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We're joined now by Branco March Titch. He is a staff writer at Jacobin. He's the author of yesterday's man, The Case against Joe Biden, and is out with a truly fantastic deep dive in Deep Dive into Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with Peter Teal in Jacomin. Jacobin cannot recommend this piece highly enough.
This is d one.
When we can put the tear sheet up on the screen, you absolutely must go check it out over at Jacobin. The headline here Jeffrey Epstein encouraged Peter Teal's pull it up journey. So Branco, let's just start with the highlights. After spending so much time piecing together these emails between Peter Tiel and Jeffrey Epstein, of which there are many, what can you tell us about how close the relationship was and why?
Over what types of issues did they bond?
Yeah, well, thanks for having First of all, they were extremely close. There's some people that I've written about in the context of Epstein, billionaires and you who you know, They say, well, just because they were mentioned in emails by Epstein doesn't mean that they actually had any kind of relationship with them. You can safely say that is not the case with Peter tel Teal is all over these emails. They are communicating very frequently over the course
of years. They're having fun calls, they having meetings face to face. Epstein is introducing him to, you know, people that he seems to think will be particularly useful and influential.
Fatill t Nar.
So you know, Epstein is also showering him with all kinds of gifts. He's offering to fly into his island and his helicopters. He's offering him at one point fifty million to one hundred million dollars to invest. He's giving him tax advice. He's in turn soliciting investment advice from Teal.
A Teal at one point introduces Epstein to some of his valor co founders and he suggests to put in ten million to twenty million dollars into a new fund their starting At one point, Epstein even suggests, you know, Teal can use one of his top sleep doctors in New York. He says, I want you to stay alive. So it was a very close relationship and the kinds of things they bonded over. I mean, there's a variety
of things that they talked about, you know. But I think that the most pertinent thing to me and looking through his emails, is the way that Epstein seems to be very interested in Teal's kind of budding involvement and interest in politics and geopolitics, and how he seems to want to develop and encourage that by kind of introducing him to a wide variety of influential players around the world and in the context of the US.
And what I think is so interesting about Epstein and who he was connected to, and also Teel aside from the obvious is both of these guys were kind of on the pioneer of where the kind of Davos world was. I don't even even the more extreme weird wing of the Davos world almost was headed, particularly when it comes to kind of eugenics, when it when it comes to mass surveillance and you deploying technologies like Palanteer, that deal
was developing to usher in kind of new world. Also, bitcoin and AI like Epstein Teel like, they were both talking about that stuff so much earlier. You know then you know, either the public or even kind of other people in their set. So what do you make of that kind of the ability that they had to see where their kind of social set was heading and also to kind of drive it in that direction a little bit.
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned cryptocurrency because that is a big theme I think in Epstein's emails in general, but particularly with his relationship with Teal. Epstein kind of suggests in one early email when he's trying to get in touch with Teal, and by the way, he is really before they've become friends. He is really trying to meet
Teal and to forge a connection with him. You know, I think I counted something like ten different times of the course of two years that he is emailing people trying to set up some kind of meeting with him. I mean, he says that one of the things that is interesting him that he hopes they can connect with Teal of is this idea of creating a new financial system and alternative financial system.
Some of that sounds a bit silly.
He kind of envisions Facebook being the kind of basis for a new financial system where you trade favors instead of currency. But when you read through the emails, it's clear that Epstein's interest in cryptocurrency was a big part of this, and you know, I think he hoped to use the Teal connection to try and usher this new world into into existence. I think there's another aspect where, you know, the fact that these guys are both incredibly wealthy and that they kind of feel themselves that are
removed from the rest of humanity. I think both gives them the kind of impulse to embark on what might look to us like almost wacky schemes. But you know, the ones that they're very serious about, and ones obviously have very far reaching implications. And you know, in terms of the idea of kind of extending lifespan and you know, kind of going beyond the limits of normal human existence. I would also point to this didn't make it into the piece, but there's a exchange that they have where
it's very brief. Epstein asked Teal, as he does many times, whether he's going to come to New York, and Teal responds with something like, you know, I don't have any interest in coming.
To the zoo.
This week or something, and Epstein replies, you know, well, sometimes it's fun to look at animals. There's a I think that exchange kind of betrays a certain way that these guys look at the rest of the world. You know, they're so far removed from everyone else that I think they kind of view the world as in the rest of humanity is is almost kind of a Petri dish for for themselves to kind of play around and and and re re forge in the in the vision that they see.
For Yeah, a couple of things that stood out to me. I mean, there's a lot that stood out, but a couple of other things they seem to be trying to Epstein seems to try to be brokering relationships between Teal and the intelligence community. Also people like ultra wealthy both businessman like Tom Barack. If I'm remembering correctly, who's what our current ambassador.
To the UAE. He was UAE now he's yeah, but he was Trump one UAE, right, Ryan.
He would know he was doing illegal lobbying for a right.
Not so he was sort of an ambassador in one sense or the other. But he's trying to I can't tell if you I'm curious if you read it this way as well. Branco, that's he's almost trying to like curry favor with Epstein by doing favors for him.
It seems like he's going out of.
His way to try to help Teal, that Epstein's going out of his way to try to help Teal make all of these introductions, and then he's advising him on his speech at the r NC. It just knowing how much Epstein hates Trump and communicates how much he hates Trump to others.
His relationship with Steve.
Bannon as much kind of more frank about that, whereas with Teal, it's almost like he's trying to imply it a Teal that he's fully on board with Trump there's just some weird undercurrents.
I My sense from looking at probably this one thousands of these emails is that Epstein did have this falling out with Trump, and he was very disdainful towards Trump. He did not think very highly of him. But I think he understood that Trump was obviously a very influential and increasingly powerful person.
And could be bought in some ways.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think Epstein understood that it was probably in his interest to have some kind of in with Trump release his administration, and Teal I think was.
Was his end.
I mean, when Epstein finds out that Teal is a Trump delegate, that's when he starts sending him these emails trying to help him kind of increase his influence within Trump's circles, trying to advise him on how to you know, not pass off Trump basically and get himself kind of kicked out of the in a circle. I mean, you know, he tells him, Hey, I heard that you met with Tom Barack, and he basically says to him, I can
I can you know, make that meeting happen? You should know him if you if you can kind of have your advice listen to by him, You'll be able to increase your influence within Trump's Trump's world.
Later on, yeah, he broke as a meeting between them.
He reads a BuzzFeed article where Teal is quoted saying some unflattering things about Trump, and he tells him, hey, be careful.
You know Trump is very vindictive. You don't want.
To anger him and kind of get kicked out of the clubhouse. And sure enough, from what I could see after that that email assent, Teal does not say anything negative about Trump up to He's very careful to always say positive things. So I think there was a was a realization by Epstein similar to the interest he took in Steve Bannon, where he similarly tried to introduce him to many many powerful and influential people. You gave him
advice and so on and so forth. I think he realized, these two guys are going to be important power players. They're going to be influential within the Trump presidency and whatever comes after it, and it's probably better for me to have a good relationship with him and to have a kind of in and you know, the intelligence side of things.
The the some of the other people that he introduced him too. I think there's a similar thing going on.
The names that come up when when Epstein was trying to introduce Teal to people includes Bill Burns, who became the CIA director under Biden. At the time he was a State Department official. They include Kathy Rumler, who was the Abartment White House Council once upon a time. He says to her at one point when when he's trying to get hit to meet Teal, you know, you should bring.
Some of your spook friends.
So Epstein seemed to have a particular interest in kind of connecting Teal to the world of intelligence.
And of course, you know what has happened since.
Then, a Teal is very much deep in the in the world of intelligence. You know, Epstein introduced Teal to Hubbarak. Teal now has this major partnership with the Israeli military. At the same time, Teal also his companies have increasingly aligned themselves with this kind of interventionist, pro war side
of the political spectrum in the United States. Whereas Teal used to be, you know, at the time that he was had first met Epstein, he was someone who described himself as a non interventionist, and he was against the US fighting all these wars. So you know whether it's what role Epstein played in that. You know, we we can only speculate, but Epstein's desire to have it kind of have a teal. It's more politically involved and you know,
a list of us to war. I think has worked out for him, even if he didn't live to see it happen.
Well, Bronco, great reporting. Really appreciate you being here.
Yeah, thanks for having I.
Just encourage everybody to check out his piece. Bronco Marsh, teacher of Jackoman magazine. EPA administrator Lee Zelden came to Capitol Hill yesterday appeared before the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment, where he was grilled by AOC over glyphasate and exposing what is a kind of fascinating rift developing between Trump and the MAHA movement.
This is a longer.
Exchange than we usually play from hearings like this, but I think after you watch it, you're going to agree that the entire thing was worth including let's.
Roll that now.
Secretary Kennedy was here a couple of weeks ago and when he was asked about glyph estate and the rollbacks against protections against toxic chemical. He said that we would quote have to ask Lee Zelden about that. So you're here before us today, Administrator Zelden. Have you ever participated in a meeting with Bayer where you discussed the legal or litigation issues that the company was facing.
No?
I never did, okay, I have My meeting with them was very brief and that topic did not come up.
All right, I do. Are you aware of any outreach that they would have in your agency about this?
I could say that I directly had a brief meeting, okay, but it was a brief meet and greet and that topic did not come up.
Thank you, mister chair. I'd like to submit EPA visitor logs from July seventh, twenty twenty five to the committee with.
That rejection ordered.
And you're certain they didn't bring up anything regarding.
Your work, I'm telling you one hundred percent absolutely. I maybe there was some brainstorming that was done beforehand of potential talk.
Are you aware of any topic?
Are you aware of anything brought up to any members of your staff or your team?
I am not aware of that now.
In this internal email in your EPA, it says that Beyer was specifically seeking to and discussing Supreme Court action. They will want an update on EPA's regulatory review and that, interestingly, Beyer will provide a small thanks for updating the Glypha Sate web page from the EPA and work on MAHA. Do you have any idea what they might have been referring to in this email?
Well, first off, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, it's possible that the team was doing brainstorming of potential topics. Okay, as somebody who actually attended to thank you.
I'm sorry, I just have forty seconds. I'm not trying to be rude. This Glypha Sate update that they're referring to seems to be correlated to the EPA agency with drawing its support for California's cancer warning on Glynphy Say. Now, this is important because five days after the EPO this year, Beyer filed their opening brief to the Supreme Court, citing the Trump's executive order and hinging their case on the
EPA's warnings or lack thereof of glyphassay. So we have internal emails from your agency saying that Beyer wanted to thank you and your agency for removing support for California's warning because their court their their case before the Supreme Court right now, hinges on you not warning the American people and withdrawing your support on Glyphys. Do you understand the conflict of interest that is before the American people right now? Mister Secretary, thank you.
The gentleman may respond, Okay, So right now EPA is completing a an assessment do in twenty twenty six, and I understand this is a very important topic for many people in this country. This review that the EPA is being conducted. My guidance two dedicated career staffers and then we have people who've been there for twenty thirty years. Is that I don't want to.
Preach taking a while, Secretary Zone, because let me ask, the Supreme Court is going to be making decisions this week and Congress is voting this week on legal immunity.
You made your point. Now I'm asking do you? I answer, this is an important part of this and I'm sure you also.
And I think the timing is also very important, Secretary Zone.
The general aged time has expired.
Thank you, So before we break down that exchange, let's roll. Thomas Massey, Republican Congressman, giving the kind of Maha angle on this.
One of the things in the farm belob still trying to get out of it. Was successful in getting this out of prior bills is immunity for a German company called Bear that makes blyfe to say this is to grant farmers immunity. This is to grant corporation immunity if they give farmers. If farmers contract a form of cancer or non Hodgson salamphoma from this chemical, if this makes it into the farm belt.
Won't be able.
You won't be able to sue for that. And I know they're dealing with some similar legislation at the state level.
One of the things that I liked about that AOC's element Exchange is that she's been a pretty loyal kind of Democratic Party figure fairly and hasn't done a huge amount of kind of reach out to particularly to say Mago or Maha, even though there are a lot of positions that she has that can be very appealing to people in those coalitions. This is a perfect example of it.
What did you make of a substance of the back and forth too?
Yeah, I mean this is Lee Zelden in the I mean when he was picked for EPA, it was obvious there was going to be significant tension between him and Maha because he's in the position of being a Trump loyalist and Republicans are totally in the pocket of these big AG companies, Like in they both parties have their kind of big.
Benefactors.
For Republicans, what do they share, Yeah.
They share a lot of them, but for Republicans based on the states that they come from, of course, like one of them is his AG. It's it's a huge, huge lobby. And so Zelden's in this position of being a loyalist to Trump trumps all of these rich friends. In fact, it's why people believe he's not doing a lot of workforce immigration enforcement is that AG guys call up and be like, I can't afford to lose all of these workers if you start implementing e Verify or
the like. And they're very influential on Donald Trump. And Trump doesn't need to get reelected again, but he does like to keep people that he knows happy and basically these responsive to people who pick up the phone. And Zelden is a pretty normy Republican who also now because he's an EPA, has to be a Trump loyalist. It actually might have been interesting to see Bobby Kennedy at EPA and not at HHS.
I don't know.
Obama considered Bobby Kennedy for EPA and ultimately decided he was kind of too radical. At the time, someone posted this fascinating magazine cover from the late two thousands. I want to say it was like Vanity Fair with Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Bobby Kennedy warning about climate change.
It's just like, yeah, he was a leading environmental attorney for decades.
Well a far cry from Lee's Eldon.
Basically, yeah, exactly. The substance of it is truly incredible. So effectively Lee's Alden went and changed the EPA's public positioning when it came to round up. The fact that he changed that public positioning was then extremely useful to them as they moved through the courts trying to fend off all of the various challenges from all the destruction
that the ground up is causing. They then meet with him to thank him for doing that, and he denies that it remotely came up, and AOC has him kind of caught red handed.
And I was a little angry.
I'm like, hold on, this is we're supposed to be doing the foyas and breaking this news.
Excuse me, Actually, it's oversight.
Is her job, that's the point of the committee.
That's true.
No, and also nothing stopping us from doing it, So it's on us where we failed.
She got there first. Kudos for the kudos for the scoop you can put up E four.
This is not a remotely a Republican issue.
This story is awesome.
Yeah, tell us about tell us about this one. So are you sharing some of it?
Yesterday Halverson went out into a bunch of California wilderness and discovered just mass use of roundup, you know near I think also in National park space because they're using the space essentially as tree farms. Right, you can log and grow trees faster if you use glaphy sate and just I was gonna say, napalm the National Park Service or National Parkland with glaphy sate and that's essentially what's happening. So check out that story. There's a video that goes
along with it. Also a little note in the story, Gavin Newsom made it easier to do this. Glafa sa Galvin Sagas called greasy Gavin, but I think glyph of sake Gavin maybe has a better punch to it.
Yes.
So another exchange that Zelden had that was going viral on the right I saw was with Rosa Delorots, who she's eighty plus.
I believe.
She's been around forever.
Let's play a little.
Bit of This is not on the same issue, but.
This is the Clean Air Act.
Yeah, so let's roll E.
Three following the law Section two O two of the Clean Air Act. Where is the same thing about fighting global climate change? Loper Bright Supreme Court case. You're familiar with it?
No, I maybe others are not. But let me ask.
But that's really important. As a member of Congress, Loper Bright says that we as as an agency don't have the authority to get creative if section two two of the Clean Air Act.
No, no, but you don't have excuse me.
You do not have the right to say climate change does not exist, that it's a hoax. And that's where this administration.
You're upset.
You don't know what Loper Bright is? Do you know what the major policies doctrine?
Except I'm upset because.
You know what the Major Policies doctrine is. You're a member of Congress, you should know can tell you what the two biggest SIP report cases are the last few years Michigan verse EPA, West Virginia versyp No, you're.
Here because you need money from us, So halt for the second and wait for the questions and answer the question.
I answered your question. Do you didn't like my answer because you don't know what Loperbride is? Because you don't know what the major Policies doctrine is.
What you want to do is to deny You want to know.
I actually read the law. I do my homework.
Really, you're just somebody who likes to have the microphone on. You know what I have to do. I read the law, I read the Supreme Court cases. And we should do for your constituents is actually read statue. How are folks that the EPA is that you wanted to.
Fund us BS?
Do you think I made up these cases?
Deloro there kind of gave it away when she's when she acknowledged that she didn't know what that. I'm surprised, but you know, one she's super old, but two I'm sure she does. I'm sure she remembers it from the time.
That's the case that we covered here that rid of the quote unquote Chevron doctrine, which the Chevron doctrine was, if federal law is somewhat ambiguous, we will defer in a common sense way to the administrative state, basically to the EPA or whoever is tasked with writing the rules,
and as long as it's reasonable, then that's fine. Courts, the Court, the Supreme Court, our right wing Supreme Court, said no, we're going to take that power, like the judges are going to do that instead of instead of them. And then the other ones that he's referring to said, well, you basically you can't have carbon. You know, they got rid of allowing carbon to apply underneath under the Clean Air Act.
The Clean Air Act was very clear that, like we are.
The the Drug Control Act did the same thing. Drug Control Act said, these are the drugs that are illegal right now, but people are making new drugs constantly.
You know, LSD will be tweaked, it will become a new thing.
And if the if the scientists that work for the DEA determined that that drug is very similar to LSD, then that one is also then banned.
Under the Controlled Substances Act as well.
You don't have to go back to Congress and ban every little single variation.
Of a new drug.
The Clean Air Act was the exact same way that they would say, we want clean air, and we want it, we want we want to protect clean air from pollutants. We use of the known pollutants at the time. As new pollutants emerged through the industrial process. We're not asking the Executive to come back to Congress every single time. Just in coordination with the public and public comment periods and through your scientific expertise, just add new pollutants. And
obviously some things are pollutants at all. Pollutants basically are safe at some level for the climate and for the world, and unsafe at higher levels. And so the EPA, you know, through its process, declared that you know, it had the authority to regulate carbon, which was in place for many, many years, and then the Supreme Court came in and said, no,
you don't have that authority. So he What frustrated me about that clip is that he was trying to take what is really a political disagreement and refashion it as you just don't know what you're talking about.
Yes, but I also think that because again we covered this at the time, Loper Bread is a really interesting case that gets to I think an issue.
About the fishermen or something right, lobstermen.
If I'm remember incorrectly, that it actually does get to an interesting issue that I think, what Rossa Dolora is Connecticut, so I assume her district is some coastline I would assume, so I don't know that for sure, but it wass yes, bureaucrats in DC basically making rules that were controlling like minute details of what these guys were doing off the coast of a I want to say it was main
in Loper Bright. So I also think that something that like, first of all, Rosa Dolo should be prepared to make the argument that the Clean Air Act, which is at the center of Loperbright, should be used differently and like it absolutely needs to be guided by Washington for reasons X, Y, and Z, so like she should be. If I were a Connecticut voter, I'd be like, maam, like get back, like let's go, Like this is a very obvious talking
point against Zelden. But I remember at the time Rain and we were talking about how part of the problem with Chevron, for example, is that you get these lobbyists coming through, or you get the revolving door where you have people who were then going to go lobby revolving through the door of the EPA, and then they're the ones that are empowered to make some of these decisions about minute things and you could see somebody from I mean,
it's happened. You could see people from the industries working at EPA making decisions that benefit the industries and then getting nice, big fat paychecks. It's really like my dispute with it is that I think it's it's anti democratic in some ways. So that's to me an interesting for democratic to judges. No, I'm not saying that they are, but that's like, it's also not a solution to just have people who have worked at the EPA and then
are going over to maybe it's Bear. It's like we should actually look up and see how many people who have worked at Bear we're here at the EPA now or have. But it's I don't think it's a good situation either way.
Well, you got to you have to have some mechanism to actually implement what Congress passes. And if to me, if Congress says, and all right, so let's uh, let when when Democrats, if they come back into power, fine, like maybe they need to in every single bill enumerate say.
We explicitly allow.
Yeah, but that that has been the assumption right from Congress because that's been the settled law for decades and the Supreme Court just got rid of it because they don't like it. So okay, I guess if Democrats take control again, they can come back and say, okay, we want to be very clear here carbon is included.
Yeah, on and on. I think that's good.
But yeah, anyway, we thought it was useful to play both back to back because it also we looked at Deloro's eighty three. Oh well and AOC's what thirty seven, and so we like people who are fighting, you know, for the environment.
You know, we need people at their best, like.
Come on, that's a really good point.
And also I think it was useful to play clips back to back because as much as we probably disagree with Zelden on a number of issues, like he's slippery's he's an effective defender. This is where you're trying like he's possibly one of the names for DOJ successor to Pambondi because Trump really likes Lee Seldon exactly over clips like that. So the other thing I wanted to mention
Ryan is this was from Politico last month. They had a little blurb in their Influence newsletter, which is a great window into Washington, better than playbook.
They wrote.
Behind Beyar's success, biotech company Behar scored a massive win last month when President Donald Trump signed an executive order boosting domestic production of the active ingredient in round Up weed killer. That was for national security purposes.
Keep that in mind.
Back in February, in a new report political Rights, our colleagues Marshall Brown and Shan has a little pull back the curtain on how the company made its case in Washington. Bears CEO met with top Whitehouse officials last year and so the company could absorb billions of dollars in litigation costs from lawsuits a legend that Clive Is said the active ingredient and Roundup caused cancer. I think they've already
paid twelve billion dollars in settlements over that point. This is in the mother Drones article we talked about earlier. But twelve billion in settlements. They always settle, They never let it go through court. They settle. So take that for what you will, but it couldn't also face down the regulatory uncertainty. And what Executive saw is the prospect of a government ban. It might leave the US market, Bahyar told the White House, taking with it one of
the most blessed, widely used products on US farmland. The President ultimately sided with the agriculture industry, taking Bear's threat to leave seriously enough to sign an executive order that caused us a lot of political heartburn, said a White House official. They know that their own voters are not happy with this. The official, however, insisted that the administration was concerned with protecting the supply chain for all kinds
of critical minerals irrespective of Bear's lobbying. The arguments the company made, the official said, were already being made inside the admin well before Beyer made any demands. They have also spent a truly incredible amount of money lobbying. That's I'm sure that's not surprising to anybody, but here I have the numbers in front of me. During twenty twenty five, they spent more than nine million dollars lobbying the federal government.
So that's what nine million dollars by you here in.
Washington, DC up Next, leaving Mohammed, former TikTok official, joins us to talk about his several years of experience there dealing with congressional pressure trying to get TikTok to stop letting the American and global public.
Know what was going on in Gaza over the weekend.
In a surprising upset in Utah's first congressional district, the Democratic Party there endorsed Leban Mohammad, a kind of newcomer to the race for the party's endorsement. Doesn't mean the primary is over. It's a kind of a weird system that they've got there. But interestingly, we had already booked Leban to come on the show to talk about his previous experience serving on the Congressional affairs team over at TikTok,
which he quit in order to run for Congress. And apparently now you know, a serious content, not just a serious contender, but you know, may be with Nate Blewin and Brian McAdams Ben McAdams Brian or Ben McAdams, the former Academy former Ben McAdams, a former member of Congress, we got a serious race on our hands. But so Levan, thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you. This is one of my favorite shows. Congrats on getting two million subscribers. You're killing it. It's a testament to the great reporting work that you're all doing, and you know, the highlighting the opinions that need to be heard.
No, you know, we we appreciate it. We're going to have Robert Pape on next. He always loves to glaze our our audience.
For sagging show that it's like a cabinet meeting here.
It's a great way.
It's a great way to start, no doubt about it. So well. But first of all, if you would have told.
Me when we were talking last week the week before that you're like, yeah, I think I'm gonna actually win the Democratic Party endorsement, I would be like, Okay, this guy's kind of uh, this guy's kind of losing it a little bit.
How how did you pull this off?
Was there?
Did you come in with an organized support base or do you think that you swayed a lot of people at the convention.
I think a little bit of both. We organized, but not in a typical way that politics is organized. We just organized with real community leaders who are on the ground, typically not in the political process, but are the true service providers doing the real implement implementation work, working with our homeless community, our displaced communities, working with our refugee communities.
Something about the Salwake Valley in this district is the west side is basically an area that consolidates a lot of our marginalized groups and has been long underrepresented not only on the federal level but across our government positions. And this new district flipped from plus twenty points Republican to plus twenty four percentage points Democrat, and it presents a new opportunity to have a leadership that reflects perspective
as well the progressive perspective, the working classes perspective. So there was a lot of excitement on the ground for our candidacy. And the way that we got this done ultimately is showing up with the message that they want to hear, which is fighting for affordability and showing a character that they can trust and believe in.
And so we'll cover this race more down down the road. For now, I wanted to get a little bit of your story on TikTok and so October seventh, happens, you know, and I were talking about this before, so October seventh happens. You were actually So you're working for TikTok at the time in their kind of congregional affairs office, and you're
in Mecca on a pilgrimage with Palestinian friends. So talk about what that experience was like while you're and I assume that TikTok was like, yeah, you need to you need to check in too now because like this this is a major world shaping development.
So what was that? What was that?
Like, that's that's got to be an experience that you're never going to forget.
Yeah, absolutely it was. It was one of the most pivotal moments in my life and in my perspective. So quick background context. My promo role is I used to manage the business's responses to congressional investigations and political vestigations at large. What that means is, anytime they want to send a letter, there's a briefing request, testimony request for an executive, I was the one either writing their responses, of providing their responses, or preparing sent an executive for
those engagements. So I just answered questions all the time, and I was in this new position as some colleagues of my want to on maternity leave, another one left the team, and it was just kind of me and I'm just learning. And after October seventh happened, I was with Palestinian family who have known since I was just a small child, and they were telling me in real time as things are unfolding, their childhood home blown to pieces. It was a father and a son that was with
particularly the son his wife's entire family killed. And to experience something like that in real time as people that you love and care about are finding the news.
It.
Was a moment that I truly internalized what the apartheized state of Israel really is, what they're capable of, and what that means in the ordinary people's lives. I've always known what the issue is. I've always been a pro Palestinian, but it's different when it becomes real and you see it.
And my job at TikTok, we're getting all these inquiries from different like the officials Pro Israeli or lobbying organizations you know, I think a d L and all of those, and I'm the person that has to respond.
Frankly, how did they like that? When you would show up at these meetings.
But I was also going to ask what, just like, help us understand, you know, from the position that you were in how quickly this was obviously a huge, maybe the biggest political challenge that TikTok faced in its entire existence. After it happened, probably no exaggeration to say that this is what led to ultimately the Trump administration selling TikTok to American companies. So talk to us about the pressure
on the inside. And then Ryan's question of how people reacted when when you shared your vantage point at some of these meetings.
As well, great question. So the pressure was unbelievable. Words can I describe the amount of pressure that existed, and it became the number one head and for the company that could result in the lack of its existence in the largest consumer market in the entire world. We were
getting inbound inquiries and this is public information. You could see a lot of these letters online, I mean every few days, every other day from probally lobbying organizations, from Israel perspective legislators, and the company was just being inundated. But what's really interesting is the lack of questions and investigators and inquiries coming from the pro Palestinian perspective, and this experience actually made me understand exactly how this influence
really works. It's more than money. It's persistence, it's sophistication behind their lobbying efforts, and they make you feel like you're in a bubble, that their perspective is the only perspective that exists because of the volume that you're dealing with, and everybody knows in the company what it is the pressure that exists, and you have to feel like you're walking on eggshells because you know, at the end of the day that the ultimate purpose of this business, like
any other business, is to make profit, and the biggest risk to wish profit at the current moment is is real perspective threatening to participate in the efforts to ban the platform. So it was very difficult, but it was a fulfilling experience because we were honestly fighting back for a long time up until the bill passed and even for a little while after that and not capitulating. And
the reason we didn't capitulate is because of polarity. I think people underestimate the benefit polarity has in our geopolitical environments when it comes to tech.
Explain what you mean by that, Yes, I think it's an interesting point. What do you mean by polarity, Yes, so you have the United States of America, which is the largest consumer market in the world, and not only that, they also produce the most volume of content on the global scale.
Ability for the business to be able to generate profit even outside of the United States is reliant on the volume and quality of the content creators and the content that's being reade here. At the same time, the parent company has a number of subsidiaries in China that are making a immense amount of money doing really well. So if the company capitulates to the US perspective, while, they're
going to risk their interest in China. And if they capitulate to the Chinese perspective, well, they're going to risk their interests in the US. So the business for a long time was incentivized to do the only thing that was justifiable, which is the right thing. At the end of the day, they're not a nation state, and if a country is coming after you, it's quite difficult to
defend yourself. And so for a while, I believe that's the reason why they were not capitulating and the propolacy and movement and progressive causes were able to be really successful on the platform. But now that polarity has been
stripped with the acquisition. And this is part of the reason why I decided to leave the company and run for Congress, because I just didn't feel comfortable anymore that the motives of the new ownership would be in the right place, not because of any evidence specifically, but just the rhetoric and the intention is that seemed to be clear.
And so back to my earlier question.
Let's say the ADL comes in from meeting, or you get told you got to go visit the ADL.
Or one of these other groups. What was the reaction?
You know, I think, you know, they're ready to pressure TikTok into, you know, capitulating on whatever particular issue. What was the reaction when lead m Muhammed walks into the room.
I think the last thing they would want as a person like myself to be the one answering the questions at the end of the day, the policies of the policies, and I was answering things in an unbiased way, and ultimately the company was operating in an unbiased manner. The fundamental issue of their concern was the volume of content. And the volume of content has nothing to do with the business. It's a reflection of the people TikTok and
these other platforms. It's not only a TikTok issue. They're not putting a camera in front of your face saying I make this piece of content. But these people wanted to address that and the only way to do that is throttling, and the company was not.
Willing to do that.
And Ryan, can you set up this situation of what we know about Ryan Crystal and soccer.
Yeah, so let's this is kind this is kind of interesting. It is interesting.
I think it's legitimately, and it's related a little bit to the way that the politics inside kind of TikTok are are are evolving. We started Crystal Eyed, started doing soccer took We started doing TikTok a little while ago. And then I in particular, there's several accounts that started like impersonating me and I'm like, okay, whatever, that's fine, like in personally just stripping the videos and like doing an account that's like very similar to me.
There's one, there's one up there now.
It's like at Ryan w grimm underscore, like they throw an underscore at the end. And I started getting bothered when they started dming people like you want to like rip off my content? Fine, like whatever, but they started dming people pretending to be me. I'm like, oh, this is actually not good, Like this could go in very dark direction fast, if like somebody wanted to do something you know, gross or something. It's plain with me. So I reached out to TikTok and they're like, well, we
can't do anything, you know. And a bunch of people were reporting this account and they're like, well, they're not impersonating anybody because this person's a nobody because they're not verified, so you can't impersonate nobody. I was like, oh, okay, so let me apply for verification. That's been a like
more than six month process. Now at this point where they originally they were telling me that the articles that I was submitting about me were not from reputable news outlets, even though they were like the New York Times in the Washington Post. I'm like, okay, that's kind of funny. TikTok doesn't find them credible. I don't either, But who then is credible if you don't think the times in posts are so, then lev On, you would talk to some colleagues internally and try to help Crystal and me
get going. Crystal, by the way, a former federal candidate for office, like there's a rule that basically any federal candidate is supposed to get verified, and they still are like, no, if you we're not going to verify you. So just imposters go so like as somebody who's been involved in this kind of verification process, like why do they care?
Why do they care so much? Like it wasn't when I applied.
It was like not even big deal, just like trying to get these imposter accounts not to be doing these like fake accounts. But it seems like it's much more important to them that Crystal and I not be verified than it is dust to get verified. I'm not even using the platform as much anymore, Like what, like, is what is going on here?
What's your sense of the politics internally?
Yeah, it's difficult for me to be able to speculate the rationale behind why you or Crystal were not verified. I do believe that they're still reviewing your verification applications and hopefully they go well, I will say in my opinion, it's quite obvious that you guys both and Sagar are included far beyond me the threshold of requirements that are necessary to be able to receive a verification. And you are correct. There is a policy, the acronym is G
triple PA. But under that there is a requirement for government and political accounts, including a credibal congressional candidate, to be verified. However, there's a great area that's unclear if that applies to retroactively since she's no longer a candidate. So I'm unsure there, but we'll see. I will say though, as you're somebody that was nominated for a uh yeah, what was it? A Plitzer?
Right, Well, we used to be in the mix for those.
Yeah, I'm sorry, we run one the iHeart radio or actually does that mean nothing?
That's true iHeart radio podcasts.
I'll say this, if any of our old colleagues who were watching this help about they deserve it. They're good people who are advocated for the right thing. Ultimately, definitely me all of the requirements that are necessary, So I encourage you to do that, and I'm quite confident that they haven't violated any community guidelines and if they have, you should be able to demonstrate that to them. And ultimately, what I really like to talk about as well as this campaign, just.
Before you go, I wanted to ask you, I don't want to ask you one one camp, kind of a strategic question about the campaign. So Nate Lewin is kind of well, there were two progressive candidates before you got in.
One of them seems to have kind of.
Torture campaign over some like wild like sexual like me too stuff. I don't know if she's still a serious candidate any anymore, but Nate Blewin has that you're backed by ilhan Omar and also the I saw that the minority leader, the Democratic State minority leader was at the convention also endorsing you, so that that that gives you an interesting kind of stretch of endorsements. Nate Blewin's got
Bernie Sanders endorsement. So one thing I wanted to ask you, there's there's so much splitting of the vote among kind of progressive candidates that it that it often leads to the kind of the more centrist, kind of corporate back
to candidate winning. So I'm curious would you commit if within what what should the threshold be two weeks of the mail in ballots dropping if if you're no longer kind of a seriously viable candidate, and I guess we've got to figure out how to buy decide that would you withdraw and endorse the kind of leading populist candidate.
Yeah, my answer to that question is quite simple. I think I believe I prove that I am the viable candidate that is able to consolidate the support and beat Ben McAdams. Ben McAdams is backed by APAC, he is centris at that I would say basically a Republican, and Nate Bloomin didn't be Ben McAdams Ben B. Nate believe Ben B Ben. So I think that is answer to that question. There's some controversies around him. I'm not gonna
ridicule him for that. I believe in forgiveness and trying to see a path forward for him to come back from this. He's been doing a lot of great work
since then, and I commend him on that. But what's also true is most voters are going to get that ballot in the mailbox and they're going to do their little five minute Google church, and it would be a shame that in the most progressive open seat in the entire nation, that we lose a working class movement because we can't pass that Google search tests because of a scandal. We need a person with the track record of both
integrity and results that's advocating for the right things. And those are benchmarks that I believe I uniquely meet and I am capable of doing even more than that, which is bringing new people into the process, which is going to be paramount to be able to be bemic Adams. So the answer to your question is, yes, I do believe in consolidation of the progressive ideology and movement, but I believe that it needs to be behind the person that can survive, you know, a negative ad campaign, and.
We'll ask we'll end up we'll ask Nate the same question. If people are curious. I think the thing you're referring to is there some old comments of his bashing Mormons.
Well more In the comments he admitted to a hit crame, defecating on the place of worship of the predominant faith and our state and a number of other things.
But I'm not going to that's a tough one to overcome.
Yeah, I don't know if that's going to be a survived to Google search test.
Right.
We need somebody that's going to make sure that we have healthcare as a human right, housing that for her own the house, and make sure that we can get that as a human rights. Somebody that's going to fight to abolish ice and build an immigration system that's rooted in our shared humanity. Somebody that's going to fight to stop funding endless wars and the genocide of our brothers
in Sinces and Rosa. Fundamentally, somebody that's going to focus on American diplomacy abroad and our own dignity at home, and that cannot be jeopardized simply because the character of the individual is not able to meet the mark to be elected. This is more than just a person. It's about the movement and we need somebody that can create it and meet it.
All right, Well, Leban, appreciate you coming on. We'll be following this right. This is a This is a really interesting one. Thanks thanks for joining us.
Thank you Ryan, and thank you Emily. This is interesting conversation and I hope you guys get your verifacation.
No mean, I'm not on TikTok. I'm one of the good ones that get all right. Thank you even you take care bye.
We're joined once again by Professor Robert Pape over at the University of Chicago, also the author of the Escalation Trap substack is just escalation trap dot substack dot com, where he has been covering the Iraq War from his the Iran War from his expert perspective, having spent years actually writing about a scenario such as this.
So Professor Pape, welcome back to breaking points.
Thank you very much for having me, and have no fear we're soon gonna forget about that minor thing called the Iraq War.
Oh, it's so depressing. It's so very depressing to think about. Let's just start with the Opek news big news yesterday, opeku u a out of Opek by may one.
What did you make of that? And doesn't fit into.
Well, yeah, absolutely.
This is part of a large picture that happened this week.
This is the week.
That the United States has truly lost control of the Iran war.
This has all happened.
It's been building and I've been talking about this, but you can now see it.
This week.
Iran is negotiating without the United States. So Iran's going to Pakistan, it's going to Russia, it's about to go to Oman. But it's not about meeting with the United States, our allies, at least maybe our former allies, our allies say the German leader is publicly saying that America is humiliated on the world stage.
Just think about that for a moment.
And the global system, the region, and the global system is essentially moving on without the United States.
And that's where the UAE comes in.
So I definitely understand that it's it's it's a data point, and it's thought of as a soda straw, but it's much more than that. So what I have been explaining on your show on the substack for weeks now is that Iran is emerging as the fourth center of world power. In fact, you got the exclusive first, even before the New York Times. And what that is going to have major consequences, And it doesn't unfold all at once, It'll fold unfolds over time now within the region. And I
said this in print and on your show. What this is going to mean is that Iran, as it gets powerful and as America loses control here and everybody sees that this is going to fragment the GCC countries. This is not They're not going to all respond in a wave or in unison to these changes. What you're going to see is each of them increasingly is going to act on their own. Think of them as they were
part of a group and they had group interests. Well, now that America is not there to serve as a real anchor, and it's now all clear for everyone to see, America's just lost control, not losing, but lost control.
It's no surprise they're fragmenting.
Earlier, a few weeks ago, Iraq started to move toward positions of Iran and started to become increasingly critical of American presence in Iraq. This was the beginning of this fragmentation. Now what you're seeing is the UAE. They're not moving toward Iran. That's not what they're what they're doing because they're pretty terrified Iran's about the top going to want to topple their government. What they're doing is they're fragmenting.
They're not going to let Opek or Saudi Arabia, who really is the main driver in Opek, just run them into the ground. So that's why they are moving away, and what they're doing is moving away from a concerted counterbalancing coalition that the United States has been trying to build for years now with the Abraham Accords counter balancing Iran. Well, this is all now just fragmenting. It's falling apart, and this is you're only seeing the beginning of the fragmentation.
This is likely going to get worse, and America can't stop it. Notice nobody's even bothering to consult President Trump here to say, well, do you think you could change the uee's mind.
What do you think about this? They don't care.
And that's really devastating for America's interests, America's role in the world. And it's kind of hard I think for a lot of people to imagine. Although I've been saying to expect this, I think now the reality is just kind of hard to accept here that it really is the case that this is all tragic, but it was predictable and you've got basically the decisions of one guy
in the world. President Trump has enormous power, and he's used that power to devastatingly negative consequences for America, the region of much of the world's economy, and to the growing power of America's leading rivals.
It puts those reports that the Saudis were pushing for Theiron War behind the scenes and interesting context too.
Indeed, so when we started this program, Brent crude prices we're at I think one hundred and fourteen dollars a barrel. They're now, as we're kind of getting towards the end of the show, up to one hundred and seventeen dollars a barrel. That's despite an enormous amount of you know, American pressure to keep the prices down, both both through kind of deliberate attempts at kind of spreading you know, nonsense about their rodians are headed to Islamaba, they're about
to capitulate, you know, they said they're collapsing. Maybe we want they want to open the straight plus actual material manipulation using the power of the you know, US Treasury to actually get into the markets and play with the numbers. What it as you do your kind of forecasting, What does one hundred and seventeen dollars barrel oil due to those calculations, and what does it say about what what what room Trump has to maneuver?
Well, Well, what we are seeing and I we've talked about this before, is there is a trajectory here with the straight of horror moves being closed down and everybody now knows closed down eight percent of the world's oil, thirty percent fertilizer dot dot dot. But the trajectory is in the first forty five days and we're nowaday sixty. The first forty five days it was simply price rising and price rising notably, but in anticipation of stage two,
which started about actually two weeks ago. It's this middle stage where shortages, actual shortages are appearing, and that has been recorded here. You know the worry about the jet fuel Europe, and this is just the beginning of all this. But that is what you are seeing now, and this is going to get worse because the all the ships that were in transit over the last couple of months, it could possibly still have some oil in them, they've
all hit dry dock, they've all been there. The storage areas, the storage bends that are full here have now started to be suck dry. So what you were getting now is the true shortage period starting, and it actually started about ten days ago. And we've talked a bit about this, and this is why now the price of oil. Is it's not like prices just went up once and then they stopped once the shortage is actually hit. It's not a probability, it's a reality. And that's what you're seeing
with the price of oil. And this is, unfortunately something that's going to go on because as shortages occur, it's supply and demand. There's still demand for this, but there's less of it, so the price of what's left must go up. That's the only way to sort that out. And so that's why the price is going to go up. And this was fully predictable. This is not a you know,
the markets may have tried to pretend. Donald Trump may have tried to pretend, but you know, reality has a way of coming in and showing its ugly head, and that's what you were seeing. And unfortunately, May is going to be this period where the real shortages and those effects are going to be start to be felt. And then by the middle of May, probably the end of May,
you will see actual contraction occurring. You'll liftimes announce for example, a week ago it would lay off or not lay it would have twenty thousand flights canceled, These short haul flights canceled well, this is probably.
Then going to lead to in a month, a few weeks later layoffs.
That is, you will start to see in the middle of May, end of May, you're going to start to see rising inflation. The prices going up equals inflation, and you'll see the beginning then side by side of rising unemployment. This is just the beginning. This is the first ninety days. Now as we get into one hundred and twenty days, these things will simply get worse. That's what happened in the nineteen seventies. It was called the misery index. We
haven't used that term since I was a kid. I was a kid, and that term was really quite common because it went on for years, and it got worse well before it got better. It didn't just get better and went on for years. Interest rates on holmes went up to sixteen percent. My grandparents had to pay to buy a home at one point. And so what you're seeing is that's the trajectory we're on, and it'll start to be called again. I suspect the misery index, maybe the Trump misery Index.
Well, and there were dueling reports in the New York Times, the Wall Street Drow.
They weren't really doing.
They're basically saying, actually that what the rub is right now is Iran has said they will come to the table on the straight if Trump agrees to table the nuclear negotiations. Donald Trump just last night at the State dinner said we have defeated Iran militarily. So, Professor Paip, we're all trying to do our best here to learn to speak fluent Trumpies and understand what exactly he's saying and projecting or attempting to project. So what do you
make of where these negotiations are right now? Because I could see someone saying, Professor Iran is willing to come to.
The table and reopen the straight.
Does this not undermine your argument that we are headed to a potential catastrophe worse than a round.
Yes, we just need to peel the a little bit under that phrase.
What does the word open mean?
And by the way, I'm going to define it the way Secretary Rubio did just yesterday, just recently yesterday where he explained that what Iran means by the word opening the strait is that chips can pass through the strait as long as they coordinate with the Iranian military in advance and as long as they pay the toll, which I believe is currently set imagine to be about two million dollars a ship a ship to pass one time.
So if you have say one hundred ships, that's two hundred million dollars a day that Iran would be bringing in. That's sixty billion dollars a year. That would be also over and above that much or more that Ron would make on.
Selling its own oil.
So this is why Secretary Rubia, this is not really an open This this not open. So what Iran is doing is going through it's ten points that it delivered to Trump. Remember when we started the ceasefire, Trump agreed to the ten point plan as a basis for negotiation. All Iran is doing is literally going through the ten points.
And the first point is they get to keep the straight that is, they will they're gonna keep a tight fist on the jugular of the world's economy, and they will extort costs here from the world, which is two million dollars a ship. And then also they want their own oil to be sold, and so they're perfectly going
to be happy at manipulating the price of oil. So what also that means just to be also what The implication here is is that if Iran wants to keep the price of oil at one hundred bucks a barrel, they know how to do that. They can regulate what happens across the strait. They can optimize, in other words, their financial earnings from controlling the Straight. Now, the second point is the nuclear negotiation. So notice that before this we're kicked off on February twenty eight, Iran and the
United States, we're in negotiations on the nuclear material. That's what was being discussed. What Iran is simply saying is that's off the table now. They're just not interested in that now. They're not saying at all when that will come back. So what that tells me is Iran is not giving up this power of the Straight of Horror moves anytime soon. And Iran is probably starting to lay the groundwork for developing nuclear weapons over the next maybe
year or so. And that would also dovetail with why they're talking with Pakistan, a nuclear weapons state that helped Iran with centrifugees have started its program in the first place, and also Russia, another nuclear weapons state that's been a military ally of Iran. So if Iran is going to pursue this very aggressive agenda to truly emerge as the
fourth center of world power with nuclear weapons. It needs allies, and it looks like it's working with its allies, and it's certainly working with its allies better than we're working with ours.
Well, well, I think what Iran is saying here is that they're not going to discuss the nuclear issue until the naval block of the Strait is lifted. But at that point, I think there is real willingness to discuss it now whether well.
I would just be I guess we maybe have a slight difference of you here. They say if they will not enter face to face negotiations with America at all unless America lifts the naval blockade. So I think that's my understanding of this. Now, you may be right, I want to not get into it, but it is the case that they've said that now multiple.
Times and again this.
Issue of postponing the nuclear negotiations here, I guess I just have the view I'm reading it that they really are working with others along the trajectory of gaining power. And also I just want to point out that this is going to have global consequences.
Even beyond the Iran War.
So Russia here is going to want something from a on and that may be tighter coordination as Russia tries to gain power over Europe, not just in the battle space of Ukraine and Iran and Russia together control now thirty percent of the world's oil, so.
We need to keep our eye on that.
And then also we need to look over at Asia, so we shouldn't forget that. All the estimates now that are coming out of the Pentagon is we have spent fifty percent roughly of our patriot arsenal, our that arsenal, a number of our very important precision interceptor arsenals, and that means we're leaving Taiwan essentially naked here or virtually naked, and that opens all kinds of possibilities for President She to want some concessions, either tacitly or explicitly vis a
v US relations with Taiwan. So I just point out that this is a when I say Trump, the United States has lost control of the Iran War, and it's having global implications. It actually has global implications even beyond the price of what's happening to the world economy and the price of gasoline here at home.
And on the nuclear point, the trip that Raji took to Russia could also you can imagine well in which wells to back up in twenty As you know, in twenty fifteen, Russia was part of the Iran nuclear deal, and Iran, through that deal, agreed to ship and did in fact ship. And I don't think most people know this, twenty five thousand pounds of enriched uranium to Russia. Let me talk if it's okay, and they now less than a thousand, but go ahead.
Let me talk, if it's okay, just for a minute about the JCPOA and how it came about, because I'm pretty familiar with this, and what of your listeners may not know that. Part of the other area I've been studying for thirty years is economic pressure, economic sanctions, blockades, etc. Well, one of the things it's important to know is that the Obama administration had economic sanctions on Iran and then we got the nuclear deal. Well, why did that economic
pressure work? It worked because Russia and China, these are the military allies of Iran, joined in that America's coalition against Iran. In fact, Russia stops selling their SSAY three hundreds to give you a very specific point.
But then let's back it up a little further.
Why did Russia do this out of the goodness of its heart? Well, in two thousand and eight, I was part of Obama's primaries teams, and I had an idea, and I was on one team and got my name of Sean Kay was on the NATO team, And I said to Sean on a phone call, you know the number one issue here that we should really worry about for the Middle East, because I was on the Middle East team, was really a nuclear weapon by Iran. It
would set off all kinds of issues. But in order to stop it, we need Russia because if you could get the military ally of Iran on board.
But how do you do that? We should trade.
Missile defense US missile defense in Eastern Europe to get Russia's concession to go along with Obama's plan to get a counterbalancing coalition against Iran. Well that's exactly what Obama did. So Sean wrote that up, send it up the chain on the NATO team, and well.
And behold, Obama wins. And what does he do.
He trades directly with putin US national missile defense to get Putin's work. I mean agreement to be part of the coalition against Iran, and that's how you've got the JCPOA. That's actually now, how would you recreate that? Well, that means the United States would have to really give major concessions here to Putin.
What would those concessions look like?
They would have to be much more than simply don't send aid to Ukraine because that's already going way down. You're probably going to have to work to undermine European support for Ukraine in a direct way if you want Putin here to even think about the idea of joining the naval blockade, and what we would be talking about would be Putin sending a Russian ship to join the US naval blockade. Now, that would change things. But this is the level at which we're talking about. We're not
talking about minor cosmetic issues. That's not what brought Russia in with Obama, and that's not what's going to bring Russia in to help with this situation. They're simply not going to bail out the United States because Russia. Levrof just gave this big speech a few days ago where he explained that from Russia's perspective, they're at war against the West. Well, what do you do when you're at war? You want to crush your opposition. And now you have
Iran in Russia meeting. What are they talking about. I think they're talking about how to do things against their common enemy.
Sounds right, Professor Pape, always a pleasure. Thank you spoking, and I'm.
Sorry I don't give you a very many ways out of the escalation trap.
To the point.
Glad, that's right, that's right, and the escalation trap is over on sub stack. You can follow Professor PAP's work there. Thank you so much again.
Professor Yeah, thank you very much.
Always a pleasure and very smart questions and interjections, very smart.
Ryan will take it right, Thank.
You, bye bye.
Ran.
I think what we've learned today is that you run guest segments like a Trump cabinet.
Me start with a lot of praise and continue the praise throughout it.
Yep.
Then the interview is going to.
Go well, the praise is its own escalation trap, right once you start.
Ry, well, you were an incredible interview or.
You know, questions smart question I mean I have to agree your questions are very smart.
So and we have the greatest comments, so our YouTube commenters, nobody.
Smarter, greatest everything all around. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in today. As a reminder, Ryan's going to be live in a debate with Scott Jennings on the After Party Channel tonight nine pm on Yeah It's it's an interesting one. The students had great questions. Actually, it would have been great if the students just asked you guys questions for like two hours. That would have been wild. But anyway, Breakingpoints dot coms where you can go to
get a premium subscription. Otherwise, Chris and Soccer, we'll see you back here tomorrow. We'll see you Friday.