'You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 157: Russiagate Revisited

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome back to another episode of You Were Wrong with
Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of The Federalist and David Harsani,
senior writer at The Washington Examiner. Just as a reminder,
if you'd like to email the show, please do so
at radio at the Federalist dot com. We love to
hear from you. I haven't heard from you in a while, Molly,
but I'm back to the week off. I got a

(00:38):
lot of good feedback on last week with wonderful Mark Hemingway.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Is the best.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
He is the best. We got a lot to cover
this week, as usual, and I think we should start
with the news broken by Fox that John Brennan and
James Comey are under or have are under investigation by
the federal government for their role I think specifically in

(01:07):
propagating I guess the Russia collusion hoax. I you know,
I I'm less secure in saying this about James Comy,
but I'm fully secure in saying that I believe, and
have believed for almost ten years now, that Brendan belongs
in prison. I think he's one of the most corrupt

(01:28):
high officials in American history, probably, but certainly, you know,
in a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
You know, we've known for a long time that these
are two of the bad actors in the Russia collusion hoax,
which I do believe was one of the worst crimes
perpetrated against the American people in its history, in our history.
So but nothing's ever happened to any of them, and
a lot of people are thinking that that will continue
to be true, that just because an investigation has been opened,

(01:56):
that nothing will happen. What I found interesting about out
the story as reported by Fox, and I should just
mention that Margot Cleveland and I were also trying to
run down this story, although we were trying to run
down the part not about Komy having an investigation opened
on him, but Brennan. So the Fox story was very

(02:20):
interesting to me because I didn't even know about the
Komy part. And what I think is interesting is that
people say, well, of course they should be investigated. Well,
it's not so simple. You actually have to open an investigation.
And in order to open an investigation, you have to
have a predicate a reason for opening it. And so

(02:40):
there were some clues in the story from Fox and
also in my reporting that I thought were interesting, namely,
the investigation is about a conspiracy, and the conspiracy, by
the way, is ongoing. You still have people perpetrating the
Russia collusion hoax as we speak, and having it being

(03:04):
looking into the conspiracy. We know it's the conspiracy. We
know that it involved a wide range of characters and people.
Wasn't just Brennan, Clapper and Komi, but a whole sea
of leakers and liars, and the Democrat Party higher ups,
Hillary Clinton of course, paid for the Russia collusion hoax
and then had it incepted into the intel community. We

(03:28):
know that Obama was briefed that there was a Russia
collusion hoax before any of us even had an inkling
of it, in the summer of twenty sixteen, and then
he asks the CIA to do that intelligence assessment verifying
that there was Russia collusion. And there are a lot

(03:48):
of players here, and it goes very high and it
goes very low, and in order to investigate it properly,
you need to open an investigation with the proper questions
being asked. So I hope that instead of just saying
did Brennan perger himself? You know when he testified in
front of Congress on such and such date, that it

(04:11):
looks much deeper at the issue of how very powerful
and important people in our country's government perpetrated a known
fraud against the American people with the goal of unseating
a duly elected president. I mean, it's a high crime.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, I just want to interject that, yes, there's a
conspiracy here that one or two people can't do this,
but underlings will only act or we'll be in bold
intact when they see that this former CIA director is involved.
Do you know what I mean? Like it, I think
the guilt like we already know from what we I
don't know what they're investigating exactly, but we do know,

(04:50):
and we shouldn't diminish that John Brennan lied to Congress, Like,
for instance, he had said that he didn't include or
care very much about the dossier, the Steele dossier. That's
what he told Congress in like twenty seventeen or something.
He actually said that I haven't think of some of Yeah,

(05:11):
the CIA was very much opposed to having any reference
or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community assessment.
But now we know that in emails that he literally
pushed to have it included. My bottom line is that
I believe that the information warrant seclusionist reports that is
a blatant lie. That's not any you know, that's not
even shaded or it can't be misunderstood. And he does

(05:32):
this over and over again, so we already know he's
a liar. We know that he told in the Muller
Muellers forgot to pronounce it a orry interviews, he said
that he was told there was no conspiracy and didn't
believe there was any conspiracy, and yet when on TV
day after day saying there was, now that I don't

(05:54):
know if that's a criminal. I mean, it's corrupt. I
know he's corrupt, but I mean, so I don't know.
Is that what I guess I'm asking, is that what
they're investigating? So there is already know about that? Or
is there something we don't even know out there? Do
you think?

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
There are a couple issues. One would be that the
thing you just mentioned that Brennan said to Congress, I
believe happened in May of twenty twenty, which means that
it is prior, it's past the five year statute of limitations.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Oh okay.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Now, he did testify to Congress again on a later
date I think also in twenty twenty, that would still
be within the Statute of Limitations. But to unravel what
all went on, I mean, this crime was committed in
twenty sixteen through twenty eighteen, that's all past the statute,

(06:49):
except in so far as it's ongoing. His crimes are
still being committed. So looking at the conspiracy enables them
to have just much more leeway in what they're looking into,
rather than something very specific prior to the Statute of Limitations,

(07:10):
which would maybe not even work as an investigation. But
and I want people to understand, because the people are
so freaked out, like nobody has ever been held accountable
for this horrific thing that happened, Like it's it's horrific,
it's horrible. A majority of Democrats still believe the Russia

(07:33):
colusion hoax, and elites still perpetuate it. It's a very
bad thing that no one's been held accountable for. But
in order to hold people accountable now, you have to
be somewhat creative. I mean, even let's say they get
all the goods on Brennan, a very bad actor, and
they charge him in Washington, d C. Do you think

(07:56):
that any jury in Washington, d C. No matter how
egregious the crimes, no matter how definitive the proof, do
you think any jury in Washington, d C. Would ever
convict their guy Brennan.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
It's very highly unlikely that he will ever be convicted
of anything.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
I agree, well, it is very unlikely, but it's it's
for sure not going to happen in Washington, DC. So
where you bring charges is going to be important to
see if you can get a real jury, not a
DC jury, which I just want to remind people convicted
every single J sixer they saw within minutes, no matter

(08:35):
how like, no matter what, no matter if it was
a granny wandering in or if it was a violent rioter.
It's not a place that you can have a fair trial.
Even the J six or sorry, even the Russia collusion
hoaxers who were tried were quickly acquitted in both DC
and Virginia.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
So well, I mean, yeah, I know, I just would say,
I mean, I don't know what will happen, how creative
they can get convictions, Probably unlikely, but I would hope
that we could tarnish because he deserves at his reputation
for the historical record. I mean, for me, I just
want people to know that he was one of the
most corrupt people in the American government in a long time.

(09:19):
And you know, I just quickly want to mention before
any of this, this guy oversaw CII operation spying on
the US, the legislative branch of the United States. When
he was found out, I think it was forgot what
senator it was, but it was over documents having to
do with torture and so on. It doesn't really matter
what the documents were about. He lied to the American public,

(09:41):
he lied to the Senate. He never apologized, never had
to publicly admit it. This was during Obama. He has
been a bad actor for a long time. God knows
what else he's done.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
There's also the issue of if you look at how
Democrats have used lawfair and hoaxes in the last ten years,
I'm not sure people realize how destructive it is to
the people that are targeted. So let's remember the Russia
collusion hoax was entirely invented by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

(10:13):
They funneled money, threw a law firm to pay for
the dossier that was used to sort of legitimize this
campaign talking point that Donald Trump was too close to Russia.
It was one of the most successful and massive info
ops in our country's history. And it was made up,

(10:36):
completely made up. I mean, whether it's the tape from
the hotel with the prostitutes part made up, or banks
communicating with Trump made up, or high level Trump operatives
secretly meeting in Prague with Russian officials. It was all
just completely made up. And there was the Steele dossier,

(10:58):
and there was another dossier that was fed through the
State Department just to make sure and the amount of
money spent investigating that. So they open up a criminal
investigator accounter and intelligence investigation slash criminal investgation. Oh my gosh,
I've forgotten all the details because it's been eight years.
They open up an investigation into Trump kind of try
to claim it's not into Trump, but it's obviously into Trump,

(11:21):
and everyone within a million miles of Trump's orbit has
to lawyer the heck up, spend tons of money on
on lawyers on They have to be very careful about
what they're doing. For years to people go to jail
for unrelated things because once the FBI starts looking into you,

(11:45):
you know, they can come after you for any number
of reasons, they have to testify in front of Congress,
they have to deal with the media. I mean, it's
it was a nightmare. And then when Trump loses the
twenty twenty election, every single Republican official up to and
including Trump starts getting law faired within an inch of
their lives again, lawyers, very expensive disbarments. Like it's just

(12:09):
massive efforts. And what has happened to James Brennan and
James Clapper? And do they all have the same name?
What did I make John Brennan Commy and Clapper?

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Nothing?

Speaker 2 (12:24):
They're like getting paid by CNN to lie. CNN was
like you lie, we lie. We would love to hire
you as contributors. Please come, We'll give you lots of
money to thank you for what you did to the country.
They get book deals, they get like parades. It's just
nothing has happened, no real investigation. You had Michael Horowitz,

(12:46):
the corrupt Inspector General of the Department of Justice who
recently left to become an inspector general elsewhere, supposedly do
an investigation into the Russia collusion investigation gation, and he
kind of was like, I mean, I guess, like we
broke all the laws that DOJ going after it, but

(13:06):
no worries. We'll do a light criminal referral of one lawyer,
and then John Durham, special counsel, is supposed to look
into things, dealing with a small staff, nobody working with
him at DOJ, you know, to sort of make it
go well, and trying everything in Virginia and DC again
in very difficult circumstances. I'm not elated with how Durham

(13:29):
ran the investigation, but it was also a difficult task.
But like, nothing's happened, so this is kind of the
first time we're really going to look at it with
an eye toward Oh yeah, I guess. I guess this
criminal conspiracy, seditious criminal conspiracy is something that we shouldn't
let happen. So I'm just glad the investigation will happen.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
It'll be framed as a you know, as revenge and
stuff like that, but if the evidence is there, I
don't care. If it's for revenge, I don't care at all.
But also just quick say that it was so crazy.
Remember every day was so crazy from the in those years,
but that was when we accelerated the corrosion of trust

(14:09):
and media, you know, and the trust in high officials.
So when you have that former CIA director telling you something,
you take that seriously because or you used to. Now
you don't. Now no one believes anything. And I don't
know if you remember Samantha Powers saying I forget who
she was talking about, but she was on MSNBC and
she said, hey, you don't want to piss off John Brennan.

(14:31):
Do you remember this little thing? And because someone's I
think Trump said something about him. So why wouldn't I
want to piss off John Brennan? Why are you saying
that he would use his power to hurt someone or
undermine someone or abuse his power for that reason. Yeah,
that's exactly what she was saying. And that's exactly what
he did.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
I mean, do you remember Chuck Schumer when Trump was
questioning the integrity of certain parts of the Intel agencies,
suggesting that they were doing things like the Russia collusion hoax,
and Chuck Schumer's said, don't go after the Intel agencies.
They have six ways from Sunday for going after you.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
And they do. He's right, they do. And obviously those
agencies and law enforcement have a kind of power over
people that is very hard to check if they want
to abuse it, and they did. I mean, like you say,
James Clapper lie to Congress blatantly, and yet he's held
he was held up as this like paragon of virtue

(15:28):
and stuff on CNN or wherever the hell he was,
you know, on every week. Comy is a little bit
different these much more of a weasel, meaning like he
just doesn't blaze. I don't understand what he's talking about
half the time. It's just so opaque, but he is
I don't think as clear cut a case unless we're
missing something as Brennan and like Clapper, as far as

(15:50):
line goes, I don't know, I could maybe my impression
is wrong.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Well, the issue with Comy is that behind closed doors
with the Gang of Eight, no what do you call
the the eight intel people that you meet with when
you're briefing just eight members of Congress for senators, four reps,
he would always be quite honest that there was nothing
going on with Russia collusion. He would walk out of
those meetings, go in front of the cameras and say,

(16:14):
I mean, I don't know exactly the particulars of how
involved with Russia Trump is, and we've gotten under a
criminal investigation or whatever it is, you know, counterintelligence investigation.
We're digging into it, and I can't really talk about
all of the corruption of the Russians and Trump. You know,
he would he would completely be honest with the members themselves,

(16:35):
and then he would come out and give everyone credence
to believe. Do you remember the time that Jake Tapper
reported that James Comy was going to say that what
Trump had said about so when Trump fired Komy, he
said that Komy had told him three times that he

(16:56):
was not a target of the investigation, I think, and
Koma leaks to Tapper team Comey leaks to you know,
Tapper that he's going to refute that, and then in
the testimony he's like, yep, I did it three times.
Three times I admitted that Trump was not the target
of the investigation.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
It was like there were like five bylines on that story.
But yeah, I mean that was just I just remember
constantly I was at the Federalist making lists of all
the stories that turned out wrong. You know, remember CNN
had that kind of ad campaign with this is an
apple and this is a banana, you know, in meanwhile,
like everything they were writing was wrong. They didn't even

(17:38):
correct those stories. They update them in a way that
undermines the entire thesis, you know, but then they pretend
it's not a correction. I mean, it's one after the other.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
And I think our favorite one about the claim that
Donald Trump Junior had early access to Wiki leaks, and
then it turned out that just A Rando had emailed
a public listing of Wiki leaks to Donald Trump Junior's
just like public email account. Story I think is still up.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Two anonymous intelligence officials gave Manu Raju and some other
reporter is that his name the same exact wrong dates somehow,
That's weird how that happened. Yeah, So I know, I
was thinking a senior correspondent, now, it only gets you
bigger jobs.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
So I was mentioning that Margot and I were working
on this story about a criminal investigation, like a criminal
referral from John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, to the Department
of Justice, and that it had been opened, that the

(18:45):
investigation had been opened, and so then Fox reports it
and I'm looking and I was thinking, you know, I'd
like to write this ourselves, because we were working so
hard on this story and we just hadn't quite gotten
the level of sourcing that we needed to feel comfortable
with running it. But I was joking that I would
write one of those federalists has confirmed Fox News reporting,

(19:08):
and Sean Davis was making fun of me for that.
But we're not confirming their reporting. We're just saying we've
found it out in our reporting too, but we haven't yet.
We only have the not that I in any way
doubt the story is true given what we know about it.
But you don't just confirm reporting by talking to the

(19:28):
same anonymous source that someone else did. And I will
just say I know for enough from the story of
Brooks that we were talking to different people.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
So anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this unfolds,
I mean, and for me, it's more the public record
that matters. I want to know what happened. I think
we basically know what happened, but I want to know
who was involved, and I want their names tarnish. We'll see.
Speaking of well, if you remember that time, and you
very well much do, it was kind of like a

(20:01):
spiraling of paranoia that went on where people lived in
this bubble and thought that I think many people actually
believe Donald Trump was a Manchurian candidate or some kind
of spy. Remember Jonathan Chait's story where he said that,
in actuality, Donald Trump had likely been a Russian asset
since nineteen eighty seven. I feel a very similar, but

(20:23):
in much smaller way, something like that going on right
now on Twitter and in social media over this Epstein
file stuff. I don't know if you've been following it.
I know we both don't care very much in general
about it. I would say if that's correct in any event, yesterday,
I guess, or the other day Attorney General Pam Bondi

(20:45):
said there was basically no Epstein list. It's hard for
a lot of people to believe. I understand why we
don't really trust officials anymore. The obsession I see on
this online at least is incredible, especially among you know,
so called MAGA influencers. I just don't think most people

(21:05):
in America, most voters. I mean, maybe they have a
passing curiosity over it because it's such a weird story,
but I just don't think that they care very much.
But I will say I think I think that in
many ways the administration brought this on themselves. I mean,
Bondi had that absolutely ridiculous bress engagement with all these

(21:30):
so called influence. It's just my view some of the
worst actors out there who had these binders and Epstein's
Epstein files file one. I mean, the idea that this guy, listen,
there's no debate. I think that this was a degenerate
and a criminal. But the idea that there's some that
there was some list out there that he kept of
every criminal and all the things that went on is

(21:52):
just completely a conspiracy theory. People don't work that way.
And you know, and of course that you know that
he was a foreign agent and all this. I mean,
I just think it's it's it seems preposterous to me
from the beginning, and a lot of people make a
living these days, you know, monetizing social media hits talking

(22:13):
about this kind of stuff, and I just think it's
a really big distraction from a lot of important stuff
that's going on.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Would okay, I thought we would agree much more than
we do on this. First off, it's hard to blame
people for thinking there's a list of Epstein clients. When
the Attorney General of the United States said there was
such a list, yeah, yeah, yeah, only to later not
say it the I always feel badly about how much

(22:43):
I dismissed claims from readers that there was a pedophile
named Jeffrey Epstein who was trafficking girls with powerful people.
You know, they would they would send the emails to me,
and I'd be like, that's insane, this person's crazy. And
then it turned out we turned out that's true. Right,
We at least know in the case of Prince Andrew,

(23:04):
that Jeffrey Epstein was taking high school girls, young girls.
You know, what do we know for a fact, like
drugging them, trafficking them, and preparing them.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
I don't know that we know all that for effect. Honestly,
I'm not saying that we don't know that there was
something like that going on, But you know, yesterday I
took like a semi deeper dive into it, and I
was kind of surprised at how little we actually know
about these things and how much has become just this lore.
I'm not saying anyone's innocent there, trust me, this is
whenever you talk about this, people just go bananas. I'm

(23:37):
not saying that, saying we don't know, and we also
accidentally he pled guilty.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
He pled guilty to prostituting miners. Okay, okay, and then
we have from a lot of people pictures of said
miners with Prince Andrew, you know, and Prince Andrew was
kind of written out of the royal family for his
involvement with Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
So we don't feel like we have one picture we
have one picture of any of that. But go on, Yes,
I'm not being pedantic here. I'm just saying that we're
just accusing people of pad a few left and right
because their names aren't some log being on a plane.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. So I do
not have the same level of interest in this story
that many other people do. But I actually disagree with you,
even on the part about the level of interest. Do
you remember when he killed himself or was found dead
in his prison cell. All over the country you were
seeing people say or produce signage Epstein didn't kill himself.

(24:35):
I mean, it became quite a popular meme to question
the story from the Bureau of Prisons, because you know,
he ends up dead in prison after everyone's been like,
this guy is running a child sex trafficking ring, and
then it turns out that the guards were asleep and
the videotape to the hallway of his cell didn't work,
and like, and people are like, there's no way that's true.

(24:57):
I remember this part because I was on Fox News
Tucker Win and I said I'd seen no evidence to
conclude that he hadn't killed himself. Truly, to this day,
the most email I have ever gotten from Fox viewers,
and it was all angry. It was like, you think
you're smart. I used to think you were smart, and

(25:19):
you're stupid, Like, you know, how stupid do you have
to believe? How stupid you have to be to believe
he would kill himself. I'm not even saying he didn't
like pay off the guards to let him kill himself.
But it's not the craziest thing in the world that
a guy who's facing federal charges of child sex trafficking
might kill himself, right, Like, that's it's not the first

(25:40):
time that's happened.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
It's the most obvious thing that would happen in that case. Right.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
People were angry about it, of course, So now I
want to defend the people who aren't satisfied with the answers,
because I actually am not satisfied with the answers too.
My number one question is how did this school teach
or become so wealthy. I don't know what the answer is,
and I would just love any answer. He was a
school teacher and then he owns an island and he's

(26:09):
hobnobbing with some of the most powerful and wealthy people
in the world. So that's one question. The second question
is after he was convicted or plied guilty, pleaded guilty
to the child sex trafficking, he's hanging out with a
lot of powerful people after that. I think that's weird.

(26:32):
I have had acquaintances who've done very bad things and
it affects whether you publicly hang out with them or not. Right,
and you still have all of these powerful people after that.
They're still going. The flight logs still show that they're
headed to the island and they're doing all this stuff,

(26:53):
and it's like, why that's weird. These are powerful people,
do they really need to be hanging out with Jeffrey
Epstein child sex traffic. So I'm not saying that there
aren't satisfactory answers to both of those questions. In fact,
I bet there are, but we haven't gotten them.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Well, I'm not an expert on it, but I think
he made his money in the market, and that happens
all the time. He pled to account of a soliciting
prostitution and one from a minor. You know, it does
not surprise me that someone who in two thousand and
eight pled to those things would then continue to be

(27:32):
to you know, have powerful people hang around him. I mean,
there are a lot of bad people around who have
a lot of money, who still can attract friends. You
know what I mean? I mean, what are you saying?
You say, you know, what does the what do answering
those questions answer for you? Meaning like you think someone
just gave him the money and then he's what blackmailing people.

(27:54):
I mean, there's no evidence of any of the kind
of conspiracy theories passed the idea that he was a
degenerate and some rich people were degenerates and went to
his island, right, I mean, what is I mean? I
know a lot of these people talker types whatever, you know,
that it's Mosad and they're manipulating the American government and
this and that. None of that. I mean, that's just

(28:14):
you know, into the rest.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Of the Yeah, I've talked with some people in the
federal investigation area who say, first off, that he was
not spying for us, that they don't have, you know,
solid information of spying for a different government. But that's
not crazy to think that that might have been going on.
I mean, that's precisely how this kind of stuff works.

(28:38):
You take people who have you take shady people who
have information on other people that could be used to
the advantage of a powerful interest, whether it's a moneyed
interest or a governmental interest, and you work together. I
mean that's not unheard of. That's pretty common. So I
think sometimes people are claiming things are more conspiratorial than

(28:59):
they are not. Everything adds up with this. Do I
think it's some grand, you know, massive conspiracy. I don't know,
could be. I haven't seen enough to go down that direction.
And more than anything, unfortunately, I don't have the time
to dig deep into this. It's hard enough, like you
heard me forgetting details about the Russia colusion hoaks and

(29:19):
it's something that I know very well. I just there
are so many other people who have like a natural
interest in this that I just let them do the
work on.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
It, then, you know. I mean that's the problem. We
don't get any And I think, by the way, the
Epstein stories were a big part of kind of left
wing media before Trump. You know, like Trump's on one
of the logs his wife, you know, is former. So
it's both sides doing this with Epstein. But I think,

(29:47):
can I say this conspiratorial way of viewing the world
these days? I just think it's accentuated in a really
weird way, Like for instance, it was bonding. You know,
they did the same thing with JFK and RFK files.
You know, it's going to be a big bomb show
with to finally find out what did we find out?
We found out that one person killed, a Kami killed JFK,
a Palestanding killed RFK, and Epstein killed himself. Why would

(30:10):
the people cash Ptel and others in the government lie
about Epstein killing himself. Why these are the people who
be went into government wanting to I think, wanting to
see more.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Okay, now, yeah, this actually gets to what I think
is a really big issue that enrages me. How stupid
do you have to be to believe that there's like
a file that gives all the answers for either of
these things? Oh, Jeffrey Epstein kept a file in his
file cabinet and said here are the clients and here's

(30:45):
what I'm blackmailing them on, or do you just have
or do you have a phone with contacts? And he
kind of knew who he was working with, you know
what I mean, Like, Nope, it's not like a James
Bond movie or whatever, where there's like, oh, here's the
secret file. Ditto on the JFK thing. I'm at this
another area that I'm not at the same level on

(31:05):
with other people's level of devotion to the topic. Do
I think that the government was more involved in the
JFK thing than has been reported and also had a
little like here's how we did it file? No? Absolutely not.
Do I think the CIA, we're just talking about Brennan

(31:28):
or any of its predecessors or the type of people
to be like, we want to make sure we're being
really honest about all the operations were running. No, like,
there's no file but answers everything. And then I want
to say further that having said that, I actually do
think the JFK files were really interesting and I do
think they corroborate. You know, there's a whole you can't

(31:49):
just paint the people who are at the fringes of
a conspiracy theory and say that everybody who has concerns
or disagreement with an official government story is at that level.
There are many legitimate people, people who worked on the
investigation in JFK, people who knew players involved, also just

(32:10):
thoughtful researchers and analysts who have said things like that,
you know, obviously the US government was tracking Lee Harvey Oswald.
The files confirm that, you know, we knew.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
That from the war and report on that's not that
he literally I mean, sorry, I don't want to get
into this too deeply, but go on.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yes, but people expect too much from files. It's like
the Russia collusion hoax, the official files on that the
story they tell is a complete lie. The official files
are about taking someone saying yeah, I heard Donald Trump
say the word dah once and writing it up as

(32:48):
if Donald Trump is a Russian asset. What would it
do to release those files? It would do nothing to
tell us about the Russia collusion hoax. Like the hoax
is not in the files, the conspiracy is not in
the file. And do I don't even believe there's a
big conspiracy, but I hate all the rhetoric around it,

(33:08):
like whether it's the people believing it or the people
supposedly debunking it. Like it's okay to say I think
there's something very fishy about Jeffrey Epstein. If you don't
say that, I'm actually concerned because there's something very fishy
about the whole thing. What it is, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
I think that people's first instinct these days, not all people,
many people is to read into things that are relatively obvious.
Of course, he had a lot of money. There was
something fishy. He liked to be round powerful people, so
you start thinking things. But this idea that like you
said that there's a list, but even the log everyone
keeps throwing pictures of people's names on his plane logs

(33:49):
that first of all, that plane went all over the place.
People use it. I think they were incredibly poor judgment
in using it. By the way, but you think Bill
Clinton doesn't hasn't used poor judgment his whole life. I
think Bill Clinton would go to an island where they
were young women because he's a degenerate and it has
been always. But that doesn't mean that like Ivanka Trump,

(34:10):
who was on a plane was going to that island,
or you know, a billion other people. I think I
forget what the number is. It's huge. I just think
people like to read into things more. We're not being
rational anymore online, That's all I'm saying. And it creates
this bubble where people are constantly inflating the irrationality. And
this is how a lot of people make money because

(34:32):
it attracts hits and everything else and not.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
I want to agree with you on something else too,
which is you were too kind when you said that
you thought that Trump administration had not handled this well
polute debacle. Like I don't know Pamboni, I don't dislike
her or anything like that, but what happened there was unprofessional, immature, inappropriate.

(34:58):
She kind of got if you saw the cabinet press conferent,
not press conference, but a cabinet meeting that was televised yesterday,
she kind of gave an explanation of her mess up,
and it seemed almost like the other cabinet members were
just displeased. They're all doing great work enacting the agenda,
not having mess ups and not caring so much about

(35:22):
press talp. I mean, not that they're not all on
the media, but they're I mean, they just it was
a huge embarrassing mess up that is well below the
standard set by the second Trump administration. It was kind
of first administration level.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
I mean mistake in the old days. I think someone
like her making this mistake, and it's kind of an
ongoing mistake. She talked about a client list, she had
that dumb press conference. What was with those binders? We
never got even to the bottom of how stupid that is.
Bringing can I don't know what to call them con
artists into the White House to show that, by whatever

(35:57):
it is, she should be fired, right, I mean, I
I don't know that anyone else messing up this badly
and undermining the administration really and making them look silly
would survive very long. Especially you'd think Trump wouldn't allow it. Now.
I don't know her, or maybe she's doing good work
in other areas or not, but doesn't seem like she's
been impressive at all compared to let me say, someone

(36:20):
who I don't particularly love all the time, Marco Ruby,
Like that guy's just been incredibly impressive. I think he's
always prepared, he always has a sharp answer for the press,
and I think he's actually better at this job than
being a senator. Pam BONDI does not seem like she's
doing a good job to me at all.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
And what's weird is she was pretty well regarded as
Attorney General of Florida. You know, she has the relevant
experience you'd want for someone.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
I mean, my question is, is someone I don't know,
Donald Trump, someone else saying, listen, we want you to
do this Epstein thing because we promised, you know, because
it's true. JD. Vance talked about it, Trump talked, was
asked about it, even though they over state what Trump said.
Trump Said's like, yeah, whatever you want to release it,
I'll release it. He doesn't know that that file exists

(37:06):
or not, or you know whatever people think that file
is supposed to be made up of. So I don't know,
I mean, as someone telling her to do these things
and she's just trying to make it work, you know,
that could be a factor in this. I don't who knows,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
But I also want to add one more thing about
believing too much in how files are going to show
you everything. We're talking about an FBI that does not
do a lot of things well, and the failure to
find helpful, clarifying information in the files could be because

(37:41):
it's just impossible to have clarifying information about this man
and his operation. It's also possible that it was just
a very shoddy investigation by the FBI. Or heck, we
also learned in the last couple of months that the
FBI puts things in secret hideaways that nobody can find
or even search for, you know, in this separate like

(38:02):
off the books file system. So there could be stuff
there like we don't even know at all, and.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
People people don't get though that That how these files
often work, especially with CIA and other intelligence agencies. Not
everything you write down is something you believe is true.
Sometimes you're theorizing. Sometimes you're throwing things out there. You
want to make sure to interview everyone. You ask questions
that aren't even you know that you don't believe are true.

(38:29):
You're trying to just suss out what's going on. There's
all kinds of things that go on in investigation. But
then someone, you know, some online person gets their hand
on something. I don't want to gay key people, but
I do want someone who understands the issue to look
at files and they'll see a sentence that says something
like someone's theorizing, Oh maybe the Russians got to Kennedy
or whatever, and all of a sudden for them, that's

(38:49):
some kind of evidence, some kind of cover up, and
that's how all these things bloom, you know. I mean,
there's what is it called in Israel they have this,
where I'm sure other countries do. There's someone in intellig
agencies who's always just challenging what everyone says. That happens
as well. So I don't know that you know, so that.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
We've talked before about this book that Mark made me
read last summer, called Chaos about the Manson Murders. Yeah,
did you read it?

Speaker 1 (39:13):
I have it, but I have not yet read it.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Well, it's an interesting story about the Manson murders, the investigation,
the reported history or the reported police investigation, the deficiencies
with that. But the subtitle actually mentions the CIA Chaos,
Charles Manson, the CIA and the secret history of the sixties.
And the guy who wrote the book it kind of

(39:38):
recently had a renaissance last year. I guess Tom O'Neill.
He spent decades trying to unravel stuff about the Manson murders,
and at the end of the day he doesn't really
he makes an absolutely air tight, excellent case that the

(39:58):
story as you know it is not true. But he
has to admit at some point, like literally has to
move on with his life that he doesn't have conclusive
answers about what was going on exactly with the Mansons.
I mean, there is so much interesting detail, but it
doesn't create like a prosecutable case for certain people. It

(40:19):
is therefore one of the most honest books I think
about what it's like to investigate something. It can be
very frustrating. You have to hold on to threads that
may go nowhere until they do.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
You have to.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
You know, you might have what you think is a
very strong theory of the case and then it falls
apart conclusively and you're just heartbroken over it. Investigation takes time, energy,
and prudence, and you're pointing out these people. They'll be like, see,
I told you, and it turns out it's just someone
saying something that they heard from someone. It's not in

(40:54):
any way, you know, operational. But I think I think
the best way to handle this is just to take
people you trust and follow their lead. You know, take
people who you've seen them do good investigative work. You
kind of trust them, and the other thing is a
little bit hard. You do have to be a little
bit crazy to be a good investigator. You have to

(41:15):
like go in your mind into all these different places,
you know, you have to kind of like test theories
and the type of people we're into that are going
to be the type of thinkers that aren't always the
most traditional.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, that's right. Even when you have two witnesses to
a crime, they'll have different understandings, So it's very difficult.
But the problem for me is when everyone or a
large group of people are buying into some kind of
cartoonishly cinematic ending to it. Sometimes and most times, actually,

(41:49):
I think that maybe the police over dramatize what goes on,
and it's actually quite boring what goes on, And most
of the time, the most obvious thing is what happened,
and that's something we have to understand and live with.
I've read books on the jfk assassination, a lot of them.
I spent too much time on it, and we're never
going to know everything. But I think the cartoonish cinematic

(42:09):
version is probably incorrect, and the more boring version is
more or less correct. And I just want to say,
like with other things, We have been bombarded with cultural depictions.
Think about Oliver Stone's JFK. We had stuff where where
everyone's in on it, big business, Johnson, the Conservatives, Joan Burt, society,
you know, I mean, and that kind of like I
think people don't read enough actual history, and those things

(42:32):
kind of form their understanding of history, which is not real.
It is not real anyway, I'm just ranting now. I
liked it.

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Speaker 1 (43:24):
Can we talk about Benjamin Neataanna who was in town
meeting with Trump. I think they're talking mostly probably about
some kind of end to the Gaza thing. There are
reports that they're going to be sort of some kind
of deal where four urb nations are going to administer.
I don't know if it's true or not that I
read a report that they will administer Gaza strip and

(43:47):
govern it instead of the Israelis doing it. But what
I liked was Netagna, who uh trolling the whole international
community by nominating Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Now.
I say trolling not because Donald Trump doesn't deserve it,
but because most often a person who actually attains more

(44:07):
peace does not get the award. To diet a little research,
four American presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Three
of them are probably one of our three of our
worst presidents. One I guess is debatable, but it's Teddy Roosevelt,
Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama. Barack Obama famously
won it it. He was nominated for it eleven or

(44:31):
twelve days into his first term, which made me laugh
because much of Obama's presidency was just like imbuing him
with all your hopes and dreams but not actually seeing
him do anything. And I thought about what I tried
to think about what was his most celebrated foreign policy accomplishment?

(44:52):
And I would say that destabilizing Libya for no reason,
I think would be what is most remembered. Messing up Syria.
What else did they do trying to give you Iran
a bomb, the Paris a corridor agreement or whatever, which
was nothing and was overturned. See, he's literally one of
the worst. Jimmy Carter obviously was I would say, the

(45:12):
worst ex president in history. Just loved every commed dictator
in the world.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
You would say that if you don't love North Korea
having nuke.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Or I have a list somewhere of every time he
said something nice about a communist dictator, and there's like
ten instances. He is the one who went and legitimized
Hugo Chavez's reign in Venezuela more than one time. He
was a terrible person. He said, he had a fondness
for Yasir Arafat. He told us for decades he wanted

(45:44):
us treat Haramas like a legitimate government. Just a terrible person.
He want to know Abelt Prize, you know, so I
went through him. There are Nobel Prizes for good people.
Last or two years ago, they gave it to some
an activist. I wish I could remember her name. Iranian
champion of human rights who's and jail stuff. But when
it comes to like political people, it's all about esthetics

(46:06):
and like you know, posture, it's not about results. Donald
Trump and Natagna, who deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. I mean,
I just quickly go through this. Hamas attacks right, Middle
East looks a certain way since then Hamas's weekend, Hesbaala
is gone, Lebanon may reportedly joined the Abraham Accords, Asada

(46:27):
is in Syria. Syria might join the Abraham Accords. Iran
doesn't have a nuclear program. I don't care what anyone
tells me right now. And this is all because of
Netta Nayu first, but because Trump allowed him to do it.
Biden did not allow him to do these things. Another
quick thing, Trump the other day got NATO nations to
increase their spending to five percent of their military budget,

(46:51):
which is something Obama and every other president wanted to do. Now.
I have a lot of criticisms of Donald Trump, but
I think he's the best foreign policy president I can
think of since Reagan. Maybe, you know, going farther back
than that, I just I just think he's done a
tremendous job and deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Anyway, thank
you for hearing me out there. That's my Nobel Peace
Prize nomination speech.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
So I don't take the Nobel Peace Prize seriously because
of Obama. There were lots of problems prior to that
and since then.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
But yes there are fat one. You think that was
a problem.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Well, at the time that kind of made sense, right.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Absolutely not. He is the godfather of modern terrorism.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
He was then and when they signed the peace agreement.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Even at the time it was nothing. I mean, it
was just blown up within a few years into fat
a start. If he never was going to accept the
Palestinian State agreement anyway, I don't argue about that. It
should never have gotten one.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
It's like aspirational, but based on at least something that
had happened.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
I think aspirational is a good word.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
For it accords with Obama getting it just days after
his inauguration. That so delegitimized the entire Nobel Peace Prize
that I don't care about it anymore at all, except
as an indicator of a bad person. And I like
when you have clarifying moments. I remember waking up Mark

(48:20):
that morning that the news came out that he had
been nominated or won. Did he win it really early?
I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
He was nominated early, so you're nominated, it's like until then,
what you've done from the nomination on. That was twelve
days after inauguration. They gave it to him later in
the year.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
But when he won it, I woke Mark up and
I was like, guess who won the Nobel Peace Prize.
And he's like, no, you know, because you don't wake
someone up and do that. And I was like, no,
you have to guess, and he was by the time
he by the time I told him who it was,
he was so angry. But it was so absurd and ludicrous,

(48:58):
absolutely ludicrous that I don't care about anymore. So what
is BB doing by nominating Trump? Nothing could hurt like
a legitimate effort to get Trump the Nobel Peace Prize
more probably than BB NETANYAHUO being the person to nominate him.
It is to me it was a little clumsy and silly.

(49:19):
It's a I don't know. It just seemed a little
too cute, like, oh, I have nominated you for a
Nobel Peace Prize. It's like believing what you hear, and
it might be true, but believing what you hear about
Trump being easily flattered and doing whatever easily flattered people,
easily flattering people ask him to do.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
Of course, that's what it is, but it was like
it was unctious.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Here we're talking about real people, real wars, real.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Lives, loves that stuff. Trump loves that stuff though, right, That's.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
What it seemed like. It was like there was a
meeting of people being like, oh, Trump will love this,
Let's do this. It just is silly, well and inappropriate
in a way too, like it's not a real thing,
and so I don't love talking about it. But I
wanted to just say something about Nan Yahoo being here.
So I was able to meet with him. Oh gosh,

(50:16):
I don't remember what it was a few months ago
with other it. It was kind of an interesting meeting
and it was quasi off the record, but it's been
reported about and you're allowed to say that you were there.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Some of the people who are there are ridiculous. I'm sorry,
you're a serious person, and some of those people were ridiculous. Sorry,
that is not at all.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
What I'm saying. What I'm saying is it was two
different classes of people, reporters and then like influencers.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
I'm saying David Harsani is saying that the influencers, some
of them were ridiculous, people should not have been there,
but go on, please.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
In my experience in the meeting, everyone was completely appropriate
and asked good questions and stuff like that. But it's
just journalists do different things than influencers like that. You
just you're it's just a different type of meetings. So
that was a little frustrating. But anyway, when he came
last time, I assumed that when you come to the
United States, like when you do a in person meeting,

(51:12):
it's because you need an in person meeting, that you
do not trust anything other than an in person meeting.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
And at that time, explain that, what do you mean?

Speaker 2 (51:23):
I guess what I'm saying is at that time, we'd
already moved some of our ships into the region Israel
was talking about, was beginning to talk a little bit
more about Iran. They'd taken care of they'd taken most
care of the Gaza strip, they had taken care of
the problems to the north his Bola, and it was
like Okay, Well, Iran was really behind this October seventh attack,

(51:46):
so that's going to be next. So in my mind,
I'm like, he's coming to tell Trump he's he's going
in and he wants his support and so as has
previously been reported. That's what I asked about, kind of
like what are you doing? What's what's going on in
terms of what are you trying to get from the
US here? So when he comes again, I'm like, oh, okay,

(52:07):
so what's next, Like he's trying to do another round
of this? Is it with Iran? Is it about finishing
the Gaza strip thing? Is it about like a long
term accord. It's just clear that Boebe does not trust
communications that are not like in person like that.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
I suspect this was about Abraham accord stuff and Gaza
reconstruction stuff. But who knows. Maybe he's going to attack
Turkey tomorrow. I don't know Israel is going to do
it stuff. Yeah, I actually I think I've said this before.
People misunder misunderstand Nataigne who he is not as hawkish

(52:46):
as people think he's. He's far more careful and anyway, but.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Oh I cannot I still cannot wait to read the
books like I hope that they start coming out in
a couple of years about out everything. How do you mean,
I want to read more about the Beeper operation. I
mostly the Beeper operation. I just think that was like
so impressive. Also the embedding people in Iran. I find

(53:14):
stuff like that super interesting. And I just can't wait
to like get some substantiation for some of the claims
that have been out there or not, you know, just
find out what happened.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Yeah, I mean sometimes I was a few years ago
working on a story from a long time ago about
some Mosad spy ring thing that happened in the fifties,
and they still haven't released, you know, all the information
about it. So you know, it might it might never happen.
I don't know Israel. Israel relies more heavily on that
sort of thing than I think any country does, just

(53:44):
because of its size.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Okay, I do want to say about what you just said.
There are people in the administration who are less focused
on Israel than Bibi. Was that what you were saying,
that they don't everything BB wants to do. I should
hope so, because no, for not his true.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
But I mean, we have a policy in regards to Israel.
And that's what I'm talking about where I think that
people there are some people were more skeptical who I
just don't think would have signed off, for instance, if
they were president, on the bombing of the nuclear reactors.
I don't, you know. I just think they're non interventionists.
They don't want to be part of that sort of thing.

(54:22):
They think there's blowback involved, et cetera, et cetera. And
that's a good debate to have, for sure. I'm not
saying that they're not have that debate, but I.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Did kind of want to talk about that issue, just
even though we weren't planning on I was thinking about
it about my concerns when we first started talking about
about bombing Iran, and I think we did a podcast
where I said I was going to anger everybody on
both sides, and I'm pretty sure I achieved that, Like

(54:51):
I was too much in the mushy middle for a
lot of people, meaning I did think that there's a
definite case that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons and that
it's in our interest to make sure that they can't.
And also I was like pretty terrified obviously that we

(55:11):
were going to have like every other time we do
something big like this, an entrance into an intractable war.
And I just want to say I am obviously quite
pleased with how it went right, right like we did it,
we got out. It's what I always say. I wanted

(55:35):
to do an Afghanistan right, just carpet bomb and then
come back without without landing the plane. That's literally what
we did. We bombed and came back without landing the plane.
But and I think, Okay, of course, you know how
Trump is, you know what he says. You know that

(55:56):
he's not like a neo con interventionist. You should just
trust him. And so was I wrong to be like, no,
don't do a footprint war. I don't know. Maybe, but I,
whatever the case is, I am pleased with how it's gone. Now.
If ya who was like, no, really, we've got to

(56:17):
do a much bigger thing here, and here's why you
have to be the one to do it, you know,
then I'll look foolish again for thinking that it wasn't
that we could do this without getting super involved. But
there's a difference between people who are worried about how
neocons destroy almost everything that they touch and people who

(56:38):
are you know, non interventionists like you can support intervention
and still oppose the Neokon approach.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
Yeah, I just I don't know. I don't view foreign
policy like that. I don't think it's ideological in that way.
I'm reading a book by Andrew Roberts about World War Two,
for instance. Right, So the fight against Japan, we had
to be interventionist or you would have had to come
back and fight another world again. And that's why we
did what we did and it worked out actually, and
it didn't work out well because it's terrible war we
didn't start, but it worked. The postwar years with Japan

(57:09):
turned out well. But any run, we have no reason
to do that. Donald Trump never said we were going
to do that. There was really no will to do
that in the public and what we did, David, there
is no will to put boots on the ground and
regime change by our force Iran. There is none, Okay,
And that is just a fantasy created by isolationists at

(57:32):
the American Conservative and talker. There was no will for.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
That, David. That's insane.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
No, it's not.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
But go on, take the story of the Ukraine War, right, Yeah,
we were told that we will support Ukraine and we
can take care of Russia in short order. We are
in year.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
No one said that. No one said we could take.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
The Wall Street Journal in New York Post which had
a flag of Ukraine on its cover.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
By the way, fine, that's the different.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
So Ukraine is on the march, Ukraine is doing great,
Ukraine is defeating Russia. We're bleeding Russia dry. And then
like all of a sudden, I'm sorry, are we in
your We're in near four of that war, right.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Yeah, But the other side was saying that that Ukraine
can't stand up to Russia. It's not worth helping them.
We need to just make a deal this and that,
and Ukrainians have a right to fight for themselves, and
we help them, and they are doing a relatively good
job in general, you know, as far as war goes.
So both sides are propagandists on this. Look.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
You were saying, there's like no reason why anyone would
worry about a longer term commitment than a single day
of bombing.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
No, you're changing what I said. I said that there
is no public will, and Donald Trump never said, and
no one other than some fringe voices ever said that
we were going to put boots on the ground in Iran.
There was That was just a scare mongering effort on
the right of isolationists.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Hillis David.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
That's not Nami the person who said we're landing boots
on the ground to change what.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
I'm saying, is that to call it scare You know,
we have people in Ukraine. We don't we claim that
somehow there are people, but they're in like they're in
like ankle boots instead of full boots. So once you're
sorry you had.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
To stop because you said something naughty but gone.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
But once the nose of the camel is into the tent,
all of a sudden, you get years of conflict, massive
amounts of funding, like massive amounts of funding, treasure attention.
You get attention in places that aren't in the best
national interest. You know, there there is nothing but precedent

(59:38):
for not trusting the warmongers to keep their word that
they that they don't want this to take long.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Let me can I quickly say I don't actually like
this argument, Well I should just trust Donald Trump. No,
we don't trust politicians. They make mistakes. Even if Donald
Trump is great and has been great, he can make
a mistake. He can get us into a quagmire. We
shouldn't think about it that way. Like I see people
change their position on Iran because of whatever Donald Trump's doing.

(01:00:05):
You should not be doing that. But every war is
also different. Ukraine is not Iran. We have different interests.
I think we have a much stronger interest in ensuring
that Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons than I do worrying
about the eastern provinces of Ukraine. You know what I mean.
I think it's a different Historically, it's different. There's different, Oh,

(01:00:26):
just involved and all of that. So I want to
talk about them separately. And I'm just saying that there
was the idea that Iran was this nation that could
pull us into a world war, that China and Russia
were coming in. It was just never true. And we
did a very surgical I know, we use these giant bums,
but in many sense, in one sense, it was a

(01:00:46):
very surgical strike on Iran to achieve a very specific mission, right,
and we did that. And you know, so I don't
understand what we get to say that Neo kons were
wrong about all this stuff. But we never get to
say that the isolation is scare mongers were wrong about
Iran in every way. Tucker Carlson was away at all. Yeah,

(01:01:09):
all right, so you I'm talking about you then, so
you say, oh, they have a right to be worried,
but I don't have a right to point out that
they were wrong about everything. I pointed out that I
was wrong about Iraq and this. You know, I changed
my mind pretty quickly, but I was wrong and these
people were wrong about Iran. So far, We'll see what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Yeah, well, I think also some of them were saying
stuff like, if we bomb within minutes, it will be,
you know, a catastrophic response. People should just be more
prudent in how they talk about it. It's possible that
this will turn It is totally possible that striking Ron

(01:01:46):
in this manner will turn out to have had some
long term effects that are bad that have not been
put into the calculation. I am totally open to that.
But when you say things like the moment we do this,
everything changes, or the moment we do this immediately this
will be the response just seems unwise.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
I also just you know, tying it into our earlier conversation.
This brings about peace because people I believe at least
other rogue nations whatever are going to take America a
little more seriously.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Yes, it is actually a better way to preserve life
sometimes to do this type of very strong strike. It's like,
don't mess around. We are not joking, We're quite serious.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
So Donald Trump, I mean, Donald Trump says a lot
of stuff, right, but if Donald Trump says sixty days
to do something, do it. I'm sick of this bs
where this moral relativism, where we treat the United States
like it's just some other country. We're not. I'm not
saying we need to dictate what everyone does in the
world and be everyone's parent, but we are a superpower
and that's what we are, and we have interests around
the world, and people shouldn't mess with the United States.

(01:02:48):
I don't want to sound like some kind of jingoists.
You know, if you're going to mess with us, we
may hurt you, and we should. And if you kill
six hundred American soldiers, I know people don't like to
talk about this. You should be very careful moving forward
and how you deal with the United States because maybe
we're going to hurt you. And I think Donald Trump
hitting solemony doing this, I think he you know, I
think he's handled it well. It's not like he's some warmonger.

(01:03:10):
You know, he was going to bomb in his frid
and forget all the specifics, but his first term, there
was a bombing mission on the table. He pulled it
back because civilians were going to die in Iran.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Actually, that's not why he pulled it back, Okay, I
talked to him about this. It is true that he
pulled it back sort of related to how there would
be people who died, but it was more than that
that it was in response to something for which we
lost no lives. Right, they targeted one of our drones,
and it was it was something they shouldn't have done.

(01:03:42):
But to do to kill a bunch of people in
response to something for which none of our people died
was something Trump felt was inappropriate. So that's why he
pulled back.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
And incidentally, on the regime change stuff, if Israel really
wanted a regime change in Iran, I'm not sure they
actually do. They'll say it publicly and maybe they want
some some you know, on ease there. They did not
even they could have destroyed Iran's oil production and they
didn't even touch any of that. The whole economy would
have collapsed. They had complete air superiority, and they never

(01:04:16):
did that. They never targeted political actors. They could have
done that as well. They knew where everyone was. They
went after the nuclear program and the ballistics program mostly
and other military installations, and you know, I know civilians died,
but considering how war goes, it was relatively few. And

(01:04:36):
the last thing on the political front, there was a
story about I believe was it eleven Antifa members who
were plotting to kill a bunch of ice and you know,
ice federal officers, immigration officials. Yeah, barely barely covered by

(01:04:59):
the mediam and I've man sure if any major media
outlet even covered it at all.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
Do you know, I would say, just art like we
actually looked at this yesterday and so like you'd get
the slightest of mention on page thirty seven of Section
C and then moving on.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Like you remember, during the Trump year, as we constantly were,
everyone was talking about right wing terrorism that didn't come
to fruition. For the most part, left wing terrorism and
violence is just a staple of American life. You know,
a few months ago or maybe even just I don't
even know when had happened. You had these Palestinian pro

(01:05:34):
Palestinian people murdering diplomats, you had one throwing a firebomb
at Holocaust survivor and so on, just what they did
at Colombian elsewhere. And now they moved on to their
new charge, which is to attack riot, you know, against

(01:05:55):
people who are enforcing federal law. Ice agents aren't Nazi stormtroopers.
They're enforcing law, and they were going to kill they
were going to kill this cop or a few of them.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
I mean, you know, first off, I want to say
that Antifa and other left wing groups have been targeting
ICE facilities for a long time. They this is not
a this week thing, this is not a this year thing.
You had even I think there was like a shooting
outside of an ICE facility in Denver, like a murder

(01:06:28):
of someone if I can, if I recall correctly during
the first Trump administration. But they've definitely been targeting ICE
facilities and ICE agents or anybody who's enforcing borders and immigration.
It has definitely taken a step up, and we see
it in a few different ways. So in Portland, I
don't know if it's a detention facility or what, but

(01:06:50):
Antifa has been targeting. Antifa got its start out in
the Pacific Northwest in America. I mean it's a global
organization obviously, but in the United States, it's kind of
headquartered in the Pacific Northwest. And during the twenty twenty
BLM riots, Antifa successfully besieged and caused major damage to

(01:07:13):
the people and buildings of the mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.
Media generally supported this. Any effort to bring in law
and order was met with fierce resistance from Democrats and
Mitt Romney type Republicans, and it just went on for
months and months and months. Well, now they're going after
I think it's a detention facility and they're doing these

(01:07:36):
like the sound terrorism. Have you heard of that, where
you have this improvised sound device that makes it impossible
to think, to sleep, to operate, and the facility is
in a residential area, and so you've got the residents
of that area just losing their minds. And very little
has been done, although on Independence Day I do believe

(01:07:58):
an unlawful gathering was determined and they did start making
arrests on that one. Okay, you had the shooting of
the officer in the neck and the ten people arrested
for that right in McCallen, Texas. You also had people
trying to interrupt a law enforcement proceeding by flattening the

(01:08:19):
tires of vehicles yesterday in the LA area. I think,
and I'm not sure if that was Antifa, but it was. Oh,
in fact, it was that sheer Laga or what is
that called some kind of like illegal immigrant group rights group,
I believe, a group that's also gotten taxpayer funding. So
things are heating up. People are trying to you know,

(01:08:42):
you saw the Axio story where Democrat members of Congress
said that their base wants blood, they want people to
get shot, they want more attention brought to the issue
of whether to have borders that are meaningful. And so
it's yes, a major story and one that has not

(01:09:02):
gotten appropriate or proper response from the media or from
the Trump administration. I would say they need to take
this much more seriously when you have a domestic terrorist group,
but I don't think that's like a real designation, But
that's what, you know, that's what they are working this
hard and being this coordinated. I pray that they are

(01:09:24):
going that they're going after them and not like during
the twenty twenty BLM riots when you had Department of
Justice people saying that they couldn't go after the people
targeting the Marco Hatfield Federal Courthouse because it was happening
at night. Remember that. They were like, yeah, just hard
to go after them because it's happening at night. Well,
that's why you get paid the big bucks.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Do you remember all the apologists for this, for Antifa,
and like the first term of Trump's first term, they
were like, you know, they're anti fascist. I think CNN
don lemon all these people. The group's named after a
Stalinist Germans German organization, but people tell me, you know,
they're anti fa fascist. Aren't you anti fascist? This is like, yeah,
stalin was anti fascist too. To me, I honestly don't

(01:10:07):
even make much distinctions between the BLM terrorists, Antifa terrorists,
the propoused Indian terrorists. And I bet you a lot
of these people obviously aligned ideologically, but actually are just
a big blob of And maybe this is wrong of
me to do. I don't know. Maybe it should be
more fair to terrorist groups, but I think it's just
a big blob of violent un American action. It's pretty

(01:10:29):
scary stuff. I think because I just love like.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
You're allowed to attack the White House, you're allowed to
attack the Federal Courthouse. So you can go after Article
two branches, an Article three branches buildings, but you can't
go after Article ones building. Apparently that's when they'll investigate you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
I think that's different news.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
Right, Let's do culture. How was your culture during your
week off? You should have lots to say since it's
been two weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
Well, I was sick, people can hear. So I did
a lot of sleeping second half of my vacation. But
I do have so. I mean, I went up to
New York. It was a lot of fun, you know
where I'm from. I saw a family. Then I went
up to the upstate to Saratoga Springs area, and you're all, Benny,
I don't know you've been up there Lake George, stuff

(01:11:19):
like that. When sailing, which is very nice. I hit
a record store in Saratoga which I don't remember the
name of. But you know when there's like white whale records,
you know what I mean, Like you don't see them
in the wild, and when you do, well, yeah, I
found one of those. It was like super exciting. It's
just a I collect this SST Records from the eighties.
It's just a band called Angst. I couldn't believe my eyes.

(01:11:41):
It's like so rare and it was right there, and
I had to talk to the guy, the record store owner.
I'm like, this is an amazing record. I can't believe
you have it. He's like, I played this on my
show the other day and it is amazing. I bought
it very happy, just trying to stretch this out. Nothing
else happened. And also a I saw one movie Heads
of Date. Is it on your list? Are you laughing?

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Oh man, I'm not laughing.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
What'd you get? It was so bad that I started
thinking that maybe it's Idris Alba plays the Prime Minister
of Britain. What's his name? John Senna is his name?
Plays the American President. Just a bit of a stretch.
It was so bad that I thought it was kind
of like satirical or something like it was mocking how

(01:12:30):
bad movies can be. But apparently that's not the case.
So I did not really enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
So I showed Independence Day to the kids the movie,
and apart from the name, it has basically nothing to
do with Independence Day at all, and in fact, the
messaging might be hostile to Independence Day. Do you like
that movie?

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
Not? I mean I don't. When I saw it, I
liked it because I was happy just to see space
aliens or whatever, But no, I am not. Subsequently, I'm
kind of wondering why it's that pop. I just don't
think it's very good.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
Right, So I had decided to I thought it would
be a good idea to watch it. We're always looking
for things that work for the whole family, and I
suggested it to Mark. He said he hated that movie
and thought it was really stupid. So I just showed
it to the kids myself and we thought it was fun,
but it has nothing. It really should be watched like
at Christmas, not on Independence Day because it's not there.

(01:13:24):
And then yes, I also watched Heads of State and
it was I think the worst movie I've ever seen.
I could be wrong, like there could be worse. For
everything you said is exactly right. Actually, I wanted to
say about the satire point that my brother and I
in high school watched an entire season of Beverly Hills

(01:13:44):
nine O two one zero and thought it was brilliant,
and only at the end did we realize it wasn't satire.
We were like, this is this is amazing, Like the
critique of the American high school and the wealth class
is just amazing. And then at the end we were like, oh,
we're idiots. It was just supposed to be something you enjoyed.
So I do love Idris Elba, loved Luther, loved the Wire,

(01:14:10):
and he's got chops and so on the strength of
that alone, because I do not like John Sana Sina
how you say his name. I think he's dumb and
not a good actor and not handsome, and so there's
like nothing really going for him, harsh but interesting. I
was like, Okay, well I'm gonna can't be too bad
if he's there, and some devastating the hands I was appalled.

(01:14:37):
I mean, first of all, it was written as anti
American slop. You know, yeah, it's Elba versus an idiot
for the president. The tonal shifts in the script were insane.
It would go from everybody literally spoiler alert, everybody on
Air Force one dying to then them being like petty

(01:14:57):
jokesters on the ground, like nobody who had just lost
hundreds of their key staff and people like trying to
protect them would be being petty on the ground with
Idris elbat like. It just was ludicrously stupid. And then
the fight scenes could have been good, and in some
cases even were good, but the CGI was so clumsy

(01:15:21):
and junkie. It looked like they told a junior high
school class, you get to do the CGI for this movie.
I mean, sometimes there's a There was the hot lady
who of course is the strongest of them.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
All I wanted to talk about's.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
We and they would forget to replace her, her stunt
doubles face with hers in the scenes.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
I was like, is this a.

Speaker 2 (01:15:42):
Major Hollywood production or not? Like it was so bad,
so bad, I couldn't believe it. And I don't even
know why I've stayed.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
Through to the end. It's like screwball comedy, you know, thriller,
you know, a mystery, all these things and they just
is so ridiculously cobble together. Yeah, I'm sick of this.
I want to talk about this. Every movie there's a
five to two women, a very attractive woman who's a
very good shape beating the living you know what, out
of six five bodyguards and all that. I'm so sick

(01:16:17):
of it. They can they not make a So did
you see Charlie Theoron talking about how they won't let
women make action movies. You know, they fail once, they
can't come back. Meanwhile, she's been in like a ton
of them, and honestly, she pulls it off better than
most because she's you know, she's a large, large, and
I don't mean large woman. She's in shape and everything.
She's a big woman, like you know, five to eleven

(01:16:38):
whatever she is, and it looks like she's in great shape.
But I'm just so sick of it. It's ridiculous. It's
not trust me. It's not because I have anything against women.
I mean, it's just people. Me in that movie beating
up people would be ridiculous, you know what I mean.
I'm an old man.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
I'm going to say something else about heads of state.
But your mention of Shirley's thereon reminded me that in
this video she did, which was on this like podcast
sex podcast, Yeah, she was bragging about how and I
think she's like trans to some of her kids. I
could have her confused with all the cha and sort

(01:17:15):
of famously not married and rejects marriage. And she was
bragging about how she had recently had a one night
stand with a twenty six year old male, and I
think she's like fifty, And I think if she had
been married, maybe she would have a little more insight
into the male psyche and would realize that having a

(01:17:36):
one night stand with any male of any age is
literally nothing to brag about if you're a woman, much
less a super hot woman. Like, how hard is it
to secure a partner when the partner is a man.

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
It's not, I would say, the least difficult thing on
earth that you could possibly do right, or among.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
Them me be like, oh, that girl has super low
self esteem, Like she thought she did something great by
having sex with a twenty six year old Like, wow,
it's sad. It's really sad. Anyway, Okay, back to heads
of state. In addition to all the other inconsistencies, did
you get the part about how NATO was simultaneously the

(01:18:22):
bad guy and then also everybody had to sacrifice everything
to save it, right, Like the whole motivation of the
of the supposed bad guy we later find out that
he's just kind of a you know, sub bad guy,
is that NATO had wrongly killed his son, and then
they all have to go to defend NATO. I was like,

(01:18:44):
this doesn't even make sense within its own convoluted story.

Speaker 1 (01:18:47):
Three things on this that I will love. Thank you
for allowing me to dissect this movie. I didn't think
that this would happen. So one, the idea that the
British Prime Minister is like ordering around the US President
is insane. He's begging the US President to do things
for him. The other thing with NATO is the idea
that people are just leaving NATO and America high and

(01:19:09):
dry is so dumb. It's they can't even they haven't
even been paying three we pay for the whole thing.
It's completely for them to protect them. The idea that
France is like standing up to the US President like
shaking his finger at him, it was just ridiculous. Thirdly,
did you notice that the Vice president spoiler alert, who's
the bad guy or one of the bad guys was

(01:19:31):
America first person? In the beginning she says like she's
anti interventionist or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
No, they literally call her America first and so the
actual story and I'm sorry, I don't care that I'm
ruining it for everybody. It needs to be ruined because
nobody should ever watch this film ever, and also everyone
involved in the making of the film, Idris Elba included,
should just not make any more movies. That's how bad
it is.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
It's been a great run.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
Yeah, the actual bad guy of the movie is Maga
for real. And that's not even why I hated the movie.
That was like at the end, by which time I
had already hated it for two hours. But yeah, they
said that, like, if you care about American interests, then
you're a villain and you would lead to the potential

(01:20:20):
destruction of the entire world in order to achieve your
America first objectives, like.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
Her her scheme is to undo NATO. It's funny because
I watched it literally the day I read that Donald
Trump was like being praised by all the NATO leaders
for like bringing them together. It was just so ham
fisted and ridiculous. Anyway, do not watch that movie unless
you maybe for a laugh.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
But no, no, I am a connoisseur of bad movies,
like I like certain movies precisely as they're bad. This
was not that. This is this was tonal, and it
was the tonal thing more than anything. What is that
really famous bad movie.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
The Room?

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
What the Room?

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:03):
I'm not recommending anyone see it, but that was much
better than this bad movie.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
Yeah, movies can be bad where to the extent that
they're funny and interesting to watch. This was not one
of them. Anything else culture wise, that's it, that's it. Okay.
People want to reach the show tell us that they
liked heads of state, they can do so at radio
at the Federalist dot com, we always love to hear
from you. We'll be back next week. Until then, be

(01:21:32):
lovers of freedom and anxious for the threat s

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