4/21/25: SCOTUS Blocks El Salvador Deportations, Japan Rebukes Trump On Trade, Full Blown Pentagon Meltdown - podcast episode cover

4/21/25: SCOTUS Blocks El Salvador Deportations, Japan Rebukes Trump On Trade, Full Blown Pentagon Meltdown

Apr 21, 20251 hr 1 min
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Summary

Ryan and Saagar discuss the Supreme Court blocking El Salvador deportations, Japan's resistance to Trump on trade, and a full meltdown at the Pentagon, including controversial actions by Pete Hegseth and the resulting fallout. They also analyze the implications of these events on US foreign policy, trade, and domestic politics, questioning the competence and motives behind the administration's decisions.

Episode description

Ryan and Saagar discuss SCOTUS blocks El Salvador deportations in midnight order, Japan stands up to Trump on tariffs, full blown meltdown at the Pentagon.

 

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today, bro show people live for the Pound. Ryan Grimm is here in the house and we have a packed show.

Speaker 1

All right, let's see what we've got here.

Speaker 3

Toughest part of the job, El Salvador, we're going to be having peace go on from uh he's previously joined us. He's a lawyer, he's got a lot of expertise on immigration. You did a very good job of explaining and breaking stuff down. There has been so many legal developments just over the last like forty eight hours or is the Supreme Court has gotten involved, basically blocked the entire Trump

administration using the Alien Enemies Act. He's gonna explain what that means, what the justification is, and what the future looks like.

Speaker 1

We are going to talk about tariffs.

Speaker 3

There's been some major hang ups in the Trump administration's plan to negotiate bilateral trade agreements. The country of Japan has indicated it is not going to see two US demands. There's a lot of watch on Japan because it's the first major ally to actually negotiate with the Trump administration here, and there's some troubling signs as well as some peak behind the curtain of how we got our little ninety day pause. It's not exactly the best and the brightest.

We're going to talk about Pete hagg Set and Pete hagg Set. It seems there's just insane insanity.

Speaker 1

Going on right now at the Pentagon.

Speaker 3

There's a full scale perch, a literal purge of top officials, many of whom are very against war with Iran, where loyal to Pete hagg Sat. They all appear to have been fired and at the very same time heg sat now embroiled in a scandal where he allegedly sent those same Yemen war plans to a group chat which included his wife and brother. We are going to talk about a little story here that Ryan and I worked on together.

Speaker 1

I believe Ryan.

Speaker 3

It's my first byline in six years, So it's good to be back. It's going to be back at drop sites and.

Speaker 4

For people who aren't in journalism.

Speaker 5

When two people write a story together, they called it co byline, we gotta go with cobro line.

Speaker 1

Yeah, cob bro like get a lot.

Speaker 4

I like it.

Speaker 3

It's good to be back. Ryan and I worked on the story together. An exclusive report that our subscribers will hear first. So if you want to get that, go ahead. Breakingpoints dot Com not going to give it away guess yet.

Speaker 1

Israel. We're going to talk about some updates there.

Speaker 3

Of course, just Israel admitting that they killed those medics.

Speaker 1

They call it a mistake. They fired the brigade.

Speaker 5

This is what accountability means. They removed one guy, that's his job.

Speaker 6

That's it.

Speaker 3

And beyond that, Ryan, you're going to get into how the deal, the TikTok of how they even got to an admission of guilt.

Speaker 1

A lot of it was because of you guys. A lot of it was because of.

Speaker 3

Journalists that were there on the ground, reporting from behind the scenes, and it was specifically not because the legacy media that forced this. We're going to as well give some updates on the Iran potential Iran deal. There is a full scale war and this relates very much the story that Ryan and I are doing a full scale war inside the Trump administration itself over the feasibility of these continued negotiations with Iran. Negotiations do continue and they're

very positive signals. Of course, they could fall apart at any time, and the neo con war on the individuals who were involved, people like Steve Wikoff, Adam Boehler and others continues. The Israel lobby is throwing everything they possibly can to kill these We're going to give everybody an update. And then finally, finally, some interesting moments there on the Joe Rogan experience with Tim Dillon Rogan openly mockt Douglas Murray and Douglas Murray and Bill Maher teaming up to

openly go after Joe Rogan. Interesting all former guests and friends, you know, apparently together.

Speaker 1

So there's a lot going on.

Speaker 4

There, makes it too easy.

Speaker 3

Yeah, have seen too Yeah, I mean it's too Goodsten Douglas, you did it to yourself, brother, You make yourself look like an idio.

Speaker 1

People are gonna take a notice, all right.

Speaker 3

So before we get to that, just thank you to everybody he's been subscribing to Breakingpoints dot com. Ryan and Emlin did a fantastic job on the Friday Show, which, of course we have extra premium content that they did for us on Friday, available only to.

Speaker 1

Our premium subscribers.

Speaker 3

Tomorrow, Kris and I will be doing our live Ask Me Anything and their continued expansions here. So if you can support us Breakingpoints dot Com again. If you cannot, it's totally fine. Just make sure that you like and subscribe either to this video or any of the other videos they're watching. And guys, if you are listening, just go ahead take this podcast episode and send it to a friend, lead a five star review. It's the best possible thing you could do for this.

Speaker 5

If you can do it now, you should do it now because thanks to Trump, you might not be able to do it soon because it might be laid off soon.

Speaker 4

So point spend it while you've got it.

Speaker 5

Yes, Yes, support something that you care about so that it can survive the coming time.

Speaker 1

There you go, all right, well, thank you very much. Yes for and I do.

Speaker 3

I would never advocate for anybody going too credit card dad, So if that's true, just.

Speaker 1

Like it to spare card like a share and subscribe to the and send it to a friend. All right, No hard feelings.

Speaker 3

Also, we had some very sad news that broke overnight. Pope Francis officially died. He's eighty eight years old. Just met literally yesterday with the Vice President of the United States.

Speaker 1

He wasn't looking so good in that.

Speaker 3

But of course there will be kickoff the major conclave and all of the traditions surrounding the selection of the new pope.

Speaker 1

So it is an end of an era. Certainly condolences all the Catholics out there.

Speaker 5

And we'll talk about this later on the program. And I promise I will not make fun of Jade vans Ford.

Speaker 1

Okay, I mean you can.

Speaker 3

I mean it's objectively funny, but I mean, you know, it's not a funny moment, of course, for what is it a billion Catholics something like that. He lived a life around the world. Yeah, he had a very interesting life. So we'll talk a little bit about his legacy. We'll talk about it there at the end. But with that, let's go ahead and get to Pisco. He's waiting for us. Joining us now is Pisco. He is the host of Pisco's Hour for our purposes. He's actually an attorney and

he's got a lot of specialization in immigration. She's been doing a decent job. He joined us before. He did a great job breaking down those legal developments. And we have even more legal developments here, specifically involving the Supreme Court. So, guys, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.

This came over the weekend where it was an extraordinary order from the United States Supreme Court, the Supreme Court blocking the Trump administration from deporting foreign nationals under the Alien Enemies Act. So peace, go go ahead and describe this order, how many justices were for, how many were against, the timing of which it came out, because there was a lot of legal analysis going over the entire breath of the decision.

Speaker 7

Go ahead, yeah, sure, So this is an extraordinary order. The ACLU went to the District Court, went to the Appellate Court, the Fifth Circuit, and then also to the Supreme Court, almost concurrently, you know, within hours of each other, because there was news that the Trump administration was moving quickly to deport tons of alleged alien enemies. If you remember the last time we spoke, there was that ruling and holding that even alleged alien enemies are entitled to

do process and to have habeas petitions. While as I predicted, and as you know, we talked about, they were going to interpret what reasonable noticement and according to the ACLU, that meant twenty four hours and you got to sort of signal that you were going to file a habeas petition.

Speaker 6

And so in an.

Speaker 7

Extraordinary order, the Supreme Court at like one o'clock in the morning ordered quote the government to stop and pause any deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. It was right now, there's only two noted descents. We don't know for sure that all the other seven were in favor, but there were no other noted descents.

Speaker 6

So people are assuming now that there was a seven too, holding.

Speaker 7

To pause all Alien Enemies Act deportations in a certain part of Texas.

Speaker 5

Okay, so let's put up a two speaking of these descents. This is sam Alido. He writes in some literally in the middle of the night, the court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief, without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order.

Refused to join the courts order because we had no good reason to think that under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate. Both the executive and the judiciary have an obligation to follow the law now.

At the same time, you had a rather dramatic circuit court hearing with the judge there that the Trump administration kind of despises, where you had the attorneys for the migrants saying, we are hearing that people are being ordered to change clothes right now, like we can smell the fumes of the of the buses that are going to take these men to the airport. Please, sir, please your honor, like you have to act now. And he refused to step in, saying that he didn't have the jurisdiction at

the time to inject himself into the controversy. But the Supreme Court did then just hours later. So can you talk about Alito's claim here that there actually is no urgency and that they shouldn't get done that. Where were the people in question at this moment?

Speaker 7

Yeah, by all accounts, the reporting is they were on buses ready to go to the airport and they were getting ready to take off. Now, I think you're referencing a hearing with Judge Boseburg, and in that case it's in a different jurisdiction. Boseburg is pretty much saying saying, you know, my hands are tied. The Supreme Court said, you know, the right venue for these habeas petitions has to be in the place where the confinement you know, was at the time the the Habey's pission was filed.

And so I actually don't blame Boseburg at all. He was just you know, holding on to that rule earlier.

Speaker 5

His people as well, because it covers all class of people under the Alien Enemies ect.

Speaker 7

It covers only people in Texas. The Supreme Court's order itself. And but Boseburg is saying, listen, I don't have jurisdiction here. I have to listen to the Supreme Court. So that makes sense. As for Alito's concerns in ordinary circumstances, yeah, Alito would be right. You know, you're supposed to go through the ordinary process of appeal. You're supposed to, you know, make sure that you're exhausting your remedies in the district

court and then at the Circuit Court of Appeals. Here's the problem, nobody believes the government when they say, hey, we're not going to deport these people. Oftentimes they're not even able to make those representations in court. Oftentimes, you know, they lie. You know, they're already lying about the decision. They say that it was nine to zero in their favor, the previous decision for kill Mar and Brego Garcia, and so you can tell the Supreme Court they're a little spooked.

I think that those seven justices they don't trust the administration. And so when Alito says there's no factual basis to believe that these people are about to be deported, he's taking the government at their word.

Speaker 6

And what the government has shown is you shouldn't.

Speaker 3

So I think that's actually the most interesting part about the late night decision is it was clearly to the Supreme Court trying to assert its jurisdiction and its orders after watching the Trump administration and the way they have handled a lot of the kill Mar Abrego Garcia case, speaking of which there have been some extraordinary developments on that over the weekend as well. We had a couple

of instances. Ryan and Emily did a good job on Friday of breaking down the meeting between Senator Chris van Holland and Abrego Garcia that took place in Elsialvador. But what actually came following that announcement was interesting as well, a continued claim from the Trump administration that Abrago Garcia

was a confirmed member of MS thirteen. We have a little bit here from Abrago Garcia's lawyer being asked specifically about tattoos that allegedly show his MS thirteen membership on his hands, and then I want to get your reaction afterwards.

Speaker 1

Let's take a listen to his lawyer.

Speaker 8

One thing that we've heard from the legal team and against this allegation from the White House is about his history. I know that you've said he doesn't have a criminal history, that he had never been arrested for anything before people to the White House have pointed out to me. They say that doesn't mean that he wasn't a member of MS thirteen. There's not always criminal activity on someone's record if they are in a gang. And I want to

show you something that the President posted tonight. It's a photo of what he says is your client's left hand. You can see his knuckles there, and the President is showing these tattoos that the White House alleges.

Speaker 3

Break down what's going on there in terms of the claim. I know that you've looked and actually read a lot of the docket. There's a lot of conservative influencers of like a confirmed member of MS thirteen break it all down for the audience here.

Speaker 7

Yeah, So, first of all, it's important to note that it doesn't matter even if you were an MS thirteen member. Even the worst criminals in the country deserve due process, and none of the Supreme Courts holding related to due process you rely on whether or not you're a member

of MS R teen or not. But to actually address the claim, they're basing on a sort of police report that existed in twenty nineteen where a cop who was later sort of suspended for behavior that's frankly, you know, I don't know if I would say corrupt, but certainly bad behavior where he was having sex with a prostitute that he was also feeding you know, confidential information to and this cop on the basis of really just hearsay, someone said he's a member of MS thirteen and he's

wearing like Chicago Bulls clothing. They alleged that he was a member of MS thirteen, and so that claim got sort of funneled into the immigration court.

Speaker 4

Say like do we even know that this person exists?

Speaker 6

Like, we don't know who this person's name is, We don't know who they are.

Speaker 7

Yeah, right, So the holdings of the immigration courts were

with respect to a bond hearing. Okay, a bond hearing is a very different threshold than a finding a fact, And like, you know, if there's some issue, uh, you know, some legal issue that needs to be fettered out by the court, imagine it, right, Imagine if in a bond hearing you were accused of murder or something and the court found probable costs to hold you or just to hold you, right, just the amount of evidence it would take for you know, them to keep you in a

cage until there is the process right. You don't have any right to cross examine this person. There was no availability of this officer to be cross examined. And so it is the height I think of, you know, a propagandist to suggest that these rulings related to the bond hearing, you know, are actual findings of fact that the member of MS R team, and all the evidence is to the contrary in my opinion. No criminal record here, no

criminal record in El Salvador. You know those tattoos, it's it's like the Glenn Beck You guys ever see the Glenn Beck board where they're just like connecting dots and they're saying that the marijuana leaf represents M, the smiley face represents S, and so they're just trying to make connections.

Speaker 6

There.

Speaker 5

Don't how much you know about MS thirteen, but if people look up the tattoos that MS thirteen gang members wear, they will write MS thirteen, like across their face, it's blaring and underlining, it's circling it all across their back.

Speaker 4

MS thirteen.

Speaker 5

They are not a shy gang like, they're not the kind They're not like a fourteen year old who's, you know, trying to get like something past their their parents or their teacher, like haha, haa, I got a little marijuana leaf, but it actually means the M and MS thirteen Like they blare it out, you get kicked out of the gang. If you're like, wait, are you in MS thirteen or not?

Speaker 1

Like what is this me noted MS thirteen?

Speaker 7

Expert, right, exactly, no, no, no, But you read the like the tattoo analysis documents that they're giving to some of these ice officers, and they're you, you know, there's one tattoo. I remember it said ral asadamorte, which means you know, real Madrid until death. But people take that to be like a gang tattoo. It's just, you know,

absurd the lengths they'll go to. And even with some of these other cases that are not seen as much coverage, I think simply because this kill mar Garcia case is so preposterous and so unlawful, but there are other cases where we know, like it's an autism tattoo, or it's a tattoo that says mom or dad, and so nobody trust these tattoo experts, and when they actually go to court, some of these habeas petitions have been brought in court.

In at least one instance, the court has asked the government, hey, what's your evidence of this person as a gang member and an alien enemy? And they have literally put up nothing, zero, like not even just saying like the bad evidence that they have here or the doctored photo or whatever.

Speaker 6

They have put up no evidence.

Speaker 7

And so this is really disturbing, and we shouldn't trust the government's representations as to kill mar or as to any of these alleged alien enemies.

Speaker 4

So yeah, just real quickly, I've seen real tattoo. People say.

Speaker 5

The most logical explanation for it would be weed makes me happy. So Soccer would like to see him depoint it, deport it just for that weed makes me happy, you know, faith in the Lord till I die, like the Lord till I die?

Speaker 3

Or what if it's faith in weed, which is even worse. All right, let's get to make.

Speaker 4

It serious, all right, give them a second to make it serious.

Speaker 1

To make it serious, let's let's turn to Tom Homan. We're gonna be serious. Ryan's still on his high from four to twenty.

Speaker 6

This is going on, all right.

Speaker 1

Let's get to Tom Homan.

Speaker 3

He's the immigrations are and he's asked specifically about this tattoo identification process.

Speaker 1

Let's take a listen.

Speaker 9

But no one's removed just because of a tattoo.

Speaker 10

In other words, the alienity next to me is you can grab somebody and you can deport them without an extended hearing because you have labeled them a terrorist, because you've because you've said you've determined that somebody is a member of the gang, and therefore they don't have to go through the extended process of the of the opportunity to have a full hearing.

Speaker 6

That's what you're saying. And let's just be clear.

Speaker 9

I'm saying, we're founding the laws of this country and there's a different procedure of each one. We're doing things when in the frame of the law, we're doing things legally. Okay, I stand by that. Now Again, I'm not a constitutionist scholar. I'm not going to argue this in court. That's what the partner of justice does. But we're still I'm sitting here today, I think we've done the right thing for this nation, found the laws in the constitution in this country.

Speaker 3

So what do you get from that about not only that the defense of the alien Enemies Act, the tattoo justification and more.

Speaker 7

What do you think, Yeah, this guy's a depraved individual. He has no idea what the law is. And they're an open defiance of the Supreme Court. They're claiming that they only have to give twenty four hours notice to people, and that constitutes reasonable notice for some of these people who don't even speak English to file habeas petitions. They know they're flowed in the Supreme Court. That's one ruling, right, that's the ruling related to the Alien Exact, that you deserve a habea's petition.

Speaker 6

That's one rulein that they're violating.

Speaker 7

The second rule that they're violating is they're still not facilitating the release from custody in El Salvador of Kilmore and now apparently he's been moved around multiple times. So on the one hand, what I get from that is

open defiance. And the people who's most in charge of the quote unquote border or enforcement doesn't even know the bare bones of their enforcement policy, isn't able to speak about it intelligently in a conversation, and in general, I think this entire endeavor has been characterized by unlawfulness and illegality. So his pretense that they've been doing everything to follow the law, I think is just absurd.

Speaker 3

On the moving around part, that was one where I was very confused as well. So Senator Chris van Holland, who met with Garcia, broke down some of the things he learned, not only about Garcia, but also about the arrangement between the United States and El Salvador.

Speaker 1

Let's take a listen to that, and I want your reaction as well.

Speaker 11

The Trump administration has promised to pay El Salvador fifteen million dollars to detain these prisoners, including the illegally abducted filmore.

Speaker 12

Say honestly something about the government of Elsalvador. They are making a huge mistake.

Speaker 6

You know.

Speaker 12

They want to brand themselves as a country for technology. Yeah, you know, the presidents you know bitcoin is legal tender. But now what they're branding themselves as as the place for these huge prisons where people who are illegally deducted, excuse me, illegally abducted.

Speaker 4

Are warehoused.

Speaker 12

There may be states that decide, you know, they don't want any of their pension funds invested in companies that invest in a place like El salvare.

Speaker 3

So that was an interesting kind of breakdown. He talked about how there's a nine million dollar arrangement between the United States and El Salvador about this movement of prisons. What does that so, I mean, beyond the interest in that in his particular circumstances, what does that.

Speaker 1

Mean for this legal arrangement.

Speaker 3

That's what a lot of people are trying to get their heads around, both in the facilitation in terms of ever being able to bring them back even if you were to be deported again. Can you can you break some of that down for us?

Speaker 6

Yeah?

Speaker 7

I think legally what is relevant about that is for purposes of the concern regarding the Article to encroachment of the court. So you'll remember and recall there was this big discussion about, well, what can the Article two district court or our Article three district court order the administration to actually do you know, just facilitate me, I get

to order the Trump administration to invade El Salvador. Surely it can't mean that, And so for purposes of that analysis, I think the fact that there is a payment relationship there makes us much more like a contracting situation. And I think everyone would agree, right imagine that Guantanamo Bay were being outsourced overset over Wa Tamamobai were being outsourced to a private corporation or even like a foreign country

operate in Guantanamo Obay. That the nature of the payment structure there sort of informs the court who actually has the authority right if if he's in constructive custody of the United States, regardless of whether or not the prison guards themselves are Americans. That's a very different situation than Britney Griner when she's in prison by the Russian Federation. And so I think those are all things at the Court is going to take into consideration there, and I think it is legally relevant.

Speaker 1

Okay, Ran, you got anything else?

Speaker 11

All right?

Speaker 7

It?

Speaker 6

Well, I have a question for you, Seger.

Speaker 1

Sure, Tager, but yeah, oh.

Speaker 7

About Tager, I put my apologies. Isn't this condemnable? Didn't the Trump administration do the wrong thing here?

Speaker 1

Oh? Absolutely?

Speaker 3

I mean I think that the way this has been

handled has been really a disaster. And I think, you know the interesting thing, you know, I just I've said this to Crystal also to Glenn as well, Like my initial reaction, you know, to the entire case was a baseline trust in like, not even trust per se, but just in basic competence that I didn't expect that you could actually be in a world where you would be not only about Abrego Garcia being mistakenly deported, but where you know, the United States criminal justice system validates gang

members in the brear of prisons literally every day. So you would think that there is some baseline assumption around how to classify people as a gang member. Let's say you have eight to ten million, eight to ten million I legals enter the country under Biden this conservative estimate, and it's like, okay, it's reasonably assumption, you know, And it's a reasonable assumption I think to say that a two hundred and fifty or so they say that they're

the worst of the worst. I actually, you know, I've approached that from a position of like, yeah, you know, it sounds relatively reasonable. And then to see the way that these claims have all fallen apart in court and then the way that they've handled it, now, yeah, I just don't think that it falls both under any legal scrutiny. But I think also, you know, one of the things I didn't take seriously at the time was not only the due process, per position for any person in the

United States. But it really does validate a lot of libertarian concerns and about defending the principle, even whenever it's something that you matter the most, because it's obvious here now that this is just the way that the administration conducts itself, both on an immigration level, but also really across the board whenever it comes to tariffs, whenever it comes to so many of the different things.

Speaker 1

Signal gate the sheer stupidity, the.

Speaker 3

Incompetence, and then also just asking people to defend something of which they themselves are admitting fault in a court and then breaking it so that you have to completely debase yourself. So yeah, I know, you know, you know, I'm sure you wanted your gotcha, but you got you know, you got right.

Speaker 6

Yes, I appreciate that.

Speaker 5

So I was coming around on this and a very very tiny part of me is mad at the Trump administration for what it did to its own supporters here because it took it took the faith that its supporters had that Trump was going to be diligent and honest about Now, I never he didn't betray me, because I never felt like he would do that. But they really believe that, Okay, he's going to go in and he's going to find three hundred of the worst, the worst, and he's going to get them, get them out of here,

and instead he swept up. You know, at least it looks like more than one hundred people have no gang affiliation whatsoever. They're not even claiming they have gang affiliation. The country's focused on Abrello Garcia, but you know, we reported on what's his name, Sergio Reyes, who is a goalkeeper from Venezuela who had a real Madrid. Another real Madrid victim had a real Madrid tattoo and they locked him up for that.

Speaker 4

Another one had.

Speaker 5

Like a tattoo autism awareness for because he had an autistic brother. Then of course there's the makeup artist who clearly is not an MS thirteen member, but I maybe.

Speaker 4

Had a tattoo.

Speaker 5

I forget why he wound up there, just mistake after mistake and using people's kind of earnest support for the Trump administration to marshal the capital to do that.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think runs exactly right.

Speaker 3

And politically, I mean, I still think immigration is the strongest ground that the Trump administration falls on, and I think a lot of people are deluding themselves and thinking that this is going to be like dramatically unpopular. Most people don't watch the news or segments like this, and they're broadly just like, oh, it was a gang member.

You know, there's still a lot of trust in the Trump administration from the people who voted for Donald Trump, but at a serious level, I mean, I think all the concerns not only about due process, but about the basic competence that an American can have in their government in executing a policy which I do think was validated at a large level by the American electorate on terms of mass deportation. There was at least an assumption about

some basic levels of competence. One of the major hits on the Biden administration was these of the most incompetent people who've ever run the government.

Speaker 1

Look at the state of the country.

Speaker 3

We're going to restore some sense of normalcy, and I just don't see that. You know, we've been some of the ninety days ninety days now right in terms of the Trump administration, from the DOGE cuts, which we're supposed to be two trillion now they're one trinal. It's like it really does become an all encompassing framework. And sure, you know, liberals can say I told you so, but you know, it's not like there's a lot of people who trust them per se. So sometimes you do need

to see things. You need to see things for yourself. And I encourage people to think for themselves and to listen to people like you and to others and other debates, etc. So thank you so much for joining us, man, We appreciate it.

Speaker 6

Thank thanks so much for having them in.

Speaker 3

Let's get to the tariffs now, man, there has been such a whirlwind around this. Let's put this up there on the screen. Just actually very relevant something we've just discussed about process, about incompetence. This is basically a straight out of the first term so quote. Trump advisors took advantage of Navarro's absence to push for a tariff pause. Peter Navarrow quote had been a fixture on the President's

side after Liberation Day. So the Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik and Secretary Besson they wanted a ninety day pause on the global tariff plan. So what they did is they basically created a situation where somebody else of the White House complex invited Navarro to a meeting. Now he invited

them to a meeting which was across the street. Now, while Navarro is conveniently across the street and cannot argue against Secretary Bestin and Secretary Lutnik, Secretary Bestdon and Lutnik rush into the Oval Office quote to see Trump and propose a pause on these tariffs, without Navarro there to argue her to push back. They know they had only a very tight window. It was not on Trump's public schedule.

The two men convinced him of the strategy to announce the pause and stayed with Trump until he tapped out his truth social post, which surprised Navarro, who happened to be in a meeting, and then immediately Secretary Beston walks out of the West Wing in front of the cameras to declare the policy.

Speaker 11

Ryan.

Speaker 3

So that is the level of care and attention the steward of the global economy it currently has. Over all of our fates are our business here at breaking points, and so much more.

Speaker 5

The most important thing here is obviously the fate of the global economy and all the people that of.

Speaker 4

Course rely on it.

Speaker 5

But underneath it there's this bit, this bubbling question of insider trading.

Speaker 4

This, in an interesting way, exonerates, from my.

Speaker 5

Perspective, the charges of insider trading, because in order for you to insider trade, you have to have reliable information from the inside that you can then trade off. Nobody, including the varrow, including Trump.

Speaker 1

Well and the US Trade representative.

Speaker 5

Including Besant, none of them knew that they would successfully persuade Trump, like they had a plan. But you can't trade off just a plan. Insider trading is supposed to be, you know, for a fact X things. Well, so they go in, that's just the three of them, and then he taps it out on his phone.

Speaker 4

Right there, I'll give you a encounter three thousand points up.

Speaker 1

Here's my counter.

Speaker 4

Let's set a lot.

Speaker 3

So one of the reports from behind the scenes is the secretary best and all week long, all he's doing is taking calls from these Wall Street guns like you need to stop, you need to stop, you need to stop. Let's say that he tells them. He goes, listen, I'm walking into the oval stone. Yeah, and I'm gonna try and to change his mind. It's not a guarantee, right, it's still a bet.

Speaker 1

Yeah, But these guys bets all the time. Right, a tremendous amount upside.

Speaker 4

It's a stronger bet.

Speaker 1

It's a stronger bet.

Speaker 6

You know.

Speaker 3

It's a little bit of information like let's say, if you can do more than you and I know here's the thing, you know, I do a lot of reading about ways to beat the casino plot twists, a dozen years of work. But the thing is is that if you can even rule out let's say, one fifth of the roulette board, that changes the odds for everything else. Right, Yeah, yeah, you're not gonna win, but in a long, long run, you'll way, in the long run, you will win.

Speaker 6

So there you go.

Speaker 3

So that's a just even just a little bit of information about what might not happen or might might happen, is enough to make more of a structured bet which you might be able to take to the bet and obviously worked out for fair point.

Speaker 5

But like we said, the bigger point is we are all living and dying by by this, and it does not give you much confidence in the overasching strategy here, which we can get which we can get into more because the US is now dealing with the European Union,

we can put this next element up on the screen. Here, we're seeing the US put into this extraordinarily difficult position where we are going into these negotiations in a badly weakened place, the dollars crashing, our stockbar is crashing, the bond market is crashing, and you're seeing travel drop in a way that is utterly extraordinary. So it's partly it's

the trade war that's going on. But I think primarily I think so the trade war is creating a lot of anger, But I think people don't make a lot of their individual travel decisions based on their political thoughts about the.

Speaker 4

Leadership of a country.

Speaker 5

People are nervous that they're going to wind up in detention centers for some violation in their visa. I'm curious how this lands on the right. On the left were like, a, we we love foreign travels. It's good for the economy, and we we don't do much else, Like we are a service economy and so travel.

Speaker 3

I'm not going to downplay it. I'm not going to overstate it either. It's nine percent of US GDP.

Speaker 1

That's a lot. There are rough.

Speaker 4

Total yah.

Speaker 3

Yeah, so if we look which is mass No, I'm not so again, I'm not going to downplay it.

Speaker 1

It's also not in video. Okay, it's not the S and P five hundred.

Speaker 3

Now, if that's easy for me to say, and I'm not talking to what I'm trying to think.

Speaker 1

Orlando.

Speaker 3

If you own a hotel in Orlando, God bless you. Okay, I feel bad for you. You know you just got a massive hit if you own anything in upstate New York or in Seattle, where a bunch of Canadians are always traveling to. Apparently Canadians love Vegas. Vegas has taken an absolute beating right now.

Speaker 1

I have more ambivalent about that one.

Speaker 3

But in terms of letting them take a hit, my point is that there are a lot of people out there rely on this rink.

Speaker 1

I'm not going to play that at all.

Speaker 3

At the same time, we are still talking about seventy percent drop in travel, and you know that's not bad that.

Speaker 4

The bad numbers is just coming in zero.

Speaker 5

That's that's just what we've been able to measure so far.

Speaker 4

Like the direction of that arrow. It's like the Hamas Kara.

Speaker 3

Look, I feel complicated about it in certain ways because you know, this is the same GDP argument, right that people make about foreign real estate. It's like, listen, you have to, Oh, we're the world's capital destination. I'm like, yeah, but that's bad for a lot of people who are here. One of the things I think that went most wrong with America and it's global cities is that our cities, when I say global, they really are global, as in, they are the global playground for the world's rich in

the same way that Monaco or something is. Los Angeles is not for America. Okay, it's for the richest people on earth to all gather. Same thing with New York City Manhattan real estate. It's a joke. Like if you're a rich Chinese or rich Russian or rich whatever you know, from some tiny African country, you're the one billionaire from there. You're hanging out in Manhattan. Everybody who lives or in any cities, they know that not only money laundering go

to Miami. What is it twenty six percent or whatever. The real estate there is. But I'm talking fun occupied about real estate. But what I'm saying is that but there is a downside to being yes. But what I'm

saying is that being the global destination for the world's elite. Yes, it's good for GDP purposes, but you lose a lot whenever that happens as well, because you basically become this playground where we're like serving these like super rich I don't know, Guinea Bisawans like in Miami, and you're like, well, what's going on here?

Speaker 1

Right right?

Speaker 3

I'm just I want to give the caveat for why I don't think that it's as chopped up necessarily as its usually.

Speaker 4

Yeah, and I agree.

Speaker 5

I just wish that the US had the kind of political economy and the capacity to be able to say, Okay, we're going to respond to this this Guinea Bissell oligarchs to wants to park his you know, twenty five million dollars that.

Speaker 6

He stole here.

Speaker 5

Well, you know it's going to cost you twenty percent and we're twenty and we're talking about twenty fifty, way more than let's negotiate for seventy five year period and with that we're gonna we're gonna fund our school system. Instead, we don't do any of that. We just completely sell for nothing to the oligarchs. And if if that is the system that we're going to have, then people are going to burn it to the ground, and rightfully so.

But then you're not then without replacing it with anything else.

Speaker 3

Yeah, listen, not a lot of disagreement, just giving a little bit of a counter perspective. Per se, I, you don't really want an economy, right that relies entirely on foreigners coming over here and spending a bunch of money. Right, all those ship they don't need, and then we don't need all.

Speaker 5

Those unoccupied rental properties that are or econominis or whatever that are just money launtering and people stashing money. That drives up the price of rent for everybody else there.

Speaker 1

You go, So maybe it'll be cheaper in plattsburgher and May.

Speaker 5

Everything is going to get cheaper in a lot of ways, except for the problem that you're four to one. K is going to crash. The tariffs are going to go the currency's currency is weaker. But the good thing about a deeper session is that, yes, rents are going to go now true.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I remember talking about that about gas prices.

Speaker 3

I was like, well, you know, gass could go down, but it will be because of demand nobody.

Speaker 4

That's actually really bad because nobody can afford it. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1

Now in terms of the trade, so one relief the market is looking.

Speaker 3

For is some trade deals They're like, give us trade deals, give us trade deals, give us trade deals.

Speaker 1

Let's see some.

Speaker 4

Progress, because they think that'll signal because that means.

Speaker 1

To signal the end of the trade war.

Speaker 3

It means a nine day pause will not actually going to effect after ninety days. It'll mean that the China trade war is actually going well, that there's negotiations and all of that happening. So everybody has been looking towards Japan. And because Japan top you know three US ally G seven economy, one of the world's developed slapped with a twenty five percent tariff, Japan negotiated a trade agreement with

Trump in twenty nineteen. Trump notoriously respects them. He loves Shinzo AaB thinks that he looked out for his country. I love Japan as well, you know, as any watcher knows. But what's interesting is that the Japanese this time around are signaling much less optimism around any sort of trade negotiation. There's been a massive decline in trust on the Japanese side for how these are going to go. And already

just this morning I was looking at the futures. Let's see, they are down about one percent on the s and P. Five hundred largely as a result of this negotiation. So what we have here is a very interesting video flagged by our friend Arnau. This is the former Assistant Secretary of Defense, Chas Freeman, who actually seems to have gotten some inside information from the Japanese trade delegation.

Speaker 1

Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

Speaker 13

The White House claims that there are direct talks going on somehow with the Chinese. I don't believe it. I think what is happening is what I described earlier. The Chinese are maintaining contact with US, routine contact. There is no negotiation going on. The Japanese have just been in Washington and their experience apparently was they went to talk to the American leadership on this matter, and the American leadership said what are you offering? And the Japanese said, well,

what is it that you want? And the Americans could not explain what they wanted. This is a Kakamamy approach to negotiation. And I think the Chinese, having observed the United States break virtually every agreement it has agreed to in recent years, including the replacement for NAFTA with proposed tariffs and on Canada and Mexico. You know, that was negotiated by mister Trump in his first term, and yet

he felt free to abandon it and repudiate it. What's the incentive to negotiate with the United States when the United States has no stated objectives that make sense and no record of compliance with its own agreements. So I don't think there is. I think the Chinese have decided they will wait us out and see how Americans like Walmart and Amazon denuative products.

Speaker 3

That was a really interesting perspective, obviously, but you know it pairs with some of the reporting that's coming out now, Ryan, this is extraordinary to come from a Japanese prime minister. Can we go ahead and put B five please up on the screen? So the Japanese Prime minister actually just spoke before Parliament Monday his time, so several hours ago and said quote, if Japan concedes everything, we won't be able to secure our national interests, saying Japan will not

keep conceding to the United States in tariff talks. And clearly they are just deeply confused. They don't know what we want. My personal favorite is the demand from the Trump administration of why don't you buy more American rice. Why we're trying to tell the Japanese to buy our rice. Whoa, that's like telling the Chinese to buy tea from like North.

Speaker 1

They're like, whoa, what hold on a second here, Yeah, we got it. We solved that problem about two thousand years ago.

Speaker 5

And the other one he talked about was, you know, Trump is very fixated on the lack of American cars on the roads. Yes, in Japan, and as he talked about, and you can ye you were, you're there recently and tell us about your on the ground reporting. The parame Minister is like, look, man, the car the cars have the steering wheel on the wrong side, like we drive on the left side over here. So go ahead, try

to sell your your cars. But you know, I don't think a lot of people are going to buy them because they're not.

Speaker 3

They do manufacture them with a different steering they have to England, but they don't have as big of a production run on those cars. But I mean, look, this is a secondary thing because.

Speaker 1

They're bad cars like that. It's like, let's just all admit.

Speaker 5

It, and we're lobbing them to like reduce their safety standards so that our cars can compete.

Speaker 4

It's like, how about we make better car?

Speaker 3

No?

Speaker 5

And also consumer consumer choice matters.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 5

By driving the entire world economy into a session in a tantrum style like Trump is doing to try to pressure people to buy our products is going to backfire. Even if you, let's say Japan is like, fine, we will even subsidize your Fords to come into Japan.

Speaker 1

Oh they shouldn't.

Speaker 5

Japanese people still have to make the decisions to buy a Ford. Americans don't even want to be seen in a Tesla right now. You think a Japanese consumer is gonna want to be seen in a Chevy?

Speaker 1

Dude? First of all, what is it?

Speaker 3

I think ten percent of Tokyo residents even own a car, right over ninety percent?

Speaker 4

We're going to park that thing.

Speaker 3

So second, then secondary like, they're obviously a better run. They're literally designed for them. People buy Toyotas in America. Okay, So why would you win in Japan? Want to buy a Ford or at Ford F one fifty, or let's say even a smaller truck run from any of the US manufacturers. You would be an idiot to buy that over a Toyota high loucks. You literally would be an idiot,

a complete moron. And that's if you're an American. So now compare it to your in Japan get subsidized rate and his demandant domestically produced and oh it's for your own market.

Speaker 1

By the way, I just looked it up. Japan produces ninety eight percent of their own rice domestically. What are we doing here? They only spend seven hundred million.

Speaker 3

Dollars on rice. Fifty percent of that is already from the United States.

Speaker 1

Why who cares? They're basically self sufficient on rice.

Speaker 4

They're an art it's been a solved problem. Yeah, they're also they're also.

Speaker 5

An island, like if you're not. And also the current Prime minister's base is these farmers, so he's not going to sell his farmers out.

Speaker 6

But if you're.

Speaker 5

Telling an island country they need to like reduce the amount of food that they produce for themselves, what self respecting island nation would do that?

Speaker 11

Right?

Speaker 4

Yeah, well they didn't make it.

Speaker 1

I could tell I can talk about the amount of time.

Speaker 3

It's just one of the dumbest things about the demand for the Japanese. Like listening, we want to talk about reciprocal tariffs, Fine, we want to talk about trade and balanced deficit.

Speaker 1

Fine.

Speaker 3

Actually, by the way, the Japanese are the best ally to work with on this. Toyota manufactures half those cars here in the United States.

Speaker 1

Of America, so many of them are made.

Speaker 3

They have a seated too many of these demands, and they still get slapped with a twenty five percent tariff. Now, if we want more tax credits and or threats of teriffs, I have no problem with that. If we go over there and we say, hey, listen, you know x percentage parts are still being manufactured in Japan. You guys are keeping a lot of the gold for yourself, like in terms of the high value chain, which we don't blame you, but we want to bring some of that over to

make it more self sufficient. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, and some carrot and stick approach with the tax credit. But from the Japanese, they both are feeling threatened, which is at the worst time. Right we're in an alleged trade war with China, So what would we want. We want all the Asia Pacific to stand with us. Well, the South Koreans and the Japanese are like, I'm I'm not so sure about this, right, They release a joint statement.

The Japanese Prime minister openly trying to declare independence from the United States here on a trade war in his parliament.

Speaker 1

That's the worst possible.

Speaker 3

Outcome again for G seven nation, one of our closest allies manufacturing powerhouse, and one that we are deeply reliant on for a core segment of our autos.

Speaker 4

And real quickly, just to back back up Chas Freeman. Uh.

Speaker 5

The EU's Trade chief Mario Stefkovich met with Commerce Secretary Howard Latnik, Bloomberg and others report on this. Also met with you know, I say, Trade Representative jameson Greer and the reporting is this, it's just an incredible line.

Speaker 11

Uh.

Speaker 5

Stef Kovich left the meeting with little clarity on the US stance and struggling to determine the American side's aims. So they did the same thing as the Japanese. All Right, Americans like cool, what what are you going to give us? And then they're like, well what do the Europeans are like Okay, They're like, uh, because what Trump Trump wants to you know, US manufacturing capacity to increase what is what is?

Speaker 11

Uh?

Speaker 5

What did Japan and European Union have anything to do with it, Like it's like, all right, go ahead, like increase your manufacturing capacity, go for it.

Speaker 4

We're not gonna We're not gonna stop you do it.

Speaker 3

The entire thing is preposterous, not only in its demands, in its execution, and the that other countries have no idea what to do. And as I say, you can support tariffs and all this stuff in principle, and also look at the way that this is being implemented and say this is a total disaster. I am for decoupling with China that we would all recognize is going to

have a lot of pain. So how do you offset pain with government subsidy, tax credits, a plan confidence, that's what the Chinese are doing, and allies and allied And then this is exactly so what does Jijingping do whenever he faces a trade war? He pumps billions of dollars in the economy, He lowers the interest rate. He makes sure that Amazon and e commerce sites are supporting their Chinese manufacturing base. To make sure that nobody in the supply chain gets wiped out, from the small all the

way to the big manufacturers. You continue to supply and make sure that you have an autonomous electric vehicle industry that stands completely alone from the United States and the Western markets. And then you go across the Asia Pacific and you cultivate allies like Vietnam. That's everything he has done. Look then at the United States. We have small e commerce company. You know Ryan Peterson, my friend who works

at Flexport. We had him here on the show. People will remember he predicts in ninety days mass bankruptcy at a small AMA commerce level. They're dead dead at one hundred and forty five percent. It's they're never coming back from this. In fact, he even flagged that they're already two companies who he knows they just gave up. They sold to China because they were reliant on the factories there to produce their goods. They said, listen, guys, we

can't do business anymore. Your government is propping you up. We'll just sell you our business, our leads and everything. You can take over after it. They're happy they've got the cash and the balance sheet. Our people have nothing. So that's the disastrous part of this.

Speaker 1

The big guys, Walmart.

Speaker 3

They'll be fine, okayh ish, Sure, they'll take a twenty percent haircut on their stock. All of us will go work for Walmart as a greeter or whatever.

Speaker 1

They will survive.

Speaker 3

I think that's the one thing we could say with assurance. But many of the smaller products that go into a Walmart, you know, many of the people who are e commerce, you know folks or whatever, people will build big businesses. They have no runway now, no product. I talked previously as a new expected parent watching these stroller prices, it hurts man, because you know what, Okay, yeah, I bought

mine before all these terriff things. But if you go on Facebook, Marketplace, the secondhand market and all that, the price there is already going to skyrocket. And people, you know, people feel a tremendous amount of anxiety about buying the proper car, SI the proper stroll. Of course, who doesn't want to protect their child and now they're getting charge for the privilege And that just is unconscionable to me.

Speaker 5

And the other thing that Chijiping is doing is targeted supports for people who are getting hit by the policy changes. So if you are a small business or a medium sized business that was reliant on exports to the United States, he is helping you find like he's doing all the things you said, helping you find in the mestic audience. His diplomats are working to find you consumers in Europe

or Africa or Japan or whatever else. And in the meantime, he's offering financial support to you so you survive this difficult time.

Speaker 4

The United States is not doing that.

Speaker 5

All of these companies that are facing the short term pain, as Trump supporters call it, are not getting any support. And so when the long term gain is that's supposed to come rises, those people won't be around to reap that.

It'll be the Chinese companies and others who at the Chinese companies and the oligarchs who are able to come in, you know, and buy, buy for peanuts and buy for scraps what's left of those companies, and then if there is any long term gain, it'll go to the It'll go to those, right.

Speaker 3

It's just one of the dumbest possible things that we have seen this all play out. If they don't back down soon, the damage is going to be immense. The price increases are already here. You can see it as the inventory starts to lead. And the next time you want to go buy consumer electronics, iPhone and all that stuff.

Remember Trump did give a pause, but he said that there is a separate two thirty two sections two thirty two style tariff coming on tariffs specifically for consumer electronic goods. And Vidia just got slapped with that export control. And by the way, you know, even on this front, just last Tangent and the CEO of Nvidia, the moment that we announced our tarra or export license on his chips to China.

Speaker 1

Guess where he was China.

Speaker 3

He flew to China to assure them that we will always do business in China. He said, quote, we have done business in China for thirty years and we have no plans to stop. Okay, that's that's a problem because we can see here he has no confidence that. First of all, he doesn't know whether these tariffs are gonna last or not. He has no idea. But second he can see where his butter is. You know, where what

is his bread is buttered? Yes, fifty percent or some revenue is over there, and he's not getting any help from the United States of America. I can guarantee you they probably threw everything in the book.

Speaker 1

At Jensen Wong.

Speaker 3

And look, I mean, I think that's deeply unpatriotic and all that.

Speaker 1

But I'm a realist. It's a capitalist every what are you going to do our like?

Speaker 5

Our companies are called multinational corporations for a reason. Yeah, they are not American corporations, and we should stop believing that they are.

Speaker 3

Right, Let's turn down to Pete Hegseth, Man, there is a full scale meltdown happening at the Pentagon. It is just unbelievable. Let's go and put see one up there on the screen. This is just the latest quote Hegseth to have shared attack details in his second second signal chat. The Defense Secretary sent sensitive information about strikes and YEM into an encrypted group chat that included his wife and brother. His brother, to be fair, actually works for the Pentagon,

but his wife, yeah, not so much. It appears to have been a it appears to have been a scheduling like area, So there's not exactly it's not exactly clear why in the scheduling group chat that he was also sharing it attack details.

Speaker 1

But beyond the signal thing, because we've all covered that at this point.

Speaker 5

Beyond the signal, this was his personal phone, which we already knew, which apparently the other one was on his regular his work phone.

Speaker 1

Wait what thought it was his personal phone first?

Speaker 4

This one is is on his personal phone.

Speaker 1

Okay, I thought, maybe it's confirmed this time.

Speaker 5

This is the person His wife probably does not have her phone on lockdown mode either. Right there, you go, that's a good point. His wife's phone must be hacked. There's no like because she's known, you'd be an idiot. Not too right, because she's known to go to all these events and travel with him. So if you're any spy agency with Pegasus, which is like all the big ones, now, like you've hacked her phone, you were in there.

Speaker 1

Yeah that's right.

Speaker 3

Yeah, well all right, so they possibly had access to that, you know. But beyond this is the reason that's coming out right now. By the way, according to the Pentagons would admission they're like former disgruntled employees. The reason why all these leaks are happening is because of the insane purge that is happening right now over at the Pentagon. So not only are as Pete hexet here back in the spotlight. He's going to have to answer for this

before Congress investigations, et cetera. But already the Trump administration has set the standard that no, there was no classified informations cent here.

Speaker 1

Bullshit obviously.

Speaker 3

And number two, we're not going to hold anybody accountable for it, including Mike Waltz, the guy who literally is responsible for munch of this and for any op set concerns or whatever. But at the same time, they're firing a bunch of people who clearly knew about some of this stuff and are now out for revenge. They're out for blood, and we can see out of some of that right now, and there's deep policy implications.

Speaker 1

Let's put C two please up on the screen.

Speaker 3

This is a statement from three former Pentagon officials who were fired and unceremoniously marched out of the building. One of them former Senior Advisor Daan Caldwell. We've covered him on the show before. He's an America First appointee, very against war with Iran loyal sent out of the body, loyal ally for employee of HEGSATHT for over a decade. You've got his former deputy chief of staff, Darren Selnick and Colin Carroll, who is the Deputy Defense Secretary's former

chief of staff as well. All said in a joint statement that they had quote not been told what exactly we were in investigated for, if there is still an on going investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of leaks to begin with.

Speaker 1

You know, remember in the original leaks around this, they we were told that this was a result of a leak investigation that involved.

Speaker 3

Polygraphs, and I was like, oh, man, that's like very serious. Well, actually it turns out none of them have been polygraphed. It was a complete like fake investigation from the first place. Where Pete Hegsat stands in all of this is totally unclear. It's like, are you running your own department? These are guys not only loyal to you, but are much more at least from what I know, are very against war with Iran some of the more like bad elements of

the Trump administration's foreign policy, and for them to be fired. Meanwhile, they're protecting Mike Waltz and many of these other people obviously are very pro war. It's very troubling Ryan. So he's got former disgruntled staff on his hands. I mean, they're blaming the leaks on them. I don't know if it's true or not. It's possible, but I think more important is that when these people are not in the building with Hegsath around.

Speaker 1

Look, he's a sponge, let's be honest, right he whatever is around him.

Speaker 3

Well, if the only people that are left are the pro war with Iran goons, not so good. He was one of the only three people in the Oval to speak out against an attack on Iran that the Israelis wanted to.

Speaker 5

Say, right, and you see a lot of kind of Trump supporting bots responding to this by saying, Hey, Heggas is getting rid of the deep state, right, bro, hexts brought these people in state. These are not people who have been there before, hegseets. And now he's cleaning house. Yes, he built the house and then burn it and then burn it down. Immediately you put up this next element

on the screen speaking of people he brought in. This is John Oillyacht, who was a the top spokesperson for Pete Hegset yesterday published an op ed in Politico absolutely ripping the Pentagon to shreds, saying that the thing is in complete meltdown. One of the things he goes after. The new kind of spokesperson department for Or was Hags's first response to the signal chat. He said, you know, Olliad says, the thing you do is you get all the bad news out first.

Speaker 6

Yes.

Speaker 5

Instead, they tried to play semantic games with whether or not these were war plans or attack plans, which then prompted Jeffrey Goldberg to release all the attack plans and say, okay, call them whatever you want. Here they are. From Olliot's perspective, it's like, dude, what are you doing? Like one oh one pr is to like seane Mike Waltz did that, we won't let it happen again. Instead, he turned it into a multi week story that then focused on him

rather than Mike Waltz. Olliocht, interestingly, in this piece says outright that he doesn't think that these guys that were fired for leaking were actually leaking, and that some of them were told, according to Ouliot, that the investigation was about to wrap up and was going to exonerate them, and yet they were marched out anyway. Now we also know that Joe Casper, who is Pete hex That's chief of staff, is the one who was assigned to lead the league investigation.

Speaker 4

Now he claims that.

Speaker 5

He delegated this to other people that's fine. That's what chiefs of staff do. They delegate those. But he himself has now been moved out of his job. According to Politico, there's some dispute. There's some dispute about that, which is insane, Like, okay, wait a minute, are you the chief staff?

Speaker 4

You're not chief staff.

Speaker 3

The whole thing is preposterous, and we are watching these people now squabble in public, John Oliot, as you said, the former spokesperson. They're like, oh, he was invited to be fired or whatever. It's like, well, he was employed there for at least you hired him. And not only did you hire him, you've actually been working for the Trump administration of the campaign now for like some seven years. So you can't exactly say that this is not somebody, this is never knew the guy, never seen the guy.

Speaker 1

Yeah exactly, And.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I mean I'm still a Hexth friend, right.

Speaker 1

Crazy within all of this.

Speaker 3

Let's put the next one up on the screen. Is you can see here how the entire like inner circle around Pete Hexath is now at war with one another. And then all of the people who it seems were most loyal to him somehow have been fired. Now I have a very difficult time seeing how you can be fired marched out of the building all the people who are allegedly so loyal to you without you having some

say over it. I mean, can you really be fired of the Department of Defense without the say so of the you know, the Secretary of Defense.

Speaker 1

The person who's.

Speaker 3

Running must be read in on this, right, Yeah, So either you're read in or you're not read in.

Speaker 1

That's even scary. That means if the building is running without you, how.

Speaker 3

Does that work? Is it some deep state operation? That's what some people seem to be claiming. I just have no clue. I just know this is a cluster, and this is not how you run the largest office building in the entire world, right and literally the world's pre

eminent superpowers military. It's not even just about competence. Like I said, the policy implications of this are crazy important because people around him had views, they had strong views, they'd been around him, they had trust, and in their trust they were able to advocate four of you, which is never held at the highest levels of the American government. It was one of the hopes I had for this administration.

Speaker 1

For this government.

Speaker 3

So then to watch them get unceremoniously forced out and then similarly to see Mike Wallas and the idiots around him not only to be elevated, but to be entrenched in power at a critical decision time about war with Iran.

Speaker 1

Very scary RN and.

Speaker 5

What's unfortunate for the quote unquote America first side of the foreign policy argument is that Hegseeth claimed to be and was kind of sold as somebody who had been on the kind of warhawk side of foreign policy, supported

the Iraq war, et cetera. But you know, through his through his lived experience as the left would call it, and you know, through his camaraderie with veterans and seeing the absolute failure of American foreign policy to achieve the outcome that that that the young men and women were sent to achieve, many of them dying to achieves and then seeing it like just all turned to ashes right in their mouth, that he turned into an America first guy, if that's if that's true, he has he has not

stood up to that. There's so much pressure kind of in the Pentagon and in a war machine to become to push back to that warhawks side. He doesn't seem like he's been able to withstand that pressure and instead has pushed aside all of the people that would help him stand up to that.

Speaker 4

One person I talked to who.

Speaker 5

Knows all of these people, including hag Seth, said that it's a question of character that that heg Seth has betrayed everybody who's ever been close to him in his life. And you can you can run, you can run through his life, ask his mother. Actually, well, I'm not going to go there, but now it matters because this matters

to policy. And so now he has betrayed all of those people who are professionally and personally close to him, that he served with, that he worked in, concerned veterans of America with UH, and is sycophantically siding with the with the more like bloodthirsty generals and others who are pushing him to stop stop saying those stop, don't get in the way of this, like let's let's let's let's

bomb these people and just see what happens. And the other knock on him besides the personal stuff, was that you've never run a large organization before, and now you're being asked to run the largest organization in the history of the world.

Speaker 4

Are you going to be up for that. We now have the answer, no, you're not up for it now.

Speaker 5

On the one hand, as somebody who doesn't want the Defense Department to accomplish its subjectives, I support it being okay, but I don't want it to be a flailing Exactly what happens is there's a limit to that becomes a power vacuum.

Speaker 3

The building will just do whatever the White House or them tell you. A week Pentagon is actually very bad, yeah, because it means that the White House is not only totally in control, but also that they like, you need war planners, you need advisors, you need people to game all of this stuff out. And if you have a vacuum there at the top, first of all, you're just going to leave it to the career staff, who you know,

we should trust the least. But then also you're going to leave it to the vacuum of the neocons who are running the national.

Speaker 5

Security And it often is throughout history the men and women who've been through war and are now at the top echelons of the military, both in the United States and other militaries, who paradoxically are the ones in the room who are saying this might not be a good idea.

Speaker 1

Oh absolutely yeah, I'm.

Speaker 4

What Sherman said.

Speaker 5

Nobody who what do you say, Nobody who's been to war, you know, could think it's anything other than hell.

Speaker 4

It was something war as hell.

Speaker 5

And anybody who you know who says otherwise hasn't been involved in it. And they have the credibility to then put the brakes on the chickenhawk neo cons who are who are just ready to just you know, launch tomahawks at for for whatever reason they can think of the best the best time to attack Ron's yesterday, second best would be today. If not, if not that, let's plan for tomorrow.

Speaker 6

Uh.

Speaker 5

And so without a without a Pentagon, without any steady leadership, you write, you could create a vacuum.

Speaker 4

That's people like that creep in

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