Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. It's Rick Wilson. Welcome back to the Strategy Session.
Speaker 1: Delighted to be joined tonight by Wajah Lee, our good
Speaker 1: friend of the show and good friend of mine. Wajah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on today. Before we
Speaker 1: get started, I want to talk briefly about the one
Speaker 1: thing that I think unifies most Americans, and that is
Speaker 1: our period of national mourning that we just entered today
Speaker 1: for Dolly Parton, who believed in literacy and kindness and music.
Speaker 1: And was one of those bright lights in our culture,
Speaker 1: even in some of the darkest times. So folks, from
Speaker 1: everybody here at the network, we want to express our
Speaker 1: sincerest condolences to the Parton and Owens families. And folks,
Speaker 1: she will be very deeply missed.
Speaker 2: May I say also, I was lucky enough to see
Speaker 2: Dolly Parton perform about two and a half years ago
Speaker 2: in Austin. And I was amazed. I mean, I'm like,
Speaker 2: how old is she folks? 78. I mean, she was
Speaker 2: in complete control of the crowd. She was a consummate performer.
Speaker 2: She sang hits. She was out there dancing, singing. She
Speaker 2: was a woman who was born in poverty in the South.
Speaker 2: People underestimated her. She kind of played up that always.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She played up that bubbly nine to five character, but
Speaker 2: she amassed a not just a fortune, but an empire
Speaker 2: worth half a billion dollars. And furthermore, in addition to
Speaker 2: using that wealth for good, like you said, for education literacy,
Speaker 2: she gave out more than 300 million books. And during
Speaker 2: this once in a lifetime pandemic, while right wingers promoted
Speaker 2: vaccine hesitancy as they were getting vaccinated and protecting their children,
Speaker 2: remember that Dolly Parton gave a million dollars for research.
Speaker 2: And then like a halal guinea pig to increase vaccination,
Speaker 2: took a video of herself getting vaccinated. So she saved lives.
Speaker 2: And you know, it is kind of sad because you
Speaker 2: think about it, Rick, you think about Americana, American icons, myths,
Speaker 2: and we see how everything is dying. And then Dolly
Speaker 2: Parton was one of those last good ones. And she
Speaker 2: left us.
Speaker 1: She really was. And, and folks, we will, we, again, once,
Speaker 1: once again, there, there is a, um, There's a hole
Speaker 1: where something big in our culture used to be, in
Speaker 1: our hearts. So RIP Dolly Parton. Also, maybe we should
Speaker 1: switch to something more terrifying. The director of the CIA
Speaker 1: today flew out of Riga, Latvia, on a U.S. Air
Speaker 1: Force C-17 to Moscow. He raced through the streets in
Speaker 1: an armed-up motorcade, met with Vladimir Putin, and was gone
Speaker 1: within two hours. watch this is because as we've all
Speaker 1: talked about Russia World War 3 has started in Europe
Speaker 1: we just don't we're just not admitting it to ourselves
Speaker 1: yet it's not evenly distributed they're running sabotage operations in
Speaker 1: Britain and Germany and France they're running operations to infiltrate
Speaker 1: Latvia Lithuania and Estonia they're threatening the Finnish border I
Speaker 1: mean Ratliff who is who is seemingly now a hawk
Speaker 1: on this um you know he will probably have all
Speaker 1: his good work on overturned by trump in the next
Speaker 1: 24 hours but man it certainly strikes me that this
Speaker 1: is not a normal thing to have happen i'm.
Speaker 2: So glad you're leading with this because this should be
Speaker 2: leading news why the hell is our director of national
Speaker 2: intelligence quietly uh without any fan for a meeting a
Speaker 2: brutal anti-American dictator who has invaded Ukraine, and like you said,
Speaker 2: is saber-rattling with our allies, including there's one big country
Speaker 2: that you forgot, Poland. Furthermore, we had reports, remember, that
Speaker 2: I think CNN was the only, there was only one
Speaker 2: brief mention on CNN last year because it was mentioned
Speaker 2: in Russia, where they were openly talking about how Russia, China,
Speaker 2: and the United States of America under Trump, Xi Jinping,
Speaker 2: and Putin would literally carve up the different spheres of influence.
Speaker 2: America gets Canada and Greenland. Russia gets the North. China
Speaker 2: gets the South. And I think the reason why this
Speaker 2: is happening is Donald Trump is dying. This man, before
Speaker 2: he dies, he's like, I want it. I want it all.
Speaker 2: And he is just going all in, getting as much
Speaker 2: as he can. They're raping our data. They're raping our water.
Speaker 2: They're raping our children. They're raping our land. They're raping
Speaker 2: our wealth. And they're now just completely dispensing with any
Speaker 2: even performance. They're like, no, we're just going to take it.
Speaker 2: And they're also fueled in the back end by these
Speaker 2: techno fascists who have openly, people like Peter Thiel, told
Speaker 2: you their plot. And by the way, folks, who has
Speaker 2: groomed J.D. Vance's career from college.
Speaker 1: To the- Peter Thiel, sugar daddy to J.D. Vance from
Speaker 1: the time he was in school.
Speaker 2: And who, eight days ago, was it eight or nine
Speaker 2: days ago, J.D. Vance- as the dollar has depreciated, folks,
Speaker 2: thanks to Donald Trump's dumbass destructive trade war and thanks
Speaker 2: to the destructive Iran war, who kind of welcomed the
Speaker 2: devaluing of the dollar and kind of opened or teased
Speaker 2: the fact that the dollar should be removed as the
Speaker 2: global reserve currency? Rick? That would be J.D. Vance.
Speaker 1: You know, in the best scenario, in the best case scenario,
Speaker 1: John Ratliff went to Moscow and told Putin, cut the
Speaker 1: fuck out. But, Putin knows that the director of the
Speaker 1: CIA is not in charge. He knows that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is in charge. He's going to call up and say, Donald,
Speaker 1: you're a tall and handsome and beautiful man. I love
Speaker 1: to see your handsome masculine figure every day. And Trump's
Speaker 1: going to go, I love him. He's so good to me.
Speaker 1: John Ratliff, I don't know him. He's a coffee boy,
Speaker 1: an intern. He barely worked here. No one knows him.
Speaker 1: He may be deep state.
Speaker 2: This is..
Speaker 1: Was signal chatting with somebody who's a former senior German
Speaker 1: government official. And she and I worked together for years
Speaker 1: and years and years and years and years on, on projects.
Speaker 1: And she's a little older than me. We're tired now.
Speaker 1: And she's just like, we'll never admit we're at war
Speaker 1: until they roll tanks. We will never admit it, that
Speaker 1: they're at war with us and we're not at war
Speaker 1: with them. And our guilt from 1945 is still so
Speaker 1: heavy on us that we won't even defend ourselves against,
Speaker 1: A war by Russia. I hope to God Ratliff was
Speaker 1: doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: He's not.
Speaker 1: But I have no faith in any member of his
Speaker 1: administration when it comes to life or death things, especially
Speaker 1: regarding Russia. I just don't.
Speaker 2: Can I connect the dots real quick?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: People might be like, well, you and Rick, I don't know.
Speaker 2: You might sound conspiratorial. We have the Epstein files where
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Thiel are openly talking about the
Speaker 2: collapse of the post-World War II democratic order.
Speaker 1: And how to collapse it, not just observing, but planning.
Speaker 2: And who did Jeffrey Epstein want to have a meeting with?
Speaker 2: Who was he enamored with? Putin. And who did he
Speaker 2: also meet with? Bannon to talk about the right-wing takeover
Speaker 2: of social media. What did they want to replace the
Speaker 2: dollar with? Crypto, right? Deregulation, no oversight, no accountability. Who
Speaker 2: did Donald Trump openly welcome? Putin and his interference in
Speaker 2: the 2016 election. Now I want you all just to
Speaker 2: pay attention to what happened in the past week. Last week,
Speaker 2: because time is a flat circle, everything seems like it's
Speaker 2: like 30 years.
Speaker 1: Time is a flat circle, man.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump attacks South Korea, our ally for 75 years,
Speaker 2: wants to disband joint military exercises, instead praises that communist
Speaker 2: dictator Kim Jong-un. He also threatens to bomb Oman. He
Speaker 2: also now, over the weekend and through his proxy, J.D. Vance,
Speaker 2: attacks our ally, our trade partner, our neighbor, Canada. But
Speaker 2: look who he's kissing up to. Putin, MBS, Netanyahu, and
Speaker 2: Kim Jong-un.
Speaker 1: All of this, folks, you should understand, is not a coincidence.
Speaker 1: This is a pattern of behavior with a goal in mind.
Speaker 1: Let's bring up some of the Canada stuff, because that was,
Speaker 1: honest to God, one of the dumbest things I think
Speaker 1: I've ever seen this president do. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons he hates Mark Carney is is because Mark Carney
Speaker 1: is orders of magnitude smarter than Donald Trump. Mark Carney
Speaker 1: is a very, very brilliant guy. And he is running
Speaker 1: circles around Trump on this trade stuff. And he's got Trump, frankly,
Speaker 1: in a degree of pain that Trump won't admit. So
Speaker 1: he's doing jerk-off stuff like, we're going to name Ontario
Speaker 1: Lake America. As I mentioned to the Canadiens, you should
Speaker 1: just rename it Lake Epstein if he wants to play
Speaker 1: those games, you know? Um, but yeah, I mean, cutting
Speaker 1: off our biggest trading partner in the world that, um,
Speaker 1: 11 or 12 States depend on, including several States like Maine, uh, Michigan,
Speaker 1: Alaska that depend on trade with Canada for their economic prosperity. Um,
Speaker 1: Brilliant move, Donald brilliant move. It's what's why yesterday, JD
Speaker 1: Vance was doing a rally in Maine wash and Susan
Speaker 1: Collins was somewhere like in Hawaii or something. She got
Speaker 1: the hell out of Dodge. It was like her, her
Speaker 1: busy schedule made sure she was a thousand miles away. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Peter Thiel's gimp, JD Vance then goes and mocks Canada
Speaker 2: for Maine yesterday. And Canada's like, all right, bring it on.
Speaker 2: And look folks, what we're witnessing. And I said this yesterday,
Speaker 2: cause I don't think people are realizing it. Uh, Excuse me,
Speaker 2: two days ago, I said our enemies, and this includes Putin.
Speaker 2: Putin is the enemy of America, lest you all forget.
Speaker 2: Could not have dreamt, could not have dreamt of a
Speaker 2: better self-destructive, sabotaging Trump. Look what he's done.
Speaker 1: Folks.
Speaker 2: He is destroying our economy. He has embroiled us in
Speaker 2: this unwinnable, illegal war with Iran. JP Morgan just came
Speaker 2: out and said there'll be food shortages in 2027. Even
Speaker 2: if the war ends, gas prices are high. Stupid, dumbass
Speaker 2: trade war. Tariffs that we've paid for. Now he's alienating
Speaker 2: our allies, South Korea, which, by the way, folks, has
Speaker 2: plants in the United States of America, right? So also
Speaker 2: an economic partner. Pissing off Canada. Has RFK, the man
Speaker 2: who has no gag reflex because he just picks up
Speaker 2: dead animals off the street. Gutted the FDA. Gutted the CDC.
Speaker 2: Some other news from today. Two people dead in Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: due to measles. At least seven reported deaths from this
Speaker 2: parasite virus. that is causing explosive diarrhea.
Speaker 1: Shit lettuce is our new national spirit animal, apparently. And
Speaker 1: RFK this weekend was at an event saying the cure
Speaker 1: for measles is chicken soup. No, motherfucker. The cure for
Speaker 1: measles is vaccinating yourself against measles.
Speaker 2: Dude, we can't eat lettuce. We can't eat alfalfa sprouts.
Speaker 2: We can't eat blueberries.
Speaker 1: Strawberries, blueberries. Strawberries.
Speaker 2: Popsicles, eye drops. I mean, you know, when you and
Speaker 2: I were growing up, Russian roulette was played with a gun.
Speaker 2: Now we're just two dudes with like a leaf of lettuce, whoever. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's like, Hey, I'm going to get a
Speaker 1: bag lettuce from the store, a bag salad from the store.
Speaker 1: How do you think it's going to go? Well, it
Speaker 1: could kill you.
Speaker 2: But look, look, it's like in all seriousness, Rick, you're
Speaker 2: seeing it all. It's like Jenga, right? The game of Jenga.
Speaker 2: You remove enough pieces. You remove enough pieces. What eventually
Speaker 2: happens is, The collapse. And we're witnessing the collapse of America.
Speaker 2: And we did it to ourselves, Rick. We did it
Speaker 2: to ourselves.
Speaker 1: Dude, 100%, we did it to ourselves. We chose this path.
Speaker 1: And look, folks, one thing to take heart from, today's
Speaker 1: Ipsos poll has Trump with strong approval among 13%.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: 13% strong approval now.
Speaker 2: He is now under 30.
Speaker 1: 28, 29 is his overall, and 13% is his strong. Folks,
Speaker 1: That is worse than Jimmy Carter in his darkest days.
Speaker 1: That is worse than George Bush just after Katrina by
Speaker 1: a long shot. These polls are absolutely devastating. The support
Speaker 1: for the Iran war is down to 31%, which is
Speaker 1: exactly the number where it was when we went out
Speaker 1: of Vietnam in 1974. How'd that work out for us?
Speaker 1: And interestingly, Wajd, even these people, even the slow learners
Speaker 1: are learning because the group that's dropping fastest on the
Speaker 1: Iran war are Republicans.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: They are the ones who are like finally getting it.
Speaker 1: Like this isn't your, your, your, your, your, your father's
Speaker 1: Gulf incursion. This isn't Kuwait. We drove Saddam out and left.
Speaker 1: And as I like to say to people, like to
Speaker 1: put it in context, even my old boss, Dick Cheney
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, we're not going to a shooting war
Speaker 1: with Iran. That's a bad idea. We're not going to
Speaker 1: go shoot more with Iran. That's a bad idea. There
Speaker 1: were always a few people that wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: John Bolton's of the world, a few, you know, whatever's.
Speaker 1: Even Dick Cheney didn't want to go to war with Iran, folks.
Speaker 1: Figure it out. This is a disaster piled on a disaster.
Speaker 1: And for all of you who look at the Iranian
Speaker 1: regime and say, wow, they violate the shit out of
Speaker 1: human rights every day. And they do. Every day Trump
Speaker 1: keeps this up, gives them more power for longer. Don't
Speaker 1: you think? I mean, he put them in charge now
Speaker 1: for 50 more years.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, let's just look at facts. What you
Speaker 2: said is in the past 47 years, Democratic and Republican
Speaker 2: presidents had the opportunity to engage in a war with Iran.
Speaker 2: Each one of them said no.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 2: George W. Bush, he goes, I'm going to be a
Speaker 2: dumbass and invade Iraq and Afghanistan. But even Iran, even
Speaker 2: I know no dumbass does that, right? Donald Trump is
Speaker 2: the only president to join Netanyahu in this illegal, unwinnable war.
Speaker 2: The Strait of Hormuz was open. Now it's closed. We
Speaker 2: have now energy shortages, food shortages, gas shortages. Also, we
Speaker 2: killed the older dying Khamenei, replaced them with the younger,
Speaker 2: now more militant Khamenei. Iran now is using its economic leverage,
Speaker 2: has emerged stronger. The regime is stronger. And now people,
Speaker 2: because of everything we've already mentioned, are moving away from
Speaker 2: America as an ally and going towards Russia and China
Speaker 2: and making side deals with Iran.
Speaker 1: And look, China buys 80% of Iran's oil, folks. And
Speaker 1: you know what? Those tankers are getting out. And we're
Speaker 1: not stopping them. Those tankers are getting out and the U.S.
Speaker 1: forces are not stopping them. And Because Trump, when he
Speaker 1: said the other day, we're going to have an economic
Speaker 1: D-Day against Iran, and any country that does business with
Speaker 1: them will be punished, except, of course, Russia and China.
Speaker 1: They're okay. They're going to be fine. But, yeah, I
Speaker 1: had a friend of mine reach out to me a
Speaker 1: couple weeks ago, and she's Persian, and her family came
Speaker 1: here post-1979 initially, and then she and her parents got
Speaker 1: out in the mid-' 90s, early-' 90s, And she said to me,
Speaker 1: she says, you know, my cousins and I, we talk
Speaker 1: and talk and talk. She goes, and they wanted, what
Speaker 1: they wanted, their generation wanted was a Louis Vuitton in
Speaker 1: Tehran and a Dior in Tehran. And they wanted Western
Speaker 1: music and culture in Tehran. And now they're going to
Speaker 1: go back to the Middle Ages because these people have
Speaker 1: been handed the one thing they needed, which was evidence
Speaker 1: that the great Satan was going to attack them.
Speaker 2: And they killed, and the United States of America double-tapped
Speaker 2: a school using faulty AI, killing 175 girls, radicalizing an
Speaker 2: entire nation. Folks, look, in my lifetime, I've never seen
Speaker 2: this before. From the get-go, this war with Iran, look,
Speaker 2: throughout my life, Rick, America has always embraced bombing brown
Speaker 2: and Muslim people. But from the get-go, people are like,
Speaker 2: I think this is a bad idea. Now this is
Speaker 2: nearly an 80-20 issue against Trump. When you look at
Speaker 2: AI data centers, 80-20 issue. Look at the handling of
Speaker 2: Epstein files, 80-20 issue. If you look at economy inflation,
Speaker 2: negative double digits. He has approval rating about 32 to 33, right?
Speaker 2: A little lower.
Speaker 1: Than some, but yeah. I would think maybe, who am I?
Speaker 2: I'm a simple English major. If I'm a Democratic leader
Speaker 2: or a Democratic strategist, maybe just maybe go on full
Speaker 2: scale freaking smash mouth offense. And I have to talk
Speaker 2: to you about this because I didn't. We have Hakeem
Speaker 2: Jeffries meeting with Jared Kushner in a secret private meeting. Un-fucking-believable.
Speaker 2: You know and I know that that was a lot
Speaker 2: of quid pro quo. And you know and I know
Speaker 2: Jared's like, listen, we know you're all going to win
Speaker 2: the House and the Senate despite Donald, my dumbass father.
Speaker 1: I could be good to you. You'd be good to me.
Speaker 2: I scratch your back.
Speaker 1: Maybe you get your guys to like, maybe they can
Speaker 1: have a hearing or two, but you know, then if
Speaker 1: you'll do what we want, we'll do an infrastructure bill
Speaker 1: for your district that will give you this and this. I, I, I,
Speaker 1: I did a video of it on, on Monday. I
Speaker 1: wrote a piece about it. It'll come out for Wednesday.
Speaker 1: None of this is how a, future speaker of the
Speaker 1: democratic party should behave you should not have taken the
Speaker 1: meeting no you should not have even walked in the
Speaker 1: room he had to know they were going to leak
Speaker 1: it to hurt him and they did immediately um and
Speaker 1: if jeffrey's people leaked it you should fire everybody who
Speaker 1: works for him because that's insane.
Speaker 2: Um but tell the connection tell him the connection if
Speaker 2: maggie haberman was the one who leaked it why was
Speaker 2: maggie haberman the one who leaked it rick Could it
Speaker 2: be because, can you make the connection? Could it be?
Speaker 1: Listen, there is, I think that Jared has a very
Speaker 1: tight relationship there. I'm sure that there were people that
Speaker 1: they were mutually friends with who made the connection between
Speaker 1: Jeffrey's Kushner and the reporting of it. I think that
Speaker 1: this entire story was meant to disrupt Jeffries, and he
Speaker 1: fell for it. He fell for it. This is coming
Speaker 1: out tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Whitney says it just came out.
Speaker 1: Oh, it just came out. Oh, well, maybe it's coming
Speaker 1: out today. God bless America. None of this makes any
Speaker 1: fucking sense politically or ethically Or morally. Because no Trump
Speaker 1: emissary is ever a good faith interlocutor. Not a single
Speaker 1: one of them ever. No matter what they promised Jeffries.
Speaker 1: Let's just say, okay, let's hypothesize. Let's say Jeffries, I'm
Speaker 1: just using this as an example, people. Just ride with me.
Speaker 1: Let's say Jeffries really wanted an infrastructure bill. And they
Speaker 1: would say, sure, we'll do an infrastructure bill.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 1: And Jeffries would sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice
Speaker 1: and cut it, cut it, cut it, cut it, and
Speaker 1: agree to not investigate Trump and agree to keep the
Speaker 1: oversight committee and judiciary committees from going after Todd Blanch
Speaker 1: and going after Pete Hegseth and going after Stephen Miller.
Speaker 1: and going after Trump himself. And then when the infrastructure
Speaker 1: bill passed the House and the Senate, Trump would go,
Speaker 1: fuck you, ha ha, I'm not going to sign it.
Speaker 1: Or if it passed and he signed it, then he
Speaker 1: would tell the Department of Transportation, ha ha, fuck you,
Speaker 1: nothing for Jeffries. The frog always gets bitten by the
Speaker 1: fucking scorpion people. The scorpion is always the scorpion. He
Speaker 1: never does the right thing. The devil always lies. Every
Speaker 1: time the devil in any literature, whether it's Western or Eastern,
Speaker 1: makes a deal with somebody, he is the trickster. He
Speaker 1: doesn't keep his contract. Oh, you want eternal life here?
Speaker 1: Sign here. You get to be 200 years old and
Speaker 1: then you live forever as a miserable old corpse. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is the devil in these things. And as I
Speaker 1: said yesterday in my video, folks, the only meeting Hakeem
Speaker 1: Jeffries should be having with a Trump emissary is to
Speaker 1: negotiate Donald Trump's departure from the White House.
Speaker 2: There you go. That's it.
Speaker 1: And that's the only reason you should meet with them. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: they're going to fuck you. Mr. Speaker to be. And
Speaker 1: I mean, nothing in this was nothing about this works
Speaker 1: politically for the party. You could see the reaction of
Speaker 1: everybody from progressive to left to center. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: probably on the, on the, in the center right division
Speaker 1: criticizing it for doing this. And you're probably in the
Speaker 1: left or center left or progressive left division criticizing But
Speaker 1: the disgust for this was across the board. And so
Speaker 1: he does this video last night. It was very clever
Speaker 1: on one level. It's like nobody in the Trump cartel
Speaker 1: gets away with it. But he still didn't address why
Speaker 1: he took the meeting.
Speaker 2: He did not.
Speaker 1: Saying it was about affordability. Get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 1: The meeting, if it was about affordability, that Kushner should
Speaker 1: have been meeting right now with Mike Johnson, who is
Speaker 1: the Speaker of the House, who has train wrecked every
Speaker 1: fucking thing in the House for months to pass the
Speaker 1: SAVE Act and to hide the Epstein files. That's the
Speaker 1: meeting Kushner should have been taking. So that video, he
Speaker 1: was pissy. You could tell he was mad about it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad. He should be pissed because that wasn't a
Speaker 1: video of a man who was like, who was... pissed
Speaker 1: at the people that tricked him he's pissed at the
Speaker 1: people who caught him being tricked yep not cool.
Speaker 2: And and he got exposed and even when it came
Speaker 2: to affordability he gave us no specifics about what he
Speaker 2: talked about right why would you talk to jared kushner
Speaker 2: who's not part of the administration.
Speaker 1: Right you want to you want to stop the affordability
Speaker 1: crisis congress has the power in the constitution folks to
Speaker 1: set tariffs they allowed trump because mike johnson just said
Speaker 1: okay boss to use an emergency provision, Congress could easily
Speaker 1: declare that emergency provision is not relevant, and they're going
Speaker 1: to be back in charge of tariff setting, and any
Speaker 1: tariff that has been set that is not in accordance
Speaker 1: with a law passed by Congress goes away. That would
Speaker 1: improve America's economy tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Well, what did Cornyn say? Remember what Cornyn said?
Speaker 1: No, we can't do it. There's not much we can
Speaker 1: do about it. We can't control him.
Speaker 2: Not much we can do to rein him in. I'm like,
Speaker 2: aren't you a senator?
Speaker 1: You're a U.S.
Speaker 2: Senator.
Speaker 1: You have a lot you can do to rein him in.
Speaker 1: You can do a lot to rein him in. A U.S.
Speaker 1: Senator could say, I'm blue-carding every single Trump judicial appointee
Speaker 1: from here on and holding their nominations. I'm going to
Speaker 1: freeze every budget item that I can touch from now on.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make sure that we don't move a
Speaker 1: single piece of legislation for Pete Hegseth's $ 1. 5 trillion defense budget.
Speaker 1: At the end of the Cold War, folks, our defense
Speaker 1: budget was $ 233 billion. That ain't even in the ballpark
Speaker 1: of chump change now for what these guys want. And
Speaker 1: they don't want it for real things to protect us.
Speaker 1: They want it to build the Trump battleship. Get the
Speaker 1: fuck out of here.
Speaker 2: Or a surveillance state and give them money to palantir.
Speaker 2: Or for flock cameras. Right. Because that's what makes America...
Speaker 2: You know how you win over Americans regardless of their
Speaker 2: political affiliation? You promote surveillance.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. People love being monitored 24-7. They love it.
Speaker 2: It is a gangbusters. It's a winner. Trust me. It's
Speaker 2: a winner.
Speaker 1: And if you guys want to really, Republicans, if you're
Speaker 1: listening to us, Washington are going to help you out here, guys.
Speaker 1: You should also really push data centers. They're so popular.
Speaker 1: So popular. People wake up in the morning and go,
Speaker 1: why can't I have a data center in my neighborhood?
Speaker 2: Do I want to give my child affordable, healthy milk
Speaker 2: and water, or do I want a noisy AI data
Speaker 2: center that has turned the water brown and black. I
Speaker 2: want data centers.
Speaker 1: My gosh, I can't wait to have a data center
Speaker 1: producing AI furry porn for Elon Musk and my neighbor.
Speaker 2: And then also, remember, Trump said, and you have a
Speaker 2: clip of this, people love data centers.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Do we have that clip?
Speaker 3: Communities, frankly, communities that don't take a data center, they're
Speaker 3: making a mistake because there's plenty of communities that want
Speaker 3: them because it means jobs and it means tremendous tax
Speaker 3: revenue coming into the towns and cities that take them.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like the smart ones are saying, I
Speaker 3: want them so badly.
Speaker 1: Just a quick note, folks. The imaginary tax revenue from
Speaker 1: data centers is a lie. Because all these companies that
Speaker 1: are building data centers, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, SpaceX, whatever the
Speaker 1: fuck it's called this week, almost all of them have
Speaker 1: a corporate shell game they play. And their corporate headquarters
Speaker 1: are all in Ireland.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 1: And they say that the product of the computing going
Speaker 1: out of those things goes to the Mothership Corporation in Ireland,
Speaker 1: which is a tax loophole. So they're not paying taxes
Speaker 1: on what the data centers do. They may pay taxes
Speaker 1: on the electricity the data centers consume. But the product
Speaker 1: they're producing lives in a taxation gray area. And these
Speaker 1: people are hoping you're too stupid to realize it. Are
Speaker 1: there some jobs on the front end of a data center?
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Some electricians and some construction workers. And then everybody in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood and the community and the state and the
Speaker 1: county pays a terrible price for a generation as these
Speaker 1: things pollute the water, pollute the air. And they sound
Speaker 1: like a jet engine or 30 jet engines all night long.
Speaker 2: And also they steal your data. And it's an 80-20
Speaker 2: issue that has radicalized a wide swath of Americans. You
Speaker 2: would think, Rick. Maybe Democrats run to the left on
Speaker 2: this issue of Donald Trump. Maybe play this nonstop. The
Speaker 2: fact that he's doubled down.
Speaker 1: Hell, you know what? The weird thing about data centers
Speaker 1: is it's like it runs to the left on the
Speaker 1: environmental and the quality of life and the unfairness of it.
Speaker 1: It runs to the traditional right on the libertarian nature
Speaker 1: of like, why would you give these people these enormous
Speaker 1: tax benefits? Why are you giving away this stuff to
Speaker 1: companies for nothing that do public harm? I mean, it is, again,
Speaker 1: it's an 80-20 issue. So please, Republicans, Oh, today in Florida,
Speaker 1: Byron Donalds, the Republican nominee for governor, named a guy
Speaker 1: named Avila as his running mate. Avila was the guy
Speaker 1: who carried the data center bill in Florida that basically
Speaker 1: says data centers can go wherever they want to go.
Speaker 1: He was the sponsor of the bill.
Speaker 2: This is how you win. More, more.
Speaker 1: More data centers. Push them.
Speaker 2: More data centers, more war, more supporting Netanyahu. More, more, more,
Speaker 2: more giving tax cuts to billionaires at the expense of
Speaker 2: a trillion dollars. This is what will get people to
Speaker 2: vote for you.
Speaker 1: People love it. You know what? And I mean, isn't
Speaker 1: it time for America's struggling mom and pop billionaires to
Speaker 1: get another tax cut?
Speaker 2: They haven't had one in over a year. It's been
Speaker 2: over a year. They need another space shuttle. They only
Speaker 2: have one penis shaped space shuttle. What type of America
Speaker 2: do we live in? When a billionaire can only have, well,
Speaker 2: you need at least two, his and hers.
Speaker 1: Well, he just bought one. He just bought one. And
Speaker 1: he just bought like 150,000 acres of Louisiana in some
Speaker 1: weird deal. I'm like, please go to Louisiana, dude. Stay there.
Speaker 1: Stay in the swamp. Don't come out again. But, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we are seeing watch this
Speaker 1: year is we've got a bunch of Democratic candidates. Maybe
Speaker 1: the leadership doesn't always know how to fight. But, man,
Speaker 1: we know how to. We're watching some candidates across the board.
Speaker 1: whether it's John Ossoff in Georgia or James Tallarico in
Speaker 1: Texas or Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, who has now gone
Speaker 1: into the lion's den of Fox and gone after that
Speaker 1: grinning numkin of Jesse Waters. Let's play that clip and
Speaker 1: then we'll talk about it.
Speaker 2: So the question, so again, like Jesse, you have not
Speaker 2: asked me one time about the issues that people actually
Speaker 2: care about in Michigan. You don't want to talk about
Speaker 2: gas prices. You don't want to talk about groceries. You
Speaker 2: don't want to talk about health care.
Speaker 1: You don't want to talk about the stupid trade war
Speaker 1: that's about to destroy the whole interview talking about that
Speaker 1: stuff that's destroying. When you get to Fox, folks, if
Speaker 1: you're willing to go on Fox and go smash mouth
Speaker 1: with those people, they will stop inviting you on. because
Speaker 1: their audience has to be fed, they have to be
Speaker 1: spoon-fed a line of sugar-coated bullshit every day. And I'm
Speaker 1: happy to see the Al-Sayeds and the Ossoffs and the
Speaker 1: rest of these candidates who are taking the fight, not
Speaker 1: only to their Republican opposition, but taking the fight directly
Speaker 1: to where the Republicans live. That is really, I mean,
Speaker 1: and Pete Buttigieg, started this, this trend a while back.
Speaker 1: He's magnificent when he goes on Fox and just dismantles
Speaker 1: their bullshit. And they're all understanding. Now these candidates are
Speaker 1: starting to understand leaving the bullshit unchallenged leaves it in
Speaker 1: the heads of all these people.
Speaker 2: That's right. You need to. It's why I go on
Speaker 2: Piers Morgan sometimes, Rick. And the analogy that I gave
Speaker 2: is remember the movie Inception where DiCaprio has to spin
Speaker 2: and it's spinning and there's like a there's an Arabic word,
Speaker 2: a whisper. You just put a whisper and it causes
Speaker 2: a type of cognitive dissonance because you're being force fed.
Speaker 2: All this propaganda, but then one effective communicator and fighter
Speaker 2: comes on and kind of dismantles a little bit of it.
Speaker 2: A part of you goes, wait a second. Right. Let
Speaker 2: me rethink this. And that's what Abdul Saeed did. He
Speaker 2: was there. He was calm. He had some jabs. He
Speaker 2: held his own. And people are like, oh, this guy
Speaker 2: seems smart. He seems capable. And he's, wait for it,
Speaker 2: you mentioned it, a fighter. People want fighters. Fighters. Why
Speaker 2: did Donald Trump in part win? Yes, it was the
Speaker 2: white supremacy of the race.
Speaker 1: He was a fighter. He was a fighter.
Speaker 2: He came in and said, I'm going to take him on.
Speaker 2: I'm not part of the establishment. I'm a bulldozer. I'm
Speaker 2: going to take him on. It's all bullshit, but it worked.
Speaker 2: Why is Ossoff winning? Why did he trigger these Republicans?
Speaker 2: With one line, he exposed their weakness. The line about
Speaker 2: Natalie Harp. And oh my God, they sat there and
Speaker 2: they wept.
Speaker 1: They have been so triggered by that. They're so flipped
Speaker 1: out by that. And that ecosystem also believes, by the way,
Speaker 1: that every Democrat, that everybody who's not a MAGA is
Speaker 1: weak and scared and politically correct, and it's going to
Speaker 1: collapse when you bring out trans students or some other issue.
Speaker 1: And over and over again, hitting them back in their
Speaker 1: face with their bullshit works. I was on an interview
Speaker 1: a while ago with a fairly right-wing guy and he's
Speaker 1: like oh well you just want trans kids in every
Speaker 1: classroom and i don't know i'm like you know you
Speaker 1: think about other people's penises a lot and i find
Speaker 1: that troubling that's exactly i find it troubling why why
Speaker 1: are you so obsessed with other people's genitalia why why
Speaker 1: are you so crazed about how much i don't want
Speaker 1: to see your search history dude i don't want to
Speaker 1: see your porn hub searches particularly and he got like
Speaker 1: angry and we were on a zoom luckily he would
Speaker 1: have punched me because he got like pale and then
Speaker 1: angry and then and then was like all Hit them, folks.
Speaker 1: These candidates that are winning are hitting them in the face.
Speaker 2: And you're exactly because they're cosplay crusaders. They have weak
Speaker 2: knees and weak ankles. They're deeply insecure about their masculinity
Speaker 2: or their closeted homosexuals. We see people like Pete Hexeth
Speaker 2: or Pete Kexeth cosplay crusading a broken man with all
Speaker 2: these tattoos, obsessed with like human testosterone, like a male testosterone. Right.
Speaker 2: And then also these people are more obsessed about transgender
Speaker 2: people than even transgender people. I'm like, bro, there's zero
Speaker 2: transgender athletes in the WNBA. Let it go. Why are
Speaker 2: you so obsessed with genitalia and looking at people's schlongs?
Speaker 1: There's like nine trans athletes in the entire NCAA with
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of student athletes in the NCAA. You know,
Speaker 1: if it's an issue, it's an issue in their heads.
Speaker 1: And they do it. They do it, Wash, increasingly because...
Speaker 1: they're running out of oxygen to feed their base. They
Speaker 1: can't say to their base, Hey, well, we're going to
Speaker 1: be better for you on the economy because that used
Speaker 1: to be a thing that would bring those more moderate
Speaker 1: suburban Republicans over. And they'd be like, I don't like Trump,
Speaker 1: but you know what? I don't want my taxes to
Speaker 1: go up and I, and the economy will do better
Speaker 1: under Trump. And now they know that's bullshit. They know
Speaker 1: that's a lie. They know it's insanity.
Speaker 2: So, Well, look, if you don't believe us, if you
Speaker 2: don't believe us that you got that clip of Pete Hegseth.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, we did.
Speaker 2: It means no more DEI. It means no more trannies,
Speaker 2: just training. There you go.
Speaker 1: I'm sure somebody in his speech writing office spent days
Speaker 1: crafting that line and giggling to themselves. We're going to
Speaker 1: own the libs with this one. Grow the fuck up.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Wash, tell folks where they can find you
Speaker 1: on your Substack and on social media, buddy.
Speaker 2: Folks, it's thelefthook.substack.com. Great conversations I've had this week. And
Speaker 2: you can also find me co-hosting Democracy-ish. And also you
Speaker 2: can see me on social media. Like Rick, I go
Speaker 2: on these Hellscape sites to needle people. And troll the
Speaker 2: world's worst people. And right now, you'll be really pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 2: In addition to MAGA, the people who really hate me
Speaker 2: right now are, wait for it, the Democratic establishment. Oh,
Speaker 2: they hate me, Rick. And I love it.
Speaker 1: Good. Listen, I have spent the last decade saying to them,
Speaker 1: you know, here's how the bad guys are going to
Speaker 1: hit you in the face. And they go, they would
Speaker 1: never do that. And then they walk away with their
Speaker 1: face caved in every freaking time.
Speaker 2: Okay. Okay.
Speaker 1: Not invented here, folks, is not a really wise philosophy
Speaker 1: to live in your life. So anyway, everybody, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for watching the strategy session. Thanks to Waj
Speaker 1: Ali for coming on tonight. And you can catch me
Speaker 1: in the magical list on Tuesdays here on the strategy session,
Speaker 1: on Thursdays on the breakdown, on Fridays, elephant in the room. Also,
Speaker 1: you can catch me on Fridays with our polling show
Speaker 1: with my son, Andrew Wilson. We're reconfiguring that a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a different, kind of a different
Speaker 1: vibe going forward. He's almost back from paternity leave where
Speaker 1: they delivered my first grandson. Got something else to fight for.
Speaker 1: But we appreciate everybody. Oh, and on the weekends, you
Speaker 1: can catch me with my beautiful wife, Renee, on The
Speaker 1: Weekend R & R, where we answer viewer questions. Because
Speaker 1: we get so damn many of them, we've got to
Speaker 1: have a show to do viewer questions. And we love it. Anyway, thanks, everybody.
Speaker 1: And we will see you again next time on the
Speaker 1: Strategy Session.