Unfaedah with DUO TRIO - #HABE-EPS.02

(upbeat music) Let's get Peppy! Welcome to Pepp260. That's Planet Extra Podcast. I am Charles de la way host to Planet American ABC Australia. And this is an official podcast to the ABC. So say hi, the young has been for me. On Pepp we cover all the stuff. That's turned energy for TV. If you're listening, you can find us on YouTube and Facebook at PlanetPEP. And you can find highlights there as well. You also find timestamps and show notes in our blobs. And if you leave a comment under our current episode of your weekly likely to see it, you can also tweet us all. Blue Sky is at P-E-P-C-A-S-D-D-A-V-E. That's @Pepp260 today. If you wanna chat with some fellow Peppers, you can join our Discord server. It's on the screen now or in the blue with the podcast. But if you wanna contact me or lucky, they're lucky privately, why not email us? The address is [email protected]. That address again is [email protected]. And I am replying to them and using them in our correspondence. So it's worth your while. Do not forget to subscribe for all that Peppy Goodness. It all helps. And we are recording this at 146 PM on Thursday, the 7th of May, which is, I believe. Woo, that would be 1047 PM on Wednesday night in America. I believe? Yeah, something like that. Actually, no, be 1147, just about to be being like, woo, woo, woo. But for now, let's turn to the man who will simply not raise his stakes on inconsequential views. Even if he turns to a pumpkin on the East Coast of America in 12 minutes, is Dr. Pepper himself, Dr. David Smith. Hello, Dave. Hello, I am David Smith. I'm an associate professor at the United States study center at the university, but I do not speak for either of those institutions. I'm nobody's spokespumpkin. On Pep, you are just hearing from me, my opinions. Indeed. No one else's. No. Human or pumpkin. Okay, am I safe? Okay. Dave, what are you grateful for? I am grateful for the Detroit Pistons. Now, I know that Malena is the real NBA head of the Pep World, but I-- And a next fan. I've just got to put it a word for the Pistons here. So when I lived in Michigan, the Pistons were perennially good. They won in 2004. They were in the finals for a number of years after that. Like, what a team they had back in those days. Chaudsee, Billibs, Rip Hamilton, Rashid Wallace, Tashorn Prince, and Big Ben Wallace. They were really something. And for a team that had not had that many good periods in its entire history, like they'd been very good in the late '80s, when they had this team that was renowned just for its very violent play. The Rodman years. Yes. Yeah. Dennis Rodman, Joe Duma, Zezai Thomas, and Bill Lambeer, who was just an outright thug. Yeah, the whole thing was basically beating up Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan never got to the finals. I'd really worked out so much that he wouldn't get beaten up by the Pistons anymore. So that iteration was known as the Bad Boys. Many people saw the early 2000s as the sort of next coming of the Bad Boys. They were nowhere near as violent. They were also not particularly law abiding themselves. Rashid Wallace famously was a member of the Portland team who were locally known as the Jail Blazers. He was once pulled over by cops in Oregon, who asked, "Have you got any pot in this cart?" He's like, "No, we smoked at all." And Chawntsey Billips, who was their point guard, he is now facing very serious charges over his involvement in a betting scandal. However, they were extremely good. Other people didn't find them very exciting, but they were a really good team, especially defensively. Kind of said it quickly. Yes. I know nothing about the basketball of 2004, but I do know this. Someone called Chawntsey Billips. Yes. You would expect them to get in trouble with the law. There's a bit of a boy named Suvibe about Chawntsey Billips, the name I have to say. Yeah. And it's been tough to survive with a name Chawntsey. You do. Yes. Yes. Anyway, but they, you know, they kind of gradually went into decline. And Detroit had not won a playoff series, I think, for the last 16 years. And they've very rarely been to the playoffs. Only two seasons ago, they only won 14 games, which is a near record low for the NBA. But they had a very good year last season where they played the next very hard in the playoffs. Actually, I think went to seven games. And this year, they had the number one seed in the East, which is a really shocking turn around, led by Cade Cunningham, an extremely good point guard that they drafted a few years ago. To the best of my knowledge, the only draft decision that's ever worked out well in Piston's history. But they almost went out in the first round this year to the Orlando Magic, who really hadn't been very good all years, sort of backed into the playoffs, but then started to play really, really well. And it's probably only because one of the magic's best players, Franz Wagner, who also used to play for the University of Michigan, got injured for the last three games that Detroit managed to escape that series. But they did escape. And they won their first playoff game in the second round against the Cavs. So if they managed to win in this round, which is a big if, they will probably face the Dicks, who are currently two and a half up against the 76ers who beat the Celtics, who are the number two seed. If that happens, we need to get you and Melina in a room together. Yeah, absolutely. Although I've got to say, she follows it way more closely than I have. That'd be part of the fun for this smash. It will be. She will smash me with facts and locking. I'll have to resort to piston style tactics. That's right. My grateful. You might recall a few years ago, Alex Jones was successfully sued for one and a half billion dollars for destroying the lives of the parents of the Sandy Hook kids. These are the 20 kindergarten kids who are shot dead in Sandy Hook in 2012. Alex Jones accused them of being actors and the parents that is. And at the whole shooting was staged. Those grieving parents then managed to have their lives ruined the second time by Alex Jones. After the first time when their children were murdered as his loon followers harassed them. Now, Jones has paid them next to nothing. Have that one and a half billion dollars that made a lot of headlines and that was it. A lot of his properties suddenly turned out in his wife's name. But the court did put Jones's assets as many as possible as they could get their hands on up the sale to pay part of the fine, including his show Info Wars. And it was bought by the onion. Now, what I'm grateful for is not that. I mean, that's great. No, dad. In fact, that probably was a grateful in a previous episode. Yes, a one. Yes. But what I'm grateful for is part two of this, which is this week it was revealed what they're doing with it. And that is the onion is essentially just handing it over to Info Wars to Tim Hidecker to do what he likes with this. That is so good. And that is great. For those who don't know, Tim Hidecker is absolutely the perfect person for the task. For those of a certain vintage Tim Hidecker is the Tim from Eric and Tim. Tim Hidecker. That's not what I'm referring to. The Tim Hidecker is. I'm referring to the fact that in the last, probably about 10 years or so, Hidecker is showing himself to be an absolute comic genius. And what he excels in is just becoming another person. I don't mean to impression. It's not like SNL, where it's like a perfect impression of someone. They read their lines and they exactly like the person they get to make up. I don't mean that. He usually just has no makeup. No. He says as himself. And it's not a very good mimicry. But what he does do, and I think is much funnier, is he basically steals their soul. He takes their turn of phrase, he takes their facial expressions, their body language. He just becomes the person without doing an impression of the person. He channels the way they think. And if you know that person well, you'll just recognize constant moments. So you're like, "Oh my God, that's exactly what that person does without him doing an impression." He's just acting like a normal person. Who is that person? Yes. I've never seen anyone else do this. It's just he's just a breeder. And he can stay in that character for ages. If you go online, I've got a few examples in the homework for you to look at. I think I've put them in the homework before. 'Cause I love these examples. One is him doing Joe Rogan for like an hour, which is in the homework you can have. Look, and it is just perfect, Joe Rogan. And him doing Bill Ma for like 14 minutes. And once again, perfect Bill Ma. If you've watched Club Random, you would just go, "Oh my God, this is exactly what he does." And the thing is, you haven't know that the character that Tim Heidecker is making fun of does that shit until you see Tim Heidecker do it. And they go, "Oh yes, they do do that." It's perfectly observed. And I can't wait to see him do undoubtedly four hour long videos as Alex Jones. 'Cause that's the kind of shit Tim Heidecker does. So do go look at the homework. If you know either Joe Rogan or Bill Ma's stuff, you will enjoy Tim Heidecker's take. Anyway, this week they released a clip, the first clip of Tim Heidecker doing Alex Jones. And actually he's putting a slight effort to get the voice right. Normally he doesn't even. do that. No, he just talks like himself. Yes. But just channels their character. The voice is close. He hasn't completely nailed the voice. It's pretty close. It's funny. It's funny close. Yes. Of course, because it's Tim Hadek, just nailed the cadences and the attitude and the vocabulary perfectly. This is Unim. My reputation has come under attack by Alex Jones and his cabal of liars and scoundrels and criminals. And I can tell you it's been difficult for me and my family, but my resolve has only been strengthened by this. I can weather these personal attacks. You can come at me all day long. And I will remain firm and strong because we have established a movement now. We are speaking now to the people out there, consider themselves in full warriors and who are on our side. Okay. We have also established some of the really historic folks. We have created an alliance between the Lord God and Satan himself. We have communicated with through a spiritual practice through a demon rituals. We have gotten together Lord Almighty and His Son to come together at the bargaining table or in a neutral ground, not heaven, not hell. But we have communicated to them that we want an alliance of hell and heaven to push us through these final moments here. We get the idea. Even when he's doing gibberish, he's got exactly like Alex Jones. He's so funny. I am really grateful. They picked Tim Haydekar. This is going to be awesome. I was a huge fan of Timon Eric when I lived in the US or to give it its full name, Timon Eric, awesome show, great job. I think it was the full name of the TV show. I was watching a lot of TV later night in those days. And yeah, the surrealism of that show was incredible. If you ever get a chance to see their Christmas special, which I think was called the Crimbus special. They refused to use the word Christmas. They made up this holiday that vaguely resemble Christmas called Crimbus. Worth checking out. Yes, yes. Very different styles of the stuff. Very, very different style. Yeah, but everything he does is bring it. He's really, really good. Let's get into some correspondents. Just a couple of here. A few here. A couple of days response to. Okay. And I haven't warned Dave. No, this is questions without notice. That's right. Yeah. This one isn't one of them. On pep 259, I said that this clip from Trump completely disproved DOJ's indictment against Komi. I don't know. You know, based on what I'm seeing at the, yeah, the people like Komi have created tremendous danger, I think, for politicians and others. Yeah. And that proved Trump himself didn't take the supposed threat from Komi against his life seriously. Probably I don't know. He said, A1 has pulled me up on this. A1 says, look, let's suppose that Komi hadn't fact posted something. That any reasonable person would interpret as a serious threat to kill Trump. In that scenario, I think it would be totally reasonable for Trump to believe that Komi had made a serious threat to kill him. But answer the question, did you really think your life was in danger with? We're talking about the most physically protected person on the planet here. Do you really think a serious death threat from Komi or anyone else that matter is going to make him fear for his life? Any more than he already does on the counter being the president. That's a fair reasonable point. Even if the serious threat against Trump, he does have the secret service protecting him. That is true. So there will be doubt over whether Komi could execute the death threat. Okay. Fine. That's a fair point. A1, I will pay it. The indictment still a bunch of bullshit though. But you're right. That should not be exhibited. That should be maybe be exhibit F or June. And since I wasn't there for this bit last week, you probably covered this. But my favorite bit of the whole thing is that the FBI spent 11 months studying this. Yes. Studying the 8647. And then presenting less than a page after 11 months work. Can't wait for that cook, guys. Look, I'm saying like I'm rattled, but obviously I'm not. I'm reading this out. I found it's very funny. There's a good pick up A1. That's a very quality to be fair. It is 1967 correspondence. This is another one. You might win a way in on Dave, but this is not really for you. This is for me. It's going up. It's not to be fair. This is just a chance. It's completely wrong. Oh no. Unsurprisingly, Dave, and I'm completely wrong. It's usually because I'm talking about Australian politics. Oh, okay. What have you said this time? I said, saying, dumb Nick and Robert and Emma. And there's probably more since I last saw have all pointed out that when I said in the last pep that before 1967 indigenous people in Australia weren't officially people, that was totally wrong. Not just wrong, but apparently I was regurgitating a classic urban myth that I had no idea was an urban myth. So I'm very keen to correct that. Apparently, this is a very common misunderstanding, which some attribute to the promotional campaign from the referendum, right? Which had a jingle. I was looking so high for this jingle. I couldn't find the that went, but yes, for our bridge needs, they want to be Australians too. That was their jingle. I'd love to hear that jingle, but I couldn't find the actual jingle online. But apparently that's how the wording went. And that led to a lot of misunderstandings. But what the referendum was actually about was not that at all. It was about two things. One, it amended section 51, which prohibited the federal government from specifically making laws for the indigenous people of any state. Yep. Until then, the states made the laws. Yes. It wasn't that there were no laws made. It just wasn't the federal government. It was a state responsible. And the second thing was, it removed section 1, 2, 7, which said Aboriginal natives shall not be counted in official population counts. Yes. I think that's where that extreme version of it comes from. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. And so people thought, oh, they're not being counted. They're not people. But no. No, no, no. I'll quite rob it. It was one of my correctors. It's a second point that the false narrative is based on. People claim that abridgings were not counted in the centres before 967 or somehow regard as forer. This is not true. Section 1, 2, 7, specifically about determining electoral representation. It was a technicality about political representation, not personhood. Aboriginal people were already including the centres before 1967. The Bureau of Synthesis and Statistics had been counting them in various ways for decades. They could vote in federal elections in some states well before 1967. And the right to vote federally was extent to all Aboriginal Australians by legislation in 962, five years before the referendum. Despite the appalling treatment Aboriginal people received and still received, they were always technically bridge subjects and their four citizens of Australia. Yes. So there we go. And on the actual point I was making, when I said that, Robert says, people do change, society can change. I also remember the gay bastion in the late 1980s. I used the example of gay acceptance over the 90s, how rapid it was. But we have to do more than celebrate change. Change has to be fought for and then you must fight again to keep it. Yes. Otherwise to paraphrase your fuck around and find out argument from last week, yesterday's progress is no more than fuel for tomorrow's setback. That's right. Here here. Sorry, I spread that misinformation. As a rule of thumb though, if I'm talking about Australian politics, please disregard. Assume I'm wrong. Did anything do I add to that, though? No. No, that's pretty good. Okay. And there's one more which is not about Dave. Productive markets correspond so I missed out in the last pep. I had a whole bunch of predictive market stuff, but I missed this accidentally. This was great. So I just want to throw it in. It's from Nick who writes, you did miss one particularly dystopian nugget and all of this predictive market stuff, which is how the company's determined reality. I how they decide which version of events is true for gambling purposes. Now there's obviously intimidating news publishers to change reality to match the market, but that's the crude amateurish version. The more insidious techy version is the so called UMA optimistic oracle the polymarket users, which is essentially a blockchain vote on event outcomes where the more money you put into the process, the more voting power you get. Conveniently, you can also place bets on the events that you're voting to determine. So while the house has always had an unfair advantage in casinos, it's really stepping things up to let the house vote to overrule the reality of your bets. At least if you walk into Puckers Pecker and win on red, Puckers can't just go, nah, actually that was black. I had no idea. That really sucks. That's great correspondence. I gotta miss that. Thank you, Nick. All right. Yeah. So here are a couple Dave, which I want your responses to. Okay. First of all, from Luke, is a leto correspondence. Hello, Chaz and co-host. I think that means you. So be Malena. Good, but since there's a significant chance Democrats could take control the Senate in November, are you surprised Samuel or Lito or any other judge hasn't announced his retirement? This is a very interesting question. because it is fairly well established that judges do tend to retire at times when they know there will be a president who will replace them with a like-minded judge. That is a long standing pattern. Now, obviously, judges don't know when they're going to die and we've seen a couple of examples of that where that has had unintended consequences. And there does seem to be this catavailing trend to judges just holding on longer and longer, maybe under the illusion that they will live forever. Certainly. Almost like they become really arrogant when they're surprised. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I think Thomas has said pretty explicitly, I'm not going anywhere. He was a breaker record. I can imagine Thomas actually just not giving enough of a shit about the rest of the world to want to retire in order to make way for another conservative judge. Well, also, I've said this a few times, I don't think of Thomas as a Republican hack. I know he's often on the Republican hack side of the decisions, but I think he sees the Republicans as not real conservatives. I think he has his own vision of what he thinks Jewish print should be like, which is wild to me, his vision is, but I think he actually sees himself as the true believer and everyone else is a hack and not a real conservative. And he's going to hang there as long as possible because he wants to be the next Scalia. He wants to inspire the people of tomorrow to all be like him, like Scalia has inspired conservative sense. That's why I think I don't think he's going anywhere because he doesn't care if the Republicans replace him with another barit or cabinet. He wants another him and he doesn't have any confidence in them to pick another him. Well, I don't think he thinks that there is any possibility of another him. The book by Corey Robin about him from a few years ago, I don't know if I've put this on the reading list before. I can't remember the title of it, but it had this thesis that what Thomas actually is is a radical black nationalist that this has never really changed and that it's his view that whatever the United States government does is going to harm black people. So he's pretty committed to making sure that the United States government does as little as possible. But yeah, Robin actually says he has a view of the United States as irredeemably racist. And so of all of the liberal efforts to change that being woefully misguided and yeah, usually harmful. So yeah, I mean, that would certainly fit with your idea that he is not a, you know, conventional Republican or conservative judge. But okay, now to Alito who we have discussed this before because of the fact that there actually seem to be noises made before the previous election that if Trump was elected, then he would take the opportunity to retire. He's wife. Yeah, because his wife feels unfairly constrained by the fact that he's a Supreme Court justice. And when he retires from that, she can go back to her true calling of abusing the neighbors. By the way, we're not just slagging off his wife. No, we're not. Reason it. There was a hidden, it was a hidden microphone on her when she was talking to someone. And someone entraping her and she essentially just flat out said that that she was, she was expecting and hoping for him to retire very soon. Yes. And she, by the way, is not some meek, private figure either. She is a fairly powerful political activist in her own right. Ginny, sorry, no, that's that's Thomas's wife. Sorry, ignore what I just said. But she's just a flag enthusiast. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's known for hanging a flag upside down outside her house. Yeah, and the other really strange thing in that was her mowing at people. Yes. Yeah, that was strange. Yeah. That was pretty weird. Yeah. But he doesn't seem to be going anywhere either. Now, they're not so far. Well, at least not so far, but I don't think he is. I mean, what can I read you something? Yes. And then you can continue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we got another correspondence about the exact same topic. So I'm a bit more cynical. Okay. Look, this is Mark. Mark says, I think you're having a sweet summer chairs moment about justices Thomas and Elito deciding not to retire. I think it's much more likely that they're waiting to see if the Democrats win the Senate. If the GOP holds 50 seats, they will stay. If the Dems flip four seats, just watch out fast. The Lameduck Senate confirms two new justices. You might counter, but Mark, surely senators will not stand for confirming lifetime appointments to the highest court in such a clearly opportunistic manner. And to that, I would reply, you would need to turn four senators to do it. The most likely senators to flip are Collins Macaskee and Paul. So maybe F3. After that, the possible dissidents will be presumably those who have lost their seats. Collins will be one of them. So she isn't helped with our math. I can't see Tom Tillis knocking down two conservative Supreme Court justices, as long as the White House doesn't put up Ireland, Canada and ML BoA. The next two most likely to lose are Sullivan and Husted, both of whom are young and presumably would like to be able to run in the GOP primary at some point in the future. So they won't rock the boat. I just can't find the fourth no vote. Then you also have the Wildcard, the Fenneman, who might just vote yes. Yeah. We will talk about the Fenneman Wildcard later on. So now you've heard what Mark has to say. What do you have to say? Yeah, look, I think that he makes a plausible point there. I don't know if that's the most likely outcome, but we live in a world now where it's often not the most likely outcome. That becomes the actual outcome. So I am absolutely willing to entertain that point. Yeah, look, like I said before, I don't think Thomas is ever going to retire. Yeah. When he's going to die in the chair, I think Elito is absolutely hack enough to retire the moment the Republicans lose the Senate and try and have his reflection cramped here in the last two weeks. Yeah. I think Mark's analysis isn't bad, but I think he's wrong about Tillis. I think Tillis is the fourth vote. Really? Yes, I do. I think Tillis has discovered a spine on his way out. And that spine will be very strong by the SEMBA. He's only got a week or two to go. Yeah, yeah, I mean, the good thing about Mark's analysis, we will find out very quickly, potentially whether it's right or not. Yeah, tell us I go back and forth on the issue of whether Tillis has a spine or not. I mean, certainly some of his votes indicate that, yeah, indicate that he does. He's not a fan of the Komi indictment. Even though he describes Komi as a great disappointment. Wow. What? Why is he disappointing? Because he only threw one election to try. So just to remind everybody, Komi played a very significant role in the election of Trump in 2016 by announcing two weeks before the election that Hillary Clinton was under investigation. And unlike many of these speculations, there is polling data to back this up. Actual Polley Gunner to back this up. Trump at all of his supporters should be kissing a photo of James Komi every night before they go to bed. Literally after he did that, the polls turned three points. Yes. Like nobody born directly influenced the election. Yeah, they had then James Komi. But anyway, yeah, that's a point worth making over and over again. It really is. By the way, I also think Mark that Trump is odds on to pick Iolane Cannon. Totally. As the judge. Absolutely. And so there may be a fifth vote or a sixth vote somewhere to say no. Because of that. So I wouldn't put past a little try, but I'm not sure it's a given. We'll find out. It might have been Jeanine Piro. If Jeanine Piro had managed to achieve a single indictment in her first year, which by the way, I was actually thinking maybe she staged the White House correspondence dinner just so she could get an indictment. Any indictment? Not a conviction. Like she'll probably miss that up, but an indictment. I mean, she's going to at least, if she's going to do that, she's going to at least got the sass under trying killing with the subway row and then get the clean that indictment up once and for all. See? Yeah. I don't know. It's good thoughts. Yeah. They look at it. Obviously, we're going to find out soon enough. But I thought we'd discuss this enough. Do you have anything more to add on that one? Not on that one. Okay. I got one more for you here. Yes. I'm just saying very rare here. In fact, I've never done this before. I'm not back over a correspondence. I already answered. Last pet. Okay. Because I got more to add and I want to have the way in this world. Yeah. They're going to write down your own. Okay. Okay. So, to remind you folks, in the last pet, we read out a question from Nick, a different Nick to the first Nick. The highlight of which was this. Well, I'll, well, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, pep as I call Nick. Republicans are very exercised about the accusations that Trump is a rapist and a fascist and claim that's extreme. Oh, yeah. It was found in the court of law. He was found the court law to be a rapist and indeed a felon 34 times over and taking into account Dr. Dave's technical definition of fascism. Even if we don't say he's a fascist, it's also a fact that the Trump's leadership is violently authoritarian and extremely corrupt. None of these statements. Trump is a rapist and a convicted felon who leads a corrupt and violent government are even putting any questions? spin on the ball. They are simply stating the baseline reality of the administration, but they stand extreme. So how much do you think we should censor the reality of the situation, which is extreme or not normal as you like to call it, in order to tone down the rhetoric? This is in the context of assassinations. Now I gave an answer that I stand by, which was in my view, if you accurately describe what someone is doing, that is not a problem. If they are a racist or a fascist or authoritarian and criticising them for being a racist or a fascist or authoritarian, it's not only legitimate, but it's a good thing to do. I said the problem is rhetoric that the humanizes people and treats them with disrespect and spreads hatred in my view. That's not accurate. The humanization is not accurate. It's not good, and that's what raises in my view the temperature for unhinged people. In my view. Now I've got more to add to that since then, but first I want to throw it to you, Dave. Do you have any thoughts about the answer to this question? Look, I would say I pretty much agree with you and the correspondent. And I don't think that those, sorry, Nick, I pretty much agree with you and Nick. I suppose you could argue that those things don't need to be emphasised all the time, that maybe the discourse is about achieving this balance of telling the truth and not censoring, but also not constantly emphasising the things that are going to make the most people upset all the time. But at some point when you're turning the rhetoric down, you have to acknowledge that there is a lot to human beings, even very horrible human beings, even people who are in office, there is a lot going on there, and it's not just all about the worst things all the time. You can acknowledge that without censoring yourself. And so yes, maybe the political discourse shouldn't be all about the fascism and the rape and everything else all the time, but it doesn't mean that you actually have to censor those things. Fair enough. Okay, now one ad is that I read a Vox article about this exact subject, about an hour after I recorded that, that pep. And in this Vox article, they were interviewing political violence experts, but what they have to say, I'm not a political violence expert. They don't disagree with what I said. We're all on the same page here. But they did add something else, which I hadn't thought of. And it made a lot of sense. So I want to share it with you, Nick. Yep. They said political violence becomes more likely when people believe that politics takes on existential stakes, that their way of life or cherish values are at risk, and that there's no hope of peaceful resolution to their conflicts. It's that combination of fear and hopelessness that drives people over the edge, because there's no other potential solution. And they think it's existential. People then turn to violence. Yes. An example of the cycle gave was the clan and the post civil war south, the white southern elite thought their way of life was on the verge of extinction, which it was. Yes. And they thought there was no Democrat means to save it, which there wasn't. And so they turned to a campaign of violence. Yes. Now we disagreed with them. We all the screen hindsight with them. And in fact, at the time, probably. Yeah. But you can understand the rationale of where they were coming from if you stand there. Yes. The solution is, and this is their advice. Be honest. Tell the truth. Yep. But emphasize the ability to resolve perceived dangers through peaceful political processes. Yes. People who didn't is a quote. People who want a democracy must speak honestly about existential threats of democracy. That is inherently antagonistic. But at the same time, we must help people see that the most moral and effective means to defend and build the democracy are usually nonviolent. So you emphasize how they respond to the problem, whether it be through particular laws or elections or protests or reforms or whatever. Another quote, terrorism emerges when people feel like their legitimate political avenues have been exhausted. Yes. So if you think for a second, this is one of the problems of Trump. He will often talk about how the system is hopelessly broken. Yep. And the deep state's taken over and there's just despair and there's nothing you can do. Now, he'll sometimes say, that's why you need to re-elect the Republicans. But you'll also say, if they lose the next election, that's the end of America, which is just creating more despair. That's not helping the temperature of the country. No, it's not. Although I would point out, as I've often pointed out to my students, the first election that I ever saw in the US is 2004, that was the rhetoric on both sides then too. If we lose this election, there's never going to be another one, especially on the democratic side. That's been the rhetoric at every election that I've seen since then. So yeah, this is not new. Yeah, I don't think that was the case in 2000 though. Not that I witnessed that one, but my understanding of 2000 was there was actually a lot of apathy in the lead up to the election because people didn't think it was going to be that consequential. And then it turned out to be one of the most consequential elections in living memory. My memory of the 2000 election was that the rhetoric was about, our God didn't actually invent the internet and that he wears four button suits. That was my memory of the rhetoric of 2000. It made me very, very angry at the time. So the lead up to that election, nobody was angry except chess. I was so angry there. Every election since then, everybody angry except chess. Because as I've said before, a number of times, I've been into climate change for a very long time. Yes. And that was a climate change election. It would have been if anyone listened to alcohol. Or you. That's not that I'd be so angry on the superficial shit. Yeah. Anyway, that's a matter. So okay, there's nothing that one. I've got some twin brother chorus one. Oh, yes, please. I have none of that. Yes. Yes. So my twin brother is a pepper, but I think he often falls asleep during the podcast. Well, this week's promise service. Thanks to the mythical twin bond. He woke up to hear me asking how much he was paying for fuel. Oh, yeah. What's that? Yeah. He said filling his tank up went up by over $30. At the time that he wrote this to me, he's had gone back to about $20. But now it is probably up at more than $30. And yes, he said, as I note, I do pay lots of money in tolls. I think I put up the number four million. It's about $1450 is what he claimed back. Wow. You said that was government. Well, that, that, I don't know if that means less to the Americans listening or to me, but I don't drive at all. Well, that's, yes, I said he lives in the Western suburbs of Sydney and works in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. So that is the lot in life for people who have to make that commute. Fair enough. Okay. A couple updates. Joe Mandarin update. I said that my personal favoured solution for Jerry Mandarin and the last pet was to increase the size of the house. I wasn't specific about how much. I said anything after 10 times the size of the trick for me, double it, triple it. I don't care. Just make it bigger. The bigger you make the house, the more it makes the house like the portion representation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the better the quality representation would be when people represent smaller groups of people. 10 times, Joe. I've said just go zoom. I don't care. I don't care. So that would be $4,350 seats. So currently, currently every member of Congress represents more than 700,000 people, which is a lot because the house hasn't expanded since 1913. Exactly. When the population of the US, I'm not sure what it was, but it was less. It might have been around 100 million. Yeah. To put that into perspective, I think the average member of a house of representatives in Australia represents about 170,000 people. That sounds like a good number. Yes. That's better. That is much, much better. I think so. The largest, the second largest parliament in the national parliament in the world, I believe, is Westminster in the UK. So they've gotten more than 600 seats. It might be 650. And yeah. So they represent fastball and numbers of people even than in Australia. So they're new Hampshire. Sorry. How many are in New Hampshire? Oh, yeah. Well, New Hampshire is great. That's more than 400 people in a state of, I don't know how many, but I think they've only got one member of the house of the federal house of representatives. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it's not professional. That is not more than 400 full-time parliamentarians. That is a very amateur sort of volunteer. Everyone gets a turn at some point. But I remember tangent. I remember a few years ago, back sometime back in the 2010s, about the story that was supposed to be a very cute story, but turned into a nightmare where these primary school aged children in New Hampshire as part of a civic exercise, they had this thing where they're supposed to write a draft bill and present it to the new Hampshire house. the old, these kids came up with, was it this particular type of hawk should be named the state raptor of New Hampshire. So this went before the New Hampshire house, these kids all came along to have a look at democracy in action. And the house Republicans just mercilessly mocked and killed this bill. The low light was when one Republican was describing how this bird hunted its prey and ripped the shit out of the rodents or whatever it was hunting. And then said, well, maybe it would be an appropriate mascot for plan, parenthood. This is in front of all these elementary school aged children who were watching from the gallery. I'll try and fight a news article about this to put in the homework or maybe lock-e-confightable. Yeah, real, I would say it's a low light in the history of New Hampshire democracy, but honestly, I don't know enough about the history of New Hampshire democracy to honestly assert that. Sure. Well, moving on. Literally, once again, that night, I was dumbed to my reading and I see Yvale Lavigne has been saying the same thing about making the house bigger. Yvale Lavigne for long time peppers is one of my more favored conservative thinkers out there. I'm a quite fan of his and I think you respect him as well. I do, yep. This is what he had to say about the topic. To me, when you think about how much to grow the house, if we were to engage in that kind of constitutional maintenance, I don't think this is a revolutionary idea. It's just a way to recover, to restore the logic of the system. If the house had kept growing by the same formula that it was growing in the 19th century, it would now be larger by 149 members. So I think we should just grow it by 150 members. That's not crazy. The house would still be smaller than the House of Commons in Britain. It would be smaller than many European legislators. A little larger than others. It's a perfectly plausible, imaginable size. And then grow slowly by that same formula every 10 years so that it has some chance to keep up with the growth of the country. Members are still representing a somewhat more manageable constituency size. And I think the moment of growing by 150 all at once, of introducing that many members into the institution, would be an opening for reforms of other sorts. If you have 150 new members coming in, you're going to rethink the budget process. You're going to rethink the committee system. You're going to think again about how the house rules should work. And we need that shot in the arm. There are a lot of changes that are needed now that in the normal order of things would be made in Congress. But we've gone through 50 years with rules made in the 1970s, especially the budget process. And members have lost the sense that they could even change these. I think he makes very good points. The only problem, which is not a problem with his argument, it's just a problem with political reality at the moment, is that if that was expanded, I mean, presumably it would be census data that apportioned the 150 new seats to states. But then it would be the states who had the responsibility for creating the new districts and drawing the boundaries. And in the current political moment, yeah, that's a recipe for some pretty unbalanced states. That's true, although at my original point, is that the more seats you have, the less you can jerry mander them. That's true. Jerry mandering is more effective when there were fewer seats. That is true. Yeah, so you can't restrict all the voters when 35% or 40% are from one party, if you've got say 30 seats. Well, you can try. Let's say I'll be even, but the more seats there are, the more even it will be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dave, would you like to hear the precise number of seats that Chas suggested having? Yes. Have let's take this to the end to agree. Let's say you have a million seats. No, that's not what I suggested. I was using an example to illustrate the proportion of representation things. Just some, just going with what's recorded. He's so mischievous. I've got one more update, but I'll say that for later on. Let's get into the content. I want you to talk about Project Freedom. Project Freedom. Because I don't know so much about this. Project Freedom arises from this increasing uncertainty about whether the US is actually at war or not. And we will get to a little bit later on, the various ways in which the Trump administration has tried to skirt the war power's acts. Yes. But Project Freedom was announced on Sunday night. OK, so obviously the first thing that people think about is this was to try to influence the opening of the markets the next day. Because as we pointed out last week, oil prices really shot up last week. Like they seemed to be an understanding in the future's market that things were just not going anywhere with negotiations. So the oil prices were going up. And of course gas prices in the United States were going. Sure, look at the graph. Yep. There we are. $4.56 a gallon at the moment. Yeah. You can see this week, as Dave said, it shot up a lot. And if we look at the five-year graph now, rather than the one-year graph, you can see that's getting uncomfortably close to the peak under Biden that they like to refer to over over again, which is $5.2 per gallon. And it's worth noting that it was only above where it is now for about a month under Biden. And otherwise, it was way lower than it is now. So we are in uncomfortable territory when it comes to gas prices. We really are. Yeah. Yes. So this was announced on Sunday night. And it was a pretty vague announcement that the United States was basically going to rescue all of the stranded ships from the Strait of Hormuz. To me, really, to eat? Yes. Caches from all over the world, almost all of which are not involved in the Middle East and dispute going on so visibly and violently for all to see, have asked the United States if we could help free up their ships, which are locked up in the Strait of Hormuz, on something which they have absolutely nothing to do with. They are merely neutral and innocent bystanders. For the good of a rung and Middle East and the United States, we have told these countries that we will guide their ships safely out of these restricted waterways so they can freely and ably get on with their business. Again, these are ships from areas of the world that are not in any way involved with that, which is currently taking place in Middle East. I've told my representatives to inform them that we will use best efforts to get their ships and crews safely out of the Strait. Note how vague that is. Our best efforts. We will guide the ships out. So it wasn't clear whether there would be naval escorts involved or whether it would be that the US had worked out which areas of the Strait of Hormuz were safe and that they would be providing guidance through there. It's still not exactly clear what was meant by that because so more details came out, which was that destroyers would be involved, that 15,000 naval personnel would be involved and that aircraft would be involved. But then there was also this thing about ships would be coordinating with central command and yeah, so they had to go in a certain passage that was very close to the coast of Oman. There was some talk that they cleared a lane that was free of mind. Yes. And they were just showing people where the lane was. Showing people where it was. Right. Yes. And this was announced on Sunday night. Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth really went into back for this the next day. And Marco Rubio declared Operation Epic Fury was finished. It was actually over. Done. Accomplished. That's Project Free. We are not doing that anymore. So it's Project Freedom now. I don't know, could argue that that restart the clock on the Warp Hours Act. I wouldn't personally, but yes. Yeah, I'm sure they will. But Marco Rubio described it as a favor to the world. Okay. Jason makes it just swell. It really does. And they're using his very humanitarian language, which is interesting because using the military for humanitarian interventions has been incredibly unpopular in the United States ever since the bloody debacle in Somalia back in 1992 or thereabouts. Consistently you see when Americans are asked about reasons for military action, what's justified. Humanitarian intervention is always near the bottom of the list, along with trying to impose political change in another country. Anyway, so interesting to see them using this humanitarian language really made it sound like Marco Rubio was essentially talking to an international audience rather than an American one. And yes, this favors the world. Now you could obviously make all kinds of cynical comments about the idea of this being a favor to the world. Like the favor to the world might have been not starting the war in the first place. The favor to the world might be negotiating an end to the war so that ships would actually be willing to go through the strait of hormones because all the evidence so far is that shipping companies are by and large, not very large. convinced by this effort. Yes. Because I mean they did make a big deal of the fact that two US flagged carriers got through the straight-up hormones and that was confirmed by Merck, which is the, at least one of them was confirmed by Merck. The Danish shipping giant was one of their subsidiaries, but remembering that there were more than 130 ships going through the straight-up hormones at the peak. And also Iran started firing again. Yes. So this is my theory about why project freedom came to an abrupt end. Okay, release on abrupt pause. Trump loves to use the word pause. Oh, and by the way, speaking of people who love to use certain words, another favorite of this administration and just of the whole Trump milieu in general is focused. Oh, yeah. So Pete Hegsett said that the US going to be very focused on getting these ships through the straight-up hormones. Trump's staff, especially White House spokesperson, the favorite way to describe Trump is he's focused. He's laser focused on the economy. He's so focused on bringing prices down for working Americans. That's very trippy. Never gets distracted. Yeah. Another person who loves to hear himself described as focused is Elon Musk. Oh, yeah. Now, like, obviously, I think he does get focused. He's very focused on posting. Yeah. So he's very, very focused on posting. He's focused on the great replacement theory. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he loves to describe himself as hyper focused. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is one of these things where you would obviously not describe any of these people as focused. But they all have the attention span of a goldfish swimming in Bungwater. Yeah. They're not focused. Trump literally can't finish the sentence. Like halfway through any sentence, any given sentence that moves into another topic. He can't even stay awake during a cabinet meeting, which is exclusively focused on people sharing praise on him. Yeah. But anyway, so he'd hex that describe this. All this is very focused. Okay. Yes. Now in a classic example of Trump undercutting his own subordinates very quickly, he declared an end to Operation Project Freedom. I've got that too. This is the next day. Yes. Based on the request of Pakistan and other countries, the tremendous military success that was that we have had during the campaign against the country of Iran. Additionally, the fact that the great progress has been made towards a complete and final agreement that represents Iran, we have mutually agreed that while the blockade will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom, the movement of ships through the Straveh Moons will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the agreements can be finalized and signed. Okay. No, it's no two reasons I think that this very quick pause came about. First of all, the whole Project Freedom thing was a big gamble that Iran would not fire on ships that were either being escorted by the US or had US personnel or were moving under the auspices of the US. And they lost that gamble. They lost that gamble. Right? Yes. The bet was they wouldn't violate the ceasefire. Bang, they lost that. They launched cruise missiles at US Navy ships and commercial vessels under American protection. Yes. I mean, the US said that they got them all. Also, they destroyed six Iranian fast boats that were also coming to attack those ships. Yes. And also unrelated, maybe, but probably related. They attacked UAE again as well. They did. UAE slapped away 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles on four drones. Yep. And a drone caused a large fire at their largest oil production center. Yes. And second reason, which is actually part of this reason, which is a little more specific is yes, there was an attack on a French ship. Which led to a dispute between the shipping company and sent comm about whether it was under US guidance at the time, whether it was actually under the auspices of project freedom. Because the French shipping company insists that it was and sent comms said, no, it wasn't. No, they didn't follow our instructions. Properly, they did not coordinate with sent comm. And when they came under attack, they asked the amani's for help, not for us. French shipping company says bullshit. We did coordinate you with it. We sailed exactly where you said we should sail. And we still came under attack. Now, if that's true, yes, that would be a big poke in the eye for project freedom. So I think once that little debate started heating up, I think that was the point where Trump's like, ah, nothing to see here. Yeah, sure. Pause. Yes. So where are we at now? Well, it is true that there are plans flying back and forth between Iran and the US being mediated by Pakistan. And there was some reporting today. So the Washington Post is saying they had been told about the draft framework that Trump is talking about that what they've been told is what it would involve is a mutual lift of the block aid for 30 days. Yes. And that is to buy time to then create room for proper negotiations. Right. So whereas, you know, previously Trump had in response to Iran lifting the block aid Trump said, but we're not lifting our blockade, you know, because we are in a position to exert maximum pressure. They clearly want a deal. You know, we can keep putting the pressure on now. It appears he's come rounds of the position of both sides should lift the blockade. It could, yeah, include so all ships, including Iranian ships will be able to go through. Yeah. And that that will create the necessary breathing room. Now, who knows whether this is going to happen or not? Well, we'll know and we will. Next we will know relatively so like it would be a very positive sign. If that happens, yeah, it would be very good for the world. Yeah. If that happens, this is a lot of us are crying out for this. And there are some provisions being banning around about what a potential piece of room would have going to Axios, which when whenever I say Axios, just imagine I didn't say Axios, imagine I said Jared Kushner. So I coined the Jared Kushner through Axios. Some of the provisions being banning around is Iran committing to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment for 15 years. Well, more than 12 years. Yes. Possibly 15 years. Remember, Iran won five America 120. Yep. And America agreed to lift its sanctions and release billions and frozen Iranian funds, although gradually, yes, gradual lifting sanctions and funds Iran committing to never seek a nuclear weapon or conduct weaponization related activities. I mean, honestly, yeah. What's that worth? Yeah. We promise never. I promise on behalf of future governments, we will never see nuclear weapons. As we said last week, that's the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which there are signatory too. Yeah, I know, but there are signatory to it now. Yes. Not in 150. But I mean, that's as good as you're going to get. I know. I know. I know. I'm not saying there's something I could get as bad on that. I'm just saying this desire to hear someone say, we promise to never do it. Pinky promise is just so juvenile. And that's what they want. They just want to say, yeah, we've guaranteed you'll never have nuclear weapons ever again. It's just about selling it. Right. Yeah. It's not about the reality, which obviously that's a worthless promise. Yes. But anyway, that's the. So anyway, I also around with the committee to enhance inspections regime and clean snap inspections by you and inspect essentially, this is like we've said over and over again. I mean, look, they're going to do this because there's no other option. Right? I'm not criticizing this. Yes. But this is once again, either equivalent or worse deal than Obama had that trunk ripped out once again. There is no other option. So I'm not. Yeah. Yeah. It's basically the Obama deal except that the Obama deal. Whoops. Yes. The Obama deal allowed enrichment to 3.67% during that 15 year period where this seems to be a complete moratorium on enrichment for 12 or 15 years. And then they can enrich up the three months. So they wouldn't be able to say this is better than what Obama got. Sure. Now, where the people will be convinced that all of this was worth that. Yeah. That's a that's a different question, but they at least would be able to say it. Yeah. Sure. I don't know where the question of the already enriched nuclear material is. There's contradictory. Yeah. We'll say. Anyway, provisions being made. Let's. Let's hope. Yeah. I just want to say one thing about why Trump might be making more concessions now than he was a week ago. Yep. Which he is. Yes. There's two sides of this. There's the Iranian side that we've talked about many times, which is that they they've averaged about 2.1 million barrels per day between April 1 and April 13 of oil exports. Yep. And which is in line with pre-war levels. But as soon as the blockade kicked in, that fell to about 567,000 barrels per day. I'm glad by the way that people are acknowledging now that they did get through the blockade. Yes. But they got through it, but not as much as they'd like. Obviously. Okay. So that's a lot less 567,000 barrels per day after the blockade. We've spoken about this at length over every again for about six weeks now that there's only so much storage Iran can do available for it becomes a problem. Okay. Iran has explored alternative export routes like rail to China. floating storage, according to Kepler, whoever they are, Iran may have roughly 20 days of usable storage remaining before it's forced to cut production. Now, I have been saying 20 days for at least a month and a half. Yeah. Like, I'm starting to call bullshit on these instruments. Other analysis that says it's actually a lot longer. Yeah. That Iran has previous experience with with this stuff and it's never come close to actually capping its oil. They did this in 2018. Some months and months and months and they were ramped out, put right back up to the exactly the same levels afterwards. So, I'm starting to think that this talking point is bullshit. Yes. Anyway, that's one side. Whatever they do is the other side, we're going to show you the gas prices. That's not into the story. People have been talking for a while. This is not bullshit, I think, because the numbers changed. They're not the same number over and over again, like the 20 day number. People have been saying for about six weeks that the end of May is a crunch period for oil. That they have been, oh, I'll quote the financial times. The oil markets four weeks away from a tipping point that will drive prices significantly higher traders of Iran. As the blockade and the Stravehall Mous reduces global stockpiles below critical levels. Markets are beginning to price in the chance of a much longer conflict. After President Donald Trump told oil companies, executives on Thursday, the blockade and the Stravehall Mous could continue for months. Traders and analysts warned the global stocks of crude gasoline, diesel and jet fuel will hit critically low levels by end of May. At which point prices will escalate rapidly. Now, I've heard the end of May for a long time. So, it might be bullshit, but we don't know yet. If it's not bullshit, that's getting close. We're now at the seventh of May. That is also when Trump is heading to Beijing. Yes. So Trump has good reason to start getting desperate. Not because he's losing, but because consequences are coming. This is the thing. The stalemate has been the same stalemate for weeks. That's not changing, but time is not on his side. No. America has gotten away with, actually, despite the fact we kept on gas prices, compared to the rest of the world, they've been getting away with it. They really haven't been many consequences. Those consequences are coming, apparently, and he wants to avoid that. So that would be potentially what this is about. Around, they're just in the holding pattern. Whereas America is not in the holding pattern. America has consequences coming that they haven't experienced until now. So that's all I wanted to raise on that. As far as nuclear issues in terms of negotiation goes, prior to the June 2025 attack, American analysts believed Iran had the capacity to build a nuclear bomb within three to six months. After the attack, American analysts estimated it would take around about nine months to a year. There's a coin of Reuters. That estimate, according to an article in Reuters yesterday, is identical. It hasn't changed. So this war has made no impact whatsoever on the nuclear situation. So there is that as well. So in terms of playing off, is it worth it? Yes. Pay Hegseth had a bit of a to-do with Rokana about, is it worth it? And he's hearing last week. Let's have a look at that. Do you know how much it will cost Americans in terms of their increased cost in gas and food over the next year because of the Iran war? I would simply ask you what the cost is of an economy. I'm going to give you that. I would simply ask you what the playing got you questions about the best of things. You're asking, you're saying it's a got your question to ask what it's going to be in terms of the increased cost of the U.S. what it costs to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. I give you that, sir. But let me, what would it cost? What would you pay to ensure Iran doesn't get a nuclear bomb? Do you, what would you pay? I'd pay $1.7 billion in sanctions relief, which is what Obama was paying under his nuclear deal before Trump screwed it all up. Six years ago, whatever. This is why we played this clip last week as well. Yes, let's actually talk about what we are prepared to pass. He's saying this is if that no one can possibly even name a number big enough. Exactly. Let me show you a graph, which you may or may not have seen before. It's the graph of uranium enrichment over the last 20 years. You can see for those who are listening, the graph shows up to about 2016. 35,000 pounds of 5% enriched uranium when the deal kicked in. Yeah. It became very close to zero. And as soon as the deal was ripped up, it started growing again until it reached 20,000 pounds with a bunch of 20% enriched uranium and 60% enriched uranium with uranium as well. So this is what the war supposedly about. They've made no difference whatsoever. Gas prices are about to go through the roof way above what Joe Biden has been blamed for over and over again by the Trump administration. Yes. And Americans already blame Trump a lot for this. Yes. I throw to our old mate, Harry, Anton. Look at this. Blame for the increasing gas prices. 77% say Donald Trump, I look back at every president that I could find on a similar question, which is when the gas prices rise, who gets the blame? Trump gets the blame more than Joe Biden did back in 2022, more than Barack Obama did in 2012, and more than George W. Bush did back in 2005, 71%. Donald Trump takes the cake. He owns this mess according to the American people. So the president says it's all worth it. It's worth it to fight this war in Iran. What are the American people saying? Yeah. Okay. You know, last night as well, Rick Scott, the senator from the great state of Florida said the same thing. It was worth it for him despite the fact that we had the higher gas prices. But do the American people agree? They don't agree with the president of the United States, and they don't agree with the senator from the state of Florida. Look at this. Is the Iran war worth higher gas prices? 64% of Americans say no. Just a third say yes. These are types of numbers we see consistently with this war over and over and over again. That's why the pressure is on. Well, we know there's no shortage of red cordial. Do you have anything else to add in this area before we move to the war powers? No. Okay. I mentioned in pep 258 that Friday was day 60 of the war under the war powers resolution. Just to remind you what this is about under the war powers act of 973. The president can only legally exercise the powers of war pursuant to one, a declaration of war, two specific statutory authorization, or three, a national emergency crowd by attack upon the United States. It's territories or possessions or armed forces. Now, they're kind of pretending that the third bit has been satisfied because of the imminent threat of an attack on America or Israel. It's obviously bullshit. Yes. But everyone is pretending that this is a legal war because there's no real way they can stop Trump anyway. Sadly. But even then, the legislation goes on to say within 60 calendar days after a report is submitted and the report was submitted. The president shall terminate any United States armed forces with respect to which such report was submitted unless the Congress won has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of the United States Armed Forces. Two, has extended by law such a 60 day period or three is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States. Now, none of those three conditions has even been close to SARS-Vine. They can't even pretend that. So theoretically, either Congress should authorize this war or should have ended by Friday on day 60. And even congressional Republicans were talking tough on this. Senator John Curtis said, "I will not support continued funding for the use of force without Congress weighing in." Senator Susan Collins said, "The Constitution gives Congress an essential role in decisions of war and peace and the War Powers Act establishes a clear six-day deadline for Congress to either authorize or end US involvement in foreign hostilities. That deadline is not a suggestion. It's a requirement." That's tough talk. Senator Lisa Mckowski said, "I do not believe we should engage in open-ended military action without clear accountability. Congress has a role." But last week, Pateg Seth put forward a new theory. On Iran, ultimately, I would defer to the White House and White House Council on that. However, we are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire. So, you're not in. That's our understanding, just so you know. On Friday, Trump confirmed that was indeed the administration position, with this letter addressed to Congress. On April 7, 2026, I order the two-week ceasefire. The ceasefire has since been extended. There has been no exchange of fire between the United States forces and Iran, since April 7, 2026. There are still these that began on February 26, 28, 2026 have terminated. Now to be clear, this is a nonsense legal argument. Yes. Complete nonsense. The War Powers Act doesn't just apply when you're in active combat. It also applies where imminent quote, where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances. Trump hasn't stopped threatening them. He threatens them every second day. So, he could attack Iran at any second. There is imminent involvement in hostilities. Also, it's not even a proper ceasefire. There's a blockade happening. That's an act of war. That is. Even if that was not the case. And there was a complete piece. It's just like one side's John Lennon, the other side's Yoko, I don't know. They're in a bed. Long hair, lots of flowers. It's beautiful. Let me read you the War Powers Act. Just imagine it. Just imagine it. Trump and a disfigured modesty bar in bed. Which one's John Lennon? Which one's Yoko? I know. Again, within six. 60 calendar days after a poor disdmitter, the president shall terminate any use of the United States Armed Forces with respect to which that report was submitted. So 60 days after it starts, it has to be completely ended. Unless they change the meaning of the word "days", the troops need to be gone. Of course, none of this matters because no one's going to stop him. Are they? That's right. If someone took Trump to court, the courts would say this is a political question. We refuse to rule against him, which is what they have done many times on these issues. Yes, for those of you who don't know, the Supreme Court has been extremely deferential to the executive on questions of foreign policy, basically forever, but especially since 1919. In 1919, there was a very sweeping ruling that said basically all foreign policy questions were political questions and therefore weren't subject to judicial review. Now even though that is no longer the prevailing jurisprudence today, there has been a tiny number of cases involving foreign policy that have even made it to the Supreme Court. Nearly every time the Supreme Court has ruled with expanding executive power, that is why this year's tariff decision was so extraordinary because it was about foreign policy and it was one of the very, very few times that the Supreme Court has ever actually intervened on foreign policy. But chances absolutely right, in this case the Supreme Court would say political question, you sorted out yourselves. And also, if they did want to rule on it, I'm sure this Supreme Court of all courts would rule the War Powers Act to be unconstitutional. Oh yeah. And there are plenty of Republicans saying that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. Yes. Now, that doesn't necessarily matter. Congress can just easily defund this war off their own back. But who thinks they will? Like I keep saying, as Dodgy is Trump is on this stuff, he's probably less Dodgy than Obama wasn't libido. Like Obama's bad. He's declared the entire thing was not hostilities. First he said that airstrikes weren't hostilities because ground troops weren't in danger. And then he said they were just plain support from NATO. So they weren't actually fighting a war. They were just providing support. Yeah. There's even more room for Dodgy as the Trump hasn't taken advantage of. I can't believe he's a relative clean skin compared to a lot of presence on this. He could define, and we know this before, he could define every on and again off again phase of the attack as a new war that restarted the clock. The restarted six days. And he said, "Oh, that's ridiculous. Reagan did that. He did that with Iran in 1987 to '88. It just kept on going and going and going. It's so called tanker war. Which according to Ronald Reagan was actually many, many, many wars. The Obama administration did the same thing with ISIS. Now, by ISIS, every single different group of ISIS they fought against was a different war apparently. Yes. As we've said before, and I wrote an article about this in the conversation in 2012. I went back and had a look at it. You knew that Obama didn't want to fight a war when he actually went to Congress to ask them for their opinions. Yes. That was serious. Yes. Yes. But my favorite example of all of this from 200 years before the War Powers Act is Thomas Jefferson. Now, often when people think isolation is they think Thomas Jefferson, he was, you know, in some ways the most profoundly articulated, just wanted nothing to do with traditional foreign policy. You know, no, no enemies, no allies, just friendship in commerce with everyone. He sent the US Navy across the Atlantic Ocean to fight the Barbary pirates and did not tell Congress about it until they were halfway across the sea. Wow. Yes. Well, it's Congress, a public planet. He clearly didn't have a very high opinion of them. How about that? Yes. So there you go. My point is that Trump's dodgy, but there's a real rich tradition of dodging this area. All institutions pretty dodgy in that respect. This is one area where Trump is actually following the traditions of America. It's pretty the only area. I don't want to make one more. That's the tradition. I want to make one more point. If Trump wants to follow the law, while keeping his war. It is an isolation that's one of the funniest sentences you could say. If Trump wants to follow the law. Yeah, yeah. Which he doesn't need to. But if he wants to follow the law, he says we're trying to follow the law. We're like with this pausing. I mean, it's a really shitty way of doing it. You can. he didn't need to come out and excuse. He could just say nothing. But there is another way. The War Powers Act also says such 60-day periods shall be extended for not more than an additional 30 days. If the President determines and certifies the Congress in writing that unavoidable military necessity, respecting the safety of the United States Armed Forces, requires the continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing about a prompt removal of such forces. In other words, he says we need 30 more days to get out of there. The law allows him to take that 30 days. Yes. So why wouldn't he just do that? Why wouldn't he just say we're taking 30 more days to get out of there? Yeah. I'll tell you why. Because he thinks it's going to take more than 30 days. Now I know he's trying to get this peace deal going. That might pull it off in a week or two. But to me, as soon as I saw that, he didn't use the 30 days. I thought, "Oh." Oh. That's not a good sign. Yeah. But daring him in the face, it's not exactly fine print. It's very clear part of the law and they're choosing not to use the 30 days. Yes. I don't think a lot of people have noticed that yet. That isn't an admission. Well, that's because nobody thinks that Trump is trying to follow the law. Why? Actually, I actually do think he is. Actually, I mean, I might sound ridiculous, but I don't think he cares about the law. Yeah. But why do think he's. His lawyers possibly. Yeah. Because he's paying lip service to the War Powers Act in a way he doesn't need to do. In a way he doesn't do with lots of other stuff. Yes. And so. And so for that reason, I just think, well, if he's paying lip service to it, why wouldn't he pay lip service to the most obvious power? Yeah, okay. Anyway, whatever. All right, it might be nothing. Dave, 26 to 2028. I want to mention a couple of things. We'll try the elections here, of course. Yes. I'm guessing that might appear to have nothing to do with 2026. Yeah. But I think it's going to be very relevant. All right. And that is the ballroom. Okay. Senator Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, include a request for a billion dollars for the ballroom. Also, by the way, if you're thinking Chuck Grassley, I've heard that name before. That's because he's president pro tempore of the Senate, which means he's forth in line to be president. And because he wasn't at the White House correspondence dinner, had that attack been successful, we would be talking about president Grassley right now. Instead of Senator Grassley, and he's billion dollars for the ballroom as part of the reconciliation bill that's going to fund ICE and the board of the patrol. Now, that is a reconciliation bill, which means only its 50 votes in the Senate, which means it only requires Republican votes. Yes. They might get them. They might. That actually happens. Find a billion dollars for the ballroom, which until now Trump has been saying, I'm going to give that to you for free from my donations. I have the feeling the phrase billion dollar ballroom is going to work its way into every single anti-republican ad this year. Yes. Billion dollar ballroom trips off the tongue, doesn't it? But only make one very small addendum to that analysis, which is it won't be Republican votes alone, because Federman has been signaling violently that he will support the ballroom. That's true. That is a good point. But I think even Federman's vote is not going to save them from the billion dollar ballroom. No, it's not. Talking point. No, it's not. I mean, it's perfect for the Democrats, the thing. Really perfect. He's not worrying about your soaring cost of living. He's focused on building billion dollar ballrooms. You can just see it now. That is a massive mistake. I can't believe they're falling into that. So I just note that for the elections going for that is a good point. But there are two major stories of the last week and a half or so about the elections. Number one, Governor Janet Mills from Maine has dropped out of the race in Maine. Graham Platner is now the default nominee for the Senate in Maine for the Democrats. Bill said, while I have the driving passion, the commitment and experience and the bubble that's the fight to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today, which is the financial resources. Now I'm calling bullshit on that. Yeah, I'm absolutely calling bullshit on that. At the end of March, she had over a million dollars in cash. Platner had 2.7 million dollars in cash, which is more. Yeah. But it's not that much more, especially when Chuck Schumer was supporting her. She was making get 1.7 million dollars in cash if they want. I think the issue was that she was 20 points behind. Yes. Yeah. You would drop out of that race too if you had her polling numbers. Yeah. Now, that was unexpected to her backers because she had been a very popular governor of Maine. And furthermore, she was really well known for taking on the election. Trump. Now I think there's quite a subtle bit important lesson here, which is being known for taking on Trump isn't enough, right? There have been a lot of people who have tried to stake everything on, I'm the one who can take on Trump, you know, bills, Jasmine Crocket, Gavin Newsom is currently betting the house, the farm, the orchard, everything on that it is not enough for today's Democratic Party. People associate that approach with failure. You've got to actually stand for something and Platinum clearly stands for something. So I mean not to say that Mills doesn't stand for anything, but it was all based on like I'll take on Trump. That was her campaign. Yeah. And also her campaign was that Platinum said awful things on Reddit. Yes. That were two parts of it. Platinum's got a lot of baggage, you know. Oh yeah. Oh denying it. Oh yes, we're about to talk about that. Yeah. That's what right now. There are a lot of attempts. Republicans have come out the gate fast. Yes. to try to define growing Platinum as the Nazi Tattoo guy. Yeah. And attempts to define a Democratic Party as well as being the party of the Nazi Tattoo guy. They try to get back shot. They try to hurt them in Maine. They also hurt the Democrats in places where like say Michigan. Yes, yeah. Pennsylvania. Yeah. Where there's where there's like a swing state. Yeah. The reason they're doing as because I remember 2012 when Missouri Senator Klemme Cascale took full advantage of her opponent Tea Party at Todd Aiken. Yes. Who made this comment to I'm sure I'm sure this comment to I remember this comment very very well. Let's listen. Okay. So if if an abortion could be considered in a case of say a dub tubal pregnancy or something like that, what about in the case of rape? Should it be legal or not? Well, you know, people always want to try and make that as one of those things. Well, how do you how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question? It seems to be first of all from what I understand from doctors. That's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something. You know, I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child. Klemme Cascale made him. First of all, she tried to get him nominated. She ran ads on just the first person to do this to try this tactic of running ads to encourage their opponents to pick the worst candidate. Yes. And they did pick him, the Tea Party picked him and she not only made him the legitimate rape guy, but she made the entire Republican Party, the party of the legitimate rape guy. Yes. And I hurt them right across the board in 2012. Yeah. The Republicans have not forgotten this. No. So my question to you, Dave, is could Nazi tattoo be the new legitimate rape? And how much of an issue is the Nazi tattoo for platinum? Number one, and number two for the Democrats general. Yeah. So looking at the difference in circumstances between those two things, Todd Aiken is sitting down with an interviewer and expressing an opinion he's clearly thought a lot about and believes a lot in. Graham Platner, as a young man, was shitfaced one night out with his unit in a country where he didn't speak the language and clearly didn't understand a lot of a lot of the symbolism around him. And he got a tattoo, which he now regrets. How many people who voted for Trump have tattoos that they regret? What should regret? I have any Americans have tattoos and they regret or potentially should regret. As much as I am opposed to Nazi tattoos, I think when it comes down to people reflecting on, you know, what kind of candidate can they actually support, they're going to see Graham Platner, someone who's got a stupid tattoo, not as a Nazi. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's definitely okay. So I don't think there's any question. Yeah. And I think that's a good and important point you, Michael, you made it a bit bleakly, but the important point is no one is going to think that that tattoo represents him in any way, whereas that definitely represented Todd Aiken. That is true. That's a good point. My personal view on this is that I actually think it's going to affect Platner and the Democrats differently. Okay. I don't think it's going to affect Platner much at all. It doesn't seem to be affecting him much at all. Well, it didn't affect him with Democrats, that's true. But also, I don't think it's going to affect him in the electorate, which might sound strange, because, you know, Maine is known as being a, like while the blue state full of old people, like boomers, and they are, and they, yeah, and they, they are socially more conservative than young people. And that might be, they might, they might, they might get them tittering. But I think that Maine is a small enough state that Platner could conceivably meet a large number of the voters face to face. And that's his thing. That's the reason he kicked Jack Mills' ass in my view, because he's a really, really good campaigner. Yes. Very energetic. He's held at least 50 town halls. Like probably more. And he just, he's just being either every single day. Yes. Meeting people and Maine is a very small state. Small in population. Yes. That's why Maine is actually my big, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, population terms. And so I think that by November, yeah, I think many Maine voters are going to have a very good sense of who grow in Platneries. So he's not going to be easy to reduce to simply a phrase. No, it's a tattoo. Whereas, but so sorry, I just want to, in terms of its political culture as well, Maine is very different. But Maine has an independent senator, albeit one who caucuses with the, with the Democrats. It's got this real independence streak. It awards its electoral votes differently from the rest of the country. It has implemented a different voting system from the rest of the country. When I went there back in 2012 to visit my friend Tyler, who is a pepper, Tyler was explaining some of the differences between Maine and the rest of the United States. One of which is the name Bob Marley in Maine does not refer to the reggae singer refers to a comedian who is like only known in Maine, who makes very main specific jokes. Like, it isn't a funny when you hit a deer with a truck. And I saw people wearing t-shirts like I saw Bob Marley, blah, blah, yeah, it's talking about the comedian. So yeah, Maine is different. A very specific culture. Yes. On the other hand, I think when you talk about Democrats in general, Republicans are desperately trying to paint Democrats in swing states as anti-Semitic radicals. Yes. Desperately. That's their number one tactic at the moment. People in Michigan and Pennsylvania are not going to know grain platinum, personally. They're not going to know much about grain platinum at all. They're focusing on their states and their focusing on other things. And what I think grain platinum is going to, I don't think in itself the fact that grain platinum that Republicans keep on using the phrase Nazi tattoo for the next six months. But what I do think is, you know, how these things work when you're trying to sell on the derivative, they need a rule of three. They've got one now. Right. This is the party of the Nazi tattoo guy. There's a party that embraces the Nazi tattoo guy and does this and does that. When Ilano Mars says something or other in two months time, they'll go, yeah, that's number two. And then like just it's, this is, I think a potential building block for them to hit swing states. Much say it's going to work, but I think it has more chance of making impact in that capacity than it does in Maine itself is what I would say. Yeah. I don't think it's going to work at all. Okay. Yeah. Not, not at a time where as a headline read today, the pro-Israel consensus is collapsing in both parties. Now anti-Semitism is very different thing from being opposed to Israel. It is. But traditionally in the US, when that kind of attack on anti-Semitism has been made, it's often been linked to candidates views on Israel. Right. And as you say, trying to make it about something more than one Nazi tattoo, they would be trying to link it more generally to people in the Democratic Party who are opposed to Israel. Voters in swing states are not going to give a shit about that in 2026. First of all, it's a foreign policy issue, which Matt is very, very little in mid-term elections. And second, as we see, there is, you know, voters are just less and less caught on Israel at the moment. Many of them are actually blaming Israel for this very unpopular war that they are, you know, that they're in Iran. So what I think is going to happen is, in the end, calling Graham Plackner an anti-Semite, talking about his Nazi tattoo, that's actually going to be kind of a relatively isolated thing. I don't think they're going to be able to tie it as they would have done in the past to propel us to any positions within the party. And what is that actually going to mean to the vast majority of Americans? It will mean something to the very online, but then the very online will also have been exposed to the other side of the, with the whole Graham Plackner argument. So I think it's going to be a wash in the end. Quite possibly. By the way, in terms of what this says about Democrats that they've embraced Plackner, I think it just shows, it shows something pretty obvious, which is that the old rules don't apply. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we've known that for decades for Republicans. And now it applies across both parties, which is, yeah, But arguably it's bad for America that there are less guardrails than they used to be. But I think it's good for democracy. It means there's a wider range of candidates you can pick from. If you'd someone you like, you can't go, "Well, they disqualified because of one particular thing, as long as they're delivering what you want, whatever it may be." And Republicans are the last people who can effectively critique that. Yes, for all these reasons. Absolutely. Well, I've got one more question on Platinum before we move on to Federman. Is it hypocritical? The Democrats to embrace Platinum after making such a big deal out of Pete Hegseth Tato? Yes, it is. And Elon Musk's alert. Yes, it is hypocritical. Yep. Hypocracy is just one of the eternal conditions of politics. Yeah. I've been talking to a student about this who's doing an honours thesis on hypocrisy. There's some great work actually written about this. David Ronserman's book, which I think is just called hypocrisy. Raphael Sassauer's book, A Philosopher about hypocrisy and moral discourse. If you want to go really classic Stephen Krasner's book about hypocrisy and international relations, which is called sovereignty, organized hypocrisy. Like, it is one of the basic conditions of politics is some kind of tolerance of hypocrisy. So yes, this is absolutely hypocritical. But people who get too caught up on accusations of hypocrisy in politics really get left behind. I can vouch for that because this is something where I'm not hypocritical and I'm always left behind. Yep. I was going to say I do agree with you there, Tipper Crickle. Yeah. But the grounds on which I think are typical are grounds that I've been extremely consistent on. And you will remember this. In fact, the papers will remember this. Yep. I think the problem is not being too generous to Platinum's tattoo. I think the problem is rushing to condemn Hegseth based on a tattoo and rushing to condemn Elon Musk based on a salute, which you'll recall both occasions. I was saying, well, hang on, let's just wait here. And I got left behind by many of the papers. But I just think yeah, we should just hesitate a little bit to condemn people based on superficial. Okay, but I just want to point out again, difference in circumstances, remembering Graham Platner out, shit faced with his unit and having no idea that, you know, what he was getting was an Arty tattoo. Elon Musk knowing that he was in front of a very big audience, doing a gesture which is universally understood to be an Arty salute or at least was universally understood to be an Arty salute until about one second after he did it. And then this was the really big problem with it. It wasn't just the salute. It was the number of people claiming that in their view, they didn't think that was an Arty salute, including the anti-defamation league. That was an extreme low point in American political discourse because it wasn't just Musk. It was everyone that he dragged along with him. I am going to let you get the last word on that because I have no desire to really educate. Okay, good. I've made my point. Yes. And I'll let you make yours. Yes. But what I will say is that well, I'm not going to let you get away with it. Yes. Is the second time you characterized Platinum's Arty tattoo as I got shit face, stayed in years ago. Yes. There's a lot of reason to suspect that he knew sometime in the last 18 years. Oh, yeah. What that tattoo was. True. Yes. I'm not saying when he got it, he got it going. I'd like that SS tattoo please. No, that is absolutely true. He should have done something about it in the interview. Before he ran for seven. 18 years. Yes. Yes. Yes. Anyway. Yeah. And just one more note and Platinum, I just addressed some correspondences which I never go around to doing. I feel weeks back, I had a go at Platinum for running. What in my view was a policy light dumb campaign. I cited one 15 second video about Big Farmer in particular and I caught some, I think, deserve pushback from peppers on that. They were both arguing about whether the Big Farmer point was simplistic and stupid. They some were saying, I don't think it is stupid. And also they said, well, even if it is a bad ad, that's a pretty shit body of evidence to critique someone about one 15 second ad. Yep. I think that's fair enough. I'm not going to waste podcast time by backing over the actual ad itself. I stand by my suggestion, it's a stupid ad. Yep. But I think you guys are right. They're having watched him a bit. I do think Platinum is a bit of an idiot. But if I'm going to bring that to the pod, I need better evidence than one 15 second ad. That was a bit shit on my behalf. Okay. So I'll be more generous next time. Jesus. This is a self-legulation there. Oh, yeah. I think they made a fair point. Federman Dave. Now, John Federman was elected to the Pennsylvania Senate in 2022. I was so disappointed when I remembered today that it was 2022. Not 2020. Yeah. But months, I'd kind of be thinking that it was 2020, but that's right. And that doesn't make a big difference. It begs a huge difference. Yeah. It means that he is not going to stand in the way of a Democrat trifecta. No. Unless he's real elected. Yes. So that's a big difference. That's a big difference. Everything we're about to talk about. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So he's up for a reelection in 2028. But after 2026, if the Democrats win four Senate seats, Federman's going to be the 51st vote in the Senate for Democrats. Yep. And he potentially could either be a massive swinging voter for Trump, or he could potentially leave the Democrat party entirely and allow the Republicans to hold the Senate for two more years. Yes. And just part of the significance of that is, at the moment, Democrats possibly winning four Senate seats is at the really optimistic end of what is possible. Yeah. Like, I haven't seen anybody suggesting that they could get five. It's possible, but hard. Very, very hard. So four is the big possibility that everybody is talking about. I mean, that's what I say, though, that's the optimistic end. Yeah, I think people are expecting three. Yes. But the fourth is a stretch. Yeah. So the most likely is that Federman is not the swing vote, but nonetheless, as I said, we shouldn't just be focused on most likely outcomes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So why would he leave the Democratic Party for you might ask? Well, John, John Federman has had a few disagreements with Democrats over the years. Notably, he is possibly Israel's strongest supporter in the Senate, full stop in both parties. Yep. He's damn close to a cheerleader with pom-poms. He is such a strong supporter. Yep. That's not a popular position in the Democratic Party right now. Doesn't end there. He's fond of tough rhetoric about the border and crime, type rhetoric. Yep. Although he doesn't share Trump's policies precisely, rhetoric-wise, he's very similar. Yes. He's completely opposed to the government shutdown the entire time, aggressively so. Yep. But most importantly, it would be hard for him to poll much worse amongst Democrats than he currently does. You know who we're going to talk to. Among Pennsylvania Democrats and that approval of Federman. Back in 2023, he was a Democrat, liberal darling. He was at plus 68 points. Look at how low he has fallen down the negative 40 points. He's down there with the Titanic among Democrats in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And you know what I put a comparison point, you know, we always talk about how Chuck Schumer is not well liked by the Democratic Bay station wide. Chuck Schumer has a net popularity rating of about minus two points. He is 38 points more popular than John Federman is with Pennsylvania Democrats. And I was also looking at Kristen Senema, who of course ended up leaving the Democratic Party in Arizona. She was considerably more popular just before she shifted over than John Federman is at minus 40 points. That's a hundred and eight points swing. This is a hundred and eight point swing. Very good mathematics here. I was honestly thinking is that even possible. All right, how does this compare to other key faces of primary? And if you want to run again, you know, he faces an election in two years. He runs in a Democratic primary. How have senators who lost their primaries? How does their whole situation compare to this? I would just know, John was like off on the screen going, what, wait a minute, wait a minute, a hundred and eight points. You never see anything like that. My goodness gracious. I mean, just take a look here. Okay, 2000 senators own party net ratings about when they lost a primary, Bob Smith plus 15, our inspector plus 13. Of course, he switched parties to Democrats. He didn't work for him from Republican. Plus six Joe Lieberman, Dick Lurgo was at zero points. Lisa Mckasky was at minus 15 points. All of these were considerably more popular than John Federman is right now at minus 40 points. He is below the lowest. The ones who actually got beat in a primary. There is no historical analog to this. That is how unpopular John Federman is with Pennsylvania Democrat. That was a lot of Harry Antony. I apologize. That's good stuff. What he's saying. Now we're hearing that Republicans are trying to recruit him. There being a few articles recently about the Skullbot, Politico, a few other publications. Apparently he doesn't caucus with the other Democrats at all. Apparently his best friends in the Senate are Republicans, Dave McCormack and Katie Britt. Apparently he gets along much better with John Thuney does with Chuck Schumer. There is a very well-worn path to it. When a politician starts fighting with their base and they get along with the other party, they start to resemble the other party. It's a bit of a cycle. It's a reinforcing cycle. Further and further away from the base, it becomes more antagonistic and they end up on the other side. Yes. Usually with the zeal of the converted. Trump, Federman was on Sean Hannity's podium. because that's what I'm talking about this week. And this is what Hannity said. - I will tell you a funny story. So I did talk to President Trump last night. And I told him you were gonna be on the show. - No. - He said, "Okay, I wanna give you a job. Your job is to tell him he's gonna be run as a Republican. He's gonna have full support, more money than he ever dreamed of, and he's gonna win big. And we're gonna make sure he goes to Democrats don't appreciate him, they don't like him, they're finished with him." I mean, he went on and he tasked me with making that happen. I know you're gonna ask this all the time. And however, as an outside observer, honestly. - No, I'm not. - You're more Republican than Democrat. - Well, I wish, I'm not. I'm not like, I'm mystified by it. If you look at my votes and my views really haven't changed. - My favorite part of that exchange is that Hannity introduces it with, "I've got a funny story." President Trump told me to tell you that we will pay you a lot of money to change sides of politics. - Ha, ha, ha, ha. One of their great comedy routines. - Yeah. - Now, Federman. - I just love the Trump promises. More money than you ever dreamed of. You're in big. Like, what is he talking about more money than you ever dreamed of? Like, is he actually offering a bribe through their short Hannity? - Well, I'm not sure that Trump will be paying it, but maybe he's done this well. (laughs) - I mean, look, I'm sure Trump's right that he has a lot of money in his super PACs that he can direct wherever he wants. That's a legal bribe. - Yeah. - For the campaign. - That is true. - Yes. - Now, Federman says there's no chance he's moving. Going to, in Politico, he said, "I'm not changing. I'm a Democrat and I'm staying one." And then Politico says, "I'll quit Politico." Yet, at least in private, he's not totally rejecting, dropping his D. Dropping his D. That says about Risen's revolting. When one senior Republican recently brought up the idea of becoming independent to Federman, he absorbed the suggestion and didn't embrace or reject the overture according to a GOP official familiar with the conversation. So Dave, will Federman stay Democrat and should he? - This is a very good question. So, Federman pointed out his policy disagreements with Republicans. He said he is pro LGBT. He has the rainbow flag displayed in his office. He said he's pro labor. Well, I've got to say that that has become a bit of a discursive gray area over the last few years with a lot of Republicans kind of remaking themselves as pro labor. - Yes. - So someone like J.D. Vant claims to be pro labor. - Yep. - Sure no Brian is prepared to offer his services to Mark Wayne Mullan. - Yes. - Yeah, there are bigger issues. - There are bigger issues. - Pro choice. - Pro choice. - He's very pro choice. - Yes. - That's an issue. - Yep. - Gay rights, trans rights. - Yes. - Trans rights in particular are an issue. - Yeah. - In the Republican party right now. - Yeah. - Legal matter one is that's not such an issue. - No. - Higher taxes is an issue. - Yes. - Taxing a rich, a higher minimum wage is not maybe not an issue. - Yeah. - They're probably okay with that. - Yeah. - Halfway a citizenship for legal immigrants. - Yeah. - Is an issue. - That's an issue. - So there's a few issues there. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's amazing that okay, you would say, yeah, Federman is the most pro Israel member of the Senate full stop. If you were to ask, okay, apart from Federman, who is, you know, who is the most obviously pro-Israel of the 2028 primary candidates for the Democratic party, it's probably Josh Shapiro. - Yeah. - He and Josh Shapiro, they're from the same state. They are both pro-Israel. They hate each other. - Yeah. - They do not talk to each other. - Yes. - So it's gone beyond the issues. It's not all just about Israel. - I grew with that. - Yeah. Like there's no way he's winning the primary in 2028. - What I was gonna say, whether he will or not, he absolutely, if he wants to have a career pass 2028, he absolutely should not stay a Democrat. - Yes. - In his interest I'm talking. - Yeah, yeah. But that doesn't mean that he's gonna win a Republican primary. - I didn't say that. - He's very, very popular with Republicans at the moment because he's a Democrat that other Democrats hate. - We'll get to Republicans. Let's just start with the Democrats. - Yeah, 'cause we're gonna go Democrats, Republicans in the independence. - Yeah, look at options. - I think, you know, the most optimistic career path that I can imagine for him is that he spends the next two years being this generations Joe Manchin. - Yeah. - That's, that's. - Now that might not seem like something that any kid dreams of growing up to be. But I think it's the best that Federman is going to do. - Joe Manchin's life is lovely. - At this point. - Joe Manchin's life on the river with his paddle boat or whatever it is, in Palstima. - And look, arguably better than being this generation's Christian cinema. - Yeah. - That's a shout out to Bill Wyman. (laughing) - Yeah, so I like, I think that that is where he's going. - Yeah, look, I think he should be going at least. - Yeah, I don't know what he's going to do. - Yeah. - You may be right in terms of just a lovely charmed life. - Yeah. - Happy life with friends. - And so much money from extractive industries. - Oh yeah, absolutely. - That's certainly the Manchin choice. But look, if he wants to stay in Washington, if he wants to stay in the Senate, he absolutely should not stay Democrat, 'cause he has zero chance, zero chance of winning in 2020 as Democrat. - Yes, zero. - The other thing is, I mean, that question he vast, if he wants to stay in the Senate. I mean, all of this reporting that you're talking about emphasizes that he doesn't like the job. - Yeah, yeah. - And he never has. - Absolutely. - We are in the era of the politician who just visibly hates the job. - Yeah. - Visibly hates campaigning. They see themselves primarily as content creators. Actual legislating just gets in the way of content creation. - And apparently he's a great example of that. - Yeah. - And then he's obsessed with social media. - He is. - And not because he's caring about polls. - No. - He just loves social media. - He loves it. - Yes. Yeah, and we should note, he hasn't confirmed he even wants to run for reelection. - Yeah. - He avoids the question. So that may well be the case. May well be the case. He has no interest at all and he just wants to get out of there to get someplace where he can, where is who he can be. - Yeah. - All I'm saying is that he has 17% job approval amongst Democrats. He's not going to win a primary. Whether you, where do you think it'll be smart to the Democrats to embrace him or not? I could see an argument. - Yeah. - Of someone saying, oh yeah, if you're a puppet master, you could convince all the Democrats to go in a certain direction. You should convince them to embrace Femmean because the Democrats need a safe seat in Pennsylvania. And he would be a safe seat if you stayed as a Democrat. - Yeah. - Because he'll definitely get independence and he'll definitely get, he'll even get some Republicans. He would be a safe seat. He'd probably be the safest seat they could get in Pennsylvania. But you can't stop other people running in primaries. - No, you can't. - And as soon as one other Democrat runs in a primary, Femmean's gone. - There are going to be so many Democrats who are planning to run in that primary. - Tidally. - He's a excluding the guy who lost to him last time around. - Tidally. - He is gearing up another one. - Yeah, yeah, Connellam. Here we go. - I was gonna say, I can't remember his name, but I remember it was something agricultural sounding. (laughing) - Yeah, he'll be back. And by the way, Connellam is a genuine moderate Democrat as well, which is suitable for Pennsylvania. He's not AOC, he's someone suited for Pennsylvania. - Yeah. - Who just isn't Femmean. - Yes. - So Femmean's gone from the Democrats. And I'm not what happens, right? I was gonna say another thing is, he obviously doesn't like Democrats. Like obviously, I don't know if that's about Israel or it's about something else. But like you said before, the reason he's so unpopular is not because of Israel. I mean, look, that really doesn't help. But the reason he's so unpopular is 'cause he's been going out of his way to piss off Democrats for years. - Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Like, if he really cares about Israel, fine. Care about Israel. But there are plenty of Democrats out there with boutique issues that they care about a lot, right? - And so just very quickly, even though this is going in the opposite direction, just another data point I was reading about it, shift with Democrats and Israel. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, so Ram Emanuel is now saying that the United States should stop sending any military equipment to Israel. - Yes. - Ram Emanuel. - It's very, very, very Israel. - Very, very historically pro-Israel. - Yes, yes, yes, he is. And that's true. But my point is this, if someone sit there and matter about Israel a bit, Democrats could potentially accommodate that, potentially. But it's everything else. Like, why is he making a big fuss about the ballroom for? Like he said, this last week, he said, after witnessing last night, drop the TDS and build the White House ballroom for events exactly like these. Why is the accusing Democrats of exhibiting TDS, because they're in like the ballroom. The ballroom polls 4% amongst Democrats. You don't need to embrace something that polls 4%. Independence don't like it either. I think it's like 25% amongst independence. So it's not a popular thing. It's just I hate Democrats kind of a thing. It's a trivial issue that doesn't matter and it's immensely unpopular. Why would you go to war over that? Why would you present your unorthodox views in the most antagonistic way possible? Okay, he supports the Iran War. Fine. Also objectively unpopular, by the way. Yes. But why would you support it by saying about the Democrats quote, "It seems like people are almost rooting for Iran. It's crazy. That's not helping him." No. Why turn up on Fox News almost every week just to insult Democrats? I mean, look at this. Who do you think leads the Democratic Party today? Oh, we don't. We don't have one. I think the TDS, I think that's the leader right now. Right now our party is governed by the TDS and now it's made it virtually impossible without being punished as a Democrat to agree something's good. Or I agree with the other side. Okay, now that wasn't unfox news, but my point is that's the kind of shit he says, right? Over time. He tries to antagonize other Democrats completely needlessly. That's why I think people hate him so much. I've got a theory. Yeah. Maybe because he's on social media so much at all hours of the day. He's been on social media enough to become aware of Mark Latham. And maybe he's like, that's the life I want. (laughs) I thought maybe he's on Twitter all the time, but the only person he follows is Elon Musk. He thinks that's the world. That's possible. I don't know. Maybe he's trying to be Mark Latham. That would be interesting. Anyway, the point is that there is no need for me to do all this shit. He hasn't need to vote for all the Trumps appointees like he has. He's the reason Mark, Mark Wayne Mullin is the H.S. Secretary. Him, Federman, Federman alone. Now, you might say, oh that's different, they're friends, they're actually friends. Fine, he's vote for a stack of Trump appointees. Just generally. Once again, going out of his ways or annoyed Democrats. And I think that the Democrats sense that. - Yeah. - I think that's why he's so unpopular. - Yes. - I will say this though, Democrats avoid forcing Federman out too early. 'Cause he could easily be the swing vote on Trump's next Supreme Court nominate. - He could. - We talked about this before. - Yes. - Like if they don't sneak him through in the first two weeks, at least I will go in the next two years. If he thinks he can get replaced. - Yes. - And Federman might be the one who it swings on. So, but he's not gonna do that if he's still a Democrat, I think. (laughs) Maybe he's trying to piss off Democrats so much he will. That might be the vote that they get some chucked out of Democrats. I don't know. - Yeah. - I am not confident. - Yeah, I don't know. - I am. - So I said it, I thought, what are you saying? - I'm not confident at all. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Okay, so we just talk about Democrats. Like I said, I'm gonna ask you, the Republicans, should you become a Republican? I know you've already said that he should just go on the pedal boat with Joe Manchin. - Yes. - But if he wants to be re-elected, should he become a Republican? Would he win re-election? - I don't think he would win a Republican primary. - Yeah. - What if he left it till the, and I know the point you've already made that he's a very attractive figure now. - Yes. - When he's putting his finger in the eye of Democrats. - Yes. - But Susie becomes a Republican. - Oh, I understand. - All of a sudden he's just a Republican. - Yes. - And he's not trolling Democrats anymore. - No. - And he's just a Republican who's really liberal. - Yes. (laughs) - Yeah. - So why wouldn't the Republicans then support the Republican and the Greasers? - And I mean, people who make this switch don't have a particularly successful history with their adopted party in the same state, Arlan Specter. Now, his defection was huge because that briefly gave Democrats a veto proof majority in the Senate. Hardly anyone ever has that. - How did Democrats thank him for that by him losing the next primary? - Yeah. - Yeah. - So it's the sort of apostates, they might be briefly popular because of what they can achieve for the party, but when they actually look at them as representatives of the party, they're like, no. - Just to put the numbers on it, he has a 93% career voting record with Democrats. But this year, also last year, he had 26% record agreeing with Trump. So 74%. - Yeah. - Democrats presumably. I mean, there's probably some overlap on a few of them. Susan Collins has a 93% record agreement Trump. So he's a lot more liberal than Susan Collins. - Yes. - Now, to be fair, yes. - And to be fair. - Republicans have not brought a particularly strong field in Pennsylvania recently. - That's true. - But I'm sure they can find somebody more credible in Federer. - Well, as Federer meant himself, it's a big state. - It is a big state. - Yeah. - Lots of people. As Federer meant himself has noted, it requires him. Committee conservatives like Cassidy and Tillis, again, pushed out of their seats. How would I keep mine? - Good. - That's a fair. - Yeah, no, he's not utterly diluted. - No, but my question to you is this. - Yes. - Yeah. - What they let it to the very last second. - Right. - Because the moment he converts, Trump will be on his side for maybe two weeks. - Before Trump starts going, why don't you support everything I do? - Yeah. - But yeah, but just for that, if he converts it to the last possible second, when he presumably has been shinin' all over the Democrats for two years. - Yeah. - And so he's at the maximum level of hero worship amongst Republicans before they turn on him. And Trump, and he just falls over the line in the primary just after, just after he converts. Is that feasible? Is that not feasible? - I don't think it's feasible. - I don't think voters like those kinds of tricks. I think they'll see it as a bait and switch. They're not gonna like it. - Yeah. - Not gonna like it. - Yeah, I don't think it's a high chance, a high rate of success either myself, I have to say. - Yeah. And even if he did win the Republican primary, I don't think he's then winning. - I was gonna say, I reckon some Republicans will stay home. - Yes. - They would stay home rather than vote for the pro-trans pro-life guy. - Yeah. - That's our pro-choice guy. - And I mean, it's too early to tell, but there's no reason to think that 2028's gonna be a particularly good year for Republicans. - Exactly. - Yeah. - Exactly. So I reckon he's very likely to lose as a Republican anyway. - Yeah. - But more likely winning if he's Democrat 'cause he has zero percent chance as a Democrat. So then the third one is independent. - Yes. - Which some Republicans believe phenomenon is likely to move in that direction, to be a registered independent. He doesn't have to worry about primaries. He's in the election regardless. It's at least consistent with his voting record. - Yeah. - He's a demonstrate track record of independent succeeding at times. - Yes. - In the Senate, he happens. He's not the first. Does he have a chance there? - So the ones who have, so currently Bernie Sanders and Angus King, they have very good relationships with Democrats in their states. - Yes. - They, I've seen it described as they essentially have non-aggression packs. - Yes. - With Democrats in their states, which means they don't face serious democratic opposition. - They face none. - Yes. - The voting record is generally almost distinguishable from actual Democrats in name. When you actually look at it, that's not gonna be Federman. Yeah. So I think there's not, there's just not that much of a constituency for an independent John Federman. - Yeah. I reckon you're right. For start, we haven't mentioned money. It's hard to raise money as independent. I think I'll be careful while I say here, I don't think it'd be difficult for him to raise money because there is a certain kind of businessman who have certain kinds of interests. That John Federman has a lot of. I'm very in particular to Bill Ackman and Miriam Adelson. I mean, look, let's call space space. It's an Israel first vote. All right, like those people, and there are maybe 15 of them or 20 of them. And they're rich. And they can ban grow these campaigns. You can get money. I also think that he could, I mean, where has he been on issues like AI and crypto to this point? No, he could sell himself out big time. He could definitely, there's a lot of money there. That's a great call. Yes. Excellent call. Yeah. So, yeah, so money, non-nonserian issue, that I grew with you, if he doesn't get the non-aggression pact, there's zero chance, because what will happen is, what will happen is, the elections of the Democrats. Yes. Because no Democrats will vote for him. Not. Some Republicans might vote for him. Yeah. And so, and the Republicans are already going to be on the nose in 2028. So, basically, guaranteed the Democrats are going to win. If he has a non-aggression pact, he doesn't have a non-aggression pact. Yeah, which I don't see. If he can somehow go a non-aggression pact, then maybe. But that's, I think it's a chance, basically. Yeah, yeah. But, that's not going to happen. So, sorry, John Fethamon. But if he did, that's just for a second. Yeah, yeah. If he could get that from the Republicans, a non-aggression pact from the Republicans. Yeah. He would have all the advantages of being a Republican, which is that he'd get to an election. The debatuments of being a Republican. He doesn't own Trump. Yeah, like he could vote whichever way he wanted to, he could vote for popular things. Yeah, I'm like saying it's potential, but I think something's going to happen. Don't we have anything else to say in a statement? Do you have anything else to say in a statement? No, not really. Really? I mean, yeah, we might not be talking about him after 2028. No, no, assuming Pepp is still going there. That's right. I should say, whatever happens, whatever option happens, the Democrats are going to need to find someone else to win Pennsylvania in 2028. Yes. Or to have 50 seats through another path. Yes. There is no path where John Fethemann is going to be providing a seat for the in 2028. And by the way, just to explain my last remark, we have no plans to stop Pepp at all. Oh, no, we're going to do it until we draw. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you know, it might not be our choice. That's right. That's true. Yeah, that is the nature of the podcast. Maybe the internet will sack us. Yes. Something we could talk about after 2028, Dave, should we still exist? Yes. Is the national voter compact, which is a final thing on the issue. Okay. We spoke a few weeks back about the national voter compact, which the junior just signed on to. Mm-hmm. And that means that there are now 222 electoral college votes signed up who agree that when there are 270 electoral college votes, they're part of the compact. They will all support whoever wins the popular vote for president. Yeah. It's a way of getting of ensuring that we don't use electoral college anymore. We use the popular vote. If majority are all agreed to support the whoever wins the popular vote, then the popular vote determines the president. Yes. What I didn't really consider when we mentioned this last time, but is now becoming clear. Now, a little bit more detail is the Democrats are on the verge of a bunch of new trifectors. Yeah. The trifectors are completely controlled state government. Yes. And if you completely control state government, you can agree to become part of the national voter compact. That's right. So they potentially could control more than enough new states after 2028 to complete the compact in 2029. Yes. These are the states that Democrats are potentially gunning for in November. Some more likely than others, not to get all of them, but they are all at least possible. Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Hampshire. Yeah. Now bear in mind the compact needs 48 more electoral college votes. Michigan's got 15 votes. Pennsylvania's got 19 votes. Wisconsin's got 10 votes. Arizona has 11 votes. Right there, you've got the compact with seven votes to spare. And Nevada's got six votes and New Hampshire has four votes on top of that. Yeah. So they've got a few few states left over. They can afford to mess around with. So there are multiple pathways to the national voter compact if the Democrats really do well in these elections in 2026. So let's say they get really close. My first question to you Dave. Yes. Would a swing state like Nevada or Arizona or Michigan or Pennsylvania give up their chance to control the entire presidential contest by themselves in order to be a tiny cog in a popular vote machine? Look, this, I mean, yeah, it's, it's an interesting question this. My feeling about this has always been, it's actually not most people in these states who really care about this. There seems to be this belief that, oh, yeah, people in Iowa and New Hampshire, you know, in the first primary, they really love all of the attention. They love the fact that every presidential candidate has talked to every last one of them in every single diner. But I mean, do people really love being in swing states? I'm not sure that they do. My friends who live in swing states complain about the sheer amount of campaign mail. They, they get my friends, peppers, Alex and Liz who live in Ohio, which believe it or not, used to be a swing state. Yeah, they, I mean, they were getting like 15 items in the, in the mail every day. Or something like that. So some people who are really into politics, maybe into it may love having, you know, 22 presidential rallies in their state. But I actually think most people are not that into it. Local parties, I'm sure love it. The situation going back to Ohio. If you live in, so Cincinnati has suburbs on both the Ohio and Kentucky sides of the river. Yeah. If you live on the, on the Ohio side, you're basically just living in this constant campaign. If you're living in the Kentucky side, the presidential election may as well not be happening until the day that you actually vote. I think most people don't actually like that. People in swing states probably miss pharmaceutical and golf car ads. Yes. Now, okay, there is some, there's some possibility that, okay, maybe swing states are basically getting showered with riches as a result of their importance in campaigns. And it's long been speculated that the Farm Bill is as generous as it is, is, is because of the importance of Iowa as the first primary state, et cetera. But I actually don't think that the benefits to being a swing state are that huge. So yeah, I, no, I, I think people would be happy to give it up. Okay. Next question is you made that say about this with the Supreme Court, even allow this to happen. This Supreme Court. Well, I can think of two Supreme Court justices who already talked about who that's a no before it even becomes a possibility. Yeah. I think I agree. Yeah, the rest of the Supreme Court, I don't know because, um, I can't think of any other cases that they've dealt with that have an exact bearing on this question. I think this is a completely new question. Yeah. I mean, my suspicion is no. Um, that they, that this would occur to them as something that this is not how it's supposed to work. Uh, yeah, but I, I don't know my third question. I don't know either. Yeah. I'm not going to venture a theory on that. Yeah. My third question is could this practically work and let me explain why I mean by that question. Yeah. If you don't have a national body controlling the vote, if this is just states doing their own thing and having an informal agreement with some common, then what happens when states try to cheat? Yes. And let me give you an example. Let's say California drops a very aged to 12. Yeah. Knowing that that will make them out out of everyone because I got a big population to begin with. Yeah. And they go, okay, well, let's just make the Democrats win every single election. What happens if Texas allows dads to vote on behalf of their children, which this might seems crazy to you, but some conservatives actually have to have the JD Vance has seriously considered that. Yeah. So what happens when they do some shit like that to try and stack the popular vote? What are you going to do? Yeah. It's all individual state. Yeah. Look, what happens when a state says rural people getting more votes than urban people? Yeah. I've seen that proposed before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, the other thing is what happens when a state defeats on the agreement? Right. Yeah. Yeah. When a state realizes that, yeah, they can actually determine the whole election by reverting back to, well, I guess these are laws. So you can take them to Supreme Court. Yeah. And what's the Supreme Court in the dirty? Yeah. Yeah. And what does it, the way that I see it is okay, even if you have the correct number of states signing onto this, I just don't see it working without a bigger consensus than that. Yeah. And I mean, constitutional changes obviously require a much bigger commitment. This is not a constitutional change. It wouldn't have to be a constitutional change, but I just don't see it working without the level of consensus that is required for a constitutional change. I think that, let me make this clear. I want to see this work. Yeah, absolutely. I want to see this happen. I want to see the Electoral College abolished and this is probably the best chance that there is at it happening. I think a lot of people would immediately be declaring elections illegitimate. Yeah. It's just infuriating that for people who care about this kind of stuff, Trump won the way he won in 2016. Yeah. And until then, there was a genuine chance that Republicans could get on board. Yeah, yeah. But they just jumped off the train big time. As soon as Trump won through the Electoral College in 2016. And because, and long time peppers or students of mine happen to be listening, well, we'll have heard me make this point before. It's really important to bear in mind that even though there have been some very high-profile years where there was this big disjunction between the Electoral College and the popular vote that favored Republicans, it doesn't always happen like that. There are elections within living memory where Democrats significantly outperform the popular vote in the Electoral College, including Obama in 2012. Now, nobody really cares about that because he won the popular vote. He won the Electoral College. What's the problem? Think about 2004. 2004. John Kerry lost the popular vote by three million. But he only lost in a high by 120,000. And if he had won in a high, he would have won the Electoral College. So that's 60,000 people. That is not even two-thirds of a high-state university's football stadium. If those votes had gone the other way, then America would have been looking at President John Kerry, who lost the popular vote by three million. Yeah. Yeah, think Republicans would have stood for that That would have been good for the national voter contact. Yeah, so it would have been great for the national voter contact. The point being, it does not, I mean, there is a bit of an inherent rural bias in the electoral college. That is true because of the fact that there are quite a few states where they only have one representative that they've got two senators, right? But when you look at those states, a couple of those are democratic, Delaware and Vermont. So even though I would say they're in general is a very slight natural bias towards Republicans. The disjunctions depend usually on candidates racking up huge margins in big states. So in that 2004 example, George Bush was getting huge margins in Texas, second biggest state in the country. That's why there was such a big disjunction. Yeah. In 2016. Hillary Clinton racked up a massive margin in California, even though California was the state that gave Trump the most votes in raw terms. But that was where the, that was part of where the disjunction came from there. So it's, yeah, it's to do with who's going to get the, yeah, racking up huge margins in big states and looking at it in recent years, it is plausible for Republicans to do that in Texas or Florida. Talk to me about Germany. Germany. Okay. So Friedrich Merz, who's the chancellor of Germany, went to, I believe, a high school. He was talking to a high school audience. I think it was lucky. Can you fact check me on this where he made these comments, which I, yeah, it was to a high school audience. I don't know if that's something that he wouldn't have said to another audience, but it just strikes with being this very interesting little detail. There was no way that Trump was not going to hear about these comments, right? So he said that the United States had gone into the war without a plan, which is a, you know, I would say a pretty uncontroversial comment. Then he said the United States was being humiliated by Iran. Yeah. The whole country in his words was being humiliated by Iran. And he strongly suggested that the Iranians were much better at negotiating than the Americans were. Is the interesting thing to say? Yeah, especially to a high school audience. I mean, as a baby, maybe he just didn't think that this was going to get back to the, you know, the world media, but of course it was going to get to the world media. It would be hard to calculate a comment that would enrage a Trump war. And this chancellor of another country saying the Americans are being completely humiliated by the Iranians. In their deal making, no less. In their deal making. No less. Yes. So the response, yeah, to that was an announcement that the United States would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany. Now I know nothing about this story. Yep. So I'm going to ask you questions, not just like I'm in the air, but as an idiot. I'm not up to this yet. Yes. The question to you is, yes, is Trump pretending that it's for some other reason or is he openly saying you pissed me off with that? Now I'm taking 5,000 troops. The Pentagon is pretending that it was this was after a review, a series review of the American commitments. Trump is saying that he also might be pulling troops out of Italy and the UK as well. Okay. Well, they didn't comment on that. Which are other places. Yeah. So he hasn't directly said that this is punishment for for Germany, but it certainly looks like the slug. It looks like punishment. Now, I have put an article in the homework from Deutscheweller, which is a very reputable German news organization, all about American bases in Germany. Okay. So there are an estimated 35,000 to 39,000 US troops in Germany. So there will still be a lot of American troops there, but still the prospect of withdrawing 5,000 has rung alarm bells. So well, because it's been a really important part of the NATO infrastructure. Okay. So Germany is important. Obviously, there were a lot of American troops there after the end of the Second World War. That number increased during the Cold War. So I think at the height of the Cold War, there were 250,000 US troops in Germany. So big reduction since then. But one of the reasons why there are so many troops in Germany is not just because of the convenience of well, I occupied after World War II. Let's just leave some troops there. Geographically, it is very, very useful to the United States to have this series of bases in the middle of Europe. So its biggest base outside of the United States is the, forgive my pronunciation, the Ramstein base in southern Germany. I don't know if that's what the industrial band Ramstein was named after. Oh God, I remember like in the very early days of YouTube, my favorite YouTube video of all time was this guy with a sea lion sock puppet on his head. You couldn't see this guy with just the sock puppet singing it do hast. Like it was just, yeah, I don't know why it was so good. Unfortunately, you can't find that on the internet anymore. So yeah, very, very sad. Yeah, so that's the biggest air force base outside of the United States. Very close by it is the biggest American military hospital outside of the United States. Among other things, these German bases are vital for flying wounded American personnel there after engagements in the Middle East. Germany is important because of the fact that it is so much closer to the Middle East than the United States is, but it's still, there's a bit of distance at the same time. There is a very important satellite base in Germany because the United States is too far away to fight a lot of drone warfare directly in the Middle East. They need that relay station in Germany. And just just to be clear, yes, they've been using Germany during this war. They have been Germany's not one of those countries that stopped America using them. They have absolutely been using Germany in this war. They've got very important training facilities. And once again, the most important training facilities outside of outside of the United States are in Germany. So these bases are very, very logistically important. It's not just about the number of personnel there. It's about having that geographic base. Okay, so that explains why these bases are important to America. Yes. Why they important to Germany? Like, from Germany's point of view, I would have thought in terms of defending Germany, what you need are a bunch of nukes. They're like, as long as America's got their nukes there, they're safe. They need to have 12 million troops hanging around because Russians aren't even going to get there. Like there, there's Poland in the way. There's a whole bunch of other places in the way. There's nukes. Russia is in the technical. And there are an estimated 50 to 20 American nuclear bombs in Germany. So why does Germany care if they lose 5,000 of 40,000 troops? Like, they don't care. No, no, they do. They do? No, the reaction to this is strongly indicated. Is the economic? They do. Well, there might be an economic component to it. So something like 10,000 Germans are employed by these bases and it's estimated by Deutsche Vela that about another 70,000 jobs are indirectly dependent on these bases in some way. But I don't think it's the economic impact that they're talking about. My understanding is that Germany has seen its security as being very closely tied to NATO. The American bases within Germany, it sees it as a really important part of that. It's also something that gives Germany itself a very important role in NATO. Germany is one of the biggest military powers in Europe. So I believe that in terms of the number of troops, the two biggest military powers in Europe at the moment apart from Russia, Ukraine and Poland. But Germany, I think, would be third. I think it's a bit. There about to be a lot bigger. I know they've got a plan, and they'll be by 2039, be the biggest military power in the region. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, Germany was one of these countries that got criticized constantly by the United States, not just by Trump for not spending enough. So it wasn't spending 2% of GDP on its military. It's now spending 3.1%. It was spending that ramped up under all our shults. But I think, like my understanding is that Germany sees its security as being very integrated with the American military presence there. So substantial reduction of that would really interfere with Germany's defence plans. Okay. Yeah. So I mean. So people upset. People are upset. And it appears to have taken a more conciliatory line since then. It's really condemning Iran. - Hi, okay. - Overfiring on ships in the strait of hobos. Yeah, really, really condemning Iran. - Well, I hear that kind of thing. I think I myself, well, isn't Trump kind of right then? Like Trump's attitude was, this guy's been absolutely smart-ass. - Yeah, you're quite good at it. - Yeah, yeah. - Like, it worked. - And does seem to have worked. - Yeah, does something's dead. - I mean, in America's long-term interests there might not be great, but the-- - Yeah, it's like nobody calls me a dumb cop. (laughing) - Sure. - Okay, so what's happening now? - I don't know if Trump feels some sort of personal connection to Germany, because so Trump's grandfather was from Germany. - The Trumps famously enough. - Yes. - But what I refer to as the cognitive decline crowd, that is the people who are always talking about this, they keep pointed out that Trump mystifyingly keeps saying that his father came from Germany. He said that quite a lot recently. I think this is just slip of the tongue, but yeah. So I don't know whether he feels a strong connection with Germany, which might have added to the insult. Trump's grandfather, by the way, built a hotel on land that he didn't own in Washington state. (snoring) Without permission to build it either. - Maybe he's so proud of his grandson. - Yeah. (laughing) Yeah, maybe his great grandchildren as well. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know if Trump feels a personal connection there too, but I mean, yes, Mertz now seems to be backpedaling rhetorically in terms of he's not openly insulting Trump anymore, but he hasn't brought about a fundamental change in Germany's position on this, which is this is not our war. - Yeah, yeah, sure. - Yeah, even though we're allowing the United States to use our SSA because the, you know, the military is so integrated, they still hasn't really caused a change in that position. So is there a sense there's a reversible or is this definitely happening? - Um, this, I, well, I haven't seen any suggestion that it's reversible. And I think it's because even though this seems to be connected to Mertz's comments, the timing of it, it is at the same time entirely plausible that Trump would have ordered a troop withdrawal from NATO countries anyway. - Yeah, it was coming at some point in time and it's just, this is the trigger. - This does seem to be the way it's going. Look, I just want to make another one of my favorite big picture points about all of this, which is Trump often gets congratulated for the fact that he has bullied so many other allies into raising the amount that they're spending on defense. This often presented is this great triumph. Like how excellent it is that everyone in the world is now spending a lot more money on weapons. That's so cool. But I always would have thought and I would imagine there's at least a fair number of American people who believe this, that the whole point of getting allies to spend more on their own militaries and their own defense is that then the US could spend less. - Yes. - Instead, Trump just revels in ramping up American military spending, right? - He has to. - Yeah, he was the first one who got to a trillion. Now he's like 1.5 trillion. - If everyone else, I mean, this is, to me, this is a very predictable outfit. - Yes. - If everyone else was spending on defense and they don't rely on you anymore, they'd become more independent. And you need to spend more to make sure you can bully them if you want to bully them. - That's right. - The bar to bully has lifted. Before when Germany was using broomsticks in their military drills, you could push them around whoever you want. But in 20 years time, when Germany looks very much like Germany 120 years ago, they're not gonna be so easy to push around. - No. - And so America's gonna need to be that much stronger. - Yeah, anyway. So anyone who might have had the vague hope that maybe, you know, what we're looking for is a world where people are spending less on weapons and more on things like health and education. Yeah, no. - No. - No. (laughs) - That's lovely. Should we? (dramatic music) - We'll spend the last 14 minutes on this one. - Yeah. - You're gonna like flash. Here we go. First off, let's start with Leon. Leon's got suggestion for us, actually. This is by request from a peppa. - Yes. - Leon would like us to watch this clip. - 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to protect us from Kim Jong Un, who I get along with very well, as you know. Do you notice he's said very nice things about me. He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person. Okay, so don't tell me about your stuff. Joe Biden, he said he's a mentally retarded person. He was so nasty to Joe Biden, it was terrible. - Defending the previous president by repeatedly mentioning that people thought he was mentally retarded. Is that normal Dave? - I would say not. My favorite part of that was. So I wasn't very far. So don't tell me about your stuff. - Yeah, we got a few of those kinds of clips coming up. Those kinds of cognitively questionable clips. Well-known authority. Kim Jong Un. - Yeah, yeah. This is the old one. Some of you will know about this already. But I'll make sure everyone hears about this. There was a Wall Street Journal story about three weeks ago, Dave. That's how long it's been since we've done normal. We'll be stacking them up. But the rescue of the soldier, the down soldier. - Yes. - And it had an amazing quote. I want to back over. I'll make sure everyone hears this quote. - Yes. - Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute by minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn't be helpful. Instead updating him at meaningful moments, a senior administration official said, okay, so. They kept the commander in chief out of the room during a military operation. Away from the operation, he was commanding in chief because they felt he wouldn't be helpful. Is the house meant to work, Dave? - No. It's not normal. It's not. I'm sure that's not normal. I don't think they would even done that with Biden. It's not normal. It's not. Okay, can I throw one out? - Please, Dave. - I wanted to do this last week, but we didn't have time. - Yes. - Trump is a big fan of NASA. So he had this press conference with three NASA personnel in the Oval Office last week. And this is what happened. - Are you considering relocating NASA's headquarters out of DC once the leases up to states like Texas, Ohio, and Florida? - This man that tell you that is a man sitting right over here. You heard that question with those beautiful ears of ears. He's got great hearing, you know, super. He's got super hearing. - Trek to the train story. - For those of you who are listening, not watching, the man that he's talking about with super hearing has ears that protrude at an unusual angle. - He's got a bit of a jug head look about him. - Yes. - Yes. - Yes. He's got, he's a classic kind of 1950s kind of big ear. - Yes. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is the president answering a question by drawing attention to a slight physical abnormality in someone that he's brought along to a press conference? Is that normal? - I think physically bullying your staff during a press conference day is not normal. - No. - That's normal. (laughing) Yeah. Well, I got a question for you, guys. (laughing) We've spoken before about how bad Trump is a maths. But recently it's been taken to another level. - Oh dear. - First RFK was drilled about this by Senator Warren in a hearing. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So after President Trump and the Republican slashed healthcare for millions of families, the president pitched his Trump RX website as the answer for Americans who were worried about healthcare costs. He claims that Trump RX has reduced prices by as much as 600%, 600%, which I think means companies should be paying new to take their drugs. But let's do some real math here. Take one drug, a protonics, a 30-day supply of this heartburn medication, cost $200 on Trump RX. But there is an identical generic version of this pill called pantopresol. Secretary Kennedy, do you know how much it costs for a 30-day supply of that drug at Costco? - Oh, but I would say this, Senator. - Do you know what it costs? - At the President Trump has a different way of calculating if there's two ways of calculating percentage. If you have a state of mind, $600 a truck and you would do it to 10 that's a 600% reaction. I don't think that you know I only have five minutes. Do you know what the drug costs at Costco? I do not. The drug is $16 at Costco. Trump Rx charges $200 for Protonix and Costco charges $16. Let's do another one. I love the RF guy I gave. I was with Borough and it's amazing handposs. Trump does maths somehow different to the rest of the world. He has a different way of calculating. And she didn't even care because she was so determined to make her point. Yes, she's so into consumer protection. And she's making a very great point about the inadequacies of the Trump Rx website. It's a great point. But the thing which I loved about this is for some reason Trump saw that. Yeah. But you know what, let's back over RFK defensively maths because that was a real high point. So the next day in the overall office, he called RFK turned up halfway through the overall office. It was the event to be there. He turned up just for this moment. Bobby, please. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I was reminded when the President was speaking of a conversation that I had yesterday with one of the Democratic senators was questioning me during hearing and she was really feeling that President Trump was mad and she was saying it's mathematically impossible to have a drug dropped by 600 percent cost which he claimed. And I said, well, if the drug was $100 and it raised the price of $600, that would be a 600 percent rise of it dropped from 600 to 100. That's a 600 percent savings. And the President used that mathematical device to illustrate the magnitude of the theft. I love this. If you're watching this, even if you just listen to it, go and watch the YouTube video and if you're watching it rewind, look at Trump's face, look at Dr. Oz's face throughout. Okay, because Trump is looking very smug, very happy by himself. He thinks an excellent point has been made and Dr. Oz is trying so hard to not laugh. It's really, really funny to compare the two. Dr. Oz is trying to do the shitty in green and it just ain't working and it's just so obvious Dr. Oz knows how this is just complete bullshit. Anyway, so my point is, the thing that's remarkable about this for me is that it's not that Trump does not understand basic maths that a 10 year old could do. But that he thinks this explanation that there are two different kinds of maths out there could be convincing to anyone. In fact, he thinks it's not just a good explanation, but a good enough explanation to plan, to pull someone into your press availability to take that up because it's such a great explanation, which is even dumber, Dr. Oz. That really, really is. And I've got to say, I'm slightly surprised that RFK would actually degrade himself that much. Twice. Yes. I mean, like, sure, he degrades himself in all kinds of ways. Like by, you know, openly talking about his Epstein flights and his brainworm and doing shirtless workouts with jeans with Kid Rock. Hang on, where am I going from this? He degrades himself all the time. I should not have been surprised by this. That part's normal. But, yeah, yeah. But that conception of mathematics. Not. But Dave. Yes. Maybe I shouldn't be so cynical about this because Trump is a partly very good at mathematics. Okay. Yes. This is him talking about his supposed cognition test. Have a look at this. I got everyone right. And these are tough questions. These are tough questions, you know. They say take a number, any number, okay? I'll take 99. Okay. Divide it by three. Good. Add 4,293. That's good. Divide by two. Subtract 93. Divide by nine. What is your answer? Now they go a little slower than that, but not much. I don't want to waste a lot of time. But they run a lot of people. They get it right. I got it right. You know, it was actually longer and more complex than that. As up who thinks the guy who doesn't understand how basic percentage is work is a human calculator? Now I'm in a different room to all you people who are watching this or listening to this and we're filming this 24 hours before you're listening to it. Yet I'm sure what I'm seeing now in this room is a fair reflection of the answer in the community. And that is zero hands. The guy doesn't even understand Uno. He tweeted out that he has all the Uno cards. He's holding all the Uno cards and he says, I have all the cards, which means in Uno he's losing. So a guy I hadn't seen. That's his toy and then the White House retweeted it. So which of course is the less official Twitter. Don't forget that. Trump says the most important Twitter. Which meant it's a guy with the academic understanding of a dumb kid acting like he's a genius because he didn't fail a dementia test. Apparently, I'd like to see those marks. That is not normal, Dave. It's not. There were a few things that weren't normal about that speech. Yes. Okay, so that took place in the villages. Yes. It's the largest retirement complex in the world because it's the largest retirement complex in Florida. Like it's practically its own congressional seat. It's so big that apparently it has a high school. Wow. It's a retirement college. A retirement college with a high school. It must be. That's weird. Well, I assume it's because there are so many staff there or in the vicinity of it who have children that they need to be. I think it's saying I'm using minimum age workers. Don't copy that. Yes. It could be that as well. Maybe some of them are just enthusiastic lifelong learners. I don't know. But that was in a high school gymnasium in a retirement village. Wow. So there's a lot of things that aren't entirely normal about that. He spent a lot of the speech complaining that his microphone wasn't turned up loud enough. Yeah. Well, that's normal. That. Yes. Can I tell you my favourite part of that speech? Yeah. It's about policy. Yes. And it's actually linked into not normal. I'll make this not normal. Yeah. Have we ever had a president who understands and cares about policy less than this? This is Trump talking about Medicare and Medicaid. Yep. Pretty important policy. Very important policies. I've a listener with you at the sorry. We're strongly protecting social security and Medicare and we always will. We have a man here who knows more about Medicaid, Medicare, medical crap than any human being. Where's Dr. Oz? Where the hell are you, step? He's great. He's the most boring trip I've ever made. He's telling me about Medicare and Medicaid. All I want to do is take care of you. I don't care. I said, "You work out the details, but I did say give them the max." That's all I care about. Give them whatever they have the max is. But Oz has been great. You have been. Give them the max whatever that is. That's his policy, no? Well, you know what that would be? The big max. Give them the big max. That's right. Look, I just want to make one final comment before I take off. Yes. A lot of people have fantasies about Trump going to jail. Like, they just imagine him in jail in an orange jumpsuit being all miserable. I mean, some people have much darker fantasies than that. The jail one seems to be the standable. Now, I've got to say, in all honesty, I have never had that fantasy. I'm just not into fantasies about people being imprisoned, not into carceral fantasies, even of people that I really don't like. My fantasy about the ultimate post-retirement punishment for Trump is that he actually has to live in the villages. He goes to the high school and learn percentages. That's my fantasy. Star year four. I think let's call that the official pep post-retirement fantasy of Trump misery. Let's do that. Dave, thank you so much. My pleasure. Stay peppy. I'll see you guys after White Flash. Stay peppy. Welcome to the other side of the White Flash. This is Chazon Leeched with Locklin. The Lacklin. Hello, Mr. Lacklin. We haven't been fan towards the end there. I'm going to take you guys on a bit of the sea over the next 40 minutes or so. We're going to start fun. We're going to end not so fun. Oh, thanks. I always do this in the only way. Why not do a few more? (laughing) Well, right in the middle of discussing how little Trump understands policy. So you go, okay, what he focused on, if not policy. I'll tell you why he's focused on, he's focused on the arc de Trump. Here it is, have a look at this. In all, it's very, very large majesty. What a magnificent way to commemorate 250 years of America by ripping off Paris. (laughing) If you're wondering how big that is, for those who are listening, you can't see how big it is, it's even on the little AI picture there, you can see the people very small on the bottom of it. The great thinks stands 66 feet tall, oh yeah, it'll under 22 meters. Paris's arc de Triomphe, 164 feet, Sydney Opera House, 220 feet, and the arc de Trump, 250 feet, dwarfing the Opera House. That's so big for something that doesn't exist. (laughing) It's been approved by the Commission of Fine Arts, all seven members of which were appointed by Trump. (laughing) I'm sure it's a coincidence. I'm sure it's a coincidence. That approval is despite over 1000 comments been submitted to their proposal, that at least according to Washington Post, literally ran 100% against the arch. 100% of comments were negative, according to the Commission's secretary. That's not follow approval. There are still more tweaks coming. One of the commissioners, for instance, did suggest a change. They felt that the arc didn't need 380 foot statues on top of the arch. (laughing) They thought that might be excessive. I was gonna say, it looks like the weird lady liberty alien demon from Trump's Jesus Doctor picture has made a return. That's the one at the top there. Well, apparently she's not necessary according to one of the commissioners. That same commissioner also, I don't know, I'm not sure this commissioner is long for this world, all these critiques. That same commissioner said, maybe the arc didn't need 4 golden lions flanking it. Seniors lions have nothing to do with America whatsoever. Either in terms of fauna or in terms of mythology. Like just lions, nothing to America. Why are they there? (laughing) 'Cause it's a rip off. That's why they're there. He's like a power bird, a cultural power bird. As long as it's from the 80s, he will take it. And the arc, the triumphant existed in the 80s and so did lions. So they both find their way into the arc, the truth. Stel, Chamberlain Harris, who is Trump's 26 year old executive assistant and that fine arts commissioner. - Six. - 26. What have you been doing, Lucky? - Luckying. - How long you got, you got three months before you're the fine arts commissioner and executive assistant, the Trump? - Yeah, let's say that. - He said the proposal would honor the original vision of city designers. No doubt, no doubt it would. Sadly, the proposal has been opposed by ungrateful military veterans. Well, they done, apart from risking their lives for the country. They say it might harm views of Arlington Cemetery. Who cares about Arlington Cemetery? It's just a bunch of suckers and losers. Haven't you got with a program veterans? - An administration with these kinds of priorities, Lucky. Putting gold lions before Arlington Cemetery. - Do you have any thoughts about the arc? - Congratulations, Home Depot, for the amount of gold paint they're about to sell. (laughing) - That's right. Congratulations, whoever it is who makes the Easter eggs. (laughing) With gold tints all. - They have a new passport out, Lucky. - Yep. - This is a very exciting stuff. This is also, I mean, look, if you're gonna put up an arc to commemorate America's 250th. Why not change the passport as well? This is a commemorative passport for America's 250th. And this is only going to 25,000 very lucky Americans, I might add. I can't imagine being 25,000 one and missing out on this baby. This is what the passport looks like. Let's have a look. Imagine choosing to put your face on someone else's passport. But not just anywhere on someone else's passport. I'm talking for those who aren't listening. So for those who are listening and not watching, the new passport has Trump's head in, I think it is, it says mugshot or is there is it official? - That is, that is it official. - That's an official portrait, okay? It's, how to talk to you, does that same look all the time? Yeah, that is official White House portrait on the passport, but it's not just anywhere on the passport. It's over the top of the declaration of independence. Which late night host was it who said that it's burning straight through? It's burning all through. - That's pretty good. - Yeah, he's head is literally obscuring the declaration of independence. If not, as you say, destroying us. How amazingly narcissistic we have to be. To look at that and go, yeah, yeah. That looks like how it should be. (sighing) - Do we have a proper list of everything that they're doing to commemorate the 250th anniversary that is just putting Trump's face on it? - That's a great idea. - I think we should have that as well as. - We don't, but we should make that list. - We say we, I'll put it together. - Thank you, lucky. Let's move on to Komi. (laughing) Now I should have known this is gonna happen. I repeatedly on TV and on the pod pointed out that no Republican has yet produced a single movie where a gangster used the phrase, 86, to mean to kill someone and then a pepper found one. The only people in the world to a found one. - You got a pepper. - That's what he's good. - The peppers are the royalty of the internet. That is clear. - That's awesome. - Marty, well done. Marty, his one has come through the goods. He says a gangster doesn't use it, but a talking carnivorous plant does. He's referring to the 1986 version of Little Shop of Horrors and he is 100% right. Observe the talking plant lockies about the play you, asking for a person to be killed for her food. - Back in over. There must be someone you can need to see. - Real quiet. - And get me some courage. - Someone you could 86. - Real quiet. - Oh, Audrey too. - Yeah. - Put her on the indictment list. - Well done, Marty. Komi is getting 10 years prison just because of you. Actually, I think the prosecution is gonna need a little more than that. Obviously, or because the metaphor has been used once. Maybe more. Hey, if there's one, there's probably more. If there's been used a couple of times, it doesn't mean you ignore the common usage of the term. So, this is a done and still bullshit. But that is a great fine, Marty. Well done. - Trump is a bit of a theater kid. Like he probably loves Little Shop of Horrors. - Yeah, but he didn't say that. He didn't say this is a famous thing said by talking plants. He said this is a famous mafia phrase. It's not famous anything. That's the point. Okay, it might have been used a couple of times. It's famous for being used by waiting staff and restaurant staff for not killing things. I saw a poll, which hammered home to me, lucky, I know these all random stuff. I'm just cramming it all in to the extra. Hammered home to me, just how poorly the Supreme Court case about racial gerrymandering that we talked about in 259 is understood. And I realized in pep 259, I might not have explained this quite clearly enough 'cause I was vamping a bit when I did this section. I was kind of, you know, improwing a little bit and you don't want to improw when you're talking about something that's really complicated and subtle, especially things that no one seems to understand. And so, I have actually scripted this now to get right this time. And I'd like you, lucky, to clip this out. And I'd like Peppers, please send this to anyone who you know who cares about this topic 'cause I reckon this is almost 100% misunderstood out there. And I'm gonna try and do my best to deal with it. So, let's go. I saw a poll yesterday from Yugav. And this poll here, it says, "Only 25% of Americans say that states should be allowed "to draw congressional districts in a way "that helps minority candidates get elected." And that's exactly the case that we just had. 43% said they shouldn't be allowed to do that. Remember, for the South, the Voting Rights Act, until now, didn't just allow the states to draw congressional districts in a way that helps minority candidates get elected. It compelled them to draw congressional districts in a way that helps minority candidates get elected. So, if only 25% said they should be allowed to do that, you can imagine how small the percentage would be who said they should be forced to do that. It sounds like the whole of America is on justice, Alito side, in that court case. And it's, we say America, let me break it down for you. Only 19% of independence said it should be allowed to 39% who said it shouldn't be allowed. Only 50% of Democrats said it should be allowed be allowed to 24%. You said it shouldn't be allowed. Only 47% of black Americans said it should be allowed to 28% who said it shouldn't be allowed. That's not exactly an overwhelming majority for a policy that was explicitly about helping black Americans. And look, I can understand that. That poll makes perfect sense to me. It sounds wrong. Drawing congressional districts to favor one race, that sounds racist. And in fact, it is racist. It is clearly racially discriminatory. Now, there's a reason for that. It wasn't to oppress any races. It was to try and force America to proceed towards racial equality. That was the whole point of it, to work against racial discrimination by discriminating in another way. The trying to try even an other little bit. That was the idea to try and force representation of black people in the house. So that is what Chief Justice Roberts and Alito were talking about on the Supreme Court last week in the Kale decision. Racial gerrymandering is racist. They said it should stop. Now, this is the bit which I think Pill need to understand. This is the key point. The reason that racial gerrymandering is an issue in 2026 is because of partisan gerrymandering. This is what I was saying, I have 259. I'm going to make it clear and now. Partisan gerrymandering is the same problem as racial gerrymandering. And today, it's at the center of all-districting problems because when you have a situation in the South where white and black people are separated from each other physically and they largely vote for different parties than any gerrymandering along racial or partisan lines is going to sort people by race and partisanship because they're the same groups of people we're talking about here, at least in the South. And both forms of gerrymandering will reinforce and exploit the racial/partisan divide because it's the same divide. They're just, those two forms of gerrymandering while identical are just marketed differently. That's all. So in the South, racial gerrymandering uses racial sorting to make sure black people get a seat or two. And so Democrats get a seat or two. Whereas in the South, partisan gerrymandering uses partisan sorting to make sure Republicans get all the seats and so white people get all the seats. And the Vane Rights Act until now was focusing on the racial form of gerrymandering to make sure black people got some representation which also made sure Democrats got some representation in the South. So they're annoyed Republicans. But now it's a prem court to switch to the partisan form of gerrymandering to make sure Republicans get all the seats in the South which also makes white people get all the seats in the South. So they're annoyed civil rights campaigners. That's why it's so absurd when just as a leotist says we want to avoid racist district drawing by eliminating racial gerrymandering in the South but we want to keep partisan gerrymandering. He's still picking racial gerrymandering. It's just for the majority rather than for the minority. And that's why these polling questions I've read you before do not capture the full context unless and until all gerrymandering racial or partisan is banned then you have the same problem. But when you ban partisan gerrymandering you make district drawing as fair as possible for Republicans and Democrats then you don't need racial gerrymandering to create the fairest possible results for white and black people because they're the same people. And that's why I'm pushing proportional representation or a bigger house to effectively ban all gerry mandering over the top of the Supreme Court's reach. Does that make sense? Then pass it on because I tell you no one gets that. There we go. Well said. Thank you. Well written. One point I want actually I'm going to make two points by Iran that left over from last week. First of all Dave's going to make a point. Can we just play with Dave? Because Dave sent us a bit of an emergency update. That's stuff which I had no idea about because I'm still two days behind. But this is what Dave has to say. Hi everyone. We have a late update on why operation project freedom was actually cancelled. It's been reported overnight by NBC that it's because Saudi Arabia denied the United States the use of air bases in order to carry this operation out. And that was despite the fact that Donald Trump and Mahmoud Bin Salman had a personal call. This apparently reflects ongoing frustration in Saudi Arabia. First of all the war is still going on. And second that the United States was launching a new offensive which would require Saudi assets without actually consulting with Saudi Arabia or other allies first. So I'd say this is a pretty significant development because prior to this point Saudi Arabia has been the Gulf state that has really been urging the United States to get the job done. But it appears that as the war has gone on and continued to do more and more damage in the region, they are no longer really on board with it or at least the way that the United States is conducting it at the moment. So I'm including this as a late corrective to yesterday's segment on operation project freedom where I said that I thought the reason it had ended was because Iran was still attacking ships that were under US guidance. I think that is probably part of the reason as well. But this is a very compelling reason. So I'm including an article by Patrick Winter from the Guardian about this that you can have a look at. And in the meantime, stay peppy. That's a great update. And for those who are listening rather than watching you really should, I do tell you whenever this is so important you should see, you should take note of the time signature. You should come to the YouTube video and you should look at Dave and the suit. It's extraordinary. We really should change the dress code of this podcast. It's amazing. When he's in a suit, he looks like someone's dressed up a poodle. It just doesn't look right. I think the poodles look very dashing. Very fetching. Anyway, that's a great point. Thanks Dave. The other point which I wanted to make was just, I've done a little bit more reading, but not nearly as much as I need to know what they was talking about there. But I didn't notice in the extra reading I did last night. Going back a few days, there was a lot of agitation. When Iran was attacking American ships and attacking a few ships in the Gulf, there was a lot of agitation for America to just go bang and just start bombing the place again. P Hegseth, for instance, had a real vibe about him. To what remains of Iran's forces, if you attack American troops or innocent commercial shipping, you will face overwhelming and devastating American firepower. The President has been very clear about this. We prefer this to be a peaceful operation, but are locked and loaded to defend our people, our ships, our aircraft, and this mission without hesitation. That's the vibe he's wearing with. And look, there is absolutely no doubt Iran broke about four different things he said there. They were attacking ships. They were attacking Americans. They were doing all the things he said, you shouldn't do that because we without hesitation, we're going to come and get you. And I, Dan Kain, he made that very clear. Since the ceasefire was announced, Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times and seized two container ships. And they've attacked US forces more than ten times, all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point. And then the most predictable part of the week, Lindsey Graham then came out and said, "Aran has absolutely violated the ceasefire. Trump should respond with a big, strong, painful and short attack." Well done, Lindsey. Yeah, tell us something that we don't know, Lindsey. But Trump didn't attack. And I think we should at least acknowledge that. Like, I mean, look, it's a smart thing to know the attack because he's not going to achieve anything. Was he in the room this time, at least? I don't know. I don't know where he made that decision. He might have been out in the corridor. But yeah, look at the fact is, like, I mean, we were being dumb decision to go and attack because I wasn't going to achieve anything. And they just need to end this thing. And that's not going to be ended by with more attacks. Aran is very clear that they're willing to take punishment. And the more punishment you take, the further away, the more punishment you give them, the further away you are from having some kind of some kind of actual agreement. So it's smart of Trump to know the attack. But let's acknowledge it. Like, the people he's advised by, the people he's surrounded by are all saying, "Go back for more. I've read a lot of Republicans." Who said, they said, "Aran needs a wake up call." Like, they don't know America can attack them. That's a lot of Lindsey Graham's. Yeah, there's a lot of them happy. Like, that is actually conventional wisdom amongst the Republicans. They should have attacked. And he didn't. So we hit the guy hard enough when he stuffs up. Let's just acknowledge that that was good. Sure. I'll let you give him that. Yes. Okay. I'm going to look at the clock. I'm going to skip to the pressing part. There are some other things that I was going to say. I can put them off for next week. But it's important to me. I've been saving up a bunch of stuff on the environment and immigration because it's usually, it's usually can keep and it's usually not urgent. And I've just been a cruelly enormous amount. It's time for me to start getting it out. So over the next few weeks, I'm gonna be gradually dribbling out the immigration stuff and the environment stuff. We're gonna start right now. And let me tell you everything that the immigration is depressing. So this is the depressing part. Let's begin with, you ready? You're hyped? Let's begin with refugees. Now America used to be a world leader in taking refugees. Last year, the Trump administration slashed the refugee cat from well over 100,000 to just 7,500. And at least 6,000 of those 7,500 slots were taken by Whites Out Africans. Now these were the farmers? They were farmers, that's right. Now those guys, as Whites Out Africans, were subjected to considerably a screening. Then the reported 130,000 refugees and 14,000 Iranian religious minorities who have already been screened, gone through the process and been approved by the US government to come, but just aren't coming. And so they all fell behind the Whites Out Africans. In the queue, I say the queue, there's no queue. Those people, they're just on the other end of a moat. Like there's no queue. One of the first things Trump did when he took off his last year was to sign the executive order, freezing refugee processing. Trump says that there was an invasion into America and as a result, he was quote, suspending the physical entry of undocumented migrants into the country until he determined that the invasion has concluded. And despite there being damn close to zero interceptions on the southern border for a year, apparently, invasion is still ongoing. So still my refugees being processed. It doesn't matter what circumstances they're escaping from. It doesn't matter what they say when they turn off. It doesn't matter. Anything, they are not allowed to apply for asylum and they will be automatically rejected from the country. Now the Trump administration also dismissed any asylum's cases from applicants who applied between 2019 and 2022. If they began the application process then dismissed. - Very little. - Doesn't matter. What their circumstances was, just dismissed automatically. And if you're in America applying for asylum, 'cause a lot of people will have come to America and then they apply for asylum, yes, some of them are dodgy. When I say dodgy, I don't mean they're terrorists. I mean, some of them are just there for work. They just claim asylum, but they just want a job. I'm not gonna lie, that's clearly the case. Some of them though are actually applying for asylum. Some of them have been tortured. Some of them are political refugees. And for those people who are applying for asylum, your claim has been frozen as well. In America while you're in America and tough luck, you're now eligible to be arrested. - Wow. - For being in the country without a lawful residency or a green card. - No way. - Even though they're going through the system, they're halfway through the system. They've applied for asylum, they've been checked, they've been told they have a credible fear, they've been told there are a realistic chance of getting asylum, they can still get rounded up and sent back to where they come from. - You're already there. - Wow. But that's where they're at. And they're not gonna process your application. You are just in hiding for the next four years. If they find you, you're being deported to where you are trying to escape from. - Gee. - Furthermore, the agency responsible for processing applications for lawful permanent residency amongst those already in America for various lawful reasons. Not just asylum, mind you, we're talking employment based applications, humanitarian applications, obviously Cubans, crime victims, there's a lot of reasons why they might be processing your application for lawful permanent residency. They've slowed it down deliberately, they're processing. They're now, that's the USCIS, the USC's and ship an immigration services. They're the ones whose job it is to hand out lawful permanent residencies. They've basically halved their rate of processing applications under Trump. Working very closely with ICE, and you know what that means. If they're going slow on their applications and they tell ICE the people they haven't got to yet, those people can be deported. Once again, they may be totally eligible and if USCIS got to them, they would eventually let them stay but they're slowing the process and letting ICE know who's not in the process yet. So that way they can give them an address for them to show up and deport, arrest and deport. So that's pretty scummy. Yeah. And emphasize, these are the people doing it the right way. They're far from the worst of the worst or criminals. These are people who are doing everything right and are trying to go through the system and they get screwed as a result of that. So it's kind of reaped. Why how step-you-chefist-af-steven-millar told Fox News, I'm proud of the fact that President Trump has stopped all refugee resettlement into the country. The only refugee resettlement that's happening are the Afro-Canas being persecuted in South Africa. He just said they're out loud. (laughs) - Cheers. - Oh, that's a, so there's that. Let me tell you what, give you a case study of what's happened to a royal school. It's very, very easy for me to say, "I can now there's all these people, "these humanitarian people are getting screwed." Why are we going to some more detail, shall we? There was a US resettlement program for Afghans who helped the American war effort. A very famous program. Like these are the people who, well, once members of the Afghan army, they're interpreters, they'll help us for US forces, they worked for a USA run NGO. They were doing the jobs the American needed to try to win the Afghan war, Afghanistan war and to turn Afghanistan into a democracy like they're trying to for what, 20 years. These were the people who were doing what America wanted. And as soon as the Taliban came back, they're, they're gonna kill because everyone knows they were working with the Americans, all right? So when Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, there was a huge rush to take as many of these people as possible. And honestly, Biden screwed up. He did a bad job of this. He should have taken all of them. He should have planned it properly. But in the end, there was too much of a rush. He didn't do it properly. He didn't even think about them until the last couple of months. I mean, now it's taken them before them, but they were no rush. And then all of a sudden, as this mad rush in the last six weeks before they went, he was around for eight months before they left. They could have gotten rid of all, they could have allowed all those people to leave Afghanistan if they, if they went through an orderly process. So I'm, I blame Biden, but at least he wasn't intentionally screwing them over, which we're about to get to. Now Biden, as I said, didn't have time to take them all. So some of them were show off to refugee camps, some of them just hid from the Taliban, some of them fled to other countries. Wherever they were, many of them tried to undertake the very lengthy process of being vetted and qualified for entry into America, which would take years. Like they really, really vetted them hard. And the reason for that was because Biden was scared about what would happen if they accidentally led in a terrorist. Yeah. Like me. And obviously that's on the cards. You could totally see how, how some kind of Taliban or Iranian or something would, would try and get, get in the same shipment as a bunch of refugees and, you know, cause mischief in America. You can see it. I totally pay that, right? Not that there's many examples of this, but you could see the potential. And I understand why Biden was scared about that. So they vetted them properly. And when they were fully vetted and qualified to come to America, they would end up in places like Qatar, which is like a way station until they could go to America through the refugee program. Now after Afghanistan fell, Biden led in about 190,000 more of them into America after Afghanistan fell. So he did his best. The by-time Trump took over. There were still tens of thousands of potential refugees left stranded. Some of them still halfway through the vetting process. Some of them had been vetted, but not able to actually get to the place where they need to get out, if they're hiding or something. There's like all of them had their own reasons, right? And there were still 1,600 Afghans who were completely vetted, completely eligible, ready to go, hanging in Qatar, ready to enter the U.S. as refugees when Trump took over. 1,600. And that's when Trump signed his no refugee executive order I described before, and he let them all rot. And they just stayed there. That was 18 months ago. Now, 18, well, 16 months later, Trump has finally decided to address a situation because they've been standing there in Qatar the whole time, just waiting. Wow. Trump's finally decided to address a situation, and he's addressing it by resettling 1,100 of those 1,600 people to the Democratic Republic of Congo. That's right. Interpreters for the U.S. military, former members of the Afghan Special Operations Forces, family members of American service members, 400 of their children are all reportedly heading to the DRC, which is currently suffering one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. In fact, in the International Rescue Committee's 2026 ranking of the 20 countries at greatest risk of new or worsening humanitarian emergencies, Come on. goes number seven Afghanistan isn't even in the top 10. - What? - Yes. And none of these people speak French, which is what they speak in the Democrat Republican Congress. - Oh. - That's, actually I look at tell a bit of a lie. It's not strictly true, they're gonna be sent to the D.R.C. Because Sean Van Driver, the president of the aid group Afghan Evac, said that he's been briefed on the Congo plan by the State Department. And he says the Afghans were gonna be given the choice between being sent to Congo and being returned to live under the Taliban who will kill them. So they've acquired the co-prudence of options, lucky. Also, it's not strictly true, they're gonna be resettled there because as Sean Van Driver explained, this isn't a resale on plan. Resumant requires durable legal steps. It requires community infrastructure, it requires a host government that has consented and is equipped to receive none of those conditions existing can chasse out for Afghan families. So yeah, sorry to mislead you there. And just a reminder, these guys are not just vetted, they're super vetted. According to the Deputy National Security Advisor on the Biden, John Finer, they are by design and by implementation the most vetted lawful immigrants to the United States. They're certainly more vetted than the white South Africans who came over to America after two weeks of processing. Two weeks. And by the way, the admin like them so much, they've tried to increase the refugee camp from 7,500 to 17,500. Just so they can get more white South Africans over. 6,000 of those 7,500 like I told you were white South Africans. Now they're considering declaring an unforeseen emergency in South Africa so that they can double the number who could enter as refugees. I've no idea what this unforeseen emergency is, but the important bit is they can take more white South Africans apparently. Hey, that leaves by my maths, that leaves 5,500 positions for Afghans. Yeah, there's only 1,600 Afghans. You can take them all easily, hey? Yeah, yeah. Low. No, they won't be taking that. By the way, random stat. The average refugee in America, regardless of how lowly they start out, catches up to native born American incomes within 10 years. The average. And surpasses them within 20. This isn't the end of the story. On the Psalms, seeking no, the US Court of Appeals for District of Columbia recently ruled 2-1, that Trump's ban on refugee claims is illegal. That's an Obama judge and a Biden judge versus a Trump judge, by the way, I think you can guess who voted which way. That makes sense as the Immigration Nationality Act clearly states they have the legal right to apply for asylum. In particular, the law says if they found to have a credible fear of persecution, they need to be accommodated. So until now, asylum officers were told not to ask specific questions about whether a migrant has a credible fear of persecution or torture, because they didn't want to hear the answer. Judge Michelle Child said, no. Existing the immigration law, she said, does not allow the president to remove plaintiffs under summary removal procedures of his own making, barring foreign individuals who are physically present in the United States from applying for asylum. And if they make the statutory showing that they are eligible from being considered to receive it, cannot be squared with the statute. When the original judgment came down, that was being appealed here, Stephen Miller tweeted out, to try to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling on national nationwide injunctions, a Marxist judge has declared that all potential future allegiance on foreign soil, are EG, a large portion of planet Earth, a part of a protected global class entitled to admission into the United States. And then he added, the West will not survive if our sovereignty is not restored. I'm so glad that goes in power. It sounds a lot like what you were talking about earlier in this episode about spreading hatred, but yeah. Well, what I know, I'm a lucky. Man's not deranged at all. The ACLU said, the court's opinion does not mean they're now open borders, but only that the United States will no longer be one of the few countries in the world who have the world. Will too does not provide a hearing for those fleeing persecution. The court probably made clearly clear that the president cannot simply waver away the laws enacted by Congress. But that is being appealed and it will end up in the Supreme Court. So we will see. In the meantime, you can expect asylum claims to be slow-walked as much as possible. I should say that, lucky. It's not like there are no ways for tortured or persecuted people to get into America. There is the new Gold Card Program. - Oh, yeah, right. - Well, you can get US residency if you pay a million dollars. (laughs) You might recall back in March, a last year, Latnik, how would Latnik predicted that this million dollar Gold Card Program could raise a trillion dollars? - Yes. - A trillion dollars. - I remember that number. - Trillion. That means if that means I would take a million of these people. In December last year, he said they'd sold 1.3 billion dollars worth of Gold Cards within dies of the launch. That's less than a trillion dollars. But still a good start. It's money. For a few dies, that's not bad. Well, a few weeks ago, we got an update. How many of these applications have been approved and how many gifts have been received by commerce? - They have approved recently one person and there are hundreds in the queue that they are going through the process. But this is a new program and they've just set it up and they wanted to make sure they did it perfectly. - Sorry, how many? - They have approved recently one person. - One person, Lucky. One person. That's for the Gold Card. One. He did say though that there were hundreds in the queue. I'll tell you what. Ask the Afghan refugees about that queue. You guys might be weighing a long time. By the way, for those who do somehow get to apply for asylum, I don't know who they are, they got more problems. 'Cause then they get their case gets hooded by immigration judges. Who aren't actually judges? But until recently, they might give you a fair hearing. I say until recently, 'cause that's changed. You say the Trump administration has been systematically sacking immigration judges, especially those who have high rates of approval. And they've been replacing them with people who they think will be less generous. To put numbers on that, more than 100 of the roughly 750 immigration judges having sucked under Trump, according to New York Times. The ones who had the highest approval rate, those ones had, they were granting asylum in 46% of cases. - Oh, we just can't have that. - No, it's gotta be 47%. - The people who have been replaced are now granting asylum in roughly 6% of cases. - Ooh. - That's how they want to be replaced with. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And of course, judges now know if they grant too many applications, they're gonna get set. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So everyone is now. - Race to the bottom. - Yeah, race to the bottom. I should also say that every single, I'll by the way, in terms of numbers, that's why immigration judges under Biden were approving 50% of cases, asylum cases, but now they're approving seven percent of asylum cases across the board, because of that. And every judge you've heard of, who has granted an application that made the news over the last 18 months. Think of every immigration story you've heard about. Like I like the woman, remember I was turqued, the woman who wrote the op-ed, and then got, and then they were gonna throw her out, but then the immigration judge said, "Well, hang on, this is what she's done "as right on op-ed." They're like this stuff. All those news cases, every single one of them got sacked, every single one. As soon as someone gets in the news, they're sacked, right? So people have learned to not approve cases that might be controversial as well. In fact, Sirce, and I had a, let's say, a name, Sirce Owen, the acting director of the executive office of the immigration review famously wrote a memo, encouraging immigration judges to toss out a solemn claims at the quicker pace without holding a hearing. So just don't even hold a hearing. Owen wrote, "Judges who would prefer "to be policy advocates favoring either aliens or DHS "should consider transitioning to alternate career paths." Shut up. And by the way, I can't tell you how dismissive people used to think immigration judges were under Obama and Biden. Like back in the Obama-Biden period, I remember covering this stuff, and people were always going, "Oh, the immigration judges are worst." They just, it's just like an Amazon factory. They just get you through, bang, bang, bang, bang. Like it's just, it's like an hour of the hearing. Like it's not a proper hearing. It's just, you know, state your case, right, gone. State your case, right, gone. It's just an assembly line. That's what they were saying under Obama. - Wow. - And they've gone so much past those people now, to people who just, like, I've been reading news articles about people whose advocates, you say, "I tell people just don't apply." - Wow. - "Just don't bother. It's a waste of your time and my time." Even if we make a perfect case, you're going to get rejected. So the, that's where we're up. So the good news is your Psalm queue has been reduced by 380,000. The bad news is everything else. Okay, that will do for now. This is actually, I hadn't even more depressing section coming up on healthcare in detention centers. Just wait for this one, but I'll save that for the next time. Let's call these the ice chronicles, Lucky. There's going to be a few of them and they're all going to be bummers. So I look forward to delivering more in the future. - I love that this is how it looks like I'll spend all of my Friday nights for the next few weeks (laughing) with the ice chronicles. Tell them Lucky, anything to say? - Happy birthday, you filthy animal. (laughing) (laughs) - Sunday. - Yeah, it's my birthday on Sunday. I've already got my birthday present. It's getting cold again. Yes! Every year, that's my birthday present. (sighs) - Tell about me, what about you? We'll see you guys in a week's time. Well, before then, of course, one's extra. Until then, say bye, bye-bye. (upbeat music)