Latest / Pod Save the World / Pentagon Covers Up Iran War Casualties

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Pentagon Covers Up Iran War Casualties · Pod Save the World

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  Speaker 1: Thank you Remy for sponsoring this episode. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: pot Save the world Of'm Tommy deetur I'm Ben Roods. Then.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: One way that politicians and sometimes try to humanize themselves
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: or soften their public image is by getting a dog.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't need to tell you this. They're
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: great companions, They're cute, they're cheaper than kids. So we
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: had FDR. He had his beloved Falla Nixon net checkers.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: The Bidens had those German shepherds that kept biting everybody.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yeh, sure about those guys.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know about those ones there, But I've
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: never seen a politician quite embrace their pet as lovingly
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: as this.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Let's watch it's that your decision to defect to one
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  Speaker 3: nation is dragging you further into a place of intolerance
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: and racial discrimination. You're defending your leader, but are you
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: really comfortable with where she is taking you?
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: But I think.
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  Speaker 1: Dog? Okay? That was an Australian politician named Barnaby Joyce. Seriously,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: this guy before Ben. Yeah, that's the first, okay favorite.
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  Speaker 1: So he's a charming fellow. He's now a member of
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the right wing One Niche and Party. But not long
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: ago he served as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. That's
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the leader of the National Party. But Ben, believe it
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: or not, this is not the first time that Barnaby
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Joyce has declared his life from Man's Best Friend on
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  Speaker 1: national television. Check out this clip from twenty fifteen.
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  Speaker 5: The next issue, which is a gentleman by the name
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: of John Christopher Depp fifty one years old otherwise aka
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: Jack Sparrow, and he has decided to bring into our
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: nation two dogs. Basically looks like he snuck them in.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: We found out he snuck them.
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: In because we saw them taking it to a poodle groomer. Now,
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  Speaker 5: mister Depp has to either take his dogs back to
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: California or we're going to have to euthanize them. If
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: we start letting the movie stars, even though they've been
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: the secondiest man alive twice to come into our nation,
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: then why don't we just break the laws for everybody.
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: So it's time that Pistol and Boo bug it off
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: back to the non studes.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe if you threaten to kill dogs on TV, maybe
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't be allowed to have one in the future.
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  Speaker 1: That's that's my idea.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not here to like defend Jihann Depp, but I'm
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  Speaker 2: here to defend Pistol and Boo. That was a pretty
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: hard swerve to Nuki. Then, you know, do you remember
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  Speaker 2: this when this happened. I feel like there's a live
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  Speaker 2: feed of his like apartment.
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  Speaker 6: I do.
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  Speaker 1: I remember being the pandemic, but no, it was twenty fifteen.
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  Speaker 1: When I googled it. They it was referred to I
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: guess as the war on Terrier.
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  Speaker 2: It's funny because I remember it's a pandemic too. I
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: think any truly bizarre thing that involved, like bringing stuff
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: into a country, I just associated with the pandemic. But
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  Speaker 2: hopefully Pistol and Boo made it out alive.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think they made it okay. I mean
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  Speaker 1: what happened was Johnny depprought dogs to Australia. We did
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: go to the proper quarantine protocol. Having been there recently,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: they take it quite seriously, but you probably don't need
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: to threaten to kill them. You can probably just ask
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  Speaker 1: them nicely to leave. I think they're okay though, also
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  Speaker 1: been In twenty twenty four, the Daily Mail ran a
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  Speaker 1: video of Joyce. He was taking a phone call. He
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  Speaker 1: was on the street. He fell off a pot plant
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  Speaker 1: around midnight. I'm assuming he had a few. He landed
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  Speaker 1: on his back and then just lay there and did
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  Speaker 1: the phone call. This is about midnight in Canberra and
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  Speaker 1: some bystander walked by and filmed it, and she said
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  Speaker 1: that she talked to the Daily Mail and this is
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  Speaker 1: an actual line from the story that I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: read you. This is Barnaby Joyce's wife said her husband
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  Speaker 1: was not referring to her when he called someone a
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  Speaker 1: quote dead fucking seaward during the phone call. Then she said,
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  Speaker 1: I think he was calling himself one. He likes to
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  Speaker 1: self flagellate.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds like a colorful guy, you know. Yeah, I'm
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  Speaker 2: not sure i'd want him anywhere near positions of power
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  Speaker 2: and responsibility.
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  Speaker 1: Though, no, no, not. Look this started as a cold
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  Speaker 1: open on one funny video and then I went way
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  Speaker 1: too deep on Barnaby Joyce because I missed a World Cup.
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  Speaker 1: I should have been watching like Cabo Verde versus Switzerland,
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  Speaker 1: but instead I was youtubing this asshole.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I sahow, the algorithm is not feeding me Barnaby,
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  Speaker 2: but maybe now will and I'll get to keep up
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  Speaker 2: with his various vendettas against animals and other other living beings.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: With any luck, with any luck, all right, we got
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a great show. We're going to cover the major escalation
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: fighting between the US and run over the weekend there
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: were multiple US casualties, accusations that the Pentagon is covering
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: them up, and then a couple signs this war could
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: be escalating even further, so a lot of bad news
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: on the run front. Then we're going to talk about
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: a State Department report on Cuba and how it's being
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: used to smear and potentially target left wing individuals and
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: organizations all across the country. We'll talk about politics and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the prediction markets like Calshie and Polymarket, the wildfires in Canada,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: and why Trump is punishing our neighbors to the north.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: We'll get it to the first couple actions by new
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, and then we will end
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: by taking the piss out of some right wing candidates
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and organizations in the UK. Always funded you see, Seapack started.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: In Britain, I know, with some funding coming from the
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Trump administration too.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Oh really how much they give them?
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Their new international aid budget includes some line items for
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: like right wing think tanks in places like Britain. Sorry
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: kidding me, glad to see we're on that side.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, so we're like zeroing out you know,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: HIV AIDS funding for kids.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, we're given to t's going.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: That's great. Finally you're gonna hear my interview with Alexi Sorkin.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: He's from the Kiev Independent. We talk about the security
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: situation in Ukraine, this recent series of massive ballistic missile
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: strikes by the Russians on major cities across Ukraine. We'll
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: talk about the latest on Ukraine's missile defense capabilities, including
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: President Trump giving them a license to manufacturer patriot missiles
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine and sort of how long that might take.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Talk about the strikes by the Ukrainian side on Crimea,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: on Russian oil and gas infrastructure, and then this major
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: fallout from President Zelenski firing his defense minister, which led
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: to huge protests in the streets. I should note, though,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: ben I spoke with Alexi before we learned that President
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Zelenski had fired Alexander Sirski, who is the commander in
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. So they're actually a
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: huge development since I did that interview this morning.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not going to fire the defense minister and the
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: commander when things seem to be going well too. It's
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: politics in Ukraine are pretty volatile right now.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, vault of politics. It's a very interesting conversation and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: interview because the defense minister Federov is like thirty five
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: years old, the Siroski is sixty, so this is a
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: generational fight. It's a debate about tactics and technology and
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: accusations that you know that Siriski is running kind of
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: like a Soviet era military strategy while Federov was developing
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: all these new drones and you know, accountability and data
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: based targeting. It's very interesting, and the political fallout is
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: huge because a lot of people think Celensky may have
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: fired Federov because he viewed him as a political threat
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: as a rival.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So a lot to watch there. Ron
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: secks up all the attention, but it doesn't mean there's
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  Speaker 2: not another war going on.
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  Speaker 1: I know, it did make me feel badly that we
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: had not covered Ukraine as much recently. It's like just
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the agenda fills with a crisis after crisis, and it's
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: like almost easy to forget there's four year running nightmare
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: of a war in the background. I mean, it's not
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: easy to forget for anyone in Ukraine or on the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: front lines. It's just there's like so much on our
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  Speaker 1: plate here, all right, So we had these terrible news
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: over the weekend from the war in Ukraine. We got
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  Speaker 1: the death toll for the US service members from that
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  Speaker 1: war is now increased to eighteen. So First Lieutenant Tyler
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  Speaker 1: James Fienn and Private Isabella Gonzales were killed by an
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  Speaker 1: Iranian blistic missile attack on a US base in Jordan.
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  Speaker 1: Private Gonzales was nineteen years old. It's always like heartbreaking
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  Speaker 1: when you see how yng E service members are. A
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  Speaker 1: third service member is presumed dead. Remains were found at
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the blast site, but that person has not been identified
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  Speaker 1: yet publicly. The Pentagon also announced that another US service
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  Speaker 1: member in a rock was killed during a controlled detonation
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  Speaker 1: of an unexploded ordnance from an Iranian drone. I would
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  Speaker 1: like to better understand what happened there. That sounds awful
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: and it should the kind of thing that should be avoidable,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: but I don't know. We'll learn more. On top of that,
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  Speaker 1: nearly one hundred service members have been injured in the
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  Speaker 1: conflict since July seventh, so the past couple of weeks.
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  Speaker 1: The Pentagon says the vast majority of those injuries were
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  Speaker 1: quote minor concussions However, they've been far from candid about
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  Speaker 1: casualty figures, which we should dig into. So we've since
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  Speaker 1: learned that the base in Jordan that was targeted was
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  Speaker 1: hit several times over the course of twenty four hours.
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  Speaker 1: Dozens of soldiers were injured and destroyed a bunch of helicopters.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: And the question becomes, how does Trump respond on truth
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  Speaker 1: social He posted quote every time iron kills an American soldier,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: they will pay for that killing. Many times over, this
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  Speaker 1: directive has been passed on to the Secretary of War
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  Speaker 1: Pete Heechseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Daniel Kine in
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  Speaker 1: every leader in the military end quote. The Pentagon has
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  Speaker 1: hit targets in Iran for about ten consecutive nights. Now.
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  Speaker 1: Iran at the same time has been hitting US targets
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  Speaker 1: or targeting US sites in Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Worryingly,
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  Speaker 1: it seems like a lot of these Iranian air strikes
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  Speaker 1: were targeting radar and missile defense systems, which, if successful,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: could make the bases even more vulnerable. Of course, in Jordan,
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  Speaker 1: they were managed to hit the barracks that sound like
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  Speaker 1: they were barely fortified at all, leading to these casualties.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Aron has also had some tankers in the straight or humos.
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  Speaker 1: So Ben, let's start with this question of or issue
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  Speaker 1: of transparency around US casualties from the Pentagon. The Pentagon
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  Speaker 1: they deny that they're withholding casualty information. They're kind of
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  Speaker 1: huffily saying like, we're not going to release anything that
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  Speaker 1: might tell Iran that their targeting is going well or
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  Speaker 1: help them operationally. And they're also arguing they have no
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: obligation to release information about kind of minor injuries. What's
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  Speaker 1: your reaction to.
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  Speaker 2: That, So listeners, regular listeners will know that we've been
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: talking about this for months, that there's a lack of
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  Speaker 2: candor about the damage that's being done in terms of
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: the injuries to American service members, the damage to US bases,
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  Speaker 2: military facilities, and embassies. This has been very clear, Tommy one,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: because you know, if you talk to anybody in the
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Gulf or any of these countries that are being attacked,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: they'll tell you that there's far more significant damage than
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: is being reported by the Pentagon or that's being seen.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: But the other Tommy is like you and I used
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: to be responsible for this, you know, like you stuff
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: oversee the communications around what was going on in wars
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: and this nothing about this fields normal. And I think
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: what people need to bear in mind is that this
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: has been a process. Right we covered kicking out the
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Pentagon Press Corps, so they're not people actual journalists. You've
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: got like, you know, the Mike Lindell, my pillow guy,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: has a you know, correspondent in the Pentagon briefing room,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: not like the actual journalists resources, So you're not getting
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: the kind of reporting from people there. You're also kind
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: of getting these very opaque statements. You know, you either
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: get some insane Pete Hagsas statement about, you know, we've
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: won the war for the thousandth time, or we've destroyed
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: the entire Navy, or you get this kind of very
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: minimalist statement from the sent comm Central Command that is
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: running the war that will report a death and make
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: kind of a vague allusion to injuries without any detail
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: about the nature of those injuries. And look, the reality
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: is this is just an effort to hide the costs
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: of the war from the American people, Like they do
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: not want you to know how much damage has been
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: done to our facilities, how much that's going to cost
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: to repair, which could run well into the many billions
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: of dollars. They don't want you to know the extent
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: of the injuries of service members, say, they don't want
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: you to pay attention. They want to be able to
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: do whatever they want to do without any accountability. And normally,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: also Congress would be holding hearings on these matters and
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: forcing answers information out to the public. But because the
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Republicans control both houses of Congress, the very spare hearings
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: that we get yield very little information. And when it's
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: like hegseth, you get this kind of performative bullshit from him.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: So this is by design. This is what it feels
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: like to have an authoritarian system leading you into a
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: war that is illegal that nobody wants. They have to
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: conceal the information because the more information gets out about
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: this war, the less Americans want any part of it.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard, Like normally these kind of numbers are
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: just like updated on a website. It's supposed to be
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: very like routine and kind of technocratic, done by professional
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: public information officers whinin the US military. It's hard not
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to feel like data like this would not be being withheld
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: because it seems to contradict statements by Trumpet, by Hexth
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and by Vance that we have eviscerated their missile capability
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: and you know, the Iranian military is decimated. Blah blah blah.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: It's also, I think relevant that a lot of these
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: strikes happened in Jordan. You know, the journal Wallsteret Journal
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: noted that Jordan is among the most permissive countries in
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the Arab world when it comes to allowing US spaces
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to operate from their territory. A bunch of other countries
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: in the region have shut down US access to their
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: airspace at times to try to prevent US from doing
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: try to prevent Trump from doing stupid things to escalate
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the war. So it seems like the targeting of Jordan
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: is deliberate by Iran and is probably an attempt to,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you know, change public opinion within Jordan about US participation
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and cooperation.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and bear in mind that there are fifty thousand
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: US service members scattered across this region, by the way,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: like a thing, far more than is necessary. And that's
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: something that a future democratic president should look at, but
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: it's hard to secure. What the Iranians have figured out
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: is they have a very broad target set. If the
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: United States is hitting things inside of Iran at increasing
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: pace and scale, you know, which we can talk about,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: but they have in their target lists they've got US
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: basis facilities anywhere there's US military personnel, They've got the
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Gulf States and and the kind of you know, they
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: want to extract a cost on both the global economy,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: so you know, hitting things like energy infrastructure and obviously
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: closing down the straight up form moves, but also just
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: you know, if something gets hit. I've noticed, you know,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: if a desalination plant gets hit inside of Iran, like
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: they're hitting one in Kuwait, you know, so they're seeing
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: the entire region essentially, as as presenting targets that in
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: their mind match up with what is being done to them,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: and they show that they're all these different ways of
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: carrying a cost. So the other thing we should point out, Tommy,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: is that we've burned through a lot of our missile defenses.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: We have less today than we did at the beginning
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: of the war. That's a finite resource. I think we
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: get comfortable with this idea that we can just shoot
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: everything down. Well we can't. For two reasons. One, contrary
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: to everything that Trump and Hegseth and Rubio have said
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: they clearly maintain a significant blistic missile capability. I saw
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: potentially over two thousand blistic missiles and they're able to
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: reproduce them. They have obviously a significant drone capacity. And
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: so if they're maintaining these capabilities and we have less
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: and less defenses and we have to make judgment calls
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: right about where to put them, well, stuff is increasingly
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: going to get through. And so the more this war
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: goes on, the less capable we are defending. And then lastly,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: when you see the precision targeting that they're doing in
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: places like Jordan, you have to think that in addition
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: to Runnian intelligence, they're probably getting intelligence from the Russians too,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: because they seem to know where to hit things with
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: a degree of precision with other blistic missiles or with drones.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: And so this should be warning. The longer this war
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: goes on, the more American casualties there's going to be,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: the more damage is going to be to US allies,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: the more it's going to create rifts. They want to
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: create divisions between not just public opinion in those countries,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: but governments in the US. So the Iranians, to use
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: a trump phrase again, have a lot of cards.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Here, and it just doesn't seem like the Pentagon has
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: taken any steps to harden the infrastructure where these service
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: members are living and staying and working. I mean, it's
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: just shocking to me that you could be serving in
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Jordan and living and basically an unprotected barracks that could
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: be hit by a ballistic missile and nothing's been done
• 17:33
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  Speaker 1: h elp dot com slash Crooked World. Let's talk about
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: some of the escalation risks ben, So there's a couple
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: in my mind. First, on Monday, the Houthi rebels and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Yemen threatened to but in place a maritime embargo on
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia and the Babblemann deb straight which is how
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: ships get in and out of the Red Sea. We
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: talked about this last week. The Saudis bombed this Houthy target.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: We both were like, why the fuck would they do that.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: They've had basically a ceasefire in place since twenty twenty two,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and now, in the least surprising news possible, you have
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the Houthis threatening retaliation. So the reason this matters so
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: much so when the straight uorf Hoorn Moves was closed,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the Saudis were still able to export oil by shipping
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: it west through a pipeline to the Red Sea side
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: of the country and exporting it that way. And if
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: the Houthi's managed to prevent the Saudis from exporting oil,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: it would remove several million more barrels of oil per
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: day from the market, and then it could create serious
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: long term problems for the Saudi producers if they have
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: to lock in their wells. That's obviously long ways off,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: but it's something they're thinking about, I'm sure. And the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: impact would be even greater if the Houthi's block or
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: to ter other shipping through the Red Sea. Earlier today,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Trump was asked about this. He said the hooth Hes
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: hadn't actually done anything yet, but he's a liar and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: time will tell. The other major escalation risk was outlined
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: helpfully for US via a leak to the Wall Street Journal.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: So here's the lead of that story quote, Israeli intelligence
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: believes Iron moved thousands of uranium and Richmond centrifuged it
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: into tunnels deep inside a mountain last fall. Israeli, a
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: US official say, a development that would heighten concern that
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Tehran could reconstitute its nuclear program. So that story says
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: these materials were moved after the Twelve Day War, when
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the US in Israel first bombed Iran's nuclear site. Trump
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: was asked about this Pickax Mountain concern during a press
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: conference on Tuesday. Let's watch, do you believe that Iran
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: has moved to nuclear set in refugees into Pickaxe Mountain?
• 22:02
  Speaker 7: And when you say, we're not done yet what is
• 22:04
  Speaker 7: left to finish Well, I think that they they may have,
• 22:08
  Speaker 7: we don't have it on record. All we do is
• 22:11
  Speaker 7: read the fake news. You know. We see the news
• 22:13
  Speaker 7: is so wrong so many times. So you know, maybe
• 22:16
  Speaker 7: maybe this one they have right, but it's okay. It
• 22:19
  Speaker 7: doesn't mean anything unless they have the material. You're talking
• 22:22
  Speaker 7: about the centrifuges. It doesn't mean anything unless they have
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: the material. They don't have. We follow the material. That's
• 22:27
  Speaker 7: where the action is, and we'll be hitting that area
• 22:31
  Speaker 7: very probably pretty soon, and there's not a thing they
• 22:34
  Speaker 7: can do about it. You know, normally I wouldn't say
• 22:37
  Speaker 7: that if I thought they could do something about it,
• 22:39
  Speaker 7: I would never say that. But we'll be hitting that
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: area pretty soon and very.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Heavily interesting logic train there. It's like it doesn't matter,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: but we're going to bomb it anyway. I guess now
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: they can move it and prevent that from happening. But
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: here we are. So But the broader problem with Trump's
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: threat there to bomb Pickaxe Mountain is that experts believe
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: these facilities could be between three hundred and four hundred
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and fifty feet under solid rock. It is not clear
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: whether even the US bunker busting bombs that were used
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: against the previous nuclear sites could reach these areas. James Acton,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Nuclear Policy Program, at
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: an interesting Twitter thread about this question of whether the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: bunkerbusters could hit Pickax Mountain. He said, there's a debate
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: about how deep the biggest US bunker buster can actually
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: burrow into rock before exploding, and the range is presumed
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to be sixty feet to two hundred feet, which again
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: is not deep enough to get to the deepest parts
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: of Pickaxe Mountain, so it's not clear that this would work.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: He also pointed out the strike at Foordoh was only
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: effective because a hit of ventilation shaft, and then even
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: then they had to drop fourteen of the massive ordinance
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: penetrator weapons to finish the job. So big picture, we
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: don't know if Pickax Mountain could be targeted. We don't
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: really know what's happening within it because the IAEA does
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: not have access to the site because Trump pulled out
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of the JCPOA and got rid of ia access. So
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: ben not the most subtle leak here from the israelis
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: interesting that Trump decided to just comment on it and
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: preview an air strike. But what did you make of this?
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: First of all, there's two governments with massive credibility issues.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: So every time you see a leak of Israeli intelligence
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: about the Iranian nuclear program, you know, this is a
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: bit of a boyo cried wolf, right, Like, it's always
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: some pretext for why the United States needs to get
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: deeper into the war. And so this one may be true.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: But like we've heard Primus Nania say, for like well
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: over a decade that around was like, you know, two
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: weeks away from a nuclear weapon. So it feels like
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: the leak clearly had an interest to pressure Trump to
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: do something. And then it bears repeating that Trump has
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: said that the Iranian nuclear program is obliterated after the
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Twelve Day War, you know, and now he's nonsensical. It's
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: not just a nuclear program, it's not just a nuclear fuel.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: The nuclear dust which was referring to there, I think
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: with the material that's the product of the nuclear program.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: The nuclear program is the scientist is the centrifuges. Is
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: the uranium that you mind and put into the centrifuges,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: and then it's the fuel, right, And so you can't
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: say we've obliterated the program. They just had centrifuges and
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: their fuel and their scientists. What exactly we've done here.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: The logic train of this would lead Americans to say,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: you're telling me that we've gone to war with this
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: country multiple times now if you count the Twelve Day Wars,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: a different war, and we've been bombing them for months now,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: and they've got centrifuges in a mountain, and they've got
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: the nuclear fuel somewhere we don't maybe we know, maybe
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: we don't know where that is. It just shows that
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: they don't have a strategy because the reality is, we
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: can have all these conversations about massive ordnance penetrators, these
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: bunker busting bombs. The only way that you're going to
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: verifiably get that material or those centrifuges out is either
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: with the nuclear deal, in which they're international inspectors who
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: can go in and verify that, or it's with masses
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: amounts of US ground forces going in and getting into
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: a real fighting war on the ground. And I don't
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: think there's any appetite for that whatsoever. You cannot fix
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: these problems from air. This is the problem with their
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: whole war strategy. And so if you look at what
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: they're doing. You know, they seem to be trying to
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: bomb infrastructure associated with the IRGC. I don't think the
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: URGC looks like they're ready to capitulate anytime soon. They're
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: willing to weather more of that. So that's not going
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: to work. Then Trump saying like if every American killed,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: we're going to kill a bunch of people or blow
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: up a bunch of stuff. Let me tell you, Like,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: however upset you are and you're about American service members
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: being killed, like vengeance is not a war strategy, Like
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: it's a horrible way to think about targeting, you know.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: And so these guys just, yeah, they just don't know
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: what they're doing. And it's very clear what the Runians
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: are doing. They're just holding the line. If we can
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: survive and stay in power and demonstrate that we control
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: that straight, doesn't really matter how much damage Trump tries
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: to do to their economy or to bombing in the
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: vicinity of their nuclear program. They have a nuclear program,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: they control the straight and they're still in power.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: And one last thing on this pickaxe mountain piece, Hugh Hewett,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: who's kind of a right wing not kind of right
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: wing common who kisses Trump's ass, Big Nixon Van. He's
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a radio host on the Salem Radio network. He's obsessed
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: with Pickax Mountain. Trump was on the show the other
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: day and he was asking him about it. I noticed, Bend.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: There was a Wall Street Journal report recently, I think
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: it was over the weekend on the stunning amount of
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: money that Israel is spending on pr propaganda to try
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: to fix its image. I think the total amount for
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six is seven hundred million dollars. One of
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the people they've hired is a guy named Brad Parscale.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: He was Trump's former campaign manager. I think he has
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: a forty five million dollar contract. Parscale is not only
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: has his own kind of like company, he is also
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the chief strategy officer at Salem Media and his contract
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: for Israel involves quote integration of narrative messaging into Salem
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Media network properties. So one has to wonder is Israel
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: telling Brad Parskale to tell people like Hugh Hewitt to
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: ask about these issues, because there's a whole lot of
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: money flowing around that suggests that might be the case.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Just one question.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: I am entirely plausible and in line with how Israel
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: approaches messaging, like the closer you can get to decision makers.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And this is the thing about like the for sale
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: nature of right wing media, Like we've seen the Russians
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: do this, right, We've seen the Russians literally buy influencers
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: in the United States. Now, frankly not new for Israel
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: to be doing something similar, but it just goes to
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: show in a fracture media environment, like how vulnerable we
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: are as a society to like Israel dumping a bunch
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: of money into Trump cronies and suddenly Hewett is like laundering,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: you know, potentially you know, we don't know for sure
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Israeli narratives or it's rarely interest, right, you should bomb
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: this mountain. I mean it just every now and then. Actually,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: there's an anecdote that kind of illustrates how absurd the
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: times are that we're in. It is plausible. Again, we
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: don't know for sure that like Israel pays Brad Parscal
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: And then Hugh hewittt is trying to do targeting with
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Trump on a show like that is fucking nuts that
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: we even can entertain that as a possibility.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: And meanwhile, the Finance Minister Basilo Smotrich. He had a
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: quote that he gave to some media, some outlet in
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Israel after their like national Security conversation last night, where
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: he said, of the war in Iran, the state of
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Israel has no interest in joining the contained confrontation between
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Iran and the United States. The current situation is the
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: best one for us. We know, we know, buddy.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Good for you guys. I mean, this is exactly love
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: these guys, like, this is exactly what you worry about,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: which is, what did they do? They dragged the United
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: States into this war because b is.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I can't say that. I can't say that. I'm just kidding.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: What did they okay? On Twitter? O, get yell, let's okay.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: They had a very persuasive briefing confirming it, like how
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: dare you?
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And they convinced Trump to do this dumb thing.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: And then it's like now the US is in Oh,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: we don't have to be a part of this anymore.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, give me a break. If you ever needed
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: more evidence that we need to rethink the entirety of
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: this relationship with this completely maniacal government, it's this, It's
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: it's Mootrich. You would have been cheering Israel joining the
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: US on the front end, and now it's to go.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: We can take a step back.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Let these guys, let them do it for us. Meanwhile,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: last teing on Iron, Trump's kind of trying to jam
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: some Iran connected legislation through Congress. There's the NDAA bill,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: which is the annual bill authorizing Pentagon programs. Democrats are
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: currently blocking the one point one to five trillion dollar
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: NDAA bill to pressure Trump to end the war. Trump
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: has also requested another eighty seven billion dollars in Iran
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: supplemental funding. Hegxeth and Chairman of Joint Chief Dan Caine.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: We're up on the hill today talking about it. I
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: just want to point out to anyone who works on
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Capitol Hill or any members of Congress listening that as
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: you decide on how to vote on this stuff, I
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: wanted to flag an economist Yugov poll for you that
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: shows that the Iran War is the least popular war
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: since polling started. How about that for a stat It
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: is a minus thirty approval rating, a stat which the
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: economist notes the Vietnam War didn't hit until six years
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: in Again, for context, the Afghanistan War started at ninety
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: percent support, and it took thirteen years to dip below
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: fifty percent approval. Breakdowns by group, the Iran war is
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: eighty four points underwater with Democrats, It's fifty two points
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: underwater with Independence. It only has a seventy two percent
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: approval among Naga Republicans and is twenty five points underwater
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: with non Naga Republicans. So it's like, it's hard to
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: imagine a more clearcut vote than this vote no against
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: any funding, any support for this conflict. Period.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: This is the biggest New braner in the world. And
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: the only two things that add are that there's Maga
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: numbers too, Like a there's a tiny tiny portion of
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: those people that actually support the war, right the constituency.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: You know now that Lindsay Graham's along way right, they.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Just support Trump.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: We're down, We're down to like Hugh Hewett and Ben Shapiro. Yeah, yeah,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: it's exactly right. Like so most of those bag voters
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: probably don't support the war. They just if they're asked
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: something that Trump is doing, they say they support it. Right,
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: So there's not a lot of depth to that support.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: There's not a lot of people that are like, yeah,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: we really got to finish the job in Iran, Like
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: you don't right set anywhere.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of maggot shuds who are like, look,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: we got to get Pickaxe Mountain. I've been saying it
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: all along. This is really important.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. People are sitting in there, yeah, like
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: in the diner, you know, like the Trump West Virginia diners,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: saying like, you know what, I really vote for Trump.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I vote for Trump so you could take care of
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Pickaxe mount.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Can I afford my heating bill? No? Do I want
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to bomb Pickaxe Mountain? Absolutely, That's how I view the world.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: It's important to me.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: But the other thing is like who on Earth is
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: like out there wanting to spend a trillion half dollars
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: in defense period? Like like so if part of the
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: concern is that you're like not voting to the overall
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: defense package because you're blocking this, well you shouldn't vote
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: for that. Like nobody should vote for a trillion alf
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: dollar defense pach. I think it's at a time we
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: have such massive needs. It's crazy. It's time to completely
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: reverse this premise that you have to vote for defense
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: spending or else you'll be held accountable. We should start
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: holding people accountable for the fact that they want a
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: trillion half dollars in defense spending when everything else in
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: this country is going to ship.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's nuts. All right, let's switch gear has ben
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: because something really weird has happened at the State up
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: and earlier this week, we want to talk about it.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: They released this one hundred page report titled Cuba the
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Capital of twenty first century Communism. It claims that for
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: over seventy years quote, the Cuban regime has waged a
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: sustained campaign of subversion against the United States. It is
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: a campaign that has infiltrated the highest reaches of the
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: US government and had backed left wing terrorism on and
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: they say it has backed left wing terrorism on American soil.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: So the report lists people who it calls front groups
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: and fellow travelers of Cuba. It's like groups like Code
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Pink and the Democratic Socialists of America or DSA. It
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: mentions a bunch of prominent leftists and democratic leaders by
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: name streamer Hassan Piker gets a shout out zoron Mamdani's
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: in there. The report was released shortly after a Secretary
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: of State Marco Rubio hosted a quote Ministerial on the
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Resurgence of Political Terrorism. Rubio's speech at the ministerial focused
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: almost exclusively on what he called left wing terrorism. Independent
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: journalist Ken Clippens he noted that a White House press
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: release about the event said, quote, far left extremism will
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: be treated with the same seriousness and ferocity the world
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: has long reserved for gie hottest terrorism. Ben. I watched
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Rubio's speech, and I noticed this one line, which was
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: they despise the West because the West is great. It's
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: like identical framework to like the Bush era. You know,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: they hate us because of our freedom. Bullshit about al Qaida.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: So Ben, so, now there's no freedom, We're just great.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: They hate Mega, I guess, so Ben. This weird report,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: in my mind, seems to be merging two different strands
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: of work. The first is the work to build this
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: legal structure to designate the lefties or leftist groups or
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: even just Democrats as terrorists or terrorist organizations and then
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: go after us with counter terrorism authorities. We shall remind
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: ourselves that in the US that includes killing people. The
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: second is the Marco Rubio passion project of trying to
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: force regime change in Cuba, but doing it by punishing
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: an entire island, an entire civilian population full of people
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: through this energy blockade. By merging the two, they have
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: created a kind of de facto new leftist blacklist that
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: would make Joe McCarthy proud. And then there's this attempt
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: to create like an intellectual framework in legitimacy around the work.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: So the first sixty pages of the report are like
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: this history lesson that feels like it was ripped from
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: a Liberty university student's term paper or something. It's sort
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: of this like slap dash kind of pop history from
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: a slightly paranoid right wing perspective, although often about like
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: real historical events. But then it ends with this absolutely crazy,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: stretched like six degrees of Kevin Bacon's style guilt by
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: association conclusion, which says, quote, many of the most significant
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: upheavals in recent American political history, from the George Floyd
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Riots to the rise of Antifa to the explosion of
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: grow terrorist activism on American college campuses can be linked
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: in some way, shape or form to Cuban influence. You
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: know your argument is strong when you include the words
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: in some way, shape or form. Of course, we also
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: know that like pro terrorism activism means in college campuses,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: means like kids who are upset about you know, children
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: getting bombed in Gaza. Yeah, so, Ben, I genuinely don't
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: know what is more worrisome the State Department whipping up
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: this document as kind of a pretext to go after
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: liberals or Marco Rubio and his minions, sincerely believing that
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Fidel Castro's ghost is behind every corner and responsible for
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: like people being upset by watching George Floyd get murdered
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: live on you know, their screens by a cop. What
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: do you make of the State Department blacklist in this
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: kind of broader effort to criminalize leftist thought or like
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: somehow link it all to Cuba.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: I think there's a few different things going on here,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: and I say this is someone who used to be
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: in charge of Cuba policy. The second. The first thing
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: is that Cuba poses absolutely no national security throughout to
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: the United States whatsoever, right, full stop. I mean, I
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: saw the Cubans aren't penetrating American society like like they
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: have no these people can't keep the lights on. Like
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: the idea that Cuba is running like networks all over
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: the country like is absolutely fucking absurd. It's just not true.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: But because they have no pretext for why they would
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: launch a military operation in Cuba or regime chine operation
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: in Cuba, or certainly even no pretext for why they're
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: starving Cubans to death or causing people to die because
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: ventilators get turned off when their power auted. Just because
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: of our blockade, there's no Cuban nuclear program, so they
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: have to kind of create this, you know, facade this
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: bullshit idea that they post some kind of you know,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: danger to our society. It's not true. It's fundamentally not true. Like,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: just just because people in America have leftist views doesn't
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: mean that they're like agents of the Cuban government in
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: any way, shape or form. The second thing that's going
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: on here, Tommy, is a lot of projection. And I'm
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: just going to name this. The United States has done
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: what they are judging Cuba does, right. I know this
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: because when I was in Cube policy, I started looking
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: at all these crazy usci D programs, and like, you know,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: generally we're supportive of usa D. I think a lot
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: of people at usa D would agree with me. There
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: were all these line items we used to just give
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: I found money that was just sent to po boxes
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: in Miami, right and with no specificity about where that
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: money was going to end up, like the United States,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: and like you could say from a pot you know,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: someone might say, from a human rights perspective, direct funding
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: for dissidence in Cuba is something we should do. But
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: some of this seemed to go, you know, was just
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: more beyond that. It's just like creating funds that could
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: go to oppositionists or efforts to undermine the government. Remember,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: there was some I mean, if you want to go
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: down take a trip down memory lane, there were even
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: programs that became public. They associated pressed a bunch of
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: reporting during the Obamba years about like I think it
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: was Operation Chaos, that we're going to use social media
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: to kind of sow chaos instead of Cuba, and undermind
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: the government, which was by the way, before they even
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: had a lot of inner net access in Cuba, so
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: it was a pretty dumb way to spend money. So
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: so this is classic right wing projection, like the Cubans
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: must be doing the things that we do to them,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: you know, and so we're going to call that out right.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Never mind like the historical stuff, if you want to
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: go back even deep. I mean their report goes way back,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: and you know there's all sorts of efforts to take
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: out Fidel Castro and I.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: I mean yeah yeah, Bay pigs invasion like you know,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: yeah yeah. So those two things are about the pretext
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: through after the Cubans. That then the last thing is
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: when you the point you made is this whole Antifa
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: thing we should not treat as a side show. It
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: is the foreign governments. It's absurd that anybody showed up
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: at that conference, Like I would hope it could keeps Yeah,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: I would hope that you just can say no to
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: that because this could lead to dark places like we are.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: We have two plus years of Trump left. And if
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: you listen to like rhetoric, not just Rubya, but Steve
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Miller gave him like bloodthirsty speech, like do I think
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: they're going to start like droning DSA members in the
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: United States Democratic Socialists? No, But if if they do
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: start freezing bank account, if they start treating it like
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: a terrorist threat on some insane nexus to Cuba or
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: anything else, like we could you know, see them trying
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: to shut down civil society, shutdown oppositions.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Or to investigate them, right. I mean, a bunch of
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: a bunch of lefties went to Cuba and all of
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: a sudden they came back and they were under investigation, right,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: And it was leaked to some news outlets.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Son Piker was one of them.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a mess. It's definitely one to watch. It's
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: really concerning, and it's building on this kind of body
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: of evidence that this stuff is happening. Starting was NPSM seven,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I think was the directive to kind of start begin
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: this process. And you know, obviously Charlie Kark's assassination has
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: been the pretext for a lot of it and this
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: idea that it was a leftist or lefty conspiracy. And
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: cash matel was at that symposium, so there's, yeah, there's
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of kind of worrisome data points there. Let's
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: turn to another worrisome development the Trump era, frankly, which
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: is this reporting recently about the online prediction market, gambling
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: and politics. So the most recent kind of eye popping headline,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: at least to me, ben was about Trump's teleprompter operator,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: this guy, Gabriel Perez. He's under investigation by the CFTC
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: for allegedly making over one hundred thousand dollars betting on
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Trump's speeches. So for context, for folks like on these
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: prediction market apps like polymarket or call she you can
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: place bets on stupid shit like what words Trump will
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: or will not say in a speech. So I looked
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: on call Shee right before we started recording. You can
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: bet on whether Trump will say or not say twenty
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: eight different words or phrases during his White House correspondence
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: speech on Friday. They give it a forty five percent
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: chance that Trump says Barack Hussein Obama. So if you
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: bet one hundred bucks, he says that the payout is
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: two hundred and ten dollars. If you want a little
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: more risk, a little more upside, Ben Calshi has a
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: seven percent chance that Trump says Epstein. So you bet
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: one hundred bucks, you can win thirteen hundred and forty one.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: That's your payout with your bet included. But if you're
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the teleprompter guy right, you have access to the final
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: final version of the speech right before it is delivered,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: which is obviously insider information. You also know you know
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: in real time if he's skipping words. So like Trump
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: is an on disciplined mess, and apparently Perez would cash
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: out his BET's mid speech if Trump skipped a line
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: in the prompter, which that made it pretty fucking easy
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: to find him and snuff this all out. Associated with
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: this news, the Wall Street Journal had a big piece
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: on prediction markets, generally in Washington. It had some again
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: eye popping detail. It said three anonymous accounts on polymarket
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: made over six hundred thousand dollars by correctly betting on
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: when Trump and Iran would agree to a ceasefire deal.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: That freaked out the White House and led them to
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: send around a memo prohibiting the use of insider information
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: to bet. The journal also says that congresswoman and a
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Polina Luna of Florida tipped off a MAGA influencer named
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: d C. Dreino that Trump was going to pick Jade
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Vance as his VP nominee so that he could bet
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: on it, and then she later mocked him for not betting.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: More So, that's all sounds like they're all taking this
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: very seriously. The Senate recently passed a resolution banning lawmakers
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: and staff with sensitive information from prediction mark betting. But
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: I would not bet on the administration taking any action
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: in part because Donald Trump Junior is a paid strategic
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: advisor to both Calshi and Polymarket. You might be wondering,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: it's weird that two competitors would pay the same guy. Yeah,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: it is, unless you think about it. So, Ben, it's interesting,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: like kind of hearing these organizations defend themselves. They have
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: a bit of an incoherent view of insider information. They say, like, well,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: you know, insider information gets into every market and that's
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: what sort of like makes the data better and more
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: perfect and more useful on the one hand, but on
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the other hand, they're trying to ban it or people
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: from profiting off it. There's so obvious, like the national
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: security implications of some of these bets. I mean, we
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: talked about it in the Venezuela contact. Someone made a
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: bunch of money. A Special Forces guy made a bunch
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: of money betting on whether Maduro would be deposed. It
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: seems like that would be a bright let red warning
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: sign for the Venezuelan government if this were to happen again.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: But what did you make of this story? And just
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: you I mentioned as a former speech writer, like just
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: being able to place prop bets on what Trump would
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: say or Obama would say in our case, I.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Mean, this is one of the central things that they're doing,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: right because like you already have the stock market, which
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: is the kind of more you know, dignified version of
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: prediction markets, right, and now you have these platforms, and
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: the reality is like there's been like all this smoke
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: for I mean, the runnings of alleged at Kushner and
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: wid cough Right. I'm not saying I trust them, but
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: they they'd made billions of dollars like and investments or
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: bets on future markets related to the progress of negotiations.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: The prediction markets are just a cruder way. I mean, look,
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: I'll just be blunt like when I was when I
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: think about what I knew when I was in the
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: White House. You know, I knew what Obama was going
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: to say. I was a speech writer. I knew when
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: we're going to roll out new policies. We knew when
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Special Operation, we knew when bin Laden was going to
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: be targeted, right, we knew when air strikes might take place, like,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: we knew all this information never you know, not that
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: were the purest people on I think that I would
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: have said the same thing about the Bush people I
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: don't think they would have sat there and just like
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: used all this sider information to like make bets. The system,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: the corruption is not a bug. Like I feel like
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: we end up seeing like the teleprompt operator. We end
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: up seeing the special operator who made the bet on
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: the Madure operation. The richer people and more powerful people
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: and I'm not going to name them because I just
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: don't know, but like just use your head, right, Trump
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: family members or senior officials or billionaires or in that cabinet,
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: have probably greater capacity to have cutouts, right, So it's
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: not like them having to place the bet. There's so
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: many ways in which like we're living in a society
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: where powers increasingly consolidated. Information has always been consolidated, and
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: now these people can just get rich off these information.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: And look, I'll hate to be a killjoy. Like we
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: just should shut down. I don't know why we need
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: these platforms, Like it doesn't seem like sports scambling is
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: going that well either. Not that's a whole other conversation,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: but like it's the people that end up losing. It's
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: like it's a casino. It's like the high rollers like
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: tend to be fine. It's like the people that are
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: like betting their paychecks because they can afford groceries because
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: of Trump's war, that end up losing.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, these things apps call themselves prediction markets,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: but I think like eighty percent of the betting that
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: takes place is sports betting. So it's just an end
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: around to get around state laws. As we are kind
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: of hitting the gas on these products, and there's all
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: this lobbying by these prediction market apps and there's so
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: much support within the White House. France has blocked access
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: to polymarket betting website. I think this happened last week
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: because they're worried about people losing their money. Gambling in
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Brazil has been named a public health crisis. It was legalized.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Online gambling was legalized in twenty eighteen. It's now seen
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: as like the fastest growing and most lucrative market. I
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: think it was nine point two billion in they're viewing
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: it as a nine point two billion dollar market by
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty three, and in twenty twenty four, online gambling
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: losses in Brazil drove an estimated one point eight million
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: people into debt. So it's like it truly is a
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: crisis down there in the US political betting on polymarket
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: double to just over four billion during the first three
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: months of the year compared to the first quarter of
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, according to this data provided to The
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal by a nonprofit called Anti Corruption Data Collective.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: But it's just like the opportunities for abuse in insider trading.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like it is a feature, not a bug.
• 47:27
  Speaker 7: Here.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's obvious, and you know what you're getting is
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: not just the kind of rank corruption. You know, decisions
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: might start to be made because we've seen this in
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: all kinds of gambling. Right, this is why like the
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: World Series gets thrown in like nineteen nineteen, Like you
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: start to make decisions for the purpose of making money
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: off the bet, not making decisions that are best for
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: American interests or the American people like that. That's the
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: kind of thing that is probably clearly already happening. You
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: also get who you'll get people who go into government
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: for the or politics for the express peting on things
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: like prediction markets, right right, I mean there's so many things.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: This is such a slippery slope. If I was a
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: member of Congress, like focusing on shutting these things down
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: or at least putting, like really thick guardrails around them
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: with very high penalties for people that violate them. Like
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: it's a no brainer.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. Pot Save the World is brought to
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: you by simply Safe. For the longest time, I thought
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: having a home security system that have an alarm that
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: blairs only after someone breaks in that always seem too late,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: giving the intruder a chance to grab whatever they wanted
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: and flee before the police could get there. That's where
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: simply Safe comes in. Simply Safe AI powered cameras identify
• 48:40
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  Speaker 1: the World is brought to you by the new podcast
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  Speaker 1: series from Future Hindsight, Occupy an Unfinished Uprising. Occupy Wall
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Street is the story of the improbable becoming possible. Unfettered
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Wall Street greed, corruption in decades of government deregulation culminated
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight with the most severe global
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: financial crisis since the Great Depression. It would take another
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: three years for the left to cultivate a mass response.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: In the fall of twenty eleven, thousands of people answered
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the call to protest. They raged against a rig system
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: that had utterly failed tens of millions of Americans and
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: tried to create their own anti capitalist village in a
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: small Manhattan park. The movement quickly spread across the country,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: inspiring hundreds of satellite occupations and a new generation of activists.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Occupy and Unfinished Uprising is told through the voices of
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: activists who camped out in Zuccati Park for almost two months,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: bringing listeners inside the drama of a transcendent and chaotic
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: movement that grew rapidly and then violently flamed out. Just
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: as quickly, Occupy permanently changed the national conversation about capitalism,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: popularized the language of the ninety nine percent, and inspired
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: a generation of activists still trying to finish what the
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: movement started. As we approach Occupies fifteenth anniversary the September,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: this series offers a reminder about the power and limitations
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: of collective action. To listen, search for future hindsight wherever
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. A couple more things. So at
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: the FIFA World Cup final, Trump was there, He was
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: in his box and one of the clips showed him
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: talking with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. They apparently discussed
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the wildfires in Canada, where almost two million acres have
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: burned in Ontario, and as a result, smoke is spread
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: across the country and it's the parts of the US
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: in New York in particular, bore the Brunovi last week.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: In the Midwest and the Great Lakes have also been
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: impacted by the smoke. So Trump got asked about what
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: he and Carney specifically talked about. Here's a clip of
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: him explaining what he said to Carney and then a
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: response from Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Let's watch.
• 51:29
  Speaker 7: I told them, I mean, you got to stop these
• 51:31
  Speaker 7: fires from coming in and you know poisoning. Our air
• 51:35
  Speaker 7: has been poisoned. We can help them, well, help them,
• 51:38
  Speaker 7: but maybe they should face us some damages or something,
• 51:41
  Speaker 7: or should do some tariffs.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: I've never remembered this happening over the last four or
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: five years. You starting to take place.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: I've never remembered it happened.
• 51:51
  Speaker 7: They're not managing their farest properly.
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna remind President Trump that there's three point three
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: point nine million acres burning in the United States right now,
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: and if we had resources, we would send them down
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: to our closest friends and allies.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: So as you heard there, he threatened to tariff Canada
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: because they have wildfires. Then surprise surprize been On Monday,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration rolled out new fifty percent tariffs on
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: more than five hundred Canadian goods, nearly all of which
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: are actually covered under the USMCA trade agreement that Trumpet
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: negotiated in the first term. The New York Times says
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: that the tariff targets are about two percent of the
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: entire trading relationship between the US and Canada. The terriffs
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: won't go into effect until August nineteenth. They are almost
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: certainly an attempt to ratchet up pressure on Canada in
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: advance of USMCA talks, although so far the US has
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: only been renegotiating the deal with Mexico while excluding Canada
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: from those conversations. But Ben, I mean, just like setting
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: aside the potential economic risk of doubling down this trade
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: war with Canada for a second. Could you just imagine
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: if your house was on fire, and it was burning
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: for the third time in four years in your neighbor
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: walked over and yelled at you because it was blowing
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: smoke on his house, and then threatened to send you
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: a bill to pay for it. I mean, it's just
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: like the most insanely dickish thing I've ever heard of
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: my life.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's you know, look, doug Ford pointed out
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: the fact that we have lots of wildfires. But if
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: you pull the camera back here, the United States, most
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: of the rest of the world has made an argument
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: for i don't know, going on twenty years, that the
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: United States, as the principal emitter of you know, fossil fuels,
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: created climate change as much as any other country, and
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: that the United States should be paying kind of reparations,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: should be paying these countries that are you know, Pacific
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: islands that are losing their coastlines, all these countries that
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: have unbeathable air because it's so hot, and like South Asia.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: The United States rejects the premise. We had a Green
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Climate Fund in the obomba years, so we did think
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: we had an obligation to pay to mitigate the effects
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: of climate change. But look, it's not a mystery. I mean,
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: part of what's so fucking frustrating a boy watching Trump,
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: He's like, well, this has never happened before the last
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: few years has been really hot, and we suddenly have
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: all these wildfires. Well, yeah, that's what every climate scientist
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: has told you almost it was going to happen if
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: we didn't take stronger action to do with climate change
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: because of your climate policies on top of you know,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: many years obviously of burning fossil fuels. This problem is
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: getting worse exponentially, like climate change. We don't talk about.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: It's fucking hot, you know, like like we've talked about
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: the heat wave in Europe, like we had the French
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: guy cooking eggs like you know, with with with no stove,
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: Like we've got wildfires in Canada. And so for Trump
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: to stand up there and say, oh my god, it's
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: hot and there are these wildfires, and I mean because
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: if I'm Canadian, Canadians you know, aren't don't have a
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: clean bill of health either on on on carbon emissions.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: But it's a lot less than us, so he'd have
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: a lot more standing, you know, if he was actually
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: doing something about the underlying problem, which is climate change.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Instead of making it exponentially worse.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: But except except now we're saying, like the solution to
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: this is what Americans should pay higher prices, because that's
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: what tariffs are, right, So you Americans had to pay
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: higher prices to punish the Canadians, Canadian.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Hockey sticks, like for like random things like liquor, hockey sticks, milk. Also,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: listeners are probably wondering, like I thought the Supreme Court
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: like curtailed his powers to leverage these these tariffs. That
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: is true. They curtailed the AIPA authority that he claimed
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: to have had. But this was done under section three
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: point thirty eight of the Tariff Fact of nineteen thirty
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: the so called Smoot Holly terroraffs, which had never been
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: used before. But it gives the President the authority to
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: impose up to a fifty percent tariff on import to
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: a country, just sort of like as a king. There's
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: no process, there's no USTR investigation, there's no cap on
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the rate, there's no limit for the duration. It's just
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: like something he can do. So now he's terrorizing Canada.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Ben Over in the UK, our friends have their seventh
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Prime minister in about ten years. So welcome to the party,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Prime Minister Andy Burnham. We have extensively covered, you know,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: former Prime Minister of Cure Starmer's political demise. We've covered
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Burnham's ascension from Mayor of Greater Manchester to the Labor
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: Party leader. So We're not going to do that again here,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: but let's talk about what Burnham has done in the
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: first couple of days. So he gave his first speech
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: as Prime minister. He basically met with the King, drove
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: over kind of greeted the staff and then gave a
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: quick speech. He said he wanted his government to be
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: a circuit breaker for Britain. He promised a new political
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: and economic model, the devolution of power out of London
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: back to other parts of the country, particularly the north
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: of the country. And he promised to lay out a
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: ten year plan for the country that we haven't seen
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: that yet. In his first cabinet meeting, he talked about
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: cutting taxes on electricity bills. He talked about getting ending
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: rough sleeping, which is homelessness in the UK. He did
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: three foreign leader calls. He called Trump, Vladimir Zelenski and
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Ukraine and Ursula vonderlyon. He named a bunch of folks
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: to his cabinet, so some names folks probably know that
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: the Chancellor of the Exchequer role went to John Healy.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: He was the guy who surprised people last month when
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: he resigned his cure Starmer's Defense Secretary because the budge
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: for the Defense investment plan was well short of what
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: he thought it needed. It did make me wonder Ben
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: whether Heay kind of was promised another larger increase in
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: defense spending or if that was just kind of a
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: fight from a bygone era. But I guess we'll find out.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: Ed Miliband, the former Labor Party leader, is going to
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: be Foreign Minister. Shabanamc mood is going to keep her
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: job as Home Secretary. She's the only kind of major
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: position to stay the stame she's seen as like tough
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: on immigration. Wes Streeting, who made a lot of noise
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: about running for Labor leader and then prominently resigned from
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: his job as Health Secretary, is going to be Defense Secretary.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: He is more kind of the conservative in Labor. And
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: then Angela Rayner is back in the cabinet after resigning
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: last year for a very kind of dull scandal about
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: unpaid taxes. On top of that, though, like after those officials,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: he basically purged the entire Starmer government, including some kind
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: of big names like Rachel Reeves. Some familiar names to
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: this show, like David Lammy, who is the deputy leader.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: He got rid of some talented people, some people that
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: were seen as great man and just like kind of technocrats.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: It just seems like you basically wanted to wipe the
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: slate clean and start over. Alistair Campbell, who is a
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: you know, Tony Blair's right hand man for a decade
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: now it's a great podcast. The Rest is Politics, pointed
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: out that if you look at the kind of the
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: top three jobs, John Healey, now the chancellor of the
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: X Checker was kind of the tip of the political spear,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: and when he resigned as Defense Secretary, a lot of
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: analysts thought like, maybe that was a cut that didn't
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: kill Starmer in the moment, but he was going to
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: bleed out from eventually. Then you had Miliban was apparently
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: the first person to tell Starmer to resign to his face,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: and Shabana mcmood did the same right after, and they
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: got the top jobs. So it does seem like, you know,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Burn's pretty ruthless and rewarding people that helped take down Starmer.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: But what do you make of the new the cabinet
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: slots so far and kind of what you've heard him
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: say and do.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: So in addition to just like, yeah, we're cleaning the slate,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: it's my show. I'm getting rid of the starmer people,
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: the kind of ruthless ambition that has been on display
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: from Mandy Burnham, which you know is sometimes you gotta
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: want someone who's an alpha like ambition as part of politics.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: The problem is what you see is you see a
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: lot of like politics and very little vision. So it's
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: kind of like well Ed Milliban's he's the left wing guy.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: Originally Ed Miliban wanted to be a chancell of the etc.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: That's like the guy running the finances, but he was
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: seen as too far left. So it's like, well, we'll
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: give Milliban the Foreign Office. That's kind of like a
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: nice perk, you know. And John Healy he's kind of
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: like safe pair of hands. You know, maybe the markets
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: will feel okay about that guy, and then we'll keep
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: our hardline immigration person at Home Office. And it doesn't
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: feel like there's a vision behind this cabinet. It feels
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: like it's managing labor politics and we don't want to
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: be too far left, but we got to give left
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: something and you know, and that's it's a little dispiriting,
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: you know, because they're these huge problems in Britain. Again,
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: what is this all about like what does any Britain
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: want to do. He seems to be a better politician
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: than Cure Starmer, like both, like I said, you know,
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: he really went after it, but also he's a better communicator. Sure,
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: you know he ma get some points for like wanting
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: to devolve power to the north of England. That's kind
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: of if you're an American, that's kind of like saying
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: we need to focus more on you know, Michigan, Wisconsin
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: and Pennsylvania. Right, fine, but like what does it mean
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: in policy? You can set some offices up there. He's
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: gonna spend some more time up there. He'll get better speeches.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: He he's spoken from the number ten without a podium.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: But like I still feel like we don't know what
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: Andy Burnham wants to do. And the reason why should
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: this matter to us, you know, beyond just that we
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: care about our friends there, it's also because like if
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: they don't get this right, like Nigel Faraj is part
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: of fascist running the UK, just like we do here
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: in the United States, and that would be bad for everybody.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: So we have a stake and these guys doing well
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: enough that Farage can't get in there. We're gonna need
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: more detail and more vision. I want to, you know,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: obviously give him a chance, but the early returns are
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: it seems like he's doing a lot more politics than
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: anything else. The only thing the thing I say, Tommy
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: is like to your point about this. You know the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: normal photo ops, you meet the king and then you
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: you kind of go in number ten and you meet
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: the household staff. Like these people have had seven It's crazy.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: You know, couple couples you know, come in and live there.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Like it used to probably be a huge event every five.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Now it's like here we go, like Tony.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Blair was there for a decade. I know, it's crazy.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: It is crazy. You see that Burnham said he was
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: gonna open like a number ten office in the north
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: in Manchester and Manchester. Yeah, yeah, just seems like a
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: nice press release, but like what does that mean in practice?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Are you gonna have a separate staff.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: It's like an American presidence saying we're gonna have a
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: you know, a Wisconsin uh you know white house. I
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: mean it's so political. It's like we have a political
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: problem in northern England. I'm from there, you know. Any
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: Burnhams nickname is the King of the North, like great fine,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: that makes people feel like, you know, more connected to
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: the government Manchester or Northern Okay. But like, what are
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: the policies they're gonna fall from that We still don't
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: really know.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: We'll find out. I agree that I'm very worried about
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: the right wing and Naentel farrage, but let's just have
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: some fun with them for the time being. So first
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: of all, shout out to List Truss, who just pulled
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: off the first Seapack Great Britain. For those lucky enough
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: not to know what seapac is, it's a huge right
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: wing kind of annual political conference. It started out in
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: the US as this place where the fringe crazies gathered
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: every single year, and now it just evolved over time
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: to be basically the maga base of the party. Even
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: though seapack star has faded a lot recently because the
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: guy who runs it is a weird creep. But like
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: any good cancer, Seapack has metastasized and spread and is
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: now infecting you know, political systems all over the world
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: because there's like a Seapack, Hungary, Seapack, UK, Seapack, et cetera.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: So that brings us back to the SEAPAC Conference great
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: in Great Britain. Check out this video Bend that was
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: taken by a journalist named Latica and Bork just to
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: get a sense of the absolutely electric vibe at this event.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 7: Be a welcome to.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: Tostic.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: We have a fing Oh boy.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: We had more seats at the eight to fifteen time
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: slot at the Aspen Security.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: We had more seats in the eighteen sime slot for
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: the Aspen Security Forum that started at nine.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we actually sanction event.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: The New York Times reported the day three of the
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: conference had about one hundred people total in the audience.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Snichel FROs is the headliner. I think he had a
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: much bigger crowd all though much bigger. It's like three
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: hundred and four hundred. Ron DeSantis was supposed to speak
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: but had to cancel due to I think bad weather
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: canceling his flight. So it could have been worse for
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: those eleven people in that audience. The British conservative magazine
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: The Spectator called the event quote empty, common, miserable, and
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: downright weird. An author named William Akinson, a man who
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: wants a right wing government, also said quote being cursed
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: with vision hearing insanity, meant enduring, an event that made
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: Trust his premiership look like a model of tact and foresight.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: He also called it Yankee brain slop, barely repackaged for
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: a UK audience stomach churning to watch. Tickets for the
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: event ranged from one hundred pounds to ten thousand pounds
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: for the full VIP treatment, Ben, do you think we
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: might get invited to speak at that one next year?
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: Do you think we're getting invited to speak an Aspen?
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but like, yeah, we'll see.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe we don't talk about it.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: I think that it's so interesting because like the idea
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: that just because something works in the United States, it's
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: going to like work everywhere. I mean it worked in
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: Hungry because Orbon put like a ton of resources behind it.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: This is the problem, Liz, Trust cannot front your fucking conference.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: What do you guys do exactly?
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: How like get the cabbage or the lettuce or whatever
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: it is?
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: Well, but this is a you know, we used to
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: monitor podcasts. I know if that still exist or if Michael,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: our producer, just you know, kind.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: Of falling off. The last episode was two weeks ago
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: and it did have twenty five hundred views.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: Well, but this is the reality. This this person seems
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: to have like a bottomless well of her willingness. You know,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: Trump doesn't, you know, has a bottomless well of not
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: being shamed. You cannot humiliate his trust. Like she's still
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: up there being like this is great. It's so great
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: to see this crowd of a you know, a few
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: dozen people. You know, she's really a remarkable figure. I
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: can't think of someone who's been so thoroughly willing to
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: kind of be humiliated over and over again, you know.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: And like whenever she comes to the action of the
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Sea Pack in the US, she gets similar kind of
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: half asleep audiences.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: It's not like she was paying for this, so like
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: it just shows you that they have such deep pockets
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: on the far right that there's someone will write a
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: check for something like that, you know, Like that's actually
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: the thing that's scary is that like even when it
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: doesn't work, like they can still get the funding for it.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: That looked like a conference room that was associated with
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: a casino outside Dallas or something that was just a bleak,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: bleak looking venue there. Speaking of the Nigel Farage, Ben,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: so when you were out on vacation, ben i talked
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: with Mehdi Hassen about Farage's farce of a by election
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: that he's running in. This is a claq in a
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: region called Clacton. So what happened was Nigel Farage was
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: caught red handed taking gifts and not declaring them, including
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: a five million pound gift from this crypto billionaire that
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: lives in Thailand. I think five million pounds? Did I
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: say billion? Five million pounds? I think that's six point
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: seven million dollars. Took it from this crypto billionaire who
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: lives in Thailand. The story for why was all over
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: the place. It was for security, and then it was
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: a gift. Then it was like a you know, payment
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: for campaigning. Like none of it makes sense. It's just
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: brazen corruption. And the good thing about that story is
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: it woke up the fucking British press finally and they're
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: starting to dig into this guy. So that also led
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: Parliament to start investigating Farage. So it sounds like the
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: strategy here is to kind of avoid and end these investigations.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: Farage resigned from his seat in parliament. He triggered this
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: by election which happens on August thirteenth, that he is
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: now running in He claims that the election results in
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: this new super right wing area by the way, that
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: he should wind hands down no matter what. Was sort
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: of renderer verdict on the allegations against him. He said,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: quote people of Clacton be the judges of my actions, right.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: But all the other parties, surprisingly the major political parties,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: they saw this as the farce that it was and
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: they decided to not run candidates in this election, to
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: not lend it any kind of legitimacy. So that means
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Nigel Faraj is running against thirty three absolutely just random people.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Mostly they are like kind of unknowns or weirdos. But
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: there is one shining star in the field. His name
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: is Count Binface. Count Binface claims to be a six
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: thousand year old intergalactic space warrior from planet Sigma nine.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: He's a perennial candidate in the UK. He is run
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: for Mayor of London twice. He's run in a bunch
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: of parliamentary elections, including against Boris Johnson and then most
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: recently he ran against our guy, Andy Burnham up in Makerfield.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: Let's hear from Count Binface himself. Let's watch well.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: First question, why would an intergalactic space warrior want to
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: stand to be the MP for Clacton?
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Why not? It's a good question.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: Tell me about your manifesto.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: What can you offer the people of Clacton?
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: Have you ever been there?
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 7: No?
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 8: Because I understand from the current incumbent that is part
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 8: of how you do the job, So I deliberately stayed away.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 8: Is that how it works?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: You've said that you will cut my taxes and raise
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: everyone else's.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: How much tax can I expect to pay?
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 8: Well, let me just clarify that your taxes and raise
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 8: everyone else's.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: That absolutely clear.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 8: They're not just yours, mate, It's for everybody. This is
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 8: a blanket thing. I will cut your taxes and raise
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 8: everybody else.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 7: Okay?
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: So how much will I pay?
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 8: A reasonable amount but just less than everyone else?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 7: Okay?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: And how much will everyone else a little bit.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: More than you? What is your appeal going to be
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: to the people of Clacton.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 8: I'm not Nigel forrage.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 9: Mat national policies, nationalizadel, build at least one affordable house,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 9: diag nurse his page of that of ministers, rename London
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 9: Bridge after Phoebe Waller, bring back Seaback and of course move.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 8: The hands dryer in the gents' toilets at the Crown
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 8: and Treaty pop Oxbridge to a more sensible position because,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 8: as you can imagine, that's a national issue.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: You could see those from a bunch of interviews. He
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: did a couple on the BBC. There's an LBC interview.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: There was a couple more. Count binfais for those who
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: were listening and not watching. He's basically dude in a
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: Star Wars outfit with a trash can on his head
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: under the trash can as a man named John Harvey
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: is a comedy writer. He's been doing variations on this
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: character since twenty seventeen. He's currently not doing that. Grading
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: the polls again, it's a very right wing district. It's
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: a very reform district. He count Binfaces at five percent
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: odds on Calshee. So, but there is always hope, Ben.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: I want you to know I reached out him to
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: see if we could book him on the show. He's
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: not DMed me back yet, but I'm really hoping we
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: can get you know, a US exclusive with Count Binface.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: He may be the hero we need at this difficult
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: trying time. There's something kind of like Monty Python asked
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: about that I appreciate absolutely.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: He's great comedic timing, like like yeah, I'm not Nigel Farrag.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Pause pause. It's also like I don't know, I just
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: if any country is going to elect account bin Face
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: over just a clown like Nigel Frage. It is the UK.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know what we need to do. I hope
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: we have like one listener up in Clacton, maybe tell
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: your friends vote count in Face, like everybody turned out,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: like the farce is the point, you know, Nigel Frag
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: is a joke. He's making the joke of your politics,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: your system, your campaign finance system, your laws, and vote
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: for Count Binface to send him a message.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, and to be entertained for the coming years.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: You know, I imagine Count Binface at Prime Minister's question time.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: It would be incredit Would he be allowed to wear
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: the whole bit? You think.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: It's a good question. I know it might be discriminatory
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: to not allow him to have his bin face.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good question. I'll ask some people
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: and follow up for next week. Okay, that's it for
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: Ben and my portion of the show, but please stick
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: around for my interview with Alexi Sorokin from the key
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: of Independent. Again, we talked about the security situation in Ukraine,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: this huge protest movement resulting from Zelenski firing as defense minister.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: We talk about missile defense capabilities, the kind of offensive
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: strategy of the Ukrainian side. So a really interesting conversation,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: so check it out stick around for that. This podcast
• 1:11:43
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  Speaker 1: and conditions apply. My guest today is the deputy chief
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: editor for the Kiev Independent, Alexi Serroken.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 6: Welcome to the show, Thank you for having me, Thank.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: You for joining. So I just want to start with
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: some reports about the security situation in Ukraine at the moment.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: I saw a bunch of reports over the course of
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: the week that last weekend was one of the largest
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: ballistic missile and drone attacks on Ukraine since the start
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: of the war. Is that accurate and can you talk
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: about the impact of what that does to your day
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: to day life if you're living in Kiev or anywhere
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: in the country.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 6: Well, I would go as far to say that the
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 6: last month month and a half was probably the deadliest
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 6: and the harshest in Kiev. Ukraine is currently lacking patriot
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 6: air defense missiles and Russians know that. So what's happening
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 6: now is that they're using more and more ballistic missiles
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 6: that are hard to shoot down to target different sites
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 6: across the city. Over the past month, over sixty people
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 6: were killed in Kiev, sixty civilians by Russian missile. Obviously,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 6: this has a tremendous impact on your day to day life.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 6: People have to basically they don't sleep, they have to
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 6: go to shelter. They have to understand that because ballistics
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 6: are also really fast, right, the air raid alert is
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 6: not timely enough, right, so people don't don't have time
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 6: to prepare themselves for an attack. So you can be
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 6: in the kitchen cooking something, or you can be in
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 6: bed and then you hear ballistic missile hits something near
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 6: your house.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 6: So that's the everyday life in Ukraine right now, And
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 6: obviously it's tremendously affecting people's morale, but also they're just
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 6: well being.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: And I saw and this was on Twitter, so correct
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong that the Russians attacked a metro
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: station where people are known to shelter recently. Is that accurate?
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so there's one of the metro stations. Well, basically,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: metro stations are the best bomb shelters in Kiev, obviously
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 6: the deep underground, and a lot of people sleep in
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 6: the metro when they know that there's going to be
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 6: an attack. And one of those metro stations was hit.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 6: It's actually regularly hit by the Russians because it's in
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 6: a neighborhood that's being tremendously affected by Russian attacks. And yeah,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 6: it's dangerous even in a bomb shelter right now.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned Ukraine desperately needs more missile defense infrastructure
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: like US Patriot missiles. At the same time, I know
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: that Ukraine has been incredibly innovative when it comes to
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: developing missile defense drones to take out Russian drones. So
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: I saw President Trump recently agreed to allow Ukraine to
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: have a license to domestically manufacturer Patriot missile interceptors. It
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: will probably take years for that to lead to weapons
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: on the battlefield. How significant do you think that licensing
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: decision was in your mind? Do we know that it
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: actually happened yet versus just Trump kind of saying stuff.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: And more broadly, I mean, how do you think Ukraine
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: has managed and evolving to deal with the threat of
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: these missile and drone attacks.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 6: Well, there's multiple questions. I'll start from President Trump, well present,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 6: if he doesn't change his mind in the near future,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 6: then it's a really good decision, right because obviously there's
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 6: a bottleneck in production. A lot of countries are now
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 6: awaiting Patriot missiles. Lockhead Martin is not producing enough. And
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 6: if Ukraine is able to produce those Patriot missiles, obviously
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 6: it will take time. It will take half a year
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 6: a year maybe to begin producing. But if that happens,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 6: then Ukraine is not going to be dependent on the
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 6: United States, right, and this will be a tremendous boost
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 6: for Ukraine's air defense. And adding to that is that unfortunately, unfortunately,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 6: the Patriot missiles are the best in the world, right,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 6: so no other country has anything like that. So Ukraine
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 6: can innovate drones, Ukraine can produce missiles, Ukraine can do
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: a lot, right, But unfortunately, air defense is the most
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 6: sophisticated weapon. And if we're talking about Ukraine, it currently
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 6: doesn't have air defense systems, so it has interceptor drones
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: which can affect incoming drones, but it doesn't have systems
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 6: to combat cups or ballistic missiles. While Europeans, for example,
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 6: the Sampti Iris missile systems. They are good in battling
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 6: cruise missiles, but in terms of ballistics, the only system
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 6: that is known to down those kinds of missiles is
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 6: the Patriot system and unfortunately that's something that Ukraine currently
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 6: doesn't have.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, at the same time, Ukraine has been going on offense.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: There has been this military campaign to target and isolate Crimea.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: I know there's been strikes in Crimea itself, there have
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: been strikes on ships in the Black Sea and the
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: CFAs off Can you kind of talk about how that
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: campaign has evolved in the last couple of weeks and
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: what the goal is.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 6: Well, I would not call it probably offense because this
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 6: is ruation currently is a bit different in a sense
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 6: that on the battlefield, Russians are still advancing. So in
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 6: the eastern part of the country, Russians are still using
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 6: infantry troops to just continue to attack Ukraine to gain
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 6: more land. While Ukraine is waging an asymmetrical warfare basically
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 6: using drones to target Russian logistics and Russian oil refineries
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 6: and so on. So there's two ongoing campaigns. One is
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 6: the long range or deep strikes, basically using long range drones.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 6: Sometimes it's basically a plane with explosives to attack oil
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 6: refineries deep inside Russia. Those planes can go one thousand,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 6: twelve hundred kilometers and basically the main goal here is
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 6: to inflict as much damage on the Russian economy as
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 6: possible so that it's too expensive to wage the war
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 6: against Ukraine because obviously Russia is still an oil and
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 6: energy export country. So that's the first campaign. The second
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 6: one is middle straight campaign, and here the hornet drones
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 6: are making a difference. Basically, these are the drones that
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 6: target Russian troops and logistical centers in between one hundred
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 6: and two hundred and fifty three hundred kilometers. So basically
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 6: the goal here is to force the occupied parts of
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 6: Ukraine to be cut off from Russia and for the
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 6: Russians to not be able to provide troops, logistics, and
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 6: oil and so on to those areas, basically forcing the
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 6: Russians to back down. And I would say that this
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 6: started somewhere in mid May and it had a tremendous
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 6: impact on morale, and Ukrainians feel that this is something
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 6: that can make the victory or a favor outcome of
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 6: this war possible.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: I noticed recently there was a strike by Ukraine onto
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: the Russian equivalent of Amazon dot Com. I saw, you know.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: Military officials said it was because Russian soldiers were buying
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: basically drone component parts from this site. Therefore they believed
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: it was a legitimate military target. I'm wondering if you
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: believe that explanation, or if this is part of you know,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: maybe a strategy of bringing the war home to people
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: in Russia and you know, bombing a website or a
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: shopping resource they use often and you know, sort of
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: spreading fear that way, disrupting their lives.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 6: Well, I think, uh, disrupting Russians lives is a positive
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 6: kind of uh outcome, but it's not the main one, right,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 6: It's kind of a bonus. I would say, we actually
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 6: went to so the company is called wild Berries, which
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 6: is an interesting name, and if we went on the
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 6: website and we actually google like to buy a drone
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 6: or to buy like compos for like military stuff, and
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 6: you can just go on the website, and I welcome
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 6: you to just go and search this website, and yeah,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 6: you can buy military hardware, you can buy military equipment,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 6: dual use goods, and basically it's used to for the
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 6: military as well. Right, I like it's a complicated question,
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 6: right because obviously it's hard to definitively say is it
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 6: a legit target if it sells both clothes and drones.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 6: But that's what was happening. And I would say that
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 6: Ukraine deliberately hit those two factories, well storage facilities as
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 6: kind of a warning for the Russian kind of civilian
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 6: and the Russian kind of non military sector to be
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 6: careful with helping the military, because basically Ukraine says, okay, look,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 6: if you sell drones and grenades and help the military,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 6: we're gonna go after you, and so don't do it.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 6: And I think that this warning is is something that
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 6: Ukraine is trying to bring to the Russians.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: Got it? Did you pick up anything on the website
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: while you're there? Do you get like a quad copter
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: or anything?
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 6: I think the shipping is shipping, Ye, it's a problem, Yeah, understood.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you about this political crisis that's
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: you know, been engulfing President's Lenski over the last couple
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: of days. So for listeners, last week, as Zelenski fired
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: his defense minister Mikilo Federov. Federov has been clashing with
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: Ukraine's top general Alexander Skirski. But then thousands of Ukrainians
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: took to the street to protest the decision and demand
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: that Federov being reinstated. Can you explain this clash and why,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I see a lot of analysts saying that
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: this is not just about two individuals. This is about
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: kind of generational disagreements over tactics and technology and maybe
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: even like political threats to Lensky.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 6: Doing a short explanation or a long explain.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: I want whatever you think is the best explanation. Okay,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: that's hard.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 6: Well, well, basically, like the experts are correct. So every July,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 6: President Lensky has this one thing of just causing a
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 6: political crisis of his own making. Last July it was
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 6: the same thing. I don't know what's with him in July,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 6: but so yeah, So in January, I think Halafodoff was
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 6: appointed as defense minister and he brought this basically new approach,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 6: right he was. He's kind of the drone guys. He
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 6: digitalized a lot of civilian infrastructure but also the military.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 6: So he is seen as a modern, progressive, young official
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 6: who's bringing change.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 6: Obviously, he wasn't successful in doing everything right, but for example,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 6: he was the one who helped spearhead the Middle Stray campaign.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 6: He was the one who actually had a plan, right.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 6: So if in short, it's a young progressive guy with
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 6: a plan, and obviously that's something that's looked upon favorably
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 6: by the population, which is tired. The population is gassed.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 6: There's a lot of problems with how Ukraine is doing
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 6: this war for obvious.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: Reasons, right.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 6: And then you have the military command, which is known
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 6: for top down kind of approach micromanagement. Some people say
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 6: that it's Soviet style. I would not go as far
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 6: as saying that, but obviously there are many problems right.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 6: For example, one of the main problems is that the
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 6: military command and mister Sirski is known to like infantry
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 6: attacks even now right, they have for example, there's this
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 6: unit called Scala which is now blown out of proportion.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 6: All the mobilized people now go not all of them,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 6: but like many of them are drafted specifically into this unit,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 6: and people say that it's not effective.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 6: So there's two visions of how Ukraine can continue this war.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 6: The saying on this street goes that a small Soviet
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 6: army can defeat a big Soviet army, Right, And that's
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 6: what Ukraine has to be. Asymmetrical, Ukraine has to innovate,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 6: Ukraine has to change. And unfortunately President Zelenski took a
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 6: pretty not wise decision and he decided to change the
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 6: Defence minister. There's there's multiple explanations why he did it,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 6: because this kind of the old command had a conflict
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 6: with the defense minister, and mister Felderff also wanted to
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 6: change defense procurement, how to run and so on, so
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 6: he ousted the Defense Minister. And apparently the President's office
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 6: didn't expect people to raise up people to take the streets,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 6: and so the similar situation that happened last July when
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 6: he didn't expect people to start protesting happened this July.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 6: And the problem right now is I'm not sure when
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 6: when this is going to end. Okay, So based on
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 6: like right now, uh, the situation is as follows, right,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 6: Zelenski is inclined to change Sirski, to change the military leadership,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 6: to kind of appease the protesters and and hopefully for
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 6: him the protests are ended.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 6: What he's not willing to do is he's not willing
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 6: to reappoint mister Fyodoroff as Defense Minister because basically ego problem, right,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 6: if you if you made a mistake, the wisest thing
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 6: to do is come out and say sorry, I made
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 6: a mistake. But if you're a president then probably that
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 6: you're not going.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 7: To do that.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: So I get we get that over here in America.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 6: Don't you know to explain that? Right, I'm not I'm
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 6: not going to explain that. Yeah, So he proposed, according
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 6: to our sources, mister Fildoroff was proposed different posts and government.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 6: He was proposed being an advisor to the press, n
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 6: the Prime Minister, like basically anything possible, but not the
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 6: Defence Ministry, which mister Fildorf says that again, according to
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 6: our sources, doesn't make sense because he started some reforms
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 6: in the Defense Ministry and he only wants that post back.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 6: And so here there's a stalemate, and obviously the next
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 6: protest is scheduled for Friday, and obviously in this window
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 6: of like two three days, we'll see if either side.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: Budgets July mess. Yeah, yeah, I don't get it. I
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: don't know why I do it. But before I get
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: to my last question for you, you are obviously doing
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: amazing work reporting on all these issues, covering the war.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: You're doing it, you know, under the threat of bombardment
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: from the Russians. How can international listeners support you? Support
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: what you guys are doing at the Independent? Is it subscribing?
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Is it sharing clips?
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 7: Like?
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: What's the best way?
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 6: Well, basically we're reader funded, right. We currently have thirty
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 6: four thousand paying members. The membership stars from five dollars
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 6: a month. We strongly recommend supporting independent journalism in the Ukraine.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 6: We rely on our readers for support. So if you
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 6: have the means, if you have the desire to support
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 6: independent journalism, we would be really grateful for your support.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: Well, it's worth the money you guys are doing amasic work.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: Last question for you. Earlier this week, Ukrainian law enforcement
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: released this video of a package bomb exploding outside this
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: Monaco home of someone who's described as a Ukrainian oligarch.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: The blast nearly kills this man, It severely wounds his girlfriend,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: wounds her son, I believe, I don't know if it's
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: his son or her son. The suspected bomber is believed
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: to have been contracted out for the hit and later
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: killed by Ukrainian intelligence officers. What the hell is happening here?
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: Can you help me sort of unpack the layers of
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: this story?
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 6: Well, yeah, this is the weirdest subplot in Ukraine currently,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 6: so obviously there's versions, right, we don't know what exactly happened.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 6: So this man who in life, he's Ukrainians sketchy businessman
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 6: from the early two thousands who left the country who
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 6: had problems with the law here, who is basically an
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 6: citizen of Cyprus now, and he's in a bunch of shady,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 6: shady stuff, right. What happened is he was sanctioned by Ukraine,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 6: so there's definitely he has a really bad reputation. The
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 6: problem here is that because he's involved in so many
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 6: shady stuff, including a business in the occupied territories which
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 6: he denies, and also some illegal call centers and so on,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 6: it's hard to establish right now, what's the main reason
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 6: for somebody to blow him up in Monaco. Obviously, it's
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 6: absolutely wild story that the assassin was later killed in Ukraine,
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 6: a middle aged woman who apparently was just paid to
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 6: plant something and she's obviously not the main culprit here.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 6: So currently there's two people in prison in Ukraine. Actually
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 6: one of them was a member of Ukraine security services.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 6: And the official, official, kind of version right now is
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 6: that it's kind of a business conflict and those people
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 6: were paid to basically organize on assassination. We don't have
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 6: more details right now. We obviously are covering this, but
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 6: there's a whole problem, I would say, in multiple countries
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 6: that are at war right where there is a part
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 6: of the society right is working in a gray zone
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 6: and there's some kind of shady, shady businesses taking place,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 6: and obviously that's something that is worth investigating, both by
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 6: law enforcement, by journalists as well.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, crazy, crazy story. Well that's a great reason to
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: support the Key of Independent. Become a subscriber and Alexi,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining the show. I really
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: appreciate it.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 6: Thank you very much.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: Thanks again, a Lexi's arrokid for joining the show, and
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to you Guys next Week. Potz of the
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: World is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced
• 1:31:25
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• 1:31:35
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