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Folks, we have an amazing show for you this morning. How are we doing, Crystal and Emily doing well?
Ryan is I think en route to Cuba is the idea, So just us this morning.
Ryan is pursuing regime change in Cuba.
I think Emily said he's going to be installed by the CIA.
We don't know that he won't.
It's that's true, that is true. We have no evidence that he will not be installed as the new Cuban puppet dictator of the United States.
So waiting Comrad Groom, he stopped in Miami to pick up some ex pats. He picked up Clovicular. Now they're heading over to Cuba. That's exciting. We also have some other housekeeping. Sager later today is interviewing former counter terrorism official Joe Kent, so stay tuned for that. Between the two of them, we've never gotten closer to a host being arrested, sort of a Don Lemon style situation. So I'm very excited for all that. But we've got a big show today.
You know, you did just inspire a thought though, Griffin, how amazing would a Ryan Clovicular interview actually be.
Really really good?
Yeah?
I mean I feel like that would be groundbreaking. I don't know. Did you guys just see that Andrew Callahan. I know you did because I sent it to the chat Is moment.
Yes, you saw it.
I also saw the moment where he met his biggest supporter on kick because you sent it.
Oh my goodness. That was really that was honestly just kind of heartbreaking, sad all the way around, as Clovicular off and is in my opinion, but the moment with Callahan where he's Cliviguilar's like, there's really nothing you would change about your face when you look in the mirror and Callahan just like leans back, crosses his legs and he's like, no, not a thing. Clar crashes out Major Cortisol spike and ends a interview. It's kind of extraordinary. Male self confidence is his kryptonite.
Good point, which I think is also I think I think Ryan would destroy him. Then, yeahs as someone who's tried to upgrade Ryan's appearance, myself and he and you know, hit a wall there.
But yeah, you try to look Smack got shut.
Down the time he told you to fix his hair and he just went.
But folks, let's get to some far more serious topics here. We have a lot going on in the show today. We have updates on possible ground deployment on or near the Iranian border with US troops. We've got some oil updates, and we've got some potential contradictions between what Hegseth heard from the fallen Soldiers family and what Hegseeth has been saying.
And then we also have David Soota coming on to tell us a little bit more about the updates or the Phase two of the master plan, so we're excited to speak to him.
Plus ye bunch.
More focused on the unitary executive, like basically the way that previous administrations over decades and previous operatives over decades have turned the presidency into effectively a monarchy, just in time for Trump to come in and want to be king and have the powers.
To do so.
Really great timing there. But let's start with our friend Benjamin Netanyah, who Israeli Prime Minister Netanyah, who says can't do a revolution in Iran from the air, there needs to be a ground component as well. He says there are many possibilities for a ground component, but won't share what they are.
What do we make of it?
Yeah, it's certainly looks like that's the direction we're heading in, and we can talk about some additional reporting about you know, it's really coming down to the straight upfoe moves. It's also we now have the Huthis onsar a LA who are saying they are going to join the fight, which means that one of the alternative pathways for oil will potentially also be shut down because they successfully shut down that pathway previously just using you know, drones and menacing
ships in the area. So you know, at this point, I think what Manyao is acknowledging here is that he has helped to get the US to a point where there is going to be no more significant strategic success without some ground troop component, which he's happy to see our service members go in and fight and get slaughtered, and US to be weakened in the region well, along with of course Iran and the GCC member states being weakened as well. And you know, I'm always very clear
that ultimately this is all Trump's fault. He's the one who ultimately decided to go in. You know, I think a lot of the reporting about, oh, they have different aims and maybe there's going to be a blow up, blah blah blah. I put that in the same category as the repeated leaks to Barack Ravine during the Biden the Brandon administration, where it was always very upset with
net Yahoo blah blah blah. I think they're similarly absurd that there's some significant break coming between the Trump regime and the net Yahoo regime. But you know, one other thing that I'll mention here is in Netanyahu's comments, which we're going to place some mothers of that are very interesting that I want to hear Emily's take on for you in a moment, but he did a classic thing
of in English. He was like, this thing could be over really quickly, I think in response to a question from Richard Engel, He's like, this could be over a lot quicker than people think. And then in Hebrew to the Israelis is like, this is going to go as along as long as it needs to go. We're going to be in here as long as we need to be there. So, you know, very different messages to the English speaking world versus the domestic audience in Israel.
And I think the two things that seem right now fundamental things that seem to have been totally what's the right word here, like I don't want to use the word that's too generous, but seem to have been underestimated on behalf of the United States.
Is the strait of her moves and.
The what Iran would do, how far they would go with the strade of her moves, and the ability of anti regime coalition forces on the ground in Iran to stage some type of revolution. And that's where you do airstrikes. You see the presence saying this is for the freedom of the Iranian people. We now know that they were overly confident about what would happen in the strait of her moves, and with those two puzzle pieces being.
Clearly I mean the administration.
They probably weren't a hundred percent certain about either of them, but clearly they thought the likelihood that they would be able to have a revolution, They would be able to create the conditions for a revolution that would topple the regime if they kill the Iyatola and struck all of these different places and created chaos. These Raelis obviously have
a different take on that than our government. But if you have those two pieces wrong, you can see how you start getting closer and closer to ground troops, which is exactly what people were saying, exactly what we were saying on this show. It becomes a spiral, and that's so easy for it to happen. But when you have those two puzzle pieces being incorrect, that's how you get ground troops. It's exactly the recipe that people predicted.
It is the escalation trap, as Professor Pape has laid out for us multiple times on our show, where now the only way that Trump could actually end this war at this point would be not only for him to walk away, but for there to be significant concessions given to Iran. I mean, he would have to not only walk away, but walk away with his tail between his legs saying what would you like to make you feel
safe and secure? Iranian government that is still firmly in place and now also is directly controlling who comes and goes from the Strait of Hormuz. So it's you know, I mean, he's in a he has created an absolute mess for himself, and you know, here's some of the indications. This is again Rock Ravine Mark Capudo about what is being considered Trumpmull's risky carg Island takeover to force Iron to open straight. We also have news that more marines
are being rushed to the region. There's expected to be some overlap between this new deployment of marines and the marines that have already been rushed into the region, so that seems like it could be, you know, leading to some sort of boots on the ground. I did see Emily, do you remember who it was or Griffin, do you remember who it was? One of the Republican senators who was like, well, if the boots are only on an island. That's not the same as boots on the ground in
like mainland or on. I liked that definition of boots on the ground. Yeah, I wish I could remember who it was, but in any case, revied reporting. Here the Trump administration considering plans to occupy your blockade Aron's carg Island to Iran to reopen the straight of horror.
MOUs.
Let me also show you this US warplanes and helicopters is from the Wall Street Journal kickoff battle to reopen Hormuves. So this battle has already started now. USNS allies have intensified the battle to reopen the Strait of Hormuves, sending low flying attack jets over the sea lanes to blast Iranian naval vessels, and Apache helicopters to shoot down Iran's
deadly drones. According to American military officials, the stepped up operation is part of a multi stage Pentagon plan to reduce the danger from Irani in arm boats, mines, and cruise missiles which have halted ship traffic through the waterway.
Not exactly Iran is getting the ships through that they want to get through, but in any case, if the danger can be reduced, the US could send US warships through the straight and eventually escort vehicles in and out of the Persian Gulf, but it will still likely take weeks for the US to clear out Iran's web of assets that have harassed traffic through a chow point for twenty percent of the world's oil experts in a large
amount of commercial shipping traffic. And there is is a quote in here they're using these A ten wart hogs extensively in this operation, apparently for the military people out there, to whom that means something. And there is a quote in here where someone an analyst, as military analyst, says, look, even here it is lowering the threat to the point where ships can resume transiting the strait is doable, but it takes time, and you are probably never going to
get to one hundred percent. We could reach a stage where we're getting ships through and they could still get a lucky shot. So that is the landscape. At this point. You know, the battle has already joined, they have already escalated. They're now trying to restore control over the strait of hormones. The ability of our ships and our ally ships to be able to pass through and it will take a lot of time, it will be very risky and very dangerous.
And even after all of that work, even in the most optimistic scenario, you are still going to have the possibility of an Iranian drone coming in and lowing something up, with DEVI stating consequences for you know, for lives and treasure.
You know.
I saw an update this morning that the death toll right now in Lebanon is around one thousand, and Iran is around thirteen hundred. And I don't know the breakdown, first of all, I mean it's I don't know how confident we are in those numbers or the reports are in those numbers. But and I don't know what the breakdown is of civilians to militants. That's two thousand already in this war. That's two thousand. I mean, we're double digits of Americans. That's two thousand people just in the
time span of a couple of weeks. And just we're so numb to people being bodies in the Middle East, in particular in the Middle East, that's especially after Gaza. But that's that's it's hard for me to believe how little conversation there is about how much death there's already been.
Yeah, well, and we had a major incident yesterday as well. I can put this up on the screen, where an F thirty five aircraft was apparently struck by the Iranians. This marks first, This is an extraordinary This is like the highest tech of our high tech fighter jets. It's supposed to be stealth. The fact that they were able to hit this plane, this jet was apparently very significant, says US. F thirty five aircraft makes emergency landing after
combat mission over Iran. By the way, there is some I think appropriate skepticism about exactly the story that we're being told here that the F thirty five fighter jet landed safely and the pilot is in stable condition. I have seen some conjecture they haven't said where or who or any of the specifics, so there is some conjecture over whether that part of this is true or not. I also saw some conjecture that another F thirty five may have also been been struck, but this is all
still very unconfirmed. What we do know is that Iran was at least able to hit this one jet, and the Iranians release some of the footage that they purported to be from that takedown. They said. An F thirty five fighter jet from the US has made an emergency landing at n air Base in the Middle East after carrying out a combat mission over Iran. Aircraft landed safely.
Pilot is in stable condition. We are aware of reports that a US F thirty five aircraft conducted emergency landing at a regional US air base after flying a combat mission over i Run. Aircraft landed safely. Incident is under investigation. CNN reported two anonymous sources saying the plane, which costs up to one hundred million dollars, was likely hit by Iran.
So the fact that they can take shots at these things, this, according to the military analysts, is very significant because it makes it much more dangerous for the US to just fly these sorties over Iran because now you're like, oh, they have a capability. We did not know that they had, so now we have to plan for that, and that isn't you know, that is a very clear risk for
these pilots who are involved. We've already had a number of other aircraft, American aircraft I saw, you know, upwards of somewhere around sixteen that have been damaged or destroyed in a variety of circumstances. Some of the circumstances I continue to believe we're not getting the accurate story about, including the three that just plummeted from the sky and they're like, h oops, friendly fire. We didn't know, you know,
something happened. The refueling one is also big question marks there too.
They said it was like it wasn't offensive or defensive, it was like a neutral error that those three planes went down. Is this like the ghost of Kuwaid or something like, I'm not really sure what's happening.
One of the theories. One of the theories again unconfirmed, but listen, I mean, we just can't believe anything this government says. At this point. We'll tell you about some of the just insanely basic things that Pete Hegseth is out here lying about in a moment. But in any case, one of the theories is that it was actually like a GCC allied pilot that went rogue, a Kuwaiting pilot
in particular and intentionally shot down are fighter jets. That's one of the theories to me, that's much more plausible at least than the idea like Oopsie's we just had some sort of an unspecified incident, and all three of these happened to you know, crash to the ground in the same day.
Definitely doesn't make sense. No, definitely does not sense.
Yeah, and this reporter from Newsmax shared some about the accelerated deployment of the Marines and sailors heading to the Middle East. Four officials tell Newsmas the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and the embarked eleventh Marine Expeditionary Units deploying ahead
of schedule. There are roughly twenty five hundred Marines four thousand total service members seemingly to potentially take or blockade this carg Island area, which essentially, you know, seems strategically kind of like a killbox for.
These US soldiers.
Additionally, we have some sought here from Scott Besson talking about his ideas for carg Island.
Let's take a listen.
There's laser focus on it.
As I said, there was a bombing campaign last week a military at Caragio and were destroyed. And the other thing I can tell you, if you're an oil worker, you don't want to work there. So all the oil workers that are being coerced to stay there and you know, we will see what happens with whether that eventually becomes a US.
All right, so it could eventually become a US asset, maybe the fifty first state.
You never know.
Yeah, And this is all amidst the fact that they tried to get other countries to come into the straight up our moves to provide back up. They're all like, actually, we're going to hard pass on that. So I guess now we're like, okay, we'll just dump all of our service men in there, see how that goes well.
And I was I was watching a BBC report last night.
This probably sounds obvious to many people, but Iran has prepared for these possibilities for a long time, and they have other ports that aren't just going to that. Carg Island is not going to US. Takeover of Carg Island is not going to prevent so prevent them from using So.
It's just it does look like escalation spiral.
It does look like Trump might have some excuse to say this limited operation.
Just like Crystal said, it's not boots.
On the ground and the boots on the island as though the island doesn't soil. And then from there your your boots on the ground. That's we all know how that goes. We've all seen how that has gone over the last twenty years.
Well, and first from speaking of Professor Pape, you know what he warns is, first of all, we were taking a look at the geography of this area of these Sheer cliffs. To Emily's point, you know, the Iranians been gaming this out for literally decades thinking about this. They also learned a lot, well, they learned a lot from the Iran Iraq War, which we of course were you know, backing I rock in. And then we've learned a lot
more recently from the Twelve Day War. And some of the speculation I've seen is actually this capacity to take down our F thirty five fighter jets or potentially take them down, was developed after the Twelve Day War. So that tells you they haven't just been sitting there like I'm sure this diplomacy with Jared Kushner and Steve Wicoff's gonna work out this time. No, they were clear eyed. They knew that this was very likely, if not, you know, inevitable,
and they've been thinking about how exactly to prepare. So taking carg Island is one thing maybe you can. You could probably accomplish that, you know, with the US military come in full force, bomb a bunch of shit, you know, kill a bunch of kill a bunch of people, and probably some of our service members die as well. But then you also have to hold Carg Island and it's you know, very close to the Iranian mainland. Would not be hard for shaw He drones which had been apparently
you know, been able to fly. It will basically wherever they want, damage whatever they want throughout this throughout this war. So you are in a very very difficult position. And now what Now you're entrenched on Carg Island and you know where you're gonna Now we're staying there forever. We're claiming this is a US asset. Not clear that that's
going to certainly not going to topple the regime. As Griff and emilyin both of you guys are pointing out, they have other options which again they they developed partly during the Iran Iraq War. Actually, they it will definitely be damaging to their economic prospects, there's no doubt about that.
But again there this is existential for them, so they're willing to take a lot more pain, and because we hold carg Island also does not mean that we've cleared up the problems with the Straight of Horror moves, which is a separate and independent issue. It may help, but it's not going to solve that problem. So now a lot of the war focus is around this new problem that has been created in the war, where victory is effectively being defined as just getting back to some semblance
of the pre war status quo. Though even if you're able through some you know, miraculous feed and ironie collat military class whatever to reopen the Straight of Horror moves, you have still created a situation where you have a more hardline government in place in Iran which is much more likely to pursue nuclear weapons and much less likely to engage in the future in any sort of diplomacy with you. And that is just sort of done and baked in at this point, which is part of why
this escalation is very likely to continue. Because let's say there is some miraculous off ramp that has achieved right now, the Iranians rationally may very well begin pursuing a nuclear weapon or moving again in that direction, and Israel will be right here back in DC you know, Natannalhu himself and all of his allies saying you're not gonna let this happen. You said there can be no nuclear Iran. You can't let this happen on your watch, and we
will be right back here all over again. So it is a very very grim landscape in front of us.
Yes, and it's sadly going everything that you just laid out, Chrysal. I was struck by how this is what people were talking about the likelihood of this happening, exactly what we're seeing, Like the outline of this is exactly what people were warning was going to happen and being called pannikins or whatever else. But like just three weeks ago, it was fairly clear that unless Trump did a quick cut and run midnight hammer thing, which he was not indicating, is
what he would do. Obviously this was something at a larger scale. This exact pattern, pattern is probably the right word, is what would reveal itself over the next couple of weeks. And I don't think it gives anyone pleasure to be right about that, but it's so it's going so closely to the script.
Unfortunately, Yeah, everyone to know, Yeah, go ahead, can you cueue up the one where he's talking about number one state sponsor of terrorism and of course, yeah, yeah, you got that ready to go for us.
So we got Pete Hegseth here talking about a little bit of the of the funding of the Iranian country.
Let's take a listen here.
That's why you had millions of Iranians protesting because they felt like their condition, quality of life did and match what it could be or should be, and what was.
The Iranian state.
There's a reason we come call Iran the number one state sponsor of terrorism because they took the money they make and they invested in tunnels, and they invested in missiles, and they invested in launchers and UAB two hundred billion dollars. I think that number could move. Obviously, it takes uh it takes money to kill bad guys. So going back to Congress and folks there to ensure that we're properly funded for what's been done, for what we may have to do in the future.
Incredible in what we may have to do.
Ye billion dollars. That tells you what they think is coming. That's exactly that. That is your indication they are preparing for a long drawn, drawn out war. At this point, they're asking Congress right now for an additional two hundred billion dollars.
Yes, and isn't I think I saw some stats yesterday that's more than we sent to Ukraine in four years of that war. Just for perspective, like, this is a massive amount of money, and he says that that number could move. It's not moving down. The only direction it's gonna move is up. I actually saw Lauren Bobert this morning saying that she's a no on the additional war funding, so you know, she then got further pressed, oh, well do you you know, do you think that this war
should continue? And she's like, that's up to Trump. So she kind of differs on that point, but at least as saying two hundred billion dollars, I don't think I'm
voting for that. But the lack of self awareness here of Hegseth within minutes of each other, saying that the reason Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrors because they take their money and they spend it on missiles, and then moments later asking Congress for two hundred billion dollars for missiles, taking our money and spending on missiles for starting World War three and bombing little girls in grade school pretty and you know, the American public is
so propagandized that I think most people won't even won't even really notice that. It's like it's it's it's different when we're on to us it than when we do it. You know, it's not the same when they do it. But you know, that is the reality of what our state is becoming. They're asking for one point five trillion dollar defense buddy, they already have one trillion dollar defense budget, and now you're coming back and asking for two hundred billion dollars more for a war that we're told has
already been a glorious victory. Trump told us we already won this thing. This little excursion just so insane, and you can only imagine what good could actually be done with that money.
Instead, I just want to say, I just pulled this up, Crystal. This is astounding so as according to the Council for Foreign Relations Counsole Foreign Relations, as of December thirty one, twenty twenty five, the US Congress has made available one hundred and eighty eight billion dollars in spending related to the war in Ukraine. According to the US Special Inspector
General for Operation Atlantic Results. So think about that. Think about that everyone, over several years of war in Ukraine, one hundred and eighty eight billion, which is a lot of money, by the way, already a lot of money. We are two three weeks into I guess three weeks now into this war in Iran, and they're asking for two hundred billion dollars from Congress.
However, a war, I mean again.
Donald Trump said he would end the war in Ukraine's end the war in Gaza, but he said he would not start new wars, not start new wars. And this entire question of whether there was an imminent threat, we're playing semantics with it right now. But I think everybody understands because the Secretary of State and the Speaker of the House came out and said it. When the war started was nudged, at least the timeline was nudged by the Israelis.
And I agree with Crystal.
I think our government has plenty of agency if that's the case. We chose, we still made our decision. But the question of whether this is a war of choice or necessity has pretty much been answered, And two hundred billion dollars two hundred billion dollar requests three weeks into it.
Speaking of he said, having a hard time selling this war. We have a clip here where he did a little story from his son on why we have to keep fighting this war.
My thirteen year old son popped into my office last night while I was editing these remarks. He asked about the war and the families I met at and I looked at him and I said, they died for you, so that your generation doesn't have to deal with a nuclear Iran.
True.
Yeah, So the families who said finished this, we will, and I say the same to every American who wants peace through.
All right.
So the families, they of the fallen soldiers, they told Pete, you know what it's worth it, Let's finish the finished the damn job. Except some of the families are disputing that conversation. Father of service member kill and I Iran war said he never told Pete. Hegseth to finish the job.
They go on to say in this article that they are just a little confused and unsure, you know, I mean, then these are patriotic families, right, so you know these are this is not something that they want to believe that their son or daughter, you know, died for a reason, but they're just they just are not sure. And that was the conversations in this report that they were asking Pete about, I hope this.
Is worth it just so senseless. And we actually had a video of another parents have fallen service member saying, you know, I'm actively wanting the war to stop, So to lie about something like this to me is just so incredibly low. Like to use these service members' families and then to put words in their mouths so that you can use them like a little puppet, you know, to get your talking points across, is so disgusting to me. Not to mention obviously the story with his own son
is completely and totally fake. And even if it's not fake, I am driven completely insane by the gas lighting here about the timeline, let us not forget it was the first Trump administration that tore up the Imanian nuclear deal that was working, and it was this Trump administration that twice used diplomatic negotiations as a ruse to attack and start a war with a run in that second set
of negotiations. We now have multiple people who are involved, we have the omanis, we actually have one of the British officials involved who said this, there were incredible concessions made here. This was a deal that was workable, that went beyond if you were concerned that the original deal with Obama wasn't strong enough, it went beyond that. And they didn't even bother these clowns to send negotiators that
even understood what was being discussed. So to him, for him to say, oh, we're doing the work to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon to make the world safe for our children, what total and complete bullshit you have made it more likely that Iran, and by the way, a whole host of other countries around the world, pursue nuclear weapons because that is ultimately the only deterrence that may work to keep us from coming in and bombing
their countries and murdering their children and their heads of state.
And those also cut a bunch of the energy and nuclear scientists that would have been able to analyze and create like a new framework or a new deal for us.
So thank you big balls for that as well. Emily, what were you saying.
Well, I just said the idea that Iran's that you're going to stop Iran from wanting a nuclear weapon. So long as Israel has nuclear weapons, it's just not happening. And like that, that is just in the Middle East.
There are multiple countries with nuclear capacity. So if you're Iran, you can't bomb away the sentiment that they want to be they want to have a nuclear weapon capacity, and you can try to you could even try to change the regime, and it's not going to bomb away the sentiment among people in Iran that that's something that they should have, that they need to have, and that, as Crystal saying, in of itself, is the idea that we're
not going to be dealing with this in another generation unfortunately, tragically not happening.
And on that note, Emily, we needed your expertise for this next one before we get to Seroda. So we don't know why we're doing it. We don't know who we're doing it for. Actually, we may now know who we're doing it for. The spirit of Genghis Khan. Let's take a listen to net and Yahoo here.
Let's rule the lessons of history one hundred pages.
In which she said this reproves that, unfortunately, I'm happy Jesus Christ has no advantage over Rginia's huntry because if you are long enough, people will overcome good.
Compression will overcome moeration. So you have no choice.
If you look at the world as it is today, you have to be blind not to see the democracy led by the United States have to reassert their will to defend themselves and to oppose their enemies in time, while there's still time before the jarring gong of danger.
Wakes them up and wakes them up too late. This is where we.
Are now, of danger.
All right, Yeah, that's b.
Family.
I know you're always asking yourself, what would jingis con.
The bracelet. I mean, apparently he's paraphrasing Durant, who was making a comment on human nature.
Pull up that quote. I have it.
Yet, nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad. They define good as that which survives, and bad is that which goes under. In the universe, is no prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan.
And that's.
It's my perspective of that him trotting out that paraphrase quote right now is that it does It feels almost like taunting. And you know, Nietzsche would Nietzsche's perspective on christ was that it was a sort of a slave morality, that the Christianity valorizes weakness, and that's been throughout history
a criticism of of Christianity. And whether or not Natania who was intentionally trying to poke at Christians and Christians in America, like a Tucker Carlson for example, who are making Christian arguments against you know, the War Gaza and the like.
I don't I don't know.
I would recommend a couple of books, Dominion by Tom Holland and Air We Breathed by Glenn Scribner is a really good one too, about where there's the universalism in Christianity that.
It again it feels like.
Kind of taunting that Jesus comes along and says, go and baptize, go and make disciples of all nations, all nations, which is historically somewhat unique. And he says there will be one shepherd in one flock, meaning everyone in the world is covered by the sacrifice. And then Paul says there is no Jew or Greek that's in Galatians, and that Tom Holland rightly points out, changes absolutely everything. And is it true that Christians have done a poor job
throughout his honoring the egalitarianism of christ message. Yes, of course, but that's still there's still a tension between Christianity and other religions because of that, and it does Yahoo tritting.
Out that quote is.
It feels it feels like he might have been intentionally trying to poke a bear, whether it's Tucker or someone else.
Well, they came out after the fact and were like, it felt the need to issue a statement on the Twitter account, the official like Prime Minister of Israel Twitter account that was like, we meant no offense to Christians. We were just quoting this thing. But you know, the funny thing to me, like coming at this from a totally non religious perspective, is this this dodge that I've seen not just from him, but from plenty of other people who are not even like that sympathetic to him
or were like, he's just quoting something. It's like, just because you're quoting someone else doesn't mean that that like original quote was also a good thing, you know, I mean, that's still a choice. You're like co signing this idea, And to me, it was just very revealed of what I think is a dominant mindset, not just with net Nahu, but within Israel. They see themselves as inherently moral right, not based on their actions, not based on what they do in the world, which you know, to me is
how you define moralities like what do you do? Do you cause harm? Or do you cause people? Like what are you?
What are you?
Are you geniciding children in Gaza? Because that seems to have a real bearing to me on whether you are a moral actor. But the view here offered by net Yahoo is we are inherently the good side. So even if we commit evil acts, it's in service of our own inherent goodness. And this is a you know, I mean, this is a supremacist ideology, which is what Israel, what
Zionism is based on, as a Jewish supremacist ideology. And a lot of times when he's speaking to you know, an American audience or Western audience in general, then I'll talk about Western values, to talk about Judeo Christian values. So then we get also brought in the fold of the inherently good. And so he's saying here and again very noteworthy this is offered in English. I think it could be seen as a as a taunt to Christian.
I think that's certainly the case, especially since there's been this, you know, this tension with the Tucker Carlson's of the world, et cetera.
And the Pope has called for a ceasefire, by the way, So it's yeah, it's not it's not just Protestant Protestants in America. There's a lot of religious backlash.
That's that is that's a great point. But so you have that angle of it, but you also have him projecting some American audience. You may be feeling a little squeamish about this, like girls' school, that you just bond and murder all these children. But trust me, you're still
the good guys here. You're still no matter what you do in this war, because if you don't act in barbaric ways, in evil ways, then the ultimate evil, the inherently evil under you know, and what's underneath the service there is Muslims, Persians, Iranian Arabs, you know, anybody who would the Israelis. If you don't act against that inherent evil in this barbaric way, then those people will win out.
It's you know, it's a kind of a rehash of his Children of the Light versus Children of the Darkness speech at the beginning of the you know, the genocidal assault on Gazo, where again it's like anything is justified in our attempts here to decimate and destroy the Palestinian people because we're the good ones, not because of what we do, just because who we are, and they're the bad ones, not because of their age or who they
are or what they do, but just inherently. And that is such an abhorrent, deeply abhorrent, destructive, disgusting worldview to me. But that's what you know, that is the ideology, that is the reigning ideology in Israel. You have to say at this point.
I think what turned people like Tucker Carlson then actually like carry Prejon Boler against what they were seeing a Gazos precisely the part of their faith and it's emphasized all the time about the vulnerable. And again this was Nietzsche's contention with Christianity actually, and Tom Holland has done really great debates on those. People should just pop that into YouTube and watch his debates or read dominion.
It's fantastic. But I think when you see the.
Powerful abuse civilians that are powerless, that's very, very moving to a lot of Christians on everybody, but like Augustine or not agusting Aquinas, that is just war doctrine. And you can make a pretty good argument, and that's probably.
Why Popolio has called for a ceasefire.
If you look at the United States and Israel's decision to launch this particular war, you could you could argue that it's violating the Christian tradition of what constitutes a just war. And so Netanyahu, who is secular by the way.
He's that's disputed.
I mean, he's he's a political figure, and I think has tried to, you know, send different signals at different times in his career. It feels like, to your point about the children of life versus the children of the directness, he's trying to make this argument that you can use strength and that's that can be used against civilians because ultimately you're on the you're on the good side, and
that's what's important, is protecting your people. You're like that, and I think that's attractive to a lot of people around the world. But the more you see like the girls' school for example, or other civilian abuses of civilians, it doesn't fly with other people.
Yeah, I mean being absolved for your crimes. I'm sure that does feel good to a lot of people, like, oh, here's an excuse where you get to act with impunity and you know, indulge your most barbaric and cruel instincts. But really, if you think hard enough about it, because you're good, it's all fine. The other thing, and you know, I think there are others who could probably who could probably lay this out more effectively and with more knowledge
than me. But Jonathan green Blatt recently, in addition to saying all kinds of other crazy crap, he said something about we are no longer the like weak need Jews or the knock need jude or the Jews or something like that. And this is an idea that goes back to World War Two, deeply anti Semitic, but in a like sort of self loathing anti Semitic way, that the there is like victim blaming of Holocaust victims, that they
weren't strong enough to stand up. And so part of the founding of Israel was the idea that like, we're going to create a state that is it will stand up, that will I mean committed terror, stax and ethnic cleansing, in order to found the state, and we are going to be barbaric in a way, you know, and cruel and tough and strong in a way that you know, our ancestors who were slaughtered in the Holocaust in a way that they weren't again deeply disgusting view, but you know,
offered by someone like ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt, who supposedly is all against anti sempittiss sposed to be his whole thing, and it sort of reminds me of that as well, where it's like, you know, we can't afford to have
to indulge in these little nice Christian values. We are the good guys, and we are going to use whatever means necessary to even if those things look evil to you, but underneath the surface, because we're the good guys always and forever, no matter what we do, you know, you just don't understand that we're actually fighting evil with evil, and we have to do that because we don't have the luxury of acting other ways any other way.
Just my quick point on that would be that is the story of human history, like that is what tribalism that is very historically normal. That is what tribalism predating nation states.
That's what it is.
And liberalism after World War two was precisely conceived to overcome that because it leads to atrocities, and Israel has never been able to because of the trauma that the Jewish people suffered through the Holocaust, the industrial scale genocide
that's within living memory of people. That's not like, not everybody has been on board with that because there's this constant fear and understandably, so I have another genocide coming along, and you know, we don't have to go like that's that just took us to a totally different deeper layer. But that's liberalism was meant precisely to overcome those instincts, will to power style instincts, and that's why we have international groups and.
Treaties and laws.
So that's I think a fundamental source of tension has been for the last one hundred years.
Well, and let me say one last thing before We've got David Serota waiting here, and I do want to get him in, which is that you know, hag Steth and Steven Miller and the whole Trump regime they like to frame the idea of like international law or respect for civilians or rules of engagement as like weak and woke and pathetic and not realistic, blah blah blah. Steven
Miller says it the most sort of like directly. Pet hag Seth does as well, though, And Pete haig Seth, you know, one of the things that he's famous for is going and trying to get pardons for war criminals. So that is his worldview. But I think we already see in the Iran war that when we blow up all of the rules of engagement and international norms and you know, and law and any sort of care and concern for civilians, this puts our own service members at risk.
It puts the world economy at risk. I mean, it puts everything on the table. So we're already living with the consequences of blowing up all of those you know what would be perceived as sort of like woke liberal niceties. It's not just that you get to do what you want to your enemies. Your enemies also get to do
what they want to you. And in a world where asymmetric power projection is more easily available than it ever has been before, that seems like a pretty foolish, pretty foolhardy, and ultimately destructive way to go outside of you know, any sort of moral concerns for morality.
Yeah, we should probably try to keep some of these planes in the air before we start acting like Janus Khan. On on that note, why don't we get over to the man uncovering the master plan? David Serota, David, are you there? I'm here, Yes, welcome, David. How are you today?
Good? Thanks for having me. Yeah, we're happy to have you. What's going on?
You know, we're told that there is It doesn't seem like there's a big plan with this war, but apparently you have uncovered the master plan, so update us on what's going on there.
Well, I think the master plan is as it relates to the Iran war, It's like the president woke up one morning and decided to go to start World War three and there was no public justification and for it, there was no congressional authorization for it. It was just like the King woke up on the wrong or I guess in his frame maybe the right side of the bed, and decided to start World War three, which is destabilizing
the entire planet. And the point of our audio series is to ask the question, how is something like that even possible. And so how is it that we've arrived at a place where a president has a constitution that says Congress declares war, and yet we're now where we are where a war was started almost basically like a World War three esque situation like that wasn't just like one bombing. We're now in like a World War three
esque situation without any real authorization at all. And so it's this question of how did Donald Trump become a king? But it's not really only about Donald Trump. It's how did the presidency become a monarchy? And I think to answer that question you have to answer the question of how it started really over the court fifty years ago and how it's evolved over fifty years. We were at this place in our country's history, or a similar place
to it during and after Watergate. Watergate was seen as a scandal about an imperial presidency that had gotten out of control, not just out of control in terms of targeting Richard Nixon, targeting his political opponents. But remember that was a time when Richard Nixon campaigned promising to end the Vietnam War and then secretly, months later, secretly expanded the Vietnam War. It was a time where Richard Nixon started cutting off spending that had been authorized and passed
by Congress. Roads were in the process of being made, and then the road construction had to stop because Richard Nixon asserted the right to say he could decide what spending moved forward and what spending.
Did not move forward.
So all of the fights that I think that we've gotten used to now, and these examples of kind of an imperial presidency, we have been here before. But the thing is is that after Watergate, Congress really pushed back and took back some of that power. I mean, there was the War Powers Resolution, there was the Budget Impoundment Act, which was designed to stop presidents from doing what Nixon
had done. But there was really a backlash to the backlash that started after Congress took back some of its power. And there has been an ideology on the I wouldn't call it the libertarian righte and in sort of the center of the Republican Party, you know, the sort of the Dick Cheney wing. Dick Cheney, of course, was the chief of staff to Gerald Ford right after Watergate. This real idea that Congress should never encroach on the president's authority.
And that's I think part of why we are here today. Where we woke up, you know a few weeks ago when the President decided, Hey, I'm just going to start World War three.
Yeah, let me go ahead and play for people a little bit of or we'll just play this whole trailer for the new season A master plan. First season was so incredible, such extraordinary journalism. I can't wait to dig into this one and see what you've uncovered here as well. Let's go ahead and play this for everyone so they can get a taste of the what you guys have put together.
I have never been a quitter.
Once upon a time, an imperial president was cast out of the palace, but all the president's men refused to relinquish the throne's power.
I must America first.
So they went to work rewiring the government. They didn't just take back the controls. They began building something new, something stronger.
They gave the president.
The power to go around Congress to launch unauthorized warsower.
They ignored the law and cut secret arms deals.
The Pentagon says millions of dollars worth of weapons were turned over to the CIA for shipment to Iran. They manufactured vast new executive powers for a war on terror that would characterize Montanamobig as the least worst place we.
Could have selected.
The Obama administrations continuing a Bush Era of policy authorizing the killing of US citizens abroad.
The goal of this master Plan was to create an all powerful president, or, as some called it, the unitary executive.
You're not going to be a dictator, I said, no, no, no other than day one.
So when a man longing to be a king took the throne, he inherited unprecedented hours to get his way, and those powers are now turning our world upside down. Welcome to Master Planned Season two.
The Kingmakers. How could President?
First of all, that animation is fantastic.
Ben Clarkson, the artist is amazing. He's amazing.
Yeah, this is a sort of an AI could never AI could never.
No, No, trust me.
The number of screenshots and storyboards that he put up I saw him draw.
That was like, that's the kind of thing AI can never do.
Yeah, that is extraordinary. And one of the pieces I've been thinking about is, you know, on the one hand, you've got you've got these actors, you know, Bill Barr being another one, of these is really pushing forward the idea of the unitary executive. But perhaps what also the Founders didn't anticipate is the way that Congress would just be like, Okay, sure, we don't actually want any responsibility.
Go ahead, because the last time they took a vote on war, the Iraq War, it ended up coming back to bite, you know, the vast majority of them who voted for it, bite them in the ass. So they're like, we don't really want to take a vote on this war. We would rather just you do it, and then down the road, if it goes poorly, we can say it's his fault and not have to, you know, face any sort of political repercussions for it.
Well, and that in and of itself was the AMF was such a broad delegation of power to the executive.
That plus it in that to Crystal's.
Point, it's such a good it's such a good point, right, Like, Like I think the founders like they didn't get everything right, right, Like I think this idea that the founder's got everything right is is sort of this presumption and it's it's not actually.
Like a religion, yeah, religious kind of faith.
Yeah, And where I think they got things right. Okay.
Generally speaking, is that the Constitution as a document is like afraid of concentrated power. That that's like the foundational baked in, Like it's the theory is we need to like disperse power a little bit because you literally.
Do not want one dude having all the power.
Okay, I think that's probably like good call, Like you got it right. Where they didn't get it right, you're at least for the modern era, is the presumption that the branches would protect their own power. That whether it's the courts or whether it's Congress, that the presumption was that they would jealously people in those institutions would jealously
guard their power as an institution. And I think in the modern era, what we've seen is that actually the institution, especially when it comes to the Republicans, the institution that is supreme for the Republicans is the Republican Party and not the Presidency or the Congress or the courts. And so no matter where you are in any of those institutions, the Congress, the Courts, the Presidency, you're serving the larger institution,
which is the Republican Party. And so yes, you're willing to like.
Be a judge.
The Supreme Court is constantly deferring to executive power when a Republican is in the executive. Congress is constantly deferring to the Trump administration when the Republicans control it. And I do think your point, Crystal is so important that that after the Iraq War, the Congress kind of figured out, like, hey, instead of taking tough votes to stop anything, we can
just not vote at all. Like it's actually easier for us to not vote at all because who knows when any kind of vote is going to come back to bite. Maybe maybe it's the next election cycle, but maybe it's like three election cycles from now, so they haven't wanted to vote. And I think that's like a really dangerous situation.
Like it not everything was better in the past, but it was better I think when Congress felt an institutional prerogative to fight with the executive branch over who gets to decide things, because that creates like power and countervailing power, which is supposed to create some kind of balance.
Which is a really good argument for getting rid of the philibus. To be honest, what happens with that? And I wanted to ask the cause war powers the intelligence community, and even just thinking about Watergate, all of that goes into it. When you hear, like as someone on the right, when you hear federal society world talk about unitary executive theory, a lot of what you hear is it's about the
growth of the federal bureaucracy. The argument, I think charitably their argument would be that the sprawling federal bureaucracy needs to come under the power of the democratically elected president.
And the example I always use with Ryan when we kind of get into debates about this is you wouldn't want given the revolving door like an Exon mobile executive or an Exon mobile, just regular staffer coming into the EPA and under a climate concerned president making decisions that are undermining the decision of the president, or the will of the president, or the or the policy of the president.
So I was going to ask David, like, how you see the way that this has been intentionally set up and designed to tackle those kind of different arenas where executive power is concerned. There's more power, but there's also bureaucracy, but then there's also the intelligence community. It's a kind of a tangled mess. I was curious to get your take on it.
It's a great set of questions.
And look, look, I think let me preface this by saying, I think the Democrats, if they ever take back the presidency, I think one of the big questions is, Okay, all this power has been concentrated in the White House, do you use that power or do you use your power in office to not use it or relinquish it?
Right?
And I don't think it's an acceptable outcome to have where we're in this pattern where Republicans use all the executive power that's there in an aggressive way and grab even more executive power, and then Democrats get in office and either spend their time not using that power or actually relinquishing it.
Like that's a ratchet effect. That's bad. I think when it comes to domestic policy.
The example that you laid out, Look, I think that the question over whether a president with a mandate has the power to do what they have promised voters to do is at the heart in part of the democracy crisis. Like when I hear that term democracy crisis, part of what I hear and what I think about is presidents get into office. I think it's the Democrats often get into office and then don't really make an effort to really deliver on their promises.
That shreds the social contract.
That harms people's belief that democracy matters, and ultimately sows the kind of disillusionment that someone like Donald Trump takes advantage of it and says, I will get in and I will use all the power to deliver everything I am promising. Now, I don't think Donald Trump's actually done that. I think he's betrayed a lot of what he promised. The war is a good example of that. But I think that's like the dynamic we're in. And I think,
but I guess I would say this. I think there's like a middle ground between the Democrats not really using executive power and being deferential to the to quote unquote norms and Donald Trump so aggressively using executive power that
it's like sort of completely unprecedented. And I think in some cases, you know, extra judicial, extra constitutional right like I'll give you, let me give you like one random example, like I think of the Obama presidency and I think, okay, here's a person who used aggressively, in an unprecedented way executive power to prosecute the drone war, to assert the right to put American citizens on a kill list, right, Like, that's a really really, really extreme view of executive authority,
right to extra judicially execute American citizens, right.
Okay.
I also think of the Obama administration not using existing unchallenged executive authority to change IRS regulations to close one of the biggest and most egregious tax loopholes on the books, the private equity tax loophole. I think of the Obama administration not using executive authority to require Fortune five hundred SEC regulated companies to disclose their dark money spending, something
that the Obama administration could have done. So my point is is that I think there's like a middle ground here where Democrats get into office and use the existing unchallenged executive authority in ways that don't have to go
beyond the Constitution, but are there for the taking. Now, one asterisk on this very quickly, which is I do think actually Joe Biden tried to do some of this at the agency level, like the FTC, the CFPB, And I think what's important to remember is that the opposition to that agenda, you know, anti trust enforcement et cetera, et cetera, will very quickly switch sides on their views of executive power when it's not their executive right. I mean it was like the concert, like the cut the
Chamber of Commerce. Some Republicans were marching into court saying, you know, Joe Biden has no right to use the FTC or the CFPB and the way he's using it. And you're like, gi me, you guys are like the unitary executive Party, Like and I think this gets to the to the core of a problem here. It's like, you know, we're talking on the eve of the no Kings protest. My question for everyone is, Okay, do you not want a king or do you just not want
the king that's not your king? Right, Like, let's really get to the issue here and let's really be honest about what each side actually wants. Do you do you not want kings or do you only not like the fact that it's not your king? I mean, I'm I'm like to be honest, I mean I don't want a king, but like I'm I'm torn on this question of like what ultimately needs to be done. I do think that at the cent or this again, I go back to
it the democracy crisis. You're totally right, if a president gets elected promising climate policy and then is stuck with an EPA that's implementing exon mobiles agenda, right, Like, that is a that's not just an executive power executive branch problem. That's a democracy problem because the president has promised and gotten elected on those issues.
Yeah.
Well, I mean FDR is a great example here. I mean, in some ways, it's kind of unavoidable to not just view the tools in like in the in theoretical terms of like this tool's good and that one's bad. I think it's kind of unavoidable to look at the content, you know, is the content of what is being done here,
good or bad? Right, some of FDR's things were really bad, actually, but a lot of them on the economic front were very good, and they were very popular, and they were in accordance with the will of the people, which the Supreme Court, up until he threatened them with court packing, was effectively blocking. So you know, it's it is a
little bit tricky when you get down to it. And also, of course you raise the prospect very much of like, okay, well, if Republicans are throwing out the rules and doing whatever they want, and then Democrats are like, we're just gonna you know, stay within these boundaries. Then that's an asymmetric fight.
So let me let me add there.
Yeah, there's an interesting question about the independent agencies that's coming down the pike right now in the Supreme Court. And for those who don't know, there are a set of agencies that aren't just like other executive branch like the Department of Homeland Security HHS. Those are normal, regular, non independent executive branch agencies. President has total hiring and
firing power over them. There are certain regulatory agencies, like the Federal Trade Commission that that were designed to be slightly more insulated from the political cycles, where the commissioners have you know, five year terms. It's harder to fire them.
Uh.
And and the Trump administration is trying to say that Trump can fire members of these independent agencies, and there's really like a constitutional question, right. They're trying to use the Constitution to supersede the idea that such these kinds of agencies.
Can even exist.
And this is where I like, I get the idea that the president gets elected and wants to implement policy and want and therefore needs to hire and fire. But I also think, like what's dangerous here is that the Congress and previous presidents have set up these particular agencies deliberately to be independent. And my point is, if you want to argue that that's bad, right, you want to argue, okay, and independent FDC is bad, pass new legislation to change
the independence of the FTC. Don't start making constitutional arguments that say that Congress is not allowed to create independent agencies.
Right.
That's where I think we get into like when we're talking about a king. It's like, if you want to make the small d democratic argument that the SEC or the FTC are out of control and not letting presidents implement policies that they campaigned on, then pass legislation to change the structure of those agencies. Don't start making a unitary executive argument that says one line in the Constitution Article two means Congress is simply never allowed to create
these kinds of agencies. I mean, I kind of think in a lot of ways those independent agencies, their independence has served the purpose that they were laid out, that they're supposed to be slightly insulated from the whims of this or that election because they are they're supposed to be more sort of empirical in their application. But let's have that debate rather than saying, yeah, these are not allowed, these are basically illegal.
I mean, if we're going to have an authoritarian leader, I want one that's a lot better than the once we're.
Be getting lately.
I'm looking at you know, I'm looking at China, like they seem pretty smarter over there. I mean, if we're gonna have no freedom of speech here either, I don't know.
Maybe yeah, I mean problem, Well, we got a good we got a good king who makes good decisions. Then you know, four years later, you're not going you probably aren't going to get to like I think that's the theory of the constitution, like like like like for every good king you're gonna have, you're gonna have a really a bunch of really bad ones.
Well, let me let me ask you about this. And uh, this is some some new news that is pretty interesting. Trump, according to the Wall Street Journal, told Inner Circle some mass deportation policies went too far. President directs a new approach, as some advisors believe immigration is no longer as strong a political issue for him. He's seeking to lower the profile of his mass deportation effort has directed his top advisors too adopt a new approach on one of the
central campaign promises. They go on to say, in conversations with top advisers and his wife, Milania, Trump has become convinced that some of his administration's deportation policies went too far. Voters don't like the term mass deportation, and he's told them he wants to see more attention on arresting bad guys and less chaos in American cities. Court of people familiar with the matter, now, I think a lot of caveats, right. Uh, well,
we'll see what the actual actions are. We will say there hasn't been another like city invasion like we saw in Minneapolis. And to bring this back to you know, to your reporting here in master plan, now it looks very clearly like the mass protests and mass resistance in Chicago and Minneapolis and other states and countries across in LA and other states and cities across the country, this succeeded,
you know, it worked as a check. So Congress may have laid down, Uh, the Supreme Court laid out the red carpet for this, you know, bullshit, cruel and unusual bullshit, and but the people really, you know, rose up and made it very made it very difficult, and created a lot of public awareness. Where they're right that the politics of this have completely shifted since Trump came back in office.
So so, even as they've consolidated in all this power in the executive branch, and even as this president and his cronies seem to act like they're never going to have to face voters again, which is kind of scary, how much of a check do the people still serve, you know, for democratic accountability on the unitary executive.
It's a great question. I am heartened by the news this morning. I will say I do think that it's not a coincidence that Trump initially pulled the deployment in Minneapolis back when Democrats finally started talking about cutting off funding. I do think that's that's that's a little part of the great point, you know, I do think that like Congress's power of the purse.
But why did Congress do that exactly because they were under pressure from the base. It wasn't just a domino nowhere.
But that's right, Yeah, you're totally right.
So it's like public pressure on Congress to use its actual power. It's unchallenged power of the power of the purse. Ultimately, all of that colludes to back a president office at least momentarily. I should mention I think this is important. Another important lesson when it comes to the power of the purse for the Iran war, that public pressure on Congress to not just pass resolutions or try to pass resolutions of disapproval of the war, but to actually defund
the war is going to be incredibly, incredibly important. Like this idea that Democrats can can say I'm against the war, but I'm going to vote for the two hundred billion dollars supplemental for the war is a lot of nonsense and everyone should be focused really on that specific thing. The Democrats trying to carve out this like middle ground, like you know, I can be against the war, but I don't want to quote unquote undermine the troops by defunding the war.
That is a nonsense position.
So I guess it's to say, the more pressure there is in public, the more it will create a more fortified opposition in Congress, and the more I think Donald
Trump will be constrained. Now, I do think ultimately if Trump wants to continue seriously illegal, unconstitutional and wildly unpopular policies he can, and ultimately we have to mention it, like the question of impeachment should be real, Like I think this ultimately we are I think we're headed towards this question, especially on the Iran War, of if he never comes to Congress for a declaration of war, there is no explicit authorization, and this war drags beyond the
War Powers Acts sixty to ninety day time threshold, there is a big question of like what to do. And what I worry about is like, if the Congress Act actually passes the War Supplemental Bill, is that interpreted legally and certainly within the administration as the authorization they need? In other words, it's just a funding bill explicitly for the war. Does that become the Iran Wars Gulf of Talking resolution? And if it does, then then you've taken a legal, a legal tool off the table.
Yeah. I don't know if you guys saw Scott Jennings doing his thing on CNN yesterday and I can't remember who was fighting with, but they got into this fight over whether this was a war or not, and he said America hasn't fought a war since World War II.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, I mean with that, that's where we are, like, we're still it's a military incursion, a military what I mean?
And Iraq was, and Afghanistan was, and Vietnam was. I mean, it's like, you've got to be kidding. And whoever was? I wish I could give credit shame because off the top of my head and forgetting who it was. But he was, like, I think the veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan would have something to say about whether they were set to fight and die in a war or not. So you know what's interesting Orwellian abuse of language.
Yes, so interesting that you bring this up. There was a debate inside of the Reagan administration that we uncovered in our reporting for Masterplan, in which it was John
Roberts as a young lawyer. It was over whether to classify the Lebanon Military Operation and the Grenada Military Operation, both initially conducted without congressional authorization, whether to allow it to be classified as a war for purposes of providing veterans benefits and the like war combat war service benefits, to the to the to the soldiers who were in that and it was a debate over well, if we say they were wars and we didn't get a congressional
authorization for a war, how to like, it's sort of a legal gray area. And I think, what's I bring it up only to say, look, these issues have been debated before inside of the executive branch, at least in like a serious way, Like it was interesting to see John Roberts taking the idea that Congress has war making authority like that was a serious thing. I think we're so far away from that now where it's just presumed that Congress doesn't really have in any real way war
making authority. And I just go back to this idea that really, ultimately what we're learning is the only real power that Congress has. It may there may be a line of the Constitution to declare war. The only real power it has here is the power of the purse. Like I just I know it's like it's it's it's so important to underscore.
David. So if you're saying that democracy is the antidote to these this this master plan, well that seems like something that we have to solve them. I got to get rid of democracy. Where does this save Act fall into this master plan in terms of, you know, depressing votes, making it more difficult to vote.
What is your reaction to the current savee plan? Do you think it will.
Pass if Congress, actually the democratically elected representatis of Congress actually pass it.
Here's the question too.
I know, I know.
Well, look, I think the when we use the term master plan, what we're really talking about is there's a handful of powerful interests, oligarchs, billionaires, et Cetera's corporations for a very long time. If you're one of those those powers, you look at democracy as the problem, right because you need increasingly unpopular policies to maintain your wealth and power, to maintain a concentration of wealth and power in a small handful of a small.
Group of players.
One way you do that, that was season one of Master Plana. Legalize corruption so that the elections can be bought, so that it is less a one person, one vote democracy and more a one dollar, one vote democracy, so that the election choices, no matter what they are, deliver the unpopular policies you need. The second thing you do is you try to concentrate power in one person's hands, the president, so that the president so you don't have to deal with the Congress.
You don't really have to deal with with.
The courts, Like that's hard to Congress members have to go back to their districts every two years and deal with actual people. So part of the way to subvert democracy is to concentrate power. The finals part of this is to simply make it harder, if not impossible, for people to actually even vote, right I think, and I
think that's you know, what the Save Act represents. And I think it's easy to like presume that the motive here is just like you know, doctor evil motives, right, Like it's just people like like the people pushing this just are evil because they want to be evil.
No, it's actually a motive of self interest.
We want to maintain power knowing that the policies that maintain.
Our power are unpopular.
So we have to do all of these things to essentially keep that power because if we allow an actually flourishing democracy to operate, we're not going to get the unpopular policies that we want. I mean, Lewis Powell in the Powell Memo in Season one Master Plan, I mean he lays this out, I mean literally, like the problem that the conservative movement saw at the time was the
government has become too responsive to the people. Like the government is passing all the Ralph Nader is getting all these things past that we the oligarchy, do not like. And the problem is that the government has become too responsive to what the public wants.
And I think ultimately this question of.
We originally struck a balance, like the Constitution was supposed to strike a balance, like you don't want the hot passions of every whim that the public wants to be legislated at any time, because that can get out of it.
You know, that's mob rule.
So there needs to be like some you know, small are republican checks on that problem, you know, representative democracy. But I think we've swung so far to the other side that we're now at the stage of talking about making it harder for people just to cast votes. I mean, that's really how far this plan has gone.
David, Where can people find Masterplan Season two and where can they support you guys over at lever News.
Uh, thanks for asking.
Go onto your phone right now, pull up your podcast app, whichever one is your favorite app. Just type in Masterplan, subscribe, go listen to episode one. If you don't have a podcast app, just go to Masterplan podcast dot com.
All all the episodes will be.
There that and we are the lever so you can find all of our reporting at levernews dot com. And just a huge thank you to Breaking Points and Breaking Points as audience for always being such great supporters of our work and letting your audience know about our work. We are independent investigative journalists. It's not easy to get our work, our work out there, but you guys are a huge help and we really appreciate it.
Well, we have podcast Your podcasts are incredible.
Sure they are really excellent.
Storytelling is so good.
I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Great to see us always, David, Great to see you guys.
Thanks again.
All right, that'll do it for us here in the first half of the show. If you want to see the second half, y'all know the deal. Emily, where do they go?
Breakingpoints dot com?
Of course? Where else?
Of course?
Where read the Breaking Points twenty six though, so sorry, guys.
They've been liberated. They're taking Cuba with Ryan.
That's right.
One last thing before we get over the premium section, though, Thank you to everybody who' submitted questions for Sager for the Joe Ken interview. I know he was going over them, Griffin, I'm sure you dug into them as well, and he was saying, like, there's actually a lot of really good questions here, so really appreciate that input. And if you want to be able to, you know, contribute to such things in the future, breakpoints dot com that's how you do it.
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, start doing our job for us, really good stuff.
Yes, please pay us money and then also do our job for us.
Created.
How is this pitch going?
Yes, this is going perfect. We should in an all credit to soccer. He created a massive list of his own questions for Joe Kent and then he got great audience questions and now there's a great synergy happening behind the scenes.
Yes, indeed, yes, all right, we'll see y'all in the second half.
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