Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 3/20/26: Bibi Demands Ground Troops, Hegseth Caught Lying, Iran War Master Plan w/ David Sirota

Transcript

3/20/26: Bibi Demands Ground Troops, Hegseth Caught Lying, Iran War Master Plan w/ David Sirota · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
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• 0:30
  Speaker 1: dot com.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Folks, we have an amazing show for you this morning.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: How are we doing, Crystal and Emily doing well?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Ryan is I think en route to Cuba is the idea,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: So just us this morning.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: Ryan is pursuing regime change in Cuba.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I think Emily said he's going to be installed by
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: the CIA.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: We don't know that he won't.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: It's that's true, that is true. We have no evidence
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: that he will not be installed as the new Cuban
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: puppet dictator of the United States.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: So waiting Comrad Groom, he stopped in Miami to pick
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: up some ex pats. He picked up Clovicular. Now they're
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: heading over to Cuba. That's exciting. We also have some
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: other housekeeping. Sager later today is interviewing former counter terrorism
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: official Joe Kent, so stay tuned for that. Between the
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: two of them, we've never gotten closer to a host
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: being arrested, sort of a Don Lemon style situation. So
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: I'm very excited for all that. But we've got a
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: big show today.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: You know, you did just inspire a thought though, Griffin,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: how amazing would a Ryan Clovicular interview actually be.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Really really good?
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I mean I feel like that would be groundbreaking. I
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: don't know. Did you guys just see that Andrew Callahan.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I know you did because I sent it to the
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: chat Is moment.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, you saw it.
• 1:49
  Speaker 6: I also saw the moment where he met his biggest
• 1:52
  Speaker 6: supporter on kick because you sent it.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. That was really that was honestly just
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: kind of heartbreaking, sad all the way around, as Clovicular
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: off and is in my opinion, but the moment with
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Callahan where he's Cliviguilar's like, there's really nothing you would
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: change about your face when you look in the mirror
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: and Callahan just like leans back, crosses his legs and
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: he's like, no, not a thing. Clar crashes out Major
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Cortisol spike and ends a interview. It's kind of extraordinary.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Male self confidence is his kryptonite.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Good point, which I think is also I think I
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: think Ryan would destroy him. Then, yeahs as someone who's
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: tried to upgrade Ryan's appearance, myself and he and you know,
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: hit a wall there.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: But yeah, you try to look Smack got shut.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: Down the time he told you to fix his hair
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: and he just went.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: But folks, let's get to some far more serious topics here.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: We have a lot going on in the show today.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: We have updates on possible ground deployment on or near
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: the Iranian border with US troops. We've got some oil updates,
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: and we've got some potential contradictions between what Hegseth heard
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: from the fallen Soldiers family and what Hegseeth has been saying.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: And then we also have David Soota coming on to
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: tell us a little bit more about the updates or
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: the Phase two of the master plan, so we're excited
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: to speak to him.
• 3:21
  Speaker 7: Plus ye bunch.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: More focused on the unitary executive, like basically the way
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: that previous administrations over decades and previous operatives over decades
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: have turned the presidency into effectively a monarchy, just in
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: time for Trump to come in and want to be
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: king and have the powers.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: To do so.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Really great timing there. But let's start with our friend
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Benjamin Netanyah, who Israeli Prime Minister Netanyah, who says can't
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: do a revolution in Iran from the air, there needs
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: to be a ground component as well. He says there
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: are many possibilities for a ground component, but won't share
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: what they are.
• 3:58
  Speaker 7: What do we make of it?
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's certainly looks like that's the direction we're heading in,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: and we can talk about some additional reporting about you know,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: it's really coming down to the straight upfoe moves. It's
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: also we now have the Huthis onsar a LA who
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: are saying they are going to join the fight, which
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: means that one of the alternative pathways for oil will
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: potentially also be shut down because they successfully shut down
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: that pathway previously just using you know, drones and menacing
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: ships in the area. So you know, at this point,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: I think what Manyao is acknowledging here is that he
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: has helped to get the US to a point where
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: there is going to be no more significant strategic success
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: without some ground troop component, which he's happy to see
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: our service members go in and fight and get slaughtered,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: and US to be weakened in the region well, along
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: with of course Iran and the GCC member states being
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: weakened as well. And you know, I'm always very clear
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: that ultimately this is all Trump's fault. He's the one
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: who ultimately decided to go in. You know, I think
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: a lot of the reporting about, oh, they have different
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: aims and maybe there's going to be a blow up,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: blah blah blah. I put that in the same category
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: as the repeated leaks to Barack Ravine during the Biden
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: the Brandon administration, where it was always very upset with
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: net Yahoo blah blah blah. I think they're similarly absurd
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: that there's some significant break coming between the Trump regime
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: and the net Yahoo regime. But you know, one other
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: thing that I'll mention here is in Netanyahu's comments, which
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: we're going to place some mothers of that are very
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: interesting that I want to hear Emily's take on for
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: you in a moment, but he did a classic thing
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: of in English. He was like, this thing could be
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: over really quickly, I think in response to a question
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: from Richard Engel, He's like, this could be over a
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: lot quicker than people think. And then in Hebrew to
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: the Israelis is like, this is going to go as
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: along as long as it needs to go. We're going
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: to be in here as long as we need to
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: be there. So, you know, very different messages to the
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: English speaking world versus the domestic audience in Israel.
• 5:52
  Speaker 6: And I think the two things that seem right now
• 5:55
  Speaker 6: fundamental things that seem to have been totally what's the
• 5:59
  Speaker 6: right word here, like I don't want to use the
• 6:01
  Speaker 6: word that's too generous, but seem to have been underestimated
• 6:05
  Speaker 6: on behalf of the United States.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: Is the strait of her moves and.
• 6:09
  Speaker 6: The what Iran would do, how far they would go
• 6:11
  Speaker 6: with the strade of her moves, and the ability of
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: anti regime coalition forces on the ground in Iran to
• 6:19
  Speaker 6: stage some type of revolution. And that's where you do airstrikes.
• 6:24
  Speaker 6: You see the presence saying this is for the freedom
• 6:26
  Speaker 6: of the Iranian people. We now know that they were
• 6:30
  Speaker 6: overly confident about what would happen in the strait of
• 6:32
  Speaker 6: her moves, and with those two puzzle pieces being.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: Clearly I mean the administration.
• 6:37
  Speaker 6: They probably weren't a hundred percent certain about either of them,
• 6:40
  Speaker 6: but clearly they thought the likelihood that they would be
• 6:43
  Speaker 6: able to have a revolution, They would be able to
• 6:47
  Speaker 6: create the conditions for a revolution that would topple the
• 6:49
  Speaker 6: regime if they kill the Iyatola and struck all of
• 6:53
  Speaker 6: these different places and created chaos. These Raelis obviously have
• 6:58
  Speaker 6: a different take on that than our government. But if
• 7:01
  Speaker 6: you have those two pieces wrong, you can see how
• 7:04
  Speaker 6: you start getting closer and closer to ground troops, which
• 7:07
  Speaker 6: is exactly what people were saying, exactly what we were
• 7:10
  Speaker 6: saying on this show. It becomes a spiral, and that's
• 7:16
  Speaker 6: so easy for it to happen. But when you have
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: those two puzzle pieces being incorrect, that's how you get
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: ground troops. It's exactly the recipe that people predicted.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: It is the escalation trap, as Professor Pape has laid
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: out for us multiple times on our show, where now
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: the only way that Trump could actually end this war
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: at this point would be not only for him to
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: walk away, but for there to be significant concessions given
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: to Iran. I mean, he would have to not only
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: walk away, but walk away with his tail between his
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: legs saying what would you like to make you feel
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: safe and secure? Iranian government that is still firmly in
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: place and now also is directly controlling who comes and
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: goes from the Strait of Hormuz. So it's you know,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's in a he has created an absolute
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: mess for himself, and you know, here's some of the indications.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: This is again Rock Ravine Mark Capudo about what is
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: being considered Trumpmull's risky carg Island takeover to force Iron
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: to open straight. We also have news that more marines
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: are being rushed to the region. There's expected to be
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: some overlap between this new deployment of marines and the
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: marines that have already been rushed into the region, so
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: that seems like it could be, you know, leading to
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: some sort of boots on the ground. I did see Emily,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: do you remember who it was or Griffin, do you
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: remember who it was? One of the Republican senators who
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: was like, well, if the boots are only on an island.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: That's not the same as boots on the ground in
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: like mainland or on. I liked that definition of boots
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: on the ground. Yeah, I wish I could remember who
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: it was, but in any case, revied reporting. Here the
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Trump administration considering plans to occupy your blockade Aron's carg
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Island to Iran to reopen the straight of horror.
• 9:03
  Speaker 8: MOUs.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Let me also show you this US warplanes and helicopters
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: is from the Wall Street Journal kickoff battle to reopen Hormuves.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: So this battle has already started now. USNS allies have
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: intensified the battle to reopen the Strait of Hormuves, sending
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: low flying attack jets over the sea lanes to blast
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Iranian naval vessels, and Apache helicopters to shoot down Iran's
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: deadly drones. According to American military officials, the stepped up
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: operation is part of a multi stage Pentagon plan to
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: reduce the danger from Irani in arm boats, mines, and
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: cruise missiles which have halted ship traffic through the waterway.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Not exactly Iran is getting the ships through that they
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: want to get through, but in any case, if the
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: danger can be reduced, the US could send US warships
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: through the straight and eventually escort vehicles in and out
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: of the Persian Gulf, but it will still likely take
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: weeks for the US to clear out Iran's web of
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: assets that have harassed traffic through a chow point for
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: twenty percent of the world's oil experts in a large
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: amount of commercial shipping traffic. And there is is a
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: quote in here they're using these A ten wart hogs
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: extensively in this operation, apparently for the military people out there,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: to whom that means something. And there is a quote
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: in here where someone an analyst, as military analyst, says, look,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: even here it is lowering the threat to the point
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: where ships can resume transiting the strait is doable, but
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: it takes time, and you are probably never going to
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: get to one hundred percent. We could reach a stage
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: where we're getting ships through and they could still get
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: a lucky shot. So that is the landscape. At this point.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: You know, the battle has already joined, they have already escalated.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: They're now trying to restore control over the strait of hormones.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: The ability of our ships and our ally ships to
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: be able to pass through and it will take a
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: lot of time, it will be very risky and very dangerous.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: And even after all of that work, even in the
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: most optimistic scenario, you are still going to have the
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: possibility of an Iranian drone coming in and lowing something up,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: with DEVI stating consequences for you know, for lives and treasure.
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: I saw an update this morning that the death toll
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: right now in Lebanon is around one thousand, and Iran
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: is around thirteen hundred. And I don't know the breakdown,
• 11:12
  Speaker 6: first of all, I mean it's I don't know how
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: confident we are in those numbers or the reports are
• 11:16
  Speaker 6: in those numbers. But and I don't know what the
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: breakdown is of civilians to militants. That's two thousand already
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: in this war. That's two thousand. I mean, we're double
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: digits of Americans. That's two thousand people just in the
• 11:32
  Speaker 6: time span of a couple of weeks. And just we're
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: so numb to people being bodies in the Middle East,
• 11:39
  Speaker 6: in particular in the Middle East, that's especially after Gaza.
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: But that's that's it's hard for me to believe how
• 11:48
  Speaker 6: little conversation there is about how much death there's already been.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and we had a major incident yesterday as well.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: I can put this up on the screen, where an
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: F thirty five aircraft was apparently struck by the Iranians.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: This marks first, This is an extraordinary This is like
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: the highest tech of our high tech fighter jets. It's
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: supposed to be stealth. The fact that they were able
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: to hit this plane, this jet was apparently very significant,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: says US. F thirty five aircraft makes emergency landing after
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: combat mission over Iran. By the way, there is some
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: I think appropriate skepticism about exactly the story that we're
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: being told here that the F thirty five fighter jet
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: landed safely and the pilot is in stable condition. I
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: have seen some conjecture they haven't said where or who
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: or any of the specifics, so there is some conjecture
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: over whether that part of this is true or not.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I also saw some conjecture that another F thirty five
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: may have also been been struck, but this is all
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: still very unconfirmed. What we do know is that Iran
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: was at least able to hit this one jet, and
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: the Iranians release some of the footage that they purported
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: to be from that takedown. They said. An F thirty
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: five fighter jet from the US has made an emergency
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: landing at n air Base in the Middle East after
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: carrying out a combat mission over Iran. Aircraft landed safely.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Pilot is in stable condition. We are aware of reports
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: that a US F thirty five aircraft conducted emergency landing
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: at a regional US air base after flying a combat
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: mission over i Run. Aircraft landed safely. Incident is under investigation.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: CNN reported two anonymous sources saying the plane, which costs
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: up to one hundred million dollars, was likely hit by Iran.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: So the fact that they can take shots at these things, this,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: according to the military analysts, is very significant because it
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: makes it much more dangerous for the US to just
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: fly these sorties over Iran because now you're like, oh,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: they have a capability. We did not know that they had,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: so now we have to plan for that, and that
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: isn't you know, that is a very clear risk for
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: these pilots who are involved. We've already had a number
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: of other aircraft, American aircraft I saw, you know, upwards
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: of somewhere around sixteen that have been damaged or destroyed
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: in a variety of circumstances. Some of the circumstances I
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: continue to believe we're not getting the accurate story about,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: including the three that just plummeted from the sky and
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: they're like, h oops, friendly fire. We didn't know, you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: something happened. The refueling one is also big question marks
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: there too.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: They said it was like it wasn't offensive or defensive,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: it was like a neutral error that those three planes
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: went down. Is this like the ghost of Kuwaid or
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: something like, I'm not really sure what's happening.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: One of the theories. One of the theories again unconfirmed,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: but listen, I mean, we just can't believe anything this
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: government says. At this point. We'll tell you about some
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: of the just insanely basic things that Pete Hegseth is
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: out here lying about in a moment. But in any case,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: one of the theories is that it was actually like
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: a GCC allied pilot that went rogue, a Kuwaiting pilot
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: in particular and intentionally shot down are fighter jets. That's
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: one of the theories to me, that's much more plausible
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: at least than the idea like Oopsie's we just had
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: some sort of an unspecified incident, and all three of
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: these happened to you know, crash to the ground in
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: the same day.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: Definitely doesn't make sense. No, definitely does not sense.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and this reporter from Newsmax shared some about the
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: accelerated deployment of the Marines and sailors heading to the
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Middle East. Four officials tell Newsmas the Boxer Amphibious Ready
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Group and the embarked eleventh Marine Expeditionary Units deploying ahead
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: of schedule. There are roughly twenty five hundred Marines four
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: thousand total service members seemingly to potentially take or blockade
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: this carg Island area, which essentially, you know, seems strategically
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: kind of like a killbox for.
• 15:47
  Speaker 7: These US soldiers.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: Additionally, we have some sought here from Scott Besson talking
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: about his ideas for carg Island.
• 15:59
  Speaker 7: Let's take a listen.
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: There's laser focus on it.
• 16:02
  Speaker 8: As I said, there was a bombing campaign last week
• 16:05
  Speaker 8: a military at Caragio and were destroyed. And the other
• 16:09
  Speaker 8: thing I can tell you, if you're an oil worker,
• 16:11
  Speaker 8: you don't want to work there. So all the oil
• 16:13
  Speaker 8: workers that are being coerced to stay there and you know,
• 16:17
  Speaker 8: we will see what happens with whether that eventually becomes
• 16:21
  Speaker 8: a US.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: All right, so it could eventually become a US asset,
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: maybe the fifty first state.
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: You never know.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And this is all amidst the fact that they
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: tried to get other countries to come into the straight
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: up our moves to provide back up. They're all like, actually,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: we're going to hard pass on that. So I guess
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: now we're like, okay, we'll just dump all of our
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: service men in there, see how that goes well.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: And I was I was watching a BBC report last night.
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: This probably sounds obvious to many people, but Iran has
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: prepared for these possibilities for a long time, and they
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: have other ports that aren't just going to that. Carg
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: Island is not going to US. Takeover of Carg Island
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: is not going to prevent so prevent them from using So.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: It's just it does look like escalation spiral.
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: It does look like Trump might have some excuse to
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: say this limited operation.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: Just like Crystal said, it's not boots.
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: On the ground and the boots on the island as
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: though the island doesn't soil. And then from there your
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: your boots on the ground. That's we all know how
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: that goes. We've all seen how that has gone over
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: the last twenty years.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Well, and first from speaking of Professor Pape, you know
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: what he warns is, first of all, we were taking
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: a look at the geography of this area of these
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Sheer cliffs. To Emily's point, you know, the Iranians been
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: gaming this out for literally decades thinking about this. They
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: also learned a lot, well, they learned a lot from
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: the Iran Iraq War, which we of course were you know,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: backing I rock in. And then we've learned a lot
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: more recently from the Twelve Day War. And some of
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: the speculation I've seen is actually this capacity to take
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: down our F thirty five fighter jets or potentially take
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: them down, was developed after the Twelve Day War. So
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: that tells you they haven't just been sitting there like
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: I'm sure this diplomacy with Jared Kushner and Steve Wicoff's
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: gonna work out this time. No, they were clear eyed.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: They knew that this was very likely, if not, you know, inevitable,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: and they've been thinking about how exactly to prepare. So
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: taking carg Island is one thing maybe you can. You
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: could probably accomplish that, you know, with the US military
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: come in full force, bomb a bunch of shit, you know,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: kill a bunch of kill a bunch of people, and
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: probably some of our service members die as well. But
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: then you also have to hold Carg Island and it's
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: you know, very close to the Iranian mainland. Would not
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: be hard for shaw He drones which had been apparently
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: you know, been able to fly. It will basically wherever
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: they want, damage whatever they want throughout this throughout this war.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: So you are in a very very difficult position. And
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: now what Now you're entrenched on Carg Island and you
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: know where you're gonna Now we're staying there forever. We're
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: claiming this is a US asset. Not clear that that's
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: going to certainly not going to topple the regime. As
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Griff and emilyin both of you guys are pointing out,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: they have other options which again they they developed partly
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: during the Iran Iraq War. Actually, they it will definitely
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: be damaging to their economic prospects, there's no doubt about that.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: But again there this is existential for them, so they're
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: willing to take a lot more pain, and because we
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: hold carg Island also does not mean that we've cleared
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: up the problems with the Straight of Horror moves, which
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: is a separate and independent issue. It may help, but
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: it's not going to solve that problem. So now a
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: lot of the war focus is around this new problem
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: that has been created in the war, where victory is
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: effectively being defined as just getting back to some semblance
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: of the pre war status quo. Though even if you're
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: able through some you know, miraculous feed and ironie collat
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: military class whatever to reopen the Straight of Horror moves,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: you have still created a situation where you have a
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: more hardline government in place in Iran which is much
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: more likely to pursue nuclear weapons and much less likely
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: to engage in the future in any sort of diplomacy
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: with you. And that is just sort of done and
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: baked in at this point, which is part of why
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: this escalation is very likely to continue. Because let's say
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: there is some miraculous off ramp that has achieved right now,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: the Iranians rationally may very well begin pursuing a nuclear
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: weapon or moving again in that direction, and Israel will
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: be right here back in DC you know, Natannalhu himself
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: and all of his allies saying you're not gonna let
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: this happen. You said there can be no nuclear Iran.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: You can't let this happen on your watch, and we
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: will be right back here all over again. So it
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: is a very very grim landscape in front of us.
• 20:50
  Speaker 6: Yes, and it's sadly going everything that you just laid out, Chrysal.
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: I was struck by how this is what people were
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: talking about the likelihood of this happening, exactly what we're seeing,
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: Like the outline of this is exactly what people were
• 21:06
  Speaker 6: warning was going to happen and being called pannikins or
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: whatever else. But like just three weeks ago, it was
• 21:13
  Speaker 6: fairly clear that unless Trump did a quick cut and
• 21:17
  Speaker 6: run midnight hammer thing, which he was not indicating, is
• 21:21
  Speaker 6: what he would do. Obviously this was something at a
• 21:23
  Speaker 6: larger scale. This exact pattern, pattern is probably the right word,
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: is what would reveal itself over the next couple of weeks.
• 21:32
  Speaker 6: And I don't think it gives anyone pleasure to be
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: right about that, but it's so it's going so closely
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: to the script.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Yeah, everyone to know, Yeah, go ahead, can you
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: cueue up the one where he's talking about number one
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: state sponsor of terrorism and of course, yeah, yeah, you
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: got that ready to go for us.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: So we got Pete Hegseth here talking about a little
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: bit of the of the funding of the Iranian country.
• 21:58
  Speaker 7: Let's take a listen here.
• 22:00
  Speaker 9: That's why you had millions of Iranians protesting because they
• 22:03
  Speaker 9: felt like their condition, quality of life did and match
• 22:05
  Speaker 9: what it could be or should be, and what was.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: The Iranian state.
• 22:08
  Speaker 9: There's a reason we come call Iran the number one
• 22:10
  Speaker 9: state sponsor of terrorism because they took the money they
• 22:14
  Speaker 9: make and they invested in tunnels, and they invested in missiles,
• 22:17
  Speaker 9: and they invested in launchers and UAB two hundred billion dollars.
• 22:20
  Speaker 9: I think that number could move. Obviously, it takes uh
• 22:25
  Speaker 9: it takes money to kill bad guys. So going back
• 22:28
  Speaker 9: to Congress and folks there to ensure that we're properly
• 22:32
  Speaker 9: funded for what's been done, for what we may have
• 22:35
  Speaker 9: to do in the future.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Incredible in what we may have to do.
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: Ye billion dollars. That tells you what they think is coming.
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: That's exactly that. That is your indication they are preparing
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: for a long drawn, drawn out war. At this point,
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: they're asking Congress right now for an additional two hundred
• 22:56
  Speaker 6: billion dollars.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, and isn't I think I saw some stats yesterday
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: that's more than we sent to Ukraine in four years
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: of that war. Just for perspective, like, this is a
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: massive amount of money, and he says that that number
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: could move. It's not moving down. The only direction it's
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: gonna move is up. I actually saw Lauren Bobert this
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: morning saying that she's a no on the additional war funding,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: so you know, she then got further pressed, oh, well
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: do you you know, do you think that this war
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: should continue? And she's like, that's up to Trump. So
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: she kind of differs on that point, but at least
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: as saying two hundred billion dollars, I don't think I'm
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: voting for that. But the lack of self awareness here
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: of Hegseth within minutes of each other, saying that the
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: reason Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrors
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: because they take their money and they spend it on missiles,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: and then moments later asking Congress for two hundred billion
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: dollars for missiles, taking our money and spending on missiles
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: for starting World War three and bombing little girls in
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: grade school pretty and you know, the American public is
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: so propagandized that I think most people won't even won't
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: even really notice that. It's like it's it's it's different
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: when we're on to us it than when we do it.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not the same when they do it.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: But you know, that is the reality of what our
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: state is becoming. They're asking for one point five trillion
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: dollar defense buddy, they already have one trillion dollar defense budget,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: and now you're coming back and asking for two hundred
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: billion dollars more for a war that we're told has
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: already been a glorious victory. Trump told us we already
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: won this thing. This little excursion just so insane, and
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: you can only imagine what good could actually be done
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: with that money.
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: Instead, I just want to say, I just pulled this up, Crystal.
• 24:41
  Speaker 6: This is astounding so as according to the Council for
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: Foreign Relations Counsole Foreign Relations, as of December thirty one,
• 24:48
  Speaker 6: twenty twenty five, the US Congress has made available one
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: hundred and eighty eight billion dollars in spending related to
• 24:53
  Speaker 6: the war in Ukraine. According to the US Special Inspector
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: General for Operation Atlantic Results. So think about that. Think
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: about that everyone, over several years of war in Ukraine,
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: one hundred and eighty eight billion, which is a lot
• 25:07
  Speaker 6: of money, by the way, already a lot of money.
• 25:11
  Speaker 6: We are two three weeks into I guess three weeks
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: now into this war in Iran, and they're asking for
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: two hundred billion dollars from Congress.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: However, a war, I mean again.
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump said he would end the war in Ukraine's
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: end the war in Gaza, but he said he would
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: not start new wars, not start new wars. And this
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: entire question of whether there was an imminent threat, we're
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: playing semantics with it right now. But I think everybody
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: understands because the Secretary of State and the Speaker of
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: the House came out and said it. When the war
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: started was nudged, at least the timeline was nudged by
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: the Israelis.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: And I agree with Crystal.
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: I think our government has plenty of agency if that's
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: the case. We chose, we still made our decision. But
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: the question of whether this is a war of choice
• 25:57
  Speaker 6: or necessity has pretty much been answered, And two hundred
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: billion dollars two hundred billion dollar requests three weeks into it.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Speaking of he said, having a hard time selling this war.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: We have a clip here where he did a little
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: story from his son on why we have to keep
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: fighting this war.
• 26:16
  Speaker 9: My thirteen year old son popped into my office last
• 26:18
  Speaker 9: night while I was editing these remarks. He asked about
• 26:22
  Speaker 9: the war and the families I met at and I
• 26:27
  Speaker 9: looked at him and I said, they died for you,
• 26:32
  Speaker 9: so that your generation doesn't have to deal with a
• 26:35
  Speaker 9: nuclear Iran.
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: True.
• 26:39
  Speaker 9: Yeah, So the families who said finished this, we will,
• 26:46
  Speaker 9: and I say the same to every American who wants
• 26:49
  Speaker 9: peace through.
• 26:51
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: So the families, they of the fallen soldiers, they told Pete,
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: you know what it's worth it, Let's finish the finished
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: the damn job. Except some of the families are disputing
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: that conversation. Father of service member kill and I Iran
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: war said he never told Pete. Hegseth to finish the job.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: They go on to say in this article that they
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: are just a little confused and unsure, you know, I mean,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: then these are patriotic families, right, so you know these
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: are this is not something that they want to believe
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: that their son or daughter, you know, died for a reason,
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: but they're just they just are not sure. And that
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: was the conversations in this report that they were asking
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: Pete about, I hope this.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Is worth it just so senseless. And we actually had
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: a video of another parents have fallen service member saying,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm actively wanting the war to stop, So
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: to lie about something like this to me is just
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: so incredibly low. Like to use these service members' families
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: and then to put words in their mouths so that
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: you can use them like a little puppet, you know,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: to get your talking points across, is so disgusting to me.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Not to mention obviously the story with his own son
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: is completely and totally fake. And even if it's not fake,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: I am driven completely insane by the gas lighting here
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: about the timeline, let us not forget it was the
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: first Trump administration that tore up the Imanian nuclear deal
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: that was working, and it was this Trump administration that
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: twice used diplomatic negotiations as a ruse to attack and
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: start a war with a run in that second set
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: of negotiations. We now have multiple people who are involved,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: we have the omanis, we actually have one of the
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: British officials involved who said this, there were incredible concessions
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: made here. This was a deal that was workable, that
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: went beyond if you were concerned that the original deal
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: with Obama wasn't strong enough, it went beyond that. And
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: they didn't even bother these clowns to send negotiators that
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: even understood what was being discussed. So to him, for
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: him to say, oh, we're doing the work to keep
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Iran from getting a nuclear weapon to make the world
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: safe for our children, what total and complete bullshit you
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: have made it more likely that Iran, and by the way,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: a whole host of other countries around the world, pursue
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: nuclear weapons because that is ultimately the only deterrence that
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: may work to keep us from coming in and bombing
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: their countries and murdering their children and their heads of state.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: And those also cut a bunch of the energy and
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: nuclear scientists that would have been able to analyze and
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: create like a new framework or a new deal for us.
• 29:46
  Speaker 7: So thank you big balls for that as well. Emily,
• 29:48
  Speaker 7: what were you saying.
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: Well, I just said the idea that Iran's that you're
• 29:52
  Speaker 6: going to stop Iran from wanting a nuclear weapon. So
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: long as Israel has nuclear weapons, it's just not happening.
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: And like that, that is just in the Middle East.
• 30:03
  Speaker 6: There are multiple countries with nuclear capacity. So if you're Iran,
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: you can't bomb away the sentiment that they want to
• 30:10
  Speaker 6: be they want to have a nuclear weapon capacity, and
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: you can try to you could even try to change
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: the regime, and it's not going to bomb away the
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: sentiment among people in Iran that that's something that they
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: should have, that they need to have, and that, as
• 30:29
  Speaker 6: Crystal saying, in of itself, is the idea that we're
• 30:32
  Speaker 6: not going to be dealing with this in another generation unfortunately,
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: tragically not happening.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: And on that note, Emily, we needed your expertise for
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: this next one before we get to Seroda. So we
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: don't know why we're doing it. We don't know who
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: we're doing it for. Actually, we may now know who
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: we're doing it for. The spirit of Genghis Khan. Let's
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: take a listen to net and Yahoo here.
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: Let's rule the lessons of history one hundred pages.
• 31:02
  Speaker 10: In which she said this reproves that, unfortunately, I'm happy
• 31:11
  Speaker 10: Jesus Christ has no advantage over Rginia's huntry because if
• 31:16
  Speaker 10: you are long enough, people will overcome good.
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: Compression will overcome moeration. So you have no choice.
• 31:28
  Speaker 10: If you look at the world as it is today,
• 31:30
  Speaker 10: you have to be blind not to see the democracy
• 31:34
  Speaker 10: led by the United States have to reassert their will
• 31:38
  Speaker 10: to defend themselves and to oppose their enemies in time,
• 31:42
  Speaker 10: while there's still time before the jarring gong of danger.
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: Wakes them up and wakes them up too late. This
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: is where we.
• 31:50
  Speaker 7: Are now, of danger.
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: All right, Yeah, that's b.
• 31:57
  Speaker 7: Family.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: I know you're always asking yourself, what would jingis con.
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: The bracelet. I mean, apparently he's paraphrasing Durant, who was
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: making a comment on human nature.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: Pull up that quote. I have it.
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: Yet, nature and history do not agree with our conceptions
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: of good and bad. They define good as that which survives,
• 32:25
  Speaker 6: and bad is that which goes under. In the universe,
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: is no prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan.
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: And that's.
• 32:34
  Speaker 6: It's my perspective of that him trotting out that paraphrase
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: quote right now is that it does It feels almost
• 32:43
  Speaker 6: like taunting. And you know, Nietzsche would Nietzsche's perspective on
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: christ was that it was a sort of a slave morality,
• 32:52
  Speaker 6: that the Christianity valorizes weakness, and that's been throughout history
• 32:58
  Speaker 6: a criticism of of Christianity. And whether or not Natania
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: who was intentionally trying to poke at Christians and Christians
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: in America, like a Tucker Carlson for example, who are
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: making Christian arguments against you know, the War Gaza and
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: the like.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: I don't I don't know.
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: I would recommend a couple of books, Dominion by Tom
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: Holland and Air We Breathed by Glenn Scribner is a
• 33:22
  Speaker 6: really good one too, about where there's the universalism in
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: Christianity that.
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: It again it feels like.
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: Kind of taunting that Jesus comes along and says, go
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: and baptize, go and make disciples of all nations, all nations,
• 33:38
  Speaker 6: which is historically somewhat unique. And he says there will
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: be one shepherd in one flock, meaning everyone in the
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: world is covered by the sacrifice. And then Paul says
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: there is no Jew or Greek that's in Galatians, and
• 33:53
  Speaker 6: that Tom Holland rightly points out, changes absolutely everything. And
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: is it true that Christians have done a poor job
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: throughout his honoring the egalitarianism of christ message. Yes, of course,
• 34:05
  Speaker 6: but that's still there's still a tension between Christianity and
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: other religions because of that, and it does Yahoo tritting.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: Out that quote is.
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: It feels it feels like he might have been intentionally
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: trying to poke a bear, whether it's Tucker or someone else.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Well, they came out after the fact and were like,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: it felt the need to issue a statement on the
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Twitter account, the official like Prime Minister of Israel Twitter
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: account that was like, we meant no offense to Christians.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: We were just quoting this thing. But you know, the
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: funny thing to me, like coming at this from a
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: totally non religious perspective, is this this dodge that I've
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: seen not just from him, but from plenty of other
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: people who are not even like that sympathetic to him
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: or were like, he's just quoting something. It's like, just
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: because you're quoting someone else doesn't mean that that like
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: original quote was also a good thing, you know, I mean,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: that's still a choice. You're like co signing this idea,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: And to me, it was just very revealed of what
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: I think is a dominant mindset, not just with net Nahu,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: but within Israel. They see themselves as inherently moral right,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: not based on their actions, not based on what they
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: do in the world, which you know, to me is
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: how you define moralities like what do you do? Do
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: you cause harm? Or do you cause people? Like what
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: are you?
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: What are you?
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Are you geniciding children in Gaza? Because that seems to
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: have a real bearing to me on whether you are
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: a moral actor. But the view here offered by net
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Yahoo is we are inherently the good side. So even
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: if we commit evil acts, it's in service of our
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: own inherent goodness. And this is a you know, I mean,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: this is a supremacist ideology, which is what Israel, what
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Zionism is based on, as a Jewish supremacist ideology. And
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: a lot of times when he's speaking to you know,
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: an American audience or Western audience in general, then I'll
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: talk about Western values, to talk about Judeo Christian values.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: So then we get also brought in the fold of
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: the inherently good. And so he's saying here and again
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: very noteworthy this is offered in English. I think it
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: could be seen as a as a taunt to Christian.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I think that's certainly the case, especially since there's been this,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: you know, this tension with the Tucker Carlson's of the world,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: et cetera.
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: And the Pope has called for a ceasefire, by the way,
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: So it's yeah, it's not it's not just Protestant Protestants
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: in America. There's a lot of religious backlash.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: That's that is that's a great point. But so you
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: have that angle of it, but you also have him
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: projecting some American audience. You may be feeling a little
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: squeamish about this, like girls' school, that you just bond
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: and murder all these children. But trust me, you're still
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: the good guys here. You're still no matter what you
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: do in this war, because if you don't act in
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: barbaric ways, in evil ways, then the ultimate evil, the
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: inherently evil under you know, and what's underneath the service
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: there is Muslims, Persians, Iranian Arabs, you know, anybody who
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: would the Israelis. If you don't act against that inherent
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: evil in this barbaric way, then those people will win out.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: It's you know, it's a kind of a rehash of
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: his Children of the Light versus Children of the Darkness
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: speech at the beginning of the you know, the genocidal
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: assault on Gazo, where again it's like anything is justified
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: in our attempts here to decimate and destroy the Palestinian
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: people because we're the good ones, not because of what
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: we do, just because who we are, and they're the
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: bad ones, not because of their age or who they
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: are or what they do, but just inherently. And that
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: is such an abhorrent, deeply abhorrent, destructive, disgusting worldview to me.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: But that's what you know, that is the ideology, that
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: is the reigning ideology in Israel. You have to say
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: at this point.
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: I think what turned people like Tucker Carlson then actually
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: like carry Prejon Boler against what they were seeing a
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: Gazos precisely the part of their faith and it's emphasized
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: all the time about the vulnerable. And again this was
• 38:06
  Speaker 6: Nietzsche's contention with Christianity actually, and Tom Holland has done
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: really great debates on those. People should just pop that
• 38:12
  Speaker 6: into YouTube and watch his debates or read dominion.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: It's fantastic. But I think when you see the.
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: Powerful abuse civilians that are powerless, that's very, very moving
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: to a lot of Christians on everybody, but like Augustine
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: or not agusting Aquinas, that is just war doctrine. And
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: you can make a pretty good argument, and that's probably.
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: Why Popolio has called for a ceasefire.
• 38:37
  Speaker 6: If you look at the United States and Israel's decision
• 38:40
  Speaker 6: to launch this particular war, you could you could argue
• 38:43
  Speaker 6: that it's violating the Christian tradition of what constitutes a
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: just war. And so Netanyahu, who is secular by the way.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: He's that's disputed.
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: I mean, he's he's a political figure, and I think
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: has tried to, you know, send different signals at different
• 39:02
  Speaker 6: times in his career. It feels like, to your point
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: about the children of life versus the children of the directness,
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: he's trying to make this argument that you can use
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: strength and that's that can be used against civilians because
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: ultimately you're on the you're on the good side, and
• 39:22
  Speaker 6: that's what's important, is protecting your people. You're like that,
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: and I think that's attractive to a lot of people
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: around the world. But the more you see like the girls'
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: school for example, or other civilian abuses of civilians, it
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: doesn't fly with other people.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean being absolved for your crimes. I'm sure
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: that does feel good to a lot of people, like, oh,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: here's an excuse where you get to act with impunity
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: and you know, indulge your most barbaric and cruel instincts.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: But really, if you think hard enough about it, because
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: you're good, it's all fine. The other thing, and you know,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: I think there are others who could probably who could
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: probably lay this out more effectively and with more knowledge
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: than me. But Jonathan green Blatt recently, in addition to
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: saying all kinds of other crazy crap, he said something
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: about we are no longer the like weak need Jews
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: or the knock need jude or the Jews or something
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: like that. And this is an idea that goes back
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: to World War Two, deeply anti Semitic, but in a
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: like sort of self loathing anti Semitic way, that the
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: there is like victim blaming of Holocaust victims, that they
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: weren't strong enough to stand up. And so part of
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: the founding of Israel was the idea that like, we're
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: going to create a state that is it will stand up,
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: that will I mean committed terror, stax and ethnic cleansing,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: in order to found the state, and we are going
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: to be barbaric in a way, you know, and cruel
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: and tough and strong in a way that you know,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: our ancestors who were slaughtered in the Holocaust in a
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: way that they weren't again deeply disgusting view, but you know,
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: offered by someone like ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt, who supposedly is
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: all against anti sempittiss sposed to be his whole thing,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: and it sort of reminds me of that as well,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: where it's like, you know, we can't afford to have
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: to indulge in these little nice Christian values. We are
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: the good guys, and we are going to use whatever
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: means necessary to even if those things look evil to you,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: but underneath the surface, because we're the good guys always
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: and forever, no matter what we do, you know, you
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: just don't understand that we're actually fighting evil with evil,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: and we have to do that because we don't have
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: the luxury of acting other ways any other way.
• 41:35
  Speaker 6: Just my quick point on that would be that is
• 41:37
  Speaker 6: the story of human history, like that is what tribalism
• 41:41
  Speaker 6: that is very historically normal. That is what tribalism predating
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: nation states.
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: That's what it is.
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: And liberalism after World War two was precisely conceived to
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: overcome that because it leads to atrocities, and Israel has
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: never been able to because of the trauma that the
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: Jewish people suffered through the Holocaust, the industrial scale genocide
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: that's within living memory of people. That's not like, not
• 42:08
  Speaker 6: everybody has been on board with that because there's this
• 42:11
  Speaker 6: constant fear and understandably, so I have another genocide coming along,
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: and you know, we don't have to go like that's
• 42:18
  Speaker 6: that just took us to a totally different deeper layer.
• 42:21
  Speaker 6: But that's liberalism was meant precisely to overcome those instincts,
• 42:26
  Speaker 6: will to power style instincts, and that's why we have
• 42:31
  Speaker 6: international groups and.
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: Treaties and laws.
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: So that's I think a fundamental source of tension has
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: been for the last one hundred years.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Well, and let me say one last thing before We've
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: got David Serota waiting here, and I do want to
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: get him in, which is that you know, hag Steth
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: and Steven Miller and the whole Trump regime they like
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: to frame the idea of like international law or respect
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: for civilians or rules of engagement as like weak and
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: woke and pathetic and not realistic, blah blah blah. Steven
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Miller says it the most sort of like directly. Pet
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: hag Seth does as well, though, And Pete haig Seth,
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: you know, one of the things that he's famous for
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: is going and trying to get pardons for war criminals.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: So that is his worldview. But I think we already
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: see in the Iran war that when we blow up
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: all of the rules of engagement and international norms and
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: you know, and law and any sort of care and
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: concern for civilians, this puts our own service members at risk.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: It puts the world economy at risk. I mean, it
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: puts everything on the table. So we're already living with
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: the consequences of blowing up all of those you know
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: what would be perceived as sort of like woke liberal niceties.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: It's not just that you get to do what you
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: want to your enemies. Your enemies also get to do
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: what they want to you. And in a world where
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: asymmetric power projection is more easily available than it ever
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: has been before, that seems like a pretty foolish, pretty foolhardy,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: and ultimately destructive way to go outside of you know,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: any sort of moral concerns for morality.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we should probably try to keep some of these
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: planes in the air before we start acting like Janus Khan.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: On on that note, why don't we get over to
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: the man uncovering the master plan? David Serota, David, are
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: you there? I'm here, Yes, welcome, David. How are you today?
• 44:30
  Speaker 7: Good? Thanks for having me. Yeah, we're happy to have you.
• 44:34
  Speaker 7: What's going on?
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: You know, we're told that there is It doesn't seem
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: like there's a big plan with this war, but apparently
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: you have uncovered the master plan, so update us on
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: what's going on there.
• 44:46
  Speaker 11: Well, I think the master plan is as it relates
• 44:50
  Speaker 11: to the Iran war, It's like the president woke up
• 44:53
  Speaker 11: one morning and decided to go to start World War
• 44:56
  Speaker 11: three and there was no public justification and for it,
• 45:00
  Speaker 11: there was no congressional authorization for it. It was just
• 45:04
  Speaker 11: like the King woke up on the wrong or I
• 45:07
  Speaker 11: guess in his frame maybe the right side of the bed,
• 45:11
  Speaker 11: and decided to start World War three, which is destabilizing
• 45:14
  Speaker 11: the entire planet. And the point of our audio series
• 45:17
  Speaker 11: is to ask the question, how is something like that
• 45:20
  Speaker 11: even possible. And so how is it that we've arrived
• 45:25
  Speaker 11: at a place where a president has a constitution that
• 45:30
  Speaker 11: says Congress declares war, and yet we're now where we
• 45:33
  Speaker 11: are where a war was started almost basically like a
• 45:37
  Speaker 11: World War three esque situation like that wasn't just like
• 45:40
  Speaker 11: one bombing. We're now in like a World War three
• 45:43
  Speaker 11: esque situation without any real authorization at all. And so
• 45:47
  Speaker 11: it's this question of how did Donald Trump become a king?
• 45:50
  Speaker 11: But it's not really only about Donald Trump. It's how
• 45:53
  Speaker 11: did the presidency become a monarchy? And I think to
• 45:58
  Speaker 11: answer that question you have to answer the question of
• 46:02
  Speaker 11: how it started really over the court fifty years ago
• 46:06
  Speaker 11: and how it's evolved over fifty years. We were at
• 46:10
  Speaker 11: this place in our country's history, or a similar place
• 46:14
  Speaker 11: to it during and after Watergate. Watergate was seen as
• 46:18
  Speaker 11: a scandal about an imperial presidency that had gotten out
• 46:21
  Speaker 11: of control, not just out of control in terms of
• 46:24
  Speaker 11: targeting Richard Nixon, targeting his political opponents. But remember that
• 46:27
  Speaker 11: was a time when Richard Nixon campaigned promising to end
• 46:30
  Speaker 11: the Vietnam War and then secretly, months later, secretly expanded
• 46:35
  Speaker 11: the Vietnam War. It was a time where Richard Nixon
• 46:37
  Speaker 11: started cutting off spending that had been authorized and passed
• 46:41
  Speaker 11: by Congress. Roads were in the process of being made,
• 46:45
  Speaker 11: and then the road construction had to stop because Richard
• 46:48
  Speaker 11: Nixon asserted the right to say he could decide what
• 46:52
  Speaker 11: spending moved forward and what spending.
• 46:54
  Speaker 7: Did not move forward.
• 46:56
  Speaker 11: So all of the fights that I think that we've
• 46:58
  Speaker 11: gotten used to now, and these examples of kind of
• 47:04
  Speaker 11: an imperial presidency, we have been here before. But the
• 47:08
  Speaker 11: thing is is that after Watergate, Congress really pushed back
• 47:12
  Speaker 11: and took back some of that power. I mean, there
• 47:14
  Speaker 11: was the War Powers Resolution, there was the Budget Impoundment Act,
• 47:19
  Speaker 11: which was designed to stop presidents from doing what Nixon
• 47:22
  Speaker 11: had done. But there was really a backlash to the
• 47:25
  Speaker 11: backlash that started after Congress took back some of its power.
• 47:30
  Speaker 11: And there has been an ideology on the I wouldn't
• 47:35
  Speaker 11: call it the libertarian righte and in sort of the
• 47:37
  Speaker 11: center of the Republican Party, you know, the sort of
• 47:40
  Speaker 11: the Dick Cheney wing. Dick Cheney, of course, was the
• 47:43
  Speaker 11: chief of staff to Gerald Ford right after Watergate. This
• 47:46
  Speaker 11: real idea that Congress should never encroach on the president's authority.
• 47:52
  Speaker 11: And that's I think part of why we are here today.
• 47:55
  Speaker 11: Where we woke up, you know a few weeks ago
• 47:56
  Speaker 11: when the President decided, Hey, I'm just going to start
• 47:58
  Speaker 11: World War three.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let me go ahead and play for people a
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: little bit of or we'll just play this whole trailer
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: for the new season A master plan. First season was
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: so incredible, such extraordinary journalism. I can't wait to dig
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: into this one and see what you've uncovered here as well.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and play this for everyone so they
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: can get a taste of the what you guys have
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: put together.
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: I have never been a quitter.
• 48:23
  Speaker 11: Once upon a time, an imperial president was cast out
• 48:27
  Speaker 11: of the palace, but all the president's men refused to
• 48:32
  Speaker 11: relinquish the throne's power.
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: I must America first.
• 48:38
  Speaker 11: So they went to work rewiring the government. They didn't
• 48:52
  Speaker 11: just take back the controls. They began building something new,
• 48:56
  Speaker 11: something stronger.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: They gave the president.
• 49:01
  Speaker 11: The power to go around Congress to launch unauthorized warsower.
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: They ignored the law and cut secret arms deals.
• 49:11
  Speaker 11: The Pentagon says millions of dollars worth of weapons were
• 49:13
  Speaker 11: turned over to the CIA for shipment to Iran. They
• 49:20
  Speaker 11: manufactured vast new executive powers for a war on terror
• 49:26
  Speaker 11: that would characterize Montanamobig as the least worst place we.
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: Could have selected.
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: The Obama administrations continuing a Bush Era of policy authorizing
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: the killing of US citizens abroad.
• 49:40
  Speaker 11: The goal of this master Plan was to create an
• 49:43
  Speaker 11: all powerful president, or, as some called it, the unitary executive.
• 49:48
  Speaker 9: You're not going to be a dictator, I said, no, no,
• 49:50
  Speaker 9: no other than day one.
• 49:53
  Speaker 11: So when a man longing to be a king took
• 49:55
  Speaker 11: the throne, he inherited unprecedented hours to get his way,
• 50:02
  Speaker 11: and those powers are now turning our world upside down.
• 50:07
  Speaker 11: Welcome to Master Planned Season two.
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: The Kingmakers. How could President?
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: First of all, that animation is fantastic.
• 50:14
  Speaker 7: Ben Clarkson, the artist is amazing. He's amazing.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a sort of an AI could never
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: AI could never.
• 50:20
  Speaker 7: No, No, trust me.
• 50:22
  Speaker 11: The number of screenshots and storyboards that he put up
• 50:26
  Speaker 11: I saw him draw.
• 50:27
  Speaker 7: That was like, that's the kind of thing AI can
• 50:29
  Speaker 7: never do.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is extraordinary. And one of the pieces I've
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: been thinking about is, you know, on the one hand,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: you've got you've got these actors, you know, Bill Barr
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: being another one, of these is really pushing forward the
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: idea of the unitary executive. But perhaps what also the
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: Founders didn't anticipate is the way that Congress would just
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: be like, Okay, sure, we don't actually want any responsibility.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: Go ahead, because the last time they took a vote
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: on war, the Iraq War, it ended up coming back
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: to bite, you know, the vast majority of them who
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: voted for it, bite them in the ass. So they're like,
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: we don't really want to take a vote on this war.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: We would rather just you do it, and then down
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: the road, if it goes poorly, we can say it's
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: his fault and not have to, you know, face any
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: sort of political repercussions for it.
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: Well, and that in and of itself was the AMF
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: was such a broad delegation of power to the executive.
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: That plus it in that to Crystal's.
• 51:18
  Speaker 11: Point, it's such a good it's such a good point, right, Like,
• 51:21
  Speaker 11: Like I think the founders like they didn't get everything right, right,
• 51:25
  Speaker 11: Like I think this idea that the founder's got everything
• 51:28
  Speaker 11: right is is sort of this presumption and it's it's
• 51:31
  Speaker 11: not actually.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: Like a religion, yeah, religious kind of faith.
• 51:34
  Speaker 7: Yeah, And where I think they got things right. Okay.
• 51:38
  Speaker 11: Generally speaking, is that the Constitution as a document is
• 51:43
  Speaker 11: like afraid of concentrated power. That that's like the foundational
• 51:48
  Speaker 11: baked in, Like it's the theory is we need to
• 51:51
  Speaker 11: like disperse power a little bit because you literally.
• 51:54
  Speaker 7: Do not want one dude having all the power.
• 51:57
  Speaker 11: Okay, I think that's probably like good call, Like you
• 52:00
  Speaker 11: got it right. Where they didn't get it right, you're
• 52:03
  Speaker 11: at least for the modern era, is the presumption that
• 52:06
  Speaker 11: the branches would protect their own power. That whether it's
• 52:11
  Speaker 11: the courts or whether it's Congress, that the presumption was
• 52:16
  Speaker 11: that they would jealously people in those institutions would jealously
• 52:20
  Speaker 11: guard their power as an institution. And I think in
• 52:23
  Speaker 11: the modern era, what we've seen is that actually the institution,
• 52:28
  Speaker 11: especially when it comes to the Republicans, the institution that
• 52:31
  Speaker 11: is supreme for the Republicans is the Republican Party and
• 52:37
  Speaker 11: not the Presidency or the Congress or the courts. And
• 52:40
  Speaker 11: so no matter where you are in any of those institutions,
• 52:43
  Speaker 11: the Congress, the Courts, the Presidency, you're serving the larger institution,
• 52:47
  Speaker 11: which is the Republican Party. And so yes, you're willing
• 52:52
  Speaker 11: to like.
• 52:52
  Speaker 7: Be a judge.
• 52:53
  Speaker 11: The Supreme Court is constantly deferring to executive power when
• 52:57
  Speaker 11: a Republican is in the executive. Congress is constantly deferring
• 53:02
  Speaker 11: to the Trump administration when the Republicans control it. And
• 53:05
  Speaker 11: I do think your point, Crystal is so important that
• 53:09
  Speaker 11: that after the Iraq War, the Congress kind of figured out, like, hey,
• 53:15
  Speaker 11: instead of taking tough votes to stop anything, we can
• 53:19
  Speaker 11: just not vote at all. Like it's actually easier for
• 53:22
  Speaker 11: us to not vote at all because who knows when
• 53:25
  Speaker 11: any kind of vote is going to come back to bite.
• 53:27
  Speaker 11: Maybe maybe it's the next election cycle, but maybe it's
• 53:30
  Speaker 11: like three election cycles from now, so they haven't wanted
• 53:33
  Speaker 11: to vote. And I think that's like a really dangerous situation.
• 53:37
  Speaker 11: Like it not everything was better in the past, but
• 53:40
  Speaker 11: it was better I think when Congress felt an institutional
• 53:45
  Speaker 11: prerogative to fight with the executive branch over who gets
• 53:49
  Speaker 11: to decide things, because that creates like power and countervailing power,
• 53:55
  Speaker 11: which is supposed to create some kind of balance.
• 53:57
  Speaker 6: Which is a really good argument for getting rid of
• 53:59
  Speaker 6: the philibus. To be honest, what happens with that? And
• 54:04
  Speaker 6: I wanted to ask the cause war powers the intelligence community,
• 54:11
  Speaker 6: and even just thinking about Watergate, all of that goes
• 54:13
  Speaker 6: into it. When you hear, like as someone on the right,
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: when you hear federal society world talk about unitary executive theory,
• 54:20
  Speaker 6: a lot of what you hear is it's about the
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: growth of the federal bureaucracy. The argument, I think charitably
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: their argument would be that the sprawling federal bureaucracy needs
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: to come under the power of the democratically elected president.
• 54:35
  Speaker 6: And the example I always use with Ryan when we
• 54:38
  Speaker 6: kind of get into debates about this is you wouldn't
• 54:41
  Speaker 6: want given the revolving door like an Exon mobile executive
• 54:46
  Speaker 6: or an Exon mobile, just regular staffer coming into the
• 54:49
  Speaker 6: EPA and under a climate concerned president making decisions that
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: are undermining the decision of the president, or the will
• 54:59
  Speaker 6: of the president, or the or the policy of the president.
• 55:01
  Speaker 6: So I was going to ask David, like, how you
• 55:03
  Speaker 6: see the way that this has been intentionally set up
• 55:07
  Speaker 6: and designed to tackle those kind of different arenas where
• 55:11
  Speaker 6: executive power is concerned. There's more power, but there's also bureaucracy,
• 55:14
  Speaker 6: but then there's also the intelligence community. It's a kind
• 55:18
  Speaker 6: of a tangled mess. I was curious to get your
• 55:19
  Speaker 6: take on it.
• 55:20
  Speaker 7: It's a great set of questions.
• 55:22
  Speaker 11: And look, look, I think let me preface this by saying,
• 55:25
  Speaker 11: I think the Democrats, if they ever take back the presidency,
• 55:29
  Speaker 11: I think one of the big questions is, Okay, all
• 55:33
  Speaker 11: this power has been concentrated in the White House, do
• 55:35
  Speaker 11: you use that power or do you use your power
• 55:38
  Speaker 11: in office to not use it or relinquish it?
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 55:41
  Speaker 11: And I don't think it's an acceptable outcome to have
• 55:45
  Speaker 11: where we're in this pattern where Republicans use all the
• 55:47
  Speaker 11: executive power that's there in an aggressive way and grab
• 55:51
  Speaker 11: even more executive power, and then Democrats get in office
• 55:54
  Speaker 11: and either spend their time not using that power or
• 55:57
  Speaker 11: actually relinquishing it.
• 55:58
  Speaker 7: Like that's a ratchet effect. That's bad. I think when
• 56:01
  Speaker 7: it comes to domestic policy.
• 56:03
  Speaker 11: The example that you laid out, Look, I think that
• 56:09
  Speaker 11: the question over whether a president with a mandate has
• 56:14
  Speaker 11: the power to do what they have promised voters to
• 56:18
  Speaker 11: do is at the heart in part of the democracy crisis.
• 56:22
  Speaker 11: Like when I hear that term democracy crisis, part of
• 56:25
  Speaker 11: what I hear and what I think about is presidents
• 56:28
  Speaker 11: get into office. I think it's the Democrats often get
• 56:31
  Speaker 11: into office and then don't really make an effort to
• 56:35
  Speaker 11: really deliver on their promises.
• 56:38
  Speaker 7: That shreds the social contract.
• 56:40
  Speaker 11: That harms people's belief that democracy matters, and ultimately sows
• 56:44
  Speaker 11: the kind of disillusionment that someone like Donald Trump takes
• 56:47
  Speaker 11: advantage of it and says, I will get in and
• 56:49
  Speaker 11: I will use all the power to deliver everything I
• 56:51
  Speaker 11: am promising. Now, I don't think Donald Trump's actually done that.
• 56:53
  Speaker 11: I think he's betrayed a lot of what he promised.
• 56:55
  Speaker 11: The war is a good example of that. But I
• 56:57
  Speaker 11: think that's like the dynamic we're in. And I think,
• 57:00
  Speaker 11: but I guess I would say this. I think there's
• 57:04
  Speaker 11: like a middle ground between the Democrats not really using
• 57:10
  Speaker 11: executive power and being deferential to the to quote unquote
• 57:14
  Speaker 11: norms and Donald Trump so aggressively using executive power that
• 57:19
  Speaker 11: it's like sort of completely unprecedented. And I think in
• 57:23
  Speaker 11: some cases, you know, extra judicial, extra constitutional right like
• 57:28
  Speaker 11: I'll give you, let me give you like one random example,
• 57:30
  Speaker 11: like I think of the Obama presidency and I think, okay,
• 57:34
  Speaker 11: here's a person who used aggressively, in an unprecedented way
• 57:38
  Speaker 11: executive power to prosecute the drone war, to assert the
• 57:43
  Speaker 11: right to put American citizens on a kill list, right, Like,
• 57:47
  Speaker 11: that's a really really, really extreme view of executive authority,
• 57:51
  Speaker 11: right to extra judicially execute American citizens, right.
• 57:55
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 57:55
  Speaker 11: I also think of the Obama administration not using existing
• 58:01
  Speaker 11: unchallenged executive authority to change IRS regulations to close one
• 58:06
  Speaker 11: of the biggest and most egregious tax loopholes on the books,
• 58:09
  Speaker 11: the private equity tax loophole. I think of the Obama
• 58:12
  Speaker 11: administration not using executive authority to require Fortune five hundred
• 58:18
  Speaker 11: SEC regulated companies to disclose their dark money spending, something
• 58:22
  Speaker 11: that the Obama administration could have done. So my point
• 58:25
  Speaker 11: is is that I think there's like a middle ground
• 58:28
  Speaker 11: here where Democrats get into office and use the existing
• 58:34
  Speaker 11: unchallenged executive authority in ways that don't have to go
• 58:38
  Speaker 11: beyond the Constitution, but are there for the taking. Now,
• 58:40
  Speaker 11: one asterisk on this very quickly, which is I do
• 58:43
  Speaker 11: think actually Joe Biden tried to do some of this
• 58:46
  Speaker 11: at the agency level, like the FTC, the CFPB, And
• 58:49
  Speaker 11: I think what's important to remember is that the opposition
• 58:55
  Speaker 11: to that agenda, you know, anti trust enforcement et cetera,
• 58:57
  Speaker 11: et cetera, will very quickly switch sides on their views
• 59:03
  Speaker 11: of executive power when it's not their executive right. I
• 59:06
  Speaker 11: mean it was like the concert, like the cut the
• 59:08
  Speaker 11: Chamber of Commerce. Some Republicans were marching into court saying,
• 59:11
  Speaker 11: you know, Joe Biden has no right to use the
• 59:13
  Speaker 11: FTC or the CFPB and the way he's using it.
• 59:16
  Speaker 11: And you're like, gi me, you guys are like the
• 59:18
  Speaker 11: unitary executive Party, Like and I think this gets to
• 59:21
  Speaker 11: the to the core of a problem here. It's like,
• 59:24
  Speaker 11: you know, we're talking on the eve of the no
• 59:26
  Speaker 11: Kings protest. My question for everyone is, Okay, do you
• 59:29
  Speaker 11: not want a king or do you just not want
• 59:32
  Speaker 11: the king that's not your king? Right, Like, let's really
• 59:35
  Speaker 11: get to the issue here and let's really be honest
• 59:38
  Speaker 11: about what each side actually wants. Do you do you
• 59:42
  Speaker 11: not want kings or do you only not like the
• 59:46
  Speaker 11: fact that it's not your king? I mean, I'm I'm
• 59:50
  Speaker 11: like to be honest, I mean I don't want a king,
• 59:52
  Speaker 11: but like I'm I'm torn on this question of like
• 59:55
  Speaker 11: what ultimately needs to be done. I do think that
• 59:59
  Speaker 11: at the cent or this again, I go back to
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 11: it the democracy crisis. You're totally right, if a president
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 11: gets elected promising climate policy and then is stuck with
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 11: an EPA that's implementing exon mobiles agenda, right, Like, that
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 11: is a that's not just an executive power executive branch problem.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 11: That's a democracy problem because the president has promised and
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 11: gotten elected on those issues.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean FDR is a great example here. I mean,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: in some ways, it's kind of unavoidable to not just
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: view the tools in like in the in theoretical terms
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: of like this tool's good and that one's bad. I
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: think it's kind of unavoidable to look at the content,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: you know, is the content of what is being done here,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: good or bad? Right, some of FDR's things were really bad, actually,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: but a lot of them on the economic front were
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: very good, and they were very popular, and they were
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: in accordance with the will of the people, which the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court, up until he threatened them with court packing,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: was effectively blocking. So you know, it's it is a
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: little bit tricky when you get down to it. And also,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: of course you raise the prospect very much of like, okay, well,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: if Republicans are throwing out the rules and doing whatever
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: they want, and then Democrats are like, we're just gonna
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: you know, stay within these boundaries. Then that's an asymmetric fight.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 7: So let me let me add there.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 11: Yeah, there's an interesting question about the independent agencies that's
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 11: coming down the pike right now in the Supreme Court.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 11: And for those who don't know, there are a set
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 11: of agencies that aren't just like other executive branch like
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 11: the Department of Homeland Security HHS. Those are normal, regular,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 11: non independent executive branch agencies. President has total hiring and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 11: firing power over them. There are certain regulatory agencies, like
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 11: the Federal Trade Commission that that were designed to be
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 11: slightly more insulated from the political cycles, where the commissioners
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 11: have you know, five year terms. It's harder to fire them.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 7: Uh.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 11: And and the Trump administration is trying to say that
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 11: Trump can fire members of these independent agencies, and there's
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 11: really like a constitutional question, right. They're trying to use
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 11: the Constitution to supersede the idea that such these kinds
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 11: of agencies.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 7: Can even exist.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 11: And this is where I like, I get the idea
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 11: that the president gets elected and wants to implement policy
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 11: and want and therefore needs to hire and fire. But
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 11: I also think, like what's dangerous here is that the
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 11: Congress and previous presidents have set up these particular agencies
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 11: deliberately to be independent. And my point is, if you
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 11: want to argue that that's bad, right, you want to argue, okay,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 11: and independent FDC is bad, pass new legislation to change
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 11: the independence of the FTC. Don't start making constitutional arguments
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 11: that say that Congress is not allowed to create independent agencies.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 11: That's where I think we get into like when we're
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 11: talking about a king. It's like, if you want to
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 11: make the small d democratic argument that the SEC or
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 11: the FTC are out of control and not letting presidents
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 11: implement policies that they campaigned on, then pass legislation to
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 11: change the structure of those agencies. Don't start making a
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 11: unitary executive argument that says one line in the Constitution
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 11: Article two means Congress is simply never allowed to create
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 11: these kinds of agencies. I mean, I kind of think
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 11: in a lot of ways those independent agencies, their independence
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 11: has served the purpose that they were laid out, that
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 11: they're supposed to be slightly insulated from the whims of
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 11: this or that election because they are they're supposed to
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 11: be more sort of empirical in their application. But let's
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 11: have that debate rather than saying, yeah, these are not allowed,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 11: these are basically illegal.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, if we're going to have an authoritarian leader,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: I want one that's a lot better than the once we're.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 6: Be getting lately.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at you know, I'm looking at China, like
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: they seem pretty smarter over there. I mean, if we're
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: gonna have no freedom of speech here either, I don't know.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 11: Maybe yeah, I mean problem, Well, we got a good
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 11: we got a good king who makes good decisions. Then
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 11: you know, four years later, you're not going you probably
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 11: aren't going to get to like I think that's the
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 11: theory of the constitution, like like like like for every
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 11: good king you're gonna have, you're gonna have a really
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 11: a bunch of really bad ones.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: Well, let me let me ask you about this. And uh,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: this is some some new news that is pretty interesting. Trump,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: according to the Wall Street Journal, told Inner Circle some
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: mass deportation policies went too far. President directs a new approach,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: as some advisors believe immigration is no longer as strong
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: a political issue for him. He's seeking to lower the
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: profile of his mass deportation effort has directed his top
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: advisors too adopt a new approach on one of the
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: central campaign promises. They go on to say, in conversations
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: with top advisers and his wife, Milania, Trump has become
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: convinced that some of his administration's deportation policies went too far.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: Voters don't like the term mass deportation, and he's told
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: them he wants to see more attention on arresting bad
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: guys and less chaos in American cities. Court of people
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: familiar with the matter, now, I think a lot of caveats, right. Uh, well,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: we'll see what the actual actions are. We will say
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: there hasn't been another like city invasion like we saw
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: in Minneapolis. And to bring this back to you know,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: to your reporting here in master plan, now it looks
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: very clearly like the mass protests and mass resistance in
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: Chicago and Minneapolis and other states and countries across in
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: LA and other states and cities across the country, this succeeded,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: you know, it worked as a check. So Congress may
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: have laid down, Uh, the Supreme Court laid out the
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: red carpet for this, you know, bullshit, cruel and unusual bullshit,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: and but the people really, you know, rose up and
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: made it very made it very difficult, and created a
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: lot of public awareness. Where they're right that the politics
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: of this have completely shifted since Trump came back in office.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: So so, even as they've consolidated in all this power
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: in the executive branch, and even as this president and
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: his cronies seem to act like they're never going to
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: have to face voters again, which is kind of scary,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: how much of a check do the people still serve,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: you know, for democratic accountability on the unitary executive.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 11: It's a great question. I am heartened by the news
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 11: this morning. I will say I do think that it's
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 11: not a coincidence that Trump initially pulled the deployment in
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 11: Minneapolis back when Democrats finally started talking about cutting off funding.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 11: I do think that's that's that's a little part of
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 11: the great point, you know, I do think that like
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 11: Congress's power of the purse.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: But why did Congress do that exactly because they were
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: under pressure from the base. It wasn't just a domino nowhere.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 7: But that's right, Yeah, you're totally right.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 11: So it's like public pressure on Congress to use its
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 11: actual power. It's unchallenged power of the power of the purse. Ultimately,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 11: all of that colludes to back a president office at
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 11: least momentarily. I should mention I think this is important.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 11: Another important lesson when it comes to the power of
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 11: the purse for the Iran war, that public pressure on
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 11: Congress to not just pass resolutions or try to pass
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 11: resolutions of disapproval of the war, but to actually defund
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 11: the war is going to be incredibly, incredibly important. Like
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 11: this idea that Democrats can can say I'm against the war,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 11: but I'm going to vote for the two hundred billion
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 11: dollars supplemental for the war is a lot of nonsense
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 11: and everyone should be focused really on that specific thing.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 11: The Democrats trying to carve out this like middle ground,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 11: like you know, I can be against the war, but
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 11: I don't want to quote unquote undermine the troops by
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 11: defunding the war.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 7: That is a nonsense position.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 11: So I guess it's to say, the more pressure there
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 11: is in public, the more it will create a more
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 11: fortified opposition in Congress, and the more I think Donald
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 11: Trump will be constrained. Now, I do think ultimately if
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 11: Trump wants to continue seriously illegal, unconstitutional and wildly unpopular
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 11: policies he can, and ultimately we have to mention it,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 11: like the question of impeachment should be real, Like I
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 11: think this ultimately we are I think we're headed towards
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 11: this question, especially on the Iran War, of if he
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 11: never comes to Congress for a declaration of war, there
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 11: is no explicit authorization, and this war drags beyond the
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 11: War Powers Acts sixty to ninety day time threshold, there
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 11: is a big question of like what to do. And
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 11: what I worry about is like, if the Congress Act
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 11: actually passes the War Supplemental Bill, is that interpreted legally
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 11: and certainly within the administration as the authorization they need?
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 11: In other words, it's just a funding bill explicitly for
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 11: the war. Does that become the Iran Wars Gulf of
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 11: Talking resolution? And if it does, then then you've taken
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 11: a legal, a legal tool off the table.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know if you guys saw Scott Jennings
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: doing his thing on CNN yesterday and I can't remember
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: who was fighting with, but they got into this fight
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: over whether this was a war or not, and he
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: said America hasn't fought a war since World War II.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean with that, that's where we are, like,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 11: we're still it's a military incursion, a military what I mean?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: And Iraq was, and Afghanistan was, and Vietnam was. I mean,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: it's like, you've got to be kidding. And whoever was?
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: I wish I could give credit shame because off the
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: top of my head and forgetting who it was. But
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: he was, like, I think the veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: would have something to say about whether they were set
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: to fight and die in a war or not. So
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: you know what's interesting Orwellian abuse of language.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 11: Yes, so interesting that you bring this up. There was
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 11: a debate inside of the Reagan administration that we uncovered
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 11: in our reporting for Masterplan, in which it was John
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 11: Roberts as a young lawyer. It was over whether to
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 11: classify the Lebanon Military Operation and the Grenada Military Operation,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 11: both initially conducted without congressional authorization, whether to allow it
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 11: to be classified as a war for purposes of providing
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 11: veterans benefits and the like war combat war service benefits,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 11: to the to the to the soldiers who were in
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 11: that and it was a debate over well, if we
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 11: say they were wars and we didn't get a congressional
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 11: authorization for a war, how to like, it's sort of
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 11: a legal gray area. And I think, what's I bring
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 11: it up only to say, look, these issues have been
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 11: debated before inside of the executive branch, at least in
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 11: like a serious way, Like it was interesting to see
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 11: John Roberts taking the idea that Congress has war making
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 11: authority like that was a serious thing. I think we're
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 11: so far away from that now where it's just presumed
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 11: that Congress doesn't really have in any real way war
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 11: making authority. And I just go back to this idea
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 11: that really, ultimately what we're learning is the only real
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 11: power that Congress has. It may there may be a
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 11: line of the Constitution to declare war. The only real
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 11: power it has here is the power of the purse.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 11: Like I just I know it's like it's it's it's
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 11: so important to underscore.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: David. So if you're saying that democracy is the antidote
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: to these this this master plan, well that seems like
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: something that we have to solve them. I got to
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: get rid of democracy. Where does this save Act fall
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: into this master plan in terms of, you know, depressing votes,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: making it more difficult to vote.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 7: What is your reaction to the current savee plan? Do
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 7: you think it will.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 6: Pass if Congress, actually the democratically elected representatis of Congress
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 6: actually pass it.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: Here's the question too.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 7: I know, I know.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 11: Well, look, I think the when we use the term
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 11: master plan, what we're really talking about is there's a
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 11: handful of powerful interests, oligarchs, billionaires, et Cetera's corporations for
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 11: a very long time. If you're one of those those powers,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 11: you look at democracy as the problem, right because you
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 11: need increasingly unpopular policies to maintain your wealth and power,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 11: to maintain a concentration of wealth and power in a
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 11: small handful of a small.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 7: Group of players.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 11: One way you do that, that was season one of
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 11: Master Plana. Legalize corruption so that the elections can be bought,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 11: so that it is less a one person, one vote
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 11: democracy and more a one dollar, one vote democracy, so
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 11: that the election choices, no matter what they are, deliver
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 11: the unpopular policies you need. The second thing you do
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 11: is you try to concentrate power in one person's hands,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 11: the president, so that the president so you don't have
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 11: to deal with the Congress.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 7: You don't really have to deal with with.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 11: The courts, Like that's hard to Congress members have to
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 11: go back to their districts every two years and deal
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 11: with actual people. So part of the way to subvert
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 11: democracy is to concentrate power. The finals part of this
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 11: is to simply make it harder, if not impossible, for
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 11: people to actually even vote, right I think, and I
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 11: think that's you know, what the Save Act represents. And
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 11: I think it's easy to like presume that the motive
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 11: here is just like you know, doctor evil motives, right,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 11: Like it's just people like like the people pushing this
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 11: just are evil because they want to be evil.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 7: No, it's actually a motive of self interest.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 11: We want to maintain power knowing that the policies that maintain.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 7: Our power are unpopular.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 11: So we have to do all of these things to
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 11: essentially keep that power because if we allow an actually
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 11: flourishing democracy to operate, we're not going to get the
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 11: unpopular policies that we want. I mean, Lewis Powell in
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 11: the Powell Memo in Season one Master Plan, I mean
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 11: he lays this out, I mean literally, like the problem
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 11: that the conservative movement saw at the time was the
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 11: government has become too responsive to the people. Like the
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 11: government is passing all the Ralph Nader is getting all
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 11: these things past that we the oligarchy, do not like.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 11: And the problem is that the government has become too
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 11: responsive to what the public wants.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 7: And I think ultimately this question of.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 11: We originally struck a balance, like the Constitution was supposed
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 11: to strike a balance, like you don't want the hot
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 11: passions of every whim that the public wants to be
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 11: legislated at any time, because that can get out of it.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 7: You know, that's mob rule.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 11: So there needs to be like some you know, small
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 11: are republican checks on that problem, you know, representative democracy.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 11: But I think we've swung so far to the other
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 11: side that we're now at the stage of talking about
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 11: making it harder for people just to cast votes. I mean,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 11: that's really how far this plan has gone.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: David, Where can people find Masterplan Season two and where
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: can they support you guys over at lever News.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 7: Uh, thanks for asking.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 11: Go onto your phone right now, pull up your podcast app,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 11: whichever one is your favorite app. Just type in Masterplan, subscribe,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 11: go listen to episode one. If you don't have a
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 11: podcast app, just go to Masterplan podcast dot com.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 7: All all the episodes will be.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 11: There that and we are the lever so you can
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 11: find all of our reporting at levernews dot com. And
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 11: just a huge thank you to Breaking Points and Breaking
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 11: Points as audience for always being such great supporters of
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 11: our work and letting your audience know about our work.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 11: We are independent investigative journalists. It's not easy to get
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 11: our work, our work out there, but you guys are
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 11: a huge help and we really appreciate it.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 6: Well, we have podcast Your podcasts are incredible.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: Sure they are really excellent.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: Storytelling is so good.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 7: I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: Great to see us always, David, Great to see you guys.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 7: Thanks again.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: All right, that'll do it for us here in the
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: first half of the show. If you want to see
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: the second half, y'all know the deal. Emily, where do
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: they go?
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 6: Breakingpoints dot com?
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: Of course? Where else?
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 7: Of course?
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: Where read the Breaking Points twenty six though, so sorry, guys.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: They've been liberated. They're taking Cuba with Ryan.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 7: That's right.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: One last thing before we get over the premium section, though,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: Thank you to everybody who' submitted questions for Sager for
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: the Joe Ken interview. I know he was going over them, Griffin,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you dug into them as well, and he
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: was saying, like, there's actually a lot of really good
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: questions here, so really appreciate that input. And if you
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: want to be able to, you know, contribute to such
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: things in the future, breakpoints dot com that's how you
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, start doing our job for us, really
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: good stuff.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, please pay us money and then also do our
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: job for us.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 4: Created.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: How is this pitch going?
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 6: Yes, this is going perfect. We should in an all
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 6: credit to soccer. He created a massive list of his
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 6: own questions for Joe Kent and then he got great
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 6: audience questions and now there's a great synergy happening behind
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 6: the scenes.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, yes, all right, we'll see y'all in the
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: second half.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button
• 1:17:50
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• 1:17:52
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• 1:17:53
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• 1:18:00
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