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Former Vice President Kamala Harris was down in Australia for what else right, and I wanted to be there. We couldn't make it the Australian Real Estate Conference twenty twenty five where she delivered or remarks presumably for a fat speaking fee, and actually started weighing in on some of what's happened over the course of the last year or so.
Let's roll this first.
Clip leaked video of former Vice President Kamala Harris right now. Currently, we should add one of the front runners for the twenty twenty eight election. If you look at polling and a potential candidate and still for California.
You imagine how much liquor they go through at the Australian Real Estate conference.
Sounds amazing. We really should have been there next year twenty twenty six. We can go ahead and take a look at the clip.
I do.
Worry rightly about what's happening right now in the world. I do worry that it is important that we remember history. It's important we remember the nineteen thirties.
It's important that we remember that history has taught us that isolation does not equal insulation. It is important that we understand and remember history which taught us the interdependence and interconnection between nations, History that has taught us importance, relationships of trust, the importance of friendships, integrity, honesty.
As I said, I think your best work is a Hitaye, for sure percent.
You'll hand unemployed right now, you go on in.
The speak truth.
Okay, So what you heard her just say?
They're other than the importance of friendships, which we can all agree on important. Yeah, Evergreen sentiments is a comparison to the nineteen thirties, but not in the context of like rising fascism and authoritarianism domestically, but isolation which is a criticism of Donald Trump's foreign policy obviously through tariffs and other efforts on the world stage, which I don't think you can really call isolationism, but that's what the sort of neoliberal communities is, these moves.
As I suppose well in her defense, that there is a there is an interesting parallel and there's a there's a book out now ish about this making parallels between the kind of post World War one or leading into World War one period and now, which is that the like the eighteen eighties and up through up up until World War One were this this first period of globalization of the you know, which you know, yeah, like internationalism
becomes a real thing. You also had an international working people's you know movement, the communists, it is international like they called it. They saw themselves as bringing the working classes of the world together.
The predicate of the entire Cold War red skin.
Yeah, and and then World War One happens and the rise of nationalism that that the rise of nationalism that was a reaction to globalism and globalization in the tent and then nineteen hundreds and tens, you know, creates World War One, and then and then produces this like intense retreat away from globalization into the post World War one period where everyone is kind of retrenching and isolationism becomes this yea, you know, this the dominant and the dominant ethos,
which then which then produces like even hyper hyper nationalism, and then and then we get World War two out of it.
The book argues that the what the what.
The proponents of liberal globalization the first time around didn't understand is that it was actually making things worse. It was making things better. If you lived in London and you were in the top ten five to ten percent.
Famously, there was some famous qualit you could you know, you.
Could order something, you know, you could order anything you wanted from around the world and have it by the end of the day in like nineteen ten or in London or something. But that was only that was you like, that was not ninety plus percent of people from England, and it particularly was devastating for people around the world. And so she's she's right that there is this interesting parallel going on and that the isolationism can lead to
cataclysmic world war. It's a paradox like, well, how could that possibly be?
Do you think that's what she meant? Though, because I see it as more I.
Think she's just thrown out platitudes.
Well, she's definitely doing that, Yeah, But I think it's also because her her worldview is shaped right by the post Cold War Fukuyama internationalism, which is very different.
She also very much she also very much wants the US to continue to be the.
Global cost Actually, yeah, And I think that's the.
Moment on Charlotte Charlemagne where he's like, the first caller was like, why are we spending all this money on these wars? Yeah, and she's like, because because you know, if you if we retreat, we're not safe. And like so she really like makes the argument that the US has to be a global superpower or else our national security suffers, and nobody buys that.
Well, it's interesting because I think also Trump does buy.
Like.
Trump has the same general perspective, he has a different way of getting from point A to point B. But he would also say that America's empire, America's prosperity depends on its empire. He just would say he wants it to be a more logical empire. I mean, that's the Greenland Panama approach, Taiwan approached all of this.
He thinks it should.
Be a more like, more like logical efficient empire than a sort of sprawling USA I D empire. So what Tucker Carlson refers to is gay race communism. That's the that's the uh gay gay race communism, which should be a bumper sticker that you have on your van.
By the way, would I be for it or against it?
Very for it?
Okay race even trying to make sense, but I mean you'd be.
Ford it against I suppose. But that's what they would say, right that it's not about the sprawling like EUSAID pro China, integration with the our adversaries and all of that. So it's in the same way in a way, it's the same thing, but it's a different approach to it. And I think Kamala Harris situating herself in this way as I mean polling again, it doesn't it's not a surprise that because of name recognition she's at the top of polls when you look at twenty twenty eight presidential candidates.
I think it's it's she's definitely not running away from it. There was a quote in the Times recently of Kamala Harris saying she's staying in the fight, I think is the paraphrased version of what she said. So she's may be speaking at the Australian Real Estate Conference twenty twenty five, but she's very much still involved in American politics. She could run for California governor of California is what Ryan one of the is one of the largest enemies in
the world just as a state alone. It's one of the I think's.
Like top ten or something.
Yeah, it's it's huge. So she's she's not going anywhere, that's for sure.
And we may end up using what we're about to talk about as the headline for this segment if we do. Apologies for making you sit through the Australian Real Estate Convention.
But in more Kamala Harris news. In the Jake Tapper Alex Thompson book Original Sin, there's this anecdote that that says that she was quite angry at Anderson Cooper because for pushing her so aggressively on why is Joe Biden having a medical episode in front of the entire country during this debate and not letting the kind of scripted line that she had come up with just sit and then move on. And so Harris told her colleagues, quote, this mother grabber doesn't treat me like the dang vice
president of the United States, she said to colleagues. So in the in the book, the longer episode is is kind of when we'll play the Anderson Cooper clip in a second.
I remember we covered it at the time. It was quite something.
So it goes through her watching the debate with her her staff and she's like, you know, how are how are people responding? And they're like, boss, people are calling for him to drop out, like he's literally dying up
on stage. And the Biden campaign said reaches out to her and says, why don't you go ahead and cancel all these like media hits that you have tomorrow because I don't really see, we don't really see what the upside is and you going on and talking about this and she said, no, absolutely not, I'm going for it. So then they sit down and they debate, you know,
how they're going to respond? What talking points can they come up with to respond to this medical episode the entire country just witnessed, And they talked so long they miss CBS this morning, because they just talk right through it, they miss another one, and then they get they go on Anderson Cooper, and they had come up with the line, well, just you'll see the talking points. Let's roll this Anderson
Cooper back and forth. He was a very different person on the stage four years ago when when you debated him. You must I mean that that's certainly true, is it not?
Anderson? The point has to be performance in terms of what a president does, a president who.
Against the capitol.
No, but I.
Got the point that you're making about a one and a half hour debate tonight. I'm talking about three and a half years of performance in work that has been historic.
The other night, the other guy on the debate anders Anderson.
According to the book, the Biden staff loved that line. And that wasn't that wasn't part of the talking point. But this line she came up with that you're talking about an hour and a half debad. I'm talking about three and a half years of genius delivering for the American people.
They Biden campaign loved that.
It's all of it was pointless, Like you, there are not words that you can put together to make people unsee what they saw.
But this is a problem that Kamala Harrison never will, ever, ever, ever run away from. And it's one that the book identifies. The book shows that she identified immediately. It's obvious that she's locked into this position. Where As she says in the book, what do I do if I distance? What do I look like if I distanced myself from Joe Biden? I looked disloyal? And she's not wrong. I mean you'd look.
Like, don't you look like and enabling moron?
Yeah?
And she will never get away from this. I mean, there's no way.
This is the this is the defining I mean, she was the vice president. It's not like she was the green jobs are. She was the vice president of the United States. Was regularly this was that clip you just saw was literally right after the debate.
But she has three and a half years of.
Defending him, so under that's how most people remember her.
She was a senator before.
So people's memory of Kamala Harris prominently is as Joe Biden's vice president. And I just think it's a permanent stain that she's never really going to be able to shake.
Yeah, And they Democrats deliberately nominated the person who was in precisely the worst position to talk about the thing that people were most concerned about at that moment, which was this lie that they all told about whether or not Biden was there or not. Yeah, like, if they'd picked anybody else Shapiro, Whitmer, any Knewsom, and literally any other human being other than the Vice president, they would have more distance from Biden and more ability to say I was just as shocked.
As you were when I saw that, and I am angry about the cover up.
You can't have the vice because the vice president would have to admit that they weren't actually in the meetings and paying any attention.
Yeah, it's interesting because that show.
Said Johnny Cash song, which one I mean, it's I don't think he wrote the song, but it's the one where the only way that the guy could get off of the Capitol Punisher getting hanged, Oh, yes, to admit that he was in the arms of his best friend's wife, because that his alibi, yes was to him worse than just getting hanged for a murder he didn't commit.
Yes, it's interesting because it shows Kamala Harris being sort of undermined by the things that made her vice president, which is that she's she was a black woman, which is why they kept her on the ticket instead of going for another vice presidential candidate, because they didn't want to look and you see this come out at some points in the book too.
It looks horrible if you pass up the opportunity to have the first black woman president and then you're like, nope, we are going with we're going to run Josh Shapiro as by president, or we are going to then have this little mini primary skip over her.
So then she gets put in this position because she was seen as the necessary air parent. And I mean any sitting vice president would have been in that position, but I think they were especially wary of having a mini primary because it would look like they didn't have faith in this pic. So it's just like she was that she was in an awful position that I don't think she's ever going.
To recover from.
Now.
Granted, she could still win different elections if they're in a lesser of two evil situation where there's a horrible Republican candidate in California, that's you know, obviously not I wouldn't surprise anybody, But so it's possible she continues to
climb the ladder. But whether she's actually able her national reputation as ever able to recover and she's actually going to be seen as a real leader in the Democratic Party again, I think is unlikely because this is everyone's memory of her, and I just don't know how you recover from that without changing completely a total tra information of Kamala Harris, and that also seems very unlikely.
She's got time.
The song was written by Danny Dill and Mary John Wilkin, originally recorded by Lefty Frizelle, Lefty Frizelle.
The Long Black Veil.
Oh, long Black Veil.
Yes, yes, you can probably play that right, Oh, absolutely yes, and have a beautiful song, beautiful American song too.
All right, Up next, Jordan Peterson getting dog walked by a bunch of college kids.
Well, Jordan Peterson made a splashy appearance on the Jubilee Show, and boy do we have a couple of clips.
It did not go well.
Basically, nobody thinks it went well for Jordan Peterson. That includes corners of the right that typically defend Jordan Peterson, who is controversial on the right. We'll get into all of that because this confirms a lot of the criticisms of Jordan Peterson. This was a debate that was originally billed as one Christian versus twenty Atheists, and that was the title of that do you Believe?
Video.
We are going to get into why that's controversial and why that became controversial before we do, take a look at this first clip D one.
So do you believe in the all knowing, how powerful, all good notion of God?
What do you mean by believe?
Do you think it's be true?
That's the circular definition. What do you mean how believe?
How is that circular?
Because you added no content to the answer by substituting the word true and believe.
I said, you think it's be true?
All right?
So if you believe something, you stake your life on it.
What do you mean by that?
You live for it.
And you die for it. That's what I mean by that. It isn't something that you say. It isn't something that's associated with logical consistency. It's not declarative, it's not propositional. It's not a figment of your imagination. It's the presupposition of your attention and your action. And you're either fgmented in which case you worship multiple gods or there's some unity at the bottom of it that makes you an unstoppable force.
Okay, So you're saying that you don't believe something if you wouldn't die for it.
Really no? Okay?
So now would you define belief something you say in case?
Why?
I explained like I could believe it is the case that this pen exists. But if someone like threatened my life, right, I would lie in order to be able to save my life. Right Like? I think you would do that too. You wouldn't lie to.
Save your life.
You're so sure you wouldn't lie to save your life.
How much do you know about me? I didn't lie to save my career. I didn't lie to save my clinical practice.
Would you lie to save your children and your mom? Your dad?
I don't think lying would save.
The Can there ever be a circumstance logically that lying could save something?
Yeah, And if you're steeped in sin, you're likely live in circumstances like that.
We'll give you an example. If you're like in like Nazi Germany, and it is the case that there's like Jewish people in your attic and you're trying to protect them, would you lie to like the Nazis.
Would have done everything I bloody well could, so I wouldn't be in that situation to begin with. It's a hypothetical, and it's no, I can't answer hypothetical like that because it's Look, you don't play games. If you present me with an intractable moral choice that's stripped of context.
And you back me into a corner, you're playing game.
I just told you I would do everything that I could to make sure that I'm never in that situation. By the time you've got there, you've made so many mistakes that there's nothing you can do that isn't a.
Sin being born in Nazi Germany and trying to protect people that you care about, Like there could be a Jewish friend that you have and you want to protect that.
That line of question.
Give up on just like trying to clarify your position because you don't like, are you like uncomfortable with me asking this question? It's just a basic hypothetical, Like I could ask you just a basic anathetical where you're like, what.
Jews life's at stake in Nazi Germany?
That's just a basic Obviously, you will lie in that scenario to save their life. But you're like not trying to answer this question. So what you're trying to do is you're trying to muddy the waters when I ask you, like, do you believe this? Do you think this to be true? So you don't actually to answer the questions. And plenty of Christians don't like that because they clearly see that you don't really want to be associated with Christian.
Imagine that I was in a situation where the best I could do as a consequence of my previous mistakes was to tell the least amount of lie I could manage.
All right, so Ryan, first of all, I would lie to save you. But we're all chomping at the bit to respond to that. Before we do, let's roll this next clip of another person getting the better of Jordan Peterson in this exchange the.
Scope for your definition of worship again, what's your definition of worship? Attend to attend to do?
Prioritize do Catholic sacrifice?
For?
What do Catholics attend to do? They prioritize Mary over all other human beings.
I didn't say over all, did I? I didn't add that to me? You understand, I said there was a hierarchy as well. You attend so you can attend to some thing trivially or you can attend to it deeply.
I mean, now you're adding stuff to the definition, but your original.
Added the hierarchy part at the beginning.
Are you familiar understand? Are you familiar with the Immaculate conception?
Why is that relevant?
Because you go to a Catholic church?
Don't?
Or you've attended recently? You're interested in Catholicism, aren't you sure?
All right?
Are you familiar with their doctrines?
Somewhat?
Okay, you're familiar. How do they regard how do they regard Mary? Why are you asking me because you're a Christian?
You say that I haven't claimed that.
Oh what is this? Is this a Christians versus Atheist?
I don't know.
You don't know where you are right now.
Don't be a smart ass?
Well, and I mean, either you're a Christian or if you're a smart ass, oh, either you're a Christian or you're not. Which one is it?
I could be either of them.
But I don't have to take you.
You don't have to tell me. I was under the impression I was invited to talk to a Christian. Am I not talking to a Christian?
No, you were invited.
To I think everyone should look at the title of the YouTube channel. You're probably in the wrong YouTube video.
You're really quite something.
You are, aren't I? But you're really quite right. You're not a Christian.
I'm done with him, all right.
So that guy came out later and said, indeed, the event was billed to the people during casting and who were invited as Jordan Peterson as a Christian versus twenty atheists, And so the controversy because the video has since been changed to from one Christian versus twenty atheists to Jordan Peterson versus.
Twenty Yeah, define a Jordan. Can you define a Jordan Peterson? Right? But Jordan Peterson, if you are a Christian.
People know that Jordan Peterson has long been seen as very problematic because he goes out and does these what are billed as very deep academic lectures on Christianity, but cannot bring himself to ultimately say that he believes in the truth of the resurrection, he believes that Jesus actually died and raised, was raised from the dead, and is not is more of like a maybe the right way to say it would be a.
Cold Christian like the heretic.
He's definitely a heretic, but everyone has sort of given him.
Everyone's sort of given him some patience because he's sort of discovering. It's almost like Russell brand right, like he's he's on a he seems like he's on a journey, cooked right, right, right. But in the process he has said some things that are just utterly heretical. He has a terrible representation of Christianity. But the twenty Atheists brought that out better than most conservatives ever have. In conversation with Jordan Peterson, So what did you make of it?
Ryan?
The whole thing is comical. The guy's such a fraud.
And the final line was devastating because it was blunt but also earned, like like he said he wouldn't say whether it's a Christian or not, and then he used the line you're really something, aren't you set him up for this? Frying pan across the face walked right in and you're really nothing like and so the kid had such a delightful retort because it works on so many levels.
It's like, Okay, you're nothing because you won't say whether you're a Christian or you're an atheist, and yet you showed up here at this debate where you're supposed to be a Christian. You won't allow anything to be defined, so you constantly escape having to make any genuine analysis or give any thought to anything.
But it works on the deeper level that there.
Is nothing there, like and you know you should clean your room, like that's this big thing, Like you should actually do that, like it's smart.
But he can't answer the question of why. Ultimately why he's the satisfaction of really anybody, just that it's like the Christians would say, there's a reason that you should do that, but he's never been able to get from point A to point B on that in a way that the.
First one was hilarious, where he's like, I would not have put myself in that situation. I would have done things to prevent it. So what are the things that he could have done? The kid mentions one of them, you could be not born in Nazi Germany, but like in the hypothetical, that's not that's not an option, like you were born into that. After that is he saying that.
He would have, through force of will, prevented the rise of Hitler.
Yeah, is he saying he would just not have actually participated in rescuing Jews.
From the Holocaust.
Well, he's making this, he'saying he would have been a Nazi, so therefore he would have been actually knocking on the doors, not on the other side of it.
Well he's making Yeah, I mean it doesn't what he's saying actually does not make any sense.
And that's what everyone There's no.
Logical route to the point he's making, because that would be predicated on this idea that truth prevents awfulness from happening, that a culture can be sort of like based on universal truths and it will all be great, which is not Christian at all, because the truth, the fundamental truth at the heart of Christianity is that man is fallen. So if you're a Christian, even that even classical liberalists
and democracy doesn't save you from evil. So it doesn't save you prevent you from being put in those awful positions. So no, that doesn't make sense sense in of itself. But Brian also Jordan Peterson is sort of in this position where I don't know if I blame him or do believe because he's talked about himself as people ask him if he's a Christian and.
Are there are other Christians you could get?
Of course, but he also doesn't even ever agree with anybody saying he's a Christian. He always sort of takes it and says, well, I'm a new kind of Christian. That's one way he's answered the question. The other way he's answered the question is by saying, you know, I'm a Christian in the deepest possible sense. He says he believes this whole thing is that the stories of Christianity, Judeo Christianity are these like human archetypes that are based on the truth about humanity that's.
Inside of us.
And because he's a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and so he pulls that out and says, this is very like Youngian approach to what truth is. And then Christianity, through that lens is true in the sense that it's human and it's just a mess. As you're trying to work that out in public and also be treated as like a political spokesperson for the right.
So I feel like I.
Don't know whether Jordan Peterson agreed to that or if Jubilee invited people to do one Christian versus twenty atheists. I don't know if Jordan Peterson, I mean the kid who we just played, I don't know if he's a kid. But he came out, he looks young and said stu As Canal, No, that's like back call back to earlier in the episode. But he came out and said, Jordan Peterson seemed to know that that was what the debate was being billed as before.
Right, Yeah, of course he did. Anyway, Jordan Peterson got erect.
Well, my final take Andrew Peterson is just that he is a person who said something really obvious at a time when it was somewhat difficult to say something like that.
And he made a good point.
What was the point.
It's just his his interview, No, his his original interview that went megaviral. He had already started to have some presence before this, but about like biological sex, that.
Goes megaviral, that's where he took off.
Yeah, catapults him the huge fame after that. The book comes out and becomes this massive bestseller. And I think the book did some real good and I also think it was low hanging fruit, and so because of that, he was catapulted into megastardom, which is difficult for anybody to cope with. He seems like he's coping with it not particularly well.
And on top of that.
He was famous for picking some low hanging fruit, and that doesn't make you a genius, you know, to sort of make a point about biological sex and then to make some decent points for young men. It was hard to say those things at the time, but it doesn't take a genius. But I think he's been thrust into this position where everyone expects him to be a towering thought leader and he never really came from that background.
He just he said something really right, right right. It's easy to confuse it when everyone is you're selling out massive venues around the country and you have massive bestseller and everyone's telling you that people are paying money for your advice, big money for your advice. So so I think that's the position that he's found himself in now. And unheard, we've covered this debate about cultural Christianity a lot Ione Hersili wrote that essay for us about how
she's now a Christian, not just cultural Christian. This is something real going on. I interviewed Alex O'Connor after he moderated a debate between Dawkins and Jordan Peterson, which was just as frustrating as this, because Peterson cannot bring himself to say that he believes he'll use different definitions of true about what's true about Christianity. So let's let's find
another representation on that side of the debate. I think at this point going forward, it's we can no longer rely on Jordan Peterson to represent a sort of cogent side of the right going forward.
He's on his own journey, all right, Jubilee to get it together. Let's move over to Trump, who is now engaged in a pardon spree, and we'll talk about a whole bunch of these that he just did. Todd and Julie from the from the reality TV. So they're they're getting they're getting a pardon.
Uh.
Ken Vogel has a piece of the New York Times about this fraudster whose mom gave a million bucks to Trump and did three fundraisers for Trump and got a got a pardon just before he was about to report to prison. I believe I don't think he'd ever actually had to go to prison. We'll talk about his crimes are really atrocious. Uh. And then a sheriff in Virginia who was basically selling a fake badges and letting like rich people the the fake deputies in order for bribes.
In exchange for bribes, he also got pardon. So let's start with the first element. Up here, there's Alice Johnson, who was pardoned during Trump won and when Trump.
Is so proud to have pardoned her. She was in prison for.
Selling drugs and running a kind of drug empire, and she's now sort of become the pardons.
Of her She was over prosecuted.
Yeah, and that's the argument he's going to make about these inner pardons.
Yea mostly weed dealing, right, it wasn't crack.
I thought it was cracked. Anyway, go back and live.
Yes, So anyway, here here they are in the Oval office calling up Christ.
It's a terrible thing. It's a terrible thing, but it's a great thing because your parents are going to be free and clean.
And I hope we can do it by tomorrow.
He said, Okay, we'll try getting it dont tomorrow.
So wonderful.
Give them I don't know them, but give them my regards and wish wish them a good life.
Yes, thank you for bringing up parents.
Yeah, well they were given a pretty harsh treatment based on what I'm hearing. Congratulate your Parlavannah and Alice had a lot to do with this, and just congratulate your parents and I hit it terrific people that should not have happened. So and you, well they have they have good good children. You no longer children, but I'll say it anyway, they have good children, don't they?
So top reality TV stars? They were busted for tax evasion. This is not not one I get super worked up about. Because they did some time, They did the crime, they did some time. And does the world necessarily benefit from them spending twenty years in prison? I'd like, I don't. I don't want people to get special treatment just because they're getting special I was, they're getting special dent literally special treatment.
They're literally getting pardoned by the President.
United States now, so that that is ridiculous and outrageous. By setting that aside, you know, you do, you do your tax evation, go do some do a little bit of time, like you don't need to lock these non violent people up for decades.
The Alice Johnson pardon. People remember from Kim Kardashian's spearheading that effort I think with Van Jones, but that was coupled with what was called the First Step Act, which was a large scale policy effort. But this is you know, not that this is very much that's it. That's the kind of difference. But between targeting one over prosecution and then coupling it with a big policy act, that's not
what's happening in this case. This is literally just special treatment based on Savannah Chrisly and that's who he was talking to. I was talking to the Chrysalies children. Savannah Crystally was the voice that.
You watched that one.
I watched it when it first came out.
It was pretty like I feel like it cooked the first couple of years, and then it went down Yeah, it went downhill. But that was the era of like Duck Dynasty, when these big networks were trying to appeal more to Middle America by putting these like family sitcom type reality shows out and it was fine for a little while, but it just it wore off. The luster wore off pretty quickly with that one. They're not the most appealing characters.
Yeah, And the argument on their behalf was that the IRS and the lead IRS person that was going after them, had their like face up on a bullseye, and like really wanted them and considered them to be like Trump's kind of avatar.
Said they were the Trumps of Georgia, right, and.
So there was some political motivation behind going after them, according to this defense. And you know, all right, they got them, they did a little time.
Let them go.
It's fine.
Their tax advisor also went to jail was also prosecuted for this. They were found guilty of tax evasion and bank fraud. Basically, they were hiding their money to defraud the irs and banks is what they were found guilty of, as well as the tax advisor, the financial advisor in this case. We don't have to dwell too much on the Christly case because there are a couple of other ones.
But I will just say, Ryan, I remember at the R and and See I was sitting in the press thing watching the kind of boring stuff happen before you get the keynote every night, and Savannah Chrystly came out and did this like utterly what's the right word, like obsequious.
Pitch to about her parents to Donald Trump.
And it was so cringe worthy because it was so it was such a nakedly transactional attempt to free her parents from prison, and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, this is going to work.
Here we are.
She went on Laura Trump's Fox News show just in the last several weeks, and Savannah credits that with bringing it to Trump's attention. She said, just in the last twenty four hours, Like he watches every edition of that show, and I'm pretty sure it's what brought it back to his attention. So it's just sort of funny how easy it is to cooperate with Donald Trump, How easy it
is to negotiate with Donald Trump. You just have to I remember watching this at the RNC and hearing her compare their plate to Trump's and just thinking, oh my gosh, this is going to play him like a fiddle.
Yeah. One of the things, like the word the word downtown, is that one of the ways you're supposed to pay Trump now is not just the Trump coin, but you're supposed to qute unquote invest in Millennia's documentary, like you know, because there's all these legal ways you can move money, like hey, you put in put in a million dollars, you become an investor in this documentary. Oh, it turns out documentary is not going to make any money. It's a write off for you. It's a business loss. You
invested it, you lost it. But it's a legal bride. The other way, of course, is Trump sues, you look at your CBS and then you pay him a settlement. So it's all these clever legal ways to do bribery. Some of it is just you just give him a million dollars, which is what Paul Walls X mother did. So move to move to the next one. Great great
story by Ken Vogel in The Times. So this is a guy who dropped out of college and then inherited his were a meritocracy, so he inherited his mom's nursing home company in Florida, Red Flag already nursing home company
in Florida. Uh. The way that these companies, all companies work is you you withhold money for soci security and Medicare payroll taxes from your employees and then you send that to the state in the federal government like you withhold the tax money and then goes back to the state because it's not your money, like it's they earned it. It's their paycheck. But you you do handle it like
the businesses handle it. If you notice on your paycheck this money is withheld, there is a bank account that that withholding goes to before it is sent off to the government. And what a company can do, what a CEO can do is just take that money. Yep.
And that's what Waalzac was convicted of doing. He took that money. He bought a two million dollar yacht.
And lived just a normal you know, Bergdorf, Goodman, Cardier. Uh, just lived enormously large with stolen money. His mom, you know, you know, who was wealthy from having run this nursing home company. You know, he hosted three fundraisers for Trump. So it gets you in the good graces big fundraisers too. Yeah, and and but then it was she paid what a million dollars? Uh, you know, So they reached out like they're trying to get this, get the son clemency. So
she reaches out to do this. She then gets invited. So this is how this works. They know she wants something from them. So then, as he writes, miss Fagga was invited to a million dollar per person fundraising dinner last month that promised face to face access to mister Trump at his private Marlogue Club in Palm Beach, Florida. Less than three weeks after she attended the dinner, mister
Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon. It came just in the nick of time for mister Wallzac, sparing him from having to pay nearly four point four million in restitution and from reporting to prison for an eighteen month sentence that had been handed down just twelve days earlier. A judge had justified the incarceration by declaring that their quote is not a get out of jail free card for the rich. False? There literally, judge, there literally is a get out of jail free card?
Or is that rich?
Bold like the visa card, but it could be it might as well be a million dollars.
Yeah, and so wildly and Sanley corrupt. This is a person who stole money from working people to buy literally to buy a yacht, and then used some of that stolen money or his mother, I guess his mother's. Let's assume she didn't steal the money, used money that they made on the backs of the workers. We can at least say that and paid it to Trump. And now he's not just commuted like there's different you can do.
You can commute a sentence which leaves the felony on your record, and you would you could he could have said, I'm commuting the sentence, but you still have to pay the restitution to the workers four point four million that you've been sentenced to pay. You can also just do a full and unconditional pardon. You you would keep their money. You earned it. How'd you earn it? By having the password to the bank account and moving it from them to yourself, So and not it won't spend a day
in jail. Yeah, and you can keep going, go ahead, keep the money.
No.
This story by Vogel is insane, and it also gets into the wild connection between the Ashley Biden diary project Veritas.
Oh, we didn't even talk about that lay that element, because that's the argument that his mother made, that his mother was involved with this actually Biden document diary and that the law enforcement came after them, and so this was actually all payback.
It wasn't about the workers that he stole the money from.
Was this was payback? So yeah, what was the do you guys remember this actually Biden diary.
It's a I mean, the diary is a horrible.
She went to this rehab, she left a diary behind.
That had allegations that were disgusting.
Somebody that it Basically it said, was it weird that my dad would shower with me or something like that when.
I was older?
Yeah?
Yeah, it was.
Some creepy stuff in there, yes, and you know, not no smoking gun, but creepy stuff.
And who knows if that's true.
It was a diary of someone who was mentally unwell in rehab, but it was there.
Right, and then somebody finds it, sells it like there's this whole sordid Coen Brothers esque.
It is very Coen Brothers.
So that winds up with it getting published project and then project very test like oh Keith got raided over this?
Yes, yeah, yes exactly.
So a man who's friends with Fago contacts her about the diary. Uh Ken Vogel writes when she was first told of the diary, she said she thought it would help mister Trump's chances of winning the election. And then they brought that diary to a fundraiser at her home that Donald Trump Junior and Kimberly Guilfoyle attended.
The diary and Trump Junior was like, did get this away from me? This is yeah, Trump, I think, I think this is one place where Trump Junior actually did the right thing.
He was like, who wha, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't do not involve me with this.
It's crazy. It's just such a crazy story with.
Donald Trump Junior is like, this is this is too much.
The fact that this is this woman was involved in that, Like you said, Cohen Brothers ass the only way you can even look at it.
And he was so then it starts getting bought and sold, right.
So Walsh was about to what was it was about to be sentenced, and so.
The party was sentence. He was about to report in prison.
It was about to report and Ken writes came quote just in the nick of time, clearly and when just to note there is it's similar to the Savannah Christly case of people knowing how to make these appeals.
So the mom Fogo.
Was apparently openly making an appeal based on her related like persecution.
We were persecuted, Yeah exactly, yep, exactly.
So now we have this other story. This is I believe the next element. Yeah, this is E four. So this is a story of sheriff Scott Jenkins, who Trump is giving a quote full and unconditional pardon. Two.
He was also he was the one who was about to.
Report end commentator and future Kentucky.
Senator, oh Scott Jennings. Scott Jennings, Scott Jenkins, who was convicted on federal bribery charges last year. He was about to report to prison. I think today he was about to report to prison, and then within twenty four hours
of him reporting to prison, Trump pardoned him. So from Reuter's they write, he was quite a former Virginia sheriff who served in area about two hours outside DC was convicted by a jury December twenty twenty four for accepting more than seventy five thousand dollars in bribes in exchange for appointment as auxiliary deputy sheriffs. He'd been sentenced to
ten years in federal prison. And Ryan, I suppose there's potentially an argument that the sentence, and also the Chrysly sentences are long too much.
I'm with I'm with them to okay ten years for that. You took seventy five thousand in campaign contributions, which is different than taking it in cash money, and it's exchange. You made, you know, the local car dealer like a fake cop. You let him be a fake cop for a day, it can be dangerous, like Oklahoma. There's this case in Oklahoma where they let this rich guy be a fake cop and he shot and killed a guy because he meant to pull his taser and accidentally pulled
his pistol and killed a man. So like this, this is to me, it's if you want to take your badge and go home with it, like happens with nine year olds, fine, but like you get give him a fake badge and a real gun and no training. Now the community is the one that's going to pay so that you can get these bribes. Yeah, but still ten years is a little bit excessive.
Yeah, and that's the argument Trump's going. He keeps saying, but.
He's a big Trump guy, and they're like, they came after me because I'm a Trump guy and.
You hurt, right, And that works so well on Donald Trump, and everybody knows it works so well on Donald Trump. And he said it in the Christly conversation with Savannah said they were treated very badly. And so yeah, it's what Blogoovitch got this too right. He sort of made a turn to being pro Trump, and that's all it took. And I don't know, Ryan, I if Trump is being taken for a ride so much as he just enjoys the deference and insequiousness.
Anybody who goes through the criminal justice system comes out hating prosecutors, including Trump.
H Yeah, And so he feels that.
If I ever get convicted of anything, I'm gonna remind Trump of all the nice things I said about him. You have so many clips, so many good clips, I mean, commit a sense of humor, a lot. H So just you know, let's let's clip this one and stay it for if for this is get caught stealing people's tax money and buying a yacht with it, and let's just mention.
Of course, Joe Biden had an unprecedented pardon policy. He pardoned family members, corrupt family members, pardoned Anthony Fauci. Absolutely that all happens.
He pardoned changed this terrible sex criminal in Pennsylvania.
Preemptive pardons what And those are always favors, right, Like people would say, why would you pardon that guy? It's a favor to someone, right, Someone.
Got that in front of him, must have.
Yeah, So yes, the Joe Biden was unprecedented in that respect and was transactional in that respect. This is a different level, obviously. This is a level of people nakedly making transactional appeals to the president and him responding, when do you get that sort of obsequious approach?
And usually they wait till presidents wait till the end of their term. We're so embarrassed about this stuff.
That's interesting, right, He's doing it right out like Tuesday afternoon.
Yeah, it's a really interesting question about what norm or to what extent that sets a norm going forward, and to what extent Biden's partons set a norm going forward because those were quote unquote preemptive pardons of people who hadn't even been convicted.
So Trump has learned that nothing matters.
But that's the era that we live in right now, this last decade. We're ten years since Trump descended the Golden escalator, and we're learning that we don't actually know what the norms are anymore and where they will be in the post Trump era if we ever approach such a moment.
Up up next, we're going to talk about the energy portion of Trump's massive, big, beautiful reconciliation package. Which bizarrely helped China develop its energy infrastructure and will destroy ours, both clean and dirty.
We'll see stick around for that. The House passed.
Reconciliation Bill, the Big Beautiful Bill, as everybody knows, takes a sledgehammer to Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act and all the clean energy tax credits in that. But something strange has happened on the way through the House and over to the Senate, which is that the dirty energy industry, the fossil fuel industry, has realized that it takes a
sledgehammer to it as well. And so to talk about this and to walk us through how it is and why that is and what's going on is ducky Hun, who is the founder of a dirty energy company trying to make it as clean as possible called C Minus. I say dirty energy because it's involved with fossil fuels.
A lot of your career has been trying to make fossil fuels cleaner, trying to kind of eradicate you know, fossil fuels, because everybody in the energy industry, as I understand it now correct me if I'm wrong, is pretty agnostic. You know about energy source like people are just like how do I get the wattage? Like, how do I get the electricity? What's the most reliable and the cheapest way that I can you know, get you know, move
energy from A to B and sell it. And so this the clean energy kind of dirty energy divide within the industry isn't really as salient necessarily as it used to be. And uh, this this bill seems to be smashing both of them at the same time.
So doucky, can you.
Walk us through a little bit about you know, what are the what are the key elements of the IRA that are that are being nuked so to speak by this bill? And what will the effects be on projects that are either ongoing throughout the United States or are you know, planned for the coming years.
Well, you're right on a lot of those those points.
Uh So when you think of energy, I think you want to take a step back and see it's more of a transition than clean versus dirty or fossil. So the transition is is really what is uh kind of getting lost in this in this new bill. A lot of the fossil fossil energy guys, which you know, obviously is natural gas and coal mainly obviously oil in there
as well. They were investing a lot of time and resources to processes that would clean up their existing facilities, existing fuel sources, like carbon capture, they were transitioning to hydrogen, investing a lot of money there.
So those technologies were packaging.
The i RA as transitions to to clean existing fuel sources and introduced new ones that fossil you know, legacy fossil guys could could participate in. Obviously the other end of the spectrum or the solar battery when guys, those guys were definitely a lot more advanced in this transition. So I don't think it's it's really a competition. I think it's more of this transition that is getting I think it could be on the you know, on the
chopping block here. I'm just unsure where who wins really, who wins in this whenever we're cutting these these incentive programs, because just like solar was, you know, twenty twenty five years ago, we advanced a lot of those technologies, but production went to.
China, and.
Unfortunately, it looks like we might have to do the same here because they've invested in a lot of these technologies in parallel with the United States.
But a lot of the a lot.
Of production was slated to come to the United States for these projects because of the IRA And unfortunately, I think if we don't kind of nip this where in the Senate, a lot of these projects might end up going back to China or Europe.
Yeah, and you're talking about.
Fossil fuel projects, right and so, and that's right.
And if you can put up F one here, this is the kind of the utility industry complaining that they're talking about clean energy. But if you read deeper into the story they're talking about, they're talking about the entire thing.
You know.
I've seen you make the point and I've seen others make it as well that in order to you know, we're you know, we're talking about AI and other computing.
Trump says everything is computer.
Requiring something like a doubling of us, you know, energy production over the you know, the very near near term.
Uh.
And I've seen you and others talk about the fact that the natural gas turbines that are needed to ramp up Let's let's say you love natural gas, you hate clean energy, You just you just want to burn natural gas. The turbines needed to produce energy from it are facing something like you you tell me something like a ninety six month backlog, like if you were ten years almost like if you wanted new ones. I mean, I think, can you walk us through, like what.
Does it actually mean to produce this energy?
Right?
So these projects that the IRA kind of incentivized their long duration, there's a lot of engineering that goes into these projects. So even on a short scale, if you were you know, yeah, you didn't have these projects in development before.
I mean, these are three to five year projects.
So a lot of these have not hit the hit the ground yet.
So to speak.
So in the realm of natural gas, I mean it is I mean everyone's always said natural gas is a transition feel and in the near term, I believe we do have to ramp up uh natural gas with you know, a lot of you know, carbon capture if possible. I mean that that seems to be kind of left in the lurch now, uh, to to meet these energy demands.
But you know, the big the big gas turbine manufacturers, ge Siemens, Mitsubishi, I mean they I think on a very conservative estimate there they're five years out from delivering uh. Even if you I mean then we're going back to kind of putting deposits down to get in the queue, essentially kind of what what we were back in the early two thousands, the last time natural gas wash was relevant.
So yeah, we're going back to the you know, the five year weights, and you know, if AI does ramp up aggressively, I mean we're talking about maybe ten years backlog. So none of these are going to happen quickly. I think everyone should understand that. I mean, you know, these big AI and data centers and crypto announcements. I think I think everyone's a little too optimistic if they're thinking, you know, one to three years, you just you just can't get these these components.
I mean, gas turmans are one thing. I mean, I don't know if.
You've heard about the transformer issues another another component, key component that uh, you know, the backlog has just ramped up tremendously since COVID and and doesn't look any anywhere near resolving itself.
Now, I want to roll this clip F two of Elon Musk, who is going to be on CBS Sunday Morning this week, and they're revealing sort of teaser moments from that conversation and Musk sort of talks about the quote unquote big beautiful bill and the change we can go ahead and roll the clip, you know.
I was like, we're disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the bunch depsit not does decrease it, and that reminds the work that the Doge team is doing.
I actually thought that when this big beautiful bill came along.
I mean, like everything he's done on Dose gets wiped out in the first year.
I think, I think a bill can be can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it could be both my postal opinion.
So there we have.
Clean energy, domestic manufacturing slash assembly Man Elon Musk looking at the big beautiful bill with a dose of realism after he spent I guess, the last six.
Months or so in Washington, DC. So I wanted to ask.
I mean a lot of people on the writer are actually criticizing the bill for not going far enough on dismantling the IRA. That's something a lot of people want to see happen when it goes over to the Senate. But my understanding is also that some of what the bill does is meant to disentangle production from China and bring it back to the US. It sounds like the way that they're going about that, I mean it's the
like foreign entity clause in the bill. It sounds like some of the way they're going about that is actually counterproductive possibly as well. Can you just kind of flush out that dynamic for us?
Yeah, I mean it it is.
It is puzzling, you know, the intent versus the reality of it. I think it's gonna be difficult to to get these projects off the ground with with those kind of last minute tweaks to that bill, especially the foreign entity because we still don't make a lot of these components in the United States. Obviously we were, we were getting there, but I don't think we would have really justified making all the smaller components maybe some of the larger components that would comprise of these projects.
But yeah, it's a big hurdle.
Can you can you explain that? So the foreignity of concern is basically referring to China. The bill says, correct me if I'm wrong here. The bill basically says, if if you're getting components from China, but instment or or investment, okay, or investment from China, then you cannot get the access to the tax credits which make the project kind of
pencil out in a financial way. So as somebody who involved in the industry, who how possible would it be if if you were told, okay, you want these credits, every component and all investment must come from the US. I guess you can get French investment, but you can't get Chinese investment. You can't have Chinese components, Like could you could you get a project going anytime soon?
Under those circumstances, you could.
Get break around, but lead times would definitely delay the project tremendously. I think another compon of the kind of last minute you know, negotiating for this bill. I think the more dangerous component is the start time. So a lot of these projects.
Explain that this is a really interesting component, right.
So a lot of these projects, so they didn't scrap the IRA per se, but they did put some stringent regulations like the FEOC and then the start time for a lot of these projects to qualify for the incentives or you know, sixty days from the final passage of the bill.
So that's that's that's really you know, a killer right there.
I mean I think that would kill ninety nine percent of the projects that are slated to come.
So and you have to finish by a certain time too.
Yeah, so you have to finish by twenty twenty eight. And like I said, these projects are long lead time, a lot of engineering involved.
And some of these projects.
Or are really relying on incentives that were finalized in January, right, So a lot of these you know, financial modeling the projections, I mean, they're still in limbo, so you're not getting to a final investment decision considering.
The uncertainty essentially.
So even the projects that were heavily financed by you know, let's say big oil or oil and gas or big energy companies, legacy companies, I don't see them getting getting through, especially with the sixty day start time. I mean, we're talking about a project that would normally go through engineering in two to three years and then saying you off the break ground sixty days after finalization of this bill.
I think that's that's really killing the all incentives that are in the ir and to begin with.
So basically, if we zoom out to the broader goal of on shoring, near shoring, friends shoring, some of these industries. The bill, I guess is from that perspective then actually kind of hurting its own goal or undermining its own goal if it is on shoring, near showing friends, showing, because maybe the ultimate goal, or the less honest goal, is just to hurt the industry's period, the clean energy industries period. Like what do you make of what the
we were talking earlier about who benefits? Like, what is the actual end goal? Do you think based on what's in the bill?
Well, I mean, that's that's the confusion I have for sure. I don't know who benefits. I think a lot of the benefits that we've already seen from the IRA have benefited a lot of the Republican states and Republican districts. I mean maybe to the tune of, you know, seventy or to eighty percent of the jobs created or going to those districts. And we're talking about hundreds of thousands of jobs here, and some of those plants that relied on those incentives may lose them and close.
So I mean, it's really confusing to me who benefits.
I mean, it's it's tough because obviously we're talking about a lot of new projects. In addition, to the ones that already opened. So I mean, we're talking about hundreds of thousands more jobs going to a lot of red districts. So it's it's confusing to me, what you know, who wins? I mean people, I don't know if it's a zero sum game. I mean, I think everyone can benefit from this, but I think everyone could lose too, right, So I don't think there's there's any clear winners to me.
And for people who want to read more about that, we can put up F three. You can find this piece. Ducky had recommended this at Latitude Media. As you're talking, I wonder if the answer to this question of who benefits, ironically might be China. Like if if you want to develop these both clean energy projects and also projects that are making fossil fuel energy cleaner, it seems like the place that is making that possible would after this would
would be China. And it seems like the bill is if you wanted to write a bill to basically stop the development and production of energy in the United States, you couldn't do much better than the way this bill is currently written.
Well, that's what it seems like.
I mean, like I mentioned, with the solar industry twenty years and you know, we did a lot of development in national labs and then we send all the manufacturing to China. I mean, that's it's unfortunate. But yeah, I think they're pretty happy about the prospects of this.
Yeah.
And China doesn't even have much of a lobbying operation in the US, like basically zero, and they're getting a bill just straight up written for them. It's amazing.
We'll see, We'll see, Senates.
It's very confusing. Yeah.
Yeah, the Senate I think is gonna it's going to have some real tweaks to this part.
Yeah, because North Carolina and Doug you might know last question for you might know a little bit about this.
Uh.
North Carolina senators, I know are both concerned about what this doing is doing to Solark because North Carolina has become one of the kind of leading builders of solar energy and now this is going to take a sledgehammer to to that, you know. And it's an it's an industry that is that supports Republicans and and hires Republicans to work at the in it. Uh. So you've got you got North Carolina, maybe you've got some Texas which has a lot of energy production, including clean energy production.
Do you have a sense Yeah, Georgia as well, did you have do you have a sense of Although I guess democrats are there are there Republicans who might have the strength to push back on this.
I hope so, I mean, I know, I don't know if a lot of your viewers knew. I mean, there's a there's a a letter that you know, a lot of Republicans drafted, you know, twenty some odd you know, senators and House members supporting you know, the the benefits of the IRA. Unfortunately, twenty of those House members kind
of signed onto this last minute. So hopefully the senators kind of have a little more influence on this and don't have we'll have the right kind of influence essentially to support their constituents.
Or we'll see them go in another direction.
And just support China. What are you doing?
A lot?
A lot to be determined in the next month.
It's incredible watch Doucky Hume, founder of energy company C Minus. Thanks for bring us up to speed on this. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me all right, be well, honestly, I don't get it. What are you all doing?
Look at me?
This is your responsibility. You need to clean this up.
It's insane. What like and his point about how we developed the solar industry in the nineties two thousands, and because it's associated with hippies or whatever, and it was manufacturing, we just shipped it off to China. And now look how that's working out. And now here we are twenty years later, like doing the exact same thing.
Listen, I'm all for innovation and renewable energy sector because it gets you off the grid, gets you you know, you don't have to worry about the government controlling your energy sources.
But a lot of what his company does, or his companies that he's founded over the years, they take, like I'm saying, it takes waste products, and it takes and they take fossil fuels, and they try to reduce the carbon emissions and the pollution related to it, acknowledging which the Left doesn't really like to do, acknowledging that fossil fuels are going to be here for very long time and if they are getting burned, how do we reduce
the emissions and pollution from them. In the meantime, all that that entire industry being built up it's just gonna go.
It's just going to go to China.
I mean.
On the other hand, and like he's with the transformers. If without the transformers, you don't have energy production, which you know what this AI sucks. So uh if if these goons don't have enough juice for their AI, fine good find it in the sun. So they're gonna win. You're gonna get rolling blackouts. Uh, their AI is going to get the energy.
Yeah, that's true. On the other hand, the IRA was grifty. I mean you had John Podesta overseeing the you know, longtime lobbyist overseeing the distributor.
No, no, that Tony is the lobbyist.
I mean John Podesta was a lobbyist as well, the Podesta Group.
No, no, that's Tony Potesta.
Back in the nineties. Yeah, but I mean.
I thought he's always been in there.
I think the Podesta Group was founded like late eighties, early nineties.
Anyway, was John Potesta, I mean he was always Anyway.
The producers literally gotten her ear just like put it up Tony dicusy lobbyst Tony Podessa is definitely a scuzzy lobbyist. But anyway, they put John Podesta in charge of distributing some of the IRA. All that is to say, we will see what happens when the bill goes to the Senate.
Republicans want more cuts, but of course they also want to undermine China and near shore and reshore all of these wonderful industries, so good luck to them also while keeping Elon Musk happy and having a tiny margin in the House and actually the Senate as well. And by the way, they also think they need this to augment.
The tariff policy.
So best of luck to the GOP and to all of us really who will have to be dealing with the consequences.
Yeah, so dumb.
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