Speaker 1: All right, I decided to let about forty eight hours
Speaker 1: go by before commenting on the whole Pete heg Seth,
Speaker 1: Mike Waltz, Marco Ruby, all these top national security people
Speaker 1: who accidentally put together a signal chat to discuss the
Speaker 1: recent American strikes against the Huthis who are disrupting American
Speaker 1: shipping in the Red Sea and in the Red Sea.
Speaker 1: And because a couple of reasons, I had a liberal
Speaker 1: friend who was like, this is terrible. Don't you see
Speaker 1: this just as bad as Hillary's emails? And everyone needs
Speaker 1: to be fired. This is horrible, and it vioally it's
Speaker 1: federal law this way, this way, this way, and oh
Speaker 1: classified information people. And this is a thing I've learned
Speaker 1: as a lawyer. You have to hear both sides of
Speaker 1: the case. You have to hear both sides of the case.
Speaker 1: And I very distinctly remember this during the Brett Kavanaugh
Speaker 1: confirmation hearings, where you know, some people like him, you know,
Speaker 1: but this was just an instance of how bad this
Speaker 1: could be. You have the Brett Kavanaugh hearings and they
Speaker 1: bring in Christine blasi Ford, the woman who accused Kavanaugh.
Speaker 1: Maybe at some point I don't know when, but I
Speaker 1: definitely know it was him. I don't know when, I
Speaker 1: don't know where, I don't know how any witnesses. I
Speaker 1: don't have any contemporaneous evidence whatsoever, barely my own recollection.
Speaker 1: Somehow I know that Brett Kavanaugh actually assulted me, and
Speaker 1: then her lawyer after the fact said, well, she was
Speaker 1: motivated because she didn't want him to overturn Robe Wade. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: where Christine blasi Ford testified that Brett Kavanaugh actually assaulted her,
Speaker 1: And it was the hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 1: It was I remember the day. It was. She was
Speaker 1: testifying first, like she was testifying in the morning, and
Speaker 1: then he was testifying in the afternoon or something, and
Speaker 1: I remember it was like I remember like I was
Speaker 1: like watching it in my office. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: it was appointment viewing, and it was this in between
Speaker 1: break between Christine blasi Ford and Brett Kavanaugh, and there
Speaker 1: were conservative commentators just rushing and by the way, one
Speaker 1: of them was Ben Shapiro. By the way, so leads
Speaker 1: me to I have ever since I've taken Ben Shapiro
Speaker 1: with a grain of salt, rushing to say that the
Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh nomination was finished, that it was done, Trump
Speaker 1: was gonna have to withdraw a Brett Kavanaugh. What a disaster.
Speaker 1: Christine blasi Ford was so convincing. Why because they only
Speaker 1: heard one side of the case. Then within minutes, Brett
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh came up in front of the Judiciary Committee, he testified,
Speaker 1: and everyone was like, oh wow, because he's still he's
Speaker 1: totally denying this and he's actually pretty dang convincing. And
Speaker 1: then everyone's minds on the right certainly changed and said, well, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: maybe he shouldn't withdraw his nomination. Maybe Trump shouldn't withdraw
Speaker 1: his nomination, maybe Republicans shouldn't vote him down. And Brett
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh gets nominated, gets confirmed as a Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 1: And I continue to this day to think that the
Speaker 1: Christine Blasiford thing was ridiculous, Especially with more space and
Speaker 1: time away from it, I realize, huh, Like, why were
Speaker 1: we convinced that this was like a huge like this
Speaker 1: was someone who made a bare accusation and had no
Speaker 1: other evidence, no corroboration whatsoever of something that allegedly happened
Speaker 1: forty years ago, where she can remember absolutely no details
Speaker 1: except conveniently for the detail that it was Breck Kavanaugh,
Speaker 1: and we learned that she was politically motivated to do it.
Speaker 1: That was sort of how I felt about this story
Speaker 1: about the hoofies, Like it was so bad, the first
Speaker 1: telling of it, so bad, so terrible, that eh, I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, hold on a second before I talk
Speaker 1: about this. The legal analysis that was given along with
Speaker 1: the Atlantic article I was also highly suspicious of. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: the Atlantic is saying that all of these laws were broken.
Speaker 1: All right, let's Usually the legal analysis for a story
Speaker 1: like this, it takes like twenty four to forty eight
Speaker 1: seventy two hours, maybe even a whole week before people
Speaker 1: really get a solid sense of the legal issues at play.
Speaker 1: So I was like, all right, well, let's hold off here,
Speaker 1: let's wait and see. And I'm glad I did because
Speaker 1: I think there's a better a clearer legal picture here,
Speaker 1: and a clearer picture sort of the of a bunch
Speaker 1: of different issues involved. All right, so let me discuss
Speaker 1: sort of what happened, because I've actually used this app,
Speaker 1: this app called Signal. All right, all of these top
Speaker 1: defense officials, along with Vice President Vance, they think one
Speaker 1: of the participants was Steven Miller, who's one of the
Speaker 1: president's top advisors. We're all on this chat in this
Speaker 1: app called Signal, and Signal is basically a forum for
Speaker 1: secure and encrypted a synchronous group discussions. Think of it
Speaker 1: like your a text group that you have with multiple people,
Speaker 1: which for high level government officials who are trying to
Speaker 1: discuss sensitive top difficult topics. Some kind of asynchronous platform
Speaker 1: for talking with each other where you don't you don't
Speaker 1: have to coordinate that everyone has to be online all
Speaker 1: at the same time to all discuss it together. This
Speaker 1: could be useful for a bunch of high ranking government
Speaker 1: officials who all are busy and have busy lives and
Speaker 1: busy schedules, where you can go in, send a message,
Speaker 1: review what other people have said, give your opinion, and
Speaker 1: go about your day. Now, the problem is is that
Speaker 1: actually safe? Well there, I guess there are two problems.
Speaker 1: One is that safe? Two is that legal? So one
Speaker 1: is it legal if you're sharing highly sensitive intelligence material,
Speaker 1: there's a question about whether it's legal to do so
Speaker 1: over a forum like Signal. Signal is encrypted, it's more
Speaker 1: secure than just texting your buddy from your smartphone, but
Speaker 1: it's not perfect. Russians had hacked signals servers once before
Speaker 1: in the past, so it's not a perfectly immune thing. Also,
Speaker 1: signal officials can use signal from their phones. Now were
Speaker 1: they using it from their phones? Unclear? You can also
Speaker 1: use it from a desktop or a laptop computer, which
Speaker 1: that's how I've used signal. Also, there are some issues
Speaker 1: that some of the officials who are on the thread,
Speaker 1: or thought to be on the thread, were in foreign countries.
Speaker 1: One of them was allegedly in Russia. One of them
Speaker 1: was in South Korea. Being in Russia with your phone
Speaker 1: doing messaging with your phone could leave your phone open
Speaker 1: to hacking from intelligence agencies. You know, if you're in Russia, Russia,
Speaker 1: there are hostile actors and hostile intelligence agencies trying to
Speaker 1: hack into your stuff. If you're in South Korea, there,
Speaker 1: you know, there's far more Chinese influence in South Korea
Speaker 1: as far as intelligence, official intelligence entities, blah blah blah. However,
Speaker 1: there's also this that signal might be the best thing
Speaker 1: we've got. There's an interesting piece by an interesting piece
Speaker 1: by Michael Brendan Doherty from National Review who wrote that basically,
Speaker 1: basically Americans have this idea that our intelligence services have better,
Speaker 1: more secure They've watched too many James Bond movies and
Speaker 1: think that we've got that. Here. They are using this
Speaker 1: commercially available app on their phones for communications. How insecure
Speaker 1: is that? And what Dherty is saying, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: there was a Biden era memos sent out through the
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security actually recommending the use of signal
Speaker 1: for high level discussions. And what Dherty is saying is, well, look,
Speaker 1: let's not kid ourselves. The US government actually doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have like more secret, more secure, like better channels for
Speaker 1: asynchronous communication than this. Now, some people have pointed out,
Speaker 1: if you're going to share classified intelligence, you need to
Speaker 1: be in a skiff, a secure contained intelligence something. It's
Speaker 1: an acronym, but it basically needs Hey, you need to
Speaker 1: be in this secured area. All of these officials probably
Speaker 1: have a skiff in their homes. They can also set
Speaker 1: up a sort of traveling temporary skiff for anyone who's
Speaker 1: on the road. But as far as asynchronous communications go,
Speaker 1: signals seems to be the best thing going. And again,
Speaker 1: the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is the part
Speaker 1: of the Department of Homeland Security recommended that high level
Speaker 1: government officials switch to signal last year. So there's a
Speaker 1: couple of different things. Was the law violated. It seems
Speaker 1: like maybe the law was violated. There is a dispute
Speaker 1: right now. Jeffrey Goldberg, Now, why did this? All of
Speaker 1: this become known? I should have led with this. This
Speaker 1: all became known because Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor,
Speaker 1: accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg into this chat. Jeffrey Goldberg, who
Speaker 1: is not a national security official. He's just a writer
Speaker 1: for The Atlantic, a mainstream media journalist and a pretty
Speaker 1: liberal one at that. And Goldberg was added to this
Speaker 1: and just was astonished as he was reading, like all
Speaker 1: this stuff about attacks against the Hoho thies that turned
Speaker 1: out to be true. Now, Goldberg characterized some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that was shared as quote, war plans, and the
Speaker 1: Trump administration is saying, well, no, there wasn't any classified
Speaker 1: info that was actually shared on that. Goldberg also said
Speaker 1: that something was shared that might have involved an active
Speaker 1: CIA intelligence agent, and he so he didn't publish certain
Speaker 1: of these things. Now more stuff has been published, I
Speaker 1: think in response to the Trump administration saying none of
Speaker 1: them are Trump administration officials who keep saying, no, none
Speaker 1: of the stuff actually shared on that was classified. So
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a screw I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: screw up, certainly, and I continue to dislike this thing
Speaker 1: where now and by the way, it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: anyone's head is going to roll over this, even for
Speaker 1: the obvious mistake of adding a journalist to a conversation
Speaker 1: between the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, the
Speaker 1: Vice President of the United States, blah blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. It doesn't seem like anyone's head is
Speaker 1: going to roll over this. And the National Security Advisor
Speaker 1: has publicly been stating he's never met Jeffrey Goldberg, he
Speaker 1: has no idea who he is. He doesn't know how
Speaker 1: that would have gotten into his signal contacts. There's a
Speaker 1: thought that there's a different Trump mitration official whose initials
Speaker 1: are JG, whom he was trying to add. I wish
Speaker 1: he had added me. I mean that would have been
Speaker 1: super cool. But you know, alas as also a JG.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like nobody's heads are going to roll
Speaker 1: over this. And there's a part of me that doesn't
Speaker 1: like that. So again, though we were not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent sure was all of this information classified. Was all
Speaker 1: this information not classified? Unclear if classified information was being
Speaker 1: shared over an unauthorized platform. Low level people who do that,
Speaker 1: a lot of them tend to get prosecuted. If you're
Speaker 1: like a low level government contractor a low level official
Speaker 1: who works for the CIA, a low level member of
Speaker 1: the United States military and you share classified information in
Speaker 1: a way you're not post do you get prosecuted and
Speaker 1: you go to jail. If you're a high ranking government
Speaker 1: official and you do it, if you're Donald Trump, if
Speaker 1: you're Hillary Clinton, if you're Joe Biden, if you're you know,
Speaker 1: Secretary of State or something, you don't get in trouble. Now.
Speaker 1: Actually Trump almost got Trump was indicted for it. Actually
Speaker 1: Trump faced more potential retribution over it than anyone has,
Speaker 1: and even he it didn't go very far. Now that
Speaker 1: he's been elected, I think that whole case is going
Speaker 1: to now that he's president of the United States, I
Speaker 1: think that whole case is going to get dropped. And actually,
Speaker 1: out of all of the lawsuits filed against Trump, the
Speaker 1: only one that I ever thought was like legitimate was
Speaker 1: his retention of documents in mar A Lago that I
Speaker 1: think that was the one thing that he clearly actually
Speaker 1: did something wrong. And of course Joe Biden did the
Speaker 1: exact same thing. So there's a part of me that
Speaker 1: doesn't like this culture of like we will literally send
Speaker 1: low level people to jail for doing the same thing
Speaker 1: that high level people do. But I also I don't
Speaker 1: know if what level of objective seriousness this is getting
Speaker 1: away from what the law requires. I don't know how
Speaker 1: bad this is as far as now. Obviously adding a
Speaker 1: journalist accidentally is bad, but using signal itself as a
Speaker 1: means of communicating this stuff, I don't know how bad
Speaker 1: it is. It seems like it's not sort of what
Speaker 1: is authorized legally, but at the same time it's more
Speaker 1: secure than what is authorized, or as secure as what
Speaker 1: is authorized, and actually far more useful. If that's the case,
Speaker 1: then probably the law needs to change to reflect that,
Speaker 1: and or we need to be less severe in punishing
Speaker 1: low level people who violate the law. So I guess
Speaker 1: I obviously adding a journalist to a text thread like
Speaker 1: this is bad. I think we need to wait and
Speaker 1: see about how classified was all this stuff actually and
Speaker 1: when we return, I want to talk about people's selective
Speaker 1: outrage at selective select members of this group chat and
Speaker 1: how it all just seems to line up with people's
Speaker 1: ideological priors. That's next on the John Girardi Show. It's
Speaker 1: very funny to read who people think, whom people think
Speaker 1: should be fired, who people think should be fired. I'm
Speaker 1: get a little confused by who and whom they're I
Speaker 1: think it should be whom whom people think should be
Speaker 1: fired for the accidental adding of Jeff Goldberg, a columnist
Speaker 1: for The Atlantic, into a signal chat group discussing the
Speaker 1: imminent American strikes against the Houthis that happened earlier this month.
Speaker 1: Who should be fired over it? Whose heads should roll?
Speaker 1: Democrats say everyone should be fired. The same Democrats who
Speaker 1: didn't think a single person should be fired for the
Speaker 1: Afghanistan debacle where people actually died, think all these people
Speaker 1: should be fired over this. And both sides accused the
Speaker 1: other side of hypocrisy. And it's sort of like, well,
Speaker 1: if both sides are accusing the other of hypocrisy, are
Speaker 1: both sides hypocritical? Here? You then have the selective people
Speaker 1: who selectively we want to fire there are certain kind
Speaker 1: of more neo con leaning outlets, including I like National
Speaker 1: Review a lot. I write a lot for National Review,
Speaker 1: but they're definitely Their foreign policy tends to lean a
Speaker 1: certain direction that I don't one hundred percent agree with
Speaker 1: all the time. I probably align most with their writer,
Speaker 1: Michael Brendan Dherty. They've got two columns out, one saying
Speaker 1: that Now, again, these are not editorials by the newspaper,
Speaker 1: by the paper, it's just, you know, individual pieces by
Speaker 1: individual people. One that Trump should fire Pete hagg Seth
Speaker 1: and the other that Trump shouldn't fire Mike Waltz. Mike
Speaker 1: Waltz is a good guy, Mike Waltz the National Security Advisor,
Speaker 1: So we should fire Pete hegg Seth, the Defense Secretary,
Speaker 1: but we shouldn't fire the National Security Advisor, even though
Speaker 1: it was the National Security Advisor himself who started the
Speaker 1: whole group chat, added Jeff Goldberg to it, the guy
Speaker 1: who wasn't supposed to be on it. It's the whole
Speaker 1: reason this debacle started in the first place. Now, why
Speaker 1: are people wanting to fire Pete hagg Seth and not
Speaker 1: wanting to fire Mike Waltz. Well, Waltz as the National
Speaker 1: Security Advisor, was not thought to be a particularly maga
Speaker 1: pick by Trump, and Waltz seems to be more favored
Speaker 1: by some of the more neo con leaning people. He
Speaker 1: has more friends in sort of what used to be
Speaker 1: the quote establishment, right, so everyone it seems like there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of people like rushing to say no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no.
Speaker 2: Mike Waltz is a good guy. You know, this one
Speaker 2: screw up, you should get fired.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, none of that crowd likes Pete Hegseth one bit.
Speaker 1: Heg Seth is very much a maga pick and a
Speaker 1: maga darling. So no, no, no, we got to get
Speaker 1: rid of Pete Hegseth. And it's also one of the
Speaker 1: things I've been laughing at is sort of the outrage
Speaker 1: over the content of what was shared in the text
Speaker 1: group that that makes neo conservative commentators so angry. I mean, basically,
Speaker 1: there's what I've seen in the conservative commentariat is sort
Speaker 1: of at this higher level of like neo conservative commentators
Speaker 1: hate JD. Vans. They just despise him. They hate everything
Speaker 1: about him that. They hate his foreign policy, they hate
Speaker 1: his views of foreign relations and the foreign policy stuff.
Speaker 1: Really drives these people. Their knives are sharpened. They hate
Speaker 1: his views on Ukraine, they hate his views on America's
Speaker 1: role in the world. That they are just desperate for
Speaker 1: any chance to knife him, any chance they get. And
Speaker 1: I think they're trying to think, Okay, whom can we
Speaker 1: groom to replace JD. Vans in twenty twenty eight. They
Speaker 1: just despise him, and they've really been playing up certain
Speaker 1: aspects of what was shared in this signal group that
Speaker 1: I actually thought was fascinating. When we return, I'm going
Speaker 1: to talk about the actual content of what was shared
Speaker 1: and why it left me actually somewhat impressed. That's next
Speaker 1: on the John Girardi Show. Less discussed, although definitely noted,
Speaker 1: definitely noted in the commentariat, especially among neoconservative commentators who
Speaker 1: despise Jade Vance and all his works and all his
Speaker 1: pomps and just hate everything about him. Is the actual
Speaker 1: content of the discussions that took place in this leaked
Speaker 1: signal chat room between Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor,
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio, JD. Vance, Pete Hegseth, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, Stephen Miller. It's thought one of the President's
Speaker 1: close advisors. In this discussion about the houthis and it reflects,
Speaker 1: I think, a very different kind of approach to American
Speaker 1: foreign policy. All right, so, what's the problem. You have
Speaker 1: these houthies who are harassing shipping in the Red Sea
Speaker 1: international shipping. Now, some American shipping goes through the Red Sea,
Speaker 1: but it is more so a benefit to Europe. A
Speaker 1: lot of European shipping goes through the Red Sea. And
Speaker 1: these hoothy rebel pirates basically are huge disruptors to international
Speaker 1: trade and have made things more expensive, made things more difficult.
Speaker 1: It's bad, okay, And so the discussion comes, well, should
Speaker 1: we more aggressively strike Vance in this discussion, I thought,
Speaker 1: by the way, that the level of the discussion was
Speaker 1: actually like the kind of thing you would expect and
Speaker 1: want to see from top administration officials. The problem is
Speaker 1: us seeing it no in the pages of the Atlantic
Speaker 1: rather than you know, them just keeping it confidential. Vance
Speaker 1: discussed at length a couple of points that I thought
Speaker 1: were noteworthy, that this would be another instance of the
Speaker 1: United States bailing out Europe. That you know, again, this
Speaker 1: is Europe freeloading on the United States. As military build up,
Speaker 1: that the Europeans have been able as NATO members to
Speaker 1: reduce their level of military spending in their countries as
Speaker 1: a percentage of GDP lower and lower and lower and
Speaker 1: lower and lower, including lower than sort of the required
Speaker 1: levels for NATO membership. Why Well, because they know that
Speaker 1: the United States has got it, and we kept building up, up, up, up,
Speaker 1: up up up our military, especially for our misadventures in
Speaker 1: a rock in Afghanistan. So are another bad consequence of
Speaker 1: a rock in Afghanistan? I think is we built up
Speaker 1: our military and they built down theirs. So Dvance starts asking,
Speaker 1: I mean, why are we doing this? This is properly
Speaker 1: something that europe should do. Yes, it does involve some
Speaker 1: American shipping, but it's far more a benefit to Europe
Speaker 1: than it is to us. What are we going to
Speaker 1: get out of this? We should get something out of it.
Speaker 1: Are there concessions that we can get from the Europeans
Speaker 1: for this? And that was a big part of the discussion.
Speaker 1: Now after the fact, and by the way, let me
Speaker 1: just say this, I think most Republican voters hearing that
Speaker 1: would say hell yeah, hell yeah, jd Vance. They are
Speaker 1: free loaders like That's been the funniest thing thing to
Speaker 1: me in the Ukraine discussions, where you know, President Trump's
Speaker 1: trying to do some kind of negotiated ceasefire whatever between
Speaker 1: Russian and Ukraine.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: You know, they had the stupid meeting at the White
Speaker 1: House where Zelensky sort of blew up the meeting with
Speaker 1: in front of the cameras with with Trump and Vance
Speaker 1: and all these europe A couple of these European nations
Speaker 1: responded by saying, well, then we should The.
Speaker 2: United States is not going to the United States is
Speaker 2: abandoning us. Therefore we should build up our militaries, have
Speaker 2: our own deturn. Now, first of all, that that's tough talk,
Speaker 2: but that's going to be very difficult for them to do.
Speaker 2: They they've you know, defunded their military so much over
Speaker 2: the last twenty years. There's such a gap that even
Speaker 2: if they, you know, massively increased their defense spending that
Speaker 2: they're as I've heard Michael Brendan Doherty described this in
Speaker 2: National Review, even if they massively increase their defense spending
Speaker 2: over the next ten years, there they'll barely be in
Speaker 2: the child's passenger seat of NATO as far as a
Speaker 2: big boy contributor. But the idea that these Europeans think, ooh,
Speaker 2: we'll stick it to Donald Trump by building up our
Speaker 2: own military and taking care of these, you know, helping
Speaker 2: out our Ukraine itself. Do you really think Donald Trump
Speaker 2: wouldn't love that. That's exactly what Trump's been saying. He's
Speaker 2: desperate for you guys to build up your own military
Speaker 2: and take care of your own stinking affairs rather than
Speaker 2: us being called in.
Speaker 1: Oh no, the Europeans might actually build up their own
Speaker 1: militaries and handle their own freaking problems for once. Yes,
Speaker 1: Trump wants that. That's not like, this is not some
Speaker 1: oh dear, oh dear me, what a threat. No, that's
Speaker 1: precis you know what else are you gonna do? Make
Speaker 1: me a steak dinner and get me a nice bottle
Speaker 1: of white like, uh, that's what I want. However, there
Speaker 1: are a bunch of these sort of neocon writers now
Speaker 1: who are writing these things about how terrible jd Vance
Speaker 1: is for acting transactional with American shipping. I'm shipping free
Speaker 1: shipping lanes or good for everyone, and it's an important role.
Speaker 1: How can a marine not be aware that the United
Speaker 1: States military has been involved in anti piracy efforts since
Speaker 1: the very founding of the Marines, from the wholes of
Speaker 1: Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, which is when the
Speaker 1: Marine Corps first began its action against pirates under Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 1: And it's all this like preachy stuff, But this is
Speaker 1: the mandate that won the election, is the Vance view.
Speaker 1: We're tired of foreign policy stuff that isn't clearly benefiting us. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's bad that Russia is invading Ukraine. It's very bad.
Speaker 1: We don't like it. Putin's a bad guy. The Ukrainians
Speaker 1: totally understand that they want all the money in the world,
Speaker 1: all the weapons of everything possible to fight them off.
Speaker 1: That God bless them, but it's all on our dollar.
Speaker 1: It needs to be clear that there's some benefit we
Speaker 1: get out of this, because guess what, guys, whoever controls
Speaker 1: the Donbas, the territory in the southeast Ukraine that's near
Speaker 1: the Black Sea, whoever controls the Donbas doesn't change a
Speaker 1: flipping thing for you and me. It just doesn't change
Speaker 1: much about American life. So if we're gonna get involved
Speaker 1: or give them money or something, there's got to be
Speaker 1: some kind of clear benefit to US, because that's Russia's
Speaker 1: encroachment in Ukraine, I agree is threatening. It ain't threatening
Speaker 1: to me, it's threatening to people who live in Poland.
Speaker 1: It's threatening to people who live in Latvia and Estonia.
Speaker 1: So maybe if there was like a union of European
Speaker 1: countries who could all coordinate their funding and their militaries
Speaker 1: to provide their own deterrent against If only there was
Speaker 1: like a Union of Europe, like a like a Union
Speaker 1: of Europe that had a bigger population than the United
Speaker 1: States does and a GDP. No, maybe not more than
Speaker 1: the United States, but maybe comparable, and that could pool
Speaker 1: its resources. But no, the European Union hasn't done that.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think there's any reason the European
Speaker 1: Union couldn't be a stronger military power. But guess what.
Speaker 1: European Union is full of countries that have a welfare state.
Speaker 1: They're paying off everybody's pensions, and they don't have the
Speaker 1: money right now, or they don't think they have the money,
Speaker 1: or they just have not prioritized defense spending, and so
Speaker 1: as a result, they're like two decades behind where they
Speaker 1: ought to be. If they actually want to provide a
Speaker 1: de turrn to Russia. So at any rate, do I
Speaker 1: think anyone should be fired over you know, this signal group?
Speaker 1: I mean, probably somebody should, right, I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: And it's all I mean, none of these people are
Speaker 1: going to hit the breadline. Are any of these people indispensable?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it seems like signal has
Speaker 1: become kind of a best practices thing. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that I'm actually upset about people using signal for these
Speaker 1: kinds of communications. The more I'm reading about it, the
Speaker 1: more I'm sort of thinking, well, I don't know that
Speaker 1: this is actually less secure than an actually you know,
Speaker 1: government approved secure communications channel. And there's also I think
Speaker 1: this open question of was what you know, the Trump
Speaker 1: administration is claimed maybe this is a cya. I don't know.
Speaker 1: They could be full of it, but the Trump Administration's
Speaker 1: claiming it wasn't anything classified disgust I don't know. It
Speaker 1: seems a little difficult for me to believe the timing
Speaker 1: of a missile strike, you know, the when and where
Speaker 1: it's going to happen, A missile strike that hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 1: It seems like that would be seems like that would
Speaker 1: be secured but they're saying not. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: pretty bold claim to make publicly when you know that
Speaker 1: it's in the possession of a hostile journalist who can
Speaker 1: share it with the Intelligence Committee anytime he wants. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it depends a little bit
Speaker 1: on whether the stuff was actually classified, how sensitive it was.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't necessarily have I don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: a dog in the fight. I don't actually know that
Speaker 1: much about Mike Waltz. There again, there's this person exception
Speaker 1: of him as a bit more establishment GOP foreign policy friendly,
Speaker 1: less MAGA, so there's some knives out for him. There's
Speaker 1: some people vigorously trying to defend him, but trying to
Speaker 1: fire Pete hegg Seth, which I think is silly. Waltz, clearly, though,
Speaker 1: was the person who added Jeffrey Goldberg to the group,
Speaker 1: to this chat group, and he's trying to I don't
Speaker 1: know how that could have happened, but you know he
Speaker 1: did it. So I don't know. If I guess if
Speaker 1: anyone should be fired, it's him. I'm loath to believe
Speaker 1: that signal was an inappropriate venue. I find it difficult
Speaker 1: to believe I should say that signal was an inappropriate
Speaker 1: venue for sharing this communication only because of how many
Speaker 1: top officials were on it. Marc Rubio, Pete hegg Seth
Speaker 1: JD vans this person that including people with with with
Speaker 1: lots of experience with intelligence and intelligence sharing and secure
Speaker 1: intelligent sharing, that that none of them would have thought, Hey,
Speaker 1: maybe this isn't the best venue for sharing this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes me think that this is sort
Speaker 1: of the standard that is used for sharing this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. So should anyone get fired? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think if anyone should, I guess it's Mike Waltz,
Speaker 1: because he was the one who added some random journalists
Speaker 1: to this, which all seems a little suspicious to me.
Speaker 1: By the way, a very prominent journalist from the Atlantic
Speaker 1: is the one who got added. I have no proof,
Speaker 1: but of all the jgs that Mike Waltz knew, he
Speaker 1: picks the one JG who happens to write from a
Speaker 1: major mainstream media outlet. Seems a little suspicious. And I
Speaker 1: wonder if there were going to learn anything more about that.
Speaker 1: All right, when we returned getting away from all this
Speaker 1: national security stuff, the really important stuff, baby names Republican
Speaker 1: stop giving your babies terrible names. Next on the John
Speaker 1: Girardi Show. All right, to close it out, Let's close
Speaker 1: it out on something light baby names. There is this
Speaker 1: website called name Berry, which tracks names parents give their
Speaker 1: newborn babies throughout the United States. And someone did a
Speaker 1: tweet where he did an analysis of names that are
Speaker 1: most prominent in Blue states versus most prominent in Red
Speaker 1: states and did it by boys and girls. So you
Speaker 1: take a name, and eighty percent of this name happens
Speaker 1: in Blue states. Okay. That's so eighty percent of kids
Speaker 1: with this name are born in a Blue state. Okay.
Speaker 1: So it's a little bit of an analysis of like
Speaker 1: how liberals are naming their babies versus conservatives. Now, when
Speaker 1: you look at the most Blue state prominent names, a
Speaker 1: lot of them are Jewish or Muslim. Okay, So Yusuf, Ali, Ibrahim, Okay,
Speaker 1: those are all Muslim boy names, Mohammed. Okay. The most
Speaker 1: Blue State prevalent name is Mosha, which is a Jewish name,
Speaker 1: and I think it's probably mostly like very orthodox Jewish
Speaker 1: people naming their kids Mosha. So ninety seven percent of
Speaker 1: Mosha's are in Blue states. Okay, that makes sense. They're
Speaker 1: probably all in New York Santino. Eighty two percent of
Speaker 1: Santinos are in Blue states, So that's probably like, if
Speaker 1: you're really hardcore Italian and you live in New York
Speaker 1: or you know, Rhode Island or something like that, you're
Speaker 1: naming your kids Santino. Okay, then you go to the
Speaker 1: girl names, and the girl names are a bit more Yeah, Fiona,
Speaker 1: are these all people who watch Shrek when they were
Speaker 1: kids now having babies? Leanna Mira Mariam I think is
Speaker 1: a Muslim name. Kira Miriam, I think that's a Jewish name.
Speaker 1: More so, uh Nina, Aiesha, Paige Kayla. Now you read
Speaker 1: Staters listening to this, you were conservatives listening to this,
Speaker 1: I would caution you about making fun of these names, because,
Speaker 1: let me just tell you the boy names. Sorry, the
Speaker 1: Red state prevalent names are a train wreck. Let's get
Speaker 1: into it. Okay. The most Red state prevalent name with
Speaker 1: seventy two percent of these kids live in Red States,
Speaker 1: and then the alternates, seventy two percent of kids with
Speaker 1: this name live in Red states. Cohen with a K.
Speaker 1: Red Staters, why are you naming your non Jewish child Cohen?
Speaker 1: Cohen is a Jewish surname. It's an incredibly Jewish surname.
Speaker 1: In fact, I read a thing somewhere saying that people
Speaker 1: named Cohen were thought to be descended from like the
Speaker 1: priestly line of Jewish people, like the descendants of Aaron
Speaker 1: who served as the priests in the Old Testament Covenant.
Speaker 1: That's what Cohen signifies. Red State women, Why are you
Speaker 1: naming your highly not Jewish child Cohen? Because Cohen with
Speaker 1: a C is also on the Red State prevalent name
Speaker 1: sixty sixty one percent of Cohen's with a SEA live
Speaker 1: in Red State. Seventy two percent of Cohen's with a
Speaker 1: K live in Red State. By the way, Cohen with
Speaker 1: a K, I don't think it's even like the most
Speaker 1: common way that Cohen is spelled, like as a laughs name,
Speaker 1: So like you're you're both intentionally misspelling it and not
Speaker 1: making any sense. Here are the other boy name Red
Speaker 1: State boy names, Baylor, Stetson, Kisen, Trip Sutton, Cohen, Gunner, Baker.
Speaker 1: Are you just trying to get all the names of
Speaker 1: all the characters from Yellowstone? And then the girl names
Speaker 1: are a total train wreck? Hattie Oaklynn with a y
Speaker 1: n n oak Lee with an E I G H.
Speaker 1: Grace Lynn with a Y N N Renley. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what that means. Blake Lee, that's the last
Speaker 1: name Collins, that's a last name, Oaklee with two e's,
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? Sailor with an A Y L
Speaker 1: O R Oakley. Do you like the sunglasses? That'll do it?
Speaker 1: John Girardi show, see you next time on Power Talk