“Israel’s An Only Child” - Debate Over Trump’s Loyalty to Israel & Ties to Miriam Adelson
Episode Stats
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215.89528
Summary
In the wake of 9/11, many wondered why the world would be so hostile toward Israel. Why is it? Is it because we are the only child in the Middle East, and are therefore the only children in the middle east?
Transcript
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i grew up in iran right and i was born on mehreb bishishom october 1878 another kid was born a
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month after me we grew up like this that kid good kid good family both parents are doctors
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they did very well one is a doctor the mother was an accountant brilliant very good families
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and as we were coming up i knew i wasn't going to get anything for my parents they didn't have
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money they just brought me to america my dad was a you know worker 99 cent store in inglewood
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california my mother was she's never worked for as long as i've known her you know homemaker we came
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here why did you come though like what was the reason khomeini died six weeks later we escaped
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june 3rd 89 when he died we escaped six weeks but i'm saying why why did you if you weren't you know
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like kind of one of those oligarchal families under the shell why a christian family we're christian
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family my mom didn't feel safe i was about to turn 12 she didn't want me to serve the military in iran
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she said we got to leave my dad agreed we went to germany refugee camp erlang in nuremberg 18 months
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and we came here november 28th 1990 but here's where i'm going um that kid grew up the parents
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built a good business the kid knew the parents had to give the business eventually to the kid
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and the kid's like listen you guys better take care of my business because it's mine
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do you understand what i'm saying so it's almost like a entitled kid uh-huh because they only had one
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kid right do you know that's the reason why i don't believe you should ever have anything less
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than three kids i think you should have three kids because if it's only one guess how they feel
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they own you uh-huh and i do think there's an element of israel that is the only child in the
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middle east u.s made that mistake by having the only child in the middle east i don't know if this
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is making sense the point i'm making no i i understand the point the point i'm trying to say is like
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you negotiated this america you put yourself in this situation and i think what trump is trying
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to do which maybe none of these other guys previous to him have done correct me if i'm wrong you this
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is your world is when you have an only child you don't have a choice you kind of got to figure it
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out or else go raise two other kids that match your values and principles and pin them against each
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other meaning if if you if you see uh what trump is doing with canada he pushes mexico or he pushes
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china he pushes russia he puts sanctions on russia you better not do the oil deal the couple the
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biggest oil you know companies in china that buy oil they're like we're suspending it because the
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sanctions and then he's able to pin them against each other but he's trying to find somebody else to
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pin against israel to hold israel accountable and i think he's doing that in the way he did with
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qatar when he's like why why'd you shoot up that place you better come out and apologize i think
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that phone call was made do you think that phone call was made when he said you better apologize to
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qatar for sure no he was enraged he was enraged but the part where i'm going to is i think they
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handed him you have one child in the middle east go make your work and there's a community of people
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saying screw israel screw the screw that you can't it's the only job wait till you build a couple
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other children then let them compete against each other i totally get that theory it's coherent and and
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it makes sense and i think there's some truth to it as well except after the 1967 war and then
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1973 yam kippur war nixon was the first to change his policies he became very close to the arab world
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or closer and then obviously we have had an extremely close relationship with the saudis for decades
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even after 9-11 when they were by far the country most involved or certainly with the greatest proximity
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to the hijackers george bush helped the saudis who were in the country get out he continued to
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have a very close you know the bush family has been very close to the saudis for for a long time they're
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they're oil people they they have a close relationship but one of the things that we did
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is and i think this is when you count how much we do for israel this often doesn't get counted is
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we don't just give huge amounts of money to israel we also prop up a regime in egypt
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that you know goes back to anwar sadat and then mubarak and now sisi and we prop up the
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jordanian royal family as well to keep not just stability in those countries but also to keep them
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at bay and and not hostile toward israel we do have other allies in the region and i think one of the
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things trump is wanting to do and i think you're right about this is he wants to expand the scope of
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american alliances in the region but he also wants to foster normalization with israel but but i think
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that's fine so the way i process it is with business and and i'll explain it to you from my
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perspective again push back when i'm given this perspective i'm very comfortable with it is when
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at the beginning i had an insurance carrier i'm running an insurance company i only had one insurance
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carrier i didn't have four i didn't have five i only had one and the one that i had was aig american
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general and i'm coming up i'm a newer company they tell me what they want to do
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i can't push back you have no leverage i don't have any other carriers so then i go get a third
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a fourth a fifth a sixth a seventh finally it normalizes where the negotiation is even but guess
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what i never wanted to lose them because they've been a decent ally to me and we both needed each
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other when we got started i think that's the right way of diplomacy and what he's doing i think for him
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to sit there and say because if i if i sit there and i think about you have the best intel i i want
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access to that intel nobody else does a good good enough of a job as intel as you in the middle east
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i think that's very valuable to me how can i use that intel now don't get me wrong when when the
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argument comes back around and and it's your number one is epstein you know my number one is what do you
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think my number one is what is your number what do you think my number one is i want you to take a
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wild guess uh i'm at a loss i don't tell me it's epstein oh and so we're in agreement i've thought
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that yeah it's my number one all right so yeah we hit bingo on that i do believe they've been using
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blackmail to get information and that info was being sent to israel i do believe all of that stuff
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but this is what i'm saying it's like if you take this idealistic view of israel they give us all
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this intel they're like incredibly you make a better argument the thing is that the israelis
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don't have any sense of loyalty united states the intel they passed to us is often shit it's
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deceitful it's manipulated to get us to do what they want it's it's filled with falsehoods and this
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is the stuff i'm not saying just the israelis do this is not uniquely evil this is how the intel world
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operates we we we try and manipulate other countries by saying oh look what we have here you know uh it's
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what the steel dossier was about right that's that's part of that world is is deliberate disinformation
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and lying the israelis aren't the israelis care about israel israel they they are not loyal to
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united states which is which is fine which is no but we are america first we should be yeah but i think
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there's a lot more unnatural loyalty to israel than certainly israel has to us and i think it's important
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not to overlook the reality that many of the most important people in the united states the people who
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wield the greatest power the people who have the most money the people who are most indispensable to
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many power centers are people who have at least as much loyalty to israel as to the united states if
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not more so you can't ignore that as part of the relationship there's a manipulated aspect to it
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i don't i don't know i know i'm not i'm just i'm just saying that has to be part of the formula
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but where i'm going with this is i so i'm sitting there and i'm watching all the criticism that trump
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is getting but i'm also watching what he's doing behind the scenes i'm also seeing how he's trying to
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put netanyahu in his place and i also see that netanyahu thinks he can do anything he wants to
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do with america probably he could have done with other presidents in the past but he's having a hard
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time with this one guy that's coming in and this one guy that's coming in is a little bit tougher
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candidate for him because he he has he has a thing that none of the guys previous to him had he is so
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unpredictable and he can't control him which is why i think above all else the establishment
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was so uh had such animosity toward trump exactly what you just said he's unpredictable and i love
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that and what the establishment wants is hillary clinton and kamala harris people who just are going
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to be very controlled this let me quickly add though on the one hand i understand what you're saying and
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of course there has been these stories leaked that oh there's this tension between netanyahu and and
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trump but if you look at the actual behavior you know trump in 2024 he went and spoke for
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before this organization when miriam idelson who's his biggest donor 100 million yeah and and trump
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said you know not only we're going to make u.s u.s great again and we're going to make israel great
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again that was part of his promise he also talked about how in his first term the people who visited
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him most were sheldon and miriam idelson he said that in a speech at uh before the i think it was the
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republican jewish coalition no i think he said that in a different but i think he said it at you i don't know
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where it was but it was i i remember the speech that right he would call he would come and say
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you realize i'm the president i'm coming to the white house what are you talking about
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and then he would come yeah he would and he would say you know this these are american citizens like
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right scare quotes and they would come in and they would only want stuff for israel that's what trump
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says you're right that's that's the speech you're right yeah yeah yes and trump said that they would
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come in and they would say i want this for israel and trump would give it to them and then like a week
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later they'd call back and they're like now i want this and he'd be like give me a couple weeks i'll do
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more for israel but i just get but he talked about how much he served israel throughout his and and you
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know i think one of the things that that is important to remember is that when trump was running in 2024
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he needed to win to stay out of prison had trump not won that 2024 election he would be in prison for
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life and he was willing to do whatever he had to the way most people would and one of the people he
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needed most was miriam idelson and not just her you know bill ackman and lots of other big big donors
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who care most about israel i do think netanyahu understands like the white house released that
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humiliating picture of netanyahu holding the phone with his like while trump was holding the phone
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netanyahu was on the phone with the emir of qatar reading a script to an apology right like a deliberate
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attempt to show what the dynamic and the relationship really is do you think that was an act or do you
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think he really had to call qatar and say what he said when i see the united states or the trump
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administration cutting off aid to israel when they do things that we don't want then i will yeah i
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mean look at that picture i mean look at that you think that's an act though do you do you think do
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you really think in that position who had leverage i think this is the thing this is what i think has
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changed is that i think trump loves i mean if you think about trump yeah and what he loves most even
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the aesthetic of like the south you know there's like flamboyant opulence right i think trump loves
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cotter the emirates and saudis genuinely at least as much as he loves israel in fact i think he's
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infinitely more comfortable in in in dubai than he is in is that a bad thing no no it's a good thing i'm
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anything that places israel more in its place and its proper place is a good thing to me these are
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terrible countries i mean these are hardcore you know savage dictatorships but i'm not i don't think
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the united states should should go around the world trying to pick and choose hey everyone i'm
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glenn greenwald i am a journalist who covers a lot of issues including civil liberties and foreign
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policy and the u.s security state and domestic politics and brazil a lot of why also a lot of
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people don't know but i know literally everything about tennis everything so you can ask me about
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that as well and anyone who wants to ask me questions or connect with me you can do so on
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i have a profile there and i would love to hear from you after two years of working on this we have
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finally pulled it off and let me tell you what it is every time we do the vault conference if you've
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attended you know this i stand up and i speak for probably 45 hours is what i do at the vault
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conference and i love it i love being around the guys i love it but i wear the ferragamo shoes when i do
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this or i wear some kind of dress shoes eventually for the last 25 years i've always been on stage
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walking i'm like you know what i'm sick and tired of it i want a shoe that i'm comfortable wearing and
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here's what i love i don't like shoes that are so heavy that's a dumbbell you can use it as a weapon
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i don't want that like does any of you carry it i have so many of them but they're so heavy like you
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can literally curl does any of them you know the shoes and you'll get a pump within 30 reps and i
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wanted the combination of the the hoka the the on cloud the super foam because there's a big thing
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going on right now with the super foam where the bottom of the shoe you wear it you know which ones
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i'm talking about the on cloud or the hokus right they're so comfortable and i said what if we take
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luxury and then combine it with the super comfort what would that look like and let's build it in
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italy so what do we do we went to italy we designed the shoe in florida we made the shoe in italy in
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five of the five of the factories we went back and forth god knows how many times and by the way
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the shoes were about to launch and introduce to you right now where you're going to see the video
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for the first time i've been wearing those shoes for the last 22 days straight i'm wearing them right
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now i literally wear it with suits i wore it yesterday when we went to lunch i wear it every
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single day it's the most comfortable shoes i have yet it's authentic italian leather rob if you don't
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mind playing the video go for it here's the video of the latest shoe the flbs when we set out to
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create a shoe that blends comfort function and luxury we had the choice to make it fast we had
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the choice to make it cheap we chose neither instead we chose tuscanero we chose true italian
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craftsmanship each pair touched by 50 skilled hands we chose patience spending two years perfecting every
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detail and we chose the finest quality at every step introducing the future looks bright collection
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not rushed not disposable not ordinary rather intentional luxurious timeless
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boom there you go designed in florida 100 made in italy 50 hands touch each shoe that was made
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and here's what's unique about i want to kind of show this to everybody that knows this
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and i've worn pretty much every one of these shoes so if you compare this the italian leather
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of course it's made in italy it's not assembled made in china assembled in italy 100 made in italy
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assembled in italy it's flbs berlutis which are 1840 fergamos are 895 zennias are 1190 and gucci's
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are 950 leather premium lining all of them except for gucci laceless feature it's the flbs the berlutis
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you have laces fergamos laceless and then you have also the zennias and then the gucci's have
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the laces i don't want to wake up in the morning put laces on i want to get out the house took me
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three seconds to put my shoes on today craftsman five different italian factories all made this
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shoe berlutis are the same as us as well as flb but the only shoe these trainers the only one in
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the world today according to the factories that told me this in italy that has the super foam
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the only one that has the same super foam used in the on clouds and the hokas it's the flbs and
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they're officially out and you can place the order here's a challenge we only have a thousand of these
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pairs and when you say thousand of these pairs they start from size i believe uh is it eight it goes
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eight nine ten ten and a half eleven eleven and a half twelve thirteen those are the sizes that we
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have and the shoes that you can get today the colors you have access to rob if you can go back there you
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can have access to those browns which is absolutely beautiful and by the way the brown on the bottom
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the stitching on the side is a left stitching if you can change the picture and on the bottom it says
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the future looks bright look at the the white uh lines on the side it's beautiful the only ones we
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have right now that you can get sent out today are the black and the browns if you do want the white
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to pre-order i would highly recommend you do so they're going to come out the second week of
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december so the white and the navy blue comes out the second week of december the browns
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and the blacks are available if you believe the future looks bright as much as we do go place the
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deals done all right so they're out i'm excited to announce it and i'm very happy for people to go
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sport it when you get them take pictures send it our way we're going to show all these shoes all the
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pictures that are being taken already got a bunch of them sent to me on instagram go to vtmerge.com
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