1717 - "Mr. Peepers"

Is this like Usenet? Adam Curry, John C. DeVora. It's Sunday, December 1st, 2024. This is your award-winning Gilmore Nation Media Assassination Episode 1717. This is no agenda. Busting the new boss and broadcasting live from the heart of the Texas Hill Country here in Fever Region Number 6 in the morning, everybody. I'm Adam Curry. And from Northern Silicon Valley where everybody's gone nuts over Kash Patel. I'm John C. DeVorax. It's Greg Vaughn and Buzzkill. In the morning.

Hey, I've noticed this. What does anybody care? They've gone nuts. Hey, did you notice the language that Trump used? He didn't say, I will be appointing him. He said, he will be serving. He has to be president before he has to fire Ray first, doesn't he? Ray already said he's going to quit. Oh, he did say he's going to quit. Okay. All right. Is this another let's all go crazy and look at Kash Patel while the deputy director... Something else is going on? While something good is going on?

Yeah, really. While the deputy director, is it really going to be the person taking care of everything? I think Kash Patel can do it. He's got the background and the chops to do it. They say he doesn't have any qualifications. The guy... Wasn't he in the Department of Defense? Didn't he do all kinds of stuff? He's over the place. He's an Intel guy, but he's not... If you look at, you know, I tried to play spot the spook by going over his wiki page. Yeah. And you end up with him being...

What is it where you're... Affiliate where you're next to, but you're not part of, you're affiliated with. There's a term that we've used. Associated? Adjacent. Adjacent. Spook adjacent. This is a new kind of guy. There's spook adjacents. Let me see. Anyway, so he's made public comments. He's always kind of lined up for this job. And his whole thing is going to be to shut down the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Yeah, exactly. He's the move over guy. He's going to assist with the move.

Get the 7,000 employees out of D .C. What are you doing there? And move them to Kansas City where the rent is cheaper. The cost of living is lower. And you can actually go do some work. Yeah. And everyone's making a big fuss. So people are going to quit. Of course, a lot of people will be quitting because they don't want to leave Washington, D.C. Right. And that doesn't mean they're quitting because of him. And then a lot of them will be quitting because of him.

And the real hard ass guys are probably really good cops will be staying. And it'll be interesting if he gets in. I mean, they're making a huge fuss over this guy. Well, I mean, it's I have a report. Oh, it's new. TDS is like, oh, something's going on. Let's make a fuss. Do you know that I had since the election, I had probably three different friend text groups. That's what you do these days. And Tina, of course, had the the church ladies text group. They have virtually gone silent.

I mean, it seems like our entire relationship was based upon Kamala Harris being unqualified. And now the only thing that the only time the text group spark up is, well, look at this guy. Oh, no. It is uncanny. You can set your alarm clock by it. I don't even know what you're talking about. What do you mean? You don't know any text group. You're OK. Bring me up to speed, buddy. I don't have a clue what you're talking about. OK, for probably just like usenet.

It's exactly like usenet only in your pocket, John. Yes. People have left social networks and they are now in text groups. It's a very common thing. I'd say maybe 20 years, but I'll let you slide 15. It's just what people do. They have their own. You have a text group and then you you text. You have your own little like your own little chat thing going on. You weren't aware of this. Oh, I have a bunch of people that I send text to and they send text to me here and there.

But it's not like a group that has a meeting or it's not a group that everybody's on the same list. Well, if I send something out, doesn't go out as a broadcast. You have to have friends to be included. I don't know if I need friends. Oh, wow. OK, well, there you go. So let's let's play Cash Patel NPR. All right. President elect Donald Trump has nominated former prosecutor and attorney Cash Patel to serve as the next director of the FBI.

Patel has been an outspoken critic of the bureau and is called for shutting down the agency's Washington headquarters and firing its top leadership. In a post on social media, Trump called Patel a brilliant lawyer, investigator and, quote, America's first fighter. If confirmed, Cash would replace Christopher Wray as the director of the FBI. Yeah, well, that's a very generic overview. Very good. So we go right to CNN. Yes, there we go.

I guess we end up with who they bring in as their analyst, Andrew McCabe. Oh, and why not? Andrew, I just want to start first with you and just get your reaction to this news tonight. Yeah, well, it's it's a terrible development for for men and women of the FBI. And also for the corrupt ones. It depends on a highly functioning, professional, independent Federal Bureau of Investigation. The fact that Cash Patel is profoundly unqualified for this job is not even like a matter for debate.

So I think what we should what we should really be thinking about right now. Wow, bringing in the laugh sniffle there right away. It's not even like a matter for debate. So I think what we should what we should really be thinking about right now is what does. It's so ridiculous. I can't even believe it. So I think what we should what we should really be. That laugh sniffle. That is just. That's a good one. That is such a. I didn't catch it myself, but it's such a tell. Yeah, that is.

It's embarrassing. Like, how could he even show his nose around the parties in D.C.? So I think what we should what we should really be thinking about right now is what does this signal in terms of Donald Trump's intent for the FBI? The installation or the nomination, I guess we should say at this point of Kash Patel's FBI director can only possibly be a plan to disrupt, to dismantle, to distract the FBI and to possibly use it as a tool for the president's political agenda.

And, you know, as an organization, we know what that what that looks like. This country has been there before, right?

The pre Watergate FBI, the J. Edgar Hoover FBI struck fear in the hearts of Americans across the spectrum of politicians, people in entertainment, people in the civil rights community because the director operated at the direction of presidents to collect political intelligence and to utilize the legal authorities, the investigative authorities of the FBI to terrorize and intimidate Americans. So the question is, is that where we're going back to with this nomination?

I would argue that Kash Patel would be the perfect person for Donald Trump to nominate if that's in fact his intent for the FBI. Wow, this is great. He's taken us back to the Red Scare. No, he's not. But he he he he rewrote history because it was it was FBI director J. Edgar Hoover who pushed around the president's not the other way around. Yes. Until the pictures of him in the dress came up. Which turned out to be not true. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Well, you know what? At this point.

Well, this guy, this McCabe guy should he should have been canceled completely from these shows. But why does CNN bring? He's not an objective observer. He's the guy with the insurance policy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You take CNN. I'm OK. I know what's going on. I mean, seriously, this is you know, this interview was seen by dozens and dozens of people on CNN dozens. I tell you that I tell you. Well, let's look at some other nominees. An old friend is back.

CNBC, who I believe, you know, they're I don't know how their ratings go. I don't see NBC. Their ratings don't really fluctuate that much, do they? No, they're just a bunch of. No, they don't fluctuate. As far as I can tell, they never fluctuated. They it's a solid. It's a small audience, but it's a very important audience. It's not people. Solid, solid, steady audience of people who want to be told to buy. That's all that is always by. By this. By that. By that.

Or, of course, we all tune in to look at inverse Jim Cramer, because whatever Jim Cramer says, do the opposite. Buy. Buy more. Jim Cramer literally at ninety nine thousand dollars a bitcoin said you need to buy. And it went straight down the 90. That's why Horowitz shorted it. He knows he knows the Jim Cramer curse. He knows. Anyway, I'm talking about Big Pharma. Who's our guy that comes back on the Squawk Box on CNBC? Come on now. Yes, Scott.

Yes. There has been a lot of big news in health care over the last few days. President Joe Biden proposing expanding Medicare and Medicaid to cover obesity drugs. That's a move that could impact millions of Americans. Meantime, president elect Donald Trump has made all of his picks for the health related team. And joining us right now to talk about all of this and what it means to the sector is Dr. Scott Gottlieb. Of course, he is the former FDA commissioner under the last Trump administration.

He's also a CNBC contributor. And Scott, you're still a board member of Pfizer. That's right. OK. And a board member at Pfizer board member at Pfizer. Now, before you play the rest of this clip, let's let's remind people something that is not being brought up by anybody. But I'm going to bring it up.

And once you hear it, then, of course, you want to bring it up, too, which is that we have to always remember that it was Pfizer and Borla who held back the news that the vaccine was done and ready to go. And during Covid and the warp speed project that Trump was so proud of. And they pulled the information and left it until after the election to screw over Trump. Trump who supposedly has these grudges. He has to have a huge grudge against Pfizer. And nobody's bringing this up.

Scott Gottlieb is not bringing it up. And he knows he and Pfizer is a target. And Kennedy's getting in by hook or crook. Yeah, he's going to open up the vaults. It's a Rico case. It's all coming out. And president elect Trump should be thanking Scott Gottlieb and Borla on his knees. Yeah, well, because that's a twist that was unexpected. And he's really keen. Yeah. Yeah. That's beside the point. I'm just trying to screw him over. They did. Let's go. Let's jump into this.

And why don't we start with. Let's dive into this, shall we? With the incoming administration's choices, because there's been a lot of consternation, a lot of people who have said, wait a second with RFK Jr. Heading things up. What do you say? Well, I have deep concerns about Kennedy's stated intentions to roll back core public health protections, particularly as it relates to childhood vaccines.

He's brought in a very experienced team, a lot of lawyers from the Children's Defense Fund, which is his anti-vax organization. These guys. Wow. He calls that an anti-vax organization right there, right there. The CNN lady or the CNBC lady should have said they do a lot more than that, don't they? I mean, they're not just anti-vax. In fact, they're not anti-vax. They are pro. No, they're not at all. Yeah. No, this is a lie. He said a lie on CNBC. She didn't get.

Of course, what do you expect from NBC News? They're taking $500,000 bribes. And what's his name still on the air? Al Sharpton. Al Sharpton, yes. And so it's a corrupt organization. It's corrupt. The whole thing is corrupt. I can't believe that they're still. I mean, she pulled the plug. It's amazing. They're still on the air. Cut the cable. Cut the cable. Very experienced team, a lot of lawyers from the Children's Defense Fund, which is his anti -vax organization. There's no license for cable.

These guys are capable. I think they're deadly serious. They've been very clear about their intentions. And I think sometimes you have to take people at their word. And just to sort of level set where we are right now, we had 5,000 cases of pertussis last year. We're going to have 30,000 cases this year. Pregnant women for the first time in a very long time now need to think about. Time to buy pertussis. I hear it's going. I hear it's skyrocketing.

Pregnant women for the first time in a very long time now need to think about pertussis as a risk during pregnancy. And if you look at vaccination rates for MMR, there are states that really are the tipping point in terms of reduced vaccination rates. Herd immunity is achieved at a level of about 95 percent coverage. If you look at Idaho, it's at 79 percent. You look at Alaska and Wisconsin, 84 percent. Hold on. Hold on. Herd immunity.

This is I think this is a little contradiction in terms here. He says herd immunity is achieved at 90 percent vaccination rate. First of all, what we've always been told and what is now there's a lot of backpedaling on. Well, vaccines, you know, they kind of work, but only works if everybody has them because they're not really 100 percent effective. And herd immunity, the way I've always understood it was if you've had the infection.

And if 95 percent of the people have had the infection now, herd immunity is being pushed into vaccination status. Am I missing this? Am I misreading this? No, I don't think you are, but I think they've tried to. They're moving the goalposts around. And also like 60. It was supposed to be 60 or 65 percent. Now it's 95 percent. You achieve herd immunity. I was always under the impression that if you had a disease that had and you. Yes. You start vaccinating people like I would say smallpox.

Right. You get it down so low that it can't be really transmitted much because these people that were vaccinated won't catch it and won't pass it along. Unlike the covid shot, which doesn't do anything. All right. We continue. Pregnant women for the first time in a very long time now need to think about pertussis as a risk during pregnancy. And if you look at vaccination rates for MMR, there are states that really are the tipping point in terms of reduced vaccination rates.

Herd immunity is achieved at a level of about 95 percent coverage. If you look at Idaho, it's at 79 percent. You look at Alaska and Wisconsin, 84 percent, Minnesota, 87 percent, Florida, Colorado, Oklahoma, Georgia and Utah at 88 percent. When I was at FDA in 2018, 2019, all those states were in the low 90s. If we lose another 5 percent, we're going to be in a position where we see distributed outbreaks of measles. And that could easily happen in the next few years. Measles. Yes, measles.

We're all going to die from the measles. We have to remember 12 years ago, there was. A series of for about a year, all we heard was about measles, and it was on the TV shows I had, I actually ran a series of clips back then, measles caused by measles. And it was like law and order done. And so, oh, what's happened is she died by measles. Well, she didn't. Your kid didn't get a shot. So there we have to sue her because the other kid got measles and died. Remember these stories?

Yeah, this is what they're aiming for. Well, let me talk about the percentages here for a moment. Because Sir Chris, the level of knowledge in our producer base, you and I even had an email, quick email exchange about this. The level of sophistication of information on certain very specific topics in our producer base is sometimes scary. Drill downs, yeah. I mean, we really have people who know their stuff. So listen to this.

I want to send you a note about incentive payments paid to pediatricians for giving vaccines to their patients. As we had this conversation, I said, I don't think they're given specific incentives. Well, Sir Chris sets me straight. You mentioned in episode 1715 that you didn't think that pediatricians were given bonuses. But I can assure you they absolutely are bonused based on the percentage of patients that receive various treatments.

These are often called physician group incentive programs or the less transactional sounding value partnerships. For pediatricians specifically, I like a value partnership. Value partnership sounds good. For pediatricians specifically, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in 2016, pediatricians can receive a $400 payment per eligible patient. If the percentage of children who have had the following immunizations by their second birthday exceeds 80%. I'll just go through the list.

It's diphtheria, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hep B, HIV, hemophilius influenza type B, varicella, zoster virus, the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, hep A, rotavirus and influenza, the flu vaccine. The percentage based calculation is the nefarious part and why pediatricians will kick patients out of their practice. That's so they can keep their percentage up.

Yes, if you have 100 patients and only 79 of them are meeting the metrics, you can kick one that isn't out of the practice and magically exceed the 80% threshold. So when he's talking about thresholds here, this is a signal. This is a signal to a whole bunch of people whose income is based on this. Oh, yeah, it's 70%. Well, we're not going to get our bonuses. Imagine you've got a thousand kids in your practice, 400 bucks per patient. That's golf dues right there.

Now, I believe his wife is a pediatrician. I think that's where he got this information. If he said that, I took that out of the show notes. I'd have to look that up. He has background. He has credibility for this. Yeah, I completely believe it. I completely believe it. So this is part of the money-making scheme. This is a scandal. Where's the mainstream media on this kind of thing? This is scandalous. He's sitting right there. This should be illegal. Put Kennedy in.

He's sitting right there at CNBC, the mainstream media. Let's talk about the roadmaps. But you warned about this. When you were at the FDA, you said because of vaccine hesitancy in this country, because of concerns about the COVID vaccine, you worried about what that would mean for all of these other related diseases and the vaccines that we have. Which vaccines should we be getting and which should we not? Because RFK Jr. has softened his stance.

If you go back and look at what he said back to 2013, he talked about how vaccinating children and trying to cover up any problems from it is he likened it to abuse by the Catholic Church, sexual abuse of children. He said that what the CDC was doing. Do we have that clip? I missed that clip. I didn't hear that, but it's good. I need to find that one. To abuse by the Catholic Church, sexual abuse of children. He said that what the CDC was doing in 2019 with COVID vaccines was vaccine.

He's talked about jailing vaccine scientists in the past. Good point from the troll room. His history with vaccines specifically was using mercury as an adjuvant. That's always been his case. That's how he got interested in vaccines. I don't think mercury was ever used as an adjuvant. It was used as a preservative. No, I think it's used as an adjuvant. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. Preservative. Mercury. Let's ask Chad GPT, because I trust that. They're going to tell you nothing.

I trust that more than anything. Let's see. I believe. No, I really do believe. I do believe. Hold on a second. You can believe all you want. Does it help? Yeah, because I remember us only calling it a preservative. Is mercury used as an adjuvant in vaccines? Isn't it fun listening to me type? Okay, here we go. No. Mercury. This thing is wrong, obviously. Screw Chad GPT. Okay. Thimerosal. That's what I'm thinking of. Thimerosal. Yeah, that's a preservative. Okay, let's continue.

Scientists in the past. Now he sounds a little less strident in some of the comments that he's making, but you don't believe him. Well, I don't think he's less strident. Look, this is a post-COVID environment. No question about it. And I was against the mandates. We talked about this on this show. I was against the COVID vaccine mandates because I worried that it would. This was baffling to me. This is a post-COVID environment. This is a post-COVID environment. This is bull crap.

I don't ever remember Scott Gop... Gop-leap. Ever. Gop-leap. I don't remember him ever being against mandates. He never said anything about it. He's full of it. We followed this guy pretty closely. This is a post-COVID environment. No question about it. And I was against the mandates. We talked about this on this show. I was against the COVID vaccine mandates because I worried that it would breed vaccine hesitancy.

I think what you're seeing now is people coming into the political spectrum, preying on that. And they're going to be more and more concerned about the vaccine. they're deadly serious about the policies they're going to implement. So what could RFK do? And he's committed to this. He's committed decades of his life to this. He's not going to back away.

They could disband ACIP, the advisory committee to the CDC, and issue new recommendations that are non-binding to states, giving states cover to move away from the childhood immunization schedule. They could frustrate the Vaccines for Children's Fund, which vaccinates 50% of all kids in the country. Basically, for example, tying states that want to use that money to vaccinate kids to certain reporting requirements, like reporting on immigration status or religious status for children.

Those are easy things they could do administrative. Now he's just talking in hypotheticals. Now he's going to say they're going to use that to make sure you're not here illegally, the way I hear him speak. I don't know you even hear that. I just hear a bunch of bullshit. For example, tying states that want to use that money to vaccinate kids to certain reporting requirements, like reporting on immigration. Oh yeah, if you want money after, okay, I got it. Status or religious status for children.

Those are easy things they could do administratively, and that would make it very hard for states to take the money. I'm not laying out their road map. They know their road map, and this is their road map. I've been in policy. I know what these agencies can do, and I know what they intend to do. I'm not saying it's their road map. I don't know the road map, but this is the road map. Believe me, I'm Scott Leib, Gottlieb, Gottlieb. I am board member of Pfizer. I got a couple more quickies here.

Who have you spoken with in the Trump administration at this point, or in the incoming administration? You are somebody, again, who served in a Trump administration. What have you had to say to them about this? Well, look, they know my views. I've been clear about them. I've had certain conversations. I talked to President Trump about vaccines in my first term. I don't think that these policy efforts reflect his views as well.

I don't think the president wants to see a resurgence of measles, wants to see a resurgence of whooping cough in this country. God forbid we have cases of polio in this country. He does not want to see that. I think he understood the importance of child immunization schedule. I'm not so sure that people really understand how Kennedy's intentions are going to translate into policy, and how serious he is.

There was an article recently where one of his confidants, Del Bigtree, who's going to be probably brought into HHS, said he didn't get inside the castle to forego his long-held beliefs. They're going to follow through on these. But his long-held beliefs are so incredibly well-known that just making it up, his beliefs are about safe vaccines. He wants the efficacy data, the safety data, which we all deserve. This is what this guy is combating here. And oh, one of his, Del Bigtree.

Okay, so fine, Del Bigtree. Boo, I'm so afraid. Well, you should be afraid because it's going to cost lives. RFK has to be confirmed, right? Are you urging Republican senators to not confirm him? Look, I think that there's skepticism in the Republican caucus, more than I think the press is reporting right now. There's going to be ag state senators that are concerned about his impact on food prices. There's going to be principled pro-lifers who are concerned about his positions on abortion.

And there's going to be a number of public health-minded senators who have deep concerns about his position on vaccines. If you were talking to a Republican senator, would you say that the appointment of RFK could cost lives in this country? I think if RFK follows through on his intentions, and I believe he will, and I believe he can, it will cost lives in this country. You're going to see measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination rates go down.

And like I said, if we lose another 5 percent, which could happen in the next year or two- Hold on a second, stop. He goes into his long tirade about how it's going down. So it's going down with or without Kennedy. So how's it going to go down? So now he's contradicting himself, as far as I'm concerned, the way he's presenting his logic. I was just looking at the Pfizer stock price, and now I understand why he's on the program. I took a little dump. Let me see, to be, let me see.

Yeah, November 5th, it really started to tank. I mean, tank is what? Three- Well, for a company with that sort of market cap, it doesn't take much. Yeah. I see measles, mumps, where tanking is moving down two points. Well, three. Vaccination rates go down. And like I said, if we lose another 5 percent, which could happen in the next year or two, we will see large measles outbreaks. For every 1,000 cases of measles that occur in children, there will be one death.

And we are not good in this country at diagnosing and treating measles. If you look at the outbreak in Ohio, 30- Wait a minute. You got red dots, you got measles, boom. But is this an indictment of the medical community that he just- Promoted? I think so. Which is that the doctors of America are so stupid that they can't spot measles, measles of all things. Yes, measles, measles, red dots. ...country of diagnosing and treating measles.

If you look at the outbreak in Ohio, 30 percent of the kids were hospitalized. You look at the outbreak in Minnesota, 20 percent were hospitalized because we don't diagnose it quickly because doctors- Have we lost the ability to do it? We lost the ability to diagnose it because doctors aren't accustomed to seeing it and we don't know how to manage it in a healthcare system. Wow. Wow. We've lost the ability to diagnose it because they weren't used to seeing it. You got red dots.

Let me look in the book. Seems like measles to me. We need a doctor to check in with us on this because it sounds very strange. This is unbelievable. This is an indictment of the medical profession. The doctors of this country shouldn't be putting up with this crap. They're getting pushed around and manipulated and the pediatrician report we had earlier is a good example of being manipulated because they always make some extra money.

They're mostly checklist doctors in most of the systems we have today. They always ask you the same questions about did you get your shot of this and that and you tell them yes or no. The medical community has gone down the tubes. We need Kennedy. Let's check in with this Dell Big Tree guy. What's he going to do? Remember the CDC appointee is someone who's a very committed anti-vaxxer and I don't say that in a pejorative way. I think he would own that label. Why are you saying it? Wait a minute.

I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just. If he says he doesn't mean it in a pejorative way, does he mean it in a complimentary way? What other way is there? Who is Trump's appointee for CDC? You have to look him up. Another horrible person that's going to stop vaxes. Dave Weldon demands people actually check to see if these things work. Or how about this? Take the liability away so they don't. They're not free of liability for their lousy products that are poorly manufactured.

If you put dog shit in the vaccine and it says vaccine, you can't be sued. I mean, give me a break. This has to stop. Remember, the CDC appointee is someone who's a very committed anti-vaxxer and I don't say that in a pejorative way. I think he would own that label very proudly. He was a congressman when I was at FDA in the early 2000s. He sponsored multiple bills to withdraw the current MMR vaccine.

He sponsored bills to do away with the liability protection that allows companies to bring these vaccines onto the market. He forced FDA to reformulate the existing MMR vaccine to take some of the preservatives out that we use, which ultimately led to an increase in costs of those vaccines. So he is very committed to this too. Wow. The guy sounds like a prince. He wants to make sure these things are tested. He wants to make sure that you can be sued for producing a crappy product.

He wants to get the mercury out of the vaccines and the preservatives. And so he's a bad guy. I'm looking to see if he had... The guy, he's a doctor, if I'm not mistaken. During his time in Congress, Weldon raised concerns about the safety, the safety of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines, as well the safety of Gardasil. He's not an anti-vaxxer. He raised, and this is Wikipedia, believe me, if he had... Right, which is left-wing, left-leaning, always.

If there was any anti-vax talk, it would be in here. But really, what does it matter, Scott Gottlieb? Because according to you, Pfizer is not even in the child vaccine business. People will look at this who are on that side of things and say, of course, that's what Gottlieb says because he's on the board of Pfizer and they're a big vaccine machine. Well, we don't make the pediatric vaccines, so Pfizer is not in that market. This market is GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Sanofi.

There are other companies doing this. You literally make the COVID vaccines and advocated for it to be given to kids under six years of age and even pregnant mothers. How is that not in the child vaccine business? ...said the CNBC lady never. The CNBC people are just pathetic. They just let these guys ramble. This is, of course, CNBC. Everybody who's a stock investor knows that when they watch CNBC, they're getting crap. Yeah, well, here's the point.

It's interesting, but it's still crap when it comes down to actually getting to the nuts and bolts of things. They won't do it. Yeah, we'll leave this with the final clip about what we should do about this horrible Trump and his appointees. You mentioned President Trump doesn't support a lot of these policies, or at least you don't think he does.

What are the guardrails, whether it's Congress, whether it's other cabinet members, that could prevent all of these from happening to the degree that, let's say, RFK Jr. Look, I don't think there are guardrails. I don't want to speak for the president. I think I understand his ethos and I think he has a strong public health ethic as well as the people around him, so I don't think they fully understand how Kennedy is going to translate his actions into policy.

I think some in Congress right now who are deeply skeptical think that they can manage this through things like appropriations providers. That's not going to be successful because, like I said, RFK can go in there with a stroke of a pen, disband ACIP, reconstitute it with like-minded people, issue a whole new bunch of recommendations. He can frustrate the ability to take the money from the Vaccine for Children's Fund, which would impede a state's abilities to vaccinate children.

There's a lot of things that they could do day one very easily, administratively, and I don't think there's a thing Congress can do. And that is dependent upon Congress getting bills through on appropriations bills that would actually tie the hands of CDC and Kennedy, and I'm not sure the will in Congress is there to do that. Have you spoken with the individual senators about this? I've had conversations and I've raised my concerns and I'll continue to raise my concerns.

Yes, I've signed a few checks, a couple of Pfizer checks to make sure... A couple good dinners. Yeah, a little trip here and there on the Pfizer Gulf Stream. A couple of Gulf Stream trips. Yeah, it's all good. A little shopping spree in Dubai, that's always fun.

To me, the way I hear this, Trump's strategy or RFK Jr's strategy really would be, let's go in wrecking ball style right away and get rid of as much of, get as much out in the open as possible, which is what these guys are really afraid of. It's the information, it's not so much about, I don't think Kennedy is going to defund the state's child vaccination. I think you're exactly right. This is what he said he's going to do.

And those clips that you played three or four shows ago, which I like so much, including bringing out all this data that's being hidden from the public and showing transparency that everyone talks a big game about transparency, but then when Kennedy threatens transparency, all of a sudden he's a bad guy and anti-vaxxer. Should we review? You want to review those three quick things? Yeah, I think all three of them should be replayed. Oh, the first one is the advertising piece.

I'm not intimidated by the agencies. I know how they work and I know how to change them. And most of those changes you do not need Congress for. The President, President Trump could have done it, had the power to do it himself. And President Biden has the power to do it himself. And I'll give you an example. With a stroke of a pen, you can change back the rule that allows pharmaceutical advertisers to do direct to consumer ads on television. That's one of the big problems.

That's why one of the reasons we have this entrenched agency capture, not only of Congress, because they control the airwaves, they control the evening news. Seventy five percent of the revenues for those evening news shows are, you know, Anderson Cooper is coming from Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies. So and those companies are dictating content on those shows and they dictate the official narratives. And they're able then to exercise huge control over Congress.

So Congress is terrified of them. But with a stroke of a pen, this is not good for the health of our country, which it isn't. We spend three times more than any other country for pharmaceutical drugs because of all this advertising. You notice that Gottlieb used the stroke of a pen phrase as well. So his and I think stroke of the pen is only mentioned in these three clips regarding advertising. This may be one of the biggest fears that Gottlieb actually has, not for patients, not for children.

But dude, if we can't if we can't advertise on TV, we can't control the media. We can't control the narrative. We're going to have to advertise on podcasts or whatever, whatever. There was a we early on this show, I think around 12, 14 years ago, we played this clip. We couldn't find this clip if we wanted to, although it's always a challenge for you. You're going to start looking.

Yes. There was a clip that that of the one of the first guys who the initial prescription drug advertisement that was done on television for some screwy drug. I can't remember what it was, but the guy who had initiated the whole thing was being interviewed. He was the guy and everyone in the pharmaceutical business was skeptical that what are we going to... There's not that many people that have this disease. Why are we going to advertise this? This is a bad idea. I don't think we should do it.

And so he had to fight it, this guy, because it became legal to be able to do this to advertise prescription drugs. And so they rolled out the advertisement and the sales skyrocketed to such an extreme that he was like the toast of the town for quite a while after that. And he was bragging about how this just changed the whole landscape of the pharma business. And he went on and on about it.

It was just like they didn't expect it when it happened and they just took over the place and it captured everything. They've captured media, they've captured news, the news business is gone. The actual stories about news and the actual stories about health, everything. And you're right about one thing, I can't find that clip. It would be a tough one. Now we move... Maybe actually a lost clip now. Yeah, but the transcripts, I might be able to find something, but that's for a different time.

So now we go to the second most dangerous thing he's going to do on day one, which is open up the vaults, open up the databases. Let's get the information out of the 75 years they wanted to lock up some of this data. I think that was Pfizer, in fact. Yep. So that would be kind of embarrassing. Another thing that I can do is I can open up all the databases.

Right now, all the databases that you can actually check the efficacy and the safety of vaccines, like the vaccine safety database, it's the top. It's all the vaccine records and the medical claims for 10 million Americans from the top 10 HMOs. You can look in there and overnight you can say, oh, this vaccine is associated with diabetes, this one's associated with peanut allergies, this one's associated with neurological tics or whatever.

That database, CDC keeps it in a lockbox, like Fort Knox, and makes sure no scientist is allowed in there. Well, I'll open up that database on day one. You know what? I would advocate for not just opening up the database, put it online so we can run our own SQL queries. Yeah. Well, if you get this stuff out, there's plenty of statistical analysis freaks and everybody in between that will have more medical discoveries than ever if they can do this.

And this is, I think, all three of these clips address a certain issue that have a target where you have a group of people that see that one thing as, oh, my God, it's going to ruin us. Well, this last one is a doozy for the industry. And, you know, I'll also bring all the medical journals, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, JAMA into the Justice Department as soon as I appoint an AG. And I'll say to them, you guys are part of a racketeering syndicate.

You're collaborating with these pharmaceutical industry to lie to the American public about the efficacy and safety of these products. And you're causing enormous harm. And we are going to sue you both civilly for damages. And we're going to sue you criminally unless you come up with a plan right now as to how you're going to stop doing that. So I have like I have a hundred things that I'm going to do immediately. A hundred things. Woo. We only heard three of them. 97 more.

And all three of them are deadly. We're waiting. We're waiting. Yeah, this is going to be a rough go. I mean, they have to, Trump may have to do this. It's going to be great for the show. It's going to be great for us. Unless they find some way to, you know, like you said before, kill Kennedy. Well, then we always have Dell Bigtree. No, well, that's probably they probably put him in immediately and he would seek revenge. That's what he does. This is a problem for these guys.

They're going to have to start shredding. That's the only thing I see. Yes. Well, they've sent out preservation letters to everything and everybody as far as I know. Doesn't help. No. Come on. I want to do a little I have a short sequence here because probably one of the biggest things that people were talking about and you were quite surprised by it.

I was less surprised because I had heard a version of this choke point, choke point 2.0, which came up with Mark Andreessen in the Joe Rogan interview. And you were you were surprised because you had not heard of this. I heard about choke point. No, but not 2.0 with the with the with the debanking with the peps. And we've we got some interesting information from someone who doesn't want to be identified. This is good information. A banker. Yes. I got a lot of information about this.

I also got what really sent me down the road of looking into some of this. We're talking about debanking. Yes. Yeah. Well, in general, what what Andreessen was really communicating and why he was there. And this folds in a little bit to say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss, whereas propagandizing and getting your message out through podcasts is going to be much easier and cheaper, namely free, when you can get onto in front of an open microphone and you have an agenda.

And it started really with a couple of people emailing me saying, why are you bagging on Mark Andreessen? You must be jealous of him. Yeah, I am 60 years old. I'm just fine. My wife has a IRA. We can retire. We can live on on cheese, Bitcoin, Bitcoin and cheese rinds will be OK. I'm not jealous of Mark Andreessen. I don't even think we ragged on him other than his up with a button, which was a tell we should have picked up on.

So I aggregated a lot of information also from some of the people who we trust and who have emailed us about this, particularly about the people, persons of. Was it the pep? It's. What does it stand for again? Politically exposed, exposed people. Yes, politically, of which you could say Nigel Farage was one. There's lots of people who are politically exposed. And what that means is people who because of their political stance could be bribed or could be bribed.

And so that's why there's always extra scrutiny on banks. Not up front. I want to say something very important. I've been saying this for years. Silicon Valley wants to be your bank. They have wanted this forever. This has always been the bottom line. We saw this with Facebook. Facebook tried to do it with D.M. later called Libra. We're seeing it right now with Elon Musk. He wants to be. He's saying it. It's not like it's a secret. They've always wanted to be your bank.

And with the advent of banking just being digital, digital systems, numbers, it doesn't really you know, there's no real money anymore. It's just. And we've seen the ads on television, at least I have, where you have PayPal promoting the idea of using them as your bank. Yes. Using buying stuff from pay with using your new PayPal credit card. Yes. Which is, you know, and PayPal makes a point of not saying they're not a bank.

Well, this is a very good point because it is exactly about companies like PayPal, Venmo and Square, which are also known as fintech fintech companies who sit in between your bank and the consumer. And there've been some we haven't I think we've talked about on the show, but there was some pretty high profile fintech companies that have gone bankrupt and people have all their money in a few. All their money is tied up. They can't get it out. They can't figure out where the money is.

There's very little regulation over this. So I found you probably know this guy, Patrick Boyle. He's a very boring YouTuber. He does this kind of financial stuff. And when you hear his voice or recognize him, and instead of me explaining it, I have some three short clips of him explaining first what Mark and by the way, I'm not against Mark Andreessen. He is right in some regard. And I'll get to that at the end of these clips.

But he is extremely wrong about the first thing he did, which is vilify Elizabeth Warren about for these debankings. He said that she was in essence the one in charge of debanking politically incorrect technology. I'm not buying that this this analysis from that perspective. What did he say? He indicated that she was... And by the way, how can you not buy my analysis when I haven't even started it? No, no, I'm not. Your analysis of her right there. No, the analysis of what Andreessen said...

I'm not talking about your overall analysis. What Andreessen said. He blamed her. No, he blamed her for running the CRFP, whatever that group is. CFPB. He did not. I listened to the same thing you listened to. I did not hear that she was like rubber stamping all these debankings. It's not the way I interpreted it.

OK. The reason why I interpret it that way is because what I've been hearing for years about Silicon Valley fintech firms is that it's always Elizabeth Warren, who's the Sheffer, what's the guy's name? Can't come up with his name, some senator. She's always in there. She's always in there. So, OK, CFPB. But he said it was her agency implying that she is part of the bad people who are trying to stop this incredible innovation. And I need to disclose my own bias here.

I am a big believer in Bitcoin. And the reason if any reason there's no CEO, no one runs Bitcoin, there's no one who's in charge of it. Every other so-called crypto, crypto has a CEO, has an organization. And I don't think you ever want some Silicon Valley person who always wants to be your bank, really running your bank and being in control of the money. Now, here's the analysis of what Andreessen said. And he got it very wrong when it comes to Elizabeth Warren.

Now, we might need to fact check some of what Mark just said. While the CFPB was originally proposed by Elizabeth Warren in 2007, she was removed from consideration as its director by the Obama administration and has never headed it up. Its current director is Rohit Chopra. And I don't know if Mark struggles with face blindness or something like that, but it's not easy to mix the two of them up. Rohit is a 42-year-old man of Indian descent, and Elizabeth is a 75-year -old woman of...

Well, it doesn't matter. It's hard to mix them up, is what I'm really trying to say. I just thought it was funny. Okay. When Mark Andreessen did that big... Remember the stutter and we laughed about it because it was funny? Yeah, as a tell. Neither of us really looked at it as a tell. No, it was too much. It was too much to be a tell. It was more like just a standard stammer. But now that you mention it, we should be...

And we're the ones that are always looking for this, and you catch him, I catch him, we both catch him. We don't both catch him at the same time. But yeah, we both missed it. And just as an aside, I like Andreessen. He was the one who got me the first MTV web server. I've never had a problem with Andreessen, and I still don't have a problem with Andreessen, but he is there for a reason. The timing is uncanny, but let's just remind ourselves with the stuttering tell. What does it do, though?

Basically, it terrorizes financial institutions, prevent new competition, new startups that want to compete with the big banks. I think what Mark is saying, and I may be wrong, is that the CFPB supervises banks, thrifts, and credit unions with assets of over $10 billion, also supervising non-depository mortgage originators and servicers, payday lenders, consumer debt collectors, international money transfer, and private student lenders.

It's in place to protect consumers from being ripped off by financial services providers, but it doesn't yet cover fintechs like Yotta and Sina. Mark accuses the CFPB of being involved in debanking, and in particular, debanking conservatives. This is entirely untrue. In fact, they do the opposite. They investigate banks for discriminatory treatment of customers. He goes on to effectively change the subject entirely to discussing politically exposed persons.

And while that's outside the scope of this video, I do happen to know a bit about that, as I ran a fund for many years. So now we get the explanation of the politically exposed persons, and we'll circle back, there's only a couple more, two more, three more, two more clips. We'll circle back to why Mark was there. And I believe it was kind of hard to tell because Joe started off, you know, they always kind of fade in. And Joe's sort of like, hey, you want to talk about this?

Getting on the Joe Rogan show happens in a couple of ways. You're either invited on, which is typical. People pitch their one guy, the guy in Arizona. They pitch him to be on the Rogan show. I'm sure he gets all those emails we do. This would be a great guy for the podcast. We think the Joe Rogan experience would be perfect for this. Or Joe invites you himself, which is typically what happens with me. And that's usually when someone can't make it. I'll be honest.

Tony Randall. Yes, I'm the Tony Randall of the Joe Rogan show. It's like, someone can't make it and it's vacation, it's holiday. I'm sure he's going to call when I'm on vacation in Italy. You know, it'd be something like that. But that's how you get on. I think Mark Andreessen asked to be on. Hold on to that thought while Patrick Boyle explains politically exposed persons. I'm amazed that Mark runs a multi-billion dollar fund and doesn't understand these rules.

Politically exposed persons are people like politicians, their families and their close business associates. If a politically exposed person, let's say someone like Hunter Biden, wants to move a large sum of money into a bank or an investment fund, the financial institution accepting those funds is required to investigate the source of those funds, which usually involves asking the customer where the money came from.

If they say it came from selling their house or liquidating another investment, you then have to ask them for documents proving this. This can be a bit awkward and embarrassing as your customer often feels accused of wrongdoing. But most people in this position are used to these procedures which are in place to prevent politicians from taking bribes or having bribes passed to their family members or business associates on their behalf.

If Elizabeth Warren wanted to invest a million dollars in an index fund, she would likely receive this sort of scrutiny. She would have to explain the source of the funds. Now in today's day and age, if a politically exposed person wanted to put money in your fund and said that the money came from crypto gains, there's a good chance that you'd be unable to take that money as crypto is widely used in money laundering.

A lot of crypto people get upset when you say this, but financial institutions can get in a lot of trouble if they touch dirty money. So crypto gains or gambling wins will lead to even more scrutiny until a financial institution can be sure that the money was earned, honestly. Okay, so these are just regular old rules that the banking industry has to adhere to. The reason why Mark Andreessen is angry is because he invested in a lot of crypto companies during the blockchain extravaganza.

Oh, it's blockchain. Oh, blockchain is everything. We had several years ago this incredible rise of what the Bitcoiners call shitcoins and just all these tokens that would skyrocket and then they get dumped right away, people making tens of millions, people losing money, people all over the place. And a lot of these companies were invested in by Andreessen Horowitz. And so with all of this starting to become a problem, the government started looking at his investments.

I don't think necessarily debanking his founders, maybe, but it would have been 100% in conjunction with not allowing these fly-by-night operations that are just selling tokens willy-nilly everywhere with the ability to inflate the supply and do whatever they want. And he's mad because the true corruption took place in a company that he passed on, that he did not invest in. And so he's not wrong about that. How much are you aware of what happened with the FTX crisis?

Because one of the things that happened with the FTX thing was it was revealed that they were, I think they were the number two donor to the Democratic Party. Do you think that that is sort of a preemptive measure to avoid any of this debanking and be financially invested in these people so they're not gonna come after you? Yeah, that was explicitly his strategy. That was Sam's. Yeah, Sam's approach was just pay everybody.

So Sam's approach was just, I have $8 billion of customer funds that I can use for whatever I want, which was the crime. And then a big part of what he used, some of it he used to hang out with celebrities and get Tom and Gisele to endorse FTX and the Larry David commercial and all this stuff. But a lot of that money, something like $150 million of that money went to basically just pay politicians.

And a lot of that money was paid to politicians with no compliance at all with all the campaign finance regulations that the rest of us all have to comply with. And so the money was just shotgunned out the door. How come they don't have to comply? Well, it was illegal. Because he was breaking a law. I mean, to be clear, he was illegal. Now, a very funny thing happened, which is when he was indicted by the US government, they ended up not charging him on campaign finance fraud.

So that's what, and he's right. He's absolutely right. We followed that money trail through his parents and through his foundations and all this paying off and politicians were running around, sending back the FTX tokens. We don't want them. So he's absolutely right that they did nothing on the Democrat side. Of course, with a Joe Biden run White House and agencies, they did nothing. So he's right about that. But he's really exaggerating it now.

But there's a reason because there's a little change that happened last week before he came on Joe's show, whether he was invited or asked to be on. Now, I'm going to take Mark at his word that he wants to have the CFPB shut down because of this debanking issue that he possibly misunderstands.

But Mark unfortunately missed this press release on the CFPB website that came out about a week before his Joe Rogan interview about how they're going to crack down on illegal debanking, which I'm sure he would have been delighted about. Oh, and there's another bit in there about how they plan to supervise the largest fintech companies. Now, maybe Mark's firm doesn't invest in fintech firms and he didn't hear about this new development a week before he was on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Let's take a look at his website. Oh, look at that. Synapse. That's a fintech, isn't it? And there's loads of fintechs and crypto stuff on the list. You know, the kind of stuff that American consumers might need to be protected from. They should probably remove Synapse from their list of investments, though, because it did go bankrupt. How would Mark not know about these investments? Frankly, it's all over his website. Does he not listen when he's sitting in the meetings?

Here's a blog post on his company website from 2021 about fintech cozying up to the creator economy. Oh, look, a video link. Oh, come on, Mark. The YouTubers know how to cover their tracks and you're leaving everything up on your website. So this is exactly what was happening in 2020, 2021. The Web3 economy, all these tokens, creators were going to get paid. It was all going to be creators. It was all going to be fantastic. He does not want the government meddling in his new fintech affairs.

And I can't blame him because Silicon Valley wants to be your bank. This is why he popped up and this is why he's calling for the head of the CFPB. So it's a little disingenuous what is going on here. And I think that the CFPB, their charter is to make sure that consumers don't get ripped off.

I think we have also perhaps confused Elizabeth Warren's consumer protection with the consumer financial protection board because we're always talking about these phone scams and that was something that she was supposed to stop. I just feel that we need to be very... I think you're dead right. We need to be very careful about rah rah rah go Mark Andreessen because I personally don't want him and his crypto fintech companies being my bank. I don't think it's a great idea. It will be.

Well, you don't... Hey, it's Don Jr and Barron who were advising Trump on this stuff. You know, what did they start before the election? Oh, the Trump cyber crypto lending platform something or other. None of this is good. I'm very skeptical of that. And now you've got guys like David Marcus coming out.

It's like, well, now that Mark blew the lid off of it, I might as well tell you how the government took down Facebook's DM, now Libra, which we both were like, we don't want Facebook running the money. Of course not. No, no. So let's just be careful. Let's be careful about, you know, hating on all this stuff. And remember, it is the PayPal guys coming in. There's a lot of PayPal and money people, particularly Elon Musk, who I wonder if he's going to use some...

Everyone around here is calling me. I hear XRP. Elon's going to use XRP for the X money. I hope not. What's XRP? It's another shit token. Oh. Yeah. Like you've got XRP, XLM. XRP actually has done a lot of work to integrate with the banking system. But still, you don't want Silicon Valley guys running your bank. I just don't think it's a good idea. I'm a little old school that way. Can't believe I'm saying it. I keep cash. So I'm a big cash guy. I think cash is king. I know. Cash is king.

Yes. Well, the stocks are good too. Stocks and cash. And Bitcoin, but that's just me. I don't have Bitcoin. No, I know you don't, but I do. It's just too... I think NVIDIA is better. Yeah. That's just me. Yeah, that's fine. We can disagree. So, well, we should mention, at least I did some research too on this topic. I wasn't going to go into that depth, but there have been... Debanking is an issue that I guess they are going to try to fix.

But the number of complaints to the various agencies about people who have been debanked, and these are only people that have actually filed formal complaints, is 15,000 Americans. And I bet some of them are PayPal and others. Could be. I mean, I don't want to get debanked by PayPal or by Venmo or by Cash App or by anybody because they don't like us for some reason. So, you know, we... Well, generally speaking, PayPal seems to be very reasonable. They call.

I have chats with them all the time about their new processes and programs. And they're very... I like the company. I have no... We've had zero difficulties with PayPal. I know some people don't like them. I know. But I like them. And we do have the alternative stripe that we use now because of some people that have their bigoted against PayPal. And if they can have their rationale, it's fine with me. I'm just saying... I have not had a problem with them. I like PayPal.

As a point of principle, as a point of, hey, you know, you don't want anybody being able to debank us for any reason from any financial institution because of what we say or what we do. That's what the Consumer Financial Protection Board is supposed to be for. Yeah. And I think a lot of those 15 ,000 are probably about some mainstream fintech companies that have been around for a while. Did you look into any of them? No, I'm not going to go that deep.

I just get a raw number and it's good enough for me. Yeah. Anyway. So we just need to be careful because... When Nigel Farage got debanked, I thought that was... And then, of course, the thing that triggered all this for me was the fact that Melania Trump and Barron both got debanked. Yes. It was written up in her book. And what irks me about that is not that she was debanked, but that she won't tell us who. If you're going to say, I was debanked. Oh, these bastards have debanked me.

I want to know who. Yeah, that is curious. And nobody has gotten it out of her. Who, what bank, what's... I mean, I'm sure if you were a friend of theirs and never got a check from Melania, you could look on her check and say, oh, it's the Bank of America or whatever. Let me check and see if I have a check from Melania somewhere here. But we don't have those checks and she won't say who it was. But I think if you're going to make a fuss about it, make a fuss about it.

Tell us what bank it was and let people look into it. This really bugs me that Melania Trump was debanked and won't tell us who did it. Yeah, maybe we can beat it out of Barron. Barron, do you see the size of this guy? I know, he's 6'9 or something. That guy's huge. And he hasn't even filled out yet. God knows what he's going to be looking like. So besides the debanking issue, I guess my point is, you know, we just got to be careful.

There's open mics everywhere with big audiences and people can come in with their agenda, whatever it is, and we all can go, oh yeah, oh yeah, that sounds right. Well, in Rogan's defense, it was a very entertaining discussion. Of course, this is nothing negative about Rogan at all. At all. But I remember when Malone went on and he was talking all this stuff and he changed the entire narrative of mass formation into mass psychosis. I mean, he changed everything and brought it back to Nazis.

I love Malone. It was a really good theory and he sidetracked it. It was odd. It was odd. That guy's the best. He is pretty good. I mean, he's an op of some sort, but I don't know. If you recognize an op, it's probably a good thing. So talking about ops, I wanted to change to an international topic and discuss Chatham House. Oh, yes. I'm glad you got these clips. So Chatham House is a front organization. It's essentially the Council on Foreign Relations publication of foreign affairs.

Chatham House is, we believe it to be kind of fronting for the intel of the UK, I think MI6. And they have a podcast, who knew? And they talk way too much on the podcast. They talk way too much on the podcast. What happened to Chatham House rules on the podcast? I have no idea. I mean, the CIA has a podcast too, but they seem to be, they seem to have a controlled podcast that they don't, they just don't yuck, yuck, yuck like maniacs.

So they were discussing Ukraine and Trump in one of their more recent podcasts. And I thought it was revealing because, and in advance, there's four clips here. In advance of it, I'll say what I believe is they're trying to do, they're freaked out about Trump. Because everybody knows, even though they don't, Trump hasn't said this, but everybody knows he's going to pull the plug on the, on the, on the... Well, on Ukraine finance. Ukraine finance, finance, finance.

And he's probably going to, he's going to put the pressure, put the screws to NATO and maybe even get out of it if he can. I don't think he's going to be able to do that much in that regard, but they're worried about it. But they're mostly worried about this Ukraine thing because the Europeans, I've decided, are psychos. That's what I was telling Christina yesterday. Get out of there. The Europeans are psychos. They're psychos.

And they just, you know what, they've gotten all of these massive wars from the, you know, back to the 100 years wars, the Napoleonic wars, the World War I, World War II. It's always centered in Europe. These people are nuts. And when you start listening to them, you know, it's all great to listen to a British guy with a British accent sounding so erudite and intelligent about stuff.

But then underneath it, you could just hear, and by the way, I don't have the clip in here, but they do all agree that Trump is not pro-Euro. I'm sorry, pro-EU. He's not. And I don't think he is either. And I don't think he should be. I don't think any of us should be. It's competition. It's a competition. And they're psycho. So let's go. It's a competition and they're psycho. They're psycho. And so here we go. They're going to discuss, these are four clips. They're pretty short.

One of them's only, yeah, they're a minute to two minutes. The first one is the introduction. They're discussing Ukraine, Trump and what's going to happen. Here we go. If Trump comes in and he is committed to, quote unquote, resolving the conflict in 24 hours, how can the EU respond?

And I think the effective response, I think is, we've got to put a lot more money on the table in order to demonstrate, number one, credibility to Trump, that we are going to take responsibility for this conflict, that it is in the European security neighborhood and we need to show them more of the burden.

But that also gives Trump a win because he can claim, the Europeans are moving on Ukraine and looking to take more financial responsibility precisely because of the pressure that I'm placing upon them. And so there is a lot of discussion around raising 100, 150, even 200 billion additional financing for Ukraine in the very short term.

It may not be implemented in February, but I think the Europeans want to plan to put on the table when Trump is in power very early on in late January or indeed early February. I like the term security neighborhood. What's going on in your neighborhood? Security neighborhood. Ukraine's not in the EU. They're not in NATO. No. They're just in around the corner. They're over there. In the neighborhood. And yeah, in the security neighborhood.

Yes. And they, these guys, they see Trump coming in to stop this war and they're, no, but what are we going to stop it for? We can come up with $200 billion of our money or of our stupid taxpayer money that we have at our disposal and we'll put it in there. We can't let this happen. They don't want peace. No, they don't. They simply do not want peace and they will go to clip two. Amita, you've looked a lot at European security and NATO.

Do you think that Europe is shaping up to give a coherent response to this? I think it is when it comes to Ukraine, but I think the bigger issue is that of U.S. leadership in NATO and U.S. leadership when it comes to transatlantic security, because there, I really don't think that there is a single European NATO ally who can take over the baton in that regard.

If we look at some of the key contenders, I mean, Germany, we've talked about, you know, the government has fallen apart, but also it just doesn't have that military strategic vision. It doesn't have the leadership. It doesn't have the concept. It doesn't have the training, et cetera. France, Macron is being held hostage by Le Pen. The UK has had a real-time cut in defense spending, really, in the budget, and it's really only an expeditionary force.

Poland is spending 4% on defense spending, which is great, but it does have retention issues within the military and it's still waiting on capabilities to be delivered. So I think the real issue is if the U.S. disengages, whatever shape that may take from European security and from NATO, who's going to step up to the plate and who can step up to the plate? And there, I don't think there's a single European ally who can do that.

And when we were in Berlin at our conference, the former Dutch defense minister, Kajsa Ollenbrunn, put it quite eloquently, and she was advocating for coalitions of the willing. If we can't, if there isn't a single leader and if trying to do a consensus base is too slow, then maybe coalitions of the willing is the way forward.

But perhaps also the other thing to mention, I think, is on the defense industrial piece, because what we need at the moment is to develop a European defense industrial base, which means European countries spending more on defense, but also spending it in Europe. You know, this is very interesting. Couple of things. First, they are psychos for discussing this on a podcast. And I just looked at, you'd expect the trilateral commission to have a podcast now.

Do all these people have a podcast where they just spew all their stuff? I mean, it's so obvious what they're doing. Second, you know, I've said kind of jokingly that it seems like Trump and Putin and Xi had a Zoom call and went, hey, man, the economy suck. Let's get some war saber rattling going so we can all start our restart or kickstart or boost our military defense industry. And the EU is sitting there going, first of all, we promised there would never be an EU army.

And now they're talking about we need our own defense industry that is, in essence, independent of the United States. And they don't know how to do it. They don't know how to sell it to their people other than fear of war, I guess. I have no idea what they're thinking. And here we go. It's clip three. It gets worse. OK. We are at this critical juncture where we need to have the European defense industrial base. Timothy, there it is.

Do you think Europe can do, can provide Ukraine with a security guarantee if the U .S. doesn't offer that? And actually, am I right in thinking that you gave the proceeds of a prize that you won to Ukraine to buy missiles? Yes, I did. But what is this guy doing? He's from the Andreessen School of Podcasting. Prize that you won to Ukraine to buy missiles. Yes, I did. I didn't quite run for a whole missile. It was high tech drones, which I gave to a battalion.

And actually, I spoke to the battalion commander when I was last in Ukraine in September, and it turned out he was in the Kursk region. Yeah, that was a prize. You're part of the coalition of the willing. I'm part of the coalition of the willing, indeed, individually. So helped by award winning historians. What can Europe do? So I totally agree with Amida. The way forward has to be coalitions of the willing European countries, because by no means all of them are willing.

I mean, Viktor Orban's Hungary is certainly not willing. And Robert Fietze of Slovakia is anything but willing. The big question is to what extent Germany is willing. Interestingly, Friedrich Merz has talked several times, and I saw him in Berlin a couple of weeks ago, about starting with a contact group of Germany, France, Poland and Britain. So he's including Britain in that leading group. The problem is, number one, the situation in Ukraine, as I mentioned last September, is dramatic.

The Russians are advancing on the Eastern Front faster than at any time since 2022. The Kursk incursion is proving extremely costly and difficult to sustain. And only last night, we had a massive, yet another massive attack on the energy infrastructure. So the country is really being ground down. Coalition of the willing. Do you remember the last time that was used as a phrase? Probably not. The coalition of the willing was the multinational force in Iraq during the 2003 invasion.

So I'm only going to presume that they are talking about some kind of multinational force that would be in Ukraine to protect it. Otherwise, why would you use that term? I guess you're going to have to send troops. Yeah, yeah, I think so. That's how World War I started for me. Yeah, yeah. This sort of, like, minuscule escalations. And the next thing you know, the whole world, literally, was shooting at each other. OK. So now we have the last clip, and this clip actually says lunatics on it.

And we've now, I've just literally just printed out, we know who Trump's plenipotentiary for Ukraine is going to be, a former lieutenant general, Keith Kellogg. And what they're going to do, it appears, is to say, we will go on supporting you to some level so long as you sit down and make a deal with Putin. Now, that doesn't mean they're actually going to get a deal, because Putin may not be willing to make a deal because he's winning.

And Zelensky may not be willing to make a deal because that deal would be the end of him politically at home. But nonetheless, that's what the US is going to try. Now, is Europe in this situation, big question, going to say, we're going to do something completely different and go on supporting Ukraine, you know, for as long as it takes to get the deal they want to get? I was just going to say, the answer to that, Tim, is yes, they are.

I think there is a, you know, if you think about the narrative from the EU over the last two years, it's been negotiations will only take place at a moment of Ukraine's choosing number one and from a position of Ukraine's strength number two. And it looks as if neither of those conditions is now going to be met as Ukraine is forced into a negotiation against its will from a position of weakness early next year.

And I think it is in response to that risk, there is a lot of I think quite mature thinking about the need to signal to Trump and signal to Ukraine, certainly signal to Russia that's spending 7% of its GDP on munitions and its military, that we are going to equip Ukraine to remain in the fight and be credible in walking out of the negotiating room if they feel a bad deal is in the offing. And that's why I think we are going to see plans come online very early next year.

I think a lot of this actually will need to pass through parliaments in December if they want the plan ready for January to be able to present a plan that says. Can you believe these idiots? Yes, definitely. They think somehow Ukraine is going to turn the tables and next thing you know, they're going to be in a position of strength. When is this going to happen? How's it going to happen? It'd take forever. If it could, it can happen. They've already killed half their people.

This is unbelievable. These, they don't know when. This is, to me, it's beyond comprehension. Well, I think the real plan is already underway. It's already happening. I can back that up with some clips. The first is Zelensky, who is now, is now, the way I read it, and we'll listen in this clip, which I think is French 24, is signaling, OK, why don't we let Russia have those territories that this was all about in the first place? And we'll just. No, it's all about NATO in the first place.

Yes, I'm sorry, which is what it was all about in the first. But the, we've been talking about a demilitarized zone. And so there would be a zone and then on one side of this zone would be NATO forces and the other side is Russia. But I think it's going to be more into Ukraine for some obvious reasons. This is the latest from Zelensky, whose popularity now is an all time low. People are getting antsy. They're saying, hey, if you don't cut a deal, we're going to, we're going to remove you.

Are they going to do that? Riot. They're, they're, they're. Oh, yeah, well, there's that. Yeah, you could basically riot. Yes, right. And burn down the capital. Yeah, you did it. My Don, one of those things. Yeah, here's Zelensky. It's an option that's never been mentioned before in an interview for the British channel Sky News. Vladimir Zelensky. Notice it's Sky News. So you heard the guy, your Chatham guy saying, oh, I'm putting the UK in there. I'm putting the UK in there.

Yeah, the UK is going to be important in this. In an interview for the British channel Sky News, Vladimir Zelensky suggested the rapid accession of Ukrainian controlled territories to NATO. And here we must not make any mistake. But if we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take on the NATO umbrella, the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That's what we need to do fast. And then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory. Diplomatically.

This proposal has never been conceded by Ukraine because no one has ever offered that to us officially. There's no question of abandoning the territories concerned definitively. But Zelensky wants to take a step forward for the country's immediate security. It's an unexpected development. The Ukrainian president previously refused to cede territory to Russia or accept any kind of frontline freeze.

But Donald Trump's recent statements and the difficulties encountered by the army on the ground rekindled talks of a possible ceasefire. But Zelensky has conditions. The second point is if we speak ceasefire, guarantees that Putin will not come back. We need it very much. Otherwise, he will come back. Otherwise, how we can, how we can go to ceasefire? On September 1st, 2024, Russia occupied over 66 ,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, annexed in 2014.

Or around 18% of Ukraine's territory, which was internationally recognized in 2013. Vladimir Putin is currently opposed to the plan. But the Ukrainian foreign minister asked NATO to invite Kiev to join the Atlantic Alliance at their next meeting in Brussels. So this sounds like Zelensky is already on board. He's been read in. Hey, we're going to have to do something here.

And then the dealmaker or deal breaker of all deals, Boris Johnson, opens his big trap over at the Telegraph with an emergency pod. He came to the offices to do it. They weren't even in their studio. Emergency pod. And he spelled out very clearly what he thinks should happen next, which was probably what's going to happen next. This abominable cruelty for so long now, three years. The only long term solution is to give them that protection.

And the question is, how do you socialize that with the NATO membership? How do you get? And what you can't do is do what the British government is currently doing, nobody wants NATO membership. We can't even talk about it. It's pathetic. It's pathetic. We should be spelling out. And so I get back to my opening answer to you. We should be spelling out the the parameters of the end state for this.

And they have to be a free, independent, sovereign Ukraine that is embedded in Western security architecture. That doesn't mean NATO. That means in the security neighborhood. Oh, for my money, that has to be NATO. I don't see any. I don't see any alternative. Now, you know, what would be the UK commitment? Well, I think we should. I hope this is something that appeals to to President Trump as well. It would be a commitment that is very substantially funded by the Ukrainians themselves.

So I think we should certainly be putting troops into backfill. Absolutely. British troops. Troops in the areas. I don't think we should be sending in combat troops to take on the Russians. But I think as part of the solution, as part of the end state, you're going to want to have multinational European multinational keeping forces monitoring the border, but also helping the Ukrainians. And I cannot see that such a European operation could possibly happen without the British.

We've got to be there. That's a long day's march from the UK sending troops to fight Russians, as I said. But that's that's going to be part of the of the package. I think when it comes to funding the whole thing, here we go, this is 300 billion dollars. The frozen Russian assets. Why on earth haven't we liberated those and started to use them for the protection of Ukraine? In the long run, Ukraine is actually a very rich country with enormous potential.

They will be able to pay back the cost of their defense, just as we did for decades after the Second World War. So, yeah, put your put your troops, put your boys and girls. I mean, boys only, of course, because, you know, women can't do anything. Women are just abused by by politicians. So just put your boys in there. We'll be fine with that. You go sit in Ukraine with your blue helmets on, whatever you want to do.

And then you think you're going to steal the money because Ukraine, Ukraine can pay it back from the money that you want to steal from the Russians. No, I've been waiting to play this clip. Lindsey Graham lays it out very, very clearly. And since 2014, Lindsey Graham has been in this whole push, this whole cabal to take Ukraine's riches. Ukraine is still standing. This war is about money. People don't talk much about it.

But, you know, the richest country in all of Europe for rare earth minerals is Ukraine. Two to seven trillion dollars worth of minerals that are rare earth minerals, very relevant to the 21st century. Ukraine's ready to do a deal with us, not the Russians. So it's in our interest to make sure that Russia doesn't take over the place. It's the breadbasket of really the developing world. Fifty percent of all the food going to Africa comes out of Ukraine. We can make money. Money.

And have an economic relationship with Ukraine that'd be very beneficial to us with peace. So Donald Trump's going to do a deal to get our money back, to enrich ourselves with rare earth minerals, a good deal for Ukraine and us. And he's going to bring peace. And Biden's been a disaster when it comes to containing bad guys. And there you have it. It's always been about throws it. I like the way he throws in just a gratuitous slam against Biden, which really has nothing to do with anything.

It's great. And that's it. We're not going to let the lunatics in the EU, as you call them. We're not going to let them take the rare earth minerals. We've already divvied up. That was the first thing. We've already divvied up the breadbasket. That's all Cargill and all the big multinationals. They have all that now with which we've been starving the Africans. Good job. Give them some AI training jobs. You know, they don't need to eat.

So Boris, the Boris clip is probably the most more relevant than the Chatham House stuff, because Boris is the guy who screwed up the peace deal years ago at our behest. So Boris Johnson is working for us. Yes, yes. And so I think the deal is on. It's a good move, by the way. Boris Johnson working for us. He'll send their troops, not ours. And Biden made a point of that. Biden dropped it, kind of dropped the ball by two. There's a bunch of dead Ukrainians. None of our boys are getting killed.

I mean, maybe we shouldn't be putting it that way because it's like it becomes pretty obvious what we're up to. You know, so it's not us. And now I don't think that Trump certainly won't give up the rare earth minerals to Russia. And it seems that the moves are already being made. I mean, there's a number of things happening in the international market. You know more about it than I do. Russia and Putin is definitely under some pressure right now.

After the ruble tumbled to its lowest levels in over two years, Russian officials scrambled to spread calm. The currency fell as far as 114.75 to the US dollar on Wednesday, a level unseen since March 2022, just after the start of the war in Ukraine. The Russian Central Bank was forced to suspend foreign purchases of the ruble for the rest of this year to prop the crushing currency. Vladimir Putin says there's nothing to worry about.

Regarding the fluctuations of exchange rates of the ruble, this is connected not only to inflation, but also to budget payments and oil prices. There are many seasonal factors. So generally, in my opinion, the situation is under control. There is no reason to panic.

Although senior officials were quick to minimize the situation, blame the strength of the dollar, economists say the drop is down to a mix of factors, including low oil prices, new sanctions against Russian businesses and government spending on the war in Ukraine. Many Russians now struggle to fill their shopping baskets.

Russia's annual inflation rate came in at 8 .5% in October, prompting the Central Bank to hike interest rates to 21%, the highest level in more than two decades, a measure that has yet to halt a persistent rise in prices. The government, meanwhile, is showing no sign of reducing its spending. On Wednesday, it voted to increase its defense budget by a further 30% in 2025. So I think that's where Trump has some leverage. You know, hey, Vladimir. This is exaggerated.

The dollar has gone up so much since Trump got elected. They could do the same report and say it's the collapse of the euro. Yes. However, the oil prices is true, and that's going to go down when Trump starts drilling. No? Yes, that's going to be an issue. But that's an issue in the future. It's not an issue right now. Right now, the Russian economy is actually overheated. That's why you raise interest rates. You don't raise them because the economy is dying. It's overheated.

So the interest rates are going up and inflation is going up because it's overheated. The Russian economy is doing very well. And the reason I say I would be skeptical about this commentary I'm making right now, except for the fact that there's a bunch of these YouTubers and other Americans in Russia, especially in Moscow, shooting film. I mean, there's people out on the streets. The stores are stocked to the gills.

The grocery stores in Moscow right now make our big stores or even a giant French store look sick. But this is an exaggeration. No, I guess. But I think that Trump, when the oil prices start to get suppressed, he'll work it out somehow with the psychopaths that Russia can start selling their oil again. Don't you think? He's got to give Putin something. That would be a great idea. Yeah, actually.

Yes. And Putin would go because they got to set, you know, separate some repairs needed for some pipelines. Minor issues. The Russians have doing quite well for themselves, selling cheap gas to Europe because they got tons of it. We have tons, too. But we have other issues. We were watching, Brendan was over here, we were watching some special from Deutsche Welle about the poorly capped gas wells in the United States and how they caused a fortune to fix.

And some of our oil companies are going to have some serious financial problems. Oh, I'm going to get a lowdown. The oil baron is visiting us Friday. By the way, he, I forgot to tell you. Remember we were talking about North Dakota and the guy from the interior from North Dakota, about all the drill. He says they already have 175,000 acres there have been drilling since 2021. Yeah, North Dakota is loaded. Yeah. Oh, it's loaded. All right. But I'll get some.

Well, he always says Republican president bad for business. Yeah, he's definitely a Trump guy. But in general, it's like Democrats are so much better for business. Much, much higher. I can prove that above everyone. I mean, we didn't have as good a time during the from any president as much as we did during the Clinton years. I mean, that guy made everybody rich. And then just to amp up the pressure, we're opening up a new front there with Russia.

At the feet of Aleppo's medieval citadel, these fighters celebrate the latest victory. By the way, all these fighters, brand new uniforms, completely clean. They've still got the creases in them from the packaging. These guys are well funded. After only a few days of the lightning offensive, the rebels led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahir al-Sham have taken Syria's second largest city from the hands of the Assad regime.

We participated in the operation to liberate Aleppo, to kick out the Iranian militias and to lift the oppression against our brothers in the city of Aleppo. And we're going to clear all of Syria, God willing. Rebel groups have taken control of important sites such as Aleppo's governorate or the international airport. As they entered buildings freshly abandoned by Hezbollah militants, these soldiers ripped down portraits of Qasem Soleimani, general of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

In public squares, monuments of the regime were brought down, like this statue of Bashar al -Assad's brother. After four years of standstill, the rebels and their allies took control of dozens of towns and villages in northwest Syria, most of them without resistance. Many of these places have been left totally deserted, like this town of Saraqeb, a transit route between Damascus and Aleppo.

The operation started three days ago and we liberated the whole western countryside with the hands of Mujahideen fighters. We say to our brothers in the liberated areas, you are safe as long as the Mujahideen are here. In an attempt to slow down the progression of the rebel offensive, aerial strikes were carried out by Assad's fighter planes and Russian jets, prompting the evacuation of surrounding towns.

Iran, Assad's major ally, called for collaboration with Russia to better counter the surprise attack. The regime also announced it was preparing a counter-offensive. Aren't the Mujahideen our guys, traditionally? Aren't those our guys? Well, they weren't technically, no, but we've always been financing them. Yes, and so Aleppo being a very important transit route for the oil. I'm reminded of Mike Morrell. Remember Mike Morrell? Whatever happened to good old Mike?

He used to be on CBS all the time. Well, Mike Morrell, who was, eventually wound up being director of CIA, which is, I think he was... He's always deputy. Was he always deputy? Yeah, I think so. I thought he, at a certain point... I don't think he ever got bumped up. He may have been, maybe have been acting for a while, but he'd never really... Oh, maybe he was acting. Let me see. Let me just check on this. I want to make sure I get this right. If he ever... Asking chat GPT?

No, I'm looking at Wikipedia. Yeah, I know. It's the worst. No, Brennan. Brennan got it instead of him. Right. So he was always deputy. But here's him. Now, this is a while back, but I think he was definitely still deputy then. On the Charlie Rose show, speaking of whatever happened to, after the Charlie robe fell open in front of the intern. Charlie Rose. Here is Mike Morrell talking about Syria. We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. We need to make the Russians pay a price.

We make them pay the price by killing Russians and killing Iranians. Yes, covertly. So you don't tell the world about it, right? You don't stand up at the Pentagon and say, we did this, right? But you make sure they know it in Moscow and Tehran. Here's the other thing I want to do. Here's the other thing I want to do. I want to go after those things that Assad sees as his personal power base, right? I want to scare Assad. So I want to, I want to go after. Can you stop for a second?

Listening to this. Fortunately, there's not enough people older on listening to this podcast, but there used to be a character called Mr. Peepers. Mr. Peepers? Mr. Peepers. And it was a TV show. You probably can catch it on one of the TV over the air, rerun shows, networks. And it was, and the guy who played Mr. Peepers was Wally Cox. And you can look him up and see a picture of him. And Wally Cox always played this kind of a meek. It was exact same voice. That's what it reminded me of.

Well, here we go. Here we go. Mr. Peepers. Let's listen to 1953. Yes. Not many people will remember this. Let's see. It's from NBC. Let's get Mr. Peepers. Oh God. I want to hear him talk. It's not a shame. Yes. But he got married after that. That guy? Rump. Yeah. Let's go after Rump. Okay. That's pretty old. So Mr. Peepers and Wally Cox. I realized that this is Morrell. Morrell is. He looks like him a little bit. He looks like Mr. Peepers. And now that he's talking big shot. Oh, let's kill him.

Yeah. You know, the big, big, let's kill these guys and let them know. We won't say anything, but they're going to know back in Moscow. This is tough talk, you know, and that's why he's always a deputy director. He couldn't. This guy. Now that I think about it, I never thought about this before. He is a Mr. Peepers. As his personal power base, right? I want to scare Assad. So I want to, I want to go after his presidential guard. I want to bomb his offices in the middle of the night.

Well, that happened about two years ago. You remember when his brother in law was. I want to destroy his presidential aircraft on the ground. I want to destroy his presidential helicopters. I want to make him think we're coming after him. Right. I'm not advocating assassinating him. I'm not. I'm not advocating that. I'm advocating going after what he thinks is his power base. Right. And what he needs to survive. Right. I want him to think about this is not going to end well for me. Right.

I want to put pressure on him. I want to put pressure on the Iranians. I want to put pressure on the Russians. I can't believe I'd never seen this before. This guy, this is a psycho. This guy's, that's how the CIA thinks. That's how they operate. Yeah, let's, let's kill a whole bunch of Russians and Syrians. And then we're not going to stand up at the Pentagon and say we did that. No, we're going to let the world know. I want to blow up his helicopters, his airplane, send him a message.

These people are insane. Well, it wouldn't be so bad if we're not dealing with what appears to be Mr. Peepers, a meek guy who talks a big game and doesn't do jack shit. He didn't do any of that. And then, of course, we have Maidan 2 in the making, which is Georgia. There's moves being made. I wish they would stop with this Georgia nonsense, but they're going to, yeah. This is another European Union play. It's like, oh, we want to, we want Georgia to be in the European Union.

And then Georgia has elections. And, and, and, and the new guy who looks like, he looks like a, like a modern day beetle. Have you seen this guy? Very young guy. You know, now as you mentioned, I can, yes, I have seen him. I can see him. I can see an image of him. Yes, he has. I never thought about it. You're right. He looks like Mo or Mo from the Three Stooges. Yeah, yeah. And a bit like that. That's more like it. Exactly. A very young Mo of the Three Stooges.

And he's standing, he's like, no, you know, we don't want, we don't want to be a part of the European Union. And then the, the, the lady who's supposed to get out, she's like, no, I'm not getting out until we have a recount, re -election. It's an election denier. Some waving EU flags. Thousands of Georgians gathered in Tbilisi for a third night of demonstrations against the government's decision to delay EU accession talks.

On Saturday, authorities announced they'd detained dozens of people overnight during a protest that saw demonstrators face off with police, who fired a water cannon and tear gas in a bid to disperse crowds. I should probably mention that last week Tina said to me, who is this Samantha Powers lady and why is she in Georgia? Like, yeah, that's what she does. In the wake of the clashes, Georgia's Prime Minister accused pro-EU opposition forces of planning a revolution.

In the last four years alone, we have seen two attempts from overseas to stage and finance a revolution, but both failed. Today, the opposition's strength is even further reduced. As a result, the third attempt at a revolution will fail too. An accusation rejected by the country's pro-EU President Salome Zurabishvili, who referred to the demonstrations as a demand for legitimate rights to have new elections.

She and government critics argue that the October parliamentary election, in which the Georgian Dream Party clinched nearly 54% of the vote. That's even more brazen than Trump. I mean, oh, there are people protesting, so we should have a new election. There was no call for a new election. I mean, at least we had, you know, it was stolen. No one said we want a new election when we had January 6th. They're going pretty far there in Georgia. Was rigged.

MEPs have also rejected the outcome of the election and are urging for a rerun. Speaking to France 24, Zurabishvili described Georgia's parliament as illegitimate and insisted she would not leave office when her term ends in December. That's going to end well. My mandate ends when the new legitimate president will be elected. It depends on new elections, which is the main demand of the people that are on the streets.

Together with this new demand of new elections, what they want and what they're saying is that they're not going to accept that the Georgian so-called dream tries to take Georgia back into Russia. EU membership is widely popular in the country, but the bloc has put Georgia's application on pause over legislation, including the so-called foreign agent law, voted through by the country's parliament earlier this year. The EU has referred to the law as draconian and pro-Russian.

Yeah, it's just, it's, the moves are being made. Big moves. You know, yeah, they're trying. It's pretty transparent what's going on. You know, they want the, and the EU wants to grab this. Yeah. Yeah. And Romania. And they're doing the same with Romania now. Yeah. What do you do? It's what you do. What do you do? What are you going to do? You got these guys? What are you going to do? And these guys. They're flip-flopping. This seems susceptible to this kind of thing. What are you going to do?

Let's do it. We'd like to do it to Russia, but we can't manage it. We can't even make any inroads there at all. In fact, they have a clip. I think I've got a clip on Putin where the Russian banning gay bars or something. Queer chosen. No, not, no, no, not that one. Where is this clip? Gay in Russia. Gay in Russia. That would be it. I'm just thinking. Russian police have carried out a raid at bars and nightclubs across Moscow as part of the Kremlin's crackdown on the LGBTQ plus community.

Crackdown. Russian state media reports that authorities see smartphones, laptops, and video cameras. The raids come a year after Russia's Supreme Court designated the LGBTQ plus movement as an extremist organization and banned their activities. President Vladimir Putin has touted traditional family values as a cornerstone of his quarter century in power. I love how they insinuate that you can't be gay in Russia. Whereas we know that that LGBTQ LMNOP organization was a front.

That's exactly right. And the way they present this, I think this friend's 24, one of these guys, they present it as though this has to do with the horrible family values. No, this has to do with what we just played about George and everybody else. This is a front organization designed to overthrow the Russian government. Exactly. But heaven forbid we tell anybody that because, you know, gays. The gays, John. The gays. You know, they're sensitive. I was watching.

I was watching a video from a Russian YouTuber, and she was showing all of the American companies that still operate in Russia under all of them. Well, it's all under new names. So instead of Starbucks, it's Star Coffee or something. But there's one fast food restaurant that is still just has the American name. And that's Burger King. I can't believe that they're getting away with that. I think KFC still there, isn't it?

I don't know if it's still called, but Burger King, she just she's in the beautiful mall, by the way, they just show the restaurant. There it is. Burger King in the food court. It's like, shouldn't there be sanctions on Burger King? You know, you're asking the wrong guy. Yeah, I thought we couldn't do that. I thought there was laws against it. I guess someone's got Pelosi must have a lot of Burger King. It's the home of the Russian Whopper.

And with that, I think I will thank you for your courage and say in the morning to you, the man who put the sea in Chatham House in the podcast. Say hello to my friend on the other end. The one and only Mr. John C. DeVore. Well, good morning to you, Mr. Andrew Krill. So in the morning, all ships and sea boots on the ground, feet in the air, subs in the water, and the dames and the knights out there. Hello, hello, hello, Charles. Let me get you there.

2314 for a Sunday. For Sunday, that's high, isn't it? It's 200 low. Oh, I thought Thursdays were high. It's 1800 on Thursday, 2400 on Sunday. All right. Well, it's amazing they're here because it is the thanksgiving. It's the holiday. They should be either on the road traveling back home. No, they're not. They're all in the troll room going, the boy's got to say. I think Jay and Brennan took off for Japan. Oh, and they're all set, right? With Mark and Astrid? They're all set?

As far as I can tell. Yeah. You know, they'd be like, well, we didn't want to talk to you, we just wanted to bother them. She said, they better bother them. They're really selling themselves short. Oh, I gave her a long lecture about this. Good. They're really selling themselves short if they don't go hang out with Dame Astrid and Sir Mark. It'd be a huge mistake. Well, as far as I know, they're going to.

The one thing they're going to check, you know, I always say, well, you can do whatever kind of vacation you want. But I guess Japan is loaded with these new hologram or not hologram, but there's crazy museums where you're immersed. You go in there and you're in a shipwreck and the whole thing's around you. And there's a lot of videos about this stuff. And I guess there's a number of these facilities in Japan. And I said, you definitely have to go there and take pictures. Oh, that sounds cool.

Yeah, there's a couple. There's some cool stuff, I guess. So this is the portion we thank the people who have produced the show. And by producing, I mean people really produce boots on the ground, clips, ideas, insights, experience, finances. All of it is welcome in our value for value model. Actually, I forgot to mention the trolls are in the troll room, trollroom.io. And of course, the modern podcast apps. You definitely want to get one of those.

With what's happening, you're going to see a podcast disappearing. Silicon Valley is going to take care of you. Podcastapps.com. So interestingly, not so controversial choice for art on the last episode. In fact, people loved it. I can say, I don't know what kind of response you got.

We always appreciate the time and talent that our artists return to us in return for the value the show provides, which is not in some kind of Patreon-level scheme or a bundle or a plus or some kind of premium content behind the paywall. No, all the premium content is right here. We give it to you. It's open. Anybody can do with it what they want. Enjoy it. Please just enjoy. All we ask is if you get any value, you send it back to us.

And the farmer's wife brought us the artwork for episode 1716. We titled it Silver Buckshot. And we got a note. We got a note from the farmer's wife. Yes. Which I shall read. And if you haven't seen it, go to noagendaartgenerator.com. You can see all of the artwork that our artists submit. A lot of it is AI. Not all of it, though. Certainly not this. This was clearly put together by not computerized.

And she says, dear John and Adam, I was absolutely thrilled just to hear you guys laugh at the art my boys and I worked on. I honestly didn't think it would get picked. I need to get a better camera or find a better way to scan our homemade art. No, no, this is fine. What you did is perfect. Last time I submitted, the art was solely produced by my 10-year-old. This time, I literally cut and pasted the turkey from the 10-year-old's art and the letter work from the 9-year-old.

That's with the kerning. I really wanted to add more to it. So I also pasted the googly eyes. It took a minute to get one to be lazy eye for the picture. Which, by the way, made the picture work. It was one of the reasons we thought it was just perfect. Well, wait a minute. We picked it first. And then when you blew it up, you noticed the googly eyes. Yes, true. That just made us laugh. Yeah. We're so honored. Unlike other artists, I can't wait to hear the next art segment.

We want to improve and get critiques from y'all. You have no idea how much value I get out of the show. And I'm so glad that I was able to make y'all laugh. Thank you again. The farmer's wife, age 33. Homeschool mom to seven. Seven. Wow. Seven. That keeps her busy. Yes. So that's a homeschool. That's a mom right there. But they already have a artist. Professionally, they've already been published. Published artist. Published artist, yes. At the age of nine and 11. What was the other age?

I don't remember. 10 and nine, I think, yes. It was like, there you have it. That proves homeschooling. Yeah, homeschooling works. And then when you go to the homeschoolers jamboree this year, don't all the homeschoolers get together some time to time and do a jamboree or something? Not that I know of, but. Well, you can say, hey. They do a lot of meetings. There's a lot of, when you're homeschooling, there's a lot of little organizations, usually small.

And they tend to be, some are political, not political, but some are religious, some aren't. And some welcome everybody. The ones who do the best job on field trips, in our experience, when we were homeschooling, have been the Muslims. Oh, really? Oh, interesting. Yeah, and they're inclusive. There's certain Christian groups that literally will not let you get involved with anything they do unless you sign off. Oh, no. And so they're not a very welcoming crowd, to be honest about it.

But the Muslims are, and they do great field trips to farms and factories and everything in between. And they're very well structured and organized. And there's no religion involved. And it's, yeah, that's as far as you get. But your point was valid. Whenever they get together in the coalition of the willing, they can tell everybody, hey, our kids are published artists. So take that. Fact. Fact. Take that, Department of Education. It was good. No, we loved it.

And it was, I mean, it also immediately proved a point that it doesn't have to be slick. Although this was pretty slick, I got to say. This is actually oddly slick. It is oddly slick for what it was. As unslick. It's hard to describe, but it was clearly the best piece. It was like, we kept looking for it. We had pieces we liked. I mean, I liked the, was it Scaramanga? Had the kids chasing a turkey with knives? It was a close second because we do like a gruesome kids with knives and turkey art.

I think we've had that in the past. Yeah. So that was a winner. Capitalist Agenda had a kind of cheesecake, also with a knife, which was kind of nice. I used the Capitalist Agenda mission, Impossible Media with the grinder, grinding at the M5N. Yeah, that was good. M5M and producing No Agenda. I used that for the newsletter. That was nice. Yeah, it was good. Riley came in with some real art. Real art. But okay, so one, who wants the nipples? Yeah, that wasn't going to happen, Mike.

You knew that? That's out. And the toad furkey, it was great. Of course, he's a great artist, but unless you have the word toad furkey under it, you'd never know that it was a toad furkey. Right. Yeah, people make that mistake. That's a common mistake. Yeah, yeah, that was too bad. There's also a girl. You liked the girl, the Trad Thanksgiving with the girl. That's the one you were talking about, Capitalist Agenda.

She's holding a knife and she's going to, yeah, it's a traditional wife, but ready to stab her husband. Because he won't let her have control of her body. Yeah, that's it. Exactly, exactly. Oh, that was, yeah, that's Capitalist Agenda. A lot of them good. And it's very hard on an episode where we are looking for something traditional. It's not easy. And so we congratulate the farmer's wife, homeschooled kids. Good job. And the farmer's wife, of course. What does the farmer do? Is he a farmer?

And what kind of farmer is he? We'd love to know. Send us a note. Send us some produce. Yeah, we want some goodies now. Congratulations to everyone who participated. Of course, a lot of this art shows up in the Modern Podcast apps. Dreb Scott always putting in chapters and artwork. We love it. noagendaartgenerator.com is where you can find all of these submissions. And you can submit yourself. It's open to everybody. It's always exciting to participate in.

Now we want to thank the people who produce this show. That would be the executive and associate executive producers. Of course, we thank everyone who comes in over $50 or more. Under that, we don't do it for reasons of anonymity. And we love the sustaining donations where people just use their PayPal and select an amount and a frequency. And you can keep that going for as long as you want.

This is how a lot of people get on the layaway night ordain program and wind up with one of those coveted rings. By just doing it for years, it helps a lot. Sustaining donations are very important. We kick it off, though, with our first executive producer. And the way that works is $300 above. Executive producer, we read your note. That title is real. You can keep it and use it anywhere show business credits are recognized. Like imdb.com. If you don't have one, you can open it up. $200 or above.

That gets you an associate executive producership. Olympia. Wait, not Olympia. I'm sorry. Quint Quint Wine Newell from Olympia, Washington. Quint Quint Wine Newell comes in with $350 .93. I do not see a note. Do you have a note? I looked up Quint. I looked Newell. I looked up everything. Of course, you should use donation in the subject line to get our attention for these sorts of things. There's nothing. Then a double up karma is in play for you. You've got. Karma. All right. Then we go on to.

You pronounce this Ulrich. Ulrich. Ulrich. Hurricanes. Hurricanes. Get the thing Hurricanes. Hurricanes. Umlaut over the O is the U. No, it's it's kind of in between. Hurricanes. It's not Horkins. It's Hurricanes. I thought it'd be Horkins. Well, it's not Dutch. So I'm just I'm just guessing. I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't say. No. But he says, Dear John and Adam, please accept my contribution for the best podcast in the universe. Thank you for the insights and fun you bring.

This is to celebrate. This is to celebrate your work. Oh, it's also to celebrate to celebrate my birthday. I'll be turning 62 on Monday. He knows Mr. Peepers. Probably Monday, the 2nd of December. Please put me on the birthday list and to submit some talent. I just I like, by the way, I guess we had some notes from some Australian producers. And I like the fact that they're finally referring to their own prime ministers. Elmer Fudd. Elmer Fudd. Yeah, I noticed that, too.

Uh, and by the way, we get a lot of notes from people that we don't read necessarily on the show, but we use for backgrounders for our own enjoyment. Well, not enjoyment, but for our own benefit. Benefits us to have these sorts of background information to express on the show. And to submit some talent, he continues. I just released my first album of A .I. creative music. My concept album deals with the joy of working in software. Joy. Oh, joy.

The joy of working on software products and playing some bullshit bingo. I created this album using my lyrics with my mother tongue. Germany is a Deutschlander. I am using the pseudonym Boltzmann Machine. Boltzmann Machine. And the first album is called Good Krautrock Fashion Arbeit Nutzbar Maschugen. I think I'm close. Yes, Germany's like to put all these words together. He's on Wavelake at Boltzmann Machine. B-O-L-T-Z-M-A-N -N-M-A-S-C-H-I-N -E. Boltzmann Machine on Wavelake.

Value for value music. Beautiful. He's also getting, he's also Bo's Brain A .I. on X. You might want to check him out. There's probably links to all his other stuff. Jingle request. Little girl. Yay. Jobs. Karma for my girlfriend, Eva. Using the Trump jingle. Four more years. Yours, Ulrich. Jobs. Or Ulrich. There you go. Ulrich. You've got karma. Ulrich. Talked all over the karma. Ulrich. You tainted the karma. Yes, he's got karma. Sir Jake and Tom are in Princetown, Massachusetts. Provincetown.

Provincetown, thank you. 333.33, one of our favorite numbers. Happy holidays, Adam and John. Long overdue donation from the Married No Agenda Gays. Ah, yes. Boy, it's been a long time we heard from them. Jake and Jacob or Tom and Tomas. Remember, I had lunch with them in Austin. Man, that's a long time ago. That must be, gosh, eight, nine years ago. We were listening to this year's Thanksgiving episode when, over the course of five minutes, you mentioned two names.

We knew we had to donate to share a funny story of the secret connection that Alec Baldwin and Rene Duresta have. Rene Duresta is the woman who was on the NPR clips, who you excoriated for her analysis of how the modern propaganda machine works, if you recall. No, I don't recall.

I mean, I do recall, but I don't recall the analysis of how modern propaganda— What did she say that I— No, that was about podcasts and how they kowtow audience capture and that's how they keep their views up and how they make their money. So you don't remember any of this? It was only two shows ago. I vaguely remember it. Oh, wow. Well, I got a good memory, but sometimes my own analysis is not worth remembering.

Okay, well, Rene Duresta was also involved in the deception in the Alabama Senate race that Reid Hoffman did. Oh, yeah, yeah, she. Yes, yes. Okay. Yes, so she was involved in that under the guise of research. Yeah, okay, fine. So Alec Baldwin and Rene Duresta, back in the early 2000s, Tom or Thomas spent the summer living in a small New York apartment while working at a summer internship in college. We had squeezed five of us into a small third-floor walk-up to save money.

That's right, five people, two bedrooms, one bathroom, one dog. Of my four roommates, the two guys were friends from college. The two girls? One was Rene Duresta. The other? Alec Baldwin's current wife. Lots of funny stories. Hilaria? Yes, lots of funny stories to share if and when we make it to a meetup. Oh, we want these stories. We want stories, man. Don't worry, we'll keep you. Hilaria. I'm going to give those guys karma for that. Wait a minute. What?

So Rene Duresta and Hilaria were both in broommates with a bunch of other guys in this situation? And a dog? And a dog? Who knew? The No Agenda Married Gays knew, and they're going to send us a note and tell us more. You've got karma. Because that's cool. That is an interesting connection. Indeed. Thank you, guys. That's pretty, oh, that is good. Surplus. Surplus in India, what? Indialantic? Indialantic, Florida? Indialantic, Florida? That's the name of a town? It's Indialantic.

It sounds like it's Indialantic. I think it's Indialantic. Uh, 333.33. He sends a note in, paper note, because he sent a check for 333. There's a title change coming up for him later in the show. Greetings, John and Adam. With this donation, I have reached the baronet title. Nice. Accounting included. A fun fact for John. His wedding day was August 8, 1988. 88888. This was also the date of the first ever game, game, oh, game under lights at Wrigley Field, Chicago. Wow. Oh, wow.

Boy, let me write that down. Thank you, gentlemen, for creating a phenomenal show. Sincerely, surplus to requirements. Okay. Nice. Uh, Aditya Trimurti. She sounds like she, well, she's from either India or Indiana. I don't know which one. $300. That's India. That would be India. Aditya. Well, thank you, Aditya. This is our second. She must be Brahmin. She's got a credit card. My donation. As much as I can afford. No jingles, no karma. Well, thank you, Aditya. We appreciate that.

Actually, it's my, but she says no jingles, Ann. Yeah, I'm just guessing she meant no karma. Elizabeth Borazon. Ah, Borazon. Yes. She's an old favorite. She's been with us forever. Dane Beth. Tucson, Arizona. And she's only 30. 222, 22. She's a row of ducks. Hi, old boys. Here's my annual birthday gift to myself. 12-2 at 2. She was born on 12-2 at 222. Wow. Thus, 222.22 donation. It should actually be 12222.22. It's okay. We'll let her slide. We'll let her slide. Election day karma works.

My boss's margin of victory was the folks who voted in person on election day. Oh, yeah, it was a local election. Oh, okay. How weird is that? She says with a capital weird. A reminder, slaves. The 805 rooftop meetup in Golita is this Thursday, 12-5. Golita? This is a Golita in Arizona? I guess so. We'll toast the last four years. Dane Beth, the Baroness of Baja, Arizona. Yes, we are in the last four years of the season of reveal.

And there's Eli the Coffee Guy from Bensonville, Illinois, 212 and a penny. Gentlemen, thank you for an excellent Thanksgiving show. Also, thank you to all the No Agenda producers who sent us kind messages this weekend complimenting us on our new and improved website. We have a site-wide sale going on through Monday, Cyber Monday. So visit gigawattcoffeeroasters.com and grab some coffee. Stay caffeinated. Eli the Coffee Guy. Anonymous is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 210-60.

John and Adam, Adam and John, please consider this my long overdue de-douching donation. You've been de-douched. I would like to remain anonymous, but also wanted to tell you that you're both awesome. Okay. Yeah. Love the show. Keep up the great work. Thank you, Anonymous. Danielle Williams, Mount Shasta, California, 210-60. Also associate executive producer credit for you. Says, I couldn't listen for a few shows and I really missed you guys. So here's some treasure to say, thanks for the show.

It adds a lot of value to my life, which is all we ask for. Thank you, Danielle. And finally on our list, this is a short list that is a short donation segment. Linda Lou Patkin in Lakewood, Colorado, of course. She asks for a Jobs Karma for a resume, she says, that gets results. Visit ImageMakersInc.com for all your go-to executive resume and job search needs. Almost got through it. This is ImageMakersInc with a K. Work with Linda Lou, Duchess of Jobs and writer of resumes.

Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs. Let's vote for jobs. That's it. That wraps up our executive and associate executive producers for episode 1717. Thank you. You all have those credits now that you can run off to LinkedIn or imdb.com immediately to claim them, put them out there so everybody knows that you are an executive or an associate executive producer of the best podcast in the universe. I will be thanking everybody $50 and above in a little bit.

And also one more time, thank you for those who are sustaining us with your sustaining donations, any amount, any frequency, go to noagendadonations .com. That's noagendadonations.com. Thank you for supporting 1717. Our formula is this. We hit people in the mouth. There was a bit of a bit of a reveal in Chicago that took place, which is kind of interesting for the rest of the country. This is the incredible scandal of the migrant housing. I don't know if you followed this at all. A little bit.

Because this is, of course, something that's taken place in all. This reminds me a bit of the PPP loan scandal where all the rich people who had companies were getting loans from the government. They didn't have to pay back during COVID. Really was quite an enormous. It was a total scam. Here's the lead in. Consider these numbers. More than 6,000 people still live in city-run migrant shelters. That means costs are still adding up.

Since August of 2022, the city of Chicago has spent more than $400 million, according to the city's spending website. Nearly $253 million went to one private company, Kansas-based Favorite Healthcare Staffing, which staffs the shelters. Another $76 million went to Equitable Social Solutions. That company partnered with another called Reloshare, which helped identify and sign lease agreements with property owners of the buildings that eventually became the migrant shelters.

That's where a number of those leases are. But when we asked the city months ago for copies of these lease agreements, we were given just nine out of 27. The use of these private companies has helped mask from public view where the public dollars have flowed. What we didn't know until now is how much the property owners of the migrant shelters were earning. But thanks to a new lawsuit, we're being provided some more clarity.

And this is where it gets super interesting because, man, all you had to do was buy a property, get it financed, and then just have your buddies on the inside of any city in the United States give you the contract, which is exactly, if you recall, why the De Follock family in the Netherlands, remember the family split up and there was a feud within the family. They own all these hotels in the Netherlands, and one of them was basically dealing with the government.

And they were taking all kinds of money, way in excess of what the hotel rooms actually cost. Do you remember that? Yeah, vaguely. Well, the scam is everywhere. A lending company filed this lawsuit last month against two Chicago developers, alleging they did not make it clear when they signed a loan agreement that the building in the West Loop would be used to house migrants.

What is not in dispute is that the owners of the Ogden Shelter are paid $150 ,000 a month by ReloShare as part of a use agreement. That means in a year's time, they'd receive more than $1.8 million. The lease agreement also calls for additional payments of up to $400,000 if the number of migrants inside the Ogden Shelter exceeds 650. The latest figures show more than 700 people still live here. If there are public dollars involved, shouldn't the public know where they flow?

100 percent. Back in March, Alderman Andre Vasquez, the chair of the City Council's Migrant Committee, told us aldermen themselves have had a hard time accounting for all the spending. I guess that's still a question. We attempted to ask Mayor Brandon Johnson about this at the time. He said this. We're meeting you right where you are. Were it not for this new lawsuit, the public would have no idea how much these property owners are earning. All right, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you.

We pressed the mayor about this last week and asked if he would consider adding the information to the city's website. He said this. We have given an accurate account of how dollars have been spent. That's it? Is there anything that would preclude your administration from sharing that level of detail? There's no information that has been kept from you.

Johnson then reiterated talking points he's made before, how he's renegotiated contracts to save taxpayer money, and how Congress has failed to provide additional financial relief. He also doubled down incorrectly, stating that all spending information is available. That information is available to you, sir? Not all of it, though, is, sir. I mean, that's the point. Can you give me a specific example of what's not available?

The Ogden Shelter in the West Loop, that's what is spelled out in this lawsuit, that they get $150,000 just for being the property owner per month. Nowhere is that available on the city's spending website. My question, again, is simply, is there anything that would preclude you from including that level of detail? You guys have said you're transparent. Why not show it? All of the information related to the spending of this mission is available. What a scam.

There's, you know, this is going, like you said, because it was in Holland. I want to play, this is, I want you to, do you have more clips? No, no, that's it. Oh, well, I want to play this clip that, I was told this would be a good clip to interrupt you with. I want to play this because this is, this is Starmer. Oh, yes, yeah. Talking about immigration and what the Tories did when they were in office.

This, I'm wondering now, after you play this stuff about Chicago, what kind of a worldwide phenomenon are we dealing with? It almost seems as though the borders were left open on purpose, just for the purposes of gouging the taxpayer. What the British people are owed is an explanation, because a failure on this scale isn't just bad luck. It isn't a global trend or taking your eye off the ball. No, this is a different order of failure. This happened by design, not accident.

Policies were reformed deliberately to liberalize immigration. Brexit was used for that purpose to turn Britain into a one nation experiment in open borders. Global Britain. Remember that slogan? That is what they meant. A policy with no support of which they then pretended wasn't happening. I think it, I think it certainly was a global phenomenon.

And in the United States, I'm pretty sure the way the city of Chicago did it, and most of the cities, is they put one of those migrant resettlement NGOs or non -profits in the middle, and that's where all the shenanigans take place. It's got to be that. I think it's global in the sense that it's all Northern Hemisphere. Yes. Global. This isn't going on in Africa or Paraguay. Yeah, where the migrants not typically going to Paraguay or Africa. Hey man, I'm not going to go there. That's no good.

But this thing, because of these scams, the Roosevelt Hotel right now is a big point of information that everyone's worried about. The entire Roosevelt Hotel was turned over to some, I can't remember some investment group. It's out of the country. I can't remember what country it's from. Oh, really? I didn't realize that. It's not even American owned. And for $220 million deal, the whole hotel is filled with immigrants. The illegal aliens, as we used to call them.

And this is part of a giant scam. Yeah, it was sold in February. And let's see who owns it now. Oh. I can't tell that quickly. But it's been in a number of different hands. Yeah, the current hands are out of the country. But it's like, this is going on everywhere. And it's, and who's paying for, this is a taxpayer gouge. Yeah. I mean, I can see where Vivek and Elon could take $2 trillion out of the budget. Because of this sort of thing.

Sure. But will they do anything with the defense department? No, nothing's going to happen. The defense department is what we're. Talk is cheap. Doge is going to do it, man. Doge. Doge, baby. Doge. Going to take care of everything. It's going to be great. It's going to be good, man. You're just jealous of Elon. Here's a story about the, well, I do have, well, I want to save the climate change. Unless you have climate change stuff. How about the anal clips?

Whenever you bring anal clips, I'm always excited. Yeah. That stands for analysis. Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood your labeling. But we can play the, this is NPR. They got this one guy they bring on is Ron something or other. And he comes on and he's got this very distinctive voice. And he, for some reason knows everything about everything. And so they ask him to analyze things. And in this case, it's about the Biden leaving and the cabinet and tariffs.

And here we start with the, I believe the first clip is Biden. The Biden administration has made some moves in its final days. It helped broker a ceasefire deal between Hezbollah and Lebanon and Israel. And it's trying to bolster Ukraine against Russia before Donald Trump takes office. And PR's Ron Elving joins us, Ron. Thanks for being with us. Good to be with you, Scott. A couple of final pushes in two major international conflicts.

What is the Biden White House hoping to leave for the incoming Trump administration? They know perfectly well that the Trump administration is going to set its own course on these foreign crises as on so many other matters. But the Biden administration has a responsibility to leave its allies in these crises in as strong a posture as possible.

So in Ukraine, we've seen the Biden White House, green lighting, greater use of long range US weapons against Russia, trying to shore up Ukraine's defenses and possibly bolster their negotiating position. If things are going to turn in a talking direction, Trump is assumed to have less commitment to Ukraine than Biden. But this is also an area where Trump has somewhat less support among Republican senators. We'll see how that goes.

The Biden interest is also in having something to say in the face of critics who will say they did not do enough for Ukraine or in some cases that they had done too much. In the Middle East, how can you supply Israel with weapons without taking at least some responsibility for how they're used? The ceasefire between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah may buy a little time and further isolate Hamas in Gaza. But it leaves open the question of Iran and its role in all this.

I consider that to be a mediocre analysis. But OK, let's go to part two on tariffs. OK, part two. Let me ask you about the steep tariffs that President-elect Trump has been promising. Not just on China, but Canada. President-elect? What do you call it? Get the marbles out of your mouth, NPR. Let me ask you about the steep tariffs that President-elect Trump has been. President. This guy is falling over. President.

Promising. Not just on China, but Canada and Mexico, who I think a lot of Americans wouldn't consider threats to national security to the United States. It's been a long time since we sent troops against Mexico or Canada. By and large, they've been friendly neighbors, major trading partners. But in Trump's formulation, they've been bad neighbors, because deadly drugs and too many immigrants have crossed the border in recent years. Now, Trump has been beating this drum at least since 2015.

Mexico's President, Claudio Schoenbaum, got on the phone to Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau got on a plane to Mar-a-Lago for dinner and possibly some deal making this week. Possibly. Both he and Schoenbaum are intent on defusing this crisis early and avoiding a trade war. Trump certainly seems serious about these threats, but he surely knows too that there are inflation risks in these tariffs, especially on food and energy. So that's standard talk, nothing new.

It's NPR trying to keep us up. And so I don't think they do a very good job. No. So last, we have the cabinet analysis. Votes for House seats are coming in. The final count looks to be narrow. What does that mean for House Republicans who want to begin with a lot of business in January? They better all show up because, well, look, you recall that two years ago, it took House Republicans 15 rounds of voting to elect their leader, Kevin McCarthy, as speaker.

It was tough for McCarthy because his majority was so slim, fewer than 10 seats out of 435. Well, current Speaker Mike Johnson's margin, the first week of January 2025, now looks even slimmer, maybe 219 Republicans to 215 Democrats. That means two defectors could produce a tie and a loss. It's been noted by a few people that Trump's cabinet this time around is politically diverse. You have Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., supports abortion rights, Remers, pro-union.

Scott Besant once held fundraisers for Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. Oh, no. Does this pretend a different second term? You know, you mentioned Scott Besant's past history helping Democrats. Trump himself had such a history at one time. But Besant also raised some eyebrows in the Republican Party because he's a gay man with a husband and children. RFK, Jr. may shock some Trump supporters as a pro-abortion rights Secretary of Health and Human Services.

And we are hearing some protest in Trump world. Also, you mentioned Chavez de Remer. She voted for a bill to make it easier for workers to form or join unions. That's anathema to many Republicans. But then she was backed by the Teamsters. And you remember the national Teamsters leader, Sean O'Brien, at the Republican National Convention. This is a cabinet to please Trump's own heart. Unpredictable, mediagenic, camera friendly, and TV savvy. And above all, loyal to Trump.

Brian Elvey, thanks so much. So this thing, somebody brought this up on one of the shows. And it's like, I think it was, I can't remember which one, but it would. But the person said, why do they keep harping on this loyal thing? What are you going to, who are you supposed to pick for these jobs? People that are disloyal? I guess. Hey, well, that's good. That's a great pick because he's disloyal and he's going to stab you in the back. That's what we want. You always pick loyalists.

That's what you do. Why is it they make a point? Oh, loyal, loyal, loyal. Yeah, because that sounds more like a fascist dictator. And it's all, it's all positioning and propaganda. And unfortunately, I've received so many of these sad notes after the original producer, Dan, about his wife or partner who tacked that note to the back door. Like, get out, get out before Thanksgiving. Are these people not hearing this diverse cabinet that is being chosen? Because here is a note from Danny.

Just listen to yesterday's show. The note written by Dan's wife could have been written by my wife. Liz and I have been married for 29 years this month. I'm not sure we'll make it to 30. Yesterday, I made a big mistake by posting a link to this in the family text group. That's one of those text groups we were talking about.

And so here's the text of the post on X. When Congress asked President Washington to declare America's first National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving, his proclamation of November 26, 1789 noted, quote, it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor. We do well to remember that today. Have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving. Well, that was his note?

Yeah, well, that was the post that he posted. Yeah, and that's offensive to his wife? Let me continue the note. My only intention was to share the message. I wasn't even thinking about who it came from and that it would be received as an insult. You see, it was posted by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

My wife made it clear that I had just crapped on her family when I did that because it came from Mike Johnson, who she says wants to take women's rights away, plus everything Dan's wife wrote, almost verbatim. We still had Thanksgiving, but I, for the most part, said nothing at the gathering. This is rampant. And then a note from RJ. I'm just reading these because they're beyond belief. I want you to read these notes. Nobody sends them to me, which is fine. They can't spell your last name.

They don't know how to spell it. It's good. He sent it to Adam, and he loves reading notes. I do, actually. But I'm searching, like, how can we help our producers to shake their family members, their wives, in this case, sister, out of this delusion, this derangement, that they think that these people are going to take away women's rights. Can I interrupt this next read with a couple of TikTok videos that might help? No, let me do the read first.

Do you think it's important to do the TikTok videos first? It was just a timing thing. It goes either way. Well, go ahead. Let's do it. What you got? Well, since you're talking about these sorts of women, I want to play this one. Wait a minute. Do you think that these women who are, in essence, divorcing, maybe not illegally, but divorcing themselves from their husbands and from their families, that they're influenced by these TikTok people? I think they're influenced by the TikTok, yes.

Okay. And the media. Okay. And I don't want to say, other women can listen to this, what I'm going to say here, and say, well, you're a horrible person. I think these women are weak-minded. The women we're discussing are weak-minded and weak-willed individuals who really can't think for themselves. And it's kind of a shame that they're that way, but they were raised that way. And they take on all sorts of forms. And this one here, I got two of them, actually.

I've got the white women rant, which would be appropriate. I think we severely underestimated the amount of women around us who will never be able to stop seeking the approval and validation of the white men around them. And y'all really expose yourself with the results of this election. These white women who voted against our interests, these are the women that we went to high school with, that we were best friends with in college, that we played sports with our whole lives.

But they chose to listen to their dads. They chose to listen to their boyfriends or their husbands. They chose to put the interests of the white men around them in their lives above the interests of women, above the interests of minorities, above the interests of oppressed people. I will never be able to wrap my mind around that.

Oh, you can be a highly educated woman, see how women around you are being treated, see how minorities around you are being treated, and still choose to value the opinion of the white men around you the most and vote for their interests. One of the most important women in my life married a rich white man, and she chose to vote for his interests instead of the interests of her three daughters.

The silence from all of these women right now who could not bring themselves to vote for Harris, to vote for another woman in this election, is shameful and we will not forget. So does she ever explain what exactly the issue is? Is it all the... She's a woman. By the way, this is an attractive girl. She's not like a, you know, a fat girl with red hair. Wow, you just insulted a whole bunch of people in one go. You didn't have to add the red hair. A fat girl with red hair?

There's not one that listens to this show. When I say red hair, they know what I'm talking about. Now I'm not talking about a redhead. Oh, okay. I'm talking about a fat girl with red hair, and that red hair is like purple, actually. So it's not one of those TikTokers. This girl's just reasonable looking. You wouldn't think that she's this radical. She's white, which makes it even weirder. And then we have the... Okay, I'm sorry I did that.

And now we have the free advice girl, who is very similar in her approach, except that she's not a sexist as much as the other one, but it's the same kind of craziness. So here's what you're going to do in this last holiday season we have before a Trump presidency.

Whenever you travel, whether that's for Thanksgiving or anything else during this time, you are going to stop at a store that is not in the town where you're from, and you are going to go and you will purchase a phone and a minutes card with cash. You will then take that phone and wrap it in the most obnoxious Christmas wrapping paper you can find with a really pretty bow, and you're going to give it to somebody within your circle who is at risk of having to flee.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who find themselves within that demographic now. This is the perfect gift to them because you are giving them a burner phone that people would have a very difficult time tracing back to them should they have to flee. Take full advantage of the holiday season where we can gift our friends things that might incriminate them should they have to buy it themselves. Here is RJ's note.

I have a sister that lives in North Carolina, and when she found out that me, my mother, and my stepdad voted for Trump, she texted the entire family and said she would not be visiting us for Thanksgiving or Christmas. She spouted the same BS about how none of us care about women. She is a lino. New term, John, a lino. Have you heard of a lino? No, no. Lesbian in name only. A lino.

Wow. I say this because she made the choice to get an abortion several months ago after a reckless relationship and blamed Trump for having to drive six hours to kill her baby. She lived in Arkansas at the time. I've tried sharing my source information with her to clarify some of the points that she was attempting to make. A lot of material from your show, which is, as she calls it, two old right -wing boomers. Hey, I'm the face of Generation X. Don't call me a boomer.

She has been so brainwashed into believing this crap by the M5M that she now has blocked everyone in the family except for my 20-year-old son. This is only because he's too afraid to mention that he voted for Trump because he doesn't want his aunt to disown him. Uh-oh, busted. I hear about this stuff on your podcast, but I never think it's going to affect me personally.

But the talk videos that John played last week could have literally been my sister's TikTok account, and I would not be surprised. She said all the same stuff. At the end of the day, all I was able to tell her is get back in touch with me in six months and see if she still feels the same. However, she has already said that anything good that happens with Trump in office is going to be due to policies that Joe Biden put into place. They just take a while.

Please, Adam, pray for these disillusioned people. I will, I do. There needs to be an avenue for a healthy dialogue and education for all Americans. I am praying that more sane people move to podcasting, and I thank you for doing all the legwork to continue to grow and expand the platform. The good news for me is that I had bought her a ham radio, the one you recommended for Christmas, and now I have a new ham radio. Thanks, Trump. God bless from RJ. Ah, so it may just be TikTok.

Maybe TikTok is the problem here. Yes, but the TikTokers are getting their perspective from someplace other than TikTok necessarily. Well, you know, the way the TikTok algorithms work is the minute you are in a particular... Oh, yeah, no, what you're going to say, yes. If you're going to just blame TikTok and you don't want to blame the mainstream media, what you're saying, or you're going to say, yes, I have to agree 100%, and I said 100%. You did, loud and proud.

Is because they are taking these stupid opinions that are bigoted and sexist and everything in between and packaging them to people who are lapping it up like idiots. Yeah, it's sad. I wish I had some advice, but I don't really know other than, you know... That they won't listen to our show because you're two dumb boomers. Yeah. Two old right-wing boomers, they say, where we're not. Probably anti-women because, you know, we don't have wives or daughters or anything.

So we're probably just hell-bent on hurting them and making their future rightless. Yeah, I wonder where that one comes from. People think they're going to lose right. What rights are you losing? And there's more abortions now than there were before the dissolution of Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court. There's more. There's not less. There's more. And so that didn't have anything to do with it. So what are you bitching about?

Well, also, these probably were the same TikTok women who were complaining about LGBTQ rights. That seems to have gone. Now it's just, nah. You know what it is? I'm going to have to say it. Because women are susceptible to hysteria. They are. Oh, no, no, no. Think about it. It's a good one. When women, this is like a psychological, physiological proven theory.

Particularly when women aren't together in close quarters, they can all go into hysterics over something and they infect, what is it called? They infect each other. Just like when one person pukes on the plane, everybody's puking on the plane all of a sudden. What's that called? It has a name. We've talked about it before. Mass hysteria. It is, in essence, mass hysteria. And mass formation is the new term for it. Yeah. But it's mass hysteria. Yeah, June bugs. Look it up, people.

Yeah, June, yeah. Thanks. That's what I was thinking of, the June bugs. Yes. And, oh, man. Because all these women do have a similar rant and it's always based on the same talking points. Except for the one about the buying of a cell phone in case, for your friend, because when she flees, they won't be able to track her like a dog. They're going to track you. I mean, these people have watched too many instances of Handmaid's Tale. Yeah. Handmaid's Tale. I think it's a documentary or something.

It's been beyond me. Yeah, but it's sad. Well, the LGBTQ thing seems to have taken a toll on me. This is the new thing. And they are somehow, they feel empowered by talking this way on TikTok or wherever else. I don't see it on Instagram. At least not in Tina's album. No, not like this. No, it's on TikTok and then it's transferred to Twitter. Yeah. By four or five major players on Twitter that think it's hilarious and they bring the clips over. Well, it's- And then ridicule them.

Yeah, it's definitely happening on Blue Cross. Over there, it's a lot of that. But that's legit there. Oh, yeah. It's legit. Yeah, it's legit. On the Trans Maoist tip, I do have a clip here. This is Robbie Starbuck, Starbuck, Starbuck. Kid's been doing amazing work as Walmart now is backing off on DEI policies and things of such like. This morning, the world's largest retailer says it's rolling back some of its diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Walmart, which employs more than one and a half million Americans, joins a list of major corporations revising DEI initiatives. The company saying every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers. This is the single largest employer in the United States. We are talking about a company that is worth almost a trillion dollars on its own.

Robbie Starbuck, a political commentator and anti-DEI activist, celebrated the development. He's previously pressured companies, including Lowe's and John Deere, to change their policies. We were able to have frank conversations with Walmart. And as I've said for a long time, I don't ask companies to take on my political views. I am simply advocating for corporate neutrality.

Walmart says many of the changes to its DEI programs were already planned and not a result of conversations with Starbuck. The company is pledging to better monitor third party marketplace items to make sure they don't feature sexual and transgender products aimed at minors. Walmart says it will also review its funding to Pride events and will end racial equity training programs for staff.

GLAAD, an LGBTQ advocacy group, has said we cannot let fear and fringe anti-LGBTQ activists dilute the work that has been done in the name of visibility, acceptance and opportunity. Companies need to listen to our movement. We are powerful and growing every single day. We will not stop until we have eliminated wokeness in corporate America. Walmart also says it will no longer consider race and gender as a way to increase diversity when offering supplier contracts. Yeah, there you go.

A lot of changes, a lot of changes happening. I guess their base got pissed off enough with them. Yes, I would think so. I have a... I have one more quickie about the women's volleyball. I didn't know this was a thing. I didn't know there was controversy in women's volleyball. We've only heard of... I didn't know there was. Yeah, well, yeah, because of San Jose State. Let me see.

Well, Gio, we turn now to the growing controversy in women's college volleyball and how some schools are forfeiting games because they say a rival program has a transgender athlete. ABC's Jacqueline Lee joins us now. Jacqueline, good morning. Wait, good morning. Yes, a lot of controversy indeed. The argument here is whether she should be allowed to play.

A federal judge just ruled that the San Jose State women's team is eligible to play with its full roster in the Mountain West Volleyball Championship Tournament, which includes that player. This ruling is the latest in a controversy that has played out most of the season.

Boise State pulling out of the tournament in protest, saying in part that the decision was not an easy one and the team should not have to forego this opportunity while waiting for a more thoughtful and better system that serves all athletes. San Jose State is seated second in the conference tournament after receiving six forfeit victories from these boycotts.

Now, it all started after volleyball players from various schools within the Mountain West Conference and even a player and assistant coach on San Jose filed a lawsuit that said this player should not be allowed to participate because they say she is transgender. In the past, multiple Mountain West members forfeited their matches over this issue. Nevada's players stating they refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes.

The volleyball player has not spoken about her identity. San Jose State has not commented due to federal privacy laws, but the university says they look forward to competing for a championship that takes place later today. Oh, all up in California, man. Well, this story stems from a injury that happened with a, this woman on this volleyball team is a dude in a dress. I think she still has a dick. Oh, John! What? Okay. Yeah, that's all right.

Well, you're the one who always says dude in a dress, and now you're condemning me? Oh, dude in a dress, I say that, but you went and took it one step further. Some woman was, because it's a spiker. So you're in the front line and you spike the ball, and some poor girl got hit in the head and get hospitalized, I think. And hurt, yeah. With a concussion. Yeah. And the players said this spiker is really good at spiking the ball.

Yeah. And so the other, so there's been four or five forfeits, and I'm thinking at first, you know, it's all, it's a scandal, you know, and there's something scandalous about it. At the same time, if you can get all the way to the top with forfeits, you know, maybe it's a way of winning an NCAA championship. Well, listen to this article in the New York Times about this. The NCAA says trans volleyball players are eligible to play if their testosterone level is less than 10 nanomoles per liter.

That's at least four times more than what many experts say is the top of the range for non-transgender women. The New York Times now calls women non -transgender women. No, that's interesting. That's not interesting. It's just wrong. Well, it's interesting to me. Yeah. But now, yeah, I know it is wrong. But this is, but the idea of winning a championship just by putting some big dude on there and say, okay, girls, you know, you can't take it.

Now, there was the University of California, with no transgender anybody's, once had a rugby team that was so dominant in men's rugby, which is a rough sport. That Stanford, the Stanford men forfeited because they thought they might get hurt. So this, which is, by the way, embarrasses everyone from Stanford to this day. And so they thought they might get hurt. So they forfeited. And then this Cal team kept winning every championship for years. So I don't know.

I have mixed feelings about the idea. Well, you get a championship out of this, and this seems to be quote unquote legal. So let's just do it, take our trophy home, and then we can kick this poor dude off the team. It just seems that we have, you know, report after report of women being mad about so-called loss of their rights while the mainstream parlance is erasing them. You're no longer a woman. You're a non-trans woman. Yeah, blame Trump.

You can't blame Trump for this trans woman on the San Jose State volleyball team. This is a short circuit in the collective unconscious. You know, now I understand a guy in church that he plays guitar. He came up to me and said, please, please tell John, because of him, I still have some hope for California. That's the response I had. I said, you know, he's like the last of the Mohicans, right? You know, he's the only holdout left. It's switching. It moved. It moved red a little bit.

Yeah, just a tad. And once they fix the election so it's not rigged all the time, you know, it'll even out. They're still counting in California. Yes, well, you have to. They have to keep shooting people who get it wrong. I mean, it's like it's all the mail -in ballots too. Like people have a week grace period and there's 26 days if there's an issue with your signature. It is ridiculous. California, beautiful, beautiful nature in California. Too bad the people live there.

Well, the nature is good. The weather's nice today. We have a nice day, but I want to play my weather report I have. Okay. Because our California team is going to be playing in this neck of the woods. Parts of the Great Lakes region are plowing out as a major storm continues to bring heavy snow to the area. Forecasters say towns along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario could continue to see accumulations of three inches an hour.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has declared a disaster emergency in some parts of the state. Well, that's weather report for New York. But yes, Buffalo, New York, where the 49ers are playing tonight. And there's supposed to be six feet of snow at the stadium. Wow. I think they should just leave it. Leave the six feet of snow and play football within the six foot snow bank. You could dig through. You know, people won't see you. They try to tackle you, but you're digging away underneath the snow.

I think you'd have a lot of fun. While we're on sports. How about them horns, huh? Hook them horns. Hook them horns. I just wanted to impress you. I followed a game. You saw it. Well, yeah, Texas won a game. Yes. Well, that's one of the... I think they're the top team in the SEC right now. Yeah, it's a big deal. You know, the Longhorns against A&M, that's an important game. People get all jacked about that. It wasn't even a close game. No, but they get jacked about that stuff. It's important.

So I talk about it. The big games down there, not to talk sports, and we're not going to talk it after this, after I say this comment, used to traditionally be Texas versus Oklahoma. Every year was like the big deal. But Oklahoma kind of, you know, they just couldn't keep up. Hmm. All right. Let's do your climate change and get out of here. All right. This climate change clip is from the... I wanted to save it for... I'll probably reintroduce it at some point.

But this is the guy who was one of the founders of Greenpeace. Oh, yeah. The guy who turned. He turned on everybody. He turned because he was, you know, everything had turned, you know, sour. And he's skeptical about a lot of stuff. And I just thought... Wait, wait, wasn't it? If I recall, there was a documentary. It may have even been a CNN documentary that played in movie theaters, I remember, because I went to see it. And it was about nuclear power.

And it was this guy who said, hey, we were wrong about nuclear power. We really need to, you know, if we really care about green and we want to save the planet, we need to go to nuclear power. And he got, you know... That's the end of you. Ejected from the group. You're out. You're out of there. Until AI came along. A mail group, a letter writing group. What was that thing? What's the term? You're out.

Yeah. You talked about earlier, the groups, these little groups that you write notes to each other. The text group. The text group. The text message group. That lady was right. We're too old boomers. They don't even know what a text message group is. So he's out. But now he can tell like it is. And I think this is a very good summary. I'm still laughing. What was that called? What's that thing where you all text each other? A little message group? Yeah. Text group.

Yes. It's called the text group. One of my missions is to turn on its head the idea that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and somehow dangerous. When in fact, it is the most important nutrient for all life on earth. And without it, this would be a dead planet. So I say not only is carbon dioxide good, it is essential. And it's a good thing that we're putting some more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because it was running low before we came along.

If we had definitive proof that CO2 was causing serious problems and we could prove it, don't you think they would write that down on a piece of paper somewhere so people could read it? They don't have definitive proof, period, in science. I'm a student of the philosophy and history of science. And I know that the scientific method has not been applied in such a way as to prove that carbon dioxide is causing the earth to warm.

Do you think in a few years, say 50 years from now, people will go, that was a really stupid period in our history when we tried to change all our energy policies to cut this gas? I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change was a complete fabrication. Wow, where was this from? It was from one of the British, or I'm sorry, one of the foreign news agencies. I don't remember which one. Well, good for him. Excuse me. He's telling it like it is.

I need to get back to the text group for a moment. So you do, you actually, without knowing it, you do know about these because the text group, if you are on an Android phone, on iPhones, the text group, everything is in blue on the iPhone. If you show up with an Android phone and you're in the text group, you show up as a green bubble and you are considered an undateable loser. You know about this phenomenon. Is that dateable thing with the iPhone still in play? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I think so.

That is pathetic. And I'll tell you something else because everyone, pretty much everybody I know has iPhones. So Tina- Do you? No. No, I have my- Where's Tina? Yes. I have my cat twin, my cat S22, which has an Android Go operating system. So check it out. So the minute- So Tina and I are in a text group with a married couple, friends of ours. And the minute they got new- Tina still has her- She doesn't care. She doesn't want a new iPhone. She's ridiculous.

Not going to spend money on this huge thing. What does it do? She doesn't see the benefit. Certainly not Apple intelligence. The minute they got their new iPhones, I kept on getting kicked out of the group. And it'll say, Adam has left the group. And this is not discussed anywhere, but Android phones are being kicked out of text groups of iPhones that are the new models. Or maybe the new operating system. Something is going on. Huh. Believe me, I'm horribly- I'm so upset about this. But it is.

But you're already- There's- In Europe, there's legislation pending about this. That there has to be parity between other operating system and text groups. It's a big deal. Not all the features work. So you can't do all the emojis and all the- Oh, no. All the group- I finally got some emojis that everybody can see. But then they just kicked me out of the group. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. It's anti-competitive. They have a- I see. Yeah, they have a lock on the text group mark.

I'm going to add you to a text group. You might as well because I don't have a phone. Well, I do have a phone. Ah, it was so perfectly timed. Oh, God. It was just outstanding. Just say you might as well because I don't have a phone. Because I don't have a phone. Perfect. No one will notice that in the edit. It's always so good. I am on- What? You're Android. I'm sure you're Android. Two years with a phone in a drawer. Yes, I know. I know. You are- Everyone aspires to be you.

Yes. Well, actually, when I tell people this, they are very impressed. Everyone's impressed by this. It is impressive. There's no doubt about it. How can you do that? Oh, you don't- How do you live without a phone? People have said that to me. What is that phone you have? How can you live without a regular phone? Well, they do that with your phone. Imagine how they feel when I tell them I don't use- No phone. I keep it in the drawer. You're a no-phoner. All right, everybody.

We're going to thank some people who supported us, $50 and above. We still have the tip of the day coming up. We've got end of show mixes and meetups. Meetup report and many, many meetups on the calendar. John, let's thank those people now. Yeah, let's start with Franklin Montarosa in Dodge City, Kansas. Dodge City. Wow. Dodge City. 17, 17, 17. Oh, $117.17. Wayne Cartini in Torrington, Connecticut. 100. He needs a deducing. You've been deduced. Actually, he says he needs a deducing. A deducing?

Wow. Yeah, take the twos away. Okay. The Alexandra Jagadish in Western Springs, Illinois. 100. These people are wishing us Happy Thanksgiving, I might add. Joseph Stegman in Thousand Oaks, California. 100. And Alexandra was 100. Kevin McLaughlin, though, comes up with 8008. He's the Archduke of Luna, lover of America and boobs. Yes, he is. And he's the only 8008 today. Gary Blatt in Ashland, Kentucky. 7777. Mark Dillahunt in Columbus, Ohio. 6969. Craig, we don't have a lot today.

Craig Kohler in Evansville, Indiana. 6502. The chip that nobody remembers but me. Jamie Buell in Vista, California. 6006. Wes Wagner in Fairbanks, Alaska. 60. And he needs some sales karma. We'll try to remember to give him that at the end. Sales karma. He obviously needs it, or he'd be donating more. Walter Haffiker in Deutschland. In Schachtlarn, Ebenhausen. He says, you guys managed to bungle my de-douching each time. 5275. He needs a de-douching badly. You've been de-douched.

And he also needs house-buying karma, which I'll remember to put at the end for you, Walter. So we should have probably not given him the de-douching. He'd have to donate again. Leif Thompson in Meridian, Idaho. 50. Now we're at the 50s already. This is a very short list today. We didn't do very well after Thanksgiving, but everyone's probably traveling, I'm guessing. I hope. Or they're being snowed in. So Leif Thompson in Meridian, Bobby Bowe in Bluegrass, Iowa.

Steven Sprague in Kennewick, Washington. Joshua Johnson in Omaha. Scott McCarty in Lodi. Tony Lang in Castle Pines, Colorado. Jordan Tierney in Oral, South Dakota. Gerald Preston in Bennington, Nebraska. Leslie Walker in Roseburg, Oregon. Michael Chauvin in Saginaw, Michigan. Richard T. Lang III in Milwaukee. Mansoor Raad in Alpharetta, Georgia. And last on our short list, and short but sweet, Aichi Kitagawa here in San Francisco, California.

I want to thank all these people for making show 17, 17, 17 the reality that it became. And thanks again to everyone under $50 for reasons of anonymity. We will never mention those names. And below that level, we also have our sustaining donors. Go to noagendadonations.com. Return some value for this valuable service that we provide. We really do. We provide this for you.

We try to help you make sense of all the noise and nonsense that is swirling through the ether in M5M and beyond, which now, unfortunately, also includes podcasting. noagendadonations.com. Here is that karma as requested. You've got karma. noagendadonations.com. It's your birthday, birthday, on No Agenda TV. Jim Bobway wishes this beautiful, beautiful Duchess Mary Ann Schneeberger a happy birthday. She celebrated on the 25th. I thought we already did that one, but there it is again.

Sarah and Danny say happy birthday to Zach turning 34 tomorrow. Eric Harkins, Harkins turned 62 tomorrow. Elizabeth Borozan, that is our Dame Elizabeth, should be celebrating on the 2nd. Alan Jay, Jay Allen, sorry, Pasadena on the 4th. And we say happy birthday to Sarah Garipi. And indeed, happy birthday from everybody here at the best podcast in the universe. We have three title changes today.

Jim Bobway, the Viscount of Shottsie and Mount Arnold Land now becomes Jim Bobway, Duke of Shottsie and, oh, Mr. Arnold Land. I'm sorry, not Mount, Mr. Arnold Land. Viscountess Mary Ann Schneeberger, now Duchess Mary Ann Schneeberger, and surplus to requirements is now a baronet. Congratulations, and thank all of you for supporting the Noah Jindal Show. In a combined aggregated amount of another $1 ,000, it is highly appreciated. Noah Jindal Meetup! Yeah, baby!

Meetups take place even during the holidays, during the Christmas season. It's great. People get together. They are married together. Not married, but some are. And they are married. They're just happy. They're joyful. They're having a good time. This is where you go to connect, to get your protect. It is the place to be for Noah Jindal Nation. A perfect, perfect addition to listening to the show. And the folks in New York City got together, including Nick the Rat and the mayor.

Spooks and mayors and rats, oh my. This is Dan Franco here with my wife, Jen, hosting the Noah Jindal Meetup, New York City, number seven, at the Bank Bar Cafe, 431 3rd Avenue and 30th Street in Manhattan. Hello, this is Sir Chancey of the Netherworld here in New York City. Last meetup before the PayPal Mafia takes over everything. In the morning. In the morning, it's First Buddy Steph. Adam, I miss you saying hello. In the morning, 0706. It's not illegal if you do not get caught.

Yes, CIA agent. Hey, Adam and John, this is Nick the Rat. It's like Escape from New York over here. Good work on the show. Thank you, Danny. For the show. Party hall. Yeah. This is Sir Michael Anthony. Also known as the mayor. Making New York City great again. It's Marky Mark, MK Ultra Mark, New York City at the meetup. Having a great time with all the people here. Can't wait for the next one. Love you guys. John C and Adam C. You guys are the best. All right. They had a good time, obviously.

New York City. Lovely that people still get together there who listen to the show. On Wednesday, the 4th of December, the Columbia River Basin meetup. It's the third times a charm meetup. 7 o'clock at Ty's Bar and Grill. That's in West Richland, Washington. On Thursday, our next show day, the 805 Rooftop Meetup. You heard Dame Beth promote that earlier. That'll be at 4 o'clock at Goleta HGI Rooftop in Goleta, California.

Also on Thursday, the Outer Swamp Meetup. 6 o'clock at Java Nation, Rockville, Maryland. The Northern Wake Publical Slave Gathering. 6 o'clock at Hoppy Endings in Raleigh, North Carolina. And finally on Thursday, Gitmo Brats and Festive Hats. 6.30 at Jackson's Cozy Lounge in Gladewater, Texas. Where is Gladewater? That sounds like a cool one to go to. We have many more meetups coming, including a post-Sinterklaas meetup in Wageningen, Gelderland, the Netherlands.

On the 6th, let me see what else we have. Leiden, the Netherlands. On the 12th, a lot happening in the Netherlands. December is a time everyone gets together. And Savington coming up. I mean, we have meetups all the way up until, right up until almost Christmas Eve. Then throughout that little period in between Christmas and New Year's. And in January, things already on the calendar. It is something you need to witness at least once.

I guarantee you, you will go back for more of the No Agenda Meetups. Go to noagendameetups.com. If you can't find one near you, start one yourself. It's very easy to do. And always a party. It's like a party, baby. John's tip of the day is coming up momentarily. Before we do that, we always like to determine what we're going to play at the close of the show. I don't know why we do it, but we love it for some reason. It's always fun. People like to send stuff in.

Very poor showing on my end for ISO. They only have one. So since you have three, I'm sure I'm not going to win. Here it is. Thanks for this. See, it's stupid. Well, play it. I just played it. You didn't even hear it. That's how bad it was. Thanks for this. Okay, well, I guess I probably will win with one of these. Yeah, they're all pretty good. Let's start with this first one. Bye. B-B-B-B-bye. B, by the way, you know how we started the last show?

Oh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. Yeah. So the TurboScribe.ai did a great job. It had a whole row of Bs all in a row. Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. TurboScribe.ai, it worked. It was very impressive. Nice. Okay, so I like that one. Yeah, the last show, there was very distinctive openings. Yes, yes, it was. Okay, now we go to beginning. Can we go back to the beginning? No, also pretty good. And then go home. Now go home. I gotta say, I kind of liked, uh...

Bee, bee, bee, bee, bye-ee. I think that one's funny. All right, let's use it. I think we should. All right, everybody! Now it is time for the best part of the show, as some say, it is John's Tip of the Day! Well, it's the season, so I thought I'd talk a little food talk today, and I'm gonna discuss persimmons. Persimmons? Which are a highly misunderstood fruit. It is a fruit.

There's two, and I want to tell people about these things, they're, the fat, I say, ten years, before ten years ago, I probably never ate these things. And then when I started eating them, I only ate the hard type, and I never ate the ones that you ripen. Although you can ripen them both. But there's two basic kinds of persimmons, this is a little lecture on persimmons, and I recommend them, but don't eat more than two, ever. What happens if you eat more than two?

They got so much kind of a screwball fiber, and some sort of very beneficial fiber. You'll be pooping for days? No, they cause other issues. It's recommended you eat maximum one a day, but you can't eat two. There's your tip right there. There's the tip, yes. You know, be careful with these things. Because they're really, you could easily eat a bushel of them. And then you can't poop for days, is what you're saying.

So there's two kinds, there's the Fuyu, there's a million names, you can look it up on wiki and see all the different names from them, but there's basically two types. And I'm just going to discuss these, and they have various names, but they've got Japanese names generally. But there's a short squat one, that looks like it's a short squat persimmon, they both have the same coloring, they're orange.

A short squat one, and those you can eat right away, they're like an apple, they're crisp, you can slice them up, I usually like to slice them up before I eat them, you can eat them like an apple if you want, but you have to be careful because every once in a while a seed forms inside, and if you bite that seed, you're biting into a ball bearing. These seeds are the hardest seeds I've ever encountered in my life. But generally speaking, there's no seeds in them. The seeds develop.

And then there's the elongated ones, this looks more like, I'd say, a classic eggplant shape, or a bell pepper shape, it's bigger, and it's got a different name. And these, you can't eat raw. No. You have to let them, you eat them raw anyway, so you can't eat them young, you have to let them ripen. And you have to let them ripen until the point where it feels like a water balloon. Borderline rotting. So it's super soft and mushy.

Now this is the one that took me a while to get into because Mimi was always a huge fan of these things. And a few years ago, I finally developed a taste for them. These are the ones that are used in persimmon pies and cupcakes, because it's a goo. When they ripen up, they're very soft, you can just kind of cut them open and scoop out the goo with a spoon, it's like a pudding inside, and it should be completely gooey. There should be no hard pieces in there.

And it's, I have to say over time, even though I like the crunchy ones, these elongated ones that ripen up and become gooey and soft are unbelievably delicious. Wow. And people don't, you know, they either don't let them ripen to the point, they're super gooey when they're soft and mushy. Sometimes they have to be triggered to ripen, which means you put them in the refrigerator for a day or two, there's something about persimmons that's an end of season fruit.

Right now they're showing up in the stores. But I would recommend people look into eating these things. These things are just a fabulous product that are ignored by most Westerners and people that probably listen to this show. If anyone has any doubt that this is the best podcast in the universe, you can send them right to the chapter marker for John's tip of the day. Who else will tell you to eat the gooey persimmon? I defy anybody to find a podcast that has this kind of information.

Yes. There it is. Once again, go to tipoftheday.net. Wow. I can't wait to grab me some persimmons. Maybe even still go to HEB before I don't know if they have persimmons here in Texas. It takes a couple of weeks to ripen one of those so it gets gooey. Oh, okay. I've got to work on it. Just know that. You have to wait. I'm excited. I'm excited for the new persimmon in my life. It's beautiful. Well, that does it for today's episode, your post-Thanksgiving media deconstruction.

We're happy to do it. We do it as a service, and this value is open and available at no charge. However, we do suggest that you send some value back. Time, talent, and treasure. Go to noagendathedonations.com for more information. End of show makes it. We've got Sir Strokey. Sir Strokey. With a little Christmas ditty he whipped up in the kitchen. We have Sir Chris Wilson and Jesse Coy Nelson. Doesn't get much better than that. Coming up on the live stream, it actually will be live.

Homegrown Hits with Dame DeLorean and Mary Kate Ultra. They are going to be jamming the tunes for you, all value for value. I am coming to you from the heart of the Texas Hill Country, where the Christmas tree is lit in Fredericksburg. In the morning, everybody. I'm Adam Curry. And I'm from Northern Silicon Valley, where I'm actually going to watch a football game in the snow tonight when it finally shows up on Sunday Night Football. I'm John C. DuBois. We return on Thursday with more.

Remember us, noagendathedonations.com. Until then, adios, mofos, hui hui, and such! But we want it. We, for Christmas. Everybody, y'all want something so bad, you wish Santa would just give it to you. It's me, Strokey, the Rainmaker Supreme, seeing how you're being on your birthday. We're jumping off the floor and we'll give you something more. Billy Beckett, get a threat, click select and now click begin. Party on, party people, let's hear some more.

Billy's in the house, so jump, jump for more. It's a party smarty, so let's get retarded. Wave your hands in the air and put on your beachwear. Then all of a sudden, you see something you like. You love it, you want it for Christmas. You love it, you want it for Christmas. You love it, you want it for Christmas. You love it, you want it for Christmas. You love it, you want it for Christmas. So reverse the verse and get perverse. Blow a snot bubble in the back of a hearse.

Got the best sausage, you can call me the worst. I'm so gifted, you know I'm probably cursed. My rhyme is so tiny and grimy. Sometimes a little bit slimy, it comes from inside of me. You want the test, you get the litmus. You love it, you want it for Christmas.

Okay. You love it, Oh Antifa, oh Antifa It's time to punch some Nazis Oh Antifa, oh Antifa It's time to punch some Nazis If you let Marlow into town We're gonna burn your campus down Oh Antifa, oh Antifa It's time to punch some Nazis Oh Antifa, oh Antifa It's time to beat the fascists Oh Antifa, oh Antifa It's time to beat the fascists We'll team up with the BLM And cause endless destruction Oh Antifa, oh Antifa It's time to beat the fascists Don't

trust China, China is asshole China wants Christmas The United States The United States China is asshole China wants Christmas The United States The United States, The United States, The United States, The United States Why would I be talking about Winnie the Pooh so much? Winnie the Pooh is constantly being banned in China, and that's because the leader, Xi Jinping, is very sensitive, and he doesn't like the fact that people compare him to Winnie the Pooh. China is asshole! China, why?

For Christmas. The United States. The United States. China is asshole! China, why? For Christmas. Don't trust China! China is asshole! Don't trust China! China is asshole!