3-25-25 - 8am - Not So Secret Texts

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Michael, I agree that that no way that a
magazine is an accessory. I mean, that's just irresponsible. But
I hate to be in defense of the chambering one round.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
I know a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
That do that, even officers until chamber one round before
they put their clip in, simply because it's another round. Yeah,
I just wanted to add that it is. It is
fairly safe if you are a safe gun handler, to
add that one round to the chamber. You just can't
be Alec Baldman.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
I that that part I disagree with. I think you
can be a very safe gun handler. I think you've
just added an extra opportunity for a mistake and that's why.
And maybe it's just my lack of confidence, but I
just wouldn't do it. I get the whole thing about

(00:56):
you have one more round. I just I just wouldn't
do it. There's so many, so many things that could
go wrong. I just I don't want to take that chance.
Seven before we move on, if protests can gather large crowds,
well that's more dangerous. So we need to ban high
capacity protests no more than ten and no external amplification

(01:18):
and no telecommunication devices either. Yeah, because those are all
just successories, and we need some limits on the right
to peaceably assemble.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
That's that's in the first Amendment.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, so once again there's an opportunity for a Colorado legislator,
the Republican legislator to uh see, if you can't offend
the Democrats about the right to peaceably assemble. I'm so,
I am truly so fed up with this attack on
the Second Amendment. It is I mean, one one, I

(01:57):
do believe, sincerely believe that some misguided individuals Mike Tom
Sullivan do believe in their heart of hearts that somehow's
going to make the country safer. We know it is not,
and we know that he's totally driven by emotions because

(02:18):
of the murder of his son in the Aurora theater shooting.
So he's wholly misguided and he's acting solely on emotions.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
I don't know the guy, but that's my takeaway.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
But this whole other group of people are truly useful.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Idiots who under the mantra of we're going.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
To make the country safer, that they're going to strip
us of our gun rights. And I think that group
believes that they don't need self defense because one they
don't believe anything's ever going to happen to them. Or two,
they have their own private security, or they're working at

(03:00):
the state legislature where they don't the polyp Bureau, where
they don't have to worry about their own security.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Because I have.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
They've got the Colorado State Patrol, you know, surrounding the
entire building. So what do they care? Oh despise these people,
all of them.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
They just you know, there was a story I wanted
to do about.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
But I've got to get to this story about because
it's all over Drudge today and I wanted to address
it before you misunderstand some of it or before you
fall prey to the cabal. But I do I'll get
maybe I can do it the next hour, depends how
long this takes, but I do want to talk about
I think we are on the cusp of another American revolution.

(03:43):
I think you can call me a ficy old man,
but I'm really reaching my I'm reaching my limit. I
don't I don't know what that means. I don't know
it means I want to do, but I really can't
take some of this dumbass stuff anymore. I mean, it
really is total bull.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
You know what.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
So let's get let let's get to the Drudge headline
right now is pretty freaking hilarious, and it's got a picture.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Of of Uh.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
I think it's Mike Walls, a national security advisor, Pete
Hegsath when he pulled the photo down. Uh, it's just
the two of them. I think, of course, this mouse
works like a piece of crap that it is. Yeah,
it looks like it's Mike Walls and Pete Hegslith whispering
to each other. And the headlines underneath, and of course
big Drudge headlines, amateur hour, sloppy legal war plans, stunts,

(04:39):
Washington is at a crime. So you've probably heard about
the incident in which Jeffrey Goldberg, who's the senior editor
of The Atlantic magazine, which I you know, it's kind
of interesting because you know, I did this. I did
a podcast. They did a series on Katrina, and I

(05:03):
did this podcast.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
I was in d C.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
I mean I flew to DC for the interview and
we did it over a couple of days, and it
was it was a pretty intense interview. Its actually I
think a fairly somewhat decent series on Katrina.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
They probably still have it up somewhere on their podcast platform,
whatever that is. But I remember on the way out,
Jeffrey Goldberg was there, and Goldberg came up and wanted
to introduce himself and was so glad that that I
stopped by, and blah blah blah, and you know, and
everything and one note, you know, hey, have you been here?

(05:39):
But I said no, this is my first time in
your in your offices, and he said, which I didn't care,
but I find it funny. He said to one of
the editors, Hey, put put Secretary Brown on our complimentary
mailing list, and let's let him, you know, let's start

(06:00):
sending him copies of The Atlantic.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Never did it. They never did it.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Not that I cared, because I'd probably just glanced through
it and throw it away. So anyway, you've probably heard
about the leak to Jeffrey Goldberg somehow got access to
a signal chat. I'll explain that in a minute. How
this situation unfolds today and tomorrow will, like me, determine

(06:30):
whether or not this story has any legs, and we'll
grow into a hammer with which the am oless mainstream
cabal pounds the Trump administration over or if it's going
to blow over, aided by the gale force winds of
a twenty four to seven news cycle that always looks
for the next shiny object. So this will be like

(06:52):
either a really short story. It'll be dead tomorrow, or
it'll have some legs. Now, if you've never heard of Signal,
it's an encrypted messaging platform primarily used on smartphones, but
it's also you can get a version that's compatible with
a laptop.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
With a computer.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
It's used primarily for messaging and for voice calls, but
it comes with this kind of I think it's kind
of neat, a delete timer, and that delete timer will
automatically wipe your chat clean after whatever time you have
determined a lapse. So if you want to set it
for twenty four hours or two days or one hour,

(07:32):
whatever it is, boom, your chats get deleted, and any
recordings or voicemails or anything else get deleted. Now the
chats are not stored away somewhere. Once the message timer expires,
it's boom. It's just completely gone, I mean gone. So

(07:53):
who uses Signal? Well, people try to keep a low
profile are pretty fond of Signal and use it way
more than open calling. Or the like I message, which
is what I use most of the time. I think
I've got a signal account. I don't think i've used
it in I don't know. I'm not sure I've ever
even used it. If you don't want someone who manages

(08:18):
to grab your phone and have access to endless texts,
you're most likely using signal or something like signal, probably Signal,
as you may expect. All of the usual suspects who
think they would never compromise operational security are screaming about
the perceived botch with the Vice President as the senior

(08:42):
official that was present in this group chat, Secretary of
State Rubio, Secretary of Defense Hegesith, National Security Advisor Mike Watz,
CIA director John Ratcliffe, Stephen Miller, the President's deputy chief
of Staff for policy, and then others. They were also present,
and they were all participating in the chat. And it

(09:04):
all contained candidate I'll use the word candid, candid opinions
about Europe's unwillingness to shoulder the global defense load. And
there were some details about airstrikes on targets in the Yemen.
This all goes back to March fifteen. I got a

(09:27):
couple of screenshots. Let me just read through it a
little bit. JD to Hegsait. If you think we should
do it, let's go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.
Let's just make sure our messaging is tight here and
if there are things we can do upfront to minimize
risk the Saudi oil facilities, we ought to do that.
Hegsas says to the VP, I fully share your loathing

(09:52):
and it's cut off.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Oh hear it this.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It's in
all caps pathetic. But Mike the National Security Advisor is correct.
We are the only ones on the planet on our
side of the ledger who can do this. Nobody else close.
Question is timing. I feel like now is as good
as time as any given POTUS directive to reopen the
shipping lanes. I think we should go, but POTIS still

(10:17):
retains twenty four hours of decision space. Then Mike Waltz
chimes in, as I heard it, the President was clear
green light. But so we soon make clear to Egypt
and Europe what we expect to return. We also need
to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. For example,
if Europe does not remunerate. Then what if the US

(10:40):
successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost, there needs
to be some further economic gain extracted in return. And
this is this whole chat's part of the hoothy PC
small group. Rightcliffe CIA director says this is a good start.
Mike Waltz responds with some emojis. Let's see, Mike Waltz,

(11:03):
the team and Marl Laga did a great job as well.
Mike Walt's great work. All powerful start.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Start.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
Now, that's it in a nutshell, other than some of
the Yemeny war details. But unless there's more to come,
that's all there is for public shock value. That's it.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Now.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
If you're familiar with group chats, and in particular signal
group chats, or just with standard lingo pretending to how
military guys interact with each other, you're probably underwhelmed. I mean,
I think about some of the some of the email
chains and some of the stuff that I would read
in skiffs and other places. This is just this is

(11:47):
this is yachner stuff. Not not much happened in what
I just read you, except for Hagsath, who had just
landed in Hawaii when this was going on. Acerate calling
out Jeffrey Goldberg for his role in the Russia Russia
Russia hoax, the Suckers and Losers hoax, and all the
other garbage has propelled his lengthy career and all of

(12:10):
his propaganda that he's you know, spewed out from the
Atlantic magazine. So I've tried to figure out what likely happened,
and I got three ideas of what likely happened. And
first and I think most likely this was a careless
but an innocent mistake. When you create a signal chat,

(12:31):
the administrator chooses the names, which signal then transfers over
from your regular contacts, you know, from a scrollable listing.
I look at my contacts right now, I've got I
don't know, I've got ten thousand or so contacts in
my phone. And if I if I go to just contacts,

(12:55):
I mean, my god, If I push uh Eduardo Aguery,
he was a former ambassador to Spain, if I tap
on his name or if I just miss, I end
up with someone from London by the name of Augustus.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Very easy to do. Uh.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
So The point is I scroll right past Ambassador Aguery's name,
and I get to Augustus's name, and I go right
past say uh in the brown group, and when I
get to the bees, I might scroll right past my brother. No,
I'd scroll past my sister and get right to my

(13:43):
brother I got. I've got the numbers of many people,
including journalists. I still have and in some instances I
have the personal phone numbers of former White House officials.
But I've kept them in the in my contact list
because when I got the personal numbers. But two, I

(14:06):
also have what their two one, two four one five
number was their white House number, which doesn't change. So
if I have, for example, Andy Card's telephone number his
White House number, that means I've got Susie Wylde's number.
Now there's a chance that they may have moved offices around,

(14:26):
but if Susie Wilde is sitting in the same office
that Andy Card sat in, that's probably the same phone
number from twenty years ago.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
The numbers just don't change.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
I would, and there are people in there that I
have to look at, and I would I would think
just randomly pulling someone I'm not pressure who this is here,
I've got their email address. They live in Poway, California. Oh,
they actually work in Poway. They live in the San
Diego and I've got their uh, but jogging my memory,

(15:03):
have no idea who they are. And there are group
chats that I've been involved in that other people never
contribute to, both family and outside groups I've got. I've
got one family chat that keeps going on that I
think Tamra and one other person.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Only people ever respond to it. I just ignore them.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Several groups that I meant have members who literally never
contribute to the group, and they've not been removed because
in whoever's controlling the chat, or they've not removed themselves,
or nobody else has ever removed them. I've been in
groups where people have been have have blocked because they're
going to go on vacation for several weeks and they
don't want to be bombarded with the group chat, so

(15:44):
they blocked the number. Then they come back and realize, oh,
I've lost the numbers. Hey, would somebody had me back in?
So yeah, Given the history with Goldberg, I would I
would expect someone like Goldberg accidentally added to a high

(16:04):
profile chat would what would he do? He would lay low, listen,
watch and wait to see what happened. And given his
history with the Trump administration, Russia, Russia, Russia, many fine people,
losers and whatever. That hoax, that whole hoax thing. I'm

(16:27):
confident no one had him there on the grounds of
either merit, integrity or on purpose. I'm sure it was
a mistake, so an innocent mistake at that. But there's
another possibility, and I would call this one two birds,
one stone. Somebody I follow over on x Cynical Publius

(16:50):
references the signal chat and an ninety article and he
writes the minute I read the chat, my very first
thought was Goldberg was specifically, I'm deliberately included so that
he would leak what he saw to the public. The
idea was for them to let Europe know just how
unhappy American leadership is with Europe's unwillingness to pull its

(17:13):
weight militarily. The back channel, seemingly accidental nature of that
reveal was powerful and I believe intentional, and as someone
who's had his fair share of top secret sci war plans.

Speaker 4 (17:28):
Hey, Michael, going back to carryon with around in the
chamber next time you train, See how much longer it
takes you to rack in around when all you really
need to do when you pull from your concealed carry
is keep your boger picker off the boom switch.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Thanks Michael, I have a great day.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
I understand that's why, look doud, of course, that's what
you have to do.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
But and if you're you know, if if you're sitting
at home.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
And getting ready to leave and that's what you're doing,
then yes, I could probably do it.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
But if if I.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Find myself out in the wild, and you know, I'm
starting to feel.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Uncomfortable for whatever reason, and.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
I decided, you know, maybe I should just drop this
magazine out and put an extra one in the chamber,
and now I'm out, and who knows, I worry about distractions.
Let's just say you're you've parked in a parking lot.

(18:46):
I'm just trying to think of a of a hypothetical.
You've parked in a parking lot and you you know,
you your situational awareness tells you that this is probably
not a good thing, and so so now you decide
to do it, which may be a mistake you should
have done back home. But I'm just saying, if you
find yourself in that situation and you decide that now

(19:07):
you want that extra round in the chamber because you
don't you don't know what you're about to confront and
you're in a parking lot doing it, and the next
thing you know, somebody, let's just say, let's make it absurd,
somebody accidentally bumps into you. They're they're backing out of
their parking space and they bump into your car and boom.
You know, just even a slight bump causes you to uh,

(19:31):
you know, your head goes back into the headrest, what
happens to your arms? I just, I just I'm just
not comfortable doing it. And if you think less of
me of that, that's fine. I would rather know what
I'm comfortable with than what I'm uncomfortable with. Do I
understand why people do it? I absolutely do understand why

(19:53):
people do it. Again, it's all you know, particularly if
you're LNG for sure, I totally get that. But if
I'm concealed caring for my own self defense, I just
give me ten or fifteen rounds, that's all that's you know,

(20:13):
better yet leave me alone, not you, but then the
polot Bureau leave me alone. Just leave me alone. I'm
responsible for my own safety because I can't depend upon
law enforcement for my safety, and if if I do,
then I run an extraordinary risk that all you'll be

(20:37):
able to do is to investigate the crime after the
crimes occurred. But if you ever stopped to think, just
how stupid and I mean stupid with all of the
yeah that I can attach to that word about these
yahoos at the Polot Bureau, that they're they're utterly, utterly insane.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Back to signal.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
So the first my first suggestion in reading this was
it was a careless but stupid yet innocent mistake. The
second thing was maybe this was actually deliberate by two
birds one stone theory that they knew Goldberg was on this,
and the idea was to let Europe know just how

(21:33):
unhappy our political leadership was with Europe's unwillingness to pull
its weight. Now, remember we're talking specifically right now about
the Middle East, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, all
of that. Now, I think that is just as likely

(21:57):
as an explanation as first point, and I do think
it's credible. But one thing that I thought about, knowing
the military people that I've worked with, I think back
in reverse order, the people's the Pentagon that I worked

(22:20):
with the military planners that I had around me, some
of the military people that I worked with on nine
to eleven, military people in my own family, military people
that I know just outside work. When you read that

(22:47):
those screenshots, one thing that makes me think set up
is that here's a bunch of military guys, with maybe
the exception of obviously the vice well even the Vice
president not obviously served in the Marines. But there's there's
not one single inappropriate mean, there's no foul language. It's

(23:11):
it's it's almost I don't mean this literally, but it's
almost like a bunch of schoolgirls chatting about you know,
used to the word pathetic and all caps and you know, emojis,
and it's just it just doesn't scream to me a
bunch of serious military commanders having, you know, a serious

(23:34):
chat about war plans. Not one F bomb anywhere, not
one g D anywhere, not one s ware, not nothing
like that. And that's just not the military that I know.
Those are not the kind of commanders that I worked with.
But be that as it may, there are some counterpoints

(23:56):
about the idea that this was a setup. I mean,
too much access to sensitive military planning was given to
Goldberg for a less punishing message than the ones Advanced
delivered back in Europe on his own last month, which
those elites in Europe are still all butt hurt about

(24:17):
where he talked to him about you know, you're gonna
have to man up over here. And then there's a
third option, and again going back to the military, I
would say it's a canary trap. But a canary trap

(24:38):
is a deliberately planted lie achieved by a setup. So
you can identify a leaker. For instance, if Trump has
two advisers who visit him over a certain topic, and
he thinks that one of those advisers is a leaker,
he may tell the suspect something outlandish that nobody else

(25:01):
is told and wait to see if that story comes
up in the media. If it does, he's got the leaguer.
So it is possible, giving Goldberg's level of engagement in
the Atlantics, pushing of the Russia oaks, and his own
mouth seas ins as a propaganda it's not a journalist
that he was suspected to be a source to those

(25:22):
with very dark intentions for a second Trump for Trump
two point zero, I can't think of a better way
to identify him as a source than to have military
targets inner a defensive posture or vacated combat area just
before strikes commenced. After all, these airstrikes can be rescheduled,
and they're subject to the whims of maintenance, weather winds,

(25:44):
logistical challenges. What the hoothies are doing at any one point,
you know, anything going on, just you know, Hey, we're
waiting on some resupply. So I think it's most likely
a mistake, and I think it's one that's preventable. It
gives desperate enemies something to claw at. However, given the
speed of the news cycle and Trump's pinship for responding

(26:06):
to potentially damaging news with his own drastic actions, this
is Tuesday, my guess is I may be wrong here,
but my guess is by tomorrow or Thursday, over and
done with My own caveat would be if Jeffrey Goldberg

(26:27):
has a lot more to put out that could be
damaging because he wants to dribble this out and he
wants to create legs for the stories, and he doesn't
wait to get to move on from the chat. So
the chat itself well not obviously not a good way
to share actual planning or real time intelligence. It does

(26:50):
consist of key Trump officials blasting the globalist regimes for
not doing one damn thing to control the issues in
the Middle East, or in Europe or anywhere for that matter,
whether it's immigration or foreign policy, all of which impacts us,
not just them, but the impacts us too, And things
would be much worse if it was a chat full

(27:11):
of officials lasting Trump behind his back. I think those
days are gone.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
You know.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
I watched and listened to the public portion of the
Cabinet meeting yesterday, and I have to say that I've
never seen a more cohesive group of people, all on
the same page, saying the right things, giving great examples
of things that they were doing, really putting in language

(27:43):
appropriate for journalists to pass on to the public about
what they were doing. So I came away with two
points in my head from listening to that and thinking
about this chat. I think it probably was a silly mistake.
I think the Canary trap is probably the least likely,

(28:07):
and I think the setup scenario is a fifty to
fifty opportunity. I think that has a fifty to fifty
chance of being what was really going on, particularly when
I think back to that cabinet meeting. But the second
thing I came away from that cabinet meeting listening to
was you're talking all the right things, You're saying all

(28:29):
the right things. Trump has obviously gotten a really good
team together, a very good team. Now it's time for
action now, and obviously we're seeing it with the border,
but with all the stuff, and everybody had examples of
what DOGE has discovered or they've discovered on their own

(28:50):
with their own cabinet department or their own agency.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Well, now.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Do something, absolutely do something. There was a story yesterday
about and I forget whether it was SBA or somebody,
but they had discovered that during COVID a bunch of
loans had gone to children. Now, someone under the age
of eighteen cannot even legally enter into a contract, So

(29:17):
what are we doing giving loans or grants or whatever
to children under the age of eighteen. My first thought
was pursue the people who did that within the government. Obviously,
try to claw back the money, which can be done

(29:38):
by the agency itself, indeed, if it was the SBA.
But then I thought the third thing, where the hell
was the Inspector General. Where was the Inspector general when
all of that money, if you recall when we talked
about all of that money being pushed out the window,
I said, man, that is just a honeypot for fraud. Well,

(30:02):
that's what the inspectors general are for, to watch for
that fraud. We're now five years past that and they
haven't done a damn thing. So when Trump fired the
inspector general for different departments, absolutely he should have done
it because they didn't do anything.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Mike, here's my impression to you.

Speaker 5 (30:25):
I'm Michael Brown. I take discussion and get off my lawn.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Back off, bucko. You're pushing me. They're pushing me. Why
are you looking directly at me when you're saying that,
you say you do it. You don't want to end
up like Dragon. I didn't do a damn thing. I
didn't leave the typic. I didn't play him.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
You're probably the choice of six or seven, and you
chose that one.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Oh there's another one I could have played. I'll play
that one next.

Speaker 5 (31:00):
To hear it now, Michael, are you saying that you
leave your gun un chambered while you're concealed carrying, causing
you to have to rack the gun before you can
fire it, in an emergency situation.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yes, I do, yes, I do. Judge me, judge me
all you want.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
So, I don't know what's going to happen here, But
the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, which can block license
transfers and acquisitions and do all sorts of things with
heavily regulated in the industry, He's like, Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
Radio companies that.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
Promote DEI are going to end up facing increased scrutiny
from the FCC h with the agency potentially moving to
block licensed transfers and acquisitions that fail to comply with
Trump's executive order banning DEI policies across the federal government.

(32:21):
The chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, says that the
FCC will no longer approve merger and acquisition proposals from
companies that promote invidious DEI policy as a result in
unfair discrimination. He said, any businesses that are looking for
FCC approval, I would encourage them to get busy in
any sort of their invidious forms of DEI discrimination. We

(32:43):
can only under the statute move forward and approve a
transaction we find that doing so serves the public interest.
He says, if there's a business out there that are
still promoting invidious forms of DEI discrimination, I really don't
see it path forward where the FCC could reach the
conclusion that approving the transaction is going to be in
the public interest. Now that's pretty powerful considering that they're

(33:10):
currently reviewing mergers between Paramount Global, who's the parent company
of CBS News, and Skydance, which is a media production
and finance company. They're also looking at Verizon's twenty billion
dollar deal to acquire Frontier Comms and T Mobiles four
point four billion acquisition of US Cellular's wireless operations. And

(33:32):
he's already warned Verizon that if Verizon continues its DEI policies,
that violates the Trump administration policies and that could jeopardize
its deal to try to purchase Frontier Comms. Then, while
that's going on, at AT and T announced it had
begun the process of ending it's DEI programs last month.

(33:55):
This is what leadership does, abuse of power. That's just saying, hey, listen,
the policy of this administration is that we are not
going to have DEI in any of our organizations, and
we're not going to approve mergers and acquisitions, or any
other actions that may be required if we find that

(34:18):
you're still enforcing DEI in your company. Hmm, I wonder
when Dragon and I will get our next DEI training
to take.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
Probably never