August 14, 2025 • 17 mins
Jerremy and Dave expose Trump's EPA climate rollbacks, slamming wasteful solar and wind grants in mismatched spots while advocating nuclear pushes and grid overhauls amid "drill baby drill" rhetoric. They highlight Ukraine's brutal conscription scraping 60-year-olds, Russia's nuclear stockpile, and the "no military solution" reality—rejecting escalation for negotiated peace, with territorial swaps as a wildcard in foreign policy stakes.
Timestamps:
- (00:00) EPA Climate Rollback and Deregulation Push
- (00:01:36) Solar Farms North of the Line: Economic Mismatch
- (00:02:18) Wind Farms in Windless Spots: Grant Grabs Exposed
- (00:02:57) Drill Baby Drill vs. Energy Independence Reality
- (00:06:53) Trump–Putin Territorial Swaps: Historical Precedent
- (00:14:11) Ukraine's Draft Age Hike to 60: Desperation Mode
- (00:15:27) Nuclear Risks with Russia's 9,500 Warheads
- (00:16:26) No Military Win: Push for Negotiated Peace
- (00:16:50) Conclusion and Final Thoughts
📢 Solving America’s Problems Podcast – Real Solutions For Real Issues
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex (00:00):
“Energy choices at home, ripple effects abroad—today’s
stories prove they’re inseparable.
From solar farms in unlikely places to ahigh-stakes Trump-Putin meeting and the
brutal math of the Ukraine war, Dave andJerremy pull the thread on how one policy
decision can echo across the world.”
Dave Conley (00:17):
Here's one I wanted to talk about.
EPA climate rollback, bush draftmoves would unwind clean energy grants
and emission rules pitched as growthfriendly deregulation, opponents see
long run costs and science sidelined.
Okay, so actually.
I'm gonna just speak off the cuff onthis one because I don't know anything
more than this because I was talkingto my sister yesterday and she was like
(00:40):
quite informed on this and she's verymuch a, a New York Times cover to cover
reader and I said, man, everythingthat I've heard about this is twofold.
One is that the administrationvery much campaigned on,
look, let's get clean water.
Let's get clean air.
Let's be actually conservativearound these things.
These are the, gonna be the environmentalpushes that we are on, and we
(01:02):
wanna reform the electricity grid.
That's something we need to do in allsorts of ways, not only for energy
transmission and saving energy and all theenergy we need for ai but also if we get
like a solar flare, then we're screwed.
So we need to do this anyways.
Big push on nuclear.
Like these were the big things andthat solar and wind, like they're
(01:25):
not continuous and they're a problem.
And this was the piece that I reallykeyed on was not so much that was,
she was driving back from Vermont.
She was driving Vermont toWashington, DC and I said, how
many solar farms have you seen?
He said, and she said,they're all over the place.
And I'm like that's a problem.
Because solar you need to draw a lineon a map basically in North Carolina,
(01:46):
South Carolina, and then like downand over across the United States.
These are the placeswhere solar makes sense.
And she goes, what do you mean?
I said, above that line, you're toofar north and the weather isn't right.
And she's what?
He's they don't get enough solar.
And so like they've gotten all thesefederal grants to put all these solar
farms up way too far north where theydon't make any economic sense unless
(02:09):
the government is actually supplyingthe cash to make 'em make sense
Jerremy Newsome (02:13):
yeah.
Dave Conley (02:14):
There's literally not enough light, and they're
putting them up everywhere.
They're putting up wind farms in placesthat don't have wind because there's
only actually a few places in the UnitedStates where it actually makes sense, or
offshore, which is like its own big deal.
So this is just this money grabof these companies and counties
to get all these funds for thingsthat don't make much sense.
(02:36):
And I'm like, okay, thatsounds like the right thing.
But on the other side of this is thechaos of I'm not seeing the nuclear push,
I'm not seeing the reforming the grid.
I'm not seeing like the cleanair, clean water, clean stuff.
So it's like all the environmentalstuff that they said that they
were gonna do, I'm not seeing,and the environmental stuff that
they are doing seems like chaos.
(02:56):
You've got, what you've gotta say to that.
Jerremy Newsome (02:58):
yeah.
I was say you summed it up.
There's, I don't think there's any realsurprise that that's gonna be definitely
lower on his item list of things toaccomplish is gonna be the energy piece.
Trump's never been a hugeadvocate for amazing energy, clean
Dave Conley (03:15):
It's like drill, baby drill, and I'm like, do we need any more oil?
We are actually the largestoil producer on the planet.
We are completely energy independent.
We are completely energy independent.
Jerremy Newsome (03:27):
Yep.
Tons and tons of oil.
So yeah, I don't think we need a lot.
And again, there was a lot ofpeople that are like, oh man,
that's gonna make oil stocks go up.
And I was like, maybe shortterm, 'cause it's a hype and it's
excitement, but if you have moresupply, prices is gonna go down.
Or it's supposed to.
So you would think that thestock prices would go down also.
But from the perspective of wind farming,I think it's a really fascinating piece.
(03:52):
'cause I have heard that a lotfrom relatively closely connected
individuals who work on renewableenergy systems, or it's like wind.
As we have it right now, peoplealways talk about solar and how
inefficient it is generally, noone really ever craps on wind.
But the five or six guys that I'vetalked to that are very scholared in this
(04:14):
field are like, yeah, man wind's awful.
Dave Conley (04:17):
I just know that they look awful, right?
Like down in southern California,like driving just about anywhere
I going from LA to, where was it?
Palm Springs.
It's, like every time I see thesegiant things, I'm like, oh my God,
they look and I'm like, I dunno.
Jerremy Newsome (04:32):
that great.
Dave Conley (04:32):
And they're not that great, is what you're saying.
Jerremy Newsome (04:34):
they're not that great.
They take a lot to maintain.
They're very hard to fix.
They're always moving, right?
So it's like a,
Dave Conley (04:41):
Right.
Jerremy Newsome (04:41):
gonna have things that break down, but the other fun part is
they're not always moving because we can'treally determine when the wind blows.
Dave Conley (04:46):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (04:48):
The hilarious part about energy and Elon said
this like probably two years ago.
goes, this whole solar cleanenergy thing is very easy to solve.
If you take, it was like 14,000hectare, which is essentially
like a small corner of Utah,
Dave Conley (05:03):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (05:03):
and he goes, just put it all with the entire thing with solar,
Dave Conley (05:08):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (05:08):
the entire country
Dave Conley (05:09):
And it's sunny.
Jerremy Newsome (05:10):
It's always sunny,
Dave Conley (05:11):
yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (05:12):
like 99% of the year sun is rampant
Dave Conley (05:17):
Love it.
Jerremy Newsome (05:17):
going anywhere
Dave Conley (05:18):
Love it.
Jerremy Newsome (05:19):
for the next 4 billion years at least.
Yeah.
So like the whole wind thingis, but anyway, saying all
that to your point correct.
Like think that anyone that works on theenergy piece and I do have a lot of really
interesting connections in the energyfield because in my opinion, I do think.
The reason that most of it is doneimproperly or poorly is very close to
(05:42):
what you said is it's a money grab,
Dave Conley (05:44):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (05:44):
because we could change so many policies right now, but those
policies, they're being paid for by bigoil, and they're being paid for by the
same individuals that are essentiallylabeling oil as a fossil fuel and saying
that, oh, we have a very small amountbecause dinosaurs died for this, 35
(06:04):
Ago.
And we have this tiny, itty bitty littleline on the earth that has oil, when
in reality it's probably of miles.
Like the Earth's crustis only 16 miles thick.
Everything under below that youcan start getting access to oil on.
Like we have so much.
So they're working on limiting the supply.
They're working on limiting the price.
(06:26):
The ironic part is I think we havetons and tons of supply out there
for all kinds of different things.
should we do something that'sdirty, that is, invasive?
That is dangerous, right?
Dave Conley (06:38):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (06:39):
there's a lot of oil spills that happen all the time, but
like you can just do clean energy.
Put Utah the very bottom of Utah.
Boom, solar field done.
No one lives there anyway.
now the entire US
Is fed by solar energy.
Dave Conley (06:54):
Love it.
I, yeah, I don't get it.
That'll be our energyseries that we'll do 'cause
Jerremy Newsome (07:01):
We got some good energy series.
That's gonna be fun.
Dave Conley (07:03):
and we got some great people in that space.
We've already interviewed some of themwho are in, like solid in that space.
Okay.
Trump.
Putin Alaska Summit.
Now I, again, I've been out ofthe news cycle and like I wrote
you political briefs on this.
I don't know, this has beengoing on for three years.
I probably wrote the first briefon this two years ago for you.
(07:27):
Okay.
So what's, what is this thing?
Putin's coming to Alaska.
That's all I really know.
He's coming to Alaska.
He's wanting to talk about the war.
I have very strong opinions on this,but what do you know about this
Jerremy Newsome (07:39):
I don't know very much.
I can say this, it was not in my bingocard of things I would've said Putin
Trump, Alaskan Energy Peace Summit.
That wasn't on my list.
Yeah, I think it's this week, man.
He's meeting Putin,
Dave Conley (07:52):
Friday?
Yeah.
Putin meets Trump to end Ukraine,war with territorial swaps.
Translation Ukraine losesDonbas and Crimea forever.
Zelensky warns of nothingwithout Ukraine present.
European allies.
See Munich 1938.
Oh my God.
Ah,
Jerremy Newsome (08:08):
Yeah.
Dave Conley (08:09):
all right.
I could talk about this for days.
Jerremy Newsome (08:13):
Yeah.
Gimme your brief overview onwhat your thoughts are on it.
Dave Conley (08:15):
Okay.
Ultimately, it comes down to this.
There is no military solution to this.
There never has been, period.
You cannot solve this with bullets.
There are not enough bullets that youcan possibly do in order to solve this in
any, this always would've been negotiated.
And it, shame on us.
(08:37):
There's a great book called Unproprovoked, which is gonna be on your
reading list, on my reading list thatreally outlines the history of this
going back at least to the nineties.
That has caused this disasterand created a lot of tension
where it didn't need to happen.
And yes this invasion was absolutelyillegal and it didn't ever need to happen.
(09:02):
So NATO and European countries arefreaked out that the Russians are
going to take Ukraine and then they'rejust gonna roll through Europe.
And I'm like this demonstrates an absolutelack of understanding of Russian mentality
(09:24):
and what Russians actually are like.
Russians love figuring out a way to dosomething and they keep doing it forever.
If you look at any kind of currenttechnology for Russian, if they, if
they show you a, a, a control roomof their state-of-the-art thing,
they'll have these old switches andbe like, man, when was that built?
(09:45):
And they'll be like, oh, I don't know.
2020.
It'll be the old switches like, you,you, in films of, the Apollo crews, it
looks like it's built out of the 1950sbecause Russians have a technology.
Is bulletproof.
And they're like, we're gonna use this.
We're gonna keep on doing it.
They love that.
And when it they profoundly dislike,uh, continuing evolution of things
(10:09):
because they're like, okay, if wekeep on evolving this, then it's
just gonna break in the future.
It's like, we don't knowif this works or not.
We know that this works in the keep doingit and this is the mentality the Russian.
Controlled all of EasternEurope for 40 years.
It cost an enormous amount of moneya enormous amount of horsepower,
a lot of people, and they failed.
(10:31):
They have no desire to go back in therebecause it is like, it didn't work.
And when the Russians run up againstsomething that doesn't work, they stop.
They're like, ah, we'renot doing that again.
The Russians find something thatdoes work and then they go harder.
And then when it doesn't seem likeit's working, they keep going harder.
(10:53):
They throw people at it and theyhave unlimited numbers of people.
That's what's going on in Ukraine rightnow is like it's working because they
can grind down this area by throwingmore and more people at it, because
they have an unlimited number ofsoldiers to throw at this for years.
And they can just grind through.
The area and basically leaveit completely failed state.
(11:15):
So this always had to be negotiated andit always had to be negotiated where the
Eastern Donbass the eastern part whichwas primarily aligned with, you know,
Russian and Russian values anyways, right?
Like they're historically Russian,they're gonna be left independent
like, look, you're not gonna lineyourself with the east, you're not
(11:35):
gonna line yourself with Russia.
You're gonna be independent andyou're just gonna do your thing.
Uh, and you're gonna act asa buffer because this is what
freaks out the Russians, right?
Like it's their, their soft underbellybecause the geography is completely
flat between Ukraine and Moscow.
And the Russians are like, ah, we don'twant anything rolling through there.
And there's like a natural choke pointright there on the Eastern Ukraine border.
(11:58):
So that's why they are so hell.
On this particular area.
And Ukraine to begin with, theydo not care about Western Ukraine,
which is actually much more Western.
But they are worried about nato.
They're like, look, this nuclearthreat, and like getting all the NATO
countries, it's like, we don't need that.
So they're like, look,don't put 'em in nato.
You can put 'em in in, in the eu.
(12:20):
We don't give a shit about that.
You know, you can have the economic ties.
We don't give a shit about that,but just leave them neutral.
This has always been on their tip.
And the Ukrainians right now are like,no, we're gonna be a part of nato.
No, we're gonna be part ofEurope and we want all of it.
And they're like, the Russians are likeyet, and we're just gonna keep, you
know, like we're gonna just keep ongrinding it, you know, screw you guys.
(12:43):
You know, and there's nothing theycan do because they can't throw
enough bodies at it in Ukraine.
Easiest, you know, best estimate that wegot is a million people have already died.
So we have routed the best.
Youngest and brightest ofUkrainian youth and the rest of
(13:04):
them are scattered into Europe.
They're here in Miami.
They're they're, they'rehiding out, right?
Like they fled the country if theycould, and they are partying it up.
They, you would have to cancel allof the green cards, all of the, the
visas all over Europe, all over theUnited States, and send everybody back
to Ukraine in order for Ukraine toactually hold on for a little bit longer.
(13:26):
And the Russians will bethere and just grind it out.
Never has been a military solution.
They need to be theyabsolutely have to be talking.
The Europeans don't clearlydon't understand the Russians.
Uh.
It's madness madness, madness.
And a million people have diedunnecessarily because it was
always gonna end up in negotiation.
So I'm optimistic thatat least they're talking.
(13:48):
I don't know if anything's gonna happenof it, because right now Ukraine has
their own internal politics and theyhaven't had an election in a long time.
You know, the most of the, the lastopinion polls came out and said, look,
we do, you know, like the populationreally wants to, end this, the Ukrainians
are now drafting the draft age.
(14:10):
I'll give you gimme a wild guess.
What do you think the draft agemeaning like they're going and
finding these people and saying,okay, we're giving you a gun.
What do you think that age is right now?
Jerremy Newsome (14:17):
By the tone of your question, it can't be 18,
so it has to be lower, but God,I hope it's not lower than 16
Dave Conley (14:25):
Other direction?
Jerremy Newsome (14:27):
higher.
Okay.
Dave Conley (14:29):
They already got the 18 year olds.
So how high do they go?
This is, yeah,
Jerremy Newsome (14:33):
Got it.
Dave Conley (14:34):
is right Rules here.
Jerremy Newsome (14:35):
Oh, man.
Dave Conley (14:36):
what's,
Jerremy Newsome (14:37):
high?
Dave Conley (14:38):
high
Jerremy Newsome (14:39):
No, wait.
They could be go, they're going over 45.
Dave Conley (14:42):
They already hit 45.
That was already their number.
Jerremy Newsome (14:46):
65.
Dave Conley (14:48):
60, 60 years old.
If you are 60 years old, they'reputting a gun in your hand and they're
already, they've already cleanedout, like the folks that are mentally
disabled, you know, like, it is like,oh shit, you don't wanna be giving
them a a, that's sad, you know, likethey're already scraping that out.
So there's only threeoptions on the table.
The first is keep.
(15:09):
Feeding this beast.
We sent $250 million worth of highquality American arms over there in the
last few weeks, meaning patriot missilebatteries, like very high end stuff.
Stuff that the previous administrationrefused to do because they were offensive
weapons that could reach Moscow.
We just loaded it up andsent it over and here you go.
(15:30):
Keep on feeding the beast andgrinding Ukraine into oblivion.
The second option, is gettingNATO involved with a nuclear power
that has 9,500 nuclear weapons.
Like we are so closeto nuclear Armageddon.
I can't even tell you, this was oneof my big deals of being like, okay,
Jerremy Newsome (15:50):
Yep.
Dave Conley (15:50):
like Biden and Harris were awful at this and I couldn't
believe it could get worse, andit actually has gotten worse,
but at least now they're talking.
So it's completely ciph.
Your third option is negotiated peace.
Uh, so you choose one.
I think the first two suck.
And right now that'sexactly where we're at.
Jerremy Newsome (16:10):
Got it.
Dave Conley (16:11):
That's what I got.
Jerremy Newsome (16:12):
You.
That was a great debrief.
I appreciate that.
I'm
Dave Conley (16:15):
can't know.
There is no military solutionand there never has been.
And that's what is so upsetting to me
Jerremy Newsome (16:24):
And there, would you say there, there never
would be either though, right?
Dave Conley (16:27):
There is no military solution other than getting NATO involved.
Boots on the ground, a Europeanwar, and it was like, we've
already had two of those.
They didn't end up very well.
A lot of people got killed.
The only big difference here is thateverybody has nuclear weapons now.
I'm not touching that.
I'm not going into a shootingwar with a nuclear power.
(16:47):
That's bonkers.
Jerremy Newsome (16:49):
Yeah.
Dave Conley (16:49):
John Heimer he is my favorite, best, most amazing
political, and he keeps on being right.
He's been right for 30 years.
Professor of political science theUniversity of Chicago, one of the youngest
tenured professors back in the eighties.
He's my man.
I just nod vigorously everytime he opens his mouth.
Jerremy Newsome (17:07):
Yeah.
Dave Conley (17:08):
All right.
What's our next topic?
Jerremy Newsome (17:10):
Two other things because yeah, to your point, extremely interested
to see how the that conversation goes
Dave Conley (17:15):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (17:15):
Let's just hope for the best in that situation.
I just got an alert fromCNBC that Trump is extending.
The 90 day tariff pause truths with China.
So that was a real update.
Dave Conley (17:30):
Okay.
Jerremy Newsome (17:31):
We said it was gonna, it was over tomorrow, and they're like
we're gonna keep pushing it for 90 days.
So again, this is game that he's playing.
So that's fun.
Alex (17:38):
“A million lives lost, energy decisions echoing across
continents—those are big stakes.
Now, we bring it home (17:44):
safety nets under fire, fresh urban solutions,
and the reforms that test whatgovernment truly owes its people.”
“Energy choices at home, ripple effects abroad—today’s
stories prove they’re inseparable.
From solar farms in unlikely places to ahigh-stakes Trump-Putin meeting and the
brutal math of the Ukraine war, Dave andJerremy pull the thread on how one policy
decision can echo across the world.”
Dave Conley (00:17):
Here's one I wanted to talk about.
EPA climate rollback, bush draftmoves would unwind clean energy grants
and emission rules pitched as growthfriendly deregulation, opponents see
long run costs and science sidelined.
Okay, so actually.
I'm gonna just speak off the cuff onthis one because I don't know anything
more than this because I was talkingto my sister yesterday and she was like
(00:40):
quite informed on this and she's verymuch a, a New York Times cover to cover
reader and I said, man, everythingthat I've heard about this is twofold.
One is that the administrationvery much campaigned on,
look, let's get clean water.
Let's get clean air.
Let's be actually conservativearound these things.
These are the, gonna be the environmentalpushes that we are on, and we
(01:02):
wanna reform the electricity grid.
That's something we need to do in allsorts of ways, not only for energy
transmission and saving energy and all theenergy we need for ai but also if we get
like a solar flare, then we're screwed.
So we need to do this anyways.
Big push on nuclear.
Like these were the big things andthat solar and wind, like they're
(01:25):
not continuous and they're a problem.
And this was the piece that I reallykeyed on was not so much that was,
she was driving back from Vermont.
She was driving Vermont toWashington, DC and I said, how
many solar farms have you seen?
He said, and she said,they're all over the place.
And I'm like that's a problem.
Because solar you need to draw a lineon a map basically in North Carolina,
(01:46):
South Carolina, and then like downand over across the United States.
These are the placeswhere solar makes sense.
And she goes, what do you mean?
I said, above that line, you're toofar north and the weather isn't right.
And she's what?
He's they don't get enough solar.
And so like they've gotten all thesefederal grants to put all these solar
farms up way too far north where theydon't make any economic sense unless
(02:09):
the government is actually supplyingthe cash to make 'em make sense
Jerremy Newsome (02:13):
yeah.
Dave Conley (02:14):
There's literally not enough light, and they're
putting them up everywhere.
They're putting up wind farms in placesthat don't have wind because there's
only actually a few places in the UnitedStates where it actually makes sense, or
offshore, which is like its own big deal.
So this is just this money grabof these companies and counties
to get all these funds for thingsthat don't make much sense.
(02:36):
And I'm like, okay, thatsounds like the right thing.
But on the other side of this is thechaos of I'm not seeing the nuclear push,
I'm not seeing the reforming the grid.
I'm not seeing like the cleanair, clean water, clean stuff.
So it's like all the environmentalstuff that they said that they
were gonna do, I'm not seeing,and the environmental stuff that
they are doing seems like chaos.
(02:56):
You've got, what you've gotta say to that.
Jerremy Newsome (02:58):
yeah.
I was say you summed it up.
There's, I don't think there's any realsurprise that that's gonna be definitely
lower on his item list of things toaccomplish is gonna be the energy piece.
Trump's never been a hugeadvocate for amazing energy, clean
Dave Conley (03:15):
It's like drill, baby drill, and I'm like, do we need any more oil?
We are actually the largestoil producer on the planet.
We are completely energy independent.
We are completely energy independent.
Jerremy Newsome (03:27):
Yep.
Tons and tons of oil.
So yeah, I don't think we need a lot.
And again, there was a lot ofpeople that are like, oh man,
that's gonna make oil stocks go up.
And I was like, maybe shortterm, 'cause it's a hype and it's
excitement, but if you have moresupply, prices is gonna go down.
Or it's supposed to.
So you would think that thestock prices would go down also.
But from the perspective of wind farming,I think it's a really fascinating piece.
(03:52):
'cause I have heard that a lotfrom relatively closely connected
individuals who work on renewableenergy systems, or it's like wind.
As we have it right now, peoplealways talk about solar and how
inefficient it is generally, noone really ever craps on wind.
But the five or six guys that I'vetalked to that are very scholared in this
(04:14):
field are like, yeah, man wind's awful.
Dave Conley (04:17):
I just know that they look awful, right?
Like down in southern California,like driving just about anywhere
I going from LA to, where was it?
Palm Springs.
It's, like every time I see thesegiant things, I'm like, oh my God,
they look and I'm like, I dunno.
Jerremy Newsome (04:32):
that great.
Dave Conley (04:32):
And they're not that great, is what you're saying.
Jerremy Newsome (04:34):
they're not that great.
They take a lot to maintain.
They're very hard to fix.
They're always moving, right?
So it's like a,
Dave Conley (04:41):
Right.
Jerremy Newsome (04:41):
gonna have things that break down, but the other fun part is
they're not always moving because we can'treally determine when the wind blows.
Dave Conley (04:46):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (04:48):
The hilarious part about energy and Elon said
this like probably two years ago.
goes, this whole solar cleanenergy thing is very easy to solve.
If you take, it was like 14,000hectare, which is essentially
like a small corner of Utah,
Dave Conley (05:03):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (05:03):
and he goes, just put it all with the entire thing with solar,
Dave Conley (05:08):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (05:08):
the entire country
Dave Conley (05:09):
And it's sunny.
Jerremy Newsome (05:10):
It's always sunny,
Dave Conley (05:11):
yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (05:12):
like 99% of the year sun is rampant
Dave Conley (05:17):
Love it.
Jerremy Newsome (05:17):
going anywhere
Dave Conley (05:18):
Love it.
Jerremy Newsome (05:19):
for the next 4 billion years at least.
Yeah.
So like the whole wind thingis, but anyway, saying all
that to your point correct.
Like think that anyone that works on theenergy piece and I do have a lot of really
interesting connections in the energyfield because in my opinion, I do think.
The reason that most of it is doneimproperly or poorly is very close to
(05:42):
what you said is it's a money grab,
Dave Conley (05:44):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (05:44):
because we could change so many policies right now, but those
policies, they're being paid for by bigoil, and they're being paid for by the
same individuals that are essentiallylabeling oil as a fossil fuel and saying
that, oh, we have a very small amountbecause dinosaurs died for this, 35
(06:04):
Ago.
And we have this tiny, itty bitty littleline on the earth that has oil, when
in reality it's probably of miles.
Like the Earth's crustis only 16 miles thick.
Everything under below that youcan start getting access to oil on.
Like we have so much.
So they're working on limiting the supply.
They're working on limiting the price.
(06:26):
The ironic part is I think we havetons and tons of supply out there
for all kinds of different things.
should we do something that'sdirty, that is, invasive?
That is dangerous, right?
Dave Conley (06:38):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (06:39):
there's a lot of oil spills that happen all the time, but
like you can just do clean energy.
Put Utah the very bottom of Utah.
Boom, solar field done.
No one lives there anyway.
now the entire US
Is fed by solar energy.
Dave Conley (06:54):
Love it.
I, yeah, I don't get it.
That'll be our energyseries that we'll do 'cause
Jerremy Newsome (07:01):
We got some good energy series.
That's gonna be fun.
Dave Conley (07:03):
and we got some great people in that space.
We've already interviewed some of themwho are in, like solid in that space.
Okay.
Trump.
Putin Alaska Summit.
Now I, again, I've been out ofthe news cycle and like I wrote
you political briefs on this.
I don't know, this has beengoing on for three years.
I probably wrote the first briefon this two years ago for you.
(07:27):
Okay.
So what's, what is this thing?
Putin's coming to Alaska.
That's all I really know.
He's coming to Alaska.
He's wanting to talk about the war.
I have very strong opinions on this,but what do you know about this
Jerremy Newsome (07:39):
I don't know very much.
I can say this, it was not in my bingocard of things I would've said Putin
Trump, Alaskan Energy Peace Summit.
That wasn't on my list.
Yeah, I think it's this week, man.
He's meeting Putin,
Dave Conley (07:52):
Friday?
Yeah.
Putin meets Trump to end Ukraine,war with territorial swaps.
Translation Ukraine losesDonbas and Crimea forever.
Zelensky warns of nothingwithout Ukraine present.
European allies.
See Munich 1938.
Oh my God.
Ah,
Jerremy Newsome (08:08):
Yeah.
Dave Conley (08:09):
all right.
I could talk about this for days.
Jerremy Newsome (08:13):
Yeah.
Gimme your brief overview onwhat your thoughts are on it.
Dave Conley (08:15):
Okay.
Ultimately, it comes down to this.
There is no military solution to this.
There never has been, period.
You cannot solve this with bullets.
There are not enough bullets that youcan possibly do in order to solve this in
any, this always would've been negotiated.
And it, shame on us.
(08:37):
There's a great book called Unproprovoked, which is gonna be on your
reading list, on my reading list thatreally outlines the history of this
going back at least to the nineties.
That has caused this disasterand created a lot of tension
where it didn't need to happen.
And yes this invasion was absolutelyillegal and it didn't ever need to happen.
(09:02):
So NATO and European countries arefreaked out that the Russians are
going to take Ukraine and then they'rejust gonna roll through Europe.
And I'm like this demonstrates an absolutelack of understanding of Russian mentality
(09:24):
and what Russians actually are like.
Russians love figuring out a way to dosomething and they keep doing it forever.
If you look at any kind of currenttechnology for Russian, if they, if
they show you a, a, a control roomof their state-of-the-art thing,
they'll have these old switches andbe like, man, when was that built?
(09:45):
And they'll be like, oh, I don't know.
2020.
It'll be the old switches like, you,you, in films of, the Apollo crews, it
looks like it's built out of the 1950sbecause Russians have a technology.
Is bulletproof.
And they're like, we're gonna use this.
We're gonna keep on doing it.
They love that.
And when it they profoundly dislike,uh, continuing evolution of things
(10:09):
because they're like, okay, if wekeep on evolving this, then it's
just gonna break in the future.
It's like, we don't knowif this works or not.
We know that this works in the keep doingit and this is the mentality the Russian.
Controlled all of EasternEurope for 40 years.
It cost an enormous amount of moneya enormous amount of horsepower,
a lot of people, and they failed.
(10:31):
They have no desire to go back in therebecause it is like, it didn't work.
And when the Russians run up againstsomething that doesn't work, they stop.
They're like, ah, we'renot doing that again.
The Russians find something thatdoes work and then they go harder.
And then when it doesn't seem likeit's working, they keep going harder.
(10:53):
They throw people at it and theyhave unlimited numbers of people.
That's what's going on in Ukraine rightnow is like it's working because they
can grind down this area by throwingmore and more people at it, because
they have an unlimited number ofsoldiers to throw at this for years.
And they can just grind through.
The area and basically leaveit completely failed state.
(11:15):
So this always had to be negotiated andit always had to be negotiated where the
Eastern Donbass the eastern part whichwas primarily aligned with, you know,
Russian and Russian values anyways, right?
Like they're historically Russian,they're gonna be left independent
like, look, you're not gonna lineyourself with the east, you're not
(11:35):
gonna line yourself with Russia.
You're gonna be independent andyou're just gonna do your thing.
Uh, and you're gonna act asa buffer because this is what
freaks out the Russians, right?
Like it's their, their soft underbellybecause the geography is completely
flat between Ukraine and Moscow.
And the Russians are like, ah, we don'twant anything rolling through there.
And there's like a natural choke pointright there on the Eastern Ukraine border.
(11:58):
So that's why they are so hell.
On this particular area.
And Ukraine to begin with, theydo not care about Western Ukraine,
which is actually much more Western.
But they are worried about nato.
They're like, look, this nuclearthreat, and like getting all the NATO
countries, it's like, we don't need that.
So they're like, look,don't put 'em in nato.
You can put 'em in in, in the eu.
(12:20):
We don't give a shit about that.
You know, you can have the economic ties.
We don't give a shit about that,but just leave them neutral.
This has always been on their tip.
And the Ukrainians right now are like,no, we're gonna be a part of nato.
No, we're gonna be part ofEurope and we want all of it.
And they're like, the Russians are likeyet, and we're just gonna keep, you
know, like we're gonna just keep ongrinding it, you know, screw you guys.
(12:43):
You know, and there's nothing theycan do because they can't throw
enough bodies at it in Ukraine.
Easiest, you know, best estimate that wegot is a million people have already died.
So we have routed the best.
Youngest and brightest ofUkrainian youth and the rest of
(13:04):
them are scattered into Europe.
They're here in Miami.
They're they're, they'rehiding out, right?
Like they fled the country if theycould, and they are partying it up.
They, you would have to cancel allof the green cards, all of the, the
visas all over Europe, all over theUnited States, and send everybody back
to Ukraine in order for Ukraine toactually hold on for a little bit longer.
(13:26):
And the Russians will bethere and just grind it out.
Never has been a military solution.
They need to be theyabsolutely have to be talking.
The Europeans don't clearlydon't understand the Russians.
Uh.
It's madness madness, madness.
And a million people have diedunnecessarily because it was
always gonna end up in negotiation.
So I'm optimistic thatat least they're talking.
(13:48):
I don't know if anything's gonna happenof it, because right now Ukraine has
their own internal politics and theyhaven't had an election in a long time.
You know, the most of the, the lastopinion polls came out and said, look,
we do, you know, like the populationreally wants to, end this, the Ukrainians
are now drafting the draft age.
(14:10):
I'll give you gimme a wild guess.
What do you think the draft agemeaning like they're going and
finding these people and saying,okay, we're giving you a gun.
What do you think that age is right now?
Jerremy Newsome (14:17):
By the tone of your question, it can't be 18,
so it has to be lower, but God,I hope it's not lower than 16
Dave Conley (14:25):
Other direction?
Jerremy Newsome (14:27):
higher.
Okay.
Dave Conley (14:29):
They already got the 18 year olds.
So how high do they go?
This is, yeah,
Jerremy Newsome (14:33):
Got it.
Dave Conley (14:34):
is right Rules here.
Jerremy Newsome (14:35):
Oh, man.
Dave Conley (14:36):
what's,
Jerremy Newsome (14:37):
high?
Dave Conley (14:38):
high
Jerremy Newsome (14:39):
No, wait.
They could be go, they're going over 45.
Dave Conley (14:42):
They already hit 45.
That was already their number.
Jerremy Newsome (14:46):
65.
Dave Conley (14:48):
60, 60 years old.
If you are 60 years old, they'reputting a gun in your hand and they're
already, they've already cleanedout, like the folks that are mentally
disabled, you know, like, it is like,oh shit, you don't wanna be giving
them a a, that's sad, you know, likethey're already scraping that out.
So there's only threeoptions on the table.
The first is keep.
(15:09):
Feeding this beast.
We sent $250 million worth of highquality American arms over there in the
last few weeks, meaning patriot missilebatteries, like very high end stuff.
Stuff that the previous administrationrefused to do because they were offensive
weapons that could reach Moscow.
We just loaded it up andsent it over and here you go.
(15:30):
Keep on feeding the beast andgrinding Ukraine into oblivion.
The second option, is gettingNATO involved with a nuclear power
that has 9,500 nuclear weapons.
Like we are so closeto nuclear Armageddon.
I can't even tell you, this was oneof my big deals of being like, okay,
Jerremy Newsome (15:50):
Yep.
Dave Conley (15:50):
like Biden and Harris were awful at this and I couldn't
believe it could get worse, andit actually has gotten worse,
but at least now they're talking.
So it's completely ciph.
Your third option is negotiated peace.
Uh, so you choose one.
I think the first two suck.
And right now that'sexactly where we're at.
Jerremy Newsome (16:10):
Got it.
Dave Conley (16:11):
That's what I got.
Jerremy Newsome (16:12):
You.
That was a great debrief.
I appreciate that.
I'm
Dave Conley (16:15):
can't know.
There is no military solutionand there never has been.
And that's what is so upsetting to me
Jerremy Newsome (16:24):
And there, would you say there, there never
would be either though, right?
Dave Conley (16:27):
There is no military solution other than getting NATO involved.
Boots on the ground, a Europeanwar, and it was like, we've
already had two of those.
They didn't end up very well.
A lot of people got killed.
The only big difference here is thateverybody has nuclear weapons now.
I'm not touching that.
I'm not going into a shootingwar with a nuclear power.
(16:47):
That's bonkers.
Jerremy Newsome (16:49):
Yeah.
Dave Conley (16:49):
John Heimer he is my favorite, best, most amazing
political, and he keeps on being right.
He's been right for 30 years.
Professor of political science theUniversity of Chicago, one of the youngest
tenured professors back in the eighties.
He's my man.
I just nod vigorously everytime he opens his mouth.
Jerremy Newsome (17:07):
Yeah.
Dave Conley (17:08):
All right.
What's our next topic?
Jerremy Newsome (17:10):
Two other things because yeah, to your point, extremely interested
to see how the that conversation goes
Dave Conley (17:15):
Yeah.
Jerremy Newsome (17:15):
Let's just hope for the best in that situation.
I just got an alert fromCNBC that Trump is extending.
The 90 day tariff pause truths with China.
So that was a real update.
Dave Conley (17:30):
Okay.
Jerremy Newsome (17:31):
We said it was gonna, it was over tomorrow, and they're like
we're gonna keep pushing it for 90 days.
So again, this is game that he's playing.
So that's fun.
Alex (17:38):
“A million lives lost, energy decisions echoing across
continents—those are big stakes.
Now, we bring it home (17:44):
safety nets under fire, fresh urban solutions,
and the reforms that test whatgovernment truly owes its people.”
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