The Manosphere Report

0:01Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

0:03The Joe Rogan experience. Showing by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

0:11Good to see you, sir.

0:13Thanks for having me back.

0:14My pleasure, always. So much crazy shit going on in the world.

0:19And even before we scheduled this, like more crazy stuff has happened.

0:23The war broke out, all kinds of things.

0:26Yeah. How are you feeling about President Trump?

0:30That's an open -ended question.

0:33Do you text with him and talk to him?

0:35Occasionally. Yeah, occasionally he'll send me a text.

0:38I get these like true social posts of, you know, things that he's saying.

0:43But this whole fucking Iran thing, man, like did you see this coming?

0:50No, definitely. I don't know.

0:52I mean, who did? I mean, when did he even decide?

0:55You know, their national security strategy they put out in November basically just said, we've

0:59degraded their capacity. It's a win.

1:01There was no sense in which there would be additional action.

1:05I think it ushers in a new paradigm.

1:08Completely the older post -war era is just over.

1:12Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, articulated that at the World Economic Forum, probably

1:16better than the Trump administration did, saying very clearly that older rules -based order is

1:21gone. You saw AOC try to sort of articulate it, but she sort of fell

1:25apart at the Munich Security Conference in February.

1:28So this is an administration that is, I mean, and I don't even think they're

1:31thinking. I wrote a piece and I decided not to publish it because I was

1:35sort of like decapitation doesn't really work for regime change.

1:38But it's not clear that they're really out for regime change or they're just asserting

1:42power, shaking up things. I mean, some of it's art of the deal, changing the

1:47person that we're negotiating with.

1:48That's Venezuela and Iran. Is it really going to change those regimes?

1:52I don't think most people don't think so.

1:54But I'm not sure that that's what they're going for.

1:57They're just going for an assertion of American power in service of American interests.

2:02And then what happens in Iran, what happens in Venezuela, I don't think they care

2:05that much about. At least they're not behaving as though they do.

2:09Well, neither thing made any sense to me.

2:12The Venezuela thing. I mean, look, they wanted him out forever.

2:17And he definitely stole the election to get in there in the first place.

2:20And he was a dictator.

2:21But at least that one was at least clean.

2:25They go in, kidnap him, get him out.

2:28This one's nuts. Like in what's happening in Tel Aviv, it's hard to know what's

2:32real and what's not because there's a lot of fake video going around and a

2:36lot of weird posts on X.

2:39So it's, you know, when I do peek in, it's hard to know.

2:42And you have to listen to Grok.

2:44And then Grok's dismantling a lot of the fake videos.

2:50What are the fake videos that you're thinking of in Tel Aviv?

2:53There's just like fake videos of, you know, like an insane amount of bombs dropping

2:58down in the city. But it seems like there's a massive amount of destruction in

3:01Tel Aviv. Yeah, I haven't checked in lately, but I'm assuming.

3:05Was that just today or?

3:06Yesterday? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the president is, there's been some, you know,

3:13Rubio said something about how, oh, we had to act because we knew that Israel

3:16was going to act anyway.

3:17And I think people interpreted it.

3:18And then Netanyahu was in the White House a lot.

3:20I think this president has shown, whether you like him or not, you know, and

3:24there's certainly things that I'm unhappy about and have criticized.

3:27But I think Trump is in charge.

3:29Like he's making these decisions.

3:31There's nobody behind him. There's nobody, nobody pulling for all of that.

3:34You know, the Russians or whoever, you know, these now the Israelis, you know, it's

3:39just he's clearly, I mean, Elon gave him, you know, $250 million and he still,

3:43you know, he didn't give him even the electric car credit, you know, like, like

3:47Trump is in charge. You know, like, I think that's one of the big lessons

3:50from this. And I don't think that, I think that means that there's not a

3:53lot of like second order thinking here.

3:56Like, oh, what's the move after that?

3:57He doesn't know. He's just acting.

3:59That's what's so wild about it is that this older foreign policy establishment, which, you

4:04know, was like, let the experts decide what the right foreign policy, you know, all

4:07these think tanks. That's just gone now.

4:09It's just irrelevant in this presidency.

4:11And I don't think it'll come back.

4:12Like if you get a Gavin Newsom or President AOC.

4:15What? President who? I don't think.

4:18Yeah. For real? For a minute before Munich.

4:21But I don't think it's going to come back.

4:22And I think that that's what the prime minister of Canada realized.

4:25I think that's what the Europeans are starting to realize is that this is a

4:27completely different world that we live in than the one we lived in just a

4:31couple of years ago. Which just doesn't make any sense to me unless we're acting

4:34on someone else's interests, like particularly Israel's interests.

4:37It just didn't make any sense to me.

4:38Like if they had supposedly dismantled their chances of making a nuclear bomb, whether or

4:45not that's true or, I mean, it's so hard to know.

4:49He was unsatisfied. And just like he was like, I'm not getting anywhere in these

4:53negotiations. And I'm going to replace the person I'm negotiating with.

4:57It's it's just, you know, turn over the table, like change things up.

5:01You're not getting anywhere. And you could credit you could say he was too impatient.

5:04Their view was the Democrats were too patient with Iran.

5:08They kept trying with Iran.

5:09Iran, they weren't giving them what they wanted.

5:11I'm not defending it. I'm just saying I think that's what explains it.

5:15They they haven't done a very good job explaining it because I think that it

5:19just sounds to some extent like what it is, which is that it's they're acting

5:23without they're sort of like, well, does it result in regime change in Iran?

5:27We don't know. They might say that we want that or whatever, but that's not

5:29ultimately they're not they're not acting on the basis of achieving regime change.

5:33But just seems so insane based on what he ran on.

5:36I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed.

5:38Right. And he ran on no more wars and these stupid, senseless wars.

5:43And then we have one that we can't even really clearly define why we did

5:48it. Well, but he said he's against endless wars.

5:51Well, they're all endless. Listen, man, they're all endless.

5:54Did you ever hear Rumsfeld talk about Iraq when it first happened?

5:58Tell me. They were talking about like six weeks, six weeks.

6:01Oh, yeah. Six weeks. Yeah.

6:05But they put that was ground force.

6:07And I know that they've not ruled that out.

6:08For me, that would be.

6:09They have. They have not.

6:11My understanding is that you have not.

6:12I thought you said and now.

6:13Yeah, no. But they don't seem eager to go into – I mean my –

6:17I criticize the Venezuela action because I sort of was like how are you possibly

6:22going to run Venezuela? And then I think a little bit more time passed.

6:25I was like, oh, they're not going to try to run Venezuela.

6:28Like that's not what this is.

6:30They just wanted to take over the oil.

6:32Yeah, and even there, I mean the oil, it's not significant at any global level.

6:38I don't even think it's really about the oil.

6:40I don't think it's about the oil.

6:41I don't think it's about the oil in Iran either.

6:42Well, the oil reserves are significant.

6:44It's just the type of oil and how to extract it is extremely difficult.

6:49It's the worst, Joe. It's in the – like the big abundant reserves are in

6:53the Amazon. So you're talking about what a nightmare.

6:56It's super far away. It's terrible.

6:57You had a guerrilla conflict.

6:59If you had a guerrilla conflict break out around those oil facilities, I mean it's

7:02already more expensive because you have to heat up that particular type of – it's

7:06really heavy oils. If you heat it up to get it out of the ground,

7:09then you have to heat it to transport.

7:11It's a total nightmare. I just – I mean – and as a conservationist, I

7:14would say that would be the last place I'd want to see us getting oil

7:17from. There's a lot of other places that have oil.

7:20We shouldn't be going into the Amazon.

7:23So what, if anything, makes sense to you about this attack in Iran?

7:28I don't know that – I'm not sure what I think of it.

7:31I mean I don't like it.

7:33I don't like – I mean the whole older system was that you had this

7:37international – the Security Council would have to agree.

7:40The Congress would have to agree.

7:42That's all gone now. I mean it's just a totally different – this guy is

7:45just acting. You know, he says – he's not getting where they want to get

7:49in the negotiations with the Iranians.

7:50So he says we have some leverage over you and we're going to use it.

7:54But clearly Israel wanted this for a long time.

7:56Israel has its own motivations I think.

7:58Yeah. But I don't think – I think it's not quite accurate to say that

8:02– I just don't think – I think all the evidence shows that Trump is

8:05his own man and he is the president.

8:07And like literally he couldn't even give – he couldn't even give Elon the battery

8:10subsidy that he wanted. You know what I mean?

8:12I mean it's like – I get that.

8:13I've never seen a – I mean I've never seen a politician act that independently.

8:17I mean a president act that independently.

8:19So I'm skeptical of – I mean I think that Rubio was sort of like,

8:25well, they were going to attack and so we had to – there's some of

8:28that. But I just think Trump is doing what he wants to do and we

8:31should – You really think it's that simple?

8:33Trump is doing what he wants to do and that's it?

8:35Yes. You don't think people are influencing him?

8:37Because there's a lot of war hawks around him, right?

8:39There's a lot of people that want this and have for a long time.

8:42I mean Netanyahu is in there but then Tucker was in there a bunch.

8:44But do you think Tucker has the kind of influence that Netanyahu has?

8:49Well, I mean I guess if you just base it on the outcome, then the

8:51answer is no. No. But that's what I'm saying.

8:55I just think – I think he listens to everybody but I just don't think

8:58it's – Russians aren't behind him, Israelis.

9:01I mean Trump is – look what he's been through.

9:02I mean he's got where he is.

9:04There's no way he's going to – they don't have anything on him.

9:07How do you know that?

9:07I don't think they have anything on him because he doesn't behave that way.

9:10Well, he could but we don't see any evidence for it.

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10:28Eastern Time, 5 p .m.

10:30Pacific Time. Well, you wouldn't see any evidence until it broke out, until they released

10:34it. Yeah, and I'm sure we'll get into Epstein.

10:37But, I mean, I just think when you don't have evidence of something, then you

10:42can't assume that it's happening.

10:44I haven't seen any evidence.

10:45I've seen evidence that Trump is fully independent, particularly this case of Elon surprised me.

10:51I would have thought at a minimum you'd give your largest campaign contributor the one

10:56thing he wants. I mean, Doge was something he wanted too.

11:00And then I look at Iran and I kind of go, you know, Trump has

11:02always won. I mean, Trump has been – he said he doesn't want Iran to

11:06have a nuclear weapon for a really long time.

11:07I don't know the exact date, but certainly – Well, no one wants Iran to

11:10have a nuclear weapon other than Iran, right?

11:13Yeah. I think that the – Or their allies.

11:15He also put it this way.

11:16He was also critical of the Democrats' approach, which was the sort of the mainstream

11:20IAEA -approved approach because, of course, under international law, Iran has the right to nuclear

11:26energy and to nuclear facilities, including nuclear centrifuges and the enrichment.

11:33Iran has a right to all that under international law.

11:35And so – and Trump doesn't agree with that and he's not going to let

11:38international law get in his way.

11:41So when you say he has a right to it, you're talking just about nuclear

11:44power, right? Yeah, right. But that includes enrichment.

11:47So, you know – To a certain point.

11:49Right. But they've already surpassed that point, right?

11:51Yeah, and I believe – if I'm wrong, I'll correct it on X, but I

11:55don't think it specifies the level of enrichment is part of the issue and then

12:00you've got these centrifuges and so it's all been a cat and mouse game.

12:02I personally do not doubt for a minute that Iran wants nuclear weapons and that's

12:06what's been going on. I think most people think that.

12:08But the Obama administration was like we can do – we can lift sanctions in

12:11exchange for controlling their nuclear program.

12:14Trump has not for a very long time agreed with that approach.

12:16I think he was criticizing it for many years before 2016, before he decided to

12:21run, but definitely for the last 10 years.

12:24Did you read the thing today that came out that they're discussing some sort of

12:30a leak transmission that seems to be an activation of terror cells?

12:36Iranians have? Yeah. No, but I'm not surprised.

12:39Right. Sounds bad. Yeah. That's one of the things that obviously – that was the

12:43first thing I thought of.

12:44It was like, oh, great.

12:44Are we going to get a bunch of Iranian suicide bombers in the United States

12:49now? I don't know if it's going to be suicide bombers, but I would imagine

12:52it would be something a little bit more destructive than that.

12:56Could be. I don't know what they can get in.

12:59I mean, Sean Ryan's been having folks on that say that people are getting in

13:03with heavy artillery. I just don't know the status of it.

13:06Well, the real problem is – They can do a lot.

13:08For four years, the border was wide open.

13:11Oh, yeah. And definitely some people from the Middle East got through.

13:15And we have no idea, like, what is – I mean, I'm sure.

13:19There are some intelligence agencies that have an understanding of what the threat is.

13:24I hope so. I mean, I think we see that these terrorists are able to

13:27do an incredible amount of damage with pretty simple rifles.

13:30You know, and sometimes – was it the French – the club, that particular terrorist

13:37action? There were other people that were using bombs that, like, only killed one or

13:41two people. But the guys with the machine guns were able to gun down, like,

13:43dozens of people. So certainly it's – that's scary.

13:47I think none of us – I think that's where a lot of Americans, when

13:49it happened, the reason so many people were against it, I believe a majority is

13:52against it, is because you're like, great.

13:54You know, first of all, is there going to be another endless war?

13:57And second of all, are we going to get a bunch of terrorist actions here?

14:00I think if we did, I don't think support for the war goes up.

14:02I think it goes down.

14:03Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's just such a – I mean, the whole

14:11situation internationally has been so tense already with what's going on in Gaza, with what's

14:19going on in Ukraine. It's like – and to add this to the pile, it's

14:22like – I mean, it genuinely feels like there's a real possibility that we might

14:29be entering World War III.

14:33How would that – what would that look like?

14:35I don't know. Well, I never expected Iran to start attacking – you know, they

14:40launched bombs into UAE, Dubai.

14:44I mean, where else? I think they expected that though, right?

14:48I mean, it makes Iran look – Iran looks pretty isolated.

14:51I mean, I will say, you know, I was totally – obviously, maybe not obviously,

14:54but very much on the left and was opposed to all the stuff Reagan was

14:57doing. I remember even in the 80s.

15:00But it's like he really did – I'm not going to say he was the

15:03only reason. There was obviously a bunch of weakening within.

15:06But, I mean, he really did push back against communism.

15:09He challenged the entire foreign policy establishment on the basic view of just – you

15:14know, of just kind of keeping it – you know, keeping the communists where they

15:19were. And instead Reagan really pushed back against it and said there's got to be

15:22regime change. It's sort of almost at a moral – certainly there's a defense buildup

15:25but a moral argument. And I think it had a big impact to bring down

15:30communism. So, you know, the Iranian – it's – I obviously have very mixed feelings

15:35about it. The Iranian regime is just so evil and so awful that, you know,

15:39you're – every time you see videos of people taking these courageous actions, you're like,

15:43somebody bring that regime down.

15:45On the other hand, that country is pretty – the people of that country are

15:49pretty radical. And the Shah in 1979 – I just spent last night watching all

15:52the old 60 Minutes from the 70s.

15:54They're amazing. But the Shah was really modernizing the country.

15:57There was a lot of wealth coming in.

15:59There was a lot more inequality.

16:00There was also a lot more state repression from his intelligence services.

16:05But the country was, you know, full of radical Muslims who wanted – you know,

16:09when all that instability, they wanted to revert back to a radical Islamic regime.

16:14And that's still – now, I've seen other estimates to say that, you know, the

16:17current regime is incredibly unpopular in Iran.

16:20But, you know, how that works out, it's really hard to say.

16:23But there is something – I caution my own – I talk back to my

16:26own anti -interventionist instincts when I think about Reagan.

16:29And just being like, you know, we're not going to do just containment strategy anymore.

16:33We're actually going to talk back to communism because people deserve to be free.

16:38And now, is everything better for – you know, is everything fine in Russia?

16:41Maybe not. But, I mean, communism was just awful, you know, just a totally soul

16:46-killing, you know, crushing, you know, a giant lie.

16:50I mean it's awful totalitarianism.

16:52So, I think we have to kind of keep that in mind and especially when

16:55you're in a moment of just such incredible chaos like we're in now.

16:58I tell my students, I'm like, you get to live through one of the most

17:02interesting moments in history certainly in the last 80 years because the entire paradigm where

17:08the United States had these allies and everything is going to go through the Security

17:10Council and we're going to try to make it to the UN and there's got

17:13to get agreements and all this stuff.

17:14But that's just gone. I mean it's just – it's gone to the part where

17:17they don't even – where you're kind of like how are you – what's going

17:19to happen inside Iran? They're like that's not our concern.

17:21We hope that there's an overthrow of the government but they're not – we're not

17:25like going to necessarily commit to that.

17:27Well, they're also calling on the people to rise up which is – I mean

17:33look at what they did with the protesters.

17:36I mean they killed thousands of people.

17:38And look at Iran and Venezuela.

17:41They don't have internal – the opposition is not united.

17:44There's not a united opposition with a united figure.

17:46I mean remember it was so interesting watching in 79 when these protests against the

17:49Shah were going on. The left and the Islamicists made an alliance in Iran.

17:54It's something I'm very – it's something really interesting topic I'm only starting to explore

17:58right now. But they made an alliance.

18:00So they'll be holding up the Ayatollah Khomeini pictures in the street.

18:03Like they had their guy.

18:04And the left was like, look, we're just going to go with this guy.

18:07I think he was making promises to the left around allowing more liberalism and then

18:12they came in and just consolidated into this really hard line Islamicist regime.

18:16But they had a guy.

18:18We don't have a guy in Venezuela.

18:22We don't have a guy in Iran.

18:23I don't know if there's anybody in Cuba really.

18:26In the older regime under like the Biden, the Open Society people, the Open Society

18:30establishment, they had somebody for Venezuela, this Machado woman.

18:33But Trump gets up there and he just goes, yeah, she doesn't have enough support.

18:37So she's not with us.

18:38Gone. Like they recognize that they don't have – there's nobody with an opposition street

18:44cred that can come into power.

18:45So I think – and they know that.

18:47They're not like unaware of that.

18:49So I think some of the like, oh, they should rise up and whatever, it's

18:53a little half -hearted. I don't know that they believe that that's going to happen.

18:56They're certainly not – they don't seem to be offering them material support.

18:59Right. So it's just a symbolic gesture to talk about it.

19:04Sounds like it. And I mean in this kind of the – this beautiful collapse

19:09of communism which occurred so peacefully with the Berlin Wall and the guard – eventually

19:13just sort of like it's just in the vibes.

19:15And the guards are just like, yeah, we're not guarding this wall anymore and it's

19:18just over. And it was just over.

19:20And it was kind of like a moral collapse.

19:22I'm not so sure that they're going to get that in Iran.

19:24It doesn't seem like it.

19:26It seems like they've been preparing for this for a long time.

19:28The Iranians? Yeah. They're dug in.

19:31And now it's the sun and he's just part of – he represents the IGRC,

19:37the security forces. I mean it's their guy.

19:40I mean it's what you would do.

19:41It's rally around the flag.

19:42It's classic what happens. And so – but you never know.

19:47I mean these guys then might just negotiate more what the Trump administration wants.

19:51I think the Trump administration is like we'll just keep killing your leaders until we

19:55get somebody in there that will make a deal with us.

19:56I think that's – I think that's how Trump thinks about it.

19:59Really? That's my best guess.

20:02You're smiling. Do you think this is – Because it's funny.

20:05Because it's funny because it's – it's so – Joe, it's just like you just

20:10look at all the think tanks and all the white papers and the State Department

20:13and the planning and whatever.

20:14And it's just like Trump's just – he's going to listen to Tucker.

20:18He's going to listen to – and he's going to decide what to do.

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21:20Is that good? I don't know if it's good.

21:23I mean, we don't know yet.

21:25I mean, I think part of it is, is it going to work?

21:27Part of you go, is it moral?

21:28And you're like, well, but does it work to have better outcomes?

21:32I don't know. We're in a realm of absolute chaos.

21:34We're also in a realm where AI is going to be powering autonomous weapons, if

21:39not already. I mean, that is going on.

21:43That is so interesting, this thing with Anthropic and the DoD and what's happening there.

21:47That is really interesting. So initially, Anthropic was hesitant to allow them to use autonomous

21:52weapons, right? I don't know the status of it, but you saw the open AI,

21:56the head of open AI autonomous, she was the head of autonomous weapons, I think.

22:01I'm not, don't get me exactly right, but she just quit like a couple of

22:05days ago. It was on X and it was just like a huge story.

22:07So you have a bunch of, you have a rift in between, now I think,

22:14you know, Sam and Elon are both on board and want to keep working with

22:19the DoD, but it looks like Anthropic broke and, you know, and then Hegseth was

22:24like, well, but then we're going to punish you for this.

22:28That's, that's very consistent with a kind of nationalist vision, which is that, which the

22:32Trump administration has, which is that your security strategy, your economic strategy, your border strategy,

22:39it's all a single thing.

22:42Your trade strategy, it's all a single thing.

22:44And I think for Trump, it's just, you're either asserting power and using your leverage

22:49and demanding more, or you're engaged in managed decline.

22:52You're just giving up, you know.

22:54And I, part of me, I'm of mixed minds on it because on the one

22:57hand, I'm with the kind of, I kind of go, let's invest at home.

23:00We have all, you know, we have skid row to clean up, you know, we

23:04should be focused on that, not on trying to do regime change or bombing other

23:07countries or creating other problems.

23:09On the other hand, I think there's something right about defending the West.

23:13I mean, defending Western civilization, you know, defending our institutions, our norms, our liberal values,

23:20and nobody's done that. And we just had a guy in power that was, that

23:25opened our borders, that kind of gave a blank check to Ukraine.

23:29It seems like at a minimum with Trump, you have somebody that is taking responsibility

23:34in ways where Biden would be like, well, we're going to do what, you know,

23:38we're going to work with our allies.

23:39And it was just all kind of like it was like it was all kind

23:42of going to be decided in this, in this, you know, what Curtis Yarvin famously

23:46calls the cathedral, you know, just the single thing of the media and the think

23:51tanks and the academics. And Trump was like, it's not working.

23:54And the working class of this country elected me to show strength and to demand

24:00a better return on our investment in terms of protecting our allies for our people.

24:04So that part of it, I think, is really overdue and really necessary, an assertion

24:09of why the West is special, why we need to defend the West.

24:14Is bombing Iran and replacing the, you know, the commandee with his son, you know,

24:19is what's happening in Venezuela, is that the right approach to that?

24:21I don't know. But I think we were, the system was failing.

24:25I mean, the open society system, which was supposed to be this liberal, you know,

24:29system of tolerance, it became intolerant.

24:32It became totalitarian. It created a censorship industrial complex.

24:35They weaponized the intelligence communities.

24:37We, you know, started getting ourselves into conflicts that we, that was not clear why

24:42we were in them, including Venezuela.

24:43I mean, sorry, including Ukraine.

24:46I mean, with Ukraine, it's like that war only continues because we continue to arm

24:51it. Like if we stopped, if we just were like.

24:53let's just have the, just, you know, just cut a deal wherever the border is

24:58right now. And you're just like, that's where it's going to stop.

25:01Then you can, I mean, I don't know, I'm not sure what's preventing that from

25:04Trump. I think he's annoyed with Putin.

25:05But yeah, I mean, my view is like, I don't see an interest in that

25:09war continuing. I don't know how it's in the interest of the working class Americans

25:14or Americans. And I have the same questions about Iran and Venezuela and Cuba.

25:18But I think that is a totally different paradigm than the one that we had

25:22from 1945 to 2024. Well, the idea of tolerance for, you know, with the last

25:28administration, that seems just to be a narrative.

25:30It seemed to be a political strategy of keeping the borders open to increase populations

25:36in blue states, raise the census, get more congressional seats, and then a path to

25:41citizenship where you'd have permanent voters.

25:43That's what it seems like.

25:45And then there's also a ton of Medicaid fraud that's wrapped up in that, that

25:49we're now seeing. Yeah, I think that's part of it.

25:52I mean, the Times did a piece on why Biden left the borders open.

25:57And it was - What was there?

25:59It was a funny piece.

26:00Like there was this, it was, you know, part of it, he's so out of

26:03it, right? Like there were just, it was not clear, like there wasn't clear, there

26:07was like a meeting where he was like, yeah, we're going to just do this

26:09thing. They kind of concluded that, I think Cecilia Munoz, who's one of the more

26:14moderate advocates and was in the Obama administration, I think she said something like, Biden

26:18just wanted to give the left, just felt like he wanted to give the left

26:21what they wanted. And that's what, you know, the Soros think tanks and the, you

26:25know, the very progressive immigration groups have been, you know, have been advocating.

26:29He did the same thing on climate.

26:31So it makes sense. I know Elon talks a lot about how, oh, it's about

26:34importing voters and whatnot, maybe.

26:37But it's not even clear that that's a good strategy that's going to work.

26:40Why not? Well, because, first of all, we don't know that Latinos, like why are

26:44like, why do we assume Latinos are all going to, you know, vote for Democrats?

26:49Well, if you've got them all on Medicaid and Social Security, the numbers there are,

26:55it's actually more complicated. Europe is definitely the case that you have higher rates of

26:59crime and higher rates of social services among migrants.

27:03Here are Latino migrants traditionally, you know, really thrive.

27:08You know, they do much better than the mostly Muslim immigrants in Europe.

27:14So I'm skeptical. I mean, the other thing, the other statistic that I learned from

27:19David Shore, who's like the one of the top Democrat pollsters when he was talking

27:22to Ezra Klein after the 2024 elections, he was like, if all eligible voters had

27:27voted, Trump would have won by three percentage points rather than 1 .5.

27:31So it's also, so I always think it's kind of funny because the Republicans are

27:34always like trying to make it harder for people to vote.

27:36But under that calculation anyway, and maybe it's just Trump, maybe other Republicans won't be

27:41able to do it. When you say harder for people to vote, what do you

27:43mean? You mean mail -in voting?

27:45Yeah, just the whole effort to...

27:46But the problem is mail -in voting has always been a vector for fraud.

27:52That's, it may be. I don't know how much of it there is.

27:55I've seen different things on it.

27:57I mean, back like decades, people have been talking about mail -in voting just being

28:02too open to fraud. Well, but then maybe, but then the question is, does it

28:05really benefit? I mean, in the words, if David Shore is right, if everybody who

28:09could vote had voted, Trump would have won like basically by twice the margin.

28:15Yeah. Well, I don't know if that's necessarily true, but when I see laws like

28:17what California has, where you're not allowed to show ID, there's only, I mean, I've

28:23tried, tried to find some sort of charitable way where that would make sense.

28:27Other than you want to open the door for fraud.

28:29There's nothing. This narrative that they say, oh, poor people don't have like, you see

28:34Kamala Harris. They don't believe that.

28:36They don't have a Xerox machine.

28:38No, but you ever see the thing, I think it was a guy, I don't

28:40know if he did it for free press.

28:41A guy was going around interviewing.

28:43Well, first he interviewed liberals at like, I think UC Berkeley.

28:46And he was like, you know, do you think that you should have to have

28:48an ID to vote? And they were like, no, because black people don't have IDs.

28:52And like, that's just hearing that on NPR.

28:54No, I know, of course, but they believe that.

28:56Yeah. I mean, but then I don't know if you saw that.

28:58It's an incredible video because then he goes to like, I think he goes to

29:00Harlem or he goes to like a black neighborhood in New York.

29:03And he was just actually asking black people, it's like, do you have an ID

29:05on you? It was like, everybody was like, yeah, like, what's the matter with you?

29:09Well, it's also, we just got done with three years of you need an ID

29:13to prove that you have been vaccinated.

29:15So you need to be able to have that to go to work, to get

29:18on a plane, to eat at a restaurant.

29:21It didn't make any sense.

29:22It was so immediately contradicting what had just gone down, you know, months earlier.

29:27It's just stupid. Well, yeah, that was about, that was because the left wanted to

29:30control people's behavior. Right. And on voting, they, the old, I know, because I just,

29:35when I talked to my progressive friends about it, what, you know, and family and

29:38friends, it's, it's very much like, no, we can't put barriers on the way of

29:41voting because that's what they did during Jim Crow.

29:43I mean, that's where it goes back to.

29:45ID is not a barrier.

29:46It's just an insurance that you're a citizen while you're voting.

29:50And then they say there's really not much fraud.

29:52They say there's very little fraud.

29:53I'm just telling you what they say.

29:54I'm not saying I agree.

29:55I'm just saying what they say.

29:56Who is they though? Progressives.

29:58Yeah. Do you believe that?

29:59That's horseshit. That's a horseshit.

30:00I think they believe it.

30:01I'll put it that way.

30:02Really? Yes, I do. I think they just say it because that's the thing that

30:05everybody says. I think it's a group think thing.

30:08I mean, I think if you sit down with any rational person and no one's

30:12watching, you know, there's no cameras on them and you ask them, does that make

30:15any sense? No one would say it makes any sense.

30:18Most people in this country who are citizens have some form of ID or can

30:22get some form of ID.

30:23And it's entirely reasonable to ask people to prove that you are who you are

30:28if you're voting for the president of the United States.

30:30That seems pretty reasonable. I find it totally reasonable and I support it.

30:35I'm just saying that if you make it, I'm just saying you may, the Republicans

30:38may, it may result in outcomes that are not the predictable ones that they think

30:42they'll get just because Trump, at least, and Trump is maybe, you know, a special

30:46case, but I mean, he was able to turn out reluctant voters.

30:50Like he motivated people to vote.

30:52Because people were fed up with what had gone on in the last four years.

30:55And I think the open border was the biggest one.

30:58I mean, it was one of the biggest ones because people just felt hopeless.

31:02Like, this is crazy. Like what you're doing, you're letting in what's equivalent, at least.

31:08If you're just being charitable, it's 10 million people.

31:12It was huge. If you're just being conservative, it's 10 times Austin.

31:17You let 10 Austins in in four years of people who you have no idea

31:22who they are. Yeah, and Americans were on board with closing the borders, and then

31:27when it came time to actually asking all the – getting those folks to leave

31:30that came in, all the support disappeared, right?

31:33Well, it's not asking them to leave.

31:35It's showing up at Home Depot and just rounding people up and raiding places and

31:39going to restaurants and pulling people out of their houses.

31:42I think people got very uncomfortable with the idea of militarized police wearing masks on

31:47the street. And then when you find out that these guys have only been trained

31:50for seven weeks and they get a $50 ,000 signing bonus, and then you find

31:55out that a giant percentage of them are Latino, which is kind of crazy.

31:59You know, like the two guys who shot that guy in Minnesota, they're both Latino.

32:04Yeah, I mean that's what you get when you have completely untrained, unprepared people, disasters

32:09like that. The whole Minnesota thing with Alex Peretti is a complete clusterfuck.

32:14I still have not seen verification of whether or not the narrative that makes sense

32:21is true. But the narrative that makes sense was that there was an accidental discharge

32:25of his gun as they were pulling it away from him.

32:27And then that led to them thinking that maybe he still had the gun on

32:31him because you're in the chaos of arresting someone.

32:34Someone says he has a gun, a gun goes off, and then they shoot the

32:37guy. Yeah. I bet when you go – I bet when they do the proper

32:40evaluation of it, they're going to find multiple mistakes.

32:44I'm sure. By the law enforcement in that situation.

32:46That – and then there was the thing with the woman who got shot where

32:49you have a guy who had almost been run over just a couple of weeks

32:53before and been dragged in his car.

32:55The guy who shot her had been dragged by another vehicle.

32:58Oh, I didn't see that.

32:59I think he got dragged like 300 feet too.

33:02Something crazy. So when a car is coming at him, you could imagine this guy's

33:07got some PTSD from that and – He should not have been – he should

33:10not have been – No.

33:12And also Alex Freddie – He certainly shouldn't have said that fucking bitch like after

33:16he shoots her in the face too.

33:18That's crazy too. Yeah. I mean the reaction – just the heartlessness of the reaction

33:23to the killings was terrible, including by the administration.

33:25That's probably why Kristi Noem ended up having to go.

33:28But then on the other side, these protests are organized.

33:31They're organized and they're paid for, which is also something to be – that people

33:36need to understand. These are not organic protests.

33:38It's not organic that it just happened to be taking place in the very same

33:42place where you found hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud.

33:45Right? This is one of the clearest, most obvious distractions you've ever seen like in

33:51the public arena where you have these people who are being paid to protest.

33:58They give them money to go out there and protest.

34:00They give them signs. They're organizing it.

34:02They have signal groups. They're doxing all these different ice workers.

34:06They find out what their license plate numbers are.

34:09They find out where they're staying.

34:10They go to their hotel.

34:12The cops – the local cops are being told to stand down.

34:14So you've got like this convergence of all these factors that lead to chaos.

34:22And, you know, Mike Benz was talking about it.

34:26It was essentially saying it's a mathematical thing and that if you have these things

34:31play out, you're going to have a certain amount – it was Mike Benz, right?

34:34It was saying that. It was a certain amount of people that are – you're

34:36going to have incidences. You're just playing it out over the numbers.

34:40Certain amount of these protests.

34:42You have organized protests. You have untrained ICE agents.

34:46You have a lot of chaos.

34:47You have support for people screaming in the streets.

34:49Someone gets shot. Boom. And then it moves the needle.

34:52And this is calculated. Yes.

34:55They want this to happen.

34:56They want it to happen this way because then this kills all the support for

35:00people that, you know, were kind of on the fence whether or not I should

35:04be deporting all illegals. Excuse me.

35:08It should – excuse me.

35:12Whether they should just go after violent criminals and – and then there's these weird

35:16narratives like, oh, only 14 percent are violent criminals that have been arrested.

35:22It was 60 percent are criminals.

35:24Sixty percent of the people plus were criminals.

35:27And like what – by what definition violent criminals?

35:31Like what do you – is it OK if they just come in here and

35:35rip people off? Like are you fine with that?

35:37It's just like the violent ones we need to get rid of?

35:40Like – I think they didn't – yeah.

35:42They did a fairly poor job of it.

35:44Like why were they focused on Minneapolis?

35:47I think most people don't understand how radical the left in Minneapolis is because you

35:51think it's a Midwestern place but it's actually got a long radical left tradition.

35:55Yeah. And as you were saying, I mean, Alex Preddy, he should have been arrested

35:58several days before when he had a gun on him and got into an altercation

36:03with police. They should have arrested him then and then they could have – the

36:06judge could have done a lot of different things.

36:07But they could have taken away his gun.

36:08They could have put a restraining order on him so that next time he showed

36:11up and people would know to look for him, then he would have been kept

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38:47Do you know the story about the gun that he was carrying?

38:50No. Okay, so he's carrying a gun called a SIG P320, which is notorious for

38:55accidental discharges. Not mean there's lawsuits all over the place.

38:59There's videos of cops in precincts bending over to pick something up, and the gun

39:05goes off in his holster.

39:06There's a ton of these.

39:08So I don't know if this is completely accurate, because this is obviously the fog

39:13of chaos of these type of altercations and situations.

39:16But there's a video that many people have reviewed, and it's their conclusion that if

39:23you watch the video when one of the ICE officers removes his gun, even though

39:28he does not have his finger on the trigger, has his hand on the gun

39:31and his finger's on the slide, as he's moving off, it appears the gun goes

39:36off. Now, they've zoomed in on it and shown that it does look like the

39:41gun's going off, and it does correspond with the sound of a gunshot.

39:45Okay. It's just hard to know.

39:47There is a sound. You hear a gunshot in the video.

39:49Yes, but I don't know if it's legitimate.

39:50It's hard to know. But if it was any other gun, like say if it

39:53was a Glock, I would say that doesn't make any sense.

39:55His finger's not on the trigger, it's not going to go off.

39:57But that gun is notorious for going off.

40:00There's a guy online that he shows a video where he takes the gun, and

40:06he manipulates the slide, and it goes off.

40:09Yeah. And it goes off without nothing touching the trigger.

40:12No one's pulling on it.

40:14It's just if you have...

40:16The other problem is people alter guns.

40:19Okay. So the issue with the SIG was they had, I believe up to 2017,

40:27they had a lighter trigger.

40:29And this lighter trigger, if the gun was dropped, or if something happened to it,

40:33it was going off. And they determined it's...

40:35The gun does not have an internal safety like some other guns do.

40:39I'm not an expert, so I don't know exactly what the trigger mechanism is.

40:44But my understanding is that the trigger mechanism is different than their other guns.

40:48Like they have another gun that's notoriously reliable.

40:51It's a SIG P365. You could drop that gun, it's not going to go off.

40:55It's not known for accidental discharge.

40:57But the 320 is known.

40:59And there's tons of videos of people demonstrating this online.

41:02There's a video where they're on a range, and a gun goes off in a

41:07guy's holster. And the range instructor says, what the fuck just happened?

41:11And this guy, he points to this, you know, the gun that went off.

41:16And he said, is that a SIG?

41:18And he goes, yeah, he goes, get that fucking thing off the range.

41:21So it's that notorious, this one particular model.

41:25And it just happened to be the one particular model that Alex Preddy was carrying,

41:29which is fucking crazy. Well, his behavior was really reckless.

41:35It's really hard for people to hold two ideas in their mind at the same

41:37time. Like ICE messed that up, I think clearly.

41:41And Alex Preddy, I mean, we see the earlier video, you know, where he kicks

41:44out the taillight of the ICE vehicle.

41:46Right. And he's, I mean, he's got a gun in the waistband of his jacket.

41:50It's hidden by the jacket.

41:51He gets into this altercation with the police.

41:53I mean, I had, when I posted about it, I didn't say this, but a

41:57lot of the responses were suicide by cop.

41:59People were like, suicide by cop.

42:00I mean, and I'm not making that claim.

42:02But I mean, his behavior was, I mean, the recklessness of the gun choice mirrors

42:07the recklessness of his behavior in those instances.

42:10And I heard people being like, oh, well, he, you know, he was just defending

42:13that poor woman. There was a police officer engaged in an arrest of a person.

42:18And Alex Preddy intervened in that.

42:19I mean, I think you can mess around about it.

42:21Well, it was a little, I don't know if it was an arrest.

42:24The police officer shoved this woman.

42:27Yeah. He was in an altercation with somebody.

42:30You don't go, in other words, people go, oh, you got to put yourself in,

42:32what do you think you're, like, who do you, what do you think's going on

42:34here? Like, he should put himself in between that.

42:36No. The way the ICE officer, wasn't a police officer, right?

42:40It's an ICE officer. Do you call them police?

42:42The way the ICE officer reacted to the woman, that bothered me.

42:47Like, he just shoved this lady, like, stepped forward and fully shoved her.

42:52That's when Alex Preddy gets involved.

42:54And then pepper spray comes out.

42:56And then... And Alex Preddy should have absolutely filmed that.

42:59Should have filmed the whole thing.

43:01That's exactly what he should have done.

43:02Well, other people were filming it.

43:03It was clear there's cameras all over the place.

43:05But don't... It's multiple angles.

43:07Yeah. So, but it's like, I just don't think that's appropriate behavior.

43:12To go and get... That's fair.

43:14That's not the tradition of, like...

43:15I mean, I think there's a non -violent left -wing tradition that's actually quite beautiful

43:19and spiritual. I agree. And it's Thoreau and Gandhi and King.

43:23That's not what was going on in Minneapolis.

43:26That's not at all what's going on.

43:28This is a part of the problem with these things being organized, right?

43:31Organized, paid protests, and also people being radicalized by narratives.

43:35Then, of course, very... different than what was going on with the civil rights movement.

43:40You have social media. So people are like radically pushed in one direction or another.

43:47And it's not clear whether or not that's organic.

43:50It's not clear. Is this the voice of the people or is this bot farms

43:54that are pushing things in one direction or another?

43:57Is it I mean, there's a lot of people that I cautiously watch their posts

44:04on X where I know that they're AI.

44:06I know it's AI. I can just tell by the way they write.

44:09It's awful now. There's so much AI slop on X right now.

44:12It's bad. It's weird because it does muddy the water and it does fuck with

44:18discourse, but it also radicalizes people.

44:21One way or the radicalizes people towards the right, radicalizes people towards the left.

44:25It's not good. And I think this guy, whatever his mental health struggles were, they

44:30appeared to exist. It seems like he was a troubled guy already.

44:34So a thing comes along that defines them a cause that they're going to stand

44:40up for and fight for because their life's probably a fucking mess and their mind

44:45is probably a mess. And they look at this, they look at it like this

44:48is black and white binary situation for good guys and bad guys.

44:52And let's fuck all these fascists and he's kicking taillights and, you know, getting involved

44:58in pushing matches with ICE agents.

45:00It's like, that's crazy. Like all that stuff should and can get you arrested.

45:05Yeah. I mean, I think on the organized issue, remember like the civil rights movement

45:09was really well organized and in terms of it was like actually...

45:12But people weren't being paid for it.

45:13It wasn't being promoted on social media.

45:15It wasn't people's job. There are people in America right now that are unemployed, that

45:19are paid protesters for a living.

45:21Oh, I mean, that's the entire like left -wing NGO sector is basically that.

45:26Right. Yeah. I mean, that's like that.

45:27We saw, I see it at the level of San Francisco and for homelessness, they

45:30just go and you work at a government funded or Soros funded NGO.

45:34And then you do all that civil disobedience stuff on your free time.

45:38And, but I was, I just think, I think that you're, you were right.

45:41You were right when you're saying like, cause I think it's the problem is not

45:43the organization. The problem is that the organization in Minneapolis had a goal of causing

45:49exactly what occurred. The organization around the civil rights movement was to desegregate soda counters.

45:55Yeah. And so one of them was about actually, I mean, the other thing is

46:00that brought, pull back a little bit further, Martin Luther King and the civil rights

46:03movement was about affirming our liberal democratic Western civilization.

46:08Black people wanted to be a part of it.

46:09Yeah. This stuff where you're like, we want to, you know, open the border and

46:14defund the police and basically start attacking all of these institutions of liberal democratic civilization.

46:21That's different. That's a radicalized left.

46:23Um, it's fundamentally different. Clearly he, he defines it best as suicidal empathy.

46:29I don't agree with Gad on that.

46:30No, you don't think it's suicidal empathy.

46:32I don't think it's either suicidal or empathic because empathy is empathy is like, well,

46:38he, he applies that to a lot of progressive ideas, not just the immigration thing.

46:43I don't think he'd necessarily, I think it was actually long before the immigration thing

46:47that he was talking about at suicidal empathy.

46:49The idea being that you need the rule of law to have a safe and

46:53peaceful society. Yes. That part's true.

46:55You do. That part's true.

46:56Yeah. You need, you need no violence.

46:58You need no crime. And when you're taking criminals and just releasing them from jail

47:02and you have no cash bail and you're doing all these things, if you want

47:06to put on the fucking tinfoil hat, you would do that because you want chaos

47:10because you want chaos so you can have more rules and tighten down on people

47:15and have more control over the civilization.

47:18Yeah. I mean, I think in that, I mean, I think like it's not empathic

47:22to allow more violent crime.

47:25Like, I don't think that's empathy towards victims.

47:27So I don't think I wouldn't call it empathy and not only that, but like

47:30when you look at like the, these, who these folks are, and I spent a

47:33lot of time looking at them and was one of them.

47:36Um, they hate Western civilization.

47:38They hate the United States of America.

47:39They hate capitalism. Like it's, it's an anti -civilization thing that's motivating it.

47:44And that's not to say that like MSNBC watchers don't feel, Oh my, I feel

47:48bad for that person. But I mean, I always, you know, it's like, like the

47:51people I hear complaining about ICE, they don't know any illegal immigrants.

47:56They've never talked to them other than maybe their server or that, you know, but

48:00they don't even really talk to their gardeners or their, or their, you know, their,

48:03their maids. It's like the idea that they, empathy implies a deep understanding of someone's

48:10situation. And so I think it's a misdescription of empathy.

48:15I think in some ways it's more quite the opposite of that, that they're actually

48:18not showing empathy for all the people that are hurt by their policies, whether it's

48:22open borders or enabling addiction or euthanizing poor and mentally ill people in Canada, um,

48:29or transing kids. I don't think that those things are empathic.

48:33And the person that's doing, doing them, I don't think is suicidal.

48:36If anything, they're actually quite full of themselves, um, and quite arrogant about what they're

48:41doing. I mean, I use the word pathological altruism in San Francisco and I say

48:46it's close to Monkhausen syndrome by proxy.

48:49Maybe it is Monkhausen syndrome by proxy, but I don't think it's, I worry about,

48:53I worry about affirming, cause I think that's how progressives go.

48:57They go, Oh, well, if we, if the homeless are, are worse off, that's just

49:00because we care so much.

49:01I just don't think that's the case.

49:02Yes. Well, that's the homeless thing is nuts because the homeless thing is just a

49:07scam. And we know that basically because of California, like California, what, what's happened with

49:13the whole homeless budget is so insane.

49:16And that they vetoed audits of these budgets.

49:20There's been $24 billion spent.

49:23No one knows where it went.

49:24There's no accountability. And then the homeless situation increases.

49:29Well, that's why, I mean, remember it's like, it's funny.

49:31Like I, my students just did a paper, we have something we've been working on

49:34it too, like the Canadian euthanasia program.

49:37And it's like every year, the numbers just keep going up and up.

49:39And it reminded me of when you interview homeless, you know, service providers in San

49:43Francisco, they'll be like, yeah, no, we're doing an amazing job.

49:46Every year we serve more and more people.

49:48It's like, Ray, you have an, you have all the, you have the wrong incentives.

49:51You have an incentive to create homelessness, and that's what they've done.

49:56Well, if you get more money, if you have more homeless, your incentive is now

50:00not to eliminate homelessness because that's your job.

50:03Right. That's how you make all your money.

50:04When I first was alerted to that, I was like, I can't believe this is

50:08real. When you find out the amount of money that's involved in homelessness, they spent

50:15$24 billion. Okay, where did that go?

50:18And then there's no accountability?

50:20Okay. There's no fraud? You're saying there's no fraud?

50:23Zero? Well, I wish there was fraud.

50:25I mean, somebody was sort of like, can we expose, you know, like Nick Shirley

50:28exposed the daycares not doing anything in Minnesota.

50:31I was like, I wish the homeless service providers weren't doing anything.

50:35If they were stealing the money, then there'd be a lot less homelessness.

50:39Well, so you think they're actually using the money to create homelessness?

50:43Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, think about like, so San Francisco was like up between

50:47$100 ,000 and $120 ,000 a year per homeless person.

50:50I think LA had a bargain of something more like $25 ,000.

50:54That's just San Francisco. That doesn't count the $24 billion that California gave.

51:00So that money is going to, you know, single resident occupancy hotel owners.

51:05It's going to nonprofit service providers who are just bringing food and, you know, alcohol

51:10and drug paraphernalia to make it easier for people to do drugs and overdose and

51:16live in tents on the street.

51:17That's just, it's very expensive to kill that many people that way.

51:21That's what San Francisco has proven.

51:23Right. But it's really about the amount of people where that's their industry.

51:28Yeah. That there is an industry in taking care of the homeless situation and addressing

51:34the homeless situation. And, you know, Koleon Noir, when he was on the podcast, he

51:38was explaining to me that he went to San Francisco and he was like, why

51:42is it so bad up here?

51:43Do they need money? He's like, no, no, no.

51:44This guy who's a lawyer was explaining it to him.

51:46He's a lawyer as well.

51:47I was explaining it to him like, no, no, no.

51:49These people are getting money to deal with the homeless situation.

51:52And some of them are making quarter billion dollars a year and more, which is

51:57just nuts. And then it's not getting better.

51:59It's only getting worse. And yet they still keep getting that money.

52:03So it's like there's zero incentive to make it better.

52:06There's only an incentive to make it worse.

52:08And then when you have no accountability, so there's no auditing of the money.

52:12Twenty four billion dollars is a lot of fucking money.

52:15So where who's getting greased up?

52:18Where's that money going? Mostly it's into the it's into the temporary what they call

52:22they call it permanent. It's a propaganda word propaganda.

52:24It's a permanent supportive housing.

52:26It's neither permanent nor supportive.

52:29It's often warehousing attics where they die.

52:31I mean, we know that they die at very high levels in those little this

52:34is a little crummy, you know, single resident occupancy rooms.

52:36Yeah, they bought a lot of motels that were, you know, low, low income, you

52:41know, low, you know, cheap motels converting them having.

52:45But they don't really there's no I mean, all that money should have gone into

52:48a centralized addiction and psychiatric care system.

52:51Cal psych is what it should have been.

52:53And instead, it's just it's just kind of.

52:56Yeah, it's just basically incentivizing people to live on the streets and use hard drugs

53:01and die in overdose. It's just so crazy.

53:03I mean, if you wanted to make it better, you would incentivize them and pay

53:06them based on the amount of people that are no longer homeless.

53:09Right. But they don't do that.

53:10But then the problem with that is, well, you're eventually going to fix it all

53:13and then your business is going to go away.

53:15Right. And that's all happening.

53:17I think it's I think it's all happening unconsciously.

53:20Like there's no room. There's no like, you know, secret room where they're rubbing their

53:23hands and being like, oh, we're going to make a lot of money this way.

53:26It's just, you know, when you interview them, it's a very basic view.

53:29You know, it's just these people are victims.

53:32They're victims of white supremacy and capitalism and and to victims, everything should be given

53:36and nothing required. Well, I think that's a nice narrative.

53:39But I think once you start getting monthly paychecks from from the homeless industrial complex,

53:45I think your incentive is to keep this party going.

53:49Well, sure. But they think it's good.

53:51I mean, they go. This shows how good we're doing that.

53:54We got a bigger budget this year.

53:55And that's how they that's how they rationalize it.

53:57Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a sign of a very sick society.

54:03Hence the title of your book, San Francisco, sicko, which is a great title.

54:08I mean, it's a sick place.

54:09And it was one of my favorite cities.

54:12It was an amazing city.

54:14I mean, I filmed my Netflix special there in 2016.

54:17So in just the amount of time in 10 years, it's completely fallen apart.

54:22When I was there in 2016, it was great with the I mean, there was

54:25always a lot of homeless people there.

54:27But you have that in any liberal city.

54:28But it was never an epidemic.

54:30It was never like tents everywhere and shit on the streets.

54:33That wasn't the case. It was just, you know, it was a liberal city, a

54:38progressive liberal city. But it was cool.

54:40There was a lot of outdoor music.

54:42It was fun. It was a great place to go to restaurants.

54:45And people walked around. It was a great city filled with intelligent, interesting, open minded

54:52people. And I lived there when I was a little kid.

54:54I was there during the Vietnam War from age seven to 11.

54:58I lived in San Francisco.

54:59It's a little bit better now.

55:01They had a new mayor.

55:02Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I want to acknowledge.

55:04I can't lie about it.

55:05It's a little bit better.

55:06I agree. I interview a lot of people still about what's going on.

55:10It's still there. Did you see what happened with the mayor?

55:13With his security guard got pulled down.

55:15First of all, a security guard needs to learn some fucking jujitsu.

55:19The way he let that guy grab him, he didn't pummel.

55:22He didn't do anything. It looked like he had no understanding of what to do

55:26when that guy grabbed his body.

55:28How is he a security guard?

55:30That's crazy. How can you be a security for the mayor if you literally don't

55:33know what to do in a clinch?

55:35I thought he looked like he didn't really see the guy as a threat or

55:37something. Maybe he thought he was just a crazy homeless guy or something.

55:40Even if I didn't see a guy as a threat.

55:43If a guy grabs me like that, I'm not going to let him get that

55:46position on me. He probably cut his back of his head.

55:49He banged him on the ground.

55:50He body slammed him onto the fucking concrete.

55:53Kind of a metaphor for the whole situation.

55:55The mayor just walks away.

55:55And he walked away like it was nothing.

55:59He walked away. He didn't run.

56:01Did you see, though? Because I saw that video and I couldn't tell if the

56:03mayor actually saw what was happening.

56:04100%. He seemed like he was going.

56:05He was looking that way, and this guy was just left.

56:08No, he was here when they started physically struggling with each other.

56:12And then when they're struggling with each other, he walks off.

56:15And then the guy gets body slammed.

56:17It was the weirdest video to watch.

56:18Yeah, because they both seem so nonchalant.

56:21They both seem, yeah, as a metaphor for the city.

56:22This is a different angle.

56:23The mayor actually is running off to get help.

56:25Oh, he is, okay. Running off?

56:27Yeah, let me refresh this real quick.

56:29Let me see it, yeah.

56:29Hold on, hold on, hold on.

56:32So there's the mayor right there.

56:34Okay. He pushes this guy here in a second.

56:37The mayor sort of, as soon as he gets to the sidewalk, he takes off.

56:40So why are they hanging out with this guy in the first place?

56:43That looks like they're in Camden right there.

56:44Oh, so the security guard started it, and he doesn't know what the fuck he's

56:48doing. And there's the mayor over here.

56:51Okay. Oh, look at his shitty technique.

56:53Oh, this is a much better video.

56:55And the other guy's a lot stronger than him.

56:57So the mayor is... He walks off, hold on, he starts running right.

57:00He seems relaxed. Okay. Okay, he did start walking slowly and then starts...

57:07He's not going to get help.

57:08That guy started it all.

57:11He pushed that guy. If you're a security guy, the last thing you want to

57:15do when there's one of you and two of those other guys is deal with

57:19a situation that way where you push a guy.

57:22I have to say, as soon as you said, I'm always surprised when I see

57:25them do that. Like that was the same thing that happened with the pretty.

57:28We were just talking about it.

57:29Don't you think this guy's probably armed too?

57:31I mean, but also, he shouldn't have pushed that guy that way.

57:37I mean, the whole thing is fucking stupid.

57:39Look at the chaos. There's somebody else just running around, another homeless person or something.

57:43Yeah. Yeah. The other guy's probably talking shit.

57:45I bet that guy's funny.

57:46I bet he's a guy with a big coat on.

57:50I mean, I don't... For the life of me, none of it makes sense.

57:55Right. None of it makes sense.

57:57The mayor walking off casually and then eventually running.

58:01It doesn't make sense. The security guy just walked up to those guys and pushed

58:04him. When your details to take care of the mayor, you should be escorting him

58:08around that and getting him away from any potential trouble.

58:13Like the brazenness of just walking up and pushing that guy.

58:16Well, you don't know how to fight at all.

58:18It's very clear when you watch the way they grapple with each other.

58:21He doesn't know what he's doing.

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58:59Seems like we're having a lot of security problems in our society right now.

59:03It's wild, right? I can't believe the pushing.

59:07I mean, that's the same thing.

59:07The pretty thing. Pushing, is that like an important law enforcement technique?

59:12I mean, what is that exactly?

59:13Well, not only that, he pushed a small woman.

59:15The ice guy just completely just full -on shoves this small woman.

59:20Which means he was emotionally out of control first, right?

59:23Yeah. It means that he was angry.

59:24He was angry. These guys are not like special forces guys.

59:28They're not well -trained. These guys are - Disciplined now.

59:32Seven weeks and a lot of them are financially incentivized.

59:34Yeah. Because like if you can get $50 ,000, like if you're in debt and

59:37then you could take this job on, when they get the $50 ,000, how long

59:42do they have to stay on the job for to have that money, to have

59:45that signing bonus? Or is it one of those things where you get the $50

59:49,000 as a signing bonus, but you pay it like a record deal type deal?

59:54It's not really your money.

59:55You have to make it up later.

59:57I imagine, yeah. But still, if you can get $50 ,000, there's a lot of

1:00:00people that will take that job.

1:00:02Yeah. They're just - Yeah.

1:00:06It was just a bunch of bad choices made by the Trump administration on that

1:00:09one. Someone's Reddit comments saying they have no personal experience, but they've heard that it's

1:00:1450K over four years, if you're in good standing at the end of those four

1:00:18years. Right. Oh, so you only get it after four years.

1:00:21But that might not - Right.

1:00:22Right. Right. But for some people that have no job opportunities - And nothing on

1:00:27the horizon, that $50 ,000 looks like, look, it's an extra 25K a year or

1:00:32an extra, you know, 25K for four years?

1:00:38For 50 for four years?

1:00:38Another person says that's incorrect.

1:00:40It's broken in 10 payments once at 90 days, then once every year for four

1:00:43more years. Anyway. It's broken now.

1:00:45Either way, it's $50 ,000 that you would not have been able to make ordinarily.

1:00:49I mean, we had police shortages before 2020.

1:00:52We had a bunch of police shortages after that, mostly by police officers who were

1:00:56just felt mistreated by the society and by their local mayors who said that they

1:01:01were evil. Well, didn't a lot of cops resign when Donnie got elected?

1:01:05Oh, I'm sure. And then a COVID drove, and then a bunch of police officers

1:01:08driven out during COVID. So there was already our security forces have been, you know,

1:01:14and they were just - People underestimate how important it is to feel, like, important

1:01:19in your job and respected.

1:01:21And it's not just about the money, because they would be offering more money.

1:01:24But I think a lot of people are like, oh, no, I don't want to

1:01:25be in a job where people are, like, spitting at me or throwing urine and

1:01:28feces. Well, not just at a job where your life is on the line.

1:01:31Yeah. Your life is already on the line, and then you're mistreated by the wider

1:01:34society, which actually creates additional risks, you know, as this chaos in Minneapolis shows.

1:01:39So, yeah, it's just people want to believe that they're doing something that is appreciated

1:01:44by the community. And so when the community decides that they're against policing, your civilization

1:01:49is pretty far gone. But there's the difference between policing and this ICE thing.

1:01:53The ICE thing is a different thing, right?

1:01:54They're looking at it differently.

1:01:56It's not like you're watching a violent altercation take place.

1:01:58The police show up and people are spitting on them like you're trying to break

1:02:02up a violent crime. This is different.

1:02:04They're looking at it like in the progressive narrative is like no one's illegal on

1:02:09stolen land and we need to have open borders and illegals or immigrants, rather, are

1:02:14the foundation of this country.

1:02:16And you hear all that, those narratives.

1:02:18The president and the administration.

1:02:19The president and the administration.

1:02:20They wanted to pick a fight, obviously, with this left wing – with activists in

1:02:23this left wing city. They thought it would redound to their benefit to show how

1:02:27crazy the left was and it backfired on them.

1:02:29Well, I think they wanted to do something about the amount of illegal fraud that

1:02:33was just recently exposed in Minneapolis.

1:02:36But I don't know that that's – but you wouldn't do it with ICE raids

1:02:40though. I mean – Well, it's illegal immigrants.

1:02:42If you have illegal immigrants that are responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in

1:02:46fraud and you know at least some of them are illegal.

1:02:49It seems rational that you would send ICE in to find out who's illegal and

1:02:53who's not and put a stop to some of it.

1:02:55And there's also this nationwide focus on this one place because of the Nick Shirley

1:03:00videos. Yeah, though I think that the motivate – my understanding is that the motivation

1:03:05was to motivate people that are here illegally to self -deport.

1:03:10And so that that's the main part of the strategy is this show of force

1:03:13because, of course, it's – they wanted the publicity.

1:03:16They wanted people to be scared and self -deport.

1:03:17They claim that 1 .3 million people self -deported or 1 .4 and then another

1:03:24400 ,000 or 600 ,000 deported through the normal channels.

1:03:28And apparently they're just limited to how many people they can actually deport through the

1:03:31normal channels. But they can get – people can self -deport.

1:03:33They can just go. And because, of course, there's this thing called e -verify where

1:03:37you just have the employers have to prove that everybody you're employing is here legally

1:03:41and they don't want to do that.

1:03:42The Trump administration doesn't want to do that because they'll upset in particular like the

1:03:46agricultural lobby. Yeah. But others who depend – construction who depend on – so it's

1:03:51a funny – it's not great.

1:03:53I don't know. I'm not saying that there's – that I have the perfect answer

1:03:57to the other one. But obviously, like politically, the president doesn't feel like they can

1:04:01do e -verify and maintain support from the business community for his political agenda.

1:04:06So you end up – but you end up with a kind of underclass that's

1:04:10here illegally but that's protected because they're working in a sector that the president and

1:04:14the administration wants to protect.

1:04:16But then you're also self -deporting people.

1:04:19I'm not sure exactly how they're thinking about it but that appears to be what

1:04:24the heart of their goal is.

1:04:26Well, this was always – a lot of people on the left back in the

1:04:30day would say that illegal immigrants was – this was like a Koch brothers thing.

1:04:35This was like a right -wing thing that they wanted this for exactly what you

1:04:40just described. And that this is not a left -wing progressive idea and that what

1:04:45it would do is would lower the wages for the lower class and the middle

1:04:48class of this country and it would be bad for the citizens.

1:04:51And so you don't want unchecked illegal immigration.

1:04:55Unchecked illegal immigration would just be for the right because they're the ones who own

1:04:58these massive corporations that are profiting off of illegal labor.

1:05:01They don't have to pay them benefits.

1:05:03They don't have to pay them health care, any of the things that are –

1:05:06that cost money. Yeah, I mean on the left was always balancing a sort of

1:05:12open society. They wanted – the Soros Foundation always wanted to have a free movement

1:05:17of people. That was sort of their view of why – in part why the

1:05:20Holocaust occurred is that you couldn't move – or at least the persecutions, you couldn't

1:05:24move people as easily. But then you had the working class who were negatively affected

1:05:28by bringing in migrants who would push down wages and unions who were a big

1:05:32part of the Democrat Party.

1:05:33So the Democrats were sort of divided on it for a while but they managed

1:05:37it and Hillary and Obama would sort of – if you look at when they

1:05:40were competing in 2008, they were very carefully – like there was a whole thing

1:05:45around like driver's licenses, whether she would give them or not.

1:05:48And Obama accused Hillary of kind of playing both sides of it, you know, typical

1:05:53thing. But they also both spoke out strongly against mass migration.

1:05:58Fast forward 10 years – you know, fast forward much more than that.

1:06:01It was at 16 years into today and now you've got a much more working

1:06:05class Republican Party who's unified around keeping the borders closed and restricting the supply of

1:06:11low -income unskilled workers. Because, I mean, it's just – I mean, it was really

1:06:16weird to watch people that are always defending supply and demand and economics and economic

1:06:20policy then say, oh, no, but having open borders and having all these working class

1:06:23people come in is going to have no impact on wages when obviously it would.

1:06:28And I think that's now – that's also now gone.

1:06:31I think that's another thing that's just – Trump has just changed.

1:06:33I don't think you're going to see Democrats going back to advocating that kind of

1:06:37mass migration again. Right, but you could see a world where they would push back

1:06:44against what has happened, what they would say the barbaric nature of some of these

1:06:48ice raids and then saying – there's a filter of ice water in that too

1:06:52if you'd like. You don't have to not have your bottle.

1:06:55We don't care. Oh, I think it's in the shot.

1:06:58No, it doesn't matter. We don't care.

1:07:00It doesn't matter. But you could see how they could go back to a much

1:07:04looser border policy and get back to what they're – because it wasn't – I

1:07:09think they won't. I think they won't.

1:07:10Really? I think the closed border – I mean, I think that that sweet spot

1:07:13of public opinion is like people really want to – I think it was just

1:07:16really – But I don't think public opinion supported an open border even on the

1:07:21left. No. During those last four years, but yet they did it anyway.

1:07:25Right. And they were moving people to blue states.

1:07:27They were moving people to swing states.

1:07:29They were flying people in, busing people.

1:07:31They were doing it on purpose.

1:07:32Isn't that also because the blue state governors were more welcoming of them?

1:07:36There's a little bit of that, but there was also the idea that you're going

1:07:40to juice up the congressional seats because you're going to change the census.

1:07:44Maybe, although California lost seats, right?

1:07:46Well, because California has done such a fucking terrible job of governing their state.

1:07:51It's so – that place is so crazy.

1:07:53Like every time there's some new law that they're trying to push through, some new

1:07:56bill. I'm like, do they just want everyone to leave?

1:07:59Well, they drove the billionaires out, right?

1:08:01Yeah. I mean, I know they drove out David Sachs, came to Austin.

1:08:04I think Mark Zuckerberg moved to Florida.

1:08:06Yeah. I heard rumors of Steven Spielberg.

1:08:08I don't know if that's – I don't want to spread disinformation.

1:08:10I don't want to spread misinformation, but I heard he was leaving.

1:08:12But, yeah, it's called the – The thing that drives me the most nuts is

1:08:16when these progressive talking heads saying they don't want to pay their fair share.

1:08:20With the amount of waste and fraud, why would you?

1:08:24You don't think there should be some accountability to how much fucking waste and fraud

1:08:29that has been clearly demonstrated?

1:08:32Like the solution is just – give more money oh and they can do it

1:08:37because they have it so what you just give more money and now it's 30

1:08:41billion dollars goes to homeless with no accountability like what are you what are you

1:08:44saying like where do you think this money is going to go where it's actually

1:08:47going to help people and affect things in a positive way there's been no indication

1:08:52that that's the case that the real problem is they just haven't had enough money

1:08:55from the billionaires that's fucking ludicrous that idea is ludic it's such a lazy intellectually

1:09:01lazy way of framing this whole discussion that's saying oh they don't want to pay

1:09:06their fair share fuck you that's not what's going on here what's going on here

1:09:11you have a completely incompetent government that's absolutely corrupt and they want more money oh

1:09:16yeah gas is like eight dollars a gallon almost now oh that's bananas they were

1:09:21going to shut down i mean the refiners are being shut down in that that

1:09:25initiative the billionaires tax is an seiu initiative so meaning it's the union that covers

1:09:31health care workers like nurses they're very radical very radical left and the money is

1:09:37to provide medicaid for undocumented immigrants that's what they want it for right so like

1:09:43that's the whole thing and so you literally get the this is like this is

1:09:46what people worry about democracy you get all that is very democratic but you get

1:09:51these powerful unions and they're able to change the laws like that i mean it's

1:09:55called the curly effect because there was a boston mayor named curly who made everything

1:09:59so bad for his political opponents that they left but the consequence was that he

1:10:03ended up gaining more power so all of when everybody moves to you know when

1:10:07all the like moderate democrats move to austin or miami or denver or wherever california

1:10:13just ends up locked in more to a progressive agenda that's the problem well i

1:10:18think the idea is that it's so good there that most people are just going

1:10:22to tolerate whatever new bullshit they throw your way 100 and also i mean it

1:10:26seems like the tech community is now backing the san jose mayor who's running who's

1:10:31a very he's democrat very moderate i you know he's but he's been critical of

1:10:35gavin running for governor yeah matt mahan so keep your eyes on him i mean

1:10:40he's not um he's not like maybe the most exciting guy but he's definitely running

1:10:45as a moderate that might be good some money yeah exciting people are a fucking

1:10:49problem i know they want he might be enough to i don't know it's hard

1:10:52to say but uh it does look like because i mean look there's plenty of

1:10:55the tech community only woke up politically in 2024 that's how long it took and

1:11:01it really took things getting so bad where they were telling mark andreessen as he

1:11:06said to you on your show that they were shutting off whole parts of ai

1:11:09the bide administration was openly threatening ai and this huge new and you know there's

1:11:13concerns i'm not saying that there's not but i think that i think at some

1:11:16point the tech community which had been you know either leaning democrat you know for

1:11:22a long time since the obama era you know or wanted to stay out of

1:11:25politics because they just want to focus on their machines and and their investments they

1:11:29don't really want to be involved in politics but they woke up in 2024 and

1:11:32so hopefully because it's not i mean when you see what soros has done and

1:11:36you really appreciate the power that one billionaire can have you kind of go why

1:11:41is there nothing like that you know on the other side why is it so

1:11:44dominated by soros and so i hope that that's starting to happen but yeah when

1:11:48you start to chase out the billionaires and the billionaires just give up on california

1:11:51then it's got to be whoever's remaining to to try to you know put the

1:11:55money behind the guy that can get some change there yeah that's i mean i

1:11:59don't see a pathway where california anytime soon turns around i don't see how it

1:12:06could i feel like it's the momentum has shifted so far in a terrible direction

1:12:11and the solutions are always tax more take more money from people and you see

1:12:18of this completely corrupt irresponsible fraud -ridden wasteful government that wants more of your money

1:12:26and the solution is if we take more money we're going to make things better

1:12:30which is just insanity i mean things that can't go on don't so i mean

1:12:36you could see it right i mean matt if it's a matt mahan or somebody

1:12:39more moderate gets in to be governor rick caruso runs for la mayor again i

1:12:44mean honestly like if somebody can't defeat karen bass after she let los angeles burn

1:12:49away which is now we now know for a fact was just totally preventable absolutely

1:12:54preventable i was saying at the time but now we know they tried to rewrite

1:12:58the report but it's clear it was totally preventable how'd they try to rewrite the

1:13:01report well the report you know said here's all the things that the fire department

1:13:05should have done that didn't happen and ultimately you know the mayor is the one

1:13:09that chooses the fire chief and fires the fire chief and the mayor was warned

1:13:14they were warned and she goes to flies to ghana for this little junket presidential

1:13:18inauguration palling around when she should have been in la with a come at a

1:13:21command uh headquarters and you know and if she wasn't then gavin should have been

1:13:26you know schwarzenegger towards the end of his administration they would just mobilize planes full

1:13:31of water you know huge these huge cargo planes full of water before there were

1:13:35fires just to start to circulate just to get ready to put stuff out this

1:13:39idea that there was this idea promoted that it was inevitable that the fires that

1:13:43oh eventually it's just no like it's absurd like of course you can protect it

1:13:48with adequate fire oh the pipes weren't big enough no like maintain your reservoirs have

1:13:53water in them even the one that was like was like not repaired yet which

1:13:57should have been repaired they could have kept uh they could have air gapped the

1:14:01pipe so that it didn't contaminate the water supply but left it for firefighting they

1:14:04didn't do that they didn't station the engines where they needed to nobody was on

1:14:08you know it's like they're not taking responsibility like they weren't taking responsibility for it

1:14:13so anyway to the point being get a new governor you get a better mayor

1:14:17of la you've got a guy in san francisco now who i think has still

1:14:20has a lot of potential i mean this latest video uh you know showing the

1:14:24chaos there but you with that i think that's not him though yeah it's not

1:14:27his fault his you know the criticism of him is he walked away too casually

1:14:31yeah no big deal yeah so i mean i think there is a there is

1:14:35a way for california to come out and my view is like look you've got

1:14:38there it's it's on the tech billionaires they they you know and i know some

1:14:42of them have left and obviously they don't need but there's still a lot of

1:14:46billionaire rich guys in california that are perfectly you you capable of financing an alternative

1:14:51effort. The vote, you know, 75 percent of San Francisco voters want to arrest people

1:14:56using fentanyl in public. They want to arrest them.

1:15:00OK, that sounds so that's so taboo and progressive.

1:15:03That's 75 percent of San Francisco voters.

1:15:05So the voters are not they're not the radical left.

1:15:09Some ways they're radicalized in their hatred of Trump and the Trump derangement syndrome.

1:15:13But I mean, everyone like Caruso and Mahan and anybody else there will all just

1:15:17be able to say they hate Trump like everybody else.

1:15:19Well, I think they've seen the consequences of these policies.

1:15:22Oh, yeah. There's people are people are really there's it's not like anything has changed

1:15:26that significantly. They will. In fact, when I interview people in San Francisco, they're a

1:15:30little reluctant to admit that's gotten better because I think they don't want to take

1:15:34any pressure off the politicians.

1:15:36So, I mean, I do think it's it's rescuable, but it's hard when you say

1:15:40it's gotten better. Like how so?

1:15:42Mostly the encampments are being broken up.

1:15:45Now, you see a little you see more of that sort of thing that we

1:15:48just saw in the video where there's like I call them like a little more

1:15:51of like a nest. You know, there's just a little home.

1:15:53So it's not an entire block.

1:15:54Big encampments like, yeah, the whole block.

1:15:56Not like that's in Oakland.

1:15:57Yeah. That's in Skid Row.

1:15:59Oh, Oakland's nuts. Oakland is.

1:16:01Oakland might not be saveable.

1:16:02They had a chance to save themselves and they ended up voting for the wrong

1:16:05person for mayor. And it's just as bad as ever.

1:16:08So but I think if you get San Francisco, L .A.

1:16:11and a new governor in place, I think you've got the makings to save it.

1:16:15Have you seen this video?

1:16:16This guy does this description of what's going on in Oakland and then drives across

1:16:21the county line into the next place and it's immediately all done.

1:16:24And you just see what the difference between two different forms of government and how

1:16:29it works. I didn't see that one, but I saw the one between Venice and

1:16:32Santa Monica. Yeah. I was there when the Venice and Santa Monica was someone like

1:16:35you're like, why are there tents?

1:16:36Why aren't there any tents there?

1:16:37It's like that's Santa Monica.

1:16:39Yeah. It's different. Well, there's still some Santa Monica.

1:16:42Santa Monica got bad too.

1:16:43Yeah. But they cleaned it up a little bit better.

1:16:45Yeah. But Venice is bananas.

1:16:47It's just but Venice is nothing compared to Skid Row.

1:16:49Skid Row is 50 blocks.

1:16:51Venice is OK now. Venice is OK now.

1:16:53Yeah. They cleaned that up pretty quickly.

1:16:55And then they and then the voters fired their city council member who represented them,

1:16:59who was total crazy radical Chesa Bodine level radical and replaced him with a more

1:17:04moderate person. And so but yeah, it's like when you go to the beach, it's

1:17:08not chaos. I mean, I'm not.

1:17:11There's always it's. But I mean, remember before it was just it was tents everywhere.

1:17:15I mean, it was right everywhere.

1:17:16And then we dug in, you know, it's like crazy.

1:17:19So, no, that's gone. But Skid Row, it's bad as ever.

1:17:22Skid Row is 50 blocks.

1:17:2550 blocks is so crazy.

1:17:2750 blocks of tents and homeless people.

1:17:29When we first heard that, I was like, that's got to be wrong.

1:17:32It's probably five blocks. No, it's five zero 50 blocks.

1:17:36That's an enormous amount of land that's completely covered by homeless encampments.

1:17:41There's like a whole genre of like of like influencers when they first visit Skid

1:17:45Row because everyone hears about it.

1:17:46And then you see like their their tweets are just like they're just like, oh,

1:17:49I couldn't believe. Like I think it's like maybe Ben Shapiro or there's various conservative

1:17:53influencers who have gone to Skid Row.

1:17:55And they're like, I had no idea.

1:17:56There was a comic. You have no idea until you see it.

1:17:58There was a comic from the comedy store that filmed something.

1:18:02He went like undercover and he had like in his past, he had some, I

1:18:08don't think, I think currently he was sober when he did this, but he decided

1:18:12to go there and film and stay in one of these encampments just to show

1:18:16what it was like. And this is like 2006 ish, six ish, somewhere around there.

1:18:22And it was fucking nuts even back then.

1:18:25And, you know, we talked about the story of how Skid Row with the whole

1:18:29Jerome Hotel and how it all started.

1:18:33Skid Row was the place where they would take all the homeless people and all

1:18:36the people that were problematic and they would move them there and keep them there.

1:18:40And the idea was that you just keep them out of Beverly Hills, keep them

1:18:43away from Hollywood. We're doing movies and we've got famous people walking around.

1:18:47We can't have homeless people.

1:18:49So just snatch them up, take them downtown and contain them.

1:18:52So they had them contained in this area and they called it Skid Row.

1:18:56And then it just kept getting bigger.

1:18:58It's not that different from the Tenderloin in the sense that those are places where

1:19:01the single resident, those are the places where the really cheap hotels were.

1:19:05They were like often for like working people that were in town temporarily, like temporary

1:19:08hotels. Some of them would just be cages.

1:19:11There were no walls. Like you would just get your own little – that was

1:19:13how primitive they were. And then it just evolved over time and then they became

1:19:17– all of them became subsidized for the homeless.

1:19:20But yeah, it's – I don't think – I think California – I think it's

1:19:24important. I think with Trump and again like him or hate him or disagree or

1:19:28whatever, you see the potential of this country in particular to make a big change.

1:19:33And I think that it's ultimately resulted from an unleashing of – social media made

1:19:39it all possible. It allowed for people to get accurate information for the first time

1:19:43in a different paradigm. So I don't want to lose hope on the Golden State.

1:19:48But you lost hope on Oakland.

1:19:50Yeah. Yeah. But maybe I never had hope for Oakland.

1:19:55So – Well, at one point in time, Oakland was great.

1:19:58Yeah. I mean, Jerry Brown actually brought it up a bit.

1:20:00You know, got more development there.

1:20:02But yeah, it's all about governance.

1:20:05Yeah, it is. I guess.

1:20:08Hey, can I use the bathroom?

1:20:10Yeah, yeah. Sure. Sure. We'll pause.

1:20:11We'll be right back, folks.

1:20:12I just sent Jamie something funny that someone just sent me about San Francisco.

1:20:18There's this guy – I think he calls himself the gay Republican.

1:20:22The gay Republican? There's a lot of those, actually.

1:20:27But – which is – shouldn't shock people.

1:20:30Their closet is about the Republican part now.

1:20:32That's the thing. Well, it depends on how wealthy they are.

1:20:34I mean, some of them are pretty – you know, Peter Thiel, pretty open about

1:20:37it. He was – yeah, about his Republicanism.

1:20:40Watch this. San Fran Transit.

1:20:42We refuse to release crime surveillance videos because it will make people racist.

1:20:46Releasing videos would create a racial bias in the riders against minorities on the trains.

1:20:52Why would it do that, San Fran Transit?

1:20:54Why would it – why would it create a bias?

1:20:56Is there – is there a reoccurring theme among the people committing crimes?

1:21:03You can – I would say that about European crime statistics as well.

1:21:06That's also why the Germans actually, in particular, but I think other European countries did

1:21:11not want to release. Right.

1:21:13But they did get them out.

1:21:14They have come out now.

1:21:16And the UK. Yeah. Yeah.

1:21:18Yeah. So let's move on to happier subjects, shall we?

1:21:22So what do you think about all this UAP talk?

1:21:25It's one thing that Trump has said that he's going to release whatever files that

1:21:31they might have on UAPs, alien terrestrial beings, all this jazz.

1:21:38I talked to Jesse Michaels about it.

1:21:40He is highly skeptical. And he said the people that are involved are all old

1:21:46guard and, you know, they're just – it's just going to be a bunch of

1:21:50horseshit. Maybe. I mean just first of all, look.

1:21:53I mean I think whatever you think about the phenomenon, this is amazing.

1:21:57I mean the president just said he's going to release all these things.

1:21:59So, I mean after decades of saying we're not interested in this, we're not following

1:22:03this, we're shutting down Blue Book, you know, there's nothing there.

1:22:07They're like he's saying – so, I mean that right there is I think amazing.

1:22:11And I thought the whole thing was amazing.

1:22:13Like Obama comes out and he goes, well, there's definitely aliens.

1:22:16Oh, but they're not in Area 51 unless they're hiding it from presidents, which is

1:22:20like a well -established conspiracy theory.

1:22:22So, to have Obama even say that.

1:22:24And then Trump comes up and he goes, Obama revealed classified information with a little

1:22:29grin on his face because he's a little rivalry with Obama.

1:22:32I might help him out by declassifying.

1:22:35And then a few hours later he did.

1:22:36I mean I – what can't you like about that?

1:22:39I mean I think that – Well, it's theater.

1:22:42That's what you can't like about it.

1:22:43It's theater but I mean we just – Until something really comes out, this is

1:22:46just another distraction to keep us from thinking about all the other things that are

1:22:50going on. But you can't be so – I mean we should get into Epstein

1:22:53files too because I do think I have a different view of Epstein now.

1:22:56But look, I just think we've been asking for more transparency like we had in

1:23:00this very brief period in the mid -70s with the church committee hearings.

1:23:04It really took a whole Watergate.

1:23:05It took something big. It's been over 50 years.

1:23:08We got a lot of Epstein files.

1:23:10Yes, there's some missing. But we got JFK files, Amelia Earhart files, and now we're

1:23:14going to get some UFO files.

1:23:15Is it going to be everything?

1:23:16Of course not. Like there's just no way.

1:23:18But I don't think like – I think we should hold – we should be

1:23:22happy that like there is an acknowledgment that there's a lot of government files and

1:23:27that there's some commitment to release them because I do think like it's easier to

1:23:31get new Epstein files released after you have some Epstein files released than if you

1:23:35have none. And I feel the same way about UFOs.

1:23:38OK. So it's easier to get more UFO files released.

1:23:43But like release – What do we want?

1:23:47I think one of it is like what do we want?

1:23:49And I've been – I respect John Greenwald a lot.

1:23:53He runs something called theblackvault .com where he has been FOIA -ing.

1:23:57He's been issuing Freedom of Information Act requests on UAP but also a ton of

1:24:01other issues since the mid -90s when he was like 15 years old.

1:24:05He became obsessed with doing FOIA requests.

1:24:08And he has identified a number of documents that we know exist with redactions.

1:24:12One of them is the UAP task force, which has a line that just says

1:24:17potential explanations. You know, the first explanation is redacted.

1:24:20It's blacked out. The second one is, you know, some sort of natural phenomenon.

1:24:24Number three is blacked out.

1:24:25It's redacted. Unredact those. I mean, come on, guys.

1:24:28You can't tell me what we have to protect our sensor data.

1:24:31Come on, guys. I mean, like that's not sensor data.

1:24:34Tell us what the potential explanations are.

1:24:36In terms of the sensor data, John also made a great point.

1:24:39Do you remember when the Pentagon released the video of the Russian jet dumping fuel

1:24:44on one of our drones?

1:24:46There's like a famous video where they show a hostile act by the Russians dumping

1:24:50fuel on our drone. When was this?

1:24:52Just recently. I mean, it must have been within the last year or so.

1:24:55So, like, they're not – we do see – they do release, you know, warfare.

1:25:01Various times they do release things and you can kind of go, okay, that means

1:25:04that we have – I don't think – what I'm saying is the main excuse

1:25:08has been not to reveal our methods for getting – you know, we're just talking

1:25:13about UAP here, getting, you know, photographs and video.

1:25:17We know that a huge amount of it exists.

1:25:19They haven't even released the full, you know, gimbal and go fast videos.

1:25:24There's a whole bunch more video left.

1:25:26Really? So, just – yeah.

1:25:27So, the video that came out, those were whistleblower leaks, right?

1:25:30Eventually, they released them formally, though.

1:25:33The Pentagon did. So, there's much more of that.

1:25:36And the – particularly, sorry to interrupt you, but was it the gimbal or the

1:25:40go fast where there was many more crafts?

1:25:44I believe that there was – so, there's three videos, right?

1:25:46It's gimbal, go fast, and then what was the one where it – the tic

1:25:51-tac video moves out of the frame.

1:25:53Yeah. My understanding is that there's significantly more video for all of those.

1:25:57And then I also – my understanding is also there's just a lot of other

1:26:00videos, particularly from those two incidents, certainly have.

1:26:04There's so much more sensor data from – because we know those incidents had a

1:26:07lot more going on, right?

1:26:08Right. Than just was filmed by those videos.

1:26:11So, I think that now there is – I was going to say the UAP

1:26:14community. There isn't really an organized one, although Jesse is doing an amazing job of

1:26:18organizing it. We should be really specific and say, you know, here's what we want.

1:26:22I did a piece with John Greenwald.

1:26:26Representative Nancy Mace wrote an open letter to the intelligence and military community saying here's

1:26:32a set of documents that we want to release.

1:26:34So, I think the good news is we're like, look, the president has said he

1:26:36wants this. We've identified a bunch of documents, identified a bunch of videos and film.

1:26:40Yeah. I mean are they going to withhold stuff?

1:26:43Are they going to mislead?

1:26:44Probably. But that's been the story for 80 years.

1:26:47Yeah. You saw the age of disclosure, right?

1:26:49Yes, of course. Okay. So, I think they make a really good point in age

1:26:52of disclosure that if they did release things, the real problem is misappropriation of funds

1:27:00lying to Congress and the fact that some of these – you would assume that

1:27:05the way these things are being handled, if they do have crafts, if they are

1:27:10– if there is some sort of a back engineering program, that back engineering program

1:27:14is going to be held by a military contractor.

1:27:17So, if they're not going to be held by a military contractor.

1:27:18So whatever the contractor is, whether it's, you know, Rocketdyne or whoever has it, right?

1:27:24You would imagine that the other competing groups would be very pissed off that they

1:27:29didn't have access to this thing and they could sue.

1:27:33The misappropriation of funds, lying to Congress, people could go to jail.

1:27:37Also, most likely fraud. There's got to be tons of fraud.

1:27:41If there's so much money that's being, like, shuffled away into these black ops projects,

1:27:46if there's no oversight, then who knows where the money is going, right?

1:27:52So there's a problem there.

1:27:53If you open up the books and people go, why was there a $100 million

1:27:57check written here? Where's the $2 .3 billion that's missing here?

1:28:02Yeah, I have doubts now.

1:28:04I mean I have to say I didn't finish watching it, but Jesse just dropped

1:28:07a video with him and Eric Weinstein and Eric Davis.

1:28:10Who's him? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:28:12Eric Davis. Jesse, yeah. So Jesse, Eric.

1:28:14I haven't seen that yet.

1:28:15Yeah, I found it really – it really made me question whether there's any there

1:28:21there. What does Eric Davis do?

1:28:23Eric Davis, you know who he is?

1:28:24He's got the bushy beard and he's in Age of Disclosure and is part of

1:28:29the whole, you know, Bigelow, you know, that whole OSAP, AATIP.

1:28:35He was a – I don't know his exact – he's a scientist.

1:28:38Okay. But he was sort of talking about – because I think Eric Weinstein was

1:28:41asking these really hard questions like, okay, well, like how many people are in this,

1:28:45you know, reverse engineering program and what is it?

1:28:48And I just found his answers to be very thin.

1:28:51So I'm – I haven't seen it yet so I can't comment on that.

1:28:54But Eric is both skeptical and open -minded at the same time.

1:29:00There is a – like, yeah, I just – I definitely think there's a lot

1:29:04more than they've revealed. I think my skepticism on the reverse engineering stuff – I

1:29:10mean, obviously, there's crash retrieval because they're just retrieving – it could be foreign or

1:29:13they're retrieving something. The reverse engineering, I mean, if it's advanced tech, nuclear just took

1:29:19so – I mean, I'm just familiar with the history of nuclear.

1:29:21It just took so much effort to create nuclear energy and you'd have these huge

1:29:26– it was a huge enterprise, thousands of people.

1:29:29So if they're not – I mean, that's why I kind of go – and,

1:29:32I mean, a whole other form of propulsion.

1:29:33I mean, it's just really – it would require so many – such a big

1:29:38bureaucracy. That's where I'm a little skeptical that that exists because I don't know how

1:29:42you maintain a cover -up that long.

1:29:44But I could be wrong.

1:29:45I mean, as people have pointed out, they've maintained secrecy of a lot of things

1:29:51for a really long time.

1:29:52So it's not inconceivable. Well, especially when you're dealing with government contractors and military contractors.

1:29:57They've done a – I mean, they have a long history of keeping a tight

1:30:02lip when it comes to all sorts of top -secret projects that they're working on.

1:30:07I mean, it's weird because, like, if you look at the UAP Task Force, which

1:30:10was created by people that had – it comes out of – they have ASAP

1:30:14and then AATIP and then UAP Task Force.

1:30:16And then they create Aero, which is much more like what Blue Book was, which

1:30:19is – their whole point is to debunk and dismiss.

1:30:22I think that's the whole point.

1:30:24It's just to say we looked into it and there's nothing there.

1:30:27So then they – and they cherry -pick the cases.

1:30:30Like, they don't actually deal with stuff that they can't explain.

1:30:33That's what Aero's point is.

1:30:34But the UAP Task Force was people that seemed genuinely interested in it.

1:30:37And they have potential explanations and three separate things.

1:30:40So that means that they didn't know themselves.

1:30:42And so I would think that if you – if there was some reverse engineering

1:30:46program, then you would have a better idea than just three potential explanations.

1:30:51But that's assuming they actually got access.

1:30:53The UAP Task Force people?

1:30:56Yeah, I mean at a certain point – If they open themselves up for –

1:30:59if they do have access, then you open up those questions.

1:31:03Misappropriation of funds, line to Congress, military contractors having access to these vehicles.

1:31:08I would imagine that's too messy.

1:31:10They get very mumbly. They get very mumbly at that point.

1:31:13I find when you start kind of like, well, what is it?

1:31:15And how many people kind of – it's a lot of like, you know.

1:31:19I mean that's how I – that was my interpretation of this.

1:31:22Because I think that it's – I'm much more with Jacques Vallée's view of the

1:31:26phenomenon and I think that it – that they don't know what it is.

1:31:30I think they have a lot more photos and videos showing – demonstrating this incredible

1:31:37phenomenon. But I'm not sure that they know what it is.

1:31:39And I'm pretty skeptical that they have a secret reverse engineering program just because I

1:31:43don't see how they would have carried it out for this long.

1:31:47Because Jesse's theory, of course, is that it would date back to the 50s.

1:31:50Yeah. And it just – there's just too many possibilities for too many deathbed confessions

1:31:55from people to reveal this knowledge.

1:31:58But don't you think you would keep a really close watch on anyone who had

1:32:04any access to any of these things?

1:32:06And that would be very threatening to them like Bob Lazar.

1:32:11Yeah. I mean I don't know.

1:32:12You believe Bob Lazar. I do.

1:32:14Yeah. I don't know what he was working on, whether or not it was hours

1:32:18or something else or what.

1:32:19Yeah. But I don't think he's a liar.

1:32:21He's had the same story forever.

1:32:23Well, then we should go demand the documents.

1:32:25I mean that would be something where we just need to be like, look, these

1:32:28are the documents that we want and it's on this place these years.

1:32:33Well, one of the things that Bob said is he thinks some of the documents

1:32:36that he was shown were horseshit and he thinks it's on purpose.

1:32:38He thinks that those fake documents, that the fake narratives are a hook so that

1:32:45if somebody does spill the beans, they know exactly who would, who was doing it.

1:32:50Because they could point to, like, maybe if you're involved in, you know, X program,

1:32:56they give you some bullshit narrative on top of the real truth, right?

1:33:00They'll make up some stuff.

1:33:02Right. That way, if you really, well, the government told me X.

1:33:05And you go, oh, okay.

1:33:06He learned it from this.

1:33:07Right. He's a part of this program.

1:33:08Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now we've narrowed it down to 250 employees.

1:33:11Let's start scouring these people and bring them in for questions.

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1:34:09Yeah, counterintelligence. Yeah, I mean, it seems like that.

1:34:11So, you know, the MJ -12 documents.

1:34:13There's one of them that is this incredible document.

1:34:16I mean, just if it's a forgery.

1:34:17Most people, I think, think it's a forgery or it's a hoax or whatever.

1:34:20It's so well done. It's the manual on extraterrestrial crash retrieval with different morphologies.

1:34:26Have you ever seen this?

1:34:27No. Have you ever seen it?

1:34:28It's an amazing document. I went down a long rabbit hole.

1:34:32Look, I would say most ufologists think it's fake.

1:34:35So it's not even me.

1:34:36What's incredible about it, they show like the old books from the library.

1:34:40They'd show who checked it out.

1:34:41They had all these names.

1:34:43So then you kind of go like the only people really.

1:34:46I mean, it seemed like the level of sophistication to create this would have been

1:34:49the government. And so then you're sort of like, well, why would they have done

1:34:53that? One of the answers is it was just this is called passage material to

1:34:56be able to detect counterintelligence activities.

1:34:59I'll tell you another one I can't quite figure out.

1:35:01I mean, this is a lot of effort.

1:35:05Another thing people say is they'll go, well, they're using the UAP stuff as cover

1:35:11for secret weapons programs. And you're like, well, why would that work as cover?

1:35:15And they go, well, because then it's a way to distract attention.

1:35:19I was like, but why would that distract attention?

1:35:21Wouldn't that attract attention? You go, don't, if you, as opposed to like within the

1:35:25military, like, look, we don't, this is, this is secret research, you know, that's really

1:35:29important to national security. We don't pay attention.

1:35:31Instead, they're like, oh, no, this is UFO crash retrieval.

1:35:33So don't pay attention to it.

1:35:35That seems like you're a recipe for creating more interest in UFOs.

1:35:40Yeah. So there's a lot of things that the government has done where you're like,

1:35:43it's almost like, assuming that is, by the way, that we know that like, we

1:35:47know that the government, the U .S.

1:35:48Air Force did, you know, in the early 80s, make this guy, Paul Benowitz, go

1:35:52crazy. Who was seeing things over Kirtland Air Base.

1:35:55And then this guy, Richard Doty, you know.

1:35:57How'd they make him go crazy?

1:35:58They would be feeding him all this information, convincing him of an alien attack.

1:36:02And he basically ended up going crazy from it.

1:36:04It's this amazing story told by this book, Mirage Men, also a documentary.

1:36:10And you look and you kind of go, and they go, well, it was to

1:36:12cover up a secret weapons program at Kirtland Air Base.

1:36:14And it's like, I'm not even disbelieving it, but it's like, that's just such a,

1:36:20like, why would that be the best way to do that?

1:36:24And why would you be so sure that that wouldn't attract interest from people rather

1:36:27than distract it? So there's a bunch of things that don't make sense.

1:36:30And so even if it is all, you know, which is the skeptic view, you

1:36:35know, is that it's some combination of government disinformation, sci -fi, you know, dreams, hypnosis,

1:36:41hypnagogic states, and then kind of the power of belief.

1:36:46You know, I just reviewed this new book on Barney and Betty Hill, where the

1:36:50author thinks that it was, that really it was a combination of her, it was

1:36:55the stress of being an interracial couple, her nightmares, and then hypnosis, where they then

1:37:00confabulate this whole story. That's the basic skeptic view, is that it was sort of,

1:37:06but the government's involved in it.

1:37:08And that's always strange, because you're like, why would the government be participating?

1:37:11The government's involved in the Betty and Barney Hill story?

1:37:13No, no, in the, in the UFO, in creating.

1:37:16Right. And these UFOs, assuming that they did the MJ -12, or somebody did the

1:37:19MJ -12, but certainly in the case of Kirtland Air Base.

1:37:21Right, why would they have any organizations?

1:37:24Why would they have anything, right?

1:37:26Why would they have? Why would you be, why would you be doing, like, the

1:37:28thing with, like, the Paul Doty and the Paul Benowitz, or the Richard Doty and

1:37:32Paul Benowitz, is, like, why, why was that the best?

1:37:35I mean, it's just, why was that the best way?

1:37:37Like, somebody has observed strange activity over Kirtland Air Base, and they discover this.

1:37:42Why was that the right approach?

1:37:44I don't, I don't follow it.

1:37:46And you had A .J.

1:37:48Gentile on, who did the stuff on crop circles.

1:37:50We saw, they saw military disinformation around those activities in Britain.

1:37:55So you see a lot of...

1:37:57The crop circle thing's weird.

1:37:59Really weird. Because you want to just write it off.

1:38:01I mean, I wanted to write it off.

1:38:03I'm like, oh, there's guys with boards.

1:38:04They're making designs. But then you see some of the designs and how the wheat

1:38:09is actually woven and how they have these exploded nodes, almost like they're microwaved.

1:38:14And they've examined these things, and it seems like there's some energy that's created these

1:38:19things. And also the sheer size and scale of some of these things with no

1:38:25footprints leading into them or out of them.

1:38:28And just the geometric precision of some of them, it's really weird.

1:38:34Like there's, of course, it's eyewitness accounts.

1:38:37It's hard to know if they're being accurate.

1:38:38But people who've flown over areas where there's nothing there, flown back two hours later.

1:38:43And there's these football field -sized Mandelbrot sets.

1:38:48There was the Julia set over next to Stonehenge was the one that the guy

1:38:52flew over and there was nothing there.

1:38:54And a couple of hours later, there was the Julia set, which is a spectacular

1:38:57fractal. Yeah, it's incredible. Right.

1:39:00I'll tell you, it's even weirder.

1:39:01With incredible precision. That's what's really as much precision as you can get by folding

1:39:05over wheat. But when you look at it like from above and you don't get

1:39:09to the micro, you're looking at these things that like they really do scale in

1:39:17a fractal way. It's very fucking strange and difficult to reproduce.

1:39:22You would imagine something like that would take a long fucking time to plot out

1:39:26and plan. It would take multiple people.

1:39:28You'd have to measure and remeasure.

1:39:29You'd have to have some sort of tools and instruments, not just to fold over

1:39:35the wheat. But if you're going to interweave the wheat, like what is your method

1:39:39of doing that? And how are you doing it where, you know, this one is

1:39:44one dimension and then the next one is precise?

1:39:47three -fifths of that dimension.

1:39:49The next one is slightly – and they're fractal.

1:39:52Well, it gets really even weirder than that.

1:39:54So you know how I just described this case of this Air Force counterintelligence guy

1:39:58driving this guy, Paul Benowitz, crazy at criminal affairs.

1:40:00That book is written by Mark Pilkington.

1:40:04Mark Pilkington is one of two guys that claim to have created all the crop

1:40:09circles. The other guy is a guy named John Lundberg.

1:40:11Oh, right, right, right. AJ, in his video about the crop circles, accuses John Lundberg

1:40:18– again, they call it the Circle Makers.

1:40:20They have a website they keep updated.

1:40:22He accuses him of being a British intelligence agent.

1:40:26AJ does, or at least he strongly implies it.

1:40:29And part of that is because there was a bunch of weird stuff on the

1:40:32website about MI5 and the CIA.

1:40:35And then Lundberg went to a school – this is all very circumstantial, so I'm

1:40:38not defending it. I'm just saying what AJ said.

1:40:40And then Lundberg went to a school that shares a courtyard with an MI5 campus

1:40:45or an MI5 training area.

1:40:47I asked Mark – I have like three hours of interviews with Mark, who I'm

1:40:51a really interesting person. I asked him directly if they had any connection to military

1:40:56intelligence. He said, absolutely not.

1:40:59It's hard to – Which is what you would say.

1:41:01Well, of course you're allowed to say it if you are, but I'm not making

1:41:03any accusations. But, yeah, I mean, he claimed that they made all of them.

1:41:08And, you know, there's some of them – have you ever seen the massive –

1:41:11there was one that was absolutely massive.

1:41:12Yeah, pull some of them up, Jamie, so we can get some – There's the

1:41:15Julius set, but there's another – there's another one that's so big, it's really hard

1:41:19to see. But he said that he wasn't at that one.

1:41:21Yeah. That's the famous – that's the Julius set.

1:41:23It's gorgeous. Oh, the big one right there is in the middle.

1:41:24That one's just crazy. I mean, these are enormous.

1:41:28Yeah, they're enormous. Go full screen on that.

1:41:30It's – they're so big.

1:41:33And, I mean, the amount of precision involved in them is kind of spectacular.

1:41:40Now, Mark denies that they have exploded nodes, and he denies that they're interwoven.

1:41:46AJ says that they are definitely interwoven and have exploded nodes.

1:41:49And there was even an article in Science Magazine, which, you know, argues that they

1:41:53were made by humans, but that they point out the exploded nodes.

1:41:58So, yeah, maybe that's it.

1:41:59What's weird, too, is there's, like, how did you do this?

1:42:03Where – what's the – where's the evidence of people trampling through this with equipment?

1:42:10It's all missing. Like, it's strange.

1:42:13And then, also, no one's caught doing them?

1:42:16How about the pie – here's the other one.

1:42:17I asked Mark about this, and he didn't know about it.

1:42:19But do you know the pie one?

1:42:21Yeah. It was apparently – I'm pretty sure it's the first time that it was

1:42:25a visual explanation of pie.

1:42:27That's my understanding of it.

1:42:28Now, maybe there's someone – I haven't seen anything earlier than that, but that's, like,

1:42:32on its own is really amazing that that was the first time that they had

1:42:36created a visual representation of pie.

1:42:39Yeah. That's it. Yeah, that's it.

1:42:42It's, like – there's another image that will show how it is pie.

1:42:46Probably that one right there.

1:42:47Yeah. Yeah. And so that's an extremely sophisticated – Extremely.

1:42:54Crop circle. Right. I mean, imagine the type of intelligence that you'd have to possess

1:43:00to pull this off and then not let anybody know that you did it, and

1:43:06it's just for funsies. Just for funsies in a field.

1:43:10Yeah. It's – and then, you know, these MIT researchers went out.

1:43:13That's also part of it, and they tried to do it, and it just wasn't

1:43:16– it wasn't nearly as good.

1:43:18Yeah. What does this article say?

1:43:19I don't know why you're going to talk.

1:43:20Okay. Yeah. It is very fucking weird.

1:43:23Yeah. It's very weird, but the whole UFO thing is very weird.

1:43:28It – you know, the Jacques Vallée books are very interesting, and I've read three

1:43:33of his books so far, and I've had him on a couple of times, and

1:43:38the last time I had him on, I really went on a deep dive, and

1:43:41I read two of his books right before he came on.

1:43:43And one of the more interesting things is the really old stories, like the stories

1:43:49from the 1700s, the 1800s, where they lack the context of spaceships, the idea behind

1:43:56it, like none of that stuff exists, but yet you get almost – at least

1:44:02you could say, oh, I could understand how they would be describing it this way,

1:44:06but it's kind of the same thing that other people have been describing.

1:44:10The Zimbabwe story, a lot of these other stories, it's kind of the same story

1:44:15over and over and over again, which makes you go, okay, well, what – does

1:44:20it have to be from outer space, or is it possible that there is something

1:44:24here that is, like, far older than us that has somehow or another removed itself

1:44:33from our view? Or is it social contagion and people – I mean, I'm always

1:44:39struck by it. It's always like the aliens always are like, oh, protect your environment

1:44:42and avoid nuclear war. It's like, oh, thanks.

1:44:44Like, we didn't know we needed to do those until you guys showed up.

1:44:47And it makes more sense as, like, you could see it as a – I

1:44:51mean, I got very into – I haven't interviewed her yet, but I'm about to.

1:44:53There's an anthropologist at Stanford named Tanya Lerman, and she's done this incredible work on

1:44:58religions where she – like, a good anthropologist and also this guy, Bowman, like, they're

1:45:05agnostic on whether or not, like, those beings are real.

1:45:09Like, they're just, like, we're really interested in, like, the culture and the psychology and

1:45:12the experience of it. But she had this – she was, like, did her field

1:45:17work with magicians and witches in England, you know, like modern witches and – not

1:45:21magicians like magic tricks, but, like, the old – who's the famous magician?

1:45:27Not Gandalf. Houdini? Houdini? No, no, the British one.

1:45:31Merlin, right? Oh. But, like, old style, right?

1:45:34Like, but they were, like – so she didn't really believe in it, but she

1:45:37would – they were, like, you have to practice witchcraft in order to do this.

1:45:40And she had, like, multiple anomalous experiences.

1:45:43One of them that she woke up and there was five druids in her room

1:45:46beckoning to her. And people were, like, is it a dream?

1:45:49And she's, like, no, I'm not – it's not a dream.

1:45:51She had another instance where they were trying to, like, conjure energies to, like, turn

1:45:55off – to, like, shut down her watch.

1:45:57And she felt a huge energy surge through her and shut off her watch.

1:46:00And her point is that – She thinks that the practice – we put too

1:46:05much focus on the beliefs, but she says like the practices themselves – I don't

1:46:10know if she would say conjure.

1:46:11I also interviewed Diana Pasolka on it.

1:46:13They would say more like reveal these different realities.

1:46:16So they're much more – it's a very interesting set of work because they're not

1:46:20trying to answer the question of whether the druids were really in her room or

1:46:25not. I mean the watch thing apparently definitely happened.

1:46:29But apparently definitely is a weird way to phrase it.

1:46:33Apparently to her definitely. I know.

1:46:37You know what I'm saying?

1:46:37It's like show me, man.

1:46:40The conjuring thing is strange because that's a reoccurring theme that you go outside and

1:46:45you have like these experiences where you say I'm not afraid.

1:46:50Come show yourself to me and given enough time with enough intention apparently things will

1:46:57appear in the sky. My favorite one is the black guy talking about Yahweh who

1:47:01– where the local ABC newscaster goes out and it's going to be one of

1:47:05those, ha -ha, this guy thinks that he can conjure UFOs.

1:47:08And they go out with him and he conjures an orb.

1:47:10Do you ever see that one?

1:47:12That's like an incredible – that's like one of my favorite of those videos.

1:47:15And the newscaster is like he – literally they see him calling his – I

1:47:18think it's like an NBC affiliate or an ABC affiliate somewhere.

1:47:22Jamie can probably find it.

1:47:24But if it's – he literally calls his boss.

1:47:26The newscaster is like the story has turned out a little differently than I thought.

1:47:30It's like one of my favorites.

1:47:31I'm sure you could say, oh, it's a balloon or whatever.

1:47:33But it like comes in and out.

1:47:35I mean it's really – and it comes right as he's calling it.

1:47:38But that's the weird thing is I've talked to multiple people that have actually done

1:47:42this. Oh, people – That have gone out with these air quotes experts.

1:47:48And they go out to some deserted area and you call these things.

1:47:53There's a second guy, white guy, that also does it.

1:47:56And Reuters did a whole story on him because apparently there's a whole bunch of

1:47:59people around that they saw it.

1:48:01And, of course, Jake Barber, who's this former contractor, helicopter pilot, contractor for Special Forces,

1:48:08announced that he was going to go and conjure UFOs and bring one down.

1:48:14They're just sitting right up there.

1:48:16We met up with Prophet Yahweh, seer of Yahweh at Doolittle Park off Lake Mead.

1:48:21We picked the day, we picked the time, and we picked the location.

1:48:25Everyone's going to think you're absolutely nuts.

1:48:27Well, I thought I was absolutely nuts.

1:48:29Until, he says, he saw UFOs.

1:48:32Over the years, 1 ,500 of them.

1:48:35Can we make it 1 ,501 today?

1:48:37What do you think? I'll try it.

1:48:39He says the voice in his head told him to go public now.

1:48:42So we took him up on his offer, and we scanned the skies.

1:48:45Nothing but a few clouds.

1:48:47When the Prophet started praying for a sighting, I wasn't exactly convinced.

1:48:51I pray, O Yahweh, that you send a sighting so that they know that I

1:48:55am not mentally ill. I am not a false prophet.

1:48:58Like those who seek to kill me say I...

1:49:01Oh, people are trying to kill him?

1:49:03Oh, brother, look at it.

1:49:05There it is. You can barely see it.

1:49:07A white speck. Then, another sighting.

1:49:10There it is. I got it.

1:49:11I got it. I got it.

1:49:11I got it. Photojournalist Jonathan Hawkins locks in on it.

1:49:15Let's take a closer look here.

1:49:16It's an orange sphere that appeared out of nowhere.

1:49:19I called the boss with an unexpected change in my story.

1:49:23I can see it clear as day.

1:49:25In fact, it's bright. I can't believe this.

1:49:27It's moving pretty fast. It's going to Nellis Air Force Base.

1:49:31It wants to be seen.

1:49:33We called Nellis to see what these things might be.

1:49:35Guess what? They didn't call us back.

1:49:37But this thing started coming back toward us.

1:49:39It's coming toward us now, I think.

1:49:42What? See, it's coming up toward us.

1:49:46Whoa, man! Oh, hallelujah! Then, a few seconds later, it disappeared.

1:49:53It's going back up in space.

1:49:55Prophet Yahweh isn't concerned. He says it'll be back.

1:50:00I would take this more seriously if that guy didn't have your reporter voice.

1:50:03It's amazing. That's part of the charm of it.

1:50:06I think it's... I love it because I don't think you can...

1:50:11I don't think it's going to convince any skeptics.

1:50:13But it's one of the few things in our world where it inspires a set

1:50:17of wonder and a set of awe.

1:50:19And for those of us that struggle with our faiths, it's inspiring because it is

1:50:25sort of a spiritual... I mean, he calls himself Yahweh, right?

1:50:28So there's like... It wasn't about gray aliens or whatever.

1:50:31It was just something else.

1:50:32And that's what I mean about why more valet, his work explains all of this

1:50:37much better than the sort of the extraterrestrial hypothesis did.

1:50:42And he's had that since 68.

1:50:43Well, I think what he does best is not explain it.

1:50:46Yeah. He doesn't... He's like, there really isn't an explanation.

1:50:49But here's what we know.

1:50:51He calls it a control system, though.

1:50:53Yeah. Which is sort of like...

1:50:54I asked Diana. I was like, how is that different from God?

1:50:58Because he's sort of a control system that is...

1:51:00His view is that there's a control system that's evolving human consciousness, and it will

1:51:04manifest different things in relation with humans over time.

1:51:10And so he looks at the Maria or St.

1:51:15Mary apparitions in Spain and the airships of the late 19th century where people saw

1:51:20these things that look like zeppelins, even though they hadn't been invented yet.

1:51:24All of these things, he says, his view is they're sort of being sort of

1:51:28produced in some relationship as well with our culture.

1:51:31That's valet's argument. And that sounds a lot like God in some ways when you

1:51:35say control system. Right. What does that mean?

1:51:37Like, is it a higher life form that is monitoring us?

1:51:42Like, that's the secular version of religion for a lot of these people that are

1:51:47really interested in aliens, like that there's some advanced being that's making sure we don't

1:51:52fuck everything up completely? Certainly for me, that's my interest.

1:51:56I mean, I... Like, again, this anthropologist, Lerman, you know, she says, you know, William

1:52:01James is this famous Harvard psychologist who wrote a book about the varieties of the

1:52:05religious experience in 1902. And he says everybody wants to kind of be like, is

1:52:09it real or not real?

1:52:10Is like this world just what we see?

1:52:12And he says, I think there's something more.

1:52:15There's not... There's not... This very, you know, skeptic or debunker thing, which is like,

1:52:20oh, no, it's just got to be a—that thing's got to be a bird or

1:52:22it's a—it's like, well, but it really—you haven't—just calling it that.

1:52:26And as they point out, it's like they showed up when they wanted to.

1:52:28I mean, it's a pretty amazing—if it's just a coincidence, it's a really amazing one.

1:52:32And so I think for me, it's like—because I am a Christian and it is

1:52:37hard to believe in an all -powerful and all -good God because he obviously allowed

1:52:41the Holocaust to occur and allows terrible things to occur.

1:52:45But I love that segment and there's—I love—there's another one I love right now.

1:52:49It's like a British woman in the 50s doing an interview about seeing what she

1:52:52calls a Mexican hat UFO over her house.

1:52:55And the kids saw it and she—and everybody in the village made fun of her

1:52:59and they ridiculed her. And she's like, but it's—you know, but it's—I saw it and

1:53:02it was real. And it was like—it's like—those are like our—those are spiritual experiences, I

1:53:08think. So I don't know that, like—I want the files released from the government.

1:53:13And I'm also skeptical that it's going to tell us what it is because I

1:53:16think at some level we're not supposed to get more—much more information about what it

1:53:20is. I think it's—or something else is going on.

1:53:23Or maybe it's having a positive effect.

1:53:26I think it's—I think one of the—sometimes people get really mad at UFO believers.

1:53:31Like skeptics get really, like, angry.

1:53:32Like, how do they—they're so—you know, whatever.

1:53:34They get so mad. And I'm always like, but, like, how often do you see

1:53:37them causing real harm or problems?

1:53:39I mean, we had one cult where they, you know, like a few people killed

1:53:42themselves. But for the most part— They cut their balls off first.

1:53:44Yeah, great. So, you know, UFO—like, for the most part, UFO—people that are interested in

1:53:49UFOs are dreamy seekers, spiritual.

1:53:53And I think it's—I think it's wrong to—I think it's lovely and wonderful.

1:53:58And it reminds us of, you know, that we're small.

1:54:01On the one hand, we're humble about our knowledge.

1:54:02And they're just surrounded by mystery.

1:54:04I mean, you're—so much of your career and this platform has been to allow us

1:54:10to talk about things that are unexplained and that—or where the explanations don't really seem

1:54:14to explain it. There's something more, as William James would say.

1:54:18There's something more. And I think that the denial of anything more, this idea that,

1:54:23oh, we know everything and we know where—we don't know anything.

1:54:25That's hubris. It's just crazy.

1:54:26But those people are silly.

1:54:29They're more silly than the believers because this idea that, like, look, if there is

1:54:35a—if you have a completely novel experience, like, say, if you are Commander David Fravor

1:54:40and you encounter this tic -tac -shaped object that's hovering over something that appears to

1:54:46be a ship that's under the water, this thing takes off at an absolutely preposterous

1:54:52speed that is documented both in radar and visually and on camera, right?

1:54:58So they've got video of this thing moving.

1:55:00They say that it went from above 50 ,000 feet above sea level to sea

1:55:05level in less than a second, which would require more energy than the entire United

1:55:11States produces in a year in order to get an object to move that quickly.

1:55:16And it does that with no heat signature.

1:55:18If this is all true, just that alone—now imagine you have this completely novel experience.

1:55:26And because I haven't had it and you haven't had it and Jamie hasn't had

1:55:29it, well, it's very simple and easy to dismiss it.

1:55:33But if this happened, what do you—what do you expect the person to do?

1:55:39What do you expect a decorated pilot in the Navy, a guy who has a

1:55:46rock -solid record, who is—there's nothing about him that screams that he's a kook or

1:55:52he's mentally ill. And when you talk to him, he's incredibly meticulous, very intelligent, very

1:55:58disciplined. And his face, it looks like he had a spiritual experience.

1:56:05He has a smile on his face.

1:56:06I went to the—when I was in Delhi, I went to the Jain Temple and

1:56:09I went to the Hindu Temple.

1:56:11And I'm not Jain. I'm not Hindu.

1:56:13But I had a look on my face that reminded me—that sort of—that sort of

1:56:17like that starry eye, the look in your face where you've experienced the wonder and

1:56:23the awe of being alive and we're on this planet and we don't really understand

1:56:26it all, but it's beautiful and it's okay.

1:56:28And I think that that's the spiritual—I mean, that's where it's like he's been touched

1:56:33by—I don't—you know, I'm not imposing this, but he's sort of touched by God in

1:56:37some way or been touched by something.

1:56:38Something. And it's not— Something extraordinary.

1:56:40Yeah, and the thing—look, I think the other thing, you read that environment, you're like,

1:56:43that thing showed dominance in that environment.

1:56:46So on the one hand, it showed itself to be— Technological dominance.

1:56:48You call it technological. Whatever.

1:56:50Valet might call it spiritual dominance.

1:56:53So—but that's, for me, what's special about it.

1:56:56And I think it's not going to go away and I don't think we're going

1:57:00to get to the answer.

1:57:01I don't think the government—how could the government, you know, I don't think they know.

1:57:05And even if they—even if there was some contact, I don't know if that would

1:57:08really tell you all the answers.

1:57:11Well, what I could imagine is that they have acquired both eyewitness, video, radar, all

1:57:19the various sensors' data. And they have done this with multiple instances of these things,

1:57:27and they are trying to assess what this is.

1:57:31And they have a longstanding study of these things that would both be disturbing and

1:57:40confusing to a lot of people and disruptive to society.

1:57:43I'm sure you're aware of Hal Puthoff and what happened with him during the Bush

1:57:47administration where they brought him in.

1:57:49And they essentially told Hal Puthoff—now, this is assuming Hal's telling the truth, and I

1:57:54have no reason to think he's lying.

1:57:55They brought him in and a bunch of other scientists and a bunch of other

1:58:00thinkers and said, I want you to create a chart on one side, list the

1:58:07positive aspects of disclosure, and the other side, what are the negative ramifications of disclosure?

1:58:13Government, religion, the finances, all the different things that could happen in the world.

1:58:19And the negatives outweighed the positives, and they decided not to disclose.

1:58:23But the premise that he was brought in with this was saying, we have acquired

1:58:28physical crafts that are not— out of this world.

1:58:31We have biological entities that are not of this world.

1:58:35And we are part of some sort of a back engineering program.

1:58:38We want to release this information.

1:58:40What would happen if we did?

1:58:43And their conclusion was chaos.

1:58:46Trump didn't seem to go through that checklist and come up with the same answer.

1:58:50I don't think he got that memo.

1:58:52But also I do think he ignores the memos from experts in general.

1:58:56Right. If he was in office and that was the case and they came to

1:58:59him and, you know, and someone like Tucker or someone that's influential to him could

1:59:04sit down with him and talk to him and he thought it would gain their

1:59:06favor, he might just release it.

1:59:07I mean, it's wild because on the one hand, it looked like it was spontaneous.

1:59:10But on the other hand, you know, Laura Trump, who's like someone that's like a

1:59:13trusted family member who's like really competent, like they sent her in to like take

1:59:17over the RNC and fix it and fire all the people and get their get

1:59:20their loyalists in there. She was out there talking, saying that, you know, oh, the

1:59:24Trump is I was hearing a lot of noise, but it wasn't from people that

1:59:27I trusted. So I didn't report anything on it.

1:59:29But I was hearing a lot of noise, too, that Trump administration was considering doing

1:59:32something. But you didn't know.

1:59:33I didn't know if it was circular reporting.

1:59:34But I thought the Laura Trump thing was interesting because I don't think I don't

1:59:38see her as sort of a she's not just speculating or bullshitting.

1:59:42You know, she's a trusted, you know, trusted source for that.

1:59:47So she said that. And then Obama was asked about it.

1:59:50And then Trump made that announcement.

1:59:51So I don't know what they have planned.

1:59:52You know, we were pushing on the intelligence community privately to release the stuff and

1:59:56it was going nowhere. The Obama thing was nuts because the guy didn't have any

1:59:59follow up questions. That was that was part of what was really weird about.

2:00:02Also, they put it in a speed round.

2:00:06Like, why would you put it in a speed round?

2:00:08Which is probably why he didn't have follow up questions.

2:00:10You think about it that way.

2:00:11But I mean, that's a just a massive dropping of the ball.

2:00:14Well, the guy says aliens are real.

2:00:16How do you know? How do you know is the next question, right?

2:00:19It's right there. How do you know aliens are real?

2:00:20Well, yesterday, the day after then, he said, oh, I just meant theoretically and there's

2:00:23life in the universe. Well, why don't you ask that?

2:00:26So you catch him on the spot instead of when it becomes this big viral

2:00:30moment and everybody's talking about it.

2:00:32And then he comes up with a rational explanation for why he said that.

2:00:35Yeah. I mean, and he told Obama told one of the late night hosts, I

2:00:39can't remember if it was Kimmel or Colbert or somebody, but he said they said

2:00:42something like, tell us what you know.

2:00:43And he said, you know, I can't tell you.

2:00:45There's things I can't tell you.

2:00:46So, I mean, he obviously knows more than he said.

2:00:49Right. Otherwise, he would say there's nothing.

2:00:51And then Trump said that he knows more.

2:00:52It was very interesting. You know, I talked to Trump about it.

2:00:56Yeah. He won't tell you shit.

2:00:57He kind of move around.

2:00:59I know some things. There's a lot of, it's very crazy.

2:01:03But, you know, he won't tell you anything.

2:01:04They said they weren't going to release the Epstein files and that came out.

2:01:07So I just kind of go.

2:01:08Now, I have a different, I don't know if you want to get into it,

2:01:10but I have a slightly different view of Epstein than I think I did.

2:01:13Well, before we get into that, you know Tucker's thoughts on this whole UFO, UAP

2:01:19thing? He thinks they're like angels and demons from the Bible.

2:01:24And he thinks that they've always been here.

2:01:27And, you know, I'm sure you're aware of like the Book of Enoch.

2:01:30The Book of Enoch, which was one of the original biblical texts that wasn't included

2:01:35in the canon, but just because of a few rabbis decided it didn't jive with

2:01:38the Torah. And they found the Book of Enoch along with the Book of Isaiah

2:01:43as a part of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

2:01:45And when you find out that there was a biblical text that was contemporary to

2:01:54books that did make it into the Old Testament, and that they talk about the

2:01:59watchers who come from above and mate with humans and create this race of giants

2:02:05called the Nephilim who destroy everything and consume everything.

2:02:09And you're like, what the fuck is this?

2:02:12Like, what is this? And just stop and imagine if those rabbis hadn't, like, if

2:02:17that hadn't been excluded. Like Wesley Hopf is great talking about this stuff.

2:02:22He's a real historian when it comes to, you know, really understanding the history of

2:02:27these biblical texts. And, you know, and he's absolutely fascinated by it.

2:02:31And he's like, yeah, it's kind of crazy that they just decided to not put

2:02:35that in the Bible. Imagine if they did.

2:02:36And part of when you're going to church and they, you know, they're going over

2:02:41the Old Testament, like, okay, this week we're going to go over the Book of

2:02:45Enoch and we're going to figure out who the watchers are.

2:02:49Like, what do you, what is that?

2:02:51Like, what is that story?

2:02:53The crazy thing that Wes Huff told me was that the book of Isaiah that

2:02:57they found in the Dead Sea Scroll predates the oldest version of the book of

2:03:02Isaiah by more than a thousand years.

2:03:05When they found it, they found out that there was a book of Isaiah that

2:03:09is a thousand years older than the one they thought was the oldest one.

2:03:12And it is verbatim. It's verbatim from the one that's a thousand years later, which

2:03:18is kind of crazy. Wow.

2:03:21But then it's also in the same fucking caves as the Book of Enoch.

2:03:25It's all together there in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

2:03:28Amazing. I mean, we've had this, we've been fed this story that sort of all

2:03:33of these religions and myths from the past are all just false.

2:03:37Right. They're all just hallucinations.

2:03:39Right. They're all just lies.

2:03:41I don't believe that. It's just really, it's really arrogant actually.

2:03:45Like, it's like, well, no, now like we've been around for, you know, but the

2:03:48last 150 years is like, we really figured it all out.

2:03:51And we figured out that all human knowledge before, you know, whatever, some recent time

2:03:56period is, is nonsense. Yeah.

2:03:58I think that's quite arrogant.

2:04:00It's very arrogant, but I all look, I'm a believer that history is far older

2:04:04than we think it is.

2:04:05I'm, and I think the more time goes on, the more that gets revealed.

2:04:08So when you're talking about something that's four or 5 ,000 years old, I think

2:04:14really you're talking about a retelling of a far older story.

2:04:18And I think there's, it's very difficult when you're dealing with people that don't have

2:04:24an understanding of science. The written language is fairly new.

2:04:28It's an oral tradition for generations before it's ever written down.

2:04:33So my question with all this is always like, what were they trying to talk

2:04:38about? What were they trying to say?

2:04:40What was the original experience that someone documented in story?

2:04:45And then that story was relayed over and over and over again, generation after generation,

2:04:50until it's eventually written down, and then they study it and take it literally.

2:04:54And then also translating it from Aramaic, which is the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Hebrew,

2:05:01all these different languages to Latin and Greek and eventually English.

2:05:06But what's the original story?

2:05:09What are they trying to document?

2:05:11What is this important knowledge that they want to share?

2:05:15And how screwed up would that get over the generations and generations of talking about

2:05:20it? But what ultimate truth is in there?

2:05:23Like, I'm absolutely fascinated by the story of Jesus Christ, because if you wanted to

2:05:28come up with a way that people would live, that would absolutely be far more

2:05:35beneficial than just going on natural instincts and tribal behavior, and you would follow Jesus's

2:05:42teachings. Like, I can't find a flaw in the way he tells you to live

2:05:49life. There's a lot of religions that involve, you know, torturing nonbelievers and raping infidels

2:05:58and being able to do terrible things to the people that don't believe your religion.

2:06:02There's none of that in Christianity.

2:06:03It's all forgiveness. It's all treating your brother and your neighbor as if they're you.

2:06:11Like, it's a beautiful way to live life.

2:06:14Are you Christian? Well, I go to church.

2:06:16Oh. I have been for quite a while.

2:06:17Okay. I've been doing it for the last three or four years.

2:06:19But that's not really an answer to the question.

2:06:21Well, because I don't know.

2:06:23I think it's very interesting, and I do believe that if you follow the teachings

2:06:29of Jesus Christ, you will live a better life.

2:06:31I really do believe that.

2:06:32And one of the things I talk about is, like, the people that I go

2:06:36to church with are the most fucking polite people I've ever met in my life.

2:06:39They're so kind and so nice.

2:06:41And everybody lets you out of the parking lot.

2:06:43Everybody's like, you go. You go.

2:06:45It's like the one point.

2:06:46Like, it works. You know what I'm saying?

2:06:48Like, if people are trying to find an idea, does that mean I believe people

2:06:51came back from the dead?

2:06:52Does that mean I believe Moses part of the Red Sea?

2:06:56Not really. No. It seems like that's most likely a story where people are telling

2:07:02it generation after generation after generation.

2:07:05But there's probably something happening.

2:07:07There's probably some truth to it.

2:07:09But then you take into account some of the stories from the Old Testament, like

2:07:12the Book of Ezekiel, which I'm absolutely fascinated by.

2:07:15Book of Ezekiel and his account of the wheel within a wheel and the fire

2:07:20flashing forth continually and in the midst of the fire as it were gleaming metal.

2:07:25Like, what the hell is that?

2:07:26Like, what is that? Like, what are these stories?

2:07:29And in the midst of this gleaming metal, there's the likeness of four living creatures.

2:07:35Like, okay. They darted to and fro, like the appearance of a flash of lightning.

2:07:40Okay. What is that? Like, what were they trying to say?

2:07:44And what was the original experience that people documented that was so important?

2:07:49And it might have been a lot more similar to these UFO experiences.

2:07:52That's the point. Yeah. And I think this is one of the things that Tucker

2:07:55goes back to. The Christian story is so beautiful and so important.

2:08:01You know, Rene Girard's view of Christianity as really stopping the cycle of scapegoating.

2:08:07You know, scapegoating where – and I'm seeing it right now as part of the

2:08:10reason we've been pushing back against the moral panic on Epstein is that you scapegoat

2:08:16the thing. You know, traditionally it literally was a goat, but you scapegoat the person

2:08:19or whatever. Wait a minute.

2:08:20Originally it was a goat?

2:08:21It really was a goat.

2:08:21Yeah. It really was a goat.

2:08:22Yeah. Really? It would carry the sins of the community.

2:08:26Oh, you'd sacrifice the goat?

2:08:27I think you would send it away to die or something.

2:08:30Oh. But over time it became people.

2:08:31That's what a scapegoat was?

2:08:33Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

2:08:36It's always a goat. Goats are the devil.

2:08:39Goats are everything. Goats get a bad rap.

2:08:41Goats are in your lobby, aren't they?

2:08:43Or those are elk. No.

2:08:45Oh, those are elk. No, there's a big difference.

2:08:47Yeah. But I mean, so Christianity puts an end to that.

2:08:50It says stop scapegoating. I mean, they scapegoated Jesus, really.

2:08:54I mean, you kind of go – you scapegoat – the purpose of the scapegoating

2:08:57was to – was for the community to unite the community and scapegoat to put

2:09:04all of its sins on one thing and then kill it or get rid of

2:09:07it. And that was the way the community would restore unity.

2:09:10Christianity said, no, we're not going to do it that way.

2:09:14That's immoral. And so he, without sin, should be the first to cast a stone.

2:09:20Jesus wasn't saying that prostitution was good or anything.

2:09:23He was saying that we should not be scapegoating.

2:09:27You've got sins too, so don't scapegoat this person.

2:09:30That's a really radical moment in human history, and it really is what allowed humans

2:09:34to spread. It creates a universal – I mean, Christianity is the first universal.

2:09:38It's really universal religion. Maybe it's not the only.

2:09:41But it's a universal religion.

2:09:42It says everybody is a child of God, and it's evangelical, and it wants other

2:09:47people to become Christian. That's very – that's different from other religions where I'm like,

2:09:51this is my God. I've got my own God here, and we're the best, and

2:09:54you suck. And they make it very difficult to join.

2:09:57Yeah. And it's not to say that Christians – obviously, there was fighting the Muslims,

2:10:01and there's some interesting revisionism there.

2:10:04But it's a beautiful religion.

2:10:06There's terrible things that have been done under the God.

2:10:09The eyes of Christianity. But if you listen to the teachings of Jesus Christ, they're

2:10:13not following his teachings. So it's like – it's just human behavior that they have

2:10:19tagged on to Christianity. So when people say Christianity is responsible for horrible atrocities, I

2:10:25say no. I say humans are.

2:10:27Because if it was actually Christianity, you would be following the teachings of Christ, and

2:10:32there would be none of those things.

2:10:33I mean, anti -Semitism is not Christian.

2:10:36Right. So true Christianity is not that.

2:10:40So I think it's lovely, and I hope there's a revival of some of it.

2:10:44I'm not sure there is.

2:10:45I think there is more now than before.

2:10:47There's a lot of young people that are getting into Christianity.

2:10:51I think it's good to – I think it's also – I mean, essentially, with

2:10:54the UFO thing, it's an awareness that there's a higher power.

2:10:57So one can sort of say, look, the UFO thing, it's not this.

2:10:59name is christianity or whatever but this awareness that like we're not like there's something

2:11:04else going on there's something more there's something higher than us and that we should

2:11:07be humble in front of in the face of this just gigantic mystery i think

2:11:12that puts us in a better mentality it certainly does and if anything if he's

2:11:17not the son of god if this was an actual historical figure what an insanely

2:11:22wise human being who didn't have these thoughts that are inherent to all of us

2:11:28of vengeance and lust and greed he's has none of these so radical also um

2:11:35you've heard it said before that you should you know love your friends and and

2:11:39hate your enemies i say to you you know you should love your enemies i

2:11:42mean that's just yeah it's like the hardest i'm not there i think very few

2:11:47people are there uh but it's certainly the right aspiration yes yeah it's the right

2:11:53aspiration and tucker thinks that this whole ufo thing is somehow connected to the spiritual

2:11:59realm and that we're well because we've been told for so long that there is

2:12:04no spiritual realm that spiritual realm is just a mental illness right you know it's

2:12:08like how he's like the yahweh thing he's like the problem with the people that

2:12:11tell you that are all mentally ill they're all very unhappy like atheists like secular

2:12:17like hardcore atheists are some of the most unhappy depressed people i know i don't

2:12:22seem like incredibly happy unless they do a lot of mushrooms and those people tend

2:12:25to not be atheists anymore that's the one weird thing people that have had like

2:12:29intense breakthrough psychedelic experiences one of the first things they go maybe there is a

2:12:34god like maybe maybe i don't know what i'm talking about because if i just

2:12:38experienced that and that's a real thing that you could have while alive on earth

2:12:43where you are confronted with divine wisdom and love in some weird strange form you

2:12:50know when there's a lot of people that believe that that's the source of a

2:12:52lot of religious experiences and instead of alienating and making those things illegal we should

2:12:58study them and make them a part of the religious experience because it's probably what

2:13:04they were originally i'm rj decker the private investigator uncovering the sunshine state's darkest secrets

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2:14:05over with well that's right and so now that people are having spiritual experiences with

2:14:08ufos it's wonderful and they should talk about them and kindle them um i think

2:14:13the thing about psychedelics that's so interesting is that um my experience with them was

2:14:18that you uh become you don't become so attached to your ideas and your beliefs

2:14:23right and so um which is a big problem in our society is people that

2:14:27get too attached to their their egos get attached to their beliefs as opposed to

2:14:30like oh i thought that i mean i've made i'm i'm i've made my whole

2:14:34career out of being wrong about things and then correcting them um but i think

2:14:37it's hard because you do it's really great quality it's oh thank you it's a

2:14:42very but it's still i hate it i hate being wrong it's totally natural to

2:14:46hate it um but i do think like having a practice that makes you go

2:14:50you are not your your beliefs there's something there you have an existence separate from

2:14:56right the things that you wrote on your blog or you were on x and

2:14:59just don't be so attached to them right don't make them your identity yeah um

2:15:03and that uh it's it's it's actually there's something really quite there's an awful part

2:15:08of when you feel like you got something wrong but then there's another part you're

2:15:11like oh it feels good to get it right and you feel clean and that's

2:15:14like that's which that's what we should be going for but it does require for

2:15:19me being humble about my limitations before some higher power is really important place to

2:15:25begin because if you think there's no higher power or that the other one is

2:15:28like souls we don't talk about souls enough um a new friend of mine at

2:15:31the university was talking about how important it is to really to care for your

2:15:37soul and to care about other people's souls that's one of the things that christianity

2:15:40is so good at that you have something divine inside of you connected to something

2:15:44divine outside of you and that your behaviors affect its treatment and it you know

2:15:48when you tell people that you're just you know a meat suit and you're just

2:15:53warm food and your life doesn't matter and that it's all just you know random

2:15:58and pointless that's a terrible story it's it makes people feel terrible um but when

2:16:04you kind of go know you there was one of the most beautiful the i

2:16:06loved all the charlie kirk videos that went out after his death because there were

2:16:09so many ones where he had these beautiful moments but he's talking to these women

2:16:11that are doing the only fans did you see that one and they're describing they're

2:16:16trying to shock him and saying just really kind of crude things about their sexuality

2:16:20and how like the sex they have it doesn't matter to them and and he

2:16:24was like i just don't believe that i think you have a soul i think

2:16:26god has a purpose for you what a much lovelier way to engage somebody and

2:16:32it wasn't a he didn't feel like he was morally condemning them right he was

2:16:36actually saying god loves you and so for me christianity brings if that is the

2:16:41part of christianity that i think is so special but it is hard i mean

2:16:44one of the things that this anthropologist that i'm really into is talking about she

2:16:47says it's it's the more the god the more different the god is from humans

2:16:51the harder it is to believe in them and so people like christians in particular

2:16:55she would talk about their even evangelical ones are always complaining about not believing enough

2:17:00and not having enough faith because it is so hard because you have the holocaust

2:17:04problem the problem of evil why if the god is all powerful and all good

2:17:07is he allowing the holocaust why do you allow hiroshima why you know these terrible

2:17:10things um and part of the answer for christians has been well because he you

2:17:14wants us to exercise free will and to be in touch with our better sides

2:17:18and to realize our potential as moral humans and moral souls.

2:17:24And that's a pretty good answer.

2:17:26But I was glad to hear her say that people struggle with it because I

2:17:31certainly do as well. Well, I mean, I think everyone struggles with it.

2:17:37I'm really fascinated by it.

2:17:39I'm fascinated by it because when I go to church and I listen to them

2:17:43talk about various passages in the Bible, my mindset is always like, what was the

2:17:49real experience? What are we missing out of these tales?

2:17:54What are we missing out of these recounting of these experiences?

2:17:59What happened? I don't think it was nothing.

2:18:01I really don't. I think there's something real to it.

2:18:04And again, it works. That's the main one for me.

2:18:10It's like, you want to live a better life?

2:18:12Like if you live as a Christian, you'll have a better life.

2:18:14You'll have a more love -filled, more wonderful life.

2:18:17That's real. And this idea that, oh, it's fairy tales.

2:18:23Is it? If it's a method for life that gives you a more rich and

2:18:29loving and peaceful life, isn't that better for everybody?

2:18:33Isn't that a real thing?

2:18:35That's a real thing. There's no way you can know whether or not any of

2:18:40the stories in the Bible happened exactly as described.

2:18:43We can't know. So you have to have this leap of faith.

2:18:46And it gets weird. Like Jesus comes back on a white horse.

2:18:50Like, hey, slow down. You know, like Revelations.

2:18:53Book of Revelations is weird.

2:18:54But what's really weird is some of these people that think that what's going on

2:19:00in Iran is to light the fire to bring, to have Jesus return, to light

2:19:06the signal fire. Like, did you hear those recountings by that, uh, these non -commissioned

2:19:11officers that went into these briefings, combat briefings?

2:19:14Oh, no. Yeah. Okay. Here's one of them.

2:19:17Cause I saved it. Cause it's so kooky that I read it and I was

2:19:20like, wait, what the fuck did they say to him?

2:19:22Cause it's, it's so crazy.

2:19:24I tend to be anti -apocalyptic.

2:19:26My knee jerk is anti -apocalyptic cause I don't see apocalyptic movements, uh, doing a

2:19:32lot of good in the world.

2:19:33So. Yeah. That's probably better off.

2:19:35Most of it. I think a lot of Christians have ignored the book of Revelations.

2:19:40Um, I, yeah, I think focusing too heavily on that particular book is probably leads

2:19:45to bad outcomes. Okay. So this was the story that I wrote.

2:19:47This was in, uh, Yahoo.

2:19:48I'll send this to you, Jeremy, so you can get this, uh, so we can

2:19:53put this up on the board.

2:19:54Did you find the thing?

2:19:55Okay. He urged us to tell our troops that this was all part of God's.

2:19:58Now this is the guy who goes, this is a combat readiness briefing.

2:20:03Urge us to tell our troops, this is all part of God's plan.

2:20:06And he specifically referenced numerous citations of the book of Revelations referring to Armageddon and

2:20:11the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

2:20:13Uh, he said that president Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal

2:20:17fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth.

2:20:23And they said that the guy was saying this had a giant smile on his

2:20:26face, which made it all the weirder.

2:20:28Like, like see if you could find that in there.

2:20:30Does it say that? No, it's not in that particular article.

2:20:34Oh, this is just someone complained.

2:20:36It sounds like someone complained about it.

2:20:37Oh yeah. A bunch of people complained.

2:20:38There's actually like a lawsuit.

2:20:40Yeah. Religious freedom law. You risk like the whole self -fulfilling prophecy with that one.

2:20:44Well, it's all just like, what are you talking about?

2:20:46Wait a second. What are you doing?

2:20:47What, what machines, what, what weapons do you control?

2:20:49Uh, yeah, there's a lot of fucking religious kooks.

2:20:52So it's not just, and also that is not how Jesus Christ would handle it.

2:20:56Let's go bomb Iran. That's how Jesus is going to come back.

2:20:59Like, do you think he would tell you that's the right way to do it?

2:21:01Like how did you interpret the text?

2:21:02No, it doesn't sound very Jesus -y.

2:21:03Yeah, it doesn't sound very Jesus -y.

2:21:04Like how did you interpret that in the text?

2:21:06Okay. Uh, before we, so we're, we're deep into this show.

2:21:10So the Epstein stuff. All right.

2:21:12So what is your take on this?

2:21:14All right. Well, so I, um.

2:21:15You've changed your position? Yeah, I've changed, I think, uh, spent a bunch of time

2:21:18with the files. Um, I will say, I think I did do a piece where

2:21:22I do think that the shrimp is a code word for, for young women.

2:21:27Um, I'm pretty sure about that.

2:21:28What do you think pizza is a code word for?

2:21:30Well, that was, okay. So then I did a, I did, I had, I had

2:21:33read this article about code words in the Epstein files and I did the shrimps.

2:21:37And then I had some stuff about pizza and grape juice in there about grape

2:21:40soda. And my coauthor, Alex was like, dude, you can't go, if you can't go

2:21:43full pizza gate, you know, like you gotta, you gotta do like, so we kept

2:21:46it out. And then the times mentioned the pizza thing.

2:21:49So I wrote some on X about it, but I ended up taking it down

2:21:52because I was like, I don't really know this one.

2:21:55I mean, what weirded me about the pizza one was where his urologist was like,

2:22:00take your erection dysfunction pills and then we'll go out and get pizza and grape

2:22:05soda. And I was like, that is creepy, you know, as hell.

2:22:09Uh, so, but I, I don't, the shrimp one, I'm like 95 % that means

2:22:15young women. Cause you just see how they talk about it.

2:22:17And I think I proved it in my piece.

2:22:19There's other ones like people were like the jerky is like cannibalism and whatever.

2:22:22It's like, well, it didn't help that the restaurant owner was like the restaurant's name

2:22:26was like cannibal and something.

2:22:28Yeah. Uh, but, um, I'm skeptical that that's what that was.

2:22:32So. Well, you would be skeptical unless you were part of some of these fucking

2:22:35bizarre satanic rituals and then you would go, Oh my God, it's real.

2:22:38Like there are, look, people have sacrificed people, right?

2:22:43Can we agree to that in, in, in human history?

2:22:46Yeah. Oh, sure. Of course.

2:22:47And there have been satanic rituals throughout history.

2:22:50Can we agree to that?

2:22:50Sure. Okay. So there has been cannibalism in history.

2:22:54We agree to that. Okay.

2:22:56Unfortunately, a lot actually there was a lot.

2:22:57Yeah. Why wouldn't we think they're talking about that?

2:23:01We don't want to believe it.

2:23:02Right. Is that what it is?

2:23:04No, I don't want to believe that these people, these multimillionaires and billionaires that go

2:23:10to this island and engage in all this crazy shit aren't doing something like child

2:23:14sacrifice or cannibalism. Well, let's start with the, let's start with the thing that I

2:23:19think a lot of us thought it was, which is that it was an intelligence

2:23:21community, sex blackmail operation. That's what made it for me a story.

2:23:28I mean, A creepy guy doing creepy things, there's just, that's, we call that a

2:23:33dog bites man story. You know, what makes it a man bites dog story is

2:23:36like, is that you kind of go, wow, it's like Mossad and CIA running a

2:23:40honeypot. I mean, that's the premise of Whitley Webb's two volume book, One Nation Under

2:23:44Blackmail. But when you look at it, like, we don't see that.

2:23:49We see, we see one case where Epstein emails himself something that sounds like it's

2:23:55in the voice of the Bill Gates science advisor, Boris Karsich, I believe is the

2:23:59name. And in it, they talk about, oh, you know, it's the famous email where

2:24:04he says, oh, you know, I got STDs.

2:24:07It says you got STDs from Russian hookers or from Russian women.

2:24:11And then you tried to slip antibiotics or you want to me to slip antibiotics

2:24:14in Melinda's drink. And Melinda, like, they asked her about it.

2:24:18It was awful. It doesn't, like, that's not, it's weird what that is.

2:24:23So first of all, it's not even clear what that is.

2:24:24Hold on a second. We're just talking about emails.

2:24:27Right. Right. So who knows what was said?

2:24:32Just from the email, we know that there at least implies that he's got dirt

2:24:37on people and that he is exercising, is doing something with this dirt that he

2:24:44has on Epstein or on Bill Gates, rather.

2:24:47Yeah, although. So we're very limited in the amount of data that we possess, right?

2:24:52Because we just have emails between him and other people.

2:24:55Inside those emails, we find a lot of creepy shit.

2:24:58We find that one description where he was talking to this woman where she said,

2:25:03I'm doing an investigating a story about an island where they bring children for sex.

2:25:09And he goes, she almost had a heart attack when I told her that person

2:25:12is me. Well, he was talking about the rumors and gossip about him.

2:25:17But he wasn't saying that he's bringing children to his island for sex.

2:25:20But that is what he said.

2:25:22But if you look at the text.

2:25:23No, he said they're talking about me.

2:25:24No, no, no. She said, I'm doing a story on a guy who brings children

2:25:31to his island for sex.

2:25:34And he says, she almost had a heart attack when I told her that person

2:25:39is me. The person that...

2:25:42You're being charitable. I'm not...

2:25:44Well, I... But you're being charitable.

2:25:45Because that's not what the text says.

2:25:47What the text says is, someone's bringing children to an island.

2:25:51I told her that person was me.

2:25:52He didn't say, I told her that's a bullshit rumor.

2:25:56I let her know that's not true.

2:25:57But that's very much in his style.

2:25:59I mean, look, let's back up to the intelligence.

2:26:01But wait a minute. Why would you dismiss that?

2:26:03Well, we can pull it up and look at it.

2:26:04I just think, I think what we see from the files, and I think Mike

2:26:10Benz has sort of pointed out the ways in which Epstein might have been a

2:26:13contractor or a financier or somebody hiding money for the intelligence community.

2:26:17Beyond that, I don't see any evidence that he was doing much for the intelligence

2:26:23community, if at all. But you're only getting emails and only half of the emails,

2:26:29right? So there's only 3 million emails that have been released.

2:26:32There's another 3 million that the FBI possesses that they're not releasing, right?

2:26:36100%. It's possible. So why would you draw any conclusions based on only 50 %

2:26:42of the data? And then if there is 50 % of the data that hasn't

2:26:45been released, why? Is that way worse?

2:26:49Because this stuff is fucking nuts.

2:26:51Like, this is nuts. Like, take your erection pills so we can go get grape

2:26:56soda? Okay, what? It's weird.

2:26:58And this lady is investigating a place where they, an island where they bring children

2:27:02for sex? I told her it was me?

2:27:03What? Well, we should put that one up.

2:27:05I want to look at that one.

2:27:06But I mean, I think, I mean, here you're talking about, you're talking about, so

2:27:12first of all, I think the picture is of a guy that is fully in

2:27:18charge of his life. And he's doing, he's like, he is like amazing at getting

2:27:23people to love him and care about him.

2:27:25People call him their best friend.

2:27:27In Florida, clearly he was abusing girls and was, you know, busted for that.

2:27:32I think he was doing that because he's a pervert.

2:27:34I don't think, I didn't see, I don't see blackmail coming out of that.

2:27:38And then you get to later and you've got, okay, you've got the Bill Gates

2:27:42thing, which doesn't even appear to be from Epstein.

2:27:45It appears to be for Boris.

2:27:46And remember, Boris, the science advisor, wanted Gates to pay for like a bigger apartment

2:27:50for him in New York.

2:27:52It appeared to be part of him threatening Gates to get something that Boris wanted.

2:27:56So maybe Epstein was advising him on it.

2:27:58But I mean, to have a, the other thing I'm struck by these emails, Joe,

2:28:03is that there are so many different attorneys, people at the FBI, people in the

2:28:09Eastern District, the Southern District, the Florida Southern District, they would all have to be

2:28:14in on it. And I'm skeptical because FBI - Why would they all have to

2:28:17be in on it? Well, because they would, they're in these, I mean, they're in

2:28:19this, they're reviewing the information.

2:28:21They're trying to bring, you know, they're trying to bring action against them.

2:28:25Well, it depends on who are the powerful people that are implicated and what kind

2:28:30of influence they have over what gets released and what doesn't get released.

2:28:35Clearly, names were redacted that are powerful people that are not victims.

2:28:39So that shows you right there that there's some influence.

2:28:42But there's a reason to do that.

2:28:44Why? Because they're not guilty.

2:28:46Okay. What about the one where the guy says, where Epstein says, I like the

2:28:50torture video? He probably did.

2:28:53I think someone did find the torture video.

2:28:55Why would you redact the name of the person who sent you a torture video

2:28:59if you're not trying to protect a powerful person?

2:29:01Yeah, that's the Sultan. Is that right?

2:29:03Okay. But that was, someone had to just figure that out.

2:29:06I mean, look, the redactions are sloppy.

2:29:08But that's, no, no, no.

2:29:09That's evidence that you're trying to protect a powerful person.

2:29:12Well, but they didn't though in a lot of cases, right?

2:29:15But they did right there.

2:29:16Yeah. I mean, the redactions, they were making them.

2:29:19I mean, it was like, my understanding is that - But they redacted a lot

2:29:20of powerful people's names. Yeah, but I mean, look at, like, we're in the midst,

2:29:25I mean, literally the people that are being canceled for this, like Peter Atiyah, these

2:29:28people are like victims of, we're in the middle of a complete, you know, moral

2:29:34panic. I mean, we're now, it's like Me Too version two.

2:29:37I mean, people are having to leave boards.

2:29:39I mean, look, these are people I don't like.

2:29:40I'll just be honest, like, if part of me hesitated, because I don't like Larry

2:29:43- I don't like Bill Gates.

2:29:45I don't care about Sarah Ferguson.

2:29:49You know, I didn't say anything.

2:29:50Then they came for Peter Atiyah.

2:29:52You know, it's a little bit like, like Peter Atiyah, like, he didn't do anything

2:29:57wrong. He just like lost his job with CBS.

2:30:00And, you know, he's sort of now they're under this cloud and people go, oh,

2:30:04but he was in the hospital and his wife was, he was with Epstein.

2:30:07His wife was in the hospital.

2:30:08We don't, like, what are we doing here?

2:30:09Like, we're getting involved in Peter Atiyah's, like, personal life.

2:30:13And so, but he has to get fired for that.

2:30:15I mean, it's gone way too far.

2:30:17Sarah Ferguson had to step down, even though, you know, she said, you know, like,

2:30:20these people, I don't like them.

2:30:22Like, these are not people I agree with or think their behavior is, but I

2:30:27don't see. So they're not guilty of crime.

2:30:29I don't. Yeah, they're not.

2:30:30Yeah, they're not. Like, they were like, they were all making a big deal out

2:30:32of like, well, so first of all, let me just say, I'm glad they released

2:30:35the files. Tighten that thing down.

2:30:36You keep moving that thing around.

2:30:38Every time you do it, it bumps.

2:30:40I'm just like, I think, like, you know, they were, I mean, I'm glad the

2:30:47files were released. There was definitely problems with the redactions.

2:30:51There was also a case where the members of Congress were trying to get stuff

2:30:53redacted. Names got redacted of people that, like, I know in one case there were

2:30:57people that were getting licenses for guns that had nothing to do with Epstein on

2:31:01a list. In another case, other people's names were revealed who were not, you know,

2:31:05guilty of anything. So that's why you protect those people.

2:31:08I think we, you go, everybody, the logic right now is that anybody who had

2:31:12any interaction with Epstein had to have known of all the abuse he was doing

2:31:16and are somehow responsible for it.

2:31:18I think that's not right.

2:31:19Okay, but a lot of these people were hanging out with him and doing business

2:31:22with him after he was arrested.

2:31:24So this is all post -2008 and it was very public.

2:31:27Okay, but, okay, so then, so then what is our view of people that do

2:31:31the crime and serve the time?

2:31:32I mean, the left, the left view has been that.

2:31:35Stop right there. He didn't serve any time.

2:31:37He served a year. Okay, he did not go to jail for a year.

2:31:41You know, he did house arrest.

2:31:42Yes. It was a very sweetheart deal.

2:31:44And the prosecutor, was it the prosecuting attorney or whoever it was, was told that

2:31:49he was intelligence. And this is why they were giving him the sweetheart deal.

2:31:51That was, that was, by the way, I looked into that.

2:31:54Yeah? Yeah, we looked into that one and that was heard secondhand.

2:31:58Oh. So we don't even, that wasn't even heard from Acosta directly.

2:32:01Someone said that they heard Acosta say that and they told the Vicky Ward and

2:32:04I believe her source is anonymous.

2:32:07Yeah. So that's weak. And, you know, Mike, I mean, when Mike Benz was in

2:32:11here and Mike has done a deep dive of this, he's sort of like, look,

2:32:13at best you get Epstein tied up with intelligence with the Iran -Contra stuff.

2:32:17Right. But he wasn't, I mean, there's two things to see here.

2:32:20With his relationship to the intelligence community, he was at best a contractor, a financier,

2:32:24which means he's not an important player in deciding covert clandestine operations.

2:32:28It was the, it's, you know, the head of state.

2:32:30He said he killed Cold Fusion.

2:32:33I mean. He said he killed Pons, his work on Cold Fusion.

2:32:40I mean, I don't know.

2:32:41Did he? I mean, Cold Fusion, they keep doing it, right?

2:32:44No, they haven't done it yet.

2:32:46Well, I know Carl Page, the founder, the brother of the.

2:32:49But he stated that he killed Cold Fusion research.

2:32:52Because he cut off funding for it?

2:32:54Yeah. Well, but there was, I mean, it didn't work, right?

2:32:56He manipulated people. I don't know that.

2:32:59Well, I mean. He said he killed it.

2:33:00Why would he kill it?

2:33:01Because it didn't work. Or maybe it did work and it's problematic that it does

2:33:05work because it kills all these people that have all this other money in various

2:33:08energy modalities. I just, I mean, I go fusion is like a whole, I mean,

2:33:12the idea that we have a secret, that we've secretly tapped Cold Fusion and are

2:33:16hiding it for some reason.

2:33:17Or that he was on the way to breaking through to Cold Fusion and then

2:33:21they killed all of his research.

2:33:23But why? You don't think that could be, because there's so many people that have

2:33:26money and all these other types of energy.

2:33:29I just don't buy that you could, first of all, that technology is super difficult.

2:33:33To get nuclear fission was this enormous undertaking, huge numbers of people.

2:33:38The Cold Fusion stuff was always, the Cold Fusion stuff is really fringe.

2:33:43I mean, it was like, we're going to be in the lab and doing, you

2:33:46know. But you're not a physicist, so how do you know that?

2:33:48Well, I mean, I interview a lot of physicists and talk about it.

2:33:51I mean, the big fusion projects are incredibly difficult.

2:33:54They keep announcing advances in them.

2:33:55They can't get them. Cold Fusion is not even considered a mainstream fusion project.

2:34:00So to assume that there's some secret, and I just think this is why I

2:34:04have a problem with the whole reverse engineering thing, is I just kind of go,

2:34:07you'd have to have so many people working on it and covering it for such

2:34:11a long time. I don't know how you'd get away with that.

2:34:13Well, what if he was on the verge of a breakthrough, but this guy steps

2:34:17in and stops funding and puts some leverage on the university?

2:34:21Clearly, he had dirt on a bunch of people that were at high levels of

2:34:25many universities. That's why a bunch of these guys had to step down.

2:34:28Didn't the head of Harvard step down?

2:34:30I think it's exaggerating. Didn't the head of Harvard step down?

2:34:33Because of him? Wasn't there a connection between Jeffrey Epstein?

2:34:36Well, I mean, Larry Summers, you mean?

2:34:38Yeah. Well, Larry Summers was, you know, he had to step down because he made

2:34:42those remarks about women as president.

2:34:44And then he just had to step down as professor.

2:34:47And I say this, look, I say this genuinely as someone that is not a

2:34:50Larry Summers fan. I don't think – I think it's ugly what he did.

2:34:53It's terrible. He was trying to get advice from Larry Summers about how to bed

2:34:56a Chinese economist. And they were gross in their emails.

2:34:59And it's terrible. But I don't think that you lose a job at Harvard over

2:35:02that. I don't think that Peter Tia should lose his job at CBS over that.

2:35:06We've got – that's – I understand and I agree with – I see what

2:35:10you're saying. But what I'm saying is clearly he had influence over some very high

2:35:15and powerful people at universities.

2:35:16He also exaggerated his influence.

2:35:19He took a lot of credit for Santa Fe Institute, which was a lot of

2:35:22other people. I mean he was really interesting and smart.

2:35:26Like he gave a thing to Bannon, talking to Bannon about it that was really

2:35:30interesting. But he was also – Steve Pinker talked about him as a kibitzer, like

2:35:34kind of a bullshitter. And he was – like we also saw in the files

2:35:39– I think it really overlooked.

2:35:40We saw how he made his money.

2:35:41Like he needed to get the – he needed to get a deal with the

2:35:45Department of Justice for his client Ariana de Rothschild.

2:35:48He hires Catherine Rumler, who was Obama's White House chief counsel.

2:35:53And she goes and makes a deal at the Department of Justice, $45 million fine

2:35:57for the Rothschild. $10 million for Katharine Rumler, $25 million for Jeffrey Epstein.

2:36:02Everyone's like, where did his money come from doing deals like that?

2:36:06Like, you realize, I mean, one of the things, Succession actually had a little subplot

2:36:10about it. Like, there's a few people in the world that do these crazy high

2:36:14-level deals, like often like mergers and acquisitions, that have these obscene fees because they're

2:36:19taking some tiny percentage. Epstein was operating, I think the thing we didn't realize is

2:36:24that when you read the files, is the levels at which Epstein was operating.

2:36:28I mean, his social and emotional intelligence is just off the charts, which is often

2:36:34rare among somebody that's that good analytically, someone that really understands like investments in the

2:36:38economy to be so – and he was a master manipulator.

2:36:42So I don't think it's fair to say to people you had an association with

2:36:48him after he was convicted of this crime.

2:36:51Rich guys – look, we have a totally separate system of justice for rich people.

2:36:56I think we've known that for a really long time.

2:36:58It's terrible. I condemn it.

2:37:00We should find solutions to it.

2:37:01That's what Epstein used to get out of it.

2:37:03I don't see any evidence that intelligence helped him.

2:37:06You know, we've got other problems.

2:37:08The victims, Virginia Jaffray, she claimed that she had sex with Dershowitz.

2:37:12She then goes, oh, I was wrong about that.

2:37:14I mean, there's a lot of those victim testimonials that are untrustworthy.

2:37:19So you get yourself in a situation where you start to put like – Because

2:37:22some of them were probably prostitutes.

2:37:24Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the other one is we – I did some reporting

2:37:28where we helped to – we found a 14 -year -old girl who was being

2:37:32trafficked on the streets. She had turned 15 in the process of us reporting on

2:37:35it. We were covering these PIs.

2:37:38They get the police involved.

2:37:39The police go get her.

2:37:40You know, she's orphaned. She goes back and lives with her aunt.

2:37:44And she's back on the street, voluntarily back on the street.

2:37:47Nobody wants to talk about it.

2:37:48It's like you go rescue people and they're in that world.

2:37:53So these situations are much more complex than – I think the final thing on

2:37:57Epstein that kind of made me question it is that I, like a lot of

2:38:00other people, had assumed that someone murdered him.

2:38:03But you start looking at the evidence for that.

2:38:05Look, maybe there are more will come out.

2:38:07And even this last round, last few days, there's some new things that people point

2:38:10to. But they actually are not actually evidence of it.

2:38:13They said – Epstein's brother's attorney – or Epstein's brother's examiner said that he broke

2:38:20his hyoid bone. And the hyoid bone is not usually broken in hangings, only in

2:38:25strangulations. Actually, it is broken in hangings, particularly for older people.

2:38:29But it was broken in three places.

2:38:30Yeah, and that's like – And it's low on his neck.

2:38:32Yeah, and that happens. Also, the lady who was the guard deposited money into her

2:38:38account. I saw that. But that doesn't – what does that mean?

2:38:41Okay. In other words, there's some money.

2:38:42She also Googled his name before he died.

2:38:45She's got a – all that's totally – Okay.

2:38:47It's like, let me scooby -doo it.

2:38:48Why are you dismissing – I don't understand why you're dismissing this.

2:38:50Because if you're going to pay – I'm not dismissing it.

2:38:52I'm saying – But hold on.

2:38:53You are. But hold on.

2:38:53You are. Because if you do have a guard, and all of a sudden this

2:38:57guard acquires several payments. She made several deposits.

2:39:02One of them was $5 ,000 just 10 days before he died.

2:39:05And then the cameras are cut, okay?

2:39:08And then they mysteriously don't pay attention to the cell of one of the most

2:39:13important defendants of any case, any gigantic public case involving enormously famous public figures.

2:39:22It could be. And then this guy hangs himself while he's on suicide watch.

2:39:25Now, remember, he tried to commit suicide.

2:39:26I understand, but why are you not letting me finish what I'm saying?

2:39:29Because that alone is weird.

2:39:32That alone is weird. That the cameras are cut, that there's no video of it.

2:39:36The whole thing is weird.

2:39:37You don't think it's weird?

2:39:38Well, I think – You don't think it's weird that this guy, that he just

2:39:41finds a way to hang himself in this cage?

2:39:44I thought – I had that same story.

2:39:46I was like, the cameras are cut.

2:39:48The security guards are asleep.

2:39:49All those things are true.

2:39:50All those things are true.

2:39:52It's also true that the cameras went out a long time before that night.

2:39:57It didn't just go out that night before.

2:39:58Security guards fall asleep at night all the time.

2:40:02He attempted suicide, I believe, 18 days before.

2:40:0618 days before, he said that his roommate tried to kill him.

2:40:09Did you know that? Do you know his roommate was a cop that had killed

2:40:11four people in contract killings?

2:40:13His cop roommate, his cellmate, was a murderer.

2:40:18He was a guy who was a drug -dealing cop who had killed four people

2:40:22in contract killings. And that was his fucking jailmate.

2:40:26And 18 days before, he said that guy tried to kill him.

2:40:29But he said that's – But is there any doubt that he – Look at

2:40:31that guy. That is his fucking cellmate.

2:40:33Why would you put a guy who's one of the most high -profile defendants in

2:40:37any case ever in a cell with a hired killer who's a giant gorilla, like

2:40:43this huge fucking jacked Italian guy?

2:40:46But he wasn't in the cell with him that night.

2:40:48He was by himself in the cell that night.

2:40:50He was the guy who 18 days before Epstein said tried to kill him.

2:40:53But Epstein tried to kill himself.

2:40:55I don't think there's any doubt about that, right?

2:40:58I don't know if there's – I've never seen him say it.

2:41:01But I do know that he said that guy tried to kill him.

2:41:04And they found him unresponsive 18 days before.

2:41:06He said that guy tried to kill him.

2:41:09And couldn't he have lied about that?

2:41:10That that guy was trying to get money.

2:41:11Couldn't he have lied about that?

2:41:14Video outside cell during Jeffrey Epstein's first suicide attempt no longer exists.

2:41:19How weird. Yeah. Why would he lie about that?

2:41:22He's in a cell with a guy who he's already saying this guy's trying to

2:41:26extort him. He's already saying this guy's trying to get money from him.

2:41:29And this guy is a known killer.

2:41:32He's killed four people in contract killings.

2:41:34How did you not know about that?

2:41:36I will say it's possible.

2:41:37But hold on. How did you not know about that?

2:41:38I did know about that.

2:41:39You knew about the guy being a contract killer that was his cellmate?

2:41:42Yeah. I knew that story.

2:41:44But, I mean, he didn't have a cellmate at the night of his death, right?

2:41:47That was one of the mistakes they made is that because he was supposed to

2:41:50be on suicide watch, he was supposed to have a cellmate, didn't have a cellmate.

2:41:53I think that, look – I don't know.

2:41:55But 18 days before, he did have a cellmate.

2:41:57And 18 days before, he said that guy tried to kill him.

2:41:59But 18 days before, he tried to commit suicide.

2:42:01That's my understanding. I don't know if that's true, though.

2:42:04I don't know if that's true.

2:42:05I don't know why they would put him in jail with a contract killer.

2:42:08Well, I mean, how many – who's in that jail?

2:42:11Aren't the people in that jail – pretty rough his cellmate is a contract killer

2:42:15why would he be in a cell with a cop who's a contract killer i

2:42:20mean aren't there a lot of uh the night jeffrey epstein claimed his cellmate tried

2:42:24to kill him new documents revealed jeffrey epstein claimed his cellmate tried to kill him

2:42:29in an incident before his death yeah but we don't okay but we don't know

2:42:33that's true okay yeah why are you dismissing it i'm not dismissing it joe look

2:42:37maybe more evidence will come out i'm saying like if you look at the evidence

2:42:40we have to dismiss it no i'm saying i was confident it was a homicide

2:42:44and now i know were you aware of this yeah of course all that you

2:42:49were aware that he tried to kill us of course you were aware that he

2:42:52said that well how come you never brought it up before you you seem shocked

2:42:56when i brought it up well because because my understanding is it was a suicide

2:42:59attempt 18 days okay but if he said this guy tried to kill him 18

2:43:04days before why didn't you take that into consideration no it is i mean i'm

2:43:09just saying that was all that was part of no when i go it doesn't

2:43:12seem like you took it into consideration and you're looking to dismiss i didn't no

2:43:15i i my view earlier was that it was a homicide because the hyoid bone

2:43:20bone doesn't break when you uh have hangings um he said he didn't want to

2:43:24commit suicide the video went out the the security guards are asleep i mean this

2:43:29was a there was a huge investigation of this by the inspector general so the

2:43:33number of people that would have had to been involved in this conspiracy and cover

2:43:37-up is very large and it's a large number of people who are in this

2:43:41job for to be do -gooders and so i'm very i mean that's look maybe

2:43:45they're okay so maybe there was some evidence they're not in the job to be

2:43:49oh yeah they are sometimes they're in the job to be do -gooders sometimes they're

2:43:53influenced by very powerful figures that want a particular result yeah does that not happen

2:43:59but we underestimate but hold on a second does that not happen in the real

2:44:01world it does right and wouldn't you imagine if you're dealing with multiple billionaires that

2:44:06may be compromised by the evidence that this guy's going to relay in a trial

2:44:10that that would be one of the times that they would want to exert that

2:44:13kind of influence it's possible and like i said in our piece we wrote it's

2:44:17possible but i think at this point we don't know i don't think we have

2:44:20the evidence either way and and that's for me that's the change i went from

2:44:24i think it was a homicide to now i don't know i didn't understand that

2:44:28he committed suicide 18 days before no no he didn't commit suicide he's cellmate tried

2:44:34to kill him 18 days before that's what he said right they found him unresponsive

2:44:41he said my cellmate tried to kill me yeah but well how do we know

2:44:46that why would we think okay and then was it reported that it was an

2:44:49attempted suicide to try to dismiss the fact that his cellmate was trying to kill

2:44:53him because they wanted his cellmate to kill him we don't know but but you

2:44:57can't dismiss that the psychologist thought he was suicidal they you know i think my

2:45:02understanding he could have lied about the room he didn't want to have a roommate

2:45:05um that's like why and they didn't have a roommate why would you want to

2:45:09have a roommate who was a fucking contract killer well it was a sociopathic cop

2:45:13who killed four guys but if you're if you're a contract killer and you're in

2:45:18epstein's um cell why would you uh want epstein to die in yourself because you

2:45:24want to kill him because people are going to give you like extra cigarettes at

2:45:27the commissary do we have any evidence who fucking knows no but who fucking knows

2:45:30yeah but we don't know is a guy who already kills people and he's in

2:45:32jail forever he's going to be in jail forever so for that guy you say

2:45:37will you kill that guy for me like that it's not even much of a

2:45:40stretch it's not much of a stretch that epstein would have killed himself it's not

2:45:44much of a stress that that guy killed him either if that if he's telling

2:45:46the truth that there was a report 18 days before that that guy tried to

2:45:50kill him we just don't know i mean that's we certainly don't know but i

2:45:53don't understand why you would want to make the conclusion that he tried to kill

2:45:55himself and that this guy who's a contract killer was not actually trying to kill

2:46:01him when he said he was 18 days before well joe i mean i don't

2:46:05please don't misrepresent i'm saying i don't know and that the change for me is

2:46:09going from really looking like a homicide to really not knowing because there's some evidence

2:46:14that i had not considered before that right you know the guy who did the

2:46:17autopsy was the guy from that autopsy show on hbo who his name is michael

2:46:22badden and he was famous the official autopsy no no no the one his brother

2:46:26authorized because he was famous i don't think he did an autopsy though he was

2:46:29a medical examiner he's a medical exam he's also famous for he's also paid psych

2:46:34conducted a post -suicide watch report epstein denied suicidality uh and stated i have no

2:46:41interest in killing myself and that it would be crazy to take his life all

2:46:45the though he was depressed and unhappy about his current legal situation he was told

2:46:50he will remain on psychological observation in the near term he said look and you

2:46:54see even there he says he says he didn't recall he got the marks on

2:46:58his neck so he didn't blame that on but no no that's that's here but

2:47:02then the other details from the other report said that he complained that the guy

2:47:06tried to kill himself that did the his cellmate rather try to kill him can

2:47:10you go back go back okay we can find that again but i do i

2:47:14don't think but joe i think that i don't think that you've got it okay

2:47:17i don't think you've got it i don't think you've got the i don't think

2:47:19you've i don't think we've nailed the the case that it was a homicide at

2:47:22all well i'm not saying that i know yeah but i'm saying okay so then

2:47:25we agree we don't know yes but you're dismissing these major factors of him i'm

2:47:30not dismissing a cell with a contract killer him saying 18 days before the guy

2:47:34tried to kill him then finding him unresponsive that someone tried to strangle him 18

2:47:38days before yeah but i mean there's just as you can make a case either

2:47:41way is my point you can make the case that he was he was murdered

2:47:44you certainly can but at a certain point in time when enough circumstantial evidence it's

2:47:49fucking weird like the cameras being down the guards being asleep the cameras were down

2:47:52i think i don't want to don't quote me on exactly but they weren't down

2:47:55like that day before or something they were down for a while before and the

2:47:59security guards fall asleep all the time what did you find uh about him the

2:48:04the roommate trying to kill him oh i mean this is the this is like

2:48:08their report of it i was trying to find his but this is in this

2:48:11uh report right here he's found in a fetal position laying on the floor snoring

2:48:17epstein told officers that taglione cellmate had tried to kill him and that had been

2:48:23harassing him taglione claimed he had been asleep and woke up to see epstein with

2:48:27a string around his neck right does that make fucking sense well yeah actually but

2:48:31joe just to so he says the guy tried to kill him and if epstein

2:48:35but so and the result of this is that epstein doesn't have a cellmate right

2:48:39so epstein doesn't want to have if you want to kill yourself you don't want

2:48:43a cellmate so you can interpret the same set of you can interpret the same

2:48:47amount of facts if you want to go got a guy to go back and

2:48:50finish the job you shut the cameras off and you open the cell and you

2:48:53let this guy kill him but they shut the cameras off when they shut the

2:48:56cameras off though it doesn't matter there's no it does matter there's no because they

2:49:00know the video even the video that's there has been edited the one video they

2:49:04show of the outside of the cell a minute's missing from it there's a lot

2:49:07of weird shit to it man i agree but it's not it where you should

2:49:11arrive on in my view where the facts lead you is that we don't know

2:49:14and so that's well that's that's the difference for me than just saying that's safe

2:49:19we don't know but it is kind of fucking weird that he's in a cell

2:49:22with a contract killer kind of fucking weird that he made a complaint that the

2:49:25contract killer tried to kill him 18 days before not if you're trying to get

2:49:29did they remove that guy from his cell is that what happened he did yeah

2:49:33he's by himself obviously the night he killed himself or or was killed um or

2:49:37was killed um find the did you find the email where he's talking about um

2:49:42the lady on the island where she's saying that we brought children to an that

2:49:48someone brought children to an island remember he's faced with life in prison he loved

2:49:53his decadent hedonistic life there's plenty of motivations for him to kill himself rather than

2:49:59live in prison the rest of his life right and remember recently like i think

2:50:02it was like a day or two before he lost his bail appeal so he

2:50:05thought he'd get on bail he didn't even get on bail he's gonna be stuck

2:50:08there um the the psychologist didn't believe him she thought he was suicidal and and

2:50:14and so the the are so one way you interpret it is that they messed

2:50:17up they they did a bad job they they should have they should have known

2:50:21that he was suicidal and they should have had a roommate there they the guards

2:50:25should not fall asleep they should have fixed the video camera i just can't imagine

2:50:28you're such a high profile defendant and you're not watching him like a fucking hawk

2:50:32i would imagine that a guy like that would be in protective custody with you

2:50:37know no fucking shoelaces no no way to hang himself i think you overestimate our

2:50:42prison system i would think that you would do your very best in this case

2:50:47to make sure that this guy is watched they didn't they bring him to trial

2:50:51i mean they didn't they should have had a roommate in a cell and they

2:50:53didn't well they put him in a fucking cell with a killer so it seems

2:50:57a little bit more than that but that you when you say it that way

2:50:59you make it sound like the killer was in the cell the night he was

2:51:01killed i make it sound like this killer was in the cell with him when

2:51:04he said the killer tried to kill him right but or he that's trying to

2:51:08kill himself isn't that a little weird why didn't the guy do it then why

2:51:11didn't it work well he probably choked him unconscious and thought he was dead and

2:51:15he survived they found him unresponsive or he tried to kill himself and then when

2:51:20they said why did you try to kill himself he blames it on the roommate

2:51:22so he doesn't have to have a roommate anymore it's possible yeah so find that

2:51:27um email where he says that it's him i'm trying to i don't have access

2:51:32to the files right now that the thing i was using is gone yeah it's

2:51:36gone uh ian carroll's app was really good and it is they've taken it down

2:51:41because they're gonna make it public now it was only in beta jmail jmail's i

2:51:45know i was digging through that too and that's why i've got so many tabs

2:51:48open you guys have moved around so if you kind of go so for me

2:51:50if i go if i go we don't know if it was a homicide or

2:51:53suicide um the intelligence community work was appears to be of a long time ago

2:51:58and he was a contractor we don't have any other evidence of a sex blackmail

2:52:03operation other than that email now there is one other thing that i thought was

2:52:07one so one uh for the uh the theory that he's a blackmailer is that

2:52:13he put he's like we have emails of him putting cameras in kleenex boxes hidden

2:52:17cameras in kleenex boxes with motion detectors was that in order to engage in a

2:52:22blackmail operation well you don't necessarily have to blackmail people okay your friend uh told

2:52:32me about the projects he's doing researching a really bad guy who gets children for

2:52:36sex sent to his island she almost fainted when i told her that person is

2:52:41me that seems pretty clear i think no no i think he's saying that she's

2:52:47writing a story it was about him but i don't think he's admitting that he's

2:52:52bringing children to his island for sex i don't know about you but if i

2:52:55was sending an email and i was talking about someone researching someone who's sending children

2:53:02to an island for sex i would also include that i let her know that

2:53:07that was bullshit well she ends up coming in and meeting with them right you've

2:53:10seen the follow -up to this no so she ends up coming to meeting with

2:53:13her and i don't know if he like gives her money or something or funds

2:53:16her but it's like yeah i mean well the other thing is that like without

2:53:22justifying i mean i think that after 2008 there's not i don't think there's any

2:53:27evidence and i could be wrong there's not a lot of evidence that anybody under

2:53:31age came to you know that epstein uh you know abused anybody under 18 and

2:53:36i'm not defending abusing women over 18 but that did seem like a pretty big

2:53:41change epstein associate found dead in paris prison cell after he said he was gonna

2:53:45flip oh shocker weird maybe he got sad too well maybe he's one of the

2:53:52co -conspirators i mean people kill themselves a lot you know psychopaths also kill themselves

2:53:56a lot also people get people killed because they're gonna flip it's possible and it's

2:54:01just uh it's just we would just need evidence for it yeah so this is

2:54:06really if you're gonna kill somebody you should probably make it so that there's not

2:54:08a lot of evidence right yeah how'd they find him dead did he kill himself

2:54:14he hung hung in a cell oh a lot of sheets in there hung himself

2:54:19hanged himself yeah however you want to word it so then it's like they should

2:54:23make the sheets so then the theory would be what that bill gates uh hired

2:54:27a contract killer or who did it then who knows yeah well who knows what

2:54:32who knew what about what and when but i don't know i don't think it's

2:54:35the intelligence community because we're not seeing i just we're not i mean mike came

2:54:39in here and you guys talked for a long time and mike It's not suggesting.

2:54:42Well, there's no evidence that it was.

2:54:44I mean, we don't have like clear cut.

2:54:48He did this and they killed these guys because of that.

2:54:50We don't have that. Right.

2:54:52Yeah. So, I mean. But we also don't have three million files.

2:54:56We also like the things that we don't.

2:54:58He doesn't need blackmail to make money.

2:55:01Well, he also doesn't need blackmail in order to be able to get people to

2:55:05do things and influence them.

2:55:06And if you have video of people fucking people and doing things they're not supposed

2:55:11to be doing and you're giving them drugs and you got them on this island

2:55:14for these wild parties, they're more inclined to do things that would do stuff for

2:55:19you. I mean, it's possible.

2:55:20I mean, I'll tell you.

2:55:21I mean, FBI confiscated a lot of films and videos.

2:55:23They had that. I was always very suspicious of that.

2:55:25The fact that he's talking about hidden cameras and motion.

2:55:27It's very bad. Well, that was the narrative before that.

2:55:30There was thousands of hours, rather, of horrible videos.

2:55:35Yeah. Right. So it's possible that there was – now, I don't know that I

2:55:39would be – Visitors describe a bathroom reminiscent of James Bond movies hidden beneath a

2:55:44stairway lined with lead to provide shelter from attack and supplied with closed -circuit television

2:55:49screens and a telephone, both concealed in a cabinet behind the sink, wrote the Times.

2:55:54The townhouse is now reportedly owned by Wexner's even more mysterious protege, Jeffrey Epstein.

2:56:01That was in 2003. So, yeah.

2:56:03So this is even before his arrest.

2:56:04Yeah. Yeah. And also, the other part of it – think of this.

2:56:07Remember when Jeff Bezos was blackmailed and he was just like – Yes.

2:56:12He was like, I'm just going to – Well, that was just love letters to

2:56:14– in Lawrence Sanchez. They were pretty racy.

2:56:17Yeah. But, I mean, still, it was private, personal things where he was sending them

2:56:23to a woman he loved.

2:56:24It shows the risks of engaging in blackmail.

2:56:27And so Epstein – Yeah.

2:56:30That was like someone's brother.

2:56:32Right? So, but Epstein – I mean, in other words, if you use it, like

2:56:35if you actually, like, use your blackmail, I think it's very hard then to maintain

2:56:41your reputation as somebody – now, maybe it was sort of hovering, never articulated.

2:56:45He was attracting people. I mean, what's so striking about it is he's attracting people

2:56:49to him. He's got all this Bon Ami.

2:56:51Oh, come hang out with Chomsky and Ehud Barak and all these people.

2:56:55It's like a really good time.

2:56:57You know, I think then being like, oh, I have blackmail material on you.

2:57:00You need to do it.

2:57:00I mean, he's getting people to do what he wants them to do for money,

2:57:04you know, for feeling like good vibes, being in on some Israeli peace talks.

2:57:10I don't then see him going around.

2:57:12And maybe – look, again, like I totally – maybe – I just haven't seen

2:57:16the evidence that he's going around being like, oh, I have blackmail material on you.

2:57:19You have to do what I want.

2:57:21He got Clinton. He probably got – Why do you think he's filming everybody then?

2:57:26That is – he could be a pervert.

2:57:28I mean, there's plenty of evidence of perversion, right?

2:57:31Oh, the ranch. Investigators are finally looking to Jeffrey Epstein's New Mexico ranch.

2:57:36Federal authorities apparently never searched the property, but now state authorities will reopen a 2019

2:57:42investigation. About time, New Mexico.

2:57:44It's great. It's great. Someone on Twitter had a – or X has a very

2:57:47long – I was reading it earlier and got bored, but it's very long about

2:57:51the link with the lottery.

2:57:53Oh, yeah. How they won the lottery.

2:57:56It's weird. Wait till that – if that's accurate.

2:57:58Weird. It's weird. I agree.

2:58:00That one's crazy. I mean, Mike also points out that he was leased this incredible

2:58:04mansion in New York by the State Department, but then the State Department, like, sued

2:58:08him. So it's – you know, they're like – if he was like really –

2:58:24that $10 transfer of the house conveniently filmed, like, the best 9 -11 footage.

2:58:32And those are the 3 million – like, the timing of those missing files is

2:58:36right around the 2001 -99 time period.

2:58:40I mean, we – I think that what the files are important is that we

2:58:43saw he's able to make his money as a high -level fixer.

2:58:46We saw people were really into him.

2:58:49People loved him. He was magnetic.

2:58:51He's able to get people to do things that he wants without using that as

2:58:54a tool. And we're not seeing – I just don't see – I don't think

2:58:58we're seeing any signs or footprints or any of that of engaging in blackmail.

2:59:02We have the cameras – Right, but we don't have half of the files.

2:59:07Yeah. What we have is weird.

2:59:10The grape soda, the shrimp, the pizza references, the jerky, all that stuff is weird.

2:59:15This lady saying that there's an island where a bad guy is bringing children for

2:59:20sex. She almost fainted when I said that person's me.

2:59:22All this stuff is kind of fucked, right?

2:59:24Would you admit it's kind of fucked?

2:59:26The shrimps one, they're definitely talking about – They're objectifying women.

2:59:29Children for sex. Don't you think that's kind of fucked?

2:59:31I think it's – I think that he was – I mean, my interpretation –

2:59:35one interpretation of it is that, yeah, he's freely admitting on an email that he's

2:59:40trafficking children. I find that difficult to believe that you would put that – I

2:59:45mean, if you're going to say that he doesn't put the blackmail stuff in email,

2:59:47but he's going to put in an email that he's bringing children to the island.

2:59:51I mean, I think he's being sarcastic there.

2:59:54I think he's saying, oh, that guy is me.

2:59:56Like, that's what they say about me.

2:59:58Why wouldn't you elaborate and say – I mean, if you're sending this to someone

3:00:03who knows you – Because the person he's sending it to knows that it's not

3:00:05true. How? That's why. I mean, I think that person works for him, right?

3:00:09Masha? Is that one of the women that he had?

3:00:12I don't know. I just – I don't think that's him saying I'm – Maybe.

3:00:17Yeah. Maybe. All right. We've got to wrap this up.

3:00:20Anything else? I got one.

3:00:23Someone gave me a video I thought I'd – I can share it with you

3:00:26guys. Of what? A UFO video.

3:00:28Oh, okay. Wait, did we make it a tradition to end every sesh with a

3:00:33– can I send it to Jamie?

3:00:34Yeah, you could airdrop it.

3:00:36All right. Is it compelling?

3:00:39More compelling than Yahweh's video?

3:00:41You didn't like the Yahweh video?

3:00:43That was amazing. No, it was kind of interesting.

3:00:45All right. He's fun. Is it compelling?

3:00:46All right. Let me – you guys will decide.

3:00:49Or no, here, I sent it to – oh, can I ask you something?

3:00:52Yeah. I was curious about.

3:00:53What? Oh, I was going to – you know.

3:00:55Elon, you think Elon knows more than he's letting on about UAPs?

3:01:00Yes. How do you know that?

3:01:02Well, because he works with NASA.

3:01:05He knows something. Also, some people have told me that he knows some things.

3:01:09But don't you ask him privately?

3:01:11He don't tell me shit.

3:01:11Okay. I got a big mouth.

3:01:13I asked somebody that was high up in his operation.

3:01:16Yeah? We were on the record, but I won't reveal who they are, what they

3:01:20said. And what they say.

3:01:21And they go, I said, you guys must be, I was like, at SpaceX, you

3:01:24guys must just like have to, don't you have to edit out like UFOs that

3:01:27you get? And the person just looked at me and they just said, Elon's really

3:01:32close with the federal government.

3:01:33That was all they said.

3:01:34Good. All right. Let's see.

3:01:36Play this. I don't know.

3:01:37It doesn't look like much.

3:01:38Is there audio? What am I looking at?

3:01:43This is her. This is her video in here.

3:01:45I think she shows. I think she zooms in.

3:01:49I don't know what we're looking at.

3:01:51It's here in Texas. What are you looking at, lady?

3:01:59Okay. It's like most UFO videos.

3:02:02I know. It's just a dot.

3:02:03No, let it, let it.

3:02:04It gets better? It's 30 seconds, guys.

3:02:06Come on. Okay. Let me see.

3:02:07I'm tripping out right now.

3:02:09It looks like it's. She's tripping.

3:02:10It looks like it's. You know her?

#2465 - Michael Shellenberger