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Funding for the federal government runs out on Friday, and the killing of Minneapolis has shaken up what looked to be a glide path to likely avoiding a shutdown into what is now a wall that the Senate is going to crash into. We can put up this first element
from Chuck Schumer. So Chuck Schumer has met with his Senate colleagues, and in the wake of the killing of Alex pretty Rank and ale Democrats have been uh livid and saying that they're drawing a red line here, that they have no intention of UH of supporting government funding if it includes money for the DHS, and so saga,
what's what's going on here? So last week the House passed a bunch of different UH spending packages and then and then left like so could credit to Speaker Mike Johnson, we could say, I think this is one of the first times that the House has actually passed to normal appropriations bills the whay you're supposed to do it in like decades, practically like the Congress has been completely broken. They put it together and Democrats did this too clever
by half move. This is before the killing. I think it was a Thursday night that it passed through the House.
UH.
What they did is they they gave Democratic support for these Republican measures that were not related to dhs US and it allowed them. That allowed Republicans and then separate out the DHS spending package. Democrats then all except for like six of them or so, voted against that. But leadership knew that the strategy that the two parties were taking was going to move federal money for all agencies through, but it allowed Democrats not to have their fingerprints on
the ICE money. So that's kind of where the politics were leading up to Thursday that Democrats didn't want to be associated with DHS spending, but we're willing to play games in Washington that would allow to allow us to avoid a government shut down. That all changed because the shooting. So now what Schumer is demanding, and he has, as according to my sources in the Senate, unified support among the caucus for a strategy that says we will fund all of the government except for DHS. So we don't
want to shut the government down. We want to do what we did over in the House. Pass all these bills separately, keep everything open FEMA, especially because we're in the midst of this horrific storm with you know, thousands out of power, millions affected. But we're not funding DHS until there are reforms. So what that does is that they think at least that it puts then Republican in the position of saying, no, we're going to shut the government down unless you give us money for ICE and
CBP without any reforms whatsoever. And that feels kind of untenable given public position that no, this needs to be reined in.
Yeah, let's put the tear sheet next up on the screen. And the most significant part of this is Ryan is saying it's not the Progressive Caucus, it's that senators like Cortes, Mastow, Jackie Rosen.
Angus Hmming, Independent, Tim Kaine.
Mark Warner, Mark Kelly Martin, Hein, Ryan Shatz Martin.
These are people who don't even know for good.
Reason, unless they're literally your own senator, and even then we probably don't really know who they are. When those people vote no, it's a big deal because what it means is will have at the very least a partial government shutdown. It is a bit complicated, Ryan, As I've been understanding is apparently ICE actually does have the money to continue operating because of the one big beautiful bill back in twenty twenty five. However, this would effectively create
a DHS shutdown. And I mean it's basically just about inflicting pain. And they're like, look, we won't fund any of it, by the way, I mean, don't underestimate. Like TSA, all these other agencies will likely start to go without, they would go without potential paychecks.
And all that.
But this one could actually go on for a much longer time because it's only the DHS funding that is being held up. And I don't really see how they could possibly give in without significant concessions by the government here which are not forthcoming.
Right while you and I've been talking, go ahead, good no, and you tell me.
But my sense of the Republican Party is that and Senate Republicans is that they're not going to agree to pass the other spending bills unless they also get DHS, which means you would get a full government shutdown. What's your sense of whether, because then if they do, I think they would argue if we do that, Democrats are just never gonna give us DHS.
I've been so focused on the shooting. I haven't worked my phones on that one. I will and try to have an update for everybody. My general sense is they're going to take the order from the White House, and the White House is going to have to decide whether they want a partial government shutdown or whether they want to have to go through another total government shutdown. My sense, this is my general reaction. If I'm the White House, the last thing I want is a total government shutdown
over ice funding. That's a disaster because the entire public will be like, yeah, fuck that, or whatever it comes to. They're like, listen, you know whatever. And by the way, we just went through the longest government shutdown in US history.
Wasn't that bad? Right?
Everybody kind of got through it. It really was barely even a news story. Yes, it it have been bad whenever it came to the airlines. But this time around, you know, the Dems really have a much stronger thing
to stand on considering the events that just happened. So if you're the White House, you actually don't want the country to really be paying a total amount of attention to a total government shutdown because the pressure will start to come on you to actually do something about Ice, which most people are to be saying is completely out of control. So you may want a more partial government shutdown. Now I could be wrong here. There could be some chicken and all of that going going around, so don't
rule that out. But I think the Democrats are on ten times stronger ground this time around than they were last time around. I also think that they're starting some cracks beginning to show on the Republican side. Let's put the next one up here on the screen, and again, Ryan, this is the stuff where it's funny trying to explain
Washington to people. Let's put d three guys, please is the chairman, Representative Garbarino Andrew Garberino has formally requested testimony from ICBP USCIS leaders at a full committee hearing.
Quote.
Congress has an important responsibility to ensure the safety of law enforcement and the people they serve and protect. So when the chairman of the Householmeland Security Committee, a guy again you've never heard of when these people to take power.
For it that he's in a member of Congress and the chairman of the committee.
Yeah, that's a chairman of a powerful committee.
But when committee chairmen who have immense power but almost never use it, almost never break from the administration. In the more modern era, when those people start being like, yeah, no, you're coming before Congress and you're going to have to start asking. By the way, this was not requested by the White House. They do not want this. The very last thing they want is for their people to be
in front of a House committee under oath. I mean, Ryan, why don't you explain again for people who don't watch like this means every Democrat on the committee gets five minutes to question you. On the right, it's a disaster. It's not good. Whenever you're in power, that's right.
And if anybody thinks that, oh, well, maybe this is just routine and it's a coincidence, you're not sending a
letter like this out on a Saturday exactly. And it begins by you know, they sort of try to suggest that there's some routine nature to the letter begins on January fifteenth, you know, uh, you know, committee staff invited you to testify, and then I said, then he said, but then he says, today I am formally memorializing the previous invitation, and to drop that on a Saturday right after the killing is sending a very clear message and it's and it's yes, so to your point, what this
and he's saying, and you know, he gives them a bunch of different dates, the latest one being March eighteenth, so he's kind of allowing them to at least, you know, push it out, you know, a significant amount of time, but that March eighteenth is going to be here before you know it, and God only knows what's going to happen in cities between now and then. And you're right, this this gives you know, every member of that committee, Democrat and Republican, and Republicans I think are feeling the
pressure too. You're gonna, I think you'll see some adversarial questions from Republicans by then, and then that creates.
And mid terms all of Remember, all these people are gonna have to go back to their district pretty soon, and you know they have to do those mandatory meetings. It's not gonna be good, folks. I mean, I'm telling you right now, it is not going to be good. Every Republican on Capitol Hill, Ryan, as you and I know, even when they're in session, they're all going to have Mike stuck in their face. What do you think about what happened here? And every and even a single misstep.
You're going viral.
Congratulations. Next one, this one, this seems very significant. I'd like for you to explain it to me. So this is the ranking Committee Chairman, Benny Thompson, sorry, ranking Democrat on the committee. Guys, let's put D four up on the screen. He is saying that the Senate must vote against funding, so that's already there, but he also says the House must take immediate steps to impeach Kirsty No.
So again, Benny Thompson, not a household name, not really somebody who we would all know is the top Democrat on the committee is like, no, we're going to impeach Christy. No, remember they impeached my orcis the Republicans did under the tru under the Biden administration. I could easily see this become a rallying cry if Democrats were to take control of the midterm. So could you explain the significance of this, Yeah.
Well respected, a veteran Democrat, somebody that the party establishment, you know, is a member you know, you know, in good standing of the party establishment. This is not somebody
who's like some some rock thrower from the sidelines. And the reporting that we're seeing this morning is that, you know, Trump himself is quite upset with the way that DHS has handled this and in particular own goals like Christy Nome going out and saying this is a guy who was trying to massacre people, he's a domestic terrorist, he brandished his weapon, when everybody can see that none of
that happened. And so it goes to the credibility of the of the administration and the seriousness of it and puts then this would then put Republicans in the position of defending her when if anybody's and also she's also been an advocate her and she and her ally Corey Lowandowski an advocate for this, you know, very aggressive kind of public show of force, not just in Minneapolis, but
elsewhere where they've where they've tried to deploy it. That their argument has been, this is, you know, let's let's let's bring a very loud hammer to make the point against some of the administration reporting is Tom Holmland and others have said, no, let's let's let's go, let's go after people that we know have criminal records. Let's do target and enforcements, because we need to maintain public support for this mandate that we that we have to do
mass deportations. If we don't, we're going to lose the mandate and you're not going to get what you want out of that. So the idea and the execution both seem to be falling apart, and so Noam could end up being the fall woman for this. Do you think that she is vulnerable or is she protected by Trump's belief that second term you don't let you give zero scalps, give no ground.
Yeah, I mean literally, as you and I are speaking, you may have missed this Donald Trump to sent out this truth quote. I'm sure Chrystal and I will have more to say about it tomorrow. I am sending Tom Homan to Minnesota tonight. He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there.
Tom is tough, but fair and will report directly to me.
And so what is actually even more significant than that is that the Press Secretary put out a tweet this morning. Tom Holman will be managing ICE operations on the ground in Minnesota to continue arresting the worst and the worst. In addition, Tom will coordinate those investigations into the massive, widespread fraud that's resulted in billions of tax pay dollars. So basically Tom's taking over completely. There's been a lot of reporting HEREVP, what.
Like ICE keeps catching these strays for you.
No, you're right, And that is kind of the funny thing is that this was entire the Border Patrol, which also Bavino is literally the head you know of CBP, right, And so this is where it gets confusing. America talks about ICE, but it's not just ice really, and in fact, there appears to be some conflict. A lot of ICE officers are pissed off at CBP because they're saying they're the ones who do all of this clownish behavior. There
is a theory inside the administration. I don't know how much credence to give this that Bavino and Bavino, Kirsino, and Corey Lewandowski have all been major proponents of kind of this flood zone inside the Steaks Street strategy, like for example in Chicago or prior to that in Los Angeles, Whereas Tom Homan, who is a veteran you know, working and ICE and Immigration Enforcement, is like, no, I only want to target criminals.
We'll see. Okay.
We really have no idea exactly how all of that is going to look, but it's very clear that she is the fall woman in the interim, at least in Trump's eyes.
But it's just not going to be enough in my opinion. I mean, yeah, rum, this will not end.
Yeah. Homan shocked people right after the shooting of Renanicole Good by giving an interview where he said, I think we I can't I can't weigh in on this. We need to await an impartial and independent investigation and then I can have more of a comment. And the reporter said, well, Christy Noom has said this, you know, Steven Miller has said this, Jade Vance has said this. He's like, well, they can speak for themselves. I'd like to see an investigation.
And it was it was very jarring for people like me, you know, who've been very critical of home in over the years, be like, Oh, that's that's like what you want from a government official in a moment, like it's a cop.
Yeah, at the end of the day, you can hit a wait to investigation, right right, yeah, yeah, it's like normal cops are like, I don't you know, it's not the way that we do. I mean, by the way, you know, this is a wret com But like if you followed tom Oman, I followed him for many years, is what was this always critics He'd be talking about enforcing the law, right, like he was a big proponent
of law enforcement. He was massively critical of the Biden administration for not enforcing immigration or a border law and allowing tens of millions of people to come here illegally, like that was fundamentally like he had much more of a different view.
And he also always and I.
Remember this because he would talk about it during the Bio Bomam administration too, a laser focused on criminal enforcement, right, which was some of the selling point originally around ICE, And at this point, I mean, we're so far from that to achieve. We can say it's about immigration, sure, but like he the rhetoric coming for the administration has always been like worse of the worst criminals and all that are the only ones being deported.
Uh, And that is just simply obviously it's not the case. We've talked about that here.
But I think most importantly for what the future looks like, we'll have to keep laser focused on the ground because look, I mean, at this very same time, there are internacing civil wars inside the government. All of this kind of belies the point that there's going to be a shutdown here, and I think it's going to go on for a long time. I'm curious for your view. I do not see how they could possibly break.
And the key, the key key detail here is what the democratic demands are going to be when it comes to the reform of DHS and reforms with an ICE and CBP. Obviously they're not They can't demand at this moment to abolish ICE. They need to take power if they're going to abolish ICE or reform CVP. But they can, they can get reformed now through this moment that they have leverage. And the thing that I'm hearing is they're going to be demanding will be and I think the
most important thing they're demanding is get it. Get rid of these daily quotas.
It is. This is this.
Quota that Stephen Miller has insisted on putting on the federal government, both the HS and CVP, for X number
of deportations every day. And if you know how bureaucracy works, if there is a kind of accountability in that bureaucracy for a for a number, like you have to hit this number or you're not getting your promotions, you're going to be you're going to be fired, that bureaucracy will then push aside all of its other rules like protecting civil liberties and making sure you're only targeting, you know, people who are not citizens, for instance, and instead will
just start sweeping up as many as they possibly can and then deal with the fallout of that later because they've got a number to hit. And so Democrats are saying, get that number out, just go after violent criminals, forget
the numbers. They're also going to demand that they no longer be masked up, and I think some of the other demands are still being worked out among the caucus about what they think is, you know, a combination of like achievable and also to the public, feels feels reasonable to put Republicans in a position of saying, no, we're shutting the government down to make sure that these guys can still wear masks and that they have to hit their quotas.
Right, Yeah, I mean, honestly, they'd be smart. Mass alone will be a massive victory. They could even extract that, and.
I could see a world. Look.
Trump, here's the thing. Here's the funniest thing about Trump. Trump yesterday did in a Wall Street Journal interview. He didn't even defend the icy.
He was like, I don't know, I don't like this.
It goes we'll see, you know, they'll be an investigation. So like he is the one most out of step with his own government, which is of course, like part of the madness of the entire thing. But just to show everybody like he may be willing to cut a deal very different than some of the other people in the administration might be willing and able to.
So we'll see. I think this is going to be at his opening bit.
His opening bid seems to be he wants, as you were mentioning earlier, he wants sanctuary laws banned.
Right, fine, you can do that through Congress.
Christy Ahead, Christy nom had some sent some weird letter to Minnesota where she said I'll leave if you give me voter access to voter role.
Pamp BONDI okay, that was a very strange letter. I did read through. It was like a three ring thing, was like end sanctuary policies, cooperate with us, and also something about like we need to evaluate your voter database to ensure there hasn't been election fraud. Yeah okay, yeah, yeah, right, well that's not happening obviously, and so that is I don't know, I'm curious. I'm really curious to see how the administration so far, already they're showing signs of weakness.
Tom Homan being sent over. I mean, clearly it's like a message of like okay, we're sending somebody new. So that's interesting in itself, But with the shutdown, they have to make an explicit choice or whether they want the entire government to shut down over ice at a moment of incredible public outrage, and whether they'll be able to stomach, you know, supposedly standing up against the Democrats on something like that for a prolonged period of time.
I suspect that they would lose that battle personally.
So we're starting to see cracks in the foundation of maga's support for some of these mass deport from people in that world or adjacent to it. Whether we got Tim Dylan, Marjorie Taylor Green, or Dave Smith and some others who go through some of these Marjorie Taylor Green, I have to check myself because I'm constantly seeing things from Marjorie Taylor Green that I don't just like, not disagree with. I'm like, that was extremely well said. Where is this coming from?
She is there's a mean we're calling it strange new respect from marjor reala Green.
Strange new respect, banger after banger. So here is now now former congresswoman, and she asks people to go through an exercise, a mental exercise, to try to figure out how they would feel if the pictures were reversed. She says, MAGA, consider it like this, We lost our minds when we
watched Biden's FBI tracked down and tracked down. Sorry, jumped around a little bit there, but basically she's saying, imagine if Biden's FBI, which was rounding up people who participated in January January sixth, imagine if you have conservative either protesters or independent media figures who are outside the home of somebody where the Biden's Biden's FBI is like smashing the door in and they're filming what they see is
tyrannical overreach from Biden's do oj. Biden's FBI agents then throw two women down onto the ground for no discernible reason whatsoever, just because they're they're filming and the agents can't can do it. The the MAGA guy who's filming, then gets in between the two women and the FBI agent. FBI agent then bear sprays all of them, throws them to the ground, and within a matter of seconds has shot the MAGA guy in the back repeatedly. Then steps
back and empties the clip into them. And then instead of uh, providing and I'll add this, instead of providing medical or they start go counting bullet holes that they put into the mag of person. She's like, try to put yourself in that position, and then once you have an ethical foundation, then respond how you would politically. Where is MTG Now I see the Marjorie Trader Green like has she gone? Has she hit him too many times
to still be able to pack a punch? Or is the fact that she's standing up on principle allowing her to maintain some of that credibility because it's I don't Yeah, I.
Don't know Marjorie's game.
I really have no idea. She's rich, she's got a fiance. I think she's probably just going to live a good life in Georgia and she'll keep posting through it. I'm not really sure if she has any bigger ambitions. It'd be interesting to see if she did. The important point beyond it is to give look, this is kind of the point of this block. There needs to be a permission structure for people who are like, I'm not liberal, but I'm really really upset.
You know about this?
That is the eight way I think for Margie Taylor Green and for a few others.
You know that we're about to cover, and.
I think that's actually the most important part of watching this is to see the fish like the fissures start to break, and to also see some juxtapositioning and positioning for where things may end up. Our producer Griffin thinks that this is the most important one. So we're gonna put this one up here on the screen.
E three. Uh.
And you know I've been thinking about I think he might be right. Let's put E three Megan Kelly's tweet up here. She says real Donald Trump should pull ICE out of Minnesota and announce that there will be no more immigration enforcement in Minnesota at all. All legals in the US aren't curson move there. If any illegal is found outside of Minnesota gets deported, they can never apply
for re entry. Moreover, every single asylum seeker should be told no application we consider unless the person is living in Minneapolis Saint Paul. So basically doing the equivalent of Texas and all of them busting illegals to states. One of the most brilliant political moves that the Republicans pulled throughout the Biden years because it created immigration chaos across the nation, and it made it a salient issue and kind of spread and showed and highlighted what was going on.
This is the own This is the solution that I see has the most likelihood of happening, because it's a sneaky way of saying, Okay, we're done, we give up, we clearly lost. Let's pivot to this type of situation,
and I've seen it now. Echoed by Katie Pavlich, another conservative commentator, I really think that these these are sneaky ways for them to try to declare victory, and this is very Trumpian way to try and do it while trying to accomplish your point of you know, drawing attention to sanctuary city, while at the same time tacitly having to admit this shit is not working and it's a disaster.
Right.
This is the you can't fire me because I quit move uh, And it's it's perfect because it's like, oh, you want to be a hell hole. We're too good, We're too good for you anyway, Like we were just trying to help, but clearly you don't want our help,
and so you don't deserve our help. And so no, we have open borders within the United States, So I don't exactly know how they would enforce this policy, Like you saise if you say you have to live in Minnesota, like there's an open border between Minnesota and it's surrounding states. You can just drive right across it. I don't have anybody's ever driven around the United States we have open borders. Drive from Maryland right into Pennsylvania.
No, yeah, no border. You could just border guards.
I could see that. I think Griffin is right. I think that sneakily might be exactly the way. Other than this entire thing ends up, let's move now to Tim Dillon. People have complained that we play too many Tim Dillon cliffs, but sorry, I mean, he's very entertaining, and of course he is also a you know, he's a load star if you will this demographic of you know, look, he's a cultural kind of libertarian, anti DEI left.
And ridicule and all of that.
And I think what he also signifies, this is the most important thing I've been thinking about. It was transgressive to be pro Trump and or a right wing in twenty twenty four right the dominant culture was pro Biden or pro komm Law. It was genuinely transgressive, especially in the Internet, you know, to be like, no, I hate
the left for X, Y and Z reason. Now, I think it's genuinely transgressive in a moment of you know, federal governments trampling on Second Amendment rights and Ice and all of this other stuff to actually just be a like a left wing lib and so to watch, you know, to be tit to see to Tim what I see. I'm not saying he's been calculating or anything like that.
What I see is very clear, clearly with the you know, with these statements, which again is somebody who is fundamentally you know, suspicious of like establishment and or bigger powers, is looking and locking in on the Trump administration and kind of using that for purposes not just for comedy, but also for political rhetoric.
Here's what he had to say.
Everything is a scripted reality show. I criticize Ice, people get mad at me. They're like, well, how do you think people should be deported? Da?
Da da da.
Number One, you can pass legislation, which they haven't done. All of the stuff they've done on immigration is through executive orders, a lot of it it will be reversed immediately by democratic president.
That's number one.
Number Two, if you pass legislation and then attach enforcement to that, you pass laws.
You then have laws.
By which the country is governed that will prevent illegal immigration. If you do a reality show spectacle where you're grabbing people here and they are left and right, and it revs everybody up, and you then have protests everywhere, and you have violence, and you have ice responding to that with deadly force, you don't have a long term solution. What you do is you're stirring the pot and creating like many civil wars all over the country that people
are watching on television. But you don't have like the enforcement of laws. And you're not going after employers that are employing illegal labor.
You're not going after Steve Wynn.
You're not going after the big hotel magnets that you know employ illegal labor. You're not going after big agricultural firms that do the same thing. Now agriculture has a lot of illegal labor use in agriculture. Well, then the food should be cheap, right, Well, no, the food's not cheap. It's the most expensive it's ever been. Well what about the houses, they're the most expensive if they've ever been.
Huh, what about.
Staying at hotels and eating out at restaurants? I mean, all of this has come down, surely because of all the illegal labor No, that's more expensive than it's ever been.
Right, right, Yeah, I mean I think that explicitly proves the point he's talking about housing, how it's most expensive.
Everything is very expensive. It doesn't seem like things are getting better.
He's talked about how Alex Jones warned for years in the past about mass agents in the streets. He's like, that's what's literally happening right now. I mean, you're watching all of this all take place. And then in that same context, they want to give a shout out to my good friend Dave Smith. Let's put E four up here on the screen again. Look, I think Dave was a very influential, prominent person in the podcast discourse in a lead up to the twenty twenty four elections subsequently
on foreign policy and more. And here's what he says, quote, I'm going to be immigration restrictionists. I believe we have the right to remove any and all people who enter our country illegally. Also, ICE is out of fucking control. A bunch of pussies drunk on going around intentionally escalating violent interactions, intimidating US citizens.
They create these tragic situations.
And after this giganic show of force, they won't deport a fraction of the illegals who entered under Biden. This is simply not worth it. And I do think that this sentiment is very common amongst a lot of people.
It includes me.
I think this sentiment is very very common again for a lot of people who are deeply concerned, upset about the chaos of the border under Biden. About look, and do fundamentally have a very different view of immigration than others. And while it may be true that some two hundred and fifty thousand people have been deported, let's say and look at it as a fraction of the tens of millions of people who enter the country illegally under Biden
and or were present in the country. And then though, you have to ask the question about not just the tactics, but now the two subsequent deaths in Minnesota and then this latest one, which is as egregious as it possibly gets, And to say, yeah, no, no, this is not the
correct response. Is Tim lays out very clearly, and he's correct, is that the biggest beneficiaries of illegal labor are big corporations, hotel chains and all these other people find use the RRS, you can find all of them two hundred and fifty thousand. I can guarantee you if you start finding and arresting people who employ illegal labor, you don't even need e verify.
It will be over tomorrow.
You could end remittance, you could end all remittances, put one hundred percent tax on remittances let's say sent by Wells Fargo. It would collapse the economy of Mexico overnight, as well as a lot of these other Latin American countries, and a lot of.
People would just leave.
All of that makes it so that you don't need a singleized agent in the street if you did something like Nope, can't do that, why because of big donor So that is the egregious part of all of this. Not only could it have been avoided, I think it's politically set back the cause of immigration restriction for decades,
most likely as a result of this bullshit. But most importantly, what you're all watching these canaries, Tim, Marjorie Taylor, Green, Dave, all of these others who speak out on this, What you should notice is not just that they're willing to speak out, but that those are popular positions. Those are people who are starting to you know, make independent voters,
others people who potentially may have voted for Trump. That is fundamentally the demographic ryan that really helped Donald Trump dominate the culture and win the White House in twenty twenty four.
Yeah and yeah, exactly.
And I think that's why it's important to hear from people like Tim Dillon and Dave Smith on these questions because because of who they are, they're not their brains have not been soaking in this like partisan soup, and so they're a true they care about issues like they like, which is a crazy way for like people to think, Wait, you can actually it's not about it. It's not a team sport. You actually have an issue you care about and you
vote on that issue. And one of the issues for these folks was the immigration restrict And what they're saying is if you do it this way, you're not accomplishing
your own agenda. Now what I think there is an opportunity for the Trump administration here to say, to declare some form of victory because okay, let's say there's only been two hundred and fifty thousand deeportations, I would suspect, and we don't have the numbers yet, the number of self deportations because of the fear that is like really ripping through immigrant communities.
Yeah, is a lot.
If they if they then transition say Okay, you know, we're going after violent criminals, and we're not going to go through home depot parking lots and ask every brown person that we see for their papers. We're going to kind of passively investigate and look for violent criminals. When we find them, we're going to deport them, and we're going to make sure that border is secure within a period of time, they would be back to probably having
a mandate again for that position. What they don't have a mandate for is this like like whatever, whatever they're doing is like violent crackdown on the American public and killing you know, two American citizens within three weeks and shooting three people within three weeks. And I think we're at seven deaths in ice or cb DHS custody.
In January.
Alone, and the you know, the month isn't over yet. Like that's that's more than the public is willing to bear.
Yeah, and look at a certain especially in the wake of the shooting, like yeah, they shouldn't bear it, Like no, you can't. And that's where public opinion and watching these signifiers like again, like for not just influencers and others. By the way, even Tim Poole, you know, who has been.
Very supportive of the administration. He was like, guys, I don't think there's a good shoot. He says, what do you say?
He was just like Trump ain't winning this one or something like that, Like, yeah, obviously he's right, you know. By the way, Tim, also somebody's very pro gun. You
can't remotely be somebody who's pro the Second Amendment. And then look, not again, not just the shooting, but the government, their narrative, the standards they're trying to be set, and then you put all that stuff together and if you're like, look, if this is what they're willing to do, then no, no, no, right, then that's something that's going to be a real break point I think for the culture in all this. But you know, we'll see I could be wrong, but maybe
we'll be right back to Trump domination. I can only speak for myself and to look at you know, people like my friends Dave and just say wow, you know, first of all, credits Dave, it's not exactly it's easy to put that out on Twitter and inevitably get piled on by some of the low IQ commentariat. But it is, you know, courageous for him to be able to say something like that, especially considering the positions he took before
twenty twenty four. And it's also again though, you know, I think the fact that his popularity in the interim, when he's been on our show and denounced Trump over Iran and now this, these are important, important, important things. Okay, let's get to China, all right. Last thing here that I just had to get out here in the show again, enormously consequential, huge shake up at the top of the CCP. Let's put this up here on the screen from the
Wall Street Journal. China's top general accused of giving nuclear secrets to the US. Bribery allegations have leveled against General Jean. I'm not going to try and say it I apologize. I'm just going to call it General Jeong, whose downfall
carries implications for the country's military readiness. I mean, this is literally his senior most senior, most general, so the equivalent of like kind of like the vice president or the Joint chiefs of Staff, who is being accused by Shehanpaning of selling nuclear weapons seecrets to the US, of accepting bribes for official acts, for including the promotion of an officer to defense minister. Is shock it shock it because it is part of an ongoing kind of military
purge at the very top level by the CCP. Let's look, there's a lot of various theories kind of behind all of this. Why don't we start first with the coup rumors. Let's put F four up here on the screen. No one is taking seriously the idea that he actually leaked nuclear secrets.
It was more that they're.
Willing to accuse him Ryan of leaking military secrets. So here's here's what he says the best compilation of coup rumors circulating Chinese diaspora. Again, these are rumors, not confirmed,
but there's no leaks that come out of China. And as part of the difficulty of dealing with all this, he says, democracy activists posts on social media revealing conversation from inside the Great Firewall where they disclosed that they had planned to move against Chishingping and capture him on the evening of January eighteenth, Beijing time, when he was set to stay at hotel in Beijing. Now for the fast few years. Quote he has been homeless, changing locations
every few days. Details of the capture g operation, citing sources, originally planned to strike on that evening. However, two hours before the operation they were betrayed by an informant and Chishingping immediately evacuated instead of an ambush or a counter capture, and allegedly he's even claiming that there's some sort of gunfight. Now this is again, this is something from beyond the firewall, but it was elevated by some China like some China
watchers whom I respect. It would be absolutely right, exactly literally like serious people who take.
But they weren't saying it's true. But it is a it's a story that's being told.
It is a story is being told, you know, in the act of a community and others. Our our other friend Arnault Uppertron, who you contacted Ryan has shot that down. I do want to make sure that we put his up here on the screen if we can.
Yep, here we go. Yeah, I've got it available.
One he's saying. The idea that he actually sold or gave nuclear secrets to the US, right, pretty preposterous because in order to do that this general would have had to vice chairman, the second most powerful person in China would have to like somehow do it like and how
you do that under the mass surveillance. You know, you have mass surveillance, but you also have very specific surveillance of everybody who's at the very upper echelons, not just for you know, controlling them, but looking for foreign, foreign adversarial efforts to penetrate and surveil those officials. Like so they are the idea that they'd be able to get some burner phone and like get to the nuclear center
and like download the data and then somehow exfiltrated. It is like like something out of like Adjacent Bourne, like type of situation that isn't like remotely believable.
The idea that.
There was that chairman, she doesn't have a place to stay in Beijing, Arna also argued, was kind of preposterous, right, and so dismissed the coup rumors. All you can do is say the fact that these announced, these investigations have been announced bad news for the people being investigated. Very rarely do you get these investigations announced and there's, oh, we cleared them. What's going on here is that this is some type of power struggle the uh for whatever
reason she is moving against the figures. There's appears to be some corruption angle to it. She has made like rooting out corruption kind of a centerpiece of his his his attempt, you know, his his effort here, and so twenty twelve, you know, twenty twelve on, he's going after enormous amounts of corruption within the party and within you know, the economy written large whether and you know these folks, you know, have power bases that go back many many decades.
The vice chairman goes back to the you know, his father was like a hero in the you know, the People's Liberation Army, like the founding of it. That means they have their networks, and if those networks have been engaging in some sort of soft draft, either he found that out or he didn't think he was cracking down enough, or it's just a straight up power play as he's you know, continuing to concentrate power and put loyalists underneath it. So that's that's our over trends, right.
I mean, look, both both perspectives are very important, and I think his main point of but we have no idea is potentially the most important. I think though what we do know is extraordinary enough to remove the top general is just is crazy. I mean again, like you, I can't even think of an American parallel of just coming in and arresting the chairman of the Joint chiefs.
Arnault even noted that the language that they used in the arrest or in the charging statement was that he trampled on like the trampled on like directives from the chairman, which he was saying, is just like, I mean, it's very very extraordinary language, more than they've used in even other prior corruption investigations and departures. We have multiple members now of this military committee over the last few years who have now been purged and or are either in
jail or been removed. By the way, my favorite Wall Street Journal euphemism is could not be reached for comment when talking about people who have been purged, I'm like.
Yeah, that's one way of putting it. Certainly true.
We have no idea, you know, whether it could be in prison, could be dead, exactly what it all looks like. But let's all keep an eye on it. The world is still very unstable. Who knows this could have implications for Taiwan, right, this could have implications internally who we have no whether it was a coup or not. I tend to lean against coup just because it doesn't even seem possible at this point within the Chinese.
Cyst like, that's not how the system.
She is so overwhelmingly powerful, Like the time for a coup would have been years ago, wouldn't be now when he has an iron cloud control over not just the country but over the CCP. Obviously, though it could be totally wrong. There could be competing power centers, and there always have been within their power structure. But look, this is a nuclear armed, potential almost superpower here in age, undeniably the great power that even remotely rivals the United States.
And so it's not just political turmoil. What ends up happening as a result of this, and what the potential implications behind it might be for their military, for their posture, for how and what.
They're thinking about.
I tend not to think it is a accident accusing him of nuclear secrets, which could mean that they could lead to some change of their nuclear posture, right, or some sort of command and control change over that. So because they say that it's been compromised by the US. All of that very very significant, so we need to pay attention to all of us. Just want to make sure that we mentioned it because it could have major, major implications. Yes, Ryan, thank you so much for today,
for big here with me. Man value more than ever, especially in such an insane time. Value the show, crystal Emily, the ability for all of us to work together, and thank you to the audience for everybody.
We're probably going to be remote tomorrow, guys. I was just looking.
I don't even think my roads or any of that are going to get plowed. We're not yet high on the priority list, so very likely another remote show. Also, we have a crew. We have to worry about their safety and all of that as well. So we'll see you all tomorrow.
You know, hard for them to get into see something one way or another. We'll see you