.

01:33:27.000 Matt, 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.

01:33:41.000 Could you speak to how that could influence I don't know, Susie Wiles or Marco Rubio or Pam Bondi's?

01:33:47.000 I think that constituency has a lot of influence.

01:33:49.000 I mean, definitely.

01:33:50.000 Yeah, no, it's a it's a fair question.

01:33:52.000 There are hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan voters in Florida who uh are swing voters.

01:33:58.000 And 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.

01:34:13.000 And the reason that mattered at the time was because Florida was a swing state.

01:34:17.000 Now, like Florida is Arkansas.

01:34:20.000 We we are not going to elect a Democrat statewide in in in our state for the foreseeable future.

01:34:26.000 And 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.

01:34:34.000 I mean, that's why the embargo is still in place on Cuba, right?

01:34:36.000 Because of the Cuban Americans there, they all want a hard line on Cuba, the sanctions to stay on. 1.00

01:34:41.000 Marco, Marco, principally among them.

01:34:43.000 Uh 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.

01:34:53.000 But uh I have the view that if something has failed for half a century, maybe try something different.

01:34:58.000 And I don't think we're any closer to the Cuban people being free.

01:35:00.000 I'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.

01:35:09.000 And uh you're right that that that key a group of hardcore Cuban voters has been very politically powerful.

01:35:16.000 It'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.

01:35:25.000 Also generationally these third generation Cubans are probably less tied to embargo politics because they don't think they're going back.

01:35:36.000 Like 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.

01:35:45.000 I'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.

01:35:56.000 When they bombed the first boat off Venezuela, you know he's like tweeting in Spanish celebrating it.

01:36:02.000 And I mean these are you know foreigners agitating for a a war in a foreign country. 0.95

01:36:06.000 I 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.

01:36:14.000 I don't think Spanish at all just in Spanish did you have an English I think it was just in Spanish.

01:36:19.000 A lot of them do like they do dual yeah spoken Spanish.

01:36:23.000 No 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.

01:36:31.000 Yeah 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.

01:36:36.000 Of 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.

01:36:49.000 can deal with the current regime.

01:36:50.000 I mean, basically, we don't have any...

01:36:52.000 The 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?

01:37:12.000 I 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.

01:37:36.000 Well no no no wait you you don't uh because I I've studied Venezuela a good bit.

01:37:39.000 I 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.

01:37:48.000 I'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.

01:38:03.000 There's the Maduro model which I think is far too permissive of that type of malign activity.

01:38:08.000 And 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. 0.50

01:38:23.000 I 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.

01:38:32.000 Well 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.

01:38:46.000 Second 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.

01:39:06.000 Yeah I'm against the drone striking against Obama terrorist it seems as though they're carrying payloads of drugs.

01:39:12.000 I 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.

01:39:23.000 And I don't think it served the American people well.

01:39:25.000 If 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. 0.64

01:39:34.000 That's really what's Americans well.

01:39:36.000 That's not it's not Venezuela.

01:39:37.000 Not Venezuela.

01:39:38.000 I don't even care if it has to be fentanyl. 0.99

01:39:40.000 I I think we should bomb the meth labs in Mexico. 0.98

01:39:42.000 Now we're talking gates. 0.99

01:39:44.000 I should have kept you in there.

01:39:45.000 No, I mean, look, and I'm widely viewed as a dove, but I think we have actual interests here.

01:39:50.000 I think we have an achievable interest.

01:39:52.000 The interest in the Gulf of America is— Is deterrence.

01:39:56.000 Look, 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.

01:40:03.000 To 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.

01:40:15.000 A banner was recently erected addressing FBI director Cash Patel.

01:40:19.000 The banner first surfaced on Sunday in Baja California, where gunmen left two banners allegedly signed by Los Chapos Chapitos, I think.

01:40:25.000 Breitbart reported.

01:40:26.000 The 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.

01:40:35.000 Look, if that happens, then I do think that the I don't even believe that.

01:40:39.000 They own the resorts.

01:40:40.000 Why would this why would why would the Cinaloa that seems to be something that somebody would say about the Sinaloa cartilage of false flag?

01:40:46.000 Because they are the ones who own the resorts in Cabo.

01:40:49.000 Why would they do that to their own tourism industry?

01:40:50.000 I I just think it's I I'm not sure what it you think this would work?

01:40:55.000 I mean, you think you think we could just bomb the drug problems?

01:40:58.000 Like, like uh there's gonna be always gonna be this big market.

01:41:00.000 Like the issue is that there's a big market for drugs in the U.S. Americans love drugs.

01:41:04.000 And that's a serious problem.

01:41:05.000 And I come from a place that was plagued by that.

01:41:06.000 Uh but it's not something we could just bomb away.

01:41:09.000 And like I I think it could make things worse.

01:41:11.000 I mean, it could really destabilize.

01:41:13.000 People are gonna want drugs more because they see a Venezuelan bomb. 0.98

01:41:16.000 No, 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. 0.86

01:41:23.000 Because you know, they're under all these sanctions, they don't have any real allies.

01:41:27.000 We're able to do this.

01:41:28.000 No, they do have allies in the Caribbean that they provide cheap energy to.

01:41:31.000 I 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.

01:41:36.000 But they don't have anybody not gonna come to the defense.

01:41:38.000 Yeah, 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?

01:41:48.000 Like, the Mexican government to me is a construct.

01:41:50.000 It's like saying the Afghan government. 0.81

01:41:52.000 The Mexican government is is but a feature of the narco traffickers. 0.82

01:41:56.000 It is a captive narco state. 0.89

01:41:58.000 Like, oh, wasn't it Nieto that took a hundred million dollar bribe from from Sinaloa?

01:42:02.000 So what do you have to believe?

01:42:03.000 All the people who came after Nieto either weren't offered the bribe or didn't take it?

01:42:07.000 Like, of course they did.

01:42:08.000 So at that point, you're not really dealing with a sovereign country in Mexico, in in my view.

01:42:14.000 And I wasn't going to Cabo anyway.

01:42:15.000 Right.

01:42:16.000 You think we should go to war with Mexico?

01:42:18.000 I would rather go to war with Mexico than Russia or I think this is something that will divide.

01:42:24.000 Iran. 0.92

01:42:24.000 I think this will divide down to bomb the cartels in Mexico. 0.92

01:42:28.000 If you haven't found anyone you're not down to bomb, I think.

01:42:32.000 Can we stop some of the bombings in other places first?

01:42:34.000 Like, this is one thing I thought was interesting.

01:42:36.000 Steve Bannon posed an interesting question to Mr. Mills here when he was on and he said, Well, this is the hemispheric defense.

01:42:42.000 This is America first, bringing it home. 0.97

01:42:43.000 Well, we gotta bring it home first.

01:42:45.000 We're still across the globe involved in all these wars.

01:42:48.000 Let's just start one war before we can wind another one down.

01:42:50.000 We couldn't get the Afghanistan war wound down until we started up the Ukraine one. 0.93

01:42:54.000 We didn't even start on China.

01:42:55.000 I mean, we didn't even touch on China.

01:42:56.000 All of the American bases in the Pacific.

01:42:58.000 Yeah, are we just in Korea?

01:43:00.000 As far as I can tell, the biggest.

01:43:02.000 No, I feel like China's a bigger issue, and I feel like more of the hawks in government are reoriented.

01:43:06.000 I think Venezuela and China are more of an important issue than Israel.

01:43:09.000 But 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.

01:43:19.000 So they have this idea at Republican retreat, which I hated going to because I felt like we were always in a state of retreat.

01:43:25.000 But they bring us out there and uh they they say we're gonna do a war game with the US and Taiwan.

01:43:31.000 And 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.

01:43:38.000 Now, like this many U.S. cities have been annihilated.

01:43:41.000 It's like, don't you see we need more uh money for the defense budget to stop these things from happening?

01:43:46.000 I was like, you all had me at just give China Taiwan. 0.60

01:43:50.000 Like, 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?

01:43:57.000 Wait, is that your position that if China were to invade Taiwan that we should let them? 0.98

01:44:01.000 Of course.

01:44:02.000 It is a home game for China.

01:44:04.000 Anyone who tells you anything uh other has not seen what happens.

01:44:08.000 How do we we can't even get our aircraft carriers into the fight? 0.97

01:44:11.000 Let me explain something to you.

01:44:12.000 China can hit a moving target with a hypersonic weapon, and America cannot. 0.79

01:44:17.000 So do you think China could take over Taiwan now if they wanted to?

01:44:20.000 Yes.

01:44:20.000 And then I think why had him already had to be.

01:44:23.000 One thing they've shown is you remember when Nancy Pelosi went there?

01:44:26.000 Yeah.

01:44:26.000 And they did these big drills.

01:44:27.000 Yeah.

01:44:27.000 One thing they showed that I think a lot of people didn't factor in is they could just block put a blockade on Taiwan in like a second.

01:44:33.000 And then we could blockade China, but I think this is the end of American. 0.85

01:44:37.000 How do we blockade China with the air defenses that they have? 0.94

01:44:40.000 And with our military.

01:44:40.000 We do a naval blockade.

01:44:42.000 If you guys want to pull up, we could pull up a map in their own.

01:44:44.000 Their hypersonic weapon systems will take out all of those.

01:44:46.000 I know, but okay, if they sink ships in all of the straits, then they won't be able to pass their ships through.

01:44:51.000 They're just as susceptible as well.

01:44:52.000 We don't know.

01:44:53.000 There's no one knows.

01:44:54.000 Our strategy now is to get so many ships blown up that we clogged the straits.

01:44:58.000 Yeah.

01:44:59.000 I think maintaining strategic annuity in Taiwan is smart, basically.

01:45:01.000 I mean, it's a good idea.

01:45:02.000 Yeah, I think it's the normie position.

01:45:03.000 I think that's ultimately.

01:45:05.000 We don't know that Xi's gonna invade.

01:45:07.000 I'm not convinced he's gonna invade.

01:45:08.000 I think and but I think I think we make it way, way, way more likely that he invades if we are bogged down in all these instances.

01:45:14.000 Why don't we just de-risk anything else because I want to make sure we get super chat?

01:45:17.000 Yeah, okay.

01:45:18.000 I don't even know what that means.

01:45:21.000 Don't mind doing that.

01:45:22.000 I don't even know how to do it.

01:45:24.000 Why don't you do it, sir?

01:45:25.000 He'll take care of it.

01:45:26.000 Okay, let me just mention uh one thing quick, because we didn't get to all the topics.

01:45:29.000 I just want to say that.

01:45:30.000 We have another hour, homie.

01:45:31.000 Oh, yeah, we're doing the membership.

01:45:33.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:45:33.000 So this so folks that stick around for an extra hour will be know what I was about to say.

01:45:38.000 Now 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.

01:45:45.000 The genocide of Christians somewhere in Africa.

01:45:47.000 Super chats.

01:45:47.000 Phil, you got us or search?

01:45:48.000 Surge with it.

01:45:49.000 If you look right at the screen, you can just read the name of the persons right here, which in this case is bruh.

01:45:54.000 Matt, if you were the attorney general, would you have reopened the investigation of the USS Liberty?

01:45:58.000 I 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.

01:46:06.000 This guy's a Zionist shell. 0.93

01:46:07.000 There's a very investigation.

01:46:10.000 By the way, I would have started with Fauci before I would have gotten to the US liberty.

01:46:15.000 Okay, here we go.

01:46:15.000 Here we go.

01:46:16.000 Here we go.

01:46:16.000 Another super chat.

01:46:17.000 Massey is a liar, he runs as a MAGA Republican. 0.99

01:46:20.000 He's a pure libertarian. 0.99

01:46:21.000 If he was honest, he'd run in the Libertarian Party. 0.98

01:46:23.000 I loathe all liars.

01:46:25.000 If you wanted to lose, he would run in the Liberty. 0.94

01:46:27.000 Fact check, true.

01:46:28.000 Instead, he's running under the veneer of MAGA when he's a libertarian. 1.00

01:46:30.000 You're ridiculous. 1.00

01:46:32.000 Uh my all right, here we go. 1.00

01:46:34.000 DJW.

01:46:35.000 My 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.

01:46:44.000 Decide what is more important, be smart about this.

01:46:46.000 And this is my sort of my point that I actually want the pro-Israel people in our church.

01:46:52.000 Maybe not the pulpit, but certainly in the congregation.

01:46:55.000 Uh others have a different view.

01:46:56.000 And what you said too about Charlie Kirk trying to help continue to bridge that divide.

01:47:01.000 I think you were really spot on with that, and he played an important role in bridging like a Gen Z republican divide.

01:47:07.000 Um for it.

01:47:09.000 As you saw in those texts, it was really hard.

01:47:12.000 A lad would defend Israel to the last American soldier. 0.84

01:47:15.000 Ooh.

01:47:16.000 I don't know if any American soldiers that fought wars for Israel.

01:47:20.000 Oh Brian Mass did.

01:47:22.000 What was Brian Mass does?

01:47:24.000 He was in war as the unit for the United States.

01:47:25.000 He wasn't an American fighting for an American army in Israel, which I think was the effect of the question.

01:47:31.000 Yeah, he he joined the IDF.

01:47:33.000 Brave guy.

01:47:34.000 Uh and he also served in America.

01:47:36.000 Interrupt cast IRL.

01:47:37.000 Ouch.

01:47:38.000 Is it usually better than this?

01:47:39.000 Are we worse than usual?

01:47:41.000 I think it's just the headphones being off.

01:47:47.000 No, they're right.

01:47:48.000 We were yapping back and forth.

01:47:50.000 It's been a yap fest. 0.76

01:47:51.000 Uh this one.

01:47:53.000 Remedy Shane Jr.

01:47:54.000 That's my guy.

01:47:55.000 Why now support regime change if the right does it?

01:47:59.000 Uh do you do you do you think it's a charge of hypocrisy that our our supports for regime change are uh are linked to who's in power?

01:48:08.000 Yeah, I mean, I don't support regime change in Venezuela.

01:48:11.000 I'm very against it.

01:48:13.000 I mean, what is the regime?

01:48:14.000 I mean, you know, I I don't even view it as like uh uh that meaningful an end state.

01:48:19.000 Because what are we like what do we think is emerging next in Venezuela, like the next Thomas Jefferson?

01:48:24.000 Well, you who was the guy you mentioned him again earlier?

01:48:27.000 So that was an anti-regime of the United States.

01:48:28.000 Juan Guaido, Guaido.

01:48:30.000 That's who would be in charge.

01:48:31.000 Oh, terrific.

01:48:32.000 No, he's no, he's off the scene.

01:48:33.000 But there's the he's looking at the doing more super chats or different players now.

01:48:38.000 Getting paid still ten.

01:48:39.000 All right.

01:48:41.000 I guess we'll reach some more easily right now.

01:48:43.000 Um just FYI, Matt letter carriers and uh United States Postal Service workers still get paid as their budget is self-funded.

01:48:52.000 I just know I'm still getting paid.

01:48:54.000 We're glad you're getting paid.

01:48:57.000 I I I have to say my my knowledge of the Postal Service uh funding regime is uh is diminished.

01:49:02.000 Can we get opinions on the Monroe Doctrine in relation to Venezuela and Venezuelan's oil exports to America's adversaries?

01:49:10.000 Monroe doctrine is good and we shouldn't be isolationists.

01:49:14.000 Um not in the world stage or in the Western hemisphere.

01:49:18.000 Isn'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?

01:49:25.000 Because 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.

01:49:35.000 So 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?

01:49:43.000 Yeah, I mean, I would say just lift the sanctions and buy, you know, trade the oil.

01:49:47.000 Yeah, I mean I mean, I'm pro Monroe doctrine, but I think it's m I I just looked it up.

01:49:53.000 I just did a uh Google AI.

01:49:54.000 What is the Monroe doctrine actually say?

01:49:56.000 It 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.

01:50:07.000 Um let's make it more maximal.

01:50:09.000 We'll say no powers should interfere or colonize with the new the the fully independent nations of the Western Hemisphere.

01:50:14.000 Yeah, there's ways of doing that.

01:50:16.000 Uh 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. 0.80

01:50:24.000 I 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.

01:50:29.000 They've been accepting deportation flights.

01:50:32.000 That's something that I believe Rick Grinnell got.

01:50:34.000 People in the administration have been have been going out of their way to isolate the Venezuelans.

01:50:38.000 And 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.

01:50:51.000 He 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.

01:51:01.000 And I think Maduro is I think we remember that?

01:51:04.000 You Florida Jets, they have an affinity.

01:51:06.000 So this is a guy who's running.

01:51:07.000 I said this to Bannon this weekend.

01:51:09.000 I I think you should think of him as a Latino Gaddafi. 1.00

01:51:12.000 And what did Gaddafi say?

01:51:13.000 You 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. 0.99

01:51:27.000 Doesn't like a third of Venezuela live in Colombia right now?

01:51:30.000 It's not a third.

01:51:31.000 Well, 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. 0.99

01:51:46.000 This 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.

01:51:58.000 What's the right answer in Venezuela?

01:52:00.000 Just the de a deal with Maduro?

01:52:01.000 Yeah.

01:52:02.000 Maybe deal with Maduro.

01:52:03.000 Yeah.

01:52:03.000 And then and if and if the Venezuela What are the features of that deal?

01:52:07.000 Uh oil trading, uh perhaps controls on uh Chinese money uh going in there would be something I would drive a hard bargain for.

01:52:14.000 Um I mean, I we've kind of talked around this.

01:52:16.000 I 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.

01:52:32.000 But but Venezuela's gone kinetic.

01:52:33.000 What about China's I mean, is is uh uh likely to accelerate to that acuity.

01:52:40.000 What do you mean?

01:52:41.000 Like what is the what is the big China question dividing us?

01:52:44.000 If if you think Ven uh obviously with Venezuela it's the bombing of these guys in the Gulf.

01:52:48.000 You mean I think the first of all, I think it means we're in a fascinating situation with China policy.

01:52:53.000 Trump moved the Republican Party and the United States significantly more hawkish on China.

01:52:57.000 But there's every piece of evidence that China, sorry, that Trump now is probably a dove relatively within his own administration.

01:53:03.000 I mean there was Bloomberg reports.

01:53:06.000 Look at what he said in the twenty sixteen election.

01:53:08.000 He said, I know China, they got a place in my building, I can work with these guys, I can get a deal inauguration.

01:53:14.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:53:15.000 He did.

01:53:15.000 I mean, but people forget that like nobody would nobody would name China as a huge major threat.

01:53:20.000 But like, I mean, like they they would do it in this very like elliptical way.

01:53:23.000 Like Trump Trump Trump blamed China for stealing a uh generations worth of jobs, Trump blamed all this stuff.

01:53:29.000 Trump's Trump argued sorry, not well stated, Trump took the call for the Taiwanese president people during the first uh presidential transition.

01:53:37.000 So there were all these uh elements of hawkers to Trump's rise to power uh that were way more China hawkish.

01:53:44.000 But again, within the continuum at this point, uh uh Trump has not committed uh troops to Taiwan if they're invaded.

01:53:52.000 Biden 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.

01:54:00.000 Well, Trump wants that deal just on trade, principally, right?

01:54:03.000 He 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.

01:54:11.000 I think he's actually smart.

01:54:14.000 Um I'm I'm fairly sympathetic to it.

01:54:16.000 I mean, I mean I mean, I I think like China is different than any country in the world.

01:54:19.000 It is an actual pure competitor of the United States.

01:54:22.000 And so uh I approach it a little bit differently.

01:54:24.000 Like I just said, like I think we should maintain strategic ambientity with Taiwan.

01:54:28.000 I don't see why we have to get into the academics very similar to the Iran debate.

01:54:32.000 There is a deal on offer, I think it would work.

01:54:34.000 Um 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. 0.92

01:54:44.000 And I think that's the way to do it besides sanctions and bombing.

01:54:48.000 Like I think that's just gonna make them.

01:54:49.000 Driving China out of South America is I think is like a cogent goal that can be done non-kinetically.

01:54:55.000 I 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. 1.00

01:55:07.000 Like, I mean, like I mean, the it's the same thing with the with the Middle East.

01:55:11.000 It's like it it it just will cause panic.

01:55:13.000 If Venezuela can be topped over, why not Chile?

01:55:15.000 Why not Peru?

01:55:17.000 I think Venezuela's unique in Latin America.

01:55:21.000 It's most dream example, but uh the administration is warring with Brazil in pretty extreme circum.

01:55:26.000 I mean, Trump put out a positive statement about Lula recently.

01:55:29.000 Well, they shook they like he he liked he met him again, so he liked him, he remembered it.

01:55:32.000 But I mean like you could imagine.

01:55:34.000 I mean, again, that that's that's the whole thing about contact, though.

01:55:36.000 They want to prevent Trump from ever meeting Maduro, right?

01:55:39.000 Because like he's gonna like him, right?

01:55:40.000 It's the same thing with Iran. 0.51

01:55:42.000 They 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.

01:55:51.000 Yep.

01:55:51.000 I mean, you know, I think it goes to show that he you know that there's a deal there.

01:55:57.000 We didn't trade anything for him either.

01:55:59.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:56:00.000 I 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.

01:56:09.000 Now, I mean famously this guy who fired people on television.

01:56:12.000 Um he's famously very combative on true social.

01:56:15.000 Um but I mean he'll have Rupert Murdoch in his skybox and then the next day sue him.

01:56:20.000 He's sort of like impersonal about that.

01:56:22.000 And 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.

01:56:34.000 He likes Ruta, he's likes Kirst Armer, which nobody had in the bigger card like a year ago.

01:56:39.000 He likes Macron, he's very amused by him very famously, and he also likes Putin, so where are we?

01:56:44.000 We're at status quo, we're at stalemate.

01:56:46.000 Let's do some more super chats.

01:56:48.000 Oh, yeah, sure.

01:56:48.000 How do we do that?

01:56:51.000 Uh one second, guys.

01:56:54.000 So I think we're just scroll through these things here.

01:56:58.000 The 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. 0.87

01:57:04.000 The less you talk, the more we care.

01:57:08.000 You buy that theory?

01:57:09.000 I think people are certainly tired of hearing about it.

01:57:12.000 I think that's one of the big things on the right, you know, among the younger people.

01:57:15.000 Like 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.

01:57:22.000 There'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?

01:57:34.000 Why?

01:57:35.000 Like this is nothing to do with what we're talking about.

01:57:38.000 It's just it's it's it is exhausting.

01:57:40.000 It is incredibly exhausting.

01:57:42.000 Because it to me, uh Israel's like there are people that think that Israel is the most important thing.

01:57:47.000 I 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.

01:57:53.000 Yeah, we gotta stop supporting it.

01:57:55.000 I completely disagree.

01:57:56.000 But the but the point is there are people that are like this is the most important thing because Israel controls the United States. 0.96

01:58:01.000 And I understand that Israel has way outsized influence compared to how many like Israelis there are and how big of a country Israel is.

01:58:08.000 But 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.

01:58:15.000 And I think Israel is like way down the list.

01:58:18.000 I I like take that super chat person who gave us two dollars.

01:58:22.000 Let Israel take care of Israel. 1.00

01:58:24.000 Let Israel take care of Israel. 1.00

01:58:26.000 Phil Duncan on you.

01:58:28.000 Well, yeah, we should let them take care of themselves completely. 0.63

01:58:31.000 I'd be very happy.

01:58:33.000 I think they're the ones driving that why we're yeah.

01:58:35.000 So the so is the insinuate oh, Serge.

01:58:39.000 Oh, I see.

01:58:40.000 All right.

01:58:40.000 Well, I mean it fine, so it's yeah, oh yeah, I just I I go straight Ron Burgundy.

01:58:44.000 I just read they could say anything by the end.

01:58:47.000 Yeah, that's why I scrolled.

01:58:50.000 Uh let's see, let's go there.

01:58:51.000 Thanks for saving me on that one.

01:58:52.000 Let's go like uh this is a good one here.

01:58:57.000 Uh Matt, Oregon governor marched with Antifa arrest question mark.

01:59:04.000 I 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.

01:59:18.000 Is that good?

01:59:19.000 I don't know.

01:59:20.000 They ran against it, right?

01:59:21.000 I mean, like, why why do the exact same thing as your opponent?

01:59:24.000 I mean, like is that good?

01:59:25.000 What's gonna happen when the left takes power?

01:59:27.000 I want to be really bad.

01:59:28.000 It's gonna be really bad base case. 0.95

01:59:30.000 Or uh the or you'll have a magnanimous left-wing president who make the Republicans look like ghouls. 1.00

01:59:34.000 Like I either one is not good.

01:59:36.000 It'll either be horrible, uh, or it will be politically horrible.

01:59:40.000 Yeah, 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.

01:59:47.000 Not in the same way you're while there's like bluster at times that comes off the internet.

01:59:51.000 I think they've been rather judicial.

01:59:52.000 Agreed.

01:59:52.000 I mean, the risk though would be um creating the impression that you are doing it, and then that being politically mobilizing, right?

01:59:59.000 Like, I mean, like we're the worst of both worlds to create the impression and then they're not actually doing that.

02:00:02.000 No, yeah, no, no, no, no.

02:00:03.000 Because we're not doing mass deportations in this country.

02:00:06.000 They're not happy.

02:00:07.000 You don't you don't count the self-deportation as a mass deportation?

02:00:10.000 I I think we're still below the Obama second term numbers.

02:00:12.000 I mean, I mean people can quit.

02:00:13.000 So many people are around.

02:00:14.000 By the way, talk to anybody who is uh trying to hire someone to hang drywall and see what they're doing.

02:00:19.000 We're not we're not deporting 10 million people.

02:00:21.000 And I I'm not even making the case for it, but we're not doing it.

02:00:24.000 I'll make the case for it.

02:00:25.000 I understand you will.

02:00:26.000 But what we are doing is being cruel to immigrants online with memes.

02:00:30.000 And so like I can't imagine like just like losing Latino voters.

02:00:33.000 And no, they they listen, I'll see a bunch of those Latina voters want to see those illegal immigrants go home. 0.99

02:00:38.000 Or super or even if they were illegal immigrants themselves.

02:00:41.000 Democratic voters come out more. 0.61

02:00:42.000 I'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.

02:00:53.000 Serge, are we uh gonna go to our special hour?

02:00:56.000 Yeah, I think we'll just do it.

02:00:58.000 Can't uh fear a rumbles back in here, so can I do the I'll get a last rumble chat in to you, Gates.

02:01:03.000 I wanted to ask uh since you're again a Florida Jit, uh there's a governor race happening in Florida.

02:01:07.000 Do you have a preferred candidate among the Republicans?

02:01:10.000 I don't even know if the field set the you know the big question is whether or not Casey DeSantis is gonna run for governor. 0.99

02:01:14.000 I think if she did, she'd be a very compelling candidate to a number of uh Floridians who look at her. 0.99

02:01:19.000 Byron Donald's is a dynamic candidate.

02:01:22.000 Uh Jay Collins, the lieutenant governor talking about running, so we'll see.

02:01:26.000 You don't have a favorite?

02:01:26.000 You don't think uh I uh I I like to let these things play out a little bit.

02:01:30.000 What is they'll have that political bone in you what isantis so long to determine.

02:01:35.000 She doesn't need to.

02:01:36.000 Like if you're Casey DeSantis, you have universal name ID, you have the best image rating.

02:01:39.000 Byron Donaldson has been running for governor for months and can't seem to get above the mid-20s in any ballot test.

02:01:45.000 You know, I think that she looks at it and says, why do I have to be in now?

02:01:50.000 There'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.

02:01:59.000 Maybe she's making that calculus.

02:02:01.000 Thanks for giving that tidbit.

02:02:03.000 Let's do the outros.

02:02:06.000 Starting.

02:02:07.000 All right.

02:02:07.000 I'm Matt Gates.

02:02:08.000 I host the Matt Gates show on one American News.

02:02:10.000 I was in Congress for a while and two weekend advocate for reasonable policies still as a private citizen.

02:02:16.000 Matt Gates, it's been insightful.

02:02:18.000 Thanks for coming on and engaging uh with all my questions and headaches I was giving you.

02:02:21.000 My name's Aladdal Yahoo.

02:02:22.000 I'm a White House correspondent here at Timcast.

02:02:25.000 I have a c I also cover a lot of immigration um news and deportations and arrests.

02:02:30.000 Um you can find the videos of my coverage on Twitter and Instagram at a lot of yahoo.

02:02:34.000 Thanks for tuning in, guys.

02:02:35.000 Yeah, my name is Dave DeCamp.

02:02:37.000 I 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.

02:02:47.000 And 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.

02:02:55.000 I'm Kurt Mills.

02:02:56.000 I'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.

02:03:07.000 Uh a recrudescence of such wars through our activist journalism.

02:03:11.000 If 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.

02:03:22.000 Don't forget tomorrow morning Tate will be back doing the morning show. 1.00

02:03:26.000 Uh I am Phil It Remains on Twix.

02:03:28.000 I and the band is all that remains.

02:03:30.000 You can check us out on Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, and Deezer.

02:03:35.000 Uh you can check us out this next spring at the Louder Than Life Fest.

02:03:38.000 We'll be putting together a whole tour.

02:03:40.000 There will be more shows to be announced.

02:03:42.000 Uh don't forget the left lane is for crime, and we will see you guys in the after show.

02:03:48.000 In the after show, we're gonna continue our foreign policy discussion with these great experts.

02:03:52.000 We're gonna go deeper into Russia Ukraine and uh what we think are some of the origins of that conflict.

02:03:57.000 There 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.

02:04:07.000 all in the after show.

02:04:08.000 Thank you.

02:04:09.000 Thank you.

02:04:39.000 Thank you.

02:07:46.000 I know what is on everyone's mind right now where they've joined the extended chat.

02:07:49.000 They want to know more about the US war in Somalia.

02:07:52.000 That is what uh is on everybody's mind.

02:07:55.000 And but you know what?

02:07:56.000 Everyone deserves to come out of this far more uh appreciative of what's h happening around the globe.

02:08:01.000 Dave, we've been covering this at Anti War News.

02:08:03.000 Maybe that is the article I want to pull up.

02:08:05.000 What uh at at Anti War Did we have one?

02:08:07.000 Three days ago is the the anniversary of uh Operation Gothic Serpent, right?

02:08:12.000 The uh Mogadishu, the lost Black Hawk Down.com, uh eighty-one airstrikes in Somalia.

02:08:19.000 Tell us what's going on, Dave.

02:08:20.000 Yeah, 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.

02:08:30.000 And the reason why is because there's no media coverage.

02:08:33.000 A lot of times I'm literally the only person and like on an American news site that's covering US air strikes in Somalia.

02:08:40.000 Uh yeah, that's it.

02:08:42.000 So right now we're up to eighty-one airstrikes in Somalia and that's the most that the US has ever launched.

02:08:47.000 Explain to people who we're shooting at.

02:08:49.000 Yeah.

02:08:50.000 That's the qu uh well those are actually our allies.

02:08:52.000 Oh those are yeah, US backfighters in Punt.

02:08:57.000 That's in that's in Puntland.

02:08:58.000 yeah yeah no No.

02:09:05.000 Yeah, we don't know anything about Puntland is secured.

02:09:08.000 Yeah, don't worry, Puntland's good.

02:09:10.000 So we're bombing Al Shabaab. 0.94

02:09:12.000 Who we've been bombing since two thousand and seven.

02:09:14.000 How many Al Shabaab are there?

02:09:16.000 Uh I believe that's twenty-five to thirty thousand.

02:09:20.000 They'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. 0.93

02:09:28.000 What are we hoping to win against Al Shabaab?

02:09:30.000 Well that's the question.

02:09:31.000 I 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.

02:09:38.000 So after uh you know, almost ten years of bombing Al Shabaab, another group popped up that we had to start bombing too. 0.78

02:09:44.000 It's very similar to Afghanistan where we were fighting the Taliban and then you saw ISIS K pop up. 0.80

02:09:49.000 Um 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.

02:10:14.000 Um 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.

Timcast IRL - Tim Pool - October 08, 2025

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