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

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It's amazing. Good for you. I'm so proud of you. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, I just feel like you've made it. It feels good. It should. You earned it. Feels good to give my team this, too. It's a pretty cool spot. I can't get over how many great people you have here. Like, kind, competent. Kind, cool. I don't know how you find them all, but God bless you and bless them, too. It's an amazing team. A lot of them have been here since the beginning. It takes an amazing team. It does. I feel the same. Like, people, they don't give the team enough credit. They see you or they see me. They think we're everything. We're like one small cog in the wheel. The bigger it gets, the harder it is to trust anybody to bring in at all. No, same. I mean, most of the people who work for me have been with me for 10 years. Really? Like, my assistant's been with me 17 years. My top editorial producer, we call her Canadian Debbie, because she moved to damn Canada. She's been with me since 2007, since my very first show at Fox. She was my very first line producer. Wow. She's chief of editorial content for me, so she knows what I want to cover, in other words, you know? And she'll collate the news for me. Nice. Well, I don't even know where to start. There's a lot to go over. I mean. Lots happened since we last talked. We last chatted. Yeah, a lot's happened. Man, like, whoa. Total 180. Yeah. New war. Yeah. Threatening pretty much everybody, including Americans. It's just like, what the fuck is going on, man? Yeah. No, it's incredibly disappointing. There's just no two ways about it. I just feel like Republicans in general are bummed out right now, whereas a year ago, two years ago, they were excited, they were optimistic, they felt hopeful. And now it's like, it's starting to feel like, welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss. Yeah, it sure doesn't seem like they're hiding anything anymore. I don't think Trump feels any need to, you know? I mean, I think second term, post-assassination attempts, he's like, "How do you like me now?" Who do you think of those assassinations? What do you mean, do I think they were fake? Which one? Yeah. Do you think they're – what do you think? I think they were genuine. I think they were real. You think they're legit? Yeah. I mean, I look at what happened in Butler, it's like, Cory Comparatore's dead. I mean, two other individuals were seriously wounded. There's no question that a man got on top of a roof and took shots at Trump and others and killed at least one man. Somebody else had something to do with it. That's more what I mean. Yeah, I don't think we're ever going to know that. I hate to sound so fatalistic, but I just feel like we're never going to know. No one's ever going to really investigate, and they're going to get away with the various things that they've tried to, if not cover up, just keep our noses out of, you know? But I don't really have reason to believe that Butler was orchestrated by anyone in particular because I haven't seen any evidence of it. You know? What I mean is, Tucker got his hands on the guy's social media, as did Miranda Devine and one other person, and did some reporting on how he was, he hated the left, then he hated the right. That's when Trump got swooped in and was sounding kind of disaffected, and then had some weird social media contacts or interactions, and then things went dark. And I think this is what's led people to say, "Who swooped in and manipulated him, MKUltra style?" That's a fine, I'm fine with that question, but there's been zero evidence that anyone actually did that. The whole theory stops there because we don't have anything else past that point. Well, for the life of me, I just can't understand why you would cut the investigation into your own assassination attempt. Yeah. Oh, and he would say he hasn't, and Kash Patel would say that hasn't happened. Joe Count would say otherwise, and has been for a long time. And not just that one. The guy who ran into the White House correspondents? What even was that? It was like a desperate cry for attention. Is that a real assassination? Is that the dumbest plan for a presidential assassination ever? You're going to run through reams of Secret Service and ball gown wearers to try to make your way up to the dais to take a shot at him? I don't know what that guy was. I think he was radicalized by the online community, which happens with a lot of these people. But that just felt like, okay, I'm underwhelmed. I don't have a difficult time believing that people genuinely want to assassinate Trump, and that the attempts are increasing because we live in an increasingly violent world where political violence and assassination is now getting normalized and celebrated in more and more corners, so they think they have a chance to seem like a hero if they do it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to think about anything anymore, to be honest with you. Yeah. The biggest takeaway of the news cycle over the past year has been none of us knows anything about anything. I think the one thing that I'm the most concerned about is Israel. Yeah. You're not allowed to be that. You're an anti-Semite. Wow. I don't know what to say. Okay. Yeah. All right. Cool. That's how it's gone, right? It's like a lot of us have had our eyes open on Israel, and then you learn quickly after. Yeah. You're not allowed to have them open. You're not allowed to ask those questions. You're not allowed to have those doubts. And if you do, your whole life is about to change. I see that. I've seen that with a couple of you guys, a lot of you guys. I don't know how you guys handle all the attacks. Well- It looks like you're having fun with them, to be honest with you. Yeah. I mean, it depends on the day. Some days you're like, "Oh, my God," and you laugh, and other days you get a slew of like, legit death threats, and you think, "Well, this isn't great." So I wouldn't describe it as fun, but it's just part of the job. I have been called everything. I've been attacked as being all the absolute worst things you can be, and if you're going to let outside attacks define you in your own head, you're in a lot of trouble. You're not going to last in this business. So you do have to get a thick skin and shrug it off and either say, "I am the worst person to ever live. I'm a racist, and I'm a bigot, and I'm a transphobe, and I'm a xenophobe, and I'm an Islamophobe, and I'm an anti-Semite, oh, and I'm pro-pedophile, and I'm all the things, either all, I'm all those things." Pro-pedophile. I haven't heard that one. Yeah. Yeah. That was what they said because I said that technically Jeffrey Epstein didn't meet the definition of pedophile, which is interest in prepubescent children, that a person who worked for him had told me that. Oh. And that wasn't what he was into. He was into more like the 15, 16-year-old types. And of course, my detractors ran with it like, "She's justifying pedophilia." I did see that. No, no. There's a legal definition of that term. I did see that. And generally, they put the number at 13, pre-13. We're more in the Michael Jackson field. I've been doing a deep dive on him, allegedly, reportedly. You've been doing a deep dive on Michael Jackson? Yeah, yeah. Why? Well, that new biopic has earned almost a billion dollars in a month. Wow. I don't even know what you're talking about. What biopic? There's a huge movie out right now called Michael, and it's been put out by the Jackson estate. And it stars his nephew, Jafar Jackson, the son of Jermaine, Michael's older brother, as Michael. And he's amazing. He looks just like him, only better looking. And he's got the dance moves, and he practiced the voice, and he sounds just like him. And there's a familial connection, so it sells, you know, mannerisms and so on. They're there in a subtle way. And all it does is chronicle the rise of Michael Jackson from childhood to 1987, which is six years before the first child molestation scandal. So it's sort of clean. You can enjoy this great American success story the way you could enjoy a story about Steve Jobs or Bob Dylan, and it just kind of lobs off what happened after 1987, which -which would include multiple people accusing him. - Wow. of child molestation. They did it for a reason. they originally had a piece on the end of it that addressed the scandal and tried to dismiss it. But then somebody called to their attention that they had signed a bunch of non-disclosure agreements, mutual non-disclosure agreements with his accusers, which barred not only the accuser from speaking, but the Michael Jackson estate. Holy shit, I just covered this same type thing with Canacook. Did you hear about Canacook? -No. -The big Christian camp? -No. -Well, they're pretty much done now. But, yeah, there was a bunch of sexual abuse, like, really bad shit. -At a kid's camp? -Like, reading scripture over kids while they're molesting them, like, all that kind of stuff. So, and they were having-- then they would settle with the kid's parents, and the kid could never talk about it again, so we blew the doors off in here with Elizabeth Phillips, whose brother committed suicide because he signed one of those. -Oh, gosh. -. NBAs. If you want to find a pedophile, go where children are. -Yeah. -Um, that's the problem, was that they-- they're always-- it's never like this, you know, cloak-wearing, dirty guy in the park. It's somebody who looks pretty good, is usually very good with kids. -No record. -Right? Totally likable, warm, the one you'd least suspect. And they will-- but they will always be in a field where they have access to children, whether it's-- forgive me, boys and girls, boy scout leaders now, just, like, so tired and worn. But it's true, that it's why a lot of them went there, into the Cub Scout leadership ranks. Um, churches, of course, not great. Um, schools, also. You know, it's a-- I told this story, but, like, when my, um, my one son was going off for, like, his fourth grade field trip, all the other moms were like, "Have a great time, honey." They were spending a couple nights overnight with teachers. And, uh, I was like, "Look out for the molesters!" - -Oh, man. Looks back at me, and I was like, -"It'll be someone you trust!" -Oh, my gosh. I think that, I mean, that's a good-- I don't think many people think like that. You know, we-- I've done a bunch of these now, 'cause it's the thing that I'm most passionate about, 'cause I think it could have a real impact there, unlike politics. And, um, but everybody always gets mad at the institution that we're talking about. The church, in that particular instance, the Christian camp. And they don't, you know, it's like, "Tear it down." And it's like, "Yeah, let's tear it down." But most of these people have not been caught. And they're just gonna flood into the next thing. -Yeah. -You know, whether that's a daycare or gymnastics or cheerleading camp or Boy Scouts or whatever. -Yeah. -Whatever it is. A doctor, pediatrician. A spokesman for a Subway company, Subway Sandwiches. Right now, like, that Jared is one of the most perverted people I've ever actually covered. I mean, we interviewed the woman who worked with the FBI to get him on tape. -Remember the Jared the Subway guy, right? -Mm-hmm. And, uh, she got him on tape talking about how to groom her own children for him. She wasn't really gonna give him her children. She was working with the FBI. But how-- And this is how they do it. Like, talk dirty to them. Like, raise inappropriate subject matters with them so that it will be less jarring when I do it, when I get there. This is how they do it. So this is why, you know, all these leftist, you know, submissions to our children's libraries really do matter in trying to take the guard down when they're discussing anal sex. -Like, it's a no. -Yeah. Like, what are you priming them for? But the Michael Jackson case is very, very compelling because he's one of our greatest stars. We all feel extremely proud of him. Literally everybody who's accused him has had their hand out. -So it really complicates it. -Mm-hmm. Like, is this about money or is this about justice? -Mm-hmm. -Or something terrible that was done? Most of them have grifter parents. So you're like, "Mm." And then you're like, "I don't know what to do with this guy." The one criminal case that was brought against him in 2005, he was acquitted because the mother of the boy was awful and took the stand and nobody liked her. Uh, in 1993, the first case that came out against him, the, um, mother was upset to find out her son had slept in the same bed as Michael Jackson. She was in another room. But suddenly felt a lot better about it when Michael bought her a Cartier bracelet. So that's how these cases have gone. People with enough room to say, "Eh, I don't know." Like, "I love him, and I love the music, and I want to celebrate him as an American icon." And these people seem grifter-y. Um, versus, like, the cold, hard facts, which include, as I just learned through a Quillette article-- I interviewed the guy who wrote it-- when they raided Michael Jackson's home in 1993 in connection with the first allegation brought against him that did not result in criminal charges because the family took a $20 million settlement. And went away and wouldn't cooperate with the cops. But in that case, there was a search warrant for his home. They went into his home, and in a locked box in his bedroom, found two pedophile books from the NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association. My God. It's another word for pedophiles. And they were full of naked pictures of boys. Like, really graphic naked pictures of boys. That's what Michael Jackson had in his own bedroom in a locked file. There's no one who's not a pedophile who has that. And one of them had his own handwriting in it, saying something to the effect of, "What could be more joyful than these beautiful boys?" Oh, my God. So there's no question he knew it was there. He had handled it. He had looked at it. And then there was another boy whose fingerprints were found in Michael Jackson's room on a barely legal hustle in a Hustler magazine. And they found the boys-- at least two boys' fingerprints on it. So at a minimum, it proves he was showing porn to boys in his room. Anyway, those are facts that are really tough to deal with. Oh, man. Yeah. Anyway, so that's Michael Jackson. Did any of the victims come out? Have any of the victims come out? Multiple. But every one is compromised. For example, the two that were featured in the Leaving Neverland documentary that came out in 2019 about him. Because he had the-- what happened was there was the kid in '93 who took a $20 million settlement and went away. There was the kid in 2005 who did wind up in front of the cops, though that wasn't the first move, who had a whole trial, but the mother had taken-- like, she was awful. And on the stand, it was pretty clear she was a grifter. And so he was acquitted. And then there were reportedly multiple payouts over the years that he kept quiet. His mother reportedly said to Latoya, Jackson, I've seen the checks. There are a lot of them. There's another report that-- by Diane Diamond, journalist who used to work for Hard Copy that-- and she was integral to the whole Michael Jackson reveal. She actually had gotten lots of tips about him, including from Division of Child and Family Services. She kind of broke this whole case open back in the '90s. But she had reported that at least $200 million had been paid out by him to keep people quiet. Wow. Wow. Well, that always throws your routine off-- more travel, later nights, longer days, and you're not always eating the way you normally would. And for me, that's exactly why I like having AG-1 in the mix. It's one scoop with eight ounces of water, and I can get it done first thing in the morning. 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"What do you think happens after he does it?" I think some people will lose their jobs, and there could be potential prosecutions. I think it'll follow course to what we've seen with the limited disclosure so far, though mostly in the UK. "What do you think is the best way to seek truth about what is currently going on in the world, and how should we protect ourselves from this psychological warfare?" I mean, I think we need to elect non-elites. I think we need to elect, like, the farmers of the world, the people who didn't seek office as soon as they got out of college. ♪ ♪ Yeah, so, but the ones we know about are the '93, the 2005, then the 2019 documentary. I use that term very loosely 'cause it wasn't. But that's where Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who had been child prodigies around Michael, one had been at a commercial with him, one had won a dance contest as a lookalike who danced just like him, and then got folded into his inner circle. They came out after years of defending him. Wade Robson took the stand at his trial and said, "Absolutely not," as a kid. James Safechuck, I think, gave a deposition in the case, take the witness stand at trial and said, absolutely not, never. Macaulay Culkin took the stand at his trial and said, absolutely not. Emanuel Lewis, who played Webster on that Smash series, he didn't take the stand, but he said, I think, but he said, he says to this day, not a finger, absolutely not. He's never touched me. Well, so that's four I just named. Two out of the four maintain their stories to this day. There's a third who's same. He took the stand and said, never. And that guy too, he maintains the story, never. But two of the ones, Safechuck and Robson, in the 2019 documentary, changed their story 180 and said he was molesting me the whole time. That was three or four years after they had both filed a civil lawsuit against the estate for money. Why did they file a civil lawsuit in 2013 or 14 or 15, in that timeframe? The estate had started making money again. It was all but destitute when Michael died. He had paid out a lot of money. He was in serious debt. His brand was no longer good. People were like, oh, you're gross. We believe what's happened. And he really was, the estate was literally valued at zero, reports the New York Times. Are you serious? Yeah, when he died. But the lawyer in whose hands he left the estate management, who's featured in this biopic, Branca is his name, decided to gamble with a Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson production and then Michael Jackson, the Broadway musical. And both were hits. And have been making real cash. And they realized that there's actually still a market for Michael Jackson. People want to celebrate his music and his dancing and his amazing accomplishments. And they're able to do it without thinking about the artist versus the art. Damn. And then came the biopic and it's already made almost a billion dollars in a month. And they have a round two ready to go. So people are starting to come out of the woodwork with their hands out. A billion dollars in a month? Yes. Holy shit. Wow. Well, I had no idea any of that was happening. Interesting. Yeah. Jeez. Yeah, I don't know. To me, the legal stuff is always very interesting. And it's, I'd rather talk about that these days than politics. Politics is so depressing. Not that that story's uplifting, but at least it's interesting because there's a mystery to solve about someone we all have feelings about. Mm-hmm. You know? People, everybody has a feeling about Michael Jackson. Yeah. Yeah. And he's an interesting, fascinating person with the weird four-inch eyelashes and the nose. A couple of minor surgeries. Yeah. But, wow. Let me give you an introduction, even though you don't need one. You ready? Sure. Megyn Kelly, you spent 13 years at Fox News and moderated multiple presidential debates, including the first Republican primary debate in 2015. You're the founder of Devil May Care Media and host of The Megyn Kelly Show, one of the top podcasts in the country, your memoir, Settle for More, debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Over your career, you've interviewed world leaders, presidents, athletes, entertainers, and some of the most influential figures on the planet, from Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu to Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Recently, you found yourself at the center of criticism from parts of the conservative media and even from President Trump himself over your coverage of the growing tensions surrounding Iran. And now, we're going to ask you to tell us what you think about the current situation in Iran and America's roles overseas. Welcome back to the show. Great to be here. Great to have you. And, you know, everybody gets a gift. The same gift as last time, Vigilance League. Oh, yeah, nice. I'll take it. Legal in all 50 states. Thank you very much. You're welcome. I'll hide it from the children. You're welcome. Awesome. But, yeah, we have a whole, I want to talk about Massey, all the attacks Trump's done on you, but, yeah, we have a whole, I want to talk about Massey, all the attacks Trump's done on you, Ben Shapiro, Marc Levin, your best friend. I have a different name for him. I heard. Micropenis. Yeah. Good one. The soldiers, or the soldier that got busted with the polymarket stuff, which I think he was only, you know, doing what these guys set the example of. The Iran war, Canada's oil pivot. Do you know about this? No. What are they doing? They've pivoted away from us. Yeah. We'll dig, we'll get into it. They're now selling, what, 900, I think 900, almost a million barrels a day to China to diversify away from us. The petrodollar, lots of shit, AI, Cuba, we'll see what we get into. Okay. But first off, what is the Massey, what does that race mean for us? I mean, I thought that guy was going to win in a landslide. Yeah. I wasn't surprised he lost. Really? Yeah. They just spent so much money to try to defeat him. Normally they spend like $500,000 in these races. If they spend 500, it's a lot. And this one was $30 million piled against him by the Israel lobby. Yeah. Apex literally bragging about it on X. Yeah. Yeah. They're really proud of themselves. They got him fired for Israel. I mean, I guess it's not as bad as getting our guys killed for Israel. Well, that's next. Yeah. It's happening. I wasn't surprised. I think that one's slightly more complicated than some would have you believe, because I do think Trump's been gunning for him for a while because he hasn't been fully supportive of the Trump agenda. But the thing that's annoying, and even before he crossed Trump on Epstein, which I think is really what did it, he hadn't supported Trump's one big, beautiful bill. He doesn't like spending that's not paid for. I mean, the Republican Party used to feel that way, you know, although this whole thing came to life in 2010 called the Tea Party, based on exactly that principle. And they used to govern that way on Team Red. And then once they saw the Democrats getting away with, you know, out-of-pocket spending that wasn't justified or paid for, and this sort of new theory of economics that you could get away with that, they jumped on board fully, because Trump has been the only Republican president since Obama. And he loves to spend. He's just as much of a spendthrift as anybody on the left. Yeah. And so now these Republicans in Congress who used to be more like, "Hey, no, no, we have to have justification for it and we have to pay for it," completely abandoned that, gave Trump his blank checks, were, you know, "We'll never pay off the debt that the country's paying, ever. Our children, our grandchildren, I don't know what's going to happen. It's much more likely we'll face some sort of a bankruptcy as a country unless we can somehow get these AI companies to take on our debt. They're the only ones who could afford it." Did you come up with that? Get the AI companies? That's my idea. Yeah. How the hell? Why would they do that? I don't know. Because we'll let them develop their product? Like, they're the only ones who can afford it. They actually could get us out of this jam. And maybe we can use it to at least save America and our balance sheet. But in any event, Massey was one of the guys who held firm on the spending and said, "I'm not voting for spending that's not paid for, you know, that we can't offset someplace. There's enough debt." Yeah. Yeah. That's a big, beautiful bill, among other reasons. And Trump just can't take any dissension in his ranks. You will be culled from the herd if you cross him on anything. He will not accept dissension. And that's why we have a House that doesn't do anything now. We have a Congress that doesn't check presidential power at all, even though they were supposed to be the most powerful branch, not him. The founders wanted a small presidency, small executive. That's why it's Article Three. Sorry, Article Two. And Congress has won. And so I thought Massey was going to get targeted by Trump. And then when I saw him push on Epstein, I knew Trump was going to, you know, he was so angry. But the irony of all that is Trump is the one who told us we were going to get disclosure on Epstein. It's really the Trump backers. Trump didn't make Epstein a huge campaign issue, but he did a little, and he definitely made disclosure an issue. Whether it was the JFK files or the MLK files or, you know, the UFO files, all that stuff. And Epstein was a huge issue for a core part of Team Red. So you know, you could argue that Massey was holding Trump to the Trump agenda, not bucking the Trump agenda. See, that's what I don't know. I don't understand how people don't see it that way. Every time I blast Trump or anybody in his administration or a panel, they're like, oh, I'm going to beat you. I'm going to beat you. Or a pan body. Anybody. About not releasing those, redacting all the names, all this shit. I get blasted by the Republicans. So it's always important to ask who you're getting blasted by. I mean, it could be bots. Probably bots. But I can't tell. Well, if it has anything to do with Israel, it's bots. For sure. But when it comes to, like, what you just said, there is, you know, what's core MAGA now? I have no idea. I think I know. Trump has said from the beginning -- Pedophile supporting Israeli lobby. I have no idea. Need a different acronym. But Trump has said from the beginning that he defines what MAGA is. MAGA is what I say it is, he has said. And he's not wrong. It's his moniker. It's his campaign slogan. And all along, he's defined what is and is not MAGA. And he told me personally, MAGA will feel the way I want them to feel. I'll tell them how to feel about this, that, or the other thing. And they will. And he has been totally right on that. The problem for Trump is that he has no idea what MAGA is. He doesn't know what MAGA is. up now is that he has defined MAGA literally to those who agree with Mark Levin. If you don't agree with Mark Levin, you're not MAGA, which means you must be a neocon whose main issue is what's in the best interest of Israel. And that defines MAGA down to nothing. It's a nub. So what's that? It's not large. It's not important. It's not cool. It's not appealing to young people. It has no future. Much like Mark Levin himself, it's old, it's angry, and it's dying. And so those are the people who, like, the diehard loyalists who will just feel the way Trump wants them to feel are the ones who are harassing you for saying what you think about Thomas Massey. They're entitled to their opinion, but they do not represent the Republican Party. They don't represent the right, and they definitely don't represent the future. Well, I don't even know what the Republican Party is anymore. Yeah, it's. Nobody stands up for anything. It's unclear. Not inside. All these people I thought were Republicans on the outside are standing up against it. But nobody on the inside is, except the people that are resigning and Massey. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just. All the. Pete Hegseth fucking went down there to campaign against him? What is that shit? Did he forget he started a fucking war? Yeah. That was so highly irregular. What the fuck was that? Is that even legal? It's legal, but it's. Because as a military member, you can't be doing shit like that. And we have never. Like, in modern history, I think it's fair to say, I can't think of another example. Have we deployed the Secretary of Defense, or now, in a war, for a specifically political mission. Right? Like, we've always tried not to do that. Because it's important that our military have the support of all parties. That they not be seen as a politicized group. And I think the Pentagon tried to justify it by saying, oh, he was going down there on multiple items. You know, it wasn't just to sink Massey. That's tough to swallow. And it's. Like, so much with the Trump presidency, it's a bridge we shouldn't have crossed. Like, there are certain. norms and protocols that are good. That are there for a reason. To maintain some faith in institutions. And you can make a very strong case that faith in the Department of War is at the top of the list. People need to believe that that's not a corrupt organization, or one that only fights for one side of the aisle. And we need to keep the troops out from that kind of scrutiny, too. And it starts at the top. So it was wrong. They should not have deployed him in the fight against Massey. It's disgusting. I mean, it's just a shitty example. It's just a shitty example for everybody in the military, too, to have the top guy going around and campaigning for people when literally nobody else in the military is allowed to do that. Yeah. And, you know, how do they feel? I mean, like, I'll guarantee you the vast majority of the military, if you polled them about, like, whether they wanted Thomas Massey to be reelected, would either have no opinion, or you'd have leftists saying, well, I just want him out altogether because, you know, I'd rather have a Democrat in there. But the right wing of the be just as divided as those of us who are not in the military. So it's like, who are you speaking for? You know, it's not like something that has popular support within the group he represents. So what does this all mean? I mean, I thought he was going to win. I thought for sure he was going to win. But then he didn't. And Israel bought it. They bought the election. So do we even vote anymore? What's the fucking point? Legitimately, what's the point? It's very hard for me to argue against your cynicism. I think a lot of us. We have a duty to vote, but, like, why? Yeah, for what? What? If they're just going to, I mean. I mean, ideally, a candidate will come along who will represent an antidote to the system. And I know that we thought Trump was that. But, like, if you look back, there are a lot of signs that Trump was not going to be that. You know, the self-discipline, the self-discipline, the self-discipline, the self-dealing that Trump's always done on economic matters, like finances, around his family business, should have telegraphed to us. He was buyable. I don't think everyone is. You know, I do think, like, Thomas Massey wasn't. There are certain people who actually have deep principles and they stand by them and they couldn't be bought and paid for. Now, could they win in a presidential election? That I don't know. Haven't seen that in recent years. But I, you know, for me, the line between left and right is merging. You know, like, there's something rising out of the middle of that that is far less. You're talking about Anna Kasparian. Yeah, I love her. It's awesome. I love her. I do, too. She's awesome. People think of me as a Republican, but I haven't been a Republican in over 20 years. I was a registered Democrat when I was fresh out of school. And then I was a registered Republican for a few years when I was, like, right around when I joined Fox News. And then I quickly realized, like, I don't want to wear either of these team jerseys. I'm against both of these guys. And I registered as an independent. I don't know, it was back in, like, 2004 or someplace around there, which I have been ever since. And I voted for Dems and Republicans. So I'm, like, I'm pretty centrist in my politics. And my cultural sensibilities are definitely more on the right these days than they used to be. But I share a lot in common with some on the left. So I think something's coming out of the middle. That is going to be the future. It's going to complicate politics in a really, probably good way. Not for the existing parties. But there will be, as a result of that emergence, there will be a candidate or more who stand for what's happening there in the middle. That's anti-war and pro-America, America first, actually supports American workers and bringing back manufacturing. Doesn't cede the job fair. Yeah, but I think there's a lot of things to be said about what's happening in China. Like, there's a few issues on which I think we agree removes culture wars from the discussion. So in other words, the leftists who are there are not trying to cut off the body parts of our children. And the people who are on the right are willing not to make, you must fight with me to stop it, as in terms of, you know, whether we can bond together. Mm-hmm. So I don't know. I mean, I -- some of those issues are my pet issues, right? Like, I -- I could never vote for somebody who's gonna chop off the body parts of children. I could never vote for somebody who's voluntarily sterilizing children or supporting it. Or the boys and girls sports thing. I -- I can't. So I still will vote Republican. Mm-hmm. But what I'd love to see is a different alternative. And I just think necessity is the mother of all invention, and someone will come. Whether it's a Massey, maybe, you know, we weren't prepared for that. Like, we didn't have enough money in the coffers to fight AIPAC. But we'll get it. Because their popularity is on the way down. And there is a rising group of political power that opposes them and their mission. That's why they're in such a panic. That's why we're all getting botted. But they're not going to win. That's a lobby. That's bought and paid for lobbyists who buy loser politicians. But the people have outed them. They've been outed for what they do. They're no longer getting ignored, which is great. And it's been the Democrats who first have realized that they're too dependent on these groups. And they're too dependent on politicians who just back Israel, knee-jerk. And the Republicans have been the last to that party, but we're getting there. There's only that one core part of MAGA, which is the Mark Levin party now, the neocon, back Mark Levin party. Yeah. That's the only part left that is pro-Israel and doesn't understand what it is. And that's what AIPAC is doing to us. So that's a good thing. That actually lays a pretty good golden path out of this mess. I mean, I want to talk about some solutions at the end, but I don't even trust myself to interview any of them anymore after the last. I mean, I interviewed almost everybody in the. Not almost everybody. A lot of people. I think it's like nine people that wound up in the administration. Pete got picked five days after my interview. Oh, I just. It's fucking disgusting. And I have friends running. Well, let me ask you something. Like, I know you had Tucker on. He's a friend. I don't think he could be bought and paid for. I could get behind a Tucker presidency. He doesn't want to run, but I could totally get behind. I just don't think. I think for him, he's got ideological principles on which he will not bend. And that you really. You have to find somebody who's like that, who can get. He can get backed by people with deep pockets who actually don't have an agenda that's different from that person's. You know? Like, Trump, he took $200 million from Marian Adelson. Well, how did we think that was going to end? You know? I think we took Trump too much at his word on the, I'm not going to start any more wars, especially not Middle East wars, especially not one with Iran. We could be here for the next hour running those soundbites. We were too non-skeptical when the answers were right there. If you looked at who was backing his campaign, the biggest donor. And she, it wasn't just Miriam, there were many, who's, you know, he said her loyalty is more to Israel. Why didn't we pay more attention to that? Like, why aren't we blaming ourselves? I don't accept that there's no one we could find who wouldn't be true to the agenda he or she ran on. I am not quite that cynical yet. I'm not quite that blackpilled. Well, that's good, because I am. But I wasn't even talking about president. I was just, I mean, somebody running for Congress, Senate, whatever. I even think the president, they'll just get eaten alive by the machine. No, you have plenty of reason to think that. I mean, I think there maybe is another way out, but it's going to take a lot of organization. The best way out is to shrink government. I mean, that would be the greatest way, just to shrink it all down. Stop with the, you know, unitary executive, shrink the president's powers. It's happening. You know, Trump's going to reduce to executive orders only. He's passed no legislation. He got his One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed. He got the Lake and Riley Act passed. And everything he's done with his pen is going to be undone by the next Democrat to take over. Even if he got rid of the filibuster. Okay, get rid of the filibuster. That's all going to change as soon as the Democrats take power. All those non-filibustered bills. Are just going to get reversed by the next Democrat congressman president. So, in a way, they're all shrinking themselves and how much they matter, which is great. Is there anyone sitting around thinking, if only we could have more government while leftists are? No sane person is thinking that. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what to think anymore. I don't even trust my own intuition when it comes to politics because I thought things were going to be so different. And I got fucking due. Nobody knows anything about anything. It's one of the themes of the year. The thing is, like, the Trump thing is so disappointing because he did seem like he was going to be different. You know, he was independently wealthy, so there was some reason to believe he wasn't going to need their money or be swayed by it. He's such a fighter and a middle finger. He's a walking middle finger. So, he kind of felt like. Maybe he won't do Miriam Adelson's bidding and he's too smart for that. Like, that's how I saw it. Like, there's no way he's going to be pressured by a lobby into reversing himself on one of his top and principal campaign promises. You know, like, it would be the same as continuing Joe Biden's open border policies. Like, that's how impossible it seemed that Trump would start a war. And everybody's like, he said it. Right. Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. He said, his defenders say, he said that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. Yes, he said that. Iran was not close to getting a nuclear weapon. Those are lies. You know, the people who are making that justification for Trump are neocons who just, they believe in a very hawkish foreign policy. That's fine. They're entitled to their belief. But don't expect me to believe your lie. Because we saw the intelligence assessment right before we launched the war saying they're nowhere near a nuclear weapon. So just stop. Okay? Stop. Don't tell me to trust the system that they're about to have it when the system has told us you're wrong. Your intel is wrong. And that's pre the June strike. Like, post the June strike, Trump is the one who told us he obliterated their nuclear weapons facilities. Pete Hegseth told us that. And now we're not allowed to believe that or we're anti-Semites. I believed them the first time. I actually believed them that we obliterated. And repeatedly. Repeated it and defended them when others said it was bullshit. So fuck you for telling me I'm no longer allowed to believe that. You're the ones who told me that. Man, it's enraging. It is enraging. It is. Because it's like, who's going to be stuck with this bill? Our kids. Our kids are going to be stuck with this. And look at the state of the Middle East now. Look what's happening in the street. You know, it's like, I go by the people around me, first of all, like my friend and hairstylist Sarah, who I love. She's like, I am sick of talking about the street of Hormuth. Because she's a normal person. She is worried. She's like, I have a good job. I make decent money and I can't get a house. And it cost me $150 to fill up my car yesterday. Like, that's what a normal person sounds like. But what's happening in the street is causing some of those problems that she's having. And because of Trump now, we are. Forced to think about the street of Hormuz, which is in worse shape now than ever, because there's no way we're emerging from this without Iran somewhat in charge of it. There's no way. I'm scared to death that the U.S. dollar is going to be thrown off the World Reserve currency. I don't even really know what that looks like, if it does, but it's not going to be good. And that's what seems to be happening from my perspective. I mean, they're hitting. They're hitting all the infrastructure of our allies that reinvest all that oil back into Wall Street. I think it's UAE already said they didn't. Was it UAE? They already came out and said when we run out of U.S. dollars, we're going to the U.N. Yeah. And look at the position that the country's in just, you know, if you just zoom out, where, you know, we are swimming in debt. We have. We have no plan to pay it off. We don't we don't even have any means to pay it off other than possibly my idea. And China is growing at a rate that's something like 10 times the American growth rate. And we are facilitating it for them. I need you to stop what you're doing for a second and really listen. 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So Canada went, the Trans Mountain Pipeline, TMX, has carried Alberta oil to British Columbia since 1953. Following the Obama and Biden administration's rejection of the Keystone XL, which would have routed Alberta crude into the U.S. Midwest, Canada pursued its own Pacific outlet. The expansion was approved in 2019, survived COVID delays and was completed in May of 2024, nearly tripling daily capacity from 300,000 barrels to 890,000 barrels. So now Canada has pivoted, and here's the timeline. As I said, Biden cancels the Keystone Pipeline in January of 21. 25. 25% tariffs on Canada. February of 25. Annexation threats began. That's when we're saying, oh, we'll make them the 51st state. Then we blame them for the fentanyl crisis. THEN WE REACHED OUT TO raise the tariffs to 35 percent then we threaten them with a hundred percent tariff if they do deals with china and it's just like we're just this crazy fucking schizophrenic country and so now trump is threatening them with a hundred percent tariffs to do deals with china but the previous administration didn't even put the pipeline down here so we're punishing them for our own fucking dealings yeah i mean the whole world and we're doing this shit all over the world we look like bullies we look like fucking schizophrenic idiots now i can defend the fentanyl thing from canada because i will say once we did a better job of enforcing the border down south there are several reports that they started boatloading it up to canada and getting in you know from our evil top hat to the north as michael knolls calls it um but yeah the tariff regime and the oil regime you know trump's been all over the board on that all over the board on that and his tariff scheme was struck down by the u.s supreme court because it's it's a tax taxes have to go through canada sorry through congress and um he said he'd save it by finding another way but he's only found one marginal way and now we have to pay back all this money to these entities that we taxed through his tariffs that he didn't have the right to do you know the arabs along you know in the middle east the gulf arab states we promised them protection if we could build our military bases in their countries and then we didn't provide it you know we didn't consult them before we began this war we let them get bombed we haven't been particularly protective of them nor do we have the military military resources to do it we don't have any more interceptors or any meaningful amount of interceptors meanwhile they've rebooted their drones and they're twenty thousand dollar drones and they're not going to be able to do it can take out our two to four million dollar interceptors terrifyingly easily we don't seem to have a plan for that other than the president's son has a company that's now the drone company pentagon contract so it's you know there's not a lot to feel great about if you're a gulf arab friend of ours because you're really in a tough position now iran's going to have control of this straight you know president trump is saying no they're not and the only real way we have of getting out of it seems to be to refill their coffers with money that's been sanctioned and on hold you know that we have control of iranian money so they're going to get richer one way or another and then on friday you had president trump saying no we're you know they're not going to have control of the straight and somebody says what about oman which is one of the proposals has been that iran and oman which are the two countries that are going to have control of the straight and oman which is one of the proposals has been that iran and oman which are the two countries that are going to have control of the straight and somebody says what about oman which is one of the proposals has been that iran and oman which are the two countries that are going to have control countries that border the straight will have some sort of agreed deal where they they manage the traffic that goes through in some way not a toll that's what they want we don't want a toll but something where they manage it basically where they get enriched and trump said they'll go along or they'll get bombed too now we're going to bomb oman which is a u.s ally with which we cooperate on many international things but now we're going to bomb them next like do they have a nuclear weapon but why are we going to bomb oman or do they have a nuclear weapon or is that loose talk what's that like that's what we're gonna because that's a friend of ours so you know we really are sending a message across the board now but especially to those gulf arab states like we don't really care about you who do we have any friends left israel other than israel is really happy with president trump really happy he's got a 99 approval rating over there yeah maybe he'll get the fuck out of here and move but i mean what's an what's a friend what's an ally it's somebody who actually cares about what's going on in the world and what's going on in the world and what's going on in the world your interests as well or who will at least cooperate with you to advance your interests that's certainly what we've done for israel what have they done for us how is any of this in our interests i'm going to be honest i feel like the united states is just a fucking cow pasture full of cattle for israel we fight their wars we die for their wars we pay for their iron dome we pay for pretty much everything we pay for their iron dome we pay for pretty much everything pretty much all their missile defense made a lot printed a list out of all the shit they get but it must be long it is and depressing just like everything else but uh yeah u.s taxpayers funded defense what america pays for i love claude by the way but uh great yeah annual military aid 3.8 billion 38 billion in total current 10-year memorandum of understanding signed under obama including 33 billion in foreign military financing and 5 billion dedicated to missile defense systems covers the iron dome david sling arrow 2 arrow 3 and iron beam laser defense the u.s has been a co-production partner on the iron dome since 2024 it's 500 a year 500 million a year for that post october 7th emergency packages 16.3 billion dollars in two years total aid since 1948 300 billion send all this fucking money over there they get universal health care free education subsidized universities monthly child allowances unemployment benefits national pension disability benefits maternity benefits and housing subsidies we don't get half this shit just just think about that 16 billion all right and this war has cost at least 30 billion i think it's more than that but the administration like a month ago estimated 25 billion so it's more than that now even by their estimate but it's it's up there in 2010 president obama shoved obamacare down our throats the first time ever we'd had a massive entitlement passed without majority support of the people it had like one six it was worth one-sixth of the u.s economy it was shoved through without majority support you can like if you like your doctor you can keep him like your plan you can keep it those are lies people died and the only way they managed to actually sell it to the american public somewhat or prevent revolt was to say you're going to get pre-existing conditions covered and your premiums are going they're not going to go up we're going to handle your premiums don't worry well that was an impossibility all along how can you get all the pre-existing conditions covered and premiums aren't going to go up that doesn't make any sense and of course it didn't make sense the only way they could do it was with government subsidies so they passed in the law mandatory subsidies to all these people who are going to get financially hurt by this new terrible program and the subsidies have an end date and the democrats have been saying because they would like to have their terrible bill can you know they still want it to be covered up how awful it was they want the subsidies to continue because the jig is up once the american public actually feels the pain of those subsidies being gone and the republicans said no they're going to be the fiscally responsible ones now and the democrats said this is just recently it's only going to take 30 billion dollars but we need to do this for an already suffering public and look sean the truth is even though i hate obamacare and worked very hard to stop it from passing back in the 08 to 10 time frame these americans it's not their fault they didn't want it was shoved down their throat by obama they're suffering they can't afford it they can't afford groceries they can't afford gas prices they can't afford homes they can't afford health care and we're giving 16.2 billion to israel for for just one of those line items never mind what we spent on this israel's war against iran which no one wants no one the poll numbers on that are over 70 percent against and we're not going to help our own people those obamacare subsidized consumers are going to suffer because we have other priorities it's enraging i know i just i just feel stuck i mean they're buying our elections just how do we how do we get out from under this shit why is it is it almost over is it going to die with the baby boomer generation i mean gen z is 85 against israel these are all what's going on these are all good things like i i i have nothing against israel as a country i don't i don't have anything against the people you know but the government has definitely been taking advantage of us and we've been allowing it really and sometimes i do worry like we shouldn't use israel as a proxy to hide our anger at trump you know president trump's the one who made the call and netanyahu this has been going on for a long fucking time i agree but i'm just saying like netanyahu made an argument that he thought was in favor of his country that's fine that's his fault that's his fault that's his fault that's his look looking out for his country why didn't our president look out for ours you know what why didn't we say we get it just like obama reportedly said to netanyahu we get it but no and many presidents before him in the modern era um who have been the victims of this dog and pony show by israel and have said it's a no you know that trump wasn't the first on whom they tried this so i do think it's important to remember trump has agency and trump is in charge of the u.s military and what it does not netanyahu you know he he made the pitch but we're the ones who fell for it and I think Trump is regretting it mightily now. But what you were saying. You think he's regretting it? Yes, but hold that point. Hold that thought, because I do want to come back to that. All the stuff you just said is why we should feel optimistic. Like, if you go to the doctor tomorrow and you find out you have cancer, you might feel sad, but it's actually a good day because you found out about cancer, and it's better to know, so you can do something about it. The reality was the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. You have cancer. But after knowing it, you're in a better position to improve your life and to make real changes. That's how I see this whole problem with Israel. We didn't understand this on the left or the right about how much influence Israel had over American politics. Some did. Glenn Greenwald has been, like, sounding the alarm. He's been sounding the alarm on this forever, as have people like Anna Kasparian, but, like, Cenk Uygur. But it's been a smaller group. This wasn't something that was either known or accepted, I guess might be the better word, by both parties in America, and it is now. That doesn't mean they're not going to still win some battles, especially on Republican elections, because Republicans are still close to this lobby and in bed with them financially. But this is the beginning of the end of that. The end of that. The end of that. That is the incredible response to 10/7, what Israel did in carpet bombing Gaza and now Beirut, by the way. And getting America, actually getting America into a new Middle East war, leading our soldiers to be killed, you know, endangering another generation. This is going to be held against them. The Americans are awake now on the issue of Israel. You're truly incredible. And you're going to be included in a way we weren't the day before. So that's the good news. On the subject of Trump regretting this, I do. I think he regrets it very much. Why do you think that? Because he's not dumb. And he knows it's crushing him. It's crushing his numbers. When have you ever seen Trump exposed to bad polls, not come out and attack the polls? Why isn't he doing that? Because it's every poll. It's every poll. Left, right, center. There hasn't been one poll that's good for him other than one CNN survey of core MAGA voters early on in the war who said they were all 100 percent with Trump. Well, MAGA is basically defined as you're pro-Trump. So, of course, they're going to go along with Trump. But MAGA is shrinking. At best, it's 19 percent of the electorate or of the Republican Party. Right. And so it's shrinking. It's shrinking in relevance. And the rest of the Republican Party is having real doubts about this war. And, of course, the left is totally against it. So I think Trump is looking at his poll numbers and he understands that not only is he -- we have a 70 percent disapproval rating on this war and climbing, but it's driven down his approval ratings on the things that really do get people elected, like inflation and the economy. It's caused inflation. We can all see that. For the first time last month, we saw the cost of living -- like the cost of wages -- the wages increase was lower than the increase in inflation. One was 3.6 percent, one was 3.8. So people's paychecks are literally no longer keeping up with the rises in inflation. And his approval ratings have a corresponding dip. He is way underwater on his economic approval numbers when it comes to the overall economy and certainly on inflation with everyone. He's -- all the Hispanics who came to Team Trump in 2024 are gone. Not only are they -- they're not ambivalent. They are saying that they're going to vote for the Democrats. They are deeply disappointed in him. The white -- Everybody's fucking gone except Fox News, Mark Levin -- Yes. -- Benny Johnson and Dan Bongino. Yeah. Am I missing -- The white working class leaving. Am I missing anyone? I mean, Rogan, you -- Yeah. -- Tucker, Candace, Tim Dillon, all the comedians, Theo Vaughn, me, every big podcast out there is like, "Fuck you." Yeah. You lied. "Fuck you." You betrayed. I mean, I'll tell you, for me, it's been a -- it's been a confusing time. It's been a frustrating time for most of us, I think. But I -- I still support the basic Trump agenda. And I still really have hopes that he will get back to it, if for no other reason out of practicality. To save what's left of his presidency. Like, I really kind of believed in the whole, "Let's deport the illegals" thing. He did close the border, and I give him total credit for that. He did fight the gender war, and he's made a serious difference there, and I'm very grateful to him for that. I think those are both pretty low-hanging fruit. That's -- yeah. I know. Right. But I would love for him to get back to focusing on domestic issues. It's almost like Trump found -- Yeah. It's almost like Trump found it's really hard to have an effect on those issues, and gave up, and said, like, "Foreign policy is one area in which a commander-in-chief can make a real difference," which is true, so I'm just gonna focus on that. You know, it's like that little sound bite that leaked over his Easter lunch that he had, that wasn't supposed to be put online, but it was for about 15 minutes, and then the White House realized, and they pulled it down. What was that? He said in that sound bite, "There's really not much the federal government can do to, like, change life at the local level." They can't really change crime, or help you with health insurance, medical care, or, like, those small issues that actually affect your life on a day-to-day basis. That's really more local government. And it was a very controversial statement, because he made a bunch of promises that he would help people in those lanes, but it also isn't entirely untrue. And you can hear it almost as a justification for his foreign adventurism, like, "This is what I'm doing." You know, I actually kind of can't get these illegals out, because all these sanctuary cities are protecting them, and I haven't found an effective way around them. I've tried to do cleanup in some cities, but most won't let me in when it comes to crime. So what am I really supposed to do? Health care is too big to take on. I can't make many changes there, because I don't have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, nor do I have even 51 Republicans who would vote to change the rules, to get rid of the filibuster, if I wanted that. I know there are a lot of Republicans who are like, "Get rid of the filibuster." You don't have the votes to do it. You have, what, some five Republicans who won't vote for it, and no Democrats are going to vote for it. So you at least need 51 senators to vote to overturn the protocol that requires a 60-vote majority to get a vote on legislation. So I think he was feeling, "What else can I do? All I have is these executive orders. I issued all the ones I was interested in at the beginning of the presidency back in February of '25. So what else can I do? Oh, here's something fun." And I think he loves the military tools, toys, that he discovered with the Maduro raid and – He could have released the Epstein files. That is a mystery to me. I don't believe Trump's in the Epstein files in any meaningful way. I really don't, because I think Joe Biden would have used it or gotten it out there. So why would – why? Why was he not only – again, he – Trump. We did look at this at the time. He wasn't a huge "I will release the Epstein files" guy. But his base was. His FBI director and deputy director for the beginning of his term were 100 percent. And his vice president. So – and his son. Like, Trump's circle and the ones who are his campaign surrogates absolutely made a huge deal of the Epstein files. And Trump got in there and acted. Like, he'd never heard of this before. Like, what are you even – who would be talking about Jeffrey Epstein still? Absolutely not. You freaks. You know, like, what? It looked like an invasion of the body snatchers. Like, who do you think you're talking to? This actually is a huge issue that has a lot more to do with – it has to do with a lot more than just Jeffrey Epstein. So it was a similar 180 – it felt like one – to the – on the Iran thing. Only, that one, it's him on camera. He's on camera making the promises over and over and over. But on Epstein, the – my best guess is it's his friends. It's his donors. People who have – I mean, he said that. Didn't he say that to Marjorie Taylor Greene? He – yeah. I can't do anything? Or – he said something along the lines – I don't – what do you want me to do? Intimidate her. They're all my friends. Yeah. Well, then, all your friends are fucking pedophiles. Get rid of them. Right. Make new friends. None of us gives a shit. Like, we wanted to see the names. What? The one good thing we have going for us there is there are a lot of angry people. People who have just been voted out effectively of the Senate and Congress who have seven months left in office, like Massey. Like, there is nothing stopping him from standing on the House floor and revealing to us some of these names. Do you think he'll do it? Yeah. I kind of do. I mean, what does he have to lose? Nothing. His life. I mean, what's going to happen to John Cornyn? I don't know. I don't know. Trump says he's my friend. That's Trump trying to keep him in line for the next seven months. He's probably feeling pretty bitter. about what happened to him. I know there's a few who might. - I don't know who that is. - Leave with a bang. - John who? - John Cornyn? He's the one who just lost to Ken Paxton - on the Senate primary down in Texas. - Oh, okay. But he's been there for multiple terms. And he's now on his way out because Trump backed his opponent, who's-- who's got a lot of ethical scandals, but who's fresh blood and a little bit more red meat of a Republican than Cornyn, who's more milquetoast and a little swampy. But who knows? I think the next seven months are going to be kind of interesting. What do you think about all these people resigning? Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, Tulsi Gabbard? I'm really sad about the MTG one. I wish I had gotten the chance to talk her out of it. Um, and I know she had good reasons and all that, but I-- somebody once gave me good advice, and it was, um, "Don't let your critics bully you out of a job you love." And I kind of think she was-- she was bullied by Trump out of the role, because he was-- Really? You think that's what happened? Kind of, yeah. Like, he was making her life a living hell. She was getting death threats. Her kids were getting death threats. He was making her the scourge of the Republican Party as opposed to a heroine of it, which she is. Like, I-- I love her. I-- I was so misled on MTG early on. I-- I had such a different impression of her than I do now. Um, I really admire her. And I wish she were still on the inside, because we can't keep losing all our great people. -But anyway-- -I didn't agree with you there. I thought it was a hell of a statement, though. And I-- I was hoping somebody would do it. I was hoping somebody would relinqu-- would trade their power for a statement. Yeah, but like-- 'Cause I think that's important. I mean, none of these people even have any fucking power. -That's the-- that's the thing. -But we're just gonna cede all the fights? Like, is it better for us that Joe Kent is on the outside? Hell no. I don't-- I don't know. I disagree. -I think it is. -Why? -Well-- -Now we have no one. Well, we might have-- Who do you think's gonna take it? Sebastian Gorka. -But, um-- -Stop it right now. I mean, it doesn't-- I don't-- I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters who's in there anyways. He doesn't take-- He doesn't listen to anybody. He doesn't take any-- any information in-- I agree he doesn't take it, but-- To-- to make a better decision. So he might as well just put a bunch of fucking-- his own puppets in place, because that's obvious. That's obviously what they-- The thing I really don't get is why he fired Pam Bondi. -That was a great mouthpiece. -Yeah. What happened there? He was reportedly mad that she wasn't indicting more of his enemies. What? Okay. But-- There are limits to what lawyers can do. And by the way, the claims-- the cases that Todd Blanche has started have been quietly falling apart, and some of the ones Pam Bondi started because she was under pressure have been falling apart. There's such a thing as-- um, malicious prosecution. And if you look like you're doing that, a court can throw out your-- your criminal case against somebody. So it's not as easy as Trump thinks, you know, as-- as he would like us to believe. And-- and the lawyers who are actually responsible for filing the cases, I think, have realized this. Like, I-- there's a reason Pam Bondi, she was a decent lawyer, didn't knee-jerk do exactly what he wanted her to do on all these people, because A, you have to have a real crime, and B, even if you find one that's nominally been committed, you can get thrown out thanks to malicious prosecution. You know, that's what Comey was gonna argue before his case fell apart on a technicality. That's what Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, uh, you know, Maryland man, um, what he argued. Remember, we deported him to the one country he couldn't be deported to, and then there was a judge's order saying, "All right, you gotta let him back in the country, 'cause that's the one country he had protection from being deported to." And the Trump administration's Trump card was, "Okay, but bam, we're gonna slap him with trafficking charges because he was in a car with no seats, and he was traveling near the border, and he was clearly bringing in other people, and we got a witness in the car who's gonna back us up, and so, sure, welcome back to America, but now you're charged criminally. You know, good luck." That case was just thrown out, because a judge said that this is a malicious prosecution. Trump, it right now, is threatening-- reportedly has the DOJ looking into filing charges for perjury against E. Jean Caron, the woman who sued Trump civilly for allegedly raping her in a Bergdorf-Goodman dressing room 30-plus years ago. That, too, is going to get challenged as a malicious prosecution if it's brought, because the court can look at the circumstances around the charge, and while maybe she is technically guilty of perjury in the case, what the allegation is that she testified in the case under oath, she didn't have any outside backing for the case. She wasn't being helped by outsiders. And the truth is, she was backed by Reid Hoffman, and, um, that came out later. So, you know, perjury, you have to show it was an intentional lie as opposed to a mistake, but, okay, let's assume they can cross that hurdle. She's gonna argue malicious prosecution, that the president himself has made clear he's got an enemy's list. "He owes me $86 million in judgments." Well, I think 91, if you add the 5 million plus the 86, um, that she recovered against him in civil courts. And there's-- everybody knows there's only one reason why he's coming for me, and she's got a decent chance, depending on what judge he gets in front of. So, it's-- my point is simply, Pam Bondi understood this dynamic, I think, better than President Trump, but he wanted what he wanted, you know? And in the same way, like, Massey wasn't allowed to be a principled objector to the spending on the one big beautiful bill or the Epstein non-disclosures, she wasn't allowed to say, "I don't have it. I tried. We tried. We appointed that Lindsey Halligan in-- in the one jurisdiction to go after Comey and Letitia James, but it turns out she wasn't appointed properly, and so those cases fell apart when she got booted from the role. Mr. President, we tried. It's just not-- it's not that easy, thankfully, to come up with charges to go after an enemy criminally on. So that's why Pam Bondi's gone. But I really believe it's better for us-- I admire Joe Kent, and I'm grateful that, you know, he made a point when he left of, like, saying why, but I personally would much rather have him on the inside. I'd much rather have Tulsi Gabbard on the inside. If Tulsi Gabbard hadn't been on the inside, would we have had a public airing of the assessment is they are nowhere near having a nuclear weapon? You know, if Mark Wayne Mullen had been in that job, do you think he would have said that? Or do you think he could have been manipulated by the White House before that testimony to say something else? And Joe Kent, too. Like, I don't know what Joe Kent has leaked and hasn't leaked. He's never leaked to me. He told me he's never leaked. But I would say it's not bad to have people in those positions in a-- in a-- in a position where they could potentially get something out to the media, something that's knowledgeable and informed and real, so that we can pursue avenues that the administration won't. That's how the media and the government has worked synergistically since the dawn of time. So, I mean, as a media person, I'd much rather-- again, I'm not accusing Joe-- Joe Kent 'cause I don't know what-- but people like that who are pro-America, America first, and are on the inside, and willing to, in their own way, whistleblow, are important to the national dialogue, to the direction of the country. It can change hearts and minds. Who do we have now? Well, that's-- that's where I just-- I don't know. I think my opinion differs a little, just because I-- and I don't think it matters who we have now, because he's not gonna take any information in and-- and change any decision-making. He's gonna do whatever he wants to do, and if he doesn't like it, then get the fuck out. I'm gonna fire you or shut you up. And so, you know, I think-- I think it takes, you know, when somebody like Joe Kent, with his background, and everything that he has actually done for the country, um, I think that's a big-- that's a big wake-up call. That is a big statement for a guy like that to come out and go, "I can't," in good comments. You know, "I can't do this shit. I can't do this shit. So it's easy for me to believe that Tulsi, upon getting this terrible diagnosis in her family, said, it's time for me to leave. I've been doing this for, you know, not quite a year and a half, and that's plenty of time in government service. I gave a year of my life, and now I want to get back to me. But I don't know who. Well, I mean, the timing was a little odd, because a week before, the report came out that they raided her house or office or something for the JFK files and the MKUltra files. And then a week later, she resides. But did you see what happened with that? She said they didn't. It wasn't true. That was Anna Paulina Luna, who said a bunch of nonsense on a cable news show that she immediately had to retract after she set everyone's jaw slack. You know, she said that, and then immediately Tulsi Gabbard's office came out and said, that's not true. We were not raided by the CIA. The CIA came in and said, not true. And then she had to take it down. Now, there had been a report by a CIA whistleblower who testified before Congress that day that did talk about the CIA taking back some 40 boxes of materials from the DNI's office, this group called the DIG that she started, that is responsible for unearthing documents around MLK, JFK, MKUltra, UAPs, you know, formerly known as UFOs. Yeah. That the CIA, months ago, went back and retrieved 40 documents from the DNI's office that it believed were its and that it didn't want her going through. That did happen. So it was just mispresented by Luna as a raid by the CIA that day on Tulsi's office. Those pieces were not true, and they were denied by Tulsi's office, like, in writing that night. So, you know, we can talk about the CIA. What the hell business does it think it has going into the DNI's office and taking back 40 boxes of stuff she was reviewing for disclosure to us on President Trump's executive order? Like, that, sit the fuck down. Mm-hmm. There's an order that's been given by somebody higher on the food chain than you, but, of course, that's not the way the CIA sees the president, and it believes it's operating its own independent fiefdom. If we continue this discussion, I'll be dead by Friday. The CIA is nothing to trifle with. Mm-hmm. So, that. More complicated, but, yeah, she had definitely crossed the CIA in that way. But, I mean, it was Trump's executive order that made that. made her do it. You know, that said. I mean, she was also staunch. staunchly against the Iran war, right? I mean, she was selling no war with Iran merch before. But the consequence of that was not her termination, I believe. Again, I trust my source who said they tried to convince her to stay. I think the consequence of that was irrelevance in Trump world. You know, the reports are that he's been far more focused on what Marco Rubio has to say, who, again, is his national security advisor. He's not just Secretary of State. Mm-hmm. Then on what Tulsi Gabbard has to say. And, you know, there's even some reports that he's looking more to Marco than he is to J.D., and I don't know whether that's true. It could be, because I think J.D. Vance is much more of a non-interventionalist, and Trump's feeling pretty interventionalist these days, and wants to be. He wants sweet nothings. He wants these gummy bears shoved down his throat, just the lovely taste of sugar, instead of cold, harsh reality, which is what a president needs to hear. Yeah. So, yeah, it's not going in a great direction in terms of staff. I got a hot question here for you. It has to do with this. We had Claude scrape the Internet for everything happening inside the Trump administration right now, and here's what it came back with. What's the message and what's important? Nope, couldn't get her over the finish line because we didn't fight for her. Well, Cassidy's leaving. Can we get her, you know, later? No, we went with somebody else. No offense to the new person, but this person hasn't been a stalwart of Maha. So if you're asking me if I have to make a bet, I guess that's what I'll say. Man. And look at. I couldn't believe the life of. Just another lie, you know, from the Trump administration that we're going to clean all this shit up. And they said, yeah, it's a national security concern. They labeled fentanyl a national security concern. That's 100. That's not even 100,000 deaths a year. Do you know how many people die a year from cancer? Millions. 618,000. What? 618,000. A year? I thought it'd be higher than that. You know where the highest concentration of cancer cases is? In Iowa. I was going to say the Midwest. Do you know where the highest concentration of glyphosate is? Iowa. It's in Iowa. You know this guy running for governor there? Zach. I don't know him. That's one dude I do like. A lot. A lot. I think his race is like next week, but. Oh, good. Yeah. He's awesome. Talk to. Like, the farming community has been having case after case after case of cancer. They can't even swim in lakes in Iowa because the shit has gotten so bad. Well, look at. There's warning signs in the rivers, in the lakes, so you can't go in there. And then he just. And then he just fucking gave them immunity? Yeah. Victor Davis Hanson has a. Walnut, I think, farm in California, Northern California. And for years has been telling me the number of family members who have died of cancer, including his own daughter, who all grew up on the farm. And he said he believed it was because of the chemicals that they sprayed the trees with. And Victor himself came down with cancer this year and has been battling, like, a lung cancer that's been really tough on him. I love him. I'm saying prayers every day for him. But, yeah, it's everywhere. Like, we're just going to pretend it doesn't exist and pretend, like, Bayer needs our protection, right? Which bought Monsanto. Like, forgive me, but I don't buy that. They've got more money than God. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So it is very frustrating, and it does give you the feeling, like, what's going to change? Like, the Maha thing really did help get Trump elected. I really thought we'd get more than just a couple of food dyes out of our food. Did we do that? Maybe those aren't legal. Those gummy bears. They're supposed to be getting colored with, like, beets now. Whoops. I'll have to check the ingredients. Oh, there's too many. Corn syrup. There's nothing in there that's going to be any. There's no beets. There's nothing in there good for you. I can tell you that right now. Canola oil, that's bad. That gives you the bad fat. That gives you the jiggly cellulite fat. What are you trying to do to me, Sean Ryan? I'm just telling you, it tastes fucking amazing. You want the hard fat. But, yeah. On that note, let's take a quick break. I didn't really think much about skin care before, but after enough long days travel and stress, you start to see it in your face whether you want to or not. That's what got me into Caldera Lab. It's a straightforward routine built for guys. Nothing complicated, just a few steps that actually work. I use the good and the base layer. It takes less than a minute, absorbs fast, and has no greasy feel. But the difference is noticeable. My skin looks healthier, more even, and just more dialed in overall. And it's not loaded with junk either. It's made with clean, clinically backed ingredients and does exactly what it says it will. It's one of those small habits that adds up over time and changes how you show up day to day. Give it a shot. Go to calderalab.com/srs and use code SRS for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab.com/srs. Alright, Megan, we're back from the break. Let's talk about some stuff you want to talk about. Everything I want to talk about is super dark and everybody's going to think the end of the world is happening. So, what do you want to talk about? I mean, I still believe in the legal system. One good thing to feel good about is the U.S. Supreme Court. It's got six conservatives on there, sort of, and that's the best it's been in my lifetime. So that's good. That's one branch of government that's looking up. Nice. Seriously, it's been wonderful this term to watch so many decisions come down the right way. Like, yeah, you go. Go. Usually you have to beg and plead to get the five-four decisions, and now we've got one to spare. So that's positive. They don't always do what we want them to do, but this is a great court for anybody who's sane. And honestly, like, the legal news in general has been our cup runneth over this year. It's just been kind of insane. Like, that Alec Murdoch trial, which is now coming back to us again. I don't know if you know anything about that, but. I don't. It's this. You're way more on top of shit than I am. Well, he was a longtime stalwart of the community in South Carolina, and he comes from a long line of prosecutors. He wasn't a prosecutor, but he was a well-known lawyer in his community. Long story short. And it turned out he was embezzling from his law firm, he was stealing from his clients, and it was all about to come out. And as an attempt to gain sympathy for himself and prevent further scrutiny from, for example, his law firm, he shot and killed his wife and 19-year-old son. Oh, shit. I did hear about this. And just played dumb and called 911 and cried and said, "Oh, I can't believe it. They're dead." Got arrested eventually and got convicted, and his conviction was just overtaken. And he was also overturned because the clerk of court, this sweet little Southern belle kind of gal, Becky Hill, was manipulating the jury behind the scenes, like saying, "Don't believe him. Look at that body language. The deliberations, these shouldn't take long." And more. And even though everybody knows he did it, it's so clear he did it, he's gonna get a new trial. And it was the right decision, and it's one of those things that, I don't know, for me, it made me feel proud to be an American. That's our system. We don't say, "We know he did it. Let's move on." Under our system, you have a constitutional right to a fair trial with an impartial jury. And if someone interferes with your right, your verdict will be overthrown, and you will be given a second bite at the apple. That's what's gonna happen to this guy. It's a gift to the media because everybody covered this case, and it was a fascinating case. There's so many twists and turns to it. I've just given you the bottom line. And it's going to happen now, it looks like, because I don't think there's a deal to be had here. I could be wrong. The Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni trial settled because she didn't want to be cross-examined. That was also a fascinating legal drama. The whole Nancy Guthrie missing mom of Savannah was like a page-turning mystery that the whole country was riveted by for a good six weeks, and then we all had to get back to our real lives because there was no resolution and no progress. But that civil suit that we talked about in the Michael Jackson case by those two guys who were in the fake documentary from 2019, that's going to be in court, we believe, as early as this fall. So there's quite a few things like in the pipeline legally and that have been happening in the country that, I don't know, I think are interesting, offer some insights into who we are. And for me as a lawyer, you know, I practiced law for almost 10 years, and while there are bad judges, and we've seen that, especially during the Trump administration. You know, I've been in the administration with judges who are agenda-driven and shouldn't be. To me, I still believe in the law. I still think the law is the one thing that binds us together, the rule of law. Even Trump knows it, that he can't flout the decisions that are handed down against him, and that's been good. He actually has been abiding by the rule of law. There hasn't been a constitutional crisis caused by the president, that's for sure. Not yet. So I don't know, when I get to bed at night, Sean, and I can't sleep because of what's happening, politics or policy, think about Chief Justice John Roe-- no, I don't. But I do think about the courts and the law, and still feel optimistic. Well, that's good. I see MDMA on the list. So I don't know much about it. You know, I've never even smoked a cigarette, I've certainly never taken a drug for recreation or other purposes. I've taken like a Tylenol and all that, but. What's a Tylenol? And I drink alcohol, so that's a drug. But I'm curious. In the field of these drugs, there's MDMA, there's psilocybin, there's ketamine. You tell me, but it seems to me that psilocybin should be the first thing, because that's the one Roland Griffiths, who created the lab at Johns Hopkins University and was like the guy who said we should give all this stuff another look, just because Timothy Leary decided to lean in a little too hard at Harvard when doing these studies, doesn't mean these are bad ideas. There are some good ideas here that actually could help somebody, but he was a big fan of the psilocybin. Talked about it like a game changer. Talked about. Is it MDMA or NA? MDMA. Two Ms. M. So talked about MDMA like it's more of an empathy drug, he referred to it as. I think the big one right now is Ibogaine. Isn't that. That's the one that Joe Rogan recommended for the vets. Yes. And we just got past. I think that one is close enough. closest to psilocybin, if memory serves. from my discussion with Roland, which was a couple years ago, but I'm pretty sure that's what he said. So, the good thing about Ibogaine is all these guys that are coming home with traumatic brain injuries from getting blown up, they have these black splotches in the brain. I think I talked about this on yours. I can't remember. But, so, Stanford did a study and the vast majority of them, not all of them, but the vast majority of them, they would go, if they didn't have shrapnel, they would go to Stanford, get a brain scan, and it would show where all the black spots are in the brain. -And then they would go down-- - What are the black spots? That's where the blast affected the brain. - Okay. - So, there's no brain function. And they would go to do Ibogaine, and then they would fly them back like two days later to do the brain scan, and the entire brain was lit up. And the other thing that it's doing is it is curing addiction immediately. Pretty-- Opiates, alcohol, pretty much anything but benzos. So, Valium, Xanax, that stuff isn't going to be cured. But what it does is it's an immediate, like, cure. So, it replenishes the receptors in your brain so you don't have the cravings anymore. That's how I quit drinking. It's been over four years now. - It's miraculous. - I haven't had a drop. - Wow. - And so-- And yet, look-- - - Look. - Look at your studio. - It looks cool. - It does look cool. - But, um-- But, uh, but, yeah, I haven't had a drink in over four years now. And it's just-- it's-- it's saving lots of lives and home life. I mean, also the impact that it's having on people's spouses and their kids and everybody around them. I mean, it's-- it's changing a lot of lives. I think it's miraculous, and I-- I mean, kudos to Joe Rogan for getting it in front of Trump and fast-tracking it at the White House. That was a good thing Trump did. Um, I-- when I talked to that guy, Roland, the godfather of all this, he was such a proponent. Really thought you should do it under the care of a physician. Like, was very against just free-balling it. You know, like, "I'm just gonna buy it and do it in my living room." But the one caution he had that stuck with me, because, you know, I'm in news, so I always go to the dark place, is, um-- if you haven't been screened, if you have a history of schizophrenia in your family, within a second-degree relative, he said, you can trip, like, your schizophrenia. I don't know if it's a gene or what it is, and never come back. Like, if you're not under the care of a physician and haven't been properly screened, with psilocybin at least, you take that shit, and you might cross over to a psychotic break from which you might not recover. Whew. That will be an interesting turn in life. So, like, okay, I mean, a lot of us don't-- like, I know about my immediate grandparents, but do you know anything about your great-grandparents? I know nothing about my great-grandparents and what physical ailments they may have had. So it's scary to think, like, I could go-- 'cause I'm kind of tempted, the way you talked about psilocybin, which, again, I think is the closest thing to the Ibogaine, how it gives you a feeling of togetherness, of connected purpose, of, like, diminishing-- the things that divide us and amplifying things that make us feel out of ourselves and more connected to Earth and the great beyond and the belief in what's next and whole. It was very attractive. That's--who wouldn't want to feel all that stuff? But I, you know, don't want to turn into a serial killer after I leave the office. I've not heard that. I've not heard that ever. But I've--I do MDMA. I do therapy with my wife, and it's fucking amazing. So how often do you do it? Well, we were doing it maybe once a quarter for a while. We haven't been doing it that long, but a little over a year. And then--but what it does is, like, you're able to send and receive information without--without feeling any resentment or you just-- you know it's coming from a loving place. So you can receive it and know that it is meant for good and it's coming from a loving place without being like, "I don't fucking do that." -So you have your big talks? -Oh, yeah. -After that? -Yeah. -Oh. -During it. During it. Wow. How long does it last? Like, a few hours? Yeah, maybe four or five, six hours. So do you just, like, make the list, the MDMA list? Like, we're gonna-- let's table that until we get to the-- No, no, no, no. We'll do it. It's stuff that-- it's stuff that you might not even really know that is bothering you about your husband or your wife or whoever. And it'll all just come up. It'll all start coming out. And so you'll learn things about yourself that you're doing that annoy the shit out of your husband or hurt your kids or stuff like that. And so every time we do it, that's the majority of it is parenting-- parenting issues. It's not addictive. Like, ketamine is addictive. That's what took Matthew Perry. Yeah. Um, I mean. I don't know. We're not addicted to it. No, I think-- they think they say it's not addictive. -Oh, MDMA? -Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Don't-- you know, check me on that. But I think Roland said the one that's addictive is the ketamine. You have to be careful with that one. Yeah, I've not done any ketamine. But-- and then we don't do it much anymore because not as much stuff was coming up. In fact, the last one we did, we did-- nothing really came up. -So we're like-- we're good. -Isn't MDMA ecstasy? -Yes. -I thought that was a sexual drug. You know, like, you take it and you go nuts for each other. -Well-- -I've never heard it-- -That happens, too. -Okay. So-- but you get the-- You can get the loving, non-judgmental, everything's coming from a good place feeling right after you have sex, too. You can get away with anything in that moment. But I'm-- I'm being serious, though. It is, um. I think everybody should do it. I don't think I'd take anything from Mexico. No offense to our friends south of the border, but no. No. No. I would not drink the water. I'd be worried about having a tamale, and I certainly wouldn't-- don't want a drug from Mexico. Well, for the Ibogaine, for example, I mean, you're in a facility. You're hooked up to a heart rate monitor. -Okay. -Like, they have doctors on staff. Is there an American there? -Canadians. -Oh, okay. No offense to the Mexican people, but, like, I don't-- I don't-- You know, there's some sketchy things down south of the border. It's like where people go for their bad plastic surgery, and it's like-- some bad things happen. I don't know. I mean, if you get cancer, you sure as hell aren't gonna get it cured within the U.S. Well, that's the thing. You know, the stem cells, so many people are going out of the country now for all that stuff. Everybody's passing us up, man. I know. We have so much regulation here. That's all we want to do is regulate people out of existence. Stifle while the man makes money off of us all. What about the AI stuff? Are you worried about that? -Yeah. Yeah. -What are you worried about? I'm worried that Elon says no one should start a retirement fund 'cause we're not gonna need it. As in, we're no longer gonna be here. Um, I-- I do worry about superintelligence and the machines somehow taking over. Um. I'm very worried for our children and their ability to get meaningful jobs. I mean, it's like, white-collar jobs have been all but wiped out, potentially, by this thing. Like, if you look at the people who are in the know and what they feel, and what they forecast, like, when I got out of law school, I spent, you know, as I said, nine and a half years practicing law. The first three or four of it is no longer necessary. It can all be done by a computer. -Mm-hmm. -When you're doing legal research, uh, you're calling through cases, you know, you're looking at documents. That's what a, you know, junior litigator does. That job's no longer necessary. You-- I-- A friend of mine just went in for, uh, or was going in for, was it gallbladder surgery? It was some sort of surgery, and he was given the option, a human or a machine. -Really? -Yeah. -What did he pick? -He picked the human. -Did he really? -Yeah, but the machine was cheaper. Then my own doctor told me that he got a colonoscopy that was reviewed only by a machine. And he loved it. Like, he came back right away, and they thought it was higher accuracy. And then a different doctor told me that many people have wound up with cancer doing it that way. The machines aren't as foolproof as we've been led to believe. So it's like, more and more, we're gonna turn ourselves over to them. And I have to say, I'm very excited by some of the medical breakthroughs. I genuinely am starting to believe that if we can just live another ten years, we might not die. We're all gonna be Brian Johnson. Like, every day, you see something like, "Holy shit, they figured out what causes aging, and they're working on a pill to stop it." Like, we might not have to age anymore, so if we can just hold on. We could just stay out of the sun for ten more years. It seems like every form of cancer. My doctor, when he told me about the mRNA vaccines during COVID, I'm like, "You know, they're very controversial. This is what people are saying." And he said, "One day, they're gonna cure cancer. So, like, at some point, you're gonna be faced with a decision about whether to take them or not." And I'm like, "Well, preventing COVID is one thing. You tell me it's gonna protect me from getting pancreatic cancer, I may pay more attention, but it's already happening." I don't know about that. I'm not endorsing that technology. I'm just saying every day you see a new amazing development. have to have melanoma potentially, or pancreatic cancer or glioblastomas. Like every day we're getting-- so that is all linked to AI and it's very exciting. It would suck to survive every form of cancer and heart attack only to get nuked by a machine that's figured out access to the codes and doesn't want us around because it knows it could kill it. We could kill it. You think AI will eventually have its own agency? Yeah, I do. I believe they're going to get super intelligent and we're going to be sorry that we unleashed that without more thought. But my immediate worry is about the children. You need purpose in life. You need something to get up and do every day. Cannot live an idle life and be happy, in my view. You can retire after a lifetime of professional contributions or otherwise and be happy, but I just don't think you can live your whole life the way they used to back in the 1800s as a gentleman and be a fulfilled person. And where are they getting their money in this scenario? From the government? From Anthropic? From OpenAI? Sam Altman? He's going to have to dole it out like the communist government to them? That'll be meaningful. That's going to work out well for us. Do you think that's where this is headed? Yeah. How could it not be? All the white-collar jobs are going away. No, I see it. It scares the shit out of me. I think this will all be replaced. We're not doing really anything to stop it. Even in President Trump's meeting with Xi, they talked about it a little, but it wasn't a big agenda item. Right now, we're in a nuclear arms race with other countries, especially China, to see who can dominate AI the fastest. You know, there was a story. It was highlighted in that movie. It's on digital, whatever, one of those apps that we all have on. You never know where you see anything anymore. It's like, I don't know. You have to go Netflix and Amazon Prime and figure out where you watched it. But it's called the AI doc. It's very well done. And there was a story in there where -- I'm pretty sure that's where I saw this -- where the AI creator was going to shut down the program. And long story short, he was threatened by the AI that, if he did shut it down, the computer was going to tell everybody about the affair he had on his wife, which it knew about because it had access to his emails. I mean. Shit. That's dark shit. Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, you know, the one prick in the finger, and I can tell you everything about you, which was a fraud, and she's in jail serving a nine or 10-year sentence. She tweeted out -- you can tweet from prison. She actually just followed me. I might have a relationship with Elizabeth Holmes now. I don't know. She tweeted out, "Delete all of your emails. Delete all of your photographs, including your hidden photos. Delete all of your medical records that are online. Delete everything within the next few years, because that's the window you have before it will all be spilled onto the internet by AI that will access everything." I don't disagree with that. I think that all the time now. I think this is more of a biblical thing, but. Yeah. Personally. So does the Pope. You saw he just issued some 40,000-word encyclical against AI, reminding people that while they can do all these things, they're not real. They're not human. They don't have emotions. They don't really even have ethical judgments. They have some programming on ethics, like if you're an automated car and you're driving down the street, there's a woman with a baby stroller. You're in front of you, and on the sidewalk, there are two little children. You have to make a decision about which one you're going to hit. If you're like. Jeez. Yeah. It'd be hard enough for an actual human to make that call. Someone's actually got to program that stuff into an AI, but that doesn't make it human. It makes it a machine that may or may not take direction from a human. It's just, what are we creating when we take the heart and soul out of our society? It's like the GLP-1 drugs. You don't like the GLP-1 drugs? I do like the GLP-1 drugs. You do? I don't like looking at uninteractive people all day. I appreciate that everybody's looking thin, and we're just so morbidly obese. It's gross. Look how we were in 1908. We were thin, and we were fashionable, and we cared how we looked to the outside world, and we weren't these sugar junkies. It was just we were living cleaner. And now, just like the morbid obesity and people sitting on their couch all day shoving processed foods, that's terrible. It's terrible for them. It's terrible spiritually. So I like them. I like them. And they're helping people curb drinking. But there are more and more reports about how for some, they're killing ambition. They're killing excitement, love of life, drive, because the way I guess they work is they work on some receptor in the brain that drives you toward whatever. I don't know if the word is addiction or drives you toward like need, desire, compulsion. And that's not an entirely bad thing to have. That could be the thing that makes you stay at the office late because you want money and you want to get ahead. You have a hard drive. Or you want a pat on the head and you want to get ahead. Whatever it is, I'm against taking away ambition. So AI is that on steroids. You're no longer needed. There's some jobs that it can't do. I don't think it can do- Trades. It can't do this job. You don't think so? I don't think it can be a reporter. I don't. I think it could like imitate social commentary or media commentary. But what does a real reporter do? You probably have forgotten because so few do it now. But a real reporter spends his or her day on the phones or going door to door and gathering information. Like, "Hi, I'm Megyn Kelly. I'd love to talk to you about the bus crash that happened. Were you a witness? What did you see? Is it as the driver said? Who was where? Is it true that this happened? What did you see? You were on the bus. What was your perspective?" AI cannot do that. A big part of it is human connection, convincing a source you're trustworthy and to trust you with the story. I don't think it will have to because there's cameras everywhere in every car. Well, let's look at Edward Snowden. Why did he disclose what he disclosed? Why did he choose Glenn Greenwald to talk to? Like, he trusted him. He read his articles. He thought this is a good person I can bring my story to and did. Like, I just think the nature of true reporting, which is very personal and all day shoe leather efforts between humans to lead to information. And then the writing of the story, yes, that could be offloaded to a machine, but the gathering of information is intimately human. And there are some other professions where you could make the case that humans are necessary. Obviously the trades, yes, like plumbing and HVAC and, you know, the construction work on the road, you know, thank God that'll stick around. That's good. But it's not good for society to lose all the white collar jobs. People who have white collar jobs are not bad. They're doing the same thing. They're working hard to put meals on the table and give themselves a sense of purpose and a reason to get up in the morning. It's not good to be idle again. And then we shouldn't be encouraging anything that's going to make us more so. You don't think something will come out of all this? I think something has to come out of all, I mean, I don't know. I'm worried. I'm worried about it. I do worry about it. But on the other hand, I see like top performers are the ones sticking around. And as a business owner, I really appreciate top performers. These people that do have drive are learning AI and they're doing the work of 20 fucking people. And the people that don't have the drive are not going to cut it. But there are so many people who have drive and are good at what they do, but their jobs are just being wiped out as unnecessary now. Like in the financial field, there have been some alarm bells signed by bank execs saying, oh my God, like the AI can do the work of 2000 people. They're going to be mass layoffs. Like we are at the beginning of something far more profound than the industrial revolution. I mean, I just had lunch with one of the main guys behind one of these big major companies here. And I was like, what are you doing in town? And he's, he said, I'm looking for bunkers. I'm here to look at a bunker. And I was like, what are you looking at a bunker for? I know. And he's like, the shit isn't going to be good. He goes, all these layoffs you're saying, it's going to be over a million by the end of the year. I believe it. And where, you know, what's bothering me is we're rushing into it without thinking, without disclosure. You know, the average American doesn't understand any of this. They're living their lives. They have other things to think about. They're worried about their kids, worried about getting a home, maybe possibly taking a vacation this year for the first time in several years. They're not like, what documentary can I watch on one of my many apps that I can't afford? You know, these are luxury problems and they're just going to wake up one day and yeah, there's going to be riots or there's going to be mass dissension or you're going to need a bunker and they can't even afford an apartment in the Bronx. So it's, we're not thinking about it. This has not been offered to the public as like, let's vote on it. And you saw this year, the graduation ceremonies, how many people got booed when they mentioned Eric Schmidt, former CEO, of Google. He was at one university, but it wasn't just him, and mentioned how AI is the wave of the future. They openly booed. Really? Young people know. They know what we're about to do to them thoughtlessly. Never had to worry about this. We knew we were going to have jobs in some way, shape, or form. Might not be the greatest job, might not be the job that you want. But we are going to eliminate some huge portion of jobs that will not be subsidized by what's available to us in the AI industry. Nor will all those masses of people want to work in AI, the very industry that eliminated their chosen profession. Nor are all young people going to want to go work for Sam fucking Altman. Hard no. So we thoughtlessly run into this as the next greatest thing, as though it's like, you know, penicillin, or like the polio vaccine. And it's so much more complex and dangerous than that. What do we do, though? I mean, if we stop it- We have to make a decision. We have to make a decision to slow it down. We've pissed the entire fucking world off. We've pissed Canada off. We've pissed Europe off. Asia hates us. Middle East hates us. Maybe we got some allies in South America and Israel. Yeah. So, and they're all working on AI, and China may or may not be ahead of us. So, and she's already said, whoever wins the AI race will achieve- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Global domination, right? So, what do we do? I don't know, but I know that if we don't do something within the next year, it's too late. If we stop, then we're, I mean, we're- We're seeing the battle- We're already done. To the bad guys. Yeah, I know. Which is why you have things like summits, where you try to, like, come up with an agreement. Because there's us versus China, and then there's us versus the machines. And on the latter battle, it's humanity on the same team. This episode is brought to you by Rho Nutrition. I've been paying a lot more attention to quality when it comes to supplements. Not just what's on the label, but how it's delivered and how efficiently your body can actually use it. That's what stood out to me with Rho. They use liposomal liquid delivery, which is designed for better absorption. So it feels like a smarter way to build a daily stack instead of just adding more capsules to the routine. My daily stack is NAD+, creatine, and glutathione. NAD+, is for energy and cognitive function. Your levels drop as you age, and you can feel that before you even realize what's happening. Creatine is for strength, output, and recovery. And glutathione is the one a lot of guys skip, but it matters. It's the antioxidant your body relies on at the cellular level. So if you're serious about staying strong, you're going to need to be careful. If you're serious about staying strong, you're going to need to be careful. If you're serious about staying strong, you're going to need to be sharp and strong, not just now, but for the long term. This is where I'd start, and Rho covers all of it. Get 20% off with code SRS at RhoNutrition.com. That's code SRS at R-H-O-Nutrition.com. Welcome to Hollywood versus reality. Did I do it right? What does he do in the movies? Tell me if I'm doing this wrong, because I don't watch any of this s**t. A little flick like that, right? Seems pretty cool. It is pretty f**king cool. Gotta silence it. In another lifetime, I did gun reviews for a living. Proprietary f**king magazines. Supposedly the best engineering in the f**king world. When that breaks, you're f**ked. Now we're bringing them back. It does look pretty f**king cool. I gotta admit that. You know, so I don't think we look at it and say, it's a really hard problem. Okay, never mind. Bye. We're going to have to try. Elon's been jumping up and down about it for a while now. What's he saying? He's worried. This is one of the reasons why he says he went after Sam Altman, because what he did at OpenAI and then he did it at RhoNutrition.com. And Anthropic was the product of people who left OpenAI. So he's worried and he's been trying to say, like, this needs to be addressed. No one's been really listening to him. The problem is, Sean, there's too much money in it. It's like, this started off with like, here's half a billion dollars, Sam Altman, see what you can do. I think Elon invested like 32 million, something relatively low for Elon. Now everyone's in on it. Of course, Microsoft then swooped in. When Sam was leaving OpenAI and said, here's half a billion. But now it's multiple billions into each AI company, like double digit or triple digit billions. And that's from all of the big tech companies into all of the AI companies, which is now we're talking potentially, you know, a trillion dollars into AI. And what is that going to beget you? Way more AI, way more AI on steroids. So great. We're going to procure pancreatic cancer and then get killed by the machine. Or we're going to get, we're going to cure melanoma and then no one has jobs and there's going to be civil unrest and mass depression. And no one's going to have sex anymore because they're so depressed the way the kids already aren't because of the damn phones and the general industry. That too. But I think there's a general malaise that comes from your phone. Like just take all the shit off of there and go. So old school. I just, we're already surrendering. Like why aren't the young people having sex? Why aren't they drinking? I'm sorry, but it's like booze is bad for you. I'm not trying to argue otherwise, but like there should be some debauchery when you're young. There should be some, some risk-taking. They're not even getting driver's licenses. Screen time. They're not dating. Forget sex. Take sex out of it. They're not dating. They're not like taking a shot. At a girl in a bar anymore. They're, they're just like on their devices alone at home. And now there's talk about the future is going to have your AI avatar speaking to her AI avatar. And they're just going to do it, like figure out whether you're compatible and then they'll get back to you about whether you do. Yeah. That's, that's the thing that we're going from online dating to actually it's just online period. You're, you're not dating. You're not dating. You're not involved. They'll get back to you on whether this is your future mate, like the Chinese parent, like an arranged situation by your AI avatar. This is so, this is why the Pope issued the encyclical. This is not living. Living is heart and soul and tears, broken hearts, uplifted hearts, you know, mad, passionate love affairs that end disastrously. And then not like it's, it's taking risks and failing and feeling bad about yourself only to overcome them. And then feeling triumphant. It's about the glorious feeling of accomplishment that's built day after day of expending yourself at a job that's well done. It's definitely not sending your damn avatar out there to do all the fun things for you. I've not even heard of that. Wow. Yeah. It's not good. Wow. And by the way, the bunker is pointless. That'll buy you like a week. I love the bunker. Like all these rich people think that these bunkers are going to save them. They're not. Don't, don't waste your money. Just tell me where it is. So I know where to go. I actually know one, you know, um, I've got a friend who's got like this sick bunker and he showed it to me and it's got everything in there. It's got everything. Um, it's even got a shooting range, but no food, no food. You'll be dead in three days. You forgot something important. Damn. Yeah. A lot of people are looking at him now that my buddy that was, down here. I was just like, wow. And that's what he said. He said, it's going to create the biggest wealth gap that we can't even fathom it. How sick is that? Just the thought of that. I mean, like, so the rich, it's like the Titanic, all the rich people get to survive, but the, uh, steerage is going to have to go down with the ship. I mean, do you have any proposed solutions? We need to slow it down. And not only that there, I think there's going to have to go be a covenant amongst humanity that we're not going to use it or we're going to prioritize human product. Like I think I see in the future, everything that's AI will have to be labeled as such where there's not going to be, we're not going to live in this weird world where it's confusing to us. We don't know whether it's a real video or image or not. Eventually there's going to have to be a law that requires the disclosure of whether it's AI or real. Cause it's just already getting too ubiquitous. And I think there's going to be, sort of like the modern day Amish, but it'll be much more widespread where we just choose to be Luddites. Like we, in the way we say by American, it's going to be like by human. So that's what I think is going to happen. Made in the USA, made by humans. Like my husband is an author. He's a writer and he used to write fiction. Now he does nonfiction by the way, should all by the lost empire of Emmanuel Nobel. It's a great story. He just hit the New York times bestselling list too. But it's a great story. It's a great story about this guy who was part of the Nobel family, like from the prizes who built the Russian oil industry, just basically himself. And nobody knows his name. And the reason they don't know his name is because of another guy named Joseph Stalin and the clash of those two titans is the story of his book. It's really good. Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel by Doug Brunt. But my point is simply, that was written by a human. My husband had to go. He actually looked in archives, like overseas in places like Sweden and in his earlier book in Germany. Right now, an AI can't do that because you had to go into a basement and look at dusty files that people hadn't seen, that haven't been categorized and uploaded anywhere. That's great. But there are a ton already of fiction books that are being written by AI. One just got outed as AI after it won an award. And they had to take the award away because it was written by a damn computer. But there's going to have to be a decision. Do I want to buy an actual Harlan Coben novel that takes me through twists and turns of a crime? Or do I want to buy? Or do I want to buy one that's as good, potentially, that was written by an AI, but it's a company and it's going to go line the pockets again of some rich fat cat executive who's a trillionaire now, already, many times over, potentially, in this scenario. We have to come up with, there's going to have to be human covenants. Maybe I go with a law firm that only uses humans and not AI. Although that's, I think it through, that's not going to work because they have to compete against other law firms that may be doing it better. You know, the AI, the reports by like some of these banking executives is not only is it doing it better than humans, it's doing it way better. Like you would be at a competitive disadvantage if you didn't use it. But in the creative arts, Justine Bateman of Family Ties, you know, we were growing up, the sister of Jason Bateman, she's an actress and a director, and she's been making a big push already. And I think there's going to be a big push in Hollywood for this, like a movie company that only makes movie with actual actors and actresses and tech staff and not AI because it's so easy in the creative visual arts to use AI. You know, there's no such thing as a graphic designer within a year. It may already be there. So it's going to come down to human preference. It's interesting. I mean, humanity has a choice to make, but usually we choose the wrong thing. I mean, look at social media. It's destroying. It's just destroying kids' minds and my mind and your mind and everybody that's on it. But we still fucking do it. We still give it several hours a day to get on there. I'm bad at it, too. I have to say, like, it dawned on me the other day, so little of my day is spent in silence. Like, most of my day, I'm either doing the news or I'm listening to an audio podcast of the news. Or I love the app. I use this app, Voice Dream, but it can turn any article into an audio service for you. So, like, it spares my eyes and it lets me listen to the news while I'm about doing my business. But I'm listening to something on my phone all day long. There's very little silence. And I don't think that's good. I live out in the woods. I get silence all the time. Is it great? I love it. I love it. Yeah. My kids say you can always tell when I'm coming because you can hear the news. What podcast do you listen to? Oh, a lot of them. I basically listen to a wide variety, and I listen to them on 2.0, you know, so I can flash right through them. In the morning, I listen to The Daily by The New York Times, Up First by NPR. I do it so you don't have to. But it's my job to keep a tab on what the left is saying, too. I listen to Morning Wire. Which is from The Daily Wire. I don't hold Ben Shapiro against the morning team. I like those guys, and I still listen to them. Listen to my own AM Update, which is our own 16, 17-minute news update source for the morning. And then as the day goes on, I listen to a bunch of them. I still listen to my pals over at National Review, the editors. I disagree with a lot of what they say, but I think they're sane and they're right-leaning people who don't, like, some hate Trump, but they don't let it cloud their judgment. You know, they don't have TDS. I listen to some, like, Molly Hemingway. I love her over at The Federalist. Sometimes I'll listen to the Wall Street Journal Potomac Watch to hear what, like, the more establishment Republicans are saying. Wow, you listen to a lot of podcasts. Oh, yeah. I mean, we could be here all day. It's all news. All news. The only non-news podcasts I listen to are Dateline. I love Dateline. I love a little true crime. I like, in my downtime, I like to solve murders, Sean. I love the Dateline. And books. I listen to books on tape. Yeah, but podcasts, the only non-news ones are probably, it's probably Dateline. I'm trying to, going through my feed right now. Nothing's going on. Man, I just don't, how do you stay on top of everything? It changes so fast now. Just. But if you're steeped in it, you can do it easily because it's just incremental day-to-day. Oh, man. Britt Hume told me that early in my career. He said, you have to stay steeped in the news. And even now, if I hire a producer and I can tell he or she's not steeped in the news, I'm like, you're not going to last. If you don't love news, you can't be in news. You really, you need to love it. If you don't get excited, I tell my team, like, we have a producer text chain that we're all on. I'm like, if you don't get excited to break news on the producer text chain, like, internally to the others, you're not going to make it. Yeah. You have to get a Jones from the news. You have to get a Jones from being, like, the first to share. Like, this happened. And it's still what I love about news. And so, if you're that steeped in it, like, it's, you can't pull yourself, you shouldn't, want to pull yourself off of X, which is basically our news feed. It's not healthy, but it's, news isn't healthy. It's a healthy business. It's not where you go for the natural detox of life. So, I love that, though. I love the never-ending newness of it, the breaking newness of the news is very attractive to me. How do you think mainstream's going to handle, how do you think it's going to stand up against podcasting in this next upcoming midterm and the next election? Well, haven't you heard, podcasts are totally irrelevant now. You know, we were deemed totally irrelevant and of no relevance, of no impact because we were critical of the Iran war. Oh, okay. Right? Like, we're irrelevant and we have no, no one's paying attention to them. And then, as soon as Trump's poll numbers went down on the war, it was, you're to blame. The neo-Nazi podcasters are to blame. Okay. I don't, I mean, I don't, great. You have the debate with yourself. I'm just going to keep doing my show. How do I think podcasters versus the mainstream will do? I mean, I think young people- What are the numbers? Do you know, are you familiar with the numbers? In podcasting? The numbers across news are down. Cable news is down, podcast- Like how down? How many viewers does Fox News have a day? Or CNN? You know, in their, in their prime time, they're probably getting around 3 million, just under 2.4 to 3 million in the overall, and around 400,000 in the demo, which- Yeah. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's a lot. It's not great. It's not great. Cable news is dead. It's just running out its lifespan. Same for broadcast. I mean, that's been, that's deader than cable, even though they still have like some very old people watching the nightly newscasts. Do you enjoy watching it collapse? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't watch any television news. None. None of it. I find it totally useless to me, I have to say. There are some people I like. Like if I have to tune into news, who do I hope is on? I like Jesse Watters. I mean, I'm a big fan of Jesse Watters. I'm a big fan of him. none of it yeah find it totally useless to me i have to say there's some people i like like if i have to tune into news who do i hope is on i like jesse waters um he's a good guy and he's a friend too if i need like washington news i will tune in brett bear still um but i don't have the tolerance for it or the patience you know it's like you can't go 2.0 you have to watch the ads you have to make it through this nine minute segment because you know they have an a block to fill and then the six minute segment in the b block because it's not like this where it's like this discussion has grown tiresome let's move on to our next topic right now but we're only 30 seconds into it yeah but neither of us is feeling it that's not the way television news works and the consumer listening to this conversation right now just had a feeling inside of yes that's right even though they weren't able to diagnose it five minutes ago but they it's why people are tuning off from television because they can't service the modern day model of television and they can't service the modern day model of television and they can't service the modern day model of television and they can't service the modern day model of television in the way it needs which is why all the young people are in our lane now listening to us and all the not even older people the elderly are watching television news how long do you think tele collapses i'm dying man i can't wait i love watching it i mean it's already like all but there like you look at the when i was on fox news in the prime time which was you know whatever 2016 or so those years around that um we were you looked at the advertising on the kelly file was like american express bmw you know like all the blue chip brands and while the daytime at fox still had like the christy lane commercials of her singing on a beach and you should buy her cd really you just thought you had mesothelioma if you watch too much cable at the time and you're like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die probably still today but there were blue chip brands all over the prime time not anymore it's very different now and that's because they don't command they don't have as big an audience they don't command those kinds of advertisers what were the numbers when you were on oh my god i think when i left i don't know we were averaging like four and a half million a night and like seven or eight hundred thousand in the demo i recently looked at this um and now it's just way down now you're in the two millions it's not that we didn't have nights like that you know or low periods so they're half what they used to be yeah just about and but not just that they're they're so they have multiple problems who's watching will determine the advertiser fees you know if you have whatever 100 000 people watching you you're not going to get the same advertising fees as somebody who's got 10 million watching them but it's also about cord cutting everyone's cord cutting i don't have i don't have cable at all in it on any of my tvs yeah we don't either i use youtube tv and it's great we can get anything and uh i think young people they they're not nobody's paying for a cable news subscription now nor are they going to the traditional broadcast channels for anything other than maybe a sports event or something that's breaking that you can only see here um what are your friends inside there still what do they think they all want to be doing what we're doing why aren't they well it depends on the person there there are some people who are just platform players you know with all due respect like they couldn't make it in this lane where it's it's very competitive it's actually not easy you know so you have to have a to work very hard to develop some sort of a base um but they are leaving there with a base aren't they i mean you left with a base tucker left with a base it depends like do you think there's a single person at cnn who could leave with a base like megan i don't know i have no idea who's even on cnn that's my point like those are platform players everybody up and down the cnn lineup gets views because it's cnn not because with all due respect it's wolf blitzer like it's not like i gotta see what wolf is saying i don't mean to pick on wolf blitzer who i think is probably a good guy um i'm just trying to use an example of like no one's like i gotta know what he thinks or like this person makes the news really interesting for me it's like i get my news from cnn or the msnbc years same like rachel maddow probably would have a following i think that's probably it over there you know i i don't know even that morning show like its numbers aren't that great um fox has got a few more stars who people would follow like gutfeld but it's a short list you know it's under five so that's why because they're being practical they get paid very well they have a built-in audience because people have brand loyalty they don't have to worry about too much channel switching because usually people are loyal to fox who are loyal to fox and ms same so there's you know there's a floor built in and that's comforting especially if you have to pay a lot of money yeah i totally get it i don't know man i don't know if it's over i mean they might just come over and get propped up i mean you saw the golden globe you you got nominated for a golden globe right well we yes but then we said take our name off the list oh you did yeah we weren't going to pay money to go get concerted by those hollywood libtards nice yeah yeah it was ben shapiro spent millions to buy an ad of his face in times square so that he could win he spent went different ways worked out for him didn't i'm assuming millions how how much does it cost to put your face on the entire side of an enormous high-rise building which is what he did to convince the hollywood golden globe crowd to vote for his show which by the way was never going to happen anyway they weren't going to vote for a conservative podcast i don't mean to pick on ben i'm just in a fight with him right now but anyway yeah no we withdrew our names from consideration i thought it was hilarious they they brought all these big podcasters in along with a bunch of hollywood people and then they just rewarded themselves it was fucking hilarious i know and everybody called him on it who's like how the fuck does joe rogan not get the golden globe for the first for the first ever the first year they do podcast and they get who do they give it to it wasn't it amy poehler yeah yeah the comedian yeah okay sure she's got the best podcast right it's better than rogan's this is fucking bullshit i know it's hilarious and you know what i found out do you know that if you're like nominated you're expected to go out there and i guarantee you amy poehler did this and meet with these little golden globe committees and you know basically pull the dress up for them like hey how about me pick me how absurd can you imagine humiliating yourself like that no so you could get one of their stupid statues and sit undoubtedly back in the nosebleeds at their party and they're like oh my god i'm like ew it's the podcaster disgusting people who would do that to themselves oh shit i thought it was awesome but oh wow no wow i look i i grew up in the roger roger ailes era at fox where we did not believe in awards he would not even no one at fox who spent their career at fox none of them has an emmy the only people at fox who has an emmy um got it while they were working for a in bending the knee to get the pat on the head from these organizations who hate us and i totally agree with him that's cool i like hearing that how are you dealing with all these people coming after you you've got trump saying you're low iq i read i got the tweet here but i'm not and nut job too book low iq nut job mark levin ben shapiro how did all this happen well uh it's pretty obvious but uh it it's because of israel it's over israel and now iran um it ben shapiro turned on me at the turning point event in december i saw that and i was stunned i was completely flabbergasted he and i you had no idea that was going to happen we were good friends were you you you were there right you came up i was i wasn't there that night i arrived the next day um but yeah i i was on my way and uh we were good friends john like we it's we were always very friendly i helped make him a household name on the prime time at fox news put him on regularly help make him a star when i got into podcasting he really helped me too he invited me out to the daily wire headquarters in california and really encouraged me to get off the couch and go back and do it and offered me a job at the daily wire which of course i didn't want to do um but i appreciated that he was thinking about me and then we helped each other on our podcast i'd have him on i'd say yes to his show whenever he needed me um i'd promote his people he'd ask me to put people on my show who are from the daily wire to help build their podcast i always said yes um and then even when charlie died one of the first things i said i was just looking back at this because well we're working on a project but i saw this tape of myself after charlie died and i was on the air announcing it and one of the first people i mentioned was poor ben who is i knew was living his life surrounded by five or six armed guards um like but this has to stop you know this demonization this otherizing of people who don't share our political viewpoints and i read ben's tweet about charlie you know empathetically and sympathetically and you know just i had nothing but love for ben and then i did my tour in the fall where i had tucker carlson one night and ben the next night and i gave ben the nicest intro a person could possibly give him i mean it was a conscious effort to build him up because people were already turning on ben because the israel war had gone on so long in gaza there was a lot of blowback ben is you know ardently 100 pro israel and i didn't like seeing him twist in the wind i felt bad for him and i really wanted to sort of vouch for him with my audience to say this is a good person you know let me tell you some wonderful things about ben in the intro before he came out but but publicly you know we aired that on my show and he was in an irascible mood that night we had a contentious back and forth on the stage but it was fine i had no problem with it he kind of stormed out of there that night and i thought are are we not good and why are we not good and i think in that night i thought it could be because of tucker because i'm still friends with tucker and those two were openly warring and i was trying to get them not to i love tucker like a brother and i've known him a lot but i care about ben too and i tried tried very much behind the scenes to get them both to come together and try you know for the sake of the conservative movement and the country to not to like disagree but not hate each other you know which was a fool's errand but it was undertaken in earnest for whatever it's worth and um instead it seemed to turn ben on me not tucker he had no problem you know he wasn't like he wasn't wanting to be close to ben but in no way did it make him feel angry toward me you know it's only one side asking me to defriend the other side and um but ben and i had a text exchange after that and um he said in the text you know something to the effect of i agree that our friendship is more important than what other friendships we have in our lives and that's what we should nurture and you know prioritize because he'd been in my ear about tucker prior to that and i I was like, "I totally get where you're coming from, but I love him and I disagree with you." I do listen to his show, and I think you're misinterpreting where he's coming from. And he rejected that out of hand, and we had already agreed to disagree on Tucker. Which is fine, right? Friends do that. Like, I get it. He's in a very sensitive place. He's got family in Israel, and I think a home in Israel, and, you know, obviously very, very committed to Israel. And the next thing I knew, Sean, he was standing on the stage at Turning Point ripping me as a coward. A coward? Allegedly because I wouldn't call out Candace Owens and what she was saying about Erica Kirk. But that's not what it was about. It was about my not ending my friendship with Tucker, which is the thing that he had been pushing me on for weeks, and I wouldn't do. And he, like many of his supporters, have been using the Candace-Erica feud against me ever since. At the time, I wasn't saying anything about whatever is going on between the two of them because I was working behind the scenes to help them resolve it. I actually had gotten to know Candace a little, and I knew Erica pretty well. And Candace was very, very focused on Turning Point, as she remains, including Erica. And Erica asked me if I would help her broker a peace between the two of them. And I said yes. So I was trying to do that at Erica's request, and people like Ben didn't quite understand, nor did they give a shit. You know, it was like, they just assumed I was a coward, I guess. I was too weak to stand up. Meanwhile, it's like, I've been asked by the person you purport to be protecting, Erica Kirk, to help her behind the scenes put this to rest. So go fuck yourself, and you're trying to shame me for not coming out and saying, Candace Owens is bad! You know, it's just possible you don't know the whole story. Have some humility. And a real friend, before he stood up in front of millions to attack me as a coward, might have shot me a text to say, hey, I'm about to attack you for not doing this thing. I know you to be a good person. Is there a reason you're not doing this thing? I demand of you. And I would have told him. But from that night forward, he and his supporters turned this into, like, you will say the thing about Candace Owens, or you're bad. You're bad, and Tucker's bad. And it got lumped, and this whole thing became a proxy for the fight over Israel. Like, because they needed me to condemn Candace Owens, not because of what she said about Erica Kirk. To this day, it's not about that. It's because she is the chief Israel critic. Arguably one of them in the country. Arguably one of the chief in the country. And they need me to say she's bad, she's an anti-Semite. And now that they've made anything I say, the stakes of the relationship, me, between me and these people, it's a forever no. It's beyond a no. It's a forever no. You want to get on my bad side? Try to control me. It's just never going to happen. So, I won't defriend Tucker. I'm not going to say what they want me to say about Candace, who I've gotten to know much better. And I'm still close with Erica. It is possible. I see what's happening between the two of them. I've said what I'm going to say about it. And I have asked Candace to stop, and I've said, I don't approve of what Candace is saying about Erica. But it's never enough. You give them one little. No, you have to say it like this. It has to be this far. You have to go this far about it. You've got to condemn it in these terms. Fuck you. No, I don't. Man. I can do what I want. And I can say what I want. And I can have relationships with whomever I want. And when I went on the stage at Turning Point, I was asked about some of the questions that Candace was asking about Charlie's murder. And I made clear that I was fine with the questions she was asking about Israel. And really, like, that added to it. So, like, the ardently pro-Israel crowd really turned on me. You must be an anti-Semite. You're bad. Some are like, you attacked Ben. Like, I didn't attack Ben. Ben attacked me. The next night, I said, he doesn't have the power to take all my friends away from me, which is basically what he was arguing for to excommunicate me from the conservative movement. That's not an attack on Ben. And since then, he's been coming for me ever since. Every once in a while, I'll say something about him, but he hasn't let up. And then, you know, of course, Mark Levin is just a fucking lunatic. Well, I mean, it didn't work out for Ben. They just did two rounds of layoffs at the Daily Wire. The views are in the fucking garbage can if you could just pull the channel up. I can't remember how many subs they have, but it's like 1.4 thousand views. I mean, Ben's problem. It's fucking. He's buying views right now. That's what's happening. It's amazing. I've only seen somebody completely destroy their entire legacy with their ego one other time. And it's interesting to watch it. And it wasn't his. Well, Trump's gonna be one, too. He did shed viewers. He's been shedding viewers. Like, we're all down viewers who are in news because it's a rough time in news, but it's fine. They go and they come in news. It's happened to me many times over the course of my career. But the reason Ben's been shedding them steadily, by the tens of thousands, for over a year. And I think the problem is, like, you can be pro-Israel and still have an audience, even in the conservative wing that is starting to turn on Israel. It's just he's become so intolerant. He's become like a leftist scold and won't allow people who don't see it the way he sees it their say and to have their voice, which can be treated as legitimate if potentially wrong. That's fine. We do that all the time. In American politics. But like Ben and many others who are very, very pro-Israel have seemingly changed the stakes to, only we are right. Only we are righteous. And everybody who disagrees with us is an anti-Semite neo-Nazi grifter. Yeah, why do they manufacture anti-Semitism? They're turning into leftists. They just, they just, they have to do it. They have to victimize themselves to continue the fucking money flow going to Israel. That's what it is, right? It has to be. It's the new, it's the, you know, it's funny because Mark Levin calls people like you and me and Tucker, the woke Reich. Like we're part of the Third Reich but we're woke. And I've never understood how they can argue we're woke. I don't, I really genuinely don't get it. It is they who are behaving like woke leftists making identity and these baseless accusations of, you know, you're an "ist" of some sort, racist, bigot, whatever, the stakes of the relationship. Like that's what they're doing. They have spent the past five years condemning the woke for saying, "Oh, you know, what's important about me is my skin color. You know, I want to be seen for my blackness." And they've just replaced it with my Semitism. And you're an anti-Semite. If you disagree with me on anything, anything, you're an anti-Semite. It's because you're an anti-Semite. Like even if you just say, "Hey, Israel's gone pretty far. I defended it for two years," but it is looking a little genocide-y. A little? But that's how I started off in like the most mild, like, "I defended you for the better part of this war. You haven't stopped. You continue to seem totally remorseless about killing tens of thousands of civilians. I've got to be honest. I'm starting to turn on you." Anti-Semite. What? You would not believe the number of attacks that were launched on me just at that point. You're under Tucker's spell. No, no, no, no, no. It's not Tucker. It's you. It's you people doing the mass killing and the people who are defending them without being honest about what's actually happening in Gaza. I have the capability of being honest. I can condemn what Hamas did on 10/7 with ease and have since it happened. I can be honest about the sexual assaults that took place and all the atrocities and have condemned it for months and months and beyond. But that same ability allows me to see what you, Israel, are doing very clearly. And when I started to see it and speak up about it, I had the whole pro-Israel internet turn on me, bot me. There are full groups who are all over my social media now. It's very annoying. It's annoying for my fans who don't want to deal with these bots, and I get it. But I think they're committed to not letting these people have the final say. I'm getting it too. Not like you are, but whoa. Whoa. What did that cause? Are you getting a lot of death threats? We've had the FBI involved now multiple times because I've you know, you always kind of get death threats in my job, but they have risen to a level that's just beyond. And so, you know, I can't and won't go through all the security precautions we've had to implement in my life, but it's insane. And it's so wrong. It's over what? My opinion. I now have to worry about getting shot because of my opinion. And what is my opinion? I think Israel should stop killing civilians in Gaza and Beirut and elsewhere. And I don't want to be involved in their wars. That's my opinion. Yeah. It's just deeply wrong. Well, I got you another present. Oh? Is it MDMA? What? It's a crystal. Since we're talking about. God, you know, self-defense. Got the silencer on there? It's got a silencer. Here you go. That's awesome. Look at the size of this thing. Wow. It's got SIG's new optic. It's got a red dot in it. That's the suppressor or silencer. It takes 17 rounds plus one in the pipe. Wait, what kind of a gun is it? Nine millimeter. That's a SIG Sauer. So I got a friend over at SIG. His name's Jason. And he told me- Wait, are you actually giving this to me? Yeah. That's amazing. Really? Me, SIG Sauer, and silencer. Silencer shop. Silencer shop also loves you. So they gave me that silencer to put on there. This is the coolest thing I now own. There's a range right next to my house where I do go sometimes. Nice. Don't want to set the bar too high. We're going to see how often you spend at the range. Keep your expectations really low. But- But this is beautiful. Wow. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks to our friends out there who gave it to me too. So the silencer. Do I want the silencer? No. No. I would use it on a bad guy who came into my house. Don't I want it to be loud where everybody hears it for miles around and comes and helps me out? I don't know. You might want to keep the kids calm. This is badass. But yeah, and silencer shop, they do a bunch of stuff for the Second Amendment too. They're always standing up for the Second Amendment and doing things and trying to get into legislation. So it's a good company. God love them. We need them. I mean, honestly, it's like the past year, more than ever. Haven't you thought, like, what does the ammo kit look like? I mean, we've thought about it in a way we haven't in years for a lot of reasons. What societal unrest is coming? What bad guy's coming? The thing with Charlie. I mean, it was just Charlie's murder. I just think that Charlie's murder was the seminal event of the whole year. It's changed a lot about how we all are and how we're behaving and what's happened on the right. What do you think that was? It's depressing. The last time I interviewed you, you made a recommendation that I interview Charlie. I didn't get that opportunity, unfortunately, but. Can you believe that? Of all people, I said, Charlie Kirk, I'm so sad you didn't get to know him because you guys would have loved each other. Yeah, I wish I would have. I was being put into the MAGA spectrum, and I was never MAGA. Neither was I. But somehow the media played me. The media placed me there, and so I didn't want to affiliate with any particular party. Yeah. And so I kind of steered away from it. Now I wish I would have because I've heard so many great things about him. No, I laugh when, you know, Trump's like, she's not MAGA. I'm like, correct. I've never claimed otherwise. I've never been MAGA. I've always called myself MAGA adjacent. Like, I'm a registered independent, which my audience knows very well. I say it all the time. It's very important to me not to have these team labels on. What, do you have to re-register? I'm a registered Republican. I got to re-register? Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. How do you do that? You can do it down at the DMV when you change your voter registration. I would change my name when I got married, and they gave you the option then. But I had done it prior to that. So, yeah, I've never been MAGA. I understand MAGA, and my sensibilities are much more affiliated with the right than the left. So, like, that's all real, and that's me. But I've never said I'm MAGA, ever. So, like, I'm like. Kind of like that time when. I hate that I got placed in that. I never even wanted Trump to win until he was the only guy to vote for, but. Well, that's the problem, is that elections remain binary choices. So, it's like, do I wish I had voted for Kamala? Hell no! That's not what I meant. I meant during all the other people that were running for the Republican side, I was like, please, just get one of these other people in. Yeah. And then when he got it, I was like, oh, fuck. And then I was like, please don't put anybody. It's worth a shit in the administration, because you're going to be garbage afterwards. There's no chance. Especially right now. You're not feeling optimistic about J.D. Vance, 2028? No. Or Rubio. Or anybody that's in there. Because they're all yes-men fucking puppets. Now, they're all talking about Catholicism, which I think is fucking hilarious. Let's talk about Catholicism. Oh, you're a fucking Catholic all of a sudden? There's no way to be in the Trump administration without being a yes-man. You won't last. The fastest-growing Christian denomination in the world right now, now all of a sudden we're going to advertise that we're fucking Catholic? Right. I'll tell you. Have you heard of this organization, Catholics for Catholics? No. What do they do? I mean, it's Catholics for Catholics. They're going to get into politics. Oh, that's not a good idea. And so now you're going to give it all these fucking politicians that are claiming they're Catholic all of a sudden, you know? Well, I mean, J.D. is a recent convert, but Marco Rubio is a lifelong Catholic, right? And he's a Hispanic guy from Cuba. I don't know how observant he is, but I'll tell you what I think. I don't see him standing up for any fucking Christian rights. I think their biggest problem is the Republican Party is so divided. I don't know who the Republican Party can unite behind. You know, the non-independence. I don't think they will back a Rubio or a traditional Republican who's neocon-y. And the neocon faction is not going to get behind a J.D. Vance. So who's the solution? I don't know. I really don't know. I don't see the solution. That's why, I mean, it would generally be a good time to be a leftist, but they have zero talent on their side. They have, I mean, Pete Buttigieg, who, by the way, is polling first in the most recent poll I saw on Team Dem. Pete Buttigieg, okay, sure. He's not going to be a leftist. He's not going to be president. He's not going to be the Democrat nominee, and he's not going to be president. Kamala Harris, no. She's already been rejected. AOC, I mean, sure, she could get the nomination, but could she convince a general electorate to vote for her? She's completely radical. She wanted to get rid of all the cows. So it's like, I don't think so. The super fat, trans-loving Governor Pritzker of Illinois, no. I mean, as soon as his gender policies and crime policies get outed, the general election electorate's going to reject him. So I think the best thing the Republicans. The best thing the Republicans have going for them is the lunatic left, how bad they are, how they don't have a real threat. Gavin Newsom, let's go through the California policies. Let's just put them on a board and tell me if you even think they're real. They're so radical, you won't believe they're real. All under his watch. So, I mean, it's easy to sort of say, like, the Republicans aren't going to go anywhere because they've been all yes-men to a very controversial, very unpopular agenda. But we have to pick somebody. Do you like anybody on the left? On the left? Yeah. Like a politician? Anybody? No. But if I had to vote for anybody over there who's, like, thrown his hat out there, I kind of like Rahm Emanuel. He's, like, a fighter. I like how he's, like, he's a swearer and he's a tough guy. Like, he's a real man. He's not, like, this sort of light-malo for a femme kid like Pete Buttigieg. He's not afraid to throw a punch. I like that. He has said no more money for Israel. I like that. He has said. You said that? Yeah. He has said no. You believe him? No. No. Yeah, I do. Yeah. He's Jewish, but he's not an Israel firster. He is. He has said that he doesn't want boys and girls sports. And he has said that he wouldn't change a thing about Trump's border. Like, I could vote for that kind of a Democrat. There'd be things about him I didn't like, but I'd vote for him over a neoconny righty. What do you think of Roe? Who? Roe Conner. Oh, I like him. He's been on the show. He's reasonable. He's, like, that's the kind of Democrat I want. He's a Democrat in general, I would like, though I don't love him on the trans stuff. And I can't vote for anybody who's going to continue chopping off the body parts of children. Is he big on the trans stuff? He's not big on it, but he's not on the right side on it either. So, you know, Rahm Emanuel is the only Democrat I know who's suggested they might run for president, who is where they should be on that issue. And I just, I could never vote for. We are sterilizing our children. We are depriving them of any hope of sexual pleasure or. fertility at the age of 12. There's no informed consent. They want to ignore this problem like it's a nothing. It's not a nothing. It's not up to a parent. It's not between a parent and a doctor and a child. It's between God and a child. And no child can consent to that when they are a minor. So that, I would never vote for somebody who would not stand against that. And he's a Democrat who's both against that and against more Middle East wars on behalf of Israel. There's not very many people. Shortlist. Who do you like on the right? I like J.D. You like J.D.? Yeah. I don't think J.D. is in favor of this war. He's got to keep his mouth shut about it because he works for Trump. That's the deal when you're the VP. He accepted the job, so he's doing the job nobly. It's not noble to run around being like, "My boss sucks. I'm against the war. I was the one person who stood against it. Make sure that's printed." He's really not doing that. He's standing for Trump. He's trying to find the right messaging around it. It's not a great idea, but if we do it, this is how I guess we should do it. You're the boss. You're the one they elected as president, not me. And so you're asking me what my thoughts are. He's on the record, according to The New York Times, as having said, "I don't think we should do this. But if you're going to do it, this is what I think we should do." I think that's honorable, and I think J.D. Vance is definitely not an interventionalist. That's what the neocons hate about him. That's one of the main reasons they go after Tucker so hard, is because they see him as a surrogate for J.D. and they need it. need J.D. to be hobbled. But I think J.D., on his own, when he's in the top spot, or it's going to be complicated because if he runs for it, he's got to run for it while still Trump's VP, is he's going to be in the same position as Kamala Harris on immigration. And when The View asked her, anything you do differently? Nothing comes to mind. He's going to have to learn to navigate that because he's going to have to say, yeah, there's some things I do differently, and Trump's not going to like that. So that's going to be the joy of being us. We'll be able to talk about it. We're not responsible for steering it. We just have to cover it. But yeah, I like J.D. a lot. I just don't think that guy has a fucking chance in hell of getting it. Why? Because he's not. I think the opposite. He's not saying anything. Well, what would you expect a sitting VP to do? I don't think Trump is being loyal to the American people. I think, first and foremost, if you're in any position in the administration, I think you owe it to the people. To do what, though? What would you. The right thing. What would you say to J.D.? Do what? I would say. He needs to speak out against what the fuck is happening in this country and in the world. Like, in front of a microphone? Yep. And betray his boss? Yep. And basically probably get forced out of the administration? Yep. Although, you can't really fire a VP. See, I don't. I look at him, I see a guy who is totally conflicted in his morals with what's happening right now, and he doesn't look like he knows what to do. Well, are you so sure? Are you sure he's not fighting it behind the scenes from the inside? I think people need to know that. I don't know that he is or he isn't. I don't have inside knowledge on this. I just know where his sensibilities are. But I agree he's in a very difficult position. I mean, that's what happens when you accept this job. You put yourself in that very difficult position. It's not ideal. I just don't see any. positivity coming out of him. I don't see any positivity coming out of this administration. It seems very self-serving. I have a list of shit printed I could go through, but. I mean, what was the last one? He fucking made it, so he had Todd Blanche do the dirty work so that him or anybody in his family could never be audited by the IRS? What the fuck is that shit? The drone company, the $400 million jet from Qatar. Yep. The. What is it? The Executives Club? You know about that? Yeah, yeah. That they started in D.C.? You don't hear about that? You don't hear about any of this shit? Yeah. Does this shit look like he's serving the fucking people? No. So you're going to serve that? Or are you going to speak out against it and let everybody know what the fuck is happening? You think he'd be better off. Is Fox News sure as fuck isn't reporting any of this shit? None of it. None of it. No, I. There's no question that the corruption in the administration has been far beyond what I ever expected. He sued the fucking government. He sued his own fucking government. For what? Like, how much? Okay, but that I can defend. Because, look, he was maliciously prosecuted by the DOJ. Do you remember Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, those two FBI agents who were like, don't worry, we're going to stop him? Mm-hmm. They sued their own government, and they got paid $2 million. They got paid, these two who were openly working to defeat a legitimate candidate who'd been nominated by Republicans or was about to be nominated by Republicans. Or was about to be for president. How did they get paid? They complained that somebody leaked their texts to the media, and their privacy had been violated, that their government had basically violated their rights. And Joe Biden's DOJ paid them out $2 million. Now, $1.8 billion is a lot more than $2 million. But it's the same principle. Trump's saying to the government, the DOJ, which now he runs, but it's the same organization, you did the wrong thing. You maliciously prosecuted me. And I'm entitled to. I'm entitled to remuneration. So he filed this case. He has a case for that. There's no question that's true. He was maliciously prosecuted. There was no basis for what they did to him in particular. And they were behind the one in New York, which was one of the most specious. But, you know, the January 6th thing, that wasn't a criminal case against Trump. That was just a bullshit lie. You can't use the presidency for self-retribution, though. Well, I mean, you can, unfortunately. I see that. So as a matter of settling that, he got this settlement. And he knew, even he knew, it would be too much to say, I'm going to line my pockets with this money. The way he got around it was to say, I'm going to use this for a fund to pay out all the people who have also been maliciously prosecuted, like the January 6thers. I mean, James Comey has already said, how about me? It's a fair question, to be honest. But it's a huge number. And the five-person board that oversees the payouts is hand-selected by. Todd Blanche, his personal attorney, now our acting attorney general. And Trump can fire any of them at any time. So it looks like a massive slush fund for Trump friends and family, or anybody who just happens to come up with a claim, and we don't know how much the payouts are going to be. There are no criteria for what the payouts are going to be. And it's an unprecedented sum that hasn't been approved by Congress. Yet again, our tax money is not supposed to get spent without the approval of the representatives who answer to us via elections every two years. So that when it came to especially matters of the purse, we had the ability to hire and fire them if we didn't like what they did. That's being removed from us by something like this. I feel like this is how he's justified to himself to just take advantage of every little thing that comes across his desk that's going to benefit him financially. He's justified it through what's happened to him previously, which I could understand, but I mean, I'm sorry. Or he's owned by Israel, or they've threatened him with blackmail, or his life, or maybe somebody in his family, or maybe it's all of it together. I don't know. I'm not sure. I mean, Tucker's big on the threat. I'm not sure if I believe that. I just think, look, when it comes to matters of the wallet, Trump's always been, you know, very focused on money. And he's been less than 4%. He's been more forthright about his finances. You know, that's why his CFO went to prison of the Trump Organization. Like, there's a reason. There's a history there. I guess I just didn't realize just how grand it would be on the presidential scale. I guess I kind of thought he'd be more like he was in the first administration, where he didn't do all this. Like, he understood that there were eyes on him. And there was the threat of congressional. congressional investigation and potentially prosecution hanging over him. Now that we have a Supreme Court ruling saying, not much of what you do in your official role as president can be prosecuted, I think he's feeling a little more fancy-free. Yep. But he's not going to save himself from congressional investigations, which are going to start the moment the Republicans lose the House in November. You know, that's happening. And that could get ugly for him, so he should watch it a little. And the Trump sons should watch it. The drone company is problematic. We awarded a military contract to a drone company owned by the sons. The crypto stuff. At a time when their dad is the one prosecuting the war. There are conflicts of interest that are pretty obvious that they should have to justify. Oil shorting. We don't know who's doing that or who's getting rich off of that. But we're going to go after a fucking U.S. service member for a little bet on Polymarket. You're absolutely right. We're going to lead by example, guys. Right, it's not great. We don't want it to happen, but we really don't want it to happen to the tune of millions. And it keeps happening over and over again as a result of reports that get dropped and that turn out to be untrue. You know, we have a deal. Another deal. The Iran war is over. It's over. Didn't you know it's over? It's weird how it's not over. Yeah, no, all of that should be looked into. You know, we need the federal regulators to take a hard look at some of those trades to make sure that they're legit. People haven't just accurately gamed it out without having insider knowledge. Do you think J.D. has a shot? Yeah, I do. You do? Yeah. Wow. Who do you think has a shot? Someone's going to have to win. I don't even think about it anymore because I don't think it matters. I haven't quite crossed into that level of cynicism yet. I haven't taken the black pill. You know, I'm. I don't know. I think it's. I think I've taken a great pill. I think it's biblical. I really do. What do you mean? Say more. I think we've idolized all these fucking people. Trump, Musk, Biden, whoever. Insert politician, billionaire, elitist, tech bro, whatever. And we're all looking for one person to fix this shit. And we keep propping these fucking people up. And they're corrupt. And this veil's lifting. I mean, in the Epstein. I mean, who knows if it's true or not, but they're talking about eating. They're talking about eating fucking babies and blood rituals on Epstein Island. This shit is biblical. Would you vote for Thomas Massey? Yeah. Do you think he'd be corrupted? I think it's a very good possibility. I don't know. I like to believe there are still some people who are truly committed to their ideals. Look at Rand Paul. I think he's a good example of. is not easily corruptible. He doesn't care who hates him long list. I respect that. I really do. He doesn't care. He'll back, he'll buck Trump and is therefore loathed by him. But he has a core set of principles inherited from his dad, Ron, that seem genuinely near and dear to him, which I really respect. I still think there are some good men out there and women who could lead in a way we would admire. They're going to get roadblocked though, aren't they? Yeah, probably. I mean, what are they going to be able to do? I don't know. I'd like to believe we're at the beginning of a sea change where people have had it. Maybe Trump will actually lean. It'd be great, actually. I'd love to see him lean into the corruption. Go for it. Double down, triple down. Do it so much that Joe Biden set the table with his weird son and all the deals they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party and everybody else. That was disgusting. The left wouldn't call it out. The right did. Then we had Trump who's doing some corrupt stuff and the right won't call it out, but the left is. Maybe if it just gets so egregious, we get to the point where it's burned down. And now the only thing that can rise from that heap of ashes is some sort of honest phoenix. I don't know. I'm always optimistic when it comes to America. I just feel like we won't continue settling for this level of dishonesty and corruption. Awfulness. Look what we came from. Look how we were founded. Look what we're about to celebrate as we hit 250. It should be a good reminder, not with Milli Vanilli playing in the White House, wherever they're going. It's not even a real band. How do they get booked? They never really sing. But with our own celebrations where we reread that declaration and we remind ourselves what a tyrannical government looks like and how we wouldn't stand for it then. We're not going to stand for it now. They say we get the leaders we need. Well, let's actually do that. Let's actually do that next time around. I don't know, Sean. I just feel like I don't believe these are end times. I believe we're in a crisis. It's not going well, but that it's solvable. It's savable. What happened to Doge? They promised $2 trillion in cuts and they got $200 billion and then went away because Elon got tired of politics. And everybody hating him. That's a tough machine to fight too. In the same way, Trump said he was going to fight big agra and big pharma and didn't really. Tried dealing with big government and eliminating all those government jobs. Now, we did eliminate some amount of government jobs, but we didn't really. I mean, okay, so we saved $200 billion. Okay, great. But again, look how much we're spending. What's the budget that he just submitted for the Pentagon? One and a half trillion. I have no idea. Okay. It's like the $200 billion is filling like a teaspoon in the ocean. FanDuel is now available everywhere in the US. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. From GEICO Subconscious News, I'm Tammy Racing Thoughts, broadcasting from your brain. Tonight's top worry. If something happens to your apartment and you need to, like, stay in a hotel and pay for it, that would be crazy, right? That would be crazy, Tammy, but you got surprisingly affordable renter's insurance through GEICO, so it could be covered, giving you peace of mind. Aww. I love a story. That ends well. Um, yeah, Doge was a disappointment. I mean, Bess had said, what, that's estimated $600 billion in fraud a year? Yeah. $600 billion in fraud a year? It doesn't surprise me. I mean, at least now they're looking at it. At least now, like, there have been some reports about fraud, so the government knows the country wants you to pay attention to it. That's positive. Um, don't you think we're better off on fighting fraud today than we were four years ago? Yes. At least it's a topic of discussion. But, I mean, I don't know. To me, it's like, they say that, um. What's the saying? Basically, that politics is Hollywood for ugly people. And, like, people who couldn't make it in Hollywood wind up in politics or media. Like, you weren't hot enough or you weren't talented enough or whatever, so you wound up settling for this, like, very ugly, toxic industry. And it's kind of funny. But the thing is, you can look around the toxic stew everywhere when you're in politics or in media covering it and think, God, everyone's ugly, you know, in the truest sense of the word. They're all unattractive. God, they're covered in toxins everywhere. Damaged, unwell people. I'm miserable, and this sucks. Or you can look around and be like, it's a toxic stew, but there are some points of light that we have to figure out a way to exploit and elevate to change the general pH balance of this toxic stew. We're gonna make the toxic stew better as opposed to just saying, it's toxic and letting it take you under. That's just not the way forward. We can't give up on the whole game because the players are gross. We have to find a way of changing the game and elevating better players. That's just, that has to be the way forward. But I agree with you. I just don't, I just don't, I just don't know how we get there. One soldier at a time. I just, I don't know. I just look at everything that's happening and US dollar potentially getting thrown out for a reserve currency. I think it's like, I think it's going to happen. Well, we're a nation in decline. Yeah, we're a nation in decline, for sure. There's no two ways about it. I mean, China's already the world's superpower. Like, I don't know if anybody's paying attention, but they are. Their economy's growing far faster than ours is. I mean, China's growing faster than ours is. Their trade is huge. Like the, you know, exports versus the imports. We're making it easy as hell for them to come here in the United States and buy up our land. Guess how much land we owned over there? None. Guess how many university students we have over there? None. Who would want to go? But my point is simply, there's just such a gross imbalance that no one seems to care about. So it's already, that ship has already sailed, you know, even militarily. They used to have no ships. It wasn't so long ago they had nothing. They're military was like basically non-existent. Yeah. Now it appears to be bigger and stronger than ours or on its way. And we continue to enable them. So yeah, we are definitely going to lose our status if we haven't already. And we've pissed everybody off. We've pissed the Middle East off. We've pissed Asia, obviously fucking hates us, Russia and China. I mean, now we're fucking around. But you talk about it like it's just not solvable. Like that's, so what happens? It's end times? I mean, I just, I don't know how, like, how do you, I can't blame anybody for not wanting to do business with us and for leaving because we, we, we, we, we're not stable. True. But that doesn't mean we can't reverse some of these policies and courses. Like the Canada thing. You're very focused on Canada. I just, I read this shit and I'm like, I hear it and I'm like, oh, that's probably bullshit. And then I look it up a little bit and I'm like, oh my God, we're punishing them. We're threatening them with 100% tariffs for dealing with China. But we fucking denied the pipeline to come in here. Like, what is that? Of course, they're looking at us like, look at these fucking people. They don't, what are they doing? We offered them this shit and they didn't want it. And then what, four or five years later, they're like, we're going to slap you with 100% tariffs because of this. They've got to be like, what, what, what the fuck do you want us to do? Well, they are. That's why they're, uh, the prime minister made a speech about how this appears to be a new world order where the United States is really changing its posture in the world. It's not friend of the world. It's not the world's greatest ally. It's not, it's really not the world's protector. It's every man for himself noted. And then now this thing with Cuba. Yeah. You know about this? Yeah. Polly market says there's a 49% chance that we strike Cuba before December 31st, 2026, 3 million plus in trading volume. The crowd is nearly split out. We've had a 49% chance. The U S carries out a strike on Cuba by the year's end. The U S cut off Cuba's oil supply in January after capturing Venezuelan president, Nicholas Maduro. And the Island has since faced widespread blackouts and fuel shortages. President Trump has publicly stated the U S could take over Cuba on March 19th. The head of U S Southern command told the Senate, the military is not rehearsing an invasion, but we are sending it sure as fuck. It looks like a bunch of military assets down there. This is exactly what we did before, before I ran. Yeah. Well, and so far our efforts to topple the government via, you know, total economic shutdown have not worked. Although it could be, you know, nobody knows what the hell we're doing in Cuba because Trump hasn't told us. He just keeps saying, I believe I'll have the honor of taking it. So what does that mean? It means we're going to invade it. Does it mean militarily? Does it mean we're just going to increase that, you know, dial up the economic ratchet? They're already in 23 hours of darkness there. They have no oil. We basically forced this by cutting off their oil from Venezuela, which I think was part of our plan. But so far, the regime hasn't collapsed. The people haven't ousted anybody. Now, we appear to be getting ready to do a Maduro on Raul Castro, who's 96 years old and no longer in power. I'm not exactly sure how that's going to make them come begging to us on Ben Deni. And also, it's going to be a lot tougher. But anyway, we are moving all these military assets to the region. And it does look like a preparation for something. But what does it mean? Like, I don't even know what it means. So what? Our troops could, quote, take Cuba, I think, pretty easily. It's not going to be Iran. They're in very bad shape there right now. But then what? What are we going to do with it? Is this going to be a new state? Like, we run it? Because right now, we can't seem to run our own country. Honestly, people can't. They can't get to work. The roads suck. The bridges suck. We can't get a university. Everything costs three times as much as it should. Young people can't get jobs. Young, well-educated people cannot get jobs. They can't pay for their health insurance. They're very worried about their groceries and their gas prices and so on. The crime. We can't run our own country. Now, we're running Venezuela and Cuba? We're going to run Cuba? Like, how? How's that going to go? Who's going to run it? Like, who exactly? Maybe they're going to turn it into the Gaza Strip. I mean, at least Cuba is really beautiful. Like, I don't know. So we're going to bomb Oman and we're going to invade Cuba and take it over and maybe make it the 51st state. I don't know, Sean. The president won't tell us. And it's disrespectful. Like, we have the right, before we send our men and women in uniform in there, to know what is the mission. Because we just went through this. We just went through this in Iran. And your attempt to stay nebulous on it didn't pay off. You were forced to offer reasons anyway in the two weeks after the invasion because people were pissed. What are we doing over there? So he just, initially he tried to sort of throw darts at the board and say, it's this, no, it's that. It's regime change. It's the other. It's the nuclear thing. It didn't work. We've been our enemies for 47 years. Yeah. Well, we're fucking funding one right now, the Taliban, which is where that flag came from. And we're sending them $40 to $80 million a week. That thing's amazing. We're literally funding that fucking enemy, but nobody gives a shit. And they're going to listen to this fucking crap that he says about Iran being our enemy for 47 years, which they were. A lot of my friends have been killed by him. Yep. Well, that's what he was banking on, is the American people's empathy for our own guys. And we remember, we have a long memory for the Americans who were killed by Iranian-backed, funded IEDs. It's not what it's about. Otherwise, we wouldn't be funding them. Correct. It's definitely not what it's about. And we're not going to know. Cuba, we're going to wake up one day and there's going to be an announcement that we took it. Like Midnight Hammer. Yeah, but like the problem- We're not going to do this. We don't have a plan. There's no long-term plan. There was no long-term plan on Iran. And I don't believe there's a long-term plan on Cuba. You know, the best thing we have going for us there is Marco Rubio seems to have been focused on Cuba his entire life. So maybe he'll at least say, yo, we need to have a really good plan for after we send the troops in and take it. Because I don't think Trump really likes the follow-through portion of the invasions. You know, he doesn't really. He doesn't really like having to deal with the remnants of the bombs. And that's always the case. You know, it was Stan McChrystal, General McChrystal, who said when we first went into Iran, you know, it was a little tongue-in-cheek, but he basically said, if you like this war and, you know, you're enjoying watching our, you know, the power and might of the American military, enjoy it. Enjoy it while you can. Because the bomb-dropping phase of the war is always the best phase. It doesn't get any easier or better from here. And boy, did that turn out to be true. Look at us now. It is a quagmire. And we don't know how to solve it. And we don't have the upper hand. And the Iranians know it. So maybe the solution is to go start something in Cuba and see what's going to happen. I don't even know. Just to get a win? Yeah. That's how it's looking. Like, that's a spike the ball in the moment, in the end zone moment for him, potentially, because it's not like Iran. It doesn't have 90,000 people and a, like, strong fucking, like, group of insurgents. Who will never give up. It's a different kind of, it's more traditional in its military defenses. And the, you know, the American military can handle that, I think, more easily than it can handle the nonstop drone supply. And, you know, instead of using a nuclear weapon, they, they, they use, they found a nuclear option, which is the Strait of Hormuz. I don't think, I don't think that it's available in Cuba. I have no idea. I'd love to hear somebody spell it out for me. I actually don't want to talk about Cuba. I don't want to think about Cuba. I'm with Sarah. I'm done with the Strait of Hormuz. I don't want to think about them or Cuba. I want to think about myself, my family, and my country. That's what I want to think about. What's good for us? Well, how do we get out of this, then? What's the real solution? Well, it's very good that Trump has started to say he wants to be out of it. That's great news. He has realized this is a mistake. There's no question. Otherwise, he'd be leaning into the neocon pressure to do more bombing. You know, they're all in a freakout now. Like, what? Oh, my God. They can see he's about to open up. He's going to open up the financial spigot to Iran to get them to give up the Strait. He's like, well, loosen all the sanctions on your money that we've had in place all these years. And they're like, great. We're going to be rich again. Just got to give up the Strait. Well, the neocons are not wrong that that puts Iran in a better position than it was before we started this war, where they weren't in control of the Strait and we had their money. You know, like, now how are we better off with that deal than when we were sitting, sitting across the table from them, they didn't control the Strait and we still had their money locked up and we were just negotiating about how little nuclear they could enrich. That's, Trump would give anything to be back at that deal right now. They won. So, well, yeah, look, it's good that some of their military assets have been decimated. I'm not against that. You know, they're not good people. They've been killing our people. So, like, I'm not against that. But, like, that's somewhat better. The June strike definitely did damage to the nuclear facilities. That was good. I actually supported that. It's a very different thing than this war. So, I guess some good has been done towards stopping the potential of a nuclear threat in Iran. Let's take that as a W. It's a fake W, but let's just take it and get out. And I think Trump's there as he sees he's underwater with literally every group and his poll numbers are literally the lowest they've ever been. His disapproval rating now is the highest it's ever been in two terms. It's higher than after January 6th. Wow. So, he sees that. I mean, he's going to be a lame duck even sooner than the midterms if these numbers keep going lower. You know, he's losing Republicans now. The only area left to lose is Republicans. The Democrats, of course, are gone. All the independents are gone. They're against Trump now into the mid to high 70s. So, you've got one tiny sliver of independents who might still be open-minded to you and one tiny sliver of that's the core MAGA. You can't lose that or you can't govern at all. Even your executive. Even your executive orders are going to be scoffed at and potentially not followed. So, he has accurately deduced he does need to wrap it up. He's not he's not listening to the neocons who are like right now saying double down, bomb them to smithereens. You know, remember when you said unconditional surrender? That's what we need because we can't open up the financial spigot in exchange for the Strait of Hormuz. Let's take the Strait. Let's keep the spigot closed. Let's insist they give us the nuclear dust like they want maximum return. On this investment and Trump has realized that's not realistic. That's good news. That's great. We should be encouraging him to lean into that instinct. And I think it's not in some way shape or form the Iran conflict has to wrap up because he knows it politically. He knows it Cuba. I don't know. I really hope somebody explains to me what the what he's thinking like it's very hard to make an assessment from here. I'm at the whole country. How do we how do we breathe? Be correct. We get on the right course. How do we get out from Israel's thumb? How do we stop this? How do we stop the forever wars? How do we it just how do we get the pulse back to where it needs to be? Nothing's on the right track. That's why I think voting for I mean get them in and onesies and twosies. I don't just don't feel like they're going to last. I feel like it needs to be a new party, but that's already been tried. Or there can be a resting of control within the existing parties. You know, it's already starting to happen. You know, the America first wing of the Republican Party is growing in influence in numbers. That's good. That's better than having the Mark Levin party run our foreign policy, which is what's happening right now. The Democrat Party's changing to they're getting a little less. Swampy and having some more interesting players. Come out of their team. No one so far who I would vote for. Like I said, Rahm Emanuel's not really part of that new wing. But they're reinventing, which is interesting. I just think, look, we've made it 250 years. We're not going to implode in the next five or 10 or 50. It's tough to turn an aircraft carrier around, and that's the course we're on, the aircraft carrier, where we've pissed off all of our friends. You know, the value of the dollar is what it is. We're in $33 trillion worth of debt. You know, like that's going to be tough to solve. But I do think, number one, shrinking government will help. Number two, the laws of natural consequences, where change does tend to follow massive upheaval and upset. And people are feeling that. You know, the Iran war was a bridge too far for millions of Americans. I do think, like, the neocon era is done. We thought it was done with the election of Trump. Clearly it wasn't. But I do think the answers on those questions are going to be very clear deal breakers in the next election. No one who starts talking about their commitment to Israel has a chance in hell of getting elected. They just don't. So don't you think Israel will just pay them to not talk about it until they win? They're not going to have a choice. It's going to be shoved in their faces by the media. This isn't something that happened with the Crenshaw thing. I fucking hate that guy. But everybody wanted me to bring his opponent on to crush him. And I was like, I'm not. I don't care how much I can't stand Dan Crenshaw. I'm not bringing his opponent on. I don't know shit about him. And I'm not going to vouch for him just because I hate this guy. And sure as shit, he gets in there. And the first thing he does is start spouting his fucking allegiance to Israel. Oh, my God. So thank God I didn't do that. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. I didn't hear a word about that shit until he won. Yeah. I just don't think that you're going to get away with that anymore. Yeah. I'm not with these approval ratings within the Dem, Independent, and Republican parties now. It was never an issue before, Sean, especially in GOP politics. Trust me. I've been near or in them for a long, long time. And there was zero downside to saying that you were 100% pro-Israel and the Republican Party for my entire time at Fox News and beyond. Zero downside. That's why you've got so many statements by Ted Cruz and others like, there is no daylight between me and Israel. I hope to be the number one most loyal to Israel. Senator, there is. Why would you even say that? Because there was no downside to that as a Republican. It was always like the weird Democrats who loved our Muslim adversaries who hated Israel because they were anti-Semites. That was the narrative. And the Republican Party was always like, Israel's the only democracy in the West, that they're fighting the same enemies we are, that they have the same values, Judeo-Christian, that, you know, that's a stronghold for us, too, that they cooperate with us on intelligence. And a lot of that is true. I mean, they did cooperate with us on intelligence. And, you know, we paid a very high price for that. It turns out some of those Middle Eastern Arab nations or Muslim nations may not be quite as hateful and dangerous to the United States as we were led to believe. It's not to give radical Islam a pass. I'm against it. But there is a version of Muslim statehood that we can work with and that doesn't need to be deemed. As entirely bad and an enemy. You're not allowed to say that. That's a no for Israel. You know, they're already talking about, what about Turkey? Might have to invade Turkey. Okay. Trump's latest greatest idea is to force Saudi Arabia and all these other countries to join the Abraham Accords. He says Iran's going to join. Okay. Cool. Wow. Yeah. This is the utter nonsense. But I just think these issues are now front and center in the Republican Party in a way I've never seen before. I don't think. I know. I know that's the case. It's going to sound very different the next big election, 28, the presidential contest, where we flesh out the issues. Trust me, I've been there on the debate stage with these candidates where the media and the candidates get to decide what's important to America. And they are driven there by the populace and what messages they've sent. And Israel's 100% going to be one of those big issues. I hope so. Man, I hope so. It's one of the few bright sides of this whole thing. All right. Well, I hope you're right. I'll come back in late 28 as we're getting close to the election. Hopefully we have some decent candidates. And we can fact check this entire segment. We can talk about what predicaments. Predictions came true, if we still have jobs. We'll have jobs. If AI hasn't replaced us. I already put in an application to be a trash man, so. Smart move. If I get replaced by AI, I hope she's a lot younger and more energetic. Man. Well, Megan, I really appreciate you coming. And this was an awesome conversation. Thank you. Thanks, Sean. It's great to see you. Thanks for all the great work you're doing. You too. Thank you. Everyone loves you. You too. Let's go blow some shit up. Cool. No matter where you're watching The Sean Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like, comment, and subscribe, and most importantly, share this everywhere you can. You possibly can. And, if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and leave us a review. 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