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Speaker 2: There's no safe like simply safe. Welcome. I applied Dave America.
Speaker 2: I'm John Favra. I'm John Lovin Tommy Detour on today's show,
Speaker 2: the US and Iran have signed a memo to end hostilities,
Speaker 2: allegedly for now. We'll talk about it as well as
Speaker 2: the implications for Iran's nuclear program, Israel and our own
Speaker 2: mid term politics. Will also dig into Trump's eightieth birthday celebration,
Speaker 2: which involved the much anticipated White House UFC fight and
Speaker 2: lots of opportunities for him and his pals to make
Speaker 2: more money. Gavin Newsom just announced that Trump's goons at
Speaker 2: the Justice Department are investigating his wife in a bid
Speaker 2: to derail his potential presidential campaign. We'll get into what
Speaker 2: we know about that. Then Tommy talks to Senator Mark
Speaker 2: Warner about the Iran situation and with the Senate can do,
Speaker 2: and why he's pushing his colleagues to confirm Trump's new
Speaker 2: pick for DNI. Before we start, please consider subscribing if
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Speaker 2: All right, let's get to the news. The Iran War
Speaker 2: appears to be over and Donald Trump has lost. US
Speaker 2: and Iranian officials have signed a memorandum of Understanding shorthanded
Speaker 2: as an MoU that extends the ceasefire another sixty days,
Speaker 2: reopens the strait of horror moves in exchange for ending
Speaker 2: the US naval blockade of Iran, and kicks just about
Speaker 2: every other issue to the next phase of negotiations, including
Speaker 2: Iran's nuclear program and economic sanctions relief. Iran has certainly
Speaker 2: suffered significant casualties and damage in this war, but Trump's
Speaker 2: war didn't topple the Iranian regime, destroy its military or
Speaker 2: ballistic missile capabilities, and around support for proxies like Hesbola
Speaker 2: or eliminate its nuclear program. By the way, those were
Speaker 2: all of the objectives that Trump and Marco Rubio laid
Speaker 2: out way back in February and March when this whole
Speaker 2: thing started. Other than that mission accomplished, which seems to
Speaker 2: be a face saving agreement that lets Trump pretend he won,
Speaker 2: which he did shortly after arriving in Europe for the
Speaker 2: G seven on Monday.
Speaker 3: The Delzo side and the strangers already partially opened, as
Speaker 3: you know, they're doing a little hunting for a couple
Speaker 3: of minds. The ships are starting to go out now.
Speaker 3: On Friday, it'll be completely opened. It's not like the
Speaker 3: Obama document, which was just a terrible document. I think
Speaker 3: it's going to be free sailing. We do want to
Speaker 3: see we get straight out the Lebanon thing.
Speaker 2: Where were they, by the way, the least presidential backdrop
Speaker 2: I've ever seen. I don't know, somewhere in France if
Speaker 2: he's with Macran, but if they're on.
Speaker 1: A porch or somewhere, I don't know where they were.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the Obama document was terrible, and we do want
Speaker 2: to straighten out Lebanon. Maybe Lemon and Lemon and so
Speaker 2: the Administration says the full text of the MoU won't
Speaker 2: be released for another day or two. But based on
Speaker 2: the details that have been reported, how does the deal
Speaker 2: look beyond the headline summary that I gave, you know, the.
Speaker 1: Old Mike Myers thing, like you know, the soup nuts
Speaker 1: or anither sup or nuts. Like It's like, this isn't
Speaker 1: this is the replacement nuclear deal. It's not nuclear, we
Speaker 1: know that. But it's not really even a deal because
Speaker 1: presumably in a deal, both sides would have to concede something,
Speaker 1: and I can't figure out what Iran has conceded. I
Speaker 1: know what the US gave up right, I know what
Speaker 1: we're uh, well, you know, there's a massive fund that
Speaker 1: they could get access to sanctions relief. They make it
Speaker 1: a bunch of cash. They get to cease fire in Lebanon,
Speaker 1: which they want to try to constrain. Iran seems to
Speaker 1: have agree to the Non Proliferation Treaty, had already agreed to,
Speaker 1: and to reopen the Strait of Hormons, which was open
Speaker 1: one hundred and nine days ago. So this is not
Speaker 1: a deal. This is the US surrendering in order to
Speaker 1: reopen the negotiations it stopped when it bombed Iran.
Speaker 4: This is a deal to temporarily deal with the fallout
Speaker 4: from the stupid war we started in hopes of maybe
Speaker 4: getting a full nuclear deal.
Speaker 2: The accomplish our goals.
Speaker 4: I mean, you you laid it out. I mean the
Speaker 4: Trump described his goal as he did a video statement
Speaker 4: right after they started the war. He said, We're going
Speaker 4: to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to
Speaker 4: the ground. Where do you annihilate their navy orre to
Speaker 4: ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize
Speaker 4: the region or the world. Then attack our forces and
Speaker 4: we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 2: I guess we like, maybe you get one for four
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we took out your navy, but they saw the
Speaker 4: straight of hormuves closed, so that doesn't seem good. So,
Speaker 4: like I this is hard to message because this was
Speaker 4: the best deal available to Trump and for the world,
Speaker 4: because it ended the war and we were seeing economies
Speaker 4: in Asia collapsing. We could see it still see a
Speaker 4: global famine because of what was happening. But Trump accomplished
Speaker 4: none of his goals, and I think we should we
Speaker 4: have to message that and Irana knows that can shut
Speaker 4: down the global economy at any time by closing the
Speaker 4: Straight or her moves, and they could get hundreds of
Speaker 4: billions of dollars in sanctions relief, like this is a disaster,
Speaker 4: and the Trump and Yahoo like then Yahoo actively tried
Speaker 4: regime change by killing the Supreme Leader. Trump was for
Speaker 4: it when it seemed like it might happen. But the
Speaker 4: net effect is there's now a younger, more hardline Supreme
Speaker 4: Leader and a more entrenched IRGC running the show, and
Speaker 4: the United States looks like we're unreliable and weak.
Speaker 2: I thought it was very funny that in one of
Speaker 2: his truths about this, Trump was like, I hereby declare
Speaker 2: the straight open. And then you look at some of
Speaker 2: the fine print, or at least some of the reported details.
Speaker 2: And before the war, the Strait was controlled by no one.
Speaker 2: It was old body of water, and now it will
Speaker 2: be controlled by Iran and Oman together apparently. And so
Speaker 2: you don't really hear Trum talking about that, although he
Speaker 2: is saying it's toll free. It's toll free like the
Speaker 2: calls that we used to make back in the eighties
Speaker 2: and nineties. Sounds like it might be toll free for
Speaker 2: sixty days, and then iran as plans to slap a
Speaker 2: toll on that shipping. Yeah, they've said that they can
Speaker 2: charge fees, so that seems to be even that seems
Speaker 2: to be in dispute right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, you know, Trump is saying that it'll be fully
Speaker 1: open by Friday when the sign when they signed the agreement,
Speaker 1: but when they were last talking about what the deal
Speaker 1: would look like, it was going to take thirty days
Speaker 1: to potentially remove the mines that are in place. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if I were I were an oil tanker,
Speaker 1: I would definitely want to go after several.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't want to be first.
Speaker 1: A lot of like no no after you, after you, exon,
Speaker 1: no no, no after you.
Speaker 4: Every restaurant opening gets delayed, you know, like when you
Speaker 4: do a remodeling, takes a lot to get the cat out.
Speaker 2: You want to be the third or fourth oil tank
Speaker 2: for sure, maybe fifth or six? Can I read you, guys?
Speaker 4: One quote from a senior administration official. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 4: his name rhyme so with a HEYDI prant. One of
Speaker 4: the really cool things and interesting things about this entire
Speaker 4: process that we actually have a direct relationship with a
Speaker 4: number of people at the highest.
Speaker 2: Levels of the Iranian government.
Speaker 4: You know, you could have just called them and not
Speaker 4: killed like their whole family.
Speaker 2: So that the war the war, the war was literally
Speaker 2: the friends we made along with That's what that's what
Speaker 2: we learned.
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, man, I know it's hard to make
Speaker 1: adult friends.
Speaker 2: Jdvan the male loneliness crisis, he's saw unbelievable. With the
Speaker 2: Iran war. Where's the There's some back and forth on
Speaker 2: the sanctions relief too, So it's like, first it was
Speaker 2: we heard some reports that there'd be twelve billion and
Speaker 2: sanctions relief right away, with another twenty four billion coming
Speaker 2: later depending on what Iran does. And then Iran's asking
Speaker 2: for like a pot of three hundred billion dollars that
Speaker 2: they might be able to access down the road. Now
Speaker 2: it seems like there's no sanctions relief right away. But
Speaker 2: it's also like where is the money coming? This is
Speaker 2: like it would be unfrozen asset. It's right, yeah, there's
Speaker 2: much of unfrozen.
Speaker 4: Like there's a bunch of frozen money, that is the
Speaker 4: Iranians money is sitting in banks and Qatar for example.
Speaker 4: Then there's all this Tacola guth up to a three
Speaker 4: hundred billion dollar investment fund that will come from golf countries.
Speaker 4: I think the truth is no one knows Iran's real
Speaker 4: money is going to come from slapping fees on ships
Speaker 4: that go through the strait or her moves going forward
Speaker 4: and sanctions relief.
Speaker 2: Is my guest selling all its oil again?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's they've already claimed that the DOCU sign
Speaker 1: has done or however they did it over email. What
Speaker 1: is released the text? If the if the Iranians have
Speaker 1: seen it and signed it, and we've seen it and
Speaker 1: signed it, there's no secrets between us. So to me, like,
Speaker 1: I don't I can't think of a reason why Iron
Speaker 1: wouldn't want the text out there. It seems to me
Speaker 1: that Vans and Trump are trying to spin this thing
Speaker 1: until we see the text and everybody loses their fucking mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe there's something about Jeffrey Epstein in the text.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that could be he negotiates this thing. There
Speaker 2: we go. Boy, that would be what a surprise that
Speaker 2: one connect the conspiracy. Trump was always going to say
Speaker 2: whatever deal signed was better than Obama's Iran deal. You
Speaker 2: were saying Tommy this morning that the comparison is apples
Speaker 2: and oranges. Yeah, in the case.
Speaker 4: In the case of the apples, there was a deal
Speaker 4: that when it's a force, and that worked for a
Speaker 4: couple of years. According to Trump's own top national security aids.
Speaker 4: In Trump's case, there is no deal. There exists a
Speaker 4: framework to talk about possibly getting to a deal. And
Speaker 4: just to remind everybody, with a JCPOA said the preamble
Speaker 4: of the JCPOA said, quote, Iran reaffirms and under no
Speaker 4: circumstances will Iron ever seek develop or acquire nuclear weapons. Right,
Speaker 4: So whenever Trump says, look, they said they're not going
Speaker 4: to get a nuclear weapon. That was already enshrined in
Speaker 4: the JCPOA and also enshrined in another treaty called the NPT,
Speaker 4: we won't.
Speaker 2: That's a labor that.
Speaker 4: But to make sure that Iron could not get a
Speaker 4: nuclear weapon, the JCPOA said, Iran had to reduce its
Speaker 4: enrichment capacity by two thirds. I meant like taking down
Speaker 4: or shipping out or shutting out all their centrifuges. They
Speaker 4: had a Captain Richmond at three point six percent purity,
Speaker 4: three point six seven percent purity. They had to ship
Speaker 4: out ninety seven percent of their stockpile and allow the
Speaker 4: IAEA to inspect all of their nuclear sites in the
Speaker 4: cree to not build a new enrichment facility for up
Speaker 4: to fifteen years. Republicans are always mad about the sunset
Speaker 4: provisions in that agreement, but it was working, and it worked,
Speaker 4: and it sounds like Trump is maybe at best going
Speaker 4: to get a similar deal after launching this disastrous war
Speaker 4: that he could have gotten if he just tried to renegotiate. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we need a president without sunset provision.
Speaker 1: Is the problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does seem like now that the blockade will
Speaker 2: be over and the strait is open, Like, it's not
Speaker 2: like there's a lot of pressure on Iran to get
Speaker 2: something out of these negotiations. It's just if they want
Speaker 2: sanctions relief, which I'm sure they do, then maybe they
Speaker 2: make a deal. But they've also been going on quite
Speaker 2: a long time without sanctions relief, so it doesn't seem
Speaker 2: like there's a forcing mechanism here. So Israeli and US
Speaker 2: officials are both saying that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon is
Speaker 2: not part of the agreement. Iran and Pakistan are saying
Speaker 2: an end to all military operations in Lebanon is part
Speaker 2: of the agreement. Trump has also been publicly attacking that
Speaker 2: Yah Who over the last few days for launching strikes
Speaker 2: in Lebanon that nearly tanked the deal. He told Axios
Speaker 2: that BB has quote no fucking judgment. So this chapter
Speaker 2: of the conflict seems unresolved. What do you guys make
Speaker 2: of the Trump BB dust up and where this goes
Speaker 2: from here?
Speaker 1: That was in an interview in which Trump said that
Speaker 1: Israel launching those strikes delayed the deal from going through,
Speaker 1: and then after the deal goes through, in which Iran
Speaker 1: and Trump are claiming Israel is bound Nenyah who says
Speaker 1: he doesn't see eye to eye to Trump and they
Speaker 1: retain all their prerogatives to defend Israel from attack. And
Speaker 1: so I don't understand what is supposed to happen over
Speaker 1: the next sixty days and how you get to the
Speaker 1: end of sixty days without Trump threatening further military escalation
Speaker 1: to get to a deal, or Israel threatening military escalation
Speaker 1: or there being some kind of a fight in Lebanon.
Speaker 1: Because in his first comments about this, Who said, plainly,
Speaker 1: we reserve the right to prevent Iran from having a
Speaker 1: nuclear weapon that will continue to be our position regardless
Speaker 1: of an agreement.
Speaker 4: Yeah, every time Detnyah who wants to try to blow
Speaker 4: up talks or prevent a deal, he just bombs somewhere
Speaker 4: in Beirut. And he tried that move again here and
Speaker 4: it seems to have pissed Trump off, and actually I
Speaker 4: think probably sped.
Speaker 2: Up the deal.
Speaker 4: You know, do you think it's hard to overstate how
Speaker 4: negative the reaction to this deal is in Israel?
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 4: I follow this one Israeli political security analyst who was
Speaker 4: in the idea for twenty five years. Then he ran
Speaker 4: the head of the Iran branch for Israeli military intelligence
Speaker 4: at one point, so, like you know, pretty hardline guy.
Speaker 4: He described the deal as a political insecurity catastrophe for
Speaker 4: Israel because the nuclear issue is unresolved and the fact
Speaker 4: that Trump lost the war will likely defer future presidents
Speaker 4: from taking military action against Ron. What you're just saying
Speaker 4: there about the lack of stick now for the Iranians
Speaker 4: And it also it seems like iron will end up
Speaker 4: stronger because they will have all these financial incentives and
Speaker 4: there will never there won't really be a credible to
Speaker 4: turn anymore, because no President's going to want to touch
Speaker 4: the stove. And so this is a huge for Ntnia himself.
Speaker 4: He was mister iron, he was mister security, he was
Speaker 4: the guy who could manipulate Washington. Now he's none of
Speaker 4: those things. He's got an election coming up. And here's
Speaker 4: what some of his opponents are saying. Aving Dor Lieberman
Speaker 4: said a catastrophe. From Israel's perspective, that was one quote, Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're lapede the moderate. This is one of the most
Speaker 4: shocking failures of Israel's foreign insecurity policy period. So I
Speaker 4: think I'm also watching whether n Yeah tries to blow
Speaker 4: this up. I mean, they're currently occupying the Ford operating
Speaker 4: line for the IDEF right now is six miles into Lebanon.
Speaker 4: They say they're not going to retreat from that, but
Speaker 4: they're also going to get shot at by Hesbulas. So
Speaker 4: I just I'm not sure how this is going to go.
Speaker 4: But he needs to be careful because he needs Trump's
Speaker 4: help both politically and in terms of security support going forward.
Speaker 2: But also you can imagine from Trump's perspective that he's thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: I got this whole thing done. If the negotiations over
Speaker 2: the nuclear program don't really go anywhere. No one at
Speaker 2: home's really going to care or notice, and I can
Speaker 2: just move on. Bbe though, for everything you just said,
Speaker 2: Tommy clearly is not done with Lebanon and Hesbela and
Speaker 2: is now feeling all kinds of pressure yep, to continue that.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Trump thinks, well, BIB can do whatever he wants. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm washing my hands of this, like I don't I
Speaker 2: don't want to deal with it. But Iran knows that
Speaker 2: the best way to get the US back into the
Speaker 2: conflict and to draw them, to draw us back in,
Speaker 2: is to close the straight again. So like you can
Speaker 2: imagine that, like BB goes into Lebanon and then there's
Speaker 2: another and then Iran, you know, fires to help let
Speaker 2: Hesbela and they go back and forth, and Trump wants
Speaker 2: to stay out of the whole thing, but Iran of
Speaker 2: course knows that it can get us back into the
Speaker 2: whole thing just by closing the straight again. And so
Speaker 2: like Trump's Trump's dream, I'm sure is like let these
Speaker 2: people fight it out. I don't care anymore. I want
Speaker 2: to wash my hands with this, Like I just don't
Speaker 2: think it's gonna be that easy.
Speaker 1: Do Hesbela can launch missiles at any time to draw
Speaker 1: Israel back into the conflict and draw criticism from the
Speaker 1: world because Israel is escalating the conflict in response to Hesblad.
Speaker 1: Part of what Iran has been doing is using haze
Speaker 1: Bla to make this conflict also about Lebanon, which it
Speaker 1: successfully did, right because now Israel, because now you know,
Speaker 1: Iran can call off Hesbla for a short period of
Speaker 1: time while demanding Israel adhere to a ceasefire in which
Speaker 1: it's perpetually under threat from Hesbela in the north. So
Speaker 1: it's just the stupidity of this war. We will just
Speaker 1: be living with it for just a very very long time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, the Iranis have said, they've made clear
Speaker 4: that if the Israelis hit targets in parts of Beirut,
Speaker 4: they will fire back directly at Tel Aviv. And that's
Speaker 4: the linkage they created in the two conflicts. And I
Speaker 4: think it's a very dangerous place for Nanyahu to bebs people,
Speaker 4: especially in northern Israel, feel like they're living under constant
Speaker 4: threat from Hesbwela bombardment. They are, Yeah, it's totally fair
Speaker 4: to feel that way, But in terms of as a
Speaker 4: security measure, this such as backfire fired spectacularly for Nanya.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about how the memo is playing in magaworld,
Speaker 2: which has been divided over Iran Bloodthirsty warmonger Lindsay Graham
Speaker 2: raised some eyebrows when he tweeted that, while he was
Speaker 2: pleased to hear the strait will be reopened, he's quote
Speaker 2: somewhat concerned with what the Iranians are saying about them.
Speaker 2: You believe that Congress must have the final say on
Speaker 2: any nuclear agreement, and quote, it is imperative that the
Speaker 2: architect of the deal, Vice President Vance, and his negotiating
Speaker 2: partners end quote, be part of presenting any final deal
Speaker 2: to Congress. Uh So what's that all about? You think?
Speaker 2: And have you guys seen any other noteworthy reactions from
Speaker 2: either the anti war magafaction or the Iran Hawks.
Speaker 1: Saw John Bolton criticizing it. The Lindsay Graham being unable
Speaker 1: to criticize Trump because Donald Trump cannot fail, He can
Speaker 1: only be failed. So pathetic. You want to hang this
Speaker 1: around JD. Vance's neck because he's easier to criticize. You
Speaker 1: feel like you have a little bit more. You're just
Speaker 1: just not scared of the guy. It's just it's all
Speaker 1: sort of the usual pathetic instagram.
Speaker 4: The anti Iran hawks are losing their minds. I interpreted
Speaker 4: Graham's comments both as wrapping this thing around jd Vance's neck,
Speaker 4: but also maybe suggesting that this would be subject to
Speaker 4: a sixty seven vote threshold in the Senate, which means
Speaker 4: it would be dead or Yeah, treaties require too to vote.
Speaker 4: The jcpoway was not treated as a treaty, thus future
Speaker 4: presidents were not bound by it, So maybe that's the
Speaker 4: argument here. But like Mark Levin, the Fox News host,
Speaker 4: is losing his mind on an hourly basis, He's getting
Speaker 4: in fights with like the National Security SEMIA, the neo
Speaker 4: kon thank tanks are losing their minds. There's one called FDD,
Speaker 4: the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, which is just
Speaker 4: this garbage human beings, you know, propped up by right
Speaker 4: wing billionaire money who do nothing but push for wars
Speaker 4: that they nor their kids will ever fight in. I
Speaker 4: haven't heard APAC way in that. That's they've been sort
Speaker 4: of suspiciously quiet. So but the hawkish wing of the
Speaker 4: Republican Party is furious. They know this is a capitulation,
Speaker 4: they know Trump lost. They're just trying to figure out
Speaker 4: how to undo it.
Speaker 2: I hate to break it to Lindsay Graham and maybe JD. Vance,
Speaker 2: but I don't think Congress will be viewing any kind
Speaker 2: of deal anytime soon because I just can't imagine a
Speaker 2: deal actually getting done at this point. A good point
Speaker 2: you can see Graham going after Vance is like you said,
Speaker 2: because you know it can't criticize Trump, but also it's
Speaker 2: kind of like a warning shot Jdvance about twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2: And it did make me think that if this goes
Speaker 2: as we think it's going to go, and the Iron
Speaker 2: Warhawks are all pissed off, someone's going to try to
Speaker 2: launch some kind of a more pro war campaign in
Speaker 2: the Republican primary against the Jdvance that is destined to fail,
Speaker 2: by the way Tom Cotton or something exactly. But you
Speaker 2: can see Lindsay Cruise. Yeah, Lindsay they want to kind
Speaker 2: of hold Jdvans up. Is like beware, beware, we're gonna
Speaker 2: come after We're gonna come after you in a primary
Speaker 2: with our hawks, which is like, oh, I'd be so snared. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't really know that's gonna work, but you can
Speaker 2: see that, you can see that maybe like Ted Cruz,
Speaker 2: who's also I saw thinking about a presidential campaign again. Amazing,
Speaker 2: amazing stuff.
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Speaker 2: The High Country. Go to Drink Willies dot com and
Speaker 2: use cocrooked. I want to touch on all the political
Speaker 2: implications of all this for them midterms and beyond. There's
Speaker 2: a question of how long it will take for high
Speaker 2: gas prices and other straight related disruptions to end. A
Speaker 2: question of whether Trump and Republicans will be able to
Speaker 2: just move on from Iran and pretend like it never happened,
Speaker 2: even if the next phase of negotiations hasn't led to
Speaker 2: a deal by November, and then there's the question of
Speaker 2: what Democrats say about any of this over the next
Speaker 2: few weeks and months. Tommy, you want to take the
Speaker 2: I know you have some thoughts on the last one, especially.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that being a Democrat in this situation
Speaker 4: is very hard because we are trying to be responsible.
Speaker 4: And you know, if a Democrat was cutting this deal,
Speaker 4: of Barack Obama was making this agreement, Republicans would say,
Speaker 4: you're weak, You're a coward, you lost you know Rinse
Speaker 4: repeat on Fox News at nauseum, and it's a simple
Speaker 4: and powerful message, you know, strength versus weakness. Our job
Speaker 4: is harder because again, ending the war was the best
Speaker 4: of a bad set of options. But we need to
Speaker 4: explain why Trump's starting the war has made us worse
Speaker 4: off as a nation, because I think we just need
Speaker 4: to kill in Finally, this neo con argument that you
Speaker 4: can bomb your way to peace, this in I rock.
Speaker 4: Somehow it wasn't discredited. Then now we're at war with
Speaker 4: Iran and it's just a nightmare. And so again it's
Speaker 4: repeating that we failed on the core objectives and just
Speaker 4: arguing that we could have gotten the deal. Trump will
Speaker 4: potentially get after this sixty days of negotiation without ever
Speaker 4: going to war. The original sin was not in twenty
Speaker 4: and eighteen just trying to renegotiate the JCPOA. And I
Speaker 4: think Democrats need to be more full throated in support
Speaker 4: of diplomatic solutions to problems, stopping afraid of their own
Speaker 4: shadow on this stuff, and more full throated about why
Speaker 4: regime change wars in the Middle East were a disaster.
Speaker 4: I thought we'd all gotten there, but apparently not.
Speaker 1: The good news is extremely unpopular, like shockingly unpopular. Sixty
Speaker 1: days from now is what like mid August, and so
Speaker 1: two possibilities, well the whole range of possibilities, but two
Speaker 1: possibilities are there is a deal, in which case Trump
Speaker 1: will do everything you can to make it seem like
Speaker 1: he did this amazing move to start the war, to
Speaker 1: get us to a busy to negotiate the deal, and
Speaker 1: that'll be about selling. That'll be about us make telling
Speaker 1: just the story of how we got here and how
Speaker 1: stupid and dangerous and bad it was. And then the
Speaker 1: other is God only knows the kind of chaos that
Speaker 1: could happen in the next sixty days. You know there's
Speaker 1: algae and the he drained the fucking reflecting pool to
Speaker 1: paint it blue. But the algie's back, he's not, you know,
Speaker 1: he's he does not have some magical ability to avoid
Speaker 1: the realities of the world. And uh, like the I
Speaker 1: think we will it will be so close to the
Speaker 1: election by the time we either get to a deal
Speaker 1: or don't that we will be able to I think
Speaker 1: make it a big part of people's dissatisfaction with the economy,
Speaker 1: the high cost of living in everything that will carry
Speaker 1: on for weeks from now, if not months from now.
Speaker 4: It's also like the straight or moves is not a
Speaker 4: valve you turn on and off, it's on a gas
Speaker 4: is not flowing. It's like oil futures prices can go
Speaker 4: down quickly, but tankers will now have to come out
Speaker 4: and future tankers will have to go back in load
Speaker 4: up their gas and then transit it. Like I think
Speaker 4: there already reports that these oil and gas companies are
Speaker 4: kind of moving cautiously because they don't know, like that
Speaker 4: this isn't a final deal. There's no agreement, there's no
Speaker 4: nuclear agreement. Trump is threatening to go back to war,
Speaker 4: and so I just don't think this is going to
Speaker 4: be resolved quickly, maybe it's like months.
Speaker 2: Probably I think even under the best case scenario, gas
Speaker 2: prices come down between now November, but they don't end
Speaker 2: up where they were before this conflict started at all,
Speaker 2: because it's just going to take time. Even the most
Speaker 2: conservative economic estimates are saying that. I also think for
Speaker 2: Democrats you go out there, it's like Donald Trump just
Speaker 2: spent the last year embroiling this country in a war
Speaker 2: that he lost, that cost us upwards of maybe one
Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars, and then, however, many more billion dollars
Speaker 2: people paid in higher fuel costs. And he hasn't seemed
Speaker 2: to have learned any lessons, nor have the Republicans in Congress.
Speaker 2: And if you return a Republican Congress to him, they're
Speaker 2: just going to create more war. They're going to jump
Speaker 2: into more wars. He's still talking about Cuba, he still
Speaker 2: has Greenland on his mind. Like the guy is a
Speaker 2: bloodthirsty maniac, and so are the Republicans in Congress who
Speaker 2: approved it. And do you want them do you want
Speaker 2: them to spend even more of your money on more
Speaker 2: war and making the like what did this war get us?
Speaker 2: It got us nothing, nothing, nothing. It's just cost It
Speaker 2: got us nothing, and it cost us a lot.
Speaker 1: Fourteen people died, thousands of people dying in the region,
Speaker 1: and just.
Speaker 2: Like it made us less safe, as it didn't make
Speaker 2: the country any safer.
Speaker 1: The you know, when we talk about like you know,
Speaker 1: the cost being higher, like and the it's always very abstract,
Speaker 1: like people's lives were ruined by the fact that suddenly
Speaker 1: their fuel went up, where they suddenly didn't have access
Speaker 1: to raw materials. Like this had a huge ramifications for
Speaker 1: the global economy that we felt for a very long time.
Speaker 1: And by the way, everyone who's just predictab oh, this
Speaker 1: is when, this is when gas prices will go down.
Speaker 1: This is when oil prices will go down. The market
Speaker 1: says what the oil is worth right now. The market
Speaker 1: says what the gas prices will work. If people thought
Speaker 1: and knew that the prices would go down, they'd already
Speaker 1: be down. People have no idea what the future holds
Speaker 1: because we're dealing with fucking maniacs and the complexities of
Speaker 1: reopening the Strait and all the rest. Nobody knows what
Speaker 1: gas prices will be in September or October. If they did,
Speaker 1: that's what the price would be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So one funny footnote on the timing of when
Speaker 2: the Iron Agreement was announced. The Iranians didn't want to
Speaker 2: do it on Trump's actual birthday, so they waited until
Speaker 2: it was Monday in Tehran, just to be as petty
Speaker 2: as fuck. Which got to hand it to him. I
Speaker 2: guess yes it was. They literally used the time change
Speaker 2: to keep both Trump and the Iranians happy, so then
Speaker 2: Trump could say he announced it on his birthday, but
Speaker 2: the Iranians can say, no, we didn't because it was Monday.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's no.
Speaker 2: Your eightieth birthday.
Speaker 1: It's adults who care about their birthday. Everything being about
Speaker 1: Trump's fucking birthday. It is also embarrassing the Iranians feeling
Speaker 1: like they can get one over on Trump by kind
Speaker 1: of holding it to not sign it technically on the
Speaker 1: birthday is stupid, but it's in response to dealing with
Speaker 1: a guy that clearly wanted the fun of signing the
Speaker 1: thing on his fucking.
Speaker 2: Birthday, which happened. We have a world run by tyrants.
Speaker 2: They're all just little petty bitches. It's unbelievable, so dumb.
Speaker 2: Of course, none of this stopped Trump from celebrating the
Speaker 2: deal or himself He threw a low key party at
Speaker 2: the White House Sunday night, where the South Lawn was
Speaker 2: transformed into a Vegas style UFC arena that hosted a
Speaker 2: cage match attended by four thousand lucky guests and broadcast
Speaker 2: it to paramount plus subscribers. The sixty million dollar event
Speaker 2: paid for by the UFC and other sponsors. It's truly
Speaker 2: surreal to watch. Here's some of what it looked like.
Speaker 2: I'll just sort of narrate this for those of you
Speaker 2: who are just listening. There's Trump and Dana White walking
Speaker 2: out of the Oval. There's a flyover. I love a
Speaker 2: good flyover. And here's an actual eagle. It's called also
Speaker 2: pretty Sick. There's the fight, one of the fights. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a couple of there's a little evil Knieval action happening.
Speaker 4: Home.
Speaker 2: This is one of the fighters walking out from the Oval.
Speaker 2: Mochelle Obama A man am I right America? Yeah, even
Speaker 2: the crabs like and that was Josh Hokitt who won
Speaker 2: the heavyweight fight. He's apparently said that before. That was
Speaker 2: this is like a bit of his he said it
Speaker 2: before in a fight. He put it on his Instagram
Speaker 2: like last year, and so you know, it's I don't
Speaker 2: know if that makes it better or worse. It's a
Speaker 2: far right mega thing. They've been saying it from yeah,
Speaker 2: but for him especially, it's what I'm saying. So, what
Speaker 2: did you guys think of the fight? So?
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody combined a couple a bunch of things,
Speaker 1: Like one was the just the brazen corruption of the
Speaker 1: whole thing and having bud Lights sponsorships on the White
Speaker 1: House lawn and the crypto stuff and all the rest.
Speaker 1: The fact that Donald Trump made this event about him
Speaker 1: and not the country. I think that's a big part
Speaker 1: of it. If this were a democratic White House that
Speaker 1: also had poetry slams and readings by Pulitzer Prize winning
Speaker 1: journalists and other kind of sophisticated events, and then one
Speaker 1: day Barack Obama was like, guess what, We're gonna have
Speaker 1: motorcycles jumping over each other on the South lawn. I'd
Speaker 1: be like, that's great. Having an eagle fly around and
Speaker 1: land on somebody's arm during the during America celebration, that's great.
Speaker 1: All these sort of busy bodies on social media being
Speaker 1: like Thornton Wilder once visited the White House, Like guys, guys,
Speaker 1: can you can you please not be a bunch of
Speaker 1: pressy stuck up people. People like fucking motorcycles. I have
Speaker 1: no problem with that. That is entertaining and it could
Speaker 1: be on the White House law. Zero problem with that.
Speaker 1: It is the corruption and then making it about him
Speaker 1: and it being a right wing maga thing like that
Speaker 1: is the problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah, President's hold events on the South Lone. Sometimes it's
Speaker 4: a concert. Sometimes it's the dude in a bunny suit
Speaker 4: rolling easter eggs. Sometimes it's a cage fight. It's like,
Speaker 4: that is what it is. That but didn't bother me either.
Speaker 4: The corpus sponsorship stuff that we're going to get in
Speaker 4: to in a minute is where it gets really gross.
Speaker 4: But just politically, I don't know that it was smart
Speaker 4: for Trump. I think UFC fans will love it. Trump
Speaker 4: super fans will love it. Regular people that are pissed
Speaker 4: about inflation, or just be like, what are you doing?
Speaker 4: How are you spending your time this way?
Speaker 2: The Reuters did a poll.
Speaker 4: Just sixteen percent of Americans said it was appropriate for
Speaker 4: Trump to hold the Ultimate Fighting Championship event for his
Speaker 4: eightieth birthday, while forty six percent said it was inappropriate.
Speaker 2: The rest for like whatever, I don't care anymore, so
Speaker 2: whatever it is, what it is.
Speaker 4: But also like there's a lot better sports to watch
Speaker 4: this weekend, the next one, the NBA Championship. There's a
Speaker 4: million World Cup games. The Stanley Cup finals were on,
Speaker 4: Like I was doing other things. I don't have paramount plus,
Speaker 4: so I couldn't even watch it.
Speaker 2: We have paramount pluts for some some kids programs, and
Speaker 2: it was uh so I watched the whole thing, and
Speaker 2: I tried to watch it as someone who was just like, Okay,
Speaker 2: what if I was not really paying attention to politics,
Speaker 2: what would this look like? And like, first of all,
Speaker 2: the production value outstanding A plus. It looked great, Like
Speaker 2: the whole event looked really cool. There were like and look,
Speaker 2: there are some UFC fighters who have commented publicly about
Speaker 2: how this is like a gross thing to do, in
Speaker 2: cynical for the president to make it all about him,
Speaker 2: and and we're gonna talk about the coruption and all that.
Speaker 2: The parts that made it more about Trump were the
Speaker 2: parts that you are like, what is this? You know?
Speaker 2: And first of all, also the fights weren't that great,
Speaker 2: which like I'm not a UFC person, but it was
Speaker 2: like all of them were kind of quick and the
Speaker 2: first round knockouts, yeah, and they were like knockouts, but
Speaker 2: I don't know, it was just and then you see,
Speaker 2: like it's just like that the number of times it
Speaker 2: panned to Trump and then it talked about Trump, and
Speaker 2: then like then there's Mark Zuckerberg and then there's the
Speaker 2: president of crypto dot com and all this kind of shit,
Speaker 2: and so like all of the accouterments around it were
Speaker 2: like could get really annoying. But the fight itself and
Speaker 2: the and the way it looked with the white in
Speaker 2: the background, like looked pretty cool.
Speaker 1: But this is where like you will, well we should talk,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about their corruption. But this is where you
Speaker 1: can't separate the fact that he is so corrupt from
Speaker 1: the event itself, because Donald Trump is trying to steal
Speaker 1: the like patriotism and excitement and prestige of America's birthday
Speaker 1: and kind of put it on himself. But the end
Speaker 1: result is really just he gets his stink on like
Speaker 1: the White House and the event itself, because if you
Speaker 1: didn't know that this was so partisan and so corrupt
Speaker 1: and such a boondoggle and such favoritism and just so
Speaker 1: much corporate interest.
Speaker 2: Then like, maybe it wouldn't be.
Speaker 1: So terrible to have a flyover or to have marine
Speaker 1: standing behind a fighter whatever. It may not be the
Speaker 1: kind of thing I would normally want to watch, but
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be so despicable. But to use the military
Speaker 1: and to use these symbols for such a corrupt practice,
Speaker 1: I think is why the whole thing becomes so sorted
Speaker 1: and ugly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say the walking the fighters out through
Speaker 2: the oval and the dip room and having all like
Speaker 2: the Marines there saluting the like it was that that
Speaker 2: part was like a little.
Speaker 1: Well, just because it's a for profit event.
Speaker 2: And because a for profit event, and the whole America
Speaker 2: two fifty thing too, because it's like whatever president is
Speaker 2: leading the country. When it's America's two hundred fiftieth or
Speaker 2: two seventy five or three hundred whatever, you get to
Speaker 2: do your own thing right. But they sort of went
Speaker 2: out of the way to make it feel exclusionary to
Speaker 2: anyone who wasn't MAGA, and just in the way that
Speaker 2: they did the event right like they could, and not
Speaker 2: just by being a UFC fight. You could have done
Speaker 2: a UFC fight. That still seems welcoming and unifying to
Speaker 2: most of the country.
Speaker 1: This is where like it's we're back to where Trump
Speaker 1: was in the first term, where he was always taking
Speaker 1: pictures in front of the desk. They're fucking tourist because
Speaker 1: they know they don't belong, and so they walk through
Speaker 1: this gold plated room that looks like as a gold
Speaker 1: fungal infection, and kind of they show through these fighters
Speaker 1: walking through all the rooms like a bit like the
Speaker 1: kind of it reminds me of like when like human
Speaker 1: beings in some apocalyptic future stumble upon a museum and
Speaker 1: they're walking through looking around me.
Speaker 2: Like who built this?
Speaker 1: How is this even here? Like that's sort of the
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Speaker 2: It would have been entirely possible for Trump to throw
Speaker 2: himself a sixty million dollar UFC birthday party without also
Speaker 2: turning it into an orgy of corruption, but that would
Speaker 2: take all the fun out of it. First, the broadcast itself.
Speaker 2: Dana White originally said that the fight would be free
Speaker 2: on CBS, now owned by Paramount, but it ended up
Speaker 2: on the nine dollars and ninety nine cent per month
Speaker 2: Paramount Plus instead. Paramount is of course owned now by
Speaker 2: Trump all Trump ally David Ellison, who had a front
Speaker 2: row seat to the fight two days after Trump's DOJ
Speaker 2: approved his latest acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery, which includes CNN.
Speaker 2: I think there's also like a brunch or a dinner
Speaker 2: for David Ellison that weekend, to big party for that,
Speaker 2: so everyone is celebrating the big merger. As for Trump himself,
Speaker 2: ahead of the fight, the president quietly purchased between fifteen
Speaker 2: thousand and fifty thousand worth of stock in TKO Holding Group,
Speaker 2: which owns UFC, which is.
Speaker 4: Nothing for him, but like optically so stupid, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, Just don't do that.
Speaker 2: Just doesn't care anymore. There were also some tweets that
Speaker 2: appeared to be between Eric Trump and UFC commentator Daniel
Speaker 2: Kormier looking for inside information for betting on the fights.
Speaker 2: The Cormier is saying publicly that his account was hacked.
Speaker 2: Not to fear the fight still offered plenty of opportunities
Speaker 2: to make the Trump family richer. Take a listen.
Speaker 6: It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars performance boss and
Speaker 6: USD one is presented by World Liberty Financial. Who's casting
Speaker 6: for broadcast is Trump Cory stock on the official UFC's
Speaker 6: Threeking two fifties Testil Edition medallions.
Speaker 3: This bouts proudly sponsored by True Social, the real boice
Speaker 3: of President Trump. Yeah, well, Truth Social.
Speaker 2: Well, I was watching that home, That's what I was like.
Speaker 2: This it's too much if you didn't catch all that.
Speaker 2: One of the official sponsors of the event was the
Speaker 2: Trump's family crypto operation in World Liberty Financial. We've talked
Speaker 2: about this a lot here. For this event, they created
Speaker 2: a two hundred and fifty thousand bonus pool for the fighters,
Speaker 2: which is to be paid in their stable coin USD one.
Speaker 2: And then you heard there was also a sponsorship plug
Speaker 2: there for trump coins dot com, which is selling commemorative
Speaker 2: medallions designed by President Trump at prices up to twelve
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a piece coin heavy event.
Speaker 1: Some real coin just in eighty attacks whoever's buying these
Speaker 1: fucking coins?
Speaker 2: Reacting to a bunch of these stories. The White House
Speaker 2: said that Donald Trump only acts in the best interests
Speaker 2: of the American publish and that his assets are in
Speaker 2: a trust managed by his children. So what's the problem, guy,
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ?
Speaker 4: I mean, politically speaking, Trump should be furious that this
Speaker 4: thing was on Paramount plus. Right, that limits the distribution.
Speaker 4: That hurts him, Right, this is his propaganda event. Why
Speaker 4: is it not seen by more people? So you're like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I get what Paramount plus got. They got to add
Speaker 4: subs to get people to buy this. What's the kickback?
Speaker 4: I'd like to know. The cryptos of is disgraceful. Remember,
Speaker 4: like the USD one is their stable coin. Remember that
Speaker 4: Trump's got the mri is to use their stable coin
Speaker 4: in this transaction. When they invested two billion into finance,
Speaker 4: that like made it the seventh biggest stable coin in
Speaker 4: the world. And then Reuters did this big investigation of
Speaker 4: the Trump family crypto assets. They found the Trump famili
Speaker 4: has made two point three billion in profit. And then
Speaker 4: of course on the other side of that, you have
Speaker 4: like a million retail investors who've gotten fleeced and have
Speaker 4: taken two point three billion in losses. So this is
Speaker 4: just an ongoing, you know, show of the way they're
Speaker 4: using crypto just to like ring money out of their followers.
Speaker 4: I find the the Eric Trump what's his name, Daniel Hornfrmier.
Speaker 4: Thing makes no sense, like Eric Trump, so those stories
Speaker 4: he DM the guy said, hey, is this fight rigged?
Speaker 4: Because I want to bet on it? And then Cormier's like, no,
Speaker 4: I got AI hacked? What does that mean?
Speaker 2: You posted the tweet?
Speaker 1: It didn't make sense when Eric said he deleted it
Speaker 1: because it was fake, But then why would he have
Speaker 1: posted it?
Speaker 2: Eric Trump?
Speaker 1: Was the first time I believed it might be true
Speaker 1: was when Eric Trump posted it.
Speaker 2: Yes, me too? And then and then Daniel Cormier he
Speaker 2: was asked about it at the fight and was just like,
Speaker 2: that's crazy. Why would anyone believe that? And then he
Speaker 2: like tweeted are you all stupid? Why would you? But
Speaker 2: like you posted it. It's interesting because if you look
Speaker 2: at the exchanges that they posted or the dms that
Speaker 2: they posted, it's very It's not like it's not as
Speaker 2: obvious as like, hello, are there any fights rigged? I
Speaker 2: would like to bet on them? Like it's like you place,
Speaker 2: how's it going? And he's like, oh, I didn't expect
Speaker 2: to hear from you, man, how it's good. Good to
Speaker 2: see you and your family at the fight. Can't wait.
Speaker 2: It's like, hey, he plays any bets and then he
Speaker 2: just keeps going. He's like, all right, fine, I'll get
Speaker 2: to it. Any of the fight's rigged. Who knows what's
Speaker 2: real or what's fake anymore. Anything could have happened, could
Speaker 2: have been hacked, someone could have done it.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, well there's the problem with
Speaker 1: these people being and they don't tell the rog liars,
Speaker 1: the corrupt liars who It is completely believable to me
Speaker 1: that it's fake. It is completely believable to me that
Speaker 1: it is true. You have no credibility.
Speaker 2: I would not be surprised in either direction. You are.
Speaker 1: You are completely morally vacant operators who are profiting every
Speaker 1: day off the office. We can't take your word for it.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll never know the truth because everyone around you
Speaker 1: as a liar. But that's the price of being so dishonest.
Speaker 2: I guess. Celebrity attendants at the event, it was mostly
Speaker 2: limited to the MAGA billionaire sector. In addition to David
Speaker 2: Ellison in the Crypto dot Com CEO MMA enthusiasts and
Speaker 2: masculinity advocate Mark Zuckerberg was in attendance, maybe not quite
Speaker 2: out of Della's baggage claim yet were executives from Anthropic,
Speaker 2: who apparently flew to the Capitol last minute to meet
Speaker 2: with the Trump administration on Monday. On Friday, the administration
Speaker 2: slapped export controls on the company's top AI models, which
Speaker 2: forced Anthropic to take Fable five and Mythos five offline.
Speaker 2: Anyone want to talk about what this is all about
Speaker 2: with Anthropic and whether it has anything to do with
Speaker 2: their earlier dispute with the Pentagon.
Speaker 1: This to me actually similar to the Eric Trump thing.
Speaker 1: It's because we know that they picked this fight with
Speaker 1: Anthropic a few months ago. It's actually hard to know
Speaker 1: what's true. If you read the details. There does seem
Speaker 1: to have been a legitimate concern with access to the
Speaker 1: models that were raised by Amazon and others. But then
Speaker 1: it appears the administration, which has a vendetta against Anthropic,
Speaker 1: be went too far and its reaction and now the
Speaker 1: executives have to fly to DC to make nice because
Speaker 1: it's not about what's in the interest of the Pentagon
Speaker 1: or the country, but it's about personal relationships and ego,
Speaker 1: and so they have to figure out how to smooth
Speaker 1: things over, and you can. It is just very hard
Speaker 1: to tell the difference between penalizing Anthropic because it's now
Speaker 1: an enemy of the administration versus actually stepping in because
Speaker 1: there may have been an issue, or if it's somewhere
Speaker 1: in between.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, so there was a concern about Anthropics
Speaker 4: model and the ability for it to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities
Speaker 4: and exploit them, so they limited the distribution. And then
Speaker 4: these researchers at Amazon got access to fable five, which
Speaker 4: is like it's like Mythos with guardrails.
Speaker 2: That they released to the public.
Speaker 4: They were able to trick it essentially into giving them
Speaker 4: restrict information, and then the Amazon CEO tattled the Scott
Speaker 4: Besson about what happened. Now, normally, exactly that's what you did,
Speaker 4: And normally I'd be like, actually, that's good. That's like
Speaker 4: how the system should work, because you want, you know,
Speaker 4: sort of a circum breaker there in some way to
Speaker 4: event the distribution of these models to bad actors. And
Speaker 4: what they what the administration did was they cut off
Speaker 4: access for foreign users. But yeah, I mean, it just
Speaker 4: the thing that was so odd about this is all
Speaker 4: the little Trump propagandists went to Twitter and they try
Speaker 4: to dance on Anthropic's grave, and they gave all of
Speaker 4: us reason to think, oh, actually, this is just part
Speaker 4: of this ongoing pissing match between Anthropic and the Pentagon,
Speaker 4: and because the Anthropic doesn't want to create autonomous killer
Speaker 4: drones or be used in bulk mass surveillance of American citizens. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was hard to read between the lines and the
Speaker 4: Axios story about it too, which is also like, you
Speaker 4: know that the Axio story sort of came mostly from
Speaker 4: the administration, and there's some administration official on background saying like,
Speaker 4: the real problem is they don't know how to Anthropic
Speaker 4: doesn't know how to communicate with this administration, and the
Speaker 4: ideological differences are.
Speaker 2: Really getting in the way. And it's like, what does
Speaker 2: that have to do with a potential security vulnerability that
Speaker 2: you're saying was the root of the problem here, What
Speaker 2: does the ideological differences in communication have to do with it?
Speaker 1: Also, if you know that, if you have insight enough
Speaker 1: to know that are communicating effectively with you, then it
Speaker 1: seems you know what they're trying to communicate. Call him, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so hey, like, like, you're not being nice enough in
Speaker 1: how you're handling me. You have to if you want
Speaker 1: me to do what you want, you better you better
Speaker 1: be a little bit more sensitive to my issues and
Speaker 1: my needs.
Speaker 4: In anthropics preparing for an IPO, it seems like a
Speaker 4: great way to damage them in advance of that.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, but for what it's worth, we should say.
Speaker 4: Dana White and a bunch of other participants at the
Speaker 4: White House event condemned the comments about Michelle Obama, which
Speaker 4: was nice to see. Now, the right thing to do
Speaker 4: would be Donald Trump to call Michelle Obama and say,
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry that was disgusting, but that.
Speaker 1: Was obviously wouldn't even make a just sort of brush
Speaker 1: basket refused to apologize in the moment.
Speaker 2: You actually see Rogan's face as soon as he said it,
Speaker 2: and Rogan was sort of like you like backed away,
Speaker 2: like do you see what smallest tie was? It was
Speaker 2: very like a half a time. I want to hear
Speaker 2: you could tell that like the yeah, the Dana Whites,
Speaker 2: the people and Donald Trump was probably yeah, like Donald
Speaker 2: Trump was probably like, yeah, he probably loves He's reposted
Speaker 2: stuff like that in the past. Well, the guy then
Speaker 2: gave his like metal to Donald Trum, the guy who
Speaker 2: made the comment, and Donald Trump accepted it. So it's
Speaker 2: just like Trump posted a video of the two of them,
Speaker 2: right those apes. Yeah, we're sort of six months ago
Speaker 2: through the looking glass on that one. One more corrup
Speaker 2: date that broke as we were preparing to record this.
Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom said in a video Monday morning that he
Speaker 2: and his wife are being targeted by Trump's DJ, saying
Speaker 2: that federal agents have been knocking on the doors of
Speaker 2: their family, friends and former employees. In Newsom's words, he said,
Speaker 2: they're digging through quote years and years of documents and
Speaker 2: quote abusing the grand jury process, trying to quote look
Speaker 2: for a crime. Then there was this line, Donald Trump
Speaker 2: isn't just coming after me because of my mean tweets.
Speaker 2: He's coming after me because I'm considering running for president.
Speaker 2: He then went on to attack Trump on corruption for
Speaker 2: several minutes. We didn't get a ton of detail from
Speaker 2: Newsom's statement other than the DOJ seems to be focused
Speaker 2: on Jen, his wife. I saw some takes about how
Speaker 2: this will be great for Newsom's potential presidential campaign and fundraising. Sure,
Speaker 2: but it also seems like a fairly chilling preview of
Speaker 2: what's to come in twenty twenty eight for any Democrat
Speaker 2: who runs for president. I don't know what you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, it's nice to say it's great for fundraising
Speaker 1: before we know any of the details about what the
Speaker 1: charges could be, how serious it is what they're trying
Speaker 1: to do. But I don't think anybody, even if it
Speaker 1: does make them get some attention, is excited to find
Speaker 1: out that there's a grand jury trying to indict you.
Speaker 1: And you know, we have gone from Pam Bondi, who
Speaker 1: was as like client and willing to do Trump spitting
Speaker 1: as you could imagine, until we got to Todd blanche
Speaker 1: who's somehow even worse. Trump just put his personal attorney
Speaker 1: in charge of the Southern District of New York. We
Speaker 1: have a completely politicized Department of Justice on like anything
Speaker 1: we've ever had before in our history. And part of
Speaker 1: the job will be about not only preventing those things
Speaker 1: from impacting our politics directly, but also figuring out how
Speaker 1: to create guardrails and fix it in the future once
Speaker 1: Trump is gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as much as I can understand the kind of
Speaker 4: galaxy brain to political takes like The human take is
Speaker 4: Gavin Newsom sits down at dinner and it's like, hey, honey,
Speaker 4: this is to help me in the early States.
Speaker 2: Like, what are we talking about here?
Speaker 4: It's like horribly chilling for your wife to be potentially
Speaker 4: prosecuted by the Department of Justice, even if she did
Speaker 4: nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: It's scary. It'll cost them money. I'll custom time. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 2: the maximally cynical.
Speaker 4: View is that Trump is doing this because he thinks
Speaker 4: Gavin's talented and a possible competitor to the Republican Party
Speaker 4: and wants to take him out of the race preemptively
Speaker 4: by going after his family. Maybe it's all on the merits, right,
Speaker 4: there was a Gavin Newsom's former aid it was just prosecuted.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's coming out of that. What we know is
Speaker 4: Trump is openly called on his attorney general to go
Speaker 4: after his enemies. He just tried to install Bill Poulty,
Speaker 4: a man with no national security experience, as the Director
Speaker 4: of National Intelligence, solely because that man has shown a
Speaker 4: creativity in using his accessed information to go after Trump's critics.
Speaker 4: So it seems like part of a pattern.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it is the cynical view It's also
Speaker 2: the like everything we've seen from Trump over the last
Speaker 2: decade leads you to believe that whoever he thinks is
Speaker 2: leading in the race for the Democratic nomination going to
Speaker 2: look to see if there were any kind of possibilities
Speaker 2: for investigation, right, Like that's all it takes, too, is so? Yeah,
Speaker 2: so Gavin Newsom's former aid right who ended up you know,
Speaker 2: being convicted or taking a deal or something based on
Speaker 2: activities that preceded her time working for Gavin Newsom at all,
Speaker 2: But doesn't matter, you know, like Jen Newsom has some
Speaker 2: kind of a nonprofit and is there is there questions
Speaker 2: about the nonprofit and the payments. Like any any thread
Speaker 2: that Trump and his administration can pull on any of
Speaker 2: these potential contenders, they will, and probably knowing that they
Speaker 2: can't actually investigate all of them at once when they're
Speaker 2: all on the primary stage together, they're going to go
Speaker 2: after the people who are leading in the polls. And really,
Speaker 2: I think the only way you're going to avoid investigation
Speaker 2: from Donald Trump is if you were last place in
Speaker 2: the polls and suddenly surprise everyone and then win win
Speaker 2: a race, and then you know, then they'll get an
Speaker 2: investigation going pretty fast. Yeah, but that's when he's going
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: We need like a junior soprano to be the kind
Speaker 1: of to be the face of the operation while Tony's
Speaker 1: running things behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: Ben Jacobs on Twitter was like, this is a good
Speaker 2: case for Hunter Biden being the nominee since he was
Speaker 2: already already part of that part many ideas flooding himself
Speaker 2: for this, but that I mean, it is, it's it's pretty.
Speaker 2: It's to me, it was like a preview of even
Speaker 2: now where we're like, okay, Democrats could do all the midterms,
Speaker 2: everything's fine, Like we're heading to twenty twenty eight, and
Speaker 2: the idea that this is just going to be some
Speaker 2: kind of a fair fight. And even if there's a
Speaker 2: lot between Donald Trump refusing to leave the White House
Speaker 2: or running for a third term and then everything going
Speaker 2: swimmingly and nothing happened, there's just a ton of room
Speaker 2: between them.
Speaker 1: We I think we just can say whoever is the
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee. Regardless of what investigation to launch for the primary,
Speaker 1: there will be an intensive effort to try to paint
Speaker 1: them as a corrupt criminal between sort of say sort
Speaker 1: of June and the election. They will use all the
Speaker 1: power at their disposal, they will try to muddy the waters.
Speaker 1: And by the way, like part of this is this
Speaker 1: is why selective prosecution is so dangerous. We live in
Speaker 1: a free society and we know that if you start
Speaker 1: digging into anyone's finances, taxes, history, you can you can
Speaker 1: try to drum something up. You can find a discrepancy,
Speaker 1: you can find something that you can use to bring
Speaker 1: to a grand jury like that. That is what it
Speaker 1: is so dangerous to have a DOJ like this. And
Speaker 1: you know that the client right wing media, if they
Speaker 1: find anything, they will say, well, look, this is this
Speaker 1: was a legitimate investigation. They found this irs discrepancy, This
Speaker 1: needed to be punished and without sort of any understanding
Speaker 1: of how dangerous is to have people being chosen as
Speaker 1: targets to look for crimes.
Speaker 2: Did Devin front run this? Yeah, yeah, so say the
Speaker 2: Time Story. I wonder if they got a call.
Speaker 4: From the Time saying we're running this and they got
Speaker 4: ahead of it or how this went.
Speaker 2: Because I do the Time Story does have some of
Speaker 2: the some newsome officials on background in there, and it
Speaker 2: also has some officials I guess from the Justice Department
Speaker 2: as well, though the Justice Department won't comment officially obviously.
Speaker 2: They also said that it was like by federal officials
Speaker 2: in California, not in Washington, the investigation. But I do
Speaker 2: think that it was we haven't talked about like the
Speaker 2: politics of this, but I thought it was smart that
Speaker 2: Newsome got out ahead of it and was able to
Speaker 2: frame it as Trump coming.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, like it just shows how much communications have
Speaker 4: changed over the last decade or two, because normally when
Speaker 4: there's some sort of crimical prosecution or investigation, you don't
Speaker 4: say anything, you let your lawyers speak, or you don't comment,
Speaker 4: and you don't want to put anything else into public domain.
Speaker 4: They view this as a pr battle, which tells you,
Speaker 4: you know, they probably feel confident about the legal side
Speaker 4: of things and they just want to get ahead of
Speaker 4: the political fight.
Speaker 2: I also think this is going to be a collective
Speaker 2: action problem because everyone's interests are obviously not aligned here
Speaker 2: but for the other Democratic and no one's announced yet,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't work right now. But as we get
Speaker 2: into this, like all the other Democratic candidates, someone gets
Speaker 2: targeted like this, even if it's your potential rival, you
Speaker 2: got to go out and say that it's absolutely bullshit
Speaker 2: and stick up for them. I think I'll get sticked
Speaker 2: up for each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's also free. By the way, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's of equity for Pee Boota Joey
Speaker 1: saying like I think Trump has a point about new Something.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a lot of Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's a difference between There's a difference between waiting to
Speaker 2: get asked about it and saying that and then coming
Speaker 2: out strongly yeah and saying it's going to be a
Speaker 2: fucking problem.
Speaker 4: What about going down to John Bolton's prison and singing
Speaker 4: him some sort of song through.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is he?
Speaker 2: Where is he right now?
Speaker 1: Because I saw he's a comment he cut a deal, right,
Speaker 1: he's cutting a deal.
Speaker 4: But he could I don't think it's gone through the
Speaker 4: process yet, but I think you could get up to
Speaker 4: five years even with this deal.
Speaker 2: He was just money. I thought he was just paying money.
Speaker 4: The reporting I read was fine and potentially up to
Speaker 4: five years and hopefully for his sake that there'll be
Speaker 4: some leniency. But like the dude was like, sending emails
Speaker 4: to himself and to his wife and daughter with classified
Speaker 4: information is like the dumbest thing you could possibly do.
Speaker 1: Look, I've said this before, I'll say it again. I
Speaker 1: hate what Donald Trump has done to the DOJ. I
Speaker 1: will not be angry if James Common goes to prison.
Speaker 1: Wow over here, I'll be listen. I'll obviously be upset
Speaker 1: about the injustice. But I'm just saying he can use
Speaker 1: a couple of nights behind those bars to think about
Speaker 1: what he stuck. I'm just he's so tall, and he's
Speaker 1: made so many mistakes. I think I think it's morally reprehensible.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a good thing. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: I think he'll videos he does what he.
Speaker 2: Does, posts everything he does. I think that has been
Speaker 2: an imprisonment all of its own. Sure, inside of a jail.
Speaker 1: Cell, just saying a bulwark, exclusive ceiling, run that tin
Speaker 1: cup across the bars.
Speaker 2: James Commy MSNBC reports that the Trump administration has been
Speaker 2: pressuring DOJ officials to come up with a case against
Speaker 2: Kevin Newsom. Yeah, I mean, so there you go, all
Speaker 2: right when we come back. Tommy talks to Senator Mark Warner.
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Speaker 4: My guest today is vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence
Speaker 4: Committee and the senior US Senator from Virginia, Senator Warner.
Speaker 2: Thanks for doing the show.
Speaker 7: Thanks Tommy.
Speaker 4: So we're speaking on Monday afternoon Pacific time. We're still
Speaker 4: waiting with baited breath to see if we'll ever see
Speaker 4: the actual text of whatever Donald Trump negotiated with Iran
Speaker 4: about their you know, the straight of her moves. What
Speaker 4: do you know about this digitally signed memorandum of understanding
Speaker 4: between the US and Iran? And what do you make
Speaker 4: on sort of the leaks and reporting on it so far?
Speaker 5: I know, zippo, I know nothing more than you, and
Speaker 5: I think, frankly, even my Republican Senate friends have not
Speaker 5: seen any of this. You know, we do wonder whether
Speaker 5: this was time for his birthday or to try to
Speaker 5: affect the markets today.
Speaker 7: We do know, I think this is less than what
Speaker 7: it appears.
Speaker 5: And you know, we knew at some point Trump was
Speaker 5: going to declare victory and the sooner we get out
Speaker 5: of this war of choice, the better. But if as
Speaker 5: you know, I hate to kind of like suck up,
Speaker 5: but if you look at your your tweets today, you
Speaker 5: know you are absolutely right on all four of the
Speaker 5: goals that Trump laid out.
Speaker 7: We're not close to any of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you tell, we maybe have an agreement to have
Speaker 4: more talks where they will try to get to an
Speaker 4: agreement that's about the nuclear program, the ballistic missile, support
Speaker 4: for proxies, et cetera. But it's all forward looking as
Speaker 4: far as I can tell, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: You know, the things we do know are this, the
Speaker 5: regime is more hardcore now than it was before. The
Speaker 5: new leader, since we killed his dad, his wife, his kid,
Speaker 5: more hardcore. We do know that the Iranians have been
Speaker 5: masters for years at trying to hide the ball on
Speaker 5: their enriched uranium. And the idea that we're somehow going
Speaker 5: to get this without troops on the ground or by
Speaker 5: some international agreement, God willing.
Speaker 7: But I'm not going to hold my breath.
Speaker 5: The fact that that d D and HEGSEF misrepresented how
Speaker 5: much we had taken out of the Iranian realistic missiles
Speaker 5: obviously not the case. Since they're still shooting them off,
Speaker 5: and that doesn't even count their drones. And then we've
Speaker 5: taken what was an international open gateway of passage straight
Speaker 5: upward moves and Iran will have something to say on
Speaker 5: a going forward basis. None of that makes us, None
Speaker 5: of that makes our golf allies, none of it even
Speaker 5: frankly makes Israel stronger than when we started one hundred
Speaker 5: and seven days ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I noticed in the run up to
Speaker 4: the war, the Iran hawks trotted out of the new
Speaker 4: talking point, which is that Iran could create a ballistic
Speaker 4: missile arsenal that was so great that it might be
Speaker 4: able to prevent the US in Israel from taking out
Speaker 4: their nuclear infrastructure.
Speaker 2: In the future.
Speaker 4: So I did want to ask you about the state
Speaker 4: of that ballistic missile inventory and their capacity to manufacture
Speaker 4: new ballistic missiles. What do we know that you can
Speaker 4: discuss publicly.
Speaker 5: Well, we know that we have degraded it's both the
Speaker 5: missiles and their launchers. We took out some of them.
Speaker 5: The earlier estimates and I can say this because it's
Speaker 5: in the public that we had eliminated seventy eighty ninety
Speaker 5: percent are just factually not true, and they have had
Speaker 5: many of the launchers as well are still existing. They
Speaker 5: can they can obviously reconstitute some of these missiles. We
Speaker 5: have not been able to blow up how all that started,
Speaker 5: and these missiles are significant, but again we took down
Speaker 5: many of them. But as we go into this war
Speaker 5: of choice, what we have done, and this is the
Speaker 5: part where the Iranians I think will come back unfortunately
Speaker 5: and bite us, is they have been dribbling out their missiles.
Speaker 5: We have been using, both with the missiles and the drones,
Speaker 5: very expensive interceptors that cost you know, two and a
Speaker 5: half million dollars apiece, and they have bled down our supplies,
Speaker 5: our supplies called allies, even Israel supplies, so that if
Speaker 5: they have anything close to what we presume, they can
Speaker 5: continue to bleed that down and at some point we
Speaker 5: won't have the capacity.
Speaker 7: To take them out.
Speaker 5: One of the reasons why it was so insane that
Speaker 5: we didn't take the Ukrainians offer in December, where they
Speaker 5: were going to say, we will give you our anti
Speaker 5: droned technology, which they have the best in the world,
Speaker 5: which could have at least taken down the Iranian drones.
Speaker 4: Right right, And you mentioned the new sort of set
Speaker 4: of leaders. I mean that the previous Supreme Leader of
Speaker 4: Iran was quite well known. He'd been around for a while,
Speaker 4: as were a lot of the senior members of the
Speaker 4: IRGC and the Iranian military. Then Israel in the US
Speaker 4: killed a lot of them. Now it's iron it's led
Speaker 4: by this new crop of leaders. You know, Supreme Leader's
Speaker 4: son is apparently really wounded in hiding, but presumably more
Speaker 4: hard line than maybe his father, since we killed his dad,
Speaker 4: we killed his wife, we killed his kids, I think reportedly,
Speaker 4: Now there's a new crop of younger IRGC generals who
Speaker 4: seem to be more firmly entrenched. Trump keeps saying that
Speaker 4: the new crowd is more pragmatic.
Speaker 2: What do you know about the new crowd?
Speaker 5: There is absolutely zero evidence that anybody in the new
Speaker 5: crowd is more pragmatic, that is more westward leaning. They
Speaker 5: may live in fear, and I think we have put
Speaker 5: fear of God, and I'm but the idea that they're
Speaker 5: more willing to make a deal. There's been no evidence
Speaker 5: to date that I've seen in any intelligence on that.
Speaker 5: And matter of fact, the structure Orion was they always had,
Speaker 5: they have a government, and they have a former military
Speaker 5: that's a little bit separate from the RGC. The one
Speaker 5: thing that is the case is that the government, which
Speaker 5: was sometimes more moderate in the more traditional military, they
Speaker 5: have lost power in this last one hundred and eight days.
Speaker 5: So ier GC, more radical, more.
Speaker 4: In power, excellent, a big win for us. What we
Speaker 4: think is maybe the outlines of a future deal would
Speaker 4: require Israel to honor a ceasefire in Lebanon against TSBLA
Speaker 4: as well. Do you have any confidence that net Yahoo
Speaker 4: or Hezbolah will honor that ceasefire because it seems like Netnya,
Speaker 4: who is a pretty decent political incentive to blow up
Speaker 4: the deal given the initial response to it in Israel.
Speaker 5: I have no confidence that BB who's got his own
Speaker 5: political problems, and I think in many ways has it
Speaker 5: really hurt Israel's reputation in the region around the world.
Speaker 7: And then the.
Speaker 5: Again tragedy on top of tragedy. I think there was
Speaker 5: a moment in the fact that Israel is negotiating with
Speaker 5: the Lebanese government if we could have actually put some
Speaker 5: oomph behind that and help the Lebanese government, who does
Speaker 5: have a military, actually disarm has Belah. The people of
Speaker 5: Lebanon might have come out of this better. They are
Speaker 5: not now, and instead you've got the net Yalu government
Speaker 5: bombing not only the Shia, but unfortunately Drew's Christian and
Speaker 5: Sunni villages in the south. And my fear is pushing
Speaker 5: some of the Lebanese, you know, back into the hands
Speaker 5: of Hespelah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it sounds like Israel has not agreed to
Speaker 4: pull its troops out of Lebanon. My understandings, they are occupying,
Speaker 4: you know, up to sort of six miles over the border.
Speaker 2: I'm just wondering how.
Speaker 4: An ongoing occupation is not likely to lead to renewed,
Speaker 4: if not increase conflict.
Speaker 7: Was that called a softball question?
Speaker 5: Yes, you know, it's like, yeah, and we've seen you know,
Speaker 5: Bbe's got his own political problems, he's under indictment. He
Speaker 5: has to maintain this fart right agenda. And my fear
Speaker 5: is not only Lepidin, but what also is taking place.
Speaker 5: And one of the reasons why I voted against even
Speaker 5: giving any more bulldozers to Israel. The other tragedy that's
Speaker 5: taking place is what's happening on the West Bank. As
Speaker 5: the Israeli settlers, Frank, they doo awful things on just
Speaker 5: some of the Palestinian villages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just big picture.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm struggling with how to talk about this
Speaker 4: as a Democrat, because I think the best option available
Speaker 4: to Donald Trump was ending the war as soon as
Speaker 4: humanly possible for a variety of reasons, but especially because
Speaker 4: I was worried that this was going to lead to
Speaker 4: a famine in places like Sudan and mass starvation and
Speaker 4: death because fertilizer and fuel just wasn't getting through the strait.
Speaker 4: At the same time, I don't think we should give
Speaker 4: Donald Trump a pass for launching this catastrophic, unnecessary war,
Speaker 4: because all the outcomes he might get through this negotiation
Speaker 4: process he could have gotten just by talking to them
Speaker 4: in the first place and not bombing them. So how
Speaker 4: are you thinking about how to talk about.
Speaker 5: This, Tommy? It is such a That is a very
Speaker 5: fair question. I don't want to Trump gets no credit
Speaker 5: for this war of choice and where we are, and
Speaker 5: that doesn't even count the one hundred billion dollars of
Speaker 5: assets we've lost.
Speaker 7: In the region.
Speaker 5: It doesn't cost the sixty billion dollars of increased gas prices,
Speaker 5: It doesn't cost the effect of in Sudan and elsewhere.
Speaker 5: But I'm not going to you know, but the question is,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to just blast him for ending it,
Speaker 5: because ending it was you know, this, this agreement will
Speaker 5: not stand the test of any scrutiny. You know, I'm
Speaker 5: not going to give him credit. But I'm glad he
Speaker 5: ended it rather than continued where what could have led
Speaker 5: to even a worse circumstance. So I actually think on
Speaker 5: this one, the there is no way even a Trumpian
Speaker 5: figure can turn this in anything other than what it
Speaker 5: is is that we America and our friends are in
Speaker 5: worse place than we were at the end of February.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agreed with you there, switching gears a little bit.
Speaker 4: So Trump tried to install a man named Bill Poulty
Speaker 4: as the Director of National Intelligence. I'd love to hear
Speaker 4: your thoughts on why you think he made that selection,
Speaker 4: whether Poulty even would have met the statutory requirements for
Speaker 4: the job. I should say he yanked Poultie nomination after
Speaker 4: Democrats in the Senates at hell, No, no way. And
Speaker 4: did that selection make you even more worried about how
Speaker 4: Trump might have used the intelligence community?
Speaker 7: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: Bill Poulty is a third generation rich kid who literally
Speaker 5: got thrown out of his own family's company, right, and
Speaker 5: then you know, taking what would be a relatively benign
Speaker 5: oversight of the mortgage Fannie and Freddie was able to
Speaker 5: take private information about Lisa Cook at the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 5: Adam Shift won my colleagues and weaponize that. I do
Speaker 5: think figures in the White House tried to prevent Trump
Speaker 5: from doing this, but is always the case, Pulty or
Speaker 5: whoever speaks to the president. Last he got him, he
Speaker 5: got him put in, and I am you know, and
Speaker 5: this came in a moment in time when we have
Speaker 5: to reauthorize something called Section seven oh two, which is
Speaker 5: a critical intelligence tool that the Biden's, Obama's everybody supported,
Speaker 5: and we've used our leverage to say, you know, we're
Speaker 5: not going to reauthorize seven o two if Poulty is
Speaker 5: there now. My concern, frankly, is seven o two has
Speaker 5: got enough bills and whistles and audits that if he
Speaker 5: misuses that it will be I think we'll find it.
Speaker 5: I'm more concerned about the fact that this guy who
Speaker 5: doesn't even a national security clearance suddenly gets the keys
Speaker 5: to eighteen eight agencies maliciously or not gets exposed to
Speaker 5: things that could be a huge security risk. And our
Speaker 5: challenge right now and and this, you know, this goes
Speaker 5: down the rabbit hole. You know, Trump has finally appointed
Speaker 5: somebody else, someone who you know, I've worked with at times.
Speaker 5: I still need to ask him Jay Clayton, who was
Speaker 5: the former SEC head and and the current US Attorney
Speaker 5: for the Southern District of Manhattan. You know, I want
Speaker 5: to make sure he's not going to interfere in our
Speaker 5: elections and you know, basic constitutional rights. But if we
Speaker 5: delay getting him in, Poulty could still serve and there's
Speaker 5: nothing we can do as an interim for a few days.
Speaker 5: And you know, I think the Democrats in the Senate
Speaker 5: will have to decide do we wave to get this through.
Speaker 5: He will get confirmed, I hope the sooner than later,
Speaker 5: so that we don't have Pulty in this office hopefully.
Speaker 4: Ever, Oh so that's why you're trying to fast track
Speaker 4: Jay Clayton's nomination to try to shrink the amount of
Speaker 4: time that that Poulty could be in that job.
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, Yes, and again and it's and it's like
Speaker 5: and the irony and here's the thing, you know, I
Speaker 5: had huge problems with Tulsa Gabbart. Yeah, current, she was
Speaker 5: going to stay until the end of the month. Paulty
Speaker 5: tried to fire her, and they advanced her leaving date
Speaker 5: till this coming Friday. If she would just I never thay,
Speaker 5: I want to say Gabbart say, but if she would
Speaker 5: stay until the beginning.
Speaker 7: Of July, we could get it done in two weeks.
Speaker 5: Right, Whether we get it done in one weeks will
Speaker 5: be frankly up to my Democratic colleagues, who, you know,
Speaker 5: they can vote against Clayton, they can, you know, vote
Speaker 5: against seven oh two. But please let's separate keeping Paulty
Speaker 5: out of the job and the the you know, the
Speaker 5: renewal of Section seven oh two.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm with you on prioritizing keeping Pulty away from
Speaker 4: all of that information. I do want to ask you
Speaker 4: about fives of Section seven oh two of though, because
Speaker 4: for those who aren't familiar, this is the provision that
Speaker 4: lets the intelligence community get information from American telecom companies
Speaker 4: to turn over the electronic communication of foreign persons located
Speaker 4: outside of the United States.
Speaker 2: Without a warrant.
Speaker 4: And civil liberties advocates have long been concerned about seven
Speaker 4: oh two because of the potential for abuse, and also
Speaker 4: because communications to and from American citizens and those foreign
Speaker 4: persons are often captured in the process without a warrant
Speaker 4: and could be reviewed and you know, by people investigating
Speaker 4: them the information. So in the past I have mostly
Speaker 4: felt like on balance that Section O two was defensible
Speaker 4: for a variety of reasons. It is the thing that
Speaker 4: national security professionals will tell you is the most important
Speaker 4: tool in their toolkit. But I'll tell you after the
Speaker 4: Polti selection, I no longer have confidence that Trump won't
Speaker 4: use all of these tools to abuse his authorities. So
Speaker 4: why am I wrong? Like, why am I wrong that
Speaker 4: Democrats should fight this?
Speaker 5: Well, First of all section seven oh two, which has
Speaker 5: had prior abuses, We've gone through three rounds of reforms.
Speaker 5: The FBI used to be very callous about how it
Speaker 5: used it. They went from only sixty percent compliance to
Speaker 5: ninety eight percent compliance on making sure that appropriate checks
Speaker 5: balances are dealt with number one.
Speaker 7: Number two.
Speaker 5: My concern with Pulti is so great not about seven
Speaker 5: oh two, because there are enough reporting that he will
Speaker 5: at least be discovered. Now that may not assuage you,
Speaker 5: but there will be an audit trail whereas he could
Speaker 5: try to get other information that doesn't have near the
Speaker 5: same audit trail. And then I do think there is
Speaker 5: a one of the things that took me a long
Speaker 5: time to wrap my head around this. So you've got
Speaker 5: two Russian spies, one of Moscow, one in Paris. They're
Speaker 5: talking about these they keep mentioning this guy Tommy, and
Speaker 5: we don't know from listening whether Tommy is collaborating with
Speaker 5: the Russians or someone the Russians are going after to
Speaker 5: see if they can hack into Tommy actually be a victim.
Speaker 5: And the idea what this is the part that I
Speaker 5: don't think people fully understand. If we want to look
Speaker 5: at who else Tommy has called, because we've got Tommy's name,
Speaker 5: we've got his number, we can only look at, you know,
Speaker 5: the numbers, but not the content. If you want to
Speaker 5: look at the you know, and say, on an email
Speaker 5: like Tommy sends something to Mark, if you want to
Speaker 5: look at the content, you have to get a warrant.
Speaker 5: But the idea that you could get a warrant because
Speaker 5: there is the circumstance that this could be an active,
Speaker 5: live terrorist event and you don't know whether Tommy's about
Speaker 5: to go to a bomb.
Speaker 7: The idea that you could get a.
Speaker 5: Warrant when you only know the name, when twenty percent
Speaker 5: of the time, fifteen to twenty percent of the times,
Speaker 5: Tommy is the victim, not the bad guy.
Speaker 7: It is it is.
Speaker 5: At the end of the day, I've come down. This
Speaker 5: is such an important security tool. Prethent Obamas supported President
Speaker 5: Biden Trump. It is seventy percent of what we was
Speaker 5: in the Presidential Daily Brief. But I understand that people
Speaker 5: have feel the other way, and we have added, you know,
Speaker 5: additional requirements that if it's a politician, if it's a
Speaker 5: religious figure, if it's a media person, you have more hoops.
Speaker 5: If it's someblady where information might be about their constitutional
Speaker 5: rights because you're out protesting ice, you can't you can't
Speaker 5: use it there. It will never be from friends like
Speaker 5: Ron Wyden, who is a hardcore civil libertarian, We're never
Speaker 5: gonna I will never satisfy him. I do think there
Speaker 5: will be at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 5: somewhere around fifteen twenty Democrats that will still say absent
Speaker 5: the problem, because here's my problem.
Speaker 7: This goes away.
Speaker 5: God forbids something happens and Donald Trump then says, we
Speaker 5: wouldn't have had this incident if we had this tool
Speaker 5: and the irony. Just one last point on this is,
Speaker 5: I don't think Donald Trump actually even supports the vision
Speaker 5: that much, because it took into like six weeks, seven
Speaker 5: weeks before the bill expired, that he even came out
Speaker 5: and formally said he supports it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Well, wouldn't the actual like kind of existing authorities not
Speaker 4: expire for almost another year if there wasn't a reauthorization.
Speaker 5: That is again the where the rubber hits the road
Speaker 5: in twenty There is the ability that this authority is
Speaker 5: certified once a year and it would be maintained until March.
Speaker 7: When this came up under Biden. What we heard.
Speaker 5: From the telcos and this is mostly Telcos and the
Speaker 5: Googles and the hyperscalars, they said to Biden's security team,
Speaker 5: if this expires, we are no longer going to participate
Speaker 5: because we don't have indemnification. This expired on Friday night.
Speaker 5: So we're now into an area where you know who
Speaker 5: is right. Will they continue to participate or not? One
Speaker 5: of the telcoats today told me, thank goodness, that they
Speaker 5: will participate. The others we don't have an answer. And
Speaker 5: what is insane to me is I'm the freaking a
Speaker 5: vice chair, which former chair of the Intelligent I should
Speaker 5: know whether they are participating or not?
Speaker 2: Right? Right, And.
Speaker 5: In a normal world, the Justice Department, if we still
Speaker 5: had real lawyers, would have tried to get an injunction
Speaker 5: to try to force them to continue to participate until
Speaker 5: it was litigated out. So we don't end up with
Speaker 5: this gap. My understanding, they've not even filed suit yet,
Speaker 5: so we will. There will be this gap, hopefully not
Speaker 5: too long, but we will find out whether the concern
Speaker 5: I had that they won't participate without indemnification is true
Speaker 5: or not.
Speaker 4: Okay, just as long as I'm treating you like my
Speaker 4: deep state therapist. I mean, is it wrong to focus
Speaker 4: on the D and I when cash Betel is just
Speaker 4: as unqualified and has more authorities to conduct do things
Speaker 4: that are abusive against Americans via the FBI.
Speaker 5: Well, I have gone through a long litany of cash
Speaker 5: Battel abuses and mistakes, and he should not be there.
Speaker 5: The D and I does get keys to all eighteen agencies. Frankly,
Speaker 5: the D and I to go nerdy again. That whole
Speaker 5: role needs to be slimmed down, probably re examined. It
Speaker 5: came out after nine to eleven, well intentioned, but grew
Speaker 5: too much. But no cash battel scares the hell out
Speaker 5: of me. And what also scares the hell out of
Speaker 5: me is we have seen intelligence professionals in other agencies,
Speaker 5: the NSA, which is our our spying organization, in terms
Speaker 5: of listening in you. They fired the guy who Tim Hawk,
Speaker 5: who was there was a career professional because Laura Lumer
Speaker 5: went after him. Or the head of the Defense Intelligence
Speaker 5: Agency told the truth about the first bombing of Iran
Speaker 5: a year ago, where he said, yeah, we whacked him
Speaker 5: pretty good, but we didn't obliterate the nuclear program. Obviously
Speaker 5: the truth or we wouldn't be back in on this.
Speaker 5: So you've got plenty of I got plenty of reasons
Speaker 5: to keep you up at night. In terms of concerns.
Speaker 4: You ever seen cash ptil chug a beer guy doesn't
Speaker 4: spill a drop.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you, man, just on video, although I
Speaker 5: will I won't even I'm hesitant to say this, but
Speaker 5: there's some comorful videos online about mister Poulty as well.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, I've.
Speaker 4: Seen one of those. The gentleman before him seems to
Speaker 4: be having a good time. Senator, thank you so much
Speaker 4: for doing the show. Maybe when we learn what's actually
Speaker 4: in this deal, we could talk again.
Speaker 2: That'd be nice. Love to thanks, I appreciate.
Speaker 7: It, Gotts sweet take care.
Speaker 2: That's our show for today. Thanks to Senator Warner for
Speaker 2: coming on. We'll be back in the feed on Friday
Speaker 2: with a special episode. The three of us and Dan
Speaker 2: will be recording in Chicago at the opening of the
Speaker 2: Obama Presidential Center. Fun Nice talk to everybody soon. Positive
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