January 3, 2026 • 46 mins
Eric Epstein and Millennial Brian talk about the Venezuela strikes and capture of Maduro, immigration, and peace or not?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, twenty twenty six. Got to figure out. I
guess a lot of people don't have the problem I
have is putting the correct year in the check. Nobody's
really writing checks anymore.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
No, yeah, check or rare. I always struggle with the
new day. I'm always like, once you get, you get
twenty twenty five or whatever year it is, and then
it takes like I think it takes like a month
for me to be all right now, it's just almost
don't to think about it.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Well, I mean so at any rate, Eric HAPs done
with millennial Brian. It's cold. It just seems to be
colder than what the temperature is indicating. But we're Rock
the Capital. We're a good government, anti corruption group formed
in August twenty oh five, two thousand and five, right
after the illegal pay raise. We don't take sides, we
(00:45):
take aim, and we don't care what party you are
if you are abusing taxpayer dollars, we care who's thrown
the party. So a lot to get into this week,
and I just thought i'd start with Venezuela, which is
probably the topic on a lot of people's mind. And
(01:05):
you know, the first thing is America has the ability
to strike militarily at any time anywhere. I think the
problem is when we saw that with the bush and
the warning rock, is that changing the government is not like,
it's not instant, you know, you can't.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's not puzzle piece. It's not one piece out, new
piece in. You know, there's there's worries that what's underneath
the government, even if the government's very bad and has problems.
And I think we say that about Manduro. I mean,
Nduro had, you know, a brutal reputation of repression, a
horrible economic record. We put his people in horrible positions.
(01:44):
The flip side is are we going to get involved
in another long drawn out intervention, which is one thing
he campaigned against. Now the reverse the argument against that
is the guy's already captured. This is not the Middle East.
You have a basically more Korea or Japan style population.
Venezuela was once the richest country in South America and
(02:07):
they have a noble pre winner this year that ran
against Maduro as the opposition. So you have a you
have a clear opposition to the idea is that hopefully
this will be a Korea, a Japan, a Germany, the
Eastern European countries after the fall of the Soviet Union
and not in Iraq, Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Things now, this will be a disaster. People mistake military
victory for political victory. And I mean the Trump's calling
card is chaos, and chaos will ensue. And with chaos
means atrophying of institutions. People will go hard right, or
they'll go military. I predict as in Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras.
(02:47):
You're gonna start seeing death squads. Uh. And the thing
that we never learned as Americans is you can't import legitimacy.
So you're gonna bring Madero to American, give him an
American a trial, which makes no sense. You wind up
making him a martyr. The bigger problem with Venezuela is
they are the largest country in terms of oil reserves,
(03:10):
and they're monolithic. They're you know, the Hispanic Catholic. But
you know, they don't have a middle class, which is
the fundamental key to democracy in Chile and Argentina. They
all they have really is really really rich and really
really poor. And you know, one of the largest economic
(03:32):
drivers in Venezuela is kidnapping rich people.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, and just to give people background in Venezuela, Venezuela,
and it got a little bit better, but they went
through basically a huge budget deficit which went to money printing,
and because they're no reserve currency, they had huge inflation
levels of like fifty percent, like ridiculous, where you changed
the lunch prices from eleven to three in the afternoon,
(03:58):
so crazy inflation. Then you have it went from Chavez
to Maduro of basically consistent initially popular populace that funded
very popular welfare programs right, but then large budget deficits
to the welfare programs had to be cut, the food
supplies had to be rationed, just horrible mismanagement. All based
(04:18):
on oil, basically the price of oil where oil has
to be and and they use their oil reserves essentially
as kind of like a jackpop bonus. When it was booming,
they could fund all these programs and they were very popular.
And when a bus they led led to deficits, it
led to cutting the programs and they had no other
economic drivers. So that's the situation they're in. Maduro has unrepeatedly,
(04:43):
he's gone after the judicial branch there, he's thrown people
against him in jail, he's gone after his opposition repeatedly,
he's allegedly obviously, I think, you know, stuff ballots and
essentially rege elections.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
That's true, although I mean, how's that different than Turkey
or Saudi Arasia?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Right?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
And difference is they have more oil then they know
what to do with And if you look to the
east with Surrenam and Guyana, there's huge oil fields there.
So this is classic colonialism. You invader country to instill
what you believe is a proper way to govern. And
you know, the point is, as we saw with the
(05:23):
Forever War in Iraq, you know over twenty years, or
you look at Korea, this takes money, this takes resources.
So if you're putting money and recess is into Venezuela,
you're probably taking it away from the Middle East and
I would imagine to EU at some point. But the
major problem I have with this, and it's a it's
a classic American mistake. Brief planning always leads to a swamp.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yes, yeah, and I think about because you're right, long term,
you're you're basically betting that Venezuela is going to turn
out to be a Korea. But even in that scenario, Korea,
remember Korea's a nationalism constant expense, You constantly have to
defend career. You have the North Korea thing, you know,
it's I think the idea that it's going to be
over is is just unlikely. And you hope it's not
(06:11):
like the Middle East, and there's signs, you know, from
the fact that it's a homogenious population, homogenious religion, whereas
in Iraq you had basically a third of the country Kurds,
a third of the country Soony, a third of the
country Shia, which went to a huge internal division, not
to mention. And you also have a history of Evensuela,
where in the past they were a rich country, they
did have a middle class, it was successful, you know,
(06:35):
similar with Argentina, and they went down a bad economic path.
Is this the is this the turning point?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
You?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
You hope so, but I guess just are especially in
my experience growing up in the shadow of the Iraq War,
the Afghanistan warrior, thinking this is another boondog or we're
gonna get into just a long term, never ending struggle here,
which is.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
So Trump is really a good political gymnasts, but he
doesn't ever wind up landing. So at the beginning of
the week, he basically said he was locked and loaded
for Iran. We are in Venezuela. We're now more engaged
in military conflicts than we have been for some time
(07:18):
without a coherent foreign policy. You know, you know, Iraq
was to basically we went into Kuwait and we liberated
and freed it to be run as a country club
as it was before. It's all about the oil, you know,
some thing's never changed. It's all about the oil. And
so if you think that we're going to go down
there and leave without having a permanent presence or access
(07:41):
to the oil.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Well, in fact, and Trump said that, he said he's
going to use the oil as a way to pay
America back, as a way to help pay for this,
and that we won't have to pay for it because
we'll have the oil. The thing is that was said
about Iraq, that oh, the oil will pay for it,
and that became.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Well, here's the thing. You have a country that didn't
it has been living in a really rugged, difficult face
stage for a while. I think you could say that
Chavez was popular at the outset. Maduro was never popular.
But is this what we do now? Do we just
pop in take dictators, leaders, whoever you want to call him,
(08:19):
and renditioned them back in America. We didn't even take
them to Cuba. We're going to try him in America,
which is interesting. We did that with a guy from
Honduras who was a drug trafficker and then Trump pardoned him.
So I don't think there's anything here other than naked material.
I don't really think Trump would care if Maduro was
(08:41):
pumping oil at lower than market rates.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, But were you surprised.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Well, not recently, because he's heard in the news. It
was built up. I'm surprised because this is the exact
type of thing he campaigned against. I mean, his whole
thing against Bush when he came in the primary was
that Bush wasted all these recent versus in the Middle East,
got nothing. In fact, this famous line was like, we
didn't even take the oil from Iraq. You know, we
went there, we didn't even get the oil. It's like,
maybe he'll fix that now he'll get the oil. But
(09:11):
I think, well, I think it's just it's the interesting
once they get it, every American person, they become more
interventionist than when they're on the campaign. So I don't
know if it's just the incentives people that's around him.
I know, Marco Rubio is a Latin American. His family's
very anti communists from Cuba, and to me, the anti
communists are very you know, very ride for changing government
(09:36):
away from like the Majuros and the Cuba Is and something.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
The problem with the Cuban paradigm is a lot of
the people that opposed Castro were also very wealthy and
supported Batista who was the dictator.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I mean that's the reality. What we're looking is for
a middle class run society where you have an election
which decides where you go. Before we go to breakout
point out that after the Vietnam more in the seventies,
we passed the War Powers Act, which meant that the
president could not deploy troops without the consent of Congress.
(10:10):
I don't know that Trump is the first one to
break that.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
He's not.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I think the difference is there was a lead up
to the Iraqi War and then there was also you know,
the Niger you know, weapons of destruction conspiracy didn't happen,
so we'll see. I mean, it's hard to believe that
something with Trump. The three football games on New Year's
Eve at any rate. This is Eric Epstein with Millennial O'Brien.
(10:37):
We're rocked the capitol of the show's underdome and we're
being produced by Art Who is you know hanging in there? Man,
he's on the d L all right. Before we segue,
we're going to go to Hong Kong. Major development there.
But nobody's been paying attention. What so the Nobel Peace
Prize winner is from Venezuela. Now, was Trump doing this
(10:58):
because he's auditioning for Nobel Peace Prize?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Well, this is funny. You have a lot of memes
coming out with you know, he wants the Nobel Peace Prize,
but he started a war in Venezuela. Maria Machado was
the opposition leader in Venezuela as one of the elections
where they believe Maduro rigged it or that's the accusation,
and she was also her and the guy before her
(11:21):
were both put under political charges and try to throw
them in person. So she had actually leave the country.
So she's the odds on favorite to basically come in
and run the country.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Is this according to barstool or is this.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
The New York Post? New York Post is odds on favorite.
I mean, and then we got I bet we go
to the gambling markets and they'll have her up there.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
The problem is that, I mean, mister Trump does not
allow anybody really to dissent in his cabinet. I find
it hard to believe that after going through this, you know,
deploying fifteen thousand troops, you know, saying that didn't targeting fishing,
drug votes whatever, for that, he just yields power to
somebody who's essentially a pacifist. And and the big deal is,
(12:09):
you know, the play on oil.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, I think I think it's the oil. I think
it gets a deal for oil. He'll be fine because
and she'll come in and listen, hopefully hopefully because she
you know, she brought up in speaks that Venezuela used
to be the richest country in South America. People forget that.
It wasn't just the oil. Oil was obviously there and
it was an abundant but it was a series of
(12:33):
economic sectors that were successful. Agriculture, technology, industry. I mean,
you look at it, Venezuela's middle class was basically on
par with Europe. And I forget when, but it was like.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
A long time ago. Because if you look at Argentine,
Argentina and Chile to the south. I mean the continent
is rich with minerals. Brazil too. You know, the democracies
there have always been wobbly. Chile. Chile was the first,
depends on a middle class. But I think now you
(13:05):
lose the any moral high grounds you had because this
is a naked Yeah, this is this hower which is
probably good for Greenland because it was too cold anyway.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, I mean cleaning in the Canada. But I think
it hurts, like obviously any arguments let's say the Putin
or to China about Taiwan, or they'll throw this back
and it's like, well you took over Venezuela and stuff
like that. Now we'll see obviously what happens. I think
you got to hope for Korea, Japan, even Kuwait, Eastern
(13:37):
European after this, Like that's what you gotta hope happens.
Just the worry is that we've had such recent examples
of just huge long term boondoggles that just everything gets worse,
The country gets worse, we end up paying.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
For it will get worse. I mean the thing is, again,
political victory doesn't lead to necessary and required changes in
you need in the government. You know, folks are going
to have. Plus we don't know how the population right
now is going to respond. You know, there was not Maduro,
but Chidz was popular.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And you know there's going to be some level of
support loyalty to the Maduro, especially for people in his faction,
because they're gonna probably worry.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
About Look, there was support for a sodden Syria for
Hussein in Iraq. Yeah, and they were not a very
good neighbor. So on the other end of the universe,
and there's a guy named Jimmy Lai. And what's interesting
is this is the guy who hid, of all things,
in a fishing boat Apropos of Venezuela to get out
(14:37):
of communist China when he was twelve. He built a
garment empire. So this is a kid who had nothing
and without media experience, and he was and he is,
you know, just a very prominent and wealthy person in
Hong Kong. He had the ability to leave before they
put him on trial. He's also I'm a citizen of
(15:00):
the United Kingdom. So he was convicted for two counts
of conspiracy conspiracy to yeah, just trumped up charges. So
here's Hong Kong that used to be a jewel that
has been totally dismembered. And here's a guy who could
have left. Instead he decided to stay. And he was
(15:24):
sentenced to twenty years in prison. And what he said
is everything I have was given to me by Hong Kong.
I won't be leaving. I'm going to stay here and
fight to the bitter end. And he said, unapologetically, to
advance democracy. So what a difference. Here's a guy who
could have left.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
He was wealthy, very wealthy.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, it was a billionaire before they took the money. Essentially,
he was a Cinderella story. And it's not often that
you see a guy with the means and the opportunity
to leave to decide and stay on.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I mean yeah, if you if you look at his
his media companies, they were in Hong Kong printingly like
the only China critical news or only critical news about
and that's that's that's way different. You know, it's one
thing to commit, let's say, print curriculums about Saudi Arabia
when you're a thousand miles away. They have no if
you're right there in Hong Kong. China has all this
(16:21):
control over you, and he would consistently print China cricle media.
He would go on these If you look at the
interview he did with with Free Media Asia, which is
actually old Soviet Union US media thing where they would
have essentially media, they promote different medias and whether it's
in the Soviet Union or in China. So this is
(16:43):
a guy that you know, you could have could have
back down, could have gone away, could have gone down
in Dubai, you know, New York, London and State. I
guess the worry is doesn't matter. It is China just
this overwhelming economic power that's overholming political and military power
that they're just gonna be able to trust any decent
(17:05):
because the argument in China is this is the most
successful China's ever been. We have a real middle class emerging,
where median middle income country.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
But here's the difference, and we need to see how
China responds to Venezuela, because in the last part of
the show, if we get to it, you know, these
eight wars that Trump said he ended really not the case,
although there was progress in some China has a new
strategy and China now has broken in a peace with
(17:38):
Cambodi and Thailand. And so what's interesting to me is
that we need to realize that Russia is not an alpha,
it's a beta. All it does is export oil. You know,
they don't you know, they don't make shoes, They don't
make anything worth exporting. And so China is a serious
country with a billion people who are very disciplined and
(18:02):
very smart. And in my mind, if you're I forget
the guy, which guy's name the head Chinese Xi Xingping. Yeah,
it doesn't pronounce Yeah, they got to get phonetic spellings
for that. But at any rate, I think it's going
to be interesting to see what happens because China and
Russia signaled they were not going to get involved in
(18:24):
Russia in Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, but that's the one thing, and that's been smart
on their parts. They stayed out of these conflicts and
just try to build up their power. Russia obviously in
their neighborhood Ukraine and different stuff. But Russia's got to
focus on Ukraine because they're they're struggling, you know, they're
they're a deep struggle there. China, I think it's just
waiting on Taiwan. Taiwan, I think is their only real
(18:48):
military objective. They have long term strategic and economic objectives
beyond that.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Well, so they've taken Hong Kong. Now, I guess Singapore
has supplanted Hong Kong as a financial center for Southeast Asia.
What's interesting is this guy, Jimmy Lai, has come full circle.
Smuggled out of a boat. His mother was in prison
for being an enemy of the state, and you know
when he was working in these factories, you know he
(19:14):
said literally rats would be walking over them. So this guy,
his life is actually come full circle. But it's usually
not a story that we highlight when you go from
rats to rats.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah. Yeah, so from rats, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I mean he's he's never getting out. And uh, I
think there's been a concession made. I actually thought when England, Britain,
UK would every want to call him uh handed over
Hong Kong. I thought, maybe, you know, they'll let it
operate in an autonomous state. But I guess it's now
(19:51):
just wholly subsumed by China.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, it's a Chinese So China with Taiwan is they
go back to the Opium War and the wars which
pan is basically these are our territories that we lost.
I mean, it's a bat and even with the the
border with India they have, they have all these disputes
over that and it's.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Like nobody likes them though, I mean, I don't we
were talking about that that every border China has with
another country, it's flammable, yeah, India, I mean, I don't
know what it's like with Afghanistan. I'm not sure they're
really overly concerned. Yea, unless they're you want to get
back in the opium business. But so actually this is
(20:35):
gonna seem ironic. Russia's border with China, which is pretty vast,
it's probably the most subdued.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, well it's funny because it wasn't
and during the Soviet Union. In fact that actually that's
actially one of the reasons why the Chiny the China
Russia split was so effective is that there was there
was a border spee fact, there was a a mini
battle that ended up with Russian and Chinese stores both dying,
and it's where to get handled under closed doors. But
(21:08):
that's I mean, as I think what you said about
Russia's right is that they're now clear just tier two
player on the Chinese side. So whatever they do is
gonna be it's gonna have to most be approved by China. First.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
How much I mean, how many people have died in
the Ukraine Russian war?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
They were talking about it. I think I think it's
it's like over a million of both sides.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Now, it's that's World War epic proportions. That whoever winds
up standing at the end is going to be presiding
over a mess.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
It's oh yeah, it's just it's just a nightmare. I mean,
you know, there's gonna be no no real winners. There's
gonna be so much death and destruct.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Well, for Ukraine, I mean, they wanted to join nature,
they wanted to move to the West. They're a wealthy country,
you know, they they you know, we're moving in the
right direction, and now they have been stymied. For Russia,
I mean, a million people is a lot. But in
addition to that, they still have not created like China
(22:07):
did that entrepreneurial class.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah. Well, basically Russia is the majority of the Russia's
business is just resource abstraction. So they're not they're not
just rich in oil. They're rich in tons of different resources.
So that's their main economic driver. It's not a terrible
economic driver. The problem is if you developed nothing else,
your very resource dependency. We don't know mort or technological
industrial base shines at the tops of their resource hungry,
(22:31):
but they developed super successful technology, technological and market consumption.
The question is can they switch from like a manufacturing
industrial economy to a consumption.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
What we're gonna say, I mean because if that does it,
then they can become there the big boy on the
on the boat. Look, Russia doesn't make anything but war,
exports war, and it has a military presence throughout the world,
which China doesn't. So I wouldn't discount them just yet.
But anyway, you're listening to Thunderdome. This is Rock the
Capitol America Epstein. I'm in with Millennial Brian and Art
(23:05):
Selby is producing us. We'll be back in just a moment.
Thanks for back. You know, when I heard that Trump
had engaged in a military action, at first I thought
he had invaded Minnesota and uh then he got yeah,
he got he got detoured. But I also want to
point out to people historical context. When we invaded Panama
(23:30):
and we took government general in Mariega, this guy was
a legit drug Kingpin. I don't know if Madero is
or isn't. I mean, have enough oil. If they managed
it right, they wouldn't need to be. But normally it's
correct me if I'm wrong, it's more what Colombia and
what what other nations are normally associated with drug dealing.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Mexico, Yeah, Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, Minnesota, They all, every every
list in every time has some level of drug dealing
and they can make a lot of money that governments
a lot of America, from both the right and the left,
have been involved with the drug treasurers because in a
lot of their arguments is that basically, we can't stop it,
we know the resources, that it's an economic driver for
(24:15):
our country. And then from just a very practical security
and like poltical advancement is that we just we have
to deal with. We don't want to this be more problem.
I mean Mexico, there's tons of documentaries on Netflix or
on YouTube explaining the level of corruption in the government
with the cartels. It's like it's almost shocking. I mean,
the you Ha cartels that would basically buy aligned to
(24:37):
regional governments and they'd fight against each other.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
It was crazy Look, the majority of governments in the
world are The lubricant that runs the machine is corruption.
You know, that's the fact of life. So if you
look at immigration, it's been a year and the numbers
have drastically dropped, and maybe you can break this out.
Apparently they started dropping at the end of the Biden presidency,
(25:01):
but they really have, excuse me, gone far below what
had been occurring. I think right now they're looking at
eight thousand to eighty five hundred. You know, I don't
even know.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Which encounters on for people that just to give you
is that you were getting like in a month like
almost sometimes at the peak, like five hundred thousand encounters.
So we're talking a huge, huge decrease overall of encounters
that you're getting in the border. So basically is started
the end of the Biden administration when he was running
(25:34):
running for reelection.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
By the way, it's excortiating story in the New York
Times about Biden not really getting understanding the border and
the immigrant crisis until the end.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, I think the problem is
until it became an election issue for him, they didn't
do anything. So they held back. Then they started they
said there has to be a hap. I think it
was two thousand a day, So if you think about
a month, like sixty thousand a month, they would let
in then they have to. Then what Trump did is
(26:09):
when he came in, he brought back the remain in
Mexico policy, and he basically said that we're obviously we're
going to deport anyone that comes across. We're not gonna
do catch and release where you have your you come in,
you claim asylum, and you have your trial in America
because you just to show up. Everything has to be
at the border. So if you claim asylum, you either
stay at the border wait for your asylum case that
(26:29):
might be years.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Or you go to or you go to Mexico. I mean, yeah,
I think that was part of the strategy. But you know,
he deployed ten thousand military and National Guard. Again, I
don't know how many troops we have. We have fifteen
thousand in the Caribbean, ten thousand down there. The news
just reported that twelve thousand had been recruited. I don't
(26:52):
know if they're up to snuff. But what was the
catch and release policy?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
This release was we actually so the immigrants would go
to the border they'd actually wave down border control. Border
control would take them, they'd give them water and food,
and then they basically say, we're all a fleeing political
or violent persecution, were claiming asylum. They would then get
released and given a court date, and then what they'd
(27:17):
do is they maybe they show up the arrangement or whatever.
They would never show up to the full court date,
and then they're in the country, and if you're in
a sanctuary city, you basically can't get to ported. So
essentially it was very effective. Now that he's targeted sanctuary
cities and he's ended to catch and release policy, that's
why you're seeing the actual traffic go down so much
(27:38):
as people know they can't just kind of game the system.
Before they were just gaming the system.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
So now, I mean, what was caught me as interesting
in the report is that there were people from nations.
It was Bekistan, the Ukraine, Afghanistan. Yeah, we're flying to
Mexicala or you know, I'm not really sure that and
then you know, they would be smuggled over and I
(28:03):
think you know what you're saying that that was the
old way of doing business, uh, smuggling people, whereas before
you could just walk right in.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Well, I would say it's the new way of doing business,
whereas before you were just they were just walking in
at least, but.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
They were before they were walking in, they were smuggling.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
We're going back, yes, And well, listen the Mexicaliti borders.
That's the San Diego and then Tijuana cities. That's one
that's the most trafficed border. I think in north in
the Western hemisphere, I could be wrong about that. See
people coming in and out all the time, and most
of the time is normal. It's people going in for work,
people do for vacation. So that's the easiest place to
(28:39):
smuggle people in drugs. And if you look get if
you're watching all these documentaries, they basically have to pay
off one border control agent, and then if they pay
off one guy, they'll say, hey, when you're working, where
your what's your gate, and then they'll just just go
buy them.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
There's a dramatic decrease in the number of people coming
to the country. The flip side is that we really
still don't have an immigration policy right and we have
labor shortages. So when you look, the same thing happened
in the first Trump administration, where things and I think
twenty seventeen, you know, we're down to twelve thousand encounters,
(29:15):
and then it blew up again in twenty nineteen. This
feels different, This feels like this is not just a
policy shift, but I think it'll survive. Look, the policy
is all stick and no care, and right, it's effective now,
But what do you do to the industries and the
(29:38):
entities that required immigrant labor.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I'm still well, you know, so the argument is that
they should apply for visas, and that we should not
approve all these visas because what happens is that if
you increase the supply of immigration labor, that drives down
wages for Americans or people that already hear. The reverse
of that is that is that if you don't increase immigration,
(30:01):
not only are losing potential innovators and stuff like that,
is that you can't actually expand production as much as
because you don't have the workers, you have labor shortfalls.
So finding that balance is I mean, we've talked about
this a lot. I've talked about the Australian model where
they set a number, they have a skill set rankings,
and then they basically the people that pass the skill
set rankings and within that number get let in. So
(30:23):
the housing they.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
How you illegally enter Australia. It's a frigging continent in
an ocean two depth charges away.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Well, what they would do is they would just float
on boats and they claim asylum and then basically they'd
have And what they did before is they said, well
you have a court appointment here and they have to
wait two years and then in the country and they
get deported. What they do now is if they catch
you on a boat, they immediately to port you, immediately
to port you into an island, or you can wait
(30:53):
for asylum case, or they just say or they say
you can go back.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
So I think the connective tissue politically throughout the world
is immigration. And for Europe it's a little different. They're flooded,
but with a lot of Muslim immigrants who have an
unfavorable view of Jews in Israel. You know, the main
issue here seems to be economics. I know there were
(31:16):
commercials saying, you know, the borders being flooded by rapists
and murderers, but I think the main issue here was economic.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, I think I think it's economics. You know, housing,
infrastructure short falls, wage suppression. I would say the only
other issue is fentanyl and the drug trade. Fentanyls had
a huge impact. People connect that with immigration. So I
think immigration is still one of the areas where he's
above water and popular on even though people have turned
(31:44):
against maybe the most harsh measures of deportation the overall.
If you ask them like what kind of immigration system
do you want, you want the Democrat version, because when
they sit, here's the Democrat version, they hear open border.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Democrats made a mistake thinking that liberalizing immigration would impact
Latin voters, and it didn't. You know, but now Latin
voters are going the other way at any rate. That
seems to be his bread and butter mood.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
So if you look at immigration and the birth rates
continue to go down, how do you reconcile the shortage
of labor supplies? By the way, the Australian thing I
thought for America. I know this is going to sound extreme.
If they're putting them on an island, I'm sure it's not,
you know, a gorgeous tropical.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
No, it's not. It's not good. People have died there.
It's be honest, it's all sure. It gets kind of
a nice reputation, but it's a rough policy. It's not
The security elements of Australian policy is very harsh. And
the reason is is the argument that they would make
is if we want people to buy in immigration, we
have to enforce all the laws, whether it's labor laws,
let's security laws, because if if they feel like the
(32:55):
immigrants are getting favorites, they'll just be against immigration in general.
To have a blanket opposition, that's.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
A predominant view in America. I think you know, people
are looking around, things are changing. You know, there's more
people that are not white than are white. You know,
there's people coming in, there's Islamophobia, there's just I happen
to think things are changing too swiftly for a lot
of folks, and this is one thing you can control.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
I also think there's a perception that immigrants access taxpayer
dollars and resources without contributing anything.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah. And as the argument that they made is that
if you want people to buy an immigration enforcements more
important on post security, but also just general labor and
welfare enforcement. We're seeing it with a small daycare thing
where it's like, by not unfortunate the law allowing the
fraud to go on for years and years. People are
now become more skeptical for any of those policies, any
(33:51):
policies for daycare policy of immigration, whereas if they enforced
it immediately and got rid of the fraud, people will
be more open to daycare policies.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And yeah, there's been more outrage about that than there
has been about Tom Holman getting fifty thousand dollars in cash.
It goes back to whose team are you on? And
you know, just to wrap it up on immigration, I
don't think we're gonna have time. Real interesting narrative on Yuma,
Arizona and how that was a textbook example of how
(34:22):
immigration was a national problem. You know, they just were
getting tapped out, asked for help, didn't get any So
when we come back, not a lot of time left.
But when we get back, we will go over and
look at the wars that Trump had an impact on.
Eric Apstein Millennial Brian, this is a thunderdom more rock
(34:44):
the capital and art Selby is producing us. So I
heard in Australia, which I know is a beloved country
of your said after the Israeli massacre, they what was
struck me is they immedia or the massacre of Jewish.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
People in Bondie Beach.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
They immediately took action in banded guns, which is something
that would never happen here. But you know, Australia used
to have that profile being kind of out well. I
mean it was the way station for inmates from Britain.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Right, So yes, they were all inmates, you know initially,
is the is the argument? You know, I think I
don't know. I think it's a country that's actually in
this era of polarization much less polarized. I don't know
if that's because it is on its own world and
it's relatively economically successful, and there's been other things where
the rise of China's actually made it more economic because
(35:45):
they can and they have, because they have resources they
can sell China.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Oh they've gotten booked, They've got a lot of coal
and they have you know, there's a there's a big
moat between them and China. But you know, although we
view them as like a classic Western cot Asian nation,
they've got to navigate Indonesia, China, Indiana, all those nations.
So I guess you now you got to wonder about
(36:09):
the Trump foreign policy, whether it's a strategy of peace
or peace by intimidation. So the one war, you know,
he said eight, but that was really like over two terms.
The one war that I see that he had successfully
broke her to the deal because it was right down
his comfort zone was Armenian azerb.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Right, So Armenian Azerbaijan for we don't know. This goes
back to the Ottoman Empire or Azerbaijan, a Muslim country,
but also Armenia, Christian country. Christian Armenians were kicked out
of the Ottoman Empire kind of basically killed in en
Mass by the Turkish Ottomans. In the Turkey and Azerbaijan,
(36:50):
there's now this split that they they have and they
have a disputed territory right in the middle called the
Borrow Caraba God, which is I'm saying, oh, you got
it right. The way Trump broke this deal is that
there he has a ceasefire after the Azerbaijan kind of invasion,
(37:11):
and he has an energy deal for our media. And
Armenia used to be very aligned with Russia, but now
leaving their side because basically they were attacked by Azerbaijohn
and no one did anything, so they're looking for more
kind of defenders or protectors. And the idea behind this
deal is kind of economics for peace, which is you're
both gonna get a piece of this energy deal. We're
(37:31):
gonna build pipelines, we're gonna get minerals, we're gonna get resources,
and we're gonna help you export and we're gonna send
you different technologies. And reverse of having this kind of
energy technology corridor is that you're just gonna agree to
a ceasefire and potential long term piece.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I mean, it's the Clinton policy that Trump sometimes implement.
It's an economic foreign policy. Asarbashan is a wildly independent country.
It is Muslim uh and it's right in between Russia
and Iran, and it just doesn't take guph off anybody.
(38:06):
It's also an ally of Israel.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
And Turkey and the United States, but also does it
does business Manarias this is very right. It's a very
interesting country to.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Get a chance loot of the capital city. It's gorgeous.
So Trumpet thought he had peace in the Congo and Rwanda.
I just don't know that it's possible. I mean again,
and the common theme here is that that is a
mineral rich region. They actually had genocide there in the
(38:36):
nineties with the Hutu and the Tutsis, and so he
made the announcement on August Days. And then recently he
basically thought that there would there would be a lasting peace.
I think sometimes he confusedes ceasefire with peace.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah. And the other thing I think his problem is
areas that are always say not well governed or defined government.
The actual parties involved are not as well defined too.
So you might have two people agree to a handshake,
but the idea that you're going to get all their
different factions to agree is much different. It's much different
than like an a traditional war where it's like Germany.
Let's say in Italy agree to this, but you know Germany.
(39:14):
But if it's like all these different tribes. I think
that's one of the problems, by the way, in Afghanistan.
When we talked about what happened when we're wrong in Afghanistan,
it wasn't the initial war or even like the actual
military part. It's like, can you get these factions to
have a coherent security, political, and ECONOMFOSSE And you can't.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
No, that's the country their clients, right, I mean, nobody
has successfully invaded or occupied Afghanistan and it is not
a desirable piece of real estate. But at any rate,
Trump said that the conflict would wait wind down and
at the Congo in Rowanda on December fourth, due to
a miracle which didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Is back on which unfortunately, and it's brutal, Yeah it is.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
And it's interesting though that he would show interest in
what he in the first room called as whole nations.
So well, I think it was he wants there's minerals
there man, right, And he's.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Also wants to be a deal maker because his big
thing is America gets taken advantage of and we should
get better deals from these and also that I want
to be a piece through strength president and get these
deals where people stop fighting. So that's that's sort of
his wheelhouse. Some to listen and the Armenia as by
John thing it might hold. They also try to do
things in uh Serbia and Kosovo, and we'll see if
(40:32):
they hold some of these other areas where it goes
beyond that, it's much more difficult.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, Serbia and Kosovo was in his first term. But look,
the reality is he may be seduced now by foreign policy.
He's had some wins. He didn't announce the ceasefire between
Iran and Israel and Israel and Hamas, but I mean
there's I just don't see an end to the fighting
(40:56):
and with Israel Iran or Israel Hamas unless they completely
get exhausted. I think he is losing patience with that. Yeah.
So Cambodia and Thailand was interesting because most people were
unaware that there was a flare up. So he came
to the area when there have been five days of
(41:19):
really savage fighting, and they did agree to a cease
fire for a little while. The other week, apparently, I
think Thailand, I think it was Thailand sent two hundred
and fifty trones over to Cambodia. So there's two things
that are important to this is December, so Thailand launched
(41:39):
these air strikes. But you have been talking about this
for a while. Air drones have changed.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah, it's a future war, and they can be cheap.
They could be super you know, fifty dollars drones that
can do horrendous him to destroy the entire tanks. That's whout,
you know, entire battalions. Cambodia and Thailand is interesting. Island
is Tennly the US ally, but they kind of flow
with the wind wherever it goes. There tours. Cabodia is
one of the is one of that se some of
(42:07):
the worst US bombing during the Vietnam War when they uh,
the viet Cong would go through Cambodia and they would
get bombed there. So they still they're still bringing up,
you know, just bombed in minefield areas.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Well they would look there was a Nixon uh carried
out in illegal bombing at a time when the country
was really split with Vietnam, with real Vietnam War. So
the thing that concerns me is not so much whether
Trump uh, Look, you can negotiate a ceasefire, whether or
not it can go into pieces a challenge for anybody.
(42:42):
But the Chinese have just derived to the scene and
they negotiated.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
And that's also big because that's a huge it's even
a bigger economic driver for those countries in America as
far as what they get their business from, whether it's
tourism or whether it's manufacturing and industrial capacity.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Well, well there there's another a couple other worst but
it's been such a dark program. We need to move
to something more uplifting. So art does Alabama's performance legitimize
your claim that they shouldn't have been in the tournament.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Of course it does. I mean Alabama has not played
well for two months. They couldn't run the ball. They
were a very flawed football team, and they were lucky
they didn't have more than three losses to even when
they got in. So sure, sure Notre Dame would have.
Notre Dame was the last team to beat Indiana. They
beat him last year in the playoffs and they were peaking.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
So Alabama, and then I guess it goes to the
argument the Big Ten is collecting the most wins in
the postseason. You got the ACC gets the most deference
and so you see what did I say? I'm sorry
about that? Yes, you see, but that the Alabama game
(43:54):
is just like, yeah, they didn't deserve to be there.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Man, Well, the argument for Alabama is they got the
CCC conference championship. You can't punish a Big Ten or
SCC conference championship versus been and they beat Oklahoma. This
is not you know, it's in Indiana. It's just in
the league team. They're not the same team as last year.
And then they might steam roll everyone. I mean, who's
Indiana's had two close games, or I guess I should
(44:16):
say they have had a few close games, but it's
been against Oregon, Ohio State. They had Penn State, but
Penn State, although they're bad, has a lot of talent.
I guess I guess My point is. I think my
problem is, and this goes, is that we have a
kind of committee vote on it playoffs rather than access
to fined like in the NFL, who's gonna make the playoff.
It's not like we gotta go to this committee to decide.
(44:39):
It's it's like, here's who it wins. I think it
should be access to fine playoffs, like where it's like
five teams with the SEC, five teams to the Big
ten and then let's say three or let's say two
from the ACC, two from the Big twelve, and then
like two outright bits and then have playing games.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
My frustration is that they keep saying they don't punish
the team games in the championship games, which they did
byu because then they dropped them down so Miami could
go head to head with Notre Dame and then they
could use the head they had to put Miami in
over a Notre Dame, so they keep saying that, but
that's not how they did it.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Well. It was even worse than because remember they put
Notre Dame way above everyone, and they had to do
this artificial drop down even when they were destroying people.
Where the truth is they want they should have they
were going to do that, they should have put Miami
just higher. I think was you can't defend the committee.
I think if we switched to playing games first, I
think it would make the conference championship weekend much more
(45:35):
exciting because you have games with real stakes now. Match
if Notre Dame had to play like Iowa to get
to get the playoffs, like that would be a fun game.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with y'all. I think the issue
is that, regardless of how we got here, that three
games the other night was remarkable and Mississippi, I'm justelie.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
The quarterback was believe that was very Patrick Mahomes light. Obviously,
he's not like they're just like those crazy plays on.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Boy I heard no Mahomes is now comparing himself to
the quarterback at any rate, Hey what have we got?
Thirty seconds? You got? Yeah, Hey folks, it's cold out,
Bundle up be careful, don't drink and drive. We'll be
back in two weeks. Art, I hope you feel better.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Same for Becky. Please get well, uh and uh we'll
see you soon. Show me all
All right, twenty twenty six. Got to figure out. I
guess a lot of people don't have the problem I
have is putting the correct year in the check. Nobody's
really writing checks anymore.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
No, yeah, check or rare. I always struggle with the
new day. I'm always like, once you get, you get
twenty twenty five or whatever year it is, and then
it takes like I think it takes like a month
for me to be all right now, it's just almost
don't to think about it.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Well, I mean so at any rate, Eric HAPs done
with millennial Brian. It's cold. It just seems to be
colder than what the temperature is indicating. But we're Rock
the Capital. We're a good government, anti corruption group formed
in August twenty oh five, two thousand and five, right
after the illegal pay raise. We don't take sides, we
(00:45):
take aim, and we don't care what party you are
if you are abusing taxpayer dollars, we care who's thrown
the party. So a lot to get into this week,
and I just thought i'd start with Venezuela, which is
probably the topic on a lot of people's mind. And
(01:05):
you know, the first thing is America has the ability
to strike militarily at any time anywhere. I think the
problem is when we saw that with the bush and
the warning rock, is that changing the government is not like,
it's not instant, you know, you can't.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's not puzzle piece. It's not one piece out, new
piece in. You know, there's there's worries that what's underneath
the government, even if the government's very bad and has problems.
And I think we say that about Manduro. I mean,
Nduro had, you know, a brutal reputation of repression, a
horrible economic record. We put his people in horrible positions.
(01:44):
The flip side is are we going to get involved
in another long drawn out intervention, which is one thing
he campaigned against. Now the reverse the argument against that
is the guy's already captured. This is not the Middle East.
You have a basically more Korea or Japan style population.
Venezuela was once the richest country in South America and
(02:07):
they have a noble pre winner this year that ran
against Maduro as the opposition. So you have a you
have a clear opposition to the idea is that hopefully
this will be a Korea, a Japan, a Germany, the
Eastern European countries after the fall of the Soviet Union
and not in Iraq, Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Things now, this will be a disaster. People mistake military
victory for political victory. And I mean the Trump's calling
card is chaos, and chaos will ensue. And with chaos
means atrophying of institutions. People will go hard right, or
they'll go military. I predict as in Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras.
(02:47):
You're gonna start seeing death squads. Uh. And the thing
that we never learned as Americans is you can't import legitimacy.
So you're gonna bring Madero to American, give him an
American a trial, which makes no sense. You wind up
making him a martyr. The bigger problem with Venezuela is
they are the largest country in terms of oil reserves,
(03:10):
and they're monolithic. They're you know, the Hispanic Catholic. But
you know, they don't have a middle class, which is
the fundamental key to democracy in Chile and Argentina. They
all they have really is really really rich and really
really poor. And you know, one of the largest economic
(03:32):
drivers in Venezuela is kidnapping rich people.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, and just to give people background in Venezuela, Venezuela,
and it got a little bit better, but they went
through basically a huge budget deficit which went to money printing,
and because they're no reserve currency, they had huge inflation
levels of like fifty percent, like ridiculous, where you changed
the lunch prices from eleven to three in the afternoon,
(03:58):
so crazy inflation. Then you have it went from Chavez
to Maduro of basically consistent initially popular populace that funded
very popular welfare programs right, but then large budget deficits
to the welfare programs had to be cut, the food
supplies had to be rationed, just horrible mismanagement. All based
(04:18):
on oil, basically the price of oil where oil has
to be and and they use their oil reserves essentially
as kind of like a jackpop bonus. When it was booming,
they could fund all these programs and they were very popular.
And when a bus they led led to deficits, it
led to cutting the programs and they had no other
economic drivers. So that's the situation they're in. Maduro has unrepeatedly,
(04:43):
he's gone after the judicial branch there, he's thrown people
against him in jail, he's gone after his opposition repeatedly,
he's allegedly obviously, I think, you know, stuff ballots and
essentially rege elections.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
That's true, although I mean, how's that different than Turkey
or Saudi Arasia?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Right?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
And difference is they have more oil then they know
what to do with And if you look to the
east with Surrenam and Guyana, there's huge oil fields there.
So this is classic colonialism. You invader country to instill
what you believe is a proper way to govern. And
you know, the point is, as we saw with the
(05:23):
Forever War in Iraq, you know over twenty years, or
you look at Korea, this takes money, this takes resources.
So if you're putting money and recess is into Venezuela,
you're probably taking it away from the Middle East and
I would imagine to EU at some point. But the
major problem I have with this, and it's a it's
a classic American mistake. Brief planning always leads to a swamp.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yes, yeah, and I think about because you're right, long term,
you're you're basically betting that Venezuela is going to turn
out to be a Korea. But even in that scenario, Korea,
remember Korea's a nationalism constant expense, You constantly have to
defend career. You have the North Korea thing, you know,
it's I think the idea that it's going to be
over is is just unlikely. And you hope it's not
(06:11):
like the Middle East, and there's signs, you know, from
the fact that it's a homogenious population, homogenious religion, whereas
in Iraq you had basically a third of the country Kurds,
a third of the country Soony, a third of the
country Shia, which went to a huge internal division, not
to mention. And you also have a history of Evensuela,
where in the past they were a rich country, they
did have a middle class, it was successful, you know,
(06:35):
similar with Argentina, and they went down a bad economic path.
Is this the is this the turning point?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
You?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
You hope so, but I guess just are especially in
my experience growing up in the shadow of the Iraq War,
the Afghanistan warrior, thinking this is another boondog or we're
gonna get into just a long term, never ending struggle here,
which is.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
So Trump is really a good political gymnasts, but he
doesn't ever wind up landing. So at the beginning of
the week, he basically said he was locked and loaded
for Iran. We are in Venezuela. We're now more engaged
in military conflicts than we have been for some time
(07:18):
without a coherent foreign policy. You know, you know, Iraq
was to basically we went into Kuwait and we liberated
and freed it to be run as a country club
as it was before. It's all about the oil, you know,
some thing's never changed. It's all about the oil. And
so if you think that we're going to go down
there and leave without having a permanent presence or access
(07:41):
to the oil.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Well, in fact, and Trump said that, he said he's
going to use the oil as a way to pay
America back, as a way to help pay for this,
and that we won't have to pay for it because
we'll have the oil. The thing is that was said
about Iraq, that oh, the oil will pay for it,
and that became.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Well, here's the thing. You have a country that didn't
it has been living in a really rugged, difficult face
stage for a while. I think you could say that
Chavez was popular at the outset. Maduro was never popular.
But is this what we do now? Do we just
pop in take dictators, leaders, whoever you want to call him,
(08:19):
and renditioned them back in America. We didn't even take
them to Cuba. We're going to try him in America,
which is interesting. We did that with a guy from
Honduras who was a drug trafficker and then Trump pardoned him.
So I don't think there's anything here other than naked material.
I don't really think Trump would care if Maduro was
(08:41):
pumping oil at lower than market rates.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, But were you surprised.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Well, not recently, because he's heard in the news. It
was built up. I'm surprised because this is the exact
type of thing he campaigned against. I mean, his whole
thing against Bush when he came in the primary was
that Bush wasted all these recent versus in the Middle East,
got nothing. In fact, this famous line was like, we
didn't even take the oil from Iraq. You know, we
went there, we didn't even get the oil. It's like,
maybe he'll fix that now he'll get the oil. But
(09:11):
I think, well, I think it's just it's the interesting
once they get it, every American person, they become more
interventionist than when they're on the campaign. So I don't
know if it's just the incentives people that's around him.
I know, Marco Rubio is a Latin American. His family's
very anti communists from Cuba, and to me, the anti
communists are very you know, very ride for changing government
(09:36):
away from like the Majuros and the Cuba Is and something.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
The problem with the Cuban paradigm is a lot of
the people that opposed Castro were also very wealthy and
supported Batista who was the dictator.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I mean that's the reality. What we're looking is for
a middle class run society where you have an election
which decides where you go. Before we go to breakout
point out that after the Vietnam more in the seventies,
we passed the War Powers Act, which meant that the
president could not deploy troops without the consent of Congress.
(10:10):
I don't know that Trump is the first one to
break that.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
He's not.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I think the difference is there was a lead up
to the Iraqi War and then there was also you know,
the Niger you know, weapons of destruction conspiracy didn't happen,
so we'll see. I mean, it's hard to believe that
something with Trump. The three football games on New Year's
Eve at any rate. This is Eric Epstein with Millennial O'Brien.
(10:37):
We're rocked the capitol of the show's underdome and we're
being produced by Art Who is you know hanging in there? Man,
he's on the d L all right. Before we segue,
we're going to go to Hong Kong. Major development there.
But nobody's been paying attention. What so the Nobel Peace
Prize winner is from Venezuela. Now, was Trump doing this
(10:58):
because he's auditioning for Nobel Peace Prize?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Well, this is funny. You have a lot of memes
coming out with you know, he wants the Nobel Peace Prize,
but he started a war in Venezuela. Maria Machado was
the opposition leader in Venezuela as one of the elections
where they believe Maduro rigged it or that's the accusation,
and she was also her and the guy before her
(11:21):
were both put under political charges and try to throw
them in person. So she had actually leave the country.
So she's the odds on favorite to basically come in
and run the country.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Is this according to barstool or is this.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
The New York Post? New York Post is odds on favorite.
I mean, and then we got I bet we go
to the gambling markets and they'll have her up there.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
The problem is that, I mean, mister Trump does not
allow anybody really to dissent in his cabinet. I find
it hard to believe that after going through this, you know,
deploying fifteen thousand troops, you know, saying that didn't targeting fishing,
drug votes whatever, for that, he just yields power to
somebody who's essentially a pacifist. And and the big deal is,
(12:09):
you know, the play on oil.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, I think I think it's the oil. I think
it gets a deal for oil. He'll be fine because
and she'll come in and listen, hopefully hopefully because she
you know, she brought up in speaks that Venezuela used
to be the richest country in South America. People forget that.
It wasn't just the oil. Oil was obviously there and
it was an abundant but it was a series of
(12:33):
economic sectors that were successful. Agriculture, technology, industry. I mean,
you look at it, Venezuela's middle class was basically on
par with Europe. And I forget when, but it was like.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
A long time ago. Because if you look at Argentine,
Argentina and Chile to the south. I mean the continent
is rich with minerals. Brazil too. You know, the democracies
there have always been wobbly. Chile. Chile was the first,
depends on a middle class. But I think now you
(13:05):
lose the any moral high grounds you had because this
is a naked Yeah, this is this hower which is
probably good for Greenland because it was too cold anyway.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, I mean cleaning in the Canada. But I think
it hurts, like obviously any arguments let's say the Putin
or to China about Taiwan, or they'll throw this back
and it's like, well you took over Venezuela and stuff
like that. Now we'll see obviously what happens. I think
you got to hope for Korea, Japan, even Kuwait, Eastern
(13:37):
European after this, Like that's what you gotta hope happens.
Just the worry is that we've had such recent examples
of just huge long term boondoggles that just everything gets worse,
The country gets worse, we end up paying.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
For it will get worse. I mean the thing is, again,
political victory doesn't lead to necessary and required changes in
you need in the government. You know, folks are going
to have. Plus we don't know how the population right
now is going to respond. You know, there was not Maduro,
but Chidz was popular.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And you know there's going to be some level of
support loyalty to the Maduro, especially for people in his faction,
because they're gonna probably worry.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
About Look, there was support for a sodden Syria for
Hussein in Iraq. Yeah, and they were not a very
good neighbor. So on the other end of the universe,
and there's a guy named Jimmy Lai. And what's interesting
is this is the guy who hid, of all things,
in a fishing boat Apropos of Venezuela to get out
(14:37):
of communist China when he was twelve. He built a
garment empire. So this is a kid who had nothing
and without media experience, and he was and he is,
you know, just a very prominent and wealthy person in
Hong Kong. He had the ability to leave before they
put him on trial. He's also I'm a citizen of
(15:00):
the United Kingdom. So he was convicted for two counts
of conspiracy conspiracy to yeah, just trumped up charges. So
here's Hong Kong that used to be a jewel that
has been totally dismembered. And here's a guy who could
have left. Instead he decided to stay. And he was
(15:24):
sentenced to twenty years in prison. And what he said
is everything I have was given to me by Hong Kong.
I won't be leaving. I'm going to stay here and
fight to the bitter end. And he said, unapologetically, to
advance democracy. So what a difference. Here's a guy who
could have left.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
He was wealthy, very wealthy.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, it was a billionaire before they took the money. Essentially,
he was a Cinderella story. And it's not often that
you see a guy with the means and the opportunity
to leave to decide and stay on.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I mean yeah, if you if you look at his
his media companies, they were in Hong Kong printingly like
the only China critical news or only critical news about
and that's that's that's way different. You know, it's one
thing to commit, let's say, print curriculums about Saudi Arabia
when you're a thousand miles away. They have no if
you're right there in Hong Kong. China has all this
(16:21):
control over you, and he would consistently print China cricle media.
He would go on these If you look at the
interview he did with with Free Media Asia, which is
actually old Soviet Union US media thing where they would
have essentially media, they promote different medias and whether it's
in the Soviet Union or in China. So this is
(16:43):
a guy that you know, you could have could have
back down, could have gone away, could have gone down
in Dubai, you know, New York, London and State. I
guess the worry is doesn't matter. It is China just
this overwhelming economic power that's overholming political and military power
that they're just gonna be able to trust any decent
(17:05):
because the argument in China is this is the most
successful China's ever been. We have a real middle class emerging,
where median middle income country.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
But here's the difference, and we need to see how
China responds to Venezuela, because in the last part of
the show, if we get to it, you know, these
eight wars that Trump said he ended really not the case,
although there was progress in some China has a new
strategy and China now has broken in a peace with
(17:38):
Cambodi and Thailand. And so what's interesting to me is
that we need to realize that Russia is not an alpha,
it's a beta. All it does is export oil. You know,
they don't you know, they don't make shoes, They don't
make anything worth exporting. And so China is a serious
country with a billion people who are very disciplined and
(18:02):
very smart. And in my mind, if you're I forget
the guy, which guy's name the head Chinese Xi Xingping. Yeah,
it doesn't pronounce Yeah, they got to get phonetic spellings
for that. But at any rate, I think it's going
to be interesting to see what happens because China and
Russia signaled they were not going to get involved in
(18:24):
Russia in Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, but that's the one thing, and that's been smart
on their parts. They stayed out of these conflicts and
just try to build up their power. Russia obviously in
their neighborhood Ukraine and different stuff. But Russia's got to
focus on Ukraine because they're they're struggling, you know, they're
they're a deep struggle there. China, I think it's just
waiting on Taiwan. Taiwan, I think is their only real
(18:48):
military objective. They have long term strategic and economic objectives
beyond that.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Well, so they've taken Hong Kong. Now, I guess Singapore
has supplanted Hong Kong as a financial center for Southeast Asia.
What's interesting is this guy, Jimmy Lai, has come full circle.
Smuggled out of a boat. His mother was in prison
for being an enemy of the state, and you know
when he was working in these factories, you know he
(19:14):
said literally rats would be walking over them. So this guy,
his life is actually come full circle. But it's usually
not a story that we highlight when you go from
rats to rats.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah. Yeah, so from rats, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I mean he's he's never getting out. And uh, I
think there's been a concession made. I actually thought when England, Britain,
UK would every want to call him uh handed over
Hong Kong. I thought, maybe, you know, they'll let it
operate in an autonomous state. But I guess it's now
(19:51):
just wholly subsumed by China.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, it's a Chinese So China with Taiwan is they
go back to the Opium War and the wars which
pan is basically these are our territories that we lost.
I mean, it's a bat and even with the the
border with India they have, they have all these disputes
over that and it's.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Like nobody likes them though, I mean, I don't we
were talking about that that every border China has with
another country, it's flammable, yeah, India, I mean, I don't
know what it's like with Afghanistan. I'm not sure they're
really overly concerned. Yea, unless they're you want to get
back in the opium business. But so actually this is
(20:35):
gonna seem ironic. Russia's border with China, which is pretty vast,
it's probably the most subdued.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, well it's funny because it wasn't
and during the Soviet Union. In fact that actually that's
actially one of the reasons why the Chiny the China
Russia split was so effective is that there was there
was a border spee fact, there was a a mini
battle that ended up with Russian and Chinese stores both dying,
and it's where to get handled under closed doors. But
(21:08):
that's I mean, as I think what you said about
Russia's right is that they're now clear just tier two
player on the Chinese side. So whatever they do is
gonna be it's gonna have to most be approved by China. First.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
How much I mean, how many people have died in
the Ukraine Russian war?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
They were talking about it. I think I think it's
it's like over a million of both sides.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Now, it's that's World War epic proportions. That whoever winds
up standing at the end is going to be presiding
over a mess.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
It's oh yeah, it's just it's just a nightmare. I mean,
you know, there's gonna be no no real winners. There's
gonna be so much death and destruct.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Well, for Ukraine, I mean, they wanted to join nature,
they wanted to move to the West. They're a wealthy country,
you know, they they you know, we're moving in the
right direction, and now they have been stymied. For Russia,
I mean, a million people is a lot. But in
addition to that, they still have not created like China
(22:07):
did that entrepreneurial class.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah. Well, basically Russia is the majority of the Russia's
business is just resource abstraction. So they're not they're not
just rich in oil. They're rich in tons of different resources.
So that's their main economic driver. It's not a terrible
economic driver. The problem is if you developed nothing else,
your very resource dependency. We don't know mort or technological
industrial base shines at the tops of their resource hungry,
(22:31):
but they developed super successful technology, technological and market consumption.
The question is can they switch from like a manufacturing
industrial economy to a consumption.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
What we're gonna say, I mean because if that does it,
then they can become there the big boy on the
on the boat. Look, Russia doesn't make anything but war,
exports war, and it has a military presence throughout the world,
which China doesn't. So I wouldn't discount them just yet.
But anyway, you're listening to Thunderdome. This is Rock the
Capitol America Epstein. I'm in with Millennial Brian and Art
(23:05):
Selby is producing us. We'll be back in just a moment.
Thanks for back. You know, when I heard that Trump
had engaged in a military action, at first I thought
he had invaded Minnesota and uh then he got yeah,
he got he got detoured. But I also want to
point out to people historical context. When we invaded Panama
(23:30):
and we took government general in Mariega, this guy was
a legit drug Kingpin. I don't know if Madero is
or isn't. I mean, have enough oil. If they managed
it right, they wouldn't need to be. But normally it's
correct me if I'm wrong, it's more what Colombia and
what what other nations are normally associated with drug dealing.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Mexico, Yeah, Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, Minnesota, They all, every every
list in every time has some level of drug dealing
and they can make a lot of money that governments
a lot of America, from both the right and the left,
have been involved with the drug treasurers because in a
lot of their arguments is that basically, we can't stop it,
we know the resources, that it's an economic driver for
(24:15):
our country. And then from just a very practical security
and like poltical advancement is that we just we have
to deal with. We don't want to this be more problem.
I mean Mexico, there's tons of documentaries on Netflix or
on YouTube explaining the level of corruption in the government
with the cartels. It's like it's almost shocking. I mean,
the you Ha cartels that would basically buy aligned to
(24:37):
regional governments and they'd fight against each other.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
It was crazy Look, the majority of governments in the
world are The lubricant that runs the machine is corruption.
You know, that's the fact of life. So if you
look at immigration, it's been a year and the numbers
have drastically dropped, and maybe you can break this out.
Apparently they started dropping at the end of the Biden presidency,
(25:01):
but they really have, excuse me, gone far below what
had been occurring. I think right now they're looking at
eight thousand to eighty five hundred. You know, I don't
even know.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Which encounters on for people that just to give you
is that you were getting like in a month like
almost sometimes at the peak, like five hundred thousand encounters.
So we're talking a huge, huge decrease overall of encounters
that you're getting in the border. So basically is started
the end of the Biden administration when he was running
(25:34):
running for reelection.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
By the way, it's excortiating story in the New York
Times about Biden not really getting understanding the border and
the immigrant crisis until the end.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, I think the problem is
until it became an election issue for him, they didn't
do anything. So they held back. Then they started they
said there has to be a hap. I think it
was two thousand a day, So if you think about
a month, like sixty thousand a month, they would let
in then they have to. Then what Trump did is
(26:09):
when he came in, he brought back the remain in
Mexico policy, and he basically said that we're obviously we're
going to deport anyone that comes across. We're not gonna
do catch and release where you have your you come in,
you claim asylum, and you have your trial in America
because you just to show up. Everything has to be
at the border. So if you claim asylum, you either
stay at the border wait for your asylum case that
(26:29):
might be years.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Or you go to or you go to Mexico. I mean, yeah,
I think that was part of the strategy. But you know,
he deployed ten thousand military and National Guard. Again, I
don't know how many troops we have. We have fifteen
thousand in the Caribbean, ten thousand down there. The news
just reported that twelve thousand had been recruited. I don't
(26:52):
know if they're up to snuff. But what was the
catch and release policy?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
This release was we actually so the immigrants would go
to the border they'd actually wave down border control. Border
control would take them, they'd give them water and food,
and then they basically say, we're all a fleeing political
or violent persecution, were claiming asylum. They would then get
released and given a court date, and then what they'd
(27:17):
do is they maybe they show up the arrangement or whatever.
They would never show up to the full court date,
and then they're in the country, and if you're in
a sanctuary city, you basically can't get to ported. So
essentially it was very effective. Now that he's targeted sanctuary
cities and he's ended to catch and release policy, that's
why you're seeing the actual traffic go down so much
(27:38):
as people know they can't just kind of game the system.
Before they were just gaming the system.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
So now, I mean, what was caught me as interesting
in the report is that there were people from nations.
It was Bekistan, the Ukraine, Afghanistan. Yeah, we're flying to
Mexicala or you know, I'm not really sure that and
then you know, they would be smuggled over and I
(28:03):
think you know what you're saying that that was the
old way of doing business, uh, smuggling people, whereas before
you could just walk right in.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Well, I would say it's the new way of doing business,
whereas before you were just they were just walking in
at least, but.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
They were before they were walking in, they were smuggling.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
We're going back, yes, And well, listen the Mexicaliti borders.
That's the San Diego and then Tijuana cities. That's one
that's the most trafficed border. I think in north in
the Western hemisphere, I could be wrong about that. See
people coming in and out all the time, and most
of the time is normal. It's people going in for work,
people do for vacation. So that's the easiest place to
(28:39):
smuggle people in drugs. And if you look get if
you're watching all these documentaries, they basically have to pay
off one border control agent, and then if they pay
off one guy, they'll say, hey, when you're working, where
your what's your gate, and then they'll just just go
buy them.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
There's a dramatic decrease in the number of people coming
to the country. The flip side is that we really
still don't have an immigration policy right and we have
labor shortages. So when you look, the same thing happened
in the first Trump administration, where things and I think
twenty seventeen, you know, we're down to twelve thousand encounters,
(29:15):
and then it blew up again in twenty nineteen. This
feels different, This feels like this is not just a
policy shift, but I think it'll survive. Look, the policy
is all stick and no care, and right, it's effective now,
But what do you do to the industries and the
(29:38):
entities that required immigrant labor.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I'm still well, you know, so the argument is that
they should apply for visas, and that we should not
approve all these visas because what happens is that if
you increase the supply of immigration labor, that drives down
wages for Americans or people that already hear. The reverse
of that is that is that if you don't increase immigration,
(30:01):
not only are losing potential innovators and stuff like that,
is that you can't actually expand production as much as
because you don't have the workers, you have labor shortfalls.
So finding that balance is I mean, we've talked about
this a lot. I've talked about the Australian model where
they set a number, they have a skill set rankings,
and then they basically the people that pass the skill
set rankings and within that number get let in. So
(30:23):
the housing they.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
How you illegally enter Australia. It's a frigging continent in
an ocean two depth charges away.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Well, what they would do is they would just float
on boats and they claim asylum and then basically they'd
have And what they did before is they said, well
you have a court appointment here and they have to
wait two years and then in the country and they
get deported. What they do now is if they catch
you on a boat, they immediately to port you, immediately
to port you into an island, or you can wait
(30:53):
for asylum case, or they just say or they say
you can go back.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
So I think the connective tissue politically throughout the world
is immigration. And for Europe it's a little different. They're flooded,
but with a lot of Muslim immigrants who have an
unfavorable view of Jews in Israel. You know, the main
issue here seems to be economics. I know there were
(31:16):
commercials saying, you know, the borders being flooded by rapists
and murderers, but I think the main issue here was economic.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, I think I think it's economics. You know, housing,
infrastructure short falls, wage suppression. I would say the only
other issue is fentanyl and the drug trade. Fentanyls had
a huge impact. People connect that with immigration. So I
think immigration is still one of the areas where he's
above water and popular on even though people have turned
(31:44):
against maybe the most harsh measures of deportation the overall.
If you ask them like what kind of immigration system
do you want, you want the Democrat version, because when
they sit, here's the Democrat version, they hear open border.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Democrats made a mistake thinking that liberalizing immigration would impact
Latin voters, and it didn't. You know, but now Latin
voters are going the other way at any rate. That
seems to be his bread and butter mood.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
So if you look at immigration and the birth rates
continue to go down, how do you reconcile the shortage
of labor supplies? By the way, the Australian thing I
thought for America. I know this is going to sound extreme.
If they're putting them on an island, I'm sure it's not,
you know, a gorgeous tropical.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
No, it's not. It's not good. People have died there.
It's be honest, it's all sure. It gets kind of
a nice reputation, but it's a rough policy. It's not
The security elements of Australian policy is very harsh. And
the reason is is the argument that they would make
is if we want people to buy in immigration, we
have to enforce all the laws, whether it's labor laws,
let's security laws, because if if they feel like the
(32:55):
immigrants are getting favorites, they'll just be against immigration in general.
To have a blanket opposition, that's.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
A predominant view in America. I think you know, people
are looking around, things are changing. You know, there's more
people that are not white than are white. You know,
there's people coming in, there's Islamophobia, there's just I happen
to think things are changing too swiftly for a lot
of folks, and this is one thing you can control.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
I also think there's a perception that immigrants access taxpayer
dollars and resources without contributing anything.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah. And as the argument that they made is that
if you want people to buy an immigration enforcements more
important on post security, but also just general labor and
welfare enforcement. We're seeing it with a small daycare thing
where it's like, by not unfortunate the law allowing the
fraud to go on for years and years. People are
now become more skeptical for any of those policies, any
(33:51):
policies for daycare policy of immigration, whereas if they enforced
it immediately and got rid of the fraud, people will
be more open to daycare policies.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And yeah, there's been more outrage about that than there
has been about Tom Holman getting fifty thousand dollars in cash.
It goes back to whose team are you on? And
you know, just to wrap it up on immigration, I
don't think we're gonna have time. Real interesting narrative on Yuma,
Arizona and how that was a textbook example of how
(34:22):
immigration was a national problem. You know, they just were
getting tapped out, asked for help, didn't get any So
when we come back, not a lot of time left.
But when we get back, we will go over and
look at the wars that Trump had an impact on.
Eric Apstein Millennial Brian, this is a thunderdom more rock
(34:44):
the capital and art Selby is producing us. So I
heard in Australia, which I know is a beloved country
of your said after the Israeli massacre, they what was
struck me is they immedia or the massacre of Jewish.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
People in Bondie Beach.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
They immediately took action in banded guns, which is something
that would never happen here. But you know, Australia used
to have that profile being kind of out well. I
mean it was the way station for inmates from Britain.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Right, So yes, they were all inmates, you know initially,
is the is the argument? You know, I think I
don't know. I think it's a country that's actually in
this era of polarization much less polarized. I don't know
if that's because it is on its own world and
it's relatively economically successful, and there's been other things where
the rise of China's actually made it more economic because
(35:45):
they can and they have, because they have resources they
can sell China.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Oh they've gotten booked, They've got a lot of coal
and they have you know, there's a there's a big
moat between them and China. But you know, although we
view them as like a classic Western cot Asian nation,
they've got to navigate Indonesia, China, Indiana, all those nations.
So I guess you now you got to wonder about
(36:09):
the Trump foreign policy, whether it's a strategy of peace
or peace by intimidation. So the one war, you know,
he said eight, but that was really like over two terms.
The one war that I see that he had successfully
broke her to the deal because it was right down
his comfort zone was Armenian azerb.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Right, So Armenian Azerbaijan for we don't know. This goes
back to the Ottoman Empire or Azerbaijan, a Muslim country,
but also Armenia, Christian country. Christian Armenians were kicked out
of the Ottoman Empire kind of basically killed in en
Mass by the Turkish Ottomans. In the Turkey and Azerbaijan,
(36:50):
there's now this split that they they have and they
have a disputed territory right in the middle called the
Borrow Caraba God, which is I'm saying, oh, you got
it right. The way Trump broke this deal is that
there he has a ceasefire after the Azerbaijan kind of invasion,
(37:11):
and he has an energy deal for our media. And
Armenia used to be very aligned with Russia, but now
leaving their side because basically they were attacked by Azerbaijohn
and no one did anything, so they're looking for more
kind of defenders or protectors. And the idea behind this
deal is kind of economics for peace, which is you're
both gonna get a piece of this energy deal. We're
(37:31):
gonna build pipelines, we're gonna get minerals, we're gonna get resources,
and we're gonna help you export and we're gonna send
you different technologies. And reverse of having this kind of
energy technology corridor is that you're just gonna agree to
a ceasefire and potential long term piece.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I mean, it's the Clinton policy that Trump sometimes implement.
It's an economic foreign policy. Asarbashan is a wildly independent country.
It is Muslim uh and it's right in between Russia
and Iran, and it just doesn't take guph off anybody.
(38:06):
It's also an ally of Israel.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
And Turkey and the United States, but also does it
does business Manarias this is very right. It's a very
interesting country to.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Get a chance loot of the capital city. It's gorgeous.
So Trumpet thought he had peace in the Congo and Rwanda.
I just don't know that it's possible. I mean again,
and the common theme here is that that is a
mineral rich region. They actually had genocide there in the
(38:36):
nineties with the Hutu and the Tutsis, and so he
made the announcement on August Days. And then recently he
basically thought that there would there would be a lasting peace.
I think sometimes he confusedes ceasefire with peace.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah. And the other thing I think his problem is
areas that are always say not well governed or defined government.
The actual parties involved are not as well defined too.
So you might have two people agree to a handshake,
but the idea that you're going to get all their
different factions to agree is much different. It's much different
than like an a traditional war where it's like Germany.
Let's say in Italy agree to this, but you know Germany.
(39:14):
But if it's like all these different tribes. I think
that's one of the problems, by the way, in Afghanistan.
When we talked about what happened when we're wrong in Afghanistan,
it wasn't the initial war or even like the actual
military part. It's like, can you get these factions to
have a coherent security, political, and ECONOMFOSSE And you can't.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
No, that's the country their clients, right, I mean, nobody
has successfully invaded or occupied Afghanistan and it is not
a desirable piece of real estate. But at any rate,
Trump said that the conflict would wait wind down and
at the Congo in Rowanda on December fourth, due to
a miracle which didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Is back on which unfortunately, and it's brutal, Yeah it is.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
And it's interesting though that he would show interest in
what he in the first room called as whole nations.
So well, I think it was he wants there's minerals
there man, right, And he's.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Also wants to be a deal maker because his big
thing is America gets taken advantage of and we should
get better deals from these and also that I want
to be a piece through strength president and get these
deals where people stop fighting. So that's that's sort of
his wheelhouse. Some to listen and the Armenia as by
John thing it might hold. They also try to do
things in uh Serbia and Kosovo, and we'll see if
(40:32):
they hold some of these other areas where it goes
beyond that, it's much more difficult.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, Serbia and Kosovo was in his first term. But look,
the reality is he may be seduced now by foreign policy.
He's had some wins. He didn't announce the ceasefire between
Iran and Israel and Israel and Hamas, but I mean
there's I just don't see an end to the fighting
(40:56):
and with Israel Iran or Israel Hamas unless they completely
get exhausted. I think he is losing patience with that. Yeah.
So Cambodia and Thailand was interesting because most people were
unaware that there was a flare up. So he came
to the area when there have been five days of
(41:19):
really savage fighting, and they did agree to a cease
fire for a little while. The other week, apparently, I
think Thailand, I think it was Thailand sent two hundred
and fifty trones over to Cambodia. So there's two things
that are important to this is December, so Thailand launched
(41:39):
these air strikes. But you have been talking about this
for a while. Air drones have changed.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah, it's a future war, and they can be cheap.
They could be super you know, fifty dollars drones that
can do horrendous him to destroy the entire tanks. That's whout,
you know, entire battalions. Cambodia and Thailand is interesting. Island
is Tennly the US ally, but they kind of flow
with the wind wherever it goes. There tours. Cabodia is
one of the is one of that se some of
(42:07):
the worst US bombing during the Vietnam War when they uh,
the viet Cong would go through Cambodia and they would
get bombed there. So they still they're still bringing up,
you know, just bombed in minefield areas.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Well they would look there was a Nixon uh carried
out in illegal bombing at a time when the country
was really split with Vietnam, with real Vietnam War. So
the thing that concerns me is not so much whether
Trump uh, Look, you can negotiate a ceasefire, whether or
not it can go into pieces a challenge for anybody.
(42:42):
But the Chinese have just derived to the scene and
they negotiated.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
And that's also big because that's a huge it's even
a bigger economic driver for those countries in America as
far as what they get their business from, whether it's
tourism or whether it's manufacturing and industrial capacity.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Well, well there there's another a couple other worst but
it's been such a dark program. We need to move
to something more uplifting. So art does Alabama's performance legitimize
your claim that they shouldn't have been in the tournament.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Of course it does. I mean Alabama has not played
well for two months. They couldn't run the ball. They
were a very flawed football team, and they were lucky
they didn't have more than three losses to even when
they got in. So sure, sure Notre Dame would have.
Notre Dame was the last team to beat Indiana. They
beat him last year in the playoffs and they were peaking.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
So Alabama, and then I guess it goes to the
argument the Big Ten is collecting the most wins in
the postseason. You got the ACC gets the most deference
and so you see what did I say? I'm sorry
about that? Yes, you see, but that the Alabama game
(43:54):
is just like, yeah, they didn't deserve to be there.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Man, Well, the argument for Alabama is they got the
CCC conference championship. You can't punish a Big Ten or
SCC conference championship versus been and they beat Oklahoma. This
is not you know, it's in Indiana. It's just in
the league team. They're not the same team as last year.
And then they might steam roll everyone. I mean, who's
Indiana's had two close games, or I guess I should
(44:16):
say they have had a few close games, but it's
been against Oregon, Ohio State. They had Penn State, but
Penn State, although they're bad, has a lot of talent.
I guess I guess My point is. I think my
problem is, and this goes, is that we have a
kind of committee vote on it playoffs rather than access
to fined like in the NFL, who's gonna make the playoff.
It's not like we gotta go to this committee to decide.
(44:39):
It's it's like, here's who it wins. I think it
should be access to fine playoffs, like where it's like
five teams with the SEC, five teams to the Big
ten and then let's say three or let's say two
from the ACC, two from the Big twelve, and then
like two outright bits and then have playing games.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
My frustration is that they keep saying they don't punish
the team games in the championship games, which they did
byu because then they dropped them down so Miami could
go head to head with Notre Dame and then they
could use the head they had to put Miami in
over a Notre Dame, so they keep saying that, but
that's not how they did it.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Well. It was even worse than because remember they put
Notre Dame way above everyone, and they had to do
this artificial drop down even when they were destroying people.
Where the truth is they want they should have they
were going to do that, they should have put Miami
just higher. I think was you can't defend the committee.
I think if we switched to playing games first, I
think it would make the conference championship weekend much more
(45:35):
exciting because you have games with real stakes now. Match
if Notre Dame had to play like Iowa to get
to get the playoffs, like that would be a fun game.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with y'all. I think the issue
is that, regardless of how we got here, that three
games the other night was remarkable and Mississippi, I'm justelie.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
The quarterback was believe that was very Patrick Mahomes light. Obviously,
he's not like they're just like those crazy plays on.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Boy I heard no Mahomes is now comparing himself to
the quarterback at any rate, Hey what have we got?
Thirty seconds? You got? Yeah, Hey folks, it's cold out,
Bundle up be careful, don't drink and drive. We'll be
back in two weeks. Art, I hope you feel better.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Same for Becky. Please get well, uh and uh we'll
see you soon. Show me all
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