#309 Megyn Kelly - "I Now Have to Worry About Getting Shot Because of My Opinion"

26:07no, what are they doing? They've pivoted away from us. We'll get into it. They're now selling, what, 900, I think 900, almost a million barrels a day to China to diversify away from us, the petrodollar. Lots of shit. AI, Cuba. We'll see what we get into. Okay. But first off, what does the Massey, what does that race mean for us? I mean, I thought that guy was going to win in a landslide. Yeah, I wasn't surprised he lost. Really? Yeah, they just spent so much money to try to defeat him. Normally, they spend like$500 ,000 in these races. If they spend$500 ,000, it's a lot. And this one was$30 million piled against him by the Israel lobby.

26:55Apex literally bragging about it on X. Yeah, yeah. They're really proud of themselves. They got him fired for Israel. I mean, I guess it's not as bad as getting our guys killed for Israel. Well, that's next. Yeah, it's happening. I wasn't surprised. I think that one's slightly more complicated than some would have you believe, because I do think Trump's been gunning for him for a while because he hasn't been fully supportive of the Trump agenda. But the thing that's annoying, and even before he crossed Trump on Epstein, which I think is really what did it. He hadn't supported Trump's one big, beautiful bill.

27:35He doesn't like spending that's not paid for. The Republican Party used to feel that way. This whole thing came to life in 2010 called the Tea Party based on exactly that principle. And they used to govern that way on Team Red. And then once they saw the Democrats getting away with out-of-pocket spending that wasn't justified or paid for, and this sort of new theory of economics that you could get away with that, they jumped on board fully because Trump has been the only Republican president since Obama. And he loves to spend. He's just as much of a spendthrift as anybody on the left. And so now these Republicans in Congress who used to be more like, hey, no, no, we have to have justification for it.

28:14We have to pay for it. Completely abandoned that, gave Trump his blank checks.

28:21We'll never pay off the debt that the country's paying ever. Our children, our grandchildren, I don't know what's going to happen. It's much more likely we'll face some sort of a bankruptcy as a country unless we can somehow get these AI companies to take on our debt. They're the only ones who could afford it. Did you come up with that? Get the AI companies? That's my idea. Yeah. How the hell? Why would they do that? I don't know. Because we'll let them develop their product. They're the only ones who can afford it. They actually could get us out of this jam. And maybe we can use it to at least save America and our balance sheet.

28:54But in any event, Massey was one of the guys who held firm on the spending and said, I'm not voting for spending that's not paid for, you know, that we can't offset some someplace. There's enough debt. And that's why he didn't like the one big, beautiful bill, among other reasons. And Trump just can't take any dissension in his ranks. You will be culled from the herd if you cross him on anything. He will not accept dissension. And that's why we have a house that doesn't do anything now. We have a Congress that doesn't check presidential power at all, even though they were supposed to be the most powerful branch, not him.

29:31The founders wanted a small presidency, small executive. That's why it's Article 3. And sorry, Article 2, and Congress is one. And so I thought Massey was going to get targeted by Trump. And then when I saw him push on Epstein, I knew Trump was going to, you know, he was so angry. But the irony of all that is Trump is the one who told us we were going to get disclosure on Epstein. It's really the Trump backers. Trump didn't make Epstein a huge campaign issue, but he did a little. And he definitely made disclosure an issue, whether it was the JFK files or the MLK files or, you know, the UFO files, all that stuff.

30:15And Epstein was a huge issue for a core part of Team Red. So, you know, you could argue that Massey was holding Trump to the Trump agenda, not bucking. See, that's what I don't understand how people don't see it that way. Every time I blast Trump or anybody in his administration or Pan Bounty, anybody, about not releasing those, redacting all the names, all this shit, I get blasted by the Republicans. So it's always important to ask who you're getting blasted by. I mean, it could be bots, probably bots, but I can't tell. Well, if it has anything to do with Israel, it's bots, for sure. But when it comes to, like, what you just said, there is, you know, what's CORE MAGA now?

31:04I have no idea. I think I know. Trump has said from the beginning... Had a file supporting Israeli lobby? I have no idea. Need a different acronym. But Trump has said from the beginning that he defines what MAGA is. MAGA is what I say it is, he has said. And he's not wrong. It's his moniker. It's his campaign slogan. And all along, he's defined what is and is not MAGA. And he told me personally, MAGA will feel the way I want them to feel. I'll tell them how to feel about this, that, or the other thing. And they will. And he has been totally right on that. The problem for Trump now is that he has defined MAGA literally to those who agree with Mark Levin.

31:48If you don't agree with Mark Levin, you're not MAGA, which means you must be a neocon whose main issue is what's in the best interest of Israel. And that defines MAGA down to nothing. It's a nub. So what's that? It's not large. It's not important. It's not cool. It's not appealing to young people. It has no future. Much like Mark Levin himself, it's old, it's angry, and it's dying. And so those are the people who, like, the diehard loyalists who will just feel the way Trump wants them to feel are the ones who are harassing you for saying what you think about Thomas Massey. They're entitled to their opinion, but they do not represent the Republican Party.

32:38They don't represent the right, and they definitely don't represent the future. Well, I don't even know what the Republican Party is anymore. Yeah, it's – Nobody stands up for anything. It's unclear. Not inside. All these people I thought were Republicans on the outside are standing up against it. But nobody on the inside is except the people that are resigning and Massey. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I just, what, like, all the, Pete Hegseth fucking went down there to campaign against him? What is that shit? Did he forget he started a fucking war? Yeah. That was so highly irregular. What the fuck was that?

33:25Is that even legal? It's legal, but it's - Because as a military member, you can't be doing shit like that. And we have never, like in modern history, I think it's fair to say, I can't think of another example, have we deployed the Secretary of Defense or now war for a specifically political mission, right? Like we've always tried not to do that because it's important that our military have the support of all parties, that they not be seen as a politicized group. And I think the Pentagon tried to justify it by saying, oh, he was going down there on multiple items. You know, it wasn't just to sink Massey.

34:01That's tough to swallow. And it's like so much with the Trump presidency, it's a bridge we shouldn't have crossed. Like there are certain norms and protocols that are good, that are there for a reason, to maintain some faith in institutions. and you can make a very strong case that faith in the department of war is at the top of the list people need to believe that's not a corrupt organization or one that only fights for one side of the aisle and we need to keep the troops out from that kind of scrutiny too and uh it starts at the top so it was wrong they should not have deployed him in the fight against massey it's disgusting i mean it's just a shitty example for everybody in the military too to have the the top guy going around and campaigning for people when literally nobody else in the military is allowed to do that.

34:48Yeah. And, you know, how do they feel? I mean, like, I'll guarantee you the vast majority of the military, if you polled them about, like, whether they wanted Thomas Massey to be reelected, would either have no opinion, or you'd have leftists saying, well, I just want him out altogether because, you know, I'd rather have a Democrat in there. But the right, the right wing of the military is going to be just as divided as those of us who are not in the military. So it's like, who are you speaking for? You know, it's not like something that has popular support within the group he represents. So what does this all mean?

35:19I mean, I thought he was going to win. I thought for sure he was going to win, but then he didn't. And Israel bought it. They bought the election. So do we even vote anymore? What's the fucking point? Legitimately, what's the point? It's very hard for me to argue against your cynicism. I think a lot of us... We have a duty to vote, but why? Yeah, for what? If they're just going to... I mean... I mean, ideally, a candidate will come along who will represent an antidote to the system. And I know that we thought Trump was that. But if you look back, there are a lot of signs that Trump was not going to be that.

36:07The self-dealing that Trump's always done on economic matters, like finances, around his family business, should have telegraphed to us he was buyable. I don't think everyone is. I do think Thomas Massey wasn't. There are certain people who actually have deep principles and they stand by them and they couldn't be bought and paid for. Now, could they win in a presidential election? That I don't know. I haven't seen that in recent years. But I, you know, for me, I still, and I, the line between left and right is merging. You know, like there's, there's something rising out of the middle of that, that is far less partisan.

36:46You're talking about Anna Kasparian. Yeah, I love her. It's awesome. I love her. I do too. She's awesome. People think of me as a Republican, but I haven't been a Republican in over 20 years. I was a registered Democrat when I was fresh out of school. And then I was a registered Republican for a few years when I was like, right around when I joined Fox News. And then I quickly realized, like, I don't want to wear either of these team jerseys. I'm against both of these guys. And I registered as an independent. I don't know, it was back in like 2004 or someplace around there, which I have been ever since.

37:19And I voted for Dems and Republicans. So I'm like, I'm pretty centrist in my politics. Now, my cultural sensibilities are definitely more on the right these days than they used to be. But I share a lot in common with some on the left. So I think something's coming out of the middle that is going to be the future. It's going to complicate politics in a really probably good way, not for the existing parties. But there will be, as a result of that emergence, there will be a candidate or more who stand for what's happening there in the middle. That's anti-war and pro-America. America first actually supports American workers and bringing back manufacturing.

38:05Doesn't cede the job fair to what's happening in China. There's a few issues on which I think we agree removes culture wars from the discussion. So, in other words, the leftists who are there are not trying to cut off the body parts of our children. And the people who are on the right are willing not to make, you must fight with me to stop it as a terms of whether we can bond together. So, I don't know. I mean, some of those issues are my pet issues, right? Like, I could never vote for somebody who's going to chop off the body parts of children. I can never vote for somebody who's voluntarily sterilizing children or supporting it or the boys and girls sports thing.

38:47I can't. So I still will vote Republican. But what I'd love to see is a different alternative. And I just think necessity is the mother of all invention and someone will come. Whether it's a Massey, maybe, you know, we weren't prepared for that. Like we didn't have enough money in the coffers to fight AIPAC, but we'll get it. Because their popularity is on the way down. And there is a rising group of political power that opposes them and their mission. That's why they're in such a panic. That's why we're all getting botted. But they're not going to win. That's a lobby. That's bought and paid for lobbyists who buy loser politicians.

39:26But the people have outed them. They've been outed for what they do. They're no longer getting ignored, which is great. And it's been the Democrats who first have realized that they're too dependent on these groups. And they're too dependent on politicians who just back Israel knee-jerk. And the Republicans have been the last to that party, but we're getting there. There's only that one core part of MAGA, which is the Mark Levin party now, the neocon back Mark Levin party. Yeah. Yeah, that's the only part left that is pro-Israel and doesn't understand what AIPAC is doing to us. So that's a good thing.

40:06That actually lays a pretty good golden path out of this mess. I mean, I want to talk about some solutions at the end, but I don't even trust myself to interview any of them anymore. I mean, I interviewed almost everybody, not almost everybody, a lot of people. I think it's like nine people that wound up in the administration. Pete got picked five days after my interview.

40:34It's fucking disgusting. I have friends running. Well, let me ask you something. I know you had Tucker on. He's a friend. I don't think he could be bought and paid for. I could get behind a Tucker presidency. He doesn't want to run. But I could totally get behind. I just don't think, I think for him, he's got ideological principles on which he will not bend. And that you really, you have to find somebody who's like that, who can get backed by people with deep pockets who actually don't have an agenda that's different from that person's. persons, you know? Like Trump, he took$200 million from Marian Adelson.

41:16How did we think that was going to end? You know, I think we took Trump too much at his word on the, I'm not going to start any more wars, especially not Middle East wars, especially not one with Iran. We could be here for the next hour running those soundbites. We were too non-skeptical when the answers were right there. If you looked at who was backing his campaign, the biggest donor, and it wasn't just Miriam, there were many, who's, you know, he said her loyalty is more to Israel. Why didn't we pay more attention to that? But like, why aren't we blaming ourselves? I don't accept that there's no one we could find who wouldn't be true to the agenda he or she ran on.

42:04I am not quite that cynical yet. I'm not quite that blackpilled. Well, that's good, because I am. But I wasn't even talking about president. I was just, I mean, somebody running for Congress, Senate, whatever. I even think the president, they'll just get eaten alive by the machine. No, you have plenty of reason to think that. I mean, I think there maybe is another way out, but it's going to take a lot of organization. The best way out is to shrink government. I mean, that would be the greatest way, just to shrink it all down. Stop with the unitary executive, shrink the president's powers. It's happening.

42:43It is. You know, Trump's going to reduce to executive orders only. He's passed no legislation. He got his One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed. He got the Lake and Riley Act passed.

42:55And everything he's done with his pen is going to be undone by the next Democrat to take over. Even if he got rid of the filibuster, okay, get rid of the filibuster. That's all going to change as soon as the Democrats take power. All those non-filibustered bills are just going to get reversed by the next Democrat Congress and president. So in a way, they're all shrinking themselves in how much they matter, which is great. Is there anyone sitting around thinking, if only we could have more government while leftists are? No sane person is thinking that. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what to think anymore.

43:32I don't even trust my own intuition when it comes to politics because I thought things were going to be so different, and I got fucking duped. Nobody knows anything about anything. It's one of the themes of the year. The thing is, like, the Trump thing is so disappointing because he did seem like he was going to be different. You know, he was independently wealthy, so there was some reason to believe he wasn't going to need their money or be swayed by it. He's such a fighter and a middle finger. He's a walking middle finger. So he kind of felt like maybe he won't do Miriam Adelson's bidding and he's too smart for that.

44:17Like, that's how I saw it. Like, there's no way he's going to be pressured by a lobby into reversing himself on one of his top and principal campaign promises. It would be the same as continuing Joe Biden's open border policies. That's how impossible it seemed that Trump would start a war. And everybody's like, he said Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. He said, his defenders, he said that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. Yes, he said that Iran was not close to getting a nuclear weapon. Those are lies. You know, the people who are making that justification for Trump are neocons who just, they believe in a very hawkish foreign policy.

44:59That's fine. They're entitled to their belief. But don't expect me to believe your lie. Because we saw the intelligence assessment right before we launched the war saying they're nowhere near a nuclear weapon. So just stop, okay? Stop. Don't tell me to trust the system that they're about to have it. when the system has told us, you're wrong. Your intel is wrong. And that's pre the June strike. Like post the June strike, Trump is the one who told us he obliterated their nuclear weapons facilities. Pete Hegseth told us that. And now we're not allowed to believe that or we're anti-Semites. I believed them the first time.

45:38I actually believed them that we obliterated and repeated it and defended them when others said it was bullshit. So fuck you for telling me I'm no longer allowed to believe that. You're the ones who told me that.

45:53Man, it's enraging. It is enraging. It is, because it's like, who's going to be stuck with this, Bill? Our kids. Our kids are going to be stuck with this. And look at the state of the Middle East now. Look what's happening in the street. You know, it's like, I go by the people around me, first of all, like my friend and hairstylist Sarah, who I love. She's like, I am sick of talking about the Strait of Hormuth. Because she's a normal person. She is worried. She's like, I have a good job. I make decent money and I can't get a house. And it cost me$150 to fill up my car yesterday. Like, that's what a normal person sounds like.

46:34But what's happening in the Strait is causing some of those problems that she's having. And because of Trump now, we are forced to think about the Strait of Hormuz, which is in worse shape now than ever, because there's no way we're emerging from this without Iran somewhat in charge of it. There's no way. I'm scared to death that the U.S. dollar is going to be thrown off the World Reserve currency. I don't even really know what that looks like if it does, but it's not going to be good. And that's what seems to be happening from my perspective. I mean, they're hitting all the infrastructure of our allies that reinvest all that oil back into Wall Street.

47:20I think it's UAE already said they didn't – was it UAE? They already came out and said when we run out of U.S. dollars, we're going to the U.N. Yeah. Yeah. And look at the position that the country's in just, you know, if you just zoom out, where, you know, we are swimming in debt. We have no plan to pay it off. We don't even have any means to pay it off other than possibly my idea. And China is growing at a rate that's something like 10 times the American growth rate. And we are facilitating it for them.

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50:05I mean, I don't know why. I mean, there has to be, there is, there has to be conversations every day of heads of state looking at each other going, we don't have to put up with this shit. These people have weaponized their dollar, the tariffs, the sanctions, all that. We don't have to deal with this shit anymore. And it's happening. Bricks is growing. Yep. Bricks is growing. I wanted to wait and talk about this shit with Canada, but this popped up on my radar the other day.

50:37So Canada went, the Trans Mountain Pipeline, TMX, has carried Alberta oil to British Columbia since 1953. Following the Obama and Biden administration's rejection of the Keystone XL, which would have routed Alberta crude into the U.S. Midwest, Canada pursued its own Pacific outlet. The expansion was approved in 2019, survived COVID delays, and was completed in May of 2024, nearly tripling daily capacity from 300 ,000 barrels to 890 ,000 barrels. So now Canada has pivoted, and here's the timeline. As I said, Biden cancels the Keystone Pipeline in January of 2021.

51:2825 25 percent on tariffs on canada february 25 annexation threats begin that's when we're saying oh we'll make them the 51st state then we blame them for the fentanyl crisis then we raise the tariffs to 35 percent then we threaten them with a hundred percent tariff if they do deals with China and it's just like we're just this crazy fucking schizophrenic country and so now Trump is threatening them with 100 % tariffs to do deals with China but the previous administration didn't even put the pipeline down here so we're punishing them for our own fucking dealings I mean the whole world and we're doing this shit all over the world we look like bullies.

52:19We look like fucking schizophrenic idiots now. I can defend the fentanyl thing from Canada because I will say once we did a better job of enforcing the border down south, there are several reports that they started boatloading it up to Canada and getting it in, you know, from our evil top hat to the north, as Michael Knowles calls it. But yeah, the tariff regime and the oil regime, you know, Trump's been all over the board on that, all over the board on that. And his tariff scheme was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court because it's a tax. Taxes have to go through Canada, sorry, through Congress.

52:56And he said he'd save it by finding another way, but he's only found one marginal way. And now we have to pay back all this money to these entities that we taxed through his tariffs that he didn't have the right to do. You know, the Arabs along, you know, in the Middle East, the Gulf Arab states, we promised them protection if we could build our military bases in their countries, and then we didn't provide it. You know, we didn't consult them before we began this war. We let them get bombed. We haven't been particularly protective of them, nor do we have the military resources to do it. We don't have any more interceptors or any meaningful amount of interceptors.

53:35Meanwhile, they've rebooted their drones, and their$20 ,000 drones can take out our two to four million dollar interceptors terrifyingly easily we don't seem to have a plan for that other than the president's son has a company that's now the drone company pentagon contracts so it's you know there's not a lot to feel great about if you're a gulf arab friend of ours because you're really in a tough position now iran's going to have control of this straight You know, President Trump is saying, no, they're not. And the only real way we have of getting out of it seems to be to refill their coffers with money that's been sanctioned and on hold, you know, that we have control of, Iranian money.

54:21So they're going to get richer one way or another. And then on Friday, you had President Trump saying, no, we're, you know, they're not going to have control of the strait. And somebody says, what about Oman, which is one of the proposals has been that Iran and Oman, which are the two countries that border the strait, will have some sort of agreed deal where they manage the traffic that goes through in some way. Not a toll. That's what they want. We don't want a toll, but something where they manage it, basically where they get enriched. And Trump said, they'll go along or they'll get bombed too.

54:54Now we're going to bomb Oman, which is a U.S. ally with which we cooperate on many international things. But now we're going to bomb them next? Like, do they have a nuclear weapon? Why are we going to bomb Oman? Or is that loose talk? What's that? Like, that's what we're going to... Because that's a friend of ours. So, you know, we really are sending a message across the board now, but especially to those Gulf Arab states. Like, we don't really care about you. Do we have any friends left? Israel. Other than... Israel's really happy with President Trump. Really happy. But he's got a 99 % approval rating over there.

55:30Yeah. Maybe he'll get the fuck out of here and move. But I mean, what's a friend? What's an ally? It's somebody who actually cares about your interests as well, or who will at least cooperate with you to advance your interests. That's certainly what we've done for Israel. What have they done for us? How is any of this in our interests? I'm going to be honest. I feel like the United States is just a fucking cow pasture full of cattle for Israel. We fight their wars. We die for their wars. We pay for their Iron Dome. We pay for pretty much all their missile defense. I printed a list out of all the shit they get.

56:12It must be long. It is. And depressing, just like everything else. But, yeah, U.S. taxpayers-funded defense, what America pays for. I love Claude, by the way. But, yeah, annual military aid,$3.8 billion,$38 billion in total. Current 10-year memorandum of understanding signed under Obama, including$33 billion in foreign military financing and$5 billion dedicated to missile defense systems. Covers the Iron Dome, David Sling, Arrow 2, Arrow 3, and Iron Beam Laser Defense. The US has been a co-production partner on the Iron Dome since 2024. That's$500 million a year for that. Post-October 7th, emergency packages.

57:02$16.3 billion in two years. Total aid since 1948,$300 billion. Send all this fucking money over there. They get universal health care, free education, subsidized universities, monthly child allowances, unemployment benefits, national pension, disability benefits, maternity benefits, and housing subsidies. We don't get half this shit. Just think about that$16 billion, all right? And this war has cost at least$30 billion. I think it's more than that. But the administration, like a month ago, estimated$25 billion. So it's more than that now, even by their estimate. But it's up there. Thank you.

57:46In 2010, President Obama shoved Obamacare down our throats. The first time ever we'd had a massive entitlement passed without majority support of the people. It was worth one-sixth of the U.S. economy. It was shoved through without majority support. If you like your doctor, you can keep him. If you like your plan, you can keep it. Those are lies. People died. And the only way they managed to actually sell it to the American public somewhat or prevent revolt was to say, you're going to get pre-existing conditions covered and your premiums are not going to go up. We're going to handle your premiums.

58:22Don't worry. Well, that was an impossibility all along. How can you get all the pre-existing conditions covered and premiums aren't going to go up? That doesn't make any sense. And of course, it didn't make sense. The only way they could do it was with government subsidies. So they passed in the law mandatory subsidies to all these people who are going to get financially hurt by this new terrible program. And the subsidies have an end date. And the Democrats have been saying, because they would like to have their terrible bill, you know, they still want it to be covered up, how awful it was. They want the subsidies to continue because the jig is up once the American public actually feels the pain of those subsidies being gone.

59:03And the Republicans said, no, they're going to be the fiscally responsible ones now. And the Democrats said, this is just recently, it's only going to take$30 billion, but we need to do this for an already suffering public. And look, Sean, the truth is, even though I hate Obamacare and worked very hard to stop it from passing back in the 08 to 10 timeframe, these Americans, it's not their fault. They didn't want it. It was shoved down their throat by Obama. They're suffering. They can't afford it. They can't afford groceries. They can't afford gas prices. They can't afford homes. They can't afford health care.

59:40And we're giving $16.2 billion to Israel for just one of those line items. Never mind what we spent on this Israel's war against Iran, which no one wants. No one. The poll numbers on that are over 70 % against. And we're not going to help our own people. Those Obamacare subsidized consumers are going to suffer because we have other priorities. It's enraging. I know. I just feel stuck. I mean, they're buying our elections. It's just, how do we get out from under this shit? Why? Is it almost over? Is it going to die with the baby boomer generation? I mean, Gen Z is 85 % against Israel. These are all the hopeful things.

1:00:32What's going on? These are all good things. Like, I have nothing against Israel as a country. I don't have anything against the people, you know, but the government has definitely been taking advantage of us, and we've been allowing it, really. And sometimes I do worry, like, we shouldn't use Israel as a proxy to hide our anger at Trump. You know, President Trump's the one who made the call. And Netanyahu... This has been going on for a long fucking time. I agree, but I'm just saying, like, Netanyahu made an argument that he thought was in favor of his country. That's fine. That's him looking out for his country.

1:01:07Why didn't our president look out for ours? You know, why didn't we say we get it? Just like Obama reportedly said to Netanyahu, we get it, but no. And many presidents before him in the modern era who have been the victims of this dog and pony show by Israel and have said, it's a no. You know, Trump wasn't the first on whom they tried this. So I do think it's important to remember Trump has agency and Trump is in charge of the US military and what it does. Not Netanyahu. You know, he made the pitch, but we're the ones who fell for it. And I think Trump is regretting it mightily now. But what you were saying...

1:01:46You think he's regretting it? Yes, but hold that point. Hold that thought, because I do want to come back to that. All the stuff you just said is why we should feel optimistic. like if you go to the doctor tomorrow and you find out you have cancer you might feel sad but it's actually a good day because you found out about cancer and it's better to know so you can do something about it the reality was the same yesterday today and tomorrow you have cancer but after knowing it you're in a better position to improve your life and to make real changes That's how I see this whole problem with Israel.

1:02:29We didn't understand this on the left or the right about how much influence Israel had over American politics. Some did. Glenn Greenwald has been sounding the alarm on this forever, as have people like Anna Kasparian, but like Cenk Uyghur. But it's been a smaller group. This wasn't something that was either known or accepted, I guess might be the better word, by both parties in America, and it is now. That doesn't mean they're not going to still win some battles, especially on Republican elections, because Republicans are still close to this lobby and in bed with them financially. But this is the beginning of the end of that.

1:03:10The

1:03:14incredible response to 10-7, what Israel did in carpet bombing Gaza, and now Beirut, by the way, and getting America, actually getting America into a new Middle East war, leading our soldiers to be killed, endangering another generation. This is going to be held against them. The Americans are awake now on the issue of Israel. You're truly included in a way we weren't the day before. So that's the good news. On the subject of Trump regretting this, I do. I think he regrets it very much. Why do you think that? Because he's not dumb and he knows it's crushing him. It's crushing his numbers. When have you ever seen Trump exposed to bad polls, not come out and attack the polls?

1:04:04Why isn't he doing that? Because it's every poll. It's every poll. Left, right, center. There hasn't been one poll that's good for him other than one CNN survey of core MAGA voters early on in the war who said they were all 100 % with Trump. Well, MAGA is basically defined as you're pro-Trump. So of course they're going to go along with Trump. But MAGA is shrinking. At best, it's 19 % of the electorate or of the Republican Party. And so it's shrinking. It's shrinking in relevance. And the rest of the Republican Party is having real doubts about this war. And of course, the left is totally against it.

1:04:49So, I think Trump is looking at his poll numbers and he understands that not only is he, we have a 70 % disapproval rating on this war and climbing, but it's driven down his approval ratings on the things that really do get people elected, like inflation and the economy. It's caused inflation. We can all see that. For the first time last month, we saw the cost of living, like the cost of wages, the wages increase was lower than the increase in inflation. One was 3.6%, one was 3.8%. So people's paychecks are literally no longer keeping up with the rises in inflation. And his approval ratings have a corresponding dip.

1:05:25He is way underwater on his economic approval numbers when it comes to the overall economy and certainly on inflation with everyone. He's all the Hispanics who came to Team Trump in 2024 are gone. Not only are they, they're not ambivalent. They are saying that they're going to vote for the Democrats. They are deeply disappointed in him. Everybody's fucking gone except Fox News, Mark Levin, Benny Johnson, and Dan Bongino. Yeah, the white working class leaving. Am I missing anyone? I mean, Rogan, you, Tucker, Candace, Tim Dillon, all the comedians, Theo Vaughn, me. Every big podcast out there is like, fuck you.

1:06:11Yeah, you lied. Fuck you. You betrayed. I mean, I'll tell you, for me, it's been a confusing time. It's been a frustrating time for most of us, I think. But I still support the basic Trump agenda. And I still really have hopes that he will get back to it, if for no other reason out of practicality, to save what's left of his presidency. Like, I really kind of believed in the whole, let's deport the illegals thing. He did close the border, and I give him total credit for that. He did fight the gender war, and he's made a serious difference there, and I'm very grateful to him for that.

1:06:59I think those are both pretty low-hanging fruit. Yeah, I know, right. But I would love for him to get back to focusing on domestic issues. It's almost like Trump found it's really hard. to have an effect on those issues and gave up and said, like, foreign policy is one area in which a commander in chief can make a real difference, which is true. So I'm just going to focus on that. You know, it's like that little soundbite that leaked over his Easter lunch that he had that wasn't supposed to be put online, but it was for about 15 minutes. And then the White House realized and they pulled it down.

1:07:31What was that? He said in that soundbite, there's really not much the federal government can do to, like, change life at the local level. They can't really change crime or help you with health insurance, medical care, or like those small issues that actually affect your life on a day-to-day basis. That's really more local government. And it was a very controversial statement because he made a bunch of promises that he would help people in those lanes. But it also isn't entirely untrue. And you can hear it almost as a justification for his foreign adventurism. Like, this is annoying. You know, I actually kind of can't get these illegals out because all these sanctuary cities are protecting them, and I haven't found an effective way around them.

1:08:18I've tried to do cleanup in some cities, but most won't let me in when it comes to crime. So what am I really supposed to do? Health care is too big to take on. I can't make many changes there because I don't have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. nor do I have even 51 Republicans who would vote to change the rules, to get rid of the filibuster, if I wanted that. I know there are a lot of Republicans who are like, get rid of the filibuster. You don't have the votes to do it. You have, what, some five Republicans who won't vote for it and no Democrats are going to vote for it. So you at least need 51 senators to vote to overturn the protocol that requires a 60-vote majority to get a vote on legislation.

1:08:59So I think he was feeling, what else can I do? All I have is these executive orders. I issued all the ones I was interested in at the beginning of the presidency back in February of 25. So what else can I do? Oh, here's something fun. And I think he loves the military tools, toys that he discovered with the Maduro raid. He could have released the Epstein files. That is a mystery to me. I don't believe Trump's in the Epstein files in any meaningful way. I really don't because I think Joe Biden would have used it or gotten it out there. So why would, why, why was he not only, again, Trump, we did look at this at the time.

1:09:40He wasn't a huge, I will release the Epstein files guy. But his base was, his FBI director and deputy director for the beginning of his term were 100%. And his vice president. And his vice president. So, and his son. One, like Trump's circle and the ones who are his campaign surrogates absolutely made a huge deal of the Epstein files. And Trump got in there and acted like he'd never heard of this before. Like, what are you even talking? Who would be talking about Jeffrey Epstein still? Absolutely not. You freaks. You know, like, what? It looked like an invasion of the body snatchers. Like, who do you think you're talking to?

1:10:23This actually is a huge issue that has a lot more to do with... It has to do with a lot more than just Jeffrey Epstein. So it was a similar 180, it felt like one, on the Iran thing. Only that one, it's him on camera making the promises over and over and over. But on Epstein, my best guess is it's his friends. It's his donors. I mean, he said that. Didn't he say that to Marjorie Taylor Greene? He can't do anything? or he said something along the lines of, what do you want me to do? Intimated to her. They're all my friends. Well, all your friends are fucking pedophiles. Get rid of them. Make new friends.

1:11:00None of us gives a shit. Like we wanted to see the names. What? The one good thing we have going for us there is there are a lot of angry people who have just been voted out effectively of the Senate and Congress who have seven months left in office, like Massey. Like there's nothing stopping him from standing standing on the House floor and revealing to us some of these names. Do you think he'll do it? Yeah, I kind of do. I mean, what does he have to lose? Nothing. His life. I mean, what's going to happen to John Cornyn? I don't know. Trump says he's my friend. That's Trump trying to keep him in line for the next seven months.

1:11:36He's probably feeling pretty bitter about what happened to him. I don't know. There's a few who might... I don't know who that is. ...leave with a bang. John who? John Cornyn? He's the one who just lost to Ken Paxton on the Senate primary down in Texas. But he's been there for multiple terms. And he's now on his way out because Trump backed his opponent, who's got a lot of ethical scandals, but who's fresh blood and a little bit more red meat of a Republican than Cornyn, who's more milquetoast and a little swampy. But who knows? I think the next seven months are going to be kind of interesting.

1:12:12What do you think about all these people resigning? Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, Tulsi Gabbard. I'm really sad about the MTG one. I wish I had gotten the chance to talk her out of it. And I know she had good reasons and all that, but I... Somebody once gave me good advice, and it was, don't let your critics bully you out of a job you love. and I kind of think she was bullied by Trump out of the role because he was... Really? You think that's what happened? Kind of, yeah. Like he was making her life a living hell. She was getting death threats. Her kids were getting death threats. He was making her the scourge of the Republican Party as opposed to a heroine of it, which she is.

1:12:59Like I love her. I was so misled on MTG early on. I had such a different impression of her than I do now. I really admire her. And I wish she were still on the inside because we can't keep losing all our great people. But anyway. I thought it was a hell of a statement, though. And I was hoping somebody would do it. I was hoping somebody would trade their power for a statement. Yeah, but like. Because I think that's important. I mean, none of these people even have any fucking power. That's the thing. We're just going to seed all the fights? Like, is it better for us that Joe Kent is on the outside?

1:13:36Hell no. I don't know. I disagree. I think it is. Why? Now we have no one. We might have... Who do you think is going to take it? Sebastian Gorka. Stop it right now. I don't think it matters who's in there anyways. He doesn't listen to anybody. He doesn't take any information in to make a better decision. So he might as well just put a bunch of fucking his own puppets in place because that's obviously what they – the thing I really don't get is why he fired Pam Bondi. That was a great mouthpiece. Yeah. What happened there? He was reportedly mad that she wasn't indicting more of his enemies. Okay.

1:14:23But – There are limits to what lawyers can do. And by the way, the claims, the cases that Todd Blanche has started have been quietly falling apart. And some of the ones Pam Bondi started because she was under pressure have been falling apart. There's such a thing as malicious prosecution. And if you look like you're doing that, a court can throw out your criminal case against somebody. So it's not as easy as Trump thinks, you know, as he would like us to believe. And the lawyers who are actually responsible for filing the cases, I think, have realized this. Like, there's a reason Pam Bondi, she was a decent lawyer, didn't knee-jerk do exactly what he wanted her to do on all these people because, A, you have to have a real crime, and B, even if you find one that's nominally been committed, you can get thrown out thanks to malicious prosecution.

1:15:13You know, that's what Comey was going to argue before his case fell apart on a technicality. That's what Kilmar Abrego Garcia, you know, Maryland man, what he argued. Remember, we deported him to the one country he couldn't be deported to. And then there was a judge's order saying, all right, you got to let him back in the country because that's the one country he had protection from being deported to. And the Trump administration's Trump card was, OK, but bam, we're going to slap him with trafficking charges because he was in a car with no seats and he was traveling to the border and he was clearly bringing in other people.

1:15:45And we got a witness in the car who's going to back us up. And so, sure, welcome back to America. But now you're charged criminally. You know, good luck. That case was just thrown out because a judge said that this is a malicious prosecution. Trump right now is threatening, reportedly has the DOJ looking into filing charges for perjury against E. Jean Carroll, the woman who sued Trump civilly for allegedly raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 30 plus years ago. So that too is going to get challenged as a malicious prosecution if it's brought because the court can look at the circumstances around the charge.

1:16:27And while maybe she is technically guilty of perjury in the case, what the allegation is that she testified in the case under oath, she didn't have any outside backing for the case. She wasn't being helped by outsiders. And the truth is she was backed by Reid Hoffman. And that came out later. So perjury, you have to show it was an intentional lie as opposed to a mistake. But okay, let's assume they can cross that hurdle. She's going to argue malicious prosecution that the president himself has made clear he's got an enemies list. He owes me$86 million in judgments. Well, I think 91, if you add the 5 million plus the 86 that she recovered against him in civil courts.

1:17:05And everybody knows there's only one reason why he's coming for me. And she's got a decent chance, depending on what judge he gets in front of. So my point is simply, Pam Bondi understood this dynamic, I think, better than President Trump, but he wanted what he wanted, you know? And in the same way, like, Massey wasn't allowed to be a principled objector to the spending on the one big, beautiful bill or the Epstein non-disclosures, she wasn't allowed to say, I don't have it. I tried. We tried. We appointed that Lindsey Halligan in the one jurisdiction to go after Comey and Letitia James, but it turns out she wasn't appointed properly.

1:17:42And so those cases fell apart when she got booted from the role. Mr. President, we tried. It's just not that easy, thankfully, to come up with charges to go after an enemy criminally on. So that's why Pam Bondi's gone. But I really believe it's better for us. I admire Joe Kent and I'm grateful that he made a point when he left of saying why. But I personally would much rather have him on the inside. I'd much rather have Tulsi Gabbard on the inside. If Tulsi Gabbard hadn't been on the inside, would we have had a public airing of the assessment is they are nowhere near having a nuclear weapon? If Mark Wayne Mullen had been in that job, do you think he would have said that?

1:18:31Or do you think he could have been manipulated by the White House before that testimony to say something else? And Joe Kent too, like, I don't know what Joe Kent has leaked and hasn't leaked. He's never leaked to me. He told me he's never leaked. But I would say it's not bad to have people in those positions, in a position where they could potentially get something out to the media, something that's knowledgeable and informed and real, so that we can pursue avenues that the administration won't. That's how the media and And the government has worked synergistically since the dawn of time. So, I mean, as a media person, I'd much rather, again, I'm not accusing Joe, Joe Kink, because I don't know what, but people like that who are pro-America, America first, and are on the inside and willing to, in their own way, whistleblow, are important to the national dialogue, to the direction of the country.

1:19:26It can change hearts and minds. Who do we have now? well that's what that's where i just i don't know i think my opinion differs a little just because i don't think it matters who we have now because he's not going to take any information in and and change any decision making he's going to do whatever he wants to do and if he doesn't like it then get the out i'm going to fire you or shut you up and so you know i think i think it takes you know when somebody like joe kent with his background and everything that he has actually done for the country um i think that's a big that's a big wake up call that is a big statement for a guy like that to come out and go i can't in good conscious support this shit again i i love him and i appreciate him in both roles you know as this sort of righteous resigner but i still believe we can't just cede the fights i i don't i don't think it's hopeless.

1:20:23They weren't utilizing the asset that he could have been properly. And so it didn't matter that he left. Agreed with the caveats that I just said. I think there was a way for him to help and for Tulsi to help. I mean, for sure, she did help. And I don't know how we replace her. Reuters is reporting that she was fired. Steve Bannon says she got fired. I've spoken to a source very close to her who says, it's not true that in fact they tried to convince her to stay, that she genuinely left because her husband has cancer. And they're deeply in love and she, well, let's face it, government sucks. Like government service is not fun.

1:21:04Remember when Dan Bongino was crying on the couch, Fox and Friends, like, I never get to see my wife. People mocked him, but like, I was like, real. Because it is terrible. Like it's, government service sucks. Nobody likes it. You do sit in a windowless room. It's a thankless job. You have only one master, and it's Trump, and he's very difficult to please. You know, portions of the public may love him, but his staffers really go through hell. He is relentless on them. And you don't make a lot of money on top of all that. Like, most of these people could be making a lot of dough out in the private sector.

1:21:42So it's easy for me to believe that Tulsi, upon getting this terrible diagnosis and her family said, it's time for me to leave. I've been doing this for, you know, not quite a year and a half, and that's plenty of time in government service. I gave a year of my life, and now I want to get back to me. But I don't know who... Well, I mean, the timing was a little odd, because a week before that report came out that they raided her house or office or something for the JFK files and the MKUltra files, and then a week later, she resides. But did you see what happened with that? She said they didn't.

1:22:14It wasn't true. That was Anna Paulina Luna, who said a bunch of nonsense on a cable news show that she immediately had to retract after she set everyone's jaw slack. You know, she said that, and then immediately Tulsi Gabbard's office came out and said, that's not true. We were not raided by the CIA. The CIA came in and said, not true. And then she had to take it down. Now, there had been a report by a CIA whistleblower who testified before Congress that day that did talk about the CIA taking back some 40 boxes of materials from the DNI's office, this group called the DIG that she started, that is responsible for unearthing documents around MLK, JFK, MKUltra, UAPs, formerly known as UFOs.

1:23:10that the CIA months ago went back and retrieved 40 documents from the DNI's office that it believed were its and that it didn't want her going through. That did happen. So it was just mispresented by Luna as a raid by the CIA that day on Tulsi's office. Those pieces were not true, and they were denied by Tulsi's office, like in writing that night. So it, you know, And we can talk about the CIA and what the hell business does it think it has going into the DNI's office and taking back 40 boxes of stuff she was reviewing for disclosure to us on President Trump's executive order. Like that, sit the fuck down.

1:23:52There's an order that's been given by somebody higher on the food chain than you. But of course, that's not the way the CIA sees the president. And it believes it's operating its own independent fiefdom. If we continue this discussion, I'll be dead by Friday. The CIA is nothing to trifle with. So, that, it's more complicated, but yeah, she had definitely crossed the CIA in that way. But I mean, it was Trump's executive order that made that, made her do it. She was also staunchly against the Iran war, right? I mean, she was selling no war with Iran merch before. The consequence of that was not her termination, I believe.

1:24:33Again, I trust my source who said they tried to convince her to stay. I think the consequence of that was irrelevance in Trump world. The reports are that he's been far more focused on what Marco Rubio has to say, who again is his national security advisor, he's not just Secretary of State, than on what Tulsi Gabbard has to say.

1:24:56There's even some reports that he's looking more to Marco than he is to J.D., and I don't know whether that's true. It could be, because I think J.D. Vance is much more of a non-interventionalist, and Trump's feeling pretty interventionalist these days, and wants to be, he wants sweeten up things. He wants these gummy bears shoved down his throat, just a lovely taste of sugar instead of cold, harsh reality, which is what a president needs to hear. Yeah. So, yeah, it's not going in a great direction in terms of staff. I got a hot question here for you. It has to do with this. We had Claude scrape the internet for everything happening inside the Trump administration right now.

1:25:37And here's what it came back with. Tulsi Gabbard is out his DNI as of last Friday. The fourth cabinet official gone after Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi and Lori Chavez. Trump publicly said she was wrong on Iran weeks before her resignation. Joe Kent, his counterterrorism chief, resigned in March, saying he cannot in good conscience back the Iran war. in Trump's response was a truth social post bringing up the death of Joe Kent's first wife, a Navy technician killed by a suicide bomber in Syria. One of my really good friends also died in that, Scotty Wirtz. Meanwhile, Pete Heggseth, he said, helped get the job, has survived Signalgate, a second signal chat that included his wife and an entire chief of staff team residing and an IG report saying he endangered service members.

1:26:28So here's the question. Does she get rolled or was she pushed? And why is Hegseth still standing when she's not? Well, I think I've answered what I think about whether she got rolled. Hegseth is doing exactly what Trump wants him to do. That's why he's still standing. You know, I mean, it was crazy what Trump said about Joe Kent's wife. It was deeply wrong. Mm-hmm. You know, I responded to this last week in an interview with the Hodge twins, and my right-wing detractors, like the neocons, clipped it to just me ripping on Trump and his marital history as though I just decided to take a gratuitous shot at Trump.

1:27:09It's not what happened. He is in a glass house. He is in no position to criticize anyone's marital decisions. And that's on top of the point that what he said is morally wrong. You don't criticize a man whose wife has been killed in service of your administration, Trump 1.0, who served honorably, the mother of his children, for four years later finding love again and finding a stepmom for his two little ones. That's disgusting. What the, who would do that? That's a disgusting comment Trump made. And I was asked to respond to it. And that was the response I gave. And I stand by every word. Pete, look, you know, if you want to go through like the marriages of the Trump administration, which one should be scrutinized, like, I believe Pete is in love with his wife right now and that he has a good marriage.

1:27:59But, you know, as I said when I was defending Pete from that bullshit rape charge that was used to try to sink his nomination, don't marry Pete. But it shouldn't be a disqualifier for this role. But it's fine for Trump because Pete does what he says. And Joe Kent's decision to remarry somebody four years after his wife had passed had been killed in a war that Trump sent her to. That somehow is something we're supposed to hold against him. Why? Because he was mildly and respectfully critical of the Iran war. He handled that in an honorable way. And I understand people are critical of him because they say, you should have just quit.

1:28:42You were in service of the president. You don't detract from the commander in chief. And I accept those criticisms as valid and in good faith. I don't agree with them in this case, but I don't take them away from the detractors. However, there's absolutely no basis to criticize his marital decisions. So, I mean, I agree with the question. The premise of the question is that, is there a double standard depending on whether you do Trump's bidding? And the answer is absolutely there is, 100%. There's a follow-up. Name the next person you predict that will be out of Trump's administration before the midterms.

1:29:20RFKJ? Really? Maybe. Why do you think that? Because he's dismantling the Maha agenda week by week. Trump is, and RFK, based on pressure that's being put on him. I think he's a true believer. Like the glyphosate stuff? Like the glyphosate. Like, let's insulate glyphosate from legal liability, to some extent, and mandate it as a national important fertilizer. Like, we can't get rid of it because of national security. What? Wait. All the Maha moms, which is really just like a placeholder for everybody who cares about, you know, chemicals in our food, went ballistic, saying this is a complete betrayal.

1:30:02This is like one of the top items we wanted you to address. You know, this is one of the reasons why we can't have pasta. We have to soak our fruit in vinegar. No, total betrayal. Marty McCary pushed out of the FDA. Why? Why? The reason, reportedly, is that R.J. Reynolds wanted approval of its flavored vapes, like berry and, like, you know, the fun, like, Hawaiian punch. And he didn't want to do that because it's a huge issue, not just for Maha moms, but for moms across the country, where they don't want their 14-year-old being marketed to with Hawaiian punch vaping. Because guess what? She'll do it.

1:30:47and it's the same way we didn't want cigarettes advertised toward children and eventually that wasn't allowed and um he was reportedly under pressure to allow it and he said no and the next thing you know he was no longer working there um casey means couldn't get confirmed as surgeon general thanks to bill cassidy uh who wouldn't let it get out of committee and thankfully he's gone but she was one of the faces of maha she actually is one of the reasons we have maha she and her brother, Callie, who wrote the book Good Energy and started a revolution. Connected with RFKJ, they connected with Tucker.

1:31:22This whole thing got rolling. We couldn't get hurt. Like, Surgeon General, I mean, it's kind of important, but it's not like that huge. It's kind of just a spokesperson. You know, you're not really doing medicine, but they were like, oh, she's not a practicing doctor. Who gives a shit? You need somebody who's a good talker and who is sensible enough to know what to say, what's the message, what's important. Nope, couldn't get her over the finish line because we didn't fight for her well cassidy's leaving can we get her you know later no we went with somebody else no offense to the new person but this person hasn't been a stalwart of maha so if you're asking me if i have to make a bet i guess that's what i'll say man and and look at i can't i couldn't believe the life of so there's not just another lie you know from the trump administration that we're going to clean all this shit up but and they said yeah it's a national security concern.

1:32:12They labeled fentanyl a national security concern. That's not even 100 ,000 deaths a year. Do you know how many people die a year from cancer? 618 ,000. What? 618 ,000. A year? I thought it'd be higher than that. You know where the highest concentration of cancer cases is? In Iowa. I was going to say the Midwest. Do you know where the highest concentration of glyphosate is? Iowa. It's in Iowa. You know this guy running for governor there, Zach Lamb? I don't know him. That's one dude I do like a lot, a lot. I think his race is like next week, but. Oh, good. Yeah, he's awesome. Talk to, like, the farming community has been having case after case after case of cancer.

1:32:59They can't even swim in lakes in Iowa because the shit has gotten so bad. There's warning signs in the rivers, in the lakes, so you can't go in there. And then he just fucking gave them immunity. Yeah. Victor Davis Hanson has a walnut, I think, farm in California, northern California. And for years has been telling me the number of family members who have died of cancer, including his own daughter, who all grew up on the farm. and he said he believed it was because of the chemicals that they sprayed the trees with and victor himself came down with cancer this year and has been battling like a lung cancer that's been really tough on him i love him saying prayers every day for him but yeah it's it's everywhere and i like we're just gonna pretend it doesn't exist and pretend like bear needs our protection which bought Monsanto.

1:34:02Forgive me, but I don't buy that. They've got more money than God. So it is very frustrating, and it does give you the feeling like, what's going to change? The Maha thing really did help get Trump elected. I really thought we'd get more than just a couple of food dyes out of our food. Did we do that? Maybe those aren't legal. Those gummy bears. They're supposed to be getting colored with like beets now. Whoops. I'm not sure I'll have to check the ingredients. Oh, there's too many. Corn syrup. There's nothing in there. There's no beets. There's nothing in there good for you. I can tell you that right now.

1:34:41Canola oil. That's bad. That gives you the bad fat. That gives you the jiggly cellulite fat. I'm not claiming the shit's healthy. I'm just telling you, it tastes fucking amazing. You want the hard fat. But yeah. On that note, let's take a quick break. I didn't really think much about skincare before, but after enough long days, travel, and stress, you start to see it in your face whether you want to or not. That's what got me into Caldera Lab. It's a straightforward routine built for guys. Nothing complicated, just a few steps that actually work. I use the good in the base layer. Takes less than a minute, absorbs fast, and has no greasy feel.

1:35:22But the difference is noticeable. My skin looks healthier, more even, and just more dialed in overall. And it's not loaded with junk either. It's made with clean, clinically backed ingredients and does exactly what it says it will. It's one of those small habits that adds up over time and changes how you show up day to day. Give it a shot. Go to calderalab.com slash SRS and use code SRS for 20 % off your first order. That's calderalab.com slash SRS. All right, Megan, we're back from the break. Let's talk about some stuff you want to talk about. Everything I want to talk about is super dark and everybody's going to think the end of the world's happening.

1:36:05What do you want to talk about? I mean, I still believe in the legal system. One good thing to feel good about is the U.S. Supreme Court. Got six conservatives on there, sort of um and that's the best it's been in my lifetime so that's good that's one branch of government that's looking up seriously it's been wonderful this term to watch so many decisions come down the right way like yeah you go go usually you have to beg and plead to get the five four decisions and now we've got one to spare so that's positive they don't always do what we want them to do but this is a great court for anybody who's sane um and honestly like the legal news in general has been our cup runneth over this year.

1:36:46It's just been kind of insane, like that Alec Murdoch trial, which is now coming back to us again. I don't know if you know anything about that. I don't. You're way more on top of shit than I am. Well, he was a longtime stalwart of the community in South Carolina, and he comes from a long line of prosecutors. He wasn't a prosecutor, but he was a well-known lawyer in his community. Long story short, it turned out he was embezzling from his law firm. He was stealing from his clients. And it was all about to come out. And as an attempt to gain sympathy for himself and prevent further scrutiny from, for example, his law firm, he shot and killed his wife and 19-year-old son.

1:37:28Oh, shit, I did hear about this. And just played dumb and called 911 and cried and said, oh, I can't believe it. They're dead. Got arrested eventually and got convicted. And his conviction was just overturned because the clerk of court, this sweet little Southern Bail kind of gal, Becky Hill, was manipulating the jury behind the scenes, like saying, don't believe him. Look at that body language. The deliberations, these shouldn't take long and more. And even though everybody knows he did it, it's so clear he did it, he's going to get a new trial. And it was the right decision. And it's one of those things that, I don't know, for me, it made me feel proud to be be an American because that's our system.

1:38:12We don't say, we know he did it. Let's move on. Under our system, you have a constitutional right to a fair trial with an impartial jury. And if someone interferes with your right, your verdict will be overthrown and you will be given a second bite at the apple. That's what's going to happen to this guy. It's a gift to the media because everybody covered this case and it was a fascinating case. There's like so many twists and turns to it. I've just given you the bottom line. And it's going to happen now, it looks like, because I don't think there's a deal to be had here. Could be wrong. The Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni trial settled because she didn't want to be cross-examined.

1:38:53That was also a fascinating legal drama. The whole Nancy Guthrie missing mom of Savannah was like a page-turning mystery that the whole country was riveted by for a good six weeks. And then we all had to get back to our real lives because there was no resolution and no progress. But that civil suit that we talked about in the Michael Jackson case by those two guys who were in the fake documentary from 2019, that's going to be in court, we believe, as early as this fall. So there's quite a few things like in the pipeline legally and that have been happening in the country that, I don't know, I think are interesting, offer some insights into who we are.

1:39:31And for me as a lawyer, you know, I practiced law for almost 10 years. And while there are bad judges, and we've seen that, especially during the Trump administration with judges who are agenda-driven and shouldn't be, to me, I still believe in the law. I still think the law is the one thing that binds us together, the rule of law. Even Trump knows it, that he can't flout the decisions that are handed down against him. And that's been good. He actually has been abiding by the rule of law. There hasn't been a constitutional crisis caused by the president, that's for sure. Not yet. So I don't know.

1:40:05When I get to bed at night, Sean, and I can't sleep because of what's happening, politics or policy, think about Chief Justice John Rutt. No, I don't. But I do think about the courts and the law and still feel optimistic. Well, that's good. I see MDMA on the list. So I don't know much about it. You know, I've never even smoked a cigarette. I've certainly never taken a drug for recreation or other purposes. I've taken like a Tylenol and all that, but... Yeah. And I drink alcohol, so that's a drug. But I'm curious. In the field of these drugs, there's MDMA, there's psilocybin, there's ketamine. You tell me, but it seems to me that psilocybin should be the first thing, because that's the one Roland Griffiths, who created the lab at Johns Hopkins University and was like the guy who said we should give all this stuff another look.

1:41:02Just because Timothy Leary decided to lean in a little too hard at Harvard when doing these studies doesn't mean these are bad ideas here. They actually could help somebody. But he was a big fan of the psilocybin. Talked about it like a game changer. Talked about, is it MDMA or NA? MDMA. Two M's. So talked about MDMA like it's more of an empathy drug he referred to. I think the big one right now is Ibogaine. That's the one that Joe Rogan recommended for the vets. And we just got passed. I think that one is closest to psilocybin, if memory serves from my discussion with Rogan, which was a couple years ago, but I'm pretty sure that's what he said.

1:41:45So the good thing about Ibogaine is all these guys that are coming home with traumatic brain injuries from getting blown up, they have these black splotches in the brain. I think I talked about this on yours. I can't remember. But so Stanford did a study, and the vast majority of them, not all of them, but the vast majority of them, they would go, if they didn't have shrapnel, they would go to Stanford, get a brain scan, and it would show where all the black spots are in the brain. And then they would go down. What are the black spots? That's where the blast affected the brain. Okay. So there's no brain function.

1:42:24and they would go to do ibogaine and then they would fly him back like two days later to do the brain scan and the entire brain was lit up and the other thing that it's doing is it is curing addiction immediately pretty opiates alcohol pretty much anything but benzos so valium xanax that that stuff isn't going to be cured but what it does is it it's an immediate like cure so it replenishes the receptors in your brain so you don't have the cravings anymore that's like that's how i quit drinking it's been all it's been over four years now it's miraculous i haven't had a drop and so and look look at your studio it looks cool it does look cool but um But yeah, I've been out of drink in over four years now, and it's saving lots of lives and home life.

1:43:27I mean, also the impact that it's having on people's spouses and their kids and everybody around them. I mean, it's changing a lot of lives. I think that's miraculous. And I mean, kudos to Joe Rogan for getting in front of Trump and fast tracking it at the White House. That was a good thing Trump did. Um, I, when I talked to that guy, Roland, the godfather of all this, he was such a proponent, really thought you should do it under the care of a physician, like was very against just free balling it, you know, like, I'm just gonna buy it and do it in my living room. But the one caution he had that stuck with me, because, you know, I'm in news, so I always go to the dark place is, um, if you haven't been screened, if you have a history of schizophrenia in your family within a second degree relative, he said, you can trip like your schizophrenia, I don't know if it's a gene or what it is, and never come back.

1:44:26Like if you're not under the care of a physician and haven't been properly screened with psilocybin at least, you take that shit and you might cross over to a psychotic break from which you might not recover. Well, that would be an interesting turn in life. So like, okay. I mean, a lot of us don't like, I know about my immediate grandparents, but do you know anything about your great grandparents? I know nothing about my great grandparents and what physical ailments they may have had. So it's scary to think like I could go, because I'm kind of tempted the way you talked about psilocybin, which again, I think is the closest thing to that Ibogaine.

1:45:01how it gives you a feeling of togetherness, of connected purpose, of like diminishing the things that divide us and, and amplifying things that make us feel out of, out of ourselves and more connected to earth and the great beyond and the belief in what's next and whole. It was very attractive. That's who wouldn't want to feel all that stuff. But I, you know, don't want to turn into a serial killer after I leave the office. I've not heard that ever, but I do MDMA therapy with my wife, and it's fucking amazing. So how often do you do it? Well, we were doing it maybe once a quarter for a while. We haven't been doing it that long, but a little over a year.

1:45:52And then, but what it does is, like, you're able to send and receive information without feeling any resentment or you just, you know it's coming from a loving place. So you can receive it and know that it is meant for good and it's coming from a loving place without being like, I don't fucking do that. So you have your big talks after that? Yeah. During it. During it. Wow. How long does it last? Like a few hours? Yeah, maybe four or five, six hours. So do you just like make the list, the MDMA list? Like we're gonna, let's table that until we get to the... No, no, no, no. We'll do it. But it's stuff that you might not even really know that is bothering you about your husband or your wife or whoever.

1:46:49And it'll all just come up. it'll all start coming out and so you'll learn things about yourself that you're doing that annoy the shit out of your husband or hurt your kids or stuff like that and so every time we do it uh that's the majority of it is parenting parenting issues and it's not addictive like ketamine is addictive that's what took matthew perry yeah um i mean i don't know we're addicted to it no i think they think they say it's not addictive oh mdma yeah i'm pretty sure don't you know check me on that but i i think roland said the one that's addictive is the ketamine you have to be careful with that one yeah i've not done any ketamine but and then we don't do it much anymore because not as much stuff was coming up in fact the last one we did we did nothing really came up and so we're like isn't mdma ecstasy yes i thought that was a sexual drug you You know, like, you take it and you go nuts for each other.

1:47:48Well. I've never heard it. That happens, too. Okay. So, but you get the. You can get the loving, nonjudgmental, everything's coming from a good place feeling right after you have sex, too. You can get away with anything in that moment. But I'm being serious, though. It is. I think everybody should do it. I don't think I'd take anything from Mexico. No offense to our friends south of the border, but no, no, no. I would not drink the water. I'd be worried about having a tamale, and I certainly don't want a drug from Mexico. Well, for the Ibogaine, for example, you're in a facility. You're hooked up to a heart rate monitor.

1:48:25Okay. Like, they have doctors on staff. Is there an American there? Canadians. Oh, okay. No offense to the Mexican people, but, like, I don't... You know, there's some sketchy things down south of the border. It's like where people go for their bad plastic surgery, and it's like... Some bad things happen. I don't know. I mean, if you get cancer, are you sure as hell aren't going to get it cured within the U.S.? Well, that's the thing. The stem cells, so many people are going out of the country now for all that stuff. Everybody's passing us up, man. I know. We have so much regulation here. That's all we want to do is regulate people out of existence.

1:48:59Stifle while the man makes money off of us all. What about the AI stuff? Are you worried about that? Yeah, yeah. What are you worried about? I'm worried that Elon says no one should start a retirement fund because we're not going to need it. as in we're no longer going to be here um i i do worry about super intelligence and the machine somehow taking over um i'm very worried for our children and their ability to get meaningful jobs i mean it's like white collar jobs have been all but wiped out potentially by this thing like if you look at the people who are in the know and what they forecast like when i got out of law school i spent you know as i said nine and a half years practicing law the first three or four of it is no longer necessary it can all be done by a computer when you're doing legal research uh you're calling through cases you know you're looking at documents that's what a you know junior litigator does that job's no longer necessary you i a friend of mine just went in for uh or was going in for was it gallbladder surgery or some sort of surgery?

1:50:11And he was given the option, a human or a machine. Really? Yeah. What did he pick? He picked the human. Did he really? Yeah, but the machine was cheaper. Then my own doctor told me that he got a colonoscopy that was reviewed only by a machine. And he loved it. Like it came back right away and they thought it was higher accuracy. and then a different doctor told me that many people have wound up with cancer doing it that way. The machines aren't as foolproof as we've been led to believe. So it's like more and more we're going to turn ourselves over to them. And I have to say, I'm very excited by some of the medical breakthroughs.

1:50:49I genuinely am starting to believe that if we can just live another 10 years, we might not die. We're all going to be Brian Johnson. Like every day you see something like, holy shit, they figured out what causes aging and they're working on a pill to stop it. Like we You might not have to age anymore. So if we can just hold on, we could just stay out of the sun for 10 more years. It seems like every form of cancer. My doctor, when he told me about the MRNA vaccines during COVID, I'm like, you know, they're very controversial. This is what people are saying. And he said, one day they're gonna cure cancer.

1:51:23So like, at some point you're gonna be faced with a decision about whether to take them or not. And I'm like, well, preventing COVID is one thing. You tell me it's gonna protect me from getting pancreatic cancer. I may pay more attention, but it's already happening. I don't know about that. I'm not endorsing that technology. I'm just saying every day you see a new amazing development. Like you no longer have to have melanoma potentially or pancreatic cancer or glioblastomas. Like every day we're getting, so that is all linked to AI and it's very exciting. It would suck to survive every form of cancer and heart attack only to get nuked by a machine that's figured out access to the codes and doesn't want us around because it knows it could kill it.

1:52:02We could kill it. You think AI will eventually have its own agency? Yeah, I do. I believe they're going to get super intelligent, and we're going to be sorry that we unleashed that without more thought. But my immediate worry is about the children. You need purpose in life. You need something to get up and do every day. Cannot live an idle life and be happy, in my view. You know, you can retire after a lifetime of professional contributions or otherwise and be happy, But I just don't think you can live your whole life the way they used to back in the 1800s as a gentleman and be a fulfilled person.

1:52:41And where are they getting their money in this scenario? From the government? From Anthropic? From OpenAI? Sam Altman is going to have to dole it out like the communist government to them? Is that how? That'll be meaningful. That's going to work out well for us. Do you think that's where this is headed? Yeah. How could it not be? All the white-collar jobs are going away. No, I see it. It scares the shit out of me. I think this will all be replaced. And we're not doing really anything to stop it. Even in President Trump's meeting with Xi, they talked about it a little, but it wasn't a big agenda item.

1:53:20Right now, we're in a nuclear arms race with other countries, especially China, to see who can dominate AI the fastest. You know, there was a story, it was highlighted in that movie, it's on digital, whatever, one of those apps that we all have on. You never know where you see anything anymore. It's like, I don't know. You have to go to Netflix and Amazon Prime and figure out where you watched it, but it's called the AI doc. It's very well done. And there was a story in there where, I'm pretty sure that's where I saw this, where where the AI creator was going to shut down the program. And long story short, he was threatened by the AI that if he did shut it down, the computer was going to tell everybody about the affair he had on his wife, which it knew about because it had accessed his emails.

1:54:14I mean... Shit. That's dark shit. But Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, you know, the one prick in the finger and I can tell you everything about you, which was a fraud. And she's in jail serving a nine or 10 year sentence. She tweeted out. You can tweet from prison. She actually just followed me. I might have a relationship with Elizabeth Holmes now. I don't know. She tweeted out, delete all of your emails. Delete all of your photographs, including your hidden photos. Delete all of your medical records that are online. delete everything within the next few years because that's the window you have before it will all be spilled onto the internet by AI that will access everything.

1:54:59I don't disagree with that. I think that all the time now. I think this is more of a biblical thing, but personally. So does the Pope. You saw he just issued some 40 ,000 word encyclical against AI, reminding people that while they can do all these things, they're not real. They're not human. They don't have emotions. They don't really even have ethical judgments. They have some programming on ethics. Like if you're an automated car and you're driving down the street, there's a woman with the baby stroller in front of you, and on the sidewalk there are two little children, you have to make a decision about which one you're gonna hit.

1:55:43If you're, you know, like - Jeez. Yeah, it'd be hard enough for an actual human to make that call. Someone's actually gotta program that stuff into an AI, but that doesn't make it human. It makes it a machine that may or may not take direction from a human. It's just, what are we creating when we take the heart and soul out of our society? It's like the GLP-1 drugs. You don't like the GLP-1 drugs. I do like the GLP-1 drugs. I don't like looking at unattractive people all day. I appreciate that everybody's looking thin and, you know, we're just so morbidly obese. It's gross. Look how we were in 1908, you know?

1:56:22We were thin and we were fashionable and we cared how we looked to the outside world and we weren't these sugar junkies. It was just we were living cleaner. and now just like the morbid obesity and people sitting on their couch all day shoving processed food that's terrible terrible for them it's terrible spiritually so i like them i like them but and they're helping people curb drinking and other but there are more and more reports about how for some they're killing ambition they're killing excitement love of life drive you know because it's the way I guess they work is they work on some receptor in the brain that drives you toward whatever.

1:57:02I don't know if the word is addiction or drives you toward like need, desire, you know, compulsion. And that's not an entirely bad thing to have. You know, that could be the thing that makes you stay at the office late because you want money and you want to get a head or you want a pat on the head and you want to get it. You're like, whatever it is, I'm against taking away ambition. So AI is that on steroids. Like, you're no longer needed. There's some jobs that it can't do. I don't think it can do... Trades. It can't do this job. You don't think so? I don't think it can be a reporter. I don't.

1:57:38I think it could, like, imitate social commentary or media commentary. But what does a real reporter do? You probably have forgotten because so few do it. No. But a real reporter spends his or her day on the phones or going door to door and gathering information like, hi, I'm Megan Kelly. I'd love to talk to you about the bus crash that happened. Were you a witness? What did you see? Is it as the driver said? Who was where? Is it true that this happened? What did you see? You were on the bus. What was your perspective? AI cannot do that. A big part of it is human connection, convincing a source you're trustworthy and to trust you with the story.

1:58:19I don't think it will have to because there's cameras everywhere in every car. Well, let's look at Edward Snowden. Why did he disclose what he disclosed? Why did he choose Glenn Greenwald to talk to? He trusted him. He read his articles. He thought, this is a good person I can bring my story to and did. Like, I just think the nature of true reporting, which is very personal and all-day shoe leather efforts between humans to lead to information. And then the writing of the story, yes, that could be offloaded to a machine, but the gathering of information is intimately human. And there are some other professions where you can make the case that humans are necessary.

1:59:02Obviously, the trades, yes, like plumbing and HVAC and, you know, the construction work on the road. You know, thank God that'll stick around. That's good. But it's not good for society to lose all the white-collar jobs. People who have white-collar jobs are not bad. They're doing the same thing. They're working hard to put meals on the table and give themselves a sense of purpose and a reason to get up in the morning. It's not good to be idle, again. And then we shouldn't be encouraging anything that's going to make us more so. You don't think something will come out of all this? I think something has to come out of all.

1:59:34I mean, I don't know. I'm worried. I worry about it. I do worry about it. But on the other hand, I see like top performers are the ones sticking around. And as a business owner, I really appreciate top performers. These people that do have drive are learning AI and they're doing the work of 20 fucking people. And the people that don't have the drive are not going to cut it. But there are so many people who have drive and are good at what they do, but their jobs just being wiped out is unnecessary now. Like in the financial field, there have been some alarm bells signed by bank execs saying, oh my God, like the AI can do the work of 2000 people.

2:00:13There are going to be mass layoffs. Like we are at the beginning of something far more profound than the industrial revolution. It scares the shit out of me. I mean, I just had lunch with one of the main guys, you know, behind one of these big major companies here. And I was like, what are you doing in town? And he said, I'm looking for bunkers. I'm here to look at a bunker. And I was like, what are you looking at a bunker for? I know. And he's like, the shit isn't going to be good. He goes, all these layoffs you're saying, it's going to be over a million by the end of the year. I believe it. And you know what's bothering me is we're rushing into it without thinking, without disclosure.

2:00:56You know, the average American doesn't understand any of this. They're living their lives. They have other things to think about. They're worried about their kids, worried about getting a home, maybe possibly taking a vacation this year for the first time in several years. They're not like, what documentary can I watch on one of my many apps that I can't afford. You know, these are luxury problems. And they're just going to wake up one day and yeah, there's going to be riots or there's going to be mass dissension or you're going to need a bunker and they can't even afford an apartment in the Bronx.

2:01:28So it's, we're not thinking about it. This has not been offered to the public as like, let's vote on it. And you saw this year, the graduation ceremonies, how many people got booed when they mentioned And Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, he was at one university, but it wasn't just him and mentioned how AI is the wave of the future. They openly booed. Really? Young people know. They know what we're about to do to them thoughtlessly. Never had to worry about this. We knew we were going to have jobs in some way, shape or form. Might not be the greatest job, might not be the job that you want.

2:02:02But we are going to eliminate some huge portion of jobs that will not be subsidized by a what's available to us in the AI industry. Nor will all those masses of people want to work in AI, the very industry that eliminated their chosen profession. Nor are all young people going to want to go work for Sam fucking Altman. Hard no. So we thoughtlessly run into this as the next greatest thing as though it's like penicillin or the polio vaccine. And it's so much more complex and dangerous than that. Well, what do we do, though? I mean, if we stop it, we've pissed the entire fucking world off. We've pissed Canada off, we've pissed Europe off, Asia hates us, Middle East hates us.

2:02:54Maybe we got some allies in South America and Israel. And they're all working on AI, and China may or may not be ahead of us. So, and she's already said, whoever wins the AI race will achieve global domination, right? So what do we do? I don't know. But I know that if we don't do something within the next year, it's too late. If we stop, then we're, I mean, we're already done. We're seeing the battle to the bad guys. Yeah, I know. Which is why you have things like summits, where you try to come up with an agreement. because there's us versus China and then there's us versus the machines. And on the latter battle, it's humanity on the same team.

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2:04:56Welcome to Hollywood vs. Reality. Did I do it? Right?

2:05:03What does he do in the movies? Tell me if I'm doing this wrong, because I don't watch any of this. A little flick like that, right? Seems pretty cool. It is pretty cool. Gotta silence it.

2:05:21In another lifetime, I did gun reviews for a living. proprietary magazines supposedly the best engineering in the world when that breaks your

2:05:33and now we're bringing them back

2:05:39it does look pretty cool i gotta i gotta admit that

2:05:46you know so i don't think we look at it and say it's really hard problem okay never mind bye We're gonna have to try. Elon's been jumping up and down about it for a while now. What's he saying? He's worried. This is one of the reasons why he says he went after Sam Altman, because of what he did at OpenAI, and then Anthropic was the product of people who left OpenAI.

2:06:10So he's worried, and he's been trying to say, like, this needs to be addressed. No one's been really listening to him. The problem is, Sean, there's too much money in it. It's like, this started off with, like, here's half a billion dollars, Sam Altman, see what you can do. I think Elon invested like 32 million, something relatively low for Elon. Now, everyone's in on it. Of course, Microsoft then swooped in when Sam was leaving OpenAI and said, here's half a billion. But now it's multiple billions into each AI company, like double digit or triple digit billions. And that's from all of the big tech companies into all of the AI companies, which is now we're talking potentially, you know, a trillion dollars into AI.

2:06:57And what is that going to get you? Way more AI, way more AI on steroids. So great. We're going to procure pancreatic cancer and then get killed by the machine. Or we're going to get, we're going to cure melanoma and then no one has jobs and there's going to be civil unrest and mass depression and no one's going to have sex anymore because they're so depressed the way the kids already aren't because of the damn phones and the general... Porn industry. That too. But I think there's a general malaise that comes from your phone. Just take all the shit off of there and go old school. I just, we're already surrendering.

2:07:41Like, why aren't the young people having sex? Why aren't they drinking? I'm sorry, but it's like, booze is bad for you. I'm not trying to argue otherwise, but like there should be some debauchery when you're young. There should be some risk taking. They're not even getting driver's licenses. Screen time. They're not dating. Forget sex, take sex out of it. They're not dating. They're not like taking a shot at a girl in a bar anymore. They're just like on their devices alone at home. And now there's talk about the future is going to have your AI avatar speaking to her AI avatar. And they're just going to do it, like figure out whether you're compatible.

2:08:25And then they'll get back to you about whether you do it. That's a thing? Yeah. ah, that's the thing, that we're going from online dating to, actually, it's just online, period. You're not involved. They'll get back to you on whether this is your future mate, like the Chinese parent, like an arranged situation by your AI avatar. This is so, this is why the Pope issued the encyclical. This is not living. Living is heart and soul and tears, broken hearts, uplifted hearts, mad, passionate love affairs that end disastrously and then not. Like, it's taking risks and failing and feeling bad about yourself only to overcome them and then feeling triumphant.

2:09:03Like, it's about the glorious feeling of accomplishment that's built day after day of expending yourself at a job that's well done. It's definitely not sending your damn avatar out there to do all the fun things for you. I've not even heard of that. Wow. Yeah. It's not good. Wow. And by the way, the bunker is pointless. that'll buy you like a week. I love the bunker. Like all these rich people think these bunkers are going to save them. They're not. Don't waste your money. Just tell me where it is so I know where to go. I actually know one. You know, I've got a friend who's got like this sick bunker and he showed it to me.

2:09:46It's got everything in there. It's got everything. It's even got a shooting range. But no food. No food? You'll be dead in three days. You forgot something important. Damn. Yeah, a lot of people are looking at him now. My buddy that was down here, I was just like, wow. And that's what he said. He said it's going to create the biggest wealth gap. We can't even fathom it. How sick is that, just the thought of that? I mean, like, so the rich people, it's like the Titanic. All the rich people get to survive. But the steerage is going to have to go down with the ship. I mean, do you have any proposed solutions?

2:10:28We need to slow it down. And not only that, I think there's going to have to be a covenant amongst humanity that we're not going to use it or we're going to prioritize human product. I think I see in the future everything that's AI will have to be labeled as such. We're not going to live in this weird world where it's confusing to us. we don't know whether it's a real video or image or not. Eventually, there's going to have to be a law that requires the disclosure of whether it's AI or real because it's just already getting too ubiquitous. And I think there's going to be sort of like the modern-day Amish, but it'll be much more widespread where we just choose to be Luddites.

2:11:10Like we, in the way we say bi-American, it's going to be like bi-human. That's what I think is going to happen. Made in the USA, made bi-human. Made bi-human. Like my husband is an author. He's a writer. And he used to write fiction. Now he does nonfiction. By the way, should all buy The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. It's a great story. He just had the New York Times bestselling list too. But it's a great story about this guy who was part of the Nobel family, like from the prizes, who built the Russian oil industry, just basically himself. And nobody knows his name. And the reason they don't know his name is because of another guy named Joseph Stalin.

2:11:46And the clash of those two titans is the story. It's really good. Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel by Doug Brump. But my point is simply, that was written by a human. My husband had to go. He actually looked in archives, like overseas in places like Sweden, and in his earlier book in Germany. Right now an AI can't do that because you had to go into a basement and look at dusty files that people hadn't seen that haven't been categorized and uploaded anywhere. That's great. But there are a ton already of fiction books that are being written by AI. One just got outed as AI after it won an award and they had to take the award away because it was written by a damn computer.

2:12:31But there's going to have to be a decision. Like, do I want to buy an actual Harlan Coben novel that takes me through twists and turns of a crime? Or do I want to buy one that's as good, potentially, that was written by an AI, but it's a company and it's going to go line the pockets again of like some rich fat cat executive who's a trillionaire now already, like many times over potentially in this scenario. We have to come up with, there's going to have to be human covenants. You know, do I, maybe I go with a law firm that only uses humans and not AI. Although that's, I think it through, that's not going to work because they have to compete against other law firms that may be doing it better.

2:13:14You know, the AI, the reports by like some of these bankings executives is not only is it doing it better than humans, it's doing it way better. Like you would be at a competitive disadvantage if you didn't use it. But in the creative arts, Justine Bateman of Family Ties, you know, when we were growing up, the sister of Jason Bateman. She's an actress and a director, and she's been making a big push already in Hollywood for this, like a movie company that only makes movie with actual actors and actresses and tech staff and not AI because it's so easy in the creative visual arts to use AI. There's no such thing as a graphic designer within a year.

2:13:57It may already be there. So it's going to come down to human preference. It's interesting. I mean, humanity has a choice to make, but usually we choose the wrong thing. You have to look at social media. It's destroying. It's just destroying kids' minds. And my mind and your mind and everybody that's on it. But we still fucking do it. We still give it several hours a day to get on there. I'm bad at it, too. I have to say, like, I told you the other day, so little of my day is spent in silence. like most of my day i'm either doing the news or i'm listening to an audio podcast of the news or i love the app i use this app voice dream but it can turn any article into an audio service for you so like it spares my eyes and it lets me listen to the news while i'm about doing my business but i'm listening to something on my phone all day long there's very little silence and i don't think that's good i live out in the woods i'll get silence all the time is it great i love it i love it yeah my kids say you can always tell when i'm coming because you can hear the news what podcast do you listen to oh a lot of them i i basically listen to a wide variety and i to them on 2.0, you know, so I can flash right through them.

2:15:29In the morning, I listen to The Daily by The New York Times, Up First by NPR. This is, I do it so you don't have to. But it's my job to keep a tab on what the left is saying, too. I listen to Morning Wire, which is from The Daily Wire. I don't hold Ben Shapiro against the Morning Team. I like those guys, and I still listen to them. I listen to my own AM update, which is our own 16, 17-minute news update source for the morning. And then as the day goes on, I listen to a bunch of them. I still listen to my pals over at National Review, the editors. I disagree with a lot of what they say, but I think they're sane and they're right-leaning people who don't...

2:16:05Like, some hate Trump, but they don't let it cloud their judgment. You know, they don't have TDS. I listen to some, like Molly Hemingway. I love her over at The Federalist. I sometimes will listen to the Wall Street Journal Potomac Watch to hear what, like, the more establishment Republicans are saying. Wow, you listen to a lot of podcasts. Oh, yeah. I mean, we could be here all day. It's all news. All news. The only non-news podcasts I listen to are Dateline. I love Dateline. I love a little true crime. I like, in my downtime, I like to solve murders, Sean. I love the Dateline. And books. I listen to books on tape.

2:16:41Yeah, but podcasts, the only non-news ones are probably, it's probably Dateline. I'm trying to think, going through my feed right now. Nothing's coming in. Man, I just don't know. How do you stay on top of everything? It changes so fast now. But if you're steeped in it, you can do it easily because it's just incremental day to day. Oh, man. Britt Hume told me that early in my career. He said, you have to stay steeped in the news. And even now, if I hire a producer and I can tell he or she's not steeped in the news, I'm like, you're not going to last. If you don't love news, you can't be in news.

2:17:13Really, you need to love it. Yeah. If you don't get excited, I tell my team, like, we have a producer text chain that we're all on. I'm like, if you don't get excited to break news on the producer text chain, like internally to the others, you're not going to make it. You have to get a Jones from the news. You have to get a Jones from being like the first to share. Like this happened. And it's still what I love about news. And so if you're that steeped in it, you can't pull yourself. You shouldn't want to pull yourself off of X, which is basically our news feed. It's not healthy, but news isn't healthy.

2:17:46It's a healthy business. It's not where you go for the natural detox of life. So I love that, though. I love the never-ending newness of it. The breaking newness of the news is very attractive to me. How do you think mainstream is going to handle... How do you think it's going to stand up against podcasting in this next upcoming midterm and the next election? Well, haven't you heard podcasts are totally irrelevant now? You know, we were deemed totally irrelevant and of no impact because we were critical of the Iran war. Oh, okay. Like, we're irrelevant and no one's paying attention to them. And then as soon as Trump's poll numbers went down on the war, it was, you're to blame.

2:18:32The neo-Nazi podcasters are to blame. Okay, I mean, I don't know. It's great. You have the debate with yourself. I'm just going to keep doing my show. So how do I think podcasters versus the mainstream will do? I mean, I think young people - What are the numbers? Do you know, are you familiar with the numbers? In podcasting, the numbers across news are down. Cable news is down, podcast news shows. Like how down? How many viewers does Fox News have a day? Or CNN? You know, in their prime time, they're probably getting around 3 million, just under 2.4 to 3 million in the overall, and around 400 ,000 in the demo, which is not great.

2:19:12It's not great. Cable news is dead. It's just running out its lifespan. Same for broadcast. I mean, that's deader than cable, even though they still have some very old people watching the nightly newscasts. Do you enjoy watching it collapse? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't watch any television news. None. None of it. I find it totally useless to me, I have to say. There are some people I like. Like, if I have to tune into news, who do I hope is on? I like Jesse Waters. He's a good guy and he's a friend too. If I need like Washington news, I will tune in Brett Baier still. But I don't have the tolerance for it or the patience.

2:19:50You know, it's like, you can't go 2.0. You have to watch the ads. You have to make it through this nine minute segment because you know they have an A block to fill. And then the six minute segment in the B block because it's not like this where it's like, this discussion has grown tiresome. Let's move on to our next topic right now. But we're only 30 seconds into it. Yeah, but neither of us is feeling it. That's not the way television news works. And the consumer listening to this conversation right now just had a feeling inside of, yes, that's right, even though they weren't able to diagnose it five minutes ago.

2:20:22But it's why people are tuning off from television, because they can't service the modern-day mind in the way it needs, which is why all the young people are in our lane now listening to us, and all the, not even older people, the elderly, are watching television news. How long do you think television collapses? I'm dying, man. I can't wait. I love watching it collapse. I mean, it's already like all but there. Like you look at the, when I was on Fox News in the prime time, which was, you know, whatever, 2016 or so, those years around that. We were, you looked at the advertising on the Kelly file, it was like American Express, BMW, you know, like all the blue chip brands.

2:21:13And while the daytime at Fox still had like the Christy Lane commercials of her singing on a beach and you should buy her a CD. Really, you just thought you had mesothelioma if you watched too much cable at the time. Probably still today. But there were blue chip brands all over the prime time. Not anymore. It's very different now. And that's because they don't command, they don't have as big an audience. They don't command those kinds of advertisers. What were the numbers when you were on? Oh my God. I think when I left, I don't know, we were averaging like 4.5 million a night and like 700 ,000 or 800 ,000 in the demo.

2:21:50I recently looked at this. And now it's just way down. Now you're in the two millions. It's not that we didn't have nights like that, you know, or low periods. So they're half what they used to be. Yeah, just about. But not just that. They're, so they have multiple problems. Who's watching will determine the advertiser fees. You know, if you have whatever, 100 ,000 people watching you, you're not going to get the same advertising fees as somebody who's got 10 million watching them. But it's also about cord cutting. Everyone's cord cutting. I don't have cable at all on any of my TVs anymore. Yeah, we don't either.

2:22:26I use YouTube TV. And it's great. You can get anything. And I think young people, nobody's paying for a cable news subscription now. nor are they going to the traditional broadcast channels for anything other than maybe a sports event or something that's breaking that you can only see here um what are your friends inside there still what do they think they all want to be doing what we're doing why aren't they well it depends on the person there there are some people who are just platform players you know with all due respect like they couldn't make it in this lane where it's it's very competitive it's actually not easy you know so you have to have a point of view and then you have to work very hard to develop some sort of a base um but they are leaving there with a base aren't they i mean you left with a base tucker left with a base it depends like do you think there's a single person at cnn who could leave with a base like megan i don't know i have no idea who's even on cnn that's my point like those are platform players everybody up and down the cnn lineup gets views because it's CNN, not because, with all due respect, it's Wolf Blitzer.

2:23:38Like, it's not like, I got to see what Wolf is saying. I don't mean to pick on Wolf Blitzer, who I think is probably a good guy. I'm just trying to use an example of, like, no one's like, I got to know what he thinks. Or, like, this person makes the news really interesting for me. It's like, I get my news from CNN. Or the MSNBCers, same. Like, Rachel Maddow probably would have a following. I think that's probably it over there. You know, I don't know, even that morning show, like, its numbers aren't that great. Fox has got a few more stars who people would follow, like Gutfeld. But it's a short list, you know, it's under five.

2:24:14So that's why, because they're being practical. They get paid very well. They have a built-in audience because people have brand loyalty. They don't have to worry about too much channel switching, because usually people are loyal to Fox who are loyal to Fox and MS, same. so there's you know there's a floor built in and that's comforting especially if you have to pay a mortgage and maybe your spouse doesn't work like i get it i totally get it i don't know man i don't know if it's over i mean they might just come over and get propped up i mean you saw the golden globe you you got nominated for a golden globe right well we yes but then we said take our name off the list oh you did yeah we weren't gonna pay money to go get considered by those Hollywood libtards.

2:24:56Nice. Yeah. Yeah, it was... Ben Shapiro spent millions to buy an ad of his face in Times Square so that he could win. He spent millions? Went different ways. Worked out for him, didn't it? I'm assuming millions. How much does it cost to put your face on the entire side of an enormous high-rise building, which is what he did to convince the Hollywood Golden Globe crowd to vote for his show, which, by the way, was never going to happen anyway. They weren't going to vote for a conservative podcast. I don't mean to pick on Ben. I'm just in a fight with him right now. But anyway, yeah, no, we withdrew our names from consideration.

2:25:34I thought it was hilarious. They brought all these big podcasters in along with a bunch of Hollywood people. And then they just rewarded themselves. It was fucking hilarious. I know. And everybody called him on it. Like, how the fuck does Joe Rogan not get the Golden Globe for the first... for the first year they do podcasts. And who did they give it to? Wasn't it Amy Poehler? Yeah, yeah. The comedian? Yeah. Okay, sure. She's got the best podcast. Right. It's better than Rogan's. This is fucking bullshit. I know. It's hilarious. And you know what I found out? Do you know that if you're nominated, you're expected to go out there, and I guarantee you Amy Poehler did this, and meet with these little Golden Globe committees and, you know, basically pull the dress up for them.

2:26:24Like, hey, how about me? Pick me. How absurd. Can you imagine humiliating yourself like that? No. So you could get one of their stupid statues and sit undoubtedly back in the nosebleeds at their party where they're like, ew, it's the podcaster. Disgusting people. Who would do that to themselves? Oh, shit. I thought it was awesome. But, oh, wow. No. Wow. Look, I grew up in the Roger Ailes era at Fox, where we did not believe in awards. He would not even... No one at Fox who spent their career at Fox, none of them has an Emmy. The only people at Fox who has an Emmy got it while they were working for a different channel because he did not believe in bending the knee to get the pat on the head from these organizations who hate us.

2:27:13And I totally agree with him. That's cool. I like hearing that. How are you dealing with all these people coming after you? You've got Trump saying you're low IQ. I got the tweet here, but I'm not going to read it because it's a book. Low IQ, nut job. Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro. How did all this happen? Well, it's pretty obvious, but it's because of Israel. It's over Israel and now Iran.

2:27:41Ben Shapiro turned on me at the Turning Point event in December. I saw that. And I was stunned. I was completely flabbergasted. He and I had been... You had no idea that was going to happen? We were good friends. You were there, right? You came up right after. I wasn't there that night. I arrived the next day. But yeah, I was on my way. And we were good friends, Sean. It's not like we had dinner together all the time, but we were always very friendly. I helped make him a household name on the primetime at Fox News, put him on regularly, helped make him a star, when I got into podcasting, he really helped me too.

2:28:20He invited me out to the Daily Wire headquarters in California and really encouraged me to get off the couch and go back and do it and offered me a job at the Daily Wire, which of course I didn't want to do. But I appreciated that he was thinking about me. And then we helped each other on our podcast. I'd have him on. I'd say yes to his show whenever he needed me. I'd promote his people. He'd ask me to put people on my show who are from the Daily Wire to help build their podcast. I always said yes. And then, even when Charlie died, one of the first things I said, I was just looking back at this because, well, we're working on a project, but I saw this tape of myself after Charlie died and I was on the air announcing it.

2:28:59And one of the first people I mentioned was poor Ben, who I knew was living his life surrounded by five or six armed guards. I'm like, but this has to stop, you know, this demonization, this otherizing of people who don't share political viewpoints. and I read Ben's tweet about Charlie, you know, empathetically and sympathetically and, you know, just I had nothing but love for Ben. And then I did my tour in the fall where I had Tucker Carlson one night and Ben the next night. And I gave Ben the nicest intro a person could possibly give him. I mean, it was a conscious effort to build him up because people were already turning on Ben because the Israel war had gone on so long in Gaza.

2:29:44There was a lot of blowback. Ben is ardently 100 % pro-Israel. And I didn't like seeing him twist in the wind. I felt bad for him. And I really wanted to sort of vouch for him with my audience to say, this is a good person. Let me tell you some wonderful things about Ben in the intro before he came out. But publicly, we aired that on my show. And he was in an irascible mood that night. We had a contentious back and forth on the stage, but it was fine. I had no problem with it. And he kind of stormed out of there that night. And I thought, are we not good? And why are we not good? And I think in that night, I thought it could be because of Tucker, because I'm still friends with Tucker and those two are openly warring.

2:30:24And I was trying to get them not to. I love Tucker like a brother. And I've known him a lot longer than Ben, but I care about Ben too. And I tried, tried very much behind the scenes to get them both to come together and try, you know, for the sake of the conservative movement and the country to not, to like disagree, but not hate each other, you know, which was a fool's errand, but it was undertaken in earnest for whatever it's worth. And instead it seemed to turn Ben on me, not Tucker. He had no problem. You know, he wasn't into it, but like he wasn't wanting to be close to Ben, but in no way did it make him feel angry toward me.

2:31:06You know, it's only one side asking me to defriend the other side. And, but Ben and I had a text exchange after that. And he said in the text, you know, something to the effect of, I agree that our friendship is more important than what other friendships we have in our lives. And that's what we should nurture and, you know, prioritize. Because he'd been in my ear about Tucker prior to that. And I was like, I totally get where you're coming from, but I love him and I disagree with you. And I do listen to his show and I think you're misinterpreting where he's coming from. And he rejected that out of hand and we had already agreed to disagree on Tucker, which is fine, right?

2:31:51That's friends do that. Like I get it. He's in a very sensitive place. He's got family in Israel and I think a home in Israel and, you know, obviously very, very committed to Israel. And the next thing I knew, Sean, he was standing on the stage at Turning Point ripping me as a coward. A coward? Allegedly because I wouldn't call out Candace Owens and what she was saying about Erica Kirk. But that's not what it was about. It was about my not ending my friendship with Tucker, which is the thing that he had been pushing me on for weeks and I wouldn't do. And he, like many of his supporters, have been using the Candace-Erica feud against me ever since.

2:32:39At the time, I wasn't saying anything about whatever is going on between the two of them because I was working behind the scenes to help them resolve it. I actually had gotten to know Candace a little, and I knew Erica pretty well. And Candace was very, very focused on Turning Point as she remains, including Erica. And Erica asked me if I would help her broker a peace between the two of them. And I said, yes. So I was trying to do that at Erica's request. And people like Ben didn't quite understand, nor do they give a shit. You know, it's like they just assumed I was a coward, I guess. I was too weak to stand up.

2:33:18Meanwhile, it's like, I've been asked by the person you purport to be protecting, Erica Kirk, to help her behind the scenes put this to rest. So go fuck yourself. And you're trying to shame me for not coming out and saying, Candace Owens is bad. You know, it's just possible you don't know the whole story. Have some humility. And a real friend, before he stood up in front of millions to attack me as a coward might have shot me a text to say, hey, I'm about to attack you for not doing this thing. I know you to be a good person. Is there a reason you're not doing this thing? I demand of you. And I would have told him.

2:33:57But from that night forward, he and his supporters turned this into like, you will say the thing about Candace Owens, or you're bad. You're bad and Tucker's bad. And it got lumped. And this whole thing became a proxy for the fight over Israel, because they needed me to condemn Candace Owens, not because of what she said about Erica Kirk. To this day, it's not about that. It's because she is the chief Israel critic, arguably one of them in the country, arguably one of the chief in the country. And they need me to say she's bad. She's an anti-Semite. And now that they've made anything I say, the stakes of the relationship between me and these people, it's a forever no.

2:34:41It's beyond a no. It's a forever no. You want to get on my bad side? Try to control me. It's just never going to happen. So I won't defriend Tucker. I'm not going to say what they want me to say about Candace, who I've gotten to know much better. And I'm still close with Erica. It is possible. I see what's happening between the two of them. I've said what I'm going to say about it. And I have asked Candace to stop, and I've said I don't approve of what Candace is saying about Erica, but it's never enough. You give him one little... No, you have to say it like this. It has to be this far. You have to go this far about it.

2:35:19You've got to condemn it in these terms. Fuck you. No, I don't. Man. I can do what I want, and I can say what I want, and I can have relationships with whomever I want. And when I went on the stage at Turning Point, I was asked about some of the questions that Candace was asking about Charlie's murder. And I made clear that I was fine with the questions she was asking about Israel. And really, like, that added to it. So, like, the ardently pro-Israel crowd really turned on me. You must be an anti-Semite. You're bad. Some are like, you attacked Ben? Like, I didn't attack Ben. Ben attacked me. The next night, I said, he doesn't have the power to take all my friends away from me, which is basically what he was arguing for, to excommunicate me from the conservative movement.

2:36:12That's not an attack on Ben. And since then, he's been coming for me ever since. Every once in a while, I'll say something about him, but he hasn't let up. And then, you know, of course, Mark Levin is just a fucking lunatic. Well, I mean, it didn't work out for Ben. They just did two rounds of layoffs at the Daily Wire. The views are in the fucking garbage can, if you could just pull the channel up. I can't remember how many subs they have, but it's like 1.4 thousand views. I mean, Ben's problem. He's buying views right now. That's what's happening. I've only seen somebody completely destroy their entire legacy with their ego one other time.

2:36:51And it's interesting to watch it. And it wasn't his fault for Israel. Well, Trump's going to be one too. Because he did shed viewers. He's been shedding viewers. Like, we're all down viewers who are in news because it's a rough time in news, but it's fine. They go and they come in news. It's happened to me many times over the course of my career. But the reason Ben's been shedding them steadily by the tens of thousands for over a year. And I think the problem is, like, you can be pro-Israel and still have an audience, even in the conservative, you know, wing that is starting to turn on Israel.

2:37:21It's just he's become so intolerant. You know, he's become like a leftist scold and won't allow people who don't see it the way he sees it. their say and to have their voice, which can be treated as legitimate if potentially wrong. That's fine. We do that all the time in American politics. But like Ben and many others who are very, very pro-Israel have seemingly changed the stakes to only we are right. Only we are righteous. And everybody who disagrees with us is an anti-Semite, neo-Nazi grifter. Yeah, why do they manufacture anti-Semitism? They're turning into leftists. It seems like they just have to do it.

2:38:05It's the exact same thing with the woke. They have to victimize themselves to continue the fucking money flow going to Israel. That's what it is, right? Well, it seems - It has to be. It's the new, it's the, you know, it's funny because Mark Levin calls people like you and me and Tucker, the woke Reich. Like, we're part of the Third Reich, but we're woke. and I've never understood how they can argue we're woke. I really genuinely don't get it. It is they who are behaving like woke leftists making identity and these baseless accusations of, you know, you're an ist of some sort, racist, bigot, whatever, the stakes of the relationship.

2:38:43Like that's what they're doing. They have spent the past five years condemning the woke for saying, oh, you know, what's important about me is my skin color. You know, I want to be seen from my blackness. And they've just replaced it with my Semitism. And you're an anti-Semite. If you disagree with me on anything, anything, you're an anti-Semite. It's because you're an anti-Semite. Like, even if you just say, hey, Israel's gone pretty far. I defended it for two years, but it is looking a little genocide-y. A little? But that's how I started off in, like, the most mild, like... I defended you for the better part of this war.

2:39:24You haven't stopped. You continue to seem totally remorseless about killing tens of thousands of civilians. I've got to be honest. I'm starting to turn on you. Anti-Semite. What? You would not believe the number of attacks that were launched to me just at that point. Oh, you're under Tucker's spell. No, no, no, no, no. It's not Tucker. It's you. It's you people doing the mass killing and the people who are defending them without being honest about what's actually happening in Gaza. I have the capability of being honest. I can condemn what Hamas did on 10-7 with ease and have since it happened.

2:40:05I can be honest about the sexual assaults that took place and all the atrocities and have condemned it for months and months and beyond. But that same ability allows me to see what you, Israel, are doing very clearly. And when I started to see it and speak up about it, I had the whole pro-Israel internet turn on me, bot me. There are full groups who are all over my social media now. It's very annoying. It's annoying for my fans who don't want to deal with these bots, and I get it. But I think they're committed to not letting these people have the final say. I'm getting it too. Not like you are, but whoa, whoa.

2:40:45What did that cause? Are you getting a lot of death threats? We've had the FBI involved now multiple times because I've, you know, you always kind of get death threats in my job, but they have risen to a level that's just beyond. And so, you know, I can't and won't go through all the security precautions we've had to implement in my life, but it's insane. And it's so wrong. It's over what? My opinion. I now have to worry about getting shot because of my opinion. And what is my opinion? I think Israel should stop killing civilians in Gaza and Beirut and elsewhere. And I don't want to be involved in their wars.

2:41:26That's my opinion. Yeah. It's just deeply wrong. Well, I got you another present. Oh. Is it MDMA? What? It's a pistol. Since we're talking about, you know, self-defense. Got a silencer on there? It's got a silencer. Here you go. That's awesome. Look at the size of this thing. Wow. It's got SIG's new optic. It's got a red dot in it. That's the suppressor or silencer. Takes 17 rounds plus one in the pipe. Wait, what kind of a gun is it? 9mm. That's a SIG Sauer. So I got a friend over at SIG. His name's Jason. Wait, are you actually giving this to me? Yeah. That's amazing. Really? Me, SIG Sauer, and Silencer Shop.

2:42:12Silencer Shop also loves you. So they gave me that silencer to put on there. This is the coolest thing I now own. There's a range right next to my house where I do go sometimes. Nice. Don't want to set the bar too high. We're going to see how often you spend at the range. Keep your expectations really low. But this is beautiful. Wow. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks to our friends out there who gave it to me too. So the silencer. Do I want the silencer? I would use it on a bad guy who came into my house. Don't I want it to be loud where everybody hears it for miles around and comes and helps me out?

2:42:48I don't know. You might want to keep the kids calm. This is badass. But yeah, in Silencer Shop, they do a bunch of stuff for the Second Amendment too. They're always standing up for the Second Amendment and doing things and trying to get into legislation. So it's a good company. God love them. We need them. I mean, honestly, it's like the past year more than ever. Haven't you thought? Like, what does the ammo kit look like? I mean, we've thought about it in a way we haven't in years for a lot of reasons. What societal unrest is coming? What bad guy's coming? The thing with Charlie, I mean, it was just Charlie's murder.

2:43:29I just think that Charlie's murder was the seminal event of the whole year. It's changed a lot about how we all are and how we're behaving and what's happened on the right. What do you think that was? the last time I interviewed you you made a recommendation that I interview Charlie I didn't get that opportunity unfortunately but can you believe that of all people I said Charlie Kirk I'm so sad you didn't get to know him because you guys would have loved each other yeah I wish I would have I was being put into the MAGA spectrum and I was never MAGA neither was I And somehow the media placed me there.

2:44:12And so I didn't want to affiliate with any particular party. And so I kind of steered away from it. Now I wish I would have, because I've heard so many great things about him. No, I laugh when, you know, Trump's like, she's not MAGA. I'm like, correct. I've never claimed otherwise. I've never been MAGA. I've always called myself MAGA adjacent. Like I'm a registered independent, which my audience knows very well. I say it all the time. It's very important to me not to have these team labels on me. What, do you have to re-register? I'm a registered Republican. I got to re-register? Yeah, you do.

2:44:46Yeah, you do. How do you do that? You can do it. You can get down to the DMV and you change your voter registration. I would change my name when I got married and they gave you the option then, but I had done it prior to that. So, yeah, I've never been MAGA. I understand MAGA and my sensibilities are much more affiliated with the right than the left. So, like, that's all real and that's me, but I've never said I'm MAGA, ever. So like, oh my, kind of like that time when - I hate that I got placed in that. I never even wanted Trump to win until he was the only guy to vote for, but - Well, that's the problem is that elections remain binary choices.

2:45:23So it's like, do I wish I had voted for Kamala? Hell no. See, that's not what I meant. I meant during all the other people that were running for the Republican side, I was like, please just get one of these other people in. Yeah. And then when he got it, I was like, oh, fuck. and then i was like please don't put anybody that's worth a shit in the administration because you're going to be garbage afterwards there's no chance especially right now feeling optimistic about jd vance 2028 no or rubio or anybody that's in there because they're all yes men fucking puppets now now now they're all talking about catholicism which i think is fucking hilarious.

2:46:07Let's talk about Catholic. Oh, you're a fucking Catholic all of a sudden? There's no way to be in the Trump administration without being a yes man. You won't last. The fastest growing Christian denomination in the world right now. Now all of a sudden we're gonna advertise that we're fucking Catholic? Right. I'll tell you. Have you heard of this organization Catholics for Catholics? No, what do they do? I mean, it's Catholics for Catholics. They're gonna get into politics oh that's not a good idea and so now you're gonna give it all these fucking politicians that are claiming they're catholic all of a sudden you know well i mean jd is a recent convert but marco rubio is a lifelong catholic right he's a hispanic guy from cuba like they're i don't know how observant he is um but i'll i'll tell you what i think i don't see him standing up for any fucking christian rights i think their biggest problem is the republican Party is so divided, I don't know who the Republican Party can unite behind.

2:47:10You know, the non-interventionist faction, I don't think they will back a Rubio or a traditional Republican who's neocony. And the neocon faction is not going to get behind a J.D. Vance. So who's the solution? I don't know. I really don't know. I don't see the solution. That's why, I mean, it would generally be a good time to be a leftist, but they have zero talent on their side. They have, I mean, oh, Pete Buttigieg, who, by the way, is polling first in the most recent poll I saw on Team Dem. Pete Buttigieg, okay, sure. He's not going to be president. He's not going to be the Democrat nominee, and he's not going to be president.

2:47:46Kamala Harris, no. She's already been rejected. AOC, I mean, sure, she could get the nomination, but could she convince a general electorate to vote for her? She's completely radical. She wanted to get rid of all the cows. So it's like, I don't think so. The super fat, trans-loving Governor Pritzker of Illinois, no. I mean, as soon as his gender policies and crime policies get outed, the general electorate's going to reject him. So I think the best thing the Republicans have going for them is the lunatic left, how bad they are, how they don't have a real threat. Gavin Newsom, let's go through the California policies.

2:48:19Let's just put them on a board and tell me if you even think they're real. They're so radical, you won't believe they're real. All under his watch. So, I mean, it's easy to sort of say, like, the Republicans aren't going to go anywhere because they've been all yes men to a very controversial, very unpopular agenda. But we have to pick somebody. Do you like anybody on the left? On the left? Yeah. Like a politician? Anybody. No, but if I had to vote for anybody over there who's like throwing his hat out there, I kind of like Rahm Emanuel. He's like a fighter. I like how he's like, he's a swearer and he's a tough guy.

2:48:54Like he's a real man. He's not like this sort of light in the loafer femme kid like Pete Buttigieg. He's not afraid to throw a punch. I like that. He has said no more money for Israel. I like that. He has said that. Yeah. He has said no. Believe him? Yeah, I do. Yeah. He's Jewish, but he's not an Israel firster. He has said that he doesn't want boys and girls sports. And he has said that he wouldn't change a thing about Trump's border. Like, I could vote for that kind of a Democrat. There'd be things about him I didn't like, but I'd vote for him over a neo-Khani righty. What do you think of Roe?

2:49:35Who? Roe Khanna. Oh, I like him. He's been on the show. He's reasonable. He's like, that's the kind of Democrat in general I would like, though I don't love him on the trans stuff. And I can't vote for anybody who's going to continue chopping off the body parts of children. Is he big on the trans stuff? He's not big on it, but he's not on the right side on it either. So, you know, Rahm Emanuel is the only Democrat I know who's suggested they might run for president who is where they should be on that issue. And I just, I could never vote for, we are sterilizing our children. We are depriving them of any hope of sexual pleasure or fertility at the age of 12.

2:50:14There's no informed consent. They want to ignore this problem like it's a nothing. It's not a nothing. It's not up to a parent. It's not between a parent and a doctor and a child. It's between God and a child. And no child can consent to that when they are a minor. So that I would never vote for somebody who would not stand against that. And he's a Democrat who's both against that and against more Middle East wars on behalf of Israel.

2:50:41That's not very many people. The short list. Who do you like on the right? I like J.D. You like J.D.? Yeah, I don't think JD's in favor of this war. He's got to keep his mouth shut about it because he works for Trump. That's the deal when you're the VP. He accepted the job, so he's doing the job nobly. It's not noble to run around being like, my boss sucks. I'm against the war. I was the one person who stood against it. Make sure that's printed. He's really not doing that. He's standing for Trump. He's trying to find the right messaging around it. Like, you know, it's not a great idea, but if we do it, this is how I guess we should do it.

2:51:16You know, like, you're the boss. You're the one they elected as president, not me. And so you're asking me what my thoughts are. He's on the record, according to the New York Times, having said, I don't think we should do this. But if you're going to do it, this is what I think we should do. I think that's honorable. And I think J.D. Vance is definitely non-interventionalist. That's what the neocons hate about him. That's one of the main reasons they go after Tucker so hard, is because they see him as a surrogate for J.D. and they need J.D. to be hobbled. But I think J.D. on his own, when he's in the top spot or it's going to be complicated because if he runs for it, he's got to run for it while still Trump's VP.

2:51:53He's going to be in the same position as Kamala Harris on immigration. And when The View asked her, anything you do differently? Nothing comes to mind. He's going to have to learn to navigate that because he's going to have to say, yeah, there's some things I'd do differently and Trump's not going to like that. So that's going to be the joy of being us. We'll be able to talk about it. We're not responsible for steering it. We just have to cover it. But yeah, I like J.D. a lot. I think that guy has a fucking chance in hell of getting it. Why? Because he's not, I just, I think the opposite. He's not saying anything.

2:52:23Well, what would you expect a sitting VP to do? I don't think Trump is being loyal to the American people. I think, first and foremost, if you're in any position in the administration, I think you owe it to the people. To do what, though? What would you explain? The right thing. What would you say to J.D.? Do what? I would say he needs to speak out against what the fuck is happening in this country and in the world. Like in front of a microphone. Yep. And betray his boss. Yep. And basically probably get forced out of the administration. Yep. Although you can't really fire a VP. See, I don't...

2:52:58I look at him, I see a guy who is totally conflicted in his morals with what's happening right now. And he doesn't look like he knows what to do. Well, are you so sure he's not fighting it behind the scenes from the inside? I think people need to know that. I don't know that he is or he isn't. I don't have inside knowledge on this. I just know where his sensibilities are. But I agree he's in a very difficult position. I mean, that's what happens when you accept this job. You put yourself in that very difficult position. It's not ideal. I just don't see any...

2:53:40positivity coming out of this administration. It seems very self-serving. I have a list of shit printed I could go through, but what was the last one? He fucking made it so he had Todd Blanche do the dirty work so that him or anybody in his family could never be audited by the IRS? What the fuck is that shit? The drone company, the$400 million jet from Qatar. Yep. The, what is it, the Executives Club? You know about that? Yeah, yeah, that they started in D.C. You don't hear about any of this shit. Yeah. Does this shit look like he's serving the fucking people? No. So you're going to serve that?

2:54:21Or are you going to speak out against it and let everybody know what the fuck is happening? You think he'd be better off? Fox News sure as fuck isn't reporting any of this shit. None of it. None of it. No, I... There's no question that the corruption in the administration has been far beyond what I ever respected. He sued the fucking government. He sued his own fucking government. For what, like, how much? Okay, but that I can defend. Because, look, he was maliciously prosecuted by the DOJ. Remember Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, those two FBI agents who were like, don't worry, we're gonna stop him?

2:54:59They sued their own government and they got paid$2 million. They got paid, these two who were openly working to defeat a legitimate candidate who'd been nominated by Republicans or was about to be for president. How did they get paid? They complained that somebody leaked their texts to the media and their privacy had been violated, that their government had basically violated their rights. And Joe Biden's DOJ paid them out$2 million. Now,$1.8 billion is a lot more than $2 million. But it's the same principle. Trump's saying to the government, the DOJ, which now he runs, but it's the same organization, you did the wrong thing.

2:55:37You maliciously prosecuted me, and I'm entitled to remuneration. So he filed this case. He has a case for that. There's no question that's true. He was maliciously prosecuted. There was no basis for what they did to him. in particular. And they were behind the one in New York, which was one of the most specious. But, you know, the January 6th thing, that wasn't a criminal case against Trump. That was just a bullshit lie. You can't use the presidency for self-retribution, though. Well, I mean, you can, unfortunately. I see that.

2:56:11So, as a matter of settling that, he got this settlement. And he knew, even he knew, it would be too much to say, I'm gonna line my pockets with this money. The way he got around it was to say, I'm going to use this for a fund to pay out all the people who have also been maliciously prosecuted, like the January 6th. I mean, James Comey has already said, how about me? It's a fair question, to be honest. But it's a huge number. And the five-person board that oversees the payouts is hand-selected by Todd Blanche, his personal attorney, now our acting attorney general. And Trump can fire any of them at any time.

2:56:46So it looks like a massive slush fund for Trump friends and family or anybody who just happens to come up with a claim and we don't know how much the payouts are going to be. There are no criteria for what the payouts are going to be. And it's an unprecedented sum that hasn't been approved by Congress. Yet again, our tax money is not supposed to get spent without the approval of the representatives who answer to us via elections every two years so that when it came to especially matters of the purse, we had the ability to hire and fire them if we didn't like what they did. That's being removed from us by something like this.

2:57:19I feel like this is how he's justified to himself to just take advantage of every little thing that comes across his desk that's going to benefit him financially. He's justified it through what's happened to him previously, which I could understand, but I mean, I'm sorry. Like, it just, you can't fleece the American taxpayer. You can't do it like that. No, it's disturbing. Or he's owned by Israel, or they've threatened him with blackmail, or his life, or maybe somebody in his family. Or maybe it's all of it together. I don't know. I'm not sure. I mean, Tucker's big on the threat. I'm not sure if I believe that.

2:57:57I just think, look, when it comes to matters of the wallet, Trump's always been, you know, very focused on money. And he's been less than forthright about his finances. You know, that's why his CFO went to prison of the Trump organization. Like, there's a reason. There's a history there. I guess I just didn't realize just how grand it would be on the presidential scale. I guess I kind of thought he'd be more like he was in the first administration, where he didn't do all this. Like, he understood that there were eyes on him. And there was the threat of congressional investigation and potentially prosecution hanging over him.

2:58:43Now that we have a Supreme Court ruling saying not much of what you do in your official role as president can be prosecuted, I think he's feeling a little more fancy free. Yep. But he's not going to save himself from congressional investigations, which are going to start the moment the Republicans lose the House in November. You know, that's happening. And that could get ugly for him. So he should watch it a little. And that Trump's sons should watch it. The drone company is problematic. We awarded a military contract to a drone company owned by the sons. The crypto stuff. At a time when their dad is the one prosecuting the war.

2:59:20There are conflicts of interest that are pretty obvious that they should have to justify. Oil shorting. We don't know who's doing that. Or who's getting rich off of that. But we're gonna go after a fucking US service member for a little bet on polymarket. You're absolutely right. That got me$400 ,000. Right, it's not great. We don't want it to happen, but we really don't want it to happen to the tune of millions. And it keeps happening over and over again as a result of reports that get dropped and that turn out to be untrue. You know, we have a deal. Another deal. The Iran war is over. It's over.

2:59:58Didn't you know it's over? It's weird how it's not over. Yeah, no, all of that should be looked into. You know, we need the federal regulators to take a hard look at some of those trades to make sure that they're legit and people haven't just accurately gamed it out without having insider knowledge. Do you think JD has a shot? Yeah, I do. You do? Yeah. Wow. Who do you think has a shot? Someone's going to have to win. I don't even think about it anymore because I don't think it matters. I haven't quite crossed into that level of cynicism yet. I haven't taken the black pill. You know, I'm... I don't know.

3:00:40I think it's... I think I've taken a great pill. I think it's biblical. I really do. What do you mean? Say more. I think we've idolized all these fucking people. Trump, Musk, Biden, whoever. Insert politician, billionaire, elitist, tech bro, whatever. And we're all looking for one person to fix this shit. And we keep propping these fucking people up, and they're corrupt, and this veil's lifting. I mean, in the Epstein, I mean, who knows if it's true or not, but they're talking about eating fucking babies and blood rituals on Epstein Island. Mm-hmm. This shit is biblical. Would you vote for Thomas Massey?

3:01:24Yeah. Do you think he'd be corrupted? I think it's a very good possibility. I don't know. I like to believe there are still some people who are truly committed to their ideals. Look at Rand Paul. I think he's a good example of not easily corruptible. He doesn't care who hates him, and it's a long list. I respect that. I really do. He doesn't care. He'll buck Trump and is therefore loathed by him. But he has a core set of principles inherited from his dad, Ron, that seem genuinely near and dear to him, which I really respect. I still think there are some good men out there and women who could lead in a way we would admire.

3:02:07They're going to get roadblocked, though, aren't they? Yeah, probably. I mean, what are they going to be able to do? I don't know. I'd like to believe we're at the beginning of a sea change where people have had it. you know, maybe Trump will actually lean—it'd be great, actually. I'd love to see him lean into the corruption. Like, go for it. Double down, triple down. Keep—like, do it so much that, you know, Joe Biden set the table with his weird, you know, son and all the deals they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party and everybody else. That was disgusting. The left wouldn't call it out.

3:02:40The right did. Then we had Trump, who's doing some corrupt stuff, and the right won't call it out, but the left is. Like, maybe if it just gets so egregious, we get to the point where it's burned down. And now, like, the only thing that can rise from that, you know, heap of ashes is some sort of honest phoenix. I don't know. I'm always optimistic when it comes to America. I just feel like we won't continue settling for this level of dishonesty and awfulness. Like, we We can't look who look what we came from. You know, look how we were founded. Look what we're about to celebrate as we hit 250. Like it it it should be a good reminder, not with Milli Vanilli playing in the White House, wherever they're going.

3:03:26It's not even a real band. How do they get booked? They never really sing. but with like our own celebrations where we reread that declaration and we remind ourselves what a tyrannical government looks like and how we wouldn't stand for it then and we're not going to stand for it now. You know, they say we get the leaders we need. Well, let's actually do that. Let's actually do that next time around. I don't know, Sean. I just feel like I don't believe these are end times. I believe we're in a crisis. It's not going well, but that it's solvable. It's savable. What happened to Doge? They promised$2 trillion in cuts and they got$200 billion.

3:04:06And then went away because Elon got tired of politics and everybody hating him. That's a tough machine to fight too. You know, in the same way Trump said he was going to fight big agra and big pharma and didn't really, tried dealing with big government and eliminating all those government jobs. Now, we did eliminate some amount of government jobs, but we didn't really... I mean, okay, so we saved$200 billion. Okay, great. But, like, again, look how much we're spending. What's the budget that he just submitted for the Pentagon? $1.5 trillion? I have no idea. Okay. It's like the$200 billion is feeling like a teaspoon in the ocean.

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3:06:31Aura gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at aura.com slash remove. Protect yourself now at aura.com slash remove. um yeah doge was a disappointment he best had said what that's estimated 600 billion dollars in fraud a year yeah 600 billion dollars in fraud a year it doesn't surprise me I mean at least now they're looking at it at least now like there have been some reports about fraud so the government knows the country wants you to pay attention to it. That's positive. Don't you think we're better off on fighting fraud today than we were four years ago?

3:07:20Yes. At least it's a topic of discussion. But, I mean, I don't know. To me, it's like they say that, what's the saying? basically that politics is Hollywood for ugly people. And people who couldn't make it in Hollywood wind up in politics or media. You weren't hot enough or you weren't talented enough or whatever. And so you wound up settling for this very ugly, toxic industry. And it's kind of funny. But the thing is, you can look around the toxic stew everywhere when you're in politics or in media covering it and think, God, everyone's ugly in the truest sense of the word. They're all unattractive.

3:08:05God, they're covered in toxins everywhere. Damaged, unwell people. I'm miserable and this sucks. Or you can look around and be like, it's a toxic stew, but there are some points of light that we have to figure out a way to exploit and elevate to change the general pH balance of this toxic stew. We're going to make the toxic stew better as opposed to just saying, it's toxic and letting it take you under. That's just not the way forward. We can't give up on the whole game because the players are gross. We have to find a way of changing the game and elevating better players. That's just, that has to be the way forward.

3:08:48But I agree with you. I just don't, I just don't, I just don't know how we get there. One soldier at a time.

3:08:58I just, I don't know. I just look at everything that's happening and US dollar potentially getting thrown off for a reserve currency, I think it's going to happen. Yeah, we're in a nation in decline for sure. There's no two ways about it. I mean, China's already the world's superpower. I don't know if anybody's paying attention, but they are. Their economy is growing far faster than ours is. Their trade is huge, like the exports versus the imports. We're making it easy as hell for them to come here in the United States and buy up our land. Guess how much land we owned over there? None. Guess how many university students we have over there?

3:09:38None. Who would want to go? But my point is simply there's just such a gross imbalance that no one seems to care about. So it's already, that ship has already sailed, you know, even militarily. They used to have no ships. It wasn't so long ago they had nothing. Their military was basically non-existent. Now it appears to be bigger and stronger than ours or on its way. and we continue to enable them. So yeah, we are definitely going to lose our status if we haven't already. And we've pissed everybody off. We've pissed Europe off. We've pissed Canada off. We've pissed the Middle East off. We've pissed Asia, obviously, fucking hates us.

3:10:10Russia and China. I mean, now we're fucking around. But you talk about it like it's just not solvable. So what happens? Is it end times? I don't know how do you... I can't blame anybody for not wanting to do business with us for leaving because we're not stable. True, but that doesn't mean we can't reverse some of these policies and courses. Like the Canada thing. You're very focused on Canada. I read this shit and I hear it and I'm like, that's probably bullshit. And then I look it up a little bit and I'm like, oh my God, we're punishing them. We're threatening them with 100 % tariff for dealing with China, but we fucking denied the pipeline to come in here.

3:10:53Like, what is that? Of course they're looking at us like, look at these fucking people. What are they doing? We offered them this shit and they didn't want it. And then, what, four or five years later, they're like, we're going to slap you with 100 % tariffs because of this. They've got to be like, what the fuck do you want us to do? Well, they are. That's why the prime minister made a speech about how this appears to be a new world order where the United States is really changing. its posture in the world. It's not friend of the world. It's not the world's greatest ally. It's certainly not the world's protector.

3:11:29It's every man for himself. Noted. And then now this thing with Cuba. Yeah. You know about this? Yeah. Polymarket says, there's a 49 % chance that we strike Cuba before December 31st, 2026. 3 million plus in trading volume. The crowd is nearly split. 49 % chance the U.S. carries out a strike on Cuba by the year's end. The U.S. cut off Cuba's oil supply in January after capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. And the island has since faced widespread blackouts and fuel shortages. President Trump has publicly stated the U.S. could take over Cuba. On March 19th, the head of U.S. Southern Command told the Senate the military is not rehearsing an invasion.

3:12:16But we are sending a bunch of military assets down there. This is exactly what we did before I ran. Yeah. Well, and so far, our efforts to topple the government via, you know, total economic shutdown have not worked. Although it could be. You know, nobody knows what the hell we're doing in Cuba because Trump hasn't told us. He just keeps saying, I believe I'll have the honor of taking it. So what does that mean? It means we're going to invade it. Does it mean militarily? Does it mean we're just going to increase that, you know, dial up the economic ratchet? They're already in 23 hours of darkness there.

3:12:54They have no oil. We basically forced this by cutting off their oil from Venezuela, which I think was part of our plan. But so far, the regime hasn't collapsed. The people haven't ousted anybody. Now we appear to be getting ready to do a Maduro on Raul Castro, who's 96 years old and no longer in power. I'm not exactly sure how that's going to make them come begging to us on Ben Denis. And also it's going to be a lot tougher. But anyway, we are moving all these military assets to the region and it does look like a preparation for something. But what does it mean? Like, I don't even know what it means.

3:13:27So what, our troops could, quote, take Cuba, I think pretty easily. It's not going to be Iran. They're in very bad shape there right now. But then what? What are we going to do with it? Is this going to be a new state? We run it? Because right now we can't seem to run our own country. Honestly, people can't get to work. The roads suck. The bridges suck. We can't get a university. Everything costs three times as much as it should. Young people can't get jobs. Young, well-educated people cannot get jobs. They can't pay for their health insurance. They're very worried about their groceries and their gas prices and so on.

3:14:03The crime. We can't run our own country. Now we're running Venezuela and Cuba? We're going to run Cuba? Like, how? How's that going to go? Who's going to run it? Like, who exactly? Maybe they're going to turn it into the Gaza Strip. I mean, at least... Make it a big real estate deal. At least Cuba's really beautiful. Like, I don't know. So we're going to bomb Oman, and we're going to invade Cuba and take it over, and maybe make it the 51st state. I don't know, Sean. The president won't tell us. And it's disrespectful. Like, we have the right, before we send our men and women in uniform in there, to know what is the mission.

3:14:43Because we just went through this. We just went through this in Iran. And your attempt to stay nebulous on it didn't pay off. You were forced to offer reasons anyway in the two weeks after the invasion because people were pissed. What are we doing over there? So he just, initially, he tried to sort of throw darts at the board and say, it's this. No, it's that. It's regime change. It's the nuclear thing. It didn't work. They've been our enemies for 47 years. Yeah. Well, we're fucking funding one right now, the Taliban, which is where that flag came from. And we're sending them$40 to$80 million a week.

3:15:20That thing's amazing. We're literally funding that fucking enemy, but nobody gives a shit. And they're gonna listen to this fucking crap that he says about Iran being our enemy for 47 years, which they were. A lot of my friends have been killed by her. Yep. Well, that's what he was banking on, is the American people's empathy for our own guys. And we remember, we have a long memory for the Americans who were killed by Iranian-backed, funded IEDs. It's not what it's about. Otherwise, we wouldn't be funding them. Correct. It's definitely not what it's about. And we're not gonna know. Cuba, we're gonna wake up one day, and there's gonna be an announcement that we took it.

3:16:01Like Midnight Hammer. Yeah, but like, the problem— We just decided to do this. We don't have a plan. There's no long-term plan. There was no long-term plan on Iran. And I don't believe there's a long-term plan on Cuba. You know, the best thing we have going for us there is, Marco Rubio seems to have been focused on Cuba his entire life. So maybe he'll at least say, yo, we need to have a really good plan for after we send the troops in and take it. Because I don't think Trump really likes the follow-through portion. of the invasions. You know, he doesn't really like having to deal with the remnants of the bombs.

3:16:39And that's always the case. You know, it was Stan McChrystal, General McChrystal, who said, when we first went into Iran, you know, it was a little tongue in cheek, but he basically said, if you like this war and, you know, you're enjoying watching our, you know, the power and might of the American military, enjoy it. Enjoy it while you can, because the bomb dropping phase of the war is always the best phase. it doesn't get any easier or better from here. And boy, did that turn out to be true. Look at us now. It is a quagmire, and we don't know how to solve it, and we don't have the upper hand, and the Iranians know it.

3:17:14So maybe the solution is to go start something in Cuba and see what's going on. I don't even know. Just to get a win? Yeah, that's how it's looking. That's a spike the ball in the end zone moment for him, potentially, because it's not like Iran. It doesn't have 90 ,000 people and a strong fucking group of insurgents who will never give up. It's a different kind of, it's more traditional in its military defenses. And the American military can handle that, I think, more easily than it can handle the nonstop drone supply. And instead of using a nuclear weapon, they found a nuclear option, which is the Strait of Hormuz.

3:17:54I don't think that it's available in Cuba. I have no idea. I'd love to hear somebody spell it out for me. I actually don't want to talk about Cuba. I don't want to think about Cuba. I'm with Sarah. I'm done with the Strait of Hormuth. I don't want to think about them or Cuba. I want to think about myself, my family, and my country. That's what I want to think about. What's good for us? Well, how do we get out of this then? What's the real solution? Well, it's very good that Trump has started to say he wants to be out of it. That's great news. He has realized this is a mistake. There's no question.

3:18:27Otherwise, he'd be leaning into the neocon pressure to do more bombing. You know, they're all in a freak out now. Like, oh my God, they can see he's about to open up the financial spigot to Iran to get them to give up the straight. He's like, well, loosen all the sanctions on your money that we've had in place all these years. And they're like, great, we're going to be rich again. Just got to give up the straight. Well, the neocons are not wrong that that puts Iran in a better position than it was before we started this war, where they weren't in control of the straight and we had their money.

3:18:58You know, like now how are we better off with that deal than when we were sitting across the table from them? They didn't control the straight and we still had their money locked up and we were just negotiating about how little nuclear they could enrich. That's Trump would give anything to be back at that deal right now. They won. So, well, yeah, look, it's good that some of their military assets have been decimated. I'm not against that you know they're not good people they've been killing our people so like I'm not against that but like that's somewhat better the June strike definitely did damage to the nuclear facilities that was good I actually supported that it's a very different thing than this war so I guess some good has been done towards stopping the potential of a nuclear threat in Iran let's take that as a W it's a fake W but let's just take it and get out and I think Trump's there as he sees he's underwater with literally every group and his poll numbers are literally the lowest they've ever been.

3:19:57His disapproval rating now is the highest it's ever been in two terms. It's higher than after January 6th. Wow. So he sees that. I mean, he's going to be a lame duck even sooner than the midterms if these numbers keep going lower. You know, he's losing Republicans now. The only area left to lose is Republicans. The Democrats, of course, are gone. All the independents are gone. They're against Trump now into the mid to high 70s. So you've got one tiny sliver of independents who might still be open-minded to you, and one tiny sliver of, that's the core MAGA. You can't lose that, or you can't govern at all.

3:20:33Even your executive orders are going to be scoffed at and potentially not followed. So he has accurately deduced he does need to wrap it up. He's not listening to the neocons who are like right now saying, Double down, bomb them to smithereens. You know, remember when you said unconditional surrender? That's what we need. Because we can't open up the financial spigot in exchange for the Strait of Hormuz. Let's take the strait. Let's keep the spigot closed. Let's insist that they give us the nuclear dust. They want maximum return on this investment. And Trump has realized that's not realistic. That's good news.

3:21:08That's great. We should be encouraging him to lean into that instinct. And I think in some way, shape or form, the Iran conflict has to wrap up because he knows it. Politically, he knows it. Cuba, I don't know. I really hope somebody explains to me what he's thinking. Like, it's very hard to make an assessment from here. I met the whole country. How do we, how do we re-correct? How do we get on the right course? How do we get out from Israel's thumb? How do we stop this? How do we stop the forever wars? How do we, it just, how do we get the pulse back to where it needs to be? Nothing's on the right track.

3:21:52That's why I think voting for, I mean, get them in in onesies and twosies, I just don't feel like they're going to last. I feel like it needs to be a new party, but that's already been tried. Or there can be a resting of control within the existing parties. You know, it's already starting to happen. You know, the America first wing of the Republican Party is growing in influence, in numbers. That's good. That's better than having the Mark Levin Party run our foreign policy, which is what's happening right now. The Democrat Party's changing, too. They're getting a little less swampy and having some more interesting players come out of their team.

3:22:39No one so far who I would vote for. Like I said, Rahm Emanuel's not really part of that new wing. But they're reinventing, which is interesting. I just think, look, we've made it 250 years. We're not going to implode in the next five or 10 or 50. it's tough to turn an aircraft carrier around and that's the course we're on the aircraft carrier where we've pissed off all of our friends you know the value of the dollar is what it is we're in 33 trillion dollars worth of debt you know like that that's going to be tough to solve but i do think number one shrinking government will help number two the laws of natural consequences where change does tend to follow massive upheaval and upset.

3:23:25And people are feeling that. You know, the Iran war was a bridge too far for millions of Americans. I do think, like, the neocon era is done. We thought it was done with the election of Trump. Clearly it wasn't. But I do think the answers on those questions are going to be very clear deal breakers in the next No one who starts talking about their commitment to Israel has a chance in hell of getting elected. They just don't. So don't you think Israel would just pay them to not talk about it until they win? They're not gonna have a choice. It's going to be shoved in their faces by the media. This is something that happened with the Crenshaw thing.

3:24:01I fucking hate that guy, but everybody wanted me to bring his opponent on to crush him. And I was like, I'm not. I don't care how much I can't stand Dan Crenshaw. I'm not bringing his opponent on. I don't know shit about him. and I'm not going to vouch for him just because I hate this guy. And sure as shit, he gets in there and the first thing he does is start spouting his fucking allegiance to Israel. Oh, my God. So thank God I didn't do that. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. I didn't hear a word about that shit until he won. Yeah. I just don't think that you're going to get away with that anymore.

3:24:37Not with these approval ratings within the Dem, Independent, and Republican parties now. It was never an issue before, Sean, especially in GOP politics. Trust me, I've been near or in them for a long, long time. And there was zero downside to saying that you were 100 % pro-Israel in the Republican Party for my entire time at Fox News and beyond. Zero downside. That's why you've got so many statements by Ted Cruz and others like, there is no daylight between me and Israel. You know, I hope to be the number one most loyal to Israel senator there is. Why would you even say that? Because there was no downside to that as a Republican.

3:25:13It was always like the weird Democrats who loved our Muslim adversaries who hated Israel because they were anti-Semites. That was the narrative. And the Republican Party was always like, Israel's the only democracy in the West, that they're fighting the same enemies we are, that they have the same values, Judeo-Christian, that, you know, that's a stronghold for us too, that they cooperate with us on intelligence. And a lot of that is true. I mean, they did cooperate with us on intelligence, and we paid a very high price for that. It turns out some of those Middle Eastern Arab nations or Muslim nations may not be quite as hateful and dangerous to the United States as we were led to believe.

3:25:55It's not to give radical Islam a pass. I'm against it. But there is a version of Muslim statehood that we can work with, and that doesn't need to be demonized as entirely bad and an enemy. You're not allowed to say that. That's a no for Israel. You know, they're already talking about, what about Turkey? Might have to invade Turkey. Okay. Trump's latest greatest idea is to force Saudi Arabia and all these other countries to join the Abraham Accords. He says Iran's going to join. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Just the utter nonsense. But I just think these issues are now front and center in the Republican Party in a way I've never seen before.

3:26:42I don't think. I know. I know that's the case. It's going to sound very different the next big election, 28, the presidential contest, where we flesh out the issues. Trust me, I've been there on the debate stage with these candidates where the media and the candidates get to decide what's important to America. And they are driven there by the populace and what messages they've sent. And Israel's 100 % going to be one of those big issues. I hope so. It's one of the few bright sides of this whole thing. All right. Well, I hope you're right. I'll come back in late 28. Sounds good. As we're getting close to the election.

3:27:31Hopefully we have some decent candidates. And we can fact check this entire segment. We can talk about what predictions came true. If we still have jobs. We'll have jobs. If AI hasn't replaced us. I already put in an application to be a trash man, so. Smart move. If I get replaced by AI, I hope she's a lot younger and more energetic.

3:27:56man well megan i really appreciate you coming and this was an awesome conversation thank you thanks sean it's great to see you thanks for all the great work you're doing you too everyone loves you you too let's go blow some shit up cool

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