9/4/25: Trump Plot To Crush Zohran, Venezuela Regime Change, Tim Dillon Defends Saudi Cash Grab

25:31They're like, oh, this is revenge for fentanyl. Again, I'm like, guys, like 99.9 % of the fentanyl enters the United States. It comes from Mexico. The cartels with any power, they're in Mexico. You know what the tricky problem is? While Mexico and its government has a lot of links and corruption with all this to the cartels, Mexico is also the number one trading partner of the United States. So what are we going to do here? And so broadly, you know, I'm curious. Like you're talking about saber rattling and all of this. There's been so much talk, oh, America's going to go after the cartels in Mexico.

26:01The one reason I've never thought that would actually happen is because of the NAFTA and trading. I was like, there's just, you would genuinely nuke the US economy if they shut down the border. I mean, I'm curious how, you know, because you're an expert on Steinbaum as well, how she is navigating all of this right now, especially with Rubio down in Mexico. uh she's done really well and has deeply increased cooperation uh with the u.s has also taken a very aggressive and smart security strategy actually you know fentanyl seizures south of the border at record highs and north of the border at record lows so uh you know both of them were saying that like the cooperation is yielded fruit and that's absolutely true on the other hand the question is whether it'll be enough for the White House.

26:48And, you know, the problem with this government, as you guys have pointed out, you know, like with the Iran strikes, a lot of it is vibes. A lot of it is symbolism. A lot of it is just showing we're doing something. So like with Iran, you know, we bombed Iran. Is that going to actually prevent them from getting nuclear weapons? No, if anything, they're more likely to get them. So with Mexico, I can see them just like doing some kind of strike just because it makes the base feel good. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, because people don't use Google. I'm like, okay, so listen, I'm not no love for the drug cartels, all right?

27:21I got zero. I'm like, simple Google search. How much fentanyl comes from Venezuela? Zero. How much cocaine comes from Venezuela? Not much. We have a$50 million bounty on Venezuela's leader's head, and we literally recognize a different government. And we have a government full of people who've been wanting to overthrow Venezuela now. And you just, a critical part of the Miami coalition are literally expatriate Venezuelans who are trying to get the Secretary of State who used to represent them to overthrow their government who once posted a video side by side of Maduro next to Gaddafi. So what are we doing here?

27:56You know, it's like, that is where I just see zero skepticism. Again, not even on the drug claims. It doesn't take a genius to draw this stuff together, not to mention the history of US policy on Latin America to say, maybe there's something else going on here. You know? And I don't know. I'm scared, Juan. I'm scared about sleeper regime change, destabilization, or any of this. I don't think any of this has to do with drugs as of right now. Or maybe it does. You can correct me if I'm wrong. yeah i mean uh in fairness like a lot of the cocaine that uh comes out of colombia does go through venezuela especially like the coca fields near the colombia venezuela border uh but yeah and you know in the grand scheme of things it's not that much um as far as regime change is concerned i mean look maduro is horrific and you know i live in south florida i'm in for lauderdale and i hate his guts too but like you know we have to think about this what are the consequences of like removing this guy venezuela is a failed state it's controlled by a bunch of uh yet different armed actors gorillas you know a bunch of other uh criminal actors like you remove this guy like and you know we're in some sort of prolonged vietnam iraq-esque war in our hemisphere like my god and what are the migratory consequences like even more people would leave like venezuela is not going to get fixed overnight and and most sober venezuelans know this Yep, you're exactly right.

29:26Absolutely right. Thanks for joining us, man. We always appreciate your analysis. Thanks, guys.

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31:04Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, in just a few short weeks, a who's who of comedy will board international flights bound for Riyadh for Saudi Arabia's massive comedy festival. Billed as the largest comedy festival in the world, the star-studded lineup includes the likes of Dave Chappelle, Tim Dillon, Bill Burr, Ziz Ansari, Whitney Cummings, Pete Davidson, Kevin Hart, and a whole lot more where those came from. You got your right-wingers, you got your left-wingers, you got your relatively apolitical, all coming together in a shared appreciation for the shower of Saudi cash that lured them to this event in the first place.

31:38What about Saudi's imposed starvation of Yemen? What about their authoritarian speech suppression and vicious approach to dissent? What about the brutal murder and dismembering of Jamal Khashoggi, their rampant abuse of migrant workers, including allegations of human trafficking. Well, as Tim Dillon makes plain, the payouts were enough to get everyone to look the other way. They're paying me$375 ,000 for one show. Now, a lot of other people are getting$1.6 million. That's not me. I'm not in that bracket. But they're giving me$375 ,000. Others are getting$150 ,000. Why are they doing it? Here's the point.

32:11Here's the point, okay? I am doing this because they're paying me a large sum of money. They're paying me enough money to look the other way. Do you understand? Look the other way. That's a four-word sentence that people don't do anymore. Look the other way. If something bad is happening to your left, look to your right. If, for example, I'm at a breakfast and I see someone get grabbed and they start hitting them with that, you know that big stick? I don't know if it's bamboo or whatever it is. It's kind of a wood, but it kind of snaps back. It's perfect for a cane. If I see someone getting it, I will look the other way, okay?

32:58If I look the other way and I see someone being behanded, meaning they're chopping a hand up, that might be interesting to just kind of see actually how they do it because I think they do it kind of a sanitary way. But from what I've heard, you know, if they're chopping it, I might look down. And if I'm looking at the floor and I see some eyeless beggar grabbing at me, trying to get my money, I will look up to the heavens. And if in the heavens, I see a drone flying over, I will look the other way because I'm being paid enough money to look the other way. What don't you understand? What is so complicated?

33:40I'm the only honest person just going to do it. everyone else is going to have a million. They're going to go, well, actually, the Middle East is more progressive now, and he's trying to make some change. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm being paid a lot of money to not care about what they do in their country. There you go. The Saudi Comedy Festival, of course, just the kingdom's latest effort in a long list of sports and cultural events where they have doled out tens or hundreds of millions of dollars so that people will do exactly what Tim suggests and look the other way. Probably their most discussed gambit from a U.S.

34:15perspective is the Live Golf Tour, which came in as a direct competitor to the PGA Tour, bought off a bunch of the world's top players, partnered with Donald Trump to host events at his properties. We still don't know how much exactly the president is netting from his Live Golf deal. But yes, ladies and gentlemen, the president, too, is being paid to look the other way on any Saudi doings that may conflict with American values or American interests. But there is, of course, so much more. The Saudis have made massive investments in soccer. They purchased an 80 % stake in Premier League's Newcastle United.

34:46They spent lavishly to lure global soccer superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar to Saudi clubs. They've hosted heavyweight boxing matches, regular WWE events. They back Formula One and Formula E, which is apparently electric car racing, e-sports, women's tennis, music festivals, including stars like Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber. And they've also lured artists for massive biennial art exhibitions. Now, some of these efforts by the Saudis to buy affection, they have been met with some protest, but none particularly significant or sustained enough to stop the stars involved from making the exact same calculus that Tim Dillon explained.

35:22Take the money, look the other way, assume the blowback will be minimal, and keep it moving. That bet has paid off for them every time, as best as I can tell. So this is where we are now, in whatever end state of capitalism we're in. Money's our God. The only end goal, apparently, that really matters. the only judge of merit or character, and with this false idol, we are witnessing a total and complete moral collapse. The comedians lining up to line their pockets are really just one very small example of it. I mean, it's barely worth mentioning in comparison to the decision to commit a full-on genocide and ethnic cleansing in order to secure beachfront property development rights.

36:00Increasingly, we're falling into an ideology of utter and complete nihilism. The sense of our nation as any sort of collective enterprise has been broken by decades of a neoliberal ideology that was so individualistic that many apparently forgot other human beings were even actual human beings at all and not just NPCs or non-playable characters. How else can you explain the muted reaction when a boat of human beings is blown out of the water by the world's most powerful military or when Florida decides to end all childhood vaccine mandates putting your right to be an anti-vax crank over the health of the community, especially children, especially the elderly and the vulnerable, when we all watch every single day as a genocide is live-streamed in our feeds.

36:42It may be that the only ones really worthy of being called human at this point are the doctors and the aid workers who rush into Gaza and the Palestinians themselves, who've somehow still maintained their humanity in the face of the greatest barbarism imaginable. By the way, Tim Dillon actually had something to say about this as well. The niceties are gone. The pleasantries are gone. Israel's not disguising what they want to do. The motives are not. They don't matter. The narrative doesn't make sense. The stories don't add up. They do not care. They're not trying to make it make sense. They don't have the time.

37:17It's the last bit of control That they can exert Over the system Before it blows up It's my guess It's what it feels like Nobody's putting the time in to lie to you anymore You should worry about that You should worry about the fact That nobody's even trying to make the lies good They know it doesn't matter If you believe them They're going to try to dispose of you I'll be in Riyadh I'll be in Riyadh where my bread is buttered Go find where your bread is buttered Go get your bread buttered Go get your toast buttered Go get your jelly Go jelly your jam Because the world is ending

38:05But it's true And it sounds rough Go get your bread buttered Because the world is ending Doesn't it actually feel like it captures a lot of the sentiment bubbling under the surface of our culture. When people talk endlessly about a vibe shift, is that the vibe? The world's ending and I don't believe anything, so I'm just gonna go get mine, or at least I'm gonna try. I'm gonna chase some crypto scam. I'm gonna lionize the scummiest people on the internet. I'm gonna embrace the basest of human pleasures, which is the sense of satisfaction that comes from watching someone in the out group suffer.

38:36Is that the vibe we're talking about? After we relied into the Iraq war and the economy collapsed and the banksters were rewarded and the effort at a collective renewal as represented by the Bernie campaign was snuffed down. Is that what we're left with? Moral collapse, cash grabs, scammers, race to the bottom and torture as a form of entertainment. And so a bunch of comedians with all sorts of supposed political ideologies, they're all going to go and they're gonna get their bread buttered from a totalitarian monarchy that hacked a dissident journalist apart because the royal family did not like his Washington Post columns.

39:09There is another way. I know I'm laying too much at Zoran's feet here, but there is something that I genuinely find so special and hopeful about his campaign. It's the tiniest glimmer. The possibility of a renewed sense of a collective spirit. A glimmer of an expanded political vision that believes it is possible to make America's largest city workable for working people. 4 ,000, just think about this, extremely earnest people came out for a Sunday scavenger hunt for this campaign. Young people snapped out of their TikTok ennui to completely remake the electorate. and shock the world. Or for a more profound example, I would ask you to listen to Dr.

39:48Mohamed Mostafa, Palestinian refugee turned UK and Aussie citizen, turned ER doctor who has gone twice to serve in Gaza. It's like this bizarre thing because, you know, Netanyahu at the start said, you know, we are the children of light fighting the children of darkness. And I'm just like, the irony of it is it's the other way around. You know, the irony is the other way around. It's those kids in Gaza that are the light. When you see those children, and I've seen them, when there's little food and, you know, a child might have a plate of food and the other child is waiting in line and there's no more food left.

40:23And then that child who's hungry and emaciated starts scooping out food from his plate to put on that child's plate. You know, when we had COVID over here, you know, we had police officers guarding toilet paper because we had society had broken down. We were fighting over toilet paper. And yet you have starving children who are traumatized. who are sharing their food with each other. Just think about that. In Gaza, their world may literally be ending. Right now, the most powerful country on the planet is trying to wipe out the evidence that they ever even existed. And still, they stubbornly refuse to become the animals that we have been told that they are.

41:02They are doing so much more for one another than just trying to get their own bread buttered. In other words, maybe, Tim Dillon, It's too soon to give up on the world. And Sagar, curious for your thoughts on a wide-ranging one there. I hate to say it. I just think it's very, you're too optimistic. I mean. So you're in full-blown nihilism? Get your bread buttered mood? I have been. I mean, if you just, I mean, look, if you look at, you know, I was, we need to talk about this on Monday. Yeah. But anti-tax sentiment is at the highest that it's ever been in the United States. Oh, I feel that. Yeah.

41:38Why? Well, for me, it's Gaza. Well, it's not just, but that's when it's multifaceted because it's not about federal. It's nothing works. Shit's too expensive. For me, I've got bums all over where I live. Crime is high. The prices are too high. Property tax is sky high. I don't feel like I get shit for what I pay, not to mention for what we're paying into the federal government system. All of it together, I'm like, fuck you. That's how most people feel. I talked about the property tax thing. So the point is, is that all institutions are failing us at every level. So I think it's nice to believe a single - I understand the sentiment, right?

42:13But I actually don't think you behave like that in your normal life because we're not doing a cash grab. Like we talked this week about the way that other creators are doing the total like cash grab, sell out. I'll take the Saudi cash. I'll take the dark money. I'll sell Bluetooth, whatever. And that's not the path that you have chosen. You're totally right. I mean I have personal integrity, but I'm more – like I don't agree – I don't conduct myself that way, I would put that way. But I don't – I understand it. I see exactly the way that it goes. I individually – I am not naive enough to believe that I individually and this whatever example or whatever we do is going to influence the vast majority of people to change their behavior.

42:54If I look at the average behavior of the American citizen, the truth is is that degeneracy individualism is on the path forward. And you kind of are a fool if you try to invest in anything really broadly at like a major societal level to make people not behave hyper individualistically. That is the country that we live in. You could blame the system. You could blame the people. I think it's kind of both basically at this point. We live in Vegas. Our president is literally a casino magnate. That's the country who we are. I told you earlier, FanDuel is now sponsoring public infrastructure. We have no collective culture, no collective value, no collective society.

43:34So in that society, like, you kind of should ensure that you're protected and you're okay because nobody's looking out for you. The government's not looking out for you. And, yeah, I mean, just broadly, that's like the way that I feel is I have no civic faith that if something were to happen to me, that the city that I would live in would do shit for him. Zero. And then for the government, oh my God. It's like, you better have the resources ready to fight. So I think I probably feel even more dark about the world and the country with the Trump administration than you do. Sure. So I understand.

44:06I understand the impulse, right? But I am not ready to hand society off to the Peter Thiels of the world and the Donald Trumps of the world who would sell it off for parts. I'm not ready to succumb to a world that's just might makes right, law of the jungle, barbarism rules the day. And that's my point. I think it's always been that way. No, it's, I mean. I really do. I mean, I've just been dressed up in different values. As much as we are in this moment of decline and as much as, yes, the carnival barker and the Trumpian thug and con artist is a deep part of American culture and history. Like, it is American as apple pie.

44:51There's no doubt about that. We are also the country that, you know, that ended slavery, that ended segregation. We are also the country that during the New Deal built out incredible infrastructure and incredible manufacturing base. We are also that country that has had that sense of collective and civic pride in the past. So that is also a part of the American tradition. And so the two examples that I cite here are very intentionally chosen because it would be very easy for New Yorkers to also engage in a very cynical calculation. Forget it. Nothing's going to work. No one could change this city.

45:28It's a playground for the rich. And yet still, they had enough faith in a collective project to earnestly engage, come out to vote, totally remake the electorate, put their trust in someone who is untested and young and unproven. And so it's this little glimmer of possibility there. And then I really genuinely believe what—and this is what I've seen with covering Palestine, covering Gaza so carefully. Dr. Mustafa talks about how Palestine will free the world. And what he and others mean by that is just think about how extraordinary it is that while we're all, you know, nihilism and everything, nothing matters, I'm going to get mine, etc.

46:07Like that example he gives of a child who, you know, has experienced loss that we can't even imagine, who is trying to be murdered every day by the world superpower and their little baby terror state. And still, still they find it in themselves to have a sense of a collective and have a sense of I'm going to share this little bit that I have. And I find that profoundly inspiring. There's nothing that has inspired me more in this moment than people too, like Dr. Mustafa. He is an ER doc. He was actually a professional rugby player. He was very high level jujitsu champion and is this extraordinary person.

46:44And yet he decided to put himself in harm's way twice in a war zone to go in and serve. That is a level of a human spirit that I can't even wrap my mind around, which is why I'm not prepared to just give it and say, nothing matters. It's all shit. It can never get better. It is what it is. And we're just going to continue on this steady decline of a human race. I would flip it, actually. I would say that I don't have faith that the political system will deliver the change that you're looking for. I don't believe any politician would be able to do it, at least currently. There's only two ways you and I are going to get the country that we want.

47:13Number one is a massive global financial crisis. We were talking about earlier, we actually had a shot in 08. But see, that's where my skepticism comes in. The language you're using about Zoran, I heard it all in 2008. Obama, the young people, the internet, they came out there well-meaning. And it's like, remember that commercial of taking the Hope poster down? That's reality. It didn't work. It straight up was a failure. He took the hopes and dreams of literally millions and they crashed. And that's how you got Donald Trump. So reality tells us that probably won't happen. So probably a global financial system or it's going to be a massive war.

47:51That's another reason I was talking earlier about China. And the most likely scenario is that we are going, it's going to be just like the 1930s. We're going to have our thumb up our ass for years and everyone will be squabbling. And then one day, 1914 or 1939, the entire world will change in a single day. And from that point forward, that's when shit gets real. So that's where the Gazans, of course, have to come together and collect a solidarity because they are literally fighting a war of extinction. But in the absence of that, we are not. We are not fighting an existential battle. The only existential battle we're fighting is against ourselves, like internally, and basically like warding off all of the capitalistic endeavors to suck you dry of your entire soul.

48:34That's the war that we fight here. So without that external factor, I don't see it happening. And it pretty much never happened without that major external factor or a precipitating crisis. So you talked about ending slavery. Yeah, I mean it took a prolonged multi-year civil war of a massive crisis, 600 ,000 deaths, 2 % of the U.S. population. And even then at the time, it took the political genius of Lincoln to actually make it happen because if we're all being honest, ending slavery was not all that popular at the time. Even within the union, that's the truth. Segregation, yes, it was great, 1964 and all that.

49:11But it took about 25 years, you know, broadly. And what, Reagan just happened to announce his campaign in 1980? Exactly in the spot where - I'm not saying it's all feeling good. I'm just like, okay, so, you know. I mean, but yeah, I think that you may be correct that it does take that kind of a massive crisis. You know, I mean, that's basically the accelerationist position. I don't see any evidence that it can come otherwise. I'm not convinced of that, but I acknowledge that that is entirely possible. Luckily, I guess for us, recording any number of crises on October. Yeah, yeah. Listen, we'll probably get there.

49:42Here we go. I sometimes feel like I'm broadcasting in the year like 1910. Because there were a lot of British intellectuals. I'm not calling myself an intellectual. But I'm saying there were a lot of like British intellectuals and others who were like, the storm is coming. The rise is coming. There's, you know, storm on the horizon. Yeah. And everyone was like, oh, you know, it's fine. You know, the number one story in July 1914 in Paris was about a lady who shot, I think she shot her husband's mistress or something. That was the number one story in the city of Paris in France. Like that's the level of bullshit that they were all doing.

50:14They lived in one of the richest, most prosperous, incredible places. I feel very similarly. Like that's the tabloid level nonsense that we're all obsessed with. And it's like you can just see the storm on the horizon. You know, you have that. You have that. And then it's in a split screen with like, and the military is occupying another American city. You and I see that, right? But most people are not. They're just going about their day wondering about McDonald's, putting the NFL on and betting on college football. Taylor Swift's endorsement is the number one story in the country. Like, be honest.

50:43You know, have you seen a level of, you know, how many videos are there of people finding out about Taylor's and, like, collapsing in tears? You know, that's the country that we live in. And, I mean, I take solace in the fact that it has kind of always been that way. I don't think it's particularly unique at this point. But yeah, to see the collectivization, the ditching of individualism and all that, it's going to be – it's going to take a lot. I think a lot. That I will agree with you on. All right. OK. Thanks, guys, for watching. We appreciate you. We'll see you later. Apple Vacations, where your story starts.

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